BRICS at a Historical Turning Point: Unexpected Challenges

 

Source : moderndiplomacy
July 2 2023
By Tiomfey Bordachev



The BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) was created in conditions where the universal power of the West had already entered a period of slow decline, but few had any doubts that the United States and Europe would be able to determine the main characteristics of the world economy and international politics for a long time. Globalisation and the system of international institutions created with their vigorous participation were still coping, on the whole, with their tasks, and there were not enough obvious prerequisites and reasons for their landslide collapse. In fact, it was globalisation and the international institutions created by the West that determined the “packaging” of the international order, centred around the wealth accumulated over several centuries and the military and political capabilities of its founders.

The main systemic characteristic of BRICS is that it is a community of revisionists, i. e. powers that did not set as their goal the destruction of the world order, but sought to achieve the inclusion of their interests in this order. All its participants were able to extricate themselves from their previous plight thanks to the opportunities that the unjust international order led by the West gave them. All of them grew at the expense of resources, although they were dramatically curtailed in the realisation of their basic interests and values. Finally, none of the BRICS countries has plans to forcibly change the existing order of things, as revolutionary France, Germany and Japan have tried to do at one point or another over the past 250 years.

However, as contradictions accumulated in the world, even the modest revisionist wishes of the BRICS members became a factor that is leading, if not to the destruction of the existing international order, then to its most fundamental restructuring. Accordingly, the expectations regarding the BRICS countries are being shaped by their main partners, as well as opponents to their rise. Many countries throughout the world are now looking at the BRICS as a group that can, if not pick up the banner of global governance from the West, then at least become its second pillar; one that is more just and less selfish in relation to the small and medium-sized states of the world. In other words, expectations about the role of the BRICS in world affairs are shaped independently of the will of the participants in this group: they become the product of the evolution of the entire international order in a direction whose main features we have yet to witness.

The most striking manifestation of such hopes is the numerous ideas about expanding the BRICS by including new states. A list of countries has already been formed — candidates for joining the group, some of which look like real heavyweights. But in order to move forward in understanding how the BRICS’ contribution to new global governance can truly be decisive, we need to ask ourselves a few questions. First, can the BRICS group maintain internal unity in an era when even the strongest international partnerships are being severely challenged? Second, is it possible in the current circumstances for the BRICS to maintain the revisionist nature of their behaviour in relation to the order that was created with their minimal participation and, in part, at the expense of their interests?

No one can doubt that the decisive influence of the BRICS in the shaping of the main aspects of the global agenda will make the world more just and stable. Russia, which assumes the chairmanship of the group in 2024, can set this as one of its main general political goals. Such a contribution is virtually inevitable, simply because the BRICS countries are not parasitic powers whose success and achievements depend on the ability to get the rest of the world to serve their interests. Their economic opportunities and political influence aren’t grounded in a history of bloody wars, conducted with the purpose of establishing regional and global dominance. On the contrary, it was through wars — within itself and with those around it — that the modern community of Western countries, has created “its own” international order.

However, in order to fully realize the BRICS mission, this association will very likely have to answer the aforementioned questions, regarding its own destiny. We cannot ignore the fact that all the experience of strong institutions and global governance is the experience of the West, i.e. a community united by common values and, most importantly, interests in relation to the surrounding world. This is what allows them to stick together and be relatively effective in opposing the rest of humanity. Only forceful dictate of the US against its main allies would not be enough. It certainly plays an important role, but it cannot be the only fundamental factor. In the centre are the interests and values that led to the situation of the impossibility of any serious internal conflicts among the countries of the West.

Unlike the US and Europe, the BRICS community is not based on the idea of exploiting other countries and regions. The political systems of its members do not come from a single source, as is certainly the case of Europe and the United States. Moreover, the different civilizational foundations of the BRICS countries directly prevent them from creating an association whose internal discipline would be comparable to the West. Therefore, any observer can now question the ability of the BRICS to set the world agenda in the same way as the G7 countries have been doing for decades. The BRICS members may yet have to figure out how they can respond to the expectations of the international community, which has come to expect the dictatorship of the West and the patronage of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The BRICS are already establishing concrete ways of contributing to the formation of the agenda for the whole world, and there are obvious achievements. However, as the ability of the United States and Europe to indicate the direction of movement to everyone collapses, the demand for clear support from the BRICS will only increase.

This means that the member countries of the group may, theoretically, face some challenges to their unity. Forming an alternative agenda to the dictates of the West is one thing, but creating ways to solve global development and security problems for the whole world, or at least for the countries of the World Majority, may turn out to be a more difficult task. In the near future, the BRICS may be required to be able to offer others new tools to address their core development problems, which means that the group’s degree of unity on key issues will need to go beyond weighty political statements.

An equally serious issue may be the preservation of the nature of the BRICS as a community aimed not at destroying the existing world order, but at improving it for the better. This is what makes it revisionist, and not revolutionary in terms of the intentions of the participating countries and the tasks that they set for themselves. The BRICS countries do not want the collapse of globalisation, institutions and international law. This means that their task is more complex: to create within the existing order such rules, norms and ways of cooperation that would allow for the preservation of its advantages and the elimination of its shortcomings. That revision, and not revolution, is the goal of the BRICS countries, the basis for the sustainability of this association and its relations with other countries of the World Majority. Preserving this nature is completely within the interests of the BRICS member countries and the entire international community. The alternative can only be a split in the group and the continuation of the power of that narrow group of countries, to counteract whose egoism the BRICS was created.

Timofey Bordachev: PhD in Political Science, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club; Academic supervisor of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, HSE University, RIAC Member.

US Inflation Reduction Act ‘existential threat’ to EU and UK

 

Hugh Brady, president of Imperial College London. Photo: Imperial College London

Source: Science Business
By David Matthews
February 7 20223


The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is an “existential threat” to the economies of both the UK and EU, the president of Imperial College London has warned, and means London and Brussels should end their “family row” over Horizon Europe.

Hugh Brady told Science|Business that unless the UK and EU resolve their differences, they risk having their green technology industries decimated by the US.

“The US has made this major play,” he said. “If we don't man mark them, in 20 years’ time, we could be answering some pretty awkward questions from the younger generation.”

“There's a danger that we're fixated on the family row that’s happening, and miss this major play by a competitor.”

This week, the French and German economy ministers, Bruno Le Maire and Robert Habeck, are in Washington trying to convince the US government to carve out exceptions for EU companies in the IRA.

The act, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, imposes requirements that certain green technologies like electric vehicles have US-made parts, threatening European manufacturers. It also promises huge blanket subsidies for green hydrogen, tempting EU producers to set up shop across the Atlantic.

The Commission has unveiled plans to counter the IRA in the form of a Green Deal Investment Plan, although MEPs and think tanks were underwhelmed when it was released last week.

Car manufacturers based in the UK have also voiced concerns about the IRA making them less competitive. And last month, Britishvolt, a much hyped lithium-ion battery startup with government backing, collapsed into administration, heightening anxieties about the UK’s own green industrial sector.

