By Jayantha Dhanapala

Within two months the newly elected Prime Minister of India has had summit meetings with the Japanese Prime Minister, the President of China and the President of the USA. India, Japan and China are the Asian giants while the US remains the sole global super power. Thus the evolving relationships amongst them have special significance. It has become a cliché today to describe all friendly bilateral relations as “strategic partnerships” but obviously some relations are more “strategic” than others.

In the halcyon period of Jawaharlal Nehru’s leadership of Indian foreign policy good relations with China was a cornerstone governed by the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence or Pancha Shila embodied in the Sino-Indian Treaty of April 29, 1954. The Sino-Indian war of 1962 blighted that relationship and although some normalcy has been restored, especially in terms of trade and other economic ties, bilateral relations have never been the same. India’s dramatic economic development and the election of a strong leader in Narendra Modi has created a new climate for reaching out to Asia and the world after the symbolic first steps towards South Asian neighbours were taken with the problem of Pakistan shelved for the moment.

Sandwiching Xi Jinping’s visit to India between Modi’s own visits to Japan and the USA sent a signal that here was a self-confident leader with many options open to him. Modi had already visited Japan as Chief Minister of Gujarat. The decision to embark on a five-day visit to Japan as his first foreign visit was deliberate. Relations between China and Japan have been cool with the election of Abe in Japan and the controversy over the islands in the East China Sea. Conservative commentators in India rejoiced.

“Mr. Modi has already bared a two-fold focus to build a pragmatic, dynamic policy that ends the era of belated, reactive diplomacy: proactively regain India’s clout in its own strategic backyard and build closer but differentially calibrated collaboration with major powers”, analyst Brahma Chellaney wrote in the Hindustan Times.

“The India-Japan partnership holds the potential to shape Asian geopolitics in much the same way as China’s rise or Barack Obama’s ‘pivot’ to Asia. This win-win partnership can help to drive India’s infrastructure development and great-power aspirations, while catalyzing Japan’s revival as a world power,” he continued a trifle too enthusiastically. Another Indian newspaper described the visit as India and Japan’s attempt to “balance the rising weight of China across Asia”.

At the end of the visit Japan announced doubling of its private and public investment in India to about $35 billion over the next five years. The 3.5 trillion yen ($34 billion) of investment from Japan to India including Official Development Assistance (ODA) during a 5-year period will be under the aegis of India-Japan Investment Promotion Partnership for development of projects including infrastructure and building of “smart cities”. Investment by Japan in Indian railway development was assured but a civil nuclear deal remained elusive while penalties imposed on Indian companies after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests were lifted.

Most significantly Modi deplored the “expansionist” tendency among some countries which “encroach” upon seas of others, in oblique comments against China which is having a maritime dispute with Japan. He said, “The whole world accepts that the 21st century will belong to Asia. But I have a question. How should the 21st century be? We have to give an answer to this. It will depend on how deep and progressive our relationship (between India and Japan) is.”

Prior to Xi Jinping’s September 17-19 India visit the Chinese Consul-General in Mumbai sought to set the stage for a visit that would outshine the Modi visit to Japan and predicted an investment of over $ 100 billion. In fact a much lesser sum of $30 billion dollars was committed by the Chinese delegation. $20 billion of public money would go to a fast train corridor and a new strategic road. $6.8 billion were allocated to industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra. 24 Chinese companies would buy products (pharmaceuticals, farming…) for $3.6 billion.

Euphoria deflated

The attempt to outdo the Japanese figure of $ 33.58 billion had failed despite all the bonhomie and Modi’s personal touch. Indian cynics pointed to the deficit in bilateral trade which would not be bridged by this investment. More importantly there was the badly timed Chinese incursion over the disputed border. On the September 18, 1000 PLA soldiers in Southern Ladakh, one of the two contested regions along the Sino-Indian border, made an incursion into territory claimed by India. The troops were bringing heavy equipment and claiming to build a “provisional road”.

This was known just an hour before the banquet that Modi was to host. While 1500 Indian soldiers were dispatched to the spot, Modi asked Xi to order his troops away – Xi acquiesced. Even on September 19 however, the Chinese troops remained. They eventually retreated – but dispatched a small group of 35 men to pitch tents. When this was reported in Delhi the euphoria of the visit was deflated.

Observers were perplexed. Was Xi Jinping not in control of his Army or was this a two-pronged strategy? Who might those opponents of a Sino-Chinese rapprochement be? Some of them were obviously within the Chinese high command – victims perhaps of Xi’s uncompromising anti-corruption campaign. They might also be in the regime’s political circles, high cadres trying to weaken Xi Jinping. Since his accession to power in October 2012, Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has caused thousands of casualties among cadres, dozens of them at ministerial level.

Another line of speculation was that this was a shot across Indian bows lest Modi was lured to the US camp. One journalist speculated that opposition could also have been reinforced from the Indian side. An Indian analyst suspects military traders in armament imports, India being now the world number one on this market.

Kishore Mahbubani, the perceptive Dean of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Diplomacy argued in a column that was actually published in China that – “However, just as it is about to become the No.1 economy in the world, China appears to have changed its strategy. Instead of continuing its successful three-decade policy of a peaceful rise, China is perceived to have changed course and is now seen to be carrying out assertive and occasionally reckless actions. If China continues on this course, it will seize defeat from the jaws of victory…it is important for the Western media to understand that China is not monolithic. Like other large complex societies, there is a vigorous debate going on in China about the strategy it should adopt in the world. There are both “hawks” and “doves” in the Chinese establishment.”

So, were the Chinese “hawks” at work to thwart Xi Jinping’s historic fence-mending visit to India? If so they could not have chosen a worse time just as the conservatives in the Indian establishment are pushing Modi to ally firmly with the USA and Japan in an Asian Cold War against China just as Russia is being isolated further from Europe over Ukraine.

Dramatic contrast

From the qualified success of the Xi Jinping visit to India to the rapturous welcome accorded to Modi in the USA, which had once refused him a visa, was a dramatic contrast. Even though the visit was actually an unusual add on to the visit to address the UN General Assembly, it achieved the stature of a state visit. The influential Indian expatriate community accorded Modi a hero’s welcome including a packed Madison Square Gardens gathering. An outstanding feature, apart from the White House lunch in honour of the Indian Prime Minister, was the unprecedented joint op-ed published in the ‘Washington Post’ by President Obama and Prime Minister Modi.

Since Manmohan Singh’s controversial breakthrough with Indo-US nuclear co-operation a welter of problems had plagued Indo-US relations including the humiliating treatment of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York. The op-ed began -“As nations committed to democracy, liberty, diversity and enterprise, India and the United States are bound by common values and mutual interests. We have each shaped the positive trajectory of human history, and through our joint efforts, our natural and unique partnership can help shape international security and peace for years to come.”

It ended with the agenda for the Washington talks with special reference to the unusual theme of sanitation from Modi’s Independence Day address from the Red Fort –“…we will discuss ways in which we can boost manufacturing and expand affordable renewable energy, while sustainably securing the future of our common environment. We will discuss ways in which our businesses, scientists and governments can partner as India works to improve the quality, reliability and availability of basic services, especially for the poorest of citizens. In this, the United States stands ready to assist. An immediate area of concrete support is the ‘Clean India’ campaign, where we will leverage private and civil society innovation, expertise and technology to improve sanitation and hygiene throughout India.”

There was also the bold announcement to open India’s $250 billion defense sector to private participation and US defence contractors can be expected to rush in.

One commentator has written – “Modi’s foreign policy is likely to be a mix of nationalist-led geopolitics and expedient geoeconomics.” After these series of high-level meetings Modi certainly appears to be following that direction.

*Jayantha Dhanapala is a former UN Under-Secretary-General and a former Ambassador of Sri Lanka.

The post The Foreign Policy Of Narendra Modi – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By David W. Murray

There is widespread (and not unreasonable) concern among Americans that those who misuse prescription opiate pain killers might switch over to heroin use if their access to the pills is constrained. Yet this potential “link” between the use of these drugs has been largely a worrying conjecture, without a great deal of empirical support.

Until now, that is. At least, if a Reuters news story is to be believed (“US heroin deaths double in link to prescription painkillers, says CDC,” October 3, 2014.)

Misuse of prescription opiates rose at the turn of the millennium, peaking in 2005 before flattening out and perhaps beginning a welcome decline over the past couple of years.

This rise in misuse has been correlated with an enormous expansion in the number of prescriptions written for these substances (reaching 200 million for opiates per year), leading many medical authorities to warn of “overprescribing” and leading law enforcement to crack down on illegal “pill mills” flooding vulnerable markets, such as Appalachia, with opiates.

The rise in the misuse of these drugs, familiar under such names as Vicodin, Methadone, and Oxycontin, has further driven an increase in overall opiate death rates, historically a function of street heroin, and not medical prescribing.

In fact, according to recent data, opiates account for almost 17,000 “drug induced” deaths per year, a stunning number made possible by the wider availability of these medical pain killers, and not by major changes in heroin deaths.

That appears now to have changed. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that the death rate from strictly heroin overdoses has doubled between 2010 and 2012 (now at 2.1 deaths per 100,000 population). Further, the death rate from prescription overdoses experienced a small decline over that same time period.

As the CDC reports, “The rapid rise in heroin overdose deaths follows nearly two decades of increasing drug overdose deaths,” while the overall death rate from all opiates was “primarily driven by OPR (prescription pain killer) drug overdoses.”

Is there a compelling link between these two trends? Here is where the Reuters reporting gets it wrong, in a manner that could mislead drug control policy. Reuters posits that the doubling in heroin deaths is “linked” to the prescription pain killers, arguing that the “over-prescribing of pain killers is fueling … (the) rise in heroin use.”

Further, they attributed that conclusion to the CDC’s recent report (“Increases in Heroin Overdose Deaths – 28 States, 2010-2012” MMWR, October 3, 2014). As Reuters concludes, “The switch from prescription pain killers to heroin poses a public health concern.”

After all, there is a study of opiate treatment subjects, and of those who started heroin use since 2000, some 75 percent, notes the CDC, reports that “their first regular opiate use was a prescription drug.”

However, a crossover is not what the CDC actually concludes. The posited “switchover” from pills to heroin is still not established. As the CDC puts it, “Although some persons might be discontinuing prescription opioids and initiating heroin use as a replacement, results from this study indicate that recent heroin death rates increases were not significantly associated with decreases in OPR overdose mortality.”

In actuality, the CDC report notes that “changes in state heroin overdose rates were associated with increases rather than decreases in state OPR overdose death rates.” That is, Reuters has mistaken what “might” be with what the actual study established.

The risk of a switch over is real, and monitoring the overprescribing of opiate pain killers, while continuing policies to prevent their diversion and misuse, are clear imperatives, regardless of whether or not such measures might be linked to heroin use and subsequent overdoses.

Misuse of such medicines is dangerous in its own right, and we need to be on guard.

But there is another risk we run from this premature conclusion involving a posited “cross-over” between the two drug types. Heroin use and heroin overdose deaths are rising on their own, independent of the pain killer link, likely because the supply of heroin is driving its own epidemic of deaths.

