By A.D. McKenze

As world leaders prepare to meet in New York next month for the 2015 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), French activists say they are not holding their breath for any real commitment to enforce the 45-year-old accord.

France is the world’s third nuclear-arms power, and while its official policy is that stockpiles should not be increased and that testing must be stopped, the Socialist government of François Hollande is not in favour of total nuclear disarmament.

Hollande’s stance differs little in fact from that of his Conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who believed that global disarmament must be based on “reciprocity” – a policy that means essentially ‘we’ll get rid of ours if you get rid of yours’.

The country has both maritime and air-based nuclear capability, and the government’s position, outlined in a 2013 white paper, is that “nuclear deterrence” is a means of protecting “vital interests”.

In February 2015, Hollande reiterated that policy in a speech at a French military air base, saying that possessing nuclear arms acts as a deterrent for enemies, in a “dangerous world”.

“The current international context doesn’t allow for any weakness, and there is no question of letting down one’s guard,” he said.

“One cannot rule out the possibility of future state conflicts that may concern us directly or indirectly,” the president declared.

Disarmament activists counter this stance, warning that France is not fulfilling its obligations under the NPT. They say the country has equally lagged on measures agreed in 2010, when the previous Review Conference adopted a 64-point action plan to push forward implementation of the Treaty.

“There is no reduction of nuclear stockpiling taking place, so we need a treaty that completely bans nuclear weapons rather than banning proliferation,” says Patrice Bouveret, director of the Observatoire des armements, an independent French documentation and research centre devoted to peace-building.

“None of the engagements taken five years ago have resulted in anything concrete,” Bouveret told IDN. “States need to now work on launching a different treaty because the current situation is just as ambiguous as it has been.”

Bouveret’s Observatoire des armements is a member of the Sortir du Nucléaire network (network for Phasing out the Nuclear Age), the main French anti-nuclear coalition that comprises 932 organisations and about 60,500 signatories.

The coalition supports “non-violent actions of civil disobedience” and will participate for instance in a 65-day protest to block Germany’s Büchel military air base which has the last nuclear arms on German soil – stored due to an agreement with the United States.

The protest is a show of “opposition to the stationing of arms” at the base and is set to begin on March 26 and continue until the end of the Review Conference in New York, the group says.

Activists are calling for the original five nuclear-weapon states – France, the United Kingdom, China, the United States, and Russia – to do more to forward their own disarmament, even as they try to rein in the “new nuclear states” of North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, India and (perhaps) Iran.

Only P5 have dismantled testing site and fissile material production installations

France has reported that up to 2008, it reduced its number of air-launched weapons by a third, cutting its nuclear arsenal to “less than” 300 warheads. In February, for the first time, the government further quantified its nuclear weapons, with Hollande saying that the country has three sets of 16 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 54 medium-range air-to-surface missiles.

France says that it is the only one of the five original nuclear weapon states to have dismantled its testing site and fissile material production installations, and the government has pledged to continue campaigning for the “definitive end to the production of fissile material” for nuclear arms.

But with France and other countries sticking to the deterrence argument, the stakes remain high, and activists are watching to see what will happen at the April 27-May 22 Review Conference of the 1970 NPT.

“Speaking about disarmament remains complicated in our state,” said 10 French parliamentarians in a message to the International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, held in Vienna last December with more than 1000 delegates attending.

“Too many high-ranking civilians and military officials perceive nuclear disarmament as an act of treason or threat to French security, increasing the complexity of the debate,” said the message, which was notably signed by Hervé Morin, a former defense minister.

“This is a wrong perception, because France is diplomatically engaged ‘to adopt policies that are fully compatible with the Treaty and the objective of achieving a world without nuclear weapons’,” the parliamentarians added.

They said that in order to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons, France and its government need to “understand the positive gains” of this process.

“Today too few of our colleagues have understood the risks posed by the worldwide arsenal of 16,300 nuclear weapons,” said Jean-Marie Collin, director of the French branch of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), an international network that provides up-to- date information on nuclear-weapon policies.

It’s clear, however that even if France wants to keep its own weapons, it does not want ownership to spread to “less stable” states. In his February address, Hollande slammed the “race” among some countries to acquire nuclear arms.

The post France Sees Nuclear Arms As Deterrent – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nick Cunningham

Oil companies continue to get burned by low oil prices, but the pain is bleeding over into the financial industry. Major banks are suffering huge losses from both directly backing some struggling oil companies, but also from buying high-yield debt that is now going sour.

The Wall Street Journal reported that tens of millions of dollars have gone up in smoke on loans made to the energy industry by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and UBS. Loans issued to oil and gas companies have looked increasingly unappetizing, making it difficult for the banks to sell them on the market.

To make matters worse, much of the credit issued by the big banks have been tied to oil field services firms, rather than drillers themselves – companies that provide equipment, housing, well completions, trucks, and much more. These companies sprung up during the boom, but they are the first to feel the pain when drilling activity cuts back. With those firms running out of cash to pay back lenders, Wall Street is having a lot of trouble getting rid of its pile of bad loans.

Robert Cohen, a loan-portfolio manager at DoubleLine Capital, told the Wall Street Journal that he declined to purchase energy loans from Citibank. “We’ve been pretty shy about dipping back into the energy names,” he said. “We’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.”

But some big investors jumped back into the high-yield debt markets in February as it appeared that oil prices stabilized and were even rebounding. However, since March 4 when oil prices began to fall again, an estimated $7 billion in high-yield debt from distressed energy companies was wiped out, according to Bloomberg.

The high-yield debt market is being overrun by the energy industry. High-yield energy debt has swelled from just $65.6 billion in 2007 up to $201 billion today. That is a result of shaky drillers turning to debt markets more and more to stay afloat, as well as once-stable companies getting downgraded into junk territory. Yields on junk energy debt have hit 7.44 percent over government bonds, more than double the rate from June 2014.

An estimated $1 trillion in loans were provided to the energy industry over the past decade, with most of that passed off to other investors. The practice is common, but starts to fall apart when the quality of loans starts to deteriorate. Banks like Citi have been sitting on bad loans, hoping for a rebound. But with oil prices dipping once again, big banks are starting to eat the losses. Some bad loans were sold off in mid-March at 65 cents on the dollar, the Wall Street Journal reported on March 18.

Souring debt comes at a time when oil and gas firms are also issuing new equity at the fastest pace in more than a decade. Drillers are desperate for cash, and issuing new stock, while not optimal because it dilutes the value of all outstanding shares, is preferable to taking on mountains of new debt. An estimated $8 billion in new equity was issued in the first quarter of 2015 in the energy sector, the highest quarterly total in more than ten years. But, falling oil prices have caused share prices to tank, reducing the value of new shares sold, and ultimately, the amount of cash that can be raised.

Big Finance’s struggle to unload some bad energy loans will ripple right back to the energy industry. If financial institutions cannot find buyers, they will be a lot less likely to issue new credit. That means that oil and gas companies in need of new cash injections may have trouble finding willing partners. Once access to cash is cut off, the worst-off drillers could be forced into a liquidity crisis.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Wall-Street-Losing-Millions-From-Bad-Energy-Loans.html

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Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena said that it is a privilege for him to bestow the first ever Field Marshal rank to the Sri Lankan General Sarath Fonseka for his great service rendered to the country in defeating terrorism.

Sirisena made these observations at the ceremony held in the Defence Ministry yesterday (March 22) to promote General Sarath Fonseka to the rank of Field Marshal.

The President further said that LTTE terrorism was defeated under the political leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sri Lanka has the privilege of enjoying lasting peace and harmony. General Sarath Fonseka must be honored for providing military leadership in this process.

President Sirisena emphasizes the fact that future should be build up on the foundation of past experiences. In annuls of the history, Sri Lanka has unique experiences on bravely defeating foreign invasions.

Thousands of war heroes made their supreme sacrifice for the country at this mission. Thousands more have become disabled. Such unique sons of mother Lanka should be remembered forever. Prime Minister Ranil Wicremasinghe, commanders of the three armed forces and several ministers were present at this occasion.

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By Hidetoshi Azuma*

The former Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama made another global headline when he made a snap visit to Crimea on March 10, 2015. Japan is a key U.S. ally, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has taken a pro-Western position so far by joining the sanctions against Russia. During the visit, not only did Hatoyama defend the legality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but he also criticized the U.S.-Japan alliance. Given his track record for controversies, the former premier’s Crimea visit is widely regarded as merely another idiosyncratic stunt.

However, Hatoyama is in fact a determined strategist. His recent behavior is a merely a continuation of his longstanding diplomacy reflecting Japan’s changing geopolitical landscape. It is also part of the emerging defiance against postwar Japan’s grand strategy known as Yoshida Doctrine.

Hatoyama Unmasked: A Determined Strategist

Japan’s Yukio Hatoyama. Photo Credit: US White House, WIkipedia Commons.

The enduring theme of Hatoyama’s foreign policy has been opposition to postwar Japan’s grand strategy ushered by the former premier Shigeru Yoshida in the 1950s. Yoshida’s grand strategy, or Yoshida Doctrine promoted economic prosperity without engaging in wars abroad by relying almost entirely on the U.S. for national security.

Hatoyama believed such a Faustian strategy restricted Japan’s diplomatic options. Non-commitment to security affairs essentially subjugated Japan’s foreign policy to American control. In fact, Hatoyama’s grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama, failed in his negotiations with the Soviet Union in 1956 largely due to the U.S. pressure. This resulted in almost six decades of impasse in the Russo-Japanese territorial disputes. This memory has had a lasting impact on Hatoyama’s geopolitical thinking.

