By Charles Davis

Chelsea Manning was an all-American patriot when she joined the U.S. military in 2007 at the height of the surge in Iraq.

But when she saw what her country was actually doing abroad — handing over thousands of Iraqi Sunnis to be tortured by state-sponsored Shiite death squads, for instance — she decided she couldn’t be a part of it. Nor could she just do nothing as injustices were committed in her and every American’s name.

So, using the access available to her as an Army intelligence analyst, she downloaded gigabytes of classified evidence that war crimes were being committed onto CDs “labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga,’” as she told a federal informant.

In 2013, a military court sentenced Manning to 35 years behind bars for leaking that evidence, including thousands upon thousands of diplomatic cables, to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. The guilty verdict came after Manning was subjected to 11 months of what the UN special rapporteur on torture called “cruel and inhuman” solitary confinement.

If she serves her full sentence, Manning, now 27, will be 60 years old when released, though she will reportedly become eligible for parole in 2020. But supporters want her out now — and believe that the way she was treated before she went to trial could be the key.

“We have to appeal this on Chelsea’s behalf,” said criminal defense attorney Nancy Hollander, one of a team of lawyers looking to do just that. Hollander was speaking as part of a recent panel discussion on the Obama administration’s war on leaks. This war, like others declared on nouns, has tended to hurt the least deserving: in this case, conscience-driven whistleblowers like Manning, but not any of those chatty “senior administration officials” who casually leak inside information to the press.

Such is the difference between releasing classified information that informs the public but bothers the national security state, as Manning did, and leaking what often proves to be disinformation that flatters those in power, as their lackeys do.

Let’s remember what landed Manning in prison: releasing a video of an incident in which U.S. soldiers killed more than a dozen unarmed civilians in Iraq, including two journalists working for Reuters. At the time of the incident, a military spokesman said that the soldiers, who fired at a dad driving a minivan with his kids inside, “were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force.” Manning proved otherwise.

Manning also revealed that Yemen’s former dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was colluding with the Obama administration to cover up an undeclared U.S. war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (of which any “military-age male” killed in a drone strike is considered to have been a member). That war has killed hundreds of civilians — with one U.S. air strike alone wiping out 41 innocent Yemenis, including 21 children, according to Amnesty International.

That difference — leaking things not to portray one’s self in a better light, but to soothe a conscience inflamed by injustice — is part of the appeal that Hollander is drafting with fellow attorney Vincent Ward. During her first trial, “Chelsea wasn’t even allowed to put on the defense of why she felt it important for the public to know about these human rights abuses,” said Hollander at the discussion hosted by Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. “We have to appeal this for all of our sake…And we really have to stop this because it is illegal for the government of the United States to classify info that embarrasses the government.”

But justice is expensive. In 2014 alone, the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund spent $149,000 out of a total of $247,000 in donations on Manning’s legal team. As of March 31, 2015, that team was owed close to $100,000.

Melissa Keith works for the Chelsea Manning Support Network, a project of Courage to Resist, a group that supports conscientious objectors. She told me that the $100,000 not spent on legal fees in 2014 went toward defending Manning in public. Another $74,000 went to the salaries of staff who worked on “public education and awareness,” said Keith, which involved placing ads and Manning’s own writing in newspapers, as well as organizing and promoting events to draw attention to her case. The network also says that the fund helps pay the travel costs of those visiting Manning, “especially her mother and relatives living in Wales,” and for her college education.

Though owed tens of thousands of dollars, Manning’s lawyers have not stopped working (the fund paid $10,000 toward its bill in March after receiving $10,636 in donations, or $9,412 after bank fees). The shortfall has led Manning herself to appeal for funds on her new Twitter account. Her posts are currently dictated over the phone from military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to an employee of the public relations firm Fitzgibbon Media, according to a handwritten letter from Manning. That firm has been paid by the Chelsea Manning Support Network to promote Manning’s cause.

“Since Chelsea’s initial tweets, we’ve raised about $40,000,” said Keith, who estimates that about $8,000 came as a direct result of those posts on the 140-character social network. That still leaves the fund’s debt to the legal team at more than $50,000 — and with Hollander charging $400 an hour (not unusual for a top-tier defense attorney, according to lawyers I asked to review the invoice), the legal debt grows by about $10,000 a month.

“Legal expenses are very high currently, as the new legal team is tasked with reviewing the entire record of the trial, the most voluminous in the history of American military law,” said Keith. “Now is the time of heavy lifting. The arguments formulated now will be the arguments that carry Chelsea through until the end of this process.”

Where does that process end, though? Manning’s lawyers expect to have a hearing before the U.S. Army Criminal Court of Appeals sometime this year. If that appeal goes nowhere, though, the case could go to the civilian system — and from there to the Supreme Court.

Donations to support Manning’s defense can be made to the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund. One can also donate to a legal trust, 100 percent of the contributions to which are used to cover legal expenses, by making a check out to “IOLTA / Manning” and sending it to: Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave. #41, Oakland, CA 94610.

*Charles Davis is a writer and producer based in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera, The New Republic, and Salon.

The post Bid To Free Chelsea Manning – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(Civil.Ge) — Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili said “political decision” to grant Georgia visa-free regime in the Schengen area is already in place and he hopes the country will get it in 2016 after “technical procedures” are completed before the end of this year.

“Everyone acknowledges that Georgia has made a significant progress. In just six months we have made a huge progress and took a great leap forward. Taking in view this progress, everyone agrees that Georgia deserves to have visa-free travel rules with the EU,” the Georgian PM told journalists on arrival at the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on Thursday evening.

“Political decision has already been made, now technical procedures remain, which should be completed before the end of the year, therefore I hope that our citizens will be able to travel without visas [to the Schengen area] very soon,” PM Garibashvili said.

“We expect to get visa-free regime maybe next year. We stay committed and we continue our reforms,” he added.

Latvian PM Laimdota Straujuma told journalists upon arrival at the summit that the foreign ministers were still working on the final draft of the declaration of the Riga Summit. She said that “good news” was that the declaration would say that if the European Commission’s report on implementation of visa liberalisation action plan, expected before the end of this year, shows that Georgia implemented all the criteria, the country will get visa-free travel rules next year. “So it’s a good news for Georgia,” the Latvian PM said.

Estonian PM told journalists in Riga that “once criteria are met then there should not be any obstacles” for visa waiver. He also said that he hopes “to see a clear perspective” of EU membership for some Eastern Partnership countries as it is important to know that “movement towards EU membership is possible and achievable.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also arrived in Riga, told German lawmakers in Bundestag earlier on May 21 that visa-free travel rules for citizens of Georgia and Ukraine in the Schengen area will only be possible once all requirements are met.

Referring to the recent report of the European Commission on implementation of visa liberalisation action plan by Georgia and Ukraine, Merkel said that the both countries put a great deal of effort, but it is “not yet enough” and “a lot still needs to be done” by Georgia and Ukraine in this regard.

Earlier on May 21 Georgian PM Garibashvili participated in a meeting of Party of European Socialists (PES) in Riga. Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, which the PM chairs, is a partner of PES.

Also on May 21 a meeting of European People’s Party (EPP) was held in Riga where Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili participate; United National Movement (UNM), chaired by Saakashvili, is a partner party of EPP.

Speaking with Georgian journalists in Riga on May 21, Saakashvili, who chairs Ukrainian President’s advisory council on reforms, blamed the Georgian government for, what he called, a failure to meet criteria necessary for getting EU visa waiver.

“The Georgian government does not care at all whether our citizens will be able to travel to Europe without visas,” said Saakashvili, who is wanted in Georgia on multiple criminal charges, which he denies as politically motivated. “They [the Georgian authorities] and their family members can anyway travel to Europe, they spend holidays at European resorts. They are depriving people, who are hungry, who have lost their jobs and are ready to go in any country for earning a livelihood, even this last opportunity – although I am not at all happy that Georgians may go abroad because of these reasons… At EPP summit, where I participated and where our party [UNM] is a member, we adopted a declaration [calling for EU visa waiver], but it’s not enough; what can the opposition can do without the government doing anything?”

“We should understand one thing – no one will accept the country, where people are hungry, because everyone is afraid that those people will rush abroad. Second – there are political prisoners in [Georgia],” Saakashvili said.

The European Commission said in its report on May 8 that despite significant progress, Georgia “still needs to address the remaining recommendations” in its visa liberalization action plan.

The European Commission said that it will report on Georgia’s further progress on the implementation of the visa liberalisation action plan by the end of 2015.

The Commission, however, also said that “in view of the significant progress Georgia has made in the past few months, the Commission is ready to bring forward the timing of the next report provided that the rapid progress… continues.”

The report assesses Georgia’s progress in meeting benchmarks set under the VLAP in four blocks that involve document security, border and migration management, public order, and external relations and fundamental rights. It assesses these benchmarks as either “achieved”, “almost achieved” or “partially achieved”.

The report deemed benchmarks related to document security, integrated border management, fighting organized crime, protection of personal data, freedom of movement, issuance of travel and identity documents, and international legal cooperation in criminal matters as “achieved”.

Benchmarks in migration management, money laundering, cooperation between various law enforcement agencies, and citizens’ rights that include minority protection have been deemed by the report as “almost achieved”. Benchmarks in asylum, human trafficking, anti-corruption and drugs are deemed as “partially achieved.”

Concerning combating corruption, the report calls on Georgia to pursue the reform of the civil service with laws in line with international practices that would set the scope and standards for a professional and depoliticized civil service and would further strengthen the practical protection of whistleblowers.

Concerning drug policies, the report says that although Georgia made substantial progress in implementing a national anti-drug strategy, the policy “remains based more on retribution than restorative action.”

The post Georgia Could Get EU Visa Waiver Next Year – PM appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Burundian security forces used tear gas to disperse a women’s demonstration in central Bujumbura against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term, MISNA sources confirm.

Based on a reconstruction, dozens of young women marched on Independence Square, in the heart of the capital.

Demonstrations against Nkurunziza running in the June presidential election were staged also outside the national assembly, where three ministers are due to be sworn in today. Clashes broke out in Musaga, where a protester was killed by police.

More than 20 people were killed in escalating protests in Bujumbura since the end of April. The Belgian government, main bilateral donor of Burundi and overall third after the World Bank, announced the suspension of aid, which in 2013 amounted to 47 million euros, if President Nkurunziza runs for a third term.

The post Burundi Govt Forces Disperse Protest By Women Against President appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan*

The actual religious requirements of Islam are quite simple, but no religion can lead society down a common path to worldly happiness or to the here-after heavens when the religious are at war with themselves.

Today, the most rigid religious Islamic states in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran could be on the brink of an all-out war. Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been waging daily air attacks on Iran-backed Yemeni Huthi rebels’ targets for some time. The perception in the Sunni-Arab World today is that Shiite Iran is meddling in the affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, interfering militarily and spreading its tentacles via proxies like Hizbullah in Lebanon and Syria, and al-Huthis in Yemen. The Yemen civil war or the wars in Syria and Iraq or any war between Saudi Arabia and Iran are not just new conflicts like other confrontations that pop up suddenly in the headlines, only to fade into the background after a short time.

The bloody wars that are now raging in Yemen, in Syria and Iraq, where tens of thousands are being killed and millions are displaced, actually began 1383 years ago when the Prophet Muhammad died. Islam was divided within itself, three of the first four caliphs who succeeded the Prophet as the leaders of Islam were murdered, two by fellow Muslims. The Muslim World was split into many groups including the rivals Sunni and Shi’a, over the interpretation of the Islamic tradition and the succession to the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims called it the Big Strife ‘al-fitna al-kubra’. In the beginning, the doctrinal differences between the Sunni and Shi’a were of minor importance, far less than those that divided the rival churches in Christendom.

The Shi’a maintained that the caliphate should be hereditary in the line of the Prophet Muhammad, and the more generally accepted view of the Sunni Muslims was that the caliphate was elective, and any members of the Prophet tribe, Quraysh, was eligible. The 680 AD massacre of Karbala sped the transformation of the Shi’a from a political party to religious sects. Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and many of his family and supporters including his six-month-old son were killed by the forces of Umayyad caliph. Well known Shi’a sects are the Twelvers, the Zaidiyyas and the Ismaelis. The Shi’a sense of martyrdom and persecution has been reinforced by their long experience through the centuries as minority groups under Sunni rulers whom they regarded as usurpers. Their mystical emotional force and appeal to the oppressed masses gained them large numbers of dedicated adherents. The Shi’as were not always the oppressed. Their ruling dynasties became dominant power in many Islamic countries including the Fatimid in Egypt, the Safavid in Iran, Iraq and Central Asia, and the Zaidis in Yemen.

