Spain’s Synthetic Index of Export Activity (Spanish acronym: ISAE) stands at 7.6 points for the third quarter of the year and reflects a reduction of 15.5 points on the previous quarter (23.1 points).

This downturn can be mainly explained by a less favourable perception from export companies on the quarter in question, which coincides with the three months of summer, and, to a lesser extent, by the long-term expectations on exports. In contrast, there is increased optimism regarding the short-term expectations on export activity.

Of the three components of the ISAE, the current balance indicator fell by 24.7 points on the figure posted in the second quarter (from 21.9 to -2.8 points). This fall was expected in light of the worsening perception on the outlook at three months reflected in the previous survey. On the other hand, the indicator representing the outlook at three months rose by 3.2 points (from 13.4 to 16.6 points). In turn, the indicator representing the outlook at 12 months fell by 9.1 points (from 41.9 to 32.8 points).

Factors in export activity

The evolution of foreign demand continues to be the factor that most of those surveyed consider to be having the greatest positive impact on export activity (39.4%).

The factor cited by the largest number of those surveyed as having a negative impact is international price competition (57.4%), followed closely by raw material prices (48.4%).

Export prices and profit margins are another two factors analysed this quarter and that affect export activity. In both cases, the perception that they have remained stable continues to grow, with only minor changes in trend.

90.6% of those surveyed consider that the hiring of personnel for activities related to export activity remained stable or increased in the third quarter. The same opinion was expressed by 91.7% of those surveyed when asked about the following quarter, and 90.1% believe this to be true for the coming 12 months. Furthermore, 89.8% of those surveyed state that the number of jobs dedicated to export activities has remained stable or increased in the third quarter of the year.

The net hiring balance indicator in the quarter for export activities stands at 3.7 points (8.1 in the previous survey), while this figure on the forecast at three months stands at 1.6 points (2.9 in the previous survey). In turn, this figure on the forecast at 12 months stands at 9.1 points (12.3 in the previous survey).

Export destinations in the order backlog

Results from the order backlog in the third quarter worsened for all destinations, mainly those in Europe. However, forecasts for the fourth quarter are more positive than the current quarter for all regions included in the survey, except for non-EU European countries and Oceania.

In the long term, the countries that most Spanish export companies believe to be their main destinations are once again Germany (40.6%) and France (40.3%).

The post Spain: Export Activity Remains Positive In Third Quarter appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Amit Cowshish

In the interview he gave to an English news channel last week, the former chief of naval staff said being a service chief is not just about preening about on the national TV when ‘in actual fact you are unable to get a set of batteries for your submarines’.1.

He talked about professional competence, accountability and responsibility of the services not being matched by authority. Clarifying what he meant by authority was the power to approve something, he cited examples of the difficulty in even changing the submarine batteries and commencing repairs and refits of ships, aircraft and submarines in the Indian yards.

The ‘dysfunctional and inefficient’ operating environment, he said, was the root cause of his resignation.

The angst – undoubtedly justified – underlying these statements is a commentary on the deep rooted status-quoist tendency not just in regard to larger issue of higher defence management but even comparatively mundane issues like delegation of administrative and financial powers to the armed forces.

For the record, however, it needs to be mentioned that while the service chiefs do not have any financial power per se, the entire budget is placed at the disposal of the services right in the beginning of the year and there is wide-ranging delegation of administrative and financial powers – both under the revenue and capital segments – to the services to facilitate utilization of funds.

For example, repairs and refits are scheduled in accordance with the operational-cum-refit cycle prescribed for each class of ship. A three-year schedule of repair and refit is finalised during the annual refit conference (ARC) chaired by the chief of material (COM) at the naval headquarters (NHQ). The proposals for offloading of refits due to constraints of capacity/expertise of the naval shipyards are also finalized during these ARCs.2. To facilitate execution of the finalised schedule, financial powers are delegated to the vice chief of naval staff (VCNS) and the chief of material (COM) for sanctioning repair and refit of ships and crafts.

This is only an example. Financial powers are delegated under various heads: stores (which would include procurement of batteries), clothing and victual, maintenance, outsourcing of services, transportation, office contingencies and miscellaneous expenditure, training, organization of symposia and conferences, research and development, cash awards for inventions and innovations, employment of temporary establishment or labour (industrial and non-industrial) in excess of the fixed scales, indigenization, etc.

On the capital side also, the budget is managed by the services. The annual capital acquisition plan is prepared by the service headquarters. Though it requires to be approved by the defence acquisition council, the plan is seldom subjected to any change at this stage. Starting with INR 10 crore in 2006, the financial power delegated to VCNS (as indeed to other services) presently stands at INR 150 crore for each acquisition proposal. The approval-in-principal for such proposals is accorded by the services capital acquisition plan categorization higher committee (SCAPCHC) headed by a three-star service officer in the headquarters integrated defence staff.

Where, then, lies the rub? What has made the operating environment ‘dysfunctional and inefficient’? Some of this problem is on account of inscrutable issues like ‘integration of the services with the MoD’ or ‘civil-military relations’ but, in large part, the immediate problem lies with MoD’s inability to resolve more mundane issues.

First and foremost is the issue of the manner of empowerment of services. Through explicit orders and by implicit conduct of MoD over the years, services enjoy considerable authority in regard to practically every aspect of their functioning. This includes matters related to recruitment, training, deployment, procurement of stores, transportation of personnel, execution of civil works, etc.

However, there is no mechanism to constantly, or even periodically, review the existing scheme of delegation of powers to keep pace with the changing needs. The orders on administrative powers delegated to the services were issued almost 15 years back. The orders on delegation of financial powers to enable the services to execute administrative decisions were last reviewed in 2006. Surely, instituting a mechanism to regularly review the scheme of delegation of administrative and financial powers is not an intractable problem.

Second, there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing scheme of delegation of powers. Take, for example, the financial power to sanction repair and refit of a ship. The existing delegation of power (since 2006) is as follows3.:

Not only is this architecture arbitrary and hopelessly outdated, it is highly inefficient and needlessly multi-layered. Imagine a ship stranded in foreign waters awaiting approval of the defence minister for getting the necessary repairs carried out, only because the cost involved is more than INR 20 crore!

Third, these powers are exercisable with the concurrence of integrated financial advisors. Even if it is not a problem area – though, this is how it is widely seen – it does necessarily entail a long processing time. A proposal requiring the approval of the minister needs to go through – apart from the hierarchy in the service headquarters –the under secretary, deputy secretary/director, joint secretary, additional secretary and the defence secretary in MoD and the corresponding levels in the finance division before it reaches the minister.

Fourth, in the absence of clear instructions on what these functionaries are required to focus on while processing a proposal and given the different backgrounds and competence levels of the functionaries, obtaining necessary approvals could turn out to be an extremely frustrating experience.

Fifth, the system of examining every proposal on file without any mechanism for collegiate decision making is inherently inefficient. Limited use of information technology has exacerbated this problem.

These are not complicated issues that defy a quick solution. Resolving them is certainly not a panacea but it would go a long way in setting right the ‘dysfunctional and inefficient environment’ that drove the previous naval chief to resign in sheer frustration.

Notes:
1. ‘Quit due to dysfunctional environment in Navy, Admiral Joshi says’ the Times of India, October 15, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Quit-due-to-dysfunctional-environment-in-Navy-Admiral-Joshi-says/articleshow/44808803.cms

2. Paragraph 14.3.1 Defence Procurement Manual, 2009, http://mod.nic.in/writereaddata/DPM2009.pdf

3. Source: MoD letter No PL/3221/NHQ/486-S/2006/D(N-IV) dated July 19, 2006

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

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Dysfunctionaloperatingenvironmentindefence_acowshish_211014.html

The post India’s Dysfunctional Operating Environment In Defence: The Problem – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Reyhan Güner

Ponemon Institute, an organization that conducts independent research on privacy, data protection and information security policy, released a report entitled “2014 Global Report on the Cost of Cyber Crime” sponsored by HP Enterprise Security. The data put forth in the report is based on 257 representative sample organizations operating in various industries and sectors of seven countries, namely, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, France, and for the first time, the Russian Federation.

According to the report, the U.S. is ranked as the country that has the highest total average cost of cyber crime at $12.7 million in 2014 and Russia has the lowest total average cost at $3.3 million. The sample from Germany ranked second with a total average cost of $8.13 million, in front of Japan with $6.91 million, France $6.38 million, the UK $5.93 million and Australia at $3.99 million.

The report reveals that all six countries experienced a net increase in the cost of cyber crime over the past year. Here, the percentage net change between 2013 and 2014 (excluding Russia) was 10.4%.

