On June 29, 2015, Vietnam joined the other founding members of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in signing the bank’s articles of agreement.1 This was a significant milestone in Sino-Vietnamese relations as the AIIB is one of the international financial institutions (IFIs) established by China to help its partners finance infrastructure megaprojects to be constructed under the “Belt and Road” development framework.2 The “Belt and Road” in turn is intended to be a key engine of growth for China’s transition from its old normal of double-digit to a “new normal” of single-digit growth.3 Nguyen Van Binh, the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, noted that Vietnam needs access to significant amounts of financing for its infrastructure construction needs, and that funding from traditional IFIs like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is expected be reduced with Vietnam’s transition from low-income to middle-income status. Given this funding gap, the AIIB represents an important new source of financing for Vietnam’s future growth.4

Vietnam’s founding membership in the AIIB is not its sole mode of involvement in China’s “Belt and Road,” however. For the moment, the key “Belt and Road” project in Vietnam is in the energy sector, where a Chinese consortium has started work on the 1,200 megawatt Vinh Tan 1 coal-fired power plant in Binh Thuan province. The plant, which will cost an estimated 1.75 billion USD, is expected to begin operations in 2019.5 On a smaller scale, Chinese companies like cement manufacturer Anhui Conch are setting up factories in Vietnam and elsewhere under the “Belt and Road” program’s globalization drive.6 These factories join those that had been established in Vietnam by multinational corporations (MNCs) earlier during China’s transition to its new normal, when rising costs in China prompted those MNCs to modify their supply chains to the China+1 model, in which a relatively cheaper country like Vietnam replaced China in one of the stages of the manufacturing process.7 MNCs which established factories in Vietnam under the China+1 model include high-technology firms like Foxconn, Canon, and Samsung.8

Unlike Laos, which is committed to the construction of a 7 billion USD high-speed rail line between Vientiane and Kunming, the capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan, Vietnam has not yet committed to any “Belt and Road” transportation infrastructure megaproject.9 On paper, Vietnam is involved with the Pan-Asian Railway megaproject, which after having been dormant for almost a decade, has recently been revived under the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt. One of the proposed lines of the Pan-Asian Railway runs from Bangkok through Cambodia and Vietnam into China.10 However, the Vietnamese government has no plans to construct this high-speed rail line.

In 2010 the Vietnamese government rejected a separate Japanese proposal, supported by the ADB, for a high-speed rail line linking Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City. At an estimated cost of 56 billion USD, this was considered too expensive, especially as this amounted to half the value of Vietnam’s GDP at the time. In September 2015 the government agreed to reopen a feasibility study of the North-South high-speed line, with 2030 as the proposed construction starting date. In the meantime, the government will spend 3.86 billion USD upgrading the North-South line to a higher speed of 80-90 km/h from the present speed of 50 km/h. Both this upgrade and the high-speed rail feasibility study are part of Vietnam’s larger 12.31 billion USD 5-year national rail development plan.11

Whether the North-South line will eventually be upgraded to a high-speed line, and if so, whether this high-speed line will be expanded to join the Pan-Asian Railway are questions that the Vietnamese government may consider in the longer-term future. There is also the question of whether Vietnam’s unhappy experience with the China Railway Sixth Group, which has suffered multiple delays and deadly accidents in its construction of an elevated railway line in Hanoi, could taint the Vietnamese government’s reception to future transportation infrastructure construction bids from Chinese firms.12

If Vietnam eventually decides against joining the Pan-Asian Railway because of the high cost of high-speed rail, China could instead be willing to propose a medium-speed Vietnamese segment of the Pan-Asian Railway. In the case of the proposed high-speed line linking Kunming with the northeast Thai city of Nong Khai, China unexpectedly decided in June 2015 against proceeding with the project and instead proposed to the Thai government a medium-speed line that would also allow for cargo transport.13 This would connect with a separate medium-speed rail line between Nong Khai and Bangkok, making the Bangkok-Kunming segment of the Pan-Asian Railway a medium-speed rather than a high-speed line.14 This also indicates that China would be willing, in the case of Indonesia, to submit a bid for a medium-speed rail line between Jakarta and Bandung after the Indonesian government recently decided against proceeding with a proposed high-speed rail line between those cities.15

A History of Confrontation

Relations between China and Vietnam can be traced back millennia to 111 BC when the proto-Vietnamese kingdom of Nan Yue was conquered by the growing empire of Han China. While elements of Chinese civilization took root in Vietnam, the Vietnamese themselves resisted Chinese rule, of which the rebellion in 40 AD by the Trung Sisters is the most famous instance.16 The Song dynasty acknowledged the independence of the Vietnamese after their defeat of the Chinese army in 981 AD. China and Vietnam eventually settled into an unequal tributary relationship, interrupted by a series of Mongol invasions in the 13th century, and a two-decade period of occupation in the 15th century by the Ming dynasty. The defeat of the Ming occupation army by the Vietnamese emperor Le Loi in 1426 prompted the Chinese to recognize Vietnamese independence, and this allowed the Vietnamese to pursue their own imperial ambitions in the territories of the neighboring Cham and Khmer peoples.17 The chauvinism the Vietnamese held towards the Cham and the Khmer, whom they regarded as barbarians, echoed the older chauvinism the Chinese held towards the Vietnamese, whom the Chinese considered to be a barbarian people who were brought to civilization only with their careful guidance.18

During the anti-colonial struggle and the Cold War, the original alliance between the Chinese and Vietnamese communists underwent a gradual transition. In the 1950s, both the communist parties of China and Vietnam were allied against the West, and bilateral relations were close, with China supplying up to 20 billion USD in aid to their Vietnamese comrades in their struggles against France and then the US. However, even at that early stage, Vietnamese communist leaders recognized China as a long-term threat to Vietnamese sovereignty. The relationship began its slow deterioration in the mid-1950s, and both countries eventually engaged in a border war in 1979. The deterioration in bilateral relations followed the Sino-Soviet split, with Beijing seeing Hanoi’s increasing cooperation with Moscow as a threat to Chinese interests. Sino-Vietnamese relations would remain hostile between 1979 and 1991 over the Cambodian crisis, with Hanoi viewing Beijing’s continued support of the ousted Khmer Rouge rebels in Cambodia as a threat to Vietnamese regional interests. Sino-Vietnamese relations would also be negatively impacted by Hanoi’s ill-treatment of its ethnic Chinese citizens, especially the mass expulsions of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam.19

Following the normalization of Sino-Vietnamese relations in 1991, a series of border disputes led to the return of bilateral tensions. To settle these disputes, the Chinese and Vietnamese governments established a series of dialogue mechanisms. These dialogue mechanisms range from high-level and ministerial dialogues, to dialogues at the governmental and expert levels. These have had varying levels of success. China and Vietnam signed a land border treaty in 1999, and spent the following decade jointly demarcating their land border. China and Vietnam have also had maritime disputes. While they did resolve their maritime dispute over the Gulf of Tonkin in 2000, their disputes over contested claims in the South China Sea, especially with regard to the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, remain unresolved.20

In recent years, anti-China public demonstrations in Vietnam have been organized to protest Chinese actions in the South China Sea. These include large demonstrations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2011 over alleged Chinese naval harassment of a Vietnamese oil exploration expedition, and demonstrations and riots in 2014 over the Chinese deployment of an oil rig in the disputed Paracel archipelago.21 The Vietnamese government has occasionally resorted to tit-for-tat responses to Chinese actions in the South China Sea.

In 2013 Vietnam was angered by China’s launch of a tourist cruise tour of the Paracel archipelago, and it retaliated in 2015 by launching a “sovereignty cruise” tour of the Spratly islands, angering China.22 Vietnam has also adopted a tit-for-tat response to China’s land reclamation works in the South China Sea, by reclaiming land and constructing buildings at West London Reef and Sand Cay in the Spratly archipelago.23 Of the rival claimants to the Spratly archipelago, it is Vietnam that has established the greatest number of outposts on the disputed islands: 48 as of May 2015, with China and the Philippines each having 8, Malaysia 5, and Taiwan, 1.24 This could complicate efforts by Vietnam to establish an anti-China alliance with the Philippines, which has its own claims to the Spratly islands.25

Fear of Encirclement

The fear and suspicion of China that occasionally emerges in Sino-Vietnamese relations can be traced to Vietnam’s sense of Chinese encirclement: its northern border is with the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, and its western border is with Laos and Cambodia, both of which have close ties with China.26 And on Vietnam’s east, as we have just seen, the South China Sea is a key zone of territorial contestation with China. To avoid domination by China, the Vietnamese government has actively pursued relations with other powers including the US, the EU, India, Japan, and Russia. The Vietnamese government has also actively sought to reduce Vietnam’s economic dependence on China.27

In addition, Vietnam has sought engagement with multilateral forums like ASEAN in order to weaken China’s influence. However, multilateralism has not always worked to Vietnam’s satisfaction. Cambodia, for example, has in recent years acted on behalf of China in the ASEAN multilateral framework.28 In the ADB’s Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) multilateral forum, of which both China and Vietnam are members, GMS projects have improved connectivity between northern Vietnam and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, resulting in tighter Sino-Vietnamese economic integration. While the Vietnamese government welcomes the economic development of the northern border region, the increased economic linkages with China have raised fears of economic dependency.29

In the case of hydropower, the GMS has failed to resolve a long-simmering conflict between China and the downstream Mekong nations—including Vietnam—over Chinese dam-construction in the Upper Mekong.30 Vietnam and the other downstream Mekong nations are concerned about the likely negative effects to the environment and their riverine fisheries of China’s planned construction of almost 30 dams, as well as Laos’ planned construction—with Chinese support—of up to 70 dams, in their respective stretches of the Mekong.31 This unfolding issue can be anticipated to remain one of the key sources of tension in Sino-Vietnamese relations in the years ahead.

References:
Boudreau, John and Diep Pham. “Vietnam Opens Spratlys to Tourism Amid Sea Dispute With China.” Bloomberg, June 4, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/vietnam-opens-spratlys-to-tourism-amid-sea-dispute-with-china.

Brunnstrom, David and Blanchard, Ben. “Images show Vietnam South China Sea reclamation, China defends own.” Reuters, May 8, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/08/us-southchinasea-vietnam-idUSKBN0NT04820150508.

“China-led AIIB development bank holds signing ceremony.” BBC News, June 29, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33307314.

“China moves Vietnam row oil rig.” BBC News, July 16, 2014. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28322355.

“Chinese tourists sail to Paracels Islands despite Vietnam protest.” Thanh Nien News, April 27, 2013. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.thanhniennews.com/politics/chinese-tourists-sail-to-paracels-islands-despite-vietnam-protest-2674.html.

“Construction of Pan-Asian railway in SE Asia restarts due to China’s Silk Road initiative.” China Daily Mail, April 28, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://chinadailymail.com/2015/04/28/construction-of-pan-asian-railway-in-se-asia-restarts-due-to-chinas-silk-road-initiative/.

Goh, Brenda and Koh Gui Qing. “China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ looks to take construction binge offshore.” Reuters, September 6, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/06/uk-china-economy-silkroad-idUKKCN0R60X820150906.

Hayton, Bill. Vietnam: Rising Dragon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Hensengerth, Oliver. Regionalism in China-Vietnam Relations: Institution-building in the Greater Mekong Subregion. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Khoo, Nicholas. Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.

Kwok, Kristine. “China derails plan for high speed railway through Thailand opting for slower option.” South China Morning Post, June 26, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1826660/china-derails-plan-high-speed-railway-through-thailand-opting.

Li Jianwei. Managing Tensions in the South China Sea: Comparing the China-Philippines and the China-Vietnam Approaches. RSIS Working Paper No. 273. Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 2014.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. Cambodia and the Politics of Aesthetics. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “China’s Transition to the ‘New Normal’: Challenges and Opportunities.” Eurasia Review, April 2, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.eurasiareview.com/02042015-chinas-transition-to-the-new-normal-challenges-and-opportunities-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “Laos And The Silk Road Economic Belt.” Eurasia Review, July 30, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.eurasiareview.com/30072015-laos-and-the-silk-road-economic-belt-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “Sino-Cambodian Relations: Recent Economic and Military Cooperation.” Eurasia Review, June 30, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.eurasiareview.com/30062015-sino-cambodian-relations-recent-economic-and-military-cooperation-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “The US, China and the AIIB: From Zero-Sum Competition to Win-Win Cooperation?” Eurasia Review, April 19, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.eurasiareview.com/19042015-the-us-china-and-the-aiib-from-zero-sum-competition-to-win-win-cooperation-analysis/.

Mai Ha. “Hanoi’s infamous elevated railway lags behind schedule, again.” Thanh Nien News, July 9, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/hanois-infamous-elevated-railway-lags-behind-schedule-again-47724.html.

