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Will Japan’s Apologies Ever Be Enough? – OpEd

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Prime Minister Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII) has been criticised as insincere. However, this view holds Japan to an almost impossibly high standard of repentance that can never be fulfilled. Political dynamics within China mean Beijing has an active interest in never accepting Japanese apologies.

By Shogo Suzuki*

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s speech on Japan and its role in World War II was eagerly anticipated. Given his past as a nationalist conservative, there were fears that Abe would seek to revise the general tone of the Murayama speech of 1995, which was more forthcoming in admitting to Japanese imperial aggression in the past. In the end, it appeared that common sense prevailed.

Abe mentioned Japan’s “aggression” and expressed Japan’s “repentance”, “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology for its actions during the war”. This speech demonstrated that Abe himself had recognised—regardless of his personal views on history—that “historical revisionism” which sought to whitewash Japanese wrongdoing in the past would not enjoy any international support. Abe wisely decided not to sacrifice Japan’s diplomatic interests on his ideological altar.

Unfulfilled expectations

Yet, many of Japan’s critics in China remain dissatisfied. Chinese commentators have doubted Abe’s sincerity. Some were unhappy with the perfunctory nature of Abe’s depiction of the process by which Japan came to launch its aggressive war in the 1930s.

Another point of concern was Abe’s statement that “[i]n Japan, the postwar generations now exceed eighty per cent of its population. We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologise”.

One important point to make clear from the outset is that the decision to forgive is the prerogative of the victims alone. It would be inappropriate for Japan to tell victim states that it was time to “move on”, and ultimately Japan should continue to express its remorse until the victim states accept its apology. Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that no matter what Tokyo does, Beijing will never be “satisfied”, and Japan’s exasperation towards China is partially understandable.

Overly idealistic expectations for state apologies

First, China seems to hold Japan to almost impossibly high standards of “apologising”. States are actually very bad “apologisers”, for a number of reasons. For a start, it is very hard for states to “apologise,” because they are corporate actors. Just because a state’s leaders fall short of acknowledging past wrongdoing, this does not necessarily mean that there exists a collective failure of its citizens to come to terms with the future. Given that state leaders come and go, it is possible that the degree to which each leader acknowledges the past will vary.

However, this does not axiomatically mean that one leader’s failure to apologise denotes a collective lack of guilt. In fact, the proportion of Japanese citizens who acknowledge Japan’s war as a war of aggression has grown, particularly since the 1980s. An NHK poll conducted on the eve of Abe’s speech indicated that 42% of Japanese thought that some form of apology should be included. Only 15% were opposed. A Yomiuri poll conducted in October 2005 also indicated that 68% of Japanese citizens believed that Japan was the aggressor in the 1931-45 Sino-Japanese war. Such figures can hardly come from a state unrepentant about its past.

In the case of Japan, however, there seems to be a simplistic tendency among many critics to fault Japanese society as a whole whenever a prominent politician makes a gaffe that upsets Chinese sensibilities. Japanese politicians are hardly ever elected on a “history ticket”, but more on the basis of their policies on the economy and social welfare, just like any other democracies. Critics also fail to differentiate between a small number of irresponsible Japanese politicians and the majority of Japanese citizens, and often come to an almost knee-jerk conclusion that Japan “has taken a turn for the right” or “refuses to acknowledge its wrongdoing”.

Unrealistic expectations for Japan to become like Germany

Chinese critics—often with the encouragement of their European counterparts—also like to use Germany as a shining example of the state that has made the “model apology”, and often chide Japan for not doing likewise. While there are certainly some lessons to be learnt, we need to be mindful of that Germany is a special case, and holding Japan to the same standard is unrealistic. The Holocaust has captured the public’s imagination as one of the most chilling cases of genocide and an unprecedented failure of human morality. The German state has thus come under exceptional international pressure to overcome its exceptional crimes. Japanese war crimes have—rightly or wrongly—not been framed in the same way.

Given this context, it is Germany that is unique, and Japan should not be seen a state that is unusually incapable of coming to terms with its past. Japan is probably on par with other countries that have an equally embarrassing record of imperialist aggression. Japan could do more, but it would be unrealistic to expect it to change overnight to become “more like Germany”.

Domestic politics of the victim states

Domestic politics provide an additional reason to suspect that no apology from Japan is ever going to be enough for the PRC. First, the “history card” has proved to be a useful bargaining chip to exert political leverage on Japan in the past. It would be naïve to expect Beijing to suddenly give this up by “forgiving” Japan.

In a typical way of using the “history card”, the PRC has cynically linked the recent dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands with Japan’s “incorrect view” of history, even though the dispute has more to do with competing interpretations of the laws on territoriality. This means that no amount of apologies would suffice unless Japan decides to relinquish its claims to the islands.

Neither has the Chinese government offered any concrete proposals as to what Japan could do to facilitate reconciliation, despite frequently chiding Tokyo to show “sincerity”. Beijing has effectively moved the goalpost for providing a “satisfactory apology”, and it probably will continue to do so whenever it suits its political interests.

Reconciliation is ultimately a two-way process. While Chinese critics of Japan’s “failure to face history squarely” have reasons to be disappointed, they need to appreciate that the Chinese side has also allowed the “history issue” to fester, and their sometimes impractical benchmark for an “apology” practically means that no Japanese apologies are ever going to be enough. This only exacerbates “apology fatigue” within Japan. Unless Beijing makes an effort to accept Tokyo’s apologies and endorse it as a reformed state, disputes over history will continue to bedevil Sino-Japanese relations.

*Shogo Suzuki is Senior Lecturer of Politics at the University of Manchester. This is the second in a series commemorating the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of WWII, contributed specially to RSIS Commentary.


Nepal: The Birth Of New Freedoms? – OpEd

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Despite so many dissenting voices, demonstrations, mass killings and shootings, the long-awaited constitution has at last been delivered by the Constituent Assembly. It is the outcome of almost 70 years of struggle by the people, a bloody civil war, and subsequent mass protests, killings and a continuous political dialogue that has lasted for nearly two decades. The dream of constitution making by the CA has been a costly project in resources, money, time and human life.

Its delivery is, however, a welcome first step, a point of departure in that it provides for us all a political platform on which the nation and its people can stand. The question is: will it prove to be the answer? Will it even survive? It may represent the culmination of a long political transition, but large parts of our population still believe that their demands and voices have been ignored during the drafting process. The first and foremost responsibility of the government now is to bring opposing voices into the mainstream. If their demands are genuine and pragmatic, they must be addressed without conditions.

I, myself, have many reservations over provisions in the newborn constitution that relate to federalism, secularism, citizenship and forms of governance. The document is in many respects too long, vague and boring and does not provide a clear meaning. The preamble of any constitution is supposed to be lucid and punchy, but here there is so much ambiguity.

Moreover, the new constitution represents merely the interests of a few political parties and their bosses but not the will of the people in general.

That said, however, it must, nevertheless, be seen to open new doors and platforms for further political conversation on dissenting issues between all political stakeholders. In that case the newborn constitution could come to be celebrated as a victorious and historic accomplishment through which all political forces will be able to seek peaceful solutions to our many problems.

This article seeks to comment on the fundamental human rights enshrined in the new constitution and their implications for the future. The document is certainly one of the most comprehensive in providing fundamental freedoms and human rights. It incorporates a complete set of civil, political, economic and social rights – all on equal footing. It provides all kinds of political freedoms and other economic and social rights including the right to housing, food, employment, and welfare rights, rights of the child and of women, rights for elderly people, right to health and most importantly comprehensive rights for dalits and other vulnerable people. It means that the new constitution goes much further than its predecessors in securing the rights of the people and its fundamental rights go far beyond anything provided by any other country in the world. The big question is: how easy will it be for the state to translate them into reality?

There are so many hopes and aspirations among our people who wish very much to escape from poverty and the daily struggles of life. They would prefer to live in dignity doing as they please. However, all human rights are costly to realize and address in a proper manner. The huge question is: are the rights now to be provided by the constitution achievable immediately? Will there be sufficient resources to address all in the near future? Moreover, will the given rights have any real meaning unless they are backed by strong economic, social and institutional enforcement mechanisms?

Firstly, the rights enshrined in the new constitution will only provide avenues towards achieving the desired goals. To realize any rights in a proper manner, the state will need to formulate proper strategies and planning. The rights themselves will need to be backed by strong policies backed in turn by consistent and liberal laws, rules, and regulations. People have so much hope, and they wish to see positive results on the ground. The manner and attitudes of old will no longer work in the changed political context. The state must amend its attitude, manner and way of working, and provide a service to its people from the household level to the market place and from the industry level to the public office. Otherwise the newly granted constitutional rights will remain nothing more than black letter laws as they were before.

Secondly, the constitutionally enshrined fundamental rights language must not be used purely to benefit the interests of a few dominant groups who have traditionally had better access to the courts and other institutions. We must utilize these rights to empower the poor and the vulnerable. The first and foremost plan for the state must be to provide and fulfill the minimum essential level of housing, health and food for all. A special focus must be placed on those who are living below the poverty line. Any law and constitution that fails to back the poor or does not represent the soul of the marginalized is doomed to failure.

Thirdly, strong and dynamic mechanisms must be introduced to realize and instutionalize the given rights in a proper manner. Clear institutional responsibilities must be established. The increasing embodiment of rights norms in institutional and public policy, as well as changing rules regarding how decisions for meeting basic needs are made, will create incentives for the state to fulfill its obligations. The court of law must be accessible to all. Several specific factors facilitate the use of judicial mechanisms for human rights enforcement, including access to court and legal resources, removal of procedural hurdles, capacity building for group litigants, a nonpartisan judicial appointment process and a construct of legal competence through legal training. The human rights commission and anti-corruption bodies must be made more independent of government. Armed forces must be trained. A culture of respect for human rights must be established at all levels of politics.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of the peace process is to address the rights violations, abuses and extra-judicial killings of the conflict era: without that the peace process will never be complete. The truth and disappearance commission is already working on this, but all stakeholders, political forces and the new government must play a role in genuinely helping to establish the truth of what happened, to punish the perpetrators and to compensate the victims. If we wish to establish a durable peace in the country, violence, killings and destruction must never become a political tool for change. Such acts must be interpreted as crimes against the people and against humanity as a whole. The lives of individuals must not be treated as cheaply as they have before. Now the focus must be on punishing all human rights violators. Thus, we shall achieve the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms in our country.

A constitution is a dynamic political document, and its making is a never ending political process. Interpretations by the apex court and the making of liberal laws and policies to back up the provisions of the fundamental rights will make the given rights more pragmatic and achievable. The comprehensive set of fundamental rights as enshrined in the new constitution must be used as a weapon to make a difference to the lives of ordinary people. These rights must be used to power the powerless and to grant a voice to the voiceless. They must be able to serve the needs and hopes of the people. Otherwise the very essence of human rights will be meaningless. Continued dialogue and persuasion are vital to legitimize the rhetoric of human rights and empower individuals making rights claims.

The Gulf: Not All That’s Gold Glitters – Analysis

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Gleaming glass skyscrapers, state-of-the-art technology, and wealthy merchant families have replaced the Gulf’s muddy towns and villages populated by traders and pearl fishers that once lacked electricity, running water or modern communications. The region’s modern day projection of a visionary cutting- edge, 21st century urban environment masks however the fact that some things have not changed.

Gulf states continue to be ruled by the same families, generation after generation. The families have become what an Emirati regime critic, Yousif Khalifa al-Yousif, termed “an institution of entitlement.”1 Alongside autocrats, the region also remains home to holy warriors and modern-day pirates. The principle of governance that what is good for business is good for the village-turned-nation still guides rulers who rank among the region’s foremost businessmen.

If, however, the region’s physical transformation speaks to an almost unitary vision of modernity, its politics tell a very different story, one of deep-seated social conservatism despite concessions in some states to cultural attributes of expatriate communities, resistance to political change, and a clinging to the status quo at whatever price.

Close tribal ties, intermarriage between ruling families and an intertwining of tribal economic relations compensate for weak institutionalization. Concepts of conflict of interest are moreover blurred with little distinction between the economic and commercial interests of the state and those of ruling families. Dubai’s foremost governing institutions, ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Executive Office, his private staff, and his Executive Council or Cabinet operate in obscurity with no clear legal anchor.

“The problem in discussing concepts like leadership and vision is that the Gulf and its Western partners use the same terms but understand them very differently. There is no institutionalized decision-making in the Gulf. Leadership in the Gulf amounts to a few members of a family taking decisions in private. The need for greater efficiency and demands for more transparency are balanced with the region’s traditional method of consensus,” said a Western diplomat.2

Demands for institutionalization and transparency reflect far more fundamental changes that Gulf leaders have to come to grips with. Those changes are driven by populations that in majority are under the age of 30, oil and gas revenues that in the medium term will be unable to sustain rulers’ cradle-to- grave social contract with their populations, and communication technologies that render censorship and non-transparency increasingly meaningless. They guide former US ambassador Gary A. Grappo’s description of the environment that ailing Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s successor will encounter, but are equally true for all Gulf leaders.

“Qaboos’ successor will confront challenges nearly as great as those Qaboos faced in the first years of his reign in the early 1970s. Omanis today are much better educated and more engaged, and will want to see change. They will want to play a role in determining the direction of their country. They will also want and need to see a transformation in the country’s economy away from dependence on comparatively sparse hydrocarbon reserves to other areas that will ensure the country’s continued prosperity and standard of living and, most important, produce jobs for a rapidly growing population… Vision will be the defining challenge of Qaboos’ successor,” Grappo said.3

That vision, Grappo argued, would have to involve gradual liberalization including a greater devolution of decision-making authority to a consultative council, allowing it to prepare and approve budgets; greater press freedom and transparency; lifting of restrictions on civil society organizations; economic diversification; and inclusion of minority cultures in the preservation of Omani culture. Grappo’s prescriptions are applicable across the Gulf. His list is easily expandable to include notions of a gradual transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy, decriminalization of non-violent opposition activity, and social and economic policies that are inclusionary.

Grappo’s vision entails the kind of boldness and risk taking that has become the trademark of Dubai’s ruling Al Maktoum family in the last two centuries but has yet to be applied to the challenges facing today’s rulers in the region. For now, Gulf rulers have sought to fine tune the status quo by casting themselves in the role of protectors of national and tribal identity, traditions and heritage; projecting themselves as agents of the transition from energy-driven to post-oil and knowledge-based economies and of greater independence by asserting themselves politically and militarily; and seeking to enhance their countries’ international status by hosting mega events like the 2020 Expo in Dubai and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

To be sure, the need to prepare for a post-oil era in the Gulf is immediate. Newly born in all Gulf states with the exception of Qatar and Kuwait are expected to witness their countries running out of fossil energy resources within their lifetimes.4 That gives rulers at best several decades to diversify their economies – a transition that involves more than simply developing new economic sectors. It will require revamping education systems to match labour supply and demand; motivating citizenry to depend less on government jobs, handouts and subsidies; streamlining bureaucracies; and rewriting social contracts already threatened by fiscal tightening.

Looming in the back of the minds of Gulf leaders is the memory of Algeria where a collapse in oil prices in the 1980s put an end to the social contract. Protests erupted as incomes dropped and inflation and unemployment increased. The country slipped into civil war that ultimately ended with a revival of the social contract on the back of rising oil prices.

Unlike Algeria, Gulf leaders have the financial muscle to weather a storm for some time. But more fundamentally as The Economist recently noted, Gulf states “may have learned many lessons from the past but there is one that remains largely undigested. Despite innumerable warning and innumerable failed attempts to diversify their economies away from oil, nearly all of them still rely on the sticky stuff to get by. With relentlessly growing populations and public expectations, it is still only a matter of time before the crunch comes.”5

The Singapore model

Gulf leaders look to Singapore, a city state that has developed within a matter of decades from an impoverished island with no resources into a first world state and global hub with a highly diversified economy, as their model. It is a model that combines authoritarianism with empowerment. Delegations from the Gulf travel to Singapore to discover the secret of its success and enlist Singaporean institutions to assist them in developing for example education systems.

“Singapore is an authoritarian success story. It is everything the Gulf wants to be and never will be,” said a long-standing observer of both Singapore and the Gulf states. “It has the three key attributes the Gulf lacks: a high degree of institutionalization; transparent rule of law; and a population that despite restricted freedoms is empowered,” the observer said.6

The UAE, home to 200 nationalities, unlike countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain has adopted one aspect of Singapore, traumatized by its expulsion from Malaysia in the 1960s and race riots at the time that few analysts have focused on: the building of a society that sees diversity as an asset and respects different cultures and faiths. Like Qatar, the UAE recognized that tight political control did not preclude the building of a society whose cultural and racial tolerance is steeped in Islam in an effort to ensure domestic stability and counter extremism. Up to a third of the UAE’s population is non-Muslim.

