Assertions by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, a candidate for the presidency of world soccer body FIFA, that he was not involved in the arrest and abuse of sports executives and athletes in his naïve Bahrain in 2011 raise more questions than answers.

Sheikh Salman whose rise in world soccer governance since he became AFC president in 2013 has been dogged by allegations that he headed a government committee established to identify sports executives and athletes who had participated in the 2011 popular revolt. Some 200 people were arrested, including three top players of the Bahraini national soccer team, two of which alongside scores of others allege that they were tortured while in detention.

Sheikh Salman, who at the time headed the Bahrain Football Association, has until the announcement last month of his FIFA presidential candidacy, refused to discuss the allegations beyond issuing flat denials. FIFA is scheduled to elect a new president on February 26.

However, Sheikh Salman has since provided greater detail in statements and interviews in which he described the claims as “false, nasty lies.” Rather than absolving him, Sheikh Salman’s statements raised the spectre of potential violations of FIFA’s ethics code.

Former FIFA ethics investigator Michael Garcia advised the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) in early 2014 before leaving the world soccer body that the allegations against Sheikh Salman were beyond his jurisdiction. That view could be revised in the murky politics of the scandal-ridden group.

BIRD’s London representative, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, was arrested in 2011 and abused after participating in an anti-government protest involving sports executives and athletes. Mr. Alwadaei, who served six months in prison alongside several athletes for participating in an illegal gathering and allegedly disseminating false information to the media, said he was “sexually harassed, beaten, insulted and humiliated.” His assertions echoed those of prominent national soccer team players Alaa and Mohammed Hubail.

Sheikh Salman effectively confirmed the existence of a 2011 decree by a fellow member of the Gulf island’s ruling family, Prince Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa, ordering the establishment of a committee to identify dissident sports executives and athletes. Prince Nasser, a son of Bahraini king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, chairs the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports as well as the Bahrain National Olympic Committee and commands Bahrain’s Royal Guard.

“While it was proposed that Sheikh Salman lead a fact-finding committee in relation to the events of 2011, that committee was never formally established and never conducted any business whatsoever. For the record, and in light of the recycling of historic allegations in the media, Sheikh Salman had absolutely no involvement in the identification, investigation, prosecution or mistreatment of any individuals as has been alleged,” Sheikh Salman said in a statement.

Sheikh Salman’s statement studiously avoided credible reports that he had been appointed and apparently accepted to be head of the committee irrespective of whether it was ultimately established or not. The Bahrain News Agency, a state-run media organization that falls under the information ministry and only runs government-sanctioned items, reported on 11 April 2011 that the committee was being formed and that it was headed by Sheikh Salman. “Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, General Secretary of Youth and Sport, will lead the investigation committee,” the agency reported. There is no record of Sheikh Salman denying the report at the time.

Sheikh Salman moreover took no exception to the notion of a committee that would penalize executives and athletes for exercising their right to freedom of expression nor did he express any objection to detention and physical and psychological abuse of those often lifted in the middle of the night from their beds. Asked in 2012 about the crackdown on dissident athletes and executives, Sheikh Salman asserted that he had no obligation to defend soccer players who “did something wrong” off the field.

Nor did Sheikh Salman take any exception to national soccer team players being put in a talk show on state-run Bahrain television shortly before their arrest in front of what amounted to a kangaroo court during which Prince Nasser in a live on-air phone call called for “a wall to fall on (protesters’) heads … even if they are an athlete.” Prince Nasser subsequently tweeted that “If it was up to me, I’d give them all life” in prison.

Sheikh Salman’s denial is further called into question by statements by his secretary general of the BFA as well as by heads of other Bahraini sports associations who declared their intent to act on Prince Nasser’s instructions in stories carried by BNA.

There is no record of Sheikh Salman denying a statement by BFA secretary general Abdulrahman Al Sayar reported by BNA that his association would sanction and suspend athletes who had violated the law whether they were “players or administrators or coaches” and irrespective of whether they had participated in protests or illegal gatherings that constituted an “attempt to overthrow the regime or insult national symbols.” Mr. Al Sayer said the BFA was acting in accordance with Prince Nasser’s order and in defense of security and the achievements of the Al Khalifa’s “prosperous reign.”

Mr. Al Sayer’s statement and Sheikh Salman’s silence make a mockery of the AFC president’s denial of his involvement, which he based in part on an assertion that the BFA had nothing to do with politics.

Similarly, BNA reported that Bahrain Basketball Association (BBA) president Adel Al Assomi had formed a committee to probe “irresponsible” violations by players and administrative and technical staff who had participated in protests calling for the downfall of the minority Sunni regime and offended “the kingdom’s wise leadership and fundamentals.”

The agency reported a little more than a week after it had announced Sheikh Salman’s appointment that six Shiite soccer clubs had been suspended and fined $20,000 each. It said further that Al Ahli Sports Club banned seven soccer players from playing and suspended three others for allegedly participating in the mass protests that were brutally squashed with the backing of Saudi and Gulf troops. The penalizing of the clubs came after they had asked the BFA to suspend the soccer league because of the upheaval wracking the country.

The decision to penalize the clubs, according to BNA, was taken in a meeting of the executive committee of the BFA chaired by Sheikh Salman that reaffirmed the importance of “working under the investigation committee” with regard to those who “offended the decisions of our leadership.”

All in all, Sheikh Salman’s denials have done little to satisfactorily answer persistent questions about his role in the repression of dissident athletes and sports executives in 2011. His suitability for the FIFA presidency remains in doubt as long as he fails to provide fulsome answers.

Moreover, those unanswered questions come in addition to Sheikh Salman’s track record at the AFC of secrecy and lack of transparency and accountability, hardly characteristics that would enable a new president to restore FIFA’s bruised credibility.

By Dr. Saleh Al-Naami*

No one condemned the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotovely, when she called for the Israeli flag to be raised at the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa shortly after the announcement of an agreement between Jordan and Israel regarding arrangements for the presence of Muslims and Jews in the compound. This agreement was reached under American auspices. In the eyes of many Zionist elites, the agreement legitimises Israel’s plans to enhance and hasten the pace of Judaising the compound. It is unfortunate that Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah II, were quick to celebrate the agreement on the basis that it ensured that the status quo in Al-Aqsa would not be changed.

However, Israel openly plans to change the status quo, and the Israeli government explicitly supports the plans to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a temple on its ruins. Jordan should have considered the official Israeli report that Haaretz newspaper referred to on 30 October, which confirms that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is currently providing funding for 19 Jewish organisations which specialise in “rebuilding” the temple. According to the report, the most dangerous of these organisations is the Temple Institute, headed by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel and Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who is invited by the ruling Likud Party’s parliamentary bloc to all of its meetings. There is no doubt that the clearest sign of Netanyahu’s success in misleading the Jordanian leadership and tricking it into believing that he is concerned about preserving the status quo at Al-Aqsa is the fact that Haaretz reported that the Israeli government organises annual trips for tens of thousands of Jewish students to visit the institute in order to learn from its chairmen about the preparations being made to build the third temple. The students also receive explanations about the institute’s role in preparing for future servants of the temple.

Needless to say that such behaviour suggests that Netanyahu’s government is working on reinforcing religious convictions within Jewish youth. The government presents the construction of the temple as the achievement of Jewish salvation. It is ironic and significant that the agreement with Jordan regarding Al-Aqsa was signed coincidentally with the Israeli Ministry of Education’s decision to teach a new course that reinforces students’ awareness of the importance of building the temple on the ruins of Al-Aqsa. The course portrays this move as “leading to resolving all of Israeli society’s problems.” (Haaretz, 23 October 2015) Does it seem logical that a government doing such things would be serious about respecting the status quo in the Noble Sanctuary?

Jordan should not have fallen for the Israeli trap and agreed to allow Jewish “visitors” to enter Al-Aqsa, as if these visitors were tourists coming to discover and learn about the area. The Hashemite Kingdom is responsible for guarding the Muslim holy sites; it is fully aware that the Zionist organisations desecrating the sacred area openly express their religious beliefs, which dictate that the construction of the temple on Al-Aqsa’s ruins is one of the main Jewish duties. Israel’s Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, leads the desecration campaigns; he left no room for doubt when he said that they aim to reinforce the sole Jewish right to the sanctuary, and have been carried out with the approval and blessing of Netanyahu. (Makor Rishon, 23 October 2015) The Zionists insisted on embarrassing Jordan when they revealed that Amman’s celebration of Netanyahu’s promise to prevent Jews from praying in Al-Aqsa was nothing more than another example of Tel Aviv’s disregard for the Jordanian leadership. This was clear after the Joint List Alliance MK, Basel Ghattas, was successful in sneaking into Al-Aqsa Mosque and documenting Zionist Jews desecrating Al-Aqsa and performing Talmudic prayers there after the agreement was signed. Israel’s disregard for Jordan and Netanyahu’s failure to give weight to the promises he made to the political leadership in Amman is nothing new; ten months ago, Netanyahu personally made promises to King Abdullah II to stop the desecration campaigns organised by Israeli politicians. However, less than a month later, Ariel “prayed” in Al-Aqsa and posted a video of this on his personal website in order to double the provocation.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the Jordanian-Israeli agreement was nothing more than an attempt to contain the Jerusalem Intifada, as it delegitimises the Palestinians’ right to resist the systematic desecration campaigns that aim to establish the temporal division of the Noble Sanctuary. Any attempt to combat the settlers who are desecrating Al-Aqsa after the agreement would be considered proof of the Palestinians’ “hostility”. Meanwhile, the agreement does not include any mechanisms for the measures that can be taken when the Jews violate the agreement, which has actually occurred and was documented by MK Ghattas. The agreement with Jordan dropped the French initiative, which had called for deploying international observers in Al-Aqsa. This caused fear within the ruling elites in Tel Aviv because the UN Security Council’s adoption of the initiative would result in the “internationalisation” of the conflict. At the same time, the agreement allowed Israel to single out the parties that are combatting its attempts to change the status quo in the sanctuary, particularly the Islamic Movement led by Shaikh Raed Salah. Netanyahu has announced that he is serious about working towards outlawing the movement and banning its activities. It is worth noting that the war against this movement is ongoing, and the latest attack is the sentencing of Shaikh Raed to 11 months in prison.

