This study considers the likely regulatory impact of the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in three key policy areas: investor protection, public services and food safety.

By Gabriel Siles-Brügge

While advocates of TTIP have spoken of the agreement’s ability to boost growth and jobs and set global standards, its detractors claim that the agreement threatens hard-fought social and environmental protections. In light of the charged public debate on the issue, this paper looks at the likely regulatory impact of TTIP in three key policy areas: investor protection, public services and food safety. It finds that the agreement is unlikely to lead to one big deregulatory ‘big bang’. The investor protection provisions being considered offer some protections for states regulating in the public interest, public services are not exposed to wholesale liberalisation and the EU’s relatively more stringent food safety standards appear to be institutionally entrenched. That said, this study concludes that the agreement, as it is currently envisioned by European negotiators, is still likely to constrain regulatory autonomy through its investment provisions, provide insufficient protection for public services and lead to some downward pressure on standards in the area of food safety. The agreement establishes the primacy of the competitive disciplines of trade liberalisation, simply seeking to carve out regulatory exceptions. This approach faces significant practical limitations.

Analysis:

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) –the free-trade agreement currently being negotiated between the EU and the US– has sparked considerable passion on both sides of the Atlantic, and especially in Europe. For its advocates, including the UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, it represents a ‘once-in-a-generation-prize’, allowing the EU and the US to boost their economies by eliminating remaining regulatory barriers to trade and setting global standards.[1] To its detractors, TTIP threatens hard-fought social and environmental protections and ‘would let rapacious companies subvert our laws, rights and national sovereignty’.[2]

It is of course too early to tell exactly how TTIP will turn out. Not only are negotiations in a relatively early stage, and this despite six rounds of talks, but (in the tradition of past trade negotiations) many of the relevant documents have not been made available to the public (although there is pressure to change this). As a result, the aim of this paper is not to make hard-and-fast predictions but rather to assess the state of play in the negotiations in a number of key areas from the available evidence[3] and use this to reflect on the regulatory impact of the agreement.

The areas I focus on here are investor protection, public services and food safety, which have elicited some of the strongest responses from critics of the agreement. The evidence I consider here suggests that TTIP is unlikely to lead to one deregulatory ‘big bang’, but that –as it is currently envisaged by negotiators– it may constrain the regulatory autonomy of states, entrench competitive disciplines in public services and put downward pressure on food safety standards. All in all, TTIP’s negotiators appear to view regulating in the public interest as an exception to the competitive disciplines of trade liberalisation, while significant challenges exist for adequately ‘carving out’ such regulation.

Investor protection: privileging investors over states?

One of the most contentious issues during the negotiations have been the agreement’s proposed investor protection provisions, and in particular the potential for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This latter provision would allow foreign investors to seek redress for violations of their investor rights before independent arbitration tribunals, such as the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The European Commission’s rationale for including such provisions are that they are ‘a tool […] to attract and maintain FDI’ by protecting investors against (direct and indirect) expropriation and unfair and discriminatory treatment, with ISDS necessary to enforce the provisions of the agreement (which may have no standing in domestic courts).[4] In contrast, such provisions have been criticised for ‘provid[ing] significant advantage to multinational enterprises at the expense of governmental flexibility’.[5] In other words, they privilege foreign investor rights over states’ present and future ‘right to regulate’, as states may avoid taking future regulatory decisions in order to avoid costly arbitration arising from claims of indirect expropriation (‘regulatory chill’). The workings of ISDS tribunals have also been criticised as lacking in transparency and the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the impartiality of arbitrators (who, for example, often act as both advocates and judges in different cases). Moreover, such provisions have been described as unnecessary between two partners (the EU and the US) which possess developed legal systems that adequately protect investors.[6]

While it is certainly novel for the EU to be negotiating such agreements –it has only had the competence to negotiate investment protection since the Treaty of Lisbon–[7] investor protection (including ISDS) has been a common feature of the network of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) signed by EU Member States and the US. These agreements were largely negotiated between developed countries and developing countries, such that most EU Member States, with the exception of a number of Central and Eastern European countries, have no BITs with the US. These agreements are commonly acknowledged to have generally provided little protection for states’ ‘right to regulate’, giving investment arbitrators considerable latitude to interpret investment protections broadly and find against the regulatory measures adopted by states.[8] That said, while this network consists of approximately 3000 BITs, it arguably only covers a small proportion of FDI flows: one estimation by investment arbitration expert Gus Van Harten puts it at only 15%-20% of US FDI flows.[9]

Investor protection provisions in TTIP would likely represent somewhat of an improvement on these BITs. On the basis of the document released by the Commission as part of a public consultation on the issue held from March to July 2013, and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) investor protection clauses this approvingly cites, the Commission is:[10]

1. Seeking to carve out greater regulatory autonomy for states, establishing more circumscribed and binding (on arbitrators) definitions of what constitutes indirect expropriation, unfair and discriminatory treatment, excluding non-discriminatory regulatory moves taken to achieve a legitimate public policy objective.
2. Working to improve the ISDS mechanism by limiting conflicts of interest for arbitrators and increasing the transparency of arbitration.

This has been taken by some as implying that, as investor protections are already widespread, TTIP represents an opportunity to rewrite the flawed architecture of the current network of BITs, setting a higher standard for future investment protection provisions.[11] However, there are four main reasons to remain critical of investor protection in TTIP as it is currently envisaged:[12]

1. There remains considerable latitude for arbitration tribunals to interpret provisions on non-discrimination and fair and equitable treatment.
2. While improving the transparency of proceedings, the revised ISDS procedure does not address the broader conflicts of interest that exist within the field of investment arbitration as a result of a lack of judicial independence (arbitrators still rely for their remuneration on the claims brought by investors and are appointed on a case-by-case basis).
3. Most importantly, it establishes the primacy of foreign investor rights over regulatory sovereignty, with legitimate public policy measures being framed as exceptions to the rules. Notably, the principle of the ‘right to regulate’ is only mentioned in the preamble rather than embedded within the text of the CETA agreement.
4. Finally, TTIP, would at the very least, allow firms greater latitude in ‘forum-shopping’, ie, selectively bringing claims through the (in their eyes) most advantageous investor protection regime. It may go as far as significantly increasing the opportunities for firms to make use of such provisions, as estimates suggest that existing BITs only cover 15%-20% of US investment, with TTIP potentially bringing this up to 65%-80% of US FDI flows.[13]

All in all, and while it is hard to definitively assess the nature and the impact of TTIP’s investor protection provisions, the manner in which investor protection is currently envisaged potentially poses an additional constraint on state regulatory capacity. Of course, some doubts have been raised over whether these provisions will even be included in TTIP after the significant campaign against it from European civil society (which culminated in the Commission receiving around 150,000 submissions in its public consultation on the issue) and the opposition of Social Democrats in Germany and the European Parliament. That being said, their inclusion in CETA does suggest they are far from moribund.

Public services: locking in the privatisation of healthcare and education?

A second issue of considerable controversy has been the subject of public services. Civil society activists in Europe have been up in arms over what they perceive to be the privatisation of healthcare and education services (as well as some public utilities). In the UK, this discussion has focused on the impact TTIP may have on the NHS –with the fear that the agreement would ‘lock-in’ the market-led reforms introduced under the current Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government–. The Commission’s response, in turn, has been to reassure such actors that the provision of public services will be sufficiently protected in TTIP.

It is certainly the case that without any carve-outs for public services, these would potentially be subject to considerable disciplines under TTIP. Services liberalisation works on the basis of commitments made under ‘market access’ and ‘national treatment’ (which, under the General Agreement on Trade in Services –GATS– is not automatic as under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade –GATT–, covering trade in goods). Market access commitments would result in the prohibition of monopolies, exclusive service suppliers or economic needs test (all of which are fairly common in the field of public services), while commitments on national treatment would force ‘like’ treatment of domestic and foreign service suppliers (non-discrimination).[14]

The manner in which such commitments are made is also of some importance. In essence there are three approaches to trade in services liberalisation: (a) positive listing (the agreement only covers those commitments that are explicitly made in the market access schedule); (b) negative listing (market access and national treatment apply unless a specific exemption is listed in relevant Annexes); and (c) a hybrid approach. Unsurprisingly, negative listing is generally conducive to more expansive liberalisation as only those sectors explicitly mentioned in its Annexes (which cover both existing measures and future measures) are exempted. In the case of TTIP, the leaked draft market access offer suggests that the hybrid approach is being used (specifically using positive listing for market access and negative listing for national treatment),[15] although it is conceivable that this may move towards negative listing.[16]

Given this context, where the mechanisms of liberalisation are potentially quite expansive, the question is whether Member States have provided for sufficient leeway in the proposed agreement’s language to exempt public services from the requirements of market access and national treatment. In a letter seeking to allay fears over TTIP’s impact on the NHS in the UK, the Commission spells out its approach, namely:[17]

1. A reliance on a specific safeguard for services supplied ‘in the exercise of governmental authority’.
2. The exclusion of commitments on publicly-funded services from the agreement, or specific reservations protecting them.

An examination of the available evidence –including the EU’s leaked TTIP draft market access offer– does not suggest that TTIP, as it is currently envisaged, would legitimate wholescale privatisation or marketisation of public services. But at the same time the protections mentioned by the Commission in its letter are not as water-tight as they are presented, for the following reasons:

1. As Table 1 illustrates for health and education services, the EU has made a number of commitments to services liberalisation. While most of these are limited to privately-funded services, for medical and dental services and a number of other health services these extend to publicly-funded services. Moreover, arguably the distinction between publicly- and privately-funded services is open to considerable interpretation and therefore does not provide a clear exemption.[18] Ultimately, a lot depends on whether the Member States enter appropriate reservations to protect their public services, which they may not wish to do, with the default option (especially if a more encompassing negative list approach is used) being liberalisation.
2. A similar problem relates to the Commission’s invocation of a general safeguard for public services supplied ‘in the exercise of government authority’. Such clauses have generally been interpreted in quite a narrow light to only cover the ‘core sovereign functions’ of states. Indeed, the GATS explicitly excludes those services supplied ‘on a commercial basis’ or in ‘competition with one or more service suppliers’,[19] which may be inappropriate for public services subjected to competitive tendering.
3. As many of the liberalisation commitments reviewed in Figure 1 cover mode 3 service delivery (ie, the establishment of a service supplier), any suppliers entering (or already in) the EU market would fall under the purview of TTIP’s potential investor protection provisions.

