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By Dr Ramzy Baroud

It is hardly shocking that the United States government has finally decreed that illegal Jewish settlements which have been built in defiance of international law, are, somehow, “consistent” with international law.

US foreign policy has been edging closer towards this conclusion for some time. Since his advent to the White House in January 2017, President Donald Trump has unleashed a total and complete reversal of his country’s foreign policy regarding Palestine and Israel.

Let us not have any illusion regarding the American approach to the so-called ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ prior to Trump’s Presidency. The US has never, not even once, stood up for Palestinians or Arabs since the establishment of the State of Israel over the ruins of historic Palestine in 1948. Moreover, Washington has bankrolled the Israeli occupation of Palestine in every possible way, including the subsidizing of the illegal Jewish settlements.

However, Pompeo’s statement at a State Department press conference on November 18 that, “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” is still very dangerous and it does, in fact, constitute a political departure from previous US policies. How?

Historically, the US has struggled in its understanding of international law, not because of its lack of legal savvy but because, quite often, US interests clashed with the will of the international community. A recurring case in point is the Israeli occupation of Palestine, where the US has vetoed or voted against numerous United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that either criticized Israel or supported the rights of the Palestinians.

Only in 1978, did an American Administration dare describe Israeli settlements as “inconsistent with international law”. That declaration took place during Jimmy Carter’s Presidency, when Washington began earnestly fiddling with the “peace process” political model, which eventually led to the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, signed at Camp David in 1979.

“Since then,” Joseph Hincks wrote in Time Magazine online, “Republican and Democratic Presidents have referred to settlements as ‘illegitimate’ but declined to call them illegal—a designation that would make them subject to international sanctions.”

That said, it was Reagan himself – although objecting to the principle of illegality of the settlements – who deemed them to be an “obstacle to peace”, demanding a freeze on all settlement construction.

Pompeo’s statement is, in fact, compatible with Washington’s self-contradictions regarding the construction of Israel’s illegal settlement in occupied Palestine.

In December 2016, the Barack Obama administration declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution that described the settlements as a “flagrant violation” of international law, adding that they have “no legal validity”.

Although Obama chose to abstain from the vote, that very decision was, itself, seen as a historical departure from traditional US foreign policy-making, further highlighting the US unconditional and, often, blind support for Israel.

While, in some way, the Trump administration’s support for Israel is a continuation of the dismal trajectory of American bias, it is also particularly unique and disturbing.

Previous US administrations attempted to maintain a degree of balance between their own interests and those of Israel. Trump, on the other hand, seems to have aligned his country’s foreign policy regarding Palestine and Israel entirely with that of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing camp.

Indeed, for over two years, the State Department has been giving Israel political carte blanche, agreeing to all of Israel’s demands and expectations and asking for nothing in return. As a result, Washington has accepted Israel’s designation of Jerusalem, including occupied East Jerusalem, as Israel’s “eternal and undivided capital”; agreed to Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights; and actively plotted to dismiss the issue of Palestinian refugees altogether. The latest announcement by Pompeo was but one of many such steps.

One theory regarding the ongoing surrender of US foreign policy to Israel is that Washington is slowly, but permanently, withdrawing from the Middle East, a process that began in the later years of George W. Bush’s presidency and continued unabated throughout the two terms of Obama administration as well. The current succumbing to Israel’s wishes is like America’s departing gift to its most faithful ally in the Middle East.

Another explanation is concerned with the apparently defunct “deal of the century”, a vaguely defined political doctrine that seeks to normalize Israel, regionally and internationally, while keeping the status quo of occupation and Apartheid untouched.

For that deal to be resurrected after months of inertia, Washington is keen to prolong Netanyahu’s premiership, especially as the long-serving Israeli Prime Minister is facing his greatest political challenge and even a possible jail time for various corruption charges.

Currently, Israel is undergoing a political crisis – two general elections within six months, with the possibility of a third election, coupled with a historic socio-economic and political polarization among the people. To keep Netanyahu politically alive, his allies in Washington have thrown him some major lifelines, all in the hope of winning him more support among Israel’s dominant right-wing political camp.

By rendering the illegal settlements “consistent” with international law, Washington is paving the road for Israel to annex all major settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.

Israel, which was never truly concerned with international law in the first place, urgently required this American nod to move forward with annexing at least 60% of the West Bank.

With the hemorrhaging of US concessions to Israel, Netanyahu is eager for more. Desperate to strengthen his faltering grip on power, the Israeli leader agreed on November 20 to advance a bill that calls for the annexation of the Jordan Valley.

The bill was drafted by a member of the Israeli Likud – Netanyahu’s party – Sharren Haskel, who tweeted following Netanyahu’s decision, that the US announcement was “an opportunity to promote my law for sovereignty in the [Jordan] Valley.”

The US decision to defy international law on settlements is not dangerous because it violates international law, for the latter has hardly been a concern for Washington. The danger lies in the fact that the US foreign policy regarding the Israeli occupation has become a mere rubber stamp, that allows Israel’s extreme right-wing government to single-handedly determine the fate of the Palestinian people and sow the seed of instability and war in the Middle East for many years to come.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

27 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ramakrishnan

(This is Part-1 of a two part Report)

Landslide victory for Hong Kong pro-democracy parties in de facto protest referendum : This ( it was CNN’s) is the tone and tenor of headlines in mainstream media.There is nothing new in this kind of reportage for Indians fed on inobjectivity and hyperboles. This notion however needs to be objectively analysed, more so in the wake of the turmoil there.That will help a better understanding of the implications of this election.

Background

What was held on November 24 Sunday was the Sixth-term District Council Ordinary Election of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), and counting was completed as of noon on Monday.

Hong Kong, once a British colony, is part of China since 1997, and its special status (“One Country, Two Systems”) is set to expire in 2047, as per an agreement between UK and China . The current protests started in May- June against a planned law which would have cleared the way for criminal suspects to be extradited to the mainland. The bill was withdrawn in September, but protest demonstrations continued. The election was held in spite of such a turmoil.

Hong Kongers have described legal, social, political and cultural differences – and the fact Hong Kong was a separate colony for 150 years – as reasons for why they don’t identify with their compatriots in mainland China.

The election was held just a four days after the well-timed passage on November 19-20, unanimously and bipartisanly, by both the Senate and House of Representatives of USA, of the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act 2019. The US is a bully brazenly and solidly for gross interference in China’s internal affairs.

aljazeera.com reported : For the past few weeks, doubts loomed over whether the elections would even take place. Several candidates on both sides were attacked and multiple pro-democracy candidates were arrested… Patrick Nip, the secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, said the violence “reduced the chance of holding the elections”. Hong Kong’s Electoral Affairs Commission had called on the public to “stop all threats and violence to support the holding of elections in a peaceful and orderly manner”.

For her part, ruling chief, Lam, when asked whether elections would be postponed, said the government “hopes that the elections can continue as planned”. Some pro-establishment voters, too, hoped to use their vote as a call to restore order.

Neither Mainland China nor its supporters in Hong Kong made any efforts to prevent the elections despite all the turmoil.

The Numbers

With a record turnout rate of 71.2 percent, a total of about 2.94 million registered voters cast their ballots in the election, for 452 seats, contested by mainly two coalitions, the outgoing being the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB). Polling for the election started at 7:30 am and concluded at 10:30 pm.

Some 2.94 million people voted in the election, compared with 1.4 million in 2015: A last- minute surge in registrations added nearly 400,000 voters to the electoral rolls – most of them young – and a wave of novice pro-democracy candidates meant that for the first time in Hong Kong’s history every seat was hotly contested.

