The crisis in the Gulf that pits Qatar against a UAE-Saudi-led alliance is Qatar’s least problem when it comes to the 2022 World Cup.

Beyond the fact that efforts by Gulf states, first and foremost among which the United Arab Emirates, have sought to discredit Qatar as a host long before the UAE and Saudi Arabia in June declared their diplomatic and economic boycott, Qatar has proven capable of addressing potential disruptions.

The import of construction materials may have become more expensive and they may have to travel a longer route, but that does not impair the Gulf state’s ability to complete infrastructure on time.

In some ways, if the Gulf crisis were to last another five years until the World Cup, attendance may prove to be a more important issue. Not because Qatar would still be involved in a dispute with its neighbours. The crisis has already become the new normal. Even if it were resolved today, regional relationships will never return to the status quo ante.

The reason why attendance may be an issue is that the demography of fans attending the World Cup in Qatar may very well be a different one than at past tournaments. Qatar is likely to attract a far greater number of fans from the Middle East as well as from Africa and Asia.

Governments in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, if they were still maintaining their travel bans, could find themselves in a difficult position if they were depriving their nationals from attending the first ever World Cup not only in the region, but also in an Arab country. How those governments would handle that, would have consequences for the nature of the boycott given that not only have they banned travel, they’ve also closed borders and closed air and sea links.

The Asian Football Confederation’s Competition Committee recently urged governments to exempt football teams from travel bans. The call was in response to the travel ban Saudi Arabia announced last year following the rupture in relations with Iran as well as the more recent bans on travel to Qatar. The question is why that advice should not also be applicable to fans.

Equally immediate and significant is the fact that particularly the UAE is not going to give up its covert efforts to get Qatar deprived of the World Cup. Qatar is vulnerable in that battle, not because the UAE is so powerful, but because of one of the two main issues that were at the core of the controversy about its hosting rights, the integrity of Qatar’s bid.

That integrity remains in question with the legal proceedings in New York and Zurich involving corruption in world soccer body FIFA and potential wrongdoing in the awarding of World Cups, irrespective of the fact that Qatar has categorically and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The legal proceedings, while disturbing, are likely to drag on for a considerable period of time and as such may not pose an immediate threat.

What is more immediate is the reputational damage Qatar has suffered. To be sure, the Gulf crisis has enhanced Qatar’s reputation to some degree. After all, the perceptions of the Gulf crisis are one of David vs Goliath, Qatar as the resilient underdog defending its independence and right as a small state to chart its own course.

Qatar deserves credit for reforms being introduced to its controversial kafala or labour sponsorship system that are likely to become a model for the region. In doing so, it cemented the 2022 World Cup as one of the few mega-events with a real potential of leaving a legacy of change. Qatar started laying the foundations for that change by early on becoming the first and only Gulf state to engage with its critics, international human rights groups and trade unions.

The problem is that by the time that engagement produced real results, the reputational damage had been done. Qatar is realizing that reputations are easy to tarnish and difficult to polish. There is little doubt that the World Cup more recently was not the only driver in labour reform, one critics’ major bone of contention. So was the International Labour Organization (ILO) that was about to censor Qatar and the Gulf crisis.

There is no doubt that Qatar has learnt from mistakes it made in the public diplomacy and public relations aspects of the labour issue. That is evident in Qatar’s markedly different handling of the Gulf crisis. It’s a far cry from the ostrich that puts its head in the sand, hoping that the storm will pass only to find that by the time it rears its head the wound has festered and its lost strategic advantage.

That leaves Qatar with the issue of the integrity of its bid, which may be in terms of public diplomacy the toughest nut to crack. On the principle of where there is smoke, there is fire, Qatar is in a bind. Nonetheless, some greater degree of transparency, including regarding relationships with Mohammed bin Hammam, the disgraced FIFA executive committee member and head of the Asian Football Confederation AFC at the time of the Qatari bid, would have been helpful.

The integrity issue, Qatar’s weak point,  will without doubt be exploited by its detractors, first and foremost in the Gulf. For critics of Qatar, there are two questions. One is, who do they want to get in bed with? Qatar’s detractors, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia hardly have stellar human and labour rights records. If anything, their records are worse than that of Qatar, which admittedly does not glow.

It is doubtful that the World Cup is at the core of the Gulf crisis, despite a declaration by Dubai’s top security official, Lt. General Khalfan, that the crisis would be resolved if Qatar surrendered its hosting rights. Nonetheless, it is an important enough symbol and vehicle for reputational capital for Qatar’s detractors, and particularly the UAE, to target.

That is evident from the emails of the UAE ambassador in Washington, Youssef al-Otaiba, whose account was either hacked or leaked by an insider. Al-Otaiba had devised a complex financial manoeuvre to undermine Qatar’s currency and deprive the Gulf state of its hosting rights. While Qatar has sought to counter the UAE efforts, its noticeable that it has not adopted a similar tactic by, for example, targeting the 2020 World Expo in Dubai.

The second question critics have to ask themselves is how best to leverage the World Cup, irrespective of whether the Qatari bid was compromised or not. On the assumption that it may have been compromised, the question is less how to exact retribution for a wrong doing that was common practice in global football governance. Leveraging should focus on how to achieve a fundamental reform of global sports governance that has yet to emerge six years into a crisis that was in part sparked by the Qatar World Cup. This goes to the heart of the fact that untouched in the governance crisis is the corrupting, ungoverned, and incestuous relationship between sports and politics.

The future of the Qatar World Cup and the Gulf crisis speaks to the pervasiveness of politics in sports. The World Cup is political by definition. Retaining Qatar’s hosting rights or depriving the Gulf state of the right to host the tournament is ultimately a choice with political consequences. As long as the crisis continues, retaining rights is a testimony to Qatar’s resilience, deprival would be a victory for its detractors. It is with good reason that the UAE no doubt will continue its covert campaign to undermine Qatar’s hosting rights.

The real yardstick in the debate about the Qatari World Cup should be how the sport and the integrity of the sport benefit most. And even than, politics is never far from what the outcome of that debate is. Obviously, instinctively, the optics of no retribution raises the question of how that benefits integrity.

Yet, the potential legacy of social and economic change that is already evident with the Qatar World Cup is more important than the feel-good effect of having done the right thing with retribution or the notion of setting an example. Add to that the fact that in current circumstances, a withdrawal of hosting rights would likely be interpreted as a victory of one side over the other, further divide the Arab and Muslim world, and enhance a sense among many Muslims of being on the defensive and under attack.

To be clear, the rot in sports governance goes far beyond financial and performance corruption. That is evident in the way that the Gulf crisis, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict increasingly permeate soccer with a mounting number of decisions that upend the notion of a separation of sports and politics. They also put an end to the principle of judging professionals on their merits rather than nationality and make a mockery of the ideal of soccer as a bridge builder rather than a divider.

In a bizarre and contradictory sequence of events, FIFA president Gianni Infantino in June rejected involving the group in the Gulf crisis by saying that “the essential role of FIFA, as I understand it, is to deal with football and not to interfere in geopolitics.”

Yet, on the same day that he made his statement, Mr. Infantino waded into the Gulf crisis by removing a Qatari referee from a 2018 World Cup qualifier at the request of the UAE. FIFA, beyond declaring that the decision was taken “in view of the current geopolitical situation,” appeared to be saying by implication that a Qatari by definition of his nationality could not be an honest arbiter of a soccer match involving one of his country’s detractors. In FIFA’s decision, politics trumped professionalism, no pun intended.

A demand this month by the Egyptian Football Federation (EFA) to disbar a Qatari from refereeing Egyptian and Saudi matches during next year’s World Cup in Russia puts FIFA in a position in which it will have to decide to either opt for professionalism over politics or also disbar from refereeing politically sensitive matches game officials from Qatar’s distractors– Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – who have likewise been appointed for the tournament.

FIFA’s tying itself up in knots in response to the Gulf crisis like the politics underlying corruption charges in New York and Zurich cries out for putting the inextricable relationship between sports and politics on the table and developing ways to govern a relationship that is a fact of life. It is a relationship that sports executives, politicians and government officials deny even though it is public, recognizable and undeniable.

If the Qatar World Cup because of the controversy that surrounds it and because of its World Cup having become a geopolitical football leads ultimately to an honest and open debate about the relationship of politics and sports, Qatar, unwittingly rather than wittingly, would have made a fundamental contribution to a healthier governance of sports in general and soccer in particular.

By Gautam Sen*

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had undertaken a short visit to Myanmar in mid-November. During the visit, he advised the Myanmar government to investigate the human rights violations in Rakhine and implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan advisory Commission (KAC) set up by Naypyidaw for obtaining a peaceful, fair and prosperous future for the people of the province. Tillerson also announced an additional tranche of US $ 47 million in humanitarian aid, enhancing total US assistance for Myanmar in 2017 to $ 87 million. It is to be seen how US policy unfolds in the light of Tillerson`s observations, and impacts the situation regarding the Rohingyas still in Rakhine province as well as those displaced and presently sheltered in adjoining countries. The Aung San Su Kyi government’s reaction to Tillerson`s observations has been rather muted with nothing substantive stated in response.

The manner in which the situation in Rakhine is evolving does not engender much hope for the Rohingya community. The recent visit to Naypyidaw of the foreign minister of Bangladesh, the country which is presently sheltering nearly a million Rohingya refugees, to work out some mechanism for reversing the outward migration of the Rohingyas has not heralded any significant change in Myanmar`s policy on the return and rehabilitation of these refugees. An agreement just concluded between Bangladesh and Myanmar on Rohingya repatriation has already run into difficulty, with Myanmar`s minister for resettlement and welfare indicating that only 300 refugees will be taken back per day. There is no clarity regarding their post-return living conditions in Rakhine. And Rohingya outward migration continues. In this backdrop, it is to be observed whether the US government can induce some change in the posture and policies of the Myanmar government towards undoing the physical devastation caused by state-sponsored and ethnic violence targeting the Rohingya in Rakhine, and increase the confidence level of the limited number of the people of this community still living in the area.

The Trump administration could succeed to an extent in cajoling the Aung San Suu Kyi government to start a credible rehabilitation process given the substantial economic assistance that the US is in a position to provide Myanmar, apart from the support it could extend to Myanmar at international fora towards staving off widespread criticism of atrocities against the Rohingya. Since 2012, the US has provided more than US $ 500 million in aid to Myanmar and partnered with member countries at the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to promote critical developmental assistance and investment to the tune of nearly $ 3.8 billion to that country. It may be appropriate if the US were to complement its substantial humanitarian and economic assistance by encouraging or even exerting pressure on Myanmar to implement the KAC recommendations. The exertion of such leverage may be an appropriate method to ensure that Naypyidaw starts the rehabilitation process in Rakhine in a visible and effective manner under some international oversight. In the present circumstances and in the light of past developments, it is doubtful that the Myanmar government would on its own and in an even handed manner execute the rehabilitation process unless goaded to do so by important members of the international community. Tillerson, during his visit, had opined against sanctions on Myanmar, at this stage.

Another factor which apparently will impinge on US policy towards Myanmar pertinent to the Rohingya issue is China’s expanding interest and involvement in the matter. Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently opined that, in the interest of the successful implementation of the `One Belt One Road` initiative, China would like the distraction caused by the Rohingya crisis to be dealt with through a three-step approach. But China has so far neither elaborated upon the contours of the approach nor outlined the course of implementable action to deal with the basic causes of the problem. There is no hint that Beijing has any intrinsic interest towards substantively turning around the miserable plight of the Rohingyas who, today, do not seem to have any prospect of reclaiming even their residential, non-citizen, status in Myanmar. While the Bangladesh government is obviously pleased with the Chinese assertion, it is still to realize the overall import of Chinese policy on alleviating the present and increasing Rohingya refugee burden both politically and economically. The Trump administration, however, may not like to leave Myanmar under increasing Chinese influence.

Chinese mediatory efforts between Bangladesh and Myanmar may lead to some enumeration of the Rohingyas in Bangladeshi camps as well as organized albeit forcible return of some of the refugees to designated camps in Rakhine without providing them the opportunity for engaging in livelihood maintenance activities of their choice and even observing social customs. Such a milieu may suit the present Myanmar government without raising the hackles of the majority Burman community in the affected Rakhine province, and to a limited extent also Bangladesh if a few thousands of refugees can be repatriated to Rakhine. However, with China’s involvement in western Myanmar, a greater inflow of Chinese men and material for development projects and infrastructure in the area would result, with a concomitant increase in Chinese influence on the regime in Naypyidaw. The US government will have to adroitly craft its policy on Myanmar and the Rohingya issue so that it is able to contend with the burgeoning Chinese influence, enhance its stake in Myanmar`s socio-economic development and alleviate the plight of the Rohingyas from a humanitarian angle.