Japan’s diplomatic rigidity had become particularly evident by 2009 when Hatoyama became the prime minister. China had begun to dwarf Japan economically and militarily while emerging markets in Southeast Asia presented new opportunities. Yet, Japan still remained subordinate to the U.S. whose 2008 financial crisis augured ill for its global leadership. For Hatoyama, Yoshida Doctrine unnecessarily constrained Japan’s ability to adjust to regional changes and shape Asia’s future. Therefore, a Copernican shift in thinking was needed to promote greater flexibility in Japanese diplomacy.

Hatoyama laid out his own vision for Japan’s grand strategy in his 2009 New York Times op-ed, A New Path for Japan. Although admitting the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance, he proffered a vision for the East Asian Community (EAC), a regional economic and security cooperation framework similar to EU. By deliberately excluding the U.S. from EAC, Hatoyama promoted Japan’s greater regional influence and signaled a clear departure from Yoshida Doctrine.

After the 2009 general election, Hatoyama took on Yoshida Doctrine by directly challenging the U.S.-Japan alliance. In 2009, he almost reneged on the bilateral relocation agreement for a U.S. air base in Okinawa. This drove a deep wedge between the two allies. Ultimately failing to nullify the agreement, he abruptly resigned in 2010. His perceived eccentricity and indecisiveness spawned such appellations as “alien” and “loopy” at home and abroad. Nevertheless, although he did not deliver a fatal blow to the alliance, he succeeded in shaking the foundation of Yoshida Doctrine.

Not daunted, Hatoyama continued to make headlines with characteristic eccentricity after his resignation. He carefully tailored his occasional gaffe-prone stunts to advance his cause. He emerged sympathetic toward China whenever Japan’s regional tension with these countries flared up. He visited politically-sensitive places, such as Iran and most recently Crimea, at a time the U.S. was at odds with them.

Growing Defiance against Yoshida Doctrine

Yoshida Doctrine’s Faustian problems became manifest due to China’s rise. Ironically, Hatoyama had envisaged China to be Japan’s future strategic partner. When Chinese fishing vessel rammed a Japanese coast guard cutter in September 2010 shortly after his resignation, the incident publicly humiliated the former prime minister. However, it also exposed the vulnerabilities of the U.S.-Japan alliance to China’s localized security challenges. This further threatened the raison d’être of Yoshida Doctrine.

As a result, hawks also began to directly challenge Yoshida Doctrine. In 2012, the then-governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, pledged to purchase Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in defiance of the official government position. Ishihara, a nationalist regional politician, did this without following traditional diplomatic protocols, such as consultation with Washington. Ishihara’s action also betrayed Tokyo’s inability to protect Yoshida Doctrine from domestic encroachments.

Yoshida Doctrine did not regain its clout even after the pro-U.S. premier, Shinzo Abe, came to office in late 2012. Ironically, the emerging U.S. defense burden-sharing strategy has forced Abe to increasingly depart from Yoshida Doctrine by accelerating Japan’s military normalization. Moreover, a rift emerged between the two allies as to their views on China’s security challenges. This became particularly clear when the U.S. and Japan gave divergent responses to China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) created over East China Sea in 2013.

This is not to say hours are near for Yoshida Doctrine. Abe is not abandoning this established grand strategy any time soon. In fact, Yoshida Doctrine was perhaps the most cost effective grand strategy in Japanese history precisely due to its Faustian nature. In short, its complete abandonment would only occur as a last resort.

Yet, the geopolitical tide is turning against Yoshida Doctrine. In the past, Hatoyama was a leading politician bent on changing Japan’s grand strategy. He emerged against the backdrop of a rising China and a retrenching U.S. He tried and got ridiculed. Yet, after Hatoyama’s resignation, his political opponents, including Ishihara and Abe, found themselves trapped by the same geopolitical environment. As a result, they unwittingly inherited Hatoyama’s search for an alternative grand strategy for postwar Japan.

Yoshida Doctrine is still a viable short-term solution. However, there are no permanent solutions to geopolitical problems. Politicians frequently find themselves without better alternatives. After all, they are prisoners of environment. Given the growing consensus against Yoshida doctrine, its long-term sustainability is highly questionable.

*Hidetoshi Azuma is an Adjunct Junior Fellow at the American Security Project. He analyzes global energy geopolitics with a focus on Asia and Japan. He is also pursuing MA in Security Policy Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @HidetoshiAzuma

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With 1.2 million, the United Kingdom was the leading market in terms of the number of inbound tourists visiting Spain in the period. France was the second emitting market with 1,015,388, followed by Germany with 972,000 inbound tourists. The Canary Islands, Catalonia and Andalusia were the main destination regions. The Balearic Islands posted the highest increase at 20.9% more inbound tourists than in the first two months of 2014, followed by Andalusia with 11.7%.

Spain was visited by 6.5 million inbound tourists in the first two months of the year – an increase of 4.5% and an all-time record since these figures began to be kept by the Inbound Tourism Survey (FRONTUR) drafted by the General Sub-directorate of Tourism Information and Studies of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism.

All the main emitting markets posted growth in this period. The highest growth percentages were posted by Italy (20.4%), the United States (18.7%), Switzerland (9.4%), Belgium (8.6%) and Portugal (8.3%).

With an increase of 20.9%, the Balearic Islands were the Spanish region posting the highest January-February growth, while the Canary Islands and Catalonia were the regions visited by the highest number of inbound tourists, recording growth of 2.1% and 3.3%, respectively.

3.3 million inbound tourists visited Spain in February, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. Italy (up 20.5%), Switzerland (up 13.5%) and the United States (up 12.3%) posted the highest growth percentages in the month.

Main emitting markets

A total of 1,219,499 British tourists visited Spain between January and February, maintaining the market’s traditional leading position with an increase of 2.7% and accounting for 18.9% of the total. February saw 640,202 British tourists visit Spain; an increase of 0.7%, again maintaining the market’s leading position and posting the highest percentage of the total at 19.5%. The number of tourists opting to travel independently grew significantly.

A total of 1,015,388 inbound tourists arrived from France in the first two months of the year, making this country the second emitting market in terms of both the accumulated total and the February figures with an increase of 2.1% and accounting for 15.7% of the total. February saw 536,935 French tourists visit Spain, an increase of 7.1% on last year and accounting for 16.4% of the monthly total. Growth was posted in all Spanish regions, except the Balearic Islands , and special note should be taken of the 37.7% increase in French tourists visiting the Canary Islands.

A total of 972,455 German tourists visited Spain between January and February, an increase of 3.4% on the same period last year, making this the third emitting market with a 15.1% share of the total. 514,349 German tourists visited Spain in the month, an increase of 3.5% and accounting for 15.7% of the total. The Balearic Islands were the most popular choice among these tourists.

With 706,025 inbound tourists and 10.9% of the total, the Nordic markets took fourth place although experiencing a decrease of 6.1% in the accumulated total. 354,503 Nordic tourists visited Spain in February, a decrease of 5.8%. The Canary Islands felt the brunt of this downturn.

Italy was the emitting market for 399,966 inbound tourists to Spain between January and February, posting the highest growth percentage in the period, at 20.4%. Italian tourists accounted for 6.2% of the total. The market also posted the highest year-on-year variation for February, up 20.5%, thus maintaining a double-digit year-on-year growth trend. 185,137 Italian tourists visited Spain, accounting for 5.6% of the total.

The Netherlands posted a decrease of 3.3% in the period, accounting for 3.8% of the total. Belgium posted an increase of 8.6% in the first two months of the year, accounting for 3.4% of the total. 210,655 inbound tourists visited from Portugal, an increase of 8.3% and accounting for 3.3% of the accumulated total.

Switzerland was the next emitting market with 159,973 tourists, posting strong growth of 9.4% in the first two months of the year and accounting for 2.5% of the total. The United States posted growth of 18.7% between January and February, with 121,313 inbound tourists.

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In recent decades, new forms of dictatorship based on manipulating information rather than on mass violence, have emerged. This column explores the trade-offs and techniques of the modern dictator. Such dictators can survive using little violence in the face of moderate economic underperformance. Economic downturns often prompt an increase in censorship and propaganda. Though new information-based dictatorships are better adapted to a modernised society, modernisation and access to information, as well as economic contractions could undermine them.

By Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman*

The changing dictatorships

Dictatorships are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolise power. Although less ideological, many 20th-century military regimes also relied on mass violence to intimidate dissidents. Pinochet’s agents, for instance, are thought to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of Chileans (Roht-Arriaza 2005).

However, in recent decades new types of authoritarianism have emerged that seem better adapted to a world of open borders, global media, and knowledge-based economies. From the Peru of Alberto Fujimori to the Hungary of Viktor Orban, illiberal regimes have managed to consolidate power without fencing off their countries or resorting to mass murder. Some bloody military regimes and totalitarian states remain – such as Syria and North Korea – but the balance has shifted.

The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010). Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals. State propaganda aims not to ‘engineer human souls’ but to boost the dictator’s ratings. Political opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate, rather than being murdered en masse.

Dictatorships and information

In a recent paper, we argue that the distinctive feature of such new dictatorships is a preoccupation with information (Guriev and Treisman 2015). Although they do use violence at times, they maintain power less by terrorising victims than by manipulating beliefs. Of course, surveillance and propaganda were important to the old-style dictatorships, too. But violence came first. “Words are fine things, but muskets are even better,” Mussolini quipped. Compare that to the confession of Fujimori’s security chief, Vladimir Montesinos: “The addiction to information is like an addiction to drugs”. Killing members of the elite struck Montesinos as foolish: “Remember why Pinochet had his problems. We will not be so clumsy” (McMillan and Zoido 2004).

We study the logic of a dictatorship in which the leader survives by manipulating information. Our key assumption is that citizens care about effective government and economic prosperity; first and foremost, they want to select a competent rather than incompetent ruler. However, the general public does not know the competence of the ruler; only the dictator himself and members of an ‘informed elite’ observe this directly. Ordinary citizens make what inferences they can, based on their living standards – which depend in part on the leader’s competence – and on messages sent by the state and independent media. The latter carry reports on the leader’s quality sent by the informed elite. If a sufficient number of citizens come to believe their ruler is incompetent, they revolt and overthrow him.

