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DT<br />
VOL1, ISSUE 31 | Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
World Tribune<br />
16 years and counting...<br />
Trump’s Afghan<br />
strategy risks the<br />
2 worst of both <strong>world</strong>s<br />
3<br />
Merkel assuming<br />
leadership role in <strong>world</strong><br />
of erratic strongmen<br />
7<br />
Saudi renews<br />
Iraq ties in bid<br />
to distance Iran
2<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
DT<br />
Analysis<br />
Analysis<br />
3<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
DT<br />
Trump’s Afghan strategy risks the worst<br />
of both <strong>world</strong>s<br />
Merkel assuming leadership role in <strong>world</strong> of<br />
erratic strongmen<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
Donald Trump has probably never<br />
heard of the Grand Old Duke of York<br />
and his 10,000 men. But in spelling<br />
out his new Afghan strategy, the US<br />
president gave a good impersonation<br />
of that symbol of military muddle-headedness,<br />
incompetence and<br />
futility immortalised in the English<br />
nursery rhyme.<br />
By marching US troops back up<br />
the Afghan hill, having previously<br />
solemnly vowed to march them<br />
down and out of the country, Trump<br />
risks the worst of both <strong>world</strong>s: leaving<br />
the US and its allies neither up<br />
nor down, without a clearly defined<br />
mission, and stuck in the middle of<br />
a worsening conflict.<br />
His speech on Afghanistan on the<br />
night of <strong>August</strong> 21 was long delayed,<br />
and it is easy to see why. White<br />
House advisers had been arguing for<br />
months over what to do about the<br />
16-year-old war, America’s longest.<br />
When the speech came, there were<br />
no new ideas or initiatives. Instead<br />
Trump retained the main planks of<br />
Barack Obama’s policy and tried to<br />
dress it up as something fresh.<br />
Two changes<br />
Two things have changed. One is<br />
that Trump has agreed with his<br />
generals that troop levels must be<br />
increased, reversing the drawdown<br />
during the Obama years. There are<br />
nearly 10,000 US military personnel<br />
in Afghanistan, mostly special forces,<br />
advisers and trainers. That figure<br />
looks likely to rise by about 4,000,<br />
though Trump gave no number.<br />
The other change is more dangerous.<br />
After the searing US experience<br />
in Iraq, policymakers<br />
broadly agreed that future overseas<br />
missions should have attainable<br />
objectives, a fixed duration, and a<br />
clear exit strategy. Not setting such<br />
parameters in advance was George<br />
W Bush’s big mistake in Iraq. Obama<br />
was careful not to repeat it.<br />
Trump has ignored that hardwon<br />
knowledge. He has committed<br />
the US to waging an open-ended<br />
conflict with no limit on its scope or<br />
duration, and with no agreed measure<br />
of what constitutes victory.<br />
Now Britain and other Nato allies<br />
will be under pressure to perform<br />
a similar volte-face, and increase<br />
their combined troop deployments<br />
above the current level of roughly<br />
6,500.<br />
US Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province<br />
southern Afghanistan on June 12, 2011<br />
REUTERS<br />
‘Fight to win’<br />
Trump’s repeated assertion that the<br />
US would “fight to win” is misleading<br />
at best and reckless at worst. Obama<br />
almost trebled US combat troop levels<br />
to around 100,000 after taking<br />
office in 2009, in an all-out attempt<br />
to finish the war. It did not work, although<br />
Obama claimed it did, and he<br />
slashed troop levels accordingly. The<br />
history of warfare in Afghanistan<br />
suggests nobody ever “wins”.<br />
The US has hardly any combat<br />
regulars in theatre now, and<br />
Trump’s proposed reinforcement of<br />
about 4,000 is a drop in the ocean.<br />
The security situation in Afghanistan<br />
has deteriorated sharply. The<br />
Afghan government faces a resurgent<br />
Taliban, a continued al-Qaeda<br />
menace and a rising Islamic State<br />
presence. Kabul, once relatively<br />
safe, has been targeted by repeated<br />
suicide bombings.<br />
Government loses control<br />
According to US estimates, government<br />
forces control less than 60%<br />