In the face of what is happening, the Jordanian leadership should reconsider the agreement that the Zionists are using to implement their declared plans to Judaise the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa. There is no need to reiterate the strong cards that Jordan holds and its ability to utilise them to pressure Tel Aviv’s leaders to change their policies and plans regarding Al-Aqsa. We know that these plans will be crushed by the boulder of the Palestinians’ insistence on thwarting them and their refusal to surrender.

(Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid by Middle East Monitor on November 02, 2015)

There is a possibility that you have heard of the famed British author, J. K. Rowling, writer of the popular fantasy series “Harry Potter.” While I knew of her books — through my teenage kids — I knew little about the author herself, until recently.

Under an oblique title, “Israel needs cultural bridges, no boycotts,” Rowling, along with a few celebrity writers, argued against growing calls for an academic boycott of Israel. Using generalized, ambiguous terminology that offered little by way of compelling Israel to end its ongoing occupation in Jerusalem and the West Bank, genocide and siege in Gaza and protracted institutional discrimination against Arabs and other minorities in Israel, she argued for “cultural engagement,” instead. Such engagement, her letter reads, “builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change. We wholly endorse encouraging such a powerful tool for change, rather than boycotting its use.”

The author seems disconnected from the reality of life under Israeli Occupation. On the day of writing this article, I spoke to Ismail Abu Aitah, a young man from Gaza who lost both his parents, his brothers, and one of his nephews when Israel blew up their house in the 2014 summer war. He, too, was badly injured, together with almost every surviving member of his family.

“I am sorry Ramzy, I cannot give you exact dates and times to what has befallen my family,” he messaged me on Skype. “After July 24, 2014, I lost interest in life and stopped paying attention to the passing of time.”

How is one to console Ismail? How is one to console the families of over 2,200 Palestinians killed in the last war; the over 400 in the previous war and over 1,430 in the one before that, in addition to the tens of thousands of wounded and maimed? Not forgetting the many killed in the West Bank this October alone, some executed point blank? Will Rowling’s call for engagement suffice?

For her, even non-violent acts of encountering Israel’s ongoing massacres in Gaza and the military occupation in the West Bank are excessive. “Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory, and will not further peace,” reads the letter she signed.

Amnesty International said Israel’s violent response to a burgeoning uprising in Occupied Palestine appears to have “ripped up the rulebook and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures.” But with scores of UN resolutions never respected, Geneva Conventions never honored, and humanitarian laws never valued, Israel has never followed a rulebook, to begin with.

Racism in Israel is so rife that being dark skinned in that country can be a terrifying experience. When a mainstream American newspaper like the Washington Post headlines a news report with “Israeli government to refugees: Go back to Africa or go to prison,” this is an indicator that Israel has a serious problem. If Rowling and her peers do not see an urgency in standing up for millions of Palestinians who are enduring daily deaths and discrimination (as they have for 67 years), what is their reaction to the violence against Africans and dark-skinned people, who are beaten by mobs, and abused by police and discriminated against by the government itself?

Imagine life being a thousand-fold worse for Palestinians, a nation that is forced to choose between two terrible fates: Permanent destitution and exile on the one hand, or a perpetual war and occupation on the other.

“We will be seeking to inform and encourage dialogue about Israel and the Palestinians in the wider cultural and creative community,” Rowling’s letter reads. Can those “creative” elites possibly be any more disconnected from reality to the extent that they perceive a nation that stands accused of violating human rights with such impunity for nearly seven decades as one that simply needs a nudge to dialogue?

To expect dialogue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just dehumanized Palestinians further by accusing them of concocting the Holocaust is not just impractical, but is the very definition of insanity — seeking dialogue with a belligerent occupier, over and over again, and expecting different results.

Fortunately, Rowling’s last-minute intervention and her barely concealed defense of Israel arrives belatedly. A defining moment is imminent, as hundreds of scholars in her own country have just enlisted their support for the academic boycott, to be added to the 100 artists who joined the cultural boycott last February and hundreds of universities and academicians in the US who did so last August. These are just a few examples of a massive, non-violent campaign that targets Israeli academic and cultural institutions — not individuals — who contribute directly, or otherwise, to the injustice that is meted out against Palestinians daily.

The scholars from the UK, exceeding 300 and the last to join the boycott campaign were, like thousands more, guided by the spirit of the struggle against the former Apartheid South African government. The latter was overcome largely because of the struggle and steadfastness of the South African people and also aided by morally-guided actions of boycotters all around the world, which included Rowling’s country.

Had the famed author achieved her current status during the height of South Africa’s Apartheid, would she have issued a similar call, declaring her “support for the launch and aims of Culture for Co-existence,” rather than demanding an end to Apartheid, even if it meant severing ties with Apartheid government institutions? At this point, the answer is uncertain.

On Good Friday 1998 we agreed to set Barabbas free; all of the prisoners would be released from the H-Blocks. We need to let the ‘perpetrators’, the ‘victim-makers’ and the ‘terrorists’ re-join society.  We need to let them apply for all jobs on an equal basis.  We agreed to set Barabbas free in 1998 but yet they are still fettered in 2015.  We need to and we should give you another chance.

By Paul Gallagher*

Two weeks ago saw the 21^st Anniversary of the Ceasefire declared by the Combined Loyalist Military Command.  It was heralded as an end to decades of Loyalist violence.  Earlier that year I met a handful of their colleagues who entered my home one evening and proceeded to empty the contents of a sub-machine gun into my body: all because I was a defenceless ‘innocent’ Taig.  I emphasise the word innocent because that was the point: the more innocent and defenceless the better; Loyalism wanted to instil fear and terror into my community.  This left me paralysed from the waist down: a cripple; burning with pain; plagued with illness.

I got my apology from Gusty Spence that crisp October day: abject and true remorse.  I can’t remember if I accepted it at the time but, in a way, in later years, I did.  I say in a way because it was not an apology from the individuals who were in my home but from the Loyalism as a collective.  I accepted it because I had to make peace with myself in order to make peace with those who harmed me.

I wanted peace.  That is why I and the majority voted ‘Yes’ in the Referendum.  On Good Friday 1998 we agreed to set Barabbas free; all of the prisoners would be released from the H-Blocks.  This still sticks in the craw of some people but I believe it was a necessary concession to help cement the peace process.  Paramilitary organisations would do well to reflect on the magnanimity of this gesture by the public at large.

There was a relative peace between the traditional enemies after Good Friday but the men of war continued to wreak havoc on their own communities.  They found it difficult to give up their Brigadier status and lifestyle.  Demobilisation and disbandment was not on the radar.  The weapons of choice were intimidation, extortion, drug peddling, knee-capping and murder.  The working class communities against whom they waged their war never stood a chance against such muscle-men.

The Ceasefire Generation is now twenty-one: will they get the key to the door?  A key to open the door of the cage: a cage which houses the hawk, which can only whistle to the tune of ‘The Billy Boys’, or to release the doves of peace.  That is the test for the new Loyalist Community Council.  Have they called a new ceasefire, ended their war and will they display abject and true remorse to their community?  Will they finally demobilise and disband?  Will they be able to reintegrate this time?

They are going to need help to reintegrate.  They are going to need the communities that they intimidated to show some magnanimity.  They need to give something back to these communities.  They shouldn’t expect to retain their status by virtue of their hard-man past but instead need to earn the respect of their people.  Any funding opportunities coming into these communities should not be sewn up as ‘Jobs for the Boys’ but should instead be used to create jobs for the boys: the boys of the Shankill, Ballybeen and beyond.  Disband the Young Citizen Volunteers and replace them with young citizen volunteers who will work for the betterment of their community.

If the jackboot is finally lifted from the throats of Loyalist working class communities the people themselves need to begin to reclaim a stake in this society; they need to find their voice.  They are only disenfranchised by virtue of their own apathy.  They need to use the only legitimate weapon they have: the vote.  They need to come out and vote for people who have their loyalist working class interests at heart.  They need to waken up and realise that Big House Unionism couldn’t care less about the Two-up/Two-down loyalists in the Village.  They need to find new Dawns; to elect more Julie-Annes over the Jolenes; and to forget about the Humphrey-Dumptys of this world.  To maybe look at those who would put People Before Profit.  Don’t just use your vote to keep ‘themmuns’ out but instead get ‘yousens’ in.

I hope that the loyalist working class begin to realise their core identity: their innate humanity.  Strip it all away and that’s all we have.  Stop worrying about whether the big dome is adorned with a perpetual flag or the Northern Ireland football shirt can hang from the big wheel at Funderland.  Stop listening to the dog whistle politics that has led so many onto the streets, filling the jails and cemeteries.

I call on all paramilitaries to be more sensitive when honouring their fallen.  To take a moment to reflect on their victims as they observe a minutes silence every Easter or Remembrance Sunday.  When they reminisce about the heroic operations carried out by their brave volunteers don’t forget to include the stories about their attacks on defenceless people like me and the operations I went through to fix my body (the latest one was only last week!).

It is time for the Loyalist Community Council to prove the doubters and the cynics wrong.  I stand beside those who welcomed this new initiative on the airwaves last week.  People like Jude Whyte, John Allen and Mark Rodgers: people who were so badly affected by loyalist violence.  It’s time to reintegrate and we as a society need to let them.  We need to put aside the labelling.  We need to let the ‘perpetrators’, the ‘victim-makers’ and the ‘terrorists’ re-join society.  We need to let them apply for all jobs on an equal basis whether that be as a landscape gardener or a SPAD in Stormont.  We agreed to set Barabbas free in 1998 but yet they are still fettered in 2015.  We need to and we should give you another chance.  Please don’t blow it again.

Paul Gallagher was injured at his home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in an indiscriminate sectarian gun attack in 1994 in which he was left paralysed and confined to a wheelchair.  He is currently the Chairman of Victims and Survivors Trust – a registered charity supporting victims of conflict.  He is also studying for a Degree in Psychological Trauma Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast.

This article was originally published on Paul Gallagher’s blog, ‘A Journey into the Grey Zone’, and is available by clicking here.

For millennia, Greenland’s ice sheet reflected sunlight back into space, but satellite measurements in recent years suggest the bright surface is darkening, causing solar heat to be absorbed and surface melting to accelerate. Some studies suggest this “dirty ice” or “dark snow” is caused by fallout from fossil fuel pollution and forest fires.

