The South China Sea is seeing increasing tension amongst the claimants. The Second Thomas Shoal is the latest addition to Beijing’s ‘Salami Slicing’ strategy of slowly acquiring small reefs and islands to consolidate its contested claim.

By Darshana M. Baruah

THE MOST recent tension in the South China Sea over the Second Thomas Shoal indicates a rising Chinese assertiveness in its maritime claims as well as inviting Washington’s criticism of Beijing’s behaviour in the disputed waters.

On 9 March 2014, China’s coast guard vessels stopped two Philippine boats carrying supplies to their troops stationed in the shoal since 1999, claiming that Manila was trying to build structures on the reef in an attempt to fortify its claim.

The Second Thomas Shoal

The shoal known as the Ayungin Shoal in Philippines, Ren’ai Reef in China and the Second Thomas Shoal in the west, is home to the BRP Sierra Madre – a former US tank landing vessel which ran aground on the shoal as a Philippine navy ship 15 years ago. Manila has stationed a handful of its marines aboard the rusting ship which is believed to be part of its strategy in the larger geopolitics of the South China Sea. The reef, which is within the disputed Spratly Islands, lies inside Manila’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone, but is contested by China in its entirety.

China claims most of the South China Sea as marked by its nine-dash line which is contested by five other claimants: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. Beijing’s move to block the boats has led to protests from Manila which is being supported by Washington.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs released a statement that “Ayungin Shoal is part of the continental shelf of the Philippines and therefore, the Philippines is entitled to exercise sovereignty rights and jurisdiction in the area without the permission of other States”. Furthermore, it said the civilian vessels contracted by the Philippine Navy were only conducting rotation of personnel and resupply operations.

The statement also addressed the issue as an “urgent threat to the rights and interests of the Philippines under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)”.

Explaining its move, Beijing issued a statement saying that according to the China Coast Guard, its vessels which were on routine patrol in waters off the Ren’ai Reef on 9 March spotted two Philippine-flagged ships. “These ships which were then approaching the Ren’ai Reef, were loaded with construction materials”. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang reiterated China’s “sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their surrounding waters, including the Ren’ai Reef”.

He accused the Philippine ship of being illegally ‘grounded’ on the Ren’ai Reef in 1999 on the pretext of ‘malfunction’. Besides refusing to tow away the ship, he said, the Philippines was now attempting to carry out construction work on the Ren’ai Reef, which “blatantly violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) signed by China and ASEAN countries”.

Earlier, on 27 January 2014, the Philippines had accused China of firing water cannons at fishermen to prevent them from the entering the disputed waters of the Scarborough Shoal. In 2012 Manila and Beijing were in a heated standoff over the Scarborough Shoal. The incident drew much attention to the disputes in the region which was followed by then Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s speech in Singapore on the US rebalance to the region. While Manila withdrew its forces from the shoal, China continues to maintain armed maritime vessels in the region, treating it as its territory.

China’s ‘Salami Slicing’ strategy

Beijing’s provocative behaviour seems to be part of its larger strategy in the South China Sea, where it does not use any kind of force which would have serious consequences but enough to bully the smaller disputing nations into submission. The strategy of ‘salami slicing’ as used by Robert Haddick, means “the slow accumulation of small actions, none of which is a casus belli, but which add up over time to a major strategic change” – which Beijing seems to be doing.

China is slowly taking control of the smaller reefs and islands within the South China Sea, increasing its presence and consolidating its claims. Beijing has refused to adhere to the UNCLOS and brushed away Manila’s attempt to solve the matter at an international tribunal. Even though Washington is increasingly voicing its concerns in the region it really cannot do much about Beijing’s refusal to abide by international law given that the US itself is not a signatory to UNCLOS and is often seen breaking international rules and norms when it comes to its national interest.

Hence, until there is an actual military conflict between China and one of Washington’s allies, nobody can stop Beijing’s slow accumulation of the reefs and islands of the South China Sea. Indeed, China is beginning to behave like a great power.

Need for ASEAN solidarity

Following the blockade by the Chinese coast guard the Philippines air-dropped its supplies but it will have to send back the boats to provide the next round of supplies to its marines aboard the Sierra Madre. A Philippine naval officer in a statement to Reuters said that “we have no plans to expand or build permanent structures on the shoal… Since last year, we’ve been resupplying our troops using civilian ships to avoid confrontation and this was the first time China blocked them”. Washington has reacted strongly to the Chinese action calling it a “provocative move that raises tensions”, calling for all parties to maintain status quo.

Although most of the disputing nations are wary of Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea, ASEAN is divided in its view toward the disputes given the strong economic relationship its member-states enjoy with Beijing. China is also trying to mend ties with other nations such as Vietnam and Malaysia but has left out Washington’s allies – the Philippines and Japan – in its ‘charm offensive’.

As Beijing’s ‘salami slicing’ strategy is gathering speed it is more important than ever for ASEAN to show it solidarity and stand up to its bigger neighbour, China. As it is unlikely that the disputes will be resolved in the near future, all countries should now vigorously push for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea to avoid any miscalculations and military confrontations.

Darshana M. Baruah is a Junior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi and the Associate Editor of the ORF South China Sea Monitor. She contributed this article to RSIS Commentaries.

“If you want to destabilize Pakistan,” an unnamed senior Police Officer in the Province notes, “you have to destabilize Punjab.” That, precisely, is the intention of an accelerating and expanding campaign of Islamist extremist terrorism in Pakistan, linked intimately to the Taliban – al Qaeda complex, and to the growing movement of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has turned renegade against its original sponsors and handlers in the Pakistan establishment and Army. –  Tempest of Terror, August 2009

On March 3, 2014, at least 11 persons, including Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafaqat Awan and a woman lawyer, were killed, and another 25 were injured, when terrorists carried out a suicide attack at the courthouse complex located in the F-8 area of Islamabad. According to reports, the terrorists entered the complex and opened fire indiscriminately at everyone, hurled hand grenades and later exploded their suicide vests.

The TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid, distancing his outfit from the attack, clarified, “We have already declared a ceasefire and we strictly adhere to our deal with the Government. Our colleagues in the organisation also cannot violate this agreement”. On declaring an ‘unconditional’ ceasefire, on March 2, 2014, Shahid had stated, “Following a positive response from the Government, an appeal from religious scholars, in honour of the representative committee and in the greater interest of Islam and Pakistan, we have decided not to carry out any activities for one month… We hope that the Government will take our ceasefire announcement seriously and will work to move forward in a positive way while keeping the peace process away from all types of politics.” The Nawaz Sharif Government and TTP resumed negotiations in the second phase of talks on March 5, 2014.

Meanwhile, ‘spokesman’ of the Ahrar-ul-Hind (AH), a TTP splinter group, claiming responsibility for the attack, declared that the judicial system in the country was ‘un-Islamic’ and that they would continue their ‘struggle’ till Sharia’h law was enforced. Further, while dispelling any confusion over its alleged links with the TTP, he said, “We are an independent group and have no links with TTP. We were a part of TTP earlier but now we operate independently.”

Earlier, on February 7, 2014, five officials were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up during a search operation jointly launched by Police and Intelligence Agencies in the Khanewal District of Punjab Province.

Prior to this, on January 20, 2014, a TTP suicide bomber killed 13 persons, including eight soldiers and three children, and wounded another 29, when he blew himself up at Royal Artillery Bazaar, close to the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi District. Claiming responsibility for the attack, TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid announced, “It [the attack] was carried out by one of our suicide bombers to take revenge for the Red Mosque massacre. We will continue our struggle against the secular system.” The Pakistani Army had conducted operations at Red Mosque in 2007.

These incidents are not in isolation. The first two months and seven days of the current year have already recorded 39 fatalities, including 23 civilians, nine Security Force (SF) personnel and seven terrorists, in nine incidents of killing, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP).

In 2013, a total of 81 persons, including 64 civilians, seven SF personnel and 10 terrorists were killed in total 20 separate terrorism related incidents of killing, as compared to 104 persons killed in 19 such incidents in 2012, registering a decline of 22.11 percent in fatalities.

The decline registered in overall fatalities is mainly due to the SFs’ reluctance to counter the terrorists’ threat. Indeed, as compared to 2012, the year 2013 witnessed a decline of 75.86 and 37.5 per cent in fatalities among SFs and terrorists, respectively. Perhaps emboldened by the evident operational paralysis among the state’s security agencies, terrorists killed a slightly higher number of civilians in 2013, as against the previous year.

Other parameters of violence have varied widely. Out of 20 incidents of killing in 2013, seven were major incidents (involving three or more killings) resulting in 40 deaths, as compared to five major incidents in 2012 that accounted for 76 deaths. While the Province recorded only one suicide attack in 2013, same as in 2012, the resultant fatalities stood at five and 11 respectively. At least five bomb blasts occurred in 2013, which claimed 14 lives and left 73 injured. In 2012, the number of bomb blasts stood at 10 with 51 fatalities. Incidents of sectarian violence, however, increased considerably from four in 2012 to 13 in 2013. The resultant fatalities, though, remained almost the same: 42 in 2013 as against 43 in 2012.

The possibility of escalation of violence cannot be ruled out as a result of the considerable and increasing presence of at least 57 extremist and terrorist outfits in Punjab alone Out of the 57 extremist organisations found in Punjab, at least 28 homegrown outfits exist in the provincial capital, Lahore, making it the most violent among the 36 Districts of the Province, followed by Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Significantly, Lahore has witnessed a total of 563 fatalities since 2005, according to partial data compiled by SATP, compared to 225 in Rawalpindi and 222 in Islamabad, in the same period. However, in 2013 Rawalpindi recorded the maximum fatalities, 26 in nine incidents of killing, followed by Lahore, with 14 in seven terrorism incidents.

The Province is also home to various foreign terrorists, including the Afghan Taliban and Uzbek terrorists. Talibanisation is, consequently, no longer a local affair, and manifests a dual strategy of both importing foreign radicals into the Province and exporting radical Islamism. Significantly, on December 15, 2012, suicide bombers of the TTP in collusion with foreign terrorists of Dagestani and Uzbek origin, attacked the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base inside the Bacha Khan International Airport of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On December 18, 2012, the then Federal Minister of Education Sheikh Waqas Akram disclosed in the National Assembly, that banned terrorist outfits in Punjab had contacts with Uzbek terrorists, who charged USD 40,000 for carrying out terrorist attacks within Pakistan.

Punjab has also proved to be a major ideological sanctuary and recruitment base for terrorists, as well as a source for the export of the terrorist theology and activities beyond borders. A September 7, 2013, media report quoting analyst Mansur Mehsud, who runs the FATA Research Institute (FRI), stated that terrorists based in Punjab Province were being trained for an ethnicity-based civil war in neighboring Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014. Mehsud explains:

Before, they [terrorists in Punjab] were keeping a low profile. But just in the last two or three years, hundreds have been coming from Punjab. Everyone knows that when NATO and the American troops leave Afghanistan there will be fighting between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns.