of Afghanistan, with the remainder<br />
of the country either contested or<br />
under the control of the insurgents.<br />
In an indication of how increasing<br />
troop numbers can make matters<br />
worse, the annual total number of<br />
civilian deaths and injuries has broken<br />
previous records each year since<br />
Obama’s “surge” in 2009. According<br />
to the UN’s mid-year report for 2017,<br />
there were 1,662 civilian deaths and<br />
3,581 casualties. Armed conflict has<br />
claimed the lives of 26,512 civilians<br />
and injured 48,931 since 2009.<br />
The US strategy of training and<br />
equipping the Afghan army and<br />
police to bear the brunt of the fighting,<br />
which Trump indicated will<br />
continue, has also been costly. US<br />
officials say an average of 20 Afghan<br />
national army soldiers are dying<br />
each month. The Afghan Ministry<br />
of Interior Affairs says 1,302 police<br />
officers were killed between March<br />
and <strong>August</strong>, about nine a day.<br />
US TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN<br />
Lambastes Pakistan<br />
Despite Trump’s bald threat to<br />
cut financial support for Pakistan,<br />
which is accused by Washington<br />
of failing to suppress Taliban bases<br />
in the north-west of the country,<br />
he offered no reason as to why his<br />
warnings would be heeded when<br />
those of Obama and Bush were ignored.<br />
His tough words are likely<br />
to be seen in Islamabad as typical<br />
Trump bluster.<br />
A parallel statement by Rex Tillerson,<br />
the US secretary of state, that<br />
Washington is ready to conduct unconditional<br />
peace talks with the Taliban,<br />
similarly offered nothing new.<br />
The Taliban dismissed the president’s<br />
speech as vague and unhelpful,<br />
and have threatened to cause<br />
more American pain if the war is<br />
intensified.<br />
Trump’s political U-turn in recommitting<br />
to a war he has previously<br />
dismissed as a waste of time<br />
and resources marks a victory for<br />
the “realists” in the White House,<br />
notably HR McMaster, his national<br />
security adviser, and James Mattis,<br />
his defence secretary, both of<br />
whom are former generals.<br />
They were opposed by Steve<br />
Areas with significant activity by:<br />
Taliban<br />
Islamic State group<br />
Control zone<br />
Control/support zone<br />
High-confidence support zone<br />
Low-confidence support zone<br />
ISW* assessment for<br />
the period Nov 2016 -<br />
March 2017<br />
January<br />
49 48 52<br />
12<br />
KABUL<br />
99 98<br />
117<br />
155<br />
317<br />
499<br />
418<br />
Bannon and other champions of<br />
Trump’s nationalist, “America first”<br />
platform, which pledged to end foreign<br />
entanglements. Bannon was<br />
dismissed from his post as chief<br />
strategist last week.<br />
Despite his efforts to justify his<br />
about-turn in his prime time TV<br />
speech, Trump will find it difficult<br />
to convince his domestic supporters,<br />
and his foreign allies, that he<br />
has a workable policy. And his bad<br />
relations with Nato mean he may<br />
struggle to get the European troops<br />
he wants as the US once again<br />
marches up the Afghan hill. •<br />
Deployment history<br />
310<br />
127<br />
US troops killed<br />
100<br />
Thousand<br />
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017<br />
55<br />
22<br />
8,400<br />
14<br />
80<br />
60<br />
40<br />
20<br />
10*<br />
• Reuters, Berlin<br />
Alarmed by the rise of unpredictable<br />
strongmen around the <strong>world</strong>,<br />
Angela Merkel feels she must do<br />
more to defend the Western order<br />
on which Germany depends.<br />
It has been a transformation for<br />
the chancellor. Last year, she dismissed<br />
as “absurd” the idea that<br />
she should head a Western alliance<br />
shaken by Donald Trump’s US election<br />
victory.<br />
Weakened by Europe’s migrant<br />
crisis, Merkel even wondered if she<br />
should run for re-election. “She<br />
asked herself: ‘Can I do this? Am I<br />
ready for this?’” one close aide said.<br />
But now, with the migrant issue<br />
under control in Germany, the<br />
63-year-old is ready. Visibly happier,<br />
she is campaigning for next<br />
month’s election with renewed<br />
conviction: a resolve to secure a<br />
