By Daniella Peled*

An expert witness in the trial of Ratko Mladic told judges this week that all three parties to the war committed ethnic cleansing and that it was “absurd” to focus solely on Bosnian Serb actions.

Historian Milos Kovic was tasked by the defence with analysing reports written by prosecution experts Robert Donia and Patrick Treanor. Their evidence focused on events in Sarajevo, the activities of the Bosnian Serb parliament and the wartime actions of the leadership.

Kovic’s submission to the court alleged there was “inherent bias” in Donia’s findings and that they relied on “facts taken out of their historical, geopolitical and chronological context, selectivity in supporting literature, use of double standards and omission of crucial information and data”.

He also criticised Treanor’s “one-sided use of sources, factual inaccuracies and non-inclusion of relevant context”. Both authors, he concluded, failed to satisfy “basic academic standards”.

Prosecutor Arthur Traldi put it to Kovic that he himself had been highly partial in his own report.

For instance, in one section Kovic included a quote from General Michael Rose, then commander of UNPROFOR (the United Nations peacekeeping force), about Bosnian government intransigence.

Traldi said that Kovic had chosen not to include Rose’s preceding sentence which had dealt with the behaviour of the Bosnian Serb army (VRS).

“It’s the VRS that was threatening the nascent state of Bosnia’s survival in 1992, right?” he asked.

“You know what? Separatists and secessionists amongst the leadership of the Muslims and Croats… took part in the destruction of the state of Yugoslavia,” Kovic replied. “With their paramilitary units they attacked regular units, that is, the JNA, the regular units of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, so they jeopardised the existence of Yugoslavia.”

Traldi went on to probe him further, asking, “Did you mention at any point in either report what happened to the non-Serbs that lived in the territory that the Bosnian government had lost?”

The witness replied that his sole task as an expert witness was “analysing the report of Robert Donia and Patrick Treanor, and there is no reference to that in this report”.

Traldi asked the witness whether he agreed with the statement made in Treanor’s report that the Bosnian Serbs “engaged in ethnic cleansing”.

“No, I contest it,” Kovic replied, adding that “the ethnic cleansing by the other sides is not even mentioned. I called that conclusion absurd and [Treanor’s report] says the VRS was arming its followers in the autumn of 1991, with complete silence covering the prior arming of the HDZ [Croatian Democratic Union] and SDA [Bosnian Party of Democratic Action]”.

“Do you contest that, as he says, the Bosnian Serbs engaged in ethnic cleansing during 1992, yes or no?” asked Traldi again.

Kovic repeated that ethnic cleansing was committed “by all three sides” in the Bosnian war.

Traldi noted that the witness had emphasised the importance of citing a variety of sources in any historical analysis.

“The most authoritative sources to evaluate whether General Mladic intended or planned that ethnic cleansing – those are his own words, right?” he asked.

Kovic disagreed.

“You cannot write the history of the events of Bosnia-Herzegovina based on one source, you have to compare it with other sources,” he said. “I should like, Prosecutor sir, if you had given us quotes by [Bosnian presidency member Ejup] Ganic or Abu Hamza al Masri, the mujahedin who was fighting on the side of the Bosnian Muslims, and then I could answer your questions.”

“I understand that you would rather repeat the names of Muslim figures,” Traldi said. “What would Abu Hamza’s notes tell you about General Mladic’s intent?”

“In history, there is no action that takes place without some cause,” the witness replied. “All history of war is the history of action and reaction between warring parties.”

The prosecutor turned to a wartime interview with Mladic which was published in the Belgrade magazine NIN under the title “I am Just a Soldier”.

Asked about the reason for the conflict, Mladic said in the interview, “We all know who the Turks are. As a matter of fact these Muslims are not even Turks, they are converts, they’ve betrayed the Serb people and repressed them for 500 years. That was the worst scum, the Serb people who changed their religion.”

“This is the sort of statement that would assist a historian in evaluating General Mladic’s intent and purpose, right?” Traldi asked.

“In war that is called war propaganda,” the witness responded. “What was stated in an interview to a publication called NIN is proof of nothing that happened on the ground, our people often say things they don’t mean…words are one thing, actions are another.”

Traldi then read from a report by the Bosnian Serb army’s Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, drafted in 1994 and signed by Luka Dragicevic, then commander of the 2nd Podrinje Brigade.

This document said that Serbs were “genetically better, stronger, more handsome and cleverer. Try to remember how many Muslims there were among the top ten pupils, students or soldiers – only a few. Why? Because they are ‘poturice’ [derogatory term for Muslim converts] and only the weakest of the Serbs became ‘poturice’.”

“Now what we see here is the dissemination of General Mladic’s attitudes, as expressed in that earlier interview, through the organ for morale to troops in the VRS, right?” Traldi said.

The witness once again insisted that this was “only one fragment” of history.

“This is the fragment you’re currently being asked about. Are you able to answer the question?” the prosecutor responded.

“This is only part of the facts about the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Kovic said.

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie intervened to remind the witness that he must answer the questions put to him by the prosecution.

“If you consistently insist not to answer the questions, then we have to think about how to deal with your testimony,” Judge Orie said.

After some more debate over the authenticity of the source, and another intervention by Judge Orie, the witness agreed that the quote from the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps report corresponded to what Mladic had said in his NIN interview.

“There is a certain similarity, you don’t need a historian to tell you that,” Kovic replied.

Prosecutors allege that Mladic is responsible for crimes of genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and forcible population transfer which “contributed to achieving the objective of the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory”. He is accused of the massacre of more than 7,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995, and of planning and overseeing the siege of Sarajevo that left nearly 12,000 people dead.

*Daniella Peled is an IWPR editor in London. This article was published at IWPR’s TRI Issue 880.

By Hajar Huseynova*

After four years of relative stability at around 110 USD per barrel, crude oil prices have fallen dramatically over the past eighteen months. The ongoing decline in oil prices, and the certainty that they will not increase in the short term, have triggered discussions on the potential impact on Azerbaijan’s alternative and renewable energy (ARE) industry. Low oil prices have previously affected various countries around the globe; for example the collapse of oil prices in the 1980s led to the dismantling of renewable energy programs in many countries. A key question now is how long this decline will continue, and whether greater benefit lies in buying cheap oil or investing in renewable energy sector. However, there is not an established link between the decline of oil prices and the competitiveness of renewable energy. The only clear thing is that the decrease in the former will negatively affect investment in the latter.

In the case of Azerbaijan, the oil sector has played a major role in boosting Azerbaijan’s economic development over the last decade and its contribution to the GDP of the country has remained between 30-55 percent overall.

The declining oil prices definitely affects the country’s GDP, and the reduced investment opportunities raises questions about RE sector development. This brief provides an overview of renewable energy developments in Azerbaijan.

Analysis

Azerbaijan is known as an oil and gas country with extensive renewable energy potential. Wind, solar and hydropower in particular hold promising capacity. Technically feasible wind energy is equal to 2.4 billion kWh, and estimated solar energy output could reach around 16 billion kWh. In addition, the hydropower plants (HPP) are the country’s second largest electricity generators, with the potential to contribute up to 14.6 per cent of total national electricity output.

Changes in Azerbaijan renewable energy policy

Figure 1. The expected share of each RE sector in Azerbaijan’s 2020 development plan

In fact, prior to the tremendous decline in oil prices, the Azerbaijani government was focusing on the development of renewable energy potential. The first step was aimed at providing for domestic energy consumption.

The turning point came in 2012, with the adoption of the state strategic devel- opment strategy for 2020. The huge RE potential in Azerbaijan was outlined, and the document set a goal for 2020: to achieving 20 percent of electricity generation and 9.7 percent of overall energy. Accordingly, the expected share of each RE sector within this 20 percent is 40 per cent solar, 28 per cent wind, 16 percent solid waste and biomass, 8 percent hydropower and 4 percent for geothermal and solar thermal each. (Figure 1).

