Former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey has discovered who is really behind the Paris attacks. The blame does not really fall on ISIS, nor on Gulf States that have financed ISIS. Certainly there is no blame on the United States for its decision to destabilize Syria thereby providing fertile breeding ground for Islamist extremists.

No. The fault for Paris falls directly at the feet of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It was Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying that tipped off the ISIS attackers to the need to use encryption in their communications. Thus, argues Woolsey, they could not be tracked by intelligence and were able to commit the heinous act undetected.

“The blood of a lot of these French young people is on his hands… because of what he turned loose,” said the former CIA chief.

Because of all this, Snowden is an accomplice to mass murder in addition to being a traitor, argues James Woolsey, and must be put to death immediately. But nothing “humane” like electrocution is good enough for Woolsey. No. Woolsey would “prefer to see him hanged by the neck until he’s dead rather than merely electrocuted.”

There is one big problem with Woolsey’s claims: none of it is true.

In fact, the Paris attackers used no encryption at all. The failure to apprehend the perpetrators and thus prevent the Paris attacks falls squarely with French intelligence and law enforcement. At least three of the attackers were known to French authorities, who were still not able to prevent the attack. Additionally, as we did learn from Snowden, the NSA is busy monitoring the French — particularly French presidents — but it too seemingly was unable to help prevent a large terrorist conspiracy where the perpetrators communicated out in the open.

Remember that next time they tell us they need more access to our encrypted communications.

We should keep in mind that after the Woolsey finished up at Bill Clinton’s CIA he went on to head up what is (wrongly) considered the premier human rights organization, Freedom House. He re-emerged when President George W. Bush was elected, ending up as a key part of the neocon team that crafted Bush’s wildly successful foreign policy — the one with such brilliant achievements as invading Iraq on a neocon lie and thereby contributing to the creation of al-Qaeda and ISIS in the area.

Come to think of it: If materially contributing to ISIS’s rise — and ability to carry out such attacks as the one in Paris — subjects one to being “hung from the neck until dead,” there is probably someone much more culpable than Snowden…. James? Are you there?

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By Vikram Sood*

It was in the month of Ramzan 2014 that there was an announcement about the establishment of the Caliphate. The new Islamic State of Iraq and Syira followed this by uploading a video from the Chilean jihadi, Abu Safiyya, captioned “The End of Sykes-Picot”. The sleek video wanted to project a contemporary, cosmopolitan picture of Islam with a global reach. The Caliphate was going to be distinct from the decadent pro-Western rulers of the region. It would wipe away years of humiliation and disgrace at the hands of Western masters and local monarchs. Democracy was a hoax and jihad would lead to true freedom with a 21st century Sunni Islamist utopia. Yet today almost everyone is familiar with the brutality and violence perpetrated by the ISIS that has dehumanised and spread fear from Ramzan 2014 to November 13, 2015 in Paris.

The present phase began with the sudden announcement by a relatively unknown jihadi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a former detainee at US Camp, Bucca, who was released in 2009, under an amnesty along with thousands, because the Iraqi government did not have the resources to keep the detainees in their camps as the US prepared to depart. As Baghdadi was being led out of the camp, he is believed to have ominously remarked to his escorts, “See you in New York.” The ISIS has not yet reached the US but, clearly, that is the ultimate goal as part of the larger dream of a world under their definition of Islam. Various insurgent groups have repeatedly spoken of this. Europe is a little more than a pit stop en route.

But the Baghdadi phenomenon was not a bolt out of the blue. This was something that was in the works for decades following the economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, which left the country crippled and the people angry with the West led by the US. The West ignored the proliferation of the jihadi groups since the 1990s, after the end of the Afghan jihad. This occurred at a time of the rise of radical Salafism seeking to re-establish control of the Holy Lands. The Salafists accused “renegade” Arab rulers backed by the US and money from monarchs to have ceded territory to Israel. Instead, the Salafists sought establishment of ancient Caliphates. This was more than just sectarian warfare; it was about total control.

Baghdadi apparently took inspiration from Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the super-terrorist who was really a myth created by the Bush administration that sought to create reasons to intervene in Iraq. Zarqawi was the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and was as much a creation of the powerful media as also an acquiescent world that was willing to believe the worst about Saddam. More than anyone else, the ISIS understood this power of the media and, nowadays, the power of the social media. Truth is of secondary importance, virtual reality delivers the message and fear is the key.

Paris as a target, one would think, had a mixture of goals. The attacks are possibly designed to weaken both the opposition to the ISIS and support to the US by creating a lobby amongst Europeans keen on staying away from the conflict in West Asia. The high-profile coordinated attacks were a few weeks short of Christmas, timed with the G20 summit and ahead of the climate conference. These were meant to be seen as a demonstration of capabilities beyond the regional boundaries of ISIS and attract more local volunteers.

The other was to create chaos in the City of Lights with its residents having to forsake theatre, dance, music concerts for three nights. Another interpretation was that these attacks were against people celebrating life. The terrorists were celebrating misery and death. Besides, one extremism feeds another and this would suit the ISIS.

As Europe seeks a response to terrorism, there is talk of closed borders which could mean restrictions on the idea of EU. Even the Euro could receive a setback. There will be a rethink on refugees who are heading towards Europe, a redefinition of secularity and liberalism and a move to the right in many countries directly affected or with significant Muslim populations. French aerial attacks on Raqqa, the capital of the ISIS, were more a show of anger and perhaps not enough unless sustained, co-ordinated and supplemented.

Inevitably, the French will have to re-examine their security and intelligence mechanisms. Intelligence watch on terrorism is not the easiest of activities, especially when the attacks were planned in Belgium but were carried out mostly by Frenchmen of Arab origin. They would be able to move with ease and familiarity. GPS helps but nothing matches old-fashioned familiarity. Like all cities, Paris, too, has areas which are predominantly Arab, or immigrants from other former French colonies. In a recent discussion, the terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky mentioned that jihadi inspiration possibly comes from local neighbourhood imams who run self-sustained cells much like those in Chechnya.

Electronic surveillance, which can give partial or sometimes misleading information, is no substitute to human intelligence in handling terrorism. This is the most difficult aspect of any counter-terrorism intelligence effort. It is not enough to penetrate a terrorist organisation. The cell actually involved in the planned terror has to be penetrated.

The route to successful penetration of a terrorist cell needs extraordinary skills, courage and a generous dose of luck; the path is replete with obstacles, failure and exposure. Terrorists have to be lucky once, counter-terrorists have to be lucky all the time. But it has to be done.

Fighting terrorism is not just the effort of the government alone. Society at large, especially the media and social media, must contribute as was shown in France over the weekend.

*The writer is an Advisor to Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency

Courtesy: The Asian Age, November 20, 2015

By Ajey Lele

The ‘notion’ of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) has taken a beating after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. CIP is about protecting vital infrastructure, which, if attacked, would have deleterious consequences for the state and society. Such infrastructure includes essential services on which the population depends heavily for various routine but essential activities like managing water and electric supply, maintenance of rail and airline networks, etc. For the last couple of years many states have placed a major emphasis upon CIP and have made significant investments to ensure that the architecture for CIP gets appropriately established. However, the recent attacks in Paris and the nature of targets selected there by the terrorists indicate that the ‘process’ behind identifying what is Critical Infrastructure has limitations and terrorists could select many more targets that are outwardly not Critical.

The idea of CIP could be said to have begun when US President Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive [PDD]-63 in May 1998 to set up a national programme of ‘Critical Infrastructure Protection’. Europe too views CIP as an important instrument and has in place the ‘European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection’ (EPCIP). For its part, India has the ‘National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre’ (NCIPC), which essentially handles cyber security related issues.

The terrorist attacks in Paris and prior to that in Mumbai (26/11) demonstrate that terrorists are not concentrating on Critical Infrastructure as a target of choice. Instead, they are targeting places where they can inflict maximum damage to human life as well as garner wide publicity. This is, however, not to argue that Critical Infrastructure has lost its relevance as a ‘rewarding’ terror target. Perhaps realising that such targets are difficult to attack owing to security measures put in place, terrorists seem to have shifted their attention to softer targets.

This raises some basic questions: Are global powers unable to visualise the probable patterns of terrorism? Are the tools used by them to handle current asymmetric threats appropriate? Are attacks like those in Paris exposing the limitations of the existing preparedness and response mechanisms?

It is well-known that ‘terrorists have to be lucky only once but the state has to be vigilant all the time’. The successes achieved by intelligence agencies are normally not known but their one odd failure has large-scale ramifications. Also, policing or military measures are unlikely to eradicate terrorism and the solution has to be political, economic and sociocultural. Zero terrorism is not an achievable objective. However, all this should not justify the failures of security agencies at Paris or Mumbai. The success of terrorists indicates policy and policing failure at both tactical and strategic levels.

Against the backdrop of the Paris attacks, there is a need to introspect about the effectiveness of the approaches adopted by major states to counter terrorism. It could be broadly argued that the ‘Global War on Terror’ being a US construct, the global response also has a US bias. States are mostly building their respective policy structures based on the US ‘interpretation and response’ to this challenge. As a result, CIP became a buzzword and the idea spread globally owing to the degree of emphasis given to it by the US and the EU. Post 9/11, many terrorism experts ‘mushroomed’ and some ended up converting the issue into an academic debate. This led to non-specialists influencing major policy decisions. Various forecasting and modelling techniques borrowed from military studies, management and economics were used to analyse terrorism. Multiple justifications were offered to understand the ‘method behind the madness’ for various acts of terrorism. Theoretical conceptualisations were evolved to ‘situate’ terrorism under preconceived ‘formats’.

None of this appears to have helped to stem terrorism as is evident from the continuing activities of ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, and Talban during the last decade and a half. The Paris attacks only reinforces the case for states to recalibrate their approaches to intelligence gathering, data interpretation and policy response. Analysts need to recognise that the use of smart language and analyses based on Cold War era theories are unlikely to offer appropriate solutions to current problems. For example, the ‘game of chicken’ metaphor used to explain how people avoid a potentially fatal head-on collision may not hold good in the scenario of a suicide terrorist who is ready to die for a cause.

Post 26/11, it appears that India is essentially following the Western model to counter terror-related challenges. The Paris attacks show that such models have limitations. India is often criticised for lacking in ‘Strategic Thought’. However, states that are lauded for their ‘Strategic Thought’ have only faced failures from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria. The Paris attacks should make India think for itself.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/paris-exposes-the-limitations-of-the-wests-approach-to-counter_avlele_181115

The Paris attacks that killed 130 people and injured hundreds of others are still capturing headlines. They also occupy the top spot in social media the world over.

