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The Other Immigrant Youth Crisis – OpEd

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By Diana Anahi Torres-Valverde

Senator Ted Cruz says that eradicating an executive decision he blames for creating the humanitarian crisis on the border is his top priority. And lots of conservative members of the GOP are on board with the Texas Republican’s demand.

They argue that President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has led Central American children and their parents to believe the U.S. government will grant them “amnesty” once they set foot on American soil.

But those assumptions are clearly wrong.

DACA, now entering its third year, is only for youth between the ages of 15 and 31 who arrived in the U.S. before June 2007 and before they turned 16. And it’s not a form of amnesty. The program only grants youth the right to live and work legally in the United States for renewable two-year periods.

Additionally, experts agree that violence back home, not the promise of amnesty here, is the force pushing most Central American child refugees to head toward the United States.

Nevertheless, the GOP’s push to roll back DACA’s benefits for undocumented youth who grew up in the United States has forced the House to leave town without addressing the refugee crisis in a meaningful way.

This marks the second year in a row that GOP extremists have thwarted a vote on an immigration bill. What’s behind the inaction? Conservative Republicans know little about the lives of the immigrant youth they want to deport.

Take the following stories as examples of what it’s like to walk in the shoes of youth eligible for relief under the anti-deportation policy.

Miguel Tapia, a 17-year-old Mexican-born youth who considers himself American and sees his Delaware community as home, was 13 when he found out what it means to be undocumented.

His parents explained that even though he had lived in Delaware since he was 2, he couldn’t get a driver’s license, apply for a federal student loan, or work legally in the United States.

“Why am I a 4.0 student at the top of my class?” the teen recalls asking his mother, feeling defeated. “In the end I’ll be working as an undocumented immigrant, at a job that pays minimum wage.”

Beatriz Felix, a 20-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in Alabama since she was 2 and speaks English with a Southern drawl, faced equally demoralizing circumstances.

After graduating from her Alabama high school with great grades, Felix realized that she couldn’t continue her education without going out of state. An Alabama bill signed into law in 2011 banned all undocumented students from her state’s universities and she couldn’t afford the cost of attending an out-of-state college.

Their prospects changed when Obama launched DACA.

“Something as simple as getting a driver’s license became possible and I could start thinking more long-term about my career goals,” said Tapia, who is applying to college this year.

To Felix, DACA meant that she could finally work legally and afford to go to college near her family.

More than 550,000 other young adults have found themselves in Felix’s and Tapia’s shoes. But if Senator Ted Cruz and his group of supporters got their way, all of this could quickly disappear.

These English-speaking, college or high school-educated, American-identifying youth would remain stateside. This is their home, after all — but they would have fewer opportunities to contribute to their American communities.

The young immigrants would lose their right to pursue professional careers and no longer be able to help add more than $329 billion and 1.4 million new jobs to the U.S. economy by 2030. They would also lose many small privileges that currently allow them to participate in their communities as mentors, math tutors, teachers, or public health advocates.

Republicans can’t solve the current border crisis by eliminating the deferred action program, as the GOP-led House just voted to do. Rather, the lives of DACAmented youth and the lives of the children who are currently streaming across the border shed light on a larger immigration crisis that exists in the United States.

How many more immigration crises will it take before Congress recognizes the imperative need to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill in this country?

Diana Anahi Torres-Valverde is the New Mexico Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. IPS-dc.org

The post The Other Immigrant Youth Crisis – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Cindy Sheehan: This Day In (Camp Casey) History – OpEd

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August 6th is certainly a day that has gone down in infamy.

Undoubtedly, the most notorious event that occurred on 8/6 was the 1945 US a-bombing of Hiroshima followed closely by the bombing of Nagasaki. The tragedy of those war crimes still has have many repercussions to this day.

I was honored to be invited to visit Japan on the anniversaries and I met survivors and the family members of those that were obliterated. I met a Japanese woman who was in Havana and she had lost a young daughter to cancer because of the never-ending after effects of radiation. What the US did on that day was beyond shameful, but what is even more shameful is the vast number of USAians who still consider those bombings justified.

Now, let’s jump over about 56 August 6ths to the year 2001. Remember this is one month and five days before the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

A little known, or remembered event happened on 8/6/2001 in teeny, tiny Crawford, Texas—a place I was to become very familiar with in a few more years.

On that day, Bush was on the longest recorded vacation of any POTUS in US history and he was handed a PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) titled: Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US. This, according to The History Commons:

“According to journalist and author Ron Suskind, just after a CIA briefer presents President Bush with the later infamous PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) item entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” Bush tells the briefer, “You’ve covered your ass, now.” This account is from Suskind’s 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine, which is based largely on anonymous accounts from political insiders. In the book, after describing the presentation of the PDB, Suskind will write: “And, at an eyeball-to-eyeball intelligence briefing during this urgent summer, George W. Bush seems to have made the wrong choice. He looked hard at the panicked CIA briefer. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’ve covered your ass, now.’”

Like I said, today, there will be commemorations that get it right, or get it wrong about Hiroshima, but I bet none will mention the PDB in 2001, or my little contribution to that day’s history in 2005 that came to be known as “Camp Casey.”

On August 3 of that year, I was at my home in Vacaville, Ca (still in deep pain from the murder of my son Casey in Iraq) watching some news broadcast, or the other, and my nemesis George Bush came on. He was, once again, on vacation at his pig ranch in Crawford, but this day he was somewhere in Texas doing something. That day, 11 Marines from the same reserve unit in Ohio were killed in the same incident in Iraq. Bush was asked about that and he said, “The families of the fallen can rest assured their loved ones died for a noble cause.”

Of course, since my son Casey died in Iraq in another long line of Imperial wars based on lies and for profit, my ears pricked up at this “Noble Cause” bullshit! At the time George was clearly at a press availability, so I waited for someone from the “press” (really, White House stenographers) to ask him what the “Noble Cause” was, since the mission-lie had already changed several times by then. Predictably, not one of the stenographers asked George that question.

This was the first in a string of coincidences that led me to Crawford that year—well, really the second. The first one was that I was supposed to be in London the following week to go to an impeachment conference with Congressman John Conyers—my plane ticket had already been purchased by the London activists. I was very excited because I had never been anywhere in Europe before, but Conyers’ (he of impeachment fame before he became chair of the House Judiciary Committee in 2007) plans changed and the event was postponed, so I had my entire August free.

That was, I had my August free AFTER I went to Dallas, Texas on August 4th to participate in the annual Veterans for Peace convention. So, the day after George openly told another lie he was not held accountable for (except for by the people), I was scheduled to go to Texas. At that point, I had a brainstorm. After I give my speech in Dallas at the VFP conference on August 5, why don’t I drive to Crawford (at that point I didn’t even know where Crawford was in relation to Dallas—Texas is one big-ass state) and try to demand a meeting with George to ask him “What Noble Cause” myself?

I had scheduled an event in Sacramento that night, so I wrote a quick email to my email list at the time (probably about 300-400 people. There was no Twitter, Facebook, or even Myspace back then) telling my contacts about my plan, and I left for Sacramento. On the way, I called my sister Dede Miller who was meeting me in Dallas the next day to tell her that we were driving to Crawford from Dallas on Saturday to ask Bush “What Noble Cause” and she said, “okay.” Then I called Andrea Buffa who was working PR for CODEPINK at the time and asked her if she would help me spread the word and she said, “Okay.”

By the time I arrived back home that evening, my AOL (remember AOL?) inbox had overflowed. Apparently, my email had traveled around the world and many people were excited about the impending action.

The so-called right-wing in this country wanted to paint Camp Casey as a long planned out and well-funded venture and me as the “front person” in an effort that was politically motivated. Gasbag Rush Limbaugh claimed that my “story” was contrived and based on “false documents” like that of Bill Burkett who accused George Bush of being AWOL from the Texas National Guard. Of course, that’s true and what did I do? Bury an empty coffin just so I could camp in 110 degree weather in Crawford 16 months later? Hell, even my own in-laws accused my protest of being motivated by my political leanings even though I had always been against wars in general and Iraq in particular. However, I don’t think one brainstorm, no endless stream of conference calls/emails, and three days planning can truthfully be construed by anyone with any intellectual integrity as being nothing but completely spontaneous. And, NO George Soros did not personally fund Camp Casey. It was funded by people from all over sending us their contributions and other kinds of donations.

On Saturday morning, August 6th, we loaded up a bus owned by a
member of VFP that had “IMPEACH BUSH” painted in huge letters on its side, and had a caravan of cars follow us to make the approximately three hour drive from Dallas down to Crawford.

Joining me on the bus were members of Vietnam Vets Against the War, Vets for Peace, and Iraq Vets Against the War and another Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) who had come up from Houston to support us, Amy Branham. We were giddily apprehensive and we had no idea what to expect. The day before one of the founders of the Crawford Peace House, Hadi Jawad had asked me what I had planned to do if Bush refused to meet with me. I answered, “I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess I will just sit on the side of the road and refuse to move until he agrees to meet with me.” I will never forget Hadi’s response to me: “Wow, that’s an action.” And it did turn out to be quite an “action.”

When I look back on that summer, I have many, many, many fond memories. It was the first major post-9/11 “occupy” after all. People flocked from all over the country (and world) to come to that bump in the road to be in solidarity with us. If they couldn’t come, they held rallies and camps in their own neck of the woods. One couple drove down from Wisconsin just to meet me, give us a donation and they turned around and went right back.

Of course, we had many celebrities come and join us. Hunky Viggo Mortensen came for a few minutes to kiss my hand and bring me some California produce (greatly appreciated). Joan Baez came when I had to go back home to California to take care of my mother who had suffered a massive stroke one day (she sadly ended up passing away in February, 2007) when I was in Crawford. Joan stayed for awhile and was a great presence.

I made many friends who became my family, but some who have since abandoned the idea of peace in favor of the Democrat party.

When I look back on the experience from a perspective of nine years and millions of gallons of water under the bridge, the one thing I regret is that I did not recognize then that some of the prominent people and big organizations that came to Camp Casey that summer did not come to support peace, but came to only support Democrats.

That summer, Camp Casey was a powerful movement that could have affected real systemic change if the devious Democrats and their minions hadn’t co-opted the struggle to regain political power, and look what that has achieved as the world tilts on the brink of total global conflict via the Drone Bomber and ever present War Machine.

Also, while I met lifelong friends in Crawford, also I lost some friends due to jealousy at my sudden prominence. I guess in this day and age of the “15 minutes of fame” soundbite culture, many people would think that being “famous” or infamous, or a cause celebré is exciting and/or glamorous. It is not, it’s mostly awful, especially if one never sought out, or wanted that celebrity.

I was either viciously attacked for example, Glen Beck called me a “tragedy pimp”, or put on a pedestal, for example, Maureen Dowd wrote in the NY Times that I had the “absolute moral authority.” Both of these extremes were undeserved. I was simply a mom from California who wanted a simple question answered. I wanted the truth, and here in the US, that is extra-ordinary, but I wasn’t an extra-ordinary person. I hated having my life being put under a microscope, especially when another coincidence was that I was going through a separation and eventual divorce at the time, which was a deeply personal thing and never should have been fodder used to demonize me. If every woman going through a divorce was demonized in this country, that would be a profitable industry, wouldn’t it?