Today, deep divisions persist not only among Shi’a, but also among Sunnis. Sunni scholars to this day study and debate fatwa rulings based on the Quran and the words and deeds of the Prophet. The problem is that what is authentic for some is a matter of dispute for others. There are the Sufis, the Wahhabis, the fundamentalists, the jihadists, and the moderates.

Vast majority of Saudi Arabia’s citizens follow a strict Sunni Islamic tradition where the religious leaders enforce the Wahhabi school of thought and sway over every aspect of Saudi life; and the majority of Iranians under the ruling Mullahs theocracy follow the “Shi’a Twelver” Islamic order as the official religion of the state.

Unlike many other Arab regimes, the Saudi ruling family never promised democracy nor ordered elections to claim legitimacy. Instead of the ballot box, the Saudis claim that Allah (God) gives them the legitimacy they need to govern by imposing pure Islamic tradition in their Kingdom. They insist that people in Arabia, home of Islam’s two holiest sites, should practice the tradition which the Prophet Muhammad had established when he received the revelation.

Almost three hundred years ago, Muhammad al Saud, an Arab tribal leader from Najd, allied himself with Muhammad ibn Abdel-Wahhab, a fundamentalist Islamic scholar, to conquer and unite the Arabian Peninsula using religion to trump the opposing tribes. Al Saud and his religious partner established the first Saudi State in 1745 and imposed Abdel-Wahhab (Wahhabi) version of Islam on its people. The two allies and their descendents ruled parts of Arabia off-and-on ever since. By 1927, the present Saudi Arabia State was established by King Abdul Aziz bin al Saud, the father of the current king. Six of King Abdul Aziz forty-four sons have succeeded him since his death in 1953.

Wahhabi clerics are not considered holy men like the Shi’a mullahs, but only interpreters and arbiters of the Quran and the Prophet’s life example. They control every aspect of life and consider anyone who makes a moral judgment based on anything other than the Quran, a nonbeliever ‘kaffer.’ Their ‘religious police’ roam the streets of the cities to enforce a traditional rigorous religious life. They enforce codes of behavior and decide among other things what women can wear in public and who can accompany them. Cinemas are banned, concerts are outlawed and even listening to music is forbidden.

The royal family lifestyle, however, is more like the ancient emperors which the Muslims had conquered and less like the Prophet’s way of life in Medina. The first Muslims mistrusted kings and the institutions of kingship. In Quran and in the early Muslim traditions, King occurs only as one of the Devine titles and was treated with utmost respect. But when applied to humans like the tyrannical Pharaoh, it has negative connotations. Al Saud kings live luxurious lifestyles and their family has become infamous around the world for the profligacy of the many playboy princes. The thousands of Saudi princes are increasingly viewed by the rest of Saudi society as burdensome privileged cast.

The Wahhabi doctrine calls for the return to the authentic Islam and remove all the distortion brought about by the mystical Sufi practices in Turkey and the acts of devotion to honor the Shi’a imams in Iran. Wahhabis defined the Ottoman Islam as polytheistic and challenged the legitimacy of their empire, and they considered the Shi’a as members of heretical sect. In 1802, they attacked the southern Iraqi shrine city of Karbala which holds special position in Shi’a Islam. The attack was chillingly brutal, thousands of Shi’a Iraqis were murdered and the shrines were destroyed. Karbala is the place where Hussein ibn Ali was killed by the forces of Umayyad caliph in 680 AD and started the Shi’a movement. He is venerated as the third of twelve infallible imam of Shi’a Islam.

In the sixteenth century, the Shi’ate Safavid dynasty of the Shahs of Iran established a united and powerful state embracing the whole area between the Mediterranean and the approaches to Central Asia and India. Iran since then has become the spiritual center of the Twelver Shi’a Muslims with its revitalized Islamic Persian culture that is different from the Arabs in many essentials.

Four dynasties ruled Iran, the Safavid, the Zand, the Qajars, and the Pahlavi. Once oil was discovered in Iran, the British and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company controlled the Iranian economy and practically ruled the country. In World War II, Reza Shah was forced by the British and the Russians into exile for supporting the Germans in the war, and his son, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, succeeded him. The US and the UK backed a military coup d’état when the popular charismatic Prime Minister Muhammad Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry. They deposed the Iranians beloved Mosaddagh and brought back the oil company, the most hated symbol of foreign exploitation. Members of the new middle class became disaffected by the Shah’s policies and the masses of the population saw the Westernization and un-Islamic modernization of the country as the source of all evils. The Iranians revolted, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ran for his life and died shortly in Egypt. The exiled religious leader and politician, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been issuing uncompromising demands for the Shah abdication, returned to Iran in 1979 as a triumphant hero to establish the Islamic Republic of Iran. Islam never was a theocracy in the sense of government by priesthood until the emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Khomeini.

When the US overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and elevated the Shi’a in Iraq, it helped extend Iran’s regional influence east and west. Following Ahmadinejad’s election as a president of Iran in January 2006, Iran re-launched its nuclear enrichment program. According to some observers, by the end of 2009, Iran was operating sufficient centrifuges to produce nuclear bomb; it had tested the solid-fuel missile and it had launched a satellite into orbit. That helped Iran to project its influence across the region and highlighted the fragility of the Arab regimes that Washington had counted amongst its traditional allies.

The people of the Middle East are killing each other; there is no transition to democracy in the horizon; Arab regimes and Israel are united against a common enemy, Iran; and the Palestinians’ tragedy is no more of Arab or non-Arab concern.

Can the Middle East people manage the daunting political challenges posed by these sectarian wars waged by undemocratic regimes, where everybody loses except the US military industry?

* Hasan Afif El-Hasan, Ph.D. is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

The post Introduction To Middle East Sectarian Wars – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

It is not Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who don’t get it. It is our near-sighted Globalist-in-Chief who really doesn’t get it, following in the footsteps of that other Republican-lite president, William Jefferson Clinton. But what can one expect, given the advice he’s getting from a cadre of Wall-Streeters working with, or influencing, the White House? Or, from a president who has confessed to being a “great admirer” of celebrated JP Morgan Chase chief, Jamie Dimon?

A few days ago President Obama honored our Portland (Oregon) area with a visit to promote the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) agreement; which for all intents and purposes is but another addition to the gallery of NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR ugly siblings. Perhaps an even uglier sibling in this period of expanding economic inequality!

It seems comical, yet ill-omened, how Barack Obama is herding the already decimated middle class along a path sure to reach economic oblivion, while maintaining support from much of the old guard of school-government-trade unionists which has kept the Democratic Party afloat during the last five decades in a conservative sea dominated by currents of old-time religion and misguided patriotism.

Common sense and humanity, and not just blind acceptance of global economics, tell us that eventually most barriers to competition should be coming down; and that there will be a significant trend towards greater homogenization in both productivity and personal income throughout much of world. But we might still be two or three generations away from such happening, assuming changes take place in an orderly and least painful fashion… without allowing our politicians, Democrats or Republicans alike, to follow the will of the elite that place them in power… and, correspondingly, expect a payback.

And that’s where we are today in Congress, ominously on the eve of passing this terrible TPP legislation sure to reach a smiling Obama, pen in hand ready to sign, instead of rejecting it with a forceful and merited veto.

Could it be that Obama is suffering from the same illusionary political disease as Bill Clinton, after the latter’s receipt of unmerited kudos for all the low-paying jobs created during his two terms in office? Is it so difficult to understand that job numbers can have a profoundly different significance in economic, social and political terms than labor income?

Regardless of the POTUS’ misleading sermonizing on “what’s good for the United States,” the reality is acrimoniously different. The anticipated net outsource of labor income sure to come from the TPP agreement is likely to be similar in results as past global renditions initiated with NAFTA. The economic capillary effect of this agreement (TPP) will affect labor significantly, not just in the manufacturing sector (possibly losing half as many jobs as the number lost to China and the American hemisphere in the past two decades), but also in the service sector – and here, we are not referring to jobs in low remuneration call centers, but jobs with high technical skills in both medicine and engineering, which could result in the loss of half of the now existing – and anticipated increases – programmer jobs; and a reduction in overall pay of the remaining half by a third or more.

Other areas in Americans’ lives will also be affected or threatened, from food safety standards, to the environment, to increases in the already stratospheric cost of drugs, to the protection of rights and sovereignty that we’ve inherited from the sacrifice of past generations.

So who’s to gain from this TPP agreement that Barack Obama is pushing with greater fervor than that exhibited in critical domestic issues such as immigration reform and the (dirty secret) racial divide? As it’s always the case in our predatory society, Corporate America and its circle of influential friends are the culprit… and it’s beginning to look as if the villains will get their way: Wall Street, Big Pharma, and a long list of multinationals displaying their corporate flags at the top of the pole, knowing that their safety is in the good hands of the Pentagon; all international policing costs defrayed by the American taxpayer… in its incredible masochistic docility.

ISIS’ literal style of decapitation is repugnant and shocking. US’ self-imposed economic decapitation may not appear at first as shocking, but the end result will be as gruesome to America’s working class: not the proletariat of old, but most everyone holding both blue and white collar jobs.

The post Another Decapitator-In-Chief Of America’s Working Class – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

South Africa’s repo rate is to remain unchanged at 5.75% per annum, the Reserve Bank said on Thursday.

“The Monetary Policy Committee [MPC] has decided to keep the repurchase rate unchanged at this meeting,” said Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago.

The repo rate has remained unchanged since a 25 basis points rate hike in July 2014.

The governor said four members of the committee favoured an unchanged stance while two members of the committee favoured a 25 basis point increase.

However, the MPC noted that the deteriorating inflation outlook suggests that this unchanged stance cannot be maintained indefinitely.

“The MPC will continue to closely monitor the evolution of inflation expectations and other factors that could undermine the longer term inflation outlook and stands ready to act when appropriate,” said Kganyago.

The central bank said its inflation forecast has changed since its last meeting with inflation now expected to average 4.9% in 2015 with a first quarter low of 4.1%

A temporary breach of the upper end of the inflation target band is still expected during the first quarter of 2016 to peak at 6.8% and to decline to 6% by the second quarter of that year.

The bank said headline inflation forecast assumes electricity price increases of 13% from July 2015 and July 2016 in line with the original multi-year price determination process of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

However, the application by Eskom for a further 12.6% increase from 1 July 2015 will be decided at the end of June.

“Given the uncertainty regarding this decision, both in terms of quantum and timing of implementation, it has not been incorporated into the forecast, but poses a significant upside risk. Should Nersa fully accede to the Eskom request, a higher peak of headline inflation as well as a more extended breach of the target can be expected,” explained the Governor.

The bank noted that the domestic growth outlook remains weak amid continued electricity supply constraints and low and declining levels of business and consumer confidence.

The bank’s forecast for Gross Domestic Product growth is marginally down from the previous forecast, growth is expected to average 2.1% and 2.2 %in 2015 and 2016, and to increase to 2.7% in 2017.

Additionally, consumption expenditure by households is expected to remain relatively subdued, as higher personal tax rates take effect and the benefits of lower petrol prices dissipate.

Of what is of concern to the MPC is the trends in remuneration with average wage and salary growth has been in excess of inflation for some time.

The main risks to the outlook remain electricity tariff increases, the exchange rate and wage settlements, noted the bank.

“Significant additional electricity tariff increases are likely to cause inflation to diverge significantly from the target range for a more extended period than our baseline forecast suggests.”

The post South Africa: Repo Rate Remains Unchanged At 5.75% appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A proposal to revoke a controversial law used to jail political dissidents was rejected by Burma’s Lower House of parliament, with its supporters claiming that overturning the legislation would “throw the country into chaos”.

The Emergency Provisions Act, enacted in 1950, carries the death penalty and sentences of up to life in prison for treason or sabotage against military organizations, as well as up to seven years in prison for a sweeping range of other offenses against the state. Article 5 of the law grants sweeping authority to the government to prosecute individuals who disseminate “false news” or otherwise “jeopardize the state”.

