By Andrea Gagliarducci

The synod’s final report, released Saturday, presents substantial changes with respect to the much discussed midterm report, especially regarding homosexual persons and the divorced and remarried.

The final report was voted on, paragraph by paragraph, by the synod fathers; and, by Pope Francis’ choice, the result of each poll has been publicized, thus showing a glimpse into the synod fathers’ thought.

Though all the paragraphs gained a majority of votes, not all of them reached the super-majority of two-thirds, which is required for official approval.

With 181 voting synod fathers (out of 193), a simple majority is 93, while the super-majority is reached at 123 votes.

Speaking with journalists during a press briefing Oct. 18, Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, commented that in light of preparations for the 2015 synod, the paragraphs that failed to gain official approval  “cannot be considered as dismissed, but primarily as paragraphs that are not mature enough to gain a wide consensus of the assembly.”

An overall glance at the final report

Like the midterm report, the final report is divided in three parts, titled: “Listening, context, and challenges of the family”; “the glance to Christ: the Gospel of the Family”; and “The confrontation: pastoral perspectives.”

The 62 paragraphs of the document are filled with quotes from the Sacred Scriptures, the lack of which in the midterm report was lamented by most of the small groups.

Another outcome of the small groups’ suggestions is the frequent reference to the positive testimonies Christian families can give in contemporary society.

The strong stance against international organizations that bind financial aid to the introduction of homosexual rights has been clarified and emphasized in a separate paragraph, while it was included in a wider paragraph in the midterm report.

At a first glance, all the concerns expressed by the small groups have been taken in consideration.

The divorced and remarried: pastoral consideration, points of clarification

The paragraphs on the divorced and remarried and on homosexual persons having been the most controversial of the midterm report, the paragraphs on those issues have been slightly modified, though they still failed to meet a wide consensus.

Regarding the divorced and remarried, almost all the synod fathers agreed that “pastoral care of charity and mercy tends to the recovery of persons and relations,” and that “every family must be listened with respect and love.”

The consensus is slightly lower when the document stresses that “the synod fathers urge new pastoral paths, that may start from the effective reality of families’ fragility, being conscious that these fragilities are endured with suffering than chosen with full freedom.”

There is even less consensus when the final report speaks about reforming the procedures for the declaration of nullity of marriages.

In contrast, a paragraph stating that those who are divorced without having remarried, who “often testify to the faithfulness of marriage” should “be encouraged in finding in the Eucharist the food which can sustain them.”

The report however states that “a particular discernment” must be put in action for a pastoral accompaniment of separated, divorced, abandoned; focuses on the situation of those who separate because of domestic violence; and underscores that divorced and remarried must not feel “discriminated” against, and that their participation in the community “must be promoted” since “taking care of them is not for the Christian community a weakening in faith and in the testimony to the indissolubility of the marriage.”

The paragraphs on access to Communion for the divorced and remarried (52 and 53) did not gain a supermajority among the synod fathers.

Homosexuality

Also, one paragraph concerning homosexual couples did not gain the needed supermajority: paragraph 55 describes the situation of families “having within them persons with a homosexual orientation.” Considered vague, it received only 118 yes votes.

The following paragraph, 56, condemned the linking of international financial aid to the establishment of same-sex marriage, did receive a supermajority.

Synod Fathers all agree: more education is needed

There is however only one paragraph – the second one – that reached unanimity among the synod fathers.

“Despite the many signals of crisis of the institution of the family in the diverse contexts of the ‘global village’, the wish for a family is still alive, especially among young people, and this motivates the Church, expert in humanity and faithful to her mission, to tirelessly and with profound conviction announce the ‘Gospel of the family’,” paragraph two states, in part.

The final report provides largely the same view of the current situation of the family as did the midterm report, but it also notes positive testimonies of the family, and the role of grandparents.

The final report also addresses the importance of the affective life: “the individualistic danger and the risk of living selfishly are relevant. The Church’s challenge is to help couples in the maturation of their emotional dimension and in the affective development through the promotion of dialogue, of virtue, and of trust in the merciful love of God.”

In general, the paragraphs based on Sacred Scriptures and providing quotes of Magisterial documents gained a wide consensus among the fathers.

The final report also emphasized the need for a positive reception of Humanae vitae, Paul VI’s encyclical on regulation of birth, which highlighted many positive aspects of family life and reaffirmed the doctrine of the Church.

Education has always been a primary challenge, as has been stressed since the publication of the synod’s working document, and this is why the two final paragraphs of the final statement focus on the issue.

The “educative challenge” is one of “the fundamental challenges of families,” and the Church “supports families, starting from the Christian initiation, through welcoming communities.”

“The Church is requested to support parents in their educative commitment, accompanying babies, children, and adolescents in their growth through personalized paths able to introduce them to the full sense of life and arise choices and responsibility, lived in the light of Gospel.”

Toward the 2015 synod

The final report values more the experience of Christian families than did the midterm report, and put in action many suggested changes.

Yet, it cannot be considered a definitive document: the final report will function as a “working document” for the 2015 Synod of Bishops, which is considered the second part of unique synodal path on the family.

Only after that will the Pope issue a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, which will shed light on how the Church is called to face the challenges of the family today.

The post Synod’s Final Report Shows Nuance On Homosexuality, Remarriage – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Philippa Garson

Africans living in the US from the three Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, are under enormous pressure trying to help their families and ravaged communities back home. And they face an additional challenge: stigma.

For the residents of “Little Liberia”, one of Liberia’s biggest emigrant communities in Staten Island, New York, the path to integration has been strewn with hurdles. Many of the several thousand residents came decades ago as refugees from the civil war in Liberia. Eking out a living, attaining resident status, integrating with at times unfriendly neighbors and, in recent months, helping those families hard hit by Ebola at home, has been an uphill battle.

But when Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, was diagnosed with Ebola in a Dallas hospital last month, “all hell broke loose here,” Oretha Bestman-Yates, president of the Staten Island Liberian Community, told IRIN.

When news that Bestman-Yates had travelled to Liberia in July reached her hospital employer she was told to put herself in quarantine. But even after the 21-day period elapsed on 5 August, she says she has still not been allowed to return to work.

“You bought Ebola to the US!”

Now she spends her days trying to help residents who are not only battling with the loss of family and friends in Liberia but are struggling to make ends meet here at home. “People try to avoid you, pull away from you. I’ve had people tell me, ‘We brought Ebola to the United States,’” she says. Many of the Staten Island Liberians are employed in hospitals and nursing homes and are being told not to touch patients. “Parents are telling their children to stay away from our children at school,” she said.

As news broke that two of the nurses who cared for Duncan, who died on 8 October, had contracted Ebola, panic began to sweep through the American public. The news that one of the nurses, Amber Vinson, had flown on a domestic flight shortly before coming down with the disease, galvanized fears of an outbreak.

Now there seems a growing perception that anyone of African descent may be carrying Ebola. And whether that person visited any of the affected countries recently appears to be of little relevance.

Two Nigerian students were refused admission to Navarro College in Texas, because of a new college policy denying entry to students from countries affected by Ebola – even though Nigeria successfully brought its small outbreak under control. An airplane bound for Nigeria was grounded at JFK yesterday because staff refused to clean it. Furthermore, parents from a school in Jackson, Mississippi, withdrew their children from school when it was revealed that the principal had recently travelled to Zambia – in southern Africa.

Where’s West Africa?

“In a navel-gazing society, where West Africa is a vague and homogenous region and where the whole continent is usually spoken about as if it is one country, there is little nuanced understanding in the general population about exactly where the disease is located – not to mention how it is spread,” says Bobby Digi, a local activist from Staten Island. “There is not a lot of knowledge in the US about Africa – let alone West Africa. They are painting the whole area with a very broad brush.”

Digi says Liberians have struggled for decades to be accepted on Staten Island where there have been long-standing tensions with the community, including with local African Americans, who fear losing their jobs. Liberians feel a sense of shame, he said, that Duncan died in the country where they now live. Although the NYC health department is conducting awareness campaigns to educate the public and eradicate stigma, Digi slated the department for not knowing how to access the Liberian population. “They didn’t have basic statistics. They were picking my brain. I was floored by that,” he said.

In Dallas, where Duncan died and where there is also a large Liberian community, stigma against Liberians is clearly on the increase. Alben Tarty, communications director for the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, told IRIN he had minutes ago spoken to relatives of Duncan’s fiancée, Louise Troh, who had just been given clearance to join the community again. “When they came out of the house they were referred to as the Ebola people, children must keep away from them, someone literally ran from them. They are fearful of going back to work next week,” he said.

Tarty, who has been living in the US for 12 years and whose doctor friend died in Monrovia last week, says there are strong perceptions in the Liberian community that Duncan was mistreated by the hospital there to discourage other Liberians from travelling to the US to seek treatment.

A man with no health insurance or social security number, Duncan was given second-rate treatment in a country with one of the world’s best health care systems, Tarty said, adding: “There are so many things happening that are making the Liberian community very angry.”

However, Tarty described the Liberian community in Dallas as “formidable”. “We are a very strong community.” Enormous resources had been raised to help affected families and healthcare workers back home, he said.

Tarty said he hoped stigma was unique to individuals and not organizations and employers. Lots of people – including Liberians – “don’t understand how the virus is transmitted,” he said, adding that Liberians were stigmatizing each other too. “We can’t blame those who don’t understand how the virus is transmitted. If Liberians are still confused then we can expect the greater community to be even more confused.”

Anecdotally, the evidence of stigma in other parts of New York City – not just Staten Island – is mounting. From elevators, to subways to school playgrounds, comments are being made. When a person of African descent sneezes, the retort is, “I hope you don’t have Ebola”, said Charles Cooper, chairman of the Bronx African Council, which looks after the interests of the roughly 80,000 Bronx residents originally from the three affected countries and around 200,000 immigrants from the continent as a whole.

Cooper, who last visited family and friends in Liberia a year ago, says the community is already struggling to get finances for affected families back home. Furthermore, those making a living here from products sourced there, are no longer able to get the supplies, given closed borders and the collapsing economies of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Another stress they don’t need is a new form of discrimination from their neighbors.

Politics of hysteria

“It plays into existing stigma,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s not something that’s going to be short-lived. It will continue for a while since the Ebola virus is not going to be eradicated any time soon.” But “there is a level of hysteria that needs to be counter-acted,” he said. “Ever since the inception of Ebola we’ve been working together and focusing on the African community and prevention countrywide.”

On the political stage, the same hysteria is playing out, with Republicans accusing President Barack Obama of mishandling the crisis and calling for travel bans to and from the three affected countries. Right-wing commentators are also having a field day. Said prominent conservative pundit Phyllis Schlafly: “The idea that anybody can just walk in and carry this disease with them is an outrage, and it is Obama’s fault because he’s responsible for doing it.”

She said Obama didn’t want America to “believe that we’re exceptional. He wants us to be just like everybody else, and if Africa is suffering from Ebola we ought to join the group and be suffering from it too.”

Bestman-Yates said that although stigma on Staten Island was “getting worse, we are trying our best to educate people.” Asked whether she believed things could turn violent, she said, “I hope not,” adding however that a man screamed at her when she was being interviewed recently by a television crew. Situations like this make her worry about the “Stop Ebola” pin she wears, though she continues to wear it. “We want people to know about it. This is not a West African problem. It’s a global problem and we have to fight it with education.”

The post Liberians In US Face Worsening Ebola Stigma appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The international outcry to the openly advertised atrocities committed in Iraq by the jihadist group calling itself Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS or ISIL) has led to calls for investigations and punishment, with US President Barak Obama saying “justice will be done” after the killing of journalist James Foley.