The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate of the dictator’s competence. Hence the trade-off.

Certain findings emerge from the logic of this game.

• First, we show how modern autocracies can survive while employing relatively little violence against the public.

Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently. Dictators win a confidence game rather than an armed combat. Indeed, since in our model repression is only used if equilibria based on non-violent methods no longer exist, violence can signal to opposition forces that the regime is vulnerable.

• Second, since members of the informed elite must coordinate among themselves on whether to sell out to the regime, two alternative equilibria often exist under identical circumstances – one based on a co-opted elite, the other based on a censored private media.

Since both bribing the elite and censoring the media are ways of preventing the sending of embarrassing messages, they serve as substitutes. Propaganda, by contrast, complements all the other tools.

Propaganda and a leader’s competency

Why does anyone believe such propaganda? Given the dictator’s obvious incentive to lie, this is a perennial puzzle of authoritarian regimes. We offer an answer. We think of propaganda as consisting of claims by the ruler that he is competent. Of course, genuinely competent rulers also make such claims. However, backing them up with convincing evidence is costlier for the incompetent dictators – who have to manufacture such evidence – than for their competent counterparts, who can simply reveal their true characteristics. Since faking the evidence is costly, incompetent dictators sometimes choose to spend their resources on other things. It follows that the public, observing credible claims that the ruler is competent, rationally increases its estimate that he really is.

Moreover, if incompetent dictators survive, they may over time acquire a reputation for competence, as a result of Bayesian updating by the citizens. Such reputations can withstand temporary economic downturns if these are not too large. This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez). While a major economic crisis results in their overthrow, more gradual deteriorations may fail to tarnish their reputations significantly.

A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative spending on these as the economy crashes. As Turkey’s growth rate fell from 7.8% in 2010 to 0.8% in 2012, the number of journalists in jail increased from four to 49. Declines in press freedom were also witnessed after the Global Crisis in countries such as Hungary and Russia. Conversely, although this may be changing now, in both Singapore and China during the recent decades of rapid growth, the regime’s information control strategy shifted from one of more overt intimidation to one that often used economic incentives and legal penalties to encourage self-censorship (Esarey 2005, Rodan 1998).

The kind of information-based dictatorship we identify is more compatible with a modernised setting than with the rural underpinnings of totalitarianism in Asia or the traditional societies in which monarchs retain legitimacy. Yet, modernisation ultimately undermines the informational equilibria on which such dictators rely. As education and information spread to broader segments of the population, it becomes harder to control how this informed elite communicates with the masses. This may be a key mechanism explaining the long-noted tendency for richer countries to open up politically.

*About the authors:
Sergei Guriev
Professor of Economics, Sciences Po Paris; and CEPR Research Fellow

Daniel Treisman
Professor of political science, UCLA

References:
Esarey, A (2005), “Cornering the market: state strategies for controlling China’s commercial media”, Asian Perspective 29(4): 37-83.

Gandhi, J (2008), Political Institutions under Dictatorship, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Guriev, S and D Treisman (2015), “How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression”, CEPR Discussion Paper, DP10454.

Levitsky, S, and L A Way (2010), Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the cold war, New York: Cambridge University Press.

McMillan, J, and P Zoido (2004), “How to subvert democracy: Montesinos in Peru”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(4): 69-92.

Rodan, G (1998), “The Internet and political control in Singapore”, Political Science Quarterly 113(1): 63-89.

Roht-Arriaza, N (2005), The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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By:James A. Baer*

The dynamics of power in Washington have changed since Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in January 2015. President Barack Obama has emerged since then as a man even more determined to use the waning days of his presidency to maintain his leadership in world affairs and to present a successful foreign policy agenda as the leader of the Democratic Party. In a mixture of Republican confrontation and Democrat jockeying for a platform foreign policy and political confrontation have become more entwined than ever. A look at the past several months demonstrates that partisan positioning now affects policies that were once the firm purview of the presidents. Two examples of the impact of political posturing on policy issues are Cuba, and Venezuela.

After congressional elections on November 4, 2014, Republicans swept into Congress with formidable majorities and with a revitalized game plan. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R. KY) told supporters that he would tirelessly work to thwart the Obama agenda. Suddenly, on December 17, just six weeks after the elections, when several legislative races had yet to be determined, President Obama and Raul Castro made simultaneous announcements that their nations would begin a process of normalizing diplomatic ties. The White House announced immediate plans for the re-opening an embassy in Havana, a lifting of some, travel restrictions and the resumption of full diplomatic relations as negotiations between diplomats from both countries begin in earnest. The announcement grabbed the headlines away from Republican gloating over election victories, at least for the time being, and placed the president in a position of national leadership above petty politics. As a result, an American, Alan Gross, who had been held by Cuban authorities for espionage, was released, as were a number of Cuban political prisoners. In return, the U.S. released the remaining Cubans who had been convicted of spying on the U.S. Hard right Republicans labeled Obama as a weak leader who gave away too much to the Castro regime in return for too little. According to Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal:

“…The President is validating the Castro way of governing and only allowing the brothers to tighten their grip on the island. Congress should do everything it can to stop the President’s plan of appeasement toward Cuba.”[i]

The Republican call for Congress to hamstring the president’s foreign policy initiatives reflected anger among Republicans that Obama has used his executive power extensively rather than work closely with Congress. This led to a flurry of statements indicating that Republicans in Congress might not allow a U.S. embassy in Havana to be funded, or confirm a U.S. ambassador in order to paralyze any rapprochement with Cuba. Republicans hope to use their implicit congressional powers to halt what they see as Obama’s overreach. But this strategy raises the issue of how constitutional powers are to be interpreted rather than to establish whether the president is acting unconstitutionally. These actions risk injecting Congress more directly into negotiations between Cuban and U.S. diplomats taking place alternately in Havana and Washington. No breakthroughs have occurred, as Cuba demands to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the U.S. seeks unrestricted movement by a new ambassador. Congressional Republicans have now inserted themselves more deeply into these negotiations, marking a sharp departure from the traditional role of Congress to offer advice and consent on treaties and agreements that have been negotiated by the executive branch.

In March, only days after Republicans had applauded the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu that criticized Obama’s negotiations with Iran, the President took the initiative on foreign policy to grab headlines and mobilize public opinion.

On March 9, Obama announced that his administration was labeling Venezuela a national security threat. The provocative order gave the U.S. authority to block or freeze property in the United States of seven Venezuelans accused of undermining the democratic process and abusing human rights. Foremost in this group is Antonio Jose Benavides Torres, the former director of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard.

The Obama administration defended its stance as a measured response to a hostile regime. However, it caused a determined backlash in Latin America and a vote by Venezuela’s congress to end up giving Maduro dictatorial powers to confront a possible invasion by the United States. This tough stance with a regime that the U.S. increasingly has had hostile relations with may make it more difficult for the U.S. president to take a leadership role at the next Summit of the Americas in Panama in April. However, domestically, it has made it even more difficult for Republicans in Congress to accuse the president of being weak on his foreign policy decisions, and international negotiations are increasingly becoming part of the presidential campaign for 2016. As each party tries to grab the initiative regardless of appropriate protocol, tradition or international repercussions, very little has been allowed to remain.

Indiana Republican governor, Mike Pence who has given an April date regarding his decision of whether to run for president remarked, “Let’s recognize that 2016 could be the first foreign policy national election since 1980. The world seems to become more dangerous by the day,”[ii] President Obama is determined to stake out the Democratic foreign policy position now in advance of the next presidential election.

*James A. Baer, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Professor of History at the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community College

Notes:
[i] “Jindal says Obama has “no strategy” for international relations,” KATC.com, Accessed on March 11, 2015, http://www.katc.com/story/27654929/jindal-says-obama-has-no-strategy-for-international-relations.

[ii] Andy Sullivan, “Republicans Shift To National Security Ahead Of 2016,” Huffington Post, Accessed on March 13, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/republicans-national-security_n_6776006.html.

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Although Troika is a praise-worthy pathfinder in search for new modalities of global-regional crisis-fighting cooperation, it is unlikely to be replicated in Southeast Asia.

By Ji Xianbai*

If you follow the euro area crisis, you will see the term “Troika” regularly. The economics slang Troika, with a linguistic root in the Russian word for a carriage with three horses, refers to a consortium of three international creditors – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – that serves as the “basic structure for negotiation between the official lenders and the governments of the recipient countries, as well as for reviewing the implementation of adjustment programmes.”

The decision made on 25 March 2010 to supply coordinated loans to Greece involving “substantial IMF financing and a majority of European financing” marks the birth of Troika.

Troika: a hybrid financial safety net

Troika model transformed the landscape of existing global economic safety net by adding an additional hybrid layer. Proponents applaud that the three-pronged institutional arrangement has at least two merits that warrant close attention from policymakers worldwide.

Firstly, it is “legitimate” as the interests of the aid recipients are presumably taken care of by the Commission and policy prescriptions issued by the IMF are scrutinised by the ECB to tailor the solution to individual cases and region-specific circumstances; secondly, Troika is “democratic” as the final decisions on what economic adjustment programme to pursue are made at the national level, subjecting to parliamentary controls and enhancing national ownership of reforms.

The IMF has an extra stake in its participation in Troika, hoping its success in Europe could pave the Fund’s road back to other parts of the world where it has fading influences. The challenged Fund particularly seeks to restore credibility in Asia where the IMF stigma – a public resentment derived from the Fund’s notorious mishandling of the 1997-98 Southeast Asia financial crisis – prevails.

