By Mohamed Trabelsi

Libya’s House of Representatives turned down the proposed crisis government submitted by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, Libya Herald reported Wednesday (September 17th).

The Tobruk-based lawmakers demanded the premier come up with a new, smaller cabinet by Saturday.

Meanwhile in Tripoli, the head of the Islamist-backed administration mandated by the General National Congress (GNC) has formed his own cabinet of 19 ministers and three vice-presidents.

On Monday night, Dr Omar al-Hassi appeared on the Nabaa news channel to demand that the international community recognise his unelected government. He also denounced the airstrikes on an Islamist militia base in Gharyan.

The chief of staff of the air force for Operation Dignity, Saqr Jeroshi, claimed responsibility for the airstrikes.

But Libyan citizens hoping for security, safety, and salaries are caught between two governments: one with a mandate from the House of Representatives and a small geographical area, the other with more terrain but without an elected body.

Lawyer Abu Bakr al-Sharif, a former prisoner of conscience in Kadhafi’s jails, said that given the current situation, work on the constitution should be suspended and a state of emergency declared.

Speaking about the return of the General National Congress to Tripoli, the mandate for which had expired, former lawmaker Abdul Qadir Huili said: “We came back at the request of the rebels.”

The official elected body set up in Tobruk — the House of Representatives – is having problems as well. Security concerns continue to hamper the official government’s activities.

A House of Representatives member for the city of Sabha, who does not attend the sessions in Tobruk, said at least 60 deputies were not travelling to the legislative meetings.

“There are also deputies outside the country for security reasons,” he said.

The post Libya: Rival Governments Deepen Chaos appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nazim Fethi

An unknown Algerian terrorist group on Saturday (September 13th) announced its split from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and adherence to the Islamic State (ISIS).

“Djound Al-Khilafa en Algerie” (Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria) pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s group.

Led by Abdelmalek El Gouri (aka Khaled Abou Souleiman), the armed band is made up of members of dormant AQIM cells in central Algeria.

While there was no official reaction to the news, analysts remain cautious as to the veracity of the statement and the reasons underlying such an announcement.

The AQIM split came just a few days after the press revealed information about ISIS plans to establish itself on the south-eastern Algerian border with Libya.

Security reports have talked of serious divisions within AQIM’s consultative council.

“We know that influential figures in the organisation who want to follow Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would rather wait before declaring their position, because they know that would weaken the structure,” an Algerian officer said on condition of anonymity.

While AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel has refused to recognise the Islamic State, preferring to renew his allegiance to al-Qaeda, other influential figures within his organisation appear to change sides.

This summer, one important figure, Abou Abdallah Othmane el-Acimi, officially rallied to the Islamic State cause.

“Very well-informed sources have indicated that we shall witness an internal war within al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb… Our sources have not ruled out the physical liquidation of those who have renewed their loyalty to Ayman al-Zawahiri and could hamper the emergence of ISIS in North Africa,” L’Expression claimed.

In another twist to this evolving story, the Maghreb and Yemeni branches of al-Qaeda released a statement on Tuesday, in which they threatened the anti-ISIS coalition, opposing all armed action against the terrorist movement.

The call was chiefly aimed at armed groups active in Iraq and Syria, asking them not to fight the Islamic State.

According to some experts, this late appeal from al-Qaeda was a final attempt on its part to save face after this new terrorist movement stole the limelight. It is a tactical position intended to put a halt to the exodus from terrorist groups affiliated to al-Qaeda, specialists said.

Regarding the ISIS threat, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said on Monday that “ISIS has given itself a name that it does not deserve, and Islam is innocent of such ignoble behaviour,” indicating that Algeria would co-operate with other Arab countries in fighting terrorism.

The post Algeria: ISIS Offshoot Raises Questions appeared first on Eurasia Review.

At least twenty villages were seized in the past 24 hours east and west of Kobane (or Ain al Arab), the third Syrian Kurdish city that risks falling in the hands of the Islamic State, reports the Pan-Arab and international media citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There is no confirmation from independent sources or Damascus.

Based on reports released by the Observatory, part of inhabitants of the northern region, on the border with Turkey, have abandoned the villages seized by the Sunni Islamists, warning that the next to fall will be Kobane, third Kurd city after Qamishli (north-west) and Afrin (Aleppo province).

The Kobane siege has already started, with electric power and running water already cut, and food supplies dwindling. The Syrian opposition coalition launched an alarm over the risk of a “massacre of civilians in the Kurd regions”. Kobane is strategically important for the Islamic State to reinforce its control over the area along the border between Syria and Turkey.

The Sunni insurgents in the past hours released a new video of the British journalist John Cantile, abducted on arrival in Syria in November 2012, in which his life doesn’t seem at risk.

The US Congress formally approved a plan of President Barak Obama to “arm” and “finance Syrian rebel groups” and now must be passed by the senate. House Speaker John Boehner described the vote as a “first important step in the fight against the Islamic State”. While it was defined by Teheran as “a strategic error in line with double-standard policies”. Iran’s deputy Foreign minister Husseun Amir Abdullahian warned that the double-standards of the US “which wants to halt the organization in Iraq but allow it to expand in Syria” risks destabilizing the region further and fomenting terrorism.

From Paris, French President François Hollande gave a goahead to airstrikes against the Islamic state, “but only in Iraq, to weaken the terrorists”, specifying that “there will be no military engagement on the ground”.

The post Syria: ISIS Captures 20 Villages In North appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Saudi Arabia has pledged $500 million to help rebuild Gaza, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah said on Thursday, with the full cost of post-war reconstruction expected to be around $4 billion over three years.

Saudi Arabia’s commitment comes ahead of a conference in Cairo on Oct. 12 when Palestinian leaders hope other donors, including Turkey, Qatar, the European Union and United States, will step forward with promises of support.

“Saudi Arabia has initiated donations by pledging $500 million,” Hamdallah told reporters in Gaza, speaking via video conference from the West Bank. He said he hoped further pledges would cover the full cost of reconstruction in time.

An estimated 18,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed during the seven-week aggression launched by Israeli occupation forces, while a further 40,000 were extensively damaged, Reuters reported.

Major infrastructure such as roads, bridges and water treatment plants were heavily damaged, while Gaza’s only power station will need almost entirely rebuilding. Dozens of factories on the outskirts of residential areas were extensively hit in Israeli bombardments.

The Israeli affront, which began on July 8, left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians were also killed.

Hamdallah’s estimate is the latest of several that have put the cost of rebuilding the blockaded territory, home to 1.8 million people, at between $3 billion and $7.8 billion.

With so many homes destroyed, including at least three 14-story tower blocks, economists in Gaza estimate that 10,000 tons of cement a day will be needed over the next six months. That compares with the just 30 tons a week entering the territory before the war.

“All donor countries have made a condition, they want to deal with the unity government,” said Hamdallah. “If the government is not enabled in the Gaza Strip, there will be problems over reconstruction,” he added.

The post Saudi Arabia Pledges $500 Million To Rebuild Gaza appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The drums of war are beating once again with the vanguard of U.S. bombers already over Iraq (and soon Syria) to, in President Obama’s words, “degrade and destroy ISIS.” The Republican Party, led by war-at-any-cost Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain, wants a bigger military buildup which can only mean U.S. soldiers on the ground.

Here they go again. Another result of Bush’s war in Iraq. Washington has already expended thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of American injuries and illnesses, and over a million Iraqi lives. The achievement: the slaying or capture of Al Qaeda leaders, but with that came the spread of Al Qaeda into a dozen countries and the emergence of a new Al Qaeda on steroids called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which has nominal control over an area in Syria and Iraq larger than the territory of Great Britain.

Still, no lessons have been learned. We continue to attack countries and side with one sectarian group against another, which only creates chaos and sets in motion the cycle of revenge and sparks new internal strife. So if slamming a hornet’s nest propels more hornets to start new nests, isn’t it time to rethink this militarization of U.S. foreign policy? It only increases the violent chaos in that region with the risk of a blow back affecting our country, such as suicide bombers attacking heavily populated public spaces. This kind of attack is very hard to stop, as we have seen thousands of times overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Richard Clarke, former White House anti-terrorism advisor to George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden wanted Bush to invade Iraq, so that more Muslims would take up arms against the U.S. and more Muslims would hate our country for its destruction of their land and people. Similarly, ISIS would like nothing better than to embroil the U.S. and our soldiers in a ground war so that it can rally more people to expel the giant U.S. invader.

Then there is the massive over-reaction by our government and its ever-willing corporate contractors. Political turmoil ensues and our democratic institutions, already weakened in their defense of liberty, due process, and the rule of law, are further overwhelmed by the policing dictates of a profitable national security state.

Randolph Bourne, a hundred years ago, wrote an essay with these words about war:

“It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense… Other values such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed…”

Benjamin Franklin understood this collective panic, when he said that people who prefer security to liberty deserve neither.

The fundamental question is whether our civil society can defend our institutions critical to maintaining a democratic society.

Will our courts fold before the over-reaching panic by the Executive Branch and its armed forces?

Will our Congress and state legislatures stand firm against sacrificing our liberty and our public budgets that serve our civil society’s necessities in the face of a police/military state’s over-reacting ultimatums?

Will our media resist hyper-focusing on the “war on terror” and give us other important news about ongoing American life?

