Making African Solutions For Africa's Problems Work

Samson R. Akinola

Let’s discuss on how to solve our problems: Enough of Analysis of our problems. It is now clear that the solution to Africa’s problems is in the hands of Africans and not from the West. This has been my strong belief, passion and vision over the last 15 years. I believe strongly that our challenges and problems are likely to continue until we domesticate American democracy in Africa. Most of our attentions have been directed towards elections alone, whereas elections constitute a fractional part of democratization.

We need to have a rethink on our present democratic system. We have the opportunity to do this before it is too late. At the same time, all our efforts so far have been directed towards knowledge generation with little or no concern on knowledge application to real life situations. Who will solve our problems for us? How do we solve our problems? Whether we like it or not, our problems are likely to continue and get worse until a group of scholars and intellectuals rise to the challenge and show the way forward on the appropriate steps that need to be taken in connecting the stakeholders in development in all sectors of our economy. There are countless conferences, workshops and seminars being organised on Africa with brilliant ideas and communiqués but where are the impacts of their outcomes on the lives of Africans?

The time has come for African scholars and intellectuals in diverse disciplines to decide on what they, as individuals, can do if they are appointed into political offices to address specific problems. It is not enough to critique governmental system without having alternative ideas that can resolve the problem at hand. I believe that the acid test of scholarship is how it has positively or otherwise impacted on the welfare of citizens and the development of society generally. In my own view, emphasis on the importance and practicality of knowledge generated by African scholars is instructive in the quest for African development. The abc’s of how to concretely address African problems is the focus of my work. I believe that nothing short of this is expected simply because the future of Africa is in the hands of Africans and African scholars have a prominent role to play.

What most of us describe as problems - greed, selfishness, corruption, bad leadership, etc are the manifestations of the real problem, which is institutional crisis, disconnect and problem of parallelism. In problem-solving scholarship and solution-seeking intellectualism, problems should be addressed via their causes. That is why there is the need to design institutional mechanism that can synergise the efforts of the stakeholders through polycentric planning via the setting up of Self-governing Community Assembly that can help us fulfil the mission of check and balances. We must get one thing clear: corrupt leaders will never change except the people design systems that will curtail their excesses and personal aggrandizement. Let us learn from Americans. They raised puzzles in the 18th century and answers to the puzzles led to the design of institutions of collective action that gave birth to federalism, while federalism produced democracy.

We need to properly study and understand all these before raising our own puzzles in Africa. Raising puzzles requires us to engage in philosophical thinking research/study. Without raising questions and puzzles, there cannot be attempts at producing possible answers. What we need for the new government is to have an understanding on how to domesticate democracy, restructure the public sphere and political economy. Evidence confirms that elections are equated to democracy in Africa, a situation that is erroneous, misleading and calamitous as elected officers are not accountable to the electorate after elections.

The challenges and problems confronting Africa are beyond personalities in office. A cursory examination of African problems shows that our problems are beyond elections, winners, ruling/governing party and personalities in offices at various levels of government. It is institutional crisis that is engendered by the problem of disconnect and ‘parallelism.’ This requires domesticating the original blue print of American Great Experiment (democracy) in Africa.

The way forward for our country is to domesticate democracy, restructure the public sphere and political economy through polycentric planning and problem-solving strategy. This will produce inclusive Africa where everybody is reckoned with and citizens feel belonged for atmosphere of peace and security, which will guarantee social justice and economic prosperity. This is because the social crisis that engulfs Africa is predicated upon economic disappointment on the part of the large majority of the population that wallow in abject poverty. The high level of inequality is a precursor to several challenges and problems our continent is experiencing.

Until citizens are mainstreamed into developmental projects, governmental programmes will not be people-centred; and diverse peoples of Africa, regardless of their endowment and entrepreneurial capability, will continue to suffer, while violence, insecurity and poverty will be heightened. Domesticating democracy, and restructuring political economy and public sphere can be achieved through polycentric planning and error correcting potentials and institutional mechanism via the setting up of Self-Governing Community Assembly (SGCA) for practical experiment at all levels and layers – community, ward, LG, state and federal. SGCA will create the platform for deliberation and inclusion of minorities and the marginalised groups – the youth, women, retirees, etc. – to be mainstreamed and empowered through inclusive institutional mechanism.

Polycentric planning is a deliberate act of setting up multi-layered and multi-centred institutional mechanism that regards self-governing capabilities of local communities as foundation for reconstituting order from the bottom up. It can also be described as the process of ordering the use of physical, human and institutional resources as well as engaging the citizens in contractual relations with the public authority.

Africa:Towards Agenda 2063

HE Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma

When we met in January this year, we were still in the throes of the Ebola epidemic. But, thanks to the resilience, and hard work of the peoples and governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to the young African men and women of ASEOWA, to Member states, the private sector, to the international community and to the African citizens; Liberia has been declared Ebola free for the last 78 days. We congratulate President Sirleaf Johnson, her government and the people of Liberia for this achievement. In the other two countries Sierra Leone and Guinea, numbers have significantly reduced. We should not get complacent. We must stay the course until the other two countries are also declared Ebola-free.

The lesson from the Ebola Virus Disease is that with African solidarity and resolve, we can find our own solutions to our challenges. The disease also exposed the weaknesses of our health systems, especially public health. As we move towards recovery, we must train more health workers, and build and strengthen our health systems and infrastructure.

We’ve been faced by the incidents of xenophobia, and the tragedy of many people dying in the Mediteranean sea, leaving their countries out of desperation, to make a living elsewhere. In 1906, one of the finest sons of our soil, Pixley ka Isaka Seme in his George Wilson Curtis Medial winning essay at Columbia University said: "The African people, although not a strictly homogeneous race, possess a common fundamental sentiment which is everywhere manifest, crystallizing itself into one common controlling idea. Conflicts and strife are rapidly disappearing before the fusing force of this enlightened perception of the true intertribal relation, which relation should subsist among a people with a common destiny."

It is this common destiny that should guide us towards an integrated, prosperous, peaceful and people-centered Africa which is a dynamic force in the world. Of course for this to happen we should refuse to camp forever on the borders of the industrial world, and having learned that knowledge is power, educate our children and youth, as Pixley ka Isaka Seme said, in 1906.

Indeed, if we educate and skill our people, with an emphasis on science, engineering, technology, maths resource and innovation, including technical and vocational skills; our people will stop undertaking the perilous journeys across the Sahel and the Mediteranean sea.

When we undertake this skills revolution, extremists, armed groups and terrorists will find it difficult if not impossible to recruit our young women and men.

