Quantcast
Channel: Eurasia Review
Viewing all 73339 articles
Browse latest View live

Economics Not Impacting Russian Support For Georgian Separatists

0
0

By Paul Rimple*

As the Russian economy tanks, some observers are starting to ask: is the Kremlin now too overstretched to continue supporting Georgia’s separatist entities? The answer so far apparently is no.

With six breakaway client entities now to finance – Abkhazia, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, South Ossetia and Transnistria – the Kremlin’s financial commitments are adding up. But, so far, in the strategic South Caucasus, Moscow’s security interests are outweighing any economic pain that it is feeling.

And the Russian economy surely is reeling. Sanctions introduced by the European Union and United States over Russian aggression in Ukraine, and a retaliatory Russian ban on Western food imports, have caused food prices to skyrocket. A dramatic fall in energy revenue, along with the rapid devaluation of the ruble, is exacerbating the damage. Consumer prices rose 15 percent in January compared to the same period in 2014.

In response, Russia instituted a general 10 percent cut in its 15.513-trillion-ruble (now $236.57 billion) budget for 2015, and this week called for a further 600 billion ($9.15 billion) reduction. Wages and social benefits will be frozen.

Such policy moves are expected to impact both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are home to thousands of Russian troops, and where most residents are Russian citizens. Russia recognized the independence of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the aftermath of its 2008 war with Georgia.

South Ossetia receives over 91 percent of its 7.3-billion-ruble ($111.4 million) budget from Russia. A 2013 study by the International Crisis Group estimated that Russia subsidizes some 70 percent of Abkhazia’s budget, proposed at over 11.75 billion rubles ($179.3 million) for 2015.

But, so far, there are no public indications that cuts are in the offing. “Yes, we have [economic] difficulties, but Russia still has lots of money,” underlined Alexei Mukhin, director of Moscow’s Center for Political Information, a risk-analysis organization. The “format of support” may change, but, “without a doubt,” it will continue to back Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he continued.

South Ossetia, in fact, saw a 19-percent increase in Russian payments (6.675 billion rubles, now $102.89 million) to its 2015 budget. Abkhazia has not yet approved its budget.

The economic problems that are gripping Russia are trickling down to Georgia’s ruble-based breakaways. Abkhaz media outlets, for example, report that food prices are up to 20 percent higher in the territory than in neighboring Russia; alternatives to Russian products are limited to goods imported from Turkey. To deal with increased inflation, Abkhazia’s de-facto National Bank expects to raise interest rates. One source of optimism is that hard times could prompt an increase in tourism for Abkhazia: more Russian visitors would be inclined to take relatively inexpensive vacations in the undeveloped Black Sea region.

South Ossetia, meanwhile, has no tourist industry to fall back on. It faces prices “bounding upward at a gallop,” according to local media, and no alternative to Russia for economic support.

In Tbilisi, which claims both breakaways as its own, Giorgi Volski, head of the governing Georgian Dream’s parliamentary faction, stressed that Georgian officials do not expect the Russians to scale back in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia’s interest in “land with energy resources and transit corridors,” described in its 2009-2020 security strategy as “crucial,” will prevail over any cost burden, he believes.

“The Russian budget is geared to block the West from exploiting these resources and Georgia is one of these places of special interest. South Ossetia and Abkhazia [are] land for it to maintain its military presence in the South Caucasus,” Volski stated.

For all its outrage at Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, however, Georgia has not joined the list of Western countries imposing sanctions against Russia for its separatist activities in Ukraine. Rather, it is counting on the flailing Russian economy to allow it to pursue its own strategic plans with the West, and to avoid further conflict over the two breakaways.

“Our goal has been to not give Russia a pretext for any security escalation and to open up the Russian market to Georgian goods. And this happened to an extent,” said former Defense Minister Irakli Alasania, now a leader of the opposition.

After the Georgian Dream came to power in 2012 on a promise to “normalize” relations with Moscow following the two countries’ 2008 war, Georgia signed a European Union Association Agreement and agreed to establish a NATO training center. “The policy gave us the time and space to work solidly on these issues,” Alasania added.

But other events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia raise doubts about the policy’s success. Even as Moscow and Tbilisi were negotiating the return of Georgian wine to the Russian market in 2013, illegal Russian construction of a de-facto border for South Ossetia, patrolled by Russian soldiers, continued in Georgia.

In 2014, as Georgia saw its fruits and vegetables return to Russia after an eight-year embargo, Moscow signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with separatist Abkhazia that brought the Abkhaz military under Russian command in times of conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the agreement into law on February 4.

Tbilisi has condemned both the Abkhaz and the proposed South Ossetian integration agreements as steps toward Russian annexation of the territories.

To Svante Cornell, director of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy, Russia’s measures demonstrate how Tbilisi’s policy toward Moscow has failed. “The policy made the assumption that the main problem in the relationship was [former President Mikheil] Saakashvili’s policies, and that if Georgia changed its policy, Russia would reciprocate,” Cornell said. “The assumptions are wrong because the ‘prime mover’ in all this was Moscow’s policies aiming at reintegration of the former Soviet space under Russian control.”

Recent events in eastern Ukraine and Crimea suggest that aim has not changed, despite Russia’s economic woes.

*Paul Rimple is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

The post Economics Not Impacting Russian Support For Georgian Separatists appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Marshall Islands Lawsuit Against US Thrown Out Of Court

0
0

By Josh Butler

A lawsuit by the Marshall Islands accusing the United States of failing to begin negotiations for nuclear disarmament has been thrown out of an American court.

The Marshall Islands is currently pursuing actions against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom in the International Court of Justice, for failing to negotiate nuclear disarmament as required in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Action against the U.S. had been filed in a federal court in California, as the United States does not recognise the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonating daily for 12 years.

Despite documented health effects still plaguing Marshallese islanders, U.S. Federal Court judge Jeffrey White dismissed the motion on Feb. 3, saying the harm caused by the U.S. flouting the NPT was “speculative.”

White also said the Marshall Islands lacked standing to bring the case, and that the court’s ruling was bound by the “political question doctrine” – that is, White ruled the question was a political one, not a legal one, and he therefore could not rule for the Marshalls.

Krieger, whose Nuclear Age Peace Foundation supports Marshall Islands in its legal cases, called the decision “absurd.”

“I think it was an error in his decision. There were very good grounds to say the Marshall Islands had standing, and this shouldn’t have been considered a political question,” he told IPS.
Related IPS Articles

Civil Society Support for Marshall Islands Against Nuclear Weapons
Three Minutes Away from Doomsday
Faiths United Against Nuclear Weapons

“The Marshall Islands know very well what it means to have nuclear bombs dropped on a country. They’ve suffered greatly, it’s definitely not speculative.”

The foundation of the multiple cases brought by the Marshall Islands was that the U.S., and other nuclear powers, had not negotiated in good faith to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. White ruled it was “speculative” that the failure of the U.S. to negotiate nuclear non-proliferation was harmful.

Krieger said the Marshalls would appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. He said the decision set a troubling precedent regarding U.S. adherence to international agreements.

“The U.S. does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ, and in this case, the judge is saying another country does not have standing [in an American court]. In essence, it means any country that enters into a treaty with the U.S. should think twice,” he said.

“Another country will be subject to the same decision of the court. Where does that leave a country who believes the U.S. is not acting in accordance with a treaty?

“By side-stepping the case on jurisdictional grounds, the U.S. is essentially saying they will do what they want, when they want, and it’s not up to the rest of the world whether they keep their obligations.”

Krieger said that the judge’s comments about the “speculative” nature of the case meant essentially that a nuclear accident or war would have to break out before such a case for damages could be heard.

“It’s saying a state must wait until some kind of nuclear event, before damages won’t be speculative,” he said. “It’s absurd that the claim that the U.S. has not fulfilled its obligations to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race, is called ‘speculative’ by the judge.”

Marshall Islands had intended to pursue all nine nuclear powers – the U.S., China, Russia, Pakistan, India, the U.K., France, North Korea and Israel – in the ICJ on their failure to negotiate for nuclear non-proliferation.

The Marshall Islands is still pursuing cases in the ICJ against Pakistan, India and the U.K., but John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, said the other cases had stalled as those nations did not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

“The other six states, the Marshall Islands invited and urged them to come before the court voluntarily, which is a perfectly normal procedure, but none of them have done so,” Burroughs told IPS.

Burroughs, also a member of the international team in the ICJ, said China had explicitly said it would not appear before the court.

“Any of those countries could still agree to accept the court’s jurisdiction,” he said.

He said preliminary briefs had been filed in the India and Pakistan cases, with responses due by mid-2015. A brief will be served on the U.K. case in March.

Burroughs said he doubted the decision in U.S. federal court would impact the cases in The Hague.

“I don’t see the decision having any effect at all,” he said.

The post Marshall Islands Lawsuit Against US Thrown Out Of Court appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Smoking Thins Important Part Of Brain

0
0

Years ago, children were warned that smoking could stunt their growth, but now a major study by an international team including the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University and the University of Edinburgh shows new evidence that long-term smoking could cause thinning of the brain’s cortex.

The cortex is the outer layer of the brain in which critical cognitive functions such as memory, language and perception take place. Interestingly, the findings also suggest that stopping smoking helps to restore at least part of the cortex’s thickness.

The study involved 244 male and 260 female subjects—five times larger than any previous similar research on smoking and cortical thickness. Their average age was 73. The test group included current smokers, ex-smokers and non-smokers. All of the subjects were examined as children in 1947 as part of the Scottish Mental Survey. Researchers used health data gathered during recent personal interviews with the subjects, and also analyzed data from MRI scans showing the current state of the subjects’ brain cortices.

“We found that current and ex-smokers had, at age 73, many areas of thinner brain cortex than those that never smoked. Subjects who stopped smoking seem to partially recover their cortical thickness for each year without smoking,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Sherif Karama, assistant professor of psychiatry at McGill University, psychiatrist at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and an affiliate of the Montreal Neurological Institute.

The apparent recovery process is slow, however, and incomplete. Heavy ex-smokers in the study who had given up smoking for more than 25 years still had a thinner cortex.

Although the cortex grows thinner with normal aging, the study found that smoking appears to accelerate the thinning process. A thinner brain cortex is associated with adult cognitive decline.

“Smokers should be informed that cigarettes could hasten the thinning of the brain’s cortex, which could lead to cognitive deterioration. Cortical thinning seems to persist for many years after someone stops smoking,” said Dr. Karama.

The post Smoking Thins Important Part Of Brain appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Stopping At Red Lights Exposes Drivers To High Levels Of Air Pollution

0
0

UK commuters spend an average of about 1.5 hours a day at the wheel. Road vehicles in particular are known to emit polluting nanoparticles which contribute to respiratory and heart diseases. Now, researchers at the University of Surrey have found that where drivers spend just 2% of their journey time passing through traffic intersections managed by lights, this short duration contributes to about 25% of total exposure to these harmful particles.

The team monitored drivers’ exposure to air pollutants at various points of a journey. Signalised traffic intersections were found to be high pollution hot-spots due to the frequent changes in driving conditions. With drivers decelerating and stopping at lights, then revving up to move quickly when lights go green, peak particle concentration was found to be 29 times higher than that during free flowing traffic conditions. As well as concentration, researchers found that as cars tend to be close together at lights, the likelihood of exposure to vehicle emissions is also significantly increased.

“Air pollution was recently placed in the top ten health risks faced by human beings globally, with the World Health Organization linking air pollution to seven million premature deaths every year,” said lead author, Dr Prashant Kumar, from the University of Surrey.

“Our time spent travelling in cars has remain fairly constant during the past decade despite the efforts to reduce it and with more cars than ever joining the roads, we are being exposed to increasing levels of air pollution as we undertake our daily commutes.”

“It’s not always possible to change your route to avoid these intersections, but drivers should be aware of the increased risks at busy lights. The best ways to limit your exposure is to keep vehicle windows shut, fans off and try to increase the distance between you and the car in front where possible. Pedestrians regularly crossing such routes should consider whether there might be other paths less dependent on traffic light crossings. Local transport agencies could also help by synchronising traffic signals to reduce waiting time and consider alternative traffic management systems such as flyovers.”

