Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government is taking far-reaching steps to weaken the rule of law, control the media and Internet, and clamp down on critics and protestors, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 38-page report, “Turkey’s Human Rights Rollback: Recommendations for Reform”, outlines the rollback of human rights and rule of law in Turkey, linked to mass anti-government protests in 2013 and corruption allegations that go to the very heart of the government of the ruling AKP. Human Rights Watch tracked the government’s response to the recent developments and made concrete recommendations, focusing on four areas: strengthening the human rights context of the peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK); reforming the criminal justice system; ending impunity for past and present abuses by state officials and for family violence against women; and ending restrictions on speech, media, Internet, and the rights to assembly and association.

“Over the past year, Erdoğan’s AKP has responded to political opposition by tearing up the rule book, silencing critical voices, and wielding a stick,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “For the sake of Turkey’s future and the rights of its citizens, the government needs to change course and protect rights instead of attacking them.”

The government’s repressive reflexes came to the attention of the world with the crackdown on the Gezi protests in Istanbul and other cities in May-June 2013, involving excessive use of force by the police, including the misuse of teargas. Thousands face legal proceedings for their participation in demonstrations, including 35 people connected with the Beşiktaş football team fan group, Çarşı, who face possible sentences of life in prison on alleged coup-plot charges. By contrast, few police officers have been held to account for deaths and injuries of protesters.

In December 2013, a major corruption scandal came to light when police announced arrests and criminal investigations in cases implicating senior government officials and members of their families. The scandal emerged out of a simmering conflict within the political establishment between the AKP and its former ally, the influential Gülen movement, led by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The government responded by adopting laws that curb judicial independence and weaken the rule of law. The government also reassigned judges, prosecutors, and police officers. More recently it arrested police officers involved in the investigations, closed down two of the investigations, and intensified efforts to silence social media and traditional media reporting on the issues.

Three sets of changes in 2014 to Turkey’s already restrictive Internet law, the most recent in September, have increased Internet censorship. A revised law on the National Intelligence Agency (MIT), adopted in April, increases government surveillance powers and unfettered access to data, protects intelligence personnel from investigation, and increases penalties for whistleblowers and journalists who publish leaked intelligence.

On the positive side of the balance sheet, the government has made progress in negotiations with the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, with significant potential to further human rights. Bolder steps to remedy the rights deficit for Turkey’s Kurds – the root cause of the conflict – could further human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups in Turkey. Conversely, the failure to address the larger rollback on rights risks unravelling the embryonic Kurdish peace process, Human Rights Watch said.

“The clampdown on rights and interference with the judiciary run counter to government’s positive commitment to a peace process with the Kurds and may well jeopardize it,” Sinclair-Webb said. “Protecting human rights and strengthening the rule of law for everyone is the best way to make sure the Kurdish peace process will succeed.”

The Turkish government should revise the 1982 constitution to protect human rights, Human Rights Watch said. It should repeal the statute of limitations for killings implicating state actors and laws granting immunity to members of the intelligence services and other public officials and civil servants.

It should also end the misuse of charges relating to anti-terrorism, crimes against the state, and organized crime against people engaged in nonviolent political activity and protest. The government should also provide effective protection to women who experience domestic violence and prosecute their abusers. It should also repeal abusive Internet laws and stop prosecuting people for nonviolent speech and journalists for publishing leaked intelligence.

On September 18, the Turkish government announced a fresh strategy for its bid to join the European Union, citing the importance of strong ties to Europe at a time of growing turmoil in neighboring countries and the wider region. The prospect of EU membership was an important engine for reform in the early part of the AKP’s first term a decade ago. The report recommends that the European Union governments publicly elaborate the criteria that Turkey must meet to open negotiations on the human rights aspects of EU membership requirements.

“As Turkey feels the heat of war in Syria and Iraq, Ankara has renewed its interest in closer ties to Europe,” Sinclair-Webb said. “But Turkey is unlikely to succeed in moving closer to Europe unless Turkey’s leaders take steps to reverse the rollback on rights and strengthen the rule of law.”

The post Turkey: Authoritarian Drift Threatens Rights, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Yunus Çiçek

In a routine press conference of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense held on 25 September, Chinese Army spokesman Geng Yansheng said China has agreed to send about 700 combat troops to South Sudan as part of the United Nations peace keeping mission in the country.

Geng Yansheng said the battalion will be equipped with light weapons for use in self-defense, armored personnel vehicles and bullet-proof vests and mainly be responsible for the protection of civilians, U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers while also performing patrol and security duties. The location as well as the timing of the troops’ deployment is still unknown and will be decided after further consultation with the U.N.

The peacekeeping mission was approved by China’s State Council and Central Military Commission and will be conducted in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2155, Yansheng added.

Still, spokespeople from both China’s Foreign Ministry and Ministry of National Defense underlined that the Chinese troops would not undertake any spacial missions outside of their U.N. mandate. “The Chinese peacekeeping troops will strictly abide by the international law and stick to their mandate”, Yansheng told reporters. He added that the troops “will not get directly involved in the armed conflicts of the mission country.”

Voice of Russia claimed that China previously dispatched engineers as well as transportation and medical troops to Africa under peacekeeping missions and stated that China is now sending troops to South Sudan in order to protect Chinese investments in the country.

China imports 80% of South Sudan oil and currently is the largest economic partner of South Sudanese companies.In addition, PetroChina, a Chinese oil company, owns 40% of South Sudan’s oil assets.As can be recalled, China withdrew 40.000 of its workers from Libya after the fall of the Gaddafi regime and lost major investment areas in the country.Voice of Russia interpreted China’s decision on sending troops to South Sudan as a pre-emptive measure to protect its interest in the country.

The post China To Send 700 Peacekeepers To South Sudan Under UN appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead Braulio Zaragoza, secretary general of the opposition PAN (National Action Party), over the weekend in the southern State of Guerrero.

According to party officials, Zaragoza was having breakfast at the Hotel El Mirador in Acapulco, where he was due to meet with party colleagues, when he was shot dead.

PAN’s national president Gustavo Madero firmly condemned Zaragoza’s assassiation, defining the official as “an active and committed militant in the political agenda of the party”. Madero called for an “immediate and thorough” investigation to avoid impunity, which is rampant in Mexico.

Zaragoza’s assassination comes amif high tension in Guerrero after the assassination of six people, including three students, suspected to have been killed by municipal police in Iguala.

The post Mexico: PAN Secretary Assassinated appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jim Garamone

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a hybrid threat, President Barack Obama said last night on the CBS program “60 Minutes.”

ISIL is a terror network with territorial ambitions and some of the strategy and tactics of an army, Obama told reporter Steve Kroft.

While the group is a threat regionally and possibly at home, “This is not America against ISIL,” the president said.

“This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership with to make sure that they are able to take care of their business,” he added.

The United States and coalition partners are providing airstrikes, supplies, training and assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The United States has launched airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria. American service members are advising and assisting Iraqi forces and are beginning the process of training Syrian moderates. All this will take time, Obama said.

A generational challenge

“I think this is going to be a generational challenge,” the president said. “I don’t think that this is something that’s going to happen overnight.”

Changing the way people think and relate to each other is the heart of a solution, Obama said. “What our military operations can do,” he added, “is to just check and roll back these networks as they appear and make sure that the time and space is provided for a new way of doing things to begin to take root.”

The U.S. intelligence community underestimated ISIL, and intelligence analysts overestimated the fighting capabilities of Iraqi forces, the president said.

The new Iraqi unity government led by Prime Minister Haidr al-Abadi is a good start, the president said, but he emphasized that it’s only a start.

Not just a military problem

“We cannot do this for them, because it’s not just a military problem, it is a political problem,” Obama said. “And if we make the mistake of simply sending U.S. troops back in, we can maintain peace for a while. But unless there is a change in not just Iraq, but countries like Syria and some of the other countries in the region, think about what political accommodation means [and] think about what tolerance means.”

The world is paying attention and participating, the president said, noting that Arab nations are joining the United States, Britain, France, Belgium and others in airstrikes against ISIL.

Yet while other nations participate, Obama said, America leads. “We are the indispensable nation,” the president said. “We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing, they don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal.”

And the United States will answer, Obama said. When there are disasters in the world or when war threatens, the world turns to the United States.

“That’s how we roll, and that’s what makes this America,” he said.

