WAR 10-24-2015-to-10-30-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(186) 10-03-2015-to-10-09-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...09-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(187) 10-10-2015-to-10-16-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...16-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(188) 10-17-2015-to-10-23-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...23-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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http://www.janes.com/article/55476/iran-s-underground-missile-base

Industry

Iran's underground missile base

Jeremy Binnie, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
22 October 2015

Key Points
•Iran has provided a rare glimpse inside one of its underground missile bases
•The base could be temporarily neutralised if its entrances were bombed

Iranian state television broadcast new footage from inside an underground base on 14 October that raised questions about the scale of the facility and the concept of operations adopted by ballistic missile forces.

The footage was clearly intended to give the impression of a vast underground complex that contains a multitude of transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) that are ready to fire ballistic missiles. The Iranian report described the base as "a city which is beyond the enemy's imagination". Most of the missiles carried by the TELs appeared to be liquid-fuel Shahab-3-series weapons designed to target Israel.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran's ballistic missile forces, was widely quoted as saying there are numerous such bases buried 500 m underground (an unlikely claim), ready to immediately launch their missiles on the supreme leader's orders.

The facility seen in the video might not be the vast 'missile city' it was claimed to be. While the main tunnel was wide and high, it did not appear to have any air conditioning ducts, suggesting it was not far underground. Only eight TELs and around 130 personnel were seen in any given shot.

This presence of multiple mobile TELs suggested missiles cannot be launched from inside the facility. While it would be theoretically possible to carve out caverns where medium-range missiles can be erected and fired through a small aperture, it would be far easier to use a fixed launcher system rather than have eight TELs driving around a tunnel complex.

The Iranian concept of operations might involve the TELs making only brief sojourns to launch their missiles before immediately returning to the safety of the tunnel network where they can be reloaded.

Want to read more? For analysis on this article and access to all our insight content, please enquire about our subscription options ihs.com/contact

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2015/10/23/from_beirut_to_benghazi.html

From Beirut to Benghazi

By Kevin Sullivan
5 Comments
October 23, 2015

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 11-hour marathon testimony on the September 2012 attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that left four dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, arguably made for better political theater than anything else. Still, it was redolent of the aftermath of another tragic attack on American servicemen in the Middle East.

The 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, carried out by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah resulted in the deaths of 241 Americans, including 220 U.S. Marines. The attack on the barracks rattled Americans, who were still reeling at the time from the aftereffects of the Vietnam War, and it represented the deadliest attack against U.S. Marines since World War II.

It also raised immediate questions about American ends and interests in Lebanon. That country was mired in a sectarian civil war and occupied by multiple foreign powers. The United States had deployed Marines in 1982 to assist in a peacekeeping mission overseeing the evacuation of Palestinian guerilla fighters from Beirut. It redeployed forces to the country that same year following the assassination of president-elect Bachir Gemayel, even though the aforementioned peacekeeping mission had achieved its aims.

An inquiry soon followed, and in December 1983 a House subcommittee determined that security missteps by officers on the ground left the barracks vulnerable to attack. The committee urged the Reagan administration "in the strongest terms" to reassess its policy in Lebanon. Within two months, American forces were withdrawn from the country.

Foreign policy analyst Micah Zenko, reflecting on the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal, noted just how unusual Reagan's policy shift would appear through today's lens:

"What was particularly remarkable about Reagan's bold decision was its rarity. Presidents often authorize using force or deploying troops to achieve some discrete set of political and military objectives. When they prove incapable of doing so with the initial resources and political support, the mission can be scaled back in its scope, enlarged to achieve additional missions, or, the atypical choice, terminated. The latter option requires having the ability to recognize failure, and political courage to end a U.S. military commitment. In large part, it is a combined lack of strategic awareness and political courage that explains many U.S. military disasters."

Comparing foreign policy errors and adjustments can be an inexact exercise, as circumstances vary and context becomes key. In 1983, the United States was still locked in a geopolitical tit-for-tat with the Soviet Union, and it was understood that any overreaction by one power somewhere around the globe could lure the other in and spark confrontation, as it nearly did in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Reagan also understood that a prolonged American presence in Lebanon would only serve to draw the United States into a civil war in which it had little stake, and result in an open-ended military campaign with opaque, imprecise objectives.

But it would be a mistake to overlook the civility and sanity of Washington's reassessment following the barracks bombing. It should serve as a reminder to present and future U.S. officials that inquiry and accountability are indeed good things -- if, in fact, you ask the right questions.

Around the Region

Back in Iraq. While America measures its missteps in Libya, the United States appears to be revamping its presence in the failing state of Iraq. Reports indicate that U.S. special forces, along with Kurdish peshmerga commandos, successfully freed 70 prisoners believed to be facing "imminent mass execution" in an ISIS-held prison north of the town of Haija.

One U.S. soldier was killed in the operation, the first American combat death in Iraq in nearly four years. The Daily Beast's Nancy Youssef provides some context:

"The death of a U.S. service member reinforced critics' fears that the redeployment of American troops to Iraq could lead to an expanded mission -- one that involved combat. Special Forces are not the first to come under increasing threat. U.S. trainees stationed at a base in western Iraq's Anbar province, for example, endure a handful of mortar rounds a day, a defense official told The Daily Beast. There are concerns in the Pentagon that an American service member could be killed by one of those attacks."

Spy vs. spy. The Wall Street Journal's Adam Entous offers a must-read account of deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations, and how it has resulted in a secretive game of Mideast espionage over the Iranian nuclear agreement:

"Instead of talking to each other, the allies kept their intentions secret. To figure out what they weren't being told, they turned to their spy agencies to fill gaps. They employed deception, not only against Iran, but against each other. After working in concert for nearly a decade to keep Iran from an atomic bomb, the U.S. and Israel split over the best means: diplomacy, covert action or military strikes.

[...]

"As talks began in 2014 on a final accord, U.S. intelligence agencies alerted White House officials that Israelis were spying on the negotiations. Israel denied any espionage against the U.S. Israeli officials said they could learn details, in part, by spying on Iran, an explanation U.S. officials didn't believe.

"Earlier this year, U.S. officials clamped down on what they shared with Israel about the talks after, they allege, Mr. Netanyahu's aides leaked confidential information about the emerging deal."

Turkey swallows the Assad pill. And finally, Al-Monitor's Fehim Taºtekin reports that Ankara is coming to terms with the likelihood of a post-war role for Syrian President Bashar Assad, but only if a timeline for his total departure is established beforehand, and his hands are kept off the country's most important levers of power. Taºtekin:

"On Oct. 19, a high-ranking official in Ankara gave an 'off the record' briefing to a group of Turkish columnists. He said nine countries, including Turkey, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have agreed on a formula for a six-month transition under Assad's leadership.

[...]

"One of the journalists compared the 'symbolic president for a specified period' with the German president's limited role in that country's parliamentary government. Another defined it as 'ineffective and unauthorized honorary president.'"
ober 23, 2015

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151025/as--bangladesh-bomb_attack-56aba9bb5c.html

Bangladesh rejects Islamic State claim of attack on Shiites

Oct 25, 6:08 AM (ET)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh has rejected the Islamic State group's claim that it was behind a bomb attack on thousands of Shiite Muslims in the nation's capital.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Sunday that there was no evidence to suggest involvement by the IS and accused local banned Islamic extremist groups and an Islamist party for planning Saturday's attack in an attempt to destabilize the country.

Unidentified attackers hurled home-made bombs at Shiite Muslims gathered for a religious procession in Dhaka before dawn Saturday. A teenage boy died and more than 100 other people were injured.

The Islamic State group posted a statement online Saturday claiming responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi activities.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151025/af--kenya-somalia-d2bbd2322d.html

Kenya: 15 Islamic extremist rebels killed in Somalia

Oct 25, 7:19 AM (ET)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya's military says it has destroyed a base in Somalia operated by the Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab and killed 15 of its fighters.

Kenya has been hit several times by al-Shabab, which opposes Kenyan military involvement in Somalia.

Kenyan military spokesman Col. David Obonyo said in a statement Sunday that Kenyan troops under the African Union mission in Somalia destroyed an al-Shabab base at Yantooy by Jubba River in southern Somalia in a dawn attack.

He said two boats the rebels have been using to cross the river were also destroyed.

He added that Yantooy has been the main base used by rebels to cross the river from Jilib, an al-Shabab base in Lower Shabelle region, and infiltrate the Lower Jubba region near the border with Kenya.

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/10/25/europe-migrants-conflict-idINKCN0SJ08920151025

Top News | Sun Oct 25, 2015 3:12pm IST
Related: Top News

Rift on refugees spurs solidarity vs security risk to Europe's unity

BRUSSELS | By Paul Taylor


A rift over Europe's response to the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees is leading some in Brussels to voice fears for the future of the European Union.

The 28-nation bloc is torn between solidarity and security as governments struggle to cope with an influx of people fleeing war and oppression in Syria, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, which is fuelling a political backlash in many countries.

"What was unimaginable before is possible today - that is the disintegration of the European project," Frans Timmermans, the European Commission vice-president coordinating EU action on the migration crisis, told the Friends of Europe think-tank.

Mutual mistrust among EU governments has reached alarming levels, say old Brussels hands who are used to frequent past crises.

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging EU countries to open their doors and their hearts to refugees, other leaders see the top priorities as controlling the EU's external borders to stem arrivals, deporting more people denied asylum and paying third countries to keep refugees on their soil.

Several EU partners, led outspokenly by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, accuse Merkel of having amplified the wave of migrants when she decided unilaterally in August to take in Syrian refugees without applying an EU rule that asylum seekers must apply in the first European country they reach.

German officials say she was simply recognising the reality that the asylum rules, which put an unrealistic burden on Greece and Italy, had broken down and required a humanitarian response.

A stampede of refugees heading to Germany across his country prompted Orban to seal Hungary's borders with Serbia and Croatia, setting off a chain reaction of beggar-thy-neighbour actions by overstretched governments.

That has stranded tens of thousands in inhuman conditions in the Western Balkans as winter nears.

Support for far-right parties fanning fears of foreigners, Islam and terrorism is soaring in France, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. British Eurosceptics are using the crisis to buttress their arguments for voting to leave the EU in a forthcoming referendum.

Governments in central and eastern Europe are resisting demands from Berlin and Brussels to admit mandatory quotas of refugees. A swing to the nationalist right in Poland is likely to harden that front.

At home, Merkel faces growing pressure within her own conservative party to close German borders and limit the number of migrants. Her government has cut benefits for asylum seekers and is speeding up the removal of rejected applicants.

The crisis has also opened up divergences among EU institutions, with the European Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker treating it primarily as a long-term humanitarian challenge to integrate refugees.

By contrast, European Council President Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who chairs EU summits, calls the wave of migrants a "threat" to be "stemmed" or "contained", notably by paying Turkey to keep Syrian refugees on its soil.

Tusk sided squarely with the security camp in a speech to centre-right leaders in Madrid last week, saying in a rare swipe at Merkel that those who want quotas for refugees to be agreed before Europe's borders were secured were naive.

"We can no longer allow solidarity to be equivalent to naivety, openness to be equivalent to helplessness, freedom to be equivalent to chaos. And by that, I am of course referring to the situation on our borders," he said.

"Citizens want to feel safe again, because only then will they be capable of helping people in need."


RICH AND WEAK

The influx poses profound challenges to ageing, wealthy but anxious European societies that were already struggling to adapt to globalisation and multi-culturalism.

It comes at a time when many working class voters have switched their support to the far right out of anger over unemployment, falling living standards and immigration.

While some European leaders portray the refugee wave as a temporary issue that can be curbed with better border controls, Timmermans said: "The worst thing we could do is to present the picture to people that if we take these measures, the problem will stop. It won't. It will be with us for a generation."

Even if there were a peace settlement in Syria's four-year-old civil war, which seems a remote prospect, the wider refugee and migration challenge will remain.

At the congress of the European People's Party, the dominant force among EU governments and the biggest party in the European Parliament, Orban drew applause when he denounced Merkel's open-door policy as a magnet for "economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters".

He depicted Europe as "rich and weak - the most dangerous possible mixture".

While many European leaders may deplore his strongarm tactics and rhetoric, they are acutely aware of the challenge the crisis poses to the their own political survival and to cooperation in the EU.

"The migration crisis will determine the future of our political family," Orban told delegates. "We are in a deep trouble. The migration crisis is able to destabilise governments, countries and the European continent."


(Additional reporting by Robert Hetz in; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-america-here-comes-chinas-ballistic-missile-14162

Get Ready, America: Here Comes China's Ballistic Missile Defenses [1]

"There is little doubt today that China is developing a strategic BMD capability; their flight tests alone make that clear."
Michael Peck [2] [3] 5
Comments 17

It's time for America to worry about Chinese ballistic missile defenses (BMD).

That's the conclusion of a new study [4] by the Federation of American Scientists, which found that while Beijing has not yet decided to build strategic missile defenses, Chinese leaders are seriously thinking about it.

