By Huseyn Panahov*

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced in early October that Russian warships in the Caspian Sea launched 26 missiles against targets in Syria. The revelation caught Western analysts off guard, and demonstrated that the Kremlin has developed in recent years a significantly enhanced ability to project force.

According to Russian media reports, ships belonging to the Caspian Flotilla fired a version of 3M14 missiles on October 7 that travelled roughly 1,500 km, hitting targets in the Syrian cities of Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo. The strategic implications of the Caspian Flotilla’s involvement in the operation are significant.

Russian planners clearly meant to send a signal that would reverberate well beyond Syria’s borders: the missile strike had the tactical goal of weakening rebel elements seeking to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. The strategic aim would seem much broader: intimidating governments across the Caucasus and Central Asia.

It is worth noting that Russia maintains a Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port city of Tartus. But none of the 10 Russian warships believed to be operating in the Mediterranean are equipped with the Kalibr system that fires the 3M14 missiles.

So why are Russia’s military vessels in the Mediterranean not equipped with the country’s latest missile launching systems? One plausible explanation is that Russia’s Defense Ministry did not have enough time to deploy its most modern warships to the area. But many regional analysts believe the Kremlin’s primary motivation was a strategic desire to exhibit its improved offensive military capacity, which is the product of massive defense spending in recent years.

According to Western media reports, Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict was brokered by Qassem Soleimani, a top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, during his visit to Moscow in July 2014. Following that visit, Russia proceeded rapidly to transform an airfield in Latakia, Syria, into its operational hub for military actions there. Russia had plenty of time, then, to either equip its naval ships at Tartus with Kalibr missile systems, or deploy them at the Latakia airbase. It seems fairly clear that Russian defense planners opted not to.

It would have made tactical sense to deploy Kalibr systems to either Tartus or Latakia. The distance from either of those spots to intended targets inside Syria is around 300 kilometers, a much shorter distance than a Caspian Sea-based launch.

There is also the matter of cost. Russia could have launched shorter-range missiles from Tartus or Latakia, or tried to achieve the same result with tactical bomber raids. Either option would have had a cheaper price tag than the use of 3M14s. Russia has not disclosed the cost of its 3M14s, but the most analogous missile in the American arsenal is the Tomahawk, which costs around $1.5 million. While it is likely the 3M14s cost the Russian government less to produce, it is reasonable to assume that the 26 rockets launched from the Caspian Sea cost at least $15 million collectively.

The 3M14 missiles are believed to have a maximum range of 2,600 kilometers. By demonstrating that it can carry out a successful strike from the Caspian Sea against a distant target, Russia made every government in Central Asia and the Middle East take notice.

On a practical level, the Russian launch from the Caspian has forced at least one civil aviation change. The Kazakhstani carrier Air Astana announced it was altering the route of its Almaty-Baku flight to reduce the risk of a potential missile-related accident. The shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 no doubt helped prompt Air Astana officials to take such action.

The political ramifications are harder to discern. Top officials in Central Asia have not publically commented on the appearance of Kalibr missile systems on the Caspian Sea.

Silence in this case, however, should not be construed as indifference. The show of Russian force may well have encouraged Central Asian leaders to agree to a Kremlin-backed military cooperation agreement that was signed during a meeting of CIS leaders in Kazakhstan on October 16. At the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned ominously that the cooperation pact was needed to contain Islamic militants in Afghanistan. “The situation [in Afghanistan] is close to becoming critical,” Putin told a news conference, adding that Islamic militants were aiming “to penetrate the Central Asian region.”

Regional media outlets have offered other reasons why Russia decided to launch the missiles from the Caspian Sea. Some see it as a marketing opportunity intended to make 3M14 missiles more attractive to potential foreign buyers. Others suggest it was a domestic propaganda exercise designed to reinforce popular support for the Kremlin’s massive defense expenditures amid generally hard times for the Russian economy. Yet another hypothesis attributes it to vanity: Shoigu, the defense minister, ordered up the raid to please President Putin, who celebrated his 63rd birthday on October 7, the same day as the missile strike.

Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, it is clear that Russia is trying to position itself not only as a political alternative to the United States and European Union, but also as a military rival and counterweight. The main unanswered question at this point is whether Putin’s Russia has a purse large enough to successfully implement that goal.

*Huseyn Panahov is a freelance security expert based in Baku.

By Rashid Hassan

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Sunday that Syrian leader Bashar Assad should have no role in Syria’s “future,” adding there had been some progress in international talks on resolving the conflict.

He made the comments after meeting his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo, and a day after Saudi Arabia and the US called for more international efforts to restore stability in Syria without Assad.

“There are ongoing international consultations on implementing the Geneva 1 proposal,” Al-Jubeir told a news conference, referring to a 2012 initiative for a transitional Syrian government.

“I think there has been some progress so far and positions are coming closer…but I can’t say we’ve reached an agreement and there needs to be more consultations,” he said.

Al-Jubeir said “most countries” shared the Kingdom’s views on solving the four-year-conflict.

“We are committed to implementing the principles of Geneva to establish a transitional authority that installs a constitution and directs the government and military ahead of elections,” he said.

“And Bashar Assad will have no role in Syria’s future. That is the position of the Kingdom and that is the position of most countries in the world,” he said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi government on Saturday called for greater global efforts to restore stability to Syria without Assad at its helm.

The US Embassy in Riyadh said on Sunday that the meeting with Kerry agreed to increase support for the moderate opposition in Syria.

The Embassy quoted State Department spokesperson John Kirby as saying: “Following up on last week’s meeting on Syria in Vienna, the secretary of state thanked King Salman for extending support to multilateral efforts to pursue a political transition in Syria, in accordance with the Geneva communique and reaffirmed our mutual goal of achieving a unified, pluralistic and stable country for all Syrians.”

Kirby added: “Both sides noted the importance of mobilizing the international community to support this goal and reiterated the need for a transition away from Bashar Assad.”

Geneva communique, a UN-backed international peace conference on the future of Syria, aims to end the crisis by bringing together the Syrian government and the opposition to discuss the clear steps toward a transitional government with full powers.

The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) faces major challenges in coming months. It also offers new opportunities to re-launch economic and trade relations for Europe and Asia and for international infrastructure companies.

By Jorge Dajani-González*

China’s announcement in late 2013 of an initiative to create a new multilateral bank for infrastructure investment in the least developed countries of Asia was a surprise for many, as it changed the status quo of the institutional system of multilateral banks that had been in place since the Bretton Woods conference. However, after a year of intense negotiations between the more than 50 founding countries, initial doubts about its governance, viability and timeliness have gradually dissipated. The main multilateral development banks are now cooperating actively in the process of creating this new one, which is expected to begin operations in the first half of 2016. It is estimated it could wield a portfolio of projects worth more than €30 billion in its first five years of work.

Analysis

The project to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is part of the so-called ‘One Belt-One Road’ initiative, the goal of which is to favour development and interconnections between Asia and Europe. The initiative includes the countries that traditionally formed part of the Silk Road, from China and Central and Western Asia stretching to the Middle East and Europe. But the AIIB is not limited to these countries. Rather, its area of activity includes the rest of the countries of Asia and Oceania. It even opens the door to the possibility of financing projects outside its operational zone, so long as this can be useful in helping the bank achieve its goals.

The main objective is to promote greater economic and trade integration among countries that generate more than half of the world’s GDP and account for three-quarters of the planet’s energy reserves.

The infrastructure financing needs of Asia are estimated at more than US$750 billion a year,¹ which means an annual investment of more than 4% of its GDP. To put this into context, the volume of loans granted annually by the Asian Development Bank is estimated at US$14 billion. Therefore, there is a lot of room for encouraging multilateral investment in infrastructure in Asia and even bringing in new actors. Otherwise, a good part of these infrastructure projects would require strictly national or private financing, which would be more expensive, or would simply fail to be undertaken, exerting a negative impact on growth, productivity and employment.²

The initiative of creating the AIIB was a proposal by the Chinese President Xi Jin Ping, with the goal of financing large-scale infrastructure projects. From the outset, the emphasis has been on the need for the bank to work together with other existing multilateral financing institutions. It is an inclusive initiative, and this has earned it early support from the international community, both from multilateral institutions and most European countries.

The potential founding members are those that signed the Memorandum of Understanding and those that, like Spain and the rest of the countries of Europe, presented requests to become founding members by 31 March 2015.

After five rounds of negotiations, on 29 June 2015 the Articles of Agreement were signed in Beijing, where the bank’s headquarters will be located, although it will be able to set up agencies or offices in other countries. Currently, 57 countries (see Figure 1) are listed as potential founding members. They will become fully-fledged members once the bank is formally constituted, presumably in late 2015. The highest-profile absences include the US, Japan and Canada.

The bank’s authorised capital stock totals US$100 billion. It is divided into paid-in shares, which account for 20% of the total, and callable shares, which account for the remaining 80%. Countries have five years to pay 20% of the paid-in shares.

Capital subscribed by the countries of Asia and Oceania cannot be less than 75% of the total subscribed capital. So the US$100 billion authorised capital has been distributed so that 75% comes from regional countries and 25% from countries outside the region. These amounts have been further distributed within each group by using a formula based on indicators related to GDP (60% of GDP at market prices; 40% of GDP in purchasing power parity).

The bank will have a Board of Governors which will hold all of its powers, as well as a Board of Directors, which will carry out whichever functions are delegated to it by the Board of Governors. The Board of Directors will be made up of 12 directors, each of whom will be assisted by two alternate Directors. The make-up of the Board of Directors will be as follows:

1. Nine Directors will be chosen by Governors who represent the regional members from Asia and Oceania.
2. Three Directors selected by Governors representing non-regional members.

The Board of Directors will be of a non-resident nature. In other words, the Directors and alternates will not live in Beijing, nor will they earn salaries from the bank. Rather, they will travel to scheduled bank meetings. This non-resident feature, which is similar to the system used by the European Investment Bank, and the reduced number of Directors introduces an operating procedure in line with the principles of the Bank: Lean, Green and Clean.

Plans are for the number of bank employees to not surpass 600. The maximum degree of transparency will be required, such as, for instance, the publication of the minutes and resolutions of the Board of Governors. The Bank will also observe the best corporate ethics practices by establishing two codes of conduct that will set clear ethics and conflict-of-interest standards that will be applied to all the members of the Board of Directors, the management staff and bank personnel. The Bank will have a President chosen by the Board of Governors who will be from a regional member country; the mandate will last five years, and this incumbent can be re-elected only once. In the sixth round of negotiations, which took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on 24 August, Jin Liqun was chosen President-Elect. He has broad management experience both at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as in other relevant financial and governmental institutions.

The total number of votes allotted to each member country will be the sum of their ordinary or basic votes,³ their votes per subscribed share and in the case of founding members the 600 votes they have due to their status as such.

Figure 1 shows the approximate figure for the votes that each country will have, taking into account the amount that each country has said it was to subscribe, without including ordinary or basic votes or the votes that come with being a founding member. The Articles of Agreement set out three possible majorities when it comes to approving decisions made by the Board of Governors:

1. The most frequent case will be that of majority of votes cast.
2. Special majority within the Board of Governors. This involves a majority of the total number of Governors representing at least a majority of the total number of votes of the members. The kind of decisions that can be adopted with this kind of majority include the acceptance of new members, the issuance of shares at a value that is not at parity, and the creation of affiliated entities.
3. A qualified majority on the Board of Governors. This means two-thirds of the total number of Governors representing at least three-quarters of the total number of votes of the members. Decisions that can be taken with this kind of majority include letting the percentage of capital subscribed by the regional members be less than 75% of the total subscribed capital, the makeup of the Board of Directors, modifying the non-resident nature of the Board of Directors, the election of the bank’s Secretary General and his or their dismissal, suspension of a country’s membership and changes to the Articles of Agreement.

The qualified majority rule means de facto that a country with more than 25% of the capital, as is the case of China, can exercise its veto right in a series of decisions spelled out in the charter. In other international financial institutions, this veto power is lowered to the threshold of 15%.

One of the touchiest issues for the AIIB is to dispel doubts about the safeguard policies it plans to require of projects so as to guarantee minimum standards of social and environmental protection. Here, the bank is at an advanced stage in its work to devise and adopt codes based on the best international practices. The three main areas of attention are these: (1) analysis of the social and environmental impact of any project, keeping in mind in particular the protection of vulnerable communities, women and children, as well as the fight against climate change and pollution; (2) minimising unwanted displacement of people and ensuring that beneficial alternatives are always offered to those most affected by bank projects; and (3) protecting the identity, dignity and rights of indigenous peoples, who must participate actively in the design of projects when in some way they are affected by them.

