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Morocco: Women Recruit For Islamic State

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By Mohammed Saadouni

Moroccan and Spanish security forces on Tuesday (December 16th) dismantled a terror cell that recruited women for the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.

The two leaders of the cell were arrested in Fnideq. Another man and four women, including a minor, were detained by Spanish authorities in Ceuta, Melilla and Barcelona.

The group sought young women willing to become suicide bombers or brides of jihadists, Morocco’s interior ministry said.

According to Mohammad Okdad of the Directorate General of National Security, ISIS is “trying to play some of the new cards that make it distinct from al-Qaeda”.

“They are betting on attracting girls and women by promoting their entrance to heaven through marriage to mujahideen,” he said.

And when it comes to persuading potential recruits, female elements are “more influential”, the security analyst told Magharebia.

The terror organisation thus began using “female operatives trained in attracting volunteers and new partisans to ISIS in northern Morocco and in the south of Spain”, he said.

Daesh recruiters are taking advantage of social networking and extremist websites to reach young women, Okdad added.

One prominent female recruiter for ISIS is Fatiha Mejjati.

The widow of Abdul Karim Mejjati, a Moroccan al-Qaeda leader killed in Saudi Arabia in 2005, is very active online. She is trying to give ISIS a women’s face, in order to lure Moroccan girls and women to Iraq and Syria.

Security services, however, are tracking every new account she opens on Facebook and Twitter.

As criminologist Rachid Almanasfi explained, women serve a specific purpose for the terror group.

“The engineers of ISIS know very well that they have thousands of men who want to fulfil their sexual needs,” he said. “Therefore, they have to ensure the supply of girls and women to provide sexual services for the fighters, satisfy their whims, and raise their morale while in the arena of war.”

Meanwhile, the Islamic State’s focus on recruiting women has sparked outrage in Morocco.

Islamist imam and former MP Abdelbari Zemzami told Magharebia, “That deviant and corrupting group called ISIS is trying to sow discord and strife within the Islamic Nation. We cannot allow them to take our children to die in the land of killing and blood.”

“They are targeting immature young girls who do not have an in-depth knowledge of religion and then try to play with their emotions and make them comply with their deviant ideas of traveling to ISIS and marrying its fighters, the Kharijite shedders of blood,” the cheikh said.

“Scholars must line up as one man to face this cancer,” Zemzami added.

Parents are also concerned. “Our sons and daughters have become at risk even when they are inside their homes,” said Abdel Moneim Oulily, the father of two teen girls.

“The threat of ISIS has become close to us in a frightening way. They know how to use the internet to attract young girls, which makes us truly fear for our daughters,” he added.

The post Morocco: Women Recruit For Islamic State appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Balkan Region Strives For Energy Stability After South Stream Demise

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By Igor Jovanovic

The news that Russia has abandoned construction of the South Stream pipeline, which would have brought Russian gas to southern Europe, sparked a discussion among the Balkan countries regarding the region’s energy security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on December 1st in Ankara that Russia is unable to carry out the construction of the pipeline due to the European Union’s opposition. South Stream would have entered European states through Bulgaria, an EU member state, and was planned to carry gas to the Italian city of Treviso.

“Since we have not yet received permission from Bulgaria, Russia cannot continue the implementation of the project in this situation,” Putin told reporters on the fate of the 16-billion euro gas pipeline.

The Bulgarian government has rejected that claim and said the fate of the pipeline has to be decided by the European Commission and Moscow. The EU’s Third Energy Package legislation prohibits energy suppliers from owning energy transmission networks. The law effectively blocked Russia’s state-owned Gazprom from being part of the pipeline because the company is both producing the gas and building the network. Gazprom would have been required to allow other gas producers to use the pipeline.

“The countries which show an interest in the implementation of South Stream did a lot of preparatory work and authorised the European Commission to hold talks with the Russian leadership so that a decision on the project can be reached. The decision is entirely in the hands of Russia and the European Union,” Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev told reporters on December 2nd.

However, Mahmud Busatlija, an associate of the Belgrade Institute of Economics, told SETimes that the South Stream project is primarily the victim of bad relations between the West and Russia after the conflict in Ukraine.

“The policy was louder than the economy in this case,” Busatlija said.

Construction of the pipeline through Serbia was supposed to cost 1.9 billion euros, and Serbia was set to receive about 200 million euros a year due to gas distribution taxes. But Busatlija said Serbia will lose even more because of the uncertain energy supply.

“Also, it will be harder for Serbia to find new investors, especially those in the industry, due to the lack of energy, natural gas in this case,” Busatlija said.

Predrag Simic, a professor with the University of Belgrade’s Political Science Faculty, said that in addition to other problems, Serbian leaders will have to think about the country’s energy security.

“Serbia lost the great project and now Belgrade has to find the way to compensate it, and whether it can turn to some European channels for gas,” Simic told SETimes.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic agreed that the suspension of the South Stream gas pipeline was a “bad news” for Serbia, but added that citizens should not worry about gas supplies.

“Serbia did not contribute to this decision. We invested in this project for seven years, but now we are paying the price of conflict between big powers,” Vucic said.

Similar discussions took place in Macedonia.

“The future of South Stream pipeline is in the hands of Russia and the European Union,” Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Zoran Stavreski told reporters.

“This is not an issue that we can influence. We can only follow the developments and we are working, we have been working and we will work in exploring alternative solutions.”

Businessmen in Macedonia are not pleased with Moscow’s decision to abandon the project. The South Stream pipeline was the only viable route for stable gas supply for the country and would mean much cheaper gas for Macedonian companies.

“We regret the news that arrived from Turkey and we call upon the government and institutions to find an alternative and not to abandon the projects for building gas network in the country,” the Union of Economic Chambers of Macedonia said in a written statement.

Correspondent Biljana Lajmanovska in Skopje contributed to this report.

The post Balkan Region Strives For Energy Stability After South Stream Demise appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Imperialism And The Politics Of Torture – OpEd

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The US Senate Report documenting CIA torture of alleged terrorist suspects raises a number of fundamental questions about the nature and operations of the State, the relationship and the responsibility of the Executive Branch and Congress to the vast secret police networks which span the globe – including the United States.

CIA: The Politics of a Global Secret Police Force

The Senate Report’s revelations of CIA torture of suspects following the 9/11 bombing is only the tip of the iceberg. The Report omits the history and wider scope of violent activity in which the CIA has been and continues to be involved. CIA organized large scale deathsquad activities and extreme torture in Vietnam (Phoenix Project); multiple assassinations of political leaders in the Congo, Chile, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, the Middle East, Central America and elsewhere; the kidnapping and disappearance of suspected activists in Iraq and Afghanistan; massive drug-running and narco-trafficking in the “Golden Triangle” in Southeast Asia and Central America (the Iran-Contra war).

The Senate Report fails to locate the current acts of CIA terror and torture in a broader historical context – one which would reveal the systematic use of torture and violence as a ‘normal’ instrument of policy. Contrary to White House and Senate claims that torture was a “policy error” committed by “incompetent” (or deranged) operatives, the historical record demonstrates that the long term extensive and intensive use by the CIA of torture, assassinations, kidnappings are planned and deliberate policies made by highly qualified, and experienced policymakers acting according to a global strategy approved by both Executive and Congressional leaders.

The Report treats torture as a “localized” set of events, divorced from the politics of empire building. In point of fact, torture is and always has been an integral part of imperial wars, colonial military occupations and counter-insurgency warfare.

