By Rajeev Sharma

The strong and vibrant Indian democracy never ceases to surprise its own people and politicians, not just the world. Feb. 10 was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s turn for his tryst with democracy when results for Delhi assembly polls were declared.

The results were only for the 70-member assembly of Delhi, which is not even a full-fledged state and yet the event mesmerized the entire country. Consider the following.

Barely two-year-old political outfit Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged as India’s newest political Godzilla, which routed 130-year-old Congress party as well as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). AAP won 67 seats, leaving only three seats for the BJP and none for the Congress. Thus AAP notched up the biggest victory in the Indian electoral history by winning over 95 percent seats in Delhi assembly. It is an unprecedented feat as no party has won over 95 percent seats in a state assembly ever before.

The BJP managed to retain its vote share by and large and polled 32.8 percent votes while the Congress slipped to a single digit vote share of 9.8 percent. In contrast, AAP vote share was a whopping 54.3 percent or almost 12 percent more than the two major political parties’ combined vote share.

The BJP lost the election primarily because of picking up a wrong person as its chief ministerial candidate, the country’s first woman police officer, Kiran Bedi. Incidentally, Bedi joined the BJP only on Jan. 15. The move was purported to be a masterstroke but proved to be a Himalayan blunder, as she was seen as an outsider and failed to take along the party leaders and cadres. It was height of presumptuousness by the BJP in believing that a paratrooper can become Delhi chief minister less than a month after joining the party.

Bedi, known for her ham-handed, dictatorial ways, failed to win her own seat from Krishna Nagar, which has been a BJP bastion since 1951. Yet, she was brazen in her post-defeat press conference on Feb. 10 when she remarked: “I have not lost. It is the BJP, which has lost. BJP should introspect.” Phew, that is some attitude!

In contrast, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, who will take over as Delhi chief minister on Feb. 14, was a picture of humility even in his record-smashing win and advised his colleagues and cadres not to be arrogant. AAP’s landslide win has a lot of implications for the entire Indian political firmament. Here are the implications for major stakeholders.

BJP and Modi: The Modi-led BJP has just tasted its first electoral defeat after winning elections in three of the four states in past eight months and forming its government there — Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. The BJP emerged as the second largest party with 25 seats in the 87-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly and is in a position to form a coalition government there in the coming weeks.

Given the massive scale of the BJP’s defeat in Delhi, it is vehemently proven that India is no longer in grip of the so-called Modi wave and, in fact, the Modi charisma is waning. India is ready to look beyond Modi provided a credible alternative is there. This is what AAP has just proven.

Congress and Rahul Gandhi: India’s grand old party’s political future has become all the more uncertain. It has been going from bad to worse since the general elections of April-May last year. Like in the case of BJP and Modi where the Kiran Bedi factor was a mere sub-text in the larger political narrative, in case of Congress too the Ajay Maken factor is not that relevant. Maken led the Delhi campaign on behalf of the Congress, though he was not a declared chief ministerial candidate.

But the real rip-off from Delhi results for the Congress party is targeted at Rahul Gandhi, the party’s vice president who has lost far too many elections in the past eight months. Rahul detractors within the party will certainly be emboldened in demanding that he should step down and pave way for his sister Priyanka who is yet untried politically but holds a beacon of hope for Congressmen to turn around the party’s fortunes.

AAP and Kejriwal: The world is at his feet right now. He is in with a whale of a chance for spreading his party’s base all over the country, mainly at the expense of the Congress and regional parties, which are in a supine state.

But none would realize it better than Kejriwal himself that his first most onerous task is to deliver as the Delhi chief minister after his notorious escape from the hot seat after 49 days in office exactly a year ago. Therefore, Kejriwal must focus only on Delhi for the next six months, as no state assembly elections are due before October.

Finally, Kiran Bedi will end up as a mere footnote in Indian political history. At least now she should realize that she was a sacrificial goat. Her victory would have been Modi’s; but her defeat is her own.

The post So Much For Modi Wave – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Gurmeet Kanwal*

As the 10th edition of Aero-India gets underway at Bengaluru (18-22 February 2015), attention will be focused on big-ticket deals like the long-pending multi-billion dollar acquisition of the MMRCA by the Indian Air Force (IAF). Discussion will centred on whether or not the government is having second thoughts about buying the Rafale fighter from France vis-à-vis adding to the existing fleet of Su-30 MKI aircraft acquired from Russia.

What will not find mention is the fact that both these aircraft are very expensive multi-mission fighters that cannot be risked to strike ground targets in the tactical battle area teeming with air defence weapons. As a future war on the Indian subcontinent will in all likelihood result from the unresolved territorial disputes with China and Pakistan and will be predominantly a conflict on land, the ability to acquire and accurately hit targets on ground will be a key requirement for the IAF.

During the Kargil conflict in the summer of 1999, air-to-ground strikes by fighter ground attack (FGA) aircraft of the IAF played an important role in neutralising Pakistani army defences. The destruction of a logistics camp at Muntho Dhalo was shown repeatedly on national television. In conflicts in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq, Libya and, more recently, the ongoing fight against the Islamic State, FGA aircraft have achieved laudable results, especially while using precision guided munitions (PGMs).

Hence, the importance of close air support in modern wars must not be underrated. A few missions of FGA aircraft and attack helicopters can deliver more ordnance by way of dumb 1,000 lb bombs in a few minutes on an objective selected for capture than a 155 mm medium artillery regiment can deliver in 20 to 30 minutes. In critical situations, particularly in fast flowing mechanised operations, accurate air strikes can save the day. The battle of Longewala during the 1971 war with Pakistan is a good example. Also, it is a truism that accurate air strikes against the enemy in contact that can be seen by own troops provide a psychological boost to the morale of ground troops.

IAF aircraft that are earmarked for ground strikes need to be armed with PGMs in large numbers to achieve the desired effect. Free flight 1000 lb and 500 lb bombs cannot be dropped with the precision necessary to destroy individual bunkers, pillboxes and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs). Modern jet aircraft flying at supersonic speeds and constrained by the threat posed by air defence weapons in the TBA, such as hand-held, shoulder-fired SAMs like the Stinger and the Unza, cannot be expected to achieve precision with rockets and Gatling guns. Only terminally homing laser-guided and TV-guided bombs and air-to-surface missiles with stand-off capability can provide the necessary reach and accuracy.

During the Kargil conflict, sustained, accurate and high volume concentrated artillery firepower and air-to-ground strikes by the IAF eventually won the battle for India by completely decimating enemy sangars and enabling the infantry to assault virtually unopposed. Tiger Hill and many other enemy-held mountain ridges were finally re-captured with very few casualties. The battle winning utility of ground and aerial firepower in limited wars was established beyond doubt. In view of the firepower capabilities that will be necessary to fight and win India’s future wars, the IAF needs to re-assess the suitability of its weapons platforms and ammunition holdings to support operations on land and launch a concerted drive to acquire the required means.

Ideally, the IAF should be equipped with a specialised, dedicated ground strike aircraft of the A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog or the Russian SU-25 or SU-39, all of which are relatively slower moving, enable greater precision to be achieved in aiming, can carry several tonnes of payload per sortie, including air-to-ground precision strike missiles and bombs, and can absorb a lot of damage from the enemy’s air defence weapons. Writing about the role played by the US air power during Gulf War I, Robert H Scales Jr has stated, “The A-10 was devastating once the ground war began and once the aircraft dropped low enough to provide effective 30 mm cannon support.”

Dedicated ground strike aircraft cost only a fraction of the cost of multi-role fighter aircraft such as Mirage-2000 and the future MMRCA. It is certain that in the coming decades, the IAF will continue to be called upon to launch ground strikes with precision munitions in support of the army.

Quite obviously, the IAF cannot afford to acquire new, dedicated ground strike aircraft from its present meagre budget. Once the need for such aircraft has been adequately debated and is established beyond dispute, additional funds will have to be provided to the IAF for their early induction.

*Gurmeet Kanwal
Former Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi

The post Air Power And Future Battlefields: India’s Needs – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

An 83% majority of the public says vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) are safe for healthy children, while about one-in-ten (9%) think such vaccines are not safe, according to a Pew Research Center survey, that notes an additional 7% volunteer that they don’t know.

According to the Pew Research Center survey, majorities across virtually every demographic and partisan group view the vaccines as safe. However, there are some differences in attitudes, with less educated people and younger adults more likely to say they are not safe.

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Feb. 5-8 among 1,003 adults, finds Republicans (89%) and Democrats (87%) generally agree that such vaccines are safe for children who are healthy.

According to the survey, roughly nine-in-ten college graduates (92%) see vaccines for MMR as safe for healthy children. This view is somewhat less widespread among those with some college experience (85%) or a high school degree or less (77%).

Three-quarters or more in every age group say vaccines for MMR are safe. However, among adults 50 and older, 90% express this view, compared with 77% of adults 18-29 and 81% of those 30-49.

A separate Pew Research Center survey of opinion among the public and scientists about science and society found widespread support for requiring childhood vaccinations: 68% of the public said children should be required to be vaccinated, while 30% in that survey said parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children. Young adults were more likely to say vaccinations should be a parental choice, while there was no significant difference in attitudes based on education.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 102 cases of measles in 14 states in the first 30 days of the new year, most of which were linked to an outbreak at Disneyland in California. Last year’s 644 cases were the greatest number of cases since measles was eradicated from the U.S. in 2000, according to the CDC.

The post Large Majority Of Americans View Measles Vaccine As Safe appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Seventy-two countries party to the Convention on Nuclear Safety declared their intention to continuously improve in that area, but a proscriptive proposal to amend the convention did not gain consensus.

The convention dates from 1994 when countries combined to agree common interest in maintaining high standards of safety at nuclear power facilities and create a framework for national regulators to exchange information and cooperate in their work.