Despite the drop in oil prices, the government has continued to support the further development of the RE sector in order to achieve the 2020 goals. In his speech in August 2015, President Aliyev once again highlighted the necessity of diversification.

The diversification of domestic energy consumption and development of renewable energy potential is aimed at achieving two goals:
The first goal is to increase the contribution of renewable energy domestic electric consumption. In 2014, there were gradual improvements in this regard. Overall electricity consumption constituted 16,907 mln kWh; solar and wind energy provided 5.2 mln kWh electricity and the overall share of renewable energy (hydro, solar and wind) in the grid system was increased to 5.2 per cent. In comparison with two years earlier, the contributions of solar and wind energy have increased, but at the same time the share of HPPs has decreased. (Table 1)

Table 1. Electricity generation in Azerbaijan (mln kWh)

However, according to an SSC (State Statistic Committee of Azerbaijan) report the renewables’ share in the energy market has dropped, and constituted less than one percent in October 2015.

This decline shows the vulnerability of the renewable sector in Azerbaijan, as a recently developed energy sector. The slow progress towards the first goal is the result of multiple problems, including technical issues and partly the lack of an institutional regulatory framework to support renewable energy.

The government has launched some reform plans for the electricity sector, for instance, with Azernerji JSC, a state owned energy sector leader.

In early 2015, a new company (Azerishiq OJSC) was created to sell power and maintenance activities. This demonstrates the need to improve the institutional capacity of the structures that are dealing with the renewable energy issues.

Figure 2. SAARES Budget: 2010-2015

The second goal has two dimensions. The first is structural change. One of the achievements in this regard was the establishment of The State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources (SAARES) in 2009 to drive development and change public attitudes to RE in Azerbaijan. One issue was that during the first three years, its budget was only included administrative costs (Figure 2); however as of 2013 the agency also has a budget for implementing projects in the ARE sector.

As Figure 2 demonstrates, the budget is growing annually and was approximately 6 million AZN in 2015. Along with internal institutional optimization, Azerbaijan also implements RE projects internally as well as in cooperation with its neighboring countries. The new wind energy plant in Yeni Yashma and a small HPP in Shaki in cooperation with the EU, UNDP, Norwegian government and SAARES are examples of SAARES’ projects. Additionally, according to SAARES, a 50 megawatt capacity wind plant will be connected to the grid system in 2015.

The other dimension is increasing investment in the renewable sector. Despite SAARES’ increased budget, the decline in oil prices means that the Azerbaijani government’s main focus is gaining foreign investment and/or increasing cooperation at the regional and international levels in order to develop renewable energy sector. Last year, notably, Azerbaijan started negotiations with its Iran, Turkey and Georgia on the cooperation of ARE projects. Additionally, Azerbaijan intends to collaborate with Serbia, Portugal and Germany in the RE sector.

Azerbaijan and Iran established a working group in July 2015, aimed at the implementation of joint renewable energy projects, information and experience sharing between the two countries, and jointly attracting investors. The main focus is on developing joint geothermal energy, wind and hydropower plants. Currently, Azalternativenerji LLC is about to establish wind turbines in Khaf, Iran. The cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran on ARE started in November 2014. Given that the countries are mainly planning to collaborate on hydropower and geothermal energy, the MoU also covers the management of transboundary river banks.

Additionally, Azalternativenerji LLC, the Azerbaijan state company under the auspices of SAARES, signed a three-year long MoU with Turkish oil company Turcas Petrol in July 2015 on developing joint ARE projects in both countries. The cooperation is focused on solar, wind and geothermal energy sources, intended to contribute to the energy supply security of both countries. Discussions of RE collaboration with Georgia are also ongoing. Recently, the chairman of SAARES, Akim Badalov visited Georgia and met with the Energy Minister of Georgia. During the meeting, potential cooperation areas such as establishment of hydropower and hybrid power plants were discussed. The establishment of a bilateral working group on the alternative energy sector is anticipated.

These various bilateral and multilateral negotiations alongside the continued levels of investment in renewable energy indicates that the development of the RE sector remains a key priority. But in the short term, the indicator of success will be whether the government allocates more space in the budget for investment, and also how successful Baku is in attracting foreign investment to this sector. The impact of structural changes on the domestic energy market will be another indicator.

Conclusion

To conclude, considering the intermittent character and vulnerability of renewable energy sources, together with the established position of fossil fuels in the domestic energy market, the decline in oil prices has had relatively little impact on this sector. Moreover, fluctuations in oil prices once again highlight the importance of non-conventional energy sources, both in fossil-fuel rich and energy dependent countries.

Therefore, the implementation of RE projects and cooperation with other countries is a positive sign in terms of RE sector development in Azerbaijan. However, while there is official state interest in developing the RE sector – demonstrated by, inter alia, increasing the SAARES budget for implementing ARE related projects, there remain obstacles. These include the established position of conventional electricity generation in Azerbaijan, low returns on investment in renewables, weak promotion of renewables in the country, lack of clear regulations for renewables, and the absence of a smart grid system. All these factors provide for challenging market conditions for renewables. Thus in order to ensure development, ways forward include: additional financial support through FDIs and development organizations, local market optimization to boost investment in RE, establishment of clear regulations for a smart grid system, and awareness raising.

About the author:
*Ms. Hajar Huseynova, Research Assistant specializing in Renewable Energy and Environmental issues at the Caspian Center for Energy and Environment of ADA University.

Source:
This article was published by CCEE as Policy Brief Series 20 (PDF)

By Rasheed Abou-Alsamh*

The bloody attack in San Bernardino, California, this week by Syed Rizwan Farook, 28 years old, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, left 14 dead and 21 wounded, and was apparently inspired by the terrorist group Daesh, to which Malik pledged allegiance to on Facebook, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

It is shocking and sad to see yet another mindless surge of violence visited upon innocent civilians in the West all supposedly in the name of Islam. But what sort of Muslims were Farook and Malik to have been so deluded into thinking that it was OK and the right thing to do, massacring and injuring so many of Farook’s work colleagues, including a fellow Muslim, who thankfully survived the attack?

And the couple left behind a six-month-old daughter, leaving her with Farook’s parents minutes before they shot to death the workers and patients who had come together at an end-of-the-year party.

They lied to Farook’s parents, saying they had to go to a doctor’s appointment. Farook attended the beginning of the party, acting normal, but then left and returned with his wife, both wearing flak jackets, masks and carrying large amounts of ammunition that they used in the attack.

From this it is clear that this was a well-planned attack, not a spur of the moment reaction to a possible misunderstanding that Farook could have had at the party with one of his coworkers. The FBI later found at least 12 pipe bombs in their home, large amounts of ammunition and supplies to make bombs. Obviously this couple were not the calm and nice husband and wife that everyone thought they were.

The FBI believes that the couple was most likely inspired by Daesh, and not acting on their direct orders. Daesh had in the past few months stopped calling for American Muslims to come fight in Syria, instead encouraging them to commit acts of violence at home in the United States.

Perhaps this is what Farook and Malik did, but it will probably be impossible to get a definitive answer since they deleted their digital trails, destroyed their cellphones and spoke very little to family members about their innermost thoughts and intentions.

So how to explain this orgy of violence, first a few weeks ago in Paris and now in San Bernardino? One western researcher of Islam and radicalism is the French academic Olivier Roy, who according to Emma-Kate Symons writing in Quartz.com believes that these attacks are a symptom of the alienation and generational gap that young Muslims in the West are experiencing. “Young men in their 20s and 30s committing mass murder and suicide in the name of Allah, the political scientist argues, are extreme manifestations of a ‘generational nihilistic radicalized youth revolt’ that is ‘more about the Islamization of radicalism than the radicalization of Islam,’” writes Symons.