The post Stopping At Red Lights Exposes Drivers To High Levels Of Air Pollution appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Europe Chasing A Mirage – OpEd

0
0

By Harun Yahya*

History tells us that making tall claims and huge promises is the hallmark of the elements on the left of the political spectrum. The Left has always failed in delivering on its promises. The political ideals and policies of the left-wing, or to be more precise the product of Marxist mindset, have always laid great emphasis on economy but in the times of crises their approach has never proven to be the answer to the problems of those they claim to represent. At the end of the day, people have always felt dejected.

The simple reason behind the miserable failure of the Left is the fact that the spirit of social equality that Marxism claims to strive for is neither practical nor natural. Thus, the end result has always been disappointment. On the surface, the very idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, eliminating socioeconomic inequality and establishment of a fair system, not only appears justified but also an attractive aim. Many, if not all, of those lured by these ideals eventually realized as to what Marxism really aimed at through social equality and lived to regret it.

It appears as if history is repeating itself. People, particularly, Europeans are once again looking toward the Left for the resolution of the ongoing economic crisis. Observers may recall that I have often pointed out that in the wake of economic stagnation in the Eurozone many weaker countries are being seen as a burden or liability on the union. Anti-migrant feelings were soon added to that discontent. They sought to make a few hundred wretched souls, who had sought refuge in these countries in despair, pay the price for the financial crisis in these countries.

Anti-migrant protests began erupting in some European countries so as to bring down unemployment levels from as high as around 40 percent. There was a huge explosion in the vote share of anti-immigration radical parties in the European Parliament elections in May 2014. Yet the level of unemployment in Turkey, which had admitted some two million refugees during that same period and which had a much lower GNP than Europe, was only around 9 percent. So people being unemployed or experiencing material difficulties in prosperous Europe had nothing to do with admitting a few hundred guests.

Some Europeans adopted a false strategy against the economic crisis. They believed that socialist and Marxist talk of social equality could be a savior in such times. The victory of Syriza in Greece, a country on the verge of economic collapse, was perhaps the clearest example of this. While there has been much discussion of the Marxist, atheist Tsipras, there are also other atheist leaders in Europe who have come to power with promises of social equality. These include Zoran Milanovic, president of Croatia, 90 percent of whose population is devout believers, French President Francois Hollande and the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. There are also indecisive ones including Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who does not belief in an eternal life or paradise and hell.

Anyway, everybody is entitled to his/her opinion and is free to follow any ideology. Our purpose here is not to judge people because of their beliefs, but to criticize the way the Europeans are looking for solutions to their economic woes through Marxist and atheism-based policies. The concept of social justice in Marxism is in fact based on a kind of exploitation. The system generally involves a minority, which seizes control of the state and a majority who gives its earnings and labor to the state. Of course, people must be rewarded for their own work. This means that the individual works all the time and under the most difficult conditions, while the elderly, sick and weak people who have no means of work cannot receive any recompense as they are unable to work. That is the main reason why the handicapped and elderly were regarded as burdens in Soviet Russia and Mao’s China.

While people enjoy equal status under this system, it is an equality of increasing poverty. The only group, which is not equal with the masses, is the minority that governs them. In countries running along Marxist lines, the masses are wretched while the minority lives in luxury. That is why the ideal of social equality in Marxism has always ended up in the people being exploited, impoverished and wretched.

It is difficult for this system to become settled in Europe as it stands, but on the basis of their similar mentality and the experience of the past it is clearly illogical to expect a solution to the European economy from Marxist parties. The reason why Europe is being increasingly led toward the scourge of division, why popular levels of dissatisfaction are increasing and why degeneration and protests are growing is not, contrary to what people think, an economic one.

It is in fact the mistaken perspective of liberalism, in which European societies imagine that insults represent freedom of expression and that moral degeneration and irreligion are the height of modernity, which has led to this economic crisis, talk of division and unhappiness. In general terms, Europe’s problem is one of being influenced and even pressurized by a group of people who think that it can become even more modern by turning away from religion. It is utterly futile to expect a solution from Marxism to problems caused by the false liberal perspective.

Let me make this clear, Allah will never, ever allow systems that defy Him to flourish. That is why states founded on Marxist ideology have always collapsed. If Europe thinks that it can achieve peace and prosperity by turning away from religion, its essence and the reason for its existence, then it is sadly mistaken. Europe may have to pay a heavy price for the false fashion of modernity established by turning away from religion and moral values. Lovelessness may become extremely painful, and lack of conscience may become impossible to resolve. Defamation under the guise of freedom of expression and perversion under the guise of modernity may become more widespread. That will devastate Europe, which should be a role model for the world.

People acquire value the more they hold onto their moral values, and are thus able to establish a human society. The social equality that people seek is in fact set out in the Qur’an. Under that system of social equality there is no injustice, and everyone becomes wealthy together, through mutual aid, giving and self-sacrifice. If that is the concept of equality that is desired, then people need religion, not atheistic, Marxist systems. History shows us how expensive mistakes can be. Europe must not fall into that error again.

*The writer has authored more than 300 books translated into 73 languages on politics, religion and science. He tweets @harun_yahya.

The post Europe Chasing A Mirage – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

US Government Debt Now At Once Unimaginable Level – OpEd

0
0

I was looking through some old records, and I came across a flyer for a symposium in which I participated at Seattle University early in 1990. The flyer announced the symposium topic by asking: “A $3 Trillion National Debt: Does It Matter? What Can We Do About It?” The topic seemed timely enough, given that the gross federal debt had just passed the $3 trillion mark for the first time and was rising at a brisk pace. Back then, $3 trillion seemed like “real money,” so some people were rightly concerned about the consequences of such large and growing public indebtedness.

At the time, I occupied the Thomas F. Gleed Chair in the university’s Albers School of Business and Economics. The symposium was sponsored by the Political Science Department and featured three speakers: besides me, there was my friend and colleague Richard Young, a professor of political science, and a political hack by the name of Mike Lowry, who had a loose attachment to the university under the aegis of its Institute of Public Service. Lowry had previously served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and had twice failed in his attempts to gain election to the U.S. Senate. Being a man who almost visibly lusted after high office, however, he did not give up his attempts to get elected to some political position, and in 1992 he managed to get himself elected governor of the state, a position he held for a four-year term (1993-97). A sexual-harassment scandal derailed his desire for reelection as governor. (In Washington state, allegations of sexual harassment go further to ruin a man than such run-of-the-mill offenses as conviction for robbery or murder.)

At the symposium, I spoke before Lowry did, and in my remarks I sought to inform the audience about how public choice analysis sheds light on federal lawmakers’ preference for running up debt, rather than raising enough tax revenue to pay for increases in federal spending. In effect, the members of Congress—and often the president as well—are essentially irresponsible. They know that the ordinary citizen does not understand that debt financing does not substitute for taxes, but only substitutes future taxes for current taxes. (If lenders believed that the government would not levy enough taxes to repay its debts in the future as they come due, they would be unwilling to purchase the government’s bonds today. Of course, it may someday turn out that their confidence in this regard has been misplaced, and the government will in fact default on its obligations, if not outright, then via the creation of inflation that eats away the real value of the nominal sums repaid to lenders.)

As Lowry listened to my remarks, he became rather agitated, and when his turn came to speak, he lashed out angrily at me and others who thought along the same lines about the essential irresponsibility of members of Congress. Having nothing substantive to say by way of refutation, however, he employed huffing and puffing to bulk up his denials of misfeasance and malfeasance and to support his claims in regard to the virtue of the “dedicated public servant” class to which he had only recently belonged and which he hankered to rejoin at the earliest opportunity.

Now that the gross federal debt has surpassed $18 trillion—six times the amount that troubled us back in 1990 (or well more than three times the amount after adjustment for the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar)—we can clearly answer the two questions posed by the symposium’s organizers: yes, a large and growing federal debt does matter; and no, we (the general public) can do nothing about it. The government’s huge annual budget deficits, now lodged at a seemingly irreducible level of at least $400 billion per year for as far as the fiscal eye can see, continue to build up the total debt. The U.S. public is not especially enamored of purchasing so much public debt each year, but as the debt has mounted during the past decade or so foreign purchasers have filled the gap, and more recently the Federal Reserve System has absorbed huge amounts of U.S. bonds into its own portfolio—a financial strategy that is tantamount to the government’s left hand putting newly created money into its right hand, which then expends it as if there were no tomorrow.

More and more people have come to understand that this this way of dealing with the federal fisc cannot continue forever and that a day of reckoning must come sooner or later. The ranks of such people do not include, however, the scoundrels in charge at the Treasury, the Fed, and the Congress who are responsible for this utterly irresponsible, yet seemingly unalterable course of action.

Gross Federal Debt (in millions of current dollars)

Gross Federal Debt (in millions of current dollars)

The post US Government Debt Now At Once Unimaginable Level – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Vietnam-China Relations: No Scapegoat In Year Of The Goat – Analysis

0
0

By Ha Anh Tuan and Thuc D. Pham*

Although the New Year 2015 has come for a couple of months, for nearly one fourth of the world’s population, including the Vietnamese and the Chinese, who celebrate the Lunar New Year as their biggest festive season, the Year of the Goat is approaching. Now is the good time to reflect the outgoing year; forgive any mistake; wish everyone a happy new year, full of health, love, and friendship; and wish every nation a new year full of wealth, peace, and stability.

2014 is a difficult year in Vietnam-China relations. China unilaterally deployed its giant oil rig, CNOOC981, in the waters inside Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf on May 1, 2014, violating Vietnam’s legitimate rights entitled by the international laws. The Vietnamese government and people have firmly objected to this move. Hanoi employed a variety of peaceful measures to resolve the problem and did not rule out the possibility to bring the dispute into an international court. The Vietnamese people took to the streets in Vietnam, and many major cities in the US, Europe, and Australia to protest Beijing’s ploy.

The international community was deeply concerned about Beijing’s unilateral action. The U.S. Department of States spokeswoman Jen Psaki continuously convened press releases and regarded the Chinese move as a “provocative” action and “unhelpful for peace and security in the region”.i Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called on sides to avoid unilateral action. Meanwhile, the deputy spokesman for the United Nation Secretary-General conveyed Secretary-General’s concerns and urged parties to exercise the utmost restraint.ii

The European Union issued a statement expressing concerns about the incident as well as China’s “unilateral actions”.iii Particularly, ASEAN Foreign Ministers showcased their unity by adopting a special statement on May 9, 2014 in Myanmar without directly naming China to “urge all parties concerned, in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982), to exercise self-restraint and avoid actions which could undermine peace and stability in the area; and to resolve disputes by peaceful means without resorting to threat or use of force… and emphasized the need for expeditiously working towards an early conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC).”iv

For its part, China insisted in installing the rig in the mentioned area and safeguarded this structure by declaring a three mile exclusion zone guarded by approximately 80 coast guard and military vessels. Approaching Vietnamese ships were rammed or targeted with water cannons.v The incident led to tensions in the region raising to their highest levels since the end of the Cold War.vi

The incident was only resolved and tensions were defused when China tactically withdrew the rig on July 15, 2014, one month earlier than scheduled. Sino-Vietnamese relations were gradually improved since then. In addition, Vietnam and China are celebrating 65-year diplomatic relations establishment in 2015 and the two countries have made concrete moves to rebuild the bilateral ties. After all, Vietnam and China are destined to be neighbours. Promoting friendly and cooperative relations for mutual benefits is of both sides’ interests.

Territorial dispute in the South China Sea is not expected to be resolved in the near future. China is still one major party in the dispute and how it behaves will have significant impacts on regional security and stability. In fact, Beijing continues its ongoing large-scale reclamation works on several of the seven reefs it occupies in the Spratly Islands, which was initiated in 2014. The reclamation violates the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and the UNCLOS 1982vii to which China is also a party, and fuels tension, suspicion, and instability in the region.

Vietnam and China share a saying that revising what one has experienced would shed more light on understanding the future. The HD981 and other incidents in the past are useful for parties concerned to draw a considerable lesson that any specific strategic calculus must be put on a balance: self-interest on one side and a stable, security environment in the region on the other side. Every party should exercise self-restraint in dealing with the disputes in the South China Sea. Pressing too hard is a two-edge knife, which may cause rebound and cut one’s own interests. The Year of the Goat is generally believed to be stable, amicable and brimming with a strong sense of justice. We wish that this spirit will triumph in the coming year.

