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Somalia: Politicized Clan Addiction – OpEd

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Somalia has been in a state of civil war since the overthrow of the military regime in 1991 by warring factions and then factions turned on each other. About 16, 17, national reconciliation conferences were held since then and most of them miserably failed. Out of the last reconciliation conference held in neighboring Kenya in early 2000s, the current federal government was born with interim status. In 2012, permanent federal government was elected through a long process. The federal government forces and the African peacekeeping forces in the country are now jointly fighting with the Al Qaeda-linked group, Al Shabab.

In a nutshell, Somalia has become a virtual orphan, a waif, a stray neglected by its guardians. Howbeit, the guardians, the Somali people in this case, have still the chance and the opportunity to fix more than 20 years of political disaster in Somalia, no matter the duration and the complexity of it.

Usually the Somalis are considered the only one homogeneous nation in Africa in particular and in the world in general, because they speak the same language, hold the same religion and possess almost the same identical features. The Somalis are also considered one tribe with clans and subclans. Paradoxically, the homogeneous reality of Somalis highlights the complexity of Somalia’s problem in the fact that in this modern era of community of nations, and since the the United Nations phrase was coined by United States on January 1st 1942, Somalia is the first country that has experienced for decades a spectrum that interminably ranges from loss of fully working government to self-inflicted subversion, self-inflicted destruction at the national level, and self-inflicted ruination of internationally unprecedented magnitude with ultimate horror.

The present ambience of Somalia, however, is primarily caused by the Somalis themselves. Foreign entities have for sure hands in Somalia’s affairs to varying positive and negative degrees, but Somalis should desist at all costs from entirely blaming the mess of their country on anybody else–both the blame for the crux of the country’s chronic ills and the responsibility to sort out the crisis lie squarely on the shoulders of the Somalis themselves.

Politicized Clan Addiction

Given its endless spiral, its crazy impulses or its illogical spontaneity in the social fabric and political landscape of the nation, the politicized Somali clan system is cancerously nonpareil, while it doesn’t have understandable principles or rules except aphoristic representation of random evil, nonsensible destruction and lack of reasoning. For instance, the clan system has ambiguous, confusing genesis in politics with susceptibility to abuse by so-called individual politicians, who usually beat the drums of unfounded fear against other clans so that they can advance their own selfish interests while disguising that they’re acting in the interests of the clan.

What is more alarming and foolish is the clan itself falling victim to the thinly disguised actions of the egocentric, greedy, so-called politicians. The clan never questions what is the real motive of why those so-called politicians, warlords and crazy islamists so cleverly employ the clan phenomenon. The clan fanatics are creatures of emotion and blindly back the wrong horse while they see at the same time that this is not only the interest of the clan but this really destroys clan in the form of killing, raping and displacing of clan population, with clan doing the same or worse to other clans and the list of reciprocal atrocities is long. Almost three decades of civil war in Somalia, within the UN existence time span, never-seen-before impasse and gridlock in other civil war affected countries have abounded in Somalia, and the clan fanatics sometimes seem to be possessed or under a spell by a witch– their brain powers in terms of logic and prudence seem to be withering and dying.

Pre-independence Non-political Clan Era (PNCE)

Pre-independent Non-political Clan Era in the nomadic life was pithily wiser than the current politicized version, which happens mostly in urban settings. The PNCE had credibility–it had breakthrough rather than impasse, where agreements reached under a tree were respected and whoever broke it incurred shaming in the strongest possible terms. Whoever broke it was called Gun in Somalia, which means the intouchables– the clan who broke agreements under the tree (where Somalis used to hold talks in nomadic life) was ostracized and used to be subjected to numbers of sanctions, such as not marrying from that clan for a certain period of time in which poems used to be created severely bashing the agreement-breaking clan. On the other hand, the Politicized Clan Addiction (PCA) since the start of the civil war and beyond from independence doesn’t care about that at all but it brags about wrongdoing–it is proud of breaking promises and mercilessly inflicting barbarity. The PCA has foes but not friends, and even it has friends, it is not real friends, whatsoever– but friends with a means to an end. In other words, in the PCA phantasm, clan constricts inward to subclans, ultimately to two groups of brothers and sisters, Bah in Somali, with a same father but with a different mother, and if they engage in a bitter feud over anything by any means, clan madness ensues with no exceptions.

With all above clan drawbacks, a political solution to Somalia’s unprecedented political and social problems is not in sight for now, unless the real culprit is caught, which is politicized clan addiction.

Ahmed Said (Abwaan-kuluc) is Somali American blogger and analyst of Somalia’s current affairs. He is based in Minnesota, United States and can be reached at abdinassirsomalia@gmail.com Te:l 320-469-0405


UN Stresses Water And Energy Issues

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The UN predicts that by 2030, the global population will need 35% more food, 40% more water and 50% more energy. Already today 768 million people lack access to improved water sources, 2.5 billion people have no improved sanitation and 1.3 billion people cannot access electricity. Releasing these facts, the 2014 World Water Development Report (WWDR)UN says that roughly 75% of all industrial water withdraws are used energy production.

Tariffs also illustrate this interdependence: if water is subsidised to tell below cost (as is often the case), energy producers – major water consumers- are less likely to conserve it. Energy subsidies, in turn, drive up water usage. The reports in two volumes released in Tokyo and Paris. “Water and energy are among the world’s most pre-eminent challenges. This year’s focus of World Water Day brings the issues to the attention of the world”, said Michel Jerraud, Secretary- General of the World Meteorological Organization and Chair of UN-Water, which coordinates World Water Day and freshwater related effects UN system-wide. These issues need urgent attention – both now and in the post-2015 development discussions. The situation is unacceptable. It is often the same people who lack access to water and sanitation who also lack access to energy.

WWDR 2014 underlines how water-related issues and choices impact energy and vice-versa. For example; droughts diminishes energy production, while lack of access to electricity limits irrigation possibilities.

Energy and water are at the top of the global development agenda. “Significant policy gaps exist in this nexus at present and the UN plays an instrumental role in providing evidence and policy-relevant gudance. Through this day, we seek to inform decision-makers, stakeholders and practitioners about the interlinkages, potential synergies and trade-offs and highlight the need for appropriate responses and regulatory frameworks that account for both water and energy priorities. From UNU’s perspective, , it is essential that we stimulate more debate and ineractive dialogue arround possible solutions to our energy and water challenges,” the Ractor of United Nations University, David Melone said.

The report is a UN -Water flagship report, produced and coordinated by UNESCO – is released on World Water Day as an authoritative status report on global freshwater resources. It highlights the need for policies and regulatory fremeworks that recognise and integrate approaches to water and energy priorities. WWDR, a triennial report from 2003 to 2012, this year becomes an edition, responding to the international community’s expression of interest in a concise, evidence-based and yearly publication with a specific thematic focus and recommendations. The Reports stresses the imparative of coordinating political governance and enduring that water and energy prices reflect real costs and environmental impacts.

Li Young, the Director-General of United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), emphasized the importance of water and energy for inclusive and sustainable industrial development. There is a strong call today for integrating the economic dimension, and the role of industry and manufacturing in particular, into the global post-2015 development priorities. Experience shows that environmentally sound interventions in manufacturing industries can be highly efective and can significantly reduce environmental degradation.

“I am convinced that inclusive and sustainable industrial development will be a key driver for the successful integration of the economic, social and environmental dimentions.” Li Yong said. Raising awareness around the world on water and energy issues is essential to eradicate poverty and to create a future for the generation to come.

History Suggests Putin Is Likely To Pause At Crimea – OpEd

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Taking back a gift is frowned upon across the globe, except in Russia. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev handed Crimea as a gift to Ukraine in 1954, but 60 years later Russian president Vladimir Putin made a swift reclaim.

After spending the last few years making efforts for recognition as a prominent member of the globalized world, Russia has managed to isolate itself in a matter of days. Fittingly, the Crimean Peninsula also represented Russia’s estrangement from Europe in the 19th century. After building up favorable relations with European allies by cooperating against Napoleon, Russia abruptly alienated itself by launching an unexpected attack on the Ottoman Empire in 1853.

Assuming the role as protector of the Empire’s oppressed Orthodox Christians, Russia attempted to take control of the Black Sea during the three year Crimean War. Its efforts were thwarted after Britain and France intervened, forcing Russia to abandon its plans and accept a peace deal.