Roy contends that this is a generalized youth revolt, and that those involved in the Paris attacks were of Arab origin but not religious. This is true, but Farook and Malik were both deeply observant Muslims, praying five times a day. Farook did not date American women, and found his bride on a Muslim matrimonial site online. So it seems that the siren-call of Daesh is being listened to by both frustrated, non-religious youth of Arab origin in Europe, and by apparently observant Muslims in the US.

This is where the leaders of the Muslim communities in the West must become alarmed and react quickly against the propaganda of Daesh, which turns the hurt feelings of some Muslims living in the West, of being discriminated against, into a destructive force that kills innocent civilians.

They must argue that Allah does not want his followers to kill civilians indiscriminately, and that the message of Islam is of peaceful coexistence with persons of other religions. If we do not embark on this urgent mission immediately, Muslims and Islam are forever going to be thought of as being intrinsically linked to violence in the minds of non-Muslims. The attacks of 9/11 have already produced so much anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and elsewhere. Let us not allow Daesh to do even more damage to Islam’s reputation.

*The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.

A Jordanian-American man was arrested Sunday after he tried to tamper with the emergency exit on a Lufthansa flight to Belgrade, Serbia, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for the German carrier said the male passenger kept changing seats and began tampering with the emergency exit about an hour after takeoff from Frankfurt.

Crew members and passengers restrained him, the spokesman added, and the man remained calm for the rest of the flight.

“There was no threat to the safety of the flight,” the spokesman told Reuters.

Serbian police arrested the Jordanian, who held an American passport, after the plane landed.

Original article

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health has assured citizens and residents that the H1N1 flu is a seasonal illness and is not one of the new epidemics.

H1N1 flu is one kind of human influenza and has no link to pigs or any other animal, said Faisal Al-Zahrani, the ministry spokesman.

The ministry called on both print and social media to report accurately and get information from reliable sources.

The ministry expressed its readiness to respond to any enquiry as soon as possible in order to maintain health security and prevent panic among the public.

The ministry did say, however, that the H1N1 virus is an infectious illness but that there is a treatment for the infected person and a way to prevent the illness among those who come in contact with the infection.

There is an effective vaccine given annually that prevents occurrence of the illness and minimizes its symptoms, the Ministry said.

The ministry advised citizens and residents to take the H1N1 flu vaccine which is available at government hospitals, medical centers as well as in private sector hospitals.

The ministry is working to vaccinate the largest possible number of citizens and residents, notably those who are vulnerable such as persons with chronic diseases, pregnant women, children (6 months to 5 years), and the elderly.

Flu symptoms vary from one person to another but in general, they include cough, fever, sore throat, headache and fatigue.

(RFE/RL) — Germany on December 6 deported an Australian man who joined a Kurdish militia group to fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

Australia’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Ashley Dyball was deported after being detained in Germany during a break from fighting as part of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

He was expected to arrive in Australia late on December 6.

Dyball, who also uses the alias Mitchell Scott, posted on Facebook on December 4 that he had been charged as a terrorist and was being sent to the Eisenhuettenstadt Detention Center near Germany’s border with Poland.

The Brisbane man has been fighting against IS militants since early 2015.

It was not immediately clear if Dyball would be subject to penalties under Australian laws aimed against citizens who join IS, but call for punishment of those who fight for foreign militant forces.

Dyball’s parents have called for an amnesty.

Extremely rare and hidden in the forests of the Andes, there are still new snake species left to find. This has recently been evidenced by the colubrid serpent, described for the first time in the present article. Moreover, there is the vicious circle enwrapping its relatives: the harder it is to find more specimens, the tougher it is to describe and thus, start to identify them, which does not help in mapping their distribution and habitats.

To address this issue, Dr. R. Alexander Pyron, The George Washington University, and his international research team have included a taxonomic review and discussion on the relationships and origin within a non-venomous snake tribe in a paper, published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Slender and small, the new species, called Synophis zaheri, measures less than 40 cm in length, or between 351 and 372 mm. Contrasting to its slim body with a distinct neck, separating the head from the body, its eyes are large and bulging, making up for more than a third of its head. Being black in colour, it is hard to tell the pupil and the iris apart. While the upper part of the body is grayish-brown with an iridescent sheen, the abdominal side stands out with its yellowish-white coloration.

Typically for the tribe, where the new species has been placed, it is also characterized with a highly modified spine and an enlarged scale row running over it. This is also where the name of this group of snakes comes from with “Diaphorolepidini” consisting of the Greek words for “differentiated” and “scales”. Not so clear, however, is the name of the genus, which the authors have translated also from Greek as “with snake”, but find themselves unaware of the meaning behind. The species is named after Dr. Hussam El-Dine Zaher, a Brazilian herpetologist whose work has been foundational for South American snakes.

In conclusion, the scientists note that the rarity of the observed snake species, especially the genus, where the new serpent belongs, accounts for the unclear species-boundaries as well as for the myriad of undescribed species. “Dipsadine diversity in the Andes is clearly underestimated, and new species are still being discovered in the 21st century,” they point out.

We now know this. A young man who had successfully killed on a large scale went to his religious leader with doubts and was told that mass killing was part of God’s plan. The young man continued killing until he had participated in killing sprees that took 1,626 lives — men, women, and children.

I repeat: his death count was not the 16 or 9 or 22 lives that make top news stories, but 1,626 dead and mutilated bodies. Do such things bother you?

What if you learned that this young man’s name was Brandon Bryant, and that he killed as a drone pilot for the U.S. Air Force, and that he was presented with a certificate for his 1,626 kills and congratulated on a job well done by the United States of America? What if you learned that his religious leader was a Christian chaplain?

Do such things still bother you?

What if you learned that most of the people killed by U.S. drones are civilians? That the pilots “double-tap,” meaning that they send a missile into a wedding party or a house and then wait for people to try to help the injured and send a second missile into them? That as a result one hears the injured screaming for hours until they die, as no one comes to help? That a drone pilot sent a missile into a group of children from which three children survived who recognized their dead brothers but had no idea that various pieces of flesh were what was left of their Mom and Dad and consequently cried out for those now gone-forever individuals?

Is this troubling?

What if President Obama’s claim of few or no civilian deaths was proven false by well-documented reporting? And by the fact that most victims are targeted without even knowing their names?

What if a leading candidate for president in the past week were to both declare that the way to win a war is to start killing whole families, and stage a public Christian prayer session in order to win over a certain demographic of voters?

Is that bothering?

What if it became clear that police officers in the United States have been murdering people at a higher rate than drone pilots? Would you want to see police videos of their killings? Would you want to see drone videos of their killings? We have thus far gained limited access to the former and none to the latter.

What if it were discovered that gun murders in San Bernardino are almost routine. Would they all be equally tragic?

My point is not to cease caring about the tragedy that the television stations tell you to care about. I wish everyone would care 1,000 times more, and even better do something to take away the guns and the hatred and the culture of violence and the economic injustice and the alienation.

My point is that there are other tragedies that go unmentioned, including larger ones. And exploiting one tragedy to fuel hatred toward a large segment of the human population of earth is madness.

By his actions, Vladimir Putin has diverted the world’s attention away not only from the Ukrainian crisis he created but also from an earlier one – his invasion of the Republic of Georgia in 2008 and his unilateral recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

But no one should forget that one of the purposes of a diversion is to prevent others from responding in a timely fashion to what those who have created it may plan to do. That possibility is constantly on the minds of those who are concerned about Ukraine. It is much less often on those of people worried about what may come next in the Caucasus.

