By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

On 28 February, the 30 party alliance of the opposition led by the Maoists held a massive demonstration in Kathmandu to force the government to revert back to find a consensus in constitution drafting rather than take the route to finalise through voting in the constituent assembly.

It is estimated that between forty and fifty thousand people took to the streets. The Maoists had brought in YCL cadres from the outlying districts and in a move reminiscent of Jana Andolan II, three columns led by Baburam Bhattarai from Kalanki, Narayan Kaji Shrestha from Tinkune and Barshaman Pun from Lgakhel closed in on the city.

While the Maoists called the demonstration peaceful, the YCL cadres carried bhatas (sharpened bamboos) and one group forced itself through the prohibited area in Baneshwar that resulted in Police action injuring over 40 persons. Two innocent motor cycle bystanders were badly manhandled. The cadres raised very provocative slogans.

All top leaders in the meeting that followed issued threats of a rebellion should the ruling parties continue with their current stand to get the constitution through a “questionnaire Committee” in the Parliament. Maoist leader Dahal asked for “unconditional talks.” Later in another meeting he threatened of a “parallel government.”

Prime Minister Sushil Koirala who is not known for firm decisions again called on the opposition for a dialogue on the contentious issues relating to the draft constitution. On the other hand, the UML the ruling partner threatened to quit government if the Nepali Congress is not ready to push for the majority process in the constitution making. They made it clear that there could be one last attempt to hold talks and if it does not yield results, the Constituent Assembly should initiate the process to decide the contentious issues of constitution writing through a vote.

Thus Sushil Koirala is facing a major crisis from the opposition as well from his own ruling partner to take a firm decision and go ahead with constitution making.

PM Koirala should understand the following:

1. For all the bluff and bluster, the Maoists are not in a position to have sustained demonstrations of the type they showed on February 28. They cannot go back to the jungle either. Those ex PLA soldiers who were demobilised are angry with the Maoist leadership and will not join any movement either.

2. The people in the valley have not taken kindly to the demonstrations and the supposed massive show of strength did not impress anybody.

3. The demonstration was mainly by the Maoists and neither the Madhesis nor the Janajathis took part in the demonstration in large numbers. Back in Terai, the people were not willing to go for any movement. The Madhesi leadership itself is split with Upendra Yadav and Gachhadar pulling in different directions. Terai is not ready for another Andolan. The Janajathi groups are scattered all over and will not be in a position to have any sustained movement either.

The Maoists have realised that their “massive demonstration” has not produced the desired results. They are looking for an “escape route.” Dr. Babu ram Bhattarai was sent to India to apprise the Indian leaders of their position. He met the foreign minister besides other leaders and top officials. He met the Chief Minister of Delhi ( for reasons best known to him) as also the President of India!

All he got was a kind of a suggestion from India. The Indian Foreign Minister suggested that “Nepal’s Political Parties should write the new constitution on the basis of a consensus and not with a majority in the constituent assembly.”

To me it looks that the Maoists are desperately looking for a face-saving formula and is unnecessarily involving India. India should keep out just as Prime Minister Modi indicated during his first visit that it is for Nepal to decide on its internal issues and India will have nothing to do with it.

But the problem Sushil Koirala is facing is more from his coalition partner UML and particularly K.P.Oli the chairman of the UML. Oli said that the suggestion to federate the country on the basis of ethnicity and separate Madhesh and Hill areas as “completely unacceptable.”

What Oli fails to understand is that ethnic identity is a legitimate issue in Nepal and cannot be wished away. The only issue that is really contentious ( the rest can be managed) is the configuration of the provinces and particularly on the issue of five districts of Jhapa, Sunsari, Biratnagar in the east and Kailali ad Kanchanpur in the west.

If Oli is keen not to have pure Terai and Hill districts why doesn’t he suggest the merger of one or two hill districts with the Terai Provinces?

Surely a way can be found.

The post Nepal: Maoists Take To The Streets For ‘Consensus’ – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Yavuz Yener

A New York Times report on Tuesday revealed that Hillary Clinton used a unique server based in her home in New York for her private e-mails. The report also claims that she did not have any official e-mail account during her service as Secretary of State between 2009-2013.

A congressional committee, investigating the attacks to U.S. embassy in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, requested her e-mails as she was then Secretary of State. The state department is also investigating if her use of a personal e-mail account is a possible breach of federal law.

According to the former officials, who commented on the issue for New York Times, argued that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail account, while having no government account, was illegal. Other analysts claimed that her personal account could be more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

She responded to allegations via her twitter account, and pledged to release all her e-mails. “I want the public to see my email” she tweeted. She already delivered 55,000 pages of e-mails to the State Department. “I asked State to release them [emails]. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible” she added.

The Democrat Part defended Clinton by claiming that the committee’s request for Clinton’s e-mails was a politically-motivated hunt. “Everything I’ve seen so far has led me to believe that this an effort to go after Hillary Clinton, period,” said Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from the committee.

As the 2016 US Presidential election approaches, some candidates have already been named from the Republicans and the Democrats. Hillary Clinton is considered to be the strongest Democrat to run for the presidential election although she still has not declared that she will run a campaign.

According to the U.S. election procedures, Mrs. Clinton must win her party’s presidential nomination before she can run for a nation-wide campaign. Although there are viable alternatives, she appears as the most well-known, and experienced candidate.

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The Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler was bullish after the 3-2 vote of his commission reclassifying broadband as common carriers. Companies such as Verizon had made their mark in previous litigation, arguing that the FCC had bungled over imposing common carrier regulations on broadband providers. The issue was one of classification: as such providers were never common carriers to begin with – at least within the purview of the FCC – they could not be treated as such.

“We have addressed that issue, that is the underlying issue, that is the sine qua non of all of the debates we’ve had so far. That gives me great confidence in going forward.” How far the FCC was going to go in imposing the rules was an open question till Wheeler opted for the firmer route. A softer approach would have seemingly given the internet service providers the best means to deem what was appropriate for them, rather than the public. Thus, argued Wheeler, it was better to go for reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act, effectively making it much like a telephone network.

Such regulatory action by the FCC gives the impression that net neutrality has, and will be preserved. The core idea – that information and services shall be available to all – supposedly lies at the heart of such rules. ISPs will not be allowed to “unreasonably interfere with or unreasonably disadvantage” consumer access to content and services. The FCC will be vested with the power to monitor the behaviour of broadband providers, keeping an eye on whether they create fast lanes for traffic or slower ones for commercially expedient reasons.

But the very fact that “rules” have been imposed outside the framework of either Congress or any other body of oversight suggests that something far more significant is at stake. Even more troubling was the cheery embrace of the FCC internet order in the absence of a full disclosure of the contents, which is set for next week. “Net Neutrality Wins” was a regular slogan, distributed through the Internet with viral enthusiasm. President Barack Obama spoke of the FCC decision as protecting “innovation” while creating “a level playing field for the next generation of entrepreneurs – and it wouldn’t have happened without Americans like you.”

The other side of the argument provides a meaner, distinctly less entrepreneurial picture. Freedom through regulation is seen as an oxymoronic bugbear. It represents, for Ron Paul, “the largest regulatory power grab in recent history” (Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Feb 26). The FCC measure is deemed bullying in its interventionism, smelling of a radical departure “from a decades-old bipartisan national policy of not regulating the Internet” while broadening “its regulation power without direction from Congress.” It creeps up, in the words of Michael Powell (CNet, Feb 27) on “edge providers, middle-mile operators, and backbone facilities that together make up the interconnected networks of the Internet.”

Powell was personally troubled, having himself laid out the Four Freedoms as FCC Chairman a decade prior. Before the Silicon Flatirons Symposium on “The Digital Broadband Migration” (Feb 8, 2004), Powell expounded on the usual pieties about “maintaining openness”, “empowering consumers” without regulating the holy creature termed “the Internet”. To that end, the first principle would involve consumer access to “their choice of legal content”. Consumers would “be able to run applications of their choice.” Consumers would be permitted to “attach any devices they choose to the connection in their homes.” Finally, there would be a freedom for consumers to “receive meaningful information regarding their service plans.”

For Powell, the current moves point towards an enlargement of FCC power, be it in terms of setting rates, or controlling business relationships with an intrusive hand. This is not in itself a terrible thing – business relationships can have an inexorable habit of moving towards profit over competence, consumer rejection over the share dividend. But there will be additional fees and costs associated with the new regime. Innovation may be stymied, with “garage startups”, a pet fantasy of the Silicon set, set to suffer.

The two dissenters against the FCC ruling had much to say about the forthcoming regulatory dystopia. Republican Ajit Pai, a member of the FCC, saw galactic tremors in the regulator move. Drawing on the skimpy book of notable Star Wars quotes, he referenced Emperor Palpatine: “Young fool… Only now, at the end, do you understand.” Forget, argues Pai, the innovative streak after the FCC’s calculated act of sabotage – permission to provide new services would have to go through the guardians of the Internet gate. Similarly, fellow FCC commissioner Mike O’Rielly lamented the permissions regime required for creating new services – one was better off becoming a “telecoms lawyer” instead of a dollar-starred business operator.