Hence, it is tempting to contemplate a similar inter-organisational financial and monetary safety network in Southeast Asia, a highly interconnected region filled with economies whose weak national economic architectures are arguably ill-prepared to stave off potential contagious economic turbulence singlehandedly, when the bitter memory of the economic tsunami is still well and alive.

However, such proposal, if any, is most likely to be a nice wish and may never get off the ground.

Effectiveness of Troika stems from that of the constituent like-minded organisations and the synergies among them. Despite the lack of strict division of labour, complementarity and competency based on institutional comparative advantages are the predominant features of the European Troika system.

Under the fabric of Troika, the Commission represents the political interests of the EU in general and is responsible for negotiating the conditionality attached to the financial assistance on behalf of member states; the ECB acts to evaluate economic policy conditions for the financial assistance on a quarterly basis; and the IMF is the actual lender. The ECB hails that the distinct perspectives that the three institutions bring to the bargaining table allow for a more comprehensive, impartial assessment and minimise possible errors, such as the IMF’s beleaguered “one-size-fit-all” crisis resolution approach.

ASEAN’s institutional deficiency is the hindrance

Thus, it is fair to assert that the European Troika system is a unique rule-based institutional set-up that involves intensive cooperation between regional and global financial institutions to an extent that is unseen before.

In the context of Southeast Asia, however, it will be extremely difficult to replicate such complex tripod configuration as none regional organisations display comparable institutional strength and entrepreneurship as their European counterparts do.

The IMF aside, the equivalent of the Commission in the region is the ASEAN secretariat which employs less than one tenth of the human resource at the command of the Commission and operates with an annual budget totalling $16 million (as opposed to the Commission’s $4.3 billion). The supranational European Commission, when it acts in its capacity as a component of Troika, is tasked to appraise the economic situation, including debt sustainability and capacity to repay, in member states and subsequently to monitor the adjustment programme implementation once the lending frameworks are agreed upon. To prevent moral hazard, honouring borrowers’ obligations is made a prerequisite for further assistance disbursement, and in case of non-compliance, the Commission can initiate investigative infringement procedures against guilty states.

By contrast, ASEAN secretariat appears to be much weaker. Due to the region’s entrenched political culture in favour of non-interference of internal affairs – dubbed the “ASEAN Way” – national agencies delegate little authority to the secretariat. Regional or peer surveillance of the economic health of any ASEAN member states requesting assistance is all but impossible. In addition, it is certainly beyond the mandate (and its capability) of the ASEAN secretariat to negotiate the terms of borrowing with the IMF.

The robust role played by the ECB in Troika – the technical advisor – is vastly important; however, there are no such establishments in place in Southeast Asia. When it comes to macroeconomic surveillance and research, the only existing institution is the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), a small office based in Singapore since April 2011. AMRO’s official mandates are to “monitor and analyse regional economies and to contribute to early detection of risks, swift implementation of remedial actions and effective decision-making of the CMIM”. As of March 2014, AMRO has only twelve full-time professional staff (the ECB was reported to hire some 1,000 well-trained professionals for its newly established Banking Supervision Unit in 2014).

As to the research scope, the current mission of AMRO prioritises individual and bilateral macroeconomic monitoring over the multilateral surveillance approach – the one championed by the ECB within Troika – which necessitates the homogenisation of global, regional, and national perspectives. At the present form, the resource-constrained office, despite its underappreciated merits, is certainly not yet up to the demanding task of serving as a professional and independent economic watchdog to fulfil its expected role in any version of ASEAN Troika.

ASEAN Troika? Unlikely

With the decentralisation of international economic institutions and stratification of global economic governance in the aftermath of financial crises, it is clear that regional financing arrangements are needed to safeguard regional integration and help ASEAN economies weather future economic storms of conceivably greater magnitude and severity. However, one must be cool-headed to realise that ASEAN is certainly no second EU, and correspondingly, the EU-IMF Troika model, a decent international economic cooperation prototype notwithstanding, is unlikely to be acclimatised to the drastically different politico-economic and institutional environment in Southeast Asia.

*Ji Xianbai is a PhD candidate at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore on the prestigious Nanyang President’s Graduate Scholarship (NPGS). He is also an Associate Fellow at European Union Centre in Singapore.

The post No, There Won’t Be EU Style Troika In ASEAN – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Kyle Lawrence Mullin

Buddhist monks may have a reputation for being meek, mild mannered, and nothing less than well behaved. But two abbots defied that stereotype in Sikhiu district in Thailand on Sunday, after a bout of drunk driving led to a car accident and the pair’s subsequent expulsion from their monasteries.

The Bangkok Post reported that police arrived at the scene of the accident at 7am and found 60-year-old Phra Thewet Sadhammo, a monk of Wat Nong Jok, behind the wheel of a car stuck in a ditch that was being towed with a rope by another car. The second vehicle’s driver was identified as 48-year-old Phra Somchai Engchantuak of the nearby Wat Thoongpanomwang temple.

The article added that Pol Lt Col Samart Rattanawichai said both monks were so intoxicated that they could hardly stand straight, and that their blood alcohol levels were four times over the legal limit of 0.05 percent. He added that they were wearing layman’s clothing, instead of their traditional robs.

The monks admitted to meeting at a restaurant earlier that night, where they had drank until 5am before attempting to drive back to their monasteries. Phra Thewet also conceded to losing control of his vehicle.

Supachai Luangchantuak, chairman of the Mittraparb Tambon Administration Organisation, said both monks were notorious for their drinking, noting that whiskey bottles had been found at their temples, and that they had seemed inebriated at several religious ceremonies, where they flubbed the lines of their prayers. He told the Post  that”villagers were fed up with (the) behaviour” of these infamous “drinking buddies.”

This is far from the first incidence of misbehaving monks in Thailand. This past November the same newspaper reported that the abbot of Surat Thani temple ran his pickup truck off the road, and he was charged with driving while under the influence.

More recently, on March 2, ThaiVisa News reported that  an abbot at Kamphaeng Phet was defrocked for not only drinking but also attempting to rape a nun.

World Religion News ran a March 5 article entitled ‘Thai Buddhists Fed Up with Disobedient Monks’. The piece went on to describe an abbot that had been caught with 100,000 methamphetamine pills, another that had been arrested for wildlife trafficking and attempted to flee the scene while driving drunk, and a senior monk at Wat Sa Ket monastery for embezzling the temple’s funds. The article ended on a dire note: “Many devout Buddhists have become so frustrated that they have stopped considering themselves practicing Buddhists.”

The post Thailand: Buddhist Abbots Expelled After Drinking Binge – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In a meeting with representatives of minority communities in Israel on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the remarks that he made on Election Day about Arab Israeli voters.

“I know that the things I said a few days ago hurt some citizens in Israel, the Arab Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu said.

“This was not my intention and I am sorry,” he said.

Netanyahu’s Election Day remarks have garnered extensive criticism.

“The Right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are going en masse to the polls. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them on buses,” the prime minister said last week.

Netanyahu said Monday that as prime minister he makes enormous investments in minority communities which proves the opposite of his comments last week.

The prime minister said foreign elements outside of Israel should not be allowed to intervene in Israeli democracy.

In the controversial statement on Election Day, Netanyahu said “funding from foreign governments to get more Israeli Arabs to vote worked, which means all Right-wing voters must make sure to go to the polls.”

Netanyahu told the gathered community leaders on Monday that he saw himself as the prime minister of every one of them, “without any difference in religion, race, or sex.”

“I see in every Israeli citizen a partner in the building of a flourishing and safe state of Israel for all,” Netanyahu remarked.

Original article

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Oman’s Sultan Qabous Ben Saïd returned home Monday after spending more than eight months in Germany for medical treatment. The state TV showed the Sultan walking off a royal plane smiling, along a red carpet and onto a waiting car, reports MISNA.

According to an official statement released by the Mascate government, the medical treatment in Germany “was a total success”. Qabous Ben Saïd, 74, who has ruled Oman for 44 years, was suffering from colon cancer.

Oman’s leadership remained in power through political and social uprisings of the so-called Arab Spring, due also to 2011 reforms that attributed major powers to a Consultative Council elected by universal suffrage.

The post Oman: Sultan Returns After 8 Months Hospital Treatment Abroad appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Some 30,000 “militants” have signed up over the past few weeks to form “combatant groups” to defend the State after the US declared Venezuela an”unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” reports MISNA.

With emphatic tones, Defence Minister Vladimiro Padrino told reporters that the groups are “men and women of all ages, with different jobs, who volunteered and joined us with great patriotism”.

Padrino spoke in Caracas at a meeting of the state firms “militants”, as he defined them, adding that the objective is to “unite all strategic state corporations and create combatant corps, under the doctrine of the Bolivarian militia”.

The organization of militias in the nation’s key industries, explained the minister, “aims to guarantee their continuity and protection, as also the physical defence of the their geographic location”. “No public enterprise should be without a combatant corps”, said Padrino, specifying that the measure comes under direct orders from President Nicolás Maduro.

After US President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on government officials, even unprecedentedly declaring Venezuela “an unusual threat”, Maduro announced “defensive military exercises”, in an operation called “Escudo Bolivariano”, mobilizing 80,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians, due to conclude March 28.

The post Venezuela: 30,000 ‘Militants’ Sign Up To Defend State From US appeared first on Eurasia Review.

It might not be Hitler’s famous Wolfsschanze, but researchers are equally excited to study an apparent Nazi lair hidden in the Argentinian jungle. They believe it was proactively built to house top Nazi members in the case of their defeat in WWII.

Researchers from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), together with archaeologists from the Museum Andrés Guacurarí, stumbled upon ruins of a site that is believed to have been erected to house high-ranking former Nazi officials.

The team is studying the buildings laying in relatively inaccessible part of the Teyú Cuaré Park, southeast of Misiones, on the border with Paraguay.