Some 72 of these countries met this week in Vienna to discuss a proposal by Switzerland to add certain language to the convention in reaction to the Fukushima accident of 2011. One fundamental paragraph in the convention says that nuclear power plants should be designed, built and operated with the objective of avoiding accidents and mitigating their effects should they occur. Although basic, this is important because it provides for a common approach for regulation across every signatory country. Switzerland wanted to add text specifying that safety standards for new plants should also apply to older plants. But placing this in the convention would have made it legally binding upon all states that ratified the change, and a consensus for that could not be reached.

“Too many countries… would have been unable to ratify the amendment for domestic reasons,” noted Hans Wanner, the head Swiss regulator.

Summarizing the meeting, conference president Rafael Mariano Grossi of Argentina noted the international response that has already taken place after the Fukushima accident: “Operators themselves and national regulators reacted without delay introducing changes and checking areas of vulnerability.”

“Second, at the regional level… regulators and regional associations ensured that these initiatives would not be isolated from what was being done in nearby countries,” and, continued Grossi, the convention itself and its provision for peer review “was immediately reviewed after the accident.” These actions were “all very concrete, and all mutually reinforcing,” he added.

Grossi suggested to the meeting that instead of formalizing Switzerland’s ideas, the countries make a Joint Declaration, which would not need ratification or be legally binding but would “be reflected in” all their subsequent actions under the CNS “in the spirit of continuous improvement”.

Endorsing principles in line with some of Switzerland’s main aims, the final Joint Declaration included that “comprehensive and systematic safety assessments are to be carried out periodically and regularly for existing installations throughout their lifetime in order to identify safety improvements… Reasonably practicable or achievable safety improvements are to be implemented in a timely manner.”

The post Regulators Reject Nuclear Safety Convention Change appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Vikram Sood*

This may appear to be an oversimplification, but a month after the January 7 Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, there are six major questions we need to ask ourselves. Are terror killings acceptable? No, whatever be the cause. The second is the right to freedom of expression. A definite and loud yes. The right to criticize?

Another definite yes as it follows from the right to free speech. The freedom to offend? The answer to this iffy and complex question is: perhaps. The fifth is freedom to practice one’s religion, adhere to one’s faith or practice no religion. The answer is yes. The right to get hurt by criticism? Yes. But the right to kill for that? A resounding no.

The reaction of the French and the world at large was magnificent, characteristic of a strong society that was angry and defiant. A vibrant and sympathetic media helped. Contrast this with reactions to two other events that took place around the same time. There was an outcry inside Pakistan to the December 16, 2014 killings in Peshawar in which Taliban terrorists gunned down 132 schoolchildren. But the world stopped at the usual words of sympathy. The Pakistani state reacted tentatively, became ambivalent and eventually escapist, especially evident after the Paris killings. Luminaries like Hafiz Saeed, Pervez Musharraf, Hamid Gul and Zaid Zaman Hamid reverted to form accusing India of masterminding the Peshawar attack.

Two thousand Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram in that same week and the world was largely unmoved. The killings made it to very few front pages. Quite clearly the world won’t care if the people themselves do not care or have no voice. In this case, the world was the media.

The issue also is how the rest of the world reacts to terrorism that seeks to avenge perceived insults and wrongs. There have been various writings on this with respect to Islamist terror and this includes writings by Pakistanis and Muslims from other countries who urge a relook at the way Islam has been hijacked.

In his brilliant essay ‘Islam Needs Reform from Within’, Pakistani writer Raza Rumi wrote, “The barbaric killing of journalists exercising their right of free speech is beyond condemnable. It strikes at the heart of press freedom.” It also strikes beyond the basic premises of any religion and it makes it difficult for others to accept that Islam is about peace and submission. Reactions among some Muslim countries suggest that they have not accepted that Charlie Hebdo killings was terrorism.

Obsession with blasphemy has been eating up Muslim societies from within. This, Rumi says, can be altered through “introspection and self-correction, not exorcising the ghosts of the past and injustices of the present. Only Muslims can do it themselves”. He is right. Reform, especially in matters of faith, has to come from within. It cannot be imposed from outside

According to Islamic art scholar Christiane Gruber, “The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery. Rather, it castigates the worship of idols.” She writes that 14th century paintings of the Prophet are available at the Smithsonian Institute and Edinburgh University.

In his article ‘Freedom to Offend’ in Pakistan’s The Friday Times, journalist Kunwar Khuldune Shahid wrote, “The majority of Muslims would consider the honest Muslim reformist a blasphemer for daring to interpret the scripture a certain way. There is no reform without criticism.” He also asks the important question: “Will those who are willing to take offense and ready to kill in revenge accept the argument that Christians and Hindus would be justified in attacking Muslims because the Muslims disrespected their gods?”

To an outsider, it appears that there is ferment within Islam and this is of various kinds. It is Islam as seen by some of its extremist votaries versus the rest of the world that consists of Christians, Jews, Hindus and apostates. This is the ‘Islam-is-in danger’ school of thought. There is an internal debate between tolerant and intolerant Islam, which the intolerant are winning because they have the guns.

Then there is the schismatic and extremely violent debate between the Sunnis and Shias. The situation gets complicated because of geo-political interests in the Muslim world, both for those who live there and those who want to control it.

In an article in the Washington Post, journalist Asra Nomani wrote “…we need a new interpretation of Islamic law in order to change the culture. This would require rejecting the eight schools of religious thought that dominate the Sunni and Shiite Muslim world.” This could take the power out of the hands of the status quoist clerics, politicians and experts and replace it with a progressive interpretation of faith.

None of this is easy. Entrenched interests will resist. It is a long and difficult path, but at least some Muslims from within are talking about it. This, however, is not the end of terrorism.

*The writer is an Advisor to Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a former chief of R&AW

Courtesy: The Economic Times

The post Religious Fundamentalism: Six Major Questions – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The United Arab Emirates has embarked on an all-out effort to broaden its regional influence and achieve global acceptance of its autocratic definition of terrorism that encompasses all non-violent, legitimate expressions of political Islam.

The effort competes head on with Qatar’s pro-Islamist approach to soft power. It involves participation in the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, an aggressive media strategy that included attempting to discredit Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, the use of a network of allegedly UAE-funded NGOs, a religious council to counter to promote a quietist interpretation of Islam, and a failed effort to mediate an end to Yemen’s political crisis in part with the help of a former president of the Yemeni Football Association.

A controversial, reportedly UAE-backed NGO, the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), in the latest building block of the Emirati campaign, is organizing an anti-terrorism conference in Geneva next week to discuss a proposed International Convention on Balancing Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights.

The GNRD’s past record on human rights issues suggests that the conference’s definition of human rights and terrorism will stroke with that of the UAE, which has been repeatedly criticized by human rights organizations and the US State Department.

GNRD last year published a human rights index that ranked the UAE at number 14 in the world and Qatar at 97. Heavy criticism of the index persuaded the group to delete the index from its website. The UAE furthermore last year published a list of banned terrorist organizations that sparked surprise and criticism because it included groups in the United States and Europe that are legal.

Founded in 2008, GNRD is headed by Loai Mohammed Deeb, a reportedly Palestinian-born international lawyer who owns a UAE-based consultancy, and reportedly operated a fake university in Scandinavia, according to veteran Middle East author and journalist Brian Whitaker who has taken a lead in investigative reporting of GNRD.

The group is funded by anonymous donors to the tune of €3.5 million a year, much of which is believed to come from the UAE. GNRD says it aims to “”to enhance and support both human rights and development by adopting new strategies and policies for real change.”

Qatar last year briefly detained two GNRD investigators who were in the Gulf state to investigate the working and living conditions of migrant workers. Qatar has been under severe pressure to reform its controversial labour system that puts employees at the mercy of their employers.

A FIFA executive committee warned recently that Qatar could lose its 2022 World Cup hosting rights if it failed to move forward with promised labour reforms. The World Cup is part of a multi-pronged Qatari soft power strategy that includes support for Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that the UAE views as an existential threat.

Alongside the GNRD, the UAE last year backed the establishment of the Muslim Council of Elders (MCE) that promotes a Sunni Muslim tradition of obedience to the ruler to counter Doha-based Mr. Qaradawi’s International Union of Muslim Scholars. Mr Qaradawi is a former Muslim Brother leader who fled Egypt in the 1960s and is one of the Muslim world’s most prominent clerics and an opponent of Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

Mr. Whitaker noted that the GNRD has consistently praised the UAE’s controversial human rights records with articles on its website on the role of women, the UAE’s “achievements in promoting and protecting the family, environmental efforts, care for the disabled and its protection of the rights of children.

The GNRD was recently appointed one of five foreign groups authorized to monitor next month’s parliamentary elections in Egypt whose autocratic regime is co-funded by the UAE. Mr. Al Sisi was elected after he toppled Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president in a military coup. The election occurred in an atmosphere in which more than 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Mr. Morsi were killed by security forces, thousands more were incarcerated and repression limited expression of dissenting opinions and independent media coverage.

The GRND monitored the election as part of a joint mission. It endorsed the election saying that “the Egyptian people have experienced a unique process toward democratic transition, and despite the fact that minor errors and inaccuracies occurred, these do not shed a negative light on the overall results of the electoral process.” The GNRD said that it “was honoured to be a part of the 2014 Egyptian Presidential Election and contribute to promoting its transparency, integrity, and success” and that it commended Egypt’s achievements thus far towards a path to democracy.”

The GNRD is likely to promote the UAE’s agenda at its Geneva conference by calling for the establishment of an international committee that would “identify the parties responsible for human rights violations and terrorist activity and agree internationally on common ‘black’ and ‘white’ lists of organisations and individuals” in a bid to “ensure common position over the labelling of suspected terrorists and terrorist organisations, adequate and legitimate treatment of such individuals and prevent international tensions and conflicts that result from differences in listing terrorists and terrorist organisations.”