Indeed, in a media interview in 2013, a senior Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) member, who goes by the pseudonym Ahmed Zia Siddiqui, declared, “We will go to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban as we have done in the past.” When asked whether the Punjab-based terrorists were preparing for war in Afghanistan after the foreign withdrawal, he replied, “Absolutely.”

In one of his bizarre claims, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder and Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, while addressing a gathering at Markaz-e-Khyber in the Nishatabad area of Faisalabad District on February 23, 2014, alleged that America, India and their allies were trying their best to ‘crush’ Pakistan from the East and West, and that India was supporting terrorism in Pakistan. Significantly, these gatherings and pronouncements fuel the jihad culture of Punjab, radicalizing madrassa educated youth, face of future religious extremism. In the last two years, Saeed has organised and led five grand rallies, three in 2013 and two in 2012, with the sole purpose of disseminating hatred and sowing the seeds of extreme orthodoxy. Appearing openly at a rally in Islamabad on September 6, 2013, he denounced India as a ‘terrorist state’, while more than 10,000 of his supporters chanted slogans of “holy war” against India and ‘War will continue until the liberation of Kashmir’. Further, he told a frenzied crowd, “The United States and India are very angry with us. This means God is happy with us.” Unsurprisingly, former ISI chief Hamid Gul added during the rally, “They should know there are a lot of people here who are waiting for the conquest of India. It will be our privilege to take part in this war.”

Punjab is experiencing a tsunami of extremist forces. Significantly, apart from the principal TTP organization, separate local wings of the outfit, such as the TTP-Tariq Karwan Group in Mianwali District in the North of Punjab and the Fidayeen-e-Islami wing of TTP in Lahore District in the East, thrive, and have the potential to multiply further, swelling the radical Islamist wave in the Province. The ideological heads of these extremist formations move around openly with impunity and ease across the Province, including Provincial Capital Lahore and Federal Capital Islamabad. Saeed once audaciously declared, “I move about like an ordinary person – that is my style.” Saeed has also expressed appreciation of the ‘security’ offered to him, declaring, on January 1, 2012:

Pakistan is unmatched in terms of the freedom it allows for the pursuit of jihad and for the spread of Islam. No other territory in the world matched Pakistan and it was a great blessing from Allah… Non-Muslims were conspiring against Pakistan both internally and externally.

With no one to hold them to account, these radicalized forces find fertile grounds in Punjab, creating an escalating threat of destabilizing across the entire region. With little realistic expectations from the peace talks, several of the Army’s self-created terrorist proxies have turned against their masters. Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that a substantially collusive and compromised civilian Government will do anything more than the military establishment to eliminate Islamist extremist formations that have, for decades, been harnessed against Pakistan’s perceived external enemies, even if some of these terrorist groupings have turned renegade against their erstwhile sponsors.

By Ramesh Jaura

The Cuba missile crisis was moving towards a peak when President John F. Kennedy proposed in May 1961 the creation of a Development Centre at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to bridge the industrialised nations and the developing world. The Centre has meanwhile developed into a forum not only for South-South but also South-North and North-South cooperation, enabling the industrialised countries “to learn from, and maybe import, some of the policy experiences of the South”, says its director Mario Pezzini.

“Such mutual learning will become increasingly important as the interdependence of the world intensifies and the wealth shifts from the OECD region to the larger emerging economies continues,” writes Pezzini in the publication commemorating ‘50 years of Sharing Knowledge’. “This process,” he says, “has created new demands on governments that go beyond growth, which alone does not bring prosperity or progress. One of the major tasks going forward is to help countries translate their increasing capacity for growth creation into social and economic progress on a wider scale.”

Such a forward-looking view apparently emerges from the fact that the Centre is an institution where governments, enterprises and civil society organisations informally discuss questions of common interest. Its Governing Board includes 24 of the 34 OECD countries and 18 developing and emerging economies as full members.

The OECD members of the Development Centre, established by decision of the OECD Council on October 23, 1962 are: Austria, Belgium, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

The 18 non-OECD members, comprising developing and emerging economies are: Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mauritius, Morocco, Panama, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam.

Of these, countries as diverse Indonesia, Mauritius, Peru, South Africa and Thailand together with five OECD members constitute the Bureau of Ten with Germany in the Chair – offering a valuable forum for South-North cooperation in search of innovative solutions to the global challenges of development.

“At its outset, the Centre sought to help spread the strong economic growth in OECD countries of the post-war boom to the countries in the South – this was the primary goal of development work. In the last half-century, many of these countries have shown strong economic performance, on par with and even exceeding the performance of OECD countries. The magnitude of the accompanying shift in wealth is self-evident. During the 1990s, 12 developing countries achieved growth rates equivalent to double the OECD average. Over 2000-10 that number rose to 83,” notes Pezzini.

No one-size-fits-all

A Professor in Industrial Economics at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris as well as in U.S. and Italian Universities, Pezzini adds: “Beyond such poignant statistics lies a more nuanced story: there is no single trajectory for pursuing economic growth, no one-size-fits-all solution to development gaps and middle-income traps. The diversity and complexity of successful policies for development demand new analysis of what works and what doesn’t – and in which context. To inform this analysis, the Centre put in place channels for policy dialogue within the OECD that had hitherto been unimaginable: giving developing countries a direct voice at the table.”

Such statements by Pezzini sound logical, considering that he is the first director of the Development Centre with roots within the OECD where he held several senior management positions before joining the Centre in 2010. He was Deputy Director of the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, and prior to that, Head of the Regional Policy Division, covering policy analysis on urban development, rural development, regional competitiveness and public governance.

Underlying this ‘no one-size-fits-all’ approach is the recognition that institutions and geography matter as much as markets. Which means that the same policy implemented in different areas, or in similar places but with different institutional frameworks, will have a different outcome.

A conversation with Pezzini during his visit to Berlin reveals his firm conviction that this situation demands a new thinking on policy-making and recommendations that reflect the context and challenges of implementation. In the light of this, the Centre serves as a vehicle for developing and disseminating tailored policy recommendations that reflect the specific assets and obstacles of a given country or region. Making reform happen is the Development Centre’s objective.

Venture Philanthropy

The Development Centre published a landmark study in February 2014, titled Venture Philanthropy in Development: Dynamics, Challenges and Lessons in the Search for Greater Impact, undertaken by the one-year old Global Network of Foundations Working for Development (netFWD), by way of a first step towards offering an in-depth insight on how foundations working for development are evolving in their search for greater impact.

Introducing the report, Pezzini says: “Although this trend emerged about a decade ago, the prominence of new ways to invest philanthropic capital are now well established and influencing the development ‘galaxy’. The recent economic crisis confirmed this trend further, with both high net worth individuals and well-established as well as new foundations committing to funding development challenges using innovative tools and approaches such as impact investment, and marginally compensating for governments’ budget cuts in official development assistance (ODA).”

G8 Leaders acknowledged the relevance of impact investment at their 2013 Summit, resulting in the creation of a G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce. On its part, the Development Centre has been closely observing and following this movement, given the potential implications for developing countries, particularly as a large share of venture philanthropic flows and innovative business models target developing and emerging economies.

Pivotal in the Post-2015 context

The study offers insights into an innovative and cutting-edge development theme, which is becoming pivotal in the Post-2015 context and in discussions on financing for development. “Beyond being an important contribution aimed at foundations envisioning a similar transformation towards venture philanthropy, its potential also lies in helping bridge the knowledge and cultural gap between foundations and governments,” says, adding: “The latter often lack an in-depth understanding of the philanthropic sector, its drivers, actors and influence.”

Bridging this is particularly timely, in light of the efforts that have taken place since the Accra and Busan High Level Fora to “enlarge the tent” of development cooperation to new actors and move from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness, stresses Pezzini. In that sense, the Mexico Ministerial of April 2014 will be a stepping stone, given that it will be the first time that foundations are invited to the table, he adds. “The study and netFWD more broadly, confirm the role that the OECD Development Centre plays as convener and platform for policy dialogue between development stakeholders.”

Another important report by the OECD Development Centre is the annual Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India 2014, which says that the region will continue to play an important role in global growth. Indonesia is projected to be the fastest-growing ASEAN-6 economy with an average annual growth rate of 6.0% in 2014-18, followed by the Philippines with 5.8%. Real GDP growth in Malaysia and Thailand is projected to increase by an annual 5.1% and 4.9% respectively, led by domestic demand, especially in infrastructure investment and private consumption. Singapore’s economy is forecast to grow by 3.3%. Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam are expected to grow at a robust pace over the medium term.

Emerging Asia

Commenting the report, Development Centre’s director Pezzini says: “While Emerging Asia has made remarkable economic progress over the past four decades, some of the middle-income developing economies face difficult challenges to sustain their long-term growth and move beyond the middle-income trap. Indeed, success will require fundamental changes in economic structure and further development of the modern services sectors.”

In the “best scenario”, if fundamental changes are applied, China and Thailand could become high-income countries within 20 years. On the other hand, Viet Nam and India will need more than 40 years to reach the high-income group. An important finding of the report is that to grow beyond the middle-income trap, these Emerging Asia countries need to shift away from growth that is driven primarily by factor accumulation. “They should rather embrace growth based on productivity increases driven by improvements in the quality of human capital and innovation.”

The Outlook examines policy insights for China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam that come from the development experiences of other advanced Asian economies such as Japan, Korea and Singapore, thus lending South-South dimension to the study.

Last week, in a decision that I believe can only be regarded objectively as a travesty of justice, a Periodic Review Board (PRB) at Guantánamo — consisting of representatives of six government departments and intelligence agencies — recommended that a Yemeni prisoner, Abdel Malik al-Rahabi (aka Abd al-Malik al-Rahabi), should continue to be held. The board concluded that his ongoing imprisonment “remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

In contrast, this is how al-Rahabi began his statement to the PRB on January 28:

My family and I deeply thank the board for taking a new look at my case. I feel hope and trust in the system. It’s hard to keep up hope for the future after twelve years. But what you are doing gives me new hope. I also thank my personal representatives and my private counsel, and I thank President Obama. I will summarize my written statement since it has already been submitted to the board.

I have been compliant in the camp facilities and other detainees trust me. I have taken the opportunities for education and personal growth. I have been preparing myself for the life after Guantánamo.

When I return to Yemen, I want to resume my education. My father, who is a tailor, has a job for me in his shop. I have a wife who longs for me and 13-year-old daughter who badly needs me. She’s a light — she is the light of my life.

Being apart from Ayesha has been the hardest part of my detention. In our calls, she says I want you to take me to the park; I want you to help me with my homework. She sends me five or six letters at a time. I will never again leave Ayesha without her father, my wife without her husband, my parents without their son. I want to make up for the twelve years I have been away.

