As the Defense Day is approaching, many outrageous accounts are appearing, struggling to reveal a novel version that has not been presented before. Since 1965, a lot number of contradictory narratives have been told about the war, which baffles an ordinary individual to decide about the rational or prejudiced version of the war tale. The reason is that all of us have been taught and told the splendid victory and outstanding performance of Pakistan in the war. But on the other hand, many skeptics call it an exaggerated tale and declare that it was actually a pinprick to arouse the slumber. According to various dynamic views, it is pragmatically accepted that both states declaring an absolute victory is beyond the reality. The culmination of that war did not take place after establishing a one-sided victory; rather it was a cease fire.

Recently, the most widespread perspective in many of the writings of our nationwide newspaper is that the 1965 war was not a good idea which initiated with Pakistani operation Gibraltar by sending radicalized civilians into the India-held Kashmir by Pakistan to foment revolution, about which the forces (other than few) were not even informed about.

These perspectives are based upon various references from history; one is take from the famous memoirs of Air Marshal Nur Khan which includes his conversation with Gen. Akhtar Hasan Malik, GOC Kashmir, the man in-charge of ‘Operation Gibraltar’. It quotes that in a discussion about the further details of operation, Gen Malik said “don’t worry, because the plan to send in some 800,000 infiltrators inside the occupied territory to throw out the Indian troops with the help of the local population, is so designed that the Indians would not be able retaliate and therefore the airforce need not get into war-time mode.” This according to Nur Khan, was so naïve and irresponsible because the operation was designed for self-gory than in the national interest. Moreover, as we were not expecting the war thus we were not ready for the war and this is how he called it an unnecessary war.

Another, the most recent narration published, quotes the words of Lt. Gen. (retd) Mahmud Ahmed, “It was only after listening to an All India Radio broadcast in the evening of 4 September that the Pakistan C-in-C, Gen Muhammad Musa, reached the conclusion that Indian intentions were hostile. Then too the GHQ sent a rather ambiguous signal message to the formations. Apart from the sheer number of tanks involved, it is well worth asking if the armored battles were really great by any standard? The fact is both sides lacked skill in handling armor at the operation level.”

Notwithstanding, what has been said by many, few comprehension are absolute that Pakistan started it in Kashmir and India tried to end it by attacking in south, with an intention and plan to capture Lahore in a day but failed. Both states, India and Pakistan captured each other’s territories, although India definitely had superior numbers, especially the airforce. However, both sides suffered heavy losses. India’s damage near Sialkot and Pakistan’s near Amritsar is predominant.

So do the above revelations suggest that 1965 is about solemn commemoration and there is nothing significant to celebrate? Is it the complete perspective which merely recalls vital lessons for Pakistan so all the ardor for the day should be abhorred?

If it is so then why the BJP led government of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to celebrate the golden jubilee of 1965 war, an occasion Pakistan celebrates every year on September 6 as Defense Day. This is the first time that India has decided to celebrate September as ‘victory month’ in order to give an impression to the world that 1965 war was actually won by them. Albeit, eyebrows have been raised over these celebrations in India too because even the defense ministry’s official war history describes its end as a stalemate.

Paradoxically, recently the highest ranking Indian Air Force officer, Air Marshal (retd) Bharat Kumar stated in his book that India suffered much as compared to Pakistan in the war of 1965. He admitted Indian defeat in the war of 1965 in book, titled “The Duels of the Himalayan Eagle: The First Indo-Pak Air War” and acknowledged that Indian Air Force (IAF) “suffered disproportionately higher losses” than PAF. The book also takes a candid look at the abysmal lack of coordination between IAF and the Army, a controversy that lingers to this day, with the author admitting that “mistakes were made”. The Indian Army too is reportedly coming out with its new account of the 1965 war.

Evidently, mistakes were made on both sides in war, so later what happened at Tashkant, Simla or Washington does not adhere that our soldiers and their sacrifices does not deserve a tribute. Our forces especially Air Force performed much better despite the reality that they were not expecting and not fully ready for war. Above anything, do we need a reason to celebrate day, which has been declared our Defense Day, when your hostile state is celebrating whole month to propagate their victory in war. Thus when many are in a race to display their intellectual superiority by coming up with narratives that dismiss reason to celebrate 6 September, can I celebrate the Defense Day? Not for some reason that we scored triumphs against India but for the supreme sacrifices of our soldiers, to value the enthusiasm our nation showed and to boast the patriotic spirit that holds a nation together.

The writer is a member of an Islamabad based think-tank, Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) and can be reached at maimuna.svi@gmail.com.

With multi-billionaire businessman and television star Donald Trump still climbing in the polls measuring the popularity of Republican presidential candidates, more than a few left-wing commentators, Democratic leaders and anti-conservative groups are bashing the political outsider with all they’ve got, especially the characterization of him being a racist.

For example, during his press conference held at New York City’s Trump Tower on Thursday, a group of illegal-immigration advocates — many of them believed to be Latinos — dressed in the white garb of the hated Ku Klux Klan.

The video by citizen-journalist Ty Dixon is circulating in the nation’s newsrooms — and being ignored by most of them — shows protesters outside of Trump’s headquarters building dressed as KKK members during the political phenomenon Donald Trump’s press conference to announce he signed the Republican National Committee’s loyalty pledge. The document, which he displayed to his loyal followers and to the news reporters stipulates that should he fail to win the Republican nomination for president, he will not run for office as a third-party candidate.

The protesters were not angry about that, but they were protesting Trump’s immigration policy as was explained to them by their biased leaders and equally biased news media, such as a Spanish-language television newsman with Univision, Jorge Ramos. The KKK clad protesters held signs that said “Make America Racist Again” – a distortion of Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

During the limited coverage of the event and the protest, news organizations such as the New York Times concentrated their coverage about an altercation between a Trump security officer and one of the protesters. A member of Trump’s security team allegedly pulled down a large blue sign reading “Trump: Make America Racist Again” that was hoisted up by protesters gathered outside Trump Plaza.

The protester, identified by the news media as Efraín Galicia, chased and attempted to tackle the security officer. In an act of self-defense, the security officer then turned and swung. As Mr. Galicia was restrained, the security officer took the sign into Trump Tower. The New York Times only focused on the protesters in street clothes and totally avoided mentioning the KKK aspect of the event. In fact, the photograph used by the Times blocked out those dressed like the KKK.

“Someone should remind the Times and others on the left that the Ku Klux Klan was a creation of Democrats after the War Between the States. Perhaps they forgot that one of their Democratic Party icons, the late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, served as the Grand Kleagle of an active chapter of the notorious racist gang,” said former police detective Sid Franes, an African American who admits to supporting Ben Carson, the only black running for the presidential nomination.

Israel’s multiple fault lines – secular vs religious, Jewish vs Palestine and controversial calls for a boycott of the Jewish state – are exploding on the soccer pitch.

The spill over comes as President Reuven Rivlin warned in a recent speech that Israel was being fragmented by four tribes that view each other’s worldview as a threat. Mr. Rivlin said these exclusionary worldviews were being reinforced by each of the tribes having its own education system that propagates a different culture, religious belief or national identity.

Calling for a partnership in which all groups would feel assured that their way of life is secured, enjoy equal and equitable rights, and share responsibility and an Israeli identity that celebrates its diversity, Mr. Rivlin identified Israel’s tribes as a secular Jewish majority and growing minorities of religious and ultra-religious Jews as well as the country’s Palestinian population.

“If we desire to live with the vision of a Jewish and democratic state as our life’s dream and our heart’s desire, then we need to look bravely at this reality,” Mr. Rivlin said.

If the soccer pitch is anything to go by, Israel is a far ways off from the new order Mr. Rivlin says he is trying to shape.

In a drawing of the secular-religious battle lines, the Israeli Football Association (IFA) said it would cancel all league matches if the government and the judiciary did not lift a recent ban on games being played on the Sabbath. The warning was in response to a ruling by a labour court that ordered postponement of a match because players could not be forced to play on a Sabbath.

The conflict is likely to come to a head with Economy Minister Aryeh Deri, who has the final word, openly siding with the court. Mr. Deri, who has served time for accepting a bribe when he was interior minister in a past government, is a member of Shas, a religious party that advocates stricter observance of the Sabbath.

While fighting the religious on one front, Israeli soccer is internationally on the defensive and domestically divided over allegations of racism and calls for a boycott of, disinvestment from and sanctions against Israel because of its hard line policy towards the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

A committee established by world soccer body FIFA will begin monitoring Israeli steps to counter racism, including a refusal by top league, storied club Beitar Jerusalem that refuses to hire Palestinian players who are among Israel’s top performers. It also will look at whether Israel will implement promises to ease debilitating restrictions on Palestinian soccer.

Beitar fans created havoc in July during a match against Charleroi in Belgium when they hoisted racist banners of the banned ultra-nationalist Kach party and disrupted the match with flares and objects thrown onto the pitch that struck the Belgian goalkeeper.

Last month, Beitar fans carried a banner into Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium with imagery reminiscent of neo-Nazi movements. The banner said ‘Good night left side,” a slogan used by the far right in Eastern Europe, and featured a drawing of a man kicking another man lying on the ground.

Beitar’s racist employment policy and its hard line, anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim fan base persuaded hundreds of fans to create a fan-owned alternative, Beitar Nordia, Beitar Jerusalem’s name during the pre-state British mandate.

“The purpose is to build a new and clean house from the ground up, for the Beitar fans who were fed up with the racism and violence,” said Yuval Rubovitch, one of the team’s founders.

Beitar Nordia’s backers include Mr. Rivlin, a member of Likud, Prime Minister’s Benyamin Netanyahu’s party, whose leaders largely support Beitar Jerusalem. Mr. Rivlin, who has long been at odds with Mr. Netanyahu, said that Beitar Nordia “brings back to life the heart and the soul that was once the essence of Beitar Jerusalem.”

The FIFA committee’s most thorny task will be tackling Palestinian demands that the inclusion of teams from West Bank Jewish settlements in lower Israeli leagues be seen as a violation of the FIFA charter. The Palestinians charge that the same is true for an Israeli demand that the Palestine Football Association (PFA) “operate through the formal channels of the state of Israel.”

The stakes for Israel are high. The PFA, an independent member of FIFA, agreed in May to withdraw a resolution at the last FIFA congress demanding that Israel’s membership be suspended, in exchange for the creation of the monitoring committee. The committee’s failure to solve the disputes could lead to the Palestinian resolution being again tabled at the next FIFA congress in February.

Meanwhile, a 2016 European Championship qualifier between Israel and Wales in Cardiff is promising to be a battlefield between supporters and opponents of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

The battle of Cardiff was shaping up as Britain’s Labour Party was entertaining Jeremy Corbyn as a frontrunner in leadership elections. Supporters of Israel have accused Mr. Corbyn, a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign that backs the anti-Israel Cardiff protest who has described groups like Palestine’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite militia Hezbollah as ‘friends,’ of being an anti-Semite.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters are planning a demonstration at the stadium as part of the Red Card Israeli Racism campaign in support of demands that FIFA and European soccer body UEFA suspend Israel. The Jewish Chronicle reported that supporters of Israel would stage a “pre-match celebration of Israel.”

The Israeli embassy in Britain was forced to cancel the performance of an Israeli dance group at the match for security reasons. The Cardiff council moreover cancelled an exhibition entitled ‘Jewish-Arab football: diversity and co-existence through lower-league football’ as a result of complaints by unidentified parties.

Israel, concerned about the growing strength of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, saw the Cardiff match as an opportunity to counter mounting criticism of its policies that threatens the moral high ground Israel claims. BDS has been targeting companies and academic institutions that operate on the West Bank.

Anti-Israel activists claimed a recent success with the reported sale of a majority stake in targeted Israeli cosmetics company Ahava that manufactures on the West Bank to a Chinese investment Fund. Activists said the company had become so tarnished that no US or European investor was willing to bid for it.

“It is unfortunate that we are anticipating an anti-Israel demonstration in Cardiff, which does nothing to promote coexistence in the Middle East or to foster dialogue. Promoting hatred and a divisive ideology, is not only foreign to the sport of football and to sports in general, but cannot advance the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” the Israeli embassy said in a statement.

By Elise Harris

In a virtual audience with Americans Pope Francis heard emotive testimonies from undocumented immigrants, comforted a single mother, and encouraged greater solidarity in world racked with many problems.

The videoconference was held Aug. 31, and was hosted by ABC News. It aired on ABC News’ “20/20” at 10:00 p.m. ET Sept. 4, and is available online in English and Spanish.