*Ha Anh Tuan and Thuc D. Pham are SCS researchers at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of institutions to which the author is attached.

Notes:
i. See The United States Department of States Spokesperson Daily Press Briefing, available on:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/05/225687.htm

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/05/225721.htm

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/05/225831.htm

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/05/225913.htm

ii. See “UN chief urges ‘utmost restraint’ in the East Sea”, Nhan Dan Online, May 10, 2014, available on: http://en.nhandan.org.vn/world/item/2498902-un-chief-urges-
iii. See European Union Action Statement, May 8, 2014, available on: www.eeas.europa.eu/statements/docs/2014/140508_04_en.pdf
iv. See ASEAN Foreign Ministers Statement on the Current Developments in the South China Sea, available on: www.asean.org/news/asean-statement-communiques/item/asean-foreign-ministers-statement-on-the-current-developments-in-the-south-china-sea
v. Vera Dicke and Heike Holbig, “Rising Sino-Vietnamese Tensions in the South China Sea”, GIGA Focus, German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Number 8, 2014, p.2.
vi. Ian Storey, “The Sino-Vietnamese Oil Rig Crisis: Implications for the South China Sea Dispute”, ISEAS Perspective, No. 52, October 15, 2014, p.1.
vii. Robert Beckman, “Large-Scale Reclamation Projects in the South China Sea: China and International Law”, RSIS Commentary, No. 213, October 29, 2014.

The post Vietnam-China Relations: No Scapegoat In Year Of The Goat – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Mending ‘Axis Of Resistance': Hamas Goes Back To Square One – Analysis

0
0

Despite its success in repelling Israeli military advances in Gaza, Hamas’s regional political manoeuvres of recent years are not bearing fruit. Jointly isolated by Israel and other Arab parties, unaided by the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamic Resistance Movement is once again facing difficult choices, and it seems to be choosing a cautious return to its old camp of Iran and Hezbollah. The manoeuvre this time is particularly risky.

Isolation, Isolation, Isolation

Hamas’s other options, however, are too limited or simply don’t exist. Few Arab countries seem interested in throwing out Hamas, which is left to cater to Gaza’s needs following the deadliest of Israel’s wars on the Strip. The movement, however, is facing formidable challenges: a mired economy, ruined infrastructure, destroyed Rafah tunnels and a persisting Israeli siege.

The progress of the Hamas-Fatah agreement, followed by the formation of a new government, were meant to be prerequisites to other anticipated moves, including the reformation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The once promising push for unity was interrupted by Israel’s massive war, the so-called Operation Protective Edge, which killed and wounded thousands. The war also left the already distraught Gaza in its worse shape yet.

Instead of speedily setting up government ministries in Gaza, funnelling money into the devastated Strip and beginning the reconstruction process right away, the Ramallah-based government of Rami Hamdallah delayed everything in what could only be understood as political reasoning. Little of the money promised to rebuild Gaza has yet to be delivered anyway. Even Gaza’s creativity in the art of survival is finding its limitations. Without an outlet, however restricted, Gaza will not be able to cope for much longer.

Hamas’s attempt at engaging Egypt as a way of finding an alternative space to break the siege has not achieved results either. Since the advent of now President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi in July 2013, the Egyptian government has perceived the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as one and the same, and quickly declared Hamas a terrorist organisation last March.

Even the ongoing war in Sinai that stretches back years is often blamed on Hamas by many in Egyptian media. That demonisation reached its peak when the military wing of Hamas, Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades recently found itself banned and accused of “terrorism” by an Egyptian court. The brigades’ attempt at defending itself saying that it has never intervened in the affairs of any Arab countries, fell on deaf airs.

With the tunnels destroyed, and a “buffer zone”established and fortified around the Gaza Strip from the Egyptian side of the border, the siege is now complete.

Yet Gaza could have survived, except that the Israeli war has left behind thousands of homeless families, over 11,000 wounded and entrenched in poverty.

A donors’ conference in Cairo last year pledged to rebuild Gaza, but few have delivered. The United Nations and the Arab League are back appealing for aid promises to be met. But even if they do, the US and its allies insist that the money is not channelled through Hamas.

Shifting Political Gear, Again

So, what is Hamas to do?

Before the so-called Arab Spring, the region was divided in two political camps. One is known as the “axis of resistance,” also the “rejectionist” camp. It consisted of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The other is the camp of “moderates” which pools US regional allies. The latter was positioned to offset the former.

Then, the Sunni-Shia divide existed, but was hardly as pronounced as it is today. The existence of Hamas, a Sunni organisation within a largely Shia-group and the clear demarcation of the fight that is between the US-Israel vs. the “axis of resistance” relegated any sectarian difference as insignificant.

Initially, the Arab Spring in 2011 brought ample promise, before it dealt the whole region a massive blow. It wrought war and other bloody conflicts, but also unprecedented political and sectarian polarisation.

Hamas, the product of a national liberation movement with a religious ideology of its own, couldn’t escape the sectarian labelling that has suddenly become the litmus test of Middle East politics.

A war in Syria seemed like a best case scenario for various western powers, including the US and Israel. Other Arab regimes followed suit, injecting massive armaments to the once popular and peaceful uprising, leaving no room for a negotiated settlement to the crises. Iran and Russia soon jumped into the fray, each with a different set of objectives. For Iran, war arguably became its opportunity to extend its regional influence. With Hezbollah joining the fighting – which by then included numerous groups that are home grown and foreign – the Sunni-Shia side of the conflict became palpable.

Neither side would have allowed Hamas to operate outside the ugly sectarian paradigm anyway. The group was expected to take sides, and quickly. Egypt, under deposed President Mohammed Morsi, which was in a position to mediate a region-based solution to the Syria crisis, also took sides. His move severed any chance of leading a negotiated transition to democracy in Syria.

Meanwhile, Palestinians remained disunited even when their unity mattered most. Even the plight of the large Palestinian refugee population in Syria seemed unworthy of a united Palestinian political front. While small groups fought alongside Damascus, others sided with the opposition. Abbas’s PA remained engaged in an inane ‘peace process’ discourse, paying little attention to the thousands of dead and starving Palestinian refugees in Syria.

Hamas’s manoeuvers proved costly. It broke away from the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis, joining an Arab front that was united in wanting to see the ousting of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

But the war grew more grisly on both sides, and the opposition splintered between many groups, including the notoriously violent so-called Islamic State (IS). The calls for democracy and reforms were no longer a dominant discussion as IS declared a Caliphate, and the conflict’s main vocabulary were dominated by sectarian and religious language.

The upheaval in Egypt complicated things further for Hamas. When Morsi was overthrown, Sisi’s backers unleashed a massive war on the Muslim Brotherhood and anyone affiliated with them, Hamas included. Hamas’s gamble didn’t pay off in the least. Further impoverished and isolated, Hamas sought respite by joining forces with Abbas’s Fatah, to end division and seek an outlet from what became a hopeless paradigm.

The Other Israeli War on Gaza

Then, Israel attacked Gaza. The media discussion was centred on Hamas’s unproven connection to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenage settlers. That was rarely the story. With Hamas’s departure from the “axis of resistance” and its isolation by the “moderate” Arab camp, the movement was at its weakest. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found an opportunity to deliver a final blow to Hamas as he hit Gaza with unmatched brutality. He intended to break Hamas politically before degrading its military capabilities.

The massive destruction of the infrastructure – schools, hospitals, factories, government buildings, shops, tunnels and thousands of homes – was not Israel’s everyday callousness in its treatment of Palestinians. It was meant to ensure that Hamas would have no chance to govern Gaza after the war, and simply collapse under the impossible task to rebuild the Strip, with no aid, no cement and no material lifeline whatsoever.

While the war has itself ended at a high toll of over nearly 2,200 dead Palestinians, an economic war is still being fought at two different fronts: Israel and Egypt. And as the PA in Ramallah lazily ponders its return to Gaza, Hamas has begun looking to Tehran for help.

Restoring the Axis

Arabs were either consumed with their own problems or watched Gaza’s severe punishment by Israel with a mix of dread, amusement and anticipation. Those who urged Hamas to part ways with Iran failed to move forward and fill the existing gap of weapons, money and other material aid. Not only did many in Hamas see that as a betrayal, others who never sought a break up with Iran began pushing the movement to reconsider its political alliances once more.

In fact, the process of mending ties with Iran has been in the making for months, and numerous – however imprecise – signs of some kind of rapprochement between Iran and Hezbollah on one hand, and Hamas on the other, have been adding up towards a foreseeable conclusion.

Aside from the Israeli war on Gaza, three other factors pushed for further cementation of ties between the two parties: one, the return to political consensus among Gulf countries and the pressure on Qatar to distance itself from the brotherhood; two, the lack of any political horizon being offered through the failed or delayed reconciliation with Fatah; and three, the permanent closure of the Rafah border.

The Opportunity

When an Israeli helicopter gunship hit a car convoy in the Syrian province of Quneitra on Jan 18, killing six Hezbollah fighters including the son of the legendary leader Imad Mughaniya  – himself killed in a Mossad-CIA operation – along with an Iranian commander, Hamas was quick to offer condolences. The most notable of these messages came from Mohammed al-Deif, the leader of the al-Qassam Brigades. Deif called for the directing of rifles in a joint battle against Israel.

Political messages also poured in, one from former Hamas government Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (who is the current deputy chief of the movement’s political bureau). “We declare our full solidarity with Lebanon and the Lebanese resistance,” he said, calling for unity against the “principal enemy of the ummah”. This, in addition to Hamas’s leader, Khaled Meshaal’s call for peaceful resistance in Syria, indicating that the Hamas search for a return to the Iran camp was a matter of time.

In fact, that return will happen sooner rather than later, as suggested by Ahmed Yousef, Haniyeh’s former top advisor, and an influential member in the movement. He said that Meshaal should be heading to Tehran soon to meet with top Iranian leaders.

Back to the Start

Hamas’s possible return to the Iran camp is likely to be cautious, calculated and also costly. There is a crisis of trust among all parties. For some in Hamas, however, that return was inevitable, if not essential for the survival of the movement as it faces mounting pressures.

But Iran and Hezbollah also need Hamas, at least to break away, genuinely or otherwise from the dominant sectarian narrative that has embroiled the region. Iran and Hezbollah’s image, the latter once seen as the bulwark of resistance, is at an all-time low.

Of course, many are frustrated by Hamas’s shift in tactics, insisting on not seeing the group’s impossible dilemma. The Syria opposition has made its feelings clear.

But for Hamas the choices are stark, and equally difficult. An Arab poet once described such tough choices as “two matters, the sweetest of which is bitter”.

Some will chastise Hamas’s new strategy, others will praise its return to common sense. But for Hamas and Palestinian resistance in Gaza, it is a mere matter of survival.

The post Mending ‘Axis Of Resistance': Hamas Goes Back To Square One – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.


General Says Iran Helped Defeat Islamic State In Iraq

0
0

(RFE/RL) — A Revolutionary Guard commander says Iran has helped defeat the Islamic State group in Iraq.

“When Islamic State emerged in Iraq, no country offered assistance to destroy it,” General Mohammad Ali Jafari said on February 14. “But Iran rushed to help the Iraqi nation to annihilate Islamic State.”

Jafari said Iran has become a “torment” for the extremist group, adding that U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders had been “stunned” by what he described as the militants’ defeat in Iraq.

The statement appeared to contradict Tehran’s claims that it has no military presence in Iraq, although sectarian militias with ties to Iran are widely believed to be combating militants there.

Earlier this month, an Iranian general said he was prepared to begin training Iraqi military officers.

Iran and Iraq reached a security agreement in December that will reportedly increase military cooperation.

The post General Says Iran Helped Defeat Islamic State In Iraq appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Syria: Kurdish Forces Retake 163 Villages Around Kobani From Islamic State

0
0

Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes have regained control of at least 163 villages around the Syrian town of Kobani after driving back Islamic State militants in the past three weeks, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday, Feb 14, according to Reuters.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that although the Kurds had recaptured many villages since winning back Kobani in late January, their progress had been slowed by renewed clashes to the west and southwest of the town, where Islamic State had redirected its fighters.

