Category Archives: Issues

Aleppo’s survivors have nowhere to go

Akram al-Ahmad writes: Samira Sabagh was sitting on the ground when I met her, and the first thing I noticed was that her hands and face were almost black. She was wearing a traditional green dress that smelled of smoke. She was about 65, just one of more than 100,000 former residents of eastern Aleppo forced to leave the rebel-held area under threat of annihilation by the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies.

Sabagh was disoriented. Her children and all her family had been killed in Aleppo, with the exception of a daughter living in Idlib, not far from here. “I don’t know how to go to Idlib,” she said, referring to the rebel-held northwestern Syrian province where many of the displaced Syrians were fleeing.

I asked her about the soot on her face. It’s bitterly cold in Aleppo now, she explained, and people were living in the streets for a week waiting for the evacuation to begin. So everyone had to burn shoes, plastics — anything they could get to stay warm, and that left her face and hands covered in soot. She told me the story through tears.

Rashidin, the town on the western edge of Aleppo city where the buses arrived with the newly displaced, is the last place on the Aleppo-Damascus highway that one can reach from rebel territory. Rebels call it point zero. Every exiled Syrian brought here had soot on their hands and faces. Their clothes reeked. Their bodies smelled as if they hadn’t bathed for a month. Almost everyone said they had burned their furniture, automobile tires, even clothes and blankets, for heat. And some burned their possessions rather than let them fall into the hands of the pro-government militias.

I had driven here with a cameraman from the news bureau I manage in Idlib, a journey of a little more than an hour. In the gas station parking lot where the buses arrived, I heard tale after tale of what residents of eastern Aleppo endured during the devastating bombing campaign and starvation siege of the rebel-held enclave — traumas that were exacerbated by the mocking of pro-regime militiamen as they abandoned their city. And now they were stranded in the bitter cold with no idea what comes next, forced to rebuild their shattered lives once more.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross had organized the buses after rebels reached a deal with the government to withdraw from eastern Aleppo in exchange for safe passage for their families and other civilians who feared the revenge of the militias. When they came off the buses, everyone was shivering from the cold. They were hungry, and local charities handed out fruit and small food packages. They looked tired and depressed as they sat on the ground, eating them. The best organized were the rebel groups, which sent buses and minibuses to fetch the families of fighters and transport them to secure lodging.

But most had no idea where to go and sat on the ground debating their next move. “I hear Atarib is a good town to stay in. I will go and look for an apartment,” one man told me, speaking of a town close to the Turkish border that is often the target for regime airstrikes.

The only joyful sound came from some of the children, who acted as if they’d landed in paradise. The elders were silent and bewildered, looking as though they’d just stepped out of the grave. [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu calls for pardon of convicted soldier Azaria

Al Jazeera reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a pardon of Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier found guilty of manslaughter after he shot and killed a wounded Palestinian last year.

“This is a difficult and painful day – first and foremost for Elor, his family, Israel’s soldiers, many citizens and parents of soldiers, among them me … I support granting a pardon to Elor Azaria,” Netanyahu said Wednesday on his Facebook page.

The country’s president, Reuven Rivlin, who has the authority to issue pardons, said he will wait for the legal process to run its course before making a decision.

“In the event that a pardon should be requested, it will be considered by the president in accordance with standard practices and after recommendations from the relevant authorities,” he said in presidential statement.

The remarks were made just hours after Azaria was convicted on Wednesday in the high-profile case that raised questions over rules of engagement towards perceived threats by Palestinians.

A judge read out the court’s decision for more than two hours before announcing the verdict. The 20-year-old soldier could now face a maximum 20 years in prison. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: David Enoch, a professor in the faculty of law and philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that the trial and public debate surrounding it marked a “horrible deterioration in Israeli society.”

“It’s not as if racism or violence against Palestinians is new, but at least in the past there were attempts to be civilized. There was at least some sanity,” Enoch said. “Now, many of those asking for Azaria to be pardoned have not mistaken the facts of the case. They just see an Israeli Jewish soldier shooting a Palestinian terrorist, and they don’t care about anything else.”

Even before the verdict was read, some Israeli leaders, including senior government ministers, called for the soldier to be pardoned.

“He should not sit one day in jail. We expect the defense minister to stick to his promises and initiate an immediate amnesty for Azaria,” read a statement from the far-right Jewish Home party, headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: An Israeli advocacy group on Tuesday criticized what it called an “exceptionally low” prosecution rate by the Israeli military in cases of violence committed by soldiers against Palestinians.