Post the Tillerson visit and the fact-finding tour of a Congressional delegation led by Senator Jeff Merkley, the Trump administration seems to have hardened its posture on Myanmar`s handling of the Rohingya crisis. Tillerson`s official statement from the US State Department on 22 November, while indicating support at the UN General Assembly Third Committee and the Security Council for constructive action, has also indicated Washington`s intention to pursue accountability (in Myanmar, of its government and others involved) through US law, including targeted sanctions. Tillerson has conveyed strong observations to the effect that horrendous atrocities against the Rohingyas have taken place, inter-alia describing the situation in northern Rakhine as marked by ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses by Myanmar`s military and local vigilantes, warranting an independent investigation on the happenings and possible targeted sanctions. It may be realistic if the US government were to act decisively through its aid providing mechanism to induce Myanmar to start the rehabilitation process under the KAC framework and international supervision. China may also be brought into such an arrangement so that its scope to charter an independent course on Myanmar, driven exclusively by its economic and strategic interests, are circumscribed. Naypyidaw may be compelled to acquiesce in the process. Such a turn of events may not be inimical to the interests of Bangladesh and India also.

About the author:
*Gautam Sen is a retired IDAS officer who has served in senior appointments with Government of India and a State Government. Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

By Nathaniel Kahler*

On July 11, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that Syrian President Bashar al-Asad had lost his “legitimacy,” presaging a U.S. policy favoring regime change in Syria.1 In August 2011, President Barack Obama stated that the “future of Syria must be determined by its people, but [Asad] is standing in their way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for [Asad] to step aside.”2 However, nearly 6 years later, Obama has left office, while Asad rules a contiguous stretch of population centers and the majority of Syrians left in Syria. Mainstream analysis explains Asad’s resilience as a result of external factors, namely Russian and Iranian support, lack of alignment of foreign aid to opposition forces, and a subdued U.S. response to Asad and prioritization of fighting the so-called Islamic State. Likewise, analysis on the internal factors focuses the narrow but loyal support the regime enjoys from the ruling Alawite sect.3 The illegitimacy of the regime is assumed.

Has the Syrian regime indeed lost its legitimacy? Scholarship on the concept of legitimacy has offered a variety of typologies for measuring a state’s domestic legitimacy—external legitimacy being an entirely separate concept. A survey of this scholarship reveals two general themes. First, legitimacy, or the right to rule, is in the eyes of the ruled.4 Second, the concept of legitimacy is fluid, and the factors that constitute legitimacy depend on the unique context of the state being assessed.5 While in Western democracies legitimacy is conferred at the ballot box and measured by a government’s ability to provide political goods like security or the rule of law, such legitimacy is a historic aberration.6 For most of history, a ruler’s heredity, religious credentials, or military strength have conferred legitimacy.

If legitimacy is the right to rule as perceived by those who are ruled, an assessment of Asad’s legitimacy must be informed by Syrian history and society. But who is a Syrian? Historically, Syria has no national identity; it is, rather, a society of overlapping and competing identities—those of tribe, class, region, ethnicity, and creed—each vying for the loyalty of the people.7 In 1945, the French Mandate ended, and the people living in a group of Levantine cities and their hinterlands sharing no national identity were proclaimed, by outside powers, to be Syrians. The new country lurched from coup to coup until Hafez al-Asad, Bashar al-Asad’s father, consolidated his rule over Syria in 1970.8 Hafez al-Asad offered a new identity and bargain through a secular ideology of pan-Arab socialism called Ba’athism. Today, the regime’s bargain remains. In exchange for absolute loyalty, Asad provides an ideological veneer of solidarity and unification that is the only hope for security and stability in Syria.

This bargain could be termed Asadism, and it redefined the diverse people of Syria as part a broader shared national identity. Indeed, it is the only uniting identity that modern Syria has ever known. The resilience of this identity seems at first strange; the Alawite Asad rules over a state that is perhaps 60 percent Sunni Arab.9 However, the regime’s bargain is predicated on understanding that Syria is a majority-minority country. That is, while Sunnis are a religious majority, this is not their only identity.10 They also belong to a minority: the urban elite, the military or Ba’ath party bureaucracy, a favored tribe, a regional identity—each identity adds complexity to the question of identity in Syria. In a land of minority identities, Asad’s legitimacy is rooted in his ability to offer a veneer of cohesion that binds them together.

Moreover, Asad’s legitimacy is not created or sustained in a vacuum. The inability of the opposition to offer a viable and broadly appealing identity in Syria confers legitimacy upon Asad. Asadism is the guarantee against the internal threat, fitna, which is societal discord and sedition. Political Islam and nonsecular ideologies have disastrously failed to present an alternative to Asadism. Likewise, alone in the Arab world, the Asad regime has maintained what can be termed a populist foreign policy by publicly rebuffing the machinations of Western imperialism and Zionism.11 When the regime is charged with the Islamist label of kefir, or with the Western label of “illegitimate,” it plays into the regime’s narrative.12 Both confer legitimacy on Asad.

Asadism and the legitimacy of the regime are at least as much a symptom of U.S. regional policy and of takfiri Islam as antagonistic to them. This is not to blame the United States or Islamism for the perpetuation of Arab autocracies such as that of Asad. Rather, it is to recognize that the strong continuing appeal of Asadism is rooted in both a failure of political Islam to offer a viable ideology to a pluralistic society and a history of U.S. and broader Western imperialism, Central Intelligence Agency coups, support for military dictatorships, or disregard for Palestinians and “hypocrisy” that never matched U.S. rhetoric.

The myth of a stalwart and strong Asad regime (both father and son) that led Syria to stand against the forces of imperialism, Zionism, and Islamist fitna is, like so much of the regime narrative, a partial truth manufactured into an ethos of resistance that grows stronger as long as Asad faces down challenges. It may be that Secretary Clinton declared that Asad lost his legitimacy out of wishful thinking. Either Asad still has substantial legitimacy derived from factors unique to the Syrian context, or, alternatively, a new concept for the basis of Asad’s resiliency is required. If legitimacy means that “the United States does not deem your government to be good, ethical, or in the U.S. interest,” or some combination of these attributes, it ceases to be a useful concept. If Syrians have grown to understand that this is what is meant when a Western leader states “legitimacy,” the concept itself has become illegitimate.

How, then, can the United States deal with a regime that is demonstrably “bad” but also maintains its legitimacy through a narrative that fits any U.S. move to counter it into a narrative of foreign conspiracy against the Syrian people? There is no clear path forward, but the United States must understand the Syrian conflict is not a 6-year war but rather an ongoing half-century conflict in which the United States has been a sometimes active, and sometimes unwitting, belligerent.

Justifications for U.S. intervention pursue two tracks of logic that are alternatively conflated and emphasized when convenient: ridding Syria of Asad is in U.S. strategic interest and/or a humanitarian imperative. Proponents of U.S. intervention as a strategic interest argue that the United States and the rebels’ various backers are, through their support for the opposition, changing the Asad camp’s calculus. Intervention, it is argued, can encourage the regime to negotiate, somewhat preserving the international norms against Asad’s brutal tactics, or weakening Iranian or Russian positions in the Middle East.13 However, the U.S. stake in Asad’s departure will never be commensurate with the regime’s interest in holding on; even if it were and the United States helped to force Asad from power, the installed government would be deemed illegitimate by virtue of having U.S. support.

Likewise, the United States may have a responsibility to protect Syrian civilians, and Asad has forfeited Syrian sovereignty by failing to protect his people from gross human rights abuses.14 However, a responsibility to protect divorced of legitimacy is a short-term effort to alleviate suffering that does little to build the long-term stability and security of the civilian population. Delaying regime victory can only further the suffering. If it is safe zones that the United States wants, there are plenty in Syria: in regime-controlled territory.

Even if the United States saw fit to invest the means to overpower the regime and its backers, this suggests no way to build governance in Asad’s absence—a U.S.-installed government would be tasked with ruling without legitimacy in a splintered society. Modern Syria has not known stability except under Asad. It is impossible to know the extent to which the Syrian people view Asad as legitimate; accurate opinion polls do not exist, and elections are dubious measures. However, Syrian history and the continued resilience of the regime indicate that the United States may have prematurely discounted the sources of Asad’s legitimacy.

This is not to overlook or undervalue the tragedy and suffering of Syria over the last 6 years. Rather, it is to argue that the U.S. policy of oscillating between strategic intervention to bring down a dictator, targeted actions against nonstate actors, and humanitarian intervention to prevent further atrocities ignores the sources of regime legitimacy and prolongs the conflict. In short, the last 6 years have demonstrated that the battle over legitimacy in Syria matters, but this is not a battle the United States can win.

About the author:
*Nathaniel Kahler wrote this essay while a student in the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University. It won the Strategy Article category of the 2017 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Essay Competition.

Source:
This article was published in the Joint Force Quarterly 87, which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes:
1 Reid J. Epstein, “Clinton: Assad Has ‘Lost Legitimacy,’” Politico.com, July 12, 2011, available at <www.politico.com/story/2011/07/clinton-assad-has-lost-legitimacy-058766>.

2 Macon Phillips, “President Obama: ‘The Future of Syria Must Be Determined by Its People, but President Bashar Al-Assad Is Standing in Their Way,’” White House blog, August 18, 2011, available at <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/08/18/president-obama-future-syria-must-be-determined-its-people-president-bashar-al-assad>.

3 Omar M. Dajani, “The Middle East’s Majority Problems: Minoritarian Regimes and the Threat of Democracy,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 14 (2015), 2516–2533.

4 Bruce Gilley, The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

5 Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 94–97.

6 Ibid., 91.

7 Philip K. Hitti, Syria: A Short History (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 31–250.

8 Patrick Seale, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 14.

9 Fabrice Balanche, “Ethnic Cleansing Threatens Syria’s Unity,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, December 3, 2015, available at <www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/ethnic-cleansing-threatens-syrias-unity>.

10 Chris Zambelis, “Syria’s Sunnis and the Regime’s Resilience,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, May 28, 2015, available at <www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/syrias-sunnis-and-the-regimes-resilience>.

11 John Allen and Charles R. Lister, “Bring Syria’s Assad and His Backers to Account Now,” Washington Post, October 21, 2016.

12 Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “Supporting Resistance, Not Regime,” Al Akhbar English, July 5, 2012, available at <http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/supporting-resistance-not-regime>.

13 Allen and Lister.

14 Michael Abramowitz, “Does the United States Have a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ the Syrian People?” Washington Post, September 6, 2013.

By Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte promised Monday to ask Congress to convene a special session for passage of a long-delayed law that would correct what he called “historical injustice” and give Muslims full autonomy in the restive south.

Duterte made the remarks in a speech before a gathering of thousands of ex-rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in southern Maguindanao province, which had seen some of the worst fighting in a decades-long separatist rebellion until a peace deal was struck in 2014.

“If we do not solve this problem, the fundamental issue of historical injustice, this problem will persist,” Duterte said. “This violence will not really end.”

He pledged he would “work very hard” to get Congress to approve the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which outlines the basic structure of a proposed autonomous state in Muslim-populated Mindanao, the third-largest island in the predominantly Catholic Philippines.

Duterte’s statement came amid warnings from guerrilla leaders that failure to approve the BBL could ignite a rebellion bigger than the recent one in Marawi, a southern city that was ravaged when pro-Islamic State (IS) militants, backed by foreign fighters, engaged security forces in a five-month battle.

The Philippine government declared the Marawi fighting over in late October after fighter jets pounded the militants with daily bombing runs. The battle left 1,100 people dead, including 930 militants and 165 soldiers and policemen.

Bringing peace in the south was one of the toughest challenges of his young government, Duterte said. The Islamic rebellion was ignited, he said, because Muslims wanted to retake what they thought was their rightful land.

“I have been saying that if I have a choice, this should be solved during my time and we can work our way out of this quagmire. It cannot go on,” he said. “Your children cannot kill my children.”

Duterte said he considered it his sacred duty to solve the rebellion.

“Let us work out a way to give our brother Muslims the arrangement that is also acceptable to Manila,” Duterte said.

Keeping the guns silent

The BBL was a landmark document that was signed when the 12,000-strong MILF agreed to end its rebellion in 2014. It spells out the political process by which the MILF would transform into an entity that would govern an expanded autonomous region in the south.

But Congress held up passage of the BBL law after 44 police commandos were killed by MILF guerrillas in early 2015, when they entered a rebel-held zone in Maguindanao province during an operation to target Malaysian terror suspect Zulkifli bin Hir (alias Marwan).

Passage of the BBL in Congress is the only solution to keep the guns silent in Mindanao, where the rebellion has left 120,000 dead since the 1970s, Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF’s chief negotiator, said Sunday.

He warned that radical groups could take advantage of the volatile situation and target younger Muslims for terrorist activities, similar to what happened in Marawi.

The BBL was touted as a centerpiece legislation of the administration of then President Benigno Aquino, Duterte’s predecessor.