The PRBs were first proposed in March 2011, when President Obama issued an executive order authorizing the ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial of 48 Guantánamo prisoners. These men had been recommended for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after taking office in 2009, on the dubious basis that they were too dangerous to release, but that insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial.

Disgracefully, although President Obama promised regular reviews for these men when he issued the executive order, it took over two and a half years for the first PRB to be convened. In the meantime, two of the 48 men had died, but 25 others — originally designated for prosecution by the task force — were added to the PRB list, making 71 men in total.

The first PRB, in October, led to a recommendation that the prisoner in question, Mahmoud al-Mujahid, a Yemeni, should be released — although the irony, of course, is that he merely joined 55 of his compatriots, who were cleared for release by the task force in January 2010, but are still held because of unreasonable fears about the security situation in Yemen.

In al-Rahabi’s case, although the Board “took into consideration [his] strong family support awaiting his return, including housing, employment opportunities, and a wife and daughter ready to support him,” they worried about other alleged problems — described as his “significant ties to al-Qa’ida, including his past role as a bodyguard for Usama Bin Ladin [sic] and a prior relationship with the current amir of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula.” The board added, “Further, his experience fighting on the frontlines, possible selection for a hijacking plot, and significant training raise concern for the Board,” and also stated, “The detainee’s planned return to Ibb, assessed to have a marginal security environment, and ties to a relative who is a possible extremist, raises concerns about his susceptibility to reengagement.”

This would indeed be a worry, if any of it was true. Unfortunately, however, it has never been established objectively that there is any truth to the allegations. The most significant claim is that al-Rahabi was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, part of a group of men described as the “Dirty 30″ — all alleged bin Laden bodyguards, captured crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan in December 2001.

See if you think this is plausible: al-Rahabi, who was born in 1979, would have been just 22 years old when he was seized. Is it really likely that, having arrived in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000, this young man rose to become a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden in such a short amount of time? In his classified military file, released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, witnesses queued up to accuse him, but all are suspicious — Sanad al-Kazimi, Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj, Ahmed al-Darbi, Mohammed al-Qahtani, Hassan bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi (a “high-value detainee”), who were all tortured, and Yasim Basardah, the most notorious liar at Guantánamo.

Moreover, the “high-value detainee” Walid bin Attash claimed that al-Rahabi was “a designated suicide operative,” who, in 1999, “trained for an aborted al-Qaida operation in Southeast Asia to hijack US airliners and crash them into US military facilities in Asia in coordination with 11 September 2001,” for which all the planned operatives swore bayat (an oath of allegiance) to Osama bin Laden. However, there is no evidence that al-Rahabi was in Afghanistan in 1999.

Even more ridiculous is a claim by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (Ali Muhammad Abdul Aziz al-Fakhri), the leader of the independent Khaldan training camp, who was held in a variety of CIA “black sites” before being returned to Libya under Colonel Gaddafi, where he died in prison under suspicious circumstances in 2009. Al-Libi reported that al-Rahabi arrived in Afghanistan in 1995, when he was just 16, staying until 1996.

It may be that these allegations are more trustworthy than my analysis suggests, but I doubt it, as they are typical of prisoners who were tortured, or, in Yasim Basardah’s case, provided false allegations against a shockingly large number of his fellow prisoners to improve his own living conditions at Guantánamo, prior to his release in 2010.

The fact that, over 12 years after his arrival at Guantánamo, al-Rahabi is still being judged as “a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States,” based on information that has never been subjected to any kind of objective scrutiny, is thoroughly unjust, and shows how little regard for the truth the Obama administration and the Periodic Review Board members have — or, to put it another way, how much regard they have for the hugely unreliable collection of lies and hearsay masquerading as evidence in the files on the prisoners put together at Guantánamo.

Al-Rahabi’s case will apparently be considered again in six months, when I hope the board takes a less credulous approach to his perceived dangerousness, but I doubt this will happen, as there seems to be no impetus for the board, or the administration in general, to take a realistic view of the prisoners, rather than one full of distortion, innuendo and outright lies.

In the surcharged atmosphere of pre-general election politics, an over 100-page section of the first volume of the Henderson Brooks report (“the report”), which includes an exhaustive operational review of the 1962 India-China war over both western and eastern sectors, has been posted by Australian journalist Neville Maxwell on his website. The second volume and annexures, which contain damning correspondence between army commands and Delhi, remains undisclosed.

The report, authored by then Lt Gen Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P.S. Bhagat, was commissioned by the Indian Army following the 1962 debacle against the Chinese. The mandate of the report itself was limited to an operational review, and not political decision making. Yet the government has refrained from releasing its findings and maintains as recently as a few days ago that the contents of the report are “extremely sensitive” and of “current operational value”.

The report is particularly critical of the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Forward Policy, Lt Gen B.M. Kaul, and the then director Intelligence Bureau B.N. Mullick for the debacle. We acted, the report says, on a military unsound basis of not relying on our strength but rather on believed lack of reaction from the Chinese. Maxwell provided a strategic perspective to the entire conflict when he said that the Chinese were eager to settle on the McMahon Line. However, the issue was brought to a head by “an entirely irrational policy maintained (by India and Nehru) to the point of war”.

Besides the much-analysed Henderson Brooks report there are some other valuable lessons regarding the Indian political-socio-military dynamics that can be gleaned from Maxwell’s comments on his blog and his candid and unfettered interview to Kai Friese in October 2012, published by the Outlook magazine. Maxwell’s comments in a blog post quite pointedly titled “My Henderson Brooks Albatross” details his dilemma on the subject and how it ultimately led him to post some parts of the report on his blog.

Nation and the Truth

Maxwell in his interview to Friese says he was astounded by the reception his book, based on the report (which he categorised as a whistle-blowing attempt), received in India which he saw as “ferocious personal hostility” towards him and “vicious attacks on the book as if it had been straight Xinhua (China’s official news agency), People’s Daily propaganda”. He was indicating the Indian government’s reluctance to disclose the facts to the country and achieve a closure on the conflict. He again makes a reference to this aspect in his blog, where he says he was told that if the report was leaked rather than released officially the attention of the nation would focus on the leak, and the ensuing furore over national security would result in little or no productive analysis of the text.

The point here is that there is little in the report that the Indian Army does not know or for which it has not initiated corrective action over the years. A full disclosure of the report would possibly have only strengthened its case for the much needed reforms to the higher defence management structure in the country, and harmonised what is known about the 1962 war within the army to what is available in the public domain.

Importance of Communication

The report observed that “Militarily, it is unthinkable that the General Staff (army) did not advise the government on our weakness and inability to implement the Forward Policy”. The report stated that the defence ministry might have put pressure but it was the General Staff’s duty to point out the “unsoundness” of the Forward Policy without the means to implement it. These observations underscore the importance of clear and unambiguous channels of communication between the government and the military top brass – specifically during a crisis. In the Army, an officer from southern India commissioned into a Gurkha regiment will learn to speak Gurkhali, just as a Bengali IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer of Tamil Nadu cadre will speak Tamil. You cannot lead if you cannot communicate with the led.

A prime minister and especially a defence minister must understand the language of the military and be able to communicate with them. In India the political establishment has abrogated this responsibility by interposing the bureaucracy to interpret for them and communicate with the military. A recipe for disaster, as recent events in the army and the navy have possibly indicated.

Apolitical Army

The political establishment and bureaucracy combine have taken the desirable attribute of an “apolitical” army to a new level by virtually isolating the military from government defence decision-making machinery. Even a pay commission for the defence is without a uniformed representative on it – in a we-know-what-is-best-for-you syndrome. The report again reminds the government that an apolitical army is one whose operational decision making is free from political interference. Commenting on former Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon in his interview, Maxwell says he didn’t like the military, though he was defence minister. And Krishna Menon’s weakness was that he liked to humiliate generals of the old school and was altogether too fond of and too open to persuasion by the generals, who were known as the ‘Kaul boys’ in those days.

Discerning Media

Another component of the society Maxwell brings focus on is the media. In his blog post he describes his efforts to put the report in public domain through a “direct approach” by making the text available to up to five editors of India’s leading publications. The editors, to his surprise, decided unanimously not to publish the report. One of the reasons offered was “the opposition parties would savage the government for laxity in allowing the report to get out, the government would turn in rage upon those who had published it.” It is understandable that one does not want the national media to do a Snowden on the government. In light of what is in the report and the fact that it had formed the basis of Maxwell’s book, a more judicious and forthright approach from the media would have been in order.

Finally, a portion of the report is out, and true to its terms of reference it has focused on the army’s decision making and decision makers. And as Maxwell and so many others have foretold, the opposition has attacked the government over it and the government in response has declared that a 50-year-old report will not be taken seriously by anyone in the country and possibly the world.

Unfortunately, the few lessons the Henderson Brooks report had to offer will have to be learnt again.

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor and is reprinted with permission.

The two paths to 21st century empire-building-via-proxies are illustrated through the violent seizure of power in the Ukraine by a US-backed junta and the electoral gains of the US-backed Colombian war lord, Alvaro Uribe.

We will describe the ‘mechanics’ of US intervention in the domestic politics of these two countries and their profound external effects – that is how they enhance imperial power on a continent-wide basis.

Political Intervention and Proxy Regimes: Ukraine

The conversion of the Ukraine into a US-EU vassal state has been a prolonged process which involved large scale, long term financing, indoctrination and recruitment of cadres, organization and training of politicos and street fighters and, above all, a capacity to combine direct action with electoral politics.

Seizing power is a high stakes game for empire: (1) Ukraine, in the hands of clients, provides a NATO with a military springboard into the heart of the Russian Federation; (2) Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural resources provide a source of enormous wealth for Western investors and (3) Ukraine is a strategic region for penetrating the Caucuses and beyond.

Washington invested over $5 billion dollars in client-building, mostly in ‘Western Ukraine’, especially in and around Kiev, focusing on ‘civil society groups’ and malleable political parties and leaders. By 2004, the initial US political ‘investment’ in regime change culminated in the so-called ‘Orange Revolution’ which installed a short-lived pro-US-EU regime. This, however, quickly degenerated amidst major corruption scandals, mismanagement and oligarchical pillage of the national treasury and public resources leading to the conviction of the former-Vice President and the demise of the regime. New elections produced a new regime, which attempted to secure ties with both the EU and Russia via economic agreements, while retaining many of the odious features (gross endemic corruption) of the previous regime. The US and EU, having lost thru democratic elections, relaunched their ‘direct action organizations’ with a new radical agenda. Neo-fascists seized power and established a dictatorial junta through violent demonstrations, vandalism, armed assaults and mob action. The composition of the new post-coup junta reflected two sides of the US-backed political organizations: (1) neo-liberal politicos for managing economic policy and forging closer ties with NATO, (2) and neo-fascists/violent nationalists to impose order by force and fist, and crush pro-Russian Crimean ‘autonomists’ and ethnic Russians and other minorities, especially in the industrialized south and east.