Maierbrugger, Arno. “Vietnam Revamps High-Speed Train Project.” Investvine, August 23, 2012. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://investvine.com/vietnam-revamps-high-speed-train-project/.

“Mekong/Lancang River.” International Rivers. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/mekong-lancang-river.

Minter, Adam. “Indonesia Refuses to Be Railroaded Into Debt.” Bloomberg, September 8, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-08/indonesia-refuses-to-be-railroaded-into-debt.

Nga Pham. “Vietnam’s anger over China maritime moves.” BBC News, June 6, 2011. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13664408.

“‘One belt, one road’ initiative to further promote China-Vietnam co-op.” Xinhua, July 19, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015-07/19/content_21322569.htm.

Petty, Martin. “Vietnam launches special ‘sovereignty’ cruise, angering China.” Reuters, June 5, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-vietnam-southchinasea-idUSKBN0OK22220150605.

“Philippines and Vietnam to be ‘strategic partners.’” The Straits Times, September 4, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/philippines-and-vietnam-to-be-strategic-partners.

“Trans-Asian railways getting a boost with ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative.” CCTV.com, April 17, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://english.cntv.cn/2015/04/17/VIDE1429260480224362.shtml.

Tseng Hui-Yi, Katherine. The China-Vietnam Clashes in the South China Sea: An Assessment. EAI Background Brief No. 928. Singapore: East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, 2014.

Tseng Hui-Yi, Katherine. Vietnam’s Domestic Politics and South China Sea Policy. EAI Background Brief No. 1026. Singapore: East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, 2015.

“Vietnam needs over $3.86 billion to upgrade north-south railway: report.” Thanh Nien News, September 5, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/vietnam-needs-over-386-billion-to-upgrade-northsouth-railway-report-51026.html.

“Vietnam Official Scolds Chinese Firm After Construction Accidents.” VOA, January 8, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://www.voanews.com/content/vietnam-official-scolds-chinese-firm-deadly-accidents/2590854.html.

“Vietnam signs AIIB agreement in Beijing.” VNA, June 30, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. http://vietnam.vnanet.vn/english/vietnam-signs-aiib-agreement-in-beijing/190665.html.

“Vinh Tan 1 coal-fired power plant gets off ground.” The Saigon Times, July 20, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/42032/Vinh-Tan-1-coal-fired-power-plant-gets-off-ground.html.

Witchell, Stuart and Symington, Philippa. “China Plus One.” FTI Journal, February 2013. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://ftijournal.com/article/china-plus-one.

Womack, Brantly. China and Vietnam: the Politics of Asymmetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

“Work on Thailand-China railway could begin by end of year.” Want China Times, September 15, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2015. http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150915000023&cid=1101&MainCatID=0.

Zhang Xiaoming. Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict between China and Vietnam, 1979-1991. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Notes:
1 “China-led AIIB development bank holds signing ceremony,” BBC News, June 29, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33307314.

2 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “The US, China and the AIIB: From Zero-Sum Competition to Win-Win Cooperation?” Eurasia Review, April 19, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/19042015-the-us-china-and-the-aiib-from-zero-sum-competition-to-win-win-cooperation-analysis/.

3 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “China’s Transition to the ‘New Normal’: Challenges and Opportunities,” Eurasia Review, April 2, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/02042015-chinas-transition-to-the-new-normal-challenges-and-opportunities-analysis/.

4 “Vietnam signs AIIB agreement in Beijing,” VNA, June 30, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://vietnam.vnanet.vn/english/vietnam-signs-aiib-agreement-in-beijing/190665.html.

5 “Vinh Tan 1 coal-fired power plant gets off ground,” The Saigon Times, July 20, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/42032/Vinh-Tan-1-coal-fired-power-plant-gets-off-ground.html. “‘One belt, one road’ initiative to further promote China-Vietnam co-op,” Xinhua, July 19, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015-07/19/content_21322569.htm.

6 Brenda Goh and Koh Gui Qing, “China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ looks to take construction binge offshore,” Reuters, September 6, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/06/uk-china-economy-silkroad-idUKKCN0R60X820150906.

7 Stuart Witchell and Philippa Symington, “China Plus One,” FTI Journal, February 2013, accessed September 15, 2015, http://ftijournal.com/article/china-plus-one.

8 Bill Hayton, Vietnam: Rising Dragon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 11-12.

9 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Laos and the Silk Road Economic Belt,” Eurasia Review, July 30, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/30072015-laos-and-the-silk-road-economic-belt-analysis/.

10 “Construction of Pan-Asian railway in SE Asia restarts due to China’s Silk Road initiative,” China Daily Mail, April 28, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://chinadailymail.com/2015/04/28/construction-of-pan-asian-railway-in-se-asia-restarts-due-to-chinas-silk-road-initiative/. “Trans-Asian railways getting a boost with ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative,” CCTV.com, April 17, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://english.cntv.cn/2015/04/17/VIDE1429260480224362.shtml.

11 Arno Maierbrugger, “Vietnam Revamps High-Speed Train Project,” Investvine, August 23, 2012, accessed September 11, 2015, http://investvine.com/vietnam-revamps-high-speed-train-project/. “Vietnam needs over $3.86 billion to upgrade north-south railway: report,” Thanh Nien News, September 5, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/vietnam-needs-over-386-billion-to-upgrade-northsouth-railway-report-51026.html.

12 “Vietnam Official Scolds Chinese Firm After Construction Accidents,” VOA, January 8, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.voanews.com/content/vietnam-official-scolds-chinese-firm-deadly-accidents/2590854.html. Mai Ha, “Hanoi’s infamous elevated railway lags behind schedule, again,” Thanh Nien News, July 9, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/hanois-infamous-elevated-railway-lags-behind-schedule-again-47724.html.

13 Kristine Kwok, “China derails plan for high speed railway through Thailand opting for slower option,” South China Morning Post, June 26, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1826660/china-derails-plan-high-speed-railway-through-thailand-opting.

14 “Work on Thailand-China railway could begin by end of year,” Want China Times, September 15, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150915000023&cid=1101&MainCatID=0.

15 Adam Minter, “Indonesia Refuses to Be Railroaded Into Debt,” Bloomberg, September 8, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-08/indonesia-refuses-to-be-railroaded-into-debt.

16 Brantly Womack, China and Vietnam: the Politics of Asymmetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 98-102.

17 Womack, China and Vietnam, 120-137.

18 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, Cambodia and the Politics of Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2013), 60-61.

19 Hayton, Vietnam, 161, 189. Nicholas Khoo, Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 1, 111-120. Xiaoming Zhang, Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict between China and Vietnam, 1979-1991 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 16-20.

20 Li Jianwei, Managing Tensions in the South China Sea: Comparing the China-Philippines and the China-Vietnam Approaches, RSIS Working Paper No. 273 (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 2014), 6-7, 15.

21 Nga Pham, “Vietnam’s anger over China maritime moves,” BBC News, June 6, 2011, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13664408. “China moves Vietnam row oil rig,” BBC News, July 16, 2014, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28322355. Katherine Tseng Hui-Yi, The China-Vietnam Clashes in the South China Sea: An Assessment, EAI Background Brief No. 928 (Singapore: East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, 2014), i.

22 “Chinese tourists sail to Paracels Islands despite Vietnam protest,” Thanh Nien News, April 27, 2013, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.thanhniennews.com/politics/chinese-tourists-sail-to-paracels-islands-despite-vietnam-protest-2674.html. Martin Petty, “Vietnam launches special ‘sovereignty’ cruise, angering China,” Reuters, June 5, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-vietnam-southchinasea-idUSKBN0OK22220150605.

23 David Brunnstrom and Ben Blanchard, “Images show Vietnam South China Sea reclamation, China defends own,” Reuters, May 8, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/08/us-southchinasea-vietnam-idUSKBN0NT04820150508.

24 John Boudreau and Diep Pham, “Vietnam Opens Spratlys to Tourism Amid Sea Dispute With China,” Bloomberg, June 4, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/vietnam-opens-spratlys-to-tourism-amid-sea-dispute-with-china.

25 “Philippines and Vietnam to be ‘strategic partners,’” The Straits Times, September 4, 2015, accessed September 11, 2015, http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/philippines-and-vietnam-to-be-strategic-partners.

26 Lim, “Laos.” Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Sino-Cambodian Relations: Recent Economic and Military Cooperation,” Eurasia Review, June 30, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/30062015-sino-cambodian-relations-recent-economic-and-military-cooperation-analysis/.

27 Hayton, Vietnam, 200. Katherine Tseng Hui-Yi, Vietnam’s Domestic Politics and South China Sea Policy, EAI Background Brief No. 1026 (Singapore: East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, 2015), i.

28 Lim, “Sino-Cambodian Relations.”

29 Oliver Hensengerth, Regionalism in China-Vietnam Relations: Institution-building in the Greater Mekong Subregion (New York: Routledge, 2010), 147.

30 Hensengerth, Regionalism, 151.

31 Lim, “Laos.” “Mekong/Lancang River,” International Rivers, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/mekong-lancang-river.

Russia’s military Wednesday denied US claims it is building an air base in Syria.

“Right now, Russia has no plans to establish an air base in Syria,” Gen. Col. Nikolay Bogdanovskiy, first deputy chief of the general staff, told reporters in Moscow.

On Monday, the Pentagon claimed Russia, a long-standing ally of Syria, was constructing a “forward air operating base” near the city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Asked if there were plans to build a base, Bognadovskiy replied: “Anything is possible.”

Russia has never denied its military support for Assad, claiming equipment had been sent as part of an anti-terrorist drive against Daesh.

However, a build-up of Russian military aid has led to fears that Russia could end up clashing with the US-led anti-Daesh coalition in Syria and with ground forces supported by the coalition.

There are also concerns that reinforcing Assad’s military capabilities will make it more difficult to find a political solution to the war.

Russia has had a naval base on Syria’s coast at Tartus since the 1970s.

Original article

By Mohammed Fahad Al-Harthi

The much-heralded visit to Washington by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman exceeded all expectations by seeing the old allies reach consensus on vital regional and international matters. After their critical summit, King Salman and President Barack Obama both expressed the desire to further develop the two nations’ long-term strategic partnership, signaling a qualitative change in the 70-year relationship.

Saudi Arabia’s latest diplomatic modus operandi has focused on building sound economic partnerships in the belief this will result in mutually beneficial political ties. This approach has seen the king heading to Washington, and earlier Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visiting Russia and France.

The result has been a massive $2 trillion worth of investment opportunities earmarked in 12 sectors, including infrastructure, transportation, mining, finance, housing, health, education, banking and entertainment. The Saudi government has correctly placed the interests of its citizens first by taking this route, but has also catalyzed a network of interlocking relations with some of the world’s most influential countries.

The United States, a global superpower, considers Saudi Arabia an important player with which it has a special alliance. Washington needs Riyadh in the volatile Middle East, as a politically moderate state that enjoys international respect and confidence.

This country is not only a regional and global economic powerhouse, but also the spiritual home for over a billion people because it hosts Islam’s holiest sites. It is therefore in the interests of both countries to have solid agreement on important issues.

Some analysts have argued that Washington has been moving closer to Iran, effectively replacing Saudi Arabia. But this argument is clearly not logical or realistic.

During a visit to the Middle East Institute in Washington while King Salman was in the capital, former White House advisers and retired ambassadors told Saudi editors that the United States has more reasons to keep its distance from Iran rather than cozy up to it.

They explained that Washington sought the nuclear deal to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons, and was not meant to completely change its relationship with Tehran.

The Americans know that the region’s problems can be traced to one common denominator, which is clearly Iran. They reiterated that the Iranians would not have a green light to do as they like. A top Saudi official said that the Kingdom told Washington it would not brook any interference by Iran in the internal affairs of Arab countries.

Analysts say that this has been demonstrated by Saudi Arabia leading a rare military alliance of Arab nations to counter Tehran’s violations of international law in Yemen by starting a proxy war with its support of local militant groups.
It is clear that Washington and Riyadh want a strategic partnership on all levels. King Salman has stated unequivocally that this is needed to ensure world peace and stability; and emphasized again that Saudi Arabia has no expansionist plans.

The two countries have now overcome the nuclear weapon issue, which Saudi Arabia has approved on the condition that there is strict and permanent monitoring, and the use of sanctions if Iran violates the agreement. While Washington is known for its drawn out decision-making because of bureaucratic hurdles, the general atmosphere on Capitol Hill is that close ties are absolutely essential between the two nations.

The Saudi ambassador in the United States, Prince Abdullah bin Faisal, is well-respected and his presence as part of King Salman’s delegation has opened important doors in Washington.

