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Downing Of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Some Insights

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The Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (a Boeing 777-2H6ER) from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was “brought down” in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 aboard. The plane was reportedly flying at an altitude of 10 kilometres (roughly 33,000 feet) between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk when it went down. Information available indicates the possibility of the aircraft being shot down by a Russian-made medium range (altitude) surface-to-air missile (SAM). The ongoing insurgency in Eastern Ukraine and EU-US-Russia friction in the region has dragged this tragedy into a geo-political slugfest.

Analysts have classified the catastrophe as the fourth deadliest single-plane disaster in aviation history, and the deadliest from a manmade cause. The incident has raised a host of issues from humanitarian to ethical, from procedural to regulatory. This article looks at some of the politics surrounding the incident from a mildly technical perspective.

The Buk

The system suspected of having been involved in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is the Russian-built Buk missile which is the successor to the SA-6 “Gainful” SAM system. As the exact type of the SAM has not been identified amongst SA-6, SA-11, SA-17 or the S-300s available in Ukraine, we would go by the US assertion based on information from its space-based surveillance system that it was a SAM (and not air-air missile) and possibly the Buk-M1 (SA-11) that was used against MH 17. Adopted into service by Russia in 1978, since then, the Buk-M1 has been continually upgraded and refined. It is a mobile vehicle mounted system and hence capable of changing its location and being concealed.

A Buk-M1 missile launcher can execute missions independently (from the transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicle) or as part of a larger Buk air-defence (AD) unit deployment along with other sub-systems. When it operates as a part of a unit it has the added advantage of receiving target inputs from a long range (85 Km) surveillance and acquisition radar held centrally by a Buk AD unit. However, when the Buk AD system(TELAR) operates singly or in autonomous mode, its operations envelope reduces and it can then track aircrafts flying at a height of 22 Km at a maximum distance of 32 Km using the tracking and illumination radar housed on the TELAR. Guidance to the SAM launched by the Buk TELAR is semi-active radar homing aided in the proximity of the target, by systems on board the missile. Very simply, the missile uses the TELAR radar signals being reflected by the airplane to home on to it. Given the capability of the Buk ( including in the autonomous mode), and the fact that MH17 was an airliner with a large radar signature, low manoeuvrability and no missile counter measures- it was a sitting duck.

A point regarding AD missile systems, particularly those more sophisticated and capable than the man-portable shoulder-fired class (MANPADS), they come with the manufacturers understanding of their lethality and the havoc they can cause if they fall in wrong hands. Hence these AD missile systems (particularly the Russian systems) incorporate what is commonly termed as “interlocks” which serve three broad purposes. First is safety; they ensure simple safety actions such as you cannot switch on the radar till all hatches are closed ect. Secondly, they ensure physical distribution of authority to fire a missile by the use of radar codes, launch keys ect. By placing these “interlocks” in the custody of more than one person, it can be ensured that a missile cannot be fired without sufficient authorisation. Even the missile itself requires some “interlock” actions to be carried out before it can be used for target engagement. Three, these interlocks allow disabling of the system when there is a danger of it falling into enemy hands.

Therefore capture of AD systems like the Buk does not necessarily mean that even trained captors can put them into operation, unlike in the case of tanks, cannons or the MANPADS. To that end, the 29 June report by the ITAR-TASS news agency, that the separatists had captured some Buk AD systems after taking control of a Ukrainian AD base A-1402, must be treated with some caution. The scenario is complicated further by claims of Russia’s Defence Ministry that it had intercepted Ukrainian radar signals indicating that pro-Kiev AD forces were active in the Donetsk region during the critical hours in question. According to WSJ, which quotes the IISS, the Ukrainian AD systems inventory included 60 Buk SA-11 systems as well as approximately 150 SA-13 Gopher systems, 125 vehicle-mounted SA-8 Gecko units, and 100 SA-4 Ganef systems. Ukraine also fields the S-300.

The second issue regarding AD systems is of training. Operation of such AD systems requires a high degree of familiarity and a reasonable level of skill. To fire a missile from these AD systems would require a skill level more than what it would take to fire a MANPADS and yet such an operator may not have the experience to assess the type of target from its radar signature or its flight characteristics. It is also more likely that such an operator may not have the knowledge of complementary systems like the IFF (Identification-Friend or Foe) or the electro-optical tracker (simply, a TV to see the target you are engaging) which may assist you in determining whether the aircraft is a “friendly or an enemy.”

Therefore such AD weapons systems under most circumstances are likely to be operated by trained and skilled military personnel. In case of the armed forces, the AD systems are deployed as part AD complexes and networks which provides awareness of international over flight routes, pre-disseminated flight plans, live radio-contacts and electronic identification ect to varying degrees. Duplicated, fail-safe measures and procedures are in place to minimise the chances of an accidental engagement of non-hostile aircrafts. Independent operation of AD weapon systems by untrained persons would therefore be very prone to accidental engagement of friendly aircrafts.

In case of separatists they would have to be trained by the Russians or be defectors of Ukrainian AD unit. The US in this regard has claimed that Moscow has been supplying Ukrainian separatists with AD weaponry (three Buk TELARs to be precise), and has held training sessions along the eastern Ukrainian border, teaching rebels how to operate these systems. There is yet another possibility being alluded to by the Ukrainians that it was a Russian AD system, operated by the Russians but operating from separatist held Ukrainian territory. The employment of potent AD systems had become crucial for the separatists of late as Ukraine was reportedly using its air force to target the supplies coming across the border from Russia.

While the responsibility for the missile attack is yet to be fixed the politics surrounding the incident have intensified by the Russian double-speak, lack of cooperation and possibly the “irresponsibility” in providing the Buk systems to the separatists. The US reaction on the other hand, has been focussed on pinning the blame on Russia and in consolidating international opinion against it. Sen. John McCain has gone on record to say it does not matter if the shooting was accident or deliberate act, Russia must be held accountable. US possibly feels that classifying the incident as an accident would place the Ukrainian separatists in the same league as US and Ukrainian militaries, both of whom in the past have been guilty of shooting down civilian commercial airliners. Sen. McCain’s suggestion that “Give the Ukrainian government the weapons it’s been asking for,” as a response to this situation created by proliferation of lethal weapons is equally confounding.

It is beyond doubt that the actions of the Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists have been appalling and criminal, but it is imperative that we must first direct our efforts to ensure that dignity is accorded to the victims of MH 17 and a sense of closure provided to their relatives at the earliest. Sovereign nations need to exercise restraint and maturity in their response to such incidents while initiating measures to prevent them from reoccurring.

The post Downing Of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Some Insights appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Iraq: ISIS Graffiti Spells End Of Christian Era In Mosul

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By Laith Hammoudi

Last week, Abu Mariam understood that his family’s presence in Mosul over many generations had come to an end.

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had scrawled the letter “N” for “nasrani” – Arabic for “Christian” – on some of the houses on his street.

On the home of a displaced Shia family, the Sunni insurgents wrote the letter “R”, which Abu Mariam later learned stood for “rafidha” – a pejorative term meaning “rejecters”.

To be identified as belonging to either of these categories is now extremely dangerous. ISIS is in the process of expelling members of all non-Sunni religious and ethnic groups from Mosul. including Turkmen, Shabaks, and Yazidis, as well as Shia Muslims and Christians. There are many reports of kidnapping and killings.

Christian sources in Baghdad told IWPR that more than 10,000 families have left Mosul since the insurgents occupied it on June 9.

Abu Mariam, 46, a father of four who works as a driver for four churches in Mosul, had already made plans for his family to go to Dohuk province in the Kurdish region.

But on July 15, the day the ISIS graffiti appeared, he knew they had to go immediately.

He was not reassured when another group of insurgents appeared, using spray paint and a paper stencil to marked houses as “property of the Islamic State”. Asked what that meant, one of the militants said, “This is to protect you and to protect your property.”

A proclamation from ISIS made it clear what the options were for Abu Mariam and other Christians.

“We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimmi contract involving payment of jizya [protection tax, reportedly set at 450 US dollars per person]; and if they refuse, they will have nothing but the sword,” the declaration read.

A few frantic days after the graffiti appeared, Abu Mariam and his family got away in their old Chevrolet car. He estimates that at least 400 families left Mosul just on July 17 and 18.

A United Nations source told IWPR that as of July 20, the number had reached 700. Many of those escaping were stopped at ISIS checkpoints, harassed and robbed of jewellery, cars, money and other items.

According to the UN source, 27 families have stayed in Mosul and adopted Sunni Islam because they are either too poor or too elderly and weak to leave.

Abu Mariam and his family made it out safely.

They are now living with his parents, sister and his brother’s family in a small house on the outskirts of Dohuk province, with no work and a dwindling supply of cash to pay for rent and other outgoings.

And they know they might never return to Mosul, a city with a centuries-long Christian presence.

Laith Hammoudi is IWPR’s editor in Iraq. This article appeared at IWPR’s ICR Issue 407.

 

The post Iraq: ISIS Graffiti Spells End Of Christian Era In Mosul appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Ukraine: Top Football Club Falls Victim To Separatist Upheaval

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By Emanuele Giulianelli

One of Ukraine’s most storied football clubs has become a casualty of the country’s separatist tumult. Six foreign-born players have abandoned Shakhtar Donetsk, leaving the defending Ukrainian Premier League champion short-handed on the eve of the start of the 2014-15 season.

The six players refused to board a team flight from France back to Ukraine following a 4-1 defeat in a friendly match against the French club Olympique Lyonnais. Five of the six are Brazilian — Douglas Costa, Fred, Dentinho, Alex Teixiera and Ismaily. The sixth player is Argentine striker Facundo Ferreyra. Ukraine’s Premier League is scheduled to begin its new season on July 26.

While the players provided no public explanation for their actions, security concerns may well have prompted them to jump the team. The incident occurred just days after almost 300 people were killed when a Malaysian Airlines jet was downed by a surface-to-air missile in eastern Ukraine’s conflict zone, where Russian-backed separatists are battling Ukrainian government forces. Donetsk, the team’s home city, is the de facto capital of the separatist forces.

In a statement posted on the Shakhtar’s website, the club’s owner and president, Rinat Akhmetov, held out hope that the players would return to the team, adding that team officials have taken unspecified steps to guarantee the security of the players.

“Hopefully, the mind and heart will prevail over misunderstanding, and the players will not follow temptation and fear. Especially since there is nothing to fear,” Akhmetov said in the statement. “We are ready to provide security. We will not take risks and in any case we won’t bring players to dangerous places.”