Whatever else may ensue, the coup and the resultant junta is fully subordinated to and dependent on the will of Washington: claims of Ukrainian ‘independence’ notwithstanding. The junta proceeded to purge the elected and appointed government officials affiliated with the political parties of the previous democratic regime and to persecute its supporters. Their purpose is to ensure that subsequent managed elections will provide a pretense of legitimacy, and elections will be limited to two sets of imperial clients: the neo-liberals, (self-styled “moderates”) and the neo-fascists dubbed as “nationalists”.

Ukraine’s road to imperialist power via a collaborator regime illustrates the various instruments of empire building: (1) the use of imperial state funds, channeled through NGOs, to political front groups and the build-up of a ‘mass base’ in civil society; (2) the financing of mass direct action leading to a coup (‘regime change’); (3) the imposition of neo-liberal policies by the client regime; (4) imperial financing of the re-organization and regroupment of mass direct action groups after the demise of the first client regime; (5) the transition from protest to violent direct action as the major backdrop to the extremist sectors (neo-fascists) organizing the seizure of power and purge of the opposition; (6) organizing an ‘international media campaign’ to prop up the new junta while demonizing domestic and international opposition (Russia) and (7) political power centralized in the hands of the junta, convoking “managed elections” limited to the victory of one or the other pro-imperial pro-junta candidates.

In summary, empire-builders operate on several/levels: violent and electoral; social and political; and with selected incumbents and rivals committed to one strategic aim: the seizure of state power and the conversion of the ruling elite into willing vassals of empire.

Columbia’s Death squad Democracy: Centerpiece of the Imperial Advance in Latin America

In the face of a continent-wide decline of US influence in Latin America, Colombia stands out as a constant bulwark of US imperial interests: (1) Colombia signed a free trade agreement with the US; (2) provided seven military bases and invited thousands of US counter-insurgency operatives; and (3) collaborated in building large-scale paramilitary death squads prepared for cross border raids against Washington’s arch enemy Venezuela.

Colombia’s ruling oligarchy and military have been able to resist the wave of massive democratic, national and popular social upheavals and electoral victories that gave rise to the post-neo-liberal states in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

While Latin America has moved toward ‘regional organizations’ excluding the US, Colombia strengthened its ties to the US through bilateral agreements. While Latin America reduced its dependence on US markets, Colombia expanded its commercial ties. While Latin America reduced their military ties to the Pentagon, Colombia tightened them. While Latin America moved toward greater social inclusion by increasing taxes on foreign multinational corporations, Colombia lowered corporate taxes. While Latin America expanded land settlements for its landless rural populations, Colombia displaced over 4 million peasants as part of the US-designed ‘scorched earth’ counter-insurgency policy.

Colombia’s “exceptional” unwavering submission to US imperial interests is rooted in several large-scale, long-term programs developed in Washington. In 2000, President ‘Bill’ Clinton committed the US to a $6 billion dollar counter-insurgency program (Plan Colombia) which greatly increased the brutal repressive capacity of the Colombian elite to confront the popular grass roots movements of peasants and workers. Along with arms and training, US Special Forces and ideologues entered Colombia to develop military and paramilitary terror operations – aimed primarily at penetrating and decimating political opposition and civil society social movements and assassinating activists and leaders. The US-backed Alvaro Uribe, notorious narco-trafficker and the very personification of a ruthless imperial vassal, became president over a ‘Death-Squad Democracy’.

President Uribe further militarized Colombian society, savaged civil society movements and crushed any possibility of a popular democratic revival, such as were occurring throughout the rest of Latin America. Thousands of activists, trade unionists, human rights workers and peasants were murdered, tortured and jailed.

The ‘Colombian System’ combined the systematic use of para-militarism (death squads) to smash local and regional trade union and peasant opposition and the technification and massification of the military (over 300,000 soldiers) in fighting the popular insurgency and ‘emptying the countryside’ of rebel sympathizers. Large-scale multi-billion dollar drug trafficking and money laundering formed the ‘financial glue’ to cement a tight relationship among oligarchs, politicos, bankers and US counter-insurgency advisers – creating a terrifying high-tech police state bordering Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil – countries with substantial popular mass movements.

The same state terror machinery, which decimated the pro-democracy social movements, has protected, promoted and participated in ‘stage-managed elections’, the hallmark of Colombia as a “death squad democracy”.

Elections are held under a vast overlapping network of military bases, where death squads and drug traffickers occupied towns and villages intimidating, terrorizing and ‘corrupting’ the electorate. The only ‘safe’ protest in this repressive atmosphere has been voter abstention. Electoral outcomes are pre-ordained: oligarchs never lose in deathsquad democracies, they are the empire’s most trusted vassals.

The cumulative effects of the decade and a half-long bloody purge of Colombian civil society by Presidents Uribe and his successor, Santos, have been to eliminate any consequential electoral opposition. Washington has achieved its ideal: a stable vassal state; a large-scale and obedient military; an oligarchy tied to US corporate elites; and a tightly-controlled ‘electoral’ system that never permits the election of a genuine opponent.

The March 2014 Colombian elections brilliantly illustrate the success of US strategic intervention in collaboration with the oligarchy: The vast majority of the electorate, over two-thirds, abstained, demonstrating the absence of any real legitimacy among the eligible voters. Among those who ‘voted’, ten percent submitted ‘spoiled’ or blank ballots. Voter abstention and ballot-spoilage was especially high in the rural regions and working class areas which had been subject to state terror.

Given the intense state repression, the mass of voters decided that no authentic pro-democracy party would have any chance and so refused to legitimize the process. The 30% who actually voted were largely urban middle and upper class Colombians and residents in some rural areas completely controlled by narco-terrorists and the military where ‘voting’ may have been ‘compulsory’. Of a total of 32 million eligible voters in Colombia, 18 million abstained and another 2.3 million submitted spoiled ballots. The two dominant oligarchical coalitions led by President Santos and ex-President Uribe received only 2.2 million and 2.05 million votes respectively, a fraction of the number who abstained (14 million). In this widely scorned electoral farce, the center-left and left parties made a miserable showing. Colombia’s electoral system puts a propaganda veneer on dangerous, highly-militarized vassal state primed to play a strategic role in US plans to “reconquer” Latin America.

Two decades of systematic terror, financed by a six-billion dollar militarization program, has guaranteed that Washington will not encounter any substantial opposition in the legislature or presidential palace in Bogota. This is the ‘acrid, gunpowder-tinged smell of success’ for US policymakers: violence is the midwife of the vassal state. Colombia has been turned into the springboard for developing an US-centered trade bloc and a military alliance to undermine Venezuela’s Bolivarian regional alliances, such as ALBA and Petro Caribe as well as Venezuela’s national security. Bogota will try to influence neighboring right and center-left regimes pushing them to embrace of the US Empire against Venezuela.

Conclusion

Large-scale, long-term subversion and organization in Ukraine and Colombia, as well as the funding of paramilitary and civil society organizations (NGO) has enabled Washington to: (1) construct strategic allies, (2) build ties to oligarchs, malleable politicians and paramilitary thugs and (3) apply political terrorism for their seizure of state power. The imperial planners have thus created “model states” – devoid of consequential opponents and ‘open’ to sham elections among rival vassal politicians.

Coups and juntas, orchestrated by longstanding political proxies, and highly militarized states run by ‘Death Squad Executives’ are all legitimized by electoral systems designed to expand and strengthen imperial power.

By rendering democratic processes and peaceful popular reforms impossible and by overthrowing independent, democratically elected governments, Washington is making wars and violent upheavals inevitable.

A few days ago I saw this headline: “Why don’t we just ask the NSA where the plane is?”

I expected a piece of pointed commentary or even that it came from The Onion. I assumed someone thought the international search for a missing plane should serve as a reminder that the NSA is not actually able to monitor everything happening on this planet.

It turned out, unfortunately, that the question came from a conspiracy theorist who was convinced that the only possible explanation for the NSA’s lack of helpfulness during the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was that the agency must be guarding some dirty secret.

For the rest of us — which is to say, people not inclined to believe that this plane was either shot down by the U.S. or that its passengers were abducted by aliens — the link to the NSA should provide a reality check.

However advanced the NSA’s capabilities are for globally tracking the movement of millions of microscopic electronic packets of information moving at close to the speed of light, it turns out that the movement of a great big hulk of metal carrying 239 people at less than 600MPH took place outside the NSA’s line of sight. (Neither is there any reason to assume that the US National Reconnaissance Office, through its satellite imagery, has secretly been the guardian of the truth about MH370.)

Those of us who spend too much time on the internet can easily succumb to a worldview within which the movement of information forms a global matrix to which seemingly everything is tied. We lose sight of the fact that what is known is dwarfed by an infinitely larger unknown.

We forget that most of what is forgotten is lost forever, and most of what is happening everywhere is never known.

I live in a region clad by vast tracts of forest where every day, trees fall unheard, unseen. Societies whose laws we may never learn govern the undergrowth. And beneath the forest, the skeletal remains of mountains whose height could never be measured have been ground into clay.

Earthquakes and volcanoes show the magnitude of events that can catch people by surprise, telling us that we don’t even know what is happening under our own feet. We don’t know what’s happening inside each cell in our body. We don’t know which neural networks are firing inside our brains right now or what these interior firework displays signify. We can’t remember everything we’ve ever said or heard. The events that form the fabric of our lives, turn out to be like glistening dew drops on a spider’s web. They disappear under the glare of a rising sun, never to be seen again.

* * *

The NSA and Google are co-conspirators, not in a formal sense, but in as much as they are jointly invested in the prevailing delusion of this age: that it is possible to know everything.

For the NSA, this fantasy is a tool for manipulating Congress — it implies that the only real obstacle to perfect security is adequate funding.

For Google, its mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” implies we live in a world governed by information (and Google’s beneficent hand) and that this information truly encompasses the world — and that its uncharted territories will soon be mapped.

This worldview not only fails to recognize the incomprehensible vastness of the unknown, but it also reinforces a view of human agency that makes us imagine we have the power to control all things.

Instead of seeing an issue like climate change as a consequence of our reckless behavior, which is to say, seeing it as an industrially triggered planetary convulsion, we risk seeing it as a technical problem which sooner or later is bound to yield to a technical solution.

But to see the true relationship between the known and the unknown is not only a vital form of realism; it’s also the only way of holding human grandiosity in check.

We do not live in a world that calls to be mastered; it demands to be met with humility. The Earth can survive without us, but we can’t survive without this planet. Only by recognizing that we are not on the brink of becoming all-seeing gods can we see our real place in the scheme of things.

(CORDIS) — Doping in sport is nothing new. Ancient Greek athletes used stimulating potions to fortify themselves. Strychnine, caffeine, cocaine, and alcohol were regularly used by cyclists in the 19th century. Marathon champion Thomas Hicks ran to victory at the 1904 Olympic Games with the help of raw egg, injections of strychnine and doses of brandy administered to him during the race. During the 20th century doping became increasingly commonplace, leading not only to unfair competition, but also to the tragic deaths of top athletes. WADA – the World Anti-Doping Agency – was established 15 years ago with the mission of promoting, coordinating and monitoring the fight against doping in sport.