Instead, our youth will have the skills to generate electricity, including renewables. They will produce enough food for the entire Africa, as they modernize and grow agriculture and agro-processing, and agribusiness. They will stop camping at the borders (and shores) of the industrial world, but will transform our economies through industrialization, manufacturing and by adding value to our natural resources. They will develop our blue economy and build our infrastructure, connecting our capitals and commercial centres through ICT, and through highways, rail, aviation and oceanic and waterways. They will ensure that this is done through the most modern of technology, including the Pan African high speed rail network. They will create a uniquely African continent whose economic development will not only be based on profit, but on the needs of the people, driven by the youth and women. They will create a prosperous and non-sexist continent. They will take charge of our outer space.

To achieve Seme’s dream, there are a few hurdles we have to overcome. We must believe in ourselves. We have to realize that the demographic dividend is possible if we adopt the right policies, manage our diversity and make every citizen feel valued and part of the driving forces for change and progress, irrespective of tribe, religion, colour or creed, and whether they are man, woman, boy or girl.

In the world today, the countries that now drive the world economy are those with huge populations, such as the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil. Even in Africa, the largest economy (Nigeria) has the largest population. They are in the same league in terms of population as Africa, but they have the advantage that they are united. It is for this reason that even though we cannot be one country, we need to speed up our integration and unity. We must recall Kwame Nkrumah’s words that Africa must unite or perish.

This is why we are so excited about the signing of the trade agreement by the twenty- six countries that make up the Tripartite of COMESA, EAC and SADC in Shamal Sheik this week. This indeed is a good basis for the launch of the Continental Free Trade Area. Of course, if we add ECOWAS - it will be 41 countries, making the Continental Free Trade Area well within reach. This will not only boost intra-Africa trade, but also boost investment. In a similar vein, if we move faster on the free movement of people, goods and services, and the African passport, we are sure to see an increase in trade, as well as tourism and economic growth.

The adoption of the First 10-year implementation plan of Agenda 2063, the Africa we want, will signal a new determination and a desire to bequeath a better Africa to the next generations.

We should chart a new unique Africa, without comparison. Our ancient civilizations cannot be compared to any other. For instance, the obelix of Axum, the civilizations of Egypt, the Nok and the Ashanti; the Empires of the Shongai, Mali and Monomotapa, the Royal Houses of Nubia, d’Oyo, Benin, Kongo, Kanem-Bornu and Dahomey; Abyssinia, Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe compared to no other; the Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese pyramids; the mosques of Timbaktu, our langauges, our art, music and dance; our geniuses created what is uniquely African.

As the leading generations of our time, it is upon us to help chart our uniquely African path and place in the world today. Agenda 2063 is our roadmap and beacon. Seme also said: “In all races, genius is like a spark, which, concealed in the bosom of a flint, bursts forth at the summoning stroke.”

It is our responsibility in all sectors to create the conditions that act as a summoning stroke for the human genius of Africans. It will be contributions of Africa’s young people, its men and women, its intellectuals, its entrepreneurs, its artists, and its sports people today that will shape our destiny.

We are a century late in terms of Seme’s dream, but we can see in the cities and towns, in rural areas, the spark of this brighter Africa. In building our shared prosperity we must be uniquely African, by placing the human being, rather than only profit at the centre. As Seme said: The most essential departure of this new civilization is that it shall be thoroughly spiritual and humanistic - indeed a regeneration moral and eternal!

By January next year we shall present the comprehensive strategy to build African capacity and skills for implementing Agenda 2063. This capacity and skills plan shall be geared towards the empowerment of Africa’s young people, women and girls, creating an enabling environment for them to become the drivers of our transformation and development.

Over the last fifteen years, our development agenda has focused on primary education, it is now time we urgently paid attention to vocational and higher education. We cannot drive our economic development only through primary education. We need champions for higher education, to help steer and support the African higher education sector. At the Universities Summit hosted in Dakar Senegal by President Macky Sall in March 2015, His Excellency graciously accepted to be one of these champions, who paying special attention to the issue of harmonization of higher education.

This will enable our young people to study and apply their skills anywhere on the continent. We need more such champions. I am sure we shall have more champions volunteering to join him in this task.

Between now and January, we must also do more to popularise the 10-year plan, to align Agenda 2063 to our national and regional strategies and report on our recommendations on the allocation of roles and responsibilities between the RECs, the AU Commission and the Nepad Agency. We will send teams to the countries that ask assistance to domesticate their plans. We will undertake that exercise together with NEPAD. The AU Commission and other organs will also align their Strategic plans with Agenda 2063.

Our coastline and waterways are amongst the largest in the world and offer for us much opportunity. Consequently, on 25 July this year we shall launch the Decade of African Oceans and Seas. We will also celebrate that day annually as the Day of African Oceans and Seas, so as to fully utilize and create awareness on the opportunities presented to us by the ocean and seas. We therefore call on all coastal countries, island states and countries with waterways to join us in launching this important decade, so that Africa can be part of this Blue economy.

Already, African women in maritime met in Luanda, Angola earlier this year, refusing to camp at the borders, but instead charted areas of cooperation for women in shipping, port management, fishing and other areas of the blue economy. We have to take charge of our oceanic space.

Africa has many examples of indigenous and good farming practices, some of them climate smart and we must share these experiences, and replicate and upscale them. In addition, more must be done on agro-processing and businesses, as part of building our collective food security, to reverse our high food imports bill and as part of industrialization and job creation.

We announced in January that the Pan African Parliament will host the 3rd AU Intergenerational dialogue, and we are glad to report that this indeed took place. The young men and women from across the continent met with the Parliamentarians from PAP, a target for youth employment and investment in our Agenda 2063 first 10 year plan and for an annual report on the status of the continent’s youth.

Seme contended that ‘the victories of peace are greater and more abiding than the spoils of war.’ It is for this reason that our Peace and Security Council, our peacekeepers, mediators and our high representatives are working tirelessly to silence the guns within the five years we have pledged. But, as political leadership, governments, political parties, faith-based organizations and communities, we must play our part, to build tolerant, inclusive and democratic communities and societies, where the dignity and rights of all are respected. Unfortunately, women and children are the main victims of conflicts, enduring untold miseries, hardships, sexual and other forms of violence, in wars and conflicts which they played no part in starting.

Our resolve to silence the guns, must therefore give hope to women and children suffering from the terror of Boko Haram and Al Shabaab. Our resolve must provide renewed hope to the peoples in conflict ridden areas in Darfur, East DRC, Libya, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan, where lives and livelihoods have been shattered. We must in the words of Seme ensure that ‘conflicts and strife rapidly disappear before the enlightened perception…among a people with a common destiny.”

We are encouraged by the movement on the decision on Alternate sources of funding, to incrementally provide more domestic resources for the AU and its organs. Starting from next year, we will take the first step in this direction, which is testimony the determination of Africans to take charge of their destiny.