Since Bush has left office in the orderly and lawful way, not in handcuffs, and we’re well into the term of the new War President, I almost feel sorry for Bush. (Almost, I said). Where’s the outcry against Obama’s wars? The occupy movement did not address these issues and I have tried to hold three protest camps since Obama has been president, and instead of thousands of people, there has been tens in attendance.

I would hate to think the only thing Camp Casey accomplished was getting the left-wing of the war party back in political power. I think we did re-shape the dialogue and perceptions of war. With many vets and other family members joining me that summer, people in the US were seeing, for the first time this generation, active family opposition to the institutions that steal our young people to kill and die in the wars for profit of today’s Military Industrial Complex.

For the 10th anniversary next year of Camp Casey, we’d like to present a documentary to not just relive the magic and the trials of the experience, but to re-inspire some principled activism against the Empire that is completely outside the sphere of partisan politics.

Please donate to the project as an anniversary present:

Prairie Fire, the Camp Casey Story

We’re still trying to make that difference and tip the scales towards peace and justice!

The post Cindy Sheehan: This Day In (Camp Casey) History – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Calls For Thailand To Investigate Alleged Torture Of Activist

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Thai authorities should immediately and impartially investigate the alleged torture of an opposition activist in military custody, Human Rights Watch said today. “Red Shirt” activist Kritsuda Khunasen, 27, was secretly detained without charge at an unidentified military camp from May 27 to June 24, 2014.

Kritsuda, in a video interview released on August 2, alleged that soldiers beat her during interrogation and suffocated her with a plastic bag over her head until she lost consciousness. On August 3 the junta blocked access to the interview on YouTube and to an English language article about her case.

“The Thai junta’s alleged torture of a detained activist is further cause for alarm that rights protections are not on the military’s agenda,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Only by promptly investigating Kritsuda’s allegations and prosecuting those responsible can the junta undo its knee-jerk denial of her serious charges.”

The Thai junta’s response to Kritsuda’s allegations has been dismissive, raising broader concerns for the authorities’ treatment of all detainees. On August 3, Col. Winthai Suvaree, spokesman for the ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said that “Kritsuda was not mistreated while in military custody,” and that her allegations were “groundless without any supporting evidence.” The deputy National Police chief, Somyot Phumpanmuang, said police would investigate to see whether the circulation of Kritsuda’s video interview broke any Thai laws.

On the evening of May 27, soldiers from the 14th Military Circle arrested Kritsuda during a raid of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), known as the Red Shirts, in Muang district in Chonburi province.

In the interview, remotely conducted via Skype, Kritsuda said she was blindfolded and put in a car heading to an unknown military camp in Bangkok:

They used my scarf to blindfold me. I recognized that I was taken to Bangkok when I heard the driver pay the expressway toll. Then I heard the driver stopping at a checkpoint. It was a military camp. The driver told soldiers at the checkpoint that he was dropping off a “parcel.” He referred to me as a “parcel.”

Kritsuda said that she was put in a room to rest overnight: “The room was guarded by soldiers. I could hear the sound of their boots. I could also hear the sound of soldiers doing exercise the next morning.” She described her interrogation:

Soldiers first told me that they just wanted to have a talk with me and would then let me go…. But what happened was not a talk. I was interrogated.… When the scarf they used to blindfold me came loose, a female soldier was told to tighten it and wrap duct tape around my head on top of the scarf. That completely blinded my sight. I could not tell if it was night or day anymore. I was kept like that while being interrogated. My hands were also tied. One of the soldiers told me, “Sister. You would not get out of this place alive if you see our faces.”

Kritsuda said she was slapped, punched, and suffocated during the interrogation:

The first morning when they started to question me, I was slapped in the face. That was how it began.… After that, when I could not give them information they wanted, they slapped me and punched me. But that did not compare to the most brutal thing those soldiers did to me. They put a plastic bag over my head and wrapped a piece of cloth around it to suffocate me. I felt as if I was dead before they let me breathe again. They did that to me again and again until I passed out.

Kritsuda said that a female soldier had to take off her pants when she went to the toilet because her hands remained tied during the detention:

I was allowed to have shower a couple times. While a female soldier stripped me naked and gave me a shower, I heard male voices near me. I felt I was sexually harassed. I told those soldiers I could take care of myself. But they said they had not received an order to untie me.

After seven days, the limit of an administrative detention under martial law, Kritsuda said the authorities ordered her to write a letter saying that she volunteered to stay in military custody. Then on June 23, she said, several senior military officers came to meet her at the military camp. She said Maj. Gen. Sansern Kaewkamnerd, leader of the NCPO spokesperson team, told her she would be interviewed by army-owned TV Channel 5 and to “say the right thing to make the military look good.” The footage, which was broadcast nationwide on the evening of June 23, shows Kritsuda saying that she volunteered to be in military custody and was “happier than any words can say.” In his August 3 response to Kritsuda’s allegations, the NCPO spokesman Winthai claimed that Kritsuda “was genuinely happy” during the interview.

Kritsuda was freed without charge on June 24 after a considerable domestic and international outcry for her release. She has since stated that she had been living in fear and could not give her account until she could leave Thailand. She is now in Europe seeking asylum.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly raised serious concerns regarding the Thai junta’s use of arbitrary arrest and secret military detention. Since the May 22 coup, the NCPO has detained more than 300 ruling party and opposition politicians, activists, journalists, and people accused of supporting the deposed government, disrespecting or offending the monarchy, or being involved in anti-coup protests and activities. The NCPO has placed those people in incommunicado lockup in unofficial detention sites, such as military camps. The risk of enforced disappearances, torture, and other ill-treatment significantly increases when detainees are held incommunicado in unofficial military detention.

On June 24 the NCPO announced that everyone being held without charge in military custody had been released, but it has never provided information about those supposedly released. Instead, the military authorities have continued to arbitrarily arrest and detain people despite publicly asserting that the practice has stopped. The authorities have continued to summon a wide range of people for questioning, at times leading to arbitrary arrest.

The military has also arrested people in their homes without warrants in Bangkok and other provinces. For instance, on July 30, soldiers took Dachai Uchukosolkarn, leader of Phalang Prathet Thai Party, from his home in Lampang province. He remains unaccounted for.

The authorities typically compel those released from military detention to sign an agreement that they will not make political comments, become involved in political activities, or travel overseas without NCPO permission. Failure to comply is punishable by a new round of detention, a sentence of up to two years in prison, and a fine of 40,000 baht (US$1,250).

The junta leader, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, has given repeated public assurances that detainees would be safe in military custody. On July 25, he said in a televised speech: “The NCPO would like to ask the international community to understand that we have never committed serious human rights violations. We have no policy to assault, kill, torture, rape, or harm anyone.”

Sihasak Phuangketkeow, the permanent secretary of the Thai Foreign Ministry told the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 12 that most of the people summoned by the military authorities had already been released, and that no one had been held for more than a week. The NCPO has contended that incommunicado detention is necessary to allow detainees to “cool off and adjust their attitude” without disruption from outsiders.

The alleged torture of Kritsuda highlights the concerns raised by the junta’s enactment on July 22 of an interim constitution that exempts the NCPO and anyone acting on its behalf from all liabilities for abuses. Under international law and United Nations principles on the right to a remedy for human rights violations, governments have the duty to investigate allegations of serious human rights violations and prosecute those responsible.

“Kritsuda’s alleged torture is a test case for the Thai junta’s commitment to respect human rights and ensure justice for victims of abuse,” Adams said. “Will the junta respond with a serious investigation or will there be more cover-ups and stonewalling?”

The post Calls For Thailand To Investigate Alleged Torture Of Activist appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Asia-Pacific Region Must Unlock Fiscal Space To Drive Inclusive Growth – OpEd

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By Dr. Shamshad Akhtar

Asia-Pacific region must unlock fiscal space to drive inclusive growth Asia-Pacific countries continue to drive the global economy. The region has demonstrated great resilience during the economic and financial crisis, contributing about 70 percent of world growth from 2008-2011.

Yet, regional growth is now in a challenging phase. The 2014 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, the flagship publication of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), forecasts a third successive year of growth below 6 percent in Asia-Pacific developing economies. However, this conceals a wide variation in performance among some major developing economies, ranging from a 7.5 percent 2014 growth forecast for China, to just 0.3 per cent for the Russian Federation.

Regional growth dynamics are being influenced by the anaemic recovery in the developed world given weak implementation of policy responses. Yet, overcoming domestic structural impediments is also vital. Widespread poverty, rising inequality, social inequity and environmental degradation are hurdles to be cleared before the region can set itself on the fast track to high growth which is stable and inclusive.

ESCAP’s research highlights new evidence on the nature of these challenges:

  • On the external front, the ongoing normalization of monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve poses continuing challenges for developing Asia-Pacific, but these can be mitigated by stronger macroprudential policies and flexible exchange rate management. Financial volatility is of concern to India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Russian Federation, Thailand and Turkey, where annual growth could decline by between 0.7 and 0.9 percent.
  • If the G20 continues to delay implementation of their standstill commitments on trade protectionism, Asia-Pacific export growth will be impacted. Trade restrictions have already deprived the region of an estimated $255 billion in goods export opportunities between 2009 and 2013, representing more than 1.6 per cent of regional GDP.
  • On the domestic side, growth will remain jobless if countries do not implement labour market programmes that effectively align and strengthen education, training and skills with the requirements of employers. During 2009-2013, employment grew by only 1.3 percent, compared to average GDP growth of 6.4 percent in developing Asia-Pacific economies.
  • Without adequate social protection systems, quality education, better access to credit and land, as well as stronger labour market institutions, developing countries will be unable to tackle high and rising inequality. Since the 1990s, regional inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient has risen from 29.9 to 36.8. The wealth of 0.001% of the Asia-Pacific population is 17 times greater than the combined GDP of 12 least developed countries in the region.

Fast-tracking the closure of physical infrastructure gaps and social development deficits will augment the region’s growth potential. About $800-900 billion of annual investments are needed for national and cross-border infrastructure in transport, telecommunications, energy, water and sanitation.

Demands for social protection remain unmet. Almost half the countries in the region spend less than 2 per cent of GDP on social protection, covering only about 40 per cent of the population. Environmental degradation is already taking a toll on growth, as evidenced by the estimated environmental cost to India of almost 6 per cent of annual GDP. Another priority for ensuring the sustainability of growth is to better address climate change through more progressive implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation measures.

Enhancing productive and countercyclical spending is critical to offer short-term stimulus and to remove domestic structural constraints. It is also vital to make growth more inclusive and environmental-friendly.

Unlocking fiscal space calls for strengthening of tax revenues. In several countries in the region, tax-to-GDP ratios are near single digits. By way of comparison, this ratio ranges from 25 to 35 per cent or more in developed countries.