"Unlike some years ago, there is little doubt today that China is developing a strategic BMD capability; their flight tests alone make that clear," said authors Bruce MacDonald and Charles Ferguson, who spoke with more than 50 Chinese and American experts, including Chinese officials, military officers and academics. While Chinese BMD is in the development stage, it does give Beijing the option of deploying a missile defense capability – or not – depending on its assessment of the international situation.

"At a minimum, it appears that a Chinese deployment of strategic BMD is probably less unlikely than most U.S. defense analysts have in the past assessed," the study said.

"Given the extended duration of China’s strategic BMD development program, going back two to three decades, it is safe to say that China is not on any crash course to develop, much less to deploy, a strategic BMD system. Nonetheless, China’s program has reached a stage of maturity that gives it a viable option to deploy if it so chooses."

The report, titled "Understanding the Dragon Shield: Likelihood and Implications of Chinese Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense," was spurred by what the authors say is a lack of public analysis of just what Chinese ballistic missile defense would mean for the United States.

The answer is that it could have serious – or minor – implications depending on what China chooses to do. MacDonald and Ferguson believe that if China opts to build missile defenses, the most likely scenario would be a limited deployment. A "thin BMD" would pose little threat to the ability of U.S. nuclear forces to strike China, as even Chinese experts conceded to the authors: "There was broad agreement that it would make little sense for China to seek to defend against U.S. nuclear warheads given the potentially several hundred warheads the United States could launch within minutes."

Yet in what will probably be a blow to American self-importance, the United States would probably not be the main target of Chinese missile defense, but rather China's neighbors. "The prime impact will be on Indian confidence in its ability to deter China with nuclear weapons," the study says, as well as sending a signal to Japan.

The RAND report lays out a variety of incentives and disincentives for China to deploy missile defense, many of which suggest that actually stopping nuclear attack is the least of China's reasons for building BMD. It would boost China's prestige in Asia and the Chinese government's prestige among its own people, as well as generate leverage in any future arms control negotiations. Even a limited employment would allow China to better understand BMD technology as well as the weaknesses of a Chinese – or American – defense system. BMD could also deter (theoretical) American Prompt Global Strike non-nuclear ICBM attacks and provide political cover for China to test anti-satellite weapons under the guise of missile defense.

On the other hand, BMD would be expensive, undercut China's long-standing protests against American deployment of missile defenses and trigger responses such as greater Japanese defense spending. Either way, deployment of the Chinese missile defense system would likely create a furor in Congress.

What's most interesting about this new analysis is its old tropes. In 1972, this sort of strategic nuclear war thinking would have been as familiar as gasoline that cost $.36 per gallon. But it's been awhile since we've dealt with the issue of nuclear weapons wielded by major powers, rather than pretenders like Iran and North Korea.

Even more significant is the fact that strategic missile defense has largely been seen as an American initiative. Now, other countries are joining the game.

Michael Peck, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a defense and historical writer based in Oregon. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, WarIsBoring and many other fine publications. He can be found on Twitter [5] and Facebook [6].

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Luo Shaoyang [7]/CC by 2.0


Tags
Ballistic missile [8]Anti-ballistic missile [9]China [10]
Topics
Security [11]
Regions
Asia-Pacific [12]
[3] 5

Source URL (retrieved on October 25, 2015): http://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-america-here-comes-chinas-ballistic-missile-14162

Links:
[1] http://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-america-here-comes-chinas-ballistic-missile-14162
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/michael-peck
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] https://fas.org/pub-reports/understanding-the-dragon-shield/
[5] https://twitter.com/Mipeck1
[6] https://www.facebook.com/michael.peck.967
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_soldier_on_Tienanmen_Square.jpg
[8] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/ballistic-missile
[9] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/anti-ballistic-missile
[10] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/china
[11] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security
[12] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia-pacific

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

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http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/whats-next-with-the-iranians-b99595868z1-336436391.html

Opinion

What's next with the Iranians?

By JOSEPH CIRINCIONE
Oct. 24, 2015

The fierce debate over the nuclear agreement with Iran has cooled, but the most interesting part of the drama is about to unfold.

Over the next few months, if all goes well, Iran will do what few countries have done. Peacefully and without the compulsion of an occupying force, Iranian engineers will rip out and destroy major portions of a nuclear complex Iran spent billions to build.

It is a massive job. Iranians will pull out two-thirds of their uranium-enriching centrifuges. They will ship out of the country almost all their stockpile of enriched uranium material that could be used to build a bomb.

They will pull out the core of their plutonium-producing reactor, drill it full of holes, and fill it with concrete. The entire program will shrink to a fraction of its current size and then be wrapped in the most intrusive inspection regime ever negotiated. For the next 25 years, state-of-the-art sensors and innovative procedures will track every ounce of Iranian uranium from the moment it is dug from the earth.

Together, these actions, most experts agree, will block Iran's pathways to a bomb for a generation. Even when some limitations expire, Iran is permanently banned from ever developing a nuclear weapon.

What does this mean for the future of U.S.-Iran relations? Three distinct approaches have emerged. Which we choose may be just as important as ending the nuclear threat.

Those who most ferociously opposed the agreement still want to confront Iran. For them, the real aim was always to overthrow the regime. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, for example, said in 2011 that "it's long since been time" to attack Iran. The goal should be to remove the regime, not appease it with deals. They will try to sabotage the accord. Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner said, "I will use every tool at my disposal to stop, slow and delay this agreement."

Hillary Clinton has a different approach. She fully embraces the agreement as a major national security achievement. But that is as far as she goes. "This isn't the start of some broader diplomatic opening," she said in a recent speech. While not explicitly ruling out further talks, she detailed a new containment policy to pressure and deter Iran. She joked at the Democratic debate that "the Iranians" were one of the enemies she was most proud of making. With Iranian troops now getting more deeply involved in Syria, this policy may appeal to many.

It certainly reassures some of her key donors and supporters. It also helps her present a tough, "realistic" foreign policy whose main pillars in the Middle East will be opposition to Iran and unconditional support for Israel.

But this is not the strategy advanced by President Barack Obama. If Clinton favors containment with some engagement, Obama prefers engagement with some containment.

In his speech to the United Nations, he spoke of exploiting the diplomatic possibilities opened by the Iran accord. While criticizing some of Iran's regional actions, he urged Iran's leaders to change course. If they do, he held out the possibility of working with them to end the bloodshed in Syria and to counter ISIS.

As if addressing both Clinton and the neoconservatives, Obama rebuffed calls for increased U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. He rejected the argument "that the only strength that matters for the United States is bellicose words and shows of military force; that cooperation and diplomacy will not work." The Iran agreement, he said, is proof of the superiority of realistic diplomacy. "If this deal is fully implemented," Obama said, "the prohibition on nuclear weapons is strengthened, a potential war is averted, our world is safer. That is the strength of the international system when it works the way it should."

Henry Kissinger agrees. "Iran's role can be critical" in preventing further Middle East collapse," he wrote Oct. 18. "The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with Iran if it moderates its behavior."

Speeches rarely resolve policy disputes. But the facts on the ground over the next few months might. If reports from Iran show the dismantlement of its long-feared nuclear complex, if the lifting of sanctions that will follow does not unleash a new wave of Iranian-supported guerrilla attacks, and if Iran cooperates to reduce the chaos in the region, strong diplomacy will have proven its value.

We will have begun a new chapter in Middle East history. And the system will have worked the way it should.

Joseph Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global securities foundation.

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/24/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-erdogan-idUSKCN0SI0IZ20151024

World | Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:58pm EDT
Related: World, Syria

Erdogan says Turkey won't let Kurds 'seize' northern Syria

ISTANBUL | By Humeyra Pamuk

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Kurdish groups on Saturday of trying to grab control of northern Syria, saying Ankara would not allow this to happen.

In a speech in southeast Turkey, Erdogan also blasted Russia's President Vladimir Putin for hosting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this week, in comments that were his most critical yet towards his Russian counterpart.

On northern Syria, Erdogan denounced the merging of the Syrian town of Tel Abyad last week into an autonomous political structure created by the Kurds.

"All they want is to seize northern Syria entirely," Erdogan said. "We will under no circumstances allow northern Syria to become a victim of their scheming. Because this constitutes a threat for us, and it is not possible for us as Turkey to say 'yes' to this threat."

Tel Abyad, on the border with Turkey, was captured in June from Islamic State by Kurdish YPG militia with help from U.S.-led air strikes. Last week, a local leadership council declared it part of the system of autonomous self government established by the Kurds.

Syrian Kurds have established three autonomous zones, or "cantons", across northern Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011. They deny aiming to establish their own state.

Turkey is alarmed by territorial gains for the Kurds in Syria's civil war, which it fears could stir separatism among its own Kurdish minority. For the past three decades Ankara has been trying to end an insurgency by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

The PKK has been staging almost daily attacks in the southeast since July, when a ceasefire fell apart.

Turkey accuses the Syrian Kurds' political arm, the PYD, of deep links to the PKK. It has been incensed by the role the Kurds have carved out for themselves, with U.S. support, in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria.

Erdogan also slammed countries who provided assistance to the PYD, although he did not name them, and said it harbored 1,400 PKK members.

Earlier this month, the YPG Kurdish militia announced a new alliance with small groups of Arab fighters, and the group was air-dropped small arms and ammunition by U.S. forces in northeast Syria.

Washington has indicated it could direct funding and weapons to Arab commanders on the ground who cooperate with the YPG.

Erdogan also criticized Putin for hosting Assad in Moscow earlier this week, questioning how he could "welcome on a red carpet someone who has spilled the blood of 370,000 people".

Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday evening to thank Putin for his military support, his first foreign visit since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011.

The surprise trip came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against Islamist militants and rebels in Syria that has bolstered Assad's forces.


(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...ria-isis-adiyaman-suicide-bomber-arsenal.html

Unraveling Islamic State’s Turkish recruitment scheme

Author Mahmut Bozarslan
Posted October 23, 2015
Translator Timur Göksel

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Desperate families searching for their missing sons have helped authorities identify a leading Islamic State (IS) recruiter.

The suicide bombers behind the worst attacks in recent months have two things in common: They are all from the southeastern Turkey province of Adiyaman, and they are members of the Dokumacilar Unit of IS. Dokumaci is the last name of their recruiter, Mustafa Dokumaci. In Turkish, Dokumaci means “weaver.”

There were reports earlier about the existence of a group called the Adiyamanists, but in the last attack, in Ankara, they were firmly identified as Dokumacilar.

One mother from Adiyaman, whose son joined IS and disappeared, blamed Dokumacilar member Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz, perpetrator of the Suruc bombing in July. Authorities say his older brother, Yunus Emre Alagoz, also is affiliated with IS; he was photographed in Ankara before he allegedly set off one of the bombs there Oct. 10.

“Abdurrahman took my son away. I asked him where my son was. He said he was hurting too because his brother had joined [IS] also. [Another young man] and Seyh Abdurrahman seduced my son. My son, who was classmates with Seyh Abdurrahman, in turn deceived one of our relatives to join them. I told Seyh he was responsible for the fate of my son.”

She testified to a team from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) that was preparing a report on IS activities in Adiyaman. She didn’t want her name to be used.

Another source that testified to the same CHP team was related to Orhan Gonder, who was arrested and charged with setting off a bomb in June at the Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in Diyarbakir.

“When our son disappeared, we searched all over. For eight months we went to the border, gave his photograph to the governor. We advertised in newspapers as a missing person 10 times. We spoke with the prime minister at the AKP [Justice and Development Party] provincial assembly. The prime minister said to us, ‘I instructed the MIT [National Intelligence Organization] about your son.’ I spoke with the middle man who took my son away. He promised us he would be back in 18 days. I went to the Akcakale police and gave them his photos. I went to the border crossing and pleaded with the police chief. He took me to [a crossing] where other families were waiting. I knew my son was at Tell Abyad. I stayed at Akcakale six days. I never saw my son,” the source was quoted as saying in the CHP report.

It is estimated that Dokumaci so far has enlisted about 400 people from Adiyaman. About 60 of them are thought to be trained as suicide bombers.

Intelligence services have identified 21 of them and released photographs of 19. Some are still believed to be in Turkey. The first stop for those who join IS from Turkey is often Raqqa, Syria, where Dokumaci lives. They are trained as suicide bombers before returning to Turkey. They are chosen for the task because they know the country and can move about easily.

Hikmet Durgun of Russian Sputnik Media Group, who has reported extensively on IS, had warned of a possible suicide attack in Turkey before the Ankara bombing. Durgun told Al-Monitor that although the bombers are from Adiyaman, they usually aren't sent back there unless it is necessary. “They go to Ankara, Istanbul and Gaziantep," he said.

"The relatives of those who joined [IS] have been complaining bitterly about [Dokumaci]. The two bombers in the Ankara attack were also recruited by Dokumaci."

Turks who join IS usually cross over to Syria from Gaziantep. “All those who join [IS] first go to Raqqa. Before, they used to go to Tell Abyad. But when that town fell into YPG [People's Protection Units] hands, they stopped going there. Now they are settled in areas closer to the border. The idea is to use them to mobilize and organize Turkmens who live in that area. There used to be plenty of Turkmens at Tell Abyad. When YPG captured the town, [IS] militants fled to Raqqa,” he added.