In effect, cloaked in the language of concern for striking a balance between counterterrorism and protection of human rights the committee would seek to bury deep-seated international differences over what constitutes terrorism reflected in the list of groups banned by the UAE and in a world in which countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have either criminalized or sought to limit expressions of atheism; charged women in anti-terrorist courts with violating a ban on driving as is the case in Saudi Arabia; or like in Egypt and Turkey sought to outlaw as terrorist organizations militant soccer fan groups that are in the forefront of the struggle for basic rights.

The Geneva conference follows a failed effort in November to resolve Yemen’s fast deteriorating political crisis by bringing together Yemeni political figures at a conference in Brussels. The conference was co-organized by Yemen’s National Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development (NCHRDD) headed by Ahmed Saleh al-Essi, a controversial businessman and former head of the Yemeni Football Association.

A journalist for Yemen’s state-owned Saba News Agency told the Yemen Times that the conference had “contributed nothing to the Yemeni reconciliation process” and was “aimed at diverting attention away from achieving justice, removing armed men from the streets, and forming a new government.”

The post UAE Embarks On Global Campaign To Market Its Brand Of Autocracy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

An untoward incident of physically assaulting a female television reporter by the police personnel in northeast India recently, brought back the old debate of having a special law for protection of journalists on duty. The incident that took place at the Latashil police station in the heart of Guwahati city on 31 January 2015 resulted in huge protest rallies by the media fraternity demanding the authority to book the blamed police officers under the laws.

For three days, the Guwahati-based journalists demonstrated their angers against the police atrocities in various occasions. The media persons expressed apprehension that the arrangement of police commissionerate, which was introduced in Guwahati on 1 January 2015, would increase the police access on various public space.

The debate gained momentum as the female reporter and her camera person faced physical attacks from the policemen at Latashil police station in the heart of Guwahati city. The young reporter, who works for the Guwahati-based satellite news channel DY365, went to the concerned police station with due permission with a aim to report about the pathetic condition of the quarter and barracks inside the Thana campus.

Everything was fine till the reporter found a clue that there was a quarter inside the PS campus, which was allegedly rented out to outsiders by a police officer. The reporter talked to a woman, who was staying inside the said quarter, though she claimed to be a close relative of a police sub-inspector. The concerned SI (Samsuddin Ahmed) was recently transferred from Latashil PS, but he did not vacate the quarter.

As the female journalist talked to the woman in the quarter, the police on duty informed the officer-in-charge of Latashil PS, Chidananda Bora about the matter. Bora immediately asked the media persons to withdraw the visual of the reporting, which the female reporter denied. That ended in physical assaults by the police men on the camera person Tapan Das and even the reporter.

According to the FIR, the reporter lodged in Latashil PS, was targeted by both OC Bora and SI Ahmed (who was present there) and even touched her private parts. The police men snatched the camera, where the footage relating to news story was recorded, and asked the media persons to delete the same. When they did not comply, the situation turned ugly.

Facing the unwanted situation, the lady reporter quickly called her other colleagues, which was responded by a group of reporters belonged to her news channel. More journalists from other media outlets in the city also joined them turning it into a demonstration inside the Thana campus. The incident took place at noon, but the protest demonstration continued till midnight.

As a next step, a group of journalists with civil society group representatives assembled in front of Assam Secretariat on 2 February and demanded stringent punishment to the police personnel who assaulted the television scribes on duty. The police were quick to detain and took them away. But more protesters joined them and the drama continued for the whole day.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Media Forum Assam (EMFA) and Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) condemned the police atrocities on the female scribe and also the detention of agitating journalists from the front of State Secretariat. Both the organizations urged the State chief minister Tarun Gogoi (also in charge of State home portfolio) and Assam police director general Khagen Sarma to take appropriate actions against the guilty police officers immediately.

The government in Dispur verbally communicated the agitating journalists and informed that both the blamed police officers were closed to reserve (meaning removed from duty) and the chief minister ordered a high level probe into the matter. Initially there was no official statement regarding the government response.

Guwahati police commissioner Jyotirmoy Chakrabarty also reiterated that the responsible police officers would be punished if proven guilty. He also informed that a case was registered in Latashil PS following the FIR of the female reporter. However the police also received two more FIRs lodged in the same police station by SI Ahmed and the woman, who was interviewed by the female reporter in the quarter on the fateful day.

Assam Police Association, while trying to justify police actions against the female reporter, argued that she ‘trespassed into the privacy of a woman’. In a statement, the police association claimed that the reporter took visual and put abrasive questions to the woman when she was breastfeeding her baby. Moreover, it asserted that the police would not succumb to the pressure of journalists and few leaders of political parties and organizations.

Ridiculing the allegations against the reporter and accompanying camera person, the EMFA organized a human-chain in front of Guwahati Press Club on 3 February. Journalists across Assam supported the move and demonstrated against the police atrocities on media persons with black-folding their mouths. The press fraternity of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura also supported the protesting journalists of Assam.

Terming the incident as a matter of serious concern for the freedom of press in a democratic country, the press fraternity of Arunachal Pradesh also condemned the police atrocities on scribes. In a statement on behalf of the members of Arunachal Press Club, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists and Arunachal Electronic Media Association, the media fraternity extended moral supports to the agitating Guwahati journalists for the greater interest of media fraternity of the region.

Support was extended by the Manipur based journalists also, as the All Manipur Working Journalists Union (AMWJU) came out with a statement condemning the atrocious police action on the female journalist and her camera person when they were gathering news of the appalling state of a police quarters in Guwahati.

“AMWJU considers the action as an attack on the freedom of press and demands prompt redressal from concerned authorities of the Assam police and Assam government by delivering befitting punishment to the guilty personnel,” said the statement.

North East Network (NEN), a woman’s organization based in Guwahati condemned the physical assault of the woman journalist by male police personnel saying ‘such is not an isolated act, but it threatens the personal and professional integrity of a woman professional’. The government must ensure that the perpetrators would be punished as per relevant laws by appropriate authorities, said a NEN statement, adding that the women journalists have a right to practice their works in secure conditions and fully exercise their rights to freedom of expression without any threat or fear of discrimination and violence.

Even the Union sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who was in the city, also met the protesting media persons on the street and termed the situation as ‘lawlessness’ under the Tarun Gogoi led Assam government.

“The attack on media shows that people in the State are not safe. The government has failed to ensure safety and security to not only the citizens but also to journalists during their duty hours,” said Sonowal, who a BJP Parliamentarian from Assam.

Finally the State government, in an official communiqué, declared that the chief minister had ordered a probe into the incident by additional State chief secretary Rajiv Bora and ordered him to submit the report within one month. Assam Human Rights Commission also registered a case on 2 February and asked the authority to institute a probe into the matter of harassing media persons inside a police station.

The EMFA, which lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Women (NCW) demanding justice to the victim journalists, also raised voices for a special protection law for journalists on duty. In a memorandum to the member secretary of NCW, the television journalists’ forum requested for appropriate actions against the guilty police officers (both are male) as they mishandled a female journalist.

In another memorandum to the Union law & justice minister Sadananda Gowda the media forum claimed that the situation is same across the country and hence a special law for working journalists becomes the need of the hour.

“Need not to mention that the journalists, who remain visible in the society for their working space, often face vulnerability all along their working hours. The situation thus curtails the freedom of expression, the rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution to every citizen of the country,” said the memorandum adding that the present laws in practice in India treat a journalist on a dangerous assignment without any differentiation to a common man.

“This may discourage the journalists to take hazardous engagements due to the fear of facing unwanted circumstances, which will ultimately affect the functioning of journalists and many of them may opt for soft stories resulting in the slow degradation of journalism in our country,” stated the EMFA memorandum.

The post India: Advocating Laws To Safeguard Journalists appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In the February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts motor gasoline consumption in 2015 to increase by 80,000 barrels/day (bbl/d), or 0.9% (Figure 1).

Forecast growth in highway travel, which is attributable to increases in population, employment, and disposable income, and retail gasoline prices substantially below those in 2014, more than offset improvements in the fuel economy of the vehicle fleet. All other things equal, lower gasoline prices increase gasoline demand. Although the impact of gasoline price changes on demand grows over time as fuel prices affect consumers’ vehicle purchase decisions and where they choose to live, which affects commuting distances, the short-term impact of prices on gasoline demand is quite modest. EIA’s STEO uses a short-term price elasticity of -0.033—for every 10% decrease in the price of gasoline there is a corresponding short-term 0.33% increase in gasoline consumption. With average gasoline prices forecast to be 31% lower in 2015 than in 2014, this elasticity suggests that lower prices alone will increase short-term gasoline demand by about 1%.

Expected gasoline prices are closely tied to crude oil prices. As oil prices have sharply declined, market expectations of uncertainty in the price outlook have increased, as reflected in the current values of futures and options contracts.

The February STEO forecast for North Sea Brent crude, the type of crude oil to which U.S. gasoline prices are most closely linked, is largely unchanged from last month, averaging $58/bbl in 2015. EIA’s forecast for retail gasoline prices, which is subject to the high uncertainty in the outlook for oil prices, averages $2.33/gallon (gal) in 2015, $1.03/gal less than the 2014 average (Figure 2). After falling for 17 weeks in a row, U.S. regular retail gasoline prices began to increaseby February 2, and through February 9 are up a total of $0.15/gal. Falling crude oil prices and high inventories of gasoline had contributed to the decline in U.S. weekly regular gasoline retail prices to an average of $2.04/gal on January 28, the lowest weekly price since April 6, 2009.

In 2016, EIA projects motor gasoline demand to decline by 50,000 bbl/d (0.5%) as the annual average retail gasoline price is projected to increase by 17% compared with 2015. The $2.73/gal forecast average gasoline price in 2016, 0.64/gal below the 2014 average, is consistent with a forecast in which the average price of Brent rises to $75/bbl in 2016.