Will our government pay more attention to preventing the yearly loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives from hospital infections, medical malpractice, defective products, air pollution, unsafe drugs, toxic workplaces and other domestic perils?

Not likely. The aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities resulted in brutal reaction. In devastating two countries and their civilians, far more American soldiers were injured and killed than those lives lost on 9/11, not to mention the trillions of dollars that could have been spent to save many lives here and repair, with good-paying jobs, the crumbling public works in our communities.

Sadly, our democratic institutions and civil resiliency are not presently prepared to hold fast with the forces of reason, prudence and smart responses that forestall a national nervous breakdown – one which happens to be very profitable and power-concentrating for the few against the many.

Consider what our leaders did to our democracy during their “war on terrorism.” Secret laws, secret courts, secret evidence, secret dragnet snooping on everyone, unauditable, massive secret spending for military quagmires abroad, secret prisons and even censored, judicial decisions that are supposed to be fully disclosed! Government prosecutors often have made shambles of their duty to show probable cause and respect habeas corpus and other constitutional rights. Thousands of innocent people were jailed without charges and detained without attorneys after 9/11.

The Al Qaeda leaders wanted to not only instill fear about public safety in America, but also to weaken us economically by tying us down overseas. Why are our rulers obliging them? Because, in a grotesque way, power in Washington and profit on Wall Street benefit.

Only the people, who do not benefit from these wars, can organize the exercise of their constitutional sovereignty to shape responses that promote safety without damaging liberty.

One percent of the citizenry diversely organized in congressional districts and reflecting the “public sentiment” can turn around, perhaps with the funding support of an enlightened billionaire or two, the Congress and the White House. Are you up to this challenge?

The post Ralph Nader: Damaging Our Country From Wars Of Choice – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Casey Hynes

Labor activist Andy Hall says he is “feeling confident” as he awaits the verdict of a criminal trial brought against him by Thailand’s Natural Fruit company, although concerns have been raised about the safety of migrant workers testifying in Hall’s defense. The first of several trials, this one concerning criminal charges related to an interview Hall gave to Aljazeera, concluded Sept. 10. The Prakanong Court will deliver the final verdict in that trial on Oct. 29. Hall faces a year in jail if convicted.

Witness safety was a concern of Hall’s, and of humanitarian workers internationally, before the trials even began. Due to potentially tenuous financial and legal statuses, migrant workers in Thailand are often quite vulnerable to exploitation.

Natural Fruit went after Hall when he publicly announced findings from research on migrant worker conditions in Natural Fruit’s factory. Hall conducted the research on behalf of Finnwatch, a Finnish NGO. The research was published in a report titled “Cheap has a high price,” exposing worker abuses by some Thai food suppliers that work with Western grocery stores.

Hall was not the only researcher on the project, but Natural Fruit targeted him because he discussed the findings publicly at a press conference in Bangkok. Natural Fruit was one of three companies named, but was the only one not to respond to allegations of poor working conditions and migrant worker abuse. The company has refused to back down despite calls from international labor and human rights organizations, as well as a European food distribution coalition. The company even hinted it would be willing to bring further legal suits in a letter responding to activists who demanded that the organization’s president, who is also the head of Natural Fruit, be removed from his position.

A computer crimes and and criminal defamation trial set to begin Sept. 15 was postponed until Nov. 17. The court okayed the delay in the case because a hearings summons was not delivered to Hall with sufficient time to respond before a hearing began, according to Hall’s blog.

The first hearing in a third case, this one involving a $10 million USD civil defamation suit, will be held Oct. 30. The first hearing in a civil defamation case regarding the Aljazeera interview has not yet been scheduled.

The post British Labor Activist Remains Optimistic About Thailand Trials – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi for Syria Comment

This new joint statement from al-Qa’ida’s affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic Maghreb (AQAP and AQIM)- which seems unprecedented – comes in opposition to the U.S.-led international coalition to fight against the Islamic State (IS), characterizing instead as war against Islam and Muslims. Several things to note in analysis:

a)- This statement does not mean AQAP and AQIM are getting closer to IS or warming to the idea of pledging allegiance to IS. Indeed, they have firmly rejected IS’ Caliphate declaration, and have maintained their loyalty to al-Qa’ida Central (AQC). For comparison, note that members and supporters of Jamaat Ansar al-Islam- an Iraqi jihadi group (with a Syrian branch) which like al-Qa’ida does not accept IS’ claim to be a state or caliphate- have also denounced the U.S. airstrikes etc. targeting IS as constituting war against Islam, and like al-Qa’ida would want an ideal situation where all jihadis having the end-goal of a Caliphate unite against a common enemy, while rejecting IS’ assumption of supreme authority. Thus Abu Bakr al-Iraqi of Jamaat Ansar al-Islam, who previously praised IS’ beheading of James Foley while condemning IS’ massacre of the Sha’itat rebellion against its rule in Deir az-Zor province:

“America in its war against Islam will rely on two components:

1st. Its allies outside of Syria and Iraq who will provide it their military bases, financial support, and increase the stranglehold on the two lands.

2nd. Its allies inside Syria and Iraq and they are:

1. The Safavid Iraqi army.
2. The secular Kurdish army [Peshmerga]
3. The so-called ‘moderate Syrian opposition.’
4. Some of the mercenary gangs of the Sahwa of money and slaves of the dollar.”

Others outside the transnational jihadist circles have also not hesitated to characterize the U.S.-led initiatives as war on Islam, most notably the Islamic Army in/of Iraq, which by admission of sources from within the group and its supporters is having problems with IS in Iraq. Nonetheless, the group’s spokesman Ibrahim al-Shammary affirmed the following:

“On the anniversary of 11 September [9/11], America is forming an international alliance while claiming that it is for the war on terrorism. Oh Muslims, be wary and heed the strongest warning, for you are the intended target.”

These kinds of statements have wider implications for outside hopes of building an internal Sunni coalition within Iraq to fight against IS beyond those already working with the central government. Interestingly, the joint AQIM-AQAP statement is dated 11 September: just as AQC in its propaganda portrayed post-9/11 as part of a new initiative of war on Islam, so too AQIM and AQAP, like Ibrahim al-Shammary, attach significance to the building of the anti-IS coalition by Obama as coinciding with the 13th anniversary of 9/11.

In short though, it is the internal Iraq insurgent dynamic that is of greater analytical interest, while AQ-affiliates denouncing the U.S. actions as war on Islam is fairly predictable. One might argue that a recent purported statement from Katiba Uqba ibn Nafi [KUN]- a joint AQIM-Ansar al-Shari’a Tunisia project- in support of IS as a Caliphate project reflects an international jihadi trend getting behind IS in the face of the U.S.-led alliance against IS, but I share Daveed Gartenstein-Ross’ skepticism of the authenticity of this statement for some reasons of my own. First, Ansar al-Shari’a Tunisia’s official Twitter news feed, which advertises KUN social media output, has not shared this statement, and second, its only source appears to be in pro-IS circles: besides this, other problems exist with the statement, such as a lack of date on it.

[Update: However, it is also to be noted that the opening of the statement refers to "Kairouan support for the state of the Islamic State"- thus, as Gartenstein-Ross notes, this statement could be genuine and just from a Kairouan province contingent of Katiba Uqba ibn Nafi- which has produced a number of IS alumni- rather than on behalf of the whole battalion as the statement might misleadingly imply at first sight, because 'Kairouan' is also used to refer to Tunisia as a whole].

The problem for IS in trying to get new allies for its Caliphate is that its fighting other rebels- including Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria- and brutality towards Muslim dissenters and opponents within its dominion often blunts any potential sympathy for its actual project in the face of U.S. airstrikes etc.

b)- The joint statement refers to IS but without prefixing jamaat ['group'] to IS’ name to indicate rejection of IS’ claim to be a state/caliphate. This is an interesting contrast with the standard al-Qa’ida approach (also echoed by Jabhat al-Nusra), which had previously accepted IS’ prior incarnation of the Islamic State of Iraq as a legitimate emirate in its own right, despite lacking control at the time of substantial contiguous territory and the workings of an actual state. Nonetheless, I would urge that one should not make too much of this and it most likely just reflects the broader official anti-fitna stance of this statement urging for unity in the face of the U.S.-led coalition (including an end to infighting and name-calling), thus I suspect AQAP and AQIM simply do not wish to bring up the fundamental AQC-IS dispute at this point.

c)- The tribute to Ahrar al-Sham in the wake of the massacre of its leadership comes as no surprise, to be noted in conjunction with Jamaat Ansar al-Islam’s tribute to the group. This reflects the high regard in which global jihadism generally holds Ahrar al-Sham and the group’s status as the link between this ideological trend and Islamist projects focused on the national framework (cf. Jaysh al-Mujahideen Iraq- a Salafi nationalist, revolutionary and anti-Shi’a insurgent group- also extended tribute to the fallen leaders of Ahrar al-Sham).

Below is a translation by me of the statement.

Joint Statement (11 September: Statement No. 1)
Situation: Support for Muslims over the alliance of Crusaders and Apostates.

[...]

The suffering of our people in Iraq and al-Sham has not been absent from our minds, and what they have offered from bodily sacrifices. Nor have the negative consequences- which have followed on for the people of al-Sham from the infighting of the mujahideen- been absent from our minds. Nor has the sadness of the arenas of jihad for the loss of its best leaders and sons from infighting- in which the beneficiary has been the people of the Zionists [Israel], the Cross worshippers, the Rafidites [Shi'a], the Nusayris [Alawites] and their followers- been absent from our minds.