The report by Yesh Din, a human rights group that is often critical of the Israeli military, came a day before a military court’s verdict is to be delivered in a high-profile manslaughter case against a soldier.

In its annual report, Yesh Din said the army opened 186 criminal investigations into suspected offenses against Palestinians in 2015, but just four of those investigations yielded indictments. The group said the 2015 figures, based on official army data, were the most recent available.

In the fall of 2015, a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted, characterized by Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks on Israelis. The report said that of 76 Palestinians killed in clashes with soldiers in the West Bank in 2015, only 21 deaths resulted in investigations.

“The fact that in 55 incidents no criminal investigation was considered necessary raises doubts about the implementation of Israel’s declared policy on investigating civilian fatalities,” the report said. It said the data signaled an “inability and unwillingness” to address unlawful conduct. [Continue reading…]

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Earth’s oceans are steadily warming

Robinson Meyer writes: It’s sometimes said that modern science spends too much time on the documentation of a new trend and too little time on the replication of old ones. A new paper published Wednesday in the open-access journal Science Advances is important just because it does the latter. In fact, it sheds light on the scientific process in action—and also reveals how climate-change denialists can muddy that process.

Here’s the big takeaway from the new study: Across the planet, the ocean surface has been warming at a relatively steady clip over the past 50 years.

This warming trend shows up whether the ocean is measured by buoy, by satellite, or by autonomous floating drone. It also shows up in the global temperature dataset created and maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In fact, the warming shows up in both datasets in essentially the same way. This is important because it confirms the integrity of the NOAA dataset — and adds further evidence to the argument that ocean temperatures have steadily warmed this century without a significant slowdown.

“Our results essentially confirm that NOAA got it right,” says Zeke Hausfather, a researcher and economist at the University of California Berkeley. “They weren’t cooking the books. They weren’t bowing to any political pressure to find results that show extra warming. They were a bunch of scientists trying their hardest to work with messy data.”

Here’s why the finding matters: In June 2015, NOAA published an update to its long-running dataset of historical global temperatures. Thomas Karl, the director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, and his colleagues at NOAA explained in a paper in Science that the old database had a critical flaw. In trying to merge temperature readings taken by ships and buoys, NOAA had been allowing “cooling bias” to seep into its numbers.

In other words, NOAA’s global temperature estimates had been too low, and its measurement of climate change was too conservative. With this newly updated data in hand, Karl and his colleagues found there had been no slowdown in global warming during the 2000s.

NOAA’s new findings disagreed with those of the U.K. Met Office, whose widely used global temperature dataset does show a slowdown in the 2000s.

So: Was there a slowdown? This is an interesting problem of some scientific interest. Researchers have pointed to El Niño, to multiyear oceanic cycles, and to the post-Soviet reforestation of Russia as possible explanations for the change.

But here’s the thing: The slowdown, or lack thereof, never threw the larger phenomenon of human-caused climate change into question. In fact, even among the most conservative estimates, the globe kept warming right through the slowdown. The overwhelming consensus of Earth scientists is that the planet is harmfully warming due to human industrial activity. What’s more, if a slowdown did occur in the 2000s, it seems to have abated now. The previous three years — 2014, 2015, and 2016 — have all broken the record as the hottest year ever in the modern temperature record.

But this hasn’t seemed to matter in public debate, as climate-change denialists have found enormous success casting doubt on global warming by glomming onto this “slowdown” debate. [Continue reading…]

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Julian Assange’s non-denial denial on Russian interference in the U.S. election

On Saturday, Donald Trump said he knew “things that other people don’t know” about the hacking, and that the information would be revealed “on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

It’s widely believed that the “revelation” Trump was alluding to would come from Julian Assange in an interview the Wikileaks founder did with Sean Hannity that aired on Fox News last night.

During that interview, Hannity pressed Assange on the question of Russian involvement in the hacking:

Assange: There is one person in the world and I think it’s actually only one, who knows exactly what is going on with our publications and that’s me.

Hannity: Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta’s emails — can you tell the American people 1,000% you did not get it from Russia [Assange interjects “yes”] or anybody associated with Russia?

Assange: We can say, have said repeatedly over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not [a] state party.