Table 1. Draft EU market access offer in health and education services in TTIP negotiations
Sources: leaked draft EU market access offer in TTIP negotiations.

The assessment provided here is naturally still tentative and based on limited documentation. That said, it suggests that, despite ensuring some carve-outs from the competitive disciplines of trade liberalisation, the current approach to public services in TTIP leaves considerable ambiguity in the interpretation of exemptions for such public services as healthcare and education. It ultimately relies on Member States to make all the appropriate reservations (which they may well chose not to do if they wish to lock-in the liberalisation of their public services, as the UK government is being accused of doing). In this vein, it is interesting to note that –in contrast to the approach taken for healthcare and education– France successfully pushed for the complete exclusion of the sensitive area of audio-visual services. It remains of course to be seen whether negotiators will not be forced to change their approach in the face of public pressure (which is mounting). But as it stands, their approach has focused on offering the (somewhat flawed) reassurances noted above.

Food safety: diluting the precautionary principle?

The impact of TTIP on food safety has been another issue to hit the headlines. There has been much talk of the agreement leading to a reduction in EU standards, with genetically modified (GM) foods, chlorinated chicken and beef hormones (amongst other examples) being commonly cited as foods that will make their way into European markets (where they are currently banned/severely restricted). The Commission, for its part, has strongly asserted that ‘that EU law on hormone beef and genetically modified foods won’t change as a result of this deal’.[20]

Critics argue that, given pressure from US negotiators and agribusiness, TTIP will significantly downgrade the EU’s more stringent approach to risk regulation in this domain, which is based on the precautionary principle. This is the notion that the EU will take regulatory action on a preventative basis even in the absence of a clear and scientifically-proven risk (and thus focuses on regulating the process of food production rather than just the final product). In contrast, so the argument goes, the US largely adopts a more lax ‘science-based’ model of risk management where foods (and other risks) are exclusively regulated on the basis of such proven risks (and is thus focused on regulating the product rather than the food production process). We should of course avoid falling into the trap of caricaturing EU and the US approaches to risk regulation as inherently precautionary or ‘science-based’ as there are some differences across policy domains and time.[21] But, it is probably fair to say that on the whole, the EU’s approach to risk management these days is more precautionary than that of the US, and especially so in food safety. [22]

That being said, a wholesale deregulatory ‘big bang’ is not likely to result from TTIP in this domain. The precautionary approach to food safety regulation is quite institutionally entrenched in the EU, with multiple veto points constraining the ability of the Commission to adopt more ‘science-based’ methods into its risk management practices. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a case in point. Despite repeated attempts by the Commission to facilitate the approval of new varieties for sale and cultivation in the EU, Member States have successfully blocked the approval of all but a handful of GMO crops. Previous attempts at transatlantic cooperation in this domain also saw EU regulators see eye-to-eye with their US counterparts on the need to adopt more ‘science-based’ procedures, only to face opposition at home from civil society groups and Member States.[23]

Critics, however, are right to note that under TTIP there has been considerable pressure to move the EU to a more ‘science-based approach’ in risk management for food safety. Not only has this been stated explicitly by the US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack,[24] but even the (soon to be former) Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has expressed sympathy with this view.[25] Indeed, two key scholars of the EU-US GMO dispute show ‘the Commission consistently attempting to use international pressures to secure reforms to domestic European legislation [on GMOs]’.[26]

The leaked draft text of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures chapter of TTIP [27] –while still incomplete, containing numerous bracketed provisions, and highlighting considerable ambiguities (for example, as with investor protection, the ‘right to regulate’ is mentioned in the cover note but not in the text itself)– does suggest that there is a move towards greater mutual recognition. As criticised by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), it proposes eliminating port of entry re-inspection and testing for food products where standards are considered equivalent, even though such re-testing is a common feature of EU food safety risk management. IATP cites the case of seafood shipments into the EU from countries with equivalent standards, of which the Commission mandated that 20% of be re-tested in 2012.[28]

So, all in all, in the area of food safety TTIP is not likely to lead to blanket deregulation, but there is certainly some downward pressure on standards. This, moreover, would not require a wholescale rewriting of EU food safety regulations, as the Commission repeatedly assures TTIP will not do, but rather could be achieved via an increased mutual recognition of standards.

Conclusions

TTIP as a ‘living agreement’?

Having considered the available evidence on TTIP’s regulatory impact my conclusion is that it is unlikely to lead to a large, deregulatory ‘big bang’. The investor protection provisions being considered offer some protections for states regulating in the public interests, public services are not exposed to wholesale liberalisation and the EU’s relatively more stringent food safety standards appear to be institutionally entrenched. On this latter point, there is a whole history of less high-profile and more modest attempts at transatlantic regulatory convergence struggling to take off for similar reasons. For example, a series of very limited mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) signed in 1997 were held up by US federal regulators zealous to preserve their regulatory autonomy. Reflecting on this past record of transatlantic cooperation, one prominent expert therefore wrote in 2005 that a ‘legally binding treaty or a fully-fledged transatlantic free trade agreement […] are unlikely to be realised in the near future’.[29]

That said, the evidence also suggests that the agreement, as it is currently envisioned by European negotiators, is still likely to constrain regulatory autonomy through its investment provisions, provide insufficient protection for public services and lead to some downward pressure on standards in the area of food safety. The trend is to establish the primacy of the competitive discipline of trade liberalisation, simply seeking to carve out regulatory exceptions. This, as we have seen above, is an approach that faces significant limitations.

In the light of these conclusions, which it should be stressed are based on assessing three specific policy areas, it is worth very briefly reflecting on a provision in TTIP which may have impact beyond its (eventual?) ratification. Even if very little is agreed, TTIP could still become a ‘living agreement’ for the negotiation of regulatory barriers to trade. Negotiators envisage TTIP to contain a horizontal ‘regulatory coherence’ chapter, whose intention would be to provide a strengthened institutional context for regulators to discuss ‘any planned and existing regulatory measures of general application with significant (potential or actual) impact on international (and in particular transatlantic) trade’.[30] While this is likely to be constrained for similar reasons to previous transatlantic deliberations between regulators, it certainly provides an important forum in which trade-related questions can be discussed away from the prying eyes surrounding the TTIP negotiations. The likely tenor of such discussions, judging by the evidence considered above, is likely to see non-competitive, public-interest driven public policymaking as the exception rather than the rule, with all the challenges raised above of ensuring appropriate regulatory ‘carve outs’.

About the author:
Gabriel Siles-Brügge
PhD in Politics and Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute under the title ‘Race to the bottom’ or setting global standards? Assessing the regulatory impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

[1] D. Cameron (2013), ‘G8 Summit: US & EU Trade Statement’, speech delivered at the G8 Summit, Lough Erne, 17/VI/2013, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[2] George Monbiot (2013), ‘This transatlantic trade deal is a full-frontal assault on democracy’, The Guardian, 4/XI/2013, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[3] Some of this has been released by the negotiating parties, while there have also been selective leaks of negotiating drafts and other papers in key areas.

[4] European Commission (2013a), ‘Investment Protection and Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement in EU Agreements’, Factsheet, November, (accessed 15/IX/2014), pp. 4-5, emphasis in the original.

[5] G. Van Harten (2005), ‘Private Authority and Transnational Governance: The Contours of the International System of Investor Protection’, Review of International Political Economy, vol. 12, nr 4, p. 600.

[6] L.N.S. Poulsen, J. Bonnitcha & J.W. Yackee (2013), ‘Costs and Benefits of an EU-USA Investment Protection Treaty’, report commissioned by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, London School of Economics, London, April, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[7] See G. Siles-Brügge (2014), Constructing European Union Trade Policy: A Global Idea of Europe, Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 74-77, 161.

[8] See, for example, Van Harten (2005), op. cit.

[9] G. Van Harten (2014), ‘Comments on the European Commission’s Approach to Investor-State Arbitration in TTIP and CETA’, Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Research Paper nr 59, Osgoode Hall Law School, (accessed 15/IX/2014), pp. 28-29.

[10] European Commission (2014a), ‘Public Consultation on Modalities for Investment Protection and ISDS in TTIP’, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[11] R. Basedow (2014), ‘Far from being a threat to European democracy, the EU-US free trade deal is an ideal opportunity to reform controversial investment rules and procedures’, LSE EUROPP Blog, 7/II/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[12] The following draws on Van Harten (2014), op. cit.

[13] Ibid, p. 29.

[14] M. Krajewski (2013), ‘Public Services in EU Trade and Investment Agreements’, Paper prepared for the seminar on ‘The Politics of Globalization and Public Services’ organised by the European Federation of Public Service Unions, European Trade Unions Congress, the Austrian Trade Union Federation and the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour, 14/XI/2013, pp. 11-12.

[15] This draft market access offer dates from June 2014. For the leak, by the Spanish organisation Fíltrala, see Data 3-filtrala2014.

[16] E-mail correspondence with an NGO representative, 28/II/2014.

[17] European Commission (2014b), ‘Letter to the Rt Hon John Healey, MP, Chair of the All-Parliamentary Group on TTIP’, 8/VII/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[18]  Krajewski (2013), op. cit., p. 24.

[19] Ibid, pp. 30-1.

[20] K. De Gucht (2014a), ‘What we need to make TTIP work’, speech delivered at the German Economy Ministry Conference on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, 5/V/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[21] See B. Wiener, M.D. Rogers & P.H. Sand (Eds.) (2010), The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe, RFF Press, Abingdon; and D. Vogel (2012), The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

[22] See Vogel (2012), op. cit.; and M.A. Pollack & G.C. Shaffer (2009), When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[23] Pollack & Shaffer (2009), op. cit., pp. 85-112.

[24] EurActiv (2014), ‘US Wants Science to Settle GMO Debate in Trade Deal with EU’, 18/VI/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[25] K. De Gucht (2014b), ‘Statement by Commissioner Karel De Gucht on TTIP’, European Parliament, 15/VII/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[26] Pollack & Shaffer (2009), op. cit., p. 82

[27] This leak dates from 27/VI/2014. For the leak by IATP, see http://www.iatp.org/files/2014.07_TTIP_SPS_Chapter_0.pdf.

