By Leman Mustafaqizi and Vahe Harutyunyan

The tenuous ceasefire in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict has been punctuated by gunshots over the two decades it has been in place. So far in 2014, the 20th anniversary of the truce, people on both sides say more shootings are occurring than in recent years, with a marked rise in deaths and injuries so far this year.

Precise information about such incidents – especially about who fired first – is hard to pin down, and the evidence has to be sourced from officials on either side. Cross-border incidents take place both on the state frontier between Azerbaijan and Armenia and along the “line of control” which has formed a front-line boundary around Nagorny Karabakh since full-scale hostilities ended in 1994.

Azerbaijan’s defence ministry says that on June 20, three civilians in the village of Alibeyli in the northwestern Tovuz district, were injured by shots fired by soldiers inside Armenia.

Kamaladdin Abassov, a doctor at Tovuz’s hospital, told IWPR that five-year-old Nurjan Nagiyeva received “relative light” injuries while her grandmother Garagiz had a bullet-wound in the foot, and Anayat Aliyeva, 45, had shrapnel injuries.

Garagiz Nagiyeva, 72, said Armenian soldiers had been firing on the village for several days.

“It really scared the children, and they were always crying. In the morning we decided to take them to their uncle in town. When we left the house, it was quiet – the Armenians weren’t shooting – but they opened fire as soon as they saw us. I saw that Nurjan’s whole leg was covered in blood, and then looked and saw I had blood pouring out of my foot,” she said. “It didn’t used to be like this. These last few months, they’ve been shooting at everyone, children and adults alike.”

In Yerevan, the Armenian defence ministry reported the deaths of five soldiers from Azerbaijani gunfire in June alone. Two of them were killed on June 5 in shelling from Nakhichevan, an exclave of Azerbaijan located on Armenia’s southwestern side. A third was killed in the same area on June 19. The same day, a soldier serving with the military of the Karabakh Armenian administration was killed and another died the following day, also as a result of Azerbaijani fire.

Doktrina, a defence think-tank in Baku, reports that in the first six months of this year, ten Azerbaijani soldiers were killed and another ten were injured, as were seven civilians in border incidents. It says the number of shooting incidents increased two- or threefold compared with the same period last year.

“In the current situation, there is no specific mechanism for counting the number of ceasefire violations, and statements by the two sides are fairly subjective,” Doktrina’s director, Jasur Sumerinli, told IWPR. “However, in general, the available statistics indicate that the situation on the front line is different from that previous years, and is extremely heated.”

As media reports from Yerevan indicated that Armenian forces had moved forward to new positions closer to the frontier with Nakhichevan, defence ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan insisted that it was the Azerbaijanis who were creating trouble. “The enemy is escalating the situation on the border not in order to launch large-scale military operations, but to put pressure on Armenia, or perhaps just because the Azerbaijan army has a complex about having been defeated,” he said. “I assure you that Armenian armed forces remain faithful to the ceasefire while standing ready to resist aggression,”

In Azerbaijan, Sumerinli took the opposite view, saying that Armenian units were principally to blame for opening fire. He said they did this for political reasons, to put pressure on Azerbaijan when peace talks took place, or to outflank domestic public discontent about issues such as unexplained deaths of army conscripts.

The long-running negotiations on a Karabakh peace settlement are mediated by France, Russia and the United States, as co-chairs of the OSCE’s Minsk Group. In May, to mark the 20th anniversary of the ceasefire signing, the co-chairs called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to do more to achieve a settlement.

“The sides have shown little willingness to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the co-chair countries or make the political decisions necessary for progress in this peace process,” a joint statement issued by the Minsk Group said. “The absence of a final settlement has resulted in the ongoing displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, the perpetual threat of escalating violence along the international border and the Line of Contact, and a misconception in some quarters that the status quo can be sustained indefinitely.”

Whenever there is an upsurge in cross-border shootings, analysts on both sides worry that the situation could blow up into full-scale conflict, either. inadvertently or deliberately. (See Checking the Pulse on Azeri-Armenian Front Line for a recent discussion of this.)

Vahan Shirkhanyan, a former Armenian deputy defence minister, is confident that this will not happen.

“The great powers – Russia, the United States and the European Union – are all present in the South Caucasus; there are military alliances; and we have Iran and Turkey as neighbours. Under these circumstances, Baku, Yerevan and Karabakh do not have the military, economic or political resources to make an independent to start a war,” he said. “Nor do I see major differences between the great powers in our region such as exist in Ukraine.”

Manvel Sargsyan, head of the Armenian Centre for National and International Studies, said that Moscow was largely a force for stability, since it would like to entice Azerbaijan as well as Armenia into the Customs Union and later the Eurasian Economic Union.

In the village of Alibeyli, Nurjan’s mother Sevinj Nagiyeva spoke of the human cost of the continuing tensions on the ground.

“She [Nurjan] was so scared that she wouldn’t speak or even have a drink of water for two or three hours. Then slowly she started to come to herself,” Nagiyeva told IWPR. “I was wounded in the knee as a child in 1995. I still feel pain, and I limp when I walk. How much longer can we live in fear? Let them end this war now and for ever, so that we can live normal lives.”

Vahe Harutyunyan is a freelance reporter in Yerevan. Leman Mustafaqizi reports for Lent.az in Azerbaijan. This article was published at IPWR’s CRS Issue 742.

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Following the parliamentary elections of June 8, a new political landscape is emerging in Kosovo. Will it be more democratic?

By Andrea Lorenzo Capussela

Kosovo’s parliament is composed of 120 seats, at least 20 of which are reserved for minorities. At elections held on 8 June the parties that represent Kosovo’s politico-economic élite won – according to preliminary, but reliable, results – 77 seats. Minority parties, most of which are aligned with the élite, obtained 28 seats. The remaining 15 seats went to Kosovo’s only left-wing party, Vetevendosje, which opposes intransigently both the élite and the governance system it has built over the past dozen years.

The parties of the élite are the political expression of Kosovo’s various economic-military-criminal power structures, mostly offsprings of the 1998–99 guerrilla formations. Although they frequently alternate each other in government and opposition, they all contributed to shaping the politico-economic system that now stifles Kosovo’s development, and they all draw rents from it, albeit in different measure. Prime minister Hashim Thaçi’s PDK party dominated this system over the past seven years, deepening its inefficiencies, and pervasively entrenched itself in the institutions.

The balance of power within the élite is as follows. PDK won 33 seats. Its AKR ally failed to reach the 5 per cent threshold to enter parliament. A new party created by two prominent figures who split from PDK obtained 6 seats. LDK and Ramush Haradinaj’s AAK, both in opposition until the elections, won 28 and 10 seats respectively. Thus Thaçi can now count only on 55-57 seats at most: PDK’s 33 deputies and 20 to 22 minority parliamentarians. To retain the premiership Thaçi planned to form an alliance with one of the other élite parties – the new party, LDK or AAK. But two days after the elections these three parties joined in an anti-PDK alliance. This changed the political arithmetic significantly, and might have brought Kosovo at a critical juncture.

If the alliance will hold, Thaçi shall not be able to form a government. But although the alliance shall certainly receive the vote of some minority deputies, it cannot form a government without Vetevendosje’s support. Thus talks are underway on the conditions under which this party would offer parliamentary support to the anti-PDK alliance. Such conditions concern the fight against corruption and a parallel suspension of the privatization programme and of talks with Serbia about north Kosovo (the subject of an EU-mediated agreement signed in April 2013), because Vetevendosje maintains that such matters should not be addressed until greater political accountability is established in Kosovo.

The alliance would be far from being an ideal steward for Kosovo. But a change in government, the emergence of a real political split within the élite, the formation of a balanced coalition, not dominated by any one of the three anti-PDK parties, and the fact that their alliance will rely on Vetevendosje’s external support will all contribute – against the long-term interests of both PDK and the alliance – to making the political system more open and pluralistic. This dynamic might be imperceptible at first, but could accelerate: especially if the international community shall not oppose it for the sake of advancing its own short-term priorities, which chiefly concern the implementation of (rather peripheral) parts of the agreement on north Kosovo. All this could remain conjecture, though: the door that now seems to be opening could be shut back, either softly or with a bang.

If judged by its performance, PDK’s aim was much less to develop Kosovo than to spoliate it. Since 2008 this party presided over an orgy of predation that probably has few precedents in recent history. PDK could do this because it kept the parliament weak and controlled all independent institutions and a significant part of the media: today Kosovo has no functioning checks-and-balances system.

This implies that, once in government, the alliance will aim at taking control of the predation machine used by PDK. Their dependence on Vetevendosje shall certainly check their greed, but corruption shall continue. In parallel, PDK’s loyalists shall be replaced by alliance representatives across all critical institutions, and the alliance shall also seek to take over part of PDK’s share of the private sector. The logic of the system is such that there will be little resistance. But those who shall resist will be fought with the means that PDK itself employed: for instance, just as PDK used the prosecutors to harm or intimidate its opponents, so will the alliance. In other words, Kosovo’s system is such that the loser risks losing almost everything. And PDK will not relinquish power without a fight: it will have to be defeated, and the battle begins now.

Entirely legitimately, PDK is already trying to break the alliance. But if it will fail, as it seems likely, PDK will try to precipitate fresh elections, by preventing the alliance from forming a government and thereby provoking an institutional stalemate. And at the elections PDK will seek to obtain a higher share of the vote by manipulating the elections and their results: indeed, PDK might now be regretting having accepted US and EU demands to restrain its efficient election-fraud machine on 8 June.

The hypothesis is not far-fetched. Albeit risky, this is a realistic plan because PDK controls the institutions. It can influence both arbiters of the game in this delicate phase – the president and the constitutional court – and thus obtain fresh elections, and it can manipulate the elections because it controls the electoral commission, the interior ministry, the police, the judiciary, and much of the media. Of course PDK might not succeed in distorting the elections results in sufficient measure, or else fraud might have to be so blatant and excessive as to provoke demonstrations, or even an uprising. Still, despite these risks, trying this route would be a rational decision for PDK, faced with the prospect of losing power.

Let’s now focus on the first step of this plan – obtaining fresh elections – in order to check, in course of the next two or three weeks, whether PDK has indeed chosen to follow the route I just outlined. If so, Kosovo’s citizens will know what to expect.

The constitution allows only two attempts to form a government after the elections, after which the parliament must be dissolved and fresh elections called: this is the lever that PDK shall seek to use. The issue turns on two hotly debated provisions. The first one provides that, after the elections, the president appoints a prime minister “in consultation with the political party or coalition that has won the majority in the Assembly” (article 95.1). The second one provides that if the first candidate fails to obtain a majority the president “appoints another candidate” (article 95.4). If this second candidate also fails, elections must be called.

PDK contends that 95.1 refers to pre-election coalitions only. The alliance argues the opposite. I think that PDK is right, for both textual considerations – the word ‘won’ seems to refers to pre-election coalitions, not post-election alliances – and systematic reasons: this provision seems to be aimed at respecting the presumable will of the electorate. So PDK should have the first go at forming a government. But, as things stand today, it will fail. What next?