As for government procurement, the bank’s work is also well advanced and includes some important new features. For instance, procurement policy will have no geographical restrictions, so there will be an even playing field for any supplier to bid on contracts for goods, work or services. The guiding principles will be transparency and value for money, which means AIIB must obtain the best possible return for the resources that are available. Of course, this includes the principles of efficiency and adopting policies of in-country procurement so long as the minimum requirements set by the bank are met.

In the initial phase (2016-18), the bank’s investments will probably concentrate on high-priority sectors such as transport, energy and water. But once the bank is fully up and running the focus of the projects can broaden to include environmental protection, urban development, information technologies and telecoms, rural infrastructure and agricultural development.

The AIIB’s investment policy will cover all financing instruments: direct loans, stakes in the capital of institutions or companies, guarantees, special funds, technical assistance or any other kind of financing that the Board of Governors opts for.

Most likely, the first transactions will be co-financed with other multilateral development banks and probably be high-volume operations. Once the bank has all the staff it needs, it will begin to lead projects involving smaller amounts of financing and operations with the private sector.

In the end, the AIIB will be able to leverage financing to a maximum of 2.5 times its subscribed capital, so that the maximum amount could rise to US$250 billion. In practical terms, it is estimated that by the end of its fifth year of operations, the bank’s portfolio of investment could exceed €30 billion.

As for financing in capital markets, the procedure will be very similar to that followed by other multilateral development banks, with the added advantage that it will presumably enjoy a top-quality credit rating. This will in turn reduce substantially the financing costs of countries that borrow. In August, the Moody’s agency issued a statement to the effect that AIIB is credit positive for the emerging economies that are part of it.

Mobilising private financing to co-finance this kind of project –public assets of a large size, over long periods of time and without liquidity– can be complicated. However, there is currently a large number of funds, both private infrastructure funds as well as pension funds and sovereign funds, that are increasingly interested in participating in these kinds of long-term operations. The AIIB can also provide the benefit of legal security, management capability and risk monitoring that make it more attractive for private investors to take part in this kind of project.

From the very beginning Spain has been playing an active role in the creation of this new bank, of which it is a founding member and one of the sixth-largest non-regional shareholders. This is not just a reflection of the Spanish government’s commitment to the multilateral system of international financing designed to encourage the development of the less advanced economies. Rather, it also represents a firm support for increasing economic and commercial ties with Asia and offering new business opportunities to the Spanish companies with the most international scope, especially those most directly involved in construction and infrastructure management.

Spain will make an initial contribution of US$1.761 billion, which will give it a voting percentage of nearly 1.8%, higher than what it currently has at the Asian Development Bank.

Another important point involves the business opportunities that are going to be created for Spanish infrastructure companies: new projects in the Asian market, which is probably the one with the greatest potential anywhere in the world, and with the security of investment backed up by an international financial organisation such as the AIIB.

It seems realistic to expect Spanish companies will win 3%-5% of all contracts, taking into account the fact that Spanish firms in recent years have been in second place in terms of contracts won by non-regional companies in analogous banks such as the Asian Development Bank. One must also keep in mind the prestigious international position that the main Spanish infrastructure companies enjoy.

About the author:
*Jorge Dajani-González, Director General of Macroeconomic Analysis and International Economics, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain)

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

References
Asian Development Bank Institute (2009), Infrastructure for a Seamless Asia.

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (2015), “Articles of Agreement of AIIB”.

Canning, D., and P. Pedroni (2008), ‘Infrastructure, Long-run Economic Growth and Causality Tests for Cointegrated Panels’, The Manchester School, nr 76, p. 504-527.

Fung, K.C., A. Garcia-Herrero and F. Ng (2008), Foreign Direct Investment in Cross-Border Infrastructure Projects, ADBI, Tokyo.

Kuroda, H., M. Kawai and R. Nangia (2007), ‘Infrastructure and Regional Cooperation’, ADBI Discussion Paper, nr 76, Tokyo.

1 ‘Infrastructure for a Seamless Asia’, Asian Development Bank Institute, 2009.
2 Analysis of the impact of infrastructure on economic growth and productivity has a long tradition in economic literature, starting with Robert Barro’s initial model of endogenous growth in 1990 through more recent analyses such as the Canning and Pedroni model, which also incorporates the beneficial effects of infrastructure on income equality.
3 The ordinary or basic votes of each member are calculated as follows: an equal division among all the countries of 12% of the aggregate sum of the ordinary or basic votes, the votes per share and the votes of the founding members. This formula has an offsetting effect that favours smaller countries, and yields a percentage slightly below that used by analogous banks.

Among the current crop of candidates for president of the United States, who exhibits leadership and who doesn’t?

Leadership isn’t just the ability to attract followers. Otherwise some of the worst tyrants in history would be considered great leaders. They weren’t leaders; they were demagogues. There’s a difference.

A leader brings out the best in his followers. A demagogue brings out the worst.

Leaders inspire tolerance. Demagogues incite hate.

Leaders empower the powerless; they give them voice and respect. Demagogues scapegoat the powerless; they use scapegoating as a means to fortify their power.

Leaders calm peoples’ irrational fears. Demagogues exploit them.

My list of great American leaders would include Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

All inspired the best in their followers. All fought for the weak and powerless. All conveyed a forceful moral vision of tolerance, forgiveness, and humility.

In his second inaugural address near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln urged his followers to act with “malice toward none, with charity for all.”

In his first inaugural at the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.”

In 1963, as African-Americans demanded their civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. urged his followers “not to seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

My list of American demagogues would include Senator “Pitchfork” Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who supported lynch mobs in the 1890s; Father Charles Coughlin, whose antisemitic radio rants in the 1930s praised Nazi Germany; Senator Joseph McCarthy, who conducted the communist witch hunts of the 1950s; and Governor George C. Wallace, the staunch defender of segregation.

These men inspired the worst in their followers. They scapegoated the weak and set Americans against each other. They used fear to stoke hate and thereby entrench their power.

Back to the current crop of Presidential candidates: Who are the leaders, and who are the demagogues?

The leaders have sought to build bridges with those holding different views.

Rand Paul spoke at Berkeley, for example, seeking common ground with the university’s mostly-progressive students.

Bernie Sanders traveled to Liberty University where most students and faculty disagree with his positions on gay marriage and abortion. “I came here today,” he said, “because I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse.”

Other candidates, by contrast, have fueled division. Ben Carson has said being gay is a choice. “A lot of people who go into prison straight and when they come out they’re gay,” he says, “so did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”

Carson has also argued that Muslims should not be allowed to become President. I “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has charged that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Trump has lashed out at those who he charges come to America to give birth, so that their children will be, in his term, “anchor babies” – arguing that “we have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell.”

And after one of his followers charged that Muslims “have training camps growing where they want to kill us,” and asked Trump “when can we get rid of them?” Trump didn’t demur. He said “a lot of people are saying that” and “we’re going to be looking at that.”

Nor has Trump inspired the best in his followers.

At one recent rally, after Trump denigrated undocumented workers, his supporters shoved and spit on immigrant activists who had shown up to protest. At other Trump rallies his followers have shouted at Latino U.S. citizens to “go home” and yelled “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right.”

Trump followers have told immigrant activists to “clean my hotel room, bitch.” They’ve beaten up and urinated on the homeless, and and joked “you can shoot all the people you want that cross illegally.”

America is the only democracy in the world where anyone can declare himself or herself a candidate for the presidency – and, armed with enough money, possibly even win.

Which makes it all the more important that we distinguish leaders from demagogues.

The former ennoble our society. The latter degrade and endanger it – even if they lose.

One of the greatest changes to global staffing practices over the past two decades has been the dramatic rise of international assignments as a means to transfer knowledge where it needs to go.

Sending a trusted manager from headquarters to a foreign subsidiary is the most common kind of international job assignments. These are your traditional “expatriates.” Next to them, researchers have observed an even more significant surge in the number of “inpatriates” — i.e., managers who are local to the subsidiary site and have been sent to HQ. Mirroring the expat logic, these inpats are meant to help knowledge flow between multinational offices and HQ.

So, does it work? Research published in Human Resource Management, co-authored by Anne-Wil Harzing, Markus Pudelko and IESE’s B. Sebastian Reiche, says yes and reveals quirks specific to certain international posts. The large scale survey of more than 800 majority-owned subsidiaries across Asia, Europe and North America reveals both the benefits and the limitations of international assignments for managers as a means to better transfer knowledge within multinationals.

The Role of the Manager Sent Abroad

The international assignee arrives from another country, either to headquarters or to a subsidiary unit, with the goal of promoting knowledge transfer. But what does that mean on the ground?

Staff members may transfer knowledge directly — by sharing information on HQ culture and management practices with their colleagues and relaying learning outcomes back to the home unit. Knowledge is often complex and tacit and requires direct personal contact to impart.

Employees may also transfer knowledge indirectly — by acting as bridges to link home and host-unit staff, developing social capital between units and acting as facilitators and connecters. The survey developed and updated by Harzing et al. captures both types of knowledge flows.

Where You Come From and Where You’re Going

Expats are old news. What’s novel in the 2015 research is that inpats are almost as easy to find at a multinational. In fact, in this extensive survey, the co-authors find that for every 100 employees at a subsidiary, on average, 1.22 are expatriates from HQ and 1.16 are former inpatriates (i.e., back from an assignment at HQ).

Granted, different countries continue to approach staffing in different ways, the study reveals. Japanese multinationals, for example, are still more prone to post parent-company nationals to manage subsidiaries, as are Korean and Chinese companies. Meanwhile, multinationals based in Northern European countries are most likely to hire local managers or third-country nationals to manage their foreign offices, which has its advantages.

When expats are found in subsidiaries, they are likely to take the top spot (managing director). In fact, 33 percent of subsidiaries in the survey have expats on top. Meanwhile, local R&D and marketing departments are also relatively likely to be led by expats (weighing in at 18 and 16 percent, respectively). While conventional wisdom might suggest a local hire to best understand local market needs, anointing expats to direct the marketing department is still surprisingly common, the co-authors find. At the same time, expats head up fewer than 10 percent of manufacturing departments and 6 percent of human resources departments.

Knowledge Flows

The research finds the presence of expats and former inpats in subsidiaries usually helps knowledge flows — but not always.

More specifically, the presence of an expat manager at a subsidiary helps knowledge transfer from HQ to that subsidiary in all functions studied except marketing. Benefits are especially visible when there’s an expat heading a subsidiary’s manufacturing department, where HQ’s technical knowledge may help not only manufacturing, but HQ understanding in other units, too.

Summing up detailed analyses presented for different cases, the co-authors conclude that expatriates are more effective transferring knowledge from HQ than doing the reverse. To achieve knowledge flows to HQ, it makes more sense to inpatriate local hires (i.e., send them from subsidiaries to HQ) and then send them back home again. It’s an office shuffle that may make multinationals grow wiser on the whole.

Is knowledge transfer a challenge in your company? The first question to ask yourself might be which direction you need the knowledge to flow in. It could make all the difference as to which company employees pack their bags.

It’s easy to bemoan the influence of Twitter on how people digest the news these days. How can anything be reflected upon, contextualized, and rendered meaningful when reduced to 140-character bites?

The problem, however, is not new: It’s as old as print journalism. Just as impoverished as tweets — arguably even more so — are news headlines.

Headlines frame stories and much of the time, the news audience delves no deeper after having, in just a split second, registered the latest version of what’s happening.

What’s happening right now?

“Russia says wants Syria elections, ready to help Free Syrian Army,” says Reuters.

“Russia offers to coordinate with rebels and US in Syria,” says Al Jazeera English.

“Russia offers air cover for anti-Assad rebels, urges polls,” says AFP.

What next? Vladamir Putin wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

If he’s successful in ending the war in Syria, setting the country on a path to democracy, and leading an international coalition that eliminates ISIS, who could begrudge the often-maligned Russian president for winning huge praise for his achievements.

But what’s really happening right now?

Russian war planes are bombing the FSA in Syria even while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is requesting the U.S. to provide intelligence on the locations of those very units.

The issue here is not the provision or withholding of intelligence. All the Russians are trying to do is highlight the nebulous ideological status of many of the Syrian opposition militias in order to buttress Russia and Assad’s narrative that they’re all terrorists.

Russia is promising to provide air cover to the forces it is currently bombing if they stop fighting against the Assad regime and instead start fighting alongside their enemy in a war exclusively against ISIS.

When the Obama administration began its Iraq first/ISIS first strategy, it opened the door to the move that Russia is now making: the argument that ISIS can only be defeated by supporting Assad. Washington has now been forced into a reactive corner where it lamely asserts its desire to eliminate ISIS while refusing to join Russia in its self-declared effort and even when Russia’s dedication to that effort is highly questionable.

Russia is promoting political reform in Syria while strengthening its support for the primary opponent of such reform: Bashar al-Assad.