The attack came days after suicide bombers blew up about 40 people in a Beirut suburb and before that a Russian plane was blown up over Sinai killing more than 200 people. Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) took responsibility for all of these murderous acts.

I received several phone calls from Western journalists asking for the Saudi point of view on these murderous attacks to which my reply was that all of us condemn these inhumane and ugly acts which do not serve any purpose, but on the contrary malign our society and our religion.

One caller asked if we will apologize. I almost screamed at him. Apologize for what?! Are we responsible for the actions of mysterious groups that destroy and kill? Are we responsible for all the evil acts being committed and falsely attributed to Islam?! I am not going to apologize, I said.

Let an international investigation be conducted and the findings made public. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, but since the 9/11 attack until now many questions remain unanswered. How is it that after every major incident a passport is found intact? As if people walk the streets with their passports in their pockets and the passports are made of nonflammable material that is resistant to fires and bomb attacks.

In New York, it was a Saudi passport; in Paris it was a Syrian passport which later was found to be a fake and there were 11 passports with the same name and number!

We have had enough of preachers of hate and ignorant politicians inciting animosity against Muslims and ranting anti-Islamic rhetoric that is racist and full of hate. Enough of ignorant people going on the rampage uttering jingoistic chants forgetting the complicity of their own governments in creating Al-Qaeda and Daesh-like organizations and propping up dictatorships in the region, dismantling armies and social order and creating vacuum that led to strife.

I stand with the entire world in condemning the wanton, ruthless and mindless destruction of innocent human lives, but please do not ask me to apologize for something for which I am not responsible. Have the Jews apologized for Netanyahu’s daily massacre of Palestinians? Have the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi apologized for the brutal holocaust inflicted on the Muslims of Myanmar? Has Indian Prime Minister Modi apologized for the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat or the lynching of people alleged to have eaten beef? Have Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Bremer apologized for the death of a million Iraqis?

While the world rises up in arms against the cowardly murders of the innocent in Paris, no one protested when over a 100 Turks were blown to bits by Daesh in Ankara.

This selective grief is not palatable to me and to many around the world. These acts are carried out by people who are supposedly Muslims, but are mostly managed by shadowy groups operating under the umbrella of Western agencies. They do not represent us. I am not guilty, and therefore, I will not apologize!

*The writer is Editor-at-Large for Saudi Gazette where this article appeared. He can be reached at kalmaeena@saudigazette.com.sa and followed on Twitter: @KhaledAlmaeena

(RFE/RL) — Belgian authorities say 16 people were arrested in the Brussels region late on November 22 during police raids linked their investigation of the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks.

Belgian prosecutors said early on November 23 that a key suspect in the case, French-born militant Salah Abdelslam, was “not among those arrested during the searches.”

Belgian officials would not release details about the identities of those detained, nor specific charges against the suspects, “in the interest of the investigation” while security operations are continuing.

The late-night raids included 19 house searches in the Brussels region as well as three house searches in Charleroi, a city in southern Belgium’s Wallonia region.

Brussels remains on its highest alert level as a result of what Belgium’s prime minister has called a “serious and imminent” threat of coordinated, multiple attacks by Islamist extremists.

The Level 4 security alert was declared on November 21.

“What we fear is an attack similar to the one in Paris, with several individuals who could also possibly launch several attacks at the same time in multiple locations,” Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters in Brussels earlier on November 22.

Possible targets were commercial centers, shopping streets, or public transport, he said.

The city’s subway system will stay closed and all schools and universities will be shut on November 23, Michel said following a meeting of the national security council to review the situation in the country.

For the rest of the country, a threat level of three on a four-tier scale would stay in place, Michel said.

He said a new evaluation of the situation would be made on November 23 in the afternoon while adding that and everything was being done to return the city to normal as quickly as possible.

The Belgian capital’s subway network has been closed for the weekend and major events like soccer matches have been canceled.

Extra security has been deployed on trains, in railway stations, and at airports.

The mayor of Brussels also ordered restaurants and cafes across the city to close on the night of November 21, along with shopping centers and public buildings.

Michel said there was “quite precise information about the risk of an attack like the one that happened in Paris,” referring to the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people and hundreds injured.

Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, and Brussels has been at the center of investigations since it emerged that two Paris suicide bombers had been living in Belgium.

Suspected Paris gunman Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French citizen thought to be one of the ringleaders of the Paris attacks, is still at large.

Media reports suggested the heightened terror threat was linked to concerns that Abdeslam is hiding in the Brussels area.

But Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the current threat was greater than that posed by Abdeslam.

“It is a threat that goes beyond just that one person,” he said in an interview with Flemish broadcaster VRT.

“We’re looking at more things, that’s why we’ve put in place such a concentration of resources.”

Another alleged ringleader of the Paris attacks, 28-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a Belgian of Moroccan origin.

He was killed during a raid by French security forces in a Paris suburb on November 18.

Belgium has filed criminal charges against three of its citizens who were detained in Paris in connection with the attacks.

Michel said security officials fear that “several individuals with arms and explosives could launch an attack…perhaps even in several places.”

“We urge the public not to give in to panic,” Michel said, adding that “we have taken the measures that are necessary.”

Brussels police said they discovered a laboratory for the production of explosives during a raid in the capital on November 21.

Weapons were also discovered at the site, but no explosives or suicide belts were found.

Police added that three people have been detained, but did not provide details.

Outside of Brussels, the rest of Belgium remains on a Level 3 security alert.

Officials around the world are investigating the mostly French and Belgian network thought to have carried out the Paris attacks with help from Islamist extremists in Syria.

On November 21, police in Turkey detained three suspected terrorists — including a Belgian citizen, Moroccan-born Ahmet Dahmani, who is suspected of having scouted out locations for the Paris attacks as part of the planning.

Brussels, a city of more than 1 million people, hosts the headquarters of the European Union and NATO, as well as many large corporations.

Since most of the victims of ISIS have been Muslims and since much of the group’s conduct and philosophy are widely viewed as a perversion of Islam, one of the commonly cited pieces of evidence supporting the view that ISIS is not genuinely religious, is the fact that it is run by Iraqi former Baathists. On that basis, the organization’s religious trappings could be seen as merely a cloak for a political project.

In a discussion on the BBC World Service, however, Hassan Hassan and Jason Burke underline that the Baathists in ISIS are indeed religiously driven.

Hassan Hassan: It’s well known that the top echelon of ISIS is dominated by former Baathists who served during the Saddam Hussein regime in one way or another and that also applies to some elements within Jabhat al-Nusra in fact.

For ISIS, the Saddamist elements within ISIS also should be viewed as religious zealots. They are not any more secular Saddamist —

Owen Bennett Jones: I’ve wondered about that. You think they’ve genuinely come around to this jihadi point of view…

Hassan Hassan: There’s no doubt that’s the case. The process of transformation that these people went through is quite clear.

Jason Burke: I was in Iraq in the 90s on a number of occasions and the vision from outside was of the secular Baathist state of Saddam Hussein. Whereas he had already by the mid-90s worked out that the broad shifts in the rest of the Arab world were towards a much more religious posture — culturally, politically, otherwise — and he was tacking very much that way.

I don’t think for a moment that he himself was in any way pious, but he launched a “faith campaign” as he called it. He talked about building the biggest mosque in the world. There was some huge construction under way in Baghdad that I used to go and look at. He talked about writing the Quran in his own blood. There was lots of religious programming on the TV.

So, at the same time of course you had the UN sanctions that were on Iraq. And I remember going to schools and hearing school children singing songs — the normal stuff about fighting the Zionists and so forth, but also against the U.S. and the West and so on. So the process of radicalization, if you like, or Islamization, was well advanced even before 2003 and an invasion that effectively ousted the Sunnis from their position of dominance.

And just a very telling anecdote: When I was in Baghdad after the war I spent a day with an insurgent fighter who was very much in that kind of Sunni nationalist mode and he clearly professed himself to be a devout Muslim, but he still didn’t like what he called the terrorists.

So, there were still all sorts of different currents at that stage, but I think it is certainly the case, as Hassan was saying, that a lot of the senior Baathists and a lot of the society more generally Shia and Sunni, was very much more advanced down the path towards a religious resurgence than people would think.

Amid the ongoing debate about how to tackle ISIS, many observers prefer to sidestep that question by pointing out that ISIS would not have come into existence had it not been for the disastrous choice the U.S. made by invading Iraq in 2003.

Much as this observation is valid, it also has the effect of reinforcing the dogma which portrays the ills of the world as all ultimately being products of America’s excessive military power and the misuse of that power.

Devout believers of this political dogma, especially those who are themselves Americans and who can easily point to the destructive impact of decades of U.S. meddling in global affairs, on this basis commonly conclude that little else really needs to be understood about the world than that America is the problem.

From this perspective, the best the U.S. can do is to get out of the way. If America is the problem, then non-interference is the panacea. Moreover, a common assumption is that even if chaos continues to prevail, U.S. involvement will only make the situation worse and thus we can and should disengage from the affairs of the Middle East.

I have little doubt that those Americans who subscribe to this view see it as a foreign-policy equivalent of the Hippocratic oath, thinking that the only way the U.S. can do no harm in the world is by attending to its domestic concerns and assuming a much more modest role on the global stage.

This sentiment, however, licenses ignorance and the ready acceptance of simplistic analysis — such as much of that now being applied to ISIS. It also facilitates the propagation of conspiracy theories.

But anyone who wants to seriously think about ISIS — to understand how it emerged and how it is evolving — needs to set aside this perspective that insistently overstates American power.

If we only see ISIS as a product of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, we’re not going to see how its emergence needs to be placed in a wider historical perspective: as a product of the failure of Arab secular nationalism and authoritarian rule.

The uprisings of 2011 during the Arab Spring posed a threat to every single government across the region. What has in large part saved most of them from the threat of democracy is the subsequent growth of a threat from terrorism.

ISIS as a reactionary political force has played a major role in shifting the regional debate from a contest between dictatorship and democracy, to a bloody struggle between stability and chaos.

Those who are threatened by ISIS’s expansion nevertheless also benefit from its existence. Stability becomes imperative only when instability is seen as the sole alternative.

This is how Bashar al-Assad, in spite of destroying much of Syria and driving half the population out of their homes, is succeeding in keeping tyranny alive.

A new study has found a link between abrupt ocean warming at the end of the last ice age and the sudden onset of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions that led to vast marine dead zones.

Results of the research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are published today in the journal Nature.

“This works tackles a long-standing debate about what causes expansion of Oxygen Minimum Zones, also known as dead zones, in the oceans,” said Candace Major, a program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences. “The results demonstrate a link between warming surface temperatures and dead zones at great depths. The findings also show that the response time between warming and dead zone expansion is quite fast.”