Both sides of this acrimonious debate miss the most vital point of all. Internet neutrality has always been the worshipped idol rather than flesh-and-blood being supporters of its principle claim it is. Having begun as a child of military fascination, neutrality was only ever the propagandistic handmaiden of promoters, a restless dream rather than pulsating reality. It has tripled up as weapon, tool of information, and object of restriction.

Distant, abstract and idealised, principles have been drafted, ideas floated, and suggestions made about how best to use the enormous, networked tool. But the very idea of “neutrality” where communications and investment come together, where information is key and the battle for access fundamental, suggest the fictional character of the effort.

Dandy it may be to speak about such “access” entitlements to Internet power, till one realises the range of forces at work seeking to limit and restrict its operations. They come from governments and their agencies. They come from companies and their subsidiaries. The Internet, in other words, is simply another territory of conflict, and one filled with fractious contenders vying for the shortest lived of primacies. Forget neutrality – it was never there to begin with. Just ask the lawyers getting their briefs ready for the next round of dragging litigation.

The post The FCC, The Internet And Net Neutrality – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Liberia has for the first time gone a full week without reporting any new confirmed cases of Ebola, said the WHO (World Health Organization) stressing the progress, but that the fight against the deadly virus in West Africa is not over.

According to WHO, only one Ebola patient is currently hospitalized in Liberia. The country has to have no new cases for 42 days to be declared Ebola-free.

While Liberia has had no cases reported since March 1, at least 132 people contracted the virus in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the other two nations hit-hard by the epidemic. Since the start of 2014, Ebola has left nearly 10,000 dead in West Africa.

The post Liberia: First Week Without Ebola Cases appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Four U.S. Catholic publications with a broad range of audiences have come together in a joint editorial citing Church leaders in calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States.

“Capital punishment must end,” stated a March 5 editorial by America magazine, the National Catholic Register, the National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor.

The death penalty is both “abhorrent and unnecessary,” the publications said, arguing that the practice of capital punishment drains resources in court battles that would be “better deployed in preventing crime in the first place and working toward restorative justice for those who commit less heinous crimes.”

The joint editorial comes a month before the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case challenging lethal injection protocol as cruel and unusual punishment. Last year saw a string of botched executions: inmates in at least three different states were observed gasping for breath, choking, convulsing, and clenching their fists. In one case, an inmate took nearly two hours to die. In another, an inmate died of a massive heart attack half an hour after the lethal injection.

In their editorial, the Catholic publications highlighted the words of Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty. They pointed to St. John Paul II’s 1997 addition to the catechism, which teaches that cases where the death penalty is necessary “are very rare, if not practically non-existent,” as well as Pope Francis’ exhortation last year for Catholics “to fight … for the abolition of the death penalty.”

Within the U.S., the editorial also referenced the words of numerous bishops against the use of the death penalty in recent decades.

Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City called for a re-examination of the death penalty after a botched execution in his state last year.

Last month, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput reiterated his repeated statements on the subject, saying, “When we take a guilty person’s life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture and we demean our own dignity in the process.”

Earlier this year, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, stressed that “the use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity.”

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the bishops’ pro-life committee, echoed these words, emphasizing that society can protect itself in other ways than the death penalty, and adding that “institutionalized practices of violence against any person erode reverence for the sanctity of every human life.”

“We, the editors of four Catholic journals…urge the readers of our diverse publications and the whole U.S. Catholic community and all people of faith to stand with us and say, ‘Capital punishment must end’,” said the publications.

Addressing the claim that the death penalty brings closure to the families of victims, the editorial pointed to the words of a Mercy Sister, whose order holds an annual service for Families and Friends of Murder Victims.

The sister said that the mothers who attend the event never ask for the death penalty, because they say that they do not want another family to suffer what they have suffered.

Jeanette De Melo, editor-in-chief of the National Catholic Register, explained the joint editorial as an effort to embrace the Gospel of Life proclaimed by St. John Paul II and his successors.

“(W)hile we recognize that the Church has allowed for the legitimate use of the death penalty for society’s self-defense, we find that it’s harder and harder to argue that a particular act of capital punishment is circumstantially necessary today in contemporary America,” she said.

“Unity among Catholics in defense of life can send a powerful message. Euthanasia, abortion, war and capital punishment differ in moral weight, but they all threaten human dignity and we must work to end them,” she said, adding that “we look forward to the day we can stand in unity with the other Catholic publications on each of these life issues.”

“The readerships of our various publications represent a wide spectrum of views on the Catholic church,” said National Catholic Reporter editor Dennis Coday.

“That we can forge a joint statement in opposition to the death penalty is a testament to the lasting solidarity Catholics show on all issues that touch on the sanctity of life.”

The editorial noted that Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania have all put a temporary halt to the death penalty.

Noting the importance of the Supreme Court decision expected this summer, the four publications voiced their hope that the ruling will expand this moratorium to become a broader ban.

“We join our bishops in hoping the court will reach the conclusion that it is time for our nation to embody its commitment to the right to life by abolishing the death penalty once and for all.”

The post Catholic Publications Call For End To US Death Penalty appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Governments of Spain, France and Portugal, together with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, have signed the Madrid Declaration aimed at promoting energy interconnections.

Mariano Rajoy called a meeting on Wednesday at Moncloa Palace with a view to making progress on European energy interconnections and the financing thereof through European funds, especially under the Juncker Investment Plan. The event culminated with the signing of the Madrid Declaration by the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, the President of the Republic of France, François Hollande, the Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic, Pedro Passos Coelho, and the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.

At the subsequent press conference, the Spanish Prime Minister explained that the commitments made at the meeting are highly significant for companies because they will enable them to access a resource that is key to their competitiveness at better and more foreseeable costs; highly significant for the environment because they will enable the development of renewable energies; and highly significant for European security because they will facilitate the diversification of energy sources and reduce the dependency of supply on unstable regions of the world.

Furthermore, Rajoy stressed that they will be highly positive for the people “because energy will be able to reach their homes at a lower cost, thereby generating an improvement in well-being”.

Rajoy added that “a political will has been expressed today at the highest level in order to launch this project, as well as the mechanisms and resources necessary to do so”.

Rajoy recalled that the idea to hold this meeting came from the Prime Minister of Portugal, Pedro Passos Coelho, and was mainly aimed at “ending the energy island situation on the Iberian Peninsula” and working to create a European energy market.

Rajoy also said that the 2012 European Council meeting in Barcelona set an interconnection target between Member States of 10% and, although progress has been made towards that goal – as reflected by the inauguration of a high-voltage line between Spain and France on 20 February, there is still a long way to go.

Rajoy also underlined the importance of the Juncker Investment Plan for promoting European infrastructure projects and making it easier for SMEs to access credit. In this regard, he believes that “energy interconnection projects fall perfectly” within the boundaries of that plan, including those discussed on Wednesday. He went on to announce that Spain, through the ICO [Official Credit Institute], will contribute 1.5 billion euros to the plan’s funding.

The meeting was attended by the President of the Republic of France, François Hollande; the Prime Minister of Portugal, Pedro Passos Coelho; the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker; the EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete; and the President of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer.

Working for the well-being of all EU citizens

When asked about his position regarding the new Government of Greece, Rajoy stressed that the Government of Spain seeks “the best possible relations” with the Greek Government, “as it does with any of the other 27 governments of our partner countries in the European Union”.

He stressed that Spain has not been either more or less demanding with Greece than it has with the other members of the Eurogroup. “We have reached the same decision as everyone else and that is a decision aimed at achieving growth and jobs in Greece, and for it to meet its obligations like everyone else”, he said.

Rajoy said he believes that the statements accusing the Governments of Spain and Portugal of intending to change the Government of Greece “are misplaced”. However, he added that what matters now “is the future, and all the decisions adopted by the Government of Spain and all the ideas we put forward in the European Union will always be in the best interests of the people and the search for maximum agreement and the broadest consensus with all countries”.

As regards the strength of the economic recovery, Rajoy recalled that Spain grew for the first time in six years in 2014 and the number of people in work rose by 450,000, thus reflecting “an extremely clear trend shift in the Spanish economy”.

Rajoy acknowledged that another indisputable fact “is that the unemployment figures are unacceptable, and that is the battle this government and Spanish society as a whole are waging”. The main objective is “to return to the figure of 20 million Spaniards in work in this country over the next few years”, he concluded.

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By David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

(University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa) — Good morning. Thank you, Professor Ellyne Mark, for your kind introduction. I am very pleased to visit the University of Cape Town and greatly appreciate your warm welcome. The beauty of your city never fails to impress, and South Africa’s hospitality is special.

It is always profoundly moving to visit your country to witness the extraordinary changes that have taken place since the 1990s. South Africa’s political and economic achievements speak to the capacity of people of diverse backgrounds to overcome their differences in pursuit of common goals. But it is also clear how much work is left to build an inclusive society. For example, despite the broad reduction of poverty since 1994, income inequality remains among the world’s highest.

When I was last in South Africa almost two years ago I spoke to the global and domestic challenges this country faces as it seeks to build the sustained economic growth needed to achieve higher living standards for all South Africans. I highlighted concerns about a world economy struggling to move past the 2008 financial crisis, and I spoke to crucial structural issues that are constraining growth here.

Today I would like to revisit these challenges.