We welcome the fact that we shall debate the Summit theme Women’s empowerment for the realization of Agenda 2063. Agenda 2063 is about the people, we cannot leave out halve of the population. May I also remind all of us, that women and youth form the majority of the voters.

We should therefore heed President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s words when he said: The legacy of oppression weighs heavily on women. As long as women are bound by poverty and as long as they are looked down upon, human rights will lack substance. As long as outmoded ways of thinking prevent women from making a meaningful contribution to society, progress will be slow. As long as the continent refuses to acknowledge the equal role of more than half of itself, it is doomed to failure.

Investment With a Human Face

 Kari Mäkinen

Investing is about human activity in this world. This is incontrovertible. And so this must be said at the outset, for it constitutes the first premise of responsible investment.

I am sometimes told by economists that I should avoid touching on the economy in my speeches because I don’t understand anything about it. They are right to point out that I am no specialist. I cannot even use the correct language. But this is no reason to shut down a shared debate with the outside world. It would be no less disastrous to exclude non-theologians from religious debate. The world is a single entity, and in reality there are no distinct or independent spheres of life. I don’t believe that the economy and capital can be treated as a self-regulating and self-sufficient machine, whose impetus is based on human greed and the quest for profit. If this were so, its relationship with other areas of life would be restricted to the profit the machine provided when run efficiently by professionals. This would be untenable. The economic area of life is part of everything it means for a human being to be alive, and the conditions on which life in its fullness depends.

No less untenable is the demand that all other aspects of life and activity work to the pistons of the machine and adapt to its requirements. The investment world is but a part of the economy, which is the prerequisite for a good life, but it does not constitute its content, and certainly not its meaning and purpose. The economy is a means, not the end and purpose in themselves.

It must therefore be acknowledged that investment is a human activity like all others. Of course, it needs professional expertise. We need to understand the world: to have a sense of how its machinery works and an ability to operate within it. The basic principle of responsible investment is that the economy is an integral part of life, and that responsible work for the sustaining of life belongs to what it is to be human, and is connected to life’s fundamental conditions.

The Golden Rule

These fundamental conditions for all human life are best expressed in what we call the Golden Rule. In St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus crystallizes this as follows: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” In slightly differing forms the Golden Rule is to be found in various religions and philosophies. It is an expression of humanity’s shared sense of how a good life may be realized.

In the light of the Golden Rule it is clear that human life cannot be reduced to the effective pursuit of profit. Life is fulfilled only in a relationship of reciprocity with others. Luther reminds merchants that their trade is part of a mutually dependent relationship with their neighbour. And today we might add: and with creation.

In light of the Golden Rule moral action is at its core based on placing oneself in one’s neighbour’s shoes, not on any compliance with given norms. Because I am a human being, I can understand something of what constitutes the needs of other human beings, and I can understand something of what sustains and what destroys life. When operating in a global context, as those who work in the sphere of investment do, it is especially important to ask who the people or groups are that are affected by my actions, and what constitutes their true needs.

When you work in the investment world you do so above all as human beings created by God: you are nothing less, nothing more. No one lives only for themselves. You are entirely human all the time: you are not just profit-calculating professionals, but human beings who love and hate, believe and doubt, rejoice and grieve, see the world through the neighbour’s eye, succeed and fail. As human beings you bear a human responsibility. In this world this involves contradiction and a sense of incompleteness. It involves confusion and difficulty in adopting the right solutions. It is part of what it is to be human.

This is indeed why responsible investment does not come about through someone defining norms from on high that need only be followed. No. It comes about precisely when, as we do in this seminar, we ask together: how can we act so that the possibility of a good life can be enhanced, and especially where life is at its most fragile, its weakest, and most downtrodden?

Moderation

When the churches and the Christian tradition have asked themselves how the good life and the reciprocity demanded by the Golden Rule can be attained the answer has always emphasized moderation. In the early church Christians were already saying that people ought to travel lightly.

Over the last two centuries development has seen increased material prosperity for most of humanity. This has been based on the continued growth of the economy and consumption, and the exploitation of the planet’s natural resources. We can’t escape the reality that our entire way of life is its result. This is what makes the call for moderation both especially necessary and at the same time challenging. Moderation is the antithesis of the insatiable quest for profit and of greed. It is my view that the need to come to terms with moderation is an extremely challenging lesson for the global investment world to learn.

Impact assessment

Moderation impinges on how expectations concerning investment returns are set, and requires a recognition that there are limits. In this light the fact that investment involves people begs an assessment of the impact of our actions.

This has been the central guideline for responsible investment. The point is not only that investment activity achieves its intended purpose, but what its overall effect is. For this reason one dimension of responsible investment has been an attempt to rule out investments that are obviously questionable from an ethical perspective like the arms industry. A second dimension is that businesses operating in a responsible manner, and investment goals that place measurable social and environmental change alongside anticipated yields, are favoured.

In the midst of such complexity an impact assessment is not easy. Economic activity spreads like a fungus, making it impossible fully to predict or control. Investment is a human activity in a human world. The world often confronts us with unbearably difficult ethical choices. The search for spotless ethical solutions is often an illusion. We must be content to choose the lesser of two evils.

What we need is a realistic, comprehensive, and probing impact assessment. We have begun to speak of a footprint, especially in relation to climate impacts. In this context the complexity of how footprints develop has become clear. We shall look at an investment impact assessment which, along with the environmental footprint, takes into account two further impacts: the first, we might call the community footprint – the social and cultural impact of investments; and the second, the administrative footprint, which is concerned, for example, with the fiscal responsibility of a targeted investment.

Every human activity leaves a footprint. Its identification is where ethical behaviour begins.

In the real world bearing ethical responsibility requires active involvement as well as assessment. This is effected by our investment portfolio decisions as well as by our assertion of our rights of ownership. This is not only about telling people what to do. It is also about helping businesses and investors chart a course that maintains and defends life instead of destroying it.

Openness and transparency

Sometimes expectations are directed at the churches in particular, both from within and without, that they should meet the ideal, and be seen to act with impeccable ethics. Complying with the world’s daily contradiction and incompleteness is sometimes difficult. We operate in the same world and under the same operating mechanisms as all other investors. Without gracious consent to the incompleteness of what it is to be human, ethical standards become discouraging instead of encouraging.

It is said of the church’s economy that it is a glass-fronted cabinet. That’s a good thing in my opinion. We need to risk openness and transparency precisely because the real picture rather than the ideal must be seen. This is what every actor in the investment world needs. The whole economy should be a glass-fronted cabinet. Only humble honesty is the servant of life.

Involvement in responsible investment and its development serves as an important instrument to influence how this sometimes unbearably challenging, wayward, and unpredictable world can be changed.

Africans Must Style Up

Ejike E. Okpa

Looking for a level playing field is waste of time. Instead, level a field and play on it. Being a player is very good but how about becoming a referee?