Here PDK argues that 95.4 requires the president to pick also the second candidate from the party or coalition that won the largest share of the vote. This interpretation makes no sense, for both logical reasons – if the main PDK candidate failed to obtain a majority, why should the second-best PDK candidate succeed? – and systematic ones: as the president has a duty to ensure the survival of the parliament for its full four-year term, she must appoint the person who is most likely to obtain a majority, not a person who is almost certain to fail. Clearly, the adjective used by 95.4 – “appoints another candidate” – means that the second candidate must not just be a different person, which goes without saying, but must also represent a different political option. It follows that the president cannot appoint a PDK, or PDK-proposed, person as the second candidate: if she did so she would breach the constitution. In principle she is free to choose anyone who is likely to obtain a majority: but the existence of the anti-PDK alliance effectively removes her discretion, because – if the alliance will hold – none else but the alliance’s candidate will be able to form a government. At the second attempt, therefore, she must appoint this candidate.

Another provision is being debated in Kosovo. It is article 84.14 of the constitution, which, without distinguishing between first and second attempt, states that the president must appoint a candidate for the post of prime minister “after proposal by the political party or coalition holding the majority in the Assembly”. Whatever such the small differences between this text and that of 95.1 may mean, however, relying on this provision to solve the problem at hand would be entirely mistaken because article 84 is nothing more than a list of the powers of the president, each item of which refers to those other provisions of the constitution where such powers are regulated – and limited – in detail. Article 84.14, therefore, is but a reference to the president’s powers under article 95: one should read its text as though it said “the president appoints the prime minister as provided in article 95”. The text of article 84.14 is not binding, therefore, and it is not really a legal provision: it is like an entry in an index, and therefore has nothing to say on who, today, should be appointed prime minister. In a recent essay on the performance of Kosovo’s constitutional court, I illustrate how its judges and a previous president misused another item of article 84 – item 9 of the list, whereby the president “may refer constitutional questions to the Constitutional Court” – and how, in a subsequent judgement, the constitutional court flatly contradicted itself on this point.

In the hands of Kosovo’s institutions, however, article 95 could end up meaning very different things from what it says. If PDK shall so request them to do, both the president and the constitutional court – which is genuinely and consistently subservient to the élite, as I concluded in that essay – are likely to say that also the second mandate is to be granted to PDK. If this will happen Kosovo’s citizens will know that PDK is pursuing the plan I conjectured above. This would be a soft coup, which will merit an equivalent reaction by anyone who cares about the democracy of this country.

A first signal that PDK and the president are preparing to implement a coup emerged the other day, when the president again misused that same provision – article 84.9 – to request the constitutional court’s interpretation on who should be granted the mandate to form a government: this gives the court the opportunity to issue a ruling that will breach the constitution but will satisfie PDK’s demands. But although Kosovo accepted silently the election fraud of 2010, recent signs suggest that public opinion might react to this soft coup.

Thus PDK risks defeat whether it will comply with the rules, or whether if it will seek to bend them: either way, the words ‘political accountability’ will start to have a clearer meaning in Kosovo. Western diplomats in Pristina might be tempted to assist PDK’s plans, in order more easily to obtain progress on north Kosovo and the dialogue with Serbia. I trust that their capitals shall not allow this to happen, which would be a disgrace and a grave mistake: may they allow this polity to become more democratic instead, and this shall gradually solve north Kosovo too.

Andrea Lorenzo Capussela previously served as the head of the economics unit of the International Civilian Office (ICO).

This article was originally published by Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and is available by clicking here.

The post Kosovo At Critical Juncture – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

As South Sudan’s peace process stalls, questions are being raised about Uganda’s military involvement, with some analysts saying it is impeding regional efforts to broker a peace deal.

Although the 23 January Cessation of Hostilities Agreement signed by both principals in the conflict, South Sudan President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, called for the phased withdrawal of all foreign troops in South Sudan, the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) has yet to do so.

“We continue to support the implementation of the 23 January Cessation of Hostilities agreement, which called for the withdrawal of all outside forces from South Sudan,” Erin Rattazzi, acting spokesperson of the US Department of State’s African Bureau, told IRIN.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has hinted that Uganda would withdraw troops once the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional body mediating between the warring parties, of which Uganda is a member, deploys its Protection and Deterrent Force. But it is unclear when the force will become operational.

Securing Juba

In December, Museveni sent in military personnel and aircraft to stop what it later called a possible genocide from happening in South Sudan. Parliament retroactively authorized the mission, which was originally intended to evacuate thousands of Ugandan businessmen living in South Sudan, and protect key government interests, such as the airport and State House.

However, the role of the army changed to one of preventing a massacre from happening in Juba.

Museveni averted “colossal loss of lives and property” in the capital and prevented the South Sudanese government from retaliating to the advance of the White Army, made up of predominantly Nuer youth militia by mobilizing their own “allied ethnic groups to wreak havoc” according to Abraman Awolich, a founder of the Juba-based Sudd Institute.

“Given what unfolded after the so-called White Army, in their tens of thousands, took control of Bor, had they managed to reach Juba, genocide would have occurred because they had the intent to kill, loot and destroy both public and private property,” Awolich added.

It is unclear how much control Machar has over the White Army, and to what extent they would respect a ceasefire order.

“The breakdown of security and the rule of law during the post-CPA [Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed between Khartoum and South Sudan in 2005] era, especially in rural areas, has necessitated continued militarization of youth and the use of revenge to provide a sense of justice, including compensation for the loss of lives and property,” noted a report on the role of the White Army released in June by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

“While they cooperate militarily against the government in the current conflict, they have fought in parallel and under different command structures,” said the authors of the report.

While agreeing that Museveni “averted a disaster” and potential genocide in the capital, Panther Alier, a former “Lost Boy” who returned to do development work in the newly independent Republic of South Sudan believes that their help is no longer as needed. (The Lost Boys were orphaned children who trekked hundreds of kilometers to flee Sudan’s 1986-2005 civil war).

“Their presence at the moment is only to help psychologically,” he told IRIN. “This is only two battalions and their role in a protracted war would only be minimal.”

But, he noted, Ugandan troops “have done more good than harm.”

Uganda’s “one-sided” role

Some worry that Kampala is now contributing to the continued stalemate.

Akshaya Kumar, Sudan and South Sudan policy analyst at the Enough Project, said Uganda’s military actions have been “deeply politicized”, with the South Sudan government claiming that it was necessary to protect Juba, and the opposition using the intervention to delay implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement.

“Uganda’s continuing presence in the country undoubtedly affects the balance of power of the conflict,” she told IRIN. “For peace talks to yield a durable and holistic solution, a much more inclusive approach must be conceptualized. The withdrawal of Ugandan fighters and arrival other IGAD forces could serve as a significant point of leverage to ensure that these broad-based conversations are initiated.”

“Any presence of foreign troops in South Sudan has to be under the auspices of the regional bloc or the United Nations and the troops must come from countries perceived [to be] or that are actually neutral,” Nicholas Opiyo, a political analyst in Uganda, told IRIN.

“Uganda’s role in the conflict has been one-sided – not as referees but as fighters on the side of the Kiir forces. They are therefore part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution,” he said.

South Sudanese church groups have also argued that Uganda’s military role is problematic.

“Outside help is necessary, but should not be allowed to set local agenda for the process of peace and reconciliation,” Reverend Bernard Suwa, secretary-general of the Committee for National Healing, Peace and Reconciliation (CNHPR), told IRIN. “As you may be aware, war has since become an enterprise and we should not allow external forces to manipulate the process of reconciliation to their own selfish gain.”

Unfair criticism?

The South Sudanese ambassador to Uganda, Samuel Luate Lominsuk, however, disagreed strongly. “The call for Uganda to withdraw its troops from South Sudan is irrelevant. The troops are there to provide peace and security. The rebel delegation wants Ugandan troops out so that they can walk to the capital Juba to destabilize our country,” he said.

“Uganda will only pull out its troops after the deployment of IGAD regional Protection and Deterrent Force to fill the gap on the ground. If they leave without the IGAD force on the ground, this will create a vacuum to reverse the current peace and stability,” he added.

Ugandan President Museveni appeared to echo the sentiment. “We have no problem [withdrawing]. We don’t have any more to do there. We have achieved the purpose for which we deployed there, keeping peace and reconciling the two [Kiir and Machar],” he said. “We went there to stop fighting. We didn’t want South Sudan to collapse. Our brothers have a chance now to rebuild their country.”

But with peace talks adjourned for “consultations” following the boycott of the talks by the opposition on 10 June, it appears unlikely that Uganda will withdraw soon.

Regional tensions

Stephen Oola, a transitional justice and governance analyst at Makerere University’s Refugee Law Project, told IRIN that “peace in South Sudan is in the best interest of Uganda,” but Uganda’s military involvement would be unlikely to achieve that purpose.

“If peace-talks fail, and worse, if it fails because of Uganda’s action as a stumbling block, then history will judge us hastily and the consequences might be dire. Not only would IGAD as an institution for peaceful resolution of conflict amongst member states weaken, but it will be clear that Uganda is indeed an occupying force,” he said.

For some observers, self-interest also motivated Uganda’s military involvement.

“Yoweri Museveni assiduously cultivated close personal ties with South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir. The scenario most feared by Uganda is an outright victory by the opposition forces,” said Berouk Mesfin, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Africa. “This would lead to Kiir’s removal from power, which would be a strategic setback to Uganda and erode its capacity to influence future developments in South Sudan.”

It has led to increasing tensions among South Sudan’s other neighbours. “The conflict is already taking a regional dynamic,” said Opiyo. “The only difference is that these foreign countries have not been actively fighting against each other. The tensions, however, are clear.”

“Regionalization of this crisis would be very concerning. We are working closely with partners in the region, and especially with IGAD, to help facilitate a peaceful resolution to this conflict,” said Rattazi. “Their role has been critical in bring the parties to the table. We would oppose any effort by outside actors to expand or escalate the conflict.”

The post Should Uganda Withdraw From South Sudan? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The U.S. embassy in Uganda warned of a possible terrorist attack on Entebbe International Airport in Uganda.

The embassy said on its website that, according to intelligence sources, there is a “specific threat” that an unknown terrorist group will attack the airport Thursday, July 3rd, between the hours of 9 p.m. and 11 p.m (1800 GMT and 2000 GMT).

It said it received information on the threat from the Uganda Police Force.

The embassy warned people planning to travel through the airport that they may want to review their plans in light of the information.

Earlier, Obama administration officials said the U.S. plans to boost security at some foreign airports amid concerns that al-Qaida may be developing new bombs that could be smuggled onto an airplane.

U.S. Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson said the United States is increasing security at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the U.S. He gave no information on what prompted the latest move or which airports are involved.

On Thursday, the Associated Press cited U.S. counterterrorism officials as saying experts are concerned about a new al-Qaida effort to create a bomb that could be smuggled through security checks at airports.

The French news agency AFP reported that the increased security focused on airports in the Middle East and Europe. It cited an unnamed official at the Department of Homeland Security.

British airports also stepped up security measures after the announcement from the United States.

Johnson said Wednesday his department continually assesses the global threat environment and reevaluates measures to promote airport security.

The post US Warns Of Terrorist Attack On Ugandan Airport appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 troops to its 800km border with Iraq following an alleged withdrawal of Iraqi border guards amid the ongoing battles against Sunni Islamist militants. Baghdad denied pulling off the guards.

Saudi state-owned news channel Al Arabiya released a video apparently showing Iraqi soldiers saying the government ordered them to retreat from their positions along borders with Syria in the west and Saudi Arabia in the south despite no evident danger.

“We didn’t know why,” an officer says in the video, which was obtained by Al Arabiya’s sister channel Al Hadath. The report didn’t clarify whether the alleged withdrawal includes Iraq’s borders with Jordan and Kuwait, both in the southern part of the country, or Turkey in the north.