Indeed, the new impact of heroin itself on overdose deaths reflects an increase in heroin use in the US, which has risen fully 74 percent between 2009 and 2012 among past month users 12 and older. This increase in use has been underpinned by a stunning increase of the supply of heroin flooding into the US in recent years. In fact, seizures of heroin at the Southwest Border region with Mexico have roughly quadrupled since 2008.

As the CDC itself notes, “Numerous factors contributed to drug-specific use and overdose death rates… an increase in overall heroin supply and greater availability of heroin in some parts of the country might contribute to the trend and variation observed in heroin mortality.”

The lesson for policy makers is that we need a comprehensive strategy that addresses both the supply of misused prescription opiates as well as soaring heroin supply. That is, we must integrate effective reduction in the demand and availability of medicines that are misused with effective international interventions (primarily in Mexico, a current principle source of US heroin, but with a striking threat from Afghanistan heroin looming) and stronger efforts against drug traffickers.

What is urgently needed is a drug control strategy combining drug demand and drug supply programs. We must reassert effective measures to control the movement of drugs across our borders, and reestablish pressures against the transnational cartels operating too freely abroad, as well as increasingly at home in the US.

The current movement pushing for the legalization of drugs is dragging us in the wrong direction. Prescription drugs are “legal,” yet when misused are a source of national tragedy. That realization should make us face a hard fact: simply “legalizing” drugs does not reduce their dangers.

Finally, a broader epidemiological point: we know there is a distinct risk factor for initiating heroin use besides the previous misuse of opiate pills. As the British journal Lancet recently (September 9, 2014) re-confirmed, the heavy use of marijuana, especially in adolescence, increases by a factor of 8 the likelihood of subsequent use of drugs such as heroin, compared to non-marijuana users.

Simply put, we cannot expect to expand the pool of marijuana users exposed to the new, highly potent cannabis such as found in Colorado, and believe that the risks end there. Rather, by increasing marijuana prevalence, we will inexorably have expanded the risk pool even wider for the use of other drugs, including heroin. Legalization portends consequences beyond the immediate damage from marijuana alone.

About the author:
David W. Murray, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute.

Source:
This article was published at the Hudson Institute.

The post Premature Closure? CDC Report Concerning ‘Link’ Between Prescription Pills And Heroin Overdose Deaths Misreported – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Islamic State fighters continued to shell the Syrian town of Kobani on the border with Turkey on October 4 despite a new wave of U.S-led air strikes.

U.S.-led coalition warplanes had struck at IS targets overnight to halt the insurgents’ advance and barrages were less intense than the previous day.

Previous coalition air strikes have failed to stop the insurgent offensive and an estimated 180,000 people have fled across the border into Turkey to escape the fighting around Kobani.

Kobani’s capture by IS fighters would provide a direct link between areas under their control in Syria’s Aleppo and their stronghold in Raqqa to the east.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said on October 4 that 25 IS fighters were killed by air strikes near the town of Shadadi in the northeastern province of Hasakeh.

Meanwhile, Turkish Kurds and Kurdish refugees from Syria clashed with Turkish security forces on the border between the two countries.

Troops used tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters who are angry about the situation in Syria and accuse Turkey of allowing IS militants to cross the border in order to fight Kurds there.

The fighting around the Kobani has prompted the exodus of some 300,000 people in the past weeks. Many have sought refuge in Turkey.

The developments come amid a Turkish-U.S. row over Ankara’s alleged support for IS militants.

Speaking at Harvard University on October 3, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden criticized Turkey and U.S. allies in the Arab world for having supported Sunni militant groups such as the IS.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on October 4 responded to reports about those remarks, telling journalists: “If Biden has used such expressions, then Biden is history for me from now on. No-one can accuse Turkey of having supported any terrorist organization in Syria, including IS.”

Biden on October 4 said in a statement he had called apologized to Erdogan over the comments.

“The vice president made clear that the United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey,” said the statement.

Separately, United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash also demanded an official explanation for Biden’s remarks, which he said had created “a negative and untrue impression about the role of the UAE.”

The post Syrian Border Town Still Under Siege By IS Despite Air Strikes appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Congratulations to Judge Gladys Kessler of the District Court in Washington D.C., who, yesterday, followed up on a powerful order prohibiting the government from holding a secret hearing in the case of Guantánamo hunger striker Abu Wa’el Dhiab, which I wrote about here, with an even more powerful order calling on the government to prepare for public release eleven hours of videotapes showing Mr. Dhiab being dragged from his cell and force-fed.

This ruling is the latest in a string of powerful rulings by Judge Kessler, who, in May, briefly ordered the government to stop force-feeding Mr. Dhiab. This order was swiftly rescinded, as Judge Kessler feared for his life, but she also ordered videotapes of his “forcible cell extractions” (FCEs) and his force-feeding to be made available to his lawyers, who had to travel to the Pentagon’s secure facility outside Washington D.C. to see them. After viewing them, Cori Crider, his lawyer at Reprieve, said, “While I’m not allowed to discuss the contents of these videos, I can say that I had trouble sleeping after viewing them,” and added, “I have no doubt that if President Obama forced himself to watch them, he would release my client tomorrow.”

In a press release, Reprieve explained that the eleven hours of video footage — consisting of 28 tapes in total — “is to be redacted for ‘all identifiers of individuals’ other than Mr. Dhiab,” and further explained how Judge Kessler’s ruling came in response to a motion submitted in June by 16 major US media organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, McClatchy, the Guardian, the Associated Press and others, seeking to have the videotapes unsealed.

In a statement quoted in Judge Kessler’s ruling, Mr. Dhiab endorsed the request for the videotapes to be unsealed, stating, “I want Americans to see what is going on at the prison today, so they will understand why we are hunger-striking, and why the prison should be closed. If the American people stand for freedom, they should watch these tapes. If they truly believe in human rights, they need to see these tapes.”

In her ruling, Judge Kessler specifically made reference to the need for First Amendment rights to be protected with reference to Guantánamo, stating, “In short, it is our responsibility, as judges, as part of our obligation under the Constitution, to ensure that any efforts to limit our First Amendment protections are scrutinized with the greatest of care. That responsibility can not be ignored or abdicated.”

She also described the government’s justifications for seeking to keep the whole of the evidence on the videotapes sealed as a demand that is “unacceptably vague, speculative, lack[ing specificity, or … just plain implausible,” and added, “It strains credulity to conclude that release of these videos has a substantial probability of causing the harm the Government predicts.”

The Guardian noted that Judge Kessler countered another argument — that, if the tapes were made public, the prisoners “would learn how to develop ‘countermeasures’ to defeat force-feeding,” despite the fact that, in some cases, they have been force-fed for seven years — by noting that it “strains credulity.”

She also dismissed the government’s claim that releasing the videos would violate the Geneva Conventions because it would violate Mr. Dhiab’s right not to be held up to “public curiosity” by stating, “The Government’s claim, if accepted, would turn the Third Geneva Convention on its head. Rather than a source of rights to humane treatment, Article 13 would become a means to shield from public view treatment that Mr. Dhiab (and undoubtedly other detainees) believe to be inhumane.”

This is not the first time the authorities have invoked the Geneva Conventions, and the right not to be held up to “public curiosity,” to prevent knowledge about Guantánamo being made public. Media visitors to Guantánamo are permanently prohibited from showing the faces of prisoners when they take photos during prison tours, which has the effect of hindering the public’s ability to empathize with them.

Moreover, the ban on photos identifying the men held has been disturbingly thorough throughout Guantánamo’s long and ignoble history. A handful of photos have been released publicly after they were taken by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and were subsequently released by the men’s families, but for the most part what we know to this day of what the prisoners look like, or looked like, has come from the Detainee Assessment Briefs, the classified military files that were released by WikiLeaks in 2011. However, none of the photos that have been released show the horrors of force-feeding, of prisoners weighing 100 pounds or less, which, if made publicly available, would invite comparisons with the Nazis’ concentration camps, and would, I believe, lead to action to bring about the prison’s closure.

It may be that the videotapes of Mr. Dhiab will perform this important function, and I certainly hope so.

The process of obscuring from the videotapes what Judge Kessler referred to as “all faces other than Mr Dhiab’s, voices, names, etc.” is “likely to take some days,” as Reprieve explained, adding that, while the redactions are made, Judge Kessler ordered the tapes to remain under seal. In the meantime, the hearing that I wrote about yesterday will begin on Monday (October 6), at 10am in Washington D.C. — unless it is delayed by an anticipated government appeal.

In response to the ruling, Cori Crider said, “It is high time the bright light of the truth was shone on Guantánamo’s force-feeding practices. It has always been the height of hypocrisy for the Guantánamo authorities to take media groups on ‘show tours’, while forbidding them from talking to prisoners or seeing evidence like this, which shows the grim reality of life at the prison. I look forward to the day when this evidence is made public, and I believe the outcry that results will hasten the close of Guantánamo Bay.”

Jon Eisenberg, who represents Mr. Dhiab in the US, said, “We firmly believe that once the veil of secrecy is lifted from the abusive treatment of hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, the abuse will end. This decision by Judge Kessler is a big step toward lifting that veil of secrecy.”

Alka Pradhan, of Reprieve US, added, “This may well be the most significant court decision on Guantánamo Bay in years. No longer does the American public have to rely on propaganda and misinformation, but can finally watch the videotapes and judge for themselves whether this terrible prison should continue to be the image America projects to the world, or whether we should reclaim our values and shut it down for good.”

Note: Please see here for the website of Lewis Peake, the artist who drew the illustration at the top of this article in 2008, as part of a series of five illustrations based on drawings by Guantánamo prisoner Sami al-Haj, which the Pentagon censors had refused to allow the public to see. Reprieve commissioned Lewis Peake to reproduce the drawings based on descriptions of what Sami had drawn, and I reproduced them in my article, “Sami al-Haj: the banned torture pictures of a journalist in Guantánamo.”

The post In Ground-Breaking Ruling, US Judge Gladys Kessler Orders Guantánamo Force-Feeding Videos To Be Made Public – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Nobel prize season starts Monday with speculation rife that the peace prize could go to US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pakistani girls’ education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, or perhaps Pope Francis.

Last year, the physics prize awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert for the Higgs particle was widely predicted, but Nobel pundits and bookmakers tend to focus more on who will get the prestigious peace and literature awards.

This year saw a record 278 peace prize nominations and, while the list is secret, some names have been revealed by their sponsors, including US whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was nominated by two Norwegian members of parliament, AFP reported. The Norwegians have been scolded world-wide for giving a Peace Prize to Barack Obama (2009) simply for being the first black US President. Two of the Nobel Peace Prize panelists have quit since then.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) is one of few experts to publish an annual shortlist of likely winners, even if he has yet to predict one accurately.

This year he ranked Snowden second place — behind Pope Francis — for exposing the extent of US electronic surveillance. However, he acknowledged that the former intelligence analyst would be a controversial choice as “many continue to see him as a traitor and a criminal”.

