THE BATTLE is over. The dust has settled. A new government – partly ridiculous, partly terrifying – has been installed.

It is time to take stock.

The net result is that Israel has given up all pretense of desiring peace and that Israeli democracy has suffered a blow from which it may never recover.

ISRAELI GOVERNMENTS – with the possible exception of Yitzhak Rabin’s – have never really desired peace. The peace that is possible.

Peace, of course, means accepting fixed borders. In the founding declaration of the state, which was read out by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948 in Tel Aviv, any mention of borders was deliberately omitted. Ben Gurion was not ready to accept the borders fixed by the UN partition resolution, because they provided only for a tiny Jewish state. Ben-Gurion foresaw that the Arabs would start a war, and he was determined to use this for enlarging the territory of the state.

This indeed happened. When the war ended in early 1949 with armistice agreements based on the final battle lines, Ben-Gurion could have accepted them as final borders. He refused. Israel has remained a state without borders that it recognizes itself – perhaps the only one in the world.

This is one of the reasons for the fact that Israel has no peace agreement with the Palestinian nation. It did sign official peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, based on the internationally recognized borders between the former British government of Palestine and its neighbors. No such borders are accepted by the Israeli government between Israel and the undefined Palestinian entity. All Israeli governments have always refused even to indicate where such borders should run. The much-praised Oslo agreement was no exception. Rabin, too, refused to draw a final line.

This refusal remains government policy. On the eve of the recent elections, Binyamin Netanyahu unequivocally declared that during his term of office – which for him means until his demise – no Palestinian state would come into being. Thus, the occupied territories would remain under Israeli rule.

No peace agreement will ever be signed by this government.

NO PEACE means attempting to keep the territorial status quo frozen forever, except that settlements will continue to grow and multiply.

This is not the situation concerning democracy. It is not frozen.

Israel is famously “the Only Democracy in the Middle East”. That is practically its second official name.

It is debatable how a state that dominates another people, depriving it of all human rights, not to mention citizenship, can be called a democracy. But Jewish Israelis have been used to this for 48 years, and just ignore this fact.

Now the situation inside Israel proper is about to change drastically.

Two facts attest to this.

First of all, Ayelet Shaked has been appointed Minister of Justice. One of the most extreme right-wing Israelis, she has not made a secret of the fact that she wants to destroy the independence of the Supreme Court, the last bastion of human rights.

This court has managed, throughout the years, to become a major force in Israeli life. Since Israel has no written constitution, the Supreme Court has succeeded, under strong and determined leadership, in assuming the role of the guardian of human and civil rights, even annulling democratically adopted Knesset laws that contradict the imagined constitution.

Shaked has announced that she would put an end to this impertinence.

The court has survived many onslaughts because its composition cannot be easily changed. Contrary to the practice in the US, which looks scandalous to us, judges are appointed by a committee, in which politicians are held in check by incumbent judges. Shaked wants to change this practice, stuffing the committee with politicians loyal to the government.

The court is already cowed. Lately it has made a number of ignoble decisions, such as outlawing calls for boycotting the settlements. But this is still heaven compared to what is bound to happen in the near future.

PERHAPS WORSE is Netanyahu’s decision to retain for himself the Ministry of Communication.

This ministry has always been disdained as a low-level office, reserved for political lightweights. Netanyahu’s dogged insistence on retaining it for himself is ominous.

The communication Ministry controls all TV stations, and indirectly newspapers and other media. Since all Israeli media are in very bad shape financially, this control may become deadly.

Netanyahu’s patron – some say owner – Sheldon Adelson, the would-be dictator of the US Republican party, already publishes a give-away newspaper in Israel, which has only one sole aim: to support Netanyahu personally against all enemies, including his competitors in his own Likud party. The paper – “Israel Hayom” (Israel Today) – is already Israel’s widest-circulation newspaper, with the American casino king pouring into it untold millions.

Netanyahu is determined to break all opposition in the electronic and written media. Opposition commentators are well advised to look for jobs elsewhere. Channel 10, considered slightly more critical of Netanyahu than its two competitors, is due to be closed at the end of this month.

One cannot avoid an odious analogy. One of the key terms in the Nazi lexicon was the atrocious German word Gleichschaltung – meaning connecting all media to the same energy source. All newspapers and radio stations (TV did not yet exist) were staffed with Nazis. Every morning, a Propaganda Ministry official by the name of Dr. Dietrich convened the editors and told them what tomorrow’s headlines, editorials etc. were to be.

Netanyahu has already dismissed the chief of the TV department. We don’t yet know the name of our own Dr. Dietrich.

As a humorous counterpoint, Miri Regev has been appointment Minister of Culture. Regev is a loud-mouthed woman, whose vulgar style has become a national symbol. No one can even guess how she had become the army spokesperson. Her style, such as concluding every public utterance with the call “Applause!”, has become a joke.

THE MOST efficient instrument of de-democratization is the education ministry (which is not efficient in anything else.)

Israel has several education systems, all of them financed – and hence controlled – by the Education Ministry.

Two systems belong to the government outright: the general “state” system and the autonomous “religious state” system.

Then there are two orthodox systems, one Ashkenazi and one Oriental. In some of these, only religious subjects are taught – no languages, no mathematics, no non-Jewish history. This makes alumni unfit for any employment. They remain dependent on their religious community’s handouts forever.

Before the state came into being, there was also a leftist system with socialist values, especially in the kibbutzim. This was abolished by David Ben-Gurion in the name of “statism”.

The last government tried in a timid way to compel the orthodox to introduce “core studies” into their schools, such as arithmetic and English. This has been abandoned now, since the orthodox have become members of the government coalition.

The real battle, which is starting now, is about the “general” state schools, which have been free to some extent. My late wife, Rachel, was a teacher in such a school for almost 30 years, and did what she wanted, trying to instill in her pupils’ minds humanist and liberal values.

Not any more. Israel’s most extreme nationalist-religious leader, Naftali Bennett, has now been installed as Minister of Education. He has already announced that his main objective is to imbue the young with a nationalist-Zionist spirit, raising a generation of real Israeli patriots. No mention of humanism, liberalism, human rights, social values or any other such nonsense.

Netanyahu has also retained the Foreign Ministry in his own hands. Many of its functions have been dispersed between six other ministries. The pretext is that Netanyahu is keeping the prestigious ministry open for Labor Party leader Yitzhak Herzog, who he is pretending to invite into the government. Herzog has already loudly refused. (I suppose that the real owner of the government, Sheldon Adelson, would not allow him in anyway.)

Netanyahu’s real aim is to prevent any potential competitor from gaining international and national prestige in this position. He does conduct foreign policy alone anyhow.

ALTOGETHER, A deeply troubling picture for anyone who loves Israel.

It is not so much that the balance of power in Israel has changed (it has not) but that the worst elements of the Right have taken over, pushing out almost all right-wing moderates. Until now, these extreme elements had been subdued, talking loudly but carrying a small stick. This has now changed. The extreme right has found its self-assurance, and is determined to use its power.

The Israeli Left (timidly calling itself “center-left”) has lost its spirit. Its only hope is “foreign pressure”. Especially from the White House. Barack Obama hates Netanyahu. Any time now, American pressure will be applied and save Israel from itself.

That’s a comfortable thought. We don’t have to do anything. Salvation will come from the outside, deus ex machina. Halleluja.

Unfortunately, I am a non-believer. What I see is the US increasing its support of the Netanyahu regime, offering huge new arms deliveries as “compensation” for the budding Iran nuclear deal. John Kerry, humiliated by Netanyahu and treated with open contempt, is groveling somewhere at our feet. Obama boasts that he has done more for “Israel” (meaning the Israeli Right) than any other president.

Salvation will not come from that direction. God will remain in the machine.

THERE IS only one kind of salvation: the one we carry inside us.

Some hope for a catastrophe that will cause people to open their eyes. I don’t wish for catastrophes.

I don’t want Israel to become a replica of al-Sisi’s Egypt, Erdogan’s Turkey or Putin’s Russia.

I believe we can save Israel – but only if we get up from the couch and play our part.

The post Who Will Save Israel? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the terrorist attack earlier today on a Shia mosque in the town of al-Qudaih in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

“The attack caused many deaths and injuries as people were gathering for Friday prayers,” a statement from Mr. Ban’s spokesman’s office confirmed.

“The Secretary-General stresses that such attacks on places of worship are abhorrent and intended to promote sectarian conflict. He hopes that the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice,” the statement added.

