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Four Walls And A Bubble: Coal And The ABC Of India’s Energy Security – Analysis

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By Sunjoy Joshi

Indian policy makers are fond of defining the country’s energy security in terms of the three A’s of Availability, Access, and Affordability. Of these the last two are anyway contingent upon the first – if primary fuels are not available, then access or affordability are no better than Mungerilal ke Sapne.

Caught in these dreams, the B stands for a Bubble – cabined, cribbed and confined by four Cs that hem in our poor policy makers like four formidable walls. What are the four Cs threatening not just our energy security but also the future growth of the country?

The First C (no prizes for guessing) denominates Coal – the one resource we have so much and yet so little of – our big insurmountable Coal Wall. Coal is the single biggest fuel source in India accounting for half its total energy use. It produces two thirds the country’s electricity. Yet one of the lowest figures for per capita availability of electricity (900 KWH) leaves one third of the population with no access and the remaining with extremely questionable access to power.

Trailing far behind in the growth of infrastructure and manufacturing, can India ever hope to become a global economy without a four-fold increase in the availability of electricity? Can that happen without coal? Even in the most optimistic scenario, should coal production reach the level of 795 MT by the end of the XII Plan, we are left with a gap of 185 MT in the terminal year of the XII Plan, a gap which can only be met by importing more.

Imports bring us smack against the Second C – the Current Account Deficit that constitutes the Fiscal Wall our FM unfailingly confronts each budget. The Fiscal Wall that makes it impossible to plan beyond the immediate here and now, severely restricting the room to manoeuvre that our elephantine democracy needs.

India imports 76% of its oil, 23% of its gas and 20% of its coal. Its energy imports last year exceeded $130 billion or 26% of its import bill of $ 490 billion. By the end of the 12th Plan India’s energy imports could be $150-$160 billion. ne can understand the need for oil imports, for gas imports or uranium imports. But, with the fourth largest coal reserves in the world, why should India need to import coal – especially thermal coal?

Because every time we scour the international market for fuel imports, our companies invariably run against the third C – the Great Wall of China. It is a wall we confront and compete with in every sphere whether it be export markets or natural resources such as oil, gas, coal, cadmium, uranium.

China’s phenomenal growth has been fuelled almost entirely by coal. This is a country with double our coal reserves but six times our production. With these levels of production, China now plays international markets, switching between domestic and imported coal depending on where the price advantage lies.

India struggling with sheer availability, remains a price taker, at the mercy of international markets.

So last month, sights fixed on COP 15 and plunging coal prices, after having built the world’s largest coal fired capacities, what does China do? The NDRC declares it intends to ban from 2015 the burning of coal with an ash content greater than 16 per cent or sulphur content of more than 1 per cent in booming eastern cities that are now the focus of its fight against air pollution. India burns coal having an ash content of 45%. This is where we find ourselves running up against the Fourth C, the Climate Wall – increasingly strident voices demanding that countries like China and India clean up their act and take action to drastically reduce emissions.

Post 1992, following the Rio Earth Summit, in what was an unprecedented grab of global carbon space, China effectively used the following two decades – the post Rio slack – to build up the largest ever coal fired capacity in the world. If there was one late last night coal rain leaving the station in 1992 – China clambered onto it. We missed it.

Now as the times comes to negotiate a deal for the post Kyoto framework China sits pretty, secure in the knowledge that the carbon intensity of its hitherto runaway growth can only come down.

With the NDRC cracking down on the kind of coal that China is willing to burn, one can rest assured that with time China will be less of a willing accomplice of ours in future Climate talks. So India’s strategy of hanging on to China’s coat tails in climate negotiations may not yield dividends for very long.

Meanwhile, the shale gas boom in the United States is seeing a more aggressive votary for climate action emerge across the Atlantic. We are therefore headed for a situation where, if not in Paris, then sooner rather than later, India is going to find itself increasingly isolated on the climate front. We should not be surprised to hear far stronger voices arguing that available resources of coal should by international fiat be declared un-burnable. So this is where we stand. The three precious A’s of Energy Security trapped and confined within the confines of our CAD, the global competition for resources with a China that has arrived, the looming constraints on coal because of climate change – all mocking our inability to have propelled our economy on the only fuel resource we actually had plenty of.

When you have four insurmountable walls you do not go about breaking them armed with a bubble. Yet all we have is a bubble. The bubble is the hyper-inflated notion, ballooned out of all proportion- that has been constructed around the ‘ownership” of resources. We hear it debated endlessly. Reams and reams have been written in judgments by the Supreme Court, in painstakingly voluminous reports by the CAG, and in much ink spilt in editorial columns – all saluting the ownership of precious natural resources vesting with the people of the country. Legalistically speaking, the people are indeed, as a collective, (unlike the US where they do the same as individuals) indisputable owners of the country’s oil, its gas, its coal, its minerals, its sand, and its spectrum.

The problem is that in all the legal obfuscation around ownership we have even managed to confuse the distinction between a reserve and a resource. Mineral reserves are by themselves valueless. Coal reserves buried deep underground, whether un-discovered – or un-extracted – have zero value.- incapable of conferring even an iota of benefit upon their owner – the people of this country.

Ownership only confers benefit through a process of discovery, establishment, and production. The mineral must first be discovered and appraised in order to be established as a reserve; it must then be efficiently extracted so that it is commercially viable; and finally it must be used in the most productive way to derive maximum value through its best possible use in the economy. Only upon the efficient, completion of all these processes does it qualify to be classified as a resource that has economic value.

All these steps need investments, they need technology, and they need human ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Only those entities that can best combine these will confer maximum value upon resources in ways that bring maximum benefit to the economy and therefore to the people of the country. The corollary to that being that any natural resource if extracted or used inefficiently only has negative value and will do more harm than good for its owner.

So the very shrill and contentious sabre-rattling on natural resources indulged in by their Hon’ble Lordships and the CAG reminds one of Don Quixote riding his ass in full battle armour – only to tilt at windmills. The errors of yesterday if uncorrected are bound to become tomorrow’s blunders. And the Supreme Court has been absolutely right in highlighting these. The primary error lay in the half-hearted amendments made to the Coal Nationalization Act – the last coming as recently as 2012. Let us correct them and get on with serious policy action before we lose both time and hope. The fixes for the errors ultimately must lie with the executive and the legislature, not with the judiciary.

To begin with, let us for God’s sake get rid of our distrust of markets. We must shun any short term fixes that are surreptitiously in bed with allocations and quotas. Resources are best allocated by efficiently functioning, well regulated markets rather than by Government committees rationing fuel linkages of never to be produced coal reserves.

In all the hype and hyperbole about what to do with coal blocks, the plain fact is that the real danger lies in our coal reserves turning valueless for the country, of no benefit to the owner – the people of the land. They will be value less if we don’t extract them, they will be valueless when rendered un-burnable by climate action a few decades from now.

Having missed one train already, are we now going to squabble at the bus stop and miss the last bus as well? If we do, the promised Achhe Din may meet the same fate as met by one other well-known King of Good Times.

(The writer is the Director of Observer Research Foundation)

Courtesy: India Today, October 24, 2014

The post Four Walls And A Bubble: Coal And The ABC Of India’s Energy Security – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Hagel Confers With Egyptian Defense Minister, Condemns Terror In Sinai

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Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke today with Egyptian Minister of Defense Colonel General Sedki Sobhy to underline the Defense Department’s condemnation of the terrorist attacks on Oct. 24 which killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers and wounded many more.

Assistant Press Secretary Carl Woog issued a statement saying Hagel expressed condolences to the families of the victims as well as wishes for speedy recovery of the wounded.

Minister Sobhy provided information about the incident and Egypt’s overall security situation, thanking Secretary Hagel for American support to Egypt’s security.

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a strong bilateral relationship and agreed to continue to engage regularly.

The post Hagel Confers With Egyptian Defense Minister, Condemns Terror In Sinai appeared first on Eurasia Review.

South Africa: Task Team To Investigate Meyiwa’s Death

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A multi-disciplinary task team has been established to investigate the fatal shooting of Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa, National Police Commissioner General Riah Phiyega said on Monday.

Phiyega told reporters in Johannesburg that the team will be led by the Gauteng Deputy Provincial Commissioner, Major General Tebello Mosikili.

The investigators in the team are from the national and provincial investigation divisions. They will also be assisted by the provincial and national crime intelligence as well as the Visible Policing and War Room divisions.

Phiyega said investigators are still at the crime scene gathering evidence.

She said the suspects fled with one cell phone, which was on the charger at the time of the incident. The cell phone, she said, does not belong to the deceased.

Phiyega said indications at this stage are that Meyiwa was killed during a house robbery in Mzamo section 28, Vosloorus, while visiting friends on Sunday night.

It is alleged that two suspects entered the house and confronted the occupants in the house, while a third suspect was outside.

According to Phiyega, a fired shot hit Meyiwa in the upper body and he was rushed to the local hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

The three suspects fled on foot and police have launched a manhunt.

“There were seven people in the house when the incident happened and we need to put on record that the deceased was shot when moving towards the door and he was not protecting any specific individual,” said Phiyega.

According to the Police Commissioner, the two suspects who entered the house are believed to be in their late 20s and early 30s.

“One suspect is tall, slender, dark skinned with dreadlocks and the other is short, dark and well-built,” she said.

Phiyega also announced that the initial reward of R150 000 has been increased to R250 000 to help police with information that can lead to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.

“Cases of murder and house robbery are under investigation and we are appealing to the community to assist with information that will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators. You can contact Crime Stop on 08600 10111 or SMS crime line on 32211,” she said.

The post South Africa: Task Team To Investigate Meyiwa’s Death appeared first on Eurasia Review.

China Toughens Up Border Security Over IS Recruitment Fears

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China has started enforcing stricter border checks in a bid to stop Islamic extremists from joining terrorist cells in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, state-run media said on Monday.

Following recent reports of minority Muslim Uyghurs fighting for the Islamic State (IS) and arrests in Indonesia, police have started gathering and sharing terrorism intelligence with neighboring countries along China’s vast frontiers, according to the state-run China Daily.

“Border police have stepped up efforts to prevent and combat such cases,” it quoted an unnamed government official as saying.

China is expected to pass a new antiterrorism law this week that would include more stringent controls of the already heavily censored internet, sharing of information across state agencies and greater cooperation with other countries.

In May, the government began a one-year ‘strike hard’ campaign in restive Xinjiang province amid a series of deadly attacks that have left hundreds dead this year, mostly in western China.

Uyghur militants have reportedly increased connections with international Islamic groups, which has coincided with IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi labeling China as a violator of Muslim rights.

“Your brothers all over the world are waiting for your rescue, and are anticipating your brigades,” he said during a speech in Mosul, Iraq on July 4.

Last month, Iraqi security forces released images of what appeared to be the first captured Chinese militant fighting with IS, and also in September Indonesian police arrested and charged four Uyghurs accused of working with Islamic terrorism groups in central Sulawesi.

China’s state media has since regularly linked Muslim separatists from Xinjiang to overseas terrorist groups, including IS.

“Their final destination is to return to China to plot and conduct more terrorist attacks,” the anonymous government official was quoted as saying on Monday.

Although police have stepped up security checks on main roads in provinces including Yunnan, China’s mostly remote border regions with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam remain porous.

Officials in Beijing have reportedly stated that Uyghurs are traveling overland to Southeast Asian countries where they are buying stolen or fake passports — typically in Bangkok — before traveling to the Middle East or other areas of Asia to join Islamic insurgencies.

