The Governments of Spain and Morocco signed a Joint Declaration and other agreements in areas of judicial cooperation, promoting tourism, managing water resources and care for women, small children and pensioners.

The Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the Prime Minister of Morocco, Abdelilah Benkiran, chaired the 11th Spain-Morocco High-Level Meeting at Moncloa Palace. The two leaders reviewed the “effective partnership” that exists between the two countries on justice and home affairs issues, particularly in the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, explained the President of the Government.

The two leaders paid special attention to driving trade and investment relations.

“Morocco is our main client outside of Europe, behind only the United States, and Spain is Morocco’s leading trade partner. In 2014, trade exchanges between the two countries hit almost 10 billion euros and more than 17,000 Spanish companies targeted the Moroccan market for their exports”, highlighted Mariano Rajoy.

Mariano Rajoy and Abdelilah Benkiran also analysed how to improve the “privileged relationship” that Morocco has developed with the European Union, with Spain’s support. In this regard, Mariano Rajoy recalled that “Morocco receives the greatest financial allocation of any southern neighbour and is also the leading country in terms of negotiating the new model of free trade agreements, as well as in signing a mobility partnership agreement”.

They also tackled various issues of international current affairs. In relation to Libya, Mariano Rajoy indicated that they agreed on the need to reach a political and negotiated exit to the conflict. The two leaders support the mediation work being undertaken by the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General, the Spaniard Bernardino León.

Rajoy shared opinions with Abdelilah Benkiran on the migratory crisis in the Mediterranean. “We also spoke about the instability affecting the Sahel and, in particular, about the situation in Mali, where Spain heads up the European mission to train the Malian Armed Forces”, highlighted the Spanish Prime Minister.

Rajoy asserted that the fight against Jihadi terrorism is a “shared priority” and an area in which the two countries work closely together. “It is a phenomenon that endangers the security of our citizens and threatens the model of democratic co-existence of our societies. It knows no borders and affects North Africa, the Middle East, the Sahel and Europe equally; it affects us all. And, as I have said on various occasions, it does not represent Islam”.

Excellent bilateral relations

The Spanish Prime Minister and his Moroccan counterpart described the bilateral meeting as very beneficial.

“We have seen how our bilateral relations are enjoying an excellent period, with constant exchanges and visits that help foster mutual confidence and allow us to quickly and decisively respond to common challenges”, said Rajoy.

In this regard, he recalled that since the two leaders have been heading up the governments of their respective countries, they have managed to recover the annual nature of the high-level meetings and visits. In 2012, they held a High-Level Meeting in Rabat.

Rajoy added that Morocco has made a major effort over the last few years.

“It is an exemplary country which is enjoying significant economic growth, it has been capable of reducing the economic imbalances that so harshly prejudice the well-being of the people, such as the public deficit and the foreign trade deficit, and I am absolutely convinced that by continuing to work together and increase our collaboration we are two countries with a very important future ahead of us”, he stated.

The post Spain And Morocco To Consolidate Economic And Cooperation Alliance appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Which country was the biggest exporter to the United States from Southeast Asia last year? Many people immediately think Singapore or regional manufacturing powerhouses like Malaysia and Thailand. But the answer is Vietnam, the former foe of the US.

In 2014, Vietnam exported US$28.64 billion (based on US Census Bureau data it was in fact $30.58 billion) worth of goods to the US, the world’s largest economy. Meanwhile, Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a member of the G20, exported $16.52 billion worth of goods to the US during the same period.

Due to the global financial crisis, the slowdown in China and the lower prices of commodities, Indonesia’s exports have been in constant decline since 2011 – from $203.49 billion in 2011 to $176.29 billion in 2014. Last year, Indonesia’s exports decreased by 3.43 percent to $176.29 billion from $182.55 billion in 2013.

Surprisingly, both Vietnam and Indonesia produce similar products, face similar challenges and compete for the same external markets. But Vietnamese exports have been growing in double digits since 2011. Vietnam’s exports surged rapidly – from $96.91 billion in 2011 to $150.21 billion in 2014 – thanks to a tremendous increase in the exports of smart phones, electronic goods, textiles and footwear.

In 2013, Vietnam exported $32.2 billion worth of smart phones, computers and other electronic items. These exports further increased to $35.2 billion in 2014. The second biggest contributor to Vietnam’s exports was the textiles and garments sector, the exports of which reached $20.91 billion in 2014. The third most populous nation in Southeast Asia also exported $10.32 billion worth of footwear items last year.

If this trend continues, Vietnam’s total exports may surpass Indonesia’s in just two years. Now the difference between both countries’ exports is just $26.08 billion. Vietnam is also heading toward a situation where its exports may exceed its gross domestic product (GDP), which currently stands at $180 billion.

The key to Vietnam’s rapid export growth is huge investments from foreign manufacturing companies, which currently contribute to around 65 percent of Vietnam’s total exports. For example, foreign direct investment (FDI) related export value, according to Vietnam’s General Department of Customs, was $93.95 billion out of the country’s total exports of $150.21 billion in 2014.

Indonesia may be one of the biggest markets for South Korea’s electronic firm Samsung but Vietnam is its biggest production base for its smart phones.

According to the Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, Samsung has so far invested $12.6 billion in Vietnam and this may surge to $20 billion by 2017.

Several American giants like Ford, Apple, Intel and General Electric have invested heavily in Vietnam. Likewise, European and Asian companies and even companies from the ASEAN region have poured billions of dollars into Vietnam.

ASEAN investors’ cumulative investments, according to Vietnam’s Foreign Investment Agency, reached more than $54 billion in 2,600 projects in Vietnam as of April 2015.

Last year, Vietnam received $20.22 billion in FDI, a 9.6 percent increase from the previous year. Though Indonesia received much higher FDI of $28.32 billion in 2014 than Vietnam, it did not help to boost its GDP and exports.

In GDP growth also, Vietnam has recently outperformed Indonesia. The Indonesian economy decelerated to 4.71 percent in the first quarter of 2015, the lowest growth since 2009.The main reasons for the decline among others were low government spending, a drop in consumer spending, a weak rupiah and high inflation. In 2014, the Indonesian economy grew 5.02 percent, much lower than 5.58 percent in 2013.

By surpassing predictions, Vietnam’s economy grew 6.03 percent in the first quarter of 2015. With surging exports and FDI, Vietnam posted a GDP growth rate of 5.98 percent in 2014, a slight increase from 5.42 percent in 2013. Between 2000-2010, the average annual growth rate of Vietnam was around 7 percent.

While a bleak economic performance has haunted Indonesia this year and continues to cast a shadow over the coming years, global financial institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and HSBC are predicting a bright future for Vietnam, whose economy may grow 6 percent in 2015, 6.2 percent in 2016 and 6.5 percent in 2017.

This year, Vietnam may sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union and join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) process. If these two things are done, Vietnam’s economy and exports will really receive a big boost.

Surprisingly, Vietnam was able to cut its inflation rate from 32.28 percent in 2012 to just 4.09 percent in 2014. It recorded 0.04 percent of inflation in the first four months of 2015, the lowest in many years.

Vietnam is no match for Indonesia, but it is a latecomer that is performing much better than Indonesia in many fields. What are the main reasons for Vietnam’s sudden rise?

First and foremost, Vietnam is a country with nearly 100 million people with many natural resources. Half of the population is young. These young men and women are educated and technologically savvy.

Then comes Vietnam’s geo-strategic location. It shares a border with China, the world’s second largest economy. It is also situated very close to the busiest international shipping route on one side and geographically close to developed economies like China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. So it is located in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region. It has numerous well built international sea ports. It has all the potential to become one of the highest growing economies in the world.

Low labor costs are the main attraction. Average labor costs, based on the International Labor Organization, are much lower than China, Thailand and Indonesia. The minimum wage in Vietnam is between $110-$160 per month and an average worker’s wage is $197 per month, while it is $613 in China and $391 in Thailand. In Jakarta, the minimum wage is Rp 2.7 million ($200).

Another important point is the “China factor”. After a big boom in the manufacturing sector in China for almost three decades, most foreign companies in China are facing many bottlenecks.

Rising wages, a major shift in government focus from cheap export goods to high-tech products, favoritism toward local technological companies and increasing geopolitical tensions have badly affected many labor-intensive manufacturing companies in the world’s most populous nation. The foreign manufacturers need a paradise, but close to China and other East Asian countries.

High-tech electronic companies as well as garment and leather manufacturers have found a new paradise in Vietnam. They have moved from China to Vietnam and have been taking advantage of the low cost, young, hardworking, fast learning and rapidly expanding work force in Vietnam.

Finally, the Communist Party-ruled Vietnam, which has an investor-friendly government, is providing a stable and problem-free environment for investors. Vietnam is offering investors numerous financial incentives, tax holidays, less bureaucracy, protection of investments, legal certainty, significant reductions in corporate and income taxes, easy repatriation of earnings, and providing land, water and electricity at affordable prices. It is a red-carpet welcome for foreign investors. Samsung, the biggest exporter in Vietnam, has its own terminal at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport.

The country’s leadership is visionary and never shies away from admitting its mistakes and from launching bold political and economic reforms to bring major change. The best example is to privatize more than 200 state-owned enterprises to boost economic growth. The government is determined to safeguard macroeconomic stability, the low inflation rate, maintain money market stability, banking liquidity and lower interest rates to spur growth.

Some of the companies, before entering Vietnam, were considering tapping Indonesia, but there were neither incentives nor a red carpet welcome for foreign investors in the latter. The market may be lucrative but it will be a Herculean task in establishing a manufacturing plant. Rigid bureaucracy, legal uncertainty, higher
production costs, unstable currency, poor infrastructure, illegal levies, corruption and labor problems forced investors to change their minds and move to Vietnam.

With an influx of foreign companies from all over the world, Vietnam’s economic structure is changing from agriculture to manufacturing. All indications point is one direction – toward prosperity. The country is on course to become an industrialized and developed nation in the next 50 years.

Vietnam has impressed both friends and foes. Despite its serious problems with China over the South China Sea, China is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner with two-way trade reaching $58.64 billion in 2014.

Vietnam has received kudos from the UN chief.

“Vietnam is showing the world that a tragic past can open up a prosperous present. And I am confident that you will achieve even more dramatic development in the future,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said while addressing Vietnam’s parliament in Hanoi recently.

It remains to be seen whether Indonesia, under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, will correct its mistakes and become a manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia.

*The writer is an author and a senior journalist living in Jakarta.

The post Why Is Vietnam Performing Better Than Indonesia In Manufacturing Sector? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A relatively veracious pattern in the Middle East is emerging to reshape the political, social, economic and cultural structures in the region. While some countries in the Middle East ally with Shiite elements such as Iran, Houthis in Yemen, Syrian regime and other minorities in Syria, Shiites in Bahrain, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi government, others ally with Sunni elements making the divide in the region seem more sectarian than political. Media in the Middle East is flooded with declamatory discourses describing the whole context in religious terms. Well, it might be partially true that religion is important but it doesn’t tell us the whole story.

Political actors’ confession, even on individual levels, becomes an identifying factor of conflicting groups, yet it is not an identity clash. Meaning that, as assumed, Sunnis are more likely to pledge support to other Sunni factions and Shiites are more likely to pledge allegiance to Shiite factions. In the Syrian conflict for example, both opposition and regime consist of individuals from all confessions, in variable numbers. The mendacious ISIS, for instance, a Sunni element in Iraq and Syria scored deaths against other Sunni Muslims more than any other confession group.

The story of religious competition and involvement of religion in politics isn’t novel in the Middle East. It is especially accentuated through the availability of media and communications networks. The use of Islam for political ends has become more eminent in the recent decades and is more likely to remain on the rise. Religion, as an ideology, becomes helpful for people to solve the contradictions of “what should be” and their realities – “what is”. The authoritarianism, lack of participation in political and economic networks, backwardness, protracted wars in the Middle East, the colonial past, the negative effects of globalisation etc. are all contradictions that need solutions.

In the conventional sense, Islamic movements are often held responsible for the instrumentalisation of religion in politics. But in reality, religion is used by ideological and non-ideological networks such as military elites, political elites and economic elites. In other words, all other power networks in the Middle East contest to control the power of ideological sources and/or to dominate the ideological networks.

Going back not too far in history, we see that the cooperation between the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamal Abdulnasser in the 1940s to fight against the imperial power – Britain, but then Islamists’ attempt to assassinate Nasser 1954 are based more on contestation for power than for religious grounds. While Nasser was working hard to consolidate his power against the Muslim brothers, he enforced two important policies: He banned the Muslim brothers and shoved them into prisons, and strengthened his power with Al-Azhar to control ideological sources and networks. He also made the head of Al-Azhar a presidential appointee, making sure that the institution would not be out of step with government’s needs and stances.

Egypt has been suffering from this ideological polarisation and competition to control ideological power sources and networks since the 1920s. Repeating the same cycle Nasser started, Sadat released the Muslim brothers in the 70s giving them cultural and ideological autonomy for their support to counterbalance the leftist forces in Egypt in return. Unfortunately, a long run as the “Hero of the Crossing” didn’t save his life. Based on a fatwa, Sadat was assassinated by Khalid Islambouli in 1981 after a peace deal with Israel in 1979, which angered Islamists, especially Al-Jihad Group in Egypt.

While oppression of the Salafi and Muslim brotherhood continues under Hosni Mubarak’s rule, latent but rather coherent and organised ideological groups were forming apart from the official power networks of Egypt. Mubarak, through coercion or lure, allied with Al-Azhar to benefit from their fatwas for his regime’s favour. Again control of an ideological source mobilising its network to serve not the downtrodden or believers transcendently, but rather to serve the regime’s power consolidation along with the control of economic, political and military networks.

