What if the whole drama was only an exercise of deception?

What if the wily Persians did not even dream of building an atomic bomb, but used the threat to further their real aims?

What if Binyamin Netanyahu was duped to become unwittingly the main collaborator of Iranian ambitions?

Sounds crazy? Not really. Let’s have a look at the facts.

Iran is one of the oldest powers in the world, with thousands of years of political experience. Once they possessed an empire that spanned the civilized world, including our little country. Their reputation for clever trade practices is unequaled.

They are much too clever to build a nuclear weapon. What for? It would devour huge amounts of money. They know that they would never be able to use it. Same as Israel, with its large stockpile.

Netanyahu’s nightmare of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel is just that – a nightmare (or daymare) of an ignorant dilettante. Israel is a nuclear power with a solid second-strike capability. As we see, the Iranian leaders are hard-boiled realists. Would they even dream of inviting an inevitable Israeli retaliation that would wipe from the face of the earth their three-millennia-old civilization?

(If this capability is defective, Netanyahu should be charged and convicted for criminal negligence.)

Even if the Iranians did deceive the whole world and build a nuclear bomb, nothing would happen except the creation of a “balance of terror”, such as saved the world at the height of the cold war between America and Russia.

The people around Netanyahu pretend to believe that, unlike the then Soviets, the Iranian mullahs are crazy people. There is absolutely no evidence for that. Since their 1979 revolution, the Iranian leadership has not made one single important step that was not absolutely rational. Compared to American missteps in the region (not to mention the Israeli ones), the Iranian leadership has been thoroughly logical.

So perhaps they traded their nonexistent nuclear designs for their very real political design: to become the hegemon of the Muslim world.

If so, they owe a lot to Netanyahu.

What has the Islamic Republic ever done in its 45 years of existence to harm Israel?

Sure. Tehran crowds can be seen on television burning Israeli flags and shouting “Death to Israel”. They call us, not flatteringly, “the Little Satan”, as compared to the American “Great Satan”.

Terrible. But what else?

Not much. Perhaps some support for Hezbollah and Hamas, which were not their creation. Iran’s real fight is against the powers that be in the Muslim world. They want to turn the region’s countries into Iranian vassals, as they were 2400 years ago.

This has very little to do with Islam. Iran uses Islam as Israel uses Zionism and the Jewish Diaspora (and as Russia in the past used communism) as a tool for its imperial ambitions.

What is happening now in this region resembles the “religious wars” in 17th century Europe. A dozen countries fought each other in the name of religion, under the flags of Catholicism and Protestantism, but in reality using religion to further their very earthly imperial designs.

The US, led by a bunch of neocon fools, destroyed Iraq, which for many centuries had served as the bulwark of the Arab world against Iranian expansion. Now, under the banner of the Shia, Iran is expanding its power all over the Region.

Shiite Iraq is now to a large extent an Iranian vassal (we’ll come back to Daesh). The leaders of Syria, a Sunni country ruled by a small semi-Shiite sect, depend on Iran for their survival. In Lebanon, the Shiite Hezbollah is a close ally with growing power and prestige. So is Hamas in Gaza, which is entirely Sunni. And the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are Zaidis (a school of the Shia.)

The status quo in the Arab world is defended by a corrupt bunch of dictators and medieval sheiks, such as the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf oil potentates.

Clearly, Iran and its allies are the wave of the future, Saudi Arabia and its allies belong to the past.

That leaves Daesh, the Sunni “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq. That is also a rising power. Unlike Iran, whose revolutionary élan long ago exhausted itself, Daesh is radiating revolutionary fervor, attracting adherents from all over the world.

Daesh is the real enemy of Iran – and of Israel.

President Obama and his advisors realized this some time ago. Their new alliance with Iran is partly based on this reality.

With the advent of Daesh, realities on the ground have changed completely. The shift reaffirms the old British maxim that one’s enemies in one war can well become one’s allies in the next, and vice versa. Far from being naïve, Obama is building an alliance against the new and very dangerous enemy. This alliance should logically include Bashar Assad’s Syria, but Obama is still afraid of saying so aloud.

Obama and his advisors also believe that with the lifting of the crippling sanctions, Iranians will concentrate on making money, lessening their nationalist and religious fervor even more. That sounds reasonable enough.

(Netanyahu thinks the American people are “naïve”. Well, for a naïve nation the US has done quite well in becoming the world’s only super-power.)

One by-product of the situation is that Israel is again at loggerheads with the entire political world. The Vienna treaty was signed not just by the US, but by all leading world powers. This seems to create the situation described by a jolly popular Israeli song: “The whole world is against us / But we don’t give a damn…”

Unfortunately, unlike Obama, Netanyahu is stuck in the past. He continues demonizing Iran, instead of joining it in the fight against Daesh, which is far, far more dangerous to Israel.

One does not have to go back to Cyrus the Great (6th century B.C.) to realize that Iran can be a close ally. In the relations between nations, geography trumps religion. Not so long ago, Iran was Israel’s closest ally in the region. We even sent Khomeini arms to fight Iraq. The Mullahs hate Israel not so much because of their religion, but because of our alliance with the Shah.

The present Iranian regime has long since lost its revolutionary religious fervor. It is acting according to its national interests. Geography still counts. A wise Israeli government would use the next ten-or-more years of a guaranteed nuclear-free Iran in order to renew the alliance – especially against Daesh.

This could mean new relations with Assad’s Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas too.

But such far-reaching considerations are far from the mind of Netanyahu, the son of a historian, who is devoid of any historical knowledge or intuition.

The fight is now going to Washington DC, where Netanyahu will be fully committed as a mercenary of Sheldon Adelson, the owner of the Republican Party.

It is a sorry sight: the State of Israel, which has always enjoyed the full unblinking support of both American parties, has become an appendix of the reactionary Republican leadership.

One victim of this is the legend of the “invincible” pro-Israeli lobby. This crucial asset has now been lost. From now on, AIPAC will be just one of the many lobbies on Capitol Hill.

An even sorrier sight is Israel’s political and media elite on the morrow of the signing of the Vienna treaty. It was almost incredible.

Almost all political parties fell in line with Netanyahu’s policy, competing with each other in their demonstrations of abject loyalty. From the “leader of the opposition”, the pitiful Yitzhak Herzog, to the voluble Yair Lapid, everybody rushed to support the Prime Minister at this crucial hour.

The media were even worse. Almost all prominent commentators, left and right, ran amok against the ‘disastrous” treaty and heaped their uniform disgust and contempt on poor Obama, as if reading from a prepared government “list of arguments” (as indeed they were).

Not the finest hour of Israeli democracy and the much lauded “Jewish brain”. Just a despicable example of all-too-common brain-washing. Some would call it presstitution.

One of Netanyahu’s arguments is that the Iranians can and will cheat the naive Americans and build the bomb. He is sure that this is possible. Well, he should know. We did it, didn’t we?

The post Was Netanyahu Iran’s Nuclear A Dupe? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has made the nation and the international community and observers interested in the nation’s affairs, to sit up and take notice. After maintaining a seemingly ambivalent position on the political re-entry of predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa in the January 8 polls, he has now come out strongly against the latter, who had scored a highly respectable 48 per cent vote-share at the time. This can also be the source of controversies after the August 17 parliamentary polls.

In a recent public statement, President Sirisena not only declared that he would uphold the mandate (for change and good governance) that his election portrayed, but would also not invite Rajapaksa to become prime minister if their Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)-United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), now under the latter’s hold, won a majority in parliament. More importantly, he has distanced himself from the parliamentary polls, a very healthy precedent, whatever the reason – worthy of being followed up with a legislation to the effect.

Playing cards close to chest

Confused or more clear-headed than others, six months into office, President Sirisena is playing his cards close to his heart. Before his no-no to a Rajapaksa return, his praise for another former president, Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga (CBK), while holding on to the near-simultaneous truce with collective bête noire Rajapaksa over SLFP-UPFA nominations for the August 17 polls, made him enigmatic. Though he might have not opposed Rajapaksa’s return, his post-poll steps in particular needs to be watched, as Sirisena also seems to be suffering from a moral dilemma over allowing political rival United National Party (UNP) to return to power.

President Sirisena seems to be aware of his electoral limitations. He is also not unaware of the political possibilities. He seems wanting to mix his political acumen with electoral possibilities and without ignoring the presidential poll mandate. His constant reference not to reverse that mandate and not allow ‘family rule’ may need to be understood as standing as a bulwark between the past and the present, but not excluding the present. How far he succeeds could indicate in these troubled times of post-war transition and readjustments, Sri Lanka’s success as a nation. The inherent strengths and weaknesses of the nation-State remain, as during the past decades of ethnic issue and LTTE terrorism, the social divisions and the forgotten JVP insurgencies

With close to 50 long years in politics, President Sirisena is not unaware of the possibilities. Until proved otherwise, Rajapaksa is still backed by claims to polling 48 per cent of the popular vote in the presidential polls, but much of it from the majority Sinhala-Buddhist community. Despite Sirisena being named party and alliance chief, both organizations from top to bottom are almost at the disposal of Rajapaksa.

When a Sirisena spokesman says that the president would not nominate Rajapaksa for the parliamentary polls, the other side says that it’s for the SLFP central committee and not the party boss to clear the poll ticket. The media flags doubts about the veracity and credibility of UPFA General Secretary Susil Premajayantha’s written communication about poll nomination for Rajapaksa, but the Sirisena camp is silent at best.

The Rajapaksa camp seeks prime ministerial nomination for their leader, if only to ensure that his votes from the presidential polls get transferred to the SLFP-UPFA combine in the parliamentary elections. Others in Team Rajapaksa also seem uncomfortable about the possibilities available to President Sirisena, post-poll.

Sirisena may not have votes, he still has options, post-poll. He would have a choice or more, if the Rajapaksa camp is unable to steer a parliamentary majority, one way or the other.

UNHRC tangle

Even without the pre-poll campaign and post-poll possibilities, all of which are going to keep him busy, President Sirisena would also have to keep himself updated about the upcoming developments pertaining to the UN Human Rights Council September session. Unsure of who will form the government, and who will be the prime minister and also the foreign minister, and how much time they would be taking to settle down, if there were to be dark horses in those seats, it’s for the president to lead his foreign policy team, but from behind, through the current interregnum.

In doing so, President Sirisena would have to look at the possibilities and options at UNHRC in a way that the foreign policy team does not end up sending out wrong or confusing signals. Nor can they remain idle and stagnant. Status quo may not be an option. Beyond episodic symbolism nearer home, nothing much has moved under what came to be seen as an ‘UNP government’ of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, but with President Sirisena still at the helm.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and his Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera need to be given credit for obtaining a six-month reprieve on the UNHRC tabling the fast-tracked probe report into ‘accountability issues’ pertaining to Sri Lanka. Even if they were to return to power, there is little that they could do at Geneva just now. If Rajapaksa returned, this time as prime minister, all hell would break loose on all fronts.

If there is a ‘dark-horse’ in the saddle – and it cannot be ruled out entirely – then, the leadership would require all the time and energy to settle down, and also study the issues. The Tamils, egged on by the Diaspora and ‘inspired’ by the upcoming election mood and inevitable internal divisions of whatever kind, can be expected to keep the pot boiling.

It should not surprise anyone if the diaspora were to slip in President Sirisena’s name for being the ‘Acting Defence Minister’ during the controversial end-days of the ethnic war. It could embarrass, though not necessarily divide, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), particularly the parliamentary group, with its substantial numbers, at alliance and government-formation.

Status quo on China?

It’s in this background, too, that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe approach to China, for instance, needs to be viewed. It’s not about ‘Colombo Port City’ project, or the Maritime Silk Route, or specific instances of accommodation of China on the military front, all of which have had irritated the Indian neighbor and the international community (read: West) under the predecessor Rajapaksa regime.

Other than a workable ‘national consensus’ on security and developmental issues over the past decade, if not more, ‘non-interfering’ (?) Chinese support in international fora has been a source of silent strength for successive governments in Sri Lanka over the decades. President Sirisena, both as elected President, and the interregnum-leader just now, needs to maintain a balance.

In the interim, China might still maintain the status quo all-round, until a new government takes over and a new prime minister appears on the Sri Lankan scene. For his part, President Sirisena too could be expected to do so, unless of course events and developments elsewhere to force the Sri Lankan State to take a public position, too that when the poll campaign heats up nearer home.

Job cut out

President Sirisena has his job cut out. The large Rajapaksa constituency may not seem his as a ‘strong leader’, at least not yet, as was the case with all his predecessors. But his presidential poll backers seem divided over his capabilities, but not yet about his intentions. That is his current strength – here is a man who wants to do things differently, and do things as he had promised, but does not have the political backing from any side of the ‘national government’ that he supposedly headed through the first six, turbulent months of his presidency.

President Sirisena might be the wrong man at the right place and at the wrong time, which too needs to be righted. His ultimate success or failure in the blind-game that he has chosen to play dispassionate ‘seconds’ to guide him from the sidelines could prove costly, not just for the man but also for the nation, though only after a time.

To Sirisena’s credit goes his continuing reputation as an ‘unknown’ entity even six months after becoming president. In his time, prime minister Ranasinghe Premadasa, lost no opportunity to run down his president, J. R. Jayewardene, and thus made his ambitions clear. Given his circumstances, Sirisena knew to keep his secrets until it was time to announce his candidacy for the presidency.

He who knows to keep his secrets needs to be watched, and watched closely, if ever someone wants to match him in the department, and more! Tools of popularity, intellect and secrecy all can cut in very many ways. Sri Lanka can thus be in for a time of political upmanship taking more time than required, to the detriment of the nation moving on in the development path and also finding a negotiated settlement to the ethnic issue – and more.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at: sathiyam54@gmail.com

The post Sri Lanka: President Sirisena, The Man To Watch And Match? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The list of Barack Obama’s crimes is a long one, but one of the worst is his refusal to even attempt a dismantling of the mass incarceration state in America. In criminal justice as in other issues, Obama fakes left while actually moving to the right. He is suddenly interested in “reform” and is on a cross country marketing blitz meant to burnish his image and fool uninformed people.