About one-tenth of the city’s 4.1 million voters are newly registered since 2015. Of the total registered voters, about half of them are in the 18-35 age group. A veteran Hong Kong-based news editor told China Daily that besides political affinity, perhaps age affinity also played a role in this year’s election, as young voters are more likely to vote for young candidates who hold similar views to them: the election result showed that a large number of successful candidates are in the 18-40 age group. The outgoing coalition acknowledged they could not connect with this segment of the voters.

According to the HKSAR Electoral Affairs Commission, 452 seats in 18 electoral districts have all been decided. All except one district were won by parties that were in Opposition before the election.

Pro-democracy ( a sort of coalition) candidates won close to 60% of the total vote, but achieved a landslide in terms of seats – 347 of the 452 (76 % seats) – because of the first-past-the-post system. Pro-Beijing candidates won 60 seats (13 % seats with 40 percent vote); while independents got 45, according to the South China Morning Post.

In the last election four years ago, pro-Beijing councillors won 298 seats, but the distribution of these seats meant they then took control of all 18 district councils. Now they lost all but one, the Islands District Council in this election.

Held Despite And Amidst Violent Protests

Given the background of the violent turmoil, DAB alliance (which won only 21 seats, and lost 160 seats) chairman, Lo Wai-kwok, said, the ruling coalition was at the receiving end of violence : “Black terror” and threats spread and imposed by radicals during the months-long social unrest is one of reasons that the party had a worrying situation in the election, Lo said, referring to the violence and vandalism meted out by mostly black-clad anti-government protesters.

Some DAB candidates, volunteers and supporters were threatened; some councilors’ offices were vandalized before the election, with some having been torched with gasoline bombs, Lo said.

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, FTU, a member of the coalition, which held 30 seats in the District Council before the election, won only five seats.

Nearly 30 of the FTU’s training centers, medical clinics and councilors’ offices were vandalized. Many candidates’ posters were torn down and destroyed.

FTU president Stanley Ng Chau-pei said that the election was held in an “extremely unfair and disorderly environment”, which saw repeated violent attacks against FTU candidates.

For those familiar with the opposition’s vandalism, with scores of visuals in the western media too, during the last few months, it is easy to understand that.

The results showed that candidates’ records of long service at community levels counted little in the election, FTU president Stanley Ng Chau-pei said. Despite the FTU’s solid foundation in serving the community at the grassroots level, we still have failed to turn the tide,” Ng told a news briefing after the election. “We will reflect deeply on our failure and improve our work in future.” He added that political demands had overridden livelihood issues.

The Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong — another major party of the pro-establishment camp —won only three of the 452 seats during this election.

How to read, and not to read the election

Admittedly, it is defacto, it is not de jure, technically, or formally, though there is something noteworthy in it.

It was not a referendum, strictly speaking, because no such question was posed as such.Given that the poll took place in the wake of mass protests going on for the last five months, it was projected as if it was a referendum.

It was not exactly a landslide, though we in India are given to such phrases like a wave, sweeping the polls, tsunami even though such a thing did not happen. For instance in India, from 1952 till now, no party ever got 50 percent plus of the polled vote.( Rajiv Gandhi’s 1985 vote, aided by Indira’s murder, was the only one nearest that.). Still we always had Tsunamis of reportage.

To put it in perspective, the losing coalition polled around 40 percent of polled vote, that is a little higher than the vote ( 37. 36 % vote, but 303 seats for BJP and 353, 65% seats, for NDA) polled by Modi-led BJP in the latest Loksabha poll, which is often colorfully painted as a massive mandate. During NDA-1, they got less than 32 % vote. Even that was described as a Tsunami.

This was not a setback to China or CPC, strictly speaking.

Nor is it a victory for democracy: For instance, nobody in Hong Kong is legally allowed to be a member of CPC even now, let alone contesting as a communist. How can any one call it is a democratic election in the real sense, when communist are banished in a country that is headed by communists? No one can call China or CPC as authoritarian, more so in this sense.

It was not a victory of pro-democracy parties in the sense that the defeated coalition is NOT, and not led by, a communist party; it is also a party of liberal politics, and it had won the same election last time (2015) in a similar way. Basically, they are like two parties in US or UK.

In fact, the Head of the defeated party, which had polled 40 percent vote, was more dignified, more humble, and more democratic than any party in India.

Members of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong take a deep bow at a news conference on Monday by way of expressing their gratitude and offering apologies to supporters a day after their massive setback in the District Council Election.

Chief executive says SAR will listen to voters, but violence also needs to end : This is the caption of a candid report in China Daily of PRC soon after the results were out:

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor of the ruling party voiced her hope on Monday that the people of Hong Kong will continue to express their views in a peaceful manner. The district poll was conducted in very difficult circumstances due to incidents that have taken place over the past few months, Lam said. She thanked the voters for their participation, through which, she said, they hoped to express their views.

BBC reported :

Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam has said the government will “seriously reflect” after local elections saw massive gains by pro-democracy candidates. In a statement released online on Monday, Ms Lam said the government respected the results. She said many felt the results reflected “people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society”. The government would “listen to the opinions of members of the public humbly and seriously reflect”, she said. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50541627)

China Daily’s report was candid :

“Various analyses said the result reflected people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society.

“Hong Kong’s pro-establishment camp pledged to continue serving the community and to proactively improve people’s livelihoods after suffering a massive setback in local elections. The promise follows the opposition camp’s victory in grabbing majority control of district-level affairs in the city’s District Council elections on Sunday.”

(https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201911/26/WS5ddc75baa310cf3e35579ea7.html)

Limited Significance Of The Election

This was an election where Hong Kong level politics, or its ties with mainland, were NOT under the scrutiny of the voters, with no manifestos thrown in. The elected body has no powers to take any political or policy decisions; only civic issues come under its purview. They are more like Municipal Corporation elections in Mumbai, much smaller in scale : Greater Mumbai’s population is over 20 million, the city itself being 13 million; they are somewhat like local body election in Kashmir, with little political import; they are not even comparable to Union Territory Delhi’s elections to choose between BJP-Congress-AAP. But imperialists have bigger stakes there.

Trump claimed his election had an adversary role of Russia. Comparatively, this election had a more brazen,undisputed, declared role and funding of the West, particularly USA, backing the Opposition.

BBC said : The territory’s district councillors have little political power and mainly deal with local issues such as bus routes and rubbish collection, so the district elections do not normally generate such interest.

Political commentator Paul Yeung told China Daily the results showed that political disputes, usually occurring in elections of high-level authorities, such as the government and legislature, are affecting more ordinary elections. He stressed that according to the Basic Law, the city’s district councils are not an organ of political power. Yet this year’s election seems to have become a kind of “referendum” aiming to decide Hong Kong’s future, which is not the purpose of its original set-up.

However, the councillors also get to choose 117 of their number to sit on the 1,200-member committee that selects Hong Kong’s chief executive, who is then formally appointed by the Chinese government. The landslide results mean all of those 117 seats are now likely to go to pro-democracy candidates, so they will have a greater influence over that decision, which is set to be made in 2022.

The implications

Jonathan Head, BBC News, Hong Kong wrote :

So what now? Will the protests resume? It seems almost certain they will, unless the government starts responding to protesters’ demands.

But there are challenges too for the opposition, (now elected). The new intake of young councillors will have to take on the responsibility of addressing local concerns, like public transport and other amenities, rather than the grander ideals of democracy.

They will need to work together more effectively than they have in the past, and work out how the demands and tactics of more radical protesters can most effectively be channelled to get concessions from a Chinese central government unnerved by yet another show of defiance in Hong Kong.