The two countries are now looking beyond the Iranian nuclear deal and have set in place a firm foundation on which their strategic relationship will be based. King Salman has undoubtedly stamped the country’s new foreign policy direction on the agreement, which will protect the country’s interests over the long haul.

Confirming Frederick Douglass’s adage, “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” prisoners held in solitary confinement for many years in California have won an unprecedented victory. After three hunger strikes, in which tens of thousands of California inmates participated, and a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a landmark settlement was reached. It effectively consigns indefinite solitary confinement in California to the dustbins of shameful history.

More than 500 prisoners had been held in isolation in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay prison for over 10 years, and 78 of them had been there for more than 20 years. They spend 22 ½ to 24 hours every day in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, and are denied telephone calls, physical contact with visitors, and vocational, recreational, and educational programs.

Now California prisoners will no longer be sent to the SHU solely based on allegations of gang affiliation, but rather based on infraction of specific serious rules violations. Prisoners will only be put in solitary confinement if they commit a serious offense such as assault or murder in prison, and only after a due process hearing. And they will be put into solitary for a definite term – no more indeterminate solitary confinement. An estimated 95 percent of California prisoners in solitary confinement based solely on gang affiliation (about 2,000 people) will be released into the general prison population.

The settlement also limits the amount of time a prisoner can spend in the SHU, and provides a two-year step-down program for transfer from SHU to general population. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners will be released from SHU within one year of this settlement.

“California’s agreement to abandon indeterminate SHU confinement based on gang affiliation demonstrates the power of unity and collective action,” the plaintiffs said in a joint statement. “This victory was achieved by efforts of people in prison, their families and loved ones, lawyers, and outside supporters.”

The plaintiffs in Ashker v. Governor of California argued that California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and denies the prisoners the right to due process.

The federal district court judge found that prolonged solitary confinement had deprived the plaintiffs of “normal human contact, environmental and sensory stimulation, mental and physical and health, physical exercise, sleep, nutrition, and meaningful activity” which could constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Although no U.S. court has yet ruled that solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment, Justice Anthony Kennedy indicated in a concurring opinion in June that he would likely entertain such an argument in the future. Commenting on the case of a man who had been isolated for 25 years in California, Kennedy told the U.S. Congress in March that solitary confinement “literally drives men mad.”

Indeed, after visiting Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1842, Charles Dickens noted, “The system here, is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it … to be cruel and wrong … I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.” Dickens felt that isolation of prisoners was a thing that “no man had the right to inflict upon his fellow creature.”

Juan Mendez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, concluded that solitary confinement for more than 15 days constitutes torture. He wrote that prolonged solitary confinement violates the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The United States has ratified both of these treaties, making them part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Ireland refused to extradite a man to the United States to face terrorism-related charges earlier this year. The High Court of Ireland worried that he might be held in indefinite isolation in a Colorado “supermax” prison, which would violate the Irish Constitution.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 people are held in some type of isolation in U.S. prisons on any given day, generally in supermax prisons, in 44 states and the federal system. Yet there is no evidence that solitary confinement makes prisons safer, the Government Accountability Office determined in 2013.

Solitary confinement exacerbates mental illness. In Madrid v. Gomez, a U.S. federal court judge wrote that for those with diagnosed mental illness, “placing them in [solitary confinement] is the mental equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a place with little air to breathe.”

Professor Craig Haney described the deprivation of basic human needs of social interaction and environmental stimulation as a “painfully long form of social death.”

The European Court of Human Rights has determined that “complete sensory isolation coupled with complete social isolation can no doubt destroy the personality,” in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Likewise, the Inter American Court of Human Rights has stated that prolonged solitary confinement may violation the American Convention on Human Rights.

Suicide rates in California, New York, and Texas are significantly higher among those held in solitary confinement than in the general prison population. And juveniles are 19 times more likely to take their own lives in isolation than in the general population. Connecticut, Maine, Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia have banned or put restrictions on solitary confinement of juveniles.

President Barack Obama has asked his attorney general to “start a review of the overuse of solitary confinement across American prisons.” Obama said, “The social science shows that an environment like that is often more likely to make inmates more alienated, more hostile, potentially more violent.”

The purpose of the penal system is social rehabilitation, according to the ICCPR. In contravention of that mandate, the California legislature has specified that the purpose of sentencing is punishment. Solitary confinement implicitly denies any chance of social rehabilitation. The ICCPR requires that prison guards respect the inherent dignity of every inmate. Prolonged solitary confinement, like other forms of torture, destroys a person’s dignity.

Mendez proposed a worldwide ban on nearly all uses of solitary confinement, which has increased throughout the globe, especially in the context of the “war on terror” and “threats to national security.” He particularly criticized the routine use of isolation in U.S. supermax prisons.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy quoted Dostoyevsky: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” So one must wonder why the United States refuses to ratify the U.N. Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, which requires international inspection of prisons.

This piece first appeared in TeleSUR.

Back in June, Omar Mohammed Khalifh (ISN 695, identified by the US authorities as Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker or Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr), a Libyan prisoner at Guantánamo who is 42 or 43 years old, underwent a Periodic Review Board to ascertain whether he should be recommended for release or continue to be held without charge or trial, as I wrote about here, and on August 20 he was recommended for release, although that information was not made publicly available until last week.

In its Unclassified Summary of Final Determination, the review board stated that, “by consensus,” they “determined that continued law of war detention of the detainee does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

The PRBs, which are made up of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were established in 2013 to review the cases of the “forever prisoners,” 48 men who were designated for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that was appointed by President Obama in 2009 to review the cases of all the prisoners still held at the time to decide whether they should be released or put on trial, or whether they should continue to be held without charge or trial.

17 of the “forever prisoners” have so far had their cases reviewed, and eleven have now been recommended for release, with four men recommended for ongoing detention, and two awaiting the results of their reviews.

This is good news, because, when the task force recommended the 48 men for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial, they did so on the basis that they were “too dangerous to release,” but that insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial, and in 2011 President Obama accepted the recommendations, issuing an executive order authorizing the men’s ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial, while promising periodic reviews of their cases.

The problem with all this is that the so-called evidence, therefore, is not evidence at all, but, for the most part, a collection of dubious information derived from the prisoners themselves, or from their fellow prisoners, while being tortured or  otherwise abused, which does not, of course, make for reliable information. Other dubious statements were made by prisoners who were bribed, with the promise of better living conditions, or who had mental health issues, or who could simply no longer put up with the relentless pressure of interrogations, and decided to say yes to whatever allegations were put their way.

When it came to Omar Mohammed Khalifh, my friend, the former prisoner Omar Deghayes (a Libyan national and British resident), told me in 2010 how he was one of the prisoners who had told lies because of the pressure of interrogations, but how that had not helped him (and in fact, Omar Deghayes spoke to me after Omar Khalifh’s habeas corpus petition was turned down):

“They call him ‘The General,’” Deghayes told me, “not because of anything he has done, but because he decided that life would be easier for him in Guantánamo if he said yes to every allegation laid against him.” Even so, as Deghayes also explained, this cooperation has been futile, as Khalifh has been subjected to appalling ill-treatment, held in a notorious psychiatric block where the use of torture was routine, and denied access to adequate medical attention for the many problems that afflict him, beyond the loss of his leg. As Deghayes described it, “He has lost his sight in one eye, has heart problems and high blood pressure, and his remaining leg is mostly made of metal, from an old accident in Libya a long time ago when a wall fell on him. He describes himself as being nothing more than ‘the spare parts of a car.’”

Unfortunately, although Khalifh has been recommended for release, it is unlikely that he will be released soon, as Libya is too chaotic for the US to recommend his repatriation, and a third country will need to be found that will take him in. This will not be easy, as it is clear that he is quite severely ill. In its Unclassified Summary of Final Determination, the review board recommended his transfer “to a country with the ability to provide structured, inpatient medical care to adequately address his physical and mental health needs,” and also recommended transfer “to an Arabic speaking country to facilitate the detainee’s medical treatment and in accordance with his preference.” In the meantime, while he is still held, the board encouraged him “to positively engage with the JTF-GTMO medical staff while the US Government undertakes transfer efforts.”

His health condition — his “significantly compromised health condition” — was also one of the factors the board listed for mitigating any risk based on his alleged “past terrorist-related activities and connections,” along with his “record of compliance with camp rules, and positive, constructive role in the detention environment, including mediating concerns raised between other detainees and guard staff,” and his “recent engagement with his family illustrating his intent to move forward in a positive manner.”

Although I have written about Khalifh many times over the years, I had always thought that he was seized in a house raid in Karachi, Pakistan in February 2002, and not, as I now realize, in a house in Faisalabad, Pakistan on March 28, 2002, the same day that Abu Zubaydah — a training camp facilitator mistakenly identified as a senior al-Qaeda figure, for whom the CIA’s torture program was first developed — was seized in another house raid in Faisalabad.

I had previously thought that the house Khalifh was seized in, the Issa house, held 15 people who ended up at Guantánamo, but the addition of Khalifh now makes a total of 16 in the house. As I described it in June, when two of these men, both Yemenis, were released in Oman:

They mostly claimed that they were students, and ten of them had been released prior to this latest batch of releases, two after having their habeas corpus petitions granted, two at the end of 2014 (a Yemeni and a Palestinian), and two more who were released in Oman in January.

Another man, Ali al-Salami, was, sadly, one of three prisoners who died at Guantánamo, in mysterious circumstances, in June 2006, reportedly by committing suicide, although that explanation has been seriously challenged in the years since (see my article remembering the men’s deaths here).

As I also explained in an article in October 2010 describing the circumstances of the arrest of the men:

In May 2009, Judge Gladys Kessler, ruling on the habeas corpus petition of one of the [men], Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, who described himself as a student, savaged the government for drawing on the testimony of witnesses whose unreliability was acknowledged by the authorities, and for attempting to create a “mosaic” of intelligence that was thoroughly unconvincing, and she also made a point of stating, “It is likely, based on evidence in the record, that at least a majority of the [redacted] guests were indeed students, living at a guest house that was located close to a university.”

Below I’m posting the opening statement that Omar Mohammed Khalifh presented to his review board in June, which was not publicly available at the time. I hope it helps to reinforce the notion that he is no threat to the US, and never was, having instead been forced into exile through opposition to Col. Gaddafi, ending up twice being severely injured physically — once as a result of an accident in Sudan in 1995, where he was working as a truck driver after fleeing Libya, and again in Afghanistan, in 1997 or 1998, where he had fled after facing persecution in Pakistan, when he stepped on a landmine.

Periodic Review Board (PRB), 23 Jun 2015
Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar, ISN 695
Detainee Opening Statement

This is an overview of my biography, outlining a period of my life before my detention.

My family consists of four brothers and four sisters, where I was the youngest. Our relationship with each other was extremely tight. We were a tight-knit family. I was so happy living with my family.

I also used to live in a socially harmonious neighborhood where everybody used to feel like family. We were a group of boys with similar age; we used to engage together daily and seasonally, in the same recreational and social activities.

I had an excellent relationship with my relatives, especially my two aunts and their families. We would travel together outside the city during the spring and summer seasons. We enjoyed nature and sightseeing. In addition, due to my social and friendly character, I had a lot of friends.

I fostered great relationships with a lot of talented artists and intellectual friends, some of whom were singers and poets. I enjoyed attending weddings, concerts and folk dancing. In addition, I was a gifted snorkeler, and I loved to cruise the sea.

In general, my life was a happy one. I had a full life ahead of me. I enjoyed spending time with my family, my friends, my relatives and my hobbies. My curiosity and my affection have helped me so much to get acquainted with all that is new. Perhaps, that’s why I succeeded to form all kinds of relationships with different spectrums of the Libyan society.

The simplicity of the Libyan people in the community helped me a lot in this regard. Quite frankly, that’s why I have so many acquaintances and friends in that simple Libyan community. But there was a segment of that society with which I didn’t have any connection. So that led me, as a curious individual, to try to get to know the religious segment of society, and I started to visit their mosques.

At first I frequented the mosques a little bit, and then gradually, I started to visit the mosques regularly. I met new friends in this simple religious community, and I started to identify with them, and to discover a spectrum of new mosques. My love and curiosity continued to lead me to travel to new cities, discovering new mosques, new people and a new spectrum.

I used to feel happy, tranquil and safe, but unfortunately, I was surprised when I learned that Colonel Gaddafi was fighting the members of this social component. Then I was arrested by members of the Libyan Homeland Security who interrogated me, and asked me why I prayed in several mosques in this city and several other cities. I told them that this was my social nature; I told them that I liked to meet new people and identify with various communities.

Then I told the investigator that I travelled to many towns to visit theaters, poets, singers in order to get to know them. So, why did he not ask me about those travels? The investigator was satisfied with my reply and released me after they ascertained that I did not do anything contrary to the law, or commit any harm to anybody. After, they recognized that my religious education was inadequate and weak. However, they continued to monitor me anyway!