The battle for the predominately Kurdish town, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, became a focal point for the U.S.-led air campaign against the al Qaeda offshoot in Syria.

Islamic State controls large areas of northern and eastern Syria, including a strip of territory across the northern Aleppo countryside and a corridor stretching southeast from Raqqa province to the frontier with Iraq.

The Syrian Kurds, who also received military support from Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, said they drove Islamic State from the town near the Turkish border on Jan 26. U.S.-led forces have carried out almost daily air strikes on Islamic State targets around the area since late last year.

The Kurds were joined by several hundred rebel fighters in the battles for areas surrounding the town, the Observatory’s founder Rami Abdulrahman said. The rebel groups included the Shams al-Shamal brigade and the Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigade, anti-Islamic State fighters from northern Syria who had battled alongside the Kurds to win back territory.

Islamic State’s advance on Kobani last year with heavy weapons drove tens of thousands of residents over the border into Turkey. The Kurds, armed with mainly light weapons, called for international help and the town now lies in ruins.

The post Syria: Kurdish Forces Retake 163 Villages Around Kobani From Islamic State appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Bangladesh Squeezed Between Tormenting Past And Uncertain Future? – Analysis

0
0

By Rupak Bhattacharjee*

Bangladesh is again at the crossroads. The bitter power rivalry and acrimonious relations between the supreme leaders of the two contending parties — Awami League (AL) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have resurfaced in the polity after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s completion of one year in office.

BNP-sponsored indefinite blockades and frequent bomb attacks on public vehicles have made life miserable and people from all walks of life now want to see Bangladesh free from the stranglehold of squabbling politicians. Despite the AL government’s imposition of restrictions on street demonstrations and mass gatherings, violent agitations and blockades have claimed more than 60 lives since Jan 5.

In a significant development on Jan 25, Bangladesh police registered a criminal case against BNP chief Khaleda Zia for instigating a deadly bomb attack on a passenger bus on Jan 23 in the capital city that left 29 people seriously injured. Earlier, Hasina in a televised speech to the nation on Jan 5 accused Khaleda of creating “anarchy” and “instability” in the country and threatened to bring murder charges against her. Khaleda and her eldest son, Tareque Rahman, are already facing trials on graft charges.

The threat of a fresh political turmoil looms large over the country as both the political formations are on a collision course. Denouncing the incumbent government as “illegal” and “dictatorial”, the BNP says Hasina is clinging on to power by force. Khaleda has accused her arch rival of turning Bangladesh into a police state. Khaleda was virtually confined in her Gulshan office for 17 days.

The government is pursuing a relentless crackdown on opposition activists and Prime Minister Hasina has vowed to complete her five-year term, while Khaleda has threatened to continue blockade of highways, railway lines and ports to force Hasina’s resignation and holding of an inclusive and fair election under a non-partisan and neutral caretaker administration. Local reports suggest that about 7,000 opposition activists, including some frontline BNP leaders have been arrested on various charges since the anti-government agitation was launched on Jan 5.

The seemingly irreconcilable positions of the two largest political parties on key issues has made the task of governance more challenging in this South Asian nation. The major opposition party is adamant on the question of restoration of caretaker system to oversee general elections in the country. The AL government on the other hand, abolished the caretaker system during its last term responding to a Supreme Court ruling which had called the system “unconstitutional”.

The Bangladeshi political elites cannot ignore the consequences of continuous bickering. The country’s booming garment industry suffers most from political commotion. The business and industry leaders called upon the wrangling political leaders to search for alternative means of expressing dissent other than violent street demonstrations and blockade of transport system. Meanwhile, the United States, European Union and Britain have expressed concern over the ongoing violence and unrest and urged the Bangladeshi parties to initiate dialogue. On Jan 13, the Hasina government said that it would consider holding talks with the BNP if it makes a formal pledge to shun violence and sever ties with the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami.

It appears difficult for both the parties to reach a consensus on the vexed issue of an election time supervisory administration given the mutual distrust and antagonism between the heads of the two parties. The animosity is so deep rooted that they prefer not to see each other. They have not met since 2009. Prime Mister Hasina’s latest efforts to break the political deadlock and console aggrieved Khaleda, whose younger son Arafat Rahman Koko died recently, did not succeed. It was indeed a rare demonstration of gesture on the part of Hasina.

Today’s Bangladesh politics is to a great extent shaped by the significant developments that took place during the military rule (1975-90). The continued enmity, mutual distrust and suspicion between the two most powerful ladies of the country — Hasina and former premier Khaleda – are rooted in Bangladesh’s politico-military history.

Hasina perceives that Khaleda’s late husband, Ziaur Rahman, then deputy chief of army staff, could have averted the violent political changeover of August 1975 because one of the coup leaders had approached him for support in their endeavours much before the execution of the plot. But Zia neither endorsed the coup plans nor initiated disciplinary measures against the disgruntled junior army officers. Eventually, Zia emerged as a major beneficiary of the assassination of Sheikh Mujib becoming the first military ruler of the country.

Interestingly, another former military dictator who figures prominently in the political equation between the two warring ladies is H.M. Ershad. Here too, suspicion takes precedence over other matters. Hasina considers Ershad a lesser evil than Khaleda and has forged an alliance with his Jatiya Party. On the contrary, Khaleda is vehemently opposed to Ershad, ironically for reasons similar to Zia’s case. She suspects that Ershad, then army chief, imitated his mentor Zia’s pre-August 1975 role in the May 30, 1981 coup to facilitate his usurpation of state power in a bloodless coup eight months later ousting the Abdus Sattar-led BNP government.

All these factors have contributed towards making the polity more volatile. In Bangladesh, the competition among the political parties is not only intense but also fought on a zero-sum game format. Bangladesh politics suffers from “winner takes away everything” syndrome. The country’s ruling elites seldom demonstrate an accommodative sprit to evolve consensus on important national issues.

In multi-party democracy, it is a common practice that the elected representatives raise various issues in the parliament. But the political leaders of Bangladesh hardly adhere to democratic norms and practices. The parliamentary system was restored in 1991 after the civil society’s protracted struggle against military rule. But it is disheartening to note that the Jatiya Sangsad has almost lost its relevance as the country’s political parties have developed a penchant for street politics bypassing the institutional mechanism.

On most occasions, the people’s representatives boycott the parliamentary proceedings. The current parliament does not have any MP from the key opposition BNP, which refused to participate in the controversial Jan 5, 2014 polls fearing large-scale electoral malpractices as it was held under a partisan government.

The Bangladeshi ruling elites cannot deny that if the ongoing political unrest is allowed to precipitate, it would adversely affect the process of democratic institution building and sustainable socio-economic development in the country. Besides, recurrent political violence and uncertainty may add a fillip to the radical Islamic groups which are making concerted efforts to reassert themselves.

*Dr. Rupak Bhattacharjee is an independent analyst based in Delhi. He can be reached at contributions@spsindia.in

The post Bangladesh Squeezed Between Tormenting Past And Uncertain Future? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Thailand: Land Rights Activist Assassinated

0
0

Thai authorities should immediately investigate the killing of a land rights activist in southern Thailand, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

On February 11, 2015, at about 6:30 p.m., an unidentified gunman shot Chai Bunthonglek six times in his chest and head, killing him, witnesses said. The gunman then escaped on a motorcycle with another assailant. Chai had long campaigned for land ownership for the Khlong Sai Pattana community in Surat Thani province.

Successive Thai governments have failed to act to prevent and respond to attacks against human rights defenders.

“For too long Thai authorities have stood by while activists like Chai have been murdered in cold blood for standing up for their communities,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The government needs to immediately conduct a serious and impartial investigation and bring those responsible for Chai’s death to justice.”

Prior to his killing, three other activists in Chai’s network have been targeted in deadly attacks. But neither provincial nor national authorities proposed or adopted any protective measures for Chai or members of the Khlong Sai Pattana community, which is affiliated with the Southern Peasants’ Federation of Thailand. Chai’s family and members of the federation told Human Rights Watch they are now living in fear because they do not know who might be the next target of a deadly attack.

Chai is the fourth activist from the Khlong Sai Pattana community to be killed over the past five years. No one has been held accountable for the killings of Somporn Pattanaphum in 2010, Montha Chukaew in 2012, and Pranee Boonrat in 2012. All were leaders in the campaign to seek community ownership of land that has been used by a major palm oil company whose land lease contract with Thai authorities has expired. Community members told Human Rights Watch that they see previous police investigations into murders of community leaders as half-hearted, inconsistent, and ineffective.

Since 2001, more than 30 human rights defenders and environmentalists have been killed in Thailand. The police have charged a suspect in fewer than 20 percent of these cases. Thai authorities have also failed to provide adequate witness protection to those who witnessed killings, which allows suspects to intimidate witnesses into silence and undermines efforts to prosecute those responsible. Frequent instances of negligence and corruption of government officials further place activists at risk, leaving them to face deadly threats without meaningful protection.

The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders requires authorities to take all necessary measures to protect everyone against violence, threats, retaliation, and other abuses because of their work as a human rights defender. International law recognizes state accountability for failing to protect persons from rights abuses and violence by private actors. According to the UN Human Rights Committee, states must not only protect individuals against violations of rights by government officials but “also against acts committed by private persons or entities that would impair the enjoyment” of their rights. A government may be violating human rights by “permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities.”

“The Thai government needs to end its apathy toward deadly attacks against human rights defenders,” Adams said. “Government leaders should recognize that these killings over time weigh heavily on global public perceptions of Thailand as a rights-respecting country.”

The post Thailand: Land Rights Activist Assassinated appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Light Reveals New Details Of Gauguin’s Creative Process

0
0

French artist Paul Gauguin is well known for his colorful paintings of Tahitian life — such as the painting that sold recently for nearly $300 million — but he also was a highly experimental printmaker. Little is known, however, about the techniques and materials Gauguin used to create his unusual and complex graphic works.

Now a team of scientists and art conservators from Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago has used a simple light bulb, an SLR camera and computational power to uncover new details of Gauguin’s printmaking process — how he formed, layered and re-used imagery to make 19 unique graphic works in the Art Institute’s collection.

Northwestern computer scientist Oliver S. Cossairt will provide a surprising new explanation of how Gauguin created one of these artworks Saturday, Feb. 14, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Jose. It will be the first report of the Northwestern-Art Institute study of the 3-D surface of the print “Nativity (Mother and Child Surrounded by Five Figures),” made by Gauguin in 1902.

Cossairt’s talk, “Surface-Shape Studies of Gauguin’s Monotypes,” will be part of the AAAS symposium “Worth More Than a Thousand Words: State-of-the-Art Visualization in Cultural Heritage” to be held from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. PST in Room LL21E of the San Jose Convention Center. Co-organized by Northwestern and the Art Institute, the symposium will feature international experts from universities, museums and industry with a focus on using computation and imaging to analyze valuable artworks noninvasively.

The new results establish Gauguin’s use of materials and process in a chronological order, solving the puzzle of how “Nativity” was made. Gauguin created the print using a layering of images created on paper by drawings, transfer of images and two different inks. The surface topography research on “Nativity” and other graphic works by the artist will be part of a major Gauguin exhibit at the Art Institute in 2017.

The “Nativity” findings overturn an earlier theory as to how Gauguin might have produced the print. Cossairt’s art conservator colleagues initially were “blown away” by the scientific results, so the research team reproduced, in an Art Institute lab, what they believed to be Gauguin’s process. The printmaking process the research team had identified produced a print very similar to Gauguin’s original.

“To measure the 3-D surface of the prints, we used some very accessible techniques that can be used by art conservators and historians around the world to analyze artworks,” said Cossairt, who developed the software to analyze the imaging data. “In applying these techniques to Gauguin’s work, we came up with some interesting answers to questions about what his printing process was.”

Cossairt is the Lisa Wissner-Slivka and Benjamin Slivka Junior Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Cossairt and his colleagues studied “Nativity” and 18 other Gauguin monoprints in the Art Institute’s collection. They used multiple wavelengths of light shining from different directions onto the prints to investigate the surface of the paper and reevaluate how Gauguin created his works. The photometric stereo technique allowed the researchers to mathematically separate color from surface shape, providing a much clearer view of the paper’s topography.