The hazards facing the Shakhtar players were plainly evident on July 21, when heavy fighting erupted in and around Donetsk. Ukrainian government forces, backed by tanks, were reportedly trying to fight their way toward the city center, according to various news reports. Donetsk is situated roughly 50 miles from where the Malaysian jet went down. Ukrainian, US and European Union officials have accused separatists of launching the anti-aircraft missile that caused the tragedy.

Akhmetov indicated that Shakhtar will compete in the upcoming season, but won’t be able to play its home games in Donetsk for the foreseeable future. “We will play where we will be allowed to: we would like to do it in Kharkiv,” said Akhmetov, one of Ukraine’s richest citizens, with a net worth estimated at over $US15 billion.

Under Akhmetov’s stewardship, Shakhtar has been a perennial powerhouse in the Ukrainian league, having claimed nine championships in 23 seasons since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. In 2009, Shakhtar won the UEFA cup, given to the winner of a tournament of top-tier European clubs. Shakhtar’s Romanian manager, Mircea Lucescu, is known to have a knack for developing young talent, especially players from Latin America.

As the team scrambles to persuade its AWOL players to return, Akhmetov hinted that he would neither release them from their contracts, nor agree to transfers unless Shakhtar got a fair return. “Players have contracts that they have to abide by. If they do not come, I think, they will be the first to suffer,” he stated. “There won’t be clearance sale!”

Emanuele Giulianelli is a freelance sports reporter based in Italy.

The post Ukraine: Top Football Club Falls Victim To Separatist Upheaval appeared first on Eurasia Review.

What Putin Knows – OpEd

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“We have repeatedly called on all parties to immediately stop the bloodshed and sit down at the negotiating table. We strongly believe that if military action in the East of Ukraine had not been renewed on the 28th of June, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened. However, no one has the right to use this tragedy to pursue their own political aims. Such events should unite and not divide people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Official statement on the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17

“Lets be clear, both Russia and the US know what happened. They’d have to. Their intelligence and orbital systems saw it all…. They’d have to know.”

Omen 4, comments line Zero Hedge

Washington’s plan to “pivot” to Asia by establishing a beachhead in Ukraine and sabotaging trade relations between Europe and Russia, entered a new phase last Thursday when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile launched from east Ukraine. Since then, the western media and prominent members of the US political establishment have used the incident to attack Russia mercilessly and to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin personally responsible for the deaths of the 295 passengers.

On Sunday, the Obama administration launched its most impressive propaganda blitz to date, scheduling appearances for  US Secretary of State John Kerry  on all five Sunday morning talk shows where he made unsubstantiated claims that MH17 was shot down by Russia-backed rebels in east Ukraine.  According to Kerry, Russia has not only “supported, armed and trained” the separatists, but also provided them with the missile system (BUK) which was used to bring down the jetliner.

On CBS’s  “Face the Nation”, Kerry said:

“We know for certain that the separatists have a proficiency that they’ve gained by training from Russians as to how to use these sophisticated SA-11 systems….. there’s enormous amount of evidence, even more evidence than I just documented, that points to the involvement of Russia in providing these system, training the people on them.” (“Kerry Says Russia Trained Separatists to Use Antiaircraft Missiles”, New York Times)

Amazingly, Kerry’s claims don’t square with those of his boss, President Barack Obama who admitted on Friday that he didn’t know who shot down MH17 or why. He said, “I think it’s too early for us to be able to guess what intentions those who might have launched the surface-to-air missile might have had… In terms of identifying specifically what individual or group of individuals, you know, personnel ordered the strike, how it came about—those are things that I think are going to be subject to additional information that we’re going to be gathering.”

The fact that neither the contents of the black boxes or the cockpit recordings have yet been revealed didn’t deter Kerry from making accusations and possibly tainting the investigation. Nor did Kerry mention the fact that the Ukrainian military –who also had BUK missile systems in the area–may have mistakenly taken down the airliner. None of the five hosts challenged Kerry on any of his claims. He was able to provide the state’s view of the incident without challenge or debate, just as one would expect in a dictatorship where information is carefully monitored.

And Kerry didn’t stop there either. He went on to claim that Moscow had sent “a convoy several weeks ago of about 150 vehicles with armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, artillery, all of which crossed over from Russia into the eastern part of Ukraine and was turned over to the separatists.”

Needless to say, none of the major media or respective Intel agencies (who closely follow activities on the border) have uttered a word about Kerry’s phantom convoy. Without satellite imagery or some other proof, we must assume that Kerry’s claim is about as reliable as his bogus 4-page “White Paper” that pinned the use of sarin gas on the Syrian government, a charge that was designed to escalate US involvement in the Syrian war and–as journalist Robert Parry says, “spur President Obama into a quick decision to bomb Syrian government targets.”

It’s also worth noting that the journalist who co-authored Sunday’s piece on Kerry in the New York Times was none other than Michael R. Gordon. In 2002 Gordon co-wrote a piece about aluminum tubes with Judith Miller which was intended to scare readers “with images of mushroom clouds” into supporting the war in Iraq.   The story turned out to be complete baloney, but it helped to pave the way for the US invasion as it was intended to do.   Gordon escaped blame for the article, while the discredited  Miller was released.

Now the politicians and the media are at it again; trying to whip up war fever to get the public on board for another bloody intervention. Only this time, the target audience is not really the American people as much as it is Europeans. The real objective here, is to build support for additional economic sanctions as well as a deployment of NATO troops to Russia’s western border. Washington want to sabotage further economic integration between the EU and Russia so that it can control  the flow of vital resources to the EU, crash the Russian economy, and establish a tollbooth between the continents. It’s all part of Washington’s “pivot” strategy that is critical to maintaining global hegemony throughout the 21st century. This is from the NY Times:

“If investigators are able to confirm suspicions that the Malaysia Airlines jet was brought down by a surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian rebels who mistook it for a military aircraft, American officials expressed hope that the tragedy will underscore their case that Moscow has been violating Ukrainian sovereignty. While Mr. Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia just a day before, Europeans refused to adopt measures as stringent out of fear of jeopardizing their own economic ties….

The Obama administration already has additional sanctions prepared that could be put into effect quickly if Mr. Obama so chooses. “The question is does this finally move the Europeans across that threshold,” said a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more candidly. “I don’t know, but how could it not?”

European officials were cautious in their initial reactions, seeking time and information before jumping to possible consequences, and were reluctant to assign blame. But most of the passengers were Europeans. The majority of them, 154 in all, were from the Netherlands, where the flight originated, which could increase pressure on European governments to respond….Some analysts said the disaster would invariably lead to a re-evaluation of Europe’s approach to Russia.

“Ultimately this is going to ratchet up pressure within Europe to do what they should have done a long time ago,” said John E. Herbst, a former American ambassador to Ukraine now at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “The strength of the opposition to firm steps remains strong, and so it’s not going to go away. It’s just that their position just took a serious hit and it should lead to a stronger set of European sanctions.”…

While Mr. Obama did not articulate such a position, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gave voice publicly to what administration officials were saying privately….“Europeans have to be the ones to take the lead on this. It was a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over European territory. There should be outrage in European capitals.”

Can you see what’s going on? Washington doesn’t care about the facts. What matters to Obama and Co. is getting the Europeans on board (“ratcheting up pressure within Europe”) so they can gin up the sanctions, shut off  Russian gas, deprive Putin of a vital source of revenue, and set up shop (NATO bases) in Eurasia.” Whether US Intel agencies were involved in the missile attack or not doesn’t change the fact that Washington clearly benefits from the tragedy.

Keep in mind, that the reason Putin hasn’t deployed Russian troops to stop the violence in east Ukraine is because the EU is his biggest trading partner and he doesn’t want to do anything that will put the kibosh on their business dealings.  Russia needs Europe just like Europe needs Russia. They’re a perfect fit, which is why Washington has concocted this goofy plan to throw a wrench in the works. It’s because Washington wants to be the Kingfish in Eurasia and control the continents’ resources as well as the growth of regional economies. To achieve that objective, they need to convince EU leaders and people that Putin is a reckless aggressor who can’t be trusted. That’s why Kiev has launched one provocation after another since the legitimate Ukrainian government (Viktor Yanukovych) was ousted in late February and replaced with by a US-backed junta government. Most of the provocations have gone unreported in the western media, although they have regularly involved violations of international law and crimes against humanity, like the use of incendiary “phosphorous” ordnance on June, 12 in Slavyansk,    or the bombing of a kindergarten in Slavyansk  or the deliberate bombing of hospitals in east Ukraine,  or the killing of journalists  or the firing of mortar rounds across the border into Russia  or the massacre at Odessa where 42 people were burned to death in a fire at the Trade Unions Building that was started by pro-junta hooligans and neo Nazis. None of these were reported in the western media where the coverage is tailored to advance the corporate-state agenda.

All of these incidents were concocted with one goal in mind; to provoke Putin into sending in the tanks thus providing the media with the opportunity to demonize him as the new Hitler. Putin has wisely avoided that trap deciding instead to work collaboratively with EU leaders Merkel and  Hollande to try to persuade Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to stop the bombardment in the east and agree to an immediate ceasefire.

Poroshenko, however, who takes his orders from Washington, has refused to end the violence. In fact, on Monday the “chocolate king” launched a massive attack on the city of Donetsk, home to nearly one million civilians. Here’s a clip from a report from RT on Monday July 21:

“A heavy firefight is underway in a section of the city of Donetsk, with cannonade heard downtown. Self-defense reports of pro-Kiev armored vehicles and infantry trying to cut through defenses next to the central railway terminal.

Ukrainian troops equipped with tanks and armored vehicles are making an attempt to break into Donetsk, a city of approximately 950,000 people, an official of the rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Sergey Kavtaradze, informed Reuters.” (“Kiev forces attack city of Donetsk, civilian casualties reported“, RT)

Poroshenko has no intention of complying with a ceasefire, because a ceasefire does not achieve the Obama administration’s objective, which is to lure Putin into a bloody and protracted guerilla war. This is what makes the downing of MH17 so suspicious, because it could very well be a false flag operation intended to hurl more mud on Putin.

In any event, the fate of MH17 isn’t going to be a secret for long. As journalist Pepe Escobar points out in a recent piece in the Asia Times,  Russian intelligence has collected tons of data that will help connect the dots. Here’s a clip from Escobar’s latest titled “It was Putin’s missile?”:

“Russian intelligence (has)  been surveilling/tracking everything that happens in Ukraine 24/7. In the next 72 hours, after poring over a lot of tracking data, using telemetry, radar and satellite tracking, they will know which type of missile was launched, from where, and even produce communications from the battery that launched it. And they will have access to forensic evidence.” (“It was Putin’s missile?” Pepe Escobar, Asia Times)

So, one way or another, we’re going to know what happened.  The US and Russia have the data they need to figure out where the missile was launched and who launched it. They probably even have recordings of  communications between Air Traffic Tower and the airliner. They know it all, but they’ll probably be cautious about what they reveal and when they reveal it.