The Secretary-General also extended his sincere condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his sympathies to the Government and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The post Ban Condemns Terrorist Attack On Shia Mosque In Saudi Arabia appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla group has “suspended the unilateral ceasefire” declared six months ago, after an army-police offensive that killed at least 26 of its members in the Cauca department.

The announcement was made in an internet statement by the FARC delegation participating in peace talks in Havana, Cuba.

“We didn’t plan to suspend the ceasefire… but the incoherence of the Santos administration (Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos) has achieved it, after five months of ground and air offensives against our units across the country”. The army had in turn described the offensive as a response to a guerrilla attack.

The FARC negotiators however said they remain committed to continuing the peace talks in Cuba, reiterating their call for a bilateral ceasefire

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Battle and bloodshed in a dozen places across the region, a breakdown of law, order and normal existence in large areas, hordes of terrified refugees fleeing from conflict and from the brutal oppression of Islamist extremists, hundreds of thousands of people subsisting in temporary camps, thousands risking their very lives on board unseaworthy vessels attempting to reach European shores – this represents the present grim reality in the Middle East.

The current chaos can perhaps be traced back to the Tunisian spark in 2010 that kindled the so-called Arab Spring, which then, as uncontrollable as a forest fire, leaped from state to state. At the start it was a rejection by the Arab masses of the repression, human rights abuses, state censorship and other trammels of the dictatorships or absolute monarchies under which most existed. As the revolutionary fervor raged, one by one the autocrats fell – Tunisia’s Zine Ben Au, followed by Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, then Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and finally Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen (though he seems intent on regaining power, and is a key player in the turmoil that has engulfed Yemen).

Elsewhere, if popular discontent did not result in the overthrow of governments, it certainly produced civil uprisings across the region from Algeria to Saudi Arabia. Syria’s story encapsulates subsequent developments elsewhere in the region. What began in Syria as popular demonstrations against the tightly controlled police state of President Bashar Assad, soon assumed broader proportions. Islamist jihadi groups, each with its own agenda, joined the fray – those from the Sunni persuasion opposing Assad (and sometimes each other as well); Iran and its puppet organization Hezbollah supporting the Assad regime.

The most disciplined and successful of Assad’s opponents was Islamic State (IS), pursuing its aim of establishing a Sunni Caliphate across Syria and Iraq as the base for expanding ever further into the Middle East and from there across the world. Syria and Iraq remain in turmoil, and the hand of IS is now apparent in other areas of open conflict – Yemen, Sinai, Libya, Nigeria.

States seeking to maintain stability in the midst of this maelstrom not surprisingly began re-examining historic relationships, and it is right that they should. Autres temps, autres moeurs, as the old French proverb runs ((other times, other customs). Unhappily, one major destabilising element on the Middle East scene has been the underlying policy of the US – consistent since President Obama’s assumption of office, but only now, in the final two years of his second term, becoming clearer by the day. Apparently beguiled from the start by the prospect of some sort of working alliance with Iran aimed at overthrowing al-Qaeda, Washington is pressing ahead with negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, America’s declared enemy and the world’s leading state sponsor of terror – a deal that will enable it eventually to acquire atomic weapons.

For decades most of the Gulf States, and especially Saudi Arabia, have been at the receiving end of Iranian efforts to destabilise their governments. They are aware that Iran has ambitions to dominate the region and impose its Shi’ite version of Islam. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that they oppose current US policy and are determined to acquire a nuclear capability of their own should the current negotiations end as predicted. One plausible outcome of the nuclear deal with Iran is a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

As the London Daily Telegraph observed recently, so tangled has American policy become that US diplomats spend days at a time closeted in bilateral talks with their opposite numbers from Tehran, while Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is shunned by the White House. Meanwhile, when President Obama hosted a summit at Camp David in support of his nuclear deal with Iran, King Salman of Saudi Arabia – a US ally for 70 years – absented himself, while King Hamad of Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet, preferred a visit to the Royal Windsor Horse Show in the UK.

The stable Sunni Arab states now find themselves in an extraordinary meeting of minds with Israel – a country they do not recognise. Obama sees Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rohani as pragmatic leaders, prepared to abandon their military nuclear ambitions in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. Once that is achieved, Obama believes that Iran and America can together openly combat IS.

The Sunni powers of the Gulf reject this complacent assessment, just as Israel does. The Arab leaders, just like Israel, perceive Iran as an implacable foe. They know that Iran is hell-bent on overthrowing their regimes and establishing political and religious dominance in the Middle East; Israel knows that Iran has as its stated aim the elimination of the Jewish state. Both view with genuine alarm the prospect of a nuclear Iran – the Arab states because it would totally destabilise the current balance of power; Israel because it would provide terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, whom Iran supports, with a nuclear capability.

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi finds himself of one mind with Israel about Hamas, and indeed about Obama’s persistent support for the Muslim Brotherhood – both organizations that el-Sisi regards as deadly enemies. Egyptian and Israeli forces are, indeed, collaborating pretty openly in the Sinai peninsula against ruthless jihadi terrorists, supported by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is to overthrow the Egyptian government.

Hamas, which was once funded by Saudi Arabia and enabled by Egypt, is now viewed by both states as part of a Sunni jihad that threatens not only Israel, but them as well. It is no surprise, therefore, that el-Sisi visited Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago to discuss, in the words of Al Arabiya News, “the depth of strategic relations between the Kingdom and Egypt.” In a subsequent interview, el-Sisi emphasised the need for the two countries to work together, considering the “difficult condition” the Arab region is in.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf states and Israel – they now share a community of interest never before recognized. Yet even now it would be politically impossible for the Arab world to cooperate formally with Israel against common foes – unless a clearly understood and openly acknowledged justification was available to placate Arab public opinion. That justification lies in wait, buried in the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Arab recognition of Israel and the establishment of normal diplomatic relations in exchange for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine dispute.

Perhaps this explains the appointment of a minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new Israeli government charged with overseeing the renewal of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

The post The Reshaping Of The Middle East – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Islamic State fighters advance in Syria and Iraq as the world looks on in terror. Over the past 24 hours, the Islamist fighters headed by the so-called caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi seized the last border-crossing between the two countries, after dealing a decisive blow to the Syrian army and to the world’s cultural heritage by seizing the ancient town of Palmyra, home to over 2,000 year-old towering Roman-era colonnades, temples and priceless artifacts.

The fall of ‘Venice of the Sands’ – as it was defined by Thomas Edward Lawrence in his Seven pillars of wisdom – marks a turning point in the conflict: IS now controls the provinces of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and a large part of Hasakeh, Aleppo, Homs and Hama, which is over half of the entire Syrian territory.

Palmyra is also located in a strategic area along the desert route that connects Syria to Iraq in the al Anbar region, theater to another conflict in which IS is marking victory after victory. The latest, on the Iraqi side of the border, was the fall of Ramadi after weeks of battle with government troops.

Al Baghdadi’s fighters are now pushing east of Ramadi, in the Euphrates Valley, toward Habbaniya, where Iraqi troops retreated to reorganize and relaunch an offensive against the Jihadists. If Habbaniya falls, IS will be a step closer to returning victoriously to Fallujah, seized back by the Iraqi army after over a year siege.

The United Nations yesterday expressed “deep concern” over the conquest of Palmyra by IS, which already in Mossul, Ninive and other Iraqi areas devastated and destroyed untold numbers of invaluable artifacts and treasures.

The Islamic State released a video last night showing the first destruction of antiquities and the execution of captured soldiers. At least 17 people were killed and beheaded, raising the heavy toll of the battle for the town that had already left 462 dead, including numerous civilians. Many residents fled to the cities of Homs and Damascus.

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By Mohsen Shariatinia*

Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the symbol of the fifth generation of Chinese leaders, has been following a proactive and innovative foreign policy since he came to power as the leader of his country. During two years that he has been leading China, Xi Jinping has come up with several regional and global initiatives, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Asian Security Concept (NASC). Such initiatives have brought about important changes in the foreign policy approaches of China as compared to past years.