For the study of an artwork, the piece was fixed in place, as was an SLR camera. A light bulb was moved to 20 different locations and a photo taken of the artwork for each light bulb position. The digital data for each pixel of each image then was run through Cossairt’s software. Essentially, the researchers were measuring only the response of an artwork’s surface to changing lighting. (Each digital image is 10 megapixels, meaning the researchers processed 20 million pixels for each artwork.)

“The technique allows us to peel away the print’s color and look at the surface structure only,” Cossairt said. “For each image, we know the angle of the lighting and the brightness of each pixel and from that we can calculate the unknown — the surface structure.”

The surface structure of “Nativity” revealed solid evidence of two new things:

  • The white lines, in which there is an absence of ink (they have been known as “blind incisions”), are on a flat surface. This indicates those lines were not produced using a relief process but rather a transfer process, where Gauguin drew on an inked surface, removing ink, and those empty lines were transferred to his print.
  • The ink of the black lines sits atop ridges in the paper, indicating a monotype transfer process was used. Gauguin would have placed his paper on an inked surface and then drawn on the back of the paper, causing ink to be transferred to the paper where pressure from the artist’s pencil was applied. (The pressure also caused the ridges.)

For some of Gauguin’s work, his technique is clear and unambiguous — a straightforward oil painting or woodblock print. But for other works, it is difficult to understand his process of creation. Art Institute conservators and historians couldn’t ask Gauguin about his techniques, so one year ago they turned to collaborators at Northwestern for help finding some answers.

“Gauguin died more than a century ago, but there is still something to say, something new to find out, in large part due to this teamwork,” said Harriet Stratis, senior research conservator at the Art Institute and the museum’s lead collaborator on the Gauguin project.

“We never would have figured this out without Northwestern, its scientists and technology, because you don’t see the evidence under the microscope,” Stratis said. “You can’t tell the paper is just flat. The Northwestern team’s lighting and imaging techniques show there is no deformation in the paper where the un-inked lines are, which blew me away.

“Gauguin probably was doing these kinds of prints for five years, so this research puts a whole body of work together,” she said. “The evidence points to a completely different artistic approach by Gauguin.”

This cutting-edge collaborative work was made possible through the Northwestern University-Art Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts (NU-ACCESS).

Led by Marc Walton, its senior scientist and a key collaborator on the Gauguin project, the center’s mission is to provide scientific support for the investigation of art collections, as well as to develop new technology to look at art, such as the photometric stereo technique and software used by Cossairt.

“Gauguin made thousands of prints — it often was his way of working through ideas for his colorful paintings,” said Walton, co-organizer of the “Worth More Than a Thousand Words” AAAS symposium.

“By studying this one unique piece, ‘Nativity,’ we are developing a deeper understanding of Gauguin’s highly experimental printmaking and transfer techniques that we can apply to his other works, including his paintings,” he said.

The Gauguin study is just one of many collaborative projects taking place within NU-ACCESS. The center, a national model of interdisciplinary scientific research in the arts established in 2012 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, grew out of a fruitful research partnership between Northwestern and the Art Institute.

“At the center, we are interested in determining who had access to various technologies at different time periods and how they innovated to achieve alternatives or improve on existing processes,” Walton said.

“We then can use this knowledge for devising conservation treatments, for determining the provenance of objects and sometimes for authentication,” he said, “but it ultimately comes back to the idea of how do people innovate and evolve? In the case of Gauguin, we are truly understanding his creative process through the application of these imaging techniques.”

The post Light Reveals New Details Of Gauguin’s Creative Process appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Passing Of Nik Aziz Nik Mat: Implications For PAS And Malaysian Politics – Analysis

0
0

Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the Spiritual Leader of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party PAS had been a prominent political and religious figure in Malaysia since the 1980s, and had played a pivotal role in the development of PAS as a modern Islamist party with international connections. His passing may have a profound impact on both the party he led and Malaysian politics as a whole.

By Farish A. Noor*

The passing of Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat, Murshid’ul Am or Spiritual Leader and former Chief Minister of Kelantan, marks a significant landmark in Malaysian political history. Along with Yusof Rawa, he was among the senior members of the so-called ‘Ulama faction’ that deposed Asri Muda, the president of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), in 1982 and began the internal reform of the party turning it into Malaysia’s biggest and perhaps best organised opposition party. Throughout the 1990s he was seen as the bedrock of PAS’ power among the Malay-Muslim electorate and the key factor that ensured the victory of PAS in the northeastern peninsular state of Kelantan.

Despite several attempts by the ruling coalition to woo the Kelantan electorate with proposals for development, the Kelantanese voters opted for PAS throughout the 1990s and in the elections of 2004, 2008 and 2013. Nik Aziz was also one of the prime movers of the Islamisation programme in the state, and played a key role in the development of the network of madrasahs (religious schools) there, linking them to a wider global network of madrasahs across the Muslim world.

Supporter of the moderates and reformers

Since 1999, PAS has sought to reposition itself to the Malaysian electorate as an Islamist party that was colour-blind and transcended ethnic differences. This was partly the result of the collaboration between Yusof Rawa and Nik Aziz, who wished to project the Islamist party in clear and strictly-defined ideological terms as a party of Muslims first, and one that would promote a vision of an Islamic state where ethnic distinctions were secondary.

In keeping with this project, he also promoted the collaboration between traditional Ulama (religious scholars) and professional university-trained technocrats, which was dubbed the Ulama-Professional coalition, since the 1990s.

The shift towards a more ideological register was partly due to the pragmatic understanding that no party could govern Malaysia alone, and that for PAS to become a truly national party it would have to form a coalition with other parties such as the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the multiracial Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) which was formed after the 1999 political crisis in the country.

Over the past two decades, Nik Aziz was seen as the main pillar of support of the pragmatic faction within the party’s leadership, sometimes dubbed as the ‘reformists’ or the ‘Erdogan’ wing. Since the general election of 2008, the pragmatic wing of PAS has opted for closer co-operation with the DAP and PKR in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (Peoples’ Alliance) coalition, despite the growing chorus of concern and disapproval among some of the factions within PAS. This other faction has argued that by virtue of being in such a coalition the party had diluted its Islamist ideology and character.

Several attempts were made to challenge and weaken the opposition coalition, both within and from outside the component parties. But Nik Aziz was steadfast in his commitment to the opposition coalition and argued that PAS would eventually come to power on its own terms, rather than join the present ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition.

Implications for the future

Nik Aziz’s passing raises several questions about the future of PAS and its standing in the opposition Pakatan coalition: Firstly, with him gone, it is unclear to what extent the reformist-modernist ‘Erdogan’ faction can hold back the growing demands for PAS to break away from the opposition coalition, and to join other Malay-Muslim parties to uphold the goal of Malay-Muslim dominance in the country.

Secondly the passing of Nik Aziz means that the pivotal post of Spiritual Leader of the party will need to be filled by another PAS leader of equal standing and prominence. The successor Spiritual Leader will in turn be in the important position of being able to determine the outlook and orientation of the party as a whole.

Since the 1980s Nik Aziz was perhaps one of the most visible faces of PAS in the country and beyond. For PAS’ allies in the global network of Islamist parties such as the Ikhwan’ul Muslimin, the Jama’at-e Islami and the new reformist Islamist parties in Turkey and Tunisia, he was one of the few Malaysian Islamist leaders of international standing and importance who had put PAS on the global map of political Islam.

Filling the shoes of Nik Aziz will not be an easy task for any of the leaders of the party today. The political implications of his passing are also of concern to analysts and observers of Malaysian politics. Coming as it does at a time when a range of NGOs, social movements and lobby groups have been calling for Malay-Muslim unity, the death of Nik Aziz will have profound consequences for PAS’ standing within the opposition alliance, and Malaysian politics as a whole.

*Farish A. Noor is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and author of The Malaysian Islamic Party PAS 1951-2013, Amsterdam University Press, 2014.

The post The Passing Of Nik Aziz Nik Mat: Implications For PAS And Malaysian Politics – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Sri Lanka: Sirisena Says Government To Punish Human Rights Violations

0
0

Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena assured the diplomatic community that his government will not hesitate to punish the offenders of human rights violations said to have taken place during the war after the conduct of a credible domestic inquiry through a judicial process into the allegations.

Meeting with the diplomatic corps in Colombo Friday, President Sirisena said foreign policy of the present government is to strengthen the cooperation with all countries and international organizations that extend support to all communities.

Sirisena said the policy of the new government is to work in cooperation with international organizations.

Soliciting the support of other countries for the development work launched in the country, the President said his government is always ready to extend every possible support to those countries which support Sri Lanka.

Sirisena emphasized that the funds for development work in the country will be expended in a transparent manner.

The process to slash unlimited executive powers of the presidency by making the necessary constitutional reforms and to strengthen the parliament is already underway, the President noted.

Sirisena pointed out that there are certain shortcomings and failures in the current political system of the country, although the democracy has been ensured.

Addressing Sri Lanka’s human rights issues, Sirisena informed the diplomats that the government has planned to move a Bill on the Right to Information (RTI) in its 100 day program.

Sirisena noted that the RTI Act is an action taken by the government to safeguard the basic rights of the people and the democracy of the country and the preliminary activities in this regard have already been taken.

The RTI is a measure recommended in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s report.

The government has decided to hand over thousand acres of land situated in north and east provinces as well as near the President’s residence and Temple trees which had been declared as high security zones during the war,  Sirisena told the foreign envoys.

Sirisena reiterated government’s commitment to conduct an internal investigation into alleged human rights abuses. He said legal action will be taken if anyone is found guilty of violating human rights.

President Sirisena added that based on the initiatives of the government to protect human rights, the government has invited the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner to engage in a tour of Sri Lanka.

Referring to the initiatives taken through the Interim Budget to uplift the living standards of the people, the President told the foreign diplomats that his government would honor the pledges given to the people.

Sirisena called on the foreign diplomats to extend their unstinted support to the development work of the country.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ajith P Perera, Secretary to the President P.B. Abeykoon and the officers of Foreign Ministry were also present at this occasion.

The post Sri Lanka: Sirisena Says Government To Punish Human Rights Violations appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Spain Proposes Standardization Of EU Counter-Terrorism Laws

0
0

Ahead of the informal meeting of EU Heads of State and Government, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy defended the importance of improving cooperation on counter-terrorism issues. He also expressed his support for further progress on the economic union and said he is not contemplating “a scenario in which Greece does not meet its commitments”.

In statements to the media before the start of the meeting, Rajoy said that the fight against Jihadi terrorism will be one of the core topics of discussion at the event. Following a request from the President of the European Council, Rajoy provided an introduction on this topic to explain Spain’s experience and the agreement reached with the PSOE [Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party] to achieve greater effectiveness in this regard.

Greece must meet its commitments

Rajoy said that Europe has “an enormous amount of solidarity with Greece”. In this regard, he pointed out that only the European Union is lending Greece money – over 200 billion euros. He also recalled that “Spain has provided 26 billion euros – 7 billion in bilateral loans and 19 billion as a guarantee from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)”.

He stressed that Greece will not repay the capital until 30 years from now and the ESM interest until 10 years from now; which in his opinion “are magnificent terms”.

Rajoy said we must wait for the Government of Greece to “clearly state” what it wants, but that it must meet the commitments it made at the time. “The important thing is for agreements to be kept. Provided that happens, we will all try to be constructive”, he said.

“It will be impossible to build Europe if we all decide to break our commitments. Therefore, I hope people will be sensible and show common sense because I cannot contemplate a scenario in which Greece fails to meet its commitments”, he added.

The post Spain Proposes Standardization Of EU Counter-Terrorism Laws appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Are Wealthy US Foundations Paying To Suppress Religious Freedom?

0
0

By Kevin J. Jones

Questions are being raised over two U.S. foundations that have poured more than three million dollars into abortion rights, LGBT activist, and legal groups to push the message that exemptions based on religious beliefs are “un-American” and an abuse of liberty.

The Arcus Foundation and the Ford Foundation have spent over $3 million in combined spending against religious liberty exemptions since 2013, according to a CNA review of tax forms and grant listings.