Burma’s leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), proposed scrapping the legislation on the grounds that successive governments have primarily used it as a tool for arresting activists. The proposal was rejected by a landslide vote of 50 for, 256 against and 17 abstentions.

Lower House parliamentarian Win Myint, a member of the NLD, said his party was disappointed by the defeat, which preserved what he views as a redundant law designed to instill fear and restrict political activity. “All of the provisions in the law are already enshrined in the Penal Code, which is already in place to prosecute those who break the law. It is unacceptable that authorities can repress citizens with another law”, said Myint.

The post Burma Fails To Revoke Controversial Law Used To Jail Dissidents appeared first on Eurasia Review.

This is the text of testimony delivered at a hearing of the US Senate Committee on the Armed Services, April 28, 2014 on US Policy on Europe. The testimony was originally posted on The Atlantic Council’s website.

By Ian Brzezinski*

Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, Members of the Committee, I am honored to speak at this hearing on the state of U.S. security interests in Europe.

We meet today some eight months after the September 4, 2014 NATO summit in Wales, United Kingdom. That meeting of Allied heads of state proved to be an important inflection point for the Alliance. When planning for that summit began, its primary objective was to mark the end of NATO’s combat operations in Afghanistan. Some were even concerned about the future relevance of NATO, anticipating that it was about to enter a period of unprecedented operational inactivity following decades of defending against the Soviet Union, managing conflict in the Balkans, and, more recently, contributing to out-of area undertakings in Afghanistan and even Iraq.

Instead, the Alliance’s agenda that Fall was dominated by events that most policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic failed to anticipate. These, of course, include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sudden and bloodthirsty rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

A read of the summit communiqué reflects other challenges confronting the Alliance:  missile proliferation, chaos in Libya, crises in Mali and the Congo African Republic, threats to the global commons – including its cyber and maritime domains, and Iran’s nuclear program, among others.

That list gives real credence to former NATO Secretary General Fogh Rasmussen’s repeated assertions that we face a more connected, more complex, more chaotic and more precarious world. He is right. And, in this world, the political and military capacities that NATO can leverage has become only more vital to the shared interests and values that define the transatlantic community.

I would like today to focus on four urgent and emergent fronts before the NATO Alliance:

• An Eastern Front driven by a Russia’s provocative military actions;
• An emergent Arctic Front driven by Moscow’s militarization of the High North;
• A Southern Front, a region stretching from Iran across the Middle East and North Africa wrought by a dangerous combination of failed states and extremist organizations; and,
• A Global Front defined by the upheaval generated by the rapidly evolving dynamics of globalization.

The Eastern Front: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Let me start with the front that is sort of a return back to the future.  Fourteen months ago, President Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine with the incursion of 20-30,000 Russian troops into the Crimean peninsula. That was followed by the cross-border operation into Eastern Ukraine involving Russian provocateurs and Special Forces who seized buildings and armories and terrorized the local population. The latter were soon reinforced by Russian conventional forces.  Both operations were backed by the massing of Russian conventional forces on Ukraine’ border, under the guise of a 150,000 man military exercise.

Russia’s invasion caused over 6,000 Ukrainians deaths in eastern Ukraine and displaced over 1.6M people.  More than 20 percent of Ukraine’s industrial capability has been seized or destroyed. Crimea and regions of Donetsk and Luhansk remain occupied and are being politically purged.  Russia is reinforcing its presence in Crimea with Special Forces, aircraft, and ships and has announced plans to deploy nuclear capable SS-26 Iskander missiles. In Eastern Ukraine where fighting continues, Putin violates the Minsk II peace accords by deploying additional heavy combat equipment, personnel and military supplies to his forces.

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine presents a significant challenge to the security and stability of Europe and to the credibility of NATO.  As an unprovoked aggression against the territorial sovereignty of a European nation, the invasion of Ukraine disrupts the order that has kept peace in Europe since World War II.  By asserting the unilateral right to redraw borders on the grounds he is protecting ethnic Russians and by promoting the concept of a “Novorossiya,” Putin has reintroduced the principal of ethnic sovereignty, a principal that wrought death and destruction across Europe in the last century and those before.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, one motivated significantly by his opposition to the country’s long-standing desire to be a fully integrated part of Europe, is a direct threat to the vision of a Europe whole, free and secure.  If allowed to succeed, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will create a new confrontational divide in Europe, between a community defined by self-determination, democracy, and rule of law and one burdened by authoritarianism, hegemony and occupation. In these ways, Putin’s aggression against Ukraine – and his increasingly provocative military actions elsewhere in Europe – are direct challenges to NATO and U.S. leadership, ones intended to portray the Alliance and Washington as lacking the diplomatic, economic, and military capacity to counter Russian power.

Putin’s Revanchist Ambitions:  The invasion of Ukraine is but one element of a revanchist policy that President Putin has articulated and exercised since taking office in 1999.  His objective has been to reestablish Russian hegemony, if not full control, over the space of the former Soviet Union.

Toward this end, Moscow has applied the full suite of Russian power to weaken and dominate its neighbors:  economic embargoes, political subterfuge, information and cyber-warfare, separatist groups, frozen conflicts as well as military shows of force and incursions.  Putin’s campaign history includes Moscow’s attempt to subvert Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2007 cyber-attack against Estonia, the separatist movement in Moldova, energy embargoes against Lithuania and Ukraine, and the 2008 invasion of Georgia.

President Putin’s strategy is one that pursues 20^th-century objectives through 21^st-century techniques and old-fashioned brute force.  With regard to the latter, Russia has undertaken a determined modernization of its armed forces. Some $750B has been dedicated over this decade to expand the Russian fleet, introduce 5^th generation aircraft, deploy new missiles, modernize his nuclear arsenal, increase his nation’s SOF capabilities, and militarize the Arctic.  When one compares the Russian forces that invaded Georgia in 2008 to those that led the invasion of Crimea last year, the modernization campaign is clearly yielding improved capabilities.

As part of his strategy, Putin has deployed his military forces in provocative ways across the Baltic region, the Black Sea, the Arctic and elsewhere to demonstrate capability, intimidate and divide Russia’s neighbors, and probe the resolve of the West.  These actions have steadily escalated over time, and include challenges to the airspace of Sweden, the cross-border seizure of an Estonian law-enforcement officer, harassment of military and civilian aircraft and ships in the Baltic and Black Seas, and an exponential increase in assertive air and sea patrols by Russian aircraft and ships on both sides of the Atlantic.

Russian military exercises have been an important part of these shows of force and are notable for their magnitude and for the frequency of “spot” exercises – the sudden and unannounced mobilization and deployment of forces.  As indicated in the attached chart, over the last three years, Russia has conducted six major military exercises involving between 65,000 and 160,000 personnel. In comparison, these dwarf the size of NATO and Allied exercises, and raise questions about the Alliance’s comparable ability to mobilize comparable forces in no-notice situations.

NATO-Russia Exercise Gap

Russia’s assertive military conduct has been complemented by an increase in nuclear threats against the West made by senior Russian commanders and civilian officials, including President Putin. In the last several weeks, Moscow threatened to target Romania, Poland and Denmark with nuclear weapons for their contributions to transatlantic missile defense. The Times of London recently reported that in a meeting with U.S. officials, Russian generals threatened “a spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military” if the Alliance deployed additional forces to the Baltic states.

The West’s Response:  To date, the West’s response to Russia’s territorial aggression and provocative military actions consists of limited incremental escalations of economic sanctions and military deployments.  The failure of this response to convince Putin to reverse course is rooted in this incrementalism which communicates hesitancy and a lack of unity and determination. Indeed, it may have actually emboldened Putin.   Today, Moscow’s provocative exercises and assertive military conduct continue, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine remain occupied, and Russia’s forces appear poised to strike deeper into Ukraine.

Calibrated engagement with the Russian government is needed to explore avenues by which to modulate tensions and return to Ukraine its territories. However, to be effective these efforts will require more immediate and longer-term initiatives that will impose economic costs on Russia, deter Moscow from further provocative conduct, reinforce Central and Eastern Europe’s sense of security, enhance Ukraine’s capacity for defense, and help it transform into a successful, democratic, and prosperous European state.  These include:

1. Stronger economic sanctions on Russia.  The current approach of targeting specific Russian individuals and companies has not changed Putin’s course of action, not is it likely to do so.  Russia is a country that rightfully takes great pride in its history of enduring economic and military hardship.   An authoritarian regime will always be more resistant to economic sanctions than a democratic system.  Sectoral sanctions are needed to more aggressively shock the Russian economy by shutting off its energy and financial sectors from the global economy.
2. Stronger reinforcement of NATO’s eastern frontier. Russia repeatedly mobilized ten of thousands of troops for its invasion of Ukraine and in its shows of force.  NATO’s response has been far more limited, involving dozens of aircraft, company level deployments (and the occasional battalion) and a few ships.  The gap is noticeable to Putin, our Allies and our partners. The Alliance should:

• Base a brigade level combat capability permanently to Poland and Romania;
• Base battalion level capacities to each of the Baltic states;
• Provide NATO’s top military commander, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, authorities necessary to deploy forces in real time against provocative Russian military operations; and,
• Expand the mission of NATO missile defense and the U.S. European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) to address the threat posed by Russian ballistic missiles

3. Military Assistance to Ukraine:  Greater effort must be made to reinforce Ukraine’s capability for self-defense.  By denying Kyiv’s request for needed military weapons, the West not only precludes Ukraine the ability to better defend itself, it is de facto accepting Putin’s effort to draw a new red line in Europe, allowing the reemergence of a grey zone in Europe.

This has been deeply disillusioning for Ukrainians who so courageously expressed their desire on the Maidan for freedom and a place in Europe.  And, it threatens to shatter the bipartisan/transatlantic vision of a Europe whole, free and undivided that has guided U.S. and European security policy for the last 25 years.

The United States and other keys allies are to be commended for the long-overdue step of deploying military trainers to Ukraine, but they should also:

• Provide military equipment to Ukraine, including air defense and anti-tank weapons as well as key enablers, such as drones, that would enhance Ukraine’s ability to leverage the capabilities of its armed forces
• Deploy intelligence and surveillance capabilities
• Conduct military exercises in Ukraine, as EUCOM did in the Summer of 2014, to help train Ukraine’s armed forces and to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine

None of these recommendations would present a territorial threat to Russia, but they would complicate Putin’s ambitions regarding Ukraine. They would help erase the red line that Moscow has been allowed to redraw in Europe. They would assure Ukrainians that they are not alone and demonstrate that Putin is unable to intimidate the West. And, they would present Moscow the possibility of a costly and prolonged military conflict.

The United States should also be front and center with the Europeans in the negotiations addressing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.  The absence of the United States at the negotiating table signals a lack of commitment to European security and thus devalues the presentation of transatlantic solidarity against this invasion. It has been an opportunity cost to the effort to bring this conflict to peaceful and just end.

4. Support to Ukraine’s economic transformation. In this regard, the United States and the West has been constructive, providing significant EU, IMF, and bilateral economic assistance packages.  However, the goals of such economic assistance are difficult if not impossible to realize when Ukraine is subject to a violent invasion as well as to political, economic and other pressures from Russia.
5. A Reanimation of the Vision of Europe Whole and Free:  For much of the post-Cold War period, U.S. policy was clearly guided by the vision of a Europe, undivided, secure, and free. For over two decades, Washington wisely supported the indigenous ambitions of Central European democracies for membership in NATO and the European Union.  Those processes of enlargement have benefited all parties in Europe, expanding the zone of peace, stability, and prosperity across the continent.

The United States needs to reanimate the process of NATO enlargement, making clear that the Alliance’s “open-door policy” for membership is no passive phrase or empty slogan.  Doing so would be an important way to underscore Washington’s commitment to the security of Central and Eastern Europe.  And, for these reasons, no decision or recommendation should be permitted or advanced that would in any way limit its applicability to any country of Europe, including Ukraine.

The Risks of Incrementalism:  There are real risks that flow from the West’s current strategy of incrementalism against President Putin’s aggression: Continued incrementalism not only promises continued conflict in Ukraine but also an increased danger of wider war.

This is underscored when one considers what will be the likely state of Ukraine and Russia if the West holds to its current course.