Then there is America- the head of disbelief- and the symbol of the enemy and tyranny, rearing its head again, enlisting behind it allies from the Crusaders and their apostate collaborators, leading the Crusader attempt to wage war on Islam and Muslims, to increase the misfortunes of the Ummah, under the pretext of striking the Islamic State and annihilate it- so they have claimed!! We ask God to render them disappointed, defeated and slaughtered.

As for this oppressive Crusader effort, we can only stand with Islam and Muslims, against Crusader America and its alliance (Jewish-Crusader-Safavid-Apostate) that is the true enemy of the Ummah and the Path and the first to wage war on Shari’a, so we declare this stance of ours to please God, to support our mujahideen brothers over the disbelievers, and defend our Muslim people wherever they are. Thus we say:

. Our mujahideen brothers in Iraq and al-Sham…stop infighting among yourselves and stand as one rank in the face of the initiative by America and its Satanic alliance lying in wait against us all to break us again and again. Counter the unity of the nations of disbelief against you by your unity against them, in accordance with the speech of the Almighty: “And fight the polytheists as a whole just as they fight you as a whole, and know that God is with those aware of Him” [...]

. Oh mujahideen and ansar [helpers/supporters], stop name-calling and hurling of insults, and turn your truth-telling pens and cutting swords on the head of disbelief- America- and its oppressive, aggressive alliance.

. To all who bear arms in the face of the tyrant Bashar and his shabiha, it is you that America will seek to finance with its double-dealing and deception, that you may deviate from your path and only be banners in its hand realizing its interests.

. To our people- the Ahl al-Sunna [Sunnis] in Iraq and al-Sham, do not forget America’s crimes against your lands, and do not forget its stance in the line of your battles, and its poisonous daggers remain planted in your chests, so do not let its trickery deceive you, or enter into its alliance, or become among its soldiers against your mujahideen sons.

. We call on our Muslim Ummah to support our people in Iraq and al-Sham, and support them with what is precious and costly, and stand in their rank against America, the head of disbelief, the source of evil and the symbol of corruption and oppression.

. We call on our Muslim Ummah to disavow the calls of the apostate rulers and their collaborators in error and leading astray to support the disbelieving Americans against the mujahideen, just as we call on them to stop their conscripted sons from participating in this oppressive enemy war that aims in truth to preserve American Crusader hegemony over our Muslim Ummah and protect the state of the people of Zionists [Israel].

. We call on our people in the Arabian Peninsula in particular and in all the states in this Satanic alliance in general to stand against their collaborationist governments and prevent them- by all lawful means- from continuing this war on Islam under the pretext of waging war on terrorism.

. As for you, oh allies of disbelief and evil, take heed of what will afflict you, for black days await you. For these leaders of yours today are sinking and are afraid to confront the knights of Islam. And indeed you hav tested the swords of the soldiers of Islam and the assault of the heroes of Iraq and al-Sham, so God brought you to defeat and degradation at their hands, and your armies were defeated bearing the consequences of failure.

. We conclude these calls by reminding the Islamic Ummah of the words of the renewer of time and vanquisher of the Americans- Sheikh Osama [bin Laden] (may God have mercy on him and make good his soil): “Consult no one in [fighting] the Americans.”

To conclude this statement, we offer our sincere condolences to the mujahideen of the group Ahrar al-Sham…and we ask God to have mercy on their martyrs and remunerate us and them in their misfortune and render us better from it, just as we offer to our people in al-Sham in general and the families of martyrs in particular our sincere condolences and we ask God the Almighty, the High to connect with their hearts and pour out endurance on them.

God, provide for this Ummah a just situation in which the people who obey you are made mighty and the people of your misfortune are laid low. God, give victory to our mujahideen brothers in Iraq and al-Sham and in every place.God, ruin America and whoever of its allies and those taking its side against the mujahideen.

[...]

Qa’ida al-Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb.

The post Al-Qa’ida In Islamic Maghreb And Arabian Peninsula Statement On US-led Coalition Against IS appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Matthew Barber for Syria Comment

The plight of thousands of Yazidi women, kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) during its August 3 attack on Iraq’s Sinjar mountains and in the following weeks, has received some media attention, but most people are unaware of just how far-reaching this disastrous phenomenon is. Boko Haram kidnapped girls in the hundreds, prompting international outcry and an online campaign demanding that they be freed; IS has kidnapped Yazidi women and girls in the thousands in a sexually-motivated campaign  that has rent apart countless families and wrought unimaginable levels of pain and destruction.

During the Syria conflict there have been numerous allegations of forced jihadi marriages that have been difficult to confirm, and widely denied by IS supporters online. Many of those stories were dropped, lacking credible evidence. As the past few years in Syria have demonstrated, rumors run rampant in contexts of conflict, and the initially difficult-to-confirm cases of kidnapped Yazidi women of this summer have been treated with appropriate caution.

Despite this initial caution, the sheer scale of the kidnapping of Yazidi women and the firsthand reports of escaped survivors—and those still in captivity via telephone—have made details of the phenomenon, and its sexual motivations, certain.

Having stayed in northern Iraq all summer, I can confirm the assertions of the journalists who have written about the problem. I have worked directly with those involved in rescue efforts and have personally interacted with families whose daughters have been kidnapped and are now calling their relatives from captivity.

I have no trace of doubt that many women have been carried off and imprisoned; the question that remains is about the numbers. Restrained estimates have posited numbers of kidnapped Yazidi women in the hundreds. However, the reality is likely to be in the thousands.

Though the picture is grim, if the US is willing to back up its overtures of support for Iraqis and Kurds with action, we have the ability to help quickly free a large percentage of the kidnapped Yazidis.

The enslavement phenomenon is real

Yazidi leaders and volunteers have been working over the past month with families whose female members were kidnapped, and they have been able to piece together a much clearer picture of the numbers—and locations—of the kidnapped women.

It is no longer a secret that many of the kidnapped women still have their cellphones with them and are calling their families. Many of their captors haven’t even taken steps to prevent this; in some cases jihadists have exploited this contact as a means to sow further terror, in other cases the new “masters” are allowing their “slaves” to have contact with family as they seek to incorporate the kidnapped woman into a slave’s household role with certain privileges and duties.

By speaking with kidnapped women and girls by telephone, and by speaking with the families receiving calls, Yazidis working on the problem are beginning to form more accurate counts of incarcerated women in various places.

It is also no longer a secret that extensive rescue operations are underway, through the participation of local Arabs and Muslims in the communities where the girls are entrapped. Some have been able to purchase girls from IS jihadists and then return them to their parents. Others have been able to escape on their own.

Other kinds of rescue efforts are underway as well. A Yazidi friend I’ve been working with in Dohuk arranged for a group of gunmen to be paid to carry out a rescue operation in one Iraqi city, far to the south of Mosul, where girls had been taken. They broke the girls out of the house where they had been imprisoned by their jihadist “owner” and carried them to safety. Those who conducted the operation are Sunni Arab fighters who do not align with IS (and who are willing to conduct such an operation in exchange for compensation).

These particular girls were transported halfway across the country, placed in the house of their “acquirer,” and made to cook and clean. The new “master” told them: “You are our jawari [slaves taken in war], but don’t worry, you will become as our own women,” meaning that they would be integrated into the household and live as the other wives.

One of the rescued girls was only 15 and was tortured for resisting the demands of her captor for sex. Another suffered such severe psychological trauma due to the kidnapping, subsequent rape, and being shipped across Iraq that she is now very ill.

Attempts to find a religious justification

The philosophy underpinning the taking of Yazidi slaves is based in IS’ interpretation of the practices of Muslim figures during the early Islamic conquests, when women were taken as slave concubines—war booty—from societies being conquered.

Though they have robbed them of their wealth, IS has not targeted the Christian community in the same way that they have the Yazidis. As “People of the Book,” Christians are seen as having certain rights; Yazidis, however, are viewed by IS as polytheists and are therefore seen as legitimate targets for subjugation and enslavement, if they do not convert to Islam.

Many discussions will continue regarding the similarities and differences between IS’ methods and the actual practice of the early Islamic community. Historical context will be discussed by scholars, and God’s intentions will be parsed out by those with a theological bent. But regardless of how our contemporaries interpret the past, IS’ attempts to recreate and relive a period in which slaves were taken in war have shattered families that now reel in pain after their children have been snatched away from them.

Is this the Islamic State or just bands of local criminals?

The online jihadists (or “ehadists”) that defend IS on Twitter and Facebook have had three options in how they respond to this shocking moral collapse. The first is to deny that the kidnapping of Yazidi women and forcing of them into sexual slavery (“concubinage”) is occurring.

But despite the denial of IS supporters on social media, these are not rumors, but cases to which I’m personally connected. Journalists have attested to the same phenomenon in their reporting (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), and I spent the summer making contact with Yazidi families who have endured this scourge.

The second option for IS supporters on social media is a line of argumentation that acknowledges this trend of sexual slavery while attempting to justify it as a form of revenge for oppression of Sunnis (which, ironically, Yazidis have never participated in—rather, they were victims of some of the highest levels of al-Qaida violence during the Iraq war, as well as previous targets of religious persecution).