Assange chooses his words very carefully and for him to provide an unequivocal denial of Russian involvement he had no need to rephrase Hannity’s question. He could have simply responded that his source neither is nor was associated with Russia.

It has always been reasonable to assume that Russia would provide Wikileaks with plausible deniability by using an intermediary who was not overtly a state party or having easily identifiable ties to the Russian government and yet Assange declined to say that his source is/was not associated with Russia. The source might not be a “state party” (however Assange defines that expression) and yet, even now, Assange has not ruled out a Russian association.

Some day Assange may find himself on trial and be pressed on questions about what he did or did not know about his sources. As categorical as he might want statements he makes now to sound, he also most likely wants to leave himself wiggle room so that in the future he can still claim, “I didn’t know.” His concern then (and now) being to avoid being accused of knowingly trying to subvert an election by serving as an agent of a foreign power.

As for his professed dedication to truth-telling, it’s noteworthy that in the course of the interview, Assange repeatedly distorts the hacking narrative provided by the U.S. government by saying the Russia has been accused of hacking voting machines — an accusation that on the few occasions it has been made has swiftly been denied by government officials. In this, as he has often done so in the past, Assange shows that prizes the value not only of information but also disinformation.

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Trump’s North Korea red line could come back to haunt him

Reuters reports: In three words of a tweet this week, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed North Korea would never test an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“It won’t happen!” Trump wrote after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Sunday his nuclear-capable country was close to testing an ICBM of a kind that could someday hit the United States.

Preventing such a test is far easier said than done, and Trump gave no indication of how he might roll back North Korea’s weapons programs after he takes office on Jan. 20, something successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have failed to do.

Former U.S. officials and other experts said the United States essentially had two options when it came to trying to curb North Korea’s fast-expanding nuclear and missile programs – negotiate or take military action.

Neither path offers certain success and the military option is fraught with huge dangers, especially for Japan and South Korea, U.S. allies in close proximity to North Korea. [Continue reading…]

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Republican senators introduce bill to move U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

The Guardian reports: Three Republican senators have introduced legislation to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, a plan backed by Donald Trump but likely to ignite fierce protests.

After being sworn into the 115th Congress in Washington, Ted Cruz of Texas, Dean Heller of Nevada and Marco Rubio of Florida unveiled the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act.

Similar moves by Republican majorities over the past two decades have come to nought, but this time they have a sympathetic president-elect in Trump. He has repeatedly pledged to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem and nominated a US ambassador who shares that view.

Critics warn that the move could unleash a wave of violence and further rattle the Israel-Palestine peace process and the future of a two-state solution. [Continue reading…]

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A right-wing militia trains Russians to fight the next war — with or without Putin

The Washington Post reports: In a half-lit basement on a side street in St. Petersburg, 18 men holding reproduction Makarov pistols were fumbling through an exercise, racking the slides, taking aim and firing. Click, click, click, click, click. Repeat.

Denis Gariev, the instructor, called out to pause the training.

He was not about to air his political views, an ethnic nationalism so raw that he is far to the right of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He was about to rail against a society that had gone soft.

“Nowadays everyone tells the boys starting in kindergarten, ‘Don’t act so aggressive, be smarter,’ ” he said in a mocking baby voice. “And we turn into these unaggressive vegetables.”

Gariev aims to restore the aggression.

“By and large, we are learning how to kill,” he told his charges, who had come to the “Reserve” military-patriotic club for a one-week paramilitary course called “Partisan.”

“We hope that it will never happen to us and we’ll never harm a living creature. But if we have to, then we should be ready.”

The “cadets” listening to Gariev were largely white-collar and self-employed workers from cities across Russia, men motivated less by an ideology than by the siege mentality that has surged here since the wars in Ukraine and Syria and a conviction that the modern Russian man should be combat-ready. [Continue reading…]

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Israeli settlements grew on Obama’s watch. They may be poised for a boom on Trump’s

The Washington Post reports: Through eight years of escalating criticism from the world’s most powerful leader, Israeli construction in these sacred, militarily occupied hills never stopped.

Thousands of homes were built. Miles of roadway. Restaurants. Shopping malls. A university.

Here in Shiloh, a tourist center went up, with a welcome video in which the biblical figure Joshua commands the Jewish people to settle the land promised to them by God.

Israeli settlements may be illegal in the eyes of the U.N. Security Council and a major obstacle to Middle East peace in the view of the Obama administration.