The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified, but the withdrawal report was denied by an Iraqi government spokesman.

“This is false news aimed at affecting the morale of our people and the morale of our heroic fighters,” the spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassim Atta, told reporters in Baghdad. He added that the frontier was “fully in the grip” of Iraqi border troops.

The Thursday deployment by Saudi King Abdullah is meant to protect the Sunni Islamic state against potential “terrorist threats” Saudi state news agency SPA commented.

Thousands of Indian Muslims volunteer to protect holy shrines in Iraq

Iraqi Shiite government is struggling to fend off the advancement of Sunni fundamental Islamists, who want to create an Islamic state on territories carved out of Iraq and Syria. Baghdad received only limited military assistance from the US, as Washington said it does not want to deploy ground troops in the country it once occupied.

The idea of such a deployment was also objected by Saudi Arabia, a fundamental Sunni monarchy and a long-time ally of the US.

So far the biggest military help Iraq has apparently received is from Shiite Iran.

The post Saudi Arabia Deploys 30,000 Troops To Border After Alleged Iraqi Withdrawal appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Israel’s military operations in the West Bank following the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers have amounted to collective punishment. The military operations included unlawful use of force, arbitrary arrests, and illegal home demolitions. During raids on Palestinian towns, refugee camps, and villages, Israeli forces have shot and killed at least five Palestinians and arrested and detained at least 150 more without charge.

The military says the operations are in response to the kidnappings and killings and intended to weaken Hamas, but the scale of arbitrary arrests and detentions, unlawful use of force, property destruction including home demolitions, and raids on homes and media offices raise the collective punishment concerns. Human Rights Watch investigated two of the deadly shooting cases and found that while some youths were throwing stones, there was no evidence that the victim or anyone in the line of fire posed an imminent threat to the lives of Israeli soldiers or others.

“Israel’s search for those responsible for the appalling kidnappings and killings of its citizens cannot justify unlawfully killing civilians, destroying property, and detaining hundreds of Palestinians without basic due process,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The teens’ killers should be brought to justice but mass punishment without trial merely creates more injustice.”

In addition, Israeli security forces should take all feasible measures to prevent reprisal attacks, Human Rights Watch said. News reports said that during demonstrations in Jerusalem on July 1, 2014, participants shouted “Death to Arabs” and attacked a number of Palestinian residents. Israeli settlers, in two separate incidents, reportedly ran over a 28-year-old Palestinian man near Hebron and a 9-year-old girl near Bethlehem in the West Bank on June 30, shortly after Israeli forces discovered the three Israeli teenagers’ bodies. News reports said on July 2, unknown attackers abducted Mohammed Abu Khudair, 17, a Palestinian boy from the Shufat neighborhood in East Jerusalem, and that a boy’s body, apparently Abu Khudair’s, was found in a Jerusalem forest later that day. Israeli authorities say they are investigating the incidents.

News reports stated that Israeli forces discovered the bodies of the teenagers north of Hebron, in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch condemned the June 12 abductions and killings of the Israeli teenagers near West Bank settlements. It is not clear which, if any, of the several Palestinian armed groups that separately claimed responsibility for the abductions is responsible for them or the killings. On June 26, Israeli authorities published the names of two Palestinian suspects they said were at large and affiliated with Hamas, though some reports indicated that the killers’ connection with Hamas may be tenuous. Hamas has denied responsibility.

On June 30, Israeli forces removed residents from and detonated explosives in the family homes of the two suspects, in Hebron, badly damaging the homes, and destroyed furniture and other property, based on news reports and photographs. Neither of the suspects has been charged or tried.

The Israeli military also used explosives to destroy the family home of Ziad `Awad, a Palestinian accused of killing an Israeli security officer, Baruch Mizrachi, in the West Bank in 2013, on the morning of July 2, 2014. `Awad’s wife, four children, and two other relatives had lived there, a witness told Human Rights Watch. On June 30, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal by HaMoked, an Israeli rights group, against the demolition, ruling that punitive home demolitions were a lawful form of “deterrence” under the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, which Israel incorporated into its law. Punitive home demolitions harm people because a family member is accused of a crime. They are collective punishment, which the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits in all circumstances.

Israeli forces have arrested about 700 Palestinians since June 12, 2014, and are currently detaining at least 450, some during the large-scale military incursions and others who are known supporters or leaders of the Hamas Reform and Change Party, which won Palestinian elections in 2006, according to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner’s rights group. The Israeli military justice system has confirmed the “administrative detention” of at least 150 of those arrested, Addameer reported, while the rest are expected to either be charged or subjected to administrative detention orders in the coming days. Under administrative detention orders, the Israeli military detains Palestinians for indefinitely renewable periods of up to six months, without charge or trial, and denies them the right to see or challenge any evidence against them.

Israel is holding a total of approximately 350 Palestinian “administrative detainees,” the largest number since 2009. It should charge them with a recognized criminal offense or release them, Human Rights Watch said.

“Throwing hundreds of people in jail and then keeping 150 of them detained without the most basic due process rights is blatantly unlawful,” Whitson said. “If someone is accused of kidnapping and killing the teenagers, the Israeli authorities should charge and try them, but flout the rule of law to detain others.”

In one of the shootings Human Rights Watch investigated, the Israeli forces fatally shot Ahmed Samada, 20, in the chest, in Jalazon refugee camp at about 2:15 a.m. on June 17, 2014. Camp residents told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces entered the camp and fired rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition at youth who were protesting and threw stones when Israeli forces approached.

Two witnesses, one who was with Samada and another who was in another building overlooking the scene, interviewed separately, said Samada was not throwing stones and was on a rooftop at the time. An Israeli military spokesperson told news media that Samada was shot after throwing a brick at Israeli soldiers. While Human Rights Watch could not determine whether Samada and others on the roof with him threw stones at the time, there is no evidence that Israeli forces faced any imminent lethal danger. Witnesses said that some Israeli forces were stationed behind a concrete wall and others around the corner of a building from the rooftop where Samada was standing, making it unlikely that they were in any imminent lethal danger. One witness said that he saw the Israeli soldier who shot Samada with live ammunition and that the soldier was standing behind a concrete wall about 30 meters away.

In the other shooting, Israeli forces entered Qalandia refugee camp in a similar early-morning incursion on June 20, and fatally shot Mustafa Aslan, 21, in the head when he went onto his roof to check whether they were damaging his father’s car, said one witness to the shooting and two others who helped move him downstairs afterward. Youth in the camp were throwing rocks at the forces, who fired rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition, but witnesses said Aslan did not throw stones and was shot almost immediately when he went to the roof. Aslan died from his head injury on June 25.

In both cases, Israeli forces temporarily refused to allow camp residents and the victims’ relatives to leave their homes to seek medical care, without apparent justification, witnesses said.

Based on news reports, investigations by Al-Haq, a Palestinian rights group, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and preliminary information gathered by Human Rights Watch, Israeli forces also shot and killed Mahmoud Dudeen, 15, on June 20 in the southern West Bank town of Dura, and Ahmad Khaled, 27, in al-Ein refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus on June 22. Mahmoud Tarifi, 31, was shot and killed in Ramallah in the early morning of June 22, when Israeli forces were present in the area.

Israeli forces reportedly shot and killed Yusef Abu Zagher, 18, on June 30, during clashes with Palestinian residents in Jenin. An autopsy determined that Sakher Abu al-Hasan, 17, from the community of Hamamat al-Maleh in the Jordan Valley, died of a bullet wound on June 21, in unclear circumstances; initial news reports stated he had stepped on a land mine. As of June 23, Israeli forces had shot and injured an additional 21 Palestinians with live ammunition since June 12, including during clashes in refugee camps, according to UN OCHA figures.

The Israeli military’s open fire regulations strictly limit the use of lethal force to life-threatening situations, as international law requires in such situations, but the record of Israeli forces shows that violating the regulations carries few penalties. Human Rights Watch has documented Israeli forces’ repeated use of excessive force, including unlawful lethal force, against Palestinians who did not pose an imminent lethal threat, most recently when Israeli forces fired live ammunition and killed two Palestinian boys on May 15.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem has documented at least 46 cases from 2005 to early 2013 in which Israeli forces killed Palestinians in the West Bank “by firing live ammunition at stone throwers.” Since September 2000, Israeli forces have killed more than 3,000 Palestinians who did not participate in hostilities, according to B’Tselem’s data. But the military justice system has convicted only six Israeli soldiers for unlawfully killing Palestinians, with the longest jail sentence seven-and-a-half months, according to Yesh Din, another rights group.
Human Rights Watch has called for Palestine to seek access to the International Criminal Court to deter serious international crimes by all sides.

“In case after case after case, Israeli forces are firing live ammunition from assault rifles at Palestinians armed with rocks or nothing at all,” Whitson said. “Since the military can’t be bothered to enforce its own regulations against these soldiers or the commanders giving them orders, it’s time for Palestine to go to the ICC.”

The post Israel: Serious Violations In West Bank Operations, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr. B. R. Deepak

In view of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Panchsheel) between India and China, the year 2014 has been declared as the year of friendly exchanges, and various activities have been planned throughout the year as part of the celebrations.

Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s China visit is just one of such activities. During his five day long visit between 26 and 30 June, he had talks with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice President Li Yuanchao. During his talks with Chinese leaders, he raised India’s concerns over border with China and China’s plans to build rail links with Pakistan through Pakistan-administered Kashmir. India and China also signed three MoUs that includes the establishment of Chinese industrial parks in India and China agreeing to allow Indian hydrological experts to conduct study tours in Tibet to monitor the flows and flood data of Brahmaputra River on its upper reaches. Given the primacy of trade relations between the two countries, Vice President was also companied by Minister of State for Commerce, Nirmala Sitharaman who in her talks with the Chinese leaders said that India was open to Chinese investment.

It is certain that China is proactive in its approach as far as Panchsheel is concerned; the principles have been enshrined in the constitution of China. China has reiterated time and again that these have become the norms of international relations in recent times. Irrespective of their incorporation in the constitution, China talked less about these and followed the ‘keeping low’ (韬光养晦) approach of Deng Xiaoping all along. Of late as the ‘keeping low’ approach gives way to more ‘assertive’ approach as regards economic and foreign policy related issues, demonstrated by its brawl with Japan in East China Sea and with Vietnam and Philippines in the South China Sea, and also the incorporation of ‘one belt one road’ (一带一路) strategy for building bridges across nations, China under Xi seems to have rekindled the spirit of Panchsheel. It is perhaps in this light that China has announced an award and scholarships to groups and individuals who have contributed to the promotion of Panchsheel. India on its part though part and parcel of the celebrations seems to have rescinded to passivity; the kind of enthusiasm it showed to these during the Nehru years is obviously not there. What are the reasons for such passivism? Is it owing to our policies in the 1950s and 60s or is it because of lackadaisical economic and foreign policy approaches?