Significant findings from the report

According to the report, industries fall victim to cyber crime at differing degrees with the average annual cost of cyber crime varying according to the industry in which a company is active. Hence, organizations in energy and utilities, and in financial services experience substantially higher costs of cyber crime than organizations operating in media, life sciences and healthcare. The most costly cyber crimes are caused by malicious insiders, denial of services and web-based attacks, all of which account for more than 55 percent of all cyber crime costs per organization on an annual basis. The report also recommends enabling technologies such as SIEM, intrusion prevention systems and applications security testing solutions in order to mitigate these kinds of attacks.

Finally, the report underlines that unless a cyber attack is resolved quickly, it can become much more costly. Results show a positive relationship between the time it takes to contain an attack and the organizational cost. The average time it took to contain a cyber attack was 31 days, with an average cost for relevant organizations of $639,462 during this 31-day period. This represents a 23% increase from the last year’s estimated average cost of $509,665 which was based on a 27-day remediation period.

The post Cyber Crime On Rise: Cost Of Cyber Attacks Increases By 10.4% In 2014 appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The results of Peru´s regional and municipal elections on Oct. 5 were no surprise. National political parties continue on their route to disappearance, and corruption has infiltrated politics.

The country´s 20.6 million voters chose from 106,058 names representing 475 political organizations. The candidates competed for leadership positions in 25 regional governments, 195 provinces, and 1,843 districts. What is clear following these elections, says analyst Fernando Tuesta, is that “political party fragmentation has increased.”

Since 1990, traditional parties like Acción Popular, Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) or Partido Aprista, Partido Popular Cristiano and Izquierda Unida have lost ground to so-called “emerging parties,” which Tuesta called “political organizations without ideological anchors, with little organizational structure and highly personalized, that register as national parties, win presidential or parliamentary elections, but have little to no sub-national reach.”

“The main feature of these organizations is their personalist and endogamous development,” Tuesta writes in his blog, Politika, published by the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). Moreover, national parties have been displaced by regional organizations that are not linked to each other, and that are only in power for one term. Examples are Alianza Renace Ayacucho, Puro Ancash, Kausachun Cusco, or Pasco Verde, with campaign promises focused on demands.

Candidates from political parties won only six regional government seats, while regional organizations claimed victories in the remaining 19.“That high turnover, dispersion and lack of partisan attachments make presidents [of regional governments] who are chosen from regional organizations a box full of surprises,” says Tuesta. Without the ideological commitment, “most follow the path of pragmatism,” he added.

What ensues is that highly questionable candidates are chosen. According to website Útero.pe, 1,395 candidates this year have been convicted of criminal or civil offenses, including seven found guilty of homicide, 13 of drug trafficking, and five of terrorism. And the Public Prosecutor´s Office says 127 candidates were under investigation for money laundering.

The civil association Transparencia that works on democratic consolidation, released a statement on Oct. 6 criticizing extensive candidate lists like in the most recent elections, on the grounds that they “impede the consolidation of a stable and representative party system [and] hamper campaign finance auditing tasked to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE).”

“Steals but does public works”

Corruption was a recurring theme throughout this electoral campaign season. A poll in late September by Ipsos Perú showed that 59 percent of respondents would vote for a mayor who “steals but does public work,” indicating a high tolerance among the Peruvian electorate for embezzlement.

The most emblematic case of this kind of municipal authorities is Luis Castañeda Lossio, who was elected mayor of Lima with over 50 percent of the vote despite the serious allegations of corruption against him during his previous administrations in the Municipality of Lima between 2002 and 2010. An example is the so-called “Comunicore case” involving the purchase of a debt of US$13 million the Municipality of Lima had, by a company related to drug trafficking. A Datum poll revealed that 49 percent of respondents believed that Castañeda would steal but will do more public works.

Transparencia called attention to the fact that, according to ONPE investigations, only one-third of political organizations report campaign spending within the allotted time. In a context of organized crime, especially as drug trafficking and illegal mining are pushing their way into politics, control of campaign finances becomes much more important.

Since current laws do not ban candidates who have committed acts of corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism, or rape, from entering public office, Transparencia recommends that the bar to participate in elections be raised. “We have to open the debate to establish restrictions or barriers to those who committed crimes of corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism and rape, and for those who refuse to comply with child support or owe civil penalties for the commission of any crime.”

“The participation of candidates who have been sentenced or convicted for particularly serious crimes increases public mistrust in politics and affects the quality of democratic representation,” the statement added.

Transparencia called for immediate changes to the current Political Parties Law to include requirements and incentives so that political groups, in order to recuperate their representativeness, can maintain effective and continuous activity throughout the country.

The association says this will “reduce the high fragmentation” that now causes “most regional and local governments to be in the hands of organizations with limited territorial reach.”

The post Peru: Corruption As Political Ideology appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In a recent article on Sri Lanka’s forthcoming presidential election, this author has argued that the incumbent president’s quest for a third term will not be a cake-walk and the race will be tight. The primary reason for this argument is the fact that the president does not have adequate support among the minority communities. In the absence of meaningful minority backing he needs about 65 percent of the Sinhala votes, which under the present condition, will not be an easy task. Therefore, like it or not, he needs to go on a relentless offensive for the entire Sinhala-Buddhist vote, using most probably nationalism as the primary weapon.

The unfolding political scene in Colombo indicates that the president may face problems even within the Sinhala-Buddhist community, making the forthcoming presidential election a tougher race. The issue emanates from the recent politics of Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), hitherto an ardent supporter of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The JHU came into force with the aim of creating a dharma rajya in Sri Lanka and is one of the first political entities to join the broad coalition built by the president in 2005. The JHU, a political party, is founded strongly on Buddhist ethos and philosophies and managed to stay loyal to the president until very recently.

Last week, charging that too much political power is concentrated on one man, i.e the president, Venerable Athureliye Rathana Thera, one of the powerful leaders of the JHU, demanded that the constitution be changed adopting the parliamentary system of governance with some modifications. This may be a response to the growing popularity of the slogan of abolishing the executive presidential system in Sri Lanka among the Colombo elite. The party also has other demand such as limiting the cabinet of ministers to a minimum and so on. What is interesting to note is that the demands sound like a precondition for the party’s support for Mahinda Rajapaksa in the forthcoming presidential election.

According to a leading Sri Lankan weekly, Thera has declared that “the constitutional amendment should be passed before the presidential election” and has warned that “we will have to politically defeat him (President Rajapaksa) if the changes are not done.” The tone of Thera’s message makes one wonder whether the decision to leave the government is already made and the present slogan of constitutional change has been taken up for political expediency. The party is also talking about a third, common candidate. One, however, has to wait and see if the party will leave the government on this issue. The government however is not in the mood to alter the constitution to accommodate the reformists. If both parties fail to come to a compromising and face saving-formula, the JHU may be forced not to support the government in the presidential election. Absence of the JHU support will be a serious political blow to the government, because it has the potential to reduce Sinhala-Buddhist vote. The JHU’s vote bank does not look substantial at this point in time, but it is symbolically very important to preserve the outlook of the government.

Another new issue that could also dilute the government vote is the controversy over the president’s eligibility to contest for the third term. Some constitutional and legal scholars are of the view that the president is ineligible to contest again, which will not have a practical impact because the president’s candidacy in the forthcoming election is already decided regardless of the legal implications of the argument. The government will not consider this a major issue because regime supporters have already rejected the notion. But the danger is that the neutrals in this election could buy into this argument and may decide not to vote for the sitting president. This could take a tiny bit of Sinhala-Buddhist vote from the government.

In essence, it is possible that the government may not be able to secure an overwhelming endorsement from the Sinhala-Buddhist constituency. If this happens, Sri Lanka may be forced to count the preferential votes. According to the constitution, a candidate, in order to win, needs to receive “more than one-half of the valid votes cast,” which is 50 percent plus one vote; not 50.1 percent or 51 percent votes. One of the possible scenarios is that no candidate receives the required 50 percent of the votes cast if an election is held in January next year. This could happen if President Rajapaksa fails to secure an overwhelming endorsement from the Sinhala-Buddhist voters and the UNP fails to build a broad coalition, or if there are too many candidates to split the votes. What happens then? Sri Lankan voters are allowed to indicate their second and third preferences when they vote in a presidential election. If no candidate receives more than one half of the votes cast, according to the constitution, the preferential votes need to be counted. This process involves three steps. First, all candidates except the two who received the most number of votes will be eliminated from the competition. Given the presidential election history in Sri Lanka, it is clear that there will be more than two candidates. Second, the second preferential votes of the eliminated candidates, if cast in favor of one of the remaining two candidates, will be added to their account. Third, the third preferential votes of the eliminated candidates, if cast in favor of one of the two remaining candidates, will be added to their account. Then, the one who receives the “majority of the votes” will be declared the winner.

Sri Lanka has never counted the preferential votes as there was always a clear winner, even in some of the closest contests. For example, Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1988, President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1999, and Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005 received only 50.43, 51.12, and 50.29 percent of the votes, respectively. Therefore, the public has no knowledge of the numbers and patterns of preferential votes. Perhaps this time around it will be different and Sri Lankans may be counting the preferential votes for the first time. The major contenders, therefore, will need to campaign not only for the votes but also for the preferential votes of the minor candidates. Alliance building among major and minor candidates could continue even after the candidate names are officially declared by the Department of Elections.