But a new Dartmouth-led study shows that degrading satellite sensors, not soot or dust, are responsible for the apparent decline in reflectivity of inland ice across northern Greenland. The study’s results suggest the ice sheet hasn’t lost as much reflectivity as previously thought, and that black carbon and dust concentrations haven’t increased significantly and are thus not responsible for darkening on the upper ice sheet.

The findings, which contradict anecdotal observations and earlier scientific studies, appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. A PDF of the study is available on request.

Observations suggest the Greenland Ice Sheet’s albedo – or its ability to reflect the sun’s energy back into the atmosphere — has declined considerably since 2001 due to black carbon and dust from increased industrialization and forest fires across the northern hemisphere. The apparent decline is greatest around the ice sheet’s edges, but it also is occurring in the high elevation interior known as the dry snow zone, where the reflectivity is effectively reset each winter by new snowfall.

Two properties dominate reflectivity in dry snow – the size of snow grains, which become larger and more absorbent as they melt, and the presence of dark impurities that absorb the sun’s energy, predominantly black carbon and mineral dust, which also cause the snow to melt faster. Snow high on the Greenland Ice Sheet typically has black carbon concentrations too low to significantly affect its reflectivity, but in 2012 large wildfires in Canada and Siberia and favorable winds may have combined to trigger record surface melting of the ice sheet that year.

In trying to explain the apparent decline in reflectivity, lead author Chris Polashenski, an adjunct assistant professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and a research geophysicist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, and his colleagues analyzed dozens of snow-pit samples from the 2012-2014 snowfalls across northern Greenland and compared them with samples from earlier years. The results showed no significant change in the quantity of black carbon deposited for the past 60 years or the quantity and mineralogical makeup of dust compared to the last 12,000 years, meaning that deposition of these light absorbing impurities is not a primary cause of reflectivity reduction or surface melting in the dry snow zone. Algae growth, which darkens ice, also was ruled out as a factor.

Instead, the findings suggest the apparent decline in the dry snow zone’s reflectivity is being caused by uncorrected degradation of sensors in NASA’s aging MODIS satellites and that the declining trend will likely disappear when new measurements are reprocessed. MODIS (or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) is the key instrument aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, which provide images of the Earth’s surface and cloud cover every two days. MODIS tracks features of the land, oceans and atmosphere that can help develop models that predict global changes. The Terra mission, launched in December 1999, and the Aqua mission, launched in 2002, are designed to collect data for 15 years to differentiate short- and long-term trends and regional and global phenomena.

The study’s findings don’t apply to the ice sheet’s lower elevations, where surface melting, soot and dust result in more pronounced declines in reflectivity and where warmer temperatures may promote algae growth that further erodes reflectivity.

Canada has just lived through a fairytale decade, complete with evil jinn and youthful hero. Think of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” starring youthful naif, Justin Trudeau, and the giant raining evil down on Canadaland from the clouds, Stephen Harper. Justin bravely climbs the slippery, perilous political ladder to fight the giant… and wins against all odds, saving his humble home from the jinn.

Canada’s prime minister for the past nine years, Stephen Harper, led a charmed life until the October 19 federal election. Despite never garnering more than 39% of the vote (in the earlier minority parliaments he had only 34%), his rule was more like that of a dictator, with policies that increasingly alarmed his followers until his support fell to 30% and united the rest of voters against him, giving the Liberals a sweeping majority.

For pro-Israeli, pro-war, anti-environment, anti-science, anti-culture types, he was perfect. But for people concerned about human rights, the environment, promoting the arts and maintaining Canada’s reputation as a nation that promotes world peace, a haven for scientific development, he has been the worst prime minister in history.

Canadians finally woke up in alarm this summer, and the Liberals under the charismatic Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre Trudeau, produced a miracle, moving from third place with 19% to 37% in the final week, and on to 40% on Election Day.

Hours after his victory, Trudeau told reporters, “I want to say this to our country’s friends around the world: many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years. Well, I have a simple message for you on behalf of 35 million Canadians. We’re back.”

The NDP “third way” followers jumped ship in the last week, horrified at the possibility of giving Harper another term in office. Despite stubborn resistance by their leader Thomas Mulcair, they did the sensible thing, individually opting to vote “strategically” in ridings where the liberal-socialist split might allow the Harperite candidates to slip in once again.

The devastation of the Harper decade is going to be very hard to reverse. It will be essential for the Liberals and NDPers (and let’s not forget the plucky Green Party leader Elizabeth May) to work together in a “Battle of Britain” spirit to salvage something from the Harper legacy.

His international sins are well known, especially his withdrawal from the Kyoto environment treaty in 2011, and his warmongering and his kowtowing to Israel. In 2010 he granted a new identity and passport to an agent of the Mossad who had been involved in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010. He suddenly broke diplomatic relations with Iran in September 2012 at the height of the Israeli mania to attack the country. The list goes on.

It was Canada’s turn to join the UN Security Council in a rotating regional seat in 2010, but UN members snubbed Canada, acknowledging the affront on Kyoto and the outrageous pro-Israeli bias of the Conservatives. Almost overnight, Harper reduced Canada to at best a laughing stock, at worst an international pariah.

He was loathed by 65% of Canadians — make that 70% as of election day — not so much for these humiliations, but for his many domestic policies, which include gutting scientific research and social welfare programs, undermining environmental protection laws, massive vote rigging in the 2011 election, proroguing Parliament twice to avoid the need to call a new election, becoming the first prime minister ever to be found guilty of contempt of parliament.

In a cynical Islamophobic thrust as his re-election campaign tanked this summer, he trumpeted the dangers of letting Muslim women take the oath of citizenship wearing a niqab, which he later included in “barbaric cultural practices.”

In Harper’s favour

I wish I could say something positive in Harper’s favour…

Wait! His bigotry and warmongering inspired our hero Justin to defy the evil jinn’s criminal rule and to rally Canadians. The ogre inadvertently galvanized the Canucks and transformed parliament, giving it a more inclusive face, and a fresh commitment to assert Canada on the world stage in its traditional image of a haven for the persecuted, a defender of peace and the environment.

The 12% of Muslims who supported the Conservatives in 2011 fell to zero this time around. Harper didn’t even bother responding to the Canadian-Muslim Vote’s request for a Conservative message (the other political leaders complied).

Justin’s intrepid band include 10 Muslims, the most in Canada’s history, including the first Somali Canadian MP, Ahmed Hussen, and the first Afghan Canadian, Maryam Monsef. The Muslim Canadian MPs are all newcomers to politics with the exception of Omar Alghabra and Yasmin Ratansi.

This could become the Liberals’ new road to majority governments, as Canadians continue to embrace multiculturalism and Muslims continue to immigrate. It also can ensure that Muslims have a strong voice on Parliament Hill. Win-win.

Muslim historic shift

Canada’s first Muslim MP, Rahim Jaffer, ironically was elected to the Conservatives in Edmonton in 1997. Wajid Khan was elected as a Liberal in 2003 but switched to the Conservatives in 2007 in protest against the gay marriage legislation. Yasmin Ratansi was elected as the first Muslim woman MP 2004–2011, and Omar Alghabra 2006–2008, both Liberals. 2011 left only one Muslim, NDP Sadia Groguhe in Quebec, who lost in 2015.

So the new roster of ten Muslims on Parliament Hill is a historic moment for Canada. The higher numbers make sense considering the demographic changes in the past four decades.

In 1971 there were 33,000 Muslims in Canada, the earliest group being Bosniaks. In 1981, there were 98,000, now coming from the Muslim East, by 1991 it had climbed to 253,265, and by 2001, more than half a million. As of 2013, there were more than one million Muslims, 3.2% of the population, and Islam is now the fastest growing religion in Canada.

In contrast, there were three Jewish MPs before the 2015 election, now five, and like their Semitic cousins, all of them Liberal and all of them new to the House of Commons. Jewish Canadians comprising 1% of the population nationally.

The star is no doubt Omar Alghabra, a Saudi-born Syrian immigrant, former president of the Canadian Arab Federation. In 2008 he was defeated by Bob Dechert, a close ally of Harper, so Alghabra’s victory is particularly heartening for the dragon-slayers. Alghabra is a friend and now a senior policy adviser to the PM.

Alghabra also provided the most entertaining video campaign ad, a cartoon inspired by an HBO tale of treason, revenge and magic, “Game of Thrones”.
“Omar, you’ve got to help,” pleads a poor peasant. “The people are getting ready to storm the capital. They want change but no one’s listening.”
Says an inn owner, “We’ve been ignored for too long. Every year it gets more expensive to run my inn. I can barely afford to keep it open.”
“What we really need is someone who’s going to fight for us,” exhorts a friar.

The triumphant insurgents set right to work. Trudeau informed Obama within hours of his victory of his intention to pull Canada’s fighter jets out of the anti-ISIS campaign. He has invited all opposition and provincial leaders to join him at the UN climate conference in Paris in early December to try to repair some of the damage that Harper inflicted on that part of Canada’s image. The adventures of Justin and the Beanstalk continue.

Source: http://www.crescent-online.net/2015/11/justin-trudeau-start-of-a-canadian-legend-eric-walberg-5153-articles.html

By Sandip Kumar Mishra*

On 01 November 2015, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met for their sixth trilateral meeting in Seoul, South Korea. This meeting took place after an approximately three-year hiatus. Previously, from 2008 to 2012, they had held five trilateral meetings annually to discuss and coordinate their economic relations in the wake of the global financial crisis. In 2012, these countries also began negotiating on a trilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). However, the arrival of three new leaders in these countries also brought strong rhetoric and actions between Japan and China and also between Japan and South Korea, which resulted in a growing discord between them – and this annual meeting got discontinued.

There are at least three important positives of this trilateral meeting that may have important implications for the region. First, the very meeting of the three top leaders of the region is a welcome development. For the past three years, China, Japan and South Korea were unable to come together and discuss their mutual perspectives and disagreements with one another. China and Japan have been at loggerheads on issues related to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands; China’s unilateral announcement of the Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea; and disputes on history. Even though these three leaders held meetings with one another at some multilateral fora, their postures have been most awkward and uncompromising.

