Extreme heat from a massive supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park is melting a major roadway at the popular summertime tourist attraction. Park officials have closed the area to visitors.

Firehole Lake Drive, a 3-mile-plus offshoot of the park’s Grand Loop that connects the Old Faithful geyser and the Madison Junction, is currently off limits. Park operators say the danger of stepping on seemingly solid soil into severely hot water is “high.”

“It basically turned the asphalt into soup. It turned the gravel road into oatmeal,” Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said.

The affected roadway offers access to the Great Fountain Geyser, White Dome Geyser, and Firehole Lake.

“There are plenty of other great places to see thermal features in the park,” park public affairs chief Al Nash told The Weather Channel. “I wouldn’t risk personal injury to see these during this temporary closure.”

While thermal activity under the park often gives way to temperature fluctuations that can soften asphalt throughout Yellowstone, Hottle said the latest wave seems worse than usual.

“But it’s hard to tell if a thermal area is hotter than normal, because it’s always fluctuating here,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Road closures are business as usual for us.”

Maintenance workers now must lift the melted asphalt from the roadway, then apply sand and lime to soak up any remains, according to Hottle.

The spokesman said he hopes the road will be reopened by next week, adding that he does not believe the activity will significantly curb visits to the park.

Yellowstone’s supervolcano last erupted about 640,000 years ago, according to US Geological Survey records.

Last December, geologists reported that the magma reservoir under the supervolcano is two-and-a-half times larger than previous estimates.

“That’s not to say it’s getting any bigger,” said analysis team scientist James Farrell of the University of Utah. “It’s just that our ability to see it is getting better.”

The supervolcano has the potential to spew more than 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers) of magma across Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

“We believe it will erupt again someday, but we have no idea when,” Farrell told National Geographic.

In March, a viral video of bison stampeding through the park gave rise to rumors of an imminent eruption.

The post Some Roads Closed In Yellowstone As Supervolcano ‘Turned The Asphalt Into Soup’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Hamas has carried out a drone surveillance mission over the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, its military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam said Monday.

“Today we reveal for the first time that our drones carried out specific missions during one of their sorties over the Zionist War Ministry in Tel Aviv, in which the aggression on Gaza is led,” the group said in a statement, according to the Quds news website.

The statement said that the group had launched several drone missions Monday morning but contact was lost with two drones during the missions.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it had downed an unmanned drone near the southern city of Ashdod. The military said the drone had come from Gaza and was shot down Monday by a Patriot missile.

Ezzedine al-Qassam said it had manufactured three models of unmanned drones, calling them “Ababil 1,” and that the drones have been flown before into Israel’s interior without being detected.

“Hamas is trying everything it can to produce some kind of achievement and it is crucial that we maintain our high state of readiness,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said. “The shooting down of a drone this morning by our air defense system is an example of their efforts to strike at us in any way possible.”

This would be the first launch of drones from Gaza since the beginning of the latest Israeli offensive on the coastal enclave. The death toll has risen to more than 170 since Israel launched air raids on Gaza early last week in response to increasing rocket fire from the territory.

Original article

The post Hamas Claims Successful Drone Surveillance Mission Over Israel Achieved appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Sanchita Bhattacharya

On June 25, 2014, a US State Department media note announced amendments to the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity designations of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to add the following aliases: Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, and Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal. In conjunction with these actions, the Department of the Treasury also designated two LeT senior members as SDGTs – Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry and Muhammad Hussein Gill. Ahmad has been a senior leader of LeT since the early 2000s, and has served as its ‘vice-president’, and a member of its central leadership. Hussein Gill, one of the group’s founders, has been an accountant for the LeT for more than ten years and, more specifically, has served as the outfit’s ‘chief financial officer’ and headed its accounts department for several years.

The media note further stated: “LeT created JuD as a front organization, claiming that the group was an ‘organization for the preaching of Islam, politics, and social work.’”

LeT had first been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the US on December 26, 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It was, similarly, banned in the UK in 2001. Under growing international pressure, Pakistan also banned the group in 2002, though not before allowing it ample opportunity to empty out its bank accounts and encash or transfer it other assets to various fronts, including JuD. JuD was subsequently put on the FTO listing by the US in 2006. LeT was also sanctioned by the UN in 2006, and banned by the European Union (EU) in 2008. Subseqently, in 2008, the UN also declared JuD an LeT front organization. In 2010, the US exacted an executive order against the Falah-i Insaniat Foundation (FIF), essentially the renamed JuD, and named it a terrorist organization. FIF was always reported to be one of the arms of JuD and operated from a JuD office located at Chauburji Chowk in Lahore, Pakistan.

Hafiz Muhammadd Saeed, the founder of LeT and JuD chief, and Zafar Iqbal, two professors at Lahore University, formed JuD in 1985 as a missionary group dedicated to the tenets of Ahl-e-Hadith Islam. In 1987, mujahideen fighting in Afghanistan formed a group named Markaz Dawat wal Irshad (MDI) under Hafiz Saeed’s leadership. MDI continued jihad (Islamic campaign against non-believers and ‘apostates’) in Afghanistan, where it set up its first training centre, with active support from both the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to fight alongside the Afghan mujahideen. MDI’s founders sought to ensure the group’s survival even after the Afghan jihad came to an end, and dovetailed the objectives of both armed and peaceful jihad, expanding a network of ‘social services’, even as they continued to build up their armed strength. As the Afghan jihad came to an end and the Afghan mujahideen threw themselves at each other’s throats, the MDI was directed by its handlers in the ISI to another front in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In 1990, MDI formed the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the armed wing dedicated to fight the jihad in J&K.

Overtly, JuD, headquartered in Muridke (Punjab), acts as a socio-religious, cultural, spiritual and educational driving force behind the armed wing represented by the LeT. A 2011 report suggested that JuD has about 50,000 registered members to spread its influence and raise funds. JuD owns a solid and extensive infrastructure inside Pakistan, including more than 300 offices, mosques and madrassas (Islamic seminaries). The group has set up many commercial ventures including more than 400 English-medium schools, colleges, transportation companies, residential projects and media groups, and has acquired farmland on a large scale. Its ‘charity wing’ has one of the biggest fleets of ambulances in the country, seven hospitals and more than 200 health centres. The group has the second largest charity network in Pakistan, after the Maymar Trust [formerly known as Al Rashid Trust (ART). ART was listed by the US State Department for involvement in financing and supporting a international Islamist terrorist groups on September 22, 2001].

JuD funding sources include state sponsorship, charities, and businesses. The Pakistan Muslim League-led Punjab State Government in its budget for fiscal year 2013-14 announced a grant-in-aid of PKR 61.35 million for the administrator of JuD’s training camp at Markaz-e-Taiba in Muridke. The budget also included an allocation of PKR 350 million for a ‘knowledge park’ at Muridke and various other JuD development initiatives across Punjab. Earlier, in 2009–10, the Federal Government provided more than PKR 80.2 million for the administration of JuD facilities. And in 2010–11, two separate grants of PKR 79.8 million were given to six organisations at Markaz-e-Taiba and a special grant-in-aid of PKR 3 million was awarded to JuD’s Al-Dawa School System in seven Districts of Punjab.

Funds are transferred from various sources through banks, use of hawala (illegal money transactions) and by couriers. Funds are utilized for dawa (preaching), khidmat-e-khalq (provision of social services), and jihad, including recruitment, training, and procurement of equipment and weapons. JuD has also used social media to collect funds. In June 2012, for instance, JuD sent messages on Twitter and Facebook, asking Muslims across the world to donate zakat (Islamic tax) and fitra (gift of food or money paid during on Eid-ul-Fitr) and Ramazan (the Holy month of fasting).

JuD’s ‘farmers and labor wing’ is, further, responsible for the collection of ushr (Islamic land tax). The group also collects hides of animals slaughtered during the holy festival of Eid al-Adha and sells them to harvest significant revenues. In November 2010, Yahya Mujahid, ‘spokesperson’ for JuD, conceded that, under FIF’s banner, JuD had set up seven camps for collecting hides of sacrificial animals in Islamabad (Punjab) and ten such camps in the adjacent city of Rawalpindi (Punjab). Funds are also collected by cells operating across the globe. ISI’s Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) network is another source of finance, and unconfirmed reports suggest involvement in heroin smuggling from Afghanistan through Pakistani seaports.

Recent inputs of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) indicate that JuD and its affiliates had raised more than INR 3.5 billion in funds from various countries, including India. IB suspects that the money collected in the name of humanitarian aid is diverted by JuD to finance terrorist activities.

The LeT-JuD complex has a strong propaganda network, operates several websites, publishes periodicals and books, and distributes tapes of speeches by many of its leaders, prominently including Hafiz Saeed. Most of these are in the Urdu language, though Arabic and English versions also seek to address all sections of society. After the LeT’s website was shut down in 2008, soon after 26/11 attacks, JuD launched a website in mid-2012, releasing a video in which Hafiz Saeed observed, “Media is a two-sided sword. Instead of it having an impact on us, we want to use it in an effective way. Allah willing, [we] want to convey our message of Dawah [Invitation to Islam] and jihad to the people through it….”

The organization’s stated objectives are to destroy India, Israel and the United States, as ‘enemies of Islam’. JuD also seeks to spread the rule of Islam all over the world through violent means and to ‘liberate’ Kashmir from India. Another stated aim of this group is to exact revenge from the enemies of Islam while defending Muslim states and forcing ‘infidels’ in the Muslim world to pay jizia (money paid by non-Muslims in an Islamic State). The group has marked hundreds of potential targets around the world for future attack.

LeT-JuD runs several terror camps across Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. According to a latest input by India’s Border Security Force (BDF), Hafiz Saeed has set up new terrorist camps in the Islamkot and Mithi areas in Sindh Province of Pakistan, opposite the Tanot and Kishangarh areas of Jaisalmer District in Rajasthan. On June 29, 2014, he was seen in Islamkot, Meerpur Khas, Mithi and Kherpur in this area. The BSF was given directions to be on alert and it believes that Saeed may try to push in terrorists via the Rajasthan border.

LeT-JuD’s terror profile came to global prominence when its chief Saeed and other top leaders were found directly involved in the November 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks (also known as 26/11). India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), in its charge sheet dated December 24, 2011, named Saeed as one of the accused, along with Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, David Headley, Tahawwur Rana, Abdul Rehman Hashmi, Sajid Malik, as well as two ISI officers, Major Iqbal and Major Samir Ali. Further, LeT operative Syed Zaibuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, arrested in India in June 2012 after his deportation from Saudi Arabia, revealed that Hafiz Saeed was present in the Karachi ‘Control Room’ during the 26/11 attacks, along with Muzammil Butt (LeT ‘operations commander’). The Control Room was set up at a point between Malir Cantonment, Quaidabad, and the Jinnah International Airport, in Karachi. However, following the arrest in Pakistan of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi on December 7, 2008, under sustained US pressure, the ISI destroyed the control room.

Due to international pressure, Saeed was placed under house arrest in December 2008. In June 2009, however, the Lahore High Court released him due to ‘lack of evidence’, ruling that “the detention of Hafiz Saeed was a violation of the Constitution and the law of this country.” Despite the Interpol’s Red Corner Notice against Saeed, along with Lakhvi, issued on August 25, 2009, in response to India’s requests for his extradition, on October 12, 2009, all cases against Saeed were quashed by the Lahore High Court and he was set free. The Court also notified that JuD was not a banned organization in Pakistan, and could work freely in the country. “In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law,” the Court ruled.

Saeed enjoys the open support of the Pakistani establishment and, unsurprisingly, roams freely across the country, addressing public rallies, pouring vitriol against India, US, Israel, and other countries. In latest of series of such rallies, on May 29, 2014, Saeed, delivered a speech as thousands of followers joined him at the Aabpara Chowk, situated just a few hundred yards from the ISI headquarters in Islamabad, and asked his followers to prepare, as the “time has come to perform the final jihad against India to free Kashmir from Indian occupation… Are you ready to help Kashmiri brothers and sisters? Would you join me for this noble cause?” Interestingly, the rally was attended by former ISI Chief, Hamid Gul, Senator Talha Mehmood of the right wing political Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

After extraordinary pressure from the US (four US citizens were killed in the Mumbai attacks), Pakistan did start the 26/11 trial at Rawalpindi Court, but the entire proceeding appear to be a fiasco, with interminable judicial delays due to trivial reasons. The case that was registered in Pakistan on February 15, 2009, has already witnessed the transfer of five Judges. Recently, on July 9, 2014, the Court adjourned hearings of the case for the fifth time in just three months, till July 16, after no prosecution lawyer and witnesses turned up. Earlier, in a May 21 application, lawyers led by Chaudhry Azhar had accused JuD activists of threatening them and the witnesses, with the petitioners claiming, “The JuD wants us not to pursue the Mumbai case.” Meanwhile, the incarcerated LeT-JuD leaders, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who currently serves as ‘supreme commander’ of operations in Kashmir and as a member of LeT’s ‘General Council’, continue to enjoy extraordinary privileges and access, and exercise direct control over cadres and operations. Lakhvi is reportedly treated as a VVIP within the confines of the high-security prison in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi (Punjab), where he is permitted ‘outings’ under a thick security cover facilitated by the jail authorities. According to sources, he makes calls freely to control the outfit’s operations and to motivate his terrorist associates.

