Whither Tunisia?

KP Fabian

When Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali - who had been Tunisia's president for 23 years - fell from power in January 2011, it appeared that Tunisia would embark on a journey towards democracy for the first time since its independence from France in 1957. Habib Bourguiba who led the struggle for freedom wanted to be president for life. In 1987, he was deposed in a bloodless coup by his Prime Minister Ben Ali who promised to introduce democracy. Ben Ali soon reneged on his promises and crony capitalism set in.

For over two years post Ben Ali, Tunisia appeared to be moving in the right direction. A progressive constitution was adopted, and a free and fair election delivered a government led by Ennahda (Renaissance), a reformed Muslim Brotherhood party that had been banned for decades. However, the supporters of the old order combined with secularists who nursed an irrational allergy towards Ennahda demanded that the government step down; and, wisely or unwisely, it did step down. Currently, Ennahda is a junior partner in a coalition of contradictions led by those who were Ben Ali's accomplices in ruining Tunisia.  Today, Tunisia has its sixth prime minister since Ben Ali's exit. As recently as 8 January 2018, 770 protesters were arrested, and one killed. A recent survey found that only 11.5 per cent of Tunisians believe that the present system is democratic.

In short, most Tunisians are angry and disappointed as seven years have elapsed since their country ignited the Arab Spring that felled rulers who had held on to power for decades, through means fair or foul, in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. What went wrong can easily be listed: a mismanaged, stagnant economy not creating jobs for the young in a population with an average age of 31; an unreformed political system unresponsive to the demands of the people; unaddressed disparities between the comparatively prosperous coastal belt and the interior; rampant corruption; and over- centralisation of power in the capital begetting anger and frustration in the rest of the country. Some Tunisians have started saying that it was better under Ben Ali.

In retrospect, Ben Ali did not exactly fall. He went to Jeddah accompanying his wife Leila Trabelsi who had attracted a lot of public hatred as her family members made money by stealing from the state with impunity.  Ben Ali’s aides prevented him from coming back as they wanted power. Some Tunisians held the opinion that if Ben Ali had divorced Leila and punished those who plundered the state he could have remained in office.  In short, what happened in January 2011 was short of a genuine revolution as power did not pass from the dictator to a new leadership with popular support determined to eradicate the old order and replace it with a new democratic one.

For a while, many well-wishers of Tunisia thought that Rached Ghannouchi, co-founder of Ennahda, named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential leaders in 2012, would lead Tunisia in the right direction. However, he has not done so. He lacks the drive to lead his party with a clear goal of a democratic Tunisia embracing inclusive growth by dismantling the old order. 

With mounting public debt (US$16.38 billion as against a GDP of US$42 billion) and an ailing economy, the Tunisian government did what most governments in the third world do and approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2013 for a loan. A loan of US$2.9 billion was granted to be paid in tranches depending on progress made in ‘structural adjustments’. Essentially, the IMF wanted to cut down public spending, reform the tax code, and reduce the numbers on the state pay roll. Prices of essential goods including bread and grains shot up. Average family income at US$150 a month proved grossly inadequate, and the people came out on to the streets in January.

At present, Tunisia’s prospects for removing the obstacles in its desired march towards a democracy with an improving economy that will create jobs for the young are bleak. The EU, preoccupied with its own internal problems, has not done much to promote democracy. The IMF has yet to learn from its past follies. That a prescription of austerity will only add to the misery of the common people has been proved time and again and Greece's pathetic plight is obvious to everyone except to those who are willfully blind.

Thousands of young Tunisians have either joined the Islamic State (IS) or gone to Europe looking for jobs. As the IS has collapsed, some of the young will return. Will they carry out terrorist activities in Tunisia? Will there be another revolution?  There might be violent protests, but such protests do not add up to a revolution. Tunisia needs a new political leadership. President Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi, 91, who held high offices under Ben Ali, cannot take Tunisia in a new direction. Neither can the ruling coalition of contradictions deliver. What happened to Tunisia is best summed up by Shakespeare:

“O, how this spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by a cloud takes all away!” 

Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) Post-Doctoral Fellowships for African Researchers 2018

Application Deadline: 10th February 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: The 2 year post-doctoral fellowships builds on, and helps to scale up, the RUFORUM commitment to strengthen postgraduate training and academic mobility in Africa. Since 2012, RUFORUM with support from Carnegie Cooperation of New York and other agencies has facilitated, mentored and contributed to a growing number of doctoral graduates who upon successful completion of their studies return to their home countries and integrate back in teaching and research. Thus, the goal of this call is to increase and ensure high retention rate of these graduates in Africa to help strengthen African universities and research institutions to meet the growing demand for higher education and research for creating knowledge and prosperity in the continent. The emphasis is on facilitating recent PhD graduates in ways that will improve their teaching, research, leadership and mentoring skills. It is important that they are supported in ways that contribute to increasing the critical mass of dedicated scientists that are working together to transform higher education in Africa and contribute to the global knowledge commons.