The most important initiative presented by Xi Jinping, however, was the Silk Road Economic Belt, also known as “One Belt, One Road” initiative, about which he explained for the first time in a visit to Kazakhstan in 2013. This initiative has been discussed by experts in various countries, including Iran. Within framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt, Xi Jinping has offered the following five proposals for the joint implementation of this initiative by countries located along its path:

1. Bolstering communications and consultations among countries located along this road in the field of common economic policymaking;

2. Bolstering connections among countries in the field of transportation, so that, a big transport corridor would be created from the Pacific Ocean all the way west to the Baltic Sea and from Central Asia all the way south to Indian Ocean;

3. Considering trade facilities for countries situated along the road;

4. Bolstering financial cooperation with emphasis on currency settlement; and

5. Bolstering ties among people in countries located along the Silk Road Economic Belt.

However, relative attraction of this big idea in Iran does not necessarily mean that all its features have been transparently understood by Iranian public opinion and elites. On the opposite, there are big question marks and ambiguities in the minds of Iranians about this big plan. Such ambiguities can be divided into several categories as follows:

1. A general problem regarding expansion of interactions between Iran and China is the language problem. Few Iranians can speak Chinese and few Chinese can speak Persian. Therefore, the two sides mostly understand each other through the English language, which can cause problems in this type of interactions. One problem is that the two sides follow developments in each country through the mentality of Western writers and media. This problem has been an issue with regard to the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. English websites and publications that are printed in China and other countries have only disclosed general outlines of this plan and only those outlines have been understood by the public opinion and elites in Iran. Therefore, the foremost and most important ambiguity regarding this plan in Iran is the ambiguity regarding its details. There is a famous idiom in the West, which says “the devil is in the detail.” This idiom has been frequently applied to the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran in recent weeks. This idiom also applies to the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative because as long as details are not clear, it would be difficult to make a decision on or react to this initiative.

2. The second ambiguity regarding this initiative in Iran is related to the role of the Islamic Republic in the implementation of this initiative. In other words, what role has been assigned to Iran in this initiative and in what fields the cooperation between Iran and China would be possible within framework of this initiative? The answers to these questions are not clear for Iranian media and public opinion yet. Many maps have been published to show the path of this economic belt every one of which has depicted Iran’s position in a different manner. This issue has also added to ambiguities that surround Iran’s position with respect to this initiative. In short, it is not clear whether Iran is simply a transit route in this initiative or will be playing the role of an important economic partner to China in future.

3. Technical ambiguities can be considered as the third type of ambiguities that exist about China’s initiative in Iran. Although economic relations between Iran and China are currently expanded, they are not complex because in practice, the two countries are engaged in a simple form of bilateral trade. This form of trade is not institutionalized and changes in it are mostly a function of the two sides’ decisions and, of course, the policies of the United States. However, when the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative is put into gear, economic interactions between China and countries located along this road will become greatly institutionalized. Due to basic differences in economic systems of Iran and China, the process of institutionalizing these relations will be certainly marked with many technical problems and hardships. For example, China is a member of the World Trade Organization, but Iran is not a full member of that organization. China has acceded to many trade agreements while Iran is only a partner to other countries through a few agreements and this issue can cause problems for the facilitation of trade exchanges between Tehran and Beijing. In addition, the two countries transportation systems are based on different standards and unification of those standards will need time-intensive expert work.

4. Since Iran and China have no common border, it follows that third actors will naturally play a role in boosting cooperation between the two countries. On the one hand, Central Asian countries, which connect Iran to China, have their own specific economic systems and it is not very easy to cooperate with them in this field. For example, during all the years, which have passed since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the idea of facilitating the access of these landlocked countries to free waters through Iran has been on the table. However, the two sides have not been very successful in this regard during all these years. On the other hand, Turkey is of special importance as the link that connects the Asian part of the Silk Road belt to its European part. However, increasing cooperation between Tehran and Ankara and helping the two sides achieve an understanding in this regard would need extensive expert work.

On the whole, one can daresay that although the idea of Silk Road Economic Belt has drawn a lot of attention in Iran, there are also many ambiguities still surrounding this idea. The important point, however, is that Iran looks upon this initiative as a strategic opportunity. Iran is among countries that are not very much concerned about China’s ambitions and basically consider further growth of China’s power as an opportunity, not a threat. Therefore, technical dialogue between the two countries on the details of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative and Iran’s position in that initiative is necessary in order to dispel current ambiguities and promote cooperation between the two sides.

*Mohsen Shariatinia
Ph.D., Researcherat The Center for Strategic Research (CSR), Tehran

The post Iran And Silk Road Economic Belt: Attractions And Ambiguities – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Chinese government has a $3.5 trillion-dollar problem in the form of local government debt. Most of it accrued in the years between 2007 and 2014, when China’s total debt spiked from $7.4 trillion to $28 trillion, or from 158% of GDP to 282%.

At fault was a massive government fiscal and monetary stimulus program launched in the wake of the global financial crisis. The program succeeded in producing enough infrastructure and real estate projects to weather the economic storm admirably, but it did so at the cost of creating excess supply and a long list of insolvent ventures, many of which were financed by local governments.

Now Beijing is faced with the task of cleaning up this mess, and doing so won’t be easy. Local governments have since been capped on the amount of debt they can take on, and a pilot project for converting local debt to municipal bonds is slowly being implemented, though there are questions concerning the market demand for such bonds.

There will be tradeoffs every step of the way since this is often a question of short-term pain for long-term financial stability. Many observers are starting to draw parallels between China’s current situation and that of Japan’s leading up to its major economic crash in the 1990s. Both suffered from high levels of debt that policymakers were hesitant to write off for fear of a crash; both faced conflicts of interest from state-owned banks; and both bounced their debt problem around by providing easy liquidity in times of tepid growth.

Analysis

Ever opaque, it is still possible to glean Beijing’s attitude towards the problem by examining recent policy moves meant to stabilize the market and bring debt under control.

In early May the People’s Bank of China took many by surprise when it cut its interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 5.1%. This move can be filed under ‘short-term gain’ as it potentially exacerbates the problem by funneling more easy money to non-performing projects. This also could be a response to the fact that real interest rates, stretched by deflationary pressures, are dishing out pain to China’s major industrial producers.

A much more telling indication of Beijing’s attitude came last Friday in the form of a directive barring banks from cutting funding to insolvent, local-government initiated projects. The order states that even if local governments are unable to make interest payments on existing loans, the terms of the loan must be renegotiated to avoid a default. Here is an extreme example of ‘kicking the can down the road,’ in terms of the debt problem. A solution to the problem has not been worked out yet, and tentative ones such as the debt-to-bond scheme seem to be faltering. In this context of looming debt, deflation, and an expanding stock market bubble, Beijing does not want to risk a string of defaults triggering a panicked capital flight.

In the similarities it shares with the Japanese government’s aversion to allowing market forces to correct economic inefficiencies during the early 1990s, the Chinese situation is troubling. However, the Chinese authorities are armed with all-important historical perspective – they are aware of what happened in Japan and are committed to avoiding a repeat. So when they kick the debt can down the road, we can only hope that they’re buying some time to come up with a robust financial reform package that will solve the problem for good. If not, we will be seeing fireworks in Chinese stock markets sooner or later.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

The post China Stalls On Debt Reforms – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have praised the announcement by federal regulators that cuts red tape for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) test sites in Pendleton, Tillamook and Warm Springs to conduct research that creates jobs in an innovative industry.

The announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) follows a letter Wyden and Merkley wrote the FAA on Nov. 25 strongly urging regulators to speed up approvals for UAS test permits, and to ensure the agency’s plans to regulate these aircraft don’t fall behind schedule.

“I am gratified the FAA responded to our call and will allow UAS development to soar even higher and create more good jobs that come with this innovative industry in Oregon and nationwide,” Wyden said. “Today’s news unshackles UAS research in Pendleton, Tillamook and Warm Springs to generate even more innovation in our state.”

“This news from FAA will help provide new jobs and an economic boost to rural areas of Oregon that are in need of good-paying jobs,” said Merkley. “I’m pleased the FAA has removed the roadblocks from this burgeoning industry.”

The UAS test sites in Pendleton, Tillamook and Warm Springs are among six nationwide to study the possibilities for unmanned aircraft.

The FAA said on Thursday that it would give “blanket” authorizations to all six UAS sites to conduct public aircraft operations throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) at or below 200 feet. The FAA said it expects this improved access for the test sites will provide more opportunities for research that may help the agency integrate UAS into the nation’s airspace more quickly and easily.

The new Certificates of Waiver or Authorization (COAs) allow small UAS (under 55 pounds) operated by the test sites to fly up to 200 feet above ground level anywhere in the country except restricted airspace and areas close to airports and heliports.

Operators must fly during daytime Visual Flight Rules conditions and within visual line of sight of the pilot. The new authorizations also let the test sites fly various types of UAS under a single COA, making it easier for them to conduct research missions. Previously, the FAA required authorization for each type of UAS the operators wanted to fly.

Pendleton Economic Development Director Steve Chrisman welcomed today’s news, saying the City of Pendleton has made substantial investment in its UAS test range to safely integrate UAS into the national airspace.