Nonetheless the five members of the Nobel Committee could award Snowden — considered a fugitive by the US and living in exile in Russia — to “underline the independence of the Nobel Committee” from the Norwegian and US authorities, according to Nobeliana.com, a website run by leading Norwegian Nobel historians.

Others have rubbished the Snowden speculation.

“It would be really courageous to give it to Snowden,” Robert Haardh, head of Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders told AFP.

“But judging from the past, I can’t see that coming. It’s too controversial — and Scandinavians are too fond of the (United) States. “Pope Francis — topping bookmaker Paddy Power’s list with 9/4 odds — would be another controversial choice.

“The massively unjust global distribution of wealth is detrimental to peace… Pope Francis has brought attention to the fate of the poor, and the need for a new approach to development and economic redistribution,” according to the PRIO director’s prediction.

Critics point out that a papal Nobel would cause a similar outcry to US President Barack Obama’s 2009 Nobel — less than a year into his presidency — which led to complaints that he was awarded for potential good deeds in the future rather than anything he had achieved.

Other favourites, also tipped last year, were 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai — the Pakistani activist for girls’ right to education who was wounded by the Taliban in 2012 — and Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege.

The Nobel could also go to a champion of democracy and human rights in Russia, such as the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta — co-founded by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993 with part of his peace prize money — or to human rights activist Ales Bialiatski from the Russian-backed dictatorship Belarus.

“This year has been marked by a lot of drama. It can mean the list will look different,” Harpviken told Norwegian news agency NTB, adding that he believed the committee would search for a laureate linked to major upheavals and conflicts of the last year.

“But that does not necessarily mean that they will find any,” he added, echoing the view of several analysts that the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine do not easily lend themselves to a peace prize.

Just over a week ahead of the October 10 announcement, Harpviken told NTB he was planning to update his forecast.

Last year, the Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The post Snowden Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The inability of Haiti’s courts to bring to trial former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier deprived his countless Haitian victims of the justice they sought, Human Rights Watch said today. Duvalier’s death was reported on October 4, 2014.

“It’s a shame that the Haitian justice system could not bring Baby Doc Duvalier to trial before he died,” said Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch, who worked with Duvalier’s victims. “Duvalier’s death robs Haiti of what could have been the most important human rights trial in its history.”

Duvalier inherited power from his father, the dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and ruled Haiti from 1971 to 1986. During the son’s rule, Haiti was marked by systematic human rights violations. Hundreds of political prisoners held in a network of prisons known as the “triangle of death” died from their extraordinarily cruel treatment. Others were victims of extrajudicial killings. Duvalier’s government repeatedly closed independent newspapers and radio stations. Journalists were beaten, and in some cases tortured, jailed, or forced into exile.

When “Baby Doc” Duvalier made a surprise return to Haiti on January 16, 2011, following a 25-year exile in France, the authorities reopened a criminal case against him. In January 2012, an investigating judge ruled that the statute of limitations had expired on the human rights crimes of which he was accused. His victims appealed. In February 2013, an appeals court ordered Duvalier to testify, as did many of his government’s victims, but only in February 2014 did the court re-instate the charges, saying that international law barred the use of statute of limitations for crimes against humanity. One of the appeals court judges took over the investigation and was interviewing victims and witnesses when Duvalier died.

“Duvalier’s court appearance in 2013 to be questioned about his alleged crimes was a critical moment in a country where the rich and powerful have always been above the law,” said Brody. “A fair trial for Duvalier could have ended the impunity that has characterized Haiti’s past and will likely plague its future.”

A Human Rights Watch report, “Haiti’s Rendezvous With History: The Case of Jean-Claude Duvalier,” examined the legal and practical questions surrounding the case and concluded that Haiti had an obligation under international law to investigate and prosecute the grave violations of human rights under Duvalier’s rule. The report, published in April 2011, also addressed Haiti’s capacity to carry out the trial, the question of the statute of limitations, and Duvalier’s personal involvement in alleged criminal acts.

“A Haitian proverb says ‘He who gives the blow forgets; he who carries the scar remembers,’” Brody said. “Duvalier may have forgotten the blows he gave to the Haitian people, but his victims remember.”

The post Haiti: Justice Denied By Duvalier’s Death, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(Kabul) –“I woke up with the blast of another bomb explosion this morning,” Imadullah told me. “I wonder how many people were killed.” Imadullah, an 18 year old Afghan Peace Volunteer, (APV), from Badakhshan, had joined me at the APVs’ Borderfree Community Centre of Nonviolence.

The news reported that at least three Afghan National Army soldiers were killed in the suicide bomb attack, in the area of Darulaman. Coincidentally, the Afghan Peace Volunteers (APVs) had planned to be at the Darulaman Palace that same morning.  To commemorate Gandhi’s birthday and the International Day of Nonviolence, we wanted to form a human circle of peace at the Palace, which is a war ruin.  But the police, citing general security concerns, had denied us permission.

Imadullah and Rauff, another APV member, continued discussing the attack. Rauff believes that the latest string of suicide bombings in Kabul have been in response to actions of the newly formed government.  “Three days ago, they signed the U.S. /Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement  (BSA),” Rauff explained.  “The Taliban condemned the new government, now led by former World Bank official President Ashraf Ghani and ex-warlord Vice President General Dostum, for signing the agreement.”

Listening to Imadullah’s and Rauff’s concerns over the latest string of attacks, I wondered if I myself had become inured to this sober Afghan reality of perpetual war.

We were soon joined by Zekerullah and Abdulhai who had gathered local street children at Borderfree Community Centre, so we could supervise their walk to a nearby park, the alternative place for our event.

“I’m taking music lessons and if I’m good enough, the teachers say I may be able to participate in Afghan Star ( like the American Idol show ) in the future!” said Nur Rahman, after belting out a sweet Afghan love song for me.

“We wish for a life without wars,” Mehdi, a boot polisher in our street kid program, said emphatically as we set off towards the park. “He’s telling the truth!” echoed another street kid walking just behind him.

I’ve often met precocious Afghan children who express cynicism and feel angry that they must wise up so quickly in a country whee the Taliban’s or the U.S./NATO’s bombs might kill them.

Most people outside Afghanistan are too far away to preoccupy themselves over what the former British envoy to Afghanistan called an ‘eye wateringly expensive exercise in military futility’.

Whereas seemingly everyone understands that wars are futile, U.S./NATO and Afghan politicians have nevertheless wired their media and general public to believe that this war, in Afghanistan, is necessary.  Through the BSA, they have agreed to keep long term U.S./NATO military bases in Afghanistan. The decision will assuredly prolong war and violence.

Governments involved in Afghanistan spend a vast bulk of their borrowed or tax-payer money not on food, water, shelter, education, health and other basic human needs, but on the machine of war.

Most of us assume that our leaders must know what to do, even if they have failed to bring genuine security after 13 years.

I feel a deep frustration.

On our way to the park, street vendors and shopkeepers asked us, “What’s the occasion? Why the blue scarves?” Ordinary Afghans, trying to eke out a meager living in a country with at least 36% unemployment, seem eager for some action, some change.

The blue scarves looked strikingly beautiful along the pot-holed road.

“We’re a group of drug addicts!” Mirwais replied playfully. “No, we’re a group for nonviolence!” Mirwais is another street kid who has seen numerous people addicted to opium living under bridges in Kabul. Unable to find work in Afghanistan, many Afghan men go to Iran where they work illegally as labourers. There, they get addicted to drugs.

The APVs couldn’t help but feel weighed down by the serious irony of promoting nonviolence in a country where the world’s most powerful nations have gathered to wage war.

After Mohammad Qawa and Zebiullah had lifted our spirits with their guitar-accompanied singing, I took the loud-hailer to offer a word of encouragement.

“When I am abroad, I hear that you are the generation of war.” I sensed uneasiness in the air. Some of the youth responded in what I’ve noticed is a common Afghan way of coping with their harsh lives – they laughed.

“But well done to all of you for coming today to show that no, you are not a generation of war. You are a generation of love!” I didn’t expect the rapturous, supportive applause!

The new Afghan generation says no to all wars!

“On the International Day of Nonviolence,” I added, “we remember a quote from Gandhi, that ‘where there is love, there is life.’” I thought of how my Afghan friends among the Peace Volunteers have demonstrated love and affirmed life, and felt grateful.

The energetic little ones together with the sober youth and adults joined hands as they formed a circle, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and other Afghan ethnicities, each wearing the Borderfree blue scarf signifying our belief that we’re all human beings living under the same blue sky!

Celebrating the International Day of Nonviolence in Kabul, Afghanistan

“When I see this circle of children and youth,” Abdulhai told the group, “I feel excited about the possibility of change.”

We need this excitement to generate more and more circles of friendship, along with many more relationships that can help us understand that our governments have unfortunately disguised perpetual war as peace.

The Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEOs and extremists like the Taliban will fight on and on, drop and lay bombs to kill mostly civilians, escalate hate, anger, hunger and thirst, rape our earth of its minerals, gases and oil, and warm our globe to extinction.

They are increasing violence in Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq and Syria, in the drug war in Mexico, on Wall Street against the 99%, through the tar sands in Canada, in student debt loans everywhere….

We need to work hard, cheerfully and patiently, to reach the human family with a simple message that we the people no longer like authoritarian, weapon-wielding profiteers. Too many of us are dying.

Our leaders inhabit an unequal system that is driven by the same corrupt power and egos that gripped ancient kings and queens.

To hoard money and power for themselves, they are repeating the violent acts of history, and we can no longer satisfactorily explain to our children why they need to suffer for the elite.

We cannot wait. Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world!” So, I readily join the APVs’ mission:  to abolish war.

We understand that ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for’.

“Wake up! We are not the war generation. We are the generation of love!”

The post International Day Of Nonviolence In Afghanistan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Anahita Mathai

Earlier this year, in response to a request by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) released a report on the “Right to Privacy in the Digital Age”. The resolution in the GA which spawned the report was introduced by Germany and Brazil; two countries that felt the fallout of Snowden’s NSA leaks heavily.

International politics in any forum involves a good deal of disagreement and divergences of opinions, which can make decision-making and even agenda-setting very difficult tasks. This is particularly true in the case of Internet governance ? there is no global consensus on the best model or way forward. In this context, a defence of the right to privacy being mounted at the world’s highest political forum surely speaks to the issue’s importance. The fact that, despite opposition, the resolution went through with strong anti-surveillance language, too, speaks volumes.

Several countries are embracing the concept of protecting privacy by imposing their national laws on the Internet, even if that will lead to separate networks for separate countries. Russia has already passed a law stating that data on Russian citizens must be stored within Russian borders, and Brazil has taken steps to ensure that information about its citizens will be subject to Brazilian law. In Europe, the idea of a Schengen-only network is being debated. China maintains its ‘Great Firewall’ to control Internet traffic.

Mentioning the idea of separate, closed networks, even for ostensibly noble aims such as protecting privacy or guarding critical infrastructure, is sure to raise the spectre of balkanization ? the hypothetical scenario where the Internet mimics the political upheaval and splintering of the Balkans starting in the 19th Century.