Abdurrahman Tutdere, a lawyer and member of the CHP team that wrote the report, said IS formed a recruitment system in Adiyaman.

“They target children of poor families and work on recruiting them. They take them across in ones and twos. Then they come back and recruit others. They have set up a pipeline system. Those who go to [IS] for training come back and recruit more in Turkey,” he told Al-Monitor.

Tutdere said the number of those joining from Adiyaman could have been exaggerated. He noted that after the report was published, CHP didn’t receive any new reports of enlistment in IS.

Osman Suzen, the local head of the Human Rights Association, emphasized that the Dokumacilar Unit was exposed by the efforts of families of missing children. Suzen, speaking to Al-Monitor, said the Adiyaman name gained recognition as the birthplace of the suicide bombers.

“There is a misperception. There are people who enlist from Hatay, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Bingol and Konya. But everyone talks of Adiyaman because the bombing cell was made up of Adiyaman natives. How do you know how many joined from Diyarbakir?" he said.

"There are 16 people known as the Dokumacilar Unit. Who knows about 400 recruits? Where are they? Dokumacilar wasn’t known before as a unit, but Mustafa Dokumaci was already identified thanks to efforts of the families searching for their sons. They helped unravel the recruitment scheme. Mind you, their identification did not stop them from coming and going. They come, stay a little and leave. Everyone in Adiyaman knows this."

Suzen noted that another key IS recruiter, Kasap Haci, was arrested.

 

[Housecarl]

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Ukraine holds local elections that test oligarchs' reach

Oct 25, 2:52 PM (ET)
By YURAS KARMANAU

(AP) A voter casts her ballot, allowing a child to post it into the ballot box for her,...
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians voted Sunday in local elections seen as a test of strength for President Petro Poroshenko's government and for the oligarchs accustomed to running their own regions, but a last-minute dispute blocked the ballot in a key port city.

The vote took place as resentment and disappointment were running high among the electorate.

Voters were choosing more than 10,700 local councils as well as mayors in elections held nationwide, except for in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels. In eastern areas recaptured by government forces after fierce fighting last year, former separatists were running for office as candidates from the Opposition Bloc.

Voting was scrapped Sunday at the last minute in Mariupol, a major port and steel city on the Sea of Azov, where tensions have been rising over the influence of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man whose industrial holdings are key to Mariupol's economy.

(AP) A voter casts her ballot at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 25,...
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Nerves in Mariupol were already frayed after more than a year of worry that the city was about to be overrun by the Russia-backed rebels who had seized territory just a few kilometers (miles) away.

On Sunday, the local election commission in Mariupol refused to accept the ballots because they had been printed by a company owned by Akhmetov, who supports the Opposition Bloc.

"They are trying to throw us back to the terrible past when one oligarch decided the fate of elections, but today the situation has changed," said Alexander Yaroshenko, the mayoral candidate for Mariupol from the party of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister.

The Opposition Bloc accused the government of suspending the local election in Mariupol because it feared total defeat.

"We clearly see in Mariupol the battle between forces for Akhmetov and forces against Akhmetov," said political analyst Oleksandr Solontai.

(AP) A voter casts her ballot at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 25,...
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Poroshenko ordered the national parliament and central elections commission to make sure the vote in Mariupol took place soon.

A similar situation occurred in the nearby eastern city of Krasnoarmiisk, where the vote was postponed when local election officials refused to accept the ballots.

Sunday's election was the third nationwide since the chaotic overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president in February 2014, the annexation of Crimea by Russia a month later and the start of the war with Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 8,000 people and left much of the country's industrial heartland outside central government control.

As Ukraine struggles to find stability and repair its deeply wounded economy, its people are dismayed with the national government in Kiev and despairing of its ability to tackle widespread corruption. A September poll by the International Republican Institute showed that two thirds of the population was frustrated by the pace of reform and more than half disapproved of the government.

The incumbent mayor of Kiev, former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, faced 28 challengers. Exit polls showed Klitschko with a commanding lead but still falling well short of getting more than 50 percent of the vote to win in the first round. It was not immediately clear who would face him in the second round.

"I'm tired of waiting for the happy European future promised by the government," said Olga Nosik, a 53-year-old seamstress who supports one of the other mayoral candidates in the capital.

In Dnipropetrovsk, another major industrial city, the competition for mayor heated up between a candidate backed by supporters of the ousted president and one backed by local tycoon Ihor Kolomoysky, a contentious figure who has funded battalions of fighters against the separatist rebels.

 

[Housecarl]

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Exit poll: Right-wing party wins Poland's parliamentary vote

Oct 25, 6:14 PM (ET)
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA AND VANESSA GERA

(AP) Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, assisted by her grandson Julian casts her ballot...
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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland took a decisive turn to the right in its parliamentary election Sunday, tossing out the centrist party that had governed for eight years for a socially conservative and Euroskeptic party that wants to keep migrants out and spend more on Poland's own poor.

An exit poll showed the conservative Law and Justice party winning 39 percent of the vote, enough to govern alone without forming a coalition.

The ruling pro-European Civic Platform party received 23 percent of the vote, according to the exit poll that prompted Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz of Civic Platform to concede.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Law and Justice, promised his party would govern fairly.

(AP) Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz addresses supporters after the first exit polls...
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"We will exert law but there will be no taking of revenge. There will be no squaring of personal accounts," he said. "There will be no kicking of those who have fallen of their own fault and very rightly so."

Kaczynski credited his late brother, former Polish President Lech Kaczynski, with the party's strong showing. His brother was killed in the 2010 air crash in Russia that claimed the lives of the president and many of Poland's top leaders.

If the exit poll results are confirmed, the Law and Justice will take 242 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament and 58-year-old lawmaker Beata Szydlo will become Poland's next prime minister. Civic Platform will get 133 seats and only three other parties will make it into parliament — two of them for the first time.

Law and Justice is strongly pro-NATO but also more skeptical of the 28-nation European Union, of which Poland is a member. The party opposes adopting the euro currency and is strongly anti-migrant, positions that are expected to have a broader impact on the whole EU.

The Civic Platform party was seen as falling out of touch with what was happening in Poland and with ordinary voters. In her victory speech, Szydlo promised to not let that happen.

(AP) Beata Szydlo, candidate for prime minister of the conservative opposition Law and...
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"We are the same as our countrymen, we have not detached ourselves from reality," she said. "We must always remember that we are serving."

The Catholic Church was seen as backing Law and Justice, as were many Poles who have not benefited from the country's strong economic growth, expected at 3.5 percent this year.

Law and Justice has promised to reverse an unpopular rise in the retirement age and put more money into the pockets of struggling families with tax breaks, monthly cash bonuses for children under 18 and free medication for people over 75. It also wants to raise taxes on the mostly foreign-owned banks and big supermarkets in Poland and give tax breaks to smaller local businesses and those that adopt Polish technologies.

For the first time in Poland's post-communist history, no left-wing forces appeared to have won enough votes Sunday to enter into parliament, according to the Ipsos exit poll.

It showed that only five parties gained enough votes to make it into parliament: Law and Justice; the centrist Civic Platform; a right-wing party led by rock star Pawel Kukiz; the new pro-business party Modern Poland led by a former World Bank economist and the Polish Peasants Party.

Two left-wing forces had been in the running: the United Left, a coalition of several parties, and a new party, Together.

Civic Platform had led Poland through a period of strong economic growth and political stability, even during the global financial crisis of 2008-09 and the 2010 plane crash that killed so many top Polish officials. But the presidential vote in May signaled problems for Civic Platform when Law and Justice candidate Andrzej Duda edged out their incumbent.

Having the backing of the Catholic Church has led to some fears that Law and Justice will try to ban in vitro fertilization and create a total ban on abortion.

For now, abortion in Poland is only allowed in rare cases, such as when the mother's life is at risk or the fetus is damaged.

 

[Housecarl]

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Exit polls in Ukraine local elections show east-west split

Oct 26, 12:48 PM (ET)
By YURAS KARMANAU

(AP) Members of a local election commission count ballots at a polling station in Kiev,...
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Four exit polls from Ukraine's local elections released Monday indicated the governing coalition would retain its dominant position in the west and center of the country despite widespread disappointment with the government of President Petro Poroshenko.

In the south and east, voters favored the Opposition Bloc, formed from the remnants of the party of the former pro-Russia president, who was overthrown in early 2014 after months of street protests.

The Central Election Committee said it had received data from only 30 percent of the vote by Monday morning, reflecting the challenge of calculating the results of elections for more than 10,700 local councils as well as mayors. More than 130 parties fielded candidates. Complete results were expected Nov. 4.

Sunday's elections were held nationwide, except for parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels. In eastern areas recaptured by government forces, former separatists ran for office as candidates from the Opposition Bloc.

(AP) Members of a local election commission count ballots at a polling station in Kiev,...
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Poroshenko's party and others in his coalition had hoped to expand their influence through the local elections, but this proved not so easy to do, political analyst Vladimir Fesenko said. "The disposition of forces shows that the country is divided," he said.

The elections also were seen as a test of strength for oligarchs accustomed to holding sway in their own regions.

In Mariupol, a major port and steel city on the Sea of Azov, voting was scrapped on Sunday because of tensions over the influence of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man whose industrial holdings are key to the city's economy. The local election commission refused to accept ballots printed by a company owned by Akhmetov, who supports the Opposition Bloc.

Political conflicts also led to the postponement of elections in the eastern cities of Krasnoarmiisk and Svatovo. No date has been set for holding those elections.

The winner of the mayoral race in Kiev and several other big cities will be decided only in a second round on Nov. 15 because none of the candidates got more than 50 percent of the vote. In Kiev, the capital, the exit polls showed the incumbent mayor, former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, with a strong lead.

In Dnipropetrovsk, another major industrial city, the party associated with local tycoon Ihor Kolomoysky was on track to dominate the city council. His mayoral candidate faced a second round.

 

[Housecarl]

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Saudi ambassador to UK complains of lack of respect

Oct 26, 12:55 PM (ET)

LONDON (AP) — Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain has complained of a lack of "mutual respect" between the two countries and warned of "potentially serious repercussions."

In an article for the Daily Telegraph on Monday, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz criticized a recent decision to cancel a British government contract to train prison staff in the Gulf State. He said mutual respect was breached when opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn lobbied against the contract, linking it to Saudi Arabia's rights record.

The ambassador said he wanted trade links to continue, but that his country "will not be lectured to by anyone."

Prime Minister David Cameron's office says the contract's cancellation was a financial decision unrelated to cases including the threatened flogging of a British expat who breached strict alcohol laws.

 

[Housecarl]

November Sierra......

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Poland expected to turn inward under right-wing party

Oct 26, 12:42 PM (ET)
By VANESSA GERA

(AP) Jaroslaw Kaczynski, left, leader of the conservative opposition Law and Justice...
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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — With the election of a right-wing and Euroskeptic party, Poland is expected to become a more inward-looking country, and one less willing to work with European partners to forge common policies on pressing issues like climate change and migrants.

"Poland will be a different Poland in Europe starting from today," Agnieszka Lada, an expert of foreign affairs, said Monday.

Law and Justice, which is strongly anti-migrant and determined to preserve Poland's coal industry, swept to power in a parliamentary election Sunday, possibly with enough votes to hold a majority in parliament.

According to exit polls, it won 37.7 percent of the vote, which would translate into a slim majority in parliament — with 232 seats in the 460-seat lower house, or Sejm. Final results will be announced later Monday.

(AP) Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, assisted by her grandson Julian casts her ballot...
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The party has also vowed not to adopt the euro currency until Polish wages have caught up with those in Germany, a prospect that is decades away at best. That marks a setback for Europe's ambitions for ever greater monetary union given the importance of Poland's economy, the largest in Central Europe, the sixth-largest in the bloc and one that is developing fast.

If the exit polls are confirmed, it would mark the first time in Poland's post-communist history that a single party will have enough seats in parliament to govern on its own, meaning it won't have to make the kind of compromises with a coalition partner that has been the case for previous governments in Poland's 26 years of democratic rule.

The populist party's strong showing came after a campaign in which it took a hard line on migrants, essentially saying it doesn't want any, and criticizing the outgoing centrist leadership for agreeing to a take some 7,000 refugees under an EU plan.

Days before the election, party chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski even warned that migrants could carry "protozoa and parasites" and other diseases that could be dangerous to Europeans. Several of his political opponents accused him of using language reminiscent of that used by Nazi Germany against the Jews.

"They tapped in so well to the general mood that 'we don't want refugees,'" said analyst Jacek Kucharczyk, who believes its anti-migrant position was a key factor in the extent of its victory.

(AP) A woman reads her ballot before casting during general elections in Warsaw, Poland,...
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Kucharczyk, who is the head of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Warsaw think tank, says the political shift reveals the "shallow integration" of Poland into the EU since it joined in 2004.

Many of the party's supporters take for granted the EU funds that drive growth, and the freedom to easily cross European borders for travel and work. But many do not want to make sacrifices themselves or be forced to change their deeply traditional mindset, for example by accepting gay marriage or other liberal Western values.

"They welcome the EU if it brings funds but not if it brings migrants and the Western decadent lifestyle," Kucharczyk said. He argues that the party won such a decisive victory because it made people believe that it could "create an invisible wall around Poland," allowing Poles to keep all the things they like about EU membership while insulating them from what they don't like.