The cluster consists of three stone structures, now covered by thick vines: Living quarters, a warehouse and a third structure that apparently served as a half-hidden lookout. The place is believed to be strategically sought by whomever built it, as it has a panoramic view and walls that are three feet thick. It also has an easy escape route to neighboring Paraguay, in the case that someone might have to quickly flee the country.

The researchers found several objects that indicate that the constructions were carried out in the first half of the 1940s. Among the most significant findings are German coins from between 1938 and 1944 and porcelain from about the same period.

Although there was only circumstantial evidence to link the finding to Nazis, Schavelzon believes there could not be any other explanation as to why anyone else would have put so much effort and money into building in a place almost completely inaccessible at the time. The architecture and materials used were also atypical of this region.

CAU scientists doubt that the Nazi hierarchy ever used these shelters. The evidence of a Nazi presence there suggests that it was only used at the stage of construction.

“Apparently, halfway through the Second World War, the Nazis had a secret project of building shelters for top leaders in the event of defeat – inaccessible sites, in the middle of deserts, in the mountains, on a cliff or in the middle of the jungle like this,” Daniel Schavelzon, leader of the team who spent months exploring the site, told Argentine media.

Local legend, however, has it that Martin Bormann, one of Hitler’s close allies and the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, used to seek refuge in this jungle.

After WWII, thousands of German Nazis, as well as Croatian and Italian fascists, were allowed to escape justice in Europe when President Juan Domingo Perón welcomed them with open arms. An estimated 5,000 Nazis eventually found safe haven in Argentina.

The post Argentina: WW2 German Hideout Discovered appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Marian Chiriac

Officials in Bucharest said that NATO missile interceptors planned to be installed at a military base in Romania are not a threat to Russia.

“The anti-missile system is only for self-defence, as defined by the UN charter, and has nothing to do with Russia,” Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Saturday.

Aurescu was commenting after Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, warned the Scandinavian country not to join the NATO missile defence system.

Vanin said Danish warships could become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if it joins the system.

In August last year, Denmark agreed to contribute to NATO’s shield with at least one frigate with advanced radar capacity.

Aurescu said that “the threat to use force against a NATO state is inadmissible, so we are fully supporting Denmark, as a NATO ally of Romania”.

His statement was echoed by Defence Minister Mirce Dusa, who on Sunday said Romania doesn’t agree with Russia’s view, “as the anti-missile system is a defence system”.

Russia strongly opposes the missile defence system, which involves planned bases in the southern Romanian village of Deveselu and Poland.

The base in Deveselu will be the first to feature the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile system, a land-based version of the radar tracking system installed on US warships since 2004.

Scheduled to become operational by the end of 2015, the base will be staffed by 200 to 500 US military, civilian and contract employees. The work at Deveselu involves an estimated investment of $400 million in the base, which ironically was originally built by the Soviet Union in 1952.

Relations between Romania and Russia are already rocky. NATO member Romania has been among the strongest regional backers of the package of Western sanctions imposed on Russia in connection to the crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

In recent months, Bucharest officials have urged the US and NATO to boost their military presence in Romania to ensure stability.

NATO member Romania is one of Washington’s strongest supporters among the ex-Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Mihail Kogalniceanu airport, near the Black Sea, became a major US military base in 2007.

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The discovery of groups and individuals in south India pledging allegiance to various militant factions in Syria’s civil war has led to a deterioration of security of that region. What is the implication of this new phenomenon for Southeast Asia?

By Vikram Rajakumar*

Tamil Nadu in south India, which comprise 65 million people (88% Hindu, 5.5% Muslims, 5.4% Christians), has enjoyed relative peace in recent years despite historical tensions between its various ethnic and religious communities. The last major incidents of communal violence were the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1993 and 1998. Yet the threat of terrorism by contemporary jihadist groups — rife in other parts of India — never gained traction there. The northern states of Jammu and Kashmir have been hotbeds of jihadist militancy fighting for independence from India. There have also been pockets of Islamic insurgent groups in the Northeast and the ‘national’ jihadi groups such as the Indian Mujahideen.

Two main reasons account for why Tamil Nadu’s Muslims have been hitherto spared the influence of terrorist propaganda. Firstly, there exists a language barrier between Tamil Nadu and the other states in India. Unlike other parts of India, Hindi had not developed into a lingua franca in Tamil Nadu. This was primarily due to the post-independence anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu, which led to the institution by the government of Tamil Nadu of Tamil as the state’s official language and English as a second language. Consequently, Tamil Nadu remained relatively impervious to the terrorist propaganda from India’s terrorist hotbeds, couched mostly in Hindi.

Secondly, the militant struggle in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast insurgency do not hold significant sentimental value to the Tamil Muslims. In Tamil Nadu, the sense of patriotism to the state and the cultural affiliations are deep-seated. The majority of the population, regardless of religion, believe that Tamil Nadu is the cradle of the Dravidian culture and the birthplace of the Tamil language. Hence, the loyalty to the homeland and culture of Tamil Nadu is far greater than loyalties to the jihadist terrorist cause that is salient in other parts of India.

Penetration of global jihadism into South Asia

Yet these traditional inoculations have not been able to inhibit the allure of global jihadism of the Syrian civil war. The first public sign of the penetration of the phenomena into South India was the case of Mohammad Haja Fakrudeen, a naturalized Singapore citizen and a native of Tamil Nadu, who absconded to Syria and reportedly joined ISIL in early 2014. Since then, there have been several more reports of the discoveries by the Indian security services, of individuals who have pledged allegiance to ISIL. In August 2014, 24 youths were arrested for posing for a picture in pro-ISIL T-shirts. Another three people were also arrested in connection with printing and distributing those T-shirts.

The participation in the overt display of ISIL’s symbols does indeed demonstrate the recognition that the group has received in Tamil Nadu. In addition, the interrogation of Arif Majeed, the deported youth from the Greater Mumbai area who had fought along ISIL in Syria revealed a sizeable number of Tamil Muslims from South India who have been living and fighting alongside ISIL in camps located in Syria and Iraq today. If so, this would be the first documented instance that Tamil Muslims have gone abroad to wage jihad in present times.

The allure of Muslim segments in India – including from South India – for ISIL has evoked a response in terms of a turf-war from al-Qaeda when it announced the formation of the al Qaeda in the Indian Sub-Continent (AQIS). When two bombs went off at a railway station in Chennai on 1 May 2014, the Indian media speculated that the “South Indian Mujahideen” were responsible. If this group does exist, there is the possibility that AQIS may incorporate this group in its fold.

The attraction for ISIL and the formation of the AQIS has led to a deterioration of the sense of security in South India. This is evidenced by, for instance, the implementation of high-signature security protection measures in iconic temples such as the Madurai Menaachi Sundareswarar Temple and the Tanjore Big Temple, which hold archaeological, cultural and religious significance for Hindus in Tamil Nadu.

Community Response

The vulnerability of the Tamil Muslim population was quickly identified by a non-profit organization known as the Tamil Nadu Tauheed Jumaat (TNTJ). The TNTJ organized a state-wide anti-terrorism campaign at the grassroots level in October 2014. In another instance, approximately 100,000 Muslims convened on 15 February 2015, in Vanniyambadi, Tamil Nadu, to pray for the well-being of the Muslim community. The prayer, which was organized by the Islamiyah College, was aimed at addressing the concerns faced by Tamil Muslim leaders about the negative perception of the Muslim community provoked by the current wave of global jihadism and its unprecedented penetration into South India.

The recent penetration of contemporary global jihadism into Tamil Nadu is unprecedented. The politico-cultural defences of language and emotional attachment to the homeland that have kept the threat of jihadism away from Tamil Nadu have proven less effective against the appeal of the play of symbols of the warring factions in the Syrian civil war. Considering the long history of communal conflicts there, any violence issuing from global jihadism will provoke communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims, which could prove catastrophic for India particularly at this time when Hindu nationalism is in the ascendancy. This will have security concerns beyond the Indian sub-continent to places like Malaysia and Singapore where the south Indian diaspora is substantial.

The historical network of merchants and traders between South India and Southeast Asia has evolved into broader social networks, which also serve as channels for the flow of cultural and religious ideas. The channels have hitherto kept out ideas that underpin the propaganda of global jihadism. However, the recent penetration of extremist ideas into Tamil Nadu’s social milieu may change this. The Tamil Nadu Muslim community’s response is laudable. It behoves Governments, religious and community leaders to actively anticipate any extremism and prevent any descent into violence, even from these long-peaceful social networks.

*Vikram Rajakumar is a Senior Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

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By John R. Haines*

“The important measure is not the targets destroyed but rather the effect on the enemy’s capabilities and actions.”^[1] -David A. Deptula, USAF

“I have destroyed him with the weapons I abhorred, and they are his.  We have crossed each other’s frontiers, we are the no-men of this no-man’s land.” -John le Carré

On 6 March 2015, 22 canisters, each weighing 45kg-70kg (100-154lbs.) containing radioactive cobalt-60, were stolen from a Poznan warehouse on 6 March 2015.^[2]  The control of radiological materials in Poland is the responsibility of the National Atomic Energy Agency, known by its Polish language acronym, the PAA,^[3] which reported the theft to the International Atomic Energy Agency on or around 19 March 2015.^[4] On 10 March, Polish police arrested four persons (one of whom worked at the warehouse) and charged them with the 6 March theft.  The same persons on 10 February stole about a ton of lead ingots from the same Poznan warehouse, which are used to build radioactive shields.^[5] Poznan law enforcement authorities released this photograph of a canister similar to ones stolen on 6 March:^[6]None of the stolen canisters has been recovered so far. They contain cobalt-60 pellets classified as category 4 and 5 radioactive sources (activity in the range 40 MBq-500 MBq as of 6 March 2015) with aggregated activity of about 7 GBq (see footnote).^[7]  While all radiation exposure poses a health risk, category 4 and 5 material is not dangerous so long as it remains within a radiation-shielding canister.