The good news is that tax-to-GDP ratios can be raised. In many Asia-Pacific countries, the gap between potential and actual tax collection is more than 5 per cent of GDP. Closing existing tax gaps in 16 developing Asia-Pacific economies could increase revenues by more than $300 billion, boosting tax revenues by more than 70 percent in some countries. Key among measures to strengthen tax revenues are broadening the tax base, rationalizing tax rates and careful sequencing of tax reforms.

As domestic tax revenues are also affected by policies in other countries, greater regional cooperation and strengthening of national tax administration can help boost revenues by curbing tax avoidance and evasion, among others. Asia-Pacific developing countries accounted for more than 60 percent of the $5.9 trillion of global illicit capital outflows between 2001 and 2010.

An Asia-Pacific tax forum, to coordinate regional action on these concerns is therefore, an idea whose time has come. As the largest and most inclusive intergovernmental forum for Asia-Pacific countries, ESCAP is well-positioned to host to such a body.

Creating the fiscal space for productive and countercyclical spending can help developing countries in the region move towards implementing the G20 global growth compact adopted last year.

This is needed to accelerate progress towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and set developing countries on course to implementing the post-2015 development agenda whose depth and breadth moves beyond that of the MDGs.

The author is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). She is also the UN’s Sherpa for the G20 and previously served as Governor of the Central Bank of Pakistan and Vice President of the MENA Region of the World Bank.
ESCAP’s 2014 Survey can be downloaded for free at http://www.unescap.org/publications/economic-and-social-survey-asia-pacific

The post Asia-Pacific Region Must Unlock Fiscal Space To Drive Inclusive Growth – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Need To Redefine Strategic Priorities – Analysis

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By Ozdem Sanberk

In these times when regional and global instability are escalating to dangerous levels, attaching priorities to long-term and permanent strategic goals is a must.

Human dignity is being blatantly disregarded in Gaza nowadays, while the global community is content with merely watching the drama from a distance in a hypocritical manner. The basic reason behind all the civilian suffering, epitomized in the attacks against women and children, is perennial Israeli aggression. The latest land operation has caused unbearable pain while it deeply undermined the moral heritage of Israel as well as humanity as a whole in the 21st century. Resistance occurs where there is invasion. And it brings along with it struggle and revenge, hence, a relentless spiral of violence lays waste to us all, especially in a moral sense.

Israel has been utilizing the ‘absolute security doctrine’ as a pretext for the year after year invasions of Gaza. However, as Kissinger suggests, absolute security for one nation means absolute insecurity for the others. Indeed, right-leaning Jews are also among those who openly admit that the Zionists’ claim, in which the invasion of Gaza is justified based on security concerns, is nothing but an excuse concealing their expansionist dream for a ‘Greater Israel’.

Hamas, by opposing the mere existence of a Jewish state and continuing its missile attacks, provides Israel the necessary excuse for its invasion of Gaza. Thereby, Palestinians’ right of self-defense is exploited by Israel to legitimize its actions in Gaza. But such an excuse cannot and does not exempt Israel from its weighty responsibilities.

Hamas in the equation once again

Hamas considerably fell from grace in the eyes of the Palestinian people due to its inability to alleviate people’s deep distress and to put an end to severe shortages, both of which have been caused by the long-standing blockade of Gaza. It strives to gain credit by continuing to launch rockets at Israeli settlements with the aim of forcing Israel to come to the table, despite admonitory pressures from the rest of the world and without regard to the great losses of its own people as a result of such attacks. Pressure from the international community, after the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian women and children caused everybody witnessing such a drama to feel remorse, can persuade Israel to consent to a ceasefire.

Therefore, despite the heavy cost that could be inflicted upon itself, Hamas can stop attacking Israel with rockets in exchange for Israeli concessions such as the lifting of the embargo against Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners. What Hamas hopes for is probably to reconcile with Israel for such a conditional ceasefire. However, it is difficult for the people of Gaza to attain such a result by themselves. This is because they are all isolated, both within their region and on the international stage.

Ceasefire and the attitude of regional and global powers

Egypt is already doing all it can to drive the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas into a corner. It is not interested in a ceasefire. Al-Sisi stepped in seemingly due to U.S. pressure. The U.S. did not oppose a reconciliation between Hamas and Al Fatah, indeed, it initially promoted such a move. On the other hand, Israel’s aim was to target the unity government via a land operation since the outset, and the Jewish lobby was supportive of Israel’s plan. As rocket attacks did not stop after the unity deal between Hamas and Al Fatah, Israel and the Jewish lobby expectedly fulminated against the Obama administration. Hence President Obama also lost his interest in promoting Palestinian unity. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain assumed an attitude similar to that of Egypt. Turkey and Qatar are the only remaining actors which can intervene in favor of Palestinian unity. However, neither of them have any influence over Israel. They both stand in contrast to Egypt and the Gulf countries. Iran is busy with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Likewise, Russia and the EU are currently occupied with their own problems.

Turkey’s position

Under current circumstances, Turkey needs to push past its diplomatic solitude not only in the Middle East but also on the larger playing field by mending its relations with its traditional Western partners, because this seems the only way to remedy the Palestinian cause diplomatically and politically, going beyond rhetoric. If Turkey seriously wishes to defend itself from the current situation, a reconsideration of the exaggerated idealism associated with the current government’s foreign policy is a must. A realist approach should replace the current one, because the Arab world, after its relations with Turkey were totally severed, became all the more preoccupied with its internal conflicts and is currently declining into a spiral of chaos. Such growing regional turmoil bears the potential to engulf Turkey as well.

Due to the current context that we are entrapped in, it is clear that Turkey’s ideal to assume a ‘playmaker’ role and to pioneer a new order in the Middle East is no longer valid. In this respect, the government needs to reform its all-encompassing and optimistic vision of setting up a new order in the region, and concentrate its attention and energy on more pragmatic and realistic policies instead. The way to achieve this is by Turkey prioritizing problems which pose an imminent and direct threat to its own national security.

Two alarming threats

There are two ongoing processes which Turkey needs to follow with absolute attention. Two independent ‘states’ are being founded along our southern border. One of these two entities is ethnic, and the other is essentially religious (Rojava and ISIL respectively). The future trajectory of the processes associated with the two entities in question has yet to be revealed. Yet the mere developments in this field per se can sow the seeds of serious instability and prolonged insecurity. Turkish diplomacy must focus all of its attention and energy on these two urgent, tangible processes, and should not miss any details. A third problem, which is as urgent as the two above with respect to our national security and future, is associated with the Syrian refugees within our borders whose numbers exceed 1 million. Last but not least, Turkey needs to address the issue of Iraqi Turkmens, who are condemned to thirst and hunger under the cruel persecution of ISIL, in a more comprehensive manner.

Border security

The first step that Turkey needs to take in dealing with all these issues is the fortification of firewalls along its borders. In other words, it is of vital importance to reinforce all of our civilian and military assets, while coordinating our institutions and the efforts of our officials in the political, administrative, security, and intelligence sectors. Our judicial system and courts also need to be smoothly integrated into such an all-out effort. Experiences of Middle Eastern countries suggest that radical organizations like ISIL assume a low profile and remain silent for the first couple of years after they infiltrate a country. They then wait for the security establishment there to erode before beginning their offensive. In this respect, it is also worth mentioning that the situation of Syrian refugees is spinning out of control and requires further attention, for their numbers are pushing the limits of our capacity and they are therefore spread all over the country from large cities to small towns and from North to South. These people are trying to survive in a foreign environment under harsh conditions after fleeing from a sectarian war, which means that fertile ground in which radical organizations can take root is already present within our country. Moreover, occasional tensions in some cities between local Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees who live in deprivation can lead to the insidious poisoning of our society by racism.

Turkish diplomacy needs to define its priorities

All these problems necessitate Turkish diplomacy to define clear and concrete priorities that need to be inspired by a realistic assessment of the balance between the limits of Ankara’s capacity and the scope of its strategic objectives. On the slippery slope that is Middle Eastern politics along with its ever-changing balances, Turkey needs to adjust its priorities in line with the grim realities in the field. In these times when regional and global instability are escalating to dangerous levels, attaching priorities to long-term and permanent strategic goals is a must. Failing that, it is inevitable for the country, caught in the crossfire, to sway from side to side until it finds itself sucked into further disaster.

What kind of a society do we aspire to become?

The subject of setting priorities for our foreign policy is intrinsically linked to the questions of what kind of a social and political project we, as a nation, want for ourselves, and whether we can reach a consensus on this. Since we are yet to reach such a national compromise, the strategic priorities we assume beyond our borders are also vague. Answering these questions will enable us to set strong priorities in our foreign policy and stand firmly behind them. In this way we can avoid oscillating dangerously between risky decisions in our foreign relations, even when the hardest of times is upon us. At the end of the day, every nation formulates its foreign policy in the image of its collective identity.

If we wish to become a religious society, pursuing an ideologically motivated foreign policy is inevitable. In this case, we will prioritize seeking allies with which we share a common geographical location and ideology. If we wish to put ethnic or sectarian identity first, our foreign policy priorities and alliances will be shaped accordingly. But if we agree to become a secular society which can make a distinction between personal politics and religious convictions, we can determine our priorities based on a multi-dimensional perspective and pragmatic basis. At the same time, we will avoid exclusion from global governance efforts which are at the top of 21st century’s agenda alongside concepts such as human rights, the rule of law, environmental degradation, and climate change. Our global and regional isolation would become a thing of the past. Only by following this route will it be possible to come to the aid of all sorts of people, oppressed and suffering, from Gaza to the most remote corners of our globe. These people can be of Muslim or Christian origin, and they may be deprived in many ways, but we will then be able to provide them aid and companionship through tangible and effective channels. But deterring aggressors sufficiently is not possible only by holding harsh and condemnatory speeches. That is, without taking into account our expectation-capability gap and formulating effective strategies which we can follow through on, we won’t be able to reach beyond rhetoric.

Ozdem Sanberk, Director of USAK

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Pakistan’s Deterrence Posture Towards Strategic Stability – OpEd

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By Hassan Sohail

Pakistan and India have fought nearly four wars as a result of territorial disputes and historical hostilities between them after the partition of 1947. India with a large population and landmass has built an army which easily outnumbers its Pakistani counterparts.

Since the time of partition, the Indian army has always been well equipped with superior technology as compared to Pakistan. With the disputes still unresolved the tensions along the indo-Pak border and LoC are always simmering and any misfortunate event can trigger clashes all along the border which can result into a massive tragedy for humanity living on both sides of borders. To maintain a balance of power Pakistan had to look for ways other than conventional means to defend her. Development of ballistic missiles was step in that direction.

Currently Pakistani missile arsenal is equipped with number of weapon system which has great strategic importance to offset the advantage possessed by India. Especially after the 1998 nuclear tests a very dangerous dimension is added in firepower of both the countries and ballistic missiles have great importance in that regard being the quickest way for the delivery of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan’s missile development dates back to mid-1980s when Pakistani intelligence services gathered this information that India was busy developing a missile arsenal. In 1987 a US congressional library report says that many countries are involved in developing or have already developed ballistic missile technology and list of those countries include Pakistan.