Type: Fellowship(Academic), Post-doctoral

Eligibility: 

• This call targets the former PhD beneficiary of Carnegie Cooperation of New York funded through RUFORUM from 2012 to 2017 who have graduated by December 2017. However, applications from candidates who have submitted their theses for external examination will also be considered.
• The applicant would need to be attached to a RUFORUM University faculty for the Post-Doctoral fellowship, where his/her main university mentor will be based. The hosting faculty should provide a support letter confirming willingness to host the Post-Doctoral fellow. The Fellow may also identify other mentors based in other institutions, such as the CGIARs, etc but need to be attached to a University.
• As part of the Fellowship, the Post-Doc Fellow will be provided with research funds that will be linked to supporting research activity of at least one PhD and one or more Masters Students who do not have research funding such as students funded under the Intra African Academic Mobility Program. The research areas could be directly linked to the field of training of the Post-Doctoral Fellow but could also cover new areas to broaden the perspective of the Fellow and promote inter-disciplinarity.
• The applicants should submit a research proposal, maximum 10 pages, 1.5 lines spacing, font 12 times new roman. The proposal should articulate the rationale for the Fellowship, provide an overview of the Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme, the proposed research thrusts, methodology, feasible work plan and clear deliverables. Importantly, the proposal should clearly articulate how the fellow plans to integrate postgraduate students who will be part of the research team but at the same time will be required to use the opportunity to finalize their dissertations leading to award of a degrees. It should clearly also indicate how the Fellow will provide mentoring support to the research students and others and build his/her international linkages.
• A detailed motivation letter will be required from the applicant, supported by a recommendation endorsement from their institution of employment and others where they require attachment.

Selection Criteria: The following key aspects will form criteria of awarding the applicants;

• the intrinsic interest and substantive merit of the work proposed;
• the likely effect the Fellowship will have on the university and the expected future contribution of the Fellow;
• the contribution the research is likely to make to scholarship in the country, the region as well as internationally;
• the commitment to establish a research team and strengthen supervision skills of Masters and PhD students, and the potential spill over to undergraduate students
• the potential contribution of the Fellow to building a critical mass of young scientists in Africa with a strong network to reinforce sharing of knowledge and approaches; and
• The feasibility of the work plan.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The Award for this call is a maximum of US$60, 000 per fellowship and is expected to cover:

• Stipend: $26,400 – equating to $1,200 for 10 months in Year 1 and 12 Months in Year 2 . This stipend is paid in order to allow the Fellow to focus on the research, publications and supervision of their research team by releasing some of their teaching and other duties and to reduce the need for engagement in consultancies.
• Research funds: $26,700 to support the research activities of the Post-Doctoral Team that will include PhD and Masters  Students to conduct research under the supervisor of the Fellow. In the post-doctoral arrangement, partial research support will be given to selected postgraduate students (at least one PhD student ($16,700), preferably a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA), and 1-2 MSc students ($10,000) to cover field research costs, research paper publication and dissemination of findings,
• Special mentor support: $3,600 to be retained by RUFORUM to support the Mentorship Programme. The cost of the mentor covers bench fees, hosting fees, and cost of the mentor visiting some of the research facilities and participating in convening’s along with the Post-Doctoral Fellows.

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply: It is important to go through the Application Process here before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: RUFORUM

Next Einstein Forum Challenge of Invention to Innovation (Ci2i) for Young African scientists and innovators 2018

Application Deadline: 12th February 2018.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Kigali, Rwanda

About the Award: On 26-28 March 2018, the Next Einstein Forum will host its second Global Gathering in Kigali, Rwanda. A critical component of the NEF is its unique innovation competition, the Challenge of Invention to Innovation (Ci2i). Young African scientists and innovators under 42 years of age are invited to present their research driven innovations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to a panel of experts in a pitch style competition.

The NEF Ci2i focuses on innovations of high impact globally and locally that a ready to be scaled up. Judges and participants come from major pan-African and global business, pharmaceutical and technological companies providing an unparalleled opportunity for researchers and entrepreneurs, both in terms of feedback and mentorship and in terms of funding to scale and expand R&D efforts.

African researchers and entrepreneurs may submit solutions in the categories Climate Smart Innovations (Energy, Agriculture, Circular Economy etc.); Deep-tech Innovations; Personalized Health Innovations;

Fields of Submission: Candidates will be invited to submit presentations under three main categories:

• Climate Smart Innovations (Energy, Agriculture, Circular Economy etc.)
• Deep-tech Innovations (Data driven innovation, Autonomous Systems, AI, Machine Learning, Digital Innovation, Fintech etc.)
• Personalized Health Innovations

The list above is not exhaustive, we invite all great innovators to apply. The NEF team will select the top 5 innovations to present at the NEF Global Gathering 2018.

Type: Contest/Awards

Eligibility: Participation in the competition is open to Africans of all nationalities under 42 years of age. In the case that teams are led by a non-African, one of the co-founders or chief executives must be African.

Selection Criteria: During the first round of the competition, the jury will use score sheets to choose the top 2 presenters. The score sheets will assess the following criteria on a scale of 1 to 10:

1. Clarity of the presentation
2. Originality, novelty or innovativeness of the work or idea being presented
3. Potential for or evidence of impact and application of the presented work or idea to human needs
4. Scalability including business plan

In the second round, the winner will be selected based on the following criteria:

1. Scalability
2. Potential Impact

In case of a tie, the jury will decide the victor through a quick vote.

Number of Awards: 1

Value of Award: The monetary prizes for Ci2i winners and runner ups will be announcing during the unveiling of the selected Top 15 innovators to pitch at the NEF Ci2i. In addition to a monetary prize, winners will get significant media exposure and benefit from the NEF’s global network to further scale up funding and connect with partners and collaborators.

