Bill Donohue comments on reactions to his news release from yesterday [click here] on the murder of 12 people in Paris.

Being misrepresented is commonplace for public figures. Sometimes it reflects an honest misreading; other times it is a willful distortion. I don’t have the time now to address all of these instances, but I am hardly going to run from my position.

My position is this: the murderers are fully responsible for what they did and should be treated with the full force of the law. Nothing justifies the killing of these people. But this is not the whole of this issue.

The cartoonists, and all those associated with Charlie Hebdo, are no champions of freedom. Quite the opposite: their obscene portrayal of religious figures—so shocking that not a single TV station or mainstream newspaper would show them—represents an abuse of freedom.

Freedom of speech is not an end—it is a means to an end. For Americans, the end is nicely spelled out in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution: the goal is to “form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity.”

No fair-minded reading of the Preamble suggests that it was written to facilitate the right to intentionally and persistently insult people of faith with scatological commentary. Moreover, the purpose of free speech is political discourse: it exists to protect the right of men and women to agree and disagree about the makings of the good society.

Let’s forget about legalities. As I have said countless times, everyone has a legal right to insult my religion (or the religion of others), but no one has a moral right to do so. Can we please have this conversation, along with what to do about Muslim barbarians who kill because they are offended?

The post Charlie Hebdo Perverts Freedom – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By S.N.M. Abdi

By dressing up “militants” as Muslims wearing skullcaps in a mock anti-terror drill, Indian police exposed not only communal mentality but low IQ and poor general knowledge negating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of SMART — Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Techno savvy and Trained — law enforcers voiced at the recent conference of directors-general of police in Guwahati.

Footage of the drill showed commandos capturing “terrorists” in white-knitted skullcaps before bundling them into police jeeps. But do terrorists — even if they happen to be Muslims — don the Islamic skullcap to unleash murder and mayhem? I don’t think so.

Ajmal Kasab and company who attacked Mumbai on Nov. 26, 2008 wore blue jeans and colorful T-shirts as they went about their diabolical mission, which was rightly condemned universally. That they were dressed in casuals is common knowledge because the Mumbai attacks were telecast live by several channels; Indians had a ringside view of terrorists in action. The drill also showed “terrorists” wearing skullcaps raising Islamic slogans as commandos take them on. In the video of the drill doing the rounds, a dummy terrorist shouts: “Kill us if you wish. We are not afraid of death. Islam Zindabad (Long Live Islam).” The skullcap and the slogan serve one and the same purpose — demonizing Muslims and Islam.

Such racial profiling and stereotyping of a religious minority by Indian police is not new. After the 2008 Batla House encounter in Delhi, the police paraded the suspects before the media in red-and-white keffiyehs — the Palestinian headscarf. The police faced a lot of criticism but no action was taken against officers who made the suspects wear keffiyehs. The response of the government after videos of the anti-terrorism drill went viral is no different. Inaction is bound to ensure a repetition before long.

Concerns about religious intolerance in secular India are rising since Modi came to power in May, fueled by reports of Muslims and Christians being forced or induced to become Hindus once again in mass “re-conversions.” Attempts are also under way to clamp a new law banning conversions. But Muslim and Christian religious leaders, besides secular and liberals, regard the proposed legislation as an assault on religious freedoms, which include the right to convert to a religion of one’s choice.

The drill, described as atrocious and highly condemnable by many, was in preparation for a Jan. 11-13 investment summit in Gujarat, whose speakers will include US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as Modi himself. The media was invited to film it to underscore India’s preparedness to foil terrorist attacks. But portraying terrorists as flag-bearers of Islam reduced the drill to a mockery of both commonsense and secularism. Regardless of the drill, India is forever projecting itself as a victim of Islamic terrorism unleashed either by the homegrown Indian Mujahideen or foreign Islamic outfits, particularly in Kashmir, to milk international sympathy and consolidate Hindus domestically. But Bharatiya Janata Party leaders like Modi or Home Minister Rajnath Singh rarely talk about Hindu and tribal-led insurgencies, which are wreaking far greater havoc.

The latest Global Terrorism Index (released by international think tank Institute of Economics and Peace) reveals that while jihadists were responsible for 15 percent of terrorism-related killings in India, Maoists accounted for the lion’s share of casualties — a whopping 50 percent — in 2013. The remaining 35 percent of deaths were caused by guerrillas fighting for statehood or independence in states like Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.

Maoists have created a Red Corridor from the India-Nepal border to south India but the worst-hit states are Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa. Their goal is to overthrow the Indian government by force. The writ of the administration doesn’t run in large tracts of central India where there are no police stations, post offices, revenue collectors or even cellular network.

Similarly, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which gunned down 75 Adivasis or tribespeople, just before Christmas in its devilish pursuit of a separate homeland for ethnic Bodos in Assam, is one of the deadliest separatist outfits in business. New York survived 9/11. Mumbai is doing fine despite 26/11, thank you. I think that armed rebellions like the Maoist insurgency or secessionist uprisings in the northeast pose a far graver challenge to the Indian State. New Delhi should focus on neutralizing anti-national groups trying to seize power or dismember India instead of maligning Muslims who have never challenged the state till today.

The post Demonizing Muslims Won’t Help – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Elvira M. Jukic

A Bosnian Imam, or Muslim cleric, in the northwestern village of Trnovi, has said he is withdrawing from public debates about radical Islamists, which have brought him nothing but trouble.

“I am withdrawing from all debates on social networks. I simply have no strength to debate and explain myself to anyone anymore,” Selvedin Beganovic told Balkan Insight in an exclusive phone interview on Wednesday.

Beganovic became a focus of public attention in Bosnia and beyond after suffering three physical attacks in less than a month.

They are believed to be related to his repeated criticisms, in sermons, public statements and comments on social networks, of militant Islamists who have been leaving Bosnia to fight on the side of Islamic State or Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

The cleric has angered religious hardliners by saying that Muslim jihad – crusade, or holy war – should be about “opening new jobs, not going to front lines abroad,” media quoted him as saying.

Beganovic was attacked first on December 8 last year when he was beaten and stabbed by a masked person. He was beaten up again in front of his mosque on December 13, again by a masked person.

He was attacked for the third time on January 1 this year by another masked person, first using blunt object and then stabbing him twice with a knife.

A local Ministry of Interior spokesperson, Ale Siljdedic, told Balkan Insight that the investigation into these attacks was ongoing in several directions, including members of the local Wahhabi community.

However, Siljdedic said there was no evidence directly implicating any of the members of this community thus far.

Security experts and intelligence officials say around 400 Bosnians have joined the wars raging in foreign battlefields in recent years, including some 160 in the last several months.

A number have been reportedly killed in fighting or in suicide-bombing missions.

Bosnia last year passed a law last year that bans citizens from fighting in foreign countries.

Police and intelligence agencies in recent months arrested more than a dozen radical Islamists believed to have fought abroad, or to be recruiting others for such fights.

The leading figure in this group is Husein Bosnic, aka Bilal, who remains in detention after being indicted for terrorist activities, recruiting and organizing terroristic group and spreading radical Islam.

The Bosnian Islamic Community has criticized such practices and distanced itself from Islamic radicalism, which appeared in Bosnia at the beginning of the 1990s during the Bosnian war.

Beganovic told Balkan Insight that his posts on social networks and public comments would now be limited to religious matters and that he would not make further controversial criticisms.

The post Attacks Silence Bosnian Imam Who Took On Islamists appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The euro changeover in Lithuania is reaching its final stage. Once the dual circulation period will come to an end on January 15, 2015, cash payments may no longer be made in Lithuanian litas.

Pursuant to a European Commission survey, most cash payments in shops were made entirely in euro and all customers received their change in the new currency on January 7.

Banks, post offices and retailers are reported to cope well with the changeover process and the parallel handling of two currencies. Euro cash is gradually becoming predominant in Lithuanians’ pockets. On January 7, about every second person polled confirmed to have mostly or only euro cash in the wallet.

Monitoring of compliance with the requirements for price display, proper conversion at the official conversion rate (3.45280 litas to one euro) and the correct implementation of the “Memorandum on Good Business Practice upon the Introduction of the Euro” is coordinated by the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority and involves various institutions such as the State Food and Veterinary Service and the State Non-Food Products Inspectorate. Most of the violations identified so far consisted in prices not being displayed in two currencies and rounding mistakes. Questions and complaints are handled diligently by the competent authorities.

The post Lithuanians Getting Used To Euro As Changeover Period Ends Jan 15 appeared first on Eurasia Review.

As the global balance of power shifts, more countries try out hard power.

By Alistair Burnett*

This year has seen marked resurgence in the use of hard power by states in pursuit of national interests.

The US return to military action in Iraq and direct intervention in Syria, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine and China’s assertion of its territorial claims in the East and South China seas are just three examples of major powers turning to force and coercion to achieve strategic aims.

Yet, not so long ago, talk in diplomatic, academic and journalistic circles focused on the growing importance of soft power in international relations.

In recent years, governments consider how to boost soft power, investing heavily in tools like international broadcasting and cultural institutes to win friends abroad.

China has spent billions expanding China Central TV’s broadcasts in English and other languages and opening 450 Confucius Institutes around the world teaching Chinese language and culture. It has even invested in trying to create global pop star Jia Ruhan. Russia has expanded its international TV news station, RT. The US continues to fund international broadcasting started during the Cold War.

These are all efforts to influence the views of people in other countries, winning them over to a way of thinking so they will pressure their governments – even in authoritarian states – to fall into line with new policies.

The US is considered the world leader in soft and hard power, and there’s no doubt American culture is attractive to many around the world – consider the numbers wanting to migrate there and who wear baseball caps, eat American-style fast food, listen to American music and watch Hollywood movies. Much of the global attractiveness of the US has little to do with its government, and photographs of anti-American protesters in the Middle East in jeans and T-shirts demonstrate how it’s possible to like American culture and dislike Washington’s policies.

But while the US has accumulated a lot of this soft power without having to spend a cent, relying instead on the sheer attractiveness of American society, the government still takes steps to manipulate attitudes. One little publicized effort is how the Pentagon influences its on-screen image through its film liaison office which can save Hollywood producers millions in special effects by providing hardware and personnel on approved scripts.

But do events of the past year suggest that in a world where the global balance of power is shifting and countries really want their own way, they turn to old-fashioned hard power?

Harvard Professor Joe Nye who coined the term “soft power” argues it is not a binary choice. He developed on his original definition of power by identifying a third way states could convince others to do what they wanted – with “smart power” – basically wielding a mix of hard and soft power.

Looking at how the United States, Russia and China have conducted themselves through this lens shows all three are trying – with varying levels of success – to use smart power.

Before using military force in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State, the Obama administration utilized soft power to maximize impact of the use of its hard power. Washington was keen that its intervention was not seen as unilateral action by aggressive Christian states against Muslims, so it portrayed IS as an enemy of fellow Muslims. Washington also emphasizes it intervenes in Iraq at the invitation of Baghdad and has been successful in building a coalition including leading Sunni Arab states to carry out airstrikes in Syria. So far the campaign has slowed IS down.

In Ukraine, Russia’s campaign to take Crimea and destabilize the eastern part of the country has been called hybrid warfare because of its mix of diplomacy, TV and social media propaganda about the threat to Russian speakers from Ukrainian nationalists, and use of irregular and disguised forces designed for ambiguity long enough to achieve Russian objectives. In the case of Crimea, annexed with little fighting, acute observers of Russian policy see this as an effective use of smart power. Stalemate in eastern Ukraine suggests it may be less effective there.

Beijing’s attempt to use smart power has met with mixed results. In the South China Sea, China claims waters also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. It has spent recent years reassuring neighbors it’s not a threat despite its growing economic and military strength. But, earlier this year, China sent an oil exploration vessel into an area Vietnam also claims leading to clashes between Chinese and Vietnamese ships. Tensions with the Philippines emerged after Chinese ships tried to block Filipino efforts to resupply a garrison of marines on a disputed atoll. The result was anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam, diplomatic protests by the Philippines, and both countries establishing closer military ties with the United States.