Imperial wars and occupations provoke widespread opposition and nearly unanimous hostility. ‘Policing’ the occupied country cannot rely on community-wide support, least of all providing voluntary ‘intelligence’ to the imperial officials. The imperial armed forces operate out of fortresses surrounded by a sea of hostile faces. Bribes and persuasion of local collaborators provides limited information, especially regarding the operations of underground resistance movements and clandestine activists. Family, neighborhood, religious, ethnic and class ties provide protective support networks. To break this web of voluntary support network, the colonial powers resort to torture of suspects, family members and others. Torture becomes “routinized” as part and parcel of policies sustaining the imperial occupation. Extended occupation and intensive destruction of habitation and employment, cannot be compensated by imperial “aid” – much of which is stolen by the local collaborators. The latter, in turn, are ostracized by the local population, and, therefore, useless as a source of information. The “carrot” for a few collaborators is matched by torture and the threat of torture for the many in opposition.

Torture is not publicized domestically even as it is ‘understood’ by ‘knowing’ Congressional committees. But among the colonized, occupied people, through word and experience, CIA and military torture and violence against suspects, seized in neighborhood round-ups, is a weapon to intimidate a hostile population. The torture of a family member spreads fear (and loathing) among relatives, acquaintances, neighbors and colleagues. Torture is an integral element in spreading mass intimidation – an attempt to minimize co-operation between an active minority of resistance fighters and a majority of passive sympathizers.

The Senate Report claims that torture was “useless” in providing intelligence. It argues that victims were not privy to information that was useful to imperial policymakers.

The current head of the CIA, John Brennan rejects the Senate claim, while blithely admitting “some errors” (underwater submergence lasted a minute too long, the electric currents to the genitals were pitched to high?), he argues that “torture worked”. Brennan argues that his torturer colleagues did obtain “intelligence” that led to arrests of militants, activists and “terrorists”.

If torture “works” as Brennan claims, then presumably the Senate and the President would approve of its use. The brutalization of human life, of family members and neighbors is not seen as, in principle, evil and morally and politically repugnant.

According to the explicit rules of conduct of Brennan and the implicit beliefs of the Senate, only “useless” torture is subject to censure – if an address is obtained or a torture victim names a colleague a ‘terrorist’ to avoid further pain, then by the criteria of the Senate Report torture is justified.

According to the operational code of the CIA, international law and the Geneva Conventions have to be modified: torture should not be universally condemned and its practioners prosecuted. According to the Senate only torture that “doesn’t work” is reprehensible and the best judge of that is the head of the torturers, the CIA director.

Echoing Brennan, President Obama, leaped to the defense of the CIA, conceding that only some ‘errors’ were committed. Even that mealy mouth admission was forcibly extracted after the President spent several years blocking the investigation and months obstructing its publication and then insisting on heavily editing out some of the most egregious and perverse passages implicating NATO allies

The Senate Report fails to discuss the complicity and common torture techniques shared between Israel’s Mossad and the CIA and Pentagon. In defense of torture, the CIA and White House lawyers frequently cited Israel’s Supreme Court ruling of 1999 which provided the “justification “for torture. According to Israel’s Jewish judges, torturers could operate with impunity against non-Jews (Arabs) if they claimed it was out of “necessity to prevent loss of or harm to human life”. The CIA and Harvard law professor and uber-Zionist zealot, Alan Dershowitz echoed the Israeli Mossad “ticking time bomb” justification for torture, according to which “interrogators can employ torture to extract information if it prevents a bombing”. Dershowitz cited the efficiency of Israel’s torturing a suspect’s children.

The CIA officials frequently cited the Israeli ‘ticking bomb’ justification for torture in 2007, at Congressional hearings in 2005, and earlier in 2001 and 2002. The CIA knows that the US Congress, under the control of the Zionist power configuration, would be favorably disposed to any official behavior, no matter how perverse and contrary to international law, if it carried an Israeli mark of approval or ‘logo’.

The US CIA and Israeli’s Mossad share, exchange and copy each other’s’ torture methods. The US torturers studied and applied Israel’s routine use of sexual torture and humiliation of Muslim prisoners. Racist colonial Israeli tracts about techniques on destroying the ‘Arab Mind’ were used by US intelligence. Israeli officials borrowed US techniques of forced feeding hunger strikers. Mossad’s technique of ‘Palestinian hanging’ was adopted by the US. Above all, the US copied and amplified Israel’s extra-judicial ‘targeted’ killings – the center piece of Obama’s counter-terrorism policy. These killings included scores of innocent bystanders for every ‘successful target’.

The Senate Report fails to identify the intellectual authors, the leading officials who presided over and who ultimately bear political responsibility for torture.

Top leaders, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Senate Intelligence Committee chairperson, Diane Feinstein, resort to the Nazi war criminals plea “we didn’t know”, “we were misled” and “the CIA didn’t tell us”.

No judge at the Nuremberg Trials believed them. Nor will any international court of law believe US political leaders’ pleas of ignorance of the CIA’s decade-long practice of torture – especially after former Vice President Cheney lauded the practice on US television and boasted he would implement the same policies again. (One has to wonder about the ‘source’ of Cheney’s transplanted heart…)

During the administration of President Bush, Jr., CIA leaders submitted detailed reports on intelligence, including the sources and the methods of obtaining the information, on a routine basis – with videos and ‘live feeds’ for the politicians to view. Nothing was ‘held back’ then and now, as current CIA head John Brennan testifies. From 2001 onward torture was the method of choice, as testimony from top military officials revealed during the Abu Ghraib investigation.

National Security Agency (NSA) meetings, attended by the President, received detailed reports extracted from CIA “interrogations”. There is every reason to believe that every NSA attendee ‘knew’ how the ‘intelligence’ was obtained. And if they failed to ask it was because torture was a ‘normal, routine operating procedure’.

When the Senate decided to investigate the “methods of the CIA”, half a decade ago, it was not because of the stench of burning genitals. It was because the CIA exceeded the boundaries of Senate prerogatives –it had engaged in pervasive and hostile spying against US Senators, including the Uber-Senator Feinstein herself; CIA crimes were compromising client regimes around the world; and most of all because their orgy of torture and dehumanization had failed to defeat the armed resistance in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

The Senate Report is an exercise in institutional power – a means for the Senate to regain political turf, to rein in CIA encroachment. The Report goes no further than to chastise “inappropriate” techniques: it does not proceed from crimes of state to prosecute officials responsible for crimes against international and domestic laws.

We know, and they know, and as every legal authority in the world would know, that without the punishment of political leaders, torture will continue to be an integral part of US imperial policy: Impunity leads to recidivism.

Richard Cheney, Vice-President under President George W. Bush, notorious war criminal on many counts, and prime advocate of torture, publically declared on December 10, 2014 that President Bush specifically authorized torture. He bragged that they were informed in detail and kept up to date.

In the political world of torture, practiced by Islamic extremists and US imperialists, how does the decapitation of non-combatant prisoners, match up with the CIA’s refrigeration of naked political suspects? As for “transparency”, the virtue claimed by the Senate Report publicists in publishing the CIA’s crimes, as “refurbishing the US image”, the Islamists went one step further in “transparency”: they produced a video that went global, revealing their torture by beheading captives.

The Senate Report on CIA torture will not result in any resignations, let alone prosecutions or trials, because over the past two decades, war crimes, police crimes, spy crimes, and financial swindles have not been prosecuted. Nor have any of the guilty officials spent a day in court. They are protected by the majority of political leaders who are unconditional defenders of the CIA, its power, techniques and especially its torture of captives. The vast majority of Congress and the US President repeatedly approve over $100 billion annual budgets for the CIA and its domestic counterpart, Department Homeland Security. They approved the annual budget voted on December 10, 2014, even as the “revelations” rolled in. Moreover, as the tempest over CIA torture proceeds, Obama continues to order the assassination by drone of US citizens “without ever crossing the door of a judge”.

Despite over 6,000 pages of documents and testimony, recording crimes against humanity, the Senate Report is unlikely to trigger any reforms or resignations. This is not because of the actions of some mysterious “deep state” or because a ballooning national security apparatus has taken power. The real problem is that the elected officials, Presidents and Congress people, Democrats and Republicans, neo-liberals and neo-conservatives, are deeply embedded in the security apparatus and they share the common quest for world supremacy. If Empire requires wars, drones, invasions, occupations and torture, so be it!