The post Obama: ISIL Presents A Hybrid Threat appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Last Tuesday, in a courtroom in New York City, a long-running chapter in the “war on terror” came to an end, when Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, 48, a Kuwaiti-born cleric who appeared in media broadcasts as a spokesman for Al-Qaeda the day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, received a life sentence based on the three counts for which he was convicted after his trial in March: conspiracy to kill Americans, providing material support to terrorists and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

The life sentence came as no surprise, as it is permissible for the main conspiracy charge, although Abu Ghaith’s lead defense lawyer, Stanley L. Cohen, had, as the New York Times described it, “sought a sentence of 15 years, saying in a court submission that his client was facing ‘the harshest of penalties for talk — and only talk.’” The Times added that Cohen had likened Abu Ghaith to “an outrageous daytime ‘shock-radio’ host, or a World War II radio propagandist for a losing ideology.”

In court, as the Times also noted, Cohen “emphasized that his client had played no role in specific acts of terrorism,” but the government had argued otherwise, stating in a sentencing memorandum that there was “no fathomable reason to justify a sentence other than life.”

During the court procedings, John P. Cronan, a federal prosecutor, had told the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, that, although Abu Ghaith “had not been an ‘operational terrorist,’ he was ‘just as valuable, if not more so, than the person who strapped a suicide vest on himself and detonates a bomb.’”

That, I believe, is a dangerous argument to make, in a country that values freedom of speech, although it is one that has surfaced before in relation to terrorism since the 9/11 attacks — in the life sentence at Guantánamo in November 2008, after a trial by military commission, of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, a Yemeni who made a promotional video for al-Qaeda (a sentence that has since been largely — though not entirely — overturned and discredited by an appeals court), and in the killing by drone attack of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen, in Yemen in September 2011. The US tried to portray al-Awlaki as a “regional commander” of Al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based offshoot, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, although the evidence actually suggests that he was nothing more than a propagandist, and was killed because of the success of his propaganda, which, largely through the internet, disseminated a message of anti-American jihad in the English language.

Nevertheless, Abu Ghaith, who was held for over ten years under a form of house arrest in Iran before being freed in Turkey, and ending up in US custody last year after being deported to Jordan, failed to attract any sympathy from Judge Kaplan.

“You sir, in my assessment, are committed to doing everything you can to assist in carrying out Al-Qaeda’s agenda of killing Americans — guilty or innocent, combatant or noncombatant, adult or babies, without regard to the carnage that’s caused,” Judge Kaplan said at Abu Ghaith’s sentencing.

He added that Abu Ghaith had shown “no remorse whatsoever,” nor had expressed any doubt “about the justification for what was done.” He also said that Abu Ghaith continued to threaten the US, and in fact, as the Times also noted, Abu Ghaith had “offered no apology for his actions and did not ask for leniency. Instead, he told the judge that he would not ‘ask for mercy from anyone except God,’ and warned of the repercussions that his imprisonment would bring.”

“Islam is the religion that does not die when its followers die or get killed,” he said, “and it does not come to a stop when they get captured or imprisoned. At the same moment where you are shackling my hands and intend to bury me alive, you are at the same time unleashing the hands of hundreds of Muslim youth, and you are removing the dust of their minds. Soon, and very soon, the whole world will see the end of these theater plays that are also known as trials.”

Following the sentencing, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, issued a statement in which he said that the “trial, conviction and sentencing have underscored the power” of civilian courts “to deliver swift and certain justice in cases involving terrorism defendants.” He added, “We will continue to rely on this robust and proven system to hold accountable anyone who would harm our nation and its people.”

Just two days later, Holder announced his resignation, although his words should continue to have a resonance. One of the perceived failures of his time as Attorney General was when, having announced in November 2009 that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of planning and involvement in the 9/11 trial would be tried in federal court in New York, he was made to back down when opportunistic critics attacked the administration, and President Obama capitulated to the criticism.

As Eric Holder prepares to leave office, Abu Ghaith’s sentence at least vindicates his belief in federal court trials for those accused of terrorism, in contrast to the cheerleaders for torture and military commissions at Guantánamo. As the New York Times described it, “The trial had been widely watched, in part because the decision to prosecute Mr. Abu Ghaith in the civilian court system had been criticized by some members of Congress, who argued that he should have been held by the military for intelligence purposes.”

When the hysteria over the planned 9/11 trial blew up in late 2009, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker interviewed Holder, and wrote that:

[Holder was] determined not to capitulate on the idea of holding a 9/11 trial. “I don’t apologize for what I’ve done,” he told me at one point. “History will show that the decisions we’ve made are the right ones.” Holder said that he regarded trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a courtroom as “the defining event of my time as Attorney General.”

Unfortunately, Eric Holder — and the Obama administration — elected to keep the military commissions, and five other prisoners at Guantánamo (including Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, whose dubious conviction was mentioned above) were charged at the same time that the 9/11 trial was announced, which was a gift to critics of the trial — and supporters of Guantánamo. It is good that no one new has been sent to Guantánamo under Obama and Holder, but it remains a great shame that the military commissions crawl on, despite being thoroughly discredited, when federal courts are so obviously capable of delivering trials and sentences to those accused of terrorism.

The post Life Sentence For Sulaiman Abu Ghaith Discredits Guantánamo’s Military Commissions – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

… and cannot, unfortunately, be different ….

I’m trying to ignore for a moment, my dear professor, all the nonsense with which is heavily encrusted this country. Hatred, envy, the jealousy, apartheid, the eccentricities, the ignorance, and all that mediocrity that splashed us on a daily basis pushing the local righteous acts towards the focus of the end.

I am trying for a moment to ignore the smuggling, drugs, trafficking, tax evasion, rape, suicide, traffic accidents, and all of that mediocrity that lineup on the pedestal of superiority the ignorant of the spirit who calls themselves a guiding star of our destiny.

I am trying for a moment to ignore the division of sports, education, culture and people as well as all that mediocrity which brings forth some new personalities whom are trying to establish some new truths, black and white ones.

I am trying for a moment to ignore piracy in all its forms, inflation of books and inflation of “writers” whom everyday shed us with their “historical” works, in the same time knowing that their descendant will not be able to find their footprints, and all that mediocrity which established a multitude of options for the negation of quality creations that has an assumption of cultural development of society.

I am trying for a moment to ignore the incompetence of doctors, engineers, journalists and others while receiving diplomas in hand by its, postwar crowned schools. For God’s sake, we have to learn and what to learn?…That is not important … it is important to learn, learn, and I try to ignore all mediocrity that brings forth top professionals who crib master’s theses, doctoral dissertations and scholarly works, and in the same time not even for any moment blinked of sickness because of that.

I am trying for a moment to ignore the fact that each country has its mafia while here some new “mafia” has its own state, and all that mediocrity that does not allow creativity of individuals who are seeking towards general, joint goal and who would like to shape up the common goal of a society.

I’m trying to ignore for a moment that I am Bosnian (Muslim), Croat (Catholic) and / or Serb (Orthodox) “on battery” as well as all that mediocrity that put the name and surname prior to knowledge and skills.

But I do not manage to ignore the most important thing which is “the prerequisite-condition sine qua non” for the above specified.

What do you think, my dear professor, what is that?

The answer is simple, really, is simple:

1. Until all the nations / people / citizens / women / children / elderly / young / of these areas do understand that the other and different is not here to be “slaughtered, killed and burned,” there is no prosperity here.

2. Until all the nations / people / citizens / women / children / elderly / young people of these areas do not understand that being able to see the mote in someone else’s and not see a chump in his own eye is not an advantage but flaws, there is no prosperity here.

3. Until all the national/ people / citizens / women / children / elderly / young people of this areas do not understand that state/country means responsibility, faith, love, honesty, knowledge and coexistence, there is no prosperity here.

And when it’s to be expected; not before 2114. For a hundred years from now. Because we then will not exist. And we did not deserve better. Now, am I right, my dear professor.

Awakening, he answered: “My dear student – instead of the story, check only this, please: http://www.cin.ba/en/ and everything will, in a simple way, be told to you – green, red and blue ones are stealing. Mostly from their “own” green, red and blue ones. While this continues to vote for them. There’s something masochistic in the voices (sorry, voting) of the local people.”

The post Bosnia And Herzegovina And XXI Century: The Future Is Engraved appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By exchanging specific atoms inside the mineral structure, quantum bits, required to process complex operations faster, could be stabilized.