The long-term effectiveness of the return to hard power is probably more dependent on the military and economic strength of the United States, Russia and China than their international image. Russia will probably hang on to Crimea because Ukraine is the weaker state and shows no real appetite to get it back. China’s economic preponderance in the South China Sea region means its neighbors, while not rolling over, will probably meet it more than halfway in the resolving the maritime disputes. The US battle with what’s now called IS really goes back to the 2003 Iraq invasion which allowed jihadis to get a foothold in the country by presenting themselves as the resistance to infidel invaders. The extremists extended their power to western Iraq and Syria after 2011 when the Syrian civil war broke out and US troops left Iraq. Ultimately, defeating IS depends on a political solution in Syria and an Iraqi government truly inclusive of Sunnis as well as Shias and Kurds.

In all these cases though, soft power is being deployed in subtle ways to attract support by trying to “shape the narrative” by portraying rivals and enemies as acting outside shared global norms and values. The United States claims to defend Muslims from the Islamic extremism; Russia says it defends Russian-speakers from Ukrainian nationalists; and China describes itself as a rising, but peace-loving nation. The success of these attempts depends not just on the language and imagery used by officials, but also on whether the media and other opinion- formers adopt similar language and imagery.

Wielding soft and smart power is also complicated because one country’s attractiveness to another is a result of a complex interplay of what a country has to offer and how the offer is perceived. For instance, the United States has appeal in a country like Burma, because many people there want democratic elections and free speech after decades of repression, while many Pakistanis dislike the United States, regarding it as a country that doesn’t respect their sovereignty while also killing many of citizens in its anti-terror operations.

The increasing use of hard power is partly a result of the changing global balance as other countries take advantage of the relative decline of the United States to assert their interests. But the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding how to best wield soft power and measure its effectiveness also explain why leaders are still attracted to using familiar hard-power methods, be they airstrikes or economic sanctions.

* Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight, a BBC News program.

The post China, Russia And US Juggle Soft And Hard Power – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Andrea Gagliarducci

French imams visiting the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released Thursday a joint communique condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo and calling for freedom of expression.

“Without freedom of expression, the world is in danger,” the Jan 8. statement reads.

It also asked that the media provide information which is “respectful of religions.”

Signed by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the release comes at the end of a two-day visit to the Vatican of a delegation of French imams, accompanied by representatives of the French bishops conference.

Cardinal Tauran and the imams write they are “shocked” by the attack on Charlie Hebdo, and back Pope Francis’ words, underscoring their “closeness and human and spiritual solidarity to the victims and their families.”

Considering the impact of media on public opinion, the Vatican and the imams also invited “responsible media to provide information that is respectful of religions, of their followers and of their practices, thus fostering a culture of encounter.”

The release also asked religious leaders to “always promote a culture of peace and hope, able to win over fear and to build bridges among men,” and stressed that interreligious dialogue “is the only path to walk together in order to dissipate prejudices.”

Before the meeting at the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the four imams launched the idea of a mobilization of all religions in France to testify that “no religion is violent.”

Djellou Seddiki, director of the al Ghazzali Institute of the Mosque of Paris, told CNA Jan. 8 that his mosque has delivered an appeal to all the mosques,synagogues, and Catholic churches of France for this purpose.

“I lived the Charlie Hebdo attack as a double violence: I am stricken as a French citizen and as a Muslim, since the Muslim community is always on the dock,” Seddiki said.

Seddiki also asked for a renewed interreligious dialogue, as did Bishop Michel Dubost of Evry-Corbeil-Essonnes.

The bishop accompanied the imams during their Vatican visit, as he is president of the French bishops’ interreligious relations council.

Bishop Dubost explained to CNA that “the state of Christian-Muslim dialogue in France varies according to the area… but we have a lot of dialogue. Probably in France, like in many other countries, it is difficult to go and see the other. We should learn that dialogue is not ‘each each’, but ‘each other.”

The attack in Paris was stigmatized by Cardinal André Vingt-Trois of Paris, who issued a statement to express “horror” at the attacks and “deep compassion for the families and friends of the victims. With the Catholics of Paris, he condemns this act of barbarism and calls for people to work ever more diligently to build relationships of peace and mutual respect in our society.”

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, also sent on Pope’s behalf a telegram to Cardinal Ving-Trois, saying the Pope “joins prayer for the families” whose beloved are dead, and “condemns once again the violence that generates so much pain.”

The post French Imams, Vatican: ‘Without Freedom Of Expression, The World Is In Danger’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Horace G. Campbell*

When the Cuban revolutionaries took power on 1 January, 1959, the political leaders of the United States were initially ambivalent towards the Castro leadership but after the leadership nationalized foreign capital and set about major land reforms for the majority of the population there was total opposition to the Cuban Revolution. The US government launched political, psychological, economic and military warfare against Cuba and vowed to remove the leader – Fidel Castro. As documented in the book, ‘The Brothers’ by Stephen Kinzer, on March 17, 1960 less than four months after the revolutionaries had come to power, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Allen Dulles presented ‘A Program of Covert Action Against The Castro Regime’ to the US National Security Council. ‘It proposed a multi-stage operation to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the US, in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of US intervention…. The CIA would build a covert network inside Cuba, saturate the island with anti-Castro propaganda, infiltrate small teams of guerilla fighters, use them to set off domestic uprising, and provide a ‘responsible, appealing, and unified‘ new regime.’

This plot to remove the Cuban leadership went through many different phases and there was confidence that the strong colossal power 90 miles north of Cuba could topple this revolution. This confidence came from their successes in removing other governments who they claimed were communists. In 1953, the United States government in alliance with oil companies had removed Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh as Prime Minister of Iran. He had been an incorruptible leader who wanted to use the oil resources to transform the country to uplift the standard of living of the people. The next year in 1954, the CIA staged a revolt against President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala. His crime was that he wanted to push the large landowners to sell the uncultivated parts of their holdings to the government for distribution to destitute peasant families. This same United States government had in January 1961 allied with the Belgian colonialists to kill the Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, who wanted self-determination for his country. It was this spirit of intervention that guided the US policies toward Cuba for 55 years.

This effort has failed.

On Wednesday, 17 December 2014, President Barack Obama announced his intention to normalize diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. For the first time in more than half a century, the United States will have an embassy in Havana. This is a tremendous victory for the Cuban Revolution, for those who want world peace and for those who have been in the trenches struggling for a new social order. This victory of the Cuban Revolution can be added to the other great feats of the struggles against exploitation and racism such as the Cuban support for socialism in the Americas and its role in the victories against imperialism in Angola in 1975 and at Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. Not only did the Cubans make tremendous sacrifice in that important struggle in Southern Africa but for the past 50 years the Cuban leadership has been in the forefront of the fight for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and has provided the necessary leadership in the G77. This victory now requires a new strategy to guard against new forms of subversion and ensure the kind of vision that will support the consolidation of the gains of the Cuban experiment. The consolidation of the opening can give courage to the fighters for independence in Puerto Rico, Martinique and the other 20 colonial territories in the Caribbean. More significantly, this victory will have a demonstration effect all over the world that it is possible to stand up to the Barons of Empire and win. Will the progressive forces internationally learn this lesson?

CONSOLIDATING THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE ALTERNATIVE ORDER

For the past 55 years, the existence of the Cuban Revolution was a symbol of the struggles against imperialism. Of the revolutionary breakthroughs in the western hemisphere – United States in 1776, Haiti in 1804 and Cuba in 1959 – it is the Cuban Revolution that has been the most tenacious in persitently advancing claims for human emancipation. The liberals of the 1776 revolution in US soon exposed their genocidal traits in the extermination of the indigenous peoples and the brutal enslavement of Africans. It was the revolutionary C.L. R. James who, in reflecting on the spurts, leaps, and catastrophes associated with revolutionary change in the Caribbean, saw a clear linkage in the search for freedom from Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro. At the dawn of the Cuban process James had noted that ‘what took place in French San Domingo in 1792–1804 reappeared in Cuba in 1958.’

While the imperial forces had worked hard over 200 years to roll back the Haitian Revolution, the success of imperialism in supporting counter revolution had depended on the fact that the Haitian revolution did not have the space to consolidate the revolution. Despite the fact that the Haitians had supported Simon Bolivar and the independence struggles in Central America and South America, the growth of racism and chauvinism divided the working poor of the Americas so that the Haitian repressive forces were always in collaboration with the racists and capitalists of the Americas.

The victory of the Cuban process in 1959 brought with it the lessons of Haiti, with the added vigilance of social forces who grasped the need to build strong bases among the people. Younger readers of this piece will need to re-acquaint themselves with the tremendous breakthroughs made by the Cubans in their efforts to build a new system. These efforts took on greater significance after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. At the time of the Revolution in 1959, the Cuban leaders changed the property relations and nationalized the assets of the foreign capitalists and the big land owners.

These forms of expropriation of the top oligarchy of the Cuban society were supported because by 1961, the leadership of the revolution had declared for socialism. In the following year the USA instituted an economic embargo against Cuba. It was this political climate that forced the alternative paths for the Cuban experiment and the leadership worked hard to deliver social services for the people. The impressive gains in the areas of the delivery of social services such as health care and education ensured that the social content of the alternative was acknowledged by international organizations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). These transformations of education and health services have been associated with the kind of popular leadership that can mobilize a society for defensive purposes. It was in the society’s defense against natural disasters such as hurricanes where the full importance of the committees for the defense of the revolution emerged. These committees were associated with organizations of workers, students, women, cultural artists, writers, and small-scale agricultural workers. Pitted against these social elements were the expropriated Cuban elements who had retreated to Florida and parts of Latin America and who for 50 years worked with the CIA to undermine the Cuban experiment. In the Caribbean there were many instances of this counter-revolutionary activity and the downing of the Cubana airliner over Barbados in 1976, killing 73, exposed the US support for terrorism in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

ATTACKING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION

The successful mobilization of the poor in a society was a threat to international capitalism and imperialism. Less than ten years after the independence struggle by the Cubans in 1896, the Cuban space was turned into a playground for the rich and powerful in the United States.. After the independence struggles, the US had repeatedly occupied Cuba militarily under the guise of protecting United States interests, stabilizing Cuba and other justifications for imperial interventions. With the intervention of the USA after 1902, the Southern code of conduct of Jim Crow was introduced into Cuban society to super-exploit the African descendants who formed the overwhelming majority of the population.

After the successful removal of the hated Batista dictatorship in 1959 under the leadership of Fidel Castro, Juan Almeida and Che Guevara (along with others), the US capitalists led by the Dulles brothers worked hand in glove with corporate elements, the mafia and assorted dictators in Central America to reverse the Cuban experiment. Under the Eisenhower administration when John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State, his brother at the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, launched numerous plans for invasions and assassinations. The debacle of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 had demonstrated the popular strength of the Cuban revolution and the US capitalists never gave up their commitment to remove the political leadership in Cuba. Under the direction of these conservative forces the plotting against the Cuban revolution reached the high point of the integration between capitalists, the intelligence services and the mafia. The book ‘JFK and the Unspeakable’ has documented the deep integration of the plotting with the anti-Cuban forces to eliminate John F. Kennedy.

Younger readers of the struggles for socialism will in future grasp the role of operatives such as James Jesus Angleton and the fixation of the US system to remove the political leadership of Cuba. The US intelligence services hunted down and killed Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 while it intensified its plots to kill Fidel Castro and the Revolution. In 2006 a British TV documentary revealed the more than 638 ways that the various agencies in the USA devised to kill Fidel Castro. Henry Kissinger, while Secretary of State in the 1970s, carried forward the fixation with the elimination of the Revolution after the Cuban intervention in Angola in 1975 to repel the three-pronged South African invasion. In the aftermath of the Cuban intervention, there was an unexpected outbreak of Dengue fever in Cuba. Bioterrorism had been added to the attack against the Cuban Revolution. The recent book, ‘Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana’ by William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh outlined in depth the machinations of Henry Kissinger to invade Cuba and destroy the revolution.

CUBA AND THE BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT

‘I would like to say that we have always been in solidarity with the struggle of the Black people, the minorities, and all the poor people in the United States. We have always been in solidarity with them and they have always been in solidarity with us.’ Fidel Castro, 1990

This statement was an acknowledgment that one of the pillars for the defense of the Cuban Revolution was the black liberation movement in the USA. The ruling class in the USA understood this reality and the very conservative anti-Castro lobby in South Florida intensified their work to strengthen the networks of white racism across the USA. From the start of the Revolution there were open and clear linkages between the black liberation movement in the USA and the Cuban leadership. Every respected revolutionary from the Black liberation movement made their alliance with the Revolution so that today it is not by accident that even while there is talk about the normalization of relationship, Cubans will not entertain the arguments of the neo-conservatives of the USA to hand over Assata Shakur, the black revolutionary who has received political asylum in Cuba.