The White House recently announced that the president would commute prison sentences for “dozens” of federal prisoners who were convicted of non-violent drug related offenses. There are 208,000 federal prison inmates and 48% of them were convicted of narcotics violations. Approximately 100,000 people are under federal jurisdiction who could be given some consideration if narcotics sentencing laws were changed.

The slap in the face was worse than expected when a grand total of 46 people had their sentences commuted. Obama perfected the art of political marketing, which like all advertising makes lies appear to be true. In 2013 the president had an opportunity to free at least 5,000 black people from federal prisons. They were all imprisoned before the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act which reduced the powder/crack cocaine sentences from a 100:1 ration to a 18:1 ratio. The act did nothing for those sentenced prior and the White House successfully appealed a federal court ruling which would have given those persons the right to request resentencing.

The appeals court ruled in the Obama Justice Department’s favor, but no one knows that except for readers of Black Agenda Report. Formerly well respected organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund lamented the decision without mentioning that the president supported it and took an active role in keeping their clients in prison.

Obama is a master of appearing to do what he doesn’t do. That is not all marketing skill; he also relies on a compliant corporate media and a spineless black misleadership class to fool nearly all of the people all of the time. His sudden desire to look like the Great Emancipator is an ongoing publicity junket. On July 16, 2015, he is scheduled to visit the El Reno medium security federal prison in Oklahoma. His trip will be part of VICE news documentary scheduled for broadcast on the HBO television network.

It is important to remember that Obama is still a duplicitous back stabber, not the lesser evil but the more effective evil. He has the power to prosecute killer vigilantes like George Zimmerman and the police who murdered Eric Garner and Michael Brown yet he refuses to do so. Despite the hoopla surrounding the commutations for 46 people, he falls short of the pardons given by his predecessors. He has yet to use any of the powers at his disposal to bring justice to black people. Of course he will show up at El Reno and use black people as a propaganda back drop, but those people can expect little else from him. It is insulting in the extreme for the president to talk about incarceration as some knotty problem he can’t quite figure out when he could have given thousands of people the right to seek their freedom.

Obama is able to play the same game over and over because he is enabled by his idol worshipping defenders. They never met an Obama lie they didn’t like and they are happy to help him appear powerless when it suits him. The president can claim and exercise a right to assassinate American citizens without charge or trial, exact regime change in Libya, or give billions to Ukraine but suddenly claims to be impotent if black Americans need help for any reason.

After the meager justice dispensed for 46 people, Obama took his phony show on the road at the annual NAACP convention. The once august organization is a leader among the misleaders, giving Obama cover in exchange for access and money. There was no better arena for the president to give an appearance of substance when he really offers only illusion.

“Mass incarceration makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it,” was but one of the meaningless platitudes the president uttered. If the president wanted to make a dent in the federal prison population he could have used Democrat majorities in Congress in 2009 and 2010 to do that and more. Of course neither he nor other Democrats sought to raise the minimum wage at that time either. Curiously, anything that Obama and the Democrats didn’t change when they had the chance is now open for discussion after the opportunities have disappeared.

Obama doesn’t really have a problem with mass incarceration. After all it keeps Cousin Pookie locked up. As far as the president is concerned, black America deserve nothing more than to stay behind bars.

The post Obama’s Prison Charade – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Prof Venugopal B. Menon*

On June 29, 2015, Union Minister for Steel and Mines Narendra Singh Tomar in an interaction organised by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) said, “BJP has not entered into any secret compromise over Article 370 with ally Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Even now we want this Article to be abolished, while PDP wants it to continue. Therefore, both the parties have decided to maintain silence over the issue.”

Many myths have been propagated against the abolishment of Article 370 over the years, all of which need to be challenged. The people of the state must ask themselves hard questions on how exactly it has served them, even as they evaluate how life would improve if it were to be junked. By virtue of Article 370 the state of J&K excites and exercises the minds of people in India and in Pakistan. To Pakistan it remains an unfinished agenda of partition and to India J&K is an integral part which cannot be negotiated. Even when India claims that it is part of India, the Article 370 makes a mockery of the Indian Union and the Indian Constitution, courtesy the provision of Special Status even though it was conceived as a temporary measure.

The relevance of Article 370 in the present social structure of the state is being questioned for a range of reasons, and the foremost being what good the article could do with the state during the past 66 years, since its acceptance by the constituent assembly. Prefectorial nature of the constitution is made redundant by this provision or it has made an exception to the very idea of Indian Federalism. This article has not only become a bane but is also responsible for the alienation of Kashmiri people. The architect of Indian constitution Dr. B.R. Ambedkar very clearly expressed his dismay over this provision by stating, “You want that India should defend Kashmir, India should develop Kashmir and Kashmir should have equal rights as the citizen of India, but you don’t want India and any citizen of India to have any rights in Kashmir. I cannot betray the interest of my country.”

“Federalism is designed to achieve some degree of political integration based on combination of self rule and shared rule,” Dr.Ambedkar used the word UNION in the constituent assembly instead of the word federal because:

a) Indian Federation is not the result of an agreement by the units

b) That the component units have no freedom to secede from it.

In 1961, Jawaharlal Nehru said, “It is part of our constitution that we cannot touch Kashmir without the consent of Kashmir’s elected assembly.” What we got with one hand, was frittered away by the government of Nehru. Many of the fundamental rights are applicable only in a limited manner and the directive principles do not apply. Thus J&K is one state which goes against the scheme of Indian federalism. This article has ensured on all matters the state has exclusive jurisdiction. The mosques have become the breeding ground for secessionists because the Religious Institutions (prevention of misuse) Act 1988 is a law which prohibits religious institutions from allowing their premises for the promotion of political activity and storing of arms and ammunition.

Emergency cannot be proclaimed by the President of India even in the face of imminent danger or internal disturbance unless the state requests for it. Financial emergency too is not applicable and the president cannot interfere into financial irregularities or issue directions to regulate finances of the state. It has its own flag, anthem and constitution, and is the only state from which centre seeks concurrence before it makes any declaration.

The constitution itself has become an excuse for separatism and preventing integration with India which is otherwise complete. Article 370 gives Kashmir the benefit of dual citizenship. The state government at times does declare that they need not be part of India or demand more autonomy.

In financial matters too the state of J&K gets a lot of preferential treatment without contributing to India’s GDP. Prof.Vaidyanathan of IIM Bangalore in a study on this matter statistically showed that the Government of India has been pampering the state. For example he cites parliamentary records to prove that in Kashmir the per capita consumption of electricity is 759Kwh, and it is much higher than in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and West Bengal. The per capita central assistance to Kashmir was Rs.2,860, as against national average of Rs.395 for all the other states; while states like Uttar Pradesh got Rs.260, West Bengal Rs.426. The total assistance to this state has always been highest compared to other states. In agriculture too per capita investment in J&K is much higher than the national average. All the other Indian states get only loans, but under special status Kashmir gets outright grants without contributing to the GDP. In 2009-10, the state received Rs.13,252 crore as grants from the central government, which accounted for more than 60% of the state’s total expenditure, and during the period 1990 to 2010 the state received grants amounting to Rs.94,409 crores, yet it does not really contribute much to the GDP. Despite magnanimous funding, the economics parameter of the state’s population remains abysmally low.

The new generation of Kashmiris should make a significant break from the past and explore tapping opportunities outside the state as it will enrich and empower them. Today for the young and old in Kashmir the relevance of Article 370 is little more than crying and caring for the dead. This is a burden their young shoulders don’t need to bear and an obsession their young minds don’t need to be occupied with it.

Clinging on to Article 370 must not come at the expense of their aspirations and must not limit their access to opportunities. The sooner the population in the state realizes the damage it is doing to itself in the name of Article 370 the better for posterity. Otherwise it might become another Palestine caught in the crossfire of India and Pakistan.

*Venugopal B. Menon is a professor of International Relations at Christ University, Bengaluru. He can be reached at editor@spsindia.in

The post Kashmir’s New-Gen Must Make A Break With Past – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Burkina Faso parliament approved charges of “high treason” against former president Blaise Compaoré, who fled abroad in October amid a popular uprising.

Sixty on 63 legislators voted in favor of the motion. Compaoré will stand trial before the High court of justice, created in 1995 under the Constitution with the exclusive competence of trying crimes committed by Heads of State and former heads of state.

Burkina Faso is in a transition phase that foresees presidential and legitlative elections by October 11.

The post Burkina Faso: Compaoré Charged With ‘High Treason’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In November 2014 when the name of Maithripala Sirisena came out as a consensus opposition candidate to face the then President Mahinda Rajapakse, many were euphoric about the prospects of Maithripala Sirisena. The Tamil National Alliance(TNA), gave unconditional support to Sirisena, so did the Muslim parties. 78% of the Tamil and Muslim votes were in favor of Sirisena and helped him to win the elections by a margin of 3.6%.

The Tamils in Tamilnadu who have strongly stood behind their Eelam Tamil brethren did not show much interest in the Presidential elections of January 2015. They believed that it would only be a change of person and not policies as both the leaders were hardcore Sinhala Buddhists from a very rustic rural background, going all out to appease the Sinhala Buddhists. (See: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/tamils-caught-between-the-devil-and-the-blue-deep-sea/)

Some political leaders in Tamilnadu went to the extent of suggesting that the Tamils should have their own Presidential candidate and tell the world that they did not believe in any Sinhalese leaders to solve their problems. In the past whenever the SLFP wanted to bring about a political solution, the UNP scuttled the efforts and whenever the UNP came out with proposals for a political solution the SLFP played spoilsport.

President Sirisena till the 21st of November 2014 was an integral part of the Rajapakse regime that unleashed a horrendous genocide against the Tamils, together they waged a war not just against the LTTE, but also against the Tamil. He was a part of the Rajapaksa regime that not so long ago used the military to take over vast amounts of private land belonging to the Tamils in the regions dominated by them. The regime initiated a rapid process of demographic change in the northeast in favour of the Sinhalese, and endorsed the maltreatment of ex-LTTE cadres.i

Northern Tamils don’t see Maithripala Sririsena as being very different from President Mahinda Rajapaksa. “Both were after all in the same party, working together during the war. However, the Tamils are determined to unseat Mr. Rajapaksa and that is why they will vote for Mr. Sirisena,” Devanayagam Premanand, executive editor of the Jaffna-based Uthayan. ii This was accomplished on the 8th of January, 2015.

The Plot or Deal?

In March 2014, the US sponsored a third resolution against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in Geneva. Sri Lanka, was completely dominated by the Rajapakse family till the end of 2014. The noose was getting tighter for them with the International Inquiry set to begin. Sri Lanka was caught in the web spun around by China. The growing animosity of India, US and the EU countries was getting too hot on the President to handle.

Economic sanctions were mildly imposed by the EU and more were set to follow if Rajapakse failed to implement the resolution passed by the UNHRC. His popularity was at its lowest ebb; his legacy was on the verge of being completely wiped out.

The President very badly needed a political break. A master political tactician that he is, the way out was to order for elections as a saving grace. He knew, public memory is very short and he could make a comeback if he lost the election. Winning the elections would have endorsed his policies and he would have continued his camaraderie with China and the suppression of the minorities and all those opposed to him. Both the ways the elections were an investment for the future.

The only way out was to plant one of his own trusted men in the opposition to contest the elections against him, Sirisena was the best bet as both men knew each other for more than forty years in the same party. Chandrika Kumaratunge making a political comeback and contesting against him would bury his family politics completely. He had no chance of salvaging any pride.

Chandrika’s reluctance to contest the elections came in handy for the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP). Sarath Fonseca and Ranil Wickremasinghe were tried and tested failures without anything fresh to offer.

When the opposition was hunting for a new face to contest the elections, Maithripala Sirisena, the then health Minister emerged as an option as he was ready to come out against Rajapakse probably with his blessings. Many could not believe that Sirisena would be alive if he contested against Rajapakse.

Sirisena won the elections and Rajapakse cleverly retreated to his village taking a temporary retirement from active politics. Sirisena was completely in control of the party during his first 100 days, it is difficult to believe that he has lost control of the SLFP in just seven months that he had to budge into giving a party ticket to Mahinda Rajapakse to contest the parliamentary elections.

After the January Presidential elections, to cleverly give back power to Rajapakse in the case he becomes the Prime Minister, Sirisena brought the 19th amendment by which the Prime Minister could enjoy considerable amount of power. Now he has vowed to be ‘Neutral’. Why should he be neutral if he is genuinely opposed to Mahinda Rajapakse? Reports of the investigation into corruption and coup allegations against the erstwhile Rajapakse regime has not been made public yet.

Except for releasing a paltry 400 acres from about 7,000 Sq kms of land acquired by the Sri Lankan defence forces from the Tamils in the North and East, no considerable concessions have been given to the Tamils. The army camps have been reduced, but not the number of soldiers present in the Tamil areas. There has been no relief for the war widows or orphans. Far worse, many former militants have been rearrested. The agenda of Mahinda Rajapakse continues in silence.

The International community has been duped to believe that reconciliation between the Tamils and Sinhalese have been initiated. The present regime has successfully stalled the UN International Inquiry report, supposed to have been presented in the March 2015 session of the UNHRC. This is what Mahinda Rajapakse wanted.

This regime has also successfully convinced the International community that a hybrid, domestic cum international inquiry mechanism would be brought in place soon to comply with the UNHRC requirements of a War Crimes Inquiry.

All these have been accomplished in a matter of just seven months and Mahinda Rajapakse is all set to make a fresh beginning as the Tamil and Muslim votes this time is not going to make any difference in preventing him from becoming the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka if the Sinhala chauvinists vote for him on the 17th of August. The ball is in the court of the Sinhalese to prove the world that democracy has taken roots in Sri Lanka.