Russia no longer uses religion as a mantra for expanding its influence and instead styles itself as a guardian of ethnic Russians, regardless of their location. That was the excuse used in separating two regions from Georgia in 2008; a conflict mirroring this week’s annexation of Crimea.

While Putin targeted Crimea following Ukraine’s ambitions for European Union integration and ousting of its pro-Russian president, desires of joining NATO were the catalyst of his aggression towards Georgia. Putin still views Russia as the empire victimized by the Mongols, Vikings, Napoleon and Hitler, and reacts with alarm whenever one of its former subjects expresses a desire seek relationships with outside powers.

Like Crimea, the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are primarily populated by ethnic Russians. Similarly, Russia managed to maintain a military presence in the regions following the fall of the Soviet Union. This enabled Putin to easily occupy Crimea and in 2008 helped stir up tensions in Georgia’s troubled territories.

After Georgia took a step closer to NATO membership in April 2008, Putin responded by authorizing official ties with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The two regions had long endured uneasy relations with Georgia, but the moves from Putin amplified tensions that led to local skirmishes. This provided him with the perfect excuse to send in ‘peacekeeping’ troops to protect the ethnic Russians, emboldening the regions’ separatist movements. When Georgian troops responded to attacks from South Ossetian rebels, Putin sent his army into Georgia-proper, laying waste to any resistance over a five-day conflict that resulted in 850 deaths.

Ultimately, Russia never assumed South Ossetia and Abkhazia into its federation, but did officially recognize their independence from Georgia. The tumult was intended to send a clear message to neighbors that aspired to western relations. Yet the EU and US acted as if unaware that Russia might take action against Ukraine if it sought European integration. When Putin coerced Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to reject the EU’s proposed trade deal late last year, the West stayed silent; neither voicing strong support for Yanukovich against the larger bully nor warning Russia of interference. Of course, Western leaders hoped things would be resolved quickly so that it could maintain the stability of its Russian business interests.

But when Yanukovich was chased out of power, Putin realized he had to take things another step further. The seizing of Crimea was designed to remind the new Ukrainian government that looking west brings headwinds from the east.

Today, Putin seems to be following the template from the Georgian conflict. Things have been calm since ceasefire was reached there in 2008 and Georgia remains outside NATO. As long as Ukraine does the same then Russia will not encroach beyond Crimea.

Putin is likely wary that further provocation in Ukraine could incur additional sanctions from the West, akin to the severe measures on Iran that restricted access to the global financial system and choked its economy. But Western powers will be reluctant given that Russia plays a more important role in global trade than Iran ever did. Moreover, even if sanctions are intensified, Putin’s desire for regional authority cannot be underestimated. Since the days of Peter the Great, Russian rulers have put a high value on the power of the nation, often above the health of its citizens.

Crimea will never be returned to Ukraine, but further Russian expansion is unlikely. As with Georgia, Putin is probably content that his work in Ukraine is done, for now. He has conveyed a stern warning to the new leadership while invigorating the nation’s large pro-Russian population. Calm will be solidified if May’s Ukrainian elections restore power to eastern-leaning politicians; something that will bring relief to Putin, and the West.

Ronan Keenan’s writings on Russia have been published in the World Policy Journal, Global Policy Journal and The Atlantic. Ronan Keenan’s personal website is Macrowatcher.com.

The New Tribalism And The Decline Of The Nation State – OpEd

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We are witnessing a reversion to tribalism around the world, away from nation states. The the same pattern can be seen even in America – especially in American politics.

Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them. Kings and emperors imposed temporary truces, at most.

But in the past three hundred years the idea of nationhood took root in most of the world. Members of tribes started to become citizens, viewing themselves as a single people with patriotic sentiments and duties toward their homeland. Although nationalism never fully supplanted tribalism in some former colonial territories, the transition from tribe to nation was mostly completed by the mid twentieth century.

Over the last several decades, though, technology has whittled away the underpinnings of the nation state. National economies have become so intertwined that economic security depends less on national armies than on financial transactions around the world. Global corporations play nations off against each other to get the best deals on taxes and regulations.

News and images move so easily across borders that attitudes and aspirations are no longer especially national. Cyber-weapons, no longer the exclusive province of national governments, can originate in a hacker’s garage.

Nations are becoming less relevant in a world where everyone and everything is interconnected. The connections that matter most are again becoming more personal. Religious beliefs and affiliations, the nuances of one’s own language and culture, the daily realities of class, and the extensions of one’s family and its values – all are providing people with ever greater senses of identity.

The nation state, meanwhile, is coming apart. A single Europe – which seemed within reach a few years ago – is now succumbing to the centrifugal forces of its different languages and cultures. The Soviet Union is gone, replaced by nations split along tribal lines. Vladimir Putin can’t easily annex the whole of Ukraine, only the Russian-speaking part. The Balkans have been Balkanized.

Separatist movements have broken out all over — Czechs separating from Slovaks; Kurds wanting to separate from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; even the Scots seeking separation from England.

The turmoil now consuming much of the Middle East stems less from democratic movements trying to topple dictatorships than from ancient tribal conflicts between the two major denominations of Isam – Sunni and Shia.

And what about America? The world’s “melting pot” is changing color. Between the 2000 and 2010 census the share of the U.S. population calling itself white dropped from 69 to 64 percent, and more than half of the nation’s population growth came from Hispanics.

It’s also becoming more divided by economic class. Increasingly, the rich seem to inhabit a different country than the rest.

But America’s new tribalism can be seen most distinctly in its politics. Nowadays the members of one tribe (calling themselves liberals, progressives, and Democrats) hold sharply different views and values than the members of the other (conservatives, Tea Partiers, and Republicans).

Each tribe has contrasting ideas about rights and freedoms (for liberals, reproductive rights and equal marriage rights; for conservatives, the right to own a gun and do what you want with your property).

Each has its own totems (social insurance versus smaller government) and taboos (cutting entitlements or raising taxes). Each, its own demons (the Tea Party and Ted Cruz; the Affordable Care Act and Barack Obama); its own version of truth (one believes in climate change and evolution; the other doesn’t); and its own media that confirm its beliefs.

The tribes even look different. One is becoming blacker, browner, and more feminine. The other, whiter and more male. (Only 2 percent of Mitt Romney’s voters were African-American, for example.)

Each tribe is headed by rival warlords whose fighting has almost brought the national government in Washington to a halt. Increasingly, the two tribes live separately in their own regions – blue or red state, coastal or mid-section, urban or rural – with state or local governments reflecting their contrasting values.

I’m not making a claim of moral equivalence. Personally, I think the Republican right has gone off the deep end, and if polls are to be believed a majority of Americans agree with me.

But the fact is, the two tribes are pulling America apart, often putting tribal goals over the national interest – which is not that different from what’s happening in the rest of the world.

Burma’s Military Encourages Civilian Abuses: Harvard Report

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By Alex Bookbinder

Burma’s seemingly unending cycle of internal conflict is perhaps closer to a resolution than at any other point in recent memory. But although progress towards a nationwide ceasefire has occurred over the past year, life on Burma’s frontiers is still marred by violence, uncertainty and military impunity, claims a policy memorandum released on Monday in Rangoon by the International Human Rights Clinic, a project of Harvard Law School.

The Clinic claims underlying military policies and practices that have prompted abuses over the years have not changed despite three years of political and economic reforms. Urging Burma’s military to end “indiscriminate attacks and wilful killings of civilians,”the report is based, in part, on the Clinic’s documentation of abuses that occurred during counterinsurgency campaigns in Karen State between 2005 and 2008.

“[The memorandum] describes a pattern of attacks on civilians that stretches back for decades, and continues today in places like Kachin State, northern Shan State and elsewhere,” Matthew Bugher, the paper’s lead author, said. “We believe these policies and practices remain in place, and that they pose a great threat to civilians throughout the country.”

The ceasefires signed between the government and various non-state armed groups over the past 25 years have been criticised for their incompleteness. Absent a comprehensive and durable political solution – such as the adoption of federalism desired by many ethnic people – ceasefires can act as a prelude to further fighting, giving both sides an opportunity to replenish stocks and reinforce their positions. Although the former generals who run Burma have traded in their fatigues for civilian garb, the military itself has had few incentives to reform its behaviours.