It was envisioned to create a Muslim autonomous in Mindanao. However, several congressmen had expressed reluctance to pass the draft law and have crucial provisions deleted.

Duterte earlier warned that any delays in passing the law could spell trouble in the south, with many of the MILF’s younger fighters already drifting to a more radical form of Islam being espoused by IS.

In 2008, MILF rebels rampaged and killed at least 300 civilians in southern Lanao del Norte province, after talks collapsed when the Supreme Court outlawed a peace deal that would have given the guerrillas control over vast swathes of land.

They dropped their bid for full independence six years later, leading to a peace pact.

MILF guerrilla leader Wahid Tundok, who commands a large number of MILF fighters, had warned last Tuesday that the former separatists could launch a siege larger that of the Marawi attack if Congress failed to pass the autonomy law.

“We have a lot of forces all over Mindanao’s key cities and if something will happen it’s bigger than Marawi,” Tundok said. “We want the government to fast-track the passage of the law for us to have peace in the region.”

Madrid’s refusal to compromise, in the view of the Catalan nationalist movement, renders the push towards Catalan independence impossible to avert. There is no practical choice other than independence, save to succumb to ever more burdensome regional financial penury irrespective of the success of Catalonia’s economy.

By Matthew Parish*

On 21 December 2017, there will be a new snap election for members of the Catalan autonomous regional parliament. This election comes after extraordinary recent turmoil.

The independence referendum and its aftermath

On 1 October 2017 the Catalan regional government, known as the Generalitat, convened a referendum upon the secession of Catalonia from the rest of Spain. The outcome of the plebiscite was overwhelmingly in favour of Catalan independence, although doubts were raised in the media about whether putative “no” voters had declined to vote. The referendum had previously been declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

The Generalitat then called for negotiations with the Spanish central government in Madrid. The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, refused. The Spanish, King Felipe VI, had acceded to the throne after unusual circumstances surrounding the abdication of his father Juan Carlos I in 2014. The timing of this abdication was just before a prior Catalan independence referendum, and it was announced not by the abdicating monarch but by Mariano Rajoy. Felipe took the throne ahead of his two elder siblings. Felipe has unequivocally backed Rajoy in his refusal to negotiate with the Catalan independence movement.

Notwithstanding the outcome of the 2017 referendum, the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont declined to declare independence. Rajoy then imposed an ultimatum: either renounce the prospect of independence supported by ballot, or face imposition of so-called direct rule from Madrid under a hitherto never-used provision of the Spanish Constitution. In response, Puigdemont called for further talks and intervention by the European Union. Brussels was deaf.

Imposition by Madrid

Rajoy then made a declaration imposing direct government over Catalonia, effectively dismissing the region’s ministers and parliamentarians. Judges in Madrid, alleged to operate under the influence of Rajoy’s political party, ordered the arrest and imprisonment of the leaders of the Catalan independence movement including Catalan government officials. Some fled to Brussels, where they are contesting extradition proceedings for archaic crimes such as sedition and rebellion. Others submitted to the jurisdiction of Rajoy’s courts and were promptly incarcerated, where they remain.

Nevertheless Rajoy did not get everything his way. Although he had suggested a period of six to nine months of direct rule before new Catalan elections, European political pressure was brought to bear upon him. Rajoy was required to call new regional elections for Catalonia within a period of barely six weeks. The nationalist movement agreed.

There were a number of reasons why this truncated time scale was imposed upon Rajoy. A mounting sense of popular disgust was arising within Europe about the undemocratic and authoritarian methods being used to suppress peaceful politicians and activists aligned with the Catalan independence movement. The violence that had been used by the Police in an attempt to prevent the referendum exacerbated the situation. The crisis has been causing potentially irreversible economic harm.

Spanish public debt

Political uncertainty about the future of Catalonia is causing substantial damage to the economies of both Catalonia and Spain. Tourist numbers are down dramatically. Businesses are threatening to relocate from Catalonia. It is reported that some 2,000 have already done so. Catalonia is a principal tax base for the Madrid treasury. If the economy of Catalonia is threatened, tax revenues destined for Madrid may suffer. This could be critical. Spain is mired in public debt, approximating to 100% of GDP. Catalonia’s public debt, at some 35% of the region’s notional GDP, is trivial in comparison and moderate by European standards.

Spain’s debt is in significant part the consequence of a series of publicised corruption scandals involving misappropriation of government funds in the course of appointing state construction contracts. That misappropriation has been shown to have been executed by persons associated with Rajoy’s political party, Partido Popular. Spain’s economy is too big to fail. Berlin cannot afford to bail out the Eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, as it has done for Greece. Spain is teetering on the edge. The country’s finances have been supported by an ongoing European Central Bank quantitative easing programme since 2015, to avoid collapse of the Euro.

Catalan tax revenues are essential to service Madrid’s interest payments upon its international debt obligations. After imposition of direct rule by Madrid, nothing much changed in the government institutions of the Catalan capital Barcelona. Madrid has proven unable to run Catalonia at a distance. If uncertainty persists about the political future of Catalonia, then the economic and tax backbone of Spain may be undermined with potentially devastating results. The consequences for Spain and the Eurozone of a Spanish bond default would surely be devastating. Hence Europe has insisted that elections come early.

New elections for Catalonia

Rajoy decided upon December 21 as the date for the new Catalan regional elections. This is almost the last working day before Christmas. Presumably Rajoy’s goal was to reduce voter turnout. It is believed that a high voter turnout favours Catalan nationalist political parties. The Madrid-dominated media is engaged in a relentless campaign to discredit Catalan political parties that support autonomy.

The leader of one such party is now in exile. The leader of another party is in prison in Madrid. But the use of heavy-handed tactics by Madrid in suppressing the October 1 referendum and its aftermath may have backfired. There has been popular Catalan revulsion at the methods used by Madrid in seeking to prevent a democratic vote from taking place.

Particular disgust has been harboured towards Madrid-initiated police violence against voters, demonstrators and polling station officials. That has been compounded by the oppressive use of pretextual criminal law against democratically elected politicians. The net result is that support for the Catalan autonomy movement has now substantially increased amongst the voting population of Catalonia. Those who once were neutral are more inclined to support Catalan nationalist political parties, by virtue of repulsion by Madrid’s techniques.

The Catalan electoral system

Catalonia has a shifting assortment of political parties and electoral lists. The Catalan unicameral parliament is elected using the so-called D’Hondt closed party list system of proportional representation across four constituencies. This electoral model results in a political distribution of seats within the parliament reasonably proportionate to the number of votes for each party. The Catalan regional government is parliamentary as opposed to presidential. There are 135 deputies in the Catalan parliament.

The President of the Generalitat, the Catalan regional government, is appointed by a majority of voting deputies. The President in turn appoints the balance of the government. Once the elections are concluded and the votes have been counted, a coalition must be formed to elect the President and this will involve a negotiation as to which parties within the coalition are to occupy which positions in the government. Ordinarily a minimum of 68 votes out of 135 is needed to form a governing coalition.

Predicting the election results?

The opinion polls suggest that parties supporting Catalan autonomy are likely to obtain a clear majority of seats in the December 21 elections. There are seven party groups of significance contesting the election, plus a number of independent candidates.

Polling figures vary, and contrast with relatively consistent historical results. This in itself is a cause for some degree of uncertainty. Nevertheless current indications suggest that parties and independent candidates supporting the Catalan nationalist movement in one way or another will obtain around 58% of the popular vote. That translates into some 78 seats.

Such an outcome would not be substantially different from the prior 2015 snap elections, in which nationalist parties obtained some 83 seats on a 74.9% turnout. Nor would it be at significant variance with the outcome of the 2012 snap elections, in which Catalan nationalists obtained 81 seats on a 68% turnout.

Both 2012 and 2015 snap regional Catalan elections were called effectively as plebiscites upon issues of Catalan autonomy and independence in light of prior impasses between Barcelona and Madrid. The 2017 election will effectively be yet another plebiscite upon the same issues. The figure of 78 may be too low. Every indication is that notwithstanding Rajoy’s choice of an inconvenient date for the election, turnout may be even higher than it was in 2015. The Catalans are incensed. They propose to display their dissatisfaction at the ballot box.

Coalition negotiations

The Catalan nationalist parties are likely to support one-another in a subsequent coalition. They have grouped together in resistance to the legal attacks exercised against them, and in light of popular revulsion at Madrid’s treatment of what they perceive to be Catalonian democracy.

Although the nationalist parties vary from liberal / centre-right to left-wing, they give every indication of their intention to place ideological differences aside, at least temporarily, in favour of opposition to Madrid’s heavy-handedness. Madrid is discovering itself to be the architect of an imminent and impending catastrophe against its own interests.

Ciudadanos: Catalonia’s outlier political party

Another factor may be relevant in explaining the consistent fortitude of Catalan nationalist political parties at the ballot box. That is the recent rise of perhaps Spain’s most unusual political party, Ciudadanos.

Although ostensibly a Catalan political party representing liberal anti-nationalist views, the electoral origins of Ciudadanos might be searched for in the small town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in southwestern Spain. One of the party’s first electoral successes was to achieve a king-making minority on the town council of Sanlúcar, under the name Ciudadanos Independientes de Sanlúcar, in 2007.

The party subsequently expanded throughout the autonomous community of Andalusia in southwestern Spain, and formed a king-making majority in the Andalusian regional parliament under the abbreviated name of Ciudadanos. At all times its leader in Andalusia has been a former member of the Alianza Popular, a predecessor to Rajoy’s Partido Popular headed by the notorious Francoist (Spanish fascist) politician Manuel Fraga. Ciudadanos is widely perceived as a Partido Popular proxy.

Ciudadanos is associated with a public sector management consultancy company of uncertain provenance that relies in substantial part for its funding from an obscure quasi-private foundation associated with the Pyrenees region in and around the reclusive tax haven of Andorra. Andorra is a mountainous micro-state not part of the European Union, wedged between French and Spanish territories. The Ciudadanos project might be generously described as involving suspected electoral engineering, using substantial funds from an unknown source. In the context of Madrid’s recurrent political corruption scandals, one might take the view that nothing should be surprising.

Ciudadanos has a number of curious qualities as a political party. One is its extraordinary leap in apparent electoral support within Catalonia between the two regional elections in 2012 and 2015. This was in the order of some 300%. This surge in popular support occurred during a truncated period between two snap elections. This was in the context of a political climate in which the principal issues for voters had not changed, and the party had little time to prepare for either election.

That in itself is unusual. Persons who study the development of electoral systems in divided societies might consider growth of this kind surprising. An equivalent, if not even more dramatic, surge in apparent popular support for Ciudadanos can be observed in Andalusian regional elections.

Another unusual feature of Ciudadanos is the extraordinary youthfulness of its elected representatives. Of the 25 deputies to the Catalan regional parliament currently on the Ciudadanos party list, the average age is 38. If one discounts the six deputies over the age of 50, the average age falls to approximately 34. Very few of these deputies have any prior political experience. A number appear to have attended the same law school.

The leader of the party, Albert Rivera, occupied the leadership post (his first position within Ciudadanos) at the age of 27. Before that he was a member of Partido Popular. Ciudadanos might be one of the youngest and least experienced political parties on record to have achieved such extraordinary electoral results.

The Spanish Minister of Economy

Albert Rivera is perhaps best-known for appearing in political advertisements nude. In June 2017 he attended the secretive Bilderberg elite financial meeting with Spain’s discredited Spanish Minister of Economy Luis de Guindos, who has been mired in a cronyism scandal. Nevertheless this has not caused Rajoy to dismiss De Guindos from office.

Rivera was an unusual choice to accompany De Guindos as a representative of the Spanish government. Rivera is the youthful leader of an obscure minority political party without representation within the government in Madrid. He has barely any experience relevant to participation in the meetings of the Bilderberg elite.

De Guindos is known to be a high-ranking member of the semi-monastical order of Opus Dei. This is a conservative organisation under the umbrella of the Spanish church, founded by Josemaría Escrivá. Escrivá was an overt sympathiser with the Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco, in office from 1939-1975. Escrivá used the secretive religious order as a covert channel to Franco’s fascist regime for American funds during the Cold War.

The rationale for this was to prevent Franco’s frail and autarchic fascist economy from succumbing to communism. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s political party, the Partido Popular, is the party associated with De Guinos. The Partido Popular has its origins with a Francoist Minister of the Interior.

De Guindos is a close personal acquaintance of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. De Guindos was Juncker’s preferred candidate to succeed Juncker as President of the influential Eurogroup meeting of Euro zone finance ministers. Other European countries blocked De Guindos decisively.

Crisis amidst the Spanish Socialists

The purpose for which Ciudadanos was created appears to be undermining popular support for the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE). This Madrid-based political party formerly occupied a broad Republican, anti-Francoist, swathe of the national political spectrum between firm left and moderate liberals. After Franco’s death in 1975, PSOE was the principal rival to the Partido Popular.