Later a New York Times report of 24 May 1988 says that Pakistan tested a nuclear capable ballistic missile with range of reaching Mumbai and New Delhi.

After building its own arsenal Pakistan became self-sufficient in production of all kind of missiles fulfilling its strategic needs to maintain a balance of power in the region. Today Pakistan has various kinds of missiles ranging from battlefield range ballistic missiles to intermediate range ballistic missiles in its missile arsenal.
Pakistan has a well-developed ballistic missile programme.

Since Pakistan’s main security threat comes from India, the primary purpose of Pakistan’s ballistic missile force is to provide reliable delivery systems for its nuclear warheads in order to deter an Indian conventional attack. Pakistan relies on a doctrine of minimum deterrence which is a dynamic concept, since credible minimum deterrence is determined to some extent by the adversary’s nuclear numbers, the state of their deployment, and also the presence of missile defences.

At present, India and Pakistan’s nuclear deterrents are based on non-deployed nuclear capable missiles, a number of unassembled nuclear weapons, and capability to build additional nuclear weapons at a short notice. This non-weaponised deterrence has worked so far. However, an Indian ABM system has the potential to destabilise this nuclear balance by depriving Pakistan of an assured strike capability. In a crisis situation, India could launch a first strike on Pakistan and rely on its ABM systems to intercept any remaining missiles launched by Pakistan. Concern for such a situation could cause Pakistan to lower the nuclear threshold and adapt a, use it or lose it, strategy, calling for the early use of its nuclear forces in a conflict in order to penetrate India’s defences. While such a scenario might be an exaggeration, Pakistan will reassess its options and go for correcting the imbalance.

Pakistan’s ballistic missile arsenal is of great strategic importance in the region to establish the core concept of deterrence. It is a known fact that Pakistan’s military preparations are of defensive in nature and development of these weapons systems are completely aligned to the nuclear doctrine envisaged by the strategic thinkers at policy level. So far Pakistan has successfully deterred a much larger enemy in conventional strength from taking any adventurous step. Indian elite across the border are well aware of the fact that with a vigilant Pakistan’s missile arsenal they will have to choose between mutual destruction and peaceful coexistence. But with the rapid change in security situation of the region and acquisition of much sophisticated weaponry including ballistic missile defence is constantly destabilizing balance of power. Pakistan will have to modernise its ballistic missile arsenal with the development of MIRV or highly manoeuvrable missiles capable of penetrating through the enemy defences to ensure the credible minimum deterrence.

Hassan Sohail is a Research Fellow at South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI)

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Diverging US And Global Crude Oil Market Fundamentals Cause WTI And Brent Prices To Converge – Analysis

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Market fundamentals influencing U.S. and global oil markets have diverged this summer. Record-high seasonal refinery runs and low inventories in the United States have put upward pressure on prices of U.S. domestic crudes West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Light Louisiana Sweet (LLS), while low demand in Europe and Asia and unplaced West African crude oil cargoes have depressed North Sea Brent prices. As a result, the Brent-WTI spread has narrowed, with WTI prices briefly reaching a premium to Brent prices for the first time since August 2010. While WTI prices quickly returned to a discount to Brent, the Brent-WTI spread remains relatively narrow, with the July spread averaging $3.92/barrel, the lowest level this year and almost 50% below the 2014 average.

Recent price strength for U.S. domestic crudes compared with Brent has been driven by stronger market fundamentals in the United States versus Europe. High refinery demand and low inventories are putting upward pressure on U.S. crude prices, with WTI in steep backwardation (when near-term prices are higher than longer-term prices) over the front months of the futures curve. Backwardation in WTI reached very high levels as the August contract reached expiration, with the 1st-2nd spread closing at $2.03/barrel on July 22, only the second time in more than 10 years the spread has closed above $2/barrel. U.S. refineries have maintained high utilization rates over the summer, with refinery runs reaching 16.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d) for the week ending July 11, a record high. Runs remained at the record level for most of July. Access to cost-advantaged crude, along with increasing domestic and export product demand, have kept U.S. refinery margins strong, encouraging high runs.

twip140806fig1-lgHigh refinery runs and expanded pipeline takeaway capacity have pulled crude from inventory. Year-to-date, crude oil stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, crude oil trading hub have fallen 22.7 million barrels (56%). Cushing stocks had increased significantly during 2012 as growing U.S. crude oil production in the Mid-Continent exceeded the capacity of infrastructure to move production out of the region. Current stocks are now below the pre-2012 buildup levels, falling to the lowest absolute level since 2008 and the lowest level for this time of the year since 2004 (Figure 1).

New infrastructure has made it possible for stocks at Cushing to flow south, particularly the 700,000-bbl/d Marketlink pipeline that began operations in January and runs from Cushing to the Texas Gulf Coast. As a result, PADD 3 stocks have increased well above the five-year range. However, when the sharp decline of crude imports and high refinery runs on the Gulf Coast are taken into account, PADD 3 inventories are relatively low on a days-of-supply basis (Figure 2) and that has put upward pressure on domestic crude prices.

twip140806fig2-lgIn contrast to the robust U.S. market, weak petroleum demand and high inventories in Europe are weighing on Brent prices.

Refinery runs in Europe have been low, affected by weak margins, falling product demand, and stiff competition from foreign refineries, particularly those in the United States and Russia. The very high U.S. refinery runs this summer have put pressure on European refining margins through increased U.S. exports of gasoline that compete with European supply to the global market. European refineries produce more gasoline than is consumed in Europe. As a result, European refineries rely on exports to balance refinery production. According to trade press, gasoline inventories in North West Europe recently reached the highest level since 2010. European refiners are also facing pressure on diesel margins. Recent upgrades to Russian refineries have enabled them to produce large quantities of ultralow-sulfur distillate (ULSD) for export to Europe, lowering diesel crack spreads for European refiners.

Reduced European refinery crude runs combined with lower U.S. imports of African light sweet crude have increased crude supply in the European/Mediterranean market and, as a result, Brent crude oil prices have declined. In addition, refinery maintenance in Asia has limited the flow of Brent and African crude oil barrels eastward. Trade press has reported numerous cargos of light sweet crude oil, especially West African barrels, without buyers late into their contract periods, putting additional downward pressure on Brent prices.

The geopolitical risk premium for near-term Brent crude — which rose sharply in June — has also lessened as militant gains in Iraq slowed and Libya announced the ending of force majeure on oil sales. While the long-term outlook for Libyan production remains uncertain, crude oil markets have greater confidence in the deliverability of oil volumes already physically in storage at ports. This has contributed to a relatively looser near-term supply outlook for seaborne Brent-like crude, which is reflected in the contango (when near-term prices are lower than longer-term prices) structure of the front of the Brent futures curve, which is unusual for the Brent market.

Over the past few days, global crude oil prices have declined because of ample supply compared with demand, with U.S. crude prices falling more than Brent. As a result, the Brent-WTI spread has widened, reaching $6.79 on August 6. WTI prices have been affected by a decline in PADD 2 refinery runs, which operated at 3.8 million bbl/d (100.3% utilization) in early July. Since then, PADD 2 refinery runs have fallen 247,000 bbl/d (6%). Seasonally, U.S. refinery runs typically decline from July to August, falling by an average of 174,000 bbl/d in the past five years. With lower refinery demand, stocks at Cushing halted their decline, rising 83,000 barrels for the week ending August 1. Cushing stock had declined an average of 1 million barrels per week over the prior three weeks, reducing Cushing stocks by 14%. While the recent stock build is minor compared to overall inventory levels, the gain is in contrast to substantial stock draws in July.

Gasoline and diesel fuel prices decrease

The U.S. average price for regular gasoline as of August 4, 2014 was $3.52 per gallon, down 2 cents from the previous week, and 12 cents lower than last year at the same time. Prices decreased in all regions of the nation except the Midwest, which saw an increase of one cent to $3.42 per gallon. The East Coast and Gulf Coast had the largest decreases, falling four cents to $3.50 per gallon and $3.31 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast followed, down three cents to $3.89 per gallon. The Rocky Mountain price decreased less than a penny, to $3.64 per gallon.

The average U.S. diesel fuel price decreased by half a cent to $3.85 per gallon, down six cents from the same time last year. Diesel prices in every region decreased, with the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain prices both down a penny, to $3.75 per gallon and $3.88 per gallon, respectively. The East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast prices all decreased less than a penny, remaining at $3.91 per gallon, $3.80 per gallon, and $4.02 per gallon, respectively.

Propane inventories continue to rise

U.S. propane stocks increased by 1.3 million barrels last week to 68.5 million barrels as of August 1, 2014, 6.7 million barrels (10.8%) higher than a year ago. Gulf Coast inventories increased by 1.0 million barrels and Midwest inventories increased by 0.5 million barrels. East Coast inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels while Rocky Mountain/ West Coast inventories remained unchanged. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 6.1% of total propane inventories.

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Eurasian Union And Russia – OpEd

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By Fyodor Lukyanov

At the end of the twentieth century, supranational institutions began to be built in Eurasia to structure the post-Soviet space. The most interesting initiative on the Eurasian continent in its potential consequences for the region and the world is Eurasian integration in the form of the Customs Union, which will be transformed into the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015.

Building a new Eurasia does not mean rejecting European methods, even if that might seem logical to the modern Eurasian, instead it involves borrowing from European approaches and adapting them to Russia and its environment. The Eurasian Union and the Customs Union are projects with a practical focus. The aim is to expand markets and resurrect some of the production chains destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is to be achieved by applying in the post-Soviet space the basic principles of the European integration of the second half of the twentieth century. Obviously, not all of these principles can be reproduced, but the European Union nevertheless remains the inspiration for the project. The catalyst for the new drive towards integration was the profound crisis of the EU, which will have to deal with its internal problems for a long time to come, limiting its attraction for countries in its neighborhood. The fight for Ukraine has shown that while the EU has the political will to fight for assets, it is not prepared to pay the price.

Ukraine is not capable right now of making decisions; it is only thinking of ways to shift the resolution of its internal problems onto the shoulders of external powers, whether Russia or the EU. It is pointless for any external actors to try and make any long-term plans with Ukraine. Therefore, the prospects of the Customs Union and the Eurasian Union should be assessed without taking into consideration Kiev’s constantly changing priorities.

Russia’s own idea of itself will be the main factor in defining the form of the union. The common point of view in Russia is that it is up to Russia’s neighboring countries to choose between Russia and someone else, whether that be Europe, China, or the United States. But in reality, it is Moscow that must now decide how far it is prepared to go in the name of the integrationist project and to what extent it is willing to make concessions today and tomorrow for the sake of a union that might bring dividends in the future. If Ukraine is to be excluded, the “Eurasianness” of the project becomes more palpable. The union without Ukraine would be focused on the east and the southeast. It is questionable how far this direction coincides with the desires of Russian society, which is going through an anti-immigrant phase and is prone to isolationism on the Asian front.