Burma’s counterinsurgency doctrine has explicitly targeted civilians for decades. The “four cuts” policy, which dates back to the 1960s, authorises the army to attack civilians in the hopes of denying insurgents “food, funds, recruits and intelligence.” Starting in 1997, the military has allegedly limited the quantity of supplies given to front-line troops, forcing them to prey upon civilians to meet their basic needs.

The report claims that the current incentive structure within the military rewards commanders and troops who attack civilians, concluding that “the failure of the Myanmar [Burma] military to hold its soldiers accountable for attacking civilians is due, in part, to a system that rewards unlawful behaviour.”

It highlights a litany of abuses faced by civilians across Burma’s conflict zones, including “shoot-on-sight” orders, extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate shelling and the offensive use of landmines by government forces. Burma is not party to the 1998 Ottawa Treaty, which compels signatory states to cease the “manufacture, use, transfer or stockpiling” of anti-personnel mines.

Despite the tentative successes of the peace process, the current period of reforms started out on a decidedly violent note in Karen State, with major fighting occurring around the time of the 2010 elections. The army unilaterally broke a long-standing ceasefire in Kachin State in 2011, and nearly three years of fighting has left more than 100,000 civilians displaced and vulnerable across Kachin and northern Shan states.

Although the humanitarian situation in Kachin and northern Shan states has degraded considerably since 2011, Karen State has been unusually peaceful since 2012, when the Karen National Union (KNU) entered into a ceasefire agreement with Naypyidaw. For the majority of people living in Karen State’s conflict zones, security has improved greatly. “There’s no mistaking that the situation in many parts of the country has improved dramatically in the past two years,” Bugher acknowledged. “The peace process, although still fragile, has resulted in a significant improvement for security of civilian populations in many parts of the country.”

Although the KNU’s slow-burn struggle for autonomy has hit a lull, Bugher claims sporadic army attacks against civilians have been reported since 2012, indicating that despite signs of progress, a culture of impunity still holds sway.

“Recognising this progress does not detract from the fact that there are still very serious concerns relating to attacks on civilians,” he said.

“These ongoing reports of attacks suggest that improvements to civilian security are a result of a reduction in armed conflict, rather than fundamental institutional reforms,” Bugher said.

In a series of recommendations to the government, commanders and enlisted soldiers, the Clinic urges the military to reverse its entire incentive structure. “Over time, the military’s central command would be increasingly populated by those officers with clean records, thereby promoting positive values such as respect for civilians and increasing professionalism,” the memorandum said.

The Clinic claims that attempts to discuss its findings directly with the military have thus far not been successful, and that the clinic has “not had engagement at that level that we want” with the government. But recent statements by Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, indicate that, at least at the highest levels, the military is increasingly buying into the notion that keeping civilians happy is good for the security of the state.

In December, The Mirror, a state-run newspaper, published a series of articles profiling Min Aung Hlaing, in which he made repeated references to “human security,” a loosely-defined concept in international relations and military affairs which puts civilian needs at the centre of the security stratagem.

At a press conference in Naypyidaw in early March coinciding with the11th ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces Informal Meeting, he reiterated the need for a broader approach to security, noting “non-traditional threats such as food security, health security, economic, social and political security, environmental security and personal security,” in a statement issued by the President’s Office.

Although the military’s apparent new focus on civilian well-being is undoubtedly motivated by self-interest, this “securitisation” of human needs signifies a momentous rhetorical shift for the Tatmadaw, which has long been obsessed with security and stability regardless of human cost. But there is scant evidence to suggest that much has changed in practice.

In October, the army launched a new round of attacks on civilians in northern Burma, which have continued sporadically to date. Despite advances to the peace process elsewhere in the country, nationwide peace remains a distant dream.

“In Kachin areas, forced evacuations are more than Karen [State], and also the damage to the villages … is higher than Karen, within a short period,” said Khon Ja, coordinator of the Kachin Peace Network, an umbrella organisation for Kachin civil society groups. “The number of rape cases within a very short period is very high, and civilian casualties are very high.”

Kerry Voices Support For Iran Supreme Leader’s Decree About Nuclear Weapons

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Voice of America that he has high regard for the Fatwa (religious decree) regarding nuclear issues put forth by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

In an interview on VOA, Kerry said: “I show a lot of respect for this fatwa as it is a religious message and is highly respected by people.”

He stressed that he and the U.S. president welcome such a fatwa but he added that the fatwa now needs to be framed in legal terms.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa that the production and use of weapons of mass destruction are haram (forbidden in religious terms).

Kerry said Iran is entitled to a peaceful nuclear program but added that the program must be transparent and operate under international regulations.

US Security Agencies Are Out Of Control – OpEd

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Many recent indicators point to a U.S. national security bureaucracy running roughshod over the sad remnants of the founder’s republican vision. As in the Roman world, empire is gradually snuffing out the republic.

The U.S. government’s more than $1 trillion dollar annual spending on security—for a country that may very well be the most intrinsically secure great power in world history—should be the first hint that something is amiss. The United States has two great ocean moats, weak and friendly neighbors, and the world’s most potent arsenal of nuclear weapons, which threatens annihilation of the territory of any potential attacker. Such nuclear weapons cost only a small portion of the $1 trillion in security spending.

First of all, according to Winslow Wheeler on Truthout, the largest agency in this multi-agency spending total, the Department of Defense (DoD), which alone spends almost $600 billion per year, cannot pass an audit to determine where all the money is going. Wheeler reports that this horrendous and long-standing financial management debacle will not be solved anytime soon. Yet both Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses long have kept shoveling money at DoD, because it apparently has been deemed patriotic to waste tons of citizens’ cash. The Department of Homeland Security, set up because the Department of Defense didn’t…well…defend the country very well and which accounts for about $50 billion of the $1 trillion total, also has had severe financial management problems. In fact, the Department of Defense should be renamed the Department of Defending Other Countries or the Department of Offense, since most of its spending goes toward projecting power offensively around the globe. In the case of both of these massive departments, being able to shield with secrecy their activities from the taxpayer begets waste and arrogance.

Other recent indications also abound of the security agencies’ haughtiness in the United States and abroad. At home, in a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution’s implicit ban on general (rather than specific) government searches and its requirement that searches are allowed only when probable cause exists that a crime has been committed, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected phone records of Americans en masse, the vast majority of whom are not terrorists and are not suspected of perpetrating any crime. Moreover, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed this unconstitutional spying on Americans is running from the government’s criminal charges, while Director of National Intelligence Lt. Gen. James Clapper, who lied to Congress about snooping program’s existence, didn’t even get a congressional reprimand.

The congressional hawks, like the always “mad-as-hell” Sen. John McCain, believe in strong action to let other countries, such as Russia or Syria or Iran, know that America is still boss of the world but are much less enthusiastic about deterring our own spy agencies from bad behavior. Maybe that will change after the CIA recently was caught obstructing justice in a congressional investigation of its obstruction of justice. The CIA, in another case of likely illegal domestic spying and unconstitutional interference with the separation of powers, broke into the Senate Intelligence Committee’s storehouse of electronic documents for a congressional oversight investigation of the CIA’s torture of inmates at secret prisons and destruction of video records of it.

In addition, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty that the Senate ratified in 1992, prohibits torture, unfair trials, detention without judicial review, and arbitrary killings. Contrary to a memo in 2010 by the then-State Department legal adviser, which declared that the U.S. government’s legal interpretation of the treaty—that it only applied to people inside U.S. territory and not people abroad under U.S. control—was legally untenable, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have resisted changing the U.S. interpretation. The resistance comes, because a wider interpretation might complicate their imperial operations when occupying or attacking other countries, such as unconstitutional indefinite detentions without trial at the U.S.-run Guantanamo prison in Cuba, the unconstitutional kangaroo trials by U.S. military commission there, and targeted killings by drones abroad. The “liberal” Obama administration, as it usually does, ran scared of the security agencies and reaffirmed their desired narrower interpretation.

Finally, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has demanded, as it has in other countries where U.S. forces are stationed, that its personnel are exempt from local laws. Fortunately, this unreasonable demand resulted in the Iraqi government’s refusal to allow a significant residual U.S. military presence in that country. The same demand has also played a role in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s reluctance to sign an agreement for a similar residual U.S. troop presence in his country past 2014.