However, critics of the harsh crackdown in Xinjiang have said Beijing appears to be exaggerating the size and scope of Uyghur militant groups to justify harsh anti-terrorism policies. Groups of Uyghurs fleeing persecution have also turned up in countries around Southeast Asia while en route to third party countries to seek asylum.

Authorities have tried to curtail independent information coming out of Xinjiang while painting separatists as a terrorist nexus across China’s vast northwestern region, as opposed to pockets of disgruntled but disorganized minority people, according to the assessment of some analysts.

William Nee, a China researcher for Amnesty International, said that Chinese claims of finding and shutting down dozens of terrorist cells in Xinjiang this year appeared overstated.

“Given the high level of security in Xinjiang [and] just the amazing amount of social stability apparatus … I just can’t imagine that [the government] would allow” a violent terrorist group to function in their midst, he said.

The post China Toughens Up Border Security Over IS Recruitment Fears appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Tunisia’s Borders: Terrorism And Regional Polarisation

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The growing link between cartels and armed jihadi militants along Tunisia’s borders with Algeria and Libya, combined with heightened ideological polarisation, could form an explosive mix ahead of Tunisia’s legislative and presidential elections.

In its latest briefing, Tunisia’s Borders (II): Terrorism and Regional Polarisation, the International Crisis Group builds on its November 2013 report and analyses the alarming security threats at Tunisia’s borders with Algeria and Libya. It argues that, in order to address the growing link between terrorism and organised crime, Tunisia needs a consensual, balanced and depoliticised approach to facing growing security challenges. This means delinking security challenges from the polarised political environment through new socio-economic and development initiatives that would ensure border communities’ trust in and support for the state.

The briefing’s major findings and recommendations are:

  • Whatever the results of the legislative and presidential elections, the Tunisian government needs to confront its critical security challenges by implementing a consensual, balanced and depoliticised approach to anti-terrorism. This means dealing with the economic, social and ideological dimensions of terrorism.
  • The security situation along the Tunisia-Algeria and Tunisia-Libya borders could become an alarming threat if Tunisia fails to initiate talks with certain contraband cartels, strengthen the state’s presence in the border regions through socio-economic and development policies, and win back the trust of local communities who otherwise could be tempted to join militant jihadi groups and indulge in lucrative transborder trafficking, including in dangerous goods.
  • The government should also increase security cooperation with neighbouring Algeria, and pursue the creation of a new National Intelligence Agency to merge intelligence and counter-terrorism.

“It is crucial for the main political, trade union and civil society forces – both Islamist and non-Islamist – to maintain a consensual approach to public security and for the authorities to adopt a calmer anti-terrorist discourse so as to prevent renewed polarisation”, says Michael Béchir Ayari, Senior Tunisia Analyst.

“A deepening security crackdown, combined with reprisals by weakened jihadi groups, could form a vicious circle”, says Issandr El Amrani, North Africa Project Director. “The risk is that a major terrorist attack would deepen polarisation between Islamists and secularists”.

The post Tunisia’s Borders: Terrorism And Regional Polarisation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Weaponizing Ebola? – Analysis

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By John R. Haines

“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.  There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” — Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)

A number of public domain commentaries have appeared in recent days on the theme Ebola as a biological weapon.[1]  This is, to state the obvious, an important matter that merits judicious consideration.  It is not, however, a new one: we have known for some time that the Soviet Union acquired Ebola virus strains in the mid-1980s from a Belgian research institution[2] and commenced work to weaponize them.

Two important claims are made with respect to the Ebola virus (EBOV). The first claim is that the weaponization of EBOV for use as an instrument of biological warfare or terrorism is so unlikely as to dismiss it from serious consideration. The second claim is that secondary transmission of EBOV in human populations occurs only by direct contact with infected persons, or with infected blood and other bodily fluids or tissue, and not by aerosol transmission (in ambient air).[3]

One objective of this paper is to test these claims. With respect to the one about the weaponization of EBOV, part of that claim can be conceded upfront, viz., that practical barriers to manufacturing an EBOV bioweapon make it unlikely that a malevolent group such as Islamic State (or for that manner, most nation-states) could do so beyond possibly fabricating a very small number of improvised dispersal devices. With respect to an EBOV biohazard weapon, however, the claim is much more contestable.  EBOV’s purported non-transmissibility in ambient air, too, is subject to serious challenge; the opposite has in fact been demonstrated experimentally in environmental conditions that may have special salience here. It is the intersection of these contested claims—a biohazard weapon intended to transmit EBOV to human populations through aerosol dispersal into ambient air—that poses the greatest concern.

In this sense EBOV has symmetries with, for example, nuclear (fissile) and radiological materials, which along with lethal biological material comprise three legs of the four-legged weapons of mass disruption stool. As argued elsewhere, the intent of detonating an improvised nuclear or radiological device is to cause coercive, wide-scale social, political and economic disruption. This in some ways makes them more problematic than military-grade mass destructive weapons because the former are more likely to be used by a malevolent group that came to possess them.  So, too, improvised biohazard devices since practical barriers to their fabrication and use are substantially lower than those faced even by improvised bioweapons let alone military-grade ones.

EBOLA, WARFARE & TERROR

The emergence of Ebola as a meme has distracted from semantic overlaps and lingering imprecision in how the term is used. Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a severe viral infection characterized by fever, shock and coagulation defects.  EVD is caused by exposure to EBOV, a filovirus[4] discovered in 1976 after the first known outbreak of EVD, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire).  EVD belongs to a class of zoonotic diseases—those in which a virus that is transmissible to humans has a primary reservoir in an animal species, where it resides and causes little or no damage—also known as host-swapping diseases.  EBOV’s reservoir is thought to be one or more species of bat.[5] There are five known EBOV species, viz., Bundibugyo, Cote d’Ivoire, Reston, Sudan, and Zaire. Their relative virulence varies greatly among infected humans and other mammalian species: Zaire and Sudan are associated with mortality rates of 50-90 percent in humans while Côte d’Ivoire has only been reported from a non-fatal human case, and Reston is only associated with asymptomatic infections in humans.[6]

We should take a moment to frame the discussion by defining some key terms. EBOV and other pathogens are incorporated into biological weapons or bioweapons to enable their deliberate release into the environment for the express purpose of causing disease—here, EVD—in a target human population. The United Nations defines bioweapons as “complex systems that disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants.”[7]  Their military use is labeled biological warfare or biowarfare; their non-military use is labeled biological terrorism or bioterrorism.

Biowarfare is not new, nor for that matter may be Ebola: a group of United States Navy epidemiologists suggest that Thucydides’ “plague of Athens” (430-427/425BCE) was actually EVD.[8] A poisoned arrow wounds the eponymous main character in Sophocles’ 404 BC play, Philoctetes. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the English word toxin is derived from the Greek word toxicon, which in turn is derived from toxon, the Greek word for arrow. A derivative term, toxic warfare, is sometimes used to describe the malevolent use of toxic waste (e.g., infectious medical waste) as a bioweapon:

“Such ‘toxic weapons’ provide a means for hostile state or nonstate actors to improve their capabilities within the context of asymmetrical warfare.  In basic terms, toxic warfare refers to the use of chemicals or industrial waste to harm or alter the behavior of an opponent during military operations.  Toxic warfare does not, however, require the use of traditional weapons…”

“Toxic warfare can cause casualties among opposing militaries by incapacitating and, in some cases, killing the adversary.  [It] can also halt or force delays in military logistics flows or operations and can disrupt the functioning of the urban infrastructure through contamination or corrosion.  Toxic weapons, moreover, derive power from the uncertainty that stems from their potential use. Toxic substances often represent an unknown threat, and the level of uncertainty surrounding the potential damage these substances might cause can increase their impact even when little or no physical harm has been done.”[9]

This serves as a foundation for distinguishing a related, but separate class of weapon, biohazardous weapons.[10]  They have long been effective weapons of terror: the Tartar army besieging the city of Kaffa (present day Fedosia, Ukraine) in 1346 CE catapulted the bodies of plague victims over the city walls to cause Kaffa’s defenders to abandon the city. In the case of EVD, bodily fluids from diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding represent an extreme biohazard:

“Based on US hospital experiences to date, one Ebola patient will likely generate eight 55-gallon barrels of medical waste per day, making storage, transportation, and disposal of the waste a major challenge for hospitals…”[11]

For example, while the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends autoclaving (a form of sterilizing) or incinerating waste, the latter is effectively prohibited in California and banned in at least seven other states.  Moreover, there are basic unresolved questions about whether EBOV-infected human waste may enter sanitary sewer systems: the USCDC says that it can, but other sources say the waste must first be sterilized.[12]  This ambiguity is puzzling in the face of long-available scientific findings. For example, a 1996 study by scientists at USAMRIID’s National Centers for Infectious Diseases concluded:

“All bodily excretions from a patient with VHF should be considered infectious and should be inactivated prior to disposal to 1) prevent subsequent accidental infections.  All effluent should be disinfected prior to disposal into a municipal sewer system or septic tank by adding disinfectant prior to use [84] o f using chemical toilets. This level of precaution should continue for 6 weeks of convalescence or until the patient is virologically negative.”[13]

DISTINGUISHING BIOWEAPONS AND BIOHAZARDOUS WEAPONS

The United States and other signatory nations to the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention[14] agree not to “develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain”:

“(1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;”

“(2) Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.”[15]

A bioweapon consists of two parts, a weaponized agent and a delivery mechanism.[16]  While a theorized bioweapon delivery mechanism could use active (explosive) means, passive (aerosol) ones are much preferred for reasons discussed later. Bioweapon manufacture and use has three distinct phases, agent production, agent stabilization, and agent dissemination.  The first two involve selecting a pathogen and obtaining a starter culture, which is then mass-produced and stabilized. At this point, the bioweapon consists of a liquid suspension (in our example, of EBOV) and a chemical stabilizer.  A canister holding the liquid suspension is then placed in a disseminating device (e.g., a sprayer) or explosive munitions,[17] in either case to deliver the suspension as an aerosol since airborne EBOV and other filoviruses are known to be highly infectious.[18]

A biohazardous weapon in many important ways is much simpler, and in its simplicity, a much more threatening device.  The most rudimentary form of EBOV biohazardous weapon would use liquid[19] (fluids) medical waste acquired from an EVD patient and disseminate it by means of a sprayer to aerosolize the waste.  For example, it has been reported “undessicated blood from acutely infected Ebola patients may be infectious for up to 1 month at ambient temperature.”[20]  It would pose no special engineering challenge to start with other medical waste[21] and reach the same end. While practical considerations might argue against using explosive munitions to disperse EBOV-contaminated waste—explosives generate heat that may render a biological agent inactive—the shock effect of a known detonation in an urban area might well have all the disruptive effect a malefactor intended.

As stated earlier, biohazardous weapons share many characteristics of improvised nuclear and radiological devices, especially the latter since biohazardous and radiological materials are fairly easy to come by for a determined malefactor and simple to weaponize.  This might well carry over to consideration of how a malefactor would deploy these weapons, since all are far most effective when detonated (or in the case of a biohazardous weapon, dispersed) in a contained environment such as a large building, for the common objective is to disperse the material in question as an aerosol rather than rely on the destructive kinetic effect, which is of secondary interest.

AEROSOLIZED EBOLA?