[28] S. Suppan (2014), ‘Analysis of the Draft Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) chapter on food safety, and animal and plant health issues (proposed by the European Commission, as of June 27, 2014’, IATP, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

[29] M.A. Pollack (2005), ‘The New Transatlantic Agenda at Ten: Reflections on an Experiment in International Governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 43, nr 5, p. 916; see also F. De Ville & G. Siles-Brügge (2014), ‘The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Role of Computable General Equilibrium Modelling: An Exercise in “Managing Fictional Expectations”’, paper presented at the 44th Annual UACES Conference, Cork, Ireland, 1-3/IX/2014, (accessed 15/IX/2014), pp. 13-17.

[30] European Commission (2013b), ‘TTIP: Cross-Cutting Disciplines and Institutional Procedures – Position Paper: Chapter on Regulatory Coherence’, (accessed 15/IX/2014).

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The United States confirmed Monday that it, along with partner nation forces, have launched airstrikes inside Syria against terrorists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Adm. John Kirby said in a statement today.

The go-ahead to begin the airstrikes in Syria was made earlier Monday by Centcom Commander Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the Kirby said.

According to Kirby, the airstrikes are being undertaken through a mix of fighter and bomber aircraft and Tomahawk Land Attack missiles.

“Given that these operations are ongoing, we are not in a position to provide additional details at this time,” Kirby said.

Relatedly, Centcom also said Monday that U.S. military forces continued to attack ISIL terrorists in Iraq, using a mix of attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft to conduct four airstrikes near the city of Kirkuk.

In total, the airstrikes destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL tank, and damaged an ISIL Humvee, all west-southwest of Kirkuk. All aircraft exited the strike areas safely.

The strikes were conducted as part of the President’s comprehensive strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.

U.S. Central Command has conducted a total of 190 airstrikes across Iraq.

The post US Confirms Airstrikes Launched Against ISIL In Syria appeared first on Eurasia Review.

ordanian security authorities arrested several militants associated with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Sunday.

The detainees confessed to having connections with the group’s commanders in Syria, and said they were entrusted with carrying out terrorist operations in Jordan targeting several vital locations, and spreading panic and chaos in the Kingdom.

The planned operations were meant to pave the way for future schemes that the IS group intends to carry out in Jordan, Petra said.

A security source said the house of one of the group’s members, located in a town in the northern region, exploded while the suspect was making explosives.

The Public Security Department declined to provide further details to The Jordan Times.

Eleven IS members have been referred to court so far and investigations are still under way into their cases, according to Petra.

Salafist sources aligned with IS claim that four Jordanians were arrested over the past week as part of a security crackdown.

Last week, eight Jordanians were charged with joining, promoting and recruiting for the IS group, and will be tried at the State Security Court (SSC). The indictment sheet said the suspects were recruiting individuals to join IS and using the Internet to promote its radical ideologies.

Also last week, the SSC sentenced a Jordanian to five years in prison with hard labour for fighting alongside armed groups in Syria.

The defendant went to Syria where he joined armed groups, the last of which was IS, with which he reportedly spent 10 months.

He was arrested when he returned to Jordan.

Original article

The post Jordan Arrests IS Affiliates Preparing Terrorist Attack In Kingdom appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj

The Syrian civil war has emerged as one of the conflicts most heavily covered by media, yet least understood. The claims and counterclaims of massacres, conspiracies, and mayhem abound. Following from afar, the international mainstream news portrays Syria as if it ceased to exist as a society, and a certain ‘normalization’ of the war has set in. However, while clichés continue to oversimplify the complex situation and thus indirectly fuel the violence, one should take a closer look at the emerging civil society working inside the country on peace initiatives among Syrians from different political and religious backgrounds. These civil society groups are taking the responsibility of holding the society together into their own hands. They are preserving a humane space where Syrians still accept each other as equal citizens despite the hate perpetuated around them.

In the midst of this chaos, many Syrians – individually and in groups – are taking a stance against reductionist narratives, resisting the temptation to dehumanize each other, rejecting the peer pressure of adhering blindly to one’s own sect or clan, contesting hate speech, and ultimately refusing to be utilized as fodder for war. The emerging peace initiatives take different shapes and forms. Youth groups are disseminating the values and skills of active citizenship to promote social cohesion; others are working on innovative communication strategies to demonstrate the costs of war and raising awareness on the devastating impact of continued hostilities.

In Daraa, in the south of Syria, where fighting has disrupted normal school, several young activists have opened a learning center to teach the values of peace and coexistence alongside basic ABCs. They fundraise for their activities as best they can among Syrian expats and bring scarce resources from across the border to do theater and to produce a local youth newspaper. Their efforts were so successful that they were able to expand to nearby towns and open two new centers. In Tartous, in the west, activists have decided to cross the sectarian dividing lines between the local villages and are working with teenagers on developing active citizenship values like civil responsibility, inclusiveness, and respect for difference through informal education programs and play groups. Often, they bring trainers from other zones to ensure that Syrian youth are interacting together. In Aleppo, in northern Syria, an alliance of civil society organizations has divided the responsibilities of humanitarian relief among themselves sharing whatever resources they are able to raise equally among the different sectors of the city and bridging the political dividing line between the eastern and western parts of the city. At critical moments, they negotiated with the local authorities representing rebel and loyalist forces to ensure that minimal basic water and electricity services were still flowing in the city’s grid from one end to the other.

Further east in Rakka, a youth group is braving the radical Islamist group known previously as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and now as the Islamic State. In secret, they organize sport training for girls as part of their secular learning agenda. Local notables in a town north of Damascus were able to broker a deal with both the regular army and the rebels to halt hostilities. Youth groups in the town are working with rebels to counter radicalism by operating a cinema club and showing movies that promote peace. And the list goes on.

Peace activists are using their own resources to help mitigate the devastating impact of the crisis. They do their work in silence often out of fear of being targeted by the different belligerents. Naturally, this work undermines the hate narratives needed to legitimize violence. However, their work remains very localized and disconnected from the formal peace process. The international community ought to take notice and support civil society in Syria to create greater momentum and develop strategic alliances that can influence the top-down political process being advanced in Geneva. Politicians in the West need to follow the lead of ordinary Syrians risking their lives every day to bring peace to their communities. The regional and global stakeholders should find the moral prerogative to break their political deadlock and the courage to negotiate an end to their proxy wars in Syria. Only then might Syrians have a chance to bridge their own divides and reach workable solutions to achieve peace.

Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj is an architect, urban planner and development consultant. He is working with various civil society initiatives to advance dialogue and peace building in Syria.

The post Can Syrian Civil Society Bring Peace To Syria? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Frederick B. Mills

The administration of President Nicolas Maduro estimates that 30% of goods intended for the Venezuelan market, much of it in subsidized food products, is illegally being diverted and smuggled into Colombia to fetch far higher prices or is being sold on the black market inside Venezuela. The government considers the flow of contraband as part of an “economic war” against the Bolivarian project because it contributes to the episodic shortages of some of the country’s basic commodities and gives rise to illegal price gouging. The profits from the sale of contraband are huge. According to economist Fernando Travieso, “if you take a Venezuelan food product and sell it on the other side of the border, you’re talking about a profit of 20-30 times its value.”[1]

To fathom the extent of the problem, one would have to imagine a caravan of trucks constantly moving goods out of Venezuela into Colombia, including hundreds of tons of foodstuffs and the equivalent of about 100,000 barrels of oil per day. The Venezuelan—Colombian joint anti-smuggling campaign was initiated on August 11, 2014, and is meant to address the contraband problem along the frontier zone, while the Venezuelan authorities also attempt to track the movement of commodities from the point of origin to the point of sale.

Venezuela’s Executive Vice President of the Republic, Jorge Arreaza, who presides over the Anti-Contraband Committee, and the Head of the Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian Armed Forces (Ceofanb), Vladimir Padrino López, have given an update on the campaign as of last Friday. Venezuela’s military and police reportedly have confiscated 4,732 tons of food stuffs, 858 tons of animal feed, 2,763 tons of goods considered “strategic”, as well as more than two million liters of fuel since the anti-smuggling effort began in earnest in August.[2] These efforts also have augmented Venezuela’s ongoing drug interdiction operations.

The government is aggressively pursuing those involved in smuggling, whether they be private citizens, public servants, or foreign nationals. So far, 542 persons have been detained in connection with these operations, 38 of whom are Colombian nationals.[3] Among the Venezuelans arrested are public servants: 39 are members of the armed forces, and 18 come from other government institutions, including Mercal and Bicentenario, which are outlets for the sale of subsidized food items and other basic commodities. [4]

The anti-smuggling campaign is not without risk of confrontations between organized criminals and the Venezuelan security forces. On August 27, Major Raul Antonio Bracho Jaimes was gunned down by ¨smuggling gangs¨ in the western state of Zulia. This grim event is not at all likely to deter the more than 17,000 soldiers as well as the 12,000 police deployed in the interdiction campaign, as Vice President Arreaza describes the effort as “an irreversible and all-out battle against contraband.” [5]

Venezuela and Colombia are clearly attempting to build an impregnable wall against the illicit movement of food products, medicines, fuel and other goods from Venezuela into Colombia. According to Padrino, “There has been effective coordination with Colombian authorities in a spirit of mutual respect and cordiality.”[6] There have been a number of large-scale seizures and disruptions of a dozen well organized mafias that control much of the illegal traffic in contraband. For example, on September 16, Venezuela’s coastguard reported the interception of more than 521,000 liters of fuel being illegally transported aboard five fishing vessels, resulting in the arrest of 28 persons.[7]

These operations are taking place on land , air and at sea, in the country’s interior and along the frontier zone with Colombia. A recent poll by Hinterlaces indicates that 63% of Venezuelans approve of the government’s struggle against contraband and 52% percent approve of the biometric system that keeps tabs on what consumers are buying. [8] The government expects the continuing cooperation of the public; this is facilitated by a phone number for citizens to call to report any diversion of commodities or other irregularities.