But every day they become a more entrenched reality on land that Palestinians say should rightfully belong to them. As the parched beige hilltops fill with red-tiled homes, decades of international efforts to achieve a two-state solution are unraveling.

And global condemnations notwithstanding, the trend is poised to accelerate.

Already, Israel has a right-wing government that boasts it is more supportive of settlement construction than any in the country’s short history. Within weeks, it will also have as an ally a U.S. president, Donald Trump, who has signaled he could make an extraordinary break with decades of U.S. policy and end American objections to the settlements. [Continue reading…]

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Trump hosted ‘small-time mobster’ Joey ‘No Socks’ Cinque at New Year’s party

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump rang in 2017 at a New Year’s Eve bash at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Joseph Cinque – reportedly a convicted felon who goes by the nickname “Joey No Socks”.

Cinque, a longtime acquaintance of Trump’s, can be seen grinning on stage as the president-elect reads off a list of accomplishments he intends to achieve in office.

In a video of the speech, which was obtained and published by the Palm Beach Daily News, Cinque, wearing a tuxedo, claps and cheers loudly – even pumping his arms in the air when Trump pledges to repeal the Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act. On Trump’s other side, a man awkwardly holds what appears to be a gilded statue of a bald eagle. [Continue reading…]

 

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Video puts new focus on Donald Trump’s ties to Dubai partner

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump praised a business partner from Dubai during a New Year’s Eve party at his lavish Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday night, raising new questions about the scope of his potential business conflicts around the world just weeks before he is sworn in.

In a video captured by a guest, Mr. Trump can be heard singling out “Hussain and the whole family” as “the most beautiful people,” apparently referring to Hussain Sajwani, the chairman of Damac Properties, which has built the Trump International Golf Club, Dubai; Trump Prvt luxury homes; and a Trump Spa, in addition to building a second golf course there that is scheduled to open next year.

The tape, obtained by CNN on Monday night, is the latest reminder of Mr. Trump’s vast array of global business relationships that could create conflicts of interest for his presidency, including the prospect that a commander in chief might make policy decisions guided by what is best for his own family’s brand and wealth. [Continue reading…]

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Trump insists North Korean intercontinental missile ‘won’t happen,’ berates China

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump contended Monday night that North Korea would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, despite its claims to the contrary, and berated China for not doing enough to help stop the rogue state’s weapons program.

Trump’s declarations on Twitter came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s address that the country had reached the “final stages” of testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

“It won’t happen!” Trump tweeted.


The president-elect — who spent Monday with advisers at Trump Tower in New York following his holiday respite in Florida — did not specify what, if anything, the United States might do under his command to stop North Korea from developing the missile. [Continue reading…]

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Trump will ‘take action’ against North Korea, but most Americans lack confidence in his crisis management skills

Gallup reports: As Donald Trump prepares to take the presidential oath on Jan. 20, less than half of Americans are confident in his ability to handle an international crisis (46%), to use military force wisely (47%) or to prevent major scandals in his administration (44%). At least seven in 10 Americans were confident in Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in these areas before they took office. [Continue reading…]

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China has more interest in Trump’s policies than his tweets

The Wall Street Journal reports: Addressing questions about Mr. Trump’s tweets [on North Korea] during a regular press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that China’s efforts to solve the North Korean nuclear issue “are clear for all to see.”

Mr. Geng pointed to China’s convening of six-nation talks aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as well as its support for United Nations sanctions against its ally. He added that any problems in the economic relationship between the U.S. and China should be “properly addressed through dialogue and consultation,” but avoided commenting on whether Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter helped or hindered diplomatic discussions.

“We don’t pay attention to the features of foreign leaders’ behavior. We focus more on their policies,” he said.

Members of China’s U.S.- and North Korea-watching community also largely shrugged off Mr. Trump’s tweets.

Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University, said U.S. frustration with Beijing over North Korea is nothing new. “Trump’s comments regarding China’s perceived passivity on North Korea’s nuclear program are very much in line with the overwhelming consensus view in U.S. diplomatic circles,” said Mr. Shi.

Although Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, signaled a more conciliatory approach toward Mr. Kim, including the possibility of a face-to-face meeting, the president-elect will find it difficult to honor this promise without significant concessions from Pyongyang, Mr. Shi said.