Gustavo López Velázquez, researcher at the University of Guadalajara (UDG), proposes to construct a new quantum computer, able to perform multiple operations in a few seconds, which is based on the diamond structure to process information similarly to regular computers but with their own units of information called qubits that allow much faster data processing, equal to one thousand computers working simultaneously.

This type of computers can be employed by research institutes, the government or big business to solve differential problems and equations such as those used to design spacecraft that require specific calculations to determine the values ​​of temperature and cosmic rays, as well as in the making of resonant cavities or guides for electromagnetic waves.

Besides, it creates a cryptographic system that transmits messages safely that can not be intercepted. For example, bank accounts or details of military operations, said Velázquez López, researcher at the University Center of Exact Sciences and Engineering.

The contribution of the UDG is to use the properties of the diamond to reduce interference and loss of qubits, generated by the interaction of the environment or electromechanical fields surrounding the qubit, when making multiple simultaneous arithmetic operations.

Since the problem of quantum computers lies in the instability of qubits, which if not remaing in both positions of zero and one are simultaneously destroyed, unlike classical computing where bits work in a binary system which can only choose one option.

What matters in a quantum computer is to perform operations simultaneously in all states of the system. If you have a thousand qubits, the number of states zero and 1 grow exponentially. Mil qubits is a number that is considered reasonable for serious and complex calculations in this type of computer, Lopez Velazquez said.

The molecular structure of diamond is formed by carbon atoms 12 and 13, which are chemically identical. However, only the 13 atom generates a nuclear magnetic field having the ability to control a qubit to keep zero and 1 in the state at the same time.

Coal 13 alone defines a qubit in both positions, in the system of diamond, so to have a computer of thousand qubits it will be needed to exchange 13 thousand carbon atoms, explained the expert in physics.

Currently there are prototypes of quantum computers with many qubits based on trapped ions, nuclear magnetic resonance or quantum dots, but the professor believes the new diamond system could achieve a quantum computer of a thousand qubits, much more stable in the future.

The post From Diamonds To Super Computers appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A shoe fits a device that saves the energy the person makes by walking and successfully uses it in watch batteries.

At the Center for Research in Advanced Materials (CIMAV), scientists decided to “capture” the energy produced by people walking. They designed a pill-shaped cylinder adapted to a shoe in order to store the mechanical-vibrational energy the person generates when walking.

With the captured energy they have been able to recharge clock and triple A batteries. The prototype designed by CIMAV in Chihuahua, in the north of Mexico, adapted the pill which has a diameter of two inches and a thickness of three millimeters to the sole of a shoe.

Abel Macias Hurtado, head of research and specialist in materials science, said that the pill is a device called piezoelectric measuring pressure, force and acceleration, placed in the sole, and by means of a circuit converts mechanical energy into microwatts ; once connected to the batteries, it was tested with good results.

Piezoelectric is a term that comes from pressure and electricity. When walking, mechanical force is generated which is “captured or harvested” to generate the energy that is “stored” in the pill for further use.

The specialist indicates that in the area of ​​nanostructured materials an important base of the research is to harvest or produce clean energy, and this prototype is ideal for that purpose.

“We want to improve the circuit of the tablet to make it more efficient at capturing energy. Now we are working in making it more efficient, currently we already have clean energy,” says the researcher at CIMAV.

Hurtado Macias indicates that the prototype was implemented in an ordinary shoe with a wide sole; while walking people steps and makes contact with the ground. That’s where the energy is generated.

In this work engineering physics students of the Autonomous University of Chihuahua and Jesus Gonzalez collaborated for the evaluation of results.

Under the same premise, Hurtado Macias been proposed that although a pair of shoes can generate power for the operation of a battery, he considers to adapt a similar system on a “mat” and place it on the entry of a mass transport system like the subway. There it could generate energy capable of illuminating the public transport stations.

“Today, the energy generated by people walking is wasted; if we learn to harvest it and turn it into electricity, we can contribute to the global impact.

The post Harvesting Energy From People Walking appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Aru Pande

The White House says President Barack Obama has full confidence in the U.S. intelligence community and its handling of the fight against Islamic State militants. The comments come after the president said the United States underestimated the rise of the extremist group, particularly in Syria.

When asked if the Islamic State’s control of so much territory took him by surprise, Obama did not mention any miscalculation on his part. Instead, he told CBS’ 60 Minutes that his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, underestimated what had been taken place in Syria, namely that the instability of the country’s civil war had created a “ground zero for jihadists.”

During Monday’s press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the underestimation of the Islamic State or ISIL’s capabilities was not limited to U.S. intelligence or the president.

“Everybody was surprised to see the rapid advance that ISIL was able to make from Syria across the Iraqi border and to be able to take over such large swathes of territory in Iraq, [it] did come as a surprise,” he said. “That’s something that the president has said many times.”

The White House spokesman said the president has complete confidence in Clapper and the intelligence community’s ability to meet and mitigate the threat posed by the Islamic State – pointing to the success of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

During the 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, Obama also acknowledged that the United States had overestimated the ability of Iraqi forces to combat the extremist group.

A point repeated by Earnest.

“Predicting the will of foreign security forces to fight for their country is difficult. This is something that Director Clapper himself has acknowledged. What we are focused on is making sure that the president has the intelligence he needs to build and lead an international coalition take the fight to ISIL,” he said.

And that fight is expected to take some time, as the United States focuses on an air campaign that the president says will hopefully give Iraq space to build unity among Iraqi soldiers who have been reluctant to pick up arms against Islamic State militants.

The post Obama Confident In US Intelligence Despite Islamic State’s Rise appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy appeared at Moncloa Palace at the conclusion of an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers to report that the government has lodged an appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality before the Constitutional Court against the Law on referendums approved by the Regional Parliament of Catalonia, and against the Decree calling a referendum on 9 November. The content of his declaration is as follows:

“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and thank you very much for your presence on this occasion.

As you know, I am appearing here before you to inform you about the agreements adopted by the Council of Ministers at its extraordinary meeting this morning.

After analysing the opinions requested from the Council of State, the government has lodged appeals before the Constitutional Court on the grounds of unconstitutionality against the Law on non-binding referendums approved by the Parliament of Catalonia and against the Decree calling a referendum for 9 November, signed by the President of the Regional Government of Catalonia.

As you know, if the two appeals are admitted, the Act and the Decree will both be automatically suspended, under Article 161.2 of our Constitution.

I am not going to repeat to you the arguments that have been presented in the appeals which are down to the Court to judge. You know them well enough. The referendum that is being attempted is not compatible with the Spanish Constitution, neither in its purpose nor in the procedure being followed.

Today’s decision is in line with what the government had already announced on 12 December last year, when I appeared here in this very room. It was then that the President of the Regional Government of Catalonia announced his decision to call a referendum on self-determination. That same day we determined the position the government would take, and as is understandable in an issue of these characteristics, it has not been modified.

We have always said that this referendum was not going to take place because it clashes directly with the Spanish Constitution. We have repeated this argument each and every time that this issue has arisen. And today we fulfil our obligation to lodge an appeal against a decision that is a serious violation of the rights of all Spanish people.

The referendum on self-determination that the Regional Government of Catalonia aims to call is openly contrary to our Constitution, which in Article 1 states that ‘national sovereignty lies with the Spanish people, from whom the powers of the State derive.’

Sovereignty lies with the Spanish people as a whole, and one part of the people may not take decisions on what affects all of them. The Spanish Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, and thus any attempt to dissolve it is radically contrary to the Constitution. Of course, the Constitution can be reformed, but the referendum being attempted is in no way in line with the procedures that the Constitution itself establishes for its reform.

It is false that the right to vote and decide is a right that may be attributed unilaterally to one region and denied to the rest of the nation. It is a demagogic ruse to appeal to something that sounds good: the right to express oneself, the right to be heard. The problem is that those who use these arguments are actually denying this right to those who really have it, which is the Spanish people as a whole. So the referendum is profoundly anti-democratic; the attempt to give the right to some takes it away from others.

Legally speaking, the government may not do anything other than what it is doing today, and there is no other course of action from a strictly political point of view either.

There is nothing and no-one, no power or institution, that can break this principle of single and indivisible sovereignty on which our life together is based. Putting it another way, there is nothing and no-one that can deny all the people of Spain the right to decide what their country is; but that, in fact, is the practical consequence of the referendum called by the Regional Government of Catalonia.

The government is therefore obliged to act in defence of the Constitution, which means acting to defend the rights and freedoms of each and every one of the Spanish people, including the citizens of Catalonia. We are also defending them and their rights with this appeal.