The Cuban leadership understood very early from the years of Eisenhower that the Black movement provided a base for the progressive and anti-imperialist forces to neutralize the draconian plans of the intelligence agencies. In his first major visit to the United Nations in 1960, Fidel Castro had repaired to Harlem – to the Hotel Theresa under the support of Malcolm X. Rosemary Mealy, herself one of the leading revolutionary figures from that period, had documented this diplomatic and political tie between Malcolm X and Fidel in the book, ‘Fidel & Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting’.

In November 1964, Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Abdurrahman Babu met in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nations to plan for the liberation of the Congo. Four months later Malcolm X was assassinated and the US system intensified its plans to eliminate Che Guevara.

Fidel’s base in Harlem and the Black Community became even clearer after the collapse of the USSR when Fidel traveled to the USA for the UN Millennium Summit. At the meeting of Fidel Castro in Harlem, the lines of peoples who wanted to attend stretched for blocks. This was at a moment when the counter-revolutionary forces such as those associated with Posada Carilles and elements such as Brothers to the Rescue were carrying out provocative acts to ensnare the USA and Cuba in overt and direct military confrontations.

QUIFANGONDO AND CUITO CUANAVALE

Quifangondo and Cuito Cuanavale are two sites in Angola which now bear historical testament that the Cuban Revolution was internationalist and anti-racist. In 1975, Henry Kissinger and the US security services had urged the South African racist regime to invade Angola to prevent the MPLA from coming to power. South Africa had embarked on a three-pronged attack by air, sea and land to take Luanda. Troops of the FNLA supported by Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and CIA were coming from the North to seize Luanda. Fidel Castro personally oversaw the dispatch and supervision of the Cuban forces that arrived just in time to repel the South Africans and to stop the imperial forces at Quifangondo, the main reservoir for Luanda just outside the capital. Angolan independence in November 1975 was celebrated under the cloud of military, political and diplomatic intrigue where the US launched an all-out effort to change the political balance of forces in Southern Africa. When the Nigerian President Murtala Mohammed made the decisive decision to support African liberation and the MPLA in 1976, he lost his life. Nigeria has not yet recovered from that assassination.

The most decisive action of Cuba in Africa was the intervention to defeat the racist South African armed forces at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in 1987-1988. As in 1975, the South African military forces had taken the initiative to seek the military defeat of the ruling MPLA and roll back the gains of the African liberation process. When Ronald Reagan had come to power in 1981, the State Department and the intelligence services mobilized conservatives in all parts of the world to oppose the African National Congress and to stop the path of independence of Namibia. Chester Crocker, who had worked on the staff of Henry Kissinger, carried the diplomatic war while the CIA under Bill Casey carried forward the covert funding of anti-liberation forces. Fighting from occupied Namibia (which was in 1987 one of the most militarized spaces on earth), the South Africans launched an invasion of Southern Angola in 1987 to reverse the pace of African liberation.

One year earlier, in 1986, the conservative forces had conspired to bring down the plane and kill President Samora Machel of Mozambique. The neo-cons had launched economic, psychological, political and military warfare across the region of Southern Africa. For good measure, the US Congress labelled Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and the ANC as a terrorist organization. Margaret Thatcher was given the task of mobilizing forces far afield as Saudi Arabia, Morocco and sections of Nigeria to support this anti-liberation front. The decisive intervention of the Cuban forces to support the Angolans, the Namibian and the South African freedom fighters ended with the withdrawal of Apartheid South African troops in 1988.

At one point, the siege of Cuito Cuanavale had become so tense that the President of South Africa, P.W. Botha, flew to the front of the war when the military generals requested tactical nuclear weapons for attacking the Angolans and the Cubans. At that time the international climate of sanctions and divestment had been so strong against South Africa that the Apartheid South African generals were ordered to press on with conventional weapons. This battle, which raged between October 1987 and June 1988, brought about a decisive stage in the liberation of Africa. The South African military was routed and the South African forces ran on foot out of Angola. Although in the West, Chester Crocker has taken credit for the ‘diplomatic openings’ that led to the independence of Namibia and the release of Nelson Mandela, the decisive victory of Cuba and Angola at Cuito Cuanavale changed the history of African liberation. Fidel Castro noted that Cuba had staked everything, including the existence of the Revolution itself in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale.

HOW FAR WE SLAVES HAVE COME

The book, ‘How Far We Slaves Have Come’, by Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro has now chronicled for posterity some of the sacrifices of the Cuban Revolution for the liberation of all peoples. Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and the Zapatistas are the well-known freedom fighters that are associated with the Cuban process. With the successful defense of the Revolution, for 50 years Cuba became a base to expose what was possible for revolutionaries. This society became a beacon for revolutionaries and Fidel Castro had made a special point to link himself to the revolutionary traditions of humanity.

Castro while welcoming Nelson Mandela to Cuba stated clearly,

‘Where did injustice come from? Where did poverty come from? Where did underdevelopment come from? Where did all these calamities come from? If not from Capitalism?’

Imperialism grasped the role of Cuba as the forerunner for socialism in the Americas and doubled down on seeking to subvert the independence of Cuba. The more than 600 plots to kill Castro were shelved in favour of the more modern form of subversion which involved the mobilization of sections of so-called ‘civil society’ and NGOs through the Office of Transition Alternatives. Earlier this year, I wrote on the role of US State Department and the top ‘development’ contractors for the USAID in planning for regime change in Cuba and Venezuela. Alan Gross who had been caught in this web of subversion had been arrested in Cuba in 2009 for smuggling broadband satellite communications equipment.

Gross was released in December as part of the exchange of prisoners between Cuba and the United States when Barack Obama declared that the USA would resume diplomatic relations with Cuba.

THE CUBAN OPENING AND THE VICTORY FOR PROGRESSIVE FORCES

In July 2014, after the BRICS summit in Brazil, President Xi Jinping of China visited Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba. This visit, along with the meetings of numerous heads of state from Latin America in Brazil, exposed the deep isolation of the United States in Latin America. This isolation was further on display after the October 2014 UN General Assembly debate for the USA to lift the economic embargo against Cuba. The General Assembly adopted a resolution which for the twenty-third year in a row called for an end to the United States economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba.

Exposing an intractable demarcation of the international community, 188 Member States voted in favour and, as in previous years, the United States and Israel voted against. Three small island States — Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau — abstained from the vote.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, China had been making great strides in building new economic relations. The major infrastructural projects of China all over the region were crowned with the launch of the $50 billion canal across Nicaragua.

This isolation of the USA provides the context for understanding the announcement of President Barack Obama on December 17. Alan Gross was swapped for the US intelligence agent Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban who had worked as an agent for the CIA and had been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years. Both had been incarcerated in Cuba.

In his announcement, President Obama stated that:

‘The United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking, while Cuba will allow more Internet access and release 53 Cubans identified as political prisoners by the United States.’ Although the embargo will remain in place, the president called for an ‘honest and serious debate about lifting it, which would require an act of Congress.’

This statement that it will require an act of Congress to lift the embargo against Cuba is a reminder of the nature of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Helms Burton Act of 1996. Under this act foreign companies were penalized for trading with Cuba. Progressives internationally will have to work harder to pressure the Republican-controlled Congress to repeal the Helms Burton Act of 1996. Here, the role of Pope Francis in the future struggles will be invaluable. After the cooperation between the neo-conservatives of the USA and the anticommunists of Eastern Europe in places such as Poland, the intervention of Pope Francis in writing to both Raul Castro and Barack Obama and the proactive role of the Catholic Church in playing a mediating role has created a new moment in Latin American politics.

THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM IN CUBA

Three days after the announcement of President Obama and Raul Castro on the reopening of diplomatic relations, Raul Castro reaffirmed the goals of the struggle for a new social order when he declared that Cuba would not abandon its socialist ideas. Speaking at the National Assembly in Havana in December, Castro said he is open to discussing a wide range of issues with Washington, but added his country would not bow to pressure to change its core political principles.

‘Just as we have never proposed to the United States to change its political system, we will demand respect for ours…. There are profound differences between the governments of the United States and Cuba that include, among others, differing concepts about exercising national sovereignty, democracy, political models and international relations.’

Despite this clear position, progressives everywhere will need to reflect on the opening up of China and Vietnam to global capital to see what possibilities lay ahead for the Cuban people. What the CIA and the varying intelligence services failed to achieve in their attempts to roll back the Cuban experiment will now be engaged with zeal by US corporations. US corporations in agriculture, automobiles, heavy machinery, hospitality industry and biotechnology are eagerly waiting to get into the Cuban market to flood the consciousness of the Cuban peoples with the consumerism and waste of the current form of capitalism. The role of Western corporate interests in the destabilization of Libya offers a critical lesson for Cuba.

Ralph Nader drew out the implications of the coming onslaught when he noted that, ‘Cuba needs to significantly improve its infrastructure and expand the manufacturing of household goods. … It is not likely that Cubans can hold true to their principles in the face of an unimpeded flood of U.S. junk food, credit gouging, deceptive TV advertising, one-sided fine-print contracts, over-promotion of drugs, commercialization of childhood with incessant and often violent programming and other forms of harmful corporate marketing. …Few societies can absorb the sensual seduction of Western corporate/commercial culture’s onslaught and not succumb to becoming a mimicking society. If it can happen to China – the Middle Kingdom – it can happen to any country.’

The Castro brothers may be looking at Vietnam as a model. There the Communist Party is still strictly in charge, but there is a burgeoning ‘capitalist’ economy expanding quite rapidly. In addition, Vietnam has seen the expansion of public corruption, pollution, profiteering, inequality, a painful generation gap and upheaval of cultural traditions.

The announcement by Barack Obama came in a moment when the mobilization of the anti-racist forces had reached new heights in the United State in the wake of demonstrations affirming that #BlackLivesMatter. The very same racist forces in the USA are linked to the anti-Cuba forces of South Florida and New Jersey. These forces are in turn tied up with the Barons of Wall Street who are fleecing humanity.

Cuba is confronting the crossroads of global capitalist invasion at a later period than China and Vietnam and can learn from the positive and negative lessons of the opening up of these economies. One of the negative consequences of the expanded relationships between China and Western capitalism has been the intensification of exploitation of Chinese workers, ecological destruction and the deep alienation of the youth. In Cuba it will be crucial for the organization of workers, small farmers, students and cultural workers to strengthen their organizations and institutions so that the working poor are not offered up as cheap labor to Global Capital as in China.

Cuba has for the past 60 years maintained relationships with the anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces in the USA and the Cuban position on Assata Shakur is a reminder that Cuba stands with Black Revolutionaries. However, this needs to be taken further so that Cuba continues to engage with the Durban Declaration and Program of Action for the intensified global fight against capitalism, sexism, racism and xenophobia. In his address, President Obama declared that he would like to see Cuban doctors working beside US doctors in the fights against Ebola. This is another example where progressives will have to demand that the US government come forward to renounce the use of biological and chemical weapons and for the US to sign the United Nations Convention on Biological weapons.

* Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is also a Special invited Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His latest book is, ‘Global NATO and the catastrophic failure in Libya’.

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

The post The Cuban Opening And Struggles For New Social Order – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

There is a claim constantly circulating the EU: ‘multiculturalism is dead in Europe’. Dead or maybe d(r)ead?… That much comes from a cluster of European nation-states that love to romanticize their appearance thought the solid Union, as if they themselves lived a long, cordial and credible history of multiculturalism. Hence, this claim is of course false. It is also cynical because it is purposely misleading. No wonder, as the conglomerate of nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its most important debates – that of European anti-fascistic identity, or otherness – to the wing-parties, repeatedly followed by the selective and contra-productive foreign policy actions.

The Paris shooting, terrible beyond comprehension, will reload and overheat those debates. However, these debates are ill conceived, resting from the start on completely wrong and misleading premises. Assassins in the Parisian Satirical Magazine are Islamofascists. The fact that these individuals are allegedly of the Arab-Muslim origins does not make them less fascists, less European, nor does it abolish Europe from the main responsibility in this case.

