By Morton Sklar, Founding Executive Director Emeritus World Organization for Human Rights USA

The decision issued this past week by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC) imposing life sentences on Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, two aging former leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s, represents an important step for assuring justice and accountability for those committing grave crimes against humanity.

But the sentencing of these two former Khmer Rouge leaders, while a positive accomplishment, should not mask the darker reality that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as whole has been a massive disappointment.

The Tribunal has fallen far short of carrying out its responsibility of effectively investigating and prosecuting all of those associated with the Khmer Rouge “killing fields,” in large part because it has allowed the Hun Sen government to call the shots, and to prevent the Tribunal from pursuing cases involving high level members of the current government who were significantly associated with the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

The Hun Sen government has done everything it could do to tie the hands of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and to prevent the full and complete investigation and prosecution of the Khmer Rouge crimes, motivated by the reality that a number of current high-level officials, including Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, are alleged to have been closely involved with the genocide.

Only three cases have been investigated and prosecuted in the more than ten years that the Tribunal has been in operation. Back on October 26, 2010, at a meeting between the Cambodian Prime Minister and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen personally warned the Secretary General that no further cases beyond the initial ones would be allowed to proceed. Given the dual (hybrid) nature of the Tribunal with both Cambodian and international judges and prosecutors, Hun Sen was able to back up his threat by forcing the Cambodian Tribunal officials to block additional prosecutions, and by exerting efforts to intimidate and threaten their international counterparts, forcing several of them to resign from the Court before their work could be completed.

The result is that the Tribunal still has not moved forward with any of the cases involving the most serious international crime of genocide, and over more than a decade has prosecuted only three of the many Khmer Rouge officials responsible for the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Pure and simple, Hun Sen has obstructed justice, and improperly interfered with the operations of an international court — crimes in and of their own right that involve efforts to cover-up and prevent prosecution of the genocide violations of the Khmer Rouge. He has ample reasons for engineering a cover-up, knowing too well that members of his government and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) had significant ties with the ruthless Khmer Rouge regime. But thus far he has gotten away with strong arm tactics designed to stop the Tribunal in its tracks because of the hybrid nature of the Tribunal. It is not a pure international court, like the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, operating independently of the government whose actions it is reviewing. Because of its hybrid nature, incorporating Cambodian personnel and operating in Cambodia itself, it’s effective functioning is beholden to a large degree on the Hun Sen Government’s approval and support.

That arrangement has proven highly problematical, given Hun Sen’s reluctance to allow light to be shined on the actions of his own colleagues. His Foreign Minister Hor Nomhong, for example, is accused by no less than King Norodom Shanouk, as well as a number of former Khmer Rouge prisoners, as having “commanded a Khmer Rouge concentration camp [Boeung Trabek, and being] responsible for the death and torture of many former members of the … resistance,” including three members of the Royal Family, by playing a major role in deciding which prisoners lived, and which died.

An official U.S. State Department cable was posted on the WikiLeaks website that adds some fuel to these allegations by suggesting that Hor Nomhong and his wife are accused of having “collaborated in the killing of many prisoners” at the camp. Hun Sen himself was a young lieutenant with the Khmer Rouge military at the time of the atrocities, and it has been alleged that as a battalion commander he played more than a minimal role in the mass arrests and executions taking place in his jurisdiction.

Two things need to be done to rescue the work of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal so that it can continue on an effective basis, by reaching beyond the three very limited cases that Hun Sen has thus far allowed them to consider.

First, the United Nations, the erstwhile partner with Cambodia for the Tribunal, needs to take a much stronger stand, demanding that additional investigations and prosecutions take place, including investigations of Hor Nomhong and other sitting officials of the Cambodian government. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has to make clear that interference by the Hun Sen government with the work of the Tribunal will not be tolerated, and will be treated as a crime in its own right, constituting an attempt to cover up the Khmer Rouge atrocities linked to the original genocide violations. A complaint along these lines was filed just a few months ago with the International Criminal Court (ICC) by several victims of the atrocities. If the Khmer Rouge Tribunal is not permitted to go forward with additional cases because of interference from Hun Sen, then the ICC should be encouraged to take jurisdiction of the Hun Sen government’s cover-up efforts, and treat them as obstruction of justice violations directly connected to the Khmer Rouge genocide violations.

Second, the experience of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal provides an important lesson about how the international criminal justice system operates that needs to inform how these courts are organized and carry out their functions in the future. The “hybrid” model that mixes international and national elements simply does not work effectively. The justification for adopting the hybrid model instead of the “pure” international tribunal along the lines of those used for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was that placing the proceedings in the country where the abuses took place may provide the victims with an opportunity to play a greater role in the process, and may encourage a more serious effort at the national level to deal with justice and accountability issues. But the actual experiences of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and other similar hybrid efforts place these assumptions in serious question, since, in practice, too much control is allowed to remain in the hands of the local governments whose actions are being reviewed. For the future, the international community needs to focus on giving greater emphasis to using strictly international courts for dealing with the most serious genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity violations, and to assuring that the wide variety of political influences that tend to keep prosecutions from taking place are eliminated.

This should start with the case of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who, despite a plethora of major war crimes and crimes against humanity abuses, has thus far received a “get out of jail free” card because of the misplaced hope that a political settlement would end the carnage. The principle that needs to be followed is that all perpetrators of these major international crimes must be prosecuted, and can not be allowed to escape justice because of their official position, or political considerations like the ones that have been protecting Hun Sen and his colleagues from investigation by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and President Bashar al-Assad from prosecution of any kind while he remains in power.

The author was the attorney who filed a successful human rights case in U.S. court in 2002 against Prime Minister Hun Sen, and submitted a complaint to the International Criminal Court on March 17, 2014 alleging genocide and crimes against humanity violations by the Hun Sen government. He also was lead counsel for the only successful court challenge to the U.S. government’s policy of “rendition to torture,” in the Abu Ali case.

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Pope Francis received a warm welcome from South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday as he began a five-day visit to the country.

During his trip, Francis will participate in a Catholic youth festival and a mass for peace and reconciliation on the divided and tense Korean peninsula.

In a display of those tensions, the South’s rival, North Korea, launched three projectiles into the sea off its east coast less than an hour before the pope’s arrival.

Seoul defense officials say the projectiles were launched from the port city of Wonsan and traveled 220 kilometers before landing in the ocean.

The North, which has recently conducted a series of similar tests, declined to send a delegation to the papal mass, citing its anger at upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills.

Like all other religions in North Korea, Catholicism is only allowed to exist under some of the world’s tightest restrictions. As a result, it is unclear how many North Koreans practice Catholicism.

The pope’s trip to South Korea is also highlighting tensions between the Vatican and China, which do not have diplomatic relations.

As his plane flew over Chinese airspace, Pope Francis sent a message to President Xi Jinping offering “divine blessings of peace and well-being upon the nation.”

Despite the Vatican’s objections, Beijing insists on maintaining a state-controlled Catholic church, which does not answer to Rome. There is also a large underground church, and the two sides disagree over which has the authority to ordain priests.

South Korea boasts about five million Catholics and is one of the church’s fastest growing congregations in the world.

His trip is the first since Pope John Paul II visited South Korea in 1989. Vatican officials say Francis will bring a message about the “future of Asia” and speak to all countries on the continent during his trip.

The post Pope Francis Welcomed By South Korean Leaders, North Korean Rockets appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By William Chislett

The victory of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister for the last 11 years and an increasingly authoritarian and polarising figure, in the first round of the country’sfirst presidential election by popular vote, marks a significant turning point in the political life of a nation that has been a sluggish EU candidate since October 2005.

Erdogan won almost 52% of the vote compared to 38.3% for Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the unknown and former head of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, who was the joint candidate of the centre-left Republican People’s Party and the right wing National Action Party, and 9.7% for Selahattin Demirtas of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (see Figure 1). Voter turnout at 73% was much lower than the 90% in April’s local elections, but the AKP’s share of the vote was the highest it has yet achieved.

Figure 1. Percentage of votes in presidential, local and general elections, 2007-2014 of the three main parties

AKP= Justice and Development Party; CHP= Republican People’s Party; MHP=Nationalist Action Party
Source: Supreme Electoral Board.
(1) Joint ticket in the presidential election along with some other parties.

No one expected Erdogan to lose least of all the hubristic leader

The Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), the only nationally-based partyand one that has empowered pious Turks in the rural heartland, has a won the last six general and local elections andtwo referendums. Under the AKP, per capita income has tripled and infrastructure transformed with mega projects: the 533km high-speed rail between Istanbul and Ankara (the trains were made by Spain’s CAF) was inaugurated in July.

The choice of the 70-year-old Ihsanoglu, a diplomat and scholar of Islam, to represent the forces loyal to the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923 showed just how much the political landscape has changed in Turkey under the socially conservative AKP which never tires of seeking to micro manage people’s lives. In the latest outburst, Bülent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, declared that it was unseemly for women to laugh out loud in public. This was no laughing matter for Ihsanoglu who responded by writing on Twitter, “We need to hear the happy laughter of women.”

Erdogan and his formidable electoral machine pitched the election as a battle between the ‘old guard’ secularist elite and a ‘new’ Turkey. ‘No one has lost this election – except the status quo,’ he said in his victory speech. His campaign slogan was ‘national will, national power.’