Restocking store shelves with diverted goods, providing open air market sale of more than nine tons of food per day (Misión Alimentación) at “solidarity prices,”[9] and increasing the import of basic commodities is expected to alleviate some of the shortages in the coming weeks. Part of the government’s long term solution to foodstuff supply is to attain food security and food sovereignty by supporting small and medium sized agricultural production units as well as ensuring that food imported for sale in Venezuela remains there.

Note: Translations by the author of government officials’ statements are not official.

Frederick B. Mills, Senior Research Fellow at COHA. Frederick B. Mills is Professor of Philosophy at Bowie State University

[1] http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuelan-Army-Major-Killed-in-Latest-Wave-of-Anti-Smuggling-Operations-20140826-0007.html

[2]http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/mas-4-700-toneladas-alimentos-se-han-incautado-lucha-contra-contrabando/

[3] http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/mas-4-700-toneladas-alimentos-se-han-incautado-lucha-contra-contrabando/

[4]http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/esfuerzos-comision-binacional-dan-resultados-positivos-lucha-contra-contrabando/

[5] http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuelan-Army-Major-Killed-in-Latest-Wave-of-Anti-Smuggling-Operations-20140826-0007.html

[6] http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/esfuerzos-comision-binacional-dan-resultados-positivos-lucha-contra-contrabando/

[7] http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/mas-4-700-toneladas-alimentos-se-han-incautado-lucha-contra-contrabando/

[8] http://www.hinterlaces.com/monitor-pais/62-aprueba-medidas-contra-el-contrabando-y-52-sistema-biometrico

[9] http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/nacionales/mision-alimentacion-distribuye-diariamente-mas-9-000-toneladas-alimentos/

The post Venezuela Achieves Progress In Battle Against Contraband – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ajey Lele

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched its maiden mission to Mars – the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) – on November 5, 2013. This mission is expected to reach the ‘Red Planet’ on September 24, 2014 after a ten month long space journey. Currently, the MOM is travelling at a speed of 22 km/second. After reaching close vicinity of Mars, this speed needs to be reduced significantly to make a correct entry into the planet’s orbit. The biggest challenge of this mission will be faced by the on September 24, when the on-board liquid engine would require restarting. This engine has been in sleep mode since December 1, 2013. The challenge is significant because there is no information as to what kind of space weather and radiation the MOM has experienced during its long travel and how much of impact the spacecraft has taken.

ISRO has announced that on September 22, 2014, about two days before the crucial orbit insertion, it would attempt to test-fire the engine for five seconds. For the September 24 insertion ISRO also has ‘Plan B’ in place, if in case the procedure of the orbit insertion develops any difficulties. This backup plan involves firing of eight 22 Newton Thrusters for the insertion. All this meticulous planning by ISRO clearly indicates that much is at stake. Mars has always been a difficult planetary customer since the 1960s when humans first started undertaking missions to this planet. There have been more failures than successes to visit the Martian orbit. For any spacecraft to reach to Mars takes almost ten months and entering into the Martian orbit has always been a technical challenge.

What does the possible success with the Mars mission mean for India? What if ISRO’s mission fails? Would it be considered as a major blow to India’s space programme? In fact, judging by the progress made by the MOM it could be comfortably claimed that ISRO has already achieved around 30 to 40% of the success: first by flawlessly launching the MOM on Nov 5, 2013 and subsequently taking this spacecraft out of the sphere of influence of the earth. Here the primary gravitational influence of earth which is experienced by spacecraft diminishes and slowly the satellite starts under the influences of other planets. For the last ten months, the MOM is following a correct trajectory towards its travel to Mars. Ultimately, what remains is to succeed with correct Mars orbital insertion on September 24 and subsequently taking scientific observations to high levels of space research.

ISRO’s space programme agenda has seen some great successes particularly in the last few decades. The successful Moon mission in 2008 is a landmark achievement. Surely the Mars mission would mean an additional feather in ISRO’s cap and would boost India’s global standing in space and technology. It may be noted that no Asian state has yet achieved the distinction of reaching the Mars. India could be the first.

With the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the political dimensions have dominated the space discourse. The erstwhile Soviet Union made the US see ‘red’ when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. The Apollo human Moon programme was conceived essentially not only for the purposes of a detail study of Moon but to equally demonstrate a superior technological capability of a state. The US success with the Moon programme was an expression of its great power status.

India needs to expand its Mars agenda further. It is for scientific, technological and commercial gains purposes. The political gains are incidental. The best window to undertake a mission to Mars, arises only once in 26 months. This is because owing to the different orbital motions of the planets, Mars comes closer to Earth only once in every 26 months. In the near future there would be such opportunities available in 2016, 2018 and 2020 and India should utilise all these opportunities gainfully.

Any major success achieved by India could assist the global efforts towards the possible human colonization of Mars. This would automatically increase India’s status. Strategic superiority is not only about the display of nuclear weapons but also of alternative ideas. Mars is an idea whose time has come and any major success in this field holds the potential to transform a rising power like India into a great power.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/IndiasMissiontoMars_alele_200914.html

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Xanthohumol, a type of flavonoid found in hops and beer, has been shown in a new study to improve cognitive function in young mice, but not in older animals.

The research was just published in Behavioral Brain Research by scientists from the Linus Pauling Institute and College of Veterinary Medicine at Oregon State University. It’s another step toward understanding, and ultimately reducing the degradation of memory that happens with age in many mammalian species, including humans.

Flavonoids are compounds found in plants that often give them their color. The study of them – whether in blueberries, dark chocolate or red wine – has increased in recent years due to their apparent nutritional benefits, on issues ranging from cancer to inflammation or cardiovascular disease. Several have also been shown to be important in cognition.

Xanthohumol has been of particular interest because of possible value in treating metabolic syndrome, a condition associated with obesity, high blood pressure and other concerns, including age-related deficits in memory. The compound has been used successfully to lower body weight and blood sugar in a rat model of obesity.

The new research studied use of xanthohumol in high dosages, far beyond what could be obtained just by diet. At least in young animals, it appeared to enhance their ability to adapt to changes in the environment. This cognitive flexibility was tested with a special type of maze designed for that purpose.

“Our goal was to determine whether xanthohumol could affect a process we call palmitoylation, which is a normal biological process but in older animals may become harmful,” said Daniel Zamzow, a former OSU doctoral student and now a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin/Rock County.

“Xanthohumol can speed the metabolism, reduce fatty acids in the liver and, at least with young mice, appeared to improve their cognitive flexibility, or higher level thinking,” Zamzow said. “Unfortunately it did not reduce palmitoylation in older mice, or improve their learning or cognitive performance, at least in the amounts of the compound we gave them.”

Kathy Magnusson, a professor in the OSU Department of Biomedical Sciences, principal investigator with the Linus Pauling Institute and corresponding author on this study, said that xanthohumol continues to be of significant interest for its biological properties, as are many other flavonoids.

“This flavonoid and others may have a function in the optimal ability to form memories,” Magnusson said. “Part of what this study seems to be suggesting is that it’s important to begin early in life to gain the full benefits of healthy nutrition.”

It’s also important to note, Magnusson said, that the levels of xanthohumol used in this study were only possible with supplements. As a fairly rare micronutrient, the only normal dietary source of it would be through the hops used in making beer, and “a human would have to drink 2000 liters of beer a day to reach the xanthohumol levels we used in this research.”

In this and other research, Magnusson’s research has primarily focused on two subunits of the NMDA receptor, called GluN1 and GluN2B. Their decline with age appears to be related to the decreased ability to form and quickly recall memories.

In humans, many adults start to experience deficits in memory around the age of 50, and some aspects of cognition begin to decline around age 40, the researchers noted in their report.

The post Compound From Hops Aids Cognitive Function In Young Animals appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Omar Gonzalez, who on Friday scaled a fence at the White House and sprinted across the lawn towards the Oval Office, is reported to have told a Secret Service agent that “he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing and needed to get the information to the president of the United States so that he could get the word out to the people.”

In New York City on Sunday, more than 300,000 people marched for similar reasons. Will their effort, unlike Gonzalez’s, have any tangible effect?

To describe the atmosphere as collapsing might be a technically inadequate description of climate change but it sounds like this is the issue that worried the army veteran. No doubt his fears had been compounded and distorted by traumas experienced while fighting in a war that served no purpose, along with the inadequate care that has been provided for soldiers returning from Iraq. His reasons to mistrust the way the government works certainly cut deeper than those that trouble the average American citizen.

Gonzalez’s action, not surprisingly, has provoked the wrong debate — a debate about whether the White House has adequate security.

But a reluctance to deal with a simple problem — replace a scalable six-foot fence with a much less scalable ten-foot fence — is itself a product of the desire to sustain an illusion: that American presidents have a keener desire to hear and respond to the voices of “ordinary folks” than pay heed to the White House’s regular and much more influential visitors.

We live in a world where the capacity of ordinary people to raise their voices has never been greater, yet with this has come an increasing sense that fewer and fewer people can make themselves heard.

If Gonzalez acted out in a delusional way, it sounds as though there was a kernel of sanity in his impulse.

The atmosphere is collapsing, the sky is falling, and this observation far from being emblematic of an hysterical unwarranted fear, is in fact a crude description of the precarious condition of our planet. The hysteria, in the few places where it is evident, is not an overreaction to the danger we all face, but is instead triggered by the lack of response from those invested with the powers to instigate global changes through the instruments of law and regulation.

Grassroots movements can shape and articulate popular will but that then has to be translated into actions taken by responsive governments — governments led by courageous leaders who do not hide behind unscalable fences.

The post The Fence Around White House Needs To Be Raised, And Removed – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

One group has been conspicuously absent in the battle for greater transparency of global soccer governance symbolized by multiple corruption scandals and match-fixing: football fans, a key stakeholder with a vested interest in demanding a thorough cleansing of the management of the sport. That however may be changing as Israel appears to be mobilizing a grassroots campaign against Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup as part of the Jewish state’s effort to isolate Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls the Gaza Strip, and bolster the fortunes of the Palestine Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

In the only major manifestation of fan discontent since last year’s protests against world soccer body FIFA in Brazil in the walk-up to the World Cup, football supporters in London rallied this weekend outside the Qatar embassy to demand that the Gulf state be deprived of its right to host the 2022 competition because of its support for Hamas. The protest under slogans that included ‘Football fans deserve better than Qatar,’ ‘Kick Terrorism out of Football,’ and ‘Qatar: Stop Funding Terrorism,’ was organized by the Sussex Friends of Israel and the Israel Forum Task Force.