Duration of Program: 26-28 March 2018

How to Apply: 

• If you have a brilliant idea/invention that you believe will have a high impact in Africa and globally or are already running a start-up and need funds to scale up, we invite you to apply.
• You can download the application form here.
• The deadline for submission of applications is 12 February 2018.
• The Top 15 will be announced 1 March 2018.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: NEF

Nordic Africa Institute Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Program 2018. Fully-funded to Uppsala, Sweden

Application Deadline: 1st April 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Uppsala, Sweden

About the Award: The purpose of the Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Programme is to provide opportunities for postdoctoral researchers in Africa to pursue their own research projects, thereby indirectly strengthening the academic milieux in African countries. The scholarship offers access to the Institute’s library and other resources that provide for a stimulating research environment. Through the programme, the Nordic Africa Institute can establish and maintain relations with and between African and Nordic research communities.

Type: Research

Eligibility: 

• The scholarship programme is directed at postdoctoral researchers based in Africa and engaged in Africa-oriented research within the discipline of Social Sciences and Humanities.
• The applicant should be affiliated to an African university/research center and have a proven track record of extensive research experience.
• The Institute strives to achieve a fair distribution of scholarship positions in regards to gender and geographic focus.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• The scholarship includes a return air-fare (economy class), accommodation, a subsistence allowance of 300 SEK (approx. 34 USD) per day plus an installation grant of 2,500 SEK (approx. 280 USD) and access to a computer in a shared office at NAI.
• The Institute’s library is specialized in literature on contemporary Africa and focuses on Social Sciences. Guest Researchers also have access to the Uppsala University Library, including their online resources, and to the Library of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
• Guest Researchers have the possibility to present their research at the Nordic Africa Institute and to visit other institutions in the Nordic countries.

Duration of Program: The maximum duration of the stay is 90 days, minimum is 60 days.

How to Apply: 

• Application form
• Up-to-date CV, including list of publications (if available online, please include links)
• Outline of research project, 5 pages:
  – A well elaborated research proposal; the research topic must relate to the research themes of the Institute 
  – A work plan, including expected results, specific for the time spent at the Institute
• Reference: A signed letter of support from the applicant’s Head of Department or other senior scholar in the same field, which confirms current affiliation and field of research. (Scanned versions of signed support letters can be emailed by the applicant.)

Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered. Persons currently or previously employed by or otherwise professionally affiliated with the Nordic Africa Institute are not eligible for scholarships. Kindly also note that the application must be in English. In the extraordinary event that the Scholarship Programme for 2018 does not receive full funding, applicants will be informed immediately.

Submission of applications: Applications can be sent by post/airmail or by email. Applications sent by post/airmail should contain 2 copies of each document. Applications sent by email should contain only 1 copy of each document.

Applications sent by post/airmail should be addressed to
The Nordic Africa Institute
Annika Franklin
P.O. Box 1703
SE-751 47 Uppsala, Sweden.

Applications sent by email should be addressed to
Annika Franklin, Research Administrator, email: annika.franklin@nai.uu.se

Please note: On the subject line of your email, write: “Application: Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Programme”. Scanned versions of signed support letters can also be sent to the above email address.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Nordic Africa Institute

Important Notes: Please note that the subsistence allowance will be provided only for the days spent in Uppsala. Also note that most academic institutions in the Nordic countries, including the Nordic Africa Institute, are closed or at least running at a reduced capacity during the periods 15 June–15 August and 15 December–15 January. Applicants are thus asked not to choose these periods for their visit.

There Are No Shithole Countries

JILL RICHARDSON

We recently learned that Donald Trump referred to African nations and Haiti using a derogatory and profane term. (Accounts differ, but all seem to agree it ended with “hole.”)

Writing off an enormous percentage of the world’s landmass and population as inferior isn’t just nasty, it’s incorrect.

It’s true that some nations have oppressive, despotic, or corrupt governments. Some have high rates of poverty. I don’t envy the citizens of North Korea, as they have both.

But human nature is universal. Human beings in every country demonstrate the same levels of courage and bravery, compassion and kindness, and intelligence and ingenuity as we do here in the United States.

I’ve traveled to five continents (all but Australia and Antarctica) and I’ve met people in each place who excel in ways Americans value — such as by attaining college educations or succeeding in high paying careers.

But I’ve also encountered incredible people proving their greatness in other ways.

In Mexico, I visited boarding schools in which the children, some as young as seventh grade, grew, harvested, and cooked their own food every single day, in addition to attending class and completing homework.

They did this without tractors, refrigerators, or stoves. Making breakfast meant waking up before dawn to light a fire (with wood they chopped themselves) and cooking beans and tortillas from scratch.

In the Philippines, I visited a community that was being exploited by a multinational corporation. The community called in an international non-profit organization to investigate and publicize what was happening. Then they bravely gave their names and told their stories publicly, risking retaliation as they attempted to fight for their rights.

In Kenya, children spend far more time in school than Americans do. I stayed with a family whose two kids arrived at school earlier and stayed later than I ever had to — and they went back for more on Saturdays. In Kenya, such dedication to school work is normal.

In Cuba, I found people who could invent just about anything from simple materials. One man created a hydraulic irrigation device out of a few soda bottles and some plastic tubing. With no electricity, the device turned the water on and off at regular intervals, providing the right amount of irrigation to the man’s guava seedlings.

