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Uruguay Pulls Out Of ‘Secret’ Talks On Trade In Services – Analysis

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By Roberto Bissio*

(IDN | SUNS) – Just a week before the deadline for submitting national offers on liberalisation of services sectors under the on-going “secret” talks for a Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez decided on September 7 to abandon the plurilateral negotiations.

While Uruguay is the first participant in the TiSA talks to abandon the on-going negotiations, at an earlier stage when the plurilateral talks’ idea was broached in 2012 by the so-called Really Good Friends of Services (RGFS), Singapore – which was part of the RGFS group – withdrew as soon as the sponsors (Australia, the United States and the European Union) outlined their ideas.

The Uruguayan president’s action follows a decision taken on September 5 by a large majority of the Frente Amplio, the governing leftist political coalition, against Uruguay continuing to be part of the TiSA negotiations taking place in Geneva but outside the framework of the World Trade Organisation and its General Agreement on Trade in Services.

The Frente Amplio’s decision considered that it is “inconvenient” for Uruguay to keep negotiating TiSA, “taking into account our vision on an integral development of the Nation”, and received 117 votes in favour of leaving the negotiations and only 22 against it.

TiSA is widely recognised as an attempt to ultimately assert pressure on other countries to sign on to an agreement the nature of which has not been accepted within the WTO multilateral trading system and its agreements and rules. It was initiated by the United States and Australia with the European Union as a key player as well.

With the withdrawal of Uruguay from the negotiations, the remaining countries are Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, the European Union, Hong Kong-China, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States. Noticeably absent are the majority of developing countries, especially the larger ones.

The factions in Frente Amplio, led by Economy Minister Danilo Astori and Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin, were the only significant members of the coalition to support TiSA. The Movement for People’s Participation led by former president Jose Mujica voted against, even though Mujica was still president when Uruguay joined the negotiations last February. When the Frente Amplio formally took a vote against TiSA, the right wing parliamentary opposition offered their votes to build an ad hoc majority in favour of the agreement and thus divide the governing coalition.

However, Tourism Minister Lilian Kechichian, acting as spokeswoman for the Council of Ministers, announced on September 7 that “the President respects the majority and has asked the foreign minister to implement it”.

The governing coalition studied the issue over four months and before making its decision, the coalition’s governing council demanded from all ministries an analysis on how the opening up of services would affect their agendas and what items they would want to include in the “negative list” of economic sectors not to be opened.

‘Negative’ and ‘Positive’ Lists

A “negative list” approach means that all sectors are liberalised except for those that are to be excluded. A “positive list” approach liberalises only those sectors or parts of a sector that are included in a predetermined list and usually also allows for conditions on such liberalisation.

The local newspaper La Diaria had access to the summary of ministerial analyses presented to the Frente Amplio council by its chair, Daniel Marsiglia. According to a report, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security considers that some of the TiSA requirements would contradict the norms of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that Uruguay has signed up to and are therefore to be considered as national law.

The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mines informed the council of the governing coalition that the proposed TiSA would imply risks to the telecommunication policies of Uruguay.

Since a privatisation law was repealed by referendum in 1992, the telephone company (fixed lines), the generation and distribution of electricity, the only oil refinery of the country and all water and sanitation services are run by state-owned companies.

Further, the state-owned banks, even when competing with private national and international banks, hold three quarters of the deposits, while the state-owned insurance company controls around half of the market.

Meanwhile, the state-owned mobile cell-phone company has double the number of subscribers compared to the two competing foreign-owned cell-phone corporations. The telecommunications policy that TiSA would challenge has allowed Uruguay to have a phone network that is 100 percent digitised. All towns and schools are linked via fibre optic cables and all children of school age are provided with free access to the Internet as part of the “one laptop per child” policy that Vazquez himself started in his previous presidency. (Vazquez was president before Mujica. Both were elected by the Frente Amplio coalition of progressive parties and movements.)

The Ministry of Agriculture rejected the liberalisation of some services it provides, in particular the identification and tracking of cattle which allows Uruguay to export meat at higher prices than its neighbours.

The Ministry of Tourism, overseeing an area that accounts for the majority of the exports of services of the country, reported that no benefits would be obtained from TiSA in its area, as tourism is already liberalised. The Health Ministry reported that it is not in a position to produce a “negative list” due to the rapidly changing nature of the health services that could make such a list obsolete in a short time.

On the other hand, the services agreement was positively reviewed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which argued that the presence of Uruguayan negotiators in the TiSA-related meetings would help them “gain experience”, while the Ministry of Economy and Finances highlighted that TiSA would bring benefits to the local software producers and professional services (such as lawyers and accountants).

Interestingly, when the Frente Amplio convened a public discussion, the chair of the Uruguayan Chamber of Software expressed his wish that TiSA would help them open up markets by allowing their technicians to travel abroad more freely, but yet demanded that the government procurement system continues to favour offers from national companies over those from foreign corporations. It became clear during the debate that this sector, which accounts for at most two percent of the total national income, was ill-informed.

Mode 4 provision of services (that require the movement of natural persons abroad to supply a service as provided under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, has a “positive list” approach) are excluded from TiSA at the instance of the United States.

In the U.S., EU and Australia, the movement of natural persons for supply of services is governed by visa requirements of immigration policies and the application of ‘needs tests’. Thus, the continuation of government support to the software industry would disqualify it from any benefits potentially derived from TiSA.

With the decisive vote, socialist parliamentarian Roberto Chiazzaro highlighted that it is the first time that TiSA is discussed widely and openly in any country and “it is remarkable how much people got informed, participated and discussed and Tabare (President Vazquez) has to be praised for having heard the people and his political organisation before taking a decision”.

*Roberto Bissio is Director of the Third World Institute based in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is also the coordinator of Social Watch, an international network of citizens’ organisations. This article, which first appeared in SUNS – South North Development Monitor, is being reproduced by arrangement with the author and the Monitor.


Owaisi Politics In Secular India: A Replica Of Pre-Independence Islamism? – Analysis

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By R.Upadhyay*

Asaduddin Owaisi, president of All India Majlish-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) who has of late gained national audience is now trying his luck in BIHAR Assembly election in the four districts where Muslims are the deciding factor.

His religion based representative politics for Muslims in secular India and controversial statement that “everyone is born a Muslim and then he is converted to other religions” might have satisfied the Islamists lobby within Indian Muslim society but such politics is apparently a repeat of the separatist politics of Jinnah. Instead of advancing the cause of people’s interest, his politics exclusively for the Muslims reminds the people of Pakistan Movement.

Suffering from the delusion of the DNA of his party rooted to the pre-Independence Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen which believed that “the ruler throne (Nizam) is the symbol of the political and cultural rights of the Muslim community …. and this status must continue for ever”( party politics in Andhra Pradesh by Vadakattu Hanumantha Rao, 1983, page 163) and also in the turbulent and communal politics of the country in general and in the former Princely State of Hyderabad in particular, Owaisi is still carrying the baggage of his parent organisation which “proclaimed Muslims as the monarchs of Deccan with Nizam as only the symbolic expression of their political sovereignty” (State Government and Politics – Andhra Pradesh by Reddy and Sharma, 1979, page 392). He is therefore; now found trying to replicate the pre-Independence politics of Muslimism the concept for the Muslims, of the Muslims and by the Muslims in other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh by arousing the sense of communal discrimination and anxiety among the youths of the community with provocative politics.

The AIMIM was not having any presence beyond Hyderabad but after winning two seats in last Maharashtra election, impressive success in Aurangabad Municipal election and causing defeat of the Congress in recently concluded Bengaluru Municipal election, Owaisi is found to make some dent in north Indian states particularly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Encouraged with his Kishanganj rally in Bihar he is presumably ambitious to expand his party to all India level.

With just only one seat in parliament, two Assembly seats in Maharashtra Assembly and a few seats in Telangana, he is trying to consolidate the Muslim votes in favour of AIMIM as done by Jinnah in consolidating the Muslims behind All India Muslim League and succeeded in creation of a separate Muslim country. Owaisi however does not bother that his communal endeavour and politics exclusively for the Muslims in secular India will be detrimental to national interest in general and to the Muslims in particular. His success in splitting the Muslim votes in last Maharashtra Assembly Election and Municipal elections in Aurangabad as well as Bengaluru might have prompted him to re-play the similar game in ensuing Bihar Assembly Election and next year in UP and West Bengal but he does not realise that it will revive the Pre-Independence gap of communal mistrust between the two major religious communities.

Some Muslim youths may applaud “Owaisi Brothers are Musssalmanon ka Modi” (http://muslimmirror.com/eng/are-owaisi-brothers-leading-muslims-in-the-r…) but the AIMIM leader must understand that Indian Muslims are not his inherited property.

Owaisis have inherited the confrontational politics of MIM led by Kasim Rizvi with Government of India. For Rizvi the Princely State of Hyderabad was a political reality which he was not ready to sacrifice for the idea of India. Accordingly, he had recruited a large number of Razakars that had created a reign of terror against the non-Muslims. He had even threatened the Government of India during one of his talks with V.P.Menon, the then Secretary in the Ministry of States in Delhi saying “if government of India insisted on a plebiscite, the final arbiter could only be the sword”.(Integration of the Indian States by V.P. Menon, page 334). Similarly in one of his Jehadi speeches as published in press, he asserted: “The day is not far off when the waves of the Bay of Bengal will be washing the feet of our sovereign”. He further declared that “he would plant the Asaf Jahi flag on the Red Fort in Delhi”. (Ibid. Page 352). However, the sword of Rizvi failed to defend the merger of the Princely State of Hyderabad with India on September 17, 1948 after Police Action by Government of India. The MIM was proscribed and Rizvi had to cool his hill in the jail. He was released only in 1957 when he gave an undertaking to migrate to Pakistan within forty-eight hours of his release.

At the time of his departure to Pakistan, Rizvi gifted the MIM to Wahid Owaisi, the grandfather of Asaduddin Owaisi. Accepting such a gift from Rizvi proves the Islamist mindset of Owaisi family

Although the anti-BJP forces are accusing Owaisi as a ‘Cat among secular pigeons’ and view him as a challenge to the ‘secular’ parties but they forget that his politics of hard-minority-ism (Read Muslim) is born out only of the soft-minority politics of the so called secular parties which have never allowed the community to merge in the socio-political mainstream of the country.

Today by aligning with certain regional or national party the Muslims are found relevant in making or breaking government formation in State or Centre but due to their dispersed population throughout the country and the arithmetic of the electoral politics, they will be further alienated from the mainstream politics if they support Owaisi.

A few Muslim controlled parties like All India United Democratic Front of Mawlana Ajmal in Assam, Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala and Peoples Democratic Party and National Conference of Mufty Mohammad Syed and Abdullah family respectively in Jammu and Kashmir might have achieved some success in their respective states but they too had an alliance with some ruling parties to prove their political relevance. Similarly, so long the AIMIM was the alliance partner of the Congress in Hyderabad; it had proved its existence in the state of united Andhra Pradesh. But in the last couple of years particularly after breaking its alliance with Congress Party the AIMIM is behaving like a replica of the pre-Independence All India Muslim League under the patronage of British colonial power by formulating religion based political strategy and provoking the community over their imaginary discrimination in secular India.

Tufail Ahmad, a British journalist of Indian origin born in West Champaran district of Bihar and presently Director of South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Washington DC in an article entitled “Jinnah of modern India” published in new Indian Express.com (http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Jinnah-of-Modern-India/2015/02/0…) has complemented Owaisi as “Jinnah of modern India” who had demanded separate territory for Muslims and Owaisi is demanding separate quota for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions. Overlooking the fact that the OBC Muslims are already enjoying the benefit of reservation, Owaisi is demanding quota for all the followers of Islam which is similar to the initial quota politics of Jinnah that had aggravated the communalisation of the Islamic society.

History has proved that the politics of Jinnah, Nizam and Rizvi only brought humiliation to the Indian Muslims. Had Jinnah not been obsessed to Muslimism or Nizam depended on Islamist Rizvi, the Indian Muslims would not have suffered from the demoralisation they had after partition and the Police Action in Hyderabad. Unfortunately, the AIMIM also carried forward the communal legacy of the pre-Independence Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) which was “regarded as remarkably aggressive and a violent face of Muslim militancy as it organized the Razakars to defend the independence of this Muslim State with Indian Union”. Therefore, the AIMIM is also known as “an Islamic, fundamentalist, secessionist, communal political party in India that was founded by the radicals among the Muslim population of Andhra Pradesh and the Muslim dominated areas of Hyderabad though it has units in some parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra” (Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia). The sole objective behind this Islamist character of the party has been to blackmail the ruling establishment in Andhra Pradesh for the self seeking interest.

How far Owaisi politics for the Muslims, by the Muslims and of the Muslims will succeed in a secular democratic country only time will say but immediate fall out of such separatist politics is only widening the prevailing gap of mistrust between the two major religious communities which is neither in the interest of the community nor of the country.

Owaisi entry in Bihar election might have alarmed the caste-ist parties but it is more a challenge to the Muslim voters of the state to prove whether they want the return of Jinnah politics or a democratic politics. The only remedy which lies with the Muslims of Bihar is to isolate the Islamist politics of Owaisi

*The author can be reached in E-mail ramashray60@rediffmail.com

Russia’s Foreign Policy 2015 Unhitched From Traditional Moorings – Analysis

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By Dr Subhash Kapila

Russia’s foreign policy in 2015 appears unhitched from its traditional moorings of President Putin aspiration to re-emerge as an independent global power centre and has lapsed into playing second-fiddle and ‘band-wagoning’ with China, hardly reflecting Great Power aspirations.

Heading Russia’s abandonment of major foreign policy earlier thrusts is the Russian re-casting of its South Asia foreign policy thrusts and strategic formulations followed by Russia’s ‘Strategic Pivot to Asia Pacific’ enunciated by President Putin in 2012. Abandonment of above-mentioned Russian priorities somehow betrays Russia conceding to or subsuming Russian priorities to China’s major strategic aims.

In South Asia and Asia Pacific are located India and Japan, two major ‘emerged powers’ of Asia with sizeable strategic weight to affect the global balance of power in the 21st Century and therefore on whose goodwill will depend heavily the materialisation of Russian aspirations for re-emergence as an independent global power centre. The critical input that Russian foreign policy planners have missed in their formulations is that on both India and Japan, adversarial equations has been imposed on them by China. This limits any manoeuvring space for Russia in terms of political and strategic reach-out to India and Japan.

In South Asia after decades of an eventful strategic partnership with India and sizeable strategic convergences in tow, Russia has made a strategic reachout to India’s military adversary and China’s proxy state—Pakistan. This in Indian perceptions amounts to Russia aligning with India’s two known enemies, namely, Pakistan and China. Equivalence in India will certainly be drawn with the Chinese betrayal of India in the late 1950s.

While India has tolerated Russia’s strategic nexus with China arising from Russian compulsions of balancing United States policy of isolating Russia, but who is Russia balancing in South Asia when attempting a strategic partnership underway with Pakistan?

Similarly, Russia’s ‘Strategic Pivot to Asia Pacific’ was widely welcomed as a step in the direction of Russia acting as a Great Power, independent of China’s sensitivities on the Russian move. It started well with Russia in a politico-strategic reach-out to Japan and the beginning of ‘2 plus2 Dialogues’. But it petered out seemingly as a Russian political trade-off for China’s grudging support on the Crimean issue in exchange for petering out of the Russian strategic pivot to Asia Pacific, the fulcrum of which is Japan,

Russia in the above process seems to have foreclosed all its Great Power policy options in the Asia Pacific and foreign policy manoeuvre space in deference to China.

In South Asia too, Russia will lose out similarly and at a greater cost when it has elected to enter into a strategic partnership with Pakistan, obviously under Chinese pressure. The Russian argument is weak that to bolster its faltering defence industry and increase earnings for a cash-strapped Russian economy, Russia is being forced to look to Pakistan as a good source for arms sales earnings. Would Russia like India to believe that Pakistan Army would ditch its over-sized Chinese origin military hardware inventories in favour of Russia?