Let me begin with a number: last year your economy grew only 1.5 percent. That meant that per capita income did not rise at all. It also meant that the unemployment rate—among the highest in the G-20 countries—is still about one-quarter.

What are the broader implications? It suggests that South Africa faces an uphill path to build a stronger and more productive economy. Despite the efforts of many of your fellow South Africans, despite the great hopes for Sub-Saharan Africa’s recent strong performance, South Africa continues to face sluggish growth that leaves millions behind. Moreover, the absence of crucial reforms leaves South Africa vulnerable to sudden shifts in the global economy.

This may sound a bit bleak, so I would actually like to offer you an optimistic message. There are many things your country can do to continue transforming your economy and society.

How to do this? Let’s take a step back and begin with the global economy, as it has an important impact on South Africa’s fortunes.

Global Outlook

Global growth over the past year has been weaker than we had hoped in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Among the most important negative trends has been weak growth of emerging market countries, which is having an impact across the world. For 2015, the IMF has slightly reduced its forecast for global growth to 3.5 percent, rising to 3.7 percent next year.

There have been many factors at work, not all of them economic, including geopolitical shockwaves from Ukraine and the Middle East. Africa particularly has felt the sharp decline of the price of oil and other commodities.

As we all know, Europe continues to struggle, although growth was higher than expected at the end of 2014 and shows some signs of strengthening. Japan has experienced only modest growth. Among the emerging economies, China’s slower growth has had a significant impact on global demand; its growth is expected to moderate further in the coming year.

There was good news from the U.S., where a rebound is gaining strength, supported by lower oil prices, more moderate fiscal adjustment than we saw over the past two years, and continued support from monetary policy. But this tells us that the advanced economies are diverging.

Lower oil prices, while affecting different countries differently are, overall, good news for the global economy. Oil exporters—including those in Africa—are certainly feeling the pinch. But at the same time lower prices are giving a lift to oil consumers. This is reducing pressure on current accounts, budgets and inflation. This is the case for South Africa.

But overall, the risks in the global economy must be regarded with concern. Many of them are linked to financial market sentiment, which has compounded the vulnerabilities of oil exporters and the exposure of some countries to a rising dollar.

Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa

There is reason to remain hopeful about Sub-Saharan Africa, which remains the second fastest-growing region after developing Asia. Even with the reduced demand for commodities and slower growth among the emerging markets, most countries in the region are expected to maintain high rates of growth in 2015. Growth in the region should remain at about 4 ¾ percent this year.

This is important because Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic performance over the past 15 years has changed this continent’s outlook profoundly. High growth is partly a result of demand for commodities and investment from the emerging markets. But it also is the result of stronger governance and policy frameworks, the development of services and the financial sector, increased farm productivity, and investment in infrastructure. While some countries struggle to gain momentum—and the Ebola crisis has hurt the three most affected countries—Africa has done well and needs to continue on this path.

South Africa plays an important role in the Sub-Saharan African economy. Your companies are expanding rapidly to the north to benefit from the region’s robust growth.

This integration has been mutually beneficial. It has forged higher regional integration, encouraged competition, given rise to greater economies of scale, and filled the gap left by European banks in the syndicated loan market. Also, small and medium enterprises in South Africa – key to creating jobs – export predominantly manufacturing goods to Africa. South Africa has been a gateway to Africa, and retaining this position will to a large extent depend on domestic developments here.

Outlook for South Africa

However, South Africa’s growth trajectory has not mirrored the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The outlook for 2015 and beyond is for continued sluggish growth. Private consumption should strengthen, partly supported by households’ higher purchasing power as inflation falls. This, of course, assumes that less income is lost to protracted strikes. But investment remains weak, and export performance is lackluster.

Last year’s 1.5 percent growth—the lowest since 2010—should rebound to 2.1 percent this year, again if industrial relations normalize. This is low by emerging market standards. Also, by comparison with those countries, South Africa’s current account and fiscal deficits are elevated and the unemployment rate among the highest in the world. About 1 in 4 South Africans is out of work, and 1 in 2 among young people.

Despite the progress in reducing poverty, there is a long way to go in tackling inequality. While a black middle class has grown up in the past 20 years, the average white household still earns about six times the average black household, and inequality within the African population has increased. Access to education has improved, but the overall quality continues to lag. This means that young workers are not equipped with the skills needed in the modern economy. Health standards also continue to lag.

South Africa is experiencing many of the same external challenges as other developing and emerging market countries: weak external demand and soft commodity prices. There have been home-grown shocks as well, such as the growing disruptions to the electricity supply and protracted strikes. These structural impediments explain why several institutions, including the IMF, are now estimating that potential growth in South Africa, a sort of speed limit for the economy, has come down to about 2-2.5 percent from about 3.5-4 percent some years ago.

Looking ahead, the consumption-driven growth model of the past few years is unlikely to be sustainable. No strong boost is expected from the rest of the world, and fiscal and monetary policy stimulus cannot lift growth and create jobs on a sustained basis. Only decisive progress easing structural impediments—increased electricity availability, more harmonious industrial relations, reduced skill mismatches, lower policy uncertainty, and greater competition in several sectors—can improve the living standards of South African citizens.

Lower Oil Prices: Breathing Room

The current environment of low oil prices and falling inflation actually provides an opportunity for South Africa to address some of these challenges. Lower oil prices are helping to reduce inflation and the current account deficit, thus reducing vulnerabilities, but this development is unlikely to boost growth and jobs under the current structural constraints.

So how to take advantage of this breathing room?

That is where the structural issues I just mentioned are so important. In essence, what is needed is a fundamental shift in a core dynamic of the South African economy that brings together insiders and outsiders across product and labor markets. This can lift investment, growth, and employment.

In some areas, reforms are under way. The financial sector is a prime example: it has relatively high capital buffers, manageable exposure in the foreign exchange market, and diversification of its markets into Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the system is highly interconnected, dominated by a few institutions, and reliant mainly on wholesale funding.

The South African government has embarked on financial sector reforms that take a long view. For example, the new framework proposed in the Financial Sector Regulation Bill would apply across the banking, insurance and securities sectors. It aims to promote better coordination and cooperation among supervisors, including group-wide supervision that can make the system more robust given the prevalence of financial conglomerates.

In addition, a recent IMF assessment recommended upgrading the financial safety net. This will require enhancing the early intervention powers of the Reserve Bank and other prudential regulators, and introducing a deposit insurance scheme to encourage a shift from wholesale to retail funding.

Also, increasing competition in the financial system would make the sector more efficient. It could provide a greater supply of financial services at lower intermediation costs, particularly to small and medium enterprises and low-income households, which would contribute to more inclusive growth and more jobs. Small and medium enterprises in many countries provide the most employment, but not in South Africa.

The 2015 Budget—announced last week—has judiciously chosen the path of consolidation, without compromising spending on the poor and infrastructure. A gradual reduction in the deficit has become necessary after years in which public debt has increased very substantially and growth has disappointed. Consolidation will reduce vulnerability and ensure a stable macroeconomic environment—a necessary condition for growth. The budget also takes active measures that contribute to growth in a very direct and tangible way by prioritizing infrastructure and by improving service delivery, including on education and health. But there are risks, and only stronger growth will put public finances on a much stronger footing, which brings me back to structural issues.

Structural Reforms

It is important for reforms to take a long and comprehensive view, building on the strengths of the private sector. The government already has a blueprint in the National Development Plan. But implementation needs to be stepped up in a consistent way, while reducing uncertainty about government policies.

Improving electricity availability is of paramount importance. The growing problem of power outages is debilitating for people and companies alike. Urgent action is needed to improve energy availability in the short term, while also working to address them medium- and longer-term issues. Government is also making efforts to strengthen the financial position of Eskom and improve its efficiency. Greater private sector participation in the sector and in infrastructure development could also help.

Besides infrastructure, increasing competition in many sectors, improving industrial relations, reducing labor market rigidities, and addressing skill mismatches remain key to reduce unemployments. This can make a difference for the outsiders in this economy: the unemployed and small firms.

Bold leadership is needed by all stakeholders to address these challenges. Business, labor and government each have a role to play. Wage restraint could facilitate hiring commitments, and provision of better quality education and training could reduce skill mismatches. Outsiders must be brought in – the unemployed must find work, entrepreneurs must create new firms, and investors must build anew.

These reforms would also foster manufacturing and closer integration with the rest of the continent—both government objectives to create jobs. This also would benefit SMEs that export to the north.

Addressing structural issues would also help strengthen South Africa’s macroeconomic policies. For example, the structural impediments have prevented the recent exchange rate depreciation from generating an increase in exports. An IMF study found that South African firms that are more electricity- and labor-intensive and are in sectors with less competition show a worse export performance for a given depreciation of the exchange rate and for a given level of external demand. This, in turn, has elevated external vulnerabilities and forced macroeconomic policies to play a greater role in reducing the current account deficit by lowering demand for imported goods.

In sum, addressing these structural impediments would help the economy boost growth, create more jobs, and adjust to shocks. This, in turn, is the most promising way to improve living standards and make the economy more inclusive.

Conclusion

I am optimistic that the future of the global economy lies with the emerging market and developing countries. This places South Africa in a very advantageous position, because you bridge these worlds. You are an emerging market country—a respected member of the G-20. But so much more needs to be done to emerge on the world stage as a source of growth and prosperity in a time of great hope for Africa. The challenge for South Africa is to position itself to take advantage of this bright future.