<strong>world</strong> order threatened by leaders<br />
like Trump and North Korea’s Kim<br />
Jong Un.<br />
On the campaign trail, she likes<br />
to invoke the “uncertain situation<br />
in the <strong>world</strong>”.<br />
The message is clear. “Things<br />
have changed,” the aide said. “This<br />
means Germany must take on more<br />
responsibility.”<br />
German foreign policy has been<br />
constrained by the legacy of the last<br />
World War. But Merkel is pushing<br />
Berlin’s interests beyond its traditional<br />
European sphere.<br />
Guardian Angela<br />
In April last year, Merkel described<br />
how she realised that trouble<br />
on the European Union’s doorstep<br />
meant Germany must play a<br />
bigger role beyond its borders.<br />
Looking at a map showing the<br />
EU’s passport-free area in one colour<br />
and neighbouring countries in<br />
another, she saw clearly how close<br />
Syria and Ukraine were.<br />
“This is Europe’s neighbourhood,”<br />
she said.<br />
Reacting to crises in this neighbourhood,<br />
Merkel first strongarmed<br />
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan<br />
into a deal to stem the migrant flow<br />
from Syria in exchange for EU economic<br />
aid.<br />
Now, she wants to slow the tide<br />
of refugees from Africa with a new<br />
“Marshall Plan” to bring investment<br />
and business growth that will persuade<br />
people to stay at home.<br />
Merkel is starting to take diplomatic<br />
positions out of conviction,<br />
a departure from her consensus-based<br />
style during the euro<br />
zone and migrant crises.<br />
This shift began after Trump’s<br />
election, when she set out how she<br />
would deal with him: a readiness<br />
to work closely on the basis of the<br />
values of democracy, freedom, respect<br />
for the law and for the dignity<br />
of people.<br />
Climate<br />
For Merkel, climate policy belongs<br />
to this value set. She sees it as crucial<br />
to managing globalisation and<br />
it has been her principal point of<br />
disagreement with Trump.<br />
She wanted the six members of<br />
the G7 other than the US to issue<br />
a statement backing the accord,<br />
sources close to her said. In the end,<br />
Germany, France and Italy signed.<br />
Britain, Canada and Japan - all with<br />
close US ties - did not.<br />
Compromised<br />
Despite her growing diplomatic<br />
assertiveness, it is this instinct<br />
to compromise that handicaps<br />
Merkel’s quest for a place in history<br />
alongside Konrad Adenauer, who<br />
led Germany’s rebirth after World<br />
War II, and Helmut Kohl, who reunified<br />
the country.<br />
Restricting Merkel’s room for<br />
manoeuvre is the fact that many<br />
Germans are turned off by foreign<br />
policy, with one survey showing<br />
just 30% of voters think it is a top<br />
priority for Germany to do more to<br />
promote its interests abroad<br />
“The big problem is that this is<br />
not anything that sells at home,”<br />
said Techau at the American Academy.<br />
“You can’t win votes with<br />
this.”<br />
Merkel is also hampered by Germany’s<br />
Nazi past, which has left it<br />
without the military might needed<br />
to project power.<br />
Yet Kohl, Merkel’s mentor, took<br />
chances, first with reunification<br />
and then by defying public opinion<br />
to bring in the euro.<br />
Merkel is altogether more cautious.<br />
In 2015, “merkeln” - a verb<br />
meaning being to be unable to take<br />
decisions - was named Germany’s<br />
Youth Word of the Year.<br />
David McAllister, a close party<br />
ally, describes how “she looks at<br />
the different approaches to solve<br />
the problem and has a debate with<br />
her advisers about what’s best: A,<br />
B, C, or D. Then we go with the best<br />
option.”<br />
This methodical approach,<br />
honed during her training as a<br />
physicist, can leave her upstaged<br />
by more dynamic leaders.<br />
Trump and Putin did just that at<br />
the G20 summit when they walked<br />
out of a session on climate change<br />
to hold a bilateral meeting that<br />
stole headlines and highlighted the<br />
‘hard power’ they wield and Merkel<br />
does not.<br />
Merkel still welcomed their<br />
meeting. As a committed Atlanticist,<br />
she does not want to alienate<br />
an American president. But the episode<br />
showed the limits of what she<br />