What poses a greater danger is the aggregate quantity of the radiological material stolen in Poznan. By the author’s calculation, were the cobalt-60 pellets removed from their sealed metal casing^[8]—the scenario in a December 2013 cobalt-60 theft in Mexico—anyone within 1 meter of the material would receive a lethal radiation dose in less than 4 minutes. The potential for malignant use is obvious, either to expose persons unwittingly to ionizing radiation, or to build several improvised radiological weapons.

Several months earlier, in May 2014, two lead canisters similar to those shown in the picture above and also containing cobalt-60 pellets were recovered from a scrapyard in Poraj, near Częstochowa in south central Poland’s Silesia region.^[9]  The canisters were first discovered missing in November 2013 from the Belchatow Power Plant in Łódź. The canisters, which were used to measure the depth of waste ash reservoirs, had been in continuous service since 1992 and so the radioactivity of the cobalt-60 pellets contained within had substantially diminished.^[10]  And in December 2010, seven canisters were discovered missing from the defunct Ursus iron foundry in Lublin, where they were used to measure the depth of waste ash in storage tanks. The canisters were discovered missing during a routine inspection by Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency, which found that the foundry’s “radiological protection supervisor had been fired and the documentation was missing.”^[11]

There is no suggestion in open-sources that any of the as-yet unrecovered canisters containing radioactive material from the 6 March theft or from earlier incidents are in the possession of a likely malefactor, nor is there any public information to lay basis to a claim that the canisters were stolen with the intent of weaponizing the radioactive material. That being said, the 6 March incident is by any estimation a major theft of radiological material, and indicative of a distressingly porous security regimen.  While radiological threats have not been operationalized even if the capacities already exist, “they will emerge sooner or later or at all is for the future to decide; the only sure thing about the future is that something unexpected will occur.”^[12]

The risk of the theft by terrorists is self-evident and has been explored extensively, including by this author. A less explored iteration is the place of radiological weapons in hybrid warfare. That concept—hybrid warfare—describes attempts to gain an asymmetrical advantage over a purely conventional opponent within a specific environment.^[13] It often combines with elements of terrorism and criminal behavior,^[14] leading to its prosaic description as “a perilous blend of the lethality of the state with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warriors.”^[15]

Radiological weapons fit neatly into hybrid war doctrine:

“Hybrid warfare is conducted by irregular forces that have access to the more sophisticated weapons and systems normally fielded by regular forces.  Hybrid warfare may morph and adapt throughout an individual campaign, as circumstances and resources allow. It is anticipated that irregular groups will continue to acquire sophisticated weapons and technologies and that intervention forces will need to confront a variety of threats that have in the past been associated primarily with the regular Armed Forces of states.”^[16]

The traditional conflict spectrum resembles a number line with low-intensity conflict (e.g., counterinsurgency) on the far left and high-intensity (e.g., conventional and nuclear conflict) on the far right.  That model is too simple to explain the complexities of hybrid warfare, however.  Potential hybrid threats attempt (and sometimes succeed) to gain access to conventional military capabilities that normally reside closer to the middle of the conflict spectrum.  Shawn Brimley of the Center for a New American Security has written that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technology—radiological as well as nuclear, biological, chemical, and high explosive—has bent the high end of the conflict spectrum toward the middle.^[17]  This increases the probability that terrorists and hybrid threats intent on gaining gain access to this end of the spectrum will succeed at some point in doing so.^[18]  One scenario was described as decade ago in a discussion of a predecessor theory (to hybrid warfare), Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW):

“A determined fourth generation warrior could either infiltrate into such a facility and steal [radiological or nuclear material] or obtain it by bribing officials.  [While] theft of an actual nuclear weapon or fashioning an improvised nuclear device is possible…an adversary would need a great deal of expertise to fabricate a weapon or the proper codes to detonate a stolen weapon. A more likely use for the 4GW adversary is using this material in the fabrication of a RDD [Radiological Dispersal Device]. The extreme intensity and long half-life…would make for a physically and mentally devastating dirty bomb.  Although weapon-grade uranium and plutonium are subject to close monitoring, other lower grade nuclear materials used in reactors and other commercial enterprises receive far less scrutiny.”^[19]

Radiological Weapons: A Primer

“Intellectually, it is possible to carry on the process [of believing things which we know to be untrue] for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.” – George Orwell

A grim tent of modern warfare is that the coming asymmetries will be radical.  There will be no difference between operational area and civilian space, nor will the boundary between war and peace be well defined.^[20]

Radiological weapons employed in terrorist and hybrid warfare inspired state-disruption are intended to disperse dangerous radioactive material and expose human populations to ionizing radiation,^[21] causing panic and contaminating persons and property. There are two types of radiological weapon. The first incorporates radioactive material into a device designed to disperse it into the environment. This type is called a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD).

There are explosive and non-explosive RDD iterations. An Explosive Radiological Dispersal Device (E-RDD)—known informally as a “dirty bomb”—uses the energy generated by the detonation of a conventional explosive to cause the shock aerosolization of radioactive material .^[22] An E-RDD does not derive its energy from a nuclear fission reaction and so is not a “nuclear bomb.”

In addition to injuries (mostly physical trauma and thermal burns) and property damage that result from the explosion’s kinetic effect, the detonation of an E-RDD causes radioactive material to aerosolize and disperse into the atmosphere.  This leads to radiation exposure—radiation penetrating living tissue—from contact with aerosolized radioactive material in the air or on the ground (the latter known as groundshine). There are two subcategories of radiation exposure.  The first, rate of exposure, is the amount of radiation that is received by an object per second. The second, cumulative exposure (aka “dose”) is the total amount of radiation received or absorbed.  A short exposure to a highly radioactive source can be as damaging as a long-term exposure to a mildly radioactive one. The dispersal of aerosolized radioactive material also leads to radiation contamination.  This can be external contamination—when aerosolized radioactive material settles on clothing, hair, or skin—and/or internal contamination—aerosolized radioactive material entering the body by means of inhalation, ingestion, and/or absorption through the skin or wounds.^[23]

While there are military-grade E-RDD designs, an improvised device is far more likely in the context of terrorism—there are technical challenges and practical constraints associated with fabricating a radiological weapon—and hybrid warfare—principally to conceal the aggressor-state’s role.  On the other hand, access to explosives is widespread: explosive materials are in common commercial use, and an improvised conventional explosive can be easily formulated from unmonitored materials such as nitrogen fertilizer and diesel fuel. Commercial radioactive material regularly moves unguarded and the many incidents of theft and diversion make clear that a determined malefactor could obtain both the explosive and the radioactive material necessary to fabricate an improvised E-RDD.

Another type of RDD employs non-explosive means to disperse radioactive material into the environment—for example, by contaminating food, water, soil or air—in order to expose a modest number of people to moderate doses of radiation, and/or many people to low doses of radiation.  This type of device is known as a Non-Explosive Radiological Dispersal Device (N-RDD).  Its principle advantage is that and N-RDD may emit radiation undetected for extended periods.  Given, however, that the disruptive effect of terrorism is a function of an event’s “shock” effect on the target population, it is more likely a terrorist would use an explosive rather than a non-explosive device.

The second means of exposing human populations to dangerous radiological material for the purpose of terrorism is a Radiation Exposure Device (RED). An RED consists of an unshielded sealed source of ionizing radiation, and so is a much simpler device than an RDD.  In the context of terrorism, an RED would be placed in a public venue to which a large number of people have access and would be unwittingly exposed to ionizing radiation.

Isotopes well suited to the construction of RDDs and REDs are identified in the table below. For each isotope, data are shown for how sources exist within Poland by-category as well as the human health hazard(s) associated with the isotope.

Select Radioactive Isotopes & Sources by Category.^{[24]
[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]}

Of these eight (8) isotopes, four (4) meet criteria of widespread commercial use (and thus are available for diversion), sufficient radioactivity and long half-life, and so are most likely to be used in a radiological weapon.  They are americium-241 (Am-241), cobalt-60 (Co-60), iridium-192 (Ir-192), and strontium-90 (Sr-90), respectively.  Each has been implicated in known incidents involving theft or misuse.

The incident in Poland should renew attention on the misuse of cobalt-60 in a Radiological Dispersal Device or a Radiological Exposure Device.^[31] Cobalt is a hard and brittle metal, gray in color with a bluish tint. Its most common radioactive isotope is cobalt-60 (Co-60), which is produced by exposing the stable form of cobalt, cobalt-59, to neutron bombardment in a nuclear reactor for a period of 12 to 18 months. Under normal pressure and temperature, cobalt-60 is a solid with magnetic properties similar to those of iron. Cobalt-60 in the form of disks, slugs or pellets grouped in a cluster or a solid cobalt cylinder is typically encased in a stainless steel capsule and sealed by welding; the capsules are then incorporated into devices like medical linear accelerator.