The third argument, coming from some IS supporters, claims that this sick and deplorable pattern is not occurring at the hands of the IS membership itself, but is rather the action of other local Sunnis who are opportunistically taking advantage of the war-chaos to rape, pillage, and kidnap. I have also been perplexed by the question of IS’ methods and behavior and have felt a need to understand the fact that they work according to specific ideals and a strict religious code for behavior, yet often seem to act outside of what such a code would permit. They are not alien creatures but human agents with aspirations of state building who even demonstrate acts of compassion. Christians who fled one Iraqi town described to me how IS fighters provided food for their elderly and disabled Christian relatives who were not able to flee, and then later transported them to an area near Kirkuk where they would be able to rejoin their relatives. How are we to reconcile these humane instances of goodwill with the apparent criminality and destruction that is so pervasive with IS?

Regardless of how we come to understand the IS movement psychologically, this third argument—that responsibility for all repugnant acts lies only with local, self-seeking, non-IS actors, and not with IS fighters—is patently false.

It is certain that many local actors have stepped in and plundered their neighbors’ wealth during IS attacks on new areas. However, I have confirmed with multiple eye-witnesses who were present upon IS’ initial Aug. 3 attack of Sinjar, including Sunni Muslims, that the operation of separating women from men and carrying the women off in trucks was conducted by the IS fighters themselves and was carried out as soon as the fighters reached the area.

Muslims trying to flee Sinjar city described to me how, even before reaching the city itself, fighters conducting the initial attack intercepted fleeing families on the road, stopping their vehicles and taking the female passengers—if they were Yazidi. The campaign to seize female Yazidis and enslave them as concubines is an Islamic State project.

US airstrikes could quickly free several thousand Yazidi women and even entire families

Kidnapped women have been transported all over the Sunni regions of Iraq, and into Syria. The location with the highest number of kidnapped is likely Mosul itself. Rescue efforts for many of these women will take years. Some may never return. Some may remain in captivity and reemerge at some distant point in the future. Others will continue to be rescued or escape in the near future.

Despite the enormous challenge of responding to such a monumental tragedy, the possibility exists of freeing a very large number of those kidnapped in a short time. I’m referring to around 2,000 kidnapped Yazidis currently imprisoned in towns and villages in the vicinity of the Sinjar mountains.

Just south of Sinjar are a number of sites where kidnapped Yazidis are being held. Through phone conversations with captured victims, Yazidi leaders in the Dohuk governorate who are working on the problem have been able to get counts and exact locations for most of them. In over a dozen primary holding sites within at least six separate towns, approximately 2,000 Yazidis are trapped. Most of these contain just women, but at least one site contains entire families that have been kidnapped, including male members.

One man I spoke with lost seven family members: his daughter, her husband, and their five children were nabbed by IS in one fell swoop. They were able to contact him once and inform him of their location, but contact was severed after that.

Most of these kidnapped people know where they are. They’re in familiar territory, not far from Sinjar. If their captors were subjected to an aerial campaign—an intense helicopter assault on IS targets for as little as a half-hour—most of these people would be able to flee. The attacking force wouldn’t even be required to regain control of these towns, they would only need to occupy the moderate numbers of IS fighters in the area. The window of distraction would allow many to escape.

Prior to the Kucho massacre (in which IS jihadists lined up and shot all Yazidi males of the town, on Aug. 15), my contacts inside the town (no longer alive) said that every time a US airstrike occurred on nearby IS positions, the IS militants would run for cover. This was without the IS stronghold in Kucho itself being attacked. Kucho was more isolated and even in those moments of distraction the flight of the townspeople wasn’t possible. But for the large numbers of Yazidis currently imprisoned just south of the city of Sinjar, a different outcome is possible.

US airstrikes could also be conducted while coordinating with the newly formed “Yazidi Forces for the Protection of Sinjar,” local volunteers that have been working with the Peshmerga, trying to defend the remaining parts of Sinjar not captured by IS, and hoping to regain their own villages and towns. If a more sustained aerial campaign was undertaken to combat IS in Sinjar, these local Yazidi forces could cooperate in joint rescue efforts and help free many of the enslaved.

Let’s get as many back as possible

Though US airstrikes were conducted to prevent IS from pushing into Dohuk and Erbil (without which I estimate IS might have reached Dohuk in as few as two days), no sustained campaign has been undertaken to facilitate the Kurdish re-taking of Sinjar. People are confused as to why, and I have no answers.

What I do know is that without greater US air support, 1) Sinjar will not be regained by Kurdish forces and the people of Sinjar will not be able to return home, and 2) large numbers of Yazidi women who might otherwise be freed will continue to be sold by IS jihadists as sexual objects. The Dohuk governorate is bursting at the seams with hundreds of thousands of Yazidi and Christian refugees, who, following those that already fled three years of conflict in Syria, have pushed the area’s capacity for refugees beyond its breaking point. Schools should be opening for local children this week, but they cannot, because hardly any school exists in the entire governorate that doesn’t have several families sleeping on the floors of every room.

Sinjar is the population center for the largest segment of Yazidi people in the world. The Yazidi religion is also inextricably linked to holy places in Sinjar. If they are unable to return, it will do lasting damage to one of the Middle East’s last non-Abrahamic minorities, and thousands of victimized women will remain enslaved in 2014. Let’s do what it takes to get these people safely home and free of the most selfish form of evil I’ve personally witnessed in my life.

The post If US Wanted To, It Could Help Free Thousands Of Enslaved Yazidi Women In Single Day – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Gwynne Dyer

A group of imams and organizations representing British Muslims has written Prime Minister David Cameron asking him to stop using the phrase “Islamic State” when talking about the new country carved out of Iraq and Syria by terrorists. That’s what Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who has proclaimed himself “the caliph of all Muslims and the prince of the believers,” calls his newly conquered territory, but it’s giving ordinary Muslims a bad name.

The British Muslim leaders declared, “the media, civil society and governments should refuse to legitimize these ludicrous caliphate fantasies by accepting or propagating this name. We propose that “Un-Islamic State” (UIS) could be an accurate and fair alternate name to describe this group and its agenda — and we will begin to call it that.”

Good luck with that. But meanwhile two more “Un-Islamic States” are being created right now, on Libyan and Nigerian territory: Same black flags, same fanaticism and cruelty, even the same ski masks. (It’s a fashion statement.)

The city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, has more than two million people. It is surrounded by the forces of Boko Haram — the name roughly translates as “western education is forbidden” — and most of the rest of Borno has already fallen under their rule. In fact, the whole northeastern corner of Nigeria is passing out of the government’s control.

Boko Haram’s ultimate goal was the imposition of an Islamic state in Nigeria ever since it began active operations in 2009. It was in touch with Al-Qaeda from the start, and later with the militant groups in Syria that subsequently turned into the ISIL and finally into the “Islamic State.”

Only the northern half of Nigeria’s population is Muslim, so that was where Boko Haram’s murders and abductions were concentrated, although it also carried out terrorist bombings in the Christian parts of the country. Around 3,600 people were killed in these attacks in the four years to 2013, but then there was a major acceleration: Two thousand more have been killed in just the first half of this year.
From about mid-July, Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau also changed tactics: Instead of hit-and-run raids, he started to take and hold territory. In August, after his fighters captured the town of Gwoza in Borno, he released a video declaring that the area was “now part of the Islamic Caliphate.” He now rules over about 3 million people in northeastern Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon.

Libya is considerably further down the same track. A civil war broke out between the various militias left over from the 2011 campaign to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi, the former dictator, shortly after the June election that might — just might — have produced a government that would try to disarm those militias. It has got so bad that almost a third of the Libya’s population, 1.8 million people, has fled the country, mostly seeking shelter in Tunisia.

The real divisions between these warring militias are regional and tribal, but a number of them have adopted extreme ideologies. These militias have emerged as the winners both in the savage fighting in western Libya around the capital, Tripoli, and also in the other major city, Benghazi, in the east.

In fact, militias with ISIL-style ideologies now control every city along the Libyan coast except Tobruk, a short distance from the Egyptian border. That is where the new Parliament elected in June has taken refuge, and the Parliament’s members are living on a hired Greek car ferry that is serving as a floating hotel. The front line starts just west of town — and the next town along the coast, Derna, has been declared a caliphate.

A lot of this is just ideological fashion, of course. The various “caliphates” are in touch with one another, after a fashion, but there is no master plan. However, the results are truly nasty both in Nigeria and in Libya — and the risk of overreaction by those who feel threatened by these developments, especially in the West, is quite large.

Email: 76@compuserve.com

The post Ugly Tentacles Of Terrorism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

Who likes to play the devil’s advocate? I certainly do not. The increasingly murderous antics of the so-called Islamic State or ISIS are truly horrendous and cannot be condoned by any sane, sensible human being. Arabs and Muslims have all the more reasons to despise the terror army because it claims to speak and perpetrate these shameful acts in their name of their faith.

While the coldblooded killing of two American journalists and a British aid worker have understandably enraged Western public opinion and helped their governments rally behind Washington in another grand “crusade” in the Middle East, the majority of victims of the IS terror happen to be Arabs and Muslims.

Sometime ago in these columns when questions were raised about the ISIS origins suggesting it could be the brainchild of the folks who had helped create Al-Qaeda, there was much derision. Some Muslim Americans were particularly upset.