*The author holds a Doctorate of Philosophy on ‘Internal Displacement and Human Rights situation in Northern Sri Lanka’ from Bangalore University. He was one of the four public speakers at the Permanent People’s Tribunal on War Crimes against Sri Lanka. He also the Coauthor of ‘Unfettered Genocide in Tamil Eelam’, published by Karnataka State Open University, Mysore, India in November 2014.

i. Kumaravadivel Guruparan | The Caravan, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/why-sirisena%E2%80%99s-victory-not-victory-sri-lanka%E2%80%99s-tamils, January 13, 2015,
ii. Meera Srinivasan , In Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, an anti-Rajapaksa wave, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/in-sri-lankas-northern-province-an-antirajapaksa-wave/article6757641.ece?ref=relatedNews, January 6th 2015

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Clean and plentiful water provides the foundation for prosperous communities. We rely on clean water to survive, yet right now we are heading towards a water crisis. Changing climate patterns are threatening lakes and rivers, and key sources that we tap for drinking water are being overdrawn or tainted with pollution. Dirty water is the world’s biggest health risk, and continues to threaten both quality of life and public health in the global village. When water from rain and melting snow runs off roofs and roads into our rivers, it picks up toxic chemicals, dirt, trash and disease-carrying organisms along the way. Many of our water resources also lack basic protections, making them vulnerable to pollution from factory farms, industrial plants, and activities like fracking. This can lead to drinking water contamination, habitat degradation and beach closures. Despite the many existing pressures on our water resources, there are cost-effective solutions that will allow us to transform our relationship with water. To address increasing water scarcity this paper is an attempt to promote investments and policies that increase water use efficiency and decrease water waste. There are several causes of water pollution in India. However, five main causes are Urbanization; Industries; Agricultural runoff and improper agricultural practices; Withdrawal of water and Religious and Social Practices.

Water pollution is a major environmental issue in India. The largest source of water pollution in India is untreated sewage. Other sources of pollution include agricultural runoff and unregulated small scale industry. Most rivers, closed most of the time due to improper design or poor maintenance or lack of reliable electricity supply to operate the plants, together with absentee employees and poor management. The waste water generated in these areas normally percolates into the soil or evaporates. The uncollected wastes accumulate in the urban areas causing unhygienic conditions and releasing pollutants that leach into surface and groundwater. The deaths due to water pollution were attributed to five diseases — acute diarrhoeal diseases, enteric fever (typhoid), viral hepatitis, cholera and acute encephalitis. Of these, acute diarrhoeal disease alone has claimed the major share of lives.

WATERBORNE DISEASES

Waterborne diseases are those that are transmitted by drinking unhealthy water. Unfortunately, they are a major cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in children in our country. About 20 per cent of the communicable diseases in India are waterborne. Poor sanitation, improper storage of water and lack of proper waste disposal are the main causes of water contamination. A recent report by the United Nations says that more than three million people in the world die of water-related diseases due to contaminated water each year, including 1.2 million children. In India, over one lakh people die of water-borne diseases annually. It is reported that groundwater in one-third of India’s 600 districts is not fit for drinking as the concentration of fluoride, iron, salinity and arsenic exceeds the tolerance levels. About 65 million people have been suffering from fluorosis, a crippling disease due to high amount of fluoride and five million are suffering from arsenicosis in West Bengal due to high amount of arsenic. A World Resources Report says: about 70 per cent of India’s water supply is seriously polluted with sewage effluents. The UN reported that India’s water quality is poor – it ranks 120th among the 122 nations in terms of quality of water available to its citizens. Water-borne diseases like cholera, gastroenteritis, diarrhoea erupt every year during summer and rainy seasons in India due to poor quality drinking water supply and sanitation. Five most dangerous water related diseases that occur in India, which are described as follows:

• Cholera: Cholera is a water related disease, and is diarrhoeal in nature. It can kill in hours if left unattended. Cholera strikes when one ingests water that is infested with the Vibrio Cholerae bacterium.
• Diarrhoea: Diarrhoeal infection is spread through food and drinking water that has been contaminated. A diarrhoeal attack can last up to 2 weeks and leave the person completely dehydrated.
• Malaria: Malarial fever is spread by the Plasmodium parasite mosquito that breeds in water bodies like lakes, paddy fish and stagnant water. Malaria can kill a child who does not have the immunity against malaria
• Typhoid:   Fluctuating high fever, exhaustion, sleepiness, diarrhoea etc are the signs of typhoid. The infection spreads through contaminated food and water or through close contact with an infected person.
• Filariasis: Filariasis is a parasitic disease and affects people who live near unsanitary water bodies or sewages.  Filariasis is spread by mosquitoes that breeds in fresh and stagnant water bodies and is the host of the filarial nematode worm. This worm affects humans and leads to elephantitis.

CAUSES OF WATER POLLUTION

Water pollution is caused due to several reasons. Few major causes of water pollution are:

• Sewage and Waste Water: Sewage, garbage and liquid waste of households, agricultural lands and factories are discharged into lakes and rivers. These wastes contain harmful chemicals and toxins which make the water poisonous for aquatic animals and plants.
• Dumping: Dumping of solid wastes and litters in water bodies causes huge problems. Litters include glass, plastic, aluminum, Styrofoam etc. Different things take different amount of time to degrade in water. They affect aquatic plants and animals.
• Industrial Waste: Industrial waste contains pollutants like asbestos, lead, mercury and petrochemicals which are extremely harmful to both people and environment. Industrial waste is discharged into lakes and rivers by using fresh water making the water contaminated.
• Oil Pollution: Sea water gets polluted due to oil spilled from ships and tankers while traveling. The spilled oil does not dissolve in water and forms a thick sludge polluting the water.
• Acid Rain: Acid rain is pollution of water caused by air pollution. When the acidic particles caused by air pollution in the atmosphere mix with water vapor, it results in acid rain.
• Global Warming: Due to global warming, there is an increase in water temperature. This increase in temperature results in death of aquatic plants and animals. This also results in bleaching of coral reefs in water.
• Eutrophication: Eutrophication is an increased level of nutrients in water bodies. This results in bloom of algae in water. It also depletes the oxygen in water, which negatively affects fish and other aquatic animal population.

TREATING POLLUTED WATER

It is very important to prevent the polluting of water bodies and remove existing contaminants or reducing the concentration of these contaminants so as to make it fit for desired use. Following are some of the ways of treating polluted water:

• Industrial Treatment: The raw sewage is needed to be treated correctly in a water treatment plant before it can be safely released into the environment. To reduce the amount and toxicity of waste, it is passed through a number of chambers and chemical processes in water treatment plant.
• Denitrification: Conversion of nitrates in gas is called Denitrification. It is an ecological approach to prevent leaching of nitrates in soil. It stops ground water from getting contaminated.
• Ozone Waste Water Treatment: Ozone waste water treatment method is becoming very popular. In this method, the pollutants in water are broken down by an ozone generator. Ozone oxidizes bacteria, molds, organic material and other pollutants in water.
• Septic Tanks: Septic tanks are used to treat sewage at the place of location instead of treating it in any plant or sewage system. This system is used at the individual building level. The sewage is separated into solid and liquid components and treated separately.

CONTROL OF BIOFILMS:

Biofilm in water systems consists of a growing substance of bacteria surrounded with a self-generated slime layer that attaches to the inside of pipes, sprinklers, drippers, nozzles, sieves, valves, storage tanks, etc. Combined with other organic and mineral pollution it becomes difficult to remove inside layer, which is known as the notorious biofilm. Without treatments a biofilm will exist in all water systems. It causes clogging of water system and biofilm give the possibility to plant pathogens to hide themselves. Also non pathogen and micro organisms contribute to the growth of bio-films. Besides clogging problems, a biofilm gives also a hidden place for plant pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses. Via water supply these pathogens can attack plants and their roots.

No doubt, disinfectants obviously control biofilm growth, but increased dose pose health problems too. In addition, unpleasant taste and odour are results of increased dosing. The question arises: What are other methods to control biofilm growth? Some studies say biofilm growth improves the efficiency of systems by reducing pipe roughness initially; however it increases when pipes are old. What is the better cheaper method to clean biofilm from older pipes? Simply by adding the Archaea (also called archaebacterium) species to the matrix, all biofilm can be eliminated. There will be zero need for disinfectant. The Archaea reduce all organic matter into its elemental form. It is non pathogenic and non mutational. (pH range of 5.5 to 10.0; Temp range 350 F to 1850 F).  Cost is pennies per application.

Archaea are microorganisms which are similar to bacteria in size and simplicity of structure but radically different in molecular organization. They are now believed to constitute an ancient group which is intermediate between the bacteria and eukaryotes. Archaea are considered as any of the unicellular microorganisms that resemble bacteria but are genetically distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes, in certain aspect of their chemical structure such as composition of its cell walls. They are considered as a separate kingdom in some classification system but a division of the prokaryotes in others. They often inhabit under extreme environmental conditions such as high temperature and salinity. One in the three-domain system (the other are bacteria and Eukaryota) which includes halophiles (microorganisms that may inhabit extremely salty environments), methanogens (microorganisms that produce methane), and thermophiles (microorganisms that can thrive extremely hot environments). Archaea or archaebacteria evolved separately from eubacteria and eukaryotes. They are similar with eubacteria in being prokaryotes and lacking distinct cell nucleus. They differ in terms of ribosomal structure, the possession of introns (in some species) and in membrane structure or composition. They are similar to eukaryotes in ways that Archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes: notably the enzymes involve in transcription and translation. They are regarded to be living fossils and survivors of an ancient group of organisms that bridged the gap in evolution between eubacteria and eukaryotes.

• Use chloramines, Weak disinfectant but persistent and low DBP formation, Possible nitrite produced in long systems. In order to control becoming better the proliferation of biofilm in the pipes we need to consider the following points:
• Chois the lining of the pipes.
• Optimize the profile volumes.
• Ensure adequate flushing of the pipelines during commissioning.
• Master water leaks from the outside to the inside and vice versa.
• Optimize the contact time water / disinfectant
• Ensure adequate disinfectant residual rate (it must not exceed the rate allowed by the standard)
• Maintain process control whatever disinfectant is being used. Practice an aggressive flushing problem, one that will strip biofilms, clean water storage tanks which can serve as storage reservoirs for organism growth, including pathogens and nitrifying bacteria. If you can use free chlorine, stay with that. If not, careful control of chloramination must be practiced or nitrification of the total chlorine concentration will ensue. The only way to remove biofilm from services is by shock dosing with chlorine dioxide @ 200 ppm. Keep the water in the service pipeline for 2 to 3 hours. Then drain out the water. Once all the biofilm is removed from the pipeline system, you can then move to a constant dosing of the drinking water @ 1ppm dose. USEPA has approved the use of chlorine dioxide in drinking water up to a dose of 5ppm.
• Once the water is constantly dosed with chlorine dioxide there will be no growth of new biofilm.

While there is no way to eliminate biofilm, as said above, shock dosing of chlorine dioxide at intervals will certainly help. There are many bio-dispersants, mostly low molecular weight polymers, which help in flushing out the dead bugs and debris from the system, but these, are not allowed for drinking water. Another constraint is that there is no easy / practical method for flushing out debris from drinking water distribution lines. The biofilm might reduce friction losses and even improve water quality but will most probably cause corrosion in pipelines. Pigging of pipelines will work if nothing else does. If using chloramines and biofilm growth becomes problematic, switch to a period feed of free chlorine. But this should be done as a last resort, not routinely. GenEon Technologies produces both HOCl and a range of High pH cleaners and degreasers
HOCl is the chemical formula for hypochlorous acid—a weak acid formed when chlorine is dissolved in water.

• It is used as a superior replacement for bleach, an oxidizer, a odor killer, a sanitizer/disinfectant, and a cleaner with a 30-second-1 minute kill time on pathogens.
• It is 80—200 times stronger than bleach, but also safe for surfaces, plants, animals, and humans.
• If water is purified by ozonation and UV, the problem of biofilm growth can be controlled.

Can Biofilm Growth be limited or controlled by Ozonation of the end product water? The ECA is the answer.

Electro Chemical Activation:

The Electro Chemical Activation process, better known as ECA is not a new technology. Dating back to the 70’s, this technology was invented and used in Russia primarily in the mining industry for drill lubrication. In later years, greater benefits of the technology, particularly the Anolyte (disinfectant) solution became understood and then used in Russian hospitals for disinfection. ECA Technology is a replacement for traditional disinfection and chemical cleaning processes. ECA’s Anolyte and Catholyte solutions are created by mixing pure, readily available food grade salt with softened water, thereafter passing it through patented reactors, located inside the ECA device cabinets, which are the core of the ECA device. Once inside the reactor cells, the mild salt water is activated by way on an electrical charge and two distinct solutions are produced:

• Anolyte which is used as a disinfectant
• Catholyte which is used as a detergent
• ECA technology has secured FDA and EU approval for use as an advanced disinfectant in the food and beverage processing industries.

Biofilm in water systems can be eliminated with ‘ECA-Solution’ made from softened water and potassium chloride. Environmental friendly product produced and dosed with ECA-Unit. Drain-heaters en UV-units doesn’t have effect to bio-films, because they have no after-effect into water systems. Only disinfecting of the water in these machines is possible, but the negative side effect is this that they feed the biofilm! During a crop change period, without plants in the greenhouse, the biofilm in water systems can be removed with cleaning agents such as sodium hypochlorite and/or nitric acid in separate treatments. During plant growing season the biofilm can be prevented and controlled with the plant safe ECA-Solution. Apparently, the ECA-Unit is an extra advantage for clean and safe water systems besides the use of Drain heaters or UV-units.

Electrolysis of Water and Potassium chloride:

Electrolysis is a well known technology. The ECA-Unit makes in an electrolysis process from softened tap water with diluted potassium chloride a high quality ECA-Solution. This is a mix of free radicals and oxidants and these active compounds react with all kind of micro-organisms and eliminate them. For protection of electrolyser, membrane is needed high quality potassium chloride without anti-caking ingredients. The affair with Legionella from biofilms in water pipes brought ECA-Solution in the spotlight and has been subsequently developed for horticulture. Royal Brinkman started in 2007 with electrolysis systems in England and delivers since summer 2010 worldwide EAC-Units for use in greenhouse horticulture.

