The United States has reportedly dispatched dozens of ground troops to Syria in a bid to shore up its airstrikes against Islamic State (Daesh) and assist Kurdish militants operating in Turkish-Syrian border regions.

A Thursday report by the Lebanese TV al-Mayadeen said the US servicemen entered Syria from Turkey through the Murshid Binar border crossing, adding that the troops numbered “50.”

The report said a number of US forces managed to reach the predominantly-Kurdish city of Ayn al-Arab, also known as Kobane, which is located in the northern province of Aleppo. It said others were dispatched to Qamishli, another Kurdish town in the northeastern province of Hasakah.

The presence of US troops on the ground in Syria is the first since Washington allegedly began targeting Daesh positions in the Arab country a few months ago. The air campaign, which also enjoys contribution from other countries in the West and the Middle East, lacks any mandate from the central government in Damascus.

The White House said last month that several dozen special operations troops will be dispatched to Syria for the first open-ended mission by US ground forces there. Washington said the troops will only advise local forces fighting Daesh and will not be directly involved in combats.

The reported dispatch of troops comes against the backdrop of US efforts to block a similar move by Russia, which has been carrying out its own air strikes against Daesh since September 30. Russian officials have denied they have a plan to send any combat troops into Syria although they say the air attacks against Daesh and other militants will intensify in the coming weeks.

Original article

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

Allegations against the Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, will be among the first cases that Macedonia’s new Special Prosecutor will investigate.

The first case that Macedonia’s new Special Prosecutor will investigate involves claims that the former chief of Macedonia’s secret police, Saso Mijalkov, solicited bribes to smooth the procurement of Israeli surveillance equipment in 2011.

The Special Prosecution said the second case, involving “falsifying personal identification documents and breaches of electoral rights”, concerned Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski himself, as well as former Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska and former Transport Minister Mile Janakieski.

Macedonia passed a Law on the Special Prosecutor and appointed Katica Janeva to the post in September as part of a crisis agreement brokered this summer by EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

Under the agreement, Gruevski must resign at the end of the year, at least 100 days before snap elections in April, to ensure he cannot interfere in the election process.

The crisis in Macedonia revolves around opposition claims that covertly recorded tapes which it has been releasing since February show Gruevski was behind the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people, including ministers.

They insist that the tapes contain incriminating evidence against many high-ranking officials, including election fraud and abuse of the justice system and media.

Gruevski, who has held power since 2006, insists the tapes were “fabricated” by unnamed foreign intelligence services and given to the opposition to destabilise the country.

In January, Gruevski used a nationwide TV address to accuse the opposition Social Democrat leader, Zoran Zaev, of attempting a coup.

Zaev was later charged with “blackmail and and violence against top state officials” and ordered to surrender his passport.

This case is also now being transferred to the Special Prosecution.

Another case of “unauthorized wiretapping and audio recording” is being raised against unknown officials of a mobile Macedonian operator and against a legal entity, Janeva said.

The last case that the Special Prosecution will start working on concerns the Mayor of Bitola, Vladimir Talevski, who is charged with abuse of office.

The Special Prosecution said that they will demand more material for more cases at 15-day intervals.

Under the law adopted as a result of an EU-brokered deal between the government and the opposition, the Special Prosecutor has only until March 2017 to investigate all the related cases and press charges.

Some observers have wondered whether there is enough time in this tight schedule to cover all the allegations arising from a vast mass of wiretapping material.

By Nadim Issa

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed on lifting Iran’s sanctions on a gradual basis, and subjecting the country to a 90-day monitoring period to see whether the Islamic Republic implements all the necessary conditions. Yet the agreement could be short-lived, as US President Barack Obama declared in mid-November the renewal of the national emergency with regards to Iran for another year, even though the United States just showed signs of good faith in easing some sanctions early. In early November 2015, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was revising restrictions imposed in 2012 on exports of basic medical supplies to Iran.

International Players Eager to Enter the Iranian market

Global institutions and governments have welcomed the JCPOA with great interest as they begin to flock into Iran to ink new deals and sign memorandum of understandings. Their hope in setting foot on Iranian soil is to reap the benefits of tapping into this huge market of 78 million people who have not enjoyed the luxury of Western goods since 1979.

The IMF visited Iran in September to explore opportunities on how to modernize macroeconomic policies and help implement structural reforms. Moreover, the British Foreign Secretary also visited Iran in September to discuss ways on how to reform the banking system and develop the insurance and transportation sectors.

Russia also started its discussions with Iran to extend a multi-billion loan to develop the fields of construction, infrastructure, transport, and geological exploration.

Moreover, Iran signed in November three memorandums of understandings with South Africa to exchange information to fight money laundering, create joint markets, and also expand technical and economic cooperation.

Iran will also be the center of attraction this month as it hosts two important oil and gas summits, namely the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GCEF) on November 23 and The Iran Petroleum Conference (IPC) on November 28-29, whereby leading government and corporate representatives from Africa and Europe will be there to tap into the potential investment opportunities of a post-sanctions Iran.

The Cyprus-based Capital Intelligence recently upgraded Iran’s long-term foreign and local currency ratings to ‘B+’ from ‘B,’ and affirmed its short-term foreign and local currency rating of ‘B.’ At the same time, the outlook for Iran’s ratings was revised to ‘stable’ from ‘positive.’

Iran’s Growth Potential

If the Western world implemented a full and lasting removal of sanctions in 2016, Iran could reap the benefits of exporting its main riches and lift its economy from the dire condition it currently finds itself in. Iran currently has a very limited circle of export partners with which it trades. The following countries constituted 82% of total non-oil exports in 2014: China 26%, Iraq 17%, UAE 11%, Afghanistan 7%, India 6%, Turkey 6%, Turkmenistan 3%, Egypt 2%, Hong Kong 2%, and Pakistan 2%.

Iran is rich in natural resources other than oil and gas, such as caviar, saffron, wheat, pistachio, iron ore, copper, gold and aluminium. It has embarked on a plan to lower its dependence on oil and gas by allocating a total of $29 billion to invest in the mining sector.

When we talk about the Iranian economy, the figures that come into mind are impressive since the country is a major player with over 78 million people and a GDP of over $415 billion – enough to rank it among the largest 30 economies in the world. That is why several international companies are eyeing this market, like the German agriculture firm BayWa AG, Chicago-based Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, the India-based steel firm State Trading Corporation, and the German-based Lufthansa Technik, Linde, Siemens, Mercedes, BASF, and Volkswagen Group to name a few.

Challenges Ahead

Several economists and analysts are predicting that there will not be a major change in the economic landscape in Iran in the coming few years, even if sanctions are fully lifted because the country, which has an unemployment rate of around 11%, lags on major administrative reforms, especially on the legislative and financial sides as highlighted in several visits by the IMF.

Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized in a recent letter to President Hassan Rouhani that the implementation of the JCPOA must lead to the promotion of a ‘resistance economy’ – a self-dependent economy which should not lead to the importation of American goods.

What is certain is that Iran is heading towards a more diversified economy where oil will not be the major revenue generating sector as it possesses several major goods that support its economy on their own. This is highlighted in its strive to decrease external debt, as the latter has shrunk year-on-year from $19.1 billion in the fiscal year 2011/2012 to $5.1 billion in 2014/2015. Moreover, its revenues surged from 544.4 trillion rials in 2011/2012 to 977.9 trillion rials in 2014/2015.

Iran has a critical month ahead to demonstrate to the Western world that its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes. If not, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report, expected to be published in mid-December, will halt the dream of a full implementation of the JCPOA deal by year end.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

Russian calls for Turkey return the largest mosque in Istanbul to Christians have attracted far more media attention (ria.ru/religion/20151125/1328277101.html), the current Russian-Turkish crisis is likely to have two more important “religious” consequences, both of which will work against Moscow’s interests.

On the one hand, Moscow’s attacks on Turkey make it likely that the Universal Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople will become far more supportive of efforts in Ukraine to create a single autocephalous Orthodox Church there independent of the Moscow Patriarchate, a move that would cost the latter both half of its congregations and much of its influence in the world

And on the other, Moscow’s attacks have led Russia’s Muslims to distance themselves from Turkey, something that the Kremlin may welcome in the short term but that will likely mean an upsurge in the influence of more radical Islamist groups from other parts of the Muslim world inside the borders of Russia.

The former is the more immediate problem for Moscow. In Kyiv’s “Delovaya stolitsa” today,Ekaterina Shchetkina discusses the complexities of this issue and concludes that “the dependence of the Constantinople patriarch on Ankara may play an evil joke with the Russian Orthodox Church” (dsnews.ua/society/podarit-li-turtsiya-kanonichnost-ukrainskomu-pravoslaviyu-26112015101800).