Torture will truly disappear and the politicians will be put on trial for these crimes, only when the empire is transformed back to a republic: where impunity ends justice begins.

The post Imperialism And The Politics Of Torture – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Syria: Lawyers, Teachers Forced To Undergo ISIL’s Sharia Courses

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By Waleed Abu al-Khair

About a month ago, “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) gunmen summoned Syrian lawyer Ezzedine Abu Abed to one of their headquarters in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, warned him not to engage in any kind of legal work and informed him he must undergo a course in sharia to qualify him to work in ISIL sharia courts.

Abu Abed, who worked as a lawyer before the outbreak of the revolution more than three years ago but had been out of work due to the security situation and the stoppage of work at courts, had been limited in his legal practice to writing sales contracts and resolving disputes between residents every now and then.

After the ISIL gunmen summoned him, Abu Abed told Al-Shorfa, he was told that all lawyers in areas under the group’s control “would undergo this course without exception, including those who refuse to work at sharia courts”.

The course will be held this month in the city of al-Raqa, he said.

Law is non-existent

“This move will exacerbate the currently prevailing law of the jungle, wherein anyone who opposes ISIL is tried before a sharia court on any random fabricated charges, punishable by [penalties ranging from] stoning to flogging and all the way to beheading, under the guise of the application of sharia law and its provisions,” Abu Abed said.

“The law in its real sense is currently non-existent and ISIL ensures its complete non-existence [...] Thus, citizens have come to live under the knife of the extremist ISIL in a country without the law to protect citizens,” he added.

In al-Mayadeen, Deir Ezzor, ISIL informed philosophy teachers, lawyers and Sufi followers in the city that they must undergo “sharia courses” conducted by the group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in late November.

It threatened all who fail to attend with punishment and imprisonment, the monitoring group said.

Instructional courses for philosophy teachers have already begun in Deir Ezzor and al-Raqa, said Mohammed al-Hallaq, a high school philosophy teacher in the city of al-Raqa.

Preliminary and preparatory meetings have been held for the courses, whose duration will range from one to three months, he said, noting that the lecturers are of various Arab nationalities.

Al-Hallaq said he received a notice from ISIL that he is required to undergo the instructional course on the fundamentals of sharia so he can teach them to his students instead of the subject of philosophy.

“Philosophy was one of the subjects abolished by the curricula department affiliated with ISIL’s sharia committees at the beginning of the school year,” and all teachers who failed to attend qualification courses “were forbidden from reporting to work this year,” he told Al-Shorfa.

This move is a grave one, he said, as it will lead to “teaching students religious and sharia lessons imbued with dark ideas and thus give rise to an entire generation that believes in these ideas, which produce nothing but terrorists on whom ISIL seems to count for building a future army to ensure its continuance on the ground”.
‘A beautiful mosaic of monotheistic religions’

ISIL aims to “control all sects and to teach no Islamic teachings but the distorted ones it promotes”, said Sheikh Maaz Abdul Kareem, who was a preacher at al-Omar Mosque in Aleppo before he moved to Cairo earlier this year.

“Syrian society was characterised as a beautiful mosaic of all monotheistic religions and sects, while ISIL’s actions and practices will lead to a country of one colour with no place for intellectual and religious pluralism,” he told Al-Shorfa.

“The Sufis have a long history in all Arab countries and practice their rituals in complete freedom,” Abdul Karim said, adding that ISIL’s banning of Sufi rituals and views, attack on Christians and forcing of Syrians to acquiesce to its teachings “will turn more people away from religion”.

The post Syria: Lawyers, Teachers Forced To Undergo ISIL’s Sharia Courses appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Parkinson’s Disease Reverted At Experimental Stage

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Mexican scientists demonstrated experimentally, with adult rats, that mobility can be restored in patients with Parkinson’s disease, the major degenerative disease of the motor system worldwide. The experiments have not yet been transferred to humans, but are a scientific, measurable and repeatable basis to fight against this disease.

The Mexican study, led by Jorge Aceves Ruiz, an expert in physiology and emeritus researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV), uses stem cells to generate a type of nerve cells known as dopaminergic and reactivate, orderly, the production of dopamine in the brain of rats with symptoms of shaking palsy or Parkinson’s disease.

Aceves Ruiz’s group has over 35 years of experience in research on brain physiology, but particularly in a region near the base in which the basal ganglia are located. In that area there are accumulations of nerve cells that make and release neurotransmitters such as dopamine. The treatment they have designed and tested in the laboratory uses stem cells that develop into dopamine producers or dopaminergic.

“Our treatment has allowed us to recover these motor impairments, which is associated with the recovery of neurons and dendritic spines of striatal neurons, which is the first thing that gets damaged in Parkinson’s disease,” explained Aceves Ruiz, who belongs to the permanent Seminar in Science and Technology of Mexico in the medical center “XXI Century” in Mexico City.

“We found that apparently the treatment by neurogenesis allows these newly formed neurons to be able to innervate, meaning that from stem cells present in the tissue itself, cell differentiation towards dopaminergic phenotype is induced”.

After, at least four processes occur before regaining motor behavior: new dopaminergic cells send their terminals to the striatum, functionally reinnervate neurons, induce recovery of dendritic spines and recover the functionality of the cortical input, said the physiologist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Stimulating dopamine

Until 35 years ago virtually nothing was known about the part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which are clusters of nerve cells at the base of the brain in which different molecules that help transmit messages between neurons are produced.

Following a period of study at the University of Cambridge, Aceves Ruiz met his Argentine colleague Claudio Cuello, with whom he began conducting experiments to see if they could produce dopamine by electrical stimuli. With trepidation he initiated a research path that has generated over 73 pioneering papers in pharmaceutical neurology.

“Now we know that, for example, basal ganglia are organized primarily in two ways: one that facilitates movement and one that inhibits it, under the action of dopamine,” says Aceves.

“We know how the neurotransmitter works, and this has enabled us to design experiments that allow us to recover motor activity, we also determined through experiments that dopamine can promote or inhibit the movement under normal conditions; the problem is knowing when it promotes and when it stops, and to perform the process it uses different receptors”.

Experiments with adult rats to give back control of movement continues, but also Mexican research has opened other fields of study on the action of dopamine and the consequences of its absence, for example, its effects on motor hyperactivity syndrome.

“We are the only group that knowns, through our experimental work, what does the D4 receptor do, whcih activation causes decreased motor activity, because it would be acting in this special kernel that controls attention and partly motor activity ” explained Aceves Ruiz.

Source: Agencia ID

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Developing A Reliable Wind ‘Super Grid’ For Europe

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EU-funded researchers are involved in the development of a pan-European ‘super grid’ capable of dispersing wind power across Member States. This will bring more renewable energy into homes and businesses, help reduce reliance on fossil fuels and enable Europe to move closer towards achieving energy independence. This final point is an important consideration given that half the energy consumed in Europe in 2012 was imported from outside the EU.

The EU-funded MEDOW project, which runs until March 2017, is a training project that has identified the development of a direct current (DC) grid as an efficient way of transmitting and sharing wind power. This pan-European grid, rather than single point-to-point connections, will reinforce reliability and help balance power supply and demand.

The concept makes practical sense. While new wind farms are increasingly being placed offshore where wind speeds are higher and turbines less intrusive, this means that power is generated far from where it is used. Finding more efficient ways of transporting power to onshore grids will help achieve significant cost savings. The idea of a European renewables power grid has gained support from both the academic and environmental community.

This DC grid is based on newly emerging technology and will be the focal point of the offshore super grid. The MEDOW project, which began in 2013, will study operational issues such as DC power flow, DC relaying protection and dynamic stability. DC grids for offshore wind power transmission and onshore AC grid interconnection will also be investigated. Various simulation platforms and experimental test rigs will be used in the project.