Obviously both Russia and Pakistan are indulging jointly in political signalling against India for their respective reasons. India does not expect Pakistan and the Pakistan Army to do better. Russia however is expected to be more cognizant of India’s strategic sensitivities and should have desisted from this self-defeating political foreign policy manoeuvre. Indian perceptions of Russian intentions should matter to Russia as India is an ‘emerged power’ as against Pakistan still struggling to stabilise its nationhood. India is increasingly being counted in the global strategic calculus.

Concluding, all that needs to be said is that any nations’ foreign policy choices are its own and the decisions and consequences of decisions to are its own. However, perceptions do count heavily. In 2015, Russia has generated perceptions that Russian foreign policy stands unhitched from its traditional moorings of Great Power aspirations to emerge as an independent global power centre. Russia appears to have band-waggoned with China and playing second-fiddle to it.

Arsenic Poisoning In Drinking Water: Huge Public-Health Problem – OpEd

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Arsenic is a potent carcinogen and is known to cause cancer of the skin, lung, kidney, bladder and liver. Arsenic (As) poisoning from drinking water has been called the worst natural disaster in the history of mankind. Naturally occurring arsenic in private wells threatens people in many US states and parts of Canada, according to a package of a dozen scientific papers to be published next week.

The studies, focused mainly on New England, but applicable elsewhere, say private wells present continuing risks due to almost nonexistent regulation in most states, homeowner inaction and inadequate mitigation measures. The reports also shed new light on the geologic mechanisms behind the contamination. The studies come amid new evidence that even low doses of arsenic may reduce IQ in children, in addition to well documented risks of heart disease, cancer and reduced lung function. The reports comprise a special section in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

According to the World Health Organization drinking arsenic-rich water over a long period results in various health hazards, including skin problems, skin cancer, cancer of the bladder, kidney and lung, besides other diseases. Arsenic is the biggest public-health problem for water in the United States—it’s the most toxic thing we drink — yet for some reason, we pay far less attention to it than we do to lesser problems. Much long-term work on arsenic in the United States and Southeast Asia has been done via an extensive program at Lamont-Doherty and Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Many rocks and sediments have inert, harmless traces of arsenic locked into them. But in recent years geologists have observed that some geologic formations can become enriched in arsenic, and certain chemical conditions may cause rocks to react with groundwater and liberate the element into aquifers. Since the 1990s, the problem has been identified in some 70 countries; it is worst in Southeast Asia, where as many as 100 million people are exposed.

Arsenic (As) is known to be a very toxic element and a carcinogen to human. Even a trace amount of arsenic can be harmful to human health. The World Health Organizations (WHOs) current provisional guideline for arsenic in drinking water is 10 ppb. In India, states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhnad, West Bengal, Assam, Manipur, mainly in Ganga-Meghna-Brahmaputra (GMB) plain covering an area of about 569749 sq km with a population of over 500 million have reported serious illnesses due to presence of arsenic.

Arsenic pollution of ground water in West Bengal was first reported in the early eighties. The occurrence of arsenic is mainly due to two reasons:  natural and anthropogenic.  Arsenic is widely distributed in nature and principally occurs in the form of inorganic or organic compounds.  Inorganic compounds consist of arsenite, the most toxic form and arsenate the less toxic form.  The main ores of Arsenic are arsenopyrite, arpiment, realgar and arsenopalledenite. It is present in nature as iron arsenate, iron sulphate and in calcareous soil as calcareous arsenolite.  In flood deposits, it is found as arsenite.  The main anthropogenic sources are industrial waste, phosphate, fertilizers, coal, oil, cement, mine tailing, smelting, ore processing, metal extraction, metal purification, chemicals, glass, leather, textiles, alkali, petroleum refineries, acid mines, alloys, pigments, insecticides, herbicides and catalysts.

The problem of arsenic contamination in ground water from the vast tract of alluvial aquifers in Bengal, Bihar and UP is known to have affected a population of about 50 million in different districts of India and an equal number in Bangladesh. About 63 lakh people in West Bengal State live in the arsenic belt; 69 blocks are arsenic-affected, while two are affected by fluoride. Arsenic in ground water have been reported in a range (0.05-3.2) mg/l in shallow aquifers from 61 block in 8 districts of West Bengal namely Malda, Mushirbad, Nadia, North and South 24 Pargana, Bardhaman, Howrah, and Hugli.

Arsenic levels vary depending on geological location and arsenic occurs naturally in the environment. In West Bengal, India, the mud underneath the surface of the Earth is particularly thick. This thick mud prevents water from flowing to the sea at a very fast rate. Ground water is in contact with this mud for hundreds, or even thousands of years.  The longer water is in contact with the mud, the higher the concentration of arsenic is in the water.

In West Bengal, there is increasing concern of arsenic induced diseases due to exposure of high concentration of arsenic in the Natural Geochemical environment. In this area the source of arsenic is geogenic and associated with iron pyrites in arsenic rich layers occurring in the alluvium along the Ganga River. The availability of arsenic is possible due to excessive use of ground water irrigation (e.g. up to 80 per cent of the annual replenishable recharge in north 24 Parganas for multiple cropping which causes dropping of water levels resulting exposure of the arsenic rich beds to air – oxidation of the pyrite and soubilisation of arsenic).

Arsenic concentration in ground water has been found to be in excess of permissible limit of 0.05 mg/l in a number of localized patches in Murshidabad and North 24- Pargana Districts in West Bengal. Population in the area is reported to be suffering from “Arsenic Dermatosis” by drinking arsenic rich ground water. In Ramnagar and Domkal blocks of Murshidabad district, Arsenic levels range from 0.06 mg/l to 1.90 mg/l, while in North 24-Parganas, it ranges from 0.66 to 0.9 mg/l.

Recently, the toxic metal, aluminium, has been found more than the permissible limit in the drinking water samples tested by the government water quality testing labs and other approved institutions. This is the first time that aluminium has been traced in water samples to this extent first time. Arsenic, lead, uranium, mercury, chromium, etc. have been traced earlier too. The problem related to aluminum is more pronounced in case of Amritsar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Sangrur districts. It was found to be more than the permissible limit in over 70 per cent of the drinking water samples. Aluminum can cause dementia and other neurological problems. Uranium, chromium, cadmium have also been found in 1 per cent of the water samples. Uranium, chromium, cadmium and lead are also highly toxic substances and can cause serious health problems and damage the nervous system.

Ever since the startling news broke, in March 2009, that traces of uranium and other heavy metals had been found in the hair samples of children and adults at the Baba Farid Centre for Special Children in Faridkot district, Punjab, the Centre has become the focus of intense government and media scrutiny. The revelations were made by UK-based clinical toxicologist Carin Smit who noted the bizarre medical condition of the children who, until now, had been considered extreme cases of mental disability. Their limbs are deformed, they have bulges on their heads, and their eyes have grown well beyond normal size. No doubt, hair analysis may allow indirect screening of physiological excesses, deficiencies or mal-distribution of elements in the body; but, it is important to carry out more tests to assess the exact levels of uranium present in the human body, because uranium is known to cause physical deformities and damage both the kidney and the liver

Researchers at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, had found concentrations of uranium and heavy metals above the safe limit in water samples collected from various locations in Bathinda district which borders Faridkot. According to the WHO’s recommendations, the maximum concentration of uranium in water should be 20 micrograms/litre. Concentrations of uranium in water samples collected in Bathinda were found to be “very high and very unsafe from the health hazard point of view”. What is interesting about the study is a reference to “radioactive-rich granites of Tosham hills in neighbouring Haryana” whose activities were already referred to by concerned researchers in 1989. Guru Nanak Dev University study clearly suggests that the high levels of uranium in Punjab may have something to do with radioactivity in Haryana’s granite hills.

Meanwhile, speculation abounds. What baffles many is that there are no uranium mines in Punjab. One of the theories doing the rounds is that the uranium may have come from Iraq where the US army uses it in its warheads. Some suspect air contamination caused by uranium-laden winds from Afghanistan, while others feel water contamination caused by toxic scrap dumped in the state’s Sutlej and Beas rivers may be the cause. Uranium could have originated from thermal power plants. “Coal, used in thermal power plants, is known to have radioactive material like radon and uranium. Forty of the 149 samples tested were of children and adults from Bathinda.  But there are those who warn against such speculation. “Punjab is already suffering due to a cocktail of pesticides and heavy metals present in the groundwater. It is too early to say uranium is causing autism etc. It could be one of the chemical-disrupting neuro-transmitters.

Sub-soil water in Punjab is getting polluted at a faster pace now. Punjab has decided to source drinking water from canal networks in the districts of Moga and Barnala where the presence of toxic metals in sub-soil water is widespread. In areas where the problem is not that alarming, RO systems will be installed to remove toxic metals.

Against the permissible limit of 0.01 mg per litre, arsenic was 0.06 mg/l in some of the samples drawn at Abusaid in Amritsar district. Same was the case at Anayatoura and Bhakha Hari Singh village in the district. Aluminum was above the permissible limit in most of the water samples in the district. In Dangarh village of Barnala district, aluminum was found in higher quantity in some of the water samples. In Dhurkot village, high level of cadmium was found. High level of lead was also found in Bandala village of Ferozepur district, aluminum in Butewala and Roranswali villages in Ferozepur district.

Punjab is the only state in the country which is reeling under this unique and dangerous problem. The uranium content in the waters of Punjab has not only been increasing but spreading too. A recent study by Punjab health department has revealed that uranium content has been found to be 50% above the permissible WHO limit in eight districts of the state. As per state government’s survey, out of total 2,462 water samples, 1,140 samples tested positive for the radioactive metal. Water contaminated with uranium was found in Malwa districts of the state, including Mansa, Bathinda, Moga, Faridkot, Barnala, Sangrur and some parts of Ludhiana as well. Earlier, only two districts — Faridkot and Ferozepur — had reported uranium in their water and the related health problems. Punjab was the only state in the country where uranium content in the water is higher than the permissible limit set by the WHO. The water situation in Punjab was really bad. We need more scientific studies to understand the implications on health of people consuming this uranium contaminated water.

We need to know the source of uranium’s presence which is very unusual and inexplicable. As of now, we have only theories; we need to know the facts. Though there had not been any in-depth study on uranium contaminated water in Punjab, but one reason could be the presence of phosphatic fertilizers in the soil that trigger uranium content in affected areas.

Residents of 12 districts of Punjab and Haryana are consuming poisonous water as the groundwater there has been detected with arsenic levels beyond the permissible limit according to the Union Ministry of Water Resources. The ministry has directed the two states to prepare an action plan to contain the contamination. These directions were given on the basis of sample reports of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) that found habitations of six districts each in the two states affected with arsenic in groundwater beyond the permissible limit of 0.05 milligram per litre.

According to Board regional director SK Jain, the sample reports of both states were shared with the officials concerned to take necessary action. Medical teams of both states have been asked to look for symptoms of arsenic infection in patients, especially children since they are more vulnerable, he added.

In 2014, the CGWB collected 50 groundwater samples from Punjab, of which arsenic contamination more than 0.05 MG/L was found in six districts. These include Gandiwind (Amritsar district), Patti (Tarn Taran), Jhunir (Mansa), Dhilwan (Kapurthala), Ropar and Fazilka. In fact, 30 more blocks in 13 districts of Punjab have arsenic contamination ranging between 0.01 and 0.05 Mg/L, the report says. Department of Water Supply and Sanitation, Communication and Capacity Development Unit, SAS Nagar reported that Punjab had already taken precautionary steps by installing 1,848 reverse osmosis (RO) units in 70 areas out of 182 where arsenic contamination was detected. 561 RO units had been recently sanctioned by the state government and proposal for 1,900 more had been sent to the Centre for funding.

In Haryana, arsenic levels beyond 0.05 mg/l have been found in Gharaunda and Karnal (Karnal district), Bhuna (Fatehabad), Ambala, Nuh and Nagina (Mewat), and Kharkhauda (Sonipat). However, Haryana Public Health Department had not detected any arsenic contamination in the state.

Ever since some environmentalist raised the issue, water from 2462 tubewells was collected from across Punjab. Of the 1642 results available so far, at least 1142 tested positive for presence of uranium. While most of the water was from the cotton belt in the south-western districts of the Malwa region of Punjab, Gurdaspur from the Majha belt reported the presence of arsenic in ground water. Though the exact cause could not be pinpointed immediately, the most popular theory doing the rounds indicated that the heavy metals could have leached into the soil from the excessive use of phosphate-based fertilizers.

Analysis of drinking water taken from existing hand pumps/submersible pumps, tube-wells, dug wells (underground water), and municipal water supply from the south-western districts of Punjab were found to have high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), pH, electrical conductivity, hardness, and high content of arsenic beyond their permissible limits set by WHO along with high variability, which is a matter of great concern. 80 per cent of the total samples analyzed were having arsenic concentration above the safe limit (10 g/L). Faridkot showed maximum contamination of 92 per cent followed by Sangrur 88 per cent, Bathinda 86 per cent, Ferozepur 74 per cent, and Muktsar 60 per cent. The mean arsenic level in water samples obtained from municipal water supply of Ferozepur, Faridkot, Bathinda, Muktsar, and Sangrur is 14.14, 25.171, 23.75, 21.86, and 21.21 with SD 5.177, 5.976, 5.30, and 7.59. The mean arsenic concentration in water samples obtained from public hand pumps is 15.36. A positive correlation between pH and As concentration was observed with r 2 = 0.94. There is need doe regular monitoring of arsenic content and the seasonal variation, if any, in future.

Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for more than 95 per cent of the population in Punjab. As per PAU study, the arsenic concentration of deep water tube wells located in Amritsar city used for domestic supply for urban population ranged from 3.8 to 19.1 ppb with mean value of 9.8 ppb. Arsenic content in hand pump water varied from 9 to 85 ppb with a mean value of 29.5 ppb. According to the safe limit of arsenic, 54 per cent and 97 per cent, water samples collected from deep water tube wells and hand pumps, respectively, were not fit for human consumption. Arsenic content in canal water varied from 0.3 to 8.8 ppb with a mean value of 2.89 ppb. Canal water has got higher oxidation potential followed by deep tube well and hand pump water. It is evident from this investigation that water extracted by hand pumps from shallow aquifers of Punjab, northwest India usually has arsenic content above the safe limit and should not be used for drinking purposes. The present study suggests the regular monitoring of arsenic content in deep tube well and shallow hand pump waters by water testing laboratories. The consumption of water having elevated concentration of arsenic above the safe limit must be discouraged. The canal water contain arsenic well below the safe limits and should be suitable alternative for human consumption than ground water.

Consumption of ground water with elevated arsenic levels (up to 3,700 mg/l in certain wells) over a prolonged period of time has resulted in serious health hazards, especially among the rural and semi-urban population in the region. Symptoms of arsenic toxicity are manifested as skin lesions, hyperkeratosis, melanosis, cancer in different organs and several other health disorders, which in some cases have proved to be lethal. Need of water for domestic as well as irrigation purposes had triggered rapid development of ground water resources in the region during the last two decades. Overdraft of ground water in an indiscriminate manner is one of the key factors responsible for the spreading of arsenic epidemic in this region. A large number of government organizations and NGO are working on this problem and to find a lasting solution.