(Dr. S. I. Keethaponcalan is Chair of the Conflict Resolution Department, Salisbury University, Maryland. Email: skeetha@yahoo.com).

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Hindus have commended Vatican for its “message to Hindus for the feast of Deepavali”, extending joyful greetings “on the festive occasion of Deepavali”.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, welcomed the Vatican for wishing “May the Transcendent Light illumine your hearts, homes and communities…” and desiring “harmony and happiness, peace and prosperity”.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, extolled Vatican’s thought on the occasion, which stated: “Nurturing a culture of inclusion thus becomes a common call and a shared responsibility, which must be urgently undertaken.”

Rajan Zed agreed with Vatican’s call given in the message: “…join together with followers of other religions and with people of good will to foster a culture of inclusion for a just and peaceful society.”

Zed urged His Holiness Pope Francis to visit a Hindu temple in the near future to promote mutual understanding and respect between the faiths. All religions should work together for a just and peaceful world, Zed stressed.

Rajan Zed says that in our shared pursuit for the truth, we can learn from one another and thus can arrive nearer to the truth. This dialogue may help us vanquish the stereotypes, prejudices, caricatures, etc., passed on to us from previous generations. As dialogue brings us reciprocal enrichment, we shall be spiritually richer than before the contact, Zed adds.

Titled—Christians and Hindus: Together to foster a culture of “inclusion”—this Deepavali message was signed by President Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Secretary Father Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot of Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Zed suggested that it would be even better if such messages were signed by Pope himself.

Most popular of Hindu festivals Deepavali (Diwali), the festival of lights, aims at dispelling the darkness and lighting up the lives and symbolizes the victory of good over evil. It falls on October 23 this year.

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One of the great figures in American journalism has died.

Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post, who oversaw coverage of the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon, was 93 years old.

Bradlee died at his home in Washington of natural causes.

Bradlee skyrocketed to fame in the early 1970s – first by spearheading a legal battle by the Post and The New York Times that culminated in a Supreme Court ruling allowing the newspapers to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers – a secret government accounting of America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Then, he oversaw an investigation by the Post into the burglary at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. His collaboration with young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein eventually brought down the Nixon presidency and established the Washington Post as one of the world’s top newspapers.

Donald Graham, the former publisher of the Post, hailed Bradlee as “the best American newspaper editor of his time.”

Donald Graham’s mother, Katherine Graham, was publisher of The Washington Post during Bradlee’s tenure.

Bradlee’s Watergate fame was sealed with the movie All the President’s Men, in which he was portrayed by actor Jason Robards.

After retiring, Bradlee wrote a memoir entitled A Good Life in 1995 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama last year.

In a statement released by the White House, Obama called Bradlee “a true newspaperman” who believed journalism was “a public good vital to our democracy.”

“The standard he set – a standard for honest, objective, meticulous reporting – encouraged so many others to enter the profession,” Obama said.

The post Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee Dies At 93 appeared first on Eurasia Review.

​Islamic State has published a new video in which a jihadist shows off brand-new American hardware, which was purportedly intended for the Kurds they are fighting in the Syrian border town of Kobani.

The undated video, posted by the unofficial IS mouthpiece “a3maq news”, sees a jihadist showing several boxes of munitions with English-language markings, with a parachute spread out on the ground beside.

Although it is unclear what was the bundle shown in the video, the militant explains that “this is some of the military equipment that was dropped by American forces.”

“These are the bombs that the American forces dropped for the Kurdish parties,” he says. “They are spoils of war for the Mujahedeen.”

On Sunday the US said that three of its Air Force C-130 planes successfully delivered 27 bundles of military and medical supplies, which it said were not from the US, but from Kurds in Iraq.

On Monday, however, the US Central Command admitted that originally there had been 28 deliveries, and a “stray bundle” had to be destroyed “to prevent these supplies falling into enemy hands.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile said that the weapons dropped by the US may have ended up in the hands of the militants, AP reports. No independent verification has yet been made of the video showing munitions, hand grenades, and other weaponry.

Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin says that he is not surprised that IS has gotten their hands on a US air-drop.

“This is not surprising. Because it is necessary to coordinate clearer (action) with the Syrian government and generally act on the basis of the decisions of the Security Council,” Churkin told TASS.

Meanwhile Bashar Jaafari, Syrian envoy to the UN, told the news agency that while he could not confirm that IS has intercepted US weapons, Syria, he says was not notified of US arms drops.

“No, we were not informed (about air drops). They did it only once, when the American permanent representative (Samantha Power) met with me to inform my government through me about the beginning of the military operation,” Jaafari said.

The video itself caused quite a stir on the social media landscape with users“thanking”Washington for delivering the arms into the wrong hands, something the US has in the past vowed to avoid.

White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes meanwhile insisted US cargo always reaches the correct destination and people.

“We feel very confident that, when we air drop support as we did into Kobani… we’ve been able to hit the target in terms of reaching the people we want to reach,” Rhodes told CNN on Monday.

“What I can assure people is that, when we are delivering aid now, we focus it on the people we want to receive that assistance. Those are civilians in need. Those are forces that we’re aligned with in the fight against ISIL [the government’s preferred acronym for IS], and we take precautions to make sure that it’s not falling into the wrong hands.”

The US-led coalition has conducted over 135 air strikes against IS targets around Kobani, including 4 on Tuesday, this week was the first time Washington had delivered arms to Kurdish fighters via airdrop “intended to enable continued resistance against ISIL’s attempts to overtake Kobani,” said US Central Command.

Following the delivery, spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighting IS forces, Redur Xelil said that the military assistance dropped by “American planes at dawn on Kobani was good… It will have a positive impact on military operations against Daesh (ISIS) and we hope for more.” Xelil also claimed that the delivery drop was coordinated.

The latest weapons claimed by the Islamic State militants will add to the vast arsenal of US weaponry that IS seized in Iraq in a sudden sweep in June. IS launched its offensive on Kobani on September 16 sparking a massive exodus of some 200,000 refugees into Turkey and worldwide protests of Kurds and their supporters.

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The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka on Tuesday asked the government to clarify its plans for a snap presidential election, amid fears the polls will scupper a planned visit by the Pope.

Sri Lanka has not yet announced an election date, but the country’s information minister said Monday that the polls would be held in January, the same month that Pope Francis is due to visit.

The Church had earlier said it would be “inappropriate” for the Pope to visit any country at the time of a national election.

“We are yet to decide anything,” said church spokesman Cyril Gamini Fernando. “There will be a meeting of the bishops to discuss this.”

Official sources said Church authorities had asked the government to clarify Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella’s announcement Monday that President Mahinda Rajapakse would run for a third term at an election in January.

United National Party opposition parliamentarian John Amaratunga told ucanews.com that it would be wise to delay the election until after Pope Francis’ visit.

“The Pope will come to Sri Lanka to hold the canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz and this is a great opportunity for the Catholic community in the country,” said Amarathunga. “The election should not be in January and it could be held at any time in March.”

Amaratunga also cautioned that there could be “post election violence”.

An early election had been widely expected, but Monday’s announcement was the first confirmation that Rajapakse is seeking a fresh mandate after removing the two-term limit on the presidency soon after winning re-election in 2010.

Official sources said January 7, 8 and 9 were considered astrologically auspicious for Rajapakse and the vote could be held on any of those three days.

Rajapakse gained popularity among Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community by crushing a Tamil separatist rebellion in May 2009 and ending a 37-year-long Tamil separatist war.

But his party’s popularity has fallen in recent months and saw its share of the vote plummet by over 20 percentage points in September local elections.

Roman Catholics account for around six percent of the population in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka.

The post Sri Lanka: Snap Elections Cast Doubt On Pope’s Visit appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Varun Sahni

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India in September, much was made of the personal rapport and chemistry between him and his host, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Chinese investment worth US$20 billion, although a fraction of the figures (US$100-300 billion) that had been touted before the visit, was nevertheless significant in the bilateral context. It was also noteworthy that the Indian leadership was forceful in highlighting India’s concerns on such bilateral irritants as border incursions, stapled visas and river waters. The relaxed atmospherics and candid conversation presage a developing maturity in the bilateral relationship, which is important for the evolving power relationships across Asia and further afield.

One of the fascinating aspects of the visit and the Modi-Xi meeting was the way in which China and India can now be juxtaposed. When we juxtapose two entities, we place them close together for contrasting effect. From an International Relations (IR) perspective, what happens when we juxtapose the two Asian giants?