The hostility has also had economic implications and their bilateral trades have been facing several problems. China under the new leadership seeks to exert more weight in the region and that has resulted into growing discomfort in the neighbouring countries. Similarly, Japan under Abe also evokes strong nationalism to have an assertive policy in the region along with revision of its ‘peace constitution’. The ‘unapologetic’ and ‘assertive’ Japanese policies have not only worsened its relations with China but have also had implications for Japan-South Korea relations. Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine; Japan’s stance on the Dokdo/Takeshima islands, comfort women and issues of history have led to growing rift between Japan and South Korea. In this context, it could be said that even though this meeting may not have great outcomes, the meeting itself is definitely an important step in the right direction.

Second, the three leaders agreed during the trilateral meeting that a nuclear North Korea is unacceptable and all of them would try their best to restart the Six-Party talks that has remained stalled for almost seven years. The joint statement gives priority to the North Korean denuclearisation issue and it would put further pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weaponisation programme. In fact, China has not been happy with new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s frequent provocative behaviours and escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula and the region. China thinks that the North Korean nuclear threat would bring more role for the US in the regional politics and it would be detrimental for Chinese national interests.

The growing distance between Beijing and Pyongyang could be understood by the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping has held two summit meets with his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye in 2013 and 2014 but there has been no top level meeting between the leaders of China and North Korea.

After a long gap, Liu Yunshan, the fifth ranking Chinese Communist Party leader visited North Korea in October 2015 to participate in the 70th Anniversary of the establishment of North Korea Workers’ Party. Although China has been trying to mend its relations with North Korea, the strong message emanating from the trilateral meeting makes it clear that China has not conceded to North Korean ambitions. If the regional countries and the US could have a coordinated common stance on the North Korean nuclear issue, it would be difficult for North Korea to continue with its nuclear weaponisation programme.

Third, the leaders of these three countries expressed that their trilateral FTA must be concluded as soon as possible. The eight rounds of mutual talks on the FTA issue have not been quite successful until now and the matter has progressed sufficiently. It is important to note that the combined GDP of these three countries is almost US $15 trillion and they collectively constitute almost 20 per cent of the world trade. The trilateral FTA would thus be an extremely important development.

It might bring the possibilities of a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – that China has proposed for the East and Southeast Asian countries and that is understood in its contrast with the Trans-Pacific Partnership – closer to realisation. The inclusion of the FTA issue in the trilateral meeting and a closer possibility of the RCEP is an important achievement for China. It seems that Japan and South Korea too feel that the proposed arrangement would be valuable for them.

Overall, the trilateral meeting appears to be a wise move as it avoided discussing all mutual controversial issues in detail and only discussed those issues on which all three could begin their cooperation on. However, how much these leaders are ready to restrain themselves on controversial issues in future and carry forward the good vibes created during the summit for the peace and prosperity of the region, remains to be seen.

* Sandip Kumar Mishra
Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, Delhi University

By Ed Adamczyk

Sweden’s refugee crisis could lead to the country’s collapse without European Union support, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said.

“I think most people feel that we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year. In the long run, our system will collapse. And that welcome is not going to receive popular support. I have to admit that there have been moments recently of very great disappointment. I have heard statements from [EU] member states that have been completely astonishing and very discouraging,” she told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Wallstrom added the Swedish government needs to pressure other EU members to take on a greater share of the burden.

Sweden, with Germany, has been a prominent destination for refugees largely from the Middle East, who have sought asylum by the hundreds of thousands in Europe. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has said his country is “approaching the limit” of its capability to absorb immigrants.

Lofven is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron next week to discuss the matter. Britain has been reluctant to accept more refugees.

Wallstrom was also critical of members of the right-wing Sweden Democrats party, who she says are responsible for “creating fear and becoming a trigger for attacks.” She said five arson attacks against refugee centers in a span of two weeks in October were reminiscent of similar incidents when Sweden took in refugees from the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

“We also had fires when we received refugees from the Balkans. This is a pattern that is being repeated. The Sweden Democrats have a responsibility,” she said.

Her comments came after six political parties, not including the Sweden Democrats, agreed to request the EU to include Sweden with Italy and Greece, two countries hard-pressed to accommodate the rising number of immigrants, in its refugee relocation plans.

Original article

Philippe Verdier, a household name in France for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced in an online video that he had received a letter of dismissal.

“My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12.

“I received this letter this morning and decided to open it in front of you because it concerns everybody- in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of information.”

His announcement comes four days after France Télévisions chief Delphine Ernotte told French MPs that Verdier had been summoned to a formal interview that could lead to his dismissal. An employee who picked up the phone at France Télévisions on Sunday morning told FRANCE 24 that there were no PRs present to confirm or deny Verdier’s dismissal.

‘Many positive consequences to global warming’

The controversy around Verdier’s claims has likely been heightened by their timing, with his book coming just weeks before the start of a much-anticipated UN climate change summit, known as COP21, to be held in Paris at the end of November.

“I put myself in the path of COP21, which is a bulldozer, and this is the result,” Verdier told RTL radio station in October.

He said he was inspired to write the book after France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met with TV meteorologists and asked them to highlight climate change issues in their broadcasts.

“I was horrified by this speech,” Verdier told French magazine Les Inrockuptibles last month. In his book, Verdier accuses state-funded climate change scientists of having been “manipulated” and “politicised”, even accusing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of publishing deliberately misleading data.

He also argues that there are “a great many positive consequences to global warming”, such as lower consumption of fuel used for heating and fewer cold-related deaths in winter. “I am being punished for exercising my freedom of expression,” the weatherman told RTL.

By Rufiz Hafizoglu*

There are at least three reasons for the victory of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Nov. 1 parliamentary election.

The first reason is the stance taken by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), or in other words, its refusal to create a coalition government together with the AKP after the parliamentary election held in June this year.

Even Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said yesterday that the AKP won the election due to the MHP’s mistakes.

The second reason for the AKP’s victory at the election has been the rising activeness of terrorist organizations on Turkey’s soil, which brought the AKP to a decisive fight against terrorists.

And the third reason is that AKP, unlike other parties in Turkey, has been all this time focusing on the country’s economic development.

For instance, Turkey’s south-eastern provinces have always been backward regions in terms of economy. But since 2002, the date when the AKP came to power in Turkey, these regions have been seeing a special care for their development.

Following the election, the first step of the AKP will be the creation of a new cabinet of ministers.

Undoubtedly, the new cabinet of ministers will include the old AKP staff: Omer Celik, Ali Babacan, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Cemil Cicek, Mehmet Ali Sahin, Taner Yildiz, Besir Atalay and Bekir Bozdag, who were elected in the snap parliamentary election.

The risk is past for Turkey’s energy projects the future of which was depending on the election results. First of all, it is about such an important energy project as TANAP.

But as distinct from TANAP, the implementation of the Turkish Stream project can delay for a long time.

There is no point to expect significant changes in Turkey’s policy in the region, especially on Syria.

Moreover, Turkey’s South Caucasus policy is unlikely to change either.

*Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agency’s Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea have resumed the Trilateral Summit. While largely symbolic, the meeting nevertheless is an important development in East Asia. Given that all three countries are significant powers in East Asia, the resumption of the summit also has implications for the broader region beyond Northeast Asia.

By Sarah Teo*

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea met over the 1 November 2015 weekend, after a three-year hiatus of what was supposed to be an annual summit, caused by political and historical disputes among the three Northeast Asian countries. Prime Minister Li Keqiang, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Park Geun-hye convened in Seoul, South Korea for the Sixth Trilateral Summit, where they issued a joint declaration noting that trilateral cooperation had been “completely restored” and pledged to resolutely sustain such cooperation.

The meeting of the three leaders is arguably an achievement in itself, given that none of the issues that had initially disrupted the annual summit have been resolved. Maritime territorial disputes—involving China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, and Japan and South Korea over the Takeshima/Dokdo islands—remain in the background of this recent upturn in relations. Likewise, little progress has been made towards resolving the argument among the three countries arising from their differing interpretations of history.

China, Japan and South Korea in East Asia

To be fair, despite the presence of these long-standing disagreements and the lack of a trilateral leaders’ meeting in the recent past, it has been reportedly business-as-usual for the working-level forums as well as ministerial meetings in areas such as environment, disaster management and finance. As further signs of a potential improvement in relations, Park in December 2014 proposed a trilateral summit with China and Japan; foreign ministers of the three countries also met in March this year—the first time since 2012 that such a meeting was held. In this sense, the resumption of the summit comes as little surprise.

Nevertheless, the resumption of the Trilateral Summit is a relatively important development in East Asian international relations for several reasons. Firstly, China and Japan are considered major powers, and South Korea a relatively established middle power, in the region. They are the top three economies in East Asia (encompassing Northeast and Southeast Asia), and are each within the top five trading partners of one another.

Beyond Northeast Asia, China and Japan have since the early 2010s been the largest and second largest trading partners of ASEAN collectively, with South Korea not far behind. China is additionally the top trading partner of several Southeast Asian countries, while Japan and South Korea occupy leading positions in terms of their foreign direct investments in the region.

All three countries are also firmly embedded in the regional economic architecture through bilateral and multilateral arrangements. Their huge economic presence throughout the region suggests that any developments in Northeast Asia are likely to have an impact that would resonate beyond their backyard.

Secondly, the fact that the three countries have managed to engineer a meeting among their leaders despite the continuing existence of political and territorial disputes reflect the importance of political will in East Asian interstate relations. As many observers have highlighted, most of East Asia’s security hotspots are located in Northeast Asia. These include not only the maritime territorial disputes, but also North Korea and cross-Straits relations. While China, Japan and South Korea broadly want to preserve regional peace and stability, their interests in the above issues are fundamentally different and in some cases conflicting.

In this regard, without political will from all three leaders and policymakers, it is unlikely that the Trilateral Summit would have resumed. This is also characteristic of other multilateral initiatives in the broader East Asia. Political will, motivated by a sense of pragmatism, is perhaps the most important factor driving dialogue and cooperation in a region trying to promote community-building and integration amid the challenge posed by potentially divisive Sino-US dynamics and its associated issues.

Implications for East Asia

Keeping the extant features of the regional architecture in mind, what implications does the Trilateral Summit have for the broader East Asian region? For the United States, the meeting of its two most important allies in East Asia – Japan and South Korea – is a positive sign given its efforts in trying to bring the two Northeast Asian countries together over the past few years.