The latest US State Department designation appears to be little more than a demonstrative ritual and is unlikely to have even a remote impact on the JuD-LeT’s thriving fortunes in Pakistan. 13 years of US bans have done nothing to diminish the group’s state and popular support, and have, indeed, seen a steady expansion of the LeT’s global footprint. Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution, notes that LeT, in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, matured “from a Punjabi-based Pakistani terror group targeting India exclusively, to a member of the global Islamic jihad targeting the enemies of al Qaeda: the Crusader West, Zionist Israel, and Hindu India”. Indeed, the LeT’s reach and presence has steadily been expanding over the past decade with its units now operational in a vast network that stretches from North America to Australia. It has units in Germany, UK, Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Dubai and Bangladesh, and shares fraternal links with jihadists in Philippines, Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine, Jordan and South East Asia. Media reports indicate that the outfit is part of a conglomeration of terrorist formations fighting the jihad in Syria.

With manifestly unqualified state support in Pakistan, the LeT-JuD appears to have little to fear. Indeed, in one prominent example of this theatre of the absurd, when the US declared a bounty of USD 10 million in April 2012, for “information leading to the arrest and conviction” of Hafiz Saeed, Saeed openly mocked the Americans in mass public rallies and open Press Conferences, declaring, “I am here, I am visible… I will be in Lahore tomorrow. America can contact me whenever it wants to.” And further, “It is regrettable that America has no information about me. Such rewards are usually for those who live in caves and mountains.”

LeT is not surviving in caves and mountains in Pakistan. It is visible and flaunts its existence in Rawalpindi – the Pakistan Army’s Headquarters – in Islamabad – the country’s capital – in its strongholds in Punjab, and, increasingly, across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, to operate into Afghanistan, and in the Sindh Province. It has, since its inception, been an instrumentality of the Pakistani state, and, while some extremist protégés in Pakistan may have gone rogue, LeT remains loyal and obedient, retaining the patronage that has allowed it to grow into one of the largest and most dangerous terrorist formations in the world.

Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The post India – Pakistan: JuD The Dependable Terrorist – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mrinal Kanta Das

Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres abducted and killed a tribal, identified as Madan Hantal (35), of Karanjuguda village under Malkangiri Village-79 (MV- 79) Police limits in Malkangiri District on July 8, 2014. The Maoists had abducted Madan on July 6 and his bullet ridden body was found lying in a pool of blood a few metres away from the village. A letter left by Maoists at the spot declared that Madan had been ‘punished’, as he was passing information to Police. “We had warned Madan many times to maintain distance from Police but he didn’t listen to us. Anyone who will try to act as a ‘Police informer’ will meet the same fate,” the one page letter read. Police denied the Maoist allegation that the deceased was a ‘Police informer’.

On June 22, 2014, a civilian, identified as Ashis Saunta, was killed by about 15 CPI-Maoist cadres, branding him as a ‘Police informer’, in the Semiliguda Block of Koraput District. Saunta’s family claimed he was targeted as he had motivated the people of the village to vote during the recently concluded State Assembly and Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament), elections defying the Maoist poll boycott call. The Srikakulam-Koraput ‘divisional committee’ of the CPI-Maoist claimed responsibility of the murder.

Earlier, on May 12, 2014, the Maoists had killed two local tribal leaders, identified as Taudu Pateli, a former sarpanch (head of panchayat, village level local self-government institution) and Baladaboi Simalu of Talagoluru village under the Pottangi Police Station limits in Koraput District, alleging that they were Police informers. They were among four persons abducted by the Maoists on May 11, 2014. The two other abducted persons, included a sitting sarpanch Baladaboi Pati and Taudu Pateli’s wife, were released later. The Srikakulam-Koraput ‘divisional committee’, again, claimed responsibility for the double murder.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, 18 civilians and eight Maoists have been killed in the State in 2014, till July 13. Significantly, Security Force (SF) personnel have not suffered any fatalities in this period in 2014.

Significantly, the number of civilians killed by the Maoists in first six months of 2014 (till June 30), was 17, more than double the figure for the first six months of 2013 (8). Civilian killing in the first six months of 2012 stood at 17, and in 2011 at 13. In 2014, of the 18 civilians killed, 12 were accused by the Maoists to be ‘Police informers.’ Similarly, in 2013 and 2012, 17 and 21 civilians, out of 22 and 27 killed, respectively, were similarly accused by the Maoists as ‘Police informers’. Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) data confirms this trend.

The first six months of 2013 and 2012 saw one and 12 SF troopers killed in the State, respectively. However, there has not been a single SF fatality so far in 2014. However, the SFs have engaged cadres of the CPI-Maoist on at least 14 occasions, and the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI) once, in 2014. Of these 15 encounters, six resulted in fatalities on the extremists’ side. The eight Left-Wing Extremist (LWE) fatalities (seven CPI-Maoist and one PLFI) in the first six months of 2014 exceed those in the corresponding period in the previous two years.

The geographical spread of CPI-Maoist violence in Odisha has substantially been contained within Koraput and Malkangiri Districts, as was the case in previous years. Of the 18 civilians killed by the Maoists in 2014, thus far, 17 were killed in Koraput and Malkangiri Districts, while one was killed in Rayagada, neighbouring Koraput.

The State recorded one major incident (resulting in at least three fatalities) in Malkangiri District, on April 27, 2014. No such incident was registered in the first six months of 2013, while two occurred in this period in 2012.

Five incidents of arson, two abductions and two blasts were recorded in the State in this period. In the corresponding time in 2013, the figures were two, zero and zero, respectively. In the same period in 2012, the Maoists had engineered 12 incidents of arson, one abduction and six explosions.

33 arrests and 49 surrenders were recorded in the first half of 2014, as against the 2013 total of an unusually high 1,787 surrenders, as a result of the en masse capitulation by cadres and supporters of the Narayanpatna-based Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS), a CPI-Maoist front. Meanwhile, on July 2, 2014, eight CPI-Maoist cadres surrendered before the Police in Koraput. They had joined CMAS in 2009 and had later graduated to the CPI-Maoist.

Interestingly, a week after CMAS leader Nachika Linga announced and then called off his scheduled surrender the Maoists described his move as ‘drama’ and, on March 16, 2014, urged the tribals to disown his plan of joining electoral politics. In a signed two-page letter written in Odia, Daya and Aruna, ‘secretaries’ of the Srikakulam-Koraput ‘divisional committee’ and the ‘Narayanpatna ‘area committee’ of the CPI-Maoist, respectively, declared,

During 2012 panchayat polls, school and mass education Minister Rabi Nanda, Koraput Member of Parliament (MP) Jayram Pangi, Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Jhina Hikaka and Raghuram Padal had signed on a 10-point charter of demands. But Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has not fulfilled any of the demands. In next poll, Nachika has demanded BJD ticket for Laxmipur. He has weakened the agitation by telling people that they would get facilities by going the electoral way. Without caring for people’s problems, Nachika has demanded withdrawal of cases against him.

In another development, Sabyasachi Panda, the ‘chief’ of the Odisha Maobadi Party (OMP), who broke away from the CPI-Maoist in August 2012, in a Press Release on May 19, 2014, announced the formation of a new Maoist united front, the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (CPI-MLM). Panda is the ‘general secretary’ of the new formation. The united front has been forged between the OMP and the erstwhile CPI-ML (Janashakti) and some Maoist splinters based in West Bengal. This move appears to be an attempt on Panda’s part to regain lost ground after his split with the CPI-Maoist, though it is unlikely to meet with any dramatic success.

Meanwhile, on June 16, 2014, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik informed the State Assembly that CPI-Maoist activities in the State had increased from five Districts in 2000 to 19 Districts in 2014. The Chief Minister disclosed that parts of Malkangiri, Rayagada, Koraput, Gajapati and Mayurbhanj Districts were considered Maoist affected in 2000. Currently, however, the 19 Districts affected at various intensities included: Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Ganjam (including Berhampur Police District), Keonjhar, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Jajpur, Kandhamal, Dhenkanal, Nayagarh, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Balangir and Bargarh. The Chief Minister added that no violence has been reported from Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh, Deogarh and Nayagarh Districts since 2011.

After peaking in 2010, Maoist violence in Odisha has gradually declined due to a number of factors, a trend that has been visible in other Maoist-affected States as well. Despite the pressure by 17 battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), in addition to the State Police, however, the Maoists appear to be hanging on, and the situation remains fraught with the risk of escalation.

Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The post India: Maoists Hanging On A Thread In Odisha – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Chintamani Mahapatra

The US’ influence in South Asia is fast diminishing and this trend is likely to continue deep into the future. In the aftermath of World War II, South Asia was considered a strategic backwater by the US policymakers. Additionally, South Asia offered little economic opportunities to the US corporate sector. With the solitary exception of turning Pakistan into an alliance partner, the US cared little about this region.

Even in the realm of alliance politics, the US had little to offer Pakistan. Pakistan’s membership in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and the Central Treaty Organization, and the US’ military assistance to Pakistan was ineffective during Pakistan’s military misadventures against India. It was only after the late 1970s’ Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan that Washington got critically involved in South Asia.

The US’ interest in South Asia deepened in the post-Cold War era in view of Indian economic reforms, nuclearisation of the region and the pivotal role Afghanistan played in the terrorist attack on the US in September 2001. As the US once again turned Pakistan into an alliance partner in the war against terrorism and established an extraordinary strategic understanding with India, South Asia occupied substantial priority in the US national security agenda.

The US’ war in Afghanistan that began in 2001 is about to come to a close. The US troop withdrawal from this country is indisputable. Irrespective of debates over the probable level of US engagement in Afghan affairs post 2014, it is almost certain that the closure of billions of dollars worth of war in Afghanistan will trim Washington’s influence in South Asia. The resilience of the Afghan Taliban and limitation of a superpower’s abilities to confront non-state-actors will question the US’ credibility in the region.

Secondly, the US leverage over Pakistan in the post-Afghan war phase will dry down with an almost automatic cut in the US military and economic assistance to Islamabad. History will unquestionably repeat and the US-Pakistan alliance will terminate, as was the case after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.

Thirdly, the US’ influence over India, resulting from an innovative “strategic partnership” project during former US President George Bush’s era may not survive his successor Barack Obama’s administration. The enthusiasm of the first Obama administration to further elevate this partnership was short-lived and the second Obama administration has paid less than modest attention to India.

There is no doubt that the election victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of now Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a strong popular mandate, has generated sizeable excitement in Washington. Hope of revival of the earlier impetus in the Indo-US strategic partnership has been rekindled. Obama’s invitation to Modi to visit Washington, Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal Desai’s trip to India soon after the new government assumed office, visits by influential Senator John McCain and Deputy Secretary of State William J Burns to prepare the ground for the Indo-US strategic dialogue between Secretary of State John Kerry and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj are all signals of Obama’s renewed interest in India.

But Prime Minister Modi appears less animated to visit the US, more involved in constructing a peaceful neighbourhood, more focused on reviving the national economy and less enthralled to project India as a global leader. About ten months have passed since the Devyani Khobragade episode begot a psychological divide in the New Delhi-Washington bond. Repairing the mind-set is not going to be easy even for the new Indian government.

The Obama administration’s relationships with other smaller South Asian countries – especially Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – have also soured in the recent years. Washington was hesitant to do business with the Awami League government after the January 2014 elections, criticised Dhaka’s handling of human trafficking problems, and reduced import of garments after a deadly fire in a garment factory.

The US’ efforts to hold the Sri Lankan government responsible for severe human rights violations during the closing weeks of anti-Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam operations have widened the political divide between Colombo and Washington. The Sri Lankan government has demonstrated bitterness over the US double standard in combating terrorism—one standard for itself and another for other countries.

Significantly, India’s smaller South Asian neighbours are fast moving towards developing closer relationships with China. Although this is generally perceived as an anti-India phenomenon, the reality is that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are looking up to China as a new guarantor of help in the face of the US’ heavy-handed approach towards them.

It is also a fact that the US has enhanced its engagement with Nepal in response to fast growing Chinese economic presence and political influence in that country. But compared to China, Washington’s influence in Nepal is minimal. It is almost certain that the drop in Washington’s political weight will further augment Chinese leverage over Islamabad as well. It is time to ponder over the diminished US and rising Chinese profile in the region.