John Lomperis of the Institute for Religion and Democracy – a D.C.-based ecumenical Christian think tank – warned that the grants appear to understand the important role of “rhetorical message and framing” on religious liberty issues.

“The agenda of such groups in opposing basic conscience protections could hardly be more diametrically opposed to our nation’s great traditions of freedom of conscience and of religion,” Lomperis, who serves as United Methodist Director for the institute, told CNA Feb. 10.

He contended that the pattern of grants “serves a fundamentally totalitarian vision these foundations and their allied politicians have of ‘religious liberty.’” This vision is especially opposed to those who value traditional sexual morality and respect for unborn human life, he noted.

“Our society is now facing serious questions about to what extent Christians (as well as, to a lesser extent, followers of other faiths) will be allowed to have the same degree to live in accordance with our values without facing new and powerful coercions,” Lomperis said.

The Arcus Foundation’s website lists a 2014 grant of $100,000 to the American Civil Liberties Foundation supporting “communications strategies to convince conservative Americans that religious exemptions are ‘un-American.’” A two-year Arcus grant to the ACLU in 2013 gave $600,000 to support the ACLU’s Campaign to End the Use of Religion to Discriminate. Arcus Foundation tax forms describe this as a “multi-pronged” effort to combat “the growing trend of institutions and individuals claiming exemptions from anti-discrimination laws because of religious objections.”

The Arcus Foundation is a major funder of LGBT advocacy, including “gay marriage” advocacy. The foundation had almost $170 million in assets in 2013 and gave out $17 million to organizations it considers to be working for social justice.

As part of this effort, the foundation joined with the titanic wealth of the Ford Foundation to back Columbia Law School’s “Public Rights / Private Conscience Project,” run by the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. The Arcus Foundation gave $250,000 to Columbia University’s Board of Trustees to support the project, which the foundation says will “mobilize scholars, attorneys and advocates in order to develop and distribute new methods of framing perceived conflicts between sexual rights and religious liberty.”

Columbia University announced the project in a March 24, 2014 statement that acknowledged funding from both foundations. The announcement mentioned as examples of religious exemptions the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Supreme Court cases objecting to including HHS-mandated abortifacient contraceptives in employee health plans. The announcement also cited efforts to accommodate religious objections to “gay marriage.”

The project criticized the Supreme Court’s June 2014 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby. The project also spearheaded a letter from over 50 legal scholars that called on President Barack Obama to deny a religious exemption clause in a controversial executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Ford Foundation’s 2013 tax forms and website indicate it has committed $650,000 to the same project, which the foundation says will “counteract religious exemption and conscience-based carve-outs to laws securing sexual and reproductive rights.” The grant money also supports “a symposia series on LGBT rights.”

The Ford Foundation has assets of $11 billion and dispenses $500 million in grants each year. The foundation’s president, Darren Walker, sits on the Arcus Foundation’s eight-member board of directors. Walker is a past vice president of foundation initiatives of the Rockefeller Foundation, another titan of non-profit foundations involved in social change.

Lomperis noted many current controversies involving religious liberty: campus ministries have been “kicked off of campus” because of their Christian commitments; Christians in wedding-related industries have been threatened with fines and jail time for declining business that would involve taking part in “gay weddings”; health care professionals face pressure to perform elective abortions against their pro-life beliefs; and parents increasingly face difficulties exempting their children from school programs “intentionally designed to cure children of traditional Christian values around sexual morality.”

“It seems that with such grants, recently and historically, essentially secular liberal funders like those at the Arcus and Ford Foundations are trying their best to undercut the pro-life and pro-traditional marriage movements,” Lomperis added.

The Ford Foundation gave at least one other grant targeting religious liberty. Its 2013 grant of $150,000 to Political Research Associates supported “public education and strategic communications on religious liberties exemptions from nondiscrimination laws,” in addition to what the foundation characterized as education on the “export of homophobia abroad” as portrayed in the Ford Foundation-backed film “God Loves Uganda.”

Funding for efforts to reframe religious liberty extend even further.

In 2014 the Arcus Foundation granted $400,000 to the Center for American Progress to back the center’s Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative in order to “articulate and disseminate a socially progressive framework of religious liberty as it relates to a range of issues” while working with “a diverse group of faith leaders, partners and allies.” The website of the center and its affiliated political action fund’s publication ThinkProgress criticize efforts to secure legal protections for those with religious objections to the HHS mandate or to the recognition of same-sex relationships.

Lomperis was skeptical of such efforts.

“With the specific battles these foundations are choosing to pick, it seems clear that they are hoping to confuse the public with a few prominently touted and ridiculously unrepresentative spokespeople claiming that not even ‘the religious community’ or ‘Christian leaders’ want these necessary religious-liberty protections being debated,” he said.

The Arcus Foundation has also supported pro-abortion rights groups opposed to religious freedom exemptions. Tax forms indicate it gave $500,000 to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to “expand monitoring and analysis of organized opposition to rights, information and services related to sexual orientation, gender identity and reproductive health, as well as working to prevent expanded use of religious exemptions in policy.”

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the U.S. and was responsible for over 325,000 abortions in Fiscal Year 2014.

The Arcus Foundation was created in Kalamazoo, Michigan by Jon Stryker, an heir to the fortune of the Stryker Corporation. The foundation has offices in New York City and Cambridge, England.

Stryker’s foundation has committed strategic funding to combating what it sees as “the abuse of religion to deny protection to LGBT people.” The foundation’s website says it aims to counter “the abuse of religious freedoms through ‘religious exemptions,’ and develop religious and legal strategies to hold exemptions in check.”

The foundation aims to “challenge religious opponents of LGBT people in the U.S. and internationally” and to develop communications strategies to counter “some religious institutions” which it says engage in “the discrimination and dehumanization of LGBT people.” Its grant priorities aim to use “multiple change levers” like “leadership development, alliance-building, policy change, culture change, and resource development.”

The Arcus Foundation’s 2013 grant of $50,000 to the Interfaith Alliance was intended to build “a faith network opposing discriminatory religious freedom exemptions,” which the foundation claims to be “harmful.” In 2014, the foundation gave $75,000 to Faithful America, a petition and activism website, to support “public campaigns that activate Christian grassroots advocacy networks to present a faith-based challenge to religious institutions and leaders that abuse religious freedom.”

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health received a $100,000 grant in 2013 to build its own capacities and to build a “cross-movement alliance” in order to “combat policies with religious exemptions.” Another $100,000 went to the northwestern U.S.-based Pride Foundation in 2014 to “coordinate messaging” on religious exemptions.

A 2014 grant of $100,000 to the Gill Foundation backed the Movement Advancement Project’s “research and messaging on religious exemptions.” The project is a strategy group that has previously helped the two foundations collaborate to advance LGBT advocacy within U.S. religious denominations, seminaries, clergy coalitions and media to counter religious opposition.

The Colorado-based Gill Foundation was founded by the politically savvy former businessman Tim Gill, a collaborator with Arcus Foundation president Jon Stryker’s sister Pat Stryker. Gill has pursued a long-term political strategy of advancing LGBT causes by targeting small local and statewide political races to train the talent pool of his opponents.

The Arcus Foundation’s current executive director, Kevin Jennings, is a former assistant deputy of the U.S. Department of Education, where he headed the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.
Jennings is the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which has advanced LGBT activism in thousands of U.S. secondary schools. Jennings reportedly was a member of the homosexual anti-AIDS group ACT UP in the mid-1990s, just a few years after the group’s notorious anti-Catholic protests in New York City.

Jennings is on the 25-member Board of Trustees of Union Theological Seminary, a historically prominent mainline Protestant seminary with links to Columbia University.

The Arcus Foundation has backed the Equally Blessed Coalition, an organization of Catholic dissenting groups which have attacked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus for supporting legal marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Through the group Dignity USA, the coalition also received an Arcus grant of $200,000 in 2014 “to support pro-LGBT faith advocates to influence and counter the narrative of the Catholic Church and its ultra-conservative affiliates” as well as to “build advocacy and visibility in connection with two special events, the Synod of the Family and World Youth Day.”

The Arcus Foundation is also a partner of the U.S. State Department’s Global Equality Fund, having pledged $1 million to support U.S. government-backed LGBT activism worldwide.

The post Are Wealthy US Foundations Paying To Suppress Religious Freedom? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Iran Viewpoint: Nuclear Negotiations Approaching Moment Of Truth – OpEd

0
0

By Hessameddin Vaez-Zadeh*

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have been the most complicated negotiations that Iran has experienced throughout its history because the Islamic Republic has never been engaged in such face-to-face and simultaneous talks with five permanent members of the United Nations.

As March 31, 2015, approaches, diplomatic efforts related to this issue and the nuclear negotiations take up a more rapid pace. Therefore, formulation of a final framework for a comprehensive deal over Iran’s nuclear program is very important and of high strategic value to Iranian negotiators. For this reason, in his recent important speech, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, determined the final framework of the negotiations on the basis of “achieving an agreement over the details” while stressing that the agreement should be achieved in a single stage. Perhaps, the Americans have been trying to force a two-stage agreement on Iran – that is, first a political agreement followed by a technical one – in order to take the highest amount of concessions from Tehran through their old game of carrot and stick.

The approach taken by the Western, especially American, diplomacy to achieve agreements and consolidate their grip on international issues, especially with regard to important issues, has been to turn a bilateral issue into a multilateral and international one. In this way, they would be able to not only mount pressure on their opposite sides, but also take the highest amount of concessions from them. In doing so, they have ignored the fact that internationalization of issues has not been always to their benefit. This is true because due to subsequent changes in the array of players and their conflicting interests, such internationalization makes it more difficult to reach an agreement and that agreement is usually reached over a more protracted period of time. It should be noted that since the beginning of the nuclear talks, Iran has been putting emphasis on bilateral nature of those talks. However, the negotiations are currently being carried out in a multilateral fashion. This issue is a result of Iran’s steadfastness and resistance during past years and its emphasis on the country’s inalienable right to take peaceful advantage of nuclear energy. In fact, the Western countries have reached the agreement that they cannot cope with Iran in bilateral talks, neither collectively, nor individually. Therefore, they decided to change the organization of the negotiations from bilateral talks to multilateral, thus, Iran would have to face six countries, instead of engaging in one-on-one negotiations.

Despite this situation, however, Iran has been able to make the most of these multilateral negotiations. The arrangement of both sides and their agendas are of high importance in diplomatic negotiations. In fact, the Americans have been trying to contain Iran by taking advantage of a European concert (as a means to induce balance of powers). Although they have been relatively successful in this regard during past years, now they are facing fateful days in which they should harvest the fruit of their efforts, though this fruit is not apparently a sweet one. At present, the United States and its allies are facing a major problem in negotiations. Without a doubt, the P5+1 group of countries is facing a difficult problem for giving an answer to Iran and has been engaged in continuous and tiresome contacts because as the deadline for an agreement with Iran approaches, the differences in their interests become more evident. Under these circumstances which are marked by bullying and competition for getting a bigger share of any possible agreement, they have to also take a common position in order to be able to forge a deal with Iran.

Part of this problem should be blamed on the P5+1 countries. From their viewpoint, they should not only answer to their own domestic public opinion, but should also satisfy pressure groups and powerful lobbies because a bad agreement would deal a severe blow to their credit and prestige. It seems that the United States is now regretting the fact that it has internationalized Iran’s nuclear issues because at this sensitive juncture, the American officials do not know how to find a face-saving solution for this issue.