Native Africans who run their so called independent nations have more Prime Ministers and Presidents than any other groups in the world; yet they want to join the G-7 and G-20 groups. Doesn’t it look silly? We have the highest numbers yet we want to join groups with fewer persons? Where lies the notion that politics is about the numbers? I suppose quantity does not mean quality?

Black folks in political offices have power but they lackinfluence. Leadership is about the ability to influence things, with or without authority. Why can't African Heads of State leverage their numbers to enhance the lives of black people throughout the world? Who are they seeking permission from to make self-determining policies that suit their people? Why do they dance and dangle with perennial swings to the East and West but annoyingly sing: 'East or West home is best?' If home is best, why are millions of native Africans willing to risk their lives to seek better and greener pastures overseas only to end up on red pastures?

As black folks [African-Americans and Africans] by design and default create and see God in other human beings, their place on earth will remain what it has been -- catching the rear and being doormats. Economic development is not about hoisting degrees and PhDs in Economics. It is a game of 'bluff' where people decide they are going to fend for themselves and cut off the parasitic conduct and behavior that has unduly tangled them instead of placing them in tango.

Black folks are tangled in unending cycles of who should rescue them. God did not create us to be the doormats of others. No people will give us what they know will place us on equal or near footing with them. That is the nature of the ‘Animal Farm’ – all animals are equal but some are more equal than others by design and default. We must charge on and defy conventional approaches and be a Nike - Just Do It.

While I sympathize with our inextricable situation, majority of it is self-inflicted. While every successful ethnic group recognizes their own and pay heed to what they say, black folks would rather roll out the carpet for others, thinking that  the latter have black folks' interest at heart.

The formula others use and have used to be successful is an open book. But like the saying, ‘the more black folks read and look, it does appear the less they understand and or willing to do.' There is no college or university in the world where a black person has not attended and often come on top. That being the case, why does Africa catch the rear?  

If the Jews who crucified Jesus are running things, how come black folks who were not present during the crucifixion, are still crying and waiting for His second coming? What makes us think that things will dramatically change for us? It is just the way we thought that by having a black president, our condition in US America would change. It has changed no doubt, but our unemployment and lagging economic wellbeing remains highest among others.

We enjoy the prestige of being in power but lack the ultimate benefit of power - influence. In Africa, the leadership is marooned with confusing strides as to what they need to do effectively to exact and assert their economic interests imbibing what US president Roosevelt once said, ‘no one should undermine their own economic wellbeing.’ Well, he probably was not thinking of black folks as we tend to undermine our own wellbeing. We rather look for a prophet outside of us than seek one among us. We must do what is humanly expected and possible – unapologetically, and the good Lord in His magnanimity will surely respond by blessing our moves. He did not create any of his children to be doormats nor unappreciated servants in perpetuity to anyone.

In a book ‘Chances of a Lifetime’ there is a line that says ‘jump into the stream of life and swim as fast as you can.’ That ought to be the mentality and culture of black folks – no shaking. When we wait for ‘manna,’ it will not fall. It is like rain in the desert – forecast to come but hardly makes it to the ground. Go figure.

Trial collapses after threatened exposure of UK backing of Syrian terror groups

Simon Whelan

At the London Old Bailey on June 1, the prosecution of Swedish national Bherlin Gildo for terrorist activities in Syria collapsed.

Gildo’s case was dismissed when his lawyers revealed that the British security and intelligence agencies actively supported the same Syrian opposition groups he was charged with joining.

Gildo had joined Kataib al-Muhajireen before he then worked with the Jabhat al-Nusra, the official affiliate in Syria of al-Qaeda. Along with the Islamic State (ISIS), they remain the principal fighting forces in the US-backed war to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Arrested in London on October 2014, on route from Copenhagen to Manila, the 37-year-old Gildo faced three charges. He was accused of attending a terrorist training camp, receiving weapons training between August 2012 and March 2013, and possessing information likely to be useful to terrorist objectives.

Gildo was arrested while changing flights at Heathrow Airport under schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, the same statute used to hold and interrogate David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who played a central role in the publication of Edward Snowden’s revelations about National Security Agency spying operations.

Gildo’s prosecution under the Act followed an extension of offences it covers to include non-UK nationals. The offence of fighting in Syria is not a criminal offence in his native Sweden.

In court, Gildo’s lawyers argued that British intelligence agencies were party to repeated secret operations in the Levant, providing weaponry and so-called “non-lethal” equipment to the same Syrian Islamist terrorists Gildo was being prosecuted for fighting alongside.

Henry Blaxland QC, the defence counsel, said if the British “government was actively involved in supporting armed resistance to the Assad regime at a time when the defendant was present in Syria and himself participating in such resistance it would be unconscionable to allow the prosecution to continue.”

Speaking for the prosecution, Riel Karmy-Jones said the judge was aware “the prosecution requested an adjournment of three weeks to consider a number of different issues that had arisen at various stages of the case.”

Karmy-Jones added, “Following that full review the prosecution consider there is no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction in this case.”

Due to the politically sensitive nature of the trial, some reporting restrictions had been placed. Following the revelations, Judge Nicholas Hilliard removed the restrictions and entered a not guilty verdict on all charges.

After the hearing, Gildo’s solicitor, Gareth Peirce, said, “He has been detained in this country although he did not ever intend to enter this country.”

Gildo’s defence presented evidence, in the form of articles in the Guardianand New York Times, revealing details of arms being funnelled from the west to the Syrian opposition. Also submitted was a London Review of Books article by Seymour Hersh, implicating MI6, the UK’s foreign security agency, in a “rat line” system transferring both Islamist fighters and arms from the arsenals of Libya to the Sunni rebels in Syria.

Peirce told the media, “There is a fair amount of documentation that arms were being taken out of Libya via Qatar and Turkey and trucked through into Syria to the resistance and the same from Croatia and taken through Jordan. Given that there is a reasonable basis for believing that the British were themselves involved in the supply of arms, if that’s so, it would be an utter hypocrisy to prosecute someone who has been involved in the armed resistance.”

Gildo was essentially kidnapped by the British state and charged with crimes for which it was in fact culpable.

Gildo, when detained by British security, was in possession of a mobile phone containing images of himself pointing skyward surrounded by bloody Syrian corpses. The Sunni Islamists commit daily crimes and atrocities against captured Syrian army recruits and religious minorities.

While publicly opposing such groups, the US and Britain are simultaneously backing the Islamist opposition in Syria to overthrow the Alawite-dominated regime and are supporting forces opposed to the Shia-dominated Baghdad government.