Chintamani Mahapatra
Professor, School of International Studies, JNU

The post US In South Asia: Declining Influence – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The EU’s top court ruled against Germany’s language requirement for Turkish spouses applying for residence in the country, rebuffing the German government and saying the right to family reunification is essential to integration in the member states, EurActiv Germany reports.

Asking for directions, filling out name and address forms, communicating symptoms to a doctor: basic German language skills such as these have been mandatory since 2007 for spouses seeking to immigrate to Germany from countries outside of the EU.

Since then, immigrant spouses have been required to pass a German test proving a vocabulary of around 300 words and the ability to conduct basic conversation before they can be granted a visa. But for spouses moving to Germany from Turkey, these requirements do not apply anymore.

Turkey has special treatment

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on in favor of a complaint filed by a Turkish woman. The judges said the language requirement violates the standstill provision in the EU’s association agreement with Turkey from 1970. The document banned any worsening of settlement opportunities for Turkish citizens in the EU.

As a result, Turkish employees enjoy a special status: They are particularly privileged in exercising their economic freedoms; in this case employment in Germany. The ECJ justified its decision with this privilege. The German conditions additionally violate the EU directive on the right to family reunification.

But the German government argues it has a social motive for enforcing the language test.

By requiring knowledge of the German language, the grand coalition said it seeks to hinder marriages of convenience and facilitate integration in Germany. Additional rules are intended to prevent forced marriages. The German law also included a minimum age of 18 for partners of German residents to be granted a visa.

The 2007 law applies to citizens of third countries, meaning foreigners from states outside the EU. Before a foreign spouse is allowed to enter the country, the German embassy usually requires a certificate from the Goethe Institute proving a successful language test above the level of A1 “beginning German” before issuing a visa.

Special circumstances are not considered

While the EU judges recognised Germany’s argument that the language tests serve the general interest, the Court pointed out that a lack of proof of language skills automatically led to a rejection of an application for family reunification, stating that there was no consideration for special circumstances in individual cases.

The complainant in the case is a woman whose visa application was rejected by the German embassy in Ankara in 2012. Because she was illiterate, the embassy said, she did not possess the necessary German language skills and could not be issued a visa. Her husband has been living in Germany since 1998, where he is the majority shareholder in a company.

“Family reunification constitutes an essential way of making possible the family life of Turkish workers who belong to the labour force of the Member States. It improves the quality of their stay and to their integration “, the ECJ document reads.

The opposition forces in Germany’s lower house welcomed the ruling. Up until now the regulation represented unacceptable social selection, said Sevim Dagdelen, who is the Left Party’s (Die Linke) spokeswoman for migration policy. The regulation must not only be lifted for Turkish citizens but in its entirety, she emphasised.

The spokesman for internal affairs in the Green Party’s Bundestag faction, Volker Beck, spoke of a good day for integration policy. The centre-right has trampled on the protection of marriage and families from Turkey, he said.

The post EU Court Rules Against German Language Requirement For Turkish Citizens appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(EurActiv) — Insurers are eagerly eyeing exponential growth in the tiny cyber coverage market. But their lack of experience and skills handling hackers and data breaches may keep their ambitions in check.

High profile cases of hackers seizing sensitive customer data from companies, such as US retailer Target Corp or e-commerce company eBay Inc, have executives checking their insurance policies.

Increasingly, corporate risk managers are seeing insurance against cyber crime as necessary budget spending rather than just nice to have.

The insurance brokerage arm of Marsh & McLennan Companies estimates that the US cyber insurance market was worth $1 billion (€0.73bn) last year in gross written premiums, and could reach as much as $2 billion (€1.4bn) this year. The European market is currently a fraction of that, at around $150 million (€110mn), but is growing by 50 to 100% annually, according to Marsh.

Those numbers represent a sliver of the overall insurance market, which is growing at a far more sluggish rate. Premiums are set to grow only 2.8% this year in inflation-adjusted terms, according to Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer.

Cyber coverage

The European cyber coverage market could get a big boost from draft EU data protection rules in the works that would force companies to disclose breaches of customer data to them.

“Companies have become aware that the risk of being hacked is unavoidable,” said Andreas Schlayer, responsible for cyber risk insurance at Munich Re. “People are now more aware that hackers can attack and do great damage to central infrastructure, for example in the energy sector.”

Insurers, which have more experience handling risks like hurricanes and fires, are now rushing to gain expertise in cyber technology.

“It is a difficult risk to price by traditional insurance methods as there currently is not statistically significant actuarial data available,” said Robert Parisi, head of cyber products at insurance brokers Marsh.

Andrew Braunbergon, research director at US cybersecurity advisory company NSS Labs, said that some energy companies have trouble persuading insurers to provide them with cyber coverage as the industry is vulnerable to hacking attacks that could trigger disasters like an explosion in a worst-case scenario.

Pricing on policies for retailers has climbed in the wake of recent high-profile breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus, and other merchants, he added.

A necessary cost

Though still very much in its infancy, the market’s potential is vast, with cyber crime costing the global economy about $445 billion (€326bn) every year, according to an estimate last month from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

While many companies have in the past counted on their general commercial liability policies for coverage, they are increasingly taking out standalone contracts.

One reason for the change in attitude is a New York state court ruling in February against Sony Corp. The company, which has appealed the decision, had sought to force providers of its general commercial liability insurance to foot the bill for class action lawsuits following a major 2011 cyber attack on Sony PlayStation Network.

“This issue with Sony is that it did not have a standalone cyber product,” said Peter Beshar, general counsel at the Marsh & McLennan Companies.

Target was better protected when some 40 million payment card numbers were stolen last year. It had $100 million (€73.4mn) in cyber insurance, according to the trade publication Business Insurance.

With low interest rates limiting revenues from insurers’ vast bond portfolios, the extra underwriting income from the fast growing new market is all the more welcome.

The cost of cyber insurance varies depending, but on average $1 million (€0.734mn) in protection ranges from about $20,000 to $25,000 (€14,683 to €18,354), according to Beshar.

German insurance giant Allianz says its premiums for €10-50 million in protection run about €50,000-90,000 in annual premiums. For protection of over €50 million, companies can get coverage up to €300 million through co-insurance policies involving multiple underwriters.

Whether insurers are offering coverage at prices commensurate with the risks is anyone’s guess, as long as underwriters have scant experience with hackers.

Growing pains

AXA, Europe’s second biggest insurer, is making a big push into the cyber insurance market, but has so far not paid out a single business claim.

“I would like to see a successful claim, because that would be an experience,” said Philippe Derieux, deputy CEO of AXA’s global property and causality business.

AXA is hiring computer experts and engineers to build up a centralised cyber team, but Derieux said there is a shortage of qualified talent.

“It is hard for insurers and brokers to find people able to handle the product,” Munich Re’s Schlayer said.

That lack of expertise means insurers are failing to identify high-risk clients, because they are not undertaking sufficiently rigorous security evaluations before writing cyber policies, said Bryan Rose, managing director with Stroz Friedberg, a firm that investigates cyber attacks.

This leaves the insurers vulnerable to underpricing their policies.

They often simply ask clients to fill out limited questionnaires that asking whether they have proper security procedures in place, rather than conducting thorough security audits, Rose said.

“There’s a real risk that insurance companies are not appropriately pricing the risk,” Rose said.

The post Insurers Take On Cyber Risk Market appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A long-awaited Qatar Foundation report recommends a radical overhaul of the labour recruitment system in Asian labour exporting countries as well as the Gulf state that expects to host the 2022 World Cup. The report however stops short of calling for the abolition of Qatar’s widely criticized kafala or sponsorship system.

The 163-page report, published amid controversy about the integrity of the Qatari World Cup bid and demands that Qatar be deprived of its hosting rights because of corruption in the recruitment process as well as the working and living conditions of foreign workers who constitute a majority of the Qatari population, is unlikely to deflect criticism of the Gulf state to Asian supplier countries or reduce pressure on Qatar to abolish the kafala system, which puts workers at the mercy of their employers.

To be fair, Qatar Foundation, which is chaired by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s mother, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, and promotes education, science, and community development, has taken a lead in pushing for reform of the labour system in a bid to counter the criticism and meet international standards.

Qatar has ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention on Forced Labour, the Palermo Protocol against human trafficking, the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, and the Minimum Age Convention but has rejected conventions on the freedom of association and the right to organize, bargain collectively and to equal remuneration.

The report justifiably seeks to share blame for the poor circumstances of foreign labour with Asian supplier countries — the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India — that have failed to crackdown on corrupt government agencies and private middle men. Corruption in the Asian part of the recruitment process is however one part of the problem and does not account for Qatar’s apparent inability to vigorously implement existing laws, rules and regulations in its own territory or the snail’s pace with which the government has sought to enshrine labour reforms in its legislation.

The impact of the foundation’s report is likely to be further dulled by the fact that it much like the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy that is responsible for organizing the 2022 World Cup and together with the foundation has taken a lead in advocating labour reform can only ensure implementation of the report’s recommendations in projects that it manages. The report estimates that 64,000 of the 450,000 blue collar workers in Qatar are employed in projects funded by the Qatar Foundation.

Efforts to speed up the process of a nation-wide implementation of labour reform have been stymied by a lack of manpower as well as resistance by significant segments of the Qatari citizenry, who account for a mere 12 percent of the population. Many Qataris fear that tinkering with the labour system will lead to abolition of the kafala system which they see as a barrier to maintaining control of their state, society and culture. Those fears are fuelled by a realization that there are no good solutions to an unviable demography in which 88 percent of the population are guests tolerated only as long as they have a contract.

The report notes that “the regulatory frameworks and highly competitive private sector involvement in recruitment (in Asian supplier countries), through misunderstandings and/or corruption, have fostered, rather than prevented, forced labour, debt bondage and trafficking for labour exploitation. There is a strong history of attempts at government-to-government collaborations and negotiations over the provision of labour to Qatar. This makes it incumbent upon the Qatari authorities to continue such dialogues that focus not only on the supply of labour, but also the conditions of ethical recruitment…to eliminate human and labour rights violations that should include the reduction of recruitment intermediaries.”

To achieve that the report suggests the establishment of a National Employment Bureau in Qatar as well as the conclusion of governmental agreements on ethical recruitment and the creation of an electronic recruitment system. While an online system would go a long way in standardizing the process it is less likely to affect workers increasingly recruited from rural rather than urban areas in Asia who are more susceptible to corrupt middlemen because they have less on and offline access to information.

Those workers are also less likely to benefit from the report’s recommendation that recruitment fees charged to workers be legally classified as bribes. Asians recruited to work in Qatar often do not have a signed contract before departure or are forced under pressure to sign a contract at the airport before departure. They often see their contracts changed once they have landed. Employers are able to exploit the fact that workers have no option to return home when they realize that their contract has been changed to their detriment because of the debt they incurred to land a job.

“The freedom to withdraw one’s labour is a fundamental universal principle. Without it, forced labour will thrive. Most contracts do not make clear the terms and conditions for the termination of the contract. Qatar labour law has provisions for this, but there are ambiguities that need to be addressed,” the report said. It recommends standardized contracts that would be translated into a worker’s native language in a bid to address problems of sponsorship.

The report further noted that its author, Ray Jureidini, a professor in migration studies at Beirut’s Lebanese American University and director of research of Qatar Foundation’s Centre of Design Innovation, could only identify two ethical recruitment agencies in the five countries he studied, one in the Philippines, the other in Nepal. As a result, the report suggests that Qatar could operate its own recruitment system that would have offices in major labour supplying countries. It also recommends monitoring of Qatar-based recruitment agencies to ensure compliance with ethical standards including the ban on charging workers. Doha News reported that Qatar-based recruiters who violated Qatari law would in future be publicly identified in the Gulf state’s media.

In the absence of a free labour market, the report called for the introduction of standardized wages based on experience, qualifications and skill rather than the current system that essentially values labour according to nationality. Rather than challenging the need for an exit visa to leave the country or an employer’s non-objection certificate to change jobs, the report recommends that workers be guaranteed those documents. Qatari businessmen object to the abolition of the required documents not only due to their fear as a minority but also because many of their businesses are run by foreigners who have access to a company’s bank accounts and could leave the country after having helped themselves to the cash.

The Qatar Foundation report, despite an abundance of studies, adds relevant detail to knowledge about the problems involved in the recruitment of foreign labour to Qatar and other states. It is however long evident to Qataris and non-Qataris what the issues and what the solutions are. Qatar needs to be seen to not only embracing reform with lofty words and pledges and hefty reports but with legislative change and change on the ground. That is the only way the Gulf state will be able to reverse the reputational damage it has suffered in recent years and build the kind of soft and subtle power it seeks.