Voters were lost in political passions forgetting it was basically an election on civic issues:

Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, said most voters, affected by the protracted social unrest, were driven by the political turmoil and failed to discharge their duties to bring benefits to the community. The election results showed that many voters made the choice based only on the candidates’ political backgrounds instead of their ability to serve the community, Lau said. This time, many pro-establishment candidates, despite their rich experience of participatory community work, were defeated by some political greenhorns in the opposition camp who were parachuted into the races.

In Lau’s opinion, some voters might not wholeheartedly support those opposition candidates, but they just wanted to vent their anger with the SAR government at the expense of pro-establishment politicians.

He cautioned that such “protest vote” tactics may hurt the voters themselves, as some winning candidates, with little expertise and experience in serving the community, may fail to identify and serve their respective neighborhoods’ needs. More importantly, they may prioritize political issues after assuming office, which may bring no good to livelihood improvement and fuel the ongoing unrest, he added.

The district council historically deals with local livelihood issues, such as traffic and hygiene. But the protests have dramatically elevated their significance, at least symbolically.

CNN reported about the content of the election:

District councils are elected on four-year terms, and largely handle local affairs. They lack much in terms of real power, serving mainly to advise the government on issues affecting their neighborhoods and the allocation of funds for local projects.

While some candidates ran on fairly standard local council issues — “eliminate illegal parking,” “build an animal friendly community,” “strengthen environmental conservation” — a substantial minority, around 13%, included the key protest phrase “five demands, not one less” in their election material :

Those five demands are: withdraw the extradition bill that kicked off the entire crisis (since achieved); launch an independent inquiry into allegations of police brutality; retract any categorization of a protest on June 12 as a “riot”; amnesty for arrested protesters; and introducing universal suffrage for how the Chief Executive and Legislative Council are elected. (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/24/asia/hong-kong-district-council-elections-intl/index.html)

The class divide could be seen : In the working-class neighbourhood of Yau Ma Tei, a regular scene of clashes between police and demonstrators, no one waiting in line wore black, surgical masks or chanted slogans – all hallmarks of the pro-democracy protest movement. (www.aljazeera.com)

China’s Approach And Stakes

This was not as if authoritative China was adamantly trashing the election. It has viewed the polls rationally, and soberly, as the following extract, quoted at some length, shows:

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular news conference that halting destruction and chaos is still the city’s top priority. “The most pressing task in Hong Kong is to stop violence and restore order,” he said.

The spokesman reaffirmed that the Chinese government is determined to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, implement the “one country, two systems” policy, and oppose any foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking on Monday,in Japan, reiterated that “no matter what happens, Hong Kong is a part of China”. “Any attempt to mess up Hong Kong, or even damage its prosperity and stability, will not succeed,” he said. (China Daily – Xinhua)

“Hk District Council Election Result Needs Rational Analysis”

This editorial, with the above heading, of China’s leading Daily, Global Times (published on 2019/11/25) sums up China’s stance. Unlike the Establishment in India, China did not seek to pick holes, despite the results that are not palatable to it.

It said that the “elections were held in a largely safe and orderly environment.” A few radical opposition figures, it said, attempted to disrupt the proceedings to make it difficult for pro-establishment candidates and their supporters, but it did not have much impact. People had worried that unrest sparked by the now-withdrawn extradition bill could force the cancellation of elections, but that didn’t happen.

Matter of factly, it said :

“Hong Kong district council is different from the legislative council. As a publicly elected institution of 18 districts of Hong Kong, the district council’s function is to serve the community, express public’s appeal regarding livelihood, such as transportation, environment, and living conditions. This year’s district council elections were full of political slogans because of the extradition bill controversy. But regardless, neither side has much room to politicize the district council elections.

”The unrest sparked by anti-extradition bill is still ongoing, which is conducive for pro-democracy camps to mobilize support in a short span of time. …Election result showed that there is still emotion within Hong Kong society, affecting rational thinking over the key issue of how the city should walk out of its current predicament. ”

It exposed Western meddling :

“It must be pointed out that the West has been helping HK opposition in district council elections in the past week. Australian media suddenly broke a story of a Chinese spy infiltrating HK defecting to Australia (The man is a convicted fraudster). A former employee at British Consulate General in HK detained 3 months ago on the mainland for soliciting prostitutes told BBC last week he was tortured during detention. They are intended to influence public opinion on Hong Kong. US lawmakers hastily passed Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, also targeting district council elections.

“Hong Kong radical forces and Western supporters behind them wanted to stage a political demonstration during the voting. They tried to deny the urgency of ending chaos in Hong Kong. But we want to say that the pro-democracy camp winning more seats doesn’t mean Hong Kong voters support violent demonstrations. Majority of Hongkongers are tired of violence and are yearning for order to be restored.

“It is conceivable and impossible that majority of Hongkongers would encourage violence, support political confrontation against the mainland, and back the city to become a bridgehead for US political forces to pressure China. This is because it will severely undermine the interests of Hongkongers and push the city into an environment of uncertainties. It is crucial to rationally interpret the result of Hong Kong’s district council elections, lest mobs should be emboldened by misreading them.”

It put things in perspective :

“Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland follow different political systems. Expressing views by constitutional provisions such as votes should be encouraged in Hong Kong. The district council elections have had their impact but such influence has its limits. Both sides should be respected by all. All forces in Hong Kong, including the opposition, must compete for influence in the establishment. No one should follow the devious path of street politics.

”It is hoped that the pro-establishment groups in Hong Kong will not be discouraged, and Hongkongers who love the country and the city will not be disheartened after the district council elections. As long as elections are held, there will be swings. What’s more, in such an unfavorable situation, the pro-establishment camp still received about 40 percent of the votes.

“China’s development and progress are unstoppable. Hong Kong’s politics will certainly be increasingly linked to China’s development and progress. This is the major historical trend. The country will never abandon Hong Kong, and will never ignore the people and forces who love the motherland and the city. Hong Kong’s problems need objective analysis and practical solutions. The country will always provide guarantees for Hong Kong.

Its main thrust is :

”It is believed that whatever the ups and downs in Hong Kong polls, all elections in the city are held within the aegis of the special administrative region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China, and they can’t impact the basic framework of “one country, two systems.” (The extract is from an editorial of the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn)

(Part- 2 will be a Review on “one country, two systems” : Chinese socialism Vs Hong Kong’s capitalism)

Ramakrishnan, Political Observer, who contributed to Countercurrents.org.

27 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Argentina’s leftist president-elect Alberto Fernandez said Tuesday that he would renounce the remaining $11 billion tranche of the country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan as soon as he takes office next month.

Outgoing center-right President Mauricio Macri agreed a massive $57 billion loan package last year, but the austerity measures he imposed failed to right the economy.

“What I want is to stop asking (for money), and that they let me pay,” said Fernandez, who takes office on December 10 after ousting Macri in last month’s elections.

“I have an enormous problem. And I’m going to ask for $11 billion more?” the incoming president said in an interview Argentina’s Radio Con Vos.

Fernandez said he will “try to revive the economy in order to pay and solve the debt problem sensibly.”

The return to power of protectionist Peronists has raised fears of yet another debt default, and eroded the peso’s value.

The poverty rate has risen to more than 35 percent; inflation for the year to September was at almost 38 percent, while the peso has depreciated 70 percent since January 2018.

The president-elect has insisted his government would not default but rather seek to renegotiate the terms of the IMF loan, and sought to reassure voters in last month’s election that their bank deposits would be safe under his administration.

“It’s like a guy who drinks a lot and is a little drunk. The solution is not to continue drinking. The solution is to stop drinking,” he told the radio.

