UCL scientists have discovered a new method to efficiently generate and control currents based on the magnetic nature of electrons in semi-conducting materials, offering a radical way to develop a new generation of electronic devices.

One promising approach to developing new technologies is to exploit the electron’s tiny magnetic moment, or ‘spin’. Electrons have two properties – charge and spin – and although current technologies use charge, it is thought that spin-based technologies have the potential to outperform the ‘charge’-based technology of semiconductors for the storage and process of information.

In order to utilise electron spins for electronics, or ‘spintronics’, the method of electrically generating and detecting spins needs to be efficient so the devices can process the spin information with low-power consumption. One way to achieve this is by the spin-Hall effect, which is being researched by scientists who are keen to understand the mechanisms of the effect, but also which materials optimise its efficiency. If research into this effect is successful, it will open the door to new technologies.

The spin-Hall effect helps generate ‘spin currents’ which enable spin information transfer without the flow of electric charge currents. Unlike other concepts that harness electrons, spin current can transfer information without causing heat from the electric charge, which is a serious problem for current semiconductor devices. Effective use of spins generated by the spin-Hall effect can also revolutionise spin-based memory applications.

The study published in Nature Materials shows how applying an electric field in a common semiconductor material can dramatically increase the efficiency of the spin-Hall effect which is key for generating and detecting spin from an electrical input.

The scientists reported a 40-times-larger effect than previously achieved in semiconductor materials, with the largest value measured comparable to a record high value of the spin-Hall effect observed in heavy metals such as Platinum. This demonstrates that future spintronics might not need to rely on expensive, rare, heavy metals for efficiency, but relatively cheap materials can be used to process spin information with low-power consumption.

As there are limited amounts of natural resources in the earth and prices of materials are progressively going up, scientists are looking for more accessible materials with which to develop future sustainable technologies, potentially based on electron spin rather than charge. Added to this, the miniaturisation approach of current semiconductor technology will see a point when the trend, predicted by Moore’s law, will come to an end because transistors are as small as atoms and cannot be shrunk any further. To address this, fundamentally new concepts for electronics will be needed to produce commercially viable alternatives which meet demands for ever-growing computing power.

Co-author of the study, Dr Hidekazu Kurebayashi (UCL London Centre for Nanotechnology), said, “We borrowed 50-year-old semiconductor phenomena for our modern spintronic research. Our results are the start of the story but are a proof of principle with a promising future for spins; as we know that there is existing matured semiconductor growth technology, we can stand on the shoulders of the giants.”

The post Pairing Old Technologies With New For Next Generation Electronic Devices appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Researchers have discovered a previously unknown cardiac molecule that could provide a key to treating, and preventing, heart failure.

The newly discovered molecule provides the heart with a tool to block a protein that orchestrates genetic disruptions when the heart is subjected to stress, such as high blood pressure.

When the research team, led by Ching-Pin Chang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, restored levels of the newly discovered molecule in mice experiencing heart failure, the progression to heart failure was stopped. The research was published in the online edition of the journal Nature.

The newly discovered molecule is known as a long non-coding RNA. RNA’s usual role is to carry instructions — the code — from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus to the machinery in the cell that produces proteins necessary for cell activities. In recent years, scientists have discovered several types of RNA that are not involved in protein coding but act on their own. The role in the heart of long non-coding RNA has been unknown.

But the researchers determined that the newly discovered non-coding RNA, which they named Myheart — for myosin heavy-chain-associated RNA transcript — is responsible for controlling a protein called BRG1 (pronounced “berg-1″). In earlier research published in Nature in 2010, Dr. Chang and his colleagues discovered that BRG1 plays a crucial role in the development of the heart in the fetus.

But as the heart grows and needs to mature into its adult form, BRG1 is no longer needed, so very little of it is produced. That is, until the adult heart is subjected to significant stress such as high blood pressure or damage from a heart attack. Dr. Chang’s previous research showed that in those conditions, BRG1 re-emerges and begins altering the heart’s genetic activity, leading to heart failure. At the same time, production of Myheart is suppressed, so BRG1 can latch onto the DNA and alter the genetic material unchecked.

In the current Nature paper, the researchers reported that in mice with stress-induced high levels of BRG1, they were able to restore Myheart to normal levels using gene transfer technology. Restoring Myheart levels blocked BRG1 actions and prevented heart failure, they said.

“I think of Myheart as a molecular crowbar that pries BRG1 off the genomic DNA and prevents it from manipulating genetic activity,” said Dr. Chang, director of molecular and translational medicine at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology.

Although the results in mice would suggest testing Myheart against heart failure in humans, it is too large — by molecular standards — to be delivered as a drug, Dr. Chang said.

So he and his colleagues now are working to identify smaller portions of the Myheart molecule that are key to its ability to block BRG1. Such a subsection of the Myheart molecule could lead to a compound to test in human trials.

The post Newly Discovered Heart Molecule Could Lead To Effective Treatment For Heart Failure appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have created a tractor beam on water, providing a radical new technique that could confine oil spills, manipulate floating objects or explain rips at the beach.

The group, led by Professor Michael Shats discovered they can control water flow patterns with simple wave generators, enabling them to move floating objects at will.

“We have figured out a way of creating waves that can force a floating object to move against the direction of the wave,” said Dr Horst Punzmann, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering, who led the project.

“No one could have guessed this result,” he said.

The new technique gives scientists a way of controlling things adrift on water in a way they have never had before, resembling sci-fi tractor beams that draw in objects.

Using a ping-pong ball in a wave tank, the group worked out the size and frequency of the waves required to move the ball in whichever direction they want.

Advanced particle tracking tools, developed by team members Dr Nicolas Francois and Dr Hua Xia, revealed that the waves generate currents on the surface of the water.

“We found that above a certain height, these complex three-dimensional waves generate flow patterns on the surface of the water,” Professor Shats said. “The tractor beam is just one of the patterns, they can be inward flows, outward flows or vortices.”

The team also experimented with different shaped plungers to generate different swirling flow patterns.

As yet no mathematical theory can explain these experiments, Dr Punzmann said.

“It’s one of the great unresolved problems, yet anyone in the bathtub can reproduce it. We were very surprised no one had described it before.”

The post Water Tractor Beam Could Confine Oil Spills appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Abdullah Sayel

The new regulations about marriage from outside the Kingdom state that a man, intending to take a second wife, must get an approval from his first wife in order to go ahead with his marriage from Morocco, but the same government decree bans Saudis from marrying women from Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and Chad.

I believe that asking for an approval from the first wife should settle the first case! While in the second case (Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and Chad), it is related more to those who got the Saudi nationality and became citizens according to 2005 rules.

Many of those good citizens still believe that their wives should be brought from their ancestors’ homelands. Some would cite economic, social and many hypothetical reasons. But the point is that people should think of the future of their community in Saudi Arabia rather than looking back to their previous homelands.

The writer is the media director, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. Email: abdullahsayel@hotmail.com

The post Second Marriage For Saudis – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By sending vast amounts of military aid to Israel, members of the US Congress, President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have aided and abetted the commission of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity by Israeli officials and commanders in Gaza. An individual can be convicted of a war crime, genocide or a crime against humanity [PDF] in the International Criminal Court if he or she “aids, abets or otherwise assists” in the commission or attempted commission of the crime, “including providing the means for its commission.”

There is growing evidence that Israeli leaders and commanders have committed the following war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity as defined in the Rome Statute for the ICC. US military aid has aided, abetted and assisted the commission of these crimes by providing Israel with the military means to commit them.

During Operation Protective Edge, Israeli forces again used the Dahiye Doctrine, which, according to the UN Human Rights Council [Goldstone] Report [PDF], involves “the application of disproportionate force and causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.”

A summary of Israeli leaders’ extensive crimes is presented below.

US military aid to Israel

According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to provide Israel with $30 billion [PDF] in military assistance from 2009 to 2018, provided in annual increments of $3.1 billion. During his March 2013 visit to Israel, Obama pledged that the US would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military aid subject to the approval of Congress.

Since 2012, the US has sent $276 million worth of weapons and munitions to Israel, not including exports of military transport equipment and high technologies. From January to May 2014, the US transferred to Israel almost $27 million for rocket launchers, $9.3 million worth of parts of guided missiles and nearly $762,000 for bombs, grenades and munitions of war.

On July 20, 2014, Israel requested additional ammunition, including 140mm tank rounds and 40mm illumination grenades, and the Defense Department approved the sale three days later. It came from a $1 billion stockpile of ammunition the US military stores in Israel for that country’s use; it is called War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel. In early August 2014, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly passed, and Obama signed, an appropriation of $225 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which has also been used in Gaza. The Senate vote was unanimous. With no debate, the House of Representatives voted 395 to 8 to approve the deal.

Here is a summary of the crimes, as defined in the Rome Statute, Israeli leaders have committed and US leaders have aided and abetted:

War crimes

(1) Willful killing: Israeli forces have killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians (more than 400 children and over 80% civilians). Israel used 155-millimeter artillery, which, according to Human Rights Watch, is “utterly inappropriate in a densely populated area, because this kind of artillery is considered accurate if it lands anyplace within a 50-meter radius.”

(2) Willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health: Nearly 10,000 people, 2,500 of them children, have been wounded. Naban Abu Shaar told the Daily Beast that the dead bodies from what appeared to be a “mass execution” in Khuza’a looked like they were “melted” and were piled on top of each other; assault rifle bullet casings found in the house were marked “IMI” (Israel Military Industries). UNICEF said the Israeli offensive has had a “catastrophic and tragic impact” on children in Gaza; about 373,000 children have had traumatic experiences and need psychological help. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said: “There’s a public health catastrophe going on. You know, most of the medical facilities in Gaza are non-operational.”

(3) Unlawful and wanton, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity: Tens of thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes. More than 1,300 buildings were destroyed and 752 were severely damaged. Damage to sewer and water infrastructure has affected two-thirds of Gazans. On July 20, Israeli forces virtually flattened the small town of Khuza’a; one man counted 360 shell attacks in one hour. Reconstruction of Gaza is estimated to cost $6 billion. Israel shrunk Gaza’s habitable land mass by 44 percent, establishing a 3 km “no-go” zone for Palestinians; 147 square miles of land will be compressed into 82 square miles. Oxfam described the level of destruction as “outrageous … much worse than anything we have seen in previous [Israeli] military operations.”

(4) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or a civilian the rights of fair and regular trial: Nearly 2,000 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces during July 2014, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies. Prisoners include 15 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, about 240 children, dozens of women, journalists, activists, academics and 62 former prisoners previously released in a prisoner exchange. Israeli forces executed many prisoners after arrest, either by directly firing on them, refusing to allow treatment or allowing them to bleed to death. More than 445 prisoners are being held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

(5) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, civilian objects, or humanitarian vehicles, installations and personnel: “The civilian population in the Gaza Strip is under direct attack,” reads a joint declaration of over 150 international law experts. Israeli forces violated the principle of “distinction,” which forbids deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian objects. Israeli forces bombed 142 schools (89 run by the UN), including six UN schools in which civilians were taking refuge. Israeli forces shot and killed fleeing civilians (warnings, which must effectively give civilians time to flee before bombing, do not relieve Israel from its legal obligations not to target civilians). Israeli forces repeatedly bombed Gaza’s only power plant and other infrastructure, which are “beyond repair.” Israeli forces bombed one-third of Gaza’s hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics and 29 ambulances. At least five medical staff were killed and tens of others were injured.

(6) Intentionally launching attacks with knowledge they will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or long-term severe damage to the natural environment, if they are clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage: The principle of “proportionality” forbids disproportionate and excessive civilian casualties compared to the claimed military advantage gained in the attack. The Dahiye Doctrine directly violates this principle. Responding to Hamas’ rockets with 155-millimeter artillery is disproportionate. Although nearly 2,000 Palestinians (over 80 percent civilians) have been killed, 67 Israelis (all but three of them soldiers) have been killed. The coordinates of all UN facilities were repeatedly communicated to the Israeli forces; they nevertheless bombed them multiple times. Civilians were attacked in Shuja’iyyah market.

(7) Attacking or bombarding undefended towns, villages, dwellings or buildings, or intentionally attacking religious, educational and medical buildings, which are not military objectives: On July 20, Israeli forces virtually flattened the small town of Khuza’a; one man counted 360 shell attacks in one hour. Israeli forces bombed 142 schools (89 run by the UN), one-third of Gaza’s hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics, and 29 ambulances. Israeli shelling completely destroyed 41 mosques and partially destroyed 120 mosques.

Genocide

(a) With the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: Palestinians, including primarily civilians, and Palestinian infrastructure necessary to sustain life were deliberately targeted by Israeli forces.

(b) The commission of any of the following acts

(i) killing members of the group: Israeli forces killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians.
(ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group: Israeli forces wounded 10,000 Palestinians.
(iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part: Israeli forces devastated Gaza’s infrastructure, knocking out Gaza’s only power plant, and destroying homes, schools, buildings, mosques and hospitals.

Crimes against humanity

(A) The commission of murder as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population: Israeli forces relentlessly bombed Gaza for one month, killing nearly 2,000 Palestinians, more than 80 percent of whom were civilians. Israeli forces intentionally destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, knocking out Gaza’s only power plant, and destroying homes, schools, buildings, mosques and hospitals.