REMOVAL OF ARSENIC:

Removal of arsenic from ground/surface water to provide safe drinking water free from primary contaminant like arsenic as well as secondary contaminants like iron and microorganisms. The arsenic removal from drinking water by physicochemical process provides process for decontamination of water with respect to arsenic. BARC developed know how of ultrafiltration (UF) based membrane technology for water decontamination with respect to microbiological contamination at both domestic and community scale is available for transfer separately. The present technology is a novel Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane assisted physicochemical process for removal of arsenic from ground/surface water to make the water safe for drinking. The Salient features are:

  • Simple and rapid
  • Can operate without electricity
  • No specific requirement for waste disposal
  • Cost effective
  • Capability of high decontamination – Product water not only free from arsenic but also free from secondary contaminants like iron, manganese and microorganisms.
  • Technology can be adopted at both domestic and community level

Process

UF membrane assisted physicochemical process/device is capable of removing arsenic contamination from ground/surface water for drinking purposes from a feed concentration of 500 ppb or more to less than 10 ppb (which is the desirable limit set by BIS). The entire process involves two steps: 1) Sorption of arsenic species on the in situ generated sorbent by simple addition of two reagents. 2) Filtration of arsenic containing sludge using UF membrane device based on the technology developed by BARC. The two reagents required for the first step are to be prepared using the procedure given in the technology transfer document. The details of the device required for the second step is available in the form of technology with BARC and can be taken separately. These devices are also available with several licensees of BARC in the form of commercial products. All the raw materials required for preparing the reagents for removal of arsenic are available in the local market.

INTERVENTION:

Starting in 2006, a team of European and Indian scientists led by Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) established a low cost chemical free method of arsenic removal (www.qub.ac.uk/tipot) in the state of West Bengal in India. The technology known as ‘TIPOT’ (for Technology for in-situ treatment of groundwater for potable and irrigation purposes) is based on subterranean arsenic removal (SAR) without the aid of any chemicals. The project was supported by the European Commission under Asia Pro Eco programme. Subsequently, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission (RKVM), one of the Indian partners of TIPOT Consortium, received a grant from the World Bank to set up six community water treatment plants in the state of West Bengal with the assistance of Queen’s University Belfast.

The conventional technologies used in India for arsenic removal are based on ‘pump and treat’ method involving either adsorption or membrane processes. Such plants are expensive to run and have problems associated with waste disposal and maintenance. In contrast, ‘TIPOT’ process based on subterranean arsenic removal (SAR) or ‘In-situ treatment’ neither uses any chemicals, nor produces any disposable waste. The installation is similar to a tube-well and all parts are easily available.

The in-situ method is cost-effective and, unlike filtration systems, eliminates the need for sludge handling. The arsenic which is trapped into the sand along with the iron flocs constitute an infinitesimal volume of the total volume being handled and hence pose very little environmental threat in its precipitated form. The whole mass remains down below unlike other processes where there is extra cost of sludge handling and messy disposal problem. The process is chemical free, simple and easy to handle. There is no restriction to the volume it can handle as long as proper time is allowed for the oxygen rich impregnated water to create the adequate oxidizing zone in the deep aquifer. It is also quite flexible with respect to the raw water quality as the efficient coefficient could be varied depending on the quality of the raw water. It involves low capital cost and minimum operating cost or expertise.

At total of six in-situ treatment plants have so far been constructed in W. Bengal.This technology could transform the way arsenic will be removed from groundwater in South Asia and other parts of the world. TIPOT technology is appropriate for the Ganga and Mekong Delta where the arsenic is of arsenopyrite origin. This land mass covers the arsenic affected zones of Eastern India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. An estimated 70 million people are affected in India and Bangladesh by arsenic exposure and another 30 million in other ASEAN countries.

INFRASTRUCTURE:

The development of arsenic removal kit requires a small laboratory with few common types of equipment like weighing balances, exhaust and common glassware’s. The cost of raw materials for preparation of reagents sufficient to treat 1000 liters of arsenic contaminated water (contamination level: 500 ppb) is approximately Rs. Eight only. The cost of UF membrane device required for filtration will depend if the filtration unit is directly purchased from the market or the service provider is manufacturing it by becoming of licensee of BARC.
Once forced to drink arsenic- contaminated ground water, residents of a remote hamlet in West Bengal near Indo-Bangla border are now purifying water from ponds and selling packaged safe drinking water to neighbouring villages. Using a new innovative technology from France, village co-operative society Madhusudankati Samabay Krishi Unnayan Samity has constructed a water purification project which converts contaminated pond water into safe drinking water.

The co-operative is now supplying arsenic-free drinking water to a hundred families located in Madhusudankanti and selling it to nearby villages of North 24 Parganas district at only 50 paise per litre.”At present we are purifying and selling 2000 litres of water every day after packing it in jars and bottles. Around 200 families from outside the village are also our customers,” according to co-operative chairman Haladhar Sharma. Labelled as ‘Sulabh Jal’, the project is funded and conceptualized by Sulabh International which had pioneered the Sulabh Sauchalya (Sulabh Toilets) in the country.

According to Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak, the water purification technology had been tested in Cambodia and Madagascar but is being used on a larger scale for the first time in the village. This is the first time in the world that we have succeeded in producing pure drinking water at a very nominal cost by this new technology. Located in Gaighata block, the remote village is 14 km away from Bangladesh border. The model uses a four-stage purification process using alum and UV filter to produce clean water.”Our production cost is only 30 paise while other costs like distribution, storing, manpower come to 20 paise and so cooperative sell it easily at 50 paise per litre in jars and bottles. Every day villagers come to the plant to buy the 20-litre jars of ‘Sulabh Jal’. People from three nearby villages of Bishnupur, Faridkati and Teghoria too queue up to buy drinking water. For long they had no option but to drink arsenic-contaminated water from tube-wells. Surface water in ponds is free of arsenic but is not fit to drink in the absence of any water purification plant. The installation cost of the project was Rs 20 lakh, which is shared between the French organization ‘1001 Fontaines’, Sulabh and the villagers. Ground water in nine districts of West Bengal including North 24 Parganas has severe arsenic contamination which has affected around 16 million people in rural areas and 12 million in urban areas, according to K J Nath, president of the Institution of Public Health Engineers.

EPILOGUE:

Drinking arsenic-rich water over a long period result in various health hazards, including skin problems, skin cancer, and cancer of the bladder, kidney and lung, besides other diseases. Arsenic is the biggest public-health problem for water —it’s the most toxic thing we drink. For some reason, we pay far less attention to it than we do to lesser problems. Many rocks and sediments have inert, harmless traces of arsenic locked into them. But in recent years geologists have observed that some geologic formations can become enriched in arsenic, and certain chemical conditions may cause rocks to react with groundwater and liberate the element into aquifers. Since the 1990s, the problem has been identified in some 70 countries; it is worst in Southeast Asia, where as many as 100 million people are exposed.

Arsenic (As) is known to be a very toxic element and a carcinogen to human. Even a trace amount of arsenic can be harmful to human health. The World Health Organizations (WHOs) current provisional guideline for arsenic in drinking water is 10 ppb. High level Working Group (Inter ministerial) should be formed consisting of Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Drinking water and sanitation, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Science and Technology; NITI Aayog and Ministry of Rural Development to solve the Isotope problem of drinking water.

The financial problem could be solved through the adoption of technology transfer through MPLAD schemes where Member of Parliament (of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) of the affected areas should recommend financial support for the project. The component can be sanctioned under drinking water part and labour component can be linked with the MGNEREGA scheme too. Even if there is no provision for transfer of technology component, the same can also be added to the list of provision through an amendment.

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Pentagon: Russia Apparently Building Forward Operations Base In Syria

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(RFE/RL) — The United States says Russia’s latest movements at an airfield in Syria suggest it is planning to establish a forward air-operating base in Syria.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on September 14, “We have seen movement of people and things that would indicate that they plan to use that base there, south of Latakia, as a forward air-operating base.”

Davis declined to offer specific details from U.S. intelligence reports about the number of Russian troops there or say what kinds of military equipment have arrived.

But Reuters quoted U.S. military officials, who would only speak on condition of anonymity about U.S. military intelligence reports, as saying that seven Russian T-90 tanks had been sighted at the airfield.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on September 13 that its observers in Syria had confirmed that “Russian forces are building a long runway capable of accommodating large aircraft near the Hemeimeem military airport in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia.”

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, says its increased military activity — including the deployment of Russian military specialists to train Syrian forces — is part of the international effort to defeat terrorism.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed in an interview on a Russian television news program on September 13 that Russian military weaponry was being sent to Syria.

Lavrov said the shipments “are ongoing and they will continue.”

Lavrov also said that those shipments “are inevitably accompanied by Russian specialists, who help to adjust the equipment [and] to train Syrian personnel how to use this weaponry.”

Despite Lavrov’s public statements, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riyad Haddad, told Interfax on September 14 that reports of Russian troops in Syria were “a lie spread by Western countries, the United States.”

Pentagon spokesman Davis said on September 14 that Washington had concerns about ensuring that any Russian military air operations in Syria not come into conflict with U.S. and coalition air strikes that are being conducted in other parts of Syria against Islamic State (IS) targets.

Nine countries in the U.S.-led coalition have taken part in air strikes against IS militants in Syria since September 2014.

They include the United States, Britain, Canada, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.

Australia, the Netherlands, and France have also carried out air strikes against IS militants in neighboring Iraq.

French President Hollande said on September 14 that air strikes by French warplanes also “will be necessary in Syria.”

Nearly One Third Of Americans Think Obama Is Muslim – Survey

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Nearly a third of Americans, including 43 percent of Republicans, believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to a new poll. Another 13 percent of Obama’s fellow countrymen think that the president was born outside the US.

The recent CNN/ORC survey found that 29 percent of polled Americans think that the president is Muslim while 11 percent said that Obama was not a religious person. Another 14 percent had no opinion on the president’s faith at all.

Several respondents correctly identified Obama’s religion, with 39 percent saying they believe he is Protestant or Christian.

A similar poll by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) earlier in September showed that 54 percent of Republican voters think President Obama is a Muslim.

When asked by CNN/ORC if they knew where the president was born, a total of 13 percent of respondents said he was not from the US – Kenya and Africa were named as Obama’s possible birthplace by 4 percent – and another 12 percent had “no opinion” on that.

At the same time, 9 percent of respondents still believe that there is solid evidence Obama was born somewhere other than the US, while 11 percent ‘”suspect” he was not born in America.

The majority of Americans was able to correctly name the president’s place of birth, which is Honolulu, Hawaii.

Recent findings suggest that knowledge about Obama’s birthplace has not changed much in the five years since a similar poll was conducted by ABC News/Washington Post in 2010. According to those results, 20 percent said that Obama was born outside the country.

Since then, the president has publically shown his birth certificate in 2011, proving that he definitively he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

This came shortly after real estate mogul Donald Trump, while considering a run for the presidency in 2011, questioned the president’s birthplace. Four years on, Trump has told CNN he is still “totally convinced” Obama was born outside the country.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” he told Anderson Cooper. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records,” he added, even though the original birth certificate was released.

A total of 1,012 adults were interviewed by phone for the CNN/ORC poll from September 4 through September 8. Of those polled, 27 percent described themselves as Democrats, 24 percent as Republicans and 49 percent as Independents or members of another party.

US Sens. Rubio, Warner, Wyden Say New College Scorecard Lays Groundwork For Student Right To Know Before You Go Act

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The authors of a bill to provide powerful new tools for comparing colleges and universities on measures such as total cost, likelihood of graduating and potential earnings, on Monday called the White House’s new college scorecard database a step in the right direction toward giving students the information they need to make more informed decisions about their college education.

US Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.), introduced the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act to make publicly available critical information about American colleges and universities, including earnings data for graduates broken down by program of study.

Wyden and Rubio first introduced the bill in 2012 and the senators reintroduced an updated version earlier this year.

According to Wyden, “Too often students and families need to play a guessing game about whether they’ll be able to pay back their college loans. The administration’s new college scorecard is a welcome initiative that will help students know ahead of time how much a college costs and how much they’re likely to earn after they graduate.”

Wyden added: “The new database lays the foundation to implement the plan I’ve been working on with Sens. Rubio and Warner since 2012 – the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act – which gives students information to help them choose not just the college that best fits their needs, but also pick a major that will give them more bang for their buck down the road. Because student outcomes across program of study can vary even more widely than outcomes across institutions, adding this core metric is essential and I look forward to working with the administration to ensure this critical information is added to the scorecard.”

Rubio noted that, “For many students, picking a school and funding their college educations represent their first life-changing decision and investment. For years, we’ve been pushing for the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act as a way to help students and their families make better informed college decisions and career choices. It’s good the president is listening to the students and parents clamoring for more information, but by going at it alone and not working with Congress, he also left some important data gaps in the plan that need to be filled. Congress should get it together and pass a Higher Education Act that empowers students and parents with better information to help them make decisions about their futures, as the full Student Right to Know Before You Go Act would do.”

In the same vein, Warner said that, “Choosing what college to attend ranks among the most important, and expensive, decisions a young person will make. And, as college costs have soared, and total student debt has climbed to $1.3 trillion, it’s really important that we allow prospective students and their families to make better informed decisions. This is a solid step forward, and we will continue to push to add even more information to this data set to make it even more specific and relevant to different types of students and consumers.”

Pizza Danish, Franglais And Policing Language – OpEd

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The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew was always adamant that his countrymen speak proper English. It was his formal training, and somewhat idiosyncratic readings of culture and race that suggested as such. To be successful, Singapore had to retain Asian values while speaking in Received Pronunciation. With Lee’s voice in the background, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched the Speak Good English Movement on April 29, 2000.

Such policing never worked when locals banded together and lapsed into the famous lingo of “Singlish”, a language perforated with expressive “lahs” and a singsong defiance of formal authority. As with any instruction manual that comes from above, from a ministry, or from the executive, defiance assumes form in language.

Ministries of Language have their work cut out in terms of policing the language of their brief. The French continue to fight a losing war against the little invasions mounted by English, the inroads made by that insidious form Max Rat in 1959 termed “franglais”. Being an affaire d’état, an otherwise organically, rebellious evolution is kept in cryogenic storage, only to thaw by state decree and a linguist’s judgment. Such efforts are impressively manic as they are old – the Académie française’s battle against the encroachments of Italian in 1635 still stand out.

A national crisis occasionally erupts on the subject, such as the cocky attempt in May 2013 of Libération to rile its readers with an entire front page in English. “Let’s do it,” went the banner headline. The subject, fittingly, was a new bill that would amend the 1994 Toubon law and allow some university courses in France to be taught in English. Hardly that stunning, unless it is an admission that the language policing isn’t going too well.

The paper editorialised that their compatriots should give up the shield of pure language and embrace the reality of change. Stop, went a striking line, “behaving like the last representatives of a besieged Gaulish village.”

Even more strikingly, the battle being waged is against the incursions of American English, rather than more neighbourly intrusions from across the Channel. As Andrew Gallix notes, “American expressions are often adopted with far more enthusiasm in France than across the Channel.”[1] The enemy continues to lodge within.

Which brings us to the latest round of language scuffling, this time in Denmark.

The headline getting Alex Ahrendtsen of the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) made it to the Washington Times with his speculations on the subject of “pizza-Dansk” or “pizza-Danish”.[2]

The beef of his comments on the Danish broadcaster DR in August were immigrants in pizzerias who use a profusion of terms, some of them non-Danish, to communicate. This might be more appropriately termed speckled Danish, but Ahrendtsen is somewhat humourless on this subject. “It’s just because they can not figure out how to properly talk Danish.”

The Dansk Folkeparti has more anxieties than a hypochondriac, but rattled the establishment sufficiently in recent elections to make a more enduring mark on Danish politics. On the issue of language, it is fighting the unwinnable war. For Ahrendtsen, language is not merely identity, but possession. Like other possessions, it can be prized away, squirreled away into dark and undermining pizzerias. “Without the Danish language we are no longer Danes.”[3]

The Danish minister of culture, Bertel Haarder, has his eye on the subject, and rolling in the money to give teeth to the guard dogs of the Danish language. Being of the centre-right Venstre Party (yes, it is a political oxymoron), Haarder already made himself conspicuous in 2002 as Refugee, Immigration and Integration Minister. “Foreigners today represent a net burden on society. They cost more than they give back. This must be changed.”[4]

For Haarder, in writing an enthusiastic defence of the Christian nationalist Søren Krarup in 2001, it was, and is inconceivable that young Muslims in Danish political parties could ever actually be Danish, however disposed they were. Far better to rely on the solid “people of southern Jutland, who invested themselves so much in defending the homeland of the Danes.” (For many Danes, the Danish spoken in Jutland poses a formidable, anti-establishment challenge that would irritate any language Academy.)