The meeting between Park and Abe—the first formal bilateral talks since both took office—following the Trilateral Summit could thus be considered an initial step in further strengthening the US web of regional alliances, and consequently sustaining its dominant presence in the region.

At the same time, the resumption of three-way talks also highlights the willingness on the part of Japan and South Korea to engage and cooperate with China, even if both are US allies. This effort to reduce the ‘Asian paradox’, reflected in the disparity between worsening political-security ties and increasing economic interdependence, is additionally reflective of the hedging behaviour pursued by other regional countries in response to China’s rise. With the jury still out on whether China is seeking to change the status quo and establish a new regional order, the best strategy at the disposal of regional countries remains to simultaneously balance against and engage with the rising power.

Finally, for ASEAN which has been striving to preserve its centrality in the region, should it be concerned that improved relations in Northeast Asia could eventually render the ASEAN-led platforms irrelevant to China, Japan and South Korea? In the short- to medium-term, ASEAN is unlikely to lose its relevance to the three Northeast Asian powers. After all, the recent Trilateral Summit remains more a symbolic achievement and serious challenges continue to cloud Northeast Asian relations, with the possibility of another suspension of the summit if relations deteriorate again.

In other words, China, Japan and South Korea would likely continue to find the ASEAN-led forums useful, even if only as venues where their leaders and ministers could meet within the broader regional context.

Nevertheless, with the upcoming series of ASEAN leaders and ministerial meetings this month, it would be prudent for policymakers in ASEAN to consider ways to sustain—or even enhance—the Association’s relevance to the three Northeast Asian countries in the long-term. This would also help ASEAN guard against any negative consequences arising from the fluctuations in the trilateral relations.

*Sarah Teo is Associate Research Fellow with the Regional Security Architecture Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

It was due to the imperialist patronage that the state of Israel came into existence in 1948 by grabbing the vast land which belonged to the Palestinian people for centuries. Even today, the state of Israel serves the interests of American imperialism and its existence rests on its connivance with the rulers of the Arab world who themselves are horrified with the prospects of mass uprising in their own countries. However, the other side of the truth is that owing to the increasing frequency of solidarity movements as well as Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement and the academic and cultural boycott of Israel, the pressure to end the occupation is mounting on the Zionists of Israel.

‘Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine’ is an intellectual forum that was launched by a non-Muslim group of social activists and journalists last year in the wake of Israel’s barbaric bombarding on Gaza. It organized a two-day program titled “In solidarity with Palestine” at India-Arab cultural center in Jamia Millia Islamia. The program had very interesting talks, lively discussions, screening of films on Palestine, Photo-Poster exhibition and book exhibition.

On the first day of the program, an informative talk followed by a discussion was held on the topic, “Zionism: Imperialist Conspiracies in the Middle-East and the question of Palestinian Liberation”. The first speaker was a political analyst and translator of a compilation of Hindi translations of Palestinian poems, Mr. Anand Singh. He gave a detailed account of the history of Zionism, its relationship with imperialism and the history of the courageous resistance of Palestinian people against the brutal Israeli occupation of their land and its continued genocidal campaign. He stated that “Zionism is a political ideology which developed in the late nineteenth century as a consequence of the contradiction of capitalism which was aided and abetted by imperialists to fulfill their own interest.” He further said that “because of the geo-politically strategic location of Palestine as a gateway to the oil-rich region of the Middle East and earlier because of falling on the shortest land-route from Europe to India, the British imperialists earlier and the American imperialists now patronized the Zionists”.

Mr. Anand also spoke on the current Indian government’s perspective and role in relation to the Palestinian cause. He stated that “even though Indian people have historically supported the struggle of Palestinian people, the rulers of India have, of late, begun to betray the cause of Palestinian liberation. India has started tilting towards Israel since early 1990s and the ruling party in India is now gearing to fully embrace Israel and abandon the cause of Palestine”. “Despite the betrayal of the Indian rulers to the cause of Palestine, the people of India must continue to express its solidarity with Palestine and put pressure on the government to sever its diplomatic and trade relations with the apartheid state of Israel,” he said.

Ex-director of Academy of International Studies, Prof. Shri Prakash was the second speaker in this talk. He scholarly dwelt on the history of India’s support to Palestine, clearly stating that even today no government can dare to oppose Palestine and support Israel.

Professor Rafiullah Azami, Centre for West Asian studies (JMI) also spoke in this event. He expressed his gratification that even today there are fearless people in India who have the courage of conviction to speak for Palestine’s liberation. Prof. Javed Ahmad Khan, Director, Centre for West Asian studies (JMI) delivered the presidential speech and reiterated the crucial points of the talk.

The program was moderated by Kavita Krishnapallavi and it was followed by the screening of the famous documentary ‘Occupation 101’ which brilliantly reproduces the various aspects of the Palestine problem. The audience showed keen interest in the photo-picture exhibition as well as the book exhibition.

On the second day of the program, there was a film screening session in which two films were shown. The first film was ‘Five Broken Cameras’ which narrates a moving story of the resistance movement in a Palestinian village against a separation wall being built by Israel to protect the settlers. This entire movement was captured on camera by a peasant of the village and in the process his 5 cameras are broken. The second film was ‘The Time that Remains’ which presents half a century of tragedy and turmoil in Palestinian society as a series of mordant comic vignettes.
Towards the end of the program, the organizers made an appeal to the audience to sign an online petition which inter alia demands the government of India to cancel the upcoming visit of PM Modi to Israel. They also appealed to sign on another petition which demands the cancellation of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal’s upcoming visit to Israel.

*Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a classical Islamic scholar, English-Arabic-Urdu writer, and a Doctoral Research Scholar, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance (JMI Central University). After graduation in Arabic (Hons.), he has done his M. A. in Comparative Religions & Civilizations and a double M.A. in Islamic Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He can be contacted at grdehlavi@gmail.com

(EurActiv) — Evidence now suggests that a bomb planted by the Islamic State militant group is the likely cause of last weekend’s crash of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, US and European security sources said on Wednesday.

If confirmed, this evidence may have wide implications. Russia, fearful that public opinion may stop supporting the country’s military intervention in Syria, would have preferred the crash to be a result of technical failure.

Islamic State, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria, and is battling the Egyptian army in the Sinai Peninsula, said again on Wednesday it brought down the airplane, adding it would eventually tell the world how it carried out the attack.

The Airbus A321M crashed on Saturday (31 October) in the Sinai Peninsula, shortly after taking off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on its way to the Russian city of St Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board.

The US and European security sources stressed they had reached no final conclusions about the crash.

Britain on Wednesday cited the likely possibility of an explosive device as the cause of the crash, but made no mention of any group that may have been responsible.

“We have concluded that there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said after a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Hammond’s remarks came as Britain prepares to host a visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this week.

Egypt, a close ally of the United States and the most populous Arab country, dismissed a similar claim of responsibility for the crash by Islamic State on Saturday.

“It is believed to be an explosion but what kind is not clear. There is an examination of the sand at the crash site to try and determine if it was a bomb,” said an Egyptian source who is close to the team investigating the black boxes.

“There are forensic investigations underway at the crash site. That will help determine the cause, to see if traces of explosives are found.”

Sisi has described Islamist militancy as an existential threat to the Arab world and the West and has repeatedly called for greater international efforts to combat the militants.

Hammond said Britain is “advising against all but essential travel by air through Sharm el-Sheikh airport. That means that there will be no UK passenger flights out to Sharm el-Sheikh from now”.

Acute political rivalry in Bangladesh between two main leaders, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia continues to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere of the nation with plenty of poor and marginalized sections suffering from acute economic problems, including poverty and diseases for too long now.

During her recent visit to London, the opposition BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia launched a scathing attack on the governing Awami League at a meeting organized by her party’s UK chapter at Park Plaza Riverbank London hotel on November 1.

Calling the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a monster and Lady Hitler, Khaleda Zia has called for ‘national unity’ to topple the Awami League government, claiming Sheikh Hasina has established ‘monarchy’ in Bangladesh.

The former premier of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia currently stays in London with his son and family- far away from PM Hasina’s oppressive tactics against opposition leaders.

The BNP chief told the expatriate leaders and activists that she would return home soon to revamp the party for anti-government movement. The former prime minister attacked the government for the law and order situation, which she said was “worst in the country’s history”. “The people of Bangladesh are not well today. They are not in peace. Harassments are crossing the limit every day,” Khaleda said. Without naming Sheikh Hasina, she said, “Bangladesh is now a monarchy. There is Lady Hitler running this monarchy.” “Because all her soldiers, I mean the administration, are only carrying out her orders. Everything is done on her order,” she added.

Citing an interview that Hasina gave to the BBC after the assassination of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the BNP chief said, “Hasina said: ‘I’ll go to Bangladesh to take revenge, not to do politics’. She has not come to build the country. She has come to destroy it,” Khaleda said. She blamed the Awami League government for the rise of militancy. “It is Hasina who is shouting militants, militants, but why? It is to frighten the foreigners. “She wants to make them understand that militancy will rear its head if the BNP comes to power,” Khaleda, her arch political rival, said. “But you see that militancy rose during the Awami League regime. They did not arrest any militant. We arrested all of them,” she claimed.

The BNP chairperson, however, admitted that her party failed to mount a strong anti-government movement in capital Dhaka. “We could not organize the protests strongly in Dhaka . They open fire every time you hit the street.”But, she claimed, the protests in the other parts of the country were “more intense than they were the Liberation War.” She alleged the government torched vehicles during the protests but blamed it on the BNP leaders and activists. She also alleged the government killed 3,000 BNP leaders and activists, abducted 1,200, and shot dead 1,012 in so-called ‘crossfire’.

Khaleda was the chief guest at the ‘Civic Meeting’.

Khaleda slated RAB Director General Benazir Ahmed for the deaths in ‘crossfire’. “There is no account of how many people he (Benazir) has killed.” She emphasised bringing people from all parties and views to bring down the Awami League. “We’ll have to build national unity,” she said. She exchanged greetings with the supporters on Eid on Sep 24 in a programme that descended into utter chaos.

The former prime minister thinks many of the ministers “do not even deserve to be MP”. She alleged many skilled officials have been kept out of work by way of ‘nepotism in the civil administration’.

In the beginning of her speech, she praised the UK for its law and order. “I have seen many things in the past one and a half months. I am delighted. I think there are many good things to learn from their law and order… the good laws,” she said, adding that Bangladesh could implement these laws by learning from the UK.