But ask yourself: Who stands to benefit from what has been unfolding in Iraq and Syria? There are a number of beneficiaries, including Bashar Assad of Syria, according to a strange law of unintended consequences. The focus has now definitely deflected from an embattled Damascus, which was on the verge of collapse.

However, the chief beneficiaries of this war are Israel and its friends in high places. The marketing and sales targets of the ever ravenous international arms industry have been taken care of — for at least another 10 years. No wonder everybody loves a good war.

As veteran Arab analyst Osama Al Sharif notes, the focus has already shifted from Gaza and Israel’s war crimes in the 51-day offensive less than a month after the cease-fire. With ten Arab states, understandably concerned over the meteoric rise of the ISIS, joining the “core coalition” led by Washington, the heat is certainly off Israel. So is the regional and international pressure for “dialogue” and peace. The Palestinians can go back to their ghettoized existence until Israel feels the need to test and retest its latest arms and their resolve.

So whatever the circumstances and explanation for the rise of ISIS and the swift response it has elicited from world powers and everyone in the region, what is hard to miss is the inevitable — more war, wanton destruction and loss of precious lives and resources of Muslim lands — and its far-reaching implications.

This when Iraq is still burning. It is yet to recover from the last glorious war fought in the name of freedom and democracy barely a decade ago. The cradle of civilization, the land of Hammurabi, the first law giver in history of mankind, is set to witness another war in the name of peace. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And yet this president had pledged to “bring America’s longest war to a responsible end.” In the run up to 2008 polls, candidate Obama had vowed: “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank!“

What you can bank on is the outcome of the coming war. Whoever wins this long and protracted battle on a mythical, mutating enemy, the loser will once again be the Muslim world. Muslim blood is ready to be shed on both sides while the ultimate victory will go to someone else.

And God forbid if anyone should raise inconvenient questions like what or who gave birth to the ISIS terror. No one wants to be reminded how it was the world powers’ pussyfooting around Assad, not to mention the vital military and diplomatic sustenance provided by Moscow and Tehran, ignoring the regime’s endless savagery on its own people that essentially rallied motley tribes, rebels, and assorted militants under the black flag of ISIS.

Another major factor has been the sectarian approach of the successive post Saddam governments in Baghdad, totally shutting out the Sunni minority. No wonder ISIS draws its strength from various Sunni tribes, from Iraq to Syria.

But, over and above, it is the international duplicity, colonial policies and unjust wars in the region — the continuing Palestinian dispossession and persecution being the most powerful example — that created and midwifed this monster.

We just saw what happened in Gaza. How Israel bombed a besieged, utterly defenseless population 24/7 for nearly two months while an indifferent world stood and stared.

Indeed this whole business looks so hopelessly staged that even Tom Friedman, that old apologist of the empire, cannot help the feeling that something is amiss.

“What concerns me most about President Obama’s decision to re-engage in Iraq is that it feels as if it’s being done in response to some deliberately exaggerated fears — fear engendered by YouTube videos of the beheading of two US journalists — and fear that ISIS, aka, the Islamic State, is coming to a mall near you. How did we start getting so afraid again so fast? Didn’t we build a Department of Homeland Security?” wonders Friedman in his latest column in the New York Times.

“I am not dismissing ISIS. Obama is right that ISIS needs to be degraded and destroyed. But when you act out of fear, you don’t think strategically and you glide over essential questions, like why is it that Shiite Iran, which helped trigger this whole Sunni rebellion in Iraq, is scoffing at even coordinating with us, and Turkey and some Arab states are setting limits on their involvement?”

I am not dismissing ISIS either. But is war really the solution? Every time you come to save the Middle East, you destroy it some more.
Fight ISIS and the intolerance and hateful bigotry that such groups represent by all means. We can no longer deny the fact that extremism has emerged as a great threat — perhaps the greatest ever — to Muslim societies. But this scourge within is best addressed and eliminated by the community. External and spurious solutions can only aggravate the malaise. Besides, groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda and their competitive shenanigans to attract the world’s attention are mere symptoms, not the disease itself. I know we have been over this before. But unless you do something about the bugs and germs that cause the sickness, you cannot imagine a cure. Band Aid cannot treat cancer. Groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are born and thrive in injustice and oppression. Check tyranny and you choke off terror.

Besides, if killing of innocents and taking over of large swathes of territory is the sole criterion for waging war, well, Israel has killed more innocents — thousands of them — stolen an entire country and continues to threaten the entire neighborhood. Why haven’t we seen an international coalition against the only nuclear power in the region? Where was Obama’s sense of outrage when Gazan homes, schools, hospitals, even UN shelters were bombed? But to even think of such heretical thoughts would be suicidal for a US politician, more so for the president.

Another Western war in the Middle East, even if it includes Muslim states, is a recipe for unmitigated disaster; an invitation to angry Muslims worldwide. More important, it will play right into the hands of extremists offering them the legitimacy and recognition they crave.

Collective Arab and Muslim efforts should tackle this ‘fitna.’ How about an Arab and Muslim coalition against extremism? Seeking help from the very folks who are responsible for the present mess in Mesopotamia and Middle East would be the ultimate irony and absurdity of historic proportions.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Middle East based writer. Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

The post Muslim Coalition Needed To Fight Extremism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Britain’s’ most senior clergyman has said that thinking about global injustices has made him question the existence of God.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby admitted in front of a small public audience in Bristol that he ‘frequently asked’ whether God truly existed, and if “he should be doing something” about difficult situations.

Asked whether he ever doubted his belief by a BBC reporter, the Archbishop said that he did question Christianity at times.

“Yes. I do. In lots of different ways really. It’s a very good question. That means I’ve got to think about what I’m going to say. Yes I do,” he said.

He cited that his soul searching came during his runs around Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop and his staff are based.

Welby, who represents more than 80 million Anglican Christians, told the audience that he sometimes asked God “…isn’t it about time you did something, if you’re there?”

The archbishop, however, brushed off any ideas that he may be giving up his faith in the future.

While he said that Christians would be unable to explain the problem of suffering, he affirmed the idea that God was present in both good and bad times.

It is not about feelings, it is about the fact that God is faithful and the extraordinary thing about being a Christian is that God is faithful when we are not,” he told the audience.

When asked what he does when life gets challenging, he told the audience: “I keep going and call to Jesus to help me, and he picks me up.”

Welby is the first archbishop to openly admit his questioning of the divine, in stark contrast with other religious figureheads in the Christian community.

The comments also come at a time when Christianity is declining at a rapid rate. According to the UK’s last census poll in 2011, the number of people identifying themselves as Christian fell by 4.1 million people – a decline of over 10 percent.

In contrast, the UK is experiencing a huge drive in the number of people identifying themselves as Muslim, particularly amongst young people. According to the census, around one in ten people identified themselves with the Islamic faith.

The post Archbishop Of Canterbury Unsure Of God’s Existence? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By James Burgess

In the world of a constantly changing oil and gas environment, the Montney shale basin is the sleeping giant that holds the key to accelerating Canada’s shale oil and gas boom, but the real treasure within this giant is a tight liquids-rich zone (approximately 15-20 miles wide) that has big and small players alike narrowing their focus for the potential of a giant payout.

A pervasive hydrocarbon system in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) in Alberta and British Columbia, the Montney is estimated to hold 2,200 trillion cubic feet of gas, almost 29 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and over 136 billion barrels of oil. But it is the tight liquids rich fairway (approximately 15-20 miles wide) that contains high concentrations of both free condensate and natural gas liquids that everyone is pursuing in what may very soon be one of the largest commercially viable plays in the world.

Investors aren’t exactly shying away from the challenge, and the overall trend within this large basin is a shift towards liquids-rich areas, which is what the Middle Montney (the middle portion of the Montney resource) is all about.

Initially, companies targeted the Upper Montney, and the entire formation was viewed more as a dry gas play with high productivity and immense gas in place. Through the technological advances that have begun to move up to Canada and a general de-risking of the play, the Middle Montney is proving that there is a very large liquids-rich fairway available with a potential for incredible returns and economics.

Canadian supermajor Encana (NYSE:ECA)—a Montney shale heavyweight—is focusing its drilling to the east of the formation. Last year, Encana announced it would spend over 25 percent of its capex for 2014 on the Montney, and the liquids-rich plays in the eastern area will get the lion’s share of this, with 80-85 new wells planned for this year alone.

There are also a number of growing mid-cap players and one micro-cap honing in on this liquids-rich scene and benefitting from supermajor drilling, including mid-cap NuVista (NVA.TO) and micro-cap Blackbird Energy (BBI.V).

Earlier this month, NuVista signed a deal to purchase another 12.5 gross sections of undeveloped land in the Montney’s liquids-rich zone, which puts its total at over 220 gross sections, while Blackbird has 117 sections of multi-zone Montney rights—again, with a focus on the liquids-rich zone.

It’s a very fast-paced game of follow the leader.

When Encana drilled a well in a previously unproven Middle Montney area and came up with two very economic middle Montney wells that both had condensate gas ratios of approximately 100 barrels of oil per million feet of gas, Navistar responded by immediately buying up land in the vicinity, driving prices up over $2.9 million per section. Blackbird followed suit, capturing a 36-section land position right between Shell and Encana and next to NuVista, which drilled a well with 2,195 boe/d.

And while there is still land available here, prices are rising fast, which makes the situation interesting for the small player like Blackbird Energy, which finds that its land value alone is higher than its current market cap.