All of these recent examples of security agency arrogance demonstrate that the security state is slowly replacing the founders’ vision of the republic, which was suspicious of standing armies and designed to keep an intrusive federal government at bay.

This article appeared at The Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.

Sri Lanka: Government Rounds Up Activists As UN Fudges On Inquiry – OpEd

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By JS Tissainayagam

As the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva was discussing the clauses of its resolution on Sri Lanka, the Colombo government used troops and special laws to arrest human rights defenders (HRDs) in the northern part of the country last week. It is ironic that while the Sri Lanka Government decided to beef-up militarisation in the former warzones and arrest activists, the UNHRC agreed to delete the word “demilitarisation” from its draft resolution.

On March 13, in the former warzone of Kilinochchi a large number of military personnel and police officers of the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) surrounded the home of Tamil activist Balendran Jayakumari, and her daughter, 13-year-old Vibooshika. According to the police, as they tried to enter the house a fugitive described as an LTTE member shot and wounded a policeman before escaping. The police detained Jeyakumari and her daughter overnight.

On March 14 Jayakumari was produced before a magistrate, arrested on a detention order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and sent to Boossa, a prison about 200 miles from her home. Besides the distance, set as it is in the heart of the Sinhala area, Boossa remains a security risk for Tamil family members wishing to visit detainees. But worse, the prison has over the years become a byword for torture.

Jurists the world over have denounced Sri Lanka’s PTA as a law that facilitates torture, arbitrary detention and denies suspects fair trials and due process. Yet Sri Lanka continues to use the law with impunity.

The government’s interest in Jayakumari and her daughter stem from the prominent role they have played on mobilising protests against disappearances. Jayakumari’s 15-year-old son was conscripted by the LTTE and surrendered to the government when fighting ended in May 2009. Later, however, the Government denied he was in its custody. But a when a photograph of him in a Government-run rehabilitation facility with other ex-rebels was published, Jayakumari’s demands for her son became more insistent.

With the authorities refusing more information, Jayakumari and Vibooshika became active in mobilising public support against disappearances. Their protests became the focus of international attention when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited northern Sri Lanka while he was in the country for the Commonwealth Summit in November. When families of the disappeared scheduled to meet Cameron were forcibly prevented from doing so, a group of women broke through a police cordon and spoke to foreign journalists. At the centre of that protest were Jayakumari and Vibooshika, whose story was filmed by the British network Channel 4 and told throughout the world.

The legal, judicial and military operation on Thursday that resulted in Jayakumari’s confinement in Boossa is a microcosm of government policy in northern Sri Lanka. Following the militarily defeating LTTE rebels, Colombo has done very little in tackling the political roots of the conflict between Sinhalese and Tamils. The inevitable outcome of this strategy is the government having to pacify the former warzone by saturating it with the military, and controlling the population through the PTA rather than normal law.

Assuming the police story about the fugitive LTTE member is not a fabrication, the first question is whether Jayakumari knowingly and willingly harboured this “terrorist suspect.” Even if she did, normal law in Sri Lanka is adequate to deal with persons who harbour criminals but themselves did not commit violent acts. Others who have harboured violent criminals are not detained under counterterrorism laws and automatically made accomplices of terror – it is only to those to whom the Government selectively applies the PTA. Further, if Jayakumari was charged under normal law she could have obtained bail and need not have to be separated from Vibooshika, her only surviving child, who was handed over to child probation officers.

Meanwhile, on 17 March, two more human rights defenders were arrested under the PTA in Kilinochchi. Ruki Fernando, a Sinhalese, is one Sri Lanka’s best known human rights activists campaigning against disappearances, detention of journalists and documenting violations for the UN. Father Praveen Mahesan, a Tamil Catholic clergyman and director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Jaffna, has also been active in tracking disappearances.

Fernando and Mahesan spent Sunday looking into the care of Vibooshika after her mother’s arrest and speaking to families of the disappeared. They had told friends that they were under military surveillance while doing so. That night they were arrested by the TID, questioned and said to be detained under the PTA. They were then brought to Colombo for further interrogation. They were released late Tuesday evening following an international outcry.

As in the case of Jayakumari, what befell Mahesan and Fernando was also a consequence of militarisation. There is no legal restriction on people speaking to others because their families having been detained or disappeared. However in Sri Lanka’s north and east, as Mahesan and Fernando found out, all such activities are considered suspect and need to be videoed by the military. Reports coming in from Killinochchi and villages in the area speak of ever-increasing surveillance and militarisation even after the arrest and release of the two activists.

The Government’s strategy right now is using the military and PTA to intimidate persons with strong connections with the international community for two, connected, reasons.

First, Colombo remains nervous about persons and institutions – especially civil society organisations – with extensive international connections. The reason is that international connections are, relatively, a better shield to HRDs from government intimidation to silence them. Second, with the UNHRC sessions now going on in Geneva there is concern that documented information on human rights abuses is being supplied to strengthen a resolution asking for an international investigation into past war crimes and present abuses, including militarisation.

Realising the deleterious effects of militarisation, there were concerted efforts in the past to make the international community address it. And it was seen as something of an achievement that the first draft of the resolution to be adopted later this month by the UNHRC demanded demilitarisation. Significantly, however, the most recent draft has struck out the word “demilitarisation.”

The international community’s move to delete demilitarisation from the draft signals to Colombo that there will be no serious opposition to it ruling northern Sri Lanka through the military. It also tells the Government very clearly that while the international community might pressure Colombo to release detained HRDs off and on, there will be no consequences to perpetuating the main instruments – militarisation and the PTA – that cause human rights violations to take place, and put in jeopardy the liberty of activists  like Jeyakumari, Fernando and Mahesan.


Iran-Pakistan Pipeline: Is There Scope For Hope? – Analysis

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By Ayesha Khanyari

The stalled Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline is symptomatic of the reshuffle in the bilateral relations between India and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As Iran shifts its focus towards India, Saudi Arabia has channelled its efforts towards strengthening ties with Pakistan.

The fate of this pipeline project has constantly faced uncertainty with Pakistan repeatedly running into problems be it due to its own financial shortcomings or due to pressure from the US. Tehran, on the other hand, is exhibiting signs of frustration. Iran successfully completed the construction the required 900-kilometer stretch of the pipeline in its territory, and threatens to evoke the penalty clauses of the 2010 Ankara agreement between Tehran and Islamabad, over Pakistan’s delay in proceeding with construction. The agreement states that the construction of the pipeline is due to be completed by 2014 and if either side fails to meet the deadline, the defaulter will have to pay a penalty of $US 1 million a day.

The project was stalled after Tehran refused Islamabad the $2 billion financial support the latter had asked for building its side of the project. Additionally, Pakistan claims that the threat of US sanctions was a major impediment to the successful completion of the project.

To evaluate the future of the IP project, three important questions need answering:

  • Are the US sanctions solely responsible for the stalling?
  • Has Pakistan completely given up the idea of actualising the project, or is there hope for it to materialise?
  • Will India be willing to take the project forward?

The Saudi Factor

Incumbent Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, on assuming office, assured Iran that his government was committed to the IP pipeline project. Then what changed? Pakistani officials state that Western sanctions on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme spells the the impossibility of the realisation of this project. The US fears that Iran will be able to check the growing influence of the US and exert political leverage in Pakistan, if the pipeline were to materialise. However, the issue of sanctions is not a new problem, and Pakistan was well aware of it even at the time of signing the agreement.

Saudi Arabia is highly sceptical of the increasing US closeness towards Iran after the interim agreement over the nuclear issue was signed between Iran and the P5+1. It fears an unopposed Iran in the region and has embarked on its own diplomatic offensive to isolate Iran. The U-turn on the IP pipeline creates a rupture in the Islamabad-Tehran relationship owing to what Shahbab Jafry calls ‘riyal politics’ in his article, ‘Saudi’s new riyal-politics’. “Riyadh will flush Pakistan with defence contracts and petrodollars in return for military, missile and perhaps nuclear technology,” he says, in his article published by Pakistan Today.

The renewed Saudi-Pakistan relationship is symbiotic. Saudi Arabia needs Pakistan’s military support which is comparatively reliable and cheaper than other available sources. In exchange, the Saudis can help Pakistan save its struggling economy. Only recently, the Saudi government gave financial aid worth $ 1.5 billion to bolster Pakistan’s liquid foreign reserves.