Beyond the socially, politically and economically disruptive effects of dispersing EBOV-contaminated medical waste, there is a question whether aerosolized EBOV presents a meaningful health risk to an exposed human population. Governmental health officials have repeatedly assured the public that the only cause of secondary, human-to-human EBOV transmission is infectious blood (where the highest EBOV concentrations are found) or other body fluids, direct contact with which allows EBOV to invade the body through the conjunctiva, gastrointestinal tract, and/or breaks in the skin.  These officials steadfastly maintain, “Ebola is not spread through the air.”[22]

This is not strictly so, however, in the case of intentional direct aerosol exposure of the sort intended from the use of an EBOV biohazardous weapon (or bioweapon). A 2012 study by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) concluded that while “there is no strong evidence of secondary transmission by the aerosol route in African filovirus outbreaks”:

“[A]erosol transmission is thought to be possible and may occur in conditions of lower temperature and humidity which may not have been factors in outbreaks in warmer climates.  At the very least, the potential exists for aerosol transmission, given that virus is detected in bodily secretions, the pulmonary alveolar interstitial cells, and within lung spaces. [...] Filoviruses in aerosol form are therefore considered a possible serious threat to the health and safety of the public.”[23]

An earlier peer-reviewed study[24] established the potential of aerogenic infection of EBOV.  It is important here to distinguish two different points: (a) the potential for aerogenic infection of EBOV through aerosol transmission; and (b) the probability that aerogenic infection is a significant infection pathway during human EVD outbreaks.  As the 2012 USAMRIID study noted, there is no strong evidence to indicate that the probability of (b) is especially high, which means that aerogenic infection has not been significant in EBV outbreaks in Africa.  However, as the 2012 USAMRIID and earlier studies concluded, that does not mean aerogenic infection is impossible.

With particular attention to the question of weaponizing EBOV in one form or another, and accepting the first condition—that aerogenic EBOV infection is possible—what factors might affect why it has not been observed to be a significant pathway during human EVD outbreaks in Africa? Two factors—ambient temperature and relative humidity—are of particular interest since elevated levels in each have long been shown to reduce the aerosol stability of viruses. When scientists controlled these levels:

“Our experiments were conducted at 24°C [≅75°F] and <40% RH, conditions which are known to favor the aerosol stability of at least two other African hemorrhagic fever viruses, Rift Valley fever and Lassa.”[25]

The results were unambiguous— EBOV “can be transmitted by aerosol”[26] subject to:

“[L]ower temperature and humidity than that normally present in sub-Saharan Africa.  Ebola virus sensitivity to the high temperatures and humidity…in southern Sudan and northern Zaire may have been a factor limiting aerosol transmission of Ebola virus in the African epidemics.”[27]

A 2004 paper assessing the results of this and similar studies concluded:

“The high mortality rates, coupled with the knowledge that these viruses possess properties considered desirable in biological weapons, explains the considerable concern about their potential use. However, this concern must be couched with an understanding of the paucity of data concerning that potential. Without data there can be little understanding of the level of threat that filoviruses present. For example, it is not clear from the available data whether filoviruses would cause large-scale infections and deaths if disseminated by aerosol over a city without extensive preparation or modification (‘weaponization’).”[28]

In the context of considering the malevolent dispersion of biohazardous material, it has been understood for some time that small-particle aerosols present a far greater danger than large droplets:

“When liquid suspensions containing viruses are dispersed in the air, the sizes of the particles formed are extremely important in their subsequent behaviour.  Larger droplets (>5-10μm) settle out rapidly and under ordinary circumstances travel no further than one or perhaps 3 meters, during which they may contact skin or mucous membranes and their presence may actually be felt as moisture or another sensation. If air containing such droplets is inspired, they are largely trapped in the turbinates or impinge on the posterior pharynx.”

“Smaller partides (1-5μm) have markedly different properties and will be referred to here as small-particle aerosols or simply aerosols. They will remain dispersed in the air and circulate as airborne particles for long distances without settling. If inspired, they will penetrate deep into the lung, and Brownian motion, sedimentation, and turbulence will result in retention of about half of them in the lower respiratory passages or alveolae. These particles are not efficiently filtered from air by ordinary surgical masks and therefore enhanced respiratory protection must be used.”[29]

There are two important factors to weigh in assessing the issues raised here: first, whether EBOV is stable in small-particle aerosols; and second, whether this mode of spread is observed clinically. The answer to both questions is yes, with an important caveat regarding incidence:

“The data on formal aerosol experiments leave no doubt that Ebola and Marburg viruses are stable and infectious in small-particle aerosols, and experience of transmission between experimental animals in the laboratory supports this. Indeed, during the 1989–1990 epizootic of the Reston subtype of Ebola, there was circumstantial evidence of airborne spread of the virus, and supporting observations included suggestive epidemiology in patterns of spread within rooms and between rooms in the quarantine facility, high concentrations of virus in nasal and oropharyngeal secretions, and ultrastructural visualization of abundant virus particles in alveoli. However, this is far from saying that Ebola viruses are transmitted in the clinical setting by small-particle aerosols generated from an index patient. Indeed patients without any direct exposure to a known EHF case were carefully sought but uncommonly found. The conclusion is that if this mode of spread occurred, it was very minor.”[30]

This might explain the seeming disconnect between on the one hand, scientific data indicating EBOV transmission can occur by means of small-particle aerosol; and on the other hand, public statements by governmental officials and other that the risk of secondary human-to-human transmission by this mode is unlikely. It is the former, however, that has bearing in the context of a theorized biological or biohazardous weapon.  Another set of factors become relevant, for example, the question of EBOV’s persistence in the environment; and the presence of factors that affect the aerosol’s decay (e.g., relative humidity, the composition of the fluid in which the virus was suspended, ultraviolet light from the sun, and dilution by diffusion and wind currents).

NEAR AND LONGER TERMS RISKS & CONCERNS

Near-term fears about an EBOV-based bioweapon are something of a false flag. The production and stabilization of pathogenic agents, and the fabrication of an effective delivery mechanism to disperse a now-weaponized agent on a target human population are tasks that collectively (and thankfully) lie beyond the understood capacity even of sophisticated malefactors among today’s terrorist organizations and rogue states.

Lamentably, the same confidence does not extend to biohazardous weapons intending widespread disruption, and possibly, secondary EBOV transmission within a target human population. Avoiding such a contingency requires scrupulous, inerrant chain-of-custody control and disposal of EBOV-tainted medical waste. That standard should be achievable in the United States; whether it is in nations that are at the epidemic’s epicenter is another question entirely.  The decidedly unglamorous end of an effective response to the EVD epidemic, the control of EBOV-tainted material is nonetheless critical to thwarting opportunistic malefactors seeking feedstock for biohazardous weapons.

The historic example of the Soviet biological weapons program advises long-term vigilance. Kanatzhan Alibekov aka Kenneth Alibek, is the former chief scientist and first deputy director of the Soviet-era Biopreparat[31] biowarfare agency. He has written extensively on Soviet-era bioweapons programs, including one to weaponize EBOV that remained active into at least the early 1990s.[32]  It included a research-stage effort to create a recombinant EBOV-smallpox chimera virus, building on earlier work to insert EBOV genes thought to be virulence factors into the vaccinia virus, the genetic structure of which closely resembles the smallpox virus.[33]  The objective, according to Alibekov, was to “produce the form of smallpox called blackpox,” aka hemorrhagic smallpox, the most severe type of that disease. “As a weapon, the Ebolapox would give the hemorrhages and high mortality rate of Ebola virus, which would give you a blackpox, plus the very high contagiousness of smallpox,” Alibek said.[34] Nor are efforts to weaponize EBOV limited to state actors: in 1995, Japanese authorities seized EBOV cultures in a raid on the headquarters of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which may earlier have acquired EBOV samples under cover of an October 1992 “medical mission” in Zaire.[35] In 1998, the MIT-educated neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui was arrested in Ghanzi, Afghanistan, in possession of a detailed plan for a “mass casualty attack” in the United States using an EBOV dirty bomb.[36]

To conclude, there is a clear danger posed by the potential to weaponize Ebola-related biohazardous material, especially given the large volume of it produced by a single infected patient.  It is a cause for vigilance, however, not panic. That being said, the actual or credibly claimed possession of Ebola-infected biohazardous material by a known malefactor would have an obvious and potentially severe disruptive effect, let alone the destructive effect on a target human population were a malefactor successfully to disperse aerosolized Ebola virus. The only way to preclude potential malefactors from coming into actual possession of such material, or from making a credible claim to have done so, is to institute and execute scrupulous methods to control and dispose of these materials.  As Camus wrote, doing nothing is not an option:

“A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; therefore, we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away.  But it doesn’t always pass away, and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.”

About the author:
John R. Haines is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he also is a trustee and directs its Princeton Committee. Much of his current research is focused on Russia and its near abroad, with a special interest in nationalist and separatist movements. He is also the chief executive officer of a private sector corporation that develops nuclear detection and nuclear counterterrorism technologies.

Source:
This article was published at FPRI.

References:
[1] For example, Marc A. Thiessen (2014). “A ‘Dark Winter’ of Ebola terrorism?” The Washington Post [online edition, 20 October 2014]. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-a-dark-winter-of-eb…. Last accessed 26 October 2014.  Josh Sanburn (2014). “Here’s What Would Happen if Ebola Was Stolen From a Lab.”  Time [online edition, 22 October 2014]. http://time.com/3532057/ebola-bioweapon-terrorism/. Last accessed 26 October 2014.

[2] The Antwerp-based Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde, which supplied an EBOV variant to the Byelorussian Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology located in Minsk.  See: Milton Leitenberg & Raymond A. Zilinskas (2012). The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 93.

[3] For example, “Ebola virus is not transmitted from person to person through the air, water, or food.” Kansas Department of Health and Environment (2014). Ebola Virus Preparedness and Response Plan, Version 2.0 (21 October 2014), p. 4. http://www.kdheks.gov/ebola/download/KDHEEbolaPreparednessPlan2.0.pdf. Last accessed 26 October 2014.

[4] EBOV and a second filovirus, Marburg, are classified as Category A biowarfare agents by the United Center Centers for Disease Control because of their high virulence, demonstrated aerosol infectivity in the laboratory, and capacity for inducing fear and anxiety.  Marburg and Ebola are respectively, the first and second known filoviruses. See: Lisa D. Rotz, et al. (2002). “Public health assessment of potential biological terrorism agents.” Emerging Infectious Diseases. 8:2, pp. 225–229.

[5] Roman Biek, Peter D. Walsh, Eric M. Leroy & Leslie A. Real (2006). “Recent Common Ancestry of Ebola Zaire Virus Found in a Bat Reservoir.” PLoS Pathogens. 2:10. http://www.plospathogens.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2…. Last accessed 24 October 2014.  These are known to include three species of the Pteropodidae family fruit bats, Hypsignathus monstrosus, Epomops franqueti, and Myonycteris torquata.

[6] Meg L. Flanagan, Terrance J. Leighton & Joseph P. Dudley (2011). Anticipating Viral Species Jumps: Bioinformatics and Data Needs. (Washington, DC: Defense Threat Reduction Agency), p. 12.

[7] http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/29B727532FECBE96C12571860035A6DB?OpenDocument. Last accessed 24 October 2014.

[8] Patrick E. Olson, MD, et al. (1996).  “The Thucydides Syndrome: Ebola Déjà Vu? (or Ebola Reemergent?).” Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2:2 (April-June 1996), pp. 155-156. http://198.246.112.54/pub/EID/vol2no2/adobe/vol2no2.pdf. Last accessed 25 October 2014.

[9] Theodore Karasik (2002). Toxic Warfare. (Santa Monica: RAND), ix-x.