While much of the recent focus on Russian hybrid warfare in its near abroad has focused on the cyber aspects of a conflict (i.e., cybered conflict rather than a purely cyber one), hybrid warfare is an ideal domain for radiological weapons. The theorized fabrication of a radiological weapon of one sort or another begs the question how such a weapon might be used in terrorism or hybrid war.  Effects-based targeting dictates the selection of a site to detonate an E-RDD, or to place of an N-RDD or RED, since the purpose is to evoke a powerful psychological response. This stems from the perceived “open-ended” nature of the threat; the chronic state of alarm associated with the fear of radiation exposure and radiation contamination; and the fact that “nuclear” events (not in fact, but in popular perception) are the most dreaded of all human catastrophes.^[32]

Sealed-source cobalt-60 RDDs are associated with the most drastic effects on human populations and the environment. Models simulating RDD detonation-dispersion-deposition evince that even an unsophisticated embodiment can have meaningful consequences. For example, detonating an RDD with a small submunition (10 lbs. of TNT) in a metropolitan area on a relatively calm day (wind speed <1mph) would send aerosolized radioactive “ballistic particles” downwind in a cloud, exposing persons within a five block area (250 meter radius) from the point of detonation to internal and external contamination.^[33]  The most serious health effects would occur within the detonation point’s immediate radius (23 meters for a small submunition; 385 meter for a large one) and to those caught in the downwind plume up to 60 meters of the detonation point.^[34]  The radiation plume would likely contaminate an additional 40 square block area.^[35]

Concluding Thoughts

General Mieczysław Gocuł, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, said during a recent meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart in Vilnius:

“Soldiers must be ready for bad weather.  And that bad weather, in particular, means little green men…I have no doubt that both the Lithuanian and Polish armed forces are ready for that.”^[36]

Deferring to General Gocułsaid’s judgment, it is nonetheless difficult to reconcile Poland’s self-perceived preparedness to counter a Crimea-like scenario with—if not shockingly poor, then highly variable—custody of potential weapons-stock radioactive material for an improvised radiological weapon.

The future security environment will be shaped by expanded access to destructive technology and tactics by smaller non-state groups and individuals.^[37] Thus it is dangerous to stereotype an adversary as incapable of certain capacities, for even improvised radiological weapons can deliver “violence in volume,”^[38] in Gunneriusson’s memorable phrase.  The mass availability of dangerous radiological material is the most striking feature of this threat and makes it dynamic.  And the admixture of mass availability and a determined terrorist or hybrid warrior makes the situation unpredictable. It is critical to have a full understanding of the threat posed by unsecured radiological material, for like all hybrid threats, they expand the spectrum in ways that are most dangerous.

About the author:
*John R. Haines is a trustee of FPRI, where he is a member of its executive, finance, and nominating committees, Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee, and is also a Senior Fellow. An active investor and entrepreneur whose current efforts focus on nuclear smuggling and terrorism, in 2010 John co-founded, as Chief Executive Officer, Ionetix Corporation, to develop proprietary particle accelerator and fissile material detection technologies.

Source:
This article was published here by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] BGEN David A. Deptula, USAF (2001). “Firing for Effects: the important measure is not the targets destroyed but rather the effect on the enemy’s capabilities and actions.” Air Force Magazine. 84 (April 2001), pp.  46-53.

[2] “Skradziono pojemniki z radioaktywnym izotopem” (“”). RMF24 [published online in Polish 8 March 2015]. http://www.rmf24.pl/fakty/polska/news-skradziono-pojemniki-z-radioaktywn…. Last accessed 19 March 2015.

[3] Polish: Państwowej Agencji Atomistyki.

The post The Case Of Poland’s Stolen Radiological Material – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Latest news reports plainly confirm that the GCC will not stand idlly by as the Houthis take over Yemen. The GCC block might have been more at ease with the Houthis occupying just some areas of Yemen, and with President Hadi overseeing the remaining parts; that at least suggested a standoff that had a potential to be worked out peacefully. The Sunnis effectively had a bargaining chip that the Houthis are systematically occupying.

Now, however, with it increasingly clear that the Shia group is intent on swallowing the whole of Yemen, the GCC is at last not shy to openly say that it could intervene militarily if necessary. At this point the GCC has no other choice. But is Iran reckless enough to let the situation get out of control knowing full well that the current situation could result in it having created for itself more enemies than at any other time in its history?

Indeed, it does appear that Iran is reckless. Previously, Iran claimed that it only intervened where and when Shia holy sites were in danger or to protect of Shia pilgrims. And when Iran did intervene, it did so in a camouflaged manner that appeared less confrontational. But as of late, Iran is intervening for totally unrelated reasons and with more openness and ferocity. This could signal unprecedented confidence levels on the part of Iran, but it is all the more likely that these are acts of desperation.

Iran feels cornered. If it wasn’t for the rise of the Islamists in the region, Bashar al-Assad would have fallen by now. The reason the Americans have allowed Assad to stay this long is the fear of a political vacuum which the likes of the IS would swiftly utilize.

Hezbollah is also in a tight spot with its soldiers in Syria increasingly being routinely killed and Israel’s Netanyahu is eager to avenge the humiliation suffered by Hezbollah retaliatory attack last February that left many Israeli soldiers dead.

Nevertheless, the facts on the ground strongly point to one fact: Iran is up to something sinister and aggressively so. As it relates to Syria and Iraq, Iran is already an occupier; in some parts directly, in others through its militia agents, and in areas in which it is least intrusive its occupation is of financial and spiritual nature. That said, Iran knows that Syria is a foregone conclusion, Hezbollah has newer challenges, with IS next door and as such Iran might just be desperate enough to preserve Shia Iran.

Iran still holds Lebanon as a hostage via Hezbollah which for now appears more a soldier of Iran than a resistance force for Lebanon. Once a hero for Arabs against Israel, Hezbollah is now a hero for Iran against Arabs! The group is perhaps paying back the favor for its own inception and nurturing, but the more likely reality is that Hezbollah and Iran are one and the same and the ambitions of Hezbollah are intertwined with Iran more so than with Lebanon and the Arab world. It is hard to miss the sectarian undertone of Iranian activities across the Arab world.

Iran’s military support of the Houthis among other activities amidst international calls for peace talks leaves no doubt that Iran is only interested in Houthis expansion in Yemen as a final attempt at maintaining and expanding a Shia Empire. Iran sees Yemen as a potential ally against Saudi Arabia, but the GCC will never allow Yemen to be under Iran’s control; be it direct or indirect control.

While Bashar Al-Assad is no longer in control and is essentially forced to allow the Iranians to take over to ensure his own survival, the Houthis have no choice but to listen and act on the orders of their financiers and spiritual source. And while Bahrain is not yet where Iran wants it, the seeds have been planted waiting for the right season — a season that will arguably never arrive as the GCC is now awakening to the serious threat that Iran has been posing.

If Iran’s behavior doesn’t change soon, the GCC will have to intervene and intervene very strongly. It is a confrontation that the block will have to choose either to engage now or wait to see Iran’s next move after Yemen; judging from Iran’s moves of the past few months, waiting is very risky. It is a difficult call and no one envies the position of the GCC leaders at this juncture.

By now everyone knows that no war in the Middle East can be ended with airpower alone and as such soldiers must be sent in. Arming the Sunnis in Yemen would only guarantee a protracted civil war, which is dangerous for the GCC. As such that is not a very effective long-term approach. But the fact remains that, from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain among other places, a Shia-Sunni world-war has been ignited.

The Shia-Sunni war was always in the making as the recent level of violence that has highlighted the deeply held grudges. What has brought it up now is the Arab Spring on the one hand and the rise of Islamists on the other. It appears that the GCC sees the urgent need to take on the challenge sooner, rather than later. Though the West will support the bloc, the GCC needs to show a willingness to act and to lead. That is what the recent statements from the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia regarding probable intervention were intended to confirm and affirm.

The real miscalculation, however, was that Iran was counting on the GCC’s seemingly docile pose to continue while it progressively engaged in Shia expansion. On the other hand, the GCC was counting on the notion that Iran would never engage in such direct and aggressive expansionary activities.

Given that the GCC is taking a more confrontational posture and Iran faces Israel as an other opportunist, as well as a the West is anti-Iran, the Persian nation could be making a serious error to allow the Houthis to ignite a situation that might be impossible to extinguish.

Iran simply cannot fight at the same time the IS and other Islamists, the Europeans, Israel, the US and the Arabs. Additionally, Russia won’t risk a World War for Iran and its role could be just as effective as it has been in defense of Syria. If you add to that the Ukraine situation and the falling Russian ruble, it’s easy to predict that in case of a war Russia will largely remain on the sidelines.

With all those factors in mind, it appears that Iran will make a U-turn — but if it doesn’t, it is clear that for the Gulf, an intervention now is far less risky than waiting until the Iranians are in at the doorsteps via Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen. The other issue that makes GCC action imminent if Houthis continue expanding in Yemen is of course the destabilizing factor of a civil war that would directly impact the GCC through refugees and otherwise.

What is likely to happen in the more immediate phase is that the GCC would transfer the massive stockpile of weapons that were procured in past decades and never used in combat unto Hadi’s forces — if they haven’t already started arriving. If that proves insufficient, the most likely start for the GCC would be airstrikes that Houthis would not be able to withstand. A ground offensive would most likely come when the Houthis have been degraded and are on the run. When this begins, Iran will either let it happen or escalate the matter farther. The former is more likely.

The post Will The GCC Intervene Militarily In Yemen? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Daniel Djouder

The new trend of low oil prices has rapidly escalated, carrying negative effects for producers and positive effects for the economies of importers, though these have been slow to become apparent. In this complex scenario, the oil-dependent country of Nigeria finds itself in a very peculiar position owing to a specific mix of longstanding issues in its wider economy, politics, security, and last but not least – its oil market. This has left Nigeria particularly exposed to the current crisis.

Let us have a brief look into the internal situation of the oil industry in Nigeria. The country is the largest oil producer in Africa, and the second largest in terms of proven reserves. Its economy is also heavily reliant on oil, which is the source of an overwhelming 95% of its export revenues. Digging a bit a deeper, this figure is linked to a series of structural problems, most notably the industry is mainly concentrated on extraction. Indeed, underdeveloped down-the-line processing activities make Nigeria the only OPEC member to export large quantities of crude and to re-import refined oil, this with a theoretical refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day and an extraction capacity of 2.5 million bpd.

The performance of this vital sector of the Nigerian economy is unfortunately thwarted by other factors as well.