The illusions thrown up around language can be touching. But they remain distinctly that. While some parliamentarians fear the ruthless ravishing being inflicted on the body of Danish by the pizza-Danes (or “New Danes), the language is undergoing its own transformation on the streets.

In Copenhagen’s Amager, hashish pipe smoking takes place a few doors down from the traditional Café 5-øren pub, filled with rosy-cheeked regulars and their Tuborg or Carlsberg companions. The Danish differs in its colloquialisms, depending on whether you are taking the pipe with the Syrians, or knocking back a few Tuborg Classics with the locals. Contrary to popular wisdom, one can become less fluent, rather than more, after a heavy session of either. Grammarians would cry.

If it was just kept to the issue of coffee-table chat about language forms, it might be a more civil affair. But linguistic anxiety can also translate into patriotic insensibility. Denmark is becoming a foot soldier of reaction in the refugee debate.  Even as refugees are streaming into Sweden, their seemingly inexorable flow is being stemmed in Denmark. Train lines are being closed. Dissuading statements are being issued. All the more reason to ease Danish out of the traditionalist’s study.

Notes:

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/23/language-french-identity

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/20/heres-what-pizza-has-to-do-with-anti-immigration-politics/

[3] http://www.b.dk/nationalt/dansk-folkeparti-presser-paa-nu-maa-sprogets-vagthund-vise-taender

[4] https://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=2561


Religion, World Politics And India – Analysis

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By Sriparna Pathak Raimedhi*

The global arena has witnessed several conflicts and wars based on faith throughout history. However, an astonishing feature that is emerging in more contemporary history is the emphasis on religion as part of diplomacy. The examples include India’s emphasis on promoting Buddhism for fostering better relations with countries of the world, China’s promotion of Buddhism to win friends across the globe and the US government agencies engaging religious communities across the world.

With regards to Buddhism, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech to the Mongolian parliament in June this year stated that Buddhism is important in dealing with contemporary political challenges before Asia and the world. He added that “the convergence of Buddhism and democracy provides us a path to build an Asia of peace and cooperation, harmony and equality”. What the Prime Minister probably did not consider was the fact that while Buddhism is the oldest foreign religion in China, the country is anything but a democratic country. The country follows the “socialist system”, as stated in its Constitution and the Communist party of China is the country’s sole political party in power. While China may use Buddhist historical sites for preservation for enhancement of its soft power, it does not necessarily translate into being a democratic country.

Coming back to the issue of mixing religion and politics, political science, of which international relations is a sub set; relies on empirical and logical facts or statements. Empirical and logical statements are capable of verification, and this is in sharp contrast to what political philosophy is about. Evaluative statements are based on individual or group preferences which differ from individual to individual or group to group. Political philosophy is concerned with moral and substantial dimensions of politics. The central pursuits include questions pertaining to norms and values, good and evil, virtue and vice, means and ends, right and wrong and visions of an ideal state and society.

Given this, if Buddhism or any other religion for that matter were to be used as a prism to understand what would be the “ideal society” then it would fall more into the realm of philosophy. The simple reasons being- tenets of faith are not empirical. They depend on the preferences of individuals and groups and are more concerned with the moral. Assuming that a particular religion will lead to a particular kind of society based on ‘democratic’ principles is a grave political fallacy.

That being said, the fact that cannot be ignored while analysing global politics today, religion and matters of faith are increasingly being used as political tools. Even the extremely secular Western European states are acknowledging the resurgence of religion as a force to reckon with in global politics, particularly on their doorstep in West Asia and are attempting to find ways to cope with it. In the era of globalisation, religion is becoming important to respond to and to characterise world order in the age of globalisation.

However, religious organisations dominating national policies are attempting to appear as champions of alternative options by interpreting faith as the divine decree. This challenges the legitimacy and autonomy of the state, political organisations and market economy. This possibly is the reason as to why independent India largely up till now, even while emphasising cultural and historical linkages with countries across the globe kept matters of faith and religion largely out of its ambit. The benefits or the disadvantages of emphasing a particular religion under the Modi government are yet to be seen. However, at the very outset, it needs to be kept in mind that a mixing of religion and politics, be it in the domestic sphere or in the international arena are dangerous- particularly for a secular country like India. The bases of decisions taken while operating on religious reasons are questionable and not empirical to state the least, and need to be handled with great care and diplomatic competence.

*Dr. Sriparna Pathak Raimedhi is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata, India

Courtesy: www.thethumbprintmag.com

Can The Islamic State Hijack September 11 From Zawahiri’s Al Qaeda? – OpEd

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By Clint Watts*

The increasingly reclusive Aymen al-Zawahiri sprung up his ugly head this week with a new lecture series entitled the “Islamic Spring”, seeking to remind the West and what few remaining admirers of al Qaeda that the group is not dead on the 14th anniversary of  September 11, 2001.  Along with revoking the Islamic State’s declaration of a caliphate, al-Zawahiri, via the title of his series, seeks to remind people of the democratic failings of the Arab Spring and how al Qaeda represents the true vanguard for jihad and a caliphate.

The 9/11 anniversary beckons an al Qaeda broadcast, but the group clings to anything that will provide it with any real relevance. Al Qaeda’s remaining hope lies in its tenuous relationship with its Syrian affiliate Jabhat al Nusra whom likely would stand to benefit from disavowing any connections with its global jihadi overlord Zawahiri.  The Islamic State continues to grow in popularity amongst jihad’s next generation and affiliates around the globe seek out allegiance with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, not Zawahiri.

The Islamic State has also successfully taken ownership in many ways of al Qaeda’s greatest leaders.  Islamic State propaganda commonly heaps respect on al Qaeda’s first leader Osama Bin Laden.  References to Bin Laden and pictures of Bin Laden often drape Islamic State propaganda.  A demonstration of such respect can be seen in the Islamic State’s naming of the “Osama Bin Laden School” in Raqqa, Syria – the stronghold of the Shari`a governed state.

The Islamic State has also claimed at times another of Al Qaeda’s greatest heroes–American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The Islamic State’s spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani indirectly honored al-Awlaki’s legend by adopting the clerics call for lone wolf attacks in the West–a staple of Awlaki’s preaching and resulting contributions to Inspire magazine.   In January, the Islamic State named their English-speaking foreign fighter contingent designed for targeting the West the “Anwar al Alwaki” Brigade paying homage to the al Qaeda online recruiter’s ability to inspire attacks in the West.

Having laid claim to al Qaeda’s top heroes Bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Awlaki, there remains only one piece of al Qaeda history left for the taking: the legacy of al Qaeda’s crowning achievement: the attacks of September 11, 2001.  What better way to snub Zawahiri than to hijack ownership of the group’s most celebrated attack?  The Islamic State might do this in two ways.

The least demanding and least effective way for the Islamic State to take ownership of the September 11 attacks would be online.  Through smoking Twin Towers laden motifs and pushed hashtags, the Islamic State could pay homage to 9/11, positioning themselves as the preferred successors of Bin Laden’s al Qaeda rather than al-Zawahiri’s current contingent.  A social media campaign might be accompanied by Islamic State hacking activity as their online supporters and hacker volunteers have recently professed to future online targeting of U.S. government sites and the financial system.

The more effective method for the Islamic State to hijack the memory of 9/11 from al-Zawahiri would be to do what al Qaeda has repeatedly failed to do: perpetrate an anniversary attack on September 11, 2015.  Bin Laden after 9/11 and al-Zawahiri since Bin Laden’s death have failed to commemorate their glory of 2001.  Al Qaeda needs an attack, but the Islamic State likely has more capability to execute one at this stage.  Using their foreign fighter resources and international supporters, the Islamic State could easily execute a suicide bombing in a neighboring country like Turkey or Saudi Arabia or go even further by coordinating lone wolf and small cell attacks in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.  Achieving notoriety on 9/11 would be a final snub to al-Zawahiri and send him further into oblivion.

The best forecasts are probabilistic, thus I provide my off the cuff speculation here regarding whether there will be an attack on this September 11, 2015.  Note, I have no direct knowledge of a potential attack, just some thoughts if I were actually doing a forecast. The most likely scenario remains that there will be no anniversary attack this September 11.  As predictions go, there hasn’t been a successful anniversary attack in the last thirteen years so the safer bet is always that tomorrow will look like yesterday, this year like the last.

The next most likely scenario, I believe, is that the Islamic State and/or its international community of supporters execute one or more low scale attacks.  This would rob al Qaeda of its precious anniversary and further establish the Islamic State as the global leader of jihad.  If I were one of the Islamic State’s leaders, this is what I would do if I already intended to execute an external operation outside Syria and Iraq.

The third and least likely scenario, I imagine, is that al Qaeda finally launches the long expected anniversary attack with devastating consequences.  Al-Zawahiri’s pre-release of the inappropriately seasoned “Islamic Spring” series, al Qaeda’s diminishing capability globally, and al-Zawahiri’s guidance to Nusra’s Abu Muhammed al-Jowlani to avoid attacking the West suggests, at least to me, that al Qaeda either can’t execute such an attack or doesn’t want to.  Thus for the Islamic State, the anniversary of 9/11 may very well be available for the taking.

About the author:
*Clint Watts
is a Fox Fellow in FPRI’s Program on the Middle East as well as a Senior Fellow with its Program on National Security. He serves the President of Miburo Solutions, Inc. Wartts’ research focuses on analyzing transnational threat groups operating in local environments on a global scale. Before starting Miburo Solutions, he served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC).

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

How To Destroy Islamic State (And How Not To) – Analysis

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By Michael Doran, Michael Pregent, Eric B. Brown and Peter Rough*

On June 10, 2014, a little over a year ago, the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) shocked the world by seizing Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. The government in Baghdad watched helplessly as its security forces crumbled and tens of thousands of residents fled their homes. Less than three weeks later, IS proclaimed itself the caliphate—that is, the legitimate successor to the state led by the Prophet Muhammad—thus casting its victory as the start of a new era of Islamic ascendancy.

The rise of IS electrified Islamist extremists around the world. It also embarrassed President Barack Obama, who only months before had jauntily dismissed it as the “jayvee [junior varsity] team” and had repeatedly promised the American people an end altogether to conflict in the Middle East. “I said I’d end the war in Iraq, and I ended it” he boasted during the 2012 election. But now, although the president may not have been interested in war, war (to paraphrase Leon Trotsky) was decidedly interested in him. Soon a rising chorus of voices at home would be demanding decisive military action to roll back IS.

The president temporized for as long as he could. But when IS released videos of its beheadings of the American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, outraged public opinion forced his hand. On September 10, 2014, three months to the day after the fall of Mosul, he announced a policy “to degrade and ultimately destroy” IS. In pursuit of that goal, he quickly assembled a vast military coalition numbering some 60 nations.

Over the last year, the U.S.-led coalition has prosecuted an expansive air campaign—launched mostly from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf—that has included more than 10,000 airstrikes against IS personnel, equipment, and infrastructure. The campaign has scored a few notable successes: in March of this year, for example, Iraqi security forces coordinated with U.S. air power to reclaim the city of Tikrit; in June, the U.S. provided critical air support for Kurdish units on the ground as they disrupted a major IS supply route in Syria.

But the campaign has also suffered setbacks. Most spectacularly, on May 17, IS forces sacked Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in Iraq. Three days later, it took the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Today, while remaining firmly in control of Mosul, it sits astride the crucially important Ramadi-Fallujah-Abu Ghraib corridor leading to western Baghdad. The net result is that, a year after the president ordered military action “to degrade and ultimately destroy” IS, victory seems more distant than ever. Prior to his recent retirement, General Ray Odierno, the former Army chief of staff, spoke of a campaign that could last “ten to twenty years.”

Why has a ragtag force of no more than 30,000 poorly trained jihadists been able to hold out against a coalition made up of the most powerful countries in the world?

Many among the president’s critics point to his reluctance to use sufficient force. If the U.S. would just put 10,000 more troops in the field, or permit less restrictive rules of engagement, it could rout IS in no time. So the argument goes, and there is much to be said for it. At the same time, however, to focus solely on military tactics is to obscure the most fundamental, and most crippling, problem of all: America’s strategic misalignment.

Simply put, the Obama administration has adopted a regional strategy for the Middle East that is based on false precepts, thus ensuring American failure regardless of the tactics adopted in its pursuit. In order to replace failure with success, a new anti-IS strategy needs to be adopted, along with the tactics appropriate to it.

In what follows, we lay out five rules that, if adhered to, can supplant Obama’s fallacies with a deeper understanding of Middle East realities and lead not only to the destruction of IS but to a safer future for us and for our allies and friends. The first rule is the most critical, and upon it much else depends.

Rule #1: Recruit Sunni Arab allies.

Even as the president authorized anti-IS military operations in Iraq, and to a lesser extent in Syria, he has continued to invoke the mantra that “there are no military solutions,” and has remained steadfastly opposed to placing combat troops on the ground. But the only way to defeat IS without sending 100,000 American soldiers into harm’s way is to convince regional actors to help shoulder the burden. Acknowledging this obvious fact, the president instructed his national-security team to identify partners. “It will take time to root [IS] out,” he recently counseled, “and doing so must be the job of local forces on the ground, with training and air support from our coalition.”

The trouble is this: the unwillingness to employ American troops has in turn limited the pool of those same “local forces on the ground,” leaving only the parties who were already armed and ready to fight. In Iraq, these were limited to the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Iraqi security forces (made up of both military and police units), and Iran-backed militias; in Syria, the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party). These forces suffer from any number of inherent disabilities, but one deserves special note: they belong either to the wrong ethnic group or to the wrong religious group.

The population in IS’s main area of operation—a huge swath of territory stretching from Baghdad to Damascus—is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab. In order to drive a permanent wedge between that population and IS, it is necessary to build a new order run by Sunni Arab leaders who are respected by the locals. Kurdish and Shiite forces can and should play a role in that effort, but they cannot play the main role.

Most detrimental of all has been the decision by the Obama administration to coordinate, indirectly, with Shiite militias backed by Iran. During the campaign to retake Tikrit in March, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sheepishly made the case for this policy. “If [the militias] perform in a credible way, rid the city of Tikrit, turn it back over to its inhabitants,” he said, “then it will, in the main, have been a positive thing in terms of the counter- IS campaign.” This made little sense. By definition, the Shiite militias cannot be relied upon to return conquered lands to their non-Shiite inhabitants. When American officials talk this way, they lose all credibility in the eyes of America’s traditional Sunni allies, who fear those militias more than any other actor, IS included.

In sum, the near-total dependence of the U.S. on Kurds and Shiites hobbles the effort not only to enlist fighters on the ground in Iraq and Syria but also to generate enthusiastic support from the surrounding Sunni states. If the U.S. fails to mobilize these Sunni Arab allies, it will never succeed in holding territory taken from IS. This elementary fact constitutes the Achilles heel of the Obama policy.

Rule #2: Embed American troops with Iraqi forces.

How then, practically speaking, to accomplish the goal laid out in rule #1? Here we start by focusing on the scene in Iraq.

During the 2007-08 “surge” of American troops in the Iraq war—the pinnacle of American leadership in that conflict—the U.S. military learned how to negotiate the country’s complex sectarian and ethnic landscape. American forces became a trusted intermediary between Kurds and Arabs, between Sunnis and Shiites, and among neighboring tribes and clans.