Amid mounting international criticism that Gulf states have failed to pull their weight in welcoming refugees from the mayhem in Syria, Gulf News reported that some 100,000 Syrians had been allowed into the UAE since 2011. In an official statement, the UAE declared in mid-September the Syrian refugee crisis a foreign policy priority that it was tackling “in a sustainable and humane fashion together with its regional and international partners.”7

Emirati writer Maria Hanif recently compared the UAE to Al Andalus, the Islamic empire in Iberia established in the 8th century that has become a reference point for Muslim tolerance, pluralism and the productive and harmonious interaction of Arabs, Jews and Christians.

“The UAE, just like Al Andalus…is home to hundreds of nationalities and various religions and sects, each free to practise their religious beliefs so long as they do not attack or undermine the other. It has also become a target for constant criticism by extremists for that very reason. Most recently the UAE came under attack after having announced allocation of a plot in the capital Abu Dhabi for the construction of a Hindu temple to serve the Hindu population of the country (which makes up 25 per cent of the population)… The UAE stands strong against the preachers of discrimination and intolerance, with an unwavering conviction that pluralism is the very foundation that built this country,” Hanif argued in Gulf News.8

Politics on the other hand weaves a tale of regional rivalries and leaders’ different visions of how to balance modernity with social and political conservatism and how to ensure regime survival and maintain a regional security environment which is dependent on a US defence umbrella that is increasingly perceived by Gulf states as unreliable.

Compounding the region’s leadership challenge is the progressive breakdown of a social contract based on a cradle-to-grave welfare state that assists citizens even in the cost of getting married in exchange for surrender of political rights. For more than a decade Gulf leaders starting with the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have been nibbling away at the welfare state in a bid to rationalize government finances and foster national identity.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Gulf states to rationalize spending that has ballooned with increased military budgets and billions of dollars in handouts designed to pacify potentially restless populations. 9

“Cuts in social spending and subsidies are a difficult proposition given populations who expect to receive rather than give,” said a Gulf analyst.10

Cloaked in elegant traditional flowing robes and head dresses, Gulf leaders project an image of conservatism and adversity to risk. Yet, risk is at the core of their varied leaps towards modernity fuelled by phenomenal oil and gas revenues and a bid to fend off pressure for change that informs Saudi, Emirati and Qatari visions of the future rooted in late 18th and early 19th century tribal leadership.

Some risks and threats are inevitable in the drive for modernity such as the influx of expatriates and migrant labour that has turned the region’s demographics upside down and raised questions of societies’ sustainability and viability for which there are no good answers.

Others are the immutable result of restrictive and discriminatory policies that have transformed popular revolts into battles ranging from inflexible attitudes towards naturalization, low-intensity conflict in Bahrain to civil war in Syria; given holy warriors like the Islamic State a new lease on life; driven sectarian tensions that have sparked wars in Iraq and Yemen; and fuelled discontent among majority and minority populations alike.

Gulf leaders’ hopes that violence and brutality that followed most of the 2011 revolts coupled with their determined counterrevolutionary strategies at home and abroad would cow restless populations were dashed this summer. Mass anti-government demonstrations erupted in Lebanon and Iraq demanding an end to corruption and improved services and lowly paid policemen and tax authority officials protested in Egypt, a mainstay of the Saudi and UAE-backed regime of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

Similarly, there is little reason to assume that Gulf states despite successful co-optation and repressive policies are immune to anti-government protest. Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia witnessed mass demonstrations in recent years. Gulf youth have said in surveys that democracy was a top priority for them even though recent developments have dampened their hopes.11 Financial muscle has allowed several Gulf states to buy precious time with generous handouts but reduced oil revenues forcing economic rationalization spotlight the fragility of such safety valves.

Nothing highlights the need to broaden the focus of vision and leadership in the Gulf like the region’s lack of inclusiveness, incapability and unwillingness to address what some analysts describe as a ticking time bomb: the Bidoun or Without, hundreds of thousands of predominantly Gulf Arabs who are denied citizenship despite having often populated the rank of file of national armies. Most are Bedouin from the region with a sprinkling of migrants from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan who destroyed their documents in a failed bid to ensure that they would be granted citizenship as Gulf states achieved independence.

In the UAE, Bidoun are denied benefits enjoyed by Emiratis such as free education, health care, and housing allowances. Finding employment is difficult because they lack passports needed to obtain work permits. Demanding their rights puts them at risk of arrest or deportation as writer and activist Ahmed Abdul Khaleq found out in 2012 when he was deported to Thailand for campaign online for Bidoun rights.12

The worst fears of Kuwaiti politicians who have called on the Kuwaiti government for the past 30 years to solve the Bidoun problem became reality in June when the driver of a car that took a Saudi to a Shiite mosque where his suicide bomb killed 26 worshippers and wounded 200 others turned out to be a Bidoun.13

Kuwaiti media reported that 13 of the 29 people arrested in the wake of the attacks were Bidoun. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.14 Afraid to single out the Bidoun, Kuwaiti officials and analysts were quick to identify Bidoun involvement as part of a broader process of radicalization among Sunni Muslims.

Vision with pitfalls

Gulf leaders face identical problems and share similar visions of their place in the international community. Yet, their strategies to get from A to B, approaches to notions of national and regional security, perceptions of development, and responses to domestic and international criticism vary widely. The differences in vision range from the economic and commercial brashness of Dubai, to Qatar’s well thought through but poorly executed soft power strategy, to Saudi Arabia’s high-risk use of financial and military muscle supported by the UAE’s increasing projection of itself as a regional military power. In projecting itself militarily, the UAE benefitted from having participated in virtually every U.S.-led coalition campaign since 1991.

Beyond demographics, other limitations of the varying visions are also becoming increasingly obvious. Abu Dhabi had to bail out Dubai’s real estate driven model when the emirate in 2008 suffered the world’s steepest property slump with home prices dropping 50 percent and had to reschedule some $120 billion in debt.

The bail out together with the collapse in 2013 of low budget airline Bahrain Air also raised long-term questions about the Gulf’s fundamental business model in which the state is the primary economic driver. Gulf airlines have emerged as major players in aviation benefitting from the region’s geography as well as its ability to profit from changing patterns in international trade and politics.

“In a part of the world where almost every other airline is subsidized…it was always going to be difficult to be truly profitable. There is not enough point-to-point traffic, and regional connecting traffic yields are too low to sustain an airline. So it was always going to struggle by traditional measures,” Bahrain Air CEO Richard Nutall told The Aviation Writer.15

The Dubai bail out highlighted the different visions of the emirate and Abu Dhabi visions and the dynamics of the power relationship between the two key states in the UAE. Rather than opting for Dubai’s brashness, relative autonomy and commercial drive, Abu Dhabi relies on the creation of a military-industrial complex, nuclear and renewable energy programs, and its wealth to cement its dominant position in the federation, and ensure its ability to project regional and international power.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s successful effort to host the 2022 World Cup has with US and Swiss legal investigations into the integrity of its bid and widespread criticism of the Gulf-wide migrant labour kafala or sponsorship system that puts employees at the mercy of their employers turned into a public relations nightmare.

Saudi Arabia’s harsh justice system with its public beheadings, its war in Yemen that is bombing the Gulf’s poorest nation into even greater abject poverty, and its puritan interpretation of Islam that deprives women of basic rights has made it all but a pariah state tolerated because of its financial largess and geo-strategic importance.

Compounding the downside of the varying visions are the budgetary consequences of expensive hard and soft power strategies at a time of dropping oil prices that raise the spectre of budget deficits and are forcing Gulf states to nibble at the edges of the cradle-to-grave welfare state that underwrites relative social peace. The IMF estimates that falling global oil prices will cost the Gulf an estimated $380 billion in export earnings this year.

Dubai’s vision is in your face. Superlatives are its trademark. Its skyline boasts its rulers’ long-standing knack for bold decisions and an insatiable and unashamedly ambitious drive to implant itself in the mind of every one of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants developed by Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, the current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid’s father.

“Rashid wanted the name of his town, Dubai, on the lips of every person on earth. When a family sat down to dinner in America, Rashid wanted them to discuss the happenings of Dubai. And when two Englishmen paused for a glass of beer, it was Dubai he wished them to talk about. Farmers in China, bankers in Switzerland, and generals in Russia: all of them must know about Dubai,” wrote Jim Krane, author of City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism.16

The list of Dubai’s biggest, best, the richest, newest, most luxurious, most over the top, and most expensive projects is long. It includes the world’s biggest mall, indoor ski slope, artificial islands, the world’s tallest building and largest man-made port, the largest ever New Year’s fireworks and LED screen, the world’s only seven-star hotel, the Middle East’s top financial centre and plans for the world’s largest amusement park and even larger indoor ski facility.

Nothing seems to bold or outrageous as long as it fulfils Sheikh Rashid’s vision of keeping Dubai Inc. in the global public eye. Catchy slogans and slick advertising and public relations put Dubai on the world map.

“Dubai and the Gulf states are very good at projecting. On paper, they look like they are responding to modernity and the obsessions of the international community. It’s all the product of having hired good communication companies,” said a Western official with long-standing experience in the Gulf.17

Sultan Sood Al Qassimi, a UAE businessman, author and art collector who is a critical member of Sharjah’s ruling family, quipped last month when Qatar announced for the umpteenth time in response to international criticism of its labour regime that it was introducing major reforms: “Every few months a Gulf state issues a similar statement.”18

Bold gambles

Much of Dubai’s contemporary model is rooted in history. Sheikh Rashid’s bold notion of ‘build and the will come’ anticipated British tycoon Richard Branson’s principle of ‘screw it, let’s do it.’ In doing so, Rashid set a template for development that has been to a large degree adopted by the Gulf flush with oil money after the 1973 oil crisis.

For Sheikh Mohammed, the metaphor was trees. Answering a question about the source of his vision by someone close to him, Sheikh Mohammed replied Bedouin style by recounting a story. He described how he planted trees when he was building a house in Armoun in the desert. Sheikh Mohammed noticed that birds interrupted their migration to spend a few days in his trees. So he planted more trees and more birds came. Eventually they settled instead of continuing their migration.19

“In Sheikh Mohammed’s mind, the way to do things is by nature and by natural law. Things take their natural order. If he planted trees in Dubai, if he offered opportunity, people would stop in Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed came from a large family. He had to find his own place and did that with natural opportunity,” the person close to Sheikh Mohammed said.

Comparing differing approaches between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, people close to the rulers of both emirates noted that Abu Dhabi’s geography of islands meant that they ensured that their forts were looking inwards. Sitting on the Creek, Dubai was forced to look outwards so that it could attract the attention of passing merchant vessels and fend off pirates. “The difference in attitude of the two families is reflected in how they approach everything,” one person said.20

The very presence in Dubai of the Maktoums signalled their knack for bold gambles that more often than not have paid off over the past two centuries. Unhappy with internecine tribal infighting initiated by their cousins and later rulers of Abu Dhabi, the Al Nahayans, the Maktoums decamped in the first half of the 19th century from their ancestral oasis of Liwa and headed for an forlorn fishing village on the coast.21 There was then little reason to assume that Dubai would serve as a useful base, let alone become a 21st century, hyper-modern global hub.

The Maktoums took their bold gamble a step further when in the late 1890s and early 1900s they laid the foundations for Dubai as a free port by abolishing customs, tariffs and vessel licensing in a move that was also designed to ensure that Dubai would serve as the anchor for Britain’s colonial presence in the Gulf. The moves gave Dubai an edge over Iranian-controlled ports on the Arab side of the Gulf that had imposed taxes to provide revenue for a cash-strapped Iranian administration.

Sheikh Maktoum bin Hasher similarly embraced the need to import people to bolster Dubai’s sparse population. They first targeted disgruntled Gulf merchants hit by Iranian tax increases. Next was the Iranian business community that was offered free land and easy access to the ruler and promised that the government would not intervene in their affairs. Merchants were later enticed and co-opted with government contracts and monopolistic trade licenses.22

In contrast to today, the Maktoums like other Gulf Arabs at the time embraced the Bedouin ritual of hospitality for strangers irrespective who they were. Migrants, unlike modern day expatriates and migrant labour, were encouraged to make Dubai their permanent home rather than accept an arrangement that ended with their departure once they had fulfilled their contractual obligations

At the time, the Maktoums recognized the multiple benefits of migration. It was a lesson they had learnt from their own migration from Liwa. Migrants were the stuff that would make Sheikh Rashid’s dream a reality. They were an asset, one that Dubai was eager to hold on to, not the necessary evil utility that the Gulf tolerates today because it has no choice but sees as a threat to the region’s identity and ultimately to rulers’ hold on power.

Dubai and with it the Gulf, however, owes a debt to the Iranians whose outward looking worldview, African and Asian networks, and modern technology, helped set the remote fishing village on an unparalleled path to modernity. Later waves of migration were welcomed but offered less benefits, foremost among which the option of legally secured, permanent integration into society.

Dubai benefitted from both pre- and post-revolution IranIan policies. Its economy thrived on its competitive free-wheeling, free market policies as opposed to the red tape and financial burdens imposed by Iran. Since the Iranian revolution, Dubai has become home to more liberal Iranians seeking to escape the strictures of the Islamic republic.

Iranians today rank among Dubai’s foremost merchant families, largest developers and major investors while Iran is one of the emirate’s foremost trading partners. Much like today’s migrant workers, the Iranians and the next wave of migrants, the Indians, fulfilled economic roles that Dubai’s local population was too proud to embrace.

Walking the walk

The Gulf’s different styles of leadership are reflected in the way states project themselves. Saudi Arabia wears secrecy and conservatism on its sleeve. Brash and aggressive, Dubai trumpets its status of being a modern, forward looking global city. It boasts being a multicultural metropole. Qatar basks in controversy over its idiosyncratic, counter intuitive foreign policy that forges relations with friend and foe alike, yet squirms when it is cast under the spotlight.

For much of their recent history as independent states, Gulf nations expressed leadership in employing vast amounts of oil and gas revenues to build relations anchored on their alliance with the United States with countries across the globe; turn their backwaters into architectural landmarks and business hubs through investment in infrastructure and exploitation of their geostrategic location; high profile investments in Western real estate and global brands; and the creation of a limited number of world class global businesses that include Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco and Sabic, its petrochemical industry; Qatar Gas and Qatar Airways; Dubai’s global port manger DP World, Emirates Airlines and Etisilat telecommunications company; and Abu Dhabi’s Ettihad airline.

Increasingly however, concepts of leadership particularly in the smaller Gulf states have been challenged by regional threats such as the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the fallout of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the more recent wave of popular revolts that in 2011 toppled four Arab leaders and sparked a civil and proxy war in Syria, the rise of political Islam, and the emergence of the Islamic State that with its eradication of the borders between Iraq and Syria and pan-Islamist ideology that threatens the notion of the nation state as the basis for regional order in the Middle East.

Leadership concepts have also been challenged by a wearing thin of the strategy of talking the talk but not walking the walk. Restless populations have for now been cowed by the crushing or reversal of most of the successful revolts and intimidated by violence engulfing the region and harsh crackdowns on domestic dissent. Yet, discontent simmers at the surface while minorities chafe at continued discrimination and disenfranchisement.

The rise of Islamic State and the wave of violence and brutality has moreover focused international attention on root causes that include sectarian and intolerant ideologies as well as a lack of inclusiveness and public space for dissenting political expression. The downside of autocratic visions of leadership that have yet to come to grips with the shadow side of break speed development have further been brought into sharp relief with the Gulf’s restrictive labour regime moving centre stage with Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup hosting rights.

The World Cup represented Qatari vision that differed fundamentally from that of Dubai but was no less bold and audacious. If Dubai’s approach was commercially-driven, Qatar’s was politics per se. If Dubai’s was creating a commercial and economic hub that would rank among the world’s top global cities while preserving the regional status quo, Qatar’s was embracing political change everywhere but at home.

Qatar signalled its intentions with the launch in 1996 of the Al Jazeera television network, the freewheeling airing of news and opinions that were banned from a regional landscape dominated by staid state-run television stations that never veered away from government directives. Within a matter of years Al Jazeera had become the Middle East’s most popular Arabic-language television station, forcing an irreversible rewriting of the region’s media landscape.

It matched the success of Al Jazeera with its strategic alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, fending off severe Gulf pressure to change its policy; several high profile not always successful efforts to mediate regional conflict in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Darfur; and a strategic attempt to make sports a pillar of national identity and Doha a global sports hub with the World Cup as its crowning success.