It may be recalled that the extraterritorial rights acquired by British India in Tibet was the outcome of 1914 Anglo-British Trade Agreement initialed at Simla by the British, Tibetans and Chinese plenipotentiaries. The then Chinese government had repudiated this agreement as they objected to the border alignment between the Inner and Outer Tibet. Nevertheless, the agreement between Tibet and Britain was in force, and when the British transferred political power to the Republic of India, the extraterritorial rights were also transferred to the new government. India had its representatives at Lhasa, Gyantse and Yadong accompanied by a small escort. Between Sikkim and Gyantse there was a post and telegraph service and some rest houses. India continued the British policy of recognizing Tibetan autonomy under Chinese suzerainty, however, in somewhat ambiguous manner with the Republic of China (ROC) as well as the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, both the governments in China (ROC from 1912-49 and PRC from 1949-date) did not recognize the 1914 Agreement. Recognition to the agreement would have meant to recognize Tibetan identity as an independent nation.

After signing the 17-Point Agreement with Tibet in 1951, China had taken full control of Tibet including its foreign affairs. The erstwhile Tibetan Bureau of Foreign Affairs was abolished and replaced by Chinese Foreign Office (initially named as Foreign Affairs Support Office). Now the Indian and Nepalese Missions in Lhasa were the last two irritants in the Chinese eyes and were perceived as the residue of imperialist influences in Tibet.

On August 12, 1952, Zhang Jingwu, the Chinese representative at Lhasa communicated these guidelines to the Dalai Lama and Kashag. The Kashag remarked that they have received all the documents pertaining to the treaties Tibet had signed with the British and is prepared to discuss these with the Central Government. Yang (1992: 257) records that the process was stalled due to the interference from two Prime Ministers [Lukhangwa and Lobzang Tashi] who had opposed the Agreement of peaceful liberation of Tibet. On 14th, Zhang Guohua, the commander of the PLA in Tibet, informed the Kashag to convey it to the Dalai Lama that the Central Government has already decided to convert the Indian Mission at Lhasa into a consulate. Yang (1992: 257). On 14 June 1952, Zhou Enlai met Panikkar and pointed out that the Indian privileges in Tibet were the product of unequal treaties. Therefore, the Chinese Government was in favour of re-establishing the Indo-Tibetan relations through consultations. Since the resolution of Tibet problem would require considerable time and measures, the Chinese government was of the view that the Indian Mission at Lhasa may be converted into Indian consulate. In September 1952, government of India announced from New Delhi that as the Chinese government was now conducting Tibet’s foreign relations, the designation of the Indian representative at Lhasa would be changed to consul general and the trade agencies in Tibet would be under his supervision (Richardson: 1962: 196).

Under such circumstances, Zhang Jingwu and Yang Gongsu proposed to the Kashag that Tibet should sever its traditional ties with India; the Kashag was still hesitant and said it would study the matter and respond accordingly. The matter was delayed until mid October, when Zhang Jingwu and Zhang Guohua met the Dalai Lama and raised the question with him. According to Yang (1992: 259, emphasis added), the 14th Dalai expressed his approval and subsequently the Kashag made its reply on 6 September. The main points under reference were that India at present has very unreasonable footing in Tibet; we wish the Central Government would solve this proposition gradually. That India has stationed its troops in Tibet and has occupied Dawang [Tawang] etc. places. The Kashag would provide the Central Government relevant material and hope the Central Government would recover the lost territories. As regards India establishing consulate general at Lhasa, the Kashag approves of Central Government’s desire to handle Indian affairs under a unified command. It is also desired that all the traders entering India must apply for passport. Since Su Khang, the former head of the Tibetan Bureau of Foreign Affairs is dead, his responsibilities have been taken by Liu Xia, the Vice-Chairman of the Bureau in the newly established Foreign Affairs Support Office.

It is evident from Kashag’s reply that Tibet at insistence of China, attempted to express that there was no special relationship with India, irrespective of the fact that most of the Tibetan trade was with India. China was also successful in bringing up the question of “lost territories” in Kashag’s reply. This tacitly made Tibet to accept the fact that the 1914 Simla agreement with India was null and void, and more importantly, the boundary agreement signed by the Tibetan plenipotentiary Lonchen Shatra with the British had no validity. Meanwhile, China accused India for pursuing the old British policies in Tibet, for Indian envoys in Sikkim and Tibet time and again referred to Tibet as a country, and in the winter of 1952 when Tibetan traders went to India in large numbers to fetch huge quantities of goods that were in demand due to increased presence of the PLA in Tibet, the Indian government is said to have refused to grant visas on the Tibetan passports issued by China, for it asked them to acquire travel documents from the Indian Trade Representative at Yadong ( Yang 1992: 260-61).

Since 1950, China had employed thousands of PLA and Tibetan labourers on road construction. Within a span of four years they built 2000 kilometres of roads. The Qinghai-Tibet Highway was completed by the end of fourth year with the first vehicle reaching Lhasa on 15th December [1954], Roads linking Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse were also proceeding at a rapid pace (Shakya 1999: 121). Secondly, a hostile Pakistan on its western and eastern fronts that was part of America’s anti-communism coalition and was receiving American military aid also forced India to initiate a friendly policy towards China. In September 1953 Nedyam Raghavan, the Indian ambassador to China delivered a letter from Nehru to Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier that expressed India’s desire to open negotiations with China on bilateral issues. The subsequent consultations between the foreign affairs officials of both the countries resolved that negotiations should be held immediately. India appointed Raghavan, the Indian ambassador to China as plenipotentiary of the government of India and China appointed Zhang Hanfu, the Vice-Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs as its plenipotentiary.

The negotiations started in Beijing on 31 December 1953 and went on for four months. Contrary to the Indian approach towards these negotiations, China attached great importance to its “first ever negotiations with a non-socialist country” and set up a eleven member “Commission for Sino-Indian negotiations.” Yang (1992: 226, emphasis added) who represented the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs along with Zhou Enlai, writes that the Commission had its first meeting on 7 January 1954. Zhou Enlai made a speech and remarked:

“India has inherited some British privileges in Tibet. However, since the return of Tibet to the folds of motherland’s big family, India has accorded China an equal and reciprocal treatment albeit it still desires to maintain its privileges in Tibet. Nonetheless, it has agreed to recall its forces when it saw the futility of keeping them there. We may surmise that the stronger we emerge and the firmer all nationalities unite, Indian attitude is bound to change. China’s India policy should be to win India for peaceful-coexistence with us on the basis of five principles, to make her fight against the American invasion and war. On the other hand, the UK and the US exert great influence on India, and we have dispute with her on several issues. We should endeavour to influence and make her believe that our policy of peace has the force. During present negotiations, we are only prepared to negotiate the problems that are ripe, the problems that are not ripe, for example, the border problems including the “McMahon Line” by way of which Tawang and Loyul etc. regions that originally belonged to Tibet were ceded to India, would be regarded as outstanding issues and would not be raised due to insufficient material, however, would be raised at an opportune time.”

It could be gleaned from Zhou’s speech that China was willing to discuss the issues, which it thought were remnants of imperialist influence in Tibet. It was only interested in negotiating the issues of trade representatives, post and telegraph facilities and the Indian garrison in Tibet for now. China wanted to discuss Tibetan trade with India, as there were no effective supply routes with mainland China at that point of time. China was successful in scuttling Indian trade a few years later when it laid a strong network of roads that connected Lhasa with other Chinese cities. On the boundary question, China preferred to maintain silence and had decided that in case the Indian side raised the issue, it would simply say that it was difficult to reach an agreement at this stage. It is evident from the negotiations that China was bent on to “drive away the last imperialist influence” from Tibet. It is rather strange that why Indian side didn’t raise the border issue. The problem in fact would have opened the entire issue of boundary for discussion or negotiations. It would have been a trade off between India relinquishing its interests in Tibet and accepting it as a region of China, and the Chinese accepting the 1914 border alignment between Tibet and India. Therefore, it could be regarded as a diplomatic disaster for India.

Nevertheless, the negotiations went on and after four months an agreement was reached on various issues. On 29 April 1954, India and China signed the “Agreement Between the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China on Trade and Intercourse Between Tibet Region of China and India.” The main provisions of the Agreement and notes exchanged between the two governments provided:

1. The Government of India agrees that the Government of China may establish Trade Agencies at New Delhi, Calcutta and Kalimpong. Similarly, India may establish trade agencies at Yatung, Gyantse and Gartok.

2. Government of China agrees to specify Yatung, Gyantse and Phari as trade markets, India in turn named Kalimpong, Siliguri and Calcutta as trade marts.

3. Pilgrims from India may visit Kailash (Rimpoche) and Mansarovar (Mavam Tso) in Tibet and pilgrims from Tibet may visit Indian Buddhist sites such as Benaras, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya and Sanchi.

4. The traders and pilgrims from both India and China would carry passports and other travel documents issued by respective governments.

5. The Government of India would withdraw within six months from now; the military escorts stationed at Yatung and Gyantse in Tibet, and would hand over to the Government of China at a reasonable price 12 rest houses, the postal, telegraph and public telephone services together with their equipments.

It was the preamble of this agreement that included the so-called Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence or the Panchsheel, and it was agreed that the Agreement would remain in force for eight years. The Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) of 30 April 1954 lauded the “reestablishment of relations between India and China on new basis.” The Daily editorialised that relations between India and China in the “Tibet Region of China” were remnants of the British aggression against China in the past and therefore, were not the responsibility of the Government of India. In turn India thought that it had won the tacit acceptance of the McMahon Line by China, and that Panchsheel would guarantee her good neighbourliness from China.

The agreement of 1954 was indeed first confidence building measure (CBM) between India and China. Lauding the agreement Nehru spoke in the Parliament that “By this agreement we ensure peace to a very large extent in a certain area of Asia” and that by subscribing to these principles， “one could create an environment wherein it becomes a little more dangerous to the other party to break away from the pledges given (Deepak 2005: 154).”

It was sold aggressively by both India and China at various forums such as during the Afro Asian Conference in Bandung; and Colombo Conference in May 1954. During his India visit in 1954 and 1956, Zhou Enlai time and again emphasized the need to adhere to these principles. In a press conference on 27 June, Zhou further elaborated the principles of Panchsheel and allayed fears of neighbouring countries about Chinese brand of communism. He said,

“It is possible for various countries of world to have a peaceful coexistence irrespective of their size and social system. The people of each country should have the right to choose its way of life and system of governance, and should not be interfered by other countries. The revolution cannot be exported. At the same time, the common will of a nation in any country should not be interfered with. If all the countries of the world handle their relations in accordance with these principles, then the question of threat and invasion of one country by another does not arise, and the possibility of peaceful coexistence between the countries could be realised (Wang 1998: 97).”

According to Wang, Zhou also proposed to Nehru that by adhering to the Panchsheel, India and China should set an example to the world, proving that countries can coexist peacefully. Nehru in fact had been doing exactly the same thing. This is evident from his speeches during Colombo Conference. In a broadcast from Colombo Nehru (1996: 253) had emphasized the significance of Panchsheel and had remarked that although the political and economic structure of India and China were different, India was nevertheless able to sign an agreement with China on the basis of these principles. Since the Panchsheel in his view would guarantee peace in Asia, he recommended the concept to other members of Colombo Conference

Going by the arguments given by Nehru and Zhou Enlai, the CBM was aimed at creating trust and confidence in each other, and it did create the environment of peace and friendship, the atmosphere of Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai (Sino-Indian Brotherhood) could be rightly attributed to this CBM, albeit was hyped beyond reality by both the sides. Also as Swaran (1998: 505) puts it, “Indian response has to be understood in view of Nehru’s personality and beliefs, He had been India’s sole spokesperson on foreign relations and following the death of Gandhiji (1948) and Sardar Patel (1950) Jawaharlal Nehru had clearly emerged as the single most important leader of the monolith Indian National Congress…a man who sought security in peace..” The academics have looked these issues from differing perspectives. While some argue that the Dalai Lama’s escape and India granting asylum derailed the CBM (Swaran 1998) for India refused to renew it in 1962 at its expiry after eight years; Swaran also maintains Bhai-Bhai atmospherics and Nehru’s single handily China policy could be another reason; I believe more than anything, it was the Indian perception of entire border issue as well as the obduracy it showed towards the border negotiations with China. Had India handled the relationship carefully, perhaps we would not have wasted time on other CBMs including the latest Border Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in 2013. Many experts including the Chinese posit that the swap of Eastern and Western Sectors that points to the ground realities on border is the best possible and plausible solution to the border. It still remains, however, going by what Zhou Enlai meant in 1954, the contest for territories may indeed be a protracted one!