Members included students from the “Cristo Rey” Jesuit High School – a place for disadvantaged youth; a center for homeless in Los Angeles; and members of Sacred Heart parish in McAllen, Texas, which sits near the U.S.-Mexico border.

During the conference, Pope Francis listened to the stories of people from a variety of different backgrounds, including a bullied teen, a homeless youth and undocumented immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador.

He also gave a special message to a single mother, telling her that she is “a brave woman” for bringing her two daughters into the world when she could have easily aborted them.

“You could have killed them in the womb, and you respected life, respected the life that you had inside of yours.”

The Pope extended his greeting to all Americans, saying that he is praying for them and looking forward to his visit the United States later this month.

Pope Francis: A big greeting. A big greeting to the Catholic community in the United States and to all citizens of the United States. This is my message, an affectionate greeting.

Connection to Chicago, with the Jesuit High School “Cristo Rey,” a school for the poor and marginalized.

Testimony of Valery Herrera, a senior at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. She has struggled with vitiligo, an autoimmune disease that causes white blotches on the face and body, and had endured bullying through elementary and middle school. Music helped her grow in her faith and feel less alone and different. She is thinking of becoming the first in her family to go to University, and wants to study pharmacy.

Valery Herrera: What are your hopes for us, the youth? What do you hope we do and be?

Pope Francis: Valery. I would like to hear you singing, may I ask you to sing a song for me? I wait for that. Go on, go on…Be courageous (Valery sings “Junto a Ti Maria”). Thank you very much. It’s very kind of you.

My first response to your question is this: What I hope for from youth is for you all not to walk alone in life. This is the first step, I hope for many more things. That you dare to walk with love and tenderness for others. That you meet someone – you sang to the Virgin to take you into her arms, to take you by the hand to walk – that will accompany you to walk in life. Life is very difficult. It’s difficult to walk alone. You get lost. You get confused. You can find the wrong path or you can be walking around in circles, in a maze, or worst, you can stop because you get tired of walking in life. Always walk hand-in-hand with someone who loves you, someone who gives you tenderness – and you said this to Our Lady. To walk hand in hand with Jesus, to walk hand in hand with the Virgin, this gives security. It’s the first thing I hope for the youth: that you be accompanied but with good companions, that is, that you walk in good company. In my country (Argentina), there’s a saying, ‘it’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.’ That’s true, but walk accompanied. Each youth has to look in life for someone that helps them along the way, it can be their father, mother, a relative, a friend, a grandfather or grandmother – grandparents give such good advice – a teacher, someone that helps you to face things in life. Walk accompanied, first.

Second: I hope the youth walk with courage. It just cost you to take the first step in this path that I asked you, that you sing a song. You were emotional, you didn’t know how to do it, but you went courageously and made the first step, and sang very well. Continue singing, you sing very well. That is, the courage to take the first step, the courage to go forward. Do you know how sad it is to see a youth that is not brave? A sad youth, a youth with the face of grief, a youth without joy. Courage gives you joy, and joy gives you hope which is a gift from God, obviously. It’s true that in the path of life there are many difficulties. Don’t be afraid of difficulties! Be prudent, be careful but don’t be afraid. You have the strength to overcome. Don’t be scared. Don’t stop. There’s nothing worse than a young person who has retired before his or her time. I don’t know at what age people retire in the United States, but can you imagine a young person who’s 25 years old, who’s retired? Terrible. Always move forward with courage and with hope. And God, if you ask him, will give you hope. This is my response Valery. And I thank you for the song.

Testimony of Alexandra Vázquez, who lost her father. (Didn’t ask a question but the Pope made a comment)

Pope Francis: Thank you very much, Alexandra. Go on along the path. God bless you.

Connection to Los Angeles. People came together from different shelters that protect poor and homeless people in Los Angeles.

Testimony of Marcos, 19, a homeless youth who dreams of becoming a musician.

Marcos: I know why you are so important for me, but why is this trip to the United States so important for you?

Pope Francis: For me it’s important to meet with you, the citizens of the United States, who have your history, your culture, your virtues, your joys, your sorrows, your problems like every people. I am at the service of all churches and all men and women of good will. For me something very important is proximity. For me it’s difficult not to be closes to the people. Instead, when I get close to the people, as I am going to do with you all, I find it easier to understand them and help them on the path of life. It’s because of this that this trip is so important, to make me close to your path and history.

Testimony of Alyssa Farfan, 11, and her mother Rosemary, a single mother. They lived in a homeless shelter, but have just been granted their first apartment. (Didn’t ask a question but the Pope made a comment.)

Pope Francis: Thank you Rosemary, for your testimony. I want to tell you one thing. I know that it’s not easy to be a single mother, I know that people can sometimes look at you badly, but I tell you one thing, you’re a brave woman because you were able to bring two daughters into the world. You could have killed them in the womb, and you respected life, respected the life that you had inside of yours, and for this God is going to reward you, and is rewarding you. Don’t be ashamed, go forward with your head held high: “I did not kill my daughters, I brought them into the world.” I congratulate you, I congratulate you, and may God bless you.

Connection with Texas in Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, on the border of Mexico.

Testimony of Ricardo Ortiz, 19, who emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was 4 years old. His father at times had difficulty finding work because he was undocumented. When Ricardo was around 17, his father had an accident and wasn’t able to work at all. For a time Ricardo had to take care of his family of 6, but then his father helped pay for his studies when Ricardo’s scholarship was revoked because he was not a U.S. citizen.

Ricardo Ortiz: With all the problems there are in the world: poverty, our educational system, immigration…what do you think is the solution to all of these problems?

Pope Francis: Obviously listening to your story I can say that life has made you a father early because from very young you had to maintain your family during your father’s illness. But you knew how to do it because you had a father with the courage to start you on this path of work and struggle, and the courage after to help you study at the cost of sacrifices. In this life there are many injustices, and as a believer, as a Christian, the first who suffered…who condensed himself, was Jesus. Jesus was born on the street, born homeless, his mother didn’t have a place to give birth to him. Always look to the figure of Jesus. You ask me how. Looking at the figure of Jesus we take another step. God sometimes speaks to us with words, as in history, with situations. And God at times, many times, speaks to us with his silence. When I see – what you ask me – to number of people who are starving, which doesn’t need to grow, who don’t have good health, that a child dies, who have no education, the number of people who don’t have a house, the number of people who today, we are seeing them, migrate from their country seeking a better future and they die, so many die along the way, I look to Jesus on the Cross and discover the silence of God. The first silence of God is on the Cross of Jesus. The greatest injustice history and God was silent. That said, I’m going to be more concrete in the response on other levels, but don’t forget that God speaks to us with words, with gestures and with silences. And what you ask me is only understood in the silence of God, and the silence of God is only understood by looking at the Cross.

What to do? The world has to be more aware that the exploitation of each other is not a path. All of us are created for social friendship. All of us have responsibility for everyone. No one can say: ‘my responsibility reaches here.’ We are all responsible for everyone, and to help ourselves in the way that each one can. Social friendship, this is what God created us for. But there is one very nasty word which also appears on the first page of the bible. God says it to the devil, the father of lies, to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman.” And the word enmity grew throughout history, and a little after this exchange, the first enmity between brothers: Cain killed Abel. The first injustice. From here on, wars, destructions. From here on, hatred. Speaking in soccer terms, I would say that the match is played between friendship in society and enmity in society. Each one has to make a choice in his or her heart, and we have to help that choice to be made in the heart. Escaping through addictions or violence doesn’t help, only closeness and giving of myself what I can – like you gave everything you could when as a child you sustained your family. Don’t forget this, social friendship against the answer of the world which is social enmity: “Fix yourself and may others fix themselves alone.” This is not the plan of God. This is what occurs to me to tell you, and also to express my admiration, life made you a father very young. Now when you are a real father and have your own children may you continue to educate them on the path that you learned from your father. Thank you.

Testimony of Wilma, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who wears an ankle bracelet. She wanted a better life for her son Ernesto, who was born with a congenital disease in his eyes and can’t see. She asked for a blessing from the Holy Father and he gave it. After, the Pope asked for a nun who was seen on the screen and directed some words to her. This is Sister Norma.

Pope Francis: Sister, through you I want to thank all religious sisters of the United States. The work that the religious sisters have done and do in the United States is great. I congratulate you. Be courageous. Move forward, always on the front line. And I tell you one thing more – is ok for the Pope to say this? I don’t know – I love you all very much!

Testimony of Wendy, 11, who has just arrived from El Salvador because of gang violence. The child, crying, recounted the dramatic days of the trip. She drew a picture for the Pope, and the Pope thanked her.

At the end of the video conference the Pope was given a crucifix made by the students of Chicago.

David Muir: Holy Father, do you have a final message?

Pope Francis: That I am very hopeful to meet you. That I am praying for you, for all the American people and I ask you please to pray for me. Thank you.

By Aron Lund*

Although little noticed in the international media, Iraqi politics have been unusally stormy these past days, ever since it was revealed that Qatar would host a conference for ”Iraqi reconciliation.” With all involved well attuned to the dog-whistle rhetoric of Iraqi politics, this was universally understood to mean ”Sunni Arab Iraqi reconciliation.”

Much of the Shia press and political landscape in Iraq reacted with outrage. These voices grew even angrier as speculation intensified about who would attend. When the meetings began in Doha on September 2, Iraqi debate collapsed in a roaring pandemonium of threats and accusations against those Sunni politicians who had dared travel to Qatar.

While details remain scarce, it seems clear that the Doha Congress was directly backed by the Qatari government. This was quite enough to anger Iraqi Shia politicians, many of whom subscribe to the idea that no foreign state should ever be allowed to interfere in Iraqi politics unless it fulfills the stringent requirement of also having a four-letter name that begins with I-R-A. To make matters worse, the attendees weren’t just the usual mix of Gulf-friendly Sunni tribal figures, party leaders, and elected officials. This time, the meeting included a generous sprinkling of wanted fugitives and others with links to banned militant groups that have waged war on the Iraqi government for more than a decade.

According to the Qatar-funded newspaper al-Arabi al-Jadid, the three main factions invited were (1) elected Sunni Arab officials from Iraq, (2) people linked to the formerly powerful Islamist insurgent faction known as the Islamic Army, and (3) the Iraqi Baath Party. Which is probably where the real controversy starts.

Unrepentant Insurgents

Specifically, this is about the Baath Party wing led by Saddam Hussein’s former deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri—the “King of Clubs,” if you still recall that silly-but-effective American propaganda stunt from 2003. Having operated underground since 2003, he has repeatedly been declared dead, only to pop right back up like a murderous Jack-in-the-Box and continue the war. Most recently, he died in April 2015.

With the Baath Party having gone underground to turn itself into a guerrilla group in 2003, Douri is nowadays better known as the driving force behind the so called Naqshbandi Army, a Baathist front organization that has been killing Iraqi soldiers for years. The Naqshbandi Army was an active participant in the wave of violence that engulfed most of Iraq’s Sunni areas in 2014—a wave unleashed partly in response, it must be said, to years of sectarian discrimination and misrule by the Iran-backed Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. While the Baathists were never formally allied with the Islamic State, there certainly existed a measure of tacit cooperation against their common enemies—the governments of Iraq, Iran, the USA, the Kurdistan Regional Government, etc. Izzat al-Douri only broke ranks with the Islamic State after the latter had solidified control across Sunni Iraq and began purging, torturing, and killing all fellow travelers who would not submit to its ”caliphate”. At that point, the rather few remaining Naqshbandi/Baath fighters found themselves forced to adjust their rhetoric in search of international sponsorship. (Judging by their effusive praise for Qatar these days, they seem to have found it.)

Of course, any dealings with the Baath Party is a criminal offense in Iraq and this creates serious risks for Sunni officials interested in meeting its representatives. When it turned out that the Iraqi Speaker of Parliament and Muslim Brotherhood member Salim al-Jabbouri was going to be in Doha on September 2, all hell broke lose. Shia politicians of all stripes, but particularly some of the more unhinged sectarians close to Iran, unleashed a firestorm of condemnation. Claims of high treason were among the milder charges leveled at Jabbouri and his group.

Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki thundered that the Doha Congress was part of a plan to “split Iraq along sectarian lines.” Maliki’s ally Khalaf Abdessamad—who is parliamentary whip of the Islamic Daawa Party, members of which have headed the Iraqi cabinet for ten years straight—fumed with loquacious rage: “the enemies of Iraq are once again, with the support of the nursers of sedition and the funders of terror and extremism, organizing their meeting in Qatar, which has shown that it is an enemy of the Iraqi people.” He then demanded that all participants in the Doha Congress should be fired from their jobs and kicked out of parliament and said that the Islamic Daawa Party is canvassing parliamentarians to make that happen. (One claimed on September 3 that more than one hundred parliamentary signatures calling for the ouster of Jabbouri have already been gathered.)