Researchers are confident that the potential is there. The EU’s wind energy sector has enjoyed average annual growth of 15.6 % over the last 17 years, while a recent European Environment Agency report, entitled Europe’s Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy Potential, stated that European wind power capacity in 2020 could be three times greater than Europe’s expected electricity demand, rising to a factor of seven by 2030.

MEDOW is a Marie Curie Initial Training Network project and involves researchers from five universities and six industrial organisations. Each institution in the consortium is involved on account of their expertise in the manufacturing, design, operation, and control of multi-terminal DC grids. Three visiting scientists of international stature have been appointed to further strengthen the training aspect of MEDOW, which has received EUR 3.9 million in EU funding through the FP7 Programme.

Indeed, while searching for a grid solution, the project is helping to train early career researchers and will create a pool of researchers and operators developing DC grids, and nurture expertise in academia, research institutes and manufacturers. These researchers will receive interdisciplinary training in different countries to improve career opportunities. Research results will then be disseminated through publications and direct application in the industries.

In this way, the MEDOW project team hopes that their research will make a significant contribution towards the establishment of a pan-European electricity transmission network, delivering a single European electricity market, developing sustainable energy technology and creating jobs.

Source: CORDIS

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What Now For Hong Kong’s Occupy Movement? – OpEd

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By Michele Penna

And so the protest in Hong Kong ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. This week, the last protest site in Causeway Bay was cleared, effectively terminating the occupation of public spaces by protesters belonging to the ‘Umbrella Movement’. Last Thursday, the police had already removed the barricades at the main protest site in Admiralty, arresting over 200 people. According to reports, the protesters allowed the police to take them away without putting up resistance and, so far, no backlash has occurred.

The struggle had begun in September, when angry citizens took to the streets to vent their dissatisfaction at the electoral law which will regulate the 2017 election. The current system does not support authentic universal suffrage – which is supposedly guaranteed by Hong Kong’s Basic Law – and leaves pro-Mainland parties with a large amount of influence. Besides the electoral reform a number of reasons have pushed Hongkongers to the streets: excessive rents, economic anxiety, inequality and the influence of the Mainland on the city all played a role in fomenting the crisis.

After almost three months of confrontation, the winners in the battle for Hong Kong politics are the two governments involved: the city administration and the central government in Beijing. They have not conceded reforms, made commitments or even tried to appear accommodating – in fact, CY Leung, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and the occupiers’ chief target went so far as to say that changing the electoral law would be dangerous as poor people would have a larger share of power.

The fact that authorities won comes as no surprise: many of the protesters themselves believed that the Occupy Movement did not stand a chance against Beijing’s unmovable stance on political reform. Just as important, however, is the fact that protests have ended without a major clash with the police. A crackdown on umbrella-wielding citizens would have smeared China’s image, especially as Beijing is promoting the country’s ‘peaceful rise’ and the idea of a harmonious society around the world.

Violence would have also compromised the relationship between the mainland and Taiwan, where problems are already brewing for China’s policymakers. In March, students occupied the country’s parliament to protest against a trade agreement which was supposed to deepen ties with the People’s Republic. Local elections held in November saw a major victory for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), forcing pro-mainland President Ma Ying-jeou to resign as chairman of the ruling Kuomintang.

Authorities chose instead to bide their time while turning a deaf ear to activists and preventing any possible foreign involvement in the city’s affairs. The most relevant case in this regard was the decision to forbid Sir Richard Ottoway, chairman of the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, from entering Hong Kong. The Committee is conducting an inquiry into the UK’s relations with Hong Kong three decades after the Joint Declaration which handed the colony back to China.

So far, the tactic has worked. The protest had been losing steam for a while before the police moved in to remove the barricades. In a survey conducted in November by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 55 percent of the interviewees answered that they were against the movement and 82.9 percent responded they would prefer the protest to end. Even publisher Jimmy Lai, the pro-Occupy owner of ‘Apple Daily’, called for a strategic retreat, warning that occupiers should not “exhaust the goodwill of the people”.

However, as much as the Occupy movement in its current form might have lost public support, it would be naive to believe that the political confrontation is over. Electoral reform has not been approved, or even seriously discussed, and all the issues that the protesters worry about have not been addressed. In such conditions, tensions could easily flare up again, and occupiers have already tried alternative ways of demonstrating. These include shopping tours during which protesters turn up to buy few things and chant slogans. To put it in a way that will certainly sound familiar to the Communist Party, one could paraphrase one of Marx’s most famous lines: “A specter is haunting Hong Kong – the specter of Occupy.”

The post What Now For Hong Kong’s Occupy Movement? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

China’s High-Speed Rail: Rapid Growth Of New Travel Option

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China has the world’s largest and still expanding high-speed rail (HSR) network, but whether ridership would materialize has been the subject of much debate.

A new World Bank paper finds initial traffic volumes are promising, with traffic growing from 128 million trips in 2008 to 672 million trips in 2013 and over 2.9 billion passengers having taken a high speed train trip between April 2007 and October 1, 2014.

The paper underlines that the circumstances in China in terms of long distances, high population density, well interspaced large cities, and its economic rebalancing strategies are propitious for the long-term success of HSR. By focusing on understanding and addressing passenger needs, as well as efficient and effective operation, traffic can be expected to continue rapid growth over the coming two decades.

The paper titled High-Speed Railways in China: A Look at Traffic looks at China’ s HSR traffic in a global perspective and presents case studies of one of the country’s busiest routes and a relatively lightly used intercity route to illustrate how passengers have responded to new HSR services.

China has over 12,000 kilometers of passenger-dedicated high-speed rail in operation. In the summer 2014, China Railways was running over 1,330 pairs of high-speed trains a day on both this dedicated network and on upgraded conventional lines. More lines are being built and upgraded to connect all cities of more than 500,000 people through rapid rail by 2015.

In 2013, China’s high-speed rail lines carried more passenger-kilometers (214 billion) than the rest of the world combined, about 2.5 times the volume in Japan and four times the volume in France. Traffic densities of 22.5 million[1] in 2013 compare favorably to levels reached by Japan and France at the same stage of development.

The paper examines who is using HSR, whether the service has benefitted ordinary citizens, and how it has affected personal mobility by using survey data collected from passengers along the Changchun-Jilin and Tianjin-Jinan corridors. The survey was carried out by the World Bank, China Railway Corporation and the Third Railway Survey and Design Institute.

Survey findings indicate that a large proportion of high-speed train passengers are between the ages of 25 and 55, with many using the HSR for business travel. A broad range of travelers of different income levels choose HSR for its comfort, convenience, safety and punctuality over existing alternatives. The survey found that the average income of high-speed train passengers was 35-50 percent higher than that of conventional train passengers. The majority of surveyed passengers (50 to 70 percent of users in the two case studies) reported income of less than RMB5,000 per month. Users perceive HSR as facilitating reunions with family and friends, tourism, and access to job opportunities. High-speed rail also has had a marked impact on local businesses and personal mobility of their employees.

“Understanding and addressing passenger needs are critical to achieving the full impact of the high-speed rail network. While initial results are encouraging, high-speed rail remains a major investment that requires high traffic density to be justified economically and financially,” said Gerald Ollivier, a World Bank Senior Transport Specialist and co-author of the paper.

“This can be achieved by working closely with cities to develop areas around stations in a way that leverages the gain in accessibility that high speed rail provides. It also important to optimize train frequencies and city pairing, introduce flexible ticket prices reflecting peak and off-peak periods, and introduce convenient e-ticketing services. By focusing on these aspects, and on the efficient and effective operation of the network, high-speed rail in China can continue to experience substantial growth for many years to come,” he added.

This paper is part of the China Transport Note Series produced by the World Bank in Beijing to share experience about the transformation of the Chinese transport sector. The World Bank has supported six railway projects with design speeds ranging from 200 km/h to 350 km/h in China.