In 1995, the Libyan government carried out a new campaign of arrests on mosques’ worshipers. I found myself confronted with three options: to get out of the country; get arrested and go to prison; or take up arms and fight Gaddafi. I chose to get out of the country.

I did not have any other choice but to go to the Sudan; so I escaped through the desert, because I had neither money nor a passport and was under surveillance.

I went to the Sudan on the grounds that Sudan was a temporary station, until I got the necessary funds to travel to Europe. Because I didn’t have a passport and lacked adequate funds, I had to stay a little bit longer than I expected in the Sudan. At first, I was very unhappy with my surroundings, the intensity of the heat in that country and the dusty climate. As a social human being, I began to know the people of this country and discovered that they are a kind, good-natured and friendly people. I liked them at once, and I felt the warmth of their friendship and identified with them.

As I said, I liked the people of the Sudan and decided to live and stay with them, and I was thinking seriously of marriage and stability there and actually started looking for work. One of my Libyan friends encouraged me to apply for a job with a trucking company as a truck driver. I loved the idea. This work would give me the opportunity to travel and move around between different parts of the country so that I could get to know and see new environments and new people. So I began working as a truck driver.

But after six months I got into a very bad accident. I had severe fractures and the company where I worked refused to pay my medical expenses and assumed that my injury was not a job related accident. Of course the field of medicine in the Sudan was very mediocre. I had to treat myself on my own expense with the help of some Libyan migrants in the Sudan. But my injury and my treatment took a long time to heal, and at the same time, Colonel Gaddafi was putting pressure on the Sudanese government to hand over the Libyan immigrants in the Sudan. The Sudanese government actually began to arrest the Libyan immigrants and handed them over to the Libyan government.

I had to get out of the Sudan. Some friends helped me to put together some money and a passport, and I traveled to Karachi at the end of 1996. However, when I got there, I was very shocked because of poor living conditions in Pakistan, the hot climate and the terrible odor. I was even on the verge of returning back to Libya to surrender myself to Gaddafi, instead of staying in this terrible environment. But some Libyans calmed me down and suggested to me to travel to Peshawar in the outskirts of the city of Karachi.

I lived in Peshawar with some Libyan friends. Actually, Peshawar was much better than Karachi, and I started to pursue my medical treatment. I gradually started looking for a passport and a visa in order to depart for Europe. But regrettably, the government of Pakistan started to hand over some of the Libyans to Gaddafi at his request. They began a large campaign of arrests. I did not find any other option but to depart to Afghanistan, because of its closeness to the border. In addition, I didn’t have the means to get out of Pakistan. I entered the city of Jalalabad and met new Libyans; this took place around the end of 1997. I lived in the city for some time, and then some friends suggested to me to visit a camp outside the city of Jalalabad in order to get to know the environment there. The idea aroused my curiosity and my hobby in discovering new things. I agreed and began to train a little bit with some light weapons and soldier exercises as much as my health allowed me, as my health was poor in addition to my injuries. I stayed there for several months, enjoying my time, the beauty of nature and the surrounding ravines in the neighborhood.

Then, I went back to the city and began to wander the country and mingle with its people. Then I went to Kabul for a visit, and I returned back to Jalalabad and kept navigating between these two cities. In one of my visits, some friends invited me to tour the battle lines between Taliban forces and Shah Masud [Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, assassinated two days before the 9/11 attacks].

My curiosity led me to accept their invitation, but unfortunately while en route, I stepped on an old landmine that was lying on the side of the road. I lost my foot and shrapnel ravaged my entire body. Once again, I started a new cycle of medical treatment. Because I was not linked to any organization or group, and did not have any money for treatment, I decided to be treated in regular Afghan hospitals. In addition, my other foot was infected from the old accident that took place in the Sudan. I become almost totally disabled.

During my medical treatment, I stayed temporarily at the Arab guest houses. Then, I travelled to Pakistan looking for better medical treatment. Because of lack of funds, I was not successful. I decided to return back to Afghanistan and contacted the Red Cross office in Kabul to be fitted with a new prosthesis. They told me I needed an additional surgery in order to fit me with a suitable artificial limb. I was so frustrated because this was my fourth surgery. As you may know I previously underwent three painful surgeries. Fortunately, however, I found an Italian hospital who agreed to perform my surgery and to treat me free of charge.

I returned back to the Red Cross Office in Kabul, and fitted with my artificial limb, and I started a new phase of rehabilitation in July 2001. My muscles were very weak because of the lack of movement during the past four years.

After the events of September 11, I tried to leave from Afghanistan, but I didn’t have a passport or the funds to sustain me. So just before the American invasion of Afghanistan I decided to leave through Pakistan. I stayed for some time with some Libyan friends in Peshawar, but the situation was awkward. They were married and I felt very embarrassed. I spoke with some friends about my situation and they suggested that I move to a different place, until they could arrange for a passport and some funds. I went to live in Faisalabad city, and I stayed with some Yemeni students. After two months, the Pakistani government forces raided the house and arrested everybody.

The Pakistani government sold us to the American forces under the pretext that we were terrorists. I was interrogated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. During the third phase of interrogation, the American interrogator told me that they would release me if my injury was not related to fighting.

When I transferred to Bagram detention center in Afghanistan, I started to cooperate with the interrogator and the administrator in charge of the detention center. I provided advice regarding their treatment of the Qur’an and religious ways. I told them that this religion has not come from AI Qaeda. It had been around for 14 centuries and is believed by 1.5 billion human beings.

When they transferred me to Guantanamo Bay, I cooperated with the administration and was involved with fixing many problems that happened between the detainees and the administration. For example, I helped mediate the strike that happened in October 2002. In February of 2003, I also solved a big problem that had lasted for almost two months.

After you have heard about my past, present and plans and hope for the future, I trust in your decision, and I am sure that you will release me.

Note: For anyone interested, the transcript of the public session of the PRB (without Khalifh) and the transcript of the session with Khalifh are also available.

(EurActiv) — Jeremy Corbyn and George Osborne have combined to remind Europe that London is now fully embarked on a turbulent, quickfire negotiation with Brussels that may see Britons vote next year to quit the European Union.

As Osborne was in Luxembourg on Saturday (12 September) securing goodwill from eurozone finance ministers for his call for fair play for sterling, his Labour opponents in London were electing a new left-wing leader, Corbyn, who warns his support for continued EU membership is no “blank cheque”.

Three months after Prime Minister David Cameron was reelected with promises to reform Britain’s relationship with the EU before a referendum by late 2017, Europe’s attention is consumed by its migration crisis.

But discreet EU-UK talks are now under way to define how and what to negotiate to avoid a “Brexit” that Cameron says he does not want and which would shake the Union to its core.

Amid speculation he could call the vote as early as June to quell uproar in his own divided Conservative party, time is short before he must bargain on detail with fellow leaders at an EU summit in mid-December. The EU’s disarray on refugees is helping Eurosceptics in tight opinion polls.

The prospect of Labour turning cool on Europe and worries that ministers like Osborne are slow to spell out what Britain wants at the EU council table have stirred unease in Brussels.

EU officials close to the initial discussions told Reuters they were encouraged by the talks so far.

“Mutual understanding is developing in a positive way,” said one. “We are on the way to identifying a whole array of things that can be done.”

Britain’s Minister for Europe, David Lidington, who met European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels this week, said he liked what he heard, notably Juncker’s call in a speech last week for more free trade and a competitive economy.

But Juncker’s pledge of a “fair deal” for Britain also bore a warning that London cannot limit free movement for EU workers – a potential deal-breaker for Cameron’s vow to cut immigration.

With the EU’s second-biggest economy again demonstrating its aloofness from Europe’s troubles by exercising its opt-out on a common asylum policy, senior officials across the continent caution London should not over-estimate its leverage over them.

“Britain has no real friends in the EU,” said one veteran insider of the kind of summit coming up before Christmas, where Cameron can expect the first real round-table argument on his demands after six months touring capitals to outline his case.

Negotiating teams

Led by Cameron’s Europe adviser and Britain’s ambassador to the EU, British negotiators have been meeting key officials since July at the European Council, the forum of governments headed by Donald Tusk, and in Juncker’s executive. Both sides call the dialogue technical talks, not yet real negotiations.

“The purpose of the talks is to explore the technical and legal options for delivering reforms,” a British diplomat said.

Others involved say the British have explained their demands in broad terms and EU officials, including the head of the Council secretariat and its chief legal adviser, have responded with detailed questions requiring further clarification.

“The questions are friendly, but probing,” an official said, adding that time was pressing for London to offer more detail but British domestic politics made that highly sensitive.

It will be up to Council chief Tusk, a conservative former prime minister of Poland, to craft any deal that can secure political buy-in from all EU leaders. For the Commission, responsible for legislation and guardian of treaties, Juncker has charged a senior British EU civil servant with coordinating the response of Brussels’ often Byzantine law-making machinery.

“We’re making it up as we go along,” a senior diplomat said of the unprecedented bid by one member state to rework its ties.

British officials like to divide Cameron’s demands into what they call four “buckets”: competitiveness, sovereignty, “fairness” and migration. The first two, involving elements such as promoting free trade and markets and increasing oversight by national parliaments, are broadly in line with Juncker’s plans.

“Fairness”, a key objective for Osborne and the Treasury, is about ensuring that an expanding and more closely integrating eurozone cannot discriminate legally against London’s financial industry while Britain insists on shunning the common currency.

It is on migration, which Cameron has made a centrepiece of his political argument with his own Eurosceptic Conservatives, that EU officials see the greatest difficulty.

British officials say the problem is not with the principle of free movement of labour but with the scale of immigration.

EU officials say Cameron has support in other rich states for efforts to curb “benefit tourism” and note EU judges have delivered recent rulings that help his case.

But making working in Britain less attractive to other EU citizens — Cameron wants to make them wait four years before they get equal rights to in-work benefits — “looks blatantly discriminatory” to one senior EU official involved in the talks, and as such incompatible with basic treaties.

It is also likely to face fierce opposition from Poland and other labour-exporting states.

The prime minister’s allies are undaunted. “Let’s not underestimate the smartness of the lawyers out here,” said Syed Kamall, who leads the Conservatives in the European Parliament.

Treaty change

A further difficulty for Cameron will be to convince voters that any deal is legally watertight. He says that means at least legally binding promises to change EU treaties.

Other leaders are loath to commit to treaty change, saying the anti-EU mood in much of Europe makes winning ratification referendums in some countries highly doubtful.

British officials place some hope in German calls for change to treaties to help the eurozone withstand more shocks like the Greek crisis. London could have its own changes then, they say.

One senior diplomat in Brussels said he understood Britain would accept a form of promise of future changes to be effected at the next broader treaty revision. Mutual pledges could, as with Denmark in 1992, be enshrined in a separate EU-British treaty on the subject lodged with the United Nations.

Much remains uncertain in the process, however. EU diplomats complain they have yet to see a written proposal for specific legislative changes Britain wants. But in the hothouse political atmosphere at home, stoked by a vocal Eurosceptic press, British officials are fearful of negotiating details leaking out. Nonetheless, the December summit will need to see paperwork.

Cameron’s next moves may become clearer at his Conservative Party conference in early October and a regular EU summit two weeks later. He must appear to be securing difficult objectives to persuade British voters of his success but avoid alienating his EU partners and demanding concessions they will not deliver.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Union’s power-broker, has pledged to help — but not at the expense of EU principles.

British officials acknowledge Merkel is being helpful, but not offering a “blank cheque”. A senior EU official familiar with Berlin’s thinking had this warning for Cameron: “Do not climb too high into the tree,” he said. “Let’s be pragmatic.”

By Kalinga Seneviratne

The U.S., UK and the international media have hailed the August 18 election results in Sri Lanka as a victory for democracy, but the looser may well turn out to be the voters of Sri Lanka. The political comedy that has taken place in the island republic in the aftermath of the election, exposes yet again the deficiencies of the democracy gospel that is unable to stamp out embedded corruption in the system.

“The administration (of President Maitripala Sirisena) came to power promising good governance, but the reins of government has shifted from a family to a cabal of cronies,” claimed the opposition party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in a statement on September 13. It pointed out that the government got a mandate to reduce the Cabinet to 35 after criticising former President Mahinda Rajapakse world-record 106 ministers.

“This government has already appointed 93 cabinet, state and deputy ministers. It is expected to have 22 district ministers and then we will have 115 ministers breaking the record of the previous regime,” noted the JVP.

President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe have embarked on a mission to prop up a minority government to one that would enjoy two-thirds majority in parliament to help pass planned constitutional amendments. This is being done by breaking up the Rajapakse-aligned United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) that has 95 members in the 225-member parliament.