Debt soared by about 100 billion under Macri and now exceeds 90 percent of GDP. At the time of his election in 2017, it was 38 percent of GDP.

“I try to be a serious person. A person who tells you ‘I’m going to do such and such a thing,’ and you know he’s going to do it.

“I don’t want to sign agreements that I’m not going to fulfill. Those agreements were already signed by Macri. He signed one, two, three and fulfilled none,” said Fernandez.

The IMF suspended the release of a $5.4 billion disbursement in September following the government’s failure to meet inflation targets.

“We want them not to lend us more money, but to let us develop. Let’s discuss the time I need to develop, but don’t give me more money.”

Debt soared by about $100 bln under Macri and now exceeds 90 percent of GDP. At the time of his election in 2015, it was 38 percent of GDP.

There was no immediate response from the IMF.

In recent days, the IMF named a new head of mission in Argentina, to replace the outgoing Roberto Cardarelli.

The Italian official’s replacement in Buenos Aires is Venezuelan Luis Cubeddu. The 53-year-old has experience of Argentina, having worked in the country between 2002 and 2004.

According to reports, Cubeddu has come across Fernández before, when the president-elect served as cabinet chief for then-president Néstor Kirchner.

The Frente de Todos leader said in the interview that his goal is “to revive the economy in order to pay and solve the debt problem sensibly.”

“If you have a problem, because you are in debt, do you think the solution is to continue borrowing?” he added.

Argentina’s economy has spent the last 20 months in recession. According to IMF estimates, economic activity will decline by 3.1 percent this year.

Debt under the Mauricio Macri administration has grown by around US$100 billion and now exceeds 90 percent of gross domestic product, according to international organizations. When President Macri took office in 2015, debt stood at 38 percent of GDP.

Last week, Fernández told IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva that he would seek a “sustainable” solution to both Argentina’s debt with the multilateral lender and private bondholders.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the president-elect’s team would seek to hold simultaneous negotiations with both parties in a bid to find a better solution.

Argentina has around US$28 billion in debt held by private investors and international organizations that will mature in 2020, Treasury Minister Hernán Lacunza said this week.

While Fernández has, for the most part, shied away from giving details about his future Cabinet officials, he did confirm Tuesday that Marco Lavagna would head the INDEC national statistics bureau.

Speaking to local news channels, the Frente de Todos leader said it was “expected” that Lavagna – the son of ex-presidential candidate and former economy minister Roberto Lavagna – would take up the position.

INDEC was a source of controversy under the previous government led by Fernaández’s vice-president-elect, Cristina Fernaández de Kichner, after it became subject to political pressures that put in doubt the credibility of official data.

27 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Simon Whalley

Due to capitalism’s rapaciousness, our species is hurtling towards ecocide at a frightening pace.

In the early twentieth century, tens of millions died under the Stalinist regime. We blame these deaths on the wickedness of socialism. Later, in Germany, around 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in gas chambers. We blame these deaths on the ills of fascism. At the other end of the Eurasian continent, around 22 – 45 million died under Chairman Mao between 1958-1962. These deaths are blamed on the evils of socialism. Further south, Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of between 13 percent and 30 percent of the population. The deaths of up to 2.8 million people in Cambodia’s Killing Fields were attributed to the peril of communism.

In 2019, a staggering 795 million people, or one in nine of us, does not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. By 2025, around 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, and two thirds of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed regions. If there is no water, then there will be no food.

While the future famines will be caused by a lack of water, the malnourishment we see today isn’t the result of a lack of food on our planet. In fact, there are now more people suffering from obesity than those that are malnourished. The problem stems from our current system of capitalism. Why do we not call capitalism out for all this suffering as we do with socialism, communism or fascism?

This system deems it fair for 13 of the richest billionaires to enjoy as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent. This system regards it rational for these 13 individuals to extract and use as much of the world’s natural resources as 3.6 billion people. If the world’s 13 richest billionaires wished to use their money to buy half the world’s resources, there would be nothing in this current system to stop them doing so. How can this be ethical?

This is why today, people in wealthy countries can spend their days in comfort, chowing down on steaks, whiling their time away playing video games and watching endless TV series and movies, and then go on to talk about these video games and TV shows in an endless loop of nothingness. All while people with the mere misfortune to be born in a different geographical space in time are trying their best to survive in harsh conditions we in the global north car barely imagine. We have more money and more money equals the right to use more resources. We can enjoy ourselves at the expense of the poor.

Due to capitalism’s rapaciousness, our species is hurtling towards ecocide at a frightening pace. All of us in the global north are to blame, some more than others. The fossil fuel companies that have lied to us for decades to keep us hooked on their products, the large conglomerates profiting from the destruction of entire ecosystems to keep us hooked on the flesh of animals even as we are awakening to the fact that plant based diets are healthier and more sustainable, the agrochemical corporations that enrich themselves and their shareholders by forcing farmers to use their chemicals on the food we eat which in turn makes us sick and decimates insect populations and contaminates our soil and kills our earth worms, the car companies that lie about emissions and lobby our elected leaders so we buy more of their products are largely responsible for our current predicament. These companies and the humans that lead them are complicit in nothing short of the manslaughter of millions, the destruction of the ecosystems we rely on for our survival, and the extinction of up to 10,000 species a year. They will also be responsible for the mass starvation of billions of humans in just a decade or so. This is the work of the greed that capitalism encourages and desires in us. Capitalism only survives by us buying more and more things so investors receive returns. The GDP must keep going up and up and up forever or the system collapses. But we all know this is not possible. We have extremely limited resources, and for the GDP to keep rising, we need more and more people. We cannot continue to expand our population in perpetuity. The system was flawed at the outset, and its flaws have never been more apparent than now as we start to see our life systems unravel before our very eyes.

The capitalists and our corrupt governments are largely to blame for this destruction and the extinctions. They will also be to blame for the deaths as food and water runs dry. They were told by scientists that this would happen if they didn’t change course, but they continued anyway to keep the system going, and they ignore the reality of our distress as they fly around in private jets and moor their yachts off shore in the same place they hide their wealth.

But, just as the left in Germany were complicit in the rise of Nazism, we are also complicit in this crime of ecocide. We all benefit from the system that is eating itself. Every day that goes by that we continue to talk about trivial nonsense instead of accepting our dire situation and acting. Every day that goes by as we bury our heads in the sand. Every day that goes by that we carry on buying pointless crap. Every day that goes by that we continue to feed 70 billion farmed animals in factory hell holes while almost a billion humans go hungry. Every day we stay silent as ecosystems collapse, we are complicit in the manslaughter of the global south. We are complicit in the needless resource theft of future generations. We are complicit in the future starvation and conflict that is surely going to arrive at our children’s door. We are enabling the worst to happen to our own children.

If we must blame historical deaths on socialism, communism or fascism, then let’s be honest with ourselves and blame capitalism for ecosystem collapse, extinctions and mass starvation. But, let’s not forget that as we stay silent and act like children, while children act like adults, that we too are to blame.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have options open to us, but time is running out. Will you play video games and watch TV shows tonight, or will you awaken from this drunken stupor and rise up with humanity to demand a just transition to a fairer and more equal system that encourages love not fear and bridges not walls.

Do you want Extinction or Rebellion?

Simon Whalley is a an English teacher at a university in Japan and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Japan.

27 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: The decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on three separate criminal counts pushes the country’s already unprecedented electoral stalemate into the entirely uncharted territory of a constitutional crisis.

There is no legal precedent for a sitting prime minister facing a trial – in Netanyahu’s case, for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was charged with corruption in 2009 but only after he had resigned from office.