The party's candidate for prime minister, Beata Szydlo, insists that the party is "very pro-European" but only wants to protect Poland's interests.

At some point Law and Justice will have to make a crucial decision on whether it will back former prime minister Donald Tusk, of the rival Civic Platform, for a second term as EU president, after his current terms expires in May 2017.

(AP) Conservative Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Justice candidate for...
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The party has had bad blood for years with Tusk, and some political observers find it almost inconceivable that the party could give its support to a man they have vilified for years. But refusing to back him and letting him lose the job would also hurt Poland's interests, depriving it of the high-profile role it now has in Brussels.

Law and Justice could also find its own hold on power jeopardized in the future should Tusk, a former prime minister and political heavy weight, return to Polish politics.

Civic Platform, which Tusk led for years, has weakened considerably without him at the helm. The exit poll shows that it won only 23.6 percent of the vote, turning it into an opposition party after eight years of running the country.

Political observers will also be watching to see what kind of tone the incoming government takes with Germany.

When the party ran the government from 2005-2007 it liked to nurture historical grievances against Germany, which inflicted massive suffering on Poland during World War II. Ties between the two countries became deeply strained and many Poles learned the lesson that taking a combative attitude today to Germany, a model democracy that helped bring Poland into NATO and the EU, is counter-productive.

Recently the party's leaders, including President Andrzej Duda, have signaled a desire to engage constructively with Berlin.

 

[Housecarl]

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Chinese leaders drawing up new long-range growth plan

Oct 26, 6:12 AM (ET)
By JOE McDONALD

(AP) People are reflected on a window as they walk past fashion magazine posters near a...
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BEIJING (AP) — Facing pressure to pep up a cooling economy, Chinese leaders met Monday to craft a new long-range blueprint to guide development through the end of this decade.

The Communist Party's five-year plan is a throwback to the era of central planning but still plays a key role, allowing the ruling party to highlight its goals and policy shifts.

Party leaders are expected to use the 2016-2020 plan to renew their commitment to a marathon effort to shift China from reliance on trade and investment to more self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption.

The urgency for change has increased following a deeper-than-expected decline in economic growth and this year's boom and bust in stock prices, analysts say.

(AP) A man rides a tricycle cart loaded with recyclable bottles past a Mercedes-Benz SUV...
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"It is probably the most difficult five-year planning in history, because the multi-layer pressure generated by transforming the economy and at the same time maintaining growth has risen sharply," said economist Liu Yuanchun, director of the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University in Beijing.

Economic growth slowed to a six-year low of 6.9 percent in the latest quarter, fueling concern about a possible rise in job losses and social tension. Some analysts say official figures overstate growth and the true rate might be as low as 4 percent.

Communist leaders say they will accept growth below their official target of "about 7 percent" so long as the economy generates enough new jobs.

"We never said we would defend a certain point to the death, but instead let the economy run within a reasonable range," said the top economic official, Premier Li Keqiang, at a weekend gathering of officials, according to a summary on the Cabinet's website.

Bank of America and other forecasters say they expect the 2016-2020 plan to lower the official growth target to 6.5 percent or less.

(AP) A man is reflected on a Mercedes-Benz showroom's window glass as he takes a "selfie"...
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Analysts also expect the upcoming plan to increase the ruling party's focus on environmental and social goals including raising household incomes and encouraging more use of renewable energy.

Reform advocates say the party needs to move faster on carrying out pledges to give entrepreneurs and market forces a bigger role. That will require cutting back the monopolies and other privileges of state companies that dominate industries from oil to banking to telecoms.

An outline for state industry reform issued in September promises to make government companies more efficient by forcing them to face more free-market competition while retaining the party's dominance in the economy.

But rather than reducing the party's role, that plan says Beijing will "strengthen party leadership" of state companies.

Reform advocates criticized the September plan as inadequate because it fails to address issues including curtailing monopolies and access to low-cost credit, land and other resources.

---

AP researcher Yu Bing contributed.

 

[Housecarl]

Russia's Mid-East Takeover Continues: Afghanistan Requests Military Assistance From Moscow
Started by Possible Impactý, Today 08:49 AM
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Afghan security adviser warns of risk from IS, al-Qaida

Oct 26, 1:59 AM (ET)
By LYNNE O'DONNELL

(AP) In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015, photo, Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad...
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Al-Qaida has re-established a presence in Afghanistan and the Islamic State group has become a serious threat, the Afghan national security adviser warned, saying the country was in danger of again becoming a safe haven for terrorists and calling for U.S. and NATO military backing to help drive them out.

The warning by Mohammad Hanif Atmar follows the announcement earlier this month by President Barack Obama that the U.S. would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year, casting aside a pledge to withdraw most U.S. forces before leaving office. Obama cited the fragile security situation in the face of a resurgent Taliban.

Speaking to The Associated Press in an interview late Saturday, Atmar said al-Qaida, the Taliban, the Islamic State group and other insurgents, including the brutal Haqqani network, which has ties to the Taliban, "are morphing."

"They have not been degraded, they have regenerated themselves," he said.

(AP) In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015, photo, Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad...
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Atmar warned the insurgent groups are reinventing themselves, joining forces, and drawing funds and support from outside as they take advantage of a perceived weakness of Afghan forces following the end of the U.S.-led international combat mission last year.

Highlighting Afghanistan's need for continued support from the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban overran the key northern city of Kunduz on Sept. 28 — their first seizure of a major urban area since being toppled in 2001 by the U.S. invasion — before being driven out over a period of two weeks. The Taliban then threatened cities in different corners of the country, including Lashkar Gah, capital of southern Helmand province, and Maymana, capital of northwestern Faryab.

The Taliban have been stretching Afghan forces to the limit this year, and the shift in tactics — from scattered shootings and bombings to coordinated assaults on cities — has posed a challenge to a force accustomed to coming in behind U.S. troops to hold territory, rather than going on the offensive.

This has provided fertile ground for insurgent groups to move into Afghanistan from other countries, particularly Pakistan, where a military campaign to eliminate their safe havens from the tribal areas of North Waziristan has pushed militants into Afghanistan.

Atmar said several groups are now using Afghanistan as a staging ground to reach their "home countries," including China, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states, and Russia.

(AP) In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015, photo, Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad...
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"What needs to be well understood is that the symbiotic network of terrorists that we are confronted with is going to be a threat to every country in this region and by extension the whole world," Atmar said.

"We are hoping that assessment is shared not just by Central Asia, Russia and China, but by our neighbors to the south and east," he said, referring principally to Pakistan.

Al-Qaida has made a return to Afghanistan since the drawdown of U.S. and NATO troops began picking up steam from 2011 to 2013, Atmar said, blaming the simultaneous withdrawal of intelligence and eye-in-the-sky technology that the international forces had provided.

He said the Islamic State group now poses an "existential threat" because it no longer includes only disaffected Taliban, unhappy with the lack of progress after years of fighting to topple the Kabul government, but has an "institutional connection" to the group's leadership in Iraq and Syria.

Leaders are now being appointed directly by the IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Atmar said, entrenching the rivalry with the Taliban — which believes itself the rightful ruler of an Afghan Islamic state.

(AP) In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015, photo, Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad...
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"They have well-established connections to the Islamic State (in Syria and Iraq). Islamic State is commanding and controlling them, Islamic State is financing them, Islamic State is giving them the strategy to pursue. We have no doubt about that," he said.

IS loyalists have a foothold in eastern Nangarhar province, near the Pakistan border, where they have battled government forces and Taliban fighters. Atmar said military operations were underway to dislodge IS from the four districts they have seized.

"What these groups need to survive and to grow is sanctuaries, whether in Pakistan or Afghanistan. They've had them in Pakistan for decades now," Atmar said, referring to the widespread belief that Pakistani authorities provide safe haven to Taliban leaders.

"Unless we get rid of the Taliban, either through counter-terrorism or through peace and reconciliation, these elements will grow because they need a host, and they need a recruitment facility. And we should not allow the Afghan Taliban to grow into that kind of facility for them," he said.

As the Taliban's traditional fighting season draws to a close, before winter snows cut mountain routes to and from Pakistan, Atmar said he expected another tough fight in 2016.

"Our principle assumption is that the Taliban are not interested in peace," he said. "Those who believe the Taliban can win militarily need to be convinced they are wrong."

Atmar called on Pakistani authorities to use their influence on the Taliban. Pakistan hosted a first round of peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government earlier this year, but the process was postponed indefinitely after the announcement of the death of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Atmar said that before the process could be revived, the Afghan government hoped for talks with the Pakistani leadership.

"We hope that the response is reciprocal, that they are seeing the opportunity that has risen for a genuine peace and reconciliation between the two states and then between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban," he said. "Our position is that we cannot go to the negotiating table while they (the Taliban) are killing our children."

 

[Housecarl]

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Warlord Kony killing Congo elephants, selling ivory in Sudan

Oct 26, 1:17 PM (ET)

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A new report by the watchdog group Enough Project says Lord's Resistance Army rebels in Congo continue to kill elephants for their ivory, which they trade for supplies in Sudanese-controlled territory.

The report is based on interviews with defectors who say the ivory is trafficked from Congo's Garamba National Park to a Sudanese-controlled enclave known as Kafia Kingi, where rebels trade the ivory with Sudanese merchants for food, uniforms and ammunition. The report says the rebels, under direct orders from warlord Joseph Kony, have also traded with Sudanese military officers.

"The tusks are likely trafficked to Nyala, South Darfur, and on to Khartoum for export abroad, primarily to Asia," the report says.

Kony is the subject of a manhunt involving U.S. advisers deployed to the jungles of central Africa.

 

[Housecarl]

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Analysis: Meetings and more meetings yield no Syria solution

Oct 26, 1:13 PM (ET)
By MATTHEW LEE

(AP) In this Oct. 23, 2015 file-pool photo, Secretary of State John Kerry, speaks...
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Another meeting in another luxury hotel in another European city oozing with diplomatic history.

Such is the state of the international effort to revive a peace plan for Syria.

The effort fell short again on Friday, as top diplomats from the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey met in Vienna to toss around ideas on how to restart talks on a political transition in Syria. They failed to agree on any concrete steps other than to meet again, probably this week. Other interested nations may participate in the new meeting, likely in Vienna, but there was no consensus on which nations should attend because some oppose a role for Iran, while others support it.

And after years of on-and-off talks, the four countries — along with other players — remain deeply divided on the most contentious issue: the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Diplomats speak of a changed dynamic in Syria and elsewhere that could finally break the impasse. They say it would be irresponsible not to test it.

Given the catastrophe that Syria has become, they should be given credit for pursuing a diplomatic solution. Yet they have been there multiple times before and multiple meetings have produced no result.

Friday's meeting in the Austrian capital was the latest in a series of unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate the 2012 Geneva Communique, which called for the formation of a transitional government in Syria that would oversee free and fair elections as part of a broader political transition.

Yet in the 40 months since the communique was signed, there has been no movement toward implementing it.

In Syria, in those 40 months, the Islamic State has overshadowed the rebels who first opposed Assad, setting up the capital of its aspirational caliphate in the northern Syria city of Raqqa and making the situation on the ground far more combustible. The death toll has climbed over a quarter-million and world powers are competing dangerously for prominence in the skies above. A Defense Department program to train and equip moderate rebels to combat the Islamic State was a failure and CIA-backed rebels fighting Assad are now under attack by Russian bombers.

Diplomats, despite several large conferences in Switzerland and smaller meetings around Europe and New York, have been unable to move beyond the communique's requirement that the transition government be chosen by "mutual consent" of the current government led by Assad, and its political foes.

Mutual consent was the formula devised by the U.S. and Russia that allowed them to claim success in Geneva but essentially guaranteed stalemate in the actual process of creating an interim administration as Assad refuses to go and the opposition refuses to accept him.

Since then, with the exception of one important agreement reached in Geneva in 2013 that got Assad to get rid of his declared chemical weapons stockpile, international diplomacy has come up short.

An attempt in Montreux, Switzerland, in January and February 2014 collapsed when the Syrian delegation refused to discuss Assad and branded the opposition terrorists.

On several occasions, American officials have pointed hopefully to Assad's weakening position and apparent softening in Russia's stance on Assad only to have those hopes dashed by Russian consistency on the matter.

The conclusion of the Iran nuclear deal, in Vienna in July, brought hopes in Washington and elsewhere that a renewed diplomatic push might actually finally achieve results in Syria.

Shortly after the deal was struck, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Qatar to compare notes on what else might be possible to achieve. The U.S. and allies like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and much of Europe are united in insisting that Assad must step down for a credible transition to occur. Russia and Iran maintain they're neutral on Assad and that it's up to the Syrian people to decide their leaders. Yet, Tehran and Moscow have thrown military might into assisting Damascus.

In Vienna last week, Kerry and Lavrov acknowledged the others' sharply conflicting views on Assad.

"It is clear that Russia and Iran are supportive of Assad, and certainly publicly have argued that it is important for Assad to be there for the stability of the country," Kerry said. Others, however, "understand that Assad creates an impossible dynamic for peace — that you can't make peace, even if you wanted to, with Assad there."