While basic principles of democracy and good governance are being undermined by the new government that came to power by promising to restore precisely those two, the U.S. and its Western allies, who have strongly backed Sirisena and Wickremasinghe, are praising the new government for heralding a new democratic era in Sri Lanka.

Former President Mahinda Rajapakse was hated by the West – both the political leaders and the media – mainly because he ignored appeals from western leaders, especially from the UK, France and Norway, in 2009 to call for a ceasefire in the war against the terror movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and went on to crush them militarily with diplomatic and military support from China, Russia and a number of Middle Eastern regimes, especially Gaddafi’s Libya and Iran.

After crushing the LTTE, with huge investments and aid from China, he went onto rebuild the war-devastated areas of the north and the east of the island, and aligned Sri Lanka firmly behind China’s Maritime Silk Routes project, that the West see as threatening trade routes in the Indian Ocean.

While Sri Lanka was galloping on happily with a growth rate of 6-7 percent and the country was at peace after 30 long years, Rajapakse boasted that he would make Sri Lanka the ‘Wonder of Asia’.

Rajapakse, who won a landslide victory in 2010 as the war hero, gradually began to loose the peoples’ trust because of rising corruption within the country allegedly perpetuated by his family and his political cronies.

Movement led by a Buddhist monk

A peoples movement began to take shape in 2013 under the leadership of an outspoken Buddhist monk Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera, who set up a civil society movement called the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ).

It was this movement that was able to bring together disparate opposition groups to finally topple Rajapakse in presidential elections of January 8 this year and narrowly thwart his comeback bid in the parliamentary elections on August 17. The slogan of this movement was ‘yahapalanaya’ (good governance) a cliché borrowed from the West.

President Sirisena, whom they brought to power in January, campaigned under this slogan. It included a pledge to stamp out corruption from the political system, appoint a small Cabinet of Ministers, and introduce independent public service commissions as well as a whole raft of other anti-corruption measures.

Since Sirisena came to power, there are clear signs that repression of political dissent has disappeared, the media is freer to criticize the government and the courts seem to be acting with more independence. Yet, the corrupt and corruption in the political system remain, and the people of Sri Lanka are now beginning to realize that all these democratic freedoms would come to naught, if corrupt politicians cannot be removed from the legislatures.

Immediately after Sirisena won the presidency, in an ironic twist, he claimed the presidency of Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) because he was its former general secretary, and did not resign from the party to challenge Rajapakse for the country’s presidency.

Thus he remained a party member and under the party’s constitution, if the elected president of the country comes from the party he will automatically get the party presidency as well. But, he allowed Rajapakse to lead the party’s parliamentary election campaign, which he narrowly lost.

Forming a ‘national government’

Prime Minister Wickremasinghe, who leads SLFP’s rival party, the United National Party (UNP), is heading a minority government, because he only has 106 seats in a 225-member legislature. Thus, Sirisena has embarked on forming what he calls a “national government” with Wickremasinghe’s UNP by splitting the SLFP and appointing to Cabinet his party loyalists, three of them were voted out by the people.

Sirisena brought them back to parliament and Cabinet as nominated MPs. He has even offered Cabinet posts to Rajapakse loyalists from the party. Some of his Cabinet appointments include people who are accused of corruption, drug trading or even murder.

As part of Sirisena’s “yahapalanaya’ pledge in January, he was able to get an amendment to the constitution passed in July which limited the Cabinet to 30, but early September the parliament passed a motion that this does not apply to a national government.

Even government supporters are now calling this a “political fraud” because what Sirisena and Wickremasinghe are forming is a ‘coalition government’ and not a ‘national government’ as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and left-wing JVP are not included in it. They argue under the constitution a coalition government could share the 30 Cabinet positions and not increase it.

An agitated Sobitha Thera told the Colombo Telegraph on September 9 that the Cabinet appointments have made a farce of the good governance pledge made before the January presidential elections by Sirisena. He said those who criticized the former president Rajapakse were treading the same path. “If this continues, soon we will see all 225 parliamentarians become ministers,” he added. Rumours are that the outspoken monk has been admitted to hospital with a suspected heart attack after making this public statement.

A fundamental rights petition

Communist Party leader and former Cabinet minister DEW Gunasekare has filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court against the appointment of defeated candidates to parliament and ministerial position, by both Sirisena and Wickremasinghe.

The U.S. meanwhile is busily roping in Sri Lanka into its sphere of influence in Asia. Just two days after the August 17 elections, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal visited Sri Lanka (she also visited Sri Lanka immediately after Sirisena won the presidency) and indicated that the U.S. will move a resolution at the UNHRC session later in September to support the new government domestic inquiry into war crimes allegation in the final stages of the battle against LTTE in 2009.

The U.S. is backtracking on resolutions they sponsored during the Rajapakse regime calling for an international investigation. The new Washington policy is upsetting the Tamils, who are demanding an international inquiry.

Former parliamentarian Prof Rajiva Wijesingha told the Island newspaper that the U.S. policy shift was not at all surprising because the Obama administration had, in no uncertain terms, made known its desire to effect a regime change in Sri Lanka. “Western powers would go out of their way to bolster the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration,” he added.

Even staunch Rajapakse critics from the NGO sector, whom the former president regularly accused of being part of a western conspiracy to topple him, are having second thoughts about the Sirisena revolution.

“Following the initial relief amongst those who wanted to see the change of government that took place in January sustained,” noted Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council in a commentary in Island newspaper, “the aftermath of last month’s general election is not generating the euphoria that accompanied that of the presidential election earlier in the year.”

Pointing out that both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe campaigned on a platform of good governance, which included a small Cabinet, he added, that in order to keep the former president out of the political limelight, the new government is “employing the same means of providing their own set of incentives to parliamentarians to join them in forming a government”.

“They may call it whatever they like,” argues JVP’s secretary and MP Vijitha Herat. “But, what we have should be branded cartel democracy. The country is now run by a coalition cartel to safeguard its own interests rather than the people’s.”

*Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is IDN Special Correspondent for Asia-Pacific. He teaches international communications in Singapore.

By Sasa Dragojlo

Ahead of PM Aleksandar Vucic’s Washington visit, five US Congress members wrote to Vice-President Joseph Biden alleging that the Serbian premier is linked to strategic company takeovers and deteriorating media freedom.

“In anticipation of the visit of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to the United States, we write to you with concern about reports of the deteriorating situation in Serbia,” the five American Congress members wrote to Vice-President Biden in the letter which was made public by Serbian media portal Teleprompter on Monday.

Letter, which BIRN obtained, was signed by five Congress members – Edie Bernice Johnson, Carlos Curbelo, Scott Perry, Adam Kinzinger and Zoe Lofgren.

The authenticity of the letter was confirmed to BIRN by congressmen Adam Kinzinger’s office.

The Congress members alleged that a small group of people led by Vucic’s brother, Andrej Vucic, and two of his close friends, Nikola Petrovic and Zoran Korac, “has consolidated their influence and interest in energy, telecommunications, infrastructure and all major businesses in Serbia”.

Petrovic, the director of state company Elektromreze Srbije, is also widely believed to be close to PM Vucic.

The congressmen said that the group’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Alexander Babakov should be scrutinised.

Further concerns were raised in the letter that journalists’ rights “have declined to their lowest point since the tyranny of Slobodan Milosevic”.

“Media outlets have been consolidated and are controlled directly by the Prime Minister, his family and close business associates,” the Congress members alleged.

They also criticised the lack of progress in resolving the murders of the three Bytyqi brothers, US citizens of Albanian origin who fought alongside the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1999 war and later killed at a police training centre in Serbia.

Despite several promises made to the Bytyqi family and the US government, Serbia has still not found the culprits.

The letter said that Vucic made “impressive promises” during his last visit to Washington in June. “We remain hopeful that he will be held accountable to fulfill these promises,” it said.

Vucic’s three-day visit to the US started on Tuesday.

The economy, EU integration, Kosovo and Russia are reported to be among the main topics for discussion.

During the visit, Vucic on Tusday met Vice-President Joe Biden.

There is no clash of civilisations, but there are similarities and dissimilarities among them. The culture in the Middle East, known as Islamic culture, is not an exception. Culture is very complex to understand. Culture in the Middle East is different from the European because of the features lying in the dimensions of each one of them. These dimensions help us understand other cultures and effectively interact with them. In this article only ascriptive vs. achievement dimension will be discussed.

A major contrast between the Arab culture and the European one is that the former is ascription-oriented while the latter is achievement-oriented. The difference is not hard to understand and is basically concerned in how different levels of status are accorded to different individuals.

Achievement-oriented cultures attribute status according to individual’s accomplishment. People are evaluated or judged based on what they have accomplished and on their record. Ascriptve cultures attribute status to individuals according to factors like age, birth, kinship, class, gender, personal connection, money or education. Therefore, ascriptive status indicates being while achieved status indicates doing.

In a Middle Eastern society, it is more likely that people ascribe a status to someone because of who they are, while in a western society people are more likely to ascribe a status to someone based on what they do.

In the Middle East and North Africa, people tend to make references of someone’s qualification for a job by focusing on where a person received his or her education and not what they exactly studied. The field of study might come in the second place. In a western society, this process is more likely to be the other way round.

The ascriptive feature of the Arab culture or the so-called Islamic culture in the Middle East and North Africa has a significant impact on how information is circulated and produced. The age of a person determines his or her authenticity, or the wealth of a person could determine the importance of his or her words. The person in this context is sufficient as a source of information despite a clear lack of proper knowledge. No evidence is required.

In a west and north­­­ European context, age or wealth of a person could play a minimum role in comparison to the importance of evidence. Therefore, a person is not enough as a source of information. A person needs to provide background information.

The acceptance of everything Ulama (Islamic clerics) say could be a good example from the culture of Middle East. While Ulama have a say in every possible issue, they sometimes do not have proper knowledge to rationalise their arguments, yet they might have huge numbers of followers, who believe them because they are who they are – Ulama. They do not need to provide background information. They are the source of information.

The example of space dynamics and how the solar system works could illustrate such an ascribed status. Several Ulama repeatedly claimed the sun rotates around Earth while Earth is stationary. Obviously it is a lack of science understanding, yet not many scientists or other Islamic scholars explicitly address this issue to correct the misunderstanding. This owes to the ascribed status to these Ulama. The class, education, gender, interpersonal connections or wealth are important.

In 1966 Abdulaziz Bin Baz, a leading Saudi Islamic theologian and former Mofti of Saudi Arabia, ruled that Earth is stationary and the sun orbits Earth. He repeated his fatwa in 1976 and several times in the 90s. Sheikh Muhammad Bin Uthaymeen, a prominent Sunni Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia also confirmed what Bin Baz ruled out and concluded that the sun rotates around Earth and not vice versa and that explains “the existence of the day and night”. This was also confirmed inter alia by the prominent theologian Saleh Al-Fozan and the Syrian ‘scientist and theologian’ Mansour Al-Kayyali, and others such as Abdullah Bin Abdurahman Aljibreen, and Abu Bakr Al-Jazairi.

In 2014, Sheikh Bandar Al-Khaibari said: “Earth is stationary and doesn’t move” at a university speech in United Arab Emirates. To support his argument, Al-Khaibari cited Islamic clerics such as Abdulaziz Bin Baz and Saleh Al-Fozan.

Another example could be offering a seat to women or elderly individuals in public transport. In a Middle Eastern society, an old woman is more likely to expect someone to give her a seat. It is a code of conduct. In a western society an elder woman might not expect anyone to offer her a seat. Although, someone might help out of being nice. The age is important in ascriptive cultures.

Ascriptive cultures leave more space for corruption and embezzlement, and less for organisation. Certain people could reach everything because of their status and not because they compete to accomplish their goals. The son of a president, for instance, is more likely to become a president because of his ascribed status–The son of the president. No qualification is considered or needed for that job, but rather power and kinship.

Hafez Al-Assad prepared his son Basel, a civil engineer, to become a president of Syria. After Basel’s death in a car accident in 1994, Bashar, a training eye doctor in London, was called for duty. Bashar became a president of Syria in 2000 in a feign referendum after the death of his father.

Hosni Mubarak groomed his son Jamal, a businessman, to become his successor as a president of Egypt. Gaddafi also prepared his son, Saif Al-Islam, to be his heir. Ascriptive culture tends to recognise kinship more than achievement and it is widely accepted. In a western society, such a practice could be considered a scandal. While many members are needed to constitute a cultural norm, some might take advantage of some cultural aspects to consolidate their power and gain benefits.