ECA-Solution

ECA-Solution contains free chlorine as hypochlorite and hypochlorous acid. Last component is the most active one and is main component by pH 6 and lower. The free radicals and some oxidants of the ECA-Solution combat with biofilms and the pathogens hidden therein. ECA-Solution causes oxidation of all organic compounds in water and in the biofilm. The biofilm erodes to crumbled dirty which easily can be flushed out. Micro-organisms will no longer attach and hide themselves on clean walls. By a controlled dosage the ECA-Solution is no risk for plants and is safe for the nature environment. ECA-Solution is useful for disinfecting and cleaning of water installations for sprinkling and drip irrigation. ECA-Solution is effective as biocide to eliminate biofilms in water systems including the hidden place for all kind of micro-organism such as non pathogen and pathogens organism for plants. And last but not least, the free chlorine components from the electrolyzed potassium chloride will return to potassium fertilizer after they have done their good job.

Dosing ECA-Solution

Dosing of the ECA-Solution into the mixing vessel or dosing into another central location of the water system is PLC controlled and accurate based on water flow to the water installation. The needed concentration of ECA Solution depends on the degree of contamination in the entire water system (including tanks) at the start and varies from 6 to 10 ppm free chlorine. Once the pipes and water become clean the dosage may drop to 4 ppm or even lower. The effectiveness can be controlled via measuring of the free chlorine concentration in the water installation.

Mechanical Cleaning Using “Pigging” is probably the safest and most efficient way of cleaning the existing biofilm because of risk by flushing chemicals down a line. Pigging in the context of pipelines refers to the practice of using devices known as “pigs” to perform various maintenance operations on a pipeline. This is done without stopping the flow of the product in the pipeline. These operations include but are not limited to cleaning and inspecting the pipeline. This is accomplished by inserting the pig into a ‘pig launcher’ (or ‘launching station’) – an oversized section in the pipeline, reducing to the normal diameter. The launcher / launching station is then closed and the pressure-driven flow of the product in the pipeline is used to push it along down the pipe until it reaches the receiving trap – the ‘pig catcher’ (or ‘receiving station’).
The original pigs were made from straw wrapped in wire and used for cleaning. They made a squealing noise while traveling through the pipe, sounding to some like a pig squealing, which gave pigs their name. ‘PIG’ is sometimes claimed as an acronym or backronym derived from the initial letters of the term ‘Pipeline Inspection Gauge’ or ‘Pipeline Intervention Gadget’.

Pigging has been used for many years to clean large diameter pipelines in the oil industry. Today, however, the use of smaller diameter pigging systems is now increasing in many continuous and batch process plants as plant operators search for increased efficiencies and reduced costs.

Pigging can be used for almost any section of the transfer process between, for example, blending, storage or filling systems. Pigging systems are already installed in industries handling products as diverse as lubricating oils, paints, chemicals, toiletries, cosmetics and foodstuffs.

Pigs are used in lube oil or paint blending to clean the pipes to avoid cross-contamination, and to empty the pipes into the product tanks (or sometimes to send a component back to its tank). Usually pigging is done at the beginning and at the end of each batch, but sometimes it is done in the midst of a batch, such as when producing a premix that will be used as an intermediate component.

Pigs are also used in oil and gas pipelines to clean the pipes. There are also ‘smart pigs’ used to inspect pipelines for the purpose of preventing leaks that can be explosive and dangerous to the environment. They usually do not interrupt production, though some product can be lost when the pig is extracted. They can also be used to separate different products in a multiproduct pipeline. If the pipeline contains butterfly valves, or reduced port ball valves, the pipeline cannot be pigged.

Full port (or full bore) ball valves cause no problems because the inside diameter of the ball is the same as that of the pipe.

In large distribution systems it is common to top-up the disinfectant (Cl2) at more than one location to keep satisfactory levels at the end of the network without overdosing at the treatment works or reservoir.

Most importantly: Minimize biofouling and reduce disinfection by-products by improving the efficiency of the Treatment Works through better operation and maintenance. Only then look at upgrade options and newer or more appropriate technologies.

MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION:

Securing the microbial safety of drinking-water supplies is based on the use of multiple barriers, from catchment to consumer, to prevent the contamination of drinking-water or to reduce contamination to levels not injurious to health. Safety is increased if multiple barriers are in place, including protection of water resources, proper selection and operation of a series of treatment steps and management of distribution systems (piped or otherwise) to maintain and protect treated water quality. The preferred strategy is a management approach that places the primary emphasis on preventing or reducing the entry of pathogens into water sources and reducing reliance on treatment processes for removal of pathogens.

In general terms, the greatest microbial risks are associated with ingestion of water that is contaminated with human or animal (including bird) faeces. Faeces can be a source of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, protozoa and helminths.
Faecally derived pathogens are the principal concerns in setting health-based targets for microbial safety. Microbial water quality often varies rapidly and over a wide range. Short-term peaks in pathogen concentration may increase disease risks considerably and may trigger outbreaks of waterborne disease. Furthermore, by the time microbial contamination is detected, many people may have been exposed. For these reasons, reliance cannot be placed solely on end-product testing, even when frequent, to ensure the microbial safety of drinking-water.

The biggest source of microbial contamination of drinking water is the cross contamination of leaking sewage with leaking treated drinking water in the underground tunnel. Apparently, the supply of microbial contaminants to drinking water pipelines almost remains unabated. However, within this limitation Chlorine dioxide is a very effective biocide to control biofilm. Chlorine dioxide works at very low level, it does not react with organic impurities to form THM and it works even in alkaline pH very effectively.

Trihalomethanes (THMs) are chemical compounds in which three of the four hydrogen atoms of methane (CH4) are replaced by halogen atoms. Many Trihalomethanes find uses in industry as solvents or refrigerants. THMs are also environmental pollutants, and many are considered carcinogenic. Trihalomethanes with all the same halogen atoms are called haloforms.

Trihalomethanes are formed as a by-product predominantly when chlorine is used to disinfect water for drinking. They represent one group of chemicals generally referred to as disinfection by-products. They result from the reaction of chlorine or bromine with organic matter present in the water being treated. The THMs produced have been associated through epidemiological studies with some adverse health effects. Many governments set limits on the amount permissible in drinking water. However, Trihalomethanes are only one group of many hundreds of possible disinfection by-products—the vast majority of which are not monitored—and it has not yet been clearly demonstrated which of these are the most plausible candidate for causation of these health effects. In the United States, the EPA limits the total concentration of the four chief constituents (chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and dibromochloromethane) referred to as (TTHM) to 80 parts per billion in treated water.

Chloroform is also formed in swimming pools which are disinfected with chlorine or hypochlorite in the haloform reaction with organic substances (e.g. urine, sweat, hair and skin particles). Some of the THMs are quite volatile and may easily vaporize into the air. This makes it possible to inhale THMs while showering, for example. The EPA, however, has determined that this exposure is minimal compared to that from consumption. In swimmers, uptake of THMs is greatest via the skin with dermal absorption accounting for 80 per cent of THM uptake. Exercising in a chlorinated pool increases the toxicity of a “safe” chlorinated pool atmosphere with toxic effects of chlorine byproducts greater in young swimmers than older swimmers. Studies in adolescents have shown an inverse relationship between serum testosterone levels and the amount of time spent in public pools. Chlorination by-products have been linked as a probable cause.

CHLORITARD:

CHLORITARD is the unique way to treat / disinfect entire bulk of water required for all activities at the ‘Point of Consumption ‘and can simply be described as “Scientist’s Dream Product” as it fulfills all the criteria for purified water. When a CHLORITARD pouch is suspended in a water storage tank, it releases chlorine slowly in the water for a period of at least 30 days continuously. It prevents quick release of Chlorine and maintains free Chlorine level to more than 0.2 ppm. The amount of chlorine released is sufficient to kill the bacteria present in the water as well as maintain desired level of free residual chlorine (above 0.2 ppm) for inhibiting rejuvenation and propagation of bacteria by “Dark Repair” process. Thus, the water treated with CHLORITARD becomes totally safe and hygienic. Since chlorine gets released very slowly, CHLORITARD has much longer shelf life as compared to that of bleaching powder. CHLORITARD pouches are available in various sizes depending on Tank Capacity and daily water consumption. Slow release of chlorine of this measured dose is adjusted to kill present bacteria and to maintain desired level of free residual chlorine. Thus, the water treated with CHLORITARD becomes totally safe to use.

Need of CHLORITARD:

The incidences of water borne diseases are found to be 3000 to 4000 times higher in the families treating only drinking water using sophisticated equipment with latest technology and even boiling water. These findings are statistically, scientifically significant and are accepted, are published in leading Health Journal from London: The Lancet March 1997. The use of contaminated water can result in water borne disease. For example, one person with cholera excretes 1013 infectious bacteria every day. The infectious dose of cholera is about 106 bacteria or so, thus theoretically one person can infect up to 10 million people every day!

Salient Features:

The application of CHLORITARD does not require machinery, electricity, skilled operator and daily monitoring .Slow release of chlorine offers much longer shelf life, as compared to that of bleaching powder. The advantage of measured dose with slow release mechanism avoids excess chlorination. Calcium does not get transferred to water but remains in the pouch when CHLORITARD pouch is suspended in water storage tank. This eliminates problem of sludge formation and recontamination of water.

Use of CHLORITARD at the point of consumption does not give time to bacteria to grow, as water is consumed immediately as soon as it is out of water tank Able to provide a residual effect for sufficient time to guard against re contamination and be in line with the internationally accepted guidelines on water quality Simple and safe to use, distribute and transport, including in remote areas.

CHLORITARD has been submitted to WHO International Scheme to Evaluate Household Water Treatment Technologies at negligible cost of US$0.0001 – US$0.0008 per litre( for 30 days depending upon on the water reservoir/tank treated as per capacity of tank ( 100 liters to 50,000 liters x 30 days) for 30 days.

CHLORITARD is safe water controlling pouch for water storage tank/ over-head tanks in apartments/Bungalows/storage tanks maintaining 0.5 ppm. Thus safe water cleans from contamination and saves money on doctor/medical bills.

CHLORITARD is available in pouches suitable from chlorine=0.5 ppm regulation/control depending upon storage tank size – 100 liter to 50,000 litre x 30 days ( chlorine control = 0.5 ppm). Apparently, one pouch for 500 litres if purchased controls chlorine – 0.5 ppm for 30 days, i.e. US $ 7.95 (1 pouch) CHLORITARD for 500 litres x 30 days = 15,000 litres per month = reservoir tank treated = INR 1 to 2 paise per litre- control of chlorine = 0.5 ppm( killing pathogens + G I (Gastrointestinal) disease.

As one CHLORITARD pouch works effectively for at least 30 days, the problem of climbing up the ESR every day is eliminated. This leaves very little scope for irregularity & lapses in dosing, which are more harmful.

While using CHLORITARD it is not necessary to ascertain the chlorine demand of water because CHLORITARD pouch automatically releases amount of chlorine required to satisfy chlorine demand and maintain free residual chlorine. Only the required quantity of chlorine is released hence there is no possibility of excess chlorine, which is commonly observed by any other methods of dosing chlorine.

Thus chloramines formation possibility is remote when Chloritard is used for water disinfection. Hence the only disadvantage of using chlorine for water disinfection can be eliminated. The chlorine level of the water being treated with CHLORITARD remains consistent for a period of at least 30 days. Therefore problem of drastic variation in chlorine levels with time encountered in other methods of chlorine dosing including by bleaching  powder is totally eliminated.

As one CHLORITARD pouch works effectively for at least 30 days, the problem of climbing up the ESR every day is eliminated. This leaves very little scope for irregularity & lapses in dosing, which are more harmful. Thus it can be said that

There are two process technologies that could be used for drinking water treatment

Capacitive Recovery System:

This is a process used for the removal of contaminants from drinking water by removing both nitrates and ammonia. This process is part of electricity based desalination process and it removes anions and cations. The process has a much higher water recovery than Reverse Osmosis i. e. it is up to 90 per cent more efficient.

Pure Water:

This is a practical solution for short or long term clean water supply, is easily transportable, fully automated, can be remotely monitored and controlled, has a low capex (capital expenditure) and conforms to HSE (Health and Safety Environment) requirements as well as exceeding and or meeting DWI (Drinking Water Institute) and WHO (World Health Organization) standards, has very low energy usage, does not use reverse osmosis or traditional chlorine generators. The treated water is microbiologically safe to drink and with no detectable presence of coli forms ( including E Coli) Clostridia Perfringens or Enterococci, its sterilizing and disinfectant qualities means that system is kept clean and prolongs storage life of treated water .
Interesting question: there are some physical methods (membranes, ultrasound) that can be very effective on the local biofilm control… and they let no “taste” on the water…. however, I think that you want to have a good and safety water, a consumption point (end of pipe) filter might be requested.

The bacteria survive from treatment and due to contamination through finished water reservoirs enter pipe network and develops EPS which protects bacteria and attracts more bacteria to attach on the pipe wall. It has been observed a thick biofilm of 2 to 4mm which largely increase head loss along the pipe. But Mechanical Scraping may not be cheaper and not easy also. The question is how we clean this biofilm layer from the pipeline using cheaper and safer method.

Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974

Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 is a comprehensive legislation that regulates agencies responsible for checking on water pollution and ambit of pollution control boards both at the centre and states. The Water Act, 1974 was adopted by the Indian parliament with the aim of prevention and control of Water Pollution in India. The Act was amended in 1988. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act was enacted in 1977, to provide for the levy and collection of a cess on water consumed by persons operating and carrying on certain types of industrial activities. This cess is collected with a view to augment the resources of the Central Board and the State Boards for the prevention and control of water pollution constituted under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. The Act was last amended in 2003.Some of the important sections regulating the prevention of water pollution as per the act are as discussed below.

Functions of the State Board

The Central Pollution Control Board, and State Pollution Control Boards composition, terms and conditions of service of members are defined in Sections 3-12 of water (prevention and control of pollution) act, 1974. The Board advises the government on any matter concerning the prevention and control of water pollution. It coordinates the activities and provides technical assistance and guidance. This policy sets the standards and penalties for non-compliance for polluting bodies. The Government has power to restrict any unit, and to take samples of effluents and get them analyzed in Central or State laboratories. Whoever fails to comply with any provision of this Act is punishable with imprisonment, fine or with both.
Section 17 of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 clearly lists all functions of the respective state boards for countering water pollution. The state board of respective states is empowered to plan a comprehensive program for the prevention, control or abatement of pollution of streams and wells, collect and disseminate information relating to water pollution and encourage, conduct and participate in investigations and research relating to problems of water pollution and prevention.