The post Qatari Labour Report Offers Solutions But Unlikely To Reduce Pressure On World Cup Host – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Both Spanish and Moroccan media unanimously assert that the upcoming visit of the new Spanish monarch King Felipe to Morocco will bolster both economic and political relations between the two kingdoms. In fact, Spanish investors do not make a mistake to confirm that the Moroccan economy, attractive and competitive, has a large room for growth in the future thanks to the reforms undertaken by the Kingdom of Morocco, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, but also thanks to its political stability, its geographical proximity and an improving business climate that encourages Spanish investors to settle in Morocco.

It is worth noting that over the last two years, hundreds of Spanish companies, settled in the Moroccan market, in various sectors : construction, services or the electrical industry and the number of Spanish companies in the Moroccan market is estimated to a thousand.

It is therefore clear that the Kingdom of Morocco has become a strategic partner for Spain and the official visit of King Felipe is the most eloquent proof of commitment and consideration of Spain with regard to Morocco, a neighbor and a friend.

This is why the Spanish Sovereign will be accompanied by a large delegation including entrepreneurs which reinforces the historical, political and economic aspects of the visit.

Through this official working visit, the King of Spain would like to express the gratitude of Spain towards Morocco as a friend and an effective ally in matters crucial to Madrid such as terrorism , organized crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, the plagues against which the two countries cooperate constantly.

Thus, the interviews will be held between the two sovereigns and the delegations of the two countries during the visit, will not fail to give new impetus to bilateral cooperation, particularly in a challenging international environment marked by upheavals and tensions in many parts of the world.

This visit will also strengthen the bonds of friendship and mutual respect uniting Morocco and Spain and confirm, if necessary, the cooperation and understanding between Madrid and Rabat, a model to be followed by other states in the region.
I would add that the invitation of His Majesty King Mohammed VI to King Felipe during the holy month of Ramadan is one more proof of the depth and intensity of the friendship between the two sovereigns. Moreover, the Moroccan Sovereign will invite King Felipe on the day of his arrival to
his residence for an Iftar (breaking the fast) family.

This first official visit of King Felipe to Morocco is not seen only as a family reunion in view of the longstanding relations binding the two monarchies but also as an opportunity to explore ways and means of upgrading economic relations between the two countries and partnership between Moroccan and Spanish businessmen and economic operators. Whatever huge the stakes may be for both countries, officials on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar are confident that the two kingdoms have enough assets to make the most of their cooperation, build up a common prosperous future and institute a win-win partnership.

The post King Felipe VI’s Visit To Morocco To Give New Impulse To Historical Relations Between Spain and Morocco – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Text of presentation delivered by Salma Yusuf at the International Conference on Politics and International Affairs, Athens, June 2014

Conference delegates, ladies and gentleman,

It is a pleasure to be here today in Athens and present to an audience that has gathered from across the globe to discuss emerging issues in politics and international affairs and how they affect our world. It is with interest that I share ideas on my country, Sri Lanka, that has emerged from a three-decade conflict and is now on a new path towards nation building and post-war reconciliation of ethnic communities in the country.

The three-decade conflict in Sri Lanka can be traced back to the perception by its Tamil population of discrimination and unequal treatment by the State. Many Tamils believed the State and its structures favoured the interests of the majority community, the Sinhalese, and several changes in State practices were seen as discriminatory and unjust. Therein lies a critical point: the Tamil community’s campaign was against State structures and policies considered discriminatory of the Tamils rather than against the Sinhalese community and peoples per se.

The failure to address these grievances, the failure to rigorously examine changes in policy and practice by successive state administrations, so as to take into account possible adverse impacts on minorities and avoid these, the subsequent creation of the Tamil political leadership in asking for reform of unrealistic expectations among the Tamil youth, all contributed to the birth of Tamil militancy. Finally the democratic Tamil political leadership lost control and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), the Tamil militant outfit, hijacked the Tamil struggle, with disastrous consequences for Tamils as well as the country as a whole.

Successive Governments of Sri Lanka attempted negotiations with representatives of the Tamil people which broke down for multiple reasons. All this led to what is inevitable, namely, an armed conflict. With the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 the armed conflict came to an end. However, the root causes of the conflict remain and have to be addressed in order to prevent the recurrence of the past in whatever form.

Further, the war caused additional negative fallouts such as physical destruction to infrastructure and an amplification of socio-economic deprivation in the war-torn areas of the country which were chiefly the North and Eastern regions of the country. It also led to increased suspicion and resentment amongst the three main ethnic communities in the country, and widened the gap in trust and understanding. Hence, what emerged was a fractured society that was in need of urgent reconciliation and harmony.

When advocating reconciliation and unity, the fears and anxieties of all communities must be acknowledged, understood and addressed. An over-emphasis on the grievances of the Tamil community alone which is the natural tendency can lead to new waves of conflict and at must be avoided at all costs.

The reason to say this is because the Sinhala community, who, though a majority in Sri Lanka, have their own share of concerns. Many actions that discriminated against minorities sprang initially from a widespread perception amongst the Sinhalese that they had been discriminated against by the British. Similarly, any solution meant to resolve the problems of Tamils and Muslims, the minority communities in the country, now must not be at the expense of the Sinhalese. That is not only unfair and unjust, but it would make such a solution unsustainable in the long run.

It must be mentioned that the Muslims, though not direct protagonists in the armed conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan State, have undergone considerable suffering during the years of fighting in the North and East of the country, which were former theatres of conflict. The forcible eviction of the entire Muslim community from the Northern Province by the LTTE, the massacre of hundreds of Muslims while worshipping in mosques in Eastern Sri Lanka, the takeover of lands belonging to the Muslims in the Eastern Province, the deprivation of the livelihoods of Muslims in the conflict areas and the lack of adequate security to the Muslims were a few of the phenomena that contributed greatly to the sense of insecurity and unease that Muslims faced because of the conflict. Unlike the Tamil community which challenged State structures as a means of addressing grievances, the Muslims took a separate political path and preferred to engage with the State and work within the mainstream of Sri Lankan politics. This created a great deal of misunderstanding between the Tamil and Muslim communities and caused a strain in their relationship.

Given that both the ignition of the ethnic conflict and the insurrections in Sri Lanka have stemmed from its universities as well as from other sections of the youth population, the importance of engaging youth in post-war nation building and reconciliation cannot be overlooked. A further demographic reason exists for including youth in post-war efforts of peace and harmony in Sri Lanka, that is, youth comprise 23% of the current population in the country.

In recognition of this importance, a process for youth-led reconciliation was institutionalized in Sri Lanka with the setting up of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament in 2010 following the conclusion of the country’s three-decade armed struggle in 2009. 25 percent of the youth parliamentarians at the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament are from previously conflict-affected areas and hence are given a democratic and legitimate space to represent and voice their concerns and aspirations for reconciliation and social cohesion at both national and local levels. This is a poignant example of where the local feeds into the national, a key requisite for genuine and lasting reconciliation. The Sri Lankan National Youth Parliament and structure of the Federations of Youth Clubs are currently recognized as among two of the best youth engagement, empowerment and leadership models in the world.

Sri Lanka facilitated the election of the first Commonwealth Youth Council at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which was held in Sri Lanka in October last year. Moreover, Sri Lanka hosted the World Conference on Youth last month which was attended by nearly 1000 delegates from over 40 countries all over the world to discuss the role and contribution of youth to the post-2015 development agenda.

Broadly speaking, the post-war situation in Sri Lanka, as it stands in 2014 resonates a striking feature for discussion, and that is that the dominating narrative on the situation of the country is dichotomous. The perceptions are equally remarkable. International interest is in no small measure. The impact on domestic stability remains uncontested. Whichever viewpoint is adopted, consensus is achieved on the limited.

While a plethora of approaches are currently being undertaken by both the international and domestic communities towards Sri Lanka, I would like to recommend a process of constructive engagement with issues that seek to serve not as damning indictments but rather as positive and hopeful messages that can inspire action of stakeholders. Confrontational and adversarial approaches are known and logically stand to reason as pushing back any prospect of democratic governance and national reconciliation.

Innovative and creative approaches that aim to rebuild confidences between stakeholders to national governance processes and further, with international mechanisms remain the need of the hour. A breakdown in trust between previously warring factions and stakeholders continue to remain an obstacle to taking the process of reconciliation forward.

While the end of the war has opened up unique opportunities to achieve lasting and sustainable peace and harmony, there remain key aspects that need to be addressed with some urgency.

First, to ensure that the dividends of national initiatives trickle down to grassroots level, there needs to be put in place systematic and systematized training programmes in soft skills and educational opportunities in the former theatres of conflict. To this end, forging public-private partnerships will be essential and critical.

A second challenge is in the area of governance where any productive movement is hampered by a tussle between those advocating and opposing the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka which provides for devolution of police and land powers from the centre to the provinces. It is imperative that consensus be achieved on the fundamental requirement for post-war Sri Lanka, where there is expansion of power to institutions that are best placed to be responsive to the needs of local citizenry.

To this end, there remains a need to strengthen of local government institutions and citizen-consultation mechanisms in the country. Sadly, while the focus has to be on ensuring responsiveness to the needs of grassroots communities and individual citizens, the current pre-occupation seems to centre on various formulations of power devolution.

A third challenge to achieving successful reconciliation and peace is the lack of a holistic understanding of the demands of restitution. Issues which will most benefit the people of the country, both victims and survivors must be worked towards, namely, the rights to assuage grief, public mourning, psycho-social empowerment and above all a restoration of dignity.

The key purpose of reconciliation is to address the underlying suspicion, mistrust and discrimination that have been manifest and symptomatic of the three-decade conflict. Creating a sense of inter-dependence between all communities is crucial if minority communities are to feel a connection to the newly-rebuilt nation. In this connection, two positive developments in the current political context are worthy of note. First, increasing acceptance that the conflict requires a political settlement as opposed to the view that it is only a terrorist problem; and rather than operating through a top-down approach of political patronage and proxies there is now recognition of the need to engage elected representatives of the Tamil community in the nation building endeavour.

That said, it must be remembered that reconciliation is both a process and a goal. Hence, it will necessarily require time and space to bear fruit. Reconciliation cannot be imposed or forced on a nation as an event. It requires both a strategy and a systematized response mechanism by the state and other stakeholders to deal with the likely obstacles that will emerge along the way.

While the substantive aspects of reconciliation must be at the core of achieving national stability, developing robust institutional mechanisms, effective coordination systems, a rigorous reporting strategy and an over-arching vision for reconciliation remains the need of the hour.

I thank you for your attention.

The post Sri Lanka: Reconciliation Is Both A Process And A Goal – Presentation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Back in the early 1980s when I was a graduate student at University of California, the student community organized a seminar on the Palestine-Israel conflict. It was before the 1982 invasion of Lebanon (oddly codenamed Operation Peace for Galilee), but Israel had already annexed a strip of southern Lebanon since 1978, and had continued to occupy it in defiance of the UN Resolution 425 that called for Israel to immediately and unconditionally withdraw. Instead of withdrawing, Israel sponsored an anti-Palestinian Christian-led fascist militia, called the South Lebanon Army, by arming, paying, training and supporting them in the occupied zone.

Most of the audience, even the moderators in the seminar, included hard-core Zionist supporters of Israel. Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub – of Lebanese descent (now a professor emeritus at Temple University, Philadelphia), was the speaker for the Palestinian-Lebanese cause. An angry Zionist retorted by stating that there could never be peace with the Arabs and Palestinians who had attacked Israel in 1973 on the Yom Kippur day (the Jewish Day of Atonement when they fast). Dr. Ayoub reminded him that Israel had repeatedly shelled and bombed Muslims in his native south Lebanon during the month of Ramadhan, when Muslims fast from dawn to nightfall.

Well, that killing spree of Palestinians has not ceased an iota ever since. As of last Monday, this Ramadhan, at least 175 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Gaza as a result of weeklong Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of Israel’s latest military operation “Protective Edge”. Credible reports from Gaza suggest that ten times as many – some 2000 – people have also been injured. One Israeli airstrike killed eight members of the Haj family in their Khan Younis home last week. In another, 18 members of the extended Batsh family died as their home and a nearby mosque were bombed. Even a medical center that catered to disabled and handicapped people was not spared where two patients and a medical assistant died.