As doping methods and substances become increasingly sophisticated, WADA finds itself obliged to rigorously monitor new innovations under development in the field of medicine. Speaking at the recent European Commission Innovation Convention, Dr. Olivier Rabin, Science Director of WADA was keen to emphasise this point. ‘One of our roles is to anticipate what will be in five years or ten years from now. Existing medicines are not usually too much of a problem. More interesting are the drugs in development by the pharmaceutical industry – they may be the cures of tomorrow but some of them may also become the doping agents of tomorrow. This is why we have established collaborative links with the biopharmaceutical industry to facilitate the exchange of information and allow us to receive confidential information to develop the anti-doping tests of tomorrow.’

One method that WADA has for some time had a close eye on, and which has recently gained considerable media attention, is gene doping. Gene doping is the transfer of a gene – known as a transgene – into the body with the purpose of increasing performance. Gene doping was picked up by WADA more than ten years ago as one of the potential threats that sport would face.

Dr. Olivier Rabin noted, ‘One example is Erythropoietin (EPO) which is being used by several athletes to boost the production of red blood cells. This is a very good drug for people who are anaemic but it is also being abused by athletes. We know that some athletes could be tempted to have an EPO gene injected in their body which in the end is going to give them more capacity to transfer oxygen to their muscles and so more likely to be performance enhancing. This is something we are looking into very carefully.’

Today gene doping is still today fairly experimental and it’s also very risky. There have been patients who have died as part of protocols of gene therapy. Worryingly, according to Dr Rabin, it still doable by almost any average scientist in the field of molecular biology. ‘It’s a risk that we take very seriously. Some experts that we are working with around the world have been approached by athletes or coaches ready to have their whole team treated with gene therapy, particularly IGF-1. I know one expert who, after he gave a presentation, was flooded by emails and calls asking how the teams could have access to his technology.’

WADA is developing the tools to detect gene doping and other doping methods of the future, in particular tools to facilitate the transfer of information. ‘Smart phones may be used as medical devices in the future. Some of them can already be used to measure blood pressure and monitor diabetes. This something that we can think about in terms of anti-doping. It could be as simple as calling an athlete and asking them to put their finger on a device connected to their smart phone so we can draw information that could be potentially extremely useful in terms of detection’.

“Chile has one great adversary, and it is called inequality, and only together we can face it, let´s start now, time is limited and we will make the most of it,” said President Michelle Bachelet in a short speech from the Palace of La Moneda in Santiago, after swearing in on March 11 to a second term for the next four years.

Bachelet, who was president between 2006 and 2010, received the presidential sash from Isabel Allende — daughter of ousted president Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and the first female president of the Senate in the history of the country — after outgoing President Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014) handed it to her.

As a candidate of the center-left New Majority coalition — which includes the Concert of Parties (Christian Democratic, For Democracy, Radical Social Democratic and Socialist) that ruled Chile between 1990 and 2010, and the Communist Party, Citizen Left and Broad Social Movement —, Bachelet won the runoff election held on Dec. 15 with 62.2 percent of the votes against the right-wing Evelyn Mattei, of the Alliance coalition, composed of the National Renovation and Independent Democratic Union party, which obtained 37.8 percent.

The great challenge for Bachelet will be to implement an educational reform that ensures free, quality public education and puts an end to the for-profit education system. During the first months of her first term, Bachelet faced protests from secondary school students calling for the repeal of the Organic Constitutional Law on Education, the end of municipal control over schools, free college admission examinations and free school transportation, among other demands.

“I know firsthand what public education can offer someone,” Bachelet said. “I am a daughter of public education and my commitment is that in Chile everyone may have those same opportunities.”

The president has also pledged to carry out tax reforms to increase corporate taxes by 5 percent, exercise greater fiscal control and implement measures against tax evasion.

However, the main goal is the adoption of a new constitution to replace the constitution inherited from the military dictatorship (1973-1990), one which guarantees rights and incorporates mechanisms for direct or indirect democracy, includes a new electoral system and the restoration of majority rule to modify laws, among other aspects. However, this amendment requires the approval of three-fifths of the legislature (72 representatives and 23 senators), which will force Bachelet to negotiate with lawmakers of the opposite aisle.

Former student leaders in Congress

Four former student leaders between 25 and 28 years old who led the student protests in 2011 took their seats as representatives. They are Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola, both members of the Communist Party which is part of the ruling coalition, Giorgio Jackson, from Democratic Revolution, and Gabriel Boric, of the Independent Left.

“We have taken on responsibly what we´ve demanded from the streets, we believe one needs to take charge of the changes that Chile needs, therefore today we are taking part of this new process,” Vallejo said after swearing in. “In this new stage we have to meet the people´s mandate, which is to change education, tax reform and a new constitution.”

Boric, meanwhile, told the news bulletin The Clinic that he also wants to eliminate for-profit healthcare.

“The left is today focused on granting universal social rights, in open dispute with the State´s concept of subsidies,” he said. “I cannot conceive that fundamental rights, such as health and education, are made a business, and even less that this is done using public resources. Primary care operates under the same logic of secondary education: the subsidy. That causes the lack of guaranteed health care for all people and we all know that obtaining treatment in private practice is tantamount to long waiting times and lack of specialists. That is why this subsidy system has been a disaster, because it ended funneling [public] resources into private institutions.”

Traffic from Crimea’s territory to continental Ukraine re-opened on Saturday night but cars are moving slowly because of scrutinizing checks. The queue is stretching for more than half a kilometer (0.3 miles) from a checkpoint near the town of Armyansk on the Isthmus of Perekop, a narrow strip of land which connects the Crimean peninsula to continental Ukraine.

Cars bound for Crimea are moving freely, the media report.

The Ukrainian side closed its border with Crimea early on Saturday.

“The traffic was blocked for several hours from the Ukrainian side of the border for unknown reasons. It re-opened on Saturday evening,” the commander of a Berkut police unit guarding the border from the Crimean side said.

The office of Russian presidential envoy for the Crimean Federal District informed that Ukrainian border guards had unilaterally closed all entries into Crimea and exists from the peninsula to the Ukrainian territory at around 4:00 pm (12:00 GMT). A group of Ukrainian servicemen that was returning from Crimea to Ukraine could not cross the border for that reason.

“The purpose of that provocation is clear: the Ukrainian side wants to accuse the Crimean authorities of forcing people to stay on the peninsula, thus creating a seat of tensions on the border,” a source at the Russian presidential envoy’s office said.

(RFE/RL) — There’s a deepening East-West divide over Crimea — among mapmakers.

As Moscow solidified its hold on Crimea this week, prominent Russian map publishers are rushing to show the Black Sea peninsula as Russian territory.

Russian map publisher Di Em Bi says it started producing new maps on March 19.

The daily “Izvestia” quoted the publisher’s owner and director, Sergei Melikov, as saying the new maps will be available in retail stores in about two weeks.

Likewise, the Russian Geographic Society says it will include Crimea as part of Russia in its maps, ITAR-TASS reports.

Meanwhile, two of Russia’s biggest Internet companies have also started updating their mapping tools to designate Crimea as part of Russia.

Ksenia Chabanenko of Mail.Ru told ITAR-TASS on March 19 that the company was still “dealing with the technical aspects” of the change. She did not indicate when the new maps would be online.

Russia’s largest search engine, Yandex, also said its mapping service, Yandex.Maps, would be changed to show Crimea as part of Russia “in one of the next updates.” It also did not specify a date.

Western map publishers, however, are showing more caution.

The Washington D.C.-based National Geographic Society says it plans to show Crimea as disputed territory.

The society released a statement on March 19 saying that disputed territories “receive special treatment and are shaded gray as ‘Areas of Special Status,’ with accompanying explanatory text.” If Crimea is formally annexed by Russia “it would be shaded gray and its administrative center, Simferopol’, would be designated by a special symbol. When a region is contested, it is our policy to reflect that status in our maps. This does not suggest recognition of the legitimacy of the situation.”

The statement came after reports in some U.S. media, including “The Washington Post” and “U.S. News and World Report,” claimed that the National Geographic Society would show Crimea as part of Russia as soon as the State Duma ratifies the annexation.

Likewise, Rand McNally, based in Illinois, says it will not be updating the educational atlases and maps displayed in classrooms nationwide. “We wait for the State Department to alert us of any political changes,” spokeswoman Amy Krouse, told Bloomberg.

Other American mapmakers continue to show Crimea as part of Ukraine. As of March 20, for example, Google maps was showing Crimea as part of Ukraine.

By Halya Coynash

A day after President Vladimir Putin claimed that the rights of Crimean Tatars would be fully recognised in Russian-annexed Crimea, the government installed at gunpoint on February 27 announced that Crimean Tatars would be “asked” to move from land they had unofficially occupied.

The March 19 announcement was accompanied by assertions about Crimean Tatar participation in Sunday’s “referendum” that diverged widely from the figures given by Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars’ representative body.

Chubarov’s response to a question from Life News is worth quoting in full. He was asked why the Crimean Tatars were not satisfied with the guarantees offered by the self-proclaimed Crimean prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov.

Chubarov explained that he was not a diplomat and would do better to give an example, “Imagine that one morning some people unexpectedly enter your flat. You don’t know them, they look scary and they’re armed. They don’t touch you. They talk to you politely. They use your toilet and bathroom, but are extremely courteous. And then they say, ‘Let’s continue to live this way!’ I’d like to ask you: would it be better if they discussed how you will live together before they break into your flat, or afterwards? Please excuse me, but that’s an answer to your question.”

The problem with posing this question at the right moment is, of course, clear – the answer would not be the one Moscow wanted to hear.

Previous opinion polls in general never showed a majority in favour of joining Russia. The Crimean Tatars as a people were always totally opposed to it, both for historical reasons and because of their treatment by certain pro-Russian groups following their return in the early 1990s from the forced deportation of May 1944.

The events of the last weeks have been a tragedy for many in the Crimea, like the 83-year-old woman knocked down by a pro-Russian vigilante. She and others have seen a level of violence and intolerance that make them doubt that they can remain.

The Crimean Tatars are an indigenous people for whom Crimea is their only homeland. This latest tragedy comes on the eve of the 70th anniversary of their wholesale deportation by Stalin. It is not difficult to imagine how bitter the thought of a new exile must be.

The intolerance and lawlessness displayed by pro-Russian vigilantes over recent weeks is probably all too familiar to them. In the dangerous power games on the peninsula, politicians have long sought to stir up enmity between pro-Russian groups and the Crimean Tatars. The latter are in no doubt that they are part of Ukraine and wish to remain so.

On February 18 this year, Mustafa Jemilev, member of parliament, veteran defender of Crimean Tatar, and former head of the Mejlis, addressed his fellow-Ukrainians from the Maidan, saying he was proud of them, proud to be Ukrainian.