[10] Medical waste as a potential toxic weapon can include human blood and blood products; cultures and stocks of infectious agents; pathological wastes; contaminated wastes from patient care; discarded biological materials; and contaminated body parts, bedding, and equipment. Karasik (2002), p. 25.

[11] “Hospitals Face Ebola Waste Challenges.” Environmental & Energy Management News [online edition, 24 October 2014]. http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/10/24/hospitals-face-ebola-waste…. Last accessed 26 October 2014.  EBOV waste must be packaged inside rigid plastic 55-gallon drums or larger over-pack plastic drums that can be incinerated with the contained waste. There is a 90-day time limit on how long EBOV waste can remain stored in one of these drums before being incinerated.  For reference, the estimated daily quantity of medical waste produced by a single EVD patient equates to 440 gallons.

[12] Ibid.

[13] C. J. Peters, et al., (1996). “Patients infected with high-hazard viruses: scientific basis for infection control.” Archives of Virology. 11, pp. 163-164.

[14] Formally, “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.”

[15] Ibid., Article I.  See: http://www.opbw.org/convention/documents/btwctext.pdf. Last accessed 24 October 2014.

[16] http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/29B727532FECBE96C12571860035A6DB?OpenDocument. Last accessed 24 October 2014.

[17]Steven C. Drielak (2004). Hot Zone Forensics: Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Evidence Collection. (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, LTD), p. 172.  Common to what is sometimes assumed, the use of explosive munitions as a dissemination device is problematic insofar as the heat generated by the explosive may render the biological agent inactive.

[18] Mike Bray (2003). “Defense against filoviruses used as biological weapons.” Antiviral Research. 57, p. 54.

[19] EVD patient bodily fluids like vomitus and stool, and blood.

[20] C. J. Peters, et al., (1996), op cit., p. 163.

[21] For example, EBOV contaminated “medical equipment, sharps, linens, and used health care products (such as soiled absorbent pads or dressings, kidney-shaped emesis pans, portable toilets, used personal protection equipment (gowns, masks, gloves, goggles, face shields, respirators, booties, etc.) or byproducts of cleaning contaminated [...] substance.”  See: Kansas Department of Health and Environment (2014), op cit., p. 13..

[22] United States Centers for Disease Control website.  http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html. Last accessed 26 October 2014.

[23] Elizabeth E. Zumbrun, et al. (2012). , p. 2116. ” A Characterization of Aerosolized Sudan Virus Infection in African Green Monkeys, Cynomolgus Macaques, and Rhesus Macaques.” Viruses. 2012:4, p. 2116.

[24] E. Johnson, N. Jaax, J. White & P. Jahrling (1995). “Lethal experimental infections of rhesus monkeys by aerosolized Ebola virus.” International Journal of Experimental Pathology.  76:4, pp. 227-236.

[25] Johnson, et al., p. 233.

[26] Ibid., p. 234.

[27] Ibid., 233.

[28] Elizabeth K. Leiffel & Douglas S. Red (2004). “Marburg and Ebola Viruses as Aerosol threats.” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice and Science. 2:3, p. 189.

[29] C. J. Peters, et al., (1996), op cit., pp. 152-153.

[30] C.J. Peters & J.W.Peters (1999). “An Introduction to Ebola: The Virus and the Disease. The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 179 (Supplement 1). http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/179/Supplement_1/ix.long. Last accessed 27 October 2014.

[31] Biopreparat is the Russian transliteration of Биопрепарат, an acronym which when expanded translates as “biological material preparation”)

[32] EBOV was part of a concerted Soviet effort to develop highly virulent viruses.  An RNA virus, EBOV has evolved complex mechanisms of transcription and translation, requiring Soviet scientists to develop methods to insert foreign gene fragments that were difficult for the host virus to expel.  See: Leitenberg & Zilinskas (2012), op cit., p. 248.

[33] COL Michael J. Ainscough, USAF (2002). “Next Generation Bioweapons: The Technology of Genetic Engineering Applied to Biowarfare and Bioterrorism.” Counterproliferation Paper No. 14.  USAF Counterproliferation Center. (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air War College), pp. 6-7.

[34] Quoted in Richard Preston (1998). “The Bioweaponeers.” The New Yorker. 9 March 1998, pp. 52-65.

[35] This story was covered in multiple oputletds.  See: Kyle B. Olson (1999). “Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future Threat?” Emerging Infectious Diseases. 5:4. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/5/4/99-0409_article. Last accessed 27 October 2014.  Also: Monterey Institute of International Studies (2001). “Chronicle of Aum Shinrikyo’s CBW Activities.” http://cns.miis.edu/reports/pdfs/aum_chrn.pdf. Last accessed 27 October 2014.

[36] See: Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (2014). “Affia Siddiqui: Individual Profile” [online database].  http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/aafia-siddiqui-individual-profile. Last accessed 27 October 2014.  Shane Harris (2014). “Lady al Qaeda: The World’s Most Wanted Woman.” Foreign Policy [online edition, 26 August 2014]. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/26/lady_al_qaeda_the_world…. Last accessed 27 October 2014.

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Kazakhstan: Can Astana Survive An Oil Price Slump?

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By Joanna Lillis

The steep decline in global oil prices is stoking angst in Kazakhstan. Experts and officials alike say the government has ample resources to grapple with fiscal surprises. The real question is whether the political will exists for the government to take necessary measures.

Economic storm clouds have been gathering for a while over Kazakhstan, starting with February’s currency devaluation, followed by the fallout from an economic slowdown in Russia, caused in large part by Western sanctions. Now, in a triple whammy, slumping oil prices threaten to put a big dent in Astana’s best-laid budget plans.

The government’s fiscal woes have been compounded by news that the giant Kashagan oilfield will not be starting production this year. Officials had been counting on Kashagan revenue to help fill state coffers in 2014.

Looming hard times could have significant repercussions for President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s image and policies; Nazarbayev has defined his administration by a grand bargain in which he delivers a rising standard of living in return for public acquiescence to his authoritarian political rule.

On October 16 the price of oil – which accounts for 25 percent of Kazakhstan’s GDP and 60 percent of its balance of payments – fell to a four-year low of $82.93 per barrel, an approximately 20 percent drop over the price in February. The price has since ticked upwards, but economic repercussions for Kazakhstan are inevitable “if 25 percent of your income is coming from one source, and that product suddenly experiences a drop of 20 percent,” points out Nadeem Naqvi, an economics professor at Almaty’s KIMEP University.

On October 23, the government scaled back its 2014 growth target from 6 percent to 4.3 percent, and the president warned of tough economic times ahead. Annual revenue will fall $2.3 billion below target, Economy Minister Yerbolat Dosayev told parliament, and the government is revising its deficit forecast upward, from 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent of GDP.

Falling oil revenues are also causing officials to revise the 2015 and 2016 budgets, previously based on an oil price of $90 a barrel, to a more conservative $80, according to Finance Minister Bakhyt Sultanov. Oil is currently trading at around $86, below the $95 set in this year’s budget (though for most of 2014 it was above).

“Of course oil prices will affect Kazakhstan’s economy because the lion’s share of our budget is formed by oil production and export,” Saparbay Dzhubayev, an economics professor at Astana’s Eurasian National University, told EurasiaNet.org.

The government is putting on a brave face. Oil is “an important element,” remarked Ruslan Dalenov, a deputy minister of finance, laconically to Bnews.kz, “but this doesn’t mean that if the price drops everything mindlessly grinds to a halt.”

Astana has a back-up plan: for years it has been sticking to “a simple, ancient principle,” Dalenov said – “in years of plenty create reserves.” He was referring to the National Fund, a piggy bank set up in 2001 to accumulate revenue surpluses from the natural-resources sector for a rainy day.

“That’s a buffer that would help mitigate the spread of this negative effect across the population,” Naqvi, the economics professor, told EurasiaNet.org. “When it rains, you’ve got to put the umbrella out.”

The National Fund – which contains $76 billion, or three quarters of Kazakhstan’s total reserves of $104 billion – is a nice cushion to have. Yet, as Finance Minister Sultanov pointed out, this is not free money: lower oil prices mean less revenue pumped into the pot and more sucked out, so “any fall in the oil price will be reflected directly in the revenues of the National Fund.”

To guard against extensive depletion, Astana has just raised the minimum level of cash the fund must contain from 20 percent to 30 percent of GDP.

According to the IMF, the oil price at which Kazakhstan can balance its budget is $65.5, but a price below $90.6 means the balance of payments dipping into the red. If the price of crude were to drop to $60 (a level that analysts believe unlikely in the short term) Kazakhstan faces zero growth, National Bank adviser Olzhas Khudaybergenov said.

What Astana may need to do is spend its way out of the crisis, suggested Naqvi: “The negative effect can be mitigated firstly by dipping into the [National Fund], and secondly by an expansionary fiscal policy, taking the form of expanded government expenditure to drum up the economy.”

Injecting an element of volatility into the decision-making process, the low price of oil is fueling a new round of currency devaluation rumors, which the government has denied. With memories of unrest after February’s devaluation still fresh, Nazarbayev’s administration is keen to keep a lid on public discontent. The government has pledged not to cut social spending, but analysts are divided on whether officials can keep this promise.

Naqvi and other economic observers believe the government has sufficient reserves, coupled with low debt, to handle the upcoming challenges, provided officials demonstrate “the right political will.”

“It’s a big shock, but it’s weatherable if your belt is not tight – and the belt is not tight here,” Naqvi added.

Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specializes in Central Asia.

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Armenia’s Eurasian Deal: Sell-Out Or Fair Trade?

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By Yekaterina Poghosyan

A year after deciding to align with Moscow rather than Europe, Armenia has joined a regional economic bloc that critics say will isolate it from the global economy and bring few tangible benefits in exchange.

Armenia was admitted to the Eurasian Economic Union on October 10 during a meeting of former Soviet leaders in Minsk.

In September 2013, President Serzh Sargsyan announced that his country would seek to enter the Customs Union, made up of Russia, Belarus and Kazakstan. This was a big surprise since it meant abandoning a nearly-completed Association Agreement with the European Union after years of work.

The Eurasian Economic Union, which has a broader remit than the Customs Union was established in May, with the same three members. It comes into being in January 2015, and a decision has clearly been taken to grant accelerated membership to the two states that applied to join the Customs Union – Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, the latter expected to enter in 2015, making five member states.

At the signing ceremony, President Sargsyan insisted the bloc would benefit member states by allowing free movement of goods, services, capital and labour.

Russia is a longstanding ally of Armenia, supplying most of its gas as well as maintaining a military presence there, so closer economic integration might seem a natural next step. Some Armenians fear, however, that the Eurasian union is about much more than free trade, and that they risk being swallowed up in a new strategic bloc led by Moscow.

President Sargsyan addressed these concerns in a speech on Independence Day, September 21.

Noting that “some of our opponents are trying to portray entry to the Eurasian Economic Union as a loss of political sovereignty”, he said there was “no danger” to Armenia’s independence, which was “sacrosanct and inviolable”.

As for fears that aligning Armenia with Russia and other former Soviet states would lead to greater isolation, Sargsyan said the country would continue to be “an active, responsible member of the international family of nations”, and would engage with the EU, the United States, China, neighbours Georgia and Iran, and other friendly states.

Although an EU Association Agreement is no longer on the table, Sargsyan spoke of the importance of working with the EU on his return from Minsk,

“It’s important for our partners to know that we well never set this [Eurasian Economic Union membership] against our dialogue with the EU. That will continue since we have numerous coinciding interests and a common heritage, the basis for our continuing process of democratic reforms,” he said during a press conference with the visiting Serbian president.