A conference in Tskhinvali last week on “Ossetia: Society and Politics in the Context of Global Challeges” should be a wake-up call because the statements of its participants suggest that support is growing there, and likely in Russia as well, for the annexation of South Ossetia by the Russian government (rusplt.ru/society/rossiya-ili-smert-20078.html).

According to Yana Amelina, the secretary of the pro-Kremlin Caucasus Geopolitical Club, the meeting underscored that in the face of the current threats to the region, “South Ossetia has only one way out – to jump on the passing train, that is, to become part of the Russian Federation.”

Amelina has been an advocate of this step for some time, but her report on the meeting in which she participated, suggests that support for that idea is growing in South Ossetia – and quite likely in the Russian Federation as well. Otherwise, in today’s climate, it would be unlikely that a Russian outlet would give this trend so much play.

South Ossetia today, Aleksandr Sergeyev, the author of “Contemporary South Ossetia: Lessons and Challenges” and one of the speakers at the conference, said that it was one of the “most vulnerable” places in the region because “it is one of the key points of all-Russian civilization which nonetheless has not been completely integrated in the Russian state organism.”

It was precisely here, Sergeyev continued that “in 2008, Russia threw a global challenge to the collective West and this has not been forgotten or forgiven. Our enemies will beat on this point.” Russia would be far better positioned to defend South Ossetia if it were “a part of Russia’ than if it remained outside the borders of the Russian Federation.

“Presssure on Russia (and this means on South Ossetia as its advanced post in the Trans-Caucasus) will grow both from the West and from radical Islamist movements,” Amelina observes; and the convergence of these two factors means that South Ossetia must find a better defense than it has at present.

That is especially the case because there is now a pro-Georgian lobby in Moscow which wants to promote tourism and business in Georgia and thus is putting out the message in Russian media that Moscow needs to develop better relations with Tbilisi, a move that would inevitably weaken South Ossetia, several participants in the conference said.

“The Caucasus potentially is at the epicenter of events which can develop very quickly and in unpredictable directions,” Amelina observes. That is increasingly being recognized by regional experts and with regard to South Ossetia, it is focusing attention on the choice between being an independent state or, together with North Ossetia, part of the Russian Federation.

The president of South Ossetia clearly believes that “global risks” means that South Ossetia needs to be part of Russia. That is part of a more general development in the region, Amelina suggests. In Armenia, ever more people are talking about including Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia “not just de facto but de jure” in order to defend it.

According to Amelina, South Ossetia is in “a much more complex situation” and therefore the choice should be clearer to everyone. Those who say South Ossetia must develop first forget that Russia is paying for everything now and that South Ossetia has not taken many of the steps a real state needs to take to survive.

Kosta Dzugayev, a local political analyst, told the meeting that “our only way out is to get in the passing train, that is, to join Russia. ‘Russia or death’ – that is our bitter reality,” he concluded.

Amelina says that one major force pushing for unity is the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Its clergy are warning people of the dangers surrounding them and thus helping to convince South Ossetians that their only prospects for survival are within the borders of the Russian Federation.

In concluding her report, Amelina suggested that she has no doubt, given what South Ossetians have been able to do in the past that “in the final analysis, Tskhinvali will make the only correct choice” – that is to join Russia rather than to remain an independent but largely unrecognized state.

Everybody within the area of South-East Europe older than 35 years know the famous song from Tito’s time: “From river Vardar up to mountain Triglav“1, which today has become just folklorist nostalgia without any political articulation, but at the same time the title of the song has been implemented directly and severely…within the area of criminal and nationalism (read: chauvinism) activity.

Once upon a time a former2 friend of mine told me a story: In ancient Bosnian villages there existed a custom of so-called Dancing with Wolves3, when a group of people gathered and among them there was also somebody who had the task of preparing a good lath, even a bat, which had, in its ending (upper one, titled Melee) a special twisted part that was extremely painful for the one who was beaten. Nevertheless, that group would find a victim who would be beaten the same night — after which the person would become a third category cripple. He or She could not recover from that beating for the rest of their life. Additionally, the victim had to observe silence about the beating. Because, whoever did the Dance with Wolves, meant that they did not have anything to do with Society and or the  State, but with, it is so obviously, instead a People’s court. In a nutshell, this showed that Society and/or the State could not solve the problem of the mentioned person.

What is the reason for this story to be written? Simple as it is – that in today’s current environment it would be more than welcomed a Dance of the above mentioned kind. Today there are so many sinful persons within the area of the former Yugoslavia4 that indeed there could be organized Festival of Dancing with Wolves, and even nowadays it could be an international one.

Talking about sin should be contradictio in adiecto because, when comparing with the Socialist period of time, out of 2.5 million people – members of Communist Party of Yugoslavia, just roughly 250,000 of them continue to support Social–Democrats (amazing how they define Social Democracy here – it is more neo-liberal organized anarchy) and the rest of them have become national party supporters.

When I write “national” I surely mean: nationalistic, chauvinistic and exclusive parties that are living within a cocoon of nonsense saying that their truth is the only one.

Also, if they (2,250,000 former members of Communist party of Yugoslavia plus at least another 1,000,000 “new born” members of above mentioned national parties out of a population of 23 million in the area) really follow up the words from the Book (Bible and or Holy Koran) they would love their neighbor, say the truth all the time and live honest and dissent lifes.

Unfortunately, the real truth is exactly the opposite, just as reflected within the question that I have asked, at the end of a one hour interview conducted by a female journalist for the local Cable TV Hema in Sarajevo, back in 2012: If religion means honesty, love and decent living, why then we nowadays don’t we have more believers and fewer sinners and thieves?

She did not answer me.

Maybe, the answer is within…Dancing with Wolves.

Notes:
1. River Vardar is in Macedonia and Mountain Triglav is in Slovenia
2. His name is Edhem, eloquent economist from small town of Turbe nearby city of Travnik in Central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Political reasons has stopped our friendship – that is the answer – simple as it is.
3. Kevin Costner does not have anything to do, God forbid, with mentioned.
4. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo*, Macedonia

A little-noticed provision in the highway funding bill Congress passed this week threatens a right most Americans take for granted: the right to travel abroad. The provision in question gives the Internal Revenue Service the authority to revoke the passport of anyone the IRS claims owes more than $50,000 in back taxes.

Congress is giving the IRS this new power because a decline in gas tax receipts has bankrupted the federal highway trust fund. Of course, Congress would rather squeeze more money from the American people than reduce spending, repeal costly regulations, or return responsibility for highway construction to the states, local governments, and the private sector. On the other hand, most in Congress fear the political consequences of raising gas, or other, taxes. Giving the IRS new powers allows politicians to increase government revenue without having to increase tax rates. Some even brag about how they are “cracking down on tax cheats.”

Pro-IRS politicians ignore how this new power will punish Americans who have actually paid all the taxes they are legally obligated to pay. This is because the provision does not provide taxpayers an opportunity to challenge a finding that they owe back taxes in federal court before their passport is revoked. Because IRS employees are not infallible, it is inevitable that many Americans will lose their right to travel because of a bureaucrat’s mistake.

It is particularly odd that a Republican Congress would give this type of power to the IRS considering the continuing outrage over IRS targeting of “Tea Party” organizations. This is hardly the first time the IRS has been used to intimidate its opponents and/or powerful politicians. Presidents of both parties have used the IRS to target political enemies.

For example, one of the articles of impeachment brought against Richard Nixon dealt with his attempt to have the IRS audit those Nixon perceived as political enemies. During the 1990s, an IRS agent allegedly told the head of an organization supporting then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, “What do you expect when you target the President?” Can anyone doubt that some Americans will be targeted because an IRS bureaucrat does not approve of their political beliefs and activities?