The threat of the US sanctions can be a major obstacle for the pipeline project but the renewed Saudi- Pakistan relationship, explains the stalling better. It is in this context that all future projects Pakistan will consider working on, should be assessed by.
Going back to the second question, will Pakistan resume the project ever? Pakistan, at this juncture, will be unwilling to upset its long-standing ally, Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has enduring ties with Riyadh and wishes to maintain them. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, needs Pakistan to contain Iran. Furthermore, neither of the two countries wants to upset the US. They will not pursue a foreign policy antithetical to US interests. Thus, given the changes in the dynamics of the region, the future of the IP pipeline looks bleak.

Will India re-join the IP pipeline project?

Initially, the project included India as well, but under New Delhi withdrew from the project in 2009 after signing a nuclear pact with Washington. As the region realigns itself, Iran is looking towards India. India has expressed interest to extend its support to a sub-sea natural gas pipeline project capable of bringing natural gas directly from West Asia to India. The South Asia Gas Enterprises has undertaken the Middle East to India Deepwater Pipeline (MEIDP) project to build the underwater transnational gas pipeline that will connect the gas-rich Gulf and West Asia region to India and cater to its rising energy needs.

Recent developments reveal that while the IP pipeline is going nowhere, there have been positive developments in the region that provide fresh incentives to go forward with the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. India will most likely work on making its way into the Central Asian markets via Iran and Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan .At the moment, for India, projects such as the MEIDP and TAPI seem more tempting than rejoining the IP pipeline project.

Ayesha Khanyari
Research Intern, IPCS

Time For Arabs To Shun Differences – OpEd

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By Linda Heard

Seamless decision-making is a rare commodity during Arab summits because the League’s 21 member states hold differing regional views. There have been notable exceptions, such as the 2002 Beirut Summit that floated the Arab Peace Initiative and the emergency summit held last year, endorsing Geneva II talks to end the Syrian civil war. The fact that Arab leaders can agree on common goals negates accusations that the Arab League is little more than “a glorified debating society.”

However, few are holding their breath expecting great things from the upcoming Arab Summit to be hosted by Kuwait for the first time since it joined the League in 1961 on March 25 and 26. So far, 13 heads of state have confirmed their attendance. It’s sad to say that Arab governments have rarely been this divided on numerous issues.

Kuwait is keen to maintain its role as a neutral bridge-mending mediator. Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Minister for Cabinet Affairs, is optimistic. “Wisdom always prevails among Arab leaders during difficult times…” he told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding, “Kuwait always plays the role of calming and supporting cooperation and joint [Arab] interests.

High on the agenda is the violence spilling over from the Syrian conflict into Lebanon. On the wish list of the Lebanese President Michel Suleiman is the League’s backing for a strengthened Lebanese military to defend the country against Israeli incursions and terrorism. Saudi Arabia has already donated a whopping $3 billion toward a weapons upgrade. He will also ask for humanitarian assistance for the more than one million Syrian refugees who’ve fled to Lebanon.

Talks on the Syrian crisis are unlikely to be fruitful following the failure of Geneva II participants to make progress. Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government and Iran’s proxy in Lebanon Hezbollah cheer the Assad regime, while other member states have no appetite to insert boots on the ground. The Syrian opposition would like to claim Syria’s seat in the League but on that they’re crying to the wind. There might, however, be consensus on the need for humanitarian corridors and increased aid.

As always, Palestine will loom large within the proceedings. And on this perennial issue there’ll be few disagreements. At a time when the US-brokered peace process is in shambles over Israel’s fast-tracked “settlement” land grab, its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and Benjamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to make concessions unless the Palestinian National Authority first recognizes Israel as a “Jewish state,” talks are poised to collapse.
According to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), the League will draft a resolution rejecting the concept of a Jewish state because such recognition would undermine refugees’ right of return and could deprive Palestinians choosing to remain where they are of compensation.

So what makes this 25th Arab League Summit different from all others?

There’s an unprecedented and growing rift between Gulf States centered upon Qatar’s maverick foreign policy, which several of its neighbors believe directly threatens regional security. At its core is Doha’s unwavering support for the Muslim Brotherhood that’s been declared a terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani is unapologetic for being out of step with GCC allies in the belief his tiny country has the right to choose its own course. Earlier this month, the Kingdom, the UAE and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar to protest Doha’s interference in their affairs. A joint statement issued by the trio indicated that they feel Sheikh Tamim has reneged on a commitment given last year “not to support any party aiming to threaten the security and stability of any GCC member.”

Points of contention include Qatar’s harboring of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the platform given by Al-Jazeera to the global organization’s de facto spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to stir-up dissent in Egypt and heap insults on neighboring Gulf countries. It is further alleged that Qatar gives material support to Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front in Syria.

The dispute between Qatar and hitherto brotherly states does not feature on the Summit’s schedule. It will rather be the elephant in the room, unspoken except during behind-closed-door discussions or at peripheral meetings. Kuwait is anxious to see the parties involved patch-up their differences but is also eager to avoid stormy sessions.

Cracks in the GCC serve none of its members, especially when the Obama administration is stretching out its hand to Iran which some analysts feel is a prelude to some sort of geopolitical “Grand Bargain” on the lines of that made between the US and the Shah.

Email: Sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk

Three Russian Warships Pass Dardenelles Strait

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Three Russian warships passed Dardanelles Strait in Turkey and headed towards the Mediterranean Sea on Monday morning.

Local Dogan News Agency (DHA) reported that the Russian warships made the movement after a Syrian warplane was shot down by Turkish military on Sunday.

Russian warships Minks, Olenegorsky and Kaliningrad are sailing in the Marmara Sea from the Black Sea.

A Turkish coast guard ship escorted the warships during their passage from the Dardanelles Strait.

Russian Blacklist Keeps Central Asian Migrants Out

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By Hamid Tursunov and Bakyt Ibraimov

 

It’s the Central Asian labor migrant’s second-worst nightmare (an encounter with violent Russian xenophobes is usually the first): on arrival in Russia, an immigration officer reviews the submitted passport with cold intensity. Then, a red light goes off and a couple of border guards swoop in and lead the would-be migrant away. Border guards have identified another one on the list.

Millions of Central Asians – primarily from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – travel annually to Russia to find work. The economies of their home countries are dependent on these migrant workers’ remittances. At the same time, Moscow is succumbing to concerns about unchecked migration, even though Russia’s demographic troubles point to a possible labor shortage in the not-so-distant future. Those fears have prompted Russian officials to bar hundreds of thousands of migrants from re-entering Russia because of alleged infractions, like working without a permit or failing to register on arrival (most citizens from post-Soviet states do not require visas to enter Russia).

Over the past year, Russian authorities added over 600,000 foreigners, mostly citizens of formerly Soviet states, to the blacklist, the head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) was quoted as saying in February. According to Kyrgyz officials, this number is climbing quickly and now includes 60,000 Kyrgyz citizens (there are between 600,000 and 1 million Kyrgyz working in Russia at any given time).

The trouble is; few would-be migrants know they’re on the list.

Aibek, a 22-year-old construction worker from Osh, says he was refused entry at a Moscow airport in December. An officer there told him that he had violated Russian residency permit regulations earlier in that same year. Aibek not only lost the money he spent on his ticket, and the money he was forced to borrow to fly immediately home, but also the potential wages. “For the past two months, I’ve been looking for a job, which is not easy in Kyrgyzstan. If I made enough money [in Russia], I could support my parents and start saving money for my wedding, which is now something I can’t afford,” Aibek told EurasiaNet.org. He declined to give his last name because he hopes he can make it back into Russia at some point.

Aibek contends that he always paid all residence registration fees in Moscow: “Maybe my landlord cheated and did not pay to legally process papers on my behalf as agreed,” he speculated.

The blacklist is a growing concern for poor families in southern Kyrgyzstan, says Meerim Dosmuratova of Interbilim, an Osh-based NGO that helps educate migrants about their legal rights.

“It is difficult for poor jobless people to spend 15,000 soms [approximately $275] to buy a one-way ticket [to Russia]. And if they are not allowed to enter, or are deported, they have to buy tickets to get home. So their families suffer huge financial losses,” Dosmuratova told EurasiaNet.org, adding that for many rural families, a migrant laborer is the chief provider. By comparison, a schoolteacher in Osh earns about 5800 som, or $106 a month.