Large-scale warming events at about 14,700, and again 11,500, years ago occurred rapidly and triggered loss of oxygen in the North Pacific, raising concern that low-oxygen areas will expand again as the oceans warm in the future.

Anomalous warmth that occurred recently in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea–dubbed “The Blob”–is of a scale similar to events documented in the geologic record. If such warming is sustained, oxygen loss becomes more likely.

Although many scientists believe that a series of low-oxygen “dead zones” in the Pacific Ocean off Oregon and Washington during the last decade may be caused by ocean warming, evidence confirming that link has been sparse.

Clear connection: Past ocean warming and dead zones

The new study, however, found a clear connection between two historic intervals of abrupt ocean warming that ended the last ice age with an increase in the flux of marine plankton sinking to the seafloor, ultimately leading to a sudden onset of low-oxygen conditions, or hypoxia.

“Our study reveals a strong link between ocean warming, loss of oxygen and an ecological shift to favor diatom production,” said paper lead author Summer Praetorius of the Carnegie Institution for Science. “During each warming event, the transition to hypoxia occurred abruptly and persisted for about 1,000 years, suggesting a feedback that sustained or amplified hypoxia.”

Warmer water, by itself, is not sufficient to cause diatom blooms, nor hypoxia, the researchers note.

Just as warming soda loses its fizzy gas, warmer seawater contains less dissolved oxygen, and this can start the oxygen decline. But it isn’t until accelerated blooming of microscopic diatoms–which have large shells and tend to sink more rapidly than other smaller types of plankton–that de-oxygenation is increased.

Diatoms are known to thrive in warm, stratified water, but they also require sources of nutrients and iron, according to Alan Mix of Oregon State University, a co-author of the paper.

There are some competing effects, and the final story depends on which one wins. Warming may, for a time, decrease mixing from below, but if the major nutrients are there, as they are in the high North Pacific, then warming favors plankton growth.

“The high-latitude North Pacific is rich in common nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate, but it is poor in iron and that seems to be the key,” Mix said. “A partial loss of oxygen causes a chemical reaction that releases iron previously trapped in continental margin sediments. That iron then fuels diatoms, which bloom, die and sink to the seafloor, consuming oxygen along the way.”

Ocean response times a concern

The concern is how rapidly the ocean may respond, the researchers said.

“Many people have assumed that climate change effects will be gradual and predictable,” Mix said, “but this study shows that the ecological consequences of climate change can be massive and can occur pretty fast with little warning.”

Because the competing effects of mixing and iron may happen on different timescales, the exact sequence of events may be confusing.

On the scale of a few years, mixing may win, but on the scale of decades to centuries, the bigger effects kick into gear. The geologic record studied by the scientists emphasized these longer scales.

The new discovery was the result of a decades-long effort by numerous researchers at Oregon State University to collect marine sediment cores from the North Pacific, creating comprehensive, high-resolution records of climate change in the region.

The temperature records came from trace quantities of organic molecules, called biomarkers, produced by plankton.

In addition to “The Blob” of unusually warm ocean temperatures seen across the North Pacific, this year has had a record-breaking algae bloom dominated by a certain species of diatom.

“While it’s too soon to know how this event ties into the long-term climate patterns that will emerge in the future,” Praetorius said, “current conditions seem eerily reminiscent of past conditions that gave way to extended periods of hypoxia.”

Dark matter is called “dark” for a good reason. Although they outnumber particles of regular matter by more than a factor of 10, particles of dark matter are elusive. Their existence is inferred by their gravitational influence in galaxies, but no one has ever directly observed signals from dark matter. Now, by measuring the mass of a nearby dwarf galaxy called Triangulum II, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Evan Kirby may have found the highest concentration of dark matter in any known galaxy.

Triangulum II is a small, faint galaxy at the edge of the Milky Way, made up of only about 1,000 stars. Kirby measured the mass of Triangulum II by examining the velocity of six stars whipping around the galaxy’s center.

“The galaxy is challenging to look at,” he said. “Only six of its stars were luminous enough to see with the Keck telescope.” By measuring these stars’ velocity, Kirby could infer the gravitational force exerted on the stars and thereby determine the mass of the galaxy.

“The total mass I measured was much, much greater than the mass of the total number of stars–implying that there’s a ton of densely packed dark matter contributing to the total mass,” Kirby said. “The ratio of dark matter to luminous matter is the highest of any galaxy we know. After I had made my measurements, I was just thinking–wow.”

Triangulum II could thus become a leading candidate for efforts to directly detect the signatures of dark matter. Certain particles of dark matter, called supersymmetric WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), will annihilate one another upon colliding and produce gamma rays that can then be detected from Earth.

While current theories predict that dark matter is producing gamma rays almost everywhere in the universe, detecting these particular signals among other galactic noises, like gamma rays emitted from pulsars, is a challenge. Triangulum II, on the other hand, is a very quiet galaxy. It lacks the gas and other material necessary to form stars, so it isn’t forming new stars–astronomers call it “dead.” Any gamma ray signals coming from colliding dark matter particles would theoretically be clearly visible.

It hasn’t been definitively confirmed, though, that what Kirby measured is actually the total mass of the galaxy. Another group, led by researchers from the University of Strasbourg in France, measured the velocities of stars just outside Triangulum II and found that they are actually moving faster than the stars closer into the galaxy’s center–the opposite of what’s expected. This could suggest that the little galaxy is being pulled apart, or “tidally disrupted,” by the Milky Way’s gravity.

“My next steps are to make measurements to confirm that other group’s findings,” Kirby said. “If it turns out that those outer stars aren’t actually moving faster than the inner ones, then the galaxy could be in what’s called dynamic equilibrium. That would make it the most excellent candidate for detecting dark matter with gamma rays.”

With the Paris terror attack and flooding of Western nations with Muslim migrants, Senator Ted Cruz and others have proposed limiting Muslim immigration into the U.S. In response, Barack Obama and John McCain have said that having a “religious test” for newcomers would be un-American. It’s a belief betraying dangerous philosophical juvenility.

Before getting to the deeper issues, it doesn’t take an Aristotelian mind to grasp the following: If one million Chinese Christians immigrated to our nation, the probability is decent that not even one of them would turn to terrorism. The same cannot be said of Muslim newcomers. And as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, if 1/10th of 1 percent of 1,000,000 of them are terrorists, that’s still 1000 dangerous jihadists. Terrorism today is a Muslim phenomenon.

Even more dangerous, though, is the modernistic phenomenon of false moral equivalence. Would you say it was un-American to apply an ideological test to immigrants and deny entry to Nazis or communists? People will say that’s different; on an instinctive level, we view our ideology as superior to others and some ideologies as downright evil. But what is the substantive difference among them? It’s that they espouse different values. And unless we’re moral relativists, we understand that because of this they cannot all be morally equal.

Now consider: different religions also espouse different values. This is largely why we can call them “different” religions. Conclusion?

They cannot all be morally equal.

You’ll only say otherwise if, again, you’re a moral relativist. But if relativism is “reality,” it then follows that no ideology can be better than another, either. If Christianity and Hinduism were equal despite their different values, so would liberalism and conservatism be; if Judaism and Islam were, so would libertarianism and Nazism be. “Values” are either relative or they’re not — you can’t have it both ways.

What follows from this is that religions, like ideologies, can run the gamut from the good to the bad to the ugly, from the ethereal to the excremental. The Aztecs’ religion, like so many pagan ones, required human sacrifice on a massive scale, and the Christian religion put an end to it. The Romans’ pagan religion allowed for the brutality of the arena, and the Christian religion put an end to it. I’ve heard many conservatives say “Islam is not a religion,” but the truth here is a bit simpler: similar to ideology, religion isn’t bad, but there is bad religion.

In point of fact, the distinction between “secular” and “religious” is, in the most important sense, a false one. Many today, awash in militant “secularism,” talk and behave as if the labels “secular” and “religious” alone are enough to qualify an idea for or disqualify it from the public square and the stuff of laws. This notion has no basis in reason and ignores the only distinction that really matters.

What would this be? Well, if Marxism is a destructive lie (in sum), what is more significant, that it’s labeled “secular” or that it’s untrue? If God’s existence is a reality, what is more significant, that we label the idea “religious” or that it is true? There’s only one distinction of any consequence whatsoever: the true and the untrue. Everything else is water-muddying, pseudo-intellectual verbiage.

In other words, at bottom people don’t believe in “ideologies,” “religions” or “philosophies.”

People believe in things.

Some of those things are good and true, others are bad and false. And if what people believe is bad and false — whatever water-muddying label it wears — there’s every reason not to vote for them. There also may be good reason not to befriend or hire them, depending on the degree and nature of the badness. There may be reason to keep them out of your home.

And there certainly may be reason to keep them out of your national home.

It should be noted that when Charles Martel saved Europe from a Muslim invasion in 732 A.D. and when the responses to Islamic aggression known as the Crusades were launched in 1095, people understood the above well. In fact, the earliest known uses of the terms “religious” and “secular” were, respectively, 1200 and 1300; even so, they didn’t have their current meanings. “Secular” as in “in reference to humanism and the exclusion of belief in God from matters of ethics and morality,” only dates from 1850.

Thus, during Christendom’s formative years, adolescence and rise to dominance, people did in fact view the world more clearly in the most important sense: they understood that there was simply the true and untrue. Maybe now we can understand why Pope Benedict XVI identified the 13th or 14th century as the West’s high water mark.

So what changed? Why are we confusing ourselves with terminology? Well, a prerequisite for believing something is “true” or “untrue,” in a real sense, is believing there is a yardstick for thus measuring things, namely Truth. And most contemporary Americans (and other moderns), as this 2002 Barna Group study shows, don’t believe in it. They are relativists.

Since many well-meaning readers occupy this group, I ask you to bear with me and consider the following carefully. Here’s how I always explain this matter: who or what determines what we call right and wrong? There are only two possibilities: either man does or something outside of and above him does — namely God (if the agency outside us weren’t above us, there’d be no reason to defer to its “law”). Consider the implications of each position. If an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect and benevolent being that created the Universe — the physical reality we see — also created moral reality (Truth), then we can say right and wrong is a real thing, unchanging, nonnegotiable and inerrant. It’s not merely a matter of “perspective” or feelings.

But what if, as the ancient Greek Protagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things”? Well, if you learned that the vast majority of the world liked vanilla but hated chocolate, would this make chocolate “bad” or “evil”? Of course not. We know it’s merely a matter of taste.

Alright, but how is murder any different if the only reason we believe it’s “wrong” is that the vast majority of the world dislikes the idea of killing others in a way they consider “unjust”? If it’s merely consensus preference — if there’s nothing more we can cite as evidence of this thing called “wrongness” — then it occupies the same category as flavors: taste.