What will be the state of Ukraine in 6-18 months?  It is likely to experience a further loss of territory. Its economy will be further crippled, thereby rendering the nation less able undertake reform. Its population is at risk of being more disillusioned, and government consequently weaker, if not divided. That is a Ukraine more vulnerable and more enticing to Putin’s revanchist ambitions.

What will be the state of Russia in 6-18 months?  Its economy will likely be somewhat weaker, if it is not bolstered by a rise in energy prices. It may be marginally more isolated.  Under such circumstances, President Putin can be expected to be more irrationally nationalistic and more brazen. That is a Russia more likely to attempt incursions further into Ukraine and escalate its provocative military actions against the West.

Under such a scenario, not only are Ukraine’s prospects more dire, the prospects of collision, albeit inadvertent, between Russian and Western forces are increased.  The very risk of conflict escalation that the current policy has been designed to avert will be more likely.

The Artic: An Emerging Front

The resource rich Arctic has become a high priority of President Putin’s security policy.  Russia’s ensuing militarization of the High North has made it an emergent front affecting transatlantic security.

Moscow has established an Arctic Military command backed by a joint Arctic task force.  It has re-opened Cold War naval and air bases and is building a string of new military facilities across the Arctic.  It is reinforcing the Northern Fleet with more ice-breakers, surface combatants and submarines.  Russia has stepped-up Cold War military operations in the region, including the testing of missiles and aggressive naval and air patrols that prod the territories of the U.S. and other allies.

Enhancing NATO’s role in the Arctic:  If the High North is to remain a zone defined by peace and stability, the West will have to introduce a more robust security dimension into its Arctic policies, and a centerpiece of that effort should include a greater role for NATO.  Indeed, as more non-Arctic nations start to operate in the Arctic, it will be useful to leverage the geopolitical weight that comes with a community of like-minded North Atlantic democracies.

NATO should expand its political and operational role in the Arctic, leveraging its maritime and air capacities.  The Alliance can serve as a useful vehicle to coordinate and execute Arctic security cooperation, including intelligence exchanges, surveillance operations, military training and exercises, air policing, and disaster response. It can also foster the development of capabilities necessary for Arctic operations.

In these ways, NATO can fill a security gap that exists in the Arctic and do so without undermine existing useful institutions like the Arctic Council.  And, this does not preclude Arctic cooperation with Moscow, particularly in areas such as search and rescue and disaster response.  Indeed, the region can serve as an avenue of mutually beneficial engagement with Russia, even in this time of increased tension.

The bottom line is that if the Alliance plays a greater role in Arctic security today, the transatlantic community is going to be able to manage, if not prevent, a serious security crisis tomorrow.

The Southern Front: Failing States and Ideological Upheaval

NATO faces a Southern front – an arc of instability stretching from Iran to the shores of North Africa.  It is a realm in which societal upheavals and regional power struggles have generated challenges of varying levels of urgency – from Tehran’s nuclear programs, to the chaos traumatizing Syria and Iraq to the tragic flood of refugees flowing to Europe from Africa and Middle East.

Among the more urgent of these crises lies south of Turkey, caused by the sudden and savage rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Because of the links of ISIS and other violent groups in this region to Europe and North America, this is an urgent threat to transatlantic security. The West’s goal must be more than the degradation or destruction of ISIS and other like-minded groups. It must be the prevention of Iraq, Syria and other areas from serving as havens and breeding grounds for such extremism. That is going to require a comprehensive, long-term strategy that will require considerable military, economic and political resources.

That response will have to be a multi-lateral undertaking and not just a transatlantic undertaking. It must be executed in partnership with key powers of the Muslim world – Turkey, of course, but also Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in addition to Iraq and moderate elements within Syria.  It should leverage the various capacities of NATO, the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Arab League, among others.  Only then will one be able to leverage the cumulative strengths of the West and mitigate the historic baggage many Allies have in the region.

It will require sustained military action and security assistance.  The tip of the spear addressing threats like ISIS has to be local forces.  The Iraqi security forces, the Peshmerga, and moderate Syrian factions stand among these elements, but they will need to be backed by foreign airpower, reinforced by foreign equipment, intelligence, combat advisors and trainers as well as special forces prepared for direct action.

The multi-lateral effort will require significant humanitarian assistance.  This is needed to assist not just those displaced in Iraq, but also to assist the governments of neighboring countries – particularly Turkey and Jordan – whose state structures and societies are at risk of being overburdened, if not destabilized, by refugees fleeing the region’s violence.

The strategy will have to include a long-term effort to help enable the crippled states and societies of Europe’s North African and the Middle Eastern periphery to benefit from economic growth and sound governance.  Those are the most powerful weapons against extremism.  Military strikes and humanitarian assistance may often be required, but they are tactical actions, necessary but not sufficient to tackle a strategic problem. Good governance and prosperity are ultimately the best ways to ensure that these societies do not serve as breeding grounds for extremism and terrorist recruits.

The Global Front

These aforementioned three fronts to Europe’s East, North and South are affected by a fourth NATO front – the front generated and sustained by the dynamics of globalization.

Globalization clearly has it is positive sides.  Advances in transportation and communications have facilitated the spread of prosperity, respect for human rights, and democratic principles of governance, among other positive attributes of modernity.

However, these benefits have also been accompanied by challenges.  The proliferation of weapons technologies and the emergence non-state actors with global reach – such as ISIS, al Qaeda and others – constitute some of the threats facilitated by globalization.

The profusion of communications technologies, a key dynamic of globalization, contributes to what Zbigniew Brzezinski (my father) calls a global political awakening that has been evident in the velvet revolutions of 1989, the orange revolution in Ukraine, and the Arab Spring.

Communication technologies are empowering societies in ways that can bring down dictators, end corrupt autocracies, and create opportunities for democracy, reform and accountability in government.  However, a political awakening can also be an impatient force, one prone to destructive violence when it is driven primarily by sentiments flowing from inequity and injustice and lacks leadership with a platform of clear objectives.  In those cases, societies are often left vulnerable to organized groups leveraging dangerous ideologies.

Another key dynamic of globalization has been a profound shift in the global balance of power.   A more complex constellation of actors with global reach and ambitions is emerging.  These include China, India, and Brazil, and could well include others in the future.

As a result, we are entering a world where the predominance of the United States, even in collusion with Europe, is not what it was in the past.  And, the emergence of new powers with regional, if not global, aspirations is often accompanied by territorial claims, historic grudges, and economic demands that can drive geopolitical tension, competition and collision.

Together these three dynamics increase the likelihood of regional conflicts. They make consensual decision-making more difficult among nation states, including within NATO, and they yield a world that is more volatile and unpredictable.

Many of these tensions and collisions are and will occur both near and far from the North Atlantic area, but in an age of globalization their economic and security implications can be immediate to both sides of the transatlantic community.

These global challenges make it all the more important for the transatlantic community to work together on all fronts.  A vital underpinning of the NATO Alliance in this new century is the Transatlantic Bargain, one in which the United States sustains its commitment to European security and in return our Allies remain steadfast in their commitment to address with the United States threats and challenges that emanate from well beyond the North Atlantic area.

Protecting and promoting transatlantic security and values amidst these four NATO fronts – the East, the Arctic, the South and the challenges of global upheaval – stand among the defining challenges of our time.  They present complex, long-term and costly undertakings that require:

• Economic resources that can be readily mobilized to in times of crisis and dedicated to economic development;
• Military capabilities that are expeditious and can be readily integrated with civilian efforts; and,
• Political legitimacy that is optimized through multilateral versus unilateral action.

In each of these requirements, the transatlantic community is preeminent.  Its economies account for over 50 percent of the global GDP – some five times that of China and fourteen times that of Russia.  Its military establishments are second to none, and NATO remains the world’s most successful and capable military Alliance

Above all, the transatlantic community presents a collective of likeminded democracies – and herein lies a vision for its role in the global order of today and tomorrow:  NATO can and should serve as the core of a geographically and culturally expanding community of democracies that act collectively to promote freedom, stability and security around in what is an increasingly dynamic globalized environment.  But it will require all of us to do more together.

About the author:
*Ian Brzezinski is Senior Fellow, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, at the Atlantic Council.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

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The principality of Andorra is trying to tighten its relationship with the European Union without losing its identity along the way.

The tiny state — in the Pyrenees Mountains, wedged between France and Spain — has begun talks to gain access to the EU’s single market, along with Monaco and San Marino. At the same time, at the request of the European Commission, Andorra is reviewing the tax accord it signed with the EU with an eye to providing greater international cooperation.

IESE’s Víctor Pou, in a book on the relationship between Andorra and the EU, provides a detailed look at the rapprochement process from 1990 to the present.

During this period, the process has unfolded in three phases. The first phase started with a customs union agreement in 1990, which was strictly commercial in nature. The second involved agreements signed in 2004 on cooperation and how savings deposited in Andorra would be taxed. In the third phase, from 2010 to the present, Andorra is in talks to gain access to the EU internal market and committed to reviewing the 2004 tax agreement.

The Single Market

The third phase kicked off when Andorra presented a “non-paper” to the European Commission in 2010. This informal document expressed Andorra’s desire to achieve closer economic ties with the EU and outlined the steps it had taken to do so.

The EU responded favorably, and raised the possibility of opening the EU single market to Andorra and fellow small states Monaco and San Marino, by negotiating one or several Association Agreements inspired by the European Economic Area, or EEA.

From the outset, the EU ruled out full membership for the small states, citing issues of size and operability. Yet the smooth running of the EEA encouraged them to approve Andorra for the single market — an area without internal borders in which the so-called “four freedoms” (the free movement of goods, people, services and capital) are guaranteed.

Fighting Against Fraud

In parallel, as the financial crisis hit the eurozone, Europe decided it needed to pull together to fight against fraud and tax evasion. Thus, in 2009, the EU and other international organizations, such as the G-20 and the OECD, agreed on the need to:

• Fight tax evasion;
• Do away with tax havens;
• Bar multinational companies from maneuvers to avoid paying taxes;
• Change the model of the agreement for exchanging information; and
• Devise a blacklist of companies that promote aggressive tax planning.

In the context of these decisions, the EU requested a review of the agreements on the taxation of savings currently held with Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra.

The EU also proposed applying equivalent measures to those called for in a 2005 directive, mandating that EU states (with the exception of Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria) must adopt the automatic exchange of information and other measures starting in 2015.

The Challenge Ahead

In December 2014, the EU approved a mandate for negotiating an Association Agreement with Andorra, taking into account the microstate’s special circumstances, as envisaged by the Treaty of Lisbon.

Mostly what Andorra needs is time to adapt its financial sector. So far it is doing well, says Pou: recent domestic reforms concerning taxes, the exchange of information and economic openness have formally opened to possibility of accessing Europe’s single market.

Players in Andorra’s economic and social realms have before them the prospect of a seismic shift in the state’s economic model as a result of joining a single market that is home to 500 million people and has been working for decades. But the microstate may find guidance from the examples of Lichtenstein, a member of Europe’s internal market for years through the EEA, and Switzerland, currently immersed in negotiations regarding the taxation of deposits in its banks’ accounts.

The negotiations also promise change for Andorran companies, which will have to keep a close eye on developments in order to adapt to a shifting economic landscape.

The post Andorra Cozies Up To The European Union appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The IMF and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) both delivered withering assessments of the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, piling pressure on governments across the region.

Not since the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 has the region been under such economic strain, the IMF said in its assessment.

“Exchange rate developments, such as the appreciation of the US dollar and the depreciation of the rouble, are compounding the problem,” media quoted Juha Kähkönen, deputy director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, as saying at the presentation of the report in Kazakhstan on May 19.

The region’s average growth rate this year, the IMF said, would slow to 3.3% from 5.3% in 2014.

A collapse in the price of oil and the value of the rouble have knocked economies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Currencies have nosedived, losing around a third of their values in only a few months, governments have scrambled to cut budgets and companies have laid off hundreds of workers.

All the data, in short, paints a turbulent portrait of the last few months and an equally troublesome outlook for the next couple of years.

Mr Kähkönen’s statement came only a few days after the EBRD had issued a similar warning at its AGM in Tbilisi. It drew attention to the sharp fall in remittances to the region from Russia and the impact this would have.

“As the Russian economy has declined, remittances from Russia to Central Asia and to eastern Europe and the Caucasus have been declining at an alarming rate,” the bank said in a statement.