That contradiction will remain obscured for as long as the Russians continue to control the media narrative. Ironically, their ability to do so derives in large part from the willingness of Western journalists to construct news headlines and reporting around statements from government officials even when such statements have little credibility.

Moreover, these distortions are further compounded by the fact that in much of the news audience, mistrust of Western governments and the Western mainstream media is coupled with a naive willingness to trust those who present themselves as a countervailing force to Western power — a force which, on the contrary, shows no evidence of being any more trustworthy or any less cynical than the much despised West.

By Andrew Carr*

Every year, Australians face the peril of bushfires. For those whose houses might be at risk, there is always a difficult choice: Do you volunteer and work with relevant institutions to collectively help pre-empt any outbreaks in your area? Do you find like-minded friends and partners and fight to protect your own house and community? Or do you take your family away to safety and hope for
the best?

Asia’s strategic system has not yet produced flames, but there is plenty of smoke and similar dilemmas for policymakers. Australia’s conservative ‘Coalition’ government firmly believes that the best approach is to work with likeminded partners such as the United States (US) and Japan. Indeed the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott (2013-2015), himself a volunteer firefighter, undertook this task with a sense of urgency, in the growing belief a fire has already been lit.

The opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP), currently led by Bill Shorten is much less confident in its approach. By nature the party prefers collective, preventative responses. The ALP has a long record supporting existing institutions and promoting new ones. For example, an unsuccessful 2008 bid for an ‘Asia-Pacific Community’ to address precisely these issues. Yet the party also recognises this may not be enough. Lacking clear ideas for how to revive global multilateralism, it has also worked to deepen the Australia-US alliance.

While no major public leader has called for Australia to abandon the increasing heat in Asia for the cooler climate of the South Pacific, these sentiments can be found in the public. Many Australians are very sceptical about sending military forces beyond Australian shores, and would prefer to concentrate on domestic issues rather than foreign entanglements. How Australia chooses between these options will do much to shape its actions as a ‘middle power’1, and in the long term may even determine whether it remains one.

AUSTRALIA’S WORLD VIEW

Australia exists because of the creation of a globalised, western-led order. Founded by the British in 1770, the country has always seen its security as intimately tied to international order and stability. It was for this reason Australia sent vast numbers of its young men to fight in Europe and the Middle East in both 20th century World Wars. Australia was also eager to be involved in the resulting League of Nations and United Nations (UN). The Cold War offered the first sustained threat to Australian interests, yet was largely viewed by its government and people in terms of a potential change to global order and the clash of norms and values.

Australian thinking about today’s changing international environment is once more primarily based around values and norms, rather than defending specific national interests. Following British maritime strategist Geoffrey Till, Australia is best seen as a ‘post-modern’ nation, concerned with protecting a globalised, interconnected society.2 Such ideas come naturally to the new Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull, who took office in September 2015. Turnbull is a former investment banker, who stresses the economic opportunities alongside the dislocation and risks of Asia’s transition. Persuading the public to this view, and explaining Australia’s role will however require new rhetoric. The familiar label ‘middle power’ has over 70 years of use in Australian politics, but is seen by many as carrying too much historic baggage to be of use.

The country merges a sense of short term pride in Australia’s move up the global economic ranks — 12th overall in nominal Gross Domestic Product terms — along with a fear of relative decline in the long term. In a world where population is overtaking productivity as the main determinant of national wealth, Australia’s 23 million people mean a future of declining significance compared to South Korea (50 million), Vietnam (91 million), and Indonesia (249 million) — let alone India (1.29 billion) and China (1.37 billion). This shifting distribution of power, particularly in terms of conferring legitimacy, will make it harder for Australia to remain a middle power in normative and institutional terms, even if it materially remains prosperous and secure. As such, its primary security goal is the preservation of the existing global order, rather than a concern that Australia itself may be attacked or have its interests forcibly threatened.

In the nation’s capital, two widely discussed threats are Islamic State and Russia. Both may harm individual Australians, but almost certainly never Australian territory. Rather, it is the challenge these actors present to the Westphalian and Western-led order that draws Canberra’s attention. China occupies an even greater role in Australian thinking about global order, yet it too is unlikely to directly threaten core Australian interests, let alone the Australian continent.

As such, the debate around modern security issues is largely framed in terms of the stability of the international order, the degree to which its key norms and values remain, the scope for smaller nations to be heard, and how disputes and differences are likely to be resolved in the future. Only in the South Pacific are Australian concerns less abstract and tied to specific interests. This is a region for which Australia bears some responsibility, and where a range of secondary order problems loom. Climate change, for instance, is likely to lead to greater demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. At its worse, it may also provoke political and social instability in some nations, or lead to mass migration.3

Setbacks to the rule of law and a lack of capacity in the small island states of the region may also encourage criminal activity such as drug smuggling. These issues matter and at times draw significant Australian interest. But, save a cataclysmic change, will receive less attention and resources than the strategic issues of Asia or global instability. For all the ongoing debate, Australian foreign and defence policy settings have remained relatively stable.

AUSTRALIA AS A MIDDLE POWER – COOPERATING WITH LIKE-MINDED PARTNERS

The Australian government’s firm belief is that the best response to international and regional instability is to cooperate with larger states of similar attitudes. This is not collective action in the sense of institutional multilateralism. Rather it is more of an informal coalition, bringing together those with similar interests and most importantly similar values. To this end, the current government has strongly re-enforced its ties with the US. It has built on a 2011 agreement, signed under the previous Labor government, to base US Marines in Darwin in the country’s north. Negotiations are underway to base US bombers such as the B-2 and B-52s in Australia as well.

There has also been a strengthening of ties with Japan, as a fellow democracy over previous years. Speculation was rife in 2014 that Japan had agreed to sell 12 diesel submarines to Australia, the largest military transfer in either country’s history. Any such deal may be derailed by domestic pressure over local industry and jobs, but there is a chance it could still come to fruition. Australia, Japan and the US also work together through the Trilateral Security Dialogue, which enables regular meetings of cabinet level officials from Tokyo, Washington and Canberra. Many in this triangle would like to bring in India to create a powerful democratic and capitalist quadrilateral. To support these ambitions the government has recently increased defence spending from 1.56% to 1.93% of GDP. Both parties are now committed to a 2% target as a benchmark.

Though keen to stay close to the US, the Australian position should not be described as a ‘deputy sheriff’. Australia has differed from the US on several issues. It is unwilling to be seen as a launching pad for US flights against China’s interests in the South China Sea. Canberra also signed up to China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) against Washington’s wishes, and has urged a larger role for Beijing in existing forums such as the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank. Finally, while American thinking over the last 18 months has been increasingly framed in terms of regional competition with China, Australian officials resist notions of an inevitable clash.

This is not to presume Australia will have to choose between the US and China. As Nick Bisley of La Trobe University perceptively notes, Australia is not a ‘conflicted ally’. Along with its comfort in the western, US-led global order, ‘Australia’s experiences of China’s increasingly confident and assertive policy in 2009 and 2010 … catalysed policy thinking’.4 The differences between Canberra and Washington are due to slightly different national interests that shape how they interpret and rank the key aspects of the global order. Washington remains unable to separate its leadership role from the order it helped create. Canberra meanwhile would accept greater equality between the major powers if this meant the order remained stable. Where Washington is inclined to view each moment as potentially defining and talks of grand bargains, Canberra prefers a more pragmatic, ground up approach. As the head of Australia’s diplomatic corps, Peter Varghese, has put it ‘The process of adjusting to shifting power balances in a multipolar Asia will be incremental and organic’.5

Australia accepts rather than encourages the expected multipolar order, and has largely welcomed the rise of other powers in Asia. Most notably, it has publicly supported India’s desire for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and made peace with New Delhi’s nuclear acquisition, agreeing to sell it uranium in 2013. Such is the pull of India, that Australian strategic policy has been reframed as operating within the ‘Indo-Pacific’ — a region spanning one-third of the world’s surface, covering South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and the United States.6

Australia’s political class has also reconciled itself with a rising Indonesia. Relations have been particularly weak and fractious in recent years due to a rolling series of crises over issues such as the live cattle trade, asylum seekers, Australian drug smugglers and allegations of high level spying on the former Indonesian President and his wife. While distrust and uncertainty remain, Australian defence policy is no longer designed around countering threats from Indonesia, as it had been from the 1960s until well into the 21st century. Today however, Australian officials increasingly look to Indonesia as a long term partner and fire- wall against traditional and non-traditional security problems.

Indonesia might not be willing to reciprocate, presently seeing little value in its smaller southern neighbour. Still, the shift is substantial and any combined efforts from these two middle powers would be significant for the regional order.

AUSTRALIA’S MULTILATERAL OPTIONS

In a bid to pre-empt a clash with emerging powers, or an order transition away from the western-friendly status quo, the Australian government has actively participated in multilateralism to shape and mould the order. This effort has been more understated in recent years than it was in the early 1990s, in part because of a lack of major new ideas or radical re-thinking. This cautious but engaged style also suits the current Australian government and to a degree the regional mood. The former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had set out to restore Australia’s activist middle power role, but only succeeded in earning a reputation for too much talking and too little listening. Southeast Asia in the early 1990s was also open ground for new forums and bodies to be tried, while today there is a sense of institutional fatigue. There are more meetings than most of the big countries can possibly send senior representatives to, and scholars talk of a ‘noodle bowl’ of acronyms and associations that intertwine, overlap and entangle.

Institutionally, the East Asia Summit (EAS) is now the most important multilateral structure for Australia. This represents a change since 2007, away from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) which has struggled to move beyond economics. The EAS has the right membership, involving all the major countries of the region, and a clear mandate for addressing regional security and economic concerns. Yet like other institutions its promise has gone unfulfilled in recent years. Some Australians still hold faith in the UN — as evidenced by the bid for a rotating seat on the Security Council for 2013- 2014. But few expect the world body to solve the particular challenges facing Australia’s region, or be the forum for a new global bargain on world order. Australia has regularly encouraged UN reform as a serious project. Yet it has found the path regularly thwarted, and lacks both the authority and necessity to demand change.

The G20 is also invested with promise, especially after Australia was the host nation in 2014. The Brisbane summit committed members to raising GDP growth for members by 2%, and a range of other investment, trade and productivity ambitions.7 Notably one of Australia’s favourite new multilateral structures, MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey, and Australia) is itself a by-product of the G20s division. With the G7 and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) often operating as sub groups within the body, the left over middle powers had to fend for themselves. Yet like a firetruck driven by committee, just agreeing on the proper destination is proving difficult.

The rise of MIKTA shows Australia’s willingness to look for new partners. Of course, every politician, scholar and briefing document over the last decade has talked about wanting new and more cooperation. Limits are easily reached, and some common purpose is required for meaningful consultation and cooperation to occur. Australian engagement with the European Union (EU) will therefore likely occur on an ad hoc basis. Canberra is a member of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF). These forums were important openings for responding to the murder of 28 Australians aboard MH17, shot down over Ukraine. Canberra may also be willing to support European initiated policies on refugees, counter-terrorism, internet governance, or, in the right circumstances, climate change. In the vast majority of cases, this will require European initiative to start cooperation. It is not that Australia is unwilling to lead or cooperate with other middle powers. But when it wants to do so, it will, to use the words of the former Prime Minister, lean towards ‘more Jakarta, less Geneva’.8

Canberra continues to assume that the challenge of emerging powers to global order will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It regularly reassures itself that given the prosperity and benefits these countries have earned, they will not risk it all. As such, the hope is that by showing a willingness to defend the order, along with making small adjustments to the structure, these countries will moderate their behaviour and become fully incorporated members. On the security and economic front, Australia is unlikely to return to its norm entrepreneurial past when it championed issues such as non-proliferation and trade liberalisation.9 Uncertain times seem to be cowering rather than compelling Australia’s middle power identity, making it more ad hoc and focused on the short term than previously.

FUTURE PROSPECTS – FIGHTING OR FANNING THE FLAMES?

Australia’s real choice is not between the US and China, but between continuing to protect a normative-based global order, or abandoning it for a power-based order. The former is the status quo option, to continue investing in the experiment of multilateralism, laws and norms as a way to manage conflict and clashing interests. In other words, to continue working collectively and hope that will pre-empt any threat from breaking out.

The latter path is to decide that the benefits of the current order cannot be separated from the US (especially US military dominance). This would mean deciding that preserving American primacy is the only real path to safety, and if that requires declaring the rules-based international order unworkable, then so be it. This would be the like- minded coalition option, working with a select, trusted few to fan the flames in the hope it burns bright but quickly. It is a more comfortable path today, given the trustworthiness of old friends over institutions.