His opponents disagree. Tigran Urikhanyan, press secretary of the opposition party Prosperous Armenia, said Armenia joined the Eurasian bloc out of necessity, and the real advantages were still unclear.

“We have no other choice. Armenia wasn’t offered an alternative,” he said. “The authorities who signed this treaty have yet to set out in a consistent and convincing manner what [accession] can actually give us.”

Tevan Poghosyan, who represents the Heritage Party in parliament, objected to entering into an association with Russia on the grounds that it has supplied weapons to arch-enemy Azerbaijan. (See Yerevan Angry at Russian Arms Sales to Baku on this issue.)

“Is that really our choice?” he asked. “Of course not. Joining a union like that can only happen through coercion.”

Before Armenia signed up for the Eurasian union, the Association of Informed Citizens lobbied for a referendum on accession given the risks to national sovereignty.

“This agreement runs contrary to the Armenian constitution, since it means Yerevan entrusting its entire taxation and trade policy to Moscow,” the association’s founder and project coordinator, Daniel Ionesyan, told IWPR. “We will cease to be an independent state with regard to our foreign trade policy. For instance, we will have to obtain Moscow’s approval before starting negotiations with the World Trade Organisation or with other countries.”

Manvel Sargsyan, director of the Centre for National and International Studies in Yerevan, sees Eurasian bloc membership as the latest stage in a gradual process of ceding sovereignty to Russia.

“The Eurasian Economic Union is a wholly political project, a Russian geopolitical mechanism for the post-Soviet region,” he told IWPR. “The process of growing closer to Russia began from day one of Armenian independence [in 1991]. At that time, the Armenian leadership argued that the deployment of Russian troops was in Armenia’s interests. All three presidents of Armenia were drawn into a process of taking decisions like this. Unfortunately, Armenia has yet to design a professional policy for dealing with Russia.”

A lot has changed since President Sargsyan announced the switch to joining the Customs Union last year. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in east Ukraine has alarmed its other neighbours and brought down Western economic sanctions. So even if economic integration with Russia made sense a year ago, dependence on this troubled and increasingly isolated country no longer looks quite as attractive.

“The problems facing Russia as a state, its confrontation with the entire world, and its aggressive behaviour are cause for alarm,” Manvel Sargsyan said. “No one knows what future awaits it. Armenia’s voice will be of secondary importance in the union since we were coerced into joining it.”

Alexander Arzumanyan, a former foreign minister now representing the Free Democrats Party in parliament, agrees that accession is the wrong decision at the wrong time.

“At a time when our partner Russia is isolated and there’s no hope that it will enter into constructive dialogue with the West, we are planning to join a union that is under sanctions,” he said.

Recalling Armenia’s the close relationship with the late Boris Yeltsin’s administration in the 1990s, Arzumanyan said it “took Russia in a direction we could predict and it maintained excellent relations with the EU and NATO. That was a different Russia.”

Now, he continued, “We have chosen a European model of statehood founded on the free market, human rights and the rule of law. The model now operating in the Customs Union replicates the pattern of the Soviet, coercive state.”

Yekaterina Poghosyan is a reporter for the Mediamax news agency in Armenia. This article was published at IWPR’s CRS Issue 756.

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Egyptian Campuses And Soccer Emerge As Flashpoint In Resistance To President Al Sisi – Analysis

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Soccer fans exploiting stadia as contested public space emerged more than three years ago as a key force in anti-government protests that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and opposition to subsequent military rule. With stadia closed to spectators for much of the period since then, protesting students backed by militant football fans have turned university campuses into the new stadia with hundreds detained and scores killed. Theirs is a battle for public space and resistance to efforts by general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to depoliticize youth emboldened by its success in overthrowing a dictator after 30 years in office and angered by their being side-lined in the wake of their successful revolt and the rolling back of heavily fought achievements.

With Mr. Al Sisi employing brute force by security forces, a private security firm reportedly owned by generals and regime-friendly businessmen, and Mubarak-era thugs, and a crackdown on academic freedom to impose his will, flashpoints loom beyond campuses on the horizon. These potential flashpoints include a pending court case that could lead to the banning as a terrorist organization of the Ultras White Knights (UWK), the militant support group of storied Al Zamalek SC that played a crucial role in the uprising against Mubarak; the appeal against the sentencing to death of 21 people and lengthy prison sentence for others on charges that they were responsible for a 2012 politically loaded brawl in Port Said in which 74 Al Ahli SC fans died that is certain to spark protest once a verdict is announced; and the continued ban on spectators attending professional soccer matches.

The student protests have served to forge links between supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood whose Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president, Mr. Al Sisi overthrew in a military coup last year, and secular youth groups that constituted the backbone of the 2011 popular uprising. The influence of Ultras Nahdawy, a group was formed by militant pro-Brotherhood supporters of Zamalek and its arch rival, Al Ahli, is visible in video clips of the protests in which protesters much like militant soccer fans jump up and down while chanting and fire off coloured flares and smoke bombs.

Human Rights groups have alleged excessive use of force in crackdowns on the protesters who demand the release of some 100 detained students, the reinstatement of at least 170 others expelled from universities, and the restoration of academic freedom. ““The Egyptian security forces have a bleak record of using arbitrary and abusive force against protesters including students. The lack of accountability for such violations, including unlawful killings, gives them the green light to carry on brutalizing protesters,” said Amnesty International Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Against the backdrop of last year’s bloody crackdown on the Brotherhood, the arrest of tens of thousands of Islamist and secular regime critics, and the adoption of a draconic anti-protest law, Mr. Al Sisi has sought to impose his will on universities by decreeing that the heads of universities should be government-appointed rather than elected; authorizing the dismissal of faculty with no right of appeal, and inserting a pledge to refrain from political activity in students’ housing contracts. The government’s concern about the role of soccer fans in protest was highlighted in recent days by a decision to move an Al Ahli match from Beni Suef, a town 115 kilometres south of Cairo, to Assiut that lies 200 kilometres further south of the Egyptian capital.

Lack of public space under Mr. Mubarak who tolerated no uncontrolled public space propelled highly politicized, well-organized, street battle-hardened soccer fans to the forefront of anti-government protest. History threatens to repeat itself under Mr. Al Sisi even if the president acknowledges that the government has failed to reach out to youth under the age of 25 who account for half of the Egyptian population. That gap was fuelled by the side lining of the youth almost from the day that Mr. Mubarak was forced to resign. It was further evident with relatively few youth participating in a referendum under post-Morsi military-backed rule and in Mr. Al Sisi’s election. The low youth participation stood in stark contrast to the large numbers that participated in parliamentary elections in 2012 and the polls that brought Mr. Morsi to power.

Mr. Al Sisi has promised to correct the situation by creating a National Youth Council, increasing opportunities for youth participation in politics, and enhancing scholarship openings for study overseas. At the same time, the president warned students and youth from engaging in activity “with questionable political goals that serve the interests of unpatriotic groups in their endeavour to destroy the nation.” Mr. Al Sisi’s warning appears to have so far fallen on deaf ears with a large number of students, fans and youths evidently putting little faith in his promises.

“The student movement is and always will be an indication of the state of the country. Today in Egypt, as long as the students are active and protesting then the revolution is ongoing… The killing or arrest of those who oppose the regime with the intention of restricting or stifling political dissent will not silence nor destroy the idea and the resolve of what thousands have given their lives for since January 25, 2011, that of freedom, democracy, justice and an honourable dignified life,” wrote Oxford University scientist Walaa Ramadan on Middle East Monitor.

Ms. Ramadan warned that Mr. Al Sisi was facing “a generation which is adamant to fulfil its dreams and hold on to its liberty, a generation which toppled a historic dictator within days and has since resolved to give their lives to achieve the freedoms they fought for…”

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Bangladesh: Another War Criminal Gone, But Islamists Reorganising – Analysis

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By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

With the death of Gholam Azam a painful and bloody chapter in Bangladesh’s history has been laid to rest. The erstwhile Ameer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist party in Bangladesh, died as a prisoner in Dhaka’s Medical University Hospital on Oct 23, 2014 at the age of 92.

He was serving a 90 year sentence following his conviction for war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. Azam is the second war criminal to die in a hospital prison ward after the death of convicted war criminal Abdul Alim. Earlier, a convicted war criminal Quader Mollah, also from the Jamaat, was sentenced to death and executed.

War criminal Azams’ death has provoked demonstrations in his home district of Brahmanbaria where people have demanded that his body not be allowed to be buried there. Secular and progressive Bangladeshi organizations have called for his body to be sent to Pakistan for burial, since the soil of Bangladesh was soaked with the “sacred blood of martyrs and should not be polluted with the body of a traitor”.

Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971 remains an emotive issue. Azam’s role as a staunch supporter of Pakistan made him a top traitor in Bangladeshi eyes. The memory of millions killed and tortured, the agony of hundreds of thousands of women raped by Pakistani officers and soldiers and the travails of millions of refugees still remains a raw wound in the collective public memory in Bangladesh. Azam, his cohorts and organizations helped and took part in these atrocities, as collaborators of the Pakistani Army.

Azam campaigned extensively against Bangladesh’s freedom struggle and continued his ideological movement for a united Pakistan even after 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir) were involved in Azam’s campaign. These organizations had played important roles in forming the Peace Committees and other pro-Pakistani collaborator outfits, like the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. Azam and his collaborators called the freedom fighters “miscreants”, “Indian agents” and “malaun” (a pejorative word used against Hindus) and “infiltrators”.

Azam became the symbol of war crimes in Bangladesh and the leading collaborator in one of the world’s worst genocide. In one of the most despicable acts of revenge, Azam masterminded the killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals by the Pakistani Army and his local collaborators on Dec 14, 1971 when Pakistan was on the verge of defeat and sought to deprive a newly independent Bangladesh of its leading intellectuals. The government of newly independent Bangladesh banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and cancelled Azam’s citizenship. Azam fled to Pakistan.

He campaigned until 1973 to build public opinion in the Islamic world to prevent the recognition of Bangladesh as an independent nation. He visited Saudi Arabia in March 1975 and told King Faisal that Hindus had captured East Pakistan, killed Muslims, burnt the holy Quran, destroyed mosques and converted them into temples. By purveying such blatant lies, Azam collected funds from the Middle East for rebuilding mosques and madrassas.

After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, in August 1975, Bangladesh went through a turbulent political phase which led to General Zia-ur-Rahman usurping power. As president, Zia allowed Azam to return to Bangladesh on a Pakistani passport. Zia’s objective was to promote Islamization and roll back the secular tradition of the Liberation War and Bangladesh’s constitution as an independent nation.

He saw Bangladesh as a mirror image of Pakistan and people like Azam helped him to further this objective. Ghulam Azam was officially declared Ameer of Jamaat in the early 1990s. In 1991, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by Zia, formed the government with support from the Jamaat. Azam’s Bangladeshi citizenship was restored by a court order in 1994.

Azam’s murky past caught up with him when in July last year, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal handed down a life sentence after finding him guilty of the offences of conspiracy, planning, incitement, complicity in crimes against humanity and genocide and murders during the Liberation War and other wartime offences in 1971. The judges said Azam deserved the gallows but he was given a prison term due to his old age. “We are convinced in holding that accused Prof Ghulam Azam was the pivot of crimes and all the atrocities revolved around him during the War of Liberation,” the three judges said in their verdict. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government set up the tribunal in 2010 after she had pledged before the 2008 election to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. She won a landslide victory and the demand for punishment for war crimes grew into a mass movement.