The post of president (previously elected by parliament) is largely ceremonial, although under Turkey’s existing laws the president has the authority to call parliament, summon Cabinet meetings and appoint prime ministers and some high court judges (powers that Erdogan would not hesitate to use).Erdogan will now seek to change Turkey’s constitution in order to enshrine it with strong US-style executive powers. This would enable him to continue to run roughshod over the rule of law and checks and balances. The illiberal constitution was drawn up in 1982 under the tutelage of the military after it staged a bloody coup. There is no doubt it needs changing in many aspects, particularly in order to comply with EU norms that Erdogan flaunted when he was prime minister, but not in order to give Erdogan the kind of free rein he had as president.

Access to YouTube and Twitter was blocked for a time earlier this year when the authorities tried to crush a corruption scandal that involved Erdogan’s inner circle; several thousand police officers, judges and prosecutors pursuing the corruption cases were dismissed or transferred; the police brutally suppressed the protests over Gezi Park in Istanbul and those by the bereaved family members of 300 miners killed in a fire in a coal mine, and in its most recent report (2013) Reporters Without Borders downgraded Turkey to 154th out of 180 countries in terms of media freedom (95th in 2005). Most of the media exercises self-censorship and is pro-government. Erdogan was given a disproportionate amount of the airtime.

Erdogan saw the corruption probe as orchestrated by his former ally turned arch enemy, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose followers known as Hizmet are influential in the police and the judiciary. Erdogan was happy to let Hizmet serve his cause to weaken the military by producing fabricated evidence and violating due process in the Sledgehammer trial that led to the jailing of 237 retired army officers in 2012 accused of plotting a coup. Once fully behind the charges, the fall out with Gülen led the government to concede that there was a plot against the military. The Constitutional Court released all the officers in June 2014.

The very detailed account of the Stalinist-style trial by the Princeton University professor Dani Rodrik, the son-in-law of General Çetin Doğan, the alleged and freed leader of the coup, is devastating.

Erdogan, like Vladimir Putin, has a majoritarian concept of democracy, reinforced every time he wins an election.The AKP has so far failed to reform the constitution to empower the presidency as it does not command the support of two-thirds of members of parliament needed to do this. It will try again after the next general election, scheduled for 2015 but which could be brought forward.The AKP has mooted the idea of changing the electoral law to create narrower constituencies, which would probably give it more seats, and lowering the threshold of 10% of the vote needed for a party to win seats in parliament (5% in Spain). This would benefit pro-Kurdish parties with whom it could then make a deal to reform the constitution.

A key pointer to Erdogan’s style in the presidency will be the formation of a new government, particularly the person who takes over from Erdogan as prime minister and hence head of the executive branch. The less autocratic Abdullah Gül, the outgoing president and co-founder of the AKP along with Erdogan, ruled himself out for the post in April in a job swap similar to that of Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, but he later left the door open.

Meanwhile around half of the 35 EU accession chapters remain either blocked because of French and Cypriot objections or frozen by the European Commission because of Ankara’s failure to implement the 2005 protocol and open its ports and airports to Greek-Cypriot traffic and hence extend its customs union with the EU (since 1996) and recognise the Republic of Cyprus, an EU country since 2004.Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the island in 1974 and occupied the northern part of the country.

Only one chapter has been opened in the past four years, and the prospects for further progress and establishing a genuine liberal democracy with Erdogan believing that only he and the AKP embody the ‘national will’ are not promising.

William Chislett is Associate Researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute, author of six Working Papers on Turkey | @WilliamChislet3

This article was published at Elcano Royal Institute and may be accessed here.

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By Prof. V. Suryanarayan

Ramu Manivannan, Ed., Sri Lanka – Hiding the Elephant: Documenting Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, Chepauk, Chennai – 600 005), pp. 976, Price Rs. 2000

In 1948, soon after independence, the Government of India appointed a Commission under the Chairmanship of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan to enquire into the prevalent higher education system and to make recommendations so that the Indian Universities could face the challenges of the post-independence era. One of the distinguished members of that Commission was Dr. Arthur E Morgan, the first Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. In the course of the enquiry the Commission visited Visva Bharathi, the well known educational institution founded by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. The Vice Chancellor had organized a public meeting so that the members of the Commission could exchange views with the general public. Among the audience were few members of the Santhal tribe. Arthur Morgan asked the Vice Chancellor as to what extent the University has been able to enrich the lives of the Adivasis in whose midst it was situated.

Gandhiji and long before him Tolstoy subscribed to the same idea. In fact when the Indian National Congress assumed power in various states following the electoral victory in the elections held under the Government of India Act of 1935, the first advice that Gandhiji gave to them was to introduce universal education through the medium of some craft.

Prof. Ramu Manivannan is a strong advocate of this noble principle of higher education. Since assuming the Chairmanship of the Department of Politics and Public Administration Ramu has revamped and modernized the syllabus and teaching curriculum. Today the students are taught and scholars do research on issues of human rights, ongoing democratic struggles in South Asia and refugee issues. Ramu is not an ivory tower intellectual; he and his students are actively involved with movements for peace and justice in India and its neighbourhood. This edited volume is a testimony to the commitment of Ramu, his colleagues and students to understand and sensitize the public to the momentous developments taking place in India’s southern neighbourhood.

This edited volume is a result of collective effort. Special mention should be made of the untiring efforts of Dr. Ashik Bonofer who teaches Political Science in Madras Christian College. Dr. Bonofer is a scholar of great promise who is specialising in the political developments in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Mention should also be made of the rigorous work put in by students and research scholars – Parthiban, Divya, Radhika, Santosh, Priya, Nithya, Kalaiarasi and Karuna.

The book is divided into two sections. In the first part Prof. Ramu Manivannan has provided a succinct analysis of the political developments in Sri Lanka and the many acts of discrimination against the Tamils. He then proceeds to highlight how the war against the Tamils degenerated into a savage war against Tamil civilians. The second section includes eye witness accounts of the war, the report of the University Teachers of Human Rights (UTHR), submissions made to the UN Secretary General’s panel of experts, the UN Report, the Reports of the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Report of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which lists out details of continuing military occupation and ongoing land colonization in the traditional Tamil homeland. The volume is first of its kind, which combines a brilliant analysis of the Fourth Eelam War with documentation to substantiate the arguments. This magnum opus is a good reference work for all students of contemporary South Asia.

In the introductory chapters, Prof. Ramu Manivannan has raised a very pertinent question – the contradiction between the principle of absolute sovereignty of the state and the global Responsibility to Protect (R2P). During recent years R2P is rapidly gaining ground as an important axiom in International Humanitarian Law. It is a simple, but at the same time, a very powerful idea. At present, the primary responsibility of protecting the people against mass atrocities and genocide lies with the State. State sovereignty implies responsibility to protect, not to kill. But when the State is unable or unwilling to abide by this primary responsibility, it is the duty of the international community to step in and uphold this principle. The primary tools of the international community are persuasion and support. But when this fails the international community must think in terms of international intervention to prevent catastrophe and genocide. R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in the world summit at 2005. But much more remains to be done before it becomes a universal axiom. The brain behind the R2P is Gareth Evans, the former Australian Foreign Minister, who played a stellar role in bringing peace to war torn Cambodia.

It would have been a valuable addition if Prof. Ramu Manivannan had tackled the question as to whether New Delhi had upheld the principle of R2P in letter and spirit in its Sri Lanka policy. A careful analysis of India’s policy towards Sri Lanka clearly brings out that on crucial occasions India had upheld this principle. Few illustrations are given below to substantiate this point.

The first organized riots against Tamils took place in Colombo in 1958 when lumpen sections of the Sinhalese populations went on an orgy of violence and murder. As a result, many Tamils were feeling unsafe in Colombo. Sensing the feeling of insecurity among the Tamils, YD Gundevia, then Indian High Commissioner, told Oliver Goonetileke, Governor General of Ceylon, that New Delhi was willing to provide ships so that the Tamils could move to the safety and security of Jaffna peninsula. New Delhi did not consider what was happening in Sri Lanka to be the domestic affair of Sri Lanka; on the contrary, India felt that it had a moral responsibility to come to the rescue of the Tamils. Ships were made available and hundreds of Tamils were taken from Colombo to Kankesenthurai. There were nearly 15000 Sinhalese living in Jaffna peninsula at that time, many of them employed in bakery business. There was no feeling of insecurity among them, but many of them decided to return to Sinhalese areas. They were brought back to Colombo.

The second incident when New Delhi upheld the principle of R2P took place in 1981 when riots were organized in the hill country by powerful forces within the Sinhalese community, including some important Ministers in the Jayewardene cabinet. The Sinhalese objective was to drive out as many hill country Tamils as possible to India before the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact ended in October 1981. The plantation areas, surrounded by Sinhalese villages, witnessed unprecedented violence. Thomas Abraham, then Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, asked Ranjan Mathai, First Secretary, and Gopal Krishna Gandhi, First Secretary, to go to the hill country for an on the spot study of the situation. The two Indian diplomats, in their report to the High Commissioner, gave a graphic account of the violence unleashed by the Sinhalese thugs against innocent Indian Tamils. Thomas Abraham decided to go to the riot-affected areas to understand the gravity of the situation. He informed WT Jayasinghe, Foreign Secretary that he was proceeding to the hill country. Jayasinghe responded that Colombo will not be able to provide security. Thomas Abraham responded, “I did not ask for security. I am informing you about my plan because it is customary for a High Commissioner to inform the Foreign Secretary whenever he goes out of the capital”. Thomas Abraham met the affected people and understood their agony and suffering. Soon after his return to Colombo Thomas Abraham made an announcement that If Colombo will not restore law and order in the plantation areas India knows what to do. The curt message had telling effect; it sent shivers through the spines of Sinhalese leaders. President Jayewardene acted swiftly and law and order was immediately restored in the hill country.