Gasoline prices increase, diesel fuel price changes mixed

The U.S. average price for regular gasoline increased by 12 cents from the previous week to $2.19 per gallon as of February 9, 2015, $1.12 per gallon less than the same time last year. Prices in all regions increased this week, with the West Coast up 15 cents to $2.47 per gallon, followed by the Midwest price, which increased 14 cents to $2.17 per gallon. The Gulf Coast price rose 12 cents to $1.98 per gallon, and the East Coast price was up ten cents to $2.19 per gallon. The Rocky Mountain price rose eight cents to $1.95 per gallon.

The U.S. average price for diesel fuel increased less than half a cent from a week ago to $2.84 per gallon, $1.14 per gallon less than the same time last year. Regional price movements were mixed. The Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain prices fell one cent, to $2.76 per gallon and $2.78 per gallon, respectively. The East Coast price was down less than half a cent to $2.93 per gallon. The West Coast price increased by four cents to $2.92 per gallon, and the Midwest price rose less than half a cent to $2.77 per gallon.

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 2.3 million barrels last week to 65.0 million barrels as of February 6, 2015, 37.1 million barrels (132.8%) higher than a year ago. Gulf Coast and East Coast inventories both decreased by 0.7 million barrels. Midwest inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 6.3% of total propane inventories.

Residential heating oil price increases while residential propane price decreases

As of February 9, 2015, residential heating oil prices averaged $2.91 per gallon, 11 cents per gallon higher than last week, and $1.33 per gallon less than last year’s price for the same week. Wholesale heating oil prices averaged less than $1.98 per gallon, almost 15 cents per gallon higher than last week and nearly $1.47 per gallon lower when compared to the same time last year.

Residential propane prices averaged $2.36 per gallon, about 1 cent per gallon lower than last week, and $1.40 per gallon less than the price at the same time last year. The average wholesale propane price increased by almost 6 cents per gallon this week to just under 67 cents per gallon, $1.94 per gallon lower than the February 10, 2014 price.

The post US Gasoline Demand Seen Increasing By Nearly 1% In 2015 – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Kyle Lawrence Mullin

Tourists in Thailand now pay almost 10 times more than local residents to visit national parks after a significant price hike earlier this month, sparking renewed debate on dual-pricing in Southeast Asia’s most-visited country

Local English-language daily the Bankok Post was quick to react, printing  a scathing editorial saying that the government sees farang (a Thai term for foreigner) as “nothing more than walking ATMs.” Ticket prices jumped from 40 to 50 baht (US$1.53)  for locals, while the tourist fee doubled from 200 to 400 baht (US$12.25).

The Post added that this increase “might not deter a tourist or a family from visiting Thailand, but it has already deterred visits to attractive sites, and it has brought the “government into disrepute as racist and greedy”. It went on to critique the government practice of printing the prices for locals in Thai script, which the author deemed to be a “sneaky… trick.”

Richard Barrow — a popular travel blogger who has written extensively about Thailand’s tourism industry — agrees with the Post on this point, telling Asian Correspondent: “They are welcome to charge foreigners a higher price if they wish. However, they should be honest about this and show the two prices in English script… whenever they want to hide the real price, they write it in the rarely used Thai script. This is dishonest and is done with the intention of deceiving foreigners.”

Richard Forsyth — a professor at the London School of Economics and Science who spent half a decade researching environmental and tourism issues in Thailand — also concurs, telling Asian Correspondent that“farang taxes” should be transparent by displaying “the purpose of the money… at the point of entry.” He adds that industry officials should further consider the overall ticket price: “The difference in cost between foreigner and Thai should not be excessive. Two hundred baht seems okay for a national treasure, but not 400… this would make a difference because the process would appear fairer and more reasonable.”

But Forsyth adds that other aspects of the Post editorial are “extreme”, because it fails to question the potential benefits, or necessities, of dual pricing at tourist sites. He says critics of the practice should consider “how would people feel if a national treasure were being damaged by millions of visitors and there was no plan to protect it?… A tourist tax is usually considered reasonable if allowing tourists free access to important sites puts pressure on them and degrades them… (But) if the site (appears to be) ripping off tourists, rather than using a reasonable charge, then I am not surprised that people get upset.”

Steeper tourist fees have long been a contentious issue among visitors to Thailand. In October The Nation ran an editorial titled, ‘Dual-pricing is scaring tourists away’. It noted that not only national parks but also famed temples, like Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), charge foreigners while admitting locals for free. The author added that this dual pricing system is also utilised by market vendors and taxi drivers, creating a “two-tier” economy that tarnishes Thailand’s reputation as “the land of smiles” and contributed to its 10.7 percent drop in total visitors last year.

But Forsyth balks at that claim, before listing off several factors in the 2014 tourist decline that were far more pressing than dual pricing: “It is probably due to the coups, … and the damage done to Thailand’s reputation when two British tourists were murdered on Koh Tao. … Events like this seem more important. Ticket prices seem like a red herring.”

The Nation article did concede that Thailand’s 2014 tourism woes were mostly due to political turmoil, but it went on to add: “If we are serious about attracting more visitors to the Kingdom, we need to… curb the practices of overcharging and dual-pricing.”

Such gripes are not exclusive to newspaper columnists —  travellers have also complained about the price increases. Khao Yai National Park’s TripAdvisor page features critical comments from users like ‘ottawaonthego’ who wrote in the comments section that “…when we got there we realized that the entry fee for Thai’s is 40 baht, and for foreigners it’s 400  baht…. I know it’s not a lot of money, but make it fair and you’ll attract a lot more tourists.”

Other expats dismiss such gripes. A post on the tourist site IntoPhuket points out that travellers can easily shoulder 400 baht tickets in order to provide “the necessary funds” to keep these attractions open. The author added “…foreigners most likely can afford the higher rate… How terrible would it be to be born a Thai citizen into this beautiful country, but be unable to visit many of the places here because admission is too high?” He went on to add that the average Thai citizen earns 6,000 baht per month, a total that is spent by most tourists within the first few days of their visit.

Forsyth adds that Thailand is not the only country that uses dual pricing. He says: “I don’t think it is ‘silly’ or unprecedented to charge more for tourists. Indeed, in the UK and France at the moment there is strong criticism where ‘foreigners’ are considered to be accessing domestic services without an extra charge… nationals feel abused while paying taxes to build something that ‘free-riding travellers’ can gain from.”

Barrow went on to tell Asian Correspondent that while big attractions like Wat Pho may make massive profits from farang visitors, other sites may actually lose money by overcharging expats. He adds: “Take the example of an average national park. Maybe only a 100 or so foreigners will visit in one year compared to thousands of Thais. A higher admission fee won’t result in much more profit. But it will contribute greatly to ill will against the park, and there will also be a number of people who will refuse to go out of principal.”

He added: “How far are they prepared to go with this? Two prices for cinemas because movies back home are more expensive? Higher fares on airplanes because foreigners on average are heavier? I would like to say it is unconstitutional to discriminate against people based on the colour of their skin. But then, Thailand no longer has a constitution. It was ripped up. I just hope that the new one will have a little paragraph that protects the rights of visitors to Thailand. After all, Thais are world-renowned to be kind and hospitable hosts. Charging a higher price to your guests is just greedy and creates ill-will.”

NOTE: Foreigners residing in Thailand pay the local rate at national parks and other attractions if they produce a work permit or a Thai driving license at point of entry.

The post Dual-Pricing In Thailand: Should Foreigners Really Pay More? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Things are not going well for Climate Chaos, Inc. The Environmental Protection Agency is implementing its carbon dioxide regulations, and President Obama wants to make more Alaska oil and gas prospects off limits. But elsewhere the climate alarm industry is under siege – and rightfully so.

Shortly after Mr. Obama warned him of imminent climate doom, Prime Minister Modi announced that India would double coal production, to bring electricity to 300 million more people. Hydraulic fracturing has launched a new era of petroleum abundance, making it harder to justify renewable energy subsidies.

Global warming predictions have become increasingly amusing, bizarre and disconnected from real-world climate and weather. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has confessed that its true goal is transforming the world’s economy and redistributing its wealth. More people are realizing that the actual problem is not climate change, which has been ongoing throughout history; it is costly policies imposed in the name of preventing change: policies that too often destroy jobs, perpetuate poverty and kill people.
Those perceptions are reinforced by recent studies that found climate researchers have systematically revised actual measured temperatures upward to fit a global warming narrative for Australia, Paraguay, the Arctic and elsewhere. Another study, “Why models run hot: Results from an irreducibly simple climate model,” concluded that, once discrepancies in IPCC computer models are taken into account, the impact of CO2-driven manmade global warming over the next century (and beyond) is likely to be “no more than one-third to one-half of the IPCC’s current projections” – that is, just 1-2 degrees C (2-4 deg F) by 2100! That’s akin to the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods and would be beneficial, not harmful.

Written by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates and William Briggs, the study was published in the January 2015 Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Incredibly, it has already received over 10,000 views – thousands more than most scientific papers ever receive.

Instead of critiquing the paper, climate alarmists attacked its authors. Climate Investigations Center executive director (and former top Greenpeace official) Kert Davies told the Boston Globe it “simply cannot be true” that the authors have no conflict of interest over their study, considering their alleged industry funding sources and outside consulting fees. Davies singled out Dr. Willie Soon, saying the Harvard researcher received more than $1 million from companies that support studies critical of manmade climate change claims. An allied group launched a petition drive to have Dr. Soon fired.

Davies’ libelous assertions have no basis in fact. Not one of these four authors received a dime in grants or other payments for researching and writing their climate models paper. Every one of them did the work on his own time. The only money contributed to the Science Bulletin effort went to paying the “public access” fees, so that people could read their study for free.

I know these men and their work. Their integrity and devotion to the scientific method are beyond reproach. They go where their research takes them and refuse to bend their science or conclusions to secure grants, toe a particular line on global warming, or fit industry, government or other viewpoints.