The Tribunal has been criticized as a political tool of the ruling Awami League (AL) party for persecution of the BNP and the Jamaat. But the people of Bangladesh have supported the Tribunal and demanded the death penalty for all convicted war criminals. The Islamists in Bangladesh are down, but not out.

The murky details of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) re-organizing in West Bengal and indulging in bomb making for use in Bangladesh clearly points to a nexus between them and Islamists in West Bengal. The state government’s role in this whole affair is under the scanner. Bangladesh is rightly worried that Islamist elements who want to remove Hasina’s government are conspiring to create violence in Bangladesh, perhaps with the help of Islamists elements in West Bengal.

This will complicate India’s relations with Bangladesh and the Indian government must act decisively to eradicate these elements. The West Bengal government appears to have turned a blind eye for narrow electoral politics and the central government must ensure that national security is paramount and petty local politics does not stand in the way.

(Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty is a former diplomat who has served as India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He can be contacted at southasiamonitor1@gmail.com)

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Rohani: Final Nuclear Deal Possible By November Deadline

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Iran’s President Hassan Rohani says a final nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 group is possible by the upcoming deadline for the talks between the two sides, if the six world powers show the necessary political resolve in this regard.

Rohani said Iran has taken very positive step in the previous rounds of nuclear talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

“If Iran’s negotiating partners also show the necessary political resolve, it will be possible to reach a comprehensive [nuclear] agreement within a month,” the Iranian president added, emphasizing that Iran’s nuclear activities are completely peaceful and will remain so in the future.

“Our activities are within the framework of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] and are carried out under the supervision and in the presence of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors,” Rohani pointed out.

He added that the Iranian nation has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, noting that a final deal and a win-win strategy would lead to the expansion of Tehran’s ties with all member states of the European Union.

Iran’s President also described terrorism as a “disease” more dangerous than the Ebola virus, expressing Tehran’s readiness to help contain the threatening phenomenon.

“The diseases of terrorism and extremism are much more dangerous that the Ebola disease,” President Rohani said.

Rohani called the escalation of terrorism in the region a “menace,” adding that the only solution to the problem would be “consultation, coordination, and cooperation among countries.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to consult with all influential countries in this regard.”

A senior Iranian negotiator says the Islamic Republic will not accept to shut down or even suspend the activities of any of its nuclear facilities in its talks with six world powers.

“All nuclear capabilities of Iran will be preserved and no facility will be shut down or even suspended and no device or equipment will be dismantled,” Abbas Araqchi, who is also Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said.

“We will not retreat one iota from the country’s nuclear rights, but we are fully ready for transparency and confidence-building,” he said, adding that Iran will push ahead with “industrial-scale enrichment” of uranium to meet the country’s civilian needs.

Araqchi also repeated Iran’s call for the removal of all sanctions against the country, saying: “All sanctions should be lifted and the Islamic Republic of Iran will not accept even a single instance of sanctions to remain in place under a final comprehensive nuclear deal.”

The Iranian official’s remarks came in response to repeated demands from the West that Iran shut down the Fordow nuclear facility in central Iran.

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UK Declares Cyberwar On ISIS To Stop Home-Grown Jihadism

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By Reyhan Güner

Over the past 9 months, the UK’s Home Office, the governmental department responsible for immigration, counter-terrorism, drug policy, and related research, has authorized 30,000 “take downs” of websites and blog spots which are directly linked to ISIS. These platforms had been inspiring troubled youths to engage in home-grown jihad, glorifying terrorism, and promoting lone wolf attacks.

However, it is difficult for any government to counter the online propaganda wars waged by ISIS and other terrorist groups as they are just as likely to use social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook to disseminate their provocative messages. Thus, because it is not possible to ban such social media platforms, the opportunity for ISIS and any other terrorist or extremist group to spread propaganda will continue to be available.

Officials from Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and several social media sites were called to court in order to give information about extremists’ online actions. During the talks, these officials were asked to dedicate more resources and take more action to identify and remove sites quicker and to monitor their own sites for indirect messaging. Here, the strategy of “splash pages” was recommended, in which pop-ups emerge when users try to view extremist propaganda including videos of recent beheadings. Furthermore, these “pop-ups”, which are generally used for websites containing child pornography and warn users if there is illegal content on the website they are about to visit, have been recommended for use on extremist websites as well.

ISIS spokesman Sheik Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami issued a message using ISIS’ online forums in order to spread his message, specifically calling for individual attacks on nonbelievers in Australia and other Western countries such as the U.S. and U.K. ISIS has been using a free internet application that allows it to automatically send out posts and tweets with links to other content, and in a single day its members can post up to 40,000 tweets that aim to galvanize and recruit. This goes to show the social media power that ISIS wields when it comes to propagating and spreading its extremist messages.

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Hindu Group Urges Withdrawal Of Lord Vishnu Beer Of Brazil

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An upset Hindu group has urged Brazil-based Cervejaria Colorado to apologize and withdraw its India Pale Ale beer carrying the name of Lord Vishnu, calling it highly inappropriate.

This beer, named as Vishnu, is described on the company website as: “Vishnu, in addition to being named One of the principal Hindu deities, is also the name of this delicious recipe variation India Pale Ale…A pleasant lingering bitterness, ideal for those who like extreme beers.”

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, stressed that Lord Vishnu was highly revered in Hinduism and he was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be used in selling beer for mercantile greed. Moreover, linking Lord Vishnu with an alcoholic beverage was very disrespectful, Zed added.

Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Rajan Zed noted.

Lord Vishnu is “preserver” in the Hindu triad with Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva as the aspect of the Supreme. He has ten incarnations to establish dharma (divine law). Moksh (liberation) is the ultimate goal of Hinduism.

Award-winning Cervejaria Colorado, based in Ribeirao Preto in Sao Paulo state of Brazil, was founded in 1996. It claims its products as “increasingly universal”, which besides Brazil, are also exported to France and United States of America. Marcelo Carneiro da Rocha is the Chairman.

Vishnu beer, which won gold medal at Brazilian Beer Festival 2014, has an alcohol content of 9.5%.

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Sanctions Are A Negative Peace – Analysis

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The imposition of sanctions by Western countries on Russia has conflagrated the Ukrainian crisis with both sides indulging in an asymmetrical sanctions game. The hardening of positions has caused the Russian and the European economies to suffer, with no end in sight for the conflict.

By Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra

On 8 September 2014, the European Union approved new sanctions against Russia. But it delayed enforcement and attached it to a ceasefire in Ukraine. So far there are nine sanctions by the EU and six by the U.S. against Russia.

The sanctions may have economic implications, but the goal – peace and stability in Ukraine – for which they were imposed, has remained elusive. Since February 2014, despite the sanctions, the fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine has left more than 3,000 Ukranians dead. Western sanctions have only strengthened the rigid position of Moscow and contributed to a stalemate.

Sanctions and embargos are old tools in international politics by strong nations to pressure a weaker one to submit to their will. In the case of Russia, this policy has obviously not proved effective, for several reasons. First, the EU and Russia complement each other and are economically intertwined; so sanctions have proved counter-productive for Europe. Naturally, European leaders are prevaricating over the imposition of sanctions against Russia. Some reports say sanctions will cost the EU 40 billion Euro this year and, if continued, can rise to 50 billion Euros next year.

As retribution, Russia has threatened to impose sanctions on western airlines flying over its air space. Many European airlines pass over the Russian airspace towards Asia, and any diversion will cost them about four more hours of air travel and in turn, jet fuel. Well-funded airlines like Lufthansa are projected to lose about 1 billion Euros in the next three months if Russia indeed bans its airspace. Russia’s sanctions on food and agricultural products from some of the western countries have resulted in the European exporters looking to a new market for goods worth about $10 billion. Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for foreign affairs, recently argued that though the sanctions have weakened the Russian economy, the conflict on the ground is manifest. Mogherini has made a case for a political solution to the crisis rather than economic bullying.

However, it is also true that western sanctions targeted at the rich Russians as well as the Russian state – including travel bans, limits on technological imports and co-operation and financial borrowing restrictions for state banks – are creating the intended discomfort. If they persist, they will indeed impact the Russian economy in the long term. Major Russian banks like Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank and Rosselkhozbank have seen their share prices drop. Stocks of Russia’s largest bank Sberbank has seen a drop of 36%, while that of second largest VTB Bank is down by 21.3r% so far this year-to-date. Russian oil and gas giants Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas and Rosneft too have been impacted. ExxonMobil has cancelled nine planned deals out of ten with Rosneft. Exxon has also stated that due to the advanced nature of the gas exploration project in Kara Sea, it will take some time for the company to wind up the project. Rosneft recently requested the Russian government for a loan of $40 billion dollars to ward off the negative impact of the sanctions. In response to sanctions, many foreign investors have withdrawn capital from Russia — some reports suggest that the Russian economy could have seen a capital flight of upto $75 billion in the first half of 2014, sending its benchmark Micex index down 7.7 percent this year.

Second, the Ukrainian crisis is not one that revolves around territory only. Geopolitical rivalry, a clash over resources and spheres of influence, have played a part in the conflict. The scale of the crisis in February 2014 is not the same as in August 2014; rather, it has conflagrated, assumed international dimension and become more violent. The sanctions in fact have contributed to a negative peace.

Russia is taking counter measures. For starters, exploring deeper ties with old allies like India and China, which can be seen in the slew of deals signed with Chinese and Indian companies. Russia signed a landmark gas deal with China during President Putin’s visit to Beijing in May this year. During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in May 2014, India’s ONGC and Rosneft signed an agreement on cooperation in exploitation of resources in the Arctic. Early this month Rosneft also offered ONGC Videsh a 10% stake in the Vankor oil field off central-Siberia, and a 49% stake in Yurubcheno-Tokhomskoye oil field in eastern Siberia. In addition, a gas pipeline from Russia to India through Central Asia is being considered. India’s increasing involvement in Central Asia and its membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, may help facilitate the prospects of the pipeline. There are two routes for the pipeline: one is through the Himalayas, most likely through the Xinjiang province of China, and the other is by linking it to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The proposed cost is $40 billion, making it the most expensive pipeline ever, and the “biggest ever energy project in history”. This deal will surely increase the customer base for Russian energy.

To encourage new investment and boost trade, Moscow signed a pact with Beijing to trade more in ruble and yuan. In October, China’s Exim bank agreed to finance Russia’s Vnesheconombank, VTB and Rosselkhoz banks – to take the sting out of the sanctions. Similarly, India’s Export-Import Bank and Russia’s Vnesheconombank have started talks on a guarantees cooperation arrangement, under which loans can be facilitated for Indian and Russian companies in local currencies for bilateral investment.

Despite these efforts, the impact of the powerful Western sanctions will not be ameliorated completely. The recent ceasefire between various parties to the conflict has raised hope. For unless the conflict is depoliticised, the sanctions will only add layers to the conflict. Means of force, whether of economic sanctions or deployment of troops, induce negative peace – the violence comes to a temporary halt but fails to address the root causes of the conflict.

It is another debate whether a negative peace can be the only goal even as the conflict becomes protracted and the seeds of distrust and hatred develop deeper roots.

Dr. Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and an Indian commentator. He is a Fellow at the Center for Peace, Democracy and Development, University of Massachusetts Boston. His edited book Conflict and Peace in Eurasia was published by Routledge in 2013.

This article was published by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

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Women, The UN And Altered Realities – Analysis

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It is evident that the UN’s institutions have lost their power to negotiate for justice. As the MDG programme draws to an end in 2015, its rhetoric must be replaced by new structures that recognise context-specific economic realities, and processes rooted in the knowledge of feminist groups all over the world.