The term is problematic in its ambiguity, having been used both by those who support a fragmented Internet and those who fear it. The latter forms a larger (or at least more vocal) camp, evoking visions of a future where the Internet as we know it is dead, and all the knowledge capacity and intercultural learning that could have been has come to nothing. Perhaps in an age where everything is increasingly connected (Internet of things hyperlink), a little disconnect could be a good thing.

Another form of fragmentation is the proliferation of location-based services. While those who oppose fragmentation of the Internet wish for it to be open and borderless, there are many features which are already restricted. A prominent example of this is television programming via the Internet. Copyright concerns, among others, means that popular services transmitting TV programming online are location-specific, including but not limited to: Hulu in the United States, BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom, and the Apple store, locking users in to the countries in which they register.

One facet of privacy that is being undermined by developments in Internet governance is anonymity. There has been a push recently to link digital identities with ‘real’ identities – the benefits being integrated systems providing better, tailored services. There are dangers, however, in integrating databases. India continues to pursue Aadhaar, its Unique Identification system – which has serious privacy implications considering it links biometric data, bank details, and other personal information. The system has been widely and strongly criticised for the lack of inbuilt privacy protection.

Anonymity online is often associated with, if not criminal elements, then antisocial ones. There is an idea that online, unidentifiable and thus unburdened by accountability, behaviour will spiral accordingly.  This disregards the plentiful advantages of privacy, if not total anonymity online, including enabling freedom of expression and the potential for whistle-blowing. Even the collection of so-called innocuous data, metadata, when voluminous enough, is practically the same as content data, and can be deadly. It can be abused, and past experience suggests that since it can be, it will be.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice on the ‘right to be forgotten’, allowing people to remove certain links about themselves from Google searches, could be viewed as a step forward in this, allowing individuals to control the narrative of their online lives. Defenders point out that removing a particular link from Google searches does not get rid of the webpage itself, only the Google link to the page. However, given Google’s enormous share of the online search market, for many it is the source of content, not just an index of content.

This may be a boon for some individuals ? victims of revenge porn, or those with convictions that they are not otherwise required to disclose ? but what about those with more venal motives? Google has removed links relating to the behaviour of individuals in office (corporate and political), including a former Merrill Lynch CEO, and a politician regarding his behaviour during a previous term. There are already companies which offer to ‘manage reputations’ by controlling what information appears where, creating a business of being forgotten. This has led to concerns that the right to be forgotten will erase information which is in the public interest. This is part of the reason that Google is going through each removal request, and judging each case on its merits.

Court orders may force Google to change search results for country-specific Google pages. In countries where Google is not blocked, the same search query may yield different results; this is another form of fragmentation.

Long before Snowden, it was suggested that the best way forward was to abandon ‘the Internet’ and embrace multiple internets – essentially privatising networks, allowing customisation and different types of internet experiences. The splintering of the Internet is one possible consequence of viewing Internet rights through the prism of private property. As mentioned earlier, it was the push to enforce copyright that led to certain location-based restrictions. It is not such a stretch to imagine privacy and personal data being protected in the same way, with rights being enforced on such a basis.

The author is a Junior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. 

The post Privacy Through Fragmentation? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Interview with Mohammad Saleh Sadaghian, Head of the Arab Center for Iranian Studies

Recent developments in Yemen have progressed in such a way that despite conclusion of an agreement between opposition groups and the government, Houthis and Ansarullah forces – who are affiliated to Houthi tribe – succeeded to take control of the capital. At the same time, despite all efforts made by Saudi Arabia to stop Houthis and in spite of all steps taken by Riyadh to get the United Nations Security Council adopt a resolution against them in order to give an international dimension to the situation in Yemen, the Saudi government has apparently got along with Houthis and has remained mostly silent on them. Saudi Arabia used to accuse Iran of interfering in the internal affairs of Yemen and providing support for Houthis. At the same time, it took steps to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated groups in other countries. However, Riyadh’s position on Yemen did not prove that it is strongly against the Muslim Brotherhood gaining power in that country. Experts, nonetheless, believe that the silence of Saudi Arabia and other littoral states of the Persian Gulf over what is going on in Yemen is a sign that they actually favor the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood government and the loss of their power in Yemen. This is why Saudi officials have opted to choose Houthis over the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammad Saleh Sadaghian, head of the Arab Center for Iran Studies, maintains that this viewpoint is wrong. However, he has mentioned two factors as the main reasons behind the current developments in Yemen. In the following interview, he argues that Houthis’ initiative to make the most of the current developments in the region as well as taking control of the capital at the best possible time are the main factors that have helped to bring the situation in Yemen to the current point. The complete text of his interview follows.

Q: The ongoing developments in Yemen, which have left hundreds of people dead and wounded, were first taken as a telltale sign that the political system in the country was moving toward a basic change. However, the developments ended in favor of the Houthis. The important points in this regard include silence of the littoral Arab states of the Persian Gulf on these developments and the type of change in the country’s political system. What has happened in Yemen to pave the way for such a change in its political system?

A: What happened in Yemen in the past week was quite natural. It was quite predictable that the Houthis and Ansarullah forces would pour into the capital city of Sana’a and take control. The main reason was incoordination in the ranks of the Yemeni government which had practically stripped the country’s President [Abd Rabbuh Manṣur Hadi] of the ability to find a solution for political and economic problems. Therefore, Houthis, Ansarullah forces as well as certain parts of the Yemeni army become coordinated and provided good grounds for taking control of the capital. In fact, the Yemeni government was forced into submission to people’s demands. This was a major movement. The viewpoint that has been raised in this regard is why Saudi Arabia, and sometimes Qatar, have been encouraging this situation? Why they even lent their support to the agreement signed between Yemeni Houthis and the country’s president and took a positive stance on it? As we know, Qatar has been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and even in Syria and Iraq. However, during past months, Doha has toned down its support for the Muslim Brotherhood. The main reason for this situation was developments in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, which collectively forced Qatar to refrain from adventurism in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, on the other side, has offered cautious support for the movement launched by Ansarullah and the Houthi group. The reasons behind this position were first, to undermine and weaken the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, and second, a consequence of the realities that Saudi Arabia observed in its southern neighbor. Saudi Arabia failed to block the popular movement launched by Ansarullah and other groups. Therefore, it had to cautiously endorse it. On the other hand, Houthis have been able to take advantage of the ongoing developments in the region. They not only took timely advantage of the situation in Yemen, but also of general political equations in the entire region. In other words, they made the most of two factors of time and place and managed to organize a successful movement.

Q: Some people believe that Iran and Saudi Arabia are heading for an understanding over how to shape a new regional system in which there would be a kind of balance of powers between the allies of these countries. To what extent this viewpoint conforms to the current developments in Yemen?

A: I think it is too early to claim that Iran and Saudi Arabia will achieve such an agreement. Of course, Mr. [Hossein] Amir-Abdollahian [Iranian deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs] paid a successful visit to Saudi Arabia quite recently, and [Iran's Foreign Minister] Mr. [Mohammad Javad] Zarif met with his Saudi counterpart [on the sidelines of the 69th annual session of the UN General Assembly] in New York. However, it is unlikely that such meetings will be so influential as to lead to a political understanding between the two countries over the situation in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been leading political plans in Persian Gulf littoral countries, including a plan in Yemen. Although the movement launched by Yemeni Houthis has not been to the benefit of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh offered its cautious support to it. Therefore, relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have not reached a level that would help the two countries to reach such an understanding. However, their relations may help the two countries to meet their national interests in this case.

Q: Saudi Arabia has apparently preferred to get along with Iran, Hezbollah and Houthis instead of seeing continued presence and empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen. As a result, Riyadh has gone as far as allowing Houthis to proceed with their plans and even take control over Sana’a. Is this position compatible with the political reality on the ground in Yemen?

A: Saudi Arabia did not intend to play a strategic and powerful role in Yemen. Since its involvement in Yemen, Saudi Arabia insisted that the UN Security Council should adopt a resolution on the situation in the Arab country. At the same time, it sought to give an international aspect to the situation in Yemen. However, it was clear that such a turn of events would not be beneficial to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and even other littoral countries of the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia clearly understood that its plan for playing the role of a leader for Persian Gulf littoral countries could not be implemented in Yemen. On the other hand, it would be an illogical analysis to believe that Saudi Arabia is trying to use Houthis and Ansarullah as counterweight to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is true because although there are Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists present in Yemen, Houthis can still interact with all other political groups in order to pave the way for unity across the country and realization of people’s demands. Therefore, it would be logical to assume that the future outlook of Yemen will be to the benefit of Ansarullah and Houthis and to the detriment of Saudi Arabia.

Source: Iranian Diplomacy (IRD)
http://www.irdiplomacy.ir/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

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By Andrea Gagliarducci

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is urging a comprehensive road map for peace in Middle East during meetings between the region’s papal nuncio top officials in his office.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said the agenda included an opening address by Cardinal Parolin, an intervention by Israeli nuncio Archbishop Giorgio Lazzarotto, and a report by Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

According to Fr. Lombardi, Cardinal Parolin outlined a general scenario of the Middle East and stressed the inspiring principles of the diplomatic action of the Holy See.

Cardinal Parolin reportedly said that peace must be sought through a “regional and comprehensive solution,” which takes in consideration the interests of each party and which is not pushed by unilateral choices.

The Secretary of State has also underscored that religious leaders have an important role in fostering the inter-religious dialogue and combating the fundamentalism at the basis of terrorism.

Fr. Lombardi stressed that “for what concerns the political situation in the Middle East and more in general relationship with countries with a majority of Muslim population, the Holy See has always set as primary issues the protection and respect of Christians and other minority groups as full citizen, and the respect of human rights, and particularly the right to religious freedom.”

Archbishop Lazzarotto reported about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and on the presence of Christians in the Holy See.

The nuncio has reportedly stressed that the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a central issue for the peace in the Middle East.

Archbishop Lazzarotto said that “hopes of peace had opened with Pope Francis pilgrimage to Holy Land and the following meeting for the prayer in Middle East in the Vatican,” but “the recent conflict in Gaza” signals that “the situation is grave and difficult,” Fr. Lombardi said.

The archbishop also advocated for a durable peace respectful of the rights of both sides, Israel and Palestine.

Bishop Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, then reported about the relations between the Catholic Church and other Christian confessions in the Middle East.

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According to a new federal database put online last week, pharmaceutical companies and device makers paid doctors some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees over a five-month period in 2013.

Some doctors received over half a million dollars each, and others got millions of dollars in royalties from products they helped develop.

Doctors claim these payments have no effect on what they prescribe. But why would drug companies shell out all this money if it didn’t provide them a healthy return on their investment?

America spends a fortune on drugs, more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations.

Of the estimated $2.7 trillion America spends annually on health care, drugs account for 10 percent of the total.

Government pays some of this tab through Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.  But we pick up the tab indirectly through our taxes.

We pay the rest of it directly, through higher co-payments, deductibles, and premiums.

Drug company payments to doctors are a small part of a much larger strategy by Big Pharma to clean our pockets.

Another technique is called “product hopping” —making small and insignificant changes in a drug whose patent is about to expire, so it’s technically new.