One important consequence of Ukraine’s absence is the omission of a country that could provide some degree of symmetry within the union. Any association that foresees collective decision-making and the partial delegation of sovereignty must have an internal balance. All partners must be sure that by giving up certain rights, they will not face discrimination. These guarantees must be safeguarded by common institutions and by a system of checks and balances that can ensure equality of opportunity. Institutions, however, develop in parallel with the integration process and will not be fully functional for a while (if ever). For this reason, it is very important to find a balance between the weight and influence of all partners.

When Europe began its integration in the 1950s, its founders, France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, were more or less equal in power. But a post-Soviet integration that includes Russia has an inherent imbalance: all potential partners are markedly inferior to Russia in economic, political, and demographic terms. Russia must face up to a difficult dilemma. Its sheer size and its history of expansionist ambitions make it impossible for it to implement regional integration without scaring its neighbors. But at the same time, it is not big enough, either economically or in terms of influence, to overcome resistance from centers of power such as the EU or China, or to define its own stable orbit.

The alternative to competing with other powers is to construct a joint space with one of the other centers of power. But that would mean Russia would have to struggle to defend its own equality within an entity in which it could find itself to be the weaker partner. It seems hardly possible that any sort of joint union with the West could be created. The EU does integration on its own terms only, requiring others to adopt ready-made European laws and norms. There would be more space for flexibility in cooperation with the east, where norms and laws could be created from scratch. But it would be difficult for Russia to defend its position if formidable emerging powers as China or Turkey were included in the project. The only option that remains is the formation of a bridge between two great zones of integration. This idea has been put forward in various policy documents, including Putin’s article of October 2011. As of yet, there is no concrete plan for its implementation, and the concept remains overly nebulous. However, Russian discourse about the Eurasian Union now envisages the union not as a closed-off structure, but as one element of a future unified space stretching from Lisbon to Busan and linking European and Pacific markets. This is not a philosophy of isolation – in fact, it is just the opposite.

Fyodor Lukyanov is editor in chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs and Chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

This article was first published in Analist Monthly Journal, on August 2014.

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Is Wal-Mart Treating Workers Like Pop-Tarts? – OpEd

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By Marjorie E. Wood

Wal-Mart loves keeping track of data. For instance, the retail giant’s researchers know that before and after major storms, customers buy strawberry Pop-Tarts at a rate that’s seven times faster than normal.

How does Wal-Mart use this data? To stock its shelves with more — or less — of a certain good based on consumer demand.

When no storms are in the forecast, Wal-Mart doesn’t need as many strawberry Pop-Tarts. Known as just-in-time ordering, this approach allows the company to maximize its profit by predicting consumer behavior.

Lately, Wal-Mart has taken to treating its workers just like Pop-Tarts.

The majority of Wal-Mart workers earn less than $25,000 a year. It’s hard enough to eke by on that income, which teeters just above the official poverty line for a family of four. In addition, these big-box workers must contend with just-in-time scheduling.

The practice is just what it sounds like: a system where employers set workers’ hours according to the ebbs and flows of consumer activity.

Wal-Mart workers have repeatedly protested their low wages. But last month, workers convened on Capitol Hill to protest Wal-Mart’s just-in-time scheduling practices.

Unlike Pop-Tarts, of course, Wal-Mart workers are people whose lives get totally upended by unpredictable scheduling. These workers may find themselves scheduled to work 40 hours one week and 15 hours the next. This puts their personal lives and economic livelihoods in constant upheaval.

How would you feel if you never knew from one week to the next how many hours you’d be working, which shifts, and on which days?

Workers report that Wal-Mart retaliates against workers who demand steadier hours or more predictability by cutting their hours even more. The company rewards workers who are always available — like Pop-Tarts — with more hours.

Here’s what happened to Tiffany Beroid, a customer service manager at the Wal-Mart in Laurel, Maryland. After she requested a more regular schedule because she had decided to enroll in college, Beroid’s supervisor cut her hours so drastically that she couldn’t keep up with her tuition payments. She had to drop out.

“I started working at Wal-Mart because I thought if I worked hard, I could give my family a stable home and lift us out of poverty,” Beroid said. Instead, she explained to federal lawmakers last month, “Wal-Mart punished me for not being available at all hours and cut my hours well beyond what was needed.”

Ronee Hinton, another worker at the Laurel Wal-Mart, said that its unpredictable scheduling prevents her from being able to get a second job. “Even though I work at the country’s largest employer and want to work full-time, I don’t know when I will work from week to week.”

Unpredictable scheduling derailed Tiffany Beroid’s career plan to get out of poverty and prevented Ronee Hinton from taking a second job to pay the bills.

A recent study also found that just-in-time scheduling increases barriers for parents trying to find quality child care.

“Workers need scheduling predictability so they can arrange for child care, pick up kids from school, or take an elderly parent to the doctor,” explained Representative George Miller (D-CA).

Some members of Congress are taking action. Representatives Miller and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) alongside Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tom Harkin of Iowa introduced the Schedules That Work Act. This bill would require employers to provide more predictable and stable schedules for workers. It would also protect workers against retaliation for requesting schedule changes.

This legislation would make a real difference for countless women and men in the retail industry. In the current do-nothing Congress, however, it’s unlikely to pass. As the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart should take the lead on this issue and stop treating people like Pop-Tarts.

OtherWords columnist Marjorie E. Wood is an economic policy associate at the Institute for Policy Studies and the Managing Editor of Inequality.org IPS-dc.org

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Joe Carr Rally Celebrates Conservative Women – OpEd

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The Democrat’s claim that the Republicans have a war on women is just plain stupid. Even more annoying is the mainstream media’s refusal to challenge the Democrat’s absurd premise, especially when the facts prove the polar opposite. If anyone has a war on women, it is the Democrats.

But we all know this. I have written about it countless times.

Anyway, I wrote a parody to the tune of the Temptations’ classic hit, “My Girl”. “Our Girls” is my tribute song to our bold, courageous and confident conservative women; Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin to name a few. Speaker Boehner could take a cue from these women when dealing with Obama.

Sarah Palin and Laura Ingraham endorsed Joe Carr over RINO Lamar (voted with Obama 62% of the time) Alexander in the August 7th Republican primary.

At a Joe Carr rally, I thought it fitting and proper that we thank and celebrate, Sarah Pailn and Laura Ingraham as well as all of our conservative women. After all, everyone knows that conservative women are the most intelligent, beautiful and awesomely wonderful women in the world. My wife Mary is conservative.

To pull off my salute to our conservative ladies, I recruited four young male volunteers from the audience who were wearing “Beat Lamar” t-shirts. It was a hoot and we all had fun kicking the Democrat’s ridiculous false narrative in the teeth.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lloyd Marcus and the Beat Lamar’s performing “Our Girls”. Link to view video: http://youtu.be/LuO8cBGe8zU

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Iran: IMF Sees Economic Improvement Under Rohani

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The head of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund reports that the Rohani administration has brought greater stability to the Iranian economy, which is expected to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent in the coming year.

In the past two years, Iran’s economy has shrunk by 8 percent and the national currency has lost two-thirds of its value against the dollar.

Bloomberg also reports that, according to the IMF, declining inflation will fuel positive growth in the Iranian economy.

The report indicates that the economic stability is also a result of the Rohani administration’s reduction of fuel subsidies and the easing of sanctions. The report goes on to add, however, that the stability has not yet resulted in job creation, which would produce a positive change in the day-to-day life of Iranians.

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Bangladesh: Garment Factories Strike And Tensions Continue

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Officials of the Tuba Group blocked over 1,400 workers in the Badda garment factory in the capital Dhaka from the early hours of this morning. The move came after Tuba Group owner Delwar Hossain was freed from jail on bail yesterday.

The workers, who have been on a hunger strike since July 28, demanding the payment of three months’ wages, overtime and Eid bonuses, found the entrances blocked when they woke this morning to go to the prayers, Moshrefa Mishu, president of the Garments Workers Unity Forum (GWUF), told reporters.

The workers accused police of confining them, but security forces claimed that it was a strategy of the organizers of the strike to impede the demonstrators from reaching the offices of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) to collect their arrears and compensation payments.

BGMEA had previously said it will pay the workers their wages for May and June, delaying the payments for July and bonuses for the Eid Muslim festivity. Authorities had also called for an end to the hunger strike, but the workers refused.

“We have received reports that many workers want to collect their wages, but are blocked by those who don’t work for Tuba”, said to reporters Mahabub Hasan, deputy police chief of the area. “The workers will decide what to do. We will check identity cards. Those unable to show them will be turned away”, he added. The police unblocked the factory gates at around 12:25 to allow the workers, mostly young women, to collect wages at the BGMEA building in the capital. Only 29 of the over 1,400 workers collected their wages this morning.

According to BGMEA chairman Atiqul Islam, the low turnout was due to the heavy rain this morning. “Five buses were organized to bring the workers to our offices. I think they could not come because it has been raining since this morning”. A colleague however had a different view. “We learned that the workers who went to the factory were blocked”, said Shaidullah Azim, deputy chair of BGMEA.

The five factories of the Tuba Group include Fashions Ltd, Bukshan Garments Ltd, Taif Fashion Ltd, Tuba Textile Ltd and Mita Design Ltd.

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China Bans Officials From Buying Apple Products

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China has banned government officials from buying Apple gadgets, according to reports, amid fears that America could hijack the company’s iPads and iPhones to spy on Beijing.

The decision is the latest salvo in an escalating war between the two superpowers, as each accuses the other of spying and tries to shore up their own cybersecurity defences.

American politicians have, for years, cautioned government contractors against buying equipment made by Huawei and ZTE, the telecommunications firms, effectively banning them from doing business in the US.

Washington’s intelligence committee did not have firm evidence of wrongdoing, but raised fears following “dozens and dozens” of calls about Huawei and ZTE equipment behaving suspiciously.

More recently, China has warned government officials not to buy antivirus software from Symantec Corporation and Kaspersky Lab, the US technology companies. It has also locked Microsoft out of the running for government purchases of energy efficient computers, by banning the use of its Windows 8 operating system. China’s official Xinhua news agency blamed security fears.

Beijing has now set its sights on Apple, according to reports. Ten of the Californian technology company’s products, including the iPad tablet and its MacBook Air laptop, have been struck from the July list of gadgets government officials are authorised to buy with public money.

The move could prove a major problem to Apple, which depended on China for 16pc of its sales in the third quarter, and which has cited expansion in the territory as one of its top strategic priorities.

The ban on government purchases will curtail sales directly, but analysts warned that it will also have a knock on effect on sales to consumers and other businesses.

“When the government stops the procurement of products, it sends a signal to corporates and semi-government bodies,” said Mark Po at Hong Kong’s UOB Kay Hian. “The Chinese government wants to make sure that overseas companies shouldn’t have too much influence in China.”

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Immigrants Using Facebook To Make It To US

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For immigrants seeking to start a new life in the United States, social media can be an unlikely ally.

A new report in Reuters states that Facebook and other social media sites are helping to fuel an influx in immigration of Central Americans to the United States, citing officials in the U.S. and Honduras. These officials say that migrants are increasingly logging online for many aspects of their voyage across the border from Mexico, from planning the journey to making the journey to keeping in touch with family after the journey.