The Sainai peninsula insurgency in 2011 and the tentative outburst of violence in Egypt in 2013 after the coup d’état are a repetition of the same cycle of ideological mobilisation through the control of sources and networks. While the oppression of Al-Sisi rule is tremendous, ideological framing of people’s contradictions in a search for a solution become a necessity. In such situations, violence becomes a viable option and rational to counterbalance the force of the state. Al-Sisi seems to be aware of the rules of the game following the steps of Nasser by allying with Al-Azhar and jostling Muslim Brotherhood members into prison or exile. Al-Sisi even went further to declare the Muslim brothers a terrorist organisation and to invoke a religious revolution according to the state understanding.

Moving to other examples in the Middle East and North Africa, we find that the first and the second Sudanese civil wars in (1955-1972)(1983-2005) respectively reflect this pattern of power rivalry instrumentalising religious terms. Such vicious cycle of political contestation has repeatedly involved a transcendent ideology, Islam in this case, to serve the private interests of contenders. This process was boosted by key conjunctures in the modern Middle Eastern history and here are a few to mention:

The eruption of violence in Algeria in (1991-2002) and depriving Islamic parties from exercising power after winning elections at polls, and the Syrian Baathist-religious balancing, which resulted in massacres in Jisser Al-Shoughour, Hama, Aleppo and Palmyra between 1979 and 1982 in Syria as well as the fuel of the on-going Syrian civil war represent such conjunctures. This also applies to the sectarian violence in Iraq 2006-2007 and the emergence of the religio-politically motivated ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Eastern Syria and northern and central Iraq, which emerged after the American invasion in 2003 in Iraq and spread to Syria in 2014, and its relentlessness in slaughtering any kind of opposition.

The rise of new political entities in the Middle East increased the sectarian dimensions in geopolitics of the region more than ever. The establishment of the Iranian Islamic state in 1979 and calling it Islamic at the first place and its war with Iraq between 1980-1989, and the rise of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and the Saudi Arabian alliances in the Afghani wars, the Iraq-Iran war, the Gulf war and the Syrian civil war and the violent incidents and unrest in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya Tunisia stand for the dangerously religious outbidding game and the cynical use of religion that has been exercised equally by rulers and Islamic factions to control power sources and networks and make them serve their vie for power.

After all, ideology in the Middle East is a source for power exercised by an ideological network like other political, military and economic powers. However, ideological power can be more resilient to be shared, divided, organised, reorganised and mobilised by other power networks. For instance, dividing or mobilising the military network would make one group legitimate and the other not – Libya lies under such a categorisation and, as we see, it is not going well for Libyans.

The post Why Ideological Vie For Power In The Middle East Doesn’t Work – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Singapore has been shaken by news that two teenagers have been lured by the ISIS narrative to engage in terrorist acts. The Singaporean community has an important role in meeting this challenge to national security.

By Nur Irfani Binte Saripi, Nur Azlin Mohamed Yasin *

The recent detention of two Singaporean teenagers for being involved in terrorism-related activities is a matter of serious concern for all Singaporeans, for several reasons.

Firstly they are some of the youngest would be “jihadis” encountered thus far. Post-secondary student M Arifil Azim Putra Norja’i is 19 years old while the other unnamed individual is only 17 years old. Secondly, not only had Arifil desired to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), he also planned to carry out attacks on public places and prominent leaders in Singapore and attempted to recruit others to join him. Thirdly, Arifil attempted to link up with ISIS by befriending people online who he thought could help him join the terrorist group.

Long-lasting threat

The threat posed by such young recruits to militancy is potentially long-lasting; should they succeed in going to the Middle East and joining ISIS they will become battle hardened, and if they survive, become the nucleus of a group of Southeast Asians in the ISIS ranks. Upon their likely return to Singapore they will engage in terrorist acts, thereby extending the reach of ISIS to Southeast Asia.

However, the issue of very young people getting involved and taking an interest in terrorism, especially in ISIS, is not exclusive to Singapore. It is a trend seen in many countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia, with teenagers some as young as 14 years old, making attempts to travel to join ISIS. Many are drawn to the ISIS propaganda on the Internet and the social media.

In order to prevent terrorist groups from taking root in Singapore and radicalisation permeating into the community, the security authorities need the support of all segments of society. Family, friends, school, religious leaders and the community at large all have a role to play in countering radicalisation. The case of Arifil is illustrative. He was reported to the authorities by a member of the community who knew him and noticed the changes in Arifil’s behaviour enabling further investigation to be done.

Friends and family members who are aware of similar behavioural changes in their circles can do likewise. They should realise that reporting their friends’ suspicious behaviour is not “putting them in trouble” but helping them from causing greater harm or damage to the community.

On a broader level, there needs to be more community engagement programmes in schools and for the community to raise awareness of the dangers of radicalisation and the distorted and extremist ideology of ISIS and such groups. With early intervention, religious teachers can come forward to help vulnerable individuals from becoming even more radical in their understanding.

Islamic Religious Teachers

In Singapore, such counselling has been given by the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), to citizens who have been influenced by radical ideology since 2003. Since its inception, RRG has provided religious counselling for members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), self-radicalised individuals and also their family members. In its ongoing efforts to counter ISIS narratives and engaging the community, RRG has published two public educational pamphlets – The Syrian Conflict and The Fallacies of ISIS Islamic Caliphate – which can be found on RRG’s Facebook page.

Singapore has also adopted a system of recognition of Islamic teachers and scholars called ‘Asatizah Recognition Scheme’, they are accredited to teach Islam to the public so that they are not religiously misled or become self-radicalised by materials found on the internet and extremist websites.

Countering Internet-savvy ISIS

Countering radical ideological narratives has to be done both online and offline. ISIS has exploited the Internet, especially the social media to disseminate their ideology and propaganda. There are 46000 Twitter accounts supporting ISIS globally and at least 1000 Facebook accounts of the same nature in Southeast Asia. To counter ISIS online, the community needs to work with the social media as well. For example, Facebook and Twitter have taken down accounts of ISIS members and supporters that post ISIS narratives. Shutting down of such accounts is necessary even though some analysts might protest that such a measure would cut off access to a trove of information about the extremist groups. Removing online support for ISIS ideology is one of the ways to carry out the uphill task of countering online extremism and radicalisation.

There is also a need for an online model to counter extremism and terrorism online. Such efforts should complement successful real-world engagements which are already taking place today. Participants should be moved to be the counter force and play their role to spread the message of peace. Not only would this create an effective dissemination of counter messages, it would also provide continuity in community engagement efforts on the ground.

Keeping Optimism

On a positive note, the announcement of the arrest and detention of the two teenagers by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) came with news that three former JI members who were under Detention Order (DO)had been released under Restriction Order (RO) and five individuals under the RO had their RO lifted. They had all been receptive and cooperative to rehabilitation.

While the fight against radicalism is not over, it is also not a lost cause. The two teenagers who have been detained can change and there is still room for them to become responsible Singaporeans with proper engagement, religious counselling and support from families.

*Nur Irfani and Nur Azlin are Associate Research Fellows of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Irfani is also a volunteer with the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG).

The post Countering The Narrative Of Terrorism: Role Of The Singaporean Community Crucial – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

If Hitler were alive, would you be amused if he had laid a floral wreath at the Auschwitz? Well, facts are sometimes stranger than fiction. And that is why don’t be surprised to learn that on April 14 of this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the BJP party – a Hindutvadi fascist party, laid the foundation stone of Dr. Ambedkar International Center in New Delhi. Vinay Katiyar, the former head of Bajrang Dal and who now who heads BJP in UP, has been declaring that Ambedkar was a great supporter of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra.

In recent months, Hindutvadi forces inside India seem to be hijacking Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s image claiming him to be one of theirs. Such claims are amusing some but confusing many people. After all, Dr Ambedkar – a rights leader – was well-known for his relentless fight against the Hindu caste system inside India. He was at loggerheads with the Hindu fundamentalists, esp. the Hindu Mahasabha – the forerunner of the RSS and the BJP – led then by V.D. Savarkar. Ambedkar exposed Hindutvadi ideologue Savarkar’s authoritarian intent by saying, “Mr. Savarkar wants the Hindu nation to be the dominant nation and the Muslim nation to be the subservient nation under it.” Suffice it to say that the legacy of Ambedkar and Hindu fundamentalism is irreconcilably hostile to each other.

“Inequality is the soul of Hinduism,” wrote Ambedkar. He characterized the oppressive caste system as the tyranny of Hinduism and renounced Hinduism. He said, “I was born a Hindu, but will not die a Hindu.” He also said, “At the root of the Hindu social system lies Dharma as prescribed in Manusmriti. Such being the case, I do not think it possible to abolish inequality in the Hindu society unless the existing foundation of the Smriti religion is removed and a better one laid in its place. I, however, despair of the Hindu society being able to reconstruct on such a better foundation.”

It is relevant to note here that while both K.B. Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar, the founders of the RSS, upheld Manu and thus rationalized the caste system inherent to the Hindu religion, Dr. Ambedkar even burnt copies of the Manusmruti through a campaign “Manu Smruti Dahan Din” on December 25, 1927.

In his lifetime, in the undivided India, Ambedkar had also opposed the Congress Party of Gandhi and famously said, “The Congress cannot expect any sane person who knows anything about conditions in India to agree to the government of the country being placed in the hands of the Hindu majority, simply because it is a majority. The Congress chooses to forget that Hinduism is a political ideology of the same character as the fascist or Nazi ideology and is thoroughly anti-democratic. If Hinduism is let loose—which is what Hindu majority means—it will prove a menace to the growth of others who are outside Hinduism and are opposed to Hinduism. This is not the point of view of Muslims alone. It is also the point of view of the Depressed Classes and also of the non-Brahmins.” (Writings & Speeches, Volume 17, Part One; Dr B.R. Ambedkar and his Egalitarian Revolution—Struggle for Human Rights; Dr Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India)

Dr. Ambedkar was opposed to Mahatma Gandhi’s views on the uplift of the untouchables within the fold of Hinduism. It is not surprising that BJP and its patron RSS have been exploiting such anti-Gandhi views to influence the Dalit (Untouchable, Scheduled and Depressed Class) community. [Lest we forget, Mohandas Gandhi was killed by Nathuram Godse, a close confidant of V.D. Savarkar and fanatic believer in Hindutva.] RSS, which once recruited only from amongst the highest caste Brahmins, have been reaching out to recruit amongst the Other Backward Class (OBC) and Shudra communities. The OBC youth were taken to Hanuman Vyamshalas and not schools. Instead of books, trishuls were distributed among them, and they became their henchmen and executioners against Muslims. They are also used to attack churches and mosques. It is a clever ploy since Brahminical Hinduism with its highly racist worldviews cannot grow and needs new recruits to grow in a democracy.

Odd as it may sound, through its Hindutvadi programs, the BJP in recent years has been able to make much headway amongst the Dalit voters. In the last general election, the proportion of Dalits voting for the BJP rose to 24 per cent from 11 per cent in 2009. That is a huge jump in just five years, from 1 in 9 to 1 in 4! Obviously, the fascist Hindutvadi forces are winning, and it is an ominous sign for the entire South Asia.

It will be a great injustice to Ambedkar and his legacy to parade him as a supporter of Hindutva. In fact, throughout his life he was a great opponent to the politics of Hindutva. Those who are now in the business of rewriting, or more correctly guillotining history need to be told what Dr. Ambedkar felt. He said, “If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country no matter what the Hindus say. Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.” According to him the pet slogan of Hindutva—Hindustan for Hindus—is not merely arrogant but is arrant nonsense.

Sadly, in today’s India Hindutvadi majoritarianism is manifesting itself virulently. It is banning the slaughter of bulls, old buffaloes and cows (Maharashtra and Haryana); attacking churches (Delhi, West Bengal and now Uttar Pradesh); and hounding Muslims out of “Hindu” areas through intimidation (as in Bhavnagar in Gujarat). As noted by eminent journalist Praful Bidwai, hate speech has become the new norm in Indian politics. Chronic inaction against Hindutvadi criminals has created a culture of impunity for anti-minority atrocities. That’s the message from the just-delivered Hashimpura verdict – on the gruesome killing of 42 Muslims in 1987 in Uttar Pradesh by the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel. The state took nine years to file a charge-sheet. The accused were never arrested despite 23 non-bailable warrants. They were all acquitted. As Outlook magazine (April 6) has revealed, the massacre was an act of revenge by an army officer whose brother, an RSS member, was killed in a communal clash. The government knew all this, but did nothing.

A day after Hashimpura, the PAC joined a mob in killing 72 Muslims in Maliana next door. This trial hasn’t even crossed the first stage—despite 800 dates. Only three of 35 prosecution witnesses were examined in 28 years.

These terrible failures of the justice delivery system have encouraged uniformed personnel to brutalize citizens in places like Muslim-majority Kashmir state of India. The latest episode in Nalgonda (Telangana), in which five Muslim men under-trials were killed, falls in the same category. According to Mr. Bidwai, the state won’t bring the culprits to book unless public-spirited citizens and political parties intervene.

What Dr. Ambedkar had feared about the Hindu Raj is coming to fruition in India.

With Narendra Modi in power, the BJP and the Sangha Parivar claim that India is for Hindus, and it is a Hindu Rashtra. They also claim that they are the true protectors of the Dalit. But facts belie their assertions. In the state of Gujarat, their model state, Dalits are not allowed near common water. They are given different glasses. In Modi’s India today, according to National Crime Records Bureau, a crime is committed against a Dalit by a non-Dalit every 16 minutes. Every day more than four Dalit women are raped by upper caste. Every week 13 Dalits are murdered and six are kidnapped. And as it has been for decades, only 10 percent of the rapes against the Dalit women are reported in India.

Hindutvadi forces have never been friends of the Dalit community because by doctrine and practice they are opposed to true emancipation of the downtrodden untouchables. But in a democracy, they need the Dalits for political expediency. It is not difficult to understand why they are now in the business of hijacking Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy – the much revered figure within the Dalit community – claiming him as one of their own. Their ideology and politics, however, remains the opposite of Dr. Ambedkar’s. He had nothing but disdain for Hindutva, with its narrow faith-based definition of nationhood, as opposed to citizenship cutting across ethnic-religious identities.