The third example took place in May 1987 when Colombo embarked upon Operation Vadamarachi to militarily solve the ethnic problem. The Tamil militants were running away from the battle scene. Rajiv Gandhi and JN Dixit made it clear that India will not permit a military solution to the ethnic problem. New Delhi dispatched food and medicines through boats to Sri Lanka, but when these boats were prevented from entering Sri Lankan waters, the Indian Air Force planes entered Sri Lanka and dropped much needed food and medicines. Attempts made by President Jayewardene to get Pakistan and China involved on his country’s behalf did not succeed, both countries were unwilling to risk a war with India on behalf of Sri Lanka. Events moved swiftly culminating in the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987.

New Delhi unfortunately was unwilling to take any steps to rescue the civilian population during the Fourth Eelam War when the Sri Lankan Air Force planes resorted to savage bombing of Tamil civilian population. Many in India, including this reviewer, requested that New Delhi, in concert with the United States and members of the European Union, should get involved in Sri Lanka to rescue the innocent Tamil civilians, who were trapped between the Sinhalese Lions and the Tamil Tigers. The fact of the matter was that New Delhi knew what was happening in Sri Lanka on an hour-to-hour basis; it was as keen as the Sri Lankan Government to destroy the Tigers, if in that process innocent Tamils got killed, the collateral damage could not be prevented.

I would like to make another point. The value of the book would have been further enhanced if Prof. Ramu Manivannan had devoted sufficient space to describe how the Tigers degenerated into one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world and how, in that process, Prabhakaran lost the sympathy and support of the international community. In the early phase of the ethnic conflict many justified the violence of the Tamil militants as a response against brutal state oppression and as “emancipator violence” on behalf of the Tamil people. However the violent actions of the Tigers against innocent civilians starting with the massacre of the Buddhist pilgrims in Anuradhapura, the murder of political opponents and the forcible conscription of Tamil children into the “baby brigade” alienated large sections of the people. As far as India is concerned, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the suicide squad of the Tigers turned Indian opinion against the Tigers. The terrorist actions of the Tigers not only led to the brutalization of Sri Lankan Tamil society, it also led to the shrinkage of the democratic space in Sri Lanka. As Neelan Thiruchelvam, himself an innocent victim of the Tigers, has written: “The violence of the victim soon consumed the victim and they also became possessed by the demons of racial bigotry and intolerance which had characterized the oppressor. These are seen in the fratricidal violence between Tamils and Muslims, in the massacres at Kathankudy mosque, in Welikanda and Medirigiya, and in the forcible expulsion of the Muslims from the Mannar and Jaffna districts”. I know that Ramu and Ashik Bonofer are conscious of these crimes of the LTTE; perhaps since the focus of the book is on the last stages of the Fourth Eelam War, these incidents do not find a mention in the book. However, reference to the crimes of the Tigers would have resulted in the balanced representation of the facts.

I would like to conclude the review with the famous lines of Pablo Neruda: “Perhaps this war will pass like others which divided us; leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers; but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers in our faces; who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?”.

(Dr V Suryanarayan is former Senior Professor, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras)

Orders for the book may be placed with the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, Chepauk, Chennai – 600 005.

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Last winter, high propane prices, low inventories and logistical and infrastructure challenges prompted emergency measures to address propane supply shortfalls in the Midwest. Given the severity of last winter’s supply challenges, market participants are paying close attention to the adequacy of propane supplies to meet agricultural and heating demands this coming season. While the high-demand season is still some months away, an analysis of propane inventory levels, along with an assessment of propane prices and changes in infrastructure and supply flows, provides some insight into the emerging supply picture.

Midwest propane inventories have an annual cycle, with builds occurring from April through September, in advance of the harvest and heating seasons, followed by draws in October through March. Both the level of inventories and the weekly build rate are useful metrics in assessing inventories as of early August. While inventory levels in the Midwest remain below the five-year average, above-average builds over the past six weeks are an encouraging trend. Last year, propane inventories in the Midwest (PADD 2) for the week ending August 9 were 21.5 million barrels, 3.4 million barrels below the five-year average. This year, PADD 2 propane inventories for the week ending August 8 are 23.4 million barrels, 1.9 million barrels higher than last year, but still 1.6 million barrels below the five-year average. However, in each of the past six weeks, PADD 2 propane inventory builds have surpassed their five-year averages, leading to a steady improvement in stock levels relative to their historical norms (Figure 1).

Higher prices at the Midwest propane storage hub in Conway, Kansas, have spurred the strong PADD 2 inventory builds in recent weeks. For the first time in the past four years, Conway prices ahead of peak demand season are at a premium over prices at the Mont Belvieu, Texas, hub (Figure 2). The price of propane at Conway has averaged 2.4 cents higher than the price at Mont Belvieu for the past 6 weeks.

The higher Conway propane price creates an incentive for propane supplies to remain in the Midwest and be placed into storage rather than be shipped to the Gulf Coast via pipeline. Last summer, prices at Conway were below prices at Mont Belvieu, which encouraged the movement of propane supplies to the higher-priced U.S. Gulf Coast market. Currently, Mont Belvieu prices have been pushed lower by inventories that are 8.6 million barrels above the Gulf Coast (PADD 3) five-year average.

Last year, demand for propane used to dry crops in the Upper Midwest surged just before the start of winter and, as a result, propane inventories at distribution terminals were low before the start of winter heating season. In addition, distribution infrastructure challenges, pipeline maintenance, and rail delivery delays reduced supplies. This year, inventories are building earlier; however, there have been changes in infrastructure that could impact supply. The Cochin Pipeline, which delivered propane to the Upper Midwest from Canada, has been reversed and repurposed, removing a major source of propane supplies to the region.

Propane market participants have responded to the events of last winter and the Cochin reversal by diversifying supply sources. Instead of relying on propane delivered from Canada via Cochin, the region will now rely more on several existing pipelines to deliver propane north to the Upper Midwest from Conway. Additionally, propane rail capacity in the region has expanded via new propane rail terminals throughout the region. Finally, existing distribution terminals have added tanks, thus expanding storage capacity.

Infrastructure challenges for winter propane deliveries also exist in other parts of the Midwest. Todhunter, a major propane storage facility in Butler County, Ohio, closed last fall after leaks were detected and likely will remain closed indefinitely, greatly reducing capacity available to store propane in that region. That facility, which is located along the TEPPCO pipeline system, had provided flexibility in managing pipeline shipments of different products.

The Northeast will continue to rely on imports of propane from Canada and elsewhere for additional supplies (Figure 3).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is again forecasting a record corn harvest for this year. This year’s propane demand for crop drying will depend on fall weather patterns and harvest timing. Winter weather, which directly drives the level of propane use for heating purposes, remains the most important and most difficult-to-predict factor influencing the propane supply-demand balance this winter.

August Drilling Productivity Report indicates continuing oil production growth with upward revision in the Eagle Ford region

The August update to the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) includes analysis of the Utica region for the first time. Utica region oil production is estimated to reach 40,000 bbl/d in September 2014, while natural gas production in the region has increased much faster, reaching 1.35 billion cubic feet per day in September 2014. The DPR indicates continuing oil production growth in the key oil-producing regions. Cumulatively, in the Bakken, Niobrara, Permian, and Eagle Ford, oil production is expected to increase by 95,000 bbl/d in September 2014. The monthly growth rate is 16,000 bbl/d more than in August 2014. With new data from the Railroad Commission of Texas, the Eagle Ford region new-well oil production per rig was revised up to 519 bbl/d, nearly matching the Bakken region’s 522 bbl/d. EIA expects the Eagle Ford region to produce 1.51 million bbl/d of oil in September 2014, outpacing Bakken production growth due to the Eagle Ford rig count averaging around 110 more rigs than the Bakken since the beginning of 2014.

Propane inventories continue to rise

The U.S. average price for regular gasoline as of August 11, 2014 was $3.51 per gallon, down one cent from the week prior, and six cents less than the same time last year. The Midwest price increased by four cents to $3.45 per gallon, while the Rocky Mountain average rose one cent to $3.65 per gallon. The East Coast and Gulf Coast prices both decreased four cents, to $3.47 and $3.27 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast price decreased two cents to $3.87 per gallon.

U.S. propane stocks increased by 1.8 million barrels last week to 70.3 million barrels as of August 8, 2014, 8.4 million barrels (13.7%) higher than a year ago. Gulf Coast inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels and Midwest inventories increased by 0.5 million barrels. Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories increased by 0.1 million barrels while East Coast inventories decreased by 0.1 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 5.9% of total propane inventories.

Text from the previous editions of This Week In Petroleum is accessible through a link at the top right-hand corner of this page.

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The United States, European Union and Arab League have a duty to “clear the Nineveh plain of all jihadists militia” and help the displaced families “to return to their villages of origin and rebuild their lives”, said the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, Raphael I Louis Sako, president of the Catholic Bishops of Iraq.

The appeal is part of a message issued today, signed also by the Bishops of Mosul and all Churches. Among the main passages of the appeal stresses that “the suffering increases, and the international efforts to alleviate their pain are insufficient”. Currently it is not possible to rely on the Central Government that is being formed as the process is going through troubled times”, added Monsignor Sako.

The message marks a strong call for action from the international community, which appears united in supporting the new prime minister-designate Haidar al Abadi, The Patriarch addresses mainly the US, “also due to their prior involvement in Iraq”, but also the European Union and Arab League, calling on them to take responsibility to act rapidly for a solution. “They must clear the Nineveh Plain from all elements of Jihadist Warriors, and help these displaced families return to their ancestral villages and reconstitute their lives so that they can conserve and practice their religion, culture and traditions through an active and effective International Campaign until the Central Government and Regional Government of Kurdistan become effective”.