Offence is the best defence

The vast difference in Emirati and Qatari responses to multiple challenges was evident in their responses to international pressure to reform their restrictive labour regimes. The responses also defined the degree to which human rights and labour activists have been able to leverage an environment in which pressure on Gulf leaders is mounting to match words with deeds.

The activists got nowhere with the UAE that opted for traditional retrenchment by barring entry to the country of critics, closing down even mildly critical policy think tanks, unfounded portrayals of labour conditions that defy reality, and clumsy attempts at influencing public opinion with the help of highly paid communication consultants and a string of Emirati-funded non-governmental organizations that lack credibility. Its response has failed to counter campaigns denouncing labour conditions on high- profile projects like a branch of the Guggenheim Museum and a New York University campus.23

That is not to say that Sheikh Mohammed is insensitive to the criticism. On the contrary. He finds it embarrassing and a stain on Dubai’s reputation, according to people close to him. “Dubai seeks to project integrity. It’s not like Qatar that feels that any news including bad news is good news. Qatar doesn’t mind being vilified,” one person said.24 Yet, at the same time Dubai like Abu Dhabi does not want to be seen to be caving in to external pressure.

In contrast to the UAE, Qatar decided that offence was its best defence. In a break with Gulf’s long- standing refusal to engage and policy of stonewalling, Qatar welcomed its critics in constructive dialogue. It also promised greater transparency.

Representatives of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were granted entry, access to officials and labour camps, allowed to hold news conferences and launch damning reports in Doha, and major Qatari institutions worked with them to develop internationally condoned labour standards.

The Qatari effort demonstrates nonetheless the degree to which Gulf states no longer can get away with going through the motions and statements designed to mollify critics that are not backed up by the fulfilment of their promise. Four years of Qatari engagement that have produced little more than lofty promises of labour reform enshrined in glossy documents are starting to turn counterproductive as even minimal change prove difficult to implement.

In the latest round of missed opportunity, Qatar announced with fanfare in August the introduction of a Wage Protection System (WPS) that would ensure that workers are paid in full on time by forcing companies to make fortnightly or monthly payments by direct bank transfer, only to say days later that the reform had been indefinitely delayed.25

Transparency is nowhere to be found. Rather than providing chapter and verse on its controversial World Cup bid in an effort to counter mounting evidence of bribery and wrongdoing, Qatar has limited itself to issuing a string of denials, plain vanilla assertions that it upholds the highest standards of integrity, and promises to cooperate with any and every investigation.

Enquiries into details of the awarding of World Cup-related contracts, including who submitted competing bids, and the grounds on which winning consortia were chosen are stonewalled with statements consisting of platitudes and unrelated detail on the provision of comfortable housing for workers involved in the construction of stadia.

Qatar’s failure to live up to its promises is exasperating the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) as well as human rights and labour activists and undermining whatever goodwill the Gulf state had achieved.

Frustrations were reflected in an Amnesty report in May on Qatar’s lack of follow-up entitled, ‘Promising Little, Delivering Less.’ The report noted that “none of the proposed reforms have been implemented.26

Responding to a pledge by Qatari Labour and Social Affairs Minister Abdullah Saleh Al Khulaifi to implement reforms before the end of the year, Amnesty said: “This is not the first time such promises have been made. Senior Qatari officials have reiterated their commitment to labour rights over the past year, usually in response to international criticism.”27

Despite growing doubts about Qatar’s sincerity, its hosting of the World Cup still holds out the promise of being a rare sporting mega event that leaves a legacy of social and economic, if not political change rather than a mountain of debt and a slew of white elephants. If so, it would demonstrate the kind of bold, risk taking leadership and vision that matches that of the Al Maktoums.

A Pandora’s Box

Granting workers’ rights risks opening a Pandora’s Box in smaller Gulf states where foreigners constitute a majority of the population and citizens fear that their identity, culture and control of society and state is increasingly becoming tenuous. “Today, they don’t ask for political rights, but what about in a decade or two?” said Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.28

Khashoggi’s articulation of Gulf fears notwithstanding, Qatar’s response to pressure has also dented the taboo on public discussion of demography in terms other than support of the status quo. Expressing an alternative view Sharjah intellectual Al Qassemi argued in an article in the Gulf News that “UAE national identity has proven to be more resilient and adaptive to the changing environment and times than some may believe.”29

Al Qassemi noted that the UAE had taken a first step towards a more liberal nationality policy by granting the offspring of mixed Emirati-non-Emirati nationals the right to citizenship rather than restricting it to children whose parents were both UAE citizens. He went on to point out that the success of the United States was in no small part due to the contribution of immigrants. “Perhaps it is time to consider a path to citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care for the country as though it was their own,” Al Qassemi said.30

Pressure on Qatar to move forward with implementation of its promised reforms has further persuaded all the region’s states to tinker in one way or another with their labour regimes. Kuwait’s parliament has gone the furthest with the passing of a bill that grants rights to domestic servants. Kuwait also became the first Gulf state to open a refuge for female migrants.

At the bottom line, Gulf states are discovering what Europe realized in the wake of the wave of Gastarbeiter or foreign workers they invited in the 1960s to accommodate an expanding labour market in the belief the workers would eventually return to their home countries. They didn’t and eventually were joined by their families. In the Gulf, it is middle class expatriates rather than unskilled and semi- skilled labour who are striking social roots.

Asked recently whether he was bothered by the fact that he had no rights, the Dubai-born, third generation son of a prosperous Indian family answered: “No, why should I? Life is good.” The young man’s tone changed abruptly when queried whether it troubled him that his children would have no rights in their country of birth. “Absolutely,” he said slamming his fist on the table.31

The young man is unlikely to risk family and fortune to stand up for his rights. Yet, his is a widespread, largely unspoken sentiment that cannot simply be ignored or allowed to fester until a time when circumstance makes turning it into a public demand either opportune or inevitable.

Buying time

Gulf leaders are also discovering that gleaming high rises, eight-lane freeways, and glittering shopping malls hosting luxury brands; paying lip service to modernization; and buying foreign talent allows them to project their conservative, autocratic societies on the cutting edge of creativity and inn ovation for at best a limited period of time.

“Innovation today is not an option but a necessity, not a general culture but business style. Governments and companies that do not renew or innovate lose competitiveness and control. They are bound to regress. We have doubled our investments in innovation and in the equipment, training and education of expert national cadres, because keeping pace with the world around us requires innovative resources and an environment that is supportive of innovation,” Sheikh Mohammed said last month.32

Much of Sheikh Mohammed’s requirements can be acquired. The environment is where he and other Gulf leaders feel the squeeze. Dubai’s Media City is home to the global and regional headquarters of the world’s major media houses. Efforts to add creativity and innovation to the concept of a real estate- driven media hub faltered however on legal restrictions, physical environs and lack of a creative, intellectual environment.

As a result, Media City’s neighbouring cluster, Dubai Internet City, hosts big brand services and marketing hubs who keep their regional research and development in Israel and India that boast educational institutions who produce top flight engineers/

Consultants hired to help Dubai make the transition advised the government that to achieve its goal it would have to broaden freedoms of expression, allow foreigners greater professional mobility, and create a physical environment that encourages the kind of creativity not found in modern office blocks.

“Creativity is an organic process. A part of town that is at the outset of gentrification is the perfect physical environment. A kind of Soho with the freedom to experiment, and aspiring opera singers who earn their keep as waiters. Sterile office blocks and visas that make having different occupations simultaneously impossible stymie creativity. Dubai has yet to put those building blocks in place,” one of the consultants said.33

Back to the Stone Age

Rather than liberalizing, institutionalizing and seriously rationalizing, Gulf states have in recent years tightened the reigns as they seek to insulate themselves from regional volatility, maintain market share in rapidly changing energy markets, fend off jihadist threats, fight proxy wars and with limited success assert themselves militarily in a bid to shape the Middle East in their mould, and all of that as budgets shrink and oil prices tumble.

The jury is out on whether the strategy will work. 2015 has turned out to be a difficult year for Gulf leaders. The US-fostered agreement with Iran to resolve the nuclear crisis promises to be a mixed bag. Countries like the UAE expect an initial economic boon but the agreement returns to the international fold one of the Middle East’s most powerful nations whose system of governance is rooted in political Islam and whose policies are diametrically opposed to those of many of the Gulf states.

The wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq and to a lesser degree Libya constitute powerful threats that have highlighted the limitations of military forces flush with some of the world’s most advanced hardware but hampered by reluctance to commit ground troops in large numbers, a longstanding rulers’ distrust of armed forces capable of staging a military coup, and a tradition of wielding financial rather than military muscle.

Saudi and UAE support for Al Sisi’s military coup in 2013 that toppled Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president has produced one of the region’s most repressive dictatorships. Al Sisi’s brutal crackdown on all dissent has fuelled an insurgency that is spilling out of the Sinai desert into Cairo and other major Egyptian cities.

Emirati special forces, widely viewed as the region’s best after Israel as a result of a decade of UN peacekeeping experience, have earned praise for their performance in Yemen in support of Saudi-led efforts to defeat the rebel Houthis in Yemen and return exiled president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to power.

The inclusion of a woman fighter pilot in the first UAE raid on Islamic State targets as part of the US- led coalition offered the Emirates a picture perfect opportunity to project itself as a nation on the cutting edge of modernity. The Emirati air force demonstrated its potential reach in attacks in cooperation with Egypt on Islamist targets in Libya that did little to change the balance of power between rival forces in the North African nation.

Yet, undeterred by the military campaign against it, the Islamic State is entrenching its alternative, harsh governance structures that not only challenge Gulf rulers’ vision of leadership but also their notions of the nation-state as opposed to an irredentist, expansionary pan-Islamist entity and is able to threaten domestic stability with attacks that target security forces and Shiite Muslim minorities.

Yemen despite major military advances in southern Yemen threatens to become the conservative Gulf’s Vietnam. Retaking northern Yemen and the capital Sana’a where the Houthis enjoy greater support than in the south is likely to prove more difficult. And military victory may prove difficult to translate into sustainable political achievement. Saudi-led Gulf interference in Yemeni politics lies at the core of problems in a nation in which many blame the Gulf states for having bombed them back to the Stone Age in a six-month long air campaign that has wreaked humanitarian havoc.

Yemen could affect efforts by the UAE and Qatar, the most recent Gulf states to dispatch ground troops to the war-torn country, to strengthen national identity with the recent introduction of conscription. UAE conscripts barely a year later suffered their first casualties in Yemen, leaving their grieving families in shock and angry. More than 50 Emiratis and five Bahrainis were killed in Yemen in the last six weeks. “These young men are forced to do military service and should not be taken to hot conflict areas. They are civilians who are supposed to go back to their lives and work after finishing their service,” Middle East Eye quoted an Emirati as saying.34

Differences in vision

Despite attempts to project a united front to the region’s multiple crises, responses by Gulf leaders have laid bare differences in vision. Qatar and Oman with soft power strategies that emphasize being politically and diplomatically proactive in contrast to Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s increased reliance on military might and repression have largely opted for engagement and efforts at dialogue. The UAE remains alone among Gulf states in seeing political Islam as the greatest threat to Gulf rulers’ longevity after King Salman of Saudi Arabia cautiously began to reverse his predecessor’s war on the Muslim Brotherhood in a bid to form a pan-Sunni alliance against Iran. The UAE’s position is ironic given that Sheikh Rashid in 1974 provided the Brotherhood with the start-up funding it needed to establish a branch in the Emirates and the fact several Brothers rose to prominent including ministerial end educational positions.35

Political differences are compounded by a fundamental tension inherent in the region’s security architecture: several of the smaller Gulf states have resisted militarization of the six member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprised of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, fearing Saudi dominance.

Gulf leaders’ divergent views of regional security echo far beyond the Gulf, home to a vast US military infrastructure designed to ensure security that includes the Bahrain base of the Fifth Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and accesses facilities in various littoral states; Camp Arifjan in Kuwait that serves as a logistics base for US operations against the Islamic States; the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest U.S. air base in the region; and access to air base facilities in Oman and the UAE as well as Saudi airspace.

In a rare public outburst, Omani minister of state for foreign affairs Yousef bin Alawi Al Ibrahim, a onetime representative of a separatist movement and key mediator in bringing the United States and Iran to the negotiating table, rejected in 2013 US and Saudi attempts to militarize the Gulf alliance through integration of missile defence. “We absolutely don’t support Gulf union. There is no agreement in the region on this …. If this union materialises, we will deal with it but we will not be a member. Oman’s position is very clear. If there are new arrangements for the Gulf to confront existing or future conflicts, Oman will not be part of it,” he said.36

Alawi’s comments and repeated reluctance by various smaller Gulf states to join past GCC military operations bodes ill for the creation of a Gulf military command announced late last year. The command would involve a force of several hundred thousand soldiers capable of responding to regional threats that include militant Islamists and rival Iran.

“Every effort at military unity among the Arab states has ended in failure, to a greater or lesser degree. There are plenty of reasons for this. For one, smaller states fear diluting their sovereignty and autonomy in a larger bloc. In the 1960s, they feared being overpowered by Egypt; now, they worry about Saudi Arabia, a wariness that has also played a large role in preventing the formation of a political and financial union in the Gulf,” noted military affairs scholar Shashank Joshi in a Foreign Affairs commentary.37

A fraying social contract

Dropping oil prices and revolutionizing new technologies such as fracking pose no less a challenge to Gulf leaders. Saudi-led efforts to allow prices to drop in a bid to undermine the US shale industry have failed. Lower revenues and higher expenditure have forced Saudi Arabia to draw on its reserves and turn to the domestic bond market while Qatar predicts for 2016 its first budget deficit in 15 years. Qatar in September issued 15 billion riyals ($4.1 billion) of bonds to take advantage of low borrowing costs and replenish funds eroded by the decline in oil prices.38

“New political challenges will emerge in the coming years as fiscal policy becomes unsustainable – and as the Gulf confronts its critical long-term challenge, the beginning of the post-oil age. Fiscal spending in the GCC states has soared to such an extent in recent years that they are now chronically dependent on high oil prices – a long-term structural risk,” noted a Chatham House report on future trends in the region.39

More threatening than the economics is the fact that the social contract on which autocratic Gulf rule is based is fraying at the edges and has been for more than a decade. The last time that happened was at the turn of the century when Saudi gross national product (GNP) per capita was at $7,700 less than half of what it had been 20 years earlier and the kingdom encouraged frustrated young men to join the anti- Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.

Young Saudis forced to do two or three jobs to make ends meet joined Al Qaeda as then Crown Prince Abdullah’s cost cutting measures, including the introduction of rents in student dormitories. Real GDP growth in the kingdom is, according to the IMF, likely to drop 2.8 percent this year and another 2.4 percent in 2016. The IMF predicts that a Saudi fiscal deficit of 19.5% of GDP this year.40

Things never got that bad in the UAE where male Emiratis receive some $55,000 a year in subsidies that include free land, healthcare, water, and education that can include degrees at Western universities; cheap electricity, and subsidized food and gasoline. In addition, Emiratis pay no income or property tax.

Yet, even the UAE sees itself forced to rationalize in line with IMF advice. The UAE in July tied petrol prices to world market prices leading to a 30 percent hike at the pump and prices that were only 13 cents below the American retail price. The hike tackling cheap petrol, which many Emiratis see as a birth right, did nothing to rock the boat but like Abdullah’s measures more than a decade ago constituted writing on the wall. Oman and Kuwait, which backed away from raising diesel and kerosene prices in January following a public outcry, were quick to announce that they had no intention of following in the Emirates’ footsteps.

The UAE is also looking at expanding its corporate tax, which currently applies only to foreign banks and the oil industry, to the corporate sector as such and introducing a sales tax on the back of an expected GCC agreement to levy a value added tax (VAT) across the Gulf states.41 Similarly, Saudi Arabia is studying whether to cut state subsidies that keep domestic gasoline prices at some of the lowest levels in the world while Kuwait is mulling taxes on luxury items and tolls on highways and is reviewing the pricing of goods and fees charged for public services and land rental. The IMF warned in September that Saudi Arabia’s growing budget deficit could rapidly erode its reserves unless drastic action is taken. The IMF urged Riyadh to implement urgent reforms, including bolstering energy efficiency, reducing energy subsidies, cutting government spending particularly on wages and diversifying the economy.42

“None of these states can afford to keep increasing public spending in the way to which their economies and societies have become accustomed in the last decade of high oil prices. All have long-term plans envisaging a transition to a post-oil economy, developing a mix of energy-intensive and knowledge- based industries, employing more nationals in the private sector, and considering the introduction of taxation, all of which will have implications for their social contracts… Citizens who will in future need to make a greater contribution to their economies, and receive fewer economic benefits from the state, are likely to have very different expectations about government transparency and accountability,” the Chatham House report said.43

“Leaner times provide the opportunity for governments to revisit inefficiencies in their systems and to develop a more sophisticated and effective political relationship with their citizens. Given the increasingly young and informed public, building and maintaining a strong national identity must be encouraged to create active citizens who produce more than they consume,” added Zaid M. Belbagi, a member of Young Arab Leaders (YAL), in the inaugural addition of a new academic journal, Gulf Affairs.44

Ironically, tax regimes of various sorts do not simply challenge leaders’ concepts of absolute power. They also make regimes dependent on their expatriate populations not only for their labour but also their contributions to the coffers of the state and they grant leverage to a business community that historically was reliant on government.