can achieve on the <strong>world</strong> stage.<br />
“Germans have learnt that they<br />
will only do well if they are ready to<br />
compromise,” said one senior party<br />
official. “We don’t want to be the<br />
ones people look at, and feel they<br />
must tremble or admire.” •<br />
Yingluck’s flight provides Thai junta welcome way out<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
Thailand’s generals could hardly<br />
have planned it better.<br />
The flight of ousted prime minister<br />
Yingluck Shinawatra before a<br />
court verdict for negligence leaves<br />
the populist movement that has<br />
dominated Thai politics for a generation<br />
leaderless and in despair.<br />
It also means Yingluck doesn’t<br />
become a martyr, as she could have<br />
done if she had been jailed over<br />
the costly rice subsidy scheme, or<br />
get let off lightly, which could have<br />
raised awkward questions over why<br />
the military overthrew her in 2014.<br />
What it doesn’t do is eliminate<br />
the Shinawatras’ power base: the<br />
largely poor and provincial Thais<br />
who have had the numbers to deliver<br />
them victory in every election<br />
since 2001 despite the best efforts<br />
of pro-army and deeply royalist<br />
conservatives.<br />
Yingluck fled just before a court<br />
verdict on her criminal negligence<br />
trial over a multi-billion dollar<br />
scheme to help poor farmers, sources<br />
within her Puea Thai Party said.<br />
They said she had gone to Dubai<br />
to join her brother Thaksin Shinawatra,<br />
the self-made billionaire<br />
and family patriarch who was overthrown<br />
as prime minister in 2006<br />
and fled to escape a corruption<br />
conviction he says was politically<br />
motivated.<br />
Figurehead<br />
Yingluck, 50, had been banned from<br />
politics for five years by the junta in<br />
2015, but could have rallied support<br />
for her party at elections the army<br />
has promised for next year.<br />
That would have been harder if<br />
she had been sentenced over the estimated<br />
$8 billion losses on the rice<br />
scheme, but jail would have made<br />
her a rallying point with glamorous<br />
star power at home and abroad.<br />
Her departure meant she would<br />
not become Thailand’s version<br />
of neighbouring Myanmar’s once<br />
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a top candidate of the Christian Democratic<br />
Union Party (CDU), attends an election rally ahead of the upcoming federal<br />
election in Sankt Peter-Ording, Germany on <strong>August</strong> 21, 2017<br />
REUTERS<br />
Yingluck Shinawatra<br />
AFP<br />
long-detained Aung San Suu Kyi.<br />
“This will embolden the military<br />
government because they did not<br />
have to put her in jail,” said Thitinan<br />
Pongsudhirak, the director of<br />
the Institute of Security and International<br />
Studies at Chulalongkorn<br />
University.<br />
Government spokesman Weerachon<br />
Sukhontapatipak declined to<br />
comment on the case or the implications<br />
of Yingluck’s absence.<br />
There was no evidence the junta<br />
had been aware Yingluck might<br />
have intended to skip bail, but suspicions<br />
circulated among her supporters<br />
that her departure was very<br />
convenient for the military government.<br />
Yingluck took over despite being<br />
a political novice after Thaksin fled<br />
into exile and succeeded through<br />
personal charm and charisma, as<br />
well as his distant backing. There<br />
are no obvious candidates now.<br />
Power base<br />
The constituency the Shinawatras<br />
represented has not disappeared,<br />
however. That potentially complicates<br />
the military’s plans for an<br />
election even with a new constitution<br />
that entrenches the power of<br />
the generals for years to come.<br />
Electoral numbers show the<br />
poorer, aspiring parts of Thai society<br />
have more votes than backers of<br />
the entrenched elite and its yellow<br />
shirt followers.<br />
The majority Shinawatra-supporting<br />
northeastern and northern<br />
regions alone account for more<br />
than 45% of Thailand’s population,<br />
according to the most recent official<br />
data. They accounted for less than<br />
12% of the economy.<br />
“If they field a dog as a candidate<br />
in the northeast it would win a<br />