China and India can be juxtaposed across three distinct dimensions. The first of them is comparative. China is one of the few countries in the world with which India can sensibly be compared (Brazil is another). In any comparative exercise, the two cases being compared should be sufficiently similar for the comparison to be warranted, yet sufficiently dissimilar for the comparison to be fruitful. A China-India comparison can be undertaken from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives, focus on a wide variety of issue areas and encompass vast historical periods. Almost any sensible China-India comparison would yield fascinating results.

However, when Indian analysts attempt this comparison, it is usually in unidirectional, yardstick terms. By this one means that China is treated as the benchmark against which India is measured: ‘Why cannot we be more like them?’ The more ‘policy relevant’ the study is, the greater this line of speculation is in evidence. In India, China is very rarely studied qua China, in order to understand its dynamics, trends and complexities on its own terms. Much more often, Indian analytical treatments of China are as exemplar, allegory or metaphor.

The second dimension in which China and India can be juxtaposed is relational. Here, the focus is upon the factors that would bring the two countries together, as opposed to those that would set them apart. While conflict between states is relatively easy to explain, there is no single (or singular) explanation of why states decide to work in concert. In IR, different theoretical streams provide radically different answers to the question ‘Why do states come together?’

The three predominant explanations, to simplify theoretical propositions, are as follows. Realists argue that states make alliances to aggregate power. Liberals suggest that states cooperate to solve problems and thereby enhance their opportunities.

Constructivists hold that states come together to build community. What is interesting is not only that each of these explanations rings true, but also that each is obviously incomplete and imperfect is the sense that it does not tell the whole story. Each of these – power aggregation, problem solving and community building – will probably play a role in China-India bilateral relations. For instance, the BRICS grouping that contains both China and India could be considered as an example of power aggregation.

If China and India working together seems far-fetched, we would do well to recall that China-India relations have spanned the security spectrum – war at one end, alliance at the other – during the twentieth century. While the two countries fought a war – brief and limited, but war nonetheless – against each other in 1962, they also were allies during the Second World War, before Indian Independence and the Chinese Revolution.

However, the most interesting dimension that emerges from juxtaposing China and India is the conceptual one. It has become quite trendy in IR to put both China and India in the same category of states, usually characterising both of them as rising powers. But doing so is tantamount to making a serious conceptual error. While China is rising, India is emerging.

Although China is an emerging economy, it is a rising power, not an emerging power. This is not a semantic distinction but a substantive one: unlike emerging powers, which could have a systemic impact sometime in the future, a rising power already has a systemic impact today.

Juxtaposing China and India brings out this conceptual point with clarity. It also leads to an important taxonomical insight: the difference between China and India today is not one of degree but of kind, thus making it analytically incorrect to place both China and India in the same category of states. Is there more at play here than the decade-plus lead that China has over India in terms of economic reform? What are the structural factors, domestic and external, that undergird this distinction? Can – and how can – India narrow the gap and become a rising power itself? Most important of all, is China’s lead necessarily a problem for India? Perhaps it is worth reflecting that China’s rise is masking India’s emergence: while the world focuses on China, India has time to get its own act together, inside and out.

Varun Sahni
Professor and Chairperson, CIPOD, SIS, JNU & Member, IPCS Executive Committee

The post When Xi Met Modi: Juxtaposing China And India – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spanish authorities should investigate the beating and pushback of a man by Guardia Civil officers in Melilla on October 15, 2014, urged Human Rights Watch, adding that Spain should immediately halt summary returns to Morocco from its enclaves.

The migrant rights group Prodein captured the violence on video, which shows the agents carrying the man, who appears unconscious, through a gate in one of the fences that separate the two countries.

“The images could not be clearer or more appalling,” said Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Spain needs to call an immediate halt to these abusive returns, and the public prosecutor’s office needs to investigate this horrific case. Until the case has been fully investigated, the Guardia Civil should remove these officers from border duties.”

The video shows the man, whom Prodein identified as a 23-year-old Cameroonian named Danny, climbing alone down a ladder propped up against the Spanish side of the fence as several Guardia Civil officers beat him with their batons. He falls to the ground and appears to be unconscious as officers prod him with their batons, try to put him in a sitting position, and struggle to move him several times.

The video shows the Guardia Civil officers carrying Danny through a gate in the fence complex back toward Morocco. Just behind them, other officers are seen walking two other migrants through the same gate. The video does not show what happens on the other side. Prodein has verified that Danny is in a makeshift migrant camp near Nador, though at this writing his health condition is unknown.

The Government Delegation in Melilla claimed the young Cameroonian was not unconscious when he fell from the ladder but rather was exercising “passive resistance.” Five other migrants injured the same day were taken to a hospital in Melilla and then transferred to the city’s reception center for migrants and asylum seekers.

In an October 17 news release, the Melilla representatives of the Spanish government criticized the Prodein video as partial and justified the Guardia Civil’s actions as proportionate in the context of their work “in securing and defending Europe’s southern border.” The Melilla authorities described the events on October 15 as “an extremely tense massive assault” marked by violence by the migrants, adding that five Guardia Civil officers were treated for injuries sustained that day.

Concerns about violence by Spanish border guards have sharpened as Spain enhances border control in Melilla and Ceuta, Spain’s other enclave in North Africa. Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks called the October 15 incidents “another disturbing illustration of flaws in Spain’s treatment of migrants in its enclaves.”

Video footage shot by a journalist on August 13 and obtained by Human Rights Watch shows two incidents of Guardia Civil officers beating migrants on the middle section of the fence and forcibly returning two migrants to Moroccan territory.

“Even when faced with difficult situations, Guardia Civil officers are required to exercise restraint and take all possible steps to minimize injury,” Sunderland said. “Officers who engage in unjustified and disproportionate use of force should be disciplined, and where appropriate, prosecuted.”

Human Rights Watch, Spanish rights groups, and Spain’s independent human rights institute, the Defensor del Pueblo, have documented unlawful summary returns to Morocco from the Spanish enclaves.

Spanish immigration law prohibits such returns and guarantees irregular migrants the right to legal counsel and an interpreter during deportation proceedings. The Spanish government claims the procedure it is following is “rejection at the border,” contending that the area between the fences is not Spanish territory and that migrants are not in Spain until they have crossed “the police line.”

In September a Melilla judge charged a Guardia Civil colonel, Ambrosio Martín Villaseñor, in his capacity as ranking officer in Melilla, with violating national and international law for summary returns on June 18 and August 13. Prodein and two other Spanish nongovernmental organizations, Andalucia Acoge and SOS Racismo, brought the case. In the indictment, the judge affirmed that the Spanish border begins at the outside fence and that all areas between the fences are on Spanish territory. The Defensor del Pueblo supports this view.

“The government’s idea of a flexible border based on where a Guardia Civil officer is standing is a convenient and dangerous legal fiction,” Sunderland said. “But what is very real is that Spain is denying people their rights, including the right to seek asylum.”

Attempts to enter Spain through Melilla and Ceuta, often in large groups, have increased in 2014. Some 1,250 migrants and asylum seekers are currently accommodated in the reception center in Melilla, which has a capacity of 480. An estimated half of those in the center are from Syria.

Under international human rights and refugee law and European Union law, Spain is obliged to refrain from refoulement – the forcible return of anyone to a place where he or she faces a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment – and to guarantee the opportunity to seek asylum to anyone claiming they have a well-founded fear of persecution if returned. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, expressed concern on October 20 that violence in the context of border control in Melilla could prevent asylum seekers from reaching Spanish territory.

The European Commission should take action against Spain for failure to abide by EU law, Human Rights Watch said. In an October 20 reply to members of the European Parliament, first reported by El Diario, the commission made it clear that Spain has decided not to apply the EU Return Directive to migrants intercepted at the enclave borders. While article 2.2 (a) of the directive gives member states the prerogative to do so, the commission stated in its reply that even if they do so, member states must still comply with the minimum guarantees laid out in the directive, as well as to ensure respect for the principle of non-refoulement and effective access to the asylum procedure.

The commission said it was in a dialogue with Spain about the situation and “would not hesitate to take appropriate measures when there is evidence that a member state is violating EU law.” The commission is nonetheless not considering a mission to the enclaves, according to the October 20 reply.

“I’m not sure what more evidence the commission needs,” Sunderland said. “Unless the dialogue leads to a clear and prompt change in policy and orders to the Guardia Civil at the borders, the commission should keep its pledge and open infringement proceedings against Spain.”

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Stegosaurs might be portrayed as lumbering plant eaters, but they were lethal fighters when necessary, according to paleontologists who have uncovered new evidence of a casualty of stegosaurian combat. The evidence is a fatal stab wound in the pubis bone of a predatory allosaur. The wound – in the conical shape of a stegosaur tail spike – would have required great dexterity to inflict and shows clear signs of having cut short the allosaur’s life.

“A massive infection ate away a baseball-sized sector of the bone,” reports Houston Museum of Natural Science paleontologist Robert Bakker and his colleagues, who present a poster on the discovery on Tuesday at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Vancouver, B.C. “Probably this infection spread upwards into the soft tissue attached here, the thigh muscles and adjacent intestines and reproductive organs.” The lack of any signs of healing strongly suggests the allosaur died from the infection.