Jabbouri and other politicians who were actually or allegedly en route to Qatar quickly began to backpedal, fumbling forth all manners of unlikely explanations for why they had found it so important to fly off on a quick jaunt to Doha on that particular date. Jabbouri’s group deplored that certain not-to-be-named irresponsible politicians were trying to confuse Iraqis about the purpose of their trip, which was simply to meet Qatar’s prime minister and talk about, um, uh, things. Jabbouri insisted that his group had not been in any meetings with other Iraqis while in the country.

Perhaps to defuse tension or to prod supposed partners into action, Qatar also let it be known that the conference had been coordinated with the office of the prime minister in Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi. This didn’t particularly help. Since the eruption of major popular protest in Iraq this summer, Abadi is locked in struggle with a number of other political currents, prime among them the pro-Iranian militia radicals and his predecessor Nouri al-Maliki. Once these groups spotted an opportunity to portray the prime minister as a Baathist-lover, they had all the more reason to ramp up their anti-Doha rhetoric. Whether out of compulsion or conviction, Abadi finally broke his silence to condemn the Doha Congress as a breach of Iraqi sovereignty.

Baathists, Gulf Ambassadors, and the United Nations

On September 5, the Baathist website Dhi Qarr issued a statement from Khodeir al-Morshidi, a (rare) Shia member of the Baath who has acted as its spokesperson. Morshidi explained that the party had indeed sent a formal delegation to ”brotherly Qatar in response to its generous invitation.”

Accounts in al-Arabi al-Jadid had been circumspect about the exact nature of the ”Gulf cover and international patronage” that enabled the conference, but the Baath Party—or Morshidi at any rate—emptied a bucketful of names on the table for all to see. By his account, the meeting was held as a discussion between two delegations, Iraqis and foreigners:

On the one hand, there was a delegation from the Baath Arab Socialist Party in Iraq along with a number of national Iraqi personalities who are opposed to the political process and the Iranian intervention and influence. On the other hand, there was the Qatari foreign minister and ambassadors of several states in the Gulf Cooperation Council—including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait—as well as the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Iraq and his deputy.

True? Apparently. U.N. Special Representative Ján Kubiš was present in Doha at the right dates, hanging out with Iraqi Sunni leaders at

a significant meeting that took place on 2 September in the Qatari capital, Doha, between many different Iraqi Sunni groups. The meeting was opened by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Mr. Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah. Official representatives of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were also in attendance.

To have a delegation from Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party sitting in a room with the Gulf States and the United Nations is progress to some Iraqis, but it is outrageous to others. When something like this was last tried, in Amman in 2014, Baghdad was livid with anger and the United States seemed similarly distressed.

Khodeir al-Morshidi claims the Baath now wants a non-sectarian Iraq and a multiparty democracy, but even if this represented a genuine change of heart—of course it doesn’t—most of Iraq’s Shia Arabs and Kurds would hardly be moved to embrace their former oppressor. In the 1980s and 1990s, Izzat al-Douri and Saddam’s other lieutenants slaughtered tens of thousands of Iraqis and the wounds of that era have never healed. The mass graves continue to be unearthed today, even as the Islamic State is busily digging new ones.

As if that’s not enough, Iranian state media is fanning the flames. Iran lost tens of thousands of its own citizens to Saddam Hussein’s army, missiles strikes, and nerve gas attacks during the 1980-1988 war. For Iran, it is also a straightforward national security issue, irrespective of painful memories and sectarian calculations: Tehran has worked hard to set up a pro-Iranian order in Baghdad since 2003. It is naturally unwilling to accept a resurgence of anti-Iranian forces with or without the Baathists, especially one backed by its arch-enemies on the Arabian Peninsula.

Insurgents vs. Politicians

But Iraqi and Iranian Shia outrage is just part of the story. The Doha Congress in fact sparked two different controversies, the other one among the Sunni attendees.

While many Iraqi Sunnis, such as Jabbouri, have accepted to work in post-2003 politics despite feeling that the system is rigged against them, others have refused to accept that the current government is in any way legitimate. For many of the rebels who are still fighting thirteen years after the American invasion, Sunnis who have allowed themselves to be elected to parliament are at best weak and corrupt but more likely traitors. This is exactly the problem that the Doha Congress was intended to overcome, or start overcoming, but it seems easier said than done.

Even as Jabbouri is at pains to deny meeting with any active insurgents in Doha, those insurgents are just as sensitive to the accusation of having met with him. Their constituency isn’t just Sunni Arabs in general: it is the hardliners who fight, fund, and favor armed struggle against the current political system, a system of which Jabbouri is a prominent member.

Thus, Khodeir al-Morshidi had no problem acknowledging that the Baath delegation met with Gulf Arab ambassadors (”in an atmosphere of brotherhood and mutual understanding,” etc) or the United Nations. But when it came to Jabbouri and others working in legal Iraqi politics, he reverted to the insult-laden rhetorical drone so dear to Baathists everywhere:

We must confirm, contrary to the malicious fabrications and calculated dissimulations put out by certain actors and media organizations, that the meeting was not attended by any of the participants in the political process or the Green Zone government, as they claim. The Party exempted itself from any [separate] meeting with those of them that happened to be present in brotherly Qatar at the time, and neither did the Party seek to attend any meeting with any representative or participant in the political process—those whom the people have rejected and for whose downfall it calls while asking for the trial of the corrupt, thieving, and treacherous among them.

Once you have waved away the smoke puff of angry denials, what remains is the fact that a Baath Party delegation met with the Qatari leadership, which in turn met with Jabbouri, for the purpose of unifying Sunni ranks in Iraq. Whether or not they were ever in the same room is almost beside the point.

Both sides have very good reasons to downplay this. Morshidi and the Baath (assuming he truly speaks for the organization) do not want to give anyone the impression that they’re going soft or that they are about to extend any sort of legitimacy to the Iraqi government. Because of course they would never do that and, besides, they would want something in return.

For his part, Jabbouri is clearly in hot enough water as it is. If he and the Baath both emphasize that he never sat down with what Iraqi law says is a terrorist movement, it could well save him a trial or two in Baghdad. Not that he was going back home just yet. He had one more stop on his trip after non-attending the Doha Congress—and it was, intriguingly enough, Tehran.

Unifying Sunni Ranks

What this all seems to amount to is a regionally-backed attempt to unify all those Iraqi Sunni Arab forces that remain opposed to the Islamic State and get them to endorse a few common demands, thereby paving the way for reconciliation talks with Baghdad. The Doha Congress obviously enjoyed the backing of Qatar, but if these reports are anything to go by, other Gulf states states were also involved, as well as the United Nations. And if we believe that, we must assume that the Doha Congress—Baathists and all—enjoyed at least the tacit acceptance of the United States.

It makes perfect sense, in theory at least. The confusion, the defections, and the contradictory statements that poured out from the Doha Congress, and the virulent reaction from Shia politicians in Iraq, hints that it could perhaps have been a little better prepared, or a lot. But the idea of trying to cultivate some basic unity among Iraq’s Sunni leaders, up to and including those linked to non-Islamic State insurgent factions, is a sound one. Without unity you can wage neither war nor peace, as anyone watching the tragedy unfold in neighboring Syria will have noticed.

What is preventing the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq is ultimately not a lack of firepower, but rather the dizorganized nature of the coalition fighting the jihadis and—most of all—its inability to produce a Sunni Arab force that could challenge the Islamic State on its home turf. For the war on the Islamic State to succeed, other Iraqi Sunni rejectionists need to be cajoled back into the political game and Iraq’s Sunni Arab leadership as a whole must be empowered to draw opportunistic support away from the extremists. It need not be a very explicit or formal process and it must not involve either side publicly declaring defeat or bowing to the other, but it will involve painful compromises for all involved.

There are a number of problems with such an approach, of course, one being that Iraq’s Sunni leaders all seem to hate each other. But the ferocity of reactions in Baghdad show the other side of the problem. What prevents intra-Sunni reconciliation isn’t only the criminality of the Baath Party leadership or the intransigence of various Islamist guerrillas. It is also the blanket refusal of the Shia Islamist parties ruling Baghdad to countenance the rise of a Sunni Arab bloc that could challenge their hegemony—particularly one that includes ”terrorists.”

In the long run, that is a self-destructive attitude. It is true that Iraq’s official Sunni political groups are lamentably weak and divided—because Sunni elites were first smashed into submission by Saddam Hussein, then weakened and fractured by the United States, then pressured by Shia persecution, then undercut by the rise of the Islamic State. It is also true that those Sunni leaders who are closer to the militants and can sway communities on the ground will often be linked to the former regime or to radical sectarian groups. Some of them are soaked in blood, before and after the 2003 invasion. But this is also true: the Islamic State will not go away until there is a credible alternative for Iraqi Sunni Arabs to rally behind. And in producing that alternative, like it or not, this is what there is to work with.

The Iraqi Sunni leaders that can establish an Islamic State-free order in their own home towns will not be invented by Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad and they aren’t waiting in the wings in Washington, Doha, Riyadh, Amman, Erbil, or Tehran. They will need to come at least in part from the ranks of ex-insurgents and politicians now shunned and persecuted as outlaws for their Baathist, jihadi, or foreign ties—but this is precisely what the current Iraqi regime will not allow.

It is a hellishly difficult equation to solve, perhaps an unsolveable one, where all sides glory in their own victimhood and all are truly victims. But one step in the right direction is surely to try to address the disorganized state of Iraqi Sunni politics. Nothing can be achieved for as long as the Islamic State remains the only game in town for Sunnis in places like Mosul and Falluja, and even in places it hasn’t occupied yet. Overcoming the Baghdad government’s resistance to some form—any form—of compromise with Sunni rejectionists will almost certainly require the intervention of independent Shia leaders like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as well as the kingmaker in Iraqi Shia politics, Iran. But with the Islamic State lining up Shia civilians for video-taped slaughter week after week, and with proxy conflict still raging across the Persian Gulf and in Lebanon and Syria, hardliners are likely to keep the upper hand.

*Aron Lund, Editor of Syria in Crisis

China’s island building on the four-mile-long and two-mile-wide Subi Reef in the South China Sea has put the US in a tight spot. To protect its ally from China’s aggression, there are some who are concerned the US will be left with little choice but to constrain China by military means.

However, the US won’t directly engage China in any war in the foreseeable future, because the US dominates China with its superior naval and air force and the only way for China to level the playing field would be to apply nuclear weapons. Indeed, the nuclear nature of Sino-American warfare would be disastrous for both.

On that backdrop, there is, however, a possibility that the US could use its oil weapon instead to strike at the core of China’s weakness — it’s huge dependence on oil imports.

Currently, China imports 55% of its oil, almost half of which sails from countries in the Persian Gulf, and which accounts for 5.3 million barrels per day and is around 75% of Saudi Arabia’s production.

As a matter of fact, China’s reliance on Middle Eastern oil has gradually grown in line with its rapidly-increasing demand for oil. Right now, China has achieved the equivalent of the peak of US oil import dependence and it is not slowing down. The single largest source of China’s crude oil imports is Saudi Arabia.

China’s state oil reserves of 475,900,000 barrels (75,660,000 m3) plus the enterprise oil reserves of 209,440,000 barrels (33,298,000 m3) will only provide around 90 days of consumption or a total of 684,340,000 barrels (108,801,000 m3).

Meanwhile, the US is inching towards energy independence. With the technological breakthroughs of shale gas and tight oil, the US has started an energy revolution: US crude oil production has increased by 50% since 2008. With that increase, as well as more efficient cars, oil imports have come down from their high of 60% in 2005 to 35% today—as low as in 1973. With domestic production and gasoline mileage still increasing, imports will continue to decrease. It’s also impressive that US natural gas production has increased by nearly 33% since 2005, and shale gas has gone from 2% of output in 2000 to 44% today.

As of 2013, the United States is the world’s second largest producer of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia, and second largest exporter of refined products, after Russia.

According to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy, the US has surpassed Russia as the biggest oil and natural-gas producer in 2014. While looking at total energy, the US was over 70% self-sufficient in 2008. In May 2011, the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products.

With this newly acquired oil might, the US could trick Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz without any economic damage for the US, but which would strike a severe blow to China’s fragile economy.

Under such a scenario, the US Congress could reject the Iran nuclear deal and the US could give the nod to an Israeli air strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

If such were to happen, Iran would retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, which if it were blocked would cause China to scramble to meet its oil demands. Additionally, in China inflation would skyrocket, the yuan would plummet, and an economic meltdown would commence.