Israeli media reports over 1000 strikes since the operation began, with 60 on the morning of July 10 alone. We are also told that the Palestinian armed groups have fired more than 800 rockets in this latest campaign. However, not a single Israeli has died as a result of such rocket fires although 9 Israelis had sustained minor injuries while fleeing to shelters.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is keen on promoting the ludicrous idea that it is only reacting to aggression from Hamas. Following the footsteps of his diabolical boss, the Israeli Ambassador in the UN went a step further to audaciously claim that while the IDF (Israel Defense Force) gives 15 minutes of warning to Gaza residents to vacate their homes before bombing its target, the Israeli residents have only 15 seconds to take shelter when the sirens, warning of impending rocket fire from Gaza, are heard. Real time reporting by Al Jazeera, however, showed that the IDF gave less than a minute of warning when it demolished Palestinian homes in its airstrikes.

But more remarkably, the social media like Twitter contradict the mood of Israelis. What we notice instead of a panic-stricken people is a picture of Israeli residents of the border town of Sderot leisurely watching the IDF’s aerial bombardments of the Gaza Strip relaxing on lawn chairs. These Israelis know well that with the Iron Dome Defense system in place, the rockets fired from Gaza pose virtually no threats and are a mere nuisance or irritation and nothing else; these are more like firecrackers that carry little risk!

Just as it has happened many times before with every Israeli invasion, Netanyahu’s real goal is far from defending Israel’s citizens.
Israel’s real goal has been to destroy the Palestinian resistance, and its infrastructure, and make lives of ordinary Palestinians miserable so that they are forced to move out of their ancestral homes. In the late 1970s, in Lebanon, Israel wanted to put in place a compliant, pro-Israeli regime in Beirut. In 1982, when it appeared that Lebanon’s civil war could drag on for years with little chance of achieving those goals ever, Israel decided to move on its own. But it needed approval from the USA, which had brokered a ceasefire in 1981. Ariel Sharon visited Washington DC in May 1982, and got the ‘green signal’ from the Reagan administration. Israel waited for a pretext, and that came with an attempted assassination of Israel’s ambassador in London on June 3 by Abu Nidal’s renegade, anti-PLO faction.

It did not matter that PLO had nothing to do with the London attack and that some of its leaders were among the names on the would-be assassins’ hit list, three days later, on June 6, 1982 the Israeli army invaded Lebanon, crossing the Litani River and moving as far north as Beirut. Beirut was besieged and subjected to unfathomed bombing for two months. Casualties were enormous, totaling more than 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, mostly civilians. Hospitals were hit, and the Palestinian refugee camps were levelled in massive bombardment.

As the world condemned Israeli butchery, the USA brokered a ceasefire in August, which centered on the PLO leaving Beirut—its guerrillas, its doctors, its civilian infrastructure, its officials—everyone and everything would board ship heading for Tunis, far away from Occupied Palestine. The U.S. agreed to serve as guarantor of Israel’s promises, as protector of the Palestinian civilians – primarily women, children and old men – left behind. U.S. Marines were deployed as the centerpiece of an international force with a 30-day mandate to guard Beirut during the withdrawal of the PLO fighters.

With the PLO fighters gone, and the multi-national peacekeeping force also having left Beirut by September 11, the IDF gave green signal to its surrogate Christian Phalangist forces to enter Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. It again needed a pretext, which came on September 14 with the assassination of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel – a Maronite Christian. It did not matter that the assassin was a Christian Lebanese belonging to a rival faction that was hostile to the Phalange and had no ties to PLO.

On September 15, the IDF surrounded the camps and stationed troops at the exits of the area to prevent camp residents from leaving, and fired illuminating flares at night to facilitate the slaughter of some 3,500 unarmed Palestinians over the next couple of days. Many of the bodies found had been severely mutilated. Many boys had been castrated, some were scalped, and some had the Christian cross carved into their bodies. Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist, who had entered the camps wrote to her husband, Dr. Franklin Lamb, “I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles.”

So, what’s Netanyahu’s pretext for the latest massacre of Palestinians of Gaza? It is hard to believe that the death of three kidnapped Jewish youths was the reason for his Nazi-like campaign in Gaza. After all, in revenge a Palestinian boy has been burned to death by settler Jews. Weeks before the crisis, Israel had conducted incursions in almost every Palestinian city in the West Bank, arrested over 380 Palestinians, bombed the Gaza strip, and killed two Palestinians, Mahmoud Dudin, a 13 year old boy from Dura, and Mustafa Aslan, 22 years old from Kalandia refugee camp, and injured hundreds. Among those arrested were over 50 prisoners who were released in the exchange deal of 2011, including Nael Barghouthi, who had spent 34 years in Israeli jails. A dozen parliamentarians were also arrested, bringing the number of imprisoned Members of Parliament to 22. By June 25 already hundreds of Palestinians detained had been observing hunger strike against administrative detention, one of the worst forms of arbitrary detention, for more than 60 days. (It was one of the longest collective hunger strikes ever observed outside the Guantanamo Bay prison.) As noted by Palestinian activist, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Israel decided to deal with this hunger strike through punitive measures, including solitary confinement, transfer of prisoners, and deprivation of visitation rights and seizing personal belongings. The international reaction to this hunger strike has been inadequate, which contributed to further repression of the prisoners.

In recent days, Israeli forces raided a compound in Hebron and made several arrests while searching for two Hamas members suspected of killing those three Israeli teenagers. On Monday, a 21-year-old Palestinian, Munir Badarin, was shot in the leg south of the West Bank city of Hebron during confrontations with Israeli soldiers, and left without medical attention until he bled to death.

Netanyahu’s is a vicious, racist government that does not value Palestinian lives and properties. It is collectively punishing everyone – from an infant to a nursing mother to a handicapped Palestinian – for the rockets fired from Gaza. Such actions qualify as war crimes. So far only 7 militants have died as a result of Israel’s latest campaign, i.e., a whopping 95% of the Palestinian victims have been unarmed civilians who have no protection against bombs and missiles dropped on them.

As aptly noted by the veteran British Jewish lawmaker, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Israeli offensive in Gaza is comparable to the Nazis who forced his family to flee from Poland. Kaufman, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

Sir Kaufman is right in comparing Netanyahu’s criminal activities in Gaza with those of the Nazis. Khaled Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian father, has claimed that he saw two of his young daughters (Amal – aged 2, and Suad – aged 7) shot dead and another (Samer, aged 4) critically injured by an Israeli soldier who emerged from a stationary tank and opened fire as the family obeyed an order from the Israeli forces to leave their home. He said, “Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids.” By the way, this incident is not an exception. As Al-Jazeera has shown the IDF did not allow even two minutes to safely evacuating elderly Palestinians from their targeted homes for demolition. Many elderly Palestinians have been buried with the ruins of their homes in Gaza.

An estimated 17,000 Palestinians remained holed up at U.N. facilities Monday after fleeing their homes the day before as Israel advised civilians to evacuate the town of Beit Lahiya and its surroundings ahead of an attack. The number of Palestinians killed in the nearly week-old campaign has already topped the death toll of Israel’s operation in Gaza in November 2012, an eight-day offensive that ended with a cease-fire that more or less held up until the recent eruption. What’s next?

Zionist hawks like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman want a permanent solution to the crisis by annihilating the resistance, or more correctly, the entire Palestinian people. “Postponing the problem won’t solve it. It will just explode later,” Lieberman said. Other moderate Zionists see Gaza war as Israel ‘grass mowing’ exercise, necessary to periodically trim the Palestinians to size.

Sadly, as the world watches horrified by Israeli savagery and inhumanity and the UNSC passes a non-binding resolution that calls for de-escalation, everything Palestinian has become a fitting target for Israel’s Nazi-like campaign to the sheer joy and amusement of Israelis. President Mahmoud Abbas is asking the United Nations to put the state of Palestine under “international protection” due to the worsening violence in Gaza. He has also asked Switzerland, the depository of the fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in wartime, to ask signatories to place sanctions on Israel which, as the occupying power, is responsible for the safety of civilians. In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Abbas asked that he convene an urgent meeting of the Security Council to respond to his request for international protection under U.N. auspices of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday expressed alarm at the Israeli military operations resulting in the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, as well as the indiscriminate firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. She appealed to all sides to abide by their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

“Israel, Hamas, and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have been down this road before, and it has led only to death, destruction, distrust and a painful prolongation of the conflict,” Pillay said. “This time around, once again, civilians are bearing the brunt of the conflict. I urge all sides to steadfastly respect their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law to protect civilians.”

“For its part, the Government of Israel must take all possible measures to ensure full respect for the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, during the conduct of hostilities, as required by international humanitarian law. In all circumstances, they must avoid targeting civilians,” she said.

“However, we have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes. Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”

The targeting of civilian homes is a violation of international humanitarian law unless the homes are being used for military purposes. In case of doubt, buildings ordinarily used for civilian purposes, such as homes, are presumed not to be legitimate military targets. Even where a home is identified as being used for military purposes, any attack must be proportionate, offer a definite military advantage in the prevailing circumstances at the time, and precautions must be taken.

“Every alleged breach of international law must be promptly, independently, thoroughly and effectively investigated, with a view to ensuring justice and reparations for the victims,” Pillay said.

But who or what organization will ensure that justice is carried out and victims compensated for their losses and sufferings? With the American government and the powerful Jewish lobby and the ‘Amen’ Corner in the Capitol Hill always standing behind the pariah state, Israeli leaders have proven time and again that they have no desire to reform their murderous instincts and practices.

Sir Kaufman said, “The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.” The truth is, Netanyahu has been following the footsteps of his predecessors! He knows the power of the Jewish lobby more than Obama himself.

It was, therefore, no accident that on June 23 Boston’s transit authority, the MBTA, decided to remove advertisements highlighting Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians from Boston’s subway transit system under pressure from pro-Israel groups and in an apparent violation of its own policies. The ad read, “Since September, 2000 Israel’s Military has killed one Palestinian child every four days, using U.S. tax dollars. End U.S. support for Israeli apartheid.”

Boston-based non-profit Ads Against Apartheid (AAA), which sponsored the ad campaign, believes the MBTA’s action is a violation of its right to freedom of speech. An official working closely with the MBTA told AAA by telephone that the ads were likely removed because they were found to be “demeaning to the state of Israel.”

Richard Colbath-Hess, Jewish co-founder of AAA, emphasized that the ads criticize the behavior of the Israeli government, not any national group or individual.

Interestingly, this same transit authority ran Islamophobic anti-Muslim ads by Pam Geller’s group “American Freedom Defense Initiative”. AAA president and co-founder, Chadi Salamoun noted, “There is certainly a double standard here. Our ads present facts cited by respectable institutions.” “The MBTA has allowed anti-Palestinian groups to display opinionated messages that border on hate-speech,” he said in reference to a pro-Israel ad that the American Freedom Defense Initiative sponsored in early 2014, which sought to draw a contrast between what it called “the civilized man” and “those engaged in savage acts,” clearly implying that Palestinians comprise the latter.

“Aren’t they demeaning to Palestinians? The MBTA can’t use its position to give voice to the Israeli position while silencing ads that highlight human rights abuses that the Israeli government commits daily,” Colbath-Hess said.

It is good to see that conscientious Jews like Colbeth-Hess, who are opposed to apartheid Israel, are challenging the monopoly of Zionists inside the USA. Who knows one day with many such activists, the USA will refuse to be exploited by its neo-Nazi blood-suckers!

The post Israel’s Nazi-Like Criminal Campaign In Gaza – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Emergency legislation announced by the UK government on July 10, 2014, that would grant the British intelligence and law enforcement agencies access to data about millions of people’s communications is a blow to the right to privacy.

The new law is intended to replace legislation that became invalid when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in April that blanket data retention breaches the right to privacy. Yet the new law does not adequately address the human rights requirements laid out in the court’s ruling and goes further to expand the government’s surveillance powers.

“It is outrageous that instead of reforming its laws to address concerns about its involvement in mass surveillance, the UK government is renewing its powers to monitor the communications of people who aren’t suspected of breaking any laws,” said Izza Leghtas, Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Blanket data retention undermines the right to privacy of millions of people inside and outside the UK, and yet the government is pushing through emergency legislation allowing it to do just that.”

There is credible evidence that the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is engaged in mass surveillance of people in the UK and overseas, and the government has been criticized for such perceived surveillance excesses. The evidence emerged following revelations by former the US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013. In contrast to the US government, which has engaged in a public debate and taken some first steps toward reform, the UK government has been largely silent on the issue, asserting that UK intelligence agencies complied with the law and acted to protect public safety.

Under the draft emergency bill published on July 10, 2014, the government would be able to require telephone and internet companies in the UK and abroad to collect metadata on their customers’ communications and store it for up to 12 months. While companies could be required to keep data for less than 12 months instead of the fixed 12-month period in the current law, the new bill would otherwise maintain the existing system of data collection and retention.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials will be able to access that data under the law governing surveillance, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) of 2000, which allows for broad government surveillance with no independent scrutiny.