References:

Deepak, B R (2005) India and China 1904-2004: A Century of Peace and Conflict, Manak, New Delhi

Nehru, Jawaharlal (1996) Selected Speeches 1953-57, Vol 3, Publication Division, New Delhi

Richardson, H. E (1962). Tibet and its History. Oxford University Publication, London

Shakya, Tsering (1999). The Dragon in the Land of Snow: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947. Pimlico, London.

Singh, Swaran (1998) “Building Confidence with China” in Tan Chung (ed.) Across the Himalyan Gap, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Gyan Publishers, New Delhi

Wang, Hongwei, (1998). 喜马拉雅山情节：中印关系研究 ximalayashan qingjie: zhongyin guanxi yanjiu (The Himalayas Sentiment : A Study of Sino Indian Relations). China Tibetology Publication, Beijing.

Yang, Gongsu 杨公素(1992). 中国反对外国侵略干涉西藏地方斗争史 zhongguo fandui waiguo qinlue ganshe xizang difang douzhengshi ( History of China’s Struggle and Resistance to Foreign Invasion and interference in Tibet). China’s Tibetology Publications, Beijing.

(B R Deepak is Professor and Chair, Centre of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies JNU, New Delhi. The views expressed are his own)

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NATO-Russia cooperation on the missile defense system has been remarkable since its inception in 2003, but it is now perhaps on the brink of failure, both technically and politically. The goal of the project seemed precisely to exorcise the ghosts of the past between NATO and Russia. However, the Ukrainian crisis threatens instead to resurrect them.

At the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, NATO took the decision to start developing its own missile defense capabilities in Europe and invited Russia to cooperate in the project.

The NATO-Russia summit, held the day after the Lisbon NATO summit, was the starting point of cooperation on the “theater” missile defense (to protect the forces engaged in military operations). The summit also explored the possibility of establishing cooperation on the “territory” missile defense (to protect the population of all stakeholders).

Strangely, three and a half years after the Lisbon Summit, NATO is facing a crisis with Russia over Ukraine. In April, the foreign ministers of NATO members condemned Russia’s military intervention in Crimea and subsequently froze civil and military cooperation with Moscow while keeping open channels for political dialogue within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council, albeit only at ambassadorial and ministerial levels.

The suspension of all form of practical cooperation hinders the continuation of the dialogue with Russia on missile defense. In truth, though, the project has long been in trouble. It has been stalled more than once, the last time being in October 2013 when Russia asked to suspend it temporarily.

By the summer of 2012, a few months after the NATO summit in Chicago, Russia had already informed NATO members that it was not interested in their proposal to create two joint centers to develop NATO-Russia cooperation in the sphere of missile defense.

Even a second proposal from NATO to create a system of transparency on NATO’s and Russia’s missile defense capabilities was shun by Moscow. The cooperation got bogged down again after a joint “theater” missile defense exercise held in March 2012 in Germany.

Even the possibility of cooperation on “territory” missile defense, which both parties began to debate two years ago, was shelved. After several drafts of a document were reviewed – two dozen in total – at the end it was held in abeyance.

From 2011 onwards, the underlying concern expressed by Russia has been that NATO’s missile defense could undermine its nuclear deterrent. But is it really so?

For months most Western experts tried to understand how anyone could consider that a few dozen SM3 1A, 1B and 2A interceptors in Europe would attain such a rate of speed so as to be able to destroy Russian intercontinental missiles in flight.

For a time, Russia continued to claim to be concerned about the European dimension of the proposed missile defense system, but in 2012 it made it clear that its real concern was not so much related to the project as such, but to the possibility that the U.S. “global” missile defense may acquire a global reach – even to extend to Asia, and therefore on Russia’s Far East territories.

Finally, it emerged that Russia’s concerns about the future of nuclear deterrence related not only to missile defense, but also to the parallel development of other strategic capabilities by the United States, from conventional military hardware to the Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capable of hitting a target almost anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour.

Seen in this light, the debate on the alleged speed of some SM3 interceptors positioned in Europe did not touch the very core of the Russian concern and was therefore, in a sense, artificial.

In recent years NATO and Russia have also discussed the Russian proposal to create a joint missile defense system.

In Lisbon in 2010, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev proposed to develop such a system in which both sides would have defense territorial responsibilities. For example, Russia would have had, inter alia, the responsibility to defend the Baltic allies. Needless to say that the Baltic States were not pleased at all with this idea since they far more prefer to be protected by the Alliance as specified in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

The United States and NATO responded that the two sides should explore not so much the establishment of a common system but of two separate but coordinated systems from which mutual benefits would be drawn. In subsequent years, Moscow made it clear that it intended to maintain its defense without the involvement of a third party.

But is it possible to create bicephalous defense systems while not harboring the idea of relying on others for one’s own national security? The answer is no. That is why the debate on the common defense system has been for all intent and purposes an artificial one.

Under these conditions, and taking into account the lack of trust on the Russian stemming from the abandonment of the ABM treaty by the United States in 2002, the effort to reach an agreement with 29 countries on board is but an illusion. Also, how vain were the attempts to reassure Russia with political statements and the visions of a “new strategic partnership.

In Chicago in 2012 heads of states solemnly affirmed that NATO’s missile defense was not directed against Russia and that it would not reduce Russia’s strategic deterrent capability. However, Moscow held its ground; it continued to seek legal assurances on the missile defense system that the United States was not willing to consider as it saw on the Russian side an attempt to revive the ABM treaty.

In the summer of 2012 Moscow continued to stand firm on its red line on the missile defense project, began gradually withdrawing from the various ongoing projects, and refused to discuss the new proposals on the creation of jointly manned missile defense centers of NATO missile defense and a common transparency system on “missile defense programs through exchanges at the NATO-Russia Council”.

It is unfortunate that Moscow saw in the West’s offer nothing but mere crumbs. Had not the playing field being shadowed with mistrust on the Russian side something of mutual benefit and substance could have emerged from the cooperation.

The post NATO-Russia Relations: At Loggerheads Over The Missile Defense Projects – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By D Suba Chandran

It all started during the third week of last month in Pakistan. The Punjab police raided the office of Tahirul Qadri, the maverick “Visiting” political leader of Pakistan, in the garb of clearing the encroachments made as a part of securing the Minhajul Quran headquarters of the latter. In the process, there was violence, and few supporters of Qadri were killed during the police action.

Subsequently when Tahirul Qadri decided to come back from Canada to lead a revolution in Pakistan, his flight was re-routed to Lahore, instead of landing in Islamabad. By refusing to exit from the plane, but actively engage the media sitting within the place, not only he caused considerable mayhem, but also gained significant political mileage for himself.

What makes some of our politicians, who have left the country under one pretext or another to return? What do they gain in doing so, or do they play to a different script written by someone else within the country? And in the process, do they really add value to the democratic process, or end up in becoming a nuisance for themselves and the larger nation that they profess to serve?

Certainly, Tahirul Qadri is not the first political leader in Pakistan, who has decided to return. In the recent years, Pervez Musharraf returned to Pakistan after a self imposed exile; unfortunately, the return has been a huge disaster for him. He did not get the reception he expected, or thought he deserved. There were no mammoth rallies welcoming him back to Pakistan, nor the political paradigm within Pakistan shifted. For many he was just a former dictator and responsible for many of contemporary ills of Pakistan.

Worse, for Musharraf, the cases in judiciary and Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister did not help at all. More than being a saviour of Pakistan, he was treated as an accused and had to be hidden in the hospital. The media did not give a positive coverage, nor did the political parties which benefitted under his rule came openly for his support. Today Musharraf is a sorry figure within Pakistan’s political landscape. He would have been better, had he not returned to Pakistan.

Another leader, who had a totally opposite reception (to that of Musharraf) within Pakistan was Benazir Bhutto. Not just once, twice she came back from an exile and both time she got a historical reception. Following the death of Zia ul Haq, the then military ruler of Pakistan, Benazir returned to Pakistan in 1988; she was received by a mammoth crowd, ultimately resulting in her becoming the Prime Minister for the first time. Though her government did not complete the full term, the reception to her return was grand.

After another exile during the last decade during Musharraf’s period, she returned to Pakistan for the second time in 2007. She got a bigger reception; in fact those who opposed her return were so terrified about her leadership and the popular support, she had to be assassinated brutally while she was leading an election campaign.

Now back to Tahirul Qadri, he is neither Musharraf nor Benazir. He has a small constituency inside Pakistan. With no stretch of imagination, this constituency of Qadri, which is a part of his educational and social welfare institutions, can help their leader lead a revolution. Though he is also the leader of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), a political party founded in 1989 by himself, it hardly has any popular support and will find it difficult to garner votes and win seats in any free and fair elections.
In fact, it was the police action against his Headquarters by the Punjab Police, and the diversion of his plane from Islamabad to Lahore, which has provided him a larger profile. Why did the Sharif brothers commit such a blunder? And why did Qadri decide to return in the first place?

This is not the first time that Qadri had decided to return to Pakistan from Canada. Holding the citizenship of Canada, he came immediately before the elections in 2013. His objective at that time was confusing; in fact many within Pakistan believed he is playing someone else’s agenda (read the intelligence agencies) in terms of derailing the electoral process and democracy in Pakistan. His idea of creating a “revolution” in Pakistan in 2012 envisaged a “million men march” against corruption, dissolution of Parliament and impractical electoral reforms. Less than 30,000 people took part in his million men march; however, the much abused Zardari handled the Qadri “revolution” better by allowing his march, making his “million men” claim a popular joke in electronic and social media. Qadri was engaged politically by the government, resulting in signing a declaration but ending his return to Pakistan as a comical affair.

His second return last month was dealt differently by the Sharif brothers. As mentioned above, the Punjab Police used force, which was thoroughly rebutted by the media and people. Qadri did not become a hero, but the government was seriously criticized. Worse, was the decision to re-route his flight.

Why did the government get jittery? And what did Qadri achieve in his second coming. To the first question, perhaps the government, especially the Sharif brothers smell a conspiracy in his return. During the last few months, the civil-military relations within Pakistan appear strained. The decision to talk to the Taliban, the gap between the civilian and intelligence agencies in dealing with Hamid Mir and Geo Channel and the Musharraf trial had created tension between the Prime Minister and the GHQ.

The sudden decision by Imran Khan to question the election results along with Tahirul Qadri’s proposed revolution makes a section within the government to believe that there is a conspiracy by the military and intelligence agencies against the elected government.