But it is also potentially more dangerous in the future, requiring Australia to support those same friends should they find themselves in a conflict. Some states in Asia also worry that building new security links will not deter China but re-enforce its fears of containment, thus fanning the flames for a potentially devastating conflict.

A crucial factor in Australia’s future as a middle power will be the role of domestic public opinion. The public has tended to go along with support for the global order, but far less enthusiastically than the policy elites. There are undercurrents of xenophobia and protectionism which also threaten to undermine national deals. During 2014-15, economic deals with China and security arrangements with Japan faced significant public opposition. Supporting the US and the UN remain overwhelmingly popular, though the former more than the latter. While not displaying the same rising nationalism as other parts of the globe, Australian political leaders ignore public opinion at their peril. When Tony Abbott was in opposition he masterfully tapped a torrent of public anger. But as Prime Minister he found himself the target and was washed away by it. After less than two years as leader he was replaced, marking the fourth change of Prime Minister in the last five years. If the public decide to abandon Asia’s great game for the presumed safety of isolation, it will require a rare and brave leader to stop them.

As Australia’s new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull likes to quote, The Economist magazine once described Australia as ‘one of the best managers of adversity the world has seen and the worst managers of prosperity’.10 Let us hope this is true. This middle power, once condemned to the ‘Tyranny of Distance’ now finds itself facing the ‘Peril of Proximity’. It is on the front lines of the 21st century’s most important geopolitical struggle and will need all the guile and creative diplomacy it can muster to help blow away the
smoke, tamper down any flames and keep the globe safe and cool.

About the author:
*Andrew Carr, Research Fellow, Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Source:
This article was published by FRIDE as Policy Brief 208 (PDF). This Policy Brief belongs to the FRIDE project ‘The new Asian shapers: Middle powers, regional cooperation and global governance’. We acknowledge the generous support of the Korea Foundation and of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Australian Government.

Endnotes:
1. This FRIDE project defines middle powers as those that can play a
means, while not ranking among the global heavyweights by most
critically important role in regional affairs and beyond through cooperative power indicators.
2. G. Till, Seapower: A Guide for the 21st Century. Third Edition. (New York: Routledge, 2013) pp. 35-41.
3. K.Koser, Environmental Change and Migration: Implications for Australia, Analysis, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, 2012.
4. N. Bisley, ‘An ally for all the years to come’: why Australia is not a conflicted US ally, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67(4): 403- 418, 2013. p.413.
5. P. Varghese, ‘An Australian world view: A practitioner’s perspective’, Speech to the Lowy Institute for International Policy, 20 August 2015 http://dfat.gov.au/news/speeches/Pages/an-australian-world-view-a-practitioners-perspective.aspx
6. G. Dobell, ‘Australia’s Indo-Pacific understanding’ The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 17 August 2015, http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-indo-pacific-understanding/
7. G20 Leaders’ Communiqué Brisbane Summit, 15-16 November 2014, http://www.g20australia.org/sites/default/files/g20_resources/ library/brisbane_g20_leaders_summit_communique.pdf
8. A. O’Neil, ‘Less Geneva, More Jakarta? Assessing Australia’s Asia Pivot’, The ASAN Forum, Special Forum http://www.theasanforum.org/less- geneva-more-jakarta-assessing-australias-asia-pivot/
9. For a fuller discussion, see A. Carr, Winning the Peace: Australia’s campaigns to change the Asia-Pacific, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2015).
10. M. Turnbull, ‘Breathing Life Back into Australia’s Reform Era: Launch of Ross Garnaut’s ‘Dog Days’’ National Press Club, Canberra, 15 November 2013. http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/breathing-life-back-into-australias-reform-era-launch-of-ross-garnauts-dog

A survey of over 1,000 young people aged between 20 and 30 from around the globe finds that millennials rate social and economic inequality as the top challenge the world faces globally and locally.

Asked what sectors will drive growth in their cities in the short term, technology, tourism and government were the top answers. On the question of what they look for in a job, the opportunity to make a difference in society dominated the survey, with 65% of respondents selecting this choice. Ninety-one per cent of respondents indicated that they would be willing to relocate to advance their careers.

The Global Shapers Annual Survey 2015 is one of the most geographically diverse surveys of millennials, with responses from 125 countries worldwide and 285 cities. The respondents are all members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community, a network of over 450 city-based hubs of young, civically engaged leaders aged between 20 and 30.

“The Global Shapers Annual Survey 2015 reveals that millennials care about society in their reflections and also in their own career and economic choices. In addition to the diversity that we observe, the survey reminds us of those things that millennials value everywhere,” said Yemi Babington-Ashaye, Head of the Global Shapers Community, World Economic Forum. Beyond inequality, the survey finds that youth unemployment and government transparency are the second and third most important issues that need to be addressed in cities. At the global level, climate change and education are the second and third priorities.

The Global Shapers Annual Survey also explores what millennials seek in employers and the level of trust in key institutions in society including: religious leaders, news media, the army, the government and NGOs.

Nelson Mandela tops an impressive list of leaders that millennials admire, with Pope Francis and Elon Musk in second and third place respectively. The social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus is among the political and business leaders in the top 10.

Elsewhere in the survey, 75% indicated that they would buy local instead of imported goods and services. The survey also reveals which sectors the millennials consider need reforms to adapt to young people. Finally, the tablet computer comes firmly in third place in the list of devices that millennials use to navigate the internet, with personal computers more popular than smartphones.

Syrian President Beshar Al-Assad says he is willing to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in Syria and run in those elections, said a Russian official on Sunday, according to AFP.

In a report on October 25, AFP says Russian lawmaker Alexander Yushenko, who has met with Assad in Damascus as part of a delegation, says Assad “is ready to conduct elections with the participation of all political forces who want Syria to prosper.”

Assad reportedly says he is willing to take part in the elections “if the people are not against it”.

Yushenko states that Assad, whom he described as “absolutely sure of himself”, says he is ready to discuss constitutional reform and elections only after the threat of the Islamic State jihadists has been eliminated.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have consistently called for the resignation of Assad. Russia has insisted that the Syrian people should decide his fate.

On Saturday October 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia wants Syria to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections, stressing that no one should decide Syria’s fate except for its people.

He also said Russia is prepared to give air support to Western-backed “patriotic” rebels battling jihadists.

By Rosie Scammel and Fotini Rantsiou

An EU initiative to screen and fingerprint all migrants and refugees arriving in Italy and Greece is creating chaos, particularly on the island of Lesvos where the new system is causing further delays in registering new arrivals and thousands of people have been queueing in the open for days.

The introduction of “hotspots” – an EU term for key arrival points where more rigorous systems for screening and fingerprinting migrants and refugees will be implemented – is central to a controversial plan to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other member states over the next two years.

The relocation scheme, which was agreed to by EU leaders last month, is still in its infancy with just two hotspots functioning and only 89 Eritreans and Syrians transferred from Italy to Scandinavia so far, but the approach is already coming up against major problems.

Previously, most of the more than 600,000 people who have arrived by sea to Italy and Greece this year avoided being fingerprinted and made their own way to northern Europe. It was no secret that, under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, the country that took their fingerprints was responsible for processing their asylum claim, preventing them from claiming asylum in the country of their choice. For their part, authorities in Italy and Greece, already facing a backlog of asylum claims, did not insist that new arrivals be fingerprinted. But the quid pro quo for the relocation deal is that the two countries comply with the new approach.

In Italy, the first hotspot opened in late September on the country’s southernmost island of Lampedusa. A further four hotspots are set to begin operations by the end of November – three in Sicily and another in the mainland Puglia region.

Italian officials say people on Lampedusa are being “verbally convinced” to give their fingerprints (EU human rights laws rule out the use of physical force). “We explain that it’s important [to be identified] to go to the countries where they want to go,” said Mario Morcone, head of the interior ministry’s department for civil liberties and immigration. In reality, those accepted for relocation will not get to choose the country they are sent to, and anyone who refuses to give their fingerprints risks being moved to a closed Centre for Identification and Expulsion (CIE) rather than an open reception facility.

Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said that so far no one had been transferred to a CIE because everyone had agreed to be fingerprinted. She added that UNHCR backed the new procedure, while emphasising the need for a humanitarian approach. “Everyone should be identified and fingerprinted,” she told IRIN. “It’s very important. A big part of this European refugee crisis is due to a lack of organisation, and the fact that procedures have not been well organised since the beginning. The result is chaos, a further burden on the shoulders of refugees.”

But on Lesvos, the opening of Greece’s first hotspot this week at the Moria reception centre near Mytiline only appeared to add to the confusion and increase the suffering of refugees.

In recent months, Moria has become an ad hoc camp for the thousands of migrants and refugees arriving on the island each day. During the summer, registration of Syrians had been moved to another site nearby called Kara Tepe, but the opening of the hotspot meant that all registrations were moved back to Moria, with one area reserved for Syrians and another for non-Syrians. As the Kara Tepe site emptied on 15 October, huge queues formed outside the registration centre in Moria.

Visits to the site by IRIN revealed a system that is simply not up to receiving the record numbers of refugees currently arriving in Lesvos – more than 27,000 people in the last five days according to the International Organization for Migration.

Although registration is taking place around the clock, there are shortages of interpreters, police officers and fingerprint scanning equipment. Germany has donated 12 scanning machines, but commitments to provide more equipment and more border guards by other member states have not materialised. Only 291 officers have been committed by EU member states out of a total of 775 requested by border agency Frontex to help run the hotspots in Greece and Italy.

By Thursday, the registration of Syrian families had been moved back to Kara Tepe, and there were 16,000 people on the island still awaiting registration. Some people had already spent up to five days in the open, struggling not to lose their position in the queue, often in heavy rain.

While at Kara Tepe, UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee have implemented a ticketing system to manage registration and, together with other NGOs and volunteers, are providing tents, food and other basic services, at Moria there is no system for managing the crowds.

All non-Syrians and single Syrian men have to wait in line without water, toilets or shelter from the elements. The most vulnerable frequently lose their spot in the line, families become separated and extortion is taking place with some refugees being given false information that registration has a cost. At night, when NGO workers go home, crowd control becomes even more difficult. Scuffles frequently erupt, resulting in riot police resorting to tear gas and beatings to impose order.

Having just returned from Lesvos, Heaven Crawley, chair in international migration for the UK’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, said the hotspot system was “not working… full stop”. Crawley said that besides the shortage of staff to register new arrivals, there were too few spots available in the relocation scheme.

“This new system has come in too late. It’s very difficult now, because the situation is a mess,” she told IRIN. “We’re in a situation where there isn’t an easy option, unless you’re going to throw lots of resources [at it].”

But such resources appear to be unavailable and the Greek authorities claim to be helpless to improve the situation without more external assistance. There are also fears among government officials and the local community that those asylum seekers who do not qualify for relocation to other member states will see their route to northern Europe blocked and end up stranded in Greece, which has no capacity to process large numbers of asylum claims or return those deemed to be economic migrants.

Morcone, of Italy’s interior ministry, also expressed concern about “the risk of having a very high number” of asylum seekers in Italy if the relocation plan does not operate efficiently.

Only asylum seekers from countries that have high refugee recognition rates in Europe – 75 percent acceptance or above – will qualify for relocation. Currently, only Syrians, Eritreans and possibly Iraqis meet that threshold. In theory, everyone else arriving in Italy and Greece, will have to apply for asylum there.

In practice, said Crawley, asylum seekers being kept in open reception centres will choose to move on and risk being returned under the Dublin Regulation, rather than wait for the notoriously slow asylum systems in Greece and Italy to process their claims. “Of course they will, because no one has confidence in the asylum system. Open reception centres do not provide any kind of livelihood for people, so why would they stay there?” she said.

UNHCR, however, remained cautiously optimistic about the hotspot and relocation system. Sami described it as “a good first step,” but said: “it’s not enough.”

“It’s clear that for us, the real solution is to give structure and access – to make legal ways to come to Europe possible,” she said. “We do not think it’s easy, but we know the instruments are there.”

There is an infinite amount of energy lying right beneath our feet. It is a renewable and stable energy source – free of CO2 emissions. Researchers are now planning to drill deep into the Earth to extract it. If they succeed it will be a major technological breakthrough.

Ninety-nine percent of planet Earth has a temperature in excess of 1,000 degrees Celsius as a result of residual heat inherited from the Earth’s primordial origins and the breakdown of radioactive materials. This heat can be transformed into energy – and there is more than enough to go round.

“If we succeed in drilling for and extracting even just a small fraction of this geothermal heat, it will be enough to supply the entire planet with energy – energy that is clean and safe,” according to a statement made by Are Lund, a senior research scientist at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, in 2010.

Today, five years later, researchers and technologists from all over Europe are joining forces to pursue a common cause – to make sure that the world’s potentially most energy-rich geothermal well becomes a reality. The well will be drilled in Larderello in Tuscany, and EUR 15.6 of research funding has been earmarked for the project.