Some may now say, “C’mon, Duke, we’re talking about finishing off people, not dessert! This is a moral issue.” Again, though, absent Truth, the category of “moral issues” would also be man’s invention, also just a result of the consensus preference that some preferences should be classified differently from other preferences. And, hey, to echo that popular relativist refrain, “Don’t impose your values on me, dude.”

This helps explain why many people subscribe to the ObaMcCain no-religious-test notion. We have become so relativistic that we, at bottom, view religions merely as flavors of the day. Why don’t we apply the same to ideologies, whose “values” would also be relative? Simply because, absent a belief in Truth, people’s tendency to operate based on emotion is exacerbated. And emotion isn’t logical. Most relativists haven’t truly thought their ideas through carefully and applied them consistently. If they had and nonetheless wouldn’t dispense with their relativism, they’d conclude what Friedrich Nietzsche and occultist Aleister Crowley had, expressed by the latter as “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” (And in this case they’d realize they, logically, could treat “religion” and “ideology” differently because relativism dictates that consistency can be no better than inconsistency. Few people would make this logical but foolish decision, though, as opposed to the millions who can be influenced wrongly by emotion.)

And why do people’s emotions today influence them toward the double standard in question? First, people again are creatures who believe “things”; they need something to give their lives meaning, real or illusory. And in this godless age, “ideology” has taken the place of “religion,” which is why we see leftist protesters exhibiting jihadist-like fervor. Second, people often see how “ideology” affects them, the connection between it and how they’re governed. They know that putting liberals or conservatives in office can make a difference.

What they unfortunately don’t realize is that world view, “First Things,” influence whether one will be liberal or conservative — or something else. It’s no coincidence that the Founding Fathers were Christian. It’s no coincidence that the mass-murdering Marxists were atheists. It’s no coincidence that the Nazis were neo-pagans. And it’s no coincidence that the Muslim world never birthed democracy. It makes a big difference whether your credo is “Do what thou wilt,” “Do what Jesus wilt” or “Do what Allah wilt.”

So, yes, a religious test, if not in law but in citizens’ minds, is appropriate for lots of things. And immigration is no exception.

By C. Raja Mohan*

You never let a serious crisis to go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel, the then White House chief of staff, as a financial disaster threatened America at the dawn of Barack Obama’s presidency. We don’t know whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aware of the “Rahm Theorem”. But he appears conscious of the need to alter the political narrative after the electoral debacle in Bihar.

A week, it is said, is a long time in politics. If the Bihar results seemed to diminish Modi’s standing, the PM has reasons to bet that he can engineer an early turnaround. Might foreign policy be of some help to the prime minister?

There is no dearth of advice on a possible new course. The political part of it suggests that the PM must crack down on the extremists of the Sangh Parivar, who have eroded Modi’s support in the mainstream. The economic part suggests an acceleration of reforms and concentration on a few major deliverables that can credibly improve the PM’s chances for re-election. While Modi’s ability to push through big legislative change has been undermined by the Bihar results, there is much the government could do through executive action. We have seen some initial moves on reform already on liberalising the rules for foreign direct investment. More is expected to follow.

But what about diplomacy? Foreign policy rarely figures in domestic political strategies. Whether it is the advanced nations or developing ones, the wallet always matters more than the grand themes of world politics. But diplomacy does offer some political opportunities for leaders who find the going tough at home.

Walking the global stage may not get you many votes, but it certainly helps boost the PM’s political image. Diplomacy also helps leverage external opportunities for more rapid internal economic development. While the gestation time can be long, the sense of concrete movement on major transformative projects can boost national economic sentiment.

In some contexts, critical external partnerships help improve domestic political standing. Recall Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s embrace of the Soviet Union as the Congress party split in 1969. Moscow helped her win the support of the Left in the country to fend off her Congress rivals on the right.

The international setting also helps the PM to send important political messages home. If the protests in London underlined the gathering external storm, Modi has hinted at the prospects for political course correction. Facing tough questions on growing intolerance in India in his joint press conference with British PM David Cameron in London, Modi promised to protect the constitutional rights of every citizen. The PM knows that these can’t be empty assurances. As he travels around the world, the questions of domestic disharmony are going to shadow him unless there is a visible improvement at home.

Modi has before him a season of expansive diplomacy – having just returned from the UK and Turkey, he now leaves for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. In December, Modi heads to Paris for the climate summit, receives Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe in New Delhi, and meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. All these encounters will allow Modi to showcase his diplomatic standing and get a major external boost for his economic plans at home.

Dealing with great powers and global issues might generate some political excitement, but it does not have a great impact on domestic politics. Recall the great controversies during 2005-08 over then PM Manmohan Singh’s historic civil nuclear initiative with the US. The CPM, which pulled the plug on the coalition, came a cropper in the 2009 parliamentary elections, while the Congress returned with a larger majority.

Issues relating to the neighbourhood, however, have much greater political resonance at home. Developments within Nepal have been of some importance in the recent Bihar elections. Sri Lanka’s civil war has long cast a shadow over Tamil Nadu. Bangladesh has always loomed large over eastern India. The recent beef controversy drew Bangladesh into it as senior NDA leaders threatened to eliminate the cattle trade across the long frontier with Bangladesh. The question of illegal migration is bound to figure prominently in the Assam elections next year.

The BJP’s attempt to make Pakistan a factor in the Bihar campaign underlines the important and enduring connection between the internal and external in the subcontinent. The bitter legacies of Partition and the many accumulated grievances since weigh heavily on the political evolution of the subcontinent within and across borders. Modi is in a good position to ease the growing communal polarisation at home by taking sensible steps towards Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Modi can take political credit for getting the contentious land boundary agreement with Bangladesh approved in Parliament. New Delhi’s ties with Dhaka have now entered a very productive phase. The PM can do more by negotiating effective mechanisms for border management with Bangladesh. Progress in that direction could quickly transform the political dynamic in the eastern subcontinent.

Resuming the peace process with Pakistan might seem a lot more difficult. It is worth recalling though that PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whom Modi cites quite often in relation to Jammu and Kashmir, made consistent efforts under lot more difficult circumstances to improve ties with Pakistan at the turn of the millennium. Vajpayee’s quest for peace with Pakistan played no small role in limiting the communal conflict under the first BJP-led government in India.

It is no secret that productive engagement between India and Pakistan will have significant positive effects on the internal politics of both countries. If the PM plucks the low-hanging diplomatic fruit with Pakistan, his efforts to detox the domestic environment will get a big boost.

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

Courtesy: The Indian Express, November 21, 2015

The strategy of groups like ISIS and Boko Haram seem to be consistent disruptive attacks for to gain massive attention and propagation of propaganda. Their intention in its entirety is to make sure that the countries they target, their allies and any other state that finds their actions to be concerning should know and, by proxy, fear their existence and react towards them.

The key word here seems to be “react” as it gives little time for anyone to really think about the long-term effects of actions they might take to seemingly counter ISIS. Reactionary acts would increase the likelihood of mistakes made by individual authority figures and institutions. The rise of a call to curtail “Muslim” movement throughout the western world, as well as within the Middle East is in itself a reaction towards ISIS and its ilk.

The Grand Plan

Just like Al Qaeda’s grand master plan to have the USA use their military might to expend resources coming after an elusive enemy with no actual corporeal form, ISIS’s grand plan seems to be hinged on the creation of an environment and atmosphere that is not only abrasive but also borders on feeling the effects of psychological genocide for anyone recognizing themselves as “Muslim”. While there are various western politicians and individuals who believe in stopping Muslim refugees, keeping them contained to specific areas as well as being tougher on Muslim populations within their own countries, there also exist organizations and institutions that represent the “unheard” populations of the West.

As described in “The Clash of civilizations” by Samuel Huntington, a universal ideological issue uniting various countries as one against it would create a conflict of global proportions. It seems that it is this very conflict that has been slowly brewing since the past few decades, and while small scale acts of terrorism by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations did shape the world in the post-cold war era, this era seems to be shaped by reactions and their lash backs. The organizations in question such as the English defense league, the political parties across Europe and North America while choosing to “defend”, with more force than their governments ever met out, against an enemy they believe are encroaching on their land; their fiery rhetoric is being fueled by reports of refugee relocation issues as well as actions by ISIS and similar organizations throughout the world. Acts such as the burning of mosques, attacks in or near public areas and public transport already signify that there are individuals or organizations willing to take over the mantle for the protection of their homeland, something they believe their government has failed in doing.

Reaction vs Response

This seems to be the reactionary force ISIS and similar organizations want to target, creating an unlivable and intolerable environment for Muslims, which would in turn create a feeling of dread, helplessness and impotency in a religion consisting of a “younger” population. As can be understood by
countless anti-terrorism and COIN stratagems over the years, this sort of environment becomes a primary recruiting ground for terrorist organizations and in this case, would ensure the creation of a “quagmire” similar to that of the experience of the coalition in Iraq but on a much more grander scale. While the geopolitical implications are definitely mind boggling, a crucial part of the Islamic religion comes into effect in such a oppressive atmosphere, the Quran as well the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have instructed Muslims on the “End of Times” as when the world shall turn against the Muslim population and there will be huge battles fought between Muslims and non-Muslims. Religious Muslim children, teenagers, adults and even the elderly look forward to this encounter as it would mean the end of the “Test” that they believe they are a part of on this planet, therefore their desire to fight and die in the name of this cause would be unrivalled by anything experienced before on any field of battle. This is because, right now, it is a very small part of the population that recognizes itself as “Muslim” that is actually part of terrorist attacks carried out throughout the world, but if the creation of this alternative reality, in the eyes of the oppressed, succeeds by the hands of ISIS and similar organizations, it would add a huge chunk of the 1 Billion plus population that currently makes up the global Muslim population.

Recommendations

While questions of religious “end of times” coming or not aren’t within the scope of this article, the possibility exists that ISIS or maybe its successors may create the psychological possibility within individuals affected directly or indirectly by the war on terror or the current war against ISIS, that whatever actions they take would definitely be in the name of God and would lead to their eternal salvation. This reality must be questioned, checked and vacated from the common peoples’ eyes who currently reside within areas controlled by ISIS, as the power of ISIS doesn’t rest within their weapons but within the psychological realm and how they are attempting to kill their targets with a “thousand tiny cuts”.