Fascism and its evil twin, Nazism are 100% European ideologies. Neo-Nazism also originates from and lately unchecked blossoms, primarily in Europe. (Some would say, über-economy in the center of continent, surrounded from all sides by the recuperating neo-fascism.) The Old continent tried to amortize its deepening economic and demographic contraction by a constant interference on its peripheries, especially meddling on the Balkans, Black Sea/Caucasus and MENA (Middle East–North Africa). What is now an epilogue? A severe democratic recession. Whom to blame for this structural, lasting civilizational retreat that Europe suffers? Is it accurate or only convenient to blame a bench of useful idiots for returning home with the combating behavior?

* * * * *

My voice was just one of the many that included notables like Umberto Eco and Kishore Mahbubani – promote moderation and dialogue, encourage forces of toleration, wisdom and understanding, stop supporting and promoting ethno-fascism in the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. These advices were and are still ridiculed and silenced, or in the best case, ignored. Conversely, what the EU constantly promoted with its councils, boots and humanitarian aid starting from Bosnia 25 years ago, Middle East, until the present day Ukraine was less of a constructive strategic engagement and more of a cult of death, destruction, partition, exclusion and fascism. (Some of the most notorious regimes on this planet are advertised and glorified in Europe, even though one of these hereditary theocracies considers as the serious criminal offence – like European Nazis in 1930s – if the prescribed state religion is not obeyed as the only existing one). On the other side, the European temple of multiculturalism– Sarajevo, was barbarically sieged and bombed for 1,000 days – all that just one-hour flight from Brussels. Still, 20 years after, Bosnia remains the only country in the world that does not exercise its sovereignty. It is administratively occupied by the opaque and retrograde international bureaucracy – predominantly European apparatchiks that institutionalized segregation in this country.

Illuminating cradles of multiculturalism – some of the brightest verticals of entire human civilization such as Jerusalem, Bagdad and Damascus still suffer unbearable horrors of externally induced, ahistorical destruction, hatred and purges.

Europe still defies the obvious. There is no lasting peace at home if the neighborhood remains restless. This horrific Paris shooting is only a painful reminder on how much the EU has already isolated itself: The very type of Islam Europe supported in the Middle East yesterday, is the version of Islam (or better to say, fascism) we are getting today in the Christian Europe as well as in the Christian neighborhoods of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Thus, in response to the Balkans, MENA and Ukraine crises, the EU repeatedly failed to keep up a broad, single-voiced consolidated agenda and all-participatory basis with its strategic neighborhood. The EU missed it all – although having institutions, WWII-memory, interest and credibility to prevent mistakes – as it did wrong before at its home; by silently handing over one of its most important questions, that of European identity, anti-fascism and otherness, to escapist anti-politics (politics in retreat) dressed up in the Western European wing-parties.

Eventually, the ‘last world’s cosmopolitan’ – as the EU is often self-portrayed – compromised its own perspectives and discredited its own transformative power’s principle. The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, EU did so by undermining its own institutional framework: Nurnberg principles and antifascist legacy, Barcelona Process as the specialized segment of from-Morocco-to-Russia European Neighborhood Policy (EU) and the Euro-Med partnership (OSCE).

The only direct involvement of the continent was ranging between a selective diplomatic de-legitimization and punitive military engagement via the Atlantic Europe-led coalition of the willing (the Balkans, Libya, Syria, Ukraine). Confrontational nostalgia prevailed again over both essential for any viable future: dialog (instruments) and consensus (institutions).

The consequences are rather striking and worth of stating once more: The sort of Islam that the EU supported (and the means deployed to do so) in the Middle East yesterday, is the sort of Islam (and the means it uses) that Europe gets today. Small wonder, that Islam in Turkey1 (or in Kirgizstan and in Indonesia) is broad, liberal and tolerant while the one in Atlantic-Central Europe is a brutally dismissive, narrow and vindictively assertive. Our urgent task – if we are serious about Europe – is denazification. Let’s start from Bosnia, Ukraine and Paris at once.

Notes:
1. While the cacophony of European contradictions works more on a self-elimination of the EU from the region, Turkey tries to reinsert itself. The so-called neo-Ottomanism of the current (Anatolian, eastern rural power-base) government steers the country right into the centre of grand bargaining for both Russia and for the US. To this emerging triangular constellation, President Erdoğan and its PM Davatoglu wishes to appoint its own rhythm. Past the ‘Arab Spring’, neither will Russia effectively sustain its presence in the Middle East on a strict pan-Arabic secular, republican and anti-Islamic idea, nor will the US manage to politically and morally justify its backing off of the absolutistic monarchies energized by the backward, dismissive and oppressive Wahhabism. Ankara tries to sublimate both effectively: enough of a secular republican modernity and enough of a traditional, tolerant and emancipating Islam, and to broadcast it as an attractive future model across the Middle East. Simply, Bosporus wakes itself up as an empiric proof that the Islam and modernity goes together. In fact, it is the last European nation that still has both demographic and economic growth. Moreover, Ataturk’s Republic is by large and by far the world’s most successful Muslim state: It was never resting its development on oil or other primary-commodity exports, but on a vibrant socio-economic sector and solid democratic institutions. This is heavily contesting, not only for Russia, but primarily for the insecure regime of the House of Saud (and other GCC autocracies), which rules by the direct royal decree over a country of recent past, oil-export dependent and fizzing presence and improbable future. No wonder that on the ideological battlefield, the two belligerent parties will be dominating the Middle East, which is currently in self-questioning, struggling past yet another round of hardships. The outcome will be significantly beyond the Arab world, and will reverberate all across the Sunni Muslim world. Ankara is attempting to justify that the Saudi-promoted Islam is actually a toxic, separatist/sectarian Wahhabistic ideology that self-constrains Muslims, and keeps them on a wrong side of history by hindering their socio-economic and political development. It does so, Turkey claims, by holding Muslims on a permanent collision course with the rest of the world, while Turkey-promoted Islam is not a weaponized ideology, but a Modus Vivendi, which permits progress and is acceptable for all (including the non-Muslims), with the centuries-long history of success.

The post Denazification Urgently Needed In Europe – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Lisa Ferdinando

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hosted Thursday the Israel Defense Forces chief of the General Staff at the Pentagon for talks on regional security and bilateral cooperation.

U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey and Israeli Lt. Gen. Benjamin Gantz met with reporters today after more than an hour of talks.

When asked about the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Dempsey described the strategy with Iraq as a “drumbeat” of “building pressure” on ISIL along several lines of effort, including counter-financing, counter-foreign fighters and counter-messaging.

The strategy is for members of the Iraqi government to determine how to “best recapture their lost territory to form an inclusive government that includes the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds and the other minority groups,” he said.

The United States is working with Iraqi military and civilian leaders, Dempsey said, to determine the “pace at which we will encourage them and enable them to do a counter-offensive.”

The United States, he said, is building the capacity of the Iraqi forces.

“We’re where we need to be,” the chairman said, adding that the U.S. is looking at other areas, including countering improvised explosive devices, to help Iraqi security forces reduce their causalities.

Dempsey said the Iraqi government will initiate, with the United States, “some kind of broad counter-offensive” once Iraq is ready militarily to recapture territory, and then follow that with humanitarian and reconstruction efforts.

US Comments on Iranian Presence in Iraq

Dempsey said Iran has been “interested in and sought to influence the future of Iraq since Iraq’s sovereignty was restored in 2004.”

However, the top U.S. military leader said, the Iranian presence and any Iraq partnership with Iran is not troubling at the moment, since it is not threatening U.S. forces or the U.S. mission in Iraq.

“If it is a path that ties the two countries more closely together economically or even politically, as long as the Iraqi government remains committed to inclusivity of all the various groups inside the country, then I think Iranian influence will be positive,” he said.

“But what really matters is where it all goes, and we’re watching that very carefully,” Dempsey said.

Israel ‘Disappointed’ By Palestinian Approach on ICC

Gantz said he is not worried about the Palestinians seeking war crimes charges against Israel through the International Criminal Court.

“It is an unnecessary, unilateral step by the Palestinians,” he said.

The Israel Defense Forces are the forces of a democratic, lawful country and they abide by international law, he said.

“We do huge effort to prevent civilian causalities as much as we can, yet we still have to defend our own population,” Gantz said.

US, Israeli Cooperation

Dempsey and Gantz both hailed the strong ties between their nations.

“I deeply respect his leadership of the Israel Defense Forces and deeply value our partnership with the Israel Defense Forces,” Dempsey said.

Gantz acknowledged there is turmoil in the Middle East.

“It’s a source of terrorism that might go anywhere,” he said. “I believe the world, led by the United States, must continue to face it, to fight it, and to try to shape a better future.”

After taking questions from reporters, the two generals continued their discussions in a working luncheon.

The post Dempsey Hosts Israel’s Lt. Gen. Gantz For Talks At Pentagon appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Two operational squadrons of US Air Force F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jets will be permanently stationed at the Royal Air Force Lakenheath facility in the United Kingdom starting in 2020, Defense Department officials announced Thursday.

According to DoD officials, a considered and deliberative process led to RAF Lakenheath’s selection as the first European base for U.S. F-35s.

“This decision is just the latest example of the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom,” Derek Chollet, assistant secretary of defense for international affairs, said today. “The presence of U.S. F-35s at Lakenheath will lead to new possibilities for collaboration with the United Kingdom, such as the potential for greater training and wider support opportunities.”

The announcement was made at the same time officials released the department’s plans for European Infrastructure Consolidation, a two-year effort designed to ensure long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. presence in Europe.

The post Two US Air Force F-35 Squadrons To Be Based At UK’s Lakenheath appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Just like Al Qaeda’s audacious attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, 2001, the raid by suspected jihadist militants in Paris on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo will have far-reaching repercussions on multiculturalism. The pursuit of multiculturalism was an attempt by European nations to adjust to the fact that they had become immigrant societies.

Inclusiveness and respect for cultural differences, post-9/11, was replaced by policies such as language training that were designed to Europeanise foreign migrants but did little to tackle the economic and social marginalisation of various immigrant groups. The result was increased alienation, coupled with radicalisation of youth on the fringe who identified with a perceived brutalisation of the Islamic world by autocratic and/or sectarian leaders in countries like Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Myanmar. That was perhaps Al Qaeda’s greatest achievement.

Driving a wedge in French society

Much like 9/11, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was designed to not only brutalise a symbol of Western freedoms and society, but also to reinforce a growing wedge in French society between an indigenous majority and immigrants. Days before the Paris attack, a mayor of a Paris suburb refused to allow a Roma baby girl, who died on Christmas Day, to be buried in the local cemetery on the grounds that the cemetery had “few available plots” and that “priority is given to those who pay their local taxes”.

The jihadists’ strategy is designed to force their target audience of Muslim communities, who in overwhelming majority reject their violent and terrorist tactics and who insist that they are an integral part of their newly adopted countries, into a situation where they no longer feel accepted by fuelling anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner sentiment.

No action is more effective in pitting non-Muslims against a Muslim community that increasingly feels it is on the defensive and discriminated against than an attack like that on Charlie Hebdo. It plays straight into the hands of National Front leader Marie Le Pen. The opposition chief may be abhorred by the attack but she could not have wished for a greater boost in her campaign for upcoming French elections.

Feeding ground

The 9/11 attacks ushered in an era of growing intolerance, suspicion of the other, a feeling of not being welcome among immigrant groups and an identification of Muslims as the enemy in the war on terror – even if Western leaders sought to differentiate between the majority moderates and the minority militants.

In doing so, Al Qaeda set the stage for policies that failed to address legitimate grievances of marginalised minority communities that has allowed deep-seated and pent-up anger and frustration to fester. The latest manifestation of that anger and frustration is the swelling of the ranks of Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Iraq and Syria, with foreign fighters. The 9/11 polarisation model is moreover part of Islamic State’s toolbox in pitting its target audience of Sunni Muslims against the Islamic other, Islam’s minority Shiite community.

The perception of the other as a threat rather than an asset offered Europe’s extreme right a welcome feeding ground at a time that it was already on the rise as a result of economic crisis and high unemployment that created a widespread sense of insecurity. Right-wing parties such as the National Front in France and the UK Independence Party in Britain have been on the up ever since.