My guess, is that Putin will drag his feet to see whether the investigation is thorough, transparent and even-handed or an elaborate hoax used to discredit him in the eyes of his trading partners.

Clearly, the Obama team see this as an opportunity to do a number on Putin, so they could be tempted to use fake evidence like the grainy photos that popped up in the New York Times some months ago that were supposed to prove that Russian military experts were secretly directing the rebellion in east Ukraine. (The photos were fake.) If they try a stunt like that this time around, Putin will be ready for them. And, of course, if he has solid proof that the plane was blown up by Poroshenko’s henchmen, then there could be hell to pay. In fact, it might just bring Obama’s proxy war to a screeching halt.

One can only hope.

The post What Putin Knows – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Gun Violence Is A Consequence Of War – OpEd

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My hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, has recently shown an increased concern about gun violence. Not only are Tallahasseans shooting each other, so far in 2014 the Tallahassee Police have shot four people, killing two. A related concern is that people seem to have little trust in the police.

The concern has been manifested in a town meeting chaired by the police chief, who wants to earn the people’s trust, and a series of articles in the local newspaper.

Much of Tallahassee’s gun violence is in the poorer sections of town, where in many cases, people’s drugs of choice are illegal. If your drug of choice is alcohol or nicotine or caffeine, government will tax it and protect your right to use it. But if your drug of choice is marijuana or cocaine, not only will government not protect you or your property, it has declared war against you.

We call it a war on drugs, but it is actually a war on drug buyers and sellers. The government seeks them out, and when it finds them, confiscates their property and sends them to prison.

If the government will not protect someone’s property, then the owners of that property will have to protect it themselves. That’s why they want guns. If someone steals your drugs, government police and courts will work against you, rather than helping you recover your property.

Of course, not everyone in these violence-prone neighborhoods buys or sells drugs, but many will have friends and neighbors who do, and it stands to reason that people will not have much trust in groups their friends and neighbors view as adversaries. And of course, they should view the police as adversaries, because the police are the front line in the war on drugs that has been openly declared against them.

This sets up a culture of violence, but why? It is because our government has openly declared war against a significant subset of the population. Is it realistic to expect to fight a war without violence? We saw the same type of violence in the 1920s when there was a war on alcohol.

The same local newspaper that decries violence also reports on a regular basis cases where police have made traffic stops, or answered domestic violence calls, and found drugs, leading to arrests on drug charges. The local police also set up sting operations to try to entice citizens to sell drugs to undercover police personnel.

The government is fighting a war against the buyers and sellers of drugs, and gun violence is a consequence of that war. Shouldn’t we expect that when a government declares war against a group, the group would try to arm themselves for their own protection? As for the police who want to earn citizen trust, is it realistic to hope that those you have declared war against will trust you?

The post Gun Violence Is A Consequence Of War – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Reviving The Arab World’s Anemic Political Systems – OpEd

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By Mohammed Fahad Al-Harthi

Many Arab countries have sickly, anemic political systems that are sorely in need of rehabilitation if not outright regeneration.

The lackluster and often non-existent development on this front has resulted in revolutions in some countries and stifling crises in others.

Leaders in these countries are simply too deluded to recognize the realities on the ground. This has created neo-fascist, totalitarian states that are ultimately doomed to fail, as history has shown without exception throughout the centuries. These leaders embody the megalomaniac tendencies of those like Louis XIV who once declared: “I am the state.”

The current developments in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen reveal that governments there want to form inextricable links between themselves and the state and prolong their time in power.

Life is all about organic growth. By holding back this natural evolutionary process in the political sphere, leaders create stunted systems marked by unemployment and social injustice.

By prioritizing security above all else, they condemn generations to life without hopes and dreams. This includes irreparable damage to the middle classes running small and medium businesses, which play an important role in economic development and modernization.

In addition, leaders in the Arab world have failed to grasp the implications of the growing youth demographic in their countries.

The aspirations of these young people are fueling the move for change. Unfortunately, the gap between the leaders and this generation is widening, pushing countries into the danger zone.
It is also important to note the lexicon of the struggles in this part of the planet over the years. Words such as “reform” coined by Arab intellectuals in the late nineteenth century eventually gave way to “revolution” and “liberation” in the periods when Arabs sought independence from the colonial powers. Now “reform” is back in vogue, in the aftermath of the failure of post-independence governments.

Some regimes are offering cosmetic changes to their people, under a mask of modernity and progress, in a bid to dampen popular anger and frustration. Other governments are equally deceptive by raising the specter of the Israeli bogeyman to provide cover for their lack of freedom, justice, economic development and political participation.

The cynical Syrian regime has done this but has not fired one bullet in the direction of Israel. In similar fashion, the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein threatened to burn half of Israel, but instead attacked Kuwait.

Arab leaders are sadly mistaken if they believe that they can fool their people all the time. As rapid technological developments expand social media, there is increasingly little place to hide. Arabs have been pushed out of their traditional modes of thinking and become much more politically aware.

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have proven the effectiveness of the Internet in mobilizing and educating people, rejecting the stultifying old ways and views of certain journalists and officials.

The road to a bright future is not a difficult one. It starts with reforming political systems with an emphasis on developing educated, independently minded Arabs who can contribute to their nations’ economic growth. It is a matter of adapting to changing circumstances and interests, much like the world powers are doing right now. The foundation of this success lies within.

Email: malharthi@arabnews.com

The post Reviving The Arab World’s Anemic Political Systems – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Bitcoin Goes Live In Vietnam Despite Government Concerns – OpEd

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By Edward Barbour-Lacey

Vietnam’s first online Bitcoin trading floor has gone live, allowing customers to buy and sell Bitcoins in Vietnamese dong.

VBTC came into existence through the merger of Vietnamese Bitcoin broker exchange, BitcoinVietnam, and an Israeli Bitcoin exchange called Bit2C Ltd. VBTC originally intended to go live three months ago but was delayed due to technical reasons.

In recent years Bitcoin has seen strong growth across Southeast Asia.  CEO of BitcoinVietnam, Nguyen Tran Bao Phuong, has stated that “it is time for Vietnam to catch up in order not to miss out [on] this upcoming technological mega-trend. There is a strong wish in the leadership of our country, to establish Vietnam as a kind of technology hub in Southeast Asia.”

According to VBTC’s website, the company provides three main services:

  • Bitcoin Vietnam Broker Service;
  • Bitcoin Exchange VBTC; and
  • Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet (for smartphone users to send and receive Bitcoin).

It appears to be relatively easy to begin trading on VBTC. First you must join the site, next deposit funds in your online account, these funds must then be verified before trading can begin.  The whole process takes about two days.

The Vietnamese government remains unconvinced about the utility of Bitcoin. Earlier in the year, the country’s central bank released a warning about the digital currency and has issued further statements saying that Bitcoin is not a recognized currency or a means of payment in Vietnam.

However, the government has stopped short of outright calling Bitcoin illegal. In the wake of government uncertainty, a number of businesses in Vietnam have begun accepting the digital currency as a form of payment for their goods.

Rumors abound that government officials have pledged to immediately shut down VBTC and arrest all of its workers. However, as of now this has not happened.  CEO Phuong has stated publicly that he is actively trying to work with government officials to assuage their concerns and ensure that his website’s service is uninterrupted.

At the time of this writing, on the VBTC website Bitcoin was selling at VND12 million.

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South Africa President To Send Team To Israel Amid Gaza Invasion

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South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma will dispatch a team to Israel to convey government’s concerns over the inhumane killings through the ground invasion on the Gaza strip.

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane made this announcement when she tabled her Budget Vote in Parliament on Tuesday.

She also announced that South Africa would donate $1 million to assist with humanitarian efforts in Gaza soon.

Her announcement comes amid growing calls for the United Nations Security Council to act within the ambit of international law to deal with the violent attacks on the people of Palestine, which has left many civilians – including innocent women and children – dead.

As the death toll continues to rise, Minister Nkoana-Mashabane pulled no punches and had nothing but strong words about the killing of civilians.

“The senseless killings of women and children must stop now. We must silence the guns!

“In this respect, President [Jacob] Zuma will be dispatching a team, led by our former Deputy Minister Mr. Aziz Pahad, to Israel and Palestine to convey our growing concern with the escalation of violence there, including the endless wanton killing of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of homes in Gaza,” the minister said.

She also said Presidet Zuma will be inviting Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas for a working visit.

“We will also be contributing $1 million for human assistance to Palestinian women and children through UN agencies in the nearest future.”

In a media briefing earlier, the minister conveyed her condolences to the people of Palestine, who have lost their loved ones during the tensions.

She called for the Israeli military to withdraw from the invasion, which she called illegal and inhumane, and extended calls to the UN Security Council to exercise international law with regards to the Gaza situation.

Malaysian plane crash

Meanwhile, Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said the reports have indicated that the crash of Malaysian flight MH17 in Ukraine was not an accident.

She condemned the loss of lives on the flight and called for a thorough, transparent and independent investigation into thr “tragedy that should not have happened”.

“We also extend our condolences to the government and people of Malaysia and all countries that have lost their loved ones in this tragic incident.

“The political situation in Ukraine requires an urgent intervention. We express our deep concern and call for a comprehensive dialogue…”

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Do Consumers Prefer Deep Discounts Or Everyday Low Prices?

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Sometimes finding the best bang for your buck feels like a wild goose chase. It’s hard to know which stores offer the best prices at any given time. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when trying to maximize savings, consumers will choose retailers they believe offer the lowest prices the majority of the time.

“We looked at the impact different pricing strategies have on the stores people shop at when they do not know the product prices unless they visit the store,” write authors Shai Danziger (Tel Aviv University), Liat Hadar (IDC Herzliya), and Vicki G. Morwitz (New York University).

To simulate 100 weekly purchases from a retail store, study participants were asked to purchase products from one of two competing retailers 100 different times. Participants were given a monetary incentive to minimize their total spending and were instructed to base their selections strictly on price.

On each shopping trip, participants first selected a retailer before they were shown the store prices for that week. The authors manipulated the pricing strategies, but in most cases, one retailer used deep-discount pricing while the competing retailer used everyday low pricing or frequent (but small) discounts. While the average price of the two retailers was the same for most experiments, results showed that people consistently tend to choose the retailer they believe is less expensive more often than the retailer they believe is cheapest on average. This pattern held whether or not the retailer used frequent discounts or an everyday low price guarantee.