“We should not negotiate with terrorists, we should not finance terrorists and we should certainly not reward terror by awarding the World Cup to Qatar in honour of its role in financing terror… (It is) time for the referee of world opinion to blow the whistle and show a red card to Qatar. It’s time to kick Blatter out of FIFA and time to kick terrorism out of football and it’s time to kick the World Cup out of Qatar,” lawyer Mark Lewis, one of the protest’s organizers told the demonstrators referring to FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Organizers said the protest was the beginning of a campaign to deprive Qatar of the World Cup.

Israeli officials have sought to downplay the notion that they are mobilizing their considerable lobbying resources against Qatar at a key moment in the political battle over the Gulf state’s hosting rights. The officials said a campaign would be hampered by the close ties between the United States and Qatar, which hosts the Middle East’s largest US military base at a moment that Washington is marshalling an international posse against the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq.

The makings of an anti-Qatar campaign nevertheless coincide with a host of crucial developments. FIFA’s independent investigator into the integrity of Qatar’s World Cup bid, Michael Garcia, recently submitted his report to the group’s executive committee. A FIFA executive committee member, Theo Zwanziger, predicted this week that Qatar would be deprived of its hosting rights not because of any wrongdoing in its bid but because of the Gulf state’s extreme summer temperatures. FIFA was quick to assert that Mr. Zwanziger was expressing a personal opinion. Qatar is also under pressure from human rights groups and trade unions to abolish its kafala or sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of their employers.

The demonstration followed a host of attacks on Qatar by Israeli politicians, officials and academics in recent months as well as a successful Israeli-Egyptian effort in the early stages of negotiations to halt seven weeks of fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas to sideline Qatar in the diplomatic process. In an article in The New York Times, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, dubbed Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists” because of its support for Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist groups.

“In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza. Every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read ‘Made possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar…It is time for the world to wake up and smell the gas fumes. Qatar has spared no cost to dress up its country as a liberal, progressive society, yet at its core, the micro monarchy is aggressively financing radical Islamist movements… In light of the emirate’s unabashed support for terrorism, one has to question FIFA’s decision to reward Qatar with the 2022 World Cup,” Mr. Prosor wrote. Describing Qatar as a “petite petrol kingdom,” Mr. Prosor demanded that the Gulf state be internationally isolated.

Israeli Prime Minister has moreover privately lobbied US Congressmen as well as various world leaders in a bid to rally support for depriving Qatar of its World Cup hosting rights if it fails to cut its ties to Hamas. Diplomats and analysts in Doha dismissed media reports that Qatar may expel Hamas leader Khalid Mishal in the wake of the departure from the Gulf state of members of the Brotherhood that is widely viewed as a temporary move to pacify Saudi Arabia rather than a policy shift.

Ironically, the Israeli campaign could well produce the one thing Israel does not want: a moderation of Hamas’ stance toward Israel that would allow it to endorse peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Jewish state under the leadership of President Abbas based on the notion of mutual recognition and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israel has sought to sabotage Palestinian efforts to manage the rivalry between Hamas and Mr. Abbas’s Al Fatah movement and form a national unity government that would negotiate on behalf of a unified rather than a debilitating divided polity.

Israel’s efforts were long aided by Hamas’ intransigence but that may be changing, according to Palestinian officials. With Mr. Abbas heading to the United Nations to demand that the Security Council establish a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the lifting of its blockade of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said that Qatari pressure on Hamas to moderate its positions may be bearing fruit. The officials said that Hamas had in recent days confirmed that it was “on board” in terms of peace talks with Israel. They said opponents to peace talks within Hamas were lying low rather than attempting to resist Qatari pressure.

“Hamas has changed its tone. It is desperate to maintain the ceasefire in Gaza. Qatar is Hamas’ one remaining friend. That gives it leverage, leverage that would be lost if Qatar loses the World Cup. That is something the Americans understand,” said a Palestinian with close ties to both Qatari officials and Hamas.

The post Israel Mobilizes To Deprive Qatar Of World Cup – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Emilio Godoy

Compensation for biodiversity loss, which is taking its first steps in Latin America, is criticised by social organisations for “commodifying” nature and failing to remedy the impacts of extractive industries and other activities that destroy natural areas and wildlife.

“No market mechanism resolves the underlying problem,” Margarita Flórez, executive director of the Environment and Society Association (AAS), a Colombian non-governmental organisation, told Tierrámerica.

“The most serious thing is the environmental liabilities. What should be done about the damage that has already been caused? How do we make sure it’s really compensation and not just remediation?

“We keep losing resources and we haven’t been able to curb the loss at all. This mechanism is plagued with contradictions,” she said.

Since August 2012 Colombia has had a “manual for the allotment of compensation for the loss of biodiversity”, although it is not yet applied. The manual enables businesses to know precisely where, how and how much to compensate for the ecological impact of their activities.

The plan stipulates that compensation must be made in areas that are “ecologically equivalent” to the place that will be damaged, and that it can be carried out in areas listed as a priority by the National Restoration Plan or the National System of Protected Areas.

The compensation or “biodiversity offsetting” activities must last as long as the useful life of the mine or other project, and can entail financing to create or strengthen protected areas or conservation agreements with private property owners or indigenous or black communities on collectively-owned land.

The manual is to apply to projects or works in the mining, oil, gas and energy industries as well as ports, infrastructure, and new international airports.

Excluded are national protected areas, national parks, and biosphere and forestry reserves whose activities depend on special legislation.

Compensation for secondary vegetation ranges between 0.01 and 0.02 square km for every square km affected. And in the case of natural ecosystems, it ranges from 0.02 to 0.1 square km for every square km affected.

In Colombia there are 55 national protected areas, representing 10 percent of the country’s total territory.

Biodiversity offsetting is one of the six Innovative Financial Mechanisms outlined by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which entered into force in 1993 and has been ratified by 193 countries. The treaty is widely seen as the key document on sustainable development.

The other mechanisms are environmental fiscal reform, payments for ecosystem services, green markets, biodiversity in climate change funding, and biodiversity in international development finance.

Currently only one-fifth of the signatory countries have biodiversity offsetting mechanisms, and some 45 programmes are in operation, with an investment between 2.4 and 4.0 billion dollars.

In Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela are the countries with some kind of biodiversity offsetting system, while Ecuador is studying how to implement a mechanism.

Chile, for example, is working on the creation of compensation for biodiversity loss, based on new Environmental Evaluation Service regulations that incorporate the guidelines for offsetting, in a country where protected areas cover 19 percent of the territory.

In Peru, where 166 natural areas cover 17 percent of the country, the guidelines for the design and application of the Environmental Impact Evaluation System’s Environmental Compensation Plan are being debated.

In Mexico, Pedro Álvarez, the head of biological resources and corridors in the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), a government agency, sees it as feasible to combine conservation mechanisms with economic production.

“If communities learn that biodiversity has value, it becomes a good opportunity to generate hope in the management of natural resources,” he told IPS. “But in order for it to work, public funds must be guaranteed for lengthy periods of time.

“In addition, we have to choose the areas with the greatest biodiversity, and prevent it from becoming a situation of ‘if they pay me, I’ll take care of it’,” he said.

The 2013-2018 Sectoral Programme on Environment and Natural Resources indicates that 29 percent of Mexican territory has lost natural ecosystems, in a country with 176 natural areas.

The National Commission on Protected Natural Areas administers the 176 areas, which cover 13 percent of Mexico’s territory.

With the Environmental Compensation Programme for Change of Land Use in Forested Areas, the National Forestry Commission financed 275 projects last year covering 321 square km of land.

“In Colombia, the incentives for conservation have been tiny,” AAS’ Flórez said. “The manual is full of declarations and fails to explain precisely how it can be applied. Details are needed – when, in what conditions, and what will happen if this isn’t applied.”

Tremarctos-Colombia, a system that conducts a preliminary assessment screening of the impacts of an infrastructure project on local biodiversity and provides recommendations regarding the compensatory measures a project will have to assume, can be used in the first phase of the project.

The manual for establishing the compensation for biodiversity loss will be used in the second stage, and in the third stage monitoring will be carried out to compare it to the baseline and guarantee that there is no net loss of biodiversity.

Countries like Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela suffered biodiversity loss between 1990 and 2008, according to the Inclusive Wealth Index, a study of 20 countries led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“New mechanisms must be created,” said CONABIO’s Álvarez. “But it’s not a question of paying people for polluting; that is dangerous. The precautionary principle [the precept that an action should not be taken if the consequences are uncertain and potentially dangerous] must be included in environmental rulings, and there should be a kind of environmental insurance premium in case of accidents.”

The “No to Biodiversity Offsetting!” movement issued a manifesto in November 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland, complaining that it “could lead to an increase in damage, but even more concerning is that it commodifies nature.”

The document, signed by dozens of organisations around the world, says “biodiversity offsetting allows, or even encourages, environmental destruction…[and] is the promise to replace nature destroyed and lost in one place with nature somewhere else.”

Offsetting, according to the signatories, “is beneficial to the companies doing the damage, since they can present themselves as a company that invests in environmental protection, thereby green-washing its products and services.”

The campaign argues that biodiversity offsetting will not prevent loss, and will harm communities and separate them from the environment in which they live, where their culture is rooted, and where their economic activities have traditionally taken place.

One of the aims of the CBD’s strategy for resource mobilisation is to consider offsetting mechanisms, where they are relevant and appropriate, as long as there are guarantees that they will not be used to weaken the unique components of biodiversity.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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The Indonesian House of Representatives is due to pass a bill ending direct elections of local leaders, leaving the selection process to legislators in regional parliaments. Is such a move missing the forest for the trees?

By Adhi Priamarizki and Jonathan Chen

The Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) is currently deliberating a bill that will transfer the election of local leaders from the people to the Regional Legislative Councils (DPRD: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah). Direct elections at the local level or Pilkada (Pemilihan Kepala Daerah) had been in place since June 2005 on the back of reforms in electoral laws that called for an “open list” system and direct presidential elections under Law 32/2004.