The state water boards also have the right to inspect sewage or trade effluents, works and plants for the treatment of sewage and trade effluents and to review all water purification plants. The Board may establish or recognize a laboratory or laboratories to enable the Board to perform its functions under this section efficiently, including the analysis of samples of water from any stream or well or of samples of any sewage or trade effluents.

The Central Board may perform all or any of the following functions, namely,

• advise the Central Government on any matter concerning the prevention and control of water pollution;
• co-ordinate the activities of the State Boards and resolve disputes among them;
• provide technical assistance and guidance to the State Boards, carry out and sponsor investigations and research relating to problems of water pollution and prevention, control or abatement of water pollution;
• plan and organise the training of persons engaged or to be engaged in programmes for the prevention, control or abatement of water pollution on such terms and conditions as the Central Board may specify;
• organise through mass media a comprehensive programme regarding the prevention and control of water pollution;
• collect, compile and publish technical and statistical data relating to water pollution and the measures devised for its effective prevention and control and prepare manuals, codes or guides relating to treatment and disposal of sewage and trade effluents and disseminate information connected therewith;
• lay down, modify or annul, in consultation with the State Government concerned, the standards for a stream or well;
• plan and execute a nation-wide programme for the prevention, control or abatement of water pollution;
• perform such other functions as may be prescribed.

Consent of the State Board is necessary to discharge sewage

Section 25 of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 states that Prior Consent of the State Board under section 25 is necessary to set up any industry, plant or process which is likely to discharge sewage or trade effluent into a stream or well or sewer or on land or bring into use any new or altered outlets for the discharge of sewage or begin to make any new discharge of sewage. The section further states that every State Board is liable to maintain a register containing particulars or conditions imposed under the section related to any outlet, or to any effluent, from any land or premises which must be open to inspection by the state board.

Power to Take Emergency Measures

Section 32 of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 describes the power to take emergency measures in case of pollution of stream or well. Under the act, State Board may issue orders to re move the matter, which is, or may cause pollution; or remedy or mitigate the pollution, or issue prohibition orders to the concerned persons from discharging any poisonous or noxious or polluting matter.

Section 24 and 43 of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 relate to prohibition on use of stream or well for disposal of polluting matter and penalty for contravention thereof Under the scope of the provision, no person shall knowingly cause or permit any poisonous, noxious or polluting mater as determined by the State Board to enter into any stream or sewer or on land. Anyone failing to abide by the laws of under is liable for imprisonment under Section 24 & Section 43 ranging from not less than one year and six months to six years along with monetary fines. The section further states that No person shall knowingly cause or permit to enter any other matter which may impede the flow of water of the stream causing pollution of any kind.

Penalties and Fines

Section 42 of the of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 states penalties and fines for certain acts including pulling down pillars, Obstructs any person acting under the orders or direction of the Board, Damages any works or property belonging to the Board and Failure to furnish any officer other employee of the Board any information required. The fine and penalty includes Imprisonment for a term which may extend up to three months or with fine to Rs. 10,000/- or both.

Understanding Water Class

Depending on the pollution of the water, water is demarked under various water classes in accordance with the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Drinking water at source found without conventional treatment but after disinfection is designated as Class A while water designated for outdoor bathing comes under Class B. Any drinking water source which has been conventionally treated comes under Class C while water used for propagation of wildlife and fisheries is demarked as Class D. Water under Class E is used for irrigation and industrial cooling along with waste disposal.
All people have safe and equitable access to a sufficient quantity of water for drinking, cooking and personal and domestic hygiene. Public water points are sufficiently close to households to enable use of the minimum water requirement.

Key Indicators

• Average water use for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene in any household is at least 15 litres per person per day.
• The maximum distance from any household to the nearest water point is 500 metres.
• Queuing time at a water source is no more than 15 minutes.
• It takes no more than three minutes to fill a 20-litre container.
• Water sources and systems are maintained such that appropriate quantities of water are available consistently or on a regular basis.

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Annex 1

The post Water Contamination: Way Forward – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Erica Penfold*

South Africa has been facing an ongoing crisis of running out of essential drugs, such as anti-retrovirals for HIV patients. This highlights the need for a regional response to the provision and procurement of pharmaceutical drugs.

A recent survey attests to the reality that medicine shortages in South Africa require urgent attention. But it is not the only country experiencing stockouts. The challenge is being faced by a number of other southern African states too, including Zambia and Malawi.

The challenge could be addressed by a regional focus on provision and procurement. In the longer term, the development of medicines in the region should also be considered.

A regional approach is being explored by the Union of South American Nations. A regional framework for access to essential medicines has been adopted by World Health Organisation members in the Western Pacific and has seen positive results.

The region has launched a price information exchange index and a regional partnership project in pharmaceutical policies. This allows for regional exchange of information on products and collaboration on policies. Southern Africa has started a similar process but nothing has come of this as yet.

What’s standing in the way of a regional approach

The reality is that regulatory barriers and a lack of awareness about the need to create an effective regional policy are all barriers to facilitating a more effective approach.

Pharmaceutical policies and provisions are currently managed by national health departments. A pharmaceutical business plan has been developed by the health sector of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Secretariat to address regional access to drugs. Poor supply chain management and stocks continuing to be managed nationally have hindered its progression.

A possible solution could be for the SADC Secretariat to extend the plan by providing continued regional support. A number of trade barriers would need to be overcome first. These include:

• a plethora of national pharmaceutical policies;
• a difficult import permit regime;
• the existence of multiple drug regulatory authorities with conflicting policies; and
• restrictions imposed by the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement on drug access.

Strong support for regional approach

There is evidence of strong support for regional regulatory capacity for pharmaceuticals. These initiatives include the:

• African Medicines Registration Harmonisation Initiative, which provides support for harmonising regulations;
• the SADC Medicine Regulatory Authority Forum; and
• the SADC Pharmaceutical Business Plan, although this has not been renewed since its expiry in 2013.

These three initiatives could change how medicines are distributed and accessed throughout the region.

A good start would be if states, the regional secretariat and the Troika – made up of states elected to lead the SADC summit – worked together. They could start by creating greater awareness about the need to co-ordinate access to pharmaceuticals within countries as well as across regional boundaries.

The role of big pharma companies

The monopoly on pharmaceuticals by big pharma companies, including Aspen, Pfizer and Bayer, continues to stand in the way of governments attempting to regulate distribution. There is a distinct need for leadership and co-ordination of the sector. Evidence suggests that pharmaceutical companies collaborate with multilateral organisations and other health initiatives without the involvement of national governments or regional bodies.

Given the irregularities experienced from a bottom up national approach, the solution may well lie in a regional position. Importantly, SADC has a regional integration mandate. But its secretariat only has powers to co-ordinate, facilitate and assist implementation.

In addition, the secretariat relies on a limited number of staff making monitoring and evaluation difficult. The social development directorate is responsible for co-ordinating cross-border HIV and malaria initiatives, but this only applies if medicines are supplied by national government.

An additional challenge is the movement of people across borders. Considering the stockout problem for South Africa, for example, the additional burden of migrants needing medication causes further complications. The need for regional access to health care is clear, but co-ordination challenges have proven to be too large for member states to manage.

Attempts to harmonise policies in the region have not had great success. This is clear from continued stockouts at national level. Further evidence of failure is a rise in the use of nyaope, a highly addictive drug containing antiretrovirals that is increasingly being used in poor communities, particularly in South Africa.

There is an urgent need to establish regulatory procedures across the region. The stockout problems cannot continue unabated. Citizens’ lives are at stake. Pharmaceutical regulation must become a regional body priority, in partnership with multilateral organisations, to create a better quality of life for citizens.

*Erica Penfold is the Researcher/Project co-ordinator at the Poverty Reduction and Regional ­Integration project at SAIIA. This article was first published in the Conversation. It was also published by Business Day.

Source: SAIIA

The post Why A Regional Approach Could Help End Drug Stockouts In Southern Africa – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mohannad Sabry*

Ever since Islamic State-affiliated militants tried to take the town of Sheikh Zuwayed in North Sinai last week, the Egyptian media has talked of little else. “What mistakes were made?” “Where did they get their weapons from?” and “What can be done to rid the country of the scourge of Islamist militants?” have been common refrains.

But look closely and you will notice what is lacking – reporting of the human suffering on the ground. Reliable figures on the number of civilian dead and displaced don’t exist, while aid to those in need has been limited, if present at all.

This is in large part due to a systematic campaign to quash criticism and dissent that has intensified since Egypt’s military chiefs ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 with popular support.

Egypt’s northeastern rugged region of Sinai has long been a hotbed of Islamist activity. It has become increasingly militarised as attacks have proliferated in recent years. Draconian security measures now prevent journalists and rights groups from reporting from there.

What We Do Know

On Wednesday 1 July, an estimated 300-400 armed militants from a group calling itself Wilayat Sinaa (Sinai Province) led a meticulously planned attack on North Sinai’s coastal town of Sheikh Zuwayed.

At about 6:30 am, the attackers occupied the rooftops of several houses and kicked off the battle by firing machine guns and RPGs at the town’s police compound, the military barracks, and several security checkpoints.

On the ground, several groups laid improvised explosive devices and landmines to try to stop reinforcements arriving from other cities, including North Sinai’s regional capital El-Arish to the west and the border town of Rafah to the east.

Almost 60,000 people live in Sheikh Zuwayed. It is the second largest town in North Sinai and the only major population centre remaining in the restive corner of the peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel.

I received regular grim updates from contacts in Sheikh Zuwayed as the attacks unfolded.

“The terrorists control the ground. State troops are fighting from their posts and civilians are stranded between both sides,” one resident told me an hour after it began.

The fighting was so severe that the first ambulances didn’t arrive in the town until after sunset, another resident said.

Mobile phone networks were cut, so people relied on landlines. Everyone that left their house was feared dead by their friends and families until the next day when movement became possible again.

The battle raged on through Thursday, with government aeroplanes bombarding the southern suburbs of Sheikh Zuwayed where the militants were said to be hiding. Explosions continued into Friday evening.

Silenced

The government said 241 militants and 21 soldiers were killed in the clashes. The number of civilians killed or wounded remains unknown.

Normally in such circumstances, there would be a full death toll including civilians. But we do not live in normal times.

Since coming to power in 2013, the Egyptian government led by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has steadily closed down media coverage of the region, declaring it a military zone.

Ahmed Abu Draa, one of Sinai’s most prominent reporters, was harshly dealt with for claiming to have witnessed Egyptian Apache helicopter gunships striking his hometown of al-Muqataa and neighbouring al-Touma, two villages south of Sheikh Zuwayed, in September 2013.

“What I saw was the destruction of six civilian homes and part of a mosque in al-Muqataa. Four citizens were injured, one of whom was taken to the Sheikh Zuwayed Hospital, where the military detained him and transferred him to the military hospital,” the award-winning journalist wrote on 3 September, 2013.

Less than two days after posting this testimony on Facebook, Abu Draa was detained and transferred to a military prison where he remained for a month before being dragged in front of military tribunal on charges of spreading false news. He was sentenced to a suspended jail term of six months and released.

Muhammad Sabry, another Sinai journalist, was detained for filming in the border area of Rafah. He also faced a military trial before receiving a suspended term.

Since these arrests, the avalanche of Sinai news published on a daily basis by almost every news organisation in Egypt and dozens of international media outlets remains focused on the security turmoil, failing to even mention the humanitarian crisis.

The Egyptian government tightened its control over the media in the aftermath of last week’s attack, announcing it was to pass its long-anticipated terrorism law.

Among the many clauses is one that makes publishing any information that contradicts official statements punishable by a minimum two years in prison.

The law, which drastically broadens the definition of terrorism, is expected to intensify the media blackout already imposed in North Sinai, and puts journalists at even graver risk.

“Since the health ministry didn’t declare it in a statement, confirming that three people were killed and buried without an official death registration is putting myself at risk of jail,” a journalist from El-Arish, who writes for an Egyptian daily, said on condition of anonymity.

So What Was the Civilian Toll?

As the Egyptian media can’t go there, here is what we can piece together about the humanitarian impact of the attacks in Sheikh Zuwayed.

Certainly, a number of civilians died. According to the head of El-Arish hospital, Sami Anwar, four people were killed by stray bullets and shrapnel caused by heavy shelling on the first day of the attack, including two children aged nine and 15, while 18 others were wounded, including five children. Three other people were killed, according to several sources from the town. One was murdered by militants as he confronted them, and two other women were killed by stray bullets. A number of families buried their dead without even registering them as they would have had to travel 40 kilometers to the nearest open hospital.

Activists and residents of Sheikh Zuwayed said a further six civilians were killed in the suburb of Abu Taweila, which suffered the heaviest aerial bombardment. An improvised explosive device killed two workers and wounded a third on Saturday morning as they went to fix the town’s damaged electricity plant. The shredded body of a fourth worker at the electricity plant was also found, after he was reported missing since Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear how he died.

El-Arish hospital also received the dead body of a 17-year-old woman along with nine other injured.

These deaths are likely to be less than the total number of civilian casualties, while large numbers of civilians have also been displaced.

When relative stability was regained on Friday morning, dozens of families began an exodus from Sheikh Zuwayed and the surrounding suburbs. Again, the Egyptian government has offered no number so it is hard to gauge the extent of the displacement.

“Despite people’s fear to move on highways while confrontations are taking place between the military and terrorists, checkpoints were more crowded on Friday, mainly by pickup trucks loaded with the belongings of fleeing civilians,” a Sheikh Zuwayed native who lives in El-Arish said. Two of his close relatives packed up and left on Friday.

Arriving in El-Arish, hundreds of Sheikh Zuwayed residents realised that although the clashes were over, they faced a new financial battle to rebuild their lives.

Transportation between Sheikh Zuwayed and El-Arish now costs as much as 100 Egyptian pounds ($12.50) per person, up drastically from an original six pounds ($0.80), while the cost of renting an apartment in the city has doubled.