According to Sako, over 1000,000 people who have fled from more than 13 villages on the Nineveh Plain to towns and villages further North. An emergency that also pushed Pope Francis to send a letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon: “The tragic experiences of the Twentieth Century, and the most basic understanding of human dignity, compels the international community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law, to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities”.

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The U.S. military conducted a sixth airdrop last night of food and water for thousands of Iraqi citizens threatened by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on Mount Sinjar, Iraq, U.S. Central Command officials said.

This airdrop was conducted from multiple air bases in the Centcom area of responsibility and included two C-17 and two C-130 cargo aircraft that together dropped a total of 108 bundles of supplies. U.S. fighter aircraft in the area supported the mission, officials said.

The C-17s dropped 80 container delivery system bundles of fresh drinking water totaling 7,608 gallons. The C-130s dropped 28 bundles totaling 14,112 packaged meals.

To date, in coordination with the Iraqi government, U.S. military aircraft have delivered nearly 100,000 meals and more than 27,000 gallons of fresh drinking water, providing much-needed aid to the displaced Yezidis, who fled to the mountain to escape ISIL terrorists.

Also yesterday, U.S. military forces continued to attack ISIL terrorists. A remotely piloted aircraft struck and destroyed an ISIL mortar position that was firing on Kurdish forces defending Yezidi civilians north of Sinjar who were attempting to evacuate.

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(Civil.Ge) — Georgian Prosecutor’s Office said on Wednesday it will file new criminal charges against former President Mikheil Saakashvili, accusing him of misspending GEL 8.83 million (about USD 5.1 million) of public funds between September, 2009 and February, 2013.

New charges against Saakashvili, who is already charged with exceeding of official authorities in two separate cases, stem from allegations that he used funds allocated from the state budget to the Special State Protection Service (SSPS), the agency in charge of providing security to high-ranking officials, for his and his close allies, friends and family members’ personal purposes.

These allegations first emerged in April, 2013 when previously classified cache of dozens of documents, including spending records from SSPS, payment receipts and invoices from hotels and other service providers, were made public after their declassification.

Declassified President-Related Spending Records Released

Spending records, among others, include expenditures on staying in luxury hotels and spa resorts, visits to aesthetic clinics and purchase of clothing.

Prosecutor’s Office said on August 13 that investigation is carried out under article 182 of criminal code, involving misspending/embezzlement of large amount of funds and carrying imprisonment from 7 to 11 years as punishment.

Former head of SSPS, Temur Janashia, will also face criminal charges in the same case, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Prosecutor’s Office said that part of SSPS spending was classified as secret in April, 2009 to make expenditures allocated for Saakashvili’s “personal purposes” unavailable for public scrutiny.

UNM opposition party, which is chaired by Saakashvili, said new charges, like the previous ones against the former president, is politically motivated. Saakashvili’s defense lawyer, Otar Kakhidze, told Rustavi 2 TV that his client considers these charges filed by the authorities, which had a shortfall in budgetary revenues last year, as “cynical.” Former head of SSPS, Temur Janashia, who has been summoned by prosecutors on August 13, also denies any wrongdoing.

Prosecutor’s Office said that on top of the expenses, which were deemed by investigators as misspending of public funds, spending of GEL 20 million in 2009-2012 from presidential and SSPS budgets is also being investigated.

This is the latest in series of criminal charges filed against Georgia’s former president over the past two weeks.

Saakashvili was charged late last month with exceeding official authorities in connection with the break up of anti-government protests on November 7, 2007 and raid on and “seizure” of Imedi TV. Court ordered pre-trial detention for Saakashvili in absentia on August 2 in connection to these charges.

Additional charges of exceeding official powers were filed against on August 5 in which the prosecution claims Saakashvili ordered beating up of an opposition lawmaker in 2005.

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It was on August 14, 1947 when Muslims of the subcontinent were able to get a land of their own, where they could live life according to their religion. August 14 is the day of Pakistan and is a common day for other nations, but this is for us a most valuable day in the history of Pakistan.

On this day in 1947, Pakistan gained Independence after remarkable efforts made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is a day of dedication and pride for the people throughout Pakistan and it is celebrated with great enthusiasm and devotion among the nation.  August14  has a lot to do with the history of Pakistan, just as the Independence Day for any country is a festival and the people of Pakistan celebrate this festival with enthusiasm and joy.

Pakistan is located within a region that has a great political, economic and strategic location. Belonging to such a country is reason enough to be proud. However, for those who still need to be reminded of reasons to be a proud Pakistani, here are some things that worth being delighted about. Pakistan has the world’s largest irrigation system, as well as  the world’s largest deep sea port is Gawadar. Additionally, Pakistan is a nuclear power and the second largest salt mines of the world are the Khewra Mines, and the Tarbela Dam is the second largest dam in the world.

Nature has given numerous gifts to Pakistan, which includes K-2 the second largest mountain in the world. Pakistan Swat and Ziarat valleys are among the world’s 10 most beautiful valleys. Out of 20 highest peaks in the world, Pakistan has eight peaks. Pakistan has been nominated to be among the 11 countries by U.N.O, which will be the largest economies in future. In the last 5-7 years Pakistan’s literacy rate has increased immensely, and is currently the country with highest literacy rate increase.

In the end, I must say that, Pakistan has numerous things of which a Pakistani can proud.  And although the people of Pakistan celebrate the Independence Day with patriotism and great passion, they should remember what Jinnah’s dream was and they should always question themselves whether they have made this country according to his dreams or they have forgotten the reason for the formation of Pakistan. Being a Pakistani we must celebrate August 14 by thanking to All Mighty Allah for giving us this homeland after immense sacrifices.

The post Pakistan: Independence Day 14th August – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Rajeev Sharma

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing two challenges — one from within, which cropped up this month and the other from outside which will be in the third week of this month.

The first one pertains to simmering tensions between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideologue, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The second is the by-election to ten assembly seats in Bihar on Aug. 21. Both are crucial for Modi.

The first challenge comes from the RSS, traditionally the ideological master of the BJP, but is now increasingly getting marginalized by recent strong electoral showing of Modi.The RSS knows that its very authority and relevance are at stake in view of the current political situation.

RSS getting increasingly miffed with Modi became evident on Aug. 10 — the day of Hindu festival Raksha Bandhan which symbolizes the bond of love, protection and brotherhood. RSS Chief Mohan Rao Bhagwat delivered a politically loaded speech in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneshwar (Odisha) and commented about the change of government at the Center. He said the new government came to power because the people of India wanted change and said the credit for it goes to the people, not to any party or individual.

As though this were not clear enough, Bhagwat elaborated the same day in the nearby city of Cuttack. He gave his piece of mind in response to a statement of his previous speaker at a public function in Cuttack who had spoken about three democratic milestones of India — 1947 (independence of India), 1977 (electoral defeat of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government) and 2014 (Congress party’s worst-ever defeat at the hands of Modi).

Bhagwat’s response was as follows: “All these happened due to people who wanted these (events to happen). It is being said that all these happened because of some party, organization or individual. But they were there, well much before. But the change did not occur. Only when people wanted the change, did they happen.”

Nothing can be more explicit than this. Clearly, Bhagwat is airing the RSS grievance that the saffron outfit’s efforts are being belittled and just one individual — Narendra Modi — is being knighted and lionized.

More importantly, Bhagwat is telling Modi that without the RSS he is nothing. He wouldn’t have been the prime minister in the first place if the RSS had not backed him to the hilt and used its nationwide network to campaign for him.

It is an open secret that political circles in New Delhi are aware of the growing rift between the RSS and Modi, though the BJP government has been in a denial mode. Movers and shakers within the RSS, led by Mohan Bhagwat, are all men of astute political knowledge.

The RSS was vehemently opposed to Amit Shah becoming the BJP president, arguing that both the leaders of the government (Modi) and the leader of the party (Shah) cannot be from the same state. Both Modi and Shah hail from Gujarat. But Modi rode roughshod over the RSS objections and made Shah the BJP president.

Insiders say that since it had to eat a humble pie in the Amit Shah episode, the RSS bluntly told Shah that the BJP should not expect the RSS to campaign for the party in assembly polls in four states of Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Haryana in October-November this year.

Thus the upcoming assembly polls in four states would demonstrate who is more powerful: Modi or the RSS. The BJP is not in power in any of the four states and a strong showing by the party could virtually write the epitaph of the RSS.

The second challenge for Modi — the Aug. 21 Bihar by-election — won’t affect Modi government’s stability whatever be the result, but the outcome of these polls will definitely be of huge political significance. It will be an effective barometer to adjudge whether the Modi magic is on the wane or intact.

Modi’s arch-rivals and regional satraps — Lalu Prasad Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) — have already joined hands, burying their 20-year-old animosity.
Since Modi became the prime minister the BJP has already lost by-elections for three assembly seats in Uttarakhand and the BJP could not win a single seat. In Uttarakhand, the BJP was in a far better position having won all five Lok Sabha seats from the state in the recent general elections and was embroiled in a direct contest with the Congress. But in Bihar, the political equation is far more tedious for the BJP.

One has to wait and watch how Modi negotiates the two challenges.