Mr. Trump’s hostile tone may damp optimism in Pyongyang about dialogue with the new U.S. administration and it may “adjust its position accordingly,” said Wang Sheng, a professor at China’s Jilin University who studies China-North Korea relations. [Continue reading…]

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Dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea

Evans J.R. Revere writes: North Korea’s leaders long ago concluded that the United States would not attack a country that has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. North Korean interlocutors have said as much in unofficial dialogues with American experts, and also declared that the DPRK was determined “not to become another Libya or Iraq.”[1] The belief that the only way to defend against American military power is to possess nuclear weapons was a central theme of DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly on September 23, 2016.

Meanwhile, a second motivation for North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is now clear. DPRK representatives have said privately to American interlocutors that they have the United States “deterred.” They believe they have neutralized the U.S. ability to bring its conventional and strategic capabilities to bear against the North. They assert that the United States and the international community must now live with, if not formally accept, a permanently nuclear-armed North Korea. They have declared that the DPRK’s possession of a deterrent means the United States should now accept Pyongyang’s longstanding demand to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the Korean War armistice agreement.

North Korean officials have also reaffirmed privately what the DPRK has declared publicly: North Korea will not, under any circumstances, give up its nuclear weapons. They have made clear that the DPRK is prepared to use its nuclear assets to strike regional targets and the United States, preemptively if necessary. And they have emphasized the DPRK’s intention to further strengthen its nuclear and missile arsenals, a point Foreign Minister Ri also made in his address to the U.N. General Assembly.

North Korean representatives have said the United States and the DPRK should now engage in “arms control” talks. One goal of such talks would be removing the U.S. “threat,” which the North Koreans, when asked, define as the end of the U.S.-ROK alliance, the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea, and the removal of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella”—the centerpiece of the extended deterrent that helps defend South Korea and Japan.

DPRK representatives clearly do not understand that none of their beliefs or assertions are true or possible. Nor does it seem that Pyongyang comprehends the unacceptability of its demands of the United States.

Pyongyang appears to believe its nuclear and missile forces have fundamentally changed the dynamics of U.S.-DPRK relations. Significantly, North Korea may also think it can compel the United States to enter a dialogue that would achieve its long-sought goals of ending the U.S.-ROK alliance and removing the U.S. extended deterrent. If Pyongyang were to succeed in doing this, it would open the way for the DPRK to achieve its ultimate goal: the reunification of the Korean Peninsula on its terms.

The DPRK may also believe that the mere existence of its nuclear capabilities will complicate U.S.-ROK alliance crisis management decisionmaking, and give the United States and its allies pause before responding to a conventional provocation.

By threatening the actual use of nuclear weapons, Pyongyang is signaling its preparedness to risk more in trying to achieve its goals than the United States and the ROK are willing to in defending their interests. Put another way, Pyongyang’s message to the United States is: “We are willing to risk nuclear war to achieve our goals, are you?”

This thinking represents a unique challenge to the U.S.-ROK alliance and to the credibility of the U.S. commitment to deter North Korea and defend South Korea. The belief that it has changed the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula makes the danger posed by North Korea all the more destabilizing. It requires the United States, its allies, and partners to find a better way to deal with the North Korean threat.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s actions and rhetoric are also designed to make the United States’ choices as stark and difficult as possible. By closing off options that the United States might prefer, Pyongyang hopes to leave the United States with no alterative but to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea on its terms.

The DPRK has declared denuclearization dead, and with it, any possibility of a dialogue on the subject. To reinforce this point, both the DPRK’s foreign minister at the U.N. General Assembly and individual North Korean representatives in informal dialogues have stressed not only North Korea’s intention to retain nuclear weapons, but also its plan to expand its nuclear arsenal and refine the capabilities of its ballistic missile delivery systems.

By making clear what North Korea is prepared to risk, the DPRK seeks to force the United States to choose between accepting a nuclear-armed North or risking war to prevent Pyongyang from realizing its nuclear ambitions.

As the next American president mulls options, he or she will need to take into account the evolution of China’s position on North Korea.

There are signs that the United States may have reached the limits of Beijing’s willingness to do more to isolate and pressure the DPRK. Beijing’s distaste for sanctions, its opposition to unilateral measures, and its concern that excessive pressure could lead to the collapse of the regime are well-known. These Chinese concerns have not abated as Beijing sees growing U.S., ROK, and Japanese interest in taking sanctions and pressure to a new level.