The post Reflections On South Africa’s Challenges And Opportunities For Reform – Speech appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spanish police have arrested former Ukraine finance minister Yuri Kolobov, who is accused of embezzling millions of euros in state funds, the Associated Press reports.

A Civil Guard statement Thursday said Kolobov was detained in the eastern coastal town of Altea where he is believed to have been living since August. He was arrested on an order issued through Interpol in October.

Ukrainian authorities say Kolobov, 41, and other government officials misappropriated some 7 million euros of public money to a private company.

Kolobov was minister in the government of former President Viktor Yanukovych, which fell in February 2014. Yanukovych and several members of his government then fled the country.

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By Andrei Lankov

Seemingly, in recent days some good economic news began to emerge from North Korea. Last month, the World Food Program published its estimates of North Korea’s 2014 harvest. It seems that the harvest is better than the year before, even though the 2013 harvest was also remarkably good. It is estimated that in 2014 the North Korean farmers harvested some 5.1-5.2 million tons of grain, well above the level of 4.5 million tons which was the norm until recently.

So, North Korean agriculture is improving, and it is clear what brings such improvement. From 2013 the North Korean government began to widely implement a policy of reforms, known as the ‘June 28 decisions’. In essence, the measures envision the switch to household-based agriculture. Under the new system, one or two neighbouring families can register as a ‘small work team’ and then keep 30% of the harvest they reap.

According to some reports, from this year, the share will increase to 60%. At least, such an increase is said to be a part of the ‘May 30 measures’ which are to be implemented from this year.

In the past the North Korean farmers were, in essence, modern-day slaves. They could not leave their farm and change jobs without prior permission, and they worked for fixed rations and small salaries. The actual results of their work had little impact on their income: irrespective of whether they worked well or not, the payment was roughly the same. So, like serfs and slaves of the bygone eras, they did not work hard unless supervised closely.

Now, things have changed. North Korean farmers are becoming sharecroppers, not slaves. While sharecroppers are exploited, too, they know that the efficiency of their work will have a direct impact on their income and their living standards;, hence they were willing to work hard and did what they could to increase the harvest. At the end of the day, the more sharecroppers produce, the better they live. The increase in the agricultural productivity, recently experienced by North Korea, seems to confirm it.

Thus, there are good reasons to feel optimistic about the future of North Korean agriculture. The new policies work, and the world experience also confirms that such changes are likely to produce quick results. In China, where similar policies were first implemented in 1978-79, agricultural production increased by an impressive 50 percent within merely seven years from the switch to the new system.

It is remarkable that in China this unprecedented growth was achieved without much additional investment. Once the Chinese farmers began to work for themselves, they increased their output, even though the arable area, the level of mechanization, the availability of fertilizer and many other variables remained, essentially, the same. The only thing which changed in China from the beginning was the incentive structure, and this change immediately produced great and impressive results. There is no reason to believe that North Korean farmers will react differently.

In the past, the North Korean government was remarkably reluctant to change the system, because the top decision makers were afraid that even small reforms would trigger a major political crisis, perhaps a revolution. While such fears are not completely unfounded, of all possible reforms the changes in agriculture are, perhaps, the least risky politically.

The world experience shows that farmers tend to be politically passive, unless organized by outside forces. They are not much interested in political questions, if they assume that hard work will yield good results. Farmers’ unrest is not unknown, to be sure, but most revolutions begin in cities, not in villages. So, from this point of view, a minor relaxation of control in the countryside will not create excessive risks for the North Korean political elite.

Instead, the new policy is likely to bring easy economic improvement, both in the countryside and in major cities. Hence, one can hope that reforms will continue, so we will hear more good news from North Korean farms.

The post North Korea Farm Policy Changes Point To Better Harvests – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Scientists from the University of Southampton have found that ocean tides have changed significantly over the last century at many coastal locations around the world.

Increases in high tide levels and the tidal range were found to have been similar to increases in average sea level at several locations.

The findings of the study are published online in the journal Earth’s Future.

It is well documented that global average sea levels are rising; but tide levels, have generally been considered to have undergone little change on decadal time scales. It is also often presumed that tides will not change much over the next century. As such, long-term changes in tides are not accounted for in many practical applications and scenarios affected by rising sea levels.

The team used a dataset of 220 sea level records from around the world, which ranged in length from 30 to 150 years. By extracting the tide data from the other components of sea level, they were able to isolate changes in 15 tidal levels by looking at different records of high and low waters from the tidal signal.

Lead author Robert Mawdsley, postgraduate research student in Ocean and Earth Science, says: “We find that at many sites around the world significant changes in tidal levels have already occurred, and at some sites the magnitude of the changes are comparable with the increase in global mean sea level through the 20th century. For example, increases in average high water of over one millimetre per year have occurred around the world, including Calais in France, Manilla in the Philippines, Wilmington in the USA and Broome in Australia.

“The magnitude and global distribution of changes in tides have been hinted at before,” said co-author Dr Ivan Haigh, Lecturer in Coastal Oceanography. “However, here we have been able to assess changes in different tidal levels, which are used for many practical applications. Tides exert a major influence on the coast, affecting coastal flooding and erosion, navigation, tidal energy extraction, sediment movement and the extent of species in coastal ecosystems. Therefore, the changes we have identified have wider ranging practical and scientific implications, particularly if they increase in the future.”

“The cause of these changes is complex and appears to be a combination of mechanisms from local to global, with the primary driver being the rise in sea level associated with climate change,” says co-author Dr Neil Wells, Associate Professor in Physical Oceanography and Meteorology. “Further research is required to more fully understand the mechanisms causing these changes and to understand how tides might further change in the future.”

The post Ocean Tides Changed Significantly In Last Century appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Rapid expansion of oil supply from unconventional sources, a significant change in OPEC’s policy stance, and weak global demand are driving the recent plunge in oil prices, according to a new paper by the World Bank.

These underlying forces are buoyed by a strengthening U.S. dollar and the fact that oil production in the Middle East has not been severely disrupted by ongoing conflict, says the paper, titled “The Great Plunge in Oil Prices: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses”.

The paper, authored by John Baffes, Ayhan Kose, Franziska Ohnsorge, and Marc Stocker, presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and economic and financial consequences of the oil price decline.

The paper was published as the first in a new series of Policy Research Notes (PRNs), a product of the Office of the World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics.

“The idea behind the Policy Research Note series is to synthesize current research and data, and shed light on issues of contemporary policy concern; as such, these occasional publications should be of value to policymakers and analysts especially in emerging market economies,” said Kaushik Basu, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. “This inaugural PRN draws out the many reasons why the current slump in oil prices could persist and exert important effects on the global economy.”

Oil prices fell almost 50 percent between June 2014 and February 2015, possibly marking the end of the commodity price super cycle that began in the early 2000s. The decline has been quite large, but not unprecedented, notes the paper. The latest episode has some significant parallels with the price collapse in 1985-86, which also followed a period of strong supply of unconventional oil and the eventual decision by OPEC to forgo price targeting.

Unconventional and higher-cost oil producers (i.e. US shale, Canadian oil sands and global biofuel production) may well become the new swing, or influential, producers in the oil market. While volatility in oil markets will likely persist, prices are expected to remain soft over the next few years.

The paper estimates that an almost 50 percent decline in oil prices could be associated with a 0.7-0.8 percent increase in global GDP over the medium term.

Low oil prices should exert downward pressures on other commodity prices, especially for natural gas, fertilizers, and food commodities. Cheaper food should benefit a majority of the world’s poor, who are net consumers. With more than 70 percent of the world’s poor living in oil-importing countries, low oil prices should help in the drive to reduce global poverty. The poor could gain further if falling oil prices allowed expenditures on subsidies to be reallocated to better-targeted pro-poor programs, the paper says.

The impact of lower oil prices for the world economy and developing countries should generally be positive over the medium term, though oil-exporting nations will be hit adversely. Indeed, sharply lower oil prices have dampened investor sentiment about oil-exporting emerging market economies and could add to volatility in financial markets, as we’ve already seen in recent months,” said Basu.

Falling oil prices will affect monetary policies differently depending on whether a country is an oil importer or exporter. For many importers, a side effect has been slowing inflation, which may temporarily ease pressure on central banks and, in some cases, could provide room for continued low or lower interest rates or other accommodative policies in an environment of subdued growth. For exporters, central banks will have to balance the need to support growth against the need to contain inflation and currency pressures.

“While beneficial for the global economy overall, cheap oil could complicate monetary policy making in economies that are already grappling with strong deflationary forces,” said Ayhan Kose, Director of the World Bank’s Development Prospects Group.

Fiscal implications of low oil prices will be markedly different for oil importers and oil exporters, but declining oil prices present a unique window of opportunity to reform inefficient fossil fuel subsidies everywhere, the paper says.

To offset the medium-term incentives for increased fuel consumption, while at the same time building fiscal space, policymakers could modify tax policies and increase fuel taxes where appropriate, the paper concludes.