The role of security agencies in the return of an exiled (self or otherwise) leader is a reality in this region. However, their success is dependent on the popular support for them. This is where, the Sharif brothers over did; they could have allowed Qadri to return and organise a “million men” march with 30,000 people; except for being a nuisance value and blocking the traffic and throwing the ordinary life out of normalcy for a couple of days in Islamabad, Qadri could not have achieve much. In fact, even today, after the mis-handling of his return, there is not much support for Qadri within Pakistan. Zardari did that and made Qadri a sorrow figure; Sharif brothers did the opposite and ended up increasing Qadri’s profile.

Besides the intelligence agencies, do other factors result in the return of these leaders? Perhaps, for few, such as Musharraf, there is a self perception of a messiah, who strongly believe that they could lead their country. Musharraf’s return was more a result of his own perception about his popularity, than based on any realistic assessment. There are many such individuals, not only in political field, but also in cultural, business and sports fields, who suffer from this messiah syndrome.

Finally, the sycophants and that small section, which would benefit monetarily, also play a substantial role in boosting the ego of the leaders, resulting in their return.

But have such returns helped the country? Except for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, there are no such case studies. This shows the need for a strong party network at the ground level and the political experience of leaders and the party as primary reasons for successful returns. Else, they will end up as disasters. South Asia has witnessed numerous such returns in different fields.

D Suba Chandran
Director, IPCS

By arrangement with Rising Kashmir

The post The Tahirul Qadri Affair – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Recently, Kyrgyzstan commemorated the fourth anniversary of the violence that shook its southern part back in 2010. Back then, over 100,000 Uzbeks had to leave Kyrgyzstan and seek refuge in Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the riots.

It all started as a simple brawl between groups of Kyrgyz and Uzbek youngsters in a casino in the city of Osh. Shortly thereafter, it took the form of a full-fledged ethnic violence. A lot many issues were highlighted by the incidents of 2010: Kyrgyzstan’s ever-subtle struggle for power and resources between the elites of Bishkek and their southern counterparts from Osh and Jalalabad, and the acute economic inequality between different communities, especially in the southern region of the country.

Going Back to 2010

April 2010 witnessed a revolution in Kyrgyzstan that eventually led to the elimination of the then President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Since Bakiyev was a southerner, the Kyrgyz elites of the north saw this as an opportunity to re-establish their control over the country, and for that matter, they sought and gained support from the Uzbek community too.

The southern Kyrgyz elites, for their part, mobilised the masses in their region, mentioning the ‘alliance’ between their northern counterparts and the Uzbeks. The general Kyrgyz populace of the country, especially the uneducated youth from the countryside of southern Kyrgyzstan, sided with the southern Kyrgyz elites and considered the Uzbeks as disloyal citizens of the country for having supported the northern folks.

The modus operandi here was simple: one side of the fence sought and gained support from the minority, whereas the other side inculcated nationalist feelings and viewed the minority as a disloyal diaspora.

Unfortunately, this intra-elite fight soon evolved into inter-communal violence. Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds were killed, and over 400,000 people were displaced, and the role of the police and state machinery was not praiseworthy. Had monetary interests not been at stake (Osh is one of the major drug hubs of Central Asia, and serves as a key point for Afghan heroin on its way to Europe and Russia), the violence would have taken even greater casualties in south Kyrgyzstan.

The Present Day

Four years later, the underlying issues that led to the violence in 2010 still stand tall — poverty, unequal distribution of wealth, poor political representation of minorities, corruption, and elite intrigues.

As a  matter of fact, the surge in Kyrgyz nationalism has singled out the Uzbeks as culprits of the violence, and even the country’s judiciary has pronounced the Uzbek minority lacking of patriotism.

On a more positive note, the current President, Almazbek Atambayev, has noticed the widening gap between the different sections of the society, and he has been trying to keep things together. In fact, in April 2013, President Almazbek convened a “Concept on strengthening national unity and inter-ethnic relations in the Kyrgyz Republic”, aiming to promote nationalism as well as multilingualism coupled with reconciliation between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek masses.

However, the said Concept has not achieved many concrete results. For instance, the scars of the 2010 violence are still fresh, and mutual suspicion between people still affect the harmony of Kyrgyzstan. Amidst all this, the elites of both the northern and southern Kyrgyzstan are preparing for the upcoming Parliamentary Elections (scheduled to be held in 2015) as well as the Presidential Elections (to be held sometime in 2017). Quite obviously, appealing to nationalist sentiments can offer political impetus, and as such, ethnic hostility does not seem to be fading away anytime soon.

Appraisal

On the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the 2010 violence, the Grand Mufti of Kyrgyzstan, Maksatbek Hajji Toktomushev, made a welcome gesture by urging all clerics of the country to focus their sermons on mutual reconciliation and harmony.

It is obvious that Kyrgyzstan’s current atmosphere of impunity is alienating the masses from each other. For the betterment of Central Asia in general and Kyrgyzstan in particular, both the Kyrgyz and Uzbek people need to reconcile their differences and move forward towards peace and unity.

The post Unity Is The Need Of The Hour In Kyrgyzstan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The new cabinet of Egypt headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab took the oath of office on June 17 after Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, former Minister of Defense who organized the 2013 coup d’état, became the next President after the election which took place on May 26-28.

The country’s new leader earned the support of more than 97% of the voting public, while Hamdeen Sabahi, representative of Egypt’s left movement and his only rival, earned approximately 3%. The turnout for this election, which was extended by one day, amounted to 48%.

During the election campaign, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared that he would place special emphasis on recovering the country’s economy and stabilizing the overall situation, as well as making the “Muslim Brotherhood” Islamist group cease its activities.

According to foreign reporters who provided extensive coverage of the election, the Egyptian people, who celebrated the fall of Hosni Mubarak, welcomed Mohamed Morsi’s oath of office and then demonstrated to have him ousted, now rush to provide assistance to the country’s new leader so that he would finally bring peace and order to the country.

The international analysts suggest that Egypt’s new President perfectly understands the responsibility on his shoulders, and the difficulties he must deal with in order to make a change for the better in the country exhausted by political and financial tempests.

The experts also highlighted the fact that the Egyptian people are tired of poverty, anarchy and terrorist attacks. For example, Atef Hamdy, specialist on the Middle East at “Clingendael,” the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, stressed that the country’s authorities must now work to restore the country’s security, economy and authority.

“Egyptian people and the leadership are revolution-fatigued. With the election of the President, it is now time to work and deal with the real problems of the people. Very important for the government and the President at this stage is to include and incorporate revolutionary voices, particularly the youth and other relevant political actors,” he said in an interview to “PenzaNews” agency.

According to the expert, in order to achieve that, the new authorities will have to work hard both internally and externally.

“The regime will need to consolidate its legitimacy by delivering. The country can not go on with borrowing and will need to have a well structured economic plan, not easy in a country such as Egypt with a balance of payment deficits and big debts,” Atef Hamdy emphasized.

Speaking of the country’s external policy, he suggested that Abdel Fattah as-Sisi will now pay special attention to relationship with the African countries.

“Egyptians increasingly realize that there is much to offer in Africa that has been very much neglected by the Mubarak regime,” the Middle Asia expert explained.

Hugh Lovatt, Middle East Peace Process project officer for the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that Egypt led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may also deepen the ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which are opposite to the “Muslim Brotherhood,” and may potentially establish closer relations with Israel.

At the same time, the expert pointed out that external policies will not be his focus, because internal issues are currently more severe and require immediate solution.

“The President’s main priorities will mostly be domestic in nature, including rescuing the Egyptian economy, as well as delivering on his electoral promise to restore security and stability to the country,” he explained.

However, Hugh Lovatt highlighted the fact that the country’s new leader has not yet presented the plan to achieve these results, and also suggested that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may try to rally the people against a perceived threat of terrorism or political Islam, should his support begin to decrease.

At the same time, Vladimir Ahmedov, Candidate of Historical Sciences and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, suggested that the results of the Egyptian election demonstrates the current trend of military people returning onto key positions, which is particularly noticeable in the countries affected during the Arab Spring.

“The Arab revolutions were followed by unprecedented growth of Islamist groups – not just moderate political Islam, but similar to what we now see in Iraq: violent extremist groups. The military are once again brought to the political forefronts as an antidote to such groups,” he explained.

In the expert’s opinion, the military men involved in the current government shuffle are not as revolution-inclined as they were in the 50-s or the 60-s. This, he suggested, makes it possible to presume that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will refrain from making fundamental changes in the country’s policy.

“He will try to follow the middle-of-the-road policies suitable for Egypt’s current position in the Arab world and in the region as a whole,” Vladimir Ahmedov clarified.

“The regime is currently being formed, and it is unlikely that el-Sisi will establish a military dictatorship. He will more likely try to win the trust of various political forces in order to expand his support among the people and break the image of a military man who came to power,” the Institute of Oriental Studies researcher added.

According to Kamal Sido, the head of Middle East Department of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), Egypt’s new authorities must not only solve the country’s most severe problems, but also focus on the citizens’ rights and the status of various social groups.

“For us, the organization that protects the rights of minorities, the state of the Coptic Christians – the largest Christian community in the Middle East – is very important,” he clarified.

The expert also added that the authorities must be just during the trials against the members of the “Muslim Brotherhood.”

At the same time, Kamal Sido noted that restoring security and travel industry in the country would help recover the economy.

“If there will be uncertainty with the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ or other Islamist powers within the country, this will negatively affect the travel industry, and el-Sisi and the Egyptian government understand that restoring security will help this sector develop,” he said.

According to the expert, the Egypt’s new President will try to return his country to its previous role in the Arab world.

In his turn, David Butter, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, suggested that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has no detailed program to save Egypt and especially the economy, which would be impossible to restore in short terms.

“I think from his speech he’d showed that he has not yet really given a lot of thoughts on economy and is stuck in a ‘learning mode’,” the expert explained.

However, he added that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may start the long-term recovery measures.

At the same time, according to David Butter, the foreign policy will shift towards the country’s Arab neighbors, and Egypt will not keep his ties with Qatar as warm as they were under Morsi, which can be caused by extended financial aid from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“Of course, Egypt will continue to have good relations with China, with BRICS countries, with Russia, and it will also continue to pay attention to its policy towards Africa,” he said.

Lastly, David Butter added that the closest next test for the Egypt’s new leader is the parliamentary election, where the MPs’ support is vital for governing the country.

“The President will need to have a majority in the new parliament, a bloc that is broadly in favor of him, and this will probably be achieved through the way in which the electoral law is framed. Perhaps a new block led by former colleagues of el-Sisi from the security regime will control the majority in parliament, which will enable him to carry out his policies,” the expert concluded.

On June 3, 2013, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Minister of Defense of Egypt, organized a coup d’état which ended in the overthrow of the previous President Mohamed Morsi as “failing his people,” and the arrests of more than 300 members of the “Muslim Brotherhood” Islamist party.

At the end of March 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced his decision to vacate offices and nominate himself for the presidency.

This article appeared at Penza News.

The post New Egypt Leader Must Recover Country’s Economy And Authority – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By C. Raja Mohan

When he inaugurates a small section — a 25-km link between Udhampur and Katra — of the long-awaited railroad to Kashmir this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should reflect on India’s failure to take its railways to the far-flung corners of the country. That China is now preparing to extend its railway into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir should stir Modi to recognise the significance of the railways for India’s national security and factor it into the rail budget to be presented to Parliament next week.