Lavrov, meanwhile, accused the U.S. and its allies of being "obsessed" with Assad and noted what had happened when authoritarian rulers like Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein were ousted.

"If we count on changing the regime and especially if we focus narrowly on a concrete figure, we've already seen that in Iraq and in Libya and we know what this ended up in ... a grave crisis in those countries," Lavrov said.

Resolution, therefore, appears to be a long shot, even if Assad has hinted he may be ready to accept early elections once the terrorist threat has been addressed.

Kerry, however, is undeterred. He says continuing the dialogue may still yield results as all parties to the Geneva Communique can agree on the path to the ultimate goal despite differences on Assad.

"If we can get into a political process, sometimes these things have a way of resolving themselves," he said, adding somewhat cryptically: "In other words, it could take years sometimes just to reach agreement on what we already agree on."

If that's the case, another meeting in another luxury hotel in another European city oozing with diplomatic history is unlikely to make much of a difference.

---

EDITOR'S NOTE: Matthew Lee has covered the State Department, American foreign policy and international affairs since 1999. Follow him at www.twitter.com/APDiploWriter

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151026/as--china-economy-c1fe0afb3f.html

Chinese leaders drawing up new long-range growth plan

Oct 26, 6:12 AM (ET)
By JOE McDONALD

(AP) People are reflected on a window as they walk past fashion magazine posters near a...
Full Image

BEIJING (AP) — Facing pressure to pep up a cooling economy, Chinese leaders met Monday to craft a new long-range blueprint to guide development through the end of this decade.

The Communist Party's five-year plan is a throwback to the era of central planning but still plays a key role, allowing the ruling party to highlight its goals and policy shifts.

Party leaders are expected to use the 2016-2020 plan to renew their commitment to a marathon effort to shift China from reliance on trade and investment to more self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption.

The urgency for change has increased following a deeper-than-expected decline in economic growth and this year's boom and bust in stock prices, analysts say.

(AP) A man rides a tricycle cart loaded with recyclable bottles past a Mercedes-Benz SUV...
Full Image

"It is probably the most difficult five-year planning in history, because the multi-layer pressure generated by transforming the economy and at the same time maintaining growth has risen sharply," said economist Liu Yuanchun, director of the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University in Beijing.

Economic growth slowed to a six-year low of 6.9 percent in the latest quarter, fueling concern about a possible rise in job losses and social tension. Some analysts say official figures overstate growth and the true rate might be as low as 4 percent.

Communist leaders say they will accept growth below their official target of "about 7 percent" so long as the economy generates enough new jobs.

"We never said we would defend a certain point to the death, but instead let the economy run within a reasonable range," said the top economic official, Premier Li Keqiang, at a weekend gathering of officials, according to a summary on the Cabinet's website.

Bank of America and other forecasters say they expect the 2016-2020 plan to lower the official growth target to 6.5 percent or less.

(AP) A man is reflected on a Mercedes-Benz showroom's window glass as he takes a "selfie"...
Full Image

Analysts also expect the upcoming plan to increase the ruling party's focus on environmental and social goals including raising household incomes and encouraging more use of renewable energy.

Reform advocates say the party needs to move faster on carrying out pledges to give entrepreneurs and market forces a bigger role. That will require cutting back the monopolies and other privileges of state companies that dominate industries from oil to banking to telecoms.

An outline for state industry reform issued in September promises to make government companies more efficient by forcing them to face more free-market competition while retaining the party's dominance in the economy.

But rather than reducing the party's role, that plan says Beijing will "strengthen party leadership" of state companies.

Reform advocates criticized the September plan as inadequate because it fails to address issues including curtailing monopolies and access to low-cost credit, land and other resources.

---

AP researcher Yu Bing contributed.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-25/two-child-policy-is-too-late-for-china

China

Two-Child Policy Is Too Little, Too Late

Comments 180
Oct 25, 2015 6:00 PM EDT
By Adam Minter

When Chinese leaders convene this week for a four-day meeting on the future of the country’s economy, the biggest news might have to do with babies. According to reports in Chinese media, the government may be ready to relax the notorious “one-child” policy, in existence since the late 1970s, and allow Chinese parents to have two kids.

This might seem like a rare victory for human rights in a country where reproductive freedoms have long been restricted, and it is. But the government has a more practical outcome in mind. China’s population of working-age adults started shrinking in 2012, and by 2050 the country will be home to fewer than 1.6 workers for every retiree, according to a 2013 report from the Paulson Institute. That’s comparable to aging, slow-growth countries like Japan and Singapore. In response, the regime is hoping to spark a baby boom.

Unfortunately, by this point, even a two-child policy may be too little, too late. Most Chinese outside the big cities can already have two, and sometimes more, children. Meanwhile, a recent, limited opening in several cities failed to turn up many urban couples interested in having a second child.

The reasons aren’t unique to China: As societies become wealthier and concentrate in cities, couples choose to have fewer kids. A peer-reviewed study from 2012 found that between 2000 and 2005, urbanization accounted for a net decline in fertility in all but three of China’s provinces. The government could try enforcing maternity-leave policies better and providing more generous childcare subsidies. But such policies haven’t really succeeded in Singapore or Japan, and there’s little reason to think that they’d work any better in China.

More drastic solutions are needed. Step one would be to scrap population-control policies altogether. Though total fertility in China is in long-term decline, lifting the cap on births entirely might at least encourage rural parents to produce more kids. What China really needs to do, though, is the same thing Japan’s struggled with for so long: import labor.

If bringing immigrants into the world’s most populous country sounds crazy, it’s not. China is already home to large immigrant communities, including several hundred thousand Africans (mostly traders) in Guangzhou, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 Arab traders in the trading hub of Yiwu, and hundreds of thousands of Americans, Japanese, and Europeans -- many of whom work illegally as professionals and creatives -- across the country.

More pertinent perhaps are the increasingly large communities of Southeast Asian laborers who have begun working in southern Chinese factories as the supply of migrants from the countryside dries up. No reliable estimate of their numbers exists. But according to an August investigative report from Reuters, there are “at least 30,000” illegal workers in Dongguan, one of China’s best-known manufacturing towns, most of whom hail from Southeast Asia. (In the last four months, I’ve personally seen Burmese working illegally in recycling facilities in Guangdong province.) Chinese officials are reluctant to admit to the scale of the influx (likely because of the corruption involved in bringing workers over the border), but state media concedes that the number of illegals has grown in recent years.

The question is how to formalize and build upon a trend that’s already begun. In recent years, China has opened its doors to high-skilled immigrants. But like most East Asian countries, China isn’t a diverse place, and citizens and leaders alike remain suspicious of outsiders. Though a naturalization process exists, it’s rarely used except for cases of marriage or individuals perceived to have made major contributions to Chinese society.

The chances of those rules being changed are slim. But China could take other less dramatic steps, starting with a temporary guest worker program targeting factory workers. In advance of the 2020 Olympics, Japan is trying something similar, allowing skilled construction workers into the country temporarily. China could target the lower end of the labor spectrum.

Assuming that the government can establish an enforceable baseline standard for wages and conditions -- a big if -- a formal work visa program might actually make China the destination of choice for Southeast Asia’s massive population of migrant laborers, most of whom work illegally in places such as Malaysia and Thailand. That would be a big advantage -- Chinese companies would have their pick of labor -- as Chinese factories increasingly compete against those in Southeast Asia. As factories grow more automated and the need for unskilled labor declines, the program could be expanded to service workers, from waiters to nurses.

Like any largely homogenous country, China will struggle mightily with the idea of accepting a large influx of foreigners. But the relative tolerance with which expatriates and foreign workers appear to be treated currently suggests that at least some degree of formal immigration is possible. What the government needs to do first, though, is begin explaining to citizens why such a move might become necessary. That kind of education and outreach could one day be as important to China’s future as abolishing the hated one-child policy.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Adam Minter at aminter@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net

 

[Possible Impact]

also posted in doctor_fungcool's main China/USA war thread
FUNG WAR ADVISORY #2: China....Back Down or We'll Wage War Against CONUS
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show.......Back-Down-or-We-ll-Wage-War-Against-CONUS

It's On: Obama Sends Destroyer To Chinese Islands,
China Vows Military Response


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/26/2015 16:26 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...-chinese-islands-china-vows-military-response


For anyone who might still be somehow unaware, the US is currently in a superpower
staring match with both Russia and China. The conflict in Syria has put Moscow back on
the geopolitical map (so to speak), creating an enormous amount of tension with
Washington whose regional allies have been left to look on in horror as Russian
airstrikes and an Iranian ground incursion dash hopes of ousting President Bashar
al-Assad.

Meanwhile, in The South China Sea, Beijing has built 3,000 acres of new sovereign
territory atop reefs in the Spratlys and although the reclamation effort itself isn’t
unique, the scope of it most certainly is and Washington’s friends in the South Pacific
are crying foul.

Beijing has continually insisted that it doesn’t intend to use the islands as military
outposts, but the construction of runways and ports seems to tell a different story and
so, Washington felt compelled to check things out over the summer by sending a
Poseidon spy plane complete with a CNN crew to the area. Once the PLA spotted the
plane the situation escalated quickly with the Chinese Navy telling US pilots to “Go
Now!”

After that, an intense war of words developed with Defense Secretary Ash Carter
insisting that the US would sail and fly anywhere it pleased and Beijing assuring the US
that sailing within 12 nautical miles of the islands would prompt a harsh response from
the PLA.

For weeks, the US was rumored to have been planning a freedom of navigation exercise
in the Spratlys which, as we’ve pointed out several times this month, amounts to sailing
by the islands just to see if China will shoot.

Now, according to CNN, Obama has given the green light and the ships
may sail within 24 hours:

And more from FT:

The US navy is poised to start freedom of navigation operations in the
South China Sea in a high-stakes effort to push back against Chinese
territorial claims over artificial islands in the disputed waters.

In a move that will enrage Beijing, the USS Lassen, a guided-
missile destroyer, will sail inside the 12-nautical mile zones of two
man-made islands — Subi and Mischief reefs — that China has built
in the contested Spratly Island chain. A senior US defence official
said it would sail through the area in the early hours of Tuesday
morning.

China has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate any effort to violate
what it considers its territory. Earlier this month, a senior Chinese naval
officer said the People’s Liberation Army would hand a “head-on blow” to
any foreign forces that violated Chinese sovereignty. His comments came
after the Financial Times reported that the US was poised to launch its
operations.

The manoeuvre will mark the first time since 2012 that the US navy has
sailed through the 12-nautical mile zone surrounding any islands claimed
by China. It is aimed at demonstrating that Washington does not recognise
any territorial claims over artificial islands in the South China Sea.

​

It's also worth noting that should the US manage to get away with this without sparking
a shooting war with the Chinese, it now looks as though Washington is leaning toward
making this a regular patrol. Here's a bit of color from Reuters out over the weekend:

A range of security experts said Washington's so-called freedom of
navigation patrols would have to be regular to be effective, given Chinese
ambitions to project power deep into maritime Southeast Asia and beyond.

"This cannot be a one-off," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at
Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

"The U.S. navy will have to conduct these kinds of patrols on a
regular basis to reinforce their message."

But China would likely resist attempts to make such U.S. actions
routine, some said, raising the political and military stakes. China's
navy could for example try to block or attempt to surround U.S.
vessels, they said, risking an escalation.
​

(USS Lassen)


Here are the latest visuals from Subi and Mischief
(the two islands mentioned above):







Not to put too fine a point on it, but this borders on the insane.

Here we have both Washington and Beijing risking an outright military
confrontation over what amount to a couple of sandcastles and while
there's probably some truth to the contention that China has plans for
the islands that go beyond growing plants, building lighthouses
and raising pigs. It's not as though the PLA is going to invade
The Philippines, so at the end of the day, this looks like another example
of what Vladimir Putin recently suggested is evidence that the world
is losing its collective mind.​

 

[energy_wave]

The islands are not sovereign territory. China is in violation of international law, imo.

 

[Housecarl]

China warns US Navy warship nearing 12-mi limit around their Islands in S. China Sea
Started by mzkittyý, Today 04:31 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...mi-limit-around-their-Islands-in-S.-China-Sea

FUNG WAR ADVISORY #2: China....Back Down or We'll Wage War Against CONUS
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ck-Down-or-We-ll-Wage-War-Against-CONUS/page6

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.trust.org/item/20151026181435-z25cx

Angry China says shadowed US warship near man-made islands in disputed sea

Source: Reuters - Tue, 27 Oct 2015 05:57 GMT
Author: Reuters

* U.S. warship sails near Chinese man-made islands in Spratlys

* Challenges 12-nautical mile territorial limits around outposts

* China says U.S. warship entered its waters illegally

* U.S. ship was warned and followed - China Foreign Ministry

* U.S. defense official says such patrols will be regular (Adds Chinese reaction, expert comment)

By Andrea Shalal and Ben Blanchard

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer close to China's man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea on Tuesday, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing, which said it warned and followed the American vessel.

The patrol by the USS Lassen was the most significant U.S. challenge yet to 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China asserts around the islands in the Spratly archipelago and could ratchet up tensions in one of the world's busiest sea lanes.