Proponents of the abolition of direct local elections cite the high cost of state funding required as well as uncooperative regional heads once elected. The controversial bill, if passed, will take effect less than a month before the inauguration of president-elect Joko Widodo (Jokowi), himself a beneficiary of the Pilkada system.

Abolish Pilkada?

Support for the bill has been increasingly linked with partisan interests. The Merah Putih or Red-White coalition led by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto is in support of the bill although its members, including the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), had flip-flopped over the issue. The most vociferous opponents of the bill are led by Jokowi’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Opponents of the Pilkada system invariably point to the financial burden and inefficiencies the state will have to bear organising elections at all levels.

A study from Seknas FITRA (the National Secretariat of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency) in 2012 estimated that the average cost of holding an election in a city/municipality and province amount to approximately 25 billion rupiah and 100 billion rupiah (about S$2.6 million and S$10.5 million) respectively. According to a study by Tempo magazine, a gubernatorial candidate with the money to spare can be expected to pay up to 40 billion rupiah (about $4.2 million) for consultancy services.

With provincial, districts, sub-districts and municipality elections held simultaneously in five-year phases, money politics especially rent-seeking practices, in the midst of organising campaigns had been a major cause for concern. With aspirations for greater political power and largesse as a driving force among some local candidates, there has been a greater fragmentation of provinces and districts in recent years. Since 1999, the number of provinces had risen from 26 to 34 while districts almost doubled from 292 to 483 by early 2007.

While political decentralisation via direct voting on the whole has been beneficial to the greater project of democratisation in Indonesia, its intended purpose has not always been evenly achieved. In some cases, competitive elections for local elections have been problematic and do not in themselves guarantee that decentralised power operates democratically.

Recent cases have emerged of networks of decentralised political dynasties exploiting the Pilkada system to their advantage. Patrimonial alliances with strong links to dominant party patrons including the increasing presence of familial politics (politik kekerabatan) are becoming a norm even at the local level.

Keep Pilkada?

With greater autonomy given to the regions and local elections as proof of its legitimacy, there has also been emphasis on the significance of the local, articulated in the calls for regional sons (putra daerah). In some instances, this has benefitted the few constituencies and groups that were formerly ill-represented and neglected. In other cases however, it has led to greater polarisation that challenged the communal balances between different ethnic and religious groups especially among more heterogeneous populations.

In particular the growing implementation of local religious by-laws (Perda Shariah) in certain regions threatens to undermine the democratic fabric that the Pilkada system provides.

Proponents of the Pilkada system in general believe that the gains in democratic capital more than make up for the inefficiencies of the system. While money politics and corruption remain a perennial scourge to any democratisation and decentralisation process, direct local elections on the whole has a stimulating effect on the economy.

If the bill goes through, accountability and sovereignty will ultimately rest with the government in power rather than the people. In most instances, direct elections at local levels have led to greater participation from the ground. Qualitatively direct elections have forced local candidates to appeal directly to their constituents rather than pandering to the elites.

Missing the forest for the trees

Another line of argument contends that reverting to the DRPD system may not reduce the state’s financial burden but instead encourage more money politics to take place – at the DPRD level. The Pilkada, notwithstanding its enduring flaws, still acts reasonably well as a form of check and balance to potential predatory interests.

More importantly, the Pilkada system with all its inherent imperfections had yielded several outstanding candidates at all levels of government such as Tri Rismaharini (mayor of Surabaya), Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or “Ahok” (deputy governor of Jakarta), Ganjar Pranowo (governor of Central Java) and president-elect Jokowi. An often neglected aspect of the Pilkada system is that independent candidates are allowed to run with specific requirements.

Surveys so far have shown that a majority of the Indonesian population were not in favour of abolishing the Pilkada system completely. A recent poll by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) showed that more than 81 percent of participants felt that a local leader must be elected directly by the people without any interference from the DPRD.

At a strategic level, direct elections are more beneficial to some political parties than others. Smaller outfits like PKS and PAN stand to gain more from the Pilkada system but were nonetheless compelled to toe the line of their coalition. Surprisingly even the Gerindra Party had been a huge beneficiary of the Pilkada – its overall good performance at the recent legislative elections had been the result of sustained grassroots efforts that began with courting the local vote. A sharpening partisan divide between the pro-Prabowo and pro-Jokowi coalitions however has been at the forefront of the recent heated debates over the Pilkada.

Given that the Pilkada system had served Indonesia’s democracy relatively well despite its inherent flaws, it would be a pity if it is abolished for the sake of the partisan divide. This is perhaps tantamount to missing the “forest” (democratisation) for the “trees” (inefficient allocation of resources).

Jonathan Chen and Adhi Priamarizki are Associate Research Fellows at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

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By George Chen

Seventeen years after taking control of Hong Kong, pledging universal suffrage for the territory, Beijing has made one-person one-vote meaningless by giving itself sole prerogative over choosing the candidates. As Hong Kong reels from the shock of this reversal of democratization trend, the international community wonders about Hong Kong’s future and its standing in the eyes of the world.

In 1997 Hong Kong returned to the People’s Republic of China with the promise of a gradual transition to a representative government. In 2010 China raised hopes saying that in the election of 2017 universal suffrage could be introduced, with details to be worked out later. Li Fei, senior official of China’s National People’s Congress, unveiled the plan on August 31, and the news stunned Hong Kong: China would effectively pre-screen candidates for the position of chief of Hong Kong and limit final candidates to two or three thus denying many of the 7 million residents in Hong Kong ability to vote for a candidate from a slate they liked.

This move has dented international credibility of China, already the world’s second largest economy, which has pledged to be a more responsible rising power in the world stage. If Beijing can so easily break its promise for Hong Kong, then the rest of the world must ponder whether the Chinese government will live up to other international commitments.

Long before the 1997 handover, the official People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, published an article, March 18, 1993, quoting Lu Ping, then the top official in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs: “How Hong Kong develops its democracy in the future is completely within the sphere of the autonomy of Hong Kong. The central government will not interfere.”

More than 20 years on after Lu Ping’s promise to Hong Kong, the “One country, two systems” scheme designed by late paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is now at the risk of collapse due largely to increasing interference, directly or indirectly, by Beijing in various aspects from local elections of legislators to freedom of the press, for decades widely considered one of Hong Kong’s core values alongside the rule of law. The “one country, two systems” scheme implied that, while Mainland China remained socialist, capitalist democracy could coexist in other parts of China as in Taiwan after unification with the Communist China. The Taiwanese government has repeatedly rejected such a political concept since 1971 when the United Nations recognized the People’s Republic as the sole government of China and Taiwan’s leaders refused a dual-representation deal.

The city’s pro-democracy Occupy Central movement – fighting for “one person, one vote” and universal suffrage in line with international standards rather than with so-called “Chinese characteristics” that allow Beijing to pre-screen candidates first – staged a landmark protest against Beijing’s announcement for the 2017 election.

Historically, Hong Kong has been more than just a financial center, playing key roles in political reforms and developments in modern Chinese history. Hong Kong was at one time the home for Sun Yat-san, the founding father of Republican China and an alumnus of the University of Hong Kong, one of the oldest and most prestigious academic institutions in Asia. Many Chinese officials and scholars once expected that Hong Kong could be a role model for the future development of relations between Mainland China and Taiwan in the hope that the two might reunite someday similar to the “One country, two systems” arrangement for Hong Kong.

With Beijing’s stance to allow only two or three candidates – most likely candidates whom the party can trust with loyalty to the central government – to run for Hong Kong chief executive in its 2017 election, the last and perhaps most possible wish for a progressive approach to grow democratic values on Chinese soil is fading away.

Online reactions from the younger generation of Taiwan to Beijing’s toughest-ever control of Hong Kong’s electoral reform show that China may have to work harder to win the minds and hearts of Taiwanese people in the hope of someday reuniting the self-ruling island with its motherland.

Beijing is insistent on blocking the universal suffrage. Perhaps China has deeper concern about western-style democracy taking root in Hong Kong, on Chinese soil, and acting as a beacon for supporters of democracy in Mainland China, in particular those most developed cities including Guangzhou and Shanghai where the fast-increasing middle-class has strong desire for social justice and political reform to protect interests of local residents. China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has embarked on an anti-corruption drive to purify the Communist Party so as to prolong its rule over China. However, on the other hand, the government also silences dissenting intellectuals and pro-democracy activists, and suppresses internet freedoms with the rationale of maintaining domestic peace and stability. Given the porous nature of communication between Hong Kong and the mainland, freedom granted to Hong Kong people to elect candidates not vetted by Beijing would have a subversive effect on China.

Yet, frustrating Hong Kong people’s aspirations by denying them universal suffrage China promised may not bring the peace and stability that everybody desires.

The Occupy Central movement, which threatens to block the business district, could pose a lose-lose situation for both Beijing and Hong Kong. The strength of Occupy Central shouldn’t be downplayed. The movement is not just about how many people occupy the streets physically, but also sends a clear signal through Hong Kong society and Beijing that there are indeed individuals who will fight very hard to defend the meaning of Hong Kong’s core values as listed in the text of the Sino-British joint declaration – “Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Private property, ownership of enterprises, legitimate right of inheritance and foreign investment will be protected by law” – what being a Hong Kong citizen really means. Professor Benny Tai at the University of Hong Kong, also a key leader and co-founder of Occupy Central, declared that the movement already marked a brand new “era of civil disobedience” for Hong Kong, and this was just a beginning. The political road for Hong Kong over the next few years, if not decades, could be far more bumpy.

Many in the West as well as on the mainland often ask, After all those debates, frustrations and protests, what do Hong Kong people really want Hong Kong to be? Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Anson Chan’s response is that Hong Kong shouldn’t become “just another Chinese city,” at least not for now. Hong Kong can still make a huge difference for itself and China in the world stage if its people can continue to stand by the core values of the society.

Beijing’s recommended “universal suffrage with Chinese characteristics” – limiting the slate of candidates to those who will abide by the Communist Party’s dictates – would result in Hong Kong becoming “just another Chinese city,” as feared by Chan. The people of Hong Kong want to retain their own identity and shape their destiny even though the city is part of sovereign China.