Similar wounds are seen in rodeo cowboys or horses when they are gored by longhorns, Bakker said. And since large herbivores – like longhorn cattle, rhinos and buffalo – today defend themselves with horns, it’s reasonable to assume spiky herbivorous dinos did the same. A big difference is that stegosaurs wielded their weapon on their tails rather than their heads. Skeletal evidence from fossil stegosaurs suggests their tails were more dextrous than most dinosaur tails.

“They have no locking joints, even in the tail,” Bakker explained. “Most dinosaur tails get stiffer towards the end.” But stegosaurs had massive muscles at the base of the tails, flexibility and fine muscle control all the way to the tail tip. “The joints of a stegosaur tail look like a monkey’s tail. They were built for 3-dimensional combat.”

In order to deliver the mortal wound to the allosaur, a stegosaur would have had to sweep its tail under the allosaur and twist the tail tip, because normally the spikes point outward and backward. That would have been well within the ability of a stegosaur, Bakker said.

The fighting style and skill of stegosaurs should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the dinosaur battle scene in the 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia, said Bakker. That segment of the movie shows a beefed up allosaur attacking a stegosaur. The stegosaur delivers a number of well aimed tail blows at the predator, but loses the fight. The Fantasia stegosaur tail dexterity appears to be accurate, he said. But he questions the stegosaur’s loss in the end. “I think the stegosaur threw the fight,” he said. On the other hand, he points out stegosaurs had among the smallest brains for its body size of any large animal, ever.

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The Health Crisis is only one effect of the Ebola outbreak. Long term effects on the region’s ability to combat crime and provide safety and security for its citizens threaten to outlast the epidemic. International efforts to approach the outbreak should take an holistic approach at addressing the effect Ebola is having on organized crime in West Africa.

By Dr. Ian Ralby

The estimates concerning the spread of infection in West Africa are uncertain, but the impact is already dramatic. With a confirmed count of over 4,000 deaths, Ebola could cause more fatalities in the coming months than the combined toll of the wars of the 1990s that ravaged the region. As the infection has now appeared in the US and Europe, the Global North is devoting increased attention to the outbreak and its global health implications. Few are focused on the less obvious consequences the disease is having on West Africa. The effective lockdown of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia has tremendous economic consequences for those three countries; their fragile post-conflict markets are shut off from the world, grinding progress to a halt. Ghana, though not one of the ‘infected’ countries, has, for example, cancelled all conferences within its borders for the next three months. Countless international projects and programs aimed at assisting the region’s development are on indefinite hold, pending a clear improvement of the situation. However, the impact Ebola is having on criminal activity in the region is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the outbreak.

On the one hand, the story is bizarrely positive: thanks to Ebola, criminal trafficking routes through the region have slowed and in some cases stopped completely. The risk of infection as well as border and internal control measures have done more to stop the movement of guns, drugs and humans than any intervention program.   Even oil theft in the Gulf of Guinea has allegedly slowed as the fear of infection has spread to Nigeria. So merely looking at trafficking and transnational crime that requires movement of materials or people across land, one could say that Ebola has had an ironically helpful impact on counter-criminal activity in West Africa. But there is more to the story.

Despite being a coastal region, West Africa has been so challenged by issues of insecurity and underdevelopment on land over the last few decades that it has suffered an acute case of “sea blindness” – a general unawareness of and disregard for the maritime domain. In 1973, Liberia was the top exporter of fish in all of Africa; in 2013, it exported no fish at all. A lack of fisheries governance has led to rampant illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in West Africa – one of the world’s most abundant fisheries. Liberia and Sierra Leone have both made notable efforts, assisted by organizations like the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and Sea-Change, to crack down on IUU fishing over the last few years. Last year, for example, Liberia assessed $6 million in penalties for illegal fishing. Despite such efforts, EJF estimates that Sierra Leone, one of the most pro-active countries in the region, still lost roughly $29 million worth of fish in 2013 on account of IUU fishing. One of the side-effects of Ebola, therefore, is to afford the opportunity for the IUU fishing community to engage in illicit activity with relative impunity on account of valid arguments against landing the catch in ‘infected’ countries. While IUU fishing does not make headlines as much as piracy, it accounts for $23 billion in losses each year, has an increasingly damaging impact on the marine environment, threatens long-term food security and, most importantly in this context, serves as a key nexus crime to other illicit activity including piracy and trafficking. This dynamic also brings up one of the most damaging criminal-related side-effects of Ebola: the cessation of counter-crime initiatives and capacity building throughout the region.

Countless international organizations, foreign aid programs, civil society organizations, and regional bodies, as well as local actors, have been working throughout the region for years to combat domestic and transnational criminal elements. Criminal activity not only impedes development in West Africa, but has negative consequences for Europe and beyond. The current outbreak has shut down many of those efforts indefinitely. The consequence of that pause in counter-criminal activity may be a long-term setback in development and capacity building initiatives, as the organizations involved in the projects that have been affected cannot wait around for the situation to improve. Since many of the efforts are regional in nature, involving countries both within and outside the ‘infected’ area, the impact is felt throughout West Africa.   The dismantling of counter-criminal efforts, in turn, affords sophisticated organized criminal organizations the opportunity to find new avenues for trafficking, theft and other illicit transnational enterprise that will open up as the situation evolves. The current rise in IUU fishing, for example, provides one such opportunity. Furthermore, when freer movement becomes possible again, there will be limited capacity left within the region to address the resurgence of criminal activity.

While the health crisis certainly is and should be the top priority, domestic and international efforts to address the predicament will need to look at the full impact the disease is having on the region. These criminally-related second and third order consequences (which do not even address the petty crime and security concerns arising out of the desperation within the ‘infected’ area), have long-term global implications. If Ebola is not addressed effectively and quickly, the resulting death toll, economic impact and destabilizing tendency could carry on long after the virus is eradicated.

Dr. Ian Ralby is Founder and Executive Director of I.R. Consilium through which he and his team work with governments and organizations on solving complex security-related problems.  A leading expert on the regulation, governance and oversight of private security companies, Dr. Ralby frequently advises on and assists with matters involving international law, international security and maritime affairs.  He has worked extensively with governments in West Africa, the Caribbean, and the Balkans among others.  He holds a BA in Modern Languages and Linguistics and an MA in Intercultural Communication from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; a JD from William & Mary Law School; and both an MPhil in International Relations and a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge.

This article was originally published by OpedSpace and is available by clicking here.

The post The Criminal Side Of Ebola – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The establishment of a national unity government in Afghanistan last month was a political deal, but was perhaps the only way out of the protracted electoral dispute in which both presidential candidates claimed victory amid allegations of fraud which had the potential of fracturing the country on ethnic lines.

The sense of relief among many countries including India, however, might be short-lived. A new set of challenges confront New Delhi, compelling it to revisit its Afghan policy to ensure that the decade long gains are not frittered away.

The first peaceful democratic transition in Afghanistan has cobbled together a rare concoction of sorts, with the reformists and technocrats sharing power with the raditionalists/conservatives.

While the deal between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah brings a shift from the earlier centralised mode of executive government, its potential to usher in long-term stability remains unknown. For now, New Delhi seems content to work with the new political dispensation in Kabul.

Post-2001 New Delhi has invested $2 billion in various infrastructure, capacity-building and economic reconstruction projects. Bilateral relations have grown exponentially. By delivering most of the aid through the Afghan government, New Delhi had developed considerable clout with the Karzai regime.

Whether this investment will yield returns under the new dispensation remains to be seen.

The protracted dispute over the presidential elections underlined the challenges to the Afghan political sector. Despite the decade-long international intervention, the lack of attention to political sector reforms and the absence of institutions capable of conflict mediation were evident in the Independent Electoral Commission’s inability to play an impartial role.

During my time as an international election observer in Kabul, I observed both heightened expectations and gradual disenchantment with the electoral process. This would have implications for the future elections. Ahead of the April 2015 parliamentary polls, serious measures of electoral reforms are critical.

While the alternative model is a shift towards greater decentralisation, its viability would remain linked to an ability to move away from the personality-centric and patronage network based approach prevalent in the country so far to long-term institution building and reforms.

New Delhi can make a useful intervention by moving away from investing in the political elites to institution building. Familiar with the challenges of being a federal polity, India can contribute to develop decentralised structures, which will lead to an inclusive polity representing people from the peripheries.

In the long run, this would shrink the space for the extremists. In maintaining a delicate balance of working with the traditionalists and reformists, New Delhi will have to chart a creative strategy of engagement to succeed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns of precipitous US troop withdrawal with President Barack Obama. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Afghanistan in September, unfurling a mega flag, was much appreciated by the Afghans as a symbol of unity at a time of political uncertainty.