There is no clear cut between ascription- and achievement-oriented cultures. Cultures might vary on that scale, where some might give more value to achievement than others. On the level of individuals, these concepts become much more complicated. Personal education, experience and preferences may strongly interfere in someone’s orientation. Therefore, not every person in the Middle East is ascription-oriented and not every person in Europe is achievement-oriented. It is rather different degrees and layers of tendency to be either ways.

Cultural differences owe to the richness of experiences of these cultures and civilisations. There are no static cultures. All cultures are in flux and they are evolving in a way or another. The change now is overwhelming and happening much faster than ever before.

The war by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies against Houthi rebels in Yemen has become a debilitating sectarian conflict that has reduced large parts of the impoverished country to rubble and potentially destabilising the region. The kingdom has framed its approach in stark sectarian terms that has sparked intolerance towards minorities, first and foremost Shiites, who are depicted as pawns of an expansionary Iran.

Saudi Arabia fears that its influence, based on its oil reserves and the administration of Islam’s most holy cities, constitutes but a window of opportunity. Its greater assertiveness and sectarianism amount to a determined effort to exploit that opportunity to cement its place in the Middle East and North Africa’s geopolitics.

Making opportunity permanent

Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented military assertiveness is a key pillar of its defence doctrine as described by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi scholar with close ties to the kingdom’s political elite. The doctrine aims to counter, in Obaid’s words, the three foremost threats to the kingdom: “regional instability, a revanchist and/or nuclear Iran, and terrorism”.

In a recent article in Al Monitor, Obaid argued that the doctrine was evident in the crushing by Saudi and other Gulf troops of a popular revolt in Bahrain, which he defined as “an Iran-backed insurgency” and recent successes of the Saudi-led Gulf alliance in pushing Houthi rebels and forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of southern Yemen.

The Saudis and their Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies, especially the United Arab Emirates, are currently engaged in finishing the job by pushing north with the objective of ridding the entire country of any groups that are affiliated with Iran. Once Yemen is secure, the Saudis will begin to plan utilising their increasing strategic alliances and formidable military infrastructure to address the Syrian civil war, Obaid asserted.

He asserted that Saudi military planners have already started looking at potential scenarios where Riyadh could use air power to provide cover for anti-Assad forces not linked to terrorist groups. Sooner or later, a Saudi coalition will get involved in Syria, and it will become the largest and most dangerous front in the conflict between the kingdom, its Arab allies and Iran, Obaid added.

Sustainable political achievement difficult

The more aggressive stance of Saudi Arabia is part of the attempt by the kingdom to avert the force of nature by using its financial muscle to counter the revolutionary ideology of Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. It has done so by globally propagating its austere, intolerant vision of Islam that generated more extreme, violent interpretations adopted by groups like Islamic State and Al Qaeda that challenge absolute monarchical rule cloaked in an Islamic veneer.

Notwithstanding its kinetic campaign Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be the foremost player once the dust has settled from the current bloody conflict that have sparked the largest wave of refugees since World War Two.

Military victory in southern Yemen may prove difficult to translate into sustainable political achievement. Long-standing Saudi interference in Yemeni politics is a key ingredient in Yemen’s mix of complex problems and is complicated by widespread Yemeni resentment of the humanitarian and civilian cost of the Saudi military campaign. The battle for northern Yemen may moreover prove to be more difficult than the one for the south given its complicated topography as well as greater popular support for the rebels.

Discontent in Bahrain continues to simmer at the surface even though the Saudi intervention and continued repression have largely stymied mass protests. Bahrain’s Saudi and UAE-backed refusal to address root causes risks fuelling radicalisation and potentially offers Iran opportunities to exploit what is fundamentally a domestic Bahraini problem.

Underlying all of this is, however, a reality that Saudi Arabia is unwilling to entertain. Its financial and energy muscle, together with its claim to moral authority derived from its status as the custodian of the two holy cities, is likely to prove insufficient in the struggle for regional predominance with countries like Iran, Turkey and Egypt.

Despite having to sort out problems of their own, these three countries ultimately bring assets to the table that Saudi Arabia does not have or that match those of the kingdom: a legacy of either empire or identity that is rooted in thousands of years of history; large populations and huge domestic markets; significant industrial bases; powerful militaries; and energy resources that in the case of Iran and most recently in Egypt, which over time will reduce if not neutralise the kingdom’s competitive edge.

A matter of time

To be sure, Saudi Arabia has an advantage in the Arab world from the fact that neither Turkey nor Iran is Arab. Being Arab however is unlikely to compete with rival economic and military power despite Saudi projections that its military expenditure is cementing its regional role.

It is a matter of time before Iran can match Obaid’s assertion that with over US$100 billion already spent on conventional military expansion in the past five years and another $50 billion allocated over the next two years, the Saudis are fully committed to and capable of out-powering the Iranians.

For Saudi Arabia, the question is whether assertiveness, money, military expenditure and a moral claim are enough to turn a window of opportunity into a permanent reality, given the looming prospect of a nuclear agreement that will gradually return Iran to the international fold; a nationalist Egypt having the eastern Mediterranean’s largest gas field; and Turkey as a military and industrial powerhouse.

The kingdom may find that a less intolerant, more inclusive approach, coupled with greater sensitivity to popular political, social and economic aspirations, apart from a greater willingness to cooperate with regional rivals, offers better hope for stability and security. It is a tall order in a world in which the name of the game is attempting to shape the Middle East and North Africa in ways that ignore facts on the ground and are geared towards regime survival at whatever cost.

This article was published by RSIS (PDF).

Thai authorities should release 64 asylum seekers detained in a recent raid who are being held in immigration detention, Human Rights Watch said today. The asylum seekers – including 7 children – are from Pakistan and Somalia, and possess “person of concern” documents issued by the United Nations refugee agency.

“People who are seeking refugee protection should not be detained,” said Bill Frelick, refugee program director. “Once Thai authorities became aware the people apprehended were asylum seekers, they should have found alternatives to detention for them and their children.”

On September 10, 2015, Thai officials and police raided an apartment complex in the Pracha Uthit area of Bangkok and arrested scores of Pakistani and Somali asylum seekers. Sixty-four were quickly tried for overstaying their visas, fined, and sent to the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok.

Thailand is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has never enacted refugee law and procedures. Asylum seekers in Thailand thus seek recognition of their refugee status from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has a mandate to recognize refugees but limited capacity to process large numbers of refugee claims.

Nevertheless, customary international law bars Thailand from returning asylum seekers to a place where their lives or freedom is at risk. Given its own lack of asylum procedures, Thailand should respect UNHCR-issued persons-of-concern documents and refrain from detaining or otherwise punishing people who have pending claims for international protection. Alternatives to detention for asylum seekers could include meeting reporting requirements, and providing a community group guarantor.

Among those detained are 7 children, the youngest age 14. Detention of migrant children is particularly damaging to their health and well-being. Thailand’s obligations as a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child prevent it from detaining children except as a measure of last resort for the shortest period of time. In its 2014 report “Two Years with No Moon,” Human Rights Watch documented the dirty, cramped, and dangerous conditions faced by children in Thailand’s immigration detention centers, and found that such detention placed them at risk of permanent harm. The Thai government has continued to detain children in these centers.

“The Thai government needs to recognize that they are seriously harming children by sticking them in awful conditions in immigration detention centers,” Frelick said. “These children should be released along with the family members who care for them.”

Those detained in the September 10 raid have fled from countries with poor human rights records. In Pakistan, members of religious minorities may face discrimination, criminal charges of blasphemy, and other forms of persecution, including violent attacks. In Somalia, ongoing fighting in the south and central parts of the country has caused considerable harm to civilians, which may make Somali asylum seekers eligible for international protection under UNHCR’s Refugee Convention mandate or under its broader mandate to assist in providing protection in situations of forced displacement resulting from indiscriminate violence or public disorder.

The recent arrests in Bangkok appear part of a renewed campaign against irregular foreign migrants in urban areas. In March, authorities arrested and detained 200 refugees, again mostly Pakistani and Somali, in a series of raids authorized by a July 2014 order from the Thai military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order.

“Thailand should not be arresting asylum seekers with documents from the UN refugee office,” Frelick said. “Punishing people who are fleeing ghastly conditions at home won’t keep them away, it will just add to their misery.”

Two analyses published today, one about last Sunday’s regional elections and another about postings on the Internet, suggest that the wave of Russian patriotism set in motion by Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea may have crested and continues only on the basis of routinized inertia.

The first of these is somewhat more ambiguous but nonetheless telling. Ura.ru’s Mikhail Vyugin compares two rankings of Russia’s political parties, one before last Sunday’s elections and the second in their wake, prepared by the Moscow Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, a group closely tied to the Kremlin (ura.ru/articles/1036265865).

Vyugin says that a comparison of the two shows that parties like “Rodina and patriots in quotation marks” fell dramatically, an indication at least that non-parliamentary parties seeking to play on patriotic feelings did significantly less well in the voting than did others like Yabloko which did not.

On the one hand, he says, this suggests that “the patriotic trend in Russian society” has reached its culmination. But on the other, it reflects the fact that “the leaders of the [four systemic) parliamentary parties have frequently made it clear that they will not allow Rodina or Patriots of Russia to privatize the patriotic theme.”

Although the URA.ru commentator does not say so, that would appear to suggest that patriotic themes are now so broadly included in the agendas of the systemic parties and the unsystemic ones that any effort by the latter to play on patriotic themes in the upcoming Duma races will be less successful than many commentators have been expecting.

The second article, by Vitaly Slovetsky in “Novyye izvestiya” today, discusses the conclusion of Russian political scientists and bloggers that “posts of a patriotic character on the Internet” have dramatically declined in recent months (newizv.ru/politics/2015-09-16/227330-uvjadajushij-patriotizm.html).

“The number of commentaries of a patriotic character began to wane in the middle of summer,” he writes, after unemployment increased and the ruble fell. In their place, the number of posts reflecting popular anger “sharply increased” and all this despite the appearance of new pro-Kremlin patriotic online outlets.

Andrey Piontkovsky of the Moscow Institute for Systems Analysis, says that this reflects a reduction in the intensity of state propaganda on patriotic themes, Slovetsky reports. Piontkovsky says that the Kremlin has “finally recognized” the depth of the crisis in Russia and the ways in which patriotic propaganda in that situation can backfire.

Anton Nosik, a popular Russian blogger, however, disagrees. He says that the fall off in such patriotic articles is a seasonal phenomenon. Many pro-Kremlin bloggers have been on vacation. Now, that they are back, he suggests, the number of patriotism-themed posts will certainly increase.

Andrey Makarkin of the Moscow Center for Political Technologies says that may be true for government-paid bloggers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but elsewhere, what is posted online reflects the feelings of the population – and the population is beginning to recover from its patriotic swoon.

“Enthusiasm arose in the spring of last year after the appearance of Crimea within the Russian Federation: we rose from our knees, the sanctions of the West and the US showed their weakness and we showed them our strength.” But after the collapse of the ruble, “optimism was sharply reduced.” Then when the situation stabilized, “pride in Russia again took off.

“However, already after three months,” it fell again, Makarkin argues. “Now what is taking place with people is a process of reducing emotions. They are fighting with it; they want to believe that things will get better; but reality clearly shows that this will not occur anytime soon.”

Finally, according to Valery Borshchev, a rights activist who early served in the Duma, “patriotism” in the words of Slovetsky is “a temporary phenomenon.” It rose when Crimea was annexed; it fell when the ruble did. And however much the authorities try to convince people that things are still getting better, “citizens feel the worsening of the economic situation.”

They are “beginning to understand,” Borshchev says, “that the authorities provided them with untrue information about the causes of the crisis and its length.” Adding new people to “the army of patriotic media” may be able to “extend the remnants of trust in the rulers for a certain time. But this extension will not be long.”

There are mosques standing or being built in every locality or so it seems. In a kilometer of the neighborhood around me, I can count three mosques standing and two in the process of construction. Some of these mosques have large courtyards and ample parking space for the whole neighborhood.

The increase in numbers of places of worship has however diluted attendance at the individual mosque, with worshippers barely making up half of the expanse within the structure. Rarely does the number spill out to the courtyard and beyond, except during Friday noon prayers or during the holy month of Ramadan.

Are mosques being put to good use? Are they simply there for walking in, offering prayers, and walking out or do they perhaps exist for building cohesive neighborhoods?

There has been a lot of concern lately over the idle hours of our youth. There are few avenues where these kids can positively use up all that pent up energy. I wonder if some of these massive and unused courtyards couldn’t be put to better use.

For example, why not allocate a portion of these courtyards and parking lots for basketball and volleyball courts. This would draw the neighborhood youth to congregate, exercise their bodies in a healthy and energizing manner, and when the call for prayers is announced, invigorate their souls.