This story was first published in issue 232 of the weekly newspaper The Conway Bulletin on May 20, 2015.

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With more than half of its population under 25 years of age and the world’s highest regional youth unemployment rate, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region faces critical challenges. Concurrently and paradoxically, business leaders report difficulties in filling roles.

The Human Capital Index 2015, released last week by the World Economic Forum, shows that despite significant investment in education by many countries, the region is not equipping young people with skills for the 21st century. The gap between education systems and labor markets creates shortfalls in human-capital development and deployment across the entire population. Overall, the region has optimized only 60% of its human-capital potential, ahead of sub-Saharan Africa but behind all other regions.

Recognizing that longer-term reform by the public sector must be complemented by the active collaboration of the private sector, the World Economic Forum’s Regional Business Council (RBC) for MENA today launches a new phase of its New Vision for Arab Employment Initiative. It aims to invest in the continuous learning, training and job-readiness of the region’s youth, through collaborations between businesses and with education institutions, civil society and governments, to help education systems keep up with the needs of the labour market.

“Massive unemployment coupled with talent gaps is a pattern that is particularly acute in this region. And labor-market disruptions will only get worse as technology changes business models and skills requirements. The pilot initiative tackles today’s challenges while anticipating future trends and solutions, and aims to be a model to be used across the region,” said Saadia Zahidi, Head of the Employment, Skills and Human Capital Global Challenge Initiative at the World Economic Forum.

Nine founding partners from across the region, including Abdul Latif Jameel, Alghanim Industries, Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), Crescent Enterprises, Crescent Petroleum, Jumeirah Group, Olayan Financing Company, VPS Healthcare and Zain Group, have committed to scaling their corporate initiatives or creating wholly new initiatives aimed at closing the skills gap in the region. Collectively these initiatives will offer skilling opportunities to 49,000 people. These commitments meet nearly 50% of the RBC’s target of skilling 100,000 young people by 2017.

“I am extremely proud to say that we have already been able to get halfway to the commitments needed to train people for job readiness in the region by 2017”, said Omar Kutayba Alghanim, Chairman of the Regional Business Council. “We have made a strong start, but it is only a start. If we are going to fundamentally tackle the employment challenge in the region, it will require wider public-private collaboration across the MENA region”.

Badr Jafar, CEO of Crescent Enterprises, said: “Creating new jobs alone cannot address our regional crisis of youth unemployment and underemployment. Equally important is the need to enhance the employability of our youth by equipping them with relevant skills to fill that vital gap, as well as empower them with a spirit of entrepreneurship.”

Based on clear objectives and metrics, the initiative will track progress on existing commitments and create strategic cooperation between sectors to make further relevant skilling and training interventions. At the same time, the Regional Business Council launches a Call to Action to other business leaders, governments and organizations to join this collaborative effort to maximize impact.

The New Vision for Arab Employment Initiative is one of several regional projects within the World Economic Forum’s broader Global Challenge Initiative on Employment, Skills and Human Capital, which produces analysis and fosters collaborative action to combat unemployment and skills gaps around the world.

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By Mackenzie McDonald and Margaret Flowers

On Thursday, despite the cold and rain in Washington D.C., people took to the streets to protest Fast Track for rigged corporate trade deals like the nearly complete Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The protest at the US House of Representatives began with a march around the House Office Buildings on Capitol Hill highlighting a shift to the final phase of the conflict over Fast Track for rigged corporate trade deals.  Right now everyone agrees that opponents of Fast Track have the majority in the US House of Representatives but an ‘Obama Onslaught,’ supported by lobbyists for transnational corporations is expected. The movement against rigged corporate trade is going to have to escalate its campaign if we are going to hold the majority and stop fast track for the TPP and other rigged corporate trade agreements.

People opposed to Fast Track for rigged trade chanted for democracy and played bucket drums capturing the attention of House members and staff who peered out their windows. Kathryn Johnson of Public Citizen spoke about the recent Senate cloture vote which will cut off debate on the Senate floor after only 30 hours. This means that Fast Track will be fast tracked through the senate despite Majority Leader McConnell’s initial promise of an open debate. As a result of his failure to follow through on this promise more than 150 proposed amendments will not be heard.

The protest, organized by Popular Resistance, Beyond Extreme Energy, and others, was also part of a 9 day action period in Washington that is being organized by Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE). The event focused on the environmental and climate impacts of the TPP and TTIP.

Many of the participants in the protest came from communities that are directly impacted by fossil fuel and especially fracking infrastructure. From the House Offices they marched to the Department of Energy (DOE), taking over Andependence Avenue, a major throughway in D.C., along the way. They chanted “Stop Fast Track, Stop the Frack Attack NOW!” and “Stop Gas Exports, Stop the TPP!” Hundreds of people stopped to watch the protest take over the street. The secret trade agreements are expected to speed export of oil and gas from the United States.

Protestors were cold and drenched from the rain, but continued to build energy until they arrived at the DOE where there were two final speakers, Maya Van Rossum of Delaware Riverkeeper and Charles Shore from BXE. Both speakers described the environmental catastrophe that is written into the TPP, TTIP, and other rigged corporate deals. TPP will increase fracked gas exports in the United States and thus, increase fracking, pipelines, compressor stations, gas refineries, and other dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure in communities across the country.

It was an important day to highlight the ecological and climate impacts of TPP, especially with Obama’s recent propaganda on environmental protection under the agreement. The leaked environmental chapter shows that there are no true enforcement mechanisms in the TPP.

It should also be recognized that the role of these agreements is fundamentally opposed to environmental protection and human rights. TPP has been negotiated entirely in secret by the world’s largest corporations including the fossil fuel giants.

The deals are set up to maximize corporate profits and facilitate destructive practices like mining, fracking, drilling, logging, river-damming, monoculture agriculture, and more in every country involved. They are not set up to protect our planet, our communities, or our democracy from this military enforced corporate onslaught.

The demonstration took place just before the House members prepared to leave for a recess. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is preventing the Senate from adjourning until there are votes on fast track and on the so-called Patriot Act that is set to expire at the end of the month.

Congress returns to DC on June 2nd and the House will likely move towards a vote on the House Floor. Right now, the House does not have enough votes to pass fast track. However, just as happened in the Senate, President Obama and corporate lobbyists will pressure individual members to change their votes. If the movement to stop corporate rigged trade agreements is going to win, it needs to escalate its actions beginning right now during the Memorial Day recess when members are at home and when they return to Washington, DC.

What You Can Do To Stop Rigged Trade

This is a critical time for people to also pressure their members of Congress to oppose fast track. Here are ways to do that:

1. Use www.StopFastTrack.com to call your member and encourage others to do the same.

2. Use the resources at www.FlushtheTPP.org/Tools/ to write letters to the editor, download and pass out literature or write to your member of Congress.

3. Hold rallies outside your member of Congress’ district office or bird dog them at local events.

4. Do a “Drop in and Hang Out” in your member’s district office.

5. Share your ideas with us at info@popularresistance.org.

This is the largest coalition ever to oppose rigged corporate trade agreements. It is poised to win an incredible campaign but to do so it must mobilize a tremendous grassroots response to global crony capitalism.

 Margaret Flowers if co-director of Popular Resistance. Mackenzie McDonald is a trade and climate justice organizer with Popular Resistance.

The post Final Phase In Battle To Stop Rigged Corporate Trade – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

XVII Annual Inflation Targeting Seminar of the Banco Central do Brasil, May 22, 2015

Introduction

Good morning—Bom dia!

Governor Tombini—thank you for your gracious introduction.

It is such a pleasure to be back in Brazil – one of the first countries I visited as Managing Director of the IMF. It is a special pleasure to be here in Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the last IMF Annual Meetings held in Latin America – back in 1967. I am delighted to say that our Annual Meetings will return to the region this year, and I look forward to seeing many of you in Lima in October.

It is also a pleasure to take part today in such an important event on monetary policy. Inflation targeting has been a key pillar of Brazil’s solid macroeconomic framework for the past 15 years. Together with fiscal responsibility and the flexible exchange rate, inflation targeting has brought important benefits to this country—sustaining high growth while stabilizing inflation. This was achieved as public debt was reduced and international reserves built up – and even more importantly, while lifting millions of people out of poverty. This is a remarkable feat.

Yet, the global financial crisis and, more recently, the changing external landscape are challenging policymakers in many emerging market economies. It is reigniting an active debate about the role of monetary policy, including inflation targeters.

For example, how to ensure price stability if there is uncertainty about the economy’s productive capacity? How to secure financial stability if macro-prudential policies are not sufficiently effective in alleviating systemic risk? And how to make sure that monetary policy reinforces other macroeconomic policies in supporting growth and job creation?

These are important challenges not only for Brazil, but for other central banks in the region.

As Alice Rivlin – former Vice Chair of the U.S. Fed – once said: “The job of the central bank (and in turn Central Bankers) is to worry.”

So today’s conference is particularly timely in helping us address some of those “worries” on the horizon. In that spirit, I would like to share my perspective on three topics:

(i) First, changes in the global landscape and implications for Latin America and Brazil;

(ii) Second, how to build resilience to a more challenging outlook in the near term; and

(iii) Third, how to restore and sustain robust and inclusive growth.

1. Latin America—big strides so far, more challenging times ahead

Let me begin by highlighting key macroeconomic achievements of the past and challenges for the region in the future.

Over the past few decades, countries in the region have overcome formidable challenges. Think of the debt crisis and lost decade of the 1980s. Growing out of that experience, policymakers in many parts of Latin America have made impressive achievements. They have reduced public debt, strengthened their monetary frameworks, replenished their external reserves, and – for many of them – opened their borders to trade.

In a context of rising commodity prices and favorable external conditions, these policies brought about a welcome change in the macroeconomic scene. Between 1990 and 2009, the region grew by 3 percent on average annually, inflation stabilized at low levels, and tremendous progress was made in a number of areas of social development.

For example, poverty has declined throughout the region, and the middle class now comprises almost half of Latin America’s population, compared to only 20 percent a decade ago. Financial inclusion has also improved—more than half of the region’s adults had access to a bank account in 2014, compared to less than 40 percent only three years earlier.

In many ways, Brazil is emblematic of these trends. Yesterday I had the opportunity to witness first-hand some of the country’s social programs in action. Bolsa Familia and Brasil sem Miseria are renowned and much admired programs. I was especially struck by something I knew less about until yesterday—the effort to empower women, including by offering them training so they can be successful, independent entrepreneurs in their communities.

Again, these are impressive achievements on which Brazil is to be congratulated. And yet, Brazil and much of the region now stand at a very challenging juncture, with lower global demand and continued slowdown in domestic activity.

What are the global challenges?

For a start, global growth remains modest and uneven – at 3.5 percent this year, roughly the same pace as last year. Important trading partners such as China are slowing, whereas advanced economies are recovering at different speeds—faster in the United States, slower in Europe and Japan.

At the same time, the decline in oil and commodity prices appears likely to persist, and U.S. interest rates are set to edge higher. The exact timing of interest rate lift-off and its impact on global capital flows is uncertain – despite this being the most anticipated monetary policy decision one can remember. It is no surprise that this is a key concern on the minds of central bankers in this and other regions.

Even though it is not the central forecast in our outlook, the prospective normalization of U.S. monetary policy could create market volatility, with broader implications for the global economy. Continued effective communication from the U.S. Federal Reserve will help telegraph future policy moves and temper the potential for abrupt asset price movements.

It is also our view that an increase in interest rates that reflects a robust improvement in the U.S. economy is likely to bring positive effects for the region overall. Naturally, those countries more directly linked to the United States are better positioned to benefit from such improvement. For countries such as Brazil, the spillovers from stronger U.S. growth – and therefore stronger global growth – would be positive.

More broadly, the asynchronous stance in monetary policy in advanced economies is likely to contribute to volatility in major exchange rates in the period ahead.

Putting all these factors together, our latest forecasts for Latin America and the Caribbean envisage a fifth consecutive year of slower growth than the year before—of less than one percent in 2015. For Brazil, like many other observers, we anticipate a contraction of one percent this year and a modest recovery next year.

So the near-term outlook is challenging. Yet, being the optimist that I am, with every challenge, I see an opportunity—to learn from the past and to build a better future. A key lesson of the 2013 taper episode is that resilience to external volatility is built at home, with strong policies and strong fundamentals.