The report comes as drug violence in Central America continues to increase the number of immigrants coming to the United States. The number of unaccompanied children and teenagers crossing into the U.S. is expected to reach as many as 90,000 by the end of 2014 in what Barack Obama called “a humanitarian crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Spanish-language forums provide an outlet for people seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border to discuss pricing and logistics.

“Does someone know a coyote [smuggler] who can help me cross the border to the United States?” one Yahoo forum reads. Another user writes that she and her two children are seeking help: “I urgently need a coyote to help me cross the border safely.”

Smugglers, known as “coyotes” or “polleros,” charge anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 per person to help migrants cross the border, making millions each year.
In many cases, the negotiations for these trips are orchestrated entirely over Facebook. One coyote told Reuters he gets much of his business online.

“I don’t need to advertise, because Facebook is what convinces them to go,” he said.

Migrants also use Facebook to alert family members when they have safely reached the U.S., the report said. Officials confirmed these outlets are helping facilitate immigration, potentially increasing the number of people who come to the U.S. illegally.

“Social media now enables families and young people to learn from those in the U.S. that ‘this coyote delivers … I went, and I’m up here. The guy around the corner, he’s the one who got me here,’” one anonymous official told Reuters.

Forums also help perpetuate long-held rumors about the prospect of amnesty and potential immigration reform. Many children travel to the U.S. based on false reports that women and children will be allowed to stay legally. Coyotes often foment these reports in hopes of stirring up more business.

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Waking Up To The BRICS – Analysis

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By Samir Saran

In his 2001 paper titled “Building Better Global Economic BRICs”, economist Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs calculated that “if the 2001/2002 outlook were to be extrapolated, over the next decade, China would be “as big as Germany” and Brazil and India “not far behind Italy” on a current GDP basis. Cut to 2013; Jim O’ Neill’s expectations seem modest. Last year, China was the world’s second largest economy, Brazil ahead of Italy and India just one rank behind in terms of current GDP. In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, all the BRIC countries were within the top 10, with China and India at second and third position respectively. BRIC, in Wall Street lingo, is an “outperformer.”

Despite the crippling financial crisis, BRIC has done better on pure economic terms than most expectations. But the acronym is today representative of much more than an investment narrative alone. With the inclusion of South Africa, BRIC became BRICS, giving a pluralist and inclusive veneer to an economic idea. This group now has a significant political dimension, as is evidenced by the increasing number of converging positions on political issues.

In a follow-up paper in 2003, titled, “Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050,” Goldman Sachs claimed that by 2050, the list of the world’s largest 10 economies would look very different. It is remarkable then, that in 2014 the list already looks radically different, and it is clear that it is time to “wake up” to the BRICS.

NDB versus existing banks

In this context there were at least two concrete arrangements inked at the sixth BRICS Summit in July, which will have a large economic and political impact. These were the Contingent Reserve Arrangement and the New Development Bank (NDB). Conversations and reportage on these two were shrill, coloured and obtuse in the run-up to the Summit. It continues to follow in the same vein. Indeed the NDB is at once the most celebrated and critiqued outcome of the Fortaleza Summit. Now that we are a few weeks away from its public conception, it is time for a reality check on this widely discussed BRICS achievement.

The first reality is the NDB can neither replace nor supplant the role of the existing development banks. The NDB will not be able to compete with the reach and expanse of existing institutions such as the World Bank, which has a subscribed capital of over $223 billion. The bank borrows $30 billion annually by issuing Triple-A rated debt in international bond markets. Such easy access to capital markets on the back of high promoter creditworthiness allows the bank to have a lower cost of funds. Other development finance institutions enjoy similar financial backing. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) too has a large balance sheet, backed by 67 member nations and a subscribed capital of $162 billion.

In contrast, the NDB will require over half a decade before it can accumulate the stated capital base of $50 billion from within BRICS and another $50 billion (approximately) from other countries and institutions. Indeed, in the immediate term, only a modest $150 million has been promised by each of the BRICS countries. A contribution of $1,850 million thereafter, staggered over five to six years, will require some doing as the BRICS countries are grappling with weak balance sheets, fragile current accounts and other domestic imperatives.

Then, there are other questions that will need to be answered in the days ahead. If China is unable to dominate this institution, will it prefer to prioritise investments through its (proposed) Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank? How soon can the central banks of the member countries devise arrangements to act as depository institutions for the NDB? And, how will the NDB raise funds in different countries? What will be the currency or currencies of choice? All important posers which can be addressed if the resolve is unerring.

Development finance

The second reality is, in spite of its modest economic weight in the initial years, the NDB can change the ethos of development finance irreversibly. Rather than replacing or supplanting existing development finance institutions, the NDB will seek to supplement existing resources. In fact, the World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, has welcomed the idea of the NDB and acknowledged its potential in infrastructure development and the global fight against poverty.

An important difference could be in the way conditions and restrictions are imposed on loan recipients. Bretton Woods Institutions such as the World Bank have been known to impose conditions for lending that create structural mismatches between project funding, demand and supply. As recently as last year, the World Bank Group decided to restrict funding for new coal plants in developing countries, deciding instead to invest greater resources in “cleaner” fuels. Of course, the World Bank would be well advised to reconsider this decision given lifeline energy needs and the energy access realities in developing countries such as India.

The NDB’s mission must be to create a business structure where borrowing countries are given greater agency in prioritising the kinds of projects they would want funded. Over a decade, this could become the demonstrator project through which the relationship between donors and recipients, lenders and borrowers, will be rewritten. Hopefully this will be in favour of developing economies and will enable the reimagining of economic pathways.

Location and ownership

The third reality – perhaps, the most debated – is that the location of the NDB is immaterial when governance and ownership is equally shared. Location has frequently been confused with ownership, skewed by our imagination of existing institutions such as the World Bank. According to its Articles of Agreement, major policy decisions at the World Bank are made through a Super Majority – 85 per cent of votes. Vote shares in turn are determined by the level of a nation’s financial contribution. With around 16 per cent voting share at the World Bank, the U.S. has a de facto veto. Conversely, BRICS, with 40 per cent of the global population and a combined GDP of $24 trillion (PPP), collectively accounts for a mere 13 per cent of the votes at the World Bank.

As such, the concentration of voting power and headquarter location in Washington DC in the case of the World Bank is merely a coincidence. Japan dominates the functioning of the ADB with a 15.7 per cent shareholding, despite the headquarters being located in the Philippines.

It is also useful to note that previous World Bank presidents have been U.S. citizens and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) list of managing directors is composed entirely of Europeans. Even the ADB’s presidents have been Japanese citizens, with almost all of them having served in the Finance Ministry in Tokyo. In this regard, the NDB, with its intention of rotating leadership, seeks to overhaul the existing governance framework prevalent in the international development finance institutions. Through equal shares of paid-in capital in the NDB, there is a clear intention of creating an alternative model that focusses on voting-power parity. The smallest country can negotiate at par with the biggest country.

Will BRICS create a framework that is as democratic in sharing governance space with other investors and stakeholders? This will be something to watch for as the systems and structures evolve. The notion that the NDB has been “Shanghai-ed” is perhaps a shallow understanding of this exciting new initiative.

With an equal voting share, all five countries have to be on board to move in a particular direction. Admittedly, this can be hugely inefficient and troublesome. Therefore, it is incumbent upon BRICS members to ensure that this initial at-par equity in governance does not unexpectedly allow for a super majority like gridlock, restricting decision making because of a lack of consensus. The NDB must be dynamic and lithe, much like the BRICS grouping itself. It would be useful for BRICS members to institute a professional management body for steering everyday operations of the NDB as well as all non-policy related decisions, including those dealing with project funding.

And most importantly, as discussed earlier, BRICS members should democratise the bank’s functioning if new stakeholders are included in the future. They must find ways to engage the recipients and beneficiaries in its decision-making apparatus. If anything, the NDB must be a template for change, not a mirror to the existing hegemony of money.

(Samir Saran is Vice-President at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

Courtesy: The Hindu, August 6, 2014

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Dealing With The Threat Of Climate Catastrophe – Analysis

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Many ecological systems feature ‘tipping points’ at which small changes can have sudden, dramatic, and irreversible effects, and scientists worry that greenhouse gas emissions could trigger climate catastrophes. This column argues that this renders the marginal cost-benefit analysis usually employed in integrated assessment models inadequate. When potential tipping points are taken into account, the social cost of carbon more than triples – largely because carbon emissions increase the risk of catastrophe.

By Rick van der Ploeg and Aart de Zeeuw

Climate policy aims to internalise the social cost of carbon by means of a carbon tax or a system of tradable permits such as the Emissions Trading System set up in the EU. But how do we determine the social cost of carbon? Do we take everything into account that should be taken into account? Most integrated assessment models (Nordhaus 2008, Stern 2007) calculate the net present value of estimated marginal damages to economic production from emitting one extra ton of carbon caused by burning fossil fuel.

However, global warming has many non-marginal effects on both the economy and on the carbon cycle. Climate catastrophes can occur that lead to sudden flooding, hurricanes, desertification, water shortages, etc. Many of such changes may be irreversible. Other catastrophes such as reversal of the Gulf Stream or sudden release of greenhouse gases from the permafrost lead to a sudden and long-lasting change in the system dynamics of the carbon cycle. Such changes in the system dynamics of the economy and/or the carbon cycle are called regime shifts. When such a shift takes place, this is called a tipping point. Scientists predict that at some point, structural changes will occur with effects that are very difficult or even impossible to reverse. The usual marginal cost-benefit analysis of existing integrated assessment models then puts us on the wrong track. The problem is much more serious than we think.

Ecologists have observed tipping points in many ecological systems (e.g. Biggs et al. 2012). For example, lakes shift from states with a high level of ecological services to states with a low level of services when just a little bit more phosphorus is released on the lake, and stay in that state even when the release of phosphorus is reduced again. Another example is the bleaching of coral reefs. When the sea temperature rises just above the normal maximal temperature, the reef flips from a coral-dominated state to an algae-dominated state, which destroys fish populations and tourist assets.

The risk of climate catastrophes

Scientists predict that the climate will show a similar pattern as a consequence of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions, and identify nine types of catastrophe (e.g. Lenton and Ciscar 2013). These catastrophes differ in their impacts on both the economy and the carbon cycle – large or small, global or local, immediate or slowly evolving over time. Scientists have an idea about when catastrophes will happen, but the exact dates of these calamities remain uncertain until they actually occur. It is clear, however, that the probabilities of these hazards occurring are not exogenous, but will typically increase with the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and temperature. A major worry is thus that global warming leads to an increase in the risk of climate catastrophes and policies should be designed to curb such non-marginal risks. For example, if global warming increases the risk of a sudden and irreversible catastrophic shock to the productivity of the economy, marginal cost-benefit analysis will not suffice.

Optimal saving and carbon pricing under the threat of climate catastrophe

To deal with the stochastic hazard of a climate catastrophe, policymakers need to consider three important effects.