These results offer insight for companies regularly using deep discounts or pricing their products lower than their competitors’ average prices. The authors suggest a more effective strategy is to simply offer prices that are generally always lower than their competitors’ prices. “One reason consumers find these retailers so attractive is that their product prices tend to be cheaper than those of their competitors on the majority of shopping trips. Consumers seem to prefer many small discounts to a few large ones and their perceptions of average prices do not drive their store choices,” the authors conclude.

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Vietnam And China Relations: Ground Shaken – Analysis

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By Do Thanh Hai

Although China announced the relocation of its giant Haiyang Shiyou 981 (HYSY 981) oil rig out of the disputed waters, the crisis is far from over in the Vietnamese eyes. Xi Jinping’s zero-sum game caused severe damages to the foundation of the Vietnam-China relations.

Foundations for stabilisation of China-Vietnam relations

Since normalisation in 1991, Vietnam and China have stabilized their relationship through two pillars. First, a dense web of regular dialogues between the communist parties and governments of the two countries has been established to expand cooperation, manage incidents, and resolve the disputes through negotiations. Through these meetings, Hanoi secured Beijing’s reassurance of no threat or use of force to settle ‘historical differences,’ the code word for remaining territorial disputes. In return, Vietnam is committed to a non-aligned strategic policy. Second, Vietnam and China engaged in ASEAN-led multilateral mechanisms to undertake confidence-building and preventive diplomacy measures.

On the basis of these pillars, trust had grown and cooperation between the two countries had expanded steadily. The long-standing sources of conflicts on the land border and the boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin were resolved in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Though tension rises occasionally, the disagreements in South China Sea have been effectively quarantined without affecting their overall relationship. ASEAN and China signed a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which committed all the parties to peaceful avenues to manage and resolve the disputes. It is also hoped that China and ASEAN would finally reach a binding code of conduct

China’s zero-sum game in South China Sea

Since the mid-2000s, anxieties in Hanoi have risen since China has consistently become assertive South China Sea. In 2006-2007, China quietly threated international oil firms not to work with PetroVietnam in Vietnam’s EEZs. At the same time, Chinese paramilitary vessels tried to enforce its jurisdiction over the vast expanse of the sea to the James Shoal. In May 2009, Beijing challenged UNCLOS by officialise the controversial nine-dash line claim without appropriate clarifications. Since then, China moved to change the status quo in the Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal.

Most recently, China’s Haiyang Shiyou 981 move sent a shockwave across Vietnam. In Hanoi’s eyes, it is an act of ‘creating facts on the ground,’ that goes against the agreements by two countries’ high-level leaders. Freedom of navigation is challenged as China arbitrarily to delineate an anti-access area about 3 miles around the rig. What is more threatening is that Chinese vessels deliberately use violence, including ramming, firing high-pressure water cannons, and fog-horning, to sink or scare away the Vietnamese vessels.

The oil rig incident exposed the Vietnamese to three realities. First, it is deliberate, well-prepared, and well-tailored design on the part of China to encroach on Vietnam just six months after Li Keqiang’s visit to Hanoi. Second, the move is centrally-planed and commanded because there exist high-level of interagency coordination. Third, the ban on the use of force does not prevent other types of violence. It is China’s maritime civilian forces, not PLA Southern Fleet, that are the game changer in the South China Sea.

Vietnam’s restrained responses

Vietnam first tried bilateralism to defuse the tension. However, its thirty-plus attempts to communicate with China failed to get Chinese appropriate responses. Four hotlines between Hanoi and Beijing turned cold when needed. The recent visit of Chinese state councillor Yang Jiechi to Hanoi was to teach Hanoi how to behave rather than find ways to get out of deadlock. Just before the visit, Chinese Maritime Safety Administration announced to send another drilling platform ‘Nan Hai Jiu Hao’ to the area just beyond the Tonkin Gulf where negotiation on delimitation is underway.

Hanoi then actively launched a broad public relations campaign to denounce China’s actions. Five press conferences have been held in Hanoi to publish evidence of China’s aggressive actions. ASEAN, G7 and a dozen of countries expressed concerns. The United States, Japan and Australia regarded China’s unilateralism as “destabilizing” or “unhelpful”. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, Chinese officials faced severe criticisms and tough questions.

In the next step, Vietnam brought the issue to ASEAN forum. However, it failed to secure ASEAN consensus to blame and shame China. It smashed the illusion in Hanoi about the utility of ASEAN in socializing China with norms and constraining China’s behaviour. Vietnam eventually brought the issue to the United Nations (UN). In view of the prospect of losing the PR ground, China initiated a round of counter-attacks by circulating its statement at the UN and publishing opinions in global media. Interestingly, China was gradually dragged out of its long-standing policy of opposing to internationalize the South China Sea issue.

Observably, Vietnam was temporarily lost the control of the sea area to China’s oil rig and vessels without effective counter-measures. Now, the oil rig is to be moved back to Chinese waters, but there were permanent anxiety in Hanoi that it will go back one day. Obviously, only few people believed that China’s withdrawal of the oil rig was only attributed to Vietnam’s protests.

Undercurrent fundamental shifts in Vietnam

China has seemingly overplayed its hand in coercing Vietnam. Though the crisis abates, some fundamental shifts, which potentially change Vietnam’s strategic landscape radically, are in motion.

First, Vietnam increasingly views China as destabilizing agent, if not a threat. Clearly, China did not take heed to Vietnamese Prime Minister’s message of “strategic trust” in Shangri-La Dialogue 2013. It represents a signal that Vietnam’s trust in China is deteriorating as China has been consistently aggressively assertive. Recent unusually strong statements of Vietnamese officials such as ‘using all necessary measures’, ‘reserving the right of self-defence’, and ‘never trade sovereignty for lip-serviced friendship’ are indicative of their losing patience with China. Clearly, Hanoi would find it hard to associate Chinese heavy-handedness with socialist solidarity or “peaceful development”. Never before, 4 goodness and 16-word guideline, which once symbolised the promise of Vietnam-China relationship, has been dashed on official Vietnamese media without defence.

Second, the row has not been confined to jostling at sea and diplomatic quarrels, but has also resulted in popular fury in Vietnam. Anti-China protests in some localities erupted into unprecedented large-scale violence that even shocked the government. ‘Thoat Trung, that means how the country gets out of the ‘Chinese orbit,’ has become one of the most popular topics for public discourse. Vietnamese businesses are seeking diversification of raw material supplies and markets to ease reliance on China. Critically, there have been more and more voices within Vietnamese elites questioning Vietnam’s ideological ties with China. Obviously, the rise in anti-China nationalism will gradually undermine the Vietnamese leadership’s ability to fine-tune its mixture of defiance and deference with China.

Vietnam’s reluctance to take forceful legal and strategic responses should not be taken as its step-back before China. It is a cold-minded restraint. Concerned about escalation to an armed conflict or a sudden breakdown of the Vietnam-China relations, Hanoi has to move carefully, waiting to see China’s action after 15 August. As its officials indicated, Vietnam was ready with legal files, but still waits for the right time. It was not yet clear if political and diplomatic solutions have been exhausted. Clearly, Hanoi will not fire the legal weapons until they are fully prepared for political and economic fall-out from China.

The EEZs along Vietnamese coast is important not only in terms of right to resources, but also of a security buffer zone. If these littoral shields are infringed with bellicose design, Vietnam’s elongated, thin mainland domain, which lacks of a strategic depth, would be seriously threatened. Therefore, Vietnam would surely keep its coast guards on the spot as long as Chinese oil rig left its waters. If China continues to press Vietnam, the latter has no choice but to re-examine its current non-aligned strategic posture. Hanoi now has to work to fix its strategic vulnerability by seeking advanced lethal weapons from the United States to boost its deterrence. Hanoi will soon send its high-level leaders to Washington to discuss the related matters.

History tells two things. First, kneeling down before power is not Vietnamese. Second, long-built friendship may swiftly break down if trust is gone. In the 1970s, it took only five years for Vietnam and China to go from comrades to foes.

The author is currently a PhD Candidate at Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at Australian National University. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of any institutions.

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Harassing The Drones – OpEd

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By Kathy Kelly

On July 10, 2014, in New York State, Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne Grady Flores to a year in prison and fined her $1,000 for photographing a peaceful demonstration at the U.S. Air National Guard’s 174th Attack Wing at Hancock Field  (near Syracuse) where weaponized Reaper drones are remotely piloted in lethal flights over Afghanistan.  Dozens have been sentenced, previously, for peaceful protest there. But uniquely, the court convicted her under laws meant to punish stalkers, deciding that by taking pictures outside the heavily guarded base she violated a previous order of protection not to stalk or harass the commanding officer.

Mary Anne is a 58 year-old grandmother of three, from Ithaca, New York, where she is part of the Upstate Drone Action.

Since late 2009 this grassroots group has persistently raised awareness about the consequences of drone attacks in Afghanistan, the global epicenter of U.S. drone warfare.  In December 2012, the U.S. Air Force revealed that U.S. drones had struck targets in Afghanistan 477 times during just the preceding year. Members of the Upstate Drone Action, alarmed by the proliferation of drones and the ease with which they kill suspects far from any battlefield, are troubled in general to live in a society that so automatically and heedlessly chooses warfare over other available solutions to its problems.

Hundreds have gathered in Syracuse, NY, for events the Coalition has organized, including nonviolent civil resistance at the Hancock base.

Frustrated by the tenacity of war resisters willing to risk arrest, the commander at the base, Colonel Earl Evans, has sought and received an “Order of Protection Grant” – a restraining order – from the DeWitt Town judges, claiming that peace activists posed a threat to his personal safety as an individual when they protested there.

At first, the thought of such an order imposed on nonviolent demonstrators seems merely laughable. These orders of protection are typically used in domestic violence cases, against stalkers, or to protect a victim of (or witnesses to) a crime.  How could a U.S. military commander, living in a fortified base, surrounded by advanced weaponry and the soldiers preparing to use it, be threatened by unarmed civilians like Mary Anne?  She, like most of her companions in the coalition, has worked throughout her adult life to prevent bloodshed and killing.

But De Witt courts have upheld Colonel Evans’s right to be protected from the peace activists, and so everyone with an OOP who crosses the boundary (which isn’t clearly marked) outside the military base risks being charged with contempt of court for violating the order.  Mary Anne had lingered for a few moments with the group she wanted to photograph to ask her sister, Ellen, something about the camera she was using.

During her court case and at her sentencing hearing, Mary Anne tried to help Judge Gideon understand that young people like the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APVs), with whom I’m now living, here in Kabul, are threatened by the drones. She and other coalition members have already presented the court with a letter from Raz Mohammed, an APV whose brother-in-law was killed by a drone, asking that the U.S. courts issue a mandate protecting him and his family from sudden annihilation by remote control.