In recent years PSOE has seen its electoral base attacked from both sides. Its left-wing support has migrated in substantial part to Podemos, an unorthodox and anti-institutional parliamentary group with overtly socialist policies. PSOE’s liberal wing has lost support in a number of regions to Ciudadanos. The result of the growth of Ciudadanos in Andalusia has been to ensure that PSOE, historically the dominant party in that region, can no longer form governments without the support of Ciudadanos.

If Ciudadanos is a Partido Popular proxy, then Rajoy has managed to undermine his principal political opponents at the national level by ensuring that the PSOE is now constrained in a number of Spanish regions to govern only at the sufferance of a party that falls under the Partido Popular ambit. This may explain in substantial part explain why in the two most recent Madrid federal elections, PSOE abstained so as to permit Rajoy to form a minority government. Through Ciudadanos, the Partido Popular has hobbled its principal historical political opponent.

The Catalan anti-nationalist opposition

The two main anti-nationalist political groups standing in the 2017 Catalan regional elections are PSOE and Ciudadanos. While the Partido Popular itself enjoys scant political support in Catalonia, Rajoy’s ambitions are presumably to devise a PSOE-Ciudadanos coalition after December 21 that, possibly with the Partido Popular’s abstention, might traverse a reduced threshold for formation of a minority administration within Catalonia’s regional government the Generalitat. The President of PSOE in Barcelona, Miquel Iceta, has openly declared his ambitions to become the next President of the Generalitat notwithstanding PSOE’s poor recent political performance in the region.

It is doubtful that this will work. It seems arithmetically impossible that PSOE and Ciudadanos can achieve the necessary number of deputies to achieve such a result, no matter how much so-called electoral engineering the latter party, and its allied companies and foundations, might be prepared to engage in. Upon current predictions Ciudadanos seems likely to achieve no more than 25 seats, while PSOE would be lucky to better its 2015 tally of 16. It is unthinkable that these two parties, much derided by a substantial proportion of the Catalan population, could persuade the now defiant Catalan nationalist parties to break ranks and thereby relegate their common cause.

Catastrophe for Rajoy

Notwithstanding some inevitably fractious post-election coalition negotiations over the Christmas and New Year period, the new government of Catalonia is going to look much like the old one that Rajoy abolished and imprisoned. Even if Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is destined to pass several months or longer in exile in Brussels pending a potentially interminable judicial process, new faces will replace the old.

If this is the outcome, Rajoy’s strategy in undermining the Catalan independence movement through legal oppression will have failed. This will undermine Rajoy’s domestic and international credibility, and may come at a cost of fundamental structural damage to the economy of Catalonia and hence that of Spain. That is because Spain needs Catalonian tax revenues.

A fiscal origin to the Catalan crisis?

Why has the independence movement has been so recurrent in Catalonia since 2012? The fundamental challenge is one of control over tax income. Although Catalonia’s public debt is not excessive, it is impractical under the current Spanish constitutional arrangements for the  Catalan regional government, the Generalitat, effectively to balance its books. That is because Catalan tax revenue is paid directly to Madrid’s treasury, that uses those funds to service its own debt and then has the effective liberty to repay to Barcelona such balance as it sees fit.

If a Barcelona government were inclined to try to pay down Catalonia’s public debt, it could not do so. Barcelona controls only one of two columns in the Catalan government’s accounts: public expenditures. It cannot control its tax revenues. In practice taxes paid by Catalans are not divided, as they are in the United States or Switzerland, into federal and regional components. Instead all sums are paid to Madrid who effectively can decide how much to return to Barcelona.

This is achieved through a discretionary power on the part of the Madrid government to use public revenues wherever in the country it considers most appropriate. This creates a permanent fiscal deficit on the part of Catalonia in favour of Madrid. No matter what the quantum of tax revenues raised by Barcelona, Madrid can (and historically has) ensured that Catalonia’s net tax revenues returned from Madrid to Barcelona are less than Barcelona’s public expenditures. This constitutional position is anomalous. Other Spanish regions, such as the Basque Country and Navarre, have substantially greater control over the destiny of tax revenues paid by their citizens and corporations.

Equal treatment between Spain’s regions

The Catalan government has sought in the past to negotiate equivalent treatment for Catalonia. The reason Madrid has refused to cede an increased level of control to Barcelona is because Catalonia is a disproportionately large tax payer. Catalonia pays more per person. Catalonia has a lot of people.

Madrid is using Catalonia’s tax revenues at least in significant part to finance its own precarious public debt obligations. Any relinquishment of control to Barcelona, or a rebalancing of the structure for Catalan tax contributions between Madrid and Barcelona (such as enshrining a fixed calculus for division of revenues between the two), would risk eliminating the discretion for Madrid to take more from the Catalans if its parlous circumstances so require.

One recurrent complaint by Catalan politicians is that the perennial increases in Barcelona’s public debt are attributable not to over-spending by the Generalitat but instead to Madrid unilateral amendment of tax distribution formulae to ensure that no matter how efficiently Barcelona might run its finances, it is consistently in deficit. The result is that Catalonia’s public debt is destined to increase year upon year, irrespective of how its regional government manages its economy.

Madrid’s refusal to compromise, in the view of the Catalan nationalist movement, renders the push towards Catalan independence impossible to avert. There is no practical choice other than independence, save to succumb to ever more burdensome regional financial penury irrespective of the success of Catalonia’s economy.

In search of a solution

Relations between the Spanish state and Catalonia have reached an impasse. The ongoing financial dispute between Madrid and Barcelona is sorely in need of resolution. That is because the consequences of perpetuating the dispute are damaging to all of Madrid, Barcelona and the European Union. Recent unrest in Barcelona is degrading the region’s economy. This will reduce Catalan tax revenues upon which Madrid relies. If Madrid has access only to ever-diminishing tax revenues from Barcelona’s tax base, it risks defaulting upon Spanish sovereign debt or being unable to meet subsidy obligations to some of Spain’s poorer regions.

Catalonia does not necessarily resent such subsidies. Nevertheless one of the drivers of the independence movement is the uncertainty and arbitrariness of a Spanish constitutional structure in which Catalonia, as an autonomous region, suffers from substantially more arbitrary distribution of its tax revenues than other regions within Spain. If ultimately Spain defaults upon its international debt servicing obligations as a result of this dispute, then the viability of the Euro zone is at stake. The EU cannot bail Spain out, as its economy and its debt are too large.

So-called “re-pesetafication” of Spain is one option. This is reversion to a devalued Spanish national currency in the face of unserviceable Spanish sovereign debt. Legally mandated conversion of Spanish sovereign Euro-denominated interest and repayment obligations, to debt denominated in a devalued replacement national currency, might avert formal sovereign default. But this would be an unmitigated European disaster, as bond market confidence in Euro-denominated debt collapsed.

This would surely increased the prospects for a more determined drive towards Catalan independence. Relatively prosperous Catalonia – that can service its own debt – would seek to accelerate disassociation with the Spanish central government. This would entail an increased potential for military conflict between Barcelona and Madrid. If Madrid needs the money, it is likely to send in the tanks to collect it. By reason of this mess, Europe is at risk of civil conflict. That is why the Catalan crisis is perpetually in the newspapers.

The Catalan independence movement is not all about economics and finance. The Catalans have national pride in their own language, culture and traditions. But financial travails are often a significant component within secessionist disputes. Tensions giving rise to independence movements can often be ameliorated through renegotiation of vexing financial and other legal issues dividing the parties. The European Union should facilitate this. Refusal by Brussels to intermediate in the Catalan crisis is exacerbating the problem, not alleviating it.

The importance for Europe

This is not purely a Spanish internal constitutional issue. The continued financial health of a major Eurozone economy rests upon constitutional renegotiation within Spain about the relationship between the Spanish federal government and its regions. The principal problem infecting the Spanish constitution is that a number of regions within Spain are treated differently from others.

That is because the current Spanish constitution was a compromise prepared during a chaotic transition to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975. It may be appropriate now, more than 40 years later, to be revisit some of the issues decided when Spain was a very different country. While some of the differences in constitutional treatment of Spain’s regions may be harmless, and might reflect greater or lesser senses of national identity between Spain’s regions, the issue of Catalan fiscal autonomy is not such an issue.

If there is some good that might arise from the unilateral Catalan push for independence in the second half of 2017, it is the creation of an impetus within Spain and amongst the broader European Union to initiate an enquiry into Spanish constitutional and fiscal reform. The current position is unsustainable. But there is an opportunity.

If nothing is done, then we may be looking at the prospect of repeated snap elections and referenda, with all the crises that follow, every two years. Whatever one thinks of the notion of Catalan independence a priori, recent conflicts between Madrid and Barcelona have the potential to cause significant damage to the economy of both Catalonia and of Spain as a whole. Current events are damaging Spain in the eyes of the world. Europe cannot afford this, and neither can Spain.

Promptly after the December 21 elections, at is imperative to focus upon a prompt solution. That must involve Spanish constitutional reform. The European Union must be engaged. The Spanish constitution was written in the aftermath of the quiet demise of Europe’s last fascist dictatorship. It has served its purpose tolerably well. But it is ripe for reform.

Should a project of this nature be undertaken in good faith by all parties, the Catalan independence project might be viewed through a new lens. The immediate crisis may be averted. That is surely now the priority. The stakes for Catalonia, Spain, and the European Union as a whole, are too high to countenance continued neglect of this most dangerous of problems for European stability.

*Matthew Parish is an international lawyer based in Geneva, Switzerland and a former UN peacekeeper. He is a scholar of ethnic conflict and civil war, and he has published two books and over two hundred articles. He is an Honorary Professor of Civil Law and Litigation at the University of Leicester and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Bilan magazine named him as one of the three hundred most influential people in Switzerland. www.matthewparish.com

Several Mexican media outlets reported on Nov. 24 that Eduardo Verastegui, internationally known Catholic actor and producer, could be a serious candidate in the country’s 2018 presidential elections.

“Eduardo Verastegui could be the Social Encounter Party candidate in 2018,” an El Universal headline read.

On the same day, El Debate led with “Eduardo Verastegui, a candidate for the presidency in 2018?”

Mexican media speculated on the possibility of Verastegui’s candidacy after statements made by the president of the Social Encounter Party, Hugo Eric Flores, who confirmed to the press that he is in “conversations” with the Catholic actor and producer for an “important” position on their slate of candidates.

If his candidacy is confirmed, Verastegui would not be the first to take the unusual route from acting to the presidency; Ronald Reagan who served as U.S. president from January 1981 to January 1989, had a decades-long film career before entering politics.

The Social Encounter Party is the newest national party in Mexico, officially registering in 2014. This will be the first time that it participates in the country’s presidential elections.

The new party says it wants to “reconcile political activity with the ethical principles and values based in the building block of society: the family.”

Since the rediscovery of his Catholic faith 15 years ago in Hollywood, Verastegui has pushed for the right to life of the unborn, the strengthening of marriage and family, and religious freedom. These principles align with the platform of the Social Encounter Party.

To further these goals, Verastegui founded the production company Metanoia Films, along with associates Alejandro Gomez Monteverde and Leo Severino. The company was created to propagate the values of life and marriage and family in order to “reach people’s hearts and minds.”

Their first production, “Bella” directed by Alejandro Monteverde, and starring Verastegui, won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. The film depicts a journey to redemption involving the central characters’ commitment to the right to life of an unborn child.

Their most recent project is the movie “Little Boy,” in which a young boy learns how to live the virtues, starting with faith, and in turn teaches them to others. The film became a blockbuster in Mexico.

Verastegui is now developing “Sound of Freedom,” a film which addresses the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation. The film, which is in pre-production, traces the true story of Tim Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent. Ballard quit his job to launch an international organization aiming to rescue children who had been kidnapped for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

Verastegui told ACI Prensa that “the story is hard hitting, full of hope and very encouraging. Ballard is acting as an adviser to the project and I’m sure the film will help liberate thousands and thousands of children enslaved right here in the 21st century.”

Metanoia Films has also completed a documentary entitled “The Other Party” which addresses the issue of crime prevention in Mexico. Verastegui has a tour planned to premiere the documentary in 20 Mexican cities, encouraging public dialogue on personal safety, one the greatest concerns to the Mexican electorate.

Besides his performance as an actor and work as a producer, Verastegui has been promoting life, the family and religious freedom through numerous solidarity initiatives, especially those developed by his non-profit organization “Manto de Guadalupe” –The Mantle of Guadalupe—and the pro-life clinic, Guadalupe Medical Center, which opened its doors in Los Angeles on August 10, 2010.

In addition, the Catholic actor and producer is president of the “Let’s be Heroes” foundation dedicated to encouraging volunteerism throughout the world.