  • First, the hazard rate acts as an extra discount rate and therefore induces higher consumption and less saving.
  • Second, since economic production and thus consumption will suffer a catastrophic drop after the calamity, it makes sense to accumulate more capital in order to be better prepared for the calamity and to smooth consumption over time.

We show in a simple Ramsey growth framework for the global economy (with fossil fuel input inducing emissions of carbon dioxide) that the net results of these first two effects is precautionary saving and lower consumption before the shock occurs (van der Ploeg and de Zeeuw 2014).

Normally, the steady-state amount of economic activity follows from setting the net marginal product of capital equal to the sum of the depreciation rate and the discount rate, which is the so-called modified golden rule of capital accumulation. However, when having to deal with the prospect of a climate catastrophe, the economy needs to internalise a precautionary return on capital accumulation (thus altering the golden rule) so that the targeted steady-state levels of capital and economic activity are higher than without the anticipation of a hazard of a climate calamity. Precaution is usually formulated as a pragmatic principle of good sense, but in this way it gets a rational underpinning that is actually quite intuitive.

  • The third effect is that carbon needs to be priced to curb emissions and eventually curb the stock of atmospheric carbon and temperature, and thereby lower the hazard of catastrophe and postpone the expected date the calamity strikes.

We call this the ‘risk-averting’ part of the social cost of carbon. However, precaution leads to less consumption and more capital, and therefore to more fossil-fuel use. On the other hand, curbing emissions lowers the probability of a shock and therefore the need for precaution. Both actions are required in response to a potential catastrophe, and they have to be balanced in an optimal way. This part of the social cost of carbon comes on top of the net present value of marginal damages before and after the shock. Moreover, a higher stock of atmospheric carbon increases marginal damages after the shock and makes the after-calamity state less desirable. Hence, the social cost of carbon before the shock has a third component that we call the ‘raising-the-stakes’ term.

The effect of tipping points on the social cost of carbon

Most integrated assessment models only focus on the conventional Pigouvian part of the social cost of carbon, i.e. the net present value of the marginal damages that are caused by global warming. But in case of a potential structural catastrophe to the economy, the social cost of carbon has two additional components: a risk-averting component and a raising-the-stakes component. Are we talking about ‘big potatoes’ or ‘small potatoes’ here? In a simple calibration of the world economy on the basis of the BP Statistical Review and the World Bank Development Indicators, we have calculated the relative size of these components for a potential shock equivalent to 20% of total factor productivity.

If the potential tipping point is ignored, our calibration yields, in steady state, a social cost of carbon of $15 per ton of CO2, which is about the same as in well-known integrated assessment models. If the potential tipping point is not ignored, the social cost of carbon increases to $55 or $71 per ton of CO2, depending on whether we take a constant or an increasing marginal hazard rate as a function of the stock of atmospheric carbon. These are big potatoes, we would say. The precautionary returns are 0.6% per year and 0.5% per year, respectively. The need for precaution indeed decreases when emissions are reduced more with a higher tax on carbon.

Splitting the social cost of carbon into the three components provides additional insights. For example, the $71 per ton of CO2 is split into $6 for the marginal damages, $52 for the risk-averting component, and $14 for the raising-the-stakes component. The risk-averting component is by far the largest, and it is clear that ignoring potential tipping points is putting us on the wrong track when discussing climate policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

We also investigated a potential catastrophic shock to the capital stock. The effect is not so strong, which is intuitively clear because the economy can recover from such a shock. The drop in total factor productivity has a long-lasting effect, which is exactly what tipping points are all about.

Concluding remarks

Tipping points or regime shifts are usually characterised as large, abrupt and persistent changes. They are very real in ecological systems, and when the economy is embedded in such a system – like the climate system – economic analysis cannot be confined to purely marginal analysis. Integrated assessment models are now starting to include tipping points (Cai et al. 2012, Lemoine and Traeger 2013) but it is still far from common practice.

Finally, a climate policy narrative based on imminent catastrophes and tipping points may resonate more with policymakers than the hitherto-employed narrative based on small costs of marginal changes in global warming at moderate temperatures. And if the earth experiences one or two catastrophic tipping points, this may shock policymakers finally into taking serious and sustained action to combat global warming.

About the authors:
Aart de Zeeuw
Professor, CentER and TSC, Tilburg University; Fellow, Beijer Institute

Rick van der Ploeg
Professor of Economics and Research Director of OxCarre, University of Oxford

References
Biggs, R, T Blenckner, C Folke, L Gordon, A Norström, M Nyström, and G Peterson (2012), “Regime shifts”, in A Hastings and L Gross (eds.), Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press: 609–616.

Cai, Y, K L Judd, and T S Lontzek (2012), “The social cost of abrupt climate change”, mimeo, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Lemoine, D M and C P Traeger (2013), “Watch your step: optimal policy in a tipping climate”, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(1): 137–166.

Lenton, T M and J-C Ciscar (2013), “Integrating tipping points into climate impact assessments”, Climate Change, 117: 585–597.

Nordhaus, W (2008), A Question of Balance: Economic Models of Climate Change, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Van der Ploeg, F and A de Zeeuw (2014), “Climate Tipping and Economic Growth: Precautionary Saving and the Social Cost of Carbon”, CEPR Discussion Paper 9982.

Stern, N (2007), The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The Black Hole At The Birth Of Universe

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The big bang poses a big question: if it was indeed the cataclysm that blasted our universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago, what sparked it?

Three Perimeter Institute researchers have a new idea about what might have come before the big bang. It’s a bit perplexing, but it is grounded in sound mathematics, testable, and enticing enough to earn the cover story in Scientific American, called “The Black Hole at the Beginning of Time.”

What we perceive as the big bang, they argue, could be the three-dimensional “mirage” of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own.

“Cosmology’s greatest challenge is understanding the big bang itself,” write Perimeter Institute Associate Faculty member Niayesh Afshordi, Affiliate Faculty member and University of Waterloo professor Robert Mann, and PhD student Razieh Pourhasan.

Conventional understanding holds that the big bang began with a singularity – an unfathomably hot and dense phenomenon of spacetime where the standard laws of physics break down. Singularities are bizarre, and our understanding of them is limited.

“For all physicists know, dragons could have come flying out of the singularity,” Afshordi says in an interview with Nature.

The problem, as the authors see it, is that the big bang hypothesis has our relatively comprehensible, uniform, and predictable universe arising from the physics-destroying insanity of a singularity. It seems unlikely.

So perhaps something else happened. Perhaps our universe was never singular in the first place.

Their suggestion: our known universe could be the three-dimensional “wrapping” around a four-dimensional black hole’s event horizon. In this scenario, our universe burst into being when a star in a four-dimensional universe collapsed into a black hole.

In our three-dimensional universe, black holes have two-dimensional event horizons – that is, they are surrounded by a two-dimensional boundary that marks the “point of no return.” In the case of a four-dimensional universe, a black hole would have a three-dimensional event horizon.

In their proposed scenario, our universe was never inside the singularity; rather, it came into being outside an event horizon, protected from the singularity. It originated as – and remains – just one feature in the imploded wreck of a four-dimensional star.

The researchers emphasize that this idea, though it may sound “absurd,” is grounded firmly in the best modern mathematics describing space and time. Specifically, they’ve used the tools of holography to “turn the big bang into a cosmic mirage.” Along the way, their model appears to address long-standing cosmological puzzles and – crucially – produce testable predictions.

Of course, our intuition tends to recoil at the idea that everything and everyone we know emerged from the event horizon of a single four-dimensional black hole. We have no concept of what a four-dimensional universe might look like. We don’t know how a four-dimensional “parent” universe itself came to be.

But our fallible human intuitions, the researchers argue, evolved in a three-dimensional world that may only reveal shadows of reality.

They draw a parallel to Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which prisoners spend their lives seeing only the flickering shadows cast by a fire on a cavern wall.

“Their shackles have prevented them from perceiving the true world, a realm with one additional dimension,” they write. “Plato’s prisoners didn’t understand the powers behind the sun, just as we don’t understand the four-dimensional bulk universe. But at least they knew where to look for answers.”

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Two US Fighter Jets Strike ISIS Artillery In Iraq’s Kurdistan

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US military aircraft have conducted an airstrike on artillery used by the forces of the Islamic State (formerly ISIS). Rear Admiral John Kirby said the attack took place to help defend Kurdish forces near Erbil, Iraq.

Two F/A-18 aircraft dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece near the city of Erbil. US personnel are based in the city.

“The decision to strike was made by the US Central Command commander under authorization granted him by the commander in chief,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said.

The US has also begun dropping relief supplies to the refugees.

Meanwhile, the United Nations says it is working to try and open a humanitarian corridor in northern Iraq to allow those citizens who are trapped the opportunity to get to safety. Food aid was also delivered to the Yazidis people, who were suffering from a lack of food and dehydration.

“Now that air drops have started, the UN in Iraq is urgently preparing a humanitarian corridor to allow those in need to flee the areas under threat,” the top UN envoy in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a statement.

US President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he had authorized the use of force against the Islamic State [IS], in Iraq if necessary – to help protect Christians and Yazidis, an ethnic Kurdish minority in northern Iraq.

“Today, America is coming to help,” Obama said, noting that although the United States “cannot and should not” intervene every time there’s a crisis in the world, it must act when innocent people are facing violence on a horrific scale.

Around 40,000 Yazidis – members of the Kurdish community whose religious beliefs are a mix of ancient Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Christianity – sought refuge on Mount Sinjar last weekend after Islamic State fighters continued their march toward the Kurdish power center of Erbil.

Iraqi officials say more than 500 men were killed by the Al-Qaeda offshoot, and that around 70 children have died since the Yazidis sought refuge on Sinjar.

“I therefore authorized targeted airstrikes, if necessary, to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege at Mount Sinjar and protect the civilians trapped there,” US President Obama said. “We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.”

“When we face a situation like we do on that mountain, with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help…and when we have the unique capabilities to avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” Obama added.

The White House said Friday that the limited US military action in Iraq could be extended to include more support to Iraqi security forces working to repel Islamic State fighters when the country forms a new “inclusive” government.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that US military support will not be “prolonged” and will be “related to our belief and commitment to supporting integrated Iraqi security forces and Kurdish security forces as they unite the country to repel the threat” from IS militants.

UN officials said around 200,000 new refugees are seeking sanctuary in the Kurdish north from Islamic State forces. The Sunni militant group said in a statement that it had made more than a dozen military gains over the past five days. The IS has also claimed it now controls the Mosul Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in Iraq.

The ruthless Jihadist group is reportedly targeting any ethnic and religious minorities – including Shabaks, Turkmens, Yazidis, and Christians – that refuse to bend to its strict brand of Islam. The Sunni militants swept through northern and central Iraq in mid-June, sending government troops fleeing. They managed to seize the cities of Mosul and Tikrit with an estimated 7,000- strong force. They marched towards the capital Baghdad, only being halted near Muqdadiya, just 80km (50 miles) from Baghdad’s city limits.