For oil-exporters, the sharp decline in oil prices is also a reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in a highly concentrated reliance on oil exports and an opportunity to reinvigorate their efforts to diversify. These efforts should focus on encouraging higher value added activities in both manufacturing and services, and on supporting the development of skills and human capital that are important for the expansion of these sectors.

The post World Bank Analyzes Oil Price Plunge appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Actor Harrison Ford has been seriously injured after a World War II-era training plane he was piloting crashed into a golf course in Los Angeles.

Ford reportedly sustained injuries to his head as a result of the crash, though he survived and is now being treated at a hospital. The 72-year-old actor is in stable condition, with NBC News reporting he suffered from cuts to the head and possible fractures. Other reports suggested he had gashes on his head and was bleeding.

However, CNN stated that Ford’s condition is still unknown and that he suffered “moderate trauma” when he crashed. It’s also unclear if Ford was attempting to land at the time, but the network added that his plane reportedly hit a tree on the way down.

Officials said he was conscious when taken from the scene of the crash.

“We are very thankful that the passenger had [only] very moderate injuries,” Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Butler said, as quoted by NBC Los Angeles.

The LA Fire Department confirmed that Ford was the only individual in the single-engine plane, and no other injuries have been reported. Howard Tabe, who was at the golf course when the plane crashed, told NBC that two doctors who were also at the scene rushed to treat the actor when the incident occurred. Tabe also said Ford had blood on his face.

In a tweet, Ford’s son Ben said that his father was “battered, but ok.”

Ford is an experienced pilot who has been flying since the 1960s. This isn’t the first time the famed ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ actor has crashed, either. In a 2008 interview with National Geographic, he described an incident that took place as he was flying a helicopter.

“Well, there was a mechanical failure while we were practicing power recovery autorotations. It was more or less a hard landing,” he said at the time. “Luckily, I was with another aviation professional and neither of us was hurt—and both of us are still flying.”

Back in 2000, Ford was involved in another crash as well, this time in a six-passenger aircraft that was occupied by him and one other person. The plane was damaged, but no injuries were reported.

The post Harrison Ford Seriously Injured In Plane Crash appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Media outlets reported Wednesday that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was hospitalized in critical condition, days after a different report indicated doctors had given the ayatollah only two years to live.

The Israel Hayom daily on Thursday reported that the supreme leader was rushed to the hospital and has undergone surgery, citing “Arab media reports.”

He is said to be in serious condition. The reports could not be immediately confirmed.

French paper Le Figaro cited Western intelligence over the weekend that the 76-year-old was suffering from stage four prostate cancer that spread to other parts of his body, with doctors assessing he has, at most, two years to live.

Khamenei has been rumored to be ill for years. In September of last year, he underwent prostate surgery, with his official Twitter account maintaining that it was successful.

The reports come as Iran and the Western powers race to formulate a nuclear deal before the end of the month — a deal Khamenei will have to sign off on in order for it to pass.

Original article

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By Ghazanfar Ali Khan

Iran’s belligerent policies, which are hampering all plans for restoring peace and security in the Middle East, came under fire during talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of the GCC states on Thursday.

Kerry also called on Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and discussed key regional issues, including the Iranian nuclear negotiations.

Kerry’s talks with King Salman mainly focused on bilateral and regional issues, including an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, Syria and Iran’s role in Iraq.

On the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal categorically stated that Kerry had given full assurances that the US would continue to monitor Iran’s “destabilizing” actions and behavior.
Referring to the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Prince Saud said that the Kingdom extended support to the negotiations between Iran and P+5 bloc of countries.

“But, the Kingdom also supports a strong international inspection to ensure that Iran is not seeking to manufacture or possess nuclear weapons,” said Prince Saud, while renewing his support for peaceful use of nuclear energy by Iran or any other country of the region.

He also reminded Kerry that the GCC leaders had voiced their concerns time and again about Tehran’s covert support to the Syrian regime. He accused Iran of meddling in the affairs of the Arab world, saying that “Tehran today promotes terrorism (and) it occupies lands … these are not the features of a country that seeks to improve its relations with its neighbors.”

Prince Saud made these remarks, while addressing a joint press conference with Kerry at the Riyadh Airbase.

Calling his talks with Kerry “fruitful, constructive and transparent,” Prince Saud said that he discussed several regional issues with the US secretary of state, including Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya and the Middle East peace process.

Kerry, who also met the GCC foreign ministers on Thursday, briefed them about the nuclear talks with Iran and discussed ways to bring peace and stability to Yemen.

Speaking alongside Kerry at the press conference, Prince Saud gave a detailed account of the problems posed by Iran. He said that the involvement of Iran in the push being made by Iraqi forces alongside militias to retake the Iraqi city of Tikrit from the Islamic State was a prime example of what worries Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Prince Saud, in clear terms, said that “Iran was taking over Iraq.”

The foreign minister also called on the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the IS in Syria and Iraq to fight the militants on the ground.

“Saudi Arabia, which is part of the coalition, stresses the need to provide military means and support required to face this challenge on the ground,” said Prince Saud.

He reiterated the Kingdom’s support to the legitimate government of Yemen led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

“The Saudi support to Hadi is in line with the support and policies expressed by the GCC, the Arab League and the UN Security Council,” he said.

The foreign minister also expressed his strong concerns over the Middle East peace process, which is not making any headway.

Prince Saud renewed the call for an independent Palestinian state.

The two leaders touched on the prospects of reviving peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinians. Prince Saud, however, lamented that all efforts to revive the negotiations are failing.

“It is mainly because of Israel’s policy of stubbornness and procrastination,” said the prince.

Asked about the regional turmoil for which Syrian regime is greatly responsible, Kerry said: “Military pressure may be needed to oust Syria’s President Bashar Assad … He has lost any semblance of legitimacy, but we have no higher priority than disrupting and defeating the IS and other terror networks.”

On the question of Iranian nuclear negotiations, Kerry said Washington was not seeking a “grand bargain” with Iran that would involve wider political and security cooperation with Iran, and insisted that a nuclear deal with Iran would address security concerns of Gulf countries.

Kerry’s visit to Saudi Arabia follows three days of talks this week with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Switzerland aimed at persuading Iran to restrain its nuclear enrichment program.

On Yemen, Kerry stated that the US supports “the peace process led by the UN” and within the framework of the GCC initiative for Yemen. The UN-mediated talks, that have failed to progress substantially of late, are aimed at breaking the political stalemate between the Houthis and the legitimate faction led by Yemeni President Hadi, he added.

Kerry also conveyed to King Salman the greetings of US President Barack Obama. On his part, the king sent his greetings to the US president. The audience was attended by Prince Saud; Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif and Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

On the American side, the talks were attended by US Ambassador to the Kingdom Joseph W. Westphal, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Anne Patterson, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Kurt Ted, US State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki and other high-ranking American officials.

The post Iran Promoting Terrorism, Taking Over Iraq – Saudi Arabia appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Seyed Nader Nourbakhsh*

Following an armed attack in early January on the Paris offices of the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, and in spite of the fact that the attack has been widely condemned by French Muslims, violence against Muslims in France has been sharply increasing subsequent to the attack. For example, a mosque in the city of Le Mans was attacked by person(s) who launched three grenades inside the complex and damaged the building. In another incident, a bomb went off close to a mosque in the city of Villefranche-sur-Saone. Also, the severed head of a pig was found in front of the building of an Islamic center on the island of Corsica in southern France on which the attackers had written, ‘you’re next’.

In another incident, bullets were shot at a mosque in the town of Port-la-Nouvelle in southern France. Such acts of violence did not remain limited to France as three mosques were set on fire in Sweden as well.

Of course, such attacks were actually insignificant compared to what happened to Charlie Hebdo, but on the whole, they indicate that an atmosphere of hostility and hatred is taking shape against Muslims in France. It should be noted that Muslims account for about 10 percent of the population in France and it seems that the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo will claim the country’s Muslims as its main victims. On the other hand, Western media usually try to make the world believe that all terrorists are Muslims, though a closer look at the available statistics will prove the opposite. According to a report released by the Europol, most terrorist attacks in Europe have been carried out by separatist groups that are active in various European countries.

For example, out of 152 cases of terrorist attacks in Europe during 2013, only two incidents have been based in religious motivations and the rest of them have arisen from nationalistic and separatist reasons. However, such cases are hardly, if ever, reflected in the Western mass media.

According to another report, a total of 94 percent of all violent attacks in the United States in the time interval from 1980 to 2005, has been carried out by non-Muslims. Out of that figure, 42 percent of the attacks were carried out by special groups that are based in Latin America and 24 percent were committed by radical leftist groups.

Interestingly enough, based on general statistics released for 2013, the possibility of an American citizen being killed in accidental shooting by a child has been much higher than the possibility of the same citizen being killed in a terrorist operation.

During the past two years, underground terrorist groups like the National Liberation Front of Corsica (Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale Corsu or FLNC in French), or such leftist groups as Greece’s people’s militias, or the Italian Anarchist Federation have been behind multiple cases of bombing and murder in their respective countries, which have not been adequately covered by mass media.

The recent incidents have provided good grounds for the escalation of violent measures by the radical rightist groups against the Muslim people living in the West.