seat in the election,” said Wassawan<br />
Ken-kla, 40, a local leader in northeastern<br />
Udon Thani.<br />
After Yingluck’s flight, poor, rural<br />
voters who had benefited from<br />
Shinawatra policies may become<br />
even more sympathetic, said Paul<br />
Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan<br />
University in the northern Thailand.<br />
“Other Puea Thai leaders will<br />
soon emerge,” he said. •
4<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
DT<br />
Week in Review<br />
Week in Review 5<br />
DT<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
august 21<br />
Chile rejects iron mine to protect penguins<br />
reuters<br />
Chile rejected plans for a $2.5billion iron-mining project in<br />
order to protect thousands of endangered penguins.<br />
Local firm Andes Iron wanted to extract millions of<br />
tons of the metal in the northern Coquimbo region and<br />
build a new port to ship it out.<br />
A committee of ministers said the project did not offer<br />
sufficient environmental guarantees, echoing warnings by<br />
environmental groups.<br />
“The compensation measures were insufficient and<br />
could not guarantee the protection of species of concern,”<br />
such as the Humboldt penguin, said Environment Minister<br />
Marcelo Mena.<br />
Coquimbo lies on the coast south of the three islands<br />
that make up the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve,<br />
home to numerous wildlife species.<br />
Among them is the endangered Humboldt penguin,<br />
distinguished by pink rings round its eyes and a black<br />
stripe across its chest.<br />
reuters<br />
august 24<br />
British Queen’s police<br />
horses kick back in France<br />
AFP<br />
august 25<br />
South Africa’s first online<br />
rhino horn auction ends<br />
South Africa’s first online auction of rhino horn concluded Friday<br />
amid outrage from conservationists, but no details of the sale were<br />
immediately available.<br />
“There is definitely no feedback today,” a representative of<br />
the auctioneers said, adding that a statement would be issued<br />
Monday.<br />
The Private Rhino Owners Association, which supported the<br />
auction, said it expected to hear from the auction’s organiser<br />
possibly at the weekend.<br />
“They have to do an analysis of the various bids and get average<br />
prices,” the association’s chairman Pelham Jones said.<br />
The auctioneers did not set an opening price for bids, but<br />
bidders paid 100,000 rand ($7,626) to register and only registered<br />
bidders had access to the bidding process.<br />
august 22<br />
Rodents force Nigerian president to work from home<br />
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will work from home after rodents<br />
damaged his official office during a more than 100-day overseas<br />
medical absence, a presidential spokesman said Tuesday.<br />
The animals damaged furniture and air conditioning fittings in<br />
the president’s official Abuja office while he was in London receiving<br />
treatment, his media adviser Garba Shehu confirmed.<br />
“These are also general works and it is not uncommon for Nigerian<br />
presidents to also work from the presidential villa. He has used the<br />
residential office for many years,” said Shehu.<br />
“What is important is that the job gets done. Whether he does<br />
it from his bedroom or his sitting room or his anteroom, it does not<br />
matter. Let the job be done. And the job will be done,” Shehu told the<br />
Arise News broadcaster.<br />
Shehu was unable to confirm what type of rodent was responsible<br />
for the damage, which occurred during the president’s prolonged<br />
absence for an undisclosed medical condition.<br />
“I do not have that level of detail,” he said, adding that it was<br />
unclear how long the refurbishment would last.<br />
During his time away, tensions surfaced back home, where calls<br />
grew for him to either return or resign.<br />
The Nigerian leader met with his security chiefs at his official<br />
residence on Tuesday, ordering them to deal with threats to the unity<br />
of the country. In the weeks before Buhari left for London on May 7, he<br />
AFP<br />
also worked from the presidential residence, missing cabinet meetings<br />
and having official documents transported to him.<br />
AFP<br />
august 23<br />
Charlie Hebdo publishes provocative Islam cartoon<br />