Verastegui has not confirmed whether he will run for any political position, or his affiliation with the Social Encounter Party.

By Michael Sainsbury, Yangon and John Zaw and Nay Pyi Taw

Pope Francis has avoided any specific mention of Myanmar’s multiple conflicts, including the Rohingya refugee crisis, during his Nov. 28 public address set piece at the national capital Nay Pyi Taw.

Instead, the first trip ever to a country by any pope, he chose to broadly address the importance of peace, tolerance, respect for religious differences and the duty of current generations toward the young, when he spoke to diplomats, politicians and civil society representatives at the national parliament.

“The arduous process of peace-building and national reconciliation can only advance through a commitment to justice and respect for human rights,” Pope Francis said. “Religious differences need not be a source of division and distrust, but rather a force for unity, forgiveness, tolerance and wise nation-building,”

“The future of Myanmar must be peace, a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity, respect for the rule of law, and respect for a democratic order that enables each individual and every group – none excluded – to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good.

“The future of Myanmar in a rapidly changing and interconnected world will depend on the training of its young, not only in technical fields, but above all in the ethical values of honesty, integrity and human solidarity that can ensure the consolidation of democracy and the growth of unity and peace at every level of society.”

Human rights groups expressed disappointment that the pontiff had remained silent about the Rohingya tragedy, which has seen 620,000 people flood into neighboring Bangladesh with stories of murder, rape, pillage and property destruction by the Myanmar military.

But the pontiff had been begged by Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, the country’s only cardinal, as well as former UN chief Kofi Annan not to mention the group by their self–determined name of Rohingya, for fear of sparking sectarian violence.

Rohingya is a term that majority of Myanmar’s people now shun in favor of “Bengali” or as civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi says, “Rakhine Muslims” while referring to their home state and religion.

Kyaw Min, chairman of the Yangon-based Democracy and Human Rights Rohingya Party, said it is not surprising that the pope didn’t use the term “Rohingya” as church leaders in Myanmar had already urged him to avoid it. “But I believe the pope raised the Rohingya issue during his meeting with State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said.

“The pope’s visit to Myanmar may have am impact on the peace process but it is less likely to have one on the Rakhine crisis issue as Myanmar’s leaders are stubborn and may not soften their hearts. But we don’t lose hope with the pope” Kyaw Min told ucanews.com.

UCAN Executive Director Father Michael Kelly, SJ, like the pope a Jesuit, said it was “unsurprisingly there was nothing explicit about the thing people were wondering if he would speak about while he was here. The reality is that despite the horror of the situation, the Rohingya are the tip of the iceberg in Myanmar.”

The Rohingya exodus is the latest blot on the record of Myanmar’s aggressive military which has waged civil war against freedom fighters from a range of ethnic groups that surround the center where the Bamar people live, leaving at least 250,000 people today in internal displacement camps in Myanmar’s north and across its border in Thailand.

Father Kelly said that in his repeated references to “tolerance” and “justice” there was a typically coded message from the pope about the present crisis but added: “What can people expect: he’s not from Myanmar he is a visitor to the country, the head of state of a sovereign country and Catholics account for less than 1 per cent of the population?”

The pontiff was introduced by Suu Kyi following a private meeting between the two, who also met in Rome in May where the idea that Pope Francis my travel to the strife torn country was considered.

Ahead of the meeting with Suu Kyi, Pope Francis paid a courtesy call on the nation’s president Htin Kyaw.

Ahead of taking the hour-long flight to Nay Pyi Daw, which replaced Yangon as the country’s capital in 2008, the pontiff met with a controversial senior Buddhist monk as well had a separate gathering of interfaith leaders.

On the morning of Nov. 29 he will celebrate an open air Mass in Yangon with at least 40 other priests, bishops and cardinals. About 200,000 people are expected to attend.

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has met with the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, the Presidency confirmed on Tuesday.

The Speaker briefed the President on allegations of interference by the Minister of State Security, Bongani Bongo, in the Parliamentary enquiry by the Public Enterprises Committee on the affairs of Eskom.

It has been reported that evidence leader, Advocate Ntuthuzelo Vanara, submitted an affidavit claiming that Bongo (then an ordinary African National Congress MP) offered him a bribe to collapse the investigation into the alleged capture of Eskom.

The Presidency said President Zuma is attending to the matter.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) departed Subic Bay, Philippines aboard heavy lift transport vessel MV Treasure en route to Fleet Activities Yokosuka Nov. 28, according to a US Navy press release.

John S. McCain was diverted to Subic Bay Oct. 22, due to poor weather conditions and to repair cracks in the ship’s hull discovered after the ship departed Singapore aboard MV Treasure. While at anchor in Subic Bay, technicians inspected the cracks and determined the ship needed additional blocks under it to support and distribute its weight on the heavy lift vessel, the Navy said.

According to the press release, upon arrival in Yokusuka, John S. McCain will be repaired at Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center (SRF-JRMC) before returning to service in U.S. 7th Fleet.

“SRF is making preparations to begin remediation and repair efforts immediately once the ship is dockside,” said Lt. Cmdr. Sandra Wyman assigned to SRF-JRMC. “The project will be one of the largest SRF has undertaken.”

John S. McCain was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while underway east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore Aug. 21. Following the collision, the ship moored at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base. In the weeks prior to departure from Singapore Oct. 5, crew members, technicians and divers prepared the ship for the journey by patching damaged sections of the hull and placing key systems in layup maintenance.

The Navy released findings from its investigation of the collision as part of the Comprehensive Review of Surface Force Incidents, published Nov. 2.

Each country has its own cultural sensitivities. International travelers are to be very careful about them. Let’s say, they do not want unauthorized photography in their environment, so you will not take pictures. Let’s say they do not want you to spend more than length of stay they allow in their country, so you will not be late. Let’s say you’re expected to dress conservatively – you will dress accordingly. You will not consume alcoholic beverages, if it is strictly forbidden.

The rules of one country  and its applications may be opposite to the rules of the citizens of another country. Hence it is useless, and meaningless to object to the local rules. If you are in that country, you will do what they say, you will do, and follow their rules.

Imagine the freedom of expression in Germany and France or in United Kingdom in a broad sense, and the tolerance shown for CharlieHebdo cartoons. It is impossible to expect the same in the Middle East countries. In the United States, the police have a wide margin of authority. You have no right to object but obey the rules.

Robert Alan Black, then 70-year-old US architect, who had three masters and a PhD degree, was invited to a Gulf country in October 2014 as a speaker for “Creative Thinkers” Conference, in Abu Dhabi. His expenses for plane, hotel, meals were met, the organizers made a lump sum daily allowance for him as a major keynote speaker.

The next morning after the conference, he goes out of the hotel for site seeing the nearby environment. He was walking outdoors in the early morning hours, in the morning coolness. He wants to see the surrounding area outdoors. He had a simple a digital camera with him to take simple pictures. If you are a tourist in Istanbul, you are free to photograph everywhere. Nobody tells you anything. In Africa, Masai people in Savannah, they ask you to pay if you take their pictures. Similarly you cannot take photos in India without paying money.

Our senior architect walks randomly on the street in the morning. He passes by a few mosques, a big commercial building, a residential area. He takes pictures of some interesting architecture. But that was not normal in Abu Dhabi. You should get official permission if you wish to take pictures of anything outdoors. Everything is unauthorized. A police-military car stops nearby and takes him to the nearest police station to question him. They release him after 3-5 hours of interrogation, with the strict recommendation not to take pictures of any building.

On his way back to his hotel, he sees a warning sign on the road. It says, “It is forbidden to take pictures here”, in many languages. His unstoppable impulse inside activates again, he takes the picture of that road sign. A few minutes later, another military car stops nearby.

This time the situation is serious, despite the fact that there is a duplicate situation. They take our curious architect into prison and forget him there for a while without informing anyone.

After one month, the recently released inmate informs the US consulate in the country, somehow the consulate finds a reputable lawyer with close relations to the jurisdiction, our architect is released and deported immediately.

Upon return home, he speaks to CNN TV about what happened. The foreign mind has never understood local sensitivity. There are many strangers who have interpreted the incident differently from their own point of view. They have also described other things. Most of inmates have not been in the court for one year without court hearing. Most of them are guilty of simple passport period violations. So if you do not take photos without permission, you will not expire your stay.

When I go to Saudi Arabia, I do not take a photo camera. I do not take any foreign magazine or newspaper with me. I just take the company promotion catalogs. I read whatever is available at the local magazine store or bookshop. Foreign magazines, newspapers, are sold all censored in black ink.

When I was working in Pakistan in the 1990s, we were not able to get a permanent or long term residence permit for our employees in the construction site. Once we were so occupied with daily work, our site supervisor had to spend one more week without permission. He was arrested and kept in the prison for one month until we cleared the legal procedures and pay the penalties.

While returning from Azerbaijan, at the Baku airport, I checked my passport. I showed my passport maybe ten times. Lastly, a soldier in a secluded place took my passport, pretending to check it out, he practically scrapped my passport. I returned to Istanbul with a shattered passport. Our passport police was very understanding, “That happens always out of Azerbaijan.” I had to renew my lousy passport immediately spending unnecessary time and money. It has nothing to do with the politics of the country, it was the nasty practice of an individual unresponsive soldier.

When we were in Syria in the 1990s for a tender, a foreigner staying in our hotel in Damascus was jogging early in the morning around the hotel. A military car stopped by, asked for a passport. Do you take your passport while jogging? You should in Syria. You are already running around the hotel. They arrested him and put him in jail for a month until the foreign consulate interfered for his release.

So in any case you must have your passport with you at all times. This is the practice in the Middle East. After the CharlieHebdo incident, primarily Europe and the Middle East, countries put extra measures on visa conditions, put longer visa requirements. You need to apply long before. Donald Trump put visa restrictions to various Muslim counties. Moreover the USA stopped visa for Turkish citizens, although they continued releasing visas for ongoing visa applications. In order to be able to do business in difficult geographies, “we have to pay attention to all local sensitivities”.

But there are times when these sensitivities are not taken into consideration. President George W. Bush’s wife Laura Bush, former Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama’s wife Michelle Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel, these ladies visited Saudi Arabia, with their heads uncovered. The Saudi authorities did not make any objection. Saudis could not do anything as it could jeopardize  diplomacy and cooperation.

This is the practice in the Middle East. You should be careful of local sensitivities and concur at all times if you wish to do business with locals.

According to election officials with access to the vote count, Honduras’ incumbent president Juan Orlando Hernández cannot overcome the lead of Salvador Nasralla, his main opposition opponent. Honduras’ electoral authority, the Tribunal Supremo Electoral, should end political tensions by providing this information officially and publicly, Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said Tuesday.

Reuters reports: “With about 70 percent of ballots counted, TV entertainer Salvador Nasralla was leading by a margin of five points, election official Marcos Ramiro Lobo told Reuters on Monday afternoon, by which time results updates had ground to a halt.”

“The lead was too large for Hernandez to overcome, Lobo said, without saying what percentage of the vote Nasralla secured. An initial tally encompassing more than half of ballots early on Monday gave Nasralla 45 percent and Hernandez 40 percent,” according to Reuters.

If Lobo is correct that the TSE has counted 70 percent of ballots already, and if the non-Nasralla, non-Hernández votes hold at 15 percent, this means that Hernández would need to receive almost 51 percent (50.8 percent) of the remaining, uncounted ballots in order to win.

The odds against Hernandez winning 51 percent of the remaining ballots after winning only 40 percent so far would seem insurmountable. Furthermore, Lobo and other election officials would have details on the areas with votes remaining to be counted, and could therefore determine whether such a result is even statistically conceivable. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Lobo was correct in stating that Nasralla’s lead is almost impossible for Hernández to overcome.

“It is unusual for the TSE to keep so much of the vote counting process secret and not to release data publicly as it becomes available,” Weisbrot said. “This secrecy increases political tensions and increases both the perception and the possibility of cheating. All this has a negative impact on what remains of Honduras’ democratic Institutions.”

Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany are facing an uncertain future after talks to form a coalition government – and secure her a fourth term – collapsed. Chancellor Merkel’s party, which lacks a majority in the Bundestag, had spent weeks trying to cobble together a ruling coalition with three other parties. But the plan fell apart when the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out of talks shortly before midnight on Sunday over disagreements on issues ranging from energy policy to migration.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party lacks a clear majority in the Bundestag (parliament). Merkel had hoped to build a coalition consisting of her conservative CDU, its sister party the Christian Social Union, the pro-business FDP, and the Green Party.

FDP negotiators walked out of what they described as “chaotic” talks, with party leader Christian Lindner said it was “better not to govern than govern badly”. All other parties attacked the liberals for deliberately collapsing the talks in a bid to boost its support in any snap election. FDP negotiators walked out of what they described as “chaotic” talks, with party leader Christian Lindner said it was “better not to govern than govern badly”.