This brings me to my second topic – building resilience, where Brazil is laying the foundations by strengthening macroeconomic policies.

2. Reinforcing policy frameworks to build resilience

Like other countries in the region, Brazil appropriately responded to the global financial crisis by implementing countercyclical policies. And like many other countries in the region, it maintained the stimulus as it saw a hesitant recovery in growth.

Of course, with hindsight, a decline in Brazil’s potential growth—not so evident back in 2011—was playing a role, an issue on which you will hear more from the Fund staff today .

Boosting growth is imperative – but this is more about supply than demand. Strengthening macroeconomic policies is the preferred approach to secure stability and enhance resilience to external shocks.

Encouragingly, the Brazilian government is pursuing such a strategy. It has announced primary surplus fiscal targets of 1.2 percent of GDP this year and 2 percent of GDP in 2016–17, with a number of measures adopted to achieve these targets. Such a gradual yet significant increase in the primary surplus is necessary to bolster credibility in domestic policymaking.

At the same time, key administered prices are being updated, in an effort to ensure the efficient use of scarce resources in the economy. Important as it is, a side effect of this step has been rising inflationary pressures. To prevent these relative price changes from affecting medium-term market expectations, monetary policy appropriately went into a tightening mode since late last year.

Indications are that this policy is working. Even though inflation in 2015 will be on the high side as a result of the relative price changes, the expectation is that it will revert within the band in 2016, and continue to converge toward the central target thereafter.

Overall, therefore, the recent strengthening of fiscal and monetary policies – together with a strong international reserves position and a flexible exchange rate system – is critical in bolstering the credibility and resilience of Brazil’s economic policy frameworks.

So Brazil is clearly on the right track.

This is also the case for other countries in the region, where we see a significant strengthening of macroeconomic policies.

Of course, in the context of declining growth, this stance has critics. Yet, our analysis suggests that the merits of further stimulus could put at risk the hard-won credibility of past policy efforts. That credibility is especially important in restoring and sustaining prospects of strong, balanced, and inclusive growth.

Which leads me to my third and final topic—the structural reforms needed to boost productivity and ensure durable gains in potential growth.

3. Reigniting robust and inclusive growth—tapping the promise of structural reforms

The distinguished 19th century Brazilian author, Jose de Alencar, once said: “Success is born from the will in reaching a goal. Even without reaching the target, he who seeks and overcomes hurdles will, at a minimum, achieve amazing things.”

Clearly, in the current environment, restoring solid growth and maintaining hard-won macroeconomic and financial stability in the region will prove challenging. However, the current difficulties may also open up opportunities for addressing long-standing weaknesses and implementing reforms to launch a new phase of prosperity and social progress. By overcoming “hurdles”, amazing things can be accomplished.

Let me underscore that steps are needed in many areas. I will highlight three – and again, use Brazil to illustrate some of the challenges common to the region.

First on my list is plugging infrastructure gaps. Inadequate infrastructure is a key hurdle for productivity in many Latin American economies, including Brazil. For example, according to the World Economic Forum Surveys, there are issues with the quality of roads, ports, and air transport in the country.

In that context, the Infrastructure Concession Program is an important and timely step in the right direction. Of critical importance is that it calls for the private sector to play a key role.

As Minister Levy recently remarked in a seminar in Washington, Brazil has a long history of successful private participation in the development and management of infrastructure. The Rio-Niteroi bridge, which is easy to see from most vantage points in Rio and whose concession was auctioned recently, is a good example

Second on my list is reducing the cost of doing business. For example, Brazil’s tax system is characterized by a complex set of indirect taxes, including at the national and sub-national levels. These generate high tax compliance costs.

Simplifying the State level Taxes on the Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) and the federal sales taxes could significantly improve the business environment. At the same time, addressing budgetary rigidities can help increase the efficiency of public spending.

Third on my list of priorities to help boost growth is rejuvenating trade integration. Latin America, and notably, Brazil can still reap large benefits from deeper integration into global value chains and greater transfer of technology from trade partners.

Asia provides a useful example of the benefits of integration in regional and global value chains. Across major emerging markets, Brazil has one of the smallest volumes of trade in goods and services relative to GDP. So even modest efforts aimed at greater trade integration could significantly bolster growth prospects.

Brazil has ongoing initiatives in all these areas, some better known or more advanced than others. The key now is vigorous and ambitious implementation if they are to give the boost in growth and prosperity we all hope to see.

Conclusion

Let me conclude.

Over the past few years, we have seen some important shifts in fortunes in this region, mostly along North-South lines. Back in 2010, it was the North cooling down and the South heating up. Today, we see a Northern spring and Southern chills.

Yet from where I stand, I can see immense opportunity for the whole region—renewed growth and prosperity blossoming in the North and South alike. And I see Brazil as a prime candidate to lead by example. True, the external environment has become less friendly and domestic constraints are non-trivial. Yet with perseverance and the right policy choices, that brighter outlook is within reach.

I cannot leave Brazil without making reference to one of its most important icons in an area where it has always excelled. It was the great Pele who said: “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”

As we approach our Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, I am confident that policymakers will find the perseverance, inspiration, and yes, courage, to make the right choices and deliver a new era for the region. And just like in football, each and every country must do its part for the whole region to win.

Obrigada—thank you.

The post Lagarde: Reinforcing Policy Credibility, Reigniting Robust Growth – Speech appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The crisis in Ukraine is believed to be the worst crisis in the post Cold War era that has brought the traditional west and East to the threshold of war. The crisis in Ukraine cannot be seen in isolation from the great power politics. Involvement of great powers makes the state of affairs in Ukraine worthy of serious attention.

Ukraine came into limelight when a series of protests erupted in Kiev’s Independence Maidan that demanded the end of the rule of the then president, Victor Yanukovich. Victor Yanukovich was elected as president of the country after he won the elections in 2010. He is believed to be a confidant of Kremlin, its powerful and erstwhile soviet master. Protesters thronged the streets of Kiev in response to the government’s turning down of a proposal to join European Union.

The government quashed the demand of the protesters to relinquish power and used firepower to disperse them. The protesters, on the other hand, were believed to be succoured by the European states and the U.S. After weeks of unrest and killing of dozens of civilians, the EU Foreign Ministers and Ukrainian government reached an agreement on February 21 in which Yanukovich accepted the demands of protesters to relinquish power. Despite achieving an agreement, the protesters continued to occupy the Capital City and eventually made Victor Yanukovich flee to Russia with a transition government in place.

Russia, sitting next to the crisis-fraught Ukraine, had been observing every development patiently. Crimea, the eastern part of Ukraine yields immense importance for Russia because it has been the seat of its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. When its confidant in Kiev was deposed, Kremlin, alarmed by the developments, sent its troops to Crimea after the Russian Parliament gave its ascent to Putin. Western European countries and U.S censured Russia’s activities in Crimea. However, Crimea’s majority population that is Russian have been calling for Moscow’s help in the face of rightist movement’s grab of power in Kiev.

Conflicting views and claims from both US and Russian leaders over the crisis in Ukraine made the issue more problematic. Russia denied the legitimacy of the transition government in Kiev while U.S, France and Germany threatened Russia to leave Crimea. U.S and Western European States imposed sanctions on certain Russian officials who were involved in Crimea.

Now after the Crimean referendum on March 16 that resulted in 94% of Crimeans voting to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, the situation in the region has further become complex. Russia is yet to formally annex the geopolitically important peninsula after the latter’s formal decision to join the Russian federation. The West-imposed embargoes have so far been failed to change Putin’s mind to leave the future of Crimea be decided by the transition government in Kiev.

With Crimea under its sway, it is likely that Russia would not expand its boundaries to other eastern parts of Ukraine. Similarly, U.S and its allies would likely to remain content, amid continuing condemnation of Putin, with Crimea within the Russian borders.

American Sanctions and European Trade dependence on Russia

Despite a strategic patience on part of Western leaders regarding Russia’s role in Ukraine, However, US and EU have come up with Unilateral Sanctions to punish Russia. US imposed sanctions on several Russian top military and civilian officials believed to have played a critical role in Crimea by freezing their assets in and imposing a ban on their travel to United States.

Some of the EU states have favoured US-engineered sanctions and have proposed sanctions of their own. France and UK are the only powerful members of EU that have taken an acerbic stance on Russia’s role in Crimea. There seems to be a rift between some EU states and US over the steps to be taken in order to stop Russia. Germany, the most powerful and with the robust economy within EU, is found reluctant to follow a strategy to isolate Russia by imposing sanctions on it. Germany, economic powerhouse of Europe, is a key country in European Union and it has deep ties with Russia. Germany is the 11th largest export market for Russian products after Poland. Russia exports oil and gas to Germany and in return import from it expensive cars, manufactured products and machine tools. In case of imposition of embargoes, Germany would be more affected than any other European country.

Russia, on the other hand, is also dependent on Europe to find its products an appropriate market. Given this dependence, neither will Germany support imposition of sanctions nor will Russia extend its troops beyond Crimea. However, it is not likely that the West would be able to reverse Russia’s decision to annex Crimea.

The West will continue to live by Crimea under Russian suzerainty.

Conclusion

Annoyed by Russia’s adventure in Crimea, the members of G-7 held a meeting without Russia. Unlike the G-7 meeting, Russia participated in the most recent Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague where 53 countries participated. Despite having serious differences over Crimea between Russia and Western leaders, a joint communiqué was reached at the end of the summit that was endorsed by both. Russia’s presence in the summit is illustrative of the fact that West has not isolated Russia and still takes it a partner in settling important international issues that threaten international peace. Russia will continue to play its role in international diplomacy.

About the author:
*Muhammad Maqbool Aslam Lashari is a student of M.Phil in the School of Politics and International Relations Quaid e Azam University Islamabad Pakistan

The post Ukraine Crisis And East-West Rift – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Arab world is facing severe political, economic and security challenges, which countries have to address together with the international community, said Egypt’s President Abdelfattah Said Hussein Al-Sisi to business, government and civil society leaders participating in the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa, which opened Friday. Efforts “can only be successful through close cooperation between governments, the private sector and civil-society organizations so that the root causes of these challenges can be diagnosed and the means of overcoming them determined. In this way the aspirations of the Arab peoples for progress and development will be realized.”

The World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa is taking place at the Dead Sea in Jordan on 21-23 May. With the presence of Their Majesties King Abdullah II and Queen Rania Al Abdullah, this year’s event marks the Forum’s ninth meeting in Jordan and the 16th meeting in the region. More than 1,000 business and political leaders and representatives of civil society, international organizations, youth and the media from over 50 countries will participate under the theme, Creating a Regional Framework for Prosperity and Peace through Public-Private Cooperation.

Transforming the Middle East and North Africa will require focusing on the region’s young people, President Al-Sisi said. “Enhancing the role of the youth can no longer be considered a luxury. It has become an imperative. Their energy should be channelled in the right direction to drive production and realize the desired progress and development.” This will require public-private cooperation, the president argued. “The challenge posed by the issue of investing in youth is not just an item on the agendas of governments, but a key issue that should constitute an area of cooperation and integration of efforts between the government and business sectors. We are all in the same boat.”

Engaging youth must be part of efforts to achieve peace, stability and sustainable development, amid social and political stresses, Al-Sisi noted. “The intellectual stagnation emanating from extremism and religious and sectarian fanaticism is increasing in severity, as a result of despair, frustration and the decline in values of justice in all its forms. Therefore, our efforts to eliminate extremism and terrorism must be coupled with endeavors towards realizing a future where freedom, equality and pluralism prevail, and that is free of oppression, injustice and exclusion.”

Speaking after Al-Sisi, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Executive Committee, echoed the Egyptian president’s concerns about sectarian conflicts. “These are causing divisions in all countries,” he warned. “This has led to several terrorist groups using religion as an excuse for perpetrating criminal acts.” On the prospects for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Abbas expressed hope that “we will be able to overcome difficulties and hardships” to achieve an agreement that will “enable our people to obtain their freedom and independence”.

The post Egypt’s Al Sisi Says Arab Region And International Community Must Work Together appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have strengthened their long-standing relationship through a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two organizations, aimed at furthering their common goals for the conservation, protection, enhancement and support of nature and natural resources.