Under such a scenario, China would be forced to succumb to the might of the US’ oil weapon to save itself from a political, economic and social collapse. Such an oil weapon would achieve what the military couldn’t achieve, and at a less cost. This indeed is a scenario that China should be seriously concerned about.

*Zhang TingBing, Chief Strategist, Zhonghua Yuan Institute

Saudi Arabia will cut spending and issue more bonds as it faces a record budget shortfall due to falling oil prices, the finance minister said on Sunday.

Following oil prices’ drop to below $50 a barrel, the Kingdom has so far relied on its huge fiscal reserves to bridge the gap but Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said more measures would be necessary, AFP reported.

“We are working… to cut unnecessary expenditure,” Al-Assaf told Dubai-based CNBC Arabia in an interview in Washington.

“There are some projects like the ones that have been approved a few years ago and haven’t been carried out until now which means such projects are not currently necessary and can be delayed,” he added.

“Projects in sectors such as education, health and infrastructure are not only important for the private sector but also for the long-term growth of the Saudi economy.”

He said the government would issue more conventional treasury bonds and Islamic sukuk bonds to “finance the budget deficit” — which is projected by the International Monetary Fund at a record $130 billion for this year.

The Kingdom has so far issued bonds worth “less than SR100 billion ($27 billion/24 billion euros)” to help with the shortfall, he said.

“We intend to issue more bonds and could issue sukuk for certain projects… before the end of 2015,” Al-Assaf said.

Al-Assaf said the world’s top oil exporting country was well-prepared to cope with the plunge of crude prices since last year, and that Saudi policymakers were taking it seriously.

“We have built reserves, cut public debt to near-zero levels and we are now working on cutting unnecessary expenses while focusing on main development projects and on building human resources in the Kingdom,” he said in the interview, broadcast on Sunday.

You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have noticed that Europe has a massive refugee crisis on its hands.  Pictures of drowned babies have washed up on the shore of media consciousness in the past week.  They are indelible images which aren’t easily erased from our mind, nor should they be.  We’ve also seen pictures of other refugees locked into sweltering trains at Hungarian railway stations, conjuring horrific images from Europe’s historic past of other refugees on their way to extinction.

But amidst all the chaos and fear of the Europe’s indecisive response to the madness, there is one thing lost in the discourse on this tragedy.  Look at the root causes.  Where did the crisis originate?  And how?

Let’s go back to the Arab Spring.  Then you had popular uprisings across the region (Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon) calling for the end of authoritarian rule.  These revolts demanded popular rule, democracy, ending police abuse, impunity and corruption.  They were fueled from below by the grassroots.

In these countries, populism had been suppressed so long that there were few institutions or parties which could transform an inchoate set of demands into an organized form of governance.  As a result, in most cases, after the popular movement made its initial attempt to rule the elites, which had bidden their time and licked their wounds, reorganized and struck back.  In cases like Egypt and Bahrain, the military and autocratic rulers returned with a vengeance.

In Libya, the overthrow of the overlord left a power vacuüm which criminal and radical Islamist militias have rushed fitfully to fill.  The result has been a failed state, whose huddled masses have turned to Europe, yearning to breathe free.  Tunisia, though riven by violence and assassination, is the only country which has remained on its original path toward democracy and popular rule.  There, the centripetal force of radical Islam has been held in check by more moderate elements.  Lebanon has for decades sat atop a powder keg of roiling ethnic divisions.  We’ve seen them verge on explosion especially with the most recent garbage crisis, which has exposed the torpor of divided governance, in which no one can make ultimate decisions about something as small as municipal waste collection.

Syria is perhaps the ultimate tragedy: a non-violent popular movement faced a dynastic autocrat enjoying decades of entrenched power.  Pres. Assad, having no model of negotiation, compromise or democratic consultation, met resistance with massive firepower.  So the battle was joined.  Instead of an Orange Revolution like the Ukraine or a People Power like in the Philippines, you had tanks in the streets.  Worshipers gunned down after Friday prayer in their local mosques.

As outside Sunni interests responded to the bloodletting of the Alawite (Shiite) government forces, they ratcheted up the violence.  They either created or enabled Islamist groups ranging from al Qaeda (Al Nusra) to ISIS to take hold. The latest escalation is a multilateral air campaign by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf States to attack ISIS, a monster borne out of the Iraqi quagmire we helped create. Competing foreign powers from Russia, Iran and Lebanon (Hezbollah) rushed to fill the vacuüm on the loyalist side.

All this resulted in a standoff of epic proportions.  A country once unified has broken into cantons based on sectarian divisions.  Warlords, thugs, and thieves have become lords of all they survey.  Those who suffer most are not the emirs, presidents and Ayatollahs who offer weapons, money and fighters, but the Syrian civilians.  They have fled wherever they could find a temporary refuge: Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon.  From there, they’ve scattered like leaves in the wind, boarding rickety boats to cross the Bosporus on their way to Europe.

It’s terribly ironic that their ultimate destination appears to be Germany.  A country which, 75 years ago, slaughtered Poles, Russians, Jews, French and Britons in the scores of millions.  Now is called  upon to become a safe harbor for the wretched refuse of humanity, to quote Emma Lazarus.  Germany is the European nation currently sitting on top of the heap economically.  It is the powerhouse.  It sees fit to lecture Greece about financial profligacy.  The truth is that if powerful states like the U.S., Germany and others had done more to support the Arab Spring; if they had supported efforts to institutionalize and strengthen the power of popular movements, you might not have an entire region riven by mass slaughter.  You might not have a half-million refugees converging on northern European borders.

We have seen over the past few months how weak the institutions of the European Union are.  We have seen posturing and hectoring from Germany against Greece.  We have seen instability and inaction.  This crisis threatens to be worse.  Can the EU show it is a framework meant to last and not collapse at the first wind of discord?  Can member states step up and each take tens of thousands of these refugees?  Or will they lapse into xenophobia which, like patriotism, is the last refuge of scoundrels?

Another terrible irony of this crisis is that the same European powers being inundated by hundreds of thousands of refugees are the same states who created the artificial divisions and borders of the current Middle East.  As colonial powers, Britain, Germany and France exploited the region.  The U.S. certainly played a contributory role as well through its own interventions.  They played ethnic groups and religious sects off against each other.  They rewarded minority groups with power and suppressed majority groups.  They ingrained corruption as part of the function of civil society.  These imbalances and injustices have given us the Hell we now inherit.

All this points to several lessons: since the world has figuratively missed the boat in terms of dealing with this crisis in 2011, when it was still confined to the Middle East, it must now face up to the result of its indifference and inaction.  Europe and the world simply must face facts.  They cannot continue to deal with this situation in a haphazard, dysfunctional way.  Countries must step up to the plate. A nation like Canada which is responsible for the drowning deaths of the Kurdi family, must immediately resettle the full 10,000 refugee quota it promised (it has only resettled 2,000 so far).

Despite an idiotic presidential campaign in which Republican candidates compete to be the loudest, shrillest, surliest xenophobes on the subject of immigration.  For example, how is an “illegal” like a FedEx package?  No, that’s not a bad joke in search of a worse punchline.  Pres. Obama must show leadership and go against the tide, regardless of cost.  He is in his final term.  He has nothing to lose.  Show the way through mercy.  Take 100,000 Syrian refugees.  American Jews, witnesses to similar injustices perpetrated on the European Jewish passengers of the St. Louis before the Holocaust, should mobilize on behalf of such a humanitarian effort.  We must not stand idly by.

By the way, no one should expect Israel to take any refugees.  First of all, they’re Arab.  You wouldn’t expect the Jewish state to accept even more than it already has, would you?  Not when it’s done its best over 65 years to get rid of as many as it can.  Just to confirm that, Bibi Netanyahu announced that little, ol’ Israel couldn’t possibly be expected to participate.  Whatever you do, don’t bring up the suffering of Jewish history.  Don’t bring up the Holocaust.  Don’t bring up Jewish refugees fleeing Europe to help build the new “Jewish state.”  That would be oh so inconvenient.  Not to mention that Israel isn’t treating the 60,000 African refugees already in its midst very well.  Why would Syrian refugees want to live in a place that would put them in internment camps and treat them like dogs?

There is only one way to solve this crisis at its root.  Over the long-term, country by country, we must help build infrastructure and institutions to enable stable governance.  We must build on what is there–what exists on the ground.  We must encourage populist political development.  We must oppose autocracy even if it offers temporary stability.  But we must not try, as Bush-Cheney did, to graft artificial American concepts onto an Arab tree.

Most importantly, we must dump the poisonous counter-terror policy which has substituted for a U.S. foreign policy towards the region.  We need constructive engagement, not drone missiles.  Treat Arabs and Muslims like human beings and not terrorists, or a problem needing to be solved.

In countries like Syria, where the popular movement could not overthrow a dictator, there must be a form of negotiated resolution.  Given how much blood has flowed under the bridge, it’s hard to see how this can succeed without political will, or even cracking a few heads of the intransigent.  There are now so many outside parties meddling in Syria, so many forces with such contradictory interests, the place will be a mess for years to come.  It reminds me of the sixteen long years of the Lebanese civil war.  Ironically, one of the forces which finally stabilized Lebanon was the autocrat, Hafez al-Assad, who family now faces a civil war of its own.

Ultimately, all the foreign powers intervening in Syria must leave.  This may be where the potential of improved relations between the U.S. and Iran could help ameliorate the situation.  If we can negotiate an understanding to remove Hezbollah and Iranian forces in return for a negotiated political outcome, it could show the way for all the Sunni interventionists in Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to butt out.

Russia, which is now sending direct military aid and troops to enter the fray, will be much harder to deal with.  Putin has shown himself more than willing to throw his weight around in the Ukraine.  International opprobrium doesn’t concern him.  In fact, he appears to feed on it.  He seems to be doing more of the same in Syria.  With hardened Pharaonic hearts like Putin’s, the only language he will understand is a bloody nose.  The Russian Bear was humiliated in Afghanistan in the 1970s.  Must it face a similar poke in the eye when it extends its military adventurism into the Middle East?  If so, how does the world confront Russian intervention in a way that doesn’t fuel the slaughter?

The danger of Russian escalation is that the countervailing Sunni forces will ratchet up their intervention.  Then we will have something closer to Rwanda than Srebrenica.  Something approaching genocide.  Can the world countenance this?  Or can the world extricate itself from this madness?  Can Syria’s domestic forces, including the government and rebels come up with a modus vivendi that will last?  Of course, they have failed over many attempts during the past four years.  So there is little hope that anything may change.

But how long will it take the Europeans before something gives?  500,000 dead? 1-million?  Instead of the projected 300,000 Middle Eastern refugees boring down on Germany–perhaps 1 or 2-million?  Rwanda’s genocide was stopped (albeit by an autocrat now responsible for his own more massive genocide in Congo).  Genocide in Kosovo was stopped.  Serbia was stopped after Srbrenica.  What is the way to end the Syrian madness?  Action and courage are not called for, but demanded.

This article was published at Tikun Olam.

Last week Europe saw one of its worst crises in decades. Tens of thousands of migrants entered the European Union via Hungary, demanding passage to their hoped-for final destination, Germany.

While the media focuses on the human tragedy of so many people uprooted and traveling in dangerous circumstances, there is very little attention given to the events that led them to leave their countries. Certainly we all feel for the displaced people, especially the children, but let’s not forget that this is a man-made crisis and it is a government-made crisis.

The reason so many are fleeing places like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq is that US and European interventionist foreign policy has left these countries destabilized with no hopes of economic recovery. This mass migration from the Middle East and beyond is a direct result of the neocon foreign policy of regime change, invasion, and pushing “democracy” at the barrel of a gun.

Even when they successfully change the regime, as in Iraq, what is left behind is an almost uninhabitable country. It reminds me of the saying attributed to a US major in the Vietnam War, discussing the bombing of Ben Tre: “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”

The Europeans share a good deal of blame as well. France and the UK were enthusiastic supporters of the attack on Libya and they were early backers of the “Assad must go” policy. Assad may not be a nice guy, but the forces that have been unleashed to overthrow him seem to be much worse and far more dangerous. No wonder people are so desperate to leave Syria.

Most of us have seen the heartbreaking photo of the young Syrian boy lying drowned on a Turkish beach. While the interventionists are exploiting this tragedy to call for direct US attacks on the Syrian government, in fact the little boy was from a Kurdish family fleeing ISIS in Kobane. And as we know there was no ISIS in either Iraq or Syria before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

As often happens when there is blowback from bad foreign policy, the same people who created the problem think they have a right to tell us how to fix it – while never admitting their fault in the first place.