Regarding Dr. Soon’s supposed “track record of accepting energy-industry grants,” the $1 million over a period of years went to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which took around 40% of the total off the top, for “overhead.” The details are all open public records. Not a dime went to this paper.

But since Davies raised the issues of money, conflicts of interest, failures to disclose financing, and how money supposedly influences science – let us explore those topics from the other side of the fence.

Climate Crisis, Inc. has a huge vested interest in climate alarmism – not merely part of $1 million over a ten-year span, but hundreds of billions of dollars in government, industry, foundation and other money during the past couple decades. Some of it is open and transparent, but much is hidden and suspect.

Between 2003 and 2010, the US government alone spent over $105 billion in taxpayer funds on climate and renewable energy projects. The European Union and other entities spent billions more. Most of the money went to modelers, scientists, other researchers and their agencies and universities; to renewable energy companies for subsidies and loan guarantees on projects that receive exemptions from endangered species and human health laws and penalties that apply to fossil fuel companies; and even to environmental pressure groups that applaud these actions, demand more and drive public policies.

Billions more went to government regulators, who coordinate many of these activities and develop regulations that are often based on secretive, deceptive pre-ordained “science,” sue-and-settle lawsuits devised by con artist John Beale, and other tactics. Politicians receive millions in campaign cash and in-kind help from these organizations and their unions, to keep them in office and the gravy train on track.

The American Lung Association supports EPA climate policies – but never mentions its $25 million in EPA grants over the past 15 years. Overall, during this time, the ALA received 591 federal grants totaling $43 million, Big Green foundations bankrolled it with an additional $76 million, and EPA paid $181 million to 15 of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members who regularly vote with it.

Far-left donors like the David and Lucille Packard Foundation (computers), Schmidt Family Foundation (Google), Rockefeller Brothers Fund (oil), Marisla Foundation (oil) and Wallace Global Fund II (farming) support Greenpeace and other groups that use climate change to justify anti-energy, anti-people policies. A gas company CEO and New York mayor gave Sierra Club $76 million for its anti-coal campaign.

For years, Greenpeace has used Desmogblog, ExxonSecrets, Polluterwatch and other front-group websites to attack scientists and others who challenge its tactics and policies. Greenpeace USA alone had income totaling $32,791,149 in 2012, Ron Arnold and I note in Cracking Big Green.

Other U.S. environmental pressure groups driving anti-job, anti-people climate policies also had fat-cat 2012 incomes: Environmental Defense Fund ($111,915,138); Natural Resources Defense Council ($98,701,707); Sierra Club ($97,757,678); National Audubon Society ($96,206,883); Wilderness Society ($24,862,909); and Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection ($19,150,215). All told, more than 16,000 American environmental groups collect total annual revenues of over $13.4 billion (2009 figures). Only a small part of that comes from membership dues and individual contributions.

As Richard Rahn and Ron Arnold point out, another major source of their cash is Vladimir Putin’s Russia. A well-documented new Environmental Policy Alliance report shows how tens of millions of dollars from Russian interests apparently flowed from Bermuda-based Wakefield Quinn through environmental bundlers, including the Sea Change Foundation, into major eco-pressure groups like the Sierra Club, NRDC and League of Conservation Voters. Former White House counsel John Podesta’s Center for American Progress also took millions from Sea Change.

It gets even more outrageous. One of the websites attacking Dr. Soon is funded by George Soros; it works hard to gag meteorologists who disagree with climate alarmists. And to top it off, Davies filed a FOIA request against Dr. Soon and six other climate scientists, demanding that they release all their emails and financial records. But meanwhile he keeps his Climate Investigations Center funding top secret (the website is registered to Greenpeace and the Center is known to be a Rainbow Warriors front group) – and the scientists getting all our taxpayer money claim their raw data, computer codes and CO2-driven algorithms are private property, and exempt from FOIA and even U.S. Congress requests.

By all means, let’s have honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability – in our climate science and government regulatory processes. Let’s end the conflicts of interest, have robust debates, and ensure that sound science (rather than government, foundation or Russian cash) drives our public laws and policies.

And let’s begin where the real money and power are found.

The post Vilifying Realist Science And Scientists – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — A tense summit in Minsk between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France dragged on through the night and into the morning of February 12 as they wrangled over a plan to end 10 months of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The meeting in the Belarusian capital is being attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande.

By 0800 local time (0600 Prague time) the talks held at the opulent presidential palace in Minsk had gone beyond the 12-hour mark.

An unnamed source told western media that there was “hope” an agreement would be signed soon.

Reuters quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying the four leaders will sign a document on solving the conflict. The source would not provide details of the nature of the document.

TASS reported that the document covers 12 or 13 points.

Before the four-way talks began, Poroshenko was quoted as saying they were the last chance to end the conflict.

According to the Interfax news agency, he said: “Either there is deescalation, a cease-fire, and a withdrawal of heavy weapons, or the situation gets out of control.”

The four leaders held a number of rounds of closed-door talks, first among themselves, then with their foreign ministers and top aides, and then again without aides.

The German Foreign Ministry said that the talks are “not easy and continuing,” adding that minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is delaying his departure for a planned trip to Brazil.

By contrast, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier that the talks were going “better than super.”

Ukrainian presidential aide Valeriy Chaly said in a Facebook post early on February 12 that the talks could continue for at least another five to six hours.

Chaly said, “we should not leave here without an agreement on an unconditional cease-fire. There’s a battle of nerves under way.”

Earlier, a senior Ukrainian diplomatic source told French news agency AFP that the talks were making “progress” but also proving “very hard.”

Another source close to the discussions had said the leaders hoped to sign a joint statement calling for the fulfilment of an earlier failed peace plan signed by Kyiv and the rebels in September, also in Minsk.

The September deal has been shattered by daily fighting, and hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed in the past four weeks in an upsurge of hostilities that the United States says is the result of a “Russian-backed offensive.”

At the start of the talks, television footage from the venue showed a grim-looking Poroshenko shaking hands briefly with Putin at the start of the talks.

Prospects for a breakthrough at the meeting were clouded by continued fighting and conflicting interests in a war that has killed more than 5,350 people since April and sparked the tensest standoff between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

However, hopes for a deal were raised by the news that the top separatist leaders, Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, arrived February 11 in Minsk. Andrei Purgin of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic told German news agency dpa that the two will sign an agreement if the talks are successful.

The meeting is part of a diplomatic push initiated by Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, who took new proposals to Kyiv and Minsk last week in a desperate effort to find a solution to the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists.

A Ukrainian delegation source told Reuters that the four leaders are planning to sign a joint declaration supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The source said a separate document would be prepared by the three-way Contact Group comprising Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) affirming commitment to the September cease-fire agreement.

Western diplomats warn that the sides remain deadlocked over key issues and Poroshenko said before the talks he could introduce martial law throughout the country if the Minsk talks fail to stop the war.

Meanwhile, news reports said at least two people were killed in two separate incidents on February 11 in Donetsk, one of two rebel-held strongholds in eastern Ukraine.

Pro-Russian authorities said at least one person was reported killed when an artillery shell hit a hospital in the city in the evening.

Earlier, witnesses said at least one person was killed when a shell hit a bus station in the center of the city.The rebels put the death toll in that incident at five.

Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told a briefing on February 11 that 17 armed forces servicemen and two Interior Ministry troops had been killed in shelling, rocket attacks, and clashes with rebel forces near Debaltseve, a government-held pocket astride a junction between Donetsk and Luhansk.

He said 78 others had been wounded.

Rebels have been trying to drive government troops from Debaltseve for at least a month in an effort to gain more ground, and on February 10 they said they had completely encircled the town.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke separately by telephone with Putin and Poroshenko on February 10.

The White House said that in the call to Putin, Obama reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, emphasized the importance of reaching a diplomatic resolution, and urged the Russian president to seize the opportunity for the Minsk talks to bring an end to the conflict.

“However, if Russia continues its aggressive actions in Ukraine, including by sending troops, weapons, and financing to support the separatists, the costs for Russia will rise,” the White House said in a statement.

Russia denies sending troops or weapons to Ukraine despite what Kyiv and the West say is incontrovertible evidence of its direct military involvement.

The conflict erupted after Russia seized control over Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March, following the flight of a Moscow-backed Ukrainian president from Kyiv after months of protests over his decision to scrap plans to sign a landmark agreement with the European Union.

Kyiv and Western governments believe Russia wants to weaken Ukraine and keep it out of NATO by maintaining a “frozen conflict” in the east for years to come, and fear Putin could potentially support a rebel push to seize a swath of territory stretching from Donetsk to Crimea.

The post Agreement Soon? Ukraine Talks Stretch Through The Night appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr Subhash Kapila*

The global community would prefer a G-2 combination of the United States and Russia, a combination which held world peace throughout the tumultuous Cold War era. However the United States prefers a G-2 combination of USA and China.

The G-2 combination of the United States and China was first mooted by former US National Security Adviser Zbignew Brzezinski at a non-official conclave in Beijing sometime in mid-June 2009. This advocacy was based on the premise that the world’s only superpower and the world’s most prominent rising power could cooperate in joint management of global and Asian security. It was echoed by President Obama sometime thereafter. China at that time however did not warm up to the idea presumably reading the Asian political environment.

Curiously, after the lapse of five years or so, it is China now that has emerged as an active proponent of a US-China G-2 combine for security management especially in the turbulent Asia Pacific region.

China’s active espousal of the US-China G-2 combine for security management of the Asia Pacific raises a number of vexing questions in terms of timing and intent. Also needing examination is the larger question of whether in the Asia Pacific capitals this US-China G-2 concept would be strategically and politically acceptable.

Further, examination would also be in order as to what impels the United States’ strategic preference for China as opposed to a more logical strategic combination of a US-Russia G-2 combination.