For example, last February, before its patent expired on Namenda, its widely used drug to treat Alzheimer’s, Forest Laboratories announced it would stop selling the existing tablet form of in favor of new extended-release capsules called Namenda XR.

The capsules were just a reformulated version of the tablet. But even the minor change prevented pharmacists from substituting generic versions of the tablet.

Result: Higher profits for Forest Labs and higher costs for you and me.

Another technique is for drug companies to continue to aggressively advertise prescription brands long after their twenty-year patents have expired, so patients ask their doctors for them. Many doctors will comply.

America is one of few advanced nations that allow direct advertising of prescription drugs.

A fourth tactic is for drug companies to pay the makers of generic drugs to delay their cheaper versions. These so-called “pay-for-delay” agreements generate big profits for both the proprietary manufacturers and the generics. But here again, you and I pay. The tactic costs us an estimated $3.5 billion a year.

Europe doesn’t allow these sorts of payoffs, but they’re legal in the United States because the major drug makers and generics have fought off any legislative attempts to stop them.

Finally, while other nations set wholesale drug prices, the law prohibits the U.S. government from using its considerable bargaining power under Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate lower drug prices. This was part of the deal Big Pharma extracted for its support of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

The drug companies say they need the additional profits to pay for researching and developing new drugs.

But the government supplies much of the research Big Pharma relies on, through the National Institutes of Health.

Meanwhile, Big Pharma is spending more on advertising and marketing than on research and development – often tens of millions to promote a single drug.

And it’s spending hundreds of millions more every year lobbying. Last year alone, the lobbying tab came to $225 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That’s more than the formidable lobbying expenditures of America’s military contractors.

In addition, Big Pharma is spending heavily on political campaigns. In 2012, it shelled out over $36 million, making it the biggest political contributor of all American industries.

Why do we put up with this? It’s too facile to say we have no choice given how much the industry is spending on politics. If the public were sufficiently outraged, politicians and regulatory agencies wouldn’t allow this giant ripoff.

But the public isn’t outraged. That’s partly because much of this strategy is hidden from public view.

But I think it’s also because we’ve bought the ideological claptrap of the “free market” being separate from and superior to government.

And since private property and freedom of contract are the core of the free market, we assume drug companies have every right to charge what they want for the property they sell.

Yet in reality the “free market” can’t be separated from government because government determines the rules of the game.

It determines, for example, what can be patented and for how long, what side payoffs create unlawful conflicts of interest, what basic research should be subsidized, and when government can negotiate low prices.

The critical question is not whether government should play a role in the market. Without such government decisions there would be no market, and no new drugs.

The issue is how government organizes the market. So long as big drug makers have a disproportionate say in these decisions, the rest of us pay through the nose.

The post Why We Allow Big Pharma To Rip Us Off – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

Excessive commercialization of children’s media, especially television, is obstructing efforts aimed at education and capacity building for global citizenship and raising awareness among children of the diversity of the world, according to experts.

Many of the speakers at the recent World Summit on Media for Children in Kuala Lumpur agreed with Dr Patricia Edgar, former director of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, that the majority of children’s programmes are commercially driven and not educational.

“These less creative and cheaply produced programmes are made for entertainment with the intention to sell their merchandise,” she told participants in the Summit September 8 to 10. “An effective educational programme is about good values, constructive messages and most importantly, contains local elements to help the social and emotional development of children.”

Dr Edgar said it was important for children to understand the “real world” and to be taught the correct way to deal with problems rather than overprotect them and let them live in a fancy world.

Rosmah Mansor, the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, said that programmes for children should be designed to “teach valuable lessons that will shape beliefs, attitudes and behaviour” for living in a multi-racial and multi-religious community.

She argued that children’s media should be seen as an educational tool rather than a commercial commodity. Educators needed to master the skill of using media as a teaching tool to foster reflective and critical thinking, and to encourage curiosity. In this endeavour, rather than de-regulating, government regulators and policymakers should address media content using legislation and incentives as effective tools to enhance the quantity and quality of educational and informational programmes.

“Children need to see human endeavour at its best, not just the side that produces conflict through stereotyping, hate speech and bullying,” argued Rosmah. “Good programming can help children cope with upsetting emotional responses to media content and to make critical judgments about violence on TV and advertisements.”

The United Nations has set three priority areas for fostering global citizenship and all of these relate to education and intellectual development of children. This includes putting every child in school; improving the quality of learning; and making education a transformational process that brings shared values to life.

Critics of today’s children’s media argue that it is these shared values that are lacking, particularly in television programmes – unless you believe that these shared values are developing tastes for merchandise that is a by-product of the “fancy world” the programmers create for the children, in order to sell merchandise.

“If good global citizenship means a passion for global justice and compassion for the other, we have to develop children’s stories in the form of cartoons and short films that will inculcate the right values in the young from a tender age,” argued Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President of the Just World Movement.

He believes that global citizenship should be anchored in values that are universal. “All Western values are not necessarily universal. Neither are all non-Western values parochial,” he noted. “On the contrary, there is a great deal in our own religious and ethical traditions, which are universal. These should be harnessed and articulated through local languages and art forms. In the process we would be strengthening local cultural identities.”

Consolidating local cultural identities

Strengthening local cultural identities not necessarily means that one becomes nationalistic and inward looking. Quite the contrary argued Aldana Duhalde, Project Developer of IDIEM Media Research Institute in Argentina. Through a regional television project her team has developed a cross-border common identity she calls a “social kind of identity” that focuses on issues such as identifying with nature and the landscape, the desire to grow economically and not be viewed as under-developed, and finding their own solutions to problems.

“Material things are not that important,” argued Duhalde in an interview with IDN. “Expression of love is very important among us … listening to each other. (Creating) strong discussion dealing with different points of view in open space not hiding our emotions.”

Duhalde is of the view that new media technology and the spread of social media provides a lot of opportunities to produce programmes for children that could encourage better understanding and educate the young to become peaceful global citizens. “Our project is non-commercial and non-profit,” she explained. “You need not have a lot of money to produce (but) if you trust kids they trust each other and kids will produce the programmes together (with us).”

Filmmaker Fredrik Holmberg from Sweden told IDN there was a need to launch a global campaign to revive public service broadcasting values. “It’s different voices and we need more diversity,” he argued. “Media is not just reaching out, it’s also looking in. We have to be both global and glocal at the same time.”

Holmberg believes that the media for children should be seen as a public investment. “We should not treat kids as consumers. Producing programmes for kids is expensive (but) we need to pay for it (from public purse).”

This was an argument that was frequently advocated by speakers from around the world at the Kuala Lumpur Summit. But no one seemed to be brave enough to question the government’s priorities in public funding, especially enormous budgets allocated for buying arms that are rarely used.

IDN put this question to Moneeza Hasmi from Pakistan, President of the Public Media Alliance (formerly Commonwealth Broadcasting Association). She agreed that perhaps siphoning 1 percent of the defence budgets to public service broadcasting for children could make a big difference.

“We must talk about promoting public media for the public, so that we produce generations who are more balanced, more civilized, more aware of peace,” said Hasmi, adding, that “(they must also be) more tolerant and aware of the fact that there are other human beings who are not as fortunate as them (because they don’t have money).”

She said that living in Pakistan she can see first hand why we need to create good global citizens. “These are very difficult times we are living in, this is not the world we grew up in, sometimes I feel very upset,” she said, arguing that our values have been destroyed by commercialization of everything and anything.

“It has become a commercial economy . . . economy based on making more money and more money and continue to make more money. There is no such thing as doing things because they should be done,” said Hasmi. “We let them (governments) make more arms and kill more people (but) there are sane and balanced people in the world, who must come forward to put money into public service media, so that we can make programmes for children to promote better (educated and tolerant) global citizens.”

*Kalinga Seneviratne is IDN Special Correspondent for Asia-Pacific. He teaches international communications in Singapore.

The post Commercialisation Of Children’s Media Hampering Global Citizenship – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Catalan leaders forged ahead for a vote on independence, defying a court challenge by the national government in their bid to redraw the map of Spain.

Spain’s Constitutional Court had provisionally blocked their plan for the vote, but parties in the northeastern region opted to launch a legal gamble.

“We have agreed to maintain the election decree so that citizens can exercise their right to vote on November 9,” the Catalan regional government spokesman Francesc Homs told reporters in Barcelona.

Catalan pro-independence parties declared they were “united” on the issue to the press, after holding meetings to forge a common front in the tense standoff, which threatens to trigger Spain’s biggest constitutional crisis in decades.

The central government has vowed to keep Spain whole against the drive for independence for Catalonia.

But, fired up by last month’s independence referendum in Scotland — although voters there rejected independence — hundreds of thousands of Catalans have protested in the streets in recent weeks, demanding their own vote.

In another move of defiance on Friday, Catalonia’s moderate conservative government formally decreed the creation of a commission to supervise the ballot.

The national government will ask the Constitutional Court to suspend that decree, just as it has suspended other Catalan legislation this week over the vote, said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

The post Catalans Defy Spanish Court In Independence Duel appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Yahoo raked in more than $5 billion from selling part of its holdings in the recent Alibaba IPO and now aims to invest some of that cash into the hip messaging startup Snapchat.

Snapchat has nearly finalized a $20 million round of financing led by Kleiner Perkins, and the Wall Street Journal’s sources indicate that Yahoo was involved in the discussions but was just one of many potential investors.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has committed to returning at least half of that $5 billion windfall to shareholders, leaving questions about what to do with the rest. An investment in the unmonetized Snapchat at a $10 billion valuation, while risky, may prove to be quite savvy as Snapchat gears up to debut a service for disappearing news stories and ads for its 100 million users, and Yahoo’s business is all about content distribution.

This new round of funding would make Snapchat one of the most highly valued startups in the world.

The post Yahoo Wants To Invest In Snapchat At A $10B Valuation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday night slammed the Swedish government’s intention to recognize the state of “Palestine,” and the Foreign Ministry announced it will summon Sweden’s ambassador to protest the move, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Sweden’s recently elected prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said Friday during his inaugural address in parliament that his government will recognize “Palestine,” a move that would make it the first major European country to take the step.

“The conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be solved with a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with international law,” Lofven said during his address, in comments diplomatic sources in Jerusalem said were meant to give his constituents what they wanted to hear.

“A two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to peaceful co-existence.

Sweden will therefore recognize the State of Palestine” he said.

Liberman issued a statement saying that, rather than dealing with Israel and the Palestinians during his inaugural speech, it would have been better for the Swedish premier to focus on more urgent matters in the Middle East, such as the daily mass murders in Syria, Iraq, and other countries in the region.

Liberman said further that Lofven needs to understand that neither declarations nor moves by “outside sources” would replace direct negotiations between the sides and bring closer a solution that would be part of a comprehensive agreement between Israel and the Arab world. He said he is sorry that Lofven “rushed” to make declarations about a “Palestinian state” before making the effort to study the issue and to understand that the Palestinians have been the obstacle preventing an Israel-Palestinian agreement for the last 20 years.

Lofven is the head of a center- left government that has come to power following general elections in September.

If Israel had a tough time with the Swedish government under its previous government, which was center-right, Lofven’s statement is an indication that the relationship will now likely be even more difficult.