(B) Persecution against a group or collectivity based on its political, racial, national, ethnic or religious character, as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population: Israeli forces killed, wounded, summarily executed, and administratively detained Palestinians, Hamas forces and civilians alike. Israel forces intentionally destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza, populated by Palestinians. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: “the massive death and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world.” He added the repeated bombing of UN shelters facilities in Gaza was “outrageous, unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

(C) The crime of apartheid (inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutional regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another racial group, with the intent to maintain that regime): Ali Hayek, head of Gaza’s federation of industries representing 3,900 businesses that employ 35,000 people, said: “After 30 days of war, the economic situation has become, like, dead. It seems the occupation intentionally destroyed these vital factories that constitute the backbone of the society.” Israel maintains an illegal barrier wall that encroaches on Palestinian territory and builds illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Israel keeps Gazans caged in what many call “the world’s largest open air prison.” Israel controls all ingress and egress to Gaza, limits Gazans’ access to medicine, subjects Palestinians to arbitrary arrest, expropriates their property, maintains separate areas and roads, segregated housing, different legal and educational systems for Palestinians and Jews and prevents mixed marriages. Only Jews, not Palestinians, have the right to return to Israel-Palestine.

Collective punishment

Although the Rome Statute does not include the crime of collective punishment, it is considered a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which constitutes a war crime. Collective punishment means punishing a civilian for an offense he or she has not personally committed; it forbids reprisals against civilians and their property (civilian objects).

Ostensibly to rout out Hamas fighters, Israel has wreaked unprecedented devastation on the people of Gaza, killing nearly 2,000 people (more than 80 percent of them civilians) and destroying much of the infrastructure of Gaza. This constitutes collective punishment.

On August 5, 2014, veteran Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland advocated collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, saying: “In order to guarantee our interests versus the other side’s demands, we must avoid the artificial, wrong and dangerous distinction between the Hamas people, who are ‘the bad guys,’ and Gaza’s residents, which are allegedly ‘the good guys.’” That is precisely the strategy Israel has employed during Operation Protective Edge.

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands also constitutes collective punishment. Israel maintains effective control over Gaza’s land, airspace, seaport, electricity, water, telecommunications and population registry. Israel deprives Gazans of food, medicine, fuel and basic services.

Prospects for criminal accountability

Both Israel and the US have refused to ratify the Rome Statute. But if Palestine were a party to the statute, the ICC could exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed by Israelis and Americans in Palestinian territory. The ICC could also take jurisdiction if the UN Security Council refers the matter to the ICC, or if the ICC prosecutor initiates an investigation of the crime. The US would veto any Security Council referral to the ICC. And the ICC prosecutor has not initiated an investigation. So the question is whether Palestine can ratify the statute, thereby becoming a party to the ICC.

In 2009, the Palestinian National Authority filed a declaration [PDF] with the ICC accepting the court’s jurisdiction. In 2012, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state. During the present war, the Palestinian minister of justice and the deputy minister of justice both submitted documents to the ICC indicating that the 2009 declaration is still valid. On August 5, 2014, the Palestinian minister of foreign affairs met with officials from the ICC and inquired about the procedures for Palestine to become a party to the statute.

On July 25, 2014, a French lawyer filed a complaint with the ICC on behalf of the Palestinian justice minister. Citing Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territories, Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and the ongoing military operations there, the complaint alleges that Israel committed war crimes and other crimes. The Palestinian government has not formally commented on this complaint.

On July 23, 2014, the UN Human Rights Council established a commission of inquiry into Israeli violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law. The resolution also called on parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to convene and respond to the alleged violations. That convention requires parties to prosecute violators. Countries can bring foreign nationals to justice for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under the well-established doctrine of universal jurisdiction. Genocide charges could also be brought under the Genocide Convention, to which both Israel and the United States are parties. That convention also punishes complicity in genocide; US leaders’ provision of military aid would constitute complicity.

Although the Israeli and US governments continue to maintain that Israel has only acted in self-defense against Hamas’ terrorism, the weight of world opinion points in the opposite direction. There is overwhelming opposition to Israeli aggression in Gaza and calls for justice and accountability.

Both Israeli and US leaders must be criminally prosecuted for committing and aiding and abetting these crimes.

This article originally appeared in the Jurist.

The post How US Leaders Aid And Abet Israeli War Crimes – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., during his visit to Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi on Friday, is urging his colleagues in the U.S. Congress to vote to lift a ban on weapons sales to Vietnam, according to overseas news agencies.

While touring the nation that once held him captive as a prisoner of war in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” McCain and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, R-R.I., told Vietnamese officials that they will press American lawmakers to remove the decades-long prohibition on selling lethal weaponry to the U.S.’s former enemy.

McCain and Whitehouse also met with Vietnam’s National Assembly chairman and Communist Party Politburo member Nguyen Sinh Hung. The senators discuss their wish for the U.S. and Vietnam to become closer especially in areas of security and defense. They also discussed working on projects together such as building hydropower plants in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Sinh Hung express his desire for the two countries to continue building a relationship based on trust and mutual respect.

Chairman Hung, he is considered the number-four official in Vietnam’s hierarchly, also urged the United States to strengthen its trade ties with his government, according to the Vietnamese government’s e-Portal.

The two U.S. lawmakers arrived in Vietnam onThursday and are expected to depart for home on Sunday, according to Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Hai Binh in a regular press briefing.

During the Vietnam War, Lt. Cdr. John McCain, III — the son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific — while a Navy flier was shotdown and captured by the North Vietnam military. As a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton, he was given “for special attention” during 5½ years of captivity in North Vietnam.

The post Sen. McCain Returns To Hanoi And Urges US To Sell Them Lethal Weapons – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ardeshir Zare’i-Qanavati

The Islamic State of the ISIS has launched its new wave of attacks against the northern Iraqi towns of Sinjar and Zamar where the population is a mixture of Kurds, Yazidi community, Shias as well as other ethnic and religious minorities. This development on top of recent direct and intense conflicts between the members of the ISIS Islamic State and Kurdish Peshmerga have taken the situation of Iraq to a totally new level.

The capture of these towns and oil fields around them, which also include a major pipeline transferring Iraq’s oil to the neighboring Turkey as well as domination of the ISIS forces on the biggest dam of Iraq located in the mountainous area near the city of Mosul in recent weeks are telltale signs of a new development which cannot be ignored easily. The group has been also active in Syria trying hard to conquer the important Kurdish town of Kobani close to the border between Syria and Turkey. All these developments have got Kurds in Iraq and Syria involved in a regional conflict, which up to recently was just of marginal importance to them.

Unfortunately, a political miscalculation prompted the leaders of the Iraqi Kurdish Region, especially its president, Massoud Barzani, to try to take advantage of conflict between the central government in Iraq and the ISIS in order to make their dream of having an independent Kurdish state come true. This miscalculation, however, caused the Kurdish Regional Government to ignore the real threat posed to it. Highlighting the differences between the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and the central government in Baghdad by Barzani and irresponsible reaction of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who refused to accept the idea of establishment of a national unity government, have been source of great concern.

All these mistakes were made at a time that the ISIS war machine has been conquering more strategic regions of Iraq with every day passing, as a result of which the terrorist Takfiri group has felt totally free to expand its realm and tighten its grip on the captured regions.

Now that the ISIS is playing its role in undermining stability and security in Iraq and Syria and has gotten the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, all close allies of Iran, involved in the conflict, it is time for Tehran to make the most of new equations to play its role in regional developments while protecting its own national interests.

The time is now ripe for better and more responsible unity among Iran, Syria, Iraq and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region in order to contain further progress of the ISIS. They should also cooperate in protecting regional stability, fighting extremist and Takfiri terrorism, and protecting their own territorial integrity while coming up with a unified policy revolved around their national interests and aimed at protecting security and integrity of the region.

In the meantime, in view of the recent developments in northern Iraq and in the light of the realities on the ground, all parties should put an end to illusionary and unilateral measures in this fateful conflict. It seems that Tehran, Baghdad and Arbil (the capital city of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region) should have come to the conclusion that no unilateral policy would be able to put an end to further progress of the monster known as the ISIS. During all this time, and due to their tense relations, Baghdad and Arbil have been following their own unilateral policies throughout this conflict. This can provide Tehran with a golden opportunity due to cordial relations it has with both sides in Iraq, to serve as a connecting bridge and pivot of unity and help create new equations in that country, which would guarantee the interests of all moderate forces that wish to maintain stability in Iraq.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry can make good use of this opportunity and take mediatory measures aimed at protecting the interests of all involved parties. Now that even the United Nations has warned about recent advances of the ISIS and has clearly declared that Iraq could face a human catastrophe, it is time for Iran to proactively enter an innovative and constructive political game in that country.

At present, due to mounting pressure by terrorist forces of the Islamic State on the government of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and as a result of the dire threat that the ISIS has posed to stability and integrity of that region, all objective and subjective conditions are present to provide a good ground for a united action by all forces that are opposed to the ISIS.

Under the present circumstances, when the central government in Baghdad has failed in its efforts to prevent further progress of the ISIS, and the Kurdistan Region has relatively distanced from the illusionary idea that its Peshmerga forces are powerful enough to subdue the ISIS, Tehran is offered with a historical opportunity to play a high-profile political role in its foreign policy.

This is an opportunity which should be inevitably used by Iran to achieve its national goals. It is true that the ISIS is currently only active in Syria and Iraq, but since stability and security in those countries are closely related to the national interests of Iran, an attack on those two countries will be, in fact, an attack on Iran’s interests. Although the international community and Western countries, topped by the United States, have frequently talked about the threat posed by the ISIS to the entire region, they have taken no constructive measure to contain this threat. As a result, it is for the Islamic Republic, as a regional power that is opposed to all the equations that have led to the rise of the ISIS, to fulfil its great responsibility.

As a result of the passivity and distance among moderate forces in the region and their inability to join hands in dealing with the Islamic State, the ISIS has turned into a snowball falling from a mountain which gets bigger as it goes down. The Iranian diplomatic apparatus headed by Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif should concentrate on new developments in the region and carefully study objective realities faced by Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. By doing so, it will be able to work as the “missing link” that has so far prevented various Iraqi factions from becoming united in their fight against the Islamic State of the ISIS. The time is past for dealing cautiously with the ISIS because in the light of the ongoing developments in Iraq and the group’s activities in Syria, this monster is approaching the point of no return. Once it crosses that point, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to control or defeat it or even to isolate it within specific limits.

The war on the Gaza Strip and the subversive policy followed by the Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be considered a trap for Iran to bring nuclear negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the United States to total failure. On the opposite, playing a constructive role by Iran in the new equations of Iraq will provide Tehran with a good opportunity to play its role in maintaining regional stability while giving the message to the international community that Iran is still the main agent of balance and security in the crisis-ridden environment of the Middle East region.

Ardeshir Zare’i-Qanavati
Expert on International Relations

Source: Shargh Daily
http://sharghdaily.ir/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

The post ISIS Onslaught: Iran’s Opportunity To Catalyze Reconciliation Between Baghdad And Arbil – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Bethel Domfeh

You can find them thrown onto the pavement like litter; fractured limbs scattered in the cotton fields of Juárez or found in dumps. The number of gender-directed murders has been soaking the depths of Latin America. Even more concerning is Latin American governments’ disregard for legislation put in place to ensure women’s safety.

Femicide is a gruesome, reoccurring, gender-based genocide that is taking women and young girls to their early demise. According to the United Nations (UN) Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, an average of two women are murdered each day in Guatemala. In the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, husbands, boyfriends, or other family members committed 66 percent of the violence and murders reported against women.[1] Furthermore, according to the UN Women Report, women from Colombia and Nicaragua were “kidnapped collectively and sexually abused and abandoned.”[2] This level of violence worries many who have growing concerns for the number of women who remain silent about their inflictions and choose not toreport abuse from their partners or spouses. In response to the rising number of femicides, protestors took their cries for justice to the International Women’s Day Protest March in Mexico City chanting, “not one more,” “they took them alive, we want them back alive,” and “stop violence against women.”[3] The mothers protested in reaction to the loss of their daughters in Chihuahua, Guerrero, Mexico State, and Tlaxcala to femicide violence, hoping to find justice from the law.