This has provoked a direct reaction in terms of air strikes by the US, and the assembling of an international coalition to fight the group. But beyond this rough military “justice”, what mechanisms exist to turn investigations into court cases that formally bring IS leaders to account? What exact crimes are IS fighters committing, and perhaps more crucially, what chance is there that the group’s fighters will be held to account?

Who is carrying out investigations?

Several teams of investigators are reportedly looking into evidence of atrocities, including the International Commission of Inquiry for Syria, a UK government-supported investigation team (covering Syria), and proposals are being considered in Washington and London for an Erbil-based IS investigation team.

Separately, on 1 September, the UN Human Rights Council agreed to send an 11-member investigations team to Iraq, a decision that came just days after it published a report (27 August 2014) linking ISIS members to mass atrocities and acts “amounting to crimes against humanity” in Syria in the first half of the year.

Other efforts to investigate recent atrocities in Syria and Iraq include the Syrian Commission for Justice and Accountability (SCJA), the Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC), and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, headed by Canadian investigator William Wiley.

What crimes are we talking about?

IS critics accuse the group of a long list of crimes including public executions, beheadings, kidnappings, torture, forced conversions, sexual abuse, killing captured soldiers and putting communities under siege.

Many of these atrocities – openly advertised by the group on the Internet – would be against the Iraqi legal code, which continues to be served by functional criminal courts (in government-controlled areas). Though IS may claim otherwise, most would accept that the alleged crimes are taking place on Iraqi territory normally under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law.

However, with IS controlling around a third of the country, national investigations or prosecutions are not realistic for the moment. And, with Iraq currently in a state of armed conflict, certain violent acts that are forbidden during peacetime become permitted under international law, so IS lawyers could claim that peacetime rules no longer apply.

What about war crimes?

It has become increasingly commonplace to accuse IS of war crimes: global crimes which are technically defined as serious violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) – sometimes known as the law of armed conflict. As an example, on 2 September, Amnesty International published a briefing paper entitled Ethnic Cleansing on a Historic Scale, accusing the group of war crimes as well as other atrocities.

The rules of war are set out in instruments such as the four Geneva Conventions (1949) and the two Additional Protocols (1977), and in customary practice.

For IHL to apply, the violence needs to be legally considered as either an international or non-international armed conflict, technical categories that assessments by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) go a long way to establish.

According to ICRC, there is a current non-international armed conflict in Syria (in laymen’s terms, a civil war), which means a range of violent acts in the country, even away from the frontlines, may be counted as war crimes.

The laws apply to the conduct of IS forces, and provide for protection to civilians under their care, whether IS accept the rules or not. Without this legal recognition of the armed conflict (as opposed to other types of violence), war crimes prosecutions would not be possible.

In neighbouring Syria where IS also operates, ICRC made public for the first time in July 2012 that it judged the situation an internal armed conflict, meaning IHL applied to regime forces and IS activities there.

Such judgments are based on two criteria – the intensity of the fighting and also whether the parties to the conflict are organized groups.

The last 12 months have seen IS evolving from a loosely organized military group, to a would-be state-builder. This has lifted IS above the sort of lower level terrorist activity elsewhere in the world.

Of course, if the armed conflict was legally categorized as an international armed conflict, a greater range of war rules would apply (although in recent years differences between the two categories have lessened), including formal protection for prisoners of war. International armed conflicts require two different states to be involved. IS see themselves as a state (in their terms “Caliphate”). However, the lack of any international recognition undermines their claims for the moment.

There is an undoubted (and growing) international element to the fighting. IS territory straddles significant parts of both Iraq and Syria, where it is fighting against both governments, as well as more recently, an international US-led coalition involving more than 50 countries. However, at least in ICRC terms, despite being internationalized, the conflict would not be considered international until it involved recognized states on both sides.

Beyond war crimes, the group’s fighters would also have a good chance of facing accusations of crimes against humanity, such as ethnic/religious cleansing, and even genocide, given the apparent attempts to wipe out communities like the Yazidis. The 1998 Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity as “odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings” which “are part of a widespread or systematic practice”.

But will the crimes be prosecuted?

The investigation work going on is obviously not meant to be an end in itself. The work of bodies like the Syria Commission of Inquiry, the UN Human Rights Council, Western-government supported teams and human rights group like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch could all provide the material needed to establish atrocities in court, and importantly the links between reprehensible acts and those at the top of IS’s command structure, most notably the self-appointed Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The challenge of a prosecution team would be to establish a connection of culpability between leading commanders and the atrocities committed by their subordinates. Past experience has been that although the conflict period is crucial for collecting evidence, the slow process of prosecutions generally needs to wait until after the conflict has finished.

National courts

The investigations will provide not just the case material for trials, but the impetus for them as well: Under the principle of universal jurisdiction state signatories have a duty to prosecute grave breaches of IHL even if they did not take place on their territory or involve their citizens.

For some countries though, prosecutions will very much involve their own citizens, given the international make-up of IS forces, with estimates of up to 11,000 foreign fighters from at least 74 countries.

In the UK, London mayor Boris Johnson proposed jihadi fighters (not necessarily with IS) be presumed guilty until proved innocent, and the government is concerned that British jihadists returning from Syria/Iraq will carry out terrorist attacks.

Prosecutions would be under anti-terrorism offences (e.g. travelling abroad to plan or commit terrorist acts) rather than related to specific atrocities under IHL. The majority of Western fighters with IS are thought to be focused on menial tasks because of their lack of military and religious education, although a British citizen does seem to have played a prominent role in the beheading videos of Foley and other foreigners.

How about the International Criminal Court?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) would be the most obvious place for prosecutions. Not yet two decades old and still finding its feet, it has a mandate to prosecute war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.

But neither Iraq nor Syria has signed up, meaning an investigation would require a referral from the UN Security Council. In 1998, when the Rome Statute setting up the ICC was adopted, Iraq was one of only seven countries (including USA) to vote against. Neighbouring Syria signed the statute on 29 November 2000, but has yet to ratify it.

Nevertheless, in Iraq the ICC prosecutor did initially open preliminary investigations – allowed where crimes potentially involved citizens of states that have accepted the jurisdiction of the court. These investigations were closed on 9 February 2006 because a lack of sufficient evidence, but then reopened on 14 May 2014, although reopened investigations seem to concern allegations against British officials rather than IS.

Former UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte has called for the situation in Syria to be referred to the ICC, but this was vetoed by China and Russia in May 2014. The court has yet to launch full investigations into any situation outside Africa.

In some ways, a case against IS would echo one of the ICC’s earliest cases: that against the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda, which committed (and continues to commit) horrific acts of terror against civilians in the region. Leader Joseph Kony is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, though is still at large. Investigators may also follow up on allegations of atrocities committed by non-IS forces, including state forces in both Iraq and Syria.

Given that neither Iraq nor Syria have formally signed up to the ICC, ad hoc courts might be another solution. Iraq notably set-up its own Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal to try a similar series of crimes (committed by Iraqis between 1968 and 2003). National courts are generally less remote, bringing a greater visibility and proximity to trials.

Other recent precedents, this time established by the UN (either alone or with states), include the International Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for Khmer Rouge crimes and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Would it be worth it?

Although hugely expensive and long, prosecutions could help to expose and delegitimize IS and perhaps even act as a deterrent to others. Prosecutions seem a long way off, and perhaps unrealistic, but this is a young and developing field and cases frequently look unrealistic when first tabled.

The post Holding ISIS To Account – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Chris Fry

In 2004, then Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama said that he supported an end to the economic blockade in Cuba. Yet on Sept. 5, 2014, President Obama signed the annual memorandum that continues the U.S. blockade against Cuba under the infamous “Trading With the Enemy Act.” Cuba is the only country in the world targeted by this act.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy bought himself 1,200 Cuban cigars. He then declared an economic blockade against Cuba. Not only did this mean an embargo of all goods to the socialist country, but also a permanent campaign to discourage and punish other countries from doing business with Cuba.

And for the last 52 years, U.S. imperialism has maintained this blockade, this economic war against the government and the people of Cuba.

Why? Because since the 1959 Revolution, the people of Cuba have shown the world, particularly the people of Latin America and Africa, that despite being a small country; despite a legacy of cruel, colonial rule; despite one dictator after another ruling with an iron grip to serve U.S. corporations; despite racism so powerful that the last of those dictators, who was Black, could not even go onto the U.S. hotel’s beaches — despite all of that, an organized people led by determined revolutionaries could break U.S. imperialism’s grip.

Further, the people of Cuba have shown that poor and working people can themselves run a government, an economy, a whole society themselves, without wealthy landowners and corrupt dictators who answer only to Wall Street banks and corporations.

Before the revolution, five out of six Cubans were in abject poverty, living in shacks or homeless. Two out of three ­Cuban children did not go to school. Hunger, disease, unemployment: that was the lot for most Cubans.

The U.S. economic war against Cuba has created more suffering for the Cuban people, with food and medicines cut off; with spare parts for cars and other machinery denied; with CIA-directed sabotage and even with a U.S.-sponsored invasion; and with the collapse of the Soviet Union removing economic support.

The Cuban government estimates that this economic war against their country has cost their nation one trillion, 112 billion, 534 million dollars [$1,112,534,000,000]. (cubannews.ain.cu, Sept. 25).

Yet, despite of all of that, the Cuban poor and working people and their government have created in their country a society designed to fill the needs of the people, not to fill the coffers of banks and corporations. The results are more than dramatic:

• There is almost no homelessness in Cuba. Eighty-five percent of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their mortgages. By law, mortgage payments can be no more than 10 percent of combined household income.
• Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8 percent. A recently developed urban agriculture program has created 350,000 jobs.
• The adult literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8 percent, almost a full percent higher than the U.S. rate. (CIA World Factbook)
• The infant mortality rate in Cuba is 4.7 per 1,000 live births. The U.S. rate is 6.0 per 1,000. (dollarsandsense.org, March/April 2009)

For more than 20 years, United Nations resolutions demanding an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba have passed with overwhelming majorities. The 2013 resolution in the U.N. General Assembly passed 188 to 2, with only Israel joining the U.S. in voting no. The same resolution is scheduled for October of this year, and the vote’s outcome will undoubtedly be the same.

Workers in the U.S have in increasing numbers said that they too oppose the Cuban blockade. A February 2014 poll showed that 56 percent of the people here support normalized relations with Cuba, with an even higher 63 percent of the people polled in Florida — formerly a hotbed of anti-Cuba reaction — saying so. (Huffingtonpost.com, Feb. 11)

A June poll of people in the U.S. originally from Cuba shows that 52 percent of them want an end to the embargo as well.

Even many U.S. corporations have called for an end to the blockade, since it costs them billions in lost sales to foreign competitors from Europe, Asia and Latin America.

However, mired in its own economic crises with no solution in sight, the U.S. simply cannot tolerate a successful workers’ state on its own doorstep.

Only a determined struggle by workers here will end this cruel economic war against the people of Cuba.

* This article was first published by Workers World.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

The post Stop The US Blockade Of Cuba Now – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ross Harvey

Understandably, the mining industry is not perceived as a bastion of environmental preservation. That many of the world’s minerals and hydrocarbons are found in pristine environments is an unfortunate but inescapable reality. Guinea’s tier-one iron-ore deposit, for instance, is under one of Africa’s last remaining rain forests.

More recently, Tsodilo Resources has inferred that there is an iron-ore deposit of 441m tonnes west of the ‘panhandle’ of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, a recently declared World Heritage Site. The Block 1 deposit contains high-grade ore, worth an estimated US$ 14bn at current prices. The company estimates a potential 5 to 7 billion recoverable tonnes in Block 2 (a much larger area still under exploration). Despite the currently declining iron-ore price, there are no iron-ore substitutes for producing steel, which means that long-run demand is likely to remain robust.