Brussels mission

Brady is in Brussels this week to argue the threat from the US means the Commission should finally allow the UK to associate to Horizon Europe. He has spoken to MEPs and EU research leaders, and met the UK ambassador to the EU, Lindsay Croisdale-Appleby.

Since 2021, the Commission has blocked the UK from joining because of threats from London to ditch the Northern Ireland Protocol, a key part of the wider Brexit deal, designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Brady, who is Irish, and whose career as an academic clinician and university leader has spanned Harvard Medical School, University College Dublin and the University of Bristol, said both the UK and EU have struggled with productivity and growth compared to the US. “If we don’t react to it, we can fall further behind”.

However, this is not the first time hopes have been raised that geopolitical events would shock the Commission into allowing the UK to associate. When Russia invaded Ukraine last February, and the UK and EU coordinated on sanctions on military aid, some thought this would overcome differences and smooth an agreement on Horizon – but Brussels has held firm.

Glimmers of progress

Still, under the recently-installed UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, whose political style involves less Brussels-bashing than his predecessors, London and Brussels appear to have made tentative negotiating progress on the Northern Ireland Protocol in recent weeks.

If a deal is reached, this could unlock Horizon Europe association, although the UK government faces a tough task selling any agreement to Brexit hardliners in the ruling Conservative party and to the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which opposes the protocol because it puts a form of customs barrier in the Irish sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

“The mood, the language, has definitely changed,” Brady said of the new negotiations. “We understand that there is the bones of agreement there. It of course has to be sold to a variety of different constituencies.”

“I’m an optimist without being deluded,” he said.

Over the last 18 months, UK universities have faced a kind of stick-or-twist dilemma over Horizon association. Their preference has been to associate, but the UK government has also worked up a “Plan B” alternative to Horizon Europe, complete with a British alternative to the European Research Council (ERC), in case association doesn’t work out.

London has set aside money for both contingencies – association and Plan B – but the longer the impasse drags on, the greater the risk the cash-strapped government decides to use this money for something else. Hence some in the UK research system have wondered whether to simply “bank” the money and launch Plan B, giving up on Horizon.

But Brady said UK universities are still committed to association. Last week, at a regular meeting of the Russell Group of large research universities, vice chancellors unanimously voted to keep trying for association. This has been communicated to the science minister George Freeman, Brady said.

UK guarantee

Still, without association, UK universities that were once big winners from the EU framework programmes have barely received anything from Horizon Europe.

Imperial received €323 million from Horizon 2020, the previous framework programme, but has won less than €1 million so far in Horizon Europe. A similar story is true for other former big winners like the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh.

But Brady stressed that this doesn’t mean Imperial is losing out financially, nor that its researchers aren’t applying to Horizon grants.

Under a UK government guarantee scheme, UK-based winners of ERC grants get an equivalent award (although whether it is as prestigious is debatable). The UK is also funding participants in Horizon consortia projects, meaning the UK can still play a role in industrial and global challenge calls, although participation in this area has dropped off somewhat compared to Horizon 2020.

These UK guarantee schemes have replaced “virtually all” of what Imperial would have expected to receive through Horizon Europe, said Brady.

In the academic year 2021-22, Imperial received over £52 million from the UK guarantee scheme in over 100 projects, “which is, roughly speaking, what we would expect to get if we were fully associated,” he said. Applications to Horizon calls have held up too, he said.

“It still gives us optimism that with the mood music changing around the Northern Ireland Protocol, hopefully, hopefully, association with Horizon Europe ends up being a win-win that would follow on quickly,” he said.

Russia tests anti-satellite missile and the US Space Force is not happy

Source: Live Science

April 17 2020

By Chelsea Gohd 

Russia just fired an anti-satellite missile in a test of technology that the U.S. Space Force considers a threat to American orbital assets.

On Wednesday (April 15), Russia conducted a test of its direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile system, which is designed to destroy satellites in low Earth orbit.

This test followed the country's on-orbit test maneuvers of two satellites that "exhibited characteristics of a space weapon," COSMOS 2542 and COSMOS 2543, which the U.S. has been closely following, the U.S. Space Force said in a statement. In February, the U.S. Space Force spotted these Russian satellites following a U.S. spy satellite, behavior that Space Force commander Gen. John "Jay" Raymond described at the time as "unusual and disturbing."

After being sworn in as the first Chief of Space Operations by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Gen. John Raymond addresses the audience in the Executive Eisenhower Office Building, Washington, D.C., on Jan. 14, 2020. (Image credit: U.S. Air Force Photo by Andy Morataya)
The U.S. Space Force also has serious concerns about this recent DA-ASAT missile test. "Russia's DA-ASAT test provides yet another example that the threats to U.S. and allied space systems are real, serious and growing," Raymond said in the statement. "The United States is ready and committed to deterring aggression and defending the nation, our allies and U.S. interests from hostile acts in space."

"This test is further proof of Russia's hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control proposals designed to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting their counterspace weapons programs," Raymond added. "Space is critical to all nations and our way of life. The demands on space systems continue in this time of crisis where global logistics, transportation and communication are key to defeating the COVID-19 pandemic."

"It is a shared interest and responsibility of all spacefaring nations to create safe, stable and operationally sustainable conditions for space activities, including commercial, civil and national security activities," he said.

After being sworn in as the first Chief of Space Operations by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Gen. John Raymond addresses the audience in the Executive Eisenhower Office Building, Washington, D.C., on Jan. 14, 2020. (Image credit: U.S. Air Force Photo by Andy Morataya)

In February, when the two Russian satellites were seen seemingly "stalking" a U.S. spysat, it was the first time in history that the U.S. military publicly revealed an identified, direct threat from another country to a U.S. satellite. Yesterday's test, as described by Raymond, is another threat to U.S. space systems and resources in low Earth orbit.

However, anti-satellite weapons have also posed an indirect threat to U.S. satellites, because orbital debris, or "space junk," from damaged and destroyed spacecraft could collide with other satellites in orbit. For example, India launched an anti-satellite test in March 2019 that created at least 60 large pieces of orbital debris that NASA said could have potentially hit the International Space Station, putting astronauts' lives at risk.

The Space Force, which was allocated $15.4 billion in the Trump administration's 2021 budget proposal, was created in part to protect such resources. Satellites and technology in low Earth orbit have become increasingly more valuable as tech advances and as countries increasingly adopt space technologies for national security purposes.

This has become especially pertinent for the U.S. as both Russia and China continue to advance their space programs and capabilities in low Earth orbit. Additionally, these actions by Russia could add to political tensions that were already building between Russia and the U.S. because of allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In addition, Russian officials continue to trumpet the development of advanced, potentially threatening military technology, including a hypersonic weapon and a 100-megaton nuclear torpedo.

Without Covid-19 vaccine, US may need social distancing until 2022

Source: France24

April 15 2020

The United States may need to endure social distancing measures adopted during the coronavirus outbreak until 2022, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study comes as more than 2,200 people died in the United States from the outbreak on Tuesday, a record, according to a REUTERS tally, even as the country debated how to reopen its economy. The overall death toll in the US from the virus stands at more than 28,300 as of Tuesday.

"Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available", the Harvard researchers said in findings published Tuesday in the journal Science.

Giving examples of South Korea and Singapore, the researchers wrote that effective distancing could reduce the strain on healthcare systems and enable contact tracing and quarantine to be feasible.

Harvard researchers: "Under current critical care capacities, however, the overall duration of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic could last into 2022, requiring social distancing measures to be in place between 25% and 75% of that time."

Full report: https://t.co/nr48lNwQ3x— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) April 14, 2020

The study acknowledged that prolonged distancing would most likely have profoundly negative economic, social, and educational consequences.

The study added that even in the case of "apparent elimination", SARS-CoV-2 surveillance should still be maintained, as a resurgence in contagion may be possible as late as 2024.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that infections had "certainly" not yet peaked. Nearly 2 million people globally have been infected and more than 124,000 have died in the most serious pandemic in a century.

The epicenter has shifted from China, where the virus emerged in December, to the United States, which has now recorded the most deaths.

The Republics of the former USSR, CIA, 1991

The ballot paper used in the UKraine referendum back in 1991, with the text of the Declaration of Independence printed on it.

From Wikipedia:

"A referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991. A majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence made by the Verkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991.

The referendum

Voters were asked "Do you support the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine?" The text of the Declaration was included as a preamble to the question. The referendum was called by the Parliament of Ukraine to confirm the Act of Independence, which was adopted by the Parliament on 24 August 1991. Citizens of Ukraine expressed overwhelming support for independence. In the referendum, 31,891,742 registered voters (or 84.18% of the electorate) took part, and among them 28,804,071 (or 92.3%) voted "Yes".

On the same day, a presidential election took place. All six candidates campaigned in favour of a "Yes" vote in the independence referendum. Leonid Kravchuk, the parliament chairman and de facto head of state, was elected to serve as the first President of Ukraine.

From 2 December 1991 on Ukraine was globally recognized as an independent state (by other countries). That day thePresident of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin did the same.[6] In a telegram of congratulations President of the Soviet UnionMikhail Gorbachev sent to Kravchuk soon after the referendum, Gorbachev included his hopes for close Ukrainian cooperation and understanding in "the formation of a union of sovereign states".

Ukraine was the second-most powerful republic in the Soviet Union both economically and politically (behind only Russia), and its secession ended any realistic chance of Gorbachev keeping the Soviet Union together. By December 1991 all former Soviet Republics except the RSFSR[8] and the Kazakh SSR[8] had also proclaimed themselves independent.[9] A week after his election, Kravchuk joined with Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislau Shushkevich in signing the Belavezha Accords, which declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.The Soviet Union officially dissolved on December 26."

The Rebublics of the former USSR: The Outlook for the next Year

Netanyahu: speech to US Congress about 'the very survival of my country'

 The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, speaks to his Likud party members during a campaign event near Tel Aviv on Monday. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

Πηγή: The Guardian
By Dan Roberts in Washington

Feb 10 2015

The diplomatic stand-off between Binyamin Netanyahu and US Democrats worsened on Tuesday as more congressmen threatened to boycott a speech by the Israeli prime minister that he claimed was about “the very survival of my country”.

Netanyahu repeatedly defended his decision to accept an invitation from Republican leaders to address a joint session of Congress that the White House has called a partisan breach of protocol.

“I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the President, but to speak up for very survival of my country,” said the prime minister in of one several English-language tweets seemingly aimed directly at the US public.
— בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) February 10, 2015

I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the President, but to speak up for very survival of my country.

“I intend to speak in the US Congress because Congress might have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran,” he added, receiving over 4,000 retweets after asking followers if they supported his “determination” to speak in Congress.

Earlier, Patrick Leahy, the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate, became the latest senior figure to say he would not be attending next month’s address which was arranged by the House speaker, John Boehner, to highlight differences between Israel and Barack Obama over negotiations with Iran to prevent it developing nuclear weapons.

“The unfortunate way that House leaders have unilaterally arranged this, and then heavily politicised it, has demolished the potential constructive value of this Joint Meeting,” said Leahy in a statement. “They have orchestrated a tawdry and high-handed stunt that has embarrassed not only Israel but the Congress itself.”

Critics claim that by accepting the invitation just two weeks before Israeli elections and without seeking approval from the White House, Netayahu is overtly polarising relations between the two countries along partisan lines.

“It has long been an unwritten rule and practice through the decades that when it comes to American foreign policy, we speak and act thoughtfully, with one voice when we can, with the national interests of the United States as our uppermost consideration, and with caution about the unintended consequences of unilateral actions like this,” added Leahy. “They have diminished that valuable precedent.”

On Monday, independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who normally votes with Democrats and once worked on a kibbutz, said it was wrong for Netanyahu not to have consulted more with Obama before accepting the invitation from Boehner.

A running tally of Democrats pledging to skip the speech collated by the Hill newspaper currently stands at 14 House representatives and three senators including Sanders and Leahy.

On Monday, the Washington-based Israeli-American lobby group J-Street, which also opposes the visit, wrote to all members of Congress asking them to urge Boehner to postpone it until after Israel’s election.

“One of the chief objections to the visit – and the reason so many supporters of Israel including prominent American Jewish leaders like Abe Foxman and Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Reform Movement, have asked the Prime Minister to postpone his appearance – is the possibility that the speech will be used to advance the Netanyahu campaign,” says its letter.

“Our Congress should not be used as a prop in another nation’s election. One of the central elements that underpins the alliance between our two nations is our common commitment to democracy and elections. That means that both nations stay out of the other’s democratic process.

Why some Muslims want to kill the Yazidis by genocide

Πηγή: New York Post
By Amir Taheri
Aug 17 2014

To hear President Obama tell it, one might think that recent bombing raids by the US against jihadist positions between Mosul and Erbil in northern Iraq have already removed the threat of extermination posed against the Yazidis, a religious minority driven out of its ancestral home by the Islamic State of self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Displaced Yazidi’s cross the Iraqi-Syrian border at the Fishkhabur crossing in northern Iraq.Photo: Getty Images

However, several Yazidi spokesmen reached over the past few days insist that tens of thousands of people are still facing extermination — and on Friday, 80 Yazidis were massacred by IS fighters.

“Our people are dying of hunger, thirst and disease,” says Magdi al-Yazidi. “Those who have not left their homes are prisoners in their besieged villages around el-Qush and Shaikhan. They are simply coming to realize and old dream of fanatical Islamic rulers: wiping our community off the face of the earth.”

The Islamic State’ self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-BaghdadiPhoto: AP

“It has always been a dream of Islamic rulers to wipe us out,” Emir Muawwyyah bin Ismail, the leader of the Yazidis, told me back in the 1980s when he was forced into exile by Saddam Hussein.

The Emir had ended up in Paris after a long trek out of Iraq through Syria. Hussein had given him a choice between death and exile after the Emir issued a statement banning Yazidis from joining the despot’s army for a war against Iran.