In Syracuse, NY, a Probation Department pre-sentencing report had recommended no jail time at all for Mary Anne, noting that she has been the major caregiver for her mother and that the infraction didn’t warrant incarceration.  But Judge Gideon worried aloud that if he didn’t jail Mary Anne, she might thumb her nose at the courts and again risk arrest.

Judge Gideon has tried numerous peace activists in the De Witt Town Court for their actions protesting drone warfare.  “This has got to stop,” he declared, in a moment of exasperation following an earlier court hearing. It seems that he imposed this sentence on Mary Ann because he and other authorities want to deter activists from gathering peaceably to petition, as the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment phrases it, “for redress of grievances.”

“I hope she feels proud,” said Abdulhai, a member of the APVs here in Kabul, when he learned that Mary Anne was sentenced to a year in prison.  “She has a good heart.  She thinks about other people far away.” Abdulhai’s smiling face appears on many of the posters carried by activists when they appear in court and when they demonstrate at the base.  In the photo, he’s wearing a blue scarf which the APVs use to symbolize the same blue sky shared by all humans. His sign says: “We want to live without war.”

“Laws should be made to protect human beings,” said Faiz, also part of the APV community.  “Laws shouldn’t protect ways to kill other people.  Here in Afghanistan, the U.S uses drones to kill children, moms, and ordinary people.  I hope the judge will think about this.”

At her sentencing hearing, Mary Anne told Judge Gideon that a series of judicial perversions brought her before him. “The final perversion,” she concluded, “is the reversal of who is the real victim here:  the commander of a military base whose drones kill innocent people halfway around the world, or those innocent people themselves who are the real ones in need of protection from the terror of US drone attacks?”

Is it a crime to take photos of peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment right, or is it a crime to take multiple drone reconnaissance photos of private Afghan homes in villages and subsequently use the information to target and kill Afghans without detention or trial?

Mary Anne and the Upstate Drone Action activists have a deep grievance. They object to using Reaper drones to fire Hellfire missiles into homes and communities where Afghan civilians, including children, could be killed. They raise crucial questions about the likelihood of drone attacks exacerbating and prolonging wars, conflicts and other armed strife.  Aerial spies insertable anywhere, ready to kill suspects by missile strikes, make the entire world a battlefield where the U.S. is a combatant. What’s more,  this is a technology other nations and non-nation groups are seeking to acquire.  Blowback could cause spiraling levels of lethal exchanges. Even think-tanks like the Stimson Center, itself in part funded by weapons manufacturing corporations, have begun publicly questioning the effectiveness of drone warfare.

As peace activists, we should voice our concerns about the U.S. military’s accelerating reliance on weaponized robotics before every branch of government, including the judicial branch.

The problem is not that Mary Anne lacks appreciation for the law of the land. She’s exercising her First Amendment right to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance. The problem is that Judge Gideon refuses to challenge military elites, some of whom never, ever want people of compassion and conscience to interfere with their use of threat, force, and even assassination to control people in other lands.

Mary Anne has appealed her case, and a NY judge has released her from prison until the appeal is resolved.  Another activist, Jack Gilroy, awaits sentencing, and in coming days and weeks, more activists will be tried on similar charges in the De Witt Town court. Judge Gideon and his fellow DeWitt Court Judge Robert Jokl have many more opportunities to think about these critical issues.  I hope they’ll be influenced by having encountered some of the finest people in the world as they hear the cases of peace activists in upstate New York.

Written for teleSUR English http://www.telesurtv.net/, which will launch on July 24.

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)

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Share Button May Share Your Browsing History, Too

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1 in 18 of the world’s top 100,000 websites track users without their consent using a previously undetected cookie-like tracking mechanism embedded in ‘share’ buttons. A new study by researchers at KU Leuven and Princeton University provides the first large-scale investigation of the mechanism and is the first to confirm its use on actual websites.

The mechanism, called “canvas fingerprinting”, uses special scripts – the coded instructions that tell your browser how to render a website – to exploit the browser’s so-called ‘canvas’, a browser functionality that can be used to draw images and render text.

When a user visits a website encoded with canvas fingerprinting software, a first script tells the user’s browser to print an invisible string of text on the browser’s canvas. Another script then instructs the browser to read back data about the pixels in the (invisibly) rendered image.

These data contain important information about the user’s browser type, graphics card, system fonts and even display properties. Because this grouping of data is highly likely to be unique for each user, it can be reliably associated to individual users, like a fingerprint.

Once a website has determined a device’s fingerprint, it can easily recognize the user on subsequent site visits, much in the same way cookies do.

But while unwanted cookies can be flagged or blocked to enhance a user’s online privacy, there is no available solution for doing so with fingerprints.

In this study, the researchers used automated ‘crawlers’ to scan the world’s top 100,000 websites for canvas fingerprinting scripts. They found canvas fingerprinting scripts on 5,542 of the internet’s top 100,000 websites, a prevalence of 5.5 percent.

Previous studies on related browser fingerprinting techniques reported a prevalence of 0.4 percent and 1.5%, respectively, although they are not directly comparable to the current study since they measured different types of fingerprinting techniques.

While researchers demonstrated the feasibility of canvas fingerprinting as a tracking mechanism in 2012, this is the first time it has been observed on real websites and traced back to specific provider domains. Analyses of the real-world scripts reveal that fingerprinters are going beyond the techniques known by the academic research community.

Surprisingly, the researchers traced 95 percent of canvas fingerprinting scripts back to a single company: AddThis. AddThis is the world’s largest content sharing platform and provides free website plugins such as share buttons, follow buttons and content recommendation features. The company reaches an estimated 97.2% of Internet users in the United States and receives 103 billion page views each month.

Can users protect themselves against canvas fingerprinting? Acar and his colleagues studied the effect of ad-industry opt-out tools offered by the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance. No websites included in the opt-lists stopped collecting canvas fingerprints after activating the opt-out option.

At present, only one browser, Tor, can prevent canvas fingerprinting scripts, but this added security comes with major trade-offs in performance, functionality and content availability.

Many websites, including sensitive sites such as health and government websites, unknowingly contain canvas fingerprinting – by using one of AddThis’ free plug-ins for example.

The researchers are concerned by the growing prevalence of canvas fingerprinting , says Gunes Acar, the first author of the study: “This is an advanced tracking mechanism that misuses browser features to enable the circumvention of users’ tracking preferences. We hope that our results will lead to better defenses, increase accountability for companies deploying sticky tracking techniques and an invigorated and informed public and regulatory debate on increasingly resilient tracking techniques.”

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Where Does The US-China Relationship Stand? – Analysis

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By RS Kalha

The sixth joint meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) was held in Beijing from July 8-10. It is a very convenient point to assess the present state of the bilateral Sino-US relationship, considering that almost all departments from both sides were represented at the talks. The importance can also be seen in that Chinese President Xi Jinping personally opened the proceedings and stated that ‘our interests are more than ever inter-connected,’ and that the two nations ‘stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation’. Jinping went on to say that ‘if we are in confrontation, it will surely spell disaster for both countries and for the world,’ adding that the Pacific powers need to ‘break the old pattern of inevitable confrontation’. Earlier in a statement issued by the White House, President Obama said the US was committed to building a ‘new model’ of relations with China that is defined by cooperation and the constructive management of differences. ‘We remain determined to ensure that cooperation defines the overall relationship,’ Obama said. But what is the reality?

Let us examine strategic issues first. In the first decade of the 21st Century, the US became involved in costly mis-adventures, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan that have cost it nearly US $ 4-6 trillion and huge losses in both men and material; whilst China remained largely insulated. China has since then quadrupled its military spending, quietly abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s ‘taoguangyanghui’ [bide your time, hide your strength] policy directive and has started asserting itself on its perceived claims in both the East and South China Sea areas. The US believes that Chinese claims are ‘inconsistent with international law’ and that China is following a policy that is deliberately low key to slowly establish its position in this vital area by generating minor incidents that do not invite US retaliation. The US assessment is that by following this policy, the Chinese hope to strengthen the conviction amongst East and South East Asian countries that the US is an ‘unreliable’ security provider and that they would be better served if they came to an accommodation with China.

The Chinese perceive that it was Japan, conscious of the strength of the vital US-Japan Security Treaty, which initiated the tension in East Asia by ‘nationalizing’ the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and thus deliberately changed the status quo in East Asia. Chinese spokespersons repeatedly stress that both Hanoi and Manila have in the past admitted that China had sovereignty over all islands and islets on the Chinese side of the Nine-Dash Line in the South China Sea and therefore Beijing deems the Philippines’ occupation of some of these islands as unacceptable. Unless there is some real engagement among the various parties, tensions are likely to continue to rise. As the US is an ally of both Japan and the Philippines, it has made itself an interested party in the disputes. The issues that surround the complex security relationship between China and the US with regard to East and South East Asia have thus remained unresolved despite sentiments of co-operation expressed both by Xi and Obama and even after the present S&ED dialogue.

On the other hand, the US desperately needs Chinese help to dampen North Korean ambitions, particularly when it comes to their missile and nuclear programmes. The US watched with some satisfaction when Xi Jinping visited Seoul, having already met President Park of South Korea five times, before he has yet to even meet the North Korean leader. Similarly, the US needs Chinese co-operation in the UN Security Council, in climate change negotiations, as also with regard to Syria, Iraq and Iran’s nuclear file [5+1 Talks].

The paradox of the relationship cannot be starker or unlike any other when economic/trade/ investment issues are discussed or when the people to people interface takes place. Last year about one and a half million Chinese tourists visited the US and, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors [NAR], the Chinese are the largest foreign buyers of US real estate, spending nearly US $ 22billionI . Both countries will become each other’s largest trading partners by 2020, although at present the US was China’s second largest trading partner after the EUII . Overall, nearly 12.5% of China’s total trade is with the US.III Both are equally keen on seeking further investment. Yet both are also equally wary. The Chinese complain of restrictions placed on Chinese Telecom giant Huawei’s investments in the US while the US complains that Chinese hackers are ‘stealing’ US corporate technological secrets. The US has recently charged five PLA personnel with trying to ‘steal’ data from US corporations. Even the imbroglio over the question of cyber security remains unresolved.

The question therefore is will the globalization of the economic relationship trump the geo-politics that is being played out in East and South East Asia? For the US, the dilemma is acute for it cannot ignore the pleas of its allies in the region nor allow an incremental drift to take place in the relationship. For the Chinese, the key is whether the US ‘respects’ the core interests that they have enumerated from time to time. The Chinese feel that this is an absolute prerequisite for stability and if the relationship is to develop well. Nevertheless, some analysts believe that the relationship between China and the US is indeed headed towards what is euphemistically referred to as the ‘contest of the century.’ What actually transpires in the future only time can tell.