[1] Passenger-kilometers per kilometer of line.

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Terrorism Suspects Wanted By Spain Arrested At Bulgarian Border

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Three individuals wanted by Spain on terrorism-related charges have been arrested in Bulgaria as they were believed to be heading to join insurgents in Syria just hours after an alert was issued via INTERPOL.

According to INTERPOL, two men aged 18 and 27, and a 15-year-old boy, were taken into custody at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint with Turkey on the evening of Monday 15 December, and are now awaiting extradition to Spain. Two were travelling on Moroccan passports and the third was using a Brazilian passport.

The arrests come a week after an INTERPOL working group meeting on ‘Foreign Terrorist Fighters’ in Gran Canaria in Spain which brought together 120 counter-terrorism experts from 37 countries and five international organizations.

Co-hosted with the Spanish National Police and the INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Madrid, the three-day (10 – 12 December) conference enabled investigators to directly exchange information in relation to the ongoing threat posed by travel to and from conflict zones in Syria and Iraq.

In addition identifying areas for greater law enforcement cooperation on dismantling networks aimed at recruiting foreign terrorist fighters, officials from INTERPOL’s Counter-Terrorism Fusion Centre (CTFC) provided an analytical study of travel routes currently being used to reach the conflict zones.

The arrests in Bulgaria follow September’s unanimous resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recognizing the efforts of INTERPOL against the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters.

Resolution 2178 (2014), which was submitted during a special session of the UNSC chaired by US President Barack Obama, also highlights the use of INTERPOL’s I-24/7 secure police communications network, global databases and system of advisory notices, in addition to its counter-terrorism efforts and procedures to track stolen, forged identity papers and travel documents.

Created in April 2013, INTERPOL’s database of foreign terrorist fighters currently contains details of some 1,000 individuals provided by 37 countries.

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The Unspeakable In Afghanistan – OpEd

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By Patrick Kennelly*

2014 marks the deadliest year in Afghanistan for civilians, fighters, and foreigners. The situation has reached a new low as the myth of the Afghan state continues. Thirteen years into America’s longest war, the international community argues that Afghanistan is growing stronger, despite nearly all indicators suggesting otherwise. Most recently, the central government failed (again) to conduct fair and organized elections or demonstrate their sovereignty. Instead, John Kerry flew into the country and arranged new national leadership. The cameras rolled and a unity government was declared. Foreign leaders meeting in London decided on new aid packages and financing for the nascent ‘unity government.’ Within days, the United Nations helped broker a deal to keep foreign forces in the country, while simultaneously President Obama declared the war was ending—even as he increased the number of troops on the ground. In Afghanistan, President Ghani dissolved the cabinet and many people are speculating the 2015 parliamentary elections will be postponed.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups continue to gain traction and have pulled increasing parts of the country under their control. Throughout the provinces, and even in some of the major cities, the Taliban have begun collecting taxes and are working to secure key roadways. Kabul—a city that has been called the most fortified city on earth—has been on edge due to multiple suicide bombings. The attacks on various targets, ranging from high schools to houses for foreign workers, the military, and even the office of Kabul’s police chief have clearly communicated the ability of anti-government forces to strike at will. In response to the growing crisis, the Emergency Hospital in Kabul has been forced to stop treating non-trauma patients in order continue to treat the growing number of people harmed by guns, bombs, suicide explosions, and mines.

After four years of traveling to Afghanistan to conduct interviews, I have heard ordinary Afghans whisper about Afghanistan as a failing state, even as the media has touted growth, development, and democracy. Using dark humor to comment on current conditions Afghans joke that everything is working as it should; they acknowledge an unspeakable reality. They point out that more than 101,000 foreign forces trained to fight and use violence who have used their training well—by using violence; that arms merchants have ensured that all parties can continue fighting for years to come by supplying weapons to all sides; that foreign funders backing resistance groups and mercenaries can complete their missions—resulting in both increased violence and an absence of accountability; that the international NGO community implements programs and has profited from over $100 billion in aid; and that the majority of those investments ended up deposited in foreign bank accounts, primarily benefiting foreigners and a few elite Afghans.

Further, many of the supposedly “impartial” international bodies, as well as some of the major NGOs, have aligned themselves with various fighting forces. Thus even basic humanitarian aid has become militarized and politicized. For the ordinary Afghan the reality is clear. Thirteen years of investing in militarization and liberalization has left the country in the hands of foreign powers, ineffective NGOs, and infighting between many of the same warlords and Taliban. The result is the current unstable, deteriorating situation rather than a sovereign state.

Yet, during my trips to Afghanistan, I have also heard another unspeakable whispered, in contrast to the narrative told by mainstream media. That is, that there is another possibility, that the old way has not worked, and it is time for change; that nonviolence may resolve some of the challenges facing the country. In Kabul, the Border Free Center—a community center in which young people can explore their role in improving society,–is exploring the use of nonviolence to engage in serious attempts at peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. These young adults are engaging in demonstration projects to show how different ethnic groups can work and live together. They are creating alternative economies that do not rely on violence in order to provide livelihoods for all Afghans, especially vulnerable widows and children. They are educating street children and developing plans to decrease weapons in the country. They are working to preserve the environment and to create model organic farms to show how to heal the land. Their work is demonstrating the unspeakable in Afghanistan—that when people engage in the work of peace, real progress can be achieved.

Perhaps if the last 13 years had been less focused on foreign political motives and military aid and more focused on initiatives like the Border Free Center, the situation in Afghanistan might be different. If energies were focused on peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, perhaps people could acknowledge the reality of the situation and create a true transformation of the Afghan state.

*Pat Kennelly is the Director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking and works with Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He writes from Kabul, Afghanistan and can be contacted at kennellyp@gmail.com

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US Announces Terrorist Designations Of Ajand Misr And Ibrahim Al-Rubaysh

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The US Department of State said Thursday it has designated the Egyptian Ajnad Misr group, and Ibrahim al-Rubaysh, an al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) senior leader, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.

The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against U.S. persons engaging in transactions with Ajnad Misr or al-Rubaysh, and the freezing of all property and interests of Ajnad Misr and al-Rubaysh that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the possession or control of U.S. persons.

Ajnad Misr is an Egyptian violent extremist group that splintered from Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM), a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global entity. Ajnad Misr officially announced its formation in January 2014, and has since claimed numerous attacks on Egyptian security forces at government buildings, public spaces and universities, often injuring or killing innocent bystanders.

Ibrahim al-Rubaysh is a senior leader of AQAP, a designated FTO and Specially Designated Global entity. He serves as a senior advisor for AQAP operational planning and is involved in the planning of attacks. He has served as a senior AQAP sharia official since 2013, and as a senior AQAP sharia official, al-Rubaysh provides the justification for attacks conducted by AQAP. In addition, he has made public statements, including one in August 2014 where he called on Muslims to wage war against the United States. In addition, since October 14, 2014, Ibrahim al-Rubaysh has been subject to a five million dollar Reward for Justice.

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US State Department Calls For Belarus To Release Political Prisoners

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The US State Department on Thursday reiterated a call for Belarus to release political prisoners.

“It has been four years since the Belarusian Government launched a repressive crackdown on civil society, independent media, and the democratic opposition,” said Jen Psaki US State Department spokesperson in a statement, adding, “We remember those who remain wrongly imprisoned and call for the immediate and unconditional release of all Belarusian political prisoners and the complete respect for their political and civil rights.”

Psaki said the US is also encouraging Belarus to honor the U.S.-Belarus December 2010 joint statement, which acknowledges that enhanced respect for democracy and human rights remains essential to the progress of Belarus and its citizens, and is central to improving bilateral relations.

“Honoring these values is particularly important in light of the upcoming 2015 presidential elections. Increased respect for democracy and human rights will also boost prosperity and economic growth, thus strengthening Belarusian sovereignty and independence, which the United States unequivocally and firmly supports,” Psaki said.