I would like to recall that the government’s position has been backed politically and legally by an indisputable majority of the Lower House of Parliament, as well as the Constitutional Court itself in its ruling of 24 March.

Let me here add something to my arguments because, apart from lodging the appeal, we must explain as clearly as possible what this challenge represents.

The first thing I would like to say is that with this appeal we are defending the validity of democratic law. The law is not a straightjacket or a restriction to freedom. It is quite the reverse: the law is a guarantee of equality, of the rights and freedoms of citizens. It is the guarantee of everyone’s security. The law is not a whim of the government, neither this government nor any other. The law is an expression of the will of the majority of the citizens and that is why it is the duty of the government to defend it: to obey it and make sure it is obeyed.

It is not admissible to contrast the law with democracy, as some do, because without the law there is no democracy or respect for the rights of citizens; and without the law there is also no politics.

No one is being prevented from talking or expressing their will. Luckily, Spanish people have been doing so for decades. But what may not be permitted is for the will of one part to deprive the rest of their rights.

Laws may be changed, but always through established democratic channels. Anyone who wants to change this situation has full freedom to suggest a reform: to propose it in the democratically-established terms and to try to achieve the support necessary for it to be successful. That is how to do things. What cannot be done, or what a responsible lawmaker cannot do, is to try to find shortcuts or ploys to infringe legality, however well dressed up they are with pretty wording.

I would like to say something about dialogue. The government has maintained an ongoing, open dialogue with the Regional Government of Catalonia, and I in particular have maintained one with its President. But the truth is that the Regional Government of Catalonia has for some time been pursuing a policy of fait accompli that it has implemented consistently. It wants the government to be forced to find a solution to unilateral decisions that are impossible to agree with. My stance has been open, clear and firm. I have been prepared to negotiate from day one, but a real possibility has never existed, because the Regional Government of Catalonia has first of all taken decisions and then tried to make the government of Spain not only accept them but also find the political and legal means to implement them.

When one part acts against the legal framework and the interests of the whole, the government is not in any way obliged to find a meeting point of agreement. The only real way for dialogue would have been to set out the problems and to try to find the possible scenarios for resolving them jointly. In fact, the opposite has been done. Unilateral decisions have been taken with the aim of reaching a point of no return that obliges the rest to accept the situation as it stands.

I would like to speak, finally, of responsibility, because the person who has started this whole process is responsible for its serious consequences. They are consequences that include the unjust questioning of the legitimacy of our democratic institutions or the break-up of the bonds of brotherhood that have linked Catalonia and the rest of Spain for all our long common history.

In particular, the Catalans and the rest of the Spanish people have together granted ourselves a Constitution that has provided us with the period of greatest prosperity and welfare in democracy in our history. Supported by the vast majority of Catalans and backed by the Spanish people, our Constitution, grounded in consensus, dialogue and generosity on all sides, has allowed Catalonia to enjoy the greatest levels of recognition and self-government in its history, and for the longest time.

I deeply regret that despite these considerations, the President of the Regional Government of Catalonia has called this referendum on self-determination. I regret this, because it goes against the law, breaches democracy, divides the Catalans, steers them away from Europe and the rest of Spain, and seriously damages their welfare; to say nothing of the frustration to which some of the citizens of Catalonia are condemned by being urged to participate in an initiative that cannot see the light, due to its illegality. The worst of it is that this was known from the start.

I believe that we are still in time to get back on course, to overcome a sterile dialectic of confrontation and seek a fruitful dialogue. Both the government and I are open to any initiatives with this aim in mind; but always within the most scrupulous respect for the law, an essential condition for any dialogue in a serious and responsible democracy such as ours.
And of course, I would like to say with the utmost clarity that while I am President of the Government, the law will be respected in its integrity. May all the Catalans and the rest of the Spanish people have no concern on this point; all dialogue is possible within the law and none outside the law.

Thank you very much and good day.”

The post Spain: PM Rajoy Issues Statement On Catalonia Referendum appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web has spoken out against world governments and corporations, which he says are seeking to control the web for their own gain.

He called for a revolutionary bill of rights to guaranty the web’s independence.

When he invented the nexus 25 years, ago, the British Berners-Lee dreamed of a neutral space where humanity, with all of its “ghastly stuff,” would be free to be itself. Now, however, he sees no choice but to institute a sort of Magna Carta for the online world – a document that would be modeled on the 13th-century English charter on basic rights and freedoms.

“If a company can control your access to the internet, if they can control which websites they go to, then they have tremendous control over your life,” Berners-Lee spoke at London’s ‘Web We Want’ festival, which discussed the future of the internet and its guidelines.

“If a government can block you going to, for example, the opposition’s political pages, then they can give you a blinkered view of reality to keep themselves in power.”

“Suddenly the power to abuse the open internet has become so tempting both for government and big companies,” he said.

Berners-Lee is active in his mission to counter that; the 59-year-old is the director of the World Wide Web Foundation, a lobbying body for the advancement of internet policy. A statement on their website explains that “governments — totalitarian and democratic alike — are increasingly monitoring and controlling people’s online communication. Wireless internet providers are being tempted to slow down traffic on sites with which they have not made deals.”

“Closed content silos are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the web. High costs and lack of locally relevant content, especially in the developing world, still exclude the majority of the world’s people from the web’s global conversation.”

“If we, the web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the web could be broken into fragmented islands and its transformative potential frittered away,” he said.

Last year, Berners-Lee’s work was recognized by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. It was then that he also elaborated on the scandalous facts of global internet surveillance leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“The original design of the web of 24 years ago was for a universal space, we didn’t have a particular computer in mind or browser, or language… When you make something universal … it can be used for good things or nasty things … we just have to make sure it’s not undercut by any large companies or governments trying to use it and get total control,” he said, when asked to comment on Snowden.

The world tried, with varying degrees of success, to mitigate the damage caused by power-hungry surveillance initiatives. One ruling by the EU resulted in Google’s ‘right to be forgotten’ policy, which allows users to remove links with information about themselves. But like other initiatives, there are fears of abuse and privacy infringement and censorship.

The post WWW Inventor Calls For Online Bill Of Rights appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Last summer, Tariq Khdeir, a 15-year-old American citizen from Baltimore, accompanied his parents to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat for a six-week visit with relatives. The first friend Tariq made when he arrived was his cousin, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, whom Tariq had not seen since he was four years old. “We had so much fun,” Tariq told a gathering at the national conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in San Diego on September 19, 2014.

One night while he was in Jerusalem, Tariq saw some police with Muhammad. Tariq thought they had kidnapped Muhammad. Tariq wondered, “Is he gonna come back? Is he gonna come back alive”? But Muhammad did not come back alive. In retaliation for the deaths of three Israeli teenagers, Muhammad was beaten and burnt alive by three Jewish extremists.

After Muhammad’s murder, people took to the streets in protest. Israeli Defense Force soldiers began firing rubber bullets at them. Incredulous, Tariq thought, “Is this really happening in front of me”? Then Israeli soldiers began to run after Tariq. Panicked, Tariq ran.

“There was a 10-foot drop in front of me. Everyone jumped, but they tackled me, zip-tied me, and punched me in the face,” Tariq said. “I was like a punching bag until I became unconscious.” The image of Tariq’s badly swollen, deformed face appeared on media reports throughout the world last July.

When Tariq awoke, his face felt “like a bubble, it hurt so much.” He wondered, “Are they gonna kill me”? After six hours in jail, Tariq was finally taken to the hospital. His father and his uncle told him he might come home or go to jail. Tariq thought, “How could I go to jail? They beat me up.” Tariq told the group, “I’m just a kid.”

Tariq was taken back to jail after he left the hospital. He had to remove the hospital gown and put on his bloody clothes. There were nine people in a tiny cell; it was impossible to sit down. Two days later, Tariq was released. He thought, “I’m finally going home.” But he was placed on house arrest. No charges were ever filed against him. “That’s what they do to all the Palestinians,” Tariq said.

“They took my cousins, and they’re still in jail, because they’re not American and they didn’t have a video that showed the brutality of the Israelis,” Tariq reported. “It’s inhumane.”

Tariq’s mother, Suha, said, “I cannot begin to describe the pain of seeing my dear son in prison after his vicious beating.” When she first saw Tariq, unconscious, with his swollen face in the hospital, “I didn’t recognize him; I didn’t know if he was alive. I didn’t know if he would survive.” Tariq was handcuffed to the hospital bed. Suha worried whether they would give him his antibiotics, whether they would take care of her son while he was in their custody. “The same people that beat him were now caring for him,” she said. “They told us 300 Palestinian teenagers would be killed for the three Israeli teens.”