From an economic perspective, Botswana has a formidable comparative advantage in the region, with extensive copper and coal deposits complementing its iron-ore.

Copper is an essential additional ingredient to the steel-making process, and low-grade thermal coal can be burned to provide the electricity that would be required for Botswana to pursue a steel industry. Diamonds are not forever, and the windfall revenue they currently generate for Botswana’s GDP (and government revenue) will begin to decline in the near future, as deposits become depleted.

The government is therefore under pressure to pursue alternative options for economic diversification before that future arrives. Consensus among analysts of Botswana’s political economy is that the government has been adept at deriving sufficient rents from diamond mining and processing, but less adept at allocating those rents in an efficient manner for future economic sustainability. The political incentives to do so appear to be lacking, despite Botswana’s reputation for possessing high-quality political institutions.

From a more integrated and longer-term perspective, switching from diamonds to other finite resources may be economically myopic.

First, iron-ore, copper and coal are also exhaustible resources. Simply exporting each of these in raw form, as appears to be the current economic plan, would therefore also not be sensible. This is especially true given the magnitude of expenditure necessary to build export-facilitating infrastructure. Coal prices are plummeting and few global export markets remain. China, for example, is expected to limit the import of coal below a certain calorific value in the near future. Beneficiating Botswana’s resource mix into steel therefore appears to make more sense.

Second, the extraction of these resources poses an inherent environmental risk, especially if iron-ore extraction near the Delta is not well managed. The Delta is not merely biologically important; it also generates significant tourism revenue, currently the second largest contributor to GDP. If mining compromises the ecological integrity of the world’s latest heritage site, sustainable tourism would be undermined for the sake of comparatively short-term gain.

There are other threats to the Delta too. Intensification of irrigated agriculture in Angola could lead to considerable upstream water abstractions. Some estimates suggest that irrigation by standard methods in both Angola and Namibia could consume up to 15.7% of the wetland’s mean annual inflow. There is also talk of a hydropower dam being built by Namibia, to which there has been considerable resistance.

These activities, if they go ahead, may damage the sensitive hydrological flow on which the Delta relies for its productivity. Increased population growth around fertile flood plains poses similar challenges. Around the buffer zones, cattle are being driven into the Delta to graze, largely as a result of inland overgrazing. Many are killed by crocodiles and ingest parasites they are not designed to withstand. The primary human disability in the Seronga area is injury from crocodile attacks. This exacerbates human and wildlife conflict, which is already acute due to migrating elephants occasionally raiding agricultural crops.

Excellent work is being accomplished by the Eco-Exist project to mitigate this particular risk. They are monitoring elephant movements with a view to establishing dedicated migration corridors in which there will be no human activity. Lastly, in the absence of hunting revenue (hunting was banned in 2012 in Botswana), some community members around the Delta appear to have become either actively involved or at least complicit in game poaching.

There is however a silver lining. Mining could play an unexpected role in helping to maintain the ecological integrity of the Delta.

That the Delta has been declared a World Heritage Site is useful. Its international status imputes a significant reputational risk to any mining company degrading the environment near the Delta. This is complemented by the fact that Tsodilo Resources in particular is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). It is therefore subject to domestic Canadian rules governing environmental management.

The company is also in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank, further incentivising it to play by stringent environmental rules. But institutional arrangements are not a guarantee of cooperation. It is therefore also important to examine endogenous motivation for adherence to sensible rules, and how this might further be enhanced.

From a governance perspective, then, two approaches are possible.

The first is to punish defection (environmental degradation) with heavy penalties, such that the company is negatively incentivised to comply.

The second, more productive approach is to incentivise cooperation (environmental preservation) by enlisting mining companies as allies in an integrated management approach. Land-use planning and community-based natural resource management, for instance, are governance mechanisms to which mining companies could lend their support. This is a preferable strategy.

For too long mining and the environment have been conceived of as mutually exclusive ends. This need not be the case, especially in a world that requires creative solutions to pressing problems.

In Botswana, the government needs to carefully consider its policy framework regarding mining in ecologically sensitive areas. Community engagement should also begin well in advance of mining operations. Iron-ore mining could, in the longer term, provide high levels of employment for local communities (notwithstanding the difficulties of short-term skills shortages). There is an immediate opportunity for the government to partner with Tsodilo to promote local skills development.

Moreover, opportunities for labour and skills migration from the declining diamond industry may also exist. While the resultant population growth poses a different set of challenges, more money in the hands of local people means that they will be better placed to benefit from tourism activities in the Delta, either through individual consumption or service provision. It also means more potential capital available for community-led enterprises (both in tourism and natural products), of which too few exist at present.

If communities benefit in a tangible way from mining they could become the most effective allies in the endeavour to preserve what Frans Lanting famously called the ‘Last Eden’. In the final analysis, mining may ironically provide the means necessary to sustain the Delta for future generations.

Ross Harvey is a visiting Research Fellow with SAIIA’s Governance of Africa’s Resources Programme in Cape Town. This article was originally published on AllAfrica.com on 13 October 2014.

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The international aid agency Oxfam is appealing to European Union foreign ministers to do more to fight Ebola; a disease Oxfam says could be the “definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation.”

The chief of the British charity, Mark Goldring, called for more troops, funding and medical staff to be sent to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – the countries hit hardest by the epidemic. Goldring said countries that fail to make a commitment to fight Ebola “are in danger of costing lives.”

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in an open letter to the BBC Sunday the fight against Ebola is one in which “the whole world has a stake.” Ms. Sirleaf said “it is the duty of all, as global citizens, to send a message that they will not leave millions of West Africans to fend for themselves”.

The World Health Organization says more than 4,500 people have died from Ebola in West Africa. Health experts predict thousands more deaths before the end of the year.

The WHO said it would conduct a “full review” of the global Ebola response after the outbreak is under control.

However, the WHO said it would not comment on an internal report obtained by The Associated Press saying the agency missed opportunities to prevent Ebola from spreading in West Africa.

According to the AP, the WHO blamed its staff for a slow response to the Ebola outbreak. It said its personnel failed to grasp that traditional infectious disease containment methods do not work in a region with porous borders and broken health infrastructures.

The leaked report said “nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall.”

U.S. President Barack Obama met with members of his national security and public health teams Saturday evening to discuss the response to the domestic Ebola cases.

Two nurses who treated an Ebola patient who later died in Dallas, Texas, have been hospitalized with the disease. Investigators are looking into how they became sick.

Meanwhile a cruise ship carrying a Texas lab worker, who spent the trip in isolation for having suspected contact with an Ebola sample, returned to Texas amid reports that she has tested negative for the deadly disease.

Obama is calling on Americans not to give in to Ebola “hysteria or fear.” In his weekly Saturday address, the president urged people to keep the situation in perspective. He said the U.S. may see more isolated cases, but said he is “absolutely confident” officials can prevent a serious outbreak.

Canada says it will send 800 vials of an experimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization in Geneva starting Monday – and the U.N. World Food Program airdropped emergency rations to more than 260,000 people in the Waterloo district of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

The area has seen an usually high number of cases of Ebola. Many families have been quarantined.

Fidel Castro: Would ‘Gladly Cooperate’ With US in Ebola Fight

Meanwhile, Fidel Castro, the former leader of Cuba, says the Caribbean island nation will “gladly cooperate” with the U.S. in the fight against Ebola in West Africa.

Writing in the state media Saturday, the 88-year-old Castro said the cooperation would be in the interest of “peace in the world,” and is not an attempt to resolve issues between the U.S. and Cuba.

“We will gladly cooperate with American personnel in that task and not in search for peace between the two states that have been adversaries for so many years, but in any case, for peace in the world, a goal that can and should be attempted,” a Cuban television broadcaster read Castro’s remarks on the air.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry praised Cuba’s efforts Friday for its impressive response to the Ebola crisis, saying “Cuba – a country of just 11 million people – has sent 165 health professionals and it plans to send nearly 300 more” to hard-hit West Africa.

Cuba has a history of sending its doctors to emergencies around the world.

“It took our country not one minute to respond to the international agencies before requesting support against the brutal epidemic that has broken out in West Africa. It’s what our country has always done without excluding anyone,” Castro said in his remarks.

Jorge Perez, director of the tropical disease hospital where Cuban doctors train for the Ebola mission, said he believed the U.S. and Cuban missions to fight Ebola could lead to improved diplomatic relations.

Cuba has sent medical brigades to disaster sites around the world since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.

Besides medical diplomacy, Cuba sends doctors overseas in exchange for money or goods, notably Venezuelan oil, making professional services a top export earner.

The post Oxfam: Ebola Could be ‘Disaster Of Our Generation’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Improving household electricity access in India over the last 30 years contributed only marginally to the nation’s total carbon emissions growth during that time, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“Energy access is fundamental to development: it brings improvements to all aspects of life, including education, communication, and health,” says IIASA researcher Shonali Pachauri, who conducted the study.

While increased energy access is widely agreed to be an important goal for development efforts, such as the UN Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, the climate impacts of increased access to electricity have been unclear. The new study is the first to examine the impact of electricity access on carbon dioxide emissions using two sources of retrospective data.

“This study shows that the climate impacts of expanding access are in fact very small,” says Pachauri. However, she adds, expanding low-carbon energy technologies in developing countries would bring many co-benefits beyond climate mitigation.

Pachauri used India as a case study because while the country still lacks electricity access for much of its population—around 400 million people—it has vastly increased access in the last 30 years. From 1981 to 2011, household electricity access in the country improved from around 25% to between 67-74% of the population, an increase of approximately 650 million people.

“India is at a similar stage to many other developing countries in terms of energy access” says Pachauri, “So we believe that these findings will be applicable on a broad scale to other developing countries.”

Using two data sources, the study found that improved electricity access in India from 1981 to 2011 accounted for approximately 50 million tons of CO2, or 3-4% of the rise in total national CO2 emissions.

Since electrification also tends to lead to increased wealth and participation in the economy, it can also lead to additional increases in emissions from indirect energy use through consumption. Pachauri found that when she took these factors into account, household electricity use would account for 156 to 363 million tons CO2, or 11 to 25% of emissions growth in the country. However, even with increased electricity use, Indian households still use less electricity than Chinese households, and less than 10% of households in the United States.

Researchers say that even though the emissions growth from expanded energy access is small, low carbon energy sources have additional benefits for developing countries and should be encouraged. Previous IIASA research including the 2012 Global Energy Assessment has shown a broad array of co-benefits from expanding low-carbon, sustainable energy technologies.

Pachauri says, “Low-carbon energy sources bring improved health, efficiency, and can also bring benefits to the economy and employment. And if international climate policies are introduced later, more investment in low-carbon energy sources would mean that developing countries are not locked-in to fossil fuel power and higher costs in the future.”

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Pope Francis’ address at the conclusion of the Synod on the Family, delivered Saturday, was responded to with a four-minute standing ovation on the part of the bishops attending the Vatican meeting.

In the Oct. 18 speech, the Pope thanked the bishops for their efforts, and noted the various temptations that can arise in such a synod setting. He encouraged the bishops to live in the tension, saying that “personally I would be very worried and saddened if it were not for these temptations and these animated discussions; this movement of the spirits, as St Ignatius called it (Spiritual Exercises, 6), if all were in a state of agreement, or silent in a false and quietist peace.”

“Instead, I have seen and I have heard – with joy and appreciation – speeches and interventions full of faith, of pastoral and doctrinal zeal, of wisdom, of frankness and of courage: and of parrhesia. And I have felt that what was set before our eyes was the good of the Church, of families, and the ‘supreme law,’ the ‘good of souls; (cf. Can. 1752).”

In conclusion, looking forward to the 2015 synod, which will also be on the family, Pope Francis said, “now we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families.”

Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’ address, according to the provisional translation provided by Vatican Radio:

Dear Eminences, Beatitudes, Excellencies, Brothers and Sisters,

With a heart full of appreciation and gratitude I want to thank, along with you, the Lord who has accompanied and guided us in the past days, with the light of the Holy Spirit.

From the heart I thank Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, Bishop Fabio Fabene, under-secretary, and with them I thank the Relators, Cardinal Peter Erdo, who has worked so much in these days of family mourning, and the Special Secretary Bishop Bruno Forte, the three President delegates, the transcribers, the consultors, the translators and the unknown workers, all those who have worked with true fidelity and total dedication behind the scenes and without rest. Thank you so much from the heart.

I thank all of you as well, dear Synod fathers, Fraternal Delegates, Auditors, and Assessors, for your active and fruitful participation. I will keep you in prayer asking the Lord to reward you with the abundance of His gifts of grace!

I can happily say that – with a spirit of collegiality and of synodality – we have truly lived the experience of “Synod,” a path of solidarity, a “journey together.”

And it has been “a journey” – and like every journey there were moments of running fast, as if wanting to conquer time and reach the goal as soon as possible; other moments of fatigue, as if wanting to say “enough”; other moments of enthusiasm and ardour. There were moments of profound consolation listening to the testimony of true pastors, who wisely carry in their hearts the joys and the tears of their faithful people. Moments of consolation and grace and comfort hearing the testimonies of the families who have participated in the Synod and have shared with us the beauty and the joy of their married life. A journey where the stronger feel compelled to help the less strong, where the more experienced are led to serve others, even through confrontations. And since it is a journey of human beings, with the consolations there were also moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations, of which a few possibilities could be mentioned:

– One, a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

– The temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.”

– The temptation to transform stones into bread to break the long, heavy, and painful fast (cf. Lk 4:1-4); and also to transform the bread into a stone and cast it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick (cf Jn 8:7), that is, to transform it into unbearable burdens (Lk 11:46).

– The temptation to come down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfil the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.

– The temptation to neglect the “depositum fidei” [the deposit of faith], not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing! They call them “byzantinisms,” I think, these things…

Dear brothers and sisters, the temptations must not frighten or disconcert us, or even discourage us, because no disciple is greater than his master; so if Jesus Himself was tempted – and even called Beelzebul (cf. Mt 12:24) – His disciples should not expect better treatment.

Personally I would be very worried and saddened if it were not for these temptations and these animated discussions; this movement of the spirits, as St Ignatius called it (Spiritual Exercises, 6), if all were in a state of agreement, or silent in a false and quietist peace. Instead, I have seen and I have heard – with joy and appreciation – speeches and interventions full of faith, of pastoral and doctrinal zeal, of wisdom, of frankness and of courage: and of parrhesia. And I have felt that what was set before our eyes was the good of the Church, of families, and the “supreme law,” the “good of souls” (cf. Can. 1752). And this always – we have said it here, in the Hall – without ever putting into question the fundamental truths of the Sacrament of marriage: the indissolubility, the unity, the faithfulness, the fruitfulness, that openness to life (cf. Cann. 1055, 1056; and Gaudium et spes, 48).

And this is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem.

The is the Church, our Mother! And when the Church, in the variety of her charisms, expresses herself in communion, she cannot err: it is the beauty and the strength of the sensus fidei, of that supernatural sense of the faith which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit so that, together, we can all enter into the heart of the Gospel and learn to follow Jesus in our life. And this should never be seen as a source of confusion and discord.

Many commentators, or people who talk, have imagined that they see a disputatious Church where one part is against the other, doubting even the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of the unity and harmony of the Church – the Holy Spirit who throughout history has always guided the barque, through her Ministers, even when the sea was rough and choppy, and the ministers unfaithful and sinners.

And, as I have dared to tell you , [as] I told you from the beginning of the Synod, it was necessary to live through all this with tranquillity, and with interior peace, so that the Synod would take place cum Petro and sub Petro (with Peter and under Peter), and the presence of the Pope is the guarantee of it all.

We will speak a little bit about the Pope, now, in relation to the Bishops [laughing]. So, the duty of the Pope is that of guaranteeing the unity of the Church; it is that of reminding the faithful of their duty to faithfully follow the Gospel of Christ; it is that of reminding the pastors that their first duty is to nourish the flock – to nourish the flock – that the Lord has entrusted to them, and to seek to welcome – with fatherly care and mercy, and without false fears – the lost sheep. I made a mistake here. I said welcome: [rather] to go out and find them.

His duty is to remind everyone that authority in the Church is a service, as Pope Benedict XVI clearly explained, with words I cite verbatim: “The Church is called and commits herself to exercise this kind of authority which is service and exercises it not in her own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ… through the Pastors of the Church, in fact: it is he who guides, protects and corrects them, because he loves them deeply. But the Lord Jesus, the supreme Shepherd of our souls, has willed that the Apostolic College, today the Bishops, in communion with the Successor of Peter… to participate in his mission of taking care of God’s People, of educating them in the faith and of guiding, inspiring and sustaining the Christian community, or, as the Council puts it, ‘to see to it… that each member of the faithful shall be led in the Holy Spirit to the full development of his own vocation in accordance with Gospel preaching, and to sincere and active charity’ and to exercise that liberty with which Christ has set us free (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 6)… and it is through us,” Pope Benedict continues, “that the Lord reaches souls, instructs, guards and guides them. St Augustine, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St John, says: ‘let it therefore be a commitment of love to feed the flock of the Lord’ (cf. 123, 5); this is the supreme rule of conduct for the ministers of God, an unconditional love, like that of the Good Shepherd, full of joy, given to all, attentive to those close to us and solicitous for those who are distant (cf. St Augustine, Discourse 340, 1; Discourse 46, 15), gentle towards the weakest, the little ones, the simple, the sinners, to manifest the infinite mercy of God with the reassuring words of hope (cf. ibid., Epistle, 95, 1).”

So, the Church is Christ’s – she is His bride – and all the bishops, in communion with the Successor of Peter, have the task and the duty of guarding her and serving her, not as masters but as servants. The Pope, in this context, is not the supreme lord but rather the supreme servant – the “servant of the servants of God”; the guarantor of the obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Tradition of the Church, putting aside every personal whim, despite being – by the will of Christ Himself – the “supreme Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful” (Can. 749) and despite enjoying “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (cf. Cann. 331-334).

Dear brothers and sisters, now we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families.

One year to work on the “Synodal Relatio” which is the faithful and clear summary of everything that has been said and discussed in this hall and in the small groups. It is presented to the Episcopal Conferences as “lineamenta” [guidelines].

May the Lord accompany us, and guide us in this journey for the glory of His Name, with the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Joseph. And please, do not forget to pray for me! Thank you!

[The Te Deum was sung, and Benediction given.]

Thank you, and rest well, eh?

The post Pope Francis’ Closing Synod Speech Received With Standing Ovation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The scientist who conducted a DNA analysis of the shawl found near the body of one of Jack The Ripper’s victims allegedly made a basic error, which means the identity of one of history’s most notorious killers is in doubt again.

At the beginning of September, armchair detective Russell Edwards declared that 23-year-old Polish immigrant, barber Aaron Kosminski, one of the suspects, was “definitely, categorically and absolutely” Jack The Ripper!

His statement came after genetic analysis of the shawl discovered near Catherine Eddowes, a victim of the notorious murderer, after alleged traces of semen were found there.

The scientist, Jari Louhelainen, who carried out the test, is reported to have made an “error of nomenclature” when using the DNA database to calculate the genetic match.

The alleged error was first spotted by crime enthusiasts in Australia posting on casebook.org. Then, the concerns were echoed by four experts in the field of DNA analysis, including renowned Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, inventor of genetic fingerprinting.

The experts pointed out the error signifies no DNA link can exist between Kosminski and Eddowes, so any theory that Kosminski is The Ripper would be based on conjecture and supposition. Police at the end of 19th century, however, did have him as a suspect in the case.

All this comes in the wake of the publishing of the book ‘Naming Jack the Ripper’ by Russell Edwards, a businessman who purchased the shawl at an auction in 2007.

“I’ve got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I’ve spent 14 years working, and we have finally solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was. Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now – we have unmasked him,” The Guardian quoted Edwards as saying last month.

Edwards hired Dr Louhelainen, a molecular biologist at Liverpool John Moores University, to conduct the test, and the researcher managed to extract seven incomplete fragments of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). He then attempted to match their sequences with mtDNA from a living descendant of Eddowes.

The scientist indicated that the DNA contained the alteration “known as global private mutation (314.1C), not very common in worldwide population,” and then Louhelainen concluded the DNA was Karen Miller’s, one of Catherine Eddowes’s female descendants.

However, there has allegedly been an “error of nomenclature,” specialists say, as the mutation in question should be noted as “315.1C” and not “314.1C.”

“315.1C” is not a rare mutation, and is shared by 99 per cent of ethnic Europeans.

Publishers of the book, Sidgwick & Jackson, responded to the allegations, and said that “the author stands by his conclusions” and they are “investigating the reported error in scientific nomenclature.”

“However, this does not change the DNA profiling match and the probability of the match calculated from the rest of the data. The conclusion reached in the book, that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper, relies on much more than this one figure,” they added.

The post ‘Serious DNA Error’ In Jack The Ripper Identity Discovery appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Manoj Joshi

There should be some things clear about the Kashmir issue.

However convinced we may be of our case, the international community views the state of Jammu & Kashmir to be disputed territory. We need not repeat the long and sorry story of how this came about, but as of now, that is the situation. Having said that, we need to also spell out the corollary of that point – that there is nothing the international community, including the United Nations, can do to resolve the problem. Only India and Pakistan can do so, through direct negotiations. .

So, Jammu & Kashmir does constitute an important aspect of our relationship with Pakistan. Though not officially articulated, the Indian solution to the problem has been a partition of the state along the existing Line of Control.

Pakistan’s stand varies. There was a time when it said that J&K ought to be part of Pakistan, then it began to say that all it wanted was the right of self-determination for the people of the state.

But its actions in the parts of the state it occupies indicate that the goal remains the assimilation of the state into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Islamabad now knows that there is nothing it can do to wrest the state from Indian hands by force. It has tried war twice, and continued to fight a covert war for the past quarter century using jihadi proxies and backing Kashmiri separatists.

Conflict

But getting Pakistan to end the conflict has been a difficult task, because Kashmir means many things to them.

At one level, it is a cause that unites everyone in that country – the jihadis, the army and the civilian elite. At another, it provides it a means to maintain a hostile posture towards India, something necessary for its current sense of national identity.

Remarkably, the two countries achieved a measure of convergence towards a solution in the period 2004- 2008. Worked in a back-channel, the idea was to work towards a special status of the state, without altering the current boundaries as set by the 1972 Line of Control.

The Indian perspective was that the state’s river waters are already committed to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, so having Pakistan involved in watershed management would not be such an affront to Indian sovereignty. Likewise there could be areas like tourism which the two sides could work out together. However – and contrary to claims on the Pakistan side – there were no commitments made on joint governance or political management. That is because a vast gulf separates the basic outlook of the Indian and Pakistani political systems.

The two sides did manage to open up the LoC to enable trade and the movement of people back and forth. But beyond that, the project came unstuck.

The regime of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator under whose regime the agreements were made, imploded. The successor government of Asif Ali Zardari lacked the clout with the army to push on with the project.

It is important to understand the Indian strategic perspective on the issue. The key agreements announced through the January 4, 2004 joint statement between India and Pakistan, came on the sidelines of the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Concessions

It was at this SAARC meeting where the now eight-member organisation decided that they would like to create a South Asian Free Trade Area by 2014.