I. China Daily, 10 July 2014.

II. Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 14 February 2014.

III. Li Jiabao, China Daily, 2 January 2014.

(R S Kalha is a retired diplomat who has dealt with China at the Ministry of External Affairs for several years.)

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Thai Junta Unveils Temporary Constitution

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By Steve Herman

Thailand’s military junta has unveiled an interim constitution that allows the army to retain sweeping powers. And the army chief, who currently has total executive and legislative oversight, could become the kingdom’s next prime minister.

Thailand’s temporary charter is to legitimize the May 22 coup and will effectively grant the junta supreme power over the country’s political and judicial arenas.

The military, which took power in a coup two months ago, is to handpick a 220-member legislature (replacing the House of Representatives and the Senate) that will later select a prime minister and Cabinet. Anyone who has held a political position in a current party will be excluded from the new group of lawmakers.

The members of the reconstituted legislative body must be at least 40 years of age and must not have been previously removed from a government post for “corruption, fraud or misconduct.”

Royal endorsement

An economic advisor to the military government, former commerce minister Narongchai Akransanee, says this will likely lead to elections in October of next year.

“The time line is like this now we have the interim constitution: names of members of the NLA, the national legislative assembly, would be announced most likely within two weeks and the government would be formed after that… And as General Prayuth said the government with military participation would be in place definitely in September,” said Narongchai Akransanee.

On Tuesday, Thailand’s revered 86-year-old King formally endorsed the interim charter in a ceremony with General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army’s chief. The ceremony, which took place in the coastal city Hua Hin, provides additional royal legitimacy to the coup by endorsing the new laws drawn up by the military.

In the coming months, the junta’s interim legislature is expected to choose a committee that will draw up a new constitution, which will then be submitted to the new reform committee for approval.

In the meantime, there is strong speculation General Prayuth will be selected as prime minister.

A deputy junta leader and a legal advisor to the military government are not ruling that out, saying the choice will be up to the provisional parliament.

The junta’s reform plan largely meets the demands of the protesters in Bangkok who occupied parts of the capital for months in a bid to push then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power. Protest leaders had called for an appointed committee to rule the country and implement far-reaching political reforms, before holding new elections.

Muted criticism

Criticism of the new, interim constitution in Thailand is understandably muted, since the military has authority to summon anyone making comments deemed to be political or that could cause unrest.

The domestic media is operating under the harshest censorship seen here in decades.

A member of Thai Students for Democracy, speaking to VOA by Skype, says his underground group will not surrender to the junta’s anti-democratic decrees.

Identifying himself as “Rick Lee,” the university student in Bangkok characterizes the new charter as being imposed by a “system of tyrants.”

“The latest military junta is still maintaining the value of constitutional and freedom. But right now our value of constitution’s check-and-balances, freedoms and liberty has gone. This is so ridiculous for them to do it like this because it means we’re back to the situation like in Burma with the military rule. This is a huge step back for democratic development in this country,” he said.

Others expressing opposition – mostly through anonymous comments posted Wednesday on social media – lamented what they called a blow for democracy. The charter is also seen as a move by the junta to ensure political power will securely be in the hands of the conservative and royalist elite.

The junta, formally known as the National Council for Peace and Order, contends the interim charter “will help solve the crisis and return the situation to normal, restore security, unity and solve economic problems.”

And the reform council will draft “political rules to prevent and suppress corruption and investigate abuses of power by the state before handing the mission to new representatives and the government.”

Since the end of absolute monarchial rule in 1932 Thailand has experienced frequent overthrows of civilian governments by the military. The generals or judicial action have deposed three governments since 2006.

Thaksin Shinawatra influence

The last five national elections in Thailand have been won by parties supported by billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. He was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 coup.

Junta officials say they want to ensure Thai politics are permanently freed from the influence of Thaksin. He was convicted in 2008 by a military-appointed panel of corruption and faces imprisonment should he return to Thailand from self-imposed exile.

His younger sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was forced out as prime minister this year following six months of rallies in Bangkok.

After Yingluck’s removal General Prayuth declared martial law and then seized all power himself.

Since the bloodless putsch hundreds of people have been summoned for questioning and temporary detention. Most of those targeted are considered allies of the Shinawatra clan or critics of the military or Thailand’s harsh lese majeste laws.

General Prayuth has justified carrying out the coup as a necessary move amid a dangerous extended period of political stalemate and that the military will now improve Thailand’s democratic model and “return happiness to the people.”

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Can Iraq’s Disintegration Be Prevented? – Analysis

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By Ambassador KP Fabian

At present, it is difficult to see how the ongoing implosion of Iraq can be stalled and reversed. The world started taking note of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been declared as ‘caliph’ of an ‘Islamic State’ claiming sovereignty over a stretch of territory from Aleppo in north-western Syria to Diyala in north-eastern Iraq only when Mosul fell on June 20. But, his forces had taken over Raqqa, Syria, in March 2013, and Falluja, Iraq, in January 2014.

ISIL, a breakaway group from al Qaeda in Iraq, is basically a part of the Sunni Resistance to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US had made unsuccessful, half-hearted, and not always judicious attempts to build an Iraq that could accommodate the three main groups: the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. But, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took office in 2006 with support from the US and Iran carried out a policy of alienating the Sunnis and the Kurds. His reckless partisan policies created the conditions for the emergence of a formation called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to grow and derive support from the Sunni population.

Once the situation in Syria was found favorable, the ISI extended its operations to Syria and changed its name to the ISIL. Levant essentially comprises Syria, Jordan, pre-Israel Palestine, and Lebanon.

The ISIL has approximately $2 billion, weapons mainly of US origin, and many of their men are in US army combat uniforms, even with interceptor body armour. They have Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. Their manpower comprises young men from Chechnya, UK, France, Jordan and elsewhere who have joined them, reminiscent of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

While the ‘caliphate’ might not have the strength to take over Baghdad, the fact remains that it will be enormously difficult for the government in Baghdad, under al-Maliki or his successor, to recapture the territory already under the control of the ‘caliphate’. This means there is already a Sunnistan in Iraq with a part of Syria also in it.

The Kurds spread across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran number about 30 million. They have their national ambitions. Saladin the Great who fought the Christians during the Crusades and captured Jerusalem in 1187 was a Kurd. After World War I, the Kurds were promised autonomy under the Treaty of Sevres (1920), but it was never implemented. Following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the US imposed a no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan enabling the Kurds to progressively assert independence from Saddam Hussein’s central government in Baghdad. Under the US occupation, Iraqi Kurds gained further and the current constitution provides for virtual autonomy. There is much tension with al-Maliki who has withheld money from the regional government that dug a pipe line to Ceyhan in Turkey to sell oil, without permission. The first tanker reached Israel recently.

Since the 1960s, Israel has been cultivating the Kurds and now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly endorsed an independent state for Iraqi Kurds. They might hold a referendum soon on independence.

The main reason the US has sent military to Iraq is to ensure safety of its embassy. US President Barack Obama does not want a repeat of the humiliating helicopter escape of its ambassador from Saigon in 1975. If Baghdad witnesses carnage with Sunnis and Shias killing each other, it will reflect badly on Obama’s performance as commander in chief. The US might not mind a disintegrated Iraq in the long run. Iran too might conclude that it is not worth sacrificing men and money to retain Iraq as a single entity. Thus, Iraq might have a Kurdistan, one or more Sunnistans, and a Shiistan. The Shiistan will remain Iran’s protectorate.

The Arab Spring, when it started in 2011 as a move towards democracy, did not affect India’s interests adversely. India had reasons to welcome a move towards democracy. But when the Spring lost its way, except in Tunisia, and political instability with civil war fuelled by extremist violence and ideology set in, India realised that it had reasons to worry on many counts.

First, there are over 7 million Indians in the Arab world, most of them in the Gulf where currently there is no political instability. The difficulty in arranging for evacuation of 44 nurses from Kerala held up in Tikrit is an example of the problems to be confronted from time to time. India did arrange for evacuating 176,000 of its nationals from Kuwait and Iraq in 1990-1991. Second, the oil prices have shot up forcing an increase in petrol prices, boosting inflation. Third, the worsening Shia-Sunni tension can have an adverse impact on the two groups who have hitherto lived in peace in India. There are reports of some young Shia men wanting to go to Iraq. The government should be able to prevent them from going.

India has no means of influencing the course of events in Iraq or Syria, but that is not exactly India’s fault as external intervention has so far only aggravated the crisis. There are about ten thousand Indians in Iraq with the majority in Kurdistan and Basra. Fortunately, there is no immediate danger to them.

Ambassador KP Fabian
Former Indian Foreign Service Officer

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Nepal Expects A Better Deal From Modi Government – Analysis

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By Jai Kumar Verma

Nepal is eagerly and enthusiastically waiting for the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his successful visit to Thimphu. The Indian prime minister’s visit is very important from the principle of reciprocity which is crucial in diplomacy.

Unfortunately, India flouted the principle of reciprocity about high level visits in the case of Nepal; hence there is a feeling that it is being neglected and ignored by a big and powerful neighbour.

I.K. Gujral was the last prime minister who visited Nepal in 1997 for a bilateral state visit, although Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to Nepal in 2001 but his trip was to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit.

Nepal as well as other neighbouring countries, including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, feel that since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come with a massive mandate the foreign policy of the country will not be unnecessarily influenced by state governments which for petty electoral gains sacrifice the long-term national interest. The analysts say that inviting the heads of state of all SAARC countries for the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Modi was a great goodwill gesture. It also gives strong signals that Modi is eager to have cordial relations with all neighbours.

Nepal knows that India is a time-tested friend and it can help Nepal in its economic development as well as take care of its security concerns. On the other hand, India is also aware that it can achieve desired economic growth and strength only if it has cordial relations with all neighbours, including Nepal.

India is helping Nepal in several fields. Presently, it is working on 445 projects, including construction of 1,450 km of roads, five rail links and four check points. The bilateral trade between India and Nepal is $4.7 billion, and there is potential to enhance it much more. Nepal has a total trade deficit of Rs.556 billion, of which trade deficit with India is Rs.450 billion.

India may announce a hefty economic package during the forthcoming visit of the Indian prime minister to Nepal. The dates of the visit have not yet been announced, but it is expected that Modi would visit Nepal next month. During his visit, India will enhance assistance in development of hydropower projects, construction of roads, a cricket academy etc.