Similar strategy must be applied against them:

• Massive bombing campaigns should rather be converted into massive misinformation campaigns as well as secret “ghost” squads or individuals within geographical distance of vital leaders and commanders for Daesh that leave their targets dead in ways unimaginable and therefore the origin of their death untraceable, it would be of added benefit that their deaths be public and irrefutably by accident. Common means of creating fear must be subverted, such as taking over of air ways by Electronic warfare components within the air force, as well as tainting their internal ammunition and weapon supplies with lethal fakes (which explode upon use or simple touch), maybe even tainting the food and water supplies to reduce “combat effectiveness” through drugs or diseases that are not capable of producing an epidemic or lethal effects.
• Training other groups and handing them weapons is how ISIS has gotten its currently effective weapons and therefore should be stopped at all costs, similarly, boots on the ground is what Al Qaeda wanted all along and it resulted in the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, creating a black hole into which everything is sucked in that comes near it, ISIS seems to want the exact same thing on a larger scale and . Attacks against Muslim refugees must be stopped and issues of local populations be heard, for it is the unknowable that causes fear, acts such as the Muslim man in France giving out free hugs as well as the Muslim society taking out full page ads to condemn attacks of civilians should be promoted.
• Open questioning of the religion and concessions in regards to dressing and appropriate behavior must be heeded by Muslims as well as the non-Muslim populations of the countries the Muslims live in. False flag attacks by individuals or organizations from both sides will always be a danger and possibility and must be guarded against as creating a simple “us vs. them” solution seems preferable to the common man as well as more “practical” individuals, it’s not meant to last, one side is meant to win in such a scenario, while winning or losing, both sides will face terrible effects and losses, something that innocent people from both sides will pay heavily for, while the real perpetrators would never be caught neither their involvement or existence ever realized.

Conclusion

While calls of ending Muslim refugee relocations and increasing the bombing campaigns against ISIS are on the rise, there is little hope of finding a solution that doesn’t have a hint of oppressiveness built into it. While there isn’t a “cleaner” solution available to the current state of affairs, it is understandable that as with Al Qaeda, even if the state of Daesh collapses and is beaten back, it may inevitably rise again with a new face and with new tactics, which is where lessons learnt in the current state of affairs would be much beneficial. The inevitably follow the strategy of “Starfish and a Spider” and don’t view their own life, their current values or societies as important, they do however find it important to target them in their “enemy” and its society to make it react and then ensure that the reaction happens in a way that is beneficial to their end-goals. It should be completely understood that the instability of any region or country that is under the control or threat of ISIS is being done so deliberately, organization, communication and structured civil institutions are something that ISIS despises, something that gives the common man a method to question them and their “rule through force”.

While the world currently reels in the aftermath of the Paris attacks and Mali hotel attack, as well as others, it would be tragic to see countries Western and Non-Western not be blinded beyond the capacity to see reason in the face of adversity and chaos.

A federal court in Chicago has sentenced a Haj and Umrah tour operator to nine-and-a-half-year jail for cheating a group of Pakistani Haj pilgrims and blowing their money in a casino.

Delivering the verdict, judge Judy Grey Fiesman said the convict, Rashed Minhas, “lied to God” and that is why he deserved such a harsh punishment, local media reported, quoting the Chicago Sun-Times daily newspaper.

Minhas admitted to having deceived people who trusted him with their finances to realize their dream of going for Haj. He was accused of wasting $1.3 million in the casino near Disneyland.

The Chicago Sun-Times, in its Nov. 20 edition, described Minhas as “thief” “rude” and “deceitful” after “his conscience allowed him to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from poor people who made much efforts to save up for performing Haj.”

The federal police were quoted as saying that Minhas sent electronic messages to the people he had collected money from, saying that the Saudi Embassy would not give them visas to enter the Kingdom.

Judge Fiesman said the electronic messages “were harsh and increased the nature of the crime against these poor people who trusted Minhas with their money.”

The convict reportedly maintained silence and bowed during the proceedings. When the judge allowed him to speak, he burst out crying, saying he lost everything and that he can only say he was sorry to the victims of his crime.

Two leading Russian analysts, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Igor Yurgens, have argued that the European Union has failed to provide Russia with a path to Europe and thus have “rejected” Russia. But in fact, Liliya Shevtsova says, that is exactly backwards: Europe hasn’t rejected Russia – Russia has rejected Europe.

Many Russian liberals, the Moscow commentator writes in “Novaya Gazeta,” consistently criticize the Kremlin’s domestic policies but fall in line with Vladimir Putin when it comes to foreign affairs and especially when they are talking about the attitude of other countries toward Russia (novayagazeta.ru/politics/70824.html).

On the one hand, of course, this is nothing more than the latest example of the old principle that “Russian liberalism ends at Ukraine.” But on the other, and more fundamentally, it reflects an unwillingness to consider the links between domestic and foreign policy and the way that must play out in relations with structures like the EU.

In her current article, Shevtsova takes Inozemtsev and Yurgens to task for their suggestions (at snob.ru/selected/entry/99514 and novayagazeta.ru/politics/70497.html) that the EU has failed Russia because it has not offered it a path to full membership like the one it provided Germany, which as a result has become the most European of states.

Given the Putin’s regime to keeping itself in power forever and extracting as many resources from Russian society as possible, there could be no basis for Europe taking in Russia as a member, Shevtsova points out. Russia would never accept going through the EU application process and would only become more convinced that Europe was “rejecting” it.

What it wanted and wants is something else, something Europe could not concede without betraying the principles on which Europe is based, a reality that is highlighted by what Shevtsova describes as Inozemtsev’s view about the biggest mistake the EU has made: “’the artificial division of the post-Soviet space … into Russia and “other” countries.’”

In brief, the Moscow commentator continues, Inozemtsev sees “Europe’s mistake” as rooted in “the recognition of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the new independent states” because that represents a challenge to “’historic Russia’” whose capital Moscow should be the capital of a new post-Soviet integration project.

If Europe were to accept that, Shevtsova says, it would not be Europe; and what would emerge would be nothing but “a variation of the USSR but in a still more repressive form.” No country that wants to be part of the EU has or could have similar pretensions. But Russia “was not prepared for what Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries were – subordination to a super-national structure.”

In fact, Shevtsova points out, Europe went far further in that direction than it should have, making “a bet on leaders” in Moscow rather than insisting “on standards” of behavior. That led the Kremlin to think it could continue to make demands for “the right of influence in European structures even though it has refused to follow European principles.”

By 2000,’ she continues, “it had become obvious that Russia had turned out to be the most dramatic failure in European politics. But it wasn’t easy for Europeans to recognize this because they had devoted too much time, energy and money to it.” Consequently, they “continued to play at partnership,” and Moscow “continued to play along.”

“After the Orange revolution in Ukraine in 2004, it was possible to sense that the love story between Russia and Europe had ended. The Kremlin had not received what it wanted – the role of partner with a super-status and the right of veto over decisions of the EU and NATO,” something that would have put Moscow above those institutions rather than under their rules.

By that point, it had become clear that “Europe had not been able to Europeanize Russia, but the Russian ruling class had been able to integrate itself into Europe on personal basis.” And at the same time Europe proved “unable to respond to the challenges of an autocracy which was trying to survive by imitating liberal democracy.”

“The double standards of European politicians” – not the ones Moscow talks about but the real ones – and their willingness to make deals not only discredited liberal democracy but created the temptation and possibility for the Kremlin to play in Europe according to its own rules.”

Many in the West continued to argue that “’one must understand the Kremlin! One must give it what it demands – that perhaps will calm things down.’” Such attitudes mean, Shevtsova says, “the European elite bears a share of responsibility for the fact that Putin has not seen any ‘red lines.’”

But Putin’s “adventure in Ukraine,” she continues, “forced Europe to finally come out of the paralysis” and allowed Germany to become a power in place of “the toothless Brussels” and “the guarantor of a new European unity.” Many Europeans don’t want to see this even now, but “Europe will try to find a new formula for relations with Russia balancing containment and dialogue.”

“However much the Kremlin seeks to sponsor its ‘Trojan horses’ in European capitals and to buy up left and right extremists as well as European parliamentarians and to coopt European business,” she argues, Putin will fail. “Europe will search for a way out of its twilight” because “it is a civilization with a powerful civil society” that has not lost its vitality.

Those who will continue to act in ways intended to avoid making Russia angry “will only help the Kremlin further cultivate in Russian society ‘the Weimar syndrome’ and justify the transformation of Russia into ‘a besieged fortress’” because that it how the Russian “genetic code” predisposes them to think regardless.

By Yekaterina Poghosyan

The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland had been eagerly awaited in Armenia and Turkey. In a landmark judgement issued on October 15, the ECHR upheld Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek‘s right to say that mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 were not genocide.

In the end, the complex nature of the ruling allowed both the Armenian and Turkish governments to say that it favoured their respective, and opposing, positions.

Judges at the court’s Grand Chamber ruled, by a majority of ten to seven, that Perinçek’s right to freedom of speech had been violated when a Swiss court found him guilty of genocide denial.

Upholding a decision of an earlier court, it found that statements which Perinçek made in Switzerland in 2005 “bore on a matter of public interest and did not amount to a call for hatred or intolerance.”

At three public events in Switzerland ten years ago, Perinçek said the mass deportations and massacres suffered by Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 did not constitute genocide.

Such statements are criminalized in Switzerland and led to a prosecution. In March 2007, he was found guilty and sentenced to a fine of 3,000 Swiss francs or 30 days in prison, and ordered to pay 1,000 francs to the Switzerland-Armenian Association.

Perinçek appealed against the verdict, but a Swiss federal court dismissed this in December 2007.

The following year, Perinçek lodged a complaint with the ECHR in Strasbourg, arguing that the criminal conviction for publicly stating there was no Armenian genocide was a breach of his right to freedom of expression. In December 2013, a lower chamber of the ECHR found that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached.

The Swiss government asked for the case to be referred up to the ECHR’s Grand Chamber, which decided that it had not been necessary to subject Perinçek to a criminal penalty in order to protect the rights of the Armenian community.

“The Swiss courts appeared to have censured Mr Perinçek simply for voicing an opinion that diverged from the established ones in Switzerland,” the court said. Perinçek’s statements could not be regarded as affecting the dignity of the members of the Armenian community to the point of requiring a criminal-law response in Switzerland.

“There was no international law obligation for Switzerland to criminalise such statements,” the court said. “The interference with his right to freedom of expression had taken the serious form of a criminal conviction.”

As might be expected, the reaction to the judgement in Turkey, which has consistently denied that the Ottoman authorities attempted to exterminate the Armenian population, was positive.

“We deem the judgement to be a very strong signal against all efforts to impose the ‘genocide’ allegation as the only and absolute truth, along with attempts and practices which even forbid questioning it,” a press release from the Turkish foreign ministry said.

The ministry said the ruling confirmed that the events of 1915 could not be compared with the Holocaust and were instead a matter of legitimate debate, so that the right to express differing opinions should be protected.