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Jeb, The GOP And The Presidency – OpEd

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Can the United States, and the world, for that matter, tolerate another Bush in the White House? Jeb Bush is placing his toes in the contesting waters, and suggesting that he just might be in it. As David Freedlander declared in the Daily Beast (Dec 16), the two-time governor of Florida was “considered a White House hopeful since back in the days when his brother was still thought of as an alcoholic oil man destined to play out his Freudian fights with his father in a Kennebunkport backyard.”

The candidacy for the Presidential office is already taking a populist, and absurd shape, and while many contenders are bound to fall on their ill-directed swords in due course, a few have already deserved their short entries in the political who’s who. Vermin Supreme, a seemingly permanent campaigner, deserves his spot as lunatic supreme, or eccentricity divine, with his suggestion that every American receive a pony – gratis.

Showing that a good deal of mirth can be found amidst the serious undermining of the American political process, Supreme has suggested an amendment that will involve, “A well regulated Pony Militia, being necessary to the security of a free Pony State”. Whether doing so will enable “this country to bite back”, as he suggested in an address filled with dental metaphors, is quite another thing. Better that, perhaps, than the insatiable, and heavily fanged military industrial complex.

Then came tentative Jeb Bush, not so much roaring from the fold as moving underneath it by means of a Facebook post, suggesting that he would “actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States” after Thanksgiving chatter with friends and family. A leadership PAC is being proposed, one that “will be to support leaders, ideas and policies that will expand opportunity and prosperity for all Americans”.

While the language of Jeb shows a few contortionist hallmarks of his brother (“thinking about” running for office and “actively exploring” running for office comes close), it has had its stirring effect. At most, it will have the potential to unhinge others in the GOP running pack, who have heard nothing so much as a squeak from the Bush dynasts over candidature prospects.

The public relations specialists have had to say otherwise, but establishment conservatives such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the failed previous candidate Mitt Romney will be looking over shoulders and backs. The populists will also have to take note. Everyone’s knives are going to be sharpened even as they count their donor dollars.

Several matters on the Jeb platform are deemed troubling for any chances. Common core curricula will be a grand saddling weight, a policy platform endorsed by his troubled non-profit, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, and by such moves as joining the group Conservatives for Higher Standards.

Conservative activists, such as the enduring octogenarian Phyllis Schlafly of the religious right, have warned against adopting the Common Core, seen as having the centralist evils of the standard mongers. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have openly declared their position against it, asking for an immediate cessation of federal funding. They might just as well as smirked at the idea that anything involving Jeb Bush and appropriate standards of excellence was misguided.

The continuing narrative of the local being the good continues. The usual sovereignty-clipping measures are put forth by the antagonists. Common Core will see the internationalist, UN-backed agenda infiltrate US schools with standards, not to mention such conventions as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Agenda 21, and the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (Mother Jones, Apr 18).

Suspicions of elitism also prevail – the Common Core scheme was cooked up by two Rhodes scholars, the classicist David Coleman and physicist Jason Zimba, suggesting an Oxford taint and a rude pointer against philistinism. Then come the funding incentives from the US Department of Education, with a sweetener of $4.35 billion in cash from the Race to the Top program, and money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Whether the Common Core factor actually cuts into a Jeb Bush electoral performance is something else. He has little to worry about, suggests the latest number crunching of Nate Silver, given that most Republican voters are either ignorant about it, nor find it so reprehensible. Besides, Bush’s own Foundation for Excellent in Education has been found wanting by the IRS for disguising travel payments as “scholarships”, while appointed officials have been caught improving upon test scores and inflating grades. Standard curriculums can easily fall into standard practices of corruption.

Bush’s opponents will also find much to have a good hack at. They are the old foibles as a prep schooler at Andover, featuring pot and a brief membership of the socialist club. There is the heavily wearing family legacy – George W’s own is stifling and the sons dysfunctional.

Then come those, and these are but a sampling, shady dealings with Camilo Padreda, a former counterintelligence officer of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista regarding financing of buildings with money from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development-backed loans (Mother Jones, Sep 9); and the successful lobbying of father Bush in 1989 to release Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, alleged to be behind the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people.

On others, Bush is entirely in step with the frightened core of the GOP shell. Women’s liberation has yet to enter his argot. The 1994 campaign saw the contender argue that women on welfare “should be able to get their life together and find a husband.”

Climate change will receive its usual dismissive sneers. Giving the impression of being a Socratic explorer of the fine questions of the age, Jeb B has declared himself to be sceptic. In 2009, he told Esquire that he thought “science has been politicised. I would be very wary of hollowing out our industrial base even further.”

As for the rest, the un-anointed, and the near irrelevant voting constituency who have become spectral in the political contest behind the Presidency, Jeb will be another hollow man meditating over God, the threatened country and wars of sanctimonious deliverance. The pony state protected by constitutional amendment looks deludingly comforting.

 

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Rising Political Risk For Miners In Zambia – OpEd

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The 2011 election of President Michael Sata and the Patriotic Front (PF) government in Zambia turned out to be one of the most negative events for foreign investors in the country. Not only did the Sata government expropriate properties, re-nationalise assets, and rack up debt and inflation – they also sought to tighten control over the mining sector when they began to run out of cash, revising both royalties and value-added tax rules.

But Sata’s death in London on October 28 has done very little to calm the business environment. With no clear successor and an unstable party structure, the fight for power within the ruling party and among opposition contenders has shaken the country to the core. The upcoming snap election on January 20 may make things even worse, depending on who wins.

Following the passage of a new budget yesterday by Zambia’s parliament, royalties on open-pit mine revenue have been raised from 6% to a whopping 20%, replacing corporate tax. As raw mineral exports make up more than 70% of Zambia’s export earnings, the tax structures around mining have always been a delicate balancing act between citizens earning their fair share of the national wealth while also respecting the long-term sustainability the large capital investments required by foreign mining operators.

Judging by the reactions so far, this new royalty hike is by all measures unsustainable – a measure sought by a cash-hungry ruling party with an expensive new campaign pay for.

“This may not be the smart thing to do,” said World Bank country director Kundhavi Kadiresan. “We would have liked the royalty rates they had before, along with the income tax rates they had before. It was a good combination. (…) I hope government also starts thinking about it seriously because it has implications in terms of jobs and government’s own revenues.”

We didn’t have to wait long to see the repercussions. Today, Barrick Gold announced that they would be suspending operations at the Lumwana open pit – potentially resulting the lay off of 4,000 workers.

“The introduction of this royalty has left us with no choice,” said Kelvin Dushnisky of Barrick. “The economics of an operation such as Lumwana cannot support a 20 percent gross royalty, particularly in the current copper price environment.”

The president of First Quantum Minerals Clive Newall echoed Dushnisky’s statement, telling Reuters that the new royalty rate would be a “massive disincentive” for future investment if it does not come with some form of capital relief.

The incoherence in Zambia’s mining policies pre-dates the death of Sata as well as the 2015 budget. Last summer, FQM announced that it was going to be forced to withhold some $1 billion of new investments because of more than $150 million VAT repayments owed by the govenrment (in total, the Zambian government owes mining companies more than $600 million).

“There’s a pervading atmosphere which creates a bit of uncertainty. Certainty is absolutely the critical thing that’s required if we’re going to look at any form of investment,” an FQM representative told the media in June.

The reason why the Zambian government has failed to repay the mines and have jacked up royalty rates? They don’t have the money after three years of widespread mis-governance, corruption, growing debt, and one of the worst performing currencies on the continent. Zambia under the rule of the current government has become a litmus test case of political risk – weakening institutions, weak property rights, and unpredictable policy changes. The current leadership does not understand how to achieve the right balance between taxation and encouragement of foreign investment, and considering the current slump in commodity prices, the smarter move would be to work with the mining companies to ensure that operations continue, rather than to squeeze for short term cash gains.