Germany is currently being wracked by anti-Muslim demonstrations staged by Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) and counter-protests. One of Europe’s worst post-World War Two explosions of rejection of the other occurred when in 2011 Anders Behring Breivik bombed government buildings and attacked a youth camp killing 78 people to protest what he perceived as the government’s soft approach towards Islam.

To be sure, civil society has pushed back against Islamophobia. PEGIDA marches are being confronted by demonstrators opposed to their xenophobia and racism. The attack on Charlie Hebdo has similarly sparked reinforced public support for freedoms – first and foremost the freedom of expression, a pillar of the French republic.

Norway: A model reponse?

Yet, electoral pressure has prompted various European leaders, while denouncing racism, to pander to growing anti-immigrant sentiment by, for example, insisting on stricter immigration rules. British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently twice refused to rule out a coalition with the UKIP after a next election.

In Iraq, Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani long tried to counter the sectarian policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and jihadist predecessors of Islamic State by urging Shiites to refrain from blaming an entire group for the actions of a few. Similarly, Muslim groups and religious leaders across Europe and beyond have joined the chorus of condemnations of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

Al Sistani and the Muslim condemnations offer Western leaders and security forces an asset to avoid falling into the trap that the attack on Charlie Hebdo represents. Norway’s response to Breivik’s traumatic assault stands as a model for how societies can and should respond to terrorism as a tool to divide and rule. To be sure, that may have been easier in Norway where the attacker was one of their own rather than a member of minority community.

Nevertheless, Norway refrained from declaring war on terror, treated Breivik as a common criminal and refused to compromise on its democratic values. In doing so, Norway offers a successful example of refusing to stigmatise any one group in society by adopting inclusiveness rather than profiling and upholding the very values that the perpetrators of the attack on Charlie Hebdo sought to challenge.

This article was published by RSIS.

The post Deaths In Paris: Refining The Post-9/11 Model – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) says the business confidence index (BCI) shed 2.5 index points in December 2014, coming in at 88.3.

The BCI declined from 90.8 in November 2014 and is 3.6 points below the December reading of 2013.

“The 88.3 is the lowest level since July 2014 when the BCI measured 87.9,” Sacci said on Thursday.

The chamber said the financial situation was weaker than in December 2013.

“Four of the seven physical activity sub-indices of the BCI recorded changes that were positive (month-on-month) in December compared to three in November 2014 – confirming subdued economic activity,” Sacci said.

Sacci said it was concerned that the electricity shortages in the country will cause the economy to stagnate at low levels of activity.

“An apathetic approach to economic challenges has led to the constrained environment South Africa finds itself in.”

It said the immediate economic outlook for South Africa was largely influenced by the much lower international crude oil price and electricity power shortages.

“These two developments are contrary to each other in influencing the economy. The dismal performance by the rand exchange rate and a strong US dollar are the main causes for not taking full advantage of the lower US dollar crude oil price,” SACCI said.

Given the highest level of 122.1 for the BCI in December 2006, SACCI said the present level remains a matter of grave concern.

The average for the BCI in 2014 was 90.0 compared to 91.4 in 2013. The previous lowest annual average was 87.6 in 1999. The highest BCI annual average was 118.8 in 2006, with the BCI at 100 in 2010, which serves as the base year.

“Although the subdued business confidence was broad based (five of the 13 sub-indices were positive year-on-year), the rand exchange rate made a marked negative impact,” Sacci said.

The post South Africa Business Confidence Index Drops In December appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Pir-Mohammad Mollazehi*

NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan has officially ended, but the United States and other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have not ended their military presence in this country and have only changed its appearance. Continued presence of 13,500 US troopers in five military bases has been made possible according to the new definition of that mission in the Bilateral Security Agreement, which has been signed between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States. From now on, the American forces are supposed to provide the Afghan military with consultation and training without being directly involved in combat operations, unless, of course, under special circumstances and when requested to do so by Afghan officials. However, there are some considerations about the termination of NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan thirteen years after the country was invaded by Western armies:

A) The ideological and ethnic challenges to power in Afghanistan have been exacerbated and currently exist at two levels:

1. The challenge of power between the central government and the armed opposition, especially the Taliban group;

2. The challenge of power within the Afghan government between two groups, one supporting a centralized government and the other one advocating distribution of power along ethnic lines;

B) Regional and international rivalries to gain more influence in the country have been intensified at three levels:

1. Political and territorial rivalries between India and Pakistan;

2. Ideological rivalries among Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey; and

3. Rivalries among the United States, China and Russia for gaining more influence in the war-torn country.

Under such a tense atmosphere of domestic, regional and international rivalries, the main question now is what will be the possible consequences of the termination of NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan? More importantly, what future outlook is imaginable for peace and stability as well as power structure in this country? There are many things which can be said about this, but in general, the future outlook for developments in Afghanistan can be studied at three short-, medium- and long-term levels. In the short term, the most possible turn of events is further escalation of domestic rivalries at a military level between the Taliban militants, on the one hand, and Afghan army, government and security forces, on the other hand. At the same time, it should be noted that escalation of conflicts between the Taliban and the central government is actually aimed at gaining more concessions by either side, not at absolute victory of one of these two sides over the other. Therefore, there will be ripe conditions for the escalation of guerrilla warfare between the two sides, at least through the coming spring and early summer. As a result, the most possible guess at this level is further intensification of domestic conflicts in the country in the form of more suicide attacks and strikes by the Taliban against the positions of Afghan army and security forces.

At the government level, a national unity government has been finally established through mediation of the United States and the agreement between the country’s President Ashraf Ghani and the chief executive officer, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. However, this has failed to put an end to ethnic and ideological rivalries and there is no end imaginable to such rivalries over the short run. This is true as such rivalries run on fertile domestic grounds. Rivalries within the Afghan government are, in fact, rivalries between two different ways of thinking and two different approaches to power. There is a traditional ethnic approach which believes that the government and political power is a basic right for the Pashtun ethnic group that is being represented by Ashraf Ghani and which derives its legitimacy from Loya Jirga. There is also the semi-modern approach of Dr. Abdullah, which seeks ethnic distribution of power in the form of some sort of federalism and non-centralized power structure. He aims to revive the post of prime minister and turn the country’s government from a presidential one into a parliamentary one where the government will gain its legitimacy through ballot boxes, and the national consultative assembly will be an additional source of legitimacy for the government. These two different approaches have currently faced the new national unity government with certain problems and that unity can be only maintained through effective interference of the United States backed by its continued military presence in the country.

At a regional level, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the main contestants which claim to be good models for an Islamic model of power for Afghanistan. Therefore, these three countries are sure to continue their rivalries in this country. The termination of NATO’s military mission may even add fuel to such ideological rivalries. Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to cooperate for the construction of an Islamic center, whose cost has been estimated at 100 million Saudi riyals, and is supposed to accommodate up to 10,000 students on a round the clock basis. The agreement is a clear sign of intensified rivalries between two schools of thought and ideological discourses that are being represented by the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Salafi-Arab school of Saudi Arabia. A more or less similar situation is imaginable for the intensification of political and territorial rivalries between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan. The support accorded to Baluch separatist forces by India and New Delhi’s cooperation with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan) are, in fact, a response to jihadist policies followed by the Pakistani army and are aimed at undermining Pakistan’s standing in Afghanistan. As a result, this situation will certainly lead to intensified rivalries between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan.

At international level, the termination of NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan will most probably result in the intensification of rivalries to gain political and economic influence in Afghanistan and gain access to the country’s mineral resources among the United States, Russia and China. These countries will also try to make the most of the geostrategic and geoeconomic position of Afghanistan as a result of which their rivalries may well extend into Central Asia. In this way, one may claim that the “big game” of the past, which has been raging among major global powers in Afghanistan and Central Asia since the middle of the 19th century, will continue in new forms proportionate to the new conditions in the world. In a more general approach, it is quite imaginable that China will try to use its influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan to get more access to the Middle East and energy resources of the Persian Gulf. It will also use the same path to extend its influence into Central Asia and gain access to energy resources of the Caspian Sea.

Russia can also use Afghanistan as a route to realize its traditional goal of having access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. In the meantime, the most natural goal for the United States will be to prevent further increase in the influence of China and Russia in Afghanistan and to keep them away from its own security sphere in Central Asia. Therefore, the termination of NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan will not be a termination of rivalries, but on the contrary, can be expected to further intensify those rivalries. Now, in view of these realities, the main question is in which direction will future Afghanistan move and with what kind of developments it will be possibly faced? The main issue in this approach is the continued challenge of power and influence as a result of which, and theoretically speaking, there are a few possible scenarios imaginable:

1. Continuation of the status quo, and the preservation of the fragile unity government;

2. Continuation of national reconciliation talks with the Taliban after a short period of escalation of conflicts followed by efforts to give a share in the power system to the Taliban in those regions of Afghanistan that are dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group. The Taliban can be also given a share of the central power in Kabul;

3. Federalization of the political system and distribution of power along ethnic lines among major ethnic groups such as Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara people and Uzbeks; and

4. Disintegration of Afghanistan into two new countries. There could be a Pashtunistan special to Pashtuns and another country possibly called Khorasan for all ethnic groups other than Pashtuns that live in eastern, southern, western and northern parts of Afghanistan.

There is no doubt that disintegration of Afghanistan will not be beneficial to any domestic or regional political current and can trigger a crisis of secession across the region. Therefore, it should be the last resort kept for the conditions of absolute deadlock and when other options have failed to bear fruit. However, it should not be ruled out totally. Non-Pashtun ethnic groups and possibly Russia are certainly concerned about further growth of radicalism in the form of Salafi and jihadist ideology. China, on the other hand, has been already plagued with radical forces in its Xinjiang province and, to protect its own national security, it will certainly prefer to see a barrier between its Xinjiang region and the Muslim-dominated areas of Central Asia which are a breeding grounds for this ideology. As a result, Beijing will certainly prefer such a barrier because it is possible for both Russia and the United States to use Salafi and jihadist currents as a tool against China.

Under these circumstances, it seems that the most suitable solution for the problems facing Afghanistan is to change the centralized power structure and modify the mentality that power is a historical right of Pashtun people. As a result, a model should be adhered to which will distribute power among all ethnic and geographical regions of Afghanistan and allow each ethnic group to be satisfactorily represented in the central government. At the end of the day, maintenance of peace and stability in Afghanistan, as well as sustainable development of the country in all political, social, economic and cultural areas will need reduction of rivalries at domestic, regional and international levels. This will allow Afghanistan to continue its drive along the path of modern nation building and state building, and also forge a compromise between traditions and modernity in the country through an effective combination of sources of legitimacy of power, which include the Loya Jirga and the national consultative assembly. In the long term, the best solution is to help Afghanistan gain its new international status as an impartial country, end foreign intervention in Afghanistan, and acceptance of the new conditions in Afghanistan by regional and international rivals. Of course, this is a goal which cannot be achieved easily. If such solutions are not pursued, the last resort then may be disintegration of the country along ethnic lines, which of course, should not be a desirable option for any of the parties that are involved in Afghanistan.

*Pir-Mohammad Mollazehi
Expert on Indian Subcontinent & Middle East Isues

The post Afghanistan: Unaccomplished Mission, Uncertain Future – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By James Stafford

With all the conspiracy theories surrounding OPEC’s November decision not cut production, is it really not just a case of simple economics? The U.S. shale boom has seen huge hype but the numbers speak for themselves and such overflowing optimism may have been unwarranted. When discussing harsh truths in energy, no sector is in greater need of a reality check than renewable energy.

In a third exclusive interview with James Stafford of Oilprice.com, energy expert Arthur Berman explores:

• How the oil price situation came about and what was really behind OPEC’s decision
• What the future really holds in store for U.S. shale
• Why the U.S. oil exports debate is nonsensical for many reasons
• What lessons can be learnt from the U.S. shale boom
• Why technology doesn’t have as much of an influence on oil prices as you might think
• How the global energy mix is likely to change but not in the way many might have hoped

OP: The Current Oil Situation – What is your assessment?

Arthur Berman: The current situation with oil price is really very simple. Demand is down because of a high price for too long. Supply is up because of U.S. shale oil and the return of Libya’s production. Decreased demand and increased supply equals low price.

As far as Saudi Arabia and its motives, that is very simple also. The Saudis are good at money and arithmetic. Faced with the painful choice of losing money maintaining current production at $60/barrel or taking 2 million barrels per day off the market and losing much more money—it’s an easy choice: take the path that is less painful. If there are secondary reasons like hurting U.S. tight oil producers or hurting Iran and Russia, that’s great, but it’s really just about the money.