The FDP’s walkout came after the four parties had already missed several self-imposed deadline to resolve their differences. But all other parties attacked the liberals for deliberately collapsing the talks in a bid to boost its support in any snap election.

The AfD hailed the collapse of coalition talks. “We are glad that Jamaica isn’t happening,” said AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland. “Merkel has failed.” His co-leader, Alice Weidel, welcomed the prospect of fresh elections and called on Merkel to resign. Others suggested the walk-out was a high-risk FDP attempt to weaken Dr Merkel and forced fresh elections in which the liberals would pull back protest voters from the AfD. FDP rivals expressed concern that Lindner’s high-risk tactic could result in a further boost in support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which polled almost 13 per cent in the September 24th election.

Fragile coalition

Merkel’s position was widely seen as unassailable in the run-up to September’s elections, with many commentators suggesting the outcome was so predictable as to be boring. Merkel had spent weeks trying to cobble together a ruling coalition with three other parties. But the plan fell apart when the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out of talks over disagreements on issues ranging from energy policy to migration. The political analysts suggested the FDP’s move could blow up in its face. There are politicians who are strong with their back to the wall, why should Merkel not be one of those?”

The Chancellor told state broadcaster ZDF that she has not considered resigning. “There was no question that I should face personal consequences,” she said.

Merkel had been forced to seek an alliance with an unlikely group of parties after the ballot left her without a majority. Voicing regret for the FDP’s decision, Merkel vowed to steer Germany through the crisis. “As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country comes out well through this difficult time,” she said. The Greens’ leaders also deplored the collapse of talks, saying they had believed a deal could be done despite the differences.

A poll by Welt online also found that 61.4 percent of people surveyed said a collapse of talks would mean an end to Merkel as chancellor. Only 31.5 percent thought otherwise.
Germany’s Sept. 24 election produced an awkward result that left Merkel’s two-party conservative bloc seeking a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the traditionally left-leaning Greens. The combination of ideologically disparate parties hadn’t been tried before in a national government, and came to nothing when the Free Democrats walked out of talks. Unable to form a coalition with one other party (as is the norm in Germany), Merkel emerged from the election substantially weakened.

Merkel’s liberal refugee policy that let in more than a million asylum-seekers since 2015 had also pushed some voters to the far-right AfD, which in September campaigned on an anti-immigration platform.

The country’s two mainstream parties — Merkel’s CDU/CSU alliance and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) — suffered big losses. Smaller parties, including the FDP and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) — who won 12.6% of the vote and entered parliament for the first time — were the beneficiaries.

While the FDP blamed the CDU/CSU alliance for the breakdown, the Green Party thanked Merkel and the leader of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, for negotiating “hard” but “fair,” and accused the FDP of quitting the talks without good reason. The so-called “Jamaica coalition” — named after the parties’ colors — would have been unprecedented at federal level.

Christian Lindner, leader of the FDP said that the four discussion partners have no common vision for modernization of the country or common basis of trust. “It is better not to govern than to govern badly.” He expressed regret that the talks had failed but said that his party would have had to compromise on its core principles. His party returned to parliament in September four years after voters, unimpressed with its performance as the junior partner in Merkel’s 2009-2013 government, ejected it. “It is better not to govern than to govern wrong,” Lindner said.

For Merkel there is only one other possible option of avoiding fresh elections: wooing back the SPD into office for a third grand coalition. But senior SPD figures signaled that eight years as Dr Merkel’s junior partner since 2005 was enough. “We are not Germany’s parliamentary majority reserve,” said Andrea Nahles, SPD Bundestag leader.

Merkel could now try to convince the Social Democratic Party, which has been the junior coalition partner in her government since 2013, to return to the fold. But after suffering a humiliating loss at the polls, the party’s top brass has repeatedly said the SDP’s place was now in the opposition.

Merkel is set to consult the country’s president and the possibility of new elections looming.

Trust deficit

The country has been plunged into its worst political crisis in years after negotiations to form the next government collapsed overnight, dealing a serious blow to Merkel and raising questions about the future of the longtime Chancellor. Germany could likely be forced to hold new elections. But that is not without peril for Merkel, who would face questions from within her party on whether she is still the best candidate to lead them into a new electoral campaign.

Following more than a month of grueling negotiations, the leader of the pro-business FDP, Christian Lindner, walked out of talks, saying there was no “basis of trust” to forge a government with Merkel’s conservative alliance CDU-CSU and ecologist Greens, adding that the parties did not share “a common vision on modernizing” Germany.

The negotiations, which turned increasingly acrimonious, had stumbled on a series of issues including immigration policy. Key sticking points during the talks were the issues of migration and climate change, on which the Greens and the other parties diverged, but also Free Democrat demands on tax policy. The parties also differed on environmental issues, with the ecologists wanting to phase out dirty coal and combustion-engine cars, while the conservatives and FDP emphasized the need to protect industry and jobs.

Clearly, there is a serious trust deficit among the coalition partners that came to the fore in the negotiations. Party chiefs had initially set a deadline, but that passed without a breakthrough – after already missing a previous target on Thursday. But s the parties dug in their heels on key sticking points.

It’s likely to be a while before the situation is resolved. The only other politically plausible combination with a parliamentary majority is a repeat of Merkel’s outgoing coalition with the center-left Social Democrats — but they have insisted time and again that they will go into opposition after a disastrous election result.

If they stick to that insistence, that leaves a minority government — not previously tried in post-World War II Germany — or new elections as the only options. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will ultimately have to make that decision, since the German constitution doesn’t allow parliament to dissolve itself.

Fresh poll

Two months on, however, that untested alliance has hit the wall meaning Germany and Europe face an extended period of insecurity. When the Bundestag meets for its second sitting, still without a government, acting chancellor Dr Merkel has no legal means to table a motion of no confidence to trigger fresh elections. The parties failed to make progress on a number of policy areas — including the right for family members of refugees in Germany to join them there — and tensions had risen.

Apparently, the end of Markel era is being talked about now as the collation of partners keep moving one by one, though she expressed the hope she would be successful eventually and would put in place a new government.

Fresh elections in Germany appeared increasingly likely after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she preferred a new vote over governing without a parliamentary majority. Merkel said her conservatives had left nothing untried to find a solution. “I will contact the president and we will see how things develop,” said a clearly exhausted Dr Merkel, departing the talks. “It is a day to think long and hard about where things go now . . . and as acting chancellor I will do everything to ensure Germany is led well through these difficult days.”

Merkel, Germany’s leader since 2005 said she would consult President Steinmeier “and then “we will have to see how things develop.” She didn’t say more about her plans, or address whether she would run again if there are new elections.

To get to either destination, Steinmeier would first have to propose a chancellor to parliament, who must win a majority of all lawmakers to be elected. Assuming that fails, parliament has 14 days to elect a candidate of its own choosing by an absolute majority. And if that fails, Steinmeier would then propose a candidate who could be elected by a plurality of lawmakers.

Steinmeier would then have to decide whether to appoint a minority government or dissolve parliament, triggering an election within 60 days. Merkel’s Union bloc is easily the biggest group in parliament, but is 109 seats short of a majority.

To get to either destination, Steinmeier would first have to propose a chancellor to parliament, who must win a majority of all lawmakers to be elected. Assuming that fails, parliament has 14 days to elect a candidate of its own choosing by an absolute majority. And if that fails, Steinmeier would then propose a candidate who could be elected by a plurality of lawmakers.

Merkel said that the “path of minority government” should be considered “very very closely”. “I am very skeptical and I believe that new elections would be the better path,” she said. Merkel also confirmed that she would be ready to lead her party into any new vote. She did not rule out further talks with other parties, however, and acknowledged that the country’s next steps were in the hands of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “The four discussion partners have no common vision for modernization of the country or common basis of trust,” said Christian Lindner, leader of the FDP. “It is better not to govern than to govern badly.”

Representatives from 26 Member States will meet from 28 to 30 November in Caracas, Venezuela, for the XLIII Regular Meeting of the Latin American Council of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), the highest decision-making organ of this inter-governmental organization.

The Permanent Secretariat of SELA will submit to the Latin American Council the “Forty-first Annual Report of the Permanent Secretariat”, corresponding to the activities carried out since last year’s Regular Meeting.

It will also present for consideration its “Draft Work Programme for the year 2018”, which is aimed mainly at developing activities that incorporate an innovative and up-to-date insight on those economic issues that are most useful for its Member States.

In this connection, priority will be given to the productive articulation (development of value chains) and economic promotion (trade, investment and sustainable tourism). It also envisages as a cross-cutting axis of work for 2018 the promotion, development and internationalization of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the region. The projects and activities with Central American countries will also be strengthened.

On November 28, the Ministerial Stage will start. It will be in charge of the Permanent Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), Ambassador Javier Paulinich, the new Chairman of the Latin American Council and the representative of the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as speakers.

Prior to the opening of the Ministerial Stage, Luis Carranza, Chief Executive Officer of CAF-development bank of Latin America, will give a lecture on the “Current Situation and Prospects for Regional Economic Integration”.

By James Stafford

Cryptocurrency may be one of the biggest threats to governments, security and the entire financial system that we’ve ever seen. It can help fund terrorism and its anonymity makes it almost impossible to track. Most importantly, it is poised to revolutionize global finance and banking.

But our new Enemy No. 1 can’t be fought; it can perhaps be controlled. Banks have figured that out and are bringing crypto currency into the fold.

The superpowers—U.S., China and Russia–will have to face the new reality. They love to hate it and hate to love it. Regardless, if they don’t embrace it, they won’t be able to control it. An enemy you don’t control is a much bigger threat.

So, welcome to the new balance of power, funded by cryptocurrency.

“This will ‘uberize’ banking to the extent that the major banks are spending billions to get into this Blockchain, says Frank Holmes, legendary gold investor, CEO of US Global Investors and Chairman of HIVE Blockchain Technologies (TSX:HIVE.V), the first public company where investors can participate in the build-up and infrastructure of crypto-mining.

“Bitcoin is the catalyst for crypto-mining the way emails were for the Internet. When we first heard about the Internet it was for the ‘dark world’, but with email, it exploded and became mainstream. Ethereum takes crypto-mining further with smart contracts,” Holmes told Oilprice.com

The Period of Uncertainty is Over

Russia is embracing it, with an eye to dominating it. China has banned it. The U.S. is struggling to figure out how to regulate it. But nothing can hold it back.

And now, many believe the uncertainty is over.

China tried to ban it in September, making it illegal for residents to trade in cryptocurrencies or start-ups to raise funds through ICOs, completely shutting down local cryptocurrency exchanges.

Bitcoin’s price plunged 40 percent. Then it recovered almost immediately.

This was a reminder that cryptocurrency is an autonomous system that can’t be knocked out.

“The ethos behind blockchain has been tested,” Ken Sangha, COO of Open Money and the Open Project in San Francisco, told Forbes. “A central, organized and powerful authority — China — said ‘no’ and we all have been tested worldwide because of it. But the system flexed its muscles. It’s doing what it was supposed to do.”

And its muscles are the envy of tangible currencies everywhere. Bitcoin hit a record $6,000 per coin on 21 October. Naysayers came out of the woodwork to say it couldn’t possibly last, and definitely couldn’t go any higher. Wrong again. By the last week of November it was approaching $10,000 a coin.

Threats and Opportunities

The potential security threats are clear and present, but let’s put things like new avenues of terrorism funding into perspective.

At this point, terrorist groups are certainly eyeing their options with cryptocurrency, and testing the waters. In January, we saw what appears to be the first case, with the Indonesian government claiming that members of the Islamic State were transferring Bitcoin to each other.

Terrorists could create a virtual currency that is even more powerful and untraceable-one that can completely bypass the global banking system. It hasn’t happened yet, but the potential is there.

While terrorist groups may be mildly courting cryptocurrency, it’s not widespread. Speaking to Newsweek, the Rand Corp’s Joshua Baron, a cryptographer and mathematician, says he doesn’t really see Bitcoin as the “go-to currency for terrorists”—yet. “It does not offer enough anonymity.”

While terrorism is a threat to the security of all states, another threat to the U.S. is an opportunity for Russia: sanctions busting.

The rise of digital currency means that Russian officials sanctioned by the U.S. and the European Union have a way to send and receive money.

While the U.S. Treasury’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit puts sanctioned individuals on a blacklist that keeps them from doing any business in U.S. dollars, cryptocurrency, which isn’t backed or controlled by any state, makes it possible to bypass the blacklist.

But even this pales in comparison to the bigger story here: Bitcoin and its fellow cryptocurrencies are challenging the foundations of the global banking system.

Disruption of the global banking system at this point is “inevitable”, Bala Venkataraman, global chief technology officer of banking and capital markets for Computer Sciences Corp, whose sister company runs the IT backbone of the National Security Agency (NSA), told Newsweek.