This is not to say the Crimean Tatars have been treated properly by successive governments in Kiev. There was never the money, and seldom the will, to resolve longstanding problems such as housing for those who returned home from exile after Ukraine gained independence. This is largely the reason why many Crimean Tatars are now living on land which they simply occupied because the authorities failed to allocate lands due to them.

Now Aksyonov’s deputy, Ruslan Temirgaliyev, has announced that the authorities will be asking the Crimean Tatars to vacate this land, which he claims is required “for social needs”. Temirgaliyev asserted, as Putin did the day before, that land would be provided “to ensure a normal life for the Crimean Tatars”.

The first person killed after the invasion – though no longer the only one – was a Crimean Tatar father of three small children. Reshat Ametov was abducted while taking part in a protest against the military occupation. His body was discovered, with marks of torture, on March 16.

The Mejlis called on all Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians to boycott the March 16 referendum, which was unconstitutional and gravely flawed in content and procedure. At a press conference on March 17, Chubarov pointed out some of the irregularities and clear evidence of tampering with the results. He said that only around 1,000 Crimean Tatars out of a possible 180,000 took part, compared with the 30 per cent claimed by Temirgaliyev

After making various promises in an attempt to gain Crimean Tatar support, the Aksyonov government has simply resorted to lying about the results. It is small wonder that the Crimean Tatars don’t trust any of their assurances.

On March 20, Ukraine’s parliament took a very belated first step towards officially recognising the Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people. A statement which it adopted guarantees the inalienable right of self-determination for the Crimean Tatar people within a sovereign and independent Ukrainian state, and also recognises the Mejlis as the Crimean Tatars’ authorised body. The Verkhovna Rada has instructed the cabinet of ministers to urgently draw up draft laws that set out and affirm the Crimean Tatars’ status as an indigenous people.

This move was long overdue, and may be seen as a mere political gesture by some. It does, however, highlight the Ukrainian state’s rights and obligations with regard to the Crimean Tatars. Their fate and their tragedy at this time are also Ukraine’s.

Halya Coynash is a journalist and a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. This article was published by IWPR.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a ban on Twitter in the country Thursday, but that didn’t stop people from circumventing his “futile” ban.

“Twitter and so on, we will root them out. The international community can say this or that — I don’t care. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic,” said Erdogan Thursday.

Not long after the government shut down Twitter in the country, Turkey’s 10 million Twitter users fought back. Using different DNS’s and VPNs, they quickly took to Twitter and called the ban “groundless” and “futile.” Twitter also tweeted to their Turkish users how to get around the block using text messages. Wikileakseven created a step-by-step video on how to change the DNS on an iPhone so people could tweet from their mobile device.
After users jumped on these workarounds, #TwitterisblockedinTurkey became a global trending hashtag, with its strongest concentration in Turkey. People were tweeting this hashtag along with pictures of building sides in Turkey spray-painted with alternative DNS addresses.

So rather than calming the civil unrest in Turkey, it has only made it stronger and viral.

Original article

(CIvil.Ge) — Prosecutor’s office said it has summoned Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili for questioning in connection to multiple cases, which are currently being investigated by prosecutors.

Prosecutor’s office said Saakashvili, who is not currently in Georgia, should appear before investigators at 1pm local time on March 27.

Prosecutor’s office listed ten cases, which are being investigated, over which it is seeking to question the former President.

The first in the list, released by the prosecutor’s office, is the case related to halving prison term to four convicts in November, 2008 through presidential pardon who were serving sentences in connection to Sandro Girgvliani murder.

“As far as the investigations into whole range of other cases have entered into the final stage and there is a necessity to question Saakashvili, it is planned to interrogate as a witness the former President in connection to these other cases as well,” the prosecutor’s office said.

These other cases include investigation into raid on Tbilisi-based Imedi TV station in November, 2007 and consequent developments surrounding this TV channel, which was owned by tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, who died in February 2008; prosecutor’s office listed among these developments “illegal appropriation” of the Imedi TV in 2008, “various illegal actions” carried out against late tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili’s family, which “ended up with a memorandum between the state and Patarkatsishvili family.”

Prosecutors also want to question Saakashvili over alleged misspending of GEL 8.83 million from the Special State Protection Service (SSPS) funds in a period between 2009 and 2012.

Prosecutor’s office said Saakashvili’s interrogation is also planned in connection to “investigation carried out for the purpose of establishing circumstances surrounding death of PM Zurab Zhvania.”

Prosecutor’s office said on March 21 that Mikheil Dzadzamia, who was in charge of security detail of late PM Zurab Zhvania on the night when the latter was found dead nine years ago, was arrested and charged with neglect. Hours before that, prosecutor’s office said that it arrested ex-chief forensic pathologist, who performed autopsy on late Prime Minister on February 3, 2005, and charged him with neglect of official duty.

When asked by Georgian journalists in Brussels on March 20 if he would arrive to Georgia in case of being summoned by prosecutors in connection to Zhvania’s case, ex-President Saakashvili responded: “I am not participating in dirty intrigues.” Saakashvili is now in Brussels at the German Marshall Fund’s annual Brussels Forum.

Other cases over which the prosecutors seek to question Saakashvili include: “coercing rightful owners of Rustavi 2 TV and Mze TV to give up their shares” in 2004; the May 20, 2009 special operation in which one person was killed and two others, wanted in connection to so called Mukhrovani mutiny, wounded; privatization of the Agrarian University; “illegal privatization” of the state property through the October 31, 2012 presidential order by giving “preferential treatment” to Temur Alasania, ex-President’s uncle; “giving state-owned real estate worth USD 3 million for a symbolic price of GEL 1” to a founder of Batumi-based TV 25 for the purpose of “controlling the TV channel during the election period”; and the case involving, what the prosecution says, was a concerted attempt by various branches of previous government to force Cartu Bank, founded by ex-PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, to bankruptcy in late 2011 and early 2012.

As automobile demand in Asia continues to grow, manufacturer / supplier relationships between emerging markets and developed countries are evolving. Asian countries are becoming target markets for strategic partnerships, and new technologies are creating unique opportunities for this sector.

In their research paper, “Corporate Strategies of Automotive Firms: How to Become Global Leaders,” published in Competitiveness Review, IESE’s Pedro Nueno and Rosa Caiazza of Parthenope University of Naples discuss corporate strategies for Asian firms to become global leaders.

Growth in Auto Demand and State Investment

Demand for new and used cars in China is rising due to higher disposable income. China has invested heavily to support the automobile industry and is leading the development of new low-cost units. This is increasing sales and creating benefits that can be exported to more mature markets.

The supplier/manufacturer collaboration needed to generate innovative cost reduction in developing markets can be accomplished with joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Chinese automotive companies look to these strategies to achieve a global presence quickly.

The acquired strategic assets can improve the reputation of companies, allowing them to obtain resources and gain access to new markets. They can also facilitate the development of skills and competencies for a global competitive advantage.

Unique Dynamic Forces

While strategic partnerships and M&As are common practices in many industries, the dynamics of the auto industry present several nuances.

Emerging technologies in the areas of alternative power trains and electric and hybrid vehicles are driving sector convergence. This is creating opportunities for strategic partnerships between auto and technology companies.

The Chinese government plans to make China one of the leading producers of electric and hybrid vehicles, and to make Chinese automakers a major player in the global industry.

Supported by the government, many Chinese firms are combining competencies in technology and the automotive industry. They are conducting strategic partnerships with the primary motive of obtaining and controlling strategic assets — something that is unique among emerging economies.

From Making Batteries to Cars

The authors examine specific cases in the automotive industry to try to locate the relevance of cultural factors on M&A success.

In particular, they discuss the case of the Chinese company BYD, which had its start in the electronics market in 1995.

BYD became one of the biggest manufacturers of batteries on the back of a surge in the global mobile phone market, and then later started car production.

BYD’s metamorphosis — from battery manufacturer to car manufacturer — attracted the attention of all industry experts. The company has become the only vertically integrated car manufacturer that makes its own batteries.

In 2009, the world was convinced that by 2020 most cars produced would be electric. While all automotive companies rushed to have electric prototypes, BYD seemed the most committed to the electric idea and was more advanced in electric and hybrid prototypes.

The interest in BYD on the part of investor Warren Buffett, who eventually bought 10 percent of the company, also attracted interest in the electric car.

Many governments subsidized the electric car through the deployment of recharging infrastructures, direct subsidy of the acquisition of the car or subsidies related to R&D.

Emerging Technologies & Cross-Border Partnerships

In 2013 BYD Auto struck a joint venture with Daimler. The 50/50 partnership will build the all-electric Denza car in China.

BYD’s success in the international market will depend on the company’s ability to jump-start and implement a currently undeveloped strategy for global expansion.

The automotive industry is a good example of an industry in which emerging economies have strengthened their role as global leaders. The BYD case shows how a diversification of activities and countries can be a strategy for Asian automotive firms to compete in the global market.

By Walden Bello

Last year, the Philippines brought a complaint against China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal. The Chinese “were really unprepared for that and were really embarrassed by it,” one of Vietnam’s top experts on Chinese diplomacy told me during my recent visit to Hanoi.

It was a master stroke by the Philippine government. The move put China on the defensive, said another Vietnamese analyst, and was one of the factors that prompted Beijing last year to agree in principle to hold discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a Code of Conduct for the disputed body of water—known in the Philippines as the West Philippine Sea, in Vietnam as the East Sea, and in China as the South China Sea.

The budding cooperation between Vietnam and the Philippines is the latest development stemming from China’s aggressive territorial claims in the region. In 2009, China put forward the so-called “Nine-Dash Line” map in which it claimed the whole of the South China Sea, leaving four other countries that border on the strategic body of water with nothing more than their 12-mile territorial seas. In pursuit of Beijing’s goals, Chinese maritime surveillance ships have driven Filipino fisherfolk from Scarborough Shoal, which lies within the Philippines’ 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In the most recent incident, the Chinese tried to disperse Filipino fishing boats approaching the shoal with water cannons. Chinese government ships have also reportedly chased off Filipino boats trying to replenish a garrison on Ayungin Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

The downside of Manila’s legal advantage was that it made the Philippines the number-one target of Beijing, replacing Vietnam as China’s primary rival in the ongoing dispute. “They’re now isolating you,” explained a China expert at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, “while relations between Vietnam and China are getting back to normal.” Despite the leaders of both countries exchanging visits, however, “we still feel the chill. In terms of China’s least favored countries in ASEAN, we’re number nine for the moment and you’re number 10. In the long run, however, Vietnam is Beijing’s main strategic problem.”