The BNP chief is staying with his son Tarique, who is deputy chief of the BNP, and his family in London. “I have come here to spend some time with my family,” she said. But she said she wanted to return home now. “I’ve met them after a long time and they are not willing to let me go,” she said. “But you know the condition of the country. Now I need to return home,” she added. “But I need to return because they cannot take any decision if something happens,” she added.

Meanwhile, UK Awami League leaders and activists demonstrated against the BNP chief outside the hotel. The Hasina government supports India and gets some “gifts” while Khaleda opposes India for its deliberate troubles created for Bangladesh’s growth into a strong Islamic nation. PM Hasina hits that return of Khaleda t power would bolster Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, may not be well for the country.

President Obama is pushing for reductions in prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders. As this article notes, the federal prison population is more than eight times higher today than in 1980, before the Reagan administration’s War on Drugs. The United States has a larger share of its population behind bars than any other nation in the world, making it difficult to call it “the land of the free.”

The solution to our rising prison population isn’t going easier on lawbreakers, but changing the laws to eliminate victimless crimes. The War on Drugs is one of the most damaging social policies the government has initiated.

Yes, it swells the prison population, but it has many other pernicious effects. It criminalizes drug market participants and pushes them to look for ways to protect their property and their markets, because not only will police not protect them, the police are trying to hunt them down. This leads to the formation of gangs, and gun violence.

It opens the door to corruption because there are no victims who want to report drug “crimes.” Both buyers and sellers hope to remain undetected, which means police must invade everyone’s privacy to detect drug deals and drug users. It also opens the opportunity for law enforcement officers to be bribed to look the other way, or worse, to join in.

The effect of US drug policies on other countries might be worse. Look at the violence and lawlessness in Mexico and throughout Latin America as organized crime in those countries competes for a share of the US drug market.

These are the big picture effects, but look at what the War on Drugs does to individuals. If your drug of choice is illegal and you get caught, a conviction and prison time, or even an arrest, can harm you for the rest of your life, making it more difficult to find a good job, and therefore more likely that you will look to the drug market for income after release. Do we really want to ruin people’s lives this way?

President Obama’s attempt to lower the prison population identifies a real problem, but the appropriate solution is to decriminalize victimless “crimes,” rather than giving lighter sentences to lawbreakers.

This article was published at The Beacon

Cheerleading has the potential to challenge traditional ideas about gender and to be an inclusive activity for both boys and girls.

This is the findings of a study from the University of East Anglia (UEA) that examined the educational and transformative potential of mixed-sex sports and what the obstacles might be in practice. It focused on cheerleading, often considered a ‘feminised’ activity, and in particular UK university-level competitive cheerleading, which exists in both mixed and single sex formats.

Dr Esther Priyadharshani and Dr Amy Pressland, of UEA’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning, argue that mixed-sex team membership can have a progressive influence on ideas about gender and the performances of both male and female participants, for example by encouraging teamwork and respect.

However, they warn that the existence of mixed-sex teams on their own is not a solution to correcting gender stereotypes and inequalities in sport, and if the transformative potential of cheerleading is to be realised, organisational, promotional and structural changes to the sport itself are also needed.

The study is published in the journal Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. The authors suggest that the relative rarity of mixed-sex sporting events means they are under researched and there are few that require participants to work so closely together.

“It seems imperative to consider how the sport can be shaped in socially progressive ways,” said Dr Pressland. “Cheerleading is very much viewed as an activity for girls, a safe activity where they can remain girls and women. We were really interested in what happens when boys and girls take part it in it together, for boys in terms of their masculinity and how the gender relationships work within the team.

“We think this would be a fantastic, inclusive, activity for young people to work together at and a place where gender norms could be challenged and played with, particularly as sport becomes very segregated when young people get to a certain age, for example when their bodies are developing.

“Girls tend to drop out of sport between the ages of 14 and 16, but if you normalise girls and boys taking part together then as they become aware of their bodies changing, it’s not going to be as big a deal. It is also about building teamwork and having respect among players, being social rather than having this aura of sexuality between the genders.”

Dr Pressland added: “With many sports the focus often ends up being on who is the fastest or strongest. Cheerleading is a very physical, and potentially dangerous, activity where skill is just as important as strength. We found that because of the specific safety issues, people rallied round and were very protective of each other, which you don’t find in other sports.”

The study follows a growth in the popularity of cheerleading in the UK in recent years, with national competitions and schools offering the activity in PE lessons. The researchers looked at four cheerleading teams: one national level, non-university, mixed-sex competitive team and three university teams – two mixed-sex stunt groups and an all-female dance one. They observed the teams and interviewed members about their experiences.

The authors found that the male participants were very protective of the females and their team mates. There was no inappropriateness or sexualisation of bodies in the team and even when they felt uncomfortable doing things they might not consider masculine, such as wearing ‘sparkles’ for competitions or performing certain dance moves, they did it for the team.

“For the boys the team was of most importance, more than the masculinity,” said Dr Pressland. “If it was important to the team they would do it. From the girls we got contrasting views. Those in the dance team did not think the boys added anything, from their perspective they were a strong as the boys. Other girls were very pro men being in the sport and for making it more inclusive and welcoming for both genders.”

Dr Pressland and Dr Priyadharshani said there remained room for coaches, trainers, teachers and professional associations to address how the activity is promoted in schools and universities.

“Because cheerleading in the UK has developed so quickly, we think the regulations behind it need to catch up with what is happening on the ground,” said Dr Pressland. “Cheerleading rules need to be more explicit about expectations from both genders and roles in the team, which would make it more transparent and inclusive. For example, there needs to be more clarity about who does the ‘decorative’ aspects of a routine, such as ‘cheer faces’, winking at judges and the ‘sassiness’ that our participants talked about.”

‘Doing femininities and masculinities in a “feminized” sporting arena: the case of mixed sex cheerleading’, Esther Priyadharshani and Amy Pressland, is published in Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics.

By Federico Steinberg*

Spain’s economic recovery, with output expected to grow by more than 3% this year and unemployment falling steadily, is generating a lot of attention across the Eurozone. The successful completion of the financial sector restructuring that followed the banking bail-out in 2012, the strong recovery of exports and the widespread narrative according to which Spain has done its homework and Spaniards are ‘the Germans of the South’ has made Spain the poster boy of reforms in Europe.

However, not everyone shares such an optimistic view. In a recent policy paper, Simon Tilford, deputy Director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, argues that the recovery is not a result of austerity and reforms and that the economy’s outlook is cloudier than the dominant narrative suggests. High levels of debt and unemployment, deflationary risks, stubbornly low productivity and dangerous demographics all make the recovery weak. Moreover, argues Tilford, when the next recession hits Europe, Spain will not be well prepared to face it.

These arguments have some merit. However, they should be taken with a grain of salt. It is true that there are exceptionally good temporary exogenous factors that fuel Spain’s recovery: low oil prices, a cheap euro, low borrowing costs and a relaxation of austerity have all increased output growth and reduced unemployment. And some of these tail-wind effects will certainly reverse sooner or later. Moreover, Spain suffers from other economic weaknesses that Tilford does not mention: inequality has increased dramatically during the recession, the black market economy accounts for around 20% of GDP and long-term and structural unemployment are among the highest in Europe.

Nevertheless, it is misleading to claim that Spain is not on the right path to recovery. Difficult as it is to overcome the deepest crisis in decades while being a member of a poorly functioning monetary union, a balanced assessment has to conclude that Spain’s recent economic performance has as much light as shade.

It is true that the list of necessary reforms is long. Not only for Spain, but for most of Europe’s sclerotic economies. However, since May 2010, when Spain started to restrain its public spending and implement structural changes under European pressure, the list of achievements has been long. Some reforms have been deep. The banking sector has been recapitalized and credit is flowing again; (incomplete) labor market reforms have increased the economy’s capacity to create jobs once growth resumes; and a substantial pension reform that increases the long-term sustainability of public finances has been approved. Other structural policies have been less intense, but still useful, such as the reforms in the tax and education systems, the single market law and the initiatives aimed at liberalizing certain services and improving public-sector efficiency. All these changes, combined with a strong internal devaluation driven by a substantial reduction in unit labor costs, budgetary policies to ensure fiscal sustainability, positive external shocks and reforms at the European level (particularly Mario Draghi’s ‘Whatever it takes’) are behind the current recovery.

Simple facts such as the swift reversal of the current account (from a deficit of over 10% in 2007 to a surplus in 2013), the pace of deleveraging (with a reduction of more than €429 billion in the debt stock of households and firms), higher consumer confidence, a slight recovery in real-estate prices, a significant diversification in export destinations outside the Eurozone and the creation of over 600,000 jobs in 2015 alone should not be underestimated. It is true that were the positive external factors to reverse, the strength of the recovery would undoubtedly slow down. However, oil prices can be expected to remain low in the foreseeable future, the euro should continue to fall against the US dollar once the Fed starts to raise interest rates and very cheap financing costs will prevail as long as QE is active, which means that the Spanish economy will continue to benefit from positive tail winds for some time.

The big question, however, is the extent to which Spain’s political leaders will be capable of implementing the additional reforms that are needed to sustain strong growth once the favourable external factors change. The country still needs to improve its human capital and R&D, increase competition in the goods and services markets, end the duality of the labour market, reduce energy costs, make the tax system more efficient and effective and capable of redistributing income and reduce inequality, implement thorough changes in the public administration (including a resolution to the Catalan question) and adopt measures to increase institutional quality and reduce corruption. Without them, Spain will not be able to transform its economic structure and aspire to succeed under economic globalization.

Until recently it was argued that neither conservatives nor social-democrats could tackle these profound changes. However, given that Ciudadanos, the new centrist liberal party, will be the kingmaker of the government to emerge after the elections on 20 December, the prospects for reform are actually quite bright.

Spain will also need the Eurozone to continue improving its governance structures to ensure that it does not function merely as a fixed exchange-rate regime that penalizes peripheral countries. In any case, there are good reasons to see the glass half full and not half empty when assessing the Spanish economy.

About the author:
*Federico Steinberg, Senior Analyst for International Economics, Elcano Royal Institute | @Steinbergf

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

By Alissa Akins*

As refugees continue to arrive across Europe, non-entry point cities of Europe and the United States should consider proactively adopting measures to attract migrants to their communities as part of a long-term inclusion strategy.