The CJEU ruled on April 8, 2014, that blanket data retention disproportionately interferes with the rights to privacy and to the protection of personal data under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and struck down EU Directive 2006/24/EC on data retention. The directive required phone and internet companies in EU countries to collect data on their users’ communications over phone and email – including their location, whom they called and e-mailed, and when – and store it for up to two years. The new Data Retention and Investigation Powers Bill will replace two domestic regulations of 2009 on data retention enacted by the UK to implement that directive. Those regulations became invalid once the Court of Justice declared the directive illegal.

With this bill and the extremely short timeframe it has given parliament and the public to consider it, the government circumvents concerns raised by the Grand Chamber of the EU’s top court, undermining the rule of law as well as the right to privacy. The bill does not address the court’s concerns that the data retention directive affected everyone using electronic communications services regardless of whether they were linked to criminal activity, interfering with the rights of “practically the entire European population.”

However, the bill goes further than merely addressing communications data retention by also extending the government’s powers to intercept the content of communications under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) of 2000. Grounds for intercepting communications under that law include national security and preventing or detecting serious crime. Though the new bill reduces the scope of one of those grounds – “safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom” – to cases relating to national security, it extends the scope of who may be subject to interception warrants extraterritorially to companies outside the UK that offer communications services to UK customers.

The bill also extends the definition of “telecommunications service” in the law to include “companies who provide internet-based services, such as webmail,” the government’s explanatory notes say. This change would subject a much broader range of internet companies in the UK and abroad to surveillance warrants from the UK.

The UK government has failed to address concerns that the 2000 law is outdated and needs to be brought in line with the right to privacy. While Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced a full review of the law on July 10, 2014, a positive step, the review will not be concluded until 2016, when the new emergency law expires.

“An independent review of existing legislation is a positive step, but it should be completed before new legislation is enacted, not after,” Leghtas said. “Members of parliament should insist on a proper debate on surveillance with enough time to consult civil society and engage with the public to ensure meaningful reforms that can protect people’s privacy and safety.”

Prime Minister Cameron contends that the new emergency law is needed because without it companies would stop collecting and storing such data necessary for national security and to protect people from serious crime. Parliament will have a week to examine the bill, with a debate of only one day in the House of Commons and two days in the House of Lords, a far shorter timetable than usual for the passage of legislation in the UK. It is expected to pass as leaders of the main three political parties have expressed their support. Cameron and Clegg justified the short time frame by saying that not acting immediately would put people’s safety at risk, given events in Syria, Iraq, and around the world. They also contended that the bill restores existing measures but does not introduce any new powers.

But, as the EU court ruled, existing powers undermine human rights. And using the fast-track procedure denies members of parliament and the public a chance to properly consider and debate a bill that affects the rights of millions of people, Human Rights Watch said. The “emergency” bill also goes far beyond data retention by asserting that the government’s surveillance powers have striking extraterritorial reach over a broader range of service providers, which merits a more meaningful public debate.

Knowing who communicated with whom, when, and from where can reveal as much as the contents of what is said over the phone or written in an e-mail, especially when collected in bulk. In March 2014 the United Nations Human Rights Committee called on the US government to “refrain from imposing mandatory retention of data by third parties.”

Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act (HRA), which incorporates it into UK law, the UK must respect the right to private life and any interference with that right must be “in accordance with the law,” “necessary in a democratic society,” and proportionate. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by the UK, also prohibits arbitrary and unlawful interference with privacy. This right applies to digital and phone communications and is not limited to the contents of those communications.

Other measures the UK government announced on July 10 include a new Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, based on the US model, to advise the government on counterterrorism policies; the restriction of the number of public bodies that can request communications data from phone and internet companies; and the publication of annual transparency reports. Details of these measures have yet to be published, and it is too soon to assess whether they would provide any effective oversight or degree of public accountability to UK government surveillance practices, Human Rights Watch said.

“Why did the government wait for over three months to react to the European Court’s ruling, and then plan to rush the bill through parliament within a week?” Leghtas said. “This emergency bill undermines not only the right to privacy, but parliamentary and public scrutiny of measures that affect everyone’s lives.”

The post UK: Emergency Surveillance Law A Blow To Privacy, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The director of Paraguay’s Orchestra of Recycled Instruments knew the magic of music from his early years, when he was seven or eight when he began taking classes with a popular guitarist Felipe Miranda, in his home town of Carapeguá.

The story of Hernán Favio Chavez, is marked by a significant determination towards entrepreneurship and ingenuity being used to improve the state of recycling in the country where improvised landfills are seen every corner and deforestation has caused a major impact in the last twenty years. Hernan’s story seems to have come out of his passion and dreams which continue to accompany him since his childhood, while his efforts, training and hard work have finally paid off.

Shortly after being fiddled in musical groups, at the age 13 forming part of the chorus of his city, Hernan taught guitar lessons to his companions paid for by the local school which was included the institute Mariscal Estigarribia. That was how the boy learned to take leadership, discipline and organizational skills.

Already integrated within the musicians’ network for 15 years and directed the children’s choir of the Cathedral of Carapeguá.

According to the newspaper ABC COLOR in Paraguay, Hernán “later entered the seminary, where he used the knowledge of his religious teachers, and he was the one who enriched their texts with music and rhythm. Finally, Chavez decided to lead the road and study theology; Philosophy at the Catholic University of Asunción and received an engineering degree in human ecology at the National University of Asunción. He pursued this career and went to work as an environmental technician at the recycling lots around Carapeguá.”

But music for him, it was just an additional, complementary engagement and pleasant activity. “I always worked formally somewhere else,” he says. Thus, taught philosophy at several schools in Asunción, Fernando de la Mora and Luque; taught Agricultural Administration in Carapeguá and served as an administrator of the municipality’s plant nursery in that city. Chavez came to the humble area of Cateura recycling responsible for environmental education as part of a Procicla project. From there, something new and important was about to happen which will lead him to a completely new direction.

According to the local community in Carapeguá “When Chavez worked at the landfill he began teaching music to children. First taught those children of the working staff in the waste and garbage processing plant; then opened to the community and there began teaching music history in that place, in that context.”

From this socio-economic situation, surged the idea to create instruments from recycled materials and Hernán was closer than ever to make this happen. He adds: “For us it was easy because we took music lessons at the same place where we worked in the processing plant solid waste. Just had to reach out and grab tons of recyclable materials arriving daily.”

The first instruments that emerged were the percussion and some pan flutes, tube instruments and those with a vibrating flow of air; a humble violin, made from an old steel colander and a water pipe. “He used to show that, rather like instrument simulation. He brought these instruments to school, to educate people about the importance of recycling.”

The surprise for him was when these sketched instruments’ sounds began to emerge. From there, with the collaboration of other colleagues such as Nicolás Gómez, began experimenting with new materials for better quality. An inspiration for Chávez was the instruments used by the popular group of Les Luthiers, Argentina who used similar instruments for presentations. These instruments made of alternative materials, says Chavez – “not necessarily waste, but alternative or recyclables,” and they served as an example to make something similar in Paraguay not only for teaching but also for playing in public.

“That inspired me to investigate further” adds Chavez, “At that time there were only few places where to go, and most of the instruments were the result of our own ingenuity,” says the Paraguayan musician without any fanfare. Now these teenagers have made guitars, violins, drums and saxophones and trombones with recycled materials while using old hydraulic pipes. At a time when their school was at a difficult economic time, they decided to establish the orchestra in order to secure an additional avenue of resources for their school in Carapeguá.

Now hundreds of kids and teenagers are playing their instruments, traveling and visiting the world. The school of music is open to every student and they even are allowed to travel abroad. Thus, the Paraguayan team became ingenious with pioneering members, creating recycled musical instruments and used them by children and young people in major festivals and performances in more than 25 countries worldwide. Only a month ago this team of young musicians was nominated by the President of Paraguay as the Roving Ambassadors of their country, with their instruments traveling in Europe and North America.

Another unique example that encompasses this entrepreneurial spirit is Elsa Zaldívar who ran a rural development program in the department of Caaguazú, a region where deforestation has left its irreparable marks for more than four decades. Her work quickly had a positive impact towards improving the women’ lives; Elsa begun her work with local woman to “begin a project to construct toilets, and built stoves for them to cook on. It was impressive how these simple acts changed the women’s lives. And making them ‘feel like people with dignity.’” This was the result of having a bathroom inside or closer to the house and not 100 meters away. Another project that could improve the lives of rural woman was by increasing their earning capacity. She began to work on loofah, a plant that grows easily in the region, but which had fallen out of favor. She persuaded local women in Caaguazú to consider it as a means of generating income. When harvested before it completely ripens, loofah can be eaten.

According to the Rolex Awards for Enterprise official page “Zaldívar’s women let the plant ripen and dry out, then process it until only a fibrous sponge remained. Their hard work, along with the ecological methods they used and the quality of the fiber they produced, gave the product a competitive advantage over plantation-grown loofahs from China and other countries. The women organized themselves in a cooperative and sold their loofah sponges as cosmetic products. They used loofah to manufacture mats, slippers, insoles and a variety of other products that were exported to markets as far away as Europe. The women’s earnings grew, and the successful enterprise drew praise from environmentalists and others. Eventually it even won the respect of the local men who had initially laughed at the project as a women’s idea that had no chance of succeeding.”

It is the spirit of enterprise of Elsa Zaldivar and Hernan Chavez who make Paraguay the sole nation in South America for coming up with genuine ideas and projects that significantly contribute towards eradicating poverty and promoting free enterprise in a country where it is unusual for humble farmers to become independent from local governments who happen to lack vision, as well as the spirit of initiative and devotion in public service. Such farmers have learned to establish themselves as future entrepreneurs for the betterment of their families while using agricultural products that were ignored previously. On the other hand young musicians are eager to use recycling materials and products for their artistic goals and generate an additional income for their school and local community.

The post Paraguay’s Orchestra Of Recycled Instruments And Its Sustainable Development appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In recent years, terrorism inspired by religious extremism as increased targeting the international community. Terrorism has become a virus, today no person, no country, no state is safe. China which was more secure than other states is now under the new wave of religious extremism. Those extremists are targeting innocent people, for them life of others is nothing.

Religion, which is supposed to give man relief and a sense of security, has become a set of mere habit, without spirit. With the growing over-emphasis on religious rights, misinterpretation of religious messages and formalism by the orthodox clergy; many youth, intellectuals and the educated are showing signs of silent indifference towards religion. We are facing the multiple challenges, in order to understand the problems of the modern era like growing trends of hostility, religious extremism, terrorism and radicalization in our societies which have broken the social fabric. Thus, leading the world nowhere but towards an ultimate uncertain and catastrophic future which has detrimental effects for our societies.

In this scenario, effected countries need a comprehensive strategy to defeat and de-radicalize those forces.

The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is a radicalized group which is operating from Xinjiang province of China. It is an Islamist and misinterpreted influenced religious terrorist organization that trains in the lawless boarder area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is part of loosely connected with global terror network. ETIM has planned and carried out many terrorist attacks in China it also links connection with other terrorist’s organizations of other states.

ETIM is using its all tactics to spread its radicalized form of Islam in the Uyghur autonomous region. Last week Chinese government released detailed evidence of how the ETIM is using the internet to incite terrorist activities in China. While, the recent findings show that many terrorists in China are ordinary people who have become religious radicalized by watched online terrorist materials calling for violent Jihad to ensure plane in heaven.

One terrorist namely Mirzat was caught after attacking people at a game room in Hotan, Xinjiang told that he was told that jihad would save me from judgment after death and ensure a place for him in heaven. This religious radicalization of common people may create more problem than regular trained militants because these radicalized people spend their daily life with common people and share and preach their ideas with other. So, it creates a chain of radicalized people who do not care about their life but to killed innocents for the sake of heaven.

In the wake of deadly terrorist attacks, Chinese leaders have assurance that the culprits will be severely punished and increase its security measures. No doubt that Chinese government has the capability and confidence to crack down on the radicalized terrorists. Authorities have arrested and punished many terrorists but only punishment and not enough for this radicalized mindset.

Chinese government should launch a de-radicalization movement in the Xinxiang province. Like other religious radicalized states are active to de-radicalize those elements which are creating problem for the society. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the states which are under this process with different means and methods.

De-radicalization programs for captured jihadi fighters have had mixed success in the different parts of the world. The de-radicalization program of Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan (Swat) and US effort in Iraq are good examples for effective de-radicalization program in China. The authorities should assess and enable program to better focus their resources on individuals who can be de-radicalized while screening out those who cannot be de-radicalized under current conditions. Once evaluated, segregation minimizes detainee networking, and further recruitment and radicalization.