The former Swedish government refused to recognize “Palestine,” as the Palestinians did not control the territory they claimed for statehood.

The UN General Assembly approved the de facto recognition of “the sovereign State of Palestine” in 2012, but the European Union and most EU countries have yet to give official recognition.

Diplomatic sources said they are not fearful that Lofven would begin a snowball affect in Europe, as the leader of a rather precarious center-left government is unlikely to set the standard for the rest of Europe.

The Social Democrats and Greens hold a minority of seats in parliament and the incoming center-left government is likely to be one of Sweden’s weakest for decades.

Within the EU, some countries, such as Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia recognize “Palestine,” but they did so before joining the 28-member bloc.

If the center-left government fulfills its plans, Sweden would be the first country to recognize “Palestine” while being a member of the European Union.

The EU’s stated position is that an independent Palestinian state should only emerge through a negotiated process.

The PLO on Saturday welcomed Sweden’s announcement.

“The Swedish announcement is in fact a sign of a genuine commitment to justice and the requirements for peace, including the two-state solution on the 1967 boundaries,” said PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi.

“We hope that other countries in Europe will follow Sweden’s lead. Those who claim to support the two-state solution must realize that in order to reach it, what’s missing is a sovereign Palestinian state,” she said.

According to the PLO, 138 countries recognize “Palestine” as a state, including Brazil, South Africa, Chile, Russia, the Holy See, Argentina, India, and China.

But it has failed to gain major recognition in the West, with the European Union and the US preferring the conflict resolved through negotiation.

“Conditioning recognition of the ‘State of Palestine’ on the outcome of negotiations with Israel is equivalent to making our right to self-determination an Israeli prerogative. This fails to address the very basis of the values upon which the United Nations was founded, including its responsibility to protect and act accordingly,” Ashrawi said.

The post Israeli FM Slams Swedish Prime Minister For Vowing To Recognize Palestine appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Many there are, who seeing the violent turmoil raging throughout large parts of the world, together with the devastating impact of man-made climate change, fear humanity and the planet is on the verge of destruction. Those religiously inclined – particularly those sitting on the far right of the spectrum, point towards various passages in sacred texts, which they believe accurately describe these times and proclaim them to be ‘the end times’. Apocalyptically understood, through the prism of doctrine, to be not simply the annihilation of a sin-drenched humanity who according to the ‘judgment of the just’ no doubt deserve it, but the obliteration of the Earth itself. This doom-laden interpretation of events cultivates fear, suffocates hope and fails to recognise the good amongst the black flags and chaos.

Fortunately there is an alternative, sunnier view of the present time, a common sense albeit controversial vision that creates hope (something that is in short supply), not fear and despair. It is a quieter voice which remains largely buried under the worldwide blanket of anxiety and insecurity, it says these are not ‘the end times’ but transitional times; that we are not witnessing the ‘end of the world’ or the slow demise of humanity, but the final cries of a crumbling civilisation in terminal decline. A civilisation built over the last two thousand years or so in response to certain conditioning influences promoting specific values and ways of living; an out-dated and in many ways, to many people, inadequate mode of organising society that is now collapsing, and rightly so.

That there is great resistance to change is clear; those who have benefitted most under the present socio-economic model, fearful of lost privilege, seek to tighten their grip on power and silence those troublesome radicals demanding social justice, freedom, environmental responsibility and democratic participation. Regime response to social revolutions throughout North Africa – the ‘Arab Spring’ – violent suppression in Turkey and Brazil, Thailand and Venezuela, are examples of governments’ unyielding brutal response to the united cries of the people. Cries that have echoed throughout the world, north south, east and west over the past thirty years or so, in an unprecedented movement of popular activism to claw back rights and liberties, confront government corruption and demand social justice, as well as standing up to corporate development plans led by ideologically driven international agencies (namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank) and environmental abuse. Huge numbers have marched, demonstrated and rallied: ‘people power’ – ‘the worlds second superpower’ is perhaps the brightest spark of optimism in the world and is one of the clearest signs of the times in which we are living: times of change, times of transition and action, times of opportunity and hope.

Perennial values re-discovered

Sitting at the decaying heart of the present socio-political structures, aggressively dominating all areas of contemporary life is neo-liberal capitalism (or market fundamentalism). A product of the ideological environment of the time it has cultivated certain values, which without fear of contradiction we might term materialistic: values promoting individual success and ambition, encouraging greed, selfishness and social division that condition motives and distort actions. Deep within the festering ground of inequality and division, the seeds of conflict and turmoil, watered by despair and exclusion, flourish. Nations, regions as well as individuals, are forced to compete against one another, feeding nationalism, separation and conflict. Ideologically driven division has fuelled totalitarianism and extremism: political, economic, social, and, perhaps the darkest most dangerous manifestation, religious – as current events in Iraq reveal.

Die-hard devotees of the individualistic values of division – from which ideologies of all kinds have flowed – proclaim them to be the outcome of human nature. Sown into the genetic fabric of animal man they are inevitable, have always driven humanity, and always shall, consequentially neither materialistic values nor their elite exponents can be challenged much less changed. These believers, many of whom profit handsomely from the system, have sought to close down the intellectual space, to stifle debate and tarnish dissenting voices as naive idealists who lack the strength of character to compete with the high-octane sharp shooters, who, seduced by the promise of material reward are content to destroy homes, cultures, lives and land in the fulfilment of their personal ambitions.

Life has been defined in increasingly unimaginative material terms: the pursuit of pleasure encouraged, selfish desire championed; wonder and mystery dismissed, the unexplained ignored. In the land of ‘the individual’, conformity insisted on. Nowhere is this more evident than in education, as Noam Chomsky says: “the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on — because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.” Institutions – both state and corporate – that know well the dangers of independent thinking and daydreaming.

The nature of modernity itself needs re-defining, the purpose of life re-evaluating, a new civilisation built. And if one looks beneath the chaos and surface detritus, if one connects the diverse movements, developments and actions, the embryonic signs of a new time, of peaceful potential and unity can be seen – heralds of a new and just civilisation. One rooted in altogether different values to the existing ideologically driven paradigm, based on perennial values of goodness known and extolled for millennia, but largely unexpressed: values of peace, brotherhood, freedom and justice, tolerance, cooperation and understanding. Nothing radically revolutionary, but ideals re-assessed, re-discovered, understood and pragmatically applied to the forms, political, economic and social, which draw the shape of the society in which we live.

The post Transitional Times Or the End Times? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On 12 October 2014 Bosnia and Herzegovina will be holding general elections. What can be expected from them? Not much. Neither the people will see their problems solved nor will the EU achieve any of its objectives for the country.

By Antonio Cortiñas

Regardless of the result of the forthcoming elections, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will continue to be one of the darkest spots of the Western Balkans, with no indication whatsoever of having made any progress on a large number of issues: a lack of political agreements, a declining economy despite bordering EU countries, high unemployment, widespread corruption, high crime rates and unresolved socio-economic problems. Countries with an interest in the region, whether European or not, will have to maintain their presence, despite the weariness of more than 20 years of political stalemate. The Dayton Peace Agreement, which served to halt the war, also served to generate an unresolved political problem. An inability to solve real problems continues to be the distinctive hallmark of BiH for both local and foreign players in the country.

Analysis

On 12 October 2014 many will celebrate the fact that general elections are being held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This will be the third after the wars of the 1990s. The voters will elect representatives for the country’s three administrative levels: the state as a whole, the two ‘entities’ in which the country is divided and the 10 cantons corresponding to one of the ‘entities’. At the state level, they will vote for both the President and the members of the House of Representatives. At the ‘entity’ level, the Republika Srpska (RS) will vote for its President, Vice-President and members of the RS National Assembly, while the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) will elect the members of its House of Representatives. Finally, the FBiH will vote for its 10 Cantonal Assemblies. The OSCE will deploy observers for the elections.

Experience suggests that nothing really out of the ordinary is likely to happen during the elections. The election campaign started officially on 12 September and all should be well: people will vote (although perhaps not many) and observers will report no major failures or problems in the voting process and the electoral commission will cooperate with the OSCE. Many politicians from European nations, or from the EU itself, will repeatedly express their confidence that violence in BiH is at an end and that progress will steadily be made once the economy improves. If that is the case, why worry? However, it might be useful to look at a few reason that are a cause for concern.

Political and ethnic geographical organisation

The political entity called BiH is the direct result of the implementation of the 1995 General Framework Agreement of Peace (also known as the Dayton Agreement), a treaty that put an end to one of the civil wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, caused by both internal and external factors. Nevertheless, despite the pressure exerted by the international community, local politicians have failed to move forwards in a political sense in the past 20 years and, with only small changes, the BiH ‘Constitution’ remains as designed in the Treaty. BiH’s political and territorial organisation is extremely complex: in an area of only 51,000 square kilometres with a population of 3.8 million and three main ethnic groups (although the official number is 17), the Dayton Agreement recognised ‘three constituent peoples’: the Muslim-Bosniaks, the Catholic-Croats and the Orthodox-Serbs. Thus, those not declaring themselves as belonging to any of those three ‘peoples’ are automatically classified under the label ‘others’. Dayton furthermore establishes that BiH is made up of two ‘entities’ –the FBiH and the RS– in addition to the small self-governing Brčko District, which geographically divides the RS in two.

Suffrage is ethnicity-based: BiH’s presidency is a three-member institution, with three presidents rotating every eight months and each of the ‘constituent peoples’ electing their own candidate for the position for a four-year term. At the state level, the many Ministries have, as a rule, one Minister and two Deputy Ministers or Secretaries (with the same ethnic division applying). BiH also has executive, legislative and judicial bodies.

However, the BiH ‘state’ as such has few responsibilities. Real political power lies in its two main ‘entities’: the RS, with a Serb majority, and the FBiH, with a Bosniak majority but a substantial Croat minority. Each of the two ‘entities’ has its own president and ministries, as well as its own executive, legislative and judicial bodies. Furthermore, while the RS is sub-divided into municipalities, the Federation is sub-divided into 10 cantons, each with its own ministers, cantonal assembly and police force. Each canton is further subdivided into municipalities. Foreign visitors note wryly that it is difficult to find someone in BiH who has never been a minister and that to govern 4 million people perhaps it would be sufficient to have just a mayor and some municipal councillors.

Crowning BiH’s political architecture Dayton created the ‘Office of the High Representative’, an international body with the mandate to oversee the Agreement’s implementation. The High Representative is a proconsul with extensive powers who can impose legislation or remove officials, although in recent times his prerogative has been used sparingly in order to encourage local politicians to find solutions through compromise rather than by resorting to a higher authority. The position has clearly suffered some wear-and-tear and been manipulated by the country’s political class, and 20 years on some even consider it to be part of the problem although others have a vested interest in maintaining it as it perpetuates the status quo.