However, in the absence of clear policy pronouncements from New Delhi, these gestures are little beyond symbolism. Over time, the ‘expectation gap’ between aid commitments and delivery is bound to play out.

Revising its strategy to make the required interventions to meet the needs on the ground will be the litmus test of India’s leadership in the neighbourhood and commitment to the long term stabilisation of Afghanistan.

This article appeared at The Hindustan Times and is reprinted with permission.

The post Moving Beyond The New Deal In Afghanistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nick Cunningham

Slumping oil prices are putting pressure on U.S. drillers.

The number of active rigs drilling for oil and gas fell by their most in two months, according to the latest data from oil services firm Baker Hughes. There were 19 oil rigs that were removed from operation as of Oct. 17, compared to the prior week. There are now 1,590 active oil rigs, the lowest level in six weeks.

“Unless there’s a significant reversal in oil prices, we’re going to see continued declines in the rig count, especially those drilling for oil,” James Williams, president of WTRG Economics, told Fuel Fix in an interview. “We could easily see the oil rig count down 100 by the end of the year, or more.”

Baker Hughes CEO Martin Craighead predicted that U.S. drilling companies could begin to seriously start removing rigs from operation if prices drop to around $75 per barrel. Some of the more expensive shale regions will not be profitable at current prices. For example, the pricey Tuscaloosa shale in Louisiana breaks even at about $92 per barrel.

But that also reflects the high costs of starting up a nascent shale region.

Much of the shale basins that are principally responsible for America’s oil production will not feel the effects of low prices as quickly as many are predicting.

Better-known shale formations, such as the Eagle Ford in South Texas, can break even at much lower prices. That’s because exploration companies have become familiar with the geology and fine-tuned drilling techniques to specific areas.

Productivity gains have allowed drillers to extract more oil for each rig it has in operation. For example, in North Dakota’s prolific Bakken formation, an average rig is producing over 530 barrels per day from a new well in October. Less than two years ago, that figure sat at around 300 barrels per day. Extracting more barrels from the same operation improves the economics of drilling, which means shale producers are not as vulnerable to lower prices as they used to be.

Another factor that could insulate U.S. oil production is that companies also factor in sunk costs. That is, if they have already poured in millions of dollars into purchasing land leases and securing permits, throwing in a little extra money to drill the prospect is probably the rational thing to do even at current prices. It is only projects in their infancy that may not be economically feasible.

This should delay the drop in rig count, and delay the drop in overall U.S. oil production. As the Wall Street Journal notes, given these assumptions, U.S. oil production in the Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Permian could actually break even at just $60 per barrel.

Much rides on the decision making of officials in Saudi Arabia. Although exact calculations vary, the world’s only swing producer needs oil prices between $83 and $93 per barrel for its budget to break even. But that may not be as important of a metric as it appears. Saudi Arabia has an enormous stash of foreign exchange, and could run deficits for quite a while without too many problems. With average costs of oil production from wells in the Middle East sitting at only $25 per barrel, the Saudis can clearly wait out U.S. shale if they really want to.

But it may actually be Canada’s oil sands that end up being the first victim, the Wall Street Journal reports. Mining, processing, and pumping heavy oil sands from remote positions in Canada are much more costly than conventional oil and even shale oil in the U.S. While short-term operating costs are only around $40 per barrel, new projects need prices well above $90 per barrel to be in the money.

Rig counts are starting to drop, but due to the long lead time for most oil projects, it could be a while before production begins to decline in a significant way. What happens next will be largely determined by the outcome of the next OPEC meeting in Vienna on Nov. 27, where all eyes will be on Saudi Arabia.

Source:
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Low-Oil-Prices-Hurting-U.S.-Shale-Operations.html

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Nestled in the “Defense and Homeland Security Cooperation” section of the Joint Statement during the visit of Prime Minister to USA of September 30, 2014 was a declaration that “the leaders committed to pursue provision of US-made mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles to India.” The indication of India’s continuing interest in acquiring US mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles came on the back of two other news reports; United Arab Emirates (UAE) requested for a possible sale of 4,569 MRAPs worth $ 2.5b and the US decision to provide 160 MRAPs to Pakistan for an estimated cost of $198 million.

Given the  surging global demand for the MRAPs, Pentagon must be rueing its decision to shred “excess” MRAPs as a part of its drawdown from Afghanistan; and to “militarise” US state police departments by providing  surplus military MRAPs(amongst other equipment) which was one of the contributing factors for the anti-racial riots in Ferguson, Missouri. This article looks at how MRAPs have become so desirable an operational asset.

MRAPs

MRAPs are as iconic as UAVs and are regarded as the symbols of US Global War on Terror, especially in the theatres of Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007, four years into the second invasion of Iraq, the US Department of Defence (DoD) initiated a major procurement initiative to replace all up-armoured high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) in Iraq with the MRAP family of vehicles. The MRAP was designed as an interim solution to the need to increase the soldier survivability rate over that of the HMMWV and are customized for counter-insurgency rather than conventional warfare.  In January 2008, at a ceremony in Taji, Iraq marked the beginning of a programme to refurbish and transfer more than 4,244 up-armoured Humvees from US inventory to the Iraqi army by the end of 2008, and to reach more than 8,000 by the end of 2009. Today some of these HMMWVs probably provide mobility and protection to IS militants in Iraq and Syria.

Troop protection from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and their increasing use and lethality in asymmetric conflicts is the key driver of the demand for MRAPs. The V-shaped hull of MRAP has made possible a survivability rate of 94 percent (as compared to the HMMWV’s survivability rate of 78 percent) against IEDs. MRAPs have been credited with saving thousands of lives, 40,000 to be exact, in Iraq and Afghanistan according to Pentagon’s Joint Program Office for Mine-Resistant Protected Vehicles. More than 25,000 MRAPs of various designs have been fielded by the US forces. However, the $45 billion MRAP program has come under fire for its high cost.

There is no common MRAP vehicle design, as there are several US vendors, each with its own vehicle; and at times with distinct protection and mobility configurations tailored to the operational environment of different theatres. MRAPs can be separated into three categories according to weight and size. Like all vehicles of their type and class the design of an MRAP represents a compromise between mobility, firepower and protection. In the case of the MRAP, protection has been the dominant factor while firepower and mobility have been downplayed. The MRAP requires only a 25-degree angle to begin to roll over. Their height and width does not make them well suited for urban environment with low-hanging wires and narrow streets. To fix that problem, the US Army had distributed overhead wire mitigation kits (which include wooden boards and PVC pipes) that direct wires up and over the vehicle. 72 percent of the world’s bridges cannot hold the MRAP.

Therefore theatre specific designs are likely to be of only limited use in an operational role other than that for which they were designed. This is what the US found out when MRAPs shipped from Iraq had to evolve for the rougher Afghan terrain. Some early generation MRAPs shipped from Iraq were probably never used in Afghanistan. This saw the induction of the lighter MRAP All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV), which still weighted more than 12 tons. When it came to equipping the Afghan Army (ANA) the US chose to outfit them with lighter tactical vehicles, the Mobile Strike Force Vehicles (MSFV), as that are a better fit for the country’s rudimentary road networks. The MSFV is derived from the combat-proven M1117 Armoured Security Vehicle (ASV) and are configured with enhanced survivability capability, which increases blast protection to MRAP levels.

Drawdown from Afghanistan

The US has been apprehensive about leaving MRAPs in Afghanistan, noting that the stock is far larger than what the ANA would be able to maintain and efficiently employ. Therefore the US military has labelled about 2,000 of its roughly 11,000 MRAPs in Afghanistan, as “excess defence articles (EDA)”. About 8,000 MRAPs will be shipped to the US and US military bases in Kuwait and elsewhere. The cost of shipping an MRAP back to the US and fixing it up is about $250,000 to $300,000 per vehicle. Not surprisingly, US was literally shredding these excess MRAPs as  it did not want to bear the cost of transporting them back; Gen Dunford has since put a halt to this dismantling programme. Also influencing the decision was the notion that US defence industry would suffer if the Pentagon unloaded tons of used equipment on the market at vastly reduced prices.

The US government is working to sell as many as 2,000 of its MRAPs in Afghanistan provided the foreign buyers pay to ship the trucks out of the country themselves. Twenty countries (including India and Pakistan) have expressed an interest. US military MRAPs in Afghanistan were also being used by ISAF partner countries for operations, some of which expressed interest in the EDAs. Croatia received 30 Navistar Maxxpro MRAPs vehicles from the United States in April 2014. The vehicles were delivered free of charge under the EDA programme, and form the first batch of a total of 212 military vehicles Croatia will receive under the EDA system.

Pakistan’s Pitch

Pakistan feels that the MRAPs could help its forces reduce their casualty rate of more than 20,000 dead or injured troops since 2001. Pakistan stepped up its current efforts to find more advanced counterterrorism equipment after Major General Sanaullah was killed by a roadside bomb near the Afghan border in September 2013. The US Congress approval for the 160 MRAP EDAs is expected soon.