March 2013 officially marked two decades of finding missing women murdered in cold blood by lurking drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) that have hoped to exploit and sell women’s bodies for profit by means of prostitution and exploitation. The gender directed violence continued on June 11, when the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office reviewed a case concerning 12 suspects who the police suspect orchestrated a multi-layered network using false job interviews to track and lure teenage girls and young women. Dozens of job-seeking women were lured into the hands of DTOs hoping to financially assist their families. Instead, the job-seeking women were kidnapped and forced into prostitution and drug trafficking. If the women refused to cooperate, they were threatened with harm to themselves and their families.[4] The captured victims were driven to hotels such as the Hotel Rio de Janiero and Hotel Verde, where they were forced to sell their bodies.[5]

Origins of Femicide

According to the UN, it is difficult to effectively implement proposals or laws aiming to eliminate violence, exploitation, and abuse of girls, adolescents, and women because women’s experiences of violence are closely linked to the history of colonization and exclusion from the wider communities.[6] This is best expressed in terms of the intersection of race, ethnicity, disability, age, sex, location, and mutually reinforcing forms of inequalities. For example, indigenous women are especially at risk of becoming victims of femicide, since they do not benefit to the same extent as their non-indigenous counterparts from services that would otherwise protect them from violence and enhance their ability to seek redress.[7]

Unresolved Cases

As previously mentioned, femicide is emerging at a torrid rate in Latin America, and this worries many women living in areas with high crime rates. According tothe Independent Research Project Survey of Arms Reports, femicides are significantly higher in countries and territories affected by high or very high overall homicide rates. Currently, El Salvador has the highest femicide rate, at 12 per 100,000 inhabitants. Following El Salvador are Jamaica (10.9), Guatemala (9.7), and South Africa (9.6).[8]

Many femicide reports fill El Salvador’s daily news publications. The reports suggest that these cold murders are a direct result of the overwhelming disregard for state and local legislation to improve the safety of women. According to News Agency Inter Press Service, the most recent cases include the murder of 24-year-old Yuridia Herrera Laínez on March 28 in Tonacatepeque, on the north side of San Salvador.[9] Her partner, Luis González, was arrested on charges of firing several bullets at her when she tried to break up with him. Eight days earlier, in the eastern city of San Miguel, 32-year-old María Carmen Centeno was killed with a machete by her boyfriend, who is at large. Suyapa del Carmen Villatoro, a 37-year-old Salvadoran-American who had come to El Salvador on vacation, is in the hospital struggling for her life after she was shot on April 1 by gunmen allegedly hired by her husband, José Elías Canesa. Prosecutors said Canesa, who is in preventive detention, confessed to ordering the hit against his wife. Her friend, 67-year-old Colombian-American Ana Cristina Ramos, was killed in the shooting. According to the police investigation, Canesa apparently offered the contract killers $36,000 USD to shoot his wife because she was allegedly unfaithful to him.[10] These murders shocked Salvadoran society and caused a stir of protests in response to continuous reports of violence against women.

Advocacy Campaign

The rising number of overall femicide cases has sparked advocacy campaigns to bring to light the stories of Latin American women and the violence they have endured. These women hosted a tribunal from May 12 through May 23 in New York to advocate the need for reform and protection from the authorities. Many of the women told their stories of violence and thediscrimination they endured. At the tribunal, Angelica Narvaez, who shared her story in tears, stated, “they hit me on my head, too.” She added that neither the teachers nor anyone else at the school have done anything to protect her.[11]

Rose Cunningham, director of the Wangki Tangni Women’s Center on the north coast of Nicaragua, added her response to violence inflicted upon women by addressing the government for failing to properly resolve femicide cases. Cunningham states, “One of the main problems is the type of systems we have,” She told Women’s eNews in an interview at the New York event last week, “the justice system doesn’t really work for us. We have a lot of discrimination.” [12]

In terms of possible solutions to this issue, Cunningham’s statement alludes to Nicaragua’s femicide law, officially known as Ley Integral Contra la Violencia Hacia las Mujeres, or Ley 779. This lawclearly outlines sentencing guidelines for violence against women, including physical and psychological abuse, rape, and femicide.[13] Ley 779 is significant because it represents the first time that the issue of violence against women is exclusively defined and distinguished from regular homicide. The only drawback of this law has been its slow and ineffective follow-through, as the state has failed to provide sufficient funds to properly implement it.

The tribunal continued to address the drug trafficking and gang war that has resulted in a significant increase in femicide cases. Women and young girls are considered “spoils of war” in the midst of war between rival street gangs, notably Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio-18 in El Salvador, the country with the highest femicide rate.[14]

Femicide Campaign Backlash

Though many attempt to empower women and young girls by eroding machismo culture and challenging traditional gender/culture roles, femicide cases continue to rise. There has also been a backlash against campaigns to combat violence toward women from perpetrators of femicide. For example, Lilia Alejandra García Andrade, an anti-femicide activist, was brutally raped, tortured, and murdered for her efforts. Her body was found on Valentine’s Day in 2001 in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.[15] Police authorities never found her murderer, and Lilia’s case remains unsolved.

After losing her daughter in such an untimely gruesome manner, Norma Esther Andrade founded Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (NHRC), which translates into “May Our Daughters Return Home.”[16] The organization was founded to offer support for families whose daughters have gone missing or been killed, as well as to protest femicide crimes that remain unsolved.

Since founding NHRC in 2001, Andrade’s relentless task of bringing justice to the missing and murdered women has made her the target for those who wish to crusade against her mission. Andrade has been the victim of various attacks that are linked to an effort to eliminate her campaign work for justice in Ciudad Juárez, México. On February 3, 2011, Andrade was attacked with a knife by an unknown man. Amnesty International in Mexico released a security alert in response to the attack stating, “Norma was with her granddaughter when an unknown man knocked on the door. The man attacked her with a knife. She was sent to the hospital to receive urgent treatment for her injuries.[17] Unfortunately, this was not the first time Andrade was attacked. Amnesty also reported on December 2, 2011 that Norma Andrade was attacked by a gunman who fired five shots at her outside her home one morning in Ciudad Juárez. She survived and was in the hospital for several days. The hospital providing treatment to Andrade received numerous anonymous threats stating that Andrade would be killed if the hospital did not discharge her.After being temporarily transferred to a hotel, she left town for her safety and the safety of her family.”[18]

Possible Strategies

According to the UN, research shows that successful prevention and response tactics to violence is more sustainable if the strategy and legal framework to ensure the safety of women is a part of a comprehensive and multisectoral intervention. The strategies implemented into the legal framework cannot replicate Nicaragua’s femicide law, Ley 779, which has been slow to make change in the rates of femicide murder cases. However, according to the UN Indigenous Women Report, strategies to decrease femicide will need to include efforts towards research and data collection of cultural monitoring within a patriarchal machismo culture, in addition to the evaluation of cases that lacked substantial investigation.

Bethel Domfeh, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

References

[1] “Fast facts: statistics on violence against women and girls.” Fast facts: statistics on violence against women and girls. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 July 2014. <http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/299-fast-facts-statistics-on-violence-against-women-and-girls-.html>.

[2] Naili, Hajer. “Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal.” Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal. Women’s eNews , 21 May 2014. Web. 22 July 2014. <http://womensenews.org/story/international-policyunited-nations/140520/latin-american-indigenous-women-hold-nyc-tribunal#.U85vufldWT_>.

[3] “Female Homicides on the Rise in Mexico · Global Voices.” Global Voices Overall RSS 20. Global Voices, 26 Apr. 2013. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/04/26/mexican-authorities-turn-blind-eye-to-female-homicides/>.

[4] “A Gang of 12 and Alleged Femicide in Ciudad Juarez.” A Gang of 12 and Alleged Femicide in Ciudad Juarez. New Mexico State University Board of Regents, 17 June 2013. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[5] “A Gang of 12 and Alleged Femicide in Ciudad Juarez.” A Gang of 12 and Alleged Femicide in Ciudad Juarez. New Mexico State University Board of Regents, 17 June 2013. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[6] “The United Nations Inter-Agency Support Group.” . The United Nations Inter-Agency Support Group, 1 June 2014. Web. 22 July 2014.

[7] “The United Nations Inter-Agency Support Group.” . The United Nations Inter-Agency Support Group, 1 June 2014. Web. 22 July 2014. <http://www.un.org/en/ga/president/68/pdf/wcip/IASG%20Thematic%20Paper_%20Violence%20against%20Girls%20and%20Women%20-%20rev1.pdf>.

[8] Nowak, Matthias. “Femicide: A Global Problem .” . The Small Arms Survey, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[9] Ayala, Edgardo . “INTER PRESS SERVICE.” Caribbean Climate Wire. IPS-Inter Press Service, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/impunity-machismo-fuel-femicides-in-el-salvador/>.

[10] Ayala, Edgardo. “Impunity, Machismo Fuel Femicides in El Salvador.” Impunity, Machismo Fuel Femicides in El Salvador. Inter Press Service, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 22 July 2014. .v

[11] Naili, Hajer. “Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal.” Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal. Women’s eNews , 21 May 2014. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[12] Naili, Hajer. “Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal.” Latin American Indigenous Women Hold NYC Tribunal. Women’s eNews , 21 May 2014. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[13] Witte, Benjamin. “Nicaragua’s ‘Femicide Law’ Slow To Produce Results.” Benjamin Wittes Web Site. Word Press, 13 May 2013. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[14] Nowak, Matthias. “Femicide: A Global Problem .” . The Small Arms Survey, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[15] Salazar, Juan. “El infierno de Ciudad Juárez.” BBC News. BBC, 15 Oct. 2004. Web. 30 July 2014. .

[16] Wrede, Katalin. “Norma Esther Andrade – Fighting against the brutal murder of young women in Ciudad Juárez.” Berliner Menschenwrde Forum. Roland Berger Foundation, 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[17] “HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE KNIFED AT HOME: NORMA ANDRADE.” Document – Mexico: Further information: Human rights defender knifed at home: Norma Andrade | Amnesty International. Amnesty International, 6 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 July 2014. .

[18] “HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE KNIFED AT HOME: NORMA ANDRADE.” Document – Mexico: Further information: Human rights defender knifed at home: Norma Andrade | Amnesty International. Amnesty International, 6 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 July 2014.

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The 2014 US-Africa Leaders Summit hosted by President Obama this past week brought together the larges t-ever gathering of African government officials in Washington, DC. They discussed ways to bolster trade and investment by American companies on a continent where a billion people – including 200 million aged 15 to 24 – are becoming wealthier and better educated.

They have steadily rising expectations and recognize the pressing need to create jobs, improve security, reduce corruption, and control diseases like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. They also understand that better roads and air transportation, improved agriculture and nutrition, and far more energy – especially electricity – are the sine qua non to achieving their aspirations. Indeed, nearly 700 million Africans still do not have electricity or get it only sporadically, a few hours a day or week.

“The bottom line is, the United States is making a major and long-term investment in Africa’s progress,” Mr. Obama stated. One has to wonder whether his rhetoric matches his policy agenda – and whether Africans would do well to remember the presiden t’s assurances that Americans could keep their doctors, hospitals and insurance, when they hear his fine words and lofty promises for Africa.

The fact is, no modern economies, healthcare systems or wealth-building technologies can function in the absence of abundant, reliable, affordable electricity and motor fuels. They require far more than can possibly come from “climate-smart” wind, solar and biofuel sources. Adequate food and nutrition require modern agriculture. Eradicating malaria requires chemical insecticides, DDT and ACT drugs.

Obama Administration policies on all these matters are likely to hold Africa back for decades.

For President Obama, everything revolves around fears of “dangerous manmade climate change” and a determination to slash or end fossil fuel use. He has said electricity rates must “necessarily skyrocket.” His former Energy Secretary wanted gasoline prices to reach European levels: $8-10 per gallon. His EPA is waging a war on coal. And his own requirements would prevent Africa from modernizing.

In 2009, the president told Africans they should focus on their “bountiful” wind, solar, geothermal and biofuel resources, and refrain from using “dirty” fossil fuels. He signed an executive order, directing the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to ensure that any projects it finances reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020. He launched a number of domestic and international climate initiatives.

Afterward, when Ghana asked OPIC to support a $185 million gas-fired electrical generator (that would utilize natural gas being flared and wasted at its oil production operations), OPIC refused to help. When South Africa sought a World Bank loan for its state-of-the-art Medupi coal-fired power plant (which will reduce dangerous pollutants 90% below what 1970s-era plants emitted), the White House ”abstained” from supporting the loan. Thankfully, approval squeaked by anyway, and Medupi will soon be a reality.

Even more absurd and unethical, the White House announced l ast October that it will now oppose any public financing for coal-based power projects, except in the world’s poorest nations, unless they meet the draconian carbon dioxide emission standards now imposed on new coal-fired generators in the USA.

These policies prolong reliance on open fires fueled by wood and dung. They mean families are denied lights, refrigeration and other benefits of electricity, and millions die every year from lung and intestinal diseases, and other effects of rampant poverty. With hydrocarbons still providing 82% of the world’s energy – and China, India and other rapidly developing countries building numerous coal-fired generating plants – retarding Africa’s development in the name of preventing climate chaos is useless and immoral.

Meanwhile, President Obama is still guided by science advisor John Holdren, a fervent opponent of fossil fuels who infamously said the United States should support only the “ecologic ally feasible” development of poor countries, in line with his perceived “realities” of ecology and rapid energy resource depletion. How that translates into official policy can be seen from Mr. Obama’s 2013 remark: “Here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car, and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over.”

Secretary of State John Kerry’s inane recent statements are equally problematical for Africa. His fixation on “climate-smart” energy and agriculture suggests that he lives on another planet and cannot imagine life outside a $5-million mansion – and certainly not life for destitute families in sub-Saharan Africa.

For proof of manmade climate change, Kerry told US-Africa Summit attendees, one need only look at the “hotter temperatures, longer droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns” that farmers must now deal with. Not only are global temperature trends flat for the past 18 years; actual records show clearly that drought and rainfall fluctuations are no different from what North American, African and other farmers have had to deal with for centuries. Moreover, increasing evidence suggests that the sun’s ongoing “quiet” period may portend several decades of markedly colder global temperatures.