Saudi Arabia met with Russia before the November OPEC meeting and proposed that if Russia cut production, Saudi Arabia would also cut and get Kuwait and the Emirates at least to cut with it. Russia said, “No,” so Saudi Arabia said, “Fine, maybe you will change your mind in six months.” I think that Russia and maybe Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola will change their minds by the next OPEC meeting in June.

We’ve seen several announcements by U.S. companies that they will spend less money drilling tight oil in the Bakken and Eagle Ford Shale Plays and in the Permian Basin in 2015. That’s great but it will take a while before we see decreased production. In fact, it is more likely that production will increase before it decreases. That’s because it takes time to finish the drilling that’s started, do less drilling in 2015 and finally see a drop in production. Eventually though, U.S. tight oil production will decrease. About that time—perhaps near the end of 2015—world oil prices will recover somewhat due to OPEC and Russian cuts after June and increased demand because of lower oil price. Then, U.S. companies will drill more in 2016.

OP: How do you see the shale landscape changing in the U.S. given the current oil price slump?

Arthur Berman: We’ve read a lot of silly articles since oil prices started falling about how U.S. shale plays can break-even at whatever the latest, lowest price of oil happens to be. Doesn’t anyone realize that the investment banks that do the research behind these articles have a vested interest in making people believe that the companies they’ve put billions of dollars into won’t go broke because prices have fallen? This is total propaganda.

We’ve done real work to determine the EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) of all the wells in the core of the Bakken Shale play, for example. It’s about 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent per well counting gas. When we take the costs and realized oil and gas prices that the companies involved provide to the Securities and Exchange Commission in their 10-Qs, we get a break-even WTI price of $80-85/barrel. Bakken economics are at least as good or better than the Eagle Ford and Permian so this is a fairly representative price range for break-even oil prices.

But smart people don’t invest in things that break-even. I mean, why should I take a risk to make no money on an energy company when I can invest in a variable annuity or a REIT that has almost no risk that will pay me a reasonable margin?

Oil prices need to be around $90 to attract investment capital. So, are companies OK at current oil prices? Hell no! They are dying at these prices. That’s the truth based on real data. The crap that we read that companies are fine at $60/barrel is just that. They get to those prices by excluding important costs like everything except drilling and completion. Why does anyone believe this stuff?

If you somehow don’t believe or understand EURs and 10-Qs, just get on Google Finance and look at third quarter financial data for the companies that say they are doing fine at low oil prices.

Continental Resources is the biggest player in the Bakken. Their free cash flow—cash from operating activities minus capital expenditures—was -$1.1 billion in the third- quarter of 2014. That means that they spent more than $1 billion more than they made. Their debt was 120% of equity. That means that if they sold everything they own, they couldn’t pay off all their debt. That was at $93 oil prices.

And they say that they will be fine at $60 oil prices? Are you kidding? People need to wake up and click on Google Finance to see that I am right. Capital costs, by the way, don’t begin to reflect all of their costs like overhead, debt service, taxes, or operating costs so the true situation is really a lot worse.

So, how do I see the shale landscape changing in the U.S. given the current oil price slump? It was pretty awful before the price slump so it can only get worse. The real question is “when will people stop giving these companies money?” When the drilling slows down and production drops—which won’t happen until at least mid-2016—we will see the truth about the U.S. shale plays. They only work at high oil prices. Period.

OP: What, if any, effect will low oil prices have on the US oil exports debate?

Arthur Berman: The debate about U.S. oil exports is silly. We produce about 8.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. We import about 6.5 million barrels of crude oil per day although we have been importing less every year. That starts to change in 2015 and after 2018 our imports will start to rise again according to EIA. The same thing is true about domestic production. In 2014, we will see the greatest annual rate of increase in production. In 2015, the rate of increase starts to slow down and production will decline after 2019 again according to EIA.

Why would we want to export oil when we will probably never import less than 37 or 38 percent (5.8 million barrels per day) of our consumption? For money, of course!

Remember, all of the calls for export began when oil prices were high. WTI was around $100/barrel from February through mid-August of this year. Brent was $6 or $7 higher. WTI was lower than Brent because the shale players had over-produced oil, like they did earlier with gas, and lowered the domestic price.

U.S. refineries can’t handle the light oil and condensate from the shale plays so it has to be blended with heavier imported crudes and exported as refined products. Domestic producers could make more money faster if they could just export the light oil without going to all of the trouble to blend and refine it.

This, by the way, is the heart of the Keystone XL pipeline debate. We’re not planning to use the oil domestically but will blend that heavy oil with condensate from shale plays, refine it and export petroleum products. Keystone is about feedstock.

Would exporting unrefined light oil and condensate be good for the country? There may be some net economic benefit but it doesn’t seem smart for us to run through our domestic supply as fast as possible just so that some oil companies can make more money.

OP: In global terms, what do you think developing producer nations can learn from the US shale boom?

Arthur Berman: The biggest take-away about the U.S. shale boom for other countries is that prices have to be high and stay high for the plays to work. Another important message is that drilling can never stop once it begins because decline rates are high. Finally, no matter how big the play is, only about 10-15% of it—the core or sweet spot—has any chance of being commercial. If you don’t know how to identify the core early on, the play will probably fail.

Not all shale plays work. Only marine shales that are known oil source rocks seem to work based on empirical evidence from U.S. plays. Source rock quality and source maturity are the next big filter. Total organic carbon (TOC) has to be at least 2% by weight in a fairly thick sequence of shale. Vitrinite reflectance (Ro) needs to be 1.1 or higher.

If your shale doesn’t meet these threshold criteria, it probably won’t be commercial. Even if it does meet them, it may not work. There is a lot more uncertainty about shale plays than most people think.

OP: Given technological advances in both the onshore and offshore sectors which greatly increase production, how likely is it that oil will stay below $80 for years to come?

Arthur Berman: First of all, I’m not sure that the premise of the question is correct. Who said that technology is responsible for increasing production? Higher price has led to drilling more wells. That has increased production. It’s true that many of these wells were drilled using advances in technology like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing but these weren’t free. Has the unit cost of a barrel of oil gas gone down in recent years? No, it has gone up. That’s why the price of oil is such a big deal right now.

Domestic oil prices were below about $30/barrel until 2004 and companies made enough money to stay in business. WTI averaged about $97/barrel from 2011 until August of 2014. That’s when we saw the tight oil boom. I would say that technology followed price and that price was the driver. Now that prices are low, all the technology in the world won’t stop falling production.

Many people think that the resurgence of U.S. oil production shows that Peak Oil was wrong. Peak oil doesn’t mean that we are running out of oil. It simply means that once conventional oil production begins to decline, future supply will have to come from more difficult sources that will be more expensive or of lower quality or both. This means production from deep water, shale and heavy oil. It seems to me that Peak Oil predictions are right on track.

Technology will not reduce the break-even price of oil. The cost of technology requires high oil prices. The companies involved in these plays never stop singing the praises of their increasing efficiency through technology—this has been a constant litany since about 2007—but we never see those improvements reflected in their financial statements. I don’t doubt that the companies learn and get better at things like drilling time but other costs must be increasing to explain the continued negative cash flow and high debt of most of these companies.

The price of oil will recover. Opinions that it will remain low for a long time do not take into account that all producers need about $100/barrel. The big exporting nations need this price to balance their fiscal budgets. The deep-water, shale and heavy oil producers need $100 oil to make a small profit on their expensive projects. If oil price stays at $80 or lower, only conventional producers will be able to stay in business by ignoring the cost of social overhead to support their regimes. If this happens, global supply will fall and the price will increase above $80/barrel. Only a global economic collapse would permit low oil prices to persist for very long.

OP: How do you see the global energy mix changing in the coming decades? Have renewables made enough advances to properly compete with fossil fuels or is that still a long way off?

Arthur Berman: The global energy mix will move increasingly to natural gas and more slowly to renewable energy. Global conventional oil production peaked in 2005-2008. U.S. shale gas production will peak in the next 5 to 7 years but Russia, Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan have sufficient conventional gas reserves to supply Europe and Asia for several decades. Huge discoveries have been made in the greater Indian Ocean region—Madagascar, offshore India, the Northwest Shelf of Australia and Papua New Guinea. These will provide the world with natural gas for several more decades. Other large finds have been made in the eastern Mediterranean.

There will be challenges as we move from an era of oil- to an era of gas-dominated energy supply. The most serious will be in the transport sector where we are thoroughly reliant on liquid fuels today —mostly gasoline and diesel. Part of the transformation will be electric transport using natural gas to generate the power. Increasingly, LNG will be a factor especially in regions that lack indigenous gas supply or where that supply will be depleted in the medium term and no alternative pipeline supply is available like in North America.

Of course, natural gas and renewable energy go hand-in-hand. Since renewable energy—primarily solar and wind—are intermittent, natural gas backup or base-load is necessary. I think that extreme views on either side of the renewable energy issue will have to moderate. On the one hand, renewable advocates are unrealistic about how quickly and easily the world can get off of fossil fuels. On the other hand, fossil fuel advocates ignore the fact that government is already on board with renewables and that, despite the economic issues that they raise, renewables are going to move forward albeit at considerable cost.

Time is rarely considered adequately. Renewable energy accounts for a little more than 2% of U.S. total energy consumption. No matter how much people want to replace fossil fuel with renewable energy, we cannot go from 2% to 20% or 30% in less than a decade no matter how aggressively we support or even mandate its use. In order to get to 50% or more of primary energy supply from renewable sources it will take decades.

I appreciate the urgency felt by those concerned with climate change. I think, however, that those who advocate a more-or-less immediate abandonment of fossil fuels fail to understand how a rapid transition might affect the quality of life and the global economy. Much of the climate change debate has centered on who is to blame for the problem. Little attention has been given to what comes next namely, how will we make that change without extreme economic and social dislocation?

I am not a climate scientist and, therefore, do not get involved in the technical debate. I suggest, however, that those who advocate decisive action in the near term think seriously about how natural gas and nuclear power can make the change they seek more palatable.

The great opportunity for renewable energy lies in electricity storage technology. At present, we are stuck with intermittent power and little effort has gone into figuring out ways to store the energy that wind and solar sources produce when conditions are right. If we put enough capital into storage capability, that can change everything.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Interviews/The-Real-Cause-Of-Low-Oil-Prices-Interview-With-Arthur-Berman.html

The post The Real Cause Of Low Oil Prices: Interview With Arthur Berman appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Saima Afzal*

Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan; it is a gateway to central Asia, South Asia and Middle East. It is also bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and Persian Gulf and rich in natural resources of copper, oil, gas, gold and coal reserves. Unfortunately, Baluchistan could also be considered as the most neglected and poorest province of Pakistan due to the failure in implementation of policies by previous governments in the province. The Gawader port further increases the geostrategic importance of the country. The development with the assistance of China in the province has shifted the great game of Central Asia to Pakistan. The western powers along with India and Israel intend to destabilize Pakistan for their collective interests. The trade and business opportunities have made this province important not only for regional players but also for international players whereas the anti-Pakistani powers are trying to get control over the mineral resources by sabotage activities against the state while neglecting the mainland integration.

Historically, Baluchistan was one the most peaceful provinces in Pakistan where people of different ethnic groups lived together peacefully and united. However, being contiguous to Afghanistan and Iran this province was influenced by Afghan Jihadis and the Iranian revolution. The last few years have seen violence and the killing of innocents in the province. Moreover, there are many internal and external factors involved in destabilizing the atmosphere of the province. Illiteracy, poverty and backwardness in the province is at a large scale. The minds of the poor are further exploited by the Bloch leaders who they blindly follow. Unequal distribution of natural resources are also taken as a main cause of the Baloch uprising. For instance, a gas field in Sui was formed in 1952 and it provides just 6% to 7% to local people, whereas it produces 38% of Pakistan’s total.