Invited to Hanoi to give a series of lectures on foreign policy and economic issues by Madame Nguyen Thi Binh—the legendary head of the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s (PRG) who headed South Vietnam’s delegation to the Paris talks that ended the Vietnam War—I took advantage of the opportunity to elicit Vietnamese views on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Figuring out Beijing’s Motives

The Vietnamese are very well positioned to analyze the Chinese government. Not only have they fought the Chinese off and on for over a thousand years; they have remarkably similar ways of interpreting political developments. This is due to the fact that communist parties, with a common Leninist bent, rule both countries. Their putatively shared ideology, however, is hitched to different—indeed, conflicting— national interests.

How do the Vietnamese interpret China’s “Nine-Dash Line” map that claims virtually the whole of the South China Sea as Chinese territory? There are, interestingly, several schools of thought. The first sees the Nine-Dash Line as delineating the maritime borders of China and not necessarily possession of the islands in the area. The second interprets it as saying only that the islands and other terrestrial formations in the area belong to China, leaving the status of the surrounding waters ambiguous. A third opinion is that the map asserts that both the islands and surrounding waters belong to China.

There is a fourth perspective, and though it is held by only a handful of experts, it is intriguing. This view holds that the Nine-Dash Line is an aggressive negotiating device. According to a diplomat and academic expert who has first-hand experience negotiating with the Chinese, Beijing’s style of resolving territorial issues has the following steps: “First,” he said, “the two parties agree on the principles guiding negotiations. Second, both sides draw up their maps reflecting their respective territorial claims, with China pushing its territorial claims as far as possible. Third, they compare the maps to identify overlapping or disputed areas. Fourth, the parties negotiate to resolve the disputed areas. Fifth, if there is agreement, draw up a new map. Finally, they go to the United Nations to legalize the new map.”

Despite varying views on China’s intentions, however, the Vietnamese are one on two key points: 1) that the Nine-Dash Line claim is illegal, and 2) that owing to the number of parties and overlapping claims involved in the South China Sea dispute, only multilateral negotiations can set the basis for a lasting comprehensive solution.

Also, whatever may be their different readings of China’s motives for advancing its Nine-Dash Line claims, there seems to be a consensus among Vietnamese officials and experts that China’s strategic aim is to eventually assert its full control of the South China Sea. In other words, Beijing’s aim is to legally transform the area into a domestic waterway governed by Chinese domestic laws. Some of Beijing’s acts are explicit, such as the establishment of Sansha City as a domestic governing unit for the whole South China Sea and the recent passage of a fisheries law requiring non-Chinese vessels fishing in the area to obtain a license from the Chinese government.

Others are more ambiguous, such as Beijing’s views on the issue of freedom of navigation in the disputed area. Ambiguity serves their purpose at a time that they do not yet have the capability to match their power to their ambition. “But there is no doubt that when they reach that point, of having the power to impose their ambition,” said one Vietnamese analyst, “they will subject the area to Chinese domestic law.”

Vietnam on the Philippines’ Legal Case against Beijing

The Vietnamese government is said to be in full support of the Philippines’ legal case against China at an informal level but cannot “fully publicly support it,” according to one academic. What this meant was captured in the carefully crafted response to a reporter’s question about Vietnam’s position on the Philippine move by Nguyễn Duy Chiến, Deputy-Director of the National Border Committee under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “It is Vietnam’s consistent position that all issues related to the East Sea should be solved by peaceful means, on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” He continued, “In Vietnam’s opinion, all nations have the full right to choose peaceful means to solve disputes in conformity with the United Nations Charter and international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

During his visit to Washington, DC in July last year, President Truong Tan Sang attacked the Chinese Nine-Dash Line claim as being “legally groundless.” He remained silent, however, on whether Vietnam would join the Philippines in filing a case at the UN against China, though he was quick to add that as a member of the UN, the Philippines “has all legal rights to carry on with any proceedings they would like.”

Part of the reason for the lack of more explicit support appears to be that a judgment on the case would clarify not only the Philippines’ and China’s claims but also Vietnam’s, and some implications of this might not be positive for Hanoi. But uppermost is a desire not to enrage China at a time that high-level exchanges are returning relations between the two countries to normal, or at least something close to it.

Despite their hesitations in giving the Philippines’ legal case their full public endorsement, the effort is eliciting widespread admiration in official circles in Vietnam, with one retired ambassador calling it “heroic.” A key reason for the popularity of the move is that it blindsided Beijing and upset China’s careful calculations. According to one expert on Chinese diplomacy, “the reason they’re upset is because they already have five battlefields—the political, diplomatic, mass media, security, military—and now you’ve added a sixth: the legal battlefield.” He continued, “The Chinese have a saying, ‘when the flag is in your hands, don’t yield it to others.’” Beijing, in other words, feels very much at sea on the legal front, where experts in international law will be calling the shots.

The United States: From Enemy to Ally?

In an irony of history, the Vietnamese have welcomed Washington’s plans to increase the U.S. military footprint in the region to “balance” China. Once an enemy, Hanoi now has good security relations with the United States, whose navy Vietnam has invited to use the former Soviet naval base at Cam Ranh Bay for logistical and ship repair needs.

For the same reason, the Vietnamese approve of the U.S. military’s controversial build-up in the Philippines. Their position on this matter has not changed since I met with foreign ministry officials during a visit to Hanoi in 2011, where I was told that as a long-time ally of the United States, it was the role of the Philippines to ask the United States to increase its military presence in the Western Pacific. Hanoi’s thinking is classic Leninist balance-of-power logic: China is the ascendant force and the United States is a power in decline, so the weaker parties—including the Philippines, Vietnam, ASEAN, and Japan—must band together with the United States to contain the rising imperial power.

In my various talks over three days, I articulated my disagreement with this logic. Fundamentally, the United States cannot be counted on to support the Philippines’ and Vietnam’s territorial claims, and Washington cannot be assumed to be motivated simply by balance-of-power considerations. The United States will advance its own strategic and economic interests as a quid-pro-quo for requests for assistance.

Moreover, inviting the United States to have a larger military presence is counterproductive if the aim is to resolve our territorial disputes with China. A larger U.S. presence would transform the regional context into a superpower conflict, thus marginalizing the territorial question and the possibility for its resolution. Moreover, inviting Washington to plant an even bigger military footprint in the Philippines would convert our country into a frontline state like Afghanistan and Pakistan, with all the terrible consequences such a status entails—including the subordination of our economic development to the strategic-military priorities of a superpower.

It is also too early to tell if the U.S. decline is temporary or irreversible. It is instructive to remember that the United States snapped back strongly in the 1990s after many experts thought it would inevitably be surpassed by a rising Japan. Similarly, it is not a foregone conclusion that China will displace the United States, especially since its model of export-led development is in crisis and Beijing is not at all sure it can make the transition to a domestic market-led growth path without massive internal upheaval.

Finally, a balance of power situation is unstable and prone to generate conflict, since although no one may want a war, the dynamics of conflict may run out of everyone’s control and lead to one. On this last point, I asserted, “China’s aggressive territorial claims, the U.S. ‘Pivot to Asia,’ and Japan’s opportunistic moves add up to a volatile brew. Many observers note that the Asia-Pacific military-political situation is becoming like that of Europe at the end of the 19^th century, with the emergence of a similarly fluid configuration of balance-of-power politics. None of the key players in East Asia today may want war. But neither did any of the Great Powers on the eve of the First World War. The problem is that in a situation of fierce rivalry among powers that hate one another, an incident may trigger an uncontrollable chain of events that may result in a regional war, or worse.”

My Vietnamese audiences listened politely but were unconvinced. Nonetheless, they were game enough to laugh when I jokingly said, “Well, since you have offered them Cam Ranh Bay, the Americans may no longer have any need for Subic Bay.” Subic is the former U.S. base in the Philippines that Washington has new designs on to serve as a forward site in its strategy to contain China.

Swimming with the Sharks

The Philippines and Vietnam are natural allies in their common struggle against China’s drive for hegemony in East Asia. Already partners in ASEAN, the two are likely to be driven closer together by Beijing’s increasingly brazen displays of power as it enforces its claim to some 80 percent of the South China Sea.

Both have also drawn closer to the United States, seeking to use Washington to balance China’s growing military presence in the region. Vietnam has played the U.S. card more adroitly, however, relying on the Philippines to explicitly invite an expanded U.S. military presence on its soil and seas, something the Vietnamese would not themselves allow.

Having defeated the United States in war, the Vietnamese seem confident they can handle the United States as an ally. This probably accounts for a lack of appreciation of the different relationship the Philippines has with Washington. Manila has always been in a dependent relationship with the United States, and an expanded U.S. presence in the Philippines would reinforce and deepen this status, subordinating the country’s political and economic development to the security relationship. This would mean eliminating the fragile space for maneuver the country was able to carve out when it kicked out the U.S. bases in 1992.

Vietnam, in short, may swim with the sharks and survive, but the Philippines, following the same balancing strategy, is bound to end up inside one of them.

Walden Bello is a representative of Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party) in the Philippine House of Representatives. He was the author of the House resolution renaming the South China Sea the West Philippine Sea. 

By Luis Ramirez

President Barack Obama is in the Netherlands, his first stop on a tour aimed at isolating Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

Obama arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and headed for The Hague, to immediately begin meetings with allies and partners. Although Obama is in the Netherlands for the Nuclear Security Summit, the focus is clearly on the crisis in Ukraine.

The U.S. leader’s aim is to build up support for more sanctions against Russia and economic aid for Ukraine’s government.

In The Hague, Obama has called a meeting of G-7 leaders to coordinate a response to Russia’s actions against Ukraine. Afterwards, he will travel to Brussels for meetings with European Union officials and NATO. Speaking at the White House last week, the president talked about his message for NATO allies.

“America’s support for our NATO allies is unwavering. We’re bound together by our profound Article 5 commitment to defend one another, and by a set of shared values that so many generations sacrificed for,” said Obama.

Obama is also reaching beyond Europe to shore up support for his efforts on Russia. On the agenda in The Hague is a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In an unusual move, China has questioned Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Last Friday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said Moscow’s interference in Ukraine is prompting a reassessment of U.S. relations with Russia. She said in the years after the Cold War, the international community tried to integrate Russia into what she said is the fabric of the international system and the global economy.

“But that was predicated on an expectation that Russia would play by the rules of the road, the economic and security rules of the road, international law, and the norms and principles that govern responsible international action. What we have seen in Ukraine is obviously a very egregious departure from that,” said Rice.

President Obama’s last stop in Europe will be Rome, for his first meeting with Pope Francis, to talk about fighting poverty and inequality.

After Rome, Obama will head to Saudi Arabia, where he will sit down with King Abdullah to talk about the war in Syria, the Iran nuclear negotiations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Abenomics has been great for stock speculators and corporate bigwigs, but for everyone else, not so much. The fact is–despite all the media hype and monetary fireworks–Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s three-pronged strategy to end 20 years of deflation has been a total bust. But don’t take my word for it, check out this clip from Reuters and see for yourself:

“In the fourth quarter of last year, Japan’s economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.7 percent, revised figures show, slower than the initial estimate of 1.0 percent on weaker business investment and consumption….” (Japan fourth-quarter growth, external balance suffer blow in test for Abenomics, Reuters)

See? Japan’s economy is dead as a doornail. No sign of life at all. What more proof do you need than that?