Suha noted, “None of this would have happened if Israelis valued the lives of Palestinian Muslims and Christians as much as Israeli Jews.”

Keynote speaker Ali Abunimah followed Tariq and Suha at the conference. He mentioned that of the more than 2,100 Palestinians the Israelis killed in Gaza last summer, 521 were children. Most of the fatalities were civilians. More than one of every 1,000 Gazans were killed, and one percent of the entire population of Gaza were killed or injured.

Most of the weapons the Israelis employed in Gaza were artillery shells, which were used in unprecedented quantities. They are very inaccurate.

In response to Israeli demands that the Palestinians surrender their weapons, Abunimah asked, “Why talk about demilitarizing the oppressed? Let’s talk about demilitarizing the oppressor.”

After Mummahad was killed, the Israelis called it an “honor killing.” Muhammad’s father said, “they’ve killed my son twice.”

Two hundred Palestinian children are still in jail. Abunimah cited the “racist mentality” of many Israelis who chant, “Death to the Arabs.” Abunimah recalled President Barack Obama’s remark about “the shared values of the United States and Israel.”

Do those shared values include slaughtering civilians, torturing children, and holding people in custody indefinitely without charges?

Tariq did come back alive – but only because his beating was caught on tape and because he was a U.S. citizen.

The post Tariq’s Ordeal – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Hong Kong authorities should avoid excessive use of force as pro-democracy protests continue, Human Rights Watch said today. Officials should immediately free anyone still detained for peacefully participating in demonstrations between September 27 and 29, 2014.

Police use of riot gear, pepper spray, tear gas, and police batons and the detention of peaceful protesters in recent days raise serious concerns about how the Hong Kong and Chinese governments will react to ongoing demonstrations in the territory.

“Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has to show the kind of tolerance for peaceful protest for which Hong Kong is known, not the intolerance that we see for it in the mainland,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “Hong Kong is known for respecting the rule of law and individual freedoms, and those rights cannot be sacrificed at times of political uncertainty.”

Human Rights Watch is concerned about police use of force given that the protesters appeared to pose no clear or imminent threat to public safety or property, nor have there been any reported instances of protesters threatening police. Some protesters shook police barriers and threw empty plastic bottles, but the protest otherwise remained entirely peaceful. Some video footage showed disturbing uses of pepper spray. One clip showed police tapping a protester on the shoulder, then sending pepper spray into his eyes at close range. Another showed police using pepper spray on a radio journalist who had displayed a journalist ID.

It is also unclear whether police took all the steps necessary before using force, or whether they gave protesters adequate warning or time to disperse before releasing pepper spray or tear gas. Some protesters told Human Rights Watch that they did not see or hear any warning before being hit with tear gas or pepper spray. Others said they saw the warning flags, but that the flags appeared only seconds before the police took action. In these instances, protesters panicked and moved backward. Protesters said they feared a stampede in the area crowded with other protesters. About three dozen protesters and police officers have suffered minor injuries.

In the past, Hong Kong police have handled far larger protests without using force. The escalation of force in response to peaceful protests brings into question Hong Kong police’s independence, as well as how the Hong Kong and Chinese governments will react to future protests.

Large numbers of protesters remain in major thoroughfares. On the morning of September 29, the Hong Kong government announced it would withdraw riot police and urged the protesters to leave.

While some protester action may warrant the use of force by police, international human rights standards limit the use of force to situations in which it is strictly necessary. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms provide that law enforcement officials may only use force if other means remain ineffective or have no promise of achieving the intended result. When using force, law enforcement officials should exercise restraint and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and to the legitimate objective to be achieved. Hong Kong authorities should allow an independent review of police conduct in the demonstrations, and use maximum restraint in response to protests.

Police have arrested dozens of protesters, including 17-year-old student protest leader Joshua Wong, on suspicion of taking part in an “illegal assembly” and “forcible entry into government buildings,” among other charges. Police denied bail to Wong and held him for 40 hours until a judge ordered him released, stating that Wong was held for an “unreasonably long” time and that the extended detention was “unlawful.” While Wong was being held, police searched his home and took away his computer. Although most protesters have been released, the detentions appear designed to discourage involvement in the protests. Police similarly detained and released protesters after demonstrations in June and July.

The pro-democracy protests between September 26 and 28 did not conform to Hong Kong’s Public Order Ordinance, which requires organizers to notify police of demonstrations involving more than 30 people seven days in advance, and for organizers to get a “notice of no objection” from the government before proceeding. Yet this standard creates tension with international law. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, an international treaty body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has repeatedly expressed concerns that the ordinance “may facilitate excessive restriction” to the right to freedom of assembly.

“The protests in Hong Kong should show authorities that a harsh, uncompromising attitude on the issue of democracy provokes a serious backlash,” Richardson said. “The best way to restore order and popular confidence is to tolerate peaceful protest, and to take meaningful steps towards genuine democracy, as promised.”

The post Hong Kong: Free Peaceful Protesters; Avoid Excessive Force, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Consuming an alcoholic beverage may make men more responsive to the smiles of others in their social group, according to new research in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings suggest that, for men, alcohol increases sensitivity to rewarding social behaviors like smiling, and may shed light on risk factors that contribute to problem drinking among men.

“This experimental alcohol study, which included a social context, finds the clearest evidence yet of greater alcohol reinforcement for men than women,” says psychological scientist and lead researcher Catharine Fairbairn of the University of Pittsburgh.

Previous research has shown that men are about 50% more likely to drink excessively than women, and much problem drinking among men occurs in social settings.

“Many men report that the majority of their social support and social bonding time occurs within the context of alcohol consumption,” says Fairbairn. “We wanted to explore the possibility that social alcohol consumption was more rewarding to men than to women — the idea that alcohol might actually ‘lubricate’ social interaction to a greater extent among men.”

Fairbairn, Professor Michael Sayette, and their colleagues decided to focus on an objective non-verbal indicator of social bonding, examining the infectiousness of genuine smiles in drinking groups. Genuine, or Duchenne, smiles are associated with actual felt emotion as opposed to outward displays of emotion, which may or may not be genuine. Importantly, these smiles can be identified and measured using a standardized procedure.

The researchers randomly assigned 720 healthy social drinkers, ages 21 to 28, to groups of three. Each group was then randomly assigned to receive a particular drink: an alcoholic beverage (vodka cranberry), a non-alcoholic beverage, or a non-alcoholic “placebo” beverage that was described as alcoholic. The researchers smeared the glass of the fake alcoholic drink with vodka and floated a few drops of vodka on top of the drink to make it more believable.

The participants in each group were casually introduced and positioned around a table. The beverages were doled out in equal parts over time, and participants were told to drink them at an even rate. Otherwise, the participants weren’t given any specific instruction and were allowed to interact freely.

Based on the video recordings, Fairbairn and colleagues used sophisticated analyses to model smiling behavior in the groups, following the spread of smiles from one individual in a group to the next.

They found that alcohol significantly increased the contagiousness of smiles, but only for all-male groups – it did not have a significant effect on emotional contagion for groups that contained any women. The findings suggest that alcohol is especially likely to induce a sort of “social bravery” among men, disrupting processes that would normally prevent them from responding to another person’s smile.

Among groups who received alcoholic beverages, a smile was also more likely to be “caught” if those on the receiving end of the smile were heavier drinkers, regardless of gender.

Smiles that were likely to catch on were associated with increased positive mood and social bonding, as well as decreased negative mood. Thus, smile infection could represent an important indicator of alcohol-related reinforcement and a mechanism supporting drinking.

These findings are significant, says Fairbairn, because they highlight the importance of social context in understanding drinking behavior:

“Historically, neither the scientific community nor the general public has been terribly concerned about drinking that occurs in social settings. According to popular opinion, a ‘social drinker’ is necessarily a non-problem drinker, despite the fact that the majority of alcohol consumption for both light drinkers and problem drinkers occurs in a social context,” Fairbairn explains.

“Not only that, the need to ‘belong’ and create social bonds with others is a fundamental human motive,” she adds. “Therefore, social motives may be highly relevant to the understanding of how alcohol problems develop.”

The post Alcohol Makes Smiles More ‘Contagious,’ But Only For Men appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A new study confirms that the exposure to tar tended to be lower for smokers of slim cigarettes than of regular cigarettes. Similarly, exposure to nicotine tended to be lower.