The writer is a New Delhi-based independent journalist and a political commentator who tweets @Kishkindha

The post India: Modi Facing New Challenges – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Italian economy is reported to have slipped back into recession in the first part of 2014. This characterisation is based on a criterion for a recession standard in Europe – two successive quarters of negative growth. However, there are other criteria to define a recession. US standards would treat Italy’s economic situation as one, six-year-long recession. Whereas one cannot say whether one criterion is superior to the other, announcing a recession has further implications.

By Jeffrey Frankel

Italians and the world have now been told that their economy slipped back into recession in the first half of 2014. This characterisation is based on the criterion for recession that is standard in Europe and most countries – two successive quarters of negative growth. But this is not the only way to identify recessions.

• If the criteria for determining recessions in Europe were similar to those used in the US, Italy’s new downturn would certainly be a continuation of its 2012 recession, not a new one.
• US standards would treat Italy’s predicament as one horrific, six-year recession.

As Figure 1 shows, Italy’s been on a slippery slope ever since the shock of the 2008 Global Crisis.

• The recovery in 2010-11 was so tepid that the level of Italian economic output had barely risen one-third the way off the floor, before a new downturn set in during 2012.

And the two earlier downturns were severe (Jones 2013); Italy’s GDP remains 9% below the level of 2008 (as Figure 1 shows).¹

Figure 1. Real GDP in Italy, 2007 (Q1) – 2014 (Q2)

Why it matters

These issues sound like minor technical details. But they are not necessarily without real importance. Citizens in Italy have now been given the impression that they have entered a new recession.

• Voters are likely to draw the conclusion that their new political leaders must have done something wrong.
• But the picture is different if Italy has been in the same recession for six years.
• The implication may be that the leaders have been doing the same wrong things throughout that period. It’s not an unimportant difference.
• The loss in output since 2008 means that the debt/GDP ratio in Italy has risen during this period of fiscal austerity, not reversed as was supposed to happen under the plans to restore debt sustainability.

The same is true of other countries in the European periphery, making investor enthusiasm for their bonds over the last two years puzzling.

Recession criteria

What is the difference in criteria anyway? Economists in general define a recession as a period of declining economic activity.

• European countries, like most, use a simple rule of thumb — a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.

In the US, the arbiter of when recessions begin and end is the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the NBER. The NBER Committee does not use that rule of thumb, nor any other quantifiable rule when it declares the peaks and troughs of the US economy. When it makes its judgments it looks beyond the most recently reported GDP numbers to include also employment and a variety of other indicators, in part because output measures are subject to errors and revisions.

• The NBER Committee sees nothing special in the criterion of two consecutive quarters.

For example, it generally would say that a recession had taken place if the economy had fallen very sharply in two quarters, even if there had been one intermediate quarter of weak growth in between the other two quarters. Further, if a trough is subsequently followed by several quarters of positive growth, the NBER Committee does not necessarily announce that the recession has ended, until the economy has recovered sufficiently well that a hypothetical future downturn would count as a new recession instead of a continuation of the first one.

Fortunately, the US economy has had positive economic growth for the last five years, so these issues are not currently active on that side of the Atlantic. But things are not always so quiet. The US economy contracted three quarters in a row in 2001, for example, measured with the revised GDP statistics that are available today. But at the time when the NBER Committee declared that there had been a recession in 2001 (based on employment and various other indicators), the official GDP statistics did not show two consecutive quarters of declining output, let alone three (NBER Committee 2001). That episode is a good illustration of the benefits of a broader approach to the task of declaring business cycle turning points. The NBER Committee has never yet found it necessary to revise a date, let alone erase a recession, once declared.

Although the focus on a two-quarter rule and on currently-reported GDP statistics is common in the rest of the world, the NBER is not the only institution that looks beyond it. An analogous Euro Area Business Cycle Dating Committee was set up ten years ago by CEPR.

• The CEPR Committee declared that the Great Recession ended in the Eurozone after the 2nd quarter of 2009, the same time as in the US (Uhlig 2010).
• It also declared that a new second recession started in the latter part of 2011.

These were probably the right judgments. Growth in the quarters in between the two slump intervals was sufficiently strong in some countries, such as Germany, so that economic activity on average across the Eurozone had by mid-2011 re-attained about 2/3 of the ground that it had lost in 2008-09. Hence – two separate European recessions instead of one very long one. The Committee recently affirmed that it is not yet time to pronounce the second Eurozone recession over – in contrast to what the mechanical two-quarter criterion would suggest (CEPR Business Cycle Dating Committee 2014).

The CEPR committee passes judgment only on the Eurozone economy as a unit, not for individual countries within it, nor for countries like the UK that are outside the Eurozone. Individual countries remain entirely subject to statistical vagaries such as GDP revisions.

Should recession-dating criteria be mechanical?

One cannot say that the two-quarter rule of thumb used by individual countries in Europe and elsewhere is wrong.

• There are unquestionably big advantages in having an automatic procedure that is simple and transparent, especially if the alternative is delegating the job to a committee of unelected unaccountable ivory-tower economists.

The press statements of the NBER Committee tend not to be greeted appreciatively. Each time, many critics express puzzlement at the need for a secretive committee, as compared to the alternative of an objective two-quarter rule. (Other critics each time complain that the committee has “only said what everybody has known for a long while”. Some critics have managed both complaints at the same time — even when the two-quarter rule would not have given this answer that “everybody knows.”)
But there are also disadvantages to the rule of thumb.

• One disadvantage to mechanical rules is the need to apply the white-out when the statistics are revised, as Britain had to do a year ago (Frankel 2013).

Britain announced a 2011-12 recession that was subsequently revised away. Claims that in 2012 had appeared in the speeches of UK politicians and in the writings of researchers, made in good faith at the time, were subsequently rendered false.

How to get Italy growing again

What are the right policies to get Italy and the others growing again? The same as for the last six years.

• At the Frankfurt-Berlin-Brussels level, less austerity (Frankel 2014).
• At the Rome-Lisbon-Athens level, reforms on the supply side, especially in labour markets (Boeri 2011).

It is true that supply-side reforms take time to have their full effect. But if authorities in Italy started handing out more taxi licenses to (qualified) drivers, employment would go up within a week.

About the author:
Jeffrey Frankel
Professor of Economics, Harvard Kennedy School

References
Boeri, T (2011), “Institutional Reforms and Dualism in European Labor Markets”, in Ashenfelter O and D Card (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics (Elsevier), pp.1173-1236.

CEPR Business Cycle Dating Committee (2014), “Eurozone mired in recession pause”, VoxEU.org, 17 June

Frankel, J (2013), “How many European recessions?” ProjectSyndicate.org, 17 July

Frankel, J (2014), “Considering QE, Mario? Buy US bonds, not Euro bonds”, VoxEU.org, 24 March.

Giannone, D (2012), “Real Time Uncertainty in Business Cycle Dating,” Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles, September 21.

Jones, G (2013), “Italy recessions becomes longest on record as GDP slumps”, Reuters, 15 May.

Kugler, A and G Pica (2006), “The effects of employment protection and product market regulations on the Italian labour market,” in Messina J, C Michelacci, J Turunen and G Zoega (eds.) Labour Market Adjustments In Europe Ch.4, Edward Elgar.

NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee (2001), “The Business-Cycle Peak of 2001”, November 26.

Uhlig H (2010), “Euro Ares Business Cycle Dating Committee: Determination of the 2009 Q2 in economic activity”, VoxEU.org, 4 October.

Footnote

1 In general, the preceding peak is not always the right benchmark. On the one hand, that level of GDP may set too high a bar if it was above potential output, as in the particular case of the housing bubbles of the last decade. On the other hand, the preceding peak may be too low a benchmark because potential output has risen during the intervening months, especially in the case of developing countries with rapid trend growth in the labour force or productivity.

The post Italian Growth: New Recession Or Six-Year Decline? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

US President Barak Obama’s decision to launch air strikes against the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a large swath of Syria and Iraq, is fraught with pitfalls. Even if it succeeds in stalling the group’s advance in Iraq, the air strikes could persuade the Islamic State to re-focus its attention on Syria to consolidate its position in the knowledge that Obama is less likely to intervene to salvage the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama’s reluctance to support non-jihadist Syrian rebels in the early days of Syria’s civil war has produced the very nightmare he had tried to avoid: the emergence of a well-organized, well entrenched, competent and ruthless jihadist force that not only threatens to partition, if not take control of Syria but also Iraq, and poses a serious threat to Lebanon and Jordan. Also Obama left the door open to regional Sunni states to support the Islamic State often through non-official channels while allowing aid to jihadists to go unchecked.

Obama is banking on the establishment of an inclusive Iraqi government capable of reaching out to the country’s non-Shiite communities, to undermine support for the Islamic State’s popular base, foremost among whom are Sunni Muslims. While there is no doubt that many Sunnis were driven towards the Islamic State by outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s pro-Shiite sectarian policies, that gambit is countered by the fact that the United States and its allies have allowed the jihadist group to flourish In a festering sectarian milieu in which US allies like Saudi Arabia were as much drivers as was the outgoing Iraqi leader.

Fears of mission creep

With tens of thousands of Yazidis trapped by the jihadists on a mountain in northern Iraq under dire circumstances and the security of Iraqi Kurdistan under threat, until this latest crisis Iraq’s most stable region, Obama had little choice but to take action. Fears of mission creep in the United States may however not be unwarranted if the Obama administration indeed intends to defeat rather than just contain the Islamic State and attempt to maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq that is hanging by a bare thread.