“Despite the many fits and starts, our goal has always been to move at the speed of business, so anything that expedites that process is progress,” Chrisman said. “We commend the FAA on today’s action, which we believe is an important step in the right direction and an affirmation that we are indeed working together towards that goal of safe integration.”

SOAR Oregon Executive Director Chuck Allen said the FAA announcement would allow smaller UAS to fly anywhere in the United States, away from airports and restricted areas, operating under the authorizations granted to the test sites as a public aircraft.

“These blanket Certificates of Waiver and Authorization for the test sites will shorten the time required to obtain authorization to fly by eliminating the time and effort necessary to apply for and receive COAs,” Allen said. “Although there are still significant regulatory constraints to civil and commercial UAS operations in the National Airspace System, even at the Test Sites, SOAR is encouraged by the steps the FAA is taking to reduce the administrative burden of obtaining flight authorizations.”

The post Wyden, Merkley Praise FAA Decision On Drone Test Sites In Oregon appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By K.V. Kesavan and Vindu Mai Chotani*

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been vigorously promoting his “Act East Policy’ ever since he came to power. His recent three-nation trip to China, Mongolia and South Korea was part of that drive towards the east. The media has understandably focussed a great deal of attention on his visit to China, but his sojourn to South Korea, is also a key component of his ‘Act East Policy’, has not received as much publicity as it deserves.

Modi is no stranger to South Korea having visited that country even in 2007 when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He took a big delegation of industrialists and business people to Seoul to explore the prospects of attracting Korean private investment to Gujarat. Second, as Prime Minister, he also had an opportunity to meet President Park Geun hye at the time of the East Asia Summit in Myanmar in November 2014 and this provided a very useful platform for them to familiarise themselves with the evolving bilateral partnership.

India’s engagements with the Republic of Korea (ROK) have witnessed some significant milestones in recent years and their economic and security interests converge across a wide range of subjects including counter terrorism, maritime security, UN reforms, nuclear non-proliferation and energy cooperation. Both are interested in an open, balanced and inclusive regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific. In particular, since both depend on sea-borne trade for their economic prosperity, they share a common commitment to the need for ensuring freedom of navigation and unimpeded commerce in the high seas. They also signed an agreement in 2006 for cooperative measures against transnational crimes, piracy, etc. They were subsequently joined by Japan and China to undertake anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

As for their bilateral relations, they forged a strategic partnership in 2010 and followed it up by signing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. In 2011 their trade volume reached a high $20 billion, but tended to decrease to reach around $17 billion in 2012. South Korea’s private investment too quickly picked up and reached a total of $3 billion. Today, South Korean companies have made a great impact in the automobile and electronics sectors of the Indian economy.

The joint statement made by Prime Minister Modi and President Park eloquently testifies to the expanding dimensions of the partnership. First and foremost, they upgraded the bilateral engagement to a “special strategic partnership” and decided to add “new substance, speed and content” in such areas as foreign affairs, defence, trade and investment. They have agreed to hold annual summit meetings of their top leaders alternately in New Delhi or Seoul or on the sidelines of multilateral events. Further, the foreign ministers of the two countries, who have been meeting regularly to conduct their dialogue, will be meeting annually in a structured framework. They have also agreed to strengthen consultations between the two respective National Security Councils on security, defence and cyber related issues. In addition, Korea will be the second country with which India will have Joint Vice-Ministerial level defence and foreign affairs dialogue in the 2+2 format.

One of Modi’s abiding interests is to invite foreign investment to India for bolstering his “Make in India” programme. Last year, when he went to Japan, he carried the same message to Japanese business leaders and secured $35 billion investment at public-private base covering the next five years. In his latest visit to China, he impressed on the Chinese to be partners in India’s bid to boost its manufacturing skills. He met with Korean business leaders and industrialists and explained his government’s policies on comprehensive programme of economic modernisation that covers all sectors of the economy. He told them, “We have a special focus on infrastructure and developing a world class manufacturing sector. Korea can be a leading partner in this enterprise.” Impressed by Modi’s economic vision, the EXIM Bank of Korea has agreed to provide $10 billion for mutual cooperation in manufacture for priority sectors including smart cities, railways, power generation and transmission. Soon the two sides will prepare a roadmap on how to implement it.

India is also deeply interested in using Korea’s advanced expertise in its plan to modernise its shipbuilding industry. Since Korea is a global leader in shipbuilding, it can help India in the construction of vessels like LNG carriers. Both countries have decided to constitute a Joint Working Group including government and private sectors to work out measures for cooperation in this sphere.

Defence and civil nuclear power are some of the other areas that offer bright prospects for cooperation. The defence ministers of both countries visit each other and hold regular dialogues on many aspects of possible cooperation. India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar made a visit to Seoul in April 2015 and highlighted that the defence industry in India was well poised to offer $250 billion worth of business over the next decade. Further, since the Modi government has welcomed foreign investment in the defence field in a big way, he urged the Korean defence firms to take advantage of this opportunity to enter the Indian market as long term partners.

As for civilian nuclear cooperation, both countries signed an agreement in 2011, but nothing positive has emerged from the accord so far even as Seoul is very keen to sell its reactors to India. Korea’s interest in the subject has become deeper now as it is competing with Japan in trying to supply its reactors in many parts of the world. A new bilateral CEO’s Forum was launched at the time of Modi’s visit and this could play a critical role in expanding investment and trade.

As noted earlier, India-Korea trade has not expanded despite the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. It is believed that the two way trade has the potential of reaching $100 billion by 2020. But many want the CEPA to be upgraded to realise that goal. It is found that only about 40 percent of the trade agreement’s capacity is probably being used because the tariff concessions under the CEPA are not competitive. This creates discouragement for companies to use the CEPA. Many Koreans want India to make its tariff line more attractive and liberal.

*K.V. Kesavan is a Distinguished Fellow and Vindu Mai Chotani is a Research Assistant at ORF

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The number of foreign citizens registered with the Spanish Social Security system stood at 1,607,883 in April, an increase of 2.85% – or 44,540 National Insurance contributors – compared with the previous month. The increase in contributor numbers to the system was the largest for the month of April in the last 10 years.

According to the Spanish government, when compared with 2014, the number of foreign workers has increased by 2.83% – equivalent to 44,262 more NI contributors. This is the first April since 2008 in which the number of foreign workers has increased year-on-year. Previous years saw declines of up to -10.54% (April 2009).

The highest figures for foreign workers correspond to Romania (288,277), Morocco (202,159), China (91,669) and Ecuador (70,666). These countries are followed by Italy (69,422), Bolivia (57,266), the United Kingdom (56,648) and Colombia (52,222).

Autonomous Regions

When compared with the previous month, the number of foreign NI contributors in April rose in all autonomous regions except the Canary Islands (-0.68%). The largest increases were posted in the Balearic Islands (16.69%), Andalusia (5.92% and Extremadura (2.78%).

Compared with last year, the number of workers increased in all autonomous regions except Galicia (-0.85%) and Ceuta (-2.84%). The regions with the largest increases in foreign workers were the Balearic Islands (7.1%), the Region of Murcia (5.03%) and the Region of Valencia (4.33%).

The figures recorded for April show that 943,114 of the total foreign citizens registered with the Spanish Social Security system are from countries outside of the European Union, while the remaining 664,769 are from EU countries.

The majority of foreign citizens are registered under the General Regime: 1,352,992 in total, a figure that includes the Special System for Agricultural Workers (207,501) and the Special System for Domestic Workers (207,246). This is followed by the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (250,362), the Special Regime for Seamen (4,254) and the Special Regime for Coal Workers (275).

Most economic sectors saw an increase in foreign workers, both in monthly and annual terms.

Of the total foreign citizens in the system in April, 866,138 are men and 741,746 are women.

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The Sangha Nayake Thero of Guangzhou, China said that is fully confident that under the leadership of President Maithripala Sirisena, the Buddhist links between Sri Lanka and China would become stronger. This was stated when a 30-member Buddhist delegation from China headed by Most Ven Ming Sheng, the Sangha Nayake of Guangzhou in China and Ven Piao Yang Head of the Hong Kong World Buddhist Peace and Development Association met Sri Lanka President Sirisena at the President’s official residence in Colombo on Thursday.

The President, welcoming the delegation, recalled that the Buddhist links between the two countries existed since ancient times. Chinese monk Ven fa Hsien’s visit to Sri Lanka is mentioned in his writings as well as in our chronicles, he said.

Pointing out that amidst the technological revolution, the people are restless and unhappy and the Buddhist way of thinking is the best way to contentment in this stressful world, President Sirisena said. He added that his government would extend every possible assistance to the propagation of Buddhism and to strengthen Buddhist cultural links with other countries.