Thus we see the disgraced General David Petraeus in the news last week offering his solution to the problem in Syria: make an alliance with al-Qaeda against ISIS! Petraeus was head of the CIA when the US launched its covert regime-change policy in Syria, and he was in charge of the “surge” in Iraq that contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda and ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The idea that the US can salvage its disastrous Syria policy by making an alliance with al-Qaeda is horrific. Does anyone think the refugee problem in Syria will not be worse if either al-Qaeda or ISIS takes over the country?

Here is the real solution to the refugee problem: stop meddling in the affairs of other countries. Embrace the prosperity that comes with a peaceful foreign policy, not the poverty that goes with running an empire. End the Empire!

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By K.V. Kesavan*

After a long interval of about four and a half years, the votaries of nuclear energy in Japan have a sigh of relief as the first nuclear reactor resumed its operations in Sendai in the Kagoshima Prefecture of Kyushu, Japan. This has obviously raised some crucial questions regarding the role of civil nuclear energy in the coming years. Is it going to herald a new era in Japan? Will nuclear power be restored to its earlier position of importance?

These questions are very pertinent in view of the fact that the Fukushima triple tragedy of March 2011 had brought the rapid growth of nuclear energy to a virtual halt and created an atmosphere of hostility to nuclear energy. When the Sendai-I reactor was put online on 11 August, there was a nationwide protest which seriously questioned the wisdom of reactivating the reactors. The resumption of the Sendai reactor could not have taken place under more unfavourable circumstances. It indeed coincided with the serious parliamentary deliberations on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial legislative bills on national security. Further, it also coincided almost with the much expected and highly scrutinised Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Thirdly, it also happened when the popularity of Mr Abe was on a sharply declining curve. Opinion surveys taken in the last week of July recorded Abe’s popularity going below 45% for the first time in recent years.

Those who have followed closely the development of Japan’s nuclear energy programmes know that despite tremendous opposition, successive Japanese governments under the Liberal Democratic party considered the nuclear power as an integral part of the long term energy strategies of the country. The rapid growth of Japanese economy rested on the stable flow of energy and the nuclear power made a substantial contribution to ensure that. At the time of the Fukushima tragedy, nuclear energy accounted for about 30% of the country’s total energy requirements. Unable to cope with the challenge posed by the Fukushima crisis, the then Japanese government under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) decided to opt for the total elimination of nuclear power from the national energy strategy. DPJ’s preference for a zero nuclear option was in keeping with the then prevailing mood of the people who seriously questioned the wisdom of continuing to depend on the nuclear energy as a major power source. Very soon after the Fukushima crisis, nuclear reactors started closing down one by one either due to technical deficiencies or due to regular inspections. By the middle of 2013, Japan literally went ‘non-nuclear’ in the sense that all 50 reactors were in a state of idleness.

In April 2014, the Abe government announced its new national energy policy – almost 15 months after assuming office. During 2012-13, following the Fukushima crisis, the government realised that in the absence of the nuclear energy which had accounted for about 30% of the total energy, the country had to pay to the extent of Y 3.6 trillion a year for importing oil and gas from abroad. This naturally imposed a heavy burden on Japanese taxpayers who had to pay 30-40% more for consumption of power. Taking into account this compelling reason, the new Basic Energy Policy of the Abe government defined the nuclear energy as “a key base load electricity source” and declared that the operations of the nuclear reactors would be resumed upon clearance by the newly created Nuclear Regulation Agency (NRA) with its tough tests.

The new policy has not fixed the shares of different energy sources though it has not however closed its options for building new reactors. But with almost all nuclear reactors offline, the influential nuclear power industry is worried about the long period of time that the NRA may take to complete its screenings of the reactors. Many are concerned that if the NRA applies its 40-year criterion to the reactors, many of them will have to be scrapped soon and replaced by new ones. And, building new reactors is fraught with a variety of financial and environmental challenges.

Within the next few weeks, Sendai-II reactor will also resume its operations. In addition, more than 20 reactors are now waiting to restart, but they still face many obstacles. The new standards set up by the NRA require stricter safeguards against tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters. Moreover, it is also necessary for the reactor owners to get the approval of the local prefectural and municipal authorities. Takahama 3 and 4 reactors of the Kansai Electricals in the Fukui Prefecture are locked up in litigation and the power plant in the Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku is faced with delays due to the long drawn process of obtaining local prefectural and municipal approvals. It is therefore somewhat frustrating for power companies to chalk out a clear plan for reactivating the reactors.

In the meantime, the government desires to have nuclear energy account for 20-22% of the country’s total electricity supply by 2030, and in pursuance of this, it has also modified its subsidy policy to exert more pressure on local prefectures and municipalities to activate the idle reactors. It is reported that starting from 2016, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will revise the quantum of its subsidies based on the actual operational rate of the nuclear plants. This new policy will deprive many prefectures and municipalities with idle reactors of enormous amounts of subsidies and force them to take speedy measures to reactivate the nuclear plants. How successfully they will manage the strict regulations of the NSA and the local sentiments will be seen in the coming weeks and months.

*Prof K.V. Kesavan is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

We have been conditioned with the belief that human activities are increasing the incidence of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which is the prime cause behind global warming and climate change. We are also led to believe that science is predicting that the consequences of this will be catastrophic to the earth and threaten our very existence.

Most of what we read within the mainstream media today, and from the politicians, has the above assumptions subliminally embedded within the various narratives. Government policy towards carbon emissions and renewable energies reflects these beliefs, as hard caste scientific and moral truths.

The public are continually told that the vast majority of the world’s “scientists” are in general agreement about man-made global warming being the cause of climate change, and the potential damage it will do to the earth. However, the reality is that there may actually not be more than a couple of hundred people in the world who really understand the science of climate change, and are experienced and qualified enough to make a valid scientific opinion.

The public are confused more when evangelists from both sides of the debate put their views forward using statistics, information, and arguments that are convincing. Many of these stalwarts on both sides make a professional living through the speakers’ circuits, turning the global warming and climate change debate into an entertainment spectacle. What makes this even more sinister, are the vested interests some of these parties represent.

Climate change models are built upon limited sets of assumptions which make them far too simplistic for the task of making accurate predictions about global warming. There is no generally agreed theory that explains global warming and climate change in existence today.

No model can predict changes in temperature, and layout climate change scenarios with any degree of accuracy. However the earth has warmed up much less than what most global warming models had predicted.

The opinion of Nobel Prize winner James Lovelock, the creator of the GAIA hypothesis, reflects the above. He was quoted as saying: “The problem is that we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included- because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened.”

Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring also predicted that all the birds would be killed through the use of DDT during the 1950s and 60s – a prophecy that never happened.

Alarmism clouds scientific judgement and this is very much the case in the global warming and climate change debate.

Global warming and climate change cannot be considered a ‘settled science’, as it is portrayed today. The truths about the matter are still yet to be understood.

First it must be understood that global warming and climate change are not interchangeable terms. Global warming concerns the rise in average temperatures across the globe. Is this really occurring? And, how much is humanity actually responsible for this phenomenon?

These are very interesting scientific questions where there is a diverse range of scientific opinions today. We still require answers to tackle the second part of the equation, climate change.

We know that climate change is occurring on a continuous basis. We also know that climate change also changes habitats. How we tackle climate change, if in sense of the word, we can do nothing but adapt to climate change, depends upon answering questions about global warming.

However, climate change is not just an earthly phenomenon, it is an interplanetary one. Climate change may have more to do with solar energy, than with man-made CO2 emissions. This is only an observation, but if this observation has some validity, then the whole ‘science of climate change’ is about to enter a new paradigm of explanation in the next few years by the scientific community, just as quantum replaced Newtonian physics concepts just on a century ago.

The evolution of science is not being factored into the global warming debate, and this is the biggest mistake being made at the moment by global warming proponents.

If humankind is not influencing global warming through greenhouse gas emissions, then the real issues at hand are completely different. The issue is not about abating global warming, but more about the changing habitats and environment humankind faces in the future.

The destruction of the forests, animal species left to go extinct, the creation and growth of unsustainable cities, water management and the pollution of the earth’s oceans, and the application of non-renewable energies, and not to forget poverty, migration, and population growth, are the real issues that must be engaged by humanity. Humankind must learn how to adapt to a continually changing environment. This means both natural and human induced changes. This is where the real crises exist.

Climate change will destroy some societies on one hand, but nurture others on the other hand.

We have to learn to understand how the earth is a cradle for humankind. And then importantly, how we must exist within this cradle, in a coexisting manner.
Charles Darwin’s message was not about survival of the fittest, but one of co-existence. Darwin’s hinted the solution in the concluding paragraph of his The Origin of Species where he said, “It is interesting, a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborate forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.”

Carbon emission controls and other political solutions will not solve any of our real problems.

We don’t really understand the science of climate change, and can’t even say for certain whether the world is going through a period of global warming, due to the multitude of factors and influences involved.

Over the last decade or so, the influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) on global temperatures is just coming to light. The PDO is a cycle of different sea circulation patterns that changes over a 30 year period. A number of scientists believe that this PDO phenomenon is vital to our understanding of global warming and climate change, although we are still in our early years of understanding how the phenomenon really works.

According to Dr Roy Spencer, the PDO phenomenon can be used to explain Artic ice melting over the last 30 years. The PDO phenomenon can also explain why Antarctic ice is actually increasing.

Some scientists are even claiming the world is heading into another ice age right at this moment.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) only exists within the earth’s atmosphere in trace amounts, at around 380ppm. It is an important nutrient for flora, a building block for all life on earth. CO2 being an invisible gas will not hold onto and trap heat within the earth’s atmosphere. Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas, which primarily evaporates from the oceans and is responsible for both reflecting and trapping heat within the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is not a poisonous gas, and higher concentrations are actually beneficial to plant life on this planet.

The global warming issue is full of opinions, as we don’t know the facts today.
We also live in the fallacy that humankind has the power to fix any global warming problem. This is in the light of the success the world had in limiting chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerants and aerosols, in eliminating the hole in the ozone layer back in the 1980s. This belief that we as humans can control the environment is arrogance in the extreme.

The proponents of global warming would have the world belief that it controls its own destiny in terms of being able to control the environment. Is this living in true reality?

When we connect morality with truth, inquisitions, purges, and clampdowns on the unbelievers usually occur. This is where the global warming evangelists can take us, back to the ‘dark ages’ of science and understanding, to where the earth was once flat.

Perhaps the last words of this article should be left to the Canadian limnologist David Schindler, who said: “To a patient scientist, the unfolding greenhouse mystery is far more exciting than the plot of the best mystery novel. But it is slow reading, with new clues sometimes not appearing for several years. Impatience increases when one realizes that it is not the fate of some fictional character, but of our planet and species, which hangs in the balance as the great carbon mystery unfolds at a seemingly glacial pace.”

By Ann Schneible

Pope Francis Sunday issued a strong appeal to the entire European Church – including the Vatican – to take in migrant families as part of the lead-in to the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy.

“Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees fleeing death on account of war and hunger, and who are traveling toward a hope for life, the Gospel calls us to be ‘neighbors’ to the smallest and abandoned, (and) to give them a concrete hope,” the Pope said Sept. 6.

He said it’s not enough to just say “Courage, patience!” because hope “is combative, with the tenacity of those who go toward a safe destination.”

“Therefore, in the imminence of the Year of Mercy, I make an appeal to the parishes, to religious communities, to monasteries, and sanctuaries of all Europe to express the concreteness of the Gospel, and to welcome a family of refugees.”

Pope Francis made this call following the weekly recitation of the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square, adding that the Vatican’s two parishes will also each take in a refugee family.

His remarks came in response to the news of the hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding Europe from the Middle East and Africa.

According to the BBC, more than 350,000 migrants have crossed into Europe in 2015. Many attempt the crossing in overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, leading to scores of deaths due to drowning and starvation.

The situation has reached a fever pitch in recent days, with thousands of migrants arriving to Germany and Austria on foot from Hungary.

The plight of those fleeing war and violence also received renewed attention in recent days when a photo of a drowned Syrian toddler published last week by the British newspaper the Independent began widely circulating the Internet.

Aylan Al-Kurdi, 3, drowned along with his mother and older brother in a failed attempt to reach the nearby Greek island of Kos from Bodrum, their most direct passage into the European Union. The photos of his body washed up on the shore of Bodrum, Turkey quickly went viral, leading many to criticize European leaders for not doing enough to help incoming migrants.