By Devaki Jain

The role of women at and with the United Nations has been through flows and ebbs. Over time, women have gradually strengthened themselves with their networks and grounded knowledge—and states have taken note, or the movement has made the state take note, of their collective strength.

However, during this evolution, the UN group of institutions has lost its space as a critical entity, as the game-changer that it was during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. With the growth of globalisation and the increasing power of the private sector, of multinational corporations and international capital on a global scale, governments and intergovernmental organisations like the UN were pushed backstage. In the process, they have lost their power to negotiate for justice.

In this essay we argue that international goal-setting and monitoring of progress, as was done for the Millennium Development Goals, is an inappropriate method of stimulating programmes for the removal of poverty or for stimulating energy among state parties.

Feminist groups all over the world are now involved not only in resistance movements as they were in the past, but also in remaking policies and laws, and at the high end of economic transactions. Their influence on the status of women can be much greater than a UN bureaucracy and UN-generated ideas.

Given these changes, this essay argues for a significant shift in the linking of women to the mainstream. These links must be derived from feminist thought and from reasoning based in experience. It must be a contribution rather than an intervention.

It is not enough to call for the participation of women in existing patterns of market-based production, or for the empowerment of women within the current paradigms of development, or for gender mainstreaming within prevailing configurations of institutional power. It is the forms of production, the paradigms, and the institutions themselves that must be questioned and transformed, through changes in the ideas that generate economic policies as well as through social mobilisation.

As noted economist Amartya Sen said in a speech on freedom and sustainability in Tokyo in the year 2000: “Women should be seen not as patients whose interests have to be looked after, but as agents who can do effective things—both individually and jointly. We also have to go beyond their role specifically as ‘consumers’ or as ‘people with needs’, and consider, more broadly, their general role as agents of change who can—given the opportunity—think, assess, evaluate, resolve, inspire, agitate, and through these means, reshape the world.”

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Devaki Jain graduated in economics from Oxford University, UK, and then taught the honours course in economics at Miranda House, Delhi University. She is a Gandhian, feminist economist, and a writer on public affairs with a special focus on poverty-removal.

This article was published by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

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Human Rights Council: A Central Pivot For The Portuguese Foreign Policy – Analysis

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By Paulo Gorjao

Since relinquishing a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2012, the main goal of Portuguese diplomacy has been election to the Human Rights Council (HRC). This purpose was achieved with distinction: Portugal was elected for the 2015/2017 period having attained 184 of the 193 possible votes. Put another way, “Portugal obtained more votes than any of the previous representative countries within its HRC’s regional group”.1 For the last two years, Portugal feared that other candidates would put forward a bid. Portugal’s consensual nature and good reputation surely benefitted its successful candidacy, especially in terms of dissuading other bids, the likes of which would possibly undermine the clean slate.2

Although Portugal has thrice been member of the Human Rights Commission—1979/1981, 1988/1993, and 2000/2002—this is the first time it joins the HRC, created in order to replace the discredited Commission. However, this was not the first time that Portugal has made a bid for the HRC. In 2006, at a time when the Portuguese government had candidacies on a number of fronts,3 the Portuguese bid turned out unsuccessful. Memories associated with this defeat led Portugal to prioritize future election. To put it bluntly, a second defeat “in one of the traditionally considered most difficult and important elections in the UN’s universe” would not be tolerated.4

The Portuguese bid, initiated by the previous government, was a natural step and thus undertaken with the same commitment by the incumbent Executive. Indeed, it is usual for a country that held a seat on the Security Council to try and prolong the hard-earned visibility by steadfastly presenting a candidacy for the HRC—widely regarded as the second most relevant institution within the UN. Moreover, the HRC election accords with two central precepts of Portuguese foreign policy: on the one hand, “be represented in the main bodies”and“have an active role within international organizations” to which it belongs; on the other hand, maintain and uphold the Portuguese “tradition of human rights’ defense and promotion at the international level”.5 In fact, the HRC election allows Portugal to carry on the strategy of maximizing the country’s diplomatic visibility, namely in the geopolitical areas in which it is inserted. This has been a successful strategy, as the facts can confirm.6

Furthermore, Portugal has a solid reputation as a human rights defender, even though realpolitik has at times recommended a less active commitment. The way Portuguese diplomacy pressed Equatorial-Guinea’s regime to adopt a moratorium on the death penalty before being accepted as a full member of the CPLP clearly portrays the importance that Portugal assigns to respect for human rights. There are a number of other examples: for instance, the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has an organogram that underlines the relevance given to this matter, namely through the existence of a Human Right Section in it.7 It is not surprising then that Portugal may approach the HRC mandate with a bucket full of priorities,8 while at the same time beginning this three-year term with an elevated diplomatic ego.

Despite the harsh years that Portugal went through under foreign assistance and budget restrictions, which have not spared the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the dimension of the achieved voting score seems to confirm that Portuguese diplomacy continues to enjoy prestige and good reputation. Those are small signs that it is possible for Portugal to be placed in a category other than its traditional one, and thus punching above its weight.

* Published also in Portuguese: Paulo Gorjão, “Conselho de Direitos Humanos: um eixo central da política externa portuguesa” (IPRIS Comentário, No. 3, Outubro de 2014).

About the author:
Paulo Gorjao
Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security (IPRIS)

Source:
This article was published by IPRIS as IPRIS Viewpoints Number 155, October 2014 (PDF)

Notes:
1 Pedro Cordeiro, “Portugal eleito na ONU. Nem Machete previu uma votação tão expressiva” (Expresso, 21 de Outubro de 2014).
2 Ibid.
3 The HRC bid would indeed fail. Nonetheless, Portugal would succeed in the re- election of Paula Escarameia for a second mandate, between 2007 and 2011, in the UN International Law Commission. Portuguese diplomacy would also be successful in November 2006, when it guaranteed a place on the Council of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU is the UN agency responsible for issues concerning information and communication technologies.
4 “Portugal eleito para o Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU” (Governo de Portugal, 21 de Outubro de 2014).
5 “Portugal eleito para o Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU” (Lusa, 21 de Outubro de 2014).
6To keep it short and looking just a few years back: between July and December 2007 Portugal had the EU Council’s presidency; between July 2008 and June 2010 held the CPLP’s presidency; In November/December 2009 hosted the XIX Ibero-American Summit; in November 2010 organized the NATO Summit in Lisbon’ between 2011 and 2012 held a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council; in 2013, within the Mediterranean framework, simultaneously assumed the 5+5 Dialogue and 5+5 Initiative of Defense.
7 This organogram is integrated on the Direcção de Serviços das Organizações Políticas Internacionais (SPM).
8 Beyond the “defense of the death penalty’s abolition”, the Portuguese Foreign Affairs Ministry promises to present “resolutions on the right to education and on economic, social and cultural rights”. Portugal equally commits to pay “special attention to the elimination of violence over women, to the elimination of every form of discrimination and to the protection of the most vulnerable people and groups”. In addition, the Portuguese diplomacy promises commitment in” the defense of diverse themes such as the right to water and sanitation, gender equality, journalists’ safety and security, and the civil society’s liberty. See “Portugal eleito para o Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU” (Governo de Portugal, 21 de Outubro de 2014).

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Spanish Banks Pass EU Stress Test With Flying Colours – Analysis

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By William Chislett

Spanish banks sailed through the latest EU-wide health check, signalling they do not need any more capital. This follows several years of tough adjustments as a result of the near collapse of the financial system in 2012 that triggered a €41 billion bail-out (exited in January).

Spanish banks were excessively exposed to toxic real-estate assets following the bursting of a massive property bubble in 2008. After the bubble burst and Spain went into recession (GDP shrank by around 7.3% between 2008 and 2013), the loan defaults of property developers and construction firms as a percentage of total bank lending to these two sectors surged from a mere 0.6% in 2007 to more than 25%. The total non-performing loan ratio jumped from 0.7% of lending to a record of 13.6% at the end of 2013, and has since begun to decline.

The European Central Bank (ECB) analysed 15 Spanish banks out of a total of 130 euro zone banks (81.6% of assets) in an asset quality review (AQR).[1] The worst performing country was Italy, with nine banks that failed, followed by Greece and Cyprus (three), Belgium and Slovenia (two) and one each for Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.

The Spanish bank that failed was Liberbank, but it has already covered its capital shortfall of €32 million (see Figure 1). Five Spanish banks failed in 2011, when different parameters were used by the European Banking Authority (EBA) to those by the ECB in 2014, out of a total of nine.

Figure 1. Results of Spanish banks in the asset quality review: common equity Tier 1 capital ratio (%) Results of Spanish banks in the asset quality review: common equity Tier 1 capital ratio (%) (1) The scenarios cover 2014-16. Source: European Central Bank.

Figure 1. Results of Spanish banks in the asset quality review: common equity Tier 1 capital ratio (%)
Results of Spanish banks in the asset quality review: common equity Tier 1 capital ratio (%)
(1) The scenarios cover 2014-16.
Source: European Central Bank.

In an overlapping review, the EBA released the results of a complementary set of stress tests that showed 24 failures for the whole of the EU, one less than the ECB assessment. Liberbank was excluded because it had taken remedial action. The review was based on banks’ financial health at the end of 2013; Liberbank took subsequent action, increasing its capital by a very comfortable €637 million.

The results vindicated the Bank of Spain’s handling of the crisis. ‘We comfortably passed the test’, said Luis Linde, the Governor of the Bank of Spain. ‘We have comfortable ratios’. He said Spanish banks needed the least adjustment to their balance sheets of the analysed banks (less than 0.2% of their risk-weighted assets). The prudent Linde, however, said there was no cause for triumphalism as the assessment was a ‘fixed photo and not a guarantee for the next 15 years’.

The average reduction of the common equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio for all the banks as a result of the adverse scenario in the stress tests was 3 percentage points, but only 1.4 for Spanish banks.

In a turnaround, the nationalised Bankia, whose collapse triggered the bail-out (it received €19 billion), obtained the third-highest capital ratio in the adverse scenario of 10.30%. It posted a loss of €19 billion in 2012, the biggest ever in Spain’s corporate history. In testimony to a judge overseeing a criminal fraud investigation into Bankia, Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordoñez, the former Governor of the Bank of Spain who stepped down in 2012 before his term expired, said Bankia’s collapse risked forcing Spain out of the euro zone.

The adverse scenario for Spain, which is most unlikely to occur, assumed a fall in GDP of 0.3% this year, -1% in 2015 and growth of only 0.1% in 2016. The economy is forecast to grow by around 1.3% this year, 2.0% in 2015 and 1.8% in 2016. The yield on the 10-year government bond in this scenario was put at a maximum of 5.7% (the current yield is 2.18%). Less than two years ago, at the height of Spain’s crisis when markets were jittery over the country’s prospects, the yield peaked at 7.62%. House prices were envisaged falling by a further 9.9%, having already plummeted by more than 38% on average.

None of the 15 banks examined would be able to withstand another recession like that painted in the adverse scenario and all of them would make a loss in one or all of the years.

Spain’s banking crisis was concentrated in the regionally based and unlisted savings banks, known as cajas, which accounted for around half the loans of the domestic banking system. As they did not have share capital, they were not subject to typical market-discipline mechanisms. The cajas were governed by a general assembly and boards of directors packed with unqualified political appointees, local businessmen and savers. Over the years the large cajas, such as Caja Madrid (since 2010 the main bank in Bankia, the product of a merger of seven ailing cajas), moved on from their humble origins in the 18th century as quasi-charitable institutions to become financial services groups on a par with commercial banks. They also took stakes in companies.