Signed against the backdrop of a week-long series of events held in Bangkok, with a core focus on the post-2015 development agenda, the MoU will provide a framework for enhanced cooperation and understanding, and facilitate closer collaboration between ESCAP and UNEP in achieving their shared objectives relating to internationally-agreed environment targets and the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be adopted globally in September.

“The key areas for cooperation between our organizations going forward will be the institutional framework for sustainable development, a ten-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption, and the green growth economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication,” said Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP Executive Secretary. “We will be exploring how to strengthen the knowledge base on rule of law and its enforcement in our region.”

Long-time collaborators in promoting environmental issues in the Asia-Pacific region, ESCAP and UNEP have once again partnered to develop a report on Transformations for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific – the seventh in a series of regional reports that will serve as the key input to the ESCAP Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development (MCED) in 2016.

The organizations further advanced the environmental agenda this week by collaborating on the first Forum of Ministers and Environmental Authorities for Asia and Pacific, a roundtable on the Environmental Rule of Law, the first Asia Environment Enforcement Awards and the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development.

During the signing of the MoU, ESCAP and UNEP reaffirmed their commitment to supporting Member States in adopting and implementing more environmentally conscious practices and policies. The two organizations also agreed to promote the science-policy interface through scientific assessments, including joint research and analytical work and publications on regional trends, issues and policy options for environmental sustainability, including environmental rule of law, especially in the context of the SDGs.

The post ESCAP And UNEP Sign MoU For Conservation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mushfig Bayram

State officials in Kyrgyzstan have repeatedly used registration of religious or belief communities as a means to restrict the numbers of such communities legally allowed to exist, as well as where in the country they are allowed to operate. Even after a Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court decision legally removing two of the major obstacles, state officials are illegally refusing to obey the Chamber’s decision.

The State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) Deputy Head, Tabyldy Orozaliyev claimed to Forum 18 from the capital Bishkek: “We are observing the present Religion Law until the Constitutional Chamber’s decision is integrated into it. You need to ask Parliament about changes to the Law.”

However, Judge Mukambet Kasymaliyev, Chair of the Constitutional Chamber, told Forum 18: “Everyone must abide by the Court’s decisions as they become part of the law immediately after they are passed.” Asked what he thinks of local officials and the SCRA ignoring this legal requirement, Judge Kasymaliyev replied: “I cannot evaluate the actions of those officials. But it seems to me that they do not know Kyrgyzstan’s laws and must study them.”

The registration restrictions and other obstacles to exercising freedom of religion or belief were strongly criticised in March 2014 by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee. It recommended that the Religion Law should be changed to “remove all restrictions incompatible with article 18 of the Covenant [of Civil and Political Rights]”.

Other current obstacles to exercising freedom of religion or belief include threats to the property of some registered religious communities, proposed harsh changes to the Religion Law, and stalled legal changes to allow a genuinely civilian alternative to compulsory military service.

Restricted numbers and locations

The SCRA on its website today (22 May) lists as registered the following individual organisations: 62 local Muslim organisations, 3 foreign Muslim organisations, 51 Pentecostal, 50 Baptist, 46 Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate), 41 Jehovah’s Witness, 30 Seventh-day Adventist, 20 Lutheran, 12 Baha’i, 4 Catholic, 2 Old Believer, 119 other Protestant, 1 Jewish, 1 Buddhist and one other organisation. None are listed as having been registered since 2012.

Other religious communities – including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Protestants – have faced severe harassment and raids from the authorities in trying to exercise their right to freedom of religion or belief.

But on 4 September 2014 the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled, in a case brought by Jehovah’s Witnesses, that a religious organisation is not limited to carrying out its activity only in the place where it has its legal address. It also found the requirement for local keneshes (councils) to approve the list of 200 founding members of a religious organisation before it can apply for legal status to be unconstitutional.

If implemented, Jehovah’s Witnesses think this decision will remove a major obstacle to legal status applications. They also hope it will help end harassment and interference their co-believers have faced from law enforcement officials in the south of the country.

However, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 on 20 May 2015 that the authorities in Osh and Jalalabad and elsewhere are still repeatedly refusing communities’ applications for registration. The main excuse given is that the Religion Law states that keneshes must endorse a list of the founding members of a community, but no by-laws have been adopted to govern this procedure. This is a long-standing official excuse to avoid registering communities, which has been used since the Religion Law was adopted in 2009.

After one such registration application in 2013 two Jehovah’s Witnesses, Nadezhda Sergienko and her daughter Oksana Koryakina, were placed under house arrest in March 2013 for alleged swindling. Both women are still under arrest and the case against them – described by one judge as “fabricated” – still continues. Jehovah’s Witnesses think the entire case is a reprisal for making a registration application (see below).

The 4 September 2014 Constitutional Chamber decision removed the registration barrier that keneshes and the SCRA claim exists by declaring it unconstitutional. “This decision allows us to do religious activity without being registered in other regions, so we are upholding it despite pressure by local authorities to be registered in their region,” Jehovah’s Witnesses stated.

The authorities have not opened any new prosecutions against their members in recent months Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 on 20 May. But officials still visit meetings for worship in Osh, Jalalabad and other regions where Jehovah’s Witnesses are not registered and question the lawfulness of their meetings. “Our believers refer the authorities to the relevant Constitutional Chamber decision, and the officials allow them to go on with the worship,” Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. “The officials sit and observe the meetings quietly.”

Ahmadi Muslims still banned and cannot meet for worship

Nearly a year after a July 2014 Supreme Court rejection of the Ahmadi Muslim community’s appeal against the stripping of their state registration, they appear no nearer to being able to again meet together for worship. The authorities banned the Ahmadis in 2011, due to what a non-Ahmadi religious leader described as a “political decision”, and they have not been able to meet since March 2011.

The July 2014 Supreme Court decision ignored violations of due legal process and human rights obligations by rejecting an appeal against two lower courts’ support of the SCRA’s refusal to give state registration to the Ahmadis.

The SCRA website lists the Ahmadi Muslims’ original registration in 2000 as a representation of a foreign religious organisation, but adds: “Refused re-registration in 2011.”

Asked whether the authorities will lift the ban on the Ahmadis and register them again, SCRA Deputy Head Orozaliyev told Forum 18 on 15 May: “We have the list of organisations banned in Kyrgyzstan, and the Ahmadis are not banned.” Forum 18 then observed that the Supreme Court decision was effectively a ban, as the unregistered exercise of freedom of religion or belief is illegal.

Asked if the authorities are willing to register the Ahmadis if a new application is made, Orozaliyev replied: “We will see, we will analyse the situation and decide.” Asked if this meant yes or no, Orozaliyev angrily replied: “Do not interpret my comments, I said what I said.”

Asked if the Ahmadi Muslims have any hope of regaining registration, Orozaliyev repeated his previous answer. He then put the phone down.

Official reluctance to obey law

Some officials are unwilling to act on their domestic and international legal obligations. Commenting on a UN Human Rights Council recommendation to “remove all restrictions incompatible with article 18 of the Covenant [of Civil and Political Rights]”, SCRA lawyer Zhanibek Botoyev told Forum 18: “Go and bring some order to your own countries and Norway. We are a sovereign country here, and you cannot command us what to do or what not to do”. In relation to the Constitutional Chamber ruling on where a religious organisation may operate, Botoyev claimed that the ruling did not mean what it clearly states it does.

Asked why the authorities continue pressuring Jehovah’s Witnesses to have registration in Osh and Jalalabad and other regions, despite the Constitutional Chamber decision rendering this unnecessary, SCRA Deputy Head Orozaliyev claimed to Forum 18: “There was a decision but the Religion Law has not changed yet. We are taking the current Law as our basis.”

Asked if he thinks the SCRA is obliged to implement the Constitutional Chamber decision, he replied: “We are observing the present Religion Law until the Constitutional Chamber’s decision is integrated into it. You need to ask Parliament about changes to the Law.”

“They do not know Kyrgyzstan’s laws and must study them”

However Judge Mukambet Kasymaliyev, Chair of the Constitutional Chamber, told Forum 18 on 20 May: “Everyone must abide by the Court’s decisions as they become part of the law immediately after they are passed.”

Asked what he thinks of local officials and the SCRA ignoring this legal requirement, Judge Kasymaliyev replied: “I cannot evaluate the actions of those officials. But it seems to me that they do not know Kyrgyzstan’s laws and must study them.”

Asked if any mechanism exists to ensure that the SCRA and local keneshes abide by the law, Irina Erkenova, Deputy Chair of the Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights and Constitutional Legislation, told Forum 18: “Religious believers can address the SCRA, which is the highest organ on religious issues. If this does not satisfy them, they can go to Court.” She added that Parliament’s Education Committee “is also responsible to control the implementation of the Religion Law.”

The telephones of Kanybek Osmonaliev, former Head of the SCRA and current Chair of the Parliament’s Education Committee, as well as those of other Education Committee members, went unanswered on 21 May.

House arrest and “fabricated” prosecution of women continue

Two Jehovah’s Witnesses, Nadezhda Sergienko and her daughter Oksana Koryakina, have been under house arrest since March 2013 for alleged swindling. Both women strongly deny the authorities’ allegations, and Judge Sheraly Kamchibekov acquitted the two women of all charges. He told Forum 18 in November 2014 that “it was a fabricated case” and that he did not believe the prosecution’s claims.

However, the prosecution appealed against the acquittal. The two women’s co-believers have told Forum 18 that they think the arrests and detentions may be reprisals by the authorities for registration applications Jehovah’s Witness communities have made.

The lawyer for the people alleged to have been swindled argues in appealing against the acquittal that Jehovah’s Witnesses “do not have registration in Osh, Jalalabad and Batken regions”. As Judge Kamchibekov observed to Forum 18, “this has nothing to do with the case”.

On 23 January 2015 Judges Aivar Kubatov, Mamasaly Toktomushev and Bolotbek Murzabekov of Osh Regional Court rejected an appeal by Tatyana Tomina, the lawyer for the people allegedly swindled, to return the case to the Prosecutor’s office for extra investigation. Osh City Prosecutor’s Office then appealed against this rejection to the Supreme Court, which on 3 March rejected that appeal. Tomina then appealed to the Regional Court to remove the judges who on 23 January rejected her appeal. On 31 March the Regional Court rejected this. Tomina then appeal to the Supreme Court, which on 19 May rejected it.

Yet Osh City Prosecutor’s Office still continues with the case. Prosecutor Bayishbek Alykeyev refused to tell Forum 18 on 20 May why the cases are being prosecuted, stating that “the investigation of the case continues”. When Forum 18 asked why it is necessary to keep the women under house arrest, Alykeyev replied: “It was imposed by the Investigators as a restriction when the case was opened originally, and it continues until the final decision on the case.” Prosecutor Alykeyev then declined to speak further to Forum 18.

The case will be heard again within a month in Osh Regional Court, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 on 20 May. They added that they hope that Court “will finally end the house arrest, even if the Prosecution or the plaintiffs go on appealing”.

Jehovah’s Witnesses also hope that Koriakina and Sergienko will be acquitted again. “As the Court rejected both appeals of the plaintiffs, this may indicate that they are inclined to think that our believers are totally innocent,” they commented. “However, we cannot guarantee what the Court will decide”.

The two women’s house arrest, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18, “has created no major obstacles for our believers so far. When they want to leave Osh to visit their friends or relatives, or visit Bishkek for medical treatment, Osh Regional Court always gave them permission in a timely manner.”

The post Kyrgyzstan: Will State Officials Obey The Law? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On a rainy, dusty and stormy day a dog with her young four puppies walked into an abandoned and dismantled shed to refuge her beloved ones from the ramp and rage of nature which was blowing and blistering in form of wind, thunderstorm and rain. She was yet to take a position when the owner of the shed glanced from his villa and observed the poor dog struggling to rescue and refuge her beloved ones. Without wasting his time and energy the owner called his men and ordered them to take the dog out from the shed and tame a puppy and sell the rest into the market. Looking on, a group of persons laced with tools and food the dog assumed — and assumed it wrong — that her beloved ones would be rescued and given relief. The dog gave them (group of people) way to take her soul (children) and leave the body. The next morning the dog became restive to have a glance of her beloved ones and started the rounds here and there. She barked and cried to catch the attention of someone, the dog did everything to have a glance of her beloved children, but of no avail as everybody was busy in competing with his fellow beings. Irritated by the cries and circles of the dog the owner declared dog mad and shot her dead.