One U.S. defense official said the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef. A second defense official said the mission, which lasted a few hours, also included Mischief Reef and would be the first in a series of freedom-of-navigation exercises aimed at testing China's territorial claims.

China's Foreign Ministry said the "relevant authorities" monitored, followed and warned the USS Lassen as it "illegally" entered waters near islands and reefs in the Spratlys without the Chinese government's permission.

"China will resolutely respond to any country's deliberate provocations. We will continue to closely monitor the relevant seas and airspace, and take all necessary steps in accordance with the need," the ministry said in a statement that gave no details on precisely where the U.S. ship sailed.

"China strongly urges the U.S. side to conscientiously handle China's serious representations, immediately correct its mistake and not take any dangerous or provocative acts that threaten China's sovereignty and security interests," it said.

The second U.S. defense official said additional patrols would follow in the coming weeks and could also be conducted around features that Vietnam and the Philippines have built up in the Spratlys.

"This is something that will be a regular occurrence, not a one-off event," said the official. "It's not something that's unique to China."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest referred questions on any specific operations to the Pentagon but said the United States had made clear to China the importance of free flow of commerce in the South China Sea.

The United States had not conducted a patrol within 12 miles of the seven Chinese outposts since Beijing began building the reefs up at the end of 2013. The U.S. Navy last went within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed territory in the Spratlys in 2012.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.



RISK OF ESCALATION

The decision to go ahead with the patrol follows months of deliberation and risks upsetting already strained ties with China.

"By using a guided-missile destroyer, rather than smaller vessels ... they are sending a strong message," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies.

"They have also said, significantly, that there will be more patrols - so it really now is up to China how it will respond."

Some experts have said China would likely resist attempts to make such U.S. actions routine. China's navy could for example try to block or attempt to surround U.S. vessels, they said, risking an escalation.

Euan Graham, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said while there was likely to be a strong vocal reaction from China, its military response could be muted.

The patrol could prompt China to do more to exert its sovereignty in the region through further reclamations and greater militarization, he added.



COMPETING CLAIMS

Both Subi and Mischief Reefs were submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn them into islands in 2014.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, 12-nautical mile limits cannot be set around man-made islands built on previously submerged reefs.

Washington worries that China has built up its outposts with the aim of extending its military reach in the South China Sea. China says they will have mainly civilian uses as well as undefined defense purposes.

The patrol comes just weeks ahead of a series of Asia-Pacific summits President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to attend in the second half of November.

Xi surprised U.S. officials after a meeting with Obama in Washington last month by saying that China had "no intention to militarize" the islands.

Even before that, however, satellite photographs had shown the construction of three military-length airstrips by China in the Spratlys, including one each on Subi and Mischief reefs.

Some U.S. officials have said that the plan for patrols was aimed in part at testing Xi's statement on militarization.

In May, the Chinese navy issued eight warnings to the crew of a U.S. surveillance aircraft that flew near the artificial islands but not within the 12-mile limit, reported CNN, which was aboard the U.S. aircraft.

Pentagon officials say the United States regularly conducts freedom-of-navigation operations around the world to challenge excessive maritime claims.

In early September, China sent naval vessels within 12 miles of the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. China said they were there as part of a routine drill following exercises with Russia.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Yeganeh Torbati and David Brunnstrom in Washington and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly in Tokyo, Grego Torode in Hong Kong and Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Editing by Dean Yates and Alex Richardson)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-china-japan-idUSKCN0SL0AL20151027

World | Mon Oct 26, 2015 11:56pm EDT
Related: World, China, Japan, South Korea

Ahead of summit, China urges Japan make break from 'inglorious' past

BEIJING

Japan needs to make a clean break from its "inglorious" past and take on an entirely new outlook if it wants to have stable and healthy relations with China and South Korea, China's foreign minister said on Tuesday ahead of a weekend trilateral summit.

The neighbors have been moving to improve ties long overshadowed by their painful history, holding a foreign ministers' meeting in March and trying to restore what had been a regular forum at the summit level to discuss cooperation.

Ties with Japan have long been strained by what Beijing and Seoul see as Japanese leaders' reluctance to atone for the country's wartime past. China and South Korea suffered under Japan's sometimes brutal occupation and colonial rule before Tokyo's defeat in 1945.

Speaking at an academic forum in Beijing on relations between the three, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said a correct attitude to the past was the precondition to looking forward.

"If the history question is handled properly, then relations between the three countries can progress. If not, then they will certainly stall," Wang said, according to a transcript carried on the foreign ministry's website.

"This certainly isn't China and South Korea clinging on to old debts, but because for these three countries there is no way to avoid history, and it cannot be overlooked."

Sincerity was key, Wang said.

"We hope that Japan genuinely and sincerely reflect on all its past mistakes, simply and directly make a clean break with that inglorious past, take an entirely new outlook to join hands with the people of China and South Korea and get on the path to healthy, stable and sustainable development."

The summit in Seoul will be the first between the three in three years, and China will be represented by Premier Li Keqiang.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has met Chinese President Xi Jinping twice since November 2014. But Abe has not had a one-on-one summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye since taking office in December 2012.

The summit, held annually since 2008, was discontinued amid diplomatic tension between Japan and South Korea and Japan and China stemming both from the war and territorial disputes.


(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...of-anarchist-plot-to-ambush-cops-on-Halloween

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nypost.com/2015/10/26/fbi-warns-cops-of-halloween-revolt-planned-by-anarchists/

FBI warns of anarchist plot to ambush cops on Halloween

By Melkorka Licea
October 26, 2015 | 8:47pm

The FBI released an alert Monday warning the NYPD and police departments nationwide of a potentially dangerous anarchist group that says it plans to ambush cops on Halloween.

The extremist group – known as the National Liberation Militia – has proposed a “Halloween Revolt” that encourages supporters to cause a disturbance to attract police and then viciously attack them, the FBI said.

The group has recommended that members wear typical Halloween masks and use weapons such as bricks, bottles and firearms, according to the release.

The NYPD Intelligence Bureau is monitoring the threat, and there is no known link between the threat and New York City law enforcement specifically, the FBI said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151027/lt-colombia-rebel-ambush-d68d7526e3.html

Colombian rebels kill 12 in ambush of poll workers

Oct 26, 9:24 PM (ET)
By JOSHUA GOODMAN

(AP) Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos waves after voting in local and regional...
Full Image

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Leftist rebels on Monday ambushed election workers transporting ballots from an indigenous reservation in Colombia's Andean highlands, killing 12 security forces members who were protecting the group.

Authorities attributed the attack to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Colombia's second-biggest rebel group. The poll workers were transporting to the capital for counting about 130 ballots cast at the remote U'wa reservation during Sunday's elections for governors, mayors and other local officials.

Of those killed early Monday, 11 belonged to the army while the other was a police officer. Three more soldiers were wounded and six people remain missing, including two poll workers and an indigenous guide, Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said.

"They were safeguarding the political liberty of our U'wa brothers," Villegas said in a press conference, adding that the military's top command had traveled to the area to oversee efforts to locate those still missing as well as the attackers.

President Juan Manuel Santos expressed his condolences, saying the attack marred what had otherwise been the safest elections Colombia has held in decades, with a 60 percent reduction in violence compared with the previous vote in 2011.

He also chastised the ELN, which has been holding exploratory peace talks with government for more than a year and were widely expected to soon join the more powerful Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in initiating formal negotiations aimed at ending a half century of bloodshed.

"This is an event that demonstrates the ELN haven't understood that it's time for peace, not for war," said Santos, adding that he ordered the military to redouble a military offensive against the ELN's remaining 1,500 fighters, most of whom are concentrated in eastern Colombia, near where the attack took place. "If the ELN thinks that these acts they are going to gain political space or strengthen their position before an eventual negotiations they are completely wrong."

A proud nation of some 7,000 people, the U'wa are known for fiercely defending their ancestral homeland in the 1990s from drilling by Occidental Petroleum.

Bladimir Moreno, a tribal leader and president of a group representing the U'wa, told The Associated Press that he plans to travel to the remote area on the edge of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy national park to assist authorities with an impartial probe. He said the isolated reservation that's home to some 300 people is a two-day trek to the nearest town and the community's sole telephone wasn't working in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The ELN has yet to take credit for the attack and Villegas didn't provide details about guerrilla casualties or how the ambush unfolded.

__

Follow Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjoshgoodman

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Elijah J. Magnier Retweeted
Christian Thiels ‏@ThielsChristian 4h4 hours ago

#China To Get S-400 Missile Defence Systems From #Russia On Time http://bit.ly/1PRI1pY @defenseworld


posted for fair use
http://www.defenseworld.net/news/14...ense_Systems_From_Russia_On_Time#.Vi-ZHWM2BUN



China To Get S-400 Missile Defense Systems From Russia On Time

Source : Our Bureau ~ Dated : Tuesday, October 27, 2015 @ 12:12 PM

S-400 Triumf Anti-Aircraft Missile Defense System (Image:Wikipedia)

Russia will deliver S-400 Triumf Mobile Multiple Anti-Aircraft Missile systems to China on time.

Rosoboronexport General Director Anatoly Isaikin Tuesday said that the company will honor its contract with China to deliver S-400 missile defense systems on time.

“China was the first country that we signed a contract with on the delivery of the S-400 and this contract will undoubtedly be fulfilled on time,” Isaikin told journalists without specifying the delivery dates or any other details of the contract.

Russia signed a contract to sell upgraded version of S-300 missile defense system to China in April this year. China had signed a $3 billion contract to procure six S-400 divisions amounting to eight missile launchers.

 

[Housecarl]

Taking "a day late and a dollar short" to a whole different level.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sec-carter-direct-u-s-action-ground-iraq-syria-n452131

News
Oct 27 2015, 4:17 pm ET

Ashton Carter: U.S. to Begin 'Direct Action on the Ground' in Iraq, Syria

by Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube

Video

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin "direct action on the ground" against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against them remains elusive.

"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, using an alternative name for the militant group.

Carter pointed to last week's rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIS.

Related: Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, U.S. Commando Killed in ISIS Raid, Ran to Gunfight

Carter and Pentagon officials initially refused to characterize the rescue operation as U.S. boots on the ground. However, Carter said last week that the military expects "more raids of this kind" and that the rescue mission "represents a continuation of our advise and assist mission."

This may mean some American soldiers "will be in harm's way, no question about it," Carter said last week.

After months of denying that U.S. troops would be in any combat role in Iraq, Carter late last week in a response to a question posed by NBC News, also acknowledged that the situation U.S. soldiers found themselves in during the raid in Hawija was combat.

"This is combat and things are complicated," Carter said.

During Tuesday's Senate hearing, Carter said Wheeler "was killed in combat."

White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz on Tuesday said the administration has "no intention of long term ground combat". He added that U.S. forces will continue to robustly train, advise and assist.

A feisty Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said on Tuesday in the Senate Armed Services committee hearing that the U.S. effort in Syria is a "half-assed strategy at best," and said that the U.S. is not doing a "damn thing" to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Carter on Tuesday pushed back against that notion.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the "balance of forces" has tilted in Assad's favor.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/did-...ating-its-south-china-sea-territorial-claims/

Did China Just Hack the International Court Adjudicating Its South China Sea Territorial Claims?

Sometimes context and timing can be damning evidence.

By Jason Healey and Anni Piiparinen
October 27, 2015

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Attribution for cyberattacks is said to be notoriously difficult, but sometimes context and timing are damning evidence.

In July, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague conducted a hearing on the territorial dispute in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China. On the third day of the hearing, the Court’s website was suddenly knocked offline. The attack, made public by Bloomberg last week, reportedly originated from China and infected the page with malware, leaving anyone interested in the landmark legal case at risk of data theft.

The two countries are in the midst of a decades-long dispute over the Scarborough Shoal and other territories in the South China Sea, which should come as no surprise to readers of The Diplomat. Just in case, here’s the backstory: In a precedent-setting turn this summer, when the Permanent Court of Arbitration began hearing a case brought by the Philippines that argues that China’s territorial claims violate international law under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

In an attempt to deter the Chinese expansion, “the Philippines is asking the court to rule on the validity of China’s nine-dash line as a maritime claim; the status of individual features that China occupies; and Beijing’s interference in Philippine activities in the South China Sea.” If successful, the Philippines’ legal challenge might set a precedent for other Southeast Asian countries to non-militarily wrestle China over the disputed waters.

China has continuously dismissed the court case simply as “a blatant grab for territory,” stating that it “would not accept and would not engage” in the case. The country subsequently released a position paper rejecting the court’s jurisdiction over the dispute. Despite China’s strong reluctance to participate in the court hearings, the July hack demonstrates that Beijing’s attention is focused on the hearing and its aftermath.

By infecting the computers of journalists, diplomats, lawyers, and others who are involved or interested in the case, Chinese cyber units may be able to find out the names of people who are following the case and anticipate what their response might be if the court rules against China. For example, if Vietnamese or Japanese diplomats visited the website and their computers were infected, China could have access to internal documents and understand that country’s next moves over the disputed islands.