These were not unusually extraordinary people. Just as many Americans exhibit brilliance, creativity, and hard work, so do people everywhere.

However, there is value in diversity. By traveling and meeting people from five continents, I not only encountered diversity in skin colors, languages, and cuisines — I also encountered diversity in ideas.

Americans can only lose if we shun people from the rest of the world. When we meet and work with people from each different culture on earth, whether here in the U.S. or outside it, we gain from their unique perspectives just as they gain from ours.

Some of the most exciting developments I’ve witnessed have come from two or more cultures working together, combining the ideas of each to create something more than the sum of its parts.

A nation’s poverty isn’t a mark of its people’s intelligence — or their value. By all means, criticize oppressive governments. Hate poverty, war, and disease. But remember that people everywhere possess the same common humanity that makes each culture on earth great.

Trump Versus the World

Sheldon Richman

According to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, somewhere President Donald Trump, instead of saying, “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? They’re shithole countries…. We should have more people from Norway.,” said, “Why don’t we allow more people from shithole countries to come here? They need a decent place to live and work and succeed. Their rulers hold them back. The Norwegians don’t need America as badly. After all, Norway ranks 25th in the Index of Economic Freedom. Let’s be compassionate toward the world’s poorest and most subjugated people. Besides, we’d also benefit from their coming to America.”

Now if only we could figure out how to trade Trumps with that other world. Someone should work on that; there’s a Nobel Prize in it. (Yeah, I know. the other world might take it as an act of war, but, hey, it’s every world for itself, man.)

Turning Trump’s statement upside down provides insight into the meaning of what he reportedly said. True, no respectable open-borders fan would see the other-world Trump’s position as ideal. Barring Norwegians from relocating to America would be objectionable, but on the spectrum of immigration positions, that one would still score rather high. Nothing against Norwegians, mind you.

Trump apologists deny the statement signifies racism, and I still don’t know if Trump is a racist or merely a demagogue. But it’s hard not to see racism in his remark. He didn’t lambaste dictators in the less-developed world for keeping their countries shitholes. He had something more intrinsic in mind, and the areas he mentioned — Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa — just happen to have lots of people with dark skin. Besides this, Trump has a history of trafficking in racially tinged matters, from the Central Park Five to Obama birtherism. It’s a little ridiculous for him to declare he is the least racist person around. Isn’t it amazing that he’s the most or the least of everything, always to his advantage? That’s one of the hallmarks of an insecure narcissistic blowhard bullshitter.

But I digress. Let’s get back to immigration.

The freedom to move is inherent in the right of self-ownership. (Lincoln famously said that if slavery isn’t wrong, then nothing is wrong; it follows that if self-ownership isn’t right, then nothing is right.) But it is much more than a feature of self-ownership. The freedom to move creates concrete benefits both to the movers (obviously) and to others. It’s basic economics.

Tools (in the broadest sense) make individuals more productive than they can be using only their two hands. Better tools make them better producers — more output from less input and thus greater consumption opportunities (that is, à la Adam Smith, greater wealth) than previously. When people move from poor to rich areas, they go where the tools are better and thus where they can produce more than they could in their previous locations.

There’s more. Tools are the result of saving and investment, that is, previous production and abstention from consumption. This is the roundabout method of production. Crusoe accumulates and stores fish the primitive way so he can eat while he suspends fishing and concentrates on making a net, which will enable him to catch and consume more fish with less effort in the future.

As the late P. T. Bauer, the once-maverick development economist, long taught, allpeople — not just white Europeans and their new-world brethren — easily discover these truths, and because they want their families to be able to consume more in the future, they act accordingly: refrain from consumption, save, and invest — unless their rulers get in the way. Regimes can accomplish this evil in a variety of ways — taxation, land and crop confiscation, corporatism, restriction of internal mobility, suppression of markets — all of which prohibit, discourage, or preclude activities that yield the wealth that can be turned into better tools.

Trump and his ilk would have us believe that people in certain parts of the world don’t get it, that there’s something wrong with them. It’s the same old buncombe most western development economists used spout to justify intervention and central planning in the less-developed world after World War II. Bauer and his field work debunked this myth many years ago:

Public discussion … often treats the peoples of the Third World as if they were children incapable of taking thought for the morrow. As far as the peasant producers are concerned, this prejudice seems to be plainly unwarranted — witness the readiness of millions of West African and Malayan producers to plant tree crops such as cocoa and rubber which take many years to reach maturity.

Likewise, farmers in the less-developed world who had access to markets adjusted their efforts to price fluctuations. How about that! Just like white people!

Western development economists, sharing Trump’s condescending premise, thought central planning and foreign aid (sic) were the only hope for material progress in what was misleadingly called the Third World. (In reality, it consisted of diverse countries along a development continuum.) Shockingly, free trade with the west was not in the toolbox. (Domestic lobbies in the developed world wouldn’t allow it.) But the strategy failed, and the predictable horrors followed. Bauer observed:

The principal effects of state economic control are familiar. They politicize life and provoke tension. They restrict the movement of people, ideas, commodities and financial resources. They curtail the volume and diversity of external contacts, and inhibit productive capital formation and obstruct both economic change and the effective deployment of human, financial and physical resources. They divorce economic activity from consumer demand. They also fragment the economy and thereby narrow the markets for commodities and services.