The Islamic State grew out of the Syrian civil war. They were able to gain strength after getting their hands on weapons supplied by the US and its allies intended for rebel groups fighting against Bashar Assad’s government.

Brian Becker, an anti-war campaigner with the Answer coalition says that the United States and its allies must take some of the blame for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“It was the intervention of the United States in Iraq and the US and its partners in Syria, which laid the groundwork for the ISIS organization to develop. In 2010-2011, remember they said they carried out six actions in the whole year,” he said.

“They were practically defunct until the United States and its allies supported the armed opposition inside Syria and gave an opportunity to this organization to develop and come back into Iraq,” Becker concluded

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Invitations And Incursions, Discussions And Dilemmas In India-China Relations – Analysis

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By Romi Jain

On the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Brazil in mid-July 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping, in their first ever meeting, underscored the imperative of solving the India-China “boundary question.” Mr. Modi said that an amicable solution would set an example for the entire world, on peaceful conflict resolution. But the occasion coincided with the reported incursions of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in Ladakh sector of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Downplaying the incident, which is generally considered a “regular affair”, India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh explained that incursions take place due to the difference of perception about boundary or the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which is 3,488 km long. He added that Indian forces respond by pushing the PLA forces back. Though a diplomatically measured response, the explanation ran counter to Modi’s election speech in Arunachal Pradesh prior to becoming the prime minister. Clad in a colorful local attire, he had emphatically said:

“Times have changed. The world does not welcome the mindset of expansion in today’s times. China will also have to leave behind its mindset of expansion.”

Understandably, it is not uncommon for leaders to project themselves as die-hard nationalists for election gains by upbraiding their nations’ rivals. This is what President Bill Clinton, rather known for his policy of comprehensive engagement with China, did as a presidential candidate, when he came down heavily on China for its human rights violations. But it is the electors who are confounded by opposite signals from the same leader–before and after the election.

On a different note, there is an opinion that New Delhi’s restraint vis-à-vis provocation has been necessary to prevent a war with its neighbor. But the question is: does China have an incentive to maintain status quo? If it calculates that in future, based on foreign policy priorities, it can occupy a land forcibly by dint of its formidable military power, it is unlikely to relinquish the use of force. Its brinkmanship in the South China Sea is a case in point, which challenges the “peaceful rise” premise. Further, the role of Pakistan in influencing China’s approach to India is an additional irritant. China perhaps sprinkles some salt to avoid sweetening hobnobbing with India that might injure the health of its “all-weather” friendship with Pakistan.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Hence, China’s behavior tends to turn bizarre on the heels of a bilateral dialogue with India. A recent chronicle of events, highlighted below, suggests that the hopes of a long-term peaceful relationship vanish with incursions. In fact, the PLA spectacle appears as an obsessive compulsive disorder syndrome that is activated as a self-assurance exercise, viz., dialogues do not dilute China’s territorial claims, as well as conveying this message to India.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the PLA’s incursion was reported in the Indian side of Lake Pangsong Tsa in eastern Ladakh during Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s visit to Beijing in late June 2014. Importantly, it was the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the India-China Panchsheel agreement that sets out principles of peaceful coexistence. Moreover, the intrusion preceded the shortly following visit to China by Indian Army Chief, General Bikram Singh.

His visit was aimed at improving military ties between the two countries and strengthening peace and tranquility on borders through implementation of the border defense mechanism. As reported, Mr. Singh held talks with China’s top military brass including General Fang Fenghui, Chief of General Staff of PLA, and General Fan Changlong, Vice Chairman of Central Military Commission. In itself, the visit was an important step in establishing a rapport between military leaders of the two countries. Also, Mr.Singh spoke on the subject of strategic military leadership in his address to Chinese cadets, as well as interacting with the latter.

Interestingly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei stated:  “Military to military relations are an important component of bilateral relations. The two countries should enhance mutual trust and practical cooperation, properly manage disputes and establish a military to military action that is commensurate with the bilateral relations.”

No doubt, the statement pinpointed an indispensable aspect of normal bilateral ties. It was, however, essentially vacuous or a diplomatic ritual, since China tends to pour cold water on goodwill initiatives. For example, it appeared in the China Daily (July 18, 2014) that the PLA Daily had reported that “new, more accurate” maps” will be provided to China’s all major army units in the near future, and that in its first upgrade in 30 years, the country had distributed millions of updated maps to its military. The new maps have been reported to be controversial as they display Arunachal Pradesh as a Chinese territory. China had released a controversial map in June 2014 as well, following the visit of its foreign minister Wang Yi to India. And not long back, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India in May 2013 was followed by transgression by Chinese army that reportedly took away Indian army’s surveillance camera from South Ladakh’s Chumar district. Upon India’s concern, it returned a “non-functional camera.”

Similarly, a month prior to Mr. Keqiang’s visit, a Chinese platoon intruded into Ladakh’s Depsang Plains, reaching 19 kilometer inside the Indian territory, which sparked off a three-week long standoff between the two armies. But New Delhi preferred downplaying the incursion in welcome of the Chinese premier, like the host of a show ignoring spectators’ teasing gestures.

Distrust Deficit

Is distrust really an issue in India-China relationship, as often underlined by scholars? If so, CBMs can be efficacious in building trust. If not, CBMs would lose force since a border agreement would be difficult to conclude in the face of rigid stances and stubborn claims. What is needed is a sincere desire for a mutually acceptable solution; otherwise, the relationship will be defined more by a veiled stratagem than distrust. Further,  it is ironic that on the part of New Delhi, there is a distrust deficit instead. Its ruling leaders seem to exhibit inordinate faith in the effectiveness of dialogue and reconciliation, without undertaking fast-paced defence modernization in preparation for any unpalatable eventuality or to deter the neighbor’s belligerent practices.

In fact, the challenge before Indian policymakers is to devise and play a strategic move to incentivize China to forgo border misadventures against India. On this front, unfortunately, a sense of defeatism seems to have prevailed among India’s policy practitioners. It reflects in their lack of strategic foresight and imagination either to interlock China into a relationship of dependency on India or to checkmate it by building and deepening India’s politico-military influence in China’s vicinity. Aside from this, bold and concrete measures in the domain of border management, such as the contemplated “civilian settlements” along the border, should not be delayed. A dialogue is like a pillar to bilateral ties, but the cement needs to be fortified by military prowess and flexible and dramatic gestures, backed by an ingenious diplomacy, when a bilateral relationship is faced with acerbic unresolved issue(s).

Romi Jain is Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Asia Quarterly, summer 2014 issue, and Vice President of the Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, a bi-annual, refereed journal. She is an MBA from SFSU, California, and has extensively contributed articles on China to refereed journals, including a forthcoming one in the American Journal of Chinese Studies, and to Asia Times Online and The Diplomat. Jain is a recipient of the Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation Grant Award, Michigan, and is currently at work on her book on China at the WTO.

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The BRICS Development Bank: A Game-Changer? – Analysis

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By Sonia Hukil

At the 2014 BRICS summit held in Brazil from 14-16 July, the five member countries agreed to the creation of a New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). Will this move enhance the BRICS’ economic clout by countering the hegemony of Western-run financial systems? Will it be a game-changer?

Significance of the BRICS Bank

The NDB will have an initial subscribed capital of $50 billion, which premises on an equity principle wherein the five signatories will contribute $10 billion each towards the $100 billion bank corpus. The capital base will fund infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the BRICS countries and eventually in the rest of the developing countries. The CRA is a fund pool to aide countries in hedging against short-term liquidity pressures. In contrast to the NDB, the CRA will be unequally funded by the BRICS – with China, contributing 41 per cent, at the helm. These arrangements are expected to have massive economic and political impacts.

The formation of the NDB is proclaimed to be just, inclusive and forward-looking. It provides an equal voting status to the founding members and offers loans for assistance without attached conditions. This is envisioned in order to deepen present and long-term cooperation amongst the BRICS nations and further strengthen South-South economic cooperation.

Clearly, the BRICS’ main motive behind these initiatives is to press for a larger role in the international economic order that is otherwise centered on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). The NDB intends to supplement, and, perhaps later, supplant these multilateral institutions for a new financial architecture. The BRICS nations are craving for more control over their own resources as well as for greater representation in order to democratise the framework of multilateral funding systems.

A Game-Changer?

Will the BRICS bank succeed in challenging the Western hold on global finance? Or will it have a mere symbolic and rhetorical impact?

In proposition at least, the BRICS hold the financial capacity to counter the hegemony of the WB and IMF given how four of the BRICS founding members – China, India, Brazil and Russia – are the among the world’s top 10 economies. Yet, the reality is riddled with complexities. The NDB’s subscribed capital base and authorised lending is miniscule in comparison to the WB – which is estimated to lend approximately $60 billion this year. Clearly, lending by the NDB will not be sufficient to make a substantial impact on the development process of emerging nations. It will be difficult for the NDB to challenge the reach and expanse of existing development institutions.

Meanwhile, through the NDB, the BRICS will continue to conduct their business using the dollar, thereby making their economies function in accordance with policies and procedures designed by the US. There is no other alternative to the dollar as it is the primary choice for financial transactions, globally. Thus, instead of controlling the global economic order, the BRICS nations likely to remain stuck in it for the near future.

Furthermore, structural disparities are likely to be a tipping point for differences amongst the BRICS. This remains the core issue for de-stabilisation of the BRICS institutions. China is not only the second largest economy in the world but also substantially larger than all the BRICS nations’ economies combined. China’s contributions to the CRA will be significantly more than the rest of the member-nations’. Analysts state that China will bring countries from its own sphere of influence for membership. Thus, with greater political and economic clout, Beijing will overwhelm the institution. Fears linger that more than being a jointly-held banking system, the NDB will demonstrate China’s individual supremacy.

Moreover, the economies of the BRICS member-nations are projected to a downturn in the foreseeable future. Their future growth will be less remarkable as compared to the past due to consistent economic troubles like inflation. Some even speculate that the next financial meltdown will come from the BRICS. Failure to sustain high growth rates will thwart the lending capacity of the BRICS and in turn augment their dependency on the WB and the IMF.

The BRICS’ divergent interests, priorities, and governance systems further raise doubts on its ability to challenge the Western-dominated financial systems. Intra-BRICS dynamics too seem delicate. India-China ties have deteriorated over territorial disputes; Russia seems worried about China’s growing economic influence, and South Africa’s ties with China have been staggering in light of rising Chinese demands for its vital resources. The BRICS bloc therefore appears to be a fragile partnership of convenience that may possibly encounter demise in the future given China’s hold on power. The initiative taken during the summit is ground-breaking. However it is doubtful to envision the BRICS bank’s success in replacing the existing development banks and re-balancing the global economic order.

India has high expectations from the BRICS bank. However, policymakers in New Delhi should not be complacent with its standing within the bank. India must tread cautiously and decisively along the BRICS road, and, if needed, must not shy away from taking a different turn altogether.

Sonia Hukil
Research Intern, IReS, IPCS
E-mail: sonia.hukil@gmail.com

The post The BRICS Development Bank: A Game-Changer? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

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