Israeli commentators are already warning of the possibility of civil war if, as seems likely, Netanyahu decides to whip up his far-right supporters into a frenzy of outrage. After a decade in power, he has developed an almost cult-like status among sections of the public.

He called for mass protests in Tel Aviv by supporters on Tuesday night under the banner “Stop the coup”.

The honorable thing would be for Netanyahu to step down quickly, given that the two elections he fought this year ended in deadlock. Both were seen primarily as plebiscites on his continuing rule.

He is now the country’s caretaker prime minister, in place until either a new government can be formed or an unprecedented third election is held.

His departure would end months of governmental near-paralysis. The path would then be clear for a successor from his Likud party to negotiate a deal on a right-wing unity government with rival Benny Gantz, a former army general.

Gantz’s Blue and White party has made it a point of principle not to forge an alliance with Netanyahu.

Previous experience, however, suggests that Netanyahu might prefer to tear the house down rather than go quietly. If he is allowed to press ahead with another election in March, he is likely to stoke new levels of incitement against his supposed enemies.

Until now, the main target of his venom has been a predictable one.

During the April and September campaigns, he railed relentlessly against the fifth of Israel’s citizenry who are Palestinian as well as their elected representatives in the Joint List, the third largest faction in the Knesset.

Shortly before last Thursday’s indictment was announced, Netanyahu was at it again, holding an “emergency conference”. He told supporters that a minority government led by Gantz and propped up from outside by the Joint List would be a “historic national attack on Israel”. The Palestinian minority’s MPs, he said, “want to destroy the country”.

Such a government, he added, would be an outcome “they will celebrate in Tehran, in Ramallah and in Gaza, as they do after every terror attack”.

This repeated scaremongering had an obvious goal: rallying the Jewish public to vote for his far-right, now overtly anti-Arab coalition. The hope was that he would win an outright majority and could then force through legislation conferring on him immunity from prosecution.

Now he appears to have run out of time. After three years of investigations and much foot-dragging, the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, has finally charged him.

According to the Israeli media, Netanyahu turned down opportunities for a plea bargain that would have seen him resign in return for avoiding jail time.

According to the most serious allegation, he is accused of granting media tycoon Shaul Elovich benefits worth $500 million in exchange for favourable coverage.

Weighed against the crimes he and other Israeli leaders have perpetrated over many decades against the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the offences he is indicted for seem relatively minor.

Nonetheless, if found guilty, Netanyahu faces a substantial prison sentence of up to 10 years. That makes the stakes high.

All the signs now are that he will switch his main target from Israel’s Palestinian minority to the legal authorities pursuing him.

His first response to the indictment was to accuse the police and state prosecutors of an “attempted coup”, claiming they had fabricated the evidence to “frame” him. “The time has come to investigate the investigators,” he urged.

As one Blue and White official told the veteran Israeli reporter Ben Caspit: “Netanyahu will not hesitate to sic [unleash] his supporters on those institutions of government that represent the rule of law. He has no inhibitions.”

Technically the law allows a prime minister to continue serving while under indictment and before a trial, which is still many months away. Assuming Netanyahu refuses to resign, the courts will have to rule on whether this privilege extends to a caretaker leader unable to form a new government.

Netanyahu is therefore likely to focus his attention on intimidating the supreme court, already cowed by a decade of tongue-lashing from the Israeli right. Critics unfairly accuse the court of being a bastion of liberalism.

But bigger dangers may lie ahead. Netanyahu needs to keep his own Likud party in line. If its members sense he is finished, there could be a rapid collapse of support and moves towards an attempt to overthrow him.

The first hints of trouble emerged on Saturday when Gideon Saar, Netanyahu’s most likely challenger in Likud, accused him of “creating an atmosphere of chaos” by denigrating the legal authorities. On Tuesday he went further calling on Netanyahu to quit.

After the failure by both Gantz and Netanyahu to put together a coalition, the task was passed last week to parliament. Its members have just over a fortnight left to see whether one of their number can rally a majority of MPs.

This brief window could provide an opportunity for Saar to move against Netanyahu. On Sunday he submitted an official request for the Likud party to hold a snap leadership race.

Observers fear that to allay this danger, Netanyahu might consider not only inflaming his base but also setting the region alight with a conflict to rally the rest of the public to his side and make his removal impossible.

In fact, the Israeli media reported that shortly before September’s election, he had tried to pull precisely such a stunt, preparing a war on Gaza to justify postponing the ballot.

He was stopped at the last minute by Mandelblit, who realised that the cabinet had been misled into approving military action. Netanyahu had reportedly concealed from them the fact that the military command was opposed.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu has stoked severe tensions with Gaza by assassinating Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu Al Atta. Last week he launched airstrikes on Iranian positions in Syria.

When Olmert was being investigated for corruption in 2008, Netanyahu sagely warned of the dangerous confusion of interests that might result. “He will make decisions based on his own interests of political survivability rather than the national interest,” he said.

And that is precisely the reason why many in Israel are keen to see the back of Netanyahu – in case his instinct for political survival trumps the interests of stability in the region.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

26 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

When protests in Hong Kong, Iraq, and Lebanon erupted, I was fully anticipating protests in Iran to follow. In 2018 alone, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had spent millions of dollars in these countries (and elsewhere) to promote America’s agenda. However, I did not expect unrest in Iran to take place while I was visiting the country. In retrospect, I am glad that I was here to be witness to these latest events.

On Thursday, November 21st, friends took me to a very charming Iranian restaurant in the heart of the city. During our lunch, they talked about there being a price hike in gasoline. After lunch, we walked around the charming downtown area of Tehran, visited shops and exhausted climbed into a cab. We asked the cab driver if he had heard anything about prices going up. He told us that this was just a rumor. As such, the increase in the price of gasoline took Iranians by surprise. Regrettably, the government of President Rohani had not explained the rationale behind the price increase PRIOR to the increase itself. In several parts of Iran, protests erupted. Perhaps justified; and they were peaceful. One could argue they were disruptive in that cars blocked roads making it difficult for others, causing traffic jams, but there was no vandalism on the first day – not to my knowledge.

But calm soon gave way to violence. A friend who lives in the suburbs of Tehran, in Karaj, told me that on a single street in that sleepy suburb, protestors had set 4 banks on fire. Elsewhere, police stations were attacked, banks and gas stations set on fire. Businesses were set on fire and destroyed. People were sending text messages to each other giving locations of alleged protests in the hopes of gathering people in one spot or another.

This did not surprise me. I was certain that “swarming” tactic was being implemented (as I believe it was elsewhere mentioned above). First developed by RAND as a military and tactical tool, RAND’s publication “Swarming & The future of Conflict” states:

In Athena’s Camp, we speculated that swarming is already emerging as an appropriate doctrine for networked forces to wage information-age conflict. This nascent doctrine derives from the fact that robust connectivity allows for the creation of a multitude of small units of maneuver, networked in such a fashion that, although they might be widely distributed, they can still come together, at will and repeatedly, to deal resounding blows to their adversaries. This study builds on these earlier findings by inquiring at length into why and how swarming might be emerging as a preferred mode of conflict for small, dispersed, internetted units. In our view, swarming will likely be the future of conflict.”

“Social conflict also features pack-like organizations, as exemplified by modern-day “soccer hooligans.” They generally operate in a loosely dispersed fashion, then swarm against targets of opportunity who are “cut out” from a larger group of people. The use of modern information technologies—from the Internet to cell phones—has facilitated plans and operations by such gangs (see Sullivan, 1997)”.