In his speech, Pope Francis extended his appeal to the European bishops, reminding them that “Mercy is the middle name of Love,” and cited the Gospel passage from Matthew: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

Before leading the faithful in the Angelus address, the Pope focused on the day’s Gospel from Mark, in which Jesus healed a man who was deaf and mute by touching his ears and tongue, saying “Be opened” as he looked up to heaven.

“The first thing Jesus does is bring that man who is far from the flock: he doesn’t want to give publicity to the gesture he is about to make, but neither does he want his word covered by the voices of the din and the gossip of the environment,” the Pope said.

He pointed to Jesus’ gestures of touching the man’s ears and tongue in order to restore the relationship with a man who was “blocked” from communicating.

The first thing Jesus did, he said, was to re-establish contact with the man, “but the miracle is a gift from on high, for which Jesus implored the father.”

One of the key lesson learned from this episode is that God isn’t closed in on himself, but is open and connects with humanity.

In his immense mercy, God “exceeds the abyss of the infinite difference between him and us, and he comes to us” by being made man himself, Pope Francis continued.

He said the Gospel is also directed to us, noting that frequently we are “folded and closed in on ourselves, and we create so many inhospitable and inaccessible islands.”

“Even the most basic human relationships sometimes create a reality incapable of reciprocal opening: the closed couple, the closed family, the closed group, the closed parish, the closed home,” he said.

Pope Francis closed his speech by praying that Mary would intercede in supporting all in their commitment to professing the faith and bearing witness to “the marvels of the Lord to those whom we encounter on our way.”

After leading pilgrims in the traditional Marian prayer, Francis recalled the life and work of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the anniversary of whose death was commemorated yesterday, Sept. 5.

Mother Teresa, he said, gave witness with her life that “the Mercy of God is recognized through our works.”

Officers of the International Cooperation Division of the Spanish National Police Force transferred Ayoub Moutchou from Germany this week. Ayoub Moutchou was wanted for terrorism and as a member of a criminal organization.

According to the Spanish government, Ayoub Moutchou was arrested on August 4 in Stuttgart (Germany) by officers of the German BKA, in collaboration with the General Commissariat of Information of the Spanish National Force and the Information Division of the Regional Police Force of Catalonia.

Active recruiter for DAESH

Ayoub Moutchou, in light of the successive police operations in which various Jihadists were arrested with whom he was in contact, decided to flee Spain and move to Germany, according to the Spanish government. From that moment, the General Commissariat of Information of the Spanish National Police Force activated the protocols for cooperation with the German BKA which led to his arrest.

The detainee was a key figure in the communication channel between sympathizers of the Islamic State in Europe and member of this terrorist group established in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. His activities were mainly aimed at conveying operational instructions from this terrorist group in a bi-directional manner, facilitating the recruitment of new members and offering all types of logistical support, the Spanish government said.

These activities were performed both over the Internet and in his immediate surroundings, where he exercised a strong influence and persuasive powers in both areas to help convince other individuals to sign up to the war being waged by the Islamic State terrorist group.

Ayoub Moutchou had initiated the necessary contacts, on behalf of the Islamic State, to carry out attacks in Spain in revenge for the latest arrests of Jihadists, the Spanish government said.

A ‘gene signature’ that could be used to predict the onset of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, years in advance has been developed in research published in the open access journal Genome Biology.

The study aimed to define a set of genes associated with ‘healthy aging’ in 65 year olds. Such a molecular profile could be useful for distinguishing people at earlier risk of age-related diseases. This could improve upon the use of chronological age and complement traditional indicators of disease, such as blood pressure.

Lead author James Timmons, from King’s College London, UK, said: “We use birth year, or chronological age, to judge everything from insurance premiums to whether you get a medical procedure or not. Most people accept that all 60 year olds are not the same, but there has been no reliable test for underlying ‘biological age’.

“Our discovery provides the first robust molecular ‘signature’ of biological age in humans and should be able to transform the way that ‘age’ is used to make medical decisions. This includes identifying those more likely to be at risk of Alzheimer’s, as catching those at ‘early’ risk is key to evaluating potential treatments.”

The researchers analyzed the RNA of healthy 65 year old subjects, and used the information to develop a signature of 150 RNA genes that indicated ‘healthy ageing’. The signature was found to be a reliable predictor for risk of age-related disease when studying RNA from tissues including human muscle, brain and skin.

With this RNA signature, they developed a ‘healthy age gene score’ which they used to test and compare the RNA profiles of different individuals, and demonstrated that a greater score was associated with better health in men and women.

The researchers studied RNA from healthy 70 year old subjects and analyzed follow-up health data over two decades. Despite all subjects being born within a year of each other, their RNA at around 70 years of age demonstrated a very wide distribution in ‘healthy age gene score’, varying over a four-fold range. This variation was shown to link to long term health. A greater gene score was also associated with better cognitive health and renal function across a 12 year span – both important determinants of mortality.

In particular, they demonstrated that patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease had an altered ‘healthy ageing’ RNA signature in their blood, and therefore a lower healthy age gene score, suggesting significant association with the disease.

Timmons added: “This is the first blood test of its kind that has shown that the same set of molecules are regulated in both the blood and the brain regions associated with dementia, and it can help contribute to a dementia diagnosis. This also provides strong evidence that dementia in humans could be called a type of ‘accelerated ageing’ or ‘failure to activate the healthy ageing program’.”

Given that early intervention is important in Alzheimer’s and there is a need to identify those at greatest risk, the authors say that their ‘healthy age gene score’ could be integrated to help decide which middle-aged subjects could be offered entry into a preventative clinical trial many years before the clinical expression of Alzheimer’s.

By Behzad Khoshandam*

The international system is dynamic and non-static. The conflict and rivalry among big powers, which existed like the fire under the ashes, and also the spectre of the fallen Berlin Wall finally showed their ominous presence in the 2014 Ukraine crisis. The crisis in Ukraine proves that a country like Iran must take the fluidity of the world order and the polarity of the international system more seriously.

In terms of historical developments and genealogy, the root cause of Ukraine’s crisis must be sought in the Crimean War (1853-1856), the World War I (1914-1918), the World War II (1939-1945), and the Cold War era (1945-1989) as well as in later color revolutions, especially the Orange Revolution in Ukraine following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This crisis has historical, strategic, security, psychological, economic, identity-related, political, and energy reasons in addition to enjoying considerable driving forces. Therefore, on the basis of these macro indices, some major reasons behind the breakout of this crisis can be explained as follows:

1. Distribution of power among political actors and absence of fixed power poles within the subsystems of international security system, especially instability of strategic relations between Russia and the West, which, as put by Samuel Huntington, made the US “the lonely superpower” in the post-Cold War era;

2. Inefficiency of such important international organizations and institutions as the UN, the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the G7 for the management of this international crisis;

3. Historical realities resulting from the ideals of Peter the Great, which prompted Russian politicians to try to conquer free waters in order to secure a foothold for Russia’s strategic interference at international level, as opposed to what Kissinger has described the “demonization of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” by the West;

4. Existence of centrifugal tendencies in countries considered as Russia’s near abroad following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and absence of a centripetal force among the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States;

5. Playing the role of godfather by big powers in Eastern Europe’s developments, the superimposed process of westernization; and Russia’s geopolitics-based approach to foreign policy;

6. NATO’s eastward expansion and the Western bloc’s excessive urge to conquer new strategic fronts in such regions as Eastern Europe, the Black Sea and Asia, which have been collectively described by John J. Mearsheimer as “the liberal delusions that provoked Putin; and

7. The existence of Russia’s biggest naval base on the coasts of the Black Sea as well as West’s aggressiveness in challenging Russia’s national interests in this region.

This crisis proved that Russia is very sensitive about the presence of its Western rivals in those spheres that Moscow considers its own civilizational and racial spheres. On this basis, Russia is trying to redefine its lost strategic identity and influence at the beginning of the Third Millennium by taking advantage of proxy wars as a tool.

Now, if players involved in this crisis don’t show self-restraint, the crisis in Ukraine is capable of turning into an acute international crisis whose widespread consequences would affect various actors. Different dimensions of this crisis show that despite tactical cooperation in creating the new world order following the Cold War, relations between the United States and Russia are still lacking in serious strategic tolerance away from requirements of the so-called “reset” strategy.

Ukraine’s crisis shows that the sovereign expanse, power, influence, might, racial and identity-related borders, and in some cases geographical borders in the geopolitical spheres of Eurasia and Russia’s near abroad are still in the process of changing. This crisis is also notable and worthy of profound analysis due to its role in reproducing strategic rivalries and introducing a new configuration for large-scale political ideologies on the two sides of the world.

Since the outset of the crisis in Ukraine, while declaring its large-scale strategy of “impartiality” toward developments in transregional civilizational spheres, including in Ukraine, Iran has shown reaction to this crisis with a cooperative and peaceful spirit in its foreign policy, which is based on the fundamental logic that requires more attention to the world order and international stability.

A country like Iran, which considers itself, as put by Graham Fuller, as “the center of the universe,” is very sensitive about rivalry among big powers in transregional civilizational spheres. Since the very beginning, Iran has continuously monitored developments related to military operations and negotiations in such crises as that of Ukraine, while expressing its dissatisfaction with violent nature of this crisis, which stands in contrast to the accepted principles of the United Nations and humanitarian norms.

Iran’s public opinion and political elites believe that crises like the one in Ukraine can be resolved through such measures as the Mink agreement and also through peaceful means of resolving international crises on the basis of the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and diplomacy.

Since the outset of Ukraine’s crisis, Iran has denounced spread of violence at international level while emphasizing the importance of active participation of all regional and international actors in rapid management of this crisis. Iran has also voiced concern over prevalence of violent approaches at international and regional levels since the crisis in Ukraine started, up to the achievement of the nuclear agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Following the achievement of the Iran deal on July 14, 2015, the country believes that management of Ukraine’s crisis hinges on such parameters as the new world order, and as put by Walter Russell Mead, “the return of geopolitics” and promotion of future cooperation among Russia, China and Iran in Eurasia, in addition to international cooperation and emergence of soft balance at regional and international levels. Iran is also aware of the ongoing give-and-take between the United States and Russia, through Washington’s approach to Ukraine’s crisis and Moscow’s approach to Syria crisis, which lead to the subsequent mutual exchange of concessions between these two actors in the light of the balance of terror.

From the viewpoint of Iran, the crisis in Ukraine becomes meaningful in the context of the larger image of future developments of international order and diplomacy at the level of the management of international system. Last but not least, the most important lesson of Ukraine crisis for Iran, Ukraine itself, and other international actors is to make correct use of diplomacy to solve international crises, and also to to make the most of their regional roles and adapt those roles to the emerging world order.

*Behzad Khoshandam
Ph.D. in International Relations & Expert on International Issues

With 58 police officers having been killed since January this year, President Jacob Zuma has called on South Africans to help stop the killings.

“The fight against crime requires the participation of all South Africans. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to call upon all South Africans to work with the police to create safer communities,” he said on Sunday.

Speaking at the South African Police Service (SAPS) Commemoration Day at the Union Buildings, the President said the public must contribute to the creation of a more conducive environment for police to fight crime decisively. This, he said, must be done by reporting all criminal activities.

The ceremony was attended by the families and relatives of the slain police officers.

The SAPS commemoration day—which is an annual event – pays tribute to police officials who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Between April 2014 and March this year a total 63 officers lost their lives.

President Zuma said that criminals who do not hesitate to take the life of another human being whether they be civilians or police officers should not be protected by communities.

“The criminals who terrorise communities and who kill our police officers as well as live in our communities and are known by many within communities. They must not be protected, they must be reported to the police so that they can face the full might of the law,” said President Zuma.

President Zuma, who earlier in the day laid a wreath at the SAPS memorial at the Union Buildings, paid tribute to the country’s fallen police officers saying that government acknowledges the pain that their loved ones had gone through in losing them.

“The callous murder of your loved ones was an attack not only on them, but on the state itself,” he said as the country marks not only Heritage and Tourism month but also Police Safety Month.

President Zuma has directed Minister of Police Nkosinathi Nhleko to do everything possible to provide the police with tools they need to fight crime effectively. A National Tactical Response Plan has been developed to immediately respond to the murders of police officers.

In addition to the plan, station and relief commanders have been instructed to ensure compliance with the Directives and Standing Orders of the SAPS. The inspection of members to ensure that they are poperly equipped with the necessary safety gear and equipment and the conducting of regular visits to operational members during the performance of their duties are among some of the issues requiring compliance.