Due to crippling curfews on Sheikh Zuwayed in recent years, many businesses have closed, putting such inflated prices out of most people’s reach.

In such circumstances, the state would normally intervene.

But when President Sisi and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab visited El-Arish on July 4 and 6 respectively, neither of them unveiled even basic support for the displaced. No camps or alternative housing solutions were provided.

In the absence of mainstream news, people have taken to social media and are using it to try to fill the vacuum of aid left by the government.

Activists have launched an initiative called “The displaced are our family,” where they began counting the number of impoverished evacuees and raising funds and donations to fulfill their needs. Others have volunteered to receive homeless families in their houses.

Many families, though, are still sleeping on the streets of El-Arish beside their packed belongings, while others have returned to Sheikh Zuwayed after failing to find accommodation.

Without a media presence, numbers are hard to ascertain, as are the exact circumstances surrounding what we can only guess were brutal clashes last week, with a likely brazen disregard for the lives of innocent civilians shown by one or both sides.

*Mohannad Sabry is an Egyptian writer and author of a forthcoming book on Sinai’s security and political affairs.

The post Secrecy In Sinai: An Unknown Human Toll – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr Smita Tiwari*

Despite being a war torn country for more than three decades, Afghanistan is important because of its strategic location which makes it a facilitator for wider regional economic cooperation. After the drawdown of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, regional powers are vying to fill the vacuum by increasing strategic influence in the country. Further, rich natural resources are also a reason for widespread interest in Afghanistan. The present regional and global dynamics will greatly influence the future course of Afghanistan.

The US: Post the ISAF drawdown, the US priority for Afghanistan has shifted to other strategic and domestic priorities. However, developments in Afghanistan are important to the US since Washington has been the prime driver for the international engagement in the country for more than a decade. Afghanistan may no longer be at the centre of the US strategic engagement, however, it will continue to influence the US counter-terrorism policies and regional engagement in South and Central Asia. The US will continue to serve a supporting role in the development and transition of Afghanistan as well as strengthening bilateral relations between the US and Afghanistan.

Pakistan: Pakistan is arguably the most important regional player in Afghanistan. Close religious and cultural ties between the two countries gives Pakistan leverage over internal matters in Afghanistan. Further, Pakistan’s decades old influence on the Taliban makes Pakistan unavoidable in any peace settlement in Afghanistan. Pakistan is one of the three countries – along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE – to officially recognise the Taliban and has been assisting Taliban insurgency after it was ousted from power in 2001. Presently, the leadership of Afghan Taliban has been based in the Pakistani city of Quetta since 2001.

After the Ashraf Ghani government came to power, a major policy shift was introduced in favour of Pakistan. This policy shift included lowering India from the priority list of Afghanistan. The reciprocal visits made by the leaders of the two countries and the signing of MoU between Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to collaborate on counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing and personnel training were important milestones in their relationship. However, mistrust looms large in the Afghanistan psyche about Pakistan’s intentions. The recent attacks in Afghanistan, particularly on the Afghan parliament by Afghan Taliban, strengthened their suspicion. The future course between the two countries is worth watching.

China: China and Afghanistan have been neighbours only in technical sense. They share 76 km border but lack infrastructure to connect it. They have never shared significant relationship in the past. However, after the withdrawal of ISAF, China has started to make unprecedented moves to fill the vacuum and develop its bilateral relationship with Afghanistan. It is not only signing partnership agreements with the government in Afghanistan but also simultaneously engaging with Taliban.

China’s interests in Afghanistan converges with India’s interests; however, their strategies to pursue those interests are different. Both countries are extremely apprehensive of Afghanistan getting de-stabilised and once again becoming a base for global and regional jihadist terror groups. Also, China is concerned about the security of its developmental initiatives in the region. China has emerged as the biggest foreign investor in Afghanistan with lucrative energy and resource deals under its belt, including a $3.5 billion contract to develop the largest copper field in the world in the Aynak mine in Logar Province in Afghanistan. However, China likes to stay on the side of Pakistan while dealing with Afghanistan. China believes that it can pressurise Pakistan to change its destructive policy on Afghanistan.

Russia: Russia believes that the withdrawal of ISAF from Afghanistan would only have negative implications for Russian security interests. It is concerned about the recent developments in Afghanistan, such as the revival of Taliban which would support those jihadists who fought against the USSR erstwhile forces. Russia fears that coming back of Taliban would seek to bring about the downfall of the post-Soviet Central Asian governments and replace them with radical Islamists ones that are hostile to Russia. Though Russia doesn’t want to get involved in Afghanistan militarily, because of its past experiences, however for its security Russia wants to put a Russian military presence along the Tajik-Afghan border. So far it has not been materialised. There are other states in the region that share Russia’s interest in preventing the Taliban from regaining control over Afghanistan. The Central Asian republics obviously share these interests with Russia, though their capacity to act in Afghanistan is limited. It is in the interest of Russia to work with India and Iran as these three countries share common interests.

Iran: Iran wants a stable Afghanistan and has meticulously worked to protect its interests before and after 2001 to this end. Iran has certain strategic interests in Afghanistan which it would like to preserve. Containment of Taliban is important to Iran to maintain peace within and outside the country (neighbouring countries). It supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance prior to 2001, and after September 2001 it was one of the earlier supporters of the US ‘war on terror’ to contain the Taliban. The other interests of Iran in Afghanistan are – protecting the Shia community in Afghanistan, curtailment of narcotics business through Iran, repatriation of Afghan refugees, protecting investment and economic influence in Afghanistan. For these reasons, Iran would prefer Afghanistan’s less dependence on Pakistan (which supports Taliban) and would like to work with Russia and India to attain its objectives.

India: India and Afghanistan share a long history of cultural, civilisational and economic ties. India supported the Northern Alliance in the fight to overthrow the Taliban in 2001. Presently, its aspirations in Afghanistan stem from two important factors: first, India’s status as a rising power in the international system, where India wants to play a decisive role in determining the regional security throughout its near and extended strategic environment. Second is India’s security concern about revival of Taliban and their terrorist activities in the Indian sub-continent.

Though the new government in Afghanistan and its focus on Pakistan has diluted India’s strategic influence in Afghanistan, India can collaborate with other regional powers such as Russia and Iran in its curtailment of terrorism and jointly work on a security cooperation agreement for Afghanistan. Also it should continue with aids and its capacity building programmes besides exploring new vistas of engagement. In fact, India’s relation with Afghanistan will depend on its ability to innovate, expand and deepen its engagement at multiple levels.

*Dr SmitaTiwari is Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. She can be reached at editor@spsindia.in

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Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has circulated the draft for a U.N. resolution that would end international sanctions on Iran once the International Atomic Energy Agency verifies its compliance with a deal curbing its nuclear program. But a bi-partisan letter was sent from a Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a ranking Democrat on that committee to President Barack Obama on Thursday saying their committee must review the Iranian deal before it’s brought to the U.N.

Knowing the track record of the U.N. — including alleged widespread corruption — few terrorism and national security analysts have faith in what’s been called “The Beast on the East River.” But for the Obama White House that may prove to be the answer he needs to either convince lawmakers or just bypass them in order to preserve his victory in achieving a nuclear deal with a terrorism-supporting nation.

Upon hearing the latest news about the controversial deal between the Iranian and the Western nations — U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — Maryland’s U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned President Obama that he should not go to the U.N. with a request that it lift the sanctions on Iran before both houses of the U.S. Congress can take action.

The Iranian agreement is already causing ill feelings within the U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic communities, and it’s starting to worry law enforcement officials, as well. The scenario of a terrorist cell — in this case, one backed by Iran — possessing a small nuclear device, or a improvised explosive device (IED) containing radiological material, warrants concern within the ranks of federal, state and local law enforcement officials who are charged with protecting the homeland.

Cardin said the administration should not present a proposal to draft a new U.N. resolution affecting international sanctions until lawmakers have a chance to review the nuclear deal, which was unveiled this week. “Acting on it at this stage is a confusing message to an independent review by Congress over these next 60 days. So I think it would be far better to have that vote after the 60-day review, assuming that the agreement is not effectively rejected by Congress,” Cardin said in a statement on Thursday. “If the United States is signing onto the United Nations program and later on we’re not part of it, what we’ll do is inconsistent with the U.N. resolution, so it would be better not to have action on the U.N. resolution,” he argued.

For Republican lawmakers, the move is a dangerous subjugation of U.S. sovereignty and an insult to Congress’s oversight role. A number of noted Americans — such as Frank Gaffney, Admiral James Lyons, and Prof, Alan Dershowitz, who plan to hold a rally against the Iranian deal in New York City on July 22 — claim that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are attempting to “sell the Iran deal as something other than a catastrophe for [sic] America international peace and security.” President Obama and John Kerry are now invoking the United Nations. The Obama administration raced straight from Vienna to the Security Council, stated StopIranRally.org.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, said he had told Amb. Power the any action bypass congress is inappropriate. “I’m sorry, I look at that as an affront to the American people. I look at that as an affront to Congress and the House of Representatives. I talked to them this morning about the fact that I don’t think that was a prudent step. I just talked to our U.N. ambassador,” he said.

Corker’s and Cardin’s letter to Obama on Thursday states: “We are deeply concerned that your administration plans to enable the United Nations Security Council to vote on the agreement before the United States Congress can do the same.” They also argued such a vote would contradict Obama’s pledge to give the American public and Congress full opportunity to review the deal.

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Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said that the Government will ensure that the law is complied with in Catalonia and will guarantee that no citizen has to choose between being Catalan, Spanish or European.

Rajoy made the comment after the meeting with the Polish Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, during the 11th bilateral summit between Spain and Poland held in La Moncloa.

At the press conference given by the two politicians, in response to the questions from journalists about the announcement of a single list in Catalonia to announce its independence in six months, Spain’s Rajoy answered that “the State is fully prepared to ensure the law is complied with when someone breaks it.”

According to Rajoy, “There will be no independence in Catalonia, there simply won’t. I also want to say that Catalonia won’t leave Europe – because that is what is being proposed to the citizens of Catalonia. It is precisely that: to leave Europe.”

Rajoy argued that the elections to be held in Catalonia are regional, so the only things that can be chosen are deputies and a regional parliament.

“Nothing else is chosen or decided there.” In addition, he insisted that the Government guarantees all the Spanish people that it will ensure compliance with the law: “The law will be complied with in Catalonia and anywhere else in Spain,” the Spanish Prime Minster said.

The Spanish head of government added that some leaders should learn from the crisis in Greece when they promise or offer things that in practice will end up nowhere, “I believe that leaders should act responsibly, with prudence and common sense, knowing what they can do and knowing what they can’t,” Rajoy said.

Rajoy added that the Government will guarantee that “the law will be complied with in Catalonia and no one will force any citizen to choose between being Catalan, Spanish and European.” He added that “Spain is one of the great democracies in the world and in a democracy there are laws and the rule of law.”

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(EurActiv) — German lawmakers gave Chancellor Angela Merkel the green light Friday (17 July) to resume talks on a new EU-IMF bailout deal for Greece, after she passionately argued it was the last chance to prevent “chaos” in the crisis-hit country.

Merkel, like Greece’s hard-left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, faced rebels in her own party ranks, but still won broad approval from the chamber where her “grand coalition” commands an overwhelming majority.

The measure to seek a new 86-billion-euro ($94 billion) rescue package sailed through the Bundestag by 439 to 119 votes with 40 abstentions. A total of 60 members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives voted ‘No’, parliamentary figures showed on Friday.

The number of rebels more than doubled from a vote in February, when parliament extended a second bailout package, dealing a blow to Merkel and highlighting the strength of grassroots opposition to funnelling further aid to Athens.

Addressing the chamber before the vote, Merkel had argued that “we would be grossly negligent, indeed acting irresponsibly if we did not at least try this path”.

It was Merkel — leader of the EU’s biggest economy and effective bailout paymaster — who spearheaded last weekend’s marathon Brussels talks that brought Greece back from the brink of crashing out of the euro, at the price of Athens accepting painful reforms.

The chancellor said there was “no doubt that the agreement of Monday morning was hard” but urged lawmakers to back the deal, calling it “a last try”.

She said if a compromise over Greece had not been reached, it would have meant “watching on as the country virtually bleeds out, people no longer getting their money, where chaos and violence could be the result”.

Equally, “bending the rules until they’re worthless” was not an option, she said, arguing that for Europe this “would mean the end of a community bound by legal rules, and we wouldn’t agree to that”.

That was why, she said, “we are making a last try in tough, tenacious discussions” to seal a third aid package, “despite all the setbacks of the past six months and despite all legitimate scepticism”.

Austria’s parliament also gave its government the mandate to open negotiations on a new bailout programme for Greece on Friday. A majority of lawmakers voted in favour of starting talks on a three-year bailout.

Austria would contribute €55 million. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the People’s Party (ÖVP) voted in support of the bailout.

‘Desperate pensioners’

The German vote came a day after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi boosted a vital cash lifeline to Greece’s struggling banks that will allow them to open their doors for the first time in almost three weeks on Monday.

To prevent a catastrophic “Grexit”, parliament in Athens early Thursday (16 July) adopted sweeping reforms on pensions, taxes and labour laws that were harsher than those Greeks had rejected in a July 5 referendum.

The about-face sparked violent street protests and speculation of early elections in Greece, where the hard-left Syriza party came to power in January polls.

Eurozone ministers rewarded Greece on Thursday by approving a vital seven-billion-euro bridging loan and backing resumed negotiations.

Merkel and her hardline Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble have been harshly criticised for forcing more austerity on Greece, using the threat of a five-year euro “time-out” that had been floated by Schäuble.

Merkel, sometimes accused of lacking empathy amid the eurozone crisis, Friday touched on the suffering of the Greek people, for which she blamed the Tsipras government.

“Imagine just for a moment what it would mean here in Germany if desperate pensioners had to queue up in front of shuttered banks to wait for their 120 euros a week,” she said, speaking on her 61st birthday.

‘True colours’

If many commentators see Merkel as being too hard on Greece, dissenters at home complain she has been too soft, leaving German taxpayers to lend out billions they are unlikely to ever see again.