Even after the latest nuclear test, China has resisted demands that it do more against Pyongyang. On September 14, the Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily rejected U.S. suggestions that China take further steps, saying that the United States bears primary responsibility for the current situation. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson had already weighed in along similar lines on September 12, saying that the North Korea issue was a “dispute between the DPRK and the United States” and expressing opposition to the role of sanctions in dealing with North Korea.

China’s Premier Li Keqiang managed to avoid mentioning sanctions at all in his September 21 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly used a September 14 telephone call with his Japanese counterpart to convey opposition to unilateral sanctions on North Korea.

China is trying to have it both ways on North Korea. Beijing’s leadership continues to stress the importance of friendly China-DPRK ties, while China avoids directly challenging North Korea’s assertions about its nuclear ambitions. Constant attentiveness to North Korean sensitivities characterizes China’s approach to dealing with its troublesome neighbor and ally, even as Pyongyang’s actions threaten regional stability.

China is more direct and often critical when it has something to say about the U.S. position on North Korea. This reflects longstanding Chinese misgivings about Washington’s preference for sanctions and pressure. But Beijing’s opposition to tougher steps on North Korea is increasingly being driven by broader, geopolitical concerns, especially China’s strategic rivalry with the United States in East Asia. [Continue reading…]

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Six years after the Arab Spring a revolt could re-emerge

In an editorial, The Guardian says: This month marks six years since the beginning of the Arab spring, a series of events that were meant to be a major turning point in the modern Middle East. It was the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor and his death on 4 January that initiated a revolutionary year. The subsequent protests energised ordinary Arabs, who recovered, it seemed, a popular self-confidence diminished by six decades of autocracy. The Arab street was honoured for its people’s courage and determination, inspiring movements across the world. Protesters did not just voice their complaints, it was said, they changed the world. Four Arab leaders fell. Yet six short years on those dreams are now in tatters. In Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, a counter-revolution has returned a military dictatorship. Much of Libya and Yemen is reduced to rubble in a war where outside powers are the principal actors, prepared to fight until the last local is dead. Syria is in ruins, stained by rivers of blood. The sole democratic success was Tunisia, which did see a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule to elective government. The main Islamist party won power and last year declared it would end all of its cultural and religious activities to focus only on politics – becoming a Muslim democratic party, rather like its western Christian counterparts. But every silver lining has a cloud: Tunisians make up the largest number of foreign fighters in the ranks of Islamic State.

The underlying reasons for revolt have not gone away. In many ways the conditions today are even more explosive than in 2011. The Arab state is in crisis almost everywhere: plunging oil prices have holed Saudi’s economy; Egypt’s flawed leadership has created crisis after crisis. The desperate men and women leaving for Europe want a better life than that found at home. According to the UN’s Arab Development Report – the first since the Arab spring erupted – the Middle East is home to only 5% of the world’s population, but accounts for 45% of the world’s terrorism, 68% of its battle-related deaths and 58% of its refugees. This at a time, the UN warns, when the population of young Arabs exceeds 100 million and is growing fast – but not as fast as rates of unemployment, poverty and marginalisation. [Continue reading…]

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Can carbon capture technology prosper under Trump?

The New York Times reports: Can one of the most promising — and troubled — technologies for fighting global warming survive during the administration of Donald J. Trump?

The technology, carbon capture, involves pulling carbon dioxide out of smokestacks and industrial processes before the climate-altering gas can make its way into the atmosphere. Mr. Trump’s denial of the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting climate change, a view shared by many of his cabinet nominees, might appear to doom any such environmental initiatives.

But the new Petra Nova plant about to start running here, about 30 miles southwest of Houston, is a bright spot for the technology’s supporters. It is being completed essentially on time and within its budget, unlike many previous such projects. When it fires up, the plant, which is attached to one of the power company NRG’s hulking coal-burning units, will draw 90 percent of the CO2 from the emissions produced by 240 megawatts of generated power. That is a fraction of the roughly 3,700 megawatts produced at this gargantuan plant, the largest in the Lone Star State. Still, it is enough to capture 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide each year — equivalent to the greenhouse gas produced by driving 3.5 million miles, or the CO2 from generating electricity for 214,338 homes. [Continue reading…]

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Nothing happened. It happens all the time

It’s a strange line of argument but surprisingly commonplace: to first vigorously deny something has happened, but to then say that if it did happen it’s perfectly normal.

When it comes to the issue of Russian interference in American democracy — an issue that should be of real concern to every American citizen — the deniers are mostly in the same position as people who deny climate change.