Constantinople and Moscow have long been in conflict over who is the leading Orthodox patriarchate. Constantinople has a centuries’ old tradition of deference to its status as the “universal” patriarchate, while Moscow has the numbers, money and power of the Russian state on its side.

Where this competition has played out in recent years, Shchetkina points out, is over the issue of the status of Orthodoxy in the post-Soviet states, with Constantinople generally backing the national churches in these countries and Moscow insisting that they should remain subordinate to itself.

The issue is not trivial: If Moscow were to lose all the bishoprics and parishes and income from these churches, it would be reduced to something less than half of its current self and would lose enormous influence in Moscow, in the post-Soviet states and in international Christian dialogue.

But if Moscow does retain control over the Orthodox in the post-Soviet states, Russia will continue to have an enormous lever of influence over the populations there as has been demonstrated most recently by the situation in Ukraine. Consequently, many Orthodox hierarchs there want independence from Moscow – or autocephaly as that is known in church parlance.

The non-Russians in general and the Ukrainians in particular have appealed to Constantinople for recognition of this status, and the Universal patriarch as he is known has shown himself willing first in Estonia and then later elsewhere to back those who want “national” Orthodox churches.

That boosts his status vis-à-vis Moscow, but the issue is complicated in the current situation by the fact that Batholemew, the Universal patriarch, also aspires to be an Orthodox counterpart to the pope in Rome. If he moves too far or too fast against Moscow, Moscow will no longer play along and thus he has been cautious on the biggest of these issues, the future status of Ukraine’s Orthodox.

Until the current crisis, many had assumed that both sides would be cautious, but the Kremlin’s reaction to the shooting down of a Russian plane that violated Turkish airspace and the tough line Ankara has taken against such violations now and in the future have at a minimum destabilized inter-church relations and may lead the Universal Patriarch to follow suit.

Officials at the Moscow Patriarchate have already announced that they won’t be attending an Orthodox meeting chaired by the Universal Patriarch, and commentaries in Turkey and Ukraine have suggested that Bartholemew may respond by being more supportive of the Ukrainian position that Kyiv should have a single autocephalous Orthodox church.

The issue of relations between Turkey and Russia’s Muslims is potentially more explosive but more indirectly and over a longer period of time. Since the end of Soviet times, Muslims from abroad have played a major role in the revival of Islam inside the Russian Federation.

With some notable exceptions, the more moderate foreign influence has come from Turkey, while more radical ones have come from Iran, the Gulf States, or South Asia. Indeed, given the competing role of Turkey and Iran, some in the post-Soviet states speak of “Turkish” and “Iranian” mosques rather than Sunni or Shiia.

In the wake of Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian aircraft, leaders of Russia’s official Muslim hierarchies rushed to declare that their relations with Turkey were minimal and would presumably be cut even further. But Russian experts suggested that the ties were far greater and cuts could have consequences (ng.ru/faith/2015-11-26/2_muslim.html).

Roman Silantyev, a controversial specialist on Islam with close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, says ties between Turkey and Russia’s Muslims are “quite active,” and he points to the fact that Turkey was a major funder behind the reconstruction of the Cathedral mosque in Moscow.

Leonid Syukiyainen, a specialist at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, also sees ties between Russia’s Muslims and Turkey’s Islamic institutions as being quite large and influential, although he suggested it would be a mistake now to be looking for “a Turkish trace” everywhere among the Muslims of Russia now that bilateral tensions are high.

And Georgy Engelgardt, a specialist on Islam at the Moscow Institute of Slavic Studies, called attention to what is likely to become a major problem in the future. He said that many Muslim leaders in Russia looked ot Turkey as “a serious alternative” to Muslim groups in the Persian Gulf.

If relations between Russia’s Muslims and Turkey collapse, there will be a vacuum, he suggests; and it is likely that it will be filled by others, including many who are far more radical and Islamist.

American corporate media and politicians have declared endless mourning for the terror attack which took place in Paris on November 13, 2015. France is a European country, that is to say run by white people, and an ally of the United States, meaning that it is protected by its criminal accessory. It is little wonder that we have been propagandized into grieving for France. The Islamic State carried out the killings of 130 people in Paris but also killed 224 Russians on a passenger plane in Egypt on October 31^st. Because Russia has been demonized by the White House and the press corps no one was exhorted to put the Russian flag on social media pages.

While the individuals killed and injured were certainly victims, the government of France is nothing of the sort. France is involved in all of America’s imperial adventures in the Middle East and that intervention is the direct cause of the terror in Paris. France acts along with the United States and Canada as the occupiers of Haiti. Its former African colonies are still under its financial and military control. France has been on the wrong side of humanity many times and has millions of deaths on its ledger.

Not only is France guilty of committing great crimes, but like other white-governed countries, it has succeeded in hiding them from the world. That is what happened in the aftermath of October 17, 1961 when French police killed as many as 200 people in one night.

After the defeated French were somehow given credit for victory in World War II, they immediately resumed imperial control of their colonies. In Vietnam and in Algeria the French redoubled efforts to maintain their hold, despite resistance from these colonized peoples. The Algerian war lasted from 1954 until independence was achieved in 1962. This war for liberation took place in France and Algeria with the French doing the typical dirty work of torture and imprisonment.

Maurice Papon had been an administrator in Algeria where his experience detaining and torturing freedom fighters made him the perfect candidate for the job of Paris police chief. Papon climbed the political ladder despite having ties to the collaborationist Vichy regime. Algerians were subject to brutality, imprisonment, theft and murder by Parisian police. The killings had already begun on a smaller scale before the fateful night.

After French police died in the ongoing conflict Papon instituted a curfew for “French Muslims of Algeria.” Protest demonstrations were called for October 17^th but the police knew when and where the actions were to take place. They immediately began rounding up Algerians. When those who evaded arrest gathered in major public squares they were shot on the spot, others were beaten and still more were thrown into the Seine river, some already dead and some while still alive.

The cover up began immediately. The press reported only two deaths, even though several police officers admitted to the newspaper France Observateur that they killed 50 people. At least 100 bodies were pulled from the Seine. No one knows for certain how many died but estimates range up to 200 victims.

The French government did not publicly acknowledge the killings until 2012, some fifty years later. There is now a plaque which blandly states “In memory of the numerous Algerians killed during the bloody suppression of the peaceful demonstration on 17 October 1961.” It doesn’t admit government guilt nor does it establish a number of casualties.

The event is largely unknown but has received new interest ever since the glorification of French suffering that began one week ago. The killings of 1961 took place in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities and could only have been covered up with large scale collusion between the government, the international media and the French people. Archives were destroyed or deemed classified and the lies continue until the present day.

France is not unique in its criminality or in its ability to make it disappear. All of the so-called great countries became rich and powerful through conquest and theft and France is no exception. It was among the European nations who grew wealthy from the trade in enslaved Africans. After the Haitians successfully revolted against its rule France forced the still fragile nation to pay millions of dollars in “reparations” or risk being reinvaded. France joined in carving up Africa with other European countries at the Berlin conference in 1884 and 1885.

These facts should not be forgotten because we are instructed to make some victims more worthy than others. More than 40 people were killed by suicide bombers in Lebanon on November 13^th yet they received a fraction of the news coverage. Nigerians and Kenyans have also died in mass slaughter this year without significant or lasting coverage from the international media.

The press and politicians only venerate the right white victims, those from the partner in crime nations. On the other hand, the victims of white terror are stricken from the historical record and from memory. While flags in the United States are lowered to half-staff in honor of people in a faraway place, let’s not forget that terror victims here are ignored, dismissed and denied justice. American police have already killed more than 1,000 people in 2015 alone. Perhaps we should place the photos of those victims on our social media profiles instead of images of an outlaw nation’s flag.

Russia said Thursday, November 26, it would be looking to cut economic ties with Turkey and scrap investment projects in a matter of days in the aftermath of the Turkish downing of a Russian warplane, the Associated Press reports.

The televised statement by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev came a day after Russian media reported hundreds of trucks bringing Turkish goods stranded at the border.

Relations between the two countries soured after Turkey on Tuesday shot down a Russian warplane on a bombing mission near the Syria border. One of the pilots was killed, the other was rescued.

Medvedev instructed the government to draft sanctions against Turkey within the next two days in a response to the downing of the Russian Su-24, which he described as an “act of aggression against our country.”

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, explained on Thursday that customs officials along the border were scrutinizing Turkish goods due to “various reasons” including a possible terrorist threat.

“This is only natural in the light of Turkey’s unpredictable actions,” Peskov said.