Russia’s Federal Migration Service has posted the blacklist online, but many rural Kyrgyz have no access to the Internet and do not hear of the list until they arrive in Russia and the red light goes off.

“When we sell air tickets to our clients, we check their names on the website,” said a representative of a private ticket office in Osh. Still, she acknowledges, many slip through.

Kyrgyz diplomats in Moscow see the blacklist as part of a wider campaign to reduce the number of Central Asians in Russia. In recent years, the influx of Central Asian guest workers has been met by growing xenophobia among Russians who don’t like the changing demographic trend, especially in cities like Moscow and St Petersburg. “Negative perceptions have emerged thanks to the large influx of migrants, which cause the Russian [labor] market to shrink and unemployment to grow,” Aiymkan Kulukeeva, a spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow, told EurasiaNet.org. “In addition, immigrants from Central Asia […] do not speak Russian, and ignore basic rules of behavior, not to mention respect for the culture and customs of the local population.”

Others believe the blacklist is being used as leverage by Moscow: Russian leaders are trying to strong-arm a hesitant Kyrgyzstan into its Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

“This is pressure on our country, which is being pulled by unhealthy economic and political associations like the Customs Union,” Kyrgyz opposition parliamentarian Ravshan Djeyenbekov told EurasiaNet.org.

Kyrgyzstan has been dragging its feet on joining the union. So Russia is applying psychological pressure and may try to destabilize the country, alleged Djeyenbekov. He fears the Kremlin will “invent a problem to drag us into the union.”

While Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has shown it won’t hesitate to use asymmetric methods to keep former Soviet-era vassals under its influence (most recently Ukraine), Russian officials contend their first priority is reforming migration and protecting the Russian economy.

“Due to slowing growth in the global economy and negative trends in the Russian economy, there is no need for so many labor migrants today,” said Bakhrom Ismailov, an advisor on migration policy to the Russian State Duma, confirming that Moscow is expanding the blacklist. “Moreover, unemployment is expected to grow in the Russian Federation in the coming years.”

By that logic, should Western sanctions related to Moscow’s Crimea land grab start to hurt Russia, Central Asian migrants can probably expect the blacklist to keep growing.

Bakyt Ibraimov and Hamid Tursunov are writers based in Osh.

Obama Calls For End Of NSA Massive Phone Data Collection – Reports

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U.S. news outlets have reported that the Obama administration will propose new legislation that will ban the National Security Agency from the collection and storing of massive amounts of Americans’ phone records.

Under the proposal, the government will have to obtain permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain data from phone companies on calls connected to suspected terrorists. The phone companies will be required to provide the NSA with updated information if any new phone calls are made to or from that number.

Phone companies would not be required to maintain the phone call records for any longer than they do now.

President Barack Obama launched a review of the NSA’s phone surveillance program after former contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the program to the British newspaper The Guardian last year, setting off a political firestorm over civil liberties. Obama ordered his administration to craft a new policy by this Friday, when the current authorization for the program expires.

Legislation similar to Obama’s proposal will be introduced Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, crafted by the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee, also bars the NSA from the bulk collection of phone records, but does not require the government to obtain a court order before it asks phone companies for the data.

Ukrainians Vote In Mock Referendum To Join UK

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Ukrainians in the eastern city of Donetsk have voted in an online spoof referendum to secede from Ukraine and join the UK. Residents wrote that their hometown was founded by a Briton, so the UK should seize this “decisive moment” and take them in.

“Donetsk is a British city! God Save the Queen,” they wrote on social networks in an appeal to “reunite” their hometown with Britain, local media reported. The mock appeal follows the March 16 Crimean referendum that resulted in Crimea seceding Ukraine and joining Russia.

The link with Britain comes from the first ironworks in Donetsk, which were founded by a Welshman, John Hughes, at the end in the 19th century. The town was subsequently named Yuzovka, or Hughesovka.

“Glory to John Hughes and his town!”

“We are demanding a referendum on returning Yuzovka to its original bosom — Great Britain!” the appeal said.

It asked “fellow Britons” to seize this “decisive moment” while urging residents to vote on “where your children will live and what language they will speak.”

According to local media, the online poll attracted about 7,000 people, while over 950,000 call Donetsk their home, according to a 2012 census.

As of Sunday, the poll showed that 61 percent of respondents favored joining Britain, while another 16 percent favored “broad regional autonomy” with English as an official language, Donbass.ua reported.

The online frenzy gripped Twitter as users suggested a new world order.

“Maybe we should really take the world and divide it again. Huh?” reads one tweet.

After President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in February, Donetsk has been gripped by protests against Kiev’s coup-imposed government. Thousands of demonstrators have been demanding to hold a referendum to decide on the future of the region, just like in Crimea, who refused to recognize the country’s new authorities.

The referendum resulted in over 96 percent of voters backing the autonomous republic joining Russia. Russia last week welcomed Crimea’s integration.

Einstein’s Gravity Waves, A Rabbi And Muhammad’s Smile – OpEd

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When I read in the Los Angeles Times (3/18/14) that scientists had found the first direct evidence of Alan Guth’s theory of early universe inflation, and Albert Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves, I immediately thought of the Hadith about the Rabbi who made Prophet Muhammad smile.

Jews, to this very day, still recite special blessings before they perform Jewish rituals that always begin: “Blessed are you Adonai our God, King/Ruler of the World/Universe….”, and end with a specific reference to what Jewish religious activity they are engaged in.

The rabbis ordained these blessings because even when we do something small like eating the fruit of a tree, or some human baked bread whose grain comes from the earth, we acknowledge that it all ultimately comes from the One who created; humans, the trees, the earth, and the whole universe.

The Hadith I thought of, as found in Sahih Bukhari:Book #60 Hadith #335, and Book #93, Hadith #510 and #543), is: “Narrated ‘Abdullah: A Rabbi came to Allah’s Apostle and said,

“O Muhammad! We (Jews) learn that Allah will put all the heavens on one finger, the earths on one finger, the trees on one finger, the water and the sand on one finger, and all the other created things on one finger. Then He will say, ‘I am the King.’

Thereupon the Prophet smiled so (much) that his pre-molar teeth became visible, and that was the Rabbi’s confirmation. Then Allah’s Apostle recited: ‘No just estimate have they (the pagans) made of Allah such as is due to Him.’ (Qur’an 39.67)

What does this Hadith about the Prophet’s approval of the Rabbi’s poetic account of the One God who created heavens, earths and everything else, have to do with the first scientific confirmation of inflation and Einstein’s theory of General Relativity’s prediction of gravity waves?

I quote from the Times article: Scientists staring at the faint afterglow from the universe’s birth 13.8 billion years ago have discovered the first direct evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation — the mysterious and violent expansion after the big bang.

During this period of inflation, which happened just a fraction of a second after the big bang, the universe ballooned from smaller than an atom to 100 trillion trillion times its original size, at a rate faster than the speed of light.

Scientists have long wondered why this faint background light is so uniform across the sky. Stars clump into galaxies, and galaxies cluster together unevenly across the heavens. But no matter where you look, the cosmic microwave background seems to look essentially the same.

Why was the cosmic microwave background so smooth while the universe that came after it looked so lumpy?

In 1980, theoretical physicist Alan Guth came up with an answer: All that stuff from the early universe had originally been in a single extremely tiny spot when it was ripped outward in a violent expansion, popularly called the Big Bang.

Because the universe’s beginning was infinitely compressed and then experienced a single sudden expansion, the characteristics of the background radiation in all directions of space/time would be roughly the same.

This would require a massive spurt of inflation that scientists could barely comprehend. In less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the universe popped into existence, the newborn cosmos expanded more than a billion trillion times, from the size of a tiny subatomic particle to roughly the size of a basketball.

Incredible numbers like “less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second” raise the question of the relationship between life and immense numbers?

Is life, and ultimately self conscious intelligent minds in a material universe, the unfolding process of an infinitely intelligent One?

These scientific ideas of events in the creation of our universe are incomprehensible and much more incredible and amazing than traditional poetic religious images such as the one used by the Rabbi who made Muhammad smile.

Indeed it is true that ‘No just estimate have they (yet) made of Allah such as is due to Him.’ (Qur’an 39.67)

As the universe continued to expand at a slower rate and then cool, it carried with it the signature of this early trauma. Guth’s inflation theory could become a cornerstone of our understanding of the early universe — but scientists had thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove.