Armenia’s foreign ministry swiftly issued a protest against the Turkish statement, calling it a “cheap manipulation” that drew its conclusions not from the October 15 judgement but from the previous decision by the ECHR’s lower chamber.

As for the ECHR´s final decision, the Armenian prosecutor general´s office stated that as a whole, it was satisfied with the verdict.

Deputy prosecutor Emil Babayan told the Tert.am website that this was a good result for Armenia and for the Armenian people.

“This decision is of great importance,” he said. “It means that European states can punish denial of the Armenian genocide, if this is intended to incite violence or racial disharmony.”

The legal team representing Armenia at the ECHR, Amal Clooney and Geoffrey Robertson, shared this opinion.

“The decision is a victory for Armenia,” they said in a press release.

Noting that Armenia intervened in the case only because the lower ECHR chamber had cast doubt on the 1915 genocide, the lawyers said that “as counsel we sought to correct this grave error, and the Grand Chamber has done so”.

The ECHR chamber’s ruling said the court was not competent to establish whether the killings and deportations of 1915 qualified as genocide. The minority of seven judges stated that “the Armenian genocide is a clearly established historic fact”.

Armenian commentators disagreed with their government’s view that the ECHR decision contained positives for the country. They argued that given that the 100th anniversary of the genocide fell in 2015, the court had tried to satisfy both Armenia and Turkey. (See Armenians Mark Genocide Centenary, Optimistic on Recognition on the politics around the date.)

“Of course we do not wholeheartedly welcome the final judgement, for we believe it was very vague, trying to satisfy both sides,” Bedo Demirdjian,(communications officer at the European office of the Hay Dat (Armenian Revival) group, told IWPR. In future, he said, national laws criminalising genocide denial would need to have “a strong legal basis, without giving the slightest doubt”.

“We will continue what we do best – fight for the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, which will pave the way for reparations,” he said. “Criminalisation will come in due time.”

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre, an independent think tank in the capital Yerevan, believes the ECHR decision cannot truly satisfy Armenia.

“The implications of that ruling will trigger a fresh negative reaction by Armenia and, more importantly, only an intensification of efforts by Armenian advocacy groups in both Europe and the United States to protest the decision,” he told IWPR. “The intensity of the campaign against the ECHR will also be especially emotional, given this year´s 100th anniversary genocide commemoration.”

Ruben Melkonyan, deputy dean of Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, says that while the wording of the ECHR ruling was so diplomatic that both sides could find positive aspects, it was ultimately a political decision made “in part due to Turkey’s role in overcoming the migration crisis in Europe”.

In Melkonyan’s view, the ruling gives a green light to people like Perinçek to deny human evil with impunity. Furthermore, he says, it deals a blow to efforts to get European governments to criminalise denial of the Armenian genocide.

Seventeen European states have recognised the 1915 killings as genocide, but only four have criminalised denial of the Armenian genocide – Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, and Switzerland – compared with the 16 that have outlawed Holocaust denial.

Professor Sévane Garibian of the universities of Geneva and Neuchatel in Switzerland does not believe the ECHR ruling spells the end of the campaign to ban genocide denial.

“Nothing in this ruling allows one to affirm that in Europe, this is the end of criminalising genocide denial in general, or Armenian genocide denial in particular,” she told the Armenian publication Panorama.

*Yekaterina Poghosyan is a journalist from Armenia. This article was published at IWPR’s CRS Issue 797.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly claimed that Abenomics, represented by ‘Three Arrows’ of reform, is his highest policy priority. However, his government’s controversial passing of the Security Bills suggests that a higher priority is the unpopular goal of re-establishing jishu kenpō (自主憲法), an ‘independent constitution’ in place of the US drafted ‘imposed’ Constitution. This ideologically driven project, not economic reform, has been the real focus of the Abe administration.

By Naoko Kumada*

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came into power for a second time in 2012 with an economic programme purportedly based on three ‘arrows’ of reform: monetary expansion, fiscal stimulus, and structural reform. The first two arrows of monetary and fiscal stimulus were supposed to pave the way for a crucial third: the long-term structural reform that has eluded Japan over two decades of economic stagnation. However, three years into Abenomics, the Third Arrow is nowhere to be seen.

The renowned economist Mitsuharu Ito argues in his book, Critique of Abenomics: Breaking the Four Arrows, that Abenomics is not only misguided as economic policy but also not a genuine priority of Abe’s. Instead, Ito claims, Abe’s programme contains a hidden ‘Fourth Arrow’ of political reform: the amendment of the existing Constitution and the ‘reform of post-war politics’.

The Fourth Arrow

Ito contends that the defining stance of the Abe administration, which he describes as ‘an exceptionally extreme right-wing administration’ in post-war Japan, is its denial that Japan’s actions in China leading up to the Pacific War constitute an invasion. Indeed, Abe refused to use ‘invasion’ or even ‘act of aggression’ to refer to Japan’s historical actions in China in recent statements about the War. Abe’s right-wing views are more evident in his books, personal statements and actions such as his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine than in official policy statements.

As John Dower has illustrated brilliantly, the American Occupation left largely intact, for Cold War reasons, the political, economic and ideological elite that had led Japan to war, played down Japan’s transgressions in China and Korea, and left territorial issues with them arising from the war unresolved.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955 contains a high concentration of the scions of Japan’s wartime leadership among its elite. Its co-founder was Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, architect of Japan’s Manchukuo policy. Kishi was detained as a ‘Class A’ war crime suspect after the War but then released as a promising Cold War ally against Communist China.

Like his grandfather, Abe promotes a strong anti-China stance, that draws on US support, towards the goal of re-militarising Japan. As critics, including Ito, argue, the establishment of the right of collective self-defence is but a step towards the larger goal of dismantling Article 9. He defied massive popular opposition and circumvented Article 9’s disavowal of ‘the right of belligerency of the state’ to pass the Security Bills by first changing the interpretation of the Constitution through a cabinet decision.

Abe has planned constitutional change for many years. Under his leadership in 2007, the Diet passed an Act that clarified for the first time the steps needed to amend the Constitution. He has also often argued that the majority required for constitutional amendment specified by Article 96 should be lowered from the current 2/3rds.

Abe’s own intentions echo Kishi’s closely and confirm Ito’s ‘Fourth Arrow’ thesis. Abe argues that constitutional amendment is crucial to achieve his oft-stated ambition of a ‘break-away from the post-war regime’. He vows to do everything in his power to make this happen. The ‘possession of a self-defence army’, he argues, should be inserted into Article 9, because Japan needs to defend the life, property, and territory of its citizens in order to become a ‘normal nation’.

Constitutional revisionism

In his book, Towards a New Country, Abe recalls the LDP’s founding objectives of post-war economic recovery and the enactment of jishu kenpō. While the former has been achieved, the latter, he says, has been neglected. He explains that the intention of the Americans in drafting Japan’s current Constitution had been to ‘bind Japan’s arms and legs so that Japan can never rise again as a world power’ and that Article 9 was inserted ‘so that Japan could never again challenge the Euro-American centered order’.

‘The use of the right to collective self-defence,’ Abe explains, will mean Japan ‘becomes an equal of the US, rather than a subordinate’. Abe also states that ‘there is no room for diplomatic negotiation’ to resolve the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands issue and that only ‘physical force’ is needed.

According to Abe, the ‘bone structure of Japan’ (the Constitution) needs to be re-created by Japanese people from scratch. He explains that his slogans ‘to break away from the post-war regime’ and ‘to take back Japan’ mean ‘to take back Japan from its post-war history and put it in the hands of Japanese people’.

As Ito and others point out, holding these revisionist and revanchist views within the context of the special relationship with the US results in a deep ambivalence towards the East Asian security status quo that Abe says needs to be defended against China.

Abe and his ideological circle hold fast to the Security Treaty with the US while nurturing a multi-generational project to reverse the resented ‘post-war regime’ of which the Security Treaty is a pillar. Starting with constitutional change, they aim to restore a pre-war ideal of Japan and its place in the world.

Stage Two of Abenomics?

On 24 September 2015, soon after the Security Bills passed the Upper House in Japan, Abe announced that Abenomics had now ‘entered its second stage’. Stressing that economic policy continued to be his highest priority, Abe unveiled a vague set of ‘New Three Arrows’ of ‘hope,’ ‘dream,’ and ‘peace of mind’.

On the same occasion, however, he also stated that his campaign platform for the next Upper House election would be the amendment of the Constitution. A new Constitution that would define ‘the ideal shape of 21st century Japan’ must be, he said, ‘drawn by our own hands’. He referred to the draft for a new Constitution that had been completed in 2012 under former LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki.

The text of this draft erases the Constitution’s ‘never again’ repudiation of war and revives key features of the Meiji Constitution. The Emperor is once again head of state rather than ‘a symbol’. A ‘National Defence Army’ is back, with the prime minister as commander-in-chief and with its own tribunal. Popular sovereignty and civil rights are curtailed.

Exceptions to the separation of religion and state are carved out for ‘social’ and ‘customary’ practices, which, critics contend, are likely to include official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. To its proponents the new constitution will restore the ‘ideal shape of Japan’ before it lost the War. The ‘ideal shape of 21st century Japan’ that Abe and the LDP envision is that of an idealised 1930’s Japan.

*Naoko Kumada is a Research Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

By Meri Jordanovska

Hundreds of migrants have been protesting for several days at Macedonia’s southern border with Greece against Skopje’s decision only to allow them to transit the country if they come from war-torn states.

The migrants have been protesting on the railway line in Gevgelija in southern Macedonia since Wednesday, when the authorities ruled that migrants from Iran, Libya, Morocco, Somalia and Bangladesh would no longer be allowed to transit the country.

Only refugees from countries affected by ongoing armed conflicts such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq who possess complete documents are currently being allowed to enter Macedonia.

The Macedonian authorities followed the example of Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia, which are also on the Balkan refugee transit route, in an attempt to keep out what they regard as economic migrants.

The Macedonian government is reported to have received written notice from Croatia and been informed by telephone by Serbia that Zagreb and Belgrade will send back migrants who do not come from conflict zones.

The protesters are demanding however that they must be allowed to continue their journeys towards Western Europe, primarily to Germany, and have the opportunity to apply for asylum or refugee status.

Some of the migrants told Macedonian media that they don’t have the money to go back and haven’t eaten for days.

Macedonian and Greek police have boosted their presence along the border, but have not intervened to disperse the protesters so far.

The build-up of migrants at the border has been further worsened by deteriorating weather conditions in the area which has been hit by rain and wind over the past two days.

Bahraini security forces are torturing detainees during interrogation, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Institutions set up after 2011 to receive and investigate complaints lack independence and transparency.