Explorers and producers are surrounding the Middle Montney in a pincer movement, and liquids-rich sweet spots are shaping up to be the key to unlocking this next North American treasure chest. And the end of the day, the amount of shale gas under Montney’s surface would be enough to supply Canada’s needs for 145 years, making it one of the top basins in the world, outdone only by Qatar.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Canadas-Shale-Boom-More-To-Come-In-Montney.html

The post Canada’s Shale Boom: More To Come In Montney – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

We tend to think of war as resultiung from an excess of aggression or disorderliness or rebellion. Western academics hunt in the genes of foreigners and study chimpanzees to find the root of the nastiness.

But one would be hard press to count the number of people who have lost their lives to an excess of cowardice in the halls of the United States Congress. “This chamber reeks of blood,” said Senator George McGovern, who would have been shocked anew this week.

On Constitution Day, the House of Representatives — followed the next day by the Senate — decided to put off until after the next U.S. elections in November any possible consideration of the new U.S. war already underway in Iraq and Syria, but voted in the meantime to approve of shipping weapons over to Syria to fuel the violence.

Here’s a website that tells you how your Representative and Senators voted and lets you send them an appropriate message with one click.

Said Congressman Jim McDermott, who voted No: “This amendment, which is valid only through early December, serves as nothing more than a faux authorization designed to get Congress through the election season.  Moreover, it addresses only one aspect of the strategy the President outlined last week.  That is not a responsible way to conduct public policy.”

So, the President announced a three-year war, based on no timetable anyone has produced other than that of U.S. presidential elections. And Congress declared that it would consider looking into the matter after the next Congressional election.  But it’s not as if we don’t all know that they are allowing the war to go on and worsen each and every day. Numerous Congress members denounce Congress for what they themselves call a shameful act of cowardice. But which of them are protesting their “leadership”? Which of them are moving a discharge petition to force a vote? Which of them are using the War Powers Resolution to compel a vote regardless of what the “leadership” wants?

Back on the 25th of July the House overwhelmingly passed the McGovern-Jones-Lee resolution which required the President to seek Congressional authorization before sending troops to Iraq. The President went ahead and ignored that. Will Congress cut off the funding? Censure? Impeach? Nope. Congress voted to approve weapons and training for Syrians who are closely allied with the forces Obama is already waging an air and ground war against in Iraq.

Senator Tim Kaine had been leading the charge to demand that Congress vote before any new war. (As noted, the House did, and the Senate did not follow suit.) Now Kaine says a discussion of that following the U.S. Congressional elections will be sufficient. Until then, the United States will fuel the violence on both sides of a complex war, while repeating incessantly “There is no military solution” and deploying the military and military weaponry in a counterproductive effort to find a solution.

Remarked Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who voted No on weapons to Syria: “The consequences of this vote will be a further expansion of a war currently taking place and our further involvement in a sectarian war. . . . What is missing from this debate is the political, economic, diplomatic and regionally-led solutions that will ultimately be the tools for security in the region and for any potential future threats to the United States.”

Also missing was an organized opposition. Republicans voted yes and no, as did Democrats, as did the so-called Progressive Caucus, as did the Black Caucus. These people need to hear the message that cowardice is not a campaign strategy. They must be confronted with the demand that they stop this war, just as they were a year ago, when scary ISIS videos weren’t manipulating Americans into once again doing the bidding of terrorists who gain strength from U.S. attacks.  A year ago we spoke up. We confronted Congress members at town hall meetings. We stopped them.

Now they’ve literally cut and run. They’re taking a two-month vacation in order to pretend they have nothing to do with the escalating violence. They need to hear from us in person. But we can start by sending them a note to let them know what we think.

Remember, their duty is not to vote approval for a new war, which will then somehow make everything OK. Their duty is to uphold the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the U.N. Charter, the wisdom of most of the world, the lessons of the past decade, and basic common decency by stopping the war.

The post Killed By Congressional Cowardice – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Britta Petersen

It is a very German discussion that has been occupying the media of Europe’s largest economy for the last few months. It started with a cover story in the leading news magazine Der Spiegel that called on policymakers to “Stop Putin. Now.” The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) followed suit with an op-ed demanding a new “double-track-decision” that would show Europe’s “economic, political and military readiness to retaliate” against Russia.

In a largely pacifist country, this air of hawkishness that brings back memories of the Cold War could not pass uncontradicted. Garbor Steingart, Editor-in-Chief of the business weekly Das Handelsblatt rubbished these articles as “mental conscription calls,” an accusation that led FAZ to speculate about the amount of pressure Mr. Steingart might face from the German business lobby: “Be nice to Putin, whatever he does, otherwise our economy will be in trouble.”

A policy review

The debate shows in a nutshell what is currently at stake in the Ukraine: the future of European foreign policy. The crisis not only reveals the centrifugal forces that are always at work within the European Union (EU): different economic interests and political cultures of its member states versus a growing need to speak and act as a unified player. It also shows a deep sense of insecurity of what a European foreign policy should be. But every crisis carries with it the seed of a chance. And this one is pushing the EU in the right direction.

More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, it is clear to everybody that Europe cannot afford to remain divided and indecisive in a conflict at its own doorstep. The shooting down in July of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Ukraine, widely believed to be by Russia-backed rebels, brought back memories of war to a continent that liked to believe that the age of wars – in this part of the world – is over.

Pictures of rotting bodies in the badlands of the Ukraine – all 298 passengers died – did not only prove the contrary. In an ‘Open Letter’ to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 21 German intellectuals from across the political spectrum claim: “The German government resists persistently to talk about Russia’s war against the Ukraine. But every realistic policy has to call a spade a spade. The EU must not leave any doubt that the aggression against a state, with which it has an association agreement will come at a high political and economic price.”

In the Netherlands, from where most of the victims of the ill-fated flight originated, the incident triggered a serious policy review: from business-oriented pussyfooting vis-à-vis Mr. Putin towards a more resolute stance against Russia. Like many other European countries, the Netherlands depends on Russian oil and gas imports for much of its energy needs and has one of the highest trade deficits with Russia. For Italy and Germany too, Russia is an important commercial partner and gas supplier.

That’s one part of the problem. The other is that the relationship between the EU and Russia has not delivered on the promise of a genuine partnership that seemed to be possible after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. One might call that hope for an age of peace, prosperity and democracy as naive, but it has shaped public opinion in Europe after the Cold War at a large scale.

Instead, Vladimir Putin, who was once called a “flawless democrat” by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröeder, has proven an unpredictable neighbour, to say the least. In a drive to secure his own fragile power basis at home, he seems to be determined to bring the Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit, at any cost. And here, the misunderstanding begins.

British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard believes that Mr. Putin is “obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline.” But that underestimates the attractiveness of the European model that is obvious to everybody in its vicinity. And it underestimates the pull that a value-based foreign policy approach has for those who are lacking the freedoms and possibilities that the European Union promises.

Obviously, it has given incentives for political change in the Ukraine. “The majority of the people in the Ukraine want a European-style democracy, rule of law and free market economy. The Kremlin has understood very well that this is a threat to Putin’s authoritarian and corrupt regime,” says Doris Heimann, a German correspondent in Moscow, who has covered Eastern Europe for more than two decades.

While Mr. Putin might satisfy the demand for a strong Russian posture at home, he has little to offer even to his own people in the long run. Andrew Kuchins, Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, believes that Mr. Putin, like his Soviet predecessors, might have decided to avoid necessary economic reforms because they could destroy his authoritarian system. While prospects of a positive economic development in Russia seem to be bleak, former communist countries that joined the EU, like Poland, are flourishing economically.

The European right

Europe therefore needs to take a closer look at the implications of its value-based foreign policy. The EU has taken the right decision to impose strict economic sanctions on Russia as a reaction to the Crimean crisis. Under the leadership of Ms. Merkel, Europe stands united in a major security crisis for the first time and it proves those critics wrong who prematurely assumed that “a shaken EU makes no real effort to confront Russia over Ukraine.”

It should be added here that the European extreme right that has gained influence – especially the French National Front and even the German Euro-critical party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) – count among the staunch supporters of Mr. Putin. And it is clear why: both Mr. Putin and the populist parties of the right want to weaken the European Union, for different reasons. But so far, their influence remains limited.

The buck does not stop here. As Mr. Steinmeier put it, “sanctions alone are no policy.” But what is? This is the background of Germany’s heated discussion about “warmongering” or “appeasement” that rings so much like 1980s rhetoric.

Economic sanctions can only be one part of an overall strategy towards Russia. The role of the military is another element that needs to be reflected on. While the European public is largely pacifist as a result of two devastating wars in the 20th century, policymakers must be aware that “European values” become an empty phrase if nothing follows in case of their violation.

“Will Europe stand by and watch how a state is being destroyed that has opted for European values?” This is the question the signatories of the ‘Open Letter’ to Ms. Merkel ask. They suggest an expansion of the sanctions against Russia and large-scale financial support for the Ukraine. But do not mention the military.

That is the crux of European foreign policy at the moment. “In the European Union’s world, things such as balance of power and armed intervention are simply not on the table, although individual member states such as France continue to undertake military interventions on their own,” writes Kathleen McNamara.