Even more absurd, Kerry told attendees that “carbon pollution” is making food “less nutritious.” First, it’s not carbon (soot). It’s carbon dioxide, which makes food crops, trees and other plants grow faster and better, and survive better under adverse conditions like droughts. Second, hothouses routinely increase their CO2 levels to two or more times what is in Earth’s atmosphere, to spur crop growth. Are these German, Israeli and American tomatoes and cucumbers less nutritious than field-grown varieties? In fact, recent studies have found increased nutrient concentrations in food crops, thanks to higher CO2.

To the extent that “research” supports any of these ridiculous claims, it merely underscores what scientists will concoct when tempted by billions in government grants – or intimidated by activists and colleagues who attack them as climate change “deniers” if they do not play the Climate Armageddon game.

Secretary Kerry did suggest that the best way to help farmers is through “climate-smart agriculture” and “creative solutions that increase food production.” But it’s a virtual certainty he did not mean any of the things that really would help: biotechnology, modern mechanized farming and chemical fertilizers.

Genetically engineered Golden Rice and bananas are rich in beta-carotene, which humans can convert to Vitamin A, to prevent childhood blindness and save lives. New Bt corn varieties both kill insect pests, dramatically reducing the need for pesticides, and enable corn (maize) plants to survive droughts. New rice varieties can survive prolonged submergence during monsoons and floods. These crops, modern hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers multiply traditional yields many times over. Other developments let farmers practice no-till farming, which protects vital soil organisms and nutrients and reduces erosion.

These solutions won’t just improve adaptation to whatever climates might confront us in the future. They will also enable us to feed billions of people – including some 250 million malnourished Africans – without having to plow under millions of acres of wildlife habitat. However, Big Green activists in and out of government oppose GMO crops, fossil fuels and modern farming, whatever their benefits to humanity – and regardless of the death and destruction that result when people are denied access to them.

Africa is blessed with abundant oil, gas and coal. Turning food into fuel would squander those resources and divert land, water, fertilizers and energy from feeding people – to produce expensive fuels and leave people malnourished. This is not “climate-smart” energy or agriculture. It’s just plain stupid.

Wind and solar will let people in remote areas have light bulbs, tiny refrigerators and cell phone chargers, until they can be connected to an electrical grid. They cannot support modern economies, factories, shops, schools, hospitals or families. Coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro-based electricity are essential.

Here is the real bottom line: Africans should not do what the United States is doing now that it is rich. It should do what the United States did to become rich.

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China’s Foreign Ministry on July 18 said it had appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan, underscoring Beijing’s concerns over developments in that country which could turn into a hotbed of militancy at its doorstep.

Sun Yuxi, a former ambassador to both Afghanistan (between 2002 and 2004) and India, has been named as the special envoy and will have “close communication” with Afghanistan and other relevant parties to help “ensure lasting peace, stability and development for Afghanistan and the region”, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

To that end, Sun Yuxi’s appointment not only signals Chinese concerns regarding possible threats emanating from the region, but also an intent to firm up some of its geo-economic initiatives in the wake of the US drawdown from Afghanistan.

Terrorism

One of China’s chief worries is that Uighur militants, who are fighting for a separate state called East Turkestan in China’s Xinjiang region, will step up their activities by exploiting the security vacuum in Afghanistan after most of the NATO forces withdraw by the end of the year. China believes hundreds of Uighur militants of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are holed up in the tribal areas straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is a good cause for the Chinese worry; despite employing a wide range of measures it has failed to get a grip on the insurgency in Xinjiang.

Early on July 28, the last day of Ramadan, 215 Uighurs armed with knives and axes attacked a police station and government offices in Elixku and Huangdi towns in Shache County in Xinjiang. Chinese police shot dead 59 of the attackers while 37 civilians also died in the incident. A total of 13 armed Chinese personnel were killed and about 67 people were arrested in this connection.

In early July, China banned civil servants, students and teachers in Xinjiang region from taking part in fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On July 30, Jume Tahir, the imam of China’s largest mosque in the westernmost city of Kashgar, was attacked as he was leaving the Id Kah mosque and stabbed to death. The 74-year-old Imam, who was also a former deputy to the official National People’s Congress (NPC), was reportedly supporting the Chinese Communist Party by publicly speaking out against the wave of violence in Xinjiang and accusing the separatist Muslims for halting progress and social and ethnic cohesion.

According to China’s special envoy for the Middle East, Wu Sike, Muslim extremists from Xinjiang have gone to the Middle East for training, and some may have crossed into Iraq to participate in the upsurge of violence there.

Afghanistan

Appropriately, Sun Yuxi commenced his charge with a visit to Kabul; and on July 23 he had talks with President Hamid Karzai and presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani on separate occasions. During his stay in Afghanistan, Sun also met with US and European Union ambassadors to the country as well as the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission.

Sun reaffirmed China’s support for the ongoing political and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and said if groups in Afghanistan, including Taliban, reach an agreement on national reconciliation then nobody will make trouble. “So far we have not directly got involved with Afghan groups including Taliban and we place our hope on the new government.” He said he will visit US, Russia, India and Iran to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

On Afghanistan’s future, Sun said the immediate and the most important task is to achieve reconciliation among all parties and sectors as only nationwide reconciliation is an effective measure for long-term stability. He added that China is concentrating on economic development and raising standards of living to help create peace and security in Afghanistan, and to that end the private sector must be involved.

Pakistan

In his first presser in China on July 21, Sun Yuxi had praised Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for their fight against terrorism and all but absolved them of any involvement in the recent attack on the Indian consulate in Herat. Sun Yuxi said: “I think ISI has been effective in fighting against terrorism. I do believe that Pakistan government or any responsible agency of Pakistan will only fight against terrorism, instead of being involved with any terrorist.” Sun told the media that he saw in the future the Pakistan government playing an important and positive role in the peaceful reconstruction of Afghanistan.

While visiting Pakistan, Sun Yuxi called on the Pakistani foreign secretary and expressed China’s solidarity with Pakistan in this endeavour and appreciated Pakistan’s contribution to global efforts against terrorism. Pakistan highlighted its constructive engagement to promote regional cooperation. The two sides also discussed the upcoming Ministerial Meeting of the Heart of Asia/Istanbul Process, to be held in Tianjin, China.

At the same time, Pakistan is eying Beijing’s proposed huge investment of about $40 billion over the next eight years in the country’s energy, water, coal, roads and other infrastructure projects. China has reportedly commissioned a “preliminary research study” to build an international rail link connecting its westernmost city of Kashgar in Xinjiang with Pakistan’s deep-sea Gwadar Port, according to the director of Xinjiang’s regional development and reform commission. The 1,800-km China-Pakistan railway is planned to also pass through Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad and Karachi, with land ports to India and Afghanistan also being proposed.

Assessment

Sun Yuxi’s statements during his visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan are indicative of Chinese approach to Af-Pak. Pakistan is the primary partner, who will play a dominant role in the reconciliation and reconstruction process in Afghanistan. Efforts will be made to integrate the Taliban into politics and governance at the provincial level and ideally at the national level. Chinese capital would power the Kashgar-Gwadar economic corridor; Pakistan would ensure its security and indirectly contribute to the security of Xinjiang. Exploitation of natural resources would be the main plank of the Chinese strategy to revive Afghan economy, and Pakistan would gain control of the Afghan transit trade.

Russian buy-in would come from the fact that it would get access to a land route for selling its gas, diverting it away from Europe and expand its arms supply to Afghanistan and other nations in Central Asia. It would assist in curbing narcotics trade and receive support in checking the rise of Islamist militancy. Iran would get to retain its cultural influence in Western Afghanistan, sell gas to Pakistan and probably India through a land pipeline and have the main Chinese “silk route” to Europe running through northern Iran.

In the coming few months Beijing would be focussed on the establishment of the new Afghan government and the Istanbul Process, a ministerial-level dialogue that brings together all of Afghanistan’s neighbours and major donors. China is hosting the next conference in Tianjin and is eager to make it a meaningful event by using the meeting as a means to confer the international community’s approval on the next Afghan government.

Beijing, in the scheme of things, appears remarkably eager to cooperate with the US in Afghanistan. However, the key is how China is reading the situation in Afghanistan; does it anticipate a complete US drawdown from the region by 2016 or will it find space to articulate its interest despite US presence in a counter-terror posture in Afghanistan. If not would it look to squeeze out the US from the region with support from Pakistan, which would make it easy for it to negotiate with the Taliban and of course call the shots in Af-Pak .

In the current situation, the US seems keen on just curbing terrorism emanating from Afghanistan (and directed at the US) and it would be happy to go along with China as long as it is achieved. India would most probably then be coerced into accepting the Chinese game plan, with the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipelines and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) membership thrown in as sweeteners.

This article was published at South Asia Monitor.

The post China’s Game Plan In Afghanistan: Many Regional Implications – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Aloke Sen

At a recent seminar in Kolkata on what the foreign policy priorities should be for the new government in Delhi, I was somewhat startled to hear from the delegate of a neighbouring country that the general view there of India was of an ‘indecisive and inconsistent big neighbour’.

While India can justifiably be held guilty of having often displayed a condescending attitude to its smaller neighbours (except Pakistan that continues to consume, quite unproductively, a disproportionate share of our diplomatic energy), to be additionally charged with inconsistency and indecision was a little overwhelming. For good measure, the delegate added it was time India changed its image of a “big brother” to one of an “elder brother”.

From available indications, the Narendra Modi government has identified the neighbourhood as a priority area for India’s diplomatic efforts, and started work on improving relations. I assume the definition of neighbourhood would at some stage transcend only those countries with which India shares a physical boundary, and embrace a swathe of South, Southeast and East Asia, the focus of India’s Look East Policy (LEP). They form a composite whole and not seeing them as a single ‘extended neighbourhood’ would be a mistake.

The LEP was launched on the watch of P.V. Narasimha Rao, a vastly underrated but visionary prime minister, who was also at the time putting the country on a transformational course of economic reforms and liberalization. Throwing open of the gates for India’s economy and external relations came in the early 1990s, coinciding with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the official end of the Cold War. It was a time of upheaval and re-adjustment. LEP that heralded India’s intention to pay greater attention to its Southeast Asian neighbours was India’s re-adjustment mechanism.

This policy has since enjoyed bipartisan support. If Rao (Congress) was its author, former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee (National Democratic Alliance) and Manmohan Singh (United Progressive Alliance)’s governments pursued it seriously. Trade with India’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners, now at $80 billion, has expanded impressively. Most importantly, close institutional links already forged with the ASEAN provide India with the strategic wherewithal to firmly ensconce itself in an emerging Asian economic community, whatever final shape it may take.

So utility of the LEP is not in question, but from my experience of having served in two ASEAN countries, I would suggest there is a need for more purposeful implementation.

A few suggestions:

One, the government can do with a cost-benefit audit. There is no reason to get carried away by the impressive growth in trade with the Southeast Asian countries; the question is if that is benefiting India as much as the partner countries. Otherwise, India’s openness would only lead to competitive pricing and sleeker packaging of products from many of these countries, dislodging Indian products from store shelves. The India-ASEAN free trade agreement on services is still elusive with, at last count two ASEAN countries holding it up.

Meanwhile, the agreement on trade in goods is fully operational. It is believed that the benefits of the goods agreement are largely to accrue to the ASEAN countries (with which India already has an increasing trade deficit), whereas India’s gains would come from the services agreement. From personal experience, I know how difficult it can be to get ten disparate members of the ASEAN to agree on a document that is designed to largely serve an outsider’s interests. But conclusion of the services agreement remains unfinished business for India, badly disadvantaged by the arrangement to sign the free trade agreements sequentially.

Two, the two neighbouring countries most relevant to the success of LEP are Bangladesh and Myanmar. The first has always received due attention for both positive and negative reasons; but Myanmar, in my view, has not seen the kind of investment in relations that it merits. Even a few years back, it hardly figured on Delhi’s political radar, so it is heartening to see the recent high-level political traffic. But that alone is not enough.

Economic relations with Myanmar are no less important than the upgrade we are seeking in political relations. The over-emphasis on PSUs (the white elephants) for furthering business needs to be discarded in favour of the private sector, provided of course they can be persuaded to be less timid in entering a yet-fluid market. At the macro level, the unique location of Myanmar as a physical land bridge between South and Southeast Asia and consequently, the exciting opportunities it can generate for India, need to be properly realized. Myanmar not only offers, through the Kaladan project, a workable transit route between India’s North Eastern states and the rest of the country, but also an outward route to reach broader ASEAN markets if the existing surface transport links can be improved in Myanmar.

Three, the hybrid platforms India had co-created by combining select South and Southeast Asian countries for more political than economic reasons – Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and Mekong–Ganga Cooperation (MGC) – are more talk than action. But if used properly, they can have merit.

Four, a stop should be put to the fiction that the North Eastern states are the pivot to India’s LEP. At this moment they are nothing of the kind. They have simply not been prepared for this grand role thrust upon them. Unless a domestic development plan for them is executed urgently and synchronically with India’s external strategy under the LEP, not much can be gained from the availability of this crucial gateway.

On my visits to the North East, I have been struck by these states’ belief that LEP is Delhi’s business and that they are only incidentally involved. Meanwhile, they have continued to take great pride in their cultural ‘uniqueness’ that has actually hampered collective developmental efforts to benefit from the LEP. I have come to believe that LEP, if it is to serve this disadvantaged region, has to be a states-driven policy rather than one formulated and prescribed from Delhi. What prevents the chief ministers of the North East from discarding their bureaucratic ways and sitting down by themselves to offer a ‘grand vision’ of their states under the LEP?