Based on past Chinese form, the courts in The Hague should also check their internal systems, not just the external facing webserver, for signs of Chinese intrusions. Seven years ago, in the run-up to another important international event critical to China – the 2008 Olympic Games to showcase the new China to the world – Chinese spies intruded into Asian and Western national Olympic Committees, as well as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Lacking a military alternative, the Philippines’ turning to the courts to challenge China over the maritime dispute has could be been compared to David going after Goliath. For the Philippines and its relatively small neighbors, the recourse to international law serves as a “force equalizer” in deterring perceived Chinese transgressions and China’s “might is right” take on international relations.

As a digital backdrop to the intensifying island-building activities, the growing presence of coastguard vessels, and increasing military flyovers, cyberspace has again emerged as another front for the disputed South China Sea. The hack of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague adds evidence that China will continue to target its neighbors’ networks to gain the upper hand in the territorial row.

In addition to the idea that “attribution is hard,” a myth of cyberspace is that attacks are difficult to predict or anticipate. Maybe that is true at the level of ones and zeroes, but as history has repeatedly shown, it is certainly not unpredictable at the level of national security conflicts. Cyber adversaries are not “ones and zeroes” but hackers, often driven by outrage over perceived national insult (or actually part of national security services). This makes them far more predictable.

The Philippines (and its U.S. allies) should accordingly start preparing now for a massive digital tantrum by Chinese patriot hackers if the ruling, expected by the end of the year, goes against the Middle Kingdom.

Jason Healey (@Jason_Healey) is Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Anni Piiparinen (@AnniPiiparinen) is program assistant for the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Brent Scowcroft Center for International Security at the Atlantic Council.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Taking "a day late and a dollar short" to a whole different level.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sec-carter-direct-u-s-action-ground-iraq-syria-n452131

News
Oct 27 2015, 4:17 pm ET

Ashton Carter: U.S. to Begin 'Direct Action on the Ground' in Iraq, Syria

by Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube

Video

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin "direct action on the ground" against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against them remains elusive.

"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, using an alternative name for the militant group.

Carter pointed to last week's rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIS.

Related: Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, U.S. Commando Killed in ISIS Raid, Ran to Gunfight

Carter and Pentagon officials initially refused to characterize the rescue operation as U.S. boots on the ground. However, Carter said last week that the military expects "more raids of this kind" and that the rescue mission "represents a continuation of our advise and assist mission."

This may mean some American soldiers "will be in harm's way, no question about it," Carter said last week.

After months of denying that U.S. troops would be in any combat role in Iraq, Carter late last week in a response to a question posed by NBC News, also acknowledged that the situation U.S. soldiers found themselves in during the raid in Hawija was combat.

"This is combat and things are complicated," Carter said.

During Tuesday's Senate hearing, Carter said Wheeler "was killed in combat."

White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz on Tuesday said the administration has "no intention of long term ground combat". He added that U.S. forces will continue to robustly train, advise and assist.

A feisty Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said on Tuesday in the Senate Armed Services committee hearing that the U.S. effort in Syria is a "half-assed strategy at best," and said that the U.S. is not doing a "damn thing" to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Carter on Tuesday pushed back against that notion.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the "balance of forces" has tilted in Assad's favor.

When we put the boots on the ground, it changes everything and things will go up several notches.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

BeyondTheLevant Retweeted
Amir Taheri ‏@AmirTaheri4 3m3 minutes ago

Dpty #IRGC Commander #Gen. #Salami today: We must get ready for several more low-intensity wars besides #Iraq and #Syria against enemies.


And who will be the next "lucky" ones on Iran's hit...I mean target list?

Saudi Arabia? Turkey? Lebanon? lots of countries could be added to the list.

ETA: adding Afghanistan and Pakistan because of article I posted on main.

 

[Housecarl]

BeyondTheLevant Retweeted
Amir Taheri ‏@AmirTaheri4 3m3 minutes ago

Dpty #IRGC Commander #Gen. #Salami today: We must get ready for several more low-intensity wars besides #Iraq and #Syria against enemies.


And who will be the next "lucky" ones on Iran's hit...I mean target list?

Saudi Arabia? Turkey? Lebanon? lots of countries could be added to the list.

ETA: adding Afghanistan and Pakistan because of article I posted on main.

Most likely Saudi and the closely allied GCC States like Qatar. Lebanon is for all practical purposes under their sway with Hezbollah running rough shod over it. As to Turkey, even with (or because of) Erdogan being in charge IMHO that would be a real mistake at this point, even if they were "only" funneling small arms to the Kurds or other groups . The Turks are the only regional player in the area that can independently put a real hurt on them without calling for outside help both in terms of "deep strike" and on the ground.

Concerns of Afghanistan and Pakistan getting significant IS influence on the ground, and for that matter within the government (particularly considering the "leanings of the Pakistani ISI) and their short flight time nuclear missiles are real ones.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Most likely Saudi and the closely allied GCC States like Qatar. Lebanon is for all practical purposes under their sway with Hezbollah running rough shod over it. As to Turkey, even with (or because of) Erdogan being in charge IMHO that would be a real mistake at this point, even if they were "only" funneling small arms. The Turks are the only regional player in the area that can independently put a real hurt on them without calling for outside help both in terms of "deep strike" and on the ground.

Concerns of Afghanistan and Pakistan getting significant IS influence on the ground, and for that matter within the government (particularly considering the "leanings of the Pakistani ISI) and their short flight time nuclear missiles are real ones.

I included Lebanon because for all intents and purposes, right now it is still secular but without a functioning "government" for the most part and ISIS has strong support in some parts of it. But, most importantly, it borders Israel, Iran won't want to lose that area to ISIS.

 

[Housecarl]

I included Lebanon because for all intents and purposes, right now it is still secular but without a functioning "government" for the most part and ISIS has strong support in some parts of it. But, most importantly, it borders Israel, Iran won't want to lose that area to ISIS.

That's fair. I was looking at things from the standpoint of direct threat to Iran and its interests.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aei.org/publication/natos-future-structure-from-a-hard-look-at-hard-power/

Sarah Gustafson
October 27, 2015 4:47 pm | AEIdeas

NATO’s future structure: From ‘A Hard Look at Hard Power’

Foreign and Defense Policy

The Strategic Studies Institute recently published A Hard Look at Hard Power: Assessing the Defense Capabilities of Key U.S. Allies and Security Partners. Edited by Gary J. Schmitt, codirector of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, and featuring contributions from him, AEI scholar Michael Mazza, and others, it fills critical gaps in information “about the actual hard power resources of America’s allies.”

Though the economic recession forced many NATO countries to cut their military resources, the NATO Response Force (NRF) program is encouraging further integration of NATO’s forces. Guillaume Lasconjarias explains why a successful NRF program will be critical to successful operability as the alliance withdraws from Afghanistan.

After years of discussion regarding the rationale, effectiveness, and role of the NATO Response Force (NRF), it has the potential to be a catalyst for maintaining a modern, allied land force. Conceived as a multinational joint force, the NRF is intended to provide a robust and rapidly deployable coalition force to meet a range of missions, from the evacuation of civilians to a high-intensity engagement.

The makeup of the NRF is straightforward: individual nations make contributions to the force structure for 1 year while a multinational rapid response command is kept on standby. Once a command’s readiness is certified, it is set to perform the tasks entrusted to it by the alliance. The NRF is also important as a setting for major live exercises. The most recent, Steadfast Jazz 2013, brought together some 6,000 troops in Poland. While there is still considerable discussion about the NRF’s potential uses, the force is nevertheless a formidable resource that ensures basic levels of training, available manpower, and military capacity.


However, the present state of the NRF reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the current state of allied armed forces. For 2014, the land component of the NRF involves 12 allied countries and one partner state, Ukraine. The challenge is keeping the dedicated forces operationally prepared for possible deployment at short notice. Here, the main problem is that the NRF command is not directly in charge of the units that can be assigned to it, which are spread out among contributing nations. In addition, there is the problem that certain capacities—such as helicopters or UAVs—are missing or insufficient in number.

According to some analysts, however, the real issue is somewhat different. The NRF is viewed by some in the alliance as not so much a resource for actual use as a test bed for increasing interoperability among alliance partners. From this viewpoint, the NRF is about allied forces getting acquainted with each other, training under shared procedures, and exploring new operational possibilities. The NRF thus offers a platform for operational convergence, promoting a common spirit through a network of certified units.

The NRF is particularly important in relation to the upcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan and the apparent end of alliance forces’ major foreign engagements. It can help ensure that standards are maintained and that some percent of the forces are kept in a state of readiness. Participation in exercises and the mandatory certification process also ensure that financial resources are earmarked by governments. Finally, the NRF process allows alliance forces the unique opportunity to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, with an important trickle-down effect on their respective militaries.

Download A Hard Look at Hard Power: Assessing the Defense Capabilities of Key U.S. Allies and Security Partners here.

This post was written by Ash Malhotra, an AEIdeas intern, and edited by Sarah Gustafson, Editorial Assistant at the AEIdeas blog.

 

[Housecarl]

Max Boot: To Die in an Unserious War
Started by Housecarlý, Today 11:51 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?477943-Max-Boot-To-Die-in-an-Unserious-War

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/obama-inadequate-gesture-isis/

Commentary Magazine

Obama’s Inadequate Gesture in Iraq

Max Boot / Oct. 28, 2015

Five months after the fall of Ramadi and 16 months after the fall of Mosul, the Obama administration seems to have figured out that things may not be going so well in the anti-ISIS campaign. As a result, following its usual protracted policy review process, the administration is considering steps such as deploying Apache attack helicopters to Iraq and a few advisers to Syria. It’s nice that the administration is considering doing more but these aren’t serious options; they’re gimmicks.

The fundamental problem in Iraq and Syria is political: How do you mobilize Sunnis against ISIS — and for that matter, Shiites against the Iranian Quds Force? Until that happens, it will be impossible to make any real and lasting progress. Sure, we can send better weapons to Iraq but we can’t convince the Shiite militias and the militant Shiites who dominate the government to risk the lives of their troops to clear ISIS out of Sunni areas. And even if we could, it would be impossible to hold those areas without the support of the locals, which is currently lacking. Even if we could evict ISIS from Mosul or Ramadi, some other Islamist terrorist group would arise to resist Baghdad’s encroachments.

As for Syria, there will be no hope of mobilizing Sunnis to fight ISIS unless the U.S. also supports a campaign to get rid of Bashar Assad, who has killed far more people than ISIS has. Yet far from gearing up against Assad, the U.S. is negotiating with his chief sponsor, Iran, hoping to lure Tehran into negotiations over Syria’s future and dropping broad hints that the U.S. is no longer committed to Assad’s removal.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/o...d-secularism.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

The Opinion Pages | Contributing Op-Ed Writer

India, France and Secularism

OCT. 27, 2015


The Indian organizers of two concerts by Ghulam Ali, a veteran Pakistani singer, did not want to take chances. They had received local government assurances about security for the Oct. 9 and 10 concerts in Mumbai and Pune. But faced with protests from a regional right-wing Hindu party, Shiv Sena, they decided to cancel the shows. “You know the Shiv Sena people,” the manager of one of the venues explained. “They may still create troubles.”

Sylvie Kauffmann
French politics and society.

The Refugee Drama Stirs the French SEP 4

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Facing Europe’s Refugee Tragedy JUN 22

Surveillance Without Borders MAY 17

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A few days later Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank, was attacked in his car by a group of “Shiv Sena people” who doused him with oily black ink. He had been due to take part in a book launch by a former Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, an event the foundation had refused to cancel. He still appeared with the author, his head blackened and his clothes soiled, his face almost unrecognizable, to condemn this “attack on democracy,” before going to the hospital to have the ink removed.

Intolerance is on the rise in India, where the number of attacks on minorities, particularly Muslims, and on secularist intellectuals by Hindu chauvinists is part of a disturbing trend. Even more disturbing has been the reluctance of the governing party, the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, to speak against violent assaults, like the barbaric killing of a 52-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Ikhlaq, dragged from his home on Sept. 28 in a village near New Delhi and beaten to death by a mob that suspected him of storing beef meat in his fridge. It took more than two weeks for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the leader who campaigned on inclusive development, to utter a word about the murder. And when he did, his comments were embarrassingly weak: He could only find the incident “really sad” and blame the opposition’s “pseudo-secularism.”

Secularism is, precisely, at the heart of the debate in Mr. Modi’s India. Coming from a country, France, with strong feelings about secularism, or laïcité, I was intrigued to see how it is managed in a nation of 1.25 billion people with a 14.2 percent Muslim minority when I took part earlier this month in a study trip in India set up by the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Like the French, Indians tend to consider secularism as part of their national identity. It is engrained in both constitutions. “If we are less secular, we are less Indian,” said Tarun Vijay, a B.J.P. member of Parliament and one of the party’s ideologues. But while the foundation of French laïcité is to keep the government neutral in religious affairs, the Indian version of secularism “allows state intervention in the dominant religion” — Hinduism — and recognizes minority rights, Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal of Jawaharlal Nehru University told us.