Ven Sangha Nayake Thero referred to the Chinese plan to reestablish the old Silk Route from China and President said Sri Lanka too wants to see the dream of the traditional Silk Route become a reality.

Most Ven napane Premasiri Mahanayake Thero of Ramanna Nikaye, Ven Nagoda Amarawansa Thero and several members of Sangha took part in the ceremony.

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Observing demining tools in action is, luckily, a rare thing in Belgium. However this is precisely the kind of spectacle stakeholders, policy-makers and curious citizens were offered on 5 and 6 May on the occasion of the 5th European Civil Protection Forum in Parc du Cinquentenaire, Brussels. Outdoor demonstrations of TIRAMISU’s unmanned rotorcraft and Teodor UGV were organised, showcasing the full potential of these technologies.

Two specific capabilities of the project tools were successfully demonstrated in spite of challenging weather conditions: 3-D mapping with an optical camera and demining with a near infrared camera. The TIRAMISU rotorcraft, the first of the two technologies to be used on-site, demonstrated its capabilities in assisting demining personnel in humanitarian operations after a flood – where landmines tend to shift locations. The rotorcraft’s mapping abilities provide a 3-D model of the environment which can then be used to predict the position of shifted mine-field. Once this is done, a near-infrared camera is used to locate mines, while the Teodor UGV – an unmanned ground vehicle – assists the demining operation from the ground.

TIRAMISU, which kicked off in January 2012 and ends in December 2015, gathers together organisations which have been involved in some of the most important European and international research projects on mine action. It aims to develop a toolbox which can serve as a basis for a comprehensive, modular and integrated solution to the clearing of large areas subjected to explosive hazard. Specifically, the team is working on three sets of tools: demining planning tools to locate explosive devices and define contaminated areas, detection and disposal tools to help operators neutralise these devices, as well as training and mine risk education tools. In addition to the two technologies mentioned above, other exciting solutions such as training bees to sniff out explosives have been explored and tested by the project consortium.

The TIRAMISU tools have already been used in real life situations over the past few years, including assistance with relief operations after the floods that affected over 3 million people in Serbia and Bosnia in May 2014, mapping of the Svilaja and Dinara mountains in Croatia and mine risk education activities in Cambodia.

The final demonstration of the project tools is set to take place in September 2015, also in Belgium. Over 110 000 000 active landmines are still scattered around the world, and it is estimated that it would take some 1 000 years to clear all landmines and UXOs. The TIRAMISU robots could be key to accelerating the pace of demining without putting operators’ lives under threat.

Source: CORDIS

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What lessons should the international community learn from its handling of West Africa’s recent Ebola crisis? Levi Maxey and Brian Finlay think that there is a growing need to 1) “think horizontally” across the health-security divide, and 2) anticipate more participants in complex global health emergencies.

By Levi Maxey and Brian Finlay*

By September 2014, a full nine months after the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, hundreds of thousands of dollars in pledges of assistance sat stranded in warehouses around the globe pending shipment to the region or transfer to the field. As global supply chains shut down for fear of widening the transmission of the virus, the practical challenges of moving the requisite assistance to those most in need grew ominously for providers and patients alike. The involvement of both military and commercial airlift would become essential.

This logistics dilemma—just one of myriad challenges facing the international community as it struggled against the burgeoning Ebola crisis—is indicative of not only the interconnectivity and complexity of the crisis itself, but of the need to think beyond traditional models of crisis response. As the world now moves past the most grueling phase of the Ebola outbreak and reflects upon shortcomings in our global efforts, a few obvious lessons have emerged. These include the necessity for rapid medical responses, the need for preventive investments in health systems, and the benefits of local outreach and engagement. Yet, as the anecdote above indicates, perhaps the most important lesson learned from this particular crisis is the need to think both horizontally across the health-security divide, and ultimately, to better inculcate both public and private actors into complex global health emergencies.

A Sluggish Global Response

The origins of the Ebola virus itself can be traced back to 1976 with simultaneous outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Back then, Ebola was thought not to survive well in human populations, with outbreaks halting after an average of 1.3 infections. As such, the virus did not make substantial headlines until this latest and ongoing outbreak, which has so far caused over 26,000 infections and 11,000 deaths.

Indeed, the roots of this specific outbreak—that has spread through capitals and across borders with a 60% mortality rate—can be traced back to December 2013, when a two year old boy from Guinea, who was thought to have been playing in the vicinity of fruit bats, suddenly died from an infectious disease. Originally thought to be some form of diarrheal disease or even Lassa fever, the outbreak gradually spread into Liberia and Sierra Leone. The virus was not identified as Ebola until March 2014—a time lapse which greatly hampered international awareness of the epidemic. Upon confirmation of the presence of Ebola, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) along with other relief organizations, rushed to the scene.

From July to September 2014, the virus grew exponentially, particularly in Liberia, with the number of cases doubling every three weeks. At this point the outbreak still lacked a coordinated response, and it was estimated that there would eventually be a minimum of 1.2 million cases of Ebola across the region if not contained. Astonishingly, it was not until September 2014, when new infections were at a rate of 800-1,000 per week, that the United Nations Security Council determined that the outbreak presented a threat to international peace and security. The Council voted to establish the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), to coordinate international relief efforts. Ultimately, this security frame placed around the outbreak helped to rally a global response—with inputs from national governments, international and regional organizations, and over 500 NGOs. On May 9, 2015, Liberia, the country worst affected by the outbreak, was declared Ebola-free. While this is indicative of great progress, there are still efforts to eradicate the disease in coastal Guinea and western Sierra Leone, where there remains 20-40 new infections per week.

Accordingly, the Ebola crisis clearly demonstrated both on the national and international level that there is a recognized deficiency of preparedness for a health crisis of this proportion. A functional national public health system is clearly an imperative, even if it requires supplementation by a rapid responding, international public health presence in-country. Inculcation of these lessons will doubtlessly improve our collective response to the next crisis—and ultimately save lives. But the failure to recognize that these complex health emergencies have transitioned from a purely public health crisis to those necessitating coordinated responses with both the security sector and private industry must become part of the new narrative for future planning.

Multidimensional Implications of Ebola Response

The size, scope and nature of the Ebola outbreak also laid bare the potentially significant security consequences of a global health emergency. In a globalized economy, Ebola – like SARS and Bird Influenza before it – demonstrated the ease with which local contagions can become global outbreaks or even epidemics. In turn, these findings suggest especially dire consequences should a disease be deliberately propagated to cause harm. On the back end, the impact of the crisis included corrosive behavioral changes based on the fear of contagion that stalled the response, resulting in the disruption of agriculture, leading to food insecurity, while also restricting transportation through border and airspace closures that limited access for humanitarian workers and essential supplies. Other heavy-handed responses included large scale military quarantines and curfews that led to frustration and distrust among the populations, and resulted in riots and attacks against aid workers.

From a macro perspective, the Ebola outbreak ultimately hindered the development process and state capacity in the most affected countries. In fact, the long term costs of Ebola will be cataclysmic, in spite of the unprecedented—if late—global response, valued at over $3.2 billion. Ebola-affected countries are expected to lose an estimated $1.6 billion in 2015, worth 12 percent of their cumulative GDP, while sub-Saharan Africa as a whole might experience losses of between $500 million to $6.2 billion. These losses will build on existing insecurity in the region by magnifying issues like food shortages and poverty that inherently contribute to instability.

The US military’s Operation United Assistance in Liberia exemplifies the health-security nexus. Tasked with supporting USAID in outbreak containment, the US military presence in Liberia was greater than of the entirety of the Liberian armed forces with around 2,500 personnel deployed. They were able to build treatment centers, reducing blood test results from 2-3 days to three hours. Alongside the WHO, they trained local healthcare workers, and provided logistics support in cooperation with the WFP by constructing warehouses and using critical enablers like helicopters to reach isolated regions. They also contributed to the synchronization of efforts through sharing aggregated intelligence data and analysis that lent a common understanding of the state of the disease.

Beyond these immediate ties between public health and national security communities, surveying the breadth and depth of the ultimate response to the crisis demonstrates that the complexity of global health security emergencies requires unique cooperation between not only the health and security communities, but across the public-private divide. In September 2014, it was thought that an effective Ebola response would require 2,000 flights every month for healthcare workers, plus 4,000 flights per month for aid workers, and an additional 3,242 tons of equipment shipments. Yet in reaction to the burgeoning crisis, by August 2014 commercial airlines had cancelled more than one third of international flights to affected regions, reducing month flights to just 374 each month. This placed a disproportionate share of the burden on the airlift capacity of the US and other militaries, until additional logistical assistance was generated by the private sector.