Global green energy producer Enel Green Power is heading the project called DESCRAMBLE (Drilling in dEep, Super-CRitical AMBients of continentaL Europe), where the aim is to extract the maximum possible energy from the well. The extreme heat in the rocks deep beneath northern Italy means that both pressures and temperatures will be right at the limit of what even innovative technologies can currently cope with. However, such conditions also mean that the energy output from such a well can be as much as ten times greater than for standard geothermal wells, and will help to ensure that the new well will be very profitable if the project succeeds.

“SINTEF’s contribution to this EU project is to run simulations of the drilling operation and to develop a new instrument to monitor the well,” said Øyvind Stamnes, a researcher and Project Manager at SINTEF ICT.

Taming supercritical fluids

Achieving the project’s aim is a challenging assignment. No-one has previously managed to control a well under such extreme high temperature and pressure conditions. Specially developed equipment will be needed.

“One of the major uncertainties is the presence of what we call supercritical fluids,” said physicist Roar Nybø at SINTEF Petroleum Research.

At depths of two to three kilometers in the Earth’s interior, ambient physical conditions change dramatically. Temperature increases. And so does the pressure. Something very special happens when temperatures reach 374 degrees and the pressure 218 times the air pressure at the surface. We encounter what we call supercritical water.

It isn’t a liquid, and nor is it steam. It occurs in a physical form incorporating both phases, and this means that it takes on entirely new properties.

Supercritical water behaves like a powerful acid, and will attack anything – including electronics and drilling equipment.

“In a TV fantasy series it would probably be called ‘dragon water’,” joked Nybø, whose background is as a theoretical particle physicist. Where he comes from, it’s not uncommon to be contemplating even more extreme conditions than this project faces.

But the ‘dragon water’ has its advantages too. It can transport from depth up to ten times more energy that normal water and steam can achieve in a standard geothermal well. It also flows more easily through rock fractures and pores. If researchers can succeed in controlling the forces involved without the technology breaking down, we may be on the verge of a deep Earth technological breakthrough.

If all this wasn’t enough, supercritical water can also transport valuable minerals to the surface in solution. This could provide potential incidental revenues.

“The dragon of the deep may thus help us open a real treasure trove,” said Nybø.

Technology transfer is the key

There’s no doubt that the drilling operation requires highly advanced technical preparation. For this reason, the ‘major breakthrough’ must first be modelled in a specially designed simulator. This has already been developed by SINTEF for drilling operations for oil and gas, and is similar to an aircraft flight simulator.

It will now be installed with all available data about the planned well and its location. This will enable the researchers to take virtual “test flights” of the entire drilling operation.

“This approach to the exploitation of geothermal heat has much in common with oil recovery,” said Nybø. “Oil exploration wells have been drilled to depths of more than ten kilometres”, he said.

“So there are good reasons for involving Norwegian drilling technologists in this project. Geothermal heat quite simply represents a unique opportunity for the oil and gas sector to advance its technological development. We strongly believe that this know-how can become a key Norwegian export,” said Nybø, and lists the following similarities:

• Seismic technology is used to identify the correct well location.
• New equipment must be developed to withstand extreme conditions.
• The drilling operation itself.
• Getting the fluid to flow from depth through the rocks.
• Flushing the well to remove sediment.
• Recovery of the fluid (maintaining production and keeping the reservoir pressure stable throughout the lifetime of the well).

Unpredictable conditions

This isn’t the first time that researchers and geologists have been looking deep into the Earth’s interior to extract the inexhaustible amounts of energy it contains. Iceland has been exploiting geothermal heat for many years. The power station at Krafla has been using steam from below ground to generate electricity since 1977. Its annual production is 480 GWh, which is approximately equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a town the size of Lillehammer.

In fact, twenty-five percent of Iceland’s energy needs are sourced from geothermal heat, while the remainder is hydroelectric.

In 2009 a team of Icelandic researchers set up some drilling equipment on the volcanic island. Their aim was to drill to 4,000 meters and establish the world’s most effective geothermal well. In a frenzy of creativity, they named it DDP-1.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan – the geologists encountered lavas as shallow as 2,000 meters depth. But, after two years of tests and studies the well had to be shut down, without having generated any electricity at all. However, the Icelanders learned a great deal from their attempt, and have not given up in their efforts to win the race to drill the world’s deepest geothermal well. They are currently planning a new well, with a new name – DDP-2.

But their hoped for victory is now under threat from the Italians, who are armed with Norwegian oil and gas expertise and experience, and more favorable geological conditions.

“Our well will encounter completely different types of rocks,” said Nybø.

“In Iceland the geology is “open” all the way down to the Earth’s mantle, while in Italy the heat accumulates in so-called ‘hot spots’. Areas such as this are also found in many other places in Europe, and success may lead to opportunities for the efficient exploitation of geothermal heat in many other locations around the world,” he said.

Crystal ball

But to achieve this success, the supercritical water must be controlled. In order to predict as accurately as possible how this fluid will behave both at depth in the well and on its journey to the surface, the entire process has to be modeled in a so-called ‘flow simulator’. Such tools have been employed in the oil and gas industry for many years to obtain more accurate predictions about how oil, gas and water are transported through subsea pipelines.

After years of research, technologists have succeeded in controlling processes such as corrosion, hydrate (ice-like plugs) formation, and wax deposits in pipelines.

The flow simulator ‘LedaFlow’ makes it possible to analyse more detailed and complex flow scenarios involving so-called ‘multiphase transport’, where oil, gas and water all flow along the same pipeline.

“The simulator is able to visualize waves, fluid plugs, phase transitions and hydrate precipitation, and can contribute towards reducing the risk of these factors causing operational difficulties,” said Bjørn Tore Løvfall at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry. “It also provides valuable information such as how much pressure support (gas injected into a reservoir) a well needs to deliver streamlined production. The simulator will now be used to provide a better insight into how supercritical water will behave,” he said.

According to Løvfall, “Today, the LedaFlow simulator is used by engineers who design, scale and operate subsea multiphase transport systems.”

Løvfall added, “It provides its users with a chance to “zoom in” on whatever aspect of flow they may want to visualise along a pipeline, enabling them to obtain detailed simulations of flow conditions at predefined locations.”

The simulator is the result of one of SINTEF’s most comprehensive
research projects ever. However, for the DESCRAMBLE project it will be expanded with the aim of predicting the behaviour of supercritical water. This will entail developing an entirely separate module designed to answer questions such as how deep in the well the water makes its phase transformation, and how it behaves as it rises to the surface carrying its maximum energy load.

Developing a ‘super tool’

While work on the modelling and simulation of the advanced drilling operation continues, yet another research team will be getting to grips with some completely different problems.

SINTEF ICT has a research group working under the inspiring name of ‘Harsh Environment Instrumentation’. Øyvind Stamnes is a member of this group, working on the development of a specialized probe that will be lowered into the well to log and measure how the well behaves.

The drilling operation must be monitored in detail, so that if something unforeseen happens we can gain as much control of the well as possible. But how is it possible to build a system of electronics and sensors capable of withstanding temperatures of up to 450 degrees, and pressures that would destroy most instruments that we are familiar with today? One thing is certain. Such equipment is not currently on the market.

“We know that when the well reaches its maximum temperature, all known measuring instruments will stop functioning”, says Stamnes. The electronics will encounter temperatures high enough to cause short circuits due to excessive leakage flows,” said Øyvind Nistad Stamnes.

So how do you get around that? With a combination of custom-designed high-temperature electronics enclosed in a kind of thermos flask. Or in technical language – A Dewar flask. The container must be well insulated to protect the measuring instrument which has to record conditions in the well over periods of several hours in ambient temperatures of 450°C, and 250°C in the interior of the container.

“You could say that our approach involves developing instruments enclosed in space suits,” said Stamnes. Building electronics for high-temperature applications is nothing new to researchers at SINTEF ICT. They’ve been looking into this since the 1990s. But the challenge now will be to assemble an array of components that can all withstand the high temperatures – with something of a safety margin built in as well.

“For example, there are no batteries on the market that can withstand temperatures greater than 200°C.. So we’re working together with manufacturers to produce batteries that are safe to use at even higher temperatures,” sid Stamnes.

The project was launched in Pisa in Italy in mid-May, and drilling is planned to start in autumn 2016. If everything goes as planned, this well once completed will provide ten times the output of a standard shallow geothermal well.

The project will give a radical boost to the competitiveness of green, geothermal energy because the drilling costs for a well of this type are between 30 and 50 per cent of the total costs.

“This makes for exciting times here at SINTEF ICT,” said Stamnes as he returns to his lab to continue working on the “space suit for sensors” on which the entire project relies.

An inexhaustible source

Low-temperature geothermal energy involves the extraction of geothermal heat from between 150 and 200 meters below the surface. At these depths, the temperature is between six and eight degrees Celsius. Such energy is extracted using ground source heat pumps combined with energy wells, and is currently produced in large volumes.

High-temperature geothermal heat has tremendous potential because it represents an inexhaustible, and virtually emissions-free, energy source.

Heat energy can be found in a variety of rocks in the Earth’s crust. The deeper we drill, the hotter it gets.

About half of the heat at depth originates from primordial heat derived from the Earth’s mantle (the layer immediately below the crust) and core. The remaining fifty per cent is derived from the continuous breakdown of radioactive material in the Earth’s crust. All this heat is transported towards the surface through the overlying formations.

Oil companies are currently making healthy profits from the recovery of oil from reservoirs at depths of 5,000 meters, where temperatures can reach up to 170 degrees Celsius. At deeper levels, drilling operations and materials integrity are faced with major challenges. Steel becomes brittle, and materials such as plastics and electronics either fail or start to melt. Normally, electronics only function for a short time at temperatures greater than 200 degrees Celsius. These problems must be resolved if the extraction of high-temperature geothermal heat is to become a going concern.

A democratic source

One of the unique properties of geothermal heat is that it exists all over the world. Potentially, everyone on the planet can exploit this democratic energy source that is both stable and independent of variations in climatic conditions at the Earth’s surface.

The depths to which we have to drill to achieve the desired temperatures will vary from country to country. This is due to variations in the thickness of the Earth’s crust and the geothermal gradient. Here in Norway, temperature increases by about 20 degrees per kilometer, while in other parts of the world, this may be as high as 40 degrees per kilometer. The average is about 25.

Countries currently leading the way in the generation of electricity from geothermal sources are the US, the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia and Italy. Iceland is lower down the list at number eight.

Facts about the DESCRAMBLE project

The aim of the project is to achieve a ten-fold increase in output compared with traditional, shallow geothermal wells. For comparison, the Krafla geothermal energy plant on Iceland generates 480 GWh annually. This is equivalent to the electricity consumption of a town the size of Lillehammer.

Participating countries include Italy, Germany and Norway.

The Norwegian research partners are SINTEF ICT located in Oslo, and SINTEF Petroleum Research in Trondheim and Bergen.

As a result of global warming, more extremely salty water masses from the Mediterranean will be flowing into the North Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar.

This was the conclusion of researchers from Heidelberg University working with an international research team to investigate the dynamics of Mediterranean outflow. According to Dr. André Bahr from the Institute of Earth Sciences, this process could counterbalance the predicted drop in the North Atlantic’s salt content. Experts believe that the desalination brought on by massive melt waters from the Arctic and Greenland will significantly affect global ocean circulation and possibly weaken the Gulf Stream. The findings were published in the journal “Geology”.

To better understand the dynamics of the Mediterranean outflow, the researchers analysed its behavior under different climatic conditions in the geologic past. They studied core samples from the continental shelf off of southern Spain and Portugal obtained through the International Ocean Discovery Program.

“The data show that the Mediterranean current was subject to massive and in some cases extremely abrupt fluctuations over the last 150,000 years,” said Dr. Bahr.

The Heidelberg researcher explains that the strength of the current depends mainly on the intensity of the African monsoon, as is evident from the origin of the water that flows into the Atlantic. It derives for the most part from the eastern Mediterranean, where hot and dry conditions raise the salt content in the surface water. In winter these water masses cool, become denser and flow west at greater depths, where they leave the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar.

If strong monsoons in Northeast Africa increase the inflow of fresh water, the formation of this dense, salty water is inhibited and the outflow of Mediterranean water into the Atlantic weakened along with it. Conversely, the very dry conditions in the eastern Mediterranean that current climate models strongly predict will boost the salt content in the surface waters and thus strengthen the current from the Mediterranean.

“A comparison of the data we derived on the strength of the ocean circulation in the recent geologic past indicates that a strong Mediterranean outflow and the increased inflow of salt into the Atlantic at the end of the last warm cycle 120,000 years ago actually had a stabilising effect. This is because the circulation is significantly driven by the contrasts in salt content in the different water masses,” explained André Bahr.