The removal of restrictions in 1989 on establishing branches outside their home regions enabled the cajas to expand around Spain, and they did so at an inexorable pace. The number of savings-bank branches rose from 13,650 in 1990 to a peak of 25,035 in September 2008, while the number of branches of the much more prudent commercial banks, most notably the two big ones, Santander and BBVA, dropped over the same period from 17,075 to 15,617. There was almost one branch for every 1,000 inhabitants in Spain in 2009, almost twice the density of the euro-area average. The number of cajas has since dropped from 45 to just eight.

Reforms have been enacted under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF (known as the troika). Injections of public sector capital, burden-sharing exercises, asset sales, private equity issuance, much tougher requirements for assigning provisions for loans going sour and the requirement for all intervened banks to transfer their foreclosed assets and real-estate loans over a certain amount to the bad bank SAREB, in exchange for government guaranteed SAREB bonds that can be used as collateral for European Central Bank financing, have boosted the banking system’s capital and liquidity.

Banks are also submitting three-year ahead quarterly projections of their balance sheets to the Bank of Spain so there should be no more nasty surprises if all goes well. Another addition to the central bank’s increased supervision weapons are forward-looking exercises (FLEs) on banks to assess their solvency. Unlike the stress tests, which are one-off exercises based on pass-fail methodology, the FLE establishes a permanent framework to help the Bank of Spain regularly monitor banks’ health and guide its supervisory decisions.

Now that the banking sector is firmly back on its feet, the challenge is to boost lending, particularly to small and medium-sized companies. Having been far too lax in granting loans if not irresponsible in some cases, banks have generally gone to the other extreme.

About the author:
William Chislett is Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by The Elcano Royal Institute.

[1] See the following two reports: Aggregate Report on the Comprehensive Assesment and Results of 2014 EU‐wide stress test.

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Modi And Jokowi – Analysis

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By C. Raja Mohan

India is probably too preoccupied with itself to notice that a new leader, Joko Widodo, has taken charge of Indonesia this week. It is a pity that there was no Indian political figure present when Widodo was sworn in on Monday.

There are good reasons why Prime Minister Narendra Modi should start paying serious attention to the new Indonesian president. For Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has much in common with Modi. They both are outsiders to the traditional political elite and made their way up on their own steam. If Modi grew up selling tea, Jokowi was raised in one of Jakarta’s slums. Beyond the personal, Modi must put Jakarta at the heart of India’s strategic imagination. After all, there is no major country in the world that shares so much history and culture with India, not to mention the “Indo” in its name.

Indonesia is the world’s biggest Islamic nation, a democracy and anchors Southeast Asia’s regional institutions. Rapid economic growth in recent years has made the Indonesian economy the ninth largest in PPP terms.

After the expansive political cooperation in the 1950s, India and Indonesia drifted apart from the 1960s. Although there has been greater engagement between the two countries in recent years, neither figures prominently on the other’s mental map. Modi and Jokowi can and should change that. When they meet on the margins of the East Asia Summit in Myanmar and the G-20 meeting in Australia next month, Modi and Jokowi will have an opportunity to inject some strategic content into the bilateral relationship.

Maritime nexus

Political elites in India and Indonesia often recollect that Nehru and Sukarno took the initiative to convene the Asia-Africa conference at Bandung in 1955 and helped found the non-aligned movement. It is but rarely, though, that either country thinks of the other as a neighbour.

India views Indonesia through the prism of Southeast Asia. Indonesia, too, sees India as belonging to another region, South Asia. But geography reminds us that India and Indonesia share a maritime boundary. This shared frontier is likely to acquire greater weight as Jokowi promises to make Indonesia a major maritime power. Although Indonesia is an archipelagic nation, comprising nearly 13,500 islands, maritime strategy has not been at the top of Jakarta’s agenda.

In his inaugural speech, Jokowi has promised to change all that. “We have for too long turned our backs on the ocean, the straits and the bay. This is the time for us to restore it so we will prosper like our ancestors,” he said. Quoting the Indonesian navy’s motto, “Jalasveva Jayamahe (in the seas, we shall be victorious)”, Jokowi proclaimed his determination to build strong maritime capabilities, both civilian and military. Jokowi’s speech is entirely in tune with his campaign promise to make Indonesia a “global maritime nexus”.

Beijing’s pressure

Indonesia’s new maritime consciousness has been shaped by a number of factors. The growing economic integration between East and West Asia and the strategic significance of the sea lines of communication between the two regions have made Jakarta an enthusiastic proponent of the “Indo-Pacific” as a new geopolitical construct.

It is not difficult to see why. All the straits linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans travel along or across Indonesian waters. This geographic awareness has been reinforced by China’s muscular assertion of its territorial claims, which cover almost all the waters of the South China Sea that is bordered on the south by Indonesia. Parts of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea overlap with Beijing’s claims. As China’s capacity to patrol and control the waters of the South China Sea has grown, so has the frequency of incidents between Chinese maritime authorities and Indonesian fishermen.

Determined to affirm Indonesia’s sovereignty, Jokowi plans to raise Indonesia’s defence spending to 1.5 per cent of GDP; if implemented, it will mark a 70 per cent increase over the current levels. As it seeks to quickly modernise its navy, secure its waters and emerge as a regional maritime power, Indonesia is looking for partners. The United States, which had an arms embargo against Jakarta for many years, and Japan are all set to boost Indonesia’s naval capabilities.

But New Delhi is yet to get its defence engagement with Jakarta in shape. Through the decade-long UPA rule, Delhi and Jakarta had been talking about expanding bilateral defence cooperation. But progress had been rather slow thanks to A.K. Antony’s dysfunctional defence policies. Modi and his defence minister, Arun Jaitley, can do a lot better if they emulate Nehru, who sought to build expansive defence cooperation with Indonesia in the 1950s.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a Contributing Editor for The Indian Express)

Courtesy : The Indian Express, October 22, 2014

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Research Shows Urgent Need To Address Instability Of World’s Power Supplies

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A new study reveals the urgent need to address instabilities in the supply of electrical power to counteract an increase in the frequency and severity of urban blackouts.

Research by Hugh Byrd, Professor of Architecture at the University of Lincoln, UK, and Steve Matthewman, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, highlights the insecurities of power systems and weakening electrical infrastructure across the globe, particularly in built-up urban areas.

The work builds on previous studies which examined a sharp increase in electrical usage over recent years, and warned the world to prepare for the prospect of coping without electricity as instances of complete power failure become increasingly common.

Professor Byrd explained: “We have previously highlighted that demand for new technology continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. Our new research emphasises why energy sources are becoming increasingly inadequate, and simply cannot continue to meet this demand.

“Throughout our study, we observed a number of network failures due to inadequate energy, whether through depletion of resources such as oil and coal, or through the vagaries of the climate in the creation of renewable energy.”

The British energy regulator Ofgem has predicted a fall in spare electrical power production capacity to two per cent by 2015, meaning there is now even less flexibility of supply to adjust to spikes in demand.

The issue of energy security exists for countries which have access to significant renewable power supplies too. With rain, wind and sunshine becoming less predictable due to changes brought about by global warming, the new research found that severe blackouts in Kenya, India, Tanzania and Venezuela, which all occurred during the last decade, were caused by shortages of rain in hyrdro-dams.

Further to the irregularities involved in renewable power generation, the study concludes that worldwide electricity supply will also become increasingly precarious due to industry privatisation and neglect of infrastructure.

Professor Matthewman said: “Over the past two decades, deregulation and privatisation have become major global trends within the electrical power industry. In a competitive environment, reliability and profits may be at cross-purposes — single corporations can put their own interests ahead of the shared grid, and spare capacity is reduced in the name of cost saving. There is broad consensus among energy specialists, national advisory bodies, the reinsurance industry, and organisational sociologists that this has exacerbated blackout risk.”

These trends have seen the separation of power generation, transmission and distribution services – a process which Professors Byrd and Matthewman suggest only opens up more opportunity for electrical disruption. Their study reveals the difficulties that arise when different technical and human systems need to communicate, and points to a breakdown in this type of communication as the main cause behind two of the world’s worst ever blackouts – from Ohio, USA, to Ontario, Canada, in 2003; and across Italy and neighbouring nations in the same year. Together, these power failures affected more than 100 million people.

Professor Byrd said: “Electrical power blackouts are often reported as human errors or as technological shortcomings, so the problem is either reduced to the level of individuals, or to nuts and bolts. This binary of blame — people or hardware — only obscures the systemic nature of network failures, which are the outcome of relations between people, technical systems, resources, institutions, regulatory frameworks, environmental conditions and social expectations. There is never one single event or action that causes a blackout, but the bottom line is simple: no matter how “smart” a city may be, it becomes “dumb” when the power goes out.”

“In the privileged West, we assume a continuous and stable supply of electricity to meet our endless demands. However, this assumption will be increasingly challenged and serious questions will have to be asked at both the individual and collective level concerning what we want and what we need; balancing what is good for us with what is good for others, and ultimately what is good for the environment.”

The new research paper, entitled Exergy and the City: The Technology and Sociology of Power (Failure), was published in Volume 21 of the Journal of Urban Technology.

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Researchers Prove Accuracy Of Mobile Phone Population Mapping

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A study by an international team, including the University of Southampton, has shown population maps based on anonymous mobile phone call record data can be as accurate as those based on censuses.

Their findings show maps made using mobile records are detailed, reliable and flexible enough to help inform infrastructure and emergency planners; particularly in low income countries, where recent population density information is often scarce.

Southampton geographer and senior author on the study, Dr Andy Tatem, says: “Proving the resilience and accuracy of using mobile phone records to map populations was crucial for us, as it has many advantages over traditional census information.

Population increases in France are illustrated.  Credit: Dr. Andy Tatem

Population increases in France are illustrated.
Credit: Dr. Andy Tatem

“At the moment mapping of populations is constrained by the logistics of census surveys, which just provide a single snapshot of population distributions every ten years. However, anonymous phone data can be examined regularly to map daily, weekly or monthly changes across an entire country, at less cost and with greater flexibility.

“Every time a person uses a mobile it sends information to a receiving tower and gives an approximate location of where they are. When this information is repeated multiple times, over millions of users, we can extract a detailed picture of population density and how it changes over time in a given area.”

The team, led by the Université catholique de Louvain and the Université libre de Bruxelles and working as part of the WorldPop Project and Flowminder Foundation used the anonymised mobile phone records of 19m users in Portugal and France, for several months in 2007 and 2008, to generate maps showing the densities of users in different geographic areas. These maps were found to be as accurate as traditional census-based maps, which the researchers generated from data from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of France and the National Institute of Statistics of Portugal. Furthermore, by combining the mobile and census information with data from satellite imagery, the spatial resolution and accuracy of the census-based maps was greatly improved.

Dr Tatem comments, “Knowing where people are is critical for accurate impact assessments and intervention planning, particularly for issues such as healthcare, food security, climate change, wars and natural disasters.

“Mobile phone network subscription rates globally are now at 96 per cent and anonymous call record data can give us information from a wide-range of countries – high, middle and low income alike. In particular, it can give us detailed information from regions where census data is either non-existent, outdated or very unreliable.”

Dr Tatem and colleagues are already extending their mapping work to low income regions and have used mobile phone-based mobility mapping to help combat malaria more effectively in Namibia. They have improved the targeting of malaria interventions by identifying communities most at risk. Most recently they have used mobile data to help inform authorities tracking and preparing for the spread of Ebola in West Africa.

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