While such a Janus-faced policy by the Western imperialist powers appears contradictory, it has a definite logic for British imperialism. When the interests of Western imperialism and the Sunni Islamists converge or coincide, such as during the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and now the Baathist regime in Damascus, the British, French and US intelligence services utilise the Islamists as proxy shock troops. As a result, British foreign policy, like that of Washington, descends ever deeper into criminality.

The ultimate aim of the US and Britain is to undermine the major Eurasian powers, namely Russia and China, and regional powers like Iran, and secure their own unchallenged domination of Middle Eastern oil supplies.

Just prior to the trial’s collapse, the US government, following a Freedom of Information request, was forced to release a secret seven-page US Defense Intelligence Agency report dated August 12, 2012. It stated, “the Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” while noting that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey” support the opposition; while Russia, China and Iran “support the [Assad] regime.”

British and American military and intelligence support for al-Qaeda and ISIS-like terror groups in the struggle for control of Eurasia is a long-established tactic. During the 1980s, through the conduit of the Pakistani intelligence service, the imperialist powers, together with extensive funding from the Saudi royal family, sought to undermine the Soviet-backed Afghan government through the arming and incitement of the Mujahedeen and the organisation of the “Arab Afghans” into al-Qaeda.

In Syria, as was the case in Afghanistan, the most bloodthirsty Islamists are deemed by the imperialist intelligence agencies as the most effective in terrorising their armed opponents and the general population. Therefore groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, who daily engage in extortion, kidnapping, rape and bloody mass executions of their Shia and Alawite enemies and even one-time Sunni allies, are widely supported by the Western security services.

The British government cannot openly support the aims of the Islamists fighting in Syria, which would expose the “War on Terror” as a naked pretext for the reestablishment of colonial-style imperialist dominance of the Middle East and North Africa. But the Gildo case confirms the dirty secret of Western imperialism. Regardless of all their lofty words on waging a generational struggle against Islamic terrorism, the intelligence services are up to their necks in arming, training and inciting Sunni Islamist militias to terrorise and subjugate the Syrian and Iraqi people.

In Jordan and elsewhere in the region, Western military trainers are drilling those who today are officially sanctioned as “moderate” Islamists, but who tomorrow will appear in the rank and file of ISIS and similar outfits.

Crisis talks in Brussels collapse as EU threatens to bankrupt Greece

Alex Lantier

With Greece teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, crisis talks in Brussels collapsed Sunday after European Union (EU) and Greek officials failed to agree on what austerity measures Greece should adopt to obtain continued funding from the EU’s Greek bailout fund.

EU sources called the negotiations “difficult,” and indicated that “further discussion will now have to take place in the euro group” of euro zone finance ministers. Some €2 billion in cuts are yet to be agreed upon between the EU and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) party. Athens is reportedly objecting to plans to further slash pensions and wages while also increasing regressive value-added taxes (VAT, or sales taxes).

Though Greek officials attacked the current EU proposal as “irrational” and “intransigent,” Syriza officials said they would continue seeking an agreement on an austerity package. “The Greek government’s delegation stands ready for the completion of the negotiations to reach a mutually acceptable agreement,” said Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis from Brussels.

Prospects of reaching an agreement are dwindling rapidly, however, as the EU threatens ever more drastic measures to bludgeon the Greek government into line before the Greek bailout legally expires on June 30. Also on that day, the Greek state faces a €1.6 billion loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it is widely believed to be unable to pay without access to bailout funds.

At its June 11 meeting in Slovakia, for the first time the euro group formally discussed preparing a “Plan B” option in which European authorities would cut off credit to Greece. This would force the Greek state to default on its payments, driving it into bankruptcy and likely cutting off the flow of credit to Greek banks, leading to a collapse of Greece’s financial system.

“There is growing consciousness in the institutions [the European Central Bank, the IMF, and the EU] that we must prepare ourselves for a Greek default,” a top EU official told Le Monde.

In a further sign of deepening tensions, Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s vice-chancellor and head of the Social-Democratic Party (SPD), published an article in Bild denouncing Syriza. “The game theorists of the Greek government are in the process of gambling away the future of their country,” he wrote. “Europe and Germany will not let themselves be blackmailed. And we will not let the exaggerated electoral pledges of a partly-communist government be paid for by German workers and their families.”

An EU decision to tip Greece into default would not only savage the country’s economy, but could undermine the political architecture of European capitalism, including the euro currency and the EU itself. German officials have reportedly begun drawing up plans for a situation where Greece responds to the collapse of its financial system by reintroducing its own national currency, a so-called “Grexit” in which Greek exits the common euro currency.

Ruling elites across Europe are well aware that such a crisis poses the risk of even greater social explosions in the working class. Berlin fears the mobilization of “huge crowds,” and “violent demonstrations” erupting in Greece in the event of a default, the Financial Times wrote, and the possibility that Greece could turn to Moscow for financial aid. Chancellor Angela Merkel, the FT added, “does not want the EU and NATO member states to plunge into disorder at a time when the Balkans are fragile, and Russia stands ready to increase its influence.”

Nevertheless, Berlin and the EU are escalating threats of drastic action against Greece, with vast and unpredictable implications. Holger Schmiedling of Berenberg Bank commented, “Lenders are signaling in ever more ways … that they do not intend to blink. Whether or not these are partly negotiating tactics, such preparations can take on a life of their own.”

The reckless onslaught of European finance capital points to the bankruptcy of Syriza’s perspective of saving Greek capitalism through negotiations within the framework of the EU. Only weeks after taking power, Syriza repudiated its campaign promises to end austerity. It continued the EU bailout programs, making no appeal to mass hostility to austerity among workers across Europe. It sought instead to negotiate marginally modified austerity measures with the EU.

EU threats helped Syriza justify its capitulation to austerity, and Syriza was careful to present itself as fighting the EU to defend Greek interests even as it negotiated attacks on the working class with EU bureaucrats.

This political shadowboxing was designed to confuse and stymie working class opposition to austerity. It now threatens to unleash an even broader crisis, however, as threats of extreme measures against Greece risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last week, the Financial Times published a detailed insider account of the collapse of a deal negotiated in emergency talks on June 3 between Tsipras and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

“After the four-hour session, Mr Juncker thought he had a deal: Mr Tsipras had accepted new budget surplus targets that were tougher than Athens had hoped, but lower than the existing bailout program. Mr Tsipras disagreed with raising taxes on energy and many of the pension cuts, but agreed to return with a counter-proposal that would identify cuts elsewhere,” the FT wrote. 

The deal with Juncker unraveled, however, after Tsipras returned to a “political firestorm” in Greece, the FT adds. Facing opposition inside his own government, Tsipras gave a speech in parliament denouncing the deal as “absurd” and its contents as “irrational, blackmailing demands.”

Since then, the EU position on Greece has hardened. Speaking at the June 6-7 G7 summit, Obama reportedly criticized the Greek government, telling EU leaders he was “sympathetic” to their difficulties with Syriza, according to the FT.