In Georgia, customs officials reported that trucks with Turkish number plates driving via Georgia to Russia cannot get through. A statement issued by the Georgian finance ministry’s excise service said some trucks that can’t get into Russia are driving back to Azerbaijan and Turkey while hundreds are deciding to wait in the neutral zone between Russia and Georgia.

Last year, Russia imposed a ban on food imports from the U.S. and EU nations in retaliation for their sanctions over the Crimea issue.

Eighteen people were killed and 11 injured in an attack attributed to the Nigerian Boko Haram group in Wogom, near Bosso, in south-east Niger. According to the mayor, the militants torched hundreds of homes.

The attack was carried out Wednesday night by an armed commando that crossed the Yobe River, which marks the border with Nigeria. Boko Haram actions are frequent in this area: based on UN estimates, since February 6 the group carried out over fifty attacks.

At the end of October, the Niamey parliament extended by three months a state of emergency in force in the Diffa region (where also Bosso is situated) in an attempt to contrast the advance of the armed group.

“The building sector is responsible for more than 30% of global energy demand and round about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions”, said Peter Graham from the Global Buildings Performance Network in Paris.

Two examples of the European Research Project DIRECTION demonstrate how buildings can play a crucial role in keeping global warming below 2°C. In Munich, Germany, the NuOffice has demonstrated after 18 months of operation that its energy consumption is 73% lower compared to a standard office block with no energy efficient technologies.

Elaborate energy models predicted quite accurately these results.

But on a global level, the biggest impact on building efficiency will be achieved in hot countries. “The increase in energy demand to provide electricity for cooling is one of the single largest new sources of greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030”, says Graham. In Valladolid, Spain, the architects of the showcase building CARTIF III provided solutions for both – hot summers and cool winters.

We’ve all had this annoying friend who can eat all the junk food he fancies without gaining weight. This unlikely blessing – which almost seems too good to be true – is now supported by scientific evidence.

Experts are increasingly inclined to believe that there is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits all’ medicine. We all have our own body chemistry, genetic makeup, health status and lifestyle, and it is only logical that all these factors would affect our health and response to treatment in different ways. Building on this observation, a team of scientists in Israel have tried to determine how different types of food affected 800 patients with different profiles. And the results are quite disturbing.

“We saw vast variability (in blood sugar responses) when we gave people identical meals,” said co-researcher Eran Segal, who is also a scientist at Weizmann. ‘With bread, some people showed almost no change in glucose, while others showed a large response. Some had higher responses to bread with butter than to bread alone.’

This finding alone already goes against the common belief that the combination of fat and carbohydrates reduces blood sugar responses in patients, but it doesn’t stop here: one participant’s blood sugar levels spiked after eating bananas but not after eating cookies, while another had a spike when eating sushi and not when eating… ice cream. The observed variations between different persons was qualified as ‘immense’ by Prof Eran Segal, who led the study.

To get to this result, the team asked participants to use a smartphone app for one week in order to record their daily activities and the food they ate. Glucose monitors kept track of changes in blood sugar levels two hours after each meal, and each participant also gave a stool sample to allow researchers to analyse their gut microbiome – bacteria that reside in the digestive system which were recently suggested to play an important role in obesity and diabetes.

One of the main outcomes of this first study is an algorithm for predicting individualised response to food based on a person’s lifestyle, medical background, and the composition and function of his or her microbiome. This algorithm successfully predicted the rise in blood sugar in response to different foods in a follow-up study on another 100 volunteers, thereby demonstrating that it could be applied to new participants. Equally, the team was able to show that lifestyle does matter: Changes in a single patient’s blood sugar levels after the consumption of a specific type of food were shown to depend on whether its consumption had been preceded by exercise or sleep.

“Our aim in this study was to find factors that underlie personalized blood glucose responses to food. We used that information to develop personal dietary recommendations that can help prevent and treat obesity and diabetes, which are among the most severe epidemics in human history,” said Dr. Eran Elinav of Weizmann’s Immunology Department.

Although Prof Segal admits that a study over one week only should be taken with a pinch of salt, he intends to keep going over the coming months. ‘We are now embarking on a series of follow-up studies that aim to unravel the long-term effects of the personalized diet on diabetes, weight management, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,’ he explains.

Even though an individual approach to diet would require observations beyond blood sugar levels, the study certainly makes a case for more personalized diet recommendations in the future.

Source: CORDIS

The US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has informed of the third and final flight test of a B61-12 high-accuracy variable yield nuclear bomb, a cutting-edge modification in the B61 line started in the 1960s, in an announcement published on November 16.

According to it, the test itself took place nearly a month before, on October 20, when an F-15E bomber has successfully released the B61-12 non-nuclear test unit at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, US, “in a realistic guided flight environment.”

“Initial indications are that all scheduled activities occurred successfully and that telemetry, tracking and video data were properly collected. This test provides additional confidence in the weapon system and instrumentation designs prior to authorizing the Production Engineering Phase in 2016,” says the report.

Madelyn Creedon, NNSA Deputy Administrator, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs, stated that the flight test “provides additional evidence of the nation’s continued commitment to our nation’s security and that of our allies and partners.”

According to official reports, Washington plans to spend at least $1 billion by the end of 2019 to modernize the nuclear arsenal in Europe and upgrade the airplanes to be able to carry new weapons. Due for mass production after 2020, the new B61-12 will be equipped with guided tail kits instead of parachute systems, and a 50-kiloton warhead – three to four times more than the Little Boy atomic bomb used in the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 2015.

The topic of the US nuclear arsenal modernization first appeared in the international spotlight in late September, when Germany’s ZDF TV channel has broadcast a report based on US budget reports and WikiLeaks secret documents, saying that new B61-12 nuclear bombs may be stationed at Buchel airbase in Rheinland-Pfalz federal land as early as by the end of 2015. Soon after, the US National Nuclear Security Administration explained that the upgraded armaments will appear in Europe much later, while Ruediger von Fritsch, Ambassador of Germany to Russia, clarified that the modernization plan only concerns the replacement of out-of-date components.

Nevertheless, the news caused an avid nuclear dispute in European and Russian expert and political communities, while the debate over whether Washington and Berlin follow the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is still ongoing.

Some analysts point out that the modernization program will affect all six US airbases located in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. According to Greg Thielmann, Senior Research Fellow at the Arms Control Association, there will be some 180 upgraded nuclear bombs stationed in Europe after the upgrade, which is at least 10 times less than the projected number of Russian tactical nuclear warheads.

“The program’s conversion of several different modifications of B61 bombs into a single type (B61-12) will have no impact on the number of US bombs in the existing inventory. It will have little impact on nuclear stability or the European balance of military force,” he said in an interview to “PenzaNews” agency.

At the same time, Greg Thielmann expressed his disappointment over the fact that US President Barack Obama’s administration has rejected other, less expensive modernization programs. He also added that improving accuracy of the bombs by introducing a new structural solution confuses the US commitment not to create new types of nuclear weapons.

With that in mind, the expert urged Russia and NATO militaries to establish full-scale contacts and agree on rules of operation for air and sea forces as soon as possible to prevent any further escalation.

He also highlighted the importance of resuming the talks on other vital issues, such as the implementation of New START reductions and additional constraints on tactical nuclear weapons.

“[They] no longer play the role they were assumed to play during the Cold War, compensating for conventional imbalances between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, these weapons are even more political instruments today than they were previously. Unfortunately, some in NATO and Russia still feel that they strengthen deterrence,” Senior Research Fellow at the Arms Control Association pointed out.

Meanwhile, Inge Hoeger, Bundestag member, representative of the Left Party of Germany, pointed out that every nuclear bomb poses a threat to the mankind, regardless of who owns it, and therefore the whole world must work on abolishing nuclear weapons.

She also suggested that the NATO nuclear strategy hinders progress in the nuclear disarmament field.

“It is clear: if you station modernized and upgraded nuclear weapons in Germany, it is like building up potential threat against Russia, and so this is going to at least cause a possibility of a new nuclear arms race and build up new tensions,” the Bundestag member said.

In her opinion, the very fact that the current nuclear arsenal is stationed in Germany is a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“You surely know it is not just that the atomic arsenal is in Germany, but the German pilots are training to drop those bombs. Already, Germany is not on paper, but in reality a nuclear power, and this is actually against the NPT. Now, with those new and upgraded nuclear bombs, it is very clear that it is a further breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so I’m strongly against it,” Inge Hoeger claimed.

Berlin must set a precedent for the rest of the world, she insisted.

“For me, it is very clear that the German government has to put pressure that the nuclear arsenal in Germany does not get upgraded and that the nuclear bombs get pulled out of Germany, disarmed, disassembled into their components and made as safe as possible so that they could no longer be used as atomic bombs,” the German Parliament deputy explained.