According to Nigeria’s Central Bank, $20 billion in oil revenues are “missing” from the period spanning from 2012 to 2013, raising the possibility of corruption in the political establishment.

Then there is the resurgence of the MEND guerrilla movement (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) in the eponymous geographical area, where most oil reserves are found. This is coupled with the decline of the naira, Nigeria’s national currency, which has lost almost 17% of its value against the US dollar since last October. Depreciation notoriously favors exports, but that is of limited benefit when almost all exports consist of crude oil. Conversely, all imports are negatively affected, with costs of goods becoming inflated.

It is well-known that OPEC decided against cutting back oil production last November, which currently plateaus at around 30 million barrels a day across the entirety of the cartel. This has led to rampant speculation over the reasons behind the decision.

Nigeria seemed to be in good position to make an impact on the workings of the conference considering that OPEC is currently chaired by Diezani Alison-Madueke – the first woman to have this role in the history of the organization – who also serves as Federal Minister of Petroleum Resources of Nigeria in Goodluck Jonathan’s government. In hindsight, most analysts would agree that Nigeria’s choice not to put more pressure in favor of an oligopolistic policy during the meeting was a questionable one. Though too late now, a similar conclusion is apparently being drawn by many inside the cartel, including Nigerian representatives. In a recent statement, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke told the Financial Times that an emergency meeting of OPEC could be called due to the concerns of some members over the current price situation. Even so, it is unlikely that a meeting of this sort will take place and, even if it happened, that any decision to change production levels would be taken.

There are three fundamental reasons to believe that this is the case.

Firstly, as it should be clear by now, Saudi Arabia has been firmly against decreasing output levels, as reiterated very firmly by Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi last December, who asserted without any ambiguity that even if the price fell to $20 his country would not pressure to cut supply. It goes without saying that Saudi Arabia is historically one of the most – if not the most – influential participants of the organization.

Secondly, the OPEC members which could benefit the most from slowing down production, though they are facing internal and external difficulties of various degrees, are still divided within the organization and unable to tip the scale of consensus in their favor. Notable names are Lybia and Iraq, which are destabilized by terrorism and civil war, Venezuela which is struggling under the weight of debts and might possibly be targeted by US sanctions targeting the country and not just individuals in the near future, as recently suggested by American Secretery of State John Kerry. There is also Iran, which among its traditional well-known issues has come to a disagreement with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt over its nuclear programme. Nigeria has some internal concerns of its own to worry about, mainly the Boko Haram threat and upcoming elections, elements that might divert attention from foreign issues.

It is unlikely that Nigeria could unite the efforts of the aforementioned members and leverage its presidency position in the cartel at this point in time, particularly after the fresh precedent of last November, when the OPEC conference agreed that production would stay the course without incurring in any major incidents.

Thirdly, the price of Brent slowly rose in February, peaking at about $62, roughly a 33% increase since it had fallen just below $45 at the beginning of 2015. Although the price plunged again and is currently hovering over the $54 mark, the break in the fall suggests that the lower bound has already been reached. Unfortunately, this is a mere palliative for Nigeria’s economy, since most estimates put its break-even point at around $122 a barrel with its current sales volume – more than double the current average price. However, for the time being the country is financially resilient, sitting on about $34.5 billion in foreign reserves and a 2015 public budget based on a $52 oil price benchmark. Certainly not enough to warrant a carefree status for an unlimited amount of time, but still sufficient to cover medium-term necessities and possibly weaken the will to fight against restrict supplying. In the same way, other countries with better break-even points might have reasonable expectations that the price figures will recover naturally to a more sustainable level.

However, this last notion might be controversial for several reasons. On one hand there is uncertainty about the trends of financial speculation. On the other, the demand for oil is still depressed with forecasts remaining gloomy. This last point is also being stressed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest update to the World Economic Outlook 2015.

The approaching general elections on March 28 will likely give some indication about the future course of the country, but whoever wins, oil will play a key role in shaping Nigeria’s future.

Source:
This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

The post Nigeria: Dynamics Of An Oil Crisis – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Parkinson’s disease, which took world fame after being diagnosed in various personalities such as actor Michael J. Fox, the heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and the painter Salvador Dalí, could be very close to a cure, thanks to a Mexican researcher which managed to eliminate its neurological effects with an immunosuppressant.

Responsible for the scientific finding is Gabriela Caraveo Piso, researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in the United States, who discovered that the role of calcium as an intracellular messenger can become lethal to brain cells when in high concentration.

Neurological diseases called synucleinopathies, such as Parkinson’s, are characterized by the aggregation of alpha-synuclein protein. This action triggers a series of events such as the rise in intracellular calcium leading to over-activation of the enzyme calcineuria. This in turn removes phosphates (intracellular communication paths) to alter their functions and kill cells.

Gabriela Caraveo, a biologist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), sought to nip this problem, after performing a series of analyzes in yeast, worms, and neurons of mice, found that by reducing the levels of activation of calcineurin, without eliminating it completely, the cells survived.

By modifying the activation of calcineurin contact with NFAT protein is cut out, and the communication to actin cytoskeletal rearrangements is redirected, which is responsible for cell morphology, thereby reducing failure in the motor function in animal models of Parkinson said the Mexican, who works in the lab of Susan Lindquist in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts

To achieve adequate toxicity reduction the drug tacrolimus was used, which is administered clinically in newly transplanted patients to prevent organ rejection by the immune system.

Because calcineurin is also highly expressed in brain, this immunosuppressant that can cross the blood brain barrier is able to reduce the activation of calcineurin in the brain reducing the toxic symptoms of the disease. But it is important to adjust the dosage, because too much of it completely eliminates the activation of calcineurin preventing stimulation of protective pathways like the cytoskeleton leading to cell death.

“The dosage of the drug, also called FK506, I propose is well below the level of the immunosuppressants, which allows my work to have immediate treatment of neurological diseases characterized by the aggregation of alpha-synuclein as therapeutic implications as the Parkinson’s disease,” explained the specialist in neurosciences.

In healthy people, cells achieve to regulate the amount of intracellular calcium, the problem is when there are neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, the element is accumulated, becomes toxic and kills many neurons including dopaminergic neurons, responsible for implementing the motor functions.

According to preclinical results with tacrolimus pathologies associated to Parkinson’s disease decreased in rodent models. The next step is to start human trials to test its effectiveness and safety as an alternative treatment that could even act as a cure.

The post New Treatment Could Lead To Cure For Parkinson’s Disease appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The gradual but accelerating melting of the Greenland ice-sheet, caused by man-made global warming, is a possible major contributor to the slowdown. Further weakening could impact marine ecosystems and sea level as well as weather systems in the US and Europe.

“It is conspicuous that one specific area in the North Atlantic has been cooling in the past hundred years while the rest of the world heats up,” said Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, lead author of the study to be published in Nature Climate Change. Previous research had already indicated that a slowdown of the so-called Atlantic meridional overturning circulation might be to blame for this.

“Now we have detected strong evidence that the global conveyor has indeed been weakening in the past hundred years, particularly since 1970,” said Rahmstorf.

Because long-term direct ocean current measurements are lacking, the scientists mainly used sea-surface and atmospheric temperature data to derive information about the ocean currents, exploiting the fact that ocean currents are the leading cause of temperature variations in the subpolar north Atlantic. From so-called proxy data – gathered from ice-cores, tree-rings, coral, and ocean and lake sediments – temperatures can be reconstructed for more than a millennium back in time. The recent changes found by the team are unprecedented since the year 900 AD, strongly suggesting they are caused by man-made global warming.

“The melting Greenland ice sheet is likely disturbing the circulation”

The Atlantic overturning is driven by differences in the density of the ocean water. From the south, the warm and hence lighter water flows northwards, where the cold and thus heavier water sinks to deeper ocean layers and flows southwards.

“Now freshwater coming off the melting Greenland ice sheet is likely disturbing the circulation,” said Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. The freshwater is diluting the ocean water. Less saline water is less dense and has therefore less tendency to sink into the deep. “So the human-caused mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet appears to be slowing down the Atlantic overturning – and this effect might increase if temperatures are allowed to rise further,” explained Box.

The observed cooling in the North Atlantic, just south of Greenland, is stronger than what most computer simulations of the climate have predicted so far.

“Common climate models are underestimating the change we’re facing, either because the Atlantic overturning is too stable in the models or because they don’t properly account for Greenland ice sheet melt, or both,” said Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the US. “That is another example where observations suggest that climate model predictions are in some respects still overly conservative when it comes to the pace at which certain aspects of climate change are proceeding.”

No new ice-age – but major negative effects are possible

The cooling above the Northern Atlantic would only slightly reduce the continued warming of the continents. The scientists certainly do not expect a new ice age, thus the imagery of the ten-year-old Hollywood blockbuster ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ is far from reality. However, it is well established that a large, even gradual change in Atlantic ocean circulation could have major negative effects.

“If the slowdown of the Atlantic overturning continues, the impacts might be substantial,” said Rahmstorf. “Disturbing the circulation will likely have a negative effect on the ocean ecosystem, and thereby fisheries and the associated livelihoods of many people in coastal areas. A slowdown also adds to the regional sea-level rise affecting cities like New York and Boston. Finally, temperature changes in that region can also influence weather systems on both sides of the Atlantic, in North America as well as Europe.”

If the circulation weakens too much it can even break down completely – the Atlantic overturning has for long been considered a possible tipping element in the Earth System. This would mean a relatively rapid and hard-to-reverse change.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates there to be an up to one-in-ten chance that this could happen as early as within this century. However, expert surveys indicate that many researchers assess the risk to be higher. The study now published by the international team of researchers around Rahmstorf provides information on which to base a new and better risk assessment.

The post Atlantic Ocean Overturning Found To Already Be Slowing Down appeared first on Eurasia Review.