In Germany, things are even more complicated because national interest hardly counts as a relevant element of foreign policy. Therefore, every action has to be justified on moral grounds. “The problem of German security policy is that it neither asks itself what German interests are nor does it explain these interests to the people,” writes Alan Posener, correspondent at the conservative daily, Die Welt.

As a result, everybody who suggests an element of military deterrence in a European strategy towards Moscow, risks being labelled as “warmongering.” That does not only weaken Europe’s position, but also ignores the fact that European continent is still heavily militarised.

Other ‘frozen’ conflicts

Apart from Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine and Mr. Putin’s plan for a neo-imperialist “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”), there are several “frozen” conflicts in South Eastern Europe and the Caucasus that remain unresolved and represent a continuing risk of military conflict: South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, to name just a few. At the same time, thousands of nuclear weapons are still central to the security arrangements of the continent.

The Ukraine, under the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 1994, gave up the world’s third largest nuclear weapons stockpile that it had inherited from the Soviet Union. The memorandum that was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation included security assurances against threats or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. Europe sees the invasion of Crimea and Russia’s interference in the Ukraine as a breach of international law and Russia’s obligations of the Budapest Memorandum.

It is therefore more than justified that a discussion has started about a military component in the EU’s strategy vis-à-vis Russia. The Nato Summit on September 4-5 in Wales discussed a plan of how to free the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – as well as the Eastern European countries such as Poland and Romania from the fear of being threatened or even attacked by Russia.

For everybody who lived in Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin wall, this is a mind-boggling return of “the enemy in the East.” As German President Joachim Gauck put it in a much debated speech at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Germany still believes that it is “surrounded by friends.”

But this might not be the case anymore. “Russia cannot be seen as our strategic partner anymore,” writes Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and asks: “When, if not now, is the right time to take steps towards a European Defence Union?”

Given this psychological situation of the German public and the strong economical interests in the German business community, one cannot expect that German foreign policy will be coming-of-age overnight. Neither will the European Union start acting as the “United States of Europe” any time soon. But driven by the dramatic events in the Ukraine, a far-reaching process has started, in Germany and in other European countries. For this time, the EU is on the right path.

(Britta Petersen is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi.)

Courtesy: The Hindu, September 19, 2014

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SIM USA said Friday it is saddened by the recent attacks on Ebola aid workers and journalists in Guinea and plans to review its crisis response strategies in light of the attacks.

According to published media reports, at least eight Ebola aid workers and journalists were killed in Guinea because of fear surrounding foreign workers who are attempting to control the spread of the deadly disease. Crowds have also reportedly turned back aid workers in other areas of West Africa where the outbreak has been the most severe.

“We at SIM are deeply saddened by the recent attack in Guinea that took the lives of people who came to offer assistance in the face of the Ebola crisis,” said Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA. “We are praying for their families and for the people in Guinea as they work through the aftermath of this atrocity.”

At this time, SIM does not plan to relocate staff in the area. It will review its crisis response policies to ensure that its staff is safe and secure.

According to the latest report from the World Health Organization, nearly 2,500 people have died as a result of the latest Ebola outbreak, with nearly 5,000 probable, confirmed and suspected cases.

SIM had two of the three American missionary workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia and were evacuated to the U.S. for treatment.

SIM’s ELWA 2 Ebola Treatment Center in Monrovia has experienced increasing survival rates as a result of consistent and quality medical care supported by prayer. Dr. Jerry Brown, SIM’s Liberian medical director, reported that 40 of the 69 Ebola patients in its care center are in stable condition and showing signs of survival.

SIM is an international Christian mission organization with a staff of nearly 3,000 workers from 70 nationalities serving in more than 65 countries. In addition to medicine, SIM serves on every continent in areas of education, community development, public health and Christian witness.

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While all eyes appear to be on the international terrorist threat posed by radical Muslims known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Nigerian based al-Qaida affiliate ambushed shoppers at a marketplace in Nigeria’s Borno province brutally killing dozens of people on Friday, according to Samuel Lesner, a police consultant who monitors Islamist terrorist organizations.

The deadly terrorist group known as Boko Haram killed more than two dozen Nigerians during the terrorist attack that targeted the large market. Besides the killings, the jihadists also looted the stores taking merchandise and cash.

“The attack was reminiscent of Somlia’s al-Qaida affiliate Al Shabaab’s attack of a shopping center in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi: innocent shoppers suddenly thrust into a hellish scenario of death and destruction,” Sam Lesner told the Examiner.

The wounded victims of the Boko Haram terrorist attack were taken to local health facilities in the area for treatment, according to Lesner. Among the dead and wounded were Nigerian police officers and the market’s security staff.

According to news outlets in Africa, the Nigerian government of President Goodluck Jonathan sent additional military troops to the area. Boko Haram has proved to be a major security threat in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in the last five years.

In April, Boko Haram shocked the world when its jihadists abducted close to 300 Nigerian schoolgirls from a town in Borno state. The abduction gained the attention of U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama who posted a photo on the Internet asking Boko Haram to release the children, according to an Examiner news story in July.

Boko Haram, which is just as ruthless, deadly and destructive as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is reportedly taking over more and more locations in the group’s quest to establish a separate Islamic state (caliphate), while using the modus operandi of ISIS.

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(EurActiv) — Alex Salmond has announced he will step down as Scotland’s first minister and resign as the leader of the Scottish National Party, after voters rejected independence from the UK.

Scotland voted “No” to independence by about 55% to 45% in a poll yesterday (18 September) that attracted a British record 84.59% turnout and is set to spur major constitutional change.

“For me as leader my time is nearly over but for Scotland the campaign continues and the dream shall never die,” Salmond told reporters in Edinburgh, within ten hours of conceding defeat this morning.

“I had to make a judgment as to whether I’m best placed to take that opportunity forward – and I think others are,” he said.

But Salmond – who during his campaign repeatedly insisted an independent Scotland would be part of the EU and keep the pound – added he had no intention of retiring from Scottish politics.

A Lord Ashcroft poll revealed that 27% of voters named EU membership as one of the reasons behind their decision. 90% mentioned the National Health Service, 78% disaffection with Westminster politics and 64% quoted the pound.

Salmond will not accept nominations to be candidate for SNP leader at the party’s annual conference on 13-15 November. After a new leader is selected, he will stand down as first minister. The new leader will “be elected by due parliamentary process,” he said.

Current deputy first minister and deputy SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is thought to be the frontrunner. But she will need to be confirmed as successor by a vote of the Scottish Parliament.

Devo max

The “No” side won with over two million votes (2,001,926) to 1.6 million (1,617,989). Later in the morning, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced powers over tax, spending and welfare would be devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

The so-called “devo max” was promised by Cameron after opinion polls showed a surge of support for Scottish independence. When asked by EurActiv if the EU would consider giving the UK powers back in a similar way in the event of “Brexit” referendum, the executive refused to comment.

“We now have the opportunity to hold Westminster’s feet to the fire on the ‘vow’ that they have made to devolve further meaningful power to Scotland. This places Scotland in a very strong position,” Salmond said at his press conference.

Cameron also announced plans to ensure only English members of parliament could vote on matters only concerning England. Currently Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can vote on those matters in Westminster.

He also said that talks over devolution of more powers to Wales and Northern Ireland should begin at the same time, setting a schedule for draft legislation in January. But Salmond threw doubt on some aspects of the plan.

“I spoke to the prime minister today and, although he reiterated his intention to proceed as he has outlined, he would not commit to a second reading vote [in the House of Commons] by 27 March on a Scotland Bill.

“That was a clear promise laid out by [former Labour prime minister] Gordon Brown during the campaign. The prime minister says such a vote would be meaningless. I suspect he cannot guarantee the support of his party.”

There is speculation that Cameron’s Conservatives would rebel because so many powers will de devolved, despite the final vote being, in the end, decisive. The commitment to ensure that English MPs can vote on exclusively English matters is seen as a sop to that faction.

Dominant figure

Salmond has dominated Scottish politics for decades. He has been first minister since 2007 and led the SNP for two stints of ten years each, up to the present, leading the calls for a referendum on Scottish independence.

He is widely credited with turning the SNP from a fringe party into a mainstream political force. He headed a minority Scottish government from 2007 to 2011 but was able to form a majority SNP government after elections in 2011.

An occasionally controversial figure, he has been described as “the greatest political conjuror of recent times”by the British media.

“I am immensely proud of the campaign that Yes Scotland fought and particularly of the 1.6m voters who rallied to that cause,” he said at an emotional press conference.

EU reacts with relief to vote

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, struggling to quash an independence drive by the northwestern region of Catalonia, said the Scottish result was the best outcome for Europe.

“The Scottish have avoided serious economic, social, institutional and political consequences,” he said in a video message posted on the government website. “They have chosen the most favourable option for everyone; for themselves, for all of Britain and for the rest of Europe.”

Belgian EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, whose native Flanders region is in thrall to a growing nationalist movement, said a Scottish split would have been “cataclysmic” for Europe, triggering a domino effect across the continent.

“If it had happened in Scotland, I think it would have been a political landslide on the scale of the break-up of the Soviet Union,” said De Gucht, a liberal who does not support demands from some of his fellow Flemings for their own state.

Even before Scottish polls closed, French President François Hollande expressed his fear of a possible “deconstruction” of Europe after decades of closer integration.

The post Salmond To Quit As Scottish First Minister After Independence Vote Defeat appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In terms of its regal name, T. rex now has a rival in Rhinorex condrupus, a new dinosaur described by US palaeontologists.