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published<br />
Wednesday a provocative front-page cartoon about<br />
Islam and the recent terror attacks in Spain, leading<br />
to criticism that it risked fanning Islamophobia.<br />
The latest edition of the magazine, which was<br />
targeted by Islamist gunmen in 2015, shows two<br />
people lying in a pool of blood having been run over<br />
by a van next to the words “Islam, eternal religion<br />
of peace.”<br />
A dozen extremists of Moroccan origin are<br />
believed to have plotted last week’s attacks in<br />
Barcelona and Cambrils, where 15 people were killed<br />
and over 100 injured after a van and car were driven<br />
into crowds.<br />
The attackers are thought by investigators<br />
to have been radicalised by an extremist Islamic<br />
preacher who died in a house where the group was<br />
trying to produce explosives.<br />
Critics of Charlie Hebdo saw its front-page as<br />
tarring an entire religion, practised by around 1.5 billion<br />
people <strong>world</strong>wide, by implying it was inherently<br />
violent.<br />
Iraqi forces surround<br />
Islamic State<br />
Iraqi forces have retaken almost all of Tal Afar, Islamic State’s stronghold in the country’s northwest, the<br />
Iraqi military said on Sunday. Picture shows, smoke rises during clashes between joint troops of Iraqi army<br />
and Shia Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) against the Islamic State militants in Tal Afar, Iraq, <strong>August</strong> 26<br />
After years of pounding the pavement in Britain, four-legged veterans<br />
of the country’s fight against crime are hoofing it across the<br />
Channel to kick back under the sun in southwest France.<br />
The rolling green hills of the Dordogne region are home to 22<br />
retired police horses, who are getting their second wind in a sanctuary<br />
run by former Scotland Yard officer Roland Phillips.<br />
For some of the retirees, the sanctuary situated a few kilometres<br />
from the town of Brantome is a place to recover from the riots<br />
that rocked England in 2011 after the shooting dead of a mixedrace<br />
man by London police.<br />
In keeping with British policing tradition, the officers used horses<br />
rather than tear gas or water cannon to disperse the crowds.<br />
“The last line of defence is the horse,” Phillips explained.<br />
august 26<br />
Clashes kill 32 in India as court convicts guru of rape<br />
At least 32 people were killed when clashes broke out in northern India after a court<br />
convicted a controversial religious leader of raping two of his followers, sparking fury<br />
among tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered for the verdict.<br />
Authorities rushed hundreds of troops to the city of Panchkula after followers of<br />
guru Ram Rahim Singh torched cars went on a rampage throwing rocks and attacking<br />
television vans and setting fire to dozens of private vehicles.<br />
More than 100,000 were estimated to have gone to the city in Haryana state,<br />
where India’s federal investigations agency had set up a special court to rule on the<br />
charge that he had raped two female devotees.<br />
Authorities said 32 people had been killed and around 180 injured after rioting<br />
broke out in Haryana, where many areas were now under curfew.<br />
“The situation continues to be grim but we are gaining some ground. Hopefully<br />
we will mobilise more forces in the night to take control,” a senior state official said<br />
on condition of anonymity.<br />
He said the large crowd went berserk soon after the verdict was pronounced and<br />
attacked police and set vehicles afire before the police took action.<br />
AFP<br />
Most of the fatalities were caused by gunshots, the officer said.<br />
august 27<br />
Wildfire forces 1,100 to flee in Canada<br />
A new wildfire forced 1,100 residents in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia to flee overnight and the blaze was still burning<br />
out of control Friday, officials said.<br />
The blaze started about 20 kilometers east of the Okanagan wine region<br />
in the residential community of Joe Rich, near Kelowna.<br />
Stoked by high winds, it caught many off guard, including one woman<br />
who told public broadcaster CBC that flames shot up trees around her while<br />