Far from looking at resettled refugees as a burden on limited government resources, communities should instead see migrants as an external stimulus to the economy with high potential to fill labour market gaps and provide new employment opportunities.

Ultimately, the vast majority of migrants stay in the country to which they originally fled and less than 1% are resettled in third countries. This gives cities time to craft policies to welcome refugees into their communities and grow stronger, more inclusive economies.

Throughout Europe and the U.S., there are already several examples of cities that have sought to proactively attract immigrants to boost economic development strategies and fill vacant homes and storefronts. For example, Dayton, Ohio, became one of the first “Welcoming Cities” in America with its Welcome Dayton program. The initiative was built on the belief that people from diverse backgrounds, with varied skills and experiences, could fuel the city’s revival.

What are the results of Dayton’s efforts? As population decline hit many American Rust Belt cities beginning in the 1970s, so too, did the population of Dayton. Between 2009 and 2013, the total population steadily decreased. However, the trend began to reverse in 2013 with a nearly 59% increase in the foreign born population over the same time period. Foreign-born residents currently make up nearly 5% of Dayton’s total population.

Furthermore, Dayton has a 3:1 ratio of high-skilled to low-skilled immigrants and nearly 40% of their foreign born adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to only 25% of native-born residents. In a 2013 article, Julia Preston of the New York Times profiled the Turkish immigrant community in Dayton. She found that nearly 400 Turkish families have moved into the once vacant and blighted area of north Dayton, opening businesses, fully participating in civic affairs, and investing nearly $30 million in the city.

Another former industrial city is hot on the heels of the refugee crisis and has publicly announced that it is willing to host Syrian refugees. Detroit is an ideal location to resettle these refugees given the existing large Arab-American population and their strong social and economic networks. It is therefore no surprise that as part of a program to revitalize the city of Detroit, Governor Rick Snyder called for an infusion of 50,000 immigrants and created the Michigan Office of New Americans in 2014.

Currently, the Arab-American population in the Detroit metro area accounts for 19% of entrepreneurs and has a median household income at or above the median household income for the entire Detroit metro area. As the city embraces its path to recovery, new populations can infuse the city with new ideas, talent, and energy.

One of the main themes of the recent Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues (BUILD) is sustainable and equitable urban transformation, a theme made particularly significant this year given the migration crisis that is taking place across Europe.

Michael Munter, director of policy for the City of Stuttgart and a BUILD 2015 plenary speaker, spoke about many of the challenges his city now faces integrating refugees. Approximately 240,000 city residents have a migrant background, with 20,000 newcomers arriving each year. He spoke about a successful effort to remake the demographics of the city administration as part of a new welcoming program; 47% of new apprentices in the city administration now have a migrant background, which is representative of the overall demographics of the city.

A recent article on BBC asks which European countries are in the best position to accept refugees. The article notes population projections over the next 65 years, population density, job vacancy rates, and public services. The article suggests countries with a decreasing population, lower population density, higher job vacancy rates, and less strained public services may be best equipped to accept refugees.

Using these same criteria, how would the United States fare? Perhaps the most interesting figure to assess is job vacancy rates. Total non-farm job openings in the United States in July 2015 was 3.9%, higher than any European country profiled in the BBC article, indicating that the United States has available jobs and suggesting that it has the potential to absorb refugees.

Europe and the United States need migrants more than almost any other resource. Projections show gross declines in population in many European countries due to aging populations and birth rates that are lower than replacement rates. Without a steady flow of immigration, Germany’s population will decrease by over 10 million by 2050. Generations of immigrants have helped build the American economy and are critical to ensure future economic growth.

Cities can therefore scarcely afford to neglect the potential economic boost that immigrants can have on their local economies. In an effort to move toward more sustainable and equitable urban transformation policies, perhaps it is time to grow our communities and economies by welcoming newcomers and see them not as part of the problem, but as a key element of the solution.

*Alissa Akins is Program Coordinator at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. This article was originally published on October 30, 2015 with the headline: Minding the Economic Gap: The Role of Refugees in Economic Development and is accessible at http://www.gmfus.org/blog/2015/10/30/minding-economic-gap-role-refugees-economic-development The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.

By Dr. Parasaran Rangarajan

The Open-Ended Working Group of the General Assembly was established in 1992 with the support of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to reform the United Nations. The use of the veto at the United Nations Security Council by the former Cold War powers in relation to blocking the membership, as well as deployment of United Nations Peacekeeping Contingents to areas where there are threats to international peace and security, is of relevance to the State of Palestine today.

Supporting the Palestinian cause is a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy as stated by consecutive External Affairs Ministers and dates back to the words of the father of the nation M.K. Gandhi in that:

“Palestine belongs to Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French…It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on Arabs…But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.”[1]

The government of India’s support to the independence of the State of Palestine has declined due to the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government’s close ties with Israel.[2] This is at a time when there is increasingly more support for the State of Palestine by world renowned intellectuals due to the human rights violations and serious violations of international law Israel is committing against the Palestinian people.[3] By aligning India’s interests with the evolution of international law where it does not intrude upon the sovereignty of the nation, it can have a greater role at the United Nations, and claim its rightful place at the Security Council.

While not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a nation built on principles of unconditional tolerance, India’s recent closer ties with Israel has been regarded as a disappointment by former Indian diplomats who have urged India to close ties with Israel.[4] Israel is currently being investigated by the 123 member-State ICC which will issue international arrest warrants for serious violations of international law.[5] Furthermore, the international community considers that solidarity with the Palestinian cause is one of the greatest moral obligations and struggles of our time.[6]

As a founding member, India’s stake at the NAM is historical and can influence the organisation to vote as a bloc at the United Nations for two purposes:

• Full membership of the State of Palestine to the United Nations.
• United Nations Peacekeeping Contingent in the State of Palestine.

The 137 member NAM (including observers) has resolutions for the independence of the State of Palestine and can invoke United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution)[7] since the Security Council has failed for over half-century to maintain international peace and security in the region. The rationale for using the Resolution for the mentioned purposes is detailed in this article.

The United States of America, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has opposed the membership of the State of Palestine to the United Nations as an equal member for over a half-century, a threat “to international peace and security” as specified in Article 24 of the United Nations Charter.[8] Due to its weak foreign policy at the United Nations on a peaceful settlement to the matter by using its veto as a permanent member of the Security Council and consistently voting with Israel, it remains the one of the primary obstacles to peace in the region of what is considered holy land of the three Abrahamic Religions.

“And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs.” – M.K. Gandhi (1938)

Despite differences in the three Abrahamic religions which have fueled extremism, there have always been two states before the Islamic conquest of the region. The term “Palestine” itself is present as different terms due to linguistic/historical changes including “Philistine”, “Syria-Palestinia”, etc in the Holy Torah, Holy Bible, as well as texts concerning the history of the Roman Empire, Hellenic Empire, and Persian Empire. The Palestinian people have always had a historical right to their land.

Instead of religious views, the international legal options in the context of the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution are explained, since the State of Palestine and the Holy See remain the only nations with “non-member observer State status” at the United Nations. After United Nations General Assembly Resolution 67/19 [9] passed by over 2/3rd vote in 2012, the international legal status of Palestinian “statehood” was clarified. Attending the 2011 as well as 2012 (66th and 68th General Assembly Sessions), the then Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh of the United Progressive Alliance II (UPA II or “Congress Party”), called for the equal membership for the State of Palestine in the United Nations.[10][11]

On most substantial issues involving the rights of the Palestinian people, all other permanent members of the Security Council are in agreement on resolving the matter; especially with European leadership recently recognising the State of Palestine. The European Union has denounced “bi-lateral non-surrender agreements” with the ICC as a “Common Position”, unless the member of the European Union is willing to prosecute the wanted persons domestically.

ICC arrest warrants will be relevant in all of the 123 member-States of the ICC including the European Union, obligating the majority of the world to arrest wanted Israeli persons by the ICC, which may cause major diplomatic rifts to the United States of America’s main ally. The “Arab Peace Initiative (2002)” put forth by His Majesty King Abdullah of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains the best option for Israel in that it receives diplomatic recognition from all members of the League of Arab States (“Arab League”) as an equal nation in exchange for Israel’s diplomatic recognition of the State of Palestine as an equal nation.

Israel itself has a large lobbying base, bankrolling the politics of the United States of America Government despite the fact that “public officials”; defined as Representatives, Delegates, or Residents of the United States of America’s Congress, cannot receive money to influence their policy or acts as per 18 U.S. Code § 201 and 18 U.S. Code § 1956.[12][13] However, the United States of America may not be able to rescue Israel due to the international legal consequences and changes in public opinion in favour of the United States of America recognising the State of Palestine.

Pursuant to some of my legal assistance to the State of Palestine over the past half-decade on seeking peaceful/legal strategies, the United Nations Secretariat included the State of Palestine on its official world map for the first time in 2013 [14] and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is to release a corrected version of its World Heritage Map with international partners such as National Geographic starting from its 2016-2017 productions. This further clarifies the State of Palestine’s rightful place on the official maps of the United Nations in history, for the first time since the foundation of Israel in 1948; important due to updating customary international law which official world maps constitute a part of.

Membership of the United Nations via the General Assembly

It has been generally understood that the role of the Security Council in the membership process is required since all 193 full members of the United Nations have obtained their membership via a positive “recommendation” from the Security Council thus far; which requires that no permanent member of the Security Council can exercise its veto so it is referred to the General Assembly for its “decision”.

Membership of States to the United Nations is governed by Article 4 of the Charter which is the guiding document of the organisation, although not absolute.[15] Membership of a State is considered a “political act”, following the advisory opinion rendered by the primary judicial organ of the organisation; the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Conditions of a State to Membership in the United Nations (1948).[16] General Assembly Resolutions are a part of customary international law just as ICJ advisory opinions.

Upon rejection of an application, the Security Council must still explain to the General Assembly why it rejected an application, as per Rule 60 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council, which is the Constitution of the Security Council.[17]

Furthermore, the Committee on the Admission of New Members; established as a subsidiary organ of the Security Council in 1946 via Article 29 of the Charter and Rule 28 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council accepted views that the State of Palestine was “peace-loving” to fulfill the membership requirements of Article 4 (1) of the Charter in 2011.[18] This is despite the fact the Committee could not recommend membership of the State of Palestine to the Security Council that year due to lack of unanimity.