The Asia Pacific security environment today stands churned up by China’s military brinkmanship and aggressive activities in the South China Sea and East China Sea region. In Asian capitals China is no longer perceived as a benign stakeholder in Asian security. Does China seriously consider that its born-again espousal of US-China G-2 concept would assist the retrieval of the threat perceptions generated in Asian capitals? Has China given a go-by to the US strategic pivot to Asia Pacific prompted by a rising Chinese military threat in the region? China seems to be playing on American propensities to grab every dubious opportunity it throws at the United States, irrespective of the repercussions in Asian capitals.

Intentions’ reading is a difficult subject. However, on the face of it, it is apparent that China is addressing multiple intentions in this direction. Overall, any even marginal secondment of the US-China G-2 combination by USA confers on China a “strategic equivalence” with the United States. This provides it with leverages in its dealings with Russia, Japan and India besides other Asian capitals. In one stroke the United States by joining in such a strategic enterprise with China could alter the emerging ‘balance of power’ in Asia presently tilting against China. China could then lunge back at the United States itself.

A US-China G-2 combination could also be intended by China that it be let loose in Central Asia by United States permissiveness to follow its strategic designs to emerge as a Eurasian power. The United States may be tempted to let loose China in Central Asia to offset Russian ambitions in its former republics.

Coming to the larger question of whether a US-China G-2 combination for security management of Asia would be acceptable in Asian capitals the evident answer while reading the Asian security environment in which the China Threat is palpable, the answer is a resounding and decisive NO.

China’s not-so-peaceful military rise and its military aggression in recent times from the Himalayas to the Seas of the Western Pacific has generated “severe strategic distrust” of China in the Asia Pacific. Asian countries would evidently not be inclined to accept a US-China G-2 combine, notwithstanding United States accepting and jointly putting into operation such a security management combination with China.

It is for this reason that indigenous strategic coalitions minus the USA and China would most likely emerge which stands reflected in my papers presented at International Conferences and published on this website thereafter.

The last issue which needs examination is as to why the United States prefers a US-China G-2 combination for global and Asian security management as opposed to the more logical US-Russia G-2 combine? There are a number of reasons for this beginning with the more obvious one of US- Russia global rivalry with Russia having the potential of regaining its erstwhile bi-polar status with the United States.

The United States in a US-China G-2 combination is more comfortable with China as China can only operationally function as a junior partner of such a combine with glaring strategic asymmetries in relation to the United States.

With China seeking “strategic equivalence” with the United States through a US-China G-2 commination it seems unlikely that China would accede to this combination unless the United States cedes to China the strategic equivalence that it seeks.

A US-Russia G-2 combine is a more workable strategic combination for both global security management and management of Asian security. It stood the test of time during the challenging Cold War era where regional conflicts were confined to limited conflicts by the virtually evenly managed bipolar global security architecture and its management of global security.

Concluding it needs to be pointed out for the US security establishment that Russia despite visceral American strategic dislike is a more predictable strategic entity than China. It was that predictability that led to a more workable global and Asian security management.

*Dr Subhash Kapila is a graduate of the Royal British Army Staff College, Camberley and combines a rich experience of Indian Army, Cabinet Secretariat, and diplomatic assignments in Bhutan, Japan, South Korea and USA. Currently, Consultant International Relations & Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. He can be reached at drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com

The post Global Security Management: Which ‘G-2′ Will Global Community Prefer? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

According to a new United Nations report, the Taliban are increasingly involved in criminal activities, including drug trafficking, illegal mining, nexus with mafia groups and kidnapping for ransom, causing new concerns for efforts to restore security and normalcy in the nation.

The report indicates that the Taliban are increasingly acting more like “gangsters” than a “government in waiting”, adding that ransoms paid to the Taliban for international hostages amount to at least $16 million. According to the experts, the Taliban also extort between $240-$360 thousand a year from truck-drivers transporting semi-precious stones away from the mines situated in an area prevalently inhabited by Tagiko. “The scale and depth of this co-operation is new, and builds on decades of interaction between the Taliban and others involved in criminal behaviour”, says the report.

The experts indicate that this new trend “has real consequences for peace and security in Afghanistan” because it encourages Taliban members reaping the greatest financial benefits “to oppose any meaningful process of reconciliation with the new government”. The panel of experts therefore urges the UN Security Council to intensify its use of sanctions “to expose and disrupt Taliban involvement in, and links to, criminal activity”.

The post Afghanistan: Taliban Increasing Ties With Organized Crime appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The International Court of Justice has chose to remain confined within the dictates of the 1948 Genocide Convention, instead of expanding its scope through proactive judicial activism. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for instance, in its Akayesu judgment, demonstrated that it was possible to expand the definition; ruling that rape and sexual violence also constitute genocide. The case of Croatia-Serbia is therefore a missed opportunity for the ICJ.

By Kirthi Jayakumar*

The International Court of Justice recently closed one chapter of the long-running dispute between Serbia and Croatia. Croatia had contended that Serbia was guilty of genocide during its war of independence from the erstwhile SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) from 1991 until 1995 – at which point the SFRY occupied one-third of Croatia’s territory. Serbia countered that Croatia was guilty of genocide during the 1995 Croat offensive, known as ‘Operation Storm’. In its ruling, the 17-member panel of judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that neither side was guilty of genocide, although serious crimes were committed between 1991 and 1995.

Fifteen years after the dispute was brought to the court, justice appears to take on shades of diplomacy. This not only reiterates the need to reform international judicial institutions, but to reconsider the definition and scope of the term genocide. Furthermore, the ICJ’s decision reflects a continuing sacrifice of justice in pursuit of peace; without the far-sighted understanding that true and sustainable peace can only come if built on the foundations of justice.

Is the ICJ redundant?

The ICJ has jurisdictional control over UN member states only if they consent to being bound by its jurisdiction. The consent-based jurisdiction clause was an attempt to retain the sovereign equality of states in international relations. The decisions of the court do not even have a precedential value – given that they do not bind anyone other than the parties to the decision. Concluding that the ICJ is not an overarching power is not, therefore, entirely wrong; even though it has the primary responsibility for settling disputes between states on the principles of law, equity, justice and good conscience.

On occasion, given the nature of the field in which it operates, the ICJ is called upon to decide on essentially political differences between two states. Sometimes these issues touch upon a question of law – which when expounded upon becomes a judgment that is nothing like domestic legal disputes, where court interpretations become a part of the law itself. One of these instances, it appears, is the recent case between Croatia and Serbia.

In deciding that neither country is liable for genocide, one of two things has happened. Either the ICJ missed an opportunity to explain the law in a manner that it extends to penalizing the crime it was set out to; or, it really is an egregious failing in itself by succumbing to a political calling. The Genocide Convention of 1948 definition of genocide refers to the destruction of a group or a part of a group with the intention to destroy the group using one of these five essential elements, namely:

• killing of the members of an ethnic, national, racial or religious group; or
• inflicting serious bodily or mental harm on the members of the group; or
• deliberately causing such life conditions for the group with the aim its physical partial or overall destruction; or
• imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or
• forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The ICJ ruled that neither side was liable for genocide, in-line with the above mentioned elements. Between 1991 and 1995, approximately 20,000 were killed. Deciding that the killings did not constitute genocide, yet asking both sides to proceed towards offering reparations to the victims of such violations, is nothing short of blowing hot and cold. By allowing a slip between the cup and lip purely on technical interpretations of the law, the ICJ has effectively withheld a judicial perspective and instead offered a diplomatic win-win response that ignores justice. It drives home a rather sad truth – that the approximately 20,000 deaths in the conflict will remain unaccounted for. The ICJ had a window of opportunity to expound the law, and to look at the larger interests of the global community in its progress towards peace built on the edifice of justice.

In not taking this opportunity, the ICJ either made a deliberate choice to remain confined within the dictates of the 1948 law as opposed to expanding its scope through proactive judicial activism; or an inherent incapacity to serve the purpose it was created for – by remaining apolitical. It isn’t necessarily true that the ICJ cannot afford to expand the meaning of the term – the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda expanded the scope of the definition in its ruling in the Akayesu judgment, where it held that rape and sexual violence constitute genocide.

Should we redefine genocide?

The 1948 Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide. As mentioned above, the definitive scope is broken down into five elements that need fulfilling. It is important, as in most crimes, that there be both – an actus reus (an outward act) and a mens rea (an intention to commit the act). Genocide is carried out with an intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national or an ethnic group, through a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In straitjacketing the structure and dimensions of the term genocide, the focus becomes very narrow. The convention’s definition of genocide includes only four groups that were victims at a time when the Second World War ended – while the scope and dimensions of target communities in genocidal policies have expanded. Second, genocide is not about the numbers – whatever may have been the intended scope of the definition in its original form, currently, the offence has been perceived with numbers in mind. Genocides can be small or large in number – and the way the term group is defined and perceived can alter the way the crime itself is treated. Without too many specifics being listed, the wide net that is cast is a loophole in itself, easy to escape the rubric of the law. Another hazy area in the definition of genocide is the deciphering of intent – given that it is rather difficult to identify the intention, it must be clear from the nature of the act itself.

Peace without Justice

The immediate impact of the ICJ’s decision is that it is disparaging to sustainable peace between both nations. In situations where people fear reprisals and an immediate relapse into war, amnesty is given in exchange for undisturbed peace. But this is a band-aid; the undercurrent of unresolved tensions remains. The peace process will invariably suffer. If the foundations aren’t strong, then there will be great difficulties in arriving at a consensus on the reparations that are to be awarded. The ICJ ruling could have assisted reconciliation between both nations. Whilst restorative and transitional justice are making inroads in the hope of settling things with amity, this decision could be equivalent to pressing the undo button. The ICJ has chosen to remain confined within the dictates of the 1948 Genocide Convention, instead of expanding its scope through proactive judicial activism. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for instance, in its Akayesu judgment, demonstrated that it was possible to expand the definition; ruling that rape and sexual violence also constitute genocide. The case of Croatia-Serbia is therefore a missed opportunity for the ICJ.