Some support giving the IRS new powers because they think that those who underpay their taxes somehow raise everyone else’s taxes. This argument assumes that the federal government must collect the maximum amount of taxes because the people cannot do without big government. Of course the truth is that the people would be better off without the welfare-warfare state. Wouldn’t we be better off without a national health care program that increases health care costs, or without a war on terrorism that led to the rise of ISIS? Freeing the people from taxation, including the regressive and hidden inflation tax, is just one of the many ways the people will benefit from restoring constitutionally limited government.

As the federal debt increases and the American economy declines, an increasingly desperate Congress will look for new ways to squeeze more revue from taxpayers. Thus, the IRS will increasingly gain new and ever more tyrannical powers over Americans, including new restrictions on the right to travel or even move capital out of the country. The only way to end the IRS’s assault on our liberties is for the people to force Congress to stop looking for new ways to pick our pockets, and instead usher in a new era of liberty, peace, and prosperity by demolishing the welfare-warfare state.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

Italy is facing a swift and dramatic collapse of the institution of marriage, according to a prominent Italian demographer and statistician.

“We were in bad shape in 2009, and we are worse off – there’s no getting around it – five years later,” wrote Roberto Volpi in an article last month for the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano.

Volpi has directed Italy’s public office of statistics and planned the National Center for Documentation and Analysis of Infancy and Adolescence. In 2009, he wrote, 230,613 marriages were celebrated in Italy. In 2014, the figure had fallen to 189,765.

“In the last five years we have lost 40,000, or 18 percent, of marriages. Those who see in the latest ISTAT dates on marriage and divorce a certification of (simply a) crisis of marriage are mistaken,” he said.

“Rather, marriage in Italy has truly and fully been routed, its ranks have broken…it is not merely a crisis. And it has been a long time coming.”

Volpi’s article was noted on Thursday by Italian vaticanista Sandro Magister, who commented that “marriage is racing toward extinction, and not only in nations where secularization has created a desert, but even in a country universally defined as familial and Catholic, such as Italy.”

Volpi wrote that in Italy not only has marriage failed to withstand the phenomenon of divorce in recent decades, it has been weakened more so than “in almost all over western European countries.”

Italy first allowed divorce in 1970, and Volpi noted that since then, the number of marriages, both religious and civil, have been in free-fall.

“The loss is even greater in the northern region where, today, there is little more than one religious wedding annually per 1,000 inhabitants,” he wrote, adding that in Milan the figure is 0.8.

“This is the picture. It further highlights two characteristics: sliding in great strides toward the insubstantiality of religious marriage, but also, at the same time, the incapacity of civil marriage … to attract into its orbit even a modest portion of the ‘missing’ religious marriages.”

Volpi added that “in other words, the institution of marriage itself is mired in Italy in a crisis which seems to have no escape, and this collapse is overwhelmingly borne by religious marriage, destined, at this pace, to literally disappear within the next two or three decades.”

He reflected that families are less and less shaped by marriage, either civil or religious, and that thus there is a “very little remembered” second element characterizing the situation of the family in Italy.

“The collapse of marriage did not leave things unchanged when it comes to families, even from a strictly quantitative view. There are many fewer families, today, in Italy.”

He reflected that while one may be led to believe that the lack of marriages and children has been made up for by cohabitation, it simply isn’t the case. He cited the number (7.7 million in 203) of single-person households.

“The decline of marriage has therefore corresponded, in Italy, to the weakening of family density and the reduction of the family even more conspicuously to its nuclear form.”

Volpi also observed that while the average age of a woman at marriage is now almost 33, the average age of childbearing is 31.

“In this reversal of the paradigm in which children follow marriage there is also, if not primarily, a reflection of the extreme separation, now occurring, between sexual relations on the one hand, and reproduction, namely children, on the other.”

By Darshana M Baruah*

On October 26, 2015, the Indian Navy released its latest maritime strategy, titled “Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy.” This edition is a revised and updated version of the previous outlined strategy “Freedom to Use the Seas: India’s Maritime Military Strategy,” published in 2007. The title itself is indicative of the changing tone of the Indian navy’s interests and intentions from the 2007 strategy. The previous strategy did not take into consideration the changing geopolitical environment and its strategic implications on India’s maritime interests. The 2015 maritime security strategy addresses this gap by complementing the evolving security dynamics in the Indian Ocean region and reflecting a bold Indian navy with a renewed outlook on India’s maritime security needs.

The security architecture in maritime Asia along with the rise of China is compelling India to define its strategic interests and review its maritime policy. The maritime security strategy precisely does the same. It carries a larger strategic angle than its predecessors and attempts to embody an Indian naval vision for the region.

There are three key points that underpin the shift in India’s naval strategy as per this document.

One, this is the first time that an Indian government document is formally acknowledging the implications of the evolving and increasingly accepted concept of the “Indo-Pacific” on India’s maritime security. The geographic extent of this concept has multiple variations but in the contemporary world, the notion essentially brings the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific — theaters of geo-political competition — into one strategic arc. The concept has been formally endorsed by Australia, and Canberra outlines the strategic implications of this region in its 2013 Defense White paper. Regional countries such as the United States, Japan, India, and Indonesia prefer to use the term Asia-Pacific in their official documents but different sections of the leadership from these countries have used the term Indo-Pacific in their speeches and remarks.

Indian Chief of Naval Staff RK Dhowan, underpinning the need to revise the 2007 maritime strategy, writes, “The shift in worldview from a Euro-Atlantic to an Indo-Pacific focus and the repositioning of global economic and military power towards Asia has resulted in significant political, economic and social changes in the Indian Ocean Region and impacted India’s maritime environment in tangible ways.”

India has been adamantly focused on the Indian Ocean and the security changes along its maritime boundaries. As developments beyond this region began to shape the maritime security framework in the Indian Ocean Region, there was a sense of uncertainty among regional navies as to whether India is taking note of these changes and, more importantly, if New Delhi will re-align its policies based on these developments. Nations such as the United States, Japan, and Australia had realized the role India could play in the evolving security architecture, but there was no clarity on New Delhi’s intentions. This edition of the Maritime Security Strategy is putting those concerns to rest, to a certain extent.

Two, the navy’s areas of interest (both primary and secondary) are expanding, reflecting New Delhi’s willingness to play a larger role in the region. The Red Sea, previously a secondary area of interest (as per the revised Maritime Doctrine of 2009), is now an area of primary interest for the Indian navy. Additionally, “the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden and their littoral regions, the Southwest Indian Ocean, including IOR island nations therein and East Coast of Africa littoral regions” now all are of primary interest to India’s maritime security. While Africa and its littoral regions previously were only of secondary importance, the Gulf of Oman, Aden and the South-West Indian Ocean did not feature specifically in either of the areas of interest in the Maritime Doctrine.

The secondary area too has expanded to include the “Southeast Indian Ocean, including sea routes to the Pacific Ocean and littoral regions in the vicinity, the Mediterranean Sea, the West Coast of Africa, and their littoral regions.” The South China Sea continues to remain of secondary importance, but adding to this interest is the specific region of the “East China Sea, Western Pacific Ocean and their littoral regions.”

In defining the areas of interest, the navy’s intention is to outline the geographic extension of its strategic influence and give an indication of its involvement in those areas. Over the years, India’s ASEAN friends have voiced their disappointment in New Delhi’s lack of naval and political presence in the South China Sea, against the backdrop of a rising China. This Maritime Strategy re-affirms India’s resolve to not get directly engaged in the affairs of the Western Pacific and get caught in the U.S.-China power politics dynamic. While ASEAN nations have shown a preference for a larger Indian presence in the Western Pacific, regional navies such as Australia and the United States have encouraged India to play a larger security role and be a “net security provider” in the region.