After an initial meeting with the Emir, I managed to persuade him to speak about his community, its history and the Yazidi faith. He did, thus ending almost 15 centuries of esoteric tradition under which Yazidis pretended to be some sort of Muslims.

“The pretension was necessary to avoid genocide,” he told me.

Displaced Yazidi’sPhoto: Reuters; AP; Reuters; Reuters; Reuters; Getty Images; Getty Images; AP

Our conversations lasted over some six months and resulted in a book published under the title “To Us Spoke Zarathustra.”

A portrait of the prophet Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion that was the dominant religion in Persia before the Arab conquest.Photo: Getty Images

As far as fanatical Muslims are concerned, Yazidis must be classified among the heathen because they do not belong to any of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Under Islamic rules, Jews and Christians are regarded as “people of the book” and thus could live among Muslims provided they pay a protection fee known as “dhimma.” Even if they wanted to, Yazidis cannot make use of that provision because they regard themselves as followers of Zoroaster, a prophet of ancient Iranian peoples who preached around 700 BC.

The belief system starts with the assertion that there is but one God, variously known as Izad, Yazdan or Xweda (Khoda in Persian).

Their one God shares the basic traits of Ahura-Mazda, the Wise God of Zoroaster. It is Ahura-Mazda who decided that a world should be created. But he subcontracts the task to a demiurge figure known as Tavous Malek (“The Peacock Angel”) who, assisted by six other angels each representing an aspect of natural life, shape the world as man knows it. As might have been expected, the sub-contractors, not having God’s divine infallibility, make some mistakes which leads to the emergence of evil in the world.

The Faravahar, a popular symbol of Zoroastrianism.Photo: Getty Images

In that context, the Good God needs the help of human beings to fight evil in a series of three battles, at the end of which the fate of the universe is decided forever. Thus, the Yazidis faith is the only religion in which God needs help from human beings, a concept that scandalizes fanatical Muslims who regard Allah as omnipotent and infallible. The Yazidi god can enter into a conversation with man; Allah cannot.

Man could help god by becoming “truly human,” Yazidis assert. According to one of their proverbs: “Just as the best sword is the sharpest, the best man is the most human.”

A view of the Bajed Kadal refugee camp, south west of Dohuk, Iraq where displaced Yazidi’s are staying after fleeing the violence of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Reuters

A peaceful people opposed to violence and bloodshed, Yazidis believe that no cause is worth killing people for, something that scandalizes fanatical Muslims who regard the spread of “The Only True Faith” by sword as a duty and the man who does it as the “Ghazi” (Holy Warrior) who is assured a place in paradise.

Displaced Yazidi’s travel towards the Syrian border.Photo: Reuters

The Yazidis tradition of equality between men and women, including the rejection of polygamy, also scandalizes their fanatical Muslim neighbors.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces hand out water bottles to Yazidi’s as they cross the Iraqi-Syrian border.Photo: Getty Images

Arab Sunnis also hate Yazidis because of their language, a variety of Kurdish, itself one of the 18 Iranic languages still alive in Western Asia.

The Yazidis claim to be the oldest religious community with a continuous existence in its own land. That may well be the case, at least as far as he estimated 600,000 Yazidis who live in Iraq are concerned. There are a further 1.8 million Yazidis in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Transcaucasia not to mention almost a million others in exile in more than 50 countries across the globe.

Iraq has always been a mosaic of peoples and faith. Six decades ago, 20% of Baghdad’s population consisted of Jews. Today there are only six Jews in the whole of Iraq. The Armenia community has shrunk by almost 90% while other Christian communities are also shrinking. Caliph Abu Bakr ’s dream is to have an Iraq empty of all non-Muslims so that he could embark on his second phase of his “purification” by organizing genocide against Shiites regarded as deviant Muslims.

The Caliph dreams of a hecatomb in Iraq. He must be stopped.

Greece swamped by illegals from North Africa, Mideast

Christos P. Panagopoulos

Πηγή: Washington Times
By Shaun Waterman
Feb 3 2013

Greece has been hit by a “devastating” wave of illegal immigration from chaos induced by Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and continued instability in South and Central Asia, according to Athens’ Ambassador to the United States Christos P. Panagopoulos.

“For a country of 10.11 million, to have 1 million [immigrants], most of them illegal in a period of hardship and economic crisis, it’s devastating,” he told editors and reporters of The Washington Times.

Greece, also suffering from economic upheaval because of a huge national debt, has imposed stiff austerity measures, precipitating a recession that has left the country with an unemployment rate of more than 25 percent and public unrest.

Mr. Panagopoulos said most of the illegal immigrants came from countries in “destabilized regions,” like Pakistan, Afghanistan and more recently Libya and Syria, the latter engulfed in a 23-month-long civil war. Most entered Greece across the short land border or long, island-dappled maritime frontier with Turkey.

“Unfortunately, our Turkish friends are not very cooperative on this issue,” he said.

Turkey had sought to link cooperation on border enforcement against third-country nationals to what the ambassador called the “unrelated” issue of visa-free travel into Greece by Turkish citizens, leading to an impasse on the question.

“Most of these people,” Mr. Panagopoulos said of the illegal entrants, do not see Greece as their final destination.

“They are not [aiming to stay in] Greece because they know there is an economic crisis [there.] They use Greece as a transit [point] to other European countries … and eventually to Germany, which is where most of them hope to get to,” he said.

But the ambassador said that barriers such as the Balkan mountains to the north and border control agents on the ferries to Italy block their goal of reaching Germany.

“Ninety-nine percent, they stay in Greece,” he said.

Because many claimed asylum under international refugee conventions, they cannot be legally deported without a lengthy and expensive legal process. While they remain, Mr. Panagopoulos said, “They have needs” for food, shelter and clothing.

“Under the current circumstances, Greece cannot afford this burden by itself,” he said, adding that Greece has raised the issue with European Union officials.

“Up to now — let me say cynically — that we get all the good words; but when it comes to practical measures, we don’t have that much support,” he said of Greece’s EU partners.

Greece has also failed to persuade other European nations that the wave of illegal immigration is also their problem.

“If you reside in France or the Nordic countries, you will think, ‘Oh, it’s a bad thing, but it doesn’t affect me,’” he said.

More than 22,000 people were caught trying to cross into the European Union in the last three months of 2012, with nearly 9,000 of them attempting to come through the Greek-Turkish frontier, according to the EU border-control agency Frontex.

Analysts generally say that cross-border apprehensions are an imperfect measure of illegal migration, because the number excludes those who successfully sneak across. But most agree it is one of the better measures available, at least to detect trends.

Mr. Panagopoulos said up to 300 people every day successfully cross the Turkish border into Greece illegally, calling the number the equivalent of the population of a small Greek village.

“It is a village every single day,” he said. “It’s devastating for a small country such as ours

According to Frontex, the most common nationalities caught trying to enter the EU in the first half of 2012 were Afghans, Algerians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. But later in the year, Frontex detected a huge jump in the number of immigrants from Syria.

“Some of them are coming as a result of the aftermath of the Arab Spring,” the ambassador said.