Swarming depends on robust information flow and is a necessary condition for successful swarming. In other words, by controlling communication and sending texts to ‘protestors’, random groups are mobilized together in one or various spots. Chaos ensues which naturally draws reaction. One is never aware of the origin of the messages. In one of her talks, Suzanne Maloney of Brookings seemed to know the exact number of cell phones in use in Iran. These messages increased in number, as did the vandalism and reaction to the destructive behavior. This was not the first time that this tactic had been used in Iran. But it was the first time that Iran’s adversaries were surprised, shocked even, to see that Iran was capable of shutting down the internet so quickly in order to put a stop to the spread of violence and restore calm.

I drove around in Tehran from end to end, either with friends or in a cab and took note of the streets. I watched both Iranian tv news and foreign media such as BBC Persian, VOA, Radio Farda, Saudi funded Iran International broadcasted into Iran through satellite (at times jammed) to encourage people to get out on the streets and to protest. Iran was covered under a blanket of snow. With freezing temperatures, I was amused to see BBC Persian show pictures of ‘demonstrators’ in T-shirts. I was angry to see Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran appear on Iran International encouraging people to get out onto streets. I felt insulted on behalf of every Iranian when Secretary Pompeo retweeted an old tweet and then tweeted again that ‘he was with the Iranian people’ – not to eat, not to receive medicinal goods, not to address their desire for peace and security, but to endure all kinds of hardship and to be subjected to American terrorism (sanctions) and go out on the streets to protest in order to promote America’s agenda.

The hostile foreign media even showed pictures of a ‘protestor’ handing out flowers to security personnel – a symbol first used against the Pentagon in 1967 by a woman protesting the war in Vietnam (and later in the 2014 US backed coup in Ukraine). Except I could not tell if the picture I saw streaming through the foreign media’s satellite television was Iran or not. The viewer was told it was. The symbol was powerful, but I doubt very much that it was an indigenous one.

With the internet disconnected, foreign media propaganda then had its viewers believe people were calling from inside Iran; eyewitnesses reporting events. A voice telling BBC, or Iran International, or …… what was going on. Just a voice which would not doubt then be picked up as eyewitness testimony and shared in all media outlets. The ease with which individuals in various target countries always manage to get directly through to a television stations has always fascinated me. No automated answer – just straight to the newsroom.

In all this, I can’t help but ask why it was that none of the banks and gas stations set on fire, buildings burnt and businesses ruined, were not located in the pro-West parts of Tehran. Their life continued without a hitch – homes safe, business safe. After all, the main reason for the gasoline price increase was to help the less affluent and the poor. Perhaps as Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute said of the CIA’s role behind the uprisings, Michael D’Andrea, aka “Ayatollah Mike” wanted them safe. Regardless of the reason, CIA/NED spent millions and failed – again.

*

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Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research

25 November 2019

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Junaid S. Ahmad

“They weren’t like us and for that reason deserved to be ruled”
-Edward Said

The parallels with the Zionist state are impossible not to notice. This should be no surprise considering the close collaboration between Israel and India in virtually all domains of ‘security,’ i.e. containing the ‘Muslim threat.’ The completion of the fascist Hindutiva project of completely annexing the entire of Indian-occupied Kashmir, utterly unlawful considered the territory’s internationally-recognized status as disputed territory, comes straight from the Israeli playbook. Classic Zionist cliches of ‘transfer’ (i.e., ethnic cleansing) and settler-colonialism based on the absurd mantra of “a land without a people for a people without a land” has become New Dehli’s modus operandi toward Kashmiris.

As Said notes, “they weren’t like us.” In India today, there are entire populations designated by the Hindu right government of the BJP, with its fascist ‘brownshirts’ in the form of the RSS and Shiv Sena, as not like ‘us.’ These include Dalits, tribal peoples resisting ‘development’ that further impoverishes and marginalizes their existence, the Naxalites demanding their own autonomy, refugees of many generations and others in Assam all of a sudden denied citizenship, and of course the most venal form of state terrorism, the more than 700,000 troops that militarily occupy, kill, injure, blind, rape, and detain indefinitely the Kashmiri people who refuse, decade after decade, to submit to a state of subjugation to such immense cruelty.

The 20th century fascist Hindutva project for a ‘Hindu Raj,’ it must be noted, is a a modernist fundamentalist movement that actually despises and is embarassed by the majority of Hindus themselves. It is an upper caste movement that despised ‘weak Hindus’ that refused the sociopathic psychology of violence and toxic masculinity that the ‘strong Hindus’ (and their twisted mindset) desired. Hence, their assassination of Gandhi.

The current repugnant predicament that the Indian state has imposed on Kashmiris is unbearable. The participants in this major international conference clearly recognized this, and were well-intentioned in attempting to develop strategies of assistance and resistance.

However, there was a noticeable absence of voices of Kashmiris themselves, and this has been a perennial problem. One of the lessons learned from the latest Indian assault on Kashmir is that mistakes of the past must be avoided at all costs. Kashmiri voices and Kashmiri lives must be centered, not those of Pakistanis and certainly not those of Indians. One of the other critical points raised was the sheer bankruptcy of much of the Indian liberal-left intelligentsia, both within India and abroad, to openly criticize and condemn New Dehli’s actions, and to stand in solidarity with Kashmiris. Indian academics and the diaspora in general have been abysmal when it comes to the question of Kashmiris and their right to self-determination.

While it is undoubtedly the case that we have witnessed commentary in mainstream Western media like the New York Times and The Washington Post that, perhaps after virtually thirty years, have openly criticized India’s butchery in Kashmir, it still very much seems that the economics of a market of over a billion people will trump the blood and lives of eight million Kashmiris. The so-called international community, with murmurs here and there about how unfortunate this situation is, once again proves itself to be utterly useless in upholding international law and applying any pressure to the Subcontinent’s hegemonic power.

Nevertheless, all is not lost and the seeds of hope, of ongoing formidable Kashmiri resistance for liberation, were underscored. There were some who raised the usual canard of where is the ‘peaceful’ Mandela in struggles like Kashmir and Palestine. Some of us respectfully reminded them that Mandela did not go to jail for being ‘peaceful’: he was jailed for founding the MK, the armed wing of the African National Congress. And he could have been released at least ten years earlier from jail, but he refused to renounce the armed struggle against the oppressive minority white Apartheid regime. Armed struggle against colonial occupation has always been an internationally guaranteed right for all colonized peoples. It’s just that we live in such Islamophobic times that ‘anti-colonial/occupation’ struggles are only seen through the prism of ‘Islamic terrorism’ when it involves just Muslim resistance to oppression.

One controversial issue was that of the language used to describe the current scenario in Kashmir. Just like in the Zionist Occupied Territories, if the Palestinians had F-16s, tanks, cutting edge missiles, and defense systems, then you can call it what most of the mainstream media call it: the Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict.’ Calling it a conflict is a farcical ploy to conceal the routine Zionist festivals of slaughter against Palestinians, shooting at them like pigeons. And the exact same problematique of semantics applies to the similar plight of Kashmiris living under the most militarized occupation in the world.

Finally, it would be unfair to say that there is public activism on Kashmir at the moment unlike we’ve seen for a long time. Just in the US alone, the ‘Stand Up for Kashmir’ movement of academics, activists, and ordinary concerned citizens has taken off like wildfire. In particular, Kashmiri women have powerfully conveyed their sordid narratives under Indian occupation to Western civil society utterly clueless about the situation.

Prime Minister Imran Khan unquestionably made a remarkably powerful plea to the world at the UN to not ignore the degradation to which Kashmiris are subject. However, Imran Khan, just like leaders before him like Martin Luther King, would be nothing if there is not a budding mass movement to put pressure on civil society, academic institutions, companies, and governments to adopt the Palestian strategy toward India: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.