In this process, rehabilitation may provide a detainee the proper resources and support necessary to allow reintegration into society.

By utilizing the knowledge of what characterizes an effective de-radicalization effort, Chinese authorities should additional means to combat radical Islam and prevent further acts of terror.

The chances of success are more just because of the unique geographic location of the Uygur region. The Xinjiang problem is at its low intensity and Chinese authorities have multiple policy options to apply, but a de-radicalization program is the need of the day.

The author is a PhD Candidate at Zhejiang University, China. iimran110@gmail.com

The post China: A De-Radicalization Call – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Vijay Shankar

The run up to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) was marked by a debate held in Sparta amongst the Peloponnesian allies to determine whether war against the aggressive seapower Athens and the maritime Delian League was to be waged. The leadership of the war-like alliance lay with the powerful yet reluctant Spartan king Archidamus, a man of both intelligence and moderation. He questioned, “What sort of a war, then, are we going to fight? If we can neither defeat them at sea nor control the resources on which their navy depends, we shall do ourselves more harm than good.” To Archidamus, clearly, the inability to access and control the Global Commons of his era presaged defeat.

Global Commons is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global common pool resource domains. Global Commons include the earth’s shared resources, such as the oceans, the atmosphere, outer space and the Polar Regions. Cyberspace also meets the definition, but for this examination will focus on the hydrosphere. The parameters for enquiry necessarily include physical tangibles of height, width, depth and the awkward intangible of human history.

Mahan in “The Influence of Seapower upon History” underscored three prescient perspectives relating to the Commons. First, competition for materials and markets is intrinsic to an ever trussed global system. Second, the collaborative nature of commerce on the one hand deters war, while on the other engenders friction. Third, the Global Commons require to be secured against disruption and rapacious exploitation.

An understanding of the Commons must not suffer from any delusions that explicit and recognised conventions have evolved over the centuries. On the contrary, till the middle of the last century what passed for a principle was Hugo Grotius’ 1609 notion of Mare Liberum; freedom of the seas. The concept that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it. The free-for-all state of the Commons becomes evident in the fact of the seaward limit of national sovereignty being defined by the cannon-shot decree which would suggest that it was the ability to control that defined dominion. By the middle of the twentieth century the collapse of colonial empires and the birth of new nations set into motion a dynamic that demanded a change from cannon-shot rules and lawlessness to equitability and responsibilities in the Commons along with demarcation of territorial and economic zones. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I, II & III) met 1954 to 1982 to hammer out and define rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans. The deliberations concluded in 1982 and became functional in 1994. Recognising that that the sea bed is the repository of vast and unguaged quantities of minerals, the Convention provided for a regime relating to minerals on the seabed outside any state’s territorial waters or Exclusive Economic Zone. It established an International Seabed Authority to regulate seabed mining and control distribution of royalties. To date it has been ratified by 165 nations. Significantly, the US Senate has snubbed the UNCLOS. What critically mars the compact is its imprecision, its illusory demand for the supranational and the absence of a structure to secure the Global Commons against disruption and rapacious exploitation.

The current distressed state of the Commons is discernible by the impact that globalisation has had; strains of multi-polarity, anarchy of expectations and the increasing tensions between the demands for economic integration and the stresses of fractured political divisions are symptoms. Nations are persistently confronted by the need to reconcile internal pressures with intrusive external impulses at a time when the efficacy of Power to bring on political outcomes is in question. While most nations have sought resolution and correctives within the framework of the existing international order, China emerges as an irony that has angled for and conspired to re-write the rule book.

China’s rising comprehensive power has generated an internal impulse to military growth and unilateral intervention in its immediate neighbourhood in the South and East China Sea and its extended regions of economic interests. It has developed and put in place strategies that target the Commons to assure a favourable consequence to what it perceives to be a strategic competition for resources and control of the seaways that enable movement. The consequences of China activising artifices such as the Anti-Access and Area Denial strategy and geo-political manoeuvres to establish the String of Pearls in the Indian Ocean Region evokes increasing shared anxieties and resistance by players in the same strategic milieu. Particularly at a time when the North Eastern Passage through the Arctic is emerging as receding ice cuts the Asia-Europe route via the Suez by half (from 23000 km to 11500 km) and technology opens the Antarctic to economic exploitation. The paradoxical effects of China’s contrivances are to undermine its own strategic standing, hasten counter-balancing alignments and urge a global logic of cooperative politics over imperious strategies.

Vijay Shankar
Former Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Forces Command of India

The post Strife On The Global Commons – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Geetanjali R Kamat

The Supreme Court of India recently pronounced a landmark decision, whereby Shariat courts will not have any legal sanction and fatwas are not to have any judicial enforcement, i.e., they are ‘illegal’, if found to be infringing upon the fundamental rights of an individual.

This decision was given after the apex court heard a Public Interest Litigation from Vishwa Lochan Madan, a Delhi-based lawyer, who addressed the grievances of a 28-year-old mother to whom a Fatwa had been issued, directing her to live at her father-in-law’s house despite the allegations of rape committed by him.

According to the religion of Islam, whenever a Muslim has a question, he can ask an Islamic scholar for answering the same. This answer, which is given in the light of an objective interpretation of religious evidence, is known as a ‘Fatwa’, or an ‘opinion’.

When the facts and circumstances of this case came to the cognizance of the Supreme Court, it said “the power to adjudicate must flow from a validly made law”. Furthermore, it has forbidden the use of Fatwas to punish the innocent members of the Muslim community or to breach their basic fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution of India.

Unfortunately, there have also been a myriad of similar cases, where the issuance of Fatwas have compromised unjustly, unfairly and unreasonably with an individual’s fundamental rights, in the name of securing religious righteousness. Be it the case of issuing a Fatwa against Kashmir’s first all-girl rock band or against Indian tennis star Sania Mirza’s dress code, these directives disregard the freedom of individuals, freedom of thought and expression just being one of them.

The Supreme Court has said that if Fatwas (which arise from no legal foundation) are not followed by a Muslim, then they cannot be legally enforced. More importantly, if a Fatwa is found to be violating the fundamental rights of an individual, it would automatically be rendered as ‘illegal’ and appropriate action would be taken, according to the procedure established by law.

Even at the advent of the British Rule in India, no stone had been left unturned to see that the rules of governance were reformed to their benefit. But the one field that they refused to step in was that of religious customs and personal laws.

At the same time, it is of due significance to note that customs that contradicted the basic rights of an individual, endangering their life and freedom, were abrogated and discontinued from being enforced at law. Today, personal laws in India, such as the Muslim personal law in this case, have been allowed ample freedom to practice and profess their religion in their own customary manner.1 But, if it threatens an individual’s rights, restricts their progress in terms of thought or expression, or debases the person concerned, it violates the right to personal life and liberty. It is with this purpose that the Supreme Court has decided to remove the applicability and enforceability of a fatwa, in order to uphold the principles of natural justice in the society.

Declaring the decision of a Fatwa by a Shariat Court as not legally binding on any Muslim who is not before it, is a mechanism to ensure that constitutional rights guaranteed to all the Muslims in the entire community are not violated.

This should not be misconstrued as law interfering with the Muslim personal law. It should be understood in the sense that the courts of law can intervene, and not interfere, in matters where injustice is being done to the people in the name of religion. India is a country which is a potpourri of diverse cultures, languages and religions and thus, it can never attempt to abrogate rules concerning personal laws, as long as they do not contradict the basic philosophy underlying the Constitution of the country.

Geetanjali R Kamat
Second Year, BA LLB (Hons.)
National Law Institute University Bhopal, India.

1. Articles 25 – 28, under Part III of the Indian Constitution

The post Historical Judgment In India – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nora Mardirossian

At the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, negotiations regarding the issue of business and human rights have become unconventionally heated. The European Union has repeatedly vowed to vote against a resolution to establish an international legally binding instrument to address corporate human rights abuses. Additionally, pressure from the United States has caused some developing states, particularly those in Africa, to fear supporting the resolution.

At least 536 civil society organizations and 85 states have called for an international legally binding instrument on human rights, transnational corporations, and other business enterprises. The Holy See also expressed support for a binding instrument, and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples called such an instrument the “big picture” in protecting the rights of indigenous peoples.

Ecuador, South Africa, Cuba, and Pakistan, among others, have declared that after many years of documenting the negative impacts corporations can have on human rights, it is time to begin the intergovernmental process of drafting a treaty to address the abuse. Ecuador has repeatedly stated, “currently, the only ones who have binding protections are TNCs themselves” through Free Trade Agreements, Bilateral Investment Treaties, and other regulations that give legal rights to corporations, but none to victims of their abusive practices.

While existing standards, namely the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, already enumerate the human rights obligations of corporations, they are voluntary and have only been implemented by some states. In order to prevent violations and to provide remedy for victims internationally, the U.N. Guiding Principles must be backed by binding law.

The European Union Attempts to Sideline Process

The European Union has repeatedly vowed that its member States on the Human Rights Council will vote as a block against the resolution. Further, it has declared that its member States will also refuse to participate in the intergovernmental process of creating a treaty if the resolution is in fact adopted.

As an alternative to an intergovernmental process that would determine the content of a binding treaty, the European Union and other states have proposed a multi-stakeholder approach for considering the creation of such an instrument. However, as a recent study by Misereor, Global Policy Forum, and Brot für die Welt explains, this kind of process would give corporate actors privileged access to U.N. decision-makers, making their viewpoints and interests more prominent and further sidelining calls for legally binding instruments for TNCs.

While the European Union claims to believe it is time to begin considering the possibility of a binding instrument on business and human rights, its actions show it truly intends to drown the process in expert studies that will likely never prove fruitful. At the expense of the victims of corporate human rights abuses around the world, the European Union is fighting to maintain the status quo of corporate impunity.

Plea for more constructive dialogue

On Thursday, Brazil, Indonesia, and Ireland urged States to engage in a more constructive dialogue. Civil society groups have also called on the European Union and the United States to cease their procedural and adversarial tactics.

In response to the E.U. pledge, South Africa and Ecuador declared that they would not give into the political pressure by withdrawing their resolution. While powerful developed States attempt to use their might to intimidate others, the fact remains that the votes of less powerful and less developed States on the Council, which suffer the most from corporate abuses, have equal weight.

The intergovernmental process to establish a binding instrument would embolden the explicit intent of the Guiding Principles that business enterprises “address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved” by “taking adequate measures for their prevention, mitigation and, where appropriate, remediation.” These international legal obligations would finally be implemented with the support of a binding treaty.

Thus, if States truly want to address corporate human rights abuses, they must vote “Yes” on the Resolution to create a binding instrument.

Nora Mardirossian, Guest Scholar at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

The post EU Opposes Stronger Regulation Of Corporations In Geneva – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, in an apparent attempt to begin to better his abysmal showing in the last round of presidential primaries in 2012, recently attacked the current leader in Republican polls, Rand Paul, on his perceived vulnerability—foreign policy. In the piece “Isolationist Policies Make the Threat of Terrorism Greater” in the Washington Post, Perry endeavored to smear Paul’s views by calling them “isolationist” and linking him to the “leading from behind” policies of President Barack Obama. At the same time, Perry tried to use a trick that many Republican candidates regularly use—to link themselves to the “internationalist” Ronald Reagan.

The issue that Perry chose is the U.S. reentry into the Iraq quagmire. Perry is for it and Paul is against it. Most Americans, tired of fruitless and never ending U.S. government wars, agree with Paul, but unfortunately, Perry’s interventionist jingoism still gets some traction with the Republican base. And because Perry must win the Republican primaries in 2016 before he needs to worry about what the general public thinks (he better hope they forget his view by then), he is attacking Paul now on his more restrained foreign policy.

First of all, Paul and like-minded people are not “isolationists.” This same inaccurate smear was used against Paul’s father Ron in his previous runs for president. Since 1945, and especially since the end of the Cold War, people who didn’t want to bomb anyone and everyone—that is, who show any restraint at all in their foreign policy views—have been subject to this accusation by hyperactive interventionists.

Second of all, Ronald Reagan exhibited more restraint in the direct use of U.S. military power than many other recent presidents, including the two George Bushes, Bill Clinton, and Obama. Reagan avoided large-scale U.S. ground interventions and even withdrew from smaller peacekeeping missions when the human costs became too high. During his eight years in office, Reagan conducted a small-scale invasion of the island of Grenada, had minor dust ups the air with Libya, and withdrew his peacekeeping mission to Lebanon after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. So if anything, Reagan’s actual policies in office were closer to Paul’s view rather than Perry’s. Perry also apparently doesn’t know much about Dwight Eisenhower’s track record in foreign policy. Perry argues that Reagan, like Eisenhower before him, refused to heed “the false prophets of living alone.” Yet Eisenhower was even more restrained than Reagan in the direct use of military power—conducting only a small-scale ground invasion of Lebanon during his eight years in office.