Some press sources are claiming that a Greek default is now all but inevitable, as it would be impossible to get agreement by June 30 in the German parliament and other euro zone governments to renegotiate the terms of the Greek bailout. Juncker’s “proposal from the beginning of June was the only one that had a chance to get agreement from all 19 members of the euro group,” one EU official told Le Monde.

The only way forward is the independent mobilization of the working class across Europe against austerity, in a revolutionary struggle against both the EU and Syriza.

No confidence can be given to the factions inside the Greek government who are seeking to limit Tsipras to the concessions he has already made to the EU. The far-right Independent Greeks (Anel)—Syriza’s governing partner—and Syriza’s “Left Platform” grouping are both indicating that they are willing to risk a break with the EU bailout and a Grexit reintroducing Greece’s national currency, the drachma.

This strategy itself is utterly reactionary, aiming above all at blocking the emergence of opposition in the working class. It would further impoverish workers by paying their wages not in euros but in drachmas, which are expected to collapse against the euro on financial markets. Plans for the reintroduction of the drachma involve mobilizing the army inside Greece itself to suppress civil unrest.

At an earlier stage of the crisis, discussions of such a scenario were reported in the Greek daily Kathimerini, which said that if Athens decided to default or exit the euro, it would seek to do so over a weekend, when stock markets were closed. Then, as the civilian leadership sought to head off “civil unrest,” Greece would “deploy its military as soon as early morning Saturday and close its borders, preparing to stamp euros as drachma as an interim solution once a public announcement has been made.”

US to station troops, heavy weaponry on Russia’s border

Barry Grey

In a brazen move to prepare for war with Russia, the United States is planning to permanently station battle tanks and other heavy weaponry and maintain a force of up to 5,000 US troops in the Baltic States and other Eastern European NATO countries that were once part of the Soviet Union or its periphery.

The move, first reported over the weekend by the New York Times, was confirmed Sunday by the Polish Defense Ministry, which said that it is negotiating a plan with Washington to deploy American heavy weaponry on Polish soil. Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak indicated that he had discussed the plan last month with military officials in Washington and had been assured that a decision would be made soon.

The pre-positioning of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored howitzers and other instruments of war is an immense escalation of the US-led drive to compel Russia to accept American domination of Eurasia and its own reduction to semicolonial status. It brings the entire region, already bristling with arms, to the brink of war, threatening the entire world with a nuclear holocaust.

Whatever the timetable for war being discussed by the Pentagon and CIA madmen who formulate US policy, the stationing of US weapons and troops in the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), as well as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, dramatically heightens the potential for a relatively minor incident to escalate rapidly into a full-scale war.

Led by the US, NATO is already carrying out military exercises all along Russia’s western border, from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic and Black seas. NATO is developing a rapid deployment force designed to intervene against Russia in a matter of days. Scores of incidents between NATO and Russian planes and ships have already occurred.

The latest reported incident took place just last Thursday, when, according to a Pentagon statement released Saturday, a Russian military surveillance plane buzzed four NATO warships in the Baltic Sea. One of the vessels was the US destroyer Jason Dunham. The other ships were British, French and German.

At the same time, Washington and its NATO allies are financing and arming an ultra-right, rabidly anti-Russian regime in Kiev that is prosecuting a bloody civil war against Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine.

All the post-Soviet governments set to receive US arms and troops are right-wing, anti-Russian and highly unstable. They are beset by internal crises, as they carry out brutal austerity policies in the face of popular opposition. This heightens the danger of a provocation being staged to provoke Russian retaliation and create a pretext for war.

The Times quotes Raimonds Vejonis, Latvia’s minister of defense, who will become the country’s president in July, as saying, “If something happens, we can’t wait days or weeks for more equipment. We need to react immediately.”

By stationing weapons and troops and pledging to intervene military against Russia to defend these governments, US imperialism is placing the fate of the people of America and the entire world in immense danger. It is being done, moreover, entirely behind the backs of the population, without public discussion or debate and without even the formality of congressional authorization (which would be forthcoming if demanded by the military).

Last September, at the time of the NATO summit in Wales, President Obama went to Estonia and gave an unqualified commitment to use American troops to defend the Baltic States against the supposed threat from Russia. “As NATO allies,” he declared, “we have Article 5 duties to our collective defense. That is a commitment that is unbreakable. It is unwavering. It is eternal.”

He stressed that the commitment included the use of “American boots on the ground.”

The Times article, which is supportive of the American plan, makes clear that it marks a major escalation of the US-led offensive against Russia. The newspaper writes: “It would be the most prominent of a series of moves the United States and NATO have taken to bolster forces in the region and send a clear message of resolve to allies and to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that the United States would defend the alliance’s members closest to the Russian frontier.”

The Times implies that the plan, expected to be formally approved by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the Obama White House prior to a meeting of NATO ministers later this month, violates the 1997 agreement between Russia and NATO (the NATO Russia Founding Act) that gave Moscow guarantees against the alliance’s eastward expansion being used to militarily threaten Russia.

Those guarantees included a NATO pledge not to seek permanent stationing of military forces in Eastern European countries formerly in the Soviet sphere of influence. The newspaper writes: “The agreement also says that ‘NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries.’ Many in the alliance argue that Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions around NATO’s border have made that pact effectively moot.”

According to the Times account, based on information provided by unnamed “American and allied officials,” the plan provides for equipment supplying a company of some 150 troops to be stored in each of the Baltic countries, and sufficient military hardware for a battalion—about 750 soldiers—to be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

“A full brigade’s worth of equipment—formally called the European Security Set—would include about 1,200 vehicles, including some 250 M1-A2 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and armored howitzers, according to a senior military official,” the article states.

“This is a very meaningful shift in policy,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO. Indicating further steps that are under discussion, he continues, “It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course.”

Ominously, the article compares the plan to US military moves at the height of the Cold War and before the invasion of Iraq. It compares the pre-positioning of heavy weapons in Eastern Europe to the Berlin Brigade that was dispatched during the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961, and to the US presence in Kuwait that prepared the way for the 2003 war.

The Times presents Washington’s reckless escalation as a defensive measure to “deter possible Russian aggression in Europe.” This turns reality on its head.

In fact, the aggressors are the US and NATO. The current crisis was triggered by the Maidan coup of February 2014 that toppled the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych.

The coup was orchestrated by Washington and Berlin and spearheaded by fascist militias that venerate Ukrainian nationalist forces that collaborated with the Nazi occupation and anti-Jewish genocide in World War II. When Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country rose up in opposition to the ultra-right regime in Kiev, the US puppet government launched a bloody civil war with the full support of Washington.