The primary methods of private sector engagement revolved around financial contributions, donating priority materials, direct asset and service provisions, and overall public support for international efforts. There were efforts to coordinate through collectives such as the Ebola Private Sector Mobilization Group (EPSMG), consisting of 150 companies worldwide, and over 50,000 employees within the most affected countries. The assistance provided by companies from around the world proved vital in responding to the crisis. They contributed through the provision of drugs and other medical supplies such as personal protection equipment, transportation logistics like air freight and ambulances, communications equipment such as cell phones, and millions of dollars in financial contributions to relief organizations on the ground.

The Global Health Security Agenda

Last year, US President Barack Obama, with a coalition of like-minded governments, launched the Global Health Security Agenda to, “prevent, and detect, and fight every kind of biological danger—whether it’s a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.” The Ebola outbreak highlighted shortcomings in large scale outbreak response in the developing world. Because critical resources did not arrive in affected communities in a timely manner, the outbreak grew and became a major international crisis. Although the GHSA predates the Ebola epidemic, its priorities hold increased relevance in the wake of the outbreak, appropriately emphasizing the need for creating stronger health systems globally, nationally and locally that cross the agriculture, defense, health, and commerce sectors.

With estimates of required global investment around $3.4 billion a year on core public health infrastructure in order to satisfy the needs for early detection, diagnosis and prompt response, there is a need to place health systems squarely into the international community’s priorities. Seven years before the onset of the Ebola crisis, the World Bank estimated it would take three years and $26 million in public health investments to bring Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone up to the International Health Standards. Regrettably, none of these investments were made despite evidence that public health systems hold some of the highest rates of return. A step in the right direction would be reforming the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) and the World Bank’s policies toward Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) so that public health infrastructure is viewed as an essential prerequisite in promoting economic productivity and development.

With a stronger emphasis on global health, countries can take preventative measures through immunizations while diseases can quickly be detected and tracked through surveillance systems. The importance of health systems becomes more convincing when considering the certainty that new organisms will emerge, the likelihood of increased drug resistance, and the possibility that microbes might be readily used as a bioweapon in the future.

Under the same banner of improving global preparedness, there is also a need to create a more coherent structure in which aid can rapidly surge in to supplement overwhelmed national capacities. An important aspect of this is to improve the supply chain capacity and resilience during the time of emergency so that critical resources can arrive in a timely manner. This requires establishing a regional, multilateral mechanism to undertake deliberate transportation logistic planning for crisis contingencies. This mechanism could identify logistical resources that could be committed and facilitate the coordination and integration of any international effort.

None of these priorities can be met by public health authorities alone. Rather, they necessitate the combined talents and resources of a fully coordinated public security sector, along with the committed involvement of private industry actors.

*About the authors:
Levi Maxey works with the Managing Across Boundaries Initiative at Stimson.

Brian Finlay is a senior associate and director of the Managing Across Boundaries program at the Stimson Center.

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Islamic State’s (IS) growing influence in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region coupled with the pressure on the Afghan Taliban to reconcile with Kabul has put the Taliban leadership in a quandary. A political compromise with the government can divide the jihadist group, which will benefit IS in the region.

By Abdul Basit*

With the emergence of the self-styled Islamic State’s (IS) local affiliate, the Khurasan Shura in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the jihadist landscape in the two countries has become a highly contested domain. At present, the Af-Pak militant landscape is undergoing operational and ideological transformation as different militant outfits make strategic and tactical positional adjustments to these shifting-sands. Although operationally and tactically, it is Al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban-led, ideologically and strategically, it is an IS-inspired landscape.

IS’ military victories in Iraq and Syria, the near-global appeal of its self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate and its monopoly over the contemporary jihadist terrorist iconography resonate with the jihadist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, who have been at the vanguard of Jihadism in the Af-Pak region, are in an unprecedented tug of war with IS. The pro-IS allegiances and defections are at the heart of this evolving competition. The trend seems to be growing as more and more jihadists, particular from among the younger generation, have demonstrated pro-IS inclinations.

Al-Qaeda and Taliban’s response to IS in Af-Pak

In September 2014, Al-Qaeda Central launched its South Asian branch, Al-Qaeda in South Asia (AQIS), to retain the loyalties of the jihadist groups in the region. However, in these eight months, AQIS has been fairly subdued, to say nothing of its attempts or capacity to carry out attacks. In fact, in an audio message in April 2015, AQIS spokesman Usama Mehmood admitted to losing more than 50 leaders and operatives in the US drone strikes in Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas, including its deputy head Ustad Ahmad Farooq.

The Afghan Taliban’s fading grip in the face of IS’ growing influence compelled it to mobilise a special unit entitled “recruitment commission” to reach out to militant factions who have defected to IS. At the same time, questions have been asked about Mullah Umar’s whereabouts, life-status and the ability to manage the group. In response, the Afghan Taliban issued Umar’s biography to mitigate these rumours. However, the move backfired.

The younger jihadist generation refused to believe the authenticity of the written biography. It further objected on the grounds that periodically, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri and IS’ leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi have appeared in videos, so Mullah Umar should do the same.

At present, the Afghan Taliban leadership is divided over the issue of peace talks with the Afghan government. While the senior leadership strives for a political settlement with Kabul, the younger generation jihadists, which comprise the field commanders and fighters, are furiously opposed to the idea. The younger generation of the Afghan Taliban believes that after 13 years of fight, a political compromise would tantamount to wasting its sacrifices and constitutes essentially, a blatant disregard to those who had laid down their lives.

In the circumstances, any pursuit of a political settlement by senior leaders will trigger splintering within the Taliban ranks. Those who want to continue fighting for ideological or war-profiteering reasons will defect to IS. Indeed, this presents a unique and unprecedented challenge to the Afghan Taliban.

Overcoming the hurdles of Aqeedah and Bay’ah to join IS

Apparently, aqeedah (doctrines of faith) and bay’ah (oath of fealty to the Afghan Taliban) had been the two major hurdles in the way of younger jihadist generation who looked up to the IS. The Baghdadi-led group follows Salafi-Takfirism, an extreme form of Sunni Wahhabism, while the Afghan Taliban adopts Deobandi-Hanafism, a form of Sunnism organic in parts of South Asia.

Within the jihadist community, reneging one’s allegiance is considered so illegitimate as to invite religious censure in the form of a death penalty. But the 13-year long public absence of Mullah Umar and success of IS model have provided the younger generation of jihadists with the religious rationalisation as a way out. For instance, before joining IS, the spokesperson of the Uzbek militant group in Afghanistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), issued a statement which maintained: “Mullah Omar has not been seen for some 13 years and he can no longer be the leader in accordance with Islamic Sharia.”

The younger generation of neo-jihadists in Af-Pak is less consumed by the doctrinal baggage and has leaned towards Salafist-Takfiri practices. To this group of jihadists, the attraction of serving the so-called Islamic caliphate — that ostensibly re-enacts a purist Islamic social order — outweighs any apparent doctrinal barriers. And it merits mention that the shift has taken place against the backdrop of a rapid evolving social milieu of intense Salafisation of Sunni identity in South Asia. Pertinently, there has been much confluence between Sunnism as practised in South Asia and Salafism.

Additionally, the Afghan Taliban’s approach of limiting their agenda to Afghanistan has also disillusioned the younger neo-jihadists. In their eyes, the Taliban are a mere political grouping who instrumentalise Jihad as a religious cover to restore their toppled government by the 2001 US invasion. They believe the Afghan Talibans are overly exercised by their petty political interests, and detrimentally in the process, ignore the larger and more substantial issues confronting the Ummah (global Muslim community), which IS addresses adequately in its propaganda messages.

Changing the entire landscape?

If IS can sustain the momentum of its success in Syria and Iraq, its appeal will further grow among the jihadist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This will make it further difficult for the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda to retain their support in the region.

The downplaying of the IS threat by the national governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan is fraught with danger. Left unchecked, the pro-IS defections and allegiances will develop to play a dangerous role in the future. So far, the defections have come from the marginalised elements of the Taliban.

Indeed, a major defection in future will change the complexion of the entire landscape. Such allegiances should be treated as an indicator of a growing IS influence. In future, the pace and scale of these trends will allow the governments to estimate how much traction the IS message is gaining in the region.