*Kirthi Jayakumar is a Lawyer, specialized in public international law and human rights. A graduate of the School of Excellence in Law, Chennai, Kirthi has diversified into research and writing on public international law and human rights. She has worked as a UN Volunteer, specializing in human rights research in Africa, India and Central Asia and the Middle East. She also runs a journal and consultancy that focuses on international law, called A38.

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By Daniel Tost

(EurActiv) — Jewish associations are criticizing the composition of a new anti-Semitism commission in Germany’s Internal Affairs Ministry, made up entirely of non-Jews. But the Ministry responded it is “quite confident” it will be able to make the group more inclusive.

Leading Jewish academics and anti-Semitism experts have issued sharp criticism over the composition of the German Internal Affairs Ministry’s (BMI) new anti-Semitism commission.

The group of experts does not include representatives with a certain expertise and Jewish perspectives, causing the Moses Mendelssohn Centre, the American Jewish Committee and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation to make plans to assemble an alternative expert commission.

So far, eight academics and educators have been named by the German Interior Ministry to serve on the expert working group on anti-Semitism, which met for the first time on 19 January. None of them, however, were of Jewish origin.

Julius Schoeps, founding director of the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish studies in Potsdam, spoke of a “unique scandal”.

“The members of the German Bundestag and the Federal Minister of the Interior must address the question as to why guiding German anti-Semitism researchers are left out of this body, and why apparently no value is placed on the expertise and counsel of Jewish academics and analysts from the Jewish organizations and communities,” Schoeps commented.

“Nobody would have considered creating a conference on Islamophobia without Muslim representatives, or a roundtable on the discrimination of women without women,” the chairwoman of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Anetta Kahane, pointed out.

Stephan Kramer, the American Jewish Committee’s European commissioner for anti-Semitism, indicated a lack of political implementation of previous recommendations for action.

“Since 2011, the report from the first expert commission has been available to us. But instead of serious political dealings with the ideas and concerns, the work of these experts is collecting dust in a drawer. The fight against anti-Semitism should not be depleted on claims of solidarity and warnings in commemorative addresses but, rather, must finally be followed by active political deeds,” Kramer criticized.

On Tuesday (10 February), the Moses Mendelssohn Centre, the American Jewish Committee and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation announced their intention to establish their own “Expert Commission on Anti-Semitism” with individuals from academia and with practical experience. The group would feature cooperation among both distinguished Jewish and non-Jewish experts from Germany and abroad.

A spokesman from the Internal Affairs Ministry explained on Wednesday (11 February) in Berlin, that religious affiliation was not a criteria for selecting the group of experts. The idea was never to exclude Jewish associations, he said.

“Now we have taken notice of the fact that the associations also expressed an interest to join in the group of experts,” the spokesman explained.

The wishes of Jewish associations will be evaluated “sympathetically and without expectations regarding the outcome. [They will be] processed in appropriate talks with the associations and the German Bundestag”, he said.

Surely it will be possible to expand the expert group to include a representative from that background, the spokesman pointed out.

“Calls for a Jewish voice in the group of experts against anti-Semitism are justified,” said Green Party politician Volker Beck, speaking to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

“We as members of the Bundestag overlooked that. The ‘mistake’ should now be ‘jointly corrected’,” Beck added.

But Schoeps was not satisfied. “This cannot be patched up with cosmetic operations,” he contended. The expert group must now be “completely dissolved and newly conceptualized”, he said.

Schoeps said he could not imagine that “anyone is still joining in from the Jewish side”, he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Merkel: anti-Semitic attacks in Germany are a “disgrace”

At the end of January, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the threats to Jews in Germany a disgrace and proclaimed it a duty of the state to protect them.

Particularly after the Holocaust, for which Germany is responsible, it is “wonderful” that more than 100,000 Jews are at home in Germany again, Merkel said.

She spoke in Berlin at a commemorative event on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“But not only a few Jews fear insults or even attacks in our country – and unfortunately not without reason,” Merkel criticized.

“It is a disgrace, that people are mobbed or attacked in Germany, if they somehow show a sign of being a Jew or if they side with the state of Israel,” she continued. The fact that synagogues and Jewish institutions must be under police protection hangs as a shadow over Germany.

Two evils can be seen in our time, Islamist terrorism and anti-Semitism, she said, referring to the attacks in Paris against Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.

Without directly referring to the anti-Islamist Pegida demonstrations in Dresden and elsewhere, Merkel said, “we’ve got to constantly be on guard to protect our freedom, democracy and rule of law. We’ve got to expose those who promote prejudices and conjure up bogeymen, the old ones as well as the new”.

Fifty years after taking up diplomatic relations, 36% of Germans have a positive opinion and 48% have a negative opinion on Israel. This was revealed by a study published by the Bertelsmann Foundation at the end of January.

Among 18-29 year-old Germans, 54% viewed Israel in a negative light, the study showed. Positions regarding the Israeli government were particularly critical, with 62% of Germans showing a negative opinion. As a result, the position of Germans towards Israel is more dismissive than that of Jewish Israelis towards Germany.

According to the study, the perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a growing influence on Germans’ image of Israel. 74% of Israelis and 61% of Germans agree that Germany holds a particular responsibility due to its history.

But expectations over how German politicians should approach this responsibility are divided. 84% of Israelis hope for political support from the German government in the Middle East conflict, while 1 in 2 Germans rejects this prospect. 82% of Israelis are in favour of German weapons shipments to their country, but 68% of Germans are against such shipments.

Translated from German by Erika Körner

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Carbon stored in an isolated reservoir deep in the Southern Ocean re-connected with the atmosphere, driving a rise in atmospheric CO2 and an increase in global temperatures, according to a study  published in Nature. The finding gives scientists an insight into how the ocean affects the carbon cycle and climate change.

Atmospheric CO2 levels fluctuate from about 185 parts-per-million (ppm), during ice ages, to around 280 ppm, during warmer periods like today (termed interglacials). The oceans currently contain approximately sixty times more carbon than the atmosphere and that carbon can exchange rapidly (from a geological perspective) between these two systems (atmosphere-ocean).

Joint lead author Dr. Miguel Martínez-Botí from the University of Southampton said, “The magnitude and rapidity of the swings in atmospheric CO2 across the ice age cycles suggests that changes in ocean carbon storage are important drivers of natural atmospheric CO2 variations.”

According to joint lead author Dr. Gianluca Marino, from ANU and previously at the ICTA, UAB, “We found that very high concentrations of dissolved CO2 in surface waters of the Southern Atlantic Ocean and the eastern equatorial Pacific coincided with the rises in atmospheric CO2 at the end of the last ice age, suggesting that these regions acted as sources of CO2 to the atmosphere”.

“Our findings support the theory that a series of processes operating in the southernmost sector of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, a region known as the ‘Southern Ocean’, changed the amount of carbon stored in the deep-sea. While a reduction in communication between the deep-sea and the atmosphere in this region potentially locks carbon away from the atmosphere into the abyss during ice ages, the opposite occurs during warm interglacial periods.”

The international team studied the composition of the calcium carbonate shells of ancient marine organisms that inhabited the surface of the ocean thousands of years ago in order to trace its carbon content.

Co-author Dr. Gavin Foster from the University of Southampton said, “Just like the way the oceans have stored around 30 per cent of humanity’s fossil fuel emissions over the last 100 years or so, our new data confirms that natural variations in atmospheric CO2 between ice ages and warm interglacials are driven largely by changes in the amount of carbon stored in our oceans.”

“These results will help to better understanding the dynamics of human-induced CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere since the ocean is an important carbon sink and the largest reservoir of carbon on our planet,” commented co-author Patrizia Ziveri, ICREA professor at the ICTA, UAB.

While these new results support a primary role for the Southern Ocean processes in these natural cycles, we don’t yet know the full story and other processes operating in other parts of the ocean, such as the North Pacific, may have an additional role to play.

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By Nurzhanat Ametbek

Turkey hosted the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors for the first time since it assumed the rotating presidency of the elite global club. Officials gathered in İstanbul, Turkey from February 9-10 to discuss solutions to the debt crisis in Greece and ways to push forward faltering global growth.

The meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors coincides with a time of global economic suffering and hardship that is characterized by uneven growth of the major economies, monetary policy differentiation, and the Greek question in Europe. During the meeting, G20 members tried to come up with a coordinated plan to reverse the current downturn of the global economy, pledging to continue to take action to boost economic growth. Nonetheless, the G20 members still hold divergent opinions on various issues including what kind of policy tools are the most appropriate to achieve their goals and how to deal with Greece’s debt crisis.

On the day of the meeting, the United States urged countries not to devaluate their currencies to stimulate exports. This indicates that Washington will vigilantly stand with its allies in an effort to support economic growth by maintaining and stabilizing exchange rates. US Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew admitted last week that America alone cannot be the sole engine of global economic growth. The United States hopes that the G20 meeting in İstanbul will urge Europe to take on more responsibility in this regard.

President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde released a blog post before the meeting, stating, “There is a lot at stake. Without action, we could see the global economic supertanker continue to be stuck in the shallow waters of sub-par growth and meager job creation.” Her words point to the difficulties currently being faced by the economies of the G20 in creating and expanding new jobs, while her words also indicating that high rates of unemployment will further drag on the world economy as a whole.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) claimed on February 9 that in recent years, G20 governments did not implement the fundamental reforms needed for the promotion of economic growth; thus there is still doubt as to whether or not the G20 will be able to deliver on its promise to increase global economic output.

The OECD’s most recent annual report Going for Growth warned that the growth potential of most developed economies has weakened, and that other economies have been facing long-term stagnation.

The slowdown of China’s economic growth is a foregone conclusion. According to official data of the Chinese authorities, the 2014 economic growth rate of the country reached its lowest level in 24 years. The latest economic figures from the Chinese mainland are not so optimistic either. According to Chinese customs statistics, in January, Chinese exports fell 3.39% from the previous year, while imports declined by 19.9%.