Grabbing the bull by the horns

The fraying of the Gulf’s traditional social contract poses not only a threat but also an opportunity to ensure regime survival. While it inevitably will provoke a restructuring of the relationship between rulers and ruled, it offers leaders with vision an opportunity to grab the bull by its horns. That would have to involve the kind of bold and gutsy moves that Dubai’s Al Maktoum’s and Qatar’s Al Thanis have made their trademarks.

“Social and political changes in the Gulf are certain. The questions are rather what form they will take and how they will be managed. One scenario could be a consensus-based process of adaptation, building on some of the existing institutions, and making parliaments and courts more independent. But this would entail bringing in new checks on the power of the rulers, which, in turn, would require those in authority to judge that voluntary reform today would ultimately cost them less than having change thrust upon them in the future,” Chatham House concluded.45

For now, with crackdowns on freedom of expression and dissent Gulf leaders’ vision appears one of salvaging the status quo rather than managing political transition. Amid the growing doubts about US reliability, China looms large as a model of achieving extraordinary economic performance while maintaining tight political control.

It’s a model that seeks to suppress inevitable demands for greater sharing of power and resources and risks exacerbating fault lines that include divides along sectarian lines, between urban and tribal communities and between regions within the borders of various Gulf states.

Yet, the jury is still out. It’s not what Qatari leaders had in mind when they submitted their bid for the 2022 World Cup but the tournament despite feet dragging on promised reforms could prove to be a Trojan horse that drives change. As could the overall strategy of countries like the UAE and Bahrain to project themselves internationally through the hosting of major sporting events and the acquisition of big name clubs and other assets.

“We need to rethink this and give human rights a much higher status,” said Theo Zwanziger before he stepped down as a member of the FIFA executive committee.46 His words are echoed in the International Olympic Committee’s Agenda 2020 that emphasizes rights in the awarding of the games.47

Initial signs of change, the product of pressure not only by FIFA and human rights and labour activists but also Western governments and corporations, go beyond Qatar’s engagement with critics. They remain tentative and have yet to be bolstered by robust legislation and implementation but are sparking a process that is likely to be irreversible, take on dynamics of its own that Gulf regimes may find hard to control, and is part of a growing realization in the region that it cannot escape global demands for greater transparency and accountability. They also keep open the promise that enlightened leadership can manage the process.

Leaders of Dubai and UAE have in as yet small ways signalled that they are not oblivious to the winds of change that are sweeping the Middle East and North Africa even if they have yet to wholeheartedly get in front of the cart. One indication are reports that Qatar has approved the creation of an independent soccer players union, the country’s first trade union and a move that could open the door to a more radical restructuring of its labour system.

Another is the decision by traditionally secretive, major state-owned companies such as Qatar Airways and the Investment Corporation of Dubai ICD) that owns Emirates airlines among other of the emirate’s crown jewels, to publish their results for the first time to counter criticism by Western governments and airlines of unfair competition and restore investor confidence.

A third indication was Qatar Airways’ recent lifting of restrictions on pregnancy and marriage for its female personnel in response to criticism by the ILO, the UN labour organization.48 The airline said it was also reviewing rules that impose curfews on women and do not allow women to be brought or picked up from work by men who are not family of theirs. Similarly, women in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s most restrictive nation, were in August allowed to register for the first time for municipal elections scheduled for December.

Labour reform presents leaders an opportunity to project themselves as agents of inevitable change and foresighted adaptation to new realities. It is low hanging fruit because it does not involve the granting of political rights and would take the sting out of the most immediate criticism of Gulf leaders and project them as enlightened rulers. Yet, at the same time labour reform is as tricky and potentially treacherous as political reform. It involves managing what are legitimate, existential fears among the region’s citizenry about a future in which demography threatens their ability to maintain indigenous control of their culture and societies.

A report commissioned and endorsed by the Qatari government lays out a roadmap for labour reform that would involve the introduction of minimum wages, abolition of the sponsorship system, development of unfettered labour markets, setting of wage rates through collective bargaining, workers’ freedom to change employers, and ethical recruitment that eradicates corruption and the indenture of workers.49

To be sure, the Gulf’s need for foreign labour has an upside. “Foreign migrant workers earn vastly more in the GCC than they would at home in Bangladesh or India, where they would make around $1,000 per year. By welcoming migrant workers, the UAE and its neighbour Qatar do more than any other rich country to reduce global inequality, professors Eric Posner and Glen Weyl argued in New Republic in defence of kafala.50

“The kafala system exists as part of an effort by Qataris to retain control of their country. Abolishing the system means opening up a labour market in a country where there is no labour market. The requirement for an exit visa is partly the result of Qatar not having extradition treaties with a lot of countries and wanting to prevent those who break the law from simply skipping the country,” added Ray Jureidini, author of a Qatar Foundation report that advocates far-reaching reform of the labour system.51

Yet, in a further sign that Qatar’s top leadership recognizes the political, social and economic implications of the labour issue, the Doha-based Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies, an initiative fostered by Sheikh Tamim, warned that “in the absence of the establishment of a modern state based on the bond of citizenship, justice, the rule of law, and equal opportunity among all components of society, it is extremely difficult to assimilate immigrants. … The Gulf countries, due to the delay in the construction of the modern state on the institutional, legal and constitutional levels, have extreme difficulties integrating the population of their home societies – let alone assimilating immigrants.”52

The cost to Gulf states of restrictive labour regimes is not just reputational and the risk is not simply demographic. Despite perceptions that the kafala system ensures the supply of cheap labour, it is proving to be detrimental to the efforts of Gulf leaders to turn their countries into cutting edge, 21st century knowledge-based societies. A study by researchers of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar argued that Qatar would be near the top of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) if adjustments were made for the country’s large population of migrant workers.53

The cost of cheap unskilled labour is magnified by the fact that it offers little incentive to governments to develop economic policies that encourage the private sector to focus on exports. Business opts instead for low-tech, labour intensive products for a domestic market and shies away from the higher risk investments in human capital, facilities and innovation that would allow companies to compete internationally. The aluminium and petrochemicals sectors although they only marginally contribute to diversification because of their dependence on oil are the exception that demonstrate Gulf countries’ ability to compete if the right policies are adopted.

If the Gulf was ever in need of vision and leadership it is in the forthcoming decade. The challenges are multiple and enormous. They are both domestic and regional and the two often are inseparable. The list is long and includes managing almost impossible demographics; cementing national identities; institutionalization and political reform that need not endanger the longevity of ruling families but will have to involve accommodating a citizenry that wants to see greater inclusion, involvement in the political process, transparency and accountability; transition to truly diversified, post-oil economies; and adjustment to a Middle East in which Iran with its history and sense of empire, huge population base, and an economy that after several years of deep structural reform is likely to be alongside Turkey one of the most vibrant in the region.

Gulf leaders appear to be still grappling with the enormity of these challenges. They have yet to reveal statements of vision that address the full gamut of issues they will have to confront. Dubai, Qatar and Oman, despite concerns about transition to a post-Qaboos era, are furthest down the road in addressing at least some of the issues. In doing so, they hold out the promise of being best able to manage multiple processes of almost simultaneous political, social and economic change.

In some ways, Sheikh Mohammed has set a model for ensuring that populations are on board. “Sheikh Mohammed puts ideas out there before their time,” a person close to the Dubai ruler said. “He has a keen sense of supply and demand. He understands that people have demands. He leaves his ideas out there and waits. People get their time and finally they are desensitized.”54

About the author:
*James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.

Source:
This article was published by National University of Singapore – Middle East Institute.

Notes:
29 Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Give expats an opportunity to earn UAE citizenship, Gulf News, 22 September

2013, http://m.gulfnews.com/opinion/give‐expats‐an‐opportunity‐to‐earn‐uae‐citizenship‐1.1234167

31 Conversation with the author, 12 June 2014

32 Mary Sophia, Sheikh Mohammed launches UAE Innovation Week, Gulf Business, 6 August 2015,

http://gulfbusiness.com/2015/08/sheikh‐mohammed‐launches‐uae‐innovation‐week/

33 Interview with the author, 12 June 2012

34 Rory Donaghy, UAE sends conscripts into Yemen battle, leaving Emirati families shocked and angry, Middle

East Eye, 10 August 2015, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uae‐sends‐conscripts‐yemen‐battle‐leaving‐ emirati‐families‐shocked‐and‐angry‐557104176

35 Mazhar al‐Zo’by and Birol Baskin, Discourse and oppositionality in the Arab Spring: The case of the Muslim

Brotherhood in the UAE, International Sociology, Vol 30:4, p. 401‐417

36 James M. Dorsey, Gulf Security: A Risky New US‐Saudi Blueprint, RSIS Commentaries, 10 December 2013,

https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp‐content/uploads/2014/07/CO13225.pdf

37 Shashank Joshi, United They Stand, Can the Gulf’s Joint Military Command Live Up to the Hype?, Foreign

Affairs, 10 December 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle‐east/2014‐12‐10/united‐they‐ stand

38 Bloomberg Businessweek, Qatar Bond Issue Raises $4.1 Billion, 2 September 2015,

http://www.businessweekme.com/Bloomberg/newsmid/190/newsid/1044/Qatar‐Bond‐Issue‐Raises

39 Jane Kinninmont, Future Trends in the Gulf, Chatham House, 2015,

https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150218FutureTrendsGCCK inninmont.pdf

40 Simona Sikimic, IMF warns deficit could erode Saudi reserves, Middle East Eye, 10 September 2015,

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/imf‐warns‐deficit‐could‐erode‐saudi‐reserves‐1575774181

41 The National, Tax change is necessary to diversify UAE’s economy, 13 August 2015, http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/tax‐change‐is‐necessary‐to‐diversify‐uaes‐eco

42Ibid. Sikimic

43 Ibid. Chatham House

44 Zaid Belbagi, Renegotiating the Social Contract in the GCC: Lessons from the Rousseau Playbook, Autumn 2015, http://www.oxgaps.org/files/analysis_belbagi.pdf

45 Ibid. Chatham House

46 CNN, FIFA: Human rights records to get ‘greater status’ in future World Cup bids, 13 August 2014,

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/13/sport/football/qatar‐human‐rights‐fifa‐football/

47 International Olympic Committee, Olympic Agenda 2020, http://www.olympic.org/olympic‐agenda‐2020 48 Maria Khan, Qatar Airways ‘shamed into action’ over sacking staff found getting married or pregnant,

International Business Times, 27 August 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/qatar‐airways‐shamed‐into‐action‐ over‐sacking‐staff‐found‐getting‐married‐pregnant‐1517385

49 DLA Piper, Migrant Labor in the Construction Sector in the State of Qatar, April 2014,

http://www.engineersagainstpoverty.org/documentdownload.axd?documentresourceid=58

50 Eric Posner and Glen Weyl, A Radical Solution to Global Income Inequality: Make the U.S. More Like Qatar,

the New Republic, 6 November 2014, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120179/how‐reduce‐global‐ income‐inequality‐open‐immigration‐policies

51 James M. Dorsey, Qatar: Perfecting the art of scoring own goals, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer,

2 October 2013, http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2013/10/qatar‐perfecting‐art‐of‐scoring‐own.html

52 Baqir al‐Najjar, Foreign Labor and Questions of Identity in the Arabian Gulf, Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies, August 2013, http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/files/article_en/671036.pdf

53 Ravinder Mamtani,, Albert B Lowenfels, Sohaila Cheema and Javaid Sheikh, Impact of migrant workers on the Human Development Index, Perspectives in Public Health, June 5, 2013,

54 Interview with the author, 5 September 2015

Pope Francis Rejects ‘Left-Leaning’ Accusations

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By Mary Rezac

On the papal flight from Cuba to Washington, D.C., where Pope Francis held the customary press conference with journalists on board, an Italian reporter posed a particularly tough question.

What was the Holy Father’s response to the rampant rumors in the media just ahead of his U.S. visit that he is left-leaning, maybe even a “communist Pope” or even “not a Catholic”?

Pope Francis did not seem surprised by the questions, but denied that his teachings on the economy and environment ever strayed from Church teaching.

“I’m sure that I haven’t said anything more than what’s written in the social doctrine of the Church,” he said.

On a different flight, the Pope recalled, someone else asked him whether or not he had reached out a hand to the “popular movements”, and whether or not the Church would follow him.

“I told him, ‘I’m the one following the Church,’” Pope Francis said.

“No, my doctrine on this, in Laudato si’, on economic imperialism, all of this, is the social doctrine of the Church. And if it is necessary, I’ll recite the creed. I am available to do that, eh,” he quipped.

Having just wrapped up his papal visit to Cuba, Pope Francis was asked by another journalist whether or not he would speak about the U.S. embargo on Cuba during his address to Congress Thursday.

“And my wish is that we reach a good conclusion in this, that there might be an agreement that satisfies both sides. An agreement, yes?” the Holy Father said.

But whether he would specifically address the Cuba embargo, or the topics of embargo, with the United States Congress, the Pope was unsure, since “the speech is finished so I can’t say; or better put, I’m thinking well about what I might say about it.”

While in Cuba, 50 dissidents were arrested outside of the Cuban nunciature, where they were trying to score a meeting with the Pope.

There have also been concerns about ontroversial guests at the White House welcoming ceremony for Pope Francis, which include LGBT activists and others.

Asked whether he would have liked to meet with the Cuban dissidents, the Pope had two things to say.

“I like to meet with all people. I consider that all people are children of God and the law. And secondly, a relationship with another person always enriches. Even though it was soothsaying, that’s my reply. I would like to meet with everyone,” he said.

But, he added, he was unable to meet with the dissidents at the nunciature because he was on a state visit, and needed to respect the schedule of the country he was visiting.

“For the nunciature, first, it was very clear that I was not going to give audiences because not only the dissidents asked for audiences, but also audiences (were requested) from other sectors, including from the chief of state. And, no, I am on a visit to a nation, and just that. I know that I hadn’t planned any audience with the dissidents or the others.”

Pope Francis’ U.S. visit spans Sept. 22-27. During his stay, the pontiff will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra, visit an inner-city school, address a joint session of Congress, meet with President Barack Obama, visit the United Nations, and close with a Mass for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

He comes to the U.S. after a three-day trip to Cuba, where he met with Fidel Castro and celebrated Mass in Havana’s Revolution Square.

Pentagon Confirms Deaths Of Islamic State Leader, Al-Qaeda Operative

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By Cheryl Pellerin

Recent coalition airstrikes have killed a senior leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and an al-Qaeda explosives expert, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said today.

Cook confirmed the Sept. 10 death of senior ISIL leader Abu Bakr al Turkmani and the July 5 death of French national David Drugeon, an al-Qaada operative and explosives expert.

The press secretary said the coalition airstrike that killed Turkmani near Tal Afar, Iraq, “will help disrupt ISIL operations in the Tal Afar area and shows that their leadership is not beyond the coalition’s reach.”

Disrupting ISIL

Turkmani, an ISIL administrative amir, was part of al-Qaada in Iraq before joining ISIL and was a close associate of many ISIL senior leaders in Iraq, Cook said. Drugeon, killed by a coalition airstrike near Aleppo, Syria, belonged to a network of veteran al-Qaada operatives sometimes called the Khorasan group, who are plotting attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, Cook told reporters.

“As an explosives expert, he trained other extremists in Syria and sought to plan external attacks against Western targets,” the press secretary said.

The action, he added, will degrade and destroy ongoing al-Qaada external operations against the United States, its allies and partners.

Russian Actions

Cook also addressed the status of Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s Sept. 18 conversation with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and the department’s policy on suspicions of sexual abuse committed by Afghans against children.

At the Russians’ request, the press secretary said, Carter spoke with Shoigu to discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign. Cook said the secretary agreed to continue the dialogue if Russian actions focus on countering ISIL and advancing a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria.

Actions not in line with those goals “will not be seen or treated as constructive,” Cook added.

Carter continues to consult with the rest of the national security team on next steps in the dialogue, but no calls or meetings have been scheduled, the press secretary said.