This approach generated a force of some 90,000 Sunnis, known as the Sons of Iraq, whose support led to the rapid defeat of al-Qaeda. The foundation of the success was a simple deal between the tribes and the U.S. military. In addition to equipping and training the tribes, the Americans intervened on their behalf with the central government, which had fallen under the control of sectarian Shiite actors. In return, the tribes helped stabilize the Sunni areas.

Crucial aspects of this method could be replicated today, but doing so would require a U.S. combat presence backed by guarantees for a sovereign and independent Iraq. It would also require freer rules of engagement for U.S. troops and a readiness on the part of Washington to conduct tireless diplomacy designed to assuage local fears—Shiite fears of an armed Sunni restoration, Sunni fears of Iranian-Shiite domination, and Kurdish fears of revanchist Arab nationalism.

How many American troops would be required to play such a role, and how long would they need to remain in Iraq? Experience suggests that for every 500 Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. would need to provide 20 advisers and a 100-man company. To assist a force of 30,000 Iraqis, 7,000-10,000 American troops would be called for. The ultimate goal would be to build a cross-sectarian Iraqi national force capable of acting independently of American help, but thanks to the sectarianism of the former Nouri al-Maliki government, and the prevailing atmosphere of Sunni-Shiite conflict, this is a very tall order. The immediate goal, therefore, would be simply to mobilize and motivate Sunnis willing to fight IS and to work toward building a more inclusive Iraq. Even so, the Iraqi troops would require active U.S. guidance for an indefinite period of time.

Nevertheless, the goal is achievable, and here are a few practical steps toward achieving it.

The first order of business would be to secure Baghdad. In the protected environment of Camp Victory at Baghdad’s airport, the American-led training effort could recruit and train 10,000 local Sunnis. In order to accelerate the process, vetting of individual soldiers could be left to trusted tribal sheikhs drawn from former members of the Sons of Iraq. In particular, Sunni tribal elders from the mixed Sunni-Shiite belt surrounding Baghdad could rapidly provide the manpower for such a force. Thanks to the cross-sectarian bloodlines of these tribes, their mobilization would be somewhat less threatening to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

Once trained, such forces could fill the ranks of the Iraqi army divisions that disintegrated in the face of the IS threat. As new territory is liberated from IS, local Sunnis could be recruited and integrated into the force, with care taken to deploy them as close as possible to their homes. In the end, in order to sweep IS from the major cities of Anbar province and their connecting corridors, the force would likely need to number at least 50,000 men. And in order to prevent the rise of an IS-successor organization in the future, the force would need to become permanent, forming the nucleus of the national guard that the Iraqi government has repeatedly promised to build.

A parallel process could proceed in the Kurdish north. Existing installations like Joint Base Balad and the Erbil airbase could function as training centers for police and national-guard forces jointly run by the government of Iraq, the U.S., and local Sunni and Kurdish regional authorities. These modernized Peshmerga forces and Sunni battalions would be responsible for security in their respective areas, partnering when necessary with existing Iraqi security forces. The joint training centers could also create and provide advanced training for constabulary forces that would ultimately take primary responsibility for maintaining the sovereignty of the Sunni Arab and Kurdish regions as part of a federal Iraq.

While all this is happening in the field, the U.S. would also need to convince Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to work with Sunnis and Kurds to build a more inclusive Iraq with strong institutions of self-government at the regional level. Needless to say, any such effort would alarm Tehran, which has been striving to take control of the Iraqi security sector and turn the government in Baghdad into a satellite. Countering Iranian designs is no small task, but the U.S., once it took the initiative, would likely discover allies in unexpected places. The Shiites of Iraq share a faith with the people of Iran, but they do not relish the idea of becoming a province in an Iranian empire.

And this is a key point. In the fight against IS, Shiite forces in Iraq have an important role to play, which should not be overlooked in the drive to mobilize Sunnis. In the past, al-Qaeda in Iraq successfully followed a strategy of provoking sectarian reprisals and thereby creating a spiral of intra-Iraqi violence; IS and Iran may try to do the same. Preventing this will require the active engagement of Shiite security forces.

Rule #3: Push Assad out the door.

Defeating IS requires driving it not only from Iraq but also from Syria. As long as it enjoys a safe haven there, the gates of western Iraq will remain wide open. Moreover, failure to stabilize Syria also entails the risk of further advances by IS—into, for example, Jordan and possibly even Saudi Arabia. The destabilization of either of those countries could embroil the U.S. in an open-ended military conflict with no allies at all to help shoulder the burden.

And Syria is much more than just strategically significant territory. Today the civil war there is the focal point of Middle Eastern international politics, its horrific toll of mainly Sunni civilian lives gripping the minds of Sunni Muslims more than does any other regional issue. Correlatively, American action or inaction in Syria influences perceptions of American intentions more broadly. If the U.S. is to mobilize the surrounding Sunni states against IS, it must be seen to be implementing an effective anti-Assad policy in Syria.

In the early days of the conflict, it would have been relatively easy for Washington to organize the moderate Syrian rebels into a fighting force. Today, a moderate force will emerge only if the U.S. builds it from scratch. The task is formidable. The Syrian landscape now includes hundreds of local militias, the largest and most effective of which are Islamic extremist groups. Any force put together by the U.S. will be in direct competition with these groups, with the Assad regime, and, of course, with Islamic State. But if we are actually sincere and not just pretending in our stated goal of defeating IS, there is no escape from such a conflict.

And here, too, though it’s late in the day, the goal is achievable—and the immediate next steps are obvious. First, the president must forge a regional coalition committed to his stated demand that Bashar al-Assad has to “step aside.” That coalition should include, but need not be limited to, America’s traditional regional partners as well as the British and French. In addition to the active involvement of the Iraqi central government, the U.S. should also seek closer coordination with its nontraditional ally, the Kurdistan regional government. Israel, too, has a significant role to play in this effort as an informal member of the coalition. Turkish participation is, of course, a prerequisite for success. But the coalition’s most prominent regional face must be the Sunni Arab one.

Second, just as in Iraq, the U.S. would allow trusted tribal and local leaders to vet their own men, thereby accelerating the training effort and building relationships with key actors. The current vetting process is a joke, yielding, after a year’s effort, a paltry 60 troops from whom we have required a pledge that they will not fight the forces of Assad or his allies, like Hizballah. Given these conditions, it is no wonder that Syrians are hesitant to join.

Third, the U.S. should undertake to destroy Assad’s air force and impose no-fly zones over areas liberated from him and IS. Doing so would prevent the Syrian government from terrorizing its own civilian population from the air, as it does now whenever the rebels take a village or a neighborhood. By means of this gruesome form of collective punishment, the regime means to prevent the rebels from building the foundations of a stable post-Assad order.

Fourth, the U.S. should begin implementing what Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has referred to as an “inkspot strategy” reminiscent of the one implemented by General David Petraeus in the Iraqi surge. That is, it should embed small numbers of American and allied special-forces personnel within Syrian units to begin the slow and steady work of clearing and holding Syrian territory, thus working simultaneously against Assad and IS. The inkspot approach could build up centers of power that the U.S. could then rely upon in the hard, multiyear labor of reconstructing a post-Assad Syria.

As unattractive as this project sounds, it is the only one that holds out any possibility of success.

Experience has already taught that the Syria problem will not get better with age. The stark choice before us is either to start dislodging al-Qaeda and IS from Syria now or wait till later when those groups will be much stronger, the region even more chaotic, and traditional friends of the U.S. weaker and ever more distrustful of Washington’s intentions.

Rule #4: Roll back Iranian power.

The first three rules for defeating IS are necessary for success; but they are not sufficient. Forming a regional coalition and building up Sunni forces in Iraq and Syria will not, by themselves, solve the strategic dilemma that Obama’s policy has created. Our Sunni allies will not fight alongside us with conviction unless we offer them a future vision of Iraq and Syria that is more attractive than the status quo. Even as we start defining specific military solutions, therefore, we must grapple with more fundamental questions. What new order are we seeking to build? In that project, which states will be our most reliable partners?

In answering these questions, President Obama has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the central fact of Middle Eastern international politics, namely, the chasm that separates the traditional allies of the United States from Iran and its allies—the latter of whom include, among others, the Assad regime in Syria, Hizballah, and a number of Iraqi Shiite militias. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently spoke for all of America’s friends in explaining that, whereas the U.S. regards Iran as a solution to its problems, the allies see Iran as the source of their problems.

Ya’alon’s words came at a moment when the White House was facing accusations that its newly struck nuclear deal with Iran would make that regime more, not less, aggressive in the Middle East. In response, the administration has been at pains to insist that it is working on a plan to contain Iranian power. “We will push back against [Iran],” Secretary of State John Kerry assured the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “We’ve laid out a very detailed policy for working with the Gulf States and others, and we look forward to working with Israel in the effort to do that.”

This statement was consciously misleading. In fact, the plan that President Obama laid before the Gulf Arab states at Camp David last May failed to address the Iranian threat as that threat is actually understood by America’s friends. The president offered to sell the allies new weapons, to strengthen their conventional defenses, and to improve their counterterrorism programs. He refused, however, to counter the activities of the Quds Force, the subversive arm by which Tehran projects its power into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen—the four countries that are the current focus of Iranian aggression and therefore the source of greatest concern to the allies. With regard to that threat, Obama proposed not “pushback” against Tehran but, to the contrary, diplomatic engagement with it.

Obama signaled his true intentions toward Iran in a press conference after the Camp David summit. “The purpose of security cooperation” with the Gulf states, he said, “is not to perpetuate any long-term confrontation with Iran or even to marginalize Iran.” Two months later, he elaborated further when asked about his vision of Tehran as a potential partner and its role in his Syria policy. “There’s going to have to be agreement among the major powers that are interested in Syria that this [conflict] is not going to be won on the battlefield,” he stated. “So Iran is one of those players, and I think that it’s important for them to be part of that conversation.”

Syria, to repeat, is the major hub through which Tehran projects its hegemonic ambitions into the Arab world. As the primary external supporter of Bashar al-Assad, Tehran has actively abetted his Alawite minority regime in systematically terrorizing the Syrian Sunni majority, leveling large swaths of major cities, driving more than 10 million people from their homes, and engineering the deaths of a quarter-million people so far. From the earliest days of the anti-Assad rebellion four years ago, Tehran has trained and equipped the regime’s death squads. As the capabilities of Assad’s forces have dwindled, Iranian officers have played an ever increasing role in directly guiding the counterinsurgency on the ground.

America’s allies thus rightly see Iran not as a partner for stability but as an accomplice to one of the worst atrocities in modern Middle Eastern history. With considerable justification, they also argue that Assad’s murder machine is the single greatest recruiting vehicle for IS. And they note, again correctly, that Iran’s (and Assad’s) opposition to IS is itself hardly full-throated. In fact, there is a considerable overlap of interests since IS, a Sunni revolutionary organization, has focused not on fighting Shiite Iran but primarily on seizing and holding Sunni areas.

Nevertheless, the president insists on speaking as if he believes that Shiite Iran and the Sunni Arab states will eventually be corralled into a unified anti-IS coalition. In a recent interview, for example, he expressed the hope “that [both] Saudi Arabia and Iran . . . [will] begin to recognize that their enemy is chaos as much as anything else. And what [IS] represents and what the collapse of Syria or Yemen or others represent is far more dangerous than whatever rivalries that may exist between those two nation-states.”

This is either wishful thinking or blatantly disingenuous. Syria is the spot where rival visions of regional order collide. For a sense of its importance to Tehran, one need only listen to Mehdi Taeb, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Taeb’s words, Syria is nothing less than a part of Iran itself, “the 35th province and a strategic province for us.” If, he elaborated, “the enemy attacks us and seeks to take over [either] Syria or Khuzestan [an Arab-speaking province of Iran bordering Iraq], the priority lies in maintaining Syria because if we maintain Syria, we can take back Khuzestan. However, if we lose Syria, we won’t be able to hold Tehran.”

In thus stressing the depth of Iran’s commitment to the Assad regime, Taeb has also offered a roadmap to all those for whom, unlike for John Kerry and Barack Obama, pushback against Iran is no mere pretense but an urgent necessity. If the job of the U.S. is indeed to push back against Iran, that job begins in Syria.

Rule #5: Get real about linkage.

The Obama administration has consistently denied any linkage between the nuclear negotiations with Tehran that led to the July 14 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and other aspects of American policy toward the Middle East. Secretary of State Kerry first made that point categorically in a press conference in November 2014, stating, “There is no linkage whatsoever of the nuclear discussions with any other issue. And I want to make that absolutely clear. The nuclear negotiations are on their own. They’re standing separate from anything else. And no discussion has ever taken place about linking one thing to another.”

A mountain of evidence contradicts this statement. During the negotiations, for example, Obama conducted a secret correspondence with Ayatollah Khamenei in which he depicted the nuclear deal as the first step toward a partnership on allegedly common problems like IS. The letter also promised Khamenei that the U.S. would do nothing to harm Bashar al-Assad, thus establishing another clear linkage: between the nuclear negotiations and America’s Syria policy. In recent days, Obama has openly expressed his hope that the nuclear deal will “incentivize” Iran “to be less aggressive, less hostile, more cooperative.”

It’s only to be expected, then, that America’s allies are unpersuaded by the administration’s denials of linkage between the negotiations and regional policy. To the contrary, the Iran talks have served only to convince them of Obama’s intention to shift American regional strategy in favor of Iran.

And who can blame them? The administration launched its nuclear initiative with Tehran through secret backchannels, which it hid from its traditional friends. Once the negotiations became public, U.S. officials briefed the allies only after having unilaterally made consequential concessions. The final stages of the negotiations then presented the allies with the spectacle of the American secretary of state holed up in a posh hotel with the Iran’s foreign minister, conducting private talks in a friendly atmosphere described in media reports as the “new normal.”

Finally on July 14 there came the final text of the Iran deal itself, confirming the allies’ worst fears. In return for a temporary slowdown in Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. had agreed to dismantle the international sanctions regime, the primary non-military instrument for containing and rolling back Iranian power. President Obama has characterized this tradeoff as a no-brainer whose strengths so far outweigh its weaknesses that “it’s not even close.”

Allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia know better. For them, the end of the sanctions regime spells the ascendancy of a reinvigorated and even more aggressive Iran—and this, in a dawning era of American solicitude toward Tehran. If, before the nuclear deal, the president was reluctant to roll back Iranian power, he will be all the more reluctant when, at the slightest provocation, Tehran can now simply threaten to scuttle the nuclear deal: the crowning foreign-policy achievement of the Obama administration. In the allies’ perspective, the JCPOA is a Damoclean sword looming over American freedom of action—and they are right.

Allaying the fears of our allies is thus a crucial step toward building a regional coalition that might truly stabilize the Middle East, rid it of the poison of IS, and roll back Iranian power. Linkage again—yes, indeed, but in the right cause and the right direction. And that is one more reason why, in the coming weeks, when Congress votes on the Iran nuclear deal, it should disapprove it.

To be sure, such a vote may not survive the president’s veto, meaning that the JCPOA will survive at least until the end of the Obama administration and possibly even longer. Either way, however, it is urgently imperative for the U.S. Congress to prove to our allies that Congress’s own opposition to Iranian policies in the region is rock solid, and that it will legislate swift and painful penalties against Iran for its efforts to subvert neighboring countries and its continued support for terrorism more broadly. Congress should also move quickly and decisively to punish Iran in the event that it uses the nuclear deal as a screen for regional aggression. Instead of ignoring our friends, or fighting with them, we should be fighting Iranian expansionism throughout the region—and opposing American complicity with that expansionism.

Conclusion

We began by asking how and why IS’s ragtag army has managed to hold out for over a year against a U.S.-led coalition comprising some of the most powerful states in the world. An answer of sorts may be found in Vice President Joseph Biden’s observation, while speaking to Harvard students in October 2014, that “Our allies in the region [have been] our largest problem.”