Report: US Drone Attacks Escalate in Yemen

As many as 104 civillians killed as a result of US drones in Yemen, report finds

Πηγή: Common Dreams
March 29 2012

The United States has significantly ramped up drone attacks in Yemen in the last year, according to a report done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The report concludes that drone attacks "against alleged militants in Yemen have risen steeply during the Arab spring, and are currently at the same level as the CIA’s controversial drone campaign" in Pakistan.

"At least 26 US military and CIA strikes involving cruise missiles, aircraft, drones or naval bombardments have taken place in the volatile Gulf nation to date, killing hundreds of alleged militants linked to the regional al Qaeda franchise," the report concluded. "But at least 54 civilians have died too, the study found."

There have been as many as 34 drone attacks in Yemen since May of 2011, the report said, which is more than the total number of drone attacks in the country going back 10 years. In total, a range of 275 – 516 have been killed by the attacks, and between 54 -104 of them have been civillians.

All but one of the strikes have taken place under President Obama, who has taken a personal interest in the Yemen campaign. By the time he came to office al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had grown to become, in his words, ‘a network of violence and terror’ that had attracted a number of US citizens to its cause, including radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

AQAP even began publishing online propaganda magazines in English, and was behind a number of attempted terrorist attacks against the US, the UK and their allies.

With the CIA heavily engaged in Iraq and Pakistan, the job of crushing AQAP was handed to the Pentagon’s elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) – the same unit that had captured Saddam Hussein and would later kill Osama bin Laden.

But from the start, JSOC’s operations were mired in controversy.

Acting on intelligence that an AQAP meeting was taking place in the southern Yemen desert on December 17 2009, JSOC launched at least one cruise missile loaded with cluster bombs at the gathering. A Yemen parliamentary commission later found that 14 alleged militants died in the attack. But so too did 44 civilians.

US drone raids in Yemen 'kill hundreds' (Al Jazeera English):

Cain Says He Would Back Israel Attack on Iran If Plan Credible

Πηγή: Bloomberg
Nov 22 2011

Republican contenders attacked President Barack Obama on Iran’s steps toward a nuclear weapon, calling in a national security debate for aggressive action from supporting an Israeli attack to imposing crushing sanctions that risk higher oil prices.

Businessman Herman Cain said that he would support Israel in an attack on Iran if there was a “credible” plan.

“I would support Israel if it was clear what the mission was,” Cain said during a candidates’ debate in Washington. His support he said would also be conditioned on the “definition of success” of such an attack.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, leading candidate in the latest polls, said that “no bombing campaign in Iran that leaves the regime in place would be useful.”

“Replacing the regime before they get a nuclear weapon without a war beats replacing the regime with war, which beats allowing them to have a nuclear weapon,” said Gingrich, who has supported increased covert action.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said sanctions on Iran, which were stepped up this week by Obama, should be still tougher even if it crippled Iran’s oil industry.

“I know it’s going to make gasoline more expensive,” he said. “There’s no price that is worth an Iranian nuclear weapon.”

The eight Republican hopefuls debated national security at Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall, a short walk from the White House, hosted by CNN and two non-profit policy groups, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Israel Attack

Cain, Romney, Gingrich, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, Texas Representative Ron Paul, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania participated.

Paul criticized Cain’s willingness to assist Israel with an attack on Israel.

“If they want to bomb something, it’s their business and they should face their consequences,” Paul said. “Israel is quite capable of taking care of themselves.”

Romney vowed to take his first foreign trip as president to Israel “to show that we support them.”

The Obama administration yesterday expanded measures aimed at thwarting Iran’s nuclear program, targeting its the banking system and oil industry with actions intended to cut the regime off from international financial transactions.

The measures, coordinated with sanctions by the U.K. and Canada, are in response to a Nov. 8 report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency which cited evidence pointing to clandestine nuclear weapons development activities by Iran.

Lifetime of Danger

On the subject of terrorism, Gingrich said that the U.S. must strengthen tools to detect and prevent threats because “all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives.”

Those steps include extending the USA Patriot Act, which provides U.S. law enforcement with extra powers, he said.

“You want to use every tool you can possibly use to gather intelligence,” Gingrich said. “The dangers are literally that great.”

Paul immediately tangled with Gingrich, warning against giving up liberty in exchange for security. “You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights,”he said.

U.S. to China: Raise You a Hypersonic Bomb

Πηγή: politic365
By Justin Velez-Hagan
Nov 22 2011

In what is sure to excite everyone from war-mongering hawks to peace-loving hippies, the U.S. may have just developed a bomb that will end all threats and get our troops back on American soil.

When I first heard that taxpayer-financed R&D dollars at the Pentagon have resulted in the creation of a bomb that can be launched from any point on the planet to target any other spot on Earth – within an HOUR – my testosterone started pumping. I’m no military strategist, but add the fact that the target will not even hear the missile coming and one term comes to mind: “game changer.”

The new Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) project has created flying bombs capable of traveling up to 16,000 miles per hour, nearly 21 times the speed of sound, are fully maneuverable, and able to hit the other side of the planet more than 12,000 miles away in the time it takes to get Chinese takeout. No, this is not a Sci-Fi Channel movie preview.

Lookout al-Qaeda: the only sounds you’re going to hear are the footsteps of your approaching 72 virgins.

But, with a price tag that has already hit $240 million this year ($69 million just on the recent AHW test), according to the Congressional Research Service, and a Defense budget that is expected to see drastic cuts in the near future, many are wondering whether or not we can afford these kinds of investments.

In reality, we can’t afford not to.

Although China and Russia aren’t considered enemies, they aren’t exactly staunch allies either. Both continue to demonstrate just how badly they want to become dominant military superpowers. Chinese defense spending has increased more than 10% each year over the last 20 years and is now expected to be close to $150 billion this year. With that money they have managed to create their own stealth fighter jet, an aircraft carrier, an advanced naval fleet and and anti-ship missiles, all of which are threatening U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

Since 2000, Russia has more than doubled its defense spending, with plans to increase it by another 60% by 2013. Russia further plans to update its military by investing more than $650 billion over the next decade. Forget gold – I’m going to invest in Russian defense contractors.

Both countries’ spending pales in comparison to the U.S.’s yearly defense budget of nearly $700 billion, but the difference is where the money is spent. As the U.S. defense budget has been targeted for cuts within programs designed to modernize and advance our fighting capabilities, China and Russia are spending the bulk of their dollars on doing the opposite.

Most consider worldwide stability dependent upon the U.S.’s military superiority over other countries. But what if our investments in military spending were spent more wisely, giving us a strategic advantage that doesn’t inherently create a fiscal and economic disadvantage?

Clearly that is the intent of the AHW program. With the capability of accurately destroying enemy targets from safe locations back in the U.S., the need to maintain high troop levels across the globe can be reduced. Even Cindy Sheehan and George W. Bush can agree on the benefits of this strategy.

I hear over and over the argument made that we need to outspend our enemies, no matter the cost. At a time when our debt has reached more than $15 trillion, our military is spread thin in conflicts around the world, and the so-called “super committee” can’t get its act together, we have to make a choice between our national defense and our national economy.