The Indo-Afghan close ties in Karazi’s government have severed security implications for Pakistan because close ties between both states have made Eastern and Western border insecure. The 9/11 proved a blessing in disguise for India to direct involvement in Afghanistan. India has also extended her support to Afghanistan through economic aid and training Afghan security forces. India has opened her consulates in Afghanistan near Pak-Afghan border. Moreover, it has been claimed that Indian intelligence has been involved in assisting, training and supplying sophisticated weapons to Bloch separatist nationalists against the state. Baluchistan is an integral part of Pakistan and it isan  important province like other provinces of Pakistan. In the Zarb-i-Azb operation in North Waziristan, Pakistan armed forces have found Indian weapons. The main purpose of India is to internally destabilize Pakistan and to get access to nuclear weapons.

Baluchistan is situated at South-Eastern border of Iran. Strategically, Iran would like to maintain the balance of power in the region after USA withdrawal from Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Iranian Chahbhar port is located 100 miles from Pakistani Gawader Port and Iran has never wanted the prominence of Gawader port in place of the Chahbhar port to be sidelined. It is also claimed that after the US presence in Afghanistan, Iran was involved in covertly funding the banned organization Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) for creating instability in the province.

There is an immediate need to address the issue as soon as possible, if the government takes few following steps it can improve the condition of the province. Firstly, we should build good relations with all neighbor states until we don’t have good relations with neighbors we can bring peace in the province. Secondly, missing person issue should be resolved on urgent base. Thirdly, quota system should be formed in central government. Fourthly, educational institutions should be formed in remote areas and employment opportunity should be given to local people in all development projects. Fifthly, there is need to win over the heart and mind of the tribal masses by alleviating suffering and grievance by ensuring sustainable improvement in their socio-economic, psycho-political and culture sphere of life, this would lead towards everlasting peace.

Last but not least, Pakistan should follow the German Model of development in underdeveloped areas of the country, when Germany united in 1990s the East part of Germany was underdeveloped and West Germany was developed, Germany concentrated on East Germany to bring it to parallel to West Germany. It is right time to ripe the fruit of all the sacrifices for the prosperity, unity, peace and integration of the state.

*The writer is Research Associate in Strategic Vision Institute Islamabad and can be reached at symaafzal21dec@gmail.com

The post Baluchistan Conundrum – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Two Muslim killers wiped out the whole editorial team of the satirical weekly “Charlie Hebdo” at noontime in Paris on Wednesday, January 7, 2015. This cold-blooded murder is an indefensible crime. The killers allegedly claimed that they have “avenged the Prophet Mohammad”. And Allah was considered “great”. Have they committed their heinous crime in the name or in defense of Islam? Charlie Hebdo has a long history of angering Muslims with cartoons, but it caricatured also all religions.

Worldwide, the terrorist attack was amicably considered as an attack on freedom of press and freedom of speech, or on all of us. French President Francois Hollande declared that France will not be intimidated and would not give up its freedom. Was the satirical magazine really a guardian of freedom of press or just a left-wing political correct magazine, which justified the US-led aggressions in the Muslim world in the name of human rights? Minutes before the attack, the magazine had tweeted a cartoon about the leader of the Islamic State.1

It seems as if the Islamic fanatics reflected the brutal religious war being waged in Iraq and Syria and perhaps soon in Yemen and Saudi-Arabia, too, which is going to effect the Western world. The wars of the US Empire and its willful allies against the Muslim world are a hotbed for Islamic radicalism. The scenario follows a tit for tat logic. The atrocities, committed by Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Hollande, played right in the hands of modern jihadists. The only remedy to stop the ride into the abyss is to terminate the war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and face the fundamentalist Saudi-Arabian dictatorship head-on.

France is a “stalwart ally” of the US-led war against the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIL), as US President Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, announced and he added “We know they are not going to be cowed by this terrible act.” The US-led Western coalition has been killing Muslims by the Millions and ravaged their countries since their attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. Are the European-born jihadists who return from their “adventurers” in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere considered the blowback of the murderous wars of Western imperialism waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen or Mali?

France and Great Britain were leading the attack on Libya, and France was at the helm when an attack on Syria was in the pipeline. The former President Nikolas Sarkozy got the order to raid Libya from a bellicose philosophy professor via mobile, and President Hollande tried to drag Obama in another military adventure in Syria. The war against ISIL, which is a US and Saudi-Arabian creation in order to break up both countries, will continue to promote the alienation between the Muslin world and the West. The consequence of these wars are European jihadists moving to the Middle East and taking part in the “clash of civilizations”, which was also an invention by US intellectuals in lieu of a lack of a bogeyman after the disappearance of Soviet-style communism.

In promoting the Islamic enemy image, “Charlie Hebdo” was not the real model of freedom of speech. It was rather one of many mouthpieces of a predominant trend all across Europe that is racist, islamophobic, xenophobic and exclusively Western value-oriented.

Notes:
1. https://twitter.com/Charlie_Hebdo_/status/552773881283764224/photo/1

The post Charlie Hebdo Or Who Is To Blame? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Bakary Gueye

Northern Mali is seeing a spike in terrorist attacks, abductions and clashes among armed groups.

In just the last week, al-Qaeda terrorists slaughtered 8 Malian troops Nampala, an attack on a convoy killed the mayor of Aderanboukane, and another attack occurred the same day in Tinefewa, in the Timbuktu region.

The UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) also reported armed clashes in the Timbuktu town of Zarho and Bamba, in Gao.

MINUSMA on Friday (January 2nd) expressed concerns about the increasing violence.

As far back as June, the United Nations Security Council expressed concern about the worsening security situation across the entire Sahel, especially Mali, Malian analyst Ibou Samake said.

“But since that date, not much has been done on the ground to deal with it,” Malian analyst Ibou Samake noted.

“The imminent new round of negotiations in Algiers may partly explain this violence, with each party seeking to consolidate their position and prove their presence cannot be ignored,” he said.

He added: “The international community needs to improve co-ordination and put up the resources needed to overcome these repeated waves of violence. In addition, states across the region need to become more involved, so that regional co-operation can be strengthened to deal with the rise in terrorism.”

Hiroute Guebre Sellassie, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for the Sahel, expressed her concerns at a December 11th meeting of the Security Council.

“The persistence of the conflict in Mali bears witness to the fact that our efforts in the Sahel will be in vain unless the countries in the region commit themselves to certain standards of governance,” Sellassie said.

“The region continues to suffer the disastrous consequences of the crises in Libya. Twenty-thousand firearms coming from Libya have been transferred to the Sahel, and the majority of the 18 tonnes of cocaine reaching West Africa come across the Sahel,” she said.

The UN envoy added: “If the situation in Libya is not brought under control, many countries in the region could be destabilised in the near future.”

Sidati Ould Cheikh, a specialist on terrorism, said Mali’s instability was having repercussions across the entire region. He noted that Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania have set up a unit to monitor weapons coming from Libya into the Sahel countries.

Ould Cheikh said: “Several other initiatives have been set up as part of the co-operation with Western partners like France. In Mauritania, for example, the Special Operations Command (COS) in Atar has set up special intervention groups, Mauritanian Special Forces, who are doing a good job.”

“There’s also the European Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel,” he added.

Analyst Abdou Ould Mohamed said the situation in Mali had led to the expansion of Islamist movements and terrorist organisations that are regularly attacking countries such as Algeria.

“These countries are well aware of the danger threatening their borders; that’s why they’ve stepped up their meetings to put in place a common strategy to limit the impact of this crisis on their security.”

The post Mali: Rise In Terrorist Attacks Alarms UN appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The head of Iran’s security forces said on Thursday January 8 that extremist forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had advanced as close as 40 kilometres from the Iranian border near Qasr-e Shirin in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, however their advance was repelled.

Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam said developments in Iraq have pushed ISIS forces away from Iranian borders.

“A while ago, terrorist groups were close to Qasr-e Shirin and had advanced to about 40 kilometres from our borders, but Iraqi people and their armed forces cleansed these areas, and now they are not close to our borders at any point,” Ahmadi Moghaddam said.

Reports indicate that in June, ISIS forces have taken the cities of Jalula and Al-Saadia about 41 kilometres from Iranian borders.

In November, the Irari army with the support of Shia and Kurdish paramilitary forces took back these cities.

The post Islamic State Forces Had Advanced To Just 40 Km From Iranian Border appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The sign placed by Lebanese General Security and Tourism officials on the western side of the Masnaa border crossing from Syria to Lebanon greets arrivals. It reads: “WELCOME TO BROTHERLY LEBANON.”

Well, at least it used to. That was until some obvious miscreant recently defaced the fine sign and wrote with a red magic marker: “These words are a sick joke and an obscenity!” And then the derelict apparently felt obliged to correct the sign. So for now, at least, Lebanon’s Welcome sign at the Masnaa border crossing corrupts a bit St. Matthew’s 11:25-30 account of Jesus Christ ministering to refugees and reads: “Abandon all hope ye from Syria and Palestine who travail are heavy laden and who seek refuge here.”

Those who entered Lebanon previously, including hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in tented settlements across Lebanon, are receiving very little help and currently are being forced to burn clothes, rags and scraps of wood, even cardboard boxes to survive the bitter cold. As of 1/8/2015 six deaths of Syrian refugees due to hypothermia have been reported. Abu Jassem, a Syrian refugee living in Bar Elias where strong winds and accumulated snow have caused tents to collapse reported on 1/7/2015 that people trying to keep warm inside their unheated shelters are burning lumber and waste paper. “People are setting fire to anything they can find, including clothes, to keep warm. We spend all our time clearing the roof of the tent so it doesn’t fall on us. We have to do it every five minutes” he told Beirut’s Daily Star.  Sheikh Mohammad Jarrah, who presides over a mosque in Shebaa down south, reported on 1/7/2015 that “For two to three days the refugees have gone without heating oil. If they don’t have wood they are burning sheets and mattresses.”

For the past year or longer, Lebanese officials have been unwittingly metastasizing Da’ish (ISIS) inside Lebanon from the border of occupied Palestine south up to Tartus Syria up north. This is one but not the only consequence of Lebanon’s intensification of its multifaceted and self-destructive assault on refugees from Syria who are fleeing here for their lives.

Many Lebanese officials from across the fragile sectarian spectrum are neglecting their legal, political, and moral obligations as they remain silent when one of their grandstanding cabinet colleagues proclaims to applause that “Refugees from Syria give off a ‘terrorism radiation’ and we don’t want them.” When a government’s own refugee minister labels Syrian refugees a “gangrenous and radioactive terror threat”, jihadists rejoice and shout “Allah Akbar!” and more black Da’ish flags flutter in Lebanon.

Three months ago, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas avoiding even the R-word (“refugee”), which he claims makes him gag, and announced that Lebanon “no longer officially receives any displaced Syrians” and he advised AFP that “the new visa requirement is intended to prevent Syrians from taking refuge in Lebanon.”

Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, sharply demurred, arguing that the visa measures were a result of Lebanon’s own failure to implement a refugee policy early in the Syrian conflict. Khatib said Lebanese concern about the refugee influx was “both real and exaggerated”, admitting that wages have gone down and rents have increased, but also that Lebanese employers have exploited Syrians willing to work for lower wages.

The BBC’s Middle East correspondent Paul Wood reported recently from Mashha in northern Lebanon that one resident told him, “I used to earn $1,000 a month. They (Lebanese employers) sacked me, and hired four Syrians instead.”

Unlike Jordan and Turkey, Lebanon has rejected the advice of the UN and has refused to create refugee camps, meaning refugees are dispersed throughout the country and setting the stage for a humanitarian nightmare. Lebanon’s complex sectarian make-up also plays a role given that most Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims, like the Palestinian refugees before them, raising fears they could change the country’s delicate sectarian balance.

This fear is irrational. The reason is that neither Palestinians nor Syrian refugees want to stay in Lebanon with its fatal sectarianism. It is estimated by UNWRA and the UNHCR that more than 95 percent of each group of refugees will depart Lebanon for Palestine and Syria just as soon as they can go home.

This week, Lebanon is doing jihadists another favor while adding to its own already deeply deplorable record of human rights abuses toward women, children, domestic workers, and Palestinian refugees, among others. Deprivations of elementary civil rights that are making Da’ish somehow more appealing in the eyes of many Sunni refugees seeking temporary sanctuary from a conflict that has killed more than a quarter million of their countrymen and displaced at least ten million, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

Until seven months ago, Syrians who entered Lebanon through an official border crossing and who were in possession of a passport or Syrian ID card could receive a free, six-month, renewable visa, one time, and a residency permit without charge. Subsequent renewals required payment of a US$200 fee. Many who could not return to Syria or afford the new fee were forced to stay on illegally.