Campbell Statement

Cook also directed attention to a statement received today from Army Gen. John F. Campbell, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission and of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, underscoring the Defense Department’s policy on the handling of suspicions of sexual abuse committed by Afghans against children.

“Campbell makes clear in that statement that he expects all personnel to treat others with respect and dignity,” Cook said, “and that he further expects that any suspicions of sexual abuse would be immediately reported to the chain of command [no matter] who the alleged perpetrators or victims are.”

Campbell said the chain of command will take appropriate action under applicable laws and DoD and military regulations, Cook added.

If the abuse involves Afghans, Campbell said that he will receive a report through operations channels and the report will be copied to the staff judge advocate so the Afghan government can be advised and asked to take action, the press secretary said.

Appropriate Action

Cook said the Defense Department considers the reports of sexual abuse abhorrent, and that DoD leaders are deeply concerned about them.

“This form of sexual exploitation of children is a violation of Afghanistan’s laws and international obligations,” Cook said. “There is no policy in place that directs any U.S. military or government personnel overseas to ignore human rights abuses.”

Cook said the department closely monitors such atrocities and continually stands up for those who have suffered exploitation and denial of basic human freedoms.

“Our annual Trafficking in Persons Report and our human rights report on Afghanistan have noted this form of child sexual abuse, and training of Afghan law enforcement has focused on human rights in order to improve reporting and accountability,” he added.

The department continues to urge the Afghan government to strengthen enforcement of its laws, Cook said.

Will This Crazy Man Do It? – OpEd

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By Mohammed Fahd Al-Harthi

The discussion in Washington is shifting toward a controversial man, Donald Trump, and his chances to win the presidential race. The person who was once a joke to politicians and analysts is leading the polls against his competitors in the Republican Party. My visit to Washington coincided with a CNN debate with 16 Republican candidates, and it was obvious how other candidates treated him seriously and fiercely attacked him trying to reveal political weaknesses. He was indeed ignorant in politics and his daring and even rude persona didn’t help cover his lack of knowledge and left him embarrassed. He reiterated he wanted to bring prestige back to the US but he never presented a program to achieve this, and he kept talking about general issues.

US media outlets are following Trump’s every move, not because they are interested or convinced of his views but because Trump is a rich material for their audiences. The competition in the world of media makes Trump a desirable subject to follow with the hope of attracting a wider audience. Media then fails when it gives up its role as the fourth estate.

The audience doesn’t follow Trump out of admiration or agreement, but because he’s different and his remarks mostly negate the American constitution and values that built the US. The initial results after the second debate showed a large gap in Trump’s favor over his opponents. The joke in past weeks that Trump would be the Republican candidate is now an issue observers predict.

Analysts say declining American values and the Americans’ disappointment over politicians’ failure is the main reason driving them to look for an alternative, and it seems that Trump found an opportunity to be in the spotlight due to the lack of a charismatic personality among Republican candidates.

He said that his massive fortune would be the sole funder for his campaign, explaining a main reason behind his independence from the chains of businesspeople and institutions who usually pay large sums to fund presidential candidates. His funny and weird opinions find a way to people’s hearts. For example, he promised to return 12 million Mexican immigrants home which, albeit the right-wing line, tackles a deep and hidden desire among Americans originating from the fact that foreigners take on local job opportunities.

Not only in the US, this right-wing ideology has been finding traction in European countries such as France, Holland and Norway. These nations have been stressing humanitarian values and principles but when possible they vote for a party that do not carry these ideologies. This anti-foreign sentiment is growing in the West where people want to live in their bubble, away from the world’s problems.

Going back to Trump, it’s strange to see him boast that he bought other politicians when he said in the debate that he donated to most of the candidates on the stage: “They would respond to my requests two or three years later,” he justifies in an indirect recognition of using bribery. Yet, the polls favor him, thus exposing a real flaw in mainstream American culture as well as political awareness.

It’s dangerous that a superficial audience would make the important decision of choosing the White House leader, influencing the US and the whole world. It’s a problem that Trump and his advisers found the American weak link— those who are eager for a strong, albeit rude personality.

The bureaucracy that tangled Washington left the audience hungry for somebody to break that tableau. This is where Trump’s electoral campaign is succeeding.
While polls suggest the rising popularity of Trump, leading politicians and writers think this is crazy and disastrous. They believe that the sense of excitement will fade in the next few weeks, and that Americans will recognize Trump’s shallowness.

When confrontation happens, the most confident will shine. For me, I see HP’s former CEO Carly Fiorina taking the lead, especially after she showed high intelligence and knowledge in the second debate.

Here I quote Frederick Nietzsche who says: “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

The Eurasian Economic Union’s Growth Not Good For Democracy In Region – Analysis

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By Simon Hoellerbauer*

In August 2015, Kyrgyzstan officially became a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), joining Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia in the Russia-led European Union rival. The expansion of the EEU could spell trouble for the democratization of Eurasia.

The EEU itself is a new institution, formally coming into existence on January 1, 2015. Loosely modelled, in concept if not yet execution, on the EU, it grew out of the Eurasian Customs Union that had been founded on January 1, 2010 between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan—which itself was the result of a series of customs unions created by various Eurasian countries in the late-1990s and early- to mid-2000s—and seeks regional integration on a political and economic level.

Unlike the EU, the EEU is not held back by the necessity of considering the democracy and human rights records of potential members, as the Freedom House Freedom scores for the founding members are a  6, 6.5 and 5.5, respectively, all “Not Free.” In addition, as Russia has by far the largest and most robust economy in the region, with a GDP roughly nine times that of Kazakhstan and twenty-nine times that of Belarus, and the economies of the other countries are already so dependent on Russia, any attempts at integration will be dominated by Russia and, as a necessary consequence, Putin. Russia’s economic preponderance, codified by the EEU, will give it much greater leverage over its neighbors. Uzbekistan’s heretofore hesitancy to joining the EEU, fearing direct Russian influence over its affairs, evidences that other countries in the region are aware of this risk. Yet even here, the already established economic dependence is working against Uzbekistan: in late 2014 Russia simply wrote off $865 million dollars of Uzbekistan’s debt, with the goal of developing ties between the two countries.

Despite attempts by the European Union to court post-Soviet countries in Eastern Europe and Eurasia and bring them into direct association with the EU via programs such as the Eastern Partnership, support for European institutions is down in several key target states. In Moldova, for example, seen as one of the leading lights of the Eastern Partnership—and one of the most successful Eastern Partnership countries in terms of reform—support for the European Union hovers around only 40 percent. In 2007, 78 percent of Moldovans supported the EU. The recent protests have cast further doubt on Moldova’s chances for a successful integration with Europe; while the protestors themselves are not openly pro-Russia and have valid reasons to protest, the collapse of the fragile pro-European coalition could see pro-Russian political groups profit, with two of the most vocal supporters of the protests, the Socialist Party and the Patria Party, holding pro-EEU positions.

At the same time, support for the Russia- and Putin-led Eurasian Economic Union is growing in the region as a whole. Armenia, one of the Eastern Partnership countries, has already joined the EEU, acceding in January 2015. In a poll carried out by the Moldovan Institute for Public Policy, 50 percent of respondents favored integration with the EEU, versus 32 percent that favored joining the EU. Although support for the EU in Georgia, one of the most Euro-centric countries in the region, remains high at 68 percent, 31 percent of Georgians now favor joining the EEU, up from 16 percent only last year.

That support for the EEU is rising even in countries with relatively competitive democratic institutions is deeply troubling. Moldova, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan are countries that, while perhaps not yet on the level of the strongest Eastern European democracies, have slowly been taking the necessary steps to establish certain democratic and pluralistic norms that are not often found in the region.

The lack of conviction of the EU initiatives and the unwillingness of EU politicians to make any promises about the chances for Eurasian countries to join the EU, both in evidence at the May 2015 EU summit in Riga, puts these trends in an even more worrying light. The difficulty of joining the European Union potentially makes the EEU a more satisfying prospect for populist politicians looking for successes to sell to their constituents.

In creating the EEU, Putin has found a vehicle for binding post-Soviet countries more tightly to Russia. Although the EEU’s founding members were countries already linked to Russia and Putin, the accession of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan and the increase in support for the EEU in Georgia and Moldova shows that other countries in the region are being convinced by Russian rhetoric. The greatest danger if these countries fall under greater Russian influence is not only that they will move further away from Europe, but also that Putin will be able to influence their politics more directly and so any democratic gains they have made in the past few decades will be lost for good.

*Simon Hoellerbauer is a research intern with the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Project on Democratic Transitions and a graduate of Kenyon College.

Egypt: Al-Sisi Pardons Al Jazeera Journalists Along With 100 Youth

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President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a presidential pardon on Wednesday for 100 imprisoned youth, including Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, his colleague Baher Mohamed and activists Sanaa Seif and Yara Sallam.

The pardon was applied to those imprisoned in several cases, including the Itihadiya protest. Seif and Sallam are among the 22 pardoned in this case.

Eighteen were pardoned in the Shura Council protest case including activist Hany Al-Gamal and Peter Youssef.

In the Al Jazeera journalists case, Fahmy and his colleague Mohamed were pardoned. In the case on the Al-Raml Police Station incidents in Alexandria, poet Omar Hazek also received a pardon.

A full list of cases and names of those pardoned is yet to be released.

Al-Sisi instructed Minister of interior Magdy Abdel Ghaffar to finish release procedures for the pardoned on Wednesday, state news agency MENA reported.

By Mahmoud Mostafa. Original article


Today A Very Pious Day – OpEd

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Today, some two million worshippers gather in Arafat to perform one of the five obligatory tenets of Islam. Since dawn, nearly 2 million Muslim pilgrims will have made their way from Makkah to a nearby hillside and plain called Mount Arafat and the Plain of Arafat.

Haj in its most basic meaning translates as an act “to continuously strive to reach one’s goal.” It is the last of the five pillars of Islam. The other four are a declaration of faith in one God and in Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the five daily prayers, offering regular charity, and fasting during the month of Ramadan.

The most demanding of all Islamic rituals, Haj is an once-in-a-lifetime obligation for those who have the physical and financial ability to undertake such an arduous journey.

The Prophet (pbuh) said: “Whoever performs Haj to this house — Kaaba — and does not commit any obscenity and wrongdoing, he, or she, will come out as the day he, or she, was born — pure and free from sins.”

Another hadith reported that the Prophet (pbuh) said: “The performance of ‘Umrah is expiation for the sins committed between it and the previous ones. And the reward for Haj Mabrur (pilgrimage accepted by Allah) is nothing but Paradise.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol. 3, Book 27, hadith No. 1)

Today a collection of millions of Muslims rising above geographical, linguistic, level of practice, cultural, ethnic, color, economic, and social barriers have converged in unison in Makkah, which is a tribute to the universality of the Haj.

It is their time to reflect on their behavior and to sincerely atone for their worldly sins and make up for any shortcomings or wrongdoings of their past. Many others around the world who could not make it to Haj are using this day to fast and pray.

The rituals and experiences of Haj can be overwhelming. Imagine yourself stepping on the same land where Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) used to step and going through valleys and mountains wherein he used to receive the divine revelation. It gives one a perspective of how much he and his Companions suffered to get this message communicated to us in its most perfect and purest form.

A visit to the mountain of Heraa’ marks the significance of where the Prophet used to seclude himself in isolation for one month every year. It is the place that witnessed the revelation of the first words of the Qur’an and the appearance of the arch-angel Gabriel.

When pilgrims move in the Grand Mosque in Makkah and walk between Safa and Marwah on the footsteps of Prophet Ibrahim, they can perhaps sense the true meanings of sacrifice and how a father left his newborn with his fragile mother in that barren piece of land.

The rigors that pilgrims will complete are not mindless exercises prescribed in textbooks for them to blindly follow, and then carry home as a trophy of ‘being there’.

The gathering of such a large and diverse group of Muslims is also to strengthen and renew bonds across many borders and their diverse inhabitants.

Standing on Arafat, in his last Haj sermon, the Prophet (pbuh) advised those present to convey the meaning and message of the rituals they had just performed to those who were absent from this great assembly.

Thus a pilgrim’s journey does not end simply with the termination of the rituals he or she had just completed. Pilgrims now carry the responsibility of conveying the message of peace back to their homelands irrespective of faith.

For those who will have journeyed this demanding road, it is their moment to devote themselves to the true meaning of Islam. Islam has not taught us to react violently to those of other faiths. Nor does it condone the murder of the innocent or the destruction of property.

Islam is about tolerance. Hopefully, the pilgrims will have been reinforced with the sanctity of this religion of peace.

The message of peace and goodwill must be carried back with positive energy to their people across the globe. It is like being born again with a clean slate.

This article appeared at Saudi Gazette.

Remarks By President Obama And Pope Francis At Arrival Ceremony

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Following is the text as released by the White House of the remarks By President Obama And Pope Francis at the Arrival Ceremony

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Good morning.

AUDIENCE:  Good morning!  (Applause.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  What a beautiful day the Lord has made.  Holy Father, on behalf of Michelle and myself, welcome to the White House.  (Applause.)  I should explain that our backyard is not typically this crowded — (laughter) — but the size and spirit of today’s gathering is just a small reflection of the deep devotion of some 70 million American Catholics.  (Applause.)  It reflects, as well, the way that your message of love and hope has inspired so many people across our nation and around the world.  So on behalf of the American people, it is my great honor and privilege to welcome you to the United States of America.  (Applause.)

Today, we mark many firsts.  Your Holiness, you have been celebrated as the first Pope from the Americas.  (Applause.) This is your first visit to the United States.  (Applause.)  And you are also the first pontiff to share an encyclical through a Twitter account.  (Laughter.)

Holy Father, your visit not only allows us, in some small way, to reciprocate the extraordinary hospitality that you extended to me at the Vatican last year.  It also reveals how much all Americans, from every background and every faith, value the role that the Catholic Church plays in strengthening America.  (Applause.)  From my time working in impoverished neighborhoods with the Catholic Church in Chicago, to my travels as President, I’ve seen firsthand how, every single day, Catholic communities, priests, nuns, laity are feeding the hungry, healing the sick, sheltering the homeless, educating our children, and fortifying the faith that sustains so many.

And what is true in America is true around the world.  From the busy streets of Buenos Aires to the remote villages in Kenya, Catholic organizations serve the poor, minister to prisoners, build schools, build homes, operate orphanages and hospitals.  And just as the Church has stood with those struggling to break the chains of poverty, the Church so often has given voice and hope to those seeking to break the chains of violence and oppression.

And yet, I believe the excitement around your visit, Holy Father, must be attributed not only to your role as Pope, but to your unique qualities as a person.  (Applause.)  In your humility, your embrace of simplicity, in the gentleness of your words and the generosity of your spirit, we see a living example of Jesus’ teachings, a leader whose moral authority comes not just through words but also through deeds.  (Applause.)

You call on all of us, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, to put the “least of these” at the center of our concerns.  You remind us that in the eyes of God our measure as individuals, and our measure as a society, is not determined by wealth or power or station or celebrity, but by how well we hew to Scripture’s call to lift up the poor and the marginalized — (applause) — to stand up for justice and against inequality, and to ensure that every human being is able to live in dignity –- because we are all made in the image of God.  (Applause.)

You remind us that “the Lord’s most powerful message” is mercy.  And that means welcoming the stranger with empathy and a truly open heart –- (applause) — from the refugee who flees war-torn lands to the immigrant who leaves home in search of a better life.  (Applause.)  It means showing compassion and love for the marginalized and the outcast, to those who have suffered, and those who have caused suffering and seek redemption.  You remind us of the costs of war, particularly on the powerless and defenseless, and urge us toward the imperative of peace.  (Applause.)

Holy Father, we are grateful for your invaluable support of our new beginning with the Cuban people — (applause) — which holds out the promise of better relations between our countries, greater cooperation across our hemisphere, and a better life for the Cuban people.  We thank you for your passionate voice against the deadly conflicts that ravage the lives of so many men, women and children, and your call for nations to resist the sirens of war and resolve disputes through diplomacy.

You remind us that people are only truly free when they can practice their faith freely.  (Applause.)  Here in the United States, we cherish religious liberty.  It was the basis for so much of what brought us together.  And here in the United States, we cherish our religious liberty, but around the world, at this very moment, children of God, including Christians, are targeted and even killed because of their faith.  Believers are prevented from gathering at their places of worship.  The faithful are imprisoned, and churches are destroyed.  So we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and free from intimidation.  (Applause.)

And, Holy Father, you remind us that we have a sacred obligation to protect our planet, God’s magnificent gift to us.  (Applause.)  We support your call to all world leaders to support the communities most vulnerable to changing climate, and to come together to preserve our precious world for future generations.  (Applause.)