In fact, Reagan and Eisenhower might raise an eyebrow against sinking back into the bog in Iraq, even by conducting airstrikes. In the Vietnam War, when American air strikes didn’t cause North Vietnam to desist in trying to take over South Vietnam by using Viet Cong guerrilla forces, the United States felt obligated to escalate the ground war. Similarly, any American air strikes against the surging Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq would again put U.S. prestige on the line but will likely not end the IS insurgency. Then Perry and his ilk probably will begin demanding a re-escalation on the ground.

Perry’s hysterical refrain that “ignoring the growth of the Islamic State and events in Syria and Iraq will only ensure that the problem will fester and grow” is the same tired refrain of “Munich 1938” we have heard since World War II—that is, that a minor threat anywhere in the world will snowball, if left unaddressed, and eventually become a potent threat to the United States. Yet in addressing these minor threats, U.S. military action sometimes makes the problem worse, such as in the recent use of force against Libya and in the original invasion of Iraq (let’s not forget the origins of the Islamic State, which came in response to this invasion). Even the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has fueled radical Islamism and destabilized neighboring nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Perhaps instead of always looking to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 to justify U.S. interventionism, Republicans ought to look farther back in history, as the Pauls correctly do, to examine why Hitler was able to take power in the first place. Woodrow Wilson’s unnecessary and ill-advised U.S. involvement in World War I, led to an allied victory, Germany’s humiliation, and demands that Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate, thereby opening a path to ascension for Hitler.

The recent U.S. debacles in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iraq, and Libya are the reason the American people are fed up with Perry-Dick Cheney-George W. Bush-style cowboy foreign policy. Conservatives should realize, as Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge did, that war is the biggest cause of big government in human history and in American history (many big domestic programs have originated during wartime). In addition, even “national greatness” conservatives should realize that with a $17 trillion national debt and globe-girdling alliance commitments, the United States is currently overextended and may need to keep its powder dry more often overseas to renew its economic health, thus ensuring its great power status for many years to come.

As for the IS, its threat to the United States has been grossly overblown. The group, like its predecessor al Qaeda in Iraq, is so brutal that it will likely trigger a backlash among the more moderate Sunni majority. Even if this doesn’t occur, rival Shiite militias, potent against the U.S. occupation in Iraq, will likely effectively resist IS. Furthermore, as recent U.S. interventions have shown, American military intervention in Islamic lands, which is one of the major causes of the spread of radical Islamism, usually only makes the problem worse. Besides, why not let these forces, both unfriendly to the United States, fight it out?

Instead, the United States should return to its traditional foreign policy, established by the nation’s founders and followed for most of the nation’s history, of restraint overseas—thus avoiding involvement in most foreign wars unless they really affect American vital interests. Rand and Ron Paul get it. Rick Perry should too.

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

The post Rick Perry Wrongly Smears Rand Paul On Foreign Policy – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Leading management consultants, top government officials and prominent financial journalists are proposing, what they dub, “labor reforms” as the solution for double-digit unemployment and underemployment, economic stagnation and the decline of capital investments.

First of all, the term “labor reform” is just a euphemism for labor regression, the reversal of laws and practices that workers and employees secured through decades of struggle against employers.

The idea that “labor reforms” would create jobs for the unemployed has been tried and disproven over the past decade. Throughout Europe, in particular Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and France, laws facilitating firings, pay differentials between short-term and long-term contract workers and speed-ups have not reduced unemployment, which still remains at depression levels.

What neo-liberal economists and journalists call “labor market flexibility” is really all about increasing the power of the bosses to impose reductions in wages, dominate and dictate work rules, intensify management bullying in the workplace and fire workers without just cause or redress. Likewise “wage flexibility” means giving management the exclusive power to unilaterally lower wages, to alter work contracts, to stratify payments between workers , to downgrade job categories in order to lower wages and to increase output, and to pit unemployed workers against employed workers, temporary workers against long-term workers.

The Consequences of “Labor Reform”: Rising Inequalities

“Labor reforms” are not policies designed to end unemployment, encourage economic recovery and increase capital expenditure. They are not an economic strategy. The principle goal is to concentrate power in the hands of the bosses in order to lower labor costs, increase profits and double-up production from a reduced workforce.

The growing disparity of power between capital and labor resulting from “labor reforms” is the key factor producing inequality. Neo-liberals attribute growing inequality to technological changes, ignoring the fact that it is the growing power of capital that determines how productivity gains, from the introduction of technological innovations, are distributed between capital and labor.

“Labor Reform” and the Astronomical Rise of Workplace Bullying

Most liberals focus on the problems of sexual harassment and intra-working class bullying. These problems certainly require attention and correction. But far more pervasive and with far-reaching consequential is management harassment of all workers of both genders. Because ‘labor reforms’ allow management to fire workers without due process and because union shop stewards do not exist in 88% of the private and public workplaces, management intervenes in everyday workplaces, arbitrarily increasing work assignments and downgrading work performance. And many times it does so with verbal and some times, physical abuse. Management no longer faces workplace solidarity: it can abuse workers, isolate and harangue them, threaten and dictate ultimatums. Any self-defense is immediately interpreted as insubordination and the worker is fired – an example to others to unconditionally submit. Intimidation takes the form of hiring temporary low-wage workers to compete with permanent employees, or threatening to ‘relocate’ the factory. Macro and micro personal bullying is today an integral part of capital- labor relations.

Bullying has an economic function – it is designed to increase output, inculcate obedience and raise profits. But management bullying has profound negative psycho-social effects on workers. Verbal abuse, face to face intimidation, arbitrary downgrading without recourse and other everyday indignities cause depression, a loss of self-worth dignity. This leads to self-abuse, worker and family violence and/or a ‘chain of bullying’ of those below … children, spouses, neighbors and outsiders (immigrants).

The bullying by management does not merely express itself in victimizing workers but also in forcing them to enter in “co-operative relations” where they are supposed to “share” tasks, responsibilities and innovations, without rewards or say in the distribution of material benefits or in the shaping of workplace power relations. It’s bad enough to be bullied and exploited, its worse to be forced to co-operate with management bullies, to smile at indignities and praise the degrading relationships.

The Most Vulnerable: Unemployed, Temporary and Young Workers

The most brutalized sectors of the workforce are the unemployed and temporary young workers, which the neo-liberal ideologues argue will be the beneficiaries of “labor market flexibility”. In fact, lowering the status of employed workers has not created jobs for the unemployed. Temporary workers are hired at the lowest level, paid less than half the wage of permanent workers and can be fired with no notice. Most young ‘temps’ work with the promise of a permanent job and are driven to compete with a multitude of others . . . yet only a few are rehired when the contract ends and, even among them, it is usually another temporary contract. Unemployed workers are subject to intense interviews that go far beyond their work capabilities: they are interrogated regarding their readiness to obey, submit and collaborate with management—this is a key factor in getting hired. Temporary workers are encouraged by management to exceed existing work norms, to work overtime without extra payment, thus fostering animosity and hostility among permanent workers. The unemployed are there to pressure the temp; the temp is employed to compete with the permanent; the young are hired to replace older workers near retirement age to lower pension payments .Veteran workers fear that the younger workers they are assigned to train will then take their jobs or force them into early retirement with a loss of their pension and benefits. Management fosters distrust, hostility, competition and bullying among workers which undermines solidarity by dividing workers between temps and ‘permanent’ workers so they can dominate, intimidate and exploit both.

The on-going drive to strip workers of all protective social legislation and eliminate trade union organization in order to increase profits has allowed capitalists to lessen capital investments in job creating activities. Management bullying at the workplace has become endemic because individual workers have no redress, lack solidarity and have the “choice” of submitting to daily abuse until it become unbearable, or quitting. Management can always find cheap replacements that are more submissive, more willing to endure added job tasks for lesser pay. In many cases, especially among public sector employees, management bullying is a tool to remove and replace competent professionals with political or family cronies. Organizational loyalty replaces professional competence, leading to a decline of public service and advocacy for the citizens, especially the most vulnerable.

Labor Market Reform as a Cover for the Failures of Capital

As we have noted, stripping labor of its rights and concentrating power in the hands of management has not created jobs. The reason is that unemployment and underemployment is a result of the behavior of the capitalist class. They are not investing in job creation!

Instead CEO’s are paying higher dividends to big stockholders, investment bankers and hedge funds. Corporate directors are channeling billions into acquisitions, buying out competitors and monopolizing markets or simply “broadening the portfolio”. They reap huge salaries and bonuses.

Corporate strategic planners and accountants relocate corporate offices overseas and stash hundreds of billions of dollars offshore to avoid taxes while reducing the availability of capital for job-creating investments at home.

The corporate elite relocates plants and operations “off-shore” to low-wage countries, in the process firing millions of workers and thus creating a massive pool of unemployed workers. ‘Capital flexibility’, not ‘labor inflexibility’ (job protection), is the decisive factor generating and maintaining high unemployment and underemployment: Capital has the “flexibility” to acquire existing firms instead of creating new plants and jobs; it has the ‘flexibility’ to ‘offshore’ its operations and displace millions and it has the ‘flexibility’ to hoard funds and profits overseas, hidden from domestic taxes.

Conclusion

The entire argument for “labor reform” and labor flexibility to create jobs is entirely without merit. Worse it is a subterfuge to cover up the fact that it is “capital flexibility”, which is the cause of unemployment.

Moreover, the vast imbalance between financial and productive investments has led to the diminution of stable well-paying jobs in productive sectors. The movement by the corporate and financial elite toward a high unemployment strategy is predicated on its supreme control over the executive branch of government at the top and iron-fisted control over the workplace at the bottom.

Political-corporate integration is at its highest point in history: “flexible capital”, unrestrained movements of capital, is the dominant state ideology. The inability of trade unions and other organized sectors to challenge state policy has led to their total subjection to threats of capital flight and their acceptance of the imposition of “labor reforms” destroying the social basis for organization.

Capital-State integration at the top is accompanied by worker fragmentation and isolation at the workplace. Here “labor reform” plays a major role in sustaining management absolutism: corporate power at the top corrupts and absolute power at the workplace absolutely corrupts – to paraphrase and adapt Lord Acton to the 21st century.

Workplace bullying by management, is the starting point in an extended chain or domination and exploitation that stretches from the highest levels of corporate headquarters to the lowest office and workplace. Frustrated atomized workers suffering indignities do not strike and do not vote. They are the silent majority who tell the pollsters they oppose Wall Street, they want a national health system for their family, affordable higher education for their children and stable, secure employment for themselves—but feel powerless and voiceless!

This majority needs a movement to impose ‘capital reforms’: an end to capital flight, mergers, acquisitions and hoarding instead of capital investments. Perhaps the starting point is workplace reform: organizing and fighting management bullying in every day work.

Another response to the escalation of managements workplace bullying is the growth of self-employment, as skilled workers turn to small-scale enterprises and self-managed co-operatives to free themselves from managers constantly looking over their shoulders, barking for greater output and demanding “extra hours and overtime” without compensation.

Decades earlier, a whole generation was raised with the understanding that employment in a larger firm was a collegial experience of sharing knowledge and advancing through meritorious achievements. Today, few skilled workers hold that view: corporate employment involves a merciless “grind”, abrupt changes in ownership, radical restructuring, high stress workloads and perpetual job insecurity.

The risk of exiting to small-scale individual enterprises may be preferable to the strains and indignities of everyday corporate bullying, even in the public sector. But the bankruptcy rates for small independents remain high.

Socialism anybody?

The post ‘Labor Reform’: Proposals To Maximize Workplace Bullying – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Based on the latest data released by the INEI (National Statistics and Information Institute), Peru currently has a population of 30,814,175, of which 49.9% women. In its overview of the nation, the Institute found that less children are being born, but that there is an increase in citizens of over 30 years of age, indicating a “gradual aging of the population”. Average age went up from 21.5 years-old in 1996 to a current 26.9.

Eleven regions count a population of over 1-million. Among these, the Andean regions of Cajamarca (1,525,000), Puno (1,403,000), Junín (1,341,00), Cuzco (1,309,000), Arequipa (1,273,000) and Áncash (1,142,000); the coastal regions of Lima (8,752,000), La Libertad (1,837,000), Piura (1,830,000), Lambayeque (1,250,000) and Loreto (1,029,000), in the forest area. According to the data, 42.5% of Peruvians live in districts inhabited by over 100,000; 25,5% in areas with less than 20,000 inhabitants.

It is estimated that in 2021, the bicentennial of independence, the population of people over the age of 60 will increase by 11.2%.

The post Peru: Population Over 30 Million appeared first on Eurasia Review.