Unfortunately, badly needed market liberalization in much of Africa and many other places has been slight to nonexistent. Trump may have these countries in mind when he thinks about immigration, but the fault lies not in the people but in their rulers and whomever those rulers rely on for economic advice. The least we can do is let desperate people escape to America.

Immigration is right (as well as a right). It is also good. Immigrants get to make better lives, and how they do so — by gaining access to better tools as well as more freedom — can’t help but benefit everyone else, if not immediately, then certainly just a short way down the road. Forcing people to live under repressive regimes is cruel as well as self-destructive.

It’s Time to Call Economic Sanctions What They Are: War Crimes

Patrick Cockburn

The first pathetic pieces of wreckage from North Korean fishing boats known as “ghost ships” to be found this year are washing up on the coast of northern Japan. These are the storm-battered remains of fragile wooden boats with unreliable engines in which North Korean fishermen go far out to sea in the middle of winter in a desperate search for fish.

Often all that survives is the shattered wooden hull of the boat cast up on the shore, but in some cases the Japanese find the bodies of fishermen who died of hunger and thirst as they drifted across the Sea of Japan. Occasionally, a few famished survivors are alive and explain that their engine failed or they ran out of fuel or they were victims of some other fatal mishap.

The number of “ghost ships” is rising with no fewer than 104 found in 2017, which is more than in any previous year, though the real figure must be higher because many boats will have sunk without trace in the 600 miles of rough sea between North Korea and Japan.

The reason so many fishermen risk and lose their lives is hunger in North Korea where fish is the cheapest form of protein. The government imposes quotas for fishermen that force them to go far out to sea. Part of their catch is then sold on to China for cash, making fish one of the biggest of North Korea’s few export items.

The fact that North Korean fishermen took greater risks and died in greater numbers last year is evidence that international sanctions imposed on North Korea are, in a certain sense, a success: the country is clearly under severe economic pressure. But, as with sanctions elsewhere in the world past and present, the pressure is not on the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who looks particularly plump and well-fed, but on the poor and the powerless.

The record of economic sanctions in forcing political change is dismal, but as a way of reducing a country to poverty and misery it is difficult to beat. UN sanctions were imposed against Iraq from 1990 until 2003. Supposedly, it was directed against Saddam Hussein and his regime, though it did nothing to dislodge or weaken them: on the contrary, the Baathist political elite took advantage of the scarcity of various items to enrich themselves by becoming the sole suppliers. Saddam’s odious elder son Uday made vast profits by controlling the import of cigarettes into Iraq.

The bureaucrats in charge of UN sanctions in Iraq always pretended that they prevented Saddam rebuilding his military strength. This was always a hypocritical lie: the Iraqi army did not fight for him in 1991 at the beginning of sanctions any more than it did when they ended. It was absurd to imagine that dictators like Kim Jong-un or Saddam Hussein would be influenced by the sufferings of their people.

These are very real: I used to visit Iraqi hospitals in the 1990s where the oxygen had run out and there were no tyres for the ambulances. Once, I was pursued across a field in Diyala province north of Baghdad by local farmers holding up dusty X-rays of their children because they thought I might be a visiting foreign doctor.

Saddam Hussein and his senior lieutenants were rightly executed for their crimes, but the foreign politicians and officials who were responsible for the sanctions regime that killed so many deserved to stand beside them in the dock. It is time that the imposition of economic sanctions should be seen as a war crime, since it involves the collective punishment of millions of innocent civilians who die, sicken or are reduced to living off scraps from the garbage dumps.

There is nothing very new in this. Economic sanctions are like a medieval siege but with a modern PR apparatus attached to justify what is being done. A difference is that such sieges used to be directed at starving out a single town or city while now they are aimed at squeezing whole countries into submission.

An attraction for politicians is that sanctions can be sold to the public, though of course not to people at the receiving end, as more humane than military action. There is usually a pretence that foodstuffs and medical equipment are being allowed through freely and no mention is made of the financial and other regulatory obstacles making it impossible to deliver them.

An example of this is the draconian sanctions imposed on Syria by the US and EU which were meant to target President Bashar al-Assad and help remove him from power. They have wholly failed to do this, but a UN internal report leaked in 2016 shows all too convincingly the effect of the embargo in stopping the delivery of aid by international aid agencies. They cannot import the aid despite waivers because banks and commercial companies dare not risk being penalised for having anything to do with Syria. The report quotes a European doctor working in Syria as saying that “the indirect effect of sanctions … makes the import of the medical instruments and other medical supplies immensely difficult, near impossible.”

People should be just as outraged by the impact of this sort of thing as they are by the destruction of hospitals by bombing and artillery fire. But the picture of X-ray or kidney dialysis machines lacking essential spare parts is never going to compete for impact with film of dead and wounded on the front line. And those who die because medical equipment has been disabled by sanctions are likely to do so undramatically and out of sight.

Embargoes are dull and war is exciting. A few failed rocket strikes against Riyadh by the Houthi forces in Yemen was heavily publicised, though no Saudis were killed. Compare this to the scant coverage of the Saudi embargo on Houthi-held Yemen which has helped cause the largest man-made famine in recent history. In addition, there are over one million cholera cases suspected and 2,000 Yemenis have died from the illness according to the World Health Organisation.