Assuming a stance of assiduous skepticism they plead that insufficient evidence has been presented to prove the case. As often applies to climate deniers, this professed skepticism seems intended to obscure the fact that the skeptic has a deep investment in one side of the argument.

At the conclusion of his latest diatribe against the mainstream media, Glenn Greenwald writes:

Since it is so often distorted, permit me once again to underscore my own view on the broader Russia issue: Of course it is possible that Russia is responsible for these hacks, as this is perfectly consistent with (and far more mild than) what both Russia and the U.S. have done repeatedly for decades.

But given the stakes involved, along with the incentives for error and/or deceit, no rational person should be willing to embrace these accusations as Truth unless and until convincing evidence has been publicly presented for review, which most certainly has not yet happened.

“[W]hat both Russia and the U.S. have done repeatedly for decades” has a vagueness worthy of Donald Trump, but Greenwald’s drift is clear: if the DNC hackings were carried out by Russia, it’s par for the course — nothing unusual, so let’s just move on.

Yet he concedes there are “stakes involved.” Indeed there are, not only because interference by a foreign power played a role in Donald Trump becoming the next U.S. president, but because this puts Greenwald and his close associate and Moscow resident, Edward Snowden, in a very awkward position. Increasingly they look less like independent dissidents speaking truth to power, and more like de facto sympathizers with a hostile power.

During the Bush era, critics of the war in Iraq and of the neoconservative agenda broadly accepted the view that America’s destructive involvement in the Middle East could ultimately be reduced to a single issue: control of the global oil supply.

Strangely, many of those same critics while now witnessing the power of oil flexing its muscles more strongly than ever seen before, would rather focus their attention on the perennial bugaboos of Washington, the mainstream media, the intelligence agencies, and American power.

The DNC was hacked, Wikileaks fed the media with a steady stream of unstartling emails, Trump wildly distorted their contents, and now the most Russia-friendly president ever is about to take office, leading an administration loaded with individuals tied to the oil industry.

Russia, the world’s number-one oil producer, eagerly awaits improved relations with the U.S. not only in the form of sanctions relief but also as Washington predictably tries to slam the brakes on the transition to renewable energy.

Vladimir Putin, who nowadays sees himself as the most powerful man in the world, has reason to be smiling with glee, while the hacking skeptics apparently think he’s merely the beneficiary of a string of good luck and that broadly speaking this is all just business as usual.

You’ve got to be kidding!

The oil industry, Washington, and Moscow will soon be marching in lockstep, while Greenwald directs his audience to the occasional piece of sloppy journalism.

Those who once warned about their dangers are now themselves wielding the weapons of mass distraction.

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‘America first’ and global conflict next

Nouriel Roubini writes: Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States does not just represent a mounting populist backlash against globalization. It may also portend the end of Pax Americana – the international order of free exchange and shared security that the US and its allies built after World War II.
That US-led global order has enabled 70 years of prosperity. It rests on market-oriented regimes of trade liberalization, increased capital mobility, and appropriate social-welfare policies; backed by American security guarantees in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, through NATO and various other alliances.

Trump, however, may pursue populist, anti-globalization, and protectionist policies that hinder trade and restrict the movement of labor and capital. And he has cast doubt on existing US security guarantees by suggesting that he will force America’s allies to pay for more of their own defense. If Trump is serious about putting “America first,” his administration will shift US geopolitical strategy toward isolationism and unilateralism, pursuing only the national interests of the homeland.

When the US pursued similar policies in the 1920s and 1930s, it helped sow the seeds of World War II. Protectionism – starting with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which affected thousands of imported goods – triggered retaliatory trade and currency wars that worsened the Great Depression. More important, American isolationism – based on a false belief that the US was safely protected by two oceans – allowed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to wage aggressive war and threaten the entire world. With the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the US was finally forced to take its head out of the sand.

Today, too, a US turn to isolationism and the pursuit of strictly US national interests may eventually lead to a global conflict. Even without the prospect of American disengagement from Europe, the European Union and the eurozone already appear to be disintegrating, particularly in the wake of the United Kingdom’s June Brexit vote and Italy’s failed referendum on constitutional reforms in December. Moreover, in 2017, extreme anti-Europe left- or right-wing populist parties could come to power in France and Italy, and possibly in other parts of Europe. [Continue reading…]

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