The signal from the cosmic background microwave has weakened over time, making it exceedingly difficult to find the signature of this ancient inflation behind all the cosmic “noise.”

The only hints could come from distortion in the fabric of space-time, created by the trauma of inflation. That could be detected by looking for a particular pattern of polarized light in the cosmic microwave background, known as B-mode polarization.

The theory was that the sudden inflation should, based on Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, cause an onslaught of gravitational waves that ultimately would change the polarity of the background radiation, leaving behind a distinctive swirling pattern.

But, although Einstein’s theory has been validated by many observations of predicted events, no one until now had ever observed gravitational waves/pulses.

And this is what the scientists have now observed. So what is the religious lesson we learn from all this?

The theory of inflation is rooted in quantum mechanics, which operates on the subatomic scale. The new discoveries show that the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, which governs very large-scale phenomena, are also quantum phenomena.

For more that eight decades this dualism of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity has bothered almost all theoretical physicists and cosmologists.

They believed that there should be one much greater theory of everything (sometimes called TOE) that would incorporate and harmonize both theories, which have a great amount of evidence to support them.

Hundreds of scientists have spent their professional lives seeking a TOE.

Although there was no logical reason to believe that an overall harmony of a TOE was required; they all believed it was there.

Religious people call it monotheism. We also believe that the dualistic division of worlds of reality into: material and spiritual, objective and subjective, secular and sacred, moral and amoral, will someday be overcome.

Now we have the first scientific evidence that there is indeed a basic connection between the microcosms and the macrocosms.

Although the TOE itself has not been discovered yet, and might not be discovered for decades or even centuries to come, we have external objective evidence of its presence, and renewed confidence that it will someday be discovered.

As the Qur’an proclaims over and over again, “Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth exalts Allah” (Qur’an 57:1, 61:1, and 64:1)

Prophet Muhammad must be smiling again, for each new major discovery in astronomy yields new evidence of God’s wisdom and power.

As the Qur’an says, “Verily in the heavens and on the earth are signs for those who believe.” (45:3)

And as prophet David said, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The universe proclaims God’s handiwork.” (Zabur-Psalms 19:2)

Thus, now would be a good time for all leaders of monotheistic religions to start working on improving the search for religious unity and harmony.

I do not mean the unity of sameness, or of detailed agreement between competing religions.

I mean the unity and harmony of a symphony orchestra; playing different notes on different instruments, guided by a director and One invisible composer.

Orchestras should compete through their excellence in playing the composer’s music, and not by claiming that their director is the best, or that the composer of their music only composed music for them.

Thus, the Qur’an proclaims: “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way. If God had pleased He would have made you one people, but (He didn’t) that He might test you in what He gave you.

Therefore compete with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds; for all return to God, so He will let you know (after Judgment Day) that in which you differed.” (5:48)

This is a wonderful further development of a teaching of the Biblical prophet Micah; that in the end of days—the Messianic Age:

“All people will walk, each in the name of their own God, and we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever.” (Micah 4:5)


Ankara-Israel Compensation Deal For 2010 Gaza Raid Victims Announced Ahead Of Sunday’s Election In Turkey

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Ankara announced Tuesday that Israel will finally compensate the families of the Turkish activists who were killed four years ago by IDF soldiers during the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, according to Agence France Presse Tuesday.

“We have received a final agreement document from Israel,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was quoted as saying by Hurriyet newspaper’s website.

In an attempt to deliver aid supplies to the people of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, Turkish activists aboard the ship Mavi Marmara were killed by IDF soldiers who boarded the boat while it was in international waters, sparking unprecedented tensions between the former allied countries.

Talks about the compensation for the victims of the raid began in March 2013 after Israel finally issued a formal apology to Ankara over the raid deaths. However, the amount of the compensation has allegedly been the main “sticking point” between the two countries.

According to Haaretz, Israel offered $20 million in compensation to the families, slightly less than what Ankara asked for.

The announcement of the deal comes ahead of Turkey’s local elections Sunday in what is now developing into a “testing ground” of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s popularity among the country following corruption allegations that have been growing since mid-December.

Original article

Peace Talks In India’s Northeast: New Delhi’s Bodo Knot – Analysis

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By Rani P Das

The Government of India’s approach to the prolonged insurgency and agitations in Assam’s Bodo heartland seems to have complicated the Bodo issue further. In the nearly three decades since the Bodoland movement began in 1987 under the leadership of Upendranath Brahma of the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), the Government has inked two peace agreements with the Bodos. The first Bodo Accord, signed on 20 February 1993 between the Government of Assam and ABSU, proved to be a failed experiment as it did not fully demarcate the territory. The Accord said that those villages with 50 per cent or more Bodo people would be included in the proposed Autonomous Council, resulting in ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing. The second Bodo Peace Accord, signed between the Central Government, the State Government and the leaders of BLT (Bodo Liberation Tigers) on 10 February 2003 led to the formation of the BTC (Bodoland Territorial Council) with jurisdiction over four districts: Kokrajhar, Baksa, Udalguri and Chirang. However, the BTC area actually includes 70 per cent non-Bodo people, who are against the creation of Bodoland.

Despite signing two accords, conflict in Bodo areas has multiplied instead of getting resolved. The Government was engaged in peace negotiations with the NDFB after declaring a ceasefire in October 2004. The NDFB, led by Govinda Basumatary, signed a Suspension of Operation agreement with the Central Government in May 2005 – the group’s founder chairman Ranjan Daimary did not come over ground and continued terrorist activities from the base in Bangladesh. Daimary was arrested in May 2010, and the Government again offered a peace dialogue to the Ranjan Daimary faction of the NDFB. Daimary was expelled by the NDFB in January 2009 for his alleged involvement in the October 2008 serial blasts in Assam. Now that the Government is engaged in two separate peace dialogues, one with the NDFB(R) since November 2013, after the release of Ranjan Daimary from jail, and the other with the NDFB (Progressive), a solution to the Bodo problem becomes even more complex.

With the raising of statehood demands by mainstream Bodo groups like the ABSU, peace negotiations with NSFB have now taken an entirely new dimension. The ABSU was joined by the Peoples’ Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement (PJACBM), a conglomeration of 55 outfits of various ethnic groups in the proposed Bodoland, which announced the revival of the Bodo statehood agitation on in July 2013. This followed the ruling Congress party’s decision to grant a separate state of Telangana by dividing Andhra Pradesh. The BPF (Bodo People’s Front) – the party ruling the Bodo Council – also joined the statehood cry since they did not want to be left behind and run the risk of being rendered politically irrelevant. Now that Telengana has been created as the 29th state of India, with the bill passed by voice votes in both the houses of the Parliament on in February 2014, New Delhi’s Bodo knot has been further tightened.

The Government must be aware of the tough challenge ahead in untying the Bodo knot. That, of course, is the result of its own strategies, like buying time or trying to find immediate solutions that lack a long-term vision. Factions in the NDFB are increasing and the split in the NDFB (R) – the new NDFB faction is headed by IK Songbijit, a Karbi youth – has caused more violence and mayhem, drawing the Centre’s attention to the Bodo conflict theatre. Besides, the Songbijit faction is awaiting legitimacy by getting a possible invitation to talk peace. After the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council in 2003, it was expected that more autonomy may be offered to the NDFB. The question here is: what remains to be negotiated with either of the NDFB factions if the Government is considering a separate Bodoland state by conceding to the demand of the mainstream Bodo groups? What will happen to the BTC Accord?

When Pramod Boro, the ABSU president, warned that the demand for Bodoland would not be compromised under any circumstances and threatened widespread protests in mid-March 2014, the Government took it seriously. To thwart possible violence during the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Government has formed an expert committee headed by former Home Secretary G K Pillai to study the viability of the demand for the creation of a separate state of Bodoland. However, the Committee has already faced fierce opposition by the ABSU and its allies on one hand and the non-Bodo organisations on the other.

The relative calm in Assam’s Bodo heartland, with the formation of the expert committee to examine the viability of the Bodoland state, is no cause for complacency. The Government of India’s tactic of buying peace may lead to a heavy price in the long-run, with the lack of any acceptable solution in hand to offer to all the parties in the dialogue process. Will the Government be able to bring all the Bodo groups on a common platform for talks and negotiations? That is the million dollar question.