This brings us to the third and a critical development in India’s shifting naval strategy – the role of a net security provider. The Indian Navy in this document has attempted to define what it means to be a net security provider. The strategy outlines: “The term net security describes the state of actual security available in an area, upon balancing against the ability to monitor, contain, and counter all of these.” While the navy has not indicated the geographic extent of the region where it aspires to be a net security provider, it has however acknowledged the steps required to be a net security provider. The document does not state whether the navy will be a net security provider and how, but rather outlines the environment conducive to be one. In the backdrop of the region’s expectation for the Indian navy to be a net security provider, the step taken to spell out what the term means is a positive approach. The ‘objective’ for the moment is to “shape a favorable and positive maritime environment, for enhancing net security in India’s areas of maritime interest.”

This links us back to the first point, which is India’s move to acknowledge the changes happening around India’s area of maritime interest — regardless of whether the navy ascribes to them or not — and renew its own strategy keeping in line with India’s strategic interests.

The fact that there has been a shift in India’s maritime strategy and policies was made clear through the navy’s engagement under the Modi government. There was, however, no document per se spelling out this shift. The 2015 maritime strategy not only formalizes the intent of the Indian navy, it also takes a bold tone in narrating the same. Given the emphasis on collaborating with other navies, it is clear that part of the narrative is to build a network of regional cooperation to ensure peace and stability in India’s areas of interest. The document also recognizes the increasing importance of HADR operations for the Indian navy, given the expansion of India’s maritime outlook as well as capabilities.

Be it through the Joint Strategic Vision with the United States, Japan’s inclusion into the MALABAR exercises, new bilateral exercises with Japan, Indonesia, and Australia, or re-engaging with the island nations of the IOR and South Pacific, there is a clear message that India is willing to play a larger role in the unfolding security architecture in the region.

It was only a matter of time before New Delhi acknowledged the changing dynamics within its area of maritime interests. The initiatives taken under the Modi government to re-engage with the navies of the region are much appreciated and this document is a step forward in voicing India’s intentions and concerns regarding maritime security. If New Delhi can sustain the momentum that it has created in the Asian maritime domain, India will emerge as a credible leader and critical player in the evolving security architecture of the Indo-Pacific

*The writer is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

Courtesy: www.thediplomat.com

Jaafar Mohammed Saad, the Governor of Aden, Yemen, was killed Sunday in an attack on his convoy in the Tawahi district of Aden city.

The spokesperson of the EU’s Office of External Action, in a statement, noted, “This attack is the latest in a series of terrorist acts against local officials, captive military personnel – whether government forces or Houthi militia – and civilians, including worshippers.”

According to the statement, “Such a pattern demonstrates the urgency of putting an end to the current conflict through inclusive negotiations in order to quickly restore state authority and prioritize efforts to decisively tackle the spread of violent extremism and terrorism throughout Yemen.”

The EU renews its call on all parties to engage immediately without preconditions in UN-facilitated talks, the statement ended.

On the margins of the United Nations climate change conference (COP21) today, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the one hundred and thirty victims of the attacks which shook Paris almost one month ago.

Alongside the mayor of the city, Anne Hidalgo, Mr. Ban placed a bouquet of flowers in front of the Bataclan concert hall, and bowed his head. Tens of bystanders applauded the gesture, chanting “merci merci, Monsieur Ban Ki-moon.”

Next, the UN chief visited the “La Bonne Bière” restaurant, the first to be hit on 13 November and where five people lost their lives.

“Today, I too am Parisian,” said the Secretary-General sitting inside the café, with Mayor Hidalgo and other top UN officials. “I am very moved. To the families and loved ones of the five people who were killed here, and to all the victims of the barbaric attacks on 13 November, I present my sincere condolences.”

Drinking a coffee, he said Paris is a symbol of culture and of the “art of living,” and noted that the reopening of the café ten days ago is also symbol of resistance to terror.

“In this regard, the Government of France’s decision to maintain the UN climate change conference shows its determination to uphold the values of the United Nations: liberty, peace, equality and justice,” he said.

Earlier today Mr. Ban continued his work related to the UN climate change conference (COP21), meeting with African environmental ministers. He reiterated his belief that “Africa has an enormous stake in the conference’s success.”

“Your personal engagement and ownership are essential to securing the ambitious agreement that Africa’s people and the entire world need,” he told them. “Already, your leadership has helped make 2015 a year of opportunity.”

Meanwhile, this morning on the banks of the Seine, Mr. Ban visited the Tara, a scientific exploration research vessel which travels the world sampling water and collecting plankton, one of the planet’s major oxygen producers.

“For 10 years, Tara has sailed the oceans, monitoring the marine the changes in the ocean, particularly degradation of marine environment. They have been measuring and providing data to our scientific community to that we can better address climate change,” Mr. Ban told reporters.

On the Tara, the UN chief also spoke with a dozen children, who have family members working on the vessel.

“It is important that we must preserve our oceans healthy so that we can have a healthy and prosperous planet. Our planet is 70 per cent oceans. It is the basis of our life,” Mr. Ban stressed.

The Tara has been in Paris since November at the invitation of Mayor Hidalgo to raise awareness about COP21, and will remain on the Parisian banks through 18 December.

As the second and last week of the United Nations conference begins tomorrow, the UN chief also highlighted today that he is “optimistic and confident” that the world will have a universal and ambitious agreement, while urging Member States to look beyond their national boundaries.

Suppose you’ve been using some creative data, accounting and legal interpretations for years to reduce your tax bill – and the IRS suddenly flags you for a full-blown audit. Instead of trembling in your boots, shredding your records, calling a top-flight lawyer, and preparing for an extended jail visit, just do this:

Patiently explain that your raw data, records and other documents are your private property. Your legal analyses, accounting methods, and unique computer codes and algorithms are proprietary. The IRS has no right to see them. When the agents ask you questions, explain that you don’t recall any details. If they get testy or threaten you with arrest, just say you resent their intimidation tactics.

Absurd? A ticket to the slammer? Maybe not. Similar ploys worked for Lois Lerner and Hillary Clinton.

More to the point, they’ve worked like a charm for scientists who’ve received millions of tax dollars to crank out studies insisting that we face increasingly serious, previously unimaginable climate and weather cataclysms, because we use fossil fuels to power our economy, create jobs and improve living standards.

These studies do not merely sit on shelves. Politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, activists and scientists cite them to justify policies that require us to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions – and thus our energy use, employment rates and living standards. If the studies are biased, based on “homogenized,” exaggerated, manipulated or fabricated data, or result from garbage-in/garbage-out computer models – we need to know that, before expensive, destructive regulations are imposed on us. Or so we would think.

World leaders are meeting right now in Paris, often using absurd claims, and alarming reports, to forge a global treaty saying the world must eliminate 96% of the greenhouse gases that all humanity would likely release if we reach world population levels, economic growth and living standards predicted for 2050 – by steadily eliminating increasingly more energy efficient, low-carbon fuels and technologies.

Such reductions would mean slashing energy use and average world per capita GDP from its projected $30,600 in 2050 to a miserly $1,200 per year, says energy analyst Roger Bezdek. Average per capita GDP in 2050 would be less than what Americans “enjoyed” in 1830! Many futuristic technologies would still exist, but only wealthy families and ruling elites would be able to afford them.

Congress is therefore absolutely right to demand access to the raw data, accounting and data revision methodologies, computer codes and algorithms, emails and analytical methods that taxpayer-financed scientists and agencies used in developing and justifying EPA’s Clean Power Plan, NOAA’s declarations that various months were the “hottest on record,” claims that myriad disasters will occur if we don’t curb carbon dioxide emissions, and assertions that only a global treaty will save planet and humanity.