Biden’s suggestion that America’s Sunni allies have somehow been in cahoots with IS was a slur, but a revealing one. In truth, if the allies have been less than enthusiastic about fighting IS, it is because they believe that Obama will not work to safeguard their vital interests. In the war against IS, they correctly note, America has agreed to play only a limited role, and is doing so in pursuit of vague objectives. Therefore, should they themselves become active participants in the conflict, they may quickly find themselves alone on the battlefield, facing an enraged IS that they cannot defeat. Even more daunting to them, Obama’s phony war may well abet Iran’s drive to achieve hegemonic dominance in the region. If the choice becomes one of living under the Iranian boot or learning to accommodate IS, it is little wonder that some might decide to take their chances with the latter.

The president claims to have charted a path to a stable Middle East that, by turning enemies into friends, will have the added advantage of not requiring a significant exertion of American hard power in order to defeat the insurgent Islamic State. As is plain to see by now, not only are our enemies adamantly disinclined to become our friends, but his strategy has contributed to significantly greater polarization and instability, generating the chaos it pretends to contain and provoking a maelstrom that may soon engulf Jordan and Saudi Arabia. This hands-off approach simply ensures that we will face more formidable challenges than IS in the future, with fewer allies at our side.

We need to reassert American leadership—leadership from in front—and in so doing we need to ask ourselves whether we are better off managing Middle Eastern conflicts on our own or with others who share our interests. The president’s path amounts to the path of isolation and open invitation to aggression. The longer we wait, the harder will be the job of revitalizing our traditional alliances—or, much harder, reinventing them.

*About the authors:
Michael Doran, Senior Fellow

Michael Pregent, Visiting Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies

Eric B. Brown, Senior Fellow

Peter Rough, Research Fellow

Source:
This article was published by the Hudson Institute.

Syria’s Assad Says To Stop Refugee Flow, Europe Must Stop Supporting Terrorists

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Europe is “not dealing with the cause” of the current refugee crisis, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Russian media, RT among them, adding that all Syrian people want is “security and safety.”

“It’s not about that Europe didn’t accept them or embrace them as refugees, it’s about not dealing with the cause. If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists. That’s what we think regarding the crisis. This is the core of the whole issue of refugees.

“If we ask any Syrian today about what they want, the first thing they would say – ‘We want security and safety for every person and every family’,” the Syrian president said, adding that political forces, whether inside or outside the government “should unite around what the Syrian people want.”

The “Syrian fabric,” as Assad has called it, includes people of many ethnicities and sects, including the Kurds. “They are not foreigners,” the Syrian president said, adding that without such groups of people who have been living in the region for centuries “there wouldn’t have been a homogeneous Syria.”

Assad said that the dialogue in Syria should be continued “in order to reach the consensus,” which cannot be implemented “unless we defeat the terrorism in Syria.”

“If you want to implement anything real, it’s impossible to do anything while you have people being killed, bloodletting hasn’t stopped, people feel insecure,” the Syrian president said.

“I’d like to use our meeting today to address all parties in a call to unite in the struggle against terrorism. Only through dialogue and the political process can we reach political goals, that the Syrians should set for themselves,” Bashar Assad said.

Kuwait Court Sentences Seven To Death For Role In Imam Al Sadiq Mosque Attack

Israeli Forces Raid Aqsa Mosque In Third Day Of Clashes

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Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound’s southern mosque on Tuesday sparking the third straight day of violent clashes at the third holiest site in Islam.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured in the clashes, during which Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters, and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian worshipers.

The Palestinian Red Crescent’s Jerusalem director, Amin Abu Ghazala, told Ma’an that 36 Palestinians had received treatment.

He said that some of the Palestinians had suffered wounds and bruises, while others had suffered excessive tear gas inhalation. At least two were hospitalized.

The director of Al-Aqsa religious school for boys, Nadir al-Afghani, said that a 14-year-old boy was hit in his head by a rubber-coated steel bullet and had received 10 stitches.

Israeli police said five officers were lightly injured.

Officials from the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Endowment office in Jerusalem told Ma’an that Israeli forces entered the compound at around 6:30 a.m. and deployed across the compound.

According to Israeli police, Palestinians had barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight as they had over the two previous days.

Police proceeded to close the doors of the southern mosque with “chains and steels,” witnesses said, adding that during the ensuing clashes with Palestinian worshipers they entered the holy site.

Witnesses said that heavily-armed Israeli forces “tread on the carpets with their military boots until they reached Saladin’s Minbar (pulpit).”

Witnesses said that stun grenades caused a fire to break out near the mosque’s Bab al-Janaez (funerals door), which fire fighters were able to put out.

An Israeli police spokesperson denied that police had entered the compound, although a spokesman for the Islamic Endowment that controls the compound, Firas al-Dibs, also said “police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque and went inside” as far as the minbar.

Palestinians denied entry

At least four Palestinians were reported detained, including a 10-year-old boy identified as Momin al-Tawil.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces closed all gates to the compound except Hatta, al-Majlis and the Chain gates, and denied all Palestinians entry.

Religious schools inside the compound said that students and staff were also initially denied entry, although later in the morning they were allowed to enter.

Dozens of Jewish settlers toured the compound in the morning under heavy Israeli police escort, celebrating the final day of the Jewish new year holiday.

Meanwhile, fierce clashes raged in the Old City’s narrow streets beyond the mosque compound. Israeli police fired stun grenades at Palestinian protesters throwing stones.

“The real owners of Al-Aqsa are kept outside while the thieves are inside,” said a 42-year-old Palestinian who had come from Nazareth to protest, adding that she feared Israel was aiming to allow Jewish worship at the compound.

The clashes followed two days of violence at the mosque compound, with a number of Palestinians injured and detained by Israeli forces on both days.

The compound is Judaism’s most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.

The latest flare-up came despite calls for restraint from both the United Nations and the United States, and a warning from Jordan, which has custodianship rights over Muslim holy places in Jerusalem under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, that relations were on the line.

Israel ‘playing with fire’

The PLO has also accused Israel of provoking the entire Muslim world in its actions at the mosque compound.

“Israel is playing with fire,” senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said Monday, warning that Israeli authorities were forcibly securing control over the site “in preparation for the total annexation and transformation of Al-Haram Al-Sharif.”

She said: “Israel is not only provoking the Palestinians, but the entire Muslim world.”

Palestinians have expressed fears that Israel is seeking to change rules governing the site, with far-right Jewish groups pushing for more access to the compound and even efforts by fringe organisations to erect a new temple.

Non-Muslims are allowed to visit the compound, but Jews are not allowed to pray or display national symbols, under an agreement between Israel and the Islamic Endowment that controls the site.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), is a 144,000-square-meter compound in the Old City of Jerusalem.

It includes two major mosques, the iconic Dome of the Rock and a silver-domed mosque known as the southern mosque.

Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad traveled from the sacred mosque in Mecca to Al-Aqsa during the night journey known as Isra and Miraj.

Israel seized East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.

(Amateur footage captured inside the compound’s southern mosque, on Sept. 12, 2015.)

Morocco-France: From Historical Friends To Strategic Partners – OpEd

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In one his Op-Eds published on congress blog The Hill, Dr J. Peter Pham the director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center wrote ” Morocco is an African country of serious political and economic clout, integral to the continent’s development and prepared to play a leading role in its future. For policymakers in Washington, Paris, and other Western capitals long in search of a reliable partner in Africa that can direct its own resources toward enhancing regional security and prosperity, it is a signal they have been looking for.”

In fact, for nearly fifteen years, Morocco has embarked on a major socioeconomic transformation, combining substantial policy changes and ambitious economic projects that have sustained relative social calm and enabled the doubling of our GDP while maintaining sustained growth exceeding 5 % per annum. Besides, Morocco continues its remarkable presence in Africa and reinforces south-south cooperation to contribute to the development of the African continent and collaborate with American and European allies to bring peace and stability to this continent.

It is now worth noting, on the eve of the working and friendly visit of the French President François Hollande to Tangier on September 19 and 20, that Morocco and France share a deep historical legacy and the friendship endures. However, while it is important to bear history in mind, a shared historical legacy is not enough.

No matter how asymmetrical the relationship might be, it should not be taken for granted. Whether Morocco-France relations are “special” in the 21st century can be debated by policymakers and academics in both nations. At a minimum, the relationship should remain “important” in helping to ensure peace, stability, and economic prosperity not only in both nations but in the whole Mediterranean region more broadly. But this will require that both nations develop a set of strategic objectives that can be pursued in the future.

The French President’s upcoming visit will provide another venue to discuss what these strategic objectives might be in the effort to make Morocco-France relations more germane in a 21st-century world. It is high time now to give a new impetus to the private sector, NGOs, think tanks, universities…from both countries to implement many of the agreements and accords reached between the two countries. Both Moroccans and French should now accelerate their initiatives and projects in different fields to give a meaning to excellent political relations between the two countries. An economic, cultural, educational road map should be elaborated to open doors for potential projects from both sides.

Any observer of this long-standing relationship between Morocco and France will reaffirm its depth and magnitude. That upcoming high-level meeting between His Majesty and President François Hollande will offer an opportunity for both countries to discuss the evolution and future of this essential relationship, especially from an economic and commercial standpoint.

The two heads of state called the special partnership between Morocco and France, an exemplary partnership that is marked by mutual trust. This visit will be a valuable opportunity for both countries to deepen and renew these distinguished relations in the political, socio-economic, cultural and human areas. French President has always praised the momentum of achievements and reforms undertaken by Morocco, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, setting the exercise of democracy and human development as priorities. Now it is time to move forward this historical relationship between the two nations to a stronger partnership that will continue to benefit Morocco and France.


Cleaning Up World Soccer Governance – Analysis

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Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) President Sepp Blatter has used his last months in office to ensure that proposed reform of the troubled world soccer body would address widespread concern about financial corruption and lack of transparency and accountability, but keep the two pillars of the group’s wider malaise intact: a patronage system that secures FIFA administrators’ sway over a majority of their financially dependent members and an incestuous, uncontrolled bond with often-autocratic political elites.

In a farcical news conference in July that highlighted the FIFA president’s strained relationship with the media, Blatter made clear that his plans for reform would not tackle the problems that are at the core of the group’s governance crisis. Blatter’s proposed reforms include establishing term limits for membership of FIFA’s executive committee, independent integrity checks on committee members, election of executive committee members by the 209-member general assembly rather than by soccer’s six regional confederations, and disclosure of FIFA compensation to committee members. “With this,” Blatter said, “I think we are on the right track with improved governance and greater accountability (…) my responsibility and mission is to make sure by the end of February when I come to the end of my career, I can say in FIFA we have started again the reform and have rebuilt the reputation of FIFA.”[1]

“FIFA President Sepp Blatter has made clear that his plans for reform would not tackle the problems that are at the core of the group’s governance crisis.”

To be sure, the reforms, which Blatter had rejected prior to the announcement in May of separate investigations into FIFA’s affairs by US and Swiss authorities and the dramatic arrest of seven FIFA executives on the eve of the group’s annual congress in Switzerland, go some way to enhancing transparency in what is a secretive organization that had acted as if it were a law unto itself. The shortcomings of the proposed reforms become evident, however, when analyzing the impact of the decision to have the FIFA congress elect the executive committee in the future.

FIFA doles out millions of dollars annually to member associations, particularly in developing nations that are dependent on those funds to build badly needed soccer infrastructure such as stadiums and administrative offices and to develop their country’s soccer prowess.[2] Blatter and his administrators have at times been willing to be less than stringent in ensuring that donated funds were spent correctly.[3] As a result, heads of national associations, grateful for assistance for which they credit Blatter, have been weary of voting against his wishes in annual congresses. Blatter’s proposed reforms do nothing to prevent his successor from inheriting what amounts to a system of patronage. Little short of parking development funds in a separate, independently administered entity will ensure destruction of a patronage system that lends itself to corruption and undermines FIFA’s governance and internal democracy.

Widening the Net

Destroying the patronage system is simple, clear-cut, and exclusively dependent on the organizational will to act, something Blatter has so far studiously avoided. More likely than not however, addressing patronage, much like the reforms Blatter has embraced, will be imposed on FIFA by the ongoing Swiss and US investigations. The Swiss enquiry is more narrowly focused on the integrity of the winning bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.[4] The US investigation potentially could widen beyond its current focus on the Americas, a region that falls under its immediate jurisdiction because many of the indicted are either US nationals or nominal residents who hold green cards, and the fact that the Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) is legally incorporated in the US.[5]

The extradition to the US in July of FIFA Vice-President Jeffrey Webb – the only executive in Switzerland to voluntarily agree to his transfer to New York – constitutes the US Justice Department’s first opportunity to widen its investigation.[6] This first opportunity will depend on whether Webb agrees to cooperate with US authorities and what information he is willing to disclose. But even without Webb, other defendants like former FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner who have yet to be extradited to the US are likely to want to use their knowledge as leverage in their judicial proceedings. US investigators moreover are likely to be able to expand their investigation by looking into the dealings of Mohammed Bin Hammam, who is believed to be among the score of unidentified co-conspirators in the US indictments. A Qatari national who served on FIFA’s executive committee and as president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Bin Hammam was banned from involvement in professional soccer for life by FIFA in 2012 on charges of having bought votes in his failed 2011 campaign to unseat Blatter in the group’s presidential elections.

A cache of documents believed to have been leaked off the AFC’s servers and that was made public by The Sunday Times suggests that Bin Hammam spent millions of dollars to ensure that FIFA’s executive committee would vote in favor of the Qatari bid.[7]Recipients of those payments include executives, like disgraced FIFA executive member Jack Warner, who are among those already indicted in the US. US jurisdiction would further be established by the fact that all US dollar-denominated bank transfers are processed in New York.[8] The Sunday Times documents are also certain to figure in the Swiss investigation.

An Incestuous Relationship

The Bin Hammam affair that is at the core of the multiple scandals that have rocked FIFA and global soccer governance, as well as the controversy about the integrity of Qatar’s successful World Cup bid, feed into the second fundamental problem that Blatter hopes to leave unaddressed: the political corruption embedded in the incestuous relationship between politics and sports in general and soccer in particular. If anything it is political corruption that has enabled financial wrongdoing. Yet, the US and Swiss investigations are focused – in part for legal reasons – on the financial rather than the political corruption.

“A cache of documents believed to have been leaked off the AFC’s servers (…) suggests that Bin Hammam spent millions of dollars to ensure that FIFA’s executive committee would vote in favor of the Qatari bid.”

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in a historic statement last September acknowledged that sports in general is entangled with politics. “In the past, some have said that sport has nothing to do with politics, or they have said that sport has nothing to do with money or business. And this is just an attitude which is wrong and which we cannot afford anymore,” Bach said. He said politicians and business leaders needed to respect the autonomy of sporting bodies or risk diminishing the positive influence of politics and business.[9]

That is unlikely to happen without restructuring the relationship between sports and politics to involve a system of governance, oversight, and monitoring. In the case of FIFA, that would have to involve all stakeholders including clubs, leagues, players, and fans in governance at all levels: clubs, national associations, and regional associations.

Bin Hammam, like his successor in FIFA and AFC Bahraini Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, and Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, Salman’s protector, a recently elected FIFA executive member and one of international sport’s most powerful men, symbolize the relationship between sports and politics, as well as soccer’s affinity with autocracy. Men like Bin Hammam, Salman, and Ahmad are products of autocracies whose rise in international sports was further paved as far back as 1974. During that time FIFA threatened but failed to follow through on threats to sanction the AFC for its expulsion of Israel and Taiwan, in violation of the principle of a separation of sports from politics. FIFA’s failure wrote Arab politics into the DNA of Asian soccer and helped shape global soccer’s coziness with autocracy.[10]

FIFA’s and the AFC’s refusal to enact principles enshrined in their charters has had far-reaching consequences over the years for global soccer governance, no more so since Bin Hammam became AFC president in 2002. Men like Bin Hammam, Salman, and Ahmad are imperious, ambitious, and have worked assiduously to concentrate power in their hands and sideline their critics clamoring for reform. Hailing from countries governed by absolutist, hereditary leaders, they have been accused of being willing to occupy their seats of power at whatever price with persistent allegations of bribery and vote buying in their electoral campaigns.