For this reason, the geoscientist believes that tropical and subtropical climate changes and their impact on oceanography should figure more prominently in climate prognoses.

Researchers from Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Portugal and Great Britain contributed to the study.

By Arián Guerra Pérez*

Former political prisoners in Cuba say conditions in jail are poor and inmates are often subject to abuse.

Official data from 2012 showed Cuba with a prison population of 57,300, or 508 per 100,000 people. A study by the International Centre for Prison Studies at Essex University indicated that Cuba had the world’s sixth highest prison population, based on a 2013 rate of 510 per 100,000 in the world.

The figures are disputed by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), whose head Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz has been investigating convict numbers. Sánchez estimates the prison population at up to 70,000.

“Cuba is literally a huge penitentiary centre,” the Cuban Human Rights Observatory, headquartered in Madrid, says. “Half a century on, there are around 200 prisons for 11 million citizens. The population has multiplied by two, but prisons have multiplied by a factor of 14.”

Using the government total of 200 prisons – excluding juvenile detention centres – Cuba now has one prison for every 56,000 people, compared with one per 422,000 people in 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution took place.

The government says that reoffending rates are low and that half of all prisoners are able to do paid work, study, or learn a trade while they are on the inside.

In 2013the government provided a highly orchestrated “conducted tour” of four prisons for foreign journalists. (See Cuba Grants Prison Access on Own Terms.) Speaking at the time, Major Jorge Fonseca, the governor of La Lima prison, said the policy was to shift low-risk convicts who behaved well to the growing number of minimum-security facilities.

People locked up for their political beliefs say conditions are very far from the ideal the government tried to show in 2013.

Marcelino Abreu Bonora, a former prisoner, said he was held in buildings where water leaked through into the cells, “politicals” like him were only allowed out to exercise for four or five minutes a day, and the main daily meal consisted of minced fish full of bones.

“There are some places in the prison where you just can’t sleep – leaking roofs, ceilings falling in, 50 or 60 people to a small cell,” he said.

Opposition sources say government of glossing over the overcrowding, poor nutrition, water shortages and limited exercise periods. Inmates are able to alleviate their hunger with food parcels which relatives are allowed to bring every six weeks.

The authorities have increased the number of jails by converting schools. These include a secondary school in the town of Juraguá, Cienfuegos province, and two in a rural area of Motembo, Villa Clara province.

The Juraguá facility now holds 500 inmates from the bigger Ariza prison. They are employed in charcoal production.

Lázaro Yosvani Montesino Hernández spent time making charcoal after he was jailed in 2003 for taking part in an opposition event in Havana. After the Güira de Melena prison, where he was tasked with cutting down timber for commercial use, he was transferred to a jail in Matanzas province, and employed to cut down trees to make charcoal – with no safety regulations or basic working conditions.

In the accompanying film, former inmates talk more about conditions and abuse at the hands of warders.

*Arián Guerra Pérez is a Cuban journalist. This article was published by IWPR.

In mid-September the company Guyana Goldfields started extracting gold from a mine located in the region of Essequibo, located in the northwest of the country, whose sovereignty is disputed with Venezuela.

President David Granger, who took office in May, congratulated the Canadian-owned company “for commissioning this mine, and the first gold pour. I applaud the efforts of all who worked to bring this enterprise to this stage.”

Guyana Goldfields has invested around US$200 million in the construction of the Aurora mine which employs about 800 workers and will produce an average of 150,000 ounces of gold annually during the next 17 years.

According to Granger, mining constitutes an important pillar of the country’s economy. In 2014 gold production represented 7 percent of the gross domestic product.

However, the Essequibo region, which has an area of 160,000 square meters and constitutes two-thirds of the territory of Guyana, is claimed by Venezuela which considers null and void the arbitral award of 1899, which resolved the dispute by declaring this region to be territory of Guyana.

Underlying this claim is the strategic location of the region and the existence of important petroleum and gold deposits.

Former Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), maintained cordial relations with Guyana and the dispute was frozen as a strategy to increase Venezuela’s influence among the Caribbean countries. Nevertheless, the current president, Nicolás Maduro, has revived the territorial conflict.

In May, the US oil company Exxon Mobil announced the discovery of oil in the Stabroek block in the region of Essequibo. The Venezuelan government requested the company to suspend its activities, receiving the answer that “the border disputes should be resolved by the governments through bilateral discussions and the appropriate international organizations.”

Maduro issued a decree with the coordinates that mark the border of Venezuela with Guyana and requested the United Nations (UN) to activate its good offices — a kind of peaceful resolution of disputes — to resolve the territorial conflict. The Guyanese government rejected the request and demanded that the claim be heard in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Conflicting positions

On Sept. 27, Presidents Granger and Maduro met in New York before the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. In addition to accepting the exchange of ambassadors, which implies the normalization of bilateral relations, Maduro expressed his desire to continue the dialogue on the territorial issue with the hope of negotiating a resolution.

But after two days, in his speech before the UN General Assembly, Granger reaffirmed the commitment of his country to international law and at the same time invoked the United Nations to protect small states from foreign aggression, specifically the intent of Venezuela to “unravel borders which have been undisturbed for decades.”

“For fifty years, our small country has been prevented from fully exploiting our rich natural resources. Venezuela has threatened and deterred investors and frustrated our economic development,” said the Guyanese President.

The Venezuelan response was not long in coming. On Oct. 3, the date the arbitral award was settled 116 years ago, Vice President Jorge Arreaza denounced “the absurd and irrational actions” of Guyana “to ignore its international commitments referring false protections based on lies and subterfuge.”

Some analysts cited by the press considered that there is little interest in either country to resolve the border conflict. On the one hand, Venezuela will use it as propaganda in its favor, particularly before the legislative elections scheduled for December; while Guyana will not be deterred in its plans to take the controversy to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Even though the Ministers of Foreign Relations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) confirmed on Oct. 1 in a statement their support for the territorial integrity of Guyana, they did not explicitly support the intention of the country to seek a juridical solution to the border conflict with Venezuela.

The Ministers “noted that Guyana called for a juridical solution to the controversy given the divergence of views between the two sides about the validity and nullity of the Arbitral Award of Oct. 3, 1899,” and “reaffirmed their support for the maintenance of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.”

(RFE/RL) — Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has conceded defeat in national elections after exit polls showed the conservative Law and Justice party beating out the premier’s Civic Platform to win a majority of seats.

Exit polls by public broadcaster TVP and others projected Law and Justice picking up 242 out of 460 seats in the lower house of parliament in the October 25 vote, ousting Civic Platform liberals, who won 133 seats.

Law and Justice members have campaigned on a platform of distrust for the European Union and as an advocate of a strong NATO — reflecting fears about the intentions of its giant neighbor, Russia. However, the party opposes joining the eurozone, promises more welfare spending on the poor, and wants banks to be subjected to new taxation.

Civic Platform is a pro-market coalition that has held power for the past eight years, overseeing a period of strong economic growth and political stability even during the global financial crisis of 2008-09 and the 2010 plane crash that killed the president and dozens of other state officials.

Election regulators said that, by midday, there was an above-average turnout of voters, which in the past has been less favorable to Law and Justice.

A country of 38 million people, Poland has seen its economy expand by nearly 50 percent in the last decade.

It was the only EU member not to slide into recession after the 2008 financial crisis.

There was much expectation that recent developments in the South China Sea (SCS) and their potential implications for regional security in the Asia-Pacific would be among the key issues to be discussed during the recently concluded state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the US.

However, a review of the post-visit official statements and releases from the two sides revealed no references to the said subject. It became apparent that there was a deliberate effort by both sides to downplay the importance of the issue. In stark contrast, there was much discussion of economic relations and climate change and a joint presidential statement on the latter was even issued. While there was mention of maritime concerns, it was in the context of a larger strategic cooperation for ocean and polar research and conservation, and in relation to military and coast guard confidence building measures.  Given the expectations from America’s mutual defense allies in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines, that President Obama will call China out over its recent activities in the SCS, the non-mention of the SCS in official post-visit issuances may send unwelcome signals to other claimant states and security allies, and impact adversely on the US’ image as a security partner for the region..

Five of the US’ seven collective defense arrangements are in the Asia-Pacific. All three of its mutual defense treaties are with states in maritime Northeast and Southeast Asia. Hence, in light of recent tensions and anxieties brought about by certain Chinese actions notably in SCS (e.g. reclaiming and building of artificial islands in some SCS features), many had been looking forward for some space to be given to the discussion of measures to address the issue.

While the US had long pronounced its neutrality in relation to the sovereignty claims, it had objected to unilateral attempts to change the status quo and declared its support for a peaceful resolution of the dispute in accordance with international norms. In a September 24 press briefing, US State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said that “what’s happening in the South China Sea will also be on the topic of agenda items … , as it always is when we talk to our Chinese counterparts.” He also said that “it’s unhelpful, we think, to the security and stability of the region for that status quo to be changed again in an overt manner, whether it’s through reclamation or militarization of reclaimed land” (emphasis supplied).

Thus, the clear absence of SCS in the post-visit official public documents leads to the question whether the subject was really sidelined in the interest of much larger issues at stake in the world’s most important bilateral relations, such as economic and financial issues, climate change, and cybersecurity. Or could it be that both sides reached a tacit understanding on SCS? If so, considering that US and claimant states’ priorities and interests in the SCS do not completely converge, it is possible that such mutual understanding may not necessarily be agreeable for other littoral states, including US security allies in the region.

Prior to his US state visit, President Xi gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal (September 22, 2015) wherein he reiterated China’s position on SCS and justified its recent actions, saying that  “China’s development and maintenance of facilities on some of our garrisoned islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands does not impact on or target any other country, and it should not be over-interpreted.

These facilities have been built to improve the working and living conditions of the Chinese personnel on the maritime features, provide international public goods and services, and better uphold navigation freedom and safety in the South China Sea” (emphasis supplied). Considering that US’ primary interest in SCS has long been freedom of navigation and overflight, was this an assurance intended for the US and was this sufficient to allay US’ concerns? Will Washington accept this guarantee at face value and will such an assurance contribute to the withering of US support to the external defense of security allies in the region?

In the same interview, President Xi recognized that both the US and China would have some differences and on account of this, he emphasized mutual respect and understanding, accommodation of each other’s core interests, compromise on issues that can be resolved and constructive management of differences that cannot be resolved for the time being. One question is whether the non-mention of the SCS in the official statements amounts to US gradual recognition of China’s core interests in the disputed features and waters of the sea, and whether the same borders on or amounts to US acquiescence of Chinese historical claims in that strategic and resource-rich maritime space.

On the matter of bilateral military relations, one of the outstanding achievements of the state visit was the completion of new annexes on air-to-air safety and crisis communications, as well as commitment between the coast guards of the two countries to pursue an arrangement that would provide for surface-to-surface rules of behavior confidence-building measures (CBMs). These efforts build on the 2014 Memoranda of Understanding on CBMs signed by them and would be very important in preventing possible accidents in the SCS, especially in light of Chinese-protested US surveillance flights.

Both sides also agreed to work on a mechanism to notify one another of major military activities. While this may contribute to lessening the chances of on-the-ground miscalculations in the SCS for both parties, one wonders whether this would tie the hands of the US in terms of supporting the external defense of regional treaty allies, notably the Philippines, which is becoming more uncomfortable with the ever growing Chinese presence close to its western seaboard.  While American hawks may have wanted a firm US red line on the SCS, the more moderate forces at least aspired for the US to convey the legitimate security interests of its regional treaty allies; it appears that even this was sacrificed for the sake of higher-order goals.

The only occasion wherein SCS received considerable treatment was during the September 27 press conference of the two leaders wherein the two sides reiterated their respective positions. Speaking about his discussion with President Xi, President Obama said that “[w]e did have candid discussions on the East and South China Seas, and I reiterated the right of all countries to freedom of navigation and overflight and to unimpeded commerce.” He added that the US “will continue to sail, fly and operate anywhere that international law allows” and “conveyed to President Xi our significant concerns over land reclamation, construction and the militarization of disputed areas, which makes it harder for countries in the region to resolve disagreements peacefully.”

Finally, he “encouraged a resolution between claimants in these areas,” saying that “[w]e are not a claimant; we just want to make sure that the rules of the road are upheld.” In response, President Xi declared that “[i]slands in the South China Sea since ancient times are China’s territory. We have the right to uphold our own territorial sovereignty and lawful and legitimate maritime rights and interests. We are committed to maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, managing differences and disputes through dialogue, and addressing disputes through negotiation, consultation, and peaceful manner, and exploring ways to achieve mutual benefit through cooperation.” Considering that both sides seemed to have at least a minimum bare agreement on the need to resolve differences in a peaceful way, one wonders why even such a motherhood statement was not reflected in the final joint statement.