On June 2, 2014, the Lebanese government changed the entry requirements for Syrians and blocked entry to all Syrian except those who could provide proof that they came from areas where there is fighting near the Lebanese border. Anyone who returned to Syria from Lebanon lost their refugee status and could not return.

Syrian refugees have been denied the right to seek asylum, and some have been forcibly returned to Syria by the Lebanese authorities without even a grace period. The new unannounced changes led to families being separated—again, in violation of international refugee law.

As of this week, and for the first time since its independence in 1943, Lebanon requires a visa for Syrians—something Syria has historically not required from any Arab country. This means that more than 90 percent of Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives and appearing at the Lebanon border will be forced back to Syria to face their fate. Lebanon is imposing unprecedented new restrictions on the entry of Syrians, requiring them to provide the length and intention of their stay with nearly impossible to satisfy Kafkaesque restrictions in an effort to block them from entering. UNHCR, the UN’s refugee body, fears the measures mean that Syrians fleeing violence in their own country are now blocked at the border.

As of this week, all Syrians must apply for one of six types of entry visas in Lebanon: business, medical, student, tourist, transit, and “short stay.” The key omission, and in fact the real reason for this new visa requirements, is that Lebanon has just eliminated the very concept of a refugee entry visa for Syrians. Tourist visas must be accompanied by a hotel reservation and proof that the traveler has $1,000. Ron Redmond, a senior representative the UNHCG advised the media yesterday that “The UN understands the reasons Lebanon cite for doing this, but at the same time our job is to ensure the refugees aren’t pushed back to someplace where they may be in grave danger.”

Omar Ghannoum, who works for an international aid organization that offers legal advice to Syrian refugees, told Germany’s broadcaster Deutsche Welle recently that Syrians in Lebanon cannot move around freely anymore. These refugees live in permanent fear of being caught by the police. They tend to stay at home, which means that they cannot go to work, and cannot pay their rent. It’s a vicious circle.”

Lebanon’s latest assault on Syrian refugees could not be more illegal under principles, standards, and rules of international humanitarian law. While Lebanon has consistently refused to join the 147 countries that have signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is nonetheless bound to honor its provisions under international customary law, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention against Torture.

As required by the binding international legal norm of non-refoulement, Lebanon is obligated not to return individuals to a situation where they would be at risk of persecution or serious human rights abuses. This same international law of non-refoulement prohibits Lebanon from rejecting Syria refugees fleeing for their lives and asylum-seekers at the border. At a bare minimum, Lebanon is required to permit entry to Syrian refugees seeking asylum while they investigate whether they need to be protected as refugees. It refuses this obligation as well.

According to Article 1 of the Refugee Convention, a Syrian refugee is a national of that country who is outside his or her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

The Lebanese government accordingly is obligated to grant refugees fleeing Syria the right not to be forcibly returned, or refouled (Article 33).

Lebanon, in gross violation of international humanitarian law, also rejects the rights of Syrian refugees not to be barred entry or expelled, except under certain strictly defined conditions (Article 32), as well as exemption from penalties for illegal entry into Lebanon, the right to work (Article 17), the right to housing (Article 21), the right to education (Article 22), the right to public relief and assistance (Article 23), the right to freedom of religion and free access to courts (Articles 4 and 16), freedom of movement within the territory (Article 26), and the right to be issued identity and travel documents (Articles 27 and 28).

More than 50 Lebanese municipalities have also been targeting Syrian refugees with illegal Zionist Occupied Palestine and South African Apartheid-type curfews that restrict refugees’ movements and contribute to a climate of discriminatory and retaliatory practices against Syrians generally. Such curfews violate international human rights law and are even illegal under Lebanese law.

Despite broad international criticism, many municipal police, and several local vigilante groups, continue to enforce the illegal curfews despite the fact that as far back as April of 2013, then Interior Minister Marwan Charbel declared was there was no legal basis for the curfews and that local municipalities did not have the right to infringe on the authority of the state-wide security forces by imposing them.

The British-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Legal Agenda has also publicly denounced the curfews, calling them a form of collective punishment and a violation of human rights. Less than six months ago the Norwegian Refugee Council, to its great credit, issued a fact sheet for lawyers about the curfews advising that they had no basis in Lebanese law.

Nadim Houry, the brilliant and indefatigable deputy Middle East Director for Human Rights Watch, has noted that, “These curfews are just contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for Syrian refugees in the country. The Lebanese authorities have presented no evidence that curfews for Syrian refugees are necessary for public order or security in Lebanon.”

The simple fact of the matter is that anyone lawfully present in a country has the right to freedom of movement. This principle is enshrined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Lebanon has ratified. Only under very limited circumstances—not present in this case—can restrictions to movement be enacted and they must be enacted in law and must be required “to protect national security, public order, public health, or morals, or the rights and freedoms of others.”

Furthermore, the restriction of movement must be proportionate, including in judging the areas it applies to, the time, the number of people affected, and the impact it has on their lives, in comparison with the aim achieved by the law. Lebanon has no such law.

As Human Rights Watch has argued, restrictions on rights cannot be imposed on a discriminatory basis, including by nationality. This is a fundamental principle of human rights law that applies even during emergencies. The prohibition on discrimination against Syrians as opposed for example against Americans in Lebanon means any difference in treatment on the grounds of nationality must be very strictly justified. Lebanon has not and frankly cannot meet this burden of proof.

Lebanon’s Legal and Brotherly obligations

Lebanon’s international obligations to Syrian refugees fleeing the carnage next door include but are not limited to the following.

Lebanon must cease blocking Syrians and Palestinians escaping the conflict in Syria from accessing the territory of Lebanon under the principle of non-refoulement, a customary norm of international law binding on all states. Visa requirements that result in rejection at the border are amongst the prohibited measures.

Lebanon is obligated to cancel prohibitive fees for renewing visas, or the refusal to renew visas, which result in refugees being considered to be staying illegally in the country.

The Government of Lebanon must immediately cancel the new visa and resident requirements and allow all persons fleeing the conflict in Syria, who are normally resident in Syria, to enter Lebanon until such time that it is safe for them to return.

The Lebanese government must instruct municipalities to stop imposing curfews on Syrian refugees, to stop condoning vigilantism and to protect Syrians in Lebanon from retaliatory measures.

The government of Lebanon must cancel the broad ‘security campaign’ targeting Syrian workers that is currently being launched across Beirut. The unannounced raids on businesses that employ Syrian workers have been ongoing since December 10, 2014.

The Lebanese government should coordinate closely with the U.N. and develop criteria to ensure those suffering violence are able to cross into Lebanon.

Lebanese General Security officials at the Masnaa border crossing must ensure that no one fleeing Syria is forcibly returned to Syria in any manner whatsoever, including rejection at the border. General Security must immediately revoke all instructions to border officials and airlines which violate the principle of non-refoulement.

Refugees from Syria much be allowed to renew their residency in Lebanon until it is safe for them to return. Lebanon is obliged to waive the fees for renewal of visas for refugees from Syria or only charge a nominal fee.

Lebanese officials must make every effort not to separate families, particularly in cases where children are attempting to join their parents who are already in Lebanon. All children born in Lebanon must be registered in accordance with Lebanon’s obligations under the Convention on the Right of the Child, which means allowing refugees from Syria to register their children’s births regardless of visa status.

Lebanon must allow Syrian refugee children to register for secondary school and take their exams even if their visas have expired, in accordance with Lebanon’s obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to make secondary education available and accessible to every child. Lebanon must also publish clear and transparent information about administrative procedures relating to refugees’ stay, legal status, and rights in Lebanon.

Measures can and should also be immediately taken on the level of the international community to end Lebanon’s cold war on refugees from Syria, a crisis torn country where it is claimed more than 76,000 people were killed in 2014, including almost 18,000 civilians.

A couple of examples….

Firstly, while donor states should continue to assist the Lebanese government to meet the needs of the Syrian refugee and local populations, they should suspend aid to Lebanon, including military aid, while they investigate to what extent municipalities receiving their assistance are imposing unlawful and discriminatory restrictions on Syrian refugees. If such reports are shown to be accurate, donor countries should immediately suspend that assistance until Lebanon complies with international humanitarian law on the subject of refugees.

Secondly, while its not this observer’s right to advise the government of Syria on how to conduct its foreign relations, and taking note of the important fact that Syria’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, said this weekend in a statement quoted by Lebanon’s National News Agency that his country urged Lebanese “coordination” with Damascus, his government can do rather more.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry can employ the same “Reciprocity principle” of international relations that Lebanon continues to illegally use against the Palestinian refugees here for the sole purpose of denying them the elementary civil rights to work and to own a home. Syria can and should tell Lebanon’s “government” that unless the discriminatory measures taken against her temporary refugee citizens seeking refuge in “Brotherly Lebanon”, Damascus may employ the identical restrictive visa measures against Lebanese citizens seeking to enter Syria. This visa reciprocity measure is nearly universally applied among nations, and they determine how tough or easy to make it for each country’s citizens to enter the others.

This action by Syria may well assist Lebanese officials to recall the treatment the people of Syria granted to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who stormed into Syria during their own 1975-1990 civil war and during the July 2006 Zionist aggression against Lebanon that killed hundreds of Lebanese and destroyed much of the country’s road, electric, and social service infrastructure and housing.

This observer arrived in Damascus from Washington in mid-July 2006 and recalls as if it were just last summer the Syrian people opening their homes and hearts to Lebanese refugees. I visited and saw first-hand Syrian homes, vacant apartments, schools, civic centers, two hospitals and clinics, parks opened to the Lebanese refugees. The Syrian people asked nothing in return. Lebanese were given free clothes and household necessities, medical, dental, optical and psychiatric care because they were refugees and needed help. Also food and cash vouchers.

Perhaps most importantly, the people of Syria gave refugees from Lebanon brotherly love and help in rebuilding their shattered lives until their return to their country.

As Genesis 4:1-9, the Holy Koran and the Pentateuch instruct us: We are our brother’s keeper.

The post Their Unpardonable Crime Is That They Are Syrian – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A consortium of domestically-focused banks has warned against a financial services agreement between Switzerland and the European Union, as advocated by the recent Brunetti Report into the Swiss financial centre.

The consortium – made up of cantonal banks, the Raiffeisen group, Migros Bank and smaller regional banks – said that while a fusion of Swiss and EU banking laws and regulations might favour larger international institutions (most notably UBS and Credit Suisse), it could pose problems for banks that concentrate on domestic deposits and loans.

The Brunetti committee was commissioned by the government in September 2013 to provide advice on a range of challenges facing the Swiss financial centre. Chaired by University of Bern economist Aymo Brunetti, the commission released its non-binding proposals last month.

Among other topics, it looked at changing EU financial regulations that threaten to squeeze out Swiss banks from the lucrative market. The report highlighted the problems of trying to reposition Swiss regulations to match EU amendments and suggested that the government start talks on a possible financial services agreement with the EU.

But the domestic Swiss banking consortium on Thursday said it would be forced to bear the costs of such a regulatory upheaval without benefiting from such a move.

The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), however, welcomed the proposal, saying that it would reverse the current trend of isolating Switzerland from the EU market.

“For the banks, cross-border access to important markets is absolutely central and a priority for the preservation of value creation and jobs in Switzerland,” the SBA said in a statement last month. “Long term, only an institutional agreement with the EU offers the necessary legal certainty for financial services providers in Switzerland. It is therefore positive that Switzerland will analyse the feasibility of a financial services agreement (FSA) with the EU.”
Leverage ratios

The difference of opinion only highlights a growing split between internationally-focused banks and those that concentrate on the domestic market. This led in part to the creation of the domestic banks consortium last year.

Another key proposal from the Brunetti report that raised eyebrows in Switzerland was the recommendation to increase leverage ratio requirements for banks.

Affecting mainly ‘too-big-to-fail’ UBS and Credit Suisse, leverage ratios force banks to set aside funds to cover the risk of trades backfiring.

Currently, the big international banks have to cover a minimum of 3.12% of their assets with a capital buffer. The Brunetti Report did not specifically give a new threshold leverage ratio figure, but pointed out that United States banks are currently obliged to hold back 5 to 6% of capital to cover trades.

The post Swiss Banks Reject EU Finance Fusion appeared first on Eurasia Review.