The Kashmiris are waiting for us to be in solidarity with them in confronting the terrorist behemoth that wants to completely subdue them, but never will.

25 November 2019

Junaid S. Ahmad is the Director of the Center for Global Studies, UMT, Lahore, Pakistan. He is also a JUST member.

By Peter Koenig

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, is based on a 2,100-year-old trade route between the Middle East and Eastern Asia, called the Silk Road. It wound its ways across the huge landmass Eurasia to the most eastern parts of China. It favored trading, based on the Taoist philosophy of harmony and peaceful coexistence – trading in the original sense of the term, an exchange with “win-win” outcomes, both partners benefiting equally.

Today, in the western world we have lost this concept. The terms of trade are imposed always by the ‘stronger’ partner, the west versus the poorer south – the south where most of the natural resources are lodged. Mother Earth’s assets have been and are coveted by the west– or north – for building and maintaining a lifestyle in luxury, abundance and waste. This trend has lasted for centuries of western colonialism: Exploitation, loot, esclavisation and rape of entire peoples of the Global South by the Global North, to use the current soothing World Bank lingo.

The New Silk Road, or BRI, is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s brainchild.It’s based on the same ancient principles, adjusted to the 21st Century, building bridges between peoples, exchanging goods, research, education, knowledge, cultural wisdom, peacefully, harmoniously and ‘win-win’ style. On 7 September 2013, Xi presented BRI at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University. He spoke about “People-to-People Friendship and Creating a better Future”. He referred to the Ancient Silk Road of more than 2,100 years ago, that flourished during China’s Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD).

Referring to this epoch of more than two millenniums back, Xi Jinping pointed to the history of exchanges under the Ancient Silk Road, saying,“they had proven that countries with differences in race, belief and cultural background can absolutely share peace and development as long as they persist in unity and mutual trust, equality and mutual benefit, mutual tolerance and learning from each other, as well as cooperation and win-win outcomes.”

President Xi’s vision may be shaping the world of the 21st Century. The Belt and Road Initiative is designed and modeled loosely according to the Ancient Silk Road. President Xi launched this ground-breaking project soon after assuming the Presidency in 2013. The endeavor’s idea is to connect the world with transport routes, infrastructure, industrial joint ventures, teaching and research institutions, cultural exchange and much more. Since 2017, enshrined in China’s Constitution, BRI has become the flagship for China’s foreign policy.

BRI is literally building bridges and connecting people of different continents and nations. The purpose of the New Silk Road is “to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets, through cultural exchange and integration, to enhance mutual understanding and trust of member nations, ending up in an innovative pattern with capital inflows, talent pool, and technology database”. BRI is a perfect vehicle for building peacefully a World Community with a Shared Future for Mankind – which was the theme of an international Forum held in Shanghai, from 5-7 November, a tribute to China’s 70th Anniversary of her Revolution and achievements – with a vision into the future.

BRI is a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese Government. Already todayBRI has investments involving more than 150 countries and international organizations – and growing – in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. BRI is a multi-trillion investment scheme, for transport routes on land and sea, as well as construction of industrial and energy infrastructure and energy exploration – as well as trade among connected countries.Unlike WTO (World Trade Organization), BRI is encouraging nations to benefit from their comparative advantages, creating win-win situations. In essence, BRI is to develop mutual understanding and trust among member nations, allowing for free capital flows, a pool of experts and access to a BRI-based technology data base.

At present, BRI’s closing date is foreseen for 2049 which coincides with new China’s 100th Anniversary. The size and likely success of the program indicates, however, already today that it will most probably be extended way beyond that date. It is worth noting, though, that only in 2019, six years after its inception, BRI has become a news item in the West. Remarkably, for six years BRI was as much as denied, or ignored by the western media, in the hope it may go away. But away it didn’t go. To the contrary, many European Union members have already subscribed to BRI, including Greece, Italy, France, Portugal – and more will follow, as the temptation to participate in this projected socioeconomic boom is overwhelming.

Germany, the supposed economic leader of Europe, is mulling over the benefits and contras of participating in BRI. The German business community, like business throughout Europe, is strongly in favor of lifting US-imposed sanctions and reconnecting with the East, in particular with China and Russia. But official Berlin is still with one foot in the White House – and with the other trying to appease the German – and European – world of business. This balancing act is in the long run not sustainable and certainly not desirable. At present BRI is already actively involved in over 80 countries, including at least half of the EU members.

To counteract the pressure to join BRI, the European Union, basically run by NATO and intimately linked to Washington, has initiated their own ‘Silk Road’, attempting to connect Asia with Europe through Japan. In that sense, the EU and Japan have signed a “free trade agreement” which includes a compact to build infrastructure, in sectors such as energy, transport and digital devices. The purpose is to strengthen economic and cultural ties between the two regions, boosting business relations between Asia and Europa. It is an obvious effort to compete with or even sideline China’s BRI. But it is equally obvious that this response will fail. Usually initiatives taken in ill-fate are not successful. And China, non-belligerent China, is unlikely to challenge this EU-Japan competitive approach.

In another approach to counter BRI, The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), launched on 4 November the Blue Dot Network (BDN), an initiative supposedly run entirely by private actors, funded by private banking, intended to bring together governments, the private sector, and civil society “to promote high-quality, trusted standards for global infrastructure development in an open and inclusive framework.”
It is not clear how the BDN will interact with or counteract BRI. Anything run entirely by the private sector, especially western private banking, is no good omen for the country their “development effort” touches. Such investments’ objectives are primarily shareholder profits, not socioeconomic development benefitting the countries where they plan to invest. No competition for China’s BRI. Again, non-aggressive China is unlikely to react.

China’s New Silk Road is creating a multipolar world, where all participants will benefit. The idea is to encourage economic growth, distributed in a balanced way, so as to prioritize development opportunities for those most in need. That means the under-developed areas of western China, eastern Russia, Central Asia, Central Europe – reaching out to Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, as well as to South East Asia and the Pacific. BRI is already actively building and planning some six to ten land and maritime routes, connecting Africa, the Middle East, Europe and South America.

The expected multi-trillion-dollar equivalent dynamic budget is expected to be funded by China, largely, but not exclusively, by the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), by Russia – and by all the countries that are part of BRI and involved in singular or multi-country projects. The long-term return on these massive investments in people’s wellbeing is an exponential multiple of the original investments and cannot be limited to numerical economics, as social benefits of wellbeing cannot be defined by linear accounting.

Implementing BRI, or the New Silk Road, is itself the realization of a vision of nations: Peaceful interconnectivity, joint infrastructure and industrial development, as well as joint management of natural resources. For example, BRI may help with infrastructure and management advice resolving or preventing conflicts on transboundary water resources. There are some 263 transboundary lake and river basins, covering almost half the earth’s surface and involving some 150 countries. In addition, there are about 300 transboundary aquifers serving about 2 billion people who depend on groundwater.

The Chinese government calls the Silk Road Initiative “a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future”. Today, John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” is more relevant than ever. And China is a vanguard in promoting peaceful development across the globe. BRI, China’s foreign policy flagship, is clearly an initiative towards world Peace.

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

25 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

At least 13 protesters were killed and 150 were injured Sunday in Baghdad and the southern cities of Basra and Nasiriya during clashes between security forces and the protesters. Sunday was one of the “worst” days since protests began. Many of these deaths were due to the use of live ammunition and tear gas by security forces against demonstrators.