Your Holiness, in your words and deeds, you set a profound moral example.  And in these gentle but firm reminders of our obligations to God and to one another, you are shaking us out of complacency.  All of us may, at times, experience discomfort when we contemplate the distance between how we lead our daily lives and what we know to be true, what we know to be right.  But I believe such discomfort is a blessing, for it points to something better.  You shake our conscience from slumber; you call on us to rejoice in Good News, and give us confidence that we can come together in humility and service, and pursue a world that is more loving, more just, and more free.  Here at home and around the world, may our generation heed your call to “never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope.”

For that great gift of hope, Holy Father, we thank you, and welcome you, with joy and gratitude, to the United States of America.  (Applause.)

HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS:  Good morning.

AUDIENCE:  Good morning!

HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS:  Mr. President, I am deeply grateful for your welcome in the name of the all Americans.  As a son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.  (Applause.)

I look forward to these days of encounter and dialogue in which I hope to listen to and share many of the hopes and dreams of the American people.  During my visit, I will have the honor of addressing Congress, where I hope, as a brother of this country, to offer words of encouragement to those called to guide the nation’s political future in fidelity to its founding principles.  I will also travel to Philadelphia for the eighth World Meeting of Families to celebrate and support the institutions of marriage and the family at this critical moment in the history of our civilization.  (Applause.)

Mr. President, together with their fellow citizens, American Catholics are committed to building a society which is truly tolerant and inclusive, to safeguarding the rights of individuals and communities, and to rejecting every form of unjust discrimination.  (Applause.)  With countless other people of good will, they are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and the right to religious liberty.  (Applause.)  That freedom reminds one of America’s most precious possessions.  And, as my brothers, the United States Bishops, have reminded us, all are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.  (Applause.)

Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution.  (Applause.)  Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to our future generation.  (Applause.)  When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history.  We still have time to make the change needed to bring about a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.  (Applause.)

Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them.  Our common home has been part of this group of the excluded, which cries out to heaven and which today powerfully strikes our homes, our cities, our societies.  To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note, and now is the time to honor it.  (Applause.)

We know by faith that the Creator does not abandon us; He never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity has the ability to work together in building our common home.  As Christians inspired by this certainty, we wish to commit ourselves to the conscious and responsible care of our common home.

Mr. President, the efforts which were recently made to mend broken relationships and to open new doors to cooperation within our human family represent positive steps along the path of reconciliation, justice and freedom.

I would like all men and women of good will in this great nation to support the efforts of the international community to protect the vulnerable in our world and to stimulate integral and inclusive models of development — (applause) — so that our brothers and sisters everywhere may know the blessings of peace and prosperity which God wills for all his children.

Mr. President, once again I thank you for your welcome, and I look forward to these days in your country.  God bless America.  (Applause.)

Sri Lanka: TN Resolution Not In Sync With Ground-Level Political Realities – Analysis

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By N Sathiya Moorthy*

The Tamil Nadu Assembly’s recent Resolution on the ‘accountability issues’ in neighbouring Sri Lanka is not necessarily in sync with the prevailing mood and methods of the socio-political majority among the Tamils in that nation. Instead, by singing a tune different from that of the Sri Lankan Tamil polity and society in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Nadu polity in general and the State Assembly Resolution in particular, which unilaterally extends strong sentiments, sympathy and support to the war-victimised Tamil brethren, may have deflected, even if slightly, from the script that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has been writing in that country since the January presidential polls.

The Assembly resolution, if anything, may have also lost some of its sting, owing to the ‘wrong-timing’. The world in general and the Tamil-speaking people and those concerned about their continued welfare, or lack of it, in Sri Lanka, were focused more on the UNHRC proceedings and probe report in distant Geneva on the very day that the TN Assembly passed what by now has become as one more in a series. Rather than seeking to upstage the UNHRC probe report, as it did, the unanimous Assembly resolution would have also made greater sense and served a larger purpose had it waited until after the UNHRC probe report was out and they too had studied it in some detail, before coming up with suggestions and appeals for the Centre.

The impinged Resolution thus urged the Centre to take steps for ensuring an ‘international investigation’ into ‘war crimes’ and ‘accountability issues’ in Sri Lanka, and also rather stall any ‘domestic mechanism’ for the purpose. In the final analysis, the UNHRC probe report, if implemented, would entail an ‘international inquiry’ of sorts, with international judges, prosecutors and investigators, facilitated through domestic legal and legislative sanctions, wherever required. The Maithiri-Ranil duo in power in Sri Lanka is yet to come out with its full reaction, and action, if any, that they propose to initiate in this regard. With the result, the TN resolution this time at the very least might seem like wanting to put the cart before the horse, and prematurely so.

This is not to suggest that it’s all going to be hunky-dory for the UNHRC probe recommendations, and the Sri Lankan State, leadership and armed forces, not to leave out the Tamil polity and the LTTE remnants in that country and elsewhere, are going to lap it all up. Even then, nothing seemed to be able to move on the ‘accountability issues’ until the TNA, or other sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil polity and society – whether Diaspora or locals in the island-nation – had taken the initiative and convinced the ‘international community’ that the Sri Lankan State and the Sinhala polity had proved once again, their ‘inherent’ inability/unwillingness to take it forward.

Persuading the US

The TN polity, particularly the ruling AIADMK leadership of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, also wants the Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular, to impress upon the US to insist on an international mechanism to probe the Sri Lankan ‘war crimes’. It is unclear if the demand would now include/cover a ‘hybrid court’ that the UNHRC probe report and the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Prince Zeid, have recommended. For their part, the TNA, even before the probe report was out, had mentioned that any Sri Lankan domestic probe mechanism should include/involve international judges, etc. While the TNA, and hence the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, should be satisfied with the UNHRC report, their final position would be known only after the Government clarified as to what they have since meant by taking ‘due attention’ of the same.

Whoever is in power, these are issues where India has little to no say, as long as the Sri Lankan stake-holders have problems. The US, whose three-in-a-row annual resolutions had caused the UNHRC probe in the first place, could do precious little about it until the TNA, as the democratically-elected spokesperson of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, too felt that way. It was not until the post-war political negotiations on power-devolution issues between the TNA and the erstwhile Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, got aborted after 18 rounds did the party take such a position. Today, having to give the new Sri Lankan dispensation a fair chance – given in particular the prevailing mood of the international community, the TNA may not rush to conclusions as fast as their Tamil brethren across the Palk Strait tend to.

Even without it, India would have had a tough task if it had sought to dissuade the US from going along with a reversed position on the accountability probe in Sri Lanka after the change of government in that country. Truth be acknowledged – and seldom is it – the US too would have found it difficult to carry a majority in the UNHRC, on the probe report implementation in particular, if the new Sri Lankan dispensation had appealed for international support for a domestic probe under a credible Government than in the immediate past. If it had won the probe-vote in March 2014, it did not come without reservations from some of its traditional allies. They would have found in the government-change in Sri Lanka, the right justification for either to vote against any resolution for pursuing internationally on the probe report, or at least abstained from it. India moving any resolution on its own or persuading the US to do so – if ever it had happened – would not have been a smart move, politically or diplomatically.

True, the Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu are due around May next year, but that does not necessarily imply that the State’s polity does not have the genuine concern for their Tamil brethren in mind. Yet, right now, like the international community the TN society too would seem wanting to give the new Sri Lankan dispensation a chance, particularly under the circumstances in which they have formed a multi-party ‘National Government’, which is unlike anything tried out in South Asia and the rest of the Third World – or, even the First World. The more they tune in, into the Tamil politics and society in the war-torn nation sans the emotional upsurge of the State polity and protestors nearer home, the greater are the chances that they would think more about the TNA and its ways.

For long, however, the TNA has remained cut off from the competing sections of the Dravidian polity – and also seems to have reduced its contacts with individual communist leaders in Tamil Nadu, apart from their State counterparts from the BJP leader of the ruling NDA at the Centre. To the extent, if nothing else, the spontaneity with which the Tamil Nadu youth took to the streets on ‘accountability issues’ was missing and the calibrated commentaries and tele-visuals too did not make the anticipated/desired impact. Suffice is to point out that the two ‘Dravidian majors’, namely the ruling AIADMK and the parent DMK rival, did not join the rest of ’em all in organising protest rallies timed to the UNHRC session, this time round. What they all would do – and how far could they succeed – ahead of the March session of the UNHRC, when alone a clearer picture would have emerged on the Sri Lankan Government commitments, if any, on the UNHRC probe report, remains to be seen. That would also be when the TN Assembly polls would only be weeks, if not days, away.

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

Country-Led Monitoring Will Be Critical To Achieving SDGs In Asia-Pacific, Says UN

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As world leaders are set to adopt a universal, comprehensive and ambitious post-2015 agenda at the United Nations summit this week, statisticians from across Asia and the Pacific met in Bangkok to identify regional priorities for monitoring the 17 proposed sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The forum organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), concluded that the relevance and impact of the proposed SDGs and targets varies substantially from country to country, and called for global monitoring to be led by national priorities.

Participants stressed the need for regional and global development partners to increase their support to strengthening national statistical systems as not all countries in the region have the data necessary to monitor all of the goals and targets.

The forum also concluded that regional groups such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) and the ESCAP Committee on Statistics have a vital role to play in fostering the ongoing engagement between policymakers and national statistical offices necessary to achieve the proposed SDGs.

During his opening remarks, Deputy Executive Secretary of ESCAP and Officer-in-Charge of the Statistics Division Mr. Shun-Ichi Murata emphasized that these key priorities will shape the development and implementation of a global monitoring framework for the proposed SDGs, being led by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs). He also highlighted the important role of the United Nations Regional Commissions in monitoring and taking the proposed SDGs forward in Asia-Pacific and beyond.

“Regional Commissions in all regions of the world have been given a high level of responsibility for supporting comprehensive follow-up and review of the post-2015 development agenda,” said Mr. Murata. “At ESCAP, we have taken this responsibility to heart, recognizing the many challenges faced by countries in Asia and the Pacific and the value that regional collaboration can add to national implementation.”

Ms. Aishath Shahuda, Chief Statistician of the National Bureau of Statistics, Maldives and Chair of the ESCAP Committee on Statistics said, “Better resourced and stronger national statistical systems will be critical to effective monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and in shaping their implementation.”

Ms. Lisa Bersales, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General of the Philippine Statistics Authority and Co-Chair of the Statistical Commission and the IAEG-SDGs added, “Monitoring the impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on small and vulnerable populations will be a challenge but one that must be overcome.”

In addition to the deliberations of the global IAEG-SDGs, the meeting outcomes will provide valuable inputs to the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development and to the ESCAP Committee on Statistics.

Wise Up, President Obama! – OpEd

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How come US President Obama thinks that Israel’s prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, and his Zionist colonial fanatics are interested in peace with the Palestinians? The different Israeli governments never negotiated in good faith with them, starting with David Ben-Gurion and ending up with Netanyahu. The so-called Oslo Accords were a trap that paved the way for further colonization, Bantustanization and land grab.

Since the “peace process” broke out in 1993, the number of Zionist colonialists rose from 100 000 to 600 000. The policy of Ariel Sharon and Benyamin Netanyahu aimed at a total surrender of the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian people are penned in Bantustan-like Ghettos. Each time, the good intentions of the Obama administration were torpedoed by Netanyahu. He is also doing everything to bring the nuclear deal with Iran down.

The US government and the American People should ask themselves why support a country that not only sabotages peace with the Palestinians but also does everything possible to ridicule the US President and to hurt the interest of the US. Israel has no right to occupy Syrian, Lebanese (Shebaa Farms) and Palestinian land or East Jerusalem. Israel does not only scorns international law but also the human rights of the Palestinian people. Why does the United States act as Israel’s bully and prevents the international community and the United Nations from taking actions in the form of sanctions against this country?

Did Israel ever something good for the United States of America except spying on it and sabotaging its political initiatives? Israel is an “albators like ally” and a huge strategic liability on the US. America was not attacked because of its wealth or its freedom, like Bush and its neoconservative gang claimed, but because it supports the Zionist aggression and colonization of another people’s land.
Israel’s enemies in the Middle East are not America’s enemies. Until the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, there was no trouble between Arab Muslim countries and the US. The US government should reverse this trend by saying that there does not exist a “special relationship” between Israel and the US. This is a deception of the American public by corrupt politicians. And they should not dream of it, to lead another war for Israel.

What kind of values are the American politicians talking about, while defending Zionist zealots in the Occupied Palestinian Territories? At the end of his term in office, President Obama should be doing the Palestinian people a great favor and recognize the State of Palestine. He can be sure that all the European vassals will follow suit, even the Germans.

Pope Francis: Immigrants Enrich America And The Church

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In the longest speech of his trip so far, Pope Francis on Wednesday praised U.S. bishops for their commitment to defending life, their handling of the clerical abuse crisis, and their welcome of immigrants, while urging them not to be afraid to do more.

In his Sept. 23 address to the bishops of the United States, Pope Francis asked to be excused “if in some way I am pleading my own case,” and brought up immigration as a key challenge of current times.

Right now the United States is “facing this stream of Latin immigration which affects many of your dioceses,” he said, and thanking the bishops for what they have already done to welcome migrants “who continue to look to America, like so many others before them, in the hope of enjoying its blessings of freedom and prosperity.”

“The Church in the United States knows like few others the hopes present in the hearts of these ‘pilgrims’.”

“From the beginning you have learned their languages, promoted their cause, made their contributions your own, defended their rights, helped them to prosper, and kept alive the flame of their faith,” he said.

However, he also noted the challenges presented by such a large influx of diverse peoples, and recognized that it’s not always easy to look beyond differences into the soul of the person.

“But know that they also possess resources meant to be shared. So do not be afraid to welcome them. Offer them the warmth of the love of Christ and you will unlock the mystery of their heart. I am certain that, as so often in the past, these people will enrich America and its Church.”

Pope Francis made his comments to the more than 400 U.S. bishops gathered in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on his first full day in the United States, following the celebration of Daytime Prayer.

Following the liturgical celebration he was greeted by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington and by Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, who said that “as a nation founded by immigrants seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity, we have a special responsibility to ensure the promise of one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all remains an American dream accessible to everyone.”

Archbishop Kurtz, who is also president of the US bishops’ conference, added that “true to to our heritage, we seek to spread the Good News so that each human life is cherished and given an opportunity to flourish.”

The Pope delivered his speech in Italian, and began it by greeting the Jewish community in the United States, noting that today marks the observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of a Atonement and the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

In his speech the Pope stressed his closeness to the pastors of the United States, and praised “the unfailing commitment of the Church in America to the cause of life and that of the family, which is the primary reason for my present visit.”

He also gave a shout-out to the Church in the United States for her commitment to integrating immigrants into American society, as well as her emphasis on education and charity.

Francis also acknowledged the courage with which the Church in the U.S. has faced the difficulties arising from the clerical sex abuse crisis “without fear of self-criticism and at the cost of mortification and great sacrifice.”

“Nor have you been afraid to divest whatever is unessential in order to regain the authority and trust which is demanded of ministers of Christ and rightly expected by the faithful.”

With the pain and heaviness of the crisis in mind, the Pope offered his support for the Church’s “generous commitment to bring healing to victims – in the knowledge that in healing we too are healed – and to work to ensure that such crimes will never be repeated.”

Pope Francis offered the bishops his own reflections on being a pastor, saying, “I speak to you as the Bishop of Rome, called by God in old age, and from a land which is also American, to watch over the unity of the universal Church and to encourage in charity the journey of all the particular Churches toward ever greater knowledge, faith and love of Christ.”

He said his intention is not to offer a specific strategy, or to judge or to lecture, but to speak to them “as a brother among brothers.” He added, “would turn once again to the demanding task – ancient yet never new – of seeking out the paths we need to take and the spirit with which we need to work. Without claiming to be exhaustive, I would share with you some reflections which I consider helpful for our mission.”

He emphasized the need to remember the joy of being shepherds, as well as that of a personal encounter with Christ in prayer.

“It is not about preaching complicated doctrines, but joyfully proclaiming Christ who died and rose for our sake,” he said, explaining that the style of one’s preaching should always reach listeners on a personal level.

Francis urged the bishops to remember to be “shepherds who do not lower our gaze, concerned only with our concerns, but raise it constantly toward the horizons which God opens before us and which surpass all that we ourselves can foresee or plan.”

While affirming that “it is helpful for a bishop to have the farsightedness of a leader and the shrewdness of an administrator,” he added that “we fall into hopeless decline whenever we confuse the power of strength with the strength of that powerlessness with which God has redeemed us. Bishops need to be lucidly aware of the battle between light and darkness being fought in this world. Woe to us, however, if we make of the cross a banner of worldly struggles and fail to realize that the price of lasting victory is allowing ourselves to be wounded and consumed.”