Following terrorist attacks on Twin Towers in New York in September 11, 2001, as well as subsequent to terrorist attacks in London and Madrid, European intelligence services put all their focus on extremism preached by such groups as Al-Qaeda. As a result, and quite unwittingly, they paved the way for the expansion of another form of radicalism, this time by radical rightist groups in Western countries. A blatant example of such activities was the terrorist attack in Norway in 2011, which was carried out by a Norwegian citizen called Anders Behring Breivik. As a result of the attack, 77 people lost their lives and 319 were wounded.

Just a short while following the Norway attack, the German secret services said they had discovered an underground neo-Nazi network, which had killed tens of Turkish and Greek emigrants during about 10 years of its activity. The network had gone totally unnoticed by German officials through all those years.

The concerning point here is that most victims of violent actions taken by the rightwing radical groups usually come from minority groups, especially Muslims. Since their operations are usually carried out on the suburbs of big cities and in places where immigrants are concentrated, their actions are not generally noticed by the public. On the other hand, even if such actions are prosecuted, they are not considered acts of terrorism, but are categorized as hate crime, which carries a more lenient sentence than terrorism.

The recent incident in France (the attack on Charlie Hebdo offices), which was actually triggered by the weekly’s insulting cartoons against the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has helped fan the flames of extremism in Europe. As a result, special conditions have been brought about in Europe under which radical forces have been able to outdo their rivals in committing acts of violence.

It seems that the existing atmosphere will finally give birth to a vicious circle in which Muslims will feel more isolated and discriminated against than any time in the past. Such a feeling of fear and humiliation is exactly the main factor that terrorist groups like the ISIS are trying to foment among Muslims and through which they can draw on the population of radical Muslim youth to attract new members. At present, more than any time before, there is a risk that people who had left Europe for Syria and Iraq and had joined the ranks of the ISIS may go back to their home countries and embark on violent acts of terrorism.

At a national level, however, such a situation will lead to the adoption of more austere immigration laws against Muslims by the European governments, which will also use this situation as an excuse to up their security measures and downplay the importance of personal freedoms of their citizens.

Of course, such austere measures will not simply affect Muslims, but will also leave their marks on all minorities, including gypsies, and other groups of immigrants in Europe.

Under such conditions, radical elements will have a wide maneuvering room in order to have their voice heard by their supporters.

Some analysts also believe that such incidents of terrorism highlight France as defenseless against terrorism before the world’s public opinion. On the domestic front, the French President Francois Hollande, who is already suffering from unprecedented loss of popularity, will be able to make the most of these conditions in order to mend his image.

Recent attack on Charlie Hebdo in France has provided radical rightwing parties and movements in all parts of Europe with a very good and unprecedented opportunity to boost their activities and has greatly increased their popularity. As a result, radical rightwing parties have put their focus on issuing renewed warnings about the risks posed by the influx of immigrants to Europe.

Some analysts have even warned that the terror attacks in Paris have made way for these parties to put more pressure on the governments to pass anti-immigration laws and further crack down on Muslim minorities.

In the meantime, the populist radical rightwing parties have been trying to show a vociferous reaction to these terror attacks by describing them as a direct result of the multicultural policies adopted by various European states.

Nigel Paul Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, has charged Islamist groups as being a fifth column of London’s enemies in the country, while Geert Wilders, leader of the Netherlands Freedom Party, has noted that it is time to fight against the Islamization of the country. On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the National Front of France, has opined that the time is past for cover-up. Alexander Gauland, member of Alternative for Germany party, has noted that such terrorist incidents prove that those who tried to ignore the threat of Islam have been greatly mistaken. Such remarks are now resounding among the European public opinion more than any time before. It should be noted that the population of Muslims in Europe has increased from 30 million in 1990 to 44 million in 2010. In the meantime, Muslims account for a considerable chunk of population in some European cities, including 10 percent in Paris, 20 percent in Stockholm, and 22 percent in Birmingham.

Before the recent incidents, an opinion poll conducted by Le Figaro newspaper last month, showed that the popularity of Marine Le Pen, who is leading the rightwing radical elements of France’s National Front has greatly increased and is now even higher than popularity of the country’s President François Hollande. Many observers now believe that she is currently fit to run for president in the forthcoming presidential polls, which are slated for 2017.

Marine Le Pen, who has promised her supporters to turn the National Front into the main political party in France, has gained remarkable victories in 2014. For example, she won a local election in March as her party won mayor posts in a number of French cities.

Also, in an election for the European Parliament, which was held last month, her party was the forerunner from France by getting about 25 percent of the country’s votes. The development has led to extreme delight of and raised hope among radical rightwing and national parties in other European countries.

In a similar turn of events and in the political scene of Sweden, the government of the North European country has been under pressure from the radical rightwing Sweden Democrats Party to enforce more austere measures against the immigrants. Of course, the two sides finally reached a temporary compromise on this issue, but it goes without saying that the Sweden Democrats Party will not easily leave the political arena in Sweden, but on the contrary, has succeeded to increase its share in the elections from 6 percent in 2010 to 13 percent in 2014.

In Germany, a radical group called PEGIDA [which stands for Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes in German, meaning the “Patriots against the Islamization of the West”] has been organizing mass protests in various cities in Germany in protest to what it calls the Islamization of Europe. The movement, which has announced its main goal as being to prevent Islamization of Germany, is considered a rightwing group. However, it has succeeded to distance from neo-Nazi groups and does not consider itself as following racist tendencies. The supporters of PEGIDA have been able to launch big rallies in the German city of Dresden.

The city of Dresden was the target of major air strikes by the UK and the United States in later years of the World War II, during which about 90 percent of the city was totally destroyed and a high number of civilians were either killed or wounded. Many observers believe that the air raids were among war crimes of the Allied forces in the World War II and the incident has been a focus of attention by the majority of supporters of radical rightwing groups in Germany.

According to the German police, a total of about 25,000 people poured into the streets in support of the PEGIDA on January 12 alone. On the other hand, it seems that the radical rightwing groups in Germany have reached the conclusion that they cannot reach their goals by putting the main stress on racism and neo-Nazi tendencies, especially in view of the country’s past history and special sensitivity that surrounds Nazism and Fascism. Therefore, the PEGIDA movement has been trying to openly distance from racist groups, at least outwardly, and has opted for another path which seeks to draw the attention of the middle class and the young people. This strategy is similar to that adopted by other populist rightwing parties in other countries in Europe.

The terror attack in Paris has provided leaders of the radical right in Europe with a good opportunity to tell their people that they had already warned them about the consequences of the Islamization of Europe. However, is the public opinion in France and other Western countries also aware of the fact that the mistaken intervention and policies of their countries in Syria and Iraq, has been the main reason that has practically turned these countries into fertile grounds for the growth of radicalism and terrorism? The media hype around Paris terror attacks has been so intense that everybody seems to have forgotten that one of the policemen killed by the terrorists in Paris was actually a Muslim.

At present, radical rightwing parties have won a sizeable share of parliamentary seats in Austria, Sweden, Hungary, and the Netherlands. At the same time, some people believe that the UK Independence Party, commonly known as UKIP, is more a populist party than a radical rightwing, despite its anti-immigration and xenophobic stances. In addition, Greece’s neo-Nazi party, known as the Golden Dawn, can be only cautiously put in the same category with other radical rightwing parties elsewhere in Europe.

At international level, the success of radical rightwing parties in European countries simultaneous with the ongoing standoff between the West and Russia over the situation in Ukraine, has led to more closeness and open support of Russia for these parties. Russia is supporting these parties because it sympathizes with anti-American and anti-European Union policies that are followed by them and this is why Moscow has been openly lending support to these parties.

For example, the National Front of France was given an 11-million-dollar loan by a Russian bank at a time that French banks had rejected the party’s loan request. On the other side, Le Pen and her party are in favor of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confrontation with the United States.

Putin had even invited a number of the leaders of European radical rightwing parties to oversee the referendums held by pro-Russia secessionist forces in the Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula for annexation to Russia.

* Seyed Nader Nourbakhsh
Ph.D. in Political Science & Senior Europe Analyst

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

The post Europe’s Radical Right Against Muslims – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Iraq’s government says Islamic State (IS) militants have begun bulldozing the remains of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq in their latest attack on the country’s historical heritage.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the development, saying the militants began the destruction after noon prayers on March 5.

It said trucks that may have been used to haul away artifacts also had been spotted at the site, about 30 kilometers southeast of Mosul.

Ministry officials said they did not yet know the extent of the destruction of the historical city, which was founded about 3,300 years ago on the Tigris River with the ancient name Kalhu and had been one of the jewels of the Assyrian Empire.

The destruction of the ruins of Nimrud, which is the city’s later Arab name, came a week after the IS group released a video showing militants armed with sledgehammers and jackhammers smashing priceless ancient Assyrian artifacts at the Mosul museum.

Iraqi officials say they fear IS militants will continue to destroy other ancient heritage sites in parts of northern Iraq that they seized last summer — including the beautifully preserved city of Hatra, which is more than 2,000 years old and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archaeologists and heritage experts compare the destruction with the 2001 demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Nimrud was the site of what was considered to be one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, when a team in 1988 unearthed a collection of ancient jewels there.

The jewels were briefly displayed at the Iraqi national museum before they disappeared from public view, but they survived the looting of museums that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The precious-stone collection was eventually found in an Iraqi central-bank building.