To defeat the Hindutvadi forces, the truth must be told loud and clear so that the Dalit and OBCs are not fooled by cunning and conniving zealots of the Hindutva. Dr. Ram Puniyani of the Center for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) has recently done an excellent job in compiling various essays on Dr. Ambedkar. This e-digest “Ambedkar’s Appropriation by Hindutvadi Ideology” is very timely to arrest a miscarriage of Dr. Ambedkar’s image. I recommend this e-digest wholeheartedly for keen observers of Indian politics.

The post Saffronizing Ambedkar To Serve Hindutva Ideology – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Michael Lelyveld

In the annals of Chinese sloganeering, few formulas have been so well-crafted or rapidly promoted as the government’s new pitch to sell “industrial capacity cooperation” abroad.

On his four-nation tour through South America last month, Premier Li Keqiang hailed the international benefits of industrial capacity cooperation at each stop, although there had apparently been no reference to the newly-minted concept in China’s official press before May 7.

“Chinese Firms Sail on International Capacity Cooperation Boat,” read a headline by the state’s Xinhua news agency on May 25 during Premier Li’s visits to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Some of Li’s hosts might have been forgiven for not knowing exactly what industrial capacity cooperation was.

Simply put, China has hit upon a new way to cut its crippling domestic manufacturing overcapacity in industries like steel and building materials, where prices and profits have plunged.

Instead of just closing plants at home, it would open up new ones in cooperating countries that don’t have enough.

Officials say the initiative is broader than China’s previous trade and investment promotions.

“Capacity cooperation means more than export of finished products, but also the transfer of the whole industrial chain to help other countries beef up their manufacturing capability,” said Gu Dawei, a foreign investment official at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) planning agency, according to Xinhua.

The new mantra ties together many of China’s pressing economic problems and the prescriptions to fix them.

The concept links the search for new sources of growth to industrial restructuring, the war against pollution, weakening trade prospects, financing by the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the government’s Silk Road trade initiatives.

“Industrial capacity cooperation is something they came up with as a natural extension of what they were doing anyway, and it’s a nice slogan to take with you on these trips,” said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

As labor costs rise and manufacturing losses mount, China’s planners see the export of excess production capacity as a way out of its industry-heavy trap and a path to economic transformation.

“Previously known as the low-cost factory of the world, China is no longer satisfied with low-value manufacturing,” Xinhua said in its report on another new initiative called “Made in China 2025,” introduced last month.

The country is trying to redefine itself as a source of technology and services for other countries as it shifts the balance away from manufacturing in its own economy.

“China has long been labeled as the factory of the world, while Latin America has always been seen as a global supplier of raw materials,” Xinhua said in a commentary. “However, to realize faster and better economic development, both sides should upgrade their development models.”

Exporting problems

But while the goals sound lofty, the list of 12 priority industries that the government wants to export reads like a roster of China’s problems.

Many—like steel, non-ferrous metals, construction materials, electric power and chemicals—have been officially targeted as energy-wasters and pollution sources for the past decade.

Most are suffering from chronic overcapacity, despite government orders to close older plants and production lines.

In the case of steel, the industry has been weighed down for years with over 300 million metric tons of excess capacity, even as China produces more steel than the rest of the world combined.

The margin of surplus has remained substantially unchanged despite government orders to phase out inefficient producers since 2013.

As a slogan, industrial capacity cooperation may be satisfying, but it seems unlikely to solve China’s problems.

If China dismantles entire plants and ships their production machinery overseas, it may reduce overcapacity on its territory and realize some savings in local pollution and subsidies, but worldwide capacity and price pressures will stay much the same.

“They’re still going to have the global excess supply problems and they’re still going to have the mismatch of what their capacity is to their partners,” Scissors said.

China has been defending itself against criticism that it is seeking to move its outmoded manufacturing to other countries, essentially exporting pollution.

“The core of the international industrial cooperation is to encourage our advanced capacity to go global,” said the NDRC’s Gu Dawei in another Xinhua report that highlighted manufacturing in rail, aviation and aerospace industries, as well as steel and construction materials.

But Scissors argued that Chinese industries would only find investment opportunities attractive if there are reduced costs and regulations overseas.

“They’re not looking just to export older capacity, but they are looking for looser social opposition to pollution, cheaper land and cheaper labor,” said Scissors.

“They’re not going to leave China in order to accept equal pressure elsewhere,” he said.

Takers likely

Despite the drawbacks, industrial capacity cooperation is likely to find takers in receptive countries, in part because it may offer more local employment than earlier Chinese foreign investment projects, which have often favored Chinese labor.

Chinese financing will also provide a push. Speaking at the start of his tour in Brazil, Li promised to back industrial capacity cooperation in Latin America with a new U.S. $30-billion (186-billion yuan) fund, the official English-language China Daily said.

Planners can take credit for creativity in repackaging China’s economic challenges and goals into a new foreign investment initiative that tries to address overcapacity at the same time.

But it seems unlikely that China can cure its capacity headache by shipping it overseas.

“It’s not a bad strategy, but it’s not going to work to any significant extent for China,” Scissors said. “At the scale that the Chinese are looking at, it’s a slogan,” he said.

Scissors also doubts that industrial capacity cooperation will provide a boost for Chinese exports, as Xinhua claimed, citing unnamed analysts.

Instead, China is expected to realize a one-time increase in exports by sending production machinery abroad. But after that, the exports that new factories produce would also be shifted overseas.

The capacity initiative coincides with increasingly poor trade results and signs of a slowing economy.

On Monday, the General Administration of Customs reported that exports in May fell 2.8 percent from a year before while imports plunged 18.1 percent.

In the first five months of the year, exports declined 0.8 and imports were down 17.2 percent. Total trade volume has dropped 7.8 percent from the year-earlier period, Xinhua said.

The post China Pushes Production Abroad With ‘Capacity Cooperation’ Initiative – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Mohamed El Kettani, the CEO of Attijariwafa Bank, said: “South-South cooperation is vital. So we must create larger, cross-frontier trading spaces. We have to make the most of the mutualisation and the complementarity of our resources and our economies. But we can’t do without the North, because today in Morocco we are meeting international investors, from Europe, the US, and Asia, who are making Morocco a platform where part of the value is created in Morocco, another part in the North, and a third part in the countries south of Morocco.”

In fact, Morocco enjoys an international outlook, and “advanced status’ in the European Union’s European Neighbourhood Policy and close bilateral relations with the United States. Following the ‘Arab Spring’ – the popular uprisings of 2011 – there has been a true willingness for reform, to open up the market and attract inbound investment. Moroccan political and business leaders are aligned in their ambitions to be a financial hub for north and west Africa.

The African economy is gearing up a notch, and now as the continent has to work together to make the most of it, Morocco is positioning itself as a motor of African integration

U.S. policy toward Africa has been on autopilot for much of the past four years, following a laundry list of good intentions that established priorities for Africa’s well-being and U.S. security interests.

However, a truly sustainable and forward-looking U.S. policy toward Africa should refocus attention on Africa’s opportunity as an economic powerhouse of the future, a strategy that combines both domestic self-interest and an opportunity to help Africa move forward.

An emerging landscape of stable economies and growing democratic freedoms in much of Africa is allowing the continent, for the first time, to take advantage of its extensive natural resource endowments, its improving human capital, and its increasing attractiveness to global investors. U.S. policymakers have shown recent signs of understanding Africa’s position and are seeking to strengthen economic relations with African countries. They would be wise to formulate a comprehensive economic policy, not just with interagency coordination, but also in full partnership with the legislative branch, with the private sectors in America and Africa, and with African governments.

Morocco and because of geographical proximity and historical ties, Morocco will naturally look north to the European Union for trade and investment. Cultural differences are smaller than with the United States. A strong euro against the dollar makes the EU market more profitable for Morocco.

Moroccan exporters have established links with the EU market and adapted their production to the needs of that market. Moroccan companies some- times pass over opportunities to export to the United States because it is easier to deal with the European Union. But they will not successfully penetrate the US market unless strategies are implemented to put firms in contact with appropriate partners, familiarize them with the rules and standards, and establish a market presence in the United States.

With the right strategies, Morocco and the United States could reap greater benefits from the FTA. Morocco would improve its access to the US market. The United States could use Morocco as a platform for the entire Africa.

Morocco-US FTA represents a step in the right direction for the economic integration of the whole African continent. Pursuing this theme, the gains from the Morocco-US FTA could be significantly boosted if accompanied by a comprehensive process of regional integration in the Maghreb and Africa. Through the FTA, the United States could promote such integration by allowing for the cumulation of origin for products from neighboring Maghreb and African countries using a QIZ system, specifically by conditioning QIZ- type benefits on zero rate Moroccan tariffs on inputs from other Maghreb and African countries.

The experience of the EU Pan-Euro-Med cumulation systems is estimated to have increased trade flows among participating countries by 43 percent. In addition, the United States should encourage the regional harmonization of investment regimes, business regulations, customs procedures, and standards in key industries. Morocco, therefore could become an interesting trade and economic platform to American potential investors and at the same time African countries could benefit from this important trade agreement to access the American market.

“The emergence of the economic power of Morocco, initiated under the leadership of HM King Mohammed VI since his accession to the throne, is a key element of the royal strategy to consolidate relations of cooperation and solidarity with African countries” said Peter Pham, Africa Center director.

“Thanks to the vision of HM King Mohammed VI, Morocco leverage its emergence as an economic power to support the African strategy of the Kingdom”, explains the US expert.

The post Morocco Aims To Become Africa’s Leading Financial Hub – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By June Teufel Dreyer*

Each year, high-ranking officials of mainly Asia-Pacific and European states gather in Singapore for what is known in diplomatic circles as a full and frank exchange of views. Founded at the turn of the century under the aegis of London’s prestigious Institute of International Strategic Studies, the meeting takes its name from the hotel that hosts the meeting rather than the mythical Himalayan land of peace and harmony. The roster of speakers tends toward prime ministers and defense ministers, though perhaps to score a symbolic point, China’s highest-ranking delegate is typically at vice-ministerial level. Often the sideline conversations among concerned parties are at least as important as the speeches.

With numerous disputes simmering, most notably China’s island-building activities in contested areas of the South China Sea, the 2015 meeting was eagerly anticipated. Beijing had prepared its position well, releasing its Military Strategy White Paper just before the conference began. While replete with the usual anodynes on the value of maintaining world peace, the paper warned of “new threats from hegemonism, power politics, and neo-interventionism,” very plainly meaning the United States. At the same time, the Chinese military conducted its first joint naval exercises with Russia in the Mediterranean.

Washington, although not a claimant to any of the disputed areas, had also made its position plain.  In April, the navy issued its first unclassified report on the Chinese navy since 2009, noting that President Xi Jinping’s emphasis on “new historic missions” was driving naval development into new, increasingly distant operating areas.^[1] In a longer document issued a month prior, the navy stated that by 2020, approximately 60 percent of US navy ships and aircraft would be based in the region. An additional attack submarine was to be added to those already in Guam; and the number of littoral combat ships stationed in Singapore increased to four. A week before the Shangri La gathering, CNN ran a tape, obviously made with the navy’s cooperation, showing a U.S. surveillance plane being warned off the area near where Beijing’s island construction was taking place.

The speeches of the dramatis personae did not disappoint. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore led off with an affirmation of America’s role as a Pacific power while noting the rising importance of China.  The nations of the area, he said, hoped for positive engagement between the U.S. and the PRC, not wishing to have to choose between the two.  Lee added pointedly that, when Washington and Beijing say that the Pacific is vast enough for both, he hoped it did not mean vast enough for them to divide between themselves.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter followed with a speech announcing that America was back. In an implicit rebuttal of declinists who had argued that a gradually weakening America would be unable to protect its Asian allies, Carter noted that both the country’s jobs and its Gross Domestic Product were on the rise. Indeed, though the secretary did not mention it, this reinforced the message of a speech Prime Minister Lee had made in Beijing two years before when he reminded his audience of America’s ability to innovate and bounce back from adversity.^[2]

Moreover, Carter continued, the United States was in Asia to stay, wanting no more than a shared regional architecture that allowed all states to rise; to this end, it would protect freedom of navigation for all. In what was the most remarked upon statement of the conference, Carter declared

There should be no mistake the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as U.S. forces do all around the world. America, alongside its allies and partners in the regional architecture, will not be deterred from exercising these rights—the rights of all nations. After all, turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit.^[3]

The U.S. would, he warned, deepen long-standing alliances and partnerships, and commit additional assets to the Asia-Pacific, specifically naming the latest Virginia-class submarines, surveillance aircraft, stealth destroyers, and new technologies like the electromagnetic railgun and “new systems for space and cyberspace, including a few surprising ones.” [emphasis added]

Japanese defense minister Nakatani Gen’s address also bluntly confronted the South China Sea issue.  Serious challenges, said Nakatani will never be solved or disappear on their own: If left unchallenged, peace and stability will be lost forever. All countries should respect international law—an indirect reference to the fact that the 9-dashed line under which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) claims 80 percent of the East China and South China seas has no basis in international law.

In a clever barb clearly aimed at Beijing, Nakatani cited eminent Chinese philosopher Lao Zi’s words “to know you have enough is to be immune from disgrace. To know when to stop is to be preserved from perils,” adding “Would you not agree that now is the time to follow these words?”

Pressure must be exerted to ensure a legacy of peace and stability for the next generation. Nakatani suggested a new meaning for an old acronym: not the Strategic Defense Initiative that is better known as Star Wars, but a “Shangri La Dialogue Initiative,” to include the wider promotion of common rules and laws of the sea and air in the region; maritime and aerospace security, and improvement in disaster response capability.

The Chinese representative’s rejoinder was much anticipated. Perhaps in recognition that naval issues were paramount in the region, the PRC had for the first time sent an admiral. Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of the PLA’s General Staff, earned the nickname “iron captain” during his days as a submarine commander, and was said to be well versed in maritime law.  However, the speech itself was a disappointment, with one former high-ranking State Department official commenting that it had “gone off [his] cliche meter.” China would, the admiral said, adhere to the path of peaceful development, was committed to promoting regional and international prosperity and stability, actively fulfill its international responsibilities, play a constructive role, and adhere to the approach of dialogue and consultation. A win-win outcome would be achieved through cooperation.

Sun’s answers to the pointed questions he was asked by participants tended to be evasive and, pleading lack of time, he departed early.  When asked whether China intended to set up an South China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone to parallel the controversial ADIZ it had established in the East China Sea in November 2013, the admiral replied that although no definite decision had been made, the PRC reserved the right to do so based on its assessment of aerial and maritime threats in the region.^[4] Sun was noticeably thumbing through a briefing book provided for him by the PRC’s defense ministry and then reading out its stock answers verbatim.  He did not answer questions on with whom China was cooperating on South China Sea issues, on who besides China was winning, on why he insisted that the PRC was not interfering with international navigation, or on whether the PRC leadership regarded the legacy of its “century of humiliation” to have been overcome.

Although giving no public acknowledgement thereof, the Chinese leadership must have been aware of the deficiencies of Admiral Sun’s performance.  News of the Shangri La dialogue and associated South Sea sovereignty issues was censored from Chinese language media reports, though allowed in foreign language news and broadcasts. The intent was presumably to avoid inciting domestic nationalism.^[5]  Many netizens had already been quite critical of the defense white paper only a few days before the Shangri La Dialogue began, urging the government to “stop letting clowns humiliate it,” and “kill one in order to warn others.”^[6]

From the sidelines, Japan, the United States, and Australia released a joint statement expressing serious concern over China’s ongoing land reclamation activities and urged Beijing to exercise self-restraint. The Australian defense minister, Kevin Andrews, then went to Tokyo for further discussion on deepening defense cooperation, including Canberra’s plans to purchase Japanese submarines.^[7] P resident Benigno Aquino was also in Tokyo where, in a speech to business leaders, he compared the PRC’s territorial expansionism to that of Nazi Germany and asked “at what point do you say ‘enough is enough?’ Well, the world has to say it.”^[8]

Aquino held consultations with Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, resulting in a joint communique expressing the two countries “serious concern on unilateral actions to change the status quo.” The two agreed to negotiate the transfer of Japanese defense equipment and technology to the Philippines; Japan had previously agreed to contribute patrol vessels to the Philippine coast guard.

Meanwhile, Ashton Carter travelled to Vietnam, becoming the first American secretary of defense to visit a Vietnamese military base.  Last year, the U.S. partially lifted its arms embargo against the country, and on his current visit Carter pledged $18 million for the purchase of patrol vessels. The two sides also discussed greater military-to-military cooperation.^[9]

Travelling on to New Delhi, Carter and Indian officials finalized a Defense Trade and Technology Initiative, the result of discussions between U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s visit to Washington in January. The two sides discussed cooperation on aircraft carrier technology and jet engines, with Carter becoming the first U.S. secretary of defense to visit an Indian operational military command.^[10]

As these events were unfolding, it was revealed that Chinese hackers had gained access to the personal data of four million U.S government employees.^[11] U.S. government officials speaking anonymously, speculated that a major purpose was to gather information on those who were vulnerable to recruitment for espionage purposes.^[12] This will do little to reinforce the image of a China that aims at win-win outcomes through peaceful cooperation that Beijing would like to project.

For now, the takeaway from Shangri La is that all sides have hardened their positions and that China intends to proceed with its ambitious plans, reasoning that a combination of its size, its military power, and the economic benefits of cooperating with it will deter most countries from participating in a meaningful countervailing coalition.  Efforts to create such a coalition are nascent and thus far inadequate.  The major unanswered question is that raised by Philippine leader Aquino: at what point, if any, will the world say “enough.”

About the author:
*June Teufel Dreyer is a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Asia Program as well as a member of the Orbis Board of Editors. She is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. Her most recent book is China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition, ninth edition, 2014, and her current project is a book on Sino-Japanese relations, under contract to Oxford University Press.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] United States Navy, The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Maritime Missions for the 21^st Century, April 2015, p. 43. http://www.oni.navy.mil/Intelligence_Community/china_media/2015_PLA_NAVY_PUB_Print.pdf

[2] New York  Times, September 6 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/world/asia/singapores-prime-minister-warns-china-on-view-of-us.html?_r=0

[3] All speeches, including Carter’s, are available on the IISS Shangri La website, http://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20dialogue/archive/shangri-la-dialogue-2015.

[4] New York Times, June 1, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/world/asia/china0says-it-could-set-up-air-defense-zone-in-south-china-sea-html?ref=asia&r=o

[5] South China Morning Post, June 4, 2015. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/politices-pollitics/article/16816138/china-takes-two-track-approach-censoring-singapore.

[6] See, e.g. Sina Weibo May 26, 2015. http://weibo.com/5596333721

[7] http://www.mod.go.jp/e/pressconf/2015/06/150602.html)

[8] AFP, South China Morning Post, June 3, 2013. http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/1815677/philippine-president-likens-chinas-territorial-rise-nazi

[9] http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128955

[10] http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128973 

[11] New York Times, June 4, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/breach-in-a-federal-computer-system-exposes-personnel-data.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[12] Washington Post, June 6, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-a-series-of-hacks-china-appears-to-building-a-database-on-americans/2015/06/05/d2af51fa-0ba3-11e5-95fd-d580f1c5d44e_story.html

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“Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world… Shall we say the odds are too great? … the struggle is too hard? … and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message — of longing, of hope, of solidarity… The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, “Beyond Vietnam”

I’ve spent a wonderfully calm morning here in Kabul, listening to bird songs and to the call and response between mothers and their children in neighboring homes as families awaken and prepare their children for school. Maya Evans and I arrived here yesterday, and are just settling into the community quarters of our young hosts, The Afghan Peace Volunteers (APVs). Last night, they told us about the jarring and frightening events that marked the past few months of their lives in Kabul.

They described how they felt when bomb explosions, nearby, awakened them on several mornings. Some said they’d felt almost shell-shocked themselves discovering one recent day that thieves had ransacked their home. They shared their intense feelings of alarm at a notorious warlord’s statement condemning a human rights demonstration in which several community members had participated. And their horror when a few weeks later, in Kabul, a young woman, an Islamic scholar named Farkhunda, was falsely accused in a street argument of desecrating the Koran, after which, to the roared approval of a frenzied mob of perhaps two thousand men, members of the crowd, with apparent police collusion, beat her to death. Our young friends quietly sort through their emotions in the face of inescapable and often overwhelming violence.

I thought about how to incorporate their stories into a course I’ve been preparing for an international online school that intends to help raise consciousness among people, across borders and share the results. I hope the school will help develop movements dedicated to simple living, radical sharing, service and, for many, nonviolent direct action on behalf of ending wars and injustices.

Essentially, when Voices members go to Kabul, our “work” is to listen to and learn from our hosts and take back their stories of war to the relatively peaceful lands whose actions had brought that war down upon them. Before we’d even departed, the news from Afghanistan was already quite grim. Several dozen people dead in fighting between armed groups. A Kabul hotel attack on international businessmen the week before. We earnestly wrote our friends with a last minute offer to stay away, in hopes that we wouldn’t make them targets of the violence. “Please come,” our friends wrote us. So we’re here.

The western presence in Afghanistan has already caused incalculable destruction, suffering and loss. A recently released Physicians for Social Responsibility calculated that since 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. wars have killed at least 1.3 million and quite possibly more than 2 million civilians.

The report chides U.S. political elites for attributing on-going violence in Afghanistan and Iraq to various types of internecine conflicts “as if the resurgence and brutality of such conflicts is unrelated to the destabilization caused by decades of military intervention.”

Our young friends have survived the ravages of war, and each of them struggles with trauma, as their parents and grandparents have before them. When we have gone with them to visit refugee camps outside of Kabul, several have told of their own experiences as children, running away when their villages were attacked or occupied. We learn from them about the sorrows their mothers endured when there wasn’t enough food to feed the family or fuel to carry them through heartless winters: when they themselves nearly died from hypothermia. Several of our young friends experience terrifying flashbacks when they hear accounts in the news of Afghans killed by missiles or gunfire within the horrified sight of their own family members and loved ones. They tremble and sometimes cry, recalling similar experiences from their own lives.

The story of Afghanistan in Western accounts is that Afghanistan cannot deal with its traumas, however much we try, with our bullets, bases and token schools and clinics, to help. Yet these young people steadfastly respond to their own traumas not by seeking revenge but by finding ways to help people in Kabul whose circumstances are worse than theirs, particularly 750,000 Afghans living, with their children, in squalid refugee camps.

The APVs are running an alternative school for street kids in Kabul. Little children who are the main breadwinners for their families find no time to learn basic math or “the alphabet” when spending more than eight hours daily working in the streets of Kabul. Some are vendors, some polish shoes, and some carry scales along roadways so that people can weigh themselves. In an economy collapsing under the weight of war and corruption, their hard earned income barely buys enough food for their families.

Children of the poorest families in Kabul will have better chances in life if they become literate. Never mind rising school enrollment figures often cited by the U.S. military as the benefits of occupation. The March 2015 CIA World Fact Book reports that 17.6 % of females over age 14 are literate; overall, in the teen and adult population only 31.7% can read or write.

After getting to know about 20 families whose children work in the streets, the APVs devised a plan through which each family receives a monthly sack of rice and large container of oil to offset the family’s financial loss for sending their children to informal classes at the APV center and preparing to enroll them in school. Through continued outreach among Afghanistan’s troubled ethnicities, APV members now include 80 children in the school and hope to serve 100 children soon.

Every Friday, the children pour into the center’s courtyard and immediately line up to wash their feet and hands and brush their teeth at a communal faucet. Then they scramble up the stairs to their brightly decorated classroom and readily settle down when their teachers start the lessons. Three extraordinary young teachers, Zarghuna, Hadisa, and Farzana, feel encouraged now because many of the thirty-one street kids who were in the school last year learned to read and write fluently within nine months. Their experimentation with different teaching methods, including individualized learning, is paying off—unlike government school systems where many seventh graders are unable to read.

While leading a demonstration of street children, Zekerullah, who was once a street kid himself, was asked if he felt any fears. Zekerullah said that he feared that the children would be harmed if a bomb exploded. But his greater fear was that impoverishment would afflict them throughout their lives.

That message of courage and compassion will not — and cannot— always prevail. But if we take note of it, and even more, if, learning from its example, we take action to exemplify it ourselves, then it offers us a path out of childish fear, out of panicked collusion in war, and out, perhaps, of war’s mad grip. We ourselves arrive in a notably better world when we determine to build it for others. Our own education, our own victory over fear, and our own arrival as equals in an adult world, can begin or begin again – now.

So let us begin.

This article was first published on Telesur English.

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George W. Bush erred in seeking to institute democracy in Iraq over a decade ago, his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, said earlier this week.

In an interview with The Times of London, Rumsfeld openly broke with his former boss, telling the newspaper that he was apprehensive over the administration’s plans following the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.

“I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories,” Rumsfeld told The Times. “The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words.”

Original article

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By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera*

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams

Realising the extent of inequality in the present world is an aspect many sidestep. Poverty, prosperity and patterns of growth are among the top factors for this inequality.

The world we live in has not changed much. Comparisons of the 30 richest countries and the 30 poorest nations have remained same for the past 20 or in some cases, 50 years. Some nations grow rapidly and experience rapid collapse. Of the 30 poorest nations in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, South Asia and East Asia, some nations still struggle at per capita income below $2500; meanwhile the richest nations’ per capita income has been $20,000-$50,000.

Analysis is required as to why barring a few nations, many have failed or are struggling to achieve purchasing power parity similar to that of the US and Western Europe.

Populations from poorer countries choose migration as the most preferable option as their political and economic institutions consistently fail to deliver a better standard of living and/or employment. Last week, 734 Rohingya migrants rescued from a boat off the coast of Myanmar are now in refugee camps crammed into warehouses by the Myanmar Police. This situation is same for many other nationalities including Sri Lankans in labour camps in many countries.

During the author’s recent visit to Slovenia, it was established that the biggest issue for the country was unemployment and brain drain. Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia are nations with high levels of migrant workers without jobs who seek employment in other states in Europe. Slovenia loses the best of their labour force’s talent to migration.

Similarly, Sri Lanka is also losing many of its youth who leave the country, both legally and illegally, for better economic prospects. A recent conversation with a politician in Sri Lanka produced a shocking response regarding the brain drain issue. He explained, “brain drain is good[.] When they go it’s good for us [because] we don’t need to look after them [and] those countries will do our job.”

The only way a nation can reverse this situation is by strengthening the internal political and economic institutions that are currently weak. If politicians create hope for the youth, chances that they would remain in their own nation and contribute to economic development are higher.

Better institutions such as in the rich nations may not satisfy the environment of the poor nations as the existing institutions are better off as they are controlled, sometimes by the powerful in the society who will disagree as to which ones should remain and which ones must change. Existing institutions in a poor nation probably support a political culture where everyone has to have political support to climb the ladder of prosperity. It could well be the reason why individuals such as Thomas Edison with over 1000 patents or Steve Jobs who started Apple at 21 or Bill Gates who started Microsoft at 22 never emerged. Individual growth supports achievements without political connection. Innovation and financial support was readily available for these individuals’ prosperity.

An intellectual of a global repute whom this author met made a comment about the political environment that exists in Sri Lanka. When he inquired from another Sri Lankan as to how he could contribute to the country, the answer was, “Don’t worry, anything can be done because I know the top and lot of politicians.”

This culture of connections needs to change. Individuals without any political connection should be able to achieve in life. One should not need a letter from a politician to get an employer to extend an employment term.

This sort of debacle should stop for rapid development in nations. Qualifications and achievements should be the sole criteria to earn a position. A key factor that helped countries such as Singapore transform from poor countries to well-performing nations was that they ensured education and qualifications were primary criteria to be politicians or to represent people in the parliament and many other government positions. The highest-paid salaries in the world ensured they didn’t steal from every tender or project. The crux of the issue is changing the political culture – a difficult task due to the level of entrenchment of this problem.

People’s power still exists to bring about this change. An example is the 2015 presidential election. The upcoming general election will be a crucial moment to make our society a better place. Electing the best to our nation’s parliament will ensure boat people are not generated, and the country’s youth don’t have to leave our nation just for want of a better life.

* Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Executive Director, LKIIRSS, Sri Lanka

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By Vijay Shankar*

In April 1999, a decade after the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, an encore of the 1989 tragedy unfolded at the same venue. The scale of proportions was the same and so were State anxieties that unleashed mass persecution. In the event, the State came down with its bludgeons on over 10,000 followers of the Buddhist inspired Falun Gong spiritual movement; government assessment placed the number of practitioners at over 70 million. The number of casualties in the crackdown and the subsequent repression which continues to date remains uncorroborated, however estimates suggest over 3,700 deaths in re-education labour camps and custodial torture and a shocking 65,000 in fatal organ harvesting.

Falun Gong philosophy is centred on the Buddhist concept of Dharma Chakra and its morality driven by truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. The Movement’s only plea is to be given recognition, not as some “lunatic fringe” (as State intelligentsia had labelled them), but as a legitimate entity of the People’s Republic of China. So what was it about these gentle devotees that brought upon the ire of the Communist Party of China (CPC)? It certainly could not have been their deep breathing and smooth flowing rhythmic exercises that invited brutal battering, extrajudicial imprisonment in the tens of thousands, psychiatric abuse, torture, alleged fatal organ harvesting and a continued repression that has forced millions of adherents underground.

Most puzzling is the persistent severity of the crackdown and the vicious denunciation of the Movement (membership said to be more than the CPC) as a heretical one. Particularly so, when the labour is pacific in nature and is neither irreverential nor has it set out to desecrate the Communist State. At which time why the Central Committee of the Politburo considers it a menace to the “stability and unity” of the Middle Kingdom remains perplexing. Despite persecution, the fact is that Falun Gong, even today, remains the preferred life style choice of millions of mostly elderly Chinese many of whom are in positions of power.

Stability of political dispensation and territorial unity is considered to lie at the heart China’s national interests. To the CPC, it is non-negotiable and any event that is perceived to even remotely endanger these interests, sets into motion an extreme response. The extraordinarily brutal reaction to root out Falun Gong, an idea that can be traced back to two millennia of Chinese civilisation, in the name of upholding recently imported principles of Marxism-Leninism, is all the more inexplicable when one notes that these latter principles have long since been buried when the State adopted “State-Controlled Capitalism” to drive their economic policies. Is it that the politics of commercialism and economic change can surge ahead, divorced from the politics of the State without undermining stability and unity? Or will we in the immediate future witness devolution of economic activities sacrificed at the altar of centralised political power? And what of the State’s abiding belief in the idea of Da yitong or the imperial concept which saw politics and socio-economics as two sides of the ‘Great Systemic Whole’ which never quite collapsed with the Qing Dynasty in 1912?

It is significant that today the political dispensation in China, with its siege mentality, repressive social policies and a self-ordained (almost imperial) historical mandate; finds itself at odds with the consequences of its economic vigour, and any social dynamic that seeks to make moral interpretations contrary to that by the CPC. Falun Gong is convinced that the practice of atheism has enabled the Communist Party to interpret freely what is virtuous and what is good or bad. Such a flexible approach is abhorrent to the movement for it gives to the ruling elite the powers to blur the distinction between the corrupt and law-abiding. Morality then becomes an act of mass belief that the Party is invariably “truthful, magnificent and exalted.” Falun Gong practitioners, on the other hand, evaluate right or wrong based on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. And this is where the rub comes, for to the CPC any form of spirituality gives people an unchanging standard of good and bad. This obviously hinders the Party’s perpetual efforts to ‘unify’ people’s thinking in order to ‘stabilise’ their own position. The consequences of sharing, the hitherto monopoly on societal power, may explain the fears within.

Thus far China’s splendid economic surge and its exhortations to its people to find ‘goodness’ in getting rich fast has muzzled the impulse to pluralism in political thought and indeed has postponed the need to reckon with the contradictions between central political power and economic vitality. However, as the current economic downturn shrivels political options, the probability of a face off between an ‘old State’ against new societal impulses becomes a reality. It is true that the Peoples Liberation Army may tip the balance, as with the Tiananmen Square uprising of a quarter a century earlier, the old State (albeit in mauled circumstances) may triumph; but this only puts off the inevitable.

In 1859, John Stuart Mill, the British political economist, suggested in his philosophical work On Liberty that “a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.” Repression against the Falun Gong represents one more such dwarfing in a litany which began with Mao’s invasion of Tibet, the “Great Leap Forward,” the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the massacre of Uighurs, Tiananmen Square massacre and the Umbrella Revolution. In each of these seismic episodes the State responded brutally to societal events as it shielded its all-consuming hankering for political power; at the same time the incidents exposed a deepening fear within.

Whether today we can distinguish the concluding steps of a despotic regime in a last ditch attempt to turn back the clock on economic reforms and cling to autocratic power; or the emergence of a new political order that is in sync with the socio-economic vitality of the Chinese people, remains an arguable proposition.

* Vijay Shankar
Former Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Forces Command of India

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It has been said that in international relations there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends only national interests are permanent. The bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States have been cold from a long period of time. Both the states are geographically closer but have been far apart from each other on international plat forum. Cold War rivalry took more than five decades to cool down the stress. Cuba’s close affiliation with former Soviet Union during the Cold War and especially its vital role during Cuban crisis putted an end to its relations with U.S. But recently, the United States of America made an evident shift in her foreign policy by reengaging with Cuba. Efforts have been made by the officials on both sides to recognize the government of Castro as the legitimate government of Cuba. Beginning of U.S. and Cuba’s diplomatic relationship will curb the historical hostility. People of Cuba are also struggling to live in a democratic state where they can practice their rights freely.

In 1982 U.S. put Cuba on terrorism supporting countries in result of Cuban immense support to guerrilla movements in Latin America. Although the support ended with the demise of Soviet Union but Cuban is still facing the consequences till today. The bilateral relations between U.S. and Cuba have been under stress. But now there are some evident U.S. foreign policy changes taking place at global level as well as at regional level. Recently, the U.S. formally excluded Cuba from a list of states backing terrorism. There are only three countries left on this list i.e. Iran, Syria and Sudan. This is a dawn of new bilateral relationship between two states. This attempt will be of great importance for Cuba as in future as it will lift all sanctions prohibiting U.S. economic aid, political support, and defense cooperation to Cuba. U.S. also prohibited the international financial institutions to lend loan to Cuba. So Cuba was not able to get any loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Both the states are looking forward to open embassies in near future.

Cuban people have been suffering due to sanctions imposed and resulting isolation. The historical economic sanctions have affected the Cuban citizens more than regime. After the removal from the list Cuba would be able to play effectively in international market and strengthen its economy. Removal from the list is a big political win for Cuba but in return apparently U.S. got nothing so far. It is expected that may be in future U.S. can use this leverage to deal with the U.S. concerns regarding human rights violation. The old policy of isolating Cuba with the help of economic and political sanctions didn’t turn out to be fruitful. Now U.S. is working towards encouraging U.S. influence in Cuba instead of excluding it. Russia has been involved strategically and economically with Cuba, now U.S. strengthening ties will enable U.S. to keep check on both of them. It will also improve human rights condition in Cuba.

The economies of both the countries will be improved as it will create job opportunities; increase in U.S. exports is also expected. The import/export embargo on Havana imposed because of the oil dispute is still continued. Castro has been using these embargoes and day by day worsening economic condition to generate anti-American sentiments. The uplift of embargo will bring opportunities and will lessen the anti-American sentiments. U.S. economy will also be benefited, although at very small scale but still it will contribute positively. Sanctions have failed to bring any political change in Cuba; opening doors will bring opportunities and will improve living standards of the citizens. Russia is also of the view that economic sanctions will never serve the purpose U.S. should engage with Cuba diplomatically. China, Canada and Latin American countries have also welcomed U.S. efforts to bring an end to historical rivalry.

In order to justify the policy change President Obama said Cuba is being excluded from the list keeping in view no major support by Havana to promote or support international terrorism. Cuba is also making a pledge that it will note support terrorist activities in future threatening international security and stability. Same leverage was also given to Iraq during 1982 in result of Iraq-Iran war of 1980-1988. Iraq was fighting U.S. enemy but annexation of Kuwait again brought back Iraq to this list. Once again Iraq was excluded after the U.S. invasion. The pattern raised many questions that how the standards are altered. This list has always been used as foreign policy tool by the U.S. It seems like Obama is looking towards making up with the old enemies. Interestingly, Iran is also on this list and with ongoing deal Tehran might also be expecting the removal from this list too. The question under observation is that would U.S. be able to give this leverage to Iran also.

The Cuban crisis of 1960s brought the two nuclear states at the cusp of nuclear threshold. Obama’s policy with regard to Iran and Cuba is very vital with regards to changing strategic pattern of global politics. After decades of long hostility, Obama brought the two countries on the table and is trying to end the hostilities. U.S. efforts to bring an end to economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation of Cuba will contribute towards the stability in Cuba. This attempt by Obama administration will also pave the way towards favorable diplomatic relations with Latin America. At this time when the all the countries are enjoying democracy and economic freedom, people of Cuba should be given their natural right to enjoy freedom. The bilateral relations between U.S. and Cuba should focus on the welfare of Cuban people and democratic peace. Use of force did not turned out to be fruitful neither for the U.S. nor for Cuba. The engagement with Cuba will turn out to be productive for the whole region.

*Misbah Ari is a Islamabad based researcher and M.phil scholar at School of International Relations, Quaid-I-Azam University Islamabad.

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The recent announcement by Tundra Fonder, a Swedish asset manager focused on frontier/emerging markets, to open an office in Karachi did not go unnoticed. While it has been running its Pakistan fund for some time, a physical presence in the country holds significance.

With a stable democracy in place following the smooth transition of government, these developments indicate the evincing confidence of the global community in investing into a localised on-ground engagement. But my objective is not to discuss Tundra or KSE. The objective is to understand how the economy can leverage this current improving climate for a more holistic economic agenda. After all, annual GDP growths of 3 percent in recent years do not do justice for a country of 180 million.

While recent positives highlighted in the 2nd review of the IMF assistance suggest the economy is taking constructive shape, a lot is still needed to sustain that graph. Graduates and professionals are adding each year. If job creation fails to keep pace with talent supply, then the youth’s restlessness with the establishment will only increase. Once the organised job market brings in more people within its fold and income sustains a northward trend, the community’s purchasing power rises and creates more demand, thus turning the economic engine with a multiplier effect. Apart from jobs, recent newsflow suggests key challenges facing the economy are broad-basing the economic engine, boosting exports, increasing FDI, reducing dependence on foreign assistance through fiscal self-sufficiency, and converting into a more producer-oriented nation.

These challenges are already known to everyone. Potential solutions are also known. But like I mentioned, how can the economy utilise this improving climate to hasten the economic chart? At such stages, it is imperative to identify and build upon areas of ‘competitive advantages’. These are areas where a country already has some inherent resources, which act as a foundation. Thereafter, once it invests to further develop the talent, processes and competencies of these sectors, they have the potential to grow much faster than other sectors. This helps it become a producer-nation of choice in the global arena in those areas. The aim is to become specialists in areas of competitive advantages so that it becomes a country of ‘first-recall’, or at least ‘initial-recall’, when foreign partners are looking to source or invest. Most importantly, these build brand for the country, and if one looks at the global context, it is critical to create branding in today’s competitive age. Branding creates relevance and recall. Experience of emerging markets shows India did it in ITES/software, Taiwan in chips/semiconductors, China in hardware manufacturing, etc. This enhances opportunities for sustained economic growth, investing into mass job creation, and meet the changing aspirations of its people.

Pakistan already has competencies in textiles, home furnishings, primary products etc. But it needs more to achieve the economic magnitude required for a country its size. Below are six areas where I think the country can convincingly build competitive advantage. It has already gained ground in some of them. But I think it can break even deeper ground globally if it invests into the talent/capital/regulations to build its competitive expertise further, and emerge as a country of initial-recall in them. I have briefly touched upon the basic rationale and challenges for each. Some are with an export-orientation since the domestic market cannot always consume the entire capacity. Also, importance of export earnings cannot be overemphasized for reducing deficits in public finances. However, the country needs to remember it is not alone in competing for these sectors in the global arena. A number of countries are competing, and already have a headstart. But that does not reduce the potential for Pakistan in any way, since the underlying rationale for it is strong enough. It just needs to work to bring the same value to the table at a competitive cost.

‘Global offshoring’ is a new-age sector employing many in the 20-30 age group in many emerging markets. Global offshoring typically operates in a value-chain evolution in any country. It starts from business process outsourcing activities. This employs mass and the client’s main objective is cost reduction. Once the comfort factor deepens with the deliverable consistency and talent quality, it moves to the next stage of the value chain – knowledge process outsourcing activities. This employs specialists and the client’s main objective is intellect replacement. India’s offshoring sector has gone through this evolution, as have Chile and Poland. The Philippines has entered the BPO space, and it evolves similarly. Most South Asian countries have the ingredients for gaining global market share – English language command, a strong schooling/university system thanks to the British colonial legacy, ‘intelligent’ graduates across disciplines who have done well globally and a very young population willing to adapt, learn and put in the long hours. For the BPO segment specifically, the region’s location is such that it can pitch to global clients both in the east and in the west due to minimum time lapse with either. Offshoring has led to huge campuses for captive centers and third-party centers in India, Chile, etc. It is a large scale employer of young population and the scale of investment made locally indicates long term commitments. A challenge to gain global market share is to showcase the capability of its local talent in the global arena, so that conviction builds in their quality. It needs to bring back some citizens from abroad, those who have experience working with the client firms, and hence can bring value to develop the sector back home. Another is the stability, as absence of attrition management strategies creates roadblocks to gain long-term contracts. Infrastructure demands are significant though, with the need to develop large properties around the talent-rich cities.

Pakistan’s ‘Cement’ story is well-recognized. Output of leading cement makers is globally certified, and is comparably cheaper than most other producers. Cement is also a key sector on the KSE. But exports have not picked to the fullest potential. The country has a supply of the key raw material – limestone, to ensure production capacity. On the demand side, construction is going guns-blazing in most developing countries. In India, it is estimated that about two-thirds of the buildings that will exist by 2030 are yet to come up. African nations like Ethiopia, Nigeria, Botswana and Kenya have seen construction activity pick up with improvement in their economies. In the Middle East, large-scale mixed use townships are coming up in Saudi Arabia, etc. The key challenge here is to break into new export markets in both cement and clinker products. This might need continued engagement with stakeholders in those target countries through bilaterals, trade-shows or partnerships. Cost competitiveness in the global market has to be maintained. There is not much one can do about tariff regulations on imports in other countries except bilateral negotiations/advocacy, given most countries produce cement. So it has to concentrate disproportionately to at least keep its local cost of production low, and reducing delivery turnaround by streamlining the corridors which transport the consignment to the ports.

Pakistan is already a key exporter in primary agro produce and some processed foods. Given the socio-economic evolution that typically happens in countries as their economies become larger, it can mean increasing demand for ‘Processed/Packaged Foods’. This is because as the economies become larger, it requires an increase in workforce and longer work-timings. If the experience of India and most other emerging markets shows anything, daily cooking is not practical with a working population comprising both men and women due to lack of time and lack of hands. But since the population is earning more, it is able to pay and willing to pay. Apart from longetivity, increasing awareness of hygiene is another factor. Packaged foods address hygiene better than the raw version. There might be a rationale to invest into further processing facilities given this would have a growing domestic market as its economy becomes larger, plus a major export market if costs remain competitive. Currently, most Asian department stores stock processed/packaged foods from Thailand, Malaysia, China etc. Pakistan already has a ready supply of raw products like meats, grains, fruits, etc, so can compete effectively with the incumbents. Production processes also evolve, as evidenced by the large-scale cattle farms in Argentina etc dedicated for meat produce. Most importantly, this sector addresses a major social objective. It is a major employer of women workforce, thus ensuring women contribute into the economic process and increasing household income. Skills are also easily developed, since the assembling and packaging process is not as complicated as some other manufacturing sectors.

The next area might sound unconventional, but I firmly believe that most people in the South Asian region have a creative and imaginative streak in them. Maybe it has come through heredity due to our centuries-old cultures, or maybe it has come as a ‘counter-force’ to take the mind away from the hardships our countries have faced historically. Whatever the reason, there seems a supply of creativity and imagination in this part of the world.

Developing the ‘Animation and Graphics’ sector might be a way to channelize this talent productively. Thanks to increased proliferation of advertising and entertainment content, there is a big demand potential for both graphics and animation worldwide. Also, as the experience of evolving social structures in most large economies shows more children end up playing on games or watching TV content for entertainment, rather than playing outdoors. While this might not sound a healthy proposition, Pakistan might eventually also go the same way. Japan, Korea and India have developed hubs of production, whose content are viewed globally today. If Pakistan can produce excellent children’s content like Sim-Sim Humara, it can do in graphics and animation as well. Burqa Avenger series is an example. Increasing the manpower supply needs professional institutes dedicated to these disciplines, which churn out skilled professionals in designing, visualization, artwork, character modeling, etc. The inherent imagination and creativity will achieve the rest.

Despite resolving its electricity ‘circular debt’ conundrum, the country still faces energy challenges. Increase in economic activity will demand even more power. Prices of oil and natural gas imports will not become much cheaper, keeping the cost of producing electricity high. For a country with a large area and energy shortage, large-scale ‘Solar Farms’ connected to the national/provincial grids might address some of the shortfall. Solar photovoltaic panels are easily set up on tracts where real estate and agriculture development are not occurring. The main challenge is the panel cost, as it can make the per-unit electricity costly. However, as demand picks up with increasing acceptability of energy alternatives, the cost of panels can be estimated to move southwards. An example is of CFL bulbs in India, whose price reduced drastically in recent years as demand increased. Local factories of panels can also come up with improving visibility of the demand potential, creating further jobs and export opportunities. Panels are the main cost, as sunlight is ‘free’. Some of the cost incurred can be realized by staggered pricing for higher levels of electricity consumption per dwelling, though this is a sensitive issue. Owners of the identified tracts need to be compensated through leases. Earmarking such land parcels at the initial stage itself would help estimate the quantum of panels to be procured, and thus bargain for better pricing. Output can also be exported out to its neighbouring markets if the rationale and network exists.

Sending out ‘Instructors for English-language, Primary and Secondary Education’ might seem unconventional too, but there is a rationale. First, many countries have emerged from decades-long civil wars in recent years. Their middle-aged generation spent most of its time in a conflict zone and did not pick up education to that extent. Hence, the supply of instructors to teach their young generation is limited. Second, there are countries which are seeing growth now, but need to increase their qualified workforce to achieve the next level of growth. But education enrolments were not high in the past, hence the supply to teach increased number of students is limited. Third, there are countries where English speakers were limited, but are now focusing on this skill in today’s modern economic age. Examples of all the three cases abound across continents. In order to meet the supply of instructors, there might be potential to send out qualified instructors to those countries.

The region has excellent educational institutions built from the British times, which are producing quality manpower in line with the British education system. Hence, supply is assured and of good quality. Such instructors might emerge as a key source of foreign remittances in coming years. They might be cost effective as compared to instructors from Western countries. For instance, a number of English instructors have moved to China from the West, but I am sure the cost of Asian instructors would be lower comparatively. The only reason why I am limiting the scope of instructors to schooling is because schooling content is more universal across countries, and this is the foundation which many countries are unable to fill in. Higher education can be the next stage.

In conclusion, I stress that it is imperative for the economy to utilise its current improving climate by concentrating on areas of ‘competitive advantages’. It has to emerge as a country of initial-recall in the global market in those areas ahead of peers. Its businesses have to increase their visibility on global platforms like roadshows, tradeshows and forums. Developing areas of competitive advantage will help realize long-term mass employment generation, sustained economic growth, export earnings and build a brand for it in the global arena.

*Sourajit Aiyer has written in over 30 publications globally and is the author of the E-Book, “Flying with the Winged Elephant: Niche business themes that may emerge in India for global investors”. Views expressed are entirely personal

Originally published in The News International, Jang Group, Pakistan, and contributed by the author.

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On May 25, we celebrated the first anniversary of the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the billionaire oligarch turned statesman who won a landslide 56% of the vote in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential elections. Elected on a near impossible platform of putting the embattled nation on a firm European track, curtailing the influence of the oligarchs, rebooting the economy and stamping out corruption, all in time for a second four year term, it’s no surprise that Ukrainians don’t think too highly of their so-called “Chocolate King”.

Polls show that 60% of the country disapproves of his job performance and 70% believe Ukraine is heading in the wrong direction. This should come as no surprise: the country has indeed suffered greatly this past year. From a war with Russian-backed rebels in the east to an economy in the doldrums, the piecemeal efforts at reform have failed the idealistic protestors that gathered on Kiev’s Maidan Square in the winter of 2013.

A frozen conflict?

Violence on the front lines, which has so far claimed the lives of over 6,400, has subsided relative to pre-ceasefire levels, but reports confirm that there are daily violations of the Minsk II accord as shelling continues relentlessly in the region. Fears that Russia may renew aggression at any given moment has caused EU leaders to put pressure on Ukraine to be “more cooperative” in hashing out a long-term solution. Minsk II laid out clear political steps, such as granting the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk autonomy, paving the way for local elections, and restoring public finances to the war-torn region – key demands if the country is to regain control over its territory.

But in spite of a civil war that is costing the country upwards of $5 million a day, Poroshenko has largely been seen as dragging his feet over implementing key clauses – such as political decentralization – sparking fears that the fragile peace deal will break down. Recently, analysts have announced that,  “key stakeholders in the crisis lack the political will to compromise with one other and to commit to a peaceful resolution”. Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande wasted no time when he brashly said recently that, “the only line of conduct is the full implementation of the Minsk accord” sending a clear signal to Kiev that the deal is non-negotiable.

However, Oleksiy Melnyk, a security expert at Kiev’s Razumkov Center is right to point out that, “slow and unsuccessful reforms are a bigger existential threat than the Russian aggression”, a view echoed by EU officials, concerned over Kiev’s slow advances.

Economy going down the drain

Ukraine’s GDP shrank by 17.6% in the first quarter of this year, and inflation skyrocketed to 60.9% year-on-year, pushing the poverty rate up by 30%. US-born Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko blamed the decline on the tumble of oil prices and the sanctions regime against Russia, Ukraine’s key market for exports.  Furthermore, while Ukraine was given a break earlier this year in the form of a $25 billion loan package from its international lenders, the government is still entangled in intense talks with its creditors over a debt restructuring agreement to bridge a $15 billion funding gap.

But while EU officials remain concerned over Kiev’s snail pace reforms, Poroshenko disagrees, pointing with satisfaction to new legislation strengthening the rule of law, reducing burdens for running businesses in Ukraine, and reforming the energy sector.  However, the reality is far from the optimistic picture the President paints. For starters, corruption has continued largely unabated. According to David Sakvarelidze, the Georgian born deputy prosecutor who helped carry out reforms in his own country, “no systemic changes have been made in law enforcement agencies and courts”. Delays in appointing the head of the anticorruption bureau means that promises of restitution have gone unaddressed and the task force remains behind on its anti-corruption agenda. The pro-business initiatives have not borne fruit and the energy reforms have led to an increase of 450% in gas prices for the already impoverished population, and the country is still billions short in balancing its budget.

Nazis, oligarchs and the hunt for enemies

In between quarrelling with Moscow and courting Western leaders for cash, President Poroshenko’s prized accomplishment has been to curb the power and influence of the ancien regime in a widely publicized campaign that rests on two pillars: de-communization and de-oligarchisation.

In early May, Poroshenko enacted a law banning the use of Soviet-era emblems, renaming streets and towns with Soviet names, all the while honoring nationalist groups who fought alongside the Nazis in the Second World War. While such a law gives the Ukrainian national identity an extra dose of patriotism, it is also a sure way of angering both human rights watchdogs and Moscow. As an analyst pointed out, it appears that the government has found it “easier to legislate on history [rather than] to fix Ukraine’s many current problems”.

The second pillar, de-oligarchisation, began in March 2015 when Ihor Kolomoisky was swiftly dismissed by Poroshenko from his post of regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk after the oligarch used his private army to oppose the government’s decision to strip him of a controlling stake in state owned oil company Ukrnafta. Next came Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. Accused of staging a miners protest aimed at discrediting the government, Akhmetov is now facing a probe over his suspicious acquisition of ore assets during the murky era of privatizations in the 1990s.

And then there is Dmitry Firtash, who recently won a case in Vienna against his extradition at the request of US authorities, which the Austrian judge dismissed as “politically motivated”. Today, Firtash, who recently launched the Agency for Modernization of Ukraine is increasingly positioning himself as part of the solution in the country, is finding his assets under attack. The government confiscated 500m cubic meters of gas belonging to his company, Ostchem, while expressing willingness to cooperate with US investigators in their request for extradition. For his part, Firtash has responded by comparing Ukraine’s rich to scapegoats for a President who has failed to pursue reforms, claiming that, “[When] you don’t have anything to report on what you have already done, you need an enemy”.

Despite Poroshenko’s seemingly intolerant stance on Ukraine’s oligarchs and their influence on the state, the President, himself an oligarch governing a chocolate and media empire, has refused to uphold his own campaign promises of selling his business interests, even when faced with interested buyers – his confectionary company, Roshen, has rejected a $1 billion offer from Nestle. In fact, while other Ukrainian businesses have been forced to close down, Poroshenko’s income actually rose as Roshen has opened 14 new candy stores in the Kiev area and 5 in Kharkhiv since the start of 2014. Poroshenko remains an unacceptable exception in the war against oligarchs, and if his anti-corruption drive is to be taken seriously, he should first and foremost lead by example.

Looking ahead to 2016

One year on, Ukraine seems to be stuck between an even harder rock and an even harder place than in 2014.

But breaking the deadlock is not impossible. For starters, Kiev needs to ensure the swift adoption of the Minsk II accord – by decentralizing powers to separatist regions. Economic reforms should be accelerated, as the international markets are unforgiving and the population is growing restless. The anti-corruption drive needs to be continued but the President needs to dispel worries that he is using the scales of justice to exact revenge on rivals or to conduct political purges of competitors.

And so, Poroshenko’s presidency finds itself in a pivotal phase: either the Chocolate King makes efforts to break out of the vicious tradition of presidential candidates enriching themselves while using public office to eliminate rivals, or Ukraine will continue to circle the drain, inching ever closer to a failed state.

*Andrew Witthoeft works as an EU affairs advisor for an international consulting firm, dividing time between Brussels and home town of Seattle.

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Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps have become more crowded since March of 2011, but in large numbers starting in mid-December 2012, when Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp was heavily bombed. Between 70,000 and 90,000 Syrian-Palestinians have entered Lebanon and are staying mainly in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps. Most were forced out of Syria because of persistent and accelerating civil-sectarian war, while others have left because of the lack of resources.

This young American had the privilege of speaking with Wisam, who has been living as a refugee in Lebanon since 2012. Wisam was born in 1986 in Damascus, Syria. Unlike many Syrian-Palestinians, who are often born in refugee camps, he was born in a hospital in Damascus. He is the middle-child of five, with three brothers and one sister. His father worked a bureaucratic position in the Syrian government, and his mother stayed at home with the children at their two flats in Almshtel, near Seyeda Zeinab, south of Damascus.

In Syria, Wisam did not face any discrimination for being Palestinian. He remembers being treated as an equal by Syrians and by governmental agencies. Like almost all Palestinians however, he did attend UNRWA schools and reminisced, with seeming nostalgia, about what he considers was a good education, reciting the general public view that UNRWA schools were often better Syrian state schools. In Syria, Wisam received no financial assistance for college, but tuition was amazingly affordable costing only $30 a year and between $50 and $100 a year for books. Wisam graduated from Damascus University in 2009 and earned his degree in English. Two months after graduating, he obtained a job at a hotel in Damascus, working as a receptionist.

With tensions building in Syria, Wisam considered leaving in March 2012, after receiving “Dafter Khedmet el Alam”—summoning him to join the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA). This prompted him to apply for a declaration to enter Lebanon. He explained to me: “Syrians are able to enter Lebanon without tourist visas, but Syrian-Palestinians do need ID documents.” Within a month, on April 19th 2012, he left Syria for Lebanon.

Getting through the Syrian-Lebanese border was not difficult at the time that he crossed, but Wisam waited before the Masnaa entrance to Lebanon for two hours while the border officials questioned people. At first, he didn’t tell his parents what he was doing, because he knew they would disapprove since they wanted him to join the military. When they found out, they refused to speak to him for a month before coming to terms with his choice, deciding “that’s Allah”. Forty days after Wisam left, his family left Almshtel to stay with his grandmother, due to the eruption of fighting in their neighborhood between the Syrian Army and the Free Syrian Army.

“Compared to Syria, life in Lebanon is disgusting. Life is different in every way: with housing, schools, visas and work—especially work, since Palestinians are not permitted to work, and the majority relies on UNRWA’s meager assistance. Upon arriving to Lebanon, Wisam stayed in the north, as Baddawi Camp near Tripoli. After two and a half years, he moved to Shatilla hoping to get a job. At first, he was able to work at Shatilla Camp’s IRC (International Rescue Committee) as a social worker. As with many NGO’s in this region of conflict, the program he worked for was cancelled due to lack of funding. Wisam expressed liking his work very much. He worked with kids and had them participate in educational and fun activities. The program really helped the children, because they could socialize with peers and enjoy themselves instead of focusing on being separated from their families and their terrible current living situation.

Living in Baddawi camp for two and a half years, where he stayed among friends and their families, Wissam discovered many people staying in Baddawi camp have also fled Syria in the past four years, making it easier to connect to one another. For everyone living in Lebanon’s camps, friends and family are the most important part of enduring the hardship. Love, compassion, and unity are what sustains these communities as well as the desire to one day travel abroad and live with dignity. Besides friends, Wisam preferred Baddawi camp because it is less crowded and less chaotic than Shatila, quieter, cleaner, has better food and healthcare services and programs for children. He even thinks people overall, are nicer up north. He added, laughing, even the nargile (water pipes) are better.

Shatilla, Wisam says, is repulsive, because of the narrow streets filled with trash and puddles, higher rent for small apartments, and no fresh water, but instead salt water for showering. “But friends make it easier to endure,” and that seems to be true for anyone living in poverty. When first leaving Baddawi and venturing to Shatilla, Wisam thought it was horrible but gradually, after several months, he has adjusted to the “bad situation.”

Wisam is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have fled Syria. Many of his friends have also left Syria, having travelled to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and Malaysia. Some are able to work—especially in Europe—but the majority of his friends remain in refugee camps in this region.

I asked how his friends were able to get to Europe, as that is nearly impossible for most Palestinians. His response was “death boats” where people sneak onto boats and into the country they’re traveling to. It’s an uncertain adventure for those who try, but those who arrive safely approach a more optimistic life.

Regarding the turmoil in his birth country, I was curious about Wisam’s views on his president, Bashar al Assad. Wisam stated before he left Syria, he supported Assad, but now he doesn’t. Wisam believes that every group in Syria fighting for power is wrong, resulting in nothing but unimaginable civilian deaths. As for Palestinian politics, he hates all parties because they “play with people like toys” and never achieve anything. He provided an example about the well-known Yarmouk camp in Syria, explaining that no party serves the people; at least one person dies a day and children don’t have food or water.

When I asked Wisam about the future, he sighed and said it was unsure and obscure. Wisam is pessimistic about ever going to Palestine because he doesn’t think it’s realistic. Instead he dreams of immigrating to Europe, specifically Germany, because it’s an industrial nation and he wants to find a job.

During the first two years after leaving Syria, Wassim wanted to go back, but because he would have to serve in the military, Europe is the better alternative. “Of course I made the right choice by leaving Syria,” he responded when I asked him, adding that he did not want to come to Lebanon, but it was his only option. Wisam hopes to find a job and leave Shatilla Camp, and just knowing he will eventually get out of Lebanon, sustains him.

*Louisa Lamb has her B.A. in Psychology and is an independent researcher and journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized. She can be reached c/o louisaalamb@gmail.com

The post ‘It’s Like A Jail': An Account Of Life In Lebanon’s Refugee Camps As Told By A Syrian-Palestinian Refugee – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mirjam van Reisen* and Klara Smits

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea has released a damning report about the situation in the country in the Horn of Africa. “It is not law that rules in Eritrea – but fear,” states the report. Some of the violations described in the report may constitute crimes against humanity.

The report was made public on June 8. The “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” – for which the Eritrean government is responsible – are extensive and varied. “We seldom see human rights violations of the scope and scale we see in Eritrea today,” said Sheila B. Keetharuth from Mauritius, one of the three members of the Commission, in a press conference on June 8.

The UN commission is chaired by Mike Smith of Australia, with Victor Dankwa of Ghana, and Keetharuth, who also serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, as commissioners.

The national service in Eritrea, which is of indefinite nature from the age of 17 on, is said to have widespread “slavery-like practices”. Not only is the pay very low, practices like rape, detention and torture are widespread. Combined with the absence of basic human needs such as water, food and adequate shelter, death, disabilities and psychological damage occur often.

Critics are seen as traitors and are severely punished, detained or they just disappear. Even outside Eritrea, the report states, the Eritrean government keeps targeting its diaspora, a practice that is known to take place on a large scale in the European countries. Constant surveillance keeps all Eritrean citizens constantly suspicious and on edge, the report states. Also, the government executes illegitimate forced evictions and seizure of property.

The Commission in nearly 500 pages describes the detailed findings. Besides an extensive review of the history, the legal framework and the context of the current human rights violations, the report goes into great length to describe the ways in which human rights of Eritreans are violated.

Although the Commission was denied access to Eritrea, the findings were obtained through 550 interviews with witnesses and 160 written submissions. One of the major obstacles in obtaining data was the fear of the witnesses for retaliation, even with the promise of confidentiality.

The report of the UN Commission comes as the topic of migration is high on the agenda in the European Union. Many of the boat refugees that risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea in unsafe boats are Eritreans. Even before they step onto the boats, Eritrean refugees face a dangerous journey.

This is illustrated by the recent news that militants from the Islamic State in Libya kidnapped 86 Eritrean refugees. The abducted individuals are separated according to their faith, and fiercely interrogated about the Islam if they claim to be Muslims.

The details of these kidnappings are becoming clearer as several men were able to escape. Even in the face of these kinds of danger, the report says, the Eritreans are desperate to flee what they feel to be a hopeless situation. Therefore, the Commission urges the international community to offer protection for Eritrean refugees and to not send them back.

The report also offers vital evidence against the proposal of aid to Eritrea made by the European Commission. The aid, according to the Commission, would help to decrease migration due to the poor economic situation in Eritrea. This proposal would see the amount of aid to Eritrea triple, in exchange for unclear promises of the Eritrean President to limit the forced conscription to 18 months.

However, this proposal overlooks the overarching political reason for the increased flows of migration. Eritrean civic groups and individuals, scholars and the UN Commission, have already fiercely protested the proposal.

The report by the UN Commission shows that not only is there no apparent improvement in the human rights situation in Eritrea, but also that previous promises of improvement by the Eritrean regime were never upheld. “To ascribe their decision to leave solely to economic reasons is to ignore the dire situation of human rights in Eritrea and the very real suffering of its people.”

(The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Eritrea described the report a “cynical political travesty that undermines human rights”. In a press statement on June 9, the Ministry said: “The people and govermment of Eritrea find the wild accusations . . . totally unfounded and devoid of all merit . . . They are an attack, not so much on the government, but on a civilized people and society who cherish human values.” – Editor)

The Commission is scheduled to formally present its report to the UN Human Rights Council on June 23 in Geneva. The full report and documentation are available on http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIEritrea/Pages/ReportCoIEritrea.aspx

*Prof. Dr Mirjam van Reisen is Professor International Social Responsibility, Tilburg University, Director Europe External Policy Advisors (EEPA), and Member of the Dutch Government Council on International Affairs and Chair of the Development Cooperation Commission. She is author of the “Human Trafficking Cycle, Sinai and Beyond”, 2014, Wolf Publications.

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As some Southeast Asian countries consider using nuclear energy, the region should now be preparing a regional nuclear emergency response, incorporating technological and nuclear emergencies into its disaster management framework.

By Julius Cesar I. Trajano*

As selected Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia look to utilise nuclear energy from 2020, it is imperative for ASEAN to start developing a regional nuclear emergency response and incorporating technological disaster and nuclear crisis into its disaster management and response framework. ASEAN member-states have been institutionalising national and regional disaster response mechanisms to effectively mobilise international humanitarian response to natural disasters that typically hit Southeast Asia. Currently, national and regional strategies and various disaster response simulation exercises of ASEAN and its dialogue partners focus heavily on natural disasters such as earthquake, volcanic eruption, flooding and typhoon, but not on technological disasters.

Nuclear crisis as a technological disaster

The 3rd UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) held in Sendai, Japan in March 2015 cast the spotlight on preparedness for technological disasters with a working session on a range of technological disasters including chemical and nuclear emergencies. Natural disasters can trigger technological disasters (“natech”) and these simultaneous crises may pose tremendous risks to countries and communities that are unprepared for them. The most recent example is the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami which triggered a nuclear disaster in Fukushima prefecture and led to the evacuation of more than 120,000 residents.

The director-general of Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency recently stated that Vietnam would only begin constructing its first nuclear power plant when all safety conditions are met. Though Vietnam has the most advanced nuclear preparatory programme in the region it is also vulnerable to disasters. Its government’s climate modelling exercises found that due to climate change, the coastal province of Ninh Thuan, where the first nuclear reactor will be built, is now more vulnerable to stronger typhoons which can generate severe storm surges that damage infrastructure, according to government scientists. The Vietnamese coastline is also vulnerable to tsunamis potentially originating from a strong tremor in the South China Sea.

Although not all ASEAN member-states have plans to build nuclear reactors, there are crucial reasons why they all have a vested interest in collectively institutionalising a joint emergency response. The transboundary radioactive plumes from a nuclear meltdown may have severe consequences, such as higher cancer risk and contamination of food and water sources, irrespective of national boundaries in the region.

External training assistance from nuclear partners

Some ASEAN countries have already been receiving nuclear emergency training from nuclear-powered states through bilateral arrangements. For instance, Russia and Vietnam have just signed an agreement on human resource training, including crisis management; accordingly, Russia’s ROSATOM will train Vietnamese nuclear experts from now to 2020. The US Department of Energy – National Nuclear Security Administration has been assisting Vietnam and the Philippines to establish emergency operations centres and a graphic information system that will facilitate information sharing and conduct annual training on nuclear and radiological emergency response. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) regularly holds training courses on nuclear emergency preparedness and response with the respective nuclear agencies and disaster response units of the governments of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Regional emergency exercises

These bilateral arrangements to enhance the national capability for nuclear emergency response of individual ASEAN states should be replicated and expanded at the regional level as ASEAN member-states can engage nuclear-powered states who are also ASEAN’s dialogue partners. Two mechanisms can be institutionalised to bolster the region’s nuclear emergency response capability, joint nuclear emergency drills and a regional nuclear crisis centre.

ASEAN member-states can incorporate joint nuclear emergency drills into the region’s disaster response exercises such as the ASEAN Disaster Emergency Response Simulation Exercises and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM)-Plus Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR)/Military Medicine Exercise. In addition, given the trans-boundary implications of a nuclear disaster, relevant countries can work together to formulate joint efforts to clean up affected sites of radioactive deposits.

To this end, the region can establish a regional contingent of specially trained nuclear disaster emergency responders, similar to the ASEAN-Emergency Rapid Assessment Team found in the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre). This cooperation platform can develop a set of standard operating procedures that synchronises the different operating protocols used by each country, which will enable better cooperation and coordination among countries involved in joint nuclear emergency relief efforts.

An ASEAN Nuclear Crisis Centre

Considering the need to coordinate responses to nuclear crises, ASEAN can set up a regional nuclear crisis centre in which the region’s highly trained radiation emergency responders can come together and participate in workshops, trainings and joint drills. This would facilitate information exchange and increase response coordination in case member states will get affected by radiation plumes. In times of crisis, the centre can act as a special coordinating body for regional and civil-military nuclear emergency response.

The peculiar nature of a radiation-related disaster requires the existence of a special coordinating body, such as a nuclear crisis centre, which is expected to be conversant with the appropriate responses to this type of technological disaster. It may also serve as an information clearing house, relaying up to date information regarding radiation risk in the region. It can be a specialised unit within the AHA Centre. However, support from and coordination with all ASEAN countries, militaries, and existing civilian relief organisations is essential if a regional nuclear crisis centre is to be established and recognised as a regional coordinating body.

In view of the nuclear energy plans in the region, it is now imperative to start cultivating a regional culture of robust response readiness. To be able to respond to a nuclear crisis in the future, ASEAN member states, with the support of their dialogue partners with greater technical experience in nuclear power, should now enhance regional coordination, communication, and training on technological disasters and a thorough regional emergency preparedness and response plan. Early preparations can help the region identify and address its gaps and limitations in its response readiness even before any of its members builds a nuclear power plant.

*Julius Cesar I. Trajano is Senior Analyst with the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme, Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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AIIB’s founding members, led by China, could develop new standards for global governance.

By Stephen S. Roach*

China is making waves again, not just in the South China Sea, but in the world of development finance as well. Just as the economy shifts support from external to internal demand, the nation’s worldview is going through an equally dramatic transformation.

The inward focus on domestic stability, one of the hallmarks of the “reforms and opening up” of Deng Xiaoping during the 1980s, is now being augmented by an outward-facing focus on China’s emerging role as a global leader, a key ingredient of the “China Dream” espoused by Party Secretary General Xi Jinping. These two sides of the same coin underscore the daunting challenges China faces in its search for a more sustainable development strategy.

There has been a rich discussion of China’s economic-rebalancing imperatives, shifting the growth engine from manufacturing and exports to services and private consumption. By contrast, the bulk of the debate over China’s new outward-facing geostrategic role has largely been framed in situational terms. That’s certainly true of recent territorial disputes in the East and South China seas, but it’s also the case in China’s “One Belt, One Road” plan for pan-regional integration – stretching from East Asia to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Missing in this discussion is a deeper examination of the strategy and principles of institution building and the role they will play in forming the foundations of China’s regional development aspirations.

Topping that discussion list is global governance – in particular, the standards and processes that define the effectiveness of international institutions. China faces a steep learning curve as it attempts to integrate institution building into the global policy architecture. Until now, the nation has largely been a follower, not a leader, in shaping the conventions of global governance. As an active member of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and more, China has developed a keen appreciation of the norms of western governance. But now China is engaged in global institution building of its own – the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New (BRICS) Development Bank. And that casts China in a new and important role in the global governance debate.

This is not just theoretical conjecture. Later this month, the first general meeting of the 57 members of the AIIB will be convened in Beijing. A leading item on the agenda is governance – signing and unveiling the articles of agreement that were finalized at a late May negotiating session in Singapore. While China has taken the lead in driving the establishment of this institution, slated to commence operations by the end of 2015, it knows full well that it must be open and judicious in framing the broad parameters of its governance. The AIIB’s ultimate effectiveness will hinge on the broad membership’s acceptance of the new norms of its operating procedures. Success will be measured in terms of collective buy-in, not on the heft of China’s outsized initial capital contribution of around $25 billion.

Institutional governance is a complex topic that covers a wide range of organizational guidelines and operating conditions. Three key aspects of global governance will be crucial for a successful launch of the AIIB – transparency, representational voting rights and compliance. When the articles of agreement are made public in late June, they need to be evaluated from each of these perspectives.

First and foremost, transparency of the lending process is absolutely vital if AIIB is to fulfill its mission in helping to fund Asia’s massive infrastructure gap – estimated by the Asian Development Bank at some $8 trillion by 2020. Full disclosure of loan covenants and requirements for project approvals – including rates of return, environmental impacts and compliance with the global norms of labor and procurement standards – are essential. In the same sense, it would be helpful to have a clear sense of the AIIB’s overview of Asia’s infrastructure imperatives. That would provide a framework, or roadmap, for assessing how specific projects fit into the grand scheme as well as complement other regional efforts such as China’s Silk Road Fund, its related “One Belt, One Road” initiative, and lending programs of the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

Global financial institutions compared

Second, a credible representational voting mechanism is required for the effective operation of any international institution. While it makes sense to allocate votes in accordance with the capital contribution of the 57 founding members, the governing board of the AIIB should make an effort to avoid the pitfalls troubling other international institutions – namely, the veto power of large contributors that has long clogged decision-making at the IMF, the World Bank and the UN. It is reassuring that China apparently will not have such power in the AIIB.

Related to this are organizational leadership conventions. Just because the West has clung to now antiquated leadership conventions for the two Bretton Woods institutions – with a European head of the IMF and a US head of the World Bank – it would be imprudent of China to insist on a Chinese head of the AIIB in perpetuity. It’s only a matter of time before the IMF and World Bank adopt a more open leadership selection process. China and the rest of the AIIB membership should take the lead in framing a more enlightened approach to leadership selection. Similar considerations pertain to the structure of the AIIB’s 12-member board of directors – especially the balance between regional, non-regional and independent directors.

Third, robust and credible compliance procedures are essential for the effective governance of any successful international institution. Compliance not only legitimizes the standards embedded in funding and lending contracts, but also shapes the dispute resolution mechanisms that are needed to arbitrate the inevitable give and take over large loans and their repayment schedules. It is equally important to align compliance procedures of a new institution like the AIIB with the norms of international legal standards as well as to build an internal legal staff that has the professional expertise on par with existing legal systems in the West. The appointment to AIIB general counsel of US attorney Natalie Lichtenstein, well seasoned in the legalities of multilateral organizations, is especially encouraging in this respect.

While transparency, representational voting rights and compliance should be at the top of the governance debate in the establishment of the AIIB, a host of other related issues should be considered, too. Successful governance of any institution is, of course, heavily dependent on the skillset and integrity of its professional staff. For a new institution like the AIIB, that means the highest priority needs to be placed on recruiting, talent management, retention and market-based compensation schemes. In addition, it’s equally essential to establish impregnable firewalls between the operating function of the organization and political agendas of national members. Political independence is absolutely vital for successful governance of the AIIB.

In the end, governance is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. The 57 founding members of the AIIB have a rare opportunity to establish new global governance standards and shape infrastructure investment as insiders in setting up a new international lending institution. For those on the outside looking in – namely, the United States, Japan, and Canada – that role is not an option. And that’s a real pity.

*Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (2014).

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By Mohammed Mussa

The international sea law has been merging since Convention of Law of the Sea, which created a favourable atmosphere of International Sea Law. This article aims to unleash the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, how this law was developing from time to time and how different bodies like United Nations are trying to put into practice this Law.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which took place between 1973 and 1982. The Law of the Sea Convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources. The Convention, concluded in 1982, replaced four 1958 treaties. UNCLOS came into force in 1994, a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to sign the treaty. As of January 2015, 166 countries and the European Union have joined in the Convention. However, it is uncertain as to what extent the Convention codifies customary international law[1].

While the Secretary General of the United Nations receives instruments of ratification and accession and the UN provides support for meetings of states party to the Convention, the UN has no direct operational role in the implementation of the Convention. There is, however, a role played by organizations such as the International Maritime Organization, the International Whaling Commission, and the International Seabed Authority (ISA). (The ISA was established by the UN Convention.)

The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea was not a new construct; rather, it was the product of centuries of practice, three UN conferences (1958, 1960, and 1973–1982), and a subsequent agreement on implementation, negotiated from 1990 to 1994. Nor was the convention a new issue for the U.S. Senate. In force since 1994, the convention has been awaiting review since its transmission to the Senate by President Clinton in 1994. For a decade and a half the convention has been pending Senate approval and has been the subject of debate between a broad bipartisan constituency actively working toward accession and a vocal minority blocking legislative action in the belief that it would burden the United States with additional international commitments.

Humankind has exploited the sea for centuries, and this has frequently led to conflict. With the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982, the international community created a comprehensive framework for legal governance of the seas which, over time, has evolved into a powerful body of law. However, it cannot provide an answer to every problem that arises.

ONE SET OF RULES FOR ALL STATES

The international law of the sea comprises all the legal norms pertaining to the sea and applicable to relations between states. It contains rules on the delimitation and exploitation of maritime areas as well as provisions on the protection and exploration of the oceans. However, some fields fall outside its scope; these include matters covered by national legislation, such as regulations on port and harbour operations, and maritime law, which in Germany is mainly enshrined in the Commercial Code and regulates activities such as the transportation of goods.

THE END OF LEGAL FREEDOM

For thousands of years, the sea was simply a source of food and was only of interest to people to that extent. With the rise of the great seafaring nations such as the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain from the 15th century onwards, however, these kingdoms increasingly sought to expand their spheres of influence. Access to mineral resources and other new commodities aroused ambitions and triggered a race to conquer the oceans, faraway islands and coastlines and thus achieve dominance in the world. This led to numerous wars and sea battles.

Early on, scholars sought answers to one important question: who does the sea actually belong to? It is a question which the international law of the sea has been unable to resolve satisfactorily to this day. From the outset, the quest for an answer was dominated by the tension between the concept of the freedom of the seas, or mare liberum (the free sea), formulated by the Dutch philosopher and jurist Hugo Grotius (1583 to 1645), and the concept of mare clausum (closed sea) developed by the English scholar and polymath John Selden (1584 to 1654). The pivotal issue was – and is – whether the sea is international territory and all nations are free to use it, or whether it can be claimed by individual states.

Neither of these two positions has ultimately prevailed, and the conflict between the positions is still apparent in the present structure of the international law of the sea.

Currently, the primary instrument of governance for the seas is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was adopted in 1982 as the outcome of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III). Various norms of customary international law supplement UNCLOS. The Convention is the most comprehensive international treaty ever concluded. It is based on the four Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea adopted in 1958: these are the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone; the Convention on the High Seas; the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas; and the Convention on the Continental Shelf. These treaties codified the – unwritten – customary law which had previously applied. For example, since the mid-17th century, countries had generally accepted that national rights applied to a specified belt of water, known as the territorial sea, extending from a nation’s coastlines, usually for three nautical miles – roughly equivalent to the distance travelled by a cannon shot.

From the mid-20th century, the seas became an increasing focus of interest as a source of natural resources such as oil and gas. Many coastal states therefore attempted to extend their national jurisdiction over ever-larger areas of the sea and the seabed. Some laid claim to a 200 nautical mile zone. The concept of “mare liberum” ap­­peared to have been consigned to history. After an initial attempt to regulate the maximum permissible extent of the territorial sea in an international treaty failed in 1930, the four Geneva Conventions were finally adopted under United Nations auspices in 1958. The aim of these international agreements was to prevent the sea from being divided up, once and for all, between various countries. However, this aim was not achieved in full. For example, the discovery of major deep seabed deposits of manganese nodules in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, at considerable distance from the coast, in the 1960s sparked new ambitions among the industrial countries. At present, the key question being discussed is which nations can lay claim to the wealth of mineral resources located in the Arctic, which in future will become easier to access as the sea ice retreats.

MORE SCOPE FOR COASTAL STATES

Today, UNCLOS draws together the four Geneva Conventions – the “old” law of the sea – in a single unified treaty. In substantive terms, however, it actually goes further than the four. For example, under the “new” law of the sea, the rights of the coastal states are expanded, in some cases substantially, in both qualitative and quantitative terms. For example, each coastal state has exclusive rights to exploit the fish stocks in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which extends to a distance of 200 nautical miles out from the coastal baseline. Under the Geneva Conventions, the EEZ did not exist. UNCLOS also provides the legal basis for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which commenced its work in Hamburg in 1996. However, the Tribunal is not the only judicial institution responsible for safeguarding compliance with UNCLOS. The states parties to UNCLOS are free to choose whether they wish to submit disputes concerning the interpretation and application of UNCLOS to ITLOS, or whether they prefer to apply to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague or another international arbitral tribunal.

It took some years for UNCLOS to be accepted: most industrialized countries rejected it at first due to a number of highly contentious provisions on deep sea mining. For example, UNCLOS initially required these nations to share their deep sea mining know-how with the developing countries. Once the provisions had been watered down, reinforcing the position of the industrial nations, UNCLOS entered into force in 1994, 12 months after Guyana became the 60th country to sign the Convention and 12 years after its adoption. As of July 2009, 157 states had acceded to the Convention. Countries which have not acceded to UNCLOS are still bound by the provisions of the 1958 Geneva Conventions and the norms of customary international law

CLEAR RULES, CLEAR LIMITS

The international law of the sea establishes a framework for conduct, especially in relation to economic interests, with which compliance is mandatory. It regulates fishing and navigation and the extraction of oil and gas at sea. Also the exploitation of other resources of the deep seabed and the protection of the marine environment are regulated.

The law divides the seas into various legal zones. It defines the legal status and extent of these zones and establishes norms governing the rights and jurisdictions of the coastal and flag states in respect of these zones. A state’s jurisdiction decreases as the distance from the coast increases. Jurisdiction ranges from full territorial sovereignty (in internal waters) to limited “aquitorial” sovereignty (in the territorial sea) and limited jurisdiction (in the EEZ and continental shelf). The reference for the calculation of the various maritime zones is known as the baseline. The normal baseline is the mean low-water line along the coast as marked on charts officially recognized by the coastal state.

Waters on the landward side of the baseline belong to the state’s internal waters. They form part of the national territory of the coastal state, which has complete jurisdiction over them. In some cases, however, it is not the low-water line which delimits the internal waters; this applies in cases where straight baselines or closing lines across a bay are drawn. The law of the sea permits this approach if the coast is characterized by deep indentations and inlets (as in Norway), if a chain of islands stretches along and immediately adjacent to the coast (as with the North Frisian Islands) or if the coast has a bay. For example, the Wadden Sea, to the extent that it lies landwards of the outermost points of the North Frisian Islands, is just as much part of Germany’s internal waters as the ports of Kiel, Hamburg and Bremen.

The territorial sea extends seawards of the baseline to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles. It is here that international law begins to restrict the sovereignty of the coastal state: ships of all states enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea. The coastal state may not make passage through the territorial sea subject to permission or similar restrictions. Under certain circumstances, however, it may take steps to channel ships in transit, e.g. by creating shipping lanes, in order to ensure the safety of navigation.

Most scholars predict that 21st century will be the century in which all UNCLOS disputes will be cleared and successfully implemented, although there are 166 countries which has signed this convention, yet all those who have not signed can accept it.

Notes:
1. Customary international law are those aspects of international law that derive from custom,

References:

1.The concept of ocean Government: Edward Mile, University of Washington http://www.navedu.navy.mi.th/stg/databasestory/data/Sea-stability/OceanManagement/Concept%20of%20Ocean%20Governace%20Evolution%20in%2021st%20Century%20and%20Sustainable%20Use.pdf
2. The National Interest and the Law of the sea by Concil on foreing relations, Especial report, 46 May 2009.

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