*Abdul Basit is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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In this week’s address, US President Barack commemorated Memorial Day by paying tribute to the men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. The President will spend the first Memorial Day since the end of the war in Afghanistan at Arlington Cemetery, remembering the more than 2,200 American patriots who gave their lives in that conflict, as well as all of our fallen soldiers. The President asked that all Americans spend Monday honoring the memory and sacrifice of those heroes, and remain committed to the cause of freedom and the country for which they fought.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
May 23, 2015

Hi, everybody. This weekend is Memorial Day—a time to pay tribute to all our men and women in uniform who’ve ever given their lives so that we can live in freedom and security. This year, the holiday is especially meaningful. It’s the first Memorial Day since our war ended in Afghanistan.

On Monday, at Arlington Cemetery, I’ll join our Gold Star families, veterans, and their loved ones to remember all our fallen heroes, including the more than 2,200 American patriots who gave their lives in Afghanistan. And I plan to share a few of their stories.

Growing up in Arizona, Wyatt Martin loved the outdoors. To him, a great day was a day spent fishing. After high school, he enlisted in the Army because he believed that the blessings he enjoyed as an American came with an obligation to give back to his country.

Ramon Morris was born in Jamaica, and as a teenager came to Queens. Like so many proud immigrants, he felt a calling to serve his new country and joined the Army. He fell in love, got engaged, and the thing he wanted most was to make the world safer for his three-year-old daughter.

In their lives, Specialist Wyatt Martin and Sergeant First Class Ramon Morris travelled different paths. But in December, their paths intersected as the final two Americans to give their lives during our combat mission in Afghanistan.

This weekend also reminds us that, around the world, our men and women in uniform continue to serve and risk their lives. In Afghanistan, our troops now have a new mission—training and advising Afghan forces. John Dawson was one of them. From Massachusetts, he loved the Bruins and the Pats. In April, he gave his life as an Army combat medic—the first American to give his life in this new mission. This Memorial Day, we’ll honor Corporal Dawson as well.

Like generations of heroes before them, these Americans gave everything they had—not for glory, not even for gratitude, but for something greater than themselves. We cannot bring them back. Nor can we ease the pain of their families and friends who live with their loss.

But we are the Americans they died to defend. So what we can do—what we must do—is fulfill our sacred obligations to them, just like they fulfilled theirs to us. We have to honor their memory. We have to care for their families, and our veterans who served with them. And as a nation, we have to remain worthy of their sacrifice—forever committed to the country they loved and the freedom they fought for and died for.

Thank you, have a wonderful weekend, and may God bless our fallen heroes and their families.

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Egypt’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, and 25 others are on trial in a Cairo court for ‘insulting’ the judiciary.

Last week, the first democratically-elected president of Egypt was sentenced to death in connection to a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that toppled the longtime Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

The Saturday trial is the fifth judicial proceeding in Morsi’s case since he was removed from power in July 2013 by the then head of the armed forces, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the current president of the country.

Morsi’s supporters say the officials and judges running the judiciary are loyalist to and remnants of the Mubarak regime and are taking revenge on the revolutionary forces that toppled the dictator.

Morsi himself arose from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, among the defendants on trial for the alleged insulting there are also activists hailing from the secular segment of the Egyptian society.

A top secular activist, Alaa Abdel Fattah, who organized many of the protests leading to the downfall of the Mubarak regime, is one of those being tried in Cairo on Saturday on the ‘insulting’ allegation.

Another defendant is Amr Hamzawy, a renowned professor of political science and a former member of parliament.

A fourth defendant from the secular segment is a human rights lawyer by the name of Amir Salem.

The government in Egypt, led by President Sisi, has been carrying out a systematic crackdown on dissidents, particularly the supporters of Morsi. The harsh crackdown has left hundreds of Morsi supporters killed, many sentenced to death after speedy mass trials, and thousands more jailed in a move the United Nations humanitarian watchdog has described as “unprecedented in recent history.”

Original article

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EU High Representative Federica Mogherini should publicly urge Gulf countries to release immediately and unconditionally activists detained for exercising their rights, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to her today. The letter was sent ahead of a Gulf Cooperation Council-EU ministerial meeting in Doha on May 24, 2015.

The GCC countries’ crackdown on freedom of expression and association has resulted in the imprisonment of many activists and dissidents. Member countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

“Despite the EU’s oft-stated commitment to human rights, it hasn’t so much thrown its weight behind advocates of human rights in the Gulf as nervously wagged its finger,” said Lotte Leicht, EU director. “The EU should take inspiration from the courage of detained GCC activists, and call for their immediate release.”

In June 2014, EU foreign ministers pledged to “intensify” the EU’s “political and material support to human rights defenders and step up its efforts against all forms of reprisals.” Human Rights Watch urged the EU to translate this commitment into concrete action and policy demands that go beyond mere expressions of support for those unfairly imprisoned.

Hundreds of dissidents, political activists, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and bloggers have been imprisoned across the Gulf region, often for nothing more than exercising their rights to free expression and association. Many were convicted after unfair trials and allegations of torture in pretrial detention. GCC governments have responded to growing citizen use of social media by resorting to repressive laws and in some cases by enacting new, more draconian ones, in the name of national security.

In Bahrain, the rights situation continues to deteriorate. Some EU member states and Members of the European Parliament have called for the immediate and unconditional release of the prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab. But the EU has yet to make a specific call for his release or that of 13 other high-profile activists – including two EU citizens, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja of Denmark and Khalil Al-Halwachi of Sweden. All are serving life or other long sentences on charges that relate solely to their peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and association.

In Saudi Arabia, the human rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair and the blogger Raif Badawi are among those serving lengthy prison sentences for their peaceful criticism of the authorities.

The Saudi Interior Ministry issued a counterterrorism regulation in 2014 that designates certain groups as terrorist organizations and contains other provisions that proscribe acts such as “calling for atheist thought,” “throw[ing] away loyalty to the country’s rulers,” “contact or correspondence with any groups, currents [of thought], or individuals hostile to the kingdom,” and participating in or calling for protests or demonstrations.

In the United Arab Emirates, which claims to be a world leader in combating extremist ideologies, the human rights lawyers Mohamed al-Roken and Mohamed al-Mansoori and 67 other defendants were convicted in 2013 of attempting to overthrow the state and sentenced to prison in a mass trial. The trial was undermined by due process violations and credible allegations that some defendants were tortured. A 2014 counterterrorism law includes death sentences for offenses used to prosecute peaceful critics of the government and people the authorities consider opposed to Islamic principles.

Five of the six GCC member countries have also ratified the November 2012 GCC Security Agreement, which includes a vaguely worded article that would suppress “interference in the domestic affairs” of other GCC countries. That provision could be used to criminalize criticism of GCC countries or rulers. Another provision provides for sharing citizens’ and residents’ personal data between GCC states at the discretion of GCC Interior Ministry officials.

When adopting the EU’s Strategic Framework for Human Rights and Democracy in June 2012, EU foreign ministers pledged that the EU will continue “to throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights throughout the world.”

“If the EU excludes its major trading partners in the oil-rich Gulf states from its oft-stated commitment to human rights, it will rightly be accused of hypocrisy,” Leicht said. “A weak EU response to Gulf states’ crackdowns on dissent isn’t going to help promote long-term stability in the Gulf.”

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As a high school student, I came across an observation by Abraham Lincoln who said that “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” Today “public sentiment” would be called “public opinion.”

Over the years, I have been astonished at how less than one percent of the citizenry, backed by the “public sentiment,” have changed our country for the better by enacting reforms to protect the people from abuses of power, discrimination and deep neglect.

Specifically, if – one percent or less – were to dedicate a modest amount of their time and money working together for much-needed changes that are overwhelmingly supported by public opinion in each congressional or state legislative district, they would prevail against the government and corporate power structures.

There are obstacles, such as a corporate influence over City Hall and wavering politicians who insincerely pledge support, but defer and delay action. But, if people work together, almost any problem can be solved.

History shows that it only takes a dedicated few to gain the momentum from many more to enact change. The major drives to give women the right to vote, workers the right to form unions and secure numerous protections, and farmers regulation of railroads and banks did not require more than one percent of seriously active champions. Those in power understood that there was overwhelming support for these reforms by affected populations.

Even the abolition movement against slavery was well under way in our country before Ft. Sumter and did not involve more than one percent of the people, including the slaves who fled via the Underground Railroad. By 1833, the British Empire, including Canada, had already brought slavery to an end.

More recently, the breakthrough laws in the late sixties and early seventies regarding auto and product safety, environmental health and occupational safety drew on far less than one percent of seriously engaged supporters. The air and water pollution laws were supported by widespread demonstrations that did not require a large burden of time by the participants. These air and water pollution laws, not surprisingly, were very popular when introduced and the public made its support known to lawmakers with numerous phone calls and letters. Other reforms (auto safety, product safety and occupational safety measures) were pushed through with far less than one percent of engaged citizens, as was the critical Freedom of Information Act of 1974.