In reality, however, the answer is not what we spend, but how we spend it. The new AHW program may not be the be all and end all, but developments like this will help us maintain military dominance, decrease unnecessary spending in conflict theaters around the world, and is one of our last hopes for actually bringing our troops home without risking national security.

If nothing else, at least the U.S. can continue to brag that we have the biggest and baddest guns in the world. As a member of the military, with thousands of my brothers and sisters overseas fighting enemies who wish they could say the same, that’s good enough for me. (Cue patriotic song of your choice).

Justin Vélez-Hagan is Senior Contributing Writer and Commentator for Politic365.com. He is also the National Executive Director of The National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, an international developer of senior living facilities and a reservist in the U.S. Air Force. He can be reached at Justin@Politic365.com.

US sued for $25 billion over AIG takeover

AIG's CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg

Πηγή: Arab News
By JONATHAN STEMPEL (Reuters)

Nov 21 2011

WASHINGTON: A company run by former American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg sued the United States government for $25 billion, calling the 2008 US takeover of the insurer unconstitutional.

The lawsuit marks an unusual effort to force the government to pay shareholders, who have seen AIG’s stock price tumble 98 percent since the middle of 2007, when the insurer’s risky bets on mortgage debt through credit default swaps began to falter.

Greenberg’s company filed a separate, related lawsuit against the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Starr International Co, which once had a 12 percent stake in AIG and was its largest shareholder, said the government illegally took a nearly 80 percent AIG stake without seeking a shareholder vote, hoping to provide a “backdoor bailout” for AIG trading partners such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

It said the bailouts that began on Sept. 16, 2008 violated shareholders’ rights to due process and equal protection, and a Fifth Amendment ban against taking private property for public use without just compensation, known as the “takings clause.”

Greenberg, 86, runs Starr, and had led AIG for nearly four decades prior to his 2005 ouster.

“The government’s actions were ostensibly designed to protect the United States economy and rescue the country’s financial system,” David Boies, a lawyer for Starr, said in the complaint.

“Although this might be a laudable goal, as a matter of basic law, the ends could not and did not justify the unlawful means employed,” he continued. “The government is not empowered to trample shareholder and property rights even in the midst of a financial emergency.”

Shareholders of other companies, including mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bank Citigroup Inc, also saw their holdings diluted in the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. It is unclear whether Starr’s constitutional arguments might apply to them.


Uphill fight?

Starr sued the government in the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., which handles lawsuits seeking money from the government.

It sued the New York Fed, which gave AIG an initial $85 billion credit line, in the US District Court in Manhattan. The bailouts eventually totaled $182.3 billion.

Despite broad public anger at how bailouts were conducted, it is “hard to imagine Hank winning,” Adam Levitin, a professor at Georgetown Law School, said in e-mailed comments.

Levitin noted that the AIG bailout had been approved by the insurer’s board, and that the terms “arguably” were fair.

The US Treasury Department said it is reviewing the matter and expects to defend its actions vigorously.

“The government provided assistance to AIG — and stopped it from collapsing — in order to prevent a meltdown of the entire global financial system,” Tim Massad, assistant secretary for financial stability, said in a statement. “Our actions were necessary, legal, and constitutional.”

A New York Fed spokesman and AIG spokesman Mark Herr declined to comment. AIG was named as a nominal defendant in both lawsuits.

The $25 billion estimate reflects what Starr called the value of the government’s stake on Jan. 14, 2011, when it swapped AIG preferred stock for 562.9 million common shares. AIG was once the world’s largest insurer by market value.

“Courts have recognized that the takings clause can apply to intangible property such as shareholder rights,” said Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor who has written about the takings clause. “It is not clear how valuable these rights are, especially given all of AIG’s liabilities.”


Discriminatory, punitive bailout alleged

The bailouts began one day after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went bankrupt and Bank of America Corp. agreed to buy Merrill Lynch & Co.

But according to Starr, the AIG bailout was done as “a vehicle to covertly funnel billions of dollars to other preferred financial institutions” such as Goldman.

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment.

Starr also called the 14.5 percent interest rate on the $85 billion credit line “punitive,” and out of line with aid provided to comparable companies at the time.

The government’s AIG stake has fallen to about 77 percent.

AIG itself in August sued Bank of America for $10 billion over alleged losses on mortgage securities.

Greenberg stepped down from AIG amid questions by regulators over its accounting practices. AIG in 2006 paid $1.64 billion to settle federal and state probes into its business practices, and in July 2010 agreed to pay $725 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit accusing it of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation.

Starr’s counsel Boies is a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner. One of the best-known US lawyers, he represented Vice President Al Gore after the 2000 presidential election, and now represents players locked out by the National Basketball Association. He was not immediately available for further comment on Monday.

In afternoon trading, AIG shares were down 82 cents, or 3.7 percent, at $21.06 on the New York Stock Exchange, amid broad declines in US stock prices.

The cases are Starr International Co. v. US, US Court of Federal Claims, No. 11-00779; and Starr International Co. v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-08422.

CIA Contractor Arrested In Highlands Ranch After Parking Spot Fight

Πηγή: 7news
By Apostolos Papapostolou

Oct 1 2011

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. -- The CIA contractor who was freed from a Pakistani prison after the U.S. paid $2.3 million in blood money was arrested Saturday morning in Highlands Ranch after he fought with another man over a parking spot, CALL7 Investigators have learned.

Raymond Allen Davis was arrested outside an Einstein Bros Bagels at the Town Center at Highlands Ranch, at Highlands Ranch Parkway and South Broadway, sources close to the investigation told Call7 Investigator Tony Kovaleski.

Sources told Kovaleski that Davis and another man with him had been arguing with a third man about a parking spot when the verbal argument escalated into a physical altercation.

In the argument, Davis was the aggressor, reliable sources said.

The 50-year-old victim was treated at the scene and released.

Deputies with the Douglas County Sheriff's Office were called around 9 a.m.

Davis was taken into custody on misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and disorderly conduct. He was released after posting $1,750 bond.

Davis informed responding deputies who he was and said that the press would be following this and he would appreciate it if authorities kept his arrest out of the press, according to sources.

The Douglas County Sherriff's Office treated his arrest like any other case, but once they confirmed his identity, the sheriff's office had to follow protocol and notify Colorado's highest ranking law enforcement office, the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

The sheriff's office is still working on a report, which is expected to be released on Monday.

Davis was jailed in a Pakistani prison on Jan. 27, after he shot and killed two Pakistani men as he sat in his car.

Davis, a 36-year-old Virginia native, said he shot the two men in self-defense as they tried to rob him in late January. He claimed the two men attacked him as he drove through a busy Lahore neighborhood.

He was charged with two counts of murder in March and then released after the families of the two Pakistanis he killed pardoned him in exchange for compensation or "blood money."

The payment of "blood money" to the families, sanctioned under Pakistani law, was considered by Davis' attorney as the best way to get out of the crisis.

The killings triggered a fresh wave of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and were testing an alliance seen as key to defeating al-Qaida and ending the war in Afghanistan.