The poor, powerless and oppressed have a legacy and patent of suffering, pain, misery and oppression. However, in modern times, in the age of capitalism, liberalism and media jingoism there are attempts and efforts on the part of rich and powerful to hijack and plagiarize the only inheritance of poor, powerless and oppressed.

Dr Roshan Radhakrishan, an Anaesthesisiologist, from Kerala 0n his web blog posted a write up that has gone viral on social media sites. The blog has at least 2,729 likes or followers. Dr Roshan, recently caught the attention of national media for his write up ‘Why I will never allow my child to become doctor in India.’

According to NDTV, the blog has been shared at least 2,000 times on Facebook and a Reddit thread has also started.

Dr Roshan has attempted to highlight the “miseries” and “hardships” that physicians and surgeons in India are going through .The development points out how important and fruitful it is to have access and control over modern means of communication. Which not only make one to communicate his/her thoughts and opinions, but also to help to hijack and plagiarize the miseries, sufferings and hardships of the poor, weak and oppressed.

It is very shocking and surprising to observe that a physician like him has attempted to plagiarize and hijack the miseries, sufferings, and hardships of the poor, powerless and oppressed people. Radhakrishan is also putting the blame in the wrong place.

A closer look and examination of the write-up speaks loads about the pollution to this pious profession and the fabrication of facts to distort the reality. Radhakrishan’ own article deflates his own claims and arguments and discloses the exaggeration of words and phrases. While attempting to narrate the “mistrust” and “suffering” of doctors in India, Roshan maintains to be a pup (physician) after receiving stones from a few boys, to be brutalized physically, learns to mistrust the whole of humanity and label all of mankind as a species of stone throwers. What about these boys who have been brutalized physically, emotionally, spiritually and economically from centuries by the pup community? Where did they (boys) learn to mistrust the pup community? At government hospitals, where senior doctors seldom arrest the attention of a gullible patient and students enjoy the arrival of “cadaver” (patient)? At private nursing homes where their pockets are drained? During clinical trials where they are used as guinea pigs? It is not the outcome and construction of overnight interaction, but it has taken centuries to develop such a consciousness. Mead and Cooley are exceptional in making understood this trajectory. Yet if your community will declare them (boys) to be lunatics, it won’t be surprising for me if your community owns not only a structure, but also controls the superstructure. Modern means of communication and allegation are all at their disposal.

It is very shocking and surprising to observe that Roshan has exaggerated the very concept of sacrifice by contending that doctors in India sacrifice their time, parents, spouses and children. I would have no objection had he (Roshan) not expressed his dissatisfaction with the salaries doctors in India are being paid. He maintains that doctors in India are walking out at 7 AM and returning home at 10 PM “for a handsome salary of 50,000/ a month”. Roshan seems unhappy and dissatisfied with the salaries, bank balance and work load of doctors in India and attempts to bargain on it. Sacrifice neither means bargaining nor implies complaining. Sacrifice is nothing but self-suffering for sake and good of others at the cost of everything, including, spouse, time, children and parents and money without cursing and curbing others.

Dr. Roshan, through data and statics of the Medical Council of India, claims that over 75% of the doctors in India have faced some form of violence at patients’ hands in India. The data and statics are totally unreliable as there is no definition of violence and it has been totally left on the mercy of doctors to define acts and
behavior of patient violence. It is beyond my comprehensions how a patient can even dare to resort to violence when he or she is totally dependent on the mercy of a doctor. Moreover, observations and interactions reveal that seldom has any doctor been killed by a patient. However, there are countless cases and reports where doctors have been found responsible for the murder of gullible patients.

In conclusion, let me extend my greetings to Dr. Roshan, for having choices to offer his son in choosing the field of his choice and retaining higher prestige and status in society. We have no choice, no alternative, but to be drained economically, exploited emotionally and experimented physically.

The post Follow-Up: Why I Will Never Allow My Child To Become A Doctor In India – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ram Upendra Das and Reena Marwah

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to China is being analysed in different quarters and the trend will remain so in examining the specifics. However, India-China relations in general and economic relations in particular, would have to be placed in an overall context. While the context would determine the bilateral, the converse would also be true.

With a GDP rate of growth of 7 % in 2014-15 and envisaged to grow at 7.5 % and more in the coming fiscal year, the Indian growth trajectory is visibly vibrant. India’s footprint is expanding – not in terms of territorial expansion or maritime circumcising, but in terms of its emergence and visibility as a responsible partner of the developing world, and an engine of growth in the regional and global arena.

There are various layers of India’s economic engagements with the rest of the world, including in the region. These together have important implications for India-China bilateral economic pursuits. First and foremost, is the South Asian region which is followed by India’s Act East Policy. But the engagements cannot stop at that. India’s economic linkages with the Central and West Asia are important, too. Beyond this are the imperatives of more intensive partnerships in Africa and Latin America, alongside the Caribbean region. On the other hand, with India’s economic dynamism, one must not lose sight of its economic dialogue with the developed world. Each of these need serious consideration.

India’s immediate neighbours in South Asia are the most crucial partners. They both need each other and going by the Indian civilizational ethos India has always believed in shared prosperity. To assess the above, it would be useful to question, at the outset, if India has been a responsible partner to neighbouring countries in South Asia? India has remained one of the most important trade partners of the SAARC members. It has also provided duty free access to goods of five countries of the SAARC. A rather little known fact has been that the trade relations with Pakistan have made substantive progress since the joint statement between the two countries in 2011 with Pakistan moving from positive list of imports from India to negative list. India reciprocated with relaxing restrictions on investment from Pakistan. More recently, the land settlement between India and Bangladesh can only augur well for the business sentiments in the two countries. With Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, India has already forged closer and stronger economic ties as the statistics would suggest. In Afghanistan, India’s presence in terms of development assistance is quite well-known.

India’s humanitarian assistance to Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Maldives during times of natural disasters like the earth-quake, tsunami etc. have always been appreciated. As Prime Minister Modi rightly articulated during the 18th SAARC Summit at Kathmandu (2014) “India’s vision for the region rests on five pillars – trade, investment, assistance, cooperation in every area, contacts between our people – and, all through seamless connectivity. There is a new awakening in South Asia; a new recognition of inter-linked destinies; and, a new belief in shared opportunities.” By no means are such pronouncements mere words.

In terms of India’s Act East Policy, the comprehensive economic partnership agreements with Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and ASEAN have remained building blocks for a larger Asian economic integration under the aegis of Regional Economic Cooperation Agreement (RCEP) within the ASEAN+6 configuration. However, the shared prosperity must extend to countries in the extended neighbourhood of East Asia to cover Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) countries as these countries provide avenues to evolve Regional Value Chains (RVCs), of which India could be an active part. The Eagle must not abandon the next door Nest country i.e. Thailand which is strategically positioned to be a bridge for India to Act East. A comprehensive agreement with Thailand including trade in goods, trade in services and investment would deepen the economic linkages with this ‘culturally-similar-bridge-country’. In addition, negotiations with Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand must also be completed so as to make India a pro-active economic player in the RCEP negotiations. This is crucial for two prime reasons: first, since this would be an important arrangement to interact with China, especially in terms of setting the rules of the game while maintaining ‘ASEAN centrality’; and second, because RCEP assumes special meaning for both India and China in the wake of mega-economic groupings such as TPP and TTIP of which both are not members. The FTAAP under APEC remains elusive for India as it is still not part of APEC, which in any case has not much to show as any meaningful success in concrete economic terms.

India along with other SAARC members can serve as an economic hub connecting the East and South-east Asian sub-regions with Central and West Asian regions to tap the economic, energy and natural resource complementarities. On the other hand, China is actively present in major sectors of significance be it in South Asia, East and South-East Asia or Central Asia. Similar, is the case in terms of economic presence of China in Africa and Latin America / Caribbean. Moreover, India and China interact closely in BRICS, AIIB, G-20 and in climate change negotiations and at the WTO.

It is this wider canvas, in which India-China economic engagements need to be painted. Nevertheless, India cannot wish away deeper economic cooperation with the US and major economies in the EU. May be new efforts for a new global reconfiguration is needed that includes Japan, United States, Russia, India and China (JURIC) which sets a new global economic order along with the EU. If at all, India-China economic engagements need to be constructed in this new economic ambience.

About the authors:
* Dr Ram Upendra Das is Professor, Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi and ** Dr Reena Marwah is Senior Academic Consultant, Indian Council for Social Science Research, New Delhi. Views are personal.

The post India-China Economic Engagements In A Global Context – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The new National Unity Government (NUG) in Afghanistan led by President Ashraf Ghani has been taking a brand new approach towards Pakistan by making tremendous concessions; albeit with uncertain results.

This has included the historic signing of an agreement between the intelligence agencies of both the countries on intelligence cooperation and joint raids on terrorist groups in the border areas of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is deemed as an almost historic breakthrough since no formal agreement existed in the past. This is a two way street where under a formal arrangement the intelligence agencies of both the countries can explore each other’s strength and weaknesses and exploit each other, giving ISI an edge as an experienced intelligence agency over its relatively inexperienced and newly established Afghan counterpart the NDS.

The Kabul administration has taken an optimistic approach towards Pakistan since taking office through extending an olive branch to Pakistan and reaching out to its allies in an unprecedented way including China, Saudi Arabia and the United States to give Pakistan the required security and economic assurances for changing course and policy towards Afghanistan. In recent months – President Ghani has traveled extensively to the Capitals of Rawalpindi allied states to put pressure on Islamabad to bring Taliban on the negotiation table and eventually reach a peaceful political settlement.

Though Kabul should be given credit for this change of policy towards Pakistan but the best way to describe this new diplomatic posture is naïve given the underlying currents in the historical issues since the establishment of Pakistan as an independent state. Afghanistan and Pakistan should address the fundamental historical questions and issues for them through a strategic dialogue. Many of the recent moves between the political and military leaders of both the countries are only tactical in nature without any strategic depth and end in sight. It resembles much like a ping pong match with each side scoring and Pakistan as the clear long term winner.

The new National Unity Government in Afghanistan has been recently pursuing a three pronged approach to Pakistan: 1. Engagement with the military and intelligence establishment of Pakistan at the highest level; 2. Briefing and keeping in the loop the civilian political leaders of Pakistan including the main political parties in Pakistan; and finally 3. Engaging with the allies of Pakistan to put pressure or convince the Pakistanis that the current policy of strategic depth and awaiting the withdrawal of NATO i.e. the time game will only backfire and this time at a greater cost for Pakistan.

While Pakistan remains an integral peace of any future political settlement in Afghanistan but Pakistan’s role to bring Taliban on the peace table and finally assist in reaching a final political settlement is greatly exaggerated. Pakistan does not have complete control over the Taliban and their allies – it has extensively intelligence contacts but lack a complete control over them.

Today, the cause of Afghan peace is mainly used as a political tool to gain territory, legitimacy and more as an intelligence tit-for-tat game. There does not seem to be a genuine peace process and roadmap and it is increasingly being used as a political-military game with each side scoring points. In the recent tactical moves of both Kabul and Islamabad, we can see more military-intelligence games than a true genuine political process to achieve peace with political buy in from all the corners and layers of the Afghan and Pakistani society. It increasingly seems that the name of the game is to give territorial legitimacy to Taliban and their allied terrorist groups inside Afghanistan by creating an imaginary more fanatic enemy for both the Afghan National Security Forces and the Taliban in the form of ISIS. This will expedite or at least is hoped to expedite the reconciliation process and then bring part of the Taliban movement within the Afghan political process through offering them public office.

For now, the Afghan government should be given the credit to engage with Pakistan but at what cost and what returns given their recent concessions? Peace cannot be attained through military – intelligence work. It requires genuine political will and commitment from both sides and a balance of power in which both sides realize that the only way to reach to a dignified peace is through a political dialogue and not the barrel of the gun.

The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan cannot forever neglect the fundamental historical questions and issues and get busy with tactical level and daily policy issues. Both of them will have to start sooner than later a comprehensive strategic dialogue to bring all the historical and fundamental issues on the table of negotiation and reach a settlement through a long, tough and sometimes annoying bilateral dialogue. Otherwise, we will be discussing the same issues in years to come.

The post The Illusion Of A New Pakistan In Afghanistan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.