The 84-page report, “The Blood of People Who Don’t Cooperate: Continuing Torture and Mistreatment of Detainees in Bahrain,” concludes that security forces have continued the same abuses the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) documented in its November 2011 report. The commission was established after the fierce repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in February and March of that year. Bahraini authorities have failed to implement effectively the commission’s recommendations relating to torture, Human Rights Watch found.

“The claims of Bahrain and its allies that authorities have ended torture in detention are simply not credible,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “All the available evidence supports the conclusion that these new institutions have not effectively tackled what the BICI report described as a ‘culture of impunity’ among security forces.”

The United Kingdom has taken the lead internationally in arguing that Bahrain has reformed its security forces and accountability mechanisms, as the BICI mandated, but Human Rights Watch found the operations of those mechanisms seriously flawed.

In 2012 and again in 2013, Bahrain postponed indefinitely the scheduled visit to the country of the United Nations special rapporteur on torture.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 detainees who said they endured coercive interrogations at the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) and in police stations since 2012, and four former inmates of Jaw prison, who said authorities had tortured them in March 2015.

All said security officers had physically assaulted them. Several described being subjected to electric shocks; suspension in painful positions, including by their wrists while handcuffed; forced standing; extreme cold; and sexual abuse. Six said that the CID interrogators boasted of their reputation for inflicting pain on detainees.

“I’ll show you why Wifaq [Bahrain’s leading opposition party] calls Bahrain the capital of torture,” a former detainee quoted an interrogator as telling him. Another said a CID officer held something to his nose and told him it was “the blood of people who don’t cooperate.”

BICI investigators in 2011, and Human Rights Watch researchers in 2010, documented similar torture methods.

King Hamad appointed the BICI in July 2011 in response to international criticism of the security forces’ violent and disproportionate response to largely peaceful anti-government protests that began in February 2011. The BICI concluded in its report, released on November 23, 2011, that the National Security Agency and the Interior Ministry “followed a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees in their custody.”

The BICI’s recommendations led the government to establish three bodies since 2012 – the Office of the Ombudsman in the Interior Ministry, a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in the Office of the General Prosecutor, and the Prisoners and Detainees Rights Commission (PDRC) – with a collective mandate to end torture in interrogation and detention facilities.

Human Rights Watch found, though, that little information is available from those bodies about complaints, investigations, and prosecutions. Since Bahrain announced the institutional reforms in early 2012 there has been only one prosecution for torture and none relating to detentions associated with Bahrain’s political unrest.

The use of the techniques detainees described to Human Rights Watch violate Bahrain’s own laws as well as its obligations as a state party to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other international treaties.

Bahrain should issue an immediate and open invitation to the UN special rapporteur on torture to conduct a country visit and allow unfettered access to detainees and all places of detention, Human Rights Watch said. Bahrain should ensure the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman and the PDRC by removing them from the Ministry of Interior and taking steps to guarantee the independence of the SIU from the Office of the Public Prosecutor, which has until now failed to establish a record of holding perpetrators of torture accountable.

Human Rights Watch further recommended that the government set up a civilian oversight committee, including well-regarded independent experts, to scrutinize the work of the SIU and ensure its independence from the Interior Ministry and public prosecution.

“Since the peaceful anti-government protests of 2011, which the authorities responded to with brutal and lethal force, the Bahrain government has overseen a campaign of incarceration that has decimated its pro-democracy movement,” Stork said. “Bahrain can’t claim any progress on torture while its anti-torture institutions lack independence and transparency and until it takes some serious steps to address the complete lack of accountability for the abuse of detainees.”

With the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion ‘political donation’ crises looming and anti-Najib forces led by former Prime Minister Mahathir aiming to remove him from office, there is one strategy option open to PM Najib Razak – a snap election, should he feel cornered.

This is a remote scenario, but one that is currently being drawn up now as a contingency in the PMs Department.

The forces of Mahathir and Muhyiddin Yassin, whom Najib fired as deputy prime minister, have largely been neutralized, as well as the opposition, primarily through the botched votes of no confidence and the attempt to block the second budget reading. No Barisan Nasional votes drifted over to the opposition, indicating that this group’s influence within UMNO/BN is negligible. Mahathir’s attempts to get BN members of parliament to cross the floor on the budget were disappointing. This shows how little influence the 90-year-old former premier really has within UMNO today.

Consequently, it appears that resistance to Najib has almost been totally destroyed before the UMNO General Assembly, due to be held next month.
What has made it worse, PAS votes may have drifted over to the BN side, through abstaining on these make-or-break votes as far as the opposition was concerned. Only 77 of the 88 opposition votes were cast against the budget, showing complete loss of discipline and strategy.

The opposition has fallen into disarray ever since the jailing of former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim earlier this year. His jailing didn’t make him a martyr or garner any massive groundswell of support for the Pakatan Rakyat, as Anwar had hoped, rather it sowed the seeds of destruction for the coalition, which doesn’t even exist today.

Further the death of former Kelantan Chief Minister Nik Aziz has been very damaging. With the destruction of the progressive faction of PAS at party elections last July, and the Shura Council directive to cut ties with the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party has destroyed the Pakatan Rakyat. With PAS now split into two, the animosity between with the new breakaway party Parti Amanah, led by Mat Sabu, is leading to more hate than there is between PAS and UMNO.

The death of Karpal Singh, the long-time DAP secretary-general, is allowing some of the younger generation to voice out more. However, the performance of Tony Pua has been an embarrassment to say the least. Lim Kit Siang has been neutralized with his six month suspension from parliament.

The opposition has zero strategy and the Mahathir forces appear lame. A man supposedly implicated in the murder of the Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, massive financial scandals and gross unpopularity actually appears stronger now than he did three months ago.

Voters are almost just as much disillusioned with the Pakatan Rakyat as they are with the Barisan Nasional. The only thing that the opposition has going for them is their good governance in Penang and Selangor. But the effects of the PAS/Amanah split in Kelantan and the “Kajang move” on voting intentions is yet to be seen. What‘s more, it looks like PAS is quickly distancing itself away from the opposition, and how Abdul Hadi Awang will play the next election is still a big question, but three-cornered electoral fights which will hurt the opposition are a possibility. How quickly PAS is losing ground to Amanah is not really known yet.

The only advantage of the PAS/Amanah split for the opposition is that they can leave behind the hudud bogey,. PAS’s efforts to implement harsh Islamic law in Kelantan that has caused so much damage to opposition coalition.

Although few political pundits foresee an early election, there are some definite signs that this option is on the table due to the way the 2016 budget was framed, and frp, some of the rhetoric the Prime Minister has been making at both the Gerakan and MIC AGMs recently.

It is the belief of the writer that if an election was held in the near future, it is plainly possible the Prime Minister could pull off a victory for UMNO and the BN.

There are great advantages for Najib should he call and win an election.

1. He would be able to finally eliminate the anti-Najib forces from parliamentary positions within UMNO through his power to select candidates, and/or place candidates in unwinnable contests.
2. There is no effective opposition leader at present,
3. He would be able to put in a final blow to crush the opposition (except DAP) and weaken them electorally,
4. Upon winning an election, he would have five years in office until 2021,
5. 1MDB and the RM2.6 Billion ‘political donation’ issue would sink into the background of a new parliamentary term,
6. An election would be a good method to ‘unify’ UMNO behind him, and
7. The timing of an election sooner rather than later would put it out of the way before ‘harder’ economic times are upon us.

However, there are also a number of risks in the electoral strategy:

1. Anything can happen in politics, especially an election,
2. There is great likely of sabotage within UMNO in many quarters, all across the country,
3. Najib is going through a period of intense low popularity (although this does not necessary mean it will be reflected in voting patterns), and
4. The GST and devaluation of the ringgit are already causing great suffering in the electorate.

Having an early election is a major effort that would require great financial resources, organization, and effort. It’s also high risk, but the rewards would be great should Najib pull off a victory.

Certainly some signs of an election exist; the recent budget could be framed as an election budget, a national election could be coordinated with the Sarawak election due next year, the recent rhetoric coming from Najib concerning Chinese are not ‘pendatang’ to Malaysia, a divided opposition at present, the arrests of opposition members, and even the visit of US President Barak Obama to Malaysia has put out a positive signal for Najib.

Najib doesn’t need an election to defeat any external opposition. An election is the best method for him to eliminate opposition within his own party UMNO. Najib cannot win GE-14, but the opposition can lose it, as we can see state by state.

Perlis: The BN looks set to retain the state of Perlis and hold three parliamentary seats. Parti Amanah Negeri will probably have difficulty organizing themselves in time for the next election, leaving the Arau Parliamentary seat open for the cashed up UMNO warlord Shahidan Kassim to hold. The only surprise in Perlis could be in the Kangar parliamentary seat if locally popular PKR state member Chan Ming Kai opts to run in the seat. Najib will most probably select a new chief minister candidate to replace the unpopular and lacklustre performer Azlan Man, who has put the local Chinese community offside.

Kedah: The Prime Ministers Department put in massive resources before the last election to win-over Kedah from a weak PAS chief Minister Azizan Abdul Razak. Kedah people have been very reluctant to accept ‘outsiders’ as chief ministers and Mukhriz Mahathir is sharing the same affliction. There is even some probability that Najib may select another candidate as chief minister this time round as well, especially as Mukhriz is the son of Mahathir. UMNO holds 10 parliamentary seats in Kedah which should stand firm. PKR holds four and PAS one. With poor organization on the ground, PKR and PAS seats could be vulnerable. The Alor Seter seat may best be defended by a DAP candidate to hold on this time round. The DAP may be able to pick up three state seats, not enough to wrest government from the BN.

Penang: With a good showing Pakatan could pick up three BN seats in Penang, thereby wiping out all BN seats within that state.

Perak: Perak will be an interesting state with a number of seats in for possible change. Bagan Serai will probably change hands to the opposition. Last election Kuala Kangsar didn’t turn over to the opposition because there was a three way contest. This election the result may be different. Expect Bukit Gantang to see a three way contest with PAS and Amanah involved. Two other seats that have a remote chance of changing hands are Bagan Datok and Tanjong Malim.

Selangor: The Selangor Chief Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali is still holding the Pakatan Rakyat coalition together in running the government. Due to the delicate balance of seats, it is necessary for him to do so. How Azmin faces the next election is something that even he hasn’t thought through at this point. Although the effects of the ‘Kajang move’ are yet to be felt electorally, there is a high probability that the Pakatan coalition will hold Selangor and that not many seats will change between Pakatan and BN. The complexity of the situation for Azmin is that PAS won state seats in constituencies with a high proportion of Chinese voters. PAS cannot rely on this support this time around and it would be assumed that Amanah would take them over. PAS discussions with PERKASA and UMNO, along with their unpopular Hudud policy among Selangor voters will probably make the party irrelevant. DAP could also pick up another two state seats, Semenyih and Kota Damasara which would make them the dominant party in the state chamber. Federally, BN stands to lose three seats, Hulu Selangor, Sungei Besar, and Kuala Selangor if there is even a slight swing away from them. Hulu Selangor is particularly susceptible, held by the MIC where two independents spoiled the opposition vote last time around.