The coup itself was the culmination of US imperialist policy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, which has centered on a relentless drive to isolate, weaken and surround Russia in order to bring the vast resources of Eurasia under US domination.

This has included the eastward expansion of NATO to encompass the former Warsaw Pact nations and the Baltic States. It has involved a series of aggressive actions and wars against Russia’s allies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, including the first Gulf War (1991) against Iraq, the breakup of Yugoslavia and war against Serbia (1999), the so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine (2003-2004), the Georgian attack on Russian forces (2008), the sanctions and war threats against Iran, and the US-backed civil war against the Syrian regime.

Modi-fying India-Bangladesh Ties

Wasbir Hussain

His oratory might have wowed the Bangladeshis, but rhetoric aside, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also demonstrated his intent to consolidate New Delhi-Dhaka ties and take it to a high point from where there would be no looking back. During his 40-hour visit to Bangladesh, Modi tried to strike a chord with Bangladeshis with enough quotable quotes: “Hum pass pass hain/Hum sath sath bhi hain (We are geographically close, we are also closely tied).” Modi told his audience he and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina spoke the same language - that of development.

His intent was reflected in the 22 agreements the two neighbours signed on issues of connectivity, education, infrastructure, maritime and energy security, and trade, among others. He didn’t forget to assure Dhaka that the contentious water-sharing issue would be pursued. “Panchi, Pavan aur pani” (birds, air and water) do not need visas, he said, to chants of ‘Modi, Modi’ by the audience. This was hint enough that there would soon be movement on the Teesta water-sharing issue. The Prime Minister spoke a language the Bangladeshis love to hear, leading to enough euphoria with which to sign off his visit.

New Delhi hopes to tread on the path laid out by Modi, riding on the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) that has become a reality with the prime ministers exchanging the instruments of the deal that is on the verge of resolving the 41-year-old boundary dispute. India and Bangladesh are supposed to begin the enclave transfers on 31 July. Having resolved the thorny issue of the land boundary dispute, it was time to move on. One would like to mention two sectors that New Delhi and Dhaka picked to top the cooperation agenda - energy and maritime issues.

If the deals are taken forward, India has the potential to emerge as the key partner of Bangladesh in the energy field. Dhaka has set itself a target of achieving an installed capacity of 24,000 megawatts (MW) by 2021. New Delhi expects Indian companies to get into power generation, transmission and distribution in Bangladesh. While India has agreed to raise power exports to 1,000 MW, from the existing 500 MW, Reliance Power, in the private sector, signed a deal to generate 3,000 MW of electricity at a cost of US$3 billion with the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board. Besides, two coal-fired plants with a 1,600 MW total capacity will be set up by Adani Power Ltd at an estimated cost of over US$1.5 billion.

Of the 22 deals signed, perhaps the most significant was the Memorandum of Understanding on the use of the Chittagong and Mongla ports by Indian cargo vessels. Like some of the civilian ports in India’s neighbourhood, including Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, and Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, the Chittagong and Mongla ports in Bangladesh too have been under the Chinese shadow. Not only does this deal letting Indian vessels use these ports come in handy for servicing the land-locked Northeastern Indian states, it also signals the growing bond between India and Bangladesh and a lessening of the trust deficit. And yes, it would help India offset some of the Chinese influence on Bangladesh. After all, New Delhi cannot ignore the fact that Sheikh Hasina has chosen to call China one of Bangladesh’s “most dependable partners.” China, of course, is Bangladesh’s largest trading partner and supplier of military hardware. One must also put on record the fact that New Delhi is keen to be in Bangladesh, building a deep sea port at Paira in Patuakhali district, a project that could cost over US$2 billion. China, UK and the Netherlands, too, are eyeing the project.

Modi’s politically correct behaviour in Dhaka has not really impressed the political class as well as the civil society in the Northeast, a region that shares 1880 km of the 4096 km long India-Bangladesh border. First, he chose to let West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accompany him during the visit, and not one chief minister from the Northeast. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, a veteran Congress leader, said the decision to leave aside chief ministers from the Northeast goes against the spirit of cooperative federalism. He said Modi’s decision to only take Mamata Banerjee gives an impression that the Northeastern chief ministers are against good ties between India and Bangladesh.

The bigger point, however, is that Modi did not raise the critical issues of infiltration, repatriation, smuggling and illegal trade with his Bangladeshi counterpart. Dhaka has always maintained that there has been no illegal migration of Bangladeshis to India - which is another story - but the issue continues to frustrate those in the Northeast. In fact, during the 2014 Parliamentary election campaign, Modi managed to arouse people’s passion by saying that once the BJP Government came to power in Delhi, ‘Bangladeshis’ (meaning illegal migrants) would have to pack their bags and leave India. The BJP in Assam, hoping to grab power from the Congress in the 2016 Assembly polls, is actually on the back-foot over Modi’s decision not to raise this ticklish issue with Sheikh Hasina. For the record, the Assam BJP was opposed to the LBA as well, but fell in line after directives from the party top-brass.

Modi was clearly on a trip of “connecting lands and binding hearts,” as the Ministry of External Affairs put it. That was reflected with the flagging off of the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala and the Guwahati-Shillong-Dhaka bus services. Whether the “visit of high hopes,” as Bangladeshi newspapers called the trip, is able to deliver is left to be seen, but the course on which to tread has been set.

Radicalism in the Maldives: Should India be worried?

Roshni Thomas

In March 2015, Mohamed Nasheed the man who led the fight for democracy in the Maldives was sentenced to 13 years in prison. There has been a pattern of regular accusations of corruption against the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) since the now ousted Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed defeated Maumoon Gayoom’s 30 year autocratic rule 2008. Over the last decade, the country has undergone a tumultuous transition to democracy. This wasn’t without a simultaneous rise in religious conservatism. There have been radicalised Maldivians who have joined the Jihad in Syria and elsewhere. Why is this happening in the Maldives, and should India start paying closer attention?

During Gayoom’s rule, restrictions were placed on the practice of other religions. With the sudden change to democracy in 2008, the nation that was under a restrictive rule for three decades began growing more religiously conservative and blaming the MDP government for ruining the sacred values of Islam by bringing in Western ideologies and culture. In December 2011, the opposition parties held a mass rally called ‘Defend Islam’ with 20,000 Maldivians. These protests eventually resulted in the resignation of President Nasheed in 2012.

There have been concerns about the increasing numbers of Maldivians joining jihadist groups such as the al Qaeda and the Islamic State. According to the Commissioner of Maldivian Police, Hussein Waheed, there over 50 Maldivians have been known to be fighting foreign wars. However, the MDP claims that there are about 200. The worrisome factor is that these reported jihadists have been young men and/or couples with infants who travel to Syria via Turkey making false excuses about their journey. There are no organised jihadist groups inside the Maldives but the country has proven to be a fertile source for new recruits for the Islamic State (IS). Bilad Al Sham Media (BASM) is an online media forum run by a group of Maldivians in Syria promoting the IS and praising the activities of Maldivian jihadists in Syria.