The 160 MaxxPro MRAPs made by US manufacturer Navistar, would be a mix of new builds and some from US Army prepositioned stocks in Kuwait. Navistar’s MaxxPro MRAP the International MaxxPro variant can survive in nuclear, biological and chemical environments. The MaxxPro has number of mission variants. Navistar has a civilian product line up and MaxxPro is based on their civilian products. So it would not be a difficult matter to maintain these vehicles in Pakistan. The 160 US MRAPs would be split among the branches of the Pakistani armed forces and specific army and air force units have been identified and vetted. The Pakistani armed forces already have 22 MRAPs; 20 MaxxPro’s along with two “haulers” to move them under a now-cancelled State Department program known as the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.

China Poly Group Corporation CS/VP3 is a 15-tonne gross weight 4×4 vehicle mine-protected vehicle with stick of 10. In late 2012, Pakistan reportedly entered into a contract for an undisclosed number of these vehicles. The CS/VP3 appears mostly as an export item; as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army does not seem to have at present any requirement for MRAPs. Also a local MPV designed by Heavy Industries Taxila is still under development.

It remains to be seen how and when India gets its MRAPs; as EDAs, direct buys or joint production. Till then will make do with the Casspirs and await the effect of the new defence production policy on the efforts of Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland and the Tatas to give India its own indigenous MRAP.

The author is a Senior Fellow and Associate Director (Strategic Affairs), Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.

This article appeared at CLAWS (Centre for Land Warfare Studies), and is reprinted with permission.

The post The MRAP Saga – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Harold A. Gould

In this era where doctrinal extremism, religious fanaticism and untrammeled violence so pervade the political environment throughout the Muslim world, one is struck by the paucity of prominent voices that have arisen to appeal for moderation, compromise, secularism, and especially Gandhian modes of non-violent action as alternative means of addressing and resolving lethal confrontations between rival groups.

It is not that there have never been occasions and contexts where voices of mutual reconciliation, compassion, even purposive non-violence have struggled to be heard, or when aspects of the Islamic tradition have at times spawned forms of transcendental love and reconciliation in preference to violent political confrontation.

In contemporary times the most noteworthy manifestation of the latter is, of course, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the ‘Pathan Gandhi’, who sought to reconcile the Islamic and Hindu-Buddhist traditions through his identification with Mahatma Gandhi and democratic ideals. The sad outcome of this endeavor was its eventual nullification by the political choices made by the ultimately victorious ‘Jinnah factor’ and the Muslim League, their allies among the feudal landlord classes, and the rising influence of the Punjabi Military. “Abdul Ghaffar Khan got sidelined because Jinnah captured the fancy of the Muslims in relation to the conflict with Congress and the Hindus,” says Ishtiaq Ahmed.

Under these circumstances Partition laid the sociological foundations for an increasingly doctrinally uniform Islamic state that would eschew its original commitment to the South Asian secular, pluralistic model adopted by India. And with this fateful choice went all chances for achieving a melding of the Gandhian spirit with Ghaffar Khan’s moral vision.

In other respects as well the chances for serious non-violent alternatives to political conflict have failed to materialize and this too has had a decisive impact on both the Middle East and South Asia. Conceptually speaking, Sufism always seemed to be a promising potential for spawning non-violent collective action. Yet historically speaking it really never did. “One can argue,” Ishtiaq Ahmed laments, that “in the Islamic ethos peaceful resistance to oppression is a rather weak tradition or tendency…”

T. N. Madan implicitly agrees: “The problem with Islam is that the foundational text, the Quran, like other scriptures, lacks internal consistency. Islam does indeed mean peace and the mutual Muslim greeting signals peace between people, between Muslims. But the Quran also makes jihad against infidels, particularly idolaters, an obligation. There is some room for pluralism in the Quran, but not for religious tolerance.”

Traditions like Sufism with its mystical, introspective tendencies which might have yielded, indeed in some quarters struggled to achieve, common ground with Bhakti , especially in Sindh, once Islam found its way into India from the Ninth century onward, certainly did display tendencies toward achieving spiritual convergence with divine being itself which is the raw material for the kind of introspection and compassion that can inspire nonviolent action. The saga of the Pirs with their grassroots immersion in devotional mysticism are classical manifestations of these tendencies.

“Sufis,” says Madan, “have tried to valorize the compassionate and loving aspect. A Gandhi could have come from among the Sufis or, perhaps, the more lenient Shiahs, but then the most influential Shiah cleric of our time, Ayatollah Khomeini, sunnified the Shiah faith and fundamentalist Muslims have always considered both Sufis and Shiahs the arch enemies of Islam.”

The ugly truth of this state of affairs is especially poignant even as we speak, however, as we behold throughout the Middle East the murderous impulses being acted out there, both individually and collectively, that are tearing at the fabric of contemporary civil society.

Thus we must ask if there is the remotest chance that some form of alternative to the mindless violence that pervades the Trans-Tigris-Euphrates milieu and threatens to spread far beyond it can arise?

Perhaps after all there is .

Their names are Malala Yusufzai and Kailash Satyarthi.

They are the two South Asians who were just awarded the Nobel Prize for their contributions to elevating the human spirit among the young. Everyone is struck, of course, by the brilliance of the Nobel Committee for selecting an awardee from each of the two South Asian states who have been engaged in a bitter struggle against one another for more than half a century; states that chose very different pathways leading to the 21st Century – one going the way of Islamic doctrinal purity, the other going the way of Hindu-Buddhist doctrinal flexibility and cultural pluralism.

In Pakistan, Malala survived a gunshot wound to her brain by a brainwashed Taliban ideologue for the ‘crime’ of championing the right of women to attend school, acquire the same education as their male counterparts, and take their place as socially equal members of modern society. Compelled to flee to England to protect herself from further attempted murder and the indifference of her own government, Malala has taken her place as a symbol and pioneer not only of Pakistani women’s basic rights but for women everywhere. Her reward has been the Nobel Prize and a commanding international stature.

In India, Kailash Satyarthi has struggled for more than a quarter of a century through his organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, to, in Uday Bhaskar’s words, “free thousands of hapless children from various forms of servitude and helped in their successful re-integration, rehabilitation and education.” Like Malala, Mr. Satyamurthi has in his distinctive way done for young people what the Mahatma, Ghaffar Khan, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and others have done for their ‘constituencies’ – viz., confronted organized violence, cruelty and injustice with personal courage and organized, institutionalized opposition to the evils of child-exploitation.

It is this kind of dedication that is absent from the Middle East, in the Trans-Tigris-Euphrates Heartland today. No voices have yet emerged in a collective form to utter the one word which Gandhi said exists in all human languages. And that word is “NO!”

Malala and Kailash may indeed represent the place where that voice may come from, sooner than we think; perhaps the next phase in the ‘Arab Spring’ lurks among the youth, and their votaries, in the Islamic world and elsewhere, who resist manipulation by orthodox mullahs and ayatollahs, priests and preachers, true believers of all stripes, political charlatans, greed-driven economic opportunists, and the machinations of foreign powers.

Should this not take place then a very different future scenario is in store for the Trans-Tigris-Euphrates world and its extensions. Even the Indic world may not in the end be speared, as already indicated in my previous article. This, of course, would be the ultimate human tragedy for the South Asian region.

The post Where Is The Islamic Gandhi? Can It Be Malala And Kailash – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jamil Maidan Flores*

Late last week, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held its 10th summit in Milan, Italy. The event involved 51 nations from the two continents plus two regional organizations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union.

As European Council president Herman Van Rompuy pointed out, these 51 nations account for 60 percent of humankind, 50 percent of global gross domestic product, and 60 percent of global trade. Remove their contributions, and the global economy ceases to be viable.

Once again Indonesia wasn’t represented by its head of state and government at the ASEM summit. This time the world understood and excused Indonesia. After all, the summit coincided with the very eve of the turnover of the presidency from Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had just completed his second term, to his successor, Joko Widodo.

It was different in 2010 when President Yudhoyono failed to attend the ninth ASEM summit in Brussels. Although days after that summit, he visited the Netherlands. Earlier, Yudhoyono did not make it to the US-Asean summit either. As a result, speculation was rife that the Indonesian government, in deference to China, was distancing itself from the US and the West. It was around that time that the US announced its “pivot” or “rebalancing” toward East Asia after years of apparent neglect of the region by the administration of George W. Bush.

Fortuitously, the Indonesian government had earlier begun espousing the principle of “dynamic equilibrium,” which rejected all forms of big power rivalry, especially the Cold War type. In the context of this principle, it became easier for Asean to welcome the participation of both Russia and the US in the East Asia Summit (EAS).