At least 342 people have been killed in protests in Iraq since the protest began in early October.

Several of killed protesters are reported to have died after they were shot in the face with tear gas canisters. Safaa al Saray, a 26-year-old protester, killed in the same way as Safaa was protesting against the lack of jobs, an end to corruption and better public services.

The anti-government protests began in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and spread to cities across the south of the country.

On Sunday, thousands came out across the country after activists called for a general strike.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, street battles between security sources and protesters continued as demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square on Sunday.

According to the Iraqi Human Rights Council, “three demonstrators were killed in violent clashes with security forces in Umm Qasr, south of Basra, and 78 others were injured. Three demonstrators died in Nasiriya and 71 people were injured. In Basra, seven people were killed in what one security official called “one of the worst” days of the protest movement.

In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, street battles between security sources and protesters continued.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Khaled al-Mahanna said Saturday night that three demonstrators were killed in Baghdad alone and more than 100 people were injured, including 30 members of the security forces in clashes with demonstrators at Ahrar Bridge.

Human rights groups have previously described the situation in Iraq as a “bloodbath” and have called on the government to stop the security forces.

For their part, protesters are demanding the overthrow of the political elites that they consider corrupt and serving foreign powers, while many Iraqis suffer in poverty without work, medical care or education.

Iraqi protesters blocked Sunday the third bridge leading to Baghdad’s Green Zone and roads leading to oilfields and the main port in the country’s south, gaining more ground in the largest and deadliest anti-government demonstrations in decades.

Security forces used tear gas and stun bombs to stop protesters from crossing the Ahrar Bridge in central Baghdad, in part of a weeks-long attempt to disrupt traffic and get to the Green Zone where government ministries and embassies are located.

Additionally, hundreds of students gathered in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the symbolic place of the protest movement.

“No politics, no parties, this is a student awakening!” read one banner carried by a young Iraqi.

For the second time since the start of anti-establishment demonstrations, protesters on last Monday blocked the entrance to the Umm Qasr, Iraq’s main Gulf port near Basra, preventing employees and tankers from entering and bringing operations down by 50 percent, two port sources said.

If the blockage continues, operations will come to a complete halt, the sources told Reuters.

“We students are here to help the other protesters, and we won’t retreat a single step,” said another teenager.

In the city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, students and other activists concentrated in front of the provincial headquarters.

“We’ll keep up our protest and general strike with all Iraqis until we force the government to resign,” said Hassaan al-Tufan, a lawyer and activist.

Sit-ins have become the main tactic for the protest rallies.

Iraqi security forces have been heavily criticized for their use of live rounds including machine-gun fire – and firing of heavy-duty tear gas canisters against mostly young and unarmed protesters, leading to “gruesome” deaths and injuries when canisters pierce protesters’ skulls or lungs.

The outgoing chief of NATO’s Iraq mission told AFP on Sunday the violence was “an absolute tragedy.”

“While the events of the last six weeks are an absolute tragedy, NATO continues to urge restraint to the government of Iraq,” said Major General Dany Fortin.

The government has proposed a list of reforms in recent weeks but demonstrators rejected them as insignificant and made too late in a country ranked the 12th most corrupt in the world by Transparency International.

“These steps, these reforms are just an opiate for the masses. Nothing more, nothing less,” one protester said on Sunday, pointing to the Green Zone, adding, “there are so many capable young people in Iraq who are deprived, and unfortunately those are the guys who rule us.”

25 November 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kees van der Pijl

On 9 March, 2020, the trial of those accused of being responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on 17 July 2014, is planned to begin. The decision to hold a trial of MH17 suspects was taken by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie, OM) on 19 June 2019, on the basis of the criminal investigation by the Joint investigation Committee, JIT. The JIT members conducting this investigation are the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and Ukraine and Malaysia (since March 2015). Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia has criticised the late admission of his country to the criminal prosecution, and also has raised doubts about the pertinence of the indictment for murder of three Russians and one Ukrainian, an indictment made public at the JIT press conference also on 19 June 2019.

Whether the JIT under these circumstances is still able to function, is therefore in serious doubt. The decision by the JIT countries that the prosecution and trial of suspects would be conducted by and in the Netherlands, under Dutch law, dates from 5 July 2017. To facilitate the actual trial next year, a special treaty was concluded by the Netherlands and Ukraine covering a number of practical issues such as extradition, video hearing of defendants, and the like. The trial will be held before the Hague District Court, in a special location to accommodate a large trial, the Justice Complex Schiphol (JCS) near Schiphol Airport. On the special website launched to publicise the event, and via which its proceedings will be live-streamed, the court is already being recommended as having extensive experience with cases involving international elements. ‘It has, for instance, heard cases with regard to offences that nowadays are punishable in the International Crimes Act. Examples of offences under this law are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture.’ As the website continues,

The quality of the Dutch justice system ranks above average compared with other countries. This is confirmed by the EU Justice Scoreboard (a comparison of the justice systems of the European Union member states) and the Rule of Law Index (a global comparison of justice systems). These rankings are based on matters such as the average duration of trials, how judges are trained and the extent to which the justice system is free from discrimination, corruption and political influence. In terms of experience with international proceedings, the Netherlands ranks number one in the world.

These self-congratulatory qualifications notwithstanding, we cannot look forward to the trial with confidence, on the contrary. For the sort of justice being dispensed here is a very special, new form of justice, international criminal law. That type of law is not the familiar form of international law, based on treaties, of which states are the legal subjects. It is an individualised form of transnational penal law, national to varying degrees (hence, ‘involving international elements’), and with a record that does not give rise to optimism, certainly not where it concerns he role of the Netherlands.

In one of the most disturbing cases, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which also sat in The Hague, the prosecution was principally directed against Serbians and the chief suspect, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, died in his cell after the main charge against him had been dropped for lack of evidence. On the other hand, NATO bombing of Serbia, without even a UN mandate, was not prosecuted and the secessionists’ actions in the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia profited from a light touch. Since one of the judges assigned to the MH17 trial, Ms. C.I.H. Kerstens-Fockens LLM, was an intern at the ICTY, the Yugoslavia experience deserves to be investigated closely. In the parallel Rwanda tribunal, only Hutus were investigated and indicted for the massacres in 1994, whilst the Tutsi RPF, which triggered the bloodbath by shooting down the plane of the Rwandan president, was not. The International Criminal Court (ICC) only indicted Africans, whilst George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who ordered the invasion of Iraq, were seemingly above the law. In the Lockerbie trial held in the Netherlands (by a Scottish court), a Libyan who had nothing to do with that disaster was found guilty and sentenced. So if in the upcoming MH17 trial, only Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians are the suspects, this fits the longer trend.

One must fear, then, that the upcoming trial of the MH17 suspects will not depart from the pattern established in the three decades of legal precedent in this area. Indeed, prosecution in international criminal cases has so far turned out to be nothing else but the continuation by different means of so-called ‘humanitarian intervention’; so first comes the intervention itself (sanctions, ‘colour revolutions’, coups d’état, regime change wars), and then the judicial sequel, all part of a single punitive operation. Indeed ‘humanitarian intervention’, harking back to the mediaeval concept of ‘just war’, in all or most cases has been followed by the application of criminal justice to the parties against whom the intervention was launched in the first place. This is the one similarity with the trials of Nazi and Japanese war criminals at the end of World War II, except that the Nuremberg trial of the former laid down the principle that launching a war is the supreme war crime. Humanitarian intervention has functioned as a way round that principle.

Kees van der Pijl is a Dutch political scientist who was professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. He is known for his critical approach to global political economy and has published, amongst others, Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War.

25 November 2019