Rhinorex, which translates roughly into “King Nose,” was a plant-eater and a close relative of other Cretaceous hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus and Edmontosaurus. Hadrosaurs are usually identified by bony crests that extended from the skull, although Edmontosaurus doesn’t have such a hard crest (paleontologists have discovered that it had a fleshy crest). Rhinorex also lacks a crest on the top of its head; instead, this new dinosaur has a huge nose.

The discovery was made by Terry Gates, a joint postdoctoral researcher with NC State and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and colleague Rodney Sheetz from the Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology, who came across the fossil in storage at BYU.

First excavated in the 1990s from Utah’s Neslen formation, Rhinorex had been studied primarily for its well-preserved skin impressions. When Gates and Sheetz reconstructed the skull, they realized that they had a new species.

“We had almost the entire skull, which was wonderful,” Gates says, “but the preparation was very difficult. It took two years to dig the fossil out of the sandstone it was embedded in – it was like digging a dinosaur skull out of a concrete driveway.”

While the limbs are missing and the bones of the body have yet to be prepared, the skull shows a unique nasal process with a fishhook-like shape (Fig.1), but it seems to lack the nasal ornamentation of other hadrosaurids. There are also fossilised impressions of the skin (Fig.2).

Based on the recovered bones, Gates estimates that Rhinorex was about 30 feet long and weighed over 8,500 lbs. Evidence points to Rhinorex inhabiting a coastal environment on the edge of the Western Interior Seaway of North America during the Late Cretaceous period, about 75 million years ago. Rhinorex is the only complete hadrosaur fossil from the Neslen site, and it helps fill in some gaps about habitat segregation during the Late Cretaceous.

“We’ve found other hadrosaurs from the same time period but located about 200 miles farther south that are adapted to a different environment,” Gates says. “This discovery gives us a geographic snapshot of the Cretaceous, and helps us place contemporary species in their correct time and place.Rhinorex also helps us further fill in the hadrosaur family tree.”

When asked how Rhinorex may have benefitted from a large nose Gates said, “The purpose of such a big nose is still a mystery. If this dinosaur is anything like its relatives then it likely did not have a super sense of smell; but maybe the nose was used as a means of attracting mates, recognizing members of its species, or even as a large attachment for a plant-smashing beak. We are already sniffing out answers to these questions.”

The researchers’ results appear in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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When space probes, such as Rosetta and Cassini, fly over certain planets and moons, in order to gain momentum and travel long distances, their speed changes slightly for an unknown reason. A Spanish researcher has now analysed whether or not a hypothetical gravitomagnetic field could have an influence. However, other factors such as solar radiation, tides, or even relativistic effects or dark matter could be behind this mystery.

SINC

Since the beginnings of space exploration, many spacecrafts have gone into a hyperbolic orbit around planets or moons, with the aim of taking advantage of their gravitational energy and go towards their target. However, during this flyby manoeuvre, ‘something’ makes the scientists’ theoretical calculations to not meet and the speed of the probes deviates from that expected.

This anomaly has only been detected with a high level of precision in flybys of Earth, due to the availability of monitoring stations such as that of the NASA in Robledo de Chabela (Madrid) or that of the European Space Agency in Cebreros (Ávila), which allow for the variations in the spacecrafts’ speed to be recorded by means of radars.

Thus, when the Galileo space probe flew over Earth in 1990, an unexpected increase of 4 millimetres per second was detected, as was a similar decrease when it took the same flyby in 1992. Also in 1998, a speed of 13 mm/s above estimates was observed in the spacecraft NEAR, and similar anomalies were repeated in the flybys of Cassini in 1999 (-2 mm/s), and those of the Messenger and Rosetta probes in 2005, with +0.02 mm/s and +1.82 mm/s respectively, the latter arriving just this year at the comet it was directed towards..

“These deviations do not seriously affect the trajectories of the spacecrafts, yet, although they are seemingly small amounts, it is very important to clarify what they are caused by, especially in the current era of precise space exploration,” Luis Acedo Rodríguez, physicist at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, tells SINC.

Scientists have still not found any convincing explanation for the phenomenon, although they have put forward a range of hypotheses. One points towards solar radiation being the cause of the change in speed, whilst others suggest an influence from magnetic fields or the effect of tides, and there are also even unconventional theories, such as the existence of a halo of dark matter trapped by Earth’s gravitational pull.

Acedo has proposed an explanation based on a supposed circulating gravitomagnetic field, which would follow the Earth’s parallels, an approach that can be used to explain the effects on the majority of flybys. “Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts the existence of a similar field, but in the case of meridians, with this strongly confirmed by experiments such as Gravity Probe B,” the researcher comments, although he recognises significant limitations of the model.

“If a force field existed,” he explains, “its effects would also be seen in the elliptical orbits of spacecrafts, and should have been detected a long time ago by geodynamic satellites such as LAGEOS or LARES; however, this is not the case, and it is therefore doubtful that a field of this kind could cast a light on this mystery without seriously changing our understanding of Earth’s gravity.”

With this possibility ruled out, the expert considers in a study published in the ‘Advances in Space Research’ journal that the anomalous behaviour of the probes during their flybys “must originate in something that, although common, we have been unaware of to date, or in an error in the data analysis programs”.

The difference in speeds could also have much more serious implications on the understanding of gravity, according to Acedo: “We already have evidence that shows a seemingly small anomaly in astronomical observations leading to new theoretical conceptions, such as the advance of Mercury’s perihelion (closest point to the Sun), which was essential in the development of the theory on general relativity. For the case in question, and without ruling out an explanation by means of conventional sources, something similar could occur.”

Meanwhile, space probes continue to challenge scientists every time they perform a flyby. One of the last was that of the spacecraft Juno in October 2013, from Earth en route to Jupiter. NASA has not yet published data on this journey, but everything indicates that its speed as it flew over our planet was once again different to estimates.

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New research published today in The Lancet suggests that, with sustained international efforts, the number of premature deaths could be reduced by 40% over the next two decades (2010-2030), halving under–50 mortality and preventing a third of the deaths at ages 50–69 years.

The findings reveal that, between 2000 and 2010, child deaths fell by one-third worldwide, helped by the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce child deaths by two-thirds; and premature deaths among adults fell by one-sixth, helped by MDG 5 to reduce maternal mortality and MDG 6 to fight AIDS, malaria and other diseases. With expanded international efforts against a wider range of causes, these rates of decrease could accelerate, say the authors.

The most striking change during 2000–2010 was a two-thirds reduction in childhood deaths from the diseases now controlled by vaccination (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, and measles), highlighting what targeted international efforts can achieve.

“Death in old age is inevitable, but death before old age is not”*, said co-author Richard Peto, Professor of medical statistics at the University of Oxford, UK. “In all major countries, except where the effects of HIV or political disturbances predominated, the risk of premature death has been decreasing in recent decades, and it will fall even faster over the next few decades if the new UN Sustainable Development Goals get the big causes of death taken even more seriously.”*

The United Nations General Assembly at its meeting in New York this month is discussing 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2016–2030 to replace the MDGs that expire at the end of 2015. The new health goal is “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. The international group of 16 authors, writing in The Lancet, call for this new health goal to be accompanied by a specific target to avoid in each country 40% of all premature deaths (of the deaths that would occur in the 2030 population of that country, if its 2010 death rates continued).

The 40% reduction from 2010 to 2030 in deaths before age 70 would involve reductions of two-thirds in the causes already being targeted by the MDGs, and a one-third reduction in other causes of premature death, such as non-communicable diseases and injuries.

Lead author Ole Norheim, Professor of global public health at the University of Bergen, Norway, explained, “Based on realistically moderate improvements in current trends, our proposed targets are a two-thirds reduction in child and maternal deaths and in HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, and a one-third reduction in deaths from non-communicable diseases and injuries. For this, we are going to need improved healthcare, intensified international efforts to control communicable diseases, and more effective prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases and injuries.”*

“The most important cause of non-communicable disease is tobacco use, and one of the key determinants of smoking is the price of cigarettes”, said co-author Prabhat Jha, Director of the Centre for Global Health Research in St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. “WHO is calling for a 30% reduction in smoking by 2025, and in many countries major increases in excise taxes that double the price of cigarettes are still possible. Such an increase would reduce smoking by about a third, but would increase the total Government tax yield from smoking by about a third.”*

With political commitment and sustained efforts to improve health, the current rate of decline in premature death can be further accelerated. “We conclude that a 40% reduction in premature deaths is realistic in each country where mortality in 2030 is not dominated by new epidemics, political disturbances or disasters”*, added Professor Norheim.

Writing in a linked Comment, the Norwegian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Health and Care say, “[This] study shows what an important part science could play in the negotiations at the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly. We strongly urge the medical community to develop a common position that can enable the international community to arrive at a single health SDG with a limited number of simple, understandable and measurable targets.”

In another linked Comment, Professor Sir George Alleyne, Director Emeritus of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Washington, DC, USA, and colleagues, write that, “The significant advance in this paper is to introduce quantification to the target-setting process, based on rigorous analysis of mortality trends by age as well as by disease category. The proposed targets focus on premature mortality and avoid more complex metrics which are much harder to measure and track over time. The authors stress the importance of countries adapting the targets to their own circumstances.”

This study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, University of Toronto Centre for Global Health Research, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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