Many of Nimrud’s priceless artifacts were moved to museums in Mosul, Baghdad, Paris, London, and elsewhere.

But giant carved-stone reliefs and lamassu statues — winged bulls with human heads — had remained on the site of the city’s ruins.

After Nimrud had existed for about 400 years, the city became the second capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire in 879 B.C.

It remained as the Assyrian capital for about 170 years, until the capital was moved — first to Dur Sharrukin and then to ancient Nineveh.

It continued to by a major Assyrian city and a royal residence until it was destroyed during the fall of the Assyrian Empire in the seventh century B.C. at the hands of and alliance of former subject people — among them, the ancient Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Scythians, and Cimmerians.

The ruins of Nimrud had covered an area of about 360 hectares and were located about 1 kilometer from the modern-day village of Noomanea in Iraq’s Nineveh Province.

The area is still a major center of Iraq’s indigenous Assyrian population, which is now mostly Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christians.

Since last summer, the Assyrian Christian residents of the area have been threatened with execution by IS militants unless they convert to Islam.

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The US pressures Thai generals to plan elections, despite rocky transition and royal succession.

By Shawn W. Crispin*

Throughout US global wars against communism, drugs and terrorism, Thailand has been an indispensable strategic partner. But the recent sharp deterioration in ties was evident in January when Thailand’s Foreign Ministry summoned the top US diplomat in Bangkok to register displeasure over the State Department’s critical comments about the country’s military rule. As the erstwhile allies drift apart, China has moved to fill the gap with economic and strategic overtures aimed at countering the US pivot policy towards Asia.

Thailand’s official rebuke stemmed from a January 26 public speech delivered by Daniel Russel, assistant US secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. In remarks to a Bangkok university audience, Russel raised concerns about a lack of “inclusiveness” in the military government’s so-called political reform drive and maintenance of martial law more than eight months after seizing power in a democracy-suspending coup.

The US has been a consistent critic since then army commander, now prime minister, General Prayuth Chan-ocha ousted Yingluck Shinawatra’s elected government in May. Prayuth has since vowed to restore democracy after the passage of a new constitution and wide-ranging reform. Critics muted under martial law view the process as a charade to sustain the military’s political role.

While Prayuth’s coup was nominally staged to restore stability after months of debilitating anti-government street protests, many Bangkok-based diplomats suggest there was a hidden agenda to ensure that royalist generals rather than squabbling politicians are in charge during the delicate royal succession from ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 87, to either his heir-apparent, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, or daughter Princess Sirindhorn.

First crowned in 1946 and revered by a broad cross-section of the population, Bhumibol’s passing is expected to diminish the monarchy’s overarching position in Thai society. Opposed political groups have jockeyed for position to fill the impending vacuum, contributing to a decade of turmoil characterized by revolving street protests and security clampdowns. The military has professed neutrality, but its paramount role of defending the crown is aligned with a royal establishment keen to sustain the palace’s power and privilege beyond Bhumibol.

Washington maintains what one US diplomat characterizes as an “engage not embrace” approach, a policy shift led by outgoing US Ambassador Kristie Kenney who initially refused to meet the coup-makers. Thai officials had deflected criticism of the coup and its clampdown on free expression and assembly, but the kerfuffle over Russel’s remarks, including the senior envoy’s insinuation that Yingluck’s impeachment by the military-dominated National Legislative Assembly was more political than legal, indicates relations are nearing a breaking point.

Prayuth told reporters that Russel had relied on “one-sided” information to assess Thai politics and he felt “sorry” that a long-time friend “misunderstood” the country’s context. Those comments resonate with a royal establishment that backed the coup while sensing that Washington sides with Yingluck and her self-exiled billionaire brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Both sides of Thailand’s political divide profess to fight for democracy. Each has demonstrated authoritarian and abusive tendencies while in power.

China, on the other hand, has aired no complaints, adroitly navigating the political currents compared to Washington’s polarizing pronouncements. Days after publicly scolding Russel, Prayuth hosted Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, the latest in high-level bilateral exchanges since the coup. Chang offered, among other things, to expand the two sides’ fledgling joint military exercises to include air force maneuvers.

Initiated in 2010, Chinese-Thai joint military exercises are more symbolic than substantial. But Beijing’s overtures to boost strategic ties have taken some sting out of Washington’s decision to downgrade this year’s joint Cobra Gold exercises, the region’s largest, held annually in Thailand since 1981. In punitive response to the coup, Washington limited this year’s maneuvers to humanitarian missions and reduced their naval component by some 20 percent. Some analysts speculate 2016 exercises could be cancelled if Thailand is not on a path to new elections.

The downsized maneuvers come amid a deal under consideration by Thailand’s Ministry of Defense to allow China to lead a multibillion dollar modernization of its Sattahip naval base on the Gulf of Thailand. Panitan Wattanayagorn, security expert and top aide to Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, suggests that allowing China naval access to Sattahip would “rebalance” the special US privileges long held at U-Tapao airfield, used for staging bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War and, more recently, refueling military planes in transit to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Strategic recalibration by Thailand could have profound implications for the region’s balance of power. A new Ministry of Transport proposal to convert U-Tapao into a commercial airport, if approved, would likely end or diminish US military access to the runways. A Chinese naval presence in the Gulf of Thailand meanwhile would shift dynamics in two key maritime theaters by giving China a southern flank in the South China Sea and a new pressure point in emerging competition with India in the Indian Ocean.

It’s not clear that Thailand, renowned for astutely calibrating its great-power relations, has decidedly swung towards China. An older generation of still influential soldiers, embodied by the former prime minister, army commander and top royal advisor Prem Tinsulanonda, recall the vital US role in repelling China-backed communist revolutionaries bent on overthrowing the Thai monarchy in the 1960s and 1970s and keeping Vietnamese invaders at bay in Cambodia throughout the 1980s.

Prayuth’s cadre is less beholden to those Cold War memories and views China’s rise as more economic opportunity than strategic threat. During a December visit to Thailand, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inked a $12.2 billion dollar deal to build and help finance a north-south rail line connecting the Chinese city of Kunming to Bangkok and its industrial eastern coast. Prayuth’s economic lieutenants view the infrastructure as crucial to positioning Thailand as the soon-to-be-launched ASEAN Economic Community’s trade and transport hub. In 2013, China surpassed Japan as Thailand’s largest trade partner, representing around 14 percent of its total trade.

Still, Thailand’s ruling generals are aware of the risks of over-reliance on China, witnessed in the erosion of negotiating leverage in aid-for-concession Beijing deals for neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Thai officials have bristled at China’s proposed conditions for constructing the rail link, including Chinese management of its operations, rights to develop land along the 870-kilometer route, and a 4 percent interest rate on related loans.

There’s also political risk that the rail line facilitates fast-track migration of Chinese into Thailand as surging Chinese property acquisitions in the country become increasingly sensitive.

Obama’s pivot has turned on rising regional anxieties about China’s perceived hegemonic ambitions, particularly among Southeast Asian nations with competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Thailand has no claim in the maritime dispute. While Obama’s thinly veiled containment policy has built new strategic bridges to authoritarian regimes in Myanmar and Vietnam, and deepened ties to the Philippines’ military accused of abuses, the active alienation of Thailand’s generals has opened the way for China to counter US regional advances and drive a geographical wedge in its encirclement.

The apparent US stand on democracy and rights could ultimately have the opposite effect. Prayuth’s post-coup vow to restore democracy quickly was made in part to appease the US and Europe, traditionally Thailand’s most important economic and strategic partners. The former army chief has already pushed back his original 2015 timeline for elections to 2016. As China presents an alternative rich source of trade and security, western pressure for new polls will have diminished resonance with ruling generals as they weigh the diplomatic costs and benefits of retaining power until the royal succession is secure.

*Shawn W. Crispin has covered Thailand’s politics for more than 16 years variously with the Far Eastern Economic Review, Wall Street Journal and Asia Times Online. He may be reached at swcrispin@gmail.com.

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By C Raja Mohan*

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had good reasons to frame Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan as part of a “Saarc Yatra”. Having suspended talks with Islamabad last August, the government needed a diplomatic device to renew the engagement with Pakistan. The appointment of a new foreign secretary and the tradition of India’s top diplomat beginning his or her tenure by travelling first to neighbouring capitals have provided a useful setting to make a fresh start with Pakistan. The Saarc yatra also gives Jaishankar an opportunity to engage Afghanistan, which is at a decisive moment in its political evolution since the ouster of the Taliban by the American forces at the end of 2001.

For centuries now, developments on India’s northwestern frontiers have decisively influenced the security environment of the large territorial entities in the subcontinent built around the Ganga and Yamuna. That geopolitical logic has held true for the Mughal Empire, the British Raj and independent India. While there are many bilateral issues that will figure prominently in Jaishankar’s talks with Islamabad and Kabul, the foreign secretary is acutely conscious of the new regional dynamic shaping India’s relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The nature of the turbulence on India’s northwestern frontiers today is comparable to the developments in 1979-80, including the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the promotion of a jihad against the Moscow-backed regime in Kabul by America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi sought to respond to the new dynamic by diversifying India’s great power relations away from Moscow, strengthening ties with America, normalising relations with China, which had just come out of the Cultural Revolution, reaching out to Saudi Arabia and, above all, seeking improved ties with Pakistan.