The railways were at the heart of modern India’s territorial construction. The railways were also critical in securing the undivided subcontinent against external powers and defending its vast frontiers. The Raj extended its railways in the late-19th century to the Bolan (Quetta) and Khyber (Peshawar) passes in the North-West Frontier, as Russia brought its railways to the Amu Darya to the north of Afghanistan and Germany sought to build a railroad from Berlin to Baghdad. The Raj also built a railroad to the northeastern frontier in Assam by the last decade of the 19th century.

The Great Game Folio

In the post-Independence period, New Delhi’s appreciation of the importance of railways in promoting national unity and frontier security began to diminish. The partition of the subcontinent and Delhi’s inward economic orientation helped blur a strategic conception of railways. Making matters worse, the provincialism of the railway ministry’s political leadership in recent decades played havoc with what was one of the world’s greatest institutions. Having gained political control of the ministry, Modi has the opportunity to put the Indian Railways (IR) back at the centre of the nation’s strategies for development and security. He must also revitalise India’s impressive tradition of building railroads in other countries.

Khunjerab Pass

If India neglected one of the world’s largest rail networks inherited from the Raj, China has dramatically expanded its railways as part of a strategy to deepen internal and external connectivity. Last week, Beijing announced plans to build a railway line across the Khunjerab Pass, which links the Xinjiang province in western China with PoK. The project is part of a proposed transport corridor from Xinjiang’s Kashgar hub to the Gwadar port on Pakistan’s Makran coast and integral to Chinese president Xi Jinping’s ambitious Silk Road strategy.

The Indian reaction has focused on the fact that the Khunjerab railway runs through PoK and whether Vice President Hamid Ansari, who was in Beijing a few days ago, objected to the project. This formalism, however, misses the main point. China has been raising its profile in PoK ever since it built the Karakoram Highway four decades ago. Since then, India’s protests have made little difference to the realities on the ground. The problem for India is not about China operating in disputed territory. The challenge is about responding to China’s extraordinary railway projects that are transforming the geopolitics of India’s frontiers.

Over the last decade and a half, China brought the South Xinjiang Railway to Kashgar, an ancient town with deep links to the subcontinent; it built the impossible Tibet Railway to Lhasa and plans to extend it to the border with Nepal and Bhutan. It also has plans to build a railway line between the Bay of Bengal and Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province north of Myanmar.

Modi, the bold?

India’s answer can’t lie in more protests to Beijing. Delhi must focus ¬instead on rapidly modernising IR, ¬extending it to the border regions, and moving it across the frontiers to ¬neighbouring countries.

In Jammu later this week, Modi must outline some ambitious goals and make them part of the rail budget. He could promise to complete, on a war-footing, the railroad to Srinagar, which was first mooted way back in 1898 by Maharajah Pratap Singh. He could commit the government to expand the rail networks in the northeastern region. Equally important is a vision for expansive railway cooperation with the neighbours. India can easily improve rail connectivity with Bangladesh and Nepal and extend the rail network into Bhutan. He could offer to work with Pakistan in upgrading the shared rail networks.

Modi might even imagine India building a railroad from Varanasi to Kathmandu and from Rameshwaram to Talaimannar in northern Sri Lanka. Only a bold transborder vision for the railways can help India cope with China’s Silk Road initiatives in the subcontinent.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a Contributing Editor for ’The Indian Express’)

Courtesy : The Indian Express, July 2, 2014

The post Kashmir Rail – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US gave its National Security Agency the authority to spy on every Balkan country, according to a leaked government document published by the Washington Post.

The document published on Tuesday by the Washington Post said that the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010 gave the National Security Agency, NSA the right to target every country in the world recognised by the US except Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The document was part of a cache leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The certification gives the NSA legal authority to gather intelligence on any country on the list, including the collection of e-mails or phone calls.

The information must be related to a foreign intelligence requirement, of which the Washington Post said there are thousands.

Serbian media outlets have speculated that the NSA’s interest in Serbia stems from Belgrade’s close ties to Moscow.

“It is certain that because of Serbia’s relationship with Russia, the communications of local politicians are also of interest,” Serbian daily newspaper Blic quoted an anonymous source from the Serbian Military Security Agency as saying.

Belgrade has refused to support sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis. The Serbian prime minister and president believe that “Russia is a vital ally for Serbia”, an EU source told BIRN this week.

This revelation coincides with recent allegations of a secret surveillance deal between the NSA and 33 countries, including Macedonia, Croatia, and Romania.

The cooperating countries are alleged to have given the NSA access to fibre-optic cables carrying huge volumes of foreign internet data.

The post Intelligence Leak Reveals US Surveillance In Balkans appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spain’s recorded unemployment fell by 122,684 in June on the previous month and the total number of unemployed registered with the Public Employment Services stood at 4,449,701.

Unemployment fell by 16,113 in seasonally-adjusted terms, which compares with an average increase of over 22,000 in the last five years. This is also the largest decrease in seasonally-adjusted unemployment in June since 2001. According to the State Secretary for Employment, Engracia Hidalgo, “unemployment has fallen in seasonally-adjusted terms for 11 consecutive months. Such a prolonged downward trend has not been recorded since 1999″.

Recorded unemployment has fallen by 313,979 over the last 12 months. “The year-on-year rate, which recorded a negative result in October for the first time since May 2007, continues to fall and now stands at -6.59%. We now have an accumulated reduction of more than 19 points since the all-time high of +12.5% was posted in May 2012, just two years ago”, stressed the State Secretary for Employment, who also stressed that recorded unemployment in the first half of 2014 posted “the highest accumulated reduction in a single six-month period since current records began”, down by 251,637.

Falling youth unemployment

Recorded unemployment among the under-25s has fallen by 39,042 over the last 12 months, which is a year-on-year decrease of 9.2%.

Recorded unemployment fell in all 17 autonomous regions, led by Catalonia (-22,090), the Region of Madrid (-15,435) and Andalusia (-14,712).

By economic sector, when compared with May, the number of registered unemployed from the service sector fell by 83,605 (-2.89%), from the construction sector by 19,141 (-3.22%) and from the industrial sector by 15,510 (-3.23%). It rose among those from the farming and fisheries sector by 4,658 (+2.16%). Finally, the number of first-time job-seekers fell by 9,086 (2.35%).

Strong growth in permanent employment

The number of new employment contracts recorded in June amounted to 1,518,873. This represents an increase of 241,618 (18.92%) on the same month of 2013. In turn, the accumulated number of employment contracts in the first six months of 2014 amounted to 7,840,735. This represents 1,105,789 more employment contracts (16.42%) than in the same period last year.

A total of 110,258 permanent employment contracts were recorded in June 2014. This represents an increase of 22,909 (26.23%) on the same month last year. An accumulated total of 658,465 permanent employment contracts were recorded to June 2014. This represents an increase of 86,650 (15.15%) on the same month of 2013.

The number of training and apprenticeship contracts continue to post highly positive results. A total of 14,184 such contracts were signed in June, which is 57.5% more than in June 2013. In addition, 6,147 work experience contracts were signed this month, representing an increase of 49.6% on the same month of 2013.

There were a total of 2,487,956 unemployment benefit recipients in May 2014, with the amount of benefits paid out by the system amounted to 2 billion euros.

The post Spain: Recorded Unemployment Falls By 122,684 In June appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has allegedly taken over control of Syria’s largest oil field, according to the Associated Press Thursday.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AP that ISIS seized the Al Omar oil field in the Deir Ezzor province Thursday.

The Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, who allegedly controlled the field along with several other Islamist groups since November, left the field to ISIS “without firing a bullet,” reported the Observatory.

The oil field, which lies on the Syria-Iraq border has been in control of various groups since the start of Syria’s conflict over three years ago. Regime forces controlled the field until November last year.

Original article

The post ISIS Takes Control Of Syria’s Largest Oil Field appeared first on Eurasia Review.

How nutrients are metabolised and how neurons communicate in the brain are just some of the messages coded by the 3 billion letters that make up the human genome. The detection and characterisation of the genes present in this mass of information is a complex task that has been a source of ongoing debate since the first systematic attempts by the Human Genome Project more than ten years ago.

A study led by Alfonso Valencia, Vice-Director of Basic Research at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and head of the Structural Computational Biology Group, and Michael Tress, researcher at the Group, updates the number of human genes –those that can generate proteins– to 19,000; 1,700 fewer than the genes in the most recent annotation, and well below the initial estimations of 100,000 genes. The work, published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, concludes that almost all of these genes have ancestors prior to the appearance of primates 50 million years ago.

“The shrinking human genome,” that’s how Valencia describes the continuous corrections to the numbers of the protein-coding genes in the human genome over the years that has culminated in the approximately 19,000 human genes described in the present work. “The coding part of the genome [which produces proteins] is constantly moving,” he adds: “No one could have imagined a few years ago that such a small number of genes could make something so complex.”

The scientists began by analysing proteomics experiments; proteomics is the most powerful tool to detect protein molecules. In order to determine a map of human proteins the researchers integrated data from seven large-scale mass spectrometry studies, from more than 50 human tissues, “in order to verify which genes really do produce proteins ” says Valencia.

Fewer Than Ten New Genes Separate Mice And Men

The results brought to light just over 12,000 proteins and the researchers mapped these proteins to the corresponding regions of the genome. They analysed thousands of genes that were annotated in the human genome, but that did not appear in the proteomics analysis and concluded: “1,700 of the genes that are supposed to produce proteins almost certainly do not for various reasons, either because they do not exhibit any protein coding features, or because the conservation of their reading frames does not support protein coding ability, “says Tress.

One hypothesis derived from the study is that more than 90% of human genes produce proteins that originated in metazoans or multicellular organisms of the animal kingdom hundreds of millions of years ago; the figure is over 99% for those genes whose origin predates the emergence of primates 50 million years ago.

“Our figures indicate that the differences between humans and primates at the level of genes and proteins are very small,” say the researchers. David Juan, author and researcher in the Valencia lab, says that “the number of new genes that separate humans from mice [those genes that have evolved since the split from primates] may even be fewer than ten.” This contrasts with the more than 500 human genes with origins since primates that can be found in the current annotation. The researchers conclude: “The physiological and developmental differences between primates are likely to be caused by gene regulation rather than by differences in the basic functions of the proteins in question.”

Doing More With Less

The sources of human complexity lie more in how genes are used rather than on the number of genes, in the thousands of chemical changes that occur in proteins or in the control of the production of these proteins by non-coding regions of the genome, which comprise 90% of the entire genome and which have been described in the latest findings of the international ENCODE project, a Project in which the Valencia team participates.

The work brings the number of human genes closer to other species such as the nematode worms Caenorhabditis elegans, worms that are just 1mm long, but apparently less complex than humans. But Valencia prefers not to make comparisons: “The human genome is the best annotated, but we still believe that 1,700 genes may have to be re-annotated. Our work suggests that we will have to redo the calculations for all genomes, not only the human genome.”

The research results are part of GENCODE, a consortium which is integrated into the ENCODE Project and formed by research groups from around the world, including the Valencia team, whose task is to provide an annotation of all the gene-based elements in the human genome.

“Our data are being discussed by GENCODE for incorporation into the new annotations. When this happens it will redefine the entire mapping of the human genome, and how it is used in macro projects such as those for cancer genome analysis “, says Valencia.

The post Size Of Human Genome Reduces To 19,000 Genes appeared first on Eurasia Review.

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part,” wrote Herman Melville in Moby Dick. Today, we no longer dread whales, but their subtlety remains.