Rani P Das
Senior Research Associate, Centre for Development and Peace Studies (CDPS), Guwahati

Most Wanted Ukrainian Ultranationalist Killed In Special Operation

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Ukrainian ultranationalist Olexander Muzychko, put on an international wanted list for committing war atrocities in Russia’s Chechnya, was gunned down overnight in an operation by Ukrainian special forces, a senior official in the country said Tuesday.

Muzychko, also known as Sashko Bilyi, was located Monday near a cafe in the western Ukrainian city of Rovno in an operation launched by special forces to neutralize a suspected militant group.

Muzychko, an activist in Ukraine’s radical Right Sector party and an active participant in earlier riots (street protests) in Kiev, attempted to escape through a window and opened fire on law enforcement, injuring one of the officers before being killed by return fire, according to First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov.

“Muzychko was shot in his leg, but he tried to return fire. Later when he was kicked down to the ground, he kept shooting and was injured. Doctors have confirmed Muzychko’s death,” Yevdokimov said, according to the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency.

Three other suspected gunmen were detained during the operation.

Earlier this month Muzychko accused the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office and police in a YouTube video of a plot to kill him or capture and hand him over to Russian special services.

Muzychko was put on an international wanted list on suspicion of torturing and murdering at least 20 Russian servicemen in Chechnya in the early 2000s. He was arrested in absentia by a court in southern Russia earlier this month.

Ukrainian prosecutors have launched a criminal case against Muzychko who assaulted staff at a state prosecutor’s office in Rovno last month. Ukraine’s interior minister Arsen Avakov earlier said Muzychko would be punished according to the law.

Right Sector, along with Muzychko, is a major ally of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party led by Oleh Tyahnybok, a member of the new Ukrainian government and an active promoter of the ideas of Stepan Bandera. Bandera, a Ukrainian who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II, was involved in mass atrocities in the wartime ethnic cleansing of Poles, Jews and Russians.

Russia has described last month’s uprising in Kiev as an illegitimate fascist coup, which resulted in Moscow taking steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

Spain: Jews And Muslims Deserve Apology And Correction Of Historical Wrongs – OpEd

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Spain takes first step to right historical wrong, but Jews not the only ones who suffered

By Faisal Kutty

The Spanish government’s offer of the “right of return” to the descendants of Jews expelled in 1492 is a “bit late, but nevertheless worthy of praise” says Rabbi Pinchas Godlschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis. The Rabbi was responding to Spain’s new law – approved by the cabinet on Feb. 7th — granting citizenship to all those who can prove their Sephardic origin. The law amends a previous version announced in 2012, which granted citizenship only to qualified Sephardic Jews and did not allow them to retain other citizenships. The old law also did not extend to the descendants of those coerced to convert to Catholicism, known as Marranos (swine in Spanish).

The current version of the law – still to be ratified by the Parliament — is seen as a way to “correct a historical wrong” for the expulsion of Jews from Spain. What of the unknown number of Muslims and their descendants expelled?

The Edict of Expulsion (also known as the Alhambra Decree) issued on March 31, 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordered Jews to convert or to leave the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. This was just after the fall of Muslim Grenada in January 1492. A decade or so after the fall and the Alhambra Decree, Muslims were also forced to convert or leave. In fact, between 1609 (Valencia) and 1614 (Castile), even those Muslims who had converted to Christianity and their descendants (the Moriscos) were forcibly thrown out. Between 275,000 and 350,000 people left and mostly settled in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón said the law has a deep historic meaning but that it also “reflects the reality of Spain as an open and plural society.” An openness that apparently does not extend to Muslims. In 2006 a left-wing party in the Andalusian parliament sought to introduce a bill granting Spanish citizenship to the descendants of Moriscos. The bill failed. The double standard is not lost on many Muslims and descendants of Moriscos particularly those in Spain and North Africa.

Representatives of the Moriscos in Morocco and Algeria have already written to Spanish Authorities. Najib Loubaris, the president of L’Association pour la Mémoire des Andalous, a group representing Moroccan Moriscos strongly chastised the Spanish government. The government “should grant the same rights to all those who were expelled”, Loubaris is quoted in the Guardian. “Otherwise the decision is selective, not to mention racist.” The call is echoed by Spain’s leading Islamic group the Junta Islámica.

While many of the descendants of the Jews may return, consulates in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have reportedly already been flooded with requests; the situation with Muslims may be different. It is not known exactly how many Muslims stayed underground and how many left. Moreover, it will be difficult for most Muslim descendants to trace their ancestry because they melted away in Spain or wherever they ended up unlike the Jews who kept to themselves out of fear of further persecution. Moreover, according to University of Cordoba law Professor, Antonio Manuel Rodríguez Ramos, it is unlikely that the government will encourage the investigation into Muslim descendants. He argues though hundreds of thousands left, the majority did not leave but rather stayed back and “created a culture that can be described as most authentic and most Hispanic.” He suggests digging too deep into Muslim descendants would simply highlight a truth that most Spaniards would like to ignore. “The danger is that we will have to recognize that the majority of the Spanish population is of Muslim descent,” says the Professor. “It’s an effort to hide our history, to hide our memory.”

With respect to the Jews expelled and their descendants, Rabbi Goldschmidt argued that in addition to this right of return, they need an official apology and that all Jewish monuments now being used as museums and churches be re-assigned again for Jewish use and control to “amend the historical mistakes.”

Whatever the truth of the matter with respect to Muslims, echoing the Rabbi, Spain must apologize to Muslims and their descendants and restore their monuments.

Though merely symbolic, such a move would go a long way to close out a dark chapter in Spanish history and give due regard to peoples whose legacies contribute immensely to the cultural heritage and tourist coffers of the nation to this day.

Faisal Kutty is an assistant professor of law at Valparaiso University Law School and an adjunct professor of law Osgoode Hall Law of York University in Toronto. Follow him at Twitter@FaisalKutty.

This article appeared at Counterpunch and is reprinted with permission.

Are We Really Headed For Deflation? – OpEd

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By Michael Lombardi

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports inflation in the U.S. economy increased by 0.1% in February from the previous month. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 18, 2014.) As usual, these numbers have again brought up the theory of deflation—a period when general prices decline.

Reasons for the deflation fear? In 2013, inflation for the entire year was 1.5%. In 2012, it was 1.9%. Going back further, in 2011, it was three percent. If we extrapolate the inflation numbers from January and February of this year and assume the increase will be the same (0.1%) throughout the year, we are looking at an inflation rate of 1.2% for 2014.

Wells Fargo Securities LLC has gone one step further. Economists at the firm believe there’s a 66% chance that deflation in the U.S. economy will prevail and these chances have been increasing since 2010. (Source: Bloomberg, February 21, 2014.)

To me, this is sheer nonsense!

The reality of the matter is that the inflation numbers reported by the BLS exclude changes in food and energy prices—the most important things consumer use on a daily basis. When you include food and energy, inflation is running at a much higher rate.

The prices of basic commodities are skyrocketing. Take corn prices, for example: since the beginning of the year, corn prices are up more than 15%. Wheat prices are up almost 20% year-to-date. When you look at meat prices, such as lean hogs, you will see they have increased by more than 45% since January.

As I see it, deflation is nothing but a farfetched idea for the U.S. economy. (In a recent survey we ran on our homepage, www.profitconfidential.com, the average estimate for current inflation from our readers was five percent.)

Why do I believe inflation will be the big problem for the U.S. economy and not deflation?

Above I present to you a chart of the M2 money stock. The M2 money stock is considered to be a broader measure of the money supply because it includes money on deposit in savings accounts, deposit accounts, and non-institutional money market funds, in addition to the currency already in circulation.

Since 2009, the money supply in the U.S. economy has increased by 35%. And the more money in circulation, the greater the chances of price inflation down the road.

The higher inflation goes, the higher interest rates will go to control it. The Federal Reserve, in its most recent economic projection, said it may increase the federal funds rate to one percent by 2015 and two percent by 2016 from the current 0.25%. I question if the Fed is seeing higher inflation ahead, but it’s just not talking about it.

If a higher inflation rate causes a hike in interest rates, we will see a significant amount of trouble for the housing market and the stock market in 2015 and 2016.

This article Are We Really Headed for Deflation? was originally posted at Profit Confidential

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