And Abenomics won’t end deflation either. That’s another fiction. The weaker yen is just going to force working people and retirees on fixed income to reduce their consumption which will intensify the slump. Heck, even the IMF has figured that one out. Take a look at this clip from one of their recent pieces:

“The average Japanese worker has been dipping into his savings to finance consumption growth. But there’s a limit to how far he can do this. The savings rate as a percent of disposable income has declined from around 5 percent a decade ago to close to zero today, leaving little further room for spending from savings….Looking forward, real wages are set to come under even greater pressure this year and next with higher underlying inflation and successive increases in the consumption-tax rate.” (Abenomics—Time for a Push from Higher Wages, IMF-direct)

It sounds to me like the IMF is telling old Shinzo that his plan sucks, doesn’t it?

Whoever thought that dumping trillions of dollars into the financial system would end deflation had a couple screws loose. That’s not how it works. The Fed loaded up on $4 trillion in financial assets and inflation is still hovering at a measly 1 percent. So if the theory doesn’t work in the US, why would it work in Japan?

It won’t. The way to generate inflation is by circulating money in the economy and increasing the velocity. That means full employment and higher wages. That means fiscal stimulus and redistributive taxation. That means fixing the damn economy. But Abe’s not going to do that because it doesn’t jibe with his class war strategy which is what drives the current policy. Now check this out from Roger Arnold at The Street:

“The essential policy tools of Abenomics are massive monetary and fiscal stimulus aimed at forcing the yen lower, which should cause exports to rise and domestic production to increase, leading to increased domestic job production and consumption: the virtuous cycle. In the process, Japan also increased sovereign debt, which must be serviced by the government. The servicing of that debt is supposed to come from an increase in tax receipts to be made available by the increased domestic production and consumption.

But it isn’t working.

The failure of Abenomics to stimulate economic activity and raise tax receipts enough to pay for the stimulus is now causing the government to double back on these programs with a counter-cyclical consumer tax increase of about 3%, which will be implemented in April. In other words, Abenomics is making the real economic and fiscal situations in Japan worse, not better. They are digging a bigger sovereign debt hole and accelerating the trajectory toward insolvency…Investors would be wise to avoid Japan altogether now, and probably permanently.” (Arnold: Abenomics’ Failure Is the Global Canary, The Street)

That’s probably good advice, although I think Japan’s implosion will take much longer than Arnold seems to believe. But that’s beside the point. What matters is the that policy doesn’t work. The economy isn’t growing, personal consumption is weak, the trade deficit, the current account deficit and the national debt are all ballooning at the same time, and the Japanese people are growing more pessimistic. And on top of it all, a 3 percent sales tax is set to kick in at the beginning of April which is going to send the economy stumbling back into recession. (Abe pushed through the tax hike to placate his right-wing constituents even though the risks to the economy were obvious.)

So, it’s all bad, unless you’re high-flying stock trader or a money-grubbing corporate CEO, that is. Then things have never been better. Get a load of this in the Wall Street Journal:

“While Japan Inc. may be whistling a happy tune on the back of robust profit growth and a weaker yen thanks to the pro-business agenda of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a key survey released Wednesday shows that consumers aren’t in a similar Abenomics-induced state of rapture.

The Cabinet Office’s monthly Consumer Confidence Index contracted for the third straight month in February to 38.2. That’s the worst reading since Mr. Abe entered office in January 2013 and the lowest since September 2011. Respondents were even more pessimistic than during Mr. Abe’s year-long term as prime minister between September 2006 and September 2007…

Even though recent data showed the basic earnings of workers in the world’s third-largest economy rose for the first time in almost two years in January, respondents in the February survey were less optimistic about their income growth, the value of their assets, and their overall livelihood than they were a month earlier.

The downbeat reading prompted the government to downgrade its assessment, saying it is “on a weak note.” (Japanese Consumer Pessimism Hits New High Under Abe, WSJ)

To say the Japanese are depressed, would be an understatement. Your average Joe is “even more pessimistic” than he was when Abe stepped down in 2007 and the economy was on the brink of rigor mortis. Does that sound like the “Happy Days are here again” blabber you’ve been reading in the media or hearing from liberal pundits like the madcap Dr. Krugman?

Also, according to a Cabinet Office survey that appeared in the Japan Times on Saturday, only 22 percent of respondents “think the economy is headed in the right direction”, while 76 percent are worried about the impact the consumption tax will have on the economy.

How’s that for a ringing endorsement of Abe’s Kamikazenomics? The only people who still believe in Abe’s song and dance are the ivory tower set at Princeton and Yale. Everyone else has thrown in the towel.

Abenomics is a public relations scam designed to shift more payola to voracious stock speculators and their thieving corporate counterparts. It’s a fraud wrapped in a lie. That’s all there is to it. But there are victims, that’s for dang-sure. Just check out this article in Bloomberg and you’ll see what I mean:

“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks set to drive an indicator of economic hardship to a 33-year high by increasing taxes and prices amid stagnant wages. The misery index, which adds the jobless rate to the level of inflation, will climb to 7 percentage points in the three months starting April 1 when Japan raises its sales levy to 8 percent from 5 percent, based on the median estimates of economists in Bloomberg News surveys of unemployment and consumer prices. That would be the highest level for the measure since June 1981 when Japan was emerging out of depression after the oil shocks in the 1970s.

Bank of Japan monetary stimulus designed to spur economic growth and achieve 2 percent inflation has weakened the yen by 6.8 percent in the past 12 months, eroding the value of wages to a record low. Abe, the son of an ex-foreign minister who grew up in a house with servants, is under fire from the opposition party after the cost of living surged to a five-year high.

“Inflation is really tough,” said Kiyoshi Ishigane, a senior strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co., which oversees more than $77 billion. “Those who speak favorably about inflation might have been born in wealthy families and never experienced the hardship that inflation brought.” (Misery Index Rising to 33-Year High on Abenomics: Japan Credit, Bloomberg)

The Misery Index is peaking and all you hear in the US is a bunch of baloney about glorious Abenomics and the miraculous effect of money printing. What a joke. People are hurting big-time in Japan, and shifty Shinzo is only adding to their pain with his monetary Hara-kiri. It’s madness. Wages dropped for 19 months in a row before they got a “one-off” bump-up last month of 0.1 percent, which is a big nothingburger. The overall trend is down, down, down. On top of that, roughly 35 percent of Japan’s workforce is part-time employment; no pension, no bennies, no job security, no nothing. Things slow down, and you get booted down the stairwell with not as much as a “Goodbye, Charlie!” They probably don’t even bother with the perfunctory pink slip. Just grab your lunchbox, and “out you go.”

So how does Abe figure he’s going to generate inflation when workers are flat on their backs and don’t have enough scratch to buy the widgets that Japan Inc produces?

The whole thing is a non starter, which is why I think this “fighting deflation” trope is a big freaking smokescreen to hide what’s really going on, which is a massive transfer of wealth to the investor class via asset inflation. That’s what’s really happening, right? Abenomics is just a way to produce fat returns during extended periods of slow growth and deepening stagnation. The big boys figured out how to overcome the very conditions that they created with their unbounded avarice. I guess they figure that, just because everyone else has to suffer through a goddamn Depression, doesn’t mean they have to too.

You got to hand it to these guys, they think of everything.

Malaysian airlines have announced beyond any reasonable doubt that flight MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived.

The airline has informed the relatives of those on board the doomed flight that the plane is “lost” with no survivors.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has made an announcement, saying “It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”

The Boeing 777-200 disappeared from civilian radar screens on the night of the March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, en route for Beijing.

There were reports that military radar picked up an unidentified plane, after the stricken jet lost contact with air traffic controllers, which had made a sharp turn as well as descending to a much lower altitude before heading out into the Indian Ocean.

There have been no confirmed sightings of the plane or any debris that can be conclusively linked to it after an international search that has lasted two weeks. The search over the Indian Ocean entered its fifth day on Monday.

The UK Air Accidents Investigations Branch told the Malaysian authorities that the planes final location was above the southern Indian Ocean.

By this he meant satellite data automatically sent by the stricken plane, concluded that the flight ended in an air corridor over the southern Indian Ocean.

“We share this information out of a commitment to openness and respect for the families, two principles guiding this information.”

His somber announcement comes just a few hours after the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot said that an Australian navy plane searching the area had spotted debris floating in the sea and that a ship from the Australian navy, HMAS Success, was just a few hours away and would hopefully be able to identify the floating objects.

Many theories have been put forward by a range of experts on what could have happened to the missing plane. One of the most convincing was by a Canadian pilot, Christopher Goodfellow, who said there may have been an electrical fire on board, which would have disabled many of the plane systems, although not all of them.

The pilots would have dropped altitude quickly and changed course to try and land the crippled plane at the nearest available airport, but before they could do this they and everybody else on board would have been overcome by smoke inhalation, while the plane flew on auto pilot before running out of fuel over the Indian Ocean.

Also earlier today a Chinese plane sighted objects in the search area, but different to those seen by the Australian air crew.

Three areas were identified for operations on Monday, totaling 20,000 square nautical miles with 10 aircraft being used.

While Australia is currently the only country to have a ship in the area, a number of Chinese vessels will arrive on Tuesday together with a further three aircraft – two from Japan and one from the UAE.

While 6 Malaysian ships are in the north part of the southern corridor and HMS Echo, a British survey ship, is in the Maldives refueling and will sail to the southern corridor on Monday evening.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday it was barring 13 Canadian officials and public figures from entry to the country in response to sanctions earlier imposed by Canada in the wake of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

The list includes several aides to Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well as the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Paul Grod.

“This step comes in response to unacceptable actions by the Canadian side that have seriously hurt bilateral relations,” the ministry said in a statement.

Canada joined the US and EU in announcing sanctions last week in response to Crimea rejoining Russia, naming seven Russian and three Crimean officials subject to asset freezes and travel bans.

The region became part of Russia last week following a referendum that saw over 96 percent of voters support the measure.

“We regret that Ottawa has chosen to ignore the free expression of the Crimean citizens, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of the reunification with Russia in accordance with international law and the UN Charter,” the ministry said in a statement criticizing Canada for supporting the government in Kiev, which it calls illegitimate.

Canada’s sanctions targeted top officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Crimea’s pro-Moscow leader Sergei Aksyonov.

The United States’ northern neighbor suspended military cooperation with Russia earlier this month in reaction to the situation in Ukraine, as well as halting participation in an intergovernmental economic commission.

The EU expanded the number of Russian and Ukrainian officials under sanctions to 33 on Friday, just hours after the United States added 20 more officials to its own list.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday imposed sanctions against nine senior US officials as a proportional response.