(Aloke Sen is a former Ambassador of India. He can be contacted at southasiamonitor1@gmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

The post India’s Look East Policy: Needs More Purposeful Implementation – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Reports say Iraq’s president has asked senior Shi’ite politician Haidar al-Abadi to form a new government.

The reported move by President Fuad Masum came after Iraq’s main Shi’ite parliamentary bloc, the National Alliance, nominated Abadi as prime minister instead of incumbent Nuri al-Maliki. Abadi is currently the first deputy parliament speaker.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden welcomed Masum’s decision, and expressed Washington’s “full support for his role as guarantor of the Iraqi Constitution.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commended “the forward movement toward government formation” in accordance with Iraq’s constitution.

Expressing concerns that heightened political tensions and the current security threat of the Islamic State could deepen Iraq’s crisis, the UN chief urged all political parties and their supporters to “remain calm and respect the political process governed by the constitution.”

Maliki has been accused of fueling sectarian violence as the country is battling an Islamist insurgency, but he has refused calls by Sunni, Kurdish, and fellow Shi’ite politicians to step down.

Maliki, the premier since 2006, has been serving in a caretaker capacity since an inconclusive election in April.

He has made it clear that he wants to stand for a third term and has accused the president of violating constitutional rules by delaying his nomination.

Earlier on August 11, Iraq’s highest court appeared to back Maliki’s bid for a third term when it ruled that the largest party in parliament should nominate the prime minister.

The National alliance — which includes Maliki’s State of Law party — is the largest bloc in parliament.

Washington has said it “fully supports” Masum in his role as “guarantor of the Iraqi Constitution.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on August 11 said the formation of a stable government is “critical” and warned Maliki not to stir trouble.

Shi’ite militiamen and security forces loyal to Maliki reportedly were deployed around Baghdad on August 11. There were no reports of violence.

The deadlock over a new government has plunged Iraq into a political crisis at a time when Islamic State (IS) militants are advancing in the north of the country.

The United States has already launched four waves of air strikes to support Peshmerga forces battling the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIL, around Irbil, the regional capital of the autonomous Kurdish region.

The militants have seized large swaths in northern and western Iraq since they began their offensive in June.

Senior U.S. officials said on August 11 that the United States has begun directly providing weapons to the Kurdish forces.

Following the launch of U.S. air strikes last week, the Peshmerga have started to make some modest gains against the militants.

But on August 11, police said IS fighters had seized the town of Jalawla, 115 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, after driving out Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

President Barack Obama authorized the air strikes to protect U.S. interests and personnel in the region, including at facilities in Irbil, as well as Yazidi and Christian refugees fleeing the militants’ advance.

The post Iraqi President Asks Haidar Al-Abadi To Form New Government appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The President of the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO), His Excellency Mohammad Khalid Al-Suwaiket, visited Monday the advanced technology lab set up by Indra in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid), where the firm is configuring and testing systems destined for the Mecca-Medina high-speed rail line in Saudi Arabia, which will be built and operated for 12 years by a Spanish consortium.

During his visit, the President of the Saudi Railways Organization, along with Project Director General, Dr. Bassam Bin Ahmed Ghulman, and Project Manager, Eng. Mohammed Mahmoud Wald Sheikh, were accompanied by the Project Director of the consortium, Santiago Cobo, and the Indra Deputy General Director, Eduardo Bonet, among others.

As the technology partner on the Haramain project, Indra is responsible for developing and implementing fixed and mobile telecommunications systems, security systems, technology management systems, the control center (OCC) and ticketing solutions (AFC) for the new line.

Indra, chaired by Javier Monzón, is one of the world’s largest consultancy and technology multinationals, a leader in Europe and Latin America and is expanding in other emerging economies. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business, which is highly focussed on the customer and on sustainability.

The multinational is one of the leaders in its sector in Europe in terms of investment in R&D and innovation, having invested more than €570M in the last three years. With sales approaching €3,000 million, it employs 42,000 professional and has customers in 138 countries.

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(EurActiv) — EU regulators began a product-by-product impact analysis of a Russian ban on EU food imports announced in retaliation for Western sanctions over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

But they said it was too soon to decide how much, if any, of a €400 million euro EU compensation fund might be paid out to help farmers.

Europe’s Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos interrupted the traditional European Commission August break to return to Brussels at the weekend, together with other senior staff, and on Monday they set up a task force.

The aim is to identify alternative markets and to analyse the fallout from Russia’s one-year ban, announced last week, on imports of meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetables from the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and Norway.

With some member states piling on the pressure for redress, they could also agree to award compensation from a special fund signed into law at the end of 2013, as part of agricultural reforms. To date, the fund has never been used.

“We still feel it’s a little bit soon to discuss the cost implications,” Roger Waite, a spokesman for the EU’s executive Commission, told reporters.

“We are looking at every product individually. We hope that by Thursday of this week, we will be in a position to have a clearer picture of the potential impact so that we can discuss it with the member states.”

Agricultural experts from the EU’s 28 member states will meet in Brussels on Thursday to plan a coordinated strategy.

Tit for tat

Last month, Brussels agreed its toughest sanctions yet against Moscow in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatist rebels.

Moscow initially said it would not stoop to a tit-for-tat response, but last week it took aim at Western food imports, a move many analysts say could hurt Russian consumers more than it affects Western exporters.

Ciolos has said he is confident the EU farm sector can quickly find new markets for exports to Russia worth around €11 billion, roughly 10% of all EU agricultural sales outside the bloc.

A separate Russian ban on EU pork announced earlier this year has had relatively little impact, the Commission says, as farmers have found new markets in Asia and helped to fill the gap left by an outbreak of pig disease in the United States.

“We will have to make an increased effort on other markets in the Asia region, in the Middle East and in North Africa,” Austrian Agriculture Minister Andrae Rupprechter told broadcaster ORF last week, but he said there could also be a case for compensating the hardest hit.

“European leaders brought about tougher sanctions on Russia, which we respect, but we also have to respect the consequences and not leave in the lurch those who are bearing the burden,” he said.

In France, Europe’s biggest agricultural nation, farmers have voiced concern about the risk of a glut of unsold produce from Eastern Europe flooding the Western European market.

Taking Russia to the World Trade Organization over the food bans could be unwise, Brussels-based lawyers said, arguing that the EU concern was to de-escalate the crisis.

Ukraine promises smooth gas transit

In Ukraine meanwhile, the state gas grid operator Naftogaz said that it would continue uninterrupted pumping of Russian gas exports to Europe through its territory even if Ukraine imposes its own sanctions on Russia.

“Naftogaz affirms its readiness to continue smooth transit of natural gas to European consumers,” the chief executive Andriy Kobolev said in a statement on 11 August.

Ukraine’s parliament is expected to debate sanctions against Russia today (12 August), which could include bans on Russian gas and sanctions against Russian banks.

Russia halted gas supplies to Ukraine in June due to disagreements over pricing, but Russian gas transit through Ukraine to Europe was unaffected.

Russian gas accounts for about a third of Europe’s gas needs, and about half of that amount passes through Ukraine.

The post EU Tries To Limit Damage From Russian Food Embargo appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In its July 2013 report [1] the European Parliament identified the Wahabi-Salafi roots of global terrorism, but the report conveniently absolved the Western powers of their culpability and chose to overlook the Western complicity in nurturing Islamic extremism and violent Jihadism all over the Islamic world during the Cold War against the erstwhile Soviet Union; and even today, in the Libyan Jihad against the Qaddafi regime in 2011; and the Syrian Jihad against the Alawi (Shia) Assad regime. This is the principal thesis of this write-up which I will discuss in detail in the following paragraphs.

In my previous write-up: The role of Saudi Arabia, as de facto Caliphs of Islam, in sponsoring Islamic extremism and violent Jihadism [2] I stated that an exponential growth in the phenomena of petro-Islamic extremism can directly be attributed to the generous funding of the Islamic charities and madrassahs all over the Islamic world by the Gulf countries after the 1973 oil embargo when the price of oil quadrupled and the Arab Sheikhs’ contribution to the spiritual ‘well-being’ of the Muslims increased proportionally.

Peaceful or not, Islam is only a religion just like any other religion whether it’s Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism. Instead of taking an ‘essentialist’ approach, which lays emphasis on ‘essences,’ we need to look at the evolution of social phenomena in their historical contexts. For instance: to assert that human beings are evil by ‘nature’ is an essentialist approach; it overlooks the role played by ‘nurture’ in grooming humans. Human beings are only ‘intelligent’ by nature, but they are neither good nor evil by nature; whatever they are, good or evil, is the outcome of their nurture or upbringing.

Moreover, I said that Islam is only a religion ‘just like any other religion.’ But certain reductive neo-liberals blame the religion, as an institution and ideology, for all that is wrong with the world. I have not read much history, I am only a humble student of international politics; that’s why I don’t know what the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition were all about? Although, I have a gut feeling that those were also political conflicts which are presented to us in a religious guise. However, I am certain that all the conflicts of the 20^th and 21^st centuries were either nationalist (tribal) conflicts; or they had economics and power as their goals. Examples: First and Second World Wars; Korea and Vietnam wars; Afghanistan and Iraq wars; and Libya and Syria wars.

When the neo-liberals commit the fallacy of blaming religion for all our woes, I am not sure which ancient global order they conjure up in their minds, the Holy Roman Empire perhaps? Religion may have been a paramount factor in the ancient times, if at all, but the contemporary politics is all about economics and power: the Western corporations rule the world, and politics and diplomacy is all about protecting the trade and energy interests of the Corporate Empire.

Regardless, Islam as a religion isn’t different from other cosmopolitan religions in regards to any intrinsic feature and the only factor which differentiates Islam from other mainstream religions is the abundant energy resources in the Muslim-majority countries of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region; and the effect of those resources and the global players’ manipulation of the socio-political life of the inhabitants of those regions to exploit their resources culminated in the emergence of the phenomena of Petro-Islamic extremism and violent Takfiri-Jihadism. That being clear, our next task is to analyze the symbiotic relationship which exists between the illegitimate Gulf rulers and the neo-colonial powers.

However, before we get to the crux of the matter, let us first cursorily discuss that why is it impossible to bring about a major fundamental change: political, social or economic, on a national level under the existing international dispensation of justice? As we know, the so-called Western ‘liberal-democracies’ could be liberal, however they are anything but democracies; in fact the right term for the Western systems of government is a plutocracy. They are ruled by the super-rich corporations, whose wealth is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, far more than the total GDPs of many developing nations; and the status of those multinational corporations as dominant players in their national and international politics gets an official imprimatur when the Western governments endorse the Congressional ‘lobbying’ practice of the so-called ‘special interest’ groups, which is a euphemism for ‘business interests.’

Moreover, since the Western governments are nothing but the mouthpieces of their business interests on the international political and economic forums, therefore any national or international entity which hinders or opposes the agenda of the aforesaid business interests is either coerced into accepting their demands or gets sidelined. Last year the Manmohan Singh’s government of India had certain objections to further opening up to the Western businesses; the Business Roundtable which is an informal congregation of major US businesses and which together holds a net wealth of $6 trillion (6000 billion) held a meeting with the representatives of the Indian government and made them an offer which they couldn’t refuse. The developing economies, like India, are always hungry for the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to grow further, and that investment comes from the Western corporations.

When the Business Roundtables or the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) form pressure groups and engage in ‘collective bargaining’ activities, the nascent and fragile developing economies don’t have a choice but to toe their line. State ‘sovereignty’ that the sovereign nation-states are at liberty to pursue an independent policy, especially an economic and trade policy, is a myth. Just like the ruling elites of the developing countries who have a stranglehold and a monopoly over domestic politics; similarly the neo-colonial powers and their multinational corporations control the international politics and the global economic order. Any state who dares to transgress becomes an international pariah like Castro’s Cuba, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or North Korea; and more recently Iran, which has been cut off from the global economic system, because of its supposed nuclear aspirations. Good for Iran that it has one of the largest oil and gas resources, otherwise it would have been insolvent by now; such is the power of global financial system especially the banking sector, and the significance of petro-dollar because the global oil transactions are pegged in the US dollars all over the world, and all the major oil bourses are also located in the Western world.

There are countless such examples, which the so-called ‘objective and very credible’ Western corporate media, which by the way has the same business interests as their shareholders and members of the board of directors, omits to report in its daily dose of infotainment and arranged side shows like the so-called war on terror, which is ironically spawning more terrorists than it eliminates. What was the level of threat prior to the World Trade Center tragedy back in 2001 and what is the level of threat and the number of such terror groups now, 13 years later? It may not bother the Western audience or their policy-makers because only two such major terror incidents took place in the Western world after the WTC tragedy: the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the July 2005 London bombings. While the suicide bombings and the improvised explosive device bombings is an everyday routine now in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, etc. as a direct outcome of the myopic and militaristic war on terror policy.

Regardless, there are countless such instances of corporate manipulation of the developing countries’ governmental decisions and policies in the remote corners of the world which the corporate media elides over, and if it didn’t get mentioned in the mainstream media the incident never took place, because the mass media is the organ of sense-perception of the public: the proverbial eyes and ears, whose malfunction generates a distorted picture of objective reality; the victim-blaming syndrome, the hallmark of the neo-liberals, being the most prevalent epidemic.