The tensions were especially sharp between the CIA and Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence, its spy agency, which said it did not know Davis was operating in the country. One ISI official said the agency had backed the "blood money" deal as way of soothing tensions.

The United States initially described Davis as either a U.S. consular or embassy official, and claimed he had diplomatic immunity. But officials later acknowledged he was working for the CIA, confirming suspicions that had aired in the Pakistani media.

7NEWS confirmed Davis owns a security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, which is contracted to do work for the U.S. government. He used to work for Blackwater as a security employee.

Iranian Navy Plans to Send Ships Near U.S. Waters

Feb. 22: The Iranian navy frigate IS Alvand passes through the Suez canal at Ismailia, Egypt.

Πηγή: Foxnews
By Justin Fishel
Sep. 27 2011


The Iranian navy plans to move naval vessels out of the Persian Gulf and into the Atlantic Ocean, "near maritime borders of the United States," the Tehran Times reported Tuesday.

According to the English-language paper based in Tehran, the announcement came from a top Iranian naval officer on Tuesday.

“As the global arrogance (forces of imperialism) have a (military) presence near our sea borders, we also plan to have a strong presence near the U.S. sea borders with the help of the soldiers who are loyal to the vali-e faqih (supreme jurisprudent),” said Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, as quoted and paraphrased by the Tehran Times.

"We've been pushing freedom of the seas for years and the Iranian navy can go wherever it wants," said Pentagon Spokesman Capt. John Kirby.

Iranians might face a challenge in refueling its fleet. Some in the Pentagon have speculated it could gas up in Venezuela, whose President, Hugo Chavez, is known to have a close relationship with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranians gave no indication of when or what kind of vessels they might deploy, but the announced plan comes just months after Iran sent warships through the Suez following the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It was the first time Iran had moved ships into the Mediterranean and the move put Israel on high alert.

The naval unit plans to establish direct contact with the U.S. when it hits the Gulf of Mexico, a commander in the Iranian navy said. Officials in the Pentagon strongly denied any planned port visits by the Iranians.

One senior official echoed Capt. Kirby in saying that Iran has the pleasure of moving wherever it desires in international waters. But with known intent to approach U.S. maritime borders, he added, "they might have some company."

$30 bln of US war money gone to crooks and wasters

Πηγή: RT
30/8/2010


The US wasted at least one dollar out of six on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which amounts to about US $30 billion, a bipartisan commission found. The sum may double in future, as foreign governments abandon unsustainable projects funded by the US.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is to report its sobering findings on Wednesday, but co-chairs Christopher Shays and Michael Thibault made parts of it public on Monday in an op-ed article in the Washington Post.

“Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted through poor planning, vague and shifting requirements, inadequate competition, substandard contract management and oversight, lax accountability, weak inter-agency co-ordination, and sub-par performance or outright misconduct by some contractors and federal employees. Both government and contractors need to do better,” they say.

The Pentagon has been increasingly reliant on contractors to wage war over the decades. In Afghanistan and Iraq, on average, there was one private contractor for each troop serving, with the total number of contractors at times exceeding 260,000. Now America “cannot conduct large or prolonged military operations without contractor support.”

The sheer scale of private firms’ operation aggravated by lack of accountability caused a fresh set of problems and has harmed US interests in a number of ways, the authors say.

“Our final report shows that the costs of contracting waste and fraud extend beyond the disservice to taxpayers. The costs include diminishing US military, diplomatic and development efforts; fostering corruption in host countries; and undermining US standing and influence overseas,” they say.

“Poor planning, federal understaffing and over-reliance led to billions of dollars of contracts awarded without effective competition, legions of foreign subcontractors not subject to US laws, private security guards performing tasks that can easily escalate into combat, unprosecuted instances of apparent fraud, and projects that are unlikely to be sustained by the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan,” the authors add.

The potential waste from unfinished or unsustainable projects is a problem, which may equal in scale that of actual waste from poor handling of direct expenditures. Some of the examples of this are $40 million invested in a prison in Iraq which Baghdad did not want and that was never finished, and $300 million poured into a Kabul power plant which the Afghan government has neither the money nor the technical skills to use. The money came from US taxpayers and is likely to simply vanish down the drain.

The commission has prepared a set of recommendations for Congress and the US administration to approve, which they hope will improve the situation.

The Pentagon say they are aware of the problem, but refused to comment on the commission’s findings until the report is published.

"We are well aware of some of the deficiencies over the years in how we have worked contracts," said Marine Corps Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. "We have worked hard over those years to try to correct those deficiencies when we come across them."

"There have been many instances because of wartime needs where a long lengthy competitive bid contract process does not serve the needs of the war-fighters," he said. "In many instances it's a matter of saving lives, doing things more quickly because of the nature of conflict."

The Department of Defense has been under increasing scrutiny recently, as the US government seeks ways to reduce the budget deficit. Lately, the Pentagon was targeted for overspending on risky weapon R&D projects, buying aircraft spare parts at inflated prices and paying money to shady Afghan transport companies possibly linked to the Taliban, among other things. The sums allegedly mishandled in all such cases range from tens of millions to billions of dollars.

Iran's "nuclear partner" Russia seeks to revive global talks

Πηγή: Reuters
By Robin Pomeroy

Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:35am EDT

Russia will look to revive nuclear talks between Iran and the world's biggest economic and military powers this week, hoping its special relationship with Tehran can help jolt back to life negotiations that some analysts consider "dead in the water."

Presidential Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev is due to meet his Iranian counterpart and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Monday and is expected to raise a Russian plan to restart the talks that collapsed in January.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. President Barack Obama in July of Moscow's "step-by-step" approach under which Iran could address questions about its nuclear program and be rewarded with a gradual easing of sanctions imposed by countries that fear Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

With Israel and Washington both keeping open the possibility of launching pre-emptive strikes on Iran to stop it getting nuclear weapons, the negotiations are a possible way of avoiding what analysts say would be highly risky military action.

But after the failure of the last talks, between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany (known as the EU3+3 or P5+1), in Istanbul in January, few analysts expect a breakthrough.

Russia backed a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran in June 2010 but has criticized tighter measures imposed unilaterally by the United States and the European Union and emphasized its opposition to military action.

So Tehran might be more receptive to an approach from Moscow than one from the West -- the E3+3's delegation is led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

"It's certainly easier for Iran to respond to a Russian gambit than to Western pressure. The E3+3 negotiating efforts with Iran are stuck dead in the water," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"If Russia's plan can get Iran to the negotiating table, then great. Talks have to start somehow."

PARTNER

Not only is Moscow not part of the Western alliance Iran sees as its greatest enemy, it is also involved in developing part of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, as builder of its first atomic power plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast.

"Russia has maintained a long-standing relationship with Iran, effectively it is a partner in Iran's nuclear program through its construction of the Bushehr nuclear plant, and has never shown the slightest ambition of changing the government of Iran," said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii.

But, Farhi said, the "step-by-step" approach mentioned by Lavrov did not appear to be substantively new, and it looked less, not more, likely to work that it had before.