she was out jogging on backcountry trails.<br />
“The fire exhibited aggressive behavior,” Justine Hunse of the British<br />
Columbia wildfire service said. “It’s still out of control.”<br />
However, she added, “due to a drop in temperature and winds, the fire<br />
did not grow significantly overnight.”<br />
British Columbia chief wildfire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said it<br />
was likely human-caused.<br />
The area east of Kelowna is heavily forested and the mountainous terrain<br />
is steep, making the fire difficult to fight.<br />
AFP<br />
AFP
6<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
DT<br />
Facts<br />
Insight<br />
7<br />
Monday, august <strong>28</strong>, 2017<br />
DT<br />
Who owns Mars? Mining puts spotlight on out of this<br />
<strong>world</strong> property claims<br />
• Thomson Reuters<br />
Foundation, Toronto<br />
Pictures: AP, Getty Images<br />
© GRAPHIC NEWS<br />
2000<br />
1980<br />
1990<br />
Can anyone claim the red planet or<br />
natural resources on asteroids?<br />
Business leaders and legal experts<br />
say the question has become<br />
more than philosophical as a growing<br />
number of firms, often backed<br />
by capital and technology from Silicon<br />
Valley, have set their sights on<br />
the resources of outer space asteroids<br />
and Mars.<br />
In order to avoid conflicts between<br />
competing companies and<br />
countries over outer space resources,<br />
more work needs to be done<br />
on Earth to determine who owns<br />
Jul 1, 1961: Diana Frances<br />
Spencer born. Her parents<br />
split up when she<br />
is six years old<br />
commodities taken from celestial<br />
bodies, analysts said.<br />
“There is a huge debate on<br />
whether companies can simply<br />
travel to space and extract its resources,”<br />
said Barry Kellman, a law<br />
Feb 24, 1981: Engagement<br />
of Prince Charles and<br />
Lady Diana Spencer<br />
announced<br />
Jul 29: Royal wedding<br />
seen by around 750m<br />
TV viewers <strong>world</strong>wide<br />
Jun 21, 1982:<br />
Prince William<br />
born<br />
Sep 15,<br />
1984: Prince<br />
Harry born<br />
Apr 1987: Diana shakes hands<br />
with AIDS patient – key moment<br />
in fight against fear of disease<br />
Dec 1992:<br />
Separation of Charles<br />
and Diana announced<br />
1994-95: Charles and Diana<br />
both publicly admit to extra-marital<br />
affairs. Queen urges couple<br />
to divorce after Diana<br />
implies Charles is not<br />
suited to be king<br />
Aug 1996: Divorce finalised,<br />
Diana loses HRH title<br />
Jan 1997: In Angola, Diana calls<br />
for campaign against landmines<br />
Jun: Auction of her dresses raises<br />
$4.5m for AIDS and cancer research<br />
Aug 31: Diana,<br />
boyfriend<br />
Dodi al-Fayed<br />
and driver<br />
Henri Paul,<br />
killed in car<br />
crash in Paris<br />
Sep 4: As sea of flowers<br />
swells around Diana’s<br />
London home, Queen bows<br />
to mounting public pressure<br />
to participate in mourning<br />
Sep 6: Thousands line<br />
streets for funeral at<br />
Westminster Abbey.<br />
Diana buried on island<br />
in lake at Spencer<br />
family’s ancestral home<br />
professor who studies space governance at DePaul University<br />
in Chicago.<br />
“There is no way to answer the question until someone<br />
does it,” Kellman said.<br />
Asteroid water for sale<br />
US-based Planetary Resources, a firm backed by Google<br />
founder Larry Page and Virgin Group’s Richard Branson,<br />
expects to be mining asteroids for water in the next 10 to<br />
15 years.<br />
The company will launch its first robotic probe mission<br />
to scout asteroids for resource deposits in 2020, said Planetary<br />
Resources’ Chief Executive Chris Lewicki.<br />
“If you obtain a resource and bring it with you, it becomes<br />
your property,” Lewicki said, citing recently passed<br />
space laws in the US and Luxembourg that offer a legal<br />
framework to ensure that private operators can be confident<br />
about their rights over resources they extract in space.<br />
“You can sell, keep or deliver (space resources) peacefully,”<br />
Lewicki added.<br />
The firm plans to extract oxygen and hydrogen, the components<br />
of water, from asteroids to sell.<br />
Lewicki is not planning on bringing those water resources<br />
back to Earth; he wants market them in space, creating a<br />