At the same time, Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, expert in ballistic missile defense technologies and ballistic missiles, pointed out that while the course currently taken by Russia is far from ideal, the overreaction on the side of political and media communities in the US and NATO cannot be called justified.

“I think it would be a very good idea for the West – when I say the West I mean the United States and NATO – to lower the level of rhetoric against Russia. I do not think it is a good thing that Russia annexed Crimea as it did, but I do not think it justifies increasing the risk of a direct conflict involving nuclear weapons,” the military expert said.

In his opinion, the publications on Russia’s overly aggressive nuclear posturing that frequently appear in the Western media often fall flat after checking the facts, while the US missile defense system expansion policy strains the relations with both Moscow and Beijing.

Theodore Postol urged the Western political community to recognize Russia’s interests in the world and more actively cooperate with Moscow where possible.

“All this discussion you see in the West is talking that how Russia is in Syria to bolster its standing in the world – as if the Russians don’t have any concerns at all about Islamic extremism in Russia!” the professor pointed out.

In his opinion, the already present friction between Russia and the West would make it a fairly indiscreet decision to follow through with the plans to modernize the nuclear arsenal in Europe.

“[This] increases the chances of accidents, both in terms of handling the weapons and in terms of misjudgments on one or both sides that could lead to some form of nuclear accident or escalation. I don’t think there is any constructive purpose for doing this,” stressed the expert in ballistic missile defense technologies.

In turn, Tarja Cronberg, former Member of the European Parliament, Head of the Peace Union of Finland, took a firm stance against the nuclear weapons modernization program.

“In its Article 6 [of the NPT], absolute negotiations are called on how to get to nuclear weapons in Europe, and all modernization, independently on where it is, is against the letter of this Article,” the Finnish politician explained.

In her opinion, the one-sided view in the US, and mentions of threats that could have forced Moscow to resort to nuclear weapons on the Russian side, caused a significant amount of tension to build up, which is particularly evident in the Baltic Sea area.

“So it is important that the conflict that is currently going on between NATO and Russia deescalates, and the nuclear threats are not used,” stated the head of the Peace Union of Finland.

She also urged Russia and NATO to hold a separate meeting to resolve the controversy and review their respective security structures to prevent any nuclear saber-rattling in the future.

In the meantime, Paul Ingram, Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), highlighted the fact that the United States is the only nuclear power that has a portion of its arsenal stationed on allied soil.

“[The US is] the only one with arrangements to hand over control of those nuclear bombs to their allies in time of conflict, allies that are recognized by the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states and who are precluded by the treaty from receiving nuclear weapons,” the expert said.

He pointed out that the current strategy of the North Atlantic Alliance prevents the Western allies from making a free choice on an international level.

“The shared deployment of these weapons is in large part designed to lock NATO allies into a nuclear weapon posture and weakens the credibility of their claims in international disarmament negotiations to be working towards disarmament,” Paul Ingram said, adding that controversies on those issues can destabilize the cohesion of the alliance if a crisis situation would occur.

He also noted that the one of the core defense strategies in NATO is the nuclear deterrence policy based on the principle of inevitable second strike, which is currently becoming more and more outdated.

“This bizarre logic may work at times, but it is also fraught with difficulty, and relies upon human judgment, which we know to be flawed. Dependence upon nuclear deterrence will lead to the use of nuclear weapons with all the attendant consequences – millions of deaths, human societies destroyed, devastating environmental impacts. It is simply a question of when,” Paul Ingram suggested.

In turn, his colleague Ted Seay, Senior Policy Consultant of the British American Security Information Council, former arms control advisor for the US-NATO Mission in Brussels, pointed out that the current NATO strategy acts against the potential for good relationship with Moscow and interferes with the diplomacy in several other states.

“If we are trying to convince other countries not to proliferate, and NATO, Europe and the United States are engaging in this nuclear sharing activity which completely destroyed the spirit of the treaty, how do we have any moral authority to convince other countries not to proliferate?” the expert asked, adding that he would answer that question in the negative.

“I see absolutely no way in which it advances anything. I think it is a terrible anachronism. I think it is a very stupid idea for NATO to be continuing to share these weapons in the 21st century, this many years after the end of the Cold War. I think it is unnecessarily provocative of the Russian government to have these weapons – these American weapons – based so far away from the US soil and so close to Russian soil, whereas, for example, the weapons in the same general category, the theater nuclear weapons which the Russian Federation possesses, are all on Russian soil. And that is the crucial difference between the two,” Ted Seay stressed.

He also urged the North Atlantic Alliance to replace soundbite politics with deep and detailed diplomacy with the Russian Federation to achieve mutual nuclear disarmament.

“To that end, I think the best thing that the US government and NATO could do is unilaterally withdraw the B61s from Europe as a first step, without any other conditions; and then, having done that, turn toward our partners, which we still officially are – NATO and the Russian Federation – and talk about further steps that could be taken to improve trust, transparency and confidence,” added the former arms control advisor for the US-NATO Mission in Brussels.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been one of the most successful regional groupings in Asia. Formed as an organization on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok as a five-member organization with the aim to accelerate economic growth, social progress and socio-cultural evolution among its members, it has assumed over the years other important role to address the region’s security issues so that peace and stability in the region is protected. The organization grew further when Brunei Darussalam became its sixth member on 7 January 1984, barely a week after gaining independence. It further expanded when it embraced Vietnam on 28 July 1995 as the organisation’s seventh member. Subsequently, Laos and Myanmar too joined two years later on 23 July 1997 as eighth and ninth members. The last country in the region, Cambodia’s entry into the grouping was delayed owing to internal political struggle when it joined the organization as its tenth member on 30 April 1999.

During the summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November, the leaders took an important step towards greater economic integration by deciding to form an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), much like the European Economic Community. The Kuala Lumpur declaration envisages the community to come into being on 31 December 2015. The AEC, as part of a larger ASEAN Community aims for political, security, cultural and social integration. “Our ASEAN way has guided us and will continue to be our compass as we seek to realize a politically cohesive, economically integrated, socially responsible and a truly people-oriented, people-centered rules-based ASEAN,” observed summit host, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, at the signing ceremony. He hailed the AEC as a “landmark achievement”, and urged members to accelerate integration, observing that the “region is primed to expand exponentially”.

The importance of the ASEAN can be gauged from the fact that it covers a land area of 4.4 million square kilometers, 3 % of the total area of the Earth. ASEAN territorial waters cover an area about three times larger than its land counterpart. The member countries have a combined population of approximately 625 million people, 8.8% of the world’s population. In 2015, the organisation’s combined nominal GDP had grown to more than $2.6 trillion. When ASEAN becomes a single entity on 31 December 2015, it would rank as the seventh largest economy in the world, behind the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

The idea of creating an AEC was mooted 13 years ago. Now by creating a unified economic community in a region more populous and diverse than the European Union or North America, the AEC hopes to compete with China and India. As of now many tariff barriers have already been eliminated among ASEAN states although many politically sensitive sectors such as agriculture, auto production and steel remain protected. The AEC is expected to facilitate freer movements and removal of barriers that hinder growth and investment.

However, much work remains to be done, particularly achieving the primary goal of allowing freer movement of skilled workers, trade and capital for the region’s more than 600 million people. So, the AEC is just a start. Integrating ASEAN economies, intended to help the region compete with giants such as China and India, would create the world’s seventh-largest single market. The real challenge stems from the fact that compared to the European Union, the AEC is culturally and politically more diverse with various systems of government including communism (Laos and Vietnam), a military junta (Thailand), authoritarian (Cambodia), quasi-civilian (Myanmar) and a monarchy (Brunei).

The most worrying fact that could come on the way of reaping the benefit from the AEC is corruption, which is endemic and could hamper the economic integration process. The member nations ought to work towards more transparency and accountability, which work as impediments to development. Notwithstanding the initial birth pangs that an AEC might face, it is likely soon to transpire that one can expect much more than rhetoric when the day of 31 December 2015 dawns. There are voices such as that by the ASEAN Civil Society Conference and ASEAN Peoples’ Forum which complain that the implementation of the AEC will excessively benefit corporate interests, not the majority of the region’s population. These skeptics say that as “ASEAN moves towards regional economic integration, unequal and unsustainable economic growth will result in worsening poverty, inequalities of wealth, resources, power and opportunities between countries, between the rich and the poor and between men and women”.