A common free trade area would also see the opening up of the region to the movement of people and a degree of coordination on governance issues relating to areas of common concern like river waters, watershed management, flood control and so on. In the long term, greater economic integration would lead to political integration as well.

So, the Indian perspective on resolving the Kashmir issue rested on its being embedded in the SAARC process.

India and Pakistan may find it difficult to make concessions, but they could possibly do so in a multilateral framework of SAARC.

Ceasefire

Today, the process is going nowhere. The initiatives of the 2004-2007 period have come to a halt. A key element in these development was the ceasefire along the LoC called by Musharraf in November 2003 and agreed to by Prime Minister Vajpayee.

Today, as the ceasefire frays, so does the process that once held so much promise. There are the important issues relating to the state and the union.

When India became independent, it got the accession of most of the princely states with the promise of controlling only defence, foreign affairs, communications and currency. However, these states were reorganised and the commitments on autonomy abandoned. In the case of J&K, the problem has yet to be resolved.

There is no doubt the original intention was to have a flexible system which would lead to J&K being like any other state of the union. However domestic politics and foreign policy issues have prevented this from happening.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation and Contributing Editor, Mail Today)

Courtesy: Mail Today

The post What Kashmir Means To Pakistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently called on the government to force young people to spend two years either “serving” in the military or performing some other type of government-directed “community service.” Neoconservative Senator John McCain has introduced legislation creating a mandatory national service program very similar to Reich’s proposal. It is not surprising that both a prominent progressive and a leading neocon would support mandatory national service, as this is an issue that has long united authoritarians on the left and right.

Proponents of national service claim that young people have a moral obligation to give something back to society. But giving the government power to decide our moral obligations is an invitation to totalitarianism.

Mandatory national service is not just anti-liberty, it is un-American. Whether or not they admit it, supporters of mandatory national service do not believe that individuals have “inalienable rights.” Instead, they believe that rights are gifts from the government, and, since government is the source of our rights, government can abridge or even take away those rights whenever Congress decides.

Mandatory national service also undermines private charitable institutions. In a free society, many people will give their time or money to service projects to help better their communities, working with religious or civic associations. But in a society with government-enforced national service, these associations are likely to become more reliant on government-supplied forced labor. They will then begin to tailor their programs to satisfy the demands of government bureaucrats instead of the needs of the community.

The very worst form of national service is, of course, the military draft, which forces young people to kill or be killed on government orders. The draft lowers the cost of an interventionist foreign policy because government need not compete with private employers for recruits. Anyone who refuses a draft notice runs the risk of being jailed, so government can provide lower pay and benefits to draftees than to volunteers.

As the burden of our hyper-interventionist foreign policy increases, it is increasingly likely that there will be serious attempts to reinstate the military draft. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, continues to suggest that US troops on the ground may be needed to fight “Operation Inherent Resolve” in Iraq and Syria. A major escalation requiring a large US troop deployment will likely add pressure to consider a military draft.

The only real way the American people can protect their children from the military draft is to demand an end to the foreign policy that sees the US military as the solution to any and every problem — from ISIS to Ebola — anywhere in the world.

Some who share my opposition to a militaristic foreign policy support the draft because they think a draft will increase public opposition to war. However, the existence of a draft did not stop the American government from launching unconstitutional wars in Vietnam and Korea. While the draft did play a role in mobilizing political opposition to Vietnam, it took almost a decade and the death of thousands of American draftees for that opposition to reach critical mass.

It is baffling that conservatives who (properly) oppose raising taxes would support any form of national service, including the military draft. It is similarly baffling that liberals who oppose government interference with our personal lives would support mandatory national service. Mandatory national service is a totalitarian policy that should be rejected by all who value liberty.

The post Ron Paul: National Service Is Anti-Liberty And Un-American – OpE appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Umbrella Movement, as the pro-democratic Occupy Central Protest in Hong Kong is called, is now on the verge of turning into a riot. Last night, a serious confrontation, never seen before, was mounted by the crowd gathering in the Mongkok area as the Hong Kong Police force was determined to clear the streets of protesters’ barricades.

At the start of the Movement in early September, Occupy Central leader Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, and student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung have repeatedly said the Protest shouldn’t be considered a “revolution” and they would conduct it orderly and peacefully with no resistance. The three Student leaders even set up eight rules: should they be confronted by the police, there would be no resistance to arrest, no scolding nor fighting back, just a “Movement of Peace”. Benny Tai even boosted that, if Occupy Central is out of control, he could call it off immediately. Or could he?

No sooner had the Occupy Central taken place in Admiralty, thousands of protesters gathered spontaneously in Causeway Bay near Sogo Emporium, Canton Road in Tsimtsatsui and in the bustling business district of Mongkok. These protesters, many of them youngsters, claimed to come forward to occupy the streets out of their own beliefs in support of the Pro-democratic Movement. And they also openly admitted that they had no leader, nor did they act under the banner of the Students Federation and the so called “Three Leaders” of Occupy Central. This unforeseeable situation is now jeopardizing the whole Occupy Central Movement: As more and more protesters choose to assemble in the uncontollable Mongkok area to block the streets, which is a crime infested area known to be dominated by many local reactionary gangs, and the Police has to sustain more and more crowd pressure and frustration imposed by the administrative order to retrain, sooner or later, a defacto conflict between the protesters and the Police will burst.

As seen from the television picture, it is almost obvious that Pandora’s box is already opened: After the police succeeded in early yesterday morning to clear the occupied area, thousands of demonstrators re-assembled again in an attempt to reclaim the streets and they did confront the Police with dirty language and eventually involved in a series of fists-over heads street fights which had allegedly led to bloody injuries to some of the protesters there.

Judged from the scenes conveyed by the TV reporters, it seems that the crowd in the Mongkok area was made up of people of different background. According to our observation of recent days, the Mongkok area seems to be occupied mostly by diehard pro-democratic supporters who openly indicated that the Federation of Students did not represent them and denounced them extremely weak in their tactics when these students leaders paid them a visit several days before. Besides, there was obvious a group of gangster-minded youngsters, if not gangster member themselves, who seemed to have taken advantage of the situation and deliberatively incensed the crowd to act in resistance in the hope of causing more disturbance to defame the Police towards whom they always harbor a hostile sentiment.

While the real motives of this fraction of Mongkok protesters are dubious, as long as the Government declines to meet with the Protester leaders, let alone any gesture to meet some of requests of the Occupy Central Movement, the grave concern in the mind of most HK citizens is that this Pro-democratic Movement will soon be deteriorating into a series of bloody street riots with Police’s outrageous oppression at the end.

Late last Friday, there has seen some indication that the HKSAR Government has already contacted three middlemen trusted by both the government and the student protesters to re-open the dialogue so as to call off this Protest Movement, but apparently they still have to wait for Mr. Leung Chun Ying, the scandalous Chief Executive of HKSAR, to return from a recent meeting in Shenzhen next early week before this could be decided. A lot of Hong Kong citizens are now wondering : As Mr. Leung himself is one of the targets of Occupy Central, why does the Government still not act in time before the perilous situation is entirely out of control?

Genomeken was a former senior editor/journalist of the Hong Kong Economic Journal (HKEJ) in Hong Kong and a newspaper columnist for 13 years. He is currently a regular columnist in the financial Monthly of the HKEJ as well as freelance writer and news commentator for other media publications in Hong Kong. He can be reached at: genome2882@yahoo.com.hk

The post Pandora’s Box Is Opened: Pro-Democratic Occupy Central Protest On Verge Of Turning Into A Riot – Op-Ed appeared first on Eurasia Review.

James Petras, The Politics of Empire. The US, Israel and the Middle East, Clarity Press, Atlanta 2014, 196 pp., $18.95.

The Israeli military went again on a rampage against the ghettoized people in the Gaza strip. The last time, they “visited” the walled-in strip at the turn of the year 2008/09, they slaughtered 1,400 Palestinians. In 2014, they killed over 2 100 Palestinians, 80 percent civilians, injured over 10,000, made over 300,000 homeless and ravaged the infrastructure. Israel’s patron, the US Empire, did not lift a finger in 2008/09; neither did it this time. This one-sided relationship is analyzed by James Petras, an award-winning author and Professor Emeritus, in a global geopolitical perspective.

In 2000, “the imperial military and ideological apparatus for direct intervention was firmly in place.” 9/11 seemed godsend. The objectives of the planned serial wars “were defined by their principal Zionist and militarists architects” as the following: First, “destroying regimes and states (that) have opposed Israel’s annexation of Palestine.” Secondly, “deposing regimes which promoted independent nationalist policies, opposing or threatening the Gulf puppet monarchist regimes and supporting anti-imperialist, secular or nationalist-Islamic movements around the world.”

Blinded by their imperial hubris, neither the Zionists nor the civilian militarists within the US administration anticipated prolonged national resistance from the attacked countries, writes Petras. The destruction of the entire political, administrative and military infrastructure by the US invaders and their willful European executioners created a “political vacuum”, which was never a problem for the embedded Zionists in the US Administration, “since their ultimate goal was to devastate Israel’s enemies”. According to the author, under the Obama presidency, “a new ‘cast’ of embedded Zionists has emerged to target Iran and prepare the US for a new war on Israel’s behalf”. After Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the UN General Assembly in September and his visit to the White House, 345 members of the US Congress signed a letter, in which they demanded from President Obama to remain tough with Iran. Netanyahu had raised the same demand from President Obama. It’s the first time that US Members of Congress publicly oppose their own president while supporting the demands of a foreign government!

The book is unique in providing an overall concept that links empire-building and foreign interventions to the domestic emergence of a police state, declining standards of living, advanced global spying on allies and adversaries, large scale commitments to wars in the Middle east to the detriment of major corporate interest, but for the benefit of its client State of Israel, and the power of a foreign state over US policy via its Zionist lobby. The question can be raised weather US foreign policy is bad for US corporations. Didn’t Hulliburton make a fortune, when the George W. Bush and his neoconservative gang attacked Iraq?

According to Petras, the US is still inclined to advance its Empire, but the Obama Empire builders “have relied on a wider variety of interventions than their predecessor under George W. Bush”. The Obama administration has shown more restraint in direct interventions and relies more on its “imperial European allies”. For an aggressive continuation of Empire building, the current administration lacks domestic support, writes the author. The most serious obstacle, however, to effectively adapting to the current international realities “is the influential Israel-linked Zionist Power Configuration embedded in Congress, the Administration and the mass media. Zionists are deeply committed to pushing the US into more wars for Israel.” Despite the “Zionist Power Configuration” (ZPC), Petras comes to the conclusion that the Obama Administration is less inclined to start large-scale military interventions and listens more to public opinion.

In this study, the author concentrates on US empire-building measures in the Middle East. Here, the ZPC comes into play. In this specific region, Zionist power has played an important role “in harnessing the US Empire to serving the regional power projections of Israel”. According to Petras, this fact is underlined by “the importance of the domestic political power relations in shaping US imperial policy, the importance of military ideology over economic interests; and the role of ‘dual citizens’ with foreign allegiances in subverting a potentially democratic foreign policy”.

The study shows also that US empire-building efforts are not confined solely to the Middle East and to serve Israeli interests. It’s a global US effort, but to advance its sphere of influence, for example, the US relies on its European allies like France and Great Britain to secure the realm in Africa. The overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya and the direct intervention of France in Mali or in the Central African Republic are cases in point.