PR gambits justifying sanctions are often the same regardless of circumstances. One is to claim that the economic damage caused prevents those who are targeted spending money on guns and terror. President Trump denounces the nuclear deal with Iran on the grounds that it frees up money to finance Iranian foreign ventures, though the cost of these is small and, in Iraq, Iranian activities probably make a profit.

Sanctions are just as much a collective punishment as area bombing in East Aleppo, Raqqa and Mosul. They may even kill more people than the bombs and shells because they go on for years and their effect is cumulative. The death of so many North Korean fishermen in their unseaworthy wooden craft is one side effect of sanctions but not atypical of their toxic impact. As usual, they are hitting the wrong target and they are not succeeding against Kim Jong-un any more than they did against Saddam Hussein.

Russia Supplies Military Essentials To Pakistan, Says Russian Minister

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov has said that his country was supplying military equipment to Pakistan.

Morgulov’s statement came on Thursday (Jan 18) in a geo-political conference organized jointly by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and an Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

The Russian Minister was joined in the discussion by the Indian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Gen VK Singh and the former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

It is believed that Pakistan Army Aviation Corps (PAAC) had recently received four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters. Two years ago, Russia had lifted an embargo on supplying weapons and military hardware to Pakistan.

In August 2015, Pakistan and Russia signed a landmark defense deal that includes the sale of four Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan.

Pakistan and Russia had signed a bilateral defense cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening military-to-military relations in November 2014.

“Besides helicopters, Pakistan also appears interested in other Russian hardware, the daily Dawn of Pakistan said adding:

“Russia and Pakistan have lately been working on enhancing defense cooperation and are believed to have already covered a lot of ground. Exchange of visits by military commanders in recent years is an indication of progress achieved in this regard. India’s decision to enter into tighter embrace with the US had prompted Russia to rethink its defense relationship with Pakistan.”

A leading Russian defense commentator, Pavel Felgenhauer, was quoted as saying that the lifting of the embargo that had been in force since the Soviet era marked a sea change in Russian policy on arms sales, which until now have been focused on India amid difficult relations between New Delhi and Islamabad.

“This is an important, key change in Russian policy in the region,” he told AFP. “The sale of arms to Pakistan will abruptly worsen our relations with India, the main buyer of our arms… This risks dismantling our cooperation with India,” Felgenhauer said.

Meanwhile, the Russian state media reported in February 2017 that the Pakistan military is now purportedly considering purchasing a number of S-400 units as well.

“Russia has good tanks, helicopters, electronic equipment, air defense systems that Pakistan may consider. S-400 is a big ticket number and it will all depend on our budget,” a high ranking Pakistani military official told Sputnik News, the foreign language arm of Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

The Japanese magazine, the Diplomat reported last year that Russia lifted a longstanding arms embargo against Pakistan in 2014 and has been seeking closer defense ties with Islamabad ever since.

“This has been accelerated by India’s burgeoning defense relationship with the United States and the Russian defense industry’s loss of market share in India, although Moscow remains by far New Delhi’s biggest military hardware supplier overall,” the Diplomat concluded.

ISIS

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, during the geo-political dialogue, also accused the US-led NATO forces for helping the dreaded ISIS fighters to set up base in Northern Afghanistan.

Morgulov said his government has video evidence gathered from the ground that ISIS were being transported in helicopters to North Afghanistan. “We want to ask NATO and also to the Kabul government who provides those helicopters. It is Kabul that controls Afghan airspace,” he said.

Russian minister emphasized that the problem now is the support terrorists were getting from the western world in terms of weapons and funding.

Russian minister also rejected any military solution to Afghan issue, describing Donald Trump’s recent pronouncement an old policy which was also pursued by his predecessor Barrack Obama.

He said there was no escape for Kabul government, but to talk to the military opposition (Taliban) in order to bring reconciliation and peace in the region. He said Russia is trying to involve all in the talks, all the neighbors, stake holders and even the US. But he regretted that the US has not shown willingness to participate in this process.

Karzai

On his part the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that it was important to engage with Taliban because “they are from our own villages and homes. They are not foreign. If they are not involved, the peace talks would not succeed. There won’t be sustainable peace.”

He said while Afghanistan was being accused of cultivating and making money of poppy crops, the fact is that the whole money is being pumped through banks in the west while the farmers and government in Afghanistan remain poor.

He said poppy cultivation was more in areas controlled by NATO forces. Both of them disagreed that China will be a problem in finding a solution to the problem, as it is very friendly with Pakistan.

“China is an enabler. It is well aware of the dangers from terrorists and it will never support it,” they said.

Karzai, however, praised Trump’s approach towards Pakistan. “We know and the US also knew all along about terror sanctuaries in Pakistan and terrorism being used as an instrument of state policy. Now that the US has admitted terror sanctuaries exist, I hope they will act,” he said.

Petro-Islam: The Nexus Between Oil And Terrorism

Nauman Sadiq

Inquisitive observers of the Middle Eastern politics would naturally wonder why do Western powers prop up the Gulf’s petro-monarchies, knowing fully well that they are the ones responsible for nurturing Islamic extremism? Does this not run counter to their professed goal of eliminating Islamic radicalism and terrorism?

Seemingly, the Western powers support the Gulf’s autocrats because it has been a firm policy principle of the Western powers to promote ‘stability’ in the Middle East instead of representative democracy. They are mindful of the ground reality that the mainstream Muslim sentiment is firmly against any Western military presence and intervention in the Middle East region.