As of now, many of its fundamentals have been applied in the region such as removal of tariff barriers and visa restrictions among others. It has also led to greater political and cultural cooperation. Much against what skeptics say, AEC is expected “bolster income and employment, and provide the region with stronger economic muscle in facing the other giants”. As individual countries, the ASEAN nations may be small to be “important players in the economic and security game, but as an integrated group of more than half a billion people, they would be in the major league”. This optimism does not discount the fact that the region is diverse with different languages, following different faiths and governed by various systems, including rambunctious democracies, a military dictatorship, quasi-civilian, authoritarian, monarchy and communism, all of which may be impediments. However, having resolved on the ambitious plans, the AEC needs to be seen with a sense of optimism to foster greater economic integration in the region and beyond.

As said, opening up agriculture, steel, auto production and other protected sectors would be challenging. However, citizens of the ASEAN member countries would be free to move and work in any country of the grouping, though engineering, accountancy and tourism would be attractive. It is to be seen if host countries would still put up constitutional regulatory hurdles restricting the inflow of talent. As regards intra-regional trade, it has remained at around 24 per cent of ASEAN’s total global trade for the last decade, lower than 60 per cent in the European Union.

There have been occasional diplomatic flare-ups among some of the member nations. While Cambodia and Vietnam have border disputes, Indonesia has been unable to fight annual forest fires that spew haze for months over Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are still catching up with other member states. In the process of economic integration, income inequalities are feared to widen. The gulf divides between rich and middle income economies and less developed members are unlikely to be bridged soon. That would remain a challenge for the AEC. The AEC is one of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community, the other two being political-security and socio-cultural. These differences did not deter Vietnam and the Philippines to forge a strategic partnership between Vietnam and the Philippines, for which China was the driver, raising hopes for dialogue in preference to coercion to resolve dispute.

The main aim of the AEC is to have a single market with free flow of goods, capital and skilled labour across national borders. What is significant is that there shall be a common policy and actions on environmental, social and cultural issues and in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking. Notwithstanding the commonalities, if the member nations want to leverage the social diversity as strength, they ought to handle the differences in a spirit of cordiality and mutual respect.

The new version of the EC may not lead to a ‘big bang’ moment in terms of economic integration soon as envisaged because of diversities among member states. Though tariff barriers are virtually eliminated, freer movements and removal of barriers that hinder growth and investment are the next logical steps.

What does the creation of the AEC mean for India? The AEC can leverage India’s emerging economic strength in the interest of region’s economic prosperity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present, seated next to his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang, when the declaration to form the community was signed. He promised to make India as an important economic partner. The AEC would act as a facilitator to Modi’s Act East policy, a new frontier to invigorate its foreign and foreign economic strategy.

India has civilizational linkages with the members of the ASEAN grouping. It has some 30 dialogue mechanisms, which includes a summit and seven ministerial groups and covers foreign affairs, commerce, telecommunications, tourism, agriculture, environment and renewable energy. The core of the ASEAN-India partnership is economic. The grouping is India’s fourth largest trading partner. India, in turn, is the sixth largest trading partner for ASEAN. Trade between the two sides amounted to $76.52 billion in 2014-15, with India’s exports worth $31.8 billion and imports $44.7 billion. Currently, India is negotiating a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with the ASEAN nations and the grouping’s FTA partners. There had been some breakthroughs in the negotiations and the agreement is likely to be concluded in 2016.

A recent report in Hindustan Times succinctly mentioned about the human connects in India-ASEAN relations. More than five million citizens of the ASEAN nations trace their roots to India. Malaysia alone is home to two million people of Indian origin and some 130,000 expatriates. Indeed, the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership had gained momentum after Prime Minister Modi unveiled his “Act East” policy at the last ASEAN-India Summit in Myanmar in November 2014. India and ASEAN are also working jointly to address non-traditional security threats such as terrorism, human and drug trafficking, cyber crimes and piracy in the Malacca Straits.

The new AEC could give India greater market access in the ASEAN region. The grouping has a huge middle-class market and Indian industries and services can address to their demands and expectations.

The report further mentions that investment flows between ASEAN and India too are growing. Between April 2007 and March 2015, India invested $38.6 billion in ASEAN while the grouping invested $32.4 billion in India. The economic integration process got a boost with the creation of the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area in July 2015. While in Kuala Lumpur, Modi highlighted the need for greater connectivity, both physical and digital. He also unveiled a $1 billion line of credit to boost projects that enhance connectivity with the grouping.

The AEC will take some more time to become fully functional even after becoming a legal entity on December 31. Politically sensitive areas such as opening up agriculture, steel, automobile production and other protected sectors remain to be resolved. But the prospects are promising.

By Simon Hoellerbauer and Melinda Haring*

Whether the Western media views Russian President Vladimir Putin as losing or winning, as strong or weak, as having a plan or lacking one entirely, it focuses almost exclusively on him as the driving force behind everything that happens in Russia and everything Russia does abroad. For good reason. Putin’s aggression is one of the top foreign policy challenges today. From Ukraine to Syria, no one stands in starker opposition to the Western world order.

Thus, Putin must go.  Focusing on the man, however, ignores the system that he’s put into place, and that system is the key to understanding today’s Russia and how we should deal with it.

The West’s Putin obsession feeds the misconception that if Putin were to step down tomorrow, Russia would be able to democratize and retake its place in the international community. Perhaps at one point in the early 2000s the removal of Putin would have made it possible for Russia to avoid a darker path. But that thought is no more than fantasy today. Putin is the central figure in the government apparatus, and members of his government cannot envision a Russia without him. Yet he has made the political future of Russia unstable by co-opting its political system, twisting it to serve himself and the elite who serve him, instead of the Russian people, and forging a system of rule that will, paradoxically, survive him and hinder democratization.

Putin’s regime is not an effective, responsive government. He has based his authority on corruption, the negation of basic political rights, the alternating appeasement and subjugation of the oligarchs, and manipulation of his people through control of the media. Even if Putin felt secure enough to appoint a successor who would guarantee him immunity from prosecution, as Putin did for Yeltsin, that successor would face problems simply by not being Putin.

This does not mean that Putin must stay for the sake of stability, or that his presence guarantees stability. Russia is not a stable country under Putin. Since the invasion of Crimea, the ruble has lost 50 percent of its value in relation to the dollar, Russia’s GDP has dropped by almost 1 trillion dollars since 2013, and Russia’s oil and gas industry has a bleak future. Russia is not a status quo international actor, as its mischief-making in Ukraine and muscle-flexing in Syria demonstrate. And with xenophobia and propaganda-induced nationalist hysteria on the rise, it could get worse, especially if a more erratic, nationalist politician were to succeed, or supplant, Putin.

If democracy is to have any hope in Russia, change must be organic, with the Russian people at its head. Democratic reformers hope that Putin’s powerbase, with its reliance on economics and the menace of external enemies, eventually crumbles and collapses under its own weight. Putin’s increasingly unpredictable behavior, spinning from crisis to crisis as he tries to maintain momentum and keep his people’s attention away from the country’s economic downturn and the population’s lack of basic rights and democratic freedoms, does not seem sustainable in the long term. Democratic hopefuls may get their wish.

An implosion may not bring about a positive outcome, however, as Russia’s own experience with the dismantling of the Soviet Union shows. The chaotic end of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent rollercoaster of what the West called reform, but many Russians called ruin, had frightening consequences. It largely discredited democracy in the eyes of Russians. They do not want to go through anything similar again.

The sad truth is that only time and more failure can push Putin from his throne. Direct external pressure will only serve to ignite the volatile mix of nationalism and fear—of the past and the future—that reigns in Russia. The West must do its best to make Putin an anachronism, to show Russians that there is a better world. If the United States wants to see Putin out of power, it must be ready for a Russia without Putin and a period of turmoil that could make the end of the Soviet Union look downright peaceful in comparison. The media can help by focusing less on Putin as an epic villain and more on the system that he’s created, how that system blights Russia’s present, and the problems it is likely to bequeath to our common future.

*About the authors:
Simon Hoellerbauer is a research intern with the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Project on Democratic Transitions and a graduate of Kenyon College. He can be found on Twitter at @hoellerbauers. Melinda Haring is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Source:
this article was published by FPRI.

The Singapore-Vietnam strategic partnership has strong foundations, but the two countries need to look for bolder and more substantive measures to further deepen their ties. In defence cooperation, anti-piracy joint patrols and bilateral training arrangements are among initiatives to be considered.

By Le Hong Hiep*

The Singapore=Vietname Strategic Partnership, which was established during Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s official visit to Vietnam in September 2013, has entered its third year. Bilateral political ties have strengthened over the years, resulting in close cooperation and regular consultation between government ministries and agencies. Meanwhile, strategic cooperation between them, as well as with other ASEAN member states, is helping to shape the evolving regional architecture.