India’s adaptation, however, was too weak and tentative to make an impact on the regional security environment. For, India’s relative weight in the region had steadily declined over the preceding decades. There was considerable internal resistance to the new diplomatic initiatives that prevented taking them to the logical conclusion. As a result, by the end of the decade, India was utterly unprepared for what followed. Prolonged civil war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Rawalpindi’s success in helping the Taliban capture power in Kabul and redirecting violent extremism towards Punjab and Kashmir.

As New Delhi takes a fresh look at its northwestern frontiers, it stares at a number of important trends. Americans are leaving Afghanistan after a decade-long occupation of the country, not on a note of triumph but uncertainty. China, until recently a minor player in the region, has become an important external force in the subcontinent and appears poised to shape the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, both Washington and Beijing believe that reconciliation between Kabul and Rawalpindi holds the key to stability in the northwestern subcontinent. Their efforts appear to have gained some traction, as President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan has reached out to Rawalpindi. The Pakistan army chief has, in turn, promised to deliver the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table.

Saudi Arabia is being squeezed between the rise of Sunni extremism and a resurgent Shia Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran, which long denounced America as the Great Satan, is inching towards a nuclear deal with the US and is looking to bolster its position in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Like the changes at the turn of the 1980s, current developments will also have lasting consequences for India. Unlike in the 1980s, India is much better placed today. Its weight in the region and the world has steadily grown, thanks to the economic reforms of the last quarter of a century. Its bilateral ties in the greater Middle East have acquired much more depth. Above all, Delhi has weathered all that Pakistan has thrown at it in Kashmir and beyond.

Yet, Delhi has not been able to take full advantage of this at the diplomatic level. The presumed political need to posture to domestic audiences on Pakistan and an inability to check the hawkishness of large sections of the security establishment have limited Delhi’s room for manoeuvre in the northwest. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had bold ideas, but did not have the support of the Congress to take them to their logical conclusion. Modi, too, is under much pressure at home to signal a hard line towards Pakistan, irrespective of its merits.

It makes sense for the Modi government to break out of the “talks-no talks” paradigm that has bogged down every single government in the last few years. Delhi’s refusal to talk to civilian governments in Islamabad made little difference in the past to Rawalpindi’s orchestration of terrorism in region. What might make the difference is Pakistan’s emerging recognition of its own vulnerability to extremism, especially after the attack on an army school in Peshawar last December. As Pakistan struggles to cope with the extremist challenge at home and on its western frontiers, Jaishankar would want to assess the scale and scope of this change and its implications for India.

Sticking to Delhi’s old political certitudes will only limit India’s ability to manage the profound transformation taking place in the northwestern marches of the subcontinent. What Delhi needs is a strategy that will generate some influence for India in shaping the future of this critical sub-region.

Such a strategy will necessarily involve sustained dialogue with Pakistan, a recalibration of the Afghan policy, encouragement to the peace talks between Kabul and Rawalpindi and the readiness to engage all powers, including the US, China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have a stake in the region’s stability.

*The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation and a Contributing Editor for ‘The Indian Express’

Courtesy : The Indian Express, March 3, 2015

The post India: Northwest Turbulence – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Not that many people are paying attention outside of the region, but Venezuela is quickly approaching the precipice of disaster.

At 68% inflation, the country ranks among the worst performing economies in the world outside of Sudan. Unemployment, debt, unchecked violence and insecurity, and widespread shortages of basic goods ($755 condoms) are drawing comparisons with the worst of Soviet times. Bloomberg just named Venezuela #1 in its “Misery Index” for 2015, and second place was nowhere close. Even war-torn Ukraine isn’t doing quite as badly.

With no new ideas on how to fix the economic crisis (problem being that Hugo Chávez failed to stock the stabilization fund during the boom years), the fabulously incompetent administration of President Nicolás Maduro has resorted to time-tested tactic of polarization, provoking the opposition by jailing a number of its leaders, including Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma on sedition charges with virtually no evidence.

Although there is probably an element of crisis fatigue when it comes to Venezuela (the country has veered from one emergency into another since 2002), we should be paying close attention to what Maduro does next, as he appears to be testing out a new blueprint for repressive states to completely eliminate the possibility of political opposition while at the same time continue to ape the appearance of a democratic state.

Back in 2007-2009, I was involved in the legal defense team of a Venezuelan political prisoner, Eligio Cedeño, who now lives in exile. At time, we had prepared a White Paper examining all the legal flaws in the state’s case against him, making the argument that the judiciary under the influence of the presidency is used as a weapon to repress lawful political opposition.

A lot has changed in Venezuela in the past seven years, but the core flaws in the legal system remain. In the conclusion of the paper we wrote that “patterns of judicial attack include: (1) official condemnation in the media; (2) false criminal charges; (3) controlled assignment of sensitive cases to pliable judges; (4) persistent and flagrant due process violations; (5) prosecutorial misconduct; (6) manifestly erroneous court rulings; and (7) executive interference with undesirable decisions by the judiciary.”

Judging by the handling of the current cases against opposition leaders Ledezma, Leopoldo Lopez, Daniel Ceballos, Vicenzo Scarano, and Maria Corina Machado, among others, President Maduro has continued fulfilling the same model of the weaponised judiciary as established by his predecessor, albeit quite a bit more recklessly.

The Ledezma example alone is outstanding – he was arrested by riot officers at gunpoint without a warrant, and then brought up on the charges of conspiracy and racketeering, which both have a very high threshold for evidence. The state’s case, however, is based on Ledezma signing a completely innocuous letter devoid of any language of “coups.”

A recent story in the Miami Herald from a few weeks ago quotes experts on the rapid decay of rule of law in Venezuela:

“Political influence over the courts has always existed, but now it’s very apparent — there’s not even an attempt to hide it,” said Yvett Lugo, president of the Caracas Bar Association. “Dissent in this country is being criminalized.”

“All of these cases are part of a sad and lamentable use of the justice system to neutralize political adversaries,” said Alberto Arteaga, a Central University of Venezuela criminal law professor. “It sends the message that anyone who acts as a political leader may face jail.”

What we have seen so far during this slow motion tragedy is that the Venezuelan government will become more and more oppressive as the economy continues to tighten, while at the same time portraying itself as a victim of an “international conspiracy.” Its tactics to eliminate political opponents are likely to be copied, both close to home and far abroad.

The question is, how much longer can Maduro pretend to be a besieged fortress when his opponents no longer exist? One senses that this story will not have a good ending.

The post Venezuela’s Deepening Legal Nihilism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In the past few weeks amid the daily reports of the military situation in Iraq and Syria, disturbing accounts of the destruction of cultural artifacts and books have been reported in Mosul, Iraq. Since the US invasion of Iraq countless priceless artifacts have been destroyed, or have disappeared from museums. As the war rages on in Syria, similar destruction of cultural treasures has also taken place there.

Many of the oldest cities in the world including Baghdad, Aleppo, Mosul, and many more also lie in ruins resulting in devastating loss of historical architecture. Grand libraries, once a place of refuge from a stormy region, with a wealth of knowledge worth all the gold in the world, now lie in ruins, its books burned by jihadists. Adolf Hitler burned books and banned art in Germany because he realized the power of knowledge just as the jihadists do today.

History has proven that those who seek to destroy knowledge and culture leaving only their own interpretation must be confronted. My hopes to one day see some of this ancient history first hand have been dashed. The world has lost sight of the fact that our culture makes us who we are. We all have a stake in this. Academics and scholars, artists, scientists, and the common man. We must confront those who seek to destroy what humans create for the sake of knowledge and beauty.

During World War II, there was a recognition and response to the looting and destruction of priceless cultural artifacts in Europe. Led by the United States, The American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas was created. This small group of experts in the fields of art, architecture, and history, from thirteen nations spread across Europe.1 Known as the “Monuments Men”, these men and women were sent to Europe and given the mission to save rather than destroy; to wade through the destruction and salvage, and protect the cultural treasures of Europe. Why were they given this mission in the midst of such a calamity? Because there was a recognition that for all the loss of life, the politics, and the destruction, an effort must be made to save important cultural artifacts and art. Without it we lose a sense of the past, who we are as humans, and where to go in the future. After all, you can’t look to the past if there is no past to look at.

Just as efforts were made to save the Rembrandt’s, Monet’s, and other cultural treasures, so must a similar mission be undertaken today. The United States is unlikely to take the lead this time.

However, this is not a reason not to act. Saving the cultural heritage of the Middle East is the responsibility of all. UNESCO may be best suited to take a leading role in these efforts, possessing the clout and cultural knowledge to bring scientists, artists, and scholars who know what must be preserved together. Under the auspices of UNESCO a cultural refugee repository could be set up to protect what is saved until such a time as it can be returned to its place of origin. Their mission to locate, save, and preserve what is left in Iraq, Syria, and the many other conflicts of the world where culture is being destroyed is one of the great tasks of this century. If the world fails in this task, the ghosts of the past will haunt us, and those who come after us will be deprived of priceless cultural and historical wealth. Much has already destroyed, but it’s not too late! When we lose pieces of our past, we lose a part of our future in the process.

Notes:
1. http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes

The post The Case For Preserving Cultural History – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.