That’s why House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has asked NOAA director Kathryn Sullivan to turn over documents related to a study that claimed global warming has not stalled for almost 19 years, as satellite records show. The NOAA study adjusted sea-surface temperature data from a global network of buoys upward by 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.25 F), to “homogenize” the buoy data with records from engine intake systems on ships – and thereby create a previously undetected warming trend.

But the intake data were contaminated by heat from the ships, whereas the buoy network was designed for accurate environmental monitoring. A more honest, defensible study would have adjusted the ship data downward, to “homogenize” them with more reliable buoy data. But the feds needed a warming trend.

Smith has threatened to use “civil and/or criminal enforcement mechanisms” if the agency doesn’t provide the documents. The American Meteorological Society says these are “intimidation” tactics that unfairly question the integrity of NOAA scientists. However, Smith is right to defend to public interest in knowing that such studies are honest and credible.

After all, we taxpayers paid for them, and they are being used to promote policies that will affect our livelihoods, liberties, living standards and even life spans. If the scientists have nothing to hide, they should be happy to engage in a robust peer review – in essence, to defend their novel PhD thesis.

Instead, requests to see data or engage in discussion or debate are met with outright refusals. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has said she would “protect” her agency’s data, analyses and reports from people and organizations that she alone decides “are not qualified to analyze” the materials. The agency has implemented numerous costly regulations with no attempt to verify IPCC “science” or even consider the rules’ impacts on the health and welfare of families whose breadwinners will lose their jobs.

Other tax-funded groups have likewise refused to discuss their findings with climate disaster skeptics. Some have even asked the Justice Department to initiate RICO racketeering prosecutions of organizations that raise inconvenient questions about climate studies. The White House has enlisted virtually every US Government agency, including the Defense Department, in its determined effort to employ global warming claims to “fundamentally transform” the United States before President Obama leaves office.

We should not be surprised. Billions of dollars in annual US government grants and a $1.5-trillion-per-year climate crisis and renewable energy industry mean people will jealously guard their money trains.

EPA has paid members of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee $180.8 million since 2000. Grants from EPA and other federal agencies to the American Lung Association over the same period total $43 million, for rubberstamping and promoting government decisions on pollution and climate change.

Courts have let former U of Virginia researcher Michael Mann refuse to provide tax-funded data and emails, even to the former Virginia Attorney General, on the ground that they are proprietary. DMD (Data Manipulation Disease) is not confined to the USA or Britain’s Climate Research Unit. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has also “homogenized” temperature records so thoroughly that it was able to convert a cooling trend of 1 Celsius degree per century (1.8 F) into a 2.5 degree C (4.5 F) warming trend!

And now developing countries want $1 trillion from developed nations between 2020 and 2030, for climate “reparations and adaptation.” Otherwise the poor countries won’t sign any document drafted in Paris. Meanwhile, those (formerly) rich countries are expected to sacrifice their jobs, economic growth and tax revenues in the name of preventing climate and extreme weather catastrophes.

The EPA, NOAA, IPCC, CRU and Meteorology Bureau are acting like unethical prosecutors, determined to convict carbon dioxide of dangerous global warming by: basing their case on circumstantial evidence, allowing tainted evidence, hiding exculpatory evidence, and denying the defendant the right to present a defense, cross-examine adverse witnesses, or even offer testimony attesting to the good conduct and character of defendant – as a vital plant-fertilizing gas that makes all life on Earth possible.

Thankfully, it’s likely the Paris climate gabfest will result in little more than a lot of “sound and fury, signifying nothing” – except more dire fear-mongering about imminent planetary doom, lofty promises of intent to do something 15-20 years from now to prevent the crisis, and plans to fly 40,000 delegates and hangers-on to more meetings, in other delightful destinations replete with 5-star hotels and restaurants. Billions more will be wasted, but no binding CO2 targets will destroy energy systems and economies.

The US Senate will not approve or appropriate money for any emission reductions or climate reparations President Obama might agree to in Paris. EU nations cannot afford to do so, even if developing countries agree to binding emission goals – which they will never do. Poor nations would face open rebellion if they stopped using fossil fuels to lift billions out of abject poverty, or ceased building the 1,800+ coal-fired power plants that are under construction or in the planning process in their countries.

So maybe relax a little on Paris – but keep railing against destructive climate deals, wind and solar production tax credits, ethanol mandates and global warming con artists. However, don’t try using those climate scientist gambits with the Internal Revenue Service.
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(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Barack Obama has said the recent shooting attack in California that left 14 people dead was “a terrorist attack” and that the two shooters “had gone down the dark path of radicalization.”

Speaking in a primetime televised address from the White House — only his third such speech in nearly seven years as president — Obama said that the threat of terrorism has evolved into “a new phase” in recent years, but pledged that the extremist Islamic State (IS) terrorist group will be destroyed.

The 13-minute speech comes days after a married couple attacked a social-services center in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 21.

Obama called on Muslim communities around the world to reject radicalism and the IS ideology and to join in the fight against terrorism. He emphasized that there is no conflict between the West and Islam.

He said that the United States must not “live in fear” following the attack and must not turn on Muslims inside the country. Likewise, it must not impose religion-based restrictions on immigration.

Obama also called for tighter U.S. gun laws. He said people on the terrorist no-fly list should not be able to purchase assault weapons.

He said that the West’s current strategy of air strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria can achieve a sustainable victory and cautioned that the United States must avoid being drawn into a “long, costly ground war” in either country.

He said the United States is working closely with allies around the world in an effort to cut off IS’s sources of financing.

US President Barack Obama addressed the nation on December 6, 2015 following the recent terrorist attack in California that left 14 people. Following is the transcript as released by the White House.

*****

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. On Wednesday, 14 Americans were killed as they came together to celebrate the holidays. They were taken from family and friends who loved them deeply. They were white and black; Latino and Asian; immigrants and American-born; moms and dads; daughters and sons. Each of them served their fellow citizens and all of them were part of our American family.

Tonight, I want to talk with you about this tragedy, the broader threat of terrorism, and how we can keep our country safe.

The FBI is still gathering the facts about what happened in San Bernardino, but here is what we know. The victims were brutally murdered and injured by one of their coworkers and his wife. So far, we have no evidence that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home. But it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West. They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs. So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people.

Our nation has been at war with terrorists since al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11. In the process, we’ve hardened our defenses — from airports to financial centers, to other critical infrastructure. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted countless plots here and overseas, and worked around the clock to keep us safe. Our military and counterterrorism professionals have relentlessly pursued terrorist networks overseas — disrupting safe havens in several different countries, killing Osama bin Laden, and decimating al Qaeda’s leadership.

Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase. As we’ve become better at preventing complex, multifaceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turned to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society. It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood in 2009; in Chattanooga earlier this year; and now in San Bernardino. And as groups like ISIL grew stronger amidst the chaos of war in Iraq and then Syria, and as the Internet erases the distance between countries, we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people like the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernardino killers.

For seven years, I’ve confronted this evolving threat each morning in my intelligence briefing. And since the day I took this office, I’ve authorized U.S. forces to take out terrorists abroad precisely because I know how real the danger is. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the security of the American people. As a father to two young daughters who are the most precious part of my life, I know that we see ourselves with friends and coworkers at a holiday party like the one in San Bernardino. I know we see our kids in the faces of the young people killed in Paris. And I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure.

Well, here’s what I want you to know: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us. Our success won’t depend on tough talk, or abandoning our values, or giving into fear. That’s what groups like ISIL are hoping for. Instead, we will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by drawing upon every aspect of American power.

Here’s how. First, our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary. In Iraq and Syria, airstrikes are taking out ISIL leaders, heavy weapons, oil tankers, infrastructure. And since the attacks in Paris, our closest allies — including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — have ramped up their contributions to our military campaign, which will help us accelerate our effort to destroy ISIL.