The failure to reflect SCS in the final official post-visit documents may be indicative of the degree of mutual disagreement on the matter, but for US regional treaty allies it could be more than that. Such non-reflection may represent a victory for China in terms of limiting vocal US opposition to its recent actions in the disputed sea and a defeat for the hopes of littoral states of ever hearing a stronger US resolve to criticize China for its unilateral moves. As such, one wonders whether such “candid discussions” will be enough to dissuade or deter China from further reclamation and island-building undertakings in SCS in the future.

President Xi’s state visit can be seen from the perspective of continuing efforts on the part of major powers US and China to try to work out their differences and cooperate on the pursuit of shared interests or on issues that are less sensitive for both of them. The visit did not put an end to their differences but it laid out some broad consensus and demonstrated commitment to work out resolvable issues.

For intractable concerns, the visit opened discussion for possible mechanisms that can be put in place to manage them. The visit provided a high level venue for leaders of both sides to exchange views and become more intimate with each country’s respective national interests, which have both confluences and variances. Thus, the visit may have contributed much in terms of bolstering China-US major power relations, but the same may have come at a cost of diminishing perceived US commitment towards its treaty allies.

For several decades, US security presence had underpinned Asia-Pacific security and stability and while changing regional dynamics suggest the need to share this responsibility with emerging resident powers, it is still important for the US to actively contribute in tackling key regional security concerns if it wants to remain a relevant player in this part of the world. It is well known that China’s economic clout in the region already eclipses that of the US, while the long delay in take-off of the  US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership – the key economic pillar of the rebalance – does not help. If the US should be seen as faltering now in one of the few remaining areas where its role is still recognized, it may not bode well for US efforts to play a critical role in the region in the years to come. This realization may have prompted recent talk about the US possibly sending patrols within 12 nautical miles of the features presently occupied by China, the final decision of which, it is said, still lies with President Obama.

This article appeared at APPFI.

Last week the US House of Representatives called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to appear before a select committee looking into the attack on a US facility in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. The attack left four Americans dead, including US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

As might be expected, however, the “Benghazi Committee” hearings have proven not much more than a means for each party to grandstand for political points.

In fact, I would call these Congressional hearings “too much, too late.”

Four years after the US-led overthrow of the Libyan government – which left the country a wasteland controlled by competing Islamist gangs and militias – the committee wants to know whether Hillary Clinton had enough guards at the facility in Benghazi on the night of the attack? The most important thing to look into about Libya is Hillary Clinton’s e-mails or management style while Secretary of State?

Why no House Committee hearing before President Obama launched his war on Libya? Why no vote on whether to authorize the use of force? Why no hearing after the President violated the Constitution by sending the military into Libya with UN authorization rather than Congressional authorization? There are Constitutional tools available to Congress when a president takes the country to war without a declaration or authorization. At the time, President Obama claimed he did not need authorization from Congress because the US was not engaged in “hostilities.” It didn’t pass the laugh test, but Congress did next to nothing about it.

When the Obama Administration decided to attack Libya, I joined Rep. Dennis Kucinich and others in attempt to force a vote on the president’s war. I introduced my own legislation warning the administration that, “the President is required to obtain in advance specific statutory authorization for the use of United States Armed Forces in response to civil unrest in Libya.”

We even initiated a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia asking the courts to rule on whether the president broke the law in attacking Libya.

Unfortunately we got nowhere with our efforts. When it looked like we had the votes to pass a resolution introduced by Rep. Kucinich to invoke War Powers Resolution requirements on the president for the use of force in Libya, Speaker Boehner cancelled the vote.

Why were there no hearings at the time to discuss this very important Constitutional matter? Because the leadership of both parties wanted the war. Both parties — with few exceptions — agree with the ideology of US interventionism worldwide.

Secretary Clinton defended the State Department’s handling of security at the Benghazi facility by pointing out that there are plenty of diplomatic posts in war zones and that danger in these circumstances is to be expected. However she never mentioned why Benghazi remained a “war zone” a year after the US had “liberated” Libya from Gaddafi.

Why was Libya still a war zone? Because the US intervention left Libya in far worse shape than it was under Gaddafi. We don’t need to endorse Gaddafi to recognize that today’s Libya, controlled by al-Qaeda and ISIS militias, is far worse off – and more of a threat to the US – than it was before the bombs started falling.

The problem is the ideology of interventionism, not the management of a particular intervention. Interventionism has a terrible track record, from 1953 in Iran, to Vietnam, to 2003 in Iraq, to 2011 in Libya and Syria. A real Congressional hearing should focus on the crimes and mistakes of the interventionists!

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

By Emad Mekay*

When the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal was announced in July, the image in state-controlled Saudi media was of Western powers caving in to a new powerful neighboring foe. The usually reticent Saudi officials paid the usual diplomatic lip-service to the agreement but social media, academia and state-owned news outlet all portrayed a different picture; profound Saudi anxiety that included statements that the oil-rich country can use its wealth to go nuclear.

“The kingdom can only look to itself to protect its people, even if it means implementing a nuclear program,” wrote Nawaf Obaid, Senior Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. A nuclear Iran, he said, “represents a state of extreme danger to multiple nations, but few more so than Saudi Arabia, which has long been Iran’s primary opponent in the Middle East power balance.”

Ironically, the deal that alarmed the Saudis was designed to produce a different result. The framework would in fact gradually lift sanctions on Tehran for its agreement to cut back its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98 percent for 15 years and reducing its installed centrifuges. Yet, Saudi Arabia and other regional Gulf Arab allies saw the deal as nothing short of a dramatic shift of the balance of regional power.

Iran can use new streams of revenue to improve its conventional armament and expand its regional influence without losing any of its scientific, technological or nuclear edge over its over-indulgent wealthy Arab neighbors. After all, Arab capitals have long blindly trusted U.S. guarantees of Gulf security to the point where they neglected investment in scientific development and relied heavily on massive arms purchases from the U.S. that sat to collect dust in storage houses.

Iran’s unprecedented projection of military power and influence in neighboring Iraq and Syria along with Iranian backing of Yemeni Houthi rebels only vexed the Saudis more. Little wonder more Saudi pundits are screaming at the top of their voice they can and will go nuclear. To seal it all, the Obama administration appears to them as if Washington is renegading on its security pledges.

“I think the Obama Administration has done a terrible job of creating a regional security strategy,” said Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “It is not surprising that allies and partners would be expressing discomfort with what they see as strategic drift.  Most Saudis are alarmed at the deterioration in regional security and believe that the Obama Administration is inept.”

“I am reluctant to conclude that the current unease is permanent until we see how the next Administration handles the regional and bilateral relationship,” he added.

For Middle East experts, the Saudis rarely vent their frustration publicly preferring to work behind the scene or clandestinely. But this time the Saudi media responded to the deal with stories upon stories describing Saudi Arabia’s missile forces in striking detail as well as its nuclear ambitions.

Nuclear programme

Riyadh already has a nuclear programme. In 2011, it announced plans for the construction of sixteen nuclear power reactors over the next twenty years at a cost of more than 80 billion dollars. These would generate about 20 percent of Saudi Arabia’s electricity, while other, smaller reactors were envisaged for desalination.

Recently, the French and the Saudis announced feasibility studies to secure contracts for two nuclear reactor facilities to be built by Areva, a French company. Deals with Hungary, Russia, Argentina and China are in the pipeline towards building reactors costing around 2 billion dollars each.

The King Abdullah Atomic Energy City (KACARE) has taken most matters into hand and it is said to be manned by young researchers imbibed with an ideology that sees Iran as the ultimate threat to their nation’s existence.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is in close cooperation with Riyadh in developing a peaceful nuclear power programme and cancer treatment facilities at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center.

But despite the newly-found motivation and initial endeavour, many Middle East experts agree that Saudi officials can wish all they want but they really cannot build a nuclear weapon. All they are doing is just dabbling in early nuclear energy research and making “noise’.

“So far that noise has not translated to anything concrete above and beyond talk, sometimes a loud talk,” said Avner Cohen, a researcher with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Other obstacles remain before a Saudi nuclear programme. Saudi Arabia controls 16 percent of the world’s known oil reserves yet it remains an authoritarian developing nation that lacks the educational and technological skills to develop nuclear warheads or ballistic missile technology.

Te Al-Saud family-run regime has long preferred to spend on the welfare state and pamper its citizens with luxury items rather than on developing profound scientific or personal skills.

“Saudi Arabia possesses only a rudimentary civil nuclear infrastructure, and currently lacks the physical and technological resources to develop an indigenous nuclear weapons capability,” said a recent report from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based NGO that works towards reduction of nuclear weapons.

To compensate for its lack of indigenous knowledge-based infrastructure, Riyadh, which routinely deploys its wealth to win international favours, had also assumed that forming an alliance with a nuclear power, such as Pakistan, would offer “purchased” protection. By showing generosity to the Pakistani or the Egyptian military, Riyadh can tap into the Pakistani nuclear programme and order bombs when it wants to, the theory went.

Shortcomings in Saudi largesse

But a recent development showed the shortcomings of Saudi largesse. Pakistan balked at sending ground troops to fight in Yemen alongside the inexperienced Saudi soldiers; an episode that embarrassed Riyadh and showed the limits of its money-based security strategy.

Many nuclear arms experts who monitor the Middle East say that Saudi nuclear weapons “on order” is an allegation that has not been substantiated in any way.

“It can be done, but it seems very unlikely,” said Lewis. “ Most experts doubt that Pakistan would set aside nuclear weapons for transfer to Saudi Arabia or participate in a nuclear sharing arrangement.”

Saudi allies, particularity the U.S., will not tolerate Saudi going nuclear as their over-zealous media and some in the regime would like to claim.

Washington has talked about offering Riyadh a “nuclear umbrella” that would purportedly protect Gulf states including Saudi Arabia against a nuclear Iran. If it was to go ahead, the deal would in fact limit Saudi nuclear ambitions.

Under the proposal Saudi Arabia would be negotiating a civil nuclear cooperation agreement. It is expected to include language whereby Saudi Arabia voluntarily refrain from enrichment and reprocessing.  Heavy investments in the King Abdullah Center for Atomic and Renewable Energy would be scaled back and plans for city-sized research center would be shelved. The money would be going to US coffers instead.

The nuclear blustering in the Saudi media can also prove hollow on other counts. This month (in October) the IMF said that Riyadh suffers low oil prices and a budget deficit that could erode reserves quickly.

Worse, in their zeal to spread its regional hegemony, the Saudi royal family took on large foreign expenditure as well. It contributed some 6 billion dollars to the military coup in Egypt that toppled the country’s first elected president for fear democracy could spread to the conservative kingdom. It later started a costly bombardment campaign on the Shiite Houthi Group in Yemen in March 2015 on top of its bankrolling some Syrian rebel groups fighting for the fourth year.

The Iran deal may have indeed alarmed the Saudi regime into unleashing is propagandists into nuclear grandstanding but the country had missed the opportunity of a real nuclear programme a long time ago. Re-opening that window again can and will take many more years. [IDN-InDepthNews – 25 October 2015]

*Emad Mekay is Middle East correspondent and Middle East Bureau Chief of International Press Syndicate and its flagship IDN-InDepthNews.

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa’s candidacy for the presidency of world soccer body FIFA is likely to serve as a litmus test for newly introduced integrity checks on the group’s executives.

Sheikh Salman, a former soccer player, has consistently like other members of his ruling family refused to respond to allegations by human rights groups that he was associated with the detention and abuse of scores of sports executives and athletes, including national soccer team players, alleged to have participated in a 2011 popular uprising that was brutally squashed.

Sheikh Salman also played a key role in squashing a 2012 independent audit of AFC finances that raised serious questions about possible bribery, non-transparency, tax evasion, and sanctions busting in the awarding to Singapore-based World Sport Group (WSG) of a $1 billion master rights agreement.

The audit by a PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) that constituted the basis for FIFA’s banning for life of former AFC president and FIFA executive committee member Mohammed Bin Hammam counselled the AFC to seek legal advice on potential civil and criminal charges and review its contract with Singapore-based World Sport Group.

AFC officials deny that Sheikh Salman or the group buried the audit. In a new twist, the officials recently disclosed that in addition to the audit, PwC had also delivered a report on proposed restructuring of the AFC. The officials said those recommendations had largely been implemented.

In a reflection of the group’s lack of transparency and Sheikh Salman’s management style, the disclosure was the first time in three years since the audit that the AFC referred to a second PwC report. The report was never made public nor was it clear what PwC recommendations were implemented. Disclosure of the existence of the report moreover did not explain why the recommendations of the audit have been ignored.