Although the partnership is still in its early stage of development, it has a strong foundation and the potential to become a significant tool for both countries to advance their national interests, especially in terms of defence and strategic cooperation.

Defence cooperation promoted

In 2005, the two countries concluded a Connectivity Framework Agreement which serves as the overarching platform for bilateral economic cooperation. Since then, the Framework has facilitated various important investment projects by Singaporean companies into Vietnam. By June 2015, the accumulative stock of Singapore’s direct investment into Vietnam had reached US$ 33 billion, making Singapore the third largest foreign investor in the country. Meanwhile, two-way trade has grown at an average rate of more than 12 percent annually, reaching SG$ 20.4 billion last year. Vietnam is currently Singapore’s eleventh largest trade partner.

In addition, the two countries have maintained a high level of mutual trust as high-ranking officials are in close contact. People-to-people exchanges have also been strengthened. There are currently about 8.000 Vietnamese students studying in Singapore and Singapore is a popular destination for Vietnamese tourists.

Recently, defence cooperation has been promoted. For example, the two ministries of defence have been exchanging regular visits by high-ranking officials and conducting annual defence policy dialogues. Other bilateral defence cooperation activities have also expanded, covering training, peace-keeping, anti-piracy, counter-terrorism, and search and rescue.

Such defence and strategic cooperation, however, remains modest. Given the relatively sensitive nature of defence cooperation, fresh ideas should be discussed to facilitate the emergence of new models of cooperation that are acceptable to both sides.

Joint anti-piracy patrols and training exercises

One idea that should be considered is the conduct of joint anti-piracy patrols along the sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) between Singapore and Vietnam. This idea has not been raised before as it was seen as irrelevant or unnecessary. Recently, however, there have been a number of piracy incidents involving merchant ships travelling along these SLOCs.

For example, in December 2014, the VP ASPHALT 2 ship of the Vietnam Petroleum Transport JSC carrying 2,300 tons of liquid asphalt from Singapore to the Go Dau port in Vietnam was attacked by pirates when it was roughly 60 nautical miles off Singapore’s coast. In the incident, a Vietnamese crewman was shot dead. Two months earlier, the Vietnamese oil tanker Sunrise 689 was also pirated when it was around 120 nautical miles north-east of Singapore.

These incidents make it necessary for the two countries to consider joint patrols as a measure to enhance maritime security in the region. Such patrols, which should be based on Singapore’s experience in conducting joint patrols with Malaysia and Indonesia in the Malacca Strait, may be open to participation by other countries, especially Malaysia and Thailand. If conducted, the patrols will bring benefits to not only ships of the countries involved, but also those carrying other flags travelling through the southern part of the South China Sea.

Another idea worth exploring is enhanced bilateral cooperation in training and joint exercises. Due to Singapore’s small size, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) has concluded training agreements with a number of countries, including Australia, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States. Through these agreements, Singapore can send its troops overseas for extended periods of training. Vietnam and Singapore can consider concluding a similar agreement. Given its proximity to Singapore and rich war-fighting experience, Vietnam can be a helpful partner for Singapore in this regard.

Need to deepen ties

In fact, Singapore had previously requested Vietnam for help with training in jungle warfare, but Vietnam did not show interest, probably for fear that such cooperation might upset its relations with neighbouring countries, especially China. However, due to China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea and Vietnam’s wish to deepen its strategic ties with major partners, the proposal may be well-received by Hanoi this time. In any case, a transparent approach to and moderate scope of the initiative will also help assure regional countries of its peaceful and purely technical character.

Given Vietnam’s principle of not allowing foreign troops to be stationed on its soil, a bilateral visiting forces agreement should also be concluded to provide the legal basis for such an initiative and highlight the temporary and rotational nature of the arrangement. As far as Vietnam is concerned, such agreements with Singapore, if successful, may serve as a model for the country to deepen its strategic ties with other partners in the future.

In sum, Vietnam and Singapore have been successful in promoting their comprehensive relationship, based on strong economic, political and strategic foundations. Nevertheless, it is important for the two countries to look for new, bolder and more substantive measures to further deepen their ties, especially after their strategic partnership framework was set up two years ago. With strong political will and a future-oriented vision, the two countries will be able to attain more meaningful achievements together not only for their own but also regional interests.

*Le Hong Hiep is a visiting fellow at ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect those of the Institute, or any government.

A suspected burglar tried to enter a house in California through its chimney, getting trapped inside it for a day. He died when the homeowner returned and lit fire, unaware that there had been a person inside.

Fresno County Sheriff deputies received a call at around 3:00pm on Saturday from a man who reported that he had lit fire in his fireplace and then heard screams from the chimney, Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said on its official website.

The homeowner, who had been away on Friday and had not known that somebody was inside, tried to put out the fire. However, the house was immediately filled with smoke. Firefighters sent by police dispatchers quickly started traveling to the scene. Ten minutes after the call the man reportedly was still alive.

However, when the firefighters arrived at the scene and broke one of the chimney’s sides, the man who had got stuck was already dead.

The man, supposedly a burglar, climbed into the chimney at night when there had been nobody at home and became stuck, according to preliminary information.

The body has been removed from the chimney and is expected to undergo an autopsy that will determine his identity, and the precise cause and manner of death.

An investigation into the case is currently underway. Police officers are going through evidence and talking to witnesses to establish details.

Researchers in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University have discovered a new approach to “vitrification,” or ice-free cryopreservation, that could ultimately allow a much wider use of extreme cold to preserve tissues and even organs for later use.

The findings were announced in PLOS ONE, in work supported by the National Science Foundation.

“This could be an important step toward the preservation of more complex tissues and structures,” said Adam Higgins, an associate professor in the OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, and expert on medical bioprocessing.

Cryopreservation has already found widespread use in simpler applications such as preserving semen, blood, embryos, plant seeds and some other biological applications. But it is often constrained by the crystallization that occurs when water freezes, which can damage or destroy tissues and cells, Higgins said. This is similar to what happens to some food products when they are stored in a freezer, and lose much of their texture when thawed.

To address this, researchers have used various types of cryoprotectants that help reduce cell damage during the freezing process – among them is ethylene glycol, literally the same compound often used in automobile radiators to prevent freezing.

A problem, Higgins said, is that many of these cryoprotectants are toxic, and can damage or kill the very cells they are trying to protect from the forces of extreme cold.

In the new OSU research, the engineers developed a mathematical model to simulate the freezing process in the presence of cryoprotectants, and identified a way to minimize damage. They found that if cells are initially exposed to a low concentration of cryoprotectant and time is allowed for the cells to swell, then the sample can be vitrified after rapidly adding a high concentration of cryoprotectants. The end result is much less overall toxicity, Higgins said.

The research showed that healthy cell survival following vitrification rose from about 10 percent with a conventional approach to more than 80 percent with the new optimized procedure.

“The biggest single problem and limiting factor in vitrification is cryoprotectant toxicity, and this helps to address that,” Higgins said. “The model should also help us identify less toxic cryoprotectants, and ultimately open the door to vitrification of more complex tissues and perhaps complete organs.”

If that were possible, many more applications of vitrification could be feasible, especially as future progress is made in the rapidly advancing field of tissue regeneration, in which stem cells can be used to grow new tissues or even organs.

Tissues could be made in small amounts and then stored until needed for transplantation. Organs being used for transplants could be routinely preserved until a precise immunological match was found for their use. Conceptually, a person could even grow a spare heart or liver from their own stem cells and preserve it through vitrification in case it was ever needed, Higgins said.

Important applications might also be found in new drug development.

Drug testing is now carried out with traditional cell culture systems or animal models, which in many cases don’t accurately predict the effect of the drug in humans. To address this, researchers are developing “organs-on-a-chip,” or microfluidic chambers that contain human cells cultured under conditions that mimic native tissues or organs.

These new “organ-on-a-chip” systems may be able to more accurately predict drug responses in humans, but to deploy them, cells must be preserved in long-term storage. The new research could help address this by making it possible to store the systems in a vitrified state.

Five political prisoners in Rejai Shahr Prison in Karaj have begun a hunger strike to protest that prison authorities have orchestrated attacks against them using “two prisoners with a history of violence”.

The Kaleme website reported on Saturday November 28 that two prisoners “with a history of violence and conflict threatened a number of political prisoners and attached them with knives”,

Kaleme alleges that the assailants had the support of Rejai Shahr management and that prison guards did not “take any steps to prevent the attacks”.

According to the report, Saeed Razavi Faqih, Saeed Madani, Jafar Eghdami, Behzad Arabgol and Kamran Ayazi have announced they are now on a hunger strike in protest against these attacks and they are calling for the removal of the two assailants from their ward.