George Chen is the financial editor and a columnist for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and a 2014 Yale World Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @george_chen.

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US ExxonMobil energy company is participating in the Far-Eastern Liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant construction project, there is no information on company’s withdrawal from this project, the vice president of Russia’s Rosneft, Vlada Rusakova told journalists on Tuesday.

“I have not heard anything about it yet,” Rusakova said, answering a question on the information about the alleged withdrawal of the American company from this project.

“Participants of the project [of constructing the LNG plant] are the participants of Sakhalin-1,” Rusakova said, adding that she has several meeting scheduled with the ExxonMobil’s management.

Earlier on Tuesday Vlada Rusakova said that constructing the Far-Eastern LNG Plant within the Sakhalin-1 project is the “best option.”

“The administration of the Sakhalin region supports the idea of integration,” Rusakova said, adding that the cost of construction of the LNG Plant is estimated at $8 billion.

The Sakhalin-1 project is implemented on the basis of production sharing agreement and includes three fields [Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi] on the northeastern shelf of Sakhalin Island. Exxon Neftegas Ltd is one of the operators of the project and owns 30 percent of it, while Rosneft owns 20 percent, the Japanese Sodeco – 30 percent, and the Indian ONGC – 20 percent.

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By Ghazanfar Ali Khan

Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers have met in New York for the first time, signaling a possible thaw in relations that have been strained for decades.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, a move that will undoubtedly go a long way in securing peace and security in the Middle East, as well as the region at large. Live footage of the Saudi-Iranian ministerial meeting was aired by several local and international TV channels, including Saudi TV, on Monday.

Prince Saud discussed key regional issues with Zarif.

Speaking after the meeting in reference to the advance of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Prince Saud said: “We are aware of the sensitivity of the crisis and the opportunity we have ahead of us. We can deal with the regional crisis successfully by using this precious opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past.”

Prince Saud added: “The two countries (Saudi Arabia and Iran) are influential in the region and cooperation between them will have clear effects on the establishment of regional and global security.”

Speaking on his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif described his talks with Prince Saud as a “new page” in bilateral Tehran-Riyadh relations, expressing hope that the meeting would have a positive impact on efforts to restore peace in the region and the world at large.

Commenting on the talks between Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers, Saleh Al-Khathlan, deputy chief of the National Society of Human Rights, said: “The meeting is consistent with a new trend in the two countries’ relations, aimed at opening a new chapter of cooperation after years of tension.”

Al-Khathlan added: “This tension was caused by Iran’s belligerent behavior, particularly its intervention in the internal affairs of a number of Arab countries.”

He further said Riyadh and Tehran have “realized that new developments in the region, such as the rise in terrorism, necessitate change of policy toward each other.”

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By Yasmin Najjar

For the first time ever, there are more women than men in Tunisia, according to preliminary census results released September 12th.

Tunisia now has a population of 10,982,754, including foreigners living in the country for six months or more. That’s an increase of more than a million compared to 2004.

The increase in the number of women in Tunisia is “due to the drop of maternal mortality, which is approaching world rates”, according to Hassan Zargouni, director of an opinion polling firm.

“The high standard of living, lack of hard work for men and lack of wars made the number of men exceed that of women in the past,” he explained.

Females now account for 50.2% of the population, compared to 49.9% in the 2004 census.

The National Statistics Institute data indicate that the number of families in Tunisia in 2014 totals 2,712,976, an increase of 527,176 families since 2004.

“The drop of natural growth and limited increase of population in 10 years can’t be accurately explained because it requires in-depth studies. However, this can be approximately explained by Tunisians’ aversion to marriage.” sociologist Monsef Wannes said.

“In addition, the high rate of unemployment and inability to maintain a livelihood has created psychological barriers for those who are about to get married,” he said. “This also explains the high percentage of single men and women.”

The median age in Tunisia is 31.4 years in 2014, as compared to 28.8 years in 2008. It is the only country on the African continent with a median age in the 30s, prompting warnings from sociologists about the country’s aging population.

The new information gathered for the census will help Tunisia draft economic, social, educational and health policies, Interim Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa said.

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Some of the nearly 200 schoolgirls that were kidnapped in Nigeria this April by Boko Haram have been freed, BBC News Africa reported Tuesday.

BBC News Africa quoted Nigerian Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade as saying that the exercise was “ongoing”.

The spokesperson did not specify the number of the girls freed, who are reported to be currently held in a barracks.

This April, Boko Haram, a radical group aiming to create an Islamic state in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, abducted more than 200 Nigerians schoolgirls.

The name of the militant groups translates as “Western education is forbidden”.

The militants of the group are believed to be the masterminds behind most terrorist attacks carried out in the country.

According to media reports, the Nigerian government has recently been in secret talks with Boko Haram to exchange the terrorists it has under arrest for the kidnapped girls.

In August, Chadian troops already freed 85 of the kidnapped girls.

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A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden has been sentenced by a U.S. court to life in prison for his role as al-Qaida’s spokesman after the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in New York, telling the 48-year-old Kuwaiti he saw “no remorse” from him. The judge said he believes Abu Ghaith still wants to do everything he can to carry out al-Qaida’s agenda of killing Americans.

Before sentencing, Abu Ghaith, speaking in Arabic, said he would not “seek mercy from anyone but God.” He said, by sentencing him, the judge was “at the same time unleashing the hands of hundreds of Muslim youths.”

Abu Ghaith was convicted in March of conspiring to kill Americans and providing support for terrorists.

Prosecutors said he answered bin Laden’s request to speak on inflammatory videos aimed at recruiting new followers to carry out more suicide missions like those in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Jurors at the trial saw parts of a video from September 12 that year showing Abu Ghaith seated next to bin Laden and two other top al-Qaida leaders as they sought to justify the attacks the day before.

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The US-led coalition marshalled to confront the Islamic State, the brutal jihadist group that controls a large swathe of Syria and Iraq, has launched systematic air strikes against IS positions and targets in Syria as well as Iraq. They comprised besides the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan as well as Qatar in a supportive role.

Before the airstrikes began, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif charged that most of the alliance’s members, whom he dubbed a “coalition of repenters”, had contributed to the Islamic State’s rise by supporting armed opposition to the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. While not far off the mark the Iranian minister would have hit the nail squarely on the head had he included Russia, a member of the coalition, as well as his own country, though it had not been invited to the alliance’s founding meeting in Paris earlier this month.

Sharing responsibility for IS

If anything, Russia and Iran may even share a greater responsibility because as Assad’s main backers they were more likely to have been privy to the Syrian leader’s grand strategy to defeat the popular uprising-turned armed rebellion against him. If Iran blames the United States for supporting the Syrian rebels, the US’ Arab allies argue that Washington’s failure to supply moderate Syrian rebels with the sophisticated weaponry and funding they needed to defeat Assad’s forces or allow Gulf states to do so, had created a vacuum that the Islamic State filled.

Frustrated by the US failure, as a result, Gulf states and Turkey aided a host of rebel groups, including the Islamic State, in a bid to topple Assad with or without full-fledged US support. Their resolve was strengthened by the fact that Assad enjoyed the support of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Lebanese Shiite ally Hezbollah.

In doing so, the US and its allies walked into the trap Assad had set for them. For much of the last three years of bitter fighting in Syria that has killed an estimated 160,000 people and displaced 6.5 million others, Assad’s forces have confronted non-jihadist forces rather than those of the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL), the name by which the group was known before it rebranded itself as the Islamic State in June. Assad’s sparing of the jihadists was designed to allow them to emerge as the dominant force rallied against him so that he could project himself as indispensable in the struggle to contain Islamist extremism.

Syrian support for jihadists dates back to aid provided by the Assad government to Al Qaeda in Iraq for targeting of US troops, according to documents captured by American forces in 2007 in Iraq’s Sinjar mountains and published by the US Military Academy at West Point. The documents revealed that Syria facilitated the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. Many of them were Saudi and North African nationals, who today are among the largest of Islamic States’ foreign fighter contingents. They utilise the same support structures and logistics networks that were originally established in Iraq with Syrian aid. Moreover, several Islamic State operatives are men who were detained by Syrian authorities on charges of terrorism and later released in a series of general amnesties, according to The New York Times.

A win-win strategy

Assad’s strategy has worked well. Islamic State has emerged as the Syrian leader’s foremost opponent. The United States and its allies struggled with how to confront the group not only in Iraq but also in Syria without legitimising or cooperating with the one Arab leader whose ouster they sought. Irrespective of whatever strategy the allies develop, Assad benefits. Cooperation with his regime as is being demanded by Russia would bring Assad in from the cold. If the coalition opts to take on the Islamic State in Syria without coordination with Damascus, Assad can sit back as his enemies confront the most immediate threat to his regime and do the dirty work for him.

It is hard to believe that Iran and Russia with their intimate involvement in the Assad regime’s battle for survival had been oblivious to the Syrian leader’s nurturing of jihadist forces first in Iraq and, since the eruption of widespread opposition to his regime in 2011, in Syria itself. It was a high risk strategy for both Russia, with its soft underbelly in the Caucasus repeatedly wracked by jihadist violence, and Iran that sits at one extreme of the Middle East’s increasing Sunni-Shiite divide.

Like with US and Gulf policy failures and mistakes, Russia and Iran’s high-risk gamble resembles a chicken that has come home to roost, witness Russia’s inclusion in the US-led alliance against Islamic State and Iran’s support for the war against the group. Their opposition to Islamic State is nonetheless tempered by their efforts to legitimise Assad by insisting that he be acknowledged in military strikes against the group inside Syria. There is little reason to doubt Russia and Iran’s sincerity in wanting to confront the Islamic State. That however does not erase the legitimate suspicion that they more than others were witting accomplices in IS’ rise given the nature of their involvement with the Assad regime.

This article was published at RSIS.

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WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning filed a federal lawsuit against the United States military on Tuesday this week over the Pentagon’s ongoing unwillingness to properly treat the former Army intelligence analyst for gender dysphoria.

Manning, 26, has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria — an incongruence between one’s expressed gender and what’s assigned at born — no fewer than five times by military doctors during the four years she’s been in Army custody for sharing a trove of sensitive government documents with the secret-spilling group WikiLeaks. Despite these repeated diagnoses, however, Manning’s attorney say the soldier has received nothing close to what the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) — the leading authority on gender dysphoria, or gender identity disorder — advises with regards to treatment.