Slim cigarettes are an increasingly popular type of cigarette in several countries around the world. Previous studies have shown that the levels of certain toxic chemicals in the smoke of these cigarettes are lower than those in regular cigarettes. However, because lower levels of chemicals in the smoke are not necessarily linked to a reduced exposure to harmful chemicals, concerns had been raised about whether or not smokers of these cigarettes are at a greater health risk than those who smoke regular cigarettes.

To determine the chemical exposure to smokers of slim cigarettes, scientists at British American Tobacco conducted a study in Russia, where slim cigarettes are popular. The study group contained 360 smokers of regular and slim cigarettes and their exposure to tar and nicotine were measured. This was done using a cutting-edge technique that involves measuring levels of chemicals in the smokers’ used cigarette filters.

These findings tally with measurements made using high-tech smoking machines, which showed reductions in the levels of a number of chemicals in the smoke including carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, nitric oxide, acrylonitrile and benzene.

Lead Scientist Madeleine Ashley says that differences in the size of the puffs that the smokers of slim cigarettes took may explain the lower exposure to tar and nicotine. Ashley further stated that ‘this is likely to be due to the reduced circumference of slim cigarettes, making it harder to draw on.’

Ian Fearon, Principal Scientist at British American Tobacco, added: ‘More studies measuring the levels of smoke chemicals in the blood of smokers are needed to fully understand the exposure of people who smoke slim cigarettes. However, we can assume, based on our current findings, that smokers of slim cigarettes are at no greater risk of exposure to smoke chemicals than regular cigarette smokers. Further work would be needed to assess how this relates to a smoker’s health risk.’

The post Slim Cigarette Smokers Not Exposed To More Harmful Chemicals appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Parents with children at home should use ventilation when cooking with a gas stove, researchers from Oregon State University are recommending, after a new study showed an association between gas kitchen stove ventilation and asthma, asthma symptoms and chronic bronchitis.

“In homes where a gas stove was used without venting, the prevalence of asthma and wheezing is higher than in homes where a gas stove was used with ventilation,” said Ellen Smit, an associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU and one of the study’s authors. “Parents of all children should use ventilation while using a gas stove.”

Researchers can’t say that gas stove use without ventilation causes respiratory issues, but the new study clearly shows an association between having asthma and use of ventilation, Smit said. More study is needed to understand that relationship, including whether emissions from gas stoves could cause or exacerbate asthma in children, the researchers said.

Asthma is a common chronic childhood disease and an estimated 48 percent of American homes have a gas stove that is used. Gas stoves are known to affect indoor air pollution levels and researchers wanted to better understand the links between air pollution from gas stoves, parents’ behavior when operating gas stoves and respiratory issues, said Eric Coker, a doctoral student in public health and a co-author of the study.

The study showed that children who lived in homes where ventilation such as an exhaust fan was used when cooking with gas stoves were 32 percent less likely to have asthma than children who lived in homes where ventilation was not used. Children in homes where ventilation was used while cooking with a gas stove were 38 percent less likely to have bronchitis and 39 percent less likely to have wheezing. The study also showed that lung function, an important biological marker of asthma, was significantly better among girls from homes that used ventilation when operating their gas stove.

Many people in the study also reported using their gas stoves for heating, researchers found. That was also related to poorer respiratory health in children, particularly when ventilation was not used. In homes where the gas kitchen stove was used for heating, children were 44 percent less likely to have asthma and 43 percent less likely to have bronchitis if ventilation was used. The results did not change even when asthma risk factors such as pets or cigarette smoking inside the home were taken into account, Coker said.

“Asthma is one of the most common diseases in children living in the United States,” said Molly Kile, the study’s lead author. Kile is an environmental epidemiologist and assistant professor at OSU. “Reducing exposure to environmental factors that can exacerbate asthma can help improve the quality of life for people with this condition.”

The findings were published recently in the journal “Environmental Health.” Co-authors included John Molitor and Anna Harding of the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and Daniel Sudakin of the College of Agricultural Sciences. The research was supported by OSU.

Researchers used data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, or NHANES, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics from 1988-1994. Data collected for NHANES is a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population.

The third edition of the survey is the only one in which questions about use of gas stoves were asked, Coker said. Participants were interviewed in their homes and also underwent physical exams and lab tests.

Researchers examined data from about 7,300 children ages 2-16 who has asthma, wheezing or bronchitis and whose parents reported using a gas stove in the home. Of those who reported using no ventilation, 90 percent indicated they did not have an exhaust system or other ventilation in their homes, Coker said.

Even though the study relies on older data, the findings remain relevant because many people still use gas stoves for cooking, and in some cases, for heat in the winter, the researchers said.

“Lots of older homes lack exhaust or other ventilation,” Coker said. “We know this is still a problem. We don’t know if it is as prevalent as it was when the data was collected.”

Researchers suggest that future health surveys include questions about gas stove and ventilation use. That would allow them to see if there have been any changes in ventilation use since the original data was collected.

“More research is definitely needed,” Coker said. “But we know using an effective ventilation system will reduce air pollution levels in a home, so we can definitely recommend that.”

The post Childhood Asthma Linked To Lack Of Ventilation For Gas Stoves appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Ashraf Ghani has been inaugurated as Afghanistan’s new president and has sworn in Abdullah Abdullah as chief executive.

The two men took their oaths of office in Kabul on September 29 in Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic transfer of power.

Outgoing President Hamid Karzai had been Afghanistan’s only leader since 2001.

“In the name of God the most gracious and most merciful,” Ghani said in an oath administered by the chief justice, “I swear in the name of God that I will follow and support the holy religion of Islam, observe the constitution and all laws and remain vigilant for its application, guard the independence, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and protect the rights and interests of the people of Afghanistan.”

For his part, Karzai spoke of the challenges he confronted during his 13 years in office.

“Thirteen years ago I began my journey with my honorable nation. It wasn’t an easy journey. There were a lot of thorns on the way and brutal storms,” Karzai said. “My mission was to take the delicate and thin goblet of the country safe to its destination.”

Ghani was officially declared the winner of the presidential election on September 21, some three months after the second round of the election was conducted.

He has pledged to sign an agreement with the United States to allow about 10,000 American troops to stay in the country after the international combat mission ends on December 31.

Abdullah, as chief executive, will have a new role similar to a prime minister in a government structure far different to Karzai’s all-powerful presidency.

Afghanistan’s democratic transfer of power was plagued by accusations of electoral violations from both Ghani and Abdullah, both of whom claimed to have won the June 14 election.

Under heavy pressure from the United States and UN, the two candidates eventually agreed to form a “national unity government.” Ghani was declared president after an audit of nearly 8 million ballot papers.

John Podesta, counselor to President Barack Obama, led a 10-strong U.S. delegation, with President Mamnoon Hussain representing Pakistan and Vice President Hamid Ansari traveling from India.

Many other countries, including Britain and France, were represented only by their ambassadors in Kabul, while China sent Yin Weimin, minister of human resources.

In his inaugural speech, Ghani said his priority is to bring peace to the country.

“We ask opponents of the government, especially the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami, to enter political talks,” Ghani said after being sworn in. “Any problems that they have, they should tell us. We will find a solution.”

Ghani also thanked Abdullah for his cooperation in the power-sharing deal.

“The national unity government is what Afghanistan needs. A national unity government doesn’t mean division of power. It means dividing the jobs and responsibilities for serving people,” Ghani said. “This government will represent the will, desire, and aspiration of Afghan people. I would like to thank my dear brother Abdullah Abdullah who through his cooperation and participation brought this process to a successful end.”

In early international reaction to Ghani’s inauguration, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted on September 29: “First ever peaceful and democratic transition of power in Afghanistan. Hugely important. And encouraging.”

On inauguration day, two bomb attacks took place on the road connecting the country’s main airport with the palace.

One roadside bomb did not result in any deaths or injuries, but a second attack about a kilometer from the airport by a suicide bomber killed at least four civilians, police said.

Both Ghani and Abdullah are moderate, pro-Western leaders who have vowed to push ahead with the patchy social and infrastructure progress made since 2001, but the country still faces a major threat from Taliban militants.

Large-scale insurgent offensives have been launched in several provinces in recent months, with the Afghan Army and police struggling to recapture lost ground.

NATO operations have been scaled back rapidly and its combat mission will finish at the end of this year.