The President also noted that police officers do their work under difficult conditions. The country’s violent history as a result of apartheid has also created fertile ground for violent crime.

Also speaking at the commemorative ceremony, Minister Nhleko said that the attacks on police officers is on the rise. “Many women and men in blue are the first and last line of citizen’s defence against crime. We are beginning to see a pattern that shows an increase in police killings… what this says is that this should galvanise our resolve in the fight against crime,” said the Minister.

SAPS is currently at work to ensure that the safety of officers is elevated by putting in place a National Police Safety Plan which among others prioritises physical security and trauma management and social support mechanisms.

The management of SAPS has also instructed that multi-disciplinary assessment teams be establishes at provinces and divisions to conduct on-site assessments of all incidents where police officers were killed.

Using a new technique to analyze 52 years of international conflict, researchers suggest that there may be no such thing as a “democratic peace.”

In addition, a model developed with this new technique was found to predict international conflict five and even ten years in the future better than any existing model.

Democratic peace is the widely held theory that democracies are less likely to go to war against each other than countries with other types of government.

In the new study, researchers found that economic trade relationships and participation in international governmental organizations play a strong role in keeping the peace among countries. But democracy? Not so much.

“That’s a startling finding because the value of joint democracy in preventing war is what we thought was the closest thing to a law in international politics,” said Skyler Cranmer, lead author of the study and The Carter Phillips and Sue Henry Associate Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

“There’s been empirical research supporting this theory for the past 50 years. Even U.S. presidents have touted the value of a democratic peace, but it doesn’t seem to hold up, at least the way we looked at it.”

The study appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cranmer’s co-authors are Elizabeth Menninga, assistant professor of political science at the University of Iowa and recent Ph.D. graduate in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Peter Mucha, professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Along with casting doubt on democratic peace theory, the study also developed a new way to predict levels of international conflict that is more accurate than any previous model. The researchers used a new technique to examine all violent conflicts between countries during the period of 1948 to 2000. The result was a model of international conflict that was 47 percent better than the standard model at predicting the level of worldwide conflict five and even 10 years into the future.

“The Department of Defense needs to know at least that far in advance what the world situation is going to be like, because it can’t react in a year to changes in levels of conflict due to bureaucratic inertia and its longer funding cycle,” Cranmer said.

“Being able to have a sense of the global climate in five or 10 years would be extremely helpful from a policy and planning perspective.”

The researchers started the study with a famous idea posed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant back in 1795: that the world could enjoy a “perpetual peace” if countries would become more interconnected in three ways. The modern interpretation of those three ways is: Through the spread of democratic states, more economic interdependence through trade, and more joint membership in international governmental organizations, or IGOs. (Modern examples range from regional agricultural organizations to the European Union and NATO.)

Many studies have looked at how these three elements, either together or separately, affect conflict between countries. But even when they were considered together, the impact of the three individual factors were considered additively.

What makes this study unique is that the researchers were the first to use a new statistical measure developed by Mucha – called multislice community detection — to analyze all three of these components collectively. They were able to examine, for the first time, how each component was related to each other. For example, how membership in IGOs affected trade agreements between counties, and vice versa.

“When we looked at these networks holistically, we found communities of countries that are similar not only in terms of their IGO memberships, or trade agreements, or in their democratic governments, but in terms of all these three elements together,” Cranmer said.

The separation between such communities in the world is what the researchers called “Kantian Fractionalization.”

“You might think of it as the number of cliques the world is split up into and how easy it is to isolate those cliques from one another,” Cranmer said.

But the deeper the separation between communities or cliques there are in the world at one time, the more dangerous the world becomes.

By measuring these communities in the world at one specific time, the researchers could predict with better accuracy than ever before how many violent conflicts would occur in one, 5 or 10 years in the future. This study had a broad definition of conflict: any military skirmish where one country deliberately kills a member of another country. Many of the conflicts in this study were relatively small, but it also includes major wars.

Predicting one year into the future, this new model was 13 percent better than the standard model at predicting levels of worldwide conflict. But it was 47 percent better at predicting conflict 5 and 10 years into the future.

“We measured how fragile these networks are to breaking up into communities,” Mucha said. “Remarkably, that fragility in a mathematical sense has a clear political consequence in terms of increased conflict.”

The linear relationship between higher levels of Kantian fractionalization and more future conflict was so strong that Cranmer couldn’t believe it at first.

“I threw up my hands in frustration when I first saw the results. I thought we surely must have made a mistake because you almost never see the kind of clean, linear relationship that we found outside of textbooks,” Cranmer said.

“But we confirmed that there is this strong relationship.”

By David Inserra, Paul Rosenzweig, Charles “Cully” Stimson, David Shedd and Steven P. Bucci, Ph.D.*

A debate is currently raging between FBI Director James Comey and much of the technology community over whether law enforcement should have some sort of special access, which has been called a backdoor, into encrypted communications and data.[1] In this “Crypto War,” the FBI contends that special access is needed to access the communications and data of criminals and terrorists. However, many in the technology community argue that this will undermine the cybersecurity of all communications and will not work because some users will find alternative services to encrypt their communications.

Given these constraints and competing security demands, no decision on special access will satisfy legitimate but competing interests. Heritage scholars have long supported the use of lawful tools by law enforcement and the intelligence community in order to keep the U.S. safe, but we cannot ignore technological advances. The case for special access by law enforcement to encrypted materials is one with noble objectives and intentions, but the reality is that technology has changed as to make this policy detrimental to cybersecurity and data integrity, with no guarantee of success. Given these cybersecurity realities, the U.S. should not require technology and communication companies to provide law enforcement with special access to encrypted materials.

Encryption 101

Encryption is the process by which data, be they words, numbers, photographs, etc., are coded so that anyone who acquires the data is unable to read it without knowing and then applying the algorithm that was used to encode it. Encryption has been used since ancient times as messages were written in a code that only someone with the key could decipher. More recently, in the 1840s, Samuel Morse developed a code (which bore his name) that assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the alphabet and then was used to transmit messages across telegraph lines. The universal international distress signal for ships, SOS (“save our ship”) was expressed in Morse code as ••• ——— •••.

As computers advanced, so too has the ability to create ever more complicated codes, effectively surpassing the ability of decryption techniques to break an encryption. This point is important to emphasize as it is a dramatic change from the past. Today, properly encrypted data cannot be cracked, at least not efficiently enough to be of use in a criminal or terrorist investigation.[2] Director Comey recently agreed, stating, “We cannot break strong encryption.”[3]

Encryption can be used to ensure that communication between two parties is protected or to protect data at rest, that is, data residing on a hard drive. Many communications and technology firms may encrypt users’ communications that pass through or reside on their servers, but the firms hold the key to decrypt the data. With end-to-end encryption, though, only the computers at each end of a communication have the encryption keys and only they can read the messages, with the service provider itself unable to read the data.

What the FBI Wants and Why It Is Problematic

The FBI wants some sort of special access to encrypted systems, which will give law enforcement access to a master encryption key (or keys) needed to decrypt data residing on or passing through a system. This special access creates a single point of vulnerability into systems, exactly what organizations and individuals are increasingly trying to avoid. According to a recent report produced by encryption experts, special access not only undermines the confidentiality of data, but also its authenticity, i.e., hackers who acquire the master keys would be able to forge communications and make them look legitimate.[4]

At the crux of this debate is the fact that special access provided to law enforcement undermines the security of systems. If true, then this is a zero-sum situation: Either cybersecurity is paramount or law enforcement gets special access to catch bad guys. That said, legitimate questions have been raised about just how absolute is this trade-off. Brookings Institution scholar Ben Wittes points out that Google “retains the ability to decrypt Gmail and Gchat communications for its own business reasons; that’s how it routes you ads based on the contents of your material. To my knowledge, Google does not take the position that this service is insecure, nor do I know of any particular security issues that have arisen as a result of it.”[5] Is Google currently less secure than an amateur’s end-to-end encryption?[6] The security vulnerability resulting from special access is one of the fundamental points in this debate, and technologists should clarify the reality of that vulnerability.[7]

Even if Congress mandates some sort of special access, there is no guarantee that it would be the effective solution law enforcement wants, since criminals and terrorists could just buy different products that do not have a backdoor. American-based Apple and Google may be required to provide special access, but what about a company outside U.S. jurisdiction that sells end-to-end encryption communications applications? Will the United States try to ban them on the app stores for iTunes and Google Play? Will we ban the import of encryption technology and search for such technology at U.S. ports of entry to ensure forbidden applications are not smuggled into our country? Will the United States employ a national firewall, similar to China, to block the downloading or use of such applications?[8] The answers to these questions should be “no,” as we cannot prevent the spread of this technology and it would be futile to try. Some criminals and terrorists will not use encrypted technologies, but others will.

Adapting to Change

In light of these realities, Congress should not support special access for law enforcement. The current debate indicates that such access will substantially weaken cybersecurity and incent criminals and terrorists to switch from U.S. applications to foreign ones. Former intelligence and homeland security policymakers also have concluded that.[9] The only circumstance under which special access should be considered is if it can be done while maintaining an extremely high level of security. Different potential solutions that have been suggested include:

• Biometrics. The use of encryption with a biometric lock provides decent protection for the decryption key. This allows law enforcement to break an encryption through direct interaction with the individual being investigated or charged.[10]
• Dividing the law enforcement key among several organizations.[11] This was a solution proposed by Admiral Michael Rogers, the Director of the National Security Agency, which ensures that no one person or agency can decrypt data. While breaking up the key may improve some aspects of security and privacy, it will likely introduce additional complexity and vulnerabilities to the encryption process. It is also unclear how communication across different countries would work.[12]
• Requiring that any potential solution be publically and extensively tested. Rather than develop a specific solution, perhaps a good compromise would be to require that any potential solution be made publically available and tested for a year. If it cannot be cracked, then it can be used for special access.[13]

This list is not exhaustive nor are its proposals perfect. Technologists and policymakers alike should explore other proposals. Further investigation of the issue could reveal that large technology service providers like Google are able to securely hold the special access keys, making law enforcement special access to encrypted communications possible without jeopardizing the security of that data. Until this is determined or other solutions present themselves, however, the cybersecurity stakes are too high to provide special access.

Setting a high bar for special access means that law enforcement and the intelligence community need all other lawful tools at their disposal to track and prevent threats to the United States.[14] Given the growing threat of terrorism, these tools are needed now more than ever.[15 ]

Special access to encrypted systems and communications, however, cannot be one of those tools, at least until the security of such access is assured. The United States can and should see if it is possible to maintain both cybersecurity and special access. In the meantime, one of these important priorities has to give. Keeping the U.S. homeland safe and secure from multiple, dynamic threats is not easy, but policymakers should err on the side of not providing special access, while providing our defenders with all other lawful tools.

About the authors:
*David Inserra is a Policy Analyst for Homeland Security and Cyber Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation. Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Davis Institute. Charles D. Stimson is Manager of the National Security Law Program and Senior Legal Fellow in the Davis Institute. David Shedd is Visiting Distinguished Fellow in the Davis Institute. Steven P. Bucci, PhD, is Director of the Allison Center.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation

Notes:
[1] James Comey, “Encryption, Public Safety, and ‘Going Dark’,” Lawfare, July 6, 2015, http://www.lawfareblog.com/encryption-public-safety-and-going-dark (accessed September 1, 2015).

[2] Matt Buchanan, “Hard to Crack: The Government’s Encryption Conundrum,” The New Yorker, August 15, 2013, http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/hard-to-crack-the-governments-encryption-conundrum (accessed September 1, 2015). Quantum computing, which uses unique properties of quantum mechanics, could change this status quo, but it is not yet available in a practical form. “Quantum Computing 101,” Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, https://uwaterloo.ca/institute-for-quantum-computing/quantum-computing-101 (accessed September 1, 2015); Mary-Ann Russon, “NSA Worried that Quantum Computing Will Foil the Cryptography Protecting All Data to Date,” International Business Times, August 24, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nsa-worried-that-quantum-computing-will-foil-cryptography-protecting-all-data-date-1516795 (accessed September 1, 2015).

[3] Dina Temple-Raston, “FBI Director Says Agents Need Access To Encrypted Data To Preserve Public Safety,” NPR, July 8, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/fbi-director-says-agents-need-access-to-encrypted-data-to-preserve-public-safety (accessed September 1, 2015).

[4] Harold Abelson et al., “Keys Under Doormats: Mandating Insecurity by Requiring Government Access to All Data and Communications,” Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 6, 2015, https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/97690/MIT-CSAIL-TR-2015-026.pdf (accessed September 1, 2015).