Last year (or the year before last) the Maliki Administration offered some oil and gas exploration and production contracts, but those were fixed-fee contracts which are more beneficial to the states where such resources are located, and not the far more lucrative production-sharing contracts which the Big Oil prefers. Here the reader must keep in mind that Iraq has the Persian Gulf’s third largest ‘proven’ oil reserves of 140 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia’s 265 and Iran’s 150 billion barrels (while UAE and Kuwait have 100 billion barrels each.) The Western Big Oil didn’t pay much heed to the contracts and those were won by the Russian, Chinese and Indian companies, although the Big Oil does operates numerous oil fields in Southern Iraq, in and around Basra.

However, after that show of ‘audacity’ by the Maliki government the Big Oil and its collaborators in the Western governments and the corporate media put pro-Iran Maliki’s name in their bad books. The Big Oil including Exxon, Chevron, BP and Total won their production-sharing contracts in the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan (‘semi’ here is a meaningless adjective because for all practical purposes the pro-US Barzani’s Kurdistan is fully independent of the Iraqi control.) There is so much oil in the Iraqi Kurdistan and the extraction cost per barrel is so minimal that a petro-poet once wrote an ode about it: that the sweet crude seeps through the mountains in brooks and streams and gathers in pools in the low-lying valleys. On top of it, thanks to the US-sponsored Kurdish Peshmerga militia since the 90s, Iraqi Kurdistan is far more stable than the rest of Iraq, and the windfalls for the Big Oil are enormous.

Although, constitutionally the Iraqi central government is entitled to 83% of the oil sales proceeds and Kurdistan can only retain 17% (of total Iraqi oil sales including from Southern Iraq) but when the head-honcho is on your side, the laws can be bent to suit the interests of the Corporate Empire. Throughout the last year, Iraqi Kurdistan kept exporting its oil directly to the Turkish port of Ceyhan through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline and another pipeline, which will further reduce its dependence on the central government in the midstream oil sector, is in the offing.

This, then explains the reason why the US didn’t get even slightly perturbed when its ally in the Syrian Jihad: the Islamic State (ISIS) overran half of Iraq and threatened Baghdad. Well, you know, that’s too bad, shouldn’t have happened; send some advisors, a few surveillance drones and some choppers if you can spare some. But sir! ISIS, that fanatical bunch of lunatic terrorists, have overrun Saddam’s chemical weapons storage site: the al Muthanna complex [3], where in one of its underground bunkers some 2500 Sarin-filled rockets are stored? Oh! That’s too bad, shouldn’t have happened, but you know what? Those are very old rusty rockets; besides, ISIS didn’t gain access to the bunker yet, and I have a hunch that even if those boorish ISIS guys found those WMDs they don’t have the technical know-how to use them. [But sir! Your predecessor invaded Iraq in 2003 on the WMD pretext and you yourself were about to bomb Syria back in August last year on the same pretext?]

Moving on… Mr. President! The Iraqi ambassador to the UN has stated that ISIS has acquired 40 kgs of uranium compounds [4] from the Mosul University? Oh! that’s too bad, troubles come in battalions, but you know what? It’s not like those rag-tag ISIS guys have centrifuges operating in Raqqa (Syria) where they could enrich uranium to the weapons’ grade, so calm down and go get some coffee, you look pale. [But sir! What about that ‘dirty bomb’ hysteria back in the ‘Anthrax-Bentonite days’ [4-a] when we were looking for a pretext to invade Saddam’s Iraq; and what are these ‘nuclear negotiations’ with Iran supposed to accomplish?]

Moving on… Mr. President! It appears that ISIS may have set its eyes on Irbil where the evacuees from the US embassy in Baghdad have taken refuge in its US consulate and where we also have a secret CIA station [5] which is in the process of being further expanded and which is also the hub of Big Oil’s Northern Iraq operations; and who knows ISIS might make an attempt on the oil-rich Kirkuk governorate which the Kurds seized from the control of central Iraqi government when ISIS captured Mosul. Bang! There you go! Finally the laser-guided missiles and Hell-fires targeting ISIS’ positions: the formidable ‘frenemy’ with which the US has a love-hate relationship; after all it ‘liberated’ the whole of north-east Syria from the anti-US Assad regime’s control in Syria; but some lines must never be crossed no matter what; and those my friends, are the lines of the Corporate Empire’s trade and energy interests spanning the world but especially in the Persian Gulf, whose littoral states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran) together hold 800 billion barrels [6] of world’s total of 1500 billion barrels of ‘proven’ oil reserves; and where 35,000 US Marines [7] are presently stationed in its air-craft carriers and in the leased military bases in Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Djibouti and Kurdish Iraq. [Let Emir Baghdadi make another move towards Don Barzani’s oil-rich enclave and the Tomahawks of the Libyan ‘humanitarian intervention-fame’ would obliterate ISIS from the face of the planet.]

Here let me confess that I am totally unaware of the relationship between the US and ISIS; I have no credible evidence which I can reproduce here to establish the fact that US supported ISIS in its Jihad against the Alawite Syrian regime. Presenting direct evidence: the eye witness accounts, is the job of the reporters; and only the mainstream media organizations have the kind of resources necessary to hire reporters and to send them to the war-zones. On the Web 2.0 and on the alternative news websites, the reader should only expect to find opinion-pieces; and those opinion-pieces, in turn, are only built upon the evidence as presented to us by the news agencies: like AP, AFP and Reuters. If those agencies deliberately try to hide facts and distort evidence then we must at least be willing to condone the rumor-mills of the conspiracy theorists.

The US may or may not have directly supported ISIS in its Jihad against the Assad regime; but the agenda of the US and ISIS converged on a single goal: the ouster of the anti-US and anti-Israel, and pro-Russia and pro-Iran Assad regime which is also a backer of Hezbollah militia in Lebanon which is an existential threat to Israel. If the US didn’t support ISIS, who did it support in Syria then? The Assad regime, obviously not. Perhaps, the Free Syria Army (FSA?) But that entity does not exists in Syria on the ground; name a single battle in which we hear the name FSA; or a single Syrian town which is under the effective control of FSA or where the latter elusive organization has a visible presence?

Aleppo, in the north-west, is under the control of Ahrar ul Sham and Tawheed Brigade; in the south we have al Nusra Front and the Saudi-backed Islamic Front whose strength is numbered between 50 to 60,000 and which is a confederation of numerous Jihadi outfits including members of al Nusra which is endorsed by Ayman al Zawahiri as the official franchise of al Qaeda in Syria. And the northern and eastern Syria, as we already know, is under the control of the Islamic State. In what way, the aforementioned Jihadi groups: Ahrar-ul-Sham, Tawheed Brigade and Islamic Font are different from ISIS? These are the names of the most frequently mentioned Jihadi groups operating in Syria even in the corporate media news. If the US does not supports ISIS then which of these groups does the US government supports? Well you know, the US government supports the ‘moderate rebels.’ But what are the names, identities and more importantly the achievements of those so-called ‘moderate Syrian Mujahideen?’ [Note: Turkish border regions are used as staging areas by the NATO-GCC alliance to train and arm the Syrian Mujahideen on the north-western front, around Aleppo. While the Southern front of the Syrian war has its secret headquarter [8] in Amman, Jordan. And the north-eastern front, where ISIS operates, is too opaque even for a wild guess.]

The US’ collusion and conflicted relationship with the Islamic Jihadis in Syria and also in Libya in 2011, isn’t the only instance of its kind. It always leaves such pernicious relationships ‘deliberately ambiguous’ in order to fill the gaps in its self-serving diplomacy and hypocritical brand of politics. Throughout the 80s during the Cold War, it used them as proxies in its fight against the Soviets. The Cold War was a war between the Global Capitalist bloc and the Global Communist bloc for the global domination. The Communists used their proxies the Vietcongs to liberate Vietnam from the imperialist hegemony. The Global Capitalist bloc had no answer to the cleverly executed asymmetric warfare. The Communist bloc had a moral advantage over the Capitalist bloc: the mass appeal of the egalitarian and revolutionary Marxist and Maoist ideology. Using their “Working men and women of all the nations, unite!” rhetoric, the Communists could instigate an uprising anywhere in the world; but how would the Capitalists retaliate, through the ‘trickle-down effect’ and the American way of life rhetoric? The Western policy-makers faced quite a dilemma, but then their Machiavellian strategists, capitalizing on the regional grassroots religious sentiment, came up with an equally robust antidote: the Islamic Jihad.

I have discussed the unholy nexus between the monopoly-capitalists of the Western World and the Wahabi-Salafis of the Gulf petro-monarchies in my blog-post: Cold War and the Genesis of Terrorism [9].

Here is an excerpt:

 In this war (Afghan-Soviet war from 1979 to 1988) between the Global Capitalism and the Global Marxism; Saudi Arabia and the Gulf petro-monarchies took the side of the former; because the USSR and the Central Asian states produce more energy and consume less of it; thus they are net exporters of energy; while the Global Capitalist bloc is a net importer of energy. It suits the economic interests of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to maintain and strengthen a supplier-consumer relationship with the Capitalist bloc. Now the BRICS are equally hungry for the middle eastern energy but it’s a recent development; during the Cold War an alliance with the Western countries suited the material interests of GCC. Hence, the Communists were pronounced as Kafirs (heretics) and the Western capitalist bloc as Ahl-e-Kitaab (People of the Book) by the Salafi preachers of the GCC.

All the celebrity-terrorists whose names we now hear in the media every day were the products of the Soviet-Afghan war: like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, the Haqqanis, the Taliban, the Hekmatyars, and even the Northern Alliance. But that war wasn’t limited only to Afghanistan; the NATO-GCC alliance of yore financed, trained and armed the Islamic Jihadis all over the region; we hear the names of Jihadis operating in the regions as far afield as Uzbekistan and North Caucasus. In his 1998 interview, the National Security Adviser to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the President signed the directive for secret aid to the Afghan Mujahideen in July 1979 while the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview [10]

Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic Jihadis, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Despite the crass insensitivity, you got to give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the guts to speak the unembellished truth. The hypocritical Obama-Kerry duo, on the other hand, say one thing in public and do the opposite on ground. However, keep in mind that the interview was recorded in 1998. After the WTC tragedy in 2001, no US policy-maker can now call a spade a spade. But actions speak louder than words. After the WTC tragedy, the Western powers made a volte-face from being pro-Jihad to anti-Jihad. On the new anti-Jihad pretext, they invaded Iraq in 2003; and the fact that Iraq holds one of the largest oil reserves, and also had an anti-US Saddam government, is beside the point. However, in 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Western powers once again made a volte-face from being anti-Jihad to pro-Jihad in Libya and Syria; and the fact that Libya has 48 billion barrels of ‘proven’ oil reserves, and an anti-US Qaddafi government, is once again irrelevant.

All these wars and recent conflicts aside, the unholy alliance between the Anglo-American policy-makers and the Wahabi-Salafis of the Gulf petro-monarchies is much older. The Brits stirred up trouble in Arabia by instigating the Sharifs of Mecca to rebel against the Ottoman rule during the First World War. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British Empire backed King Abdul Aziz (Ibn-e-Saud) in his struggle against the Sharifs of Mecca; because the latter were demanding too much of a price for their loyalty: the unification of whole of Arabia under their suzerainty. King Abdul Aziz defeated the Sharifs and united his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 with the support of the British. However, by then the tide of British Imperialism was subsiding; the Americans inherited the former possessions and the rights and liabilities of the British Empire.

During the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt held a meeting with King Abdul Aziz at Great Bitter Lake in the Suez canal, and laid the foundations of an enduring Anglo-Wahabi friendship which persists to this day, despite many ebbs and flows; and some testing times especially in the wake of 9/11 tragedy when 15 out of 19 hijackers of the 9/11 plot turned out to be Saudi citizens. But hey guys! When you are head-over-heels in love with somebody, you don’t find ‘minor’ faults in the object of your love. If you naively suggest that the US should turn against its most steadfast ally in the region which also produces 10 million barrels per day of oil (15% of the global total) over some ‘stirred up Moslems’ you must be an al Qaeda collaborator; those al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) lunatics are also ‘jealous’ of this mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship.

Puns aside, in that Great Bitter Lake meeting, among other things it was decided to set up the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) to Saudi Arabia to ‘train, advise and assist’ [11] the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. Aside from USMTM, the US’ Vinnell Corporation, which is a private military company based in the US and a subsidiary of the Northrop Grumman, used over a thousand Vietnam war veterans to train and equip the 125,000 strong Saudi Arabian National Guards (SANG) which is not under the control of Saudi Ministry of Defense and acts as the Praetorian Guards of the House of Saud. The relationship which existed between ARAMCO and the House of Saud is no secret. Moreover, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Force, whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, is also being trained and equipped by the US to guard the critical Saudi oil infrastructure along its eastern Persian Gulf coast where 90% Saudi oil reserves are located. Furthermore, the US has several air-bases and missile defense systems operating in the Persian Gulf monarchies and also a naval base in Bahrain.