Europe, of course, made its pivot to East Asia a long time ago, through the establishment of the ASEM in 1996. I remember then Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas pushing for the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand on the Asian side of the ASEM equation at an Asean meeting in Bangkok in 1994.

The Thai foreign minister, with irreverent humor, suggested that Indonesia annex both Antipodean countries so it could represent them in ASEM. Alatas remained poker faced and let the remark pass. It wasn’t funny.

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of ASEM. It’s the third leg of a global triad connecting the world’s core region: NATO connects Europe with North America; APEC links East Asia with the Americas; while ASEM bridges East Asia and Europe. Without ASEM, the global architecture, imagined as a triad, would limp on two legs.

However, for a fuller understanding of what can be realistically expected of Europe, I recommend a look into the views of that irrepressible Vienna-based intellectual, Dr. Anis Bajrektarevic, who says in effect that Europe is dominated today by France on political matters and by Germany on economic issues. Their bilateral alliance, he says, forms the geopolitical axis, the backbone of the European Union.

In that light, the mostly economic “French pivot” to East Asia should be even more welcome. So is the offer of Germany to take up in ASEM deliberations the cause of arbitration on maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

On the East Asian situation, Dr. Bajrektarevic says that China would be making a strategic mistake if it didn’t embrace multilateralism, and if it didn’t achieve rapprochement with the three champions of multilateralism in Asia: Indonesia, India and Japan. For their part, the three, plus the US, would be well advised to deepen a constructive multilateral engagement with China.

That makes a case for the conclusion of an Indo-Pacific Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.

Meanwhile, make no mistakes: for all its internal problems, the EU is constructively involved in East Asia. Indonesia and other Asean countries would do well to encourage a deepening of that involvement.

*Jamil Maidan Flores is a Jakarta-based literary writer whose interests include philosophy and foreign policy. The views expressed here are his own.

The post Why ASEM Is Vital To Indonesian Interest – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Malik Ibrahim*

As Africa continues to be the world’s fastest-growing region, the continent’s natural resources and increasing domestic demand have captured the attention of foreign investors everywhere. In spite of the Ebola outbreak, the World Bank predicts that the African economy will grow by an eye-popping 5.2% in the next two years, a rate that has not been seen since the pre-economic crisis years. The continent’s main challenge will be to translate this economic boom into long-term development and prioritize investments in infrastructure and human capital.

The tried and tested way to achieve this is a fairly simple one: political stability and good governance. But will Africa make the cut and revamp its risk-prone image?

The ABCs of economic development

In the past decade, Africa has become one of the prime destinations for international capital, especially for the extractive industries. As a result, foreign domestic flows have risen to $57 billion in 2013, fueled in part by China’s insatiable appetite for resources. Given the volatility of commodity prices, African governments need to adopt coherent policies to capitalize on this economic boom and diversify their economies. Creating a politically stable and business-friendly environment needs to be a priority to keep on attracting foreign companies. Creating public-private partnerships can strengthen the relationship between foreign investors and African governments and lead to a trickle-down effect in the local communities through job creation.

Take Botswana, that small South African country that could. Using its considerable mineral wealth it managed to transform itself from one of the most impoverished countries in the world into an up and coming middle-income economy. Botswana’s strong yet transparent relationship between the government and the private sector facilitated the efficient use of the royalties generated by the diamond industry. Instead of being pocketed by the ruling elite, the royalties were used to invest in infrastructure and social development. Now, Botswana is the continent’s most stable country and its government even created the Pula Sovereign Wealth Fund as early as 1994. The continent’s most emblematic success story shows that natural resources, if well managed, can lead to long-term development.

But for many this is a big “if”, as not every country in Africa has the advantage of having high-price commodities or the political stability needed to encourage investors to take risks.

Djibouti: from rags to riches and back again

A country of less than one million people, Djibouti is sandwiched between Somalia and Eritrea in Africa’s ill-reputed region of the Gulf of Aden. Natural resources are scarce in Djibouti; the country doesn’t even have the capacity to guarantee food security for its citizens and relies heavily on food imports. It would have seemed that this Red Sea Country was doomed to have a similar luck to that of its neighbors. However, Djibouti was able to turn its small size and its key strategic location into a great comparative advantage.

Americans, French, Germans, Chinese, Russians and even the Japanese have been vying for influence within the country’s government. As a result, Djibouti’s main source of income comes from the rents it charges its Western partners for the military facilities it hosts. While the exact sums are unclear, the U.S. pays some $60 million a year, while the French and the Japanese both contribute some $30 million.

Most recently, the Djiboutian government signed a security and strategic defense partnership with China. Djibouti is offering China military facilities in exchange for training of their military forces. Despite the important income the rents represent for Djibouti’s GDP, the military bases barely create affect domestic development.

The military bases are not Djibouti’s only source of revenue. Opened in 2008, the Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT) uses up a third of the country’s population and is the country’s principal source of employment. The DCT was constructed through a joint venture between the government and DP World, giving the Dubai-based company a 30-year concession to operate the most technological advanced container in Africa. After investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the country over the past 14 years, DP World turned Djibouti into a world-class port competing with Jeddah and Aden as Africa’s largest container terminal. Besides building the port infrastructure, the DP World also oversaw a three-year campaign to deliver primary health care services in collaboration with USAID and the Djiboutian government.

The successful partnership between DP World and the Djiboutian government registered a major setback recently when the Djiboutian president, Ismael Omar Gulleh, rescinded the Dubai-based company’s concession to operate the DCT. The government claims that DP World paid bribes to the former chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zone Authority, Abdourahman Boreh to favor the company. Boreh alleges that the government has rescinded DP World’s concession for political reasons after he emerged as a presidential candidate, challenging Gulleh. Djibouti could very well irreversibly jeopardize the relationship with the country’s largest employer over this eminently internal struggle for power.

Djibouti’s revenues from the military bases are indeed high but unless they are used to create other jobs and develop much-needed infrastructure, the country risks relying on these rents as the only source of income. Moreover, Gulleh’s new agreement with China is already creating tension with American officials, as they are starting to doubt Djibouti’s commitment Gulleh’s unpredictable behavior won’t take long to scare off investors.

This scenario, of dictators clinging to power while paying little regard for their countries’ long-term interests, is sadly commonplace in Africa. Gulleh’s reaction to DP World shows how political instability can discourage FDI and hinder Africa’s development. Djibouti’s president and African leaders in general must adopt a more pragmatic approach to investment and development and not let themselves get carried by political rivalries. African governments must reduce the risks associated with political instability and create a business-friendly environment to continue to attract investments that are economically sustainable in the long run. It’s high time to commit unpredictable African leaders to the history books. Africans deserve more.

*Malik is a risk analyst currently based in France working for several consultancies on issues relating to political and security risk, primarily in the MENA region.

The post What Djibouti Tells Us About Africa’s Troubled Road To Prosperity – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A manhunt is on for one or more armed assailants after several rounds of gunfire tore through Parliament Hill, as well as National War Memorial and near a shopping mall in Ottawa, Canada. The city of Ottawa is on lockdown as police try to locate culprits.

“Incidents occurred at National War Memorial, near the Rideau Centre and Parliament Hill this morning,” Ottawa Police said on their Twitter feed. The shootings began just before 10am on Wednesday when a soldier was wounded in the war memorial shooting.

One CAF solider has been killed, reported Conservative MP John Williamson. He was a reservist serving in Hamilton from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Several shots rang through Parliament Hill, prompting concern over the ease with which the gunman apparently accessed the site.

“So I’m locked down in Center Block on Parliament Hill after at least one shooter burst in and opened fire,” local reporter Josh Wingrove stated. “I heard dozens of gunshots and the smell of gunpowder is heavy in the hallways right now.”

Wingrove also reported seeing a motionless body inside the parliament building, which he could not confirm to be either dead or alive.

Some 30 shots were fired inside the building, an eyewitness told Reuters. The gunman was subsequently chased by police into the center block of the building.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper managed to exit the building safely. However, two victims – one of whom was shot – have been escorted to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, reported CBC.

Canadian Armed Forces bases across the country are in lockdown and all Ottawa Police stations are currently closed to the public as gunmen remain at large. One shooter has been confirmed dead, according to senior CBC news reporter Aaron Saltzman.

Ottowa police have confirmed that two or three gunmen were involved in the incident.

Associated Press Television News journalist Jorge Barrera reported that police are in possession of a photograph of one of the gunmen, who reportedly has dark skin and long black hair. Barrera also tweeted that police have the suspect’s cellphone.

The incident comes a day after another soldier from Canada died in a road accident suspected to have been caused by an Islamic militant. He was one of two soldiers involved in the incident which was the first of its kind in Canada since it joined the fight against the Islamic State.]

On Tuesday Canada raised its domestic terror threat from low to medium.

All three locations are within a few hundred meters of one another.

The post Ottawa On Lockdown After 3 Shooting Incidents Including Parliament, Manhunt Unfolds appeared first on Eurasia Review.