The Maldives has a very young population and this may seem to be an advantage but on the contrary, it could be a problem. Malé is unable to provide stable education for its growing young population because of its geography of atolls and its dependence on expatriate teachers. Unemployment levels are high, leaving the youth frustrated. Given the shortage of educational opportunities, many parents send their children to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and those studying theology often end up studying in madrassas, a high number of which are unregulated and propagate radical and extremist teachings.

On their return, these pupils insist that the population follows an undiluted form of Islam in the country. This is one of the main reasons for the increasing grass root radicalisation that the Maldives faces. This has further led to the formation of Jamiyyatul Salaf (JL) and Islamic Foundation of Maldives (IFM). They are conservative religious groups that work with the government to ensure that Islam is followed via moral policing. Their practises are quite unsecular non-secular and they actively restrict the practice of other religions.

Here, it is important to note that conservatism and radicalism and violent extremism cannot be used interchangeably.

So, are the political parties using religion to gain a stronger and broader foothold among the public for their political interests? Democracy appears to be falling into disorder in this picturesque island state and the environment seems conducive to breed extremism.

Given the geographical proximity the two countries share, the rise in the number of Maldivians joining extremist groups is a security concern for India. Besides, stability of the Maldives is strategically significant for India also because of the increasing Chinese influence in the island-nation.

More importantly, Maldivian-origin extremists have in the past carried out their activities in the southern states of India. Moosa Inas, a prime suspect in the 2005 Sultan Park case had travelled to Pakistan via Kerala. Asif Ibrahim, another Maldivian captured in Kerala was there to start a new Maldives-based terror group in Thiruvananthapuram. These instances have been monitored and handled by the Indian government but what about the increasing numbers of radicals inside the Maldives? Can India help curb the phenomenon? While India and the rest of the international community can help, the matter is domestic and needs to be handled from within.

Reportedly, Malé has formulated a new counter-terrorism law – which, among other issues, criminalises fighting in foreign countries –soon. However, this law is yet to be implemented. The issue here is that the Maldives, besides having increasing numbers of religious extremists also has a corrupt, unstable political structure. This simply makes the environment more conducive for radicalism.

India has been quick when Maldives has faced any crisis. While India cannot directly help Maldives combat the problem of radicalisation, it can provide more educational opportunities and security assistance along with the rest of the international community. The balance of not pressurising the country into feeling controlled by the international community but still voicing concern and seriousness over the issues is tricky but needs to be achieved.

Exponential Growth

John Avery

Exponential growth of any quantity with time has some remarkable characteristics, which we ought to try to understand better, since this understanding will help us to predict the future. The knowledge will also show us the tasks which history has given to our generation. We must perform them with urgency in order to create a future in which our descendants will be able to survive.

If any quantity, for example population, industrial production or indebtedness, is growing at the rate of 3% per year, it will double in 23.1 years; if it is growing at the rate of 4% per year, the doubling time is 17.3 years. For a 5% growth rate, the doubling time is 13.9 years, if the growth rate is 7% (the rate of economic growth that China's leaders hope to maintain), the doubling time is only 9.9 years. If you want to find out the doubling time for any exponentially growing quantity, just divide 69.3 years by the growth rate in percent.

Looking at the long-term future, we can calculate that any quantity increasing at the modest rate of 3% per year will grow by a factor of 20.1 in a century. This implies that in four centuries, whatever is growing at 3% will have increased by a factor of 163,000. These facts make it completely clear that long-continued economic growth on a finite planet is a logical absurdity. Yet economists and governments have an almost religious belief in perpetual economic growth. They can only maintain this belief by refusing to look more than a short distance into the future.

Exponential decay of any quantity follows similar but inverse rules. For example, if the chance of a thermonuclear war will be initiated by accident or miscalculation or malice is 3% in any given year, the chance that the human race will survive for more than four centuries under these conditions is only1 in 163,000, i.e. 0.000625 percent. Clearly, in the long run, if we do not completely rid ourselves of nuclear weapons, our species will have little hope of survival.

Besides nuclear war, the other great threat to the survival of the human species and the biosphere is catastrophic climate change. The transition to 100% renewable energy must take place within about a century because fossil fuels will become too rare and expensive to burn. But scientists warn that if the transition does not happen much faster than that, there is a danger that we may reach a tipping point beyond which feedback loops, such as the albedo effect and the methane hydrate feedback loop, could take over and produce an out-of-control and fatal increase in global temperature.

In 2012, the World Bank issued a report warning that without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, global warming is likely to reach 4 degrees C during the 21st century. This is dangerously close to the temperature which initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event: 6 degrees C above normal. During the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which occurred 252 million years ago. In this event, 96 percent of all marine species were wiped out, as well as 70 percent of all terrestrial vertebrates.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/11/18/Climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-this-century

Is a quick transition to 100% renewable energy technically possible? The remarkable characteristics of exponential growth can give us hope that it can indeed be done, provided that we make the necessary effort.

The Earth Policy Institute recently reported that “Between 2008 and 2013, as solar panel prices dropped by roughly two thirds, the PV installed worldwide skyrocketed from 16,000 to 139,000 megawatts... In its January 2014 solar outlook report, Deutsche Bank projected that 46,000 megawatts would be added to global PV capacity in 2014 and that new installations would jump to a record 56,000 megawatts in 2015.” https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/14de86413c154197

An analysis of the data given by the Earth Policy Institute shows that global installed photovoltaic capacity is now increasing by 27.8% per year. Because of the remarkable properties of exponential growth, we can predict that by 2033, the world's installed PV capacity will have reached 36.1 terawatts, more than twice today's global consumption of all forms of energy (provided, of course, that the present rate of growth is maintained).

We can see from this analysis, and from data presented by Lester Brown and his coauthors Janet Larsen, Mathew Roney and Emily Adams, in their recent book “The Great Transition”, that the urgently-needed replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy is technically achievable. But it also requires political will. For example the present rapid rate of growth of global PV capacity was initiated by the German government's enlightened financial policies. Government measures helping renewables are vital. At present, governments give billions in direct and indirect support of fossil fuel giants, which in turn sponsor massive advertising campaign to convince the public that anthropogenic climate change is not real. Our task, for the sake of future generations, is to provide the political will needed for the great transition. http://www.earth-policy.org/books/tgt
http://eruditio.worldacademy.org/issue-5/article/urgent-need-renewable-energy

For the sake of future generations, let us also work with dedication for the great transition to a world without nuclear weapons, a world without war, and a world with an economic system that does not depend on growth.