Ambition, corruption, and greed led to Bin Hammam’s ultimate downfall. Salman continues to be dogged by allegations that he was involved in the arrest and humans rights violations of scores of athletes and sports officials accused of having participated in mass anti-government protests in Bahrain in 2011.[11] Both men have consistently denied any wrongdoing. Yet, their ascendancy on the global soccer stage, like that of Ahmad, reflected not only personal ambitions but also efforts by their home countries to exploit the world’s most popular sport as a vehicle to polish tarnished images and project themselves as players within the international community.

“If anything, it is political corruption that has enabled financial wrongdoing.”

It also says much about the intertwining of sports and politics that is nowhere more prevalent than in the Middle East and North Africa, whose 13 national associations account for 28 percent of the AFC’s 46 member associations.[12] As a result, the composition of the AFC’s executive committee speaks volumes.

Six of the AFC executive committee’s 21 members in the period from 2011 to 2015 hailed from the Middle East. They include Salman, a member of Bahrain’s minority-Sunni Muslim ruling family; Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah who has emerged as a reformer and the only representative of an elite to have used his status to promote change; the United Arab Emirates’ Yousuf Yaqoob Yousuf Al Serkal, who maintains close ties to his country’s ruling elite; Sayyid Khalid Hamed Al Busaidi, a member of Oman’s ruling family; Hafez Al Medlej, a member of the board of Saudi Arabia’s tightly controlled soccer association, who made his career in the Kingdom’s state-run media; and Susan Shalabi Molano, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) that is closely aligned with the Palestinian Authority.

That number has risen to seven in the executive committee elected in April 2015, which includes Sheikh Salman and Shalabi Molano as well as Mohammed Khalfan Al Romaithi, head of the UAE soccer association and Deputy Commander in Chief of the Abu Dhabi police force, a law enforcement agency with a less than stellar human rights record. The committee also includes representatives of Kuwait, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Football Federation (IRIFF).[13]

If anyone has taken the Middle Eastern model of meshing politics and sports global, it is Ahmad – a prominent member of Kuwait’s ruling family and former oil minister – who is a member of the IOC and heads the Olympic Council of Asia (OAC) and the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC). Like the AFC, nine of the OAC’s board members hail from the Middle East. The Kuwaiti, Bahraini, and Jordanian members belong to ruling families, while those from Syria and Lebanon, like their Thai and Pakistani counterparts, are military officers. Iran’s representatives include a former oil minister who headed the country’s Physical Education Organization, the state entity that exercises political control of sports, and the head of a state-owned soccer club.[14]

Author and journalist Mihir Bose puts his finger on the conceptual problem underlying FIFA reform by describing the group as a trade organization that severely limits freedom of its members and a governing body that has no regulatory power. Bose argues that FIFA can best be compared to the mother of soccer ­- the British Empire. “Indeed FIFA has huge similarities with how the British ruled India. The common perception is the British ruled all of India. They did not,” Bose concludes.[15]

A historian of British imperial rule, Bose notes that almost half of colonial India’s territory and almost a quarter of its population was ruled by princes governing 680 autonomous states with their own laws and in some cases armed forces rather than the Empire. Bose draws the comparison that regional soccer confederations are the modern day equivalent of the princely states. “This has given Sepp Blatter the right to argue that all the huge corruption problems that have arisen have come in the confederations and not at FIFA headquarters in Zurich,” Bose argues.[16]

“Qatar has come to symbolize all that is wrong with soccer governance.”

The solution to this state of affairs is a radical restructuring, according to Bose, borrowed from the fate of the princely Indian states in the framework of which issues of patronage and governance of the relationship between sports and politics could be addressed. Bose advocates integrating the regional confederations into FIFA in much the same way that the princely states became part of India:

In Bose’s view this would involve not only parking development funds in an independent organization but also moving FIFA’s commercial involvement into a separate entity that would be managed in accordance with international best practices.[17]

A Symbol of All That Is Wrong

Qatar has come to symbolize all that is wrong with soccer governance. Yet the debate about Qatar has been skewed with ulterior motives, sour grapes, envy, arrogance, prejudice, and bigotry often emerging as key drivers. The skewing of the debate often masks legitimate criticism of human and labor rights, the integrity of the Qatari bid, and which approaches are likely to produce the most beneficial results, including whether taking a moralist stand and depriving Qatar of its hosting rights should it be proven that it effectively bought the World Cup.

On the surface of it, evidence published by The Sunday Times leaves little doubt that Qatar and Bin Hammam wielded their financial muscle to ensure the Gulf State’s bid would be successful. Qatar may have spent more on its bid than others, but corruption of soccer governance meant that many bidders over many years used financial and political muscle in their effort to secure the tournament’s hosting rights.

In an illustration of the corrupting influence of the ungoverned relationship between sports and politics, respected German weeklyDie Zeit disclosed that a deal between the German and Saudi governments, coupled with investments by German corporates in South Korea and Thailand, ensured that Germany won its 2006 hosting rights by one vote in 2000. Die Zeit reported that the government of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder complied with a request from the German Football Association to lift at short notice an embargo on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and supply it with anti-tank rocket launchers in a bid to ensure that then-Saudi member of the FIFA executive committee Abdullah Al-Dabal would vote for Germany rather than Morocco. The paper revealed further that German companies such as Volkswagen, Daimler, and Bayer promised to significantly increase their investments in Thailand and South Korea to secure the votes of two other FIFA executive members.[18]

In a world in which a vast number of mega sports events leave debt and white elephants as their primary legacy, Qatar, irrespective of how it secured the World Cup, holds out the promise of hosting a tournament that sparks social and economic, if not political, change. A Qatari World Cup that produces change would be a far more valuable outcome than penalization, which would produce anger and frustration in a Muslim world that feels it is being discriminated against and stereotyped on multiple levels. Moreover, depriving Qatar of its hosting rights is not what will curb corruption; structural reform of soccer governance will. By the same token, any hope that labor conditions in the Gulf can be changed would evaporate without the straightjacket of the World Cup.

“Depriving Qatar of its hosting rights is not what will curb corruption; structural reform of soccer governance will.”

The Qatar World Cup’s potential of being an engine of change goes further than immediately meets the eye. It goes far beyond the likelihood that labor relations in the Gulf may fundamentally change. In fact, the debate about labor conditions in Qatar has already had potentially far-reaching consequences. It has breached Gulf States’ absolute refusal to entertain domestic or foreign criticism with Qatar’s engagement with human rights and trade union activists. That engagement has led to the adoption of standards for the employment of migrant labor by two Qatari institutions, the Qatar Foundation and the 2022 Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, that are ultimately likely to be embedded in national legislation.[19] It has also prompted all Gulf states to tinker with their labor regimes. Moreover, it has served as a feeder for similar pressure on the United Arab Emirates, where workers on a New York University campus as well as museums – including a branch of the Guggenheim and the Louvre – toil under similar conditions.[20]

Ironically, pressure on Qatar and other Gulf states, as well as companies they have contracted by human rights and trade union activists, has been offset by the fact that their closest ally, the US, adopts a similar approach towards migrant labor – or what it terms “third country nationals.” These individuals are hired to service US military facilities in the region, including the forward headquarters of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

Third-country nationals are typically hired by private companies contracted by the US military to provide services and logistics ranging from construction, food preparation, entertainment, and firefighting to armed guard duty. The US in recent years has sought to update legislation covering third-country nationals, but its reform often falls short of measures being taken by Qatar in the wake of World Cup-related criticism. Qatar, for example, has adopted the principle of workers not paying for their recruitment, which seeks to break the hold of middlemen who charge absorbent fees leaving workers indebted for years. While enforcement of the measure has yet to be optimized, US legislation only bans “unreasonable” recruitment fees.

Anthropologist and lawyer Darryl Li, in a lengthy analysis published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, concluded that a bill of rights adopted by the Pentagon that subjects wages, housing, and safety standards to local laws of the host country missed the mark:

These protections mean little in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where the minimum wage is below one dollar per hour. And Bahrain, Djibouti, and Qatar, for example, all host significant US military forces but have no private-sector minimum wage laws. Moreover, even this bill of rights lacks any clear enforcement mechanism: the rules are imposed by the Pentagon on contractors, but provide no clear basis for workers themselves to assert those rights in any court.[21]

US government attitudes towards third-country nationals is emblematic of double standards in the Qatar debate. The international community has been aware of abominable labor conditions in the Gulf for decades. Governments paid lip service to the need for change; multiple reports by human rights groups and independent media reporting had little impact. All of that changed only with Qatar’s successful World Cup bid.

A Pandora’s Box

To be sure, Qatari opponents of labor reform take heart from the fact that even the US fails to live up to its own standards by opportunistically adapting to Qatari labor practices. They are bolstered in their concern that Qatar’s engagement with its critics threatens to open a Pandora’s Box that could change the nature of Gulf society in far more radical ways that could affect the country’s demography, and the political and civil rights associated with it.[22]

Perhaps, the most consequential fallout to date of the awarding to Qatar of World Cup hosting rights and the focus on labor in its wake is the fact that it has sparked unprecedented debate about the region’s identity and long-term approaches to its demographic deficit, including the thorny issue of naturalization. Nationals constitute a minority in at least three of the six states grouped in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The other states could see their citizenry become a minority over the next decade as their reliance on migrant labor increases.

Responding to concerns about the demographics of Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait, the GCC members in which foreigners constitute a majority of the population, governments have lamented the decline of Arabic as the dominant language of business. To counter that, the GCC is considering ways of promoting the use of Arabic, particularly among youth who frequently are at least as comfortable if not more comfortable with English than with Arabic. One suggestion is the organization of Arabic language days. The proposal prompted Sultan Al Qassemi, a prominent UAE intellectual with a track record of broaching often-taboo subjects to quip on Twitter: “The Gulf States complain that not enough Arabic is spoken and host ‘Arabic language days’ but continue to refuse to naturalize young Arabs.”[23]

Writing in 2013 in the Gulf News, Al Qassemi first sparked debate about the Gulf’s demographic deficit by noting that “the fear of naturalization is that Emiratis would lose their national identity; we are after all a shrinking minority in our own country. However, UAE national identity has proven to be more resilient and adaptive to the changing environment and times than some may believe.”[24]

Al Qassemi argued that the UAE had already taken a cautious first step towards addressing the issue, by granting the offspring of mixed Emirati-non-Emirati nationals the right to citizenship. He noted further that the success of the US was in no small part due to the contribution of immigrants. “Perhaps it is time to consider a path to citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care for the country as though it was their own,” Al Qassemi said.

Those are revolutionary words in one of the most conservative parts of the world. Without FIFA’s awarding of the World Cup to Qatar and Qatar’s subsequent engagement with its critics, debate in the region about the Gulf States’ most fundamental challenge would likely have been put off into the distant future. To be sure, change in the Gulf occurs at the pace of a snail. Cautious debate is one baby step, albeit a significant one. FIFA had little idea of the Pandora’s box it was opening with the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar. That fatal decision, no matter how flawed, has sparked cautious but inevitable change within the world of soccer as well as the Gulf.

Notes:
[1] “Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting – Press Conference,” YouTube, 20 July 2015,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbYAoxvIZmU

[2] “Facts and Figures,” FIFA.com, http://www.fifa.com/development/facts-and-figures/index.html

[3] Thailand and Nepal rank prominently among numerous examples where FIFA oversight has often at best been nominal. See for example: James M. Dorsey, “Investigation of Thai soccer boss puts FIFA’s anti-corruption campaign to the test,” The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 19 September 2011, http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2011/09/investigation-of-thai-soccer-boss-puts.html/ ; James M. Dorsey, “AFC’s Salman re-elected amid renewed corruption and governance questions,” The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 2 May 2015, http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2015/05/afcs-salman-re-elected-amid-renewed.html

[4] “The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland seizes documents at FIFA,” Federal Office of Justice, 26 May 2015,https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-57391.html

[5] “Nine FIFA Officials and Five Corporate Executives Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption,” The United States Department of Justice, 27 May 2015, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and

[6] “FIFA official agrees to extradition to USA,” Federal Office of Justice, 10 July 2015,https://www.bj.admin.ch/bj/en/home/aktuell/news/2015/2015-07-10.html

[7] “The FIFA Files: The Documents,” The Sunday Times, 7 June 2014,http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/fifa/article1417206.ece

[8] Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup (London: Simon & Shuster, 2015).

[9] James M. Dorsey, “Reforming soccer governance: Tackling political corruption alongside financial wrongdoing,” The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 6 June 2015, http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2015/06/reforming-soccer-governance-tackling.html

[10] James M. Dorsey, “Asian Football: A Cesspool of Government Interference, Struggles for Power, Corruption, and Greed,”International Journal of History of Sport, Vol. 32, No. 8 (April 2015), pp. 1001-15.

[11] Michael Casey, “Bahrain Soccer Stars Pay Price for Protesting,” Bahrain Center for Human Rights, 2011,http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/4556

[12] “Member Associations,” The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), http://www.the-afc.com/member-associationx

[13] “AFC Executive Committee,” The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), http://www.the-afc.com/afc-executive-committee

[14] “The Olympic Council of Asia Executive Board,” Olympic Council of Asia, http://www.ocasia.org/Council/ExeBoard.aspx

[15] Mihir Bose, “FIFA reform needs practical ideas not wild, stupid ones,” Inside World Football, 23 July 2015,http://www.insideworldfootball.com/mihir-bose/17482-mihir-bose-fifa-reform-needs-practical-ideas-not-wild-stupid-ones

[16] Bose (2015).

[17] Bose (2015).

[18] Oliver Fritsch, “Die Verkauften WM-Turniere,” [The Sold WC Tournaments] Die Zeit, 4 June 2015, http://www.zeit.de/sport/2015-06/chuck-blazer-fifa-fussball-weltmeisterschaft-2022

[19] “QF Mandatory Standards of Migrant Workers’ Welfare for Contractors & Sub-Contractors,” Qatar Foundation, 20 April 2013,http://www.qf.org.qa/app/media/2379 / ; “Workers’ Standards,” Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, February 2014,http://www.sc.qa/en/delivery-and-legacy/workers-welfare

[20] James M. Dorsey, “Activists expand labour and human rights campaign beyond Qatar to include all Gulf states,” The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 24 November 2014, http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2014/11/activists-expand-labour-and-human.html

[21] Darryl Li, “Migrant Workers and the US Military in the Middle East,” Middle East Research and Information Project, No. 275 (Summer 2015), http://www.merip.org/mer/mer275/migrant-workers-us-military-middle-east

[22] Multiple interviews with the author between 2011 and 2015.

[23] Sultan Al Qassemi’s twitter page, @SultanAlQassemi, https://twitter.com/SultanAlQassemi/status/623118671037071361

[24] James M. Dorsey, “Qatar: Perfecting the art of scoring own goals,” The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 2 October 2013,http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2013/10/qatar-perfecting-art-of-scoring-own.html

This article appeared in The Turkish Policy Quarterly.

China: Tightening The PLA Military Belt- Analysis

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By Manoj Joshi*

For the past week, observers of China have been expecting Beijing to announce a series of reforms to drastically restructure and reshape the People’s Liberation Army. The step was expected to follow the September 3 announcement during the massive military parade in Beijing that the force would cut 3,00,000 personnel and bring its force down to 2 million.