[5] Benjamin Wittes, “Five Hard Encryption Questions,” Lawfare, August 7, 2015, https://www.lawfareblog.com/five-hard-encryption-questions (accessed September 1, 2015).

[6] Even if a large service provider is less secure, the solution (i.e., end-to-end encryption) may be difficult for an individual or small organization to operate effectively. If this is the case, continuing to rely on the superior resources and expertise of the large provider may still be the most cost-effective option.

[7] Stewart Baker, “Encryption: If This Is the Best His Opponents Can Do, Maybe Jim Comey Has a Point,” The Washington Post, July 12, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/12/encryption-if-this-is-the-best-opponents-can-do-maybe-jim-comey-has-a-point/ (accessed September 1, 2015).

[8] Harold Abelson et al., “Keys Under Doormats.”

[9] Mike McConnell, Michael Chertoff, and William Lynn, “Why the Fear over Ubiquitous Data Encryption Is Overblown,” The Washington Post, July 28, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-need-for-ubiquitous-data-encryption/2015/07/28/3d145952-324e-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?postshare=5691438283703237 (accessed September 1, 2015).

[10] Paul Rosenzweig, “Encryption, Biometrics, and the Status Quo Ante,” Lawfare, July 6, 2015, http://www.lawfareblog.com/encryption-biometrics-and-status-quo-ante (accessed September 1, 2015).

[11] Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman, “As Encryption Spreads, U.S. Grapples with Clash between Privacy, Security,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-encryption-spreads-us-worries-about-access-to-data-for-investigations/2015/04/10/7c1c7518-d401-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html (accessed September 1, 2015).

[12] Harold Abelson et al., “Keys Under Doormats.”

[13] Paul Rosenzweig, “Testing Encryption Insecurity: A Modest Proposal,” Lawfare, July 7, 2015, http://lawfareblog.com/testing-encryption-insecurity-modest-proposal (accessed September 1, 2015).

[14] James Jay Carafano et al., “Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Metadata Collection: Responsible Options for the Way Forward,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3018, May 21, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/05/section-215-of-the-patriot-act-and-metadata-collection-responsible-options-for-the-way-forward.

[15] David Inserra, “Terror in Paradise: 73rd Terrorist Plot Highlights Need to Act,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4449, August 4, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/08/terror-in-paradise-73rd-terrorist-plot-highlights-need-to-act.

By Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

(W-20 Summit, September 6, 2015, Ankara, Turkey) — Good morning–Günaydin [Gew-nahy-din].

Thank you, Dr. Türktan, for your generous introduction.

[Mr. President / Mr. Prime Minister,] Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, Madam Ambassador: I am delighted to be here for this inaugural gathering of the Women’s 20—the W-20.

Today’s launch is timely. At their summit meeting last November, the G-20 pledged to reduce the gap in women’s labor force participation by 25 percent by the year 2025—which would have the benefit of creating an estimated 100 million new jobs for the global economy.

That was The Promise of 2025. Today, I want to focus on how to deliver on that promise.

Certainly, it represents a major challenge. But with so much attention focused on gender equity—by the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals this year, and by the G-20’s pledge from last year—we clearly have a unique moment of opportunity.

We must seize it.

Why the 2025 Promise Matters

By the latest estimate, there are more than 3½ billion reasons why gender equity matters. And if those are not enough, let us reflect a little more why this issue is so important.

As I have said many times before, women’s empowerment is not just a fundamentally moral cause, it is also an absolute economic no-brainer. What do I mean by that?

First, we know that empowering women boosts economic growth. For example, we have estimates that, if the number of female workers were to increase to the same level as the number of men, GDP in the United States would expand by 5 percent, by 9 percent in Japan, and by 27 percent in India.¹

These estimates, while of course tentative, are significant and large enough to be taken seriously. This applies particularly to countries where potential growth is declining as the population is ageing.

Second, getting more women into secure and well-paid jobs raises overall per capita income. For Turkey, it has been estimated that gender parity in employment could increase per capita income by 22 percent.² The same kind of gains are also possible for many other countries.

Third, greater gender equality not only raises absolute income, it also helps to reduce income inequality. A forthcoming paper by our staff examines this relationship by comparing a so-called Gender Inequality Index to measured income inequality. The results have been quite striking—it suggests that a boost to education and employment chances for women could lead to improvements in income equality of a magnitude that historically took decades to achieve.

And forth, female empowerment can reduce poverty. The Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, has estimated that giving women the same access to farming resources as men could increase agricultural output in developing countries by up to 4 percent—lifting over 100 million people out of hunger.³

So, to sum up, boosting growth, raising overall incomes, reducing inequality, and tackling poverty: that is why the promise of 2025 is so important.

Implementation

We all recognize, however, that setting a goal and achieving it are two very different propositions. To deliver, we need decisive, sustained, and collective action.

This is where the W-20 can make a difference: reminding the G-20 of their commitment—and holding them to account.

The IMF supports this effort. In recent years, as you may know, we have strengthened our work on the macroeconomic effects of gender gaps.

This has included new research, for example, on women’s role in the economy and legal barriers to female participation. Perhaps even more importantly, we are now looking to apply this research in our policy advice to our member countries.

So the IMF stands with the W-20. On which key policy areas should we focus to help deliver on the G20 promise?

Three Key Policy Areas for Women’s Economic Empowerment

Over the course of a woman’s life, there are numerous opportunities to support her empowerment. I will highlight three critical junctures:

• Going to school—education;
• Getting a job—working; and
• Having a family.

Let me touch on each one:

1.      Education

Turning first to school, let me begin by quoting Aung San Suu Kyi:

“The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.”

Indeed, opportunities in the classroom have ramifications that are wide-reaching and long-lasting.

At an individual level, for instance, we know that one extra year of primary school boosts a woman’s earning potential by 10 to 20 percent. One extra year of secondary school boosts her earning potential by 25 percent.⁴

At a country level, Turkey’s own experience with girls’ education is instructive. The proportion of Turkish women with graduate degrees who have jobs is very high—it exceeds 70 percent. At the opposite end of the scale, however—where there is illiteracy—just 17 percent of women can find work.⁵ Indeed, it is estimated that adding one year of preschool education in Turkey could increase female labor force participation by 9 percent.⁶

The message is clear: girls’ education is probably the single best investment a country can make.

Beyond investment in education per se, there are other ways to boost schooling of girls. Social programs such as cash transfers to poor families can be made conditional on their daughters’ school attendance—as is the case in Bangladesh and Cambodia.⁷ And strengthening infrastructure—such as roads and sanitation—makes it easier for girls to get to school. A comprehensive approach is required.

The good news is that gender gaps in education are narrowing in many countries. In too many countries, however, they remain significant—including in many emerging markets and developing countries.

If the promise of 2025 is to be met, those education gaps must be closed.

2.      Employment

What about the second major policy area: employment?

After receiving an education, a common life event for most women is getting a job. And while having a good education certainly helps women enter the workforce, it is by no means a guarantee of employment.

A number of countries with highly educated women still have low levels of female labor force participation. For example, it is a well-known challenge in Japan.

Japanese women who are currently in their early-30s typically have more than 14 years of schooling behind them—second only to women from New Zealand.⁸ Moreover, Japanese women on average have completed more years of education than their male counterparts.⁹ Despite this, the gender gap in labor force participation in Japan stands at 25 percentage points—compared to just over 10 percentage points on average in major advanced economies.¹⁰

So yes, education is essential—but it is part of a larger package. What else is needed to help women find work?

First, removing legal barriers is vital. These include obstacles that prevent women from everyday activities—such as opening a bank account and having equal property rights.

Recent IMF research noted that almost 90 percent of countries have at least one important legal restriction that makes it difficult for women to work.¹¹ In half of the countries we studied, when gender equity was constitutionally granted, female labor force participation increased by at least 5 percent over the following 5 years.

The second barrier is women’s pay. Even with the same level of education, and in the same occupation, women earn just three-quarters of what men earn.¹² This is by itself a great disincentive for being part of the workforce.

Third, infrastructure can be an obstacle. Without access to basic transport or energy sources, women find it very difficult to work outside the home. In rural South Africa, for example, electrification increased female labor force participation by 9 percent.¹³

And fourth, there is unequal access to finance. In emerging and developing countries, 70 percent of female-owned small and medium-sized enterprises are either unserved or under-served by financial institutions.¹⁴

Increasing financial inclusion for women is an issue that I plan to emphasize at the UN Summit on the Post-2015 Development Agenda later this month. It is crucial to delivering on the 2025 objective.

3.      Family

So too is the third broad policy area—which revolves around the special role that women play in family life. As a practical matter, what can be done here?

For one thing, paid parental leave helps to maintain a woman’s connection to the labor market. Japan, for example, is making significant strides in this area. The government has expanded childcare leave benefits from 50 percent to 67 percent of salary.¹⁵ Employers are increasingly playing their part as well—for example, the paternity leave participation rate in one well-known Japanese insurance company reached 100 percent this year.¹⁶

This raises a salient point: men—not only as partners, but also as fathers, sons, and brothers—have an important stake in empowering women. Not only does this help their partners, daughters, mothers and sisters to achieve their potential, it also helps build a stronger society for all.

As Amartya Sen put it:

“Women are increasingly seen, by men as well as women, as active agents of change: the dynamic promoters of social transformations that can alter the lives of both women and men.”¹⁷

Policymakers and employers can work hand-in-hand to provide affordable and high-quality childcare. Research suggests that cutting the cost of childcare by half could increase the number of young mothers in the labor market by 10 percent.¹⁸

Tax reform can also help. In too many countries, the tax system discourages secondary earners—who are often women—from working. Replacing family taxation with individual taxation can reduce marginal taxes on these secondary earners, thereby encouraging women to work.

This package of parental leave, childcare, and a fairer tax system can enable women to combine a job with a family. Along with investing in girls’ education and easing women’s entry into the labor market, it also supports women’s economic empowerment.

Conclusion: From Words to Action

The G-20’s pledge to reduce the gap in women’s labor force participation by 25 percent over the next decade holds the potential to empower women in a historic way. More than this, it holds the potential to boost growth, raise overall per capita income, tackle poverty, and reduce income inequality for people all over the world.

In short, this can be a game-changer for the global economy. But the promise can only be fulfilled if words become actions.

We need to work together—the G-20, the W-20, the IMF’s 188 member countries—to transform aspiration into reality.

Thank you–Cok tesekkurler [chok te-shek-ular].

¹ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
² World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2015/04/09/important-balancing-act-turkey
³ OECD DAC Network on Gender Equality, Women’s Economic Empowerment
⁴ Daring the Difference: The 3 L’s of Women’s Empowerment
⁵ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
⁶ World Bank. 2013. Programmatic Concept Note: Turkey: Women’s Access to Economic Opportunities in Turkey Trust Fund
⁷ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
⁸ IMF Working Paper, Can Women Save Japan?
⁹ Ibid
¹⁰ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
¹¹ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Fair Play: More Equal Laws Boost Female Labor Force Participation
¹² Daring the Difference: The 3 L’s of Women’s Empowerment
¹³ Forthcoming IMF Staff Discussion Note, Catalyst for Change: Empowering Women and Tackling Income Inequality
¹⁴ Forthcoming IMF Staff Discussion Note, Financial Inclusion—Can it Meet Multiple Macroeconomic Goals?
¹⁵ Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare
¹⁶ Bloomberg News: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-22/japanese-men-bringing-up-babies-seek-to-send-wives-back-to-work
¹⁷ Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom
¹⁸ IMF Staff Discussion Note, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity

By Isamu Ueda*

In Japan, “Peace and Security Legislation” has been a main focus of deliberations in the Diet this year. How Japan could ensure the country’s security in response to the changing security environment has been discussed.

Debate has also focused on the extent to which Japan should contribute to the peace of the international community. Following meetings between the ruling parties over one year, the Japanese government submitted this legislation to the current Diet session.

Primarily, this legislation will enable Japan to take measures for self-defense even when an armed attack against a foreign country that is in a close relationship with Japan occurs, if the attack threatens Japan’s survival. This is the “limited” exercise of the right of collective self-defense for the sake of Japan’s survival. So-called “complete” exercise of the right to collective self-defense, legitimate under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, is still not permitted under Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

Secondly, Japan will be able to make more proactive contributions to peace operations that are authorized by the United Nations. Yet, Japan’s support activities shall be conducted outside ”the scene where combat activities are actually being conducted” because of constitutional constraints. It is not true that Japan will become “belligerent” as a result of this new legislation. Japan has never waged a war over the past 70 years, and will remain a pacifist state as before.

The author is New Komeito Party member of Japan’s House of Representatives and Chairman of the party’s International Committee.