However growing Saudi-fuelled sectarianism in the Middle East is likely to backfire on the US effort as many Sunnis will perceive the air strikes as an expression of a pro-Shi’ite policy. Sunnis widely believe that US policy had brought Shiites to power in Iraq with the toppling in 2003 of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Iran, they fear, could return to the international fold if negotiations to solve the nuclear problem are concluded successfully. All of this comes on top of US reluctance to give Syrian rebels the means to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a leader of the Alawites, which is an offshoot of Shi’ism. The Sunnis sense of being embattled is reflected in the fact that they have acquiesced in the repression and effective expulsion of other Iraqi minorities such as Christians and Yazidis.

Few doubt the Islamic State’s military performance, enhanced by advice from senior military officers who served under Saddam as well its strategic and tactical flexibility. With US air strikes targeting sophisticated primarily US military hardware captured by Islamic State fighters from fleeing Iraqi soldiers as well as concentrations of the group’s fighters, the Islamic State is likely to revert in Iraq to its military origins: an infantry force that engages in guerrilla tactics and employs suicide bombers. It is a strategy that could reduce the effectiveness of air strikes.

Refocussing on Syria

On a grander scale, Islamic State may also complicate Obama’s options by re-focussing on territorial gains in Syria. It virtually crushed this week all opposition in the eastern province of Deir ez Zour, Syria’s sixth largest city. The Islamic State has proven its ability to fight on multiple fronts in contrast to Assad’s war-weary military that appears to fight one battle at a time, with campaigns that persuade civilians to flee in a bid to isolate rebels and force them to surrender.

As a result, the Islamic State could first concentrate on capturing Aleppo, Syria’s embattled largest city, rather than advancing towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, which no doubt would provoke intensified US military strikes. Successful in Aleppo, it could consider moving to threaten Damascus. Such a move would put Obama and America’s Gulf allies in a bind: allow Syria with its borders with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon to fall to the strongest, most brutal jihadist group to have emerged to date or step in to save a despotic, brutal leader allied with Iran and Russia whose demise is a US policy goal.

The pitfalls for Obama don’t stop there. If stopping the Islamic State in its tracks and eventually rolling back its advances with US air forces supporting Iraqi and Kurdish ground troops is the medium term goal, short term necessities force it to adopt measures that are more likely to lead to a break-up of the Iraqi nation state. With politicians in Baghdad struggling to replace Al-Maliki with a more inclusive Iraqi national government, highly motivated but poorly armed Kurdish Peshmergas with a long history of fighting Saddam are the US’ main ally on the ground. The Obama administration’s decision this week to arm the Kurds with light weapons and ammunition is likely to fuel Kurdish ambitions for independence that had already kicked into high gear with the collapse of the major units of the Iraqi military in the face of Islamic State advances.

Those fears are also justified given that the United States may not be able to continue differentiating between the situation in Iraq and in Syria. For the Obama administration, the stakes are high. While sympathetic to the goals in Iraq outlined by Obama, humanitarian relief for a community threatened with a massacre and protection of US personnel, many Americans, after a decade of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are war weary. At the same time, US credibility is on the line in a region that has few security alternatives but the United States but is increasingly sceptical about its ability to live up to expectations.

This article was published by S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore

The post Syria’s Fallout: Rise Of Islamic State jihadists – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Guinea has declared a “health emergency” as the number of people killed by the Ebola virus in the West African nation reached 377. More flights to West African countries have been cancelled as the region waits for the arrival of experimental drugs.

Guinean President Alpha Conde has announced a series of measures aimed to limit the spread of the disease including travel restrictions, strict controls at border points and a complete ban on moving bodies “from one town to another until the end of the epidemic.”

All suspected victims will also be forced to go to hospital until they are clear of infection.

South Africa has also repordedly declared its first suspected case of Ebola. A spokesman for the South African Province of DA Gauteng, Jack Bloom, said Thursday that there is a suspected case of the deadly virus at the Rahima Moosa Hospital.

“The patient is from Guinea and is presently being kept in isolation. If it is a confirmed Ebola case then the patient will be transferred to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital which has been designated to treat Ebola with all due safeguards,” he said, as quoted by the Citizen, a South African tabloid.

Gambia, which has apparently yet to see an Ebola case, has suspended all fights from Ebola ravaged Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to a document from the Gambian Transport Ministry seen by AFP.

In the worst epidemic since the disease was first discovered in 1976, the death toll has now reached 1,069 with 56 people dying in two days and a total of 2,000 infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Experimental drugs on the way

Between 800 and 1,000 doses of a vaccine called VSV-EBOV, which has shown positive results when tested on animals but has yet to be used on humans, were on their way to the region and would be distributed via the WHO, Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose said.

1,000 doses of Zmapp, which has been barely tested on humans, are also on their way from the US.

Its effectiveness has not yet been proven. It appears to have had a positive effect on two US aid workers who were infected in Liberia, but an elderly Spanish priest who was given the drug died in a Madrid hospital Tuesday.

Nonetheless, all available supplies are on their way to the affected regions of West Africa where there had been an outcry that it had only been used on westerners.

A third experimental Ebola drug, TKM-Ebola, made by Tekmira, a Canadian lab, may also be used, although this has not yet been confirmed by the WHO.

The WHO has concluded that in the face of the emergency they are facing, that it is ethical to try out treatments that have not been fully tested “in the special circumstances of this Ebola outbreak.”

Panic reigns

In Freetown, the capital of Ebola-ravaged Sierra Leone, the deadly virus is stirring up extreme emotions.

Outside the dilapidated hundred-year-old Connaught Hospital, soldiers have been brought in to guard doctors and nurses, many of whom have been targeted by angry crowds, who are blaming them for exacerbating the epidemic.

“We are all scared because of the way Ebola is spreading, but we are taking all the necessary precautions,” said Waisu Gassama, who works in the HIV department of the hospital.

An AFP journalist visited a village 150 kilometers away from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and found a story of a family being shunned by villagers.

12-year-old Fatu Sherrif died after being locked away with her dead mother for a week without food and water and nobody answered her cries. Fatu’s brother Barnie was left alone in an abandoned house despite testing negative for Ebola.

“Nobody wants to come near me and they know – people told them that I don’t have Ebola,” he told AFP.

Preventing the virus spreading

Germany has called on its nationals to leave Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, although it said it will keep its embassies open.

The Gulf monarchies are discussing ways to guard against the epidemic as millions of Muslims from around the world are due to arrive in Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage in early October.

Nigeria has withdrawn from the Youth Olympics in China, after its athletes were quarantined and the Kenyan Medical Association has called on the east African country’s national airline to stop flying to Ebola-hit states, a day after the WHO declared Kenya a high-risk country.

The US also announced on Thursday that it has ordered family members at the US Embassy in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, to leave because of limitations on general medical care as a result of the Ebola outbreak.

“The Embassy recommended this step out of an abundance of caution, following the determination by the Department’s Medical Office that there is a lack of options for routine health care services at major medical facilities due to the Ebola outbreak,” the State Department said in a statement.

The post Guinea Declares Health Emergency As Ebola Outbreak Worsens appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Yağmur Erşan

US Secretary of State John Kerry joined the 47th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting on the 8th of August, 2014, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar. Kerry focused on the South China Sea dispute in the region and formally proposed the neighboring countries to voluntarily halt provocations.

“The United States and ASEAN have a common responsibility to ensure the maritime safety of critical global sea lanes and ports,” he said. “We need to work together to manage tensions in the South China Sea and manage them peacefully and also to manage them on a basis of international law.”

However, his call was refused by China and several other ASEAN member states.

“Someone has been exaggerating or even playing up the so-called tension in the South China Sea,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is quoted as saying. Moreover, he added that China and ASEAN member states have the capability to solve their own disputes and provide peace and stability in the South China Sea.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin also said, “It is not that one party is trying to influence others” against one country. It is “all ASEAN, not ASEAN versus China” that will settle these disputes peacefully.

Although China and Vietnam have recently had a confrontation over China’s installation of a deep-sea oil rig near the Paracel islands, China claims that the situation in the South China Sea remains stable.

The Philippine foreign secretary, Albert del Rosario, articulated that “Tensions in the South China Sea have worsened in the past few months and continue to deteriorate.” “All of us are seeing an increased pattern of aggressive behavior and provocative actions in the South China Sea, seriously threatening the peace, security, prosperity and stability in the region,” he added. However, Yi claimed that the current situation in the South China Sea is overall steady and free of problems that would negatively affect navigation. He said that up to present, he has never heard of any impediment to the free voyage of a vessel.

Moreover, Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, blames Washington for “further emboldening countries like the Philippines and Vietnam to take a hardline stance against China, raising suspicion over the real intention of the United States and make an amicable solution more difficult to reach.”

After the meeting, Kerry traveled to Australia, where he stated that “We will also be monitoring the actual situation around the rocks, reefs, and shoals in the South China Sea.” U.S. State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “Everything we are doing is designed to lower tensions, to get people to resolve their differences diplomatically and not through coercive or destabilizing measures, like we’ve seen the Chinese take increasingly over the past several months.”

The post Tension Between US And China Grows – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Horrific accounts by former detainees in Syria corroborate allegations of mass deaths in custody by a military defector. Four former detainees released from the Sednaya military prison in 2014 described deaths in custody and harsh prison conditions that closely match the allegations of the defector, who photographed thousands of dead bodies in military hospitals in Damascus.

In January, a team of senior international lawyers and forensic experts published a report concluding that Syrian authorities had committed systematic torture and killing of detainees. According to the report, a military defector, code-named Caesar, had taken 55,000 photographs of an estimated 11,000 bodies in military hospitals and other locations in Damascus. The bodies showed signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation, and other forms of torture and killing.