So far this has not happened, but it is a question of when, rather than if. Beijing’s imperatives for reform are obvious — if it wants to cope with an adversary like the US, it needs to change its orthodox, land-oriented military into a flexible and agile force which can be used on to defend the country’s borders, but also for missions afar.

According to the Chinese media and commentators, the major restructuring would be from top to bottom. At the very top, the four key departments — general staff, general political, general logistics and general armaments — would be reorganised into the general political, logistics and armaments departments which would now report to the general staff department, which would, in turn, be supervised by the all-powerful Central Military Commission which is chaired by President Xi Jinping. A separate reporting line would, for the first time, have the new general staff department report to the Ministry of Defence as well.

The current division of the PLA into seven military regions, as well as the Air Force and the Navy would give way to four integrated military regions — the south-west, south-east, north-east and north-west strategic zones. The size of the Army and Air Force would be drastically reduced and that of the Navy marginally. There would be a new 50,000 strong space force and all this is not counting the 2nd Artillery which handles China’s nuclear and conventional missile forces. According to one estimate, the eventual goal could well be a PLA that would be just about a million strong, in addition to having another million strong paramilitary and internal security troops. So, in terms of the PLA army, navy and air force components, it would compare with the 1.3-million-strong US forces.

The Chinese now accept that large numbers are a liability for the modern military because they consume vast resources in maintaining and paying them. Smaller, highly mobile and technologically capable forces are the order of the day.

Xi has already taken the first steps in reform by placing key personnel in important positions of authority in the PLA. More important, he has initiated a massive crackdown on corruption in the force where positions were sold to the highest bidder. Two former Vice-Chairmen of the CMC — Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong — have been arrested, along with scores of senior officers, for corruption.

In his speeches, Xi has emphasised the need for the military to remain under the command of the party, as well as enhance its professional skills through hard and realistic training. “We must ensure that our troops are ready when called upon, that they are fully capable of fighting, and that they must win every war” is a theme he has repeated in many speeches.

Soon after taking over, in December 2012, the CMC passed its “Ten Regulations on Improving the Work Style of the PLA” which formally banned liquor in PLA functions, forbade the holding of big banquets and called on the PLA brass to adopt a simple style in their inspection tours. Subsequently, in April 2013, new instructions were issued ordering the PLA and People’s Armed Police generals and senior officers to spend two weeks in the frontline as enlisted soldiers every third or fourth year, depending on their rank.

The theme of reform came out through the decisions of the Third Plenum in 2013 as well. The Plenum communique noted that the Communist Party would put in whatever resources that were required to create a modern military, but in turn the military leadership were urged to enhance their innovation capacity and improve their military and professional skills and training and develop a war-winning force.

From that time onwards, talk of drastic military reform has swirled around Beijing. Now, after the spectacular military parade of September 3, the first ever to deal with the World War II victory, the chatter has become more insistent.

All this has implications for India which we can ignore at our own peril. Efforts at reforming and restructuring our military remain stuck. Instead of reducing our manpower, we have been steadily increasing it. The current five-year plan, for example, caters for an 80,000-increase. Along with unreformed recruitment and pension procedures, we will end up spending more money in pay, allowances and pensions, than modernising the forces to cope with the rapid technological advances taking place. There were expectations that the current government would take up the task, but it seems to be more focused on acquisitions than the battle-winning issues of restructuring our World War II era armed forces, shaping innovative doctrines for their use, and equipping them to prevail in a high-tech battlefield environment. In any system, communist or democratic, this reform can only be done through political direction. Unfortunately for us, this democracy, at least, seems to be losing out in this contest.

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

Courtesy: www.mid-day.com

Nepal: Reconstruction With Equity – OpEd

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The deadly earthquake of a few months ago and its subsequent aftershocks have left the country devastated. Thousands have been killed, and many more have been seriously injured. Millions have been displaced and are homeless. During the International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction the Government promised to implement reconstruction and resettlement projects. After months of delay planning is finally under way, and the Government has recently appointed a project chief executive. The donor community and development partners have pledged over 4.4 billion dollars to rebuild public properties and help the victims. The success of the disaster reconstruction project is absolutely vital for the nation. The Government and every stakeholder must take it extremely seriously.

The manner of implementation will be every bit as important as the result. We need to develop proper strategies, plans, and programmes to make optimum use of the reconstruction to achieve the desired outcome. The needy have to be consulted, and planning has to be transparent. Many questions must be asked today. Is the disaster reconstruction and resettlement project indeed to be inclusive and participatory? Is it to be human rights-based? Will it consider the needs of the victims and of society as a whole? Will it be based on equity and fairness for all? Will it help to heal the social and economic disparities that have existed in our country for centuries? I wish to make a few suggestions for all of us to think about while adopting norms for the whole reconstruction project.

Firstly, the victims should be treated with dignity and respect. They are not beggars. The State has a primary duty and responsibility to provide assistance to every person who is affected by disaster and to protect his or her human rights. The right to receive assistance is a fundamental humanitarian principle that applies to every citizen in equal manner, and it is the major duty of the Government and national authorities to comply. Otherwise what is the point of having state and government? Countless people are currently in need of relief. Their houses have been damaged, and they no longer have a water supply. According to recent figures 500,000 people have been measurably displaced by the disaster. Is it intended that the reconstruction project will apply to each of them or will it just cover the rebuilding of public properties? Disaster relief and reconstruction is not a charity but an entitlement, and the claim rights of victims and of society as a whole need to be recognized. Where otherwise is respect of the dignity of the victims?

Secondly, the aims of national reconstruction and resettlement planning should be promoted by duty-bearers operating in line with international human rights’ standards of equity, justice and fair distribution. The State has the primary obligation to protect, fulfill, respect and promote all the human rights of its people. If the State fails to fulfill the needs of its disaster victims in a timely and effective manner we may ask the question: what is the point of having the State as protector, promoter and guardian? The adoption of the human rights approach to reconstruction planning is also paramount to making stakeholders and the Government accountable and responsible. Natural disaster affects civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights. During reconstruction, those rights of the affected population should be protected against all kinds of discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion. If humanitarian assistance and reconstruction policies are not based on a human rights framework, there is a risk that the focus will be too narrow and the basic needs of the victims and of the people as a whole will not be integrated in a comprehensive manner. Have we, our policy makers, and the Government even given thought to these considerations?

Thirdly, it is vital that reconstruction planning is conducted in a participatory manner. It has to be inclusive. The State and policy makers must identify relevant measures to ensure that affected persons and their communities are fully consulted and can actively and meaningfully participate in all stages of the disaster response. The reconstruction policies and plans must aim for social, cultural, and political development and economic growth that will benefit all. This should apply especially in relation to the disadvantaged and vulnerable rather than merely to those who are near and dear to party leaders or who have loud voices. Reconstruction planning needs a bottom-up approach with ordinary people having a chance to be involved in the decision-making. The needs of the locals must seriously be taken into account. We must ensure that every individual is consulted and can participate in the very process of reconstruction. Such norms encourage continuous dialogue, argumentation, and persuasion, and they promote critical engagement.

Finally, the post-disaster reconstruction project must be undertaken in a transparent manner. All members of affected communities should be provided with equal access to information regarding the adopted recovery strategy. So far transparency and accountability in governance appear to be totally lacking. Rampant corruption within our system is a huge obstacle to achieving any positive outcome. Such corruption negates the rights of disaster victims, depriving them of their right to be informed and to participate and denying them access to economic and social welfare. To tackle this corruption, strong monitoring mechanisms are needed to assess the progress of each reconstruction and resettlement project. It is essential to establish effective monitoring mechanisms, benchmarks and indicators to ensure that the protection of the human rights of those affected by this tragedy, notably the displaced, is effectively implemented.

The process and outcome of reconstruction and resettlement must be inclusive and fair, and our people must be at the centre of the project. We must set short- and long-term goals to rebuild the nation. Respect for the norms and values of human rights will be vital at every stage of recovery and reconstruction, and the process that we adopt should be participatory, accountable and transparent with equity in decision-making while maintaining respect for civil and political rights. The reconstruction project must herald a new era for our country. It must focus on establishing a just and fair society based on equity and must come to represent a quantum shift in our development thinking.

Arctic Sea Ice Summertime Minimum Fourth Lowest On Record

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According to a NASA analysis of satellite data, the 2015 Arctic sea ice minimum extent is the fourth lowest on record since observations from space began.

The analysis by NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder showed the annual minimum extent was 1.70 million square miles (4.41 million square kilometers) on Sept. 11. This year’s minimum is 699,000 square miles (1.81 million square kilometers) lower than the 1981-2010 average.

Arctic sea ice cover, made of frozen seawater that floats on top of the ocean, helps regulate the planet’s temperature by reflecting solar energy back to space. The sea ice cap grows and shrinks cyclically with the seasons. Its minimum summertime extent, which occurs at the end of the melt season, has been decreasing since the late 1970s in response to warming temperatures.

In some recent years, low sea-ice minimum extent has been at least in part exacerbated by meteorological factors, but that was not the case this year.

“This year is the fourth lowest, and yet we haven’t seen any major weather event or persistent weather pattern in the Arctic this summer that helped push the extent lower as often happens,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It was a bit warmer in some areas than last year, but it was cooler in other places, too.”

In contrast, the lowest year on record, 2012, saw a powerful August cyclone that fractured the ice cover, accelerating its decline.

The sea ice decline has accelerated since 1996. The 10 lowest minimum extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last 11 years. The 2014 minimum was 1.94 million square miles (5.03 million square kilometers), the seventh lowest on record. Although the 2015 minimum appears to have been reached, there is a chance that changing winds or late-season melt could reduce the Arctic extent even further in the next few days.

“The ice cover becomes less and less resilient, and it doesn’t take as much to melt it as it used to,” Meier said. “The sea ice cap, which used to be a solid sheet of ice, now is fragmented into smaller floes that are more exposed to warm ocean waters. In the past, Arctic sea ice was like a fortress. The ocean could only attack it from the sides. Now it’s like the invaders have tunneled in from underneath and the ice pack melts from within.”

Some analyses have hinted the Arctic’s multiyear sea ice, the oldest and thickest ice that survives the summer melt season, appeared to have recuperated partially after the 2012 record low. But according to Joey Comiso, a sea ice scientist at Goddard, the recovery flattened last winter and will likely reverse after this melt season.

“The thicker ice will likely continue to decline,” Comiso said. “There might be some recoveries during some years, especially when the winter is unusually cold, but it is expected to go down again because the surface temperature in the region continues to increase.”

This year, the Arctic sea ice cover experienced relatively slow rates of melt in June, which is the month the Arctic receives the most solar energy. However, the rate of ice loss picked up during July, when the sun is still strong. Faster than normal ice loss rates continued through August, a transition month when ice loss typically begins to slow. A big “hole” appeared in August in the ice pack in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, north of Alaska, when thinner seasonal ice surrounded by thicker, older ice melted. The huge opening allowed for the ocean to absorb more solar energy, accelerating the melt.

It’s unclear whether this year’s strong El Niño event, which is a naturally occurring phenomenon that typically occurs every two to seven years where the surface water of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean warms, has had any impact on the Arctic sea ice minimum extent.

“Historically, the Arctic had a thicker, more rigid sea ice that covered more of the Arctic basin, so it was difficult to tell whether El Niño had any effect on it,” said Richard Cullather, a climate modeler at Goddard. “Although we haven’t been able to detect a strong El Niño impact on Arctic sea ice yet, now that the ice is thinner and more mobile, we should begin to see a larger response to atmospheric events from lower latitudes.”

In comparison, research has found a strong link between El Niño and the behavior of the sea ice cover around Antarctica. El Niño causes higher sea level pressure, warmer air temperature and warmer sea surface temperature in west Antarctica that affect sea ice distribution. This could explain why this year the growth of the Antarctic sea ice cover, which currently is headed toward its yearly maximum extent and was at much higher than normal levels throughout much of the first half of 2015, dipped below normal levels in mid-August.

Starting next week, NASA’s Operation IceBridge, an airborne survey of polar ice, will be carrying science flights over sea ice in the Arctic, to help validate satellite readings and provide insight into the impact of the summer melt season on land and sea ice.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

Ranking US Colleges – OpEd

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After heavy lobbying from some of the nation’s most elite institutions of higher education, the President has just abandoned his effort to rank the nation’s 7,000 colleges and universities.

So, with college application season almost upon us, where should aspiring college students and their parents look for advice?

In my view, not U.S. News and World Report’s annual college guide (out last week).

It’s analogous to a restaurant guide that gives top ratings to the most expensive establishments that are backed and frequented by the wealthiest gourmands – and much lower rankings to restaurants with the best food at lower prices that attract the widest range of diners.

Without fail, U. S. News puts at the top of its list America’s most exclusive and expensive private universities that admit low numbers and small percentages of students from poor families.

These elite institutions also train a disproportionately large share of the nation’s investment bankers, corporate chieftains, corporate lawyers, and management consultants.

Around 70 percent of Harvard’s senior class routinely submits resumes to Wall Street and corporate consulting firms, for example. Close to 36 percent of Princeton’s 2010 graduating class went into finance, down from 46 percent before the financial crisis.

And so it goes, through the Ivy League and other elite private institutions.

Meanwhile, U.S. News relegates to lower rankings public universities that admit most of the young Americans from poor families who attend college, and which graduate far larger percentages of teachers, social workers, legal aide attorneys, community organizers, and public servants than do the private elite colleges.

US New claims its rankings are neutral. Baloney.

They’re based on such “neutral” criteria as how selective a college is in its admissions, how much its alumni donate, how much money and other resources its faculty receive, and how much it spends per student.

Colleges especially favored by America’s wealthy are bound to excel on these criteria. The elite pour money into them because these institutions have educated them and, they hope, will educate their offspring.

A family name engraved in marble on such a campus confers unparalleled prestige.

And because these institutions have educated such a high proportion of America’s wealthy elite, that elite looks with particular favor on graduates of these institutions in making hiring decisions.

Which helps explain their high and increasing selectivity. As the income and wealth of America’s elite has soared over recent decades, the financial benefits of being anointed as a graduate of such an institution have soared in tandem.

The U.S. News rankings perpetuate the myth that these elite institutions offer the best education – as if the economic diversity of a student body and the values and career choices of its undergraduates were irrelevant to receiving a high-quality education.

And as if educational excellence could be measured by the size of the wallets supporting it.

Public universities are at an inherent disadvantage on these criteria because they rely on state funding instead of wealthy alumni. They also admit large numbers of students, which often means a lower expenditure per student.

And because public universities have a special responsibility to be accessible to students from every economic class, they take more chances on broader range of promising students, including many who are the first in their families to attend college.

Public universities are the major vehicles of upward mobility in America. They educate 73 percent of all college students. The Ivy League educates just 0.4 percent.

And the best public universities provide a higher-quality education, in my view, than many of the private elites.

Full disclosure: I was educated in private elite universities – Dartmouth and Yale. And I taught for many years at Harvard.

These venerable institutions rate at or near the top of the U.S. News rankings.

For the past decade, though, I’ve been teaching at the University of California at Berkeley.

One thing I’ve discovered: My Berkeley students are every bit as bright as the students I met or taught in the Ivies.

Another: More Pell-grant eligible students (a proxy for students from low-income families) attend Berkeley than attend the entire Ivy League combined.

And my Berkeley students are more involved in, and more of them are aiming for careers in, public service than any group of students I’ve ever had the privilege of teaching. (Each year, around 10,000 Berkeley undergraduates engage in off-campus public service projects and programs.)

In an era when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than in living memory – much of it in the hands of Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, and their retainers – U.S. News has become a major enabler of American inequality.

We need another guide for ranking colleges – one that doesn’t look at the fatness of alumni wallets or the amount spent on each student, but does take account of economic diversity and dedication to public service.

Fortunately, there is one. It’s a relatively new one, provided by the Washington Monthly.

My advice: Use it.

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