"Tying Iran's step-by-step moves to reduction of sanctions is something that has not worked and it works even less now that so many sanctions against Iran are unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress and cannot be negotiated by representatives of executive branches in both countries."

While Ahmadinejad maintains the sanctions are having no impact, other officials have started admitting some of the measures -- particularly ones that restrict Iran's access to foreign banks -- are hurting the economy.

Any new talks are likely to focus on concerns about Iran's nuclear enrichment which a U.N. Security Council resolution requires it to stop but which Tehran says it is entitled to do as a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it is enriching uranium for electricity production and medical applications.

But its decision last year to raise the level of enrichment from the 3.5 percent purity needed for normal power plant fuel to 20 percent worried countries that saw it as a significant step toward the 90 percent needed for bombs.

Far from reducing its uranium enrichment program, Tehran has stepped it up, announcing in June it would triple its production capacity of higher grade fuel and shift that work to an underground bunker that would be less vulnerable to a military strike.

"Iran will try to persuade Russia and China to accept its precondition of accepting its right to enrichment before sitting down at the table," said Fitzpatrick. "Russia and China don't see eye-to-eye with the U.S. and the Europeans, and ... Iran will seek to exploit the differences."

While Tehran has welcomed Russian know-how in developing nuclear power, it has become increasingly frustrated by successive delays in the project which was initially started by Germany's Siemens in 1975, but has yet to start working.

Some Iranians suspect the latest delays might be a deliberate attempt by Russia to gain leverage over Tehran, a view shared by Russian analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.

"I can imagine that there are some real technical problems, but also since this is the only means now at Russia's disposal to influence Iran maybe Russia is trying to push Iran toward a more constructive position by finding new 'technical problems'," said Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.

Russia has also declined to deliver an S-300 air defense system Iran had ordered, winning applause from Israel which said the arms could help fend off any future strike but infuriating Tehran. Medvedev banned export in September, saying it would violate the expanded U.N. sanctions.

Iraq, U.S. and SOFA: Legal Immunity or Illegal Impunity?

Πηγή: WN

by Dallas Darling.

"The American pact is nothing but humiliation to the Iraqis. This is against the interest and the sovereignty of the Iraq people and no none should put himself in a position to sign it...such a pact with the Americans who destroyed Iraq since 1991 and killed millions of its children by two wars and 12 years of barbaric sanction followed by occupation, such a pact is nothing but an aggression not against Iraq alone but against Islam and other Muslims." -Hammorabi, an Iraqi blogger protesting against SOFA and U.S. military occupation, 2008.(1)

Despite a clear majority of Iraqis (and Americans) who for years have wanted United States occupation forces to leave their country, commanders and officials in the Pentagon and United States are desperately trying to hammer out an agreement for a continued military presence past the December 31 departure date of this year. By using bribes, pay-offs for "collateral damage", threats and extortion, and by manipulating the media, it appears the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex just might get its way in permanently stationing up to 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, forever and with "legal immunity." But for both Iraqis and Americans, should it not really be considered "illegal impunity?"

Over one-hundred treaties exist between the United States, or the "sending state," and nations where it bases military forces, or the "host nation." This arrangement is called the status of forces agreement (SOFA). SOFA specifies the conditions under which the host nation assumes jurisdiction to prosecute U.S. military personnel for criminal offenses. The Pentagon and U.S. Government considers its military personnel stationed abroad to be representatives of their sovereign power and thus, protected with sovereign immunity from host nation criminal prosecutions. If a host nation believes a soldier has committed a crime, under SOFA the soldier is either expelled or tried by the U.S. military.

For six decades, the Pentagon and U.S. have carefully crafted SOFAs in such a way to give its soldiers broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed against innocent civilians and environmental damage created.(2) Through a process of invasion-occupation-colonization, broad immunity (impunity?) for U.S. forces was imposed. These unequal treaties allowed for a continued presence of U.S. "standing armies."(3) After America's preemptive war and occupation of Iraq, dozens of "enduring camps" became permanent fixtures in Iraq. Hundreds of military posts and air fields, covering 15-20 square miles and built on lands seized from Iraqis, waste billions of dollars and pollute the environment.(4)

U.S. SOFA agreements have also eliminated sovereignty for both Iraqis and Americans who have to pay for expensive military outposts. For Americans, SOFAs are completely controlled by the Pentagon and president without significant input from Congressional representatives which are elected by the people.(5) For Iraqis and other host nations, numerous examples abound how U.S. troops escaped accountability from such crimes as rape, murder and torture.(6) The Pentagon's rules of engagement in Iraq were so erratic and often irrelevant that most soldiers and Marines said it was accepted policy to ignore them and shoot if they felt threatened.(7)

Since World War II, tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in many countries by U.S. military occupation forces and their heavily fortified checkpoints, botched military raids, armed convoys, and illegal detentions. SOFA has made compulsory subjective rights and foreign norms causing thousands of retaliatory attacks. SOFA has also undermined the principles of American ideals. By placing SOFA under the Executive Branch, by quartering large bodies of troops in foreign nations, by funding a professional standing "mercenary" army-which colonists despised, and by making the Military superior to Civil Power, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution has been subverted.

While SOFA treaties make American representative democracy seem hypocritical, like to those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, such agreements will, and have, come to haunt U.S. citizens. Commanders-In-Chief act with impunity, as does the Pentagon that "defines" who the enemy is-right or wrong, and then "assigns" to kill the enemy-right or wrong.(8) This kind of delusional and pathological governance is destructive and implosive. It may be cost-effective for a number of years to exploit the resources of a colony or manufacture an enemy, but the rising tide of nationalism and the demand for self-determination eventually make the price of trying to maintain control too high.(9)

Iraq's Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and dozens of other groups, all with millions of followers, have made it their mission to drive U.S. military troops from Iraq. At the same time, SOFA in Iraq has escalated tensions with Iran, Russia and China. Meanwhile, the cost of weapons and of maintaining a military empire-through SOFA-requires internal repression of freedom and the draining of valuable resources needed for domestic prosperity.(10) As America moves towards divesting more and more of its much needed social and infrastructure services, mainly due to SOFAs and its wars, Hammorabi's words of grief and protests will soon be applicable to Americans, if not already so.

Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

(1) Otterman, Michael, Richard Hil and Paul Wilson. Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs Of Carnage. New York, New York: Pluto Press, 2010., p. 39.

(2) Lutz, Catherin. The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts. Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 2009., p. 13.

(3) Ibid., p. 50.

(4) Ibid., p. 134.

(5) Ibid., p. 141.

(6) See Catherine Lutz The Bases of Empire and Chapter on "Geopolitical Conditions of Okinawa in U.S. Military Strategies", p. 244-253.

(7) Hedges, Chris and Laila Al-Arian. Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraq Civilians. New York, New York: Nation Books, 2008., p. 39.

(8) Keen, Sam. Faces Of The Enemy: Reflections Of The Hostile Imagination. New York, New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986., p. 12.

(9) Ibid., p. 165.

(10) Ibid., p. 165.