Petras regards the Zionist lobby as the most important factor in shaping US foreign policy in the Middle East. This goes beyond the influence of AIPAC because there exists a whole string of pro-Israeli think tanks, a power configuration of 52 Jewish organizations, influential individuals in the media and the military, plus leverage over the US Congress. It seems as if the author overrates the influence of the Zionist lobby, which influences and even determines US foreign policy, downplaying US policies mainly affected by the military, financial and industrial elites. Globally, Israel performs a useful role for the US in the region. In case of emergency, Israel would safeguard the Jordanian or the Saudi regimes from being overthrown either by internal unrest or foreign intervention .

The author argues that the loss of trust between the power elite and the majority of the American people is one of the leading factors influencing US foreign policy. Together with the totally discredited US Congress, only 9 per cent have a positive view of the Congress, and the public’s rejection of President Obama’s militarist approach are important factors that hindered the US empire’s determination for new wars. Despite this war-weariness, the war-mongering US Congress in close cooperation with the Zionist lobby pushes for a military confrontation with Iran, even though the negotiations between Iran and the five UN Security Council members plus Germany are heading in the right direction.

Although the geopolitical analysis of James Petras’ newest book is convincing in many aspects, his focus on the Zionist Power Configuration and a subservient US Congress does not show the whole picture of US imperial interests. The domestic power configurations are more complex. For the political class of the United States, it would be a damning indictment, if Israel or its stakeholders would be the sole power brokers in terms of US foreign policy.

Whether the 21st century will be an American one, has to be seen, although, according to Petras, “there is no alternative imperial or modern anti-imperial tendency on the immediate horizon”. Right now, the US makes more enemies than friends. Its new adventurism in Syria and Iraq may turn out to be even more disastrous for the US than the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Petras’ book gives the readers an insight in the making of US foreign policy, which appears multifarious and determined by a power struggle between different elites.

The post The Politics Of Empire: The US, Israel And The Middle East – Book Review appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Sunflower Movement suggests difficult times ahead for Taiwan’s politics and cross-Strait relations

By Ivan Lidarev*

The outbreak of the student-led Sunflower Movement in March provoked a political earthquake in Taiwan. Directed against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) between the PRC and ROC, the movement ushered three weeks of tense standoff with the ruling KMT party, as protesters occupied Taiwan’s legislature and ultimately pressured it to postpone CSSTA’s adoption. As the air has cleared, the true importance of the movement for Taiwan politics and cross-Strait relations has crystallized. While CSSTA’s delay is indeed significant, the true importance of the movement lies in the big picture trends in Taiwan politics and cross-Strait relations it represents.

The CSSTA and the Outbreak of the Sunflower Movement

The CSSTA lies at the heart of the controversy which fueled the Sunflower movement. The first trade liberalization pact, inked by China and Taiwan in June, 2013, the agreement opens up a large number of service industries on both sides for investment, mostly to Taiwan’s benefit, as Taipei is required to open up fewer sectors than Beijing. More important, CSSTA is one of four major “follow-up” agreements mandated in the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), a roadmap for cross-Strait economic integration.

Of these four agreements two, one on investment protection and CSSTA, have already been reached and two more, one seeking to remove tariffs on industrial and agricultural goods and one on trade dispute settlement, are in the final negotiating stages. Hence, CSSTA is a key step in the process of cross-Strait economic integration jointly promoted by President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT and Beijing. As such, CSSTA has inevitably raised suspicions among critics of economic engagement with the PRC, that it might compromise Taiwan’s security by giving Beijing excessive economic leverage. To alleviate these fears, the ruling KMT reached an understanding with the opposition DPP to review the agreement article-by-article before moving it to the legislative floor.

The breakdown of this understanding triggered the Sunflower Movement. On March 17,accusing the DPP of deliberately delaying the agreement, the KMT decided to abandon the article-by-article review and move the CSSTA to a vote, a decision which effectively guaranteed quick passage as KMT enjoys a majority in Taiwan’s legislature. Viewing KMT’s move as an attempt to ram the controversial measure through the legislature, several hundred university students sneaked into the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber and vowed to occupy it until the trade pact was guaranteed a thorough review. This prompted three intense weeks of occupation (including a brief occupation of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan), clashes with police, small counter protests, further demands from the protesters and a deepening political crisis.

Finally, an agreement to postpone the adoption of CSSTA until legislation monitoring all cross-strait agreements is passed was reached and protesters vacated the parliament building.

The Root Causes

What caused the Sunflower movement to erupt? While the KMT’s decision to bypass the pact’s legislative review was indeed the spark for the protests, their root cause lies in three controversial aspects of the CSSTA.

First, the agreement allows for a much higher level of Chinese investment in Taiwan than currently is the case. This has provoked fears that the trade pact would give Beijing too much leverage over Taiwan’s economy—leverage that the PRC might use to advance its political goal of unification.

Second, the CSSTA allows Chinese investors who make investments in Taiwan’s service sectors to reside in ROC. As a result, critics and unions have raised fears that the pact will unleash a flood of mainland white and blue color workers which will cost thousands of Taiwan workers their jobs and will enable Beijing to make inroads into Taiwan society.

Third, the trade pact, which comes on the background of a slowdown of Taiwan’s economy in 2012 and 2013, has provoked opposition on purely economic grounds from some of the affected services sectors and some economists who question its economic benefits.

Beyond these specific aspects of the CSSTA, there are also deeper reasons for the fierce opposition to the agreement. For the section of Taiwan society which resents the whole project for economic and political engagement with the mainland, blocking the agreement is a means to stop and reverse the momentum of economic engagement with Beijing mandated by ECFA. Moreover, there is deep distrust of the ability of the KMT and particularly President Ma, the chief proponent cross-Strait engagement, to protect Taiwan’s economic and security interests in its dealings with the mainland.

These reasons give clues to the significance of the movement and for the big picture of Taiwan politics and cross-Strait relations.

The Significance of the Sunflower Movement

The significance of the Sunflower movement can be best understood on two levels, the level of its immediate impact and the level of the long-term trends it represents. On the first level the Sunflower movement has temporarily put a break to the CSSTA and has slowed the march of cross-Strait economic integration. It will not only take long to adopt the oversight law monitoring all cross-Strait agreements but even after its passage, the Legislative Yuan will have to review CSSTA again, article by article, and then move to the remaining two ECFA agreements. In light of the political atmosphere created by the protests, President Ma’s weak standing, the coming local elections in November and the presidential elections in 2016, it will be difficult to pass all this controversial legislation. The likely result will be severe slowdown in cross-Strait economic integration.

However, the true significance of the Sunflower movement rather rests with what it reveals about the big picture of Taiwan politics and cross-Strait relations. Whereas determined KMT action will likely push CSSTA through the Legislative Yuan, the larger trends embodied in the movement will shape Taiwan for years. Five such trends stand out.

First, the Sunflower movement protests indicate the joint Beijing-Ma administration strategy of focusing on economics as the basis of promoting greater cross-Strait engagement, prior to addressing political issues, is encountering serious difficulties. On one level, the protests have demonstrated that it is very difficult to separate economic from political issues and that political issues, which are thornier than economic ones, cannot be postponed indefinitely. On another, it is clear that, when it comes to using economics to promote cross-Strait engagement, the law of diminishing returns has set in, as the relative ease with which earlier economic deals, such as ECFA, were accepted by the Taiwan public has given way to hesitation and even reluctance. As the usefulness of employing economics to promote greater engagement has declined, both sides will find that further progress, especially on political issues, will be slower and more difficult,particularly in light of the ongoing Hong Kong protests. The cost of errors, such as KMT’s decision to ram CSSTA through parliament, will also be higher.

Second, the Sunflower movement demonstrates a powerful resurgence of the opposition of a section of the DPP base to greater engagement with mainland China. While such opposition has traditionally been a core tenet for the DPP, recent years have seen a gradual softening of the party position, decline in the opposition’s intensity among the grassroots and tentative attempts to initiate dialogue with Beijing. The resurgence of this opposition, embodied in the Sunflower movement, has two effects. The first one has been to revitalize the Taiwan’s traditional divisions on its relationship with the mainland, a fact exemplified by the outbreak of small counter-protests in support of CSSTA and by polls which paint a society split over the CSSTA, with 43% supporting the agreement and 40% opposing it. The result is likely to be ever greater difficulty in reaching a consensus on policy toward the mainland. The second effect of this reenergized opposition is likely to be greater tensions and divisions within the DPP on engagement with the mainland. The likely outcome will be problems for DPP’s leadership before the presidential elections in 2016 and serious limits on its freedom of action on cross-Strait issues.

Third, the Sunflower Movement, named in allusion to the 1990 Wild Lily student Movement, demonstrates that Taiwan’s culture of disruptive mass protests, usually manned by DPP activists and students, is alive and strong. While this culture has been part of Taiwan politics since the onset of democratization, recent years have been relatively quiet and even when there were protests, as in 2010 against ECFA and in 2012 against media monopolies, they did not disturb the island’s stability. Hence, the Sunflower movement signifies a resurgence of Taiwan’s disruptive protest culture, as further testified by large student protests in April against nuclear power and smaller protests against projects that threatened a leopard habitat. This culture will likely prove a bane for any government, especially if it hails from the KMT, and might move Taiwan politics in a much more turbulent future. Just as important, it will act as a major impediment to further engagement with Beijing as the threat of protests will constantly hang over the heads of Taiwan’s government.

Fourth, the opposition to the CSSTA and the outbreak of the Sunflower movement indicate the continuing need and the difficulty of engagement between the KMT, Beijing and the critics of cross-Strait engagement. The Ma administration has made efforts to engage CSSTA’s critics but little meaningful dialogue has materialized as the government has made few concessions and its critics have primarily sought to derail engagement with the PRC. Beijing has also made some small steps to engage the DPP but with insufficient effect. Thus, if Taiwan is to pursue greater engagement with the mainland, Beijing, the KMT and the DPP will need to engage on cross-Strait issues, a complex process which requires time, skill and can easily be derailed. Fortunately, following the movement Beijing has redoubled its efforts to engage the DPP, as evidenced by mainland representative Zhang Zhijun’s recent meeting with a top DDP official, efforts which have been tentatively welcomed.

Finally, the protests and the criticism they elicited against the government from different quarters, including some KMT politicians, demonstrate the progressive deterioration of President Ma’s political standing in recent years. This deterioration has particularly affected the president’s credibility on cross-Strait issues, as demonstrated by his inability to handle the public debate on the CSSTA and his clumsy, reactive behavior during the protests. Put simply, a growing segment of the Taiwan public does not trust President Ma to defend Taiwan’s interests vis-à-vis the mainland. Combined with the fact that Ma has squandered a lot of political capital in CSSTA, and his low approval rates such political decline can easily leave him a “lame duck” president during the remainder of his second term. In such case, Ma Ying-jeou will find it hard to push for the completion of the remaining economic agreements postulated by ECFA and might find his position inside the KMT seriously weakened, particularly as the party prepares to elect new leadership.

These trends suggest that both Taiwan’s domestic politics and cross-Strait relations are entering into a difficult, unstable phase. The combination between these trends produces a situation in which it is much more difficult to continue with the strategy of “economics-first” engagement with Beijing but it is even harder to establish a new one. Hence, apart from completing the ECFA’s unfinished business, a tall order in itself, cross-Strait relations will likely need to wait until the next presidential election in 2016 for major progress.

In sum, the importance of the Sunflower movement is substantial, because it has delayed severely the progress of cross-Strait economic integration but, more significantly, because it embodies important trends which bode instability for Taiwan’s domestic politics and its relations with the mainland. These trends raise important questions. Would the two sides try a different strategy of engagement? Would Beijing sustain its gentler approach toward Taipei in the face of growing difficulties for cross-Strait engagement? How would the DPP balance its grassroots distrust toward Beijing with economic necessities and its desire to regain the presidency? All tough questions that need to be answered.