Two photos posted on Kaleme show Razavi Faqih and Madani with knife scars on their faces.

The Mizan website, which is linked to Nationalist-Religious groups, also reported on the incident, saying telephone lines to Rejai Shahr have been cut off and families have been prevented from contacting their kin.

In recent years, especially following the widespread arrests of political activists after the election protests of 2009, political prisoners have often gone on hunger strikes to protest the mistreatment of prisoners by prison authorities.

On November 26, 2015, eight (8) members of the Ansar al-Khilafah in the Philippines (AKP), including an Indonesian national were killed in a joint law enforcement operation by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Philippine Marine Corps in the town of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat province. The site of the clash, on the Mindanao mainland, was far from the usual stomping grounds of Islamist terrorist groups in the Philippines. The skirmish had been deemed by some pundits as a strong indicator of the arrival of the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh in the Philippines. However, this assertion is weakly supported by the socio-economic conditions in the southern Philippines. Instead of being a game changer, the AKP appears no different to other private armed groups (PAGs) in Mindanao who present an ideological façade to cover their criminal acts.

AKP Pledges to Daesh

SITE Intelligence first reported on the pledge of allegiance by the AKP to Daesh in August 2014. The group, claiming to hold sway in Saranggani province, appeared as a distinct entity from the Muslim secessionists in central Mindanao (the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF] and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters [BIFF]) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in western Mindanao. The short 5-minute video showed a group of armed men, wielding weapons common to the private armies and militias in Mindanao, offering their bayah (pledge) in front of black banners associated with Daesh. This development was deemed by self-styled terrorism experts in Manila as proof positive of the ideological influence of ISIS.

But aside from this superficial demonstration of fealty credible evidence did not indicate operational link between the AKP gunmen and Daesh. For one, a bayah should be a reciprocal act between Daesh “central” and the purported Caliph, and those who pledged. Haphazard pledging as executed by the AKP further indicates the lack of awareness for Daesh’s own jurisprudence and practices. This ignorance of Islamic jurisprudence (the Deash’s purported version) underscored the unideological bent of Islamist militants in the Philippines. This one-way pledge was also consistent with the practice of the jihadist milieu in the Philippines, who seem to pledge allegiance to whichever international group was on the news, be it Jemaah Islamiyah or Al Qaeda in the previous decades.

All Conflict is Local

The life trajectory of Mohammad Jaafar Maguid (aka Commander Tokboy), the alleged leader of the AKP, is thus no different from the other former Muslim secessionists in Mindanao. Maguid was reportedly a member of the MILF, a secessionist group which had already signed a peace agreement with the Philippine government in March 2014. Taking a hardline stance against the talks, it would appear that Maguid was able to cajole former MILF members, and other armed but unaffiliated fighting age men to build the AKP. It can be argued that instead of being a trailblazer, Maguid was a latecomer to the post-MILF era, which saw the emergence of localised insurgent groups such as the BIFF.

In the absence of direct operational support from Daesh, the act of bayah only has one useful function for groups like the AKP—to create an image of ferocity for criminal activity. An inflated image for AKP allowed it to extort money from local businesses and to operate organised rackets like cattle rustling in the fertile agricultural areas of central Mindanao. By alluding to ISIS links, AKP members were able to strengthen their brand, even with their small personnel strength of around 20-50 armed members. Compared to private militias or armed clansmen in Mindanao with hundreds in their ranks, the AKP’s actual operational capability would be a drop in the bucket.

Prior to the 26 November clash in Palimbang, the AKP did not even engage in armed activities against the usual military or civilian targets, in contrast to Islamist groups such as the ASG and the BIFF. Neither were they capable of the cross-border kidnapping raids some factions of the ASG had launched against East Malaysian resorts. AKP initiatives were for profit-generation, extorting local farmers under the threat of IED attacks. It was the charges of banditry, not terrorist acts, which led the PNP to launch an operation against AKP. This very localised and parochial orientation, necessary to sustain the AKP’s day-to-day existence belies its grandiose claims of affinity to Daesh.

Denying Discursive Space to Daesh Imitators

The biggest potential policy mistake for the Philippine security forces is to play to the AKP’s discursive games. The Philippine armed forces’ policy of referring to the AKP as “bandits” is an astute step to ensure that the group’s image is not unduly strengthened. While the AKP may claim to be important supporters of the purported Caliphate, the reality on the ground suggests otherwise. AKP does not possess the ideological robustness of the “early” ASG nor the operational/financial resources of the now ransom-enriched ASG.

In the long run, much could be done to diminish the appeal of AKP and other iterations of armed groups in Mindanao. Referring to the black banners favoured by jihadists as an “IS flag” is both counterproductive and erroneous. The black banner is a generic symbol of the Muslim faith, unfortunately corrupted by Daesh. Conflating such symbol of faith with a terrorist organisation would only antagonise the moderate Muslim Filipinos. All told, the Palimbang clash underscored the AKP’s weaknesses and rendered shrill its threats.

*Joseph Franco is an Associate Research Fellow with the Centre of Excellence for National Securiy and a CSIS Pacific Forum Young Leader

BHP Billiton provided Sunday an update following the breach of the Fundão tailings dam and Santarém water dam at the Samarco Mineração S.A (Samarco) iron ore operation in Minas Gerais, Brazil which occurred on November 5, 2015. BHP Billiton and Vale each hold a 50 per cent interest in Samarco.

Samarco has advised that, at this stage, there are 13 fatalities and six people who remain unaccounted for. Emergency services continue to search for the six missing people, BHP Billiton said.

According to BHP Billiton, Samarco continues to work with the Government authorities in Brazil to relocate displaced people from temporary accommodation to rented housing. Relocation is expected to be completed in February 2016.

Clean-up work has commenced in the Barra Longa area, focusing on access roads, housing and bridge repairs, BHP Billiton said, adding that monitoring of the remaining dam structures at Samarco continues. Interim work to repair the damage to the dams and to reinforce parts of the structure has commenced. Operations at Samarco remain suspended.

Samarco and local authorities continue to assess and monitor water quality in the Rio Doce river system. Where water supplies have been affected, alternative water supplies are being provided by Samarco, working with local authorities, BHP Billiton said.

Samarco has reported that tests on the sediments carried out by the Brazilian Geological Service (CPRM) from samples taken at four points in the Rio Doce river system over the period November 14 to November 18, 2015 indicate that concentrations of metals obtained at these sites do not significantly differ from the results produced by CPRM in 2010.

Samarco reports that analysis by SGS Geosol, a company specializing in environmental geochemistry, has confirmed that the tailings are composed of materials that are not hazardous to human health, based on the hazard classification of the material under Brazilian standards.

Samarco has advised that the tailings material released as a result of the breach of the Fundão and Santarém dams is considered to be non-reactive and would be geochemically stable when introduced to the river system or ocean. As a result of the high volume of sand and clay tailings material that moved through the river system, a large number of fish died due to reduced oxygen uptake. Assessment of these impacts is ongoing, BHP Billiton said.

BHP Billiton said that the tailings plume has reached the Atlantic Ocean and is dispersing. Samarco has developed a program for monitoring the plume in the ocean and authorities have provided direction on the scope of the required testing under the program.

The Brazilian Federal Government and certain State governments have announced that, on November 30, 2015, they intend to commence legal proceedings against Samarco, Vale and BHP Billiton for clean-up costs and damages. The announcement indicates that the legal action will demand that the companies establish a fund of BRL 20 billion in aggregate (approximately US$5.2 billion at current exchange rates) for environmental recovery and compensation.

BHP Billiton said it has not received formal notice of the action at this stage.

BHP Billiton said it confirms its commitment to supporting Samarco to rebuild the community and restore the environment affected by the breach of the dams. This includes plans, announced by Vale and BHP Billiton on November 27, 2015, to work together with Samarco to establish a voluntary, non-profit fund to support the recovery of the Rio Doce river system.

As announced at the Annual General Meeting of BHP Billiton Limited on November 19, 2015, the Board of BHP Billiton has established a separate sub-committee to assist the Board in overseeing the governance of BHP Billiton’s management and response to the events at Samarco. The members of the sub-committee are John Schubert (as Chairman), Jac Nasser, Lindsay Maxsted and Malcolm Brinded.

In addition, the Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mackenzie, has asked BHP Billiton’s Forum on Corporate Responsibility to play a role in providing a high-level, strategic overview of the recovery processes and lessons learned for BHP Billiton. For over 15 years, the Forum on Corporate Responsibility has been a key component of BHP Billiton’s stakeholder engagement program, providing insight into current and emerging issues on a range of sustainability topics. The Forum comprises eight highly respected international civil society leaders as well as members of BHP Billiton’s Group Management Committee, BHP Billiton said.