The point I am trying to make is: that left to their own resources, the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies lack the manpower, the military technology and the moral authority to rule over the forcefully-suppressed and disenfranchised Arab masses; not only the Arab masses but also the South Asian and African immigrants. One-thirds of Saudi Arabian population is comprised of immigrants; 75% of the UAE’s population is also immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka; all the other Gulf monarchies also have a similar proportion of the immigrants; unlike the immigrants in the Western countries who hold the citizenship status, the Gulf immigrants have lived there for decades and sometimes for generations, and still they are regarded as unentitled ‘foreigners?’ If the elections are held today, based on the principle of universal suffrage, some Pakistani or Indian could become a prime minister of UAE, Qatar or Kuwait.

Ben Ali, Mubarak, Saleh and Qaddafi took a few months to fall; but without the Western support, the tin-pot Arab despots of the Gulf monarchies will fall like dominoes within days. The head-honcho of the Gulfies, Saudi Arabia, sent its own forces to save the Bahraini regime from falling. And what did the US do? Oh! You know, too bad, shouldn’t have happened, we totally condemn this gross violation. A pathetic complacency bordering on active complicity. The UAE emirates have hired the services of Xe Corporation, Academi (formerly Blackwater) and the Colombian mercenaries to protect the ruling faction from their Arab and non-Arab masses.

However, why do the neo-colonial powers support the Gulf monarchies; knowing fully well that they are the ones responsible for nurturing the Takfiri-Jihadi ideology all over the Islamic world; does that not runs counter to their professed goal of eliminating Islamic terrorism? When you ask this question, you get two very different and mutually contradictory responses, depending on who you are talking to. If you ask this question from a Western policy-maker that why do you support the Gulf despots? He replies that it’s because we have vital strategic interests in the Middle East and North Africa region; by which he means abundant oil and natural gas reserves, and also the fact that the Arab Sheikhs have made substantial investments in the Western financial institutions. Thus the policy-makers’ defense is predicated on the grounds of their self-interest. But when you ask a slightly different question from their constituents: that what is the Western policy in the Middle East region? The constituents’ response is quite the opposite: he doesn’t thinks that the neo-colonial powers control the Middle East, or the world in general, for their trade and energy interests; he thinks that their intentions are more altruistic than selfish. He mistakenly believes in the concepts of humanitarian and liberal interventionism and the responsibility to protect.

Coming back to the question, why do the neo-colonial powers prop up the Middle Eastern dictators; and is it possible that in some future point in time they will withdraw their support? Not likely, at least not in the foreseeable future. The neo-colonial powers are so addicted to the scent of the black gold that they would rather fight the Arab tyrants’ wars for them against their regional rivals. Presently, there are two regional powers vying for dominance in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syrian Jihad is basically a Sunni Jihad against the Shia Resistance axis. The Shia axis is comprised of Iran and Syria, latter has an Alawi (Shia) regime, even though the majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslims and the Alawis only constitute 12% of the population. Lebanon-based Hezbollah (Shia) is also an integral part of the Shia Resistance axis. And recently the Maliki government in Iraq, which also has a Shia majority, has also formed a tenuous alliance with Iran.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has long-standing grievances against Iran’s meddling in the Middle Eastern affairs, especially the latter’s support to the Palestinian cause, the Houthis in Yemen, the Bahraini Shias and more importantly the significant and restive Shia minority in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia where 90% of Saudi oil reserves are located along the Persian Gulf coast. On top of that Saudi Arabia also has grievances against the US for toppling the Sunni Saddam regime in Iraq in 2003 which formed a bulwark against the Khomeini influence in the Middle East because of Saddam’s military prowess. In the wake of political movements for enfranchisement during the Arab Spring of 2011, Saudi Arabia took advantage of the opportunity and militarized the political movement in Syria with the help of its Sunni allies: the Gulf monarchies of Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Jordan and Turkey (all Sunnis).

However, why did the Western powers preferred to join this Sunni alliance against the Shia Resistance axis? It’s because the Assad regime has a history of animosity towards the West; it also had close relationship with the erstwhile Soviet Union and it hosted a Russian naval facility at Tartus; its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah is the biggest threat to Israel’s regional security. On the other hand, all the aforementioned Sunni states have always been the steadfast allies of the West along with Israel; don’t get misled [12] by what they say in public, all the Sunni states along with the Western support are in the same boat in the Syrian Jihad as Israel.

Hypothetically speaking, had the Western powers not joined the ignoble Syrian Jihad which has claimed 170,000 lives so far, what could have been an appropriate course of action to coerce the Gulf monarchies, not to engage in fomenting trouble in Syria? This is a question of will, if there is will there are always numerous ways to deal with a problem. However, after what has happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria only a consumer of corporate media will prescribe a Western military intervention anywhere in the world. But if military intervention is off the table, is there a viable alternative to enforce justice and to coerce the states to follow the moral principles? Yes there is.

The crippling economic sanctions on Iran in the last two years may not have accomplished much, but they brought to the fore the enormous power which the Western financial institutions and the petro-dollar as a global reserve currency wields over the global financial system. We must bear in mind that the Iranian nuclear negotiations are less about Iran’s nuclear program and more about its ballistic missile program, which is a far bigger threat to the Gulf monarchies across the Persian Gulf. Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in the negotiations throughout the last two years, and the Iranian electorate voted the hardliner Ahmedinejad out and the reformist Hassan Rouhani won the last year’s elections. Such was the crippling effect of the sanctions that, had it not been for Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly buying Iranian oil, it would have defaulted by now.

All I am trying to suggest is, that there are ways to arm-twist the Gulf monarchies to implement democratic reforms and to refrain from sponsoring the Takfiri-Jihadi terror groups all over the Islamic world, provided that we have just and upright international arbiters. However, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 150 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. On the other hand, the Persian Gulf monarchies are actually three oil-rich states: Saudi Arabia 265 billion barrels; and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels each; together this amounts to 465 billion barrels, almost one-thirds of the global proven oil reserves; and if we add Qatar to the equation, which isn’t oil-rich, but has substantial natural gas reserves, it must take a morally very very upright arbiter to sanction all of them.

Recently, some very upbeat rumors about the Shale Revolution are circulating the mainstream corporate media. However, the Shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution: it has increased the ‘probable-recoverable’ resources of natural gas by 30%. The ‘shale oil’ on the other hand, refers to two very different kinds of energy resource: one, the solid kerogen, substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US’ Green River formations, but the cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically unviable for at least another 100 years; two, the tight oil which is blocked by the shale, it is a viable energy resource, but the reserves are so limited, around 4 billion barrels [13] in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.

The Canadian oil sands and the Venezuelan heavy crude, environmentally polluting as they are, are economically viable; but compared to the Middle Eastern Arab crude, about which Pepe Escobar famously quipped during the Libyan ‘humanitarian’ intervention: Sweet Crude O’mine, is a class apart. More than the size of the reserves it is also about the per barrel extraction cost, which determines the profits of the oil companies. Moreover, the US produced 11 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014; more than Saudi Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd; but the US still imported 7.5 million bpd, more than the oil imports of France and Britain put together. More than the volume of oil production, the volume which an oil-producing country ‘exports,’ determines its place in the ‘hierarchy of petroleum.’ And the Gulf monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.

Enough petro-chemistry for today, let us move back to politics. It is generally believed that political Islam is the precursor of Islamic extremism and Jihadism; however there are two distinct and separate types of political Islam: the despotic political Islam of the Gulf variety; and the democratic political Islam of the Turkish and the Muslim Brotherhood variety. The latter organization never ruled Egypt except for a brief one year stint, it would be unwise to draw any lessons from such a brief period of history. The Turkish variety of political Islam, the oft-quoted ‘Turkish model,’ is worth emulating all over the Islamic world. I understand that political Islam in all its forms and manifestations is an anathema to the liberals, but it is the ground reality of the Islamic world. The liberal dictatorships, no matter how benevolent they may be, have never worked in the past, and they will meet the same fate even in the future.

The mainspring of Islamic extremism and militancy isn’t the democratic political Islam, because why would people turn to violence when they can exercise their choice to vote their rulers in and also to vote them out? The mainspring of Islamic militancy is the despotic political Islam of the Gulf variety. The Western powers, omniscient as they are, are fully aware of this fact; then why do they choose to support the same forces, when their ostensible and professed goal is to eliminate extremism and militancy? It is because, since the time immemorial, it has been a firm policy-principle of the Western powers to promote ‘stability’ in the Middle East rather than democracy or representation. They are fully cognizant of the reality that the mainstream Muslim sentiment is firmly against the US intervention in the Middle Eastern affairs, especially after the end of Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the US after defeating a staunch rival turned its guns against the Muslim world in order to further exploit their energy resources. Additionally, the US policy-makers also prefer to deal with small groups of Middle Eastern ‘strongmen’ rather than cultivating a complex and uncertain relationship on a popular level: certainly a myopic approach which is the hallmark of the so-called ‘pragmatic’ strategists.

Sources and links:

[1] http://www.dawn.com/news/1029713

[2] http://naumansq.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-role-of-saudi-caliphate-in.html

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28222879

[4] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/us-iraq-security-nuclear-idUSKBN0FE2KT20140709

[4-a] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

[5] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/07/11/233126/expansion-of-secret-facility-in.html?sp=/99/117/

[6] http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/data_graphs/330.htm

[7] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/07/us-usa-hagel-dialogue-idUSBRE9B602920131207

[8] http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/syrian-rebels-get-arms-and-advice-through-secret-command-centre-in-amman

[9] http://naumansq.blogspot.com/2014/07/cold-war-and-genesis-of-terrorism.html

[10] http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USMTM

[12] http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-arabia-behind-effort-disarm-palestinian-resistance

[13] http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9753

The post Western Complicity In Nurturing Islamic Extremism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Egyptian authorities refused to allow Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth and Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson to enter Egypt on August 10, 2014. Roth and Whitson were to brief diplomats and journalists in Cairo on a 188-page Human Rights Watch report on the mass killings in Egypt in July and August 2013.

When Roth and Whitson arrived at Cairo International Airport, authorities refused to allow them into the country without giving an explanation for the decision. This is the first time that Egyptian authorities have denied Human Rights Watch staff members entry to the country, including during the Mubarak government.

“We came to Egypt to release a serious report on a serious subject that deserves serious attention from the Egyptian government,” Roth said. “Instead of denying the messenger entry to Egypt, the Egyptian authorities should seriously consider our conclusions and recommendations and respond with constructive action.”

The report, “All According to Plan: The Rab`a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt,” documents how Egyptian police and army methodically opened fire with live ammunition on crowds of demonstrators opposed to the military’s July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsy at six demonstrations in July and August 2013, killing at least 1,150 people, and how no one has been held to account one year later. Human Rights Watch conducted a year-long investigation into the killings, including interviews with over 200 witnesses, visits to each of the protest sites, and review of video footage, physical evidence, and statements by public officials.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Egypt’s Interior Ministry, Office of the Public Prosecutor, Defense Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Embassy in Washington, DC, and Mission in New York on June 12 soliciting the Egyptian government’s perspectives on the issues covered in the report. Human Rights Watch sent follow-up letters on July 8 asking to meet with officials during the planned August visit to Egypt. Copies of the report were sent to the same officials on August 6. Human Rights Watch did not receive substantive responses to any of its queries.

“We had already shared our report on last year’s mass unlawful killings in Cairo with senior Egyptian officials and were hoping to have meetings with them to discuss our findings and recommendations,” Roth said. “However, it appears the Egyptian government has no appetite to face up to the reality of these abuses, let alone hold those responsible to account.”

Human Rights Watch closed its office in Cairo in February because of concerns about the deteriorating security and political environment in the country. Authorities have imposed extensive restrictions on civil society organizations over the past year. A new draft law on nongovernmental organizations would effectively give the government and security agencies veto power over all activities of associations in Egypt. Local groups in a joint statement have described the measure as a “declaration of war by the government on freedom of association and the work of civil society organizations in Egypt.”

The Human Rights Watch report, “All According to Plan: The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt,” will be released on schedule at 08:01 a.m. GMT, 11:01 a.m. Cairo time on August 12.

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Pakistan has reached a remarkable milestone in scientific research by becoming an associate member of the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN). Pakistan is the first Asian country to became an associate member.

Geneva-based CERN is the world’s leading physics research centre and was founded in 1953 by twelve European nations. It leads the world in areas like particle and energy physics and also invented the  World Wide Web, besides several other discoveries to its credit. Pakistani physicists have remained actively engaged with CERN for a long time. However, the associate membership is particularly an outcome of an initiative taken in 2011 that ultimately led to being named as an Associate Member.

Over the past decades Pakistani scientists have contributed to the research at CERN. Nobel Laureate Dr Abdus Salam did some pioneering work at the Council. Later, over 30 Pakistani scientists were involved in the discovery of the Higgs Boson, also nicknamed as the “God particle,” which is seen as fundamental to the creation of the universe  and has been the subject of an intense scientific hunt. Dr Abdus Salam predicted the existence of the Higgs-boson particle in 1970s. It was for this body of work that Salam, along with Weinberg and Glashow, were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1979.

Pak-CERN cooperation was formally started in 1994, with the signing of a mutual cooperation agreement. This struggle for the membership was swiftly proceeded after the 2011 visit of former DG Strategic Plans Division Khalid Ahmed Kidwai at CMS control centre of CERN in Meyrin. After this visit Pakistan formally applied for Associate Membership in February 2013.  Pakistan National Centre for Physics has been collaborating with CERN since 2000 and the Heavy Mechanical Complex has been producing products on demand.