Emboldened by its electoral success, which brought Mr. Modi to power in May 2014, the B.J.P.’s powerful ideological parent, a social organization called R.S.S. (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) thus tends to equate secularism with Hindu rule: They would not mind it if the state were allowed to intervene in the affairs of all religions. France, in turn, has enforced laïcité in the public sphere more rigorously with the rise of Islam. It imposed a ban on all religious signs from public schools when the Muslim head scarf became an issue, but girls can wear a head scarf anywhere else, and Jewish boys are free to wear a yarmulke off school grounds. Burqas are banned in public space. A few right-wing politicians are now resisting the idea of school menus offering an alternative to pork, but they don’t get much traction.

Hindu fundamentalists have a more radical view of beef consumption and the slaughtering of cows. Some states, like Maharashtra, have banned the sale of beef, and calls for a national beef ban are growing. The fact that Muslims and Christians are traditional beef eaters is not an obstacle. The B.J.P.’s Tarun Vijay, expressing a more stringent interpretation of secularism on the opinion website Daily 0, sees “beef eating as a challenge to India, its public display as an act of bravado,” adding, “It is a political act that has nothing to do with culinary practice or religion.”

In both countries Muslim minorities complain about discrimination — and with reason. But while many French Muslims, who make up about 7.5 percent of the population, feel targeted by “laïcité,” Indian Muslims see secularism as their best protection. One important difference is that radicalization is an almost nonexistent phenomenon in Indian Islam, while it is a dangerous (but limited) trend among European Muslims. Only 30 Indian citizens are known to have joined the Islamic State so far, out of 176 million Muslims; in France, the number of home-grown jihadists is close to 2,000, out of 4 to 5 million. So while in France, fundamentalism comes from the Muslim minority, in India it comes from the Hindu majority.

India has been home to Muslims since the 8th century; Mughals ruled most of India and Pakistan 400 years ago. In contrast, Islam’s implantation in Europe is only a few decades old; France’s law on laïcité predates their arrival. Today, as minorities, Muslims feel vulnerable. In France, the January terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket deepened the malaise, as many Muslims stayed away from the #JeSuisCharlie movement. When 4 million French people took to the streets in support of freedom of expression right after the attacks, they assumed that French Muslims would make a point to be part of this show of unity. Only a small number did. For many of those who did not show up, laïcité has gone too far. Allowing cartoonists to make fun of religious figures, including their Prophet, may be a French tradition; it is not their idea of secularism.

In India, the threat against secularism goes even deeper, down to the values dear to its founding fathers, Gandhi and Nehru. “This is an India which is crying out for a Mahatma who puts compassion and tolerance above all else,” wrote the well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai after the recent attacks. An India that could rally behind #JeSuisIkhlaq.


Sylvie Kauffmann is the editorial director and a former editor in chief of Le Monde.

 

[Housecarl]

In Latest Escalation, Australia May Join US, Send Warships To China Islands
Started by Possible Impactý, Today 12:08 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ia-May-Join-US-Send-Warships-To-China-Islands

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/28/us-southchinasea-usa-decision-idUSKCN0SM2GN20151028

Politics | Wed Oct 28, 2015 2:14pm EDT
Related: Politics, China

As Obama weighed patrol to counter China, Pentagon urged faster action

WASHINGTON | By Andrea Shalal, Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

The U.S. naval challenge to China's territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea this week came after months of frustration within the Pentagon at what some defense officials saw as unnecessary delays by the White House and State Department in approving the mission.

As early as mid-May, the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to assert the principle of freedom of navigation around China's artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago after Defense Secretary Ash Carter requested options to respond to their rapid construction.

That patrol eventually took place on Tuesday when the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, triggering an angry rebuke from China and threatening to ratchet up tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

An intense, prolonged internal U.S. debate over the patrol revealed by Reuters' reporting appears to contradict Washington's insistence that it was simply another routine freedom-of-navigation operation.

The months leading up to the patrol allowed Beijing to harden its stance and, according to some U.S. officials and security experts, blew the operation out of proportion.

Washington's caution also caused disquiet among some military officials in Japan and the Philippines, both U.S. security allies, feeding concerns that China's ambitions in the South China Sea would go unchecked.

The Pentagon and U.S. military officials had been ready for months to carry out patrols, but ran into "repeated stalling" from the White House and State Department, said one U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity.

Both wanted to avoid giving the appearance that any operation was in response to other events, the official said, such as the breach of 21 million U.S. personnel records that has been linked to hackers in China. China has denied involvement in the attack.

"The concern was that, if we looked like we were responding to something the Chinese had done, it would undermine our assertion that this is a matter of international law, and our rights to navigate the seas," said the official.

The State Department did not respond officially to queries on why the mission took so long. The White House declined official comment on the criticism.

Pressure for action was growing at a sensitive time in U.S.-China relations, as major powers moved closer to agreeing a nuclear deal with Iran and as Washington prepared for a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September.

By late September, a consensus had been reached to go ahead with the patrol, despite Xi’s assertion in Washington that China had “no intention” to militarize the islands.

Obama, who has sought to avoid confrontations with U.S. rivals and reduce direct U.S. involvement in wars, had to carefully weigh the need to take action with the risks of sparking an unintentional armed conflict that could have severe diplomatic and economic consequences.

Under his "pivot" to Asia, 60 percent of the U.S. Navy's assets will be deployed in the Pacific region by 2020, in a challenge to China's rapidly growing maritime power and ambitions.

Another U.S. official said a key reason for the lengthy internal deliberations was to be sure that every possible measure was being taken to minimize the risk of a U.S.-China military confrontation at sea. Having Obama and other senior U.S. officials publicly telegraph the likelihood of a naval patrol in the area was part of a “no surprises” strategy toward the Chinese, the official said.

A senior Obama administration official said the government had gone through a "rigorous inter-agency process" to come up with options for the president.

“Our aim was to ensure we made smart decisions to advance our strategic objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, including on maritime issues,” the official said.

NOT SO ROUTINE

Pentagon officials say the United States regularly conducts freedom-of-navigation operations around the world to challenge excessive maritime claims. China claims most of the South China Sea. Other claimants are Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, 12-nautical mile limits cannot be set around man-made islands built on previously submerged reefs. Four of the seven reefs China has reclaimed over the last two years, including Subi, were submerged at high tide before construction began, legal scholars say.

Another source familiar with the matter said the administration's determination to keep the issue focused on the 12-mile territorial limits and avoid any sense the patrols were aimed at challenging Chinese sovereignty had delayed the process. While it insists on freedom of navigation through the waterway, Washington takes no position on the various sovereignty claims.

Apparently attempting to avoid further stoking Chinese anger, the White House stuck to its plan to keep its comments relatively low-key in the aftermath of the patrol, portraying it as a routine "freedom of navigation operation" that did not assert any "special specific U.S. rights".

But the hold-up subverted the initial intent to make the patrols a routine part of operating in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, the source said.

"Delaying the patrols actually made it into a bigger deal," said the source. "This may have diminished the initial strategy that these patrols should be a regular, ordinary matter."

Bonnie Glaser a security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the mission was complicated by the fact it took so long.

"All of this attention that has been given to it has undermined the effectiveness of freedom of navigation operations," she said.

PRESSURE FROM ASIAN ALLIES

One former senior U.S. official said there had been concern within the administration, dating back to last year, that China might have drawn the "wrong lesson" from the Western response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in early 2014 as well as Obama's avoidance of direct military action in Syria.

Since China's land reclamation began in December 2013, it had reclaimed more than 2,900 acres (1,170 hectares) of land as of June, the Pentagon said in a recent report. China had reclaimed 17 times more land than the other claimants combined over the past 40 years, it added.

Pressure for action from U.S. allies in the region grew after China's island-building became front-page news this year following the release of high-resolution satellite images that showed the scale of the work.

In the Philippines, civilian and military leaders publicly welcomed Tuesday's patrol.

But one Philippine military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added: "It's about time America showed it remained engaged in this region."

Tokyo also said it supported the mission, although one commentator said there had been some scepticism in Japan over whether it would go ahead.

"I think many serious people must have been relieved to hear that the United States did what they said (they would do), unlike in similar incidents in Syria," said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat.

None of America's allies in Asia have run freedom of navigation patrols past China's islands.

The U.S. administration has long been aware that patrols alone will not be enough to deter China's island-building but believed it was still important to more directly challenge China's territorial claims, a source close to the matter said ahead of the operation.

Not all experts pointed the finger at the White House and the State Department for not acting sooner.

Doug Paal, director of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he believed the U.S. Navy had been internally conflicted for a few years over whether to go ahead with the patrol.

"Now both Beijing and Washington have to show their people they are tough and will not be pushed around, without actually triggering an entirely purposeless conflict," added Paal.

A senior Navy official denied there had been any internal Navy tension over the patrol, adding that such decisions had to be made by the defense secretary and the president.


(The story was refiled to fix a spelling error in the fourth paragraph)

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Linda Sieg, Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo and Manuel Mogato in Manila. Writing by Dean Yates; editing by Stuart Grudgings.)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/28/c...-after-us-sends-destroyer-to-south-china-sea/

China Mocks America As A ‘Paper Tiger,’ Says Beijing Willing ‘To Fight A War’

Posted By Jonah Bennett On 4:01 PM 10/28/2015 In | No Comments

State-run media outlets in China have run editorials bashing Washington’s decision to send the USS Lassen to the South China Sea and saying that Beijing is “not frightened to fight a war.”

The U.S. deployed the destroyer USS Lassen near the Spratly archipelago Tuesday, prompting immediate backlash from China, who ordered their own ships to shadow the Lassen on its pass. (RELATED: US Navy Sending A Destroyer Within 12 Miles Of China’s Artificial Islands Within 24 Hours)

Another editorial on the subject, published exclusively in Chinese by The Global Times, used slightly different language, arguing that “the US truly is only a ‘paper tiger,’” the BBC reports.

The editorial argued out that the U.S. is incapable of finishing the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan, lacks the confidence to do anything but make noise against Russia and certainly can’t take down North Korea. An English-language editorial by The Global Times said that China should prepare for the worst and deal tactfully with Washington, in order to defend its interests and dignity.

News agency Xinhua also claimed that by sending in the destroyer within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island, the U.S. had transformed the South China Sea into “tumultuous waters.”

Still another publication, the People’s Liberation Army Daily, blamed the U.S. for spreading chaos throughout the world because it “recklessly uses force and starts wars, stirring things up where once there was stability, causing the bitterest of harm to those countries directly involved.”

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has been blunt about the fact that the U.S. “will fly, sail or operate wherever international law allows,” a message reiterated by President Barack Obama. But instead of sending a combination of ships, the U.S. only sent in a single destroyer with no accompanying aircraft.

At risk of being accused of deploying a lackluster force, the Pentagon intends to repeat the exercise, which took place without any trouble. China has summoned U.S. ambassador to China Max Baucus to provide an answer as to why the U.S. sailed through the Subi and Mischief reefs. China claims these reefs as its own territory.

Meanwhile in September, China sailed five naval ships just off the Alaskan coast in international waters. The Pentagon, unperturbed, told The New York Times through an anonymous official that the pass-by wasn’t something “we are very worried about.”

An official statement through spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis was more matter of fact, pointing out “the freedom of all nations to operate military vessels in international waters.”

 

[Be Well]

Like the French, Indians tend to consider secularism as part of their national identity. It is engrained in both constitutions. “If we are less secular, we are less Indian,” said Tarun Vijay, a B.J.P. member of Parliament and one of the party’s ideologues. But while the foundation of French laïcité is to keep the government neutral in religious affairs, the Indian version of secularism “allows state intervention in the dominant religion” — Hinduism — and recognizes minority rights, Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal of Jawaharlal Nehru University told us.

I'd actually like to critique the whole article, maybe I'll have time tomorrow. And Gandhi and Nehru are not founding fathers, they are very recent sports. India's ancient and honorable history as a non-secular BUT very tolerant civilization is ignored totally by the writer, as though "India" was invented a few generations ago. Secularism was never India's history, until the British took over after the moslems and did their best to convert Hindus into faux Britishers, with a conscious program to instill atheism and agnosticism, when their efforts at Christian conversion were pretty unsuccessful.

The writer also ignores (or is ignorant of) the ruling (until now) Congress party's bias towards Moslems and Christians and secularism, and bias against religious Hindus. She also ignores the history of Islam in India. There really is a huge payback against Islam that has never been paid, and to kvetch about "meanness" towards Islam is very foolish and short sighted.

 

[Housecarl]

I'd actually like to critique the whole article, maybe I'll have time tomorrow. And Gandhi and Nehru are not founding fathers, they are very recent sports. India's ancient and honorable history as a non-secular BUT very tolerant civilization is ignored totally by the writer, as though "India" was invented a few generations ago. Secularism was never India's history, until the British took over after the moslems and did their best to convert Hindus into faux Britishers, with a conscious program to instill atheism and agnosticism, when their efforts at Christian conversion were pretty unsuccessful.

The writer also ignores (or is ignorant of) the ruling (until now) Congress party's bias towards Moslems and Christians and secularism, and bias against religious Hindus. She also ignores the history of Islam in India. There really is a huge payback against Islam that has never been paid, and to kvetch about "meanness" towards Islam is very foolish and short sighted.

Thanks Be Well. I await your full critique.