One of the problems they are facing is that the policy of carrot and stick employed by the United States has already lost its efficiency. In the meantime, there is no more an international consensus on playing good cop, bad cop game with Iran. This game can no more provide American and other P5+1 negotiators with a respite from ongoing pressures. Recent remarks made by the former British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, which can be considered as a new act in the same good cop, bad cop game, cannot help Europeans either because if this game is to continue, it is time for the P5+1 to play its role. However, there is no doubt that the Americans will continue their efforts to bewilder and confuse Iranian negotiators. In these days that all sides are engaged in hot diplomatic talks, it is very difficult to imagine that if negotiations failed, any other countries, but the United States, would actually take any practical step to escalate sanctions against Iran. Up to the present time, the United States has been able to keep the P5+1 group alive by offering them concessions and also by threatening them. If this nuclear concert falls apart, the last solution would be to go back to bilateral negotiations and this time, the United States will not be Iran’s negotiating side. This would mean the failure of the current multilateral system of negotiations and, consequently, would mean the total failure of the United States’ internationalization approach to Iran’s nuclear program. The United States has put so much focus on Iran’s nuclear program that its failure to achieve a deal with Iran would mean total loss of US President Barack Obama administration’s domestic and international credit.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution, who is constantly guiding and following the course of the negotiations on Iran’s side, said in his recent speech, “I have no opposition to the continuation and progress of the negotiations and reaching a good agreement, and without a doubt, the Iranian nation will not be opposed to any agreement that would guarantee its dignity and respect.” By saying this, the Leader determined the main task of the Iranian negotiators in these fateful and sensitive days and they should take advantage of the current consensus in the country and 35 years of experience in the areas of diplomatic confrontation with the West, especially the United States. On the other hand, rationalism would be a good choice for the P5+1 group. Rationalism dictates that they should go for less costly and more beneficial options that they have for reaching an agreement with Iran.

*Hessameddin Vaez-Zadeh
Assistant Professor, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran

Source: Ettelaat Newspaper
http://www.ettelaat.com
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

The post Iran Viewpoint: Nuclear Negotiations Approaching Moment Of Truth – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Beyond Orthodoxy: Understanding Money To Understand The Eurozone Crisis – Analysis

0
0

The Eurozone Crisis has shown that money is not a neutral veil, but rather a social relation between creditors and debtors.(1)

By Miguel Otero-Iglesias*

This paper argues that Optimum Currency Area (OCA) theory is limited in its capacity to help understand the Euro crisis because it emanates from the orthodox theory of money and therefore it underestimates the necessity of a political authority to underpin any given monetary space. It will show that a chartalist conception of money is more useful to grasp the fundamental weaknesses in the European Monetary Union (EMU). Overall, the argument is that the EMU will remain a fragile edifice as long as the Eurozone fails to create a centralised and legitimate political authority capable of taxing Eurozone citizens at the European level.

Analysis:

The asymmetric shock generated by the Global Financial Crisis (2007-09) has divided the European Monetary Union (EMU) into creditor and debtor countries. The large current-account imbalances created during the first decade of the single currency have proved to be unsustainable. However, the adjustment costs are falling mostly upon deficit countries. Locked in EMU –and hence without the possibility of devaluing their currencies–, weaker and consequently more indebted peripheral Eurozone countries have in recent years endured painful internal devaluation processes. These reductions in purchasing power are eroding popular support for the European integration process and threaten to tear apart the social fabric of these countries. In parallel, among the citizens of the stronger creditor countries there is the feeling that they have to pay –through the rescue packages– for what they perceive to be the profligacy of their southern neighbours, and this is fuelling support for populist parties with anti-immigration and anti-euro discourses.

The crisis appears to vindicate OCA-theory-informed Eurosceptic economists. In Krugman’s (2012) words, this is a ‘Revenge of the Optimum Currency Area’ theory which ‘was right to assert that creating a single currency would bring significant costs, which in turn meant that Europe’s lack of mitigating factors in the form of high labour mobility and/or fiscal integration became a very significant issue’. While it is true that, in contrast to the US, the Eurozone has lower labour mobility and lacks a central budget to overcome asymmetric shocks, in the following I shall point out the shortcomings of OCA theory in understanding the Eurocrisis and consequently in proposing policy solutions to overcome it.

The origins of money

First, it is important to realise that there are two historic schools on the origins of money. The first is the commodity-exchange school, which can be traced back to Aristotle and is endorsed by contemporary orthodox economic theory. Following Adam Smith’s account of an imaginary village, Economics textbooks explain that money emanates spontaneously in the marketto avoid the problem of the ‘double coincidence of wants’ that arises from barter. At some undefined point in history, the village butcher, baker and blacksmith decide to use a commodity that has intrinsic value and which is durable, divisible and portable. Thus, over the centuries, gold and silver became the monies that minimised transaction costs and fostered trade. This is the reason why this conception of money is generally referred to as the metallist school of money (Goodhart 1998).

In this conventional analysis, money is just another commodity which follows the rules of supply and demand. Its principal function is to be a medium of exchange which lubricates the process of exchange of goods and services. The meta-theory which supports this view is the 19th century neoclassical assumption that through continuous ‘higgling’ rational utility-maximising individuals are able to ‘transform the myriad bilateral exchange ratios between all the different commodities, based on individual preferences, into a single price for any uniform good’. Money is introduced as a technical device to facilitate this process. Hence, according to orthodox theory, money is neutral, which means that ‘not only can it be discarded whenever we are analysing the fundamental features of the economic process but it must be discarded just as a veil must be drawn aside if we are to see the face behind it’ (Ingham, 2004, p. 17).

This conventional explanation of the origins of money has been challenged by the heterodox school of money. According to this view, the essence of moneyness is not to be found in its ‘exchangeability’ (its medium-of-exchange role) but rather in its capacity of measuring abstract value, thus in becoming the money of account. For this school –which can be traced back to Plato, and to which most of the historians, sociologists and anthropologists who have studied money adhere–, orthodox economic theory has failed to explain how the unit-of-account function is generated. The rational utility-maximising ‘higgling’ is not able to demonstrate the spontaneous appearance of a stable yardstick to measure value. As Ingham (2004, p. 25) explains, ‘it is difficult to envisage how a money of account could emerge from myriad bilateral barter exchange ratios based upon subjective preferences. One hundred goods could possibly yield 4,950 exchange rates’. Consequently, the very idea of money, that is to say, of the abstract accounting for value, is logically anterior and historically prior to market exchange.

How was the money-of-account function generated, then? According to historical analyses, there are two explanations, which are not mutually exclusive. The first considers that money emerges from the prehistoric wergild institutions. By establishing a value scale of the debts that offenders owed to their communities and their ancestors, the leaders of ancient tribes created the unit of account. Thus, money has its origin in law. The second theory claims that money appears around the third millennium BC in the command economies of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, where the political and religious authorities introduced clay tablets to record agricultural production and taxation and its redistribution. Here, money is closely related to administrative control and taxation.

Both historical explanations provide support for the state theory of money, and consequently bear important theoretical implications for understanding the shortcomings of EMU. Under this conception, developed by Knapp in 1905 (cited in Ingham, 2004, p. 47), it is absurd to understand money ‘without the idea of the state’. Money is not a medium that emerges from market exchange, but rather ‘a means for accounting for and settling debts, the most important of which are tax debts’. Thus, for Knapp, all money, regardless of its form, is a token which bears and carries the money of account of the state. The Latin word for token is charta, so he defined money as ‘a Chartal means of payment’, which explains why his conception is generally referred to as the chartalist theory of money (Goodhart 1998).

This theory is more convincing than the orthodox metallist explanation of the origins of money for it is able to explain logically the creation of the money-of-account function. This device does not emerge spontaneously from market exchange, but is rather introduced by a political authority. Therefore, money has always been related to sovereignty. This is the reason why historically silver and gold coins had the faces of the sovereigns impressed on them. Ultimately, they guaranteed the stability of the system at times of war and default.

The orthodoxy of OCA theory

Despite the numerous flaws in the orthodox understanding of money, it is striking to see how this theory still dominates modern economic analysis. In fact, contemporary OCA theory –the theoretical device used to analyse EMU– emanates from the commodity-exchange theory. It applies the same logic on the spatial dimension. Optimum currency areas thus emerge spontaneously through market activity, which always seeks to reduce micro-level transaction costs and macro-level adjustment costs based on the efficient mobility of the factors of production (labour and capital). Money under this conception is neutral, and therefore irrelevant, because the focus of the analysis should remain on the factors of production that make the real economy. Consequently, politics plays no role in establishing which currency is used in a particular geographical area. As Goodhart (1998, p. 420) puts it, ‘under the (pure) OCA theory there is no reason why currency domains need to be co-incident and co-terminous with sovereign states’. However, the reality is that we live in a world of ‘one country, one currency’.

Thus, the case of EMU is certainly unique. For the first time, powerful sovereign nation-states have decided to pool monetary sovereignty and, most importantly, have relinquished the capacity to create money –and thus to monetise sovereign debt– by giving by treaty full independence to the European Central Bank (ECB) and banning it from bailing out any EMU member state. From a chartalist point of view, this is a flawed development. Sovereignty and money go hand in hand.

Surprisingly, at the time of the creation of the single currency, this weakening of the link between the currency and the sovereign was seen as a positive development. As Otmar Issing (2008, p. 234), founding member of the executive board of the ECB, put it: ‘the euro represents depoliticised and hence stable money’. However, political economists such as Goodhart (1998, p. 425) criticised the theoretical underpinnings of the euro because ‘OCA theory has little, or no predictive or explanatory capacity. Unlike the [chartalist] theory, it is unable to account for the close relationship between sovereignty and currency areas – a relationship that tenaciously persists through the course of the creation, and break-up, of federal states’. It is precisely this relationship, or the lack of it, that explains the severity of the Eurozone crisis.

OCA theory’s (non) solutions to the Eurocrisis

One of the main problems of OCA theory is that it ignores the ‘political economy’ factors that make currency areas. In other words, by focusing mainly on the real economy, OCA theory overlooks credit relations and their inherent power struggles. The avoidance of political economy factors is observable in the proposals to solve the euro crisis put forward by Krugman (2012), one of the leading OCA theorists. In his view, the option of creating an American-style United States of Europe, which would be a fully-fledged transfer union, ‘does not seem like a reasonable possibility for decades if not generations to come’. Nonetheless, he says that there can be some more limited solutions that can make the Eurozone workable. Specifically, he proposes three developments: (1) creating a banking union with a supranational supervisor and a federalised deposit insurance and bank resolution scheme; (2) assigning a Lender-of-Last-Resort (LOLR) function to the ECB for member states; (3) establishing a higher inflation target for the Eurozone to allow indebted peripheral countries to undergo a less painful internal devaluation process and thus make creditor countries share the costs of the macroeconomic adjustment necessary to unwind the current-account imbalances.

Here we see how Krugman remains loyal to the orthodox theory of money by proposing technical solutions without considering the political economy inherent to them. He thus excludes any notion related to democracy, legitimacy, sovereignty and power. The question, however, is whether these solutions are feasible without the initial premise of the necessity of a federal union (a European sovereign).

The creation of a banking union

The creation of a complete European banking union, as initially agreed by the European Council in June 2012, with a supranational supervisor, a single resolution and a common deposit insurance mechanism would essentially mean the establishment of a fiscal union by the backdoor. This is the reason why, in September 2012, the Ministers of finance of Germany and the other two AAA creditor countries (Finland and the Netherlands) decided that legacy debt would not be included in this banking union and therefore that direct bank recapitalisation through the ESM would not be allowed.

Apart from the mutualisation of legacy debt, a banking union would have other major implications connected to sovereignty, legitimacy, redistributive outcomes and democratic control. The ECB, as the new single supervisor, will have to develop its supervisory tasks under a concrete regulatory framework that needs to be legitimised by democratic institutions. In real concrete terms, one wonders whether the newly created European single resolution mechanism (SRM) will have the legitimate capacity to close down a big bank in France. The most likely outcome is that the French sovereign will fiercely resist such a non-legitimised supranational intrusion, especially if it implies a take-over by a rival Spanish or German bank.

This danger was acknowledged by the ECB’s President, Mario Draghi (2012a), when he said at the end of 2012 that for EMU ‘to succeed, institutional reforms must extend to the financial system, to the fiscal and economic policy framework and to the area of democratic legitimacy and accountability’. The ECB knows that the bail-in framework adopted by EMU member states for future bank rescues is not enough. Several board members have repeatedly argued that to break the doom-loop between national banks and national sovereigns, a single supervisor needs a SRM with a joint and potent fiscal backstop. History shows that if there is a systemic financial crisis, as in 2008, bail-ins will not work. Some European banks are just too big to fail. Thus, bail-outs will be necessary to prevent panic and bank runs. The European taxpayers’ money will have to be used to calm the financial markets. However, in the absence of a European treasury, the non-democratically elected ECB will have a preponderant role in deciding how to use these funds. Yet again, the question arises: can there be an unlimited European fiscal backstop without a European sovereign to legitimise it?