“The accounts of the four recently released detainees we interviewed lend further credibility to the already damning evidence about mass deaths in Syria’s prisons,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher. “When the Syrian authorities are held to account, the deaths in custody will be one of the first crimes they will have to answer for.”

All four former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they had witnessed the death of fellow detainees in Sednaya prison in Damascus following a combination of beatings, torture, malnutrition, and disease. The former detainees, who were held for between 21 and 30 months, most of the time at Sednaya, described abhorrent conditions, including overcrowding, lack of food, inadequate heating and ventilation, poor medical services, and extremely poor sanitary conditions that caused detainees to develop skin diseases and diarrhea. The detainees said that they had lost significant weight during their detention. One said that he lost more than half of his body weight, weighing only 50 kilograms when he was released.

The detainees’ description of the dramatic weight loss is consistent with Caesar’s photographs, Human Rights Watch said. The bodies in the photographs are severely emaciated, with ribs and hip bones clearly visible and a hollow facial appearance. “He looked exactly like the bodies in the Caesar photos,” one former detainee said of a friend who died from diarrhea in the same cell. Human Rights Watch has reviewed some of the photographs, but has not conducted a thorough independent analysis of them.

Two of the former detainees said they had seen bodies being taken from Sednaya Prison to the Tishreen military hospital, also known as Hospital 607, in northern Damascus, corroborating Caesar’s claims that some of the bodies were collected at the hospital, where he photographed them.

One former detainee said there were seven bodies on the floor of the truck that took him to Tishreen hospital for medical treatment. Another detainee said there were two bodies in the vehicle when he was transported to the Tishreen hospital for a second time. The hospital guards forced him to put about 20 bodies into body bags during his two stays in the hospital, he said.

The former detainees also described the prison authorities’ practice of assigning identification numbers to both prisoners and bodies when transporting them to the hospital, often writing the numbers on their foreheads. In many of the Caesar photos reviewed by Human Rights Watch somebody is holding up a sheet of paper with an identification number and in some cases the numbers were written directly on the deceased.

The former detainees also told Human Rights Watch that they had suffered and seen horrific acts of torture, both in Sednaya and in other security service branches where they were initially detained, including the Military Intelligence branches 293, 215, the so-called Palestine branch, the Air Force Intelligence branch in Mezzeh and in the Military Intelligence branch in Latakia. In a 2012 report, Torture Archipelago, Human Rights Watch documented the widespread and systematic use of torture in 27 detention facilities run by Syria’s security services, including those five.

Spurred in part by a presentation about the Caesar photos, the United Nations Security Council, on May 22, voted on whether to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would have jurisdiction to investigate alleged violations by all parties in Syria. Over 100 nongovernmental organizations urged the council to approve the resolution, more than 60 countries co-sponsored it, and 13 of the council’s 15 members voted for it. Russia and China blocked the resolution, however, using their veto-powers.

The Syrian government should allow independent international monitors and the Commission of Inquiry on Syria to visit all its detention facilities, Human Rights Watch said. Syria should also comply with Resolution 2139, which called for an end to torture in all Syrian prisons and the release of all arbitrarily detained people.

“The evidence of the Syrian government’s crimes is already well documented, but these photographs represent further strong evidence of the government’s horrible treatment of its opponents,” Solvang said. “What more compelling evidence does the Security Council need to agree to international measures to deter Syria from further crimes.”

The post Syria: Witnesses Corroborate Mass Deaths In Custody Claims, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Abu Bakr al-Yamani

The August 8th execution of 14 Yemeni soldiers in Hadramaut province at the hands of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been met with official and public outrage.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the murders on Twitter, posting graphic photos of the soldiers’ throats being slit with knives.

The incident occurred Friday evening, as the soldiers, who belong to the first military region, travelled aboard a bus from the city of Sayun to Sanaa in civilian clothes, news agencies reported.

Al-Qaeda gunmen intercepted the bus, searched the passengers and pulled out 14 soldiers who were later killed during a public execution in nearby al-Huta.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence described the incident as a “heinous and brutal crime that is incompatible with the values and principles of Islam”.

With this act, al-Qaeda violated the values of manhood and humanity, it said.

The Friday murders are “reminiscent of the al-Ordhi hospital crime in Sanaa and other crimes that expose the falsity of the claim made by the elements of evil and terrorism that they are defending Islam” and upholding sharia, the ministry said.

The ministry vowed to pursue the perpetrators and pledged to care for the soldiers’ families.

State and religious condemnation

The national reconciliation government condemned the crime in a statement, saying “its perpetrators are devoid of all human values”.

The statement affirmed “the government’s determination to purge the country of all the nests and members of the terrorist darkness who undermine the security of the country and its economy”.

The Yemeni Scholars Authority also condemned the massacre and asked the state to develop a national strategy to confront security dangers and threats and enshrine it in the new constitution.

The Authority also called on the media to establish a responsible policy that contributes to the achievement of security and stability and protects the country’s social fabric, urging Yemenis to maintain a spirit of brotherhood.

Sheikh Yahya al-Najjar of the Yemen Scholars Association described the gunmen who slaughtered the soldiers as “monsters” who have distorted the image of Islam by their actions.

“The crime has no relation to Islam whatsoever and the perpetrators violated the teachings of Islam [that call for] preserving the sanctity of blood,” he told Al-Shorfa.

Widespread public anger

Political parties, local leaders and Yemeni citizens also condemned the killings.

“The crime of slaughtering the soldiers with knives is the worst terrorist crime imaginable, and we strongly condemn this crime that is impermissible by any religion, legislation or law of any authority on earth,” said Abdo al-Janadi, spokesman for the General People’s Congress and its allies.

Killing the soldiers in such a hideous fashion has jolted the sensibilities of Yemenis and aims to undermine their will and determination to fight terrorism, he told Al-Shorfa. Yemenis must remain steadfast, he added, and stand by the army in its fight against terrorism.

Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) spokesman Mohammed al-Nuaimi said the incident reflects al-Qaeda’s methodology and culture.

He called on all political parties, civil society organisations and all people to stand by the government and the army to eradicate the “scourge of terrorism”.

The JMP called in a statement “for a unified social, political, military and security stand and a unified national stance” to eradicate terrorism through an integrated system that dries up the ideological, cultural, political, financial, global and security wellsprings of extremism.

“The method by which the soldiers were killed is in violation of the teachings of Islam,” Arab Forum for Studies and Political Development chairman Nabil al-Bukairi told Al-Shorfa.

What al-Qaeda did is “far removed from religion and sharia”, he said.

Even during times of war, Islam mandates “that prisoners of war be taken care of and treated well”, he said.

Al-Bukairi called on the government to complete the process of restructuring of the army, and demanded that scholars declare clear positions on what happened in Hadramaut.

“The scholars have been silent, which gives terrorist groups an opportunity to promote extremism and radicalism because of the absence of moderate voices which must lay bare the practices adopted by some extremist groups in the name of religion,” he said.

A violation of human values

“The crime of slaughtering the soldiers violates human and religious sensibilities. Faith preserves people’s lives, be they Muslim or non-Muslim,” said Sheikh Jabri Ibrahim, director general of guidance at the Ministry of Endowments and Guidance.

“Islam upholds the sanctity of blood, not only people’s blood but also animals’ blood — let alone killing innocent defenceless Muslims,” he told Al-Shorfa.

The slaying of the soldiers has shaken the population and caused people to panic, he said, adding that “it is a crime that is intolerable by any custom, law or religion”.

Terrorist groups must fear God and stop their killing, he said.

Bus driver Hamoud Taher expressed his dismay at the crime, telling Al-Shorfa everyone he spoke to had been horrified by the scenes of slaughter depicted in the online photographs.

“Posting these images reflects the aberrance of al-Qaeda’s ideology, which is far removed from the values of Islam and its tolerance,” he said.

The post Massacre Of Soldiers By AQAP Rallies Yemenis Around Army appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The arrest of US journalists while they were covering riots in the American city of Ferguson, Missouri is unacceptable, an OSCE representative for freedom of mass media Dunja Mijatovic said in a press statement published Thursday.

“Summarily rounding up journalists while they are doing their jobs sends a dangerous precedent and must never be condoned,” Mijatovic said. “Journalists have the right to report on public demonstrations without being intimated by the police.”

Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan J. Reilly were taken into custody by local police on late Wednesday as they were filing reports on demonstrations over the fatal police shooting of a black teenager.

Tensions began to rise as a large police SWAT team came on the scene around 4:00 pm local time on Wednesday, ordering demonstrators to disperse, The Huffington Post reported.

The protests are staged in response to a Saturday incident in which a white police officer fatally wounded unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb.

Local officials are attempting to ease tensions in Ferguson, assuring the city of 21,000 that the investigation into the death of Brown will be both transparent and unbiased. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson and other city officials gather in a town-hall style meeting on the situation Tuesday night.

The post Arrest Of American Journalists In Ferguson Unacceptable – OSCE appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On the first day of his historic papal visit to South Korea, Pope Francis urged local bishops to not only remember their rich history of martyrdom but look to the future with hope and missionary zeal.

“As pastors, you are responsible for guarding the Lord’s flock. You are guardians of the wondrous works which he accomplishes in his people,” the Pope said in his Aug. 14 address to the country’s Catholic Church leaders.

“Guarding is one of the tasks specifically entrusted to the bishop: looking after God’s people,” he noted in his prepared remarks, adding that Korea’s bishops are charged in particular with being “guardians of memory and guardians of hope.”