“gas station” for other exploration missions.<br />
Hydrogen and oxygen, kept at a docking station orbiting<br />
around Earth, will be used to fuel other space ships.<br />
Martian appropriation<br />
Other analysts are not sure if companies can just fly up<br />
and start harvesting cosmic water, legally speaking.<br />
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is the main international<br />
standard for what companies and countries are allowed to<br />
do when they aren’t on earth, said Jacob Haqq-Misra, director<br />
of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, a Seattle-based<br />
research group.<br />
The treaty says that space is the “provenance of all mankind”.<br />
Countries cannot claim “national appropriation” or<br />
sovereignty over the Moon or other celestial bodies “by occupation<br />
or by other means”, the treaty says.<br />
This clause could prove tricky for private firms who want<br />
to mine on asteroids or Mars, said Haqq-Misra, including<br />
Planetary Resources and SpaceX, the private rocketship<br />
company run by tech billionaire Elon Musk.<br />
New laws<br />
While the 1967 treaty is considered the global standard for<br />
sharing space, individual countries have recently passed<br />
laws allowing for property rights in the great beyond.<br />
Luxembourg this month brought into force laws allowing<br />
private firms to own resources extracted from outer space<br />
in a move hailed by the nascent space mining industry.<br />
Planetary Resources, for example, maintains an office<br />
in the small European country better known for its finance<br />
industry than space exploration.<br />
From sea to space<br />
Along with national legislation and the 1967 treaty, there are<br />
other earthly regulations which could provide guidance for<br />
managing extraterrestrial resources, legal experts said.<br />
Under the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Convention<br />
countries have exclusive rights to exploit natural resources<br />
within around 322km of their coast line, but ships and planes<br />
from other nations can freely pass through the waters.<br />
This could serve as a template for space resource rights,<br />
where companies have exclusive economic rights in a given<br />
area around their landing point, but not ownership over an<br />
entire asteroid or planet, lawyers said.<br />
“It’s advantageous to work out a system where people<br />
can acquire property rights enforceable through a legal process,”<br />
Andrew Brehm, an attorney with Scopelitis, Garvin,<br />
Light Hanson & Feary in Milwaukee.<br />
“That being said, outer space is viewed in society as<br />
something similar to the ocean, where there is a collective<br />
interest,” Brehm said. •<br />
As Syria war tightens, US and Russia military<br />
hotlines humming<br />
• Reuters, Qatar<br />
Even as tensions between the United<br />
States and Russia fester, there<br />
is one surprising place where their<br />
military-to-military contacts are<br />
quietly weathering the storm: Syria.<br />
It has been four months since US<br />
President Donald Trump ordered<br />
cruise missile strikes against a Syrian<br />
airfield after an alleged chemical<br />
weapons attack.<br />
In June, the US military shot<br />
down a Syrian fighter aircraft, the<br />
first US downing of a manned jet<br />
since 1999, and also shot down two<br />
Iranian-made drones that threatened<br />
US-led coalition forces.<br />
All the while, US and Russian<br />
military officials have been regularly<br />
communicating, US officials said.<br />
Some of the contacts are helping<br />
draw a line on the map that separates<br />
US, and Russian, backed forces<br />
waging parallel campaigns on<br />
Syria’s shrinking battlefields.<br />
There is also a telephone hotline<br />
linking the former Cold War foes’<br />
air operations centres. US officials<br />
said that there now are about 10 to<br />
12 calls a day on the hotline, helping<br />
keep US and Russian warplanes<br />
apart as they support different<br />
fighters on the ground.<br />
Saudi renews Iraq ties in bid to distance Iran<br />
• AFP, Baghdad<br />
Influential Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada<br />
Sadr’s visit to Saudi Arabia at the end<br />
of July signalled the Gulf Sunni powerhouse’s<br />
ambition to distