An apprehension of fishing vessels is one major trigger in igniting unresolved territorial and maritime disputes; this is evident in the case of South China Sea (SCS). In fact, the ongoing arbitration case initiated by the Philippines against China stemmed from an attempt by the Philippine maritime law enforcement authorities to arrest Chinese fishermen illegally fishing and harvesting prohibited and endangered species, such as corals and giant clams, in Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) last April 2012. This feature is 124 nautical miles west of Zambales, Luzon, and is as well within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf. There is clearly a need to manage fishing incidents so that they do not adversely affect overall bilateral relations of the countries involved.

Foreign illegal fishing is one major scourge to countries with rich fishing grounds but with little capability to check and deter foreign fishing vessels. Unresolved jurisdictional disputes and the absence of some form of mechanism to monitor and regulate these fishing activities in adjacent shared waters by nearby littoral states complicate the situation. A failure to act upon this threat may lead to over-exploitation of fish stocks, ruining the livelihood of many fishing folks dependent on them. However, active and diligent maritime law enforcement may, on the other hand, lead to diplomatic wrangling with neighbors. In addition, states are under growing domestic pressure to demonstrate tougher positions in protecting maritime sovereign rights for the enjoyment of its citizens. However, this has to be carefully balanced with the need to maintain harmonious ties with neighbors. While this presents a serious dilemma, it is not without solutions. Skillful negotiations and compromise can allow states to avoid the huge costs of fishing incidents hijacking or kidnapping overall bilateral relations.

Identifying common ground is an important step in managing fishing incidents in disputed waters. Sustainable use and conservation of the marine environment is an appealing goal that can serve as a foundation for mutual cooperation. However, in recent years this environmental card has been repeatedly used as a tool to advance and reinforce sovereignty claims with states like China imposing fishing bans or closed fishing seasons in SCS without consulting other relevant claimants. Other littoral states are therefore put in an awkward position. While the need for fishing stocks to naturally replenish is well recognized, absent coordination, observing such a fishing ban may amount to recognizing China’s claims. Unilateral fishing bans, therefore, must give way to a more inclusive and consultative framework where concerned marine environment agencies of relevant user states can work together to define the metes and bounds of the fishing season so that general compliance can be ensured. For instance, they can harmonize their fishing seasons in disputed waters and engage in joint policing so no state would be seen as acquiescing to the sovereignty claims of the other. One state may insist on exclusivity based on UNCLOS-defined maritime entitlements, while another may invoke traditional fishing rights, so a workable and mutually acceptable compromise should be devised.

The establishment of an interim Joint Fisheries Agreement (JFA) in disputed waters can be done without touching on the sensitivities of sovereignty; there is abundant existing practice that can be referred to as potential models in this regard. While there are cases wherein a JFA was signed alongside the conclusion of maritime boundary delimitation (MBD), the two do not necessarily have to go hand in hand. A JFA need not be premised on an MBD. An interim JFA can also continue indefinitely as the contracting states decide. The confidence built during the JFA can actually set the tone for a possible MBD in the future. Furthermore, a fisheries agreement does not even have to start on formal official levels. In fact, in the case of China-Japan and China-Korea, private commercial/unofficial fisheries agreements preceded formal state-to-state JFA and it was fisheries interests from both sides that persuaded government to institutionalize the arrangement.

While UNCLOS is seen as partitioning waters and according exclusivity for exploitation of marine resources to certain coastal states, it also contains numerous articles that provide a basis for cooperation for the conservation, management or exploitation of living marine resources in overlapping EEZs – in areas where fish stocks are highly migratory and in the case of enclosed or semi-enclosed seas, such as SCS. As parties to UNCLOS, the Philippines and China, for instance, have the duty and obligation to enter into cooperative arrangements pending final delimitation of their disputed maritime boundaries. Such an agreement benefits fishermen from both sides whose last wish is to get entangled in the simmering jurisdictional disputes as they carry out their livelihood.

In a fisheries agreement, contracting states can jointly determine what fisheries species can be harvested and what fishing practices can be deemed destructive or unsustainable. The Philippines and China, for instance, both have domestic fisheries laws that outlaw the capture of endangered living marine species. The two states are also parties to such international agreements as the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), among others. From this, they can draw the foundation for outlining what constitutes species under protection and what can be considered as prohibited fishing practices. The absence of a common understanding on this matter can be exploited by poachers and illegal marine wildlife traders to the detriment of the environment.

As unilateral enforcement especially in disputed waters often evokes protests by other disputants, there is value in consultation and coordination. Interim measures, such as joint enforcement, can be done. The U.S. and China Coast Guards, for instance, had been coordinating actions to interdict vessels engaged in illegal fishing in the North Pacific Ocean. In the event that one state’s maritime law enforcement agency arrested the fishermen of the other state, the former, through channels, can communicate the matter to the latter and then handover the evidence gathered and transfer custody. The latter can then update the former about the actions it had taken relevant to the case. This setup is not something unprecedented.

While the above-mentioned coordination will work best given formal institutional mechanisms, its absence is not an effective hindrance. The Philippines and China can adopt informal mechanisms which can even serve as the bedrock for more robust cooperation especially if it gained traction and there is enough buy-in from both sides. A fishery hotline, like the one in existence between China and Vietnam over the Beibu (Tonkin) Gulf, for instance, can be established. To avoid the complication of third party involvement, the Philippines and China, can also initially pilot such coordination in waters that only both of them dispute.

Territorial and maritime disputes have always been an irritant in the relations between neighbors fueling tensions and anxieties. Fishing incidents constitute one potential trigger in igniting such disputes. While an enduring resolution is a shared aspiration, the reality is that such solution takes time, maturity, readiness to meet half way and an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence. Engaging in discussions to manage fishing incidents should be anchored on recognition that the costs of failure to manage such disputes goes beyond the fisheries sector.

This article appeared at China Focus.

The ASEAN Master Plan for Connectivity (AMPC) and China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative share striking similarities and parallels. Both envisage transport connectivity as a way to bring member or participating countries closer to one another, facilitating better access for trade, investment, tourism and people-to-people exchanges. Like the “One Belt, One Road” project, AMPC calls for a system of roads and railways to link contiguous Southeast Asian countries with one another, as well as a system of ports for RoRo (roll-on roll-off) vessels and short sea shipping to link insular Southeast Asian countries with one another as well as with mainland Southeast Asia. Given this shared vision, it is interesting to consider how the two could complement one another and what issues could stand in the way.

China has since 2009 been ASEAN’s biggest trading partner and ASEAN has been China’s third largest trading partner since 2011. Trends indicate that two-way trade will only increase further in the coming years. In 2015 alone, it is expected to hit $500 billion. And since seamless transportation infrastructure can better spur trade, plans to enhance connectivity between the two sides is mutually beneficial. China also puts great emphasis on neighborhood diplomacy, and extending investments and official development assistance (ODA) to finance infrastructure projects is one way of winning the support and goodwill of neighboring developing countries. From this perspective, then, the convergence of interests is very apparent. However, while ASEAN and China shared an aspiration of enhancing transport connectivity, it remains to be seen how compatible AMPC and China’s Silk Road project really are.

AMPC is apparently more mature and is at a relatively advanced stage, having been the product of several high-level discussions and technical working group meetings since 2009. In contrast, the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) was only officially announced in 2013. As such, while many of the key pieces of AMPC had already been laid out, much of MSR’s details remain sketchy and China still has to engage potential partners. China had recently stepped up its efforts to provide assistance in executing ASEAN’s connectivity plan and this is a positive sign. Given the high costs involved in executing AMPC, donors and financial assistance should be welcomed. The Asian Development Bank and Japanese ODA are already engaged in AMPC, but there is still ample scope for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Fund, as well as Chinese ODA. China has developed an impressive reputation in infrastructure projects such as ports, terminals and high-speed trains, and can offer such technology and expertise to support ASEAN’s plan. AMPC may also present opportunities for Chinese companies engaged in infrastructure work to partner with their local ASEAN counterparts in public-private partnership undertakings, an emerging mode for attracting private sector investment in public infrastructure projects.

Indeed, it can be said that momentum for China-ASEAN cooperation in realizing the AMPC is growing. On mainland Southeast Asia, for instance, the convergence of the 7,000 km-Singapore-Kunming Rail Link (SKRL) with ASEAN’s railway connectivity plans is becoming apparent; the recent deal between Thailand and China to construct the Thai section of the route may give this a big boost. If completed, the SKRL will link Kunming, the capital of China’s southwest Yunnan province, with all the capitals of mainland ASEAN countries (except Malaysia, since the line will bypass Kuala Lumpur on its way to Singapore). However, while cooperation on mainland Southeast Asia is picking up steam, Chinese support for the other component of the plan – maritime connectivity – is not yet in evidence. A March 2013 report identified several routes for the ASEAN RO-RO network (ARN), three of which were designated as priority routes for implementation in 2015: 1) Dumai (Indonesia)-Malacca (Malaysia); 2) Belawan (Indonesia)- Penang (Malaysia)-Phuket (Thailand) and; 3) Davao/General Santos (Philippines)-Bitung (Indonesia). Other routes were also identified, such as Muara (Brunei)-Labuan(Malaysia)-Brooke’s Point (Palawan) and Muara-Zamboanga (Philippines), but these secondary routes were hampered by such constraints as infrastructure and institutional arrangements. The report cited the unavailability of capable RoRo terminals and the need for a good road system to link ports with hinterland areas as among the issues that need to be addressed. This presents a new frontier for Chinese ODA or investments by Chinese enterprises. In addition, China also has an extensive experience in RoRo and short sea shipping with neighbors Japan and Korea and these lessons and best practices could be shared with appreciative maritime ASEAN states.

The Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) will benefit from the completion of the ARN. It will spur intra-regional seaborne trade and commerce in a sub-region with much potential that has long remained a backwater, given its distance from their respective national metropolises. The presence of infrastructure can open these areas to further investment and bring economic opportunities to restive and less-developed areas such as southern Mindanao and the Sulu Islands. Regional cooperation to address maritime piracy, terrorism, smuggling, and seaborne transnational crime could also be established to secure investments in maritime infrastructure and safeguard the identified sea routes.

In recent years, China had upped the ante in its investments in ASEAN’s infrastructure sector. State-owned COSCO, one of the world’s largest shipping and logistics company, has a 49 percent stake in the COSCO-PSA terminal in Singapore. Beibu Gulf Holding (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd has a 38 percent equity share in a consortium that received a 30-year concession to manage, operate and develop Kuantan Port in Malaysia. This Port is poised to serve as a catalyst for the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park. China has also been investing in Indonesian infrastructure to facilitate access to the latter’s natural resources, such as oil and gas, coal, and mines. However, unlike in peninsular ASEAN, the pattern of Chinese infrastructure investments in maritime ASEAN states do not suggest convergence with the ARN.

Several factors can explain this. One is the absence of a direct link between China and the ARN. Unlike the rail connection in mainland ASEAN that could provide a landlocked Kunming direct access to an ASEAN port through SKRL, the ARN is too distant from most Chinese ports to facilitate a link. However, while the ARN may have marginal importance to China from an economic standpoint, being part and parcel of AMPC turns it into an opportunity for China to showcase its neighborhood diplomacy. Likewise, from an energy security vantage point, very large crude carriers from Africa and the Middle East bound for Northeast Asia (including China) may pass by BIMP-EAGA waters (through Lombok or Makassar Straits proceeding to the Sulu Sea and Mindoro Strait out to South China Sea) as an alternative to Malacca Strait.

Moreover, maritime ASEAN states are already according greater significance to their maritime economies and national interests. The Philippines had been promoting its Strong Republic Nautical Highway to enhance inter-island connectivity. Indonesia recently unveiled its Maritime Axis/Maritime Fulcrum doctrine which stresses, among other things, the importance of port connectivity not only within the country but also with other major ASEAN harbors. Thus, for China, support for the ARN could win it recognition from individual maritime ASEAN states as well as from ASEAN generally. In fact, the Philippines is one of the staunchest advocates of the ARN and some may entertain the thought that lack of Chinese enthusiasm towards this aspect of AMPC is part of the fallout from the tensions between the two. (It should also be noted that the sub-regional organization BIMP-EAGA, which would benefit tremendously from the ARN, is also headquartered in Davao, the biggest city in the Philippines’ second biggest island of Mindanao.) China can choose to allay this suspicion.

Despite unresolved territorial and maritime disputes, China seems to attach great importance to its neighborhood diplomacy with ASEAN. In fact, the idea of the Maritime Silk Road, as well as the AIIB, was first announced by President Xi Jinping in a speech to Indonesian parliament in October 2013. The fact that Indonesia is ASEAN’s biggest economy, one of ASEAN’s founding members, and widely seen as a regional leader demonstrates the importance of ASEAN in China’s calculus. Support for AMPC as a whole and the ARN in particular will enable China to win not only investments, but also the goodwill of its neighbors. It may even show that principled disagreement on political issues do not constitute a hurdle to pursuing practical cooperation in infrastructure development.

This article appeared in The Diplomat

British media, especially “the popular press” has played a major role in demonising the Human Rights Act, LSE Emeritus Professor Michale Zander said in an article for New Law Journal and cited by the Press Gazette.

The Human Rights law has been attacked in Britain because it is allegedly abused by lawyers on behalf of people caught up in various instances of litigation related to the globally discredited ‘War on Terror’ since 9/11, as well as cases related to immigration, etc [see list below]. But Zander cites examples where the attacks on the Act are based on false examples of its abuse, thus purporting to show the law in a very bad light.

The Press Gazette article, quoting Zander, said “Over and over again the popular press had ‘peddled false stories, gleefully and irresponsibly then taken up by politicians.'” Michael Zander is Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics.

Zander cites “Catgate” in which Home Secretary Theresa May told a 2011 Conservative Party conference about an illegal immigrant who could not be deported because he had a pet cat.

He points out that while the first immigration judge in the man’s decision had mentioned the joint purchase of the cat as one of the many indications the immigrant had an established relationship with his partner, it was not the reason for the judge’s decision and was not even mentioned in the judgment on appeal, Zander wrote.

The then justice secretary, Ken Clarke, criticised May for using “a complete nonsense example”, and the Judicial Communications Office put out a statement in 2009 explaining the true reason for the decision.

But, writes Zander, “in June 2011 The Sun, The Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail all carried the story, qualified to the extent that avoidance of deportation was said to have been only ‘partly because of the cat – which was still not correct.”

According to Zander, “Careless or wilful misrepresentation in human rights stories is common – and refutations or the rare apology or correction has far less impact.”

In the article cited by the Press Gazette, Zander also gives other examples where media or politicians or both attributed abuses of the Act, which were false.

Although the term “popular media” in the Press Gazette article implies tabloids, including The Sun and Daily Mail, the mention of Sunday Telegraph, a mainstream broadsheet, in the same category indicates the problem of attacks on Human Rights Act transcends the tabloids. That also raises questions as to whether only the media — and not the politicians — can be held to account for attacks on the HRA.

The Human Rights Act 1998 came into force in Britain in October 2000. The Equality and Human Rights Commission reminds us it is composed of a series of sections that have the effect of codifying the protections in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.

All public bodies (such as courts, police, local governments, hospitals, publicly funded schools, and others) and other bodies carrying out public functions have to comply with the Convention rights.

This means, among other things, that individuals can take human rights cases in domestic courts; they no longer have to go to Strasbourg to argue their case in the European Court of Human Rights.

The Act sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that individuals in the UK have access to. They include:

• Right to life
• Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
• Right to liberty and security
• Freedom from slavery and forced labour
• Right to a fair trial
• No punishment without law
• Respect for private and family life, home and correspondence
  Freedom of thought, belief and religion
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of assembly and association
• Right to marry and start a family
• Protection from discrimination in respect of these rights and freedoms
• Right to peaceful enjoyment of your property
• Right to education
• Right to participate in free elections

In view of the very comprehensive, albeit ambitious, list above of various protective shields offered by the HRA, one would expect most people on the right side of the argument for defending the Act to be louder, much louder. But will they rise to the challenge? The outlook isn’t at all clear. After all, it is the same Westminster, with minor cosmetic alterations, that looked on as Tony Blair dragged Britain under George Bush into Iraq.

This article originally appeared in The Middle East in Europe TheMiddleEastinEurope.net.

By Ashok Malik*

On August 23 and 24, the National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan will meet in New Delhi. Few if any will hazard a prediction as to the outcome, though it would be prudent to limit expectations. Even so, what can safely be foretold is a media frenzy, non-stop television coverage and Twitter chatter.

The NSA-level talks were announced when the two Prime Ministers met in Ufa, Russia, recently. Governments in India and Pakistan have chosen to interpret the mandate of the upcoming meeting differently. The Pakistanis, particularly the team around Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said it implied the resumption of the composite dialogue by another name and eventually “all outstanding issues” would be discussed. This was to stave-off criticism at home that the Kashmir dispute had not been mentioned in the joint statement at Ufa.

The Indian side, quizzically, decided not to refute the Pakistani Government’s briefings, arguing off-the-record that it wanted to “keep Nawaz in play” and strengthen the civilian regime vis-à-vis the Army. Many previous Prime Ministers and Governments in Delhi have suffered from the delusion that India has the capacity to bolster a civilian administration in Islamabad against the generals in Rawalpindi. Why somebody as hard-headed as Prime Minsister Narendra Modi seemed to fall for this line, even if temporarily, is not immediately clear.

Nevertheless, the reverie was soon ended by the Pakistani Army, which triggered another round of firing at the border. This diminished any confusion in Delhi and led to an iteration of the idea that India sees the NSA’s conversation as largely limited to terrorism and safeguarding Indians from religious radicalism that can turn violent and spill across the Line of Control or the Radcliffe Line.

In spite of this, the past few days have seen ambiguous messaging from various quarters. A mystifying notion is being spread that the fundamental Islamist challenge to the subcontinent comes from the Islamic State. It is said that the Islamic State is threatening Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and, as such, these countries are equal targets of the militia that has spread mayhem in Syria and Iraq.

Mystifyingly, many seem to have bought into this idea, with the domestic intelligence agencies talking up the Islamic State challenge as they talked up the alleged Al Qaeda threat to the Indian mainland a few years ago.

Papers apparently found in Islamic State hideouts, and probably indicative of outrageous dream scenarios for the Islamic State rather than workbable blueprints, have been cited. Once more, as happens every few years, apocalyptic visions of a final and defining war, of a centuries-old “Khorasan prophecy” and an attack on India (Ghazwa-e-Hind), are being spoken about.

Earlier this century, Ghazwa-e-Hind was meant to be Al Qaeda’s plan for the annihilation and Islamisation of India. Today, it is the Islamic State’s plan for the annihilation and Islamisation of India. One supposes regurgitating old theories is necessary to keep intelligence agency report writers and newspaper columnists busy.

It is worth noting though that diplomatic sources point to no imminent Islamic State threat to India. In fact, even references to the Islamic State gaining ground in Afghanistan are seen as exaggerated. One senior official told this writer that dissident and loose Taliban factions, which may have broken away from a larger group due to turf or treasure, have probably adopted the Islamic State label in Afghanistan. That apart, there have been odd displays of Islamic State flags in the Kashmir valley, largely for the benefit of television cameras. Overall, it is likely, the Islamic State has more Twitter accounts in India than actual lethal fighters

This is not to discount the Islamic State challenge nor to suggest, the Islamic State does not want to vanquish India (or for that matter make deep inroads in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as part of its caliphate project). It is just that aspiration and reality are different. The Islamic State remains a substantially Arabia-based movement for the moment. Before it turns its attention to Afghanistan and the subcontinent, it needs to defeat Iraq’s Shia south and the Shia vastness of Iran. It also needs to capture territory and influence in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Dilli, as they say, durast: Delhi is a long distance.

So where is this Islamic State phobia and this concern of a likely Islamic State invasion coming from? It is telling that the story is emphasised most often by the Pakistanis. It would appear the Inter-Services Intelligence and the Pakistani Army are talking up the Islamic State presence to divert attention from and in a sense even mainstream the Taliban. The fantasy plan of an India-Pakistan joint front against the Islamic State has also emerged from Pakistan Government sources. Some Pakistani analysts have gone to the extent of saying the supposed age-old prophecy of Ghazwa-e-Hind actually promises war against Pakistan as well, as the Hind it refers to is undivided India. Clearly, somebody is trying sell the Modi Government a lemon.

The Islamic State is no friend of India. Having said that, the immediate threat and the danger for the foreseeable future comes from the ISI and its proxy terrorist groups in Pakistan, and from the Rawalpindi/Islamabad-backed attempts by the Taliban to re-establish itself in Afghanistan as the Americans move out. The supposed Islamic State outposts in the Indian region are a red herring.

During his recent visit to Central Asia, Mr Modi discussed the situation in Afghanistan with several of its neighbours. One feedback the Indian delegation received was the Taliban was preparing for a far wider area domination than in the late 1990s. Then, the northern areas of Afghanistan, bordering Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, had been left free for the Taliban’s non-Pashtun rivals to re-group. This time, the Indian Prime Minister was told, the Taliban was planning to begin by consolidating northern Afghanistan.

Obviously, all this is being plotted with the assistance of the military establishment in Pakistan. The Islamic State is clearly not a huge factor, as is being made out for an Indian audience. The Government needs to approach the August 23-24 talks with that realism.

*The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

Courtesy: The Pioneer, August 7, 2015

By Ajai Sahni*

A ‘historic accord’ was signed between the Government of India and the largest rebel Naga group, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim – Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) on August 3, 2015, at once raising hopes and apprehensions against the context of what has been India’s most enduring insurgency. While few details of the actual contents of the agreement are yet available, the Centre’s principal interlocutor R.N. Ravi has clarified that the ‘accord’ is, in fact, a “framework agreement” that spells out the terms of a “final settlement”. Reports suggest that such a final settlement would be worked out in three months, and would exclude any claims to sovereignty or alterations in state boundaries.

There can be little doubt that, coming after nearly 18 years of negotiations under ceasefire, this accord has major significance. That it has happened under the leadership of the Narendra Modi Government, with R.N. Ravi as the Centre’s interlocutor, and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval guiding the process, the credit will naturally go to the current dispensation. Nevertheless, it is useful to recognize that this is, at best, a no doubt big step in a journey on which several successive regimes had already covered many miles.

A release issued by the Prime Minister’s office on August 3, 2015, claimed that the Agreement would “end the oldest insurgency in the country… restore peace and pave the way for prosperity in the Northeast”, that it made an “honourable settlement” possible”, and that the “NSCN was represented by its entire collective leadership and senior leaders of various Naga tribes.”

The August 3 Agreement is far from a conclusive resolution of the ‘Naga problem’. There are still several armed factions that will need to be accommodated before the ‘Nagaland problem’ can be said to have been ‘resolved’, and at least some of these will be tempted to escalate violence in the immediate future, partially to increase their ‘leverage’ in future negotiations, and partly to occupy the militant ‘space’ purportedly vacated by NSCN-IM’s accord.

The Congress party has launched a campaign of rather strident, churlish and at least occasionally mischievous criticism of the accord, with party President Sonia Gandhi declaring that, since the ‘States had not been taken into confidence’, the accord was ‘insulting to the States and people of the Northeast’. The reality is, while details of the accord are yet to be disclosed, it is unlikely to deviate substantially from the underlying principles established under previous regimes, and would essentially reflect a continuity of efforts. Over 80 rounds of talks have been held between the Government and NSCN-IM leadership over the past 18 years. Through this process, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government led by the Congress did not ‘take the States into confidence’ any more than the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime has, and that is the nature of such negotiations. The accord is expected to contain the basic provisions that have crystallized over the past years, specifically, that the immediate deal will relate only to the territory of Nagaland, and that other territorial claims of the ‘greater Nagalim’ will be resolved consensually through dialogue with the neighbouring states. It is likely that the deal will pave the way to an election where the NSCN-IM or a successor political party will be facilitated to secure power through polls. The Congress party’s problem is sour grapes, because they weren’t able to push the deal to a conclusion during their tenure – though they were many occasions when a settlement was believed to be tantalizingly within reach.

There are, nevertheless, several aspects of the present Agreement that are troubling. Among these are the circumstances under which it is said to have been signed. The process is said to have been accelerated on the request of Isak Chisi Swu, NSCN-IM ‘chairman’, who is critically ill in a Delhi hospital, and wished to see the agreement signed in his lifetime, with several unsettled issues papered over.

At least some of this is already coming to the fore. Thus, NSCN-IM ‘kilo kilonser’ (‘home minister’) R.H. Raising has asserted, “we have agreed to share sovereign power with each other” and that “integration will be in the (final) agreement”. The ‘integration’ of all Naga dominated areas in neighbouring States is a sore point that led to widespread violence in Manipur in 2001, simply because the ceasefire with the NSCN-IM had been extended “without territorial limits”, an arrangement that had to be quickly reversed thereafter.

Further disturbing the projection of a wide consensus, Joyson Mazamo, Member Secretary of the Committee on Naga Political Affairs (CONPA) of the Naga Hoho, the influential apex body of the Naga tribes, insisted that “The IM group does not represent the entire Nagas” though he conceded that the group “enjoyed popular support.” However, he argued “We want integration and want all arbitrary boundaries removed.” The Naga National Council’s (NNC’s) President, Adino Phizo has declared, “Nagas are not Indians and Nagaland is not Indian territory”. Similar statements reflecting skepticism or hostility have come from a number of political formations.

There will, moreover, be renewed ferment among various armed Naga factions. The ‘final agreement’ with NSCN-IM would naturally and overwhelmingly favour this group and, at the same time, vacate a vast dissenting space which other groups – most significantly NSCN-K, but also the lesser formations, such as NSCN-Khole Kitovi, NSCN-Reformation, NSCN-Reunification, Naga National Council (NNC), Zeliangrong United Front and Zeliangrong Revolutionary Army, among others – will attempt to occupy. The contours of the final arrangement are already crystallizing, with Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang declaring “I along with all members of the Nagaland Assembly are ready to step down, if an acceptable and honourable solution is found to the Naga people (sic), in order to make a new beginning.”

This is unlikely to satisfy the many other armed factions that are jostling for a place on the high table. NSCN-IM’s most irreconcilable adversary, NSCN-Khaplang, has already rejected the deal, with Niki Sumi, its ‘military supervisor (west)’, asserting that it was the ‘sole prerogative’ of NSCN-IM to ‘arrive at any kind of conclusion’ and was intended ‘exclusively’ for that group. Sumi declared, further, that the Nagas’ struggle for ‘sovereignty was an international political conflict between nations”, that “we do not recognize international boundaries” and insisted on ‘the intrinsic ideal of a compact Naga nation comprising every Naga-inhabited area as historically established.’

The NSCN-IM is, of course, by far the largest of armed factions, with an estimated cadre strength in 2012 of 5,600 based in nine designated camps in Nagaland. Another 100 cadres are located across the border in the Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) region of Bangladesh. While the group has not engaged in violent activities targeting civilians or SF personnel for some time, one clash in December 2013 resulted in two civilian fatalities, and three Army personnel were killed and four were wounded in an ambush on April 2, 2015, in which NSCN-IM cadres are suspected to be involved. Nevertheless, the group has been involved in relentless turf wars with NSCN-K and, increasingly, with ZUF. Other Naga factions have had violent mutual rivalries, and there is little reason to believe that a quick consensus can be reached if the Centre is able to resolve its problems with NSCN-IM.

Further, the possibilities of a split within IM cannot be ruled out. IM was, itself, born out of a peace deal: the Shillong Accord with NNC in 1975, which some elements refused to accept, and came to create the then unified NSCN. When the loaves and cakes have been distributed, there will be many who feel they have lost out; it remains to be seen what they would do. The NSCN-IM does not represent the consensual leadership of all Naga tribes, and it is useful to recall that S.S. Khaplang broke away from the unified NSCN in 1988 along tribal fault lines, then claiming leadership of the Hemi, Ao and Konyak Nagas; even as the ZUF and ZRA were created in 2011 to represent the Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei Nagas. Isak Chisi Swu is a Sema Naga with his principal support base among his own tribesmen, while Thuingaleng Muivah has his political roots among the Thangkul tribe; the NSCN-IM leadership is far from representative of the kaleidoscope of Naga tribes, of which 35 are listed among the Scheduled Tribes under Article 342 of the Constitution, and this has often given rise to resentment.

Things are also likely to come to a head on the question of dismantling the NSCN-IM camps, of demobilizing and disarming its armed cadre, and of terminating the parallel ‘security’, ‘administration’ and ‘taxation’ networks long operated by NSCN-IM. Crucially, IM cadres are likely to plead that, unless all other Naga groups are disarmed, they will need to retain their capacities to defend themselves. Such a position, however, would lead to a perpetuation of an unacceptable status quo on the ground.

The deal with the NSCN-IM is also of critical importance for the insurgencies across the Northeast, because the group had become an opportunistic facilitator for a number of other insurgent formations in the region, and all these will suffer as a consequence of the loss of underground support from the IM faction. This may, however, mean that Khaplang will gain in influence. Nevertheless, the much larger infrastructure and capacities of the IM group would now, hopefully, be lost to the other surviving insurgencies in the region as well.

The peace process in Nagaland has dragged on for decades and has produced a succession of imperfect settlements. The NSCN-Reformation group, while welcoming the Centre’s accord with NSCN-IM with “high hopes” cautioned against to the “vast experience of failed accords and agreements in the past”. This tempered optimism is the only rational approach to perhaps the most complex and intractable of internal conflicts in India.

 *Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management & South Asia Terrorism Portal

By Ihsan Bal

For the last few years, Turkey has been displaying the image of a country which is doomed to an endless scuffle with persistent troubles, wasting all its energy in the meantime as it is unable to get to the root of its underlying problems. Turkey’s human capital is not being properly utilized as the country’s institutional politics have been capable of providing neither a smart strategy nor a prudent approach that can help resolve the country’s various social, economic, legal, and – most importantly – security-related problems, especially since the Gezi Park Protests that broke out in mid-2013. Whereas politics can serve as an ultimate source of hope and excitement for the society only to the extent of its problem-solving capacity, dragging discussions on vital problems into a deadlock, setting the scene for dead-end discussions, and even leaning towards the selfish exploitation of chronic issues inevitably leads people to fix their sights on politicians and institutional politics as the ultimate bearers of responsibility for widespread pessimism. In a sense, everyone begins to look for a scapegoat.

Dark phases of recent history revisited?

Indeed, focusing on a solution to be reached by means of institutional politics rather than eagerly searching for a culprit will not only relieve an entire country which currently has difficulty breathing, but it will also yield a new wave of hope. However, in order to reach a sincere solution, one needs to exhibit a strong will that is guided by reason and molded by experience pursuant a strategic vision, while also conveying a meaningful and convincing story to tell the people. Before its recent deviation, Turkey used to be a country with solution-oriented stories to tell the rest of the world on a variety of subjects, from the Kurdish problem to the national economy, from the European Union accession process to the woes of the Middle East. However, at this stage it seems the tides have dramatically turned. Some of our country’s old habits, which we thought were left behind for good, once again emerged from the shadow of obscurity.

We are at the brink of a phase in which sharp, polarizing sentences underwritten by hatred and rage, and self-reaffirming approaches based on antagonism with the perceived “other” enjoy credit; everybody is shackled to the perceptual prison of their own narrow neighborhood and different versions of dark conspiracy theories are put into circulation. As a matter of fact, unsolved politically-motivated murders, assassinations that are left in the dark, insidious criminal plots, and vicious extrajudicial killings are not alien to the Turkish public eye. Events as such are reminiscent of those nightmarish days that our people have worked so hard to bury in the dusty pages of history. Until recently, those days were thought to be over. We hope the recent events signify no repetitive trend whatsoever, but instead only an unpleasant and ephemeral relapse of our subconscious memory. The most pressing issue that Turkish decision-makers need to mull over at this moment should concern the measures necessary for preventing a shady replica of the frightening domestic political environment that is commonly identified with the 1990s from being put on stage.

Political cunning, ‘countering’ terrorism, and ‘negotiation’

How Turkey ended up here, and as a result of what sort of mistakes it is currently mired in such a grim and fragile setting shine out as the most fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves. The correct answer to these crucial questions have to be sought in the cumulative mindset which, while narrowing down its own domain of action with each passing day, eventually granted a much larger radius of action to extra-political actors as a matter of course. It becomes impossible to acknowledge the rationality and virtues associated with politics should policy-makers handle risks and threats concerning national security with an utterly pragmatic and opportunistic attitude, rather than approaching such issues sincerely and constructively.

On the contrary, in such cases ‘political cunning’ comes into play to overshadow right-minded considerations. Mere ‘political cunning’ may prove useful in the case of short-sighted calculations made with the intention of saving the day; however, such a manner of political planning seems destined to inflict heavy losses upon an entire nation when viewed from a long-term perspective. That is because ‘political cunning’ is, by definition, centered on opportunism rather than resolution. It gradually narrows down the domain of politics through each deliberate move, until the moment comes when it is nearly impossible to escape the extremely restrictive confines to which any further effort at genuine policy-making is ultimately condemned.

Even a quick glance at the latest developments concerning the Kurdish issue gives significant clues as to the exact spot on which attention is currently fixed within the context of politics and solution-seeking in Turkey. Turkey has suddenly found itself in the midst of military funerals, martyrs, and tears resulting from terror attacks that claimed the lives of many innocent people. Fruitless discussions misdirected by the artificial cognitive dichotomy between ‘negotiation’ and ‘counter-terrorism’ have resurfaced. ‘Negotiation’ and ‘counter-terrorism’ are no substitutes for one another but rather two sides of the same coin.

No doubt, operational measures are an important component of defeating terrorism and extinguishing the cycle of violence it generates. Operations carried out on legal grounds are conducive to the achievement of strategic objectives to the extent that accurate intelligence is successfully harmonized with the capabilities of security forces. However, those who are interested in the subject would surely appreciate the necessity of dealing also with the political aspect of the underlying problem in tandem with continued operations against militants if terrorism is to be permanently eradicated.

The ideal method that needs to be employed for succeeding in the comprehensive struggle against the multi-faceted problem underlying terrorism should be ‘operational combat against the terrorists’ and ‘negotiation with the political party concerned’. This is especially the case if there is a terrorist organization on the one hand, and a legal political party supported by the sympathizers of the terrorist group in question by virtue of its social base on the other. If there is anything we must avoid under such specific circumstances, it is equating the political party which is trying to remain on the legitimate political stage with the terrorist organization. That is because this kind of approach broadens the domain of armed conflict while narrowing the political sphere.

Broadening the political sphere

The main strategy when faced with a terrorist threat which pushes for the expansion of the domain of armed conflict is the restriction of this domain as far as possible, while stretching the domain of politics. This is because any extension of the ‘field of activity’ in which terrorists can take the initiative corresponds to a shrinking of the political actor’s legitimacy in return. Therefore the ‘asymmetrical’ and ‘irregular’ warzone in which terrorist elements can easily manoeuver by setting the rules of the game at will has to be narrowed in order to broaden the political zone of influence where the root of the problem actually rests.

When we scan the vast literature on counter-terrorism and investigate the success of comprehensive efforts as such demonstrated by numerous case studies from the past, it is easy to discern that major counter-terrorist activities have primarily been carried out within the political sphere within modern history. For an ethnic Kurd to provide a self-convincing answer to the question of “why do I need to live in this country together with the rest?” may seem possible in the first place only to the extent we are able to keep the Kurdish issue within the jurisdiction of institutional politics rather than trying to handle it at the point of a bayonet. Otherwise, it won’t be feasible to generate widely-credible stories of ‘consensus’, ‘co-existence’, and ‘belonging’ in a bleak political environment in which the beating of war drums and sounds of gunshots suppress any alternative voices.

To emphasize once again, we aren’t talking about suspending the government’s right to use force within legal limits when extrapolating ‘the political domain of counter-terrorism’. According to the Weberian definition, what we commonly refer as ‘the state’ is indeed the sole entity that is vested with the legitimate monopoly of exercising physical violence within a given territory. However, the use of such authority in the most correct way, the most accurate situation, and only when deemed necessary is of vital importance. Therefore the state’s right to exercise violence is bound to a certain set of conditions. The state can maintain its reputation and secure popular support only by adhering to this principle, i.e. by ensuring that the people believe wholeheartedly in its firm intention and sufficient capacity to dispense justice and protect public law. The intensity of criticism directed at the government for using brute force will inevitably subside in proportion to the rise in the government’s respectability and popularity in the eyes of public. Recent developments in Turkey clearly indicate a severe erosion of such authority relations between the government and the society.

Unfortunately enough, we’ve already entered a process of political communication characterized by distrust, which became evident, above all, with the claims voiced by some political parties that top political elites who are legally vested with executive authority tend to abuse their power in order to realize certain goals with secret motivations, instead of paying attention to the resolution of the pressing problems that our country is currently confronted with.

In sum, this process which Turkey is currently going through should be assessed with regard to the methods it prefers to employ in dealing with immediate troubles rather than the gravity of the underlying problems. Despite all complications, the immense human capital our country is endowed with at present is beyond any comparison with the past. Therefore there is no reason to be sure that recent incidents reminiscent of the past are a precursor of Turkey’s future trajectory. Turkey will still be able to make a breakthrough in the forthcoming decade, which is deemed critical in every aspect, should the bottleneck in the problem-solving mentality of institutional politics be overcome. It is in our hands to not allow the pessimistic climate that currently looms over our country like a nightmare to usurp our future.

By S. Binodkumar Singh*

On August 7, 2015, Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy alias Niloy Neel (28), a secular blogger and a Gonojagoron Mancha (People’s Resurgence Platform) activist was hacked to death at his Goran residence in the Khilgaon area of the national capital, Dhaka, in broad daylight. Later in the evening, a group identifying itself as Ansar-al-Islam, Bangladesh chapter of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), claimed responsibility for the murder in an email sent out to almost all media outlets. The email declared: “Alhamdulillah! Mujahidin of Ansar-al-Islam (AQIS, Bangladesh Branch) carried out an operation to slaughter an enemy of Allah and His Messenger (peace & blessings be upon him), whose name is Niloy Chowdhury Neel.”

Niloy is the fourth blogger to be killed in 2015 by suspected Islamist terrorists. Earlier suspected extremists had killed three secular bloggers and writers in three separate incidents: on May 12, 2015, Ananta Bijoy Das (32), a progressive writer, blogger, editor of science fiction magazine Jukti, and an organizer of Gonojagoron Mancha, was hacked to death, using machetes, by four assailants at Subidbazar Bankolapara residential area of Sylhet city in Sylhet District; on March 30, 2015, another blogger and online activist, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu (27), was hacked to death in broad daylight in Dhaka city for his allegedly atheist views; and on February 26, 2015, Bangladesh-born American citizen blogger Avijit Roy (42), the founder of the Mukta-mona.com blog, was hacked to death in Dhaka city. Investigations into these cases later confirmed that that Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT, Volunteer of Allah Bangla Team), a terrorist outfit linked with AQIS, organized the killing of these writers for their position ‘against Islam’.

These killings are, in some measure, a reaction to the assertiveness demonstrated by the Government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, as a result of which the threat from Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh has been minimized. Significantly, various Islamist terrorist and extremist formations had been operating menacingly across the country before Wajed coming to power in 2009. The Government’s sustained efforts, since, have led to widespread anxiety among the extremists, who now find their very existence under threat.

The speed and efficacy of the War Crimes Trials (WCTs) is another worrying factor for the radicals within Bangladesh, who once enjoyed state support under the predecessor regime led by Begum Khaleda Zia. Significantly, on August 5, 2015, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) fixed August 11 for the delivery of its verdict in the case against two of the three Razakar (an auxiliary force of the Pakistan Army during the Liberation War) leaders – Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias Siraj Kosai and Khan Akram Hossain – for genocidal crimes against Hindus in Bagerhat District during the Liberation War in 1971. The tribunal dropped charges against the third accused, Abdul Latif Talukder, since he had died at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on July 28, 2015. The trio had been indicted on November 5, 2014, on eight charges. Siraj Kosai was indicted on four charges – for the killing of over 600 Hindus in Rampal; the killing of 50 Hindus in Ranjitpur; the abduction and killing of 19 persons at Besargati and Kandapara; and the killing of seven at Chulkathi. Two common charges were brought against three – for the killing of 47 Hindus; while one charge each was separately laid against Khan Akram and Latif for the forcible conversion of 200 Hindus at Shakharikathi and the killing of freedom fighter Fazlur Rahman Shikder on December 13, 1971, respectively.

On July 16, 2015, ICT-2 had sentenced Forkan Malik (65), a member of the then anti-liberation party, Muslim League (ML), to death for crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. The tribunal found Forkan guilty in three of five charges framed against him. Of the three charges, Forkan was given the death sentence on two – the brutal rape and killing of Golapi Rani Saha, a teenage Hindu girl, at Subidkhali village of Patuakhali District on August 17, 1971; and the rape of Aleya Begum and killing of her father and two other civilians in Kakarbunia village on August 22, 1971. He was given life imprisonment for raping two Hindu women in Subidkhali village and forcing them to leave the village for India on August 20, 1971. However, he was acquitted of two charges for lack of evidence – for killing four people, including two local Awami League (AL) leaders in Mirzaganj upazila (sub-District) on August 12, 1971; and for forcing three Hindu siblings to accept Islam, who later left the country.

On June 9, 2015, ICT-1 had awarded the death sentence to Syed Muhamad Hasan Ali (65) aka “Razakar Daroga (Head of Razakar ‘police’ unit)”, an alleged commander of the Tarail Razakar unit in Kishoreganj District and a member of another then anti-liberation party, Nezam-e-Islami (NeI), for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. Hasan was found guilty on five of six charges brought against him. He was sentenced to death on two charges – for killing 12 Hindus and torching 10 houses at Shimulhati village on September 9, 1971; and for killing eight people and the abduction of another 10 in Borgaon village on September 27, 1971. He was sentenced to life terms until death on three charges – for killing a villager, Tofazzal, abduction of two others and burning two houses at Konabhawal village on August 23, 1971; for abduction and murder of Kamini Kumar Ghosh and Jibon Chakravarty and looting the Ghosh house at Araiura village on October 8, 1971; and for the killing of villager Rashid Ali Bepari and the torching of 100 houses at Sachail village on December 11, 1971. The tribunal relieved him of the charge of torching and looting seven houses at Sachail village on April 27, 1971.

Earlier, on May 20, 2015, ICT-2 awarded life imprisonment to Mahidur Rahman (84) and Ashraf Hossain Chutu (65), active members of ML who later turned into Razakar leaders, for their involvement in crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. The tribunal found Mahidur and Chutu guilty on two of the three charges leveled against them, awarding imprisonment until death for the abduction of 39 villagers from Chandshikari, Chamatola, Kabirajtola and Eradot Biswasertola under Shibganj upazila of Chapainawabganj District and killing 24 of them on October 6, 1971, and October 7, 1971. They were sentenced to a five-year prison term on the second charge of attacking and burning down houses after looting them in Kabirajtola and Eradot Biswasertola villages on October 13, 1971. The third charge of attacking the houses of Kalumuddin Mondol, Abdur Rashid, Gajal and Ilias Mondol of Sherpur Bhandar village and torturing them on November 2, 1971, was dropped as the duo had already been sentenced under the 1972 Collaborators Act on the same charge.

Thus far, the two ICTs have indicted 27 leaders including 13 from Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), six from ML, four from Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and two each from NeI and Jatiya Party (JP). Verdicts against 22 of them have already been delivered – 16 were awarded the death penalty, while the remaining six received life sentences. Of the 16 who received the death sentence, JeI Assistant Secretary Abdul Quader Mollah (65), who had earned the sobriquet ‘Mirpurer Koshai (Butcher of Mirpur)’, was hanged on December 12, 2013, and JeI Senior Assistant Secretary General Mohammed Kamaruzzaman (63), was hanged on April 11, 2015. Eight cases are currently pending with the Appellate Division of the SC, including that of JeI Ameer (Chief) Motiur Rahman Nizami; JeI Nayeb-e-Ameer (Deputy Chief) Abdus Subhan; JeI Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed; JeI Assistant Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam; JeI central executive committee member Mir Quasem Ali; Mobarak Hossain, former AL general secretary of Mogra union and a rukon (union member) of the JeI and Razakar commander; former State Minister of HM Ershad’s Government Syed Mohammad Qaisar; and Forkan Malik, a member of the then-ML. The case of BNP standing committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (66), which was also pending with the Appellate Division of the SC, was decided on July 29, 2015, when the SC upheld his death sentence. On October 1, 2013, ICT-1 had sentenced Salauddin to death after proving his involvement in nine of 23 charges beyond reasonable doubt. However, on October 29, 2013, Salahuddin again appealed to the SC against the verdict, seeking acquittal on all charges. Meanwhile, immediately after the July 29, 2015, SC verdict upholding his death penalty, Gonojagoron Mancha demanded the immediate execution of the verdict. Gonojagoron Mancha spokesperson Imran H. Sarkar argued, “The evil force and conspiracy against the country has been destroyed through the verdict.”

The remaining five death penalties are in absentia, and include Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar, former Al-Badr leader and JeI member; Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Khan alias Nayeb Ali and Chowdhury Mueenuddin, former Al-Badr leaders and JeI members; Zahid Hossain Khokon alias Khokon, vice-president of BNP’s Nagarkanda unit and a Razakar commander of Faridpur District; and Syed Muhamad Hasan Ali, commander of the Tarail Razakar unit in Kishoreganj District and a member of NeI. Out of six persons who were awarded life sentences, two persons have already died serving their sentence – former JeI Ameer Ghulam Azam (91), who died on October 23, 2014; and former BNP minister Abdul Alim (83), who died on August 30, 2014. JeI Nayeb-e-Ameer Delwar Hossain Sayedee is lodged in Kashimpur Central jail of Gazipur District; Mahidur Rahman (84) and Ashraf Hossain Chutu (65), active members of the then-ML are lodged in Dhaka Central Jail; and former JP Member of Parliament (MP) Abdul Jabbar was sentenced in absentia.

Vowing to execute all war crimes trial verdicts, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed declared, on April 15, 2015, “Two war crimes trial verdicts (one against Abdul Quader Mollah and another against Mohammed Kamaruzzaman) have already been executed, Inshaallah, we’ll execute the rest of the verdicts, no matter what barriers come. We’ll move ahead and seek cooperation of all, including the media personalities, in this regard.” Meanwhile, on July 16, 2015, Law Minister Anisul Huq announced, “The two International Crimes Tribunals will be merged into one after their judges’ return to the country from a conference in Argentina.” The six judges of the two tribunals are to attend a two-week international conference in Argentina to share their experience of holding war crimes’ trials and are expected to return towards the end of August. The AL-led Government formed ICT-1 on March 25, 2010, in line with the party’s electoral pledge to try people who committed crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. Furthermore, the Government constituted ICT-2 on March 22, 2012, to expedite the trial process. Each tribunal consists of a Chairman and two other members.

The Islamists have been pushed back decisively in Bangladesh, but latent capacities remain, and a backlash is building up as greater and greater pressure is exerted on them by the state. The succession of brutal killings of bloggers constitute high visibility soft target attacks intended to destabilize the situation and draw recruits into new Islamist formations, even as the older groups lose leadership and cadres to the relentless judicial and enforcement processes initiated by the Sheikh Hasina regime. Enormous gains have been registered by this regime in Bangladesh, but vulnerabilities persist, particularly as the global environment unravels, and Islamist terrorism assumes new and fearsome forms across wide areas of the world.

* S. Binodkumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The people who own this country don’t like euthanizing one of their own. But they’ll do it in heartbeat if they think their world of privilege, patronage and power is at risk.  Last Thursday, Donald Trump overstepped his bounds and crossed a line. In off-the-cuff remarks to a Fox moderator during the GOP presidential debates, Trump provided a window into a corrupt political system that is thoroughly marinated in the money of private donors. He explained in detail how the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, and he admitted that wealthy donors contribute to political candidates so they “do whatever the hell you want them to do.” In one short 20-second exchange, the brash Trump revealed the quid pro quo that assures that the coffers at both the Democrat and Republican headquarters remain full-to-the-brim. He said:

“I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”

Dear reader, there are things you can say in America and there are things you cannot say. You can criticize the government, support torture, applaud the racist arrest and incarceration immigrants looking for work, and cheerlead the bombing of civilians in the many countries around the world where the US has launched its vicious wars of aggression.  But you cannot stand in front of an audience of 24 million Americans on national Television and explain in excruciating detail  how the political system really works, how the tycoons and moguls pay for favors from the sock-puppet politicians, how the politicians do whatever they are told to do, and why the system is a complete and utter fraud.

The people who own the system will not allow that, after all, it is their system, a system which they created, which they control, and that provides the very foundation upon which their wealth and power depend. They have no intention of allowing a loudmouth, upstart casino operator to seriously threaten the credibility of their precious system by blurting out all kinds of insider information that exposes the rot at the heart of the machine. That’s not something they want to hear, and that’s not something they’re going to hear.  Donald Trump is about to be crushed and destroyed in ways he never could have imagined. He’s about to discover a painful truth, that the vindictive and merciless people who run this country are not to be trifled with.

As of Saturday morning, there were 2105 articles in the mainstream news covering the details of a comment Trump allegedly made about Fox’s Megyn Kelly. This is how the landslide begins. The media settles on a particular narrative, and then reiterates that narrative from every paper, every televised newscast, and every privately-owned bullhorn at their disposal. Of the 2,000 or so articles written on the topic, nearly all of them are cookie-cutter hit-pieces that repeat the same unsubstantiated claims as the others. This is how elites shape public perceptions, by sheer volume and repetition, by deluging the masses with the same storyline over and over again however inconsistent, inane or mendacious it may be. In this case, the narrative has been fine-tuned at the nation’s premier propaganda headquarters, the New York Times, who led off with this tidbit in Saturday’s paper:

Donald J. Trump’s suggestion that a Fox News journalist had forcefully questioned him at the Republican presidential debate because she was menstruating cost him a speaking slot Saturday night at an influential gathering of conservatives in Atlanta. It also raised new questions about how much longer Republican Party leaders would have to contend with Mr. Trump’s disruptive presence in the primary field…..

With Mr. Trump at center stage, the event Thursday shattered television viewership records for primary debates: Nearly 24 million people watched. But any hopes that he would try to reinvent himself inside the Cleveland arena as a sober-minded statesman, or that he would collapse under scrutiny and tough questions, vaporized in the opening minutes.” (“Hand-Wringing in G.O.P. After Donald Trump’s Remarks on Megyn Kelly“, New York Times)

“She was menstruating”, you say?

Older readers may remember that– after President Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich– he faced the wrath of the plutocrats followed by years of vicious harassment. Whitewater, Troopergate, Vince Foster etc, etc, etc. One spurious brickbat after the other. It culminated in claims of “oral sex” in the Oval Office, a term that was invoked purely for shock-value, just as  “menstruating” appears to be the verbal weapon of choice this time around. What it shows is that Donald Trump has replaced Putin as the new Hitler and has risen to the top of the media’s hit list where he will remain until they destroy him, his reputation, and his future.

But beyond the reference to menstruation, what can we deduce from this short clip from the Times? 

Well, it’s clear that the Times thinks Trump is a sexist pig and a “disruptive presence” that needs to be removed from the campaign. Keep in mind, that this is the same narrative that appears in the vast majority of US print-media, which means that–among the elites who own the media–the consensus view is that Trump has got to go, even though he is the GOP frontrunner, even though he is the only person on the slate who generates any public interest, and even though he has not had any opportunity to acquit himself on allegations that he claims are false.

Why? Why have they decided to give “The Donald” the old heave-ho when it clearly hurts their chances of reclaiming the White House in the next election? Is it really because he made a crude sexist remark about Fox moderator Megyn Kelly? Is that it?

Since when has the GOP become the great defender of women’s rights? Is this a recent development or did I miss something?

The idea is absurd, just as it is absurd to think that the Times reporting is impartial coverage of the facts. It’s not. The Times is obviously inserting itself into the process, just as Megyn Kelly inserted herself into the process when she pummeled Trump with one incriminating question after another and then proceeded to lob softballs to the dreary and utterly lifeless Jeb Bush.

This is why people are angry, right, because they think Trump was treated unfairly. And this is why they’re not buying the media’s BS storyline, because they’re sick of the media telling them  how to feel, what to think and who to pick. They resent it, in fact, it pisses them off.

Now you’d think that if you had a brand-spanking media-machine that can crank out 2000 cookie cutter articles overnight blasting “sexist” Trump as a first-class scoundrel and praising the dainty Ms Kelly as the unwitting victim of abusive male bullying, then dastardly Trump would plunge in the polls, right?

Wrong.  Trump is still comfortably in the lead and more popular that ever.

Why?

Because people don’t trust the lying media. Because people don’t trust the lying liars who run the Republican party.(or the Democratic party) And because people resent the fact that they’re being manipulated. Is that so hard to understand? The feeling now, is that, “if the assho**s who run this country are against Trump, then I’m for him. It’s that simple. It’s not about populism or channeling anger and frustration to a rebel candidate. Trump is no rebel, and he’s no reformer either. And he’d probably be a shitty president too. But Trump has one thing going for him that is sadly lacking in all the other candidates, all the party honchos, and all the flannel-mouth, stuffed-shirt fake politicians who are presently in office. What is that, you ask?

He tells the truth, at least it sounds like the truth to a lot people. And that makes all the difference.

Think about that. Think about what that says about the pathetic state of our national politics, that the bar has dropped so low, that a brassy, outspoken business tycoon can move to the head of the pack simply because people believe “He speaks his mind and doesn’t pull his punches.”

That’s why Trump’s popularity has not been impacted by the media’s irritating smear campaign. Just look at the blogs, the comments sections of the daily papers, and the twitter storm that has focused overwhelmingly on Fox’s blonde Rottweiler, the amiable Ms Kelly. She’s getting totally raked-over-the-coals, skewered at every turn, and (surprisingly) nearly all the criticism is from right wingers who feel thoroughly betrayed by Fox News, a station they trusted and that they thought shared their values, but now they realize they were wrong.   Fox doesn’t share their values. It’s a freaking franchise for rich fu**ers who want to manipulate conservative principles to fit their own self-aggrandizing agenda. That’s Fox News in a nutshell.

This whole Trump-flap has sparked a rebellion in the conservative ranks, a rebellion that anyone who is even slightly interested in politics should be paying close attention to. The workerbees appear to be increasingly suspicious of the party leadership and their wavering commitment to conservative values. Case in point: Here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared at the far right WND website titled “Rush (Limbaugh): ‘Orders from GOP donors to take out Trump’. Here’s an excerpt:

“Who won the great debate?

According to the mainstream media, the winner was … Fox News.

According to Rush Limbaugh, the loser was … Fox News.

At least, in the sense that the network may have blown its credibility with conservatives.

And Limbaugh said he saw it coming.

“Everybody should have known this was gonna happen,” he said. “This is presidential politics, and Republican candidates are where media people score their points. It’s where they build their careers. It’s where they establish their credentials.”

The conservative talk-radio giant saw another motivation for the moderators’ attack-dog tactics.  He said GOP bigwigs ordered Fox to take out Trump.

On Friday, Limbaugh began by telling listeners how, on the day of Thursday’s debate, he had learned “that big-time Republican donors had ordered to take out Donald Trump in the debate last night.”…

Rush said it was clear that Fox News had it out for Trump when his colleagues refused to pile on, even when given multiple opportunities to bash the front-runner.

“Not one of the remaining nine candidates joined Megyn Kelly in taking the shot at Trump. Not one. Yet we have been told that there were orders from Republican donors to take Trump out.”….

As for which candidate actually won the debate, reactions were all over the map. Opinion appeared evenly divided on whether Trump helped or hurt himself. But, according to the Drudge Report poll…he was the landslide winner.”

(“Rush: ‘Orders from GOP donors to take out Trump‘, Garth Kant, WND)

Is Limbaugh right; did the “big-time Republican donors”  order that Trump be taken out? And, if so, doesn’t that suggest that the “menstruation” allegations are just a phony pretext for demonizing Trump in the media?

Of course they are. It’s all fake. None of this has anything to do with Megyn Kelly. None of it.  According to Limbaugh, Trump was a  “marked man” from the get-go, before the first question was ever asked.  Kelly was just one of three stooges chosen to play the role of political assassin. She’s just a bit-player in a much bigger drama.

So now we move on to Phase 2, where the bullyboy puppetmasters come down on Trump like a ton of bricks. He’ll never know what hit him.   One day he’ll be playfully sparring with the press corps on the front steps of his Manhattan penthouse,  and the next thing you know he’ll be frog-marching across Times Square in handcuffs and leg-irons.  You can bet on it.

Trump’s got to know what’s coming next. He’s a smart guy and he’s seen this play out many times before.  The bottom line, is that if you fu** with these guys, you’re going to wind up “sleeping with the fishes.”  It’s that simple.  He ought to know that by now.

On January 20, 2017 Barack Obama will leave the presidency and those black people capable of critical thought will have many reasons to breathe sighs of relief. They will no longer have to submit to condescending lectures directed exclusively at them. From the moment he ran for president Obama has harangued black people on a wide variety of issues. It doesn’t matter if his audience is made up of church congregants, graduating students, or Kenyan dignitaries. Every black person unlucky enough to be in his vicinity risks being treated like a dead beat dad, career criminal or cousin Pookie, Obama’s own imaginary Willie Horton.

During his trip to east Africa the president chastened Kenyans about gay rights, domestic violence, genital cutting, forced marriage and equal rights for women. He went on and on with no mention of how well his country lives to any accepted standards of human rights.

American presidents have no business chastising others. The country with the world’s largest prison state, military and history of aggressions is on shaky ground when giving anyone else advice. In the neighboring country of Somalia the United States regularly sends drones intended to kill al-Shabaab fighters but they deliver collateral damage to other people too. The blowback has killed many Kenyans, who are targeted by al-Shabaab because of their country’s role as an American puppet.

Because hypocritical Americans have made gay rights the new measurement of societal well being all over the world, the president took the opportunity to castigate Kenyans about that too. Of course homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia, America’s partner in crime. Yet there is no record of public shaming for any Saudi prince or king on that or any other issue. Their sensibilities are deemed too delicate for tongue-lashing. It must be pointed out that Saudis take lashing quite literally.

Those countries that are considered important are never called to account about American concerns du jour. They can even be praised no matter how awful their behavior. The president regularly genuflects to Israel, a country which violates every norm of international law, including the Geneva Convention prohibitions against collective punishment. In Gaza civilians of every age and gender are massacred and Israel maintains the right to continue the bloodshed, and always with American financial and military support.

Obama even compared the establishment of Israel’s apartheid state to black Americans’ fight for liberation. That statement was a lie, a grotesque distortion of history. The slander is akin to a blood libel but Africans cannot expect the recitation of bizarre statements on their behalf when Obama comes to town.

The recipients of American hypocritical condemnation are many. While Obama was brow-beating Africans, Syrian president Bashir al-Assad was telling the world about his nation’s suffering at the hands of the United States. More than 200,000 of his citizens are dead, and up to 9 million are refugees because the United States claims the right to decide who should control that country.

“They [the Western countries] call it terrorism when it hits them, and [they call it] revolution, freedom, democracy and human rights when it hits us.” For four years the United States and allies like Saudi Arabia have waged a terror campaign against Syria. The Islamic State, ISIS, is also part of the terror mix, but it wouldn’t even exist without the United States. Now ISIS is used as a subterfuge in the effort to finish off Assad and what is left of his country.

In Obama’s finger wagging about the treatment of Kenyan women he made a point that he would do well to remember about himself and the United States. “Every country has traditions that are unique. Just because something is a part of your past doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean that it defines your future.”

If those words were applied to his country all the jails would be emptied, the banks would be nationalized, and the United States military would start closing up foreign military bases and heading for home. There would be no need for Africom because imperialism would be off the table. Saudi princes would have to look elsewhere to destabilize other nations. Israel would have to free Palestine and Iran could enrich all the uranium it wanted. There would be no income inequality based on race and brutal police would be prosecuted.

Yes Mr. President, the past shouldn’t define the future. You would do well to take those words seriously.

(EurActiv) — A surge in migrants from Africa threatens the European Union’s living standards and social infrastructure, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday (9 August), adding that the bloc was unable to take in millions of people seeking a new life.

Hammond’s comments, some of his most outspoken on the subject yet, underscore how the British government is ramping up its anti-immigration rhetoric in response to a spike in migrant attempts to reach Britain via the Channel Tunnel from France.

They are also part of a wider EU trend which has seen Alexis Tsipras say Greece cannot cope with the number of migrants fleeing instability in the Middle East and Africa and German calls for tighter immigration curbs.

“We have got to be able to resolve this problem ultimately by being able to return those who are not entitled to claim asylum back to their countries of origin,” Hammond, speaking while visiting Singapore, told BBC TV.

“That’s our number one priority.”

Economic motivation

Hammond said there would always be millions of Africans with “the economic motivation” to want to get to Europe and that EU laws meant migrants were “pretty confident” they could stay.

“That is not a sustainable situation because Europe can’t protect itself and preserve its standard of living and social infrastructure, if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa,” he said.

Britain’s Conservative government is under pressure to show it is acting to solve what the press has dubbed “the Calais crisis” with hundreds of migrants trying nightly to scale fences around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in France.

That has disrupted passenger and freight traffic and dominated the summer’s headlines.

Some of the migrants manage to reach Britain.

On Sunday, police said they had arrested 18 suspected illegal migrants found hidden in the back of a lorry in England.

But the government’s increasingly shrill tone on the issue – Cameron was criticised for referring to migrants as “a swarm” – has upset charities, churchmen and left-wing politicians.

Earlier this month, Church of England Bishop Trevor Willmott told the government not to forget its humanity.

“When we become harsh with each other and forget our humanity then we end up in these stand-off positions,” he told the Observer newspaper. Hammond said the Calais crisis was far from solved.

“So long as there are large numbers of pretty desperate migrants marauding around the area there will always be a threat to the tunnel’s security,” he said.

The number of migrants trying to reach the European Union has increased sharply over the past two years. 90,000 migrants have arrived in Italy alone since January this year.

On Wednesday 5 August, the Italian coastguard plucked a further 400 refugees from the Mediterranean, after their overcrowded boat sank off the coast of Libya. According to some accounts, 200 people had already drowned before help arrived.

Around 188,000 migrants have made the crossing from North Africa to Europe so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which puts the death toll in the Mediterranean at over 2,000 since January 2015.

In April, after an even worse disaster estimated to have cost 800 migrant lives, the 28 European Union leaders agreed to take urgent action — to step up rescue efforts at sea and to try and halt the problem at source, including the use of limited military action against people traffickers in Libya.

The bloc failed however to agree last month on how to distribute 40,000 mostly Syrian and Eritrean migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece.

Member states offered to take in take some 32,000 plus another 22,500 Syrian asylum seekers currently in camps outside the EU. Given the numbers involved and the scale of upheaval across North Africa and the Middle East, many believe the problem dwarfs such measures.

In their statement, the three EU officials said despite the bloc’s efforts, “it is not enough and will never be enough to prevent all tragedies”.

Faced with the scale of the crisis, nationalist parties across Europe have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to policies of resettlement and solidarity.

Immigration has overtaken unemployment and the financial crisis as the number one concern for EU citizens in recent months, according to a study by Eurostat. Many European governments have taken strong anti-immigration measures in order to mollify their increasingly worried voters.

By D. S. Rajan*

According to various reports in the world media [1] including those appearing in the pro- Dalai Lama Tibetan-run agencies in India, a statement issued after a meeting of the top policy making body in China- the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), chaired by the party chief Xi Jinping, held at Beijing, on July 30, 2015, has averred that “the authority of the central government has always been important in the reincarnation process. Historical precedents have clearly shown the central government’s vital role in the process. Since then, all confirmations of the Dalai Lama have required approval by the central Chinese government, which has deemed the process an important issue concerning sovereignty and national security. ” I

nterestingly, the contents of the Statement have almost been identical with those of an earlier Xinhua commentary.[2] A particular report (Italian language Christian News service-Asia News) quoted an anonymous source as telling at the end of the meeting that Xi Jinping said as follows on the occasion- “the CCP would pick the next Dalai Lama period; if things do not go well, we are ready to take corrective action.”

A dispatch in English of the state-run Xinhua news agency[3], while confirming that a politburo meeting took place (it did not call the meeting as a politburo standing committee gathering), has however given a different version of the proceedings with no mention of the Dalai Lama or his reincarnation. It only said that “Chinese leaders met to discuss economic and social development in Tibet and how to ensure the autonomous region achieve prolonged stability. Safeguarding national unity and strengthening ethnic unity should be highlighted in work involving Tibet. Efforts should be made to unswervingly carry out the anti-separatism battle, promote the region’s economic and social development, safeguard and improve people’s welfare, and enhance exchanges and integration of different ethnic groups.” It did not say about creation of the new CCP leading group for united front work, which otherwise found a place in the coverage of Asia News mentioned above.

There could be a purpose behind the latest top level statement on the issue of reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Beijing must be realizing that the importance of the Dalai Lama’s position as leader of Tibetan Buddhism remains undiminished. Also, it faces constant international pressure particularly from the West, to reopen its talks with the latter’s representatives. It may also not miss the existence of opinions within the CCP (for e.g views of Professor Jin Wei of the CCP Party School) in favor of a soft line towards the 14th Dalai Lama. Another point which may have drawn China’s attention relates to the overtures to the Centre now being made by the latter. En route to the US to celebrate his 80th birthday, the ageing Dalai Lama told the press (India Today, July 2,2015) that he would like to go home to Tibet-as well as meet his friend Xi Zhongxun’s son, President Xi Jinping. It is probable that the Xi Jinping leadership, considering all such aspects, has reached a fresh consensus that reopening talks with the Dalai Lama side would now be in China’s interests and chosen to appoint a new leading group on united front work to implement it. The presumptive consensus could be based on a premise that such talks can be helpful to China at a time when it is engaged in maintaining a new type of international relations, especially when in coming September, Xi is scheduled to visit the US, a country which is pressing for China’s opening up to the Tibetan Buddhist leader. It should be noted in this connection that the statement issued has only dealt with, rather firmly, on the reincarnation issue, but remained silent on talks, leaving the matter of resuming dialogue wide open.

The Statement has definite implications for relations between India and China though the Tibet issue is not a bilateral political problem among them. Any settlement of the issue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama can contribute to creating a right atmosphere for solving the vexed

India- China border problem which was once non-existent and arose only after China

‘liberated ’Tibet. It would be in interests of India if it can find ways to indirectly contribute to a solution of the Tibet issue, in particular to resumption of negotiations between Beijing and the Dalai Lama side.

*The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India. Email:dsrajan@gmail.com

[1] http://www.asianews.it/news-en/China%E2%80%99s-Communist-Party-will-pick-the-%E2%80%9Cnext-Dalai-Lama,-period!%E2%80%9D-34948.html, August 4,2015: http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=36311&article=Tibetans+rubbish+Chinese+claim+over+Dalai+Lama+reincarnation, August 3,2015
[2] “China Voice: For reincarnation, it takes more than just the words of Dalai Lama”, Xinhua, July 19, 2015, http://www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2015-07/19/content_36095684.htm

[3] “Chinese leaders discuss Tibet development, stability”, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/30/c_134464659.htm, July 30,2015

Turkey is a NATO member and its location at the confluence of Europe, the Middle-East, the Caucasus and the Balkans is a definitive strategic advantage.

This location and its history have provided Turkey with ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural connections with a large number of nations, some of which may not even share a geographical border with it. However, the same factors can also become a restraint to the actions that the nation can initiate to ensure its security. Modern Turkey is cognisant of its identity and conscious of its current pursuit of an evolutionary ideology while being wary of its slightly troubled relationship with NATO. The overarching strategic concept of NATO is still understood in the Turkish higher level decision-making, but in the past four years the divergence of interests regarding the approach to regional security between the two has become visibly apparent.

The same period has seen the intensification of the Civil War in Syria and the forceful emergence of the Islamic State (IS) on Turkey’s borders. In dealing with these two challenges, there is a clear discrepancy between the primary objective of the US and that of Turkey—the US wants to defeat the IS before attempting to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power, whereas Turkey considers his removal the fundamental objective to be achieved. Turkey has so far not been able to alter US focus in any appreciable manner. In a show of pique, Turkey had reacted by boosting cooperation with the natural rivals of NATO and the West.

While the Western nations were imposing sanctions and resorting to military bellicosity against Russia over the events in Ukraine, Turkey expanded its economic and political cooperation with Moscow—increasing the Turkey-Russian trade to $ 100 billion a year. It also signed an agreement to build a $ 20 billion nuclear power plant with Russian collaboration. The icing on the cake in these initiatives was the signing of a $ 4 billion deal with China to procure long-range missile systems.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had led the nation into a new paradigm where the possibility of a strategic break in relations with the West was no longer anathema to national security. Instead, the new Turkey would create its own traditions of co-existence with both the West and the East, generating national power by once again becoming the bridge between the two. The traditional strength derived from close relations with NATO became overshadowed by the altered perception of national identity, closely aligned to a more Islamic version of the State. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is ideologically aligned with the banned Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and blames the Western nations for the current chaos in the Middle-East. The AKP came to power 13 years back in what was decidedly a secular nation but ever since has single-mindedly pursued an agenda of gradual Islamisation.

The AKP’s Islamic Agenda

It is true that a minimal amount of Islamisation had started in the 1950s with the establishment of a parallel Imam Hatip Secondary School system aimed at producing theologians. Erdogan is himself an early product of this system. In 1980, the Islamic character of Turkey was endorsed in the constitution. Since its inception, the AKP has viewed Turkish secularism as a historical travesty and on coming to power accelerated the Islamisation process. This initiative is manifest in the changes that have been made to the education system, in keeping with Erdogan’s repeated mention of the need to ‘raise a pious generation’.

The AKP government has changed the curricula from Kindergarten onwards, doubling the number of Imam Hatip schools from 453 to 952 in one decade with the enrolment going from 90,000 to 474,000 between 2004 and 2014. In 2014, the Higher education Council made non-Islamic studies in Universities such as courses in the sociology of religion, and philosophy optional while Islamic sciences like Koranic exigencies remain compulsory. The State’s goal is to gradually demolish Western-inspired teachings and return Turkish education to an Ottoman-inspired ‘greatness’. There is a palpable sense of the AKP embracing symbolic gestures to further the Islamisation of the nation.

The issue is that the Islamisation process is slanted towards a Sunni interpretation of the religion, whereas Turkey is home to a large number of minority sects. For example, there are over 10 million Alevis, who follows the traditions of Shia’ism imbibed with Sufi influence and has affinity towards the Alawaite sect of Syria. The Syrian refugees, majority of whom are Sunnis, have moved into the Alevaite heartland and in combination with the IS controlling large segments of the border, has created increasing tensions there. The AKP needs to establish a visible balance between religion and the existing plurality of the State to stabilise the situation.

And then came the national elections on 7 June, the results of which upset the AKP’s applecart.

The Elections and its Immediate Aftermath

The AKP and its autocratic leader President Erdogan were confident that they would once again win more than the 367 seats needed to have absolute majority in parliament. It was perceived that thereafter the constitution would be amended to make Erdogan the Executive President of the country with absolute power, akin to a dictator. However, the people of Turkey spoke through the ballot box—for the first time since coming to power in 2002, the AKP won only 258 seats, and less than 50 per cent of the votes, reaching a figure of only 41 per cent.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) won 80 seats and 13 per cent of the votes, more than the mandatory 10 per cent required under electoral laws to cross the threshold and be represented in parliament. The vote was a clear mandate for pluralism and an indicator that the people wanted to move away from Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic and Islamised rule. This election has produced the most inclusive Parliament in Turkish history and is a clear call for maintaining diversity.

There are a number of reasons for the decline of the AKP’s electoral mandate. The immediate reason was the Islamist-influenced populism that Erdogan and other leaders of the AKP had been practising for a number of years. Their high-handed approach to popular demands has made over half the country to side with other parties in an election that had a voter turnout of 86 percent. Over a period of time the AKP had criminalised dissent through passing anti-blasphemy laws and sweeping anti-terrorism bills. The Turkish people were aghast at the Government’s widespread suppression of dissent, the lack of respect for the rule of law, and the political opportunism displayed in whitewashing economic corruption. In their hubris, the AKP had forgotten the lessons of history; the Turkish people had always baulked at top-down social engineering, and the rejection of the grandiose dreams of the AKP in the June election should not be considered a surprise.

Other factors that contributed to the AKP failure are also equally important. First, the AKP was quick to support the Arab Spring-related civil strife in neighbouring countries and almost became the de facto leader of the uprisings. This attitude created rifts between Turkey and some of the more powerful Arab monarchies. Second, the Turkish Government reversed its friendship with President Bashar al-Assad and started to support the rebels wanting to oust him from power. To achieve this purpose, it kept its borders with Iraq and Syria open as a conduit for deluded international recruits to join the IS. Further, Turkey did not permit its indigenous Kurdish population to assist the besieged Kurdish town of Kobane located at its border with Syria. Since the beginning of the international coalition’s military operation against the IS, Turkey has considered Syria to be the bigger threat to its security and has considered the Islamist groups fighting there as some sort of allies.

The Kurdish Issue

The AKP had explored all possible avenues to make sure that the HDP did not cross the mandatory 10 per cent of votes in the elections, even having the HDP attacked in 60 of the 81 provinces by proxy, as was reported. The HDP is opposed to Erdogan personally and promotes a democratic future for Turkey. Therefore, the AKP knows that the HDP will not permit the creation of a presidential system of government, which seems to be Erdogan’s ultimate personal aim. The HDP is also indirectly affiliated to the banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) which has led an insurgency in Turkey for three decades. Before the Battle of Kobane, there was a faction of Kurdish religious people who were pro-AKP. But after the Turkish Government refused to assist the Kurdish defenders of Kobane they shifted allegiance; the fact is that Erdogan wanted Kobane to fall to the IS in order to diminish the Turkish Kurds’ influence in the country.

Turkey has been watching with growing unease the close cooperation between the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), which is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) that is affiliated to the PKK. The AKP has been debating the options available to curtail the Kurds’ ambition to have an independent State. By end-June, the YPG had become the most important ally of the US in the fight against the IS. YPG had direct communication links to call in US air strikes as required and US assets were also providing ISR to them.

With increasing Western collaboration the Kurds routed the IS from Tal Abyad, a strategic town on the border with Turkey. The Kurdish battlefield successes further strained their relationship with the Turkish leadership. Further, the tenuous peace between the Kurds and the Turkish Government that had held for nearly two years ended with the Kurdish electoral success. Turkey’s biggest fear now is that the creation of a Kurdish homeland, even with limited autonomy, will subsume parts of its own territories in Anatolia. Therefore the AKP views Kurdish autonomy anywhere in the Middle-East as a greater threat to its security than even the IS.

In Turkey there is now a clear and visible demarcation of Turkish and Kurdish nationalism. The Kurdish gains in Syria has added further impetus to Erdogan’s government to try and stem the rise of Kurdish identity and their demand for independence. Turkey’s long-standing demand to establish a ‘buffer zone’ in northern Syria is a direct response to the perceived threat from the Kurds. For long the US had not been in favour of creating such a zone, but they had not catered for the opportunistic manipulations of the AKP. Till mid-July the US had steadfastly maintained that only the tangible defeat of the IS by the Syrian Kurds, with the assistance of coalition air strikes, would let it attempt a regime change in Syria. In these circumstances Turkey had mentioned the concept of creating a ‘buffer zone’ unilaterally, but this was more rhetoric than an actual plan of action. An attempt to achieve a buffer-zone would have involved heavy fighting with both the IS and the Kurds, something that the Turkish military did not want.

Military intervention in the Syrian Civil War did not have majority public support in Turkey. Then came the suicide bombing in the Turkish border town of Suruc on 20 July that killed 30 Turkish citizens and injured over 100, creating a political opportunity for the AKP to get what it had always been clamouring for—dismantling the gains the Kurds had so far made towards their independence.

The adverse election result was a catalyst for the government to initiate action against the PKK members and persons linked to IS through internal crackdowns that also saw the interdiction of IS supply lines. This put in motion the cycle of IS sponsored suicide bombing, Turkey’s retaliation through strikes against IS and PKK camps, and the PKK’s increased insurgent violence in Turkey. It is possible that the PKK sponsored violence in Turkey could result in a reduction in the votes that the HDP had garnered earlier, when a re-election is ordered, providing a window of opportunity for the AKP to gain majority and continue its agenda of constitutional amendment.

Turkey in the Line of Fire

The Middle-East is in the throes of a serious, multi-cornered and violent power struggle. Turkey, while debating the use of military force to ensure its interests are not trampled on by the violence just across its borders had exercised restraint so far—the cost of failure of military intervention was far too high in the current confused circumstances. It was also cognisant of the political chaos engulfing the region and the difficulty in dealing militarily with amorphous insurgent organisations. Turkey therefore had adopted a policy of avoiding direct involvement in the on-going Middle-East imbroglio while also retaining the maximum number of options open. This meant not cooperating with the international coalition battling the IS. Turkey had elected to follow a diffused strategy that did not need any committed decisions to be made to deal with the growing challenge in the neighbourhood. It is very similar to the broad US strategy in the region, but the Turks seemed to have forgotten their geographical proximity to the threat.

An election reversal and a terrorist attack at a critical moment in the AKP’s political manoeuvring changed the entire complexion of Turkey’s Middle-East policy. The attack on Suruc by the IS brought the US and Turkish intentions regarding the way forward somewhat closer than it has ever been before. In very quick order Turkey arrived at a quid pro quo understanding with the US: Turkey would permit the coalition air forces to operate from its Incirlik air base in return for the creation and maintenance of a buffer zone 100 kilometres long and 40 kilometres deep, west of the River Euphrates. The agreement would enable a step-change in the US air campaign while Turkey would at last realise the buffer zone—a de facto IS-free ‘safe-zone’—that it had clamoured and demanded be set up from the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. On 23 July Turkey launched its first air strikes of the campaign against the IS and also attacked PKK militant camps in Iraq, after having sat on the sidelines for almost a year.

It has been reported that the Turkish Air Force send in 75 F-16s and F-4Es in three waves between 24-26 July dropping 300 smart bombs in 185 sorties that attacked approximately 400 PKK targets. Turkey has indeed shifted from a hands-off approach to one based on emphatic use of military power. Ankara has made yet another complete U-turn and become fully committed to the US-led air campaign. From a US-perspective a new strategy seems to be emerging. If the northern IS-free zone can also be duplicated in the south of Syria, then it may be possible to contain the IS between the two corridors and after whittling them down through air strikes, eliminate them with ground operations conducted by a combination of the Free Syrian Army, the PYD militia and even Assad’s own forces, with the Western coalition providing air strikes.

The Challenges and Dichotomies

The AKP in Turkey—which still lacks a mandate to form the government—was quick to equate the IS and the PKK, a move that the US either chose to ignore or was blindsided by the swiftness and ferocity of the Turkish air attacks on the PKK. At least for now the Kurdish fighters, rather than the IS, seem to be the primary target of Turkish air strikes. By bombing the Kurds Turkey hopes to gain the strategic upper hand against the PKK and also prevent the PYD forces from encroaching into Turkish territory. Simultaneously Turkey has arrested more than 600 IS militants and conducted operations against PKK’s urban infrastructure within the country. The main reason for this level of frenetic activity is that Erdogan hopes to leverage the nationalistic feeling that comes with going to war to cobble a malleable coalition to further his own and the AKP’s future political agenda. Viewed in a cynical manner it seems that since the June elections derailed Erdogan’s bid to become the uncontested supreme leader of Turkey, he has taken the country to war in the hope that wartime frenzy would make people give the AKP a majority in a snap election that can be called in November. There just may be some truth in this assessment.

At the moment the ground realities are this: the US military is turning a blind eye to the Turks targeting of the same Kurdish militia whose close coordination with US air power was critical to pushing back the IS from Kobane and curtailing their ability to manoeuvre, while the Turkish forces sat on the sidelines, willing the IS to win. The US seems to be enamoured by the concessions that Erdogan has placed in front of them, while the hard fought battles and victories that the Kurds brought them in the past year seems to have gone out of their collective memory.

There is a trap being set here, because from all the events that have taken place so far it seems that Erdogan has only one mission—to ensure that the AKP has an effective majority in parliament so that he can then change the constitution and become the executive President of the country. If democratic principles are trodden over in this process, so be it, after all the ends justify the means.

From the time that Turkey has started air strikes, the only visible trend is that their fundamental objective is to rein in the Kurds. The US-led coalition has assisted the Kurdish YPG militia to fight the IS and they have been by far the most effective combatants on the ground. The fear of an independent Kurdish state being created along Syria’s northern border with Turkey fills the AKP leadership with absolute dread and it is clear that they will do anything to ensure that such a situation is not realised. Therefore, Turkey is in the process of establishing a ‘buffer zone’ in north-west Syria which will also be a buffer against Kurdish nationalist aspirations. Whether or not the US approves this thrust seems at least for the present to be of no consequence.

What the world has to accept, however hard it may be, is that Turkey has over the past decade been gradually turned into a police state. It was easy for the government to arrest and detain ‘suspects’ who are either sympathisers of the IS and also PKK members or supporters. The AKP government has cleverly used the one suicide attack in Suruc to effectively rebalance the electoral gains the Kurdish HDP had made. Erdogan is finding alternative methods to claim his coveted goal of becoming the ruling President.

Conclusion

There is a fundamental dichotomy in the aims of the ‘new’ partners—US and Turkey. The US wants the IS defeated conclusively before a regime change is orchestrated in Syria, for fear of the IS filling the void rapidly if Assad is removed before that. Turkey is single-mindedly pursuing the ouster of Assad and the defeat of the Kurdish militia as the highest priority. Further, the two countries do not agree on a common definition of the ‘buffer or safe zone’ that is being created in Northern Syria. In an indirect manner the US-Iran nuclear deal also swayed Turkey’s calculations. It was felt that the Iranian deal would lessen Turkey’s influence with the US and therefore the offer of the use of the airbases in Turkey was meant as a direct inducement to bring US back into a position favouring Turkey.

Turkey is not overly concerned about the caliphate dreams and designs of the IS, they know that other (read Western) powers will contain it. Turkey’s fundamental objective is driven by their hatred for Kurdish ambitions and now they find themselves in the happy position of the US supporting them, if not overtly then at least turning a Nelson’s eye to the direct action being initiated against the Kurds. If ever there was a people caught between Scylla and Charybdis, it is the Kurds. Other minorities in the region must watch, learn and understand how quickly a global power can turn its back on them, even before their usefulness to the grand scheme of things is fully exhausted. The current turn of events make a mockery of friendships and alliances, of loyalty and fidelity, of steadfastness to the achievement of an objective through morally correct action. One sees the triumph of opportunism and the demonstrated ability of a great power to once again turn away from its smaller and vulnerable allies. Cynical self-centredness is perhaps too soft a term to describe the current attitude of the two new-found allies.

*Dr Sanu Kainikara – Canberra-based military and political analyst – Visiting Fellow UNSW – Distinguished fellow IFRS. First published in the Blog www.sanukay.com on 10 August 2015

There are almost 500,000 Muslims in Australia, with 400 mosques serving them. According to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) 2012-103 Annual Report to the Australian Parliament, there are over 200 terror investigations going on. This infers that massive government resources are being ploughed into monitoring and surveillance of the Muslim community in Australia, as four Australian Prime Ministers have admitted.

There appears to be an insecurity on the part of lawmakers and successive governments about Muslim citizens in the Australian community. At first it was about immigration, and violence, which grew into terrorism after 9/11. The evidence used to support policy has not been accurate according to prominent Australian Tim Costello.

Official government comment and stories from within the Muslim community itself, indicate that the security services are spying on their own people in a similar manner they did with communist groups within the Australian community back in the 1950s and 60s.

According to both documented evidence and interviews of Muslims living in Australia, a disturbing picture of how groups of Australian’s are monitored and attempted to be influenced evolves.

According to this evidence, the Australian Government through various agencies uses both hard and soft approaches in their engagement of the many Islamic communities within Australia.

This first of these approaches has been through the use of intimidating legislation. The Australian Government has used world events to introduce anti-terror laws that allow for detention, lesson the burden of proof in courts of law, allow for easier surveillance, and drastically decrease the rights of Australian citizens in regards to the legal process, etc. This has given the government much more power over its citizens with little criticism by the Australian community. The mainstream media in Australia through sensationalism has generally supported such measures with only pockets of concern and criticism coming from minor alternative and foreign media.

The media sensationalism of Australia’s harsh anti-terror laws and ‘public ritualism’ through airport security for example, serves to remind and intimidate the Australian public about the threat of terrorism.

The media has used narratives which have contributed to ‘Islamphobia’ within Australia. This has suited government legislative objectives. Headlines like “Halal food dishing out radical change to society”, in The Daily Telegraph on 22nd May 2013, “Sharia unwelcome”, in The Australian on 9th March 2012, “Repressing women is sharia’s raison d’etre’”, in The Sydney Morning Herald on 5th May 2011, and “Muslim leader blames women for sex attacks”, in The Australian on 26th October 2006, are examples of this.

Media control of these narratives has certainly been a massive influence dividing the general population against Muslims in Australia according to a Victorian Police and Victoria University Research report.

This has coincided with a number of acts of violence towards both Muslims and mosques within Australia.

Groups like ‘Reclaim Australia’ thrive on these narratives to develop resentment in their propaganda against Muslims in Australia.

The Australian government has invested large sums of money and resources to electronically monitor the population as has been reported before. Some of this is undertaken ‘offshore’ by contractors to circumvent Australian law.

There is not just Australian Government surveillance on Muslims going on in Australia. There have been reports of Israeli spying on the Australian Muslim community going on. In addition, both the Saudi and Malaysian Governments are also according to many reports spying on their own students in Australia. This is something the Australian Government has known about for many years, but done little if anything to curtail.

In addition, the author heard numerous stories from members of Mosque congregations about ‘agents’ infiltrating Muslim groups in Australia, thus increasing suspicion of others within the Muslim community. Many Muslims feel they are being victimized and their freedom and practice of religion compromised. Such action, or mere rumors of surveillance and infiltration is not helping to resolve feelings of alienation and marginalization that many young Australian Muslims fell today, according to reports.

ASIO, like it did during the Cold War era, has caste the net too wide. Stories of bullying and harassing people for ‘friendly chats’, entrapment, bribing, and blackmail, in efforts to infiltrate the Australian Muslim community are rife.

The result of the above is that many Muslim’s feel that they are being held responsible by the Australian public for terrorism and extremism. This is particularly the case where the Australian Government has been promoting, or even insisting on the Australian Islamic community adopting a form of “moderate Australian Islam”. Any other form of Islam appears to be demonized and implicitly suggested as being a form of extremism. Many Muslims in Australia feel that very ideas have been criminalized, being deemed as extreme, blurring the lines between Islamic political activism and terrorism. This demonization has created fear and justified particular actions, such as Australian foreign policy in support of the United States, and the curtailing of civil liberties.

A dramatization of this was seen in the case of Dr. Muhamed Haneef back in 2007, where he was deemed guilty publicly, later to be totally exonerated by the Australian court process.

Islamphobia has been allowed to develop because it serves political ends. However it is destroying Australian multiculturalism and building opposition to immigration. This assisted Howard regain election back in 2001 with the ‘MV Tampa’ incident, and baseless allegations during the 2001 election campaign that boat people threw their children overboard to avoid being turned back at sea.

Australia is more unsafe than before. Some Muslims now feel unsafe to leave home. Many Muslims have been abused in public and arson of mosques in Australia is becoming more common. The turban and scarf have become symbols of terrorism. Raids have gone on around Australia where very few people have actually been charged with any offence.

Australian foreign policy has led to many disappointments within the Australian Muslim community. The invasion of Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan, tacit support for the use of drones, Guantanamo, and the Australian behavior towards the David Hicks case, who has now been exonerated, have alienated many. This is particularly so, where many believe that objective discussion within the community about what they see as the real issues is suppressed. Muslims interviewed at a Friday prayer congregation, felt the Australian community wanted apologies from the local Muslim community over world events like 9/11, the Bali bombings, and 7/7.

According to a recent survey taken, 60% of Muslim Australians believe the ‘war on terror’ is a war on Islam.

Many Muslims have sympathy for the people who are now suffering because of ‘coalition’ foreign policy in the Middle East. The author heard of some who felt a duty or ‘jihad’ to help those who are suffering, and travel across to war torn areas. Many feel that the peoples of Syria and Iraq have been abandoned and left to suffer. However many have not gone to fight, as the Australian Government have espoused. They have gone to give humanitarian assistance to these war torn communities, and in some cases get caught up in the fighting. Consequently been painted are jihadist terrorists.

The question is, whether successive Australian Governments have sort to integrate or assimilate the Australian Muslim community? Much of the narrative has a neo-Christian undertone in its policy framework. ‘Reclaim Australia’ see Muslims as a threat to an Anglo-Australian culture and lifestyle, where Islamphobia has united a small core of Australians who are against multiculturalism.

The new citizenship test even appears to pose a ‘skewed concept of Australian values’. The attempts to legalize the stripping of citizenship, where a leading constitutional expert believes that people under the proposed laws can be stripped of citizenship by mere suspicion, appears to be a new attempt to intimidate migrants to Australia.

The political climate in Australia today does not allow for discussion about alternative approaches to fighting terrorism, or objective discussion about the refugee problem, not just facing Australia, but many parts of the world as well. The Australian Government paints a gloomy picture about the ‘war on terror’, by its own rhetoric, deeming it unwinnable. They insinuate that the Australian community is helpless and an easy prey for the ‘forces of evil’ through terrorism. This is creating some apprehension in middle Australia.

In a more eloquent characterization, the London Arab language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat compared Islamic State to a remote controlled “cluster bomb”. “Every explosion means as many fragments – jihadists spreading in an unpredictable way on large areas so that no command and counterterrorist operation center be able to prevent the deflagration clusters and its devastating effects.”

With the way Islamic State is reaching out to communities through cyberspace and espouse their narratives, more than just the ‘classical approach’ to fighting terrorism is required. The physiological sources that are producing fanatical and eschatological thinking that produces jihadistic terrorism needs to be engaged, rather than suppressed through counter force, as the natural reaction has been.

This requires a ‘new international doctrine’ that would include prevention, intervention, and reconstructing mentalities to prevent any re-establishment of terrorism under different names and new generations of groupings in the future. Australia is today playing no role in this necessary discussion.

The Australian Government approach to the ‘war on terror’ at home may lead to a much more conservative Australia, and weaken the Australian value of multiculturalism. It may divide rather than unite Australia. However, a divisive electorate may assist the Abbott Government win a second term in office.

Maybe part of the problem is the ‘war on terrorism’ itself.

Pakistani authorities have investigated the country’s biggest child abuse scandal in which a global network of paedophiles is involved in recording forced sexual acts of hundreds of children and taking extortion money from the victims.

Saba Sadiq, head of the Child Protection Bureau (CPB), described the case as “the largest-ever child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history.” She also indicated that the government would change the law to ensure vigorous punishment for such criminals.

After initial investigations the officials said that the accused were attempting to export the videos of heinous crimes to porn site operators in Britain, the US and some European countries.

It’s claimed that a gang of 15 men may have been involved in sexual abuses of around 500 children and taking extortion money from the victims and their families.

“Some victims stole jewellery from their families to pay money to the alleged rapists to stop public appearance of the videos,” local press reported a victim as saying.

The families of the victims accuse the police of protecting the suspects by covering up the incident by distorting the facts by calling the outrage “as a result of an old feud amid two groups.”

However, families of the victims and human rights groups reject the police version and local media has also confirmed the widespread child sexual abuse in a bordering village of eastern Punjab province.

The accusations of the child abuse scandal have rocked Pakistani society where paedophile is considered one of the social taboos.

Citizens and human rights groups have protested for “justice for the children.” On the other hand, political leaders have also urged the government to send sex scandal cases to the military courts for speedy trial of the culprits.

In the wake of the dreadful Taliban attack in a school, Pakistan has recently formed Anti-Terrorism military courts to take action against the Taliban groups involved in terrorism. In the past most of the alleged attackers were acquitted from the courts due to the judicial weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Prime Minister has vowed to give “exemplary punishment,” saying the offenders would not be spared.

Fourteen persons involved in the child abuse case have been arrested by the police. The police said that the majority of the accused are in their early 20s. One of the accused denies participating in the crime, but has confessed that the crime happened in his presence, according to reports.

Pakistan has a tainted record in children’s education, safety and health. According to child protection network ‘Sahil’ 3,508 children were sexually abused in 2014 with 10 such cases happening per day. The highest percentage of a vulnerable age group among both girls and boys was 11-15 years.

With millions of vulnerable street children, Pakistan’s literacy rate is low, so most parents are unaware about the requirements of mental and physical growth of children.

“The parents are not alert of how exposed their children are in a society where child abuse is rampant,” a psychotherapist stated.

Local media has reported that crimes against children are escalating in the country in the recent years; however, the government has failed to protect the children.

There is an urgent need to bring revolutionary reforms in country’s legal and social structures to protect the rights of children.

Josh, in Israel, emailed me. He said they are“living under the specter of the Iran deal and see where this is all heading.” They are extremely concerned. Josh said, “For starters what even gave him the right to lead such “negotiations” on behalf of the world? Who anointed him king, anyway?” Josh concluded, “Either Obama’s deal is insane or deliberate.”

Well Josh, the US mainstream media has for all intensive purposes made Obama king. Concerned Americans say we are resembling a banana republic (dishonest government ignoring laws). The MSM aggressively promotes whatever Obama wants the public to know and blocks what he does not.

For example: Everyone knows about the shooting of Cecil the lion. Due to a MSM insidious blackout of the story, 70% of Americans do not know about the real-life horror movie happening behind the walls of Planned Parenthood. The vile scumbags at PP are illegally black marketing baby body parts (mostly black). Cause for PP staff to high-five and celebrate is when they score an intact dead baby because the profit is higher.

Think about that folks. The MSM has made sure the masses know nothing about Obama and Democrats supporting and covering up the PP illegal baby body parts chop shop scandal. And yet, everyone knows about the death of a lion.

The MSM also makes sure (king) Obama can lie with impunity. In my youth, I naively thought public officials cannot lie because we have video. If Obama lies to America and the MSM refuses to call him on it, does it make a sound?

Yo Morgan, I need you and that Black dude (Jack Black) to sell my nuke deal to my peeps. Whenever Obama wants to scam blacks his language becomes more urban. Black actor Morgan Freeman and other Hollywood liberals produced a video, “#Iran Deal is Awesome!” – to sell Obama’s nightmarish deal. The lie-filled video is an outrageous insult to Americans’ intelligence.

Clearly, Obama knows the MSM will help sell his lies. The Iran ego-driven irresponsible nuke deal is Obama urinating on America and Israel’s head while his minions tell us his golden nectar is divine rain that will ultimately produce beautiful flowers of peace. Frustratingly, black race loyalists, white guilt ridden Obama sycophants and Leftists will sigh and say, “Isn’t he wonderful?”

My announcer will tell you how Obama’s deal screws everyone.

Thanks Lloyd, and hereeee’s what Iran gets – over one hundred billion dollars to further its role as the world’s greatest exporters of terrorism. That’s right folks. The US will be funding terrorism, against itself.

The guy Obama made the deal with, Ayatollah Khamenei, along with Iranian hardliners chant, “Death to America!” Ayatollah Khamenei’s new book, “Palestine” instructs how to outsmart the US and destroy Israel. Obama says chill-out, Khamenei does not mean it.

Obama says inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities to insure they are not making a bomb. Not true. The deal says inspectors must give Iran 24 days notice which Iran can stretch even longer. Do I really need to elaborate on the absurdity of this Obama concession?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Obama’s nuke deal will spark a middle east nuclear arms race. Well duh! If the neighborhood bully gets a gun, doesn’t self-preservation dictate that neighbors rush to acquire guns to defend themselves from the bully? Is Obama that stupid or is he, as Josh suggested, “deliberately” endangering Israel?

But wait folks, there’s more. Everyone on the planet knows Iran will break the deal and immediately pursue a nuclear bomb. In 2013, Obama backed Israel’s right to use force to stop them. Unbelievably, Obama’s Iran nuke deal requires the US to defend Iran against Israel. Can you i ma gine the US actually fighting our ally to protect terrorism? How satanic is that?

Regarding Israel (Genesis 12:3): “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” – God

And now, back to you, Lloyd!

To my fellow black Christians who are going along with Obama’s evil deal, you should be ashamed of yourselves; choosing skin-color loyalty over God’s chosen people.

The Bible says, “Before I formed thee in thy mother’s womb, I knew thee…” To provide intact dead babies for its clients, PP abortion doctors deliver the entire baby except for the head (partial birth abortion). Then, the doctor inserts scissors into the base of the baby’s skull and forces the scissors up into its brain to kill the baby. Whether you are a Bible believer or not, your gut tells you this is evil. This fall, congress will vote whether or not to continue giving PP billions of taxpayer dollars in support of this evil.

In less the 50 days, congress will vote thumps up or down on Obama’s insane Iran nuke deal. Thumps up equals officially turning our backs on our ally, Israel.

Brother and sister Americans, if congress fails us on either of these two crucial issues, how can we expect God to bless America?

Jason Rezaian, the Iranian-American reporter for the Washington Post who is being tried in Iran, should receive the court’s verdict within a week, Rezaian’s lawyer said as his trial wrapped up today.

Leila Ahsan, Rezaian’s lawyer, told reporters that the trial is now over and the court decision should be issued within a week.

Rezaian’s fourth session in court came to an end at noon on Monday August 10 behind closed doors. Ahsan reported that this was the final session and that she had submitted a 20-page defence brief and an oral defence during the hearing, details of which could not be revealed to the media due to confidentiality rules.

Rezaian was arrested in July of 2014 along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and two other friends. All except Rezaian were gradually released.

The reporter’s mother, Mary Rezaian, and wife, Yeganeh Salehi, were not present in court but were waiting outside the doors and spoke to reporters after the session.

Mary Rezaian expressed hope that with the new developments, her son would be exonerated and released. “He is paying the price of the suspicion, the animosity and the paranoia between the two countries,” she said.

Jason Rezaian is accused of spying, charges that have been denied by him, his family and the Washington Post.

Saudi Arabia vowed to stand firm against terrorism during a Cabinet meeting in Jeddah on Monday.

Vice Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Prince Mohammed bin Naif chaired the Council of Ministers at Al-Salam Palace.

He offered condolences to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman on the martyrdom of 15 people who died during a suicide bombing at the Special Emergency Forces Center Mosque in Asir on Thursday.

The martyrs included trainees who had enrolled for courses designed for the service of pilgrims.

“The bombing revealed the extent of hatred these criminals harbor as well as their utter disregard for the sanctity of the house of Allah and the lives of innocent people,” he said.

“They (the terrorists) are devoid of all religious, moral and human values and their deviant thoughts have no link with Islam.”

He said these acts will not affect the Kingdom and the unity of its people.

“Saudi Arabia will remain a place of security and stability; and these terrorist acts being carried out by Khawarijites (outlaws) will not discourage security men from confronting all those who try to tamper with the security of the homeland,” he said.

In a statement to Saudi Press Agency (SPA) following the session, Culture and Information Minister Adel Al-Toraifi said that the Cabinet expressed the Kingdom’s thanks and appreciation to the brotherly and friendly countries, their officials, Islamic and international organizations, scholars, sheikhs and citizens for condemning the terrorist act.

The culture and information minister said that the Cabinet praised the depth of relations between Saudi Arabia and Jordan under the leadership of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and King Abdallah.

In this regard, the Cabinet was briefed on the results of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Jordan.

The Cabinet emphasized the content of the joint statement which was issued during the visit.

The Cabinet congratulated Egypt on the opening of the new Suez Canal project.
The Cabinet stressed the importance of the project for facilitating global maritime navigation.

The European Union condemned on Monday the death on August 9 of the journalist Rasim Aliyev, who was allegedly attacked and beaten by supporters of a local soccer player in Baku, Azerbaijan, calling it, “awful news.”

In a statement, the spokesperson from the European Union External Action office said, “We express our sincere condolences to his family, colleagues and friends,” while at the same time called for a full and transparent investigation of this case has to be conducted to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

“The EU supports the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of the media, which are fundamental elements of a democratic society,” the statement read, adding that, “Azerbaijan needs to promote a safe environment for journalists and other media representatives, enabling them to carry out their work without fear of violence or persecution.”

Sri Lanka’s foreign debt under the new government has decreased while maintaining the foreign reserve at US$ 7.5 billion.

Sri Lanka has borrowed only 43 billion rupees in the first half of this year as external debt. The Ministry of Finance releasing a press release attributed this lower amount recorded to the efficient manner in which the reforms introduced by the new government to the public administration and the financial management.

As envisaged in the budget -2015 the approved amount of commercial loans to be taken in this year is Rs 195 billion of which the government has so far obtained 43 billion rupees which is only a 22 percent. But, according to the General Treasury, the total outstanding government debt increased by 8.8 percent to Rs. 7,390 billion by end of 2014 from Rs. 6,793 billion in 2013.

However, the outstanding total debt reached an all-time high of Rs 3272 billion in June 2014 and the lowest recorded was Rs 70 billion in 1986.

According to statistics available at the General Treasury the annual debt servicing during the 2015 is estimated to be Rs 1,265 billion. The Ministry said that the new government has retired some of these debts which were obtained at higher interest rate and obtained new debt under the lower rate of interest. As a result the government’s debt servicing interest rate to GDP ratio has come down to 3.5 percent from the earlier rate of 5 percent.

Meanwhile the Finance Ministry said that the government revenue in the first six month of the year has gone up by 18 percent to Rs 703 billion when compared with the corresponding period in 2014. The revenue reported in the first six months of 2014 was Rs 596 billion. The increase in the government revenue and the curtailing of extravagance expenditures with efficient financial management by the new government led to managing the public debt efficiently under the new government, the Finance Ministry release further stated.

Standard and Poor’s rating has confirmed Sri Lanka’s ‘B+’ rating with a stable outlook expressing the hope that Sri Lanka’s foreign reserve will grow and the external debt will fall in the next three years as the risks associated with the external settings are mitigated by growing foreign reserve. As at present country’s international reserve remain at US $ 7.5 billion.

At their traditional summer meeting in Marivent, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and King Felipe VI discussed the improved unemployment figures, the General State Budget for 2016 and other issues related to illegal immigration and international relations.

At an appearance before the media after last Friday’s meeting, Rajoy said that the employment and social security figures published this past week were very positive, but that a great effort still needs to be made because “it is necessary for many more people to have the chance of finding a job”.

He also pointed out that the General State Budget for 2016, approved at the latest Council of Ministers, maintains the same broad strokes of economic policy and the same objectives for this term of office: definitively overcoming the crisis, generating economic growth and creating jobs.

According to Rajoy, “the worst moments of this crisis are now behind us”, although we are still suffering from many after-effects and the government must strive and persevere with the policies that have been set in motion.

The Prime Minister asserted that, after various years of negative growth, the Spanish economy grew by 1.4% last year and will grow by 3.3% this year. “We will be the Eurozone country to enjoy the greatest economic growth and job creation is also on the rise”. In this regard, he pointed out that 440,000 people found a job last year and the forecast is for another 600,000 this year.

“The lines of economic policy are the same that we have maintained throughout this term of office, although now, as a result of improved economic activity and increased revenues, our margins are more comfortable and we can do things that we were unable to do over the course of the last few years”, he added.

Rajoy announced that the government will continue with its reformist policy because “this has led to results” and it will continue controlling public spending because we still need to lower it in line with our commitment to Europe.

Social spending and pensions

Rajoy recalled that more than 53% of the General State Budget is given over to social spending and that savings will be made under various headings, such as unemployment, thanks to the lower number of unemployed and the reduction in servicing debt.

He also recalled that pensions will be increased slightly, as has happened each year, and that public worker salaries will be increased by 1% next year, which will continue in the future “if the economic situation so allows”.

On another note, Rajoy and King Felipe VI reviewed the progress of Operation Strait of Gibraltar, which is facilitating the movement of 2.5 million people, as well as issues related to illegal immigration and the presence of Spanish military personnel in Turkey under the NATO mandate.