Modi was supported by several powerful business houses and his focus is on development and job creation. If more jobs are created in India it will immensely help Nepalese youth as they can work in India without any restrictions.

The India-Nepal border, which is approximately 1,850 km, runs along three sides of Nepal and touches five Indian states, including Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. On the other hand, the Nepal-China border is about 1,415 km. The India-Nepal border at most places is in the plains where citizens of both countries move freely in each other’s country.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) exploits the open border between India and Nepal by sending terrorists, arms and ammunition, drugs as well as Indian Fake Currency Notes (IFCN) to India. Nepal promised that it will not allow its territory to be used against India. Generally, Nepal has helped India in capturing several terrorists as well as seizing IFCN.

Usually there are some border disputes between neighbouring states, but barring the rhetoric of anti-India politicians in Nepal there is no major border dispute between India and Nepal.

The pro-Hindu groups aspire that the BJP will help Hindus in converting Nepal again into a Hindu state. They claim that the 240-year old Hindu kingdom was thrown out of power in 2008 due to pressure from Maoists. At that time several BJP leaders expressed their unhappiness over the conversion of the sole Hindu nation into a secular democratic country.

The secular forces in Nepal fear that the Modi-led BJP government may help Hindu fundamentalist to again convert Nepal into a Hindu state. However, analysts in both the countries say that the fear of secular forces in Nepal is unfounded and Modi’s priority is economic development of India and Nepal will also be benefited by it.

India is a secular democratic country and it will never help any hard-line party or group to overthrow the legal regime in a friendly country. Secondly, the foreign policy of the country is decided not on ideology but national interest. The foreign policy of a country does not change because of change in government.

India’s policy towards Nepal is also governed by India-China relations, and Nepal-China relations. Both the countries have severe border problems. However, the meeting between Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Brazil on July 14 was very cordial, hence it will have an impact on India-Nepal relations too.

There cannot be a second opinion that India-Nepal relations are ancient and very cordial. However, these relations should not be left only to bureaucrats. The top leaders of both the countries should meet without bureaucratic hurdles and the agenda should also be chalked out in such a way that the relations become warmer than before.

Here it is important that Nepal should abandon the fear of the gargantuan size of India and should consider that as an immediate neighbour India will be more helpful than any other country, including China. Nepal should also extend all out help in apprehending the members of ISI-sponsored terror groups. Nepal should also curb the mushrooming of madrassas on the Indo-Nepal border as it will cause problems for both India and Nepal in the long run.

The Maoists are anti-India and regularly finance several newspapers as well as NGOs who regularly criticize and condemn India. The Nepal government should also control this anti-India rhetoric. Nepal should be cautious as China is increasing its influence aggressively while India wants to retain its good friendly relations with Nepal.

(Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst. He can be contacted atsouthasiamonitor1@gmail.com

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

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Afghan Election Soap Opera Turns Tearjerker – OpEd

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Amid allegations of massive fraud on both sides, the preliminary results of June 14 run-off election in Afghanistan gave a commanding lead to Ashraf Ghani by winning 56.4 percent of the vote to his rival Abdullah’s 43.4 percent. In the first round of the election, Mr Abdullah finished with 45 percent of the vote, about 13 points ahead of his rival. Mr Abdullah was quick to reject the results and declared himself undisputable “winner” and threatened even formation of a breakaway government.

Ballot staffing on the sides of both contenders is undeniable; if the
unconstitutional threats of Abdullah a leader of the old anti-Taliban Northern Alliance remains unconstrained, the situation could spill over into an internecine civil war.

The run-off election has polarised the country along the ethnic line that caused the pendulum swung against Abdullah. The Pasthun dominated east and south of the country saw heavy turnout where Ghani draws much of his support. According to Afghan sources in some parts in the south, even Taliban encouraged voters to cast their ballots in favor of Ghani. Abdullah had the same problem in 2009 presidential election when he lost to Karzai. He accepted Karzai’s presidency because he knew that Karzai would pose no hurdle to the political dominance of NA in Afghanistan.

At the heart of the Afghan electoral crisis lies the Western strategic mistake that after overthrowing the Taliban medieval regime allowed the warlords of the Northern Alliance—initially a creation of Russia, Iran and India in order to counter Pakistan and Saudi backed Taliban in the 1990s—to claim the lion’s share of the state machinery in Afghanistan. In late 2001, with the help of the US special forces and B-52 bombers, the jubilant hordes of the NA overrun the Afghan capital Kabul and ever since have micromanaged all power centres in the country and using the outgoing Karzai as a Pashtun figurehead. Billions of aid dollars poured into Afghanistan have been continuously stolen by leaders and warlords of NA. Let us not forget the NA active role in the ethno-sectarian carnage of the Afghan civil war during (1992-1996). Western policy makers have always overlooked warning calls from all sides about the growing danger of the dominance of the NA over the Afghan state that turned it into the most corrupt in the world.

The NA with its irredeemable sectarianism alienated the country’s majority Pashtuns. The rate of poverty and literacy is alarmingly low among the Pashtuns in comparison to all other Afghan ethnic groups and the cycle may continue for generations to come. Voicing a Pashtuns lack of a meaningful representation in the central government, the International Crisis Group on 5 August 2003, gave stern warning to the West about a systematic “violence” and “heavy-handed operations” against Pashtuns in different parts of the country. Tens of thousands of Pashtuns are internally displaced who live in abject poverty.

“We need a favour from the international community. If they could bring giant airplanes and takes all the Pashtuns on in the ocean, then we would get rid of this situation,” quoting a Pashtun tribal leader, Carlotta Gall writes in her book, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014.

However, Abdulla and other moguls of the NA live in their feverish delirium. They think that Western soldiers will be for ever patrolling villages on their behalf and sacrifice their lives just to guard them from the bearded Taliban, who will be knocking at the gates of Kabul, once the Western forces leave the country. In an emotional speech, he boasted to his followers that he can “change the entire Afghan political scene by dropping a hint.” And his closes ally Atta Noor, a notorious warlord, declared that he would only accept Abdullah as the leader of Afghanistan.

“From now on I declare a legitimate government under Dr Abdullah, and I am obliged to obey him,” he said. What these sulphurous statements signify is not difficult to understand. It is the shadow of the NA behind him, which has hoarded power by controlling the defence, interior and intelligence portfolios. Succumbing to Abdullah’s demands trigger chaos in Afghanistan.

Recently US Secretary of State did his magic to broker a power-sharing deal between two rivals which will not last. At best, the deal was a short term pleasure for long term pain. Though the NA is militarily an insignificant force, its leaders would be a thorn in the side of the new government whether it chose to continue fighting with the Taliban or making peace with them.

The Afghan national narrative suggests that the warlords of the NA and Abdullah need to be disciplined and straightened. Any American mediation that may strike a power-sharing deal with Abdullah and Ghani will just defer the implosion of the country into ethnic conflict.

Whoever is the ultimate winner of the election, clearly the presidency would be without a honeymoon. From day one, the new president would be facing two great challenges, how to deal with the Taliban and how to stop ceaseless meddling by the Pakistani army, which is sheltering and supporting anti-Afghan and anti-Western
insurgency. However, curbing the dominance of the NA could bring a positive change in the present juncture.

Ehsan Azari Stanizai Lectures Literary Theory at Writing for Performance, University of New South Wales, Australia

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A ‘New’ Counter-Naxal Action Plan – Analysis

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Days after the formation of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in New Delhi, contours of a new policy vis-a-vis Left Wing Extremism (LWE) remained a matter of speculation. Whether tough measures would replace the ad hoc ones and clarity would substitute confusion were commented upon. Some of the statements of the Home Minister and the Ministry officials in the early days following the formation of the government raised hopes that a policy change, if not the prospect of an immediate solution to the problem could be on the anvil. However, the new 29-point Action Plan evolved by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for addressing the LWE challenge point towards the continuation of the past policies and does not indicate a radical departure from the approach pursued by the previous government.

Three principal assumptions mark the new counter-LWE policy:

a. Security force operations must precede developmental initiatives
b. The Communist Party of India-Maoist’s (CPI-M) military capacities can be crippled by targeting its top leadership
c. Security force operations, with modest gains so far can be made effective by additional force deployment and augmenting intelligence collection.

While each of these assumptions are relevant, whether such measures can be implemented without broad-based security and governance sector reforms, remains a matter of debate.

Ruling out negotiations with the CPI-M has been one of the most highlighted aspects of Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statements in recent times. Speaking on 27 June, Singh, at the meeting of chief secretaries and Directors General of Police (DGPs) of 10 Naxal-affected states said, “There is no question of any talks now. We will take a balanced approach. But the forces will give a befitting reply if the Naxals launch attacks.” Given that several past offers for negotiations have been rebuffed by the CPI-M, Singh’s statement aims to serve as a foundation for a primarily force-based approach to the LWE challenge.

The new action plan involves a directive to the Intelligence Bureau to “infiltrate into Maoist ranks” and follow a specific policy of targeting the top leadership for neutralisation. The Naxal-affected states have been advised to raise commando forces similar to the Greyhounds of Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, 10 additional battalions of central armed police personnel are being deployed in Chattisgarh’s Bastar region by the end of 2014 for a renewed offensive against the extremists. The new policy further speaks of creating a series of incentives for “good officers” to serve in Maoist-affected areas by offering them monetary incentives and career benefits.

All these measures, incidentally, have remained the MHA’s counter-LWE approach in the past. None, however, achieved much success due to a range of deficiencies that include lack of ability as well as coordination between the central as well as state security forces and the intelligence agencies. Years since the LWE emerged as a major security threat to the country, both technical intelligence (TECHINT) as well as human intelligence (HUMINT) gathering mechanisms continue to suffer from serious shortcomings. There is an acute lack of enthusiastic participation of the state police forces in New Delhi’s overall design, that neither supplements nor aims to replace the central forces in countering the extremists. The new plan is silent on the ways to remove such loopholes and make operations a principally state police-led initiative. Given the fact that state bureaucracy has remained mostly apathetic to restart governance in areas cleared by the security forces, policies need to go beyond the rhetoric of ‘posting of good officers’ in naxal-affected areas.

In the previous years, evolving a national policy consensus on a challenge that affects at least 10 states has remained one of the main challenges for New Delhi. The 29-point Action Plan falls short of addressing the problem. It merely exhorts the affected states to appoint nodal officers to increase coordination at the centre and asks the chief ministers and home ministers to visit the affected areas in their respective states to develop a favourable image of the government among the tribal population. In the absence of a reward system to make the non-conforming states fall in line with a central approach, such measures of improving coordination are likely to be met with lack of enthusiasm, if not resistance by the states ruled by non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties.