The mass-circulation Bild, which has long campaigned for a Grexit, on Friday published a list of “seven reasons” to vote ‘No’ and wrote that “today politicians must show their true colours”.

Germany is one of several EU countries whose parliaments must sign off of any debt deal for Greece.

The German vote was only about resuming official talks — a final deal with Greece will also need the assembly’s approval.

Dozens of lawmakers from Merkel’s conservative party had warned ahead of time they would vote against granting her government a mandate to resume talks.

However, that still left a broad majority across major party lines who voted to help Greece again and keep intact the 19-member currency union.

The public mood was mixed between pro-European sentiment, and anger with the Greek government.

A new Forsa poll Friday found 53 percent of respondents backed new talks, while 42 percent were against.

Schäuble — who says he personally thinks a Grexit would be best for the country — nonetheless urged his party-members to vote in favor, vowing: “We will do everything in our power to make this last attempt a success.”

The ECB on Thursday gave Greece badly needed breathing space by adding 900 million euros to a financial lifeline to cash-strapped banks, which have limited ATM withdrawals to 60 euros a day per person.

Draghi also sided with the IMF in saying Greece — with debts worth 180 percent of GDP — will need some kind of debt relief, an idea Germany opposes.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Friday reiterated the need to ease Greece’s crushing debt burden of 320 billion euros.

Asked whether the bailout plan could work without it, she said “The answer is fairly categoric: ‘No.'”

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The assassination of the man in charge of thousands of prosecutions including the controversial death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood followers paved the way for the incumbent Egyptian president for a one-time knockout against dissent and for all.

Speaking at the military funeral of Hisham Barakat, the Prosecution General of Egypt killed in a car bomb on June 29, the President Abdulfattah Al-Sisi threatened to amend the laws to make them responsive to the implementation of justice. “Under such circumstances, courts are useless and so are laws,” said Al-Sisi promising to carry out any death or lifetime sentences against what he called “terrorists”.

“The arm of justice is chained by the law,” Al-Sisi said. “We are going to amend the law to allow us implement justice as fast as possible,” he added emphasizing on going ahead with the death sentences, which raises the issue of the provisional death sentences against the Muslim Brotherhood including the ousted first democratically elected president Mohammad Morsi, who was accused of “the biggest case of espionage in the history of Egypt”.

Consolidating his despotic power faster than any other dictator in the Middle East to impose his decisions over the Egyptian population and territory, Al-Sisi seems to co-opt the judicial system as well as communications means. Succeeding in doing so, Al-Sisi might be able to control the means of persuasion – the law, government loyal clergy and media, and the means of coercion – military, police and security forces.

Due to the fact there hasn’t been an elected parliament in Egypt since 2013, Al-Sisi enjoys the privilege of passing laws in the form of decrees. The assassination of Barakat can be easily, and actually already, politicized accelerating the process of power consolidation even more. Implying that the Muslim Brothers being responsible for the terrorist attack against the Prosecutor, Al-Sisi stressed that legal processes that could take years to enforce should be speeded to face terrorism: “We are facing terrorism. The laws and courts shall respond to it,” he said.

To confirm his control of coercive instruments, on 4 July 2015 Al-Sisi appeared wearing his military uniform talking to police and military forces in the north of Sinai about their important role in fighting terrorism and any plans against Egypt, according to the official Facebook page of the Egyptian Presidency. Al-Sisi said: “Under control is not enough … everything should be stable”. However controlling instruments of persuasion and coercion doesn’t seem to be enough externally as it is internally, therefore, Al-Sisi claims fighting terrorism to defend not only Egypt but also the whole civilized world.

While Egypt seems to be divided now between who kneels to the sole leader and who finds injustice and despotism, thus refuses to kneel, the voices of a different rhetoric are not much heard. Actually, the speed of events and the volume of the regime’s crackdown – not only against the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters but also against any different voices from the regime – a very little or no space was left for different narratives and constructive criticism. Intellectuals had failed to present alternative narratives and perspectives on politics to the dominant discourse of the Egyptian regime putting social coexistence on the periphery. The mainstream bulk of clerics is either loyalists or strained from opposing the regime due to mounting fears.

Hassan Nafa’a, professor in political science at Cairo University said that amending the law does not hinder terrorism. It is rather despotism what offers a haven for terrorism to flourish. Nafa’a’s point can be traced back in Egypt’s history when the Muslim Brotherhood, like in the present time, was dissolved in 1948 following involvement in violence in Palestine then. The Muslim Brotherhood continued to grow despite Nasser’s despotic measures against them. He ordered the arrest of more than 27,000 people in 1965, allegedly all were Muslim brothers, and hundreds were sentenced by a special court, from which more than 20 were tortured to death.

The harsh crackdown continues under Al-Sisi in the name of fighting terrorism, which increases the sense of victimization for a considerable segment of the Egyptian society. While channels to find justice seem absent in Egypt, the feeling of victimization remains as long as their case is still unsettled. “Mass death sentences are fast losing Egypt’s judiciary,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch director of Middle East and North Africa division. “Instead of weighing the evidence against each person, judges are convicting defendants en masse without regard for fair trial standards.”

While media outlets are busy justifying Al-Sisi’s harsh policies, several out-of-tune journalists were banned, imprisoned or pushed into exile. Despite its political dimensions between Qatar and Egypt, the case of Al-Jazeera Journalist, Mohamed Fahmy, who had to renounce his Egyptian citizenship to be freed last February, is a case in point. According to the Egyptian Newspaper Rassd, only over the past two years, 26 Egyptians, most of them talented contributors, renounced their citizenship for among others Israeli, Saudi Arabian and American ones. This tendency, according to the paper, owes to the lack of freedom, citizenship and feeling of belonging, poverty, oppression and injustice, which forces Egyptians to change hearts.

As a defence minister two years ago, Al- Sisi warned from using violence against citizens and stressed on the fact that the use of violence produces violence. Unfortunately, the teacher is doing exactly what he deemed useless. By Isolating segments of the society, no matter how the elimination process happened and how long it took to crystallize, new resistance forces are forming in the backyards far from the regime’s surveillance.

Alas, a draconian era is still to come on the heads of Egyptians, and is more likely to fire back at those who despotically coordinated to elevate the level of depression, should the same policies continue. Now is different from the times of Nasser and if people once knew that they can remove a military dictator – Mubarak, or an Islamist would-be dictator – Morsi, it wouldn’t be far fetched for them to work towards the same end under Al-Sisi.

*Hakim Khatib is a political scientist and analyst works as a lecturer for politics and culture of the Middle East, intercultural communication and journalism at Fulda and Darmstadt Universities of Applied Sciences and Phillips University Marburg. Hakim is a PhD candidate in political science specialised in political instrumentalisation of Islam in the Middle East and its implications on political development at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the founder and editor-in-chief of the Mashreq Politics and Culture Journal (MPC Journal).

The post Why Despotism Is Not The Solution For Egypt‏ – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan*

The conclusion of a nuclear deal between P-5+1 and Iran has been described as path breaking or a historic mistake, depending where these voices are coming from. Calling it a diplomatic victory, US President Barrack Obama stated “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off” as far as Iran is concerned. Iran President Hassan Rouhani too characterised the deal as “historic” unleashing a “new chapter” between Iran and the world.

However, rejecting it outright, Israeli Prime Minister called the deal “a historic mistake.” Saudi Arabia is yet to come out with a clear response, but as in the case of the April 02 agreement, the reaction is likely to be cautious and muted in the open realm, but one has to watch for its actions on the ground to make sense of the Saudi response. The Saudi interest in buying Iskander tactical missiles from Russia is just one case in point. The recent Russia-Saudi Arabia agreement to cooperate in nuclear energy is another indicator of what Saudi Arabia is likely to do. All the non-proliferation ayatollahs around the world have been quick to endorse the deal as the best possible option.

The 159-page Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14 can be considered a step forward given that there have been several attempts in the past by the US and EU to halt Iran’s nuclear programme. The West has tried different means including sanctions and technology denial measures to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities, but with limited success. Iran being a hard case, these measures have only slowed, not halted its nuclear programme. The July 14 agreement says that the US and its European partners will ease the national and international sanctions that have been in place following Tehran’s non-compliance with UN stipulations to quit certain suspicious activities relating to its nuclear programme. However, it remains to be seen how effective the implementation of this deal will be. There are already serious reservations, particularly within the Middle East about the nature of the deal and its efficacy in limiting the Iranian nuclear activities. Lack of compliance by Tehran could compound the anxieties and lead to developments that are not ideal for the region and for the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture.

Supporters of the Iran deal argue that a deal in hand is better than no deal at all while the critics hold the view that no deal is better than a bad deal. Those who argue that the deal has provisions for the most stringent verification measures, including strict and continuous monitoring and inspection processes and therefore Iran cannot deviate from its commitments under the JCPOA, is not entirely correct. A 24-day multi-layered verification dispute settlement process is good enough for Iran to cover up all its suspicious activities.

The Iranian nuclear issue is certainly a conundrum – even if there is a deal, Iran can cheat and call it quits in a few years, and on the other hand, if there is no deal, Tehran is at total freedom and the international community has no lever to control. So, either ways, Iran could pursue the weapons route. But the manner in which the deal has been worked out, Iran has received great benefits. This is for many reasons. One, Iran was supposed to have completed detailing to the IAEA about Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) well before and now under the deal, Tehran has been given time until October 2015 to do so. It remains to be seen whether Iran will comply or not because there have been several such Tehran commitments in the past that have not been adhered to. Way back in November 2011, the IAEA had found several instances of Iranian activities that could only be explained as part of a weapons development programme. The repeated Iranian failures to comply with commitments do not give any confidence that Iran is going to stick by its commitments this time around. Major powers, including the US, seem to have taken the issue quite lightly and it is possible that Iran will not do the explanation and yet the deal will sail through. Two, the provisions in the deal allowing for Iranian enrichment is unprecedented, and something the US does not allow for even its allies. This is precisely why there is a caveat in the final deal to state that this deal is unprecedented and that a similar deal cannot be worked out for other states. Three, the issue around inspections is also of concern. The “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities has been given up for what Obama says “where necessary, when necessary.” As per the deal, once the IAEA makes a demand to inspect a particular site, Iran has 14 days to respond, either fulfilling the demand or provide other ways to satisfy the IAEA. If the IAEA is not satisfied with the response, then a joint commission with members from each of the 8 participating countries will have a week to take a particular course of action, after which Iran will be given three days to meet the demand. This multi-layered inspection scheme provides Tehran with adequate time to cover up or destroy any evidence. Four, the participating countries have been easy on Iran and they complied by the Iranian demand to end sanctions immediately. Sanctions were meant to be phased out in a gradual manner depending on the Iranian compliance over a period of time.

What does the deal mean in terms of non-proliferation and broader regional security? From a non-proliferation perspective, the deal is a good one provided it is complied with. A lot will depend on Iran’s adherence to the commitments under the deal but it is difficult to have much faith in Iranian commitments because of its repeated failures in the past. But from a regional security perspective, the deal is disastrous. The US allies have been abandoned and left to fend for themselves. A reluctant US administration under Obama had shown signs of abandoning US allies and their concerns for a while but the Iranian deal has taken it to another level. The deal has implications even beyond the Middle East for the Asia Pacific also. The manner in which the US has sidelined the Saudi and Israeli concerns in favour of working out this deal with Iran is being closely watched by the Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea. They will worry about a potential situation where the US will work with North Korea in securing a similar deal, yet again abandoning the concerns of the US allies.

*Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

1 Russia and Saudi Arabia have already inked a legal framework agreement to begin their cooperation in nuclear energy. Specifically, these include construction of nuclear power reactors, service in the area of nuclear fuel cycling, such as for nuclear power stations and research reactor facilities. “Russia and Saudi Arabia ink nuclear energy deal, exchange invites,” Russia Today, June 18, 2015, http://www.rt.com/news/268198-russia-saudi-nuclear-agreements/.

2 “Iran nuclear deal ‘a pretty good outcome’ – IISS,” BBC News, July 14, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33517892; Kelsey Davenport and Daryl G. Kimball, “An Effective, Verifiable Nuclear Deal With Iran,” Iran Nuclear Policy Brief, Arms Control Association, July 15, 2015, http://www.armscontrol.org/files/ACA_Iran_Deal_15_July_2015.pdf ; Mike Pesca, “Let’s Grade a Deal (Iran Edition),” July 15, 2015, http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gist/2015/07/the_gist_jeffrey_lewis_on_the_iran_nuclear_deal_and_national_debt_explained.html; Stein, “We Have A Deal,” ArmsControWonk, July 15, 2015, http://armscontrolwonk.com/archive/5558/we-have-a-deal; Dylan Matthews, “Arms control experts are tweeting praise for the Iran nuclear deal,” Vox World, July 15, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/7/15/8963973/arms-control-nonproliferation-iran-tweets.

For an alternate and a realistic perspective on some elements of the deal, see William Tobey, “The Iranian Nuclear-Inspection Charade,” Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-iranian-nuclear-inspection-charade-1437001048.

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The Islamic State (also known as Daesh) has released a video showing a young boy beheading a Syrian soldier as it continues to abuse children for its gruesome brand of propaganda.

The boy, whose age could not be confirmed, was filmed murdering the prisoner under the watch of an older militant near the captured ancient city of Palmyra.

It was believed to be the first beheading by a child filmed by Isis, which has previously used minors to execute captives by shooting them.

The boy, named only as a “cub of the Caliphate”, is seen wearing camouflage and a black headdress with his face uncovered.

He forces the soldier, who identifies himself under duress as a captain in Bashar al-Assad’s army, to lie on his front so the child can pull his head back and cut it off with a small knife.

He then holds up the decapitated head and puts it on the victim’s dead body in a pose often seen after Isis’ brutal murders.

The older militant addresses the camera to threaten the so-called Islamic State’s takeover of the world’s great holy sites in Rome and Jerusalem.

According to a translation by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he says: “Our goal is not only Palmyra nor Homs or Damascus, but to conquer Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) and Rome, God willing.”