They don’t have to be reminded to attend prayers at mosques. They would already be there. It would also serve to breed familiarity and a sense of knowing your neighbor within the residents of the locality, a concept widely promoted by Islam to promote peace and harmony among residents.

Majed B., a Saudi whose mind is always drumming up novel ideas came up to me with another one. Mosques, he tells me, are generally easily recognized as direction points when explaining where you live. In a city where very few streets are named, let alone house numbers, the locality of a mosque and your living proximity to it would eventually draw your visitor to your house without great difficulty albeit after some time.

Now in an emergency Majed wonders, how are the paramedics expected to rush to your house to cater for the calamity unless you waste valuable minutes over the phone trying to explain in detail and with great difficulty your whereabouts? Minutes that could mean the difference between life and death.

Not everybody has the means to get somewhere fast. A housewife at home would be very vulnerable if her child or an elder suddenly needed medical attention, and her husband was at work and no one to drive her around.

So why not number and code these mosques within specified zones. Let the Fire Department and the Paramedics in on the distribution of these allocated zones within the city. Provide CPR and basic First Aid training to the live-in muezzin at the mosque to cater to the initial emergency until the paramedics arrive.

This may be a stopgap measure but at least it would provide some effective comfort to the needy victim in those first few moments until the ambulance or professional help arrives.

Families of the stricken would no longer fret those fleeting moments wondering when help was going to arrive and whether it would arrive at the right house and neighborhood. If there is any need for blood, why not utilize the mosque loudspeakers to appeal for the type of blood needed for one of the neighborhood residents?

Rather than being relegated to half empty places of worship, mosques would then truly play a bigger and more beneficial role in the activities of those it has been designed to serve.

This article appeared at Saudi Gazette and is republished with permission.

On Sept. 13, a small territory called Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus region conducted so-called “local” elections. Surprisingly, the international community, including major powers like the US, Indonesia, the UK, Germany and Turkey, strongly denounced the elections as “illegal” and declared that they would not recognize the results.

Major international organizations such as the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also joined the fray, as did the EU.

Nagorno-Karabakh region is in Azerbaijani territory. In 1992, Armenia, with the help of former Soviet Union troops, brutally attacked and occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan, in clear violation of international law. Armenia established a puppet regime, which declared the territory an independent state; however, no country in the world, not even Armenia, recognizes the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Sept. 13 elections have widely been seen as an attempt by Armenia to legitimize its illegal occupation. Yerevan, however, says the elections were necessary.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation and a close friend of Azerbaijan, joined condemnation of the illegal elections.

“Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan,” Mahfuz Sidik, chairman of the Indonesian House of Representatives’ (Parliament) Commission I overseeing foreign affairs, said in a press release.

According to Mahfuz, the elections violated the principles of international law and Azerbaijan’s constitution.

Expressing a similar view, an Indonesian youth leader said that the elections were illegal and should be condemned and nullified.

“The elections were in clear violation of the OSCE resolutions. Elections in the Armenian-occupied territories of Azerbaijan would threaten the very fragile cease-fire and slow-moving peace talks,”OIC Youth Indonesia president Tan Taufiq Lubis said in Jakarta recently.

The US, the world’s sole superpower, meanwhile stated clearly that it had no intention of recognizing the elections in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The United States does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent sovereign state, and we will not accept the results of the so-called elections on Sept. 13,” US State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Sept. 11.

The US position was backed by the EU, a powerful regional force.

“As stated before, the European Union does not recognize the constitutional and legal framework within which “elections” are being held in Nagorno-Karabakh. Such procedures cannot prejudice the determination of the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh or impact the negotiation process,” Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, told Trend website on Sept. 5.

Germany, Britain, Turkey and Ukraine issued similar statements.

From Asia, meanwhile, Pakistan also condemned the illegal elections in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The holding of these illegal elections is a blatant violation of international law and is thus a major blow to the peace talks. This is indicative of another attempt made by the Armenian side to legitimize the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and also of this country being uninterested in finding a political solution to the conflict and having chosen the way of provocation and escalation,” Pakistan’s Senate Standing Committee on Defense said in a statement.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, joined the condemnation.

“China’s position on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is clear and consistent. It is hoped that parties concerned will find a mutually acceptable solution through consultation and dialogue based on well-recognized norms of international law and the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told journalists on Sept. 14.

The OIC, the world’s second-largest intergovernmental organization, also made clear its stance on the elections.

“The general secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, in line with its principled position, deems the so-called elections for the “self-governing bodies” to be held in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan on 13 September 2015 illegal and in contravention of the resolutions of the UN Security Council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the OIC,” the organization said in a statement on Sept. 12.
The OSCE expressed similar sentiments.

“We do not accept the results of these “elections” as affecting the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and stress that they in no way prejudge the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh or the outcome of the ongoing negotiations to bring a lasting and peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the OSCE’s press service said in a statement.

Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country, outrightly rejected the Sept. 13 elections as an illegal act.

“This mock election exercise constitutes a clear violation of the constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the norms and principles of international law, and, therefore, shall have no legal effect whatsoever,” the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Azerbaijan called on all members of the international community not to recognize Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The crux of the problem is the illegal occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory by Armenia. While a majority of people living in Nagorno-Karabakh region are ethnic Armenians, the territory nonetheless belongs to Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

The international community has repeatedly and strongly condemned Armenian aggression. The UN Security Council (UNSC) passed four resolutions – Resolution 822 (in 1993), 853 (1993), 874 (1993) and 884 (1993) – asking Armenia to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani territory. The Council of Europe, European Parliament, OSCE and OIC have issued similar statements and resolutions. But Armenia has not implemented any of the UNSC resolutions.

The results of the 1992 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan were devastating. Azerbaijan was the biggest victim, with 20,000 deaths, 50,000 disabled and around one million internally displaced. These refugees, who are originally from Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts, are still living and suffering in refugee camps. It has been estimated that the war and subsequent refugee crisis cost Azerbaijan around US$60 billion.

Under the leadership of Russia, France and the US – as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group — the peace talks have lead nowhere over the course of two decades.

If war breaks out again, it will have a devastating effect on the region, with a debilitating knock-on effect for Europe, which gets much of its oil and gas from Azerbaijan. The international community must put pressure on Armenia to withdraw from the occupied territories. Azerbaijan has already offered greater autonomy to the Nagorno-Karabakh region if a peace agreement is reached.

By C. Raja Mohan*

Call it the “Ram Setu” or “Hanuman Bridge”, the stretch of low-lying banks that connect India to Sri Lanka across the Palk Strait is very much part of the subcontinent’s Ramayana lore. Lord Ram, the story goes, built this bridge with the assistance of Hanuman’s monkey army, walked into Lanka to rescue his consort Sita from King Ravana. That the story has little basis in science is beside the point. What is interesting is the possibility that New Delhi and Colombo can now turn that myth into reality by building a causeway across the 30 km of water between Dhanushkodi near Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and Talaimannar in northern Sri Lanka.

Promoting connectivity, within and across national boundaries, has been a major priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His Sri Lankan counterpart, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is visiting Delhi this week, has been a convert to connectivity long before Modi burst upon India’s national scene. When he was PM of Sri Lanka more than a decade ago, Wickremesinghe had proposed the construction of a land bridge across the Palk Strait. An unenthusiastic Delhi and Chennai said “No, thank you.” What gained political traction instead was the proposal for dredging a shipping channel — the Sethusamudram — in the shallow waters around the tip of peninsular India.

But the prospect that the Sethusamudram canal would cut across the Ram Setu stirred significant opposition from Hindu groups. The environmentalists too expressed strong reservations against a project that could threaten the sensitive marine ecosystem in the Palk Strait. The Sethusamudram project would have deepened the divide between India and Sri Lanka. At a time when much of the world was moving towards transborder transport and energy corridors, the Sethusamudram project wanted to dig the moat between the two countries deeper.

At precisely the moment Sri Lanka was rediscovering its geopolitical centrality in the Indian Ocean and developing ambitious plans to emerge as the maritime hub of the world’s southern seas, Delhi seemed strangely detached from the imperatives of deeper integration with Lanka. If India increasingly viewed Sri Lanka through the prism of the ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamil minority, China began to put the emerald island at the very centre of its Indian Ocean strategy. Delhi’s inability to move forward on transborder infrastructure looked a lot worse in comparison to the dramatic expansion of China’s physical and economic connectivity to India’s neighbours — not just across the Himalayas but in the Indian Ocean as well.

All of India’s neighbours are now part of China’s “one belt, one road” initiative that seeks to integrate the Eurasian land mass as well as the Indian and Pacific Oceans through massive infrastructure projects.

Modi has promised to end India’s sleepwalking on regional connectivity. In his address to the Sri Lankan parliament in March this year, Modi cited the great Tamil poet Subramanya Bharathi to affirm Delhi’s strong commitment to “build a bridge” to Lanka. Modi also travelled to Talaimannar to inaugurate a railway line in northern Sri Lanka that India had built in the last few years. While India’s contribution to rebuilding infrastructure in northern Sri Lanka that was destroyed by the civil war is impressive, Delhi must now focus boldly on transborder connectivity with Sri Lanka.

Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari suggested a couple of months ago that Delhi was now ready to talk about Wickremesinghe’s “Hanuman Bridge”. Gadkari added that the Asian Development Bank was eager to support the project that could cost more than $5 billion. The Hanuman Bridge would connect the road and rail networks in both countries and ease the flow of goods and people across the Palk Strait. Not everyone, however, sees the Hanuman Bridge in positive terms.

Some in Lanka worry that the bridge would undermine its territorial sovereignty and integrity. It was the opposition in Tamil Nadu that compelled Delhi to turn its back on the Hanuman Bridge. This is not surprising, given the prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka and its regional consequences. It’s really up to Modi and Wickremesinghe to make the political and commercial case for the causeway and address the issues raised by opponents on both sides.

South Asian nations have been talking about building bridges across borders for nearly two decades. Over the last year and a half, Modi has lent a new urgency to these connectivity projects. Delhi has backed up the PM’s rhetoric with some actions, most notably the signing of the motor vehicle agreement with three eastern neighbours — Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal — earlier this year. It’s the Hanuman Bridge, however, that could become the most powerful symbol of the subcontinent’s new regionalism.

*The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a Consulting Editor on foreign affairs for ‘The Indian Express’

Courtesy : (The Indian Express) September 15, 2015

Iran’s President Hassan Rohani has announced that the Fordo nuclear facility will be transformed into a center for enrichment and new research in the atomic field.

In a speech at a conference of knowledge-based companies in the field of health, President Rohani said on Wednesday September 16 that the nuclear negotiators discussed the Arak Heavy Water facility for weeks during the negotiations and the parties finally “accepted the heavy water and a 40-megawatt reactor at Arak and modernization of the reactors with collaboration from two member states of the 5+1.”

He added that the facility is dedicated to nuclear medicine and radiopharmaceuticals.

The Arak reactor is a heavy water reactor, and the plutonium produced by it can be used in nuclear weapons. This made the Arak facility a point of serious contention in the nuclear negotiations.

According to the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan reached in Vienna in July, the Arak reactor will be redesigned to prevent it from producing weapons-grade plutonium.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed his country’s commitment to redesign the Arak heavy water reactor. This came following his meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

An earlier report on IRNA confirmed that Russia will also collaborate on the redesign.

A new study by University of California, Berkeley, researchers establishes for the first time a link between infection with the bovine leukemia virus and human breast cancer.

In the study, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE and available online, researchers analyzed breast tissue from 239 women, comparing samples from women who had breast cancer with women who had no history of the disease for the presence of bovine leukemia virus (BLV). They found that 59 percent of breast cancer samples had evidence of exposure to BLV, as determined by the presence of viral DNA. By contrast, 29 percent of the tissue samples from women who never had breast cancer showed exposure to BLV.

“The association between BLV infection and breast cancer was surprising to many previous reviewers of the study, but it’s important to note that our results do not prove that the virus causes cancer,” said study lead author Gertrude Buehring, a professor of virology in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “However, this is the most important first step. We still need to confirm that the infection with the virus happened before, not after, breast cancer developed, and if so, how.”

Bovine leukemia virus infects dairy and beef cattle’s blood cells and mammary tissue. The retrovirus is easily transmitted among cattle primarily through infected blood and milk, but it only causes disease in fewer than 5 percent of infected animals.

A 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture survey of bulk milk tanks found that 100 percent of dairy operations with large herds of 500 or more cows tested positive for BLV antibodies. This may not be surprising since milk from one infected cow is mixed in with others. Even dairy operations with small herds of fewer than 100 cows tested positive for BLV 83 percent of the time.

What had been unclear until recently is whether the virus could be found in humans, something that was confirmed in a study led by Buehring and published last year in Emerging Infectious Diseases. That paper overturned a long-held belief that the virus could not be transmitted to humans.