The post Afghanistan: Ghani Inaugurated As New President appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Cecilia Remón

“In the forest, the silence at night is absolute,” says Sara, a settler who owns a plot of land in the middle of Peru’s central jungle. “But suddenly, at 9 p.m. you start hearing chainsaws in the distance. I get up immediately and go quietly with my gun and my dogs to see where they are cutting down my trees. But I don’t find the loggers. They hide. In the morning I find felled trees and cut planks that they were unable to take away.”

Sara, 54 years old and originally from Lima, received 187 Ha (462 acres) in the 1980s in the community of Puerto Bermúdez, in the central department of Pasco, to develop agroforestry and protect several tree species. In July she learned that, without warning and without being present, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture had changed the boundaries of her land using falsified maps that do not match the area’s physical reality. She has the property titles registered and can reclaim them, but that isn’t the case for the more than 500 indigenous Amazonian communities that for decades have been demanding ownership of their lands — the only way they can protect their forests from illegal logging.

But the Peruvian government is not interested in speeding up the delivery of those deeds. According to Julia Urrunaga, director of the Peru Program at the US-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), to the Peruvian authorities in Lima, “the jungle is a huge, tree-filled space where there are no people.”

Laundering machine

In 2012, the EIA published “The Laundering Machine: How fraud and corruption in Peru’s concession system are destroying the future of its forests.” The report reveals the bureaucratic jumble that legalizes, through documents that the authorities never verify, the marketing of timber from unauthorized areas in the Peruvian Amazon.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations, the government has done little if anything to curb illegal logging. “The only thing that has progressed in two years is that now all the documents are computerized. So, they passed from laundering in the trough, to laundering in the washing machine,” Urrunaga told Latinamerica Press.

The killings of four indigenous Ashaninka men in the community of Alto Tamaya Saweto, in the department of Ucayali on the border with Brazil, brought to the forefront not only the danger in which the Amazonian native peoples are living, but also the existence of a very profitable business that involves companies, officials and illegal loggers.

Edwin Chota, head of the community, and leaders Jorge Ríos, Leoncio Quinticima and Francisco Pinedo had denounced for years what was happening on their lands.

“Chota was a well-known leader and was active against illegal logging,” said Urrunaga. “He filed several complaints in Pucallpa [capital of Ucayali] and Lima, but they were always filed away. He had documentation, videos, GPS [location]. He accused people, identified them with names, with photos. With these deaths, the illegal logging mafia’s message to those who oppose this activity is ‘let us operate, not even the authorities are bothering me.’ The message is ‘shut up’.”

One of the first people to expose what was happening in Alto Tamaya Saweto was David Salisbury, a geographer at the University of Richmond in the US state of Virginia. For more than 10 years he counseled Chota and his community in their struggle for property titles.

According to Salisbury, Chota had written more than 100 letters to Peruvian and Brazilian institutions demanding protection and attention for their claims, and he wanted to take his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Enslaved loggers

The international impact of the case, rather than its local effects, forced the authorities to act. Indigenous and human rights groups, international organizations including the IACHR, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, demanded that the government protect indigenous communities and arrest, prosecute and punish those responsible.

The government announced that it had identified the alleged murderers of the indigenous men. Would be illegal loggers, but Urrunaga believes capturing the logggers doesn’t solve the problem. “They are usually people who work almost as slaves, who cut down trees to survive,” she said.

“Behind it is a much more complex organization and the goal is to meet the demand of the international markets for exotic wood,” she added.

However, Urrunaga also believes that “illegal logging is not the activity that devastates forests, but it is the spearhead that opens the way to other illegal activities.”

Fabiola Muñoz, director of the National Forest Service (SERFOR) under the Ministry of Agriculture, confirmed that in areas where there are reports of illegal logging, there are also drug corridors and areas of coca crops. In fact, the community of Alto Tamaya Saweto claimed that drug traffickers use illegally harvested timber to conceal drugs.

Between March and May, Peru’s customs and tax agency, the Superintendencia de Aduanas y Administración Tributaria (SUNAT), seized more than 6 million boardfeet of protected wood species that did not have documentation to ensure its legal origin. The wood was valued at more than US$20 million. But these operations are not permanent.

The World Bank estimates that 80-90 percent of the wood exported from Peru, primarily bound for China and other Asian markets, is illegal. According to figures from the Loreto Regional Government, Peru loses $250 million annually because of illegal logging.

In addition to committing to deliver the land titles to the Alto Tamaya-Saweto community, on Sept. 15, Interior Minister Daniel Urresti named a high commissioner to combat illegal logging throughout the country and will answer to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. A questionable retired general from the National Police, César Fourment Paredes, will fill the role despite having no knowledge of logging and the timber trade. He also worked closely with senior police chiefs linked to Vladimiro Montesinos, the embattled security adviser to imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

The post Peru: Illegal Logging Behind Deaths Of Indigenous Leaders appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Income inequality is high in the US, but the support of social welfare programmes is low. In Europe, income inequality is low and the welfare states are generous. This column argues that this paradox is largely due to perceived inequality. Many Europeans believe that there is high inequality in their countries, justifying the need for redistributive policies. Americans, however, are less concerned with income differences and with respective redistributive state intervention.

By Judith Niehues

The well-known and frequently tested median voter theorem predicts a positive relationship between income inequality and state redistribution; if the decisive median voter’s income is below the social average, he votes for more welfare redistribution because he expects to benefit from progressively financed welfare programmes. However, this theory does not perform very well when confronted with data.

Although income inequality is high in the US, support for welfare state programmes is relatively low. In contrast, income differences in European countries are substantially lower. Still, the European welfare states tend to be far more generous. Obviously, there might be a row of other individual and national factors which may explain the US-European differences in redistributive preferences (Alesina et al. 2001). For example, Americans may just accept certain inequalities because they see them as a reward for effort and believe in the chance of upward mobility (‘American exceptionalism’).

On the other hand, Europeans may view income positions rather as the result of luck and other exogenous circumstances and, therefore, demand more state redistribution. However, as the current research on mobility reveals, countries with higher inequality are also associated with less income mobility (e.g. Corak 2012).

Given this puzzling evidence, it is not surprising that economists have become increasingly interested in the importance of attitudinal data when explaining redistributive preferences. In this regard, in a study on the UK, Georgiadis and Manning (2012) find that beyond the standard political economy model, beliefs and attitudes are especially important explanatory factors of the individual demand for redistribution.

Looking at perceived and desired pay differentials, they provide some evidence that inequality aversion is a relevant determinant — those who perceive more pay inequality are in favour of more redistribution. Inequality aversion with respect to pay differentials is very similar between Europe and the US (Osberg and Smeeding 2006), thus failing to explain ‘the paradox of redistribution’ between them. However, the concept of perceived pay inequality does not include any information about the respondent’s estimate of the frequency of each occupation in the population. It may well be the case that people underestimate the extent of pay inequality, while simultaneously overestimating the fraction of the population affected by it.

Table 1. Perceived types of society
Notes: ISSP, 2009, Question 14a: These five diagrams show different types of society. Please read the descriptions and look at the diagrams and decide which you think best describes [country].
Source: A truncated table from Niehues (2014), based on ISSP 2009

Perceived inequality in Europe and the US

In my study (Niehues 2014), I look at perceived types of societies based on a questionnaire item of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) of 2009, which involves some imagination of the respondents about the distribution of population shares across societal classes (Table 1). According to this item, 54.2 % of Germans believe that the bulk of the German population lives rather at the bottom of society (Type A or Type B). This corresponds surprisingly well to 52.4% of Germans who strongly agree that differences in income are too large. To what extent does the perceived type of society accord with the actual income distribution?

Although there are different ways of demarcating the society into a ‘bottom’, ‘middle’, and ‘top’, studies generally come to the result that the middle class represents by far the largest group of the German society. In particular, independent from the chosen definition of income groups, people with middle incomes are far more numerous than those at the bottom of the income distribution. To support this, Figure 1 presents an illustration of the income distribution in Germany, which is based on a slightly different definition of the middle class than the one I used in my paper.

Figure 1. Income stratification in Germany
Relative income position based on the median of equivalent net household income of the previous year (including imputed rents). Shaded area = middle class (70-150% of median income).
Source: Translated from Burkhardt et al. (2013), based on SOEP v27 (survey year 2010)

This rather pessimistic view on equality is not specific to Germany but is typical to the observed European countries. Most respondents view their society as a pyramid (Type B), although the income distribution in the majority of European welfare states resembles an onion — with some people at the bottom, the majority in the middle class, and a small but long tail of rich people.