“Cryptocurrencies could become the new driver of international business and financial transactions, and that would be transformative, if not revolutionary,” says Dr. Makarenko, whose consulting firm advises Fortune 500 companies.

But here’s the problem:

“If we don’t truly understand how they are operating, who is controlling them and how to avoid it being used for illicit purposes, it may inadvertently turn out to be one of the most innovative turning points in the underworld, whether it’s organized crime, terrorism financing or corruption.”

The Crypto ‘Embrace’ is All About Control

Just last year, Russia was toying around with throwing Bitcoin owners in prison, characterizing cryptocurrency as an infectious pyramid scheme.

Now, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is ready to embrace cryptocurrency—if only to control it.

The real push started in July, when a Putin aide unveiled his cryptocurrency mine: an industrial-scale server farm called Russian Miner Coin. In September, the company held an initial coin offering (ICO), raising over $43 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Then came the regulatory push. After all, Russia has lost an estimated $310 million this year alone due to lack of ICO regulation.

In late October, Putin issued five presidential orders for controlling cryptocurrency. This means everything from taxing coin miners and regulating initial coin offerings (ICOs) to creating legislation for new blockchain tech and setting up a single payment space, presumably with the Central Bank.

Still, the Russian government is not entirely unified on the issue. The Central Bank thinks blockchain is cool, but isn’t keen on cryptocurrency itself. They’d like to have something like a crypto-ruble that could track transactions from cryptocurrencies into rubles.

It’s far more than a fad. Cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly visible across Russia. Mining is becoming so pervasive, in fact, that computer stores are having a hard time keeping graphic and video cards in supply.

The Russian Finance Minister, Anton Siluanov, has even gone as far as to say that cryptocurrency will soon be treated like regular financial securities.

There’s no point in prohibiting this reality, says Siluanov.

The U.S. might be of the same mind—broadly speaking, but it’s moving at a slower pace in the race to control the world’s new currency.

And it’s its own worst enemy in this scenario, says Dr. Tamara Makarenko, managing director of West Sands Advisory, a UK-based global consulting firm.

But Russia, for one, is much more motivated. Cryptocurrency is a great way to skirt sanctions.

“The U.S. is rightfully concerned about cryptocurrencies, but like anything that may have a negative impact on national security, there are way too many stakeholders that need to be brought to the table to discuss, so the U.S. is not capable of acting quickly,” Dr. Makarenko told Oilprice.com.

“The right conversations are taking place, but at the end of the day, it is in the U.S. interest to secure the value of the global position of the dollar.”

So, while China is banning cryptocurrency and the U.S. is still trying to figure things out, Russia seeks to dominate.

But just like China’s ban will be largely ineffective, so too will Russia’s move to dominate. Cryptocurrency is stateless, and that is its real power. It can be regulated, but not enslaved.

Resilience Proven, Investors Flock to the Future

Right now, about 85 percent of the world’s bitcoin trading volume comes from China. Countries with heavily subsidized energy are obvious ether mining haunts, but now the colder countries have something to offer that has nothing to do with the government, and doesn’t involve any legal gray areas that will come under scrutiny.

With even Putin’s IT advisor getting into the great game, hoping to challenge China’s hegemony in Bitcoin mining, the race is on in full force. They’re hoping to capture 30 percent of the global cryptocurrency mining share in the future.

Japanese billionaire Masatoshi Kumagai, co-founder of giant GMO Internet, announced plans recently to invest over $90 million in a new Bitcoin mining business that will operate as a fund, partially by soliciting capital from investors and repaying them in cryptocurrency.

In North America, billionaire backing is going into HIVE (TSVX:HIVE.V), via Lionsgate Entertainment and Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) superstar Frank Giustra, a legendary mining figure known for being in the right place at the right time—and always in front of a trend.

The new Great Game is virtual reality, and while governments are busy trying to figure out how they can control it, investors are busy sinking billions into what is fast becoming a story of industrial-scale cryptocurrency mining.

Now that everyone’s seen how resilient Bitcoin is, not only are things moving to the industrial phase, but everyone’s weighing the best venues for mining. Because even though this is virtual reality, location still matters.

That’s why HIVE has set up in Iceland, where Mother Nature’s natural cooling is friendly to these massive computing facilities, and where the massive energy required to mine cryptocurrency—in this case Ether–on an industrial scale is cheaper thanks to plentiful hydroelectric and geothermal sources. First, HIVE put $9 million into Hong Kong-based Genesis Mining Ltd., which just built the biggest ether-mining facility in the world—Enigma. Genesis acquired 30% of HIVE in the deal. A second deal in mid-October saw HIVE close a $30-million bought deal financing, completing a $7-million investment by Genesis Mining, acquiring a second data center in Iceland.

And now HIVE is setting up in another ‘cold country’—Sweden—with Genesis.

From China and Russia to North America, virtual is the reality. It’s no longer a question of whether cryptocurrency will survive. It’s a question of what it will disrupt on its way to the top of the global finance chain.

Source: https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Meet-The-Worlds-Most-Powerful-Bitcoin-Backers.html

Six key religious parties in Pakistan avowed the revitalization of Muttahida Majlis e Amal (MMA) on November 10, 2017. One of the many aims behind this retrieval is to secure the Islamic character and identity of the nation, as the parties assert that this progression is the best way to guarantee fair steadiness within the country. However, as is evident from the history, relational unions are normally formed whenever the elections are at hand; thus securing significant vote banks for aspiring competitors.

The main driving force and inspiration behind this alliance was the votes MMA scored back in 2002. Yet, one viewpoint that this alliance of parties is overlooking is the fact that their voter base is merely constrained to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and does not stretch out to different areas. Also, within KP, the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf is now an impressive challenger which did not have any impression in the area back in 2002. All the mainstream conventional parties e.g. PML-N, PPP and PTI do not have much to fear from the cooperation to the extent Punjab and Sindh are concerned. In 2008, the same MMA couldn’t get a noteworthy number of votes. Recent by-elections both in Punjab and KP likewise do not hint at any distinctive resurgence.

The meeting up of these normal allies under MMA’s banner may help them to enhance that execution by counteracting part of the religious vote; however it is probably not going to have any noteworthy effect on the general outcome. In short without a doubt, it would have no place close to the 2002 results.

Moreover, it is largely anticipated among masses and some political parties that the pioneers of these and different parties have consented to work towards framing a union out of the blue chiefly because of some ‘shrouded factors’, having an effect on everything. Let this be the case but the political improvements amidst the running month ought to be sufficient for all partners and stakeholders to understand that political collusions made under strain to satisfy impermanent motivation don’t get the chance to see the light of the day. The destiny of the merger of Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) is a valid example; for in a matter of days, both the parties have backpedaled on their underlying declarations.

Therefore it goes without saying that any external effort to bring together religious parties for the revival of MMA will similarly remain futile.

Likewise it would also be interesting to see what effects aggressive entities such as Tehreek e Labaik (TYL) and Milli Muslim League (MML) may have following the MMA’s revitalization. Perchance they could join in the good times, or, on the other hand, endeavor to supplant the more established countenances of religious politics.

Though it is evident that such alliances are really not going to harm the existing political equilibrium, for major political parties really don’t see MMA’s revival as a threat to their respective vote banks. But, in the wake of Donald Trump’s new Afghan policy and US administration’s ‘do more’ mantra, such alliances are certainly going to bring Pakistan back under the spotlight. It is also evident from the fact that the Afghan Taliban have declared a month ago that they would bolster Pakistan against any danger by the Trump administration. They have vowed to remain by the legislature in the event of any forceful plan sought after by the United States against the nation.

However, shockingly enough this declaration was not made open by the Emarat e Islami Afghanistan, the official name of the Afghan Taliban, but was released by Maulana Samiul Haq, head of his own group of the Jamiat Ulma e Islam, one of the major forces behind the revival of MMA.

*Ubaid Ahmed, Research Affiliate at Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) Islamabad

The Central Asian Republics (CARs) assumed great significance in the region owing to their energy potential. Covering major part of the globe and having geographical proximity with South Asia, CARs have acquired the exclusive geo-political and geo-economic importance in the region. The CARs include five republics of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. All republics are land-locked and energy-rich.

Pakistan and CARs share various religious and cultural commonalities. However, Islamabad has not cultivated the ties so far with existing margin in mutual cooperation. Even though Pakistan desires close political and economic linkage with the Central Asian states, there are multitude of internal and external challenges that have been hampering the progress in this regard.

Pakistan’s internal and regional political conditions with flimsy economy have barred it from having active engagements with Central Asia. The unrest in recalcitrant Afghanistan has also brought multi-faceted obstacles in Pakistan’s efforts to establish strong bond with the CARs. The poor border situation with Afghanistan carries the biggest challenge in the materialization of the economic ventures that Pakistan seeks to pursue in form of proposed pipelines project aiming to transport oil and gas from Central Asia to Pakistan.

Regional and global powers’ competing interests, meant to have access to the energy resources of Central Asia, have also been a major hurdle in Pakistan’s endeavors to nurture cordial relations with the CARs. Long-standing presence of US led NATO forces in the region has also exerted certain impacts on inter-state relations that corollary impeded the enrichment of relations.

Moreover, US-Russia rift has managed to influence the foreign policies of the CARs. Perennial fights in Afghanistan and competing interests of two powers have caused multiple intricacies in regional paradigm. Therefore, it has become an arduous task for Pakistan to find an accurate direction to build ties that may benefit the regional countries, especially Pakistan.

Since the imposition of ‘war on terror’ on Pakistan, its internal condition is progressively debilitating amid fragile economy and political instability, that considerably affected Islamabad’s focus on the expansion of economic ties with various countries including CARs.

Axiomatically, CARs have large reserves of oil, gas and gigantic mineral wealth. However, this wealth remained untapped for Pakistan. For Pakistan is enduring a weak economy and lack of technological power which is essential to tap the wealth.

It is noteworthy that Pakistan and the CARs have signed various memoranda of understanding (MOUs) on ‘economic cooperation and collaboration’ in several fields. Furthermore, an inter-governmental Joint Economic Commission was also established with the regional countries and gave impetus to cooperative engagement in various sectors including trade, economy and science. However, Pakistan is not reaping the expected benefits because these agreements have not been materialized and implemented in true spirit so far.

Interestingly, Pakistan and Central Asian states are members of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) which was primarily formed to develop and improve the economic infrastructure and transportation system in the region. Fortunately or unfortunately, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) while making headway with two major powers, Russia and China, has almost eclipsed the ECO that has caused the considerable blow to its effectiveness.

Given the complicated picture of whole region and CARs, Pakistan must revisit its policies towards Central Asia. Pakistan needs to evolve a vibrant, non-aligned foreign policy, exclusively based on respect for the sovereignty of these states. Cooperation and constructive engagement must be prioritized to be the cornerstone of Pakistan’s approach towards this region.

There should be a mechanism for frequent exchanges of scholars, cultural representatives, and government officials to develop better mutual understanding and people-to-people contact. People-to-people contact is effective instrument to establish lasting mutual relations. For that matter, Pakistan may offer scholarships to Central Asian students and professionals in expert fields.

Islamabad must utilize the regional and international forums such as SCO and ECO in order to gain trust and enhance economic and political cooperation. Each Central Asian republic should be equally given importance by Islamabad in terms of developing friendly ties while addressing the multitude of irritants and challenges. Instead of waiting for the peace to return in Afghanistan for facilitating transit and pipeline routes, Pakistan must implement all economic agreements in true spirit.

*Baber Ali Bhatti, currently associated with Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), a think-tank based in Islamabad.

South Asia with two nuclear rivals India and Pakistan is facing a number of traditional and non-traditional security threats because of perennial security issues.

‘Disparity’ is a more appropriate term when describing the Indo-Pak equation. India sees itself as a rising regional and extra-regional power and considers military power as a main element in regional power structure. Like any aspiring regional player, India also seeks potential partners such as the United States; and is wary of potential rivals such as China and Pakistan. Pakistan, being in different position, seeks to deter any offence from India. However, India has started adopting an offensive-defensive posture which poses greater challenges to the already fragile regional security.

In numerical terms of population, economics, military manpower and equipment, it is almost meaningless to discuss an India-Pakistan balance. India’s defence partnership with Israel is a critical example of India’s designs to upgrade and modernize its military might.

The Indian security establishment came up with the Cold Star Doctrine to address the future threats from Pakistan with massive conventional force. The ‘Indo-US Strategic Partnership’ is an indication of not only Indian ambitions, but also a sign to follow the aggressive diplomacy in the region.

Indo-US cooperation in high-tech defence equipment has raised concerns in Pakistan that have compelled it to look for advanced weapons technology. Such compulsions may create a path towards destabilization of the strategic balance in the region. India and Israel in future may also work in partnership to induct Dvora-III vessels into the Indian Navy to secure an edge over Pakistan when it comes to contesting claims between the two countries over the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Arabian Sea, specifically in the Sir Creek area.