Second, we will continue to provide training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground so that we take away their safe havens. In both countries, we’re deploying Special Operations Forces who can accelerate that offensive. We’ve stepped up this effort since the attacks in Paris, and we’ll continue to invest more in approaches that are working on the ground.

Third, we’re working with friends and allies to stop ISIL’s operations — to disrupt plots, cut off their financing, and prevent them from recruiting more fighters. Since the attacks in Paris, we’ve surged intelligence-sharing with our European allies. We’re working with Turkey to seal its border with Syria. And we are cooperating with Muslim-majority countries — and with our Muslim communities here at home — to counter the vicious ideology that ISIL promotes online.

Fourth, with American leadership, the international community has begun to establish a process — and timeline — to pursue ceasefires and a political resolution to the Syrian war. Doing so will allow the Syrian people and every country, including our allies, but also countries like Russia, to focus on the common goal of destroying ISIL — a group that threatens us all.

This is our strategy to destroy ISIL. It is designed and supported by our military commanders and counterterrorism experts, together with 65 countries that have joined an American-led coalition. And we constantly examine our strategy to determine when additional steps are needed to get the job done. That’s why I’ve ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa *Waiver program under which the female terrorist in San Bernardino originally came to this country. And that’s why I will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice.

Now, here at home, we have to work together to address the challenge. There are several steps that Congress should take right away.

To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.

We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino. I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures. But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies — no matter how effective they are — cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do — and must do — is make it harder for them to kill.

Next, we should put in place stronger screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a hard look at whether they’ve traveled to warzones. And we’re working with members of both parties in Congress to do exactly that.

Finally, if Congress believes, as I do, that we are at war with ISIL, it should go ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force against these terrorists. For over a year, I have ordered our military to take thousands of airstrikes against ISIL targets. I think it’s time for Congress to vote to demonstrate that the American people are united, and committed, to this fight.

My fellow Americans, these are the steps that we can take together to defeat the terrorist threat. Let me now say a word about what we should not do.

We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. That’s what groups like ISIL want. They know they can’t defeat us on the battlefield. ISIL fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in Iraq. But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources, and using our presence to draw new recruits.

The strategy that we are using now — airstrikes, Special Forces, and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country — that is how we’ll achieve a more sustainable victory. And it won’t require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil.

Here’s what else we cannot do. We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world — including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology. Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.

That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.

But just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization, it is the responsibility of all Americans — of every faith — to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. Because when we travel down that road, we lose. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes — and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that.

My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a belief in human dignity — that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law.

Even in this political season, even as we properly debate what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe, let’s make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional. Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear; that we have always met challenges — whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks — by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people. So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.

Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Just like that, Pfizer has decided it’s no longer American. It plans to link up with Ireland’s Allergan and move its corporate headquarters from New York to Ireland.

That way it will pay less tax. Ireland’s tax rate is less than half that of United States. Ian Read, Pfizer’s chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal the higher tax rate in the United States caused Pfizer to compete “with one hand tied behind our back.”

Read said he’d tried to lobby Congress to reduce the corporate tax rate (now 35 percent) but failed, so Pfizer is leaving.

Such corporate desertions from the United States (technically called “tax inversions”) will cost the rest of us taxpayers some $19.5 billion over the next decade, estimates Congress’s joint committee on taxation.

Which is fueling demands from Republicans to lower the corporate tax rate.

Donald Trump wants it to be 15 percent.

Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz want to eliminate the corporate tax altogether. (Why this would save the Treasury more money than further corporate tax inversions is unclear.)

Rather than lower corporate tax rates, an easier fix would be to take away the benefits of corporate citizenship from any company that deserts America.

One big benefit is the U.S. patent system that grants companies like Pfizer longer patent protection and easier ways to extend it than most other advanced economies.

In 2013, Pfizer raked in nearly $4 billion on sales of the Prevnar 13 vaccine, which prevents diseases caused by pneumococcal bacteria, from ear infections to pneumonia – for which Pfizer is the only manufacturer.

Other countries wouldn’t allow their patent systems to justify such huge charges.

Neither should we – especially when Pfizer stops being an American company.

The U.S. government also protects the assets of American corporations all over the world.

In the early 2000s, after a Chinese company replicated Pfizer’s formula for Viagra, the U.S. Trade Representative put China on a “priority watch list” and charged China with “inadequate enforcement” against such piracy.

Soon thereafter the Chinese backed down. Now China is one of Pfizer’s major sources of revenue.

But when Pfizer is no longer American, the United States should stop protecting its foreign assets.

Nor should Pfizer reap the benefits when the United States goes to bat for American corporations in trade deals.

In the Pacific Partnership and the upcoming deal with the European Union, the interests of American pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer – gaining more patent protection abroad, limiting foreign release of drug data, and preventing other governments controlling drug prices – have been central points of contention.

And Pfizer has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. From now on, it shouldn’t be.

U.S. pharmaceutical companies rake in about $12 billion a year because Medicare isn’t allowed to use its huge bargaining power to get lower drug prices.

But a non-American company like Pfizer shouldn’t get any of this windfall. From now on, Medicare should squeeze every penny it can out of Pfizer.

American drug companies also get a free ride off of basic research done by the National Institutes of Health.

Last year the NIH began a collaboration with Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation  – subsidizing Pfizer’s appropriation of early scientific discoveries for new medications.

In the future, Pfizer shouldn’t qualify for this subsidy, either.

Finally, non-American corporations face restrictions on what they can donate to U.S. candidates for public office, and how they can lobby the U.S. government.

Yet Pfizer has been among America’s biggest campaign donors and lobbyists.

In 2014, it ponied up $2,217,066 to candidates (by contrast, its major competitor Johnson & Johnson spent $755,000). And Pfizer spent $9,493,000 on lobbyists.

So far in the 2016 election cycle, it’s been one of the top ten corporate donors.

Pfizer’s political generosity has paid off – preventing Congress from attaching a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, or from making it easier for generics to enter the market, or from using Medicare’s bargaining power to reduce drug prices.

And the company has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the candidacies of state attorneys general in order to get favorable settlements in cases brought against it.

But by deserting America, Pfizer relinquishes its right to influence American politics.

If Pfizer or any other American corporation wants to leave America to avoid U.S. taxes, that’s their business.

But they should no longer get any of the benefits of American citizenship – because they’ve stopped paying for them.

The first shipment of uranium from Canada under a five-year contract signed in April has arrived in India. It marks Cameco’s first supply of uranium to India.

In April, Cameco signed a uranium supply contract with India after the nuclear cooperation agreement between Canada and India came into force in September 2013. According to the Canadian government, the contract to supply 7.1 million pounds of uranium concentrate (about 2730 tU) to India’s Department of Atomic Energy was worth around CAD 350 million ($262 million).

The government of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan announced yesterday that the first shipment of uranium under the contract, which covers the period to 2020, had arrived in India. The shipment, it noted, consists of uranium mined and milled at Cameco’s McArthur River and Key Lake operations in northern Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall said, “India has just received its first shipment of Saskatchewan uranium under the Canada-India nuclear cooperation agreement, and today we mark the economic milestone for our uranium mining industry and our province.” He added, “All of Saskatchewan benefits from having this major new customer for our resource, but this export news is particularly welcome for uranium workers.”

Cameco president and CEO Tim Gitzel said, “Strong support from the governments of Saskatchewan and Canada was instrumental in gaining timely access to the Indian market for our products. The renewal of nuclear cooperation and trade between Canada and India will create jobs and opportunity in Canada and help advance the growth of clean nuclear power in a country where more than 300 million people have no access to electricity.”

India currently has 21 power reactors in operation, with another six under construction and scheduled to start up over the next four years. The country plans to increase its nuclear generating capacity from the current 5800 MWe to 27,500 MWe by 2032.