About the author:
Ivan Lidarev is an independent analyst and a recent MA graduate from George
Washington University’s Elliott School, where he studied International
Relations with a focus on Asia. Ivan also has a rich think-tanking
experience, having done research and interned at various institutions such
as CSIS, India’s IDSA, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for the
National Interest and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Ivan
specializes in Chinese foreign policy, Asian security and Sino-Indian
relations and speaks Bulgarian, English, French, Russian and Mandarin
Chinese. He is about to start work as an advisor to an MP at Bulgaria’s
Parliament.

The post Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: The Larger Picture – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Scientists at The University of Manchester hope a major breakthrough could lead to more effective methods for detoxifying dangerous pollutants like PCBs and dioxins. The result is a culmination of 15 years of research and has been published in Nature. It details how certain organisms manage to lower the toxicity of pollutants.

The team at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology were investigating how some natural organisms manage to lower the level of toxicity and shorten the life span of several notorious pollutants.

Professor David Leys explains the research: “We already know that some of the most toxic pollutants contain halogen atoms and that most biological systems simply don’t know how to deal with these molecules. However, there are some organisms that can remove these halogen atoms using vitamin B12. Our research has identified that they use vitamin B12 in a very different way to how we currently understand it.”

He continues: “Detailing how this novel process of detoxification works means that we are now in a position to look at replicating it. We hope that ultimately new ways of combating some of the world’s biggest toxins can now be developed more quickly and efficiently.”

It’s taken Professor Leys 15 years of research to reach this breakthrough, made possible by a dedicated European Research Council (ERC) grant. The main difficulty has been in growing enough of the natural organisms to be able to study how they detoxify the pollutants. The team at the MIB were finally able to obtain key proteins through genetic modification of other, faster growing organisms. They then used X-ray crystallography to study in 3D how halogen removal is achieved.

The main drive behind this research has been to look at ways of combatting the dozens of very harmful molecules that have been released into the environment. Many have been directly expelled by pollutants or from burning household waste. As the concentration of these molecules has increased over time their presence poses more of a threat to the environment and humanity. Some measures have already been taken to limit the production of pollutants, for example PCBs were banned in the United States in the 1970s and worldwide in 2001.

Professor Leys says: “As well as combatting the toxicity and longevity of pollutants we’re also confident that our findings can help to develop a better method for screening environmental or food samples.”

The post Major Breakthrough Could Help Detoxify Pollutants appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Afghanistan has not been a safe and stable country for several decades, and its security conditions have deteriorated gravely after the first American and NATO troops set foot into its cities. The U.S. war on Afghanistan, which was launched by former President George W. Bush with the purported aim of eradicating terrorism from the country, has so far failed to realize the dream of ultimately defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.

Despite all the failures and setbacks that Afghanistan has experienced over the recent years, especially following the 2001 U.S. invasion of the country, and notwithstanding the widespread economic insufficiency and corruption that have taken over Afghanistan, it can be felt that the landlocked nation is gradually coming to a point where its path toward stability and prosperity looks smoother and more convenient. One of the most important events in the contemporary history of Afghanistan was the third presidential election that was held on April 5, followed by a runoff round on June 14.

An independent economist and political named Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai emerged victorious after the runoff round was held, despite the fact that at the beginning, his main opponent Abdullah Abdullah of the National Coalition of Afghanistan contested the results. However, he finally conceded defeat and accepted to work with Ashraf Ghani in a government of national unity.

In the first days of assuming office, President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who is seen by some political analysts as having pro-Western political attitudes, signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with the U.S. government that would allow Washington to maintain troops in the country following the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of its entire forces.

To discuss such issues as the establishment of the new government of President Ahmadzai, the appointment of Abdullah Abdullah as Prime Minister by President Ashraf Ghani, the future of talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban representatives, the Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States, drug trafficking and poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, Iran Review conducted an exclusive interview with Prof. Najibullah Lafraie.

Mr. Lafraie was the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996 under President Burhanuddin Rabbani and is currently a professor of political science at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

The following is the text of the interview.

Q: What’s your assessment of the election of Ahsraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the President of Afghanistan? He is a prominent economist, and as the founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness, is seen as an expert with great knowledge on the economic recovery of failed states. Will Mr. Ahmadzai be able to improve Afghanistan’s economic status and address the problems it has been facing since the beginning of the war in 2001?

A: There is no doubt about Mr. Ashraf Ghani’s expertise and great knowledge on “failed states”. It seems to me, though, that he looks at the phenomenon from a Western point of view, and that may not be good enough to solve Afghanistan’s economic problems. We should not forget that he is one of the architects of the current free market economy in Afghanistan, which has led to an unprecedented level of inequality. There may be some superficial improvements, but I strongly doubt that that would raise the standard of living of vast majority of the people.

Q: In the new coalition government of Afghanistan, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah will be serving as the Prime Minister under President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzadi. Once you were the Foreign Minister, Dr. Abdullah was also serving as the spokesman for the Defense Ministry of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. How much are you familiar with his personality and ideology? Can he get along with Mr. Ahmadzai? There’s no doubt that he is an important figure and freedom fighter in the contemporary history of Afghanistan. What’s your viewpoint regarding his power sharing deal with President Ahmadzai?

A: Of course I know Dr. Abdullah personally, and I believe he is a very talented individual. I still remember the trip that we had together to some Central Asian republics after the fall of Herat to the Taliban. He was in Herat at that time, and I was impressed with the eloquence that he explained the situation in our meetings – and also his mastery of the English language, despite the fact that he had not lived in an English-speaking environment. He was very close to Ahmad Shah Massoud, both in the fighting front against the Red Army and after the liberation of Kabul; so one expects that he would have acquired some of his attributes. I’m not sure, however, that Massoud would have approved the close relations that he has developed with the Americans. That relationship, as well as his and Ashraf Ghani’s desire to maintain elite unity, would mean that the two would be able to establish a working relationship. I don’t expect that to be very smooth, though. Behind the scene there may be many quarrels, which may negatively affect the effectiveness of the government; but I think they will try to uphold the façade of unity.

Q: After President Obama took office in 2008, he ordered several additions to the already deployed troops in Afghanistan. In January 2009, for example, 3,000 U.S. soldiers moved to the provinces of Logar and Wardak. In mid-February, another 17,000 extra troops were sent to Afghanistan. However, since June 2011, the troops began to be gradually withdrawn, although the United States has won a bilateral security agreement with Afghanistan to maintain a certain number of troops to assist the Afghan armed forces in counterterrorism missions and training or advising the Afghan army. What do you think about the surge in the number of troops during the first years of President Obama in office, and what’s your viewpoint on the step-by-step withdrawal of the NATO, U.S. soldiers in the recent months?

A: Americans had learned a wrong lesson of their troop surge in Iraq. They attributed the relative calm that prevailed in that country in 2008-11 to the troops surge. In my view, though, the “awakening movement” was a much more important factor. The U.S. military tried to repeat that “success” in Afghanistan. Obama, who had campaigned on withdrawal from Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan-Pakistan, reluctantly agreed with deployment of 17,000 troops in the first weeks in office. Then he ordered General McChrystal to conduct a strategic review and come up with recommendations. His recommendation was deployment of at least 40,000 new troops. Reading Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, my impression is that President Obama was not convinced of the utility of the troops surge, but he could not oppose it lest the future failure would be blamed on him. So he agreed with deployment of 30,000 more American troops – the rest to come from allies – while taking a firm commitment from the military commanders that they would accomplish their task in two years and the drawdown to start in mid 2011.

The drawdown policy, which caused confusion and contradictory statements, was labeled as “exit strategy” and officially adopted by NATO in its 2010 summit in Lisbon. The recent withdrawal of troops is part of that “strategy”, which has set the end of 2014 as the end of NATO’s combat operations in Afghanistan. However, the U.S. does not seem ready to withdraw from Afghanistan completely, most probably due to its strategic location. It wants to cut its losses, while maintaining a presence, a policy advocated by Joe Biden against military’s troop surge in 2009. Thus, the push for strategic relationship and BSA (Bilateral Security Agreement)!

Q: The United States has spent around $640 billion in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2013. However, it has failed to establish peace and a long-lasting security in the war-torn country. Smuggling, drug trafficking, corruption and the weakness of the local armed forces are rampant and the future is marred with uncertainty. How is the United States going to handle the situation? The continuation of the war will impose additional costs on the American taxpayers, and the U.S. government is fighting several wars on different fronts. Will it be able to find a face-saving solution that will put a lid on its failures in Afghanistan?

A: The Joe Biden policy option that I referred to above called for reliance on Special Forces and air bombardment. That will cost much less than the 100,000 troops that the U.S. had in Afghanistan at the height of the troop surge. Of course the withdrawal of the bulk of foreign troops, and ineffectiveness of Afghan security forces, would mean that the Taliban would bring more territory under their control. That may be acceptable to the Americans as long as the “government” in Kabul survives and they have access to Afghanistan bases. There are also those in the U.S. and the UK who advocate a practical division of Afghanistan. That cannot be ruled out either. As for “face-saving solution”, I think that is possible only through a peace deal with the Taliban. President Obama’s announcement in May this year that all American troops will be out of Afghanistan by 2016 seemed to pave the way for such an agreement because of Taliban’s insistence on complete withdrawal of foreign troops. The exchange of prisoners in June further raised the hopes. However, no mention of 2016 was made on the occasion of signing the Bilateral Security Agreement, so the Americans may have backtracked on that.

Q: The White House had put a great deal of pressure on Ahsraf Ghani Ahmadzai to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement with Washington to enable the U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after the 2014 deadline for the complete withdrawal of the NATO forces. The signing of the deal means that at least 10,000 U.S. troops will stay in Afghanistan. Informed sources say that the President-elect is not unwilling to accept the U.S. proposal. What’s your take on that?

A: As we already know, he did sign it on the same day of his inauguration. It is interesting, though, that he did not sign it personally. My information is that General Bismillah Muhammadi was asked to sign it, but he refused; so the task fell on Hanif Atmar. Why didn’t Ashraf Ghani sign it personally? Most probably because he did not want a historical blemishment of his name. Why did he rush in having it signed? Because he owed his presidency to the Americans, and he didn’t have any other choice; and Dr Abdullah was in full agreement with him on that point.

Q: Corruption is a common and widespread concern in Afghanistan. President-elect Ahmadzai has said in a recent interview with BBC World that he will not tolerate corruption. Do you think he will be successful in fighting corruption in Afghanistan?

A: He not only said that in an interview, but he has focus on fighting corruption in his first weeks in office; and that is admirable. Unfortunately, however, he and his vice presidents and other high officials are all part of the same ruling elite responsible for the corruption of the past 13 years – although Ashraf Ghani, like Hamid Karzai, may not be personally involved. Intolerance of corruption would mean dissociation with all these people and finding new people with personal integrity and clean records. Can we expect that from someone who chose as his vice president the person whom he had described as a murder[er]? I doubt it! At best there will be some cosmetic changes and some symbolic anti corruption cases.

Q: A loyaj irga (grand assembly) was convened in Afghanistan in June 2010 by the government of President Karzai upon his reelection in 2009 to address a number of concerns and issues the Afghan society was facing at the time, including the need to engage in direct negotiations with Taliban to persuade them to end insurgency and armed attacks across the country. Since then, there were reports of many secret and official encounters between the government of President Karzai and the Taliban leaders, including the talks in Dubai earlier this year. Do you think that the Taliban are reliable and logical enough to make concessions during the talks and accept the demands made by the Afghan government to end insurgency in the country?