In addition, the Western policymakers also prefer to deal with small groups of Middle Eastern ‘strongmen’ rather than cultivating a complex and uncertain relationship on a popular level, certainly a myopic approach which is the hallmark of so-called ‘pragmatic’ politicians and statesmen.

Left to their own resources, the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchies lack the manpower, the military technology and the moral authority to rule over the forcefully suppressed and disenfranchised Arab masses, not only the Arab masses but also the South Asian and African immigrants of the Gulf states. One-third of the Saudi Arabian population is comprised of immigrants. Similarly, more than 75% of UAE’s population is also comprised of expats from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

The rest of the Gulf states, including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, also have a similar proportion of immigrant workers from the developing countries. Unlike the immigrants of the Western countries, however, who hold the citizenship status, the Gulf’s immigrants have lived there for decades and sometimes for generations, and they are still regarded as unentitled foreigners.

Regarding the question that is there a way for the international community to persuade the Gulf states to implement democratic reforms, it’s worth noting that the nuclear sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2015 have brought to the fore the enormous power that the Western financial institutions wield over the global financial system.

Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in negotiations throughout the nearly decade-long period of sanctions, and the issue was finally settled in the form of the Iran nuclear deal in April 2015. Such was the crippling effect of those ‘third party’ sanctions on the Iranian economy, however, that had it not been for Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly buying Iranian oil, it could have defaulted due to those sanctions.

All I am trying to suggest is that there are ways to persuade the Gulf’s petro-monarchies to implement democratic reforms and to desist from sponsoring Islamic extremism, provided we have just and upright international arbiters. As in the case of aforementioned Iran sanctions, sanctioning the Gulf states also seems plausible, however, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 160 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude oil.

On the other hand, the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchies are actually three oil-rich states. Saudi Arabia with its 266 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 10 mbpd of daily crude oil production, and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels of proven reserves each and 3 mbpd of daily crude oil production each. Together, their share amounts to 466 billion barrels, almost one-third of the world’s 1477 billion barrels of total proven oil reserves. Moreover, if we add Qatar to the equation, which isn’t oil-rich as such, but has substantial natural gas reserves, it will take a morally very upright arbiter to sanction all of them.

Therefore, though enforcing economic sanctions on the Gulf states to implement democratic reforms sounds like a good idea on paper, but the relationship between the Gulf’s petro-monarchies and the industrialized world is that of a consumer-supplier relationship. The Gulf states are the suppliers of energy and the industrialized world is its consumer, hence the Western powers cannot sanction their energy suppliers and largest investors.

If anything, the Gulf’s petro-monarchies have ‘sanctioned’ the Western powers in the past by imposing the oil embargo in 1973 after the Arab-Israel war. The 1973 Arab oil embargo against the West lasted only for a short span of six months during which the price of oil quadrupled. But Washington became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on the export of crude oil outside the US borders — which is still in place — and began keeping 60 days stock of reserve fuel for strategic and military needs.

Recently, some very upbeat rumours about the shale revolution have been circulating in the media. However, the shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution. It has increased the ‘probable recoverable’ resources of natural gas by 30%. The shale oil, on the other hand, refers to two starkly different kinds of energy resources: first, the solid kerogen — though substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US Green River formations, but the cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically unviable for at least 100 years; second, the tight oil which is blocked by the shale — it is a viable energy resource but the reserves are so limited, roughly 4 billion barrels in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.

More than the size of oil reserves, it is about per barrel extraction cost, which determines the profits for the multinational oil companies, and in this regard, the Persian Gulf’s crude oil is the most profitable. Further, regarding the supposed US energy independence after the so-called ‘shale revolution,’ the US produced 11 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014, which is more than the output of Saudi Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd. But the US still imported 7.5 million bpd during the same period, which is more than the oil imports of France and Britain put together. More than the total volume of oil production, the volume which an oil-producing country exports determines its place in the hierarchy of petroleum and the Gulf’s petro-monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.

The Kids The World Forgot

Ken Hannaford-Ricardi

I spent much of yesterday with some kids the world forgot. Young, remarkably sturdy and resilient,they can often be naïve and almost willfully gullible. They inhabit a world that delights in tripping them up and watching them fall. They are Kabul’s Street Kids.

Every Friday morning, roughly 100 of these forgotten children sit in noisy – sometimes raucous – groups of seven to ten in a large, unheated classroom, discussing and brainstorming human rights – rights few in the international community seem to acknowledge they enjoy. On this thirty degree Kabul morning, some are in shirtsleeves; few have coats adequate for the weather. They are dirty. They are underfed. They are loved.

These kids are the smallest microcosm of Kabul’s estimated 50,000 “street kids”, boys and girls who dot the city’s already clogged roads selling balloons, “blessing” cars with incense, or lugging  scales on which passers-by are invited to weigh themselves. They perform these demeaning tasks for a meager “fee” which helps their mothers buy food for their families.

These young children and their parents live on the streets. They camp in the lee of parked vehicles, in the protected corner of a neighbor’s courtyard, in abandoned buildings. There are few government – sponsored programs to assist them – no food pantries, clothing giveaways, or free medical care. They are left to survive on their wits in a society too busy to cope with their problems.