Pakistani scientists have always played a part in particle physics and it was strongly felt that a high international standard research platform i.e. CERN was needed for the scientists of Pakistan. This collaboration of Pakistan with CERN emphasizes the significance of scientific research and higher education for economic and technological development in Pakistan.  With the Associate Membership, Pakistan will also get a student quota of around fifteen students.

There are several other spinoffs related to CERN, such as development in the field of science and technology that will contribute in many other areas such as medicine, homeland security, industry, simulation of cancer treatments, reliability testing of nuclear weapons, food sterilization, nuclear waste transmutation, and scanning of shipping containers are by-products of physics research. It would also help in technology transfer in key areas of radiofrequency (RF) technology, ion beam optics, and cryogenics.

Associate Membership also means that Pakistan will contribute in CERN projects and it can give a fillip to Pakistani industry and other entities that can apply on a preferential basis for any tenders. This also means that if few scientists and institutions can achieve such laurels for the country, others can do that too. Achievements of Pakistan’s proud scientists in the indigenous production of a nuclear capability have deterred India in spite of the best efforts of the world to prevent it. We could excel in many other things. Energy is quintessential for growth and the PAEC is efficiently executing the Energy Security Plan – 2050 that will add another 44000 MWe to the energy mix. Let’s continue to repeat the CERN moment.

The post Significance Of Pakistan Being Named CERN Associate Member – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Vijay Shankar

Hobbes underscored the need to establish an aura of awe and visible power in order that men do not degenerate to their natural anarchic passions. He said, “And covenants without the sword are but words and are of no strength to secure a man at all.” Yet, India forges a nuclear ‘Sword’ whose utility lies in its non-use. However, intrinsic to the logic is a three-fold endowment – the Sword’s unprecedented destructive promise, its influence, and its ability to deter conflict beyond the conventional.

Evolution of a Nuclear Doctrine

India’s nuclear programme was driven by a techno-politico-bureaucratic nexus to the exclusion of the military. Whether this strategic orientation was by default or a deep-seated trepidation of the military is not germane; what it did was to create a muddled approach to the process of operationalising the deterrent. But to its acclaim go the separation of the nuclear from the conventional and distinction between the Controller of nuclear weapons and its Custodian.

Discerning that nuclear multilateralism introduces dynamics that are vastly dissimilar to the two-state confrontation of the past; exceptional faith was placed on a calculus where intentions rather than capability alone, weighed in with greater sway. Convinced that the use of nuclear weapons sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of mass destruction, response-proportionality and controlled escalation were rejected.

India’s nuclear doctrine is rooted in three principles: no first use (NFU); massive retaliation to a first strike; and credible deterrence. There was a fourth unwritten faith; nuclear weapons would not be conventionalised, a principle that remained divorced from the belief that a nuclear war could be fought and won. The nuclear doctrine was made public on 04 January 2003. The first part deals with ‘form’; nuclear war avoidance is the leit motif and NFU the canon. The logic of self-preservation demanded the arsenal be credible and response-ready. The second part of the doctrine deals with ‘substance’, operationalising the deterrent and command and control are the main themes.

China: Proliferation Policy

China beginning in the 1970s promoted an aggressive policy of transfer of nuclear weapon technology and missiles to reprobate States using North Korea as a clearing house. The policy has been continued unrelentingly. Reasons for such profligate leanings are a matter of conjecture. They may have originally reflected balance of power logic. However, proliferation in the Islamic world has implications that are sinister particularly since AQ Khan made known that nuclear chastity is a fable. Radical Islam perceives nuclear weapons as a means to destroy an order that has wilfully kept the Ummah under subjugation. In this frame of reference the singling out of the US, India and Israel for retribution attains new meaning. It also gives to China a heft up the power ladder.

The Unhinged Tri-Polar Deterrent Relationship

A deterrent relationship is founded on rationality. For the ‘deterree’ there is rationality in the conviction of disproportionate risks; and for the deterrer rationality in confirming the reality of risks. The exceptional feature is that roles are reversible provided the common interest is stability.

Unique to the deterrent relationship in the region is the tri-polar nature of linkages and an abiding symptom is Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. Conceived, designed and tested by Beijing, the programme has also rapidly created the means to stockpile fissile material. Under these circumstances any scheme to stabilise the situation must first address the duality of the Sino-Pak programme. Persistent collaboration and a breakneck build-up of nuclear infrastructure suggests doctrinal co-relation which any deterrent relationship overlooks at its peril.

Making Sense of Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy: The Nuclear Nightmare

The opacity of Pakistan’s strategic nuclear underpinnings, descent to tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) and duplicity of policies has made it prickly for India to either understand nuclear thinking in Islamabad or to find coherence in the mania for parity, the rush for fissile material, and the loosening of controls over nuclear weapons. More puzzling is the strategic notion that the conventional imbalance between the two countries may be offset by “either an assured second-strike capability or, a hair-trigger-arsenal” and as Feroz Khan’s bizarre argument goes, “TNWs provide another layer of deterrence designed to apply brakes on India’s conventional superiority” (ala NATO’s discredited formulation). On a perplexing note Khan concludes that likelihood of inadvertence is high, tenability of central control low, and the probability of Indian pre-emptive conventional attack a near certainty.

No scrutiny of the sub-continental situation can avoid looking at the internals of Pakistan. The country today is in perilous pass caused by the Establishment nurturing terrorist organisations as instruments of their misshapen policies. Pakistan’s radical links makes the status-quo unacceptable for the nuclear nightmare as a hair trigger, opaque deterrent embracing tactical use under military control steered by an ambiguous doctrine and guided by a military strategy that finds unity with terrorists is upon us.

The unbiased examiner is left bewildered that if imbalance in the power equation with India is so substantial and internals so anaemic, then why does Pakistan not seek rapprochement as a priority for policies?

Conclusion

In declaring her nuclear doctrine, India struck a covenant not just with her own citizens but with the global community. At its core was the renunciation of the first use of nuclear weapons. On the face of it such a disavowal defied conventional wisdom. To deliberately temper a sword and then to abjure its first use would appear to contradict sovereign morality, after all if the first duty of the State is to protect its citizens, then to open itself to the first strike would be a failing. And yet if there is belief in the changed nature of warfare that nuclear weapons have ushered, then humanity’s moral weight would be on the side of the covenant sans sword. Fatefully, till that moral weight finds strategic expression, it is the destructive promise of the NFU policy backed by pre-emptive conventional capabilities that will rein in a nuclear misadventure.

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

The post India’s Nuclear Doctrine: A Covenant Sans Sword – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Michael Lombardi

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) surprised even the most optimistic of economists when it reported the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of four percent in the second quarter of 2014.

On the surface, the number—four percent growth—sounds great. But how serious should we take that gross domestic product (GDP) figure?

Firstly, I’d like to start by pointing out that the BEA often revises its GDP numbers down. We saw this happen in the first quarter. First, we saw the BEA say the U.S. economy grew by 0.1% in the first quarter, then after a couple of revisions, they said the economy actually contracted 2.9% in the quarter.

I obviously expect the BEA to lower its initial second-quarter GDP numbers again.

But here’s what really worries me…

If the GDP data suggests the U.S. economy is growing, why are investors pricing in an economic slowdown?

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

The chart is of the 10-year U.S. Treasury, the so-called safe haven. Back in 2007 to 2009, investors ran to U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven. As the U.S. economy improved, the yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury started to rise as interest rates rose with general optimism towards the economy.

But since the beginning of this year, yields on the 10-year U.S. notes yields have declined 18%. This is despite the fact the biggest buyer of these bonds, the Federal Reserve, has stepped away from buying these Treasuries as its quantitative easing program comes to an end.

At the same time, we have the stock market finally starting to give in. So if the stock market is a leading indicator, and it is down four percent this year (measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average), and the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries reflects a slowing economy, not a growing one, how could we have GDP growth of four percent? Doesn’t sound right to me.

The U.S. economy is getting softer here in 2014, not stronger.

This article If the Economy Is Improving, Why Are Investors Pricing in a Slowdown? was originally posted at Profit Confidential

The post If Economy Is Improving, Why Are Investors Pricing In Slowdown? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Debalina Ghoshal

The nuclear deal under the Joint Action Plan of November 2013 between the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany) and Iran was arranged in order to limit Tehran’s chances of getting close to developing a nuclear weapon. As the deal was successfully struck, with Iran agreeing not to enrich uranium for the development of weapons, this has increased Russian President Vladmir Putin’s concerns regarding the necessity of the US-NATO missile defence shield in Europe. Ever since the missile defence shield, that is the ground based interceptors of the Bush administration, was set to be deployed in Europe, Russians have opposed the system, arguing that such a defensive system would negate Moscow’s nuclear deterrent.

Amidst the development of the missile defence shield in Europe, the United States and NATO have constantly made an effort to assure Moscow that the missile defence shield was meant to negate an Iranian nuclear threat and its growing ballistic missile capabilities, not to negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent. However, the Russians have always argued that Iranian and North Korean missiles are least likely to enter the European airspace and hence, the GMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense) was being fielded to “emplace U.S radar in eastern Europe to monitor Russian missile sites and naval operations.”

Russia has time and again demanded a legally binding agreement with the United States that the missile defence system is not aimed at negating Russia’s nuclear deterrent. In fact, Vladmir Putin has stated, “missile defence systems (in Europe) are defensive only in name” and they are a “significant component of a strategic offensive potential”. He goes on to state that the missile shield is an attempt by the United States to “create a new stage of American superiority in Europe” and also to “neutralize” Russian nuclear potential. Coupled with the missile defence shield is the United States’ policy of pre-emptive strike, which could further undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. In fact, in a Federal Assembly meeting, Putin addressed the issue of the “disarming nuclear strike concept” held by United States.

However, according to May 2014 reports, the United States has refused to enter into any agreement which would legally bind its missile defence capability. Moreover, Russian intervention into the Crimea has further aggravated the scope of any talks regarding the US missile defence system in Europe.

The United States on the other hand, had firmly stated that it would continue with its missile defence program despite the nuclear deal. Under the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), the United States is deploying a missile defence shield in Europe which would include both land and sea based defence systems. This would require the United States to field its missile defence systems even in Eastern European states like Poland and the Czech Republic.

The shipboard SM-3 missile interceptors in the eastern Mediterranean Sea under Phase 1 of the EPAA presently provide NATO and the United States the capability to defend against the present Iranian missile threats. By 2015 it is expected that the United States will field the SM-3 interceptors in Poland, and in Romania by 2018, thereby allowing the interception of long range ballistic missiles from Iran. Amidst the nuclear deal with Iran, the US deployment of a warship in Rota, Spain with the Aegis integrated combat weapon systems under Phase 3 of the EPAA has also not been taken lightly by Moscow. However, the United States had already cancelled Phase 4 of the missile defence system which could intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

According to Moscow, the missile defence shield should be rendered useless now if Iran was the real threat to Washington. In this point, the Russian foreign minister stated, “if the agreement that has been reached is fully realized, if the Iranian nuclear problem is fully resolved, and if the Iranian nuclear program is placed under the complete and tight control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the reasons that are now given for the creation of the European segment of the missile defence system will become invalid.”However, this is not the case. Iranian ballistic missiles can be armed with conventional warheads and also with other capabilities of mass destruction. Moreover, with the cancellation of Phase 4 of the missile defence system, the threat of negating Russia’s nuclear deterrent remains limited since the system is designed to efficiently intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), a category of missiles not possessed by Russia due to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The Russian defense chief, however, assures that Russia possessed the capabilities to “react” to a US missile defence with “powerful, mobile and efficient systems.” Moscow has already planned to step up its defence procurements in order to maintain a strong military.

Over the years, Russia has also threatened to deploy its tactical nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in Kalingrad pointing towards Eastern European countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, which are to host the US missile defence systems and also share common borders with Kalingrad. In fact, US missile defence in Poland is within reach of Russian short range Iskander missiles which can be armed with nuclear warheads. This has been of serious concern for Poland and the Baltic States as Russia pledged in the 1990s to keep the Baltic States a nuclear weapons free zone.

Russia, which has time and time again reconsidered its stance on the INF Treaty, could eventually pull out of the treaty in order to develop sophisticated IRBMs which could nullify Washington’s missile defence. This could lead to an intermediate-range nuclear forces arms race. Hence, the United States, if it fails to assure the Russians that the missile defence is not meant for them, could prompt Russia’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Not only can Russia withdraw from the INF Treaty, but Moscow has also threatened to withdraw from the New START Treaty. In fact, the New START Treaty was regarded by Russia to be successful only when there is “no quantitative or qualitative build up” in US missile defence capabilities. Reports have also confirmed that Russia is developing a new medium-range ballistic missile.

What does the United States need to do?

The United States, on the other hand, has to continuously search for ways to make the Russians believe that missile defence in Europe is not directed towards them. In fact, for Russia, the deployment of the third phase of the missile defence system in Poland is a cause of great concern seeing that it clearly is not meant for threats from the Middle East.

The other option is to include Russia in the missile defence plan, which could be a Herculean task due to varied threat perceptions for both Russia and US.

Conclusion

Lastly, it must be noted that the United States is unlikely to be pressured to rethink its missile defence program in Europe not until the issue of Iranian ballistic missiles is solved.

Debalina Ghoshal is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi

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