Mining investors will be watching the upcoming elections very closely in Zambia to see if a more business friendly government will come forward, but keep in mind, when Sata and the PF swept into power in 2011, many people thought that they would work out, too.

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Japan, Australia To Provide For US F-35 Maintenance Sites In Pacific Region

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By Claudette Roulo

Japan and Australia will be sharing maintenance and upgrade duties for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter based or operating in the Pacific region, the program executive officer for the aircraft announced earlier this week.

F-35 heavy air frame maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade capabilities will be provided by Japan in the northern Pacific and Australia in the southern Pacific, Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan told reporters. Both countries are expected to have their facilities operational no later than 2018.

Initial heavy engine maintenance capability will be provided by Australia by early 2018, he said, and Japan will provide additional capability 3 to 5 years later.

Once Japan’s heavy engine capability is achieved, Bogdan said, the program office will look at the footprint and distribution of F-35’s in the Pacific to “see if these decisions are still appropriate and if we have to make any kind of adjustments in terms of the assignment capabilities and moving forward.”

Similar Process in Europe

A similar process will take place in Europe, and all of the assignments will be reviewed every three to five years, he added.

Over the next two years, assignments for other components, systems and repair capabilities will be determined for both Europe and the Pacific, Bogdan noted.

Japan’s final assembly and check-out facility will be quite different from the facilities in Italy and Fort Worth, Texas, the general said.

“Both the plant at Fort Worth and the plant in Italy are expansive in terms of distance on the ground,” he said, but Japan is building vertically. Manufacturing will take place on a number of different floors, Bogdan said, and the aircraft will move through the facility on elevators as it is assembled.

Efficiencies learned through experience at the Fort Worth facility are being incorporated into the Japanese facility as it is constructed, he said.

Just like in Europe, he said, Japan is responsible for the funding and construction of their facility, which will be operated by a Japanese company. Lockheed-Martin will oversee technical aspects of production in Italy and Japan, Bogdan noted, and the U.S. government will oversee security.

Factors Drove Decisions

Geography and operational necessity played a considerable role in the Defense Department’s final decision to place air frame facilities in two locations, the general said.

Seven thousand miles separate the two primary areas where F-35s will be concentrated in the Pacific, Bogdan said. Moving entire aircraft over that distance would require significant amounts of fuel and other support, he said, making it uneconomical. And, he said, “Quite often, some of those airplanes that have to be inducted into a depot are going in there because they need upgrades or there’s something wrong.”

Operationally, it didn’t make sense to introduce a long transportation delay into the MRO&U process, the general said.

“If you’re having airplanes in the northern Pacific that need a rapid upgrade to respond to a new threat, having to move them 7,000 miles to do that mod in Australia, or vice versa, has an operational impact, because the war fighter won’t get the airplane as quickly as he needed to,” he explained.

Geography wasn’t as serious an initial consideration for engines, Bogdan said.

Easier, Quicker, Cheaper

“You can break the engines down into modules, and when you break them down into modules, transportation is much easier, quicker and cheaper,” he said.

As more aircraft arrive in the Pacific theater, Australia’s heavy engine maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrades capability will eventually be supplemented by Japan, the general said.

“Bringing a Japanese capability online after that represents the fact that as more airplanes come to the Pacific over time, we want to make sure we have enough throughput to get all the engines done in the region in a timely way.”

“This is another example of the continuing expansion of global sustainment opportunities for the international F-35 community,” Bogdan said in a release that accompanied today’s announcement.

“The F-35 international users will remain a vital part of the support structure of the program,” he said. “Their continuing participation is critical to driving down cost and getting the best value for the F-35 team and improving the strength of the global sustainment base for many years to come.”

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Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Says Oil Price Slump ‘Temporary’

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Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said Thursday that the global oil price slump was temporary, adding that it was impossible for OPEC to cut output alone to reverse the plunge without the support of other producers.

“It is difficult, or even impossible, for Saudi Arabia or OPEC to undertake any measure that would lead to a reduction in (their) share of the market and an increase in that of non-OPEC producers,” said Ali Al-Naimi.

Speaking to the SPA, he said while OPEC’s output had not changed in years, production by non-OPEC nations “has been increasing constantly.”

He added that price fluctuations “are normal” for commodities. He said OPEC sought last month, as in the past, cooperation from other non-OPEC nations but “those efforts were not successful.” Russia has said it would not cut production even if prices fell below $60 per barrel.

“The situation that we and the world currently face is temporary,” said the minister, citing a combination of factors including slower global growth, increased supply, and reduced demand for oil.

“The global economy, particularly the economies of emerging countries, will resume growth steadily, and then demand for oil will also grow.”

Al-Naimi said the Saudi economy is strong enough to survive lower prices. He said factors including the Kingdom’s “huge financial reserves” help it to withstand short-term variations in oil income.

Al-Naimi reiterated his rejection of any linking of the Kingdom’s oil policy with political motives. “There are wrong analyzes that are circulated from time to time, like linking oil decisions with political motives. These wrong analyzes will be exposed for sure, which would help to bring back balance to the market,” he said.

He also warned against the “negative role of speculators” in the oil market, causing the sharp price volatility.

Crude prices traded above $100 a barrel earlier this year but have fallen to multi-year lows since June.

Prices plunged even further after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided last month against cutting production. OPEC pumps about 30 percent of global crude.

Oil markets gained on Thursday after recent volatility.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery jumped $1.76 to $58.23 a barrel, while Brent North Sea crude for February rose $1.97 to $63.15.

The oil market has become increasingly competitive with the surge in production from American shale oil fields.

Analysts have said OPEC is content to see shale oil producers — and even some OPEC members — suffer from low prices rather than reduce output to boost prices.

OPEC last month reaffirmed its production ceiling of 30 million barrels per day, of which Saudi Arabia is pumping about 9.6 million bpd.

The drop in oil prices sparked turmoil this week on global stock markets where investors were concerned about the effect on oil firms as well as the crude-dependent economy of Russia.

United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei said in Abu Dhabi that OPEC had not contributed to the increase in crude supply “and is not logically responsible for curbing the impact” of it.

He pleaded for a return to equilibrium between supply and demand “in the interest of the world economy” but added that time and patience would be required.

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EU Leaders Skip Second Day Of Summit And Escape Protests

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(EurActiv) — EU leaders finished their summit in the early hours of 19 December, avoiding major protests that have completely blocked the centre of Brussels Friday.

During the night, convoys of tractors from Walloon neighbourhoods reached the centre of Brussels. The European quarters around the flagship monuments of the Council and the Commission were completely blocked this morning, both by police and by tractors.

Agricultural workers from Alliance D19-20, named after last year’s December summit, had been planning a “peaceful surrounding” of the EU summit today, with 2000 to 3000 of them present on the ground. It looks like the protestors are largely unaware that EU leaders are actually gone, or at least they still plan to protest, in spite of the fact that the EU buildings are basically empty.

“We want to say no to austerity applied everywhere in Europe and the free trade treaties. The austerity measures taken at national level result from decisions taken at EU level. It is important to create social resistance against these policies. Our goal is to be seen and heard by decision-makers, to be near them to express our disagreement”, Sebastian Franco, head D19-20 was quoted as saying by RTL.

Franco said that last year, 2500 people took part in the protests and said he expected that even more would protest this year. Reportedly, the Alliance D19-20 consists not only of farmers, but of trade union activists, artists, workers, unemployed, artists, NGO representatives. “Delegations” from abroad are expected, particularly from France and Germany.

EurActiv.com, Georgi Gotev

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Russia To Supply Banks With Up To $6.54 Billion From Sovereign Wealth Fund

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Banks in Russia will get a government boost to finance debt and projects as the country risks recession. On Friday, the State Duma passed the last two readings of a law to allocate up to 10 percent, or $6.54 billion, from a sovereign wealth fund.

The law is essentially a bank bailout from the Ministry of Finance.