Pope Francis also pointed to the importance of dialogue, saying it needs to happen at all levels, including among themselves, and with their priests, and with lay persons, families, and society.

“I know … that there is always the temptation to give in to fear, to lick one’s wounds, to think back on bygone times and to devise harsh responses to fierce opposition. And yet we are promoters of the culture of encounter. We are living sacraments of the embrace between God’s riches and our poverty. We are witnesses of the abasement and the condescension of God who anticipates in love our every response. Dialogue is our method, not as a shrewd strategy but out of fidelity to the One who never wearies of visiting the marketplace, even at the eleventh hour, to propose his offer of love.”

The Pope said, “I cannot ever tire of encouraging you to dialogue fearlessly. The richer the heritage which you are called to share with parrhesia, the more eloquent should be the humility with which you should offer it. Do not be afraid to set out on that exodus which is necessary for all authentic dialogue.”

“Otherwise, we fail to understand the thinking of others or to realize deep down that the brother or sister we wish to reach and redeem … counts more than their positions.”

Language was also touched on by the Pope, who stressed that “harsh and divisive” words don’t befit a true pastor, and have “no place in his heart; although it may momentarily seem to win the day, only the enduring allure of goodness and love remains truly convincing.”

He also spoke on the importance of being humble and of fostering collegiality among themselves. In a divided and broken world, the Church can’t allow herself to be “to be rent, broken or fought over.”

“Our mission as bishops is first and foremost to solidify unity, a unity whose content is defined by the Word of God and the one Bread of Heaven,” he reminded them. “With these two realities each of the Churches entrusted to us remains Catholic, because open to, and in communion with, all the particular Churches and with the Church of Rome which ‘presides in charity’.”

He added that it is therefore imperative “to watch over that unity, to safeguard it, to promote it and to bear witness to it as a sign and instrument which, beyond every barrier, unites nations, races, classes and generations.”

Their service to unity is particularly important for the United States, he said, because its “vast material and spiritual, cultural and political, historical and human, scientific and technological resources impose significant moral responsibilities in a world which is seeking, confusedly and laboriously, new balances of peace, prosperity and integration.”

Pope Francis then encouraged the bishops to face the current challenges of our time with courage.

“The innocent victim of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants who
drown in the search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden, the victims of terrorism, wars, violence and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards,” he said.

“It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent. No less important is the Gospel of the Family, which in the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia I will emphatically proclaim together with you and the entire Church.”

He reminded the bishops that “these essential aspects of the Church’s mission belong to the core of what we have received from the Lord. It is our duty to preserve and communicate them, even when the tenor of the times becomes resistant and even hostile to that message. I urge you to offer this witness, with the means and creativity born of love, and with the humility of truth. It needs to be preached and proclaimed to those without, but also to find room in people’s hearts and in the conscience of society.”

In light of the loneliness, neglect, fear and despair which are manifested in various methods of escapism, even amid material wealth, “only a Church which can gather around the family fire remains able to attract others,” Francis observed.

Pope Francis concluded by giving two final recommendations to the bishops: to welcome immigrants and to always be pastors who are close to their people, especially to their priests.

Support them, but do not let them “be content with half-measures … Find ways to encourage their spiritual growth, lest they yield to the temptation to become notaries and bureaucrats” instead of reflecting the motherhood of the Church.

“May God bless you and Our Lady watch over you!”

Methane Hydrates: China’s Real South China Sea Goal? – Analysis

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Could access to methane hydrates be behind China’s territorial aggressiveness in the South China Sea?

Methane hydrates are a form of compressed natural gas lying on the sea bottom.

Developing them is risky and costly. Despite this, methane hydrates are an abundant fossil fuel resource that could last decades — if not centuries. For China, which now sees getting access to sufficient energy as a critical national challenge, that matters.

Estimates of the South China Sea’s methane hydrate potential now range as high as 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas equivalent. That’s sufficient to satisfy China’s entire consumption of oil equivalents for 50 years.

Southeast of Hong Kong, China’s offshore Lingshui 17-2 field shows signs that — all by itself — it could hold 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas equivalent.

Given this, China may be trying to gauge the extent of methane hydrate deposits elsewhere in the South China Sea. This could explain China’s placement of an oil and gas rig off Vietnam twice in the past year. Both locations, lying between North Vietnam and the Paracel Islands, are considered promising places to look for methane hydrates.

In addition to offshore China and northern Vietnam, the Reed Bank area located west of the Philippine island of Palawan may be another South China Sea methane hydrate honey pot.

The Sampaguita Field within Reed Bank may also hold large deposits of natural gas equivalents in the form of methane hydrates, according to Philippine estimates.

Coincidentally, some of China’s current South China Sea reef reclamation efforts are occurring on Mischief Reef and Nansha Island. Both of these are located just south of Reed Bank.

Both Mischief Reef and Nansha Island would be ideal for servicing and providing military security for offshore methane hydrate development in Reed Bank.

For years now, China’s has been investing heavily in offshore oil production technology. China plans begin testing offshore methane hydrates extraction technology in 2017. China plans to begin commercial exploitation of methane hydrates by 2030 — without saying where.

As it happens, methane hydrate resources also exist in territorial contested areas of the East China Sea.

China recently resumed exploration drilling in an area just west of a bilaterally-recognized maritime equidistance line separating China and Japan. In 2008, China and Japan both paid lip service to potential joint development in the area.

Separately, in offshore areas north of Taiwan, the disputed Senkaku Islands may also hold commercial amounts of methane hydrates. To date, however, no exploration activity has occurred there that’s been publicly announced.

Extracting methane hydrates is expensive, technologically-challenging and time-consuming. Developing the resource will require political stability. And that will require either alot of gunboats or a lot of diplomacy.

At present, however, China’s saber rattling over its expansive, unilateral claim to virtually the entire South China Sea is now driving the Philippines and Vietnam closer to a bilateral strategic partnership, one that might later be expanded to include Japan.

At best, this will complicate any Chinese plans to unilaterally develop methane hydrates in disputed South China Sea waters. The reason is that doing so will almost certainly require a overwhelming show of Chinese maritime force to ensure security for its exploration and production efforts.

This will raise the political and economic costs involved in developing methane hydrates. At worst, it could lead to a 1964 Tonkin Gulf-type incident at sea that leads to war. China’s unlikely to want that.

Far better would be for China to deploy its sophisticated technology backed by the deep pockets of its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to create ‘partnerships’ with the Philippines and Vietnam to develop these offshore resources.

Indeed, China has often held up the idea of ‘joint development’ in the South China Sea.

For years now, Philippines exploration company Philex has been negotiating with China over Reed Bank.

Separately, China and Vietnam have agreed to jointly explore for oil and gas together on either side of their mutually recognized maritime equidistance line separating North Vietnam from Hainan Island. Both sides also have paid lip service to the concept of joint development in the South China Sea.

Progress in this direction, however, has been hampered by increasingly strident statements by China of ‘indisputable’ claims to virtually the entire South China Sea.

One way for China to restore eroding trust this is causing among its South China Sea neighbors is to create Joint Development Areas for development of methane hydrates.

Joint Development Areas exist all over the world. Two exist in the Gulf of Thailand. They are commonly used by disputing nations to freeze disputes indefinitely over offshore areas while they jointly develop the resources within them.

The economic and political logic behind Joint Development Areas is that they postpone final decisions on disputed sovereignty until far in the future when the stakes are lower because the resources have been developed.

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that developing methane hydrates may ultimately prove either technologically-impossible or economically-unviable. The reason is that methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, with emissions many times that of coal.

As a result, even with the best technology, the methane emissions released from developing deep sea methane hydrates, if subject to carbon costs, may render investment in the resource uneconomic.

What this means is that a policy of unilateral territorial assertion of sovereignty over South China Sea areas with methane hydrates may not make sense on either economic, military or diplomatic grounds.

That’s because developing methane hydrates may create large greenhouse gas costs, large military outlays to ensure security in disputed waters and/or create large diplomatic fallout hindering Chinese cooperations with her southern neighbors in other areas.

Given the above, creating Joint Development Areas with the Philippines and Vietnam seems a more sensible outcome. It can also set an attractive precedent for resolving other issues in the South China sea, such as fisheries, rights of transit, people smuggling and humanitarian relief.

All of the above have been cited by China to date as motives for its construction of military-style infrastructure on strategically located but contested islands.

These include Mischief Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Subi Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, Johnson Reef, and Cuarteron Reef.

The lack of credibility with which these claims have been received in the international community has led the United States to hint it may engage in maneuvers near disputed islands to demonstrate the principle of ‘free passage’ — which China supports.

China also potentially faces an adverse ruling by a UN-panel next year on the Philippines claim.

Were both of the above to occur, it will put more political pressure on China to make its intent in the South China Sea more clear.

Negotiating with neighbors on Joint Development Areas would create a win-win outcome, and defuse what may escalating rapidly into a regional diplomatic crisis. .


China Downturn Shows Policy Strains – Analysis

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By Michael Lelyveld

China’s economic troubles are deepening divisions over government policies as officials try to encourage investors while cracking down on markets with tighter controls.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum meeting in the eastern port city of Dalian on Sept. 9, Premier Li Keqiang sought to assure investors of China’s economic stability, but instead sent a mixed message about steps that the government has taken to keep problems in check.

“The government took measures to stabilize the market and prevent risks from spreading,” Li said, according to Reuters.

“We have forced out the possibility of any systemic risks,” he said.

The comments were aimed largely at China’s stock market after a series of swings and a nearly 40-percent drop since July.

Li’s reassurance followed a week of relative constancy in the Shanghai Composite Index, which may have been purchased at a cost of increasingly non-market controls.

In a flurry of unpredictable rules changes, regulators have barred major investors from selling shares, threatened short-sellers with arrest, slapped brokers with fines for “illegal operations,” clamped down on margin financing, and discouraged futures trading in the yuan.

The measures may have limited short-term losses in the market, while damaging prospects for investment and growth.

“They’ve set themselves back a couple of years” in attracting investment, one hedge fund manager told The New York Times.

Doubts overshadow the economy

But the thinly-traded stock market has only been a reflection of doubts overshadowing China’s economy, despite official growth rates of 7 percent.

Recent trade figures for August have been seen as signs of a deepening economic slump, affecting both producers and consumers.

While exports dropped 6.1 percent, signaling struggles for manufacturers, imports plunged 14.3 percent in a symptom of slack domestic demand.

So far this year, exports have slipped 1.6 percent as China’s traditional growth engine stalls. Perhaps more important, imports are down 14.6 percent, raising doubts about China’s new model of consumer-led growth.

The “lower-than-expected import figures pointed to domestic sluggishness,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Inflation data released during the forum told much the same story.

While the consumer price index (CPI) for August rose 2 percent on increased food costs, the producer price index (PPI) fell 5.9 percent. The PPI slide marked the 42nd consecutive month of declines in factory-level demand and the sharpest drop since 2009.

Monthly data on industrial output and fixed-asset investment also disappointed, falling short of consensus forecasts. Growth in property investment so far this year has been the weakest since early 2009, Reuters said.

As with the stock market, the signs of poor performance in the broader economy seem to have split the government on whether to forge ahead or fall back in its pace of reforms.

In recent weeks, it has been doing both at the same time, piling up new controls on the stock market and currency trading while outlining major changes for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), according to state media.

On Sept. 13, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, or cabinet, released their long-awaited guideline for SOE reform to great fanfare.

But China’s stock markets dropped the next day in apparent disappointment with the “mixed ownership” plan, which falls far short of privatization and sets a cautious deadline of 2020 for implementation.

The reforms “should be government-led and market-driven,” said a senior official quoted by the official Xinhua news agency, undercutting other statements that the plan would “avoid direct government intervention” in SOE businesses.

On Sunday, the Central Committee issued an additional guideline on the SOE program, making clear that the party would remain deeply involved and firmly in control.

“The guideline stressed the principle of the CPC in charge of executive selection in SOEs,” Xinhua reported.

“To strengthen the CPC leadership in SOEs, the statutory status of the Party organizations in firms should be clarified in corporate governance structure,” the Central Committee said.

Growth through reforms

At the forum, Li said the government has promoted growth through reforms and “has not printed excessive money or staged massive stimulus,” despite “strong downward pressure” and a series of monetary easing measures, Xinhua reported.

The messages, meant to convey balance and resolve, may have instead signaled the intensity of policy strains.

“The forces at work inside China don’t have the monolithic character that we ascribe to their political system,” said Harvard University economics professor Dale Jorgenson in a phone interview.

“There are competing interests and competing bureaucracies with different responsibilities,” Jorgenson said.

That may help to explain the inconsistency of China’s policies in pursuing its reform plans.

But a look back at the Communist Party blueprint for reform changes, issued after the Third Party Plenum in 2013, suggests that deep divisions have been inherent in the agenda itself.

Under the 62-point plan, there is no single provision that deals with stock market operations or government intervention, while nearly all reform steps are couched in the most general terms and carefully qualified with controls.

“Efforts are to be made to build a market system that is uniform but open, orderly and competitive,” the outline states in its goal for the broader economic market.

“Improve macroeconomic regulation and control,” says the heading of key Plenum directives on the economy.

“Government review and approval procedures will be removed for investors except in areas relating to national security, ecological safety, important arrangements for manufacturing capacity, development of strategic resources and crucial public interests,” the document states.

Clearly, order and control have taken precedence over openness and competitiveness in the government’s management of the current crisis.

Jorgenson is critical of surprise moves like the Aug. 11 devaluation of the yuan, which caused confusion in world markets, but he continues to see China’s economic growth as relatively strong.

“It’s not as if China’s economy is falling off the cliff,” he said, arguing that growth of gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to be at or near the government’s 7-percent claim.

But recent efforts to control the market have only contributed to uncertainty, a problem that should be addressed by a clear communications policy, Jorgenson said.

“They need to have a clear demarcation between areas that they’ve turned over to the market and those they haven’t,” he said.

A blow to confidence

Others see the handling of the stock market crisis and the economic challenges as a blow to confidence in the government.

Lowell Dittmer, a China scholar and political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said recent events have broken the tacit understanding with the public that it should be relatively free in economic matters as long as it submits to political controls.

“They’re willing to go along with that as long as the market goes up, but if it doesn’t go up, they’re not going to be as confident,” Dittmer said.

That reasoning may account for the government’s heavy-handed efforts to manipulate the stock market, even though its performance is only tangentially related to the economy as a whole.

But confidence in the government is likely to suffer if “downward pressures” continue to undermine its economic growth claims.

“There’s been an implicit trust in the government. The government steers the economy, it goes up and everybody’s happy,” he said.

“Now, there will be a decline of trust in the government. I don’t know how they get around that,” Dittmer said.

Colombia’s Santos Meets With FARC Leaders In Cuba

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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the leaders of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla will meet today in Cuba’s capital Havana, where negotiations are underway to end the decades long conflict in the South American country, diplomatic sources refer.

“Peace is close”, Santos wrote on his Twitter account, announcing a trip to Cuba to “accelerate the negotiations”. Later, also FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez (known as ‘Timoshenko’) confirmed that he will be in Havana.

According to the Telesur TV, the two will sign a deal “on justice and indemnification” for the victims of the conflict, estimated to be at least 220,000. Sources indicate that the meeting should also be attended by Cuba’s President Raul Castro.

Japan And Kazakh To Facilitate Entry Into Force Of Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty – Analysis

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By Kanya D’Almeida

Ahead of a major international conference on September 29 at the UN headquarters in New York, pressure is mounting on the eight states whose backing is vital to the entering-into-force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT): China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States.

Negotiated at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996, the CTBT boasts 183 signatures and 164 ratifications, but remains hamstrung by the refusal of eight of the 44 so-called Annex II nations (those that possessed nuclear facilities at the time of negotiations) to sign and ratify the Treaty.

A comprehensive ban on nuclear testing is widely seen as an essential component of, and the final barrier to, global nuclear disarmament and a non-proliferation regime.

The upcoming Article XIV Conference (or the Conference on Facilitating Entry into Force of the CTBT) is expected to target these eight nuclear-weapons states, in the hope of paving the way to a legally binding norm against nuclear testing.

Speaking to IDN on the sidelines of the 25th UN Conference on Disarmament Issues that took place in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 26-28, Deputy Foreign Minister for Kazakhstan Yerzhan Ashikbayev explained that supporting the CTBT is a “natural stance” for his country, which will be co-chairing the September 29 Article XIV conference along with Japan.

The 18,000-square-km Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeastern Kazakhstan was the primary testing ground for the nuclear weapons programme of the now defunct Soviet Union. Between 1949 and 1989 the area endured some 456 nuclear tests, which directly impacted the health of an estimated 200,000 residents including an increased incidence of cancer and other conditions related to radiation exposure.