Now after multiple requests and complaints — and in the midst of a 35-year prison sentence handed down by an Army judge last year over the soldier’s role with WikiLeaks — attorneys for Manning officially sued the US Department of Defense this week for what lawyers say is the Pentagon’s persistent denial of access to medically necessary treatment concerning her gender dysphoria.

According to the complaint, Pentagon officials have been far from forthcoming with respect to WPATH’s recommendations. The lawsuit alleges that military brass starting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and down to the director of treatment programs at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas disciplinary barracks where Manning is serving her sentence are responsible for violating the prisoner’s constitutionally-rights by continuing to deny her treatment, and cite gender dysphoria experts who say staying on course could cause the symptoms of the soldier’s condition to greatly worsen.

“This action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to redress Defendants’ refusal to provide Plaintiff with medically necessary treatment in violation of Plaintiff’s rights under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Manning’s attorneys write in reference to the provision that prevents the federal government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment. “Defendants have violated the Constitution by denying Plaintiff medically necessary treatment for her diagnosed gender dysphoria, a serious medical condition.”

It has been more than four years since Plaintiff was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria by Army medical personnel and more than a year since that diagnosis was confirmed at the USDB [Disciplinary Barracks],” continues the complaint filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. “Every day that goes by without appropriate treatment, Plaintiff experiences escalating anxiety, distress and depression. She feels as though her body is being poisoned by testosterone.”

Specifically, Manning has asked during her confinement at Fort Leavenworth for hormone therapy and permission to grow out her hair, but her attorneys say she “continues to be denied treatment in the form of the real-life experience in that she is denied permission to outwardly express her female gender.”

The Defense Dept. does not provide hormone therapy to transgender inmates, and the Bureau of Prisons — the federal office that handles civilian correctional issues — has rejected a transfer request placed by the Pentagon earlier this year that aimed to move Manning to a non-military facility. Yet while some military officials have expressed willingness in recent months to provide Manning with sufficient care, the soldier’s lawyers argue in Tuesday’s filing that the result thus far remains well short of what is needed.

Dr. Randi Ettner — an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria, according to the soldier’s attorneys — concluded after a recent visit to Fort Leavenworth that Manning “is experiencing significant distress and is at high risk for serious medical consequences, including self-castration and suicide, if such medically necessary treatment is not promptly provided.”

“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ purposeful and intentional actions, Plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer injury, including, without limitation, serious physical, psychological and emotional harm, mental anguish, distress, humiliation and indignity,” Manning’s attorneys write.

As of earlier this month, the complaint continues, the offerings at Fort Leavenworth have been well short of what should be required for any transgender inmate. On their part, the suit reads, military officials insisted in a memorandum sent earlier this month that the soldier has been “permitted to begin the ‘real-life-experience’ treatment by being issued female undergarments, specifically female underwear and sports bras.”

“Treating severe gender dysphoria with sports bras is like treating a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid,” Chase Strangio, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in a blog post published by the ACLU this week. “Such inadequate treatment sends the message to Chelsea and the rest of the world that the Army is not taking her health needs seriously.”

Along with David Coombs — the civilian attorney who worked with Manning during the soldier’s months-long court-martial last year — the ACLU has signed on to the lawsuit in hopes of forcing the Defense Dept. to provide Manning with what they consider to be medically necessary treatment.

“[T]he Constitution does not permit medical care to be provided sluggishly when it is urgently needed,” Strangio wrote. “And for Chelsea, the care is critical and the consequences for withholding it are dire.”

“I am proud to be standing with the ACLU behind Chelsea on this very important issue.” Coombs said in a statement published by the civil liberties group this week. “It is my hope that through this action, Chelsea will receive the medical care that she needs without having to suffer any further anguish.”

Manning supplied the WikiLeaks website with a trove of classified documents — including field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs and State Dept. diplomatic cables — during her tenure as an intelligence analyst stationed near Baghdad where she served under her birth name, Bradley. One day after being sentenced to prison for the unauthorized theft and disclosure of those documents, Manning said in a statement read by her attorney that, “Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.” She legally changed her name to Chelsea Manning earlier this year.

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Prominent Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday after a court in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang convicted him for “separatism,” a charge he has vehemently rejected.

The former Beijing-based Central University for Nationalities economics professor immediately protested when the verdict was announced by the Intermediate People’s Court in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi.

The court also ordered that all of Tohti’s personal property be confiscated, according to his lawyer, Li Fangping, who said that the 44-year-old scholar would appeal against the verdict, which came after a two-day trial held earlier this month.

During a three-hour sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Tohti was removed from the court after speaking out in protest as officials read out the 66-page judgement against him, his lawyer said.

“It took three hours for them to read out the 66-page judgement,” Li told RFA after the hearing.

“Ilham Tohti expressed his disagreement, and said he would appeal,” Li said. “I will visit him tomorrow in the detention center.”

Website

Fellow defense attorney Liu Xiaoyuan said the entire case had revolved around Tohti’s website, UighurOnline at uighurbiz.net.

“This was about online expression, and to get life for that is a harsh sentence,” Liu said. “I hadn’t really expected this.”

“It took into account his lectures, his website, and also the fact that he gave interviews to the foreign media,” he said.

“But all of this took place in Beijing…and the reason they have dragged him all the way out here to be tried in Xinjiang, is because they were planning to hand down a heavy sentence,” Liu added.

Tohti’s wife Guzelnur wept loudly in court after the verdict was read and was pictured getting into a car after the hearing, with some assistance.

“I am deeply saddened and disappointed by the outcome in court,” she said in a brief statement to RFA. “Right now I do not have any energy left to talk to the media, I am sorry.”

Devastated

Beijing-based Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser, a friend and supporter of Tohti and his family, said on twitter that she had spoken by phone to Guzelnur, who was devastated by the news.

“I don’t know if she was able to meet with Ilham, because she was in pieces,” Woeser said in . “She couldn’t speak in complete sentences.”

As well as life imprisonment, the court also ordered the confiscation of all of Tohti’s assets and the deprivation of political rights for life.

“Ilham Tohti was a key figure in a criminal separatist group who used his position as a university lecturer who used his classes and his website as a channel to propagate separatist ideas and draw in confused and immature young students,” the judgement said.

“They carried out their separatist activists in conjunction with overseas organizations and individuals,” it said.

“[Tohti's] crimes were very serious, and had a definite influence on the events of July 5, 2009,” it added, in a reference to ethnic violence in Urumqi that left nearly 200 dead and hundreds more injured, according to official reports.

“The court has handed down a heavy sentence, because the consequences of these crimes were so severe,” it said.

Sentence heavier than expected

According to defense attorney Liu, the sentence is far heavier than the 15 years or so that the defense team had been expecting.

“I said in my defense argument that [it would be wrong] to issue a heavy sentence to someone with dissenting opinions, because even if they say mostly critical things, some of the things they say are constructive,” Liu said.

Tohti’s U.S.-based daughter Jewher Ilham said she was “sad and upset” following the news of Tohti’s sentence, and declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, Beijing-based writer Wang Lixiong, who follows Uyghur and Tibetan issues closely, said China had created a Uyghur equivalent of late South African freedom-fighter-turned-president Nelson Mandela.

“On Sept. 23, 2014, the government created a Uyghur Mandela,” Wang wrote on his Twitter account on Tuesday.

The exile Uyghur American Association issued a statement condemning the sentence as an indicator of China’s lack of respect for international standards of justice.

“UAA believes the sentencing is intended to silence peaceful Uyghur dissenters to Chinese state repression and confirms the government’s disregard for meaningful Uyghur participation in solving regional tensions,” the statement said.

“China has shown to the whole world that it will show no mercy to any Uyghur who dares to challenge its repressive rule,” UAA president Alim Seytoff said.

“Professor Tohti must be immediately and unconditionally released by Beijing,” he added.

Root causes

Exile Uyghur groups have repeatedly said the root causes of recent violence in Xinjiang lie with China’s treatment of peaceful Uyghur dissidents.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said the sentence sent out a “clear message” to the world.

“Any Uyghurs who were undecided, who still had some hopes that the situation of Uyghurs could be improved through legal, rational means…have now totally lost that hope,” Raxit said.

“The tragedy of Ilham Tohti shows us that there is no hope for any peaceful resolution of problems in China.”

International rights groups also hit out at the sentence, which compares with an 11-year jail term handed down to 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo for “incitement to subvert state power” in 2009.

Amnesty International said the sentence was “an affront to justice.”

“This shameful judgement has no basis in reality,” Amnesty International China researcher William Nee said in a statement on the group’s website.

“Ilham Tohti worked to peacefully build bridges between ethnic communities and for that he has been punished through politically motivated charges,” said William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International.

“Tohti is a prisoner of conscience and the Chinese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release him,” Nee said.

Tohti was initially detained in January along with seven of his ethnic minority Uyghur students.

He has since been tortured, denied food, and shackled for more than 20 days, his lawyers have said.

The seven students face a similar charge of “separatism”, although it is unclear when their trials will take place or whether they have been allowed legal representation, Amnesty said.

Fairness of trial questioned

Meanwhile, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said Tohti hadn’t received a fair trial.

“The court has no evidence to support the ‘splittism’ charge, and the trial was unfair given the serious breaches of his due process rights,” CHRD international director Renee Xia said in a statement e-mailed to RFA on Tuesday.

“Ilham Tohti must be released immediately, and the verdict must be thrown out,” she said, adding that the charges against him were “trumped-up.”

“Ilham was only exercising his right to free expression,” she said.

The court refused to call any of the defendant’s witnesses to testify during the trial, as well as barring access to the courtroom by journalists, diplomats and members of the public, CHRD said.

Violence

The Xinjiang region, which is home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.

But rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

Chinese president Xi Jinping announced a harsh, one-year anti-terror campaign in May, following a bombing in the regional capital Urumqi that killed 31 people and injured 90.

Reported by Mihray Abdilim for RFA’s Uyghur Service, by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Luisetta Mudie. Written in English by Luisetta Mudie and Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

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