Along with the small full-time advocacy groups, a modest level of visible activity around the country aroused the media. The more citizen power the media observed, the more reporting, and this in turn led to greater public awareness.

Lately, this pattern can be seen in the efforts to enact civil rights for the LGBTQ community and to pass a substantially higher minimum wage for tens of millions of workers being paid less now than workers were paid in 1968, adjusted for inflation. The latter has become a front burner issue at the city, state and congressional levels with picketers in front of McDonald’s, Burger King, Walmart, and other giant low-pay chains over the past two years. Those pushing for higher wages number less than the population of Waterbury, Connecticut (approximately 110,000). The Service Employees International Union

(SEIU), some think tanks, organizers, writers and economists rounded out this less than one percent model of action for justice.

It is important to remember that the active one percent or less, with the exception of a handful of full-timers, are committing no more time than do serious hobbyists, such as stamp and coin collectors, or members of bowling leagues and bridge clubs, or birdwatchers.

Why is all this important? Because in a demoralized society full of people who have given up on their government, on themselves and are out of the public civic arena, learning that one percent can be decisive, can be hugely motivational and encouraging, especially with emerging Left-Right alliances. Prison reform, juvenile justice, crony capitalism, civil liberties, unconstitutional wars, and sovereignty-shredding and job-exporting trade treaties that threaten health and safety protections are all ripe for Left-Right action (see my recent book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State).

Youngsters grow up exposed to numerous obstacles that tell them they “can’t fight City Hall” or the big corporate bosses. Unfortunately, they are not taught to reject being powerless because they learn myths, not reality, and they graduate without civic skills and experience. Small wonder why so many of them could easily be members of a Society of Apathetics.

But lawmakers want to retain their jobs. Companies want to keep their customers. On many issues that could so improve livelihoods and the quality of life in America, it is important to bring to everyone the history and current achievements of the one percent who stood tall, spoke and acted as the sovereign people our constitution empowers them to become.

Send more 1% examples to info@nader.org.

The post Ralph Nader: The Other One Percent – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

There was at least one big surprise among Osama bin Laden’s personal library, declassified a few days ago by the Director of the Office of National Intelligence. Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s mastermind, had a copy of The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall (1928), a classic of New Age, or alternative spiritual thought.

Was bin Laden a closet New Ager? No. Did he agree with the thesis of The Secret Teachings. Again, no.

Writing in Salon magazine, Mitch Horowitz says that he “seriously doubt[s]” that bin Laden had even read the book. I take a different view. Over the last several years, I’ve been researching both historical connections and antagonisms between Western alternative spirituality and Islam for my recently released book The Crescent and The Compass.

Although I was surprised that bin Laden owned a copy of this particular, lengthy, and somewhat romantic book, I was not surprised that he had an interest in its contents. I believe bin Laden had read at least some of The Secret Teachings’ more than forty chapters, and that it was of importance to him.

Before going into the why, I should point out that the subjects of Islam and Freemasonry would have interested bin Laden most in the book. Chapters on the pyramids, astrology, and so on, probably interested bin Laden less, if at all.

Relying heavily on Western sources, and quoting extensively, the chapter on Islam is not particularly strong, however. Hall was more of a mystic than a scholar, and I largely disagree with his theory. For Hall, secret, gnostic wisdom has been preserved and passed on through the religions, various secret societies and fraternities (such as the Freemasons), and esoteric philosophies and practices such as the Hebrew Qabbalah.

Bin Laden may well have welcomed the author’s criticism of the negative “attitude of Christendom toward Islam” in its opening passages. But any believing Muslim would be offended by Hall’s contention that, “The arcana of Islam may […] be demonstrated to have been directly founded upon the ancient pagan Mysteries performed at the Caaba centuries before the birth of the Prophet” and that “many of the ceremonials now embodied in the Islamic Mysteries are survivals of pagan Arabia.” (According to Islam, Muhammad received the Qur’an from the Angel Gabriel, not from pre-existing pagan traditions, which, from a mainstream Islamic perspective, are shirk — the sin of practicing idolatry or polytheism.)

In my view, the chapters about Freemasonry are likewise laborious, focusing on various alleged ancient influences more than on the history of the three-century-old fraternity itself.

But why would bin Laden own such a book?

It is quite possible that the al-Qaeda leader believed it to be an accurate representation of the beliefs of Freemasonry, which Islamists, today, regard as one of the leading foes of Islam. Notably another book on bin Laden’s bookshelf was Bloodlines of the Illuminati by Fritz Springmeier. This book presents Freemasonry as an integral element of the “New World Order” — behind all plots and revolutions, and inspired by Satanism — that al-Qaeda saw itself as fighting. Hence, the Fall 2010 edition of the online al-Qaeda magazine Inspire praised, “an outstanding group consisting of four men [who] created a cell to assassinate Freemasons in Amman, and [who] succeeded in executing a number of them.”

Secondly, it is probable that, although not interested in the Islamic scholarship in itself, bin Laden believed The Secret Teachings accurately represented Masonic or Western perceptions about Islam. In other words, that — like many of the other books bin Laden owned – he believed it gave some insight into the mindset of the enemy.
Ironically perhaps, radical, pan-Islamic politics has not always opposed Freemasonry. During the 19th century, several prominent, influential Muslim activists joined the fraternity, believing, sometimes, that could help in their struggles. These included Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhyi al-Din, leader of the Algerian resistance against the French; Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, founder of anti-colonial politics in the Middle East; and Muhammad Abduh, Grand Mufti and theologian.

By the end of the 1920s, however, European anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theories, introduced to the Middle East by Arab Christians, had become a part of both secular nationalism and pan-Islamism in the region. And it has remained important to Islamist and Jihadist organizations ever since.

What bin Laden’s bookshelf confirms is that, fed partly by Western conspiracy theories, the Islamist worldview is more complex than is generally believed. But the lack of comment about the al-Qaeda leader’s ownership of The Secret Teachings tells us that that isn’t going to change any time soon.

The post The Freemasonry on Bin Laden’s Bookshelf – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US Department of Defense says Alaska is its preferred location to deploy a new long-range “must-have” radar to enable missile defense systems to better intercept potential enemy threats, such as from Iran or North Korea.

The Pentagon says that the new Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) will begin defensive operations in 2020 and will boost the capacity of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California. The Clear Air Force Station, an Air Force Space Command radar station in central Alaska, has been chosen as the preferred location for the radar.

“The new LRDR will serve as a midcourse sensor to improve target discrimination capability for our Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) to better address potential countermeasures and increase the capacity of the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) inventory of interceptors in Alaska and California,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The Missile Defense Agency is currently busy working on the design and development of the radar, assessing industry proposals “to meet the required technical performance to counter the emerging threat and support future BMDS architecture needs.”

Major US defense contractors such as Raytheon (the world’s largest producer of guided missiles), Northrop Grumman (the world’s fifth-largest defense contractor) and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin are competing to build the new radar, which, according to Reuters, is expected to cost just under $1 billion. The Missile Defense Agency invited bids in January and is expected to award a contract by the end of September.

According to Missile Defense Agency director James Syring, the new radar will be crucial in combating the growing capabilities of North Korea and Iran.

“The LRDR is critically important to where I see the threat from North Korea going in the near future, with the capability of becoming more complex, requiring more interceptors,” Alaska Public Media quoted Syring as saying in March.

Earlier this week, Admiral James Winnefeld Jr,, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies that the number of countries trying to achieve the capability to carry out “catastrophic attacks” on the US is “growing, not shrinking.” Winnefeld said that “our most immediate concern, of course, being North Korea because they’re closest in terms of capability, followed by Iran.”

“A robust and capable missile defense is our best bet to defend the United States from such an attack,” Winnefeld said Tuesday.

He earlier described LRDR as a “must have” radar to “keep our nation ahead of the threat,” Alaska Native News reported.

According to Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, Alaska’s unique geostrategic location makes it the “only state from where one can defend all 50 states from a long range ballistic missile attack coming from the Northern Hemisphere, both east and west, from Hawaii to Florida.” Two of the main land-based sensors for tracking the North Korean missile threat are located in Alaska.

Given the state’s proximity to North Korean and Iranian missile threats, Senator Lisa Murkowski said in March, at a hearing of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, that “[Alaskans] know the justification for maintaining and constantly improving a capable, credible and highly-advanced long range discrimination radar (LRDR).”

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