The current LWE situation is marked by scaled down violence by the extremists who understandably are into a consolidation mode after suffering some reversals. Recruitment activities still continue, so do the efforts to ideologically reshape the movement that seems to have deviated significantly from its original objectives and strategies. A tactical retreat of this nature often creates the illusion of victory among the policy makers. At the same time, low level violence creates significant opportunities for the government to revisit its own strategies, make inroads into the extremist areas, and prepare for future escalations. Whether the MHA would use the time well is something to watch out for.

This article appeared at IPCS.

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Indian Railways Needs A Strategic Outlook, Neighbourly Thrust – Analysis

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Years of political interference in the operations of the Indian Railways has seen a national asset, a legacy and strategic instrument, run to ground.

Political expediency has seen the gross misuse of the tool of cross-subsidisation between passenger services and freight traffic and between high-end and low-cost passenger traffic. These interventions along with a falling safety record and poor standard of amenities have resulted in the migration of the high-end passengers to air travel and the freight to the cheaper but more polluting, road transport.

Railways’ share of freight has fallen from 90 percent of the country’s cargo in 1950 to one-third today, as congested tracks and slow speeds have forced shipments onto roads – in turn clogging them. Possibly, the biggest indicator of the malaise was the levy of a safety cess to fund basic safety measures which are inherent in the operation of a mode of transport.

The Indian Railways, which is being propelled on subsidised diesel and electricity, today requires large-scale resources – Rs.20 trillion ($334 billion) of investment by 2020 – for modernisation, technological upgradation and improving systems and processes for enhanced safety.

While political lament on tariff continues, it is still bereft of solutions. The discourse has also veered clear of two issues: role of railways in India’s climate change mitigation strategy, and its potential in India’s ‘Neighbours first’ policy. This article examines latter.

Strategic Disconnect

In the case of India, political interference not only depleted key resources essential for the growth of the railways but also caused what was available to be spent on projects that made little commercial sense. This ‘inward entanglement’ of the railways ensured that its strategic potential as an instrument of foreign policy was never fully realised; and therefore did not go beyond basic turnkey projects, export of low tech rolling stock and a one and two-point rail contact with Nepal and Pakistan.

Today as Silk routes roll out of the Chinese heartland to various parts of Asia and Europe, each underpinned by a robust, multi-gauge multinational railway line. The latest of which, is a Chinese “preliminary research study” to build an international rail link connecting the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea. The 1,800-km China-Pakistan railway is planned to also pass through Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad and Karachi.

Technology Chasm

Just as India hailed the trial run its ‘semi high-speed’ 160 kmph Delhi- Agra train on July 3 and the inauguration of the Udhampur-Katra rail link by Prime Minster Narendra Modi, a Chinese train began its maiden run from Yichang city in central Hubei province to Wanzhou district in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, travelling a distance of 377 km on a route through rugged mountains, that included 159 tunnels and 253 bridges accounting for about 74 percent of the line’s total length. The train reduced the journey time between Chongqing and Wuhan, capital of Hubei, from over 11 hours to just six hours and 40 minutes.

Trains in Japan and South Korea have been running at speeds of 300 kmph for years and the Chinese and the French railways are now experimenting with speeds well in excess of 500 kmph. It was not surprising that India put in a demand for importing high-speed rail technology from China at the China-India Strategic Dialogue held in Beijing in March.

High-speed rail (HSR) technology has been on the list of Chinese strategic exports. When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited UK between June 16-19 this year, the two countries inked a deal to cooperate on rail infrastructure and high-speed rail, in areas including design, engineering, construction, supply operation and maintenance of projects in China and the UK. Building of the Chinese HSR brand has been a sustained effort.

China Story

Chinese planning of HSR networks began in the 1990s under the guidance of its Ministry of Railways (MoR). Conscious of the strides neighbouring Japan had made, Chinese rail planners have sought to create a Chinese brand capable of competing in global markets, in addition to confronting domestic transport inefficiencies and improving air pollution.

In tandem, the Ministry of Science invested nearly 10 billion RMB ($1.6 billion) in bringing together 25 universities, 11 research institutes, 51 national laboratories and engineering research centers with participation from the 863 and 973 national high technology research and development programs.

China appears to have pursued technology development to achieve market access to enhance the global competitiveness of domestic HSR companies. Chinese train makers and civil engineering companies are now building, participating in or contemplating bidding for HSR construction projects in South America, the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

GCC Rail

Railways are a very potent means to aiding regional integration. Oman, across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, is poised to start issuing bonds for a $3 billion rail line by the end of 2014, offering an alternative route for oil and freight shipments that funnel through the 39 km-wide channel. The 2,177 km-long Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Railway will carry freight as well as passenger trains from the borders of Iraq to the shores of the Indian Ocean by 2018.

The GCC railway will take the shortest route east from Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, crossing the border from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) near the city of Al Ain before ploughing for 160 km through the Hajar Mountains, which rise to 10,000 feet, and reaching the ocean near Suhar, 242 km north of Omani capital, Muscat. The GCC Railway has a projected cost of $20 billion and aims to provide a route spanning six Gulf countries by 2018. The member states are cooperating and working towards open access between the countries when the anticipated railway crosses through the borders, thereby omitting the border posts.

India in contrast has not prioritised railways to achieve better integration with its neighbours, and has in fact neglected the rail connections it inherited from the British.

Indian Crawl

The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) this year unveiled a master plan to establish railway connectivity between the north-eastern states and the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The Indian Railways has approved a plan to lay a 252-km railway track between Jawharnagar, the headquarters of Dhalai district in Tripura, and Darlong city of Myanmar through Kolasib, a town in Mizoram. The survey of the 109-km railway line between Jawharnagar and Kolasib has started, and the remaining 148-km track, between Kolasib and Darlong, will be surveyed in the next phase. The track-laying is expected to commence in the “next few years.” Two more short distance routes are being considered. One of them would be an 80-km track connecting Panisagar in Tripura to Simanapur in Mizoram, while another would be a 45-km track connecting Patharkandhi in Assam to Kanmun in Mizoram.

Railway authorities have also sanctioned funds for a feasibility study of a link between Belonia in Tripura and Chittagong in Bangladesh. The Indian and Bangladeshi governments will start work early next year on a new 15km railway linking Tripura’s capital Agartala with Bangladesh’s southeastern city of Akhaura.

There is a need to revive the rail link to Sri Lanka (the Indo-Ceylon Express), functional till 1964, with services from Chennai to Colombo. Rail connectivity to Kathmandu needs to be extended, upgraded and enhanced, as also is the case with Bhutan, where rail connectivity has not moved beyond the planning stage. The rail link to Imphal needs to be expedited and planning for onward connectivity to Myanmar initiated.

The revitalisation of the Indian railways needs a strategic outlook. Transporting cross-border trade is a good means of generating resources to expand a rail network as well as sustaining those rail links which normally would be commercially unviable.

India needs its own version of silk routes, even if they are initially restricted to the sub-continent. The “neighbours first” policy must get regional trade on rails.

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

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MH 17 Downing: Putin Will Face Wrath Of Asia – OpEd

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By Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami

The world mourns the tragedy of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines commercial jet over eastern Ukraine and in the midst of this tragedy the blame game is going on with who exactly is responsible for this act of horror and terror and the actors behind the scene who may have intentionally or otherwise contributed to this dastardly deed. In the midst of all the shouting matches in world capitals and in the United Nations, the tragedy has zeroed in on one person – Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

There could have been one or two more tragedies on that day involving Air India as well-one a commercial jet just minutes behind the crashed Malaysian passenger jet and Air India One carrying Indian Prime Minister.Narendra Modi returning home from the BRICS summit in Brazil. Both planes are said to have been cleared on this tragic corridor but different versions have started appearing since the shoot-down. A full explanation is needed on why it was that Air India managers and planners approved of this corridor knowing full well of the dangers. Further it is maintained that many international airlines have started ignoring this dangerous corridor.

But the spotlight is on Putin who has the rare chance of coming out of this with honor. The information on hand is that the pro- Moscow anti-Kiev rebels were the ones that brought down MH 17 in that corridor of Ukraine bordering Russia. Almost everyone in the West, led by the United States, is convinced that the plane was downed by a surface-to-air missile provided to the anti-Ukraine rebels by Russia and a weapons systems that had been successfully deployed in bringing down Ukrainian military transport planes in the last two weeks.

When the crisis in the Crimea started a few months ago, it was only the West that was crying from the rooftops and starting the sanctions process. Now the downing of the Malaysian Airlines has brought that anti-Russia apprehensions to the Asia Pacific, a trend that will only hurt Russia economically as well as in whatever goodwill it may have had in this part of the world. As the international community goes about fine tuning sanctions against Russia for its indirect or indirect hand in the horrendous crime, Putin will find the wrath of Asia as well if he does not come away clean.

Putin is like any other world leader who should have understood that backing rebel groups is an easy first thing to do but keeping a tight control on the movement of weapons or in imparting any training in the use of sophisticated weapons is a difficult thing to do. Propping up rebel groups and thugs to protect Moscow’s interests in the Ukraine is one thing, but losing quick control of the scheme of things is proving highly detrimental to Moscow, politically and economically.

In the first place Russia should not have moved surface-to-air missiles and systems to the rebel dominated areas knowing full well that the airspace is being used by international commercial jets. Moscow must have known that the so-called anti-Ukraine rebels at its bidding could get giddy at the sight of new gadgets. Ask the Americans about the induction of Stingers into Afghanistan and the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s withdrawal. And ask China as to how much control it has over North Korea today. Sadly little.

If Putin and Russia are to come out of this relatively unscathed they ought to admit of what really transpired and not be party to any shady cover-ups or destruction of evidence. Since Moscow has so much control over the anti-Ukraine rebels it should lean very hard on them to allow inspectors of Malaysia and international experts to visit the scenes of crash so as to get hold of critical information including the black boxes. Reports thus far speak of a very negative attitude on the part of rebels to any outside investigations and collection of evidence. This is not helping Moscow one bit. Putin must come out of this like a statesman and not wish that his traditional backers will come to his rescue and bail him out of a difficult situation.

It is easy to make the argument that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had cleared that Ukrainian flight corridor and hence the route was being used. But judgements should have been better. Air corridors in different parts of the world are witness to dangerous fighting zones on the ground with warring groups having full access to weapons, either generously given by so-called benefactors or that could be procured easily in the open market. The net result as seen by MH 17 is the loss of nearly 300 innocent souls who had nothing to do with the goings on in the Ukraine.

(Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami has been a senior journalist with The Hindu. He is currently Head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications and International Relations at SRM University, Chennai and can be contacted at southasiamonitor1@gmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

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