“Studies done in the 1970s failed to detect evidence of human infection with BLV,” said Buehring. “The tests we have now are more sensitive, but it was still hard to overturn the established dogma that BLV was not transmissible to humans. As a result, there has been little incentive for the cattle industry to set up procedures to contain the spread of the virus.”

The new paper takes the earlier findings a step further by showing a higher likelihood of the presence of BLV in breast cancer tissue. When the data was analyzed statistically, the odds of having breast cancer if BLV were present was 3.1 times greater than if BLV was absent.

“This odds ratio is higher than any of the frequently publicized risk factors for breast cancer, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and use of post-menopausal hormones,” said Buehring.

There is precedence for viral origins of cancer. Hepatitis B virus is known to cause liver cancer, and the human papillomavirus can lead to cervical and anal cancers. Notably, vaccines have been developed for both those viruses and are routinely used to prevent the cancers associated with them.

“If BLV were proven to be a cause of breast cancer, it could change the way we currently look at breast cancer control,” said Buehring. “It could shift the emphasis to prevention of breast cancer, rather than trying to cure or control it after it has already occurred.”

Buehring emphasized that this study does not identify how the virus infected the breast tissue samples in their study. The virus could have come through the consumption of unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat, or it could have been transmitted by other humans.

If the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership moves ahead after further negotiations were held in July, Indian exporters could be disadvantaged. Instead, India must be ready to use the further opening up of huge markets across the Atlantic, and adopt trade policies that mix regionalism and multilateralism.

By Ji Xianbai*

On 17 July 2015, the European Union and the U.S. concluded the 10th round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. The TTIP, an ambitious regional trade liberalisation plan, seems to draw little attention in India, however. From India’s perspective, perhaps other mega trade agreements in process in the Pacific Rim, such as the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), will have a more tangible impact on the country’s fast growing economy.

Since the U.S. and the EU account for 29.6% of India’s exports, [1] the discriminatory trade diversion effect of the TTIP is evident. After all, any accord that dismantles trade barriers across the Atlantic is bound to alter the dynamics of the commercial decision-making of millions of American and European producers. And the vast trans-Atlantic market, already accounting for nearly half of global demand, will only appear more appealing and lucrative than before. [2]

In such a scenario, Indian exporters will be disadvantaged—should the TTIP facilitate the emergence of an integrated, and arguably more inward-looking, trans-Atlantic market. Indeed, multiple simulation studies have confirmed that India will suffer from a decrease in both exports and imports, and therefore a dip in GDP growth, if the TTIP comes to fruition [3, 4].

This should be a wake-up call for those are not quite concerned with the progress made at the TTIP negotiation table.

Some vigilant stakeholders are putting forth proposals about how best India can address this lurking economic challenge. The recommendations typically consist of two elements: unilateral reform aimed at matching the trade cost cut under the TTIP, and a proactive policy alignment with the trade regime that is expected to emerge from TTIP talks. [5]

This advice is valid to some extent. Enhancing domestic economic competitiveness through unilateral trade liberalisation is a positive move, irrespective of the international trading environment. And if the regulatory convergence under the TTIP eventually evolves into a universal regulatory regime, then by adopting the TTIP trade disciplines early on, India will incur fewer adjustment and opportunity costs.

However, these arguments are also flawed, for two reasons. One, unilateral trade liberalisation, despite its widely-acknowledged economic rationale, is a political non-starter in many countries, including India. How can the distant TTIP, largely ignored in the public sphere in India, constitute a forceful enough political impetus to justify painstaking domestic reforms? Two, will the TTIP really be able to set any global standards? The EU and the U.S. cannot decree such standards without the buy-in of other economic powers, [6] and whether China, or even Russia and Brazil will agree remains unknown.

Instead of accommodating the TTIP unreservedly, India’s interests will be better served if it adopts multipronged trade policies that mix regionalism and multilateralism.

For this, India can further the regional forums and frameworks of which it is a part, notably RCEP and the BRICS grouping—this will also be an effective balance against the TTIP (and the TPP). The RCEP and BRICS both work on an incremental consensus-based mechanism, and this gives India greater strategic space and leverage to assert leadership to cultivate a geoeconomic as well as geopolitical order that is conducive to its unique development and growth realities.

In contrast, conforming to the stringent, complex, and intrusive WTO-plus rules being negotiated by advanced economies without consultation with developing countries may not be in India’s best interests. Instead, India can participate in the RCEP, the “developing countries FTA”, more constructively to push for a comprehensive deal that covers trade not only in goods but also in services, where India’s traditional comparative advantages lie.

India must also forge a closer economic relationship with China, another global economic giant that is being excluded from both the TPP and TTIP. Admittedly, freer trade with China has always been a controversial issue for India, not least because of India’s persistent trade deficits with China and the recurring spats at the contested borders. But connecting itself to the booming transnational production networks in East Asia and taking advantage of China’s economic transition, which favours consumption over exports under the RCEP, will undoubtedly do more good than harm to India.

In the context of BRICS, the newly-established New Development Bank will also help address India’s infrastructural bottlenecks and boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘Make in India’ schemes.

But trade agreements, as long as they are not multilateral, can facilitate the economic isolation of participants from the rest of the world. Therefore, ultimately, inclusive multilateralism as opposed to exclusive regionalism will work better for the world and India. After all, only around 5-25% of India’s external trade is covered by shallow regional trade deals with low preferential margins. [7]

Many perceive the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda as moribund, but the current stalemate arose partly because developing countries, suffering from an unfair deal after the Uruguay Round, adopted a rather rigid and defensive stance in the Doha Round. However, developing countries, including India, must now reconsider their strategy at the WTO and decide wisely if continuing to filibuster the DDA while watching the rise of preferential mega-FTAs is genuinely a better option for themselves than striking a less-than-optimal balance at the WTO.

At the same time, the TTIP, as an unprecedented FTA between the world’s largest economies, has important implications for India. India should be ready to exploit the opportunities that result from the further opening up of gigantic markets across the Atlantic, and carefully hedge against the negative economic as well as political externalities that comes with a more fragmented global trading system.

About the author:
Ji Xianbai is a PhD candidate at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He holds the prestigious Nanyang President’s Graduate Scholarship, and is an associate fellow at the European Union Centre in Singapore.

Source:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

References:
[1] Department of Commerce, Government of India, Export Import Data Bank, <http://commerce.nic.in/eidb/ecnt.asp>

[2] P. Gallagher, 2015, TTIP as seen from the Antipodes, In M.S. Akman, S.J. Evenett, and P. Low, eds. Catalyst? TTIP’s impact on the Rest. London: CEPR Press.

[3] A. Freytag, P. Draper, and S. Fricke, 2014, The Impact of TTIP Volume 1: Economic Effects on the Transatlantic Partners, Third Countries and the Global Trade Order. Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.

[4] V. Thorsetensen, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, International Trade: Challenges Ahead, <http://unctad.org/meetings/en/Presentation/cimem5_2014_Thorstensen.pdf>

[5] H.V. Singh, TTIP and India: Potential implications and reactions. In M.S. Akman, S.J. Evenett, and P. Low, eds. Catalyst? TTIP’s impact on the Rest, 2015, London: CEPR Press.

[6] P. Gallagher, 2015, TTIP as seen from the Antipodes, In M.S. Akman, S.J. Evenett, and P. Low, eds. Catalyst? TTIP’s impact on the Rest, 2015, London: CEPR Press.

[7] R.K. Singh, 2014, India’s Trade Policy Options, The Diplomat, <http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/indias-trade-policy-options/>

Has Hardik Patel done more harm than good to the Patel community? The Patels of the US say that their credibility has been tarnished by the protests in Gujarat. Seema Sirohi talks to Patels in America and assesses their mood.

By Seema Sirohi

Settled across the oceans, the Patels in the United States are watching the quota agitation in Gujarat with interest but many are unhappy at being thrust into the limelight for largely the wrong reasons.

While they agree that the issue of reservations affects education opportunities for the young and must be addressed but not in the manner of the current protests.

They don’t believe in the public relations maxim – all attention is marketable in the end. Most are not keen to jump into the fray and take sides for or against Hardik Patel, the 22-year-old who currently may have the maximum name recognition after Sardar Patel. But most Patels of America don’t want negative association with their formidable last name.

The violence around the Aug. 25 rally by Hardik Patel has resonated in the community here. The wanton destruction of property in Gujarat by protestors has especially alarmed the Patels here whose chosen field of investment is hotels.

The Patels have become synonymous with the motel and hotel industry over the years, carving a niche for themselves through hard work and support networks of family and community. They now own between 40 and 50 percent of the mid- to low- end hotel properties in the United States.

They have climbed up the economic ladder steadily but not without facing open discrimination from the insurance industry which at one time used to refuse to insure their properties. They simply created their own.

There are hundreds of stories of how a Patel buys a cheap motel in some depressed little town, finds enough money through the Patel network to put a down payment, moves in and employs family members for all the chores, stripping costs down to minimum.

Staying under the radar is a skill that came in handy, especially in the 60s and 70s when they began arriving on these shores from India and East Africa with low fluency in English and low funds. Although they are living their American dream, the ties to Gujarat and the larger family back home are still strong.

They say the name and the credibility of Patels are being tarnished because of the protests. Danny Patel, a widely respected Georgia-based community leader, says that Hardik Patel should have found a way to “communicate with the government about whatever concerns he had” instead of allowing the protests to turn violent. “This is not the way to go.”

Danny Patel also dismissed reports that some Patels in New Jersey had held a meeting and advised the community in India to stop paying taxes. He said a particular group was playing politics and there was no move to embarrass Prime Minister Narendra Modi by boycotting his visit to later this month.

Modi was chief minister of Gujarat for four terms but now he has different responsibilities. The responsibility to address the problem of the reservations lies with the current chief minister, Anandiben Patel, says Danny Patel.

Whether some Patels in the US support the agitation in India is difficult to determine. There are no media reports, including in the Gujarati language outlets, of a meeting being held in Edison, New Jersey, where the boycott pledge was reportedly taken.

But in Gujarat, Lalji Patel, the leader of the Sardar Patel Group, which is now leading a separate agitation for quotas having split from Hardik Patel’s group, claimed the Patel community in the US was behind him. He mentioned a meeting in Edison attended by a thousand Patels where it was decided the community should send a “strong message” to Modi by boycotting his visit.

Different shades of opinion are to be expected in a group as large as the Patels in America – it the most common last name in the Indian American community. A study of the 2000 census revealed that there were 145,000 Patels in the United States.

The younger generation looks at the Gujarat agitation differently. Pratik Patel, head of a property management company called REM Hospitality with a specialty in hotels, says reservations should be based on need and merit and not on caste because there are rich and poor members in each community. The issue should not be seen as a “Patel issue” or any other caste-based quotas.

“India is a little too modern for caste now. The limitations of caste must go. If India wants to go to the next phase, it shouldn’t hold back talent.”

Pratik Patel, who grew up in San Antonio, Texas, talked about how Asian Americans face discrimination in admissions to US universities because they are presumed to be wealthier than other ethnic groups even though it may not be the case. “You need to have fair access for all.”

*Seema Sirohi is a Washington-based analyst and a frequent contributor to Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Seema is also on Twitter, and her handle is @seemasirohi

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet says at least three people have died in a powerful 8.3 earthquake and several strong aftershocks that have prompted the evacuation of the coast and a tsunami warning.

President Bachelet appeared on television late Wednesday to report the death toll from the quake, which occurred just before 8 p.m. local time.

“Once again we must confront a powerful blow from nature,” she said, recalling the 2010 earthquake that took the lives of 500 people and leveled parts of the Chilean city of Concepcion.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says hazardous waves more than three meters above normal tides are possible for the entire Chilean coast, which stretches more than 4,200 kilometers.

Higher than normal waves are also possible as far south as Antarctica and as far west as Malaysia. The U.S. National Weather Service has issued a tsunami warning for the Pacific island state of Hawaii. New Zealand has issued tsunami warnings for parts of its coast.

The mayor of the coastal town of Illapel, north of Santiago and near the epicenter of the quake, reported that one of the three deaths was in Illapel, and the town is without power. Flooding has been reported in some coastal cities. Santiago has evacuated its main airport. Boats are heading out to sea and people on land are leaving coastal areas for higher ground.

Wednesday’s quake was centered about 500 kilometers north of Santiago and was felt as far away as Buenos Aires, on the opposite side of the continent.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby has said via Twitter that the United States stands “Ready to assist as needed.” He said “Our thoughts are with the people of Chile tonight.”

A magnitude 8.8 earthquake and resulting tsunami hit south-central Chile in 2010, killing more than 500 people and destroying more than 200 homes.