In addition, the collapse of state-owned enterprises and the plight of the real estate market in China has become an undeniable reality. Although doubts have been expressed about the accuracy of relevant economic data, it is generally accepted that China’s economy is experiencing massive downturn.

The fall in the prices of oil has both positively and negatively affected the Chinese economy. On the one hand, the fall in oil prices has caused greater economic slowdown and a rise in unemployment in the country; yet, on the other hand, it has also granted national monetary and fiscal policies a certain amount of respite.

In Europe, economic woes of some EU member states pose numerous risks to the Eurozone. In addition to the devaluation of the Euro, the stagnation of economic growth in the Eurozone and the recent rise to prominence of an anti-austerity party in Greece will lead to further uncertainty for the economy of the monetary union.

Furthermore, the approaches to economic reform adopted by emerging countries such as Brazil, India, and Turkey are still insufficient. Here, reform is limited and outside investment is badly needed. Nonetheless, it is difficult to fully meet these needs with the current oscillation of currencies across the globe.

The state of the global economy is unstable, the oil and stock markets are rapidly fluctuating, Chinese economic growth is slowing, and it is unclear whether or not the United States can lead the way in these economically tumultuous times. These were the major headings that the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors discussed in İstanbul. With the G20 trying to feel the pulse of the world economy, coordination of the member states to promote global economic growth will be key.

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By Elise Harris

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told journalists Tuesday that rumors circulating about a possible assassination attempt on Pope Francis during his visit to the Philippines are unfounded.

“In the last few days there’s been talk of this hypothesis of an assassination attempt during the trip to the Philippines. Cardinal (Luis Antonio) Tagle, who has his good sources, said the information is unreliable,” the spokesman said Feb. 11.

Philippine media have reported that a man affiliated with Al-Qaeda had planned to place a bomb to be detonated along the route of the papal convoy, but police had gotten wind of the plan and altered the route.

Due to Cardinal Tagle’s closeness to the situation in the Philippines as Archbishop of Manila, Fr. Lombardi agreed that the rumors are “unfounded.”

Fr. Lombardi’s comments came during a press briefing on activities of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, who are meeting this week to discuss matters of Church governance and reform.

Pope Francis traveled to the Philippines Jan. 15-19 for an apostolic visit to the country, where he met with victims of the country’s recent typhoons as well as former street children.

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By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The new World Press Freedom Index, surveying the state of media freedom in 2014, has ranked Macedonia at the bottom of the Balkan pile in 117th position out of 180 listed countries.

This is a slight improvement from the previous year when Macedonia was ranked in 123rd place.

“The situation of Macedonia’s media continued to be bad in 2014, a year marked by the misuse of defamation legislation and politically-motivated allocation of state advertising”, the report said.

The authors of the report, Reporters Without Borders, mention that the investigative journalist Tomislav Kezarovski remained under house arrest after being sentenced in October 2013 to four-and-a-half years in prison for revealing the identity of a protected witness.

The report also mentions the fact that in June, police forced several reporters to delete photos and videos of a protest they were covering.

Macedonia is the only Balkan country designated “red”, the colour used for the worst-performing countries in terms of media freedom. All other countries in the region are marked “yellow”, designating “problematic” areas.

Montenegro is ranked in 114th position, the same as in the previous year’s report. The index mentions the January 2014 attack on Lidija Nikcevic, a journalist with the daily newspaper Dan, for which five people were later jailed.

EU member state Bulgaria is in 104th place in the report. “The Financial Oversight Commission, a government agency, has in practice been turned into a media cop. Imposing fines and ordering journalists to reveal their sources, it clearly betrays a government desire to silence media that dare to point out problems in banks and the regulatory system,” the report says about Bulgaria.

Albania is ranked higher in 82nd place, slightly better than the 85th place it had the previous year. Serbia is in 67th position, a fall from the 54th place it had one year ago. Like last year, Bosnia and Herzegovina is in 66th position.

The best ranked countries in the region this year are Romania, ranked in 52nd place, and Croatia, ranked 58th. Kosovo was not included in the list.

In global terms, the World Press Freedom Index again places the three Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway and Denmark in the top three places.

At the other end of the scale, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea are marked as the worst performers.

France is ranked 38th, up one place, the United States 49th, down three places, Japan is 61st, down two places, while Russia is 152th, down four places. China is in 176th place, which is down one place.

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Recent debates on meritocracy have invited questions on what Singapore regards as ‘merit’. There seems to be agreement to expand our understanding of the term to promote more equitability. Several concepts have emerged reflecting how meritocracy is evolving in the Singapore context, such as ‘compassionate meritocracy’, ‘trickle up meritocracy’ and ‘meritocracy through life’.

By Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar*

The 50th anniversary of independence is an opportune time for Singaporeans to deliberate what they understand of the country today and its driving forces, including the idea of meritocracy. Described as a national doxa by some, or a set of core values and discourses taken as truth, meritocracy has been justified as a practice rewarding the hardworking and deserving with economic success and social mobility. The practice of meritocracy is said to have provided equal opportunities to all in a non-discriminatory manner, in Singapore’s multicultural society.

Recent debates, however, have highlighted the side-effects associated with meritocracy in Singapore, which include a widening income gap and elitism. These issues raised largely revolve around how the term ‘merit’ – defined as a quality an individual possesses that is worthy of reward – should be understood and whether the effects of meritocracy are congruent with Singapore’s desire to be an inclusive society. In this regard, these discussions illustrate how Singapore may be undergoing a subtle shift towards more equitability. While meritocracy has benefited Singapore thus far, it is now appears to be evolving according to Singapore’s changing milieu.

Meritocracy well-accepted in Singapore

Meritocracy, as it has been practised in Singapore, largely rewards academically-inclined individuals. This includes being rewarded economically in the workforce and/or socially in terms of status, as academic excellence plays a large role in largely determining one’s career trajectory.

However, the practice of meritocracy has been reviewed and commented on many fronts. Firstly, excessive emphasis on academic achievements may stigmatise the less academically-inclined. Secondly, a widening income gap between the top and bottom earners of the society exists when rewards find more favour with the academically strong over the rest. As such, elitism amongst those who have succeeded in the system is also probable with stratification along educational achievements and class.

Thirdly, meritocracy may have also largely disregarded ‘non-merit factors’. Professors Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr of the University of North Carolina used ‘non-merit factors’ to refer to circumstances that ‘suppress, neutralise, or negate the effects of merit’. This can indemnify inequalities within society, such as having limited social capital or resources.

Markedly though, despite such comments, it would be simplistic to assume Singaporeans disagree with meritocracy. Meritocracy is indeed a cornerstone of Singapore’s success. It would be more appropriate, however, to suggest meritocracy’s negative effects have begun to unravel of late as new challenges develop within society. For example, meritocracy’s non-discrimination principle – while still focused on impartiality by providing equal opportunities for all – should also acknowledge that the less fortunate, able or academically-inclined may not benefit as much within such a system.

As meritocracy necessarily rewards some over others, it may also embed perceptions of some being ‘more equal than others’ – despite assertions of non-discrimination and equal opportunities for all.

The recent emphasis to improve the schools’, polytechnics’ and the Institute of Technical Education’s facilities and role are examples in paving the way towards expanding our understanding of ‘merit’. Another instance is the positive messaging in the 2014 National Day Rally on the contributions of all sections of the Singapore society. Merit is but a principle that can be altered according to the changing needs of society.

Meritocracy: what now?

Several concepts have emerged recently from government leaders and academics exemplifying a renewed effort to contain and soften the negative effects of unchecked meritocracy.

Firstly, ‘compassionate meritocracy’, proposed by Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and reaffirmed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong two years ago, recommends for Singaporeans who have benefitted from the system to contribute back to society and assist the less able and less fortunate. This can be regularly carried out through donations, skills-sharing, or spending time with those in need to encourage them to do better.

Secondly, ‘trickle-up meritocracy’ as suggested by academic Donald Low understands that government redistribution can still complement current practices of meritocracy. This can equalise the effects of non-merit factors by providing resources for less privileged Singaporeans. For example, scholarships for higher education can be offered to promising students who are identified specifically from less affluent backgrounds, to remove any financial worries and encourage continued learning. This would encourage them to properly develop his or her own merit, and provide better opportunities for them to compete.

Thirdly, the government, in a speech last year by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, has proposed ‘meritocracy through life’, for individuals to be evaluated throughout the different phases of their lives in their fields of endeavour. This allows more recognition for different niches, and would ensure that talents are measured on respective yardsticks accordingly as long as one works hard.

The establishment of the Skills Future Council is telling of this commitment; it encourages constant learning by integrating education, training and industry support for career advancement. These initiatives encourage a more holistic understanding of ‘merit’ – one which is beyond academic qualifications, with added emphasis on hard work and competition.

Moving in right direction

These concepts are steps in the right direction. They acknowledge the inequalities that may hinder some from thriving as much as others in an academically-driven meritocracy, and recognise that other niches should be developed to provide more opportunities for Singaporeans to compete.

A more equitable meritocracy would thereby benefit society more comprehensively – first, in providing conducive conditions for the less affluent or less able to compete on more equal grounds, and secondly recognising that there are some who are stronger and more inclined vocationally or in sports or arts, as there are those who are academically-inclined.

In all, there is a case to be made for Singapore’s understanding of ‘merit’ to be enhanced. ‘Compassionate meritocracy’, ‘trickle up meritocracy’ and ‘meritocracy through life’ illustrate how meritocracy is evolving, aimed at equalising opportunities and reducing discrimination to suit a changing Singapore context.

This is pertinent, especially with Singapore’s wish for a more inclusive society overall. Underlying it all is still the fundamental condition that the individual can succeed with hard work. This negotiation on meritocracy is pioneering in galvanising a thorough addressing of the issues affecting meritocracy thus far and should be supported.

*Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar is a Research Analyst with the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.

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