The events following the Paris terror attacks, including the execution of a Chinese hostage by the Islamic State (IS) group, appear to have placed China at the proverbial ‘fork in the road’ regarding its policy on combating terrorism. The dilemma appears to be rooted in a mix of local politics, internal security considerations, Foreign policy position and external threats to its security. The events have left China-watchers wondering whether this is the point where China will find a common ground with the West on how to deal with terrorism. Alternatively, the events could only see the Chinese make some adjustments and press on with their current approach on countering terror.

Paris trigger

Following the attacks in Paris, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi reportedly said that the struggle against Islamist militants in China’s western region of Xinjiang should be acknowledged as part of global war on terror. In his view, “China is also a victim of terrorism, and cracking down on East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) should become an important part of the international fight against terrorism”. Beijing has blamed the violence in Xinjiang and other locations on Islamist militants, led by the ETIM; a group seen to have ties to al-Qaeda. More recently, China has reported that some Uyghurs from Xinjiang have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with IS and other groups.

Past few years have seen a growing number of attacks on civilians in Xinjiang, as well as a series of high-profile terrorist attacks in other major cities, including an attack on the railway station in Kunming in 2014. The Xinjiang-Uyghur issue has also been an irritant in the US-China relationship, with China accusing the US of maintaining a “double standard” on terrorism as the US has been raising concerns over Chinese government actions in Uyghur-majority areas. China would like US and the West to dispel their “double standard” and recognise its internal security issue in Xinjiang as terrorism.

Wang also appeared to indicate how China would like the ‘internationalisation’ of fight against terror to take shape when he said “the UN’s leading role should be brought into full play to combat terrorism, and a united front in this regard should be formed”. Chinese state media has sought to link China’s own “war on terror” with the Paris attacks while the Uyghurs have raised fears that China is using the Paris attacks to justify anti-Uyghurs actions in Xinjiang.

Other event indications

On 14 November, the next day to the Paris attacks, China’s Ministry of Public Security took an unprecedented step of publicizing during the G-20 meetings in Turkey, its 56-day campaign against terrorists in Xinjiang. On display were a series of nine pictures of Chinese armed forces on what the state media said was a mission to root out militants in Xinjiang.

Subsequently, on 20 November, the Xinjiang regional government’s Tianshan web portal reported that 28 terrorists had been killed during the 56-day manhunt. They were suspected of being responsible for a knife attack at the Sogan colliery in Aksu on September 18 which had killed 11 civilians and five police officers. The 14 September report on the operation had put the toll at 17 including the seven women and children.

The IS, on 19 November claimed to have executed two more hostages – one Norwegian, the other Chinese; a consultant named Fan Jinghui. The latest edition of its magazine ‘Dabiq’, which had the Paris attacks on its cover, featured photographs of the two hostages, each of them apparently shot in the head. “Executed,” it proclaimed, “after being abandoned by the kafir nations and organizations.” In the wake of the Paris attacks, the French President had called on his Chinese counterpart to become more involved in the global fight against terrorism.

On 20 November three senior executives of a Chinese state-owned rail construction company and six Russian employees of a cargo company were among the 19 victims of the gunmen who attacked a hotel in the capital of Mali. The three Chinese victims, all men, were killed at the start of the siege of the hotel, their employer, China Railway Construction. The next day Xi Jinping condemned the “cruel and savage” attack.

The last relevant occurrence in the string of these events saw the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopting a sweeping anti-IS resolution calling on member states to “redouble and coordinate their efforts” to prevent further terrorist horrors by the group and “eradicate” it’s safe havens straddling parts of Iraq and Syria. Even though the resolution does not invoke Chapter VII of the UN charter which authorizes the use of outside military force within the borders of a sovereign state, the spotlight was on Russia and China, both veto-wielding permanent members. On the Syria issue, China and Russia had vetoed four separate UN Security Council resolutions since 2011.

The Chinese way

The Chinese policy on extremism and terrorism for years has been to avoid becoming a target for terrorists by not drawing too much attention on its policies both internal and external. However recent incidents such as those involving Turkey and Thailand over Uyghur asylum seekers have not kept the spotlight away even from internal issues.

China has experienced its citizens being victims of terrorist violence overseas but dealing with IS maybe a new ball game. In the case of Fan Jinghui, China had kept the reporting of the kidnapping by media under wraps. With Russia and France reacting so aggressively in response to attacks on their citizens, China may have to revisit its response particularly since appears to be a demand for “action” from the Chinese people.

While China is being accused of using the Paris attacks to suppress internal dissent, it finds itself guilty of the same lapses as the French, in failing to bring in some flexibility in its attitude towards religion and integrating its minorities. China as a part of its counter-terrorism policy in Xinjiang has been discouraging − and sometimes banning − expressions of Islamic faith such as fasting during Ramadan, wearing burqas. These have been largely viewed as excessive and counterproductive by analysts.

The challenge of dealing with terrorism at home and abroad stares the Chinese policy makers in the face as the country’s quest for energy and economic security takes its citizens and investments to West Asia, North Africa and other global terrorism hotspots. There is also this realisation that, this is one battle, it cannot fight alone.

However decision to join the a larger alliance against terrorism would require it to balance other strategic issues such as the South China Sea and factor in the possibility of facing terror threats in other parts of the world, where groups allied to the IS and al-Qaida operate.

*Monish Gulati is the Associate Director (Strategic Affairs) at the Society for Policy Studies. He can be reached at: mgulati@spsindia.in. This article was published by South Asia Monitor.

At one time, Russia , China and Cuba were considered as the torch bearers of world communist movement. Several parties and groups in other countries received their inspiration from the leadership of the communist parties of these countries.

Now, the world communist movement appear to have lost it’s sense of direction and looks like being caught in the wilderness , as the one time leader of communist movement namely Russia gave up the communist philosophy in toto and reversed it’s approach to the methodology of governance. Though China continues to claim that it is a communist country, everyone know that it is no more so for all practical purposes. Many believe that at present, China’s approach to governance is more capitalist oriented than a few of the capitalist countries themselves.

Neither communism nor democracy in China

Of course, China does not have a credible democratic form of governance and it is ruled by the so-called communist party, which does not follow anymore the philosophy of communism, as it was originally conceived and evolved.

In China, the so-called ruling communist party is really nothing more than an organized group that does not permit any other political party to evolve and exist and is virtually a dictatorship by group of people. As dissent is often suppressed with great force, there is now neither democracy nor communism in China.

No more conflict of interest between Cuba and USA

The governance in Cuba, once a highly focused communist country, has also undergone a sea change, with the relationship between USA and Cuba becoming more friendly and perhaps with Cuba not anymore seeing a conflict of interest or focus with regard to the type of governance with that of USA. Instead of the state ownership of all production machinery and systems, Cuba is also now inviting private investments, which is the negation of communist philosophy.

Directionless communism in other regions

In a few countries like India, communist parties do exist, but look to be direction-less, as they do not have role model governance depicting communism in true sense anywhere in the world.

Why has the communist movement collapsed?

Obviously, the world communist movement virtually collapsed because the once communist countries like Russia, China and Cuba virtually functioned as a dictatorship of a group and thrived on denying freedom to the people, as well as a ruthless suppression of independent thinking and contrary ideas of the common man. Certainly, this sort of governance is bound to collapse sooner or later, as it is against the basic and fundamental aspirations of any individual with regard to freedom of thought and action.

The failure of the communist movement happened, as the communist leadership in different countries went into the hands of group of dictators who mistakenly thought that the freedom of individuals cannot coexist in a communist country. The tight-fisted control by self-centered dictatorship-like-governances, effectively prevented the evolution and fine-tuning of the communist philosophy in  line with the aspirations of the people for political and social liberty, as well as economic comfort.

Unfortunately, the practice of communist philosophy did not go into the hands of an enlightened leadership, with the capability to align communist philosophy with the people’s aspiration for freedom.

Basic philosophy remains relevant

While the visible battle between communist and non-communist forms of governance no longer exists, this scenario should not make anyone conclude that communist philosophy as such has lost it’s sense of relevance.

The basic philosophy of communism, which pledges to uplift the poor and downtrodden and prevent the exploitation of the poor and deprived persons by the rich, continues to remain relevant. This is particularly so in the present world context, where several countries particularly in Africa. remain impoverished and millions of people around the world do not know where their next meal will come from.

What has failed is not communist philosophy as such reflected by it’s objectives. The objective of the communist philosophy of standing by the cause of poor and downtrodden cannot become obsolete and irrelevant, when millions of people live below the poverty level.