Views on inequality are particularly pessimistic in former socialist countries such as Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. In Hungary, for example, 56.6% of the population views their society as “a small elite at the top, very few people in the middle and the great mass of people at the bottom” (see ‘HU’ in Table 1), although the country is characterised by one of the lowest income inequalities in the EU. Thus, it is not that former socialist countries view already small income differences much more critically, but rather that the population is just not aware of the low level of income inequality. Accordingly, 77.5% of Hungarians strongly agree that differences in income are too large, as also reported in the ISSP. It is different in Scandinavian countries, such as Norway. There, the survey respondents are much more realistic about the small levels of inequality and truly identify their society as a ‘typical middle class model’ (see ‘NO’ in Table 1).

Figure 2. Evaluation of income differences and perceived inequality
Source: Niehues (2014), based on ISSP 2009.

In contrast to the European countries, the US reveals a completely different picture. US citizens substantially underestimate the extent of inequality in their country. Although income distribution is significantly worse, Americans are more likely to believe that they live in a middle-class society than are many Europeans. This varnished view on inequality in the US is not new. What is new is that in many European countries it is rather the other way round. In fact, the newly developed measure of ‘(mis-)perceived inequality’ can explain up to two thirds of the cross-country differences in critical views on income differences (Figure 2), and 56% of the variation in redistributive preferences.

Concluding remarks

The results may provide a further explanation why redistributive policies find more support in some countries than in others. Regarding the largely critical views on inequality, debates on social justice and redistribution are ever-recurring topics in the political agenda in Germany – reflected in the current introduction of redistributive policies, such as a minimum wage and additional pension benefits for mothers. On the other hand, in the US – which is characterised by a far higher degree of actual income inequality – people are less concerned about income differences and they do not see any reason for redistributive state intervention. Thus, it may not be surprising that social security and anti-poverty programmes are much harder to implement in the US.

In addition, the overestimation of inequality is adversely related to the absolute levels of living standards across countries. Thus, it might also be the case that the perceived structuring of the society is more associated with absolute levels of living standards than commonly suggested. So far, my research does not give causal answers to why the perception reported in the ISSP does not correlate with the inequality of the income distribution of the observed countries. Why are Americans more likely to perceive their society as a middle-class model than are many Europeans? This puzzling observation raises the question of what actually explains the differences in the perceived types of societies across countries – which are, in fact, significantly correlated with critical views on income differences and redistributive preferences.

About the author:
Judith Niehues
Senior Economist, Cologne Institute for Economic Research; Research Affiliate, IZA

References:
Alesina, A, E Glaeser and B Sacerdote (2001), “Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-style Welfare State?”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2001, 187-254.

Burkhardt, C, M M Grabka, O Groh-Samberg, Y Lott, S Mau (2013), “Mittelschicht unter Druck?”, Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.), Gütersloh.

Corak, M (2013), “Inequality from Generation to Generation:  The United States in Comparison”, in: Robert Rycroft (ed.), The Economics of Inequality, Poverty, and Discrimination in the 21st Century, ABC-CLIO-

Georgiadis, Andreas / Manning, Alan, 2012, Spend it like Beckham? Inequality and redistribution in the UK,1983–2004, Public Choice, 151, 537–563.

Niehues, J (2014), “Subjective Perceptions of Inequality and Redistributive Preferences: An International Comparison”, Discussion Paper.

Osberg, L  and T Smeeding (2006), “‘Fair’ Inequality? Attitudes toward Pay Differentials: The United States in Comparative Perspective”, American Sociological Review, 71, 450-473.

The post Perceptions Of Inequality In Europe And The US – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US-led international response to the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq and Syria is more extensive and fraught with danger than the war on terror declared by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. It is a response that contains the seeds of continued failure in confronting terrorism and threatens to give rise to groups that may be even more extreme than the Islamic State, hard though that may be to imagine.

Bush concluded within weeks of the 9/11 attacks that Al Qaeda was as much a product of US support for autocratic Arab regimes as it was the result of politically bankrupt Arab leaders. His acknowledgement amounted to an admission of failure of a US policy designed to maintain stability in a key geo-strategic and volatile part of the world.

A decade later, discontent with failed regimes produced popular revolts that toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Elsewhere in the region, mass protests erupted in Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Bahrain’s minority Sunni rulers brutally suppressed a Shia uprising. Egypt’s transition was routed with a military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Syria is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war that has fuelled the rise of the Islamic State, a jihadist group that makes Al Qaeda look like a lesser evil.

Multiple problems

The problems with the US-led military offensive against the Islamic State are many. For one, it turns Clausewitz’ definition of war as an extension of diplomacy on its head. It reduces what is at its core a political problem that requires a political solution coupled with a military effort to contain the Islamic State to a military problem in which politics is an afterthought.

The emphasis on a military solution moreover goes beyond restoring the principle of endorsement of repressive regimes like those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt that are regressive and/or supportive of ideologies akin to that of the Islamic State, promoters of sectarianism, and among the worst offenders of human rights. It reinforces perceptions among many Sunni Muslims that the West first turned a blind eye to the killings in Syria and now is undermining what is left of credible resistance to the Syrian regime. Those perceptions are rooted in US expansion of its offensive in Syria to include Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group aligned with Al Qaeda that is wholly focused on defeating the Syrian regime but opposed to the Islamic State.

The Obama administration’s alignment with the Middle East’s counter-revolutionary forces and targeting of groups other than the Islamic State risks identifying the US with efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to target political Islam as such. The three Arab nations earlier this year cracked down on non-violent groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. They have since called for an expansion of the campaign against the Islamic State to include non-violent expressions of political Islam. The US alignment prevents it from adopting a policy that would seek to contain the Islamic State militarily while focusing on removing the grievances on which the group feeds. It is a policy that is destined to at best provide a band aid for a festering wound.

Saudi and UAE efforts to target political Islam as such were articulated earlier this year by former British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair argued against “a deep desire to separate the political ideology represented by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood from the actions of extremists including acts of terrorism.” He acknowledged that it was “laudable” to distinguish “between those who violate the law and those we simply disagree with” but warned that “if we’re not careful, they also blind us to the fact that the ideology itself is nonetheless dangerous and corrosive; and cannot and should not be treated as a conventional political debate between two opposing views of how society should be governed.”

On that basis, it is hard to see why Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia’s puritan interpretation of Islam that is the well spring of much of contemporary jihadist thinking, does not top the list of ideologies that are “dangerous and corrosive.” Saudi Arabia, like the Islamic State, was born in a jihadist struggle that married Islamist warriors led by an 18th century jurist Mohammed Abdul Wahab, with the proto-kingdom’s ruling Al Saud clan.

A wake-up call

The rise of the Islamic State is a watershed, a wake-up call for many in the Arab and the Muslim world desperate for change. It has fuelled a long-overdue debate among Arabs and Muslims about the kind of world they want to live in.

In an essay earlier this month entitled ‘The Barbarians Within Our Gates,’ prominent Washington-based journalist Hisham Melhelm wrote: “The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism — the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition — than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago… The promise of political empowerment, the return of politics, the restoration of human dignity heralded by the season of Arab uprisings in their early heydays — all has given way to civil wars, ethnic, sectarian and regional divisions and the reassertion of absolutism, both in its military and atavistic forms…. The jihadists of the Islamic State, in other words, did not emerge from nowhere. They climbed out of a rotting, empty hulk — what was left of a broken-down civilization.”

For his part, Turki al-Hamad, a liberal Saudi intellectual, questioned how Saudi religious leaders could confront the Islamic State’s extremist ideology given that they promote similar thinking at home and abroad. Writing in the London-based newspaper Al Arab, Hamad argued that the Saudi clergy was incapable of confronting the extremism of groups like the Islamic State “not because of laxness or procrastination, but because they share the same ideology.”

Neither Melhelm nor Hamad are Islamists. Yet, they reflect widespread soul-searching among Islamists and non-Islamists across the Arab world. Theirs is a debate that predates the rise of the Islamic State but has been pushed centre stage by the jihadists. It is a debate that is at the core of tackling the root causes on which jihadists groups feed. It is a debate that threatens to be squashed by a policy that focuses on military rather than political solutions and promotes status quo regimes whose autocracy chokes off opportunities for the venting of wide-spread discontent and anger, leaving violence and extremism as one of the few, if not the only, option to force change.

This article was published by RSIS.

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