The Afghan Peace Volunteers, a small grassroots program organized by young Afghan women and men to foster and support nonviolent solutions to their country’s suffering, originated and operates this “Street Kids School” to supplement whatever education the youngsters are able to absorb through irregular attendance at public schools. Funded entirely by contributions from the international community and staffed by volunteer teachers, the school realizes that no dream – no matter how small – can be achieved without education.

In order to enable the kids to escape the streets and have time to come to class each Friday, mothers of children who faithfully attend the school are given cooking oil and rice to supplement the income their sons and daughters would have earned on the streets. It costs roughly $534 to fund one child’s participation for a year. The overwhelming percentage (91%, or $473) is spent for the monthly sack of rice and bottle of cooking oil given to each child’s family. The remaining funds are spent on school supplies and winter clothing for the children. The program’s annual budget is $53,400.

The Afghan Peace Volunteers expect that each child participating in the school will make steady progress toward literacy every year they attend. In the last year, 30 of the 100 children in the school reached literacy within seven months, evidence that, with guidance, every child, no matter the circumstances, can and will learn!

Yes We Can – Feed 9 Billion With Organic Agriculture

Gunnar Rundgren

It is possible to feed more than 9 billion people with organic production methods with a small increase in the required crop acreage and with decreased greenhouse gas emission. But this assumes considerable reduction in food wastage and in the quantities of feed grown to animals.

That is the conclusion in the paper Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture in Nature Communications by researchers from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland, the Institute of Environmental Decisions in Switzerland, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Italy, Institute of Social Ecology Vienna in Austria and the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences in the UK.

The research builds on assumptions of a 25% reduction in yield with organic methods, the continued increase in global population up to more than 9 billion 2050 as well as different scenarios of impact of climate change on agriculture yields. The model doesn’t assume any change in the area used for grazing. The researchers acknowledge that different research show big variation in the ”yield gap” between organic and conventional. It is primarily research from Europe that shows big yield gaps, while other studies show much smaller gaps, if any. In general their assumptions are conservative and could hardly be accused of being biased in favour of organic.

Obviously, if consumption patterns are equal and yields are lower and population increases, more land would be needed with a large-scale conversion to organic agriculture. But if food waste is reduced with 50% and this is combined with a 50% reduction in the use of human-edible crops as animal feed, less land would be used compared to a reference scenario (the assumed population, consumption and production as per 2050 in FAO:s analysis) – still more than today though.

The biggest agronomic challenge for such a large scale conversion to organic would be the supply of nitrogen. On the up-side of that, the reactive nitrogen overload of the whole biosphere, one of the biggest changes in local and global biological cycles, would be reduced and gradually disappear. The researchers acknowledge that recycling of human waste and food waste into the agriculture system could reduce the nitrogen deficiency in agriculture, but they have not included that in the model.

The exclusion of synthetic fertilizers leads to big reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, as both the use and production of Nitrogen fertilizers are major causes for emissions. Emissions from ruminants (cows, sheep and goats) will increase somewhat as their total numbers will increase (but less than the increase of population). Similarly, the greenhouse gas emissions from rice cultivation will increase because of more rice being produced.

The combination of the lower yields and the increase of leguminous plants (beans etc) in order to fix nitrogen makes the availability of animal feed lower. So the decreased use of human-edible crops as feed for animals is rather a production necessity than something triggered by consumption changes. The reduction of animals will mainly be for monogastric animals such as pigs and chicken as they are the ones that mainly eat human-edible crops.

The results of the study coincides with similar results on a national and regional level. For instance, researchers from the Nordic countries concluded that it would be possible to feed between 31 and 37 million people (compared to the current 26 million) in the Nordic countries, with organically produced food assuming substantial reduction in meat consumption.

One can claim that the results also show that you can’t convert the agriculture system to organic without increasing the cultivated lands considerably. Because, despite the conclusions of the authors, that is also a result from their scenarios. If nothing else is changed land demand will increase with 33%.

Ultimately, all this modelling and scenario-building has limited value and the results are very much fixed by the assumptions and input data. The food system is a dynamic system where you can’t change just one or two parameters and keep the rest the same. But models and scenarios can still help us to identify certain critical conditions.

The choice of the authors to change food wastage and the proportion of food fed to animals is a rather reasonable choice and not taken out of the blue. One can assume that food will become more expensive with a large-scale conversion to organic and that will reduce waste considerably. Similarly, using human-edible food as feed for animals will be less interesting from a commercial perspective when they become more expensive. The dramatic increase of consumption of pig and chicken meat is as much a result of cheap grains and soy beans as of consumer demand.  The increased consumption of pulses to compensate for the reduction of meat coincide with a need to increase the cultivation of such crops to adjust to nitrogen shortages.

There are also other assumptions that could be included in models. The total calories produced under the scenarios are far above what people need to eat and as obesity is now a big global problem, one could have reduced calories available and thus be able to show even better results AND an improved health status of the world’s population. Improvements in the utilization of grasslands could also have been a parameter to consider.

Finally, the economic feedback loops are very important. There are several ways to increase yields in agriculture, of which the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are just two. They are admittedly important, but one can increase productivity by deploying more work, other nature resources (e.g. water), by switching crops or taking more crops per year. What is done is mainly determined by economic factors. Very few farms, organic or non-organic, produce at their maximum, but they produce what is optimal given prices of factors of production and output prices. In most cases, production per person has been much more important that production per unit of land. But in a world with limited land resources and 9 billion people, this will sooner or later change.

So yes, we can. If we want to.