Once the bill is signed into law, Russia’s largest state-owned banks, Sberbank, VTB, VTB 24, Gazprombank, the Russian Agriculture Bank, and Bank of Moscow, as well as private banks such as Alfa-Bank, UniCredit Bank, and Rosbank (Societe General) will be eligible for loans, but no final list has been drawn up.

Many of the banks are sanctioned, and therefore are locked out of Western capital markets.

Credit institutions with more than $1.7 billion (100 billion rubles) in capital will be eligible for the money which will be transferred as bonds and equity.

Another piece of legislation is aimed at helping banks recapitalize through federal loan bonds (OFZ) worth up to $16.1 billion (1 trillion rubles).

“First of all, we will support systemically important banks, so that economic transactions will be provided for. [Those banks-Ed.] are the main holders of deposits, the main transactions are carried out in those [banks],” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters, as quoted by Reuters, on Thursday

“It’s not real money, and not just budget expenditures, but funds in securities,” Siluanov said.

The move will turn Russia’s expected 0.5-0.6 percent surplus relative to GDP in 2014 to a 0.8 percent deficit to GDP, the finance minister said.

The decision comes as Russia faces its biggest currency crisis since 1998.

Russia has two sovereign wealth funds that together hold $172 billion as of December 11, 2014. The National Wealth Fund (NWF) and the Reserve Fund (RF). These state wealth funds serve as rainy day coffers for the government to use at its discretion, and were built up over the years mostly due to high oil revenues.

Another option the Russian government is considering to help stave off recession is tapping into pension funds, according to Economy Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev.

Not just banks are looking to get state help during the tight economic times for Russia. Oil and gas companies, which are losing money because of low oil prices, are likely to get a helping hand from the state.

Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company has asked for $3.3-4.2 billion (200-250 billion rubles). The company has already asked for $40 billion, which the government rejected. The company, along with Gazprom, the nation’s biggest gas utility, together has to pay off debts of $90 billion in 2015.

The Russian government has about $150 billion of debt it needs to redeem in 2015, much of which is foreign held. Sanctions now bar many state-owned Russian credit institutions from borrowing long-term from Western capital markets.

In March 2013 Rosneft acquired BP-TNK in a $55 billion deal, most of which was financed with new debt, leaving little liquidity for new projects.

Gazprom has recently committed to building 2 major pipelines to China, both estimated to be multibillion dollar projects.

Novatek, Russia’s second largest gas producer, also under US sanctions, is asking for $2.5 billion (150 billion rubles) from the NWF, which the company may get as soon as the first quarter of 2015, according to Deputy Economic Development Minister Nikolai Podguzov.

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Playing With The Holocaust: Netanyahu’s Throw Of The Dice – OpEd

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The iron hand crush’d the tyrant’s head,
And became a tyrant in his stead.
– William Blake, The Grey Monk

The use of historical suffering is standard fare for the descendants. The descendants of history’s victims tend to be the modern day avengers. History’s record is not so much to be righted as washed, cleansed and made anew.

When the political reserves are empty, forms of credit have to be found. In the historical context, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has often had an enormous reserve to draw upon: the terrifying, seemingly bottomless legacy of the Holocaust, the negative gearing of history’s financiers he can resort to when he finds himself in a tight spot.

The latest example of this came on Wednesday, when his office quoted the prime minister’s reaction to the removal of Hamas from the terrorist list by the General Court of the European Union. “In Luxembourg, the European Court removed Hamas from the list of terrorist organisations, Hamas that has committed countless war crimes and countless terror acts” (Ynet News, Dec 17). From that, he could draw a rather long bow in reasoning that, “It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil six million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing.”

The Court itself would have been surprised by Netanyahu. After all, its judgment had nothing to do with reviewing the merits of Hamas being classified as a terrorist group or otherwise. “The Court stresses that those annulments, on fundamental procedural grounds, do not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group.” Furthermore, asset freezes will still be kept in place for three months pending further EU actions.

The use of the Holocaust has been extensively covered in writings that remind one how easy commemoration can slide into endless pieties and historical manipulation. The creation of “memorial days”, for instance, tends to be rooted in political calculation and chance – Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain, for instance, proved to be one striking example (The Independent, Jan 25, 2005). What mattered was selecting the most supreme atrocity for commemorative reflection.

It seems somewhat distasteful to keep badgering and hectoring your allies with such necrophilic reminders, but Netanyahu knows no other way. He knows that history is getting away from him, that the Israeli machinery keen on promoting the facts of a tolerant Israeli state is coming apart at the seams. Adding to that the canter at which nations are recognising a Palestinian state, and he is clearly proving to be at wits end. His political opponents know it.

When he has the chance to use the Holocaust, he will. He will use the all too neat wrapping of appeasement to suggest that European states and institutions have, within them, a soft, wobbly centre susceptible to placating. He cites, in this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony address at Yad Vashem, a resolution by the Oxford University student organisation proclaiming that, under no circumstances would they “fight for their King and country.”

Rather than extolling the virtues of a resolution encouraging a lack of bloodiness and fitful war mongering, Netanyahu sees it as the ultimate, delusionary betrayal. “This example illustrates the West’s feeble attitude vis-à-vis the rise of Nazism.”

No where does the Israeli prime minister see fit to explain the haunting memories of millions of European dead from the 1914-1918 war, the extinct generation, the fears of going on another round of self-annihilation and industrial immolation. Appeasement was the logical consequence of preventing war, a Falstaffian cowardice born of a desire to avoid the forfeiture of life. After all, “To die is to be a counterfeit”. That it was waged by the Axis powers with genocidal purpose was a brutal reality that came later. The rest is tarot reading gibberish.

A refusal to understand the effects of World War I on Europe in the 1930s is almost as significant as a refusal by the Israeli government to understand the implications of various historical decisions to dispossess, control and monitor the Palestinian population. Historical blindness, however, is a tonic, and a useful one when in a bind. It is a love note one severs, rewords and readjusts to explain a past relationship. “I thought I knew you…”

Netanyahu follows the most disturbing of lines when it comes to using Holocaust reminders. He speaks in the manner of a lecturer who thinks his history students have flunked. “In retrospect,” claimed Netanyahu at Yad Vashem for his Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony address this year, “there is a direct line connecting the racial laws and the gas chambers” (The Times of Israel, April 27). That Israeli politics continues to flirt, and indeed discuss laws on racial identity openly, is the cruellest of ironies. But irony and blackmail often clink glasses and openly celebrate in festive spirit.

Not only has Israel received over the decades assistance from numerous European countries, it has capitalised on donations, funding and armaments from a range of allies keen to see its position shored up in the Middle East. The political landscape is changing, but Netanyahu insists on using historical blackmail to generate immediate political gains. He has his enemies and his dislikes, but he is happily sordid in making use of the past to manipulate the present. Such is the manner of those who crush a foe in order to become one.

The post Playing With The Holocaust: Netanyahu’s Throw Of The Dice – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Pakistan Lifts Moratorium On Death Penalty

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Mohammed Aqeel, a former member of the Pakistan army’s medical corps, will probably be the first to be executed by hanging after the lifting of the moratorium on executions in terrorism-related cases, reports MISNA.

Aqeel, who goes by the alias of Dr Usman, was convicted as the mastermind of the October 10, 2009 attack against army headquarters in Rawalpindi that left 10 soldiers dead. He is expected to be executed within the next 24 hours. A death warrant was signed last night by the army chief, two days from the 48 hour deadline on the moratorium set by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the wake of the Taliban attack against the army-run Public school in Peshawar that left 145 dead, mostly children.

Army sources confirm that preparations are completed for the execution of Aqeel, who was granted a meeting with his brother, who will be consigned the body after the hanging at the central prison of Faisalabad, reports MISNA.

The post Pakistan Lifts Moratorium On Death Penalty appeared first on Eurasia Review.

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