Given that 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – resulting in upwards of 220,000 deaths – Japan is also naturally leading the diplomatic charge to prevent nuclear testing.

Acknowledging that the summit has a “big agenda” to tackle, Ambassador Kazutoshi Aikawa, Director-General of Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science Department with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told IDN he is “hopeful that representatives from the eight [outlying] states will join us in making this meeting a success.”

In the five decades between 1945 and 1996 – the year the CTBT was adopted – the United States carried out over 1,000 nuclear tests and the Soviet Union conducted over 700. France also ran upwards of 200 tests during this time period, while the UK and China were each responsible for some 45 tests.

According to the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), the body tasked with monitoring compliance with the treaty, only three countries have undertaken nuclear explosions since 1996: India and Pakistan (in 1998), and the DPRK (in 2006, 2009 and 2013).

In total, some 2,050 tests were carried out since the end of World War II in over 60 different locations around the globe. The CTBTO says these test sites “offer stunning contrasts”, from tropical South Pacific atolls (which served as testing grounds for the U.S., the UK and France), to Novaya Zemlya, the “remote ice-bound archipelago in the Arctic Ocean” that served for many years as the Soviet Union’s testing site.

With its global network of nearly 300 seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide detecting stations, the CTBTO has made it much harder for states to conduct covert nuclear tests – be they in the atmosphere, underground, or underwater.

Yet without the eight crucial signatures of key nuclear weapons states, the Treaty is powerless to impose sanctions or other punitive measures on violators, even if tests are detected.

In an interview with IDN at the August disarmament conference, former United Nations Under Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala expressed concern about the “fragility” of the prevailing political reality vis-à-vis nuclear testing.

“We are aware the DPRK might test, and we’ve also heard from William Perry, former U.S. defense secretary, that Russian scientists are pressuring the political leadership of that country – which has signed and ratified the treaty – to resume testing,” he said.

“If this is true then there is a grave danger that the CTBT is in some kind of peril,” added Dhanapala, who also serves as president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

“Since the UN Security Council is the custodian of international peace and security, a unanimous resolution stating that the continuation of the moratorium against nuclear testing is a fundamental element of peace and security would help bolster the legitimacy of the CTBT,” he stated.

Indeed, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself has made personal appeals to the eight states to ratify the treaty.

In a statement delivered to the world body on September 10, the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, Ban said, “I have met with victims of nuclear tests. I have witnessed the lasting societal, environmental and economic damage nuclear tests have caused […]. Many have never recovered from the legacies of nuclear testing – including poisoned groundwater, cancer, birth defects and radioactive fallout.”

Welcoming the voluntary moratoria on testing imposed by many nuclear-armed states, Ban added: “Moratoria are no substitute for a CTBT in force. The three nuclear tests conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are proof of this.

“Almost two decades after the CTBT was negotiated, it is long past time for the treaty to enter into force,” he concluded.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, nuclear tests carried out between 1945 and 1980 accounted for 510 megatons; of these, atmospheric tests alone yielded 428 mt – the equivalent of 29,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.

While the amount of radioactivity released by each test depends largely on the size, scale and type of explosion, countless scientific studies have documented their adverse health and environmental impacts, including severe air and groundwater pollution, damage to flora and fauna and, for humans, injuries to internal organs, skin, eyes and even cells.

Ionizing radiation, the umbrella term for various particulate matter and rays given off by radioactive materials, is a scientifically proven carcinogen. Radiation exposure is known to cause leukaemia, as well as a cancers of the thyroid, lung and breast.

A chapter on the effects of nuclear tests on the CTBTO website explains that “studies and evaluations including an assessment by Arjun Makhijani on the health effects of nuclear weapon complexes, estimate that cancer fatalities due to the global radiation doses from the atmospheric nuclear testing programmes of the five nuclear-weapon States amount to hundreds of thousands.”

Furthermore, the CTBTO states, “A 1991 study by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) estimated that the radiation and radioactive materials from atmospheric testing taken in by people up until the year 2000 would cause 430,000 cancer deaths, some of which had already occurred by the time the results were published.

“The study predicted that roughly 2.4 million people could eventually die from cancer as a result of atmospheric testing.”

Given these grim realities, entering-into-force of the CTBT is an urgent task, but while many have admitted that ratification by all required parties is not an “if” but a “when”, even experts are hard-pressed to put an exact date on that “when”.

Asked when the CTBT will become a legal reality, Ambassador Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and President of the 2005 NPT Review Conference told IDN, “This is what was once called the 60,000-dollar question. Now it is a 60-million-dollar question and soon it will be the 60-billion-dollar question but still – no answer.”

“The culprit is the situation of the world as it has evolved,” he said. “Powerful nations want to keep their power and privileges.”

At present, Ashikbayev estimates there are 16,000 warheads in the arsenals of nuclear powers, capable of “destroying the earth several times over.”

Data from the Arms Control Association suggest that Russia and the United States account for 90 percent of the global nuclear warhead inventory, with 7,700 and 7,100 weapons respectively. France follows at a distant third place with 300 warheads, while China boasts 250 weapons and the UK is in possession of 225.

Pakistan and India have 110 and 100 nukes respectively, Israel 80 and the DPRK 10 – though experts say these numbers are harder to verify.

Approximately 10,000 warheads are in military service and the remaining 6,000 are reportedly awaiting dismantlement, according to the Arms Control Association.

Beef Ban Costs Peace In Kashmir – OpEd

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Whenever Kashmir seems to be limping back to normalcy, a spur evolves all of a sudden to keep the lid of uncertainty open. One wonders whether insecurity and uncertainty as tools are deliberately installed time and again by vested interests or has violence and chaos become the culture of Kashmir.

It seems that whenever the attention moves towards some of the burning issues with which this sylvan vale is invariably beset, like security issues, financial inclusion, youth engagement, investment planning, tourism boost, employment, clean energy, etc, nothing but disappointment comes to the surface.

This time it is the beef ban on the pretext of the archaic (150 year old) Ranbir Penal Code enacted in 1862 by the then Dogra ruler, Maharaja Ranbir Singh (1857 AD -1885 AD). The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir recently gave a judgment on a PIL regarding the strict enforcement of (an already existing, but never really implemented after the Dogra regime) beef ban in the State. It must be noted that whereas section 298A of RPC, bans the slaughtering of a cow, ox or buffalo and treats it as a cognizable and non-bailable offence with ten years of imprisonment and fine, section 298 B treats the possession of the meat of such animals as a cognizable and non-bailable offence with one year of imprisonment and fine.

The question is, can such a code be relevant today given the Jammu and Kashmir’s contemporary socio-economic and religious landscape as 85.6 lakh out of the total 1.25 crore population are Muslims (68.3 % Muslim population, according to the 2001 census) and the Kashmir Valley’s Muslim population stands at about 95%. To answer this seems at once both simple and a trifle complicated as the bill for the same is likely to be discussed by the J&K legislature in autumn session and maybe it will be removed, but simultaneously it may serve as a dangerous precedent to those who want to abrogate article 370, given the changed political landscape now and powerful voices against the very special Act.

The question remains whether food habit issues are the only priority or has the government lost the vision for a massive social and economic reconstruction and transformation of the state that is trouble-torn and underdeveloped in all respects since umpteen decades and amid scores of sensitive and serious law and order challenges? The fact remains that now, politics revolve around non-issues only where the State is trying to decide the people’s food habits and install religion as a coercive factor along with hardcore ideologies that have become a central and dominating force, thereby sending the highly creditworthy values of democracy and egalitarianism to the gallows.

Well-known Kashmir based columnist Syeda Afshana aptly wrote in Greater Kashmir recently (September 13, 2015), “As such the ban is going to yield nothing but beef up the trouble in the state”, which is quite true as everyone has found a platform to practice politics on the meat subject and grab mass attention and support especially when Eid-ul-Zuha falls soon, where animal sacrifice is a fundamental religious duty.

Further exposing India’s beef business Afshana wrote, “In year 2014, India exported $4.3 billion worth of beef. The largest exporter of beef, India tops over the next highest exporter, Brazil, in the world market. The news in daily The Hindu reported, “India exported 2.4 million tonnes of beef and veal in FY2015, compared to 2 million tonnes by Brazil and 1.5 million by Australia as per the data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (10  August, 2015)” (Greater Kashmir, Sep.,13).

Therefore, people criticize such double standards of the State and oppose the ban vehemently under apprehension that interference in religion cannot be tolerated at all and many leaders appealing to the people to sacrifice bovine animals only on the occasion of the forthcoming Eid simply to give a strong and unmistakable message to the ban enforcing agencies and fanatics that such coercion can never be accepted.

Can Archaic Codes be above the People

Laws are always made for the welfare of the society, while keeping the context in view. It is believed that such a code of RPC has altogether no relevance today. Therefore it definitely needs to be amended or removed. If RPC provides for this ban then we need to see the utility of the very code and go back to the past, assess the context when it was enforced and see the changing landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. The State’s socio-cultural, religious and historical aspects need to be understood before enforcing anything that is simply impractical, agonizing, alienating, oppressive and not acceptable at all given the context and religious and other values.

Also the practice of beef eating is not something against the nation state or harmful to democracy or for that matter an insult to any religion. Imposing such bans forcibly is a clear breach of democratic values and it becomes quite clear that instead of building peace in Kashmir, the people in power are interested in promoting annoying non-issues like beef eating practice, etc. Further we have to see where such enforcements land us, especially in Kashmir where mass anger, trust deficit against the state apparatus, terror and prolonged trauma, increasing poverty and dependency level amid mounting unemployment, have already affected the larger society and deteriorated the law and order situation considerably.

We must realize that humanity and democracy, along with the transformation of Kashmir, cannot be taken through such frivolous and unneeded enforcements and politics based on religious sentiments need to be stopped forthwith! The onus lies holistically on the State to revoke the code on the basis of which the honorable High Court issued the orders of the ban. There is a dire need to repeal all the old laws which have become largely outdated.

The Actual Crisis

The rapidly deteriorating law and order situation, growing militancy of young and educated adults, increasing alienation and unemployment, are the real issues that need to be taken up seriously both by the state and the center. I believe we are totally not structured to overcome such major issues, given the fact of our consistent failure in Kashmir. The beef ban, if strictly enforced, will leave a miserable and entirely unnecessary trail of suffering behind it in terms of the thousands of people associated with the business and lakhs of people will be affected directly or indirectly, besides the impact on peace and calm in the State. Instead of giving preference to long pending human rights abuse cases, enforced disappearances, suffering widows and half-widows, civilian killings etc, beef politics is getting a lot of unneeded hype and therefore needs not to be politicized.

People’s Apprehensions against the State

Kashmir sociology at the moment reveals that people need some assurances and clarifications as unanswered or ambiguously answered questions/issues over a consistently prolonged period of time, have made people very apprehensive.

Such issues, which are never answered and never taken serious note of, include:

  1. The apprehensions of the masses about the State’s plans to abrogate article 370.
  2. The complete lack of interest on behalf of the State in talks on Kashmir
  3. No concern for the deteriorating peace process and pace of peace building efforts.
  4. Lack of victory on the security front.
  5. Mounting uncertainty, perpetual chaos, poor disaster management and an extremely fragile economy.
  6. The people’s growing disbelief in the State’s poor democratic system given incarcerations, PSA’s, AFSPA, and now even interference in essential food habits.
  7. The unaddressed aspirations of the vulnerable segments of society like women, children, youth, etc,.
  8. More coercion, less freedom, no empowerment and no agenda for peace.
  9. No change and no delivery on the ground.
  10. No respect to or space for dissent, growing youth alienation and anti-national tendencies

It is imperative that the State build a proper tackling mechanism and issue responsible statements so that the masses already having scores of preconceived and negative notions, threats, confusion and misapprehensions about censored liberty, speech, dissent, food habits and religious affairs, get cleared positively and people can then breathe a sigh of relief. It is direly needed at this juncture, where the government needs to espouse the genuine causes of its own people and understand their cries for liberty, free will and the right to practice their religion the way they want to, rather than their usual delaying tactics and politics on lingering issues.

Postscript

The beef ban issue is yet another cheap opportunity offered to the enemies of peace, to stir up a cauldron of controversy and give birth to yet another uprising in the already fragile and hard earned peace in the Kashmir Valley, which is fast vanishing. The people in power cannot set aside the social tensions prevailing in Kashmir, get skeptical about the beef ban issue and go on without a road map for the future, on what actually needs to be done in Kashmir to develop it in terms of security, youth engagement, employment, private sector, etc, for overall stability of the State.

Jammu and Kashmir’s political leadership needs a broader consensus on redefining the very concept of religious sentiments as it is true that not the masses but politicians give too much hype to the so called community or religious sentiments for their vested interests and polarized vote banks. I personally believe I have no right to interfere in anybody’s food plate and peoples’ food pattern and habits need not to be regulated under codes, laws or social or political coercion. It is quite anti-democratic to censor any one’s food habits and religious ethos. People in general need to understand the politics behind so called religious sentiments and maintain harmony, love and brotherhood. Instead of changing and interfering in the food habits of people, the state should make a positive difference in alleviating the miserable lives of suffering Kashmiris.

Development Or Decay: Time For Baloch People To Decide – OpEd

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“For million of the years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty.” — Richard E. Leakey

Balochistan National Party-M chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal has vowed to “resist every move against the interests of Baloch people”. His statements provoked me to go a bit in depth of the matter of the Baloch “deprivation” and came to know that the “true” leader was in self-exile for so many years and many other Baloch leaders are also living in that way, protecting the rights of their people by protecting themselves first and by getting funds from the foreigner ‘interest seekers’. Allah Nazar Baloch, whose militant organization the Balochistan Liberation Front is active in Gwadar, has been warning multinational companies and China to halt investment in Gwadar port.

Mengal’s statements came at the time when the government of Pakistan formally awarded a multi-billion dollar contract for the construction and operation of Gwadar port to China aiming to improve the port and open the doors of development and prosperity for Pakistan, particularly Balochistan. Oil and gas pipelines will also be part of the corridor in the long run, benefiting economic activity in Balochistan. Gwadar is one of the most generously endowed areas in the region having a 790-km coastal belt as well as a wealth of mineral reserves. Gwadar’s coastline, located on the shores of the Arabian Sea, is important to the shipping route into and out of the Persian Gulf.

This opposition is very much linked with the Indians. India has made no secret of its strong opposition to the CPEC project, and it is believed to be making covert efforts to sabotage it. Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “very strongly” raised the issue regarding China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) during his visit to Beijing, and called the project “unacceptable”.

Swaraj said Modi was “concerned” about the $46 billion project, adding that the Indian government had summoned a Chinese envoy to raise the issue over the corridor that is to run through Pakistani Kashmir.

Another factor of sabotaging this project is Indian involvement in Chabahar Port in Iran. As the strategically important port, could give India a sea-land access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. New Delhi already pledged to build a container terminal and a multi-purpose cargo terminal on two berths at the Chabahar Port in south-eastern coast of Iran. Pakistan’s decision to transfer the management of the port to the Overseas Port Holding Company of China for 40 years sent jitters to India, which responded by moving fast on the Chabahar Port Project.

Could Mr. Mengal and the other ‘leaders’ like him tell us what they did for their people except to make them deafer and dumb that they are unable to decide right and wrong by themselves? Earlier, these sardars being the part of different governments robbed funds of Balochistan, collected the gas royalty for decades, ran private jails, kept their opponents for months and made them walk on the burning charcoals to prove their innocence and did not open even a single school in their reign. This is what how they are serving their own “people”. Dr. Amarjit Singh in his article published in Indian official Journal “Defence Review” describes the past involvement in the words that, “with RAW and RAD (Russian Intelligence) help, America trained some 30 Baloch fighters in 2002 that RAW helped select. Further he says that “Freedom fight and proxy war in Baluchistan is morally justified … and is in India’s strategic interest”.

The motivation and the idea of weakening Pakistan is same among these separatist leaders and India. Former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a speech that “India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan”.  BLA is being armed, trained and funded by India’s RAW just as Mukti Bahini was in East Pakistan.

Coming towards the prospective conclusion, Pakistan Army Chief Raheel Sharif showing a strong personal commitment said, “I reiterate our resolve that any attempt to obstruct or impede this (CPEC) project will be thwarted at all costs”. In spite of Indian RAW’s most determined effort to support the Baloch militants’ campaign of murder and terror, the Baloch insurgency has been significantly weakened by the Pakistan Army campaign in the province.

*Shahzadi Tooba Hussain Syed is a Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute Islamabad and can be reached at shahzadisvi@gmail.com

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