When the Security Council’s lack of a “recommendation” for a “decision” to the General Assembly for membership is a “threat to peace” as it has been in the case of the State of Palestine; General Assembly Resolution 377 (‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution) can be invoked for membership, and Charter as well as other procedural obligations have been secondary examining the history of the usage of the Resolution explained further in this article. This is applicable when the Security Council, due to its lack of “unanimity”, cannot uphold its Article 24 primary duty of the “maintenance of international peace and security”.

In relation to General Assembly Resolution 377, it may be invoked by the NAM for 2/3rd vote at the General Assembly for the membership of the State of Palestine in good faith, since the Security Council has failed its primary duty specified in Article 24. The advisory opinion of Conditions of a State to Membership in the United Nations (1948) does not forbid any factors of good faith when considering membership in relation to Article 4 (1) of the Charter.

While an application for membership cannot be referred to the United Nations General Assembly for its “decision” when the Security Council fails to make a “recommendation”, as stated in the advisory opinion of the ICJ in General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations Advisory Opinion (1950) [19] which forms a part of customary international law; the customary international law on the relationship between the General Assembly and Security Council was updated by General Assembly Resolution 377 later the same year.

The advisory opinion by the ICJ in Conditions of a State to Membership in the United Nations (1948) makes it clear that the political freedom of each organ, including the Security Council, in taking unilateral action for membership is limited due to Article 24 obligations, but this does not allow these obligations to affect membership unless there is a “provision” regarding the “special rules of admission which emerge from Article 4”.

General Assembly Resolution 377 provides this “provision” since it is stated in the preamble that the General Assembly recognises that one of the primary purposes of the United Nations is; “To develop friendly relations among nations based on the respect for the principle on equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other measures to strengthen universal peace”.

The preamble also recognises that the purpose of the organisation is; “…adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which may lead to the breach of peace”. It is in the context of the principles of the United Nations that the General Assembly was given this “provision” to set aside Charter and procedural obligations, in order to take precedence over the Security Council in the interests of peace. Building upon the preamble, operative paragraph one of the Resolution allows the General Assembly to take “collective measures” when the Security Council fails to act due to its “lack of unanimity of the permanent members”, when there “appears to be a threat to peace, breach of peace, or act of aggression”.

Recent reports concerning equitable representation at the United Nations, which add to the General Assembly’s rationale in invoking the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution includes the Report of the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters related to the Security Council (2004),[20] state that the General Assembly should be able to use the Resolution to override any Security Council veto.

Membership of the State of Palestine may be part of “collective measures” taken by the General Assembly. There is the precedent of the General Assembly interpreting membership issues when it expressly declared Israel is not a “peace-loving Member state”, called for all nations to sever all relations with Israel, and condemned the Security Council in 1982.[21]

The General Assembly also took measures to unilaterally expel the representatives of China in 1971, the Republic of China (ROC), and restored the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the official representatives of China at the United Nations in without involvement by the Security Council despite the fact that China is a permanent member of the Security Council.[22] The same was the case of the suspension of the representation of the apartheid South African regime from 1974-1994, where the General Assembly determined the regime engaged in consistent violations of international law and could not participate at the United Nations. In these cases, the General Assembly has unilaterally taken “decisions” with regards to membership, citing customary international law over Chapter II of the Charter, in the interests of peace.

Therefore, General Assembly Resolution 377 can be used to settle the internationally recognised dispute between the State of Palestine and Israel, so that friendly relations based on equal rights as well self-determination are developed with the international community, by accepting the State of Palestine as a member of the United Nations.

United Nations Peacekeeping Contingent via the General Assembly

The Resolution expressly states that the “collective measures” include the “use of armed force”, irrespective of the Charter which states that only the Security Council may take these decisions.

To this end, the Resolution has been used over ten times to convene emergency sessions of the General Assembly [23]; even when the Security Council was discussing the issue, which is contrary to Article 12 of the Charter.[24] An example is the call for military assistance to liberation troops in Nambia when it was illegally occupied by the apartheid South African regime in 1981 and the issue was under discussion at the Security Council.[25]

With this “provision”, the General Assembly may take “collective measures” for membership and on the deployment of a United Nations Peacekeeping Contingent to the State of Palestine concurrently since the Security Council has failed to provide the Palestinian people with protection from serious war crimes. This is despite the numerous United Nations Reports including from the ICJ recognising there are continuing threats to peace, breaches of peace, acts of aggression, and violations of international law in the State of Palestine by the Occupying power as defined in the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War (1949).[26]

The first United Nations Peacekeeping Contingent established by the General Assembly via ‘Uniting for Peace’ dates back to the mid 1950’s when the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I) served as a buffer between Egypt and Israel.[27] Therefore, the Charter is not an obstacle for the General Assembly since the deployment of peacekeepers, as well as “use of armed force”, was the prerogative of the Security Council as stated in Chapters XI and XII of the Charter. The cited precedents when the General Assembly was solely involved in peacekeeping and deciding on matters related to armed forces are examples when the Charter was a secondary source. Articles 10 and 11 of the Charter allow the General Assembly to discuss as well as make “recommendations” to other members including the Security Council on any matter within the scope of the Charter including international peace and security.

Conclusion

Blocking the membership of a “peace-loving state”, has lead to a “threat of peace” in the past where the Security Council failed to uphold Article 24.

Vietnam’s application for membership of the United Nations was delayed till the late 1970’s due to the “international armed conflict”, as defined by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (1949), with permanent members of the Security Council such as the United States of America. Membership was blocked for “political” reasons since other permanent members of the Security Council such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) suggested Vietnam met requirements for membership of the United Nations by assisting belligerents within Vietnam. Common Article 3 also applies to the State of Palestine since it has ratified the relevant international treaties and conventions.

Endorsing “collective” peacekeeping measures including the “use of armed force” as specified in General Assembly Resolution 377, the General Assembly can also admit the State of Palestine as a member to the United Nations on a “political” basis; overriding the Security Council “for the maintenance of international peace and security”. This is in accordance with updated customary international law.

The right of all States to maintain armed forces for defence was also received well by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (UNOLA) in a legal memo I had written for a delayed French sponsored Security Council Resolution currently being discussed; calling for the withdrawal of Israel from the internationally recognised borders of the State of Palestine – now having more diplomatic and official recognitions than Israel – where its people are in dire need of international protection due to over half-century of serious “crimes against humanity” with “discriminatory intent” (“genocide”).[28][29]

“Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home…But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.” – M.K. Gandhi (1938)

References

1. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/JewsGandhi.html

2. http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Indo-Israel-ties-on-the-march-376555

3. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/08/stephen-hawking-israel-academic-boycott

4. https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/india-urged-close-israeli-ties-palestine-084836226.html

5. http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Pages/pr1083.aspx

6. http://www.internationallawjournaloflondon.com/interview-with-united-nations-special-rapporteur-for-palestine-prof.-richard-falk.html

7. http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/otherdocs/GAres377A(v).pdf

8. http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-v/index.html

9. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_A6719.pdf

10. http://www.thehindu.com/news/resources/pms-address-at-the-66th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly/article2482449.ece

11. http://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/68/IN_en.pdf

12. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201

13. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956

14. http://www.internationallawjournaloflondon.com/the-new-official-united-nations-world-map–proportionate-israel–wiped-off-.html

15. http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-ii/index.html

16. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/9/1923.pdf

17. http://www.un.org/en/sc/about/rules/

18. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3duhJsz7RbEJ:unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/097ACC6FFFF29D5785257949005D2A63+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

19. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/9/1923.pdf

20. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/417/02/PDF/N0441702.pdf?OpenElement

21. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/ES-9/1

22. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/327/74/IMG/NR032774.pdf?OpenElement

23. http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Security_Council_Deadlocks_and_Uniting_for_Peace.pdf

24. http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-iv/index.html

25. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/ES-8/2

26. https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/380

27. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/037/42/IMG/NR003742.pdf?OpenElement

28. http://www.globalnewscentre.com/a-palestinian-un-peacekeeping-contingent-and-enforcing-international-court-of-justice-advisory-opinions/#sthash.gkBSI9o4.dpbs

29. http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/11-09-2014/128509-israeli_occupation-0/

By Lisa Ferdinando

Defense Secretary Ash Carter reiterated Wednesday the U.S. call for a peaceful resolution to the tensions in the South China Sea.

Carter spoke during a media availability at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers’ Meeting — Plus in Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

“We urge all claimants to permanently halt land reclamation, stop the construction of new facilities and cease further militarization of disputed maritime features,” he said.

Carter said he told the defense ministers the United States “does not take sides in these maritime disputes, but we do take the side of peaceful resolution under international law.”

Several Asia-Pacific countries, including China, are involved in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Freedom of Navigation Not New Concept

The defense secretary announced he will visit the USS Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday, as it conducts routine operations while transiting the South China Sea.

The aircraft carrier, Carter said, is a symbol of the United States’ commitment to the rebalance and the importance of the Asia-Pacific region.

The United States, he said, will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits.

“Freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce are not new concepts. They’re not theoretical or aspirational goals,” Carter said. “In this part of the world, these were rules that worked for decades to promote peace and prosperity.”

He noted the tensions in the South China Sea were part of the discussions during meetings with his counterparts at the ASEAN meeting.

“I understand this is a difficult issue for many countries, but I’m confident that this forum will continue to play a useful role in resolving these tensions through dialogue and cooperation,” the defense secretary said.

Carter said he has accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jingping to visit that nation, and looks forward to making the trip in the spring.

Rebalance to Pacific

This trip is Carter’s third to the Asia-Pacific region as defense secretary, he noted, and President Barack Obama will be traveling to that part of the world in the coming weeks.

“This is a region vital to America’s future, which is why our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific remains top priority,” Carter said.

The defense secretary called for an inclusive regional architecture that is strong, capable and effective enough to ensure all nations continue to rise and prosper.

To realize that, Carter said, there needs to be a security architecture that is inclusive and open.

“It should respect rights, not might. It should reward cooperation, not coercion. It should be based on international law and globally accepted norms,” he said. “In that future, ASEAN will continue to play a central role.”