The ECB as the lender of last resort

A similar conclusion can be drawn from the second of Krugman’s technical preconditions for the sustainability of the euro: to make the ECB the lender of last resort (LOLR) for EMU member states. Again, the discretion of deciding why and when to finance the debt of an EMU member state has such political-economy ramifications that, arguably, it cannot be done without democratic legitimacy. This is indeed what has allowed the FED and the Bank of England to monetise debt through quantitative easing, and why the ECB has been so reluctant to do so.

Of course, the ontological principles of money cannot be avoided. Due to the severity of the crisis, the ECB has had to overcome its orthodoxy by adopting first the Securities Market Programme (SMP), then the Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs), more recently the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme and eventually, after five years into the crisis, Quantitative Easing (QE). With this the ECB has de facto (if not legally) become a LOLR for both banks and sovereigns. Hence, the unfolding of the crisis has given further support to the chartalist school. For many it was only when Draghi said that ‘the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough’ that the financial markets regained confidence in the single currency. However, a central bank is not a legitimate sovereign. It was not Draghi’s words that saved the euro, as is widely believed. It was the endorsement of those words by Chancellor Merkel, representing the full weight of the German taxpayer, which saved the euro –for now–. As Draghi (2012b) acknowledges:

‘The ECB cannot replace the actions of national governments with respect to either economic policy effectiveness or democratic legitimacy. Ultimately, it is up to governments to dispel once and for all the persistent uncertainties that markets and citizens fear. The ultimate goal is political union, a stable and integrated Europe with a common destiny’.

Ultimately, the question is whether the ECB can function in the long run as a LOLR in the absence of a European sovereign with the legitimate capacity to tax its subjects. Both the OMT and QE programmes of the ECB are looked upon with suspicion in the creditor countries, especially Germany. German concerns are understandable. By applying OMT or QE the ECB will buy, for instance, large amounts of Italian debt, which will mean the de facto mutualisation of substantial risks (and their redistributive outcomes) in the ECB’s balance sheet. At the same time, however, there will be no mutual control regarding the collection of taxes in Italy to repay the debt. This is why the mutualisation of risks under the recently proposed QE programme has been capped at 20%, with the remaining 80% sitting on the balance sheets of the Eurosystem’s national banks. It remains to be seen whether this capped mutualisation will do the trick or whether a full joint sharing of risks will be required to convince the markets of the euro’s irreversibility.

In any case, we appear to be entering dangerous ground, in which there is an increased mutualisation of debt at the supranational level but tax collection remains at the national level. Considering that there is a strong view among the populations of the creditor countries of the north that tax evasion is widespread in the south, it is unlikely that they will accept such redistributive effects on a permanent basis. To avoid moral hazard, the populations of the north will either want to go back to their national currencies or ask for certain tax collection to be controlled at the supranational level, which would require the creation of a European sovereign.

Equally, a legitimised central authority might also be required for the populations of the indebted periphery to accept the conditionality attached to a possible ESM/OMT programme, in what political scientists call the ‘consent of the losers’. By being part of the Troika, the ECB would have the enormous power to decide when it starts and stops to be a LOLR. This would give it the power to influence the economic policies of the member states and thus how the adjustment costs between creditors and debtors are distributed. Given recent mass protests in the rescued countries, and the appearance of radical movements such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, who contest the legitimacy of the Troika, there are serious doubts that the ECB can do this in the long run without the legitimacy of a European sovereign. Ultimately, economic reform programmes need to be negotiated with what should be the equivalent of the Ministry of Finance of the Eurozone and not the ECB.

Sharing the adjustment costs

Krugman’s last proposal is the increase of the ECB’s inflation target to perhaps 4% to facilitate a more symmetric adjustment process between creditor and debtor countries in the Eurozone. While this proposal is economically and ethically sound (for every irresponsible debtor there is an irresponsible creditor) as the analysis above shows this suggestion is inherently laden with notions of power. The current Eurozone crisis demonstrates graphically how money is always a social interaction (and in numerous occasions a social struggle) between creditors and debtors. Krugman’s proposal is therefore not economic, it is political, and thus it needs to be analysed.

The problem with it is that it is opposed by the main creditor, and the most economically powerful, country in the Eurozone: Germany. The matter is even more complex. An increase in inflation is not only opposed by creditor nations, there is also a generational and class power-play occurring in the Eurozone. Older generations, across countries, with assets, savings and pensions in the banking system, are more prone to favour the continuation of a low inflation policy by the ECB, while the newer generations with few assets, perhaps even indebted and unemployed, especially in the south, might desire higher inflation to reduce their debt levels and stimulate economic activity. Similarly, capital might in general favour sound money, while labour might see a higher level of inflation with good eyes.

Normally, these social struggles around the value of money are resolved through a democratic process. Unfortunately, the Eurozone lacks fully-legitimised democratic institutions that can function as the democratic arena to come to a cross-country, cross-generational and cross-class compromise. Lacking this framework, what tends to happen in the EU is that powerful states determine the agenda, and usually these states are France and Germany, and recently more Germany than France.

As the main creditor country, Germany has early on realised that the shock emanating from the global financial crisis would hit the debtor countries asymmetrically, and thus Berlin would be in a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the other Eurozone capitals. Thus, since the start of the crisis we are witnessing a ‘game of chicken’ between the creditor and debtor countries in the Eurozone, and for now the debtors have been forced to give in first. Most of the adjustment is falling upon them, with Germany and the other creditor countries conceding only what is absolutely necessary to preserve the integrity of the Union. It is important to point out that most of the EFSF/ESM rescue money offered to the indebted nations has not been used to bail out their populations, but rather to save the banks of the creditor countries. As mentioned above, money is the struggle of creditors against debtors, but it is also the stuff that has the potential to bind them together. Under a reluctant German leadership, the response to the crisis has been to create more Europe, not less.

Nonetheless, Merkel’s brinkmanship has its limitations. Socially, the emerging ‘executive federalism’ can backfire. In the debtor countries, fiscal austerity and internal deflation over a number of years have triggered social unrest, anti-German feeling and the emergence of populist movements demanding debt cancellation. Perhaps more importantly, politically, Merkel faces a major obstacle: France. The political leaders, and even the populations, from indebted large Eurozone states like Spain and Italy might be disposed, although reluctantly, to side with Merkel when she says ‘We need more Europe, we need not only a monetary union, but we also need a so-called fiscal union, in other words more joint budget policy. And we need most of all a political union – that means we need to gradually give competencies to Europe and give Europe control’ (cited in EurActiv, 2012). The question is whether the political establishment in Paris is prepared to give up fiscal sovereignty to Brussels. This is doubtful. Hence, the ultimate struggle will be between Paris and Berlin.

Conclusions:

Yet again, as in the discussions about political union in the 1970s and 80s, Europe is in a deadlock between France and Germany. While Germany wants to create first a political union of stability, and only later share the costs of the crisis, France proposes first to create a union of solidarity to overcome the crisis, and only afterwards discuss the possibility of a more centralised political union. Again this is a game of chicken. France wants the mutualisation of debts via eurobonds, a banking union with an unlimited fiscal backstop and an ECB with the capacity of LOLR, while Germany desires centralised control of national budgets (both at the level of expenses and taxation). It is difficult to know who will give in first (by agreeing to QE, Germany might have been softer than is usually thought), but what seems increasingly evident is that for the euro to survive, the broken link between money creation and sovereignty will have to be reunited at the European level. In this regard, the euro crisis is not the revenge of OCA theory, but rather the revenge of the chartalist theory of money.

About the author:
*Miguel Otero Iglesias
Senior Analyst for International Political Economy, Elcano Royal Institute | @miotei

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

References
Draghi, M. (2012a), ‘Rationale and principles for Financial Union’, 22nd Frankfurt European Banking Congress, Frankfurt, 23/XI/2012.

Draghi, M. (2012b), ‘The monetary policy of the European Central Bank and its transmission in the euro area’, Universita Bocconi, Milan, 15/XI/2012.

EurActiv (2012), ‘Merkel calls for “political union” to save the euro’, 8/VI/2012.

Goodhart, C. (1998), ‘The two concepts of money: implications for the analysis of optimal currency areas’, European Journal of Political Economy, p. 407-432.

Ingham, G. (2004), The Nature of Money, Polity, Cambridge.
Krugman, P. (2012), ‘Revenge of the Optimum Currency Area’, NBER Macroeconomics Annual Conference, Cambridge, MA, 20-21/IV/2012.

[1] This paper is a condensed version of the following academic article: M. Otero-Iglesias (2015), ‘Stateless Euro: The Euro Crisis and the Revenge of the Chartalist Theory of Money’, Journal of Common Market Studies, forthcoming.

The post Beyond Orthodoxy: Understanding Money To Understand The Eurozone Crisis – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

UK: Varieties Of Undesirable Aliens – OpEd

0
0

By Neil Berry

A former general of the British Army accuses UK Prime Minister David Cameron of being a “foreign policy irrelevance” for allowing his country to be sidelined in efforts by France and Germany to engage with Russia in efforts to solve the crisis in the Ukraine. Another ex-general, meanwhile, rebukes Cameron’s government for not doing enough to combat ISIS, and so does the UK Parliament’s defense committee.

Yet Cameron may not be unduly bothered by these criticisms. For in common with the rest of the British political class, he is preparing to fight the 2015 UK general election (to be held on May 7), mindful that foreign policy is hardly a popular subject following Britain’s ill-starred participation in the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. In so far as Britons are thinking about foreign affairs at all, it is in negative terms, with many hankering to vote in a referendum in favor of British withdrawal from the European Union, in the belief that they may thereby retrieve control of their borders and shut out unwanted immigrants.

Not that the idea of the UK turning itself into an inviolable island fortress is anything but an idle fantasy. After all, Britain’s capital city is the hub of pan-continental air traffic galore. Moreover, London’s multinational population, mushrooming at the rate of 100,000 per year, connects it with practically every part of the planet and ensures that there are few global political movements without their resident London representatives. Yet because of its extraordinary cosmopolitanism (and disproportionate wealth), London itself is increasingly seen by the rest of Britain as a foreign land, peopled by more or less undesirable aliens.

One recent resident alien hugely heightened British suspicions of London and the wider world all by himself: namely, Abu Hamza, the Egyptian-born former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque. Sentenced in January by a US court to life imprisonment for supporting terrorism, the one-eyed, hook-handed Hamza courted notoriety as Britain’s all too conspicuous “enemy within.” The sobering message of a new book, Abu Hamza: Guilty The fight against radical Islam, by the sometime Algerian journalist-turned-professional informer, Reda Hassaine, is that influential blind eyes were turned to the cleric’s sinister machinations. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Hassaine personally observed how Hamza enjoyed a free hand to promote radicalism among young Muslims from inside Britain and from overseas under the noses of the British authorities. He maintains the UK security services established a “covenant of security” with Hamza, an understanding that he would be left alone provided that he did no harm on British soil. He also maintains that Hamza did more than a little to nurture the toxic climate that led to the 7/7 London bombings of 2005 and earned London the unflattering sobriquet “Londonistan.”

It has often been claimed that militancy in the UK is indissolubly bound up with British support of US foreign policy. Yet if Reda Hassaine is to be believed, the Finsbury Park mosque was a hotbed of terrorist activity long before US interventionism in Afghanistan and Iraq. The less than straightforward truth perhaps is that the egregiously pro-Washington foreign policy of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair served to exacerbate radicalism that was already germinating in the UK. What seems certain to have exacerbated it yet further, it must be said, is official British disinclination to acknowledge major mistakes regarding foreign policy and national security: It is a circumstance helpful neither to democracy nor to efforts to counter terrorism that the much-trumpeted Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war, now four years overdue, is unlikely to appear before 2016.

Many will not vote at all in the coming British general election. Of those who do, not a few will vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party led by Nigel Farage, a politician adept at giving voice to widespread anger that the London political elite has betrayed Britain, not least by throwing open the country’s doors to undesirable aliens. It is no handicap to Farage’s cause that for great numbers of Britons no body of people these days appears more alien or undesirable than the London political elite itself.

The post UK: Varieties Of Undesirable Aliens – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Viewing all 73339 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images