BiH has a large number of political parties divided along ethnic lines, including the few that claim the opposite. In any political discussion, the three ethnic groups have tended to appeal to a threat to their ‘national interest’ to side-line issues and kill debate. Over the past 20 years, political parties have tended to agree only on not agreeing about almost anything except keeping their seats, lobbying the international community and permanently asking for help. Aid poured into the Western Balkans after the wars, especially into BiH, but has more often than not been diverted into the pockets of local politicians and their client networks. Some local politicians (particularly Ministers of Defence) have been known to paraphrase Clausewitz: ‘in BiH, peace is the continuation of war by other means’.

How can such a complex –as well as expensive and corrupt– structure function properly in a country with only 4 million people? The answer is that it does not. Its practical purpose has been to distribute all kind of international aid to a fortunate few, to trade positions for favours –whether contributions from donors or highly lucrative privatisations of state or ‘entity’ enterprises– or simply to forge mutually beneficial links with organised crime. Voters can see no end to it.

The international community

Besides the institutions created by the Dayton Agreement there are international players also involved in the BiH question, although their number has decreased slightly in recent years. Some of them have expressed doubts about the BiH experiment. Others consider that, in time, the RS should split away from BiH. Most, however, believe a ‘united’ BiH should be preserved but find the course of events deeply unsatisfactory. Some are openly mistrustful of BiH’s political stability and regularly lobby and vote every 12 months at the UN for the renewal of the High Representative’s mandate and the continued presence of the EUFOR’s ‘Operation Althea’. Simultaneously, most international actors are reluctant to actually participate and prefer to have the regional powers (including Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey) foot the bill and provide the troops. Only Turkey is willing and committed, with other major powers, in a time-honoured way, preferring to look at the experiment from the outside while retaining a mandate to act if they deem it necessary.

NATO still has a small HQ in BiH that no longer has troops on the ground but devotes itself to the usual after-conflict activities of public diplomacy and information, mainly trying to convince the Serbian population of the benefits for BiH of joining both the EU and NATO. After being bombed by NATO in 1999, Serbian politicians understandably tend to procrastinate and have so far refused the offer.

In July 2011 the EU created the office of the Special Representative to BiH. Located in central Sarajevo in the same building as the German Embassy, its mandate is to achieve the EU’s policy objectives for the country: ensuring a ‘stable, viable, peaceful, multi-ethnic BiH, co-operating fully and peacefully with its neighbours in the region’. The EU places a great emphasis on the rule of law, security and the need for coherence with its policies, and has the economy as its goal, with public communication being the key. The EU sees itself as the carrot, believing –quite wrongly– that the local politicians consider belonging to the European club a distinction well above their local quarrels and interests.

There are also many other external players: OSCE, several UN agencies, Embassies, NGOs and GOs. Historically speaking, the Balkans have always been subject to tension, having been known not so long ago as ‘Turkey in Europe’. Different attitudes to lifestyle, culture and everything else derived from considering oneself a Catholic, a Muslim or an Orthodox Serb are still present in daily life. This is not necessarily related to religion but more to its social and cultural implications. It is understandable that Russia and Greece, are not indifferent to the fate of their Orthodox brethren. The same can be said about Muslim countries –like Turkey– supporting the Muslim Bosniaks and other countries –like Germany, Austria, the Vatican and the US– being concerned about the Catholic Croats.

The social aspects

The population’s disenchantment with its politicians is notorious. The current system reinforces their dependence on local bosses, and strictly along ethnic lines. There is no such thing as civil society in BiH, despite some social unrest last year. Unemployment is soaring. Young people see their future outside BiH, in self-employment or working for local strongmen. For those in their 30s or 40s, often with excellent qualifications, the decision is more painful. Corruption is an everyday occurrence, whether in hospitals for basic medical treatment, in the police, the border police or any other individual position of power. The difference between urban and rural areas is appalling. Religion continues to play a fundamental role in the country as in centuries past, with a persistent attachment to very traditional values. It is easy to find residents of the Muslim part of Sarajevo (85%) or, for that matter, of the Serb part, who have travelled to Germany, Austria, Turkey or even the US but never dared to cross into each other’s neighbourhoods, 500 metres away. In the countryside, the wars have turned BiH into one of the most heavily-mined countries in the world. De-mining, if it continue, might easily take up to 30 years.

In the Federation they still enforce the ‘two schools under one roof’ system. Children of the dominant minority in a particular village use local school’s classrooms and main gate while those from minority groups have to use other rooms, other schedules and other entrances. And, of course, they use different textbooks, with different contents, particularly as regards history and language. Serbo-Croat was the official language of the former Yugoslavia, in Latin characters for Catholics and Muslims and in Cyrillic script for Orthodox Serbs. Now there are three official and separate languages: Serbian, Croat and Bosniak.

The generations that lived through the war are too weary and fearful to contemplate the possibility of another one, but there is now a whole new generation that knows little about it. Surprisingly, there is some nostalgia for Tito’s times also in those who were born after Yugoslavia disintegrated. Unfortunately, hooliganism and a passion for weapons are not uncommon, a problem shared with other Western Balkan countries. BiH has been well provided since Tito’s day with all manner of firearms and ammunition. The huge arsenals left over from the wars in the 90s are in private and party hands, as well as in insecure depots. A small difference now is that neighbouring Croatia has been a member of the EU since 2013. Croatia has a frontier of almost 1,000 km with BiH but only three official border crossings and smuggling has been a way of life for centuries. To this can now be added human smuggling, drugs, money laundering and Internet crimes. The mafias in the new countries that arose out of the dissolution of have no problem in cooperating regardless of any political or ethnic considerations: business is business.

Events in July and August 2014

Floods are a recurrent problem in BiH and are a yearly occurrence due to powerful rivers and insufficient civil engineering works. Unfortunately, this year’s floods have had devastating consequences. The Assistant Minister for Search and Rescue Operations of the BiH Ministry of Security, Samir Agić, said last month that sadly the existing search and rescue efforts were ineffective because coordination was poor ‘due to the way the country is organised’ and because ‘we have a decentralised law on search and rescue, but the entities have never harmonised’. Furthermore, the recent floods will hinder the current plan for mine clearance operations as they have displaced mines.

During his tour of flood-affected areas the current Chair of the BiH Presidency, Bakir Izetbegović (a Muslim), visited Doboj, a municipality located in the RS, and held a meeting with Doboj’s mayor, Obren Petrović. He was accompanied by Christopher Perry, the Commander of NATO HQ in Sarajevo, Zekerijah Osmić, BiH Defence Minister, and BiH armed forces’ commanders. They visited the Doboj barracks, a health centre and a soup kitchen established by the Majlis of the BiH Islamic Community. Several small villages in the municipality are known to have connections to Muslim extremists and Wahhabi sects, which have so far been alien to the Balkans’ Muslim culture.

The President of the RS, Milorad Dodik (a Serb), commented on Izetbegović’s visit to Doboj that it was not in accordance with the Dayton Agreement or the BiH Constitution, as it was not supported by a decision of the BiH Presidency. Dodik considered the visit to Doboj a manipulation and politicisation of the role of the members of the Armed Forces during the floods. He also saw Izetbegović’s visit as simply sightseeing and useful public relations stunt for the upcoming elections. Izetbegović answered that he would act in the same way on any future occasion. But for Dodik, who is a stickler for complying with the Dayton Agreement and the BiH Constitution, the RS Presidency is the only competent authority to decide on military matters in the RS.

Additionally, the population’s perception of crime has not improved. The results of a survey on organised crime recently issued by the Centre for Security Studies of the EU Delegation to BiH show that the population is aware that organised crime in the country is on the rise because criminals can count on the support of both politicians and political parties. As many as 80% of the respondents agreed that the political parties in power were consorting with criminals. The respondents listed drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking and car theft as the most common offences, adding that financial crime, tax evasion, illegal arms trafficking and racketeering were also flourishing in BiH thanks to the connivance of those in power. Terrorism has always been an issue in BiH. It is believed that some 350 Muslim Bosnians have travelled to Syria in the past two years, with a number of suicide deaths already confirmed.

Meanwhile, for the international community it is business as usual. Last month, the British Ministry of Defence issued a press release to the effect that additional British troops were to be deployed in BiH in order to ‘assist EUFOR to maintain a safe-and-secure-environment over the next six months, including the election period’.

Conclusions

BiH has an ethnic-based and very limited democracy in which the pressure exerted by the international community has forced people who not so long ago were killing each other to live together. It is a post-conflict country, whose inhabitants can have full political rights only by declaring themselves members of one of the three main ethnic groups. Those who do not (whether Jews, Roma or others) cannot stand in the elections. Many citizens of Brcko will not have the right to vote in these upcoming elections due to administrative problems. Conversely, internally displaced people will be given the opportunity to vote either where they live now or where they were living in 1991 (last census).

During the wars, ethnic cleansing was widespread. This has occurred several times in the area over the past 100 years. As the Bosnians say, ‘historically the shortest period in between wars among us has been four years, and the longest, 50 years’. Those who fought or had to live through the wars of the 1990s have had enough: they can live together, as long as they do not have to socialise too much. A serious problem is that political parties make a good living out of the stalemate and of exploiting ethnic differences. The availability and abundance of weapons is no help. The enormous areas of arable land that still contain minefields will continue to be a problem for the next 30 years.

The influence of Bosnia’s powerful neighbours, Serbia and Croatia, should not be overlooked. It is not the purpose of this paper to analyse either their roles today or how differently they are perceived by the international players involved. Their roles during the wars are not easy to ignore. Nevertheless, they are parties to the Dayton accord’s implementation, at least on paper. As a carrot, the EU decided two years ago to remove the visa requirements for BiH citizens to travel to the EU (but not to work). However, the result was a notorious increase of immigration abuses in several EU countries.

Despite the signing in 2011 of a Stabiliation and Association Agreement between BiH and the EU, nothing further has been achieved with the pompously named ‘BiH roadmap to the EU’. Local politicians do not agree on how –or even if– laws in BiH should be aligned with EU standards.

The bottom line is that local politicians have very different views on how BiH should function. Some are openly dubious about the future or the existence itself of BiH: short-term interests and ethnic views prevail.

Consensus is a word that means nothing in BiH. Overlapping responsibilities at the state, ‘entity’, cantonal and municipal levels are a heavy economic burden, particularly in the FBiH. Corruption is rampant and nothing has really been achieved in the fight against organised crime and money laundering. Despite agreements, the processing of war crimes is lacking impartiality and accountability, despite all the money provided for that purpose by the EU through the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA). There have been several cases of journalists being harassed and intimidated. The Bosnian economy is contracting and having Croatia, its main neighbour, in the EU has helped much in economic terms. The reality is that BiH is an artificial state in which two quite completely different political ‘entities’, the FBiH and the RS, are pursuing divergent political goals. Given these structural conditions, how can the 2014 elections in BiH help to resolve any of the country’s problems?

About the author:
Antonio Cortiñas, Officer (Retd.) in the Spanish Armed Forces with diplomatic and military experience in the Balkans

Source:
This article was published at Elcano Royal Institute.

The post Will Next Elections In Bosnia And Herzegovina Help Solve Anything? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ivan Broadhead

Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong subsided on Monday as students and civil servants returned to school and work after more than a week of demonstrations, but activists vowed to keep up their campaign of civil disobedience.