Announced by the Vatican in March, the Pope’s Aug. 13-18 trip follows an invitation from the president of the Korean Republic, Park Geun-hye, and the bishops of Korea.

During his time, the Pope will travel from the capital city of Seoul to Daejon, where he will celebrate the Sixth Asian Youth Day with thousands of young people expected to attend. He will also visit the rehabilitation center for disabled persons in Kkottongnae, as well as a shrine in Haemi for a closing Mass with Asian youth.

Speaking to the Korean bishops’ conference on Thursday, the Pope encouraged them to live their guardianship of memory by recognizing how the “seeds sown by the martyrs” have “brought forth an abundant harvest of grace in this land.”

“You are the children of the martyrs, heirs to their heroic witness of faith in Christ,” he emphasized. “You are also heirs to an impressive tradition which began, and largely grew, through the fidelity, perseverance and work of generations of lay persons.”

In this vein, the “great legacy handed down from your forefathers” can be seen today in active parishes and ecclesial movements, effective catechesis and outreach to youth, as well as Catholic schools and seminaries, he said.

The Pope strayed from his prepared comments on several occasions, stressing that bishops should not be distant from priests, but should be available and attentive to their needs. He also warned them to beware of the temptations that accompany prosperity.

In his prepared remarks, he reflected on how the Church in Korea has an essential place in the spiritual and cultural life of the country, lauding its “strong missionary impulse.”

“From being a land of mission, yours has now become a land of missionaries; and the universal Church continues to benefit from the many priests and religious whom you have sent forth.”

Pope Francis added, however, that being guardians of memory means more than just remembering and honoring the past, but drawing from these the riches the strength and wisdom to face the future.

“In addition to being guardians of memory, dear brothers, you are also called to be guardians of hope,” he stressed, “the hope held out by the Gospel of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ, the hope which inspired the martyrs.”

This hope is guarded, he explained, by “keeping alive the flame of holiness, fraternal charity and missionary zeal within the Church’s communion.”

A key part of this effort requires bishops to be close to their priests and to accompany them in their daily lives, affirm children and elderly in their societal importance, support education and remain steadfast in concern for the poor – particularly refugees and migrants.

“Solidarity with the poor has to be seen as an essential element of the Christian life; through preaching and catechesis grounded in the rich patrimony of the Church’s social teaching, it must penetrate the hearts and minds of the faithful and be reflected in every aspect of ecclesial life.”

Pope Francis also touched on the challenges faced by modern Koreans, especially what he called “a prosperous, yet increasingly secularized and materialistic society.”

He warned of the temptation for bishops to not only draw “from the business world” in adopting plans to address the problem but also a lifestyle and mentality driven by power and success as opposed to the Gospel.

“Woe to us if the cross is emptied of its power to judge the wisdom of this world! I urge you and your brother priests to reject this temptation in all its forms,” the Pope told the bishops.

“May we be saved from that spiritual and pastoral worldliness which stifles the Spirit, replaces conversion by complacency, and, in the process, dissipates all missionary fervor!”

Concluding his remarks, Pope Francis said that “with these reflections on your role as guardians of memory and of hope, I want to encourage you in your efforts to build up the faithful in Korea in unity, holiness and zeal.”

“Memory and hope inspire us and guide us toward the future. I remember all of you in my prayers and I urge you constantly to trust in the power of God’s grace.”

The post Be Guardians Of Hope, Pope Francis Tells Korea’s Bishops appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Although Jews usually, but not always, share a common gene pool, they are not a race because anyone who converts to Judaism will be recognized as being Jewish by all those rabbis who share a commitment to the same denomination of Judaism as the rabbi who did the conversion.

The dispute, in terms of conversion, is not really about who is a Jew, but who is a rabbi.

When it comes to Jews who are non-religious or even anti-religious, they are considered secular or cultural Jews, unless they are converts to another religion. Orthodox Jewish law still considers even apostates to be Jewish because for over fifteen centuries Jews were frequently subjected to persecutions and forced conversions, which meant that thousands of Jews who were baptized still believed in the One God of Israel.

Some Jews today who have converted to a Protestant Fundamentalist denomination call themselves “Jews for Jesus” or Messianic Jews; but almost all non Orthodox Jews think they are simply mixed up.

Like most nations, Jews have a national language, a shared history, which is much longer than most nations, and a style of cooking and thinking that is as distinctive as that of many other nations.

What they have lacked for most of their 4,000 year history is an independent State in one geographical area. However, states come and go (Yugoslavia) and go and come (Poland and Israel) so having a state is not the most important aspect of being a nation.

More important is that the majority of Jews do not view “Jews for Jesus” or Messianic Jews as belonging to the Jewish community.

The answer to the question of what are Jews is that since Judaism and the Jewish People are so deeply intertwined they cannot and should not be separated. Individuals Jews act in all kinds of ways, but the historical community is a blend of Jews: by birth (genes), belief, behavior and belonging.

New genetic studies show how over the centuries many non-Jews have entered the Jewish community and many Jews have, voluntarily or not, left the Jewish community. Today we can answer the complex question: are all present day Jews really the biological descendants of the Jews who inhabited the Land of Israel 3.000 years ago?

The answer is: Yes and No.

Genetic analysis does support the historical record of Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during Classical Antiquity, actively proselytizing and marrying into the local populations, and, in the process, forming distinct populations that stayed largely intact for more than 2,000 years.

The study, led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, was published online August 6, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our new findings define North African Jews, and enhance the case for a biological basis for Jewishness,” said study leader Harry Ostrer, M.D., professor of pathology, of genetics and of pediatrics at Einstein and director of genetic and genomic testing for the division of clinical pathology at Montefiore Medical Center.

However, as anyone who has been to present day Israel knows, Jews come in many shades and looks. This is because even in the diaspora, and even against the will of the ruling religious authorities, Jews have almost always reached out to their neighbors, and quietly welcomed converts into the Jewish community, even against the formal rules of medieval rabbis.

That is why most Jews in different geographical locations tend to look similar to the local majority after several generations. The rabbinical rule that one should not refer to any Jew’s convert status is evidence of the desire of Jewish leaders to keep proselytizing and conversion activities secret from the ruling religious authorities.

In a previous genetic analysis, the researchers showed that modern-day Sephardic (Greek and Turkish), Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Mizrahi (Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian) Jews that originated in Europe and the Middle East are more related to each
other than to their contemporary non-Jewish neighbors, with each group forming its own cluster within the larger Jewish population.

Further, each of the four geographical groups genes, demonstrated Middle-Eastern ancestry, plus varying degrees of inclusion of converts to Judaism from the surrounding populations. This is true even though two of the major Jewish populations — Middle Eastern and European Jews — were found to have diverged from each other approximately 2,500 years ago.

The current study which extended the analysis to North African Jews, the second largest Jewish Diaspora group found that they also were more related to each other than to their contemporary non-Jewish North African neighbors.

The current study also included members of Jewish communities in Ethiopia, Yemen and Georgia. In all, the researchers analyzed the genetic make-up of 509 Jews from 15 populations along with genetic data on 114 individuals from seven North African non-Jewish populations.

North African Jews exhibited a high degree of endogamy, or marriage within their own religious group in accordance with Jewish custom. Ethiopian and Yemenite Jewish populations also formed distinctive genetically linked clusters, as did Georgian Jews.

Yet some converts to Judaism, and their genes, have always entered the Jewish gene pool. In the west today many converts to Judaism are descendants of ex-Jews in previous generations who are now returning to the Jewish People, and bringing many non-Jewish genes with them.

This unusual form of religious conversion reincarnation is a special aspect of Kabbalah: the Jewish mystical tradition. Unlike Buddhism and Hinduism, Kabbalah does not teach that reincarnation (gilgul) occurs over the course of millions of years to millions of different sentient species.

According to Kabbalah, only the souls of self conscious moral creatures like human beings, reincarnate; and they reincarnate only when they have not fulfilled the purpose of their creation. Since Judaism is an optimistic religion, most Kabbalists teach that most people can accomplish their life’s purpose in one or two lifetimes.

A few souls may take 3-5 lifetimes or more. The bright souls of great religious figures like Moses or Miriam can turn into dozens of sparks that can reincarnate several times.

The tragic souls of Jews whose children have been cut off from the Jewish people, either through persecution or conversion to another religion, will reincarnate as one of their own no longer Jewish descendants.

These descendant souls will seek to return to the Jewish people. A majority of people who end up converting (or reverting) to Judaism and the Jewish people, have Jewish souls from one of their own ancestors. However, their genes are mostly from their non-Jewish ancestors.

The post Can Jews Be A Nation, And A Religion And A Race? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Euro area annual inflation was 0.4% in July 2014, down from 0.5% in June. This is the lowest annual inflation rate since October 2009. In July 2013 the rate was 1.6%. Monthly inflation was -0.7% in July 2014.

European Union annual inflation was 0.6% in July 2014, down from 0.7% in June. A year earlier the rate was 1.7%. Monthly inflation was -0.5% in July 2014. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In July 2014, negative annual rates were observed in Bulgaria (-1.1%), Greece (-0.8%), Portugal (-0.7%), Spain (-0.4%) and Slovakia (-0.2%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Austria (1.7%), Romania (1.5%) and Luxembourg (1.2%). Compared with June 2014, annual inflation fell in thirteen Member States, remained stable in six and rose in eight.

The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from restaurants and cafés (+0.08 percentage points), rents (+0.06 pp) and maintenance of vehicles (+0.05 pp), while fruit (-0.13 pp), vegetables and telecommunications (-0.11 pp each) had the biggest downward impacts.

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