With the changing strategic dynamics, Pakistan finds itself in an altogether different position. However, Pakistan is well aware of the situation as Ex Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif mentioned: “Pakistan is capable of dealing with all kinds of internal and external threats, be it conventional or sub-conventional, cold start or hot start. We are ready.”

Be that as it may, with India enlarging its defence production; Pakistan needs to deter any offence not only for the future, but also for its present efforts in the War on Terror. Given India’s massive defence budget and its overall military strength in terms of sheer numbers, Pakistan should invest in defence technologies that maximize its capabilities against any enemy, be itexternal or internal. Pakistan needs to continue the development of tactical nuclear weapons to deter India from launching a limited war.

On the diplomatic front, Pakistan should continue to highlight India’s offensive designs in the region as well as internationally. In the changing view of international and regional security dynamics, Pakistan has to maintain a uniform posture on Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD).

Most importantly Pakistan should keep its nuclear doctrine ambiguous. As per Indian security experts’ writing and expressing visible fears, India still does not know at what point Pakistan would cross its nuclear threshold. This feeling of doubt and fear deters India from carrying out any conventional adventure such as surgical strikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan should start focusing on improving its network-centric and electronic warfare capabilities. Pakistan must take every effort to complete the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) since it would create strategic interdependence of China on Pakistan. China, being the strongest player, both economically and militarily, in the region with a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), would not like any conflict between Pakistan and India and could use its influence internationally, if so needed.

Nevertheless, India’s offensive posture is a harbinger of grave dangers for South Asia, especially for Pakistan. Along with that, Indian aggressive policies have already provoked an arms race in the region. According to Terestita C. Schaffer, a former U.S. diplomat and a senior analyst with Brookings:“In a nuclear environment, the conventional war concept propagated by India is not logical, it is not possible to quantify the concept of limited war in terms of geography, weapons or political objectives in the Indo-Pakistan equation. A limited war from Indian point of view may not be limited from Pakistani perspective”.

Pakistan desires peace and seeks cordial relations with all its neighbors, especially with India since indulgence in any war may be more costly to the former than the latter. The technological developments by India including Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABMs) systems and its defence agreements with other countries especially Israel and the US, is worsening the strategic picture of South Asia. India’s continuing arms build-up not only means more suffering for its own poverty-ridden people; but also for the people of Pakistan.

*Anum Malik works at Strategic Vision Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan.

India recently test fired its most sophisticated long-range subsonic cruise missile called ‘Nirbhay’ from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur. This test fire continued for three days, final of which was fired on November 10, 2017. This was the test that failed previously in December 2015. The under tested cruise missile was in series of continuous susceptible moves of India that marks adverse impacts on the deterrence stability of South Asia.

According to the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) the indigenously-designed and developed missile was test launched from a specially-designed launcher from the launch complex-3 of the ITR with a strike range of 1,000 km. Nirbhay missile has a turbo-fan engine, which is guided by a highly advanced inertial navigation system. The missile is able to target multiple places simultaneously and is able of carrying 24 kinds of war weapons.

The maiden test flight of Nirbhay was held on March 12, 2013 that had to be terminated mid way for safety reasons due to malfunction of some of its components. However, the second launch was on October 17, 2014. The next trial was conducted on October 16, 2015, which then had to be aborted after 20 minutes of its launch. The missile was also test fired last time in December, 2016, which failed also. All these trials were conducted from same defence base.

So, keeping in view Indian aspirations of getting the top most position in terms of getting such sophisticated capabilities, Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that this trial would take India to the select League of Nations for possessing this complex technology and sub-sonic cruise missile capability. More to the point, if the said missile is operationalized successfully, it could be ‘suited for targeting Pakistan’s storage sites, command and control centers, radar installations, and bases.’ In this regard, DRDO Director General Avinash Chander, formerly in a statement after Nirbhay’s test in 2014, pointed to the missile’s cruise capability being used to “fill a vital gap in the war-fighting capabilities of our armed forces,” which is broadly believed to be in support of India’s Cold Start Doctrine.

It is pertinent to mention here, the development of the dual use of Brahmos with the assistance of Russia. It is a supersonic cruise missile capable of flying at a speed of Mach 2.8, with a declared range of 290 kms, with sea, air, and land versions. An extended range version (450 kms) of this missile was test fired earlier this year and a hypersonic version is also under development. However, as distinct to ballistic missiles, the acquisition of a cruise missile capability means something different for India’s targeting strategy. Now the Brahmos and Nirbhay would enable India to deliver a strategic standoff capability on land as well as at sea.

Moreover, the mounting political and strategic relationships among the countries have given birth to a new pattern of rising interactions with global forces. On the other side, India’s quest is growing for multilateral export control regimes; it can be said that India has a unique history of its relationship with export control cartels. The country that provided an idea for the formation of one of the cartels is now passing through a new phase, expecting a legal membership in it. It is certain that the membership of such regimes will give India a distinct advantage in participating in the management of global commerce in advanced technology.

The trend of assistances to India, set-in largely by the US, though for its own interest, has and will further overwhelm India with uranium reserves. Since India’s nuclear program is largely plutonium based, its uranium reserves are apparently shown to be low for civil nuclear usage, and are actually low for military usage.

However, these mounting Indian tests and experiments day by day are moving towards severe consequences with regards to strategic stability and regional security of South Asia is concerned. The nuclear arms and missiles competition between both permanent hostile states is a glittering case of security dilemma whereby security of one state’s action causes insecurity of other state and security augmenting measures of other state makes the first one insecure. Similarly, the challenge of putting cruise missiles to sea, through ships and submarines, will enhance chances of inadvertence and crisis instability.’ A better guiding principle for both ‘South Asian neighbors would be to undertake confidence building measures aimed at avoiding inadvertence and non-attack on each other’s command and control centers and communication infrastructures to ensure the mutuality of deterrence.’

Recent climate change, arguably caused by excessive dependence on oil, has coincided with world-wide drought, and, in turn, water shortages. Growing water scarcity is the biggest problem of the twenty-first century. It is a global issue, as every living being needs water, and the number of countries suffering from shortages is rapidly increasing. Beyond sustaining us through drinking, water is just as important for global food production and, more recently, as a source of clean energy. It is more important than oil and becoming more and more valuable, too. The Middle East has been hit hard by these water shortages. Afghanistan, and the water that flows from within its borders, will play an important role in the region’s future, depending on how it manages its precious water resources.

Afghanistan is perched on the highest peaks of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountains. Its mountains stand more than 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) tall, and are largely covered with snow banks where waters flow from twelve months a year. Of the ten small and large rivers flowing from Afghanistan, two (the Helmand and Hari Rud) flow to Iran, and the Kunar River flows to Pakistan. The largest of them, Amu Darya (Oxus), starts from the highest peaks of the Pamir Mountains, which was once called roof of the world by Marco Polo. Amu Darya flows through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and ends up pouring into the Aral Sea. Each of these countries consume Afghanistan’s waters.

Afghanistan’s water resources could lead to huge opportunities for its people, and the people of neighboring countries. Shockingly, in the past decade, only 5% of Afghanistan’s development budget has been for the development of the water sector, according to the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. Although these efforts may be considered small, a huge effort is spent on building dams that would produce electricity for internal power needs and revive Afghanistan’s agricultural system. Afghanistan’s neighbors might be exporting terrorism in the short-term, but they will need to be legitimate business partners to purchase Afghanistan’s water in the long-term. Against all their struggles with terrorism, Afghans have acknowledged their leverage and they have started making efforts on building necessary water infrastructure.

One such example of this enormous opportunity is the Salma Dam located on the Hari Rud River. The Salma Dam, inaugurated just recently in 2015, is one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Afghanistan. According to the Afghanistan Ministry of Energy and Water, this dam provides irrigation for over 80,000 hectares (197,600 acres) of land and 42 megawatts of electricity per day, which powers thousands of homes every day. Each of Afghanistan’s rivers could be used to generate internal power and greater agricultural production.

Currently, India and Afghanistan are the two major water supplies to Pakistan. Tensions between India and Pakistan have been stiff since the 1947 partition. Recently, their relationship rose tenser over terrorist activities on Indian soil, whose groups are claimed to have had sanctuaries in Pakistan. On September 22, 2016, Indian Foreign Ministry stated its intent to withdraw from the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 with Pakistan, if there Pakistan does not cooperate on terrorism matters.

The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is also poor. Resulting from Pakistan’s border disputes with Afghanistan, Pakistan has provided support for the mujahidin faction over the last forty (40) years. The mujahidin faction has contributed to the civil war which continues to rage in Afghanistan. The Pakistan administration is under immense pressure from the international community, including the United States, whose Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, stated that the United States is considering a policy change toward Pakistan, in part because of their activity leading to this instability in Afghanistan.

Despite the differences caused by Pakistan’s support of the mujahidin faction, over the past several years, Pakistan and Afghanistan have worked cooperatively toward the construction of a dam on the Kunar River. As part of this cooperative process, in June 2017, the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, in an official trip to China, signed an agreement pursuant to which the Chinese government is to determine the feasibility of this ambitious project. With this dam in place, Afghanistan will benefit from the electricity generated, lands irrigated and prevent floods that affect hundreds of families every year. Large Pakistan cities are already hugely dependent on Kunar River water for day-to-day uses and agricultural purposes. Building a dam on the Kunar River will provide the following additional benefits to Pakistan like providing electricity, irrigation, and daily uses of water.

So long as the matter is approached in the appropriate manner, Afghanistan could leverage its rich water resources, including the Kunar River, along with international pressure, to resolve all border disputes with Pakistan. This leverage will increase as water becomes scarcer. Water could also be used as leverage to decrease any support or tolerance for terrorist organizations. Fair terms should be struck between Afghanistan and Pakistan for the best chance at a future of cooperation and peace between nations.

Unfortunately, not everyone is happy about Afghanistan’s recent dam building initiatives, which includes Iran. Beginning in the nineteenth century, disagreements have frequently arisen between Afghanistan and Iran that centered around allocation of the Helmand River. The two countries had agreed to several treaties regarding the use of this water, but these agreements failed mostly due to poor implementation. However, the 1973 Helmand River Treaty, signed by then-Afghanistan Prime Minister Daud Khan, remains intact.

Nevertheless, droughts having reached extreme peaks in Iran, with rainfall decreasing 60 percent compared to 2015. Underground water has started to vanish as the water level is declining by 0.4 meters per year due to digging of countless wells throughout the country which are now dry. The availability of water from dams is at risk because of less rainfall. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, declared his concerns over the dam building efforts by Afghanistan. Afghanistan has allocated a certain amount of water to Iran based on trans-boundary waters law, they should manage Iran’s growing concern. As demands grow, Iran and Afghanistan need to peacefully renegotiate terms of the deal for more water flow to Iran.

Despite all the difficulty and small budget allocation of the past government, the new government is pouring a great amount of money and foreign aid to build the infrastructure necessary to benefit from its rich water resources and thereby secure the future of Afghanistan’s political and economic role in the region.

Afghanistan has abundant natural resources, mostly untapped. With even greater determination, future Afghanistan administrations should follow in the footsteps of the current government on taking control of water resources. In so doing, Afghanistan can emerge as a powerful business partner to its neighbors by becoming the future water haven for the region. In addition, Afghanistan could use water diplomacy to pressure its neighbors to fight against fundamentalism that has been haunting Afghans for decades.

*Mohammad Naser Akbar is a Financial and Business Economics student at York University in Toronto-Canada. Previously, he was management staff for Afghanistan Commercial Bank and president of the debate club at the American University of Afghanistan.

A US-based Hindu group is critical of Oscar winner Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow for unnecessarily pushing expensive yoga and meditation items through her lifestyle brand GOOP in its “2017 Holiday Gift Guide”.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement said that Paltrow, who had been known as “part yogini” and who had been promoting “nourish the inner aspect” through GOOP, should not be pushing the exorbitant products for the ancient practices of yoga and meditation whose techniques could be successfully mastered with little or no cost.

GOOP “2017 Holiday Gift Guide” is promoting a “Meditation Band” at $350, which claims to “guide you back to a meditative state: when your mind starts to wander”. It is also pushing a Love Yoga Retreat for $2400, while the typical range of single drop-in sessions at yoga studios and fitness centers around the nation is $8 to $23, with average cost running around $12.

Pushing consumers to unwarrantedly high-priced products related to the spiritual practices of meditation and yoga for mercantile greed did not seem appropriate, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated.

Rajan Zed pointed out that Hindus had been practicing meditation for thousands of years which was a condition of profound internal wakefulness; and added that ancient Hindu scripture Taittiriya Upanishad stated: “Meditation is Brahman (the supreme being)”.

Zed further said that yoga, introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a liberation powerhouse. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra; yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.