Later Monday, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying issued a televised statement, urging people to leave the Mong Kok district, where violent clashes occurred over the weekend, and said that the government is “sincere in having dialogue on constitutional development.”

“People have now gathered in Mong Kok again. The likelihood of clashes between people holding strong but different views is constantly increasing,” Leung said.

“To prevent violent crimes from happening and minimize injuries and fatalities, the police will take actions at a suitable time. I would, in particular, advise students, onlookers and other people to leave the highly dangerous area as soon as possible,” he said.

Leung also said, “We are sincere in having dialogue on constitutional development.”

Demonstrators remain on streets

As the sun rose over Hong Kong Monday morning, an incredulous cheer spread among the hundreds of students who had slept the night on the financial district’s streets. Many demonstrators had feared riot police would try to forcibly remove them.

As the day wore on, though, the number of demonstrators ebbed.

Just a week after riot police fired tear gas at the democracy activists, many were unsure the campaign would get this far.

A recently awoken Jane Chow, 27, is one of those.

She said she remains skeptical about the government’s intentions, and expects riot police to use force to evict the protesters in the coming days.

“That’s very likely to happen, yes. But if they’re smart, they won’t do it in a way that is overly violent. Even if the government tries to clear out the protest, I don’t think that at least on the side of the protesters there will be any violence,” Chow said.

Demonstrators said they believe the reason Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying did not send out forces to clear the streets is because students met one of the leader’s two conditions for negotiations to begin: allowing civil servants back into the central government office complex.

The status of the talks also remained unclear. Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported that student leaders met government officials at Hong Kong University late on Sunday but no clear resolutions emerged.

“It’s clear there is still discrepancy between the expectations from both parties towards the dialog,” Lester Shum, vice secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told a news conference late on Sunday.

Workers return

By 9 a.m. Monday, hundreds of civil servants were flowing out of the nearby metro station to their office, with student marshals ensuring them a clear path.

One woman, who refused to give her name, was unimpressed. She berated the activists for not allowing workers to resume their duties sooner.

The elderly government cleaner complained the students do not realize that these are hard times and that she and other government workers have jobs to do and livelihoods to protect.

Overseeing the marshals, Lam Ming said it might be increasingly hard for the movement to maintain community support. He insisted, however, that the activists have not made too many concessions to Leung, with nothing to show in return.

“You can say that we concede quite substantially in letting civil servants come to work. It is [now] their [government's] responsibility to give way on the negotiation table,” Ming said. “I don’t think in the foreseeable future the protesters will be willing to concede the roads.”

By late Monday afternoon, about a hundred protesters remained in an area that houses offices for international banks as well as the main stock exchange, although some students on campus remained defiant and promised to return after classes in the evening.

“I hope students can persist. If we retreat now we will lose the power to negotiate,” said Chow Ching-lam, studying on the ground at the protest site near Leung’s offices.

Tensions remain

Not all is back to normal in Hong Kong.

Some schools and businesses remain closed.

The protests have ebbed and flowed over the past week, with protesters leaving the streets overnight to return later. The test on Monday will be whether that pattern continues in the face of the government’s determination to get Hong Kong back to work.

Demonstrators said they will remain in the streets until Leung resigns and the authorities allow free elections.

For now, neither side is willing to back down in a continuing political brinkmanship that is being closely watched around the world.

The post Hong Kong Protesters Warned To Leave Protest Site appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Scientists estimate there’s a 75 percent chance the Ebola virus could spread to France and a 50 percent chance it could reach UK by the end of October. The latest research analyzes the pattern of infection and airline traffic.

The consensus among health officials is now that the deadly virus is no longer just an African problem, and key to this assessment are the European Union’s free movement policy and the deceptive incubation period, allowing the person to spread the infection unaware.

France has the worst statistics out of all the European countries because the worst-hit countries in Africa are French-speaking, including Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to the study ‘Assessing the International Spreading Risk Associated with the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak’.

“If this thing continues to rage on in West Africa and indeed gets worse, as some people have predicted, then it’s only a matter of time before one of these cases ends up on a plane to Europe,” expert in viruses from Britain’s Lancaster University, Derek Gatherer, said.

The next country on the list after France and the UK is Belgium, with a 40 percent chance of infection. Meanwhile, Spain and Switzerland face smaller risks of the virus breaching its borders with 14 percent.

One of the key elements in analyzing the spread of the disease is air traffic, the leader behind the research, Alex Vespignani, from Northeastern University in Boston told Reuters.

“Air traffic is the driver,” Vespignani said. “But there are also differences in connections with the affected countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone), as well as different numbers of cases in these three countries – so depending on that, the probability numbers change.”

While Vespignani admits the model is inconclusive, and could widen to include others, one thing is certain: the probability of contracting the virus is growing for everyone, “it’s just a matter of who gets lucky and who gets unlucky.”

Despite approaching the disease with extreme caution, the World Health Organization (WHO) placed no restrictions on flights to the worst-affected countries. And while British Airways and Emirates are no longer flying there, Air France has only suspended flights to Sierra Leone – not Liberia, Guinea or Nigeria (though air crews were recently offered the option to refuse flying to those destinations).

But the strategy for combatting the virus isn’t only dependent on air traffic regulations. The most dangerous contributor to the spread is the behavior of the virus. Its symptoms catch people unawares and normally follow a 21-day incubation period, during which there’s literally no visible sign the person has contracted Ebola.

This allows for circulation of sick passengers and is presumably how Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan was allowed to enter the US and remain there for several days with no knowledge of his condition.

This is further complicated by the EU’s free movement system – one can literally infect anyone they come into contact with in the space of a few days if they were to drive or fly from one country to another.

Airport screenings aren’t effective 100 percent of the time, due to patients using fever-reducing drugs or simply lying to get on the plane, as well as airport staff lacking competence in the field.

The only mitigating factor here is that the disease is at its most contagious when the associated symptoms of profuse vomiting and diarrhea begin to manifest themselves, which occurs when the disease reaches terminal stage. By then, the patient is quickly isolated from the public.

But the prospects aren’t as grim when considering that the EU is mostly comprised of very well-developed countries. The ability to have a coordinated approach to the problem greatly lowers the risk and is “considered to be sufficient to interrupt any possible local transmission of the disease early,” according to the latest assessment from the European Centers of Disease Prevention and Control.

This can be witnessed in Nigeria, which, despite its worst-hit neighbors in West Africa, still managed to stem the flow of infection to only 20 cases and eight deaths. The country is already on its way to being declared Ebola-free in a matter of weeks.

“Even if we have a worst-case scenario where someone doesn’t present for medical treatment, or… it’s not correctly identified as Ebola, and we get secondary transmission, it’s not likely to be a very long secondary transmission chain,” Gatherer says.

This is further helped by Europe’s “very sanitized, sterile lives” and the fact that it’s a much less crowded environment than the poverty-stricken settlements where infection is generally rife.

The new study comes as an Ebola-infected US citizen struggles for survival in a Texas hospital.

The Ebola virus has so far taken the lives of over 3,400 people since March and has been declared the worst epidemic in history.

The post 75% Chance Ebola To Reach France By End October, 50% For UK appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ranjit Gupta

Strange things are happening in West Asia. Those who created the modern jihad in an extremely misguided and immature tactical response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are today at war with its most extremist manifestation, the Islamic State. The latter has also succeeded in bringing about the almost impossible – uniting countries and regimes deeply antagonistic and hostile to each other in a common war against a common enemy. The US and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Saudi Arabia and a Shia government in Iraq, the Assad regime and those sworn to overthrow it – Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US and assorted Islamist groups, all in the same camp warring against the Islamic State.

The Islamic State (IS), an extremist Sunni entity, is a particularly serious existential threat to the regimes of the GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia, as its religious roots and those of Wahhabism are broadly the same. The rulers of the GCC countries know that if the IS succeeds in Iraq, a spillover into their countries is inevitable. The IS is thus a direct, immediate and strong existential challenge to the continuing rule of these regimes, something that has not happened before. After agonizing for weeks they have become active participants in a war against a Sunni entity in Shia ruled states. This is unprecedented and something that simply could not have even been imagined only a few months ago.

The IS is fanatically anti Shia; it is also the most potent threat to the pro-Iranian regimes in Iraq and Syria and to the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria. For these three reasons the IS is now the single most active and potent direct threat to Iran’s influence and standing throughout West Asia. Iran is Iraq’s ally and is the first and only regional country that has provided actual assistance on the ground.

The IS thus simultaneously poses the biggest strategic threat to both Iran and Saudi Arabia, though for entirely different reasons. For the first time since the Islamic Revolution in Iran these two countries face a common threat. They are the two key players if the war against the IS is to succeed. They have to find a way to cooperate. This is going to be difficult particularly as Saudi Arabia continues to attach priority to regime change in Syria which is absolutely unacceptable to Iran. A particularly important meeting was held between the Saudi and Iranian Foreign Ministers in New York on 21 September 2014. Statements made by them indicate that both countries recognize that they have to work together to confront the common enemy.

The Iraqi central Government has been opposed to the Barzani run Kurdish regional government and Iran has traditionally been opposed to the Barzani faction of the Iraqi Kurds. Shia militias have been fighting against the Kurds. The Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Turkey have never managed to put up a single united overall Kurdish front; indeed in Iraq they are divided in two rival groups. But in recent weeks all of them are now fighting together in many theatres against the Islamic State.

On 22 September, the United States launched air strikes against the ISIL in Syria and aircraft from Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also took part in the airstrikes while Qatar “played a supportive role”. Arab states have continued to be involved in such air strikes since then. Iraq welcomed these airstrikes with great excitement and enthusiasm.

President Assad reacted by saying that Syria “supports any international effort in the fight against terrorism”; Syrian Foreign Minister was supportive saying that “Syria had been informed before the strikes by the United States”. Analysts on Syrian State television said that these “air strikes did not constitute aggression as Syria was informed in advance.” They have other reasons for feeling rather pleased because the US airstrikes inflicted significant casualties on the Khorasan group and the Jabhat Al Nusra, also fighting against the Syrian regime. Significantly, Syrian opposition National Coalition President Hadi Al Bahra said “tonight the international community has joined our fight against the ISIS in Syria.”

Syria is very keen to be formally a part of the coalition against the IS but unfortunately the US and GCC countries are adamantly opposed to this even as they are tacitly cooperating with the regime directly and through Iran, in coordinating the airstrikes against the IS. Iran would have been happy to attend the meeting in Jeddah on September 11 and in Paris on September 15 to join the international coalition to fight the Islamic State but was not invited due to US opposition. There was no blistering condemnation from Iran which would have been the automatic reaction in the past. Iran has merely said that such actions do not have international legality.

After doggedly refusing to allow any support for any military action in Iraq or Syria against the Islamic State despite intense personal efforts by President Obama and the Secretaries of State and Defense, hours after the first airstrikes in Syria Erdogan said in New York that Turkey was now considering a role that “includes everything. Both military and political…Of course we will do our part.” The next few days should see greater clarity about Turkey’s involvement.

Ranjit Gupta
Distinguished Fellow, IPCS and Former Indian Ambassador to Yemen and Oman

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