Negeri Sembilan: Although there has been some reported discontent at branch level within UMNO, there are unlikely to be any major seat changes within Negeri Sembilan, unless massive sabotage occurs.

Melaka: There are unlikely to be any seat changes in Melaka.

Johor: Johor is a potential Achilles heel for the BN. Any swing against the BN could easily lead to a loss of up to 7 seats. The Muyhiddin factor will be crucial here, and it is unlikely that he would be running for parliament under the BN banner. The winners here would be the DAP.

Pahang: Najib’s home state of Pahang will be another battlefield with the possibility of five seats changing hands. At risk for the BN are the seats of Bentong, Bera, Cameron Highlands, and Lipis. PAS holds Temerloh by a very small margin and a three way contest could bring this seat back to the BN.

Terengganu: The vote in Terengganu will be more interesting to see what happens to PAS. Most PAS seats, except for Kuala Terengganu were won by slender margins. Three way contests in Teregganu could be a disaster for PAS/Amanah. Being PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang’s home state, it will be interesting what voters think about his political positioning over the last few months. UMNO could even gain seats in Terengganu.

Kelantan: The nightmare scenario for Pakatan would be where PAS and Amanah contest each seat and the BN wins by default. That could wrest the state and allow to BN to pick up nine extra seats in the most optimistic scenario for them. This is an Achilles heel for the Pakatan Harapan. In a straight fight scenario, PAS/Amanah could pick up to three BN seats, Machang, Ketereh, and Kuala Krai. With the retirement of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, the seat would also be up for grabs by Pas/Amanah.

Sabah: The division of the opposition in Sabah is Chief Minister Musa Aman’s biggest asset. STAR, SAPP, and the Pakatan parties are running against each other ensuring a BN win. If three and four cornered contests could be avoided seats like Kota Maruda held by federal minister Maximus Ongkili could fall. Chief Minister Musa Aman has done a fair job governing Sabah and without any agreement within the opposition parties, there should be no upsets.

Sarawak: According to Medeka Centre research, the approval rating for the new Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem is 75%, while 68% are satisfied with the state government’s performance. Approval rates of the CM are 68% within the Chinese community, and if these figures are any indication, it will be difficult for the opposition to make many inroads in Sarawak.

Federal Territories: It would be hard to see Putra Jaya changing hands. However within the Klang Valley both Setiawangsa and Titiwangsa are two possible opposition gains. Labuan should remain BN.

The current parliament comprises 133 BN seats (88 UMNO, PBB 14, MCA 7, PRS 6, PBS 4, MIC 3, SPDP 3, UPKO 3, Gerakan2, PBRS 1, and SUPP1), opposition Pakatan Harapan, comprising (DAP 37, PKR 29, PAN 60, with other opposition parties including (PAS 14, PSM 1, TERAS 1, and independent 2). A new parliament after an election will probably look something like 124 seats for the BN and 98 seats for the opposition. However this doesn’t factor in the current troubles for Pas/Amanah in Kelantan and Terengganu, where BN could make massive gains, if three way contests occur.

If the three corner fight scenario occurs, PAS could deliver the BN a landslide victory.

One must remember that in Malaysia there is very little polling done, and the few public polls that come out are biased towards urban voters. So, unlike other ‘democracies.’ in Malaysia most political pundits and strategists are almost blind to public voter intentions, which makes any predictions difficult.

The only hope for both the opposition and anti-Najib forces to bring down the Prime Minister is through an election. However the above analysis shows that this would not be an easy task. An opposition win would require a new leader to appear out of nowhere, a rapid deployment of a branch network for Parti Amanah Negari, trust in the DAP with more seats allocated to them this time round, a high level of sabotage within UMNO itself, and a minimum of three corner electoral fights with PAS.

Najib has complete control of the government, judiciary, and police. All checks and balances have been broken down, which makes him secure. Short of a revolt emanating from branch level, nothing can remove Najib. Any hints of a revolt are being suppressed as I write. This is his only Achilles heel.

This election, Najib will have to carefully select his candidates and pay people to undertake the electioneering, rather than rely upon party workers. He has a number of dirty tricks up his shelve like potentially prosecuting Nurul Izzah Anwar for her fopar over her meeting with Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III’s daughter Jacel Kiram.

An election will be necessary for Najib at some time in the future to safeguard the business interests of his family and cronies, which is extensive. This is so with nobody to trust in handing the reins of power to, and no possibility of immunity from prosecution.

An election is more a Mahathir strategy than Najib’s style. He ran a full term after taking over from former Prime Minister Ahmad Badawi back in 2009. The option is ready in case it becomes a necessity, and Najib is ready.

Earlier this month, author Glenn Greenwald disclosed a series of emails from a pro-Hillary Clinton think tank that highlight the censorship of their staff members on issues related to Israel.

Writing for the Intercept, Greenwald reveals how the Center for American Progress (Cap), a powerful Democratic group, goes to great lengths to appease the Zionist lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and other notable pro-Zionist Americans. He provides examples of how the staff at this think tank are pushed to write all things favourable to Israel, regardless of whether they are true or false.

The emails that were gleaned from an authorised source also highlight the actions of the president of Cap, Neera Tanden, to accommodate requests by Aipac and a trusted Clinton operative and Israel activist, Ann Lewis, to clamp down on writers deemed “anti-Israel”. Now this is coming from a centre committed to American issues and American interests. The centre went a step further to comply with Aipac demands that they host an event for the visiting Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been busy, lately, canvassing for legitimacy of his brutality against the Palestinians. The event, billed as ‘A Conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’, brought Tanden and Netanyahu together in a question-and-answer session to discover ‘ways to strengthen the partnership between Israel and the United States’.

Huffing Post bluntly stated that “the Israeli government pushed hard for an invite to” Cap and “was joined by Aipac, which also applied pressure to Cap to allow Netanyahu to speak”.

Cap has a long history of influencing top politicians in Washington through its ties to the Democratic party and was founded by John Podesta, one of the capital’s most powerful political operatives. It is also heavily biased towards the Clintons. So when a powerful American think tank can get trussed around by Israelis and their sympathisers, one can fathom how deeply entrenched American policies are in Israeli channels. It is the primary reason that American policy towards the Middle East comes under severe criticism from the Arab street.

Greenwald contends that Tanden’s efforts “to suppress Israel-reporting began well before the pressure on them” by Aipac was launched. “Tanden, almost immediately upon her return to Cap from the Obama White House in late 2010, summoned senior staff to a meeting, at which, she demanded to know why Cap was covering Israel/Palestine in their blog.” She also added that the issue of the illegal [colonies] that came up under Netanyahu’s watch be a subject ‘off-limit’.

When told that the “Cap’s work was consistent with the Obama White House’s intention to confront Israel on [colonies]”, Tanden reiterated her view that it was not “constructive” for Cap to work on Israel, particularly in such a critical manner”. Mondoweiss, an esteemed and independent website devoted to informing readers about developments in Israel/Palestine and related US foreign policy issues, contended that, “This is a shocking effort to remove any description of the Israeli lobby from a major ideological and political undertaking”.

Hillary, on her part, could not be a bigger cheerleader. In an op-ed addressed to the Forward, Hillary disclosed how deep her commitment to Israel was over all American interests in the region, as she went so far as to criticise United States President Barack Obama’s policies towards Israel and Netanyahu as being antagonistic. She also vowed to be the “most stalwart Israel loyalist imaginable”. And to think she was Obama’s secretary of state at one point of time!

Her op-ed shocked and worried many Washington watchers with its almost blind loyalty to a country other than her own. She wrote: “I have stood with Israel my entire career … As president, I will continue this fight. Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on November 9 [was] an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel.”

She continued: “I will do everything I can to enhance our strategic partnership and strengthen America’s security commitment to Israel, ensuring that it always has the qualitative military edge to defend itself. That includes immediately dispatching a delegation of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff to meet with senior Israeli commanders. I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.”

The deep pockets of Aipac and its sympathisers continue to ensure that all potential presidential nominees be rewarded on one condition: Israeli issues are first and foremost. This despite the fact that such a strategy has proved to be negative for overall US policy outreach in the region in the past few decades and has fostered not friends but foes.

With the likes of Hillary, Aipac and now Cap, a similar scenario seems assured for the next few years if the American people do not wrest control of their country from such binding tentacles and address what is in the interest of America first.

This article appeared at Gulf News and is reprinted with permission.

Two World Bank surveys confirm that large global banks are restricting or terminating relationships with other financial institutions and that banking services for money-transfer operators have become increasingly limited.

The surveys, carried out from April to October 2015, sought to gauge whether large banks are limiting or terminating foreign correspondent banking relationships and closing accounts belonging to money transfer operators.

In particular, they aimed to ascertain whether decisions being taken by banks were for business or risk-management reasons or as a result of “de-risking.” The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) defines de-risking as the “phenomenon of financial institutions terminating or restricting business relationships with clients or categories of clients to avoid, rather than manage, risk in line with the FATF’s risk-based approach.”

The findings show that access to financial services for local and regional banks and remittance providers is contracting in some countries and regions and that business lines such as check clearing, international money transfers, and trade finance are being affected. The research confirms that these restrictions are largely driven by commercial decisions as well as legitimate concerns about money laundering and terrorism financing risks. However, some banks appear to be cutting off business relationships with entire classes of customers based on the country or type of financial service – rather than implementing a risk-based approach.

“Now that we have evidence that large banks are reducing services to correspondent banks and remittance providers, the private and public sectors need to come together to find practical and fact-based solutions. There is a real risk that turning away customers could actually reduce transparency in the system by forcing transactions through unregulated channels.” said Gloria Grandolini, Senior Director of Finance and Markets Global Practice at the World Bank Group.

Correspondent banking relationships are essential for companies and individuals to do business and make payments across borders. The loss of correspondent banking services can lead to financial exclusion, particularly where it affects remittance providers. The reports calls for policy setters, regulators, and banks to continue monitoring the environment, to clarify regulatory expectations, and to respond to misperceptions that may be resulting in excessively risk-averse behavior.

“Making banking services accessible, transparent and affordable is essential to achieving the goals of promoting financial integrity and Universal Financial Access by 2020, which means that basic and legitimate access to the formal financial system should be possible for everyone,” added Grandolini.