“For a long time, whales have been considered too rare to make much of a difference in the oceans,” notes University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman. That was a mistake.

In a new paper, Roman and a team of biologists have tallied several decades of research on whales from around the world; it shows that whales, in fact, make a huge difference—they have a powerful and positive influence on the function of oceans, global carbon storage, and the health of commercial fisheries.

“The decline in great whale numbers, estimated to be at least 66% and perhaps as high as 90%, has likely altered the structure and function of the oceans,” Roman and his colleagues write in the July 3, 2014, online edition of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, ” but recovery is possible and in many cases is already underway.”

“The continued recovery of great whales may help to buffer marine ecosystems from destabilizing stresses,” the team of scientists writes. This recovered role may be especially important as climate change threatens ocean ecosystems with rising temperatures and acidification.

“As long-lived species, they enhance the predictability and stability of marine ecosystems,” Roman said.

Baleen and sperm whales, known collectively as the “great whales,” include the largest animals to have ever lived on Earth. With huge metabolic demands—and large populations before humans started hunting them—great whales are the ocean’s ecosystem engineers: they eat many fish and invertebrates, are themselves prey to other predators like killer whales, and distribute nutrients through the water. Even their carcasses, dropping to the seafloor, provide habitat for many species that only exist on these “whale falls.” Commercial whaling dramatically reduced the biomass and abundance of great whales.

“As humpbacks, gray whales, sperm whales and other cetaceans recover from centuries of overhunting, we are beginning to see that they also play an important role in the ocean,” Roman said. “Among their many ecological roles, whales recycle nutrients and enhance primary productivity in areas where they feed.” They do this by feeding at depth and releasing fecal plumes near the surface—which supports plankton growth—a remarkable process described as a “whale pump.” Whales also move nutrients thousands of miles from productive feeding areas at high latitudes to calving areas at lower latitudes.

Sometimes, commercial fishermen have seen whales as competition. But this new paper summarizes a strong body of evidence that indicates the opposite can be true: whale recovery “could lead to higher rates of productivity in locations where whales aggregate to feed and give birth,” supporting more robust fisheries.

As whales recover, there may be increased whale predation on aquaculture stocks and increased competition—real or perceived—with some commercial fisheries. But the new paper notes ” a recent investigation of four coastal ecosystems has demonstrated the potential for large increases in whale abundance without major changes to existing food-web structures or substantial impacts on fishery production.”

In death, whale carcasses store a remarkable amount of carbon in the deep sea and provide habitat and food for an amazing assortment of creatures that only live on these carcasses. “Dozens, possibly hundreds, of species depend on these whale falls in the deep sea,” Roman notes.

“Our models show that the earliest human-caused extinctions in the sea may have been whale fall invertebrates, species that evolved and adapted to whale falls,” Roman said, “These species would have disappeared before we had a chance to discover them.”

Until recently, ocean scientists have lacked the ability to study and observe directly the functional roles of whales in marine ecosystems. Now with radio tagging and other technologies they can better understand these roles. “The focus of much marine ecological research has been on smaller organisms, such as algae and planktonic animals. These small organisms are essential to life in the sea, but they are not the whole story,” Roman said.

New observations of whales will provide a more accurate understanding of historical population dynamics and “are likely to provide evidence of undervalued whale ecosystem services,” note the ten scientists who co-authored this new paper, “this area of research will improve estimates of the benefits—some of which, no doubt, remain to be discovered—of an ocean repopulated by the great whales.”

The post Whales As Ecosystem Engineers appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Various manual tasks in everyday life require the use of the right hand or are optimized for right-handers. Around 90 percent of the general population is right-handed, only about 10 percent is left-handed.

A study of Ulrich Tran, Stefan Stieger, and Martin Voracek comprised two large and independent samples of nearly 13,000 adults from Austria and Germany. As in modern genetic studies, where a discovery-and-replication-sample design is standard, the use of two samples allowed testing the replicability and robustness of findings within one-and-the-same study. Overall, 7.5 percent of women and 8.8 percent of men were left-handed.

“We were surprised to see that this imbalance was caused by more left-handed men being born specifically during November, December, and January. On a monthly average, 8.2 percent of left-handed men were born during the period February to October. During November to January, this number rose to 10.5 percent”, according to Ulrich Tran, lead author of the study.

A hormonal cause during embryonic development

“Presumably, the relative darkness during the period November to January is not directly connected to this birth seasonality of handedness. We assume that the relative brightness during the period May to July, half a year before, is its distal cause”, explains Ulrich Tran.

A theory, brought forth in the 1980s by US neurologists Norman Geschwind and Albert Galaburda, posits that testosterone delays the maturation of the left brain hemisphere during embryonic development. The left brain hemisphere is dominant among right-handers, the right brain hemisphere is dominant among left-handers. Intrauterine testosterone levels are higher in the male fetus, because of its own testosterone secretion, than in the female fetus. However, the testosterone level of the mother and external factors may also affect intrauterine testosterone levels. Specifically, more daylight may increase testosterone levels, making a seasonality effect plausible.

Previous studies on the subject provided mixed and inconsistent evidence. There was no clear indication which season has an effect, and whether seasonality affects men, women or both sexes equally.

According to the current findings, there is a small, but robust and replicable, effect of birth seasonality on handedness, affecting only men. These results are consistent with a hormonal basis of handedness, corroborating thus an old and controversial theory. However, the exact way of causation needs to be investigated in future studies.

The post More Left-Handed Men Are Born During The Winter appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On Monday the Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Affordable Care Act, ruling that privately-owned corporations don’t have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the corporate owners’ religious beliefs.

The owners of Hobby Lobby, the plaintiffs in the case, were always free to practice their religion. The Court bestowed religious freedom on their corporation as well – a leap of logic as absurd as giving corporations freedom of speech. Corporations aren’t people.

The deeper problem is the Court’s obliviousness to the growing imbalance of economic power between corporations and real people. By giving companies the right not offer employees contraceptive services otherwise mandated by law, the Court ignored the rights of employees to receive those services.

(Justice Alito’s suggestion that those services could be provided directly by the federal government is as politically likely as is a single-payer federal health-insurance plan – which presumably would be necessary to supply such contraceptives or any other Obamacare service corporations refuse to offer on religious grounds.)

The same imbalance of power rendered the Court’s decision in “Citizens United,” granting corporations freedom of speech, so perverse. In reality, corporate free speech drowns out the free speech of ordinary people who can’t flood the halls of Congress with campaign contributions.

Freedom is the one value conservatives place above all others, yet time and again their ideal of freedom ignores the growing imbalance of power in our society that’s eroding the freedoms of most people.

This isn’t new. In the early 1930s, the Court trumped New Deal legislation with “freedom of contract” – the presumed right of people to make whatever deals they want unencumbered by federal regulations. Eventually (perhaps influenced by FDR’s threat to expand the Court and pack it with his own appointees) the Court relented.

But the conservative mind has never incorporated economic power into its understanding of freedom. Conservatives still champion “free enterprise” and equate the so-called “free market” with liberty. To them, government “intrusions” on the market threaten freedom.

Yet the “free market” doesn’t exist in nature. There, only the fittest and strongest survive. The “free market” is the product of laws and rules continuously emanating from legislatures, executive departments, and courts. Government doesn’t “intrude” on the free market. It defines and organizes (and often reorganizes) it.

Here’s where the reality of power comes in. It’s one thing if these laws and rules are shaped democratically, reflecting the values and preferences of most people.

But anyone with half a brain can see the growing concentration of income and wealth at the top of America has concentrated political power there as well — generating laws and rules that tilt the playing field ever further in the direction of corporations and the wealthy.

Antitrust laws designed to constrain monopolies have been eviscerated. Competition among Internet service providers, for example, is rapidly disappearing – resulting in higher prices than in any other rich country. Companies are being allowed to prolong patents and trademarks, keeping drug prices higher here than in Canada or Europe.

Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.

The value of real property (the major asset of the middle class) is taxed annually, but not the value of stocks and bonds (where the rich park most of their wealth).

Bankruptcy laws allow companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student loans.

The minimum wage is steadily losing value, while CEO pay is in the stratosphere. Under U.S. law, shareholders have only an “advisory” role in determining what CEOs rake in.

Public goods paid for with tax revenues (public schools, affordable public universities, parks, roads, bridges) are deteriorating, while private goods paid for individually (private schools and colleges, health clubs, security guards, gated community amenities) are burgeoning.

I could go on, but you get the point. The so-called “free market” is not expanding options and opportunities for most people. It’s extending them for the few who are wealthy enough to influence how the market is organized.

Most of us remain “free” in limited sense of not being coerced into purchasing, say, the medications or Internet services that are unnecessarily expensive, or contraceptives they can no longer get under their employer’s insurance plan. We can just go without.

We’re likewise free not to be burdened with years of student debt payments; no one is required to attend college. And we’re free not to rent a place in a neighborhood with lousy schools and pot-holed roads; if we can’t afford better, we’re free to work harder so we can.

But this is a very parched view of freedom.

Conservatives who claim to be on the side of freedom while ignoring the growing imbalance of economic and political power in America are not in fact on the side of freedom. They are on the side of those with the power.

The post Freedom, Power And The Conservative Mind – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In early June, we learned that over two million (of a total of eight million) Obamacare applications lacked income, citizenship, or immigration data to verify eligibility for Obamacare’s tax credits. In the middle of the month, the Obama administration began contacting “hundreds of thousands of people with subsidized health insurance to resolve questions about their eligibility, as consumer advocates express concern that many will be required to repay some or all of the subsidies.”

Now, the Inspector General (IG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed that the agency was lax in preventing ineligible enrollments: “The deficiencies in internal controls that we identified may have limited the marketplaces’ ability to prevent the use of inaccurate or fraudulent information when determining eligibility of applicants for enrollment…”

That’s putting it mildly. Far worse is that the IG is unable to investigate eligibility based on income or residency because the IRS and Social Security Administration appear not to be cooperating with the investigation (pp. iv-v):

During our fieldwork, questions arose concerning OIG’s access under the Internal Revenue Code to Federal taxpayer information that IRS provides to marketplaces. We sought authorization from IRS to access that information. Because the request was still pending when we had completed our data collection, we did not review supporting documentation for certain eligibility requirements, such as annual household income and family size, for the purpose of this report.3 As a result, we could not evaluate whether each marketplace determined the 45 sample applicants’ eligibility for advance premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions according to Federal requirements.

Further, we did not determine whether information submitted by the 45 sample applicants at each marketplace was inaccurate or fraudulent because we could not independently verify the accuracy of data stored at other Federal agencies, e.g., IRS and SSA. Instead, we focused our review on determining the effectiveness of internal controls for processing that data and addressing inconsistencies in eligibility data when identified by the marketplace.

(Note: “Marketplace” is the bureaucratic term for an Obamacare health-insurance exchange, not an actual marketplace.)

The victims of this apparent stonewalling include those who were misled by Obamacare “navigators” into applying for subsidized coverage in the Obamacare exchanges. Remember, these people did not actually receive tax credits themselves; those were paid directly to health insurers. However, if the beneficiaries were ineligible for subsidies, the IRS will be coming after them, not their health insurers, to be paid back.

The IRS and other federal agencies have a responsibility to come clean about their part in the fiasco of Obamacare’s open enrollment. Perhaps more Congressional oversight and investigation are required.

The post Another Cover-Up? IRS And Social Security Administration Not Cooperating With Obamacare Fraud Investigation – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.