Sheikh Salman’s secretive management style that bodes ill for reform of FIFA should he win the world soccer body’s February 26 presidential election is further evident in current AFC negotiations with potential marketing partners. The AFC has denied reports that the group was negotiating an extension of its controversial WSG contract. The officials said the AFC was talking to various companies and had yet to take a decision.

The PwC audit criticized the AFC for failing to put the contract to tender, a suggestion Sheikh Salman appears to be studiously ignoring. The audit further raised questions about the valuation of the contract and unexplained payments of $14 million to Mr. Bin Hammam through an AFC account by a WSG shareholder in advance of the signing of the original contract.

The only known time that the AFC took action with regard to the audit besides honouring FIFA’s banning of Mr. Bin Hammam was earlier this year when it effectively fired its general secretary, Dato’ Alex Soosay, for seeking to destroy documents relevant to the audit.

Even then, the AFC portrayed Mr. Soosay’s dismissal as a voluntary resignation even if his departure followed disclosure by this blog and The Malay Mail of a tape in which financial director Bryan Kuan Wee Hoong testified that Mr. Soosay had asked him to destroy documents. Mr. Kuan has since disclosure of the tape left the AFC.

The fact that it took media pressure for Sheikh Salman and the AFC to act three years after delivery of the audit says much about the Bahraini’s management style.

The PwC audit suggested that Mr. Soosay had authorized many of the payments on which it cast legal doubt. “Our transaction review revealed that items sampled were, in most cases, authorised by the General Secretary or Deputy General Secretary and the Director of Finance. As signatories these parties hold accountability for the authorisation of these transactions. We also note the Internal Audit and Finance Committees were aware of this practice,” the PwC report said.

The AFC and Sheikh Salman’s lack of transparency with regard to the allegations of his involvement in the arrest and torture of sports officials and athletes in 2011 as well as in his management of the Asian sports group contrasts starkly with efforts to clean up soccer governance that have led to the arrest in Switzerland at the request of the US Justice Department of seven soccer officials and the suspension of FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini.

The lack of transparency is also notable given suggestions that the AFC may be on the radar of the investigation because of Mr. Bin Hammam, who is believed to have been named as an unidentified co-conspirator in US indictments, and the AFC’s contract with WSG.

WSG has been linked to Traffic, a sports marketing company is among those indicted in the US. WSG acquired in 2005 the international broadcasting rights of the Gold Cup and CONCACAF Champions League operated by the soccer confederation for North, Central America and the Caribbean together with Traffic.

Traffic´s owner, Brazilian businessman Jose Hawilla, is cooperating with the FBI in its FIFA investigation, a lawyer for Mr. Hawilla told The Wall Street Journal. Under the agreement, Mr. Hawilla has admitted to crimes including money laundering, fraud, extortion, and has agreed to return $151 million in funds.

Sheikh Salman’s refusal to denounce the alleged abuses of human rights or to discuss the allegations against him are all the starker given the fact that an independent fact-finding commission made up of international rights lawyers that was endorsed by the Bahrain government concluded in November 2011 that those detained during the uprising had suffered systematic abuse. Among them were two of Bahrain’s top soccer players.

The report created a basis on which Sheikh Salman could have been more forthcoming about what happened in 2011 and his alleged role in the events. Instead, Sheikh Salman has said that there was no reason to apologize to the players because it was an issue for politicians, not his soccer federation.

Sheikh Salman, according to information submitted to British prosecutors, chaired a committee established in 2011 by a decree by a relative, Prince Nasser bin Hamad al Khalifa, head of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for Youth and Sport as well as its Olympic Committee and fourth son of King Hamad, ordering that measures be taken against those guilty of insulting Bahrain and its leadership.

Prince Nasser formed the committee after an earlier royal decree had declared a state of emergency. The royal decree allowed the Bahrain military to crackdown on the protests and establish military courts, according to the information provided to the prosecutor.

Critics charge that sports since the squashing of the 2011 popular revolt have largely served as attempts to bolster Bahrain’s tarnished image. “There are no sports since the uprising. Matches serve as PR to show that Bahrain is back to normal,” said Faisal Hayyat, a Bahraini sports journalist and activist – an assertion that was also reflected in Sheikh Salman’s decision to hold AFC’s annual congress earlier this year in Bahrain rather than at the group’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

FIFA has yet to detail what integrity checks of its executives and presidential candidates will entail. Evaluation of Sheikh Salman’s presidential candidacy is likely to put the integrity of those checks to the test.

Lack of knowledge and wrongly constructed narratives are a source of misconceptions about Pakistan’s nuclear energy program, which has been running safely for the last four decades.

These misconceptions are based on a set of interesting premises: It is thought that Pakistan is exploring nuclear energy at a time when global trends have changed after the 2011 Fukushima accident; Since industrialized countries could not handle nuclear accidents — such as the US’ Three Mile Island, Ukraine’s Chernobyl and Japan’s Fukushima — it is assumed that Pakistan then would also not be able to do so; Pakistan is getting Chinese ACP-1000 reactors that have never been tested before and their design is un-proven; If Karachi witnesses a nuclear accident, Pakistan may not be able to handle it; Pakistan cannot safely run a nuclear business as it does not have trained and skilled manpower, operators and a regulator. As you read ahead, all these premises are wrong.

Does nuclear energy have a future?

Contrary to the myth, currently thirty countries in the world use nuclear power and twenty-three of them are planning to expand. Even resource rich countries like UAE and Qatar are going to use nuclear energy. Despite the Fukushima accident, Japan has resumed nuclear energy production and there is a global nuclear energy renaissance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that the world’s nuclear power generating capacity is projected to continue to grow by 2030. Interestingly, all this is happening or going to happen in Asia and China, India, Korea, etc. which are leading the trend.

Owing to climate change concerns, the protection of energy supply and price instability for other sources of energy, nuclear energy has a potential role to play in the total energy mix considering population growth and associated rising demand of electricity particularly in developing nations.

Is Pakistan experimenting an untested reactor?

There is a common misconception that China’s ACP-1000 nuclear reactor design is very new and has never been tested before, and indeed Pakistan is going to test them for the first time. The fact is that ACP-1000 is a product of an evolutionary process of existing and long-tested pressurized water reactors from around the world.

The only thing new in this reactor is ‘added design and safety features.’ These upgrades are based on proven practices and supported by necessary research and development. Doubting these improvements is akin to doubting a newer version of car that has added safety features on board. It is reassuring to know that Pakistan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority follows a stringent and comprehensive process of authorization and licensing which is in line with international standards and only then can a nuclear power plant can be installed.

PNRA follows a two-tier strategy in the verification of safety issues for all nuclear installations. It ensures that technologies incorporated in design are proven by experience or qualified by testing or analyses.

How are other nuclear accidents connected to Pakistan?

It is important to see the nuclear accidents elsewhere in proper context. For instance, in case of Chernobyl the operators experimented increasing the plant’s output without thorough analysis and research. What they did not realize was that nuclear power plants are not meant for experiments. Such experiments are done on research reactors and that too with a great care. Therefore, it is incorrect to associate such a stupid practice to that of Pakistan’s impeccable operating and regulatory record. Likewise, Chernobyl was a different RBMK design (Light-water Graphite Reactor) and ACP1000 is PWR. We cannot compare apples to oranges.

The Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. happened due to a cooling malfunction. Interestingly, there were no injuries or adverse health effects from the accident. It only takes one Google click to read more about these instead of believing politically motivated narratives about upcoming plants in Pakistan.

It is important to know that these accidents have completely revolutionized the whole nuclear safety regime and associated institutions globally. Individual states and IAEA make tireless and successful efforts in foreclosing any design and safety hazards concerning nuclear energy production. Designs of nuclear power reactors have undergone enormous improvements. The designers and vendors are working on new generation nuclear reactor designs with enhanced safety features, energy efficiency and achieving longer reactor-lifetimes that may range up to 60 or even 80 years.

It is surprising to note that the much-hyped Fukushima incident did not lead to any deaths due to radiation leakage. Despite this Pakistan undertook various steps to strengthen its safety oversight soon after Fukushima and PNRA issued a directive to all nuclear power plant operators to conduct self-assessment in several parameters. Most notable were the re-assessment of natural hazards, availability of infrastructure necessary for plants safety, consideration of the station black-out condition which means complete loss of all AC power i.e. loss of transmission lines as well as the emergency diesel generators available at the plant site. Furthermore, the operator was asked to re-evaluate emergency operating procedures and an off-site emergency preparedness plan.

In addition, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission – the nuclear power plants operator – prepared a comprehensive Fukushima Response Action Plan (FARP) to re-assess safety aspects and emergency planning and for identifying actions for further improvement. Happily, all things are working perfectly in Pakistan’s nuclear energy regime.

Can Pakistan handle nuclear emergency?

Some particular people have lead an effort to create a misconception that Pakistan’s emergency plans regarding power plants either do not exist or are not executable. After interacting with both the operators and regulator of nuclear energy in Pakistan, I have learned that the business of operating and regulating is taken very seriously and no stone is left unturned in ensuring the ‘enactment of this seriousness’.

As an operator, PAEC has developed on-site and off-site emergency plans for nuclear installations in consultation with off-site authorities. Such plans are prepared and reviewed before the commencement of operation. The effectiveness of emergency plans is demonstrated in an integrated exercise before the commencement of operation of the nuclear installation and then periodically. The plans are updated in the light of experience gained from these drills and exercises. In addition, appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that the surrounding population is provided with appropriate information for emergency planning and response.

Is Pakistan alone in global nuclear regime?

As a responsible nuclear state, Pakistan is member of all important international nuclear safety and security conventions such as Convention on Nuclear Safety, Convention on Early Notification of a nuclear Accident, Convention on Assistance in Case of Nuclear Accident or a Radiological Emergency, Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear material and Code of Conduct on Safety and Security of Radiation Sources. Pakistan has taken all these obligations despite adverse discrimination against it in the global nuclear order because it is a proactive state whose good practices in safety and nuclear regulatory mechanism are recognized and appreciated.

Pakistan’s nuclear industry is not working in seclusion, as it actively participates and contributes in the international efforts to promote nuclear safety and security. These efforts include fulfillment of international obligations, implementation of international legal instruments and exchange of technical information and expertise internationally under IAEA umbrella. Participation in Technical Cooperation and Regional Asia Projects, technical meetings and exchange of expert missions etc. are just to name a few.

Does Pakistan have the skill to operate or regulate nuclear industry?

The skill and qualification of the staff of PAEC and PNRA is internationally recognized. Their staff is part of international missions for conducting reviews and assessments of the regulatory framework and plant operations such as World Association of Nuclear Operators, IRRS, OSART and IPSART, etc. The IAEA invites Pakistan’s to its expert missions for the development and capacity building of its other member States. International peer reviews of PNRA and PAEC also recognized the knowledge level, skill and abilities of their staff.

Since the inception of Pakistan’s nuclear power program the country has placed a high premium on the development of its manpower. PAEC has established several institutions for the development of human resources needed for operation of its nuclear installations. PIEAS, KINPOE and CHASCENT are the leading institutions. All the managerial and supervisory positions are held by graduate engineers with a minimum of 6 to 10 years experience in respective fields.

Furthermore, the eligibility criterion for shift supervisors and shift-engineers at the nuclear power plants is graduate engineering with necessary training and experience. Besides a skilled operator, a trained regulator is also essential for a nuclear safety regime. In this regard, PNRA attaches great importance to the competency development of its regulatory staff. PNRA arranges professional training courses for its staff through its National Institute of Safety and Security (NISAS). Likewise, its manpower also regularly participates in international workshops and fellowship programs in specialized fields, on-the-job training, and scientific visits to enhance the technical competencies for the regulation of nuclear power plants and radiation facilities in Pakistan.

Since Pakistan primarily relies on Chinese technology, PNRA has established bilateral agreement with the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) of China and its technical support organizations regarding technical support in nuclear safety and radiation protection. In addition, a similar agreement also exists between VUJE (Technical Support Organization)of Slovakia and PNRA.

These examples highlight that any assumptions about Pakistan’s skill in operating or regulating nuclear energy are mere assumptions.

It is worth asking why do these controversies surface whenever Pakistan tries to become energy self-sufficient? The Kalabagh Dam and Thar Coal project became controversial and now the upcoming nuclear power plants in Pakistan are the targets of a seemingly well-orchestrated conspiracy. Energy self-sufficiency means autarky and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels, which some domestic and international interest groups do not want for the reasons that are best known to them. Like me, Pakistanis should be self-assured that its nuclear program is safe, secure and efficient.

*Noreen Iftakhar has a M. Phil. in International Relations from National Defense University and is a specialist in nuclear regulatory mechanisms.