The UK-based Observatory said it received footage of the murder, adding that the dead officer was captured at the Western Hir Palace in Homs province after fleeing there with retreating regime troops when Isis overran Palmyra in May.

A spokesperson said it was the first time it had documented an Isis child soldier murdering a captive by beheading.

Early January, saw the first declared execution carried out by children, where a boy was seen shooting two men accused of being Russian agents.

Smiling children were seen leading prisoners to their beheading and handing out knives to adult jihadists in Hama in March and two months later, 25 boys were lined up to shoot dead 25 regime soldiers in front of crowds at the ancient Roman theatre in Palmyra.

Charlie Winter, a researcher London-based counter extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, said the latest video followed the increasing presence of children in Isis propaganda.

“They have been instrumentalising children living inside the ‘Islamic State’ in military and political roles,” he told The Independent.

Mr Winter said that as the world becomes desensitised to the group’s beheading videos, which started last year, casting a child as executioner is attended as “powerful propaganda” to shock and draw attention.

“Isis is trying to assert itself and the power it has over people living in its territories,” he added.

“They are laying claim to not just defending Sunni Muslims from Assad but avenging them.”

Isis seized control of Palmyra, a Unesco World Heritage Site and former tourist attraction, in May and is fending off a renewed push from regime forces.

At least 16 government soldiers were believed to have died in battles yesterday as they attempted to advance on the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Isis has set up terror camps for children in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq, where forcibly conscripted boys are given strict military and ideological training by its militants.

In footage appearing to show one of the camps earlier this year, around 80 boys were seen standing in formation in a courtyard as they performed exercises and chanted “Allahu Akbar!” to a commander’s orders.

They were dressed in combat gear similar to the child in the beheading video and wearing black headbands styled after the militant group’s black flag.

A report last year by the UN’s Human Rights Council found that Isis “has established training camps to recruit children into armed roles under the guise of education”.

“At the camps, the children recruited received weapons training and religious education,” the report reads. “The existence of such camps seems to indicate that Isis systematically provides weapons training for children.

“Subsequently, they were deployed in active combat during military operations, including suicide-bombing missions.”

Original article

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George Weidenfeld was barely eighteen when Nazi forces occupied his homeland of Austria in 1938. He may not have lived to see his 95th birthday – celebrated this year – if not for the selflessness and generosity of Christians during World War II.

Weidenfeld was one of countless other Jewish youths who were evacuated from Nazi-occupied countries and resettled in England through Christian-led initiatives similar to the famous Kindertransport train program. When he arrived in England, Weidenfeld said Christians fed him, clothed him and supported his resettlement.

Today it seems the tables have turned as Christian persecution across the globe reaches unprecedented levels. And in an effort to repay some of the generosity he received during World War II, Weidenfeld has launched a new program to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

The Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund aims to rescue a projected 2,000 Christians from Syria and Iraq over the next two years.

“I had a debt to repay.” Weidenfeld told The Times. “It applies to so many young people who were brought on the Kindertransports. It was the Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England.”

“It was very (a) very high-minded operation and we Jews should also be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians.”

The Fund sponsored its first rescue just last week, flying 150 Syrian Christians to Poland on a privately chartered plane.

The new initiative has faced some criticism for its exclusion of other persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East, including Yazidis, Druze and Shia Muslims. But Weidenfeld has defended his initiative’s narrow focus.

“I can’t save the world,” he said. “But there is a very specific possibility on the Christian side.”

Weidenfeld appears to have been inspired by the late Nicholas Winton, who rescued nearly 700 children, most of them Jewish, during World War II through a train initiative inspired by the Kindertransport program.

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By Wasbir Hussain*

It is time for fresh national elections in Myanmar. The much-hyped polls to the 664-member Parliament – finally fixed for 8 November 2015 – will be a test for both democracy in the former pariah state ruled by a military dictatorship as well as for the icon of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi. This is expected to be a landmark general election because the exercise is being held under the military-backed quasi-civilian government which is engaged in restoring a semblance of democracy in the nation of 51 million people since it assumed office in 2011.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), by all accounts, is expected to bag a large bloc of seats, but whether the military-influenced ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) of President Thein Sein is going to wholeheartedly accept the people’s verdict is left to be seen. It is this lurking doubt over the military’s intent that has prompted many, including some key American Senators, to go on record to say the US should not provide trade benefits to Myanmar until after the November elections that will indicate the state of political reform.

The USDP or the military itself will be under the scanner this time because the international community has not forgotten how the unpopular military junta refused to accept the verdict in the first multi-party elections in 1990 where Suu Kyi’s NLD won a convincing victory. Western governments pushing for true democracy in Myanmar are more than happy that the NLD, that had boycotted the 2010 national elections, is in the fray this time, but are keeping their fingers crossed over possible election-time or post-poll political combustions. Suu Kyi confirmed on 11 July after a party meeting that the NLD would contest the upcoming polls to “continue the unfinished democratic reform process of the country.” The NLD had kept away from the 2010 elections because of rules barring Suu Kyi from contesting. But even today, Myanmar’s military-drafted Constitution has provisions that bar Suu Kyi from running for presidency because it has a provision that prohibits any person from becoming president if their family members are foreigners. Suu Kyi’s late husband was British, and her two sons hold British passports.

Myanmar has been claiming it has made good strides on the road to democracy, but actions of parliamentarians or the military speak otherwise. In recent weeks, MPs voted down a motion to amend the clause barring Suu Kyi to run for presidency on the ground that some of her immediate family members are foreign nationals. The parliamentarians also voted in favour of the army’s veto over constitutional change, dealing a blow to hopes for fuller democracy. The verdict of the MPs has not come as a surprise because the army holds 25 per cent of the seats in the Myanmar Parliament and as per current provisions, changes to the Constitution require more than 75 per cent of the votes.

Technicalities aside, Suu Kyi’s bargaining powers would increase considerably if the NLD manages to win the elections. Suu Kyi has herself said her party knew she was going to be “debarred” from the presidency and that they have plans in hand to handle the situation in the event of an NLD win. The party has, of course, not yet announced an alternative presidential candidate. If the numbers are on the side of the NLD in Parliament, the powerful military, too, may not be able to block efforts outright to amend the Constitution to remove the clause barring candidates with foreign spouses or children who are foreign nationals from becoming president. In fact, Suu Kyi has made no secret of the NLD’s intent to amend the Constitution if it wins the polls. “If the NLD wins in the election, we will amend the constitution,” she told journalists on 11 July. The military and the ruling USDP know they cannot repeat a 1990 this time around as such a move would once again attract a global squeeze on funds to put it mildly, and, of course, trigger a fresh bout of public unrest.

Everything, including Suu Kyi’s future, as also the future of democracy itself in Myanmar, depends on the NLD’s performance at the polls. Suu Kyi and her party are not without hurdles in the run-up to the elections. In fact, during the past year, democracy icon Suu Kyi has maintained near silence on several issues concerning the masses. For instance, she and her party had backed the controversial Education Bill last year that prohibits student politics by not letting the formation of students unions in educational institutions. She had also remained largely silent on the issue of Rohingya Muslims that concerned most in South Asia. This has been a big irony that has either upset or surprised the common masses. But, Suu Kyi had obviously adopted such a stand because she was seeking the support of the Government in revising Myanmar’s Constitution, a move blocked by the MPs recently.

The NLD would like to win as many seats as possible but there are doubts if it could perform as well as it did in 1990 in Myanmar’s ethnic regions where fighting between the rebels and Government forces have intensified, of late. If the Myanmar military has launched the largest war effort, including air strikes in the Shan state’s ethnic Kokang region, there has been fierce fighting between the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Government troops in the northern Kachin state. Suu Kyi has said her party’s key agenda would be to bring about Constitutional amendment, pursuing the rule of law, and bringing about a national ceasefire with ethnic insurgents. Aside from this broad promise, the NLD has not spoken out its mind on how it plans to deal with ethnic aspirations in the nation. Whether Suu Kyi will spend time herself campaigning in these disturbed regions is unclear so far but there are reports she would keep away from the Rakhine State, where vast numbers of Rohingya have been disenfranchised with the cancellation of their identification documents.

A Buddhist monk movement with a sharp nationalistic fervour has threatened to reduce the NLD’s influence among the Buddhists. Besides, a plethora of political parties drawn from ethnic groups have sprung up in the troubled regions, challenging the dominance of the NLD. These will be factors which Suu Kyi and her party cannot ignore, making their fight with the USDP or the military itself all the more difficult. President Thein Sein has promised a ‘free and fair’ election in the presence of international observers. But, with reports of large-scale irregularities in the voters’ list that have been published, things may not be smooth sailing. Suu Kyi, obviously, is aware of the odds, and at the same time knows this is possibly her final chance to wrest control in Myanmar. Whether that can speed up the march towards total democracy in a nation dominated for decades by the military is left to be seen. The polls also presents New Delhi with an opportunity to try and test its ‘neighbourhood first’ policy by way of convincing the key players in Myanmar on the strength and benefits of a form of governance based on democratic ideals.

* Wasbir Hussain
Executive Director, Centre for Development & Peace Studies, Guwahati, & Visiting Fellow, IPCS

The post Myanmar Polls: Test For Suu Kyi And Democracy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Buryats in Buryatia laughed when the first reports came in that Buryats were fighting for Moscow in Ukraine. They cried when the first bodies and injured Buryats were returned to their homeland. But they have had quite enough with the Kremlin’s latest effort to exploit them as spokesman for “a Russian world from sea to sea.”

In a commentary on Ekho Moskvy, Buryat journalist Aleksandra Garmazhalova writes that Buryat casualties from the war in Ukraine had already sparked social and political tensions in her republic, even though Russian officials “insistently recommended that local media ‘not touch this theme’” (echo.msk.ru/blog/garmazhapova/1585974-echo/).

Nonetheless, because of the interest of the Buryats in their co-nationals, some independent journals, like “Novaya Buryatia,” took it up and even tried to raise money to help the injured. Buryats also learned that those who had gone to Ukraine had done so only because they were promised enormous sums of money.

All this was “unpleasant,” Garmazhalova writes, but people were prepared to tolerate it. But their tolerance for Moscow’s exploitation of Buryats in the Ukrainian war ended when the Russian government put out its “Putin’s Militant Buryats’” video clip a week ago and when that clip (youtube.com/watch?v=Y5avTS5H7o0) went viral.

The statements by those featured on the clip in support of “the Russian world” were too much. Buryat models Viktoria Maladayeva and Mariya Shantanova denounced them as did Buryat director Solbon Lygdenov who was upset, as many Buryats are, that any small group would presume to speak for all Buryats on such things.

It quickly became know, the Buryat journalist says, that those involved in the clip were all “activists from Irkutsk” rather than from Buryatia proper. That led many Buryats to breathe a sigh of relief: “Well, thank God, at least they aren’t ours.”

But that is not “the main thing,” Garmazhalova says. “In [her] worst nightmare,” she writes, she “could not imagine that Buryats (not as volunteers but all the same) would go to fight for ‘the Russian world’ given that they would have to know what the imposition of imperial ideology and nationalism would mean for [them].”

Buryats know from their own experiences that what the Rogozins and Zhirinovskys complain about in Ukraine really exists in Russian cities and that they are the victims of the worst kind of ethnic discrimination and mistreatment.

Buryats and members of other ethnic minorities in Russia “have become accustomed not to leave home on November 4 (the Day of National Unity) and on April 20 (Adolf Hitler’s birthday).” They also “are accustomed that the police will check our passports,” that they will find it hard to rent an apartment or even get a job.

In many Russian cities, “apartments are now rented ‘only to Russians,’” and people are hired for work in those places only if they have “’a Slavic appearance.’” And in addition, the Buryat journalist writes, “we have become accustomed to hear from acquaintances” that Russians transfer their children to other schools if there are “too many” minority pupils.

Many may remember that a Buryat was not allowed to win the Mrs. St. Petersburg contest because officials said “’the first beauty in a European city could not be a Buryat woman.” And they may also recall that Elmira Abdrazakova, who did win the Miss Russia contest in 2013 was abused as someone who should never have been named “the main Russian beauty.”

Given all that, how can anyone think that “we want ‘a Russian world’ ‘from sea to sea,’” a world in which there are the “’titular’” people and “’the outcasts?’” Garmazhalova says that she would not presume to speak for everyone but as for herself, she wants “simply a world for all” in which all are treated equally and fairly.

Not long ago, she continues, a Russian came up to her in the St. Petersburg metro and said she should give up her seat to him because she, “as a representative of ‘a lower caste,’” should defer to him as a member of “’a higher caste.’” When she responded that if he didn’t like to use public transportation, he should buy a Ferrari, the situation almost degenerated into a fight.

Such individuals “like Russia as a whole” need to “learn to respect others.” But “that perhaps is too difficult? It is much simpler to solve a problem with one’s fists and tanks.”

The post Moscow’s ‘Putin’s Militant Buryats’ Video Clip For Ukrainians Backfires In Buryatia – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

There is little doubt that the current military dictator of Thailand, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, ranks among the most odious pariahs on the international stage, who thinks nothing of simply announcing that he intends to murder journalists or anyone else who stands in his way.

Here is a quick excerpt from the latest press release from Reporters Without Borders, titled “Leaders who publicly threaten journalists.”

Thailand’s prime minister, Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha was asked at a news conference on 25 March 2015 what the government would do to journalists who do not stick to the official line. “We’ll probably just execute them,” he replied tersely.

Since imposing martial law in May 2014, Gen. Prayut has cracked down hard on those who defy his policies and defend the fundamental right to criticize. He has gagged reporters, bloggers and news outlets regarded as overly critical of himself or his military government. The growing hostility towards the media being voiced publicly by Prayut has drawn the entire world’s attention to his contempt for freedom of information and its defenders, regarded as a threat to the nation.

Prayut clearly does not think it is the job of journalists to question the government. On the contrary, speaking on 5 March, celebrated as “Reporters Day” in Thailand, he said journalists should “play a major role in supporting the government’s affairs, practically creating the understanding of government’s policies to the public, and reduce the conflicts in the society.”

The post Thailand: Prayuth’s Habit Of Threatening Journalists – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.