A: The Taliban and the Karzai government could both blame each other of entering the talks in bad faith. It seemed that the Taliban considered the Kabul regime as a puppet, and wanted to talk directly to the Americans. Karzai at times seemed to genuinely want peace with the Taliban, but other times his government’s efforts seemed aimed at dividing the Taliban. I’m not sure about the reported talks in Dubai in February this year. It seemed to have been with a former member of Taliban whom they have disavowed, not with the Taliban representative office. That office was briefly opened in Doha thanks to an understanding with the Americans, but it was soon closed due to Karzai’s objection to the name of the office and their banner flying.

As for the prospect of success of the talks, I think the Taliban cannot be expected to make all the concessions and accept all of the American-Kabul government’s demands; the same way that the other side cannot be expected to accept all the Taliban demands. I believe the most important issue for the Taliban is the complete withdrawal of foreign troops; and if that is met, most probably they will be ready to make concessions in other areas. Negotiation is a process of give and take; and if total withdrawal of troops is on the agenda, I believe it will be possible to come to some kind of agreement.

Q: As a final question, is it true that the United States contributed to the rise of the cultivation and production of narcotics and drugs in Afghanistan since 2001? The U.S. military has publicly said that it’s protecting Afghanistan’s poppy fields to appease the farmers and prevent them from turning against the occupation, and according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released by the United Nations, the cultivation of poppy across the country rose 36% last year. Would you please expand more on that?

A: When I was in Kabul in late 2006 and early 2007, there were allegations –sometimes by high-level government officials—that the foreign troops were directly involved in the smuggling of narcotics. There is no clear evidence of that, but it cannot be ruled out either. What is clear is the fact that the U.S. and its allies failed to come up with a well-defined, long term, anti-drug strategy; and their ad hoc and contradictory policies contributed to the rise of narcotic production. To give an example, in the trip I mentioned President Karzai told me how the Americans’ decision to offer cash to farmers in opium producing provinces to switch to an alternative crop encouraged the farmers in provinces where opium was not cultivated before to go that route – in the hope of securing some free cash. The farmers who had stopped poppy cultivation returned to the practice once the cash flow ceased, and those who had recently undertaken that practice continued doing it. Before 2001 opium was cultivated in 13 provinces of Afghanistan, by 2006 it was cultivated in 30 provinces!

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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should make its upcoming Plenum meeting meaningful by taking steps to address human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a letter today to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. The Plenum, which is to focus on the “rule of law,” will be held in Beijing on October 20-23, 2014.

“Under Xi’s leadership, critical legal reforms have stalled, and the state violates or fails to protect people’s basic legal rights every day,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “Gaining any credibility on this subject inside and outside China requires dramatic steps.”

The letter urges Xi and the CCP to take three steps: releasing all those detained for peacefully expressing their views, withdrawing legally dubious decisions regarding Hong Kong, and committing to abolishing all forms of arbitrary detention.

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The latest test, conducted on a blood sample of Spain’s nurse Teresa Romero, who is the first person in Europe to contract Ebola virus, showed no traces of the deadly disease, a family spokesperson Teresa Mesa said Sunday.

“Her blood sample tested negative for the virus,” Mesa said, adding as much had been revealed to her at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital, which is treating Teresa Romero.

Although the results showed the nurse is no longer infected, the second test will be carried out to confirm she is Ebola-free.

According to the Spanish medics, Romero’s condition has recently stabilized and she is likely to recover soon. Teresa Mesa confirmed this information, saying Romero had improved appetite and could already walk.

Teresa Romero, 44, was one of the nurses treating Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo, who caught the Ebola virus disease, while assisting patients in Sierra Leone, one of the three Ebola zones in West Africa.

She tested positive for the virus on October 6. Four days later, media reports said the nurse was to receive the experimental drug ZMapp that had cured two US aid workers earlier in August. Ramos has also been treated with a hyperimmune serum, developed from the blood of a person who has recovered from Ebola, and an antiviral.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 4,500 people have died from the current Ebola outbreak, with over 9,000 cases confirmed or suspected.

There is currently no officially approved medication for the disease, but several countries are now working on developing a drug to halt the virus spreading further.

Earlier this month, the Russian Health Minister confirmed that Russia is now ready to test its Ebola vaccine on primates and may soon start clinical trials.

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By Samuel Jaberg

Lump sum taxation, the tailor-made measure tax regime designed to attract wealthy foreigners to Switzerland, is facing a crucial test as voters head to the polls on November 30 to decide whether or not to abolish the system for good.

Proponents of the initiative say lump sum taxation is unfair and opaque, while opponents fear Switzerland will lose in attractiveness and suffer a mass exodus of wealthy taxpayers should the system be abolished.

Those taxpayers, the so-called “tax exiles”, include big names like British rock star Phil Collins, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. All benefit from the system of lump sum taxation which sees some 5,600 foreigners without a revenue-raising activity in Switzerland taxed solely on their spending and not on their revenue or real fortune.

But succumbing to a wave of public pressure, lump sum taxation, which boosted federal, cantonal and local coffers by some CHF700 million ($733 million) in 2012, has already been killed off in five of the country’s 26 cantons in recent years.

The system no longer exists in Zurich, Basel City, Basel Country, Schaffhausen and Appenzell Outer Rhodes.

However, St Gallen, Thurgau, Lucerne, Nidwalden and Bern, have voted to keep the system, albeit with tougher eligibility conditions.
Leftwing initiative

At the end of November, a nationwide vote will decide whether or not to deliver the knockout blow to the system of taxation that was originally created as a means of taxing wealthy English who retired to the Lake Geneva region at the end of the 19th century.

Dubbed ‘End tax breaks for millionaires (abolish lump sum taxation)’, the initiative was launched by the leftwing Alternative List groups, supported by the centre-left Social Democrats, the Greens and the trade unions.

They argue the preferential regime is arbitrary and contrary to equal rights enshrined in the Swiss constitution.

“Lump sum taxation has led to an intolerable climate in Switzerland. It is not acceptable that somebody who is middle class pays more taxes than a foreign millionaire or billionaire living a couple of kilometres away,” says Senator Christian Levrat, who is also president of the Social Democratic Party.

But the initiative faces strong opposition from the right and centrist parties.

The lump sum system was originally devised to prevent double taxation of assets spread over multiple countries. Many rich foreigners living in Switzerland either earn their income abroad or hold some of their wealth there, and are also taxed in other countries accordingly.

The use of lump sum taxation has been favoured in recent years primarily by cantons known for their favourable climate and environmental conditions.

Vaud, with 1,396 cases in 2012 uses the regime the most, followed by Valais (1,274) and Ticino (877), Geneva (710), Graubünden (268) and Bern (211).

According to its opponents, the initiative represents an intolerable attack on federalism and the autonomy of cantons to determine their own tax statutes.

“Each canton should be able to decide its own tax system and adapt it according to its individual situation. Other cantons have for decades attracted foreign multinationals by offering tax breaks. Is that more ethical?”, argues Fournier.

But the left argues the system creates a kind of competition between the cantons that is akin to dumping.

Supporters of an abolition of lump sum taxation say the manner in which cantons apply the regime is opaque. They criticise that a number of beneficiaries use the system as a means of tax avoidance because they do in fact exercise lucrative activities in Switzerland.

Levrat also points to the adverse effects that the presence of so many rich foreigners has on certain mountain resorts.

“What advantage does it give Gstaad [in the Bernese Oberland region] to have all these luxury chalets that are empty for a good part of the year? The super-rich spend next to nothing and they only help to massively inflate rental prices for local residents who pay a heavy price for this unreasonable development,” he says.

During the parliamentary debate, several members of the right blasted the left for attacking the wealthy.

They also stressed the importance of such taxation practices in making Switzerland economically attractive, and their concern that abolishing lump sum taxation altogether would result in a massive exodus of wealthy foreigners from the country.

“Every country has its own way of attracting people with large fortunes,” says Fournier.

“France, Portugal and Spain use this method of taxation on a much larger scale. If this initiative passes, we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Fournier cites the example of Zurich where half of all foreigners who benefited from lump sum taxation left the canton two years after the system was abolished in 2009.

“And those who stayed pay less tax than before. So it’s the Swiss taxpayers that have to pick up the bill,” he says.

However, observers point out that half of those who stayed pay more tax than before.

The political left reads the situation in Zurich very differently.

Tax revenues have only diminished slightly and just one in six foreigners left Switzerland over the past few years as many of them moved to other cantons.

The situation would be very different if lump sum taxation was abolished across the country, leftwing campaigners says.

“In most countries that have a similar lifestyle and infrastructure, ordinary taxation is much higher than in Switzerland,” says Levrat.

He argues that taxation is not all that counts. “These foreigners have come to Switzerland first and foremost for its peacefulness, stability, lifestyle and favourable business environment. All of which implies a minimum contribution to the common effort.”

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By Peter Certo

If Barack Obama owes his presidency to one thing, it was the good sense he had back in 2002 to call the Iraq War what it was: “dumb.”

Now, with scarcely a whisper of debate, Obama has become the fourth consecutive U.S. president to bomb Iraq — and in fact has outdone his predecessors by spreading the war to Islamic State targets in Syria as well. With the Pentagon predicting that this latest conflict could rage for three years or longer, Obama is now poised to leave behind a Middle East quagmire that closely resembles the one he was elected to end.

Obama says the plan is to hammer Islamic State targets from the air while bolstering partners on the ground. There are two big problems with this.

First, bombs kill and injure civilians, potentially radicalizing their friends and families.

Look no further than the drone war battlegrounds of Yemen and Pakistan, where terrorist recruiters have exploited the severe trauma inflicted on civilians there to sign up new members. A similar dynamic could play out in Iraq and Syria, where the White House has suspended the already paltry rules meant to limit civilian casualties from drone strikes.

Second, those partners on the ground come with a lot of baggage.

Despite outnumbering Islamic State forces 40 to 1, the Iraqi Army turned over Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — without firing a shot, leaving behind millions of dollars worth of advanced U.S. military equipment. And when the Iraqi Army does fight, it has a nasty penchant for dropping indiscriminate (and illegal) barrel bombs on civilian neighborhoods, as it did in Islamist-held Fallujah earlier this year.

Shiite militias may step in to fill the gap left by the Iraqi Army. But many of these groups were deeply involved in the sectarian bloodletting of Iraq’s turbulent post-invasion years, and some have refused to collaborate with the United States.

While the Kurds may prove more reliable allies, their first priority is to consolidate their own territory in Iraq — as evidenced by their seizure of the disputed (and oil-rich) city of Kirkuk during the chaos of the Islamic State invasion in June.

In Syria, the options are even worse: It’s either the dictator Bashar al-Assad — with whom Washington has refused to cooperate — or a gaggle of so-called “moderate” Syrian rebel groups that the White House plans to vet, train, and arm to the teeth.

The CIA, which has been working directly with Syrian rebels in Jordan, is reportedly deeply skeptical of this plan. These rebels are unlikely to defeat either Assad or the Islamic State, much less both of them. A better bet is, like the even better-funded Iraqi Army, many of them will wind up turning their arms over to the Islamic State’s fighters.

Remember this: If the Islamic State gets beaten back, the United States will be responsible for whatever takes its place. As Washington should have learned after funding Osama bin Laden’s crusade against the Soviets in Afghanistan — supplying the very fighters who would later form groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban — the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

The Islamic State is gaining ground because of political breakdowns on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. That vacuum is one salient legacy of the last war in Iraq. Pumping more money, bombs, and arms into the region will only deepen the crisis — while turning more Americans into targets.

If Washington wants to do something about the Islamic State, it should send humanitarian aid to displaced civilians, restart talks to end Syria’s civil war, and condition all assistance to Baghdad on its willingness to improve conditions for Iraq’s Sunni minority.

The last thing Obama should do is fight a war for allies who are losing a popularity contest to a group that beheads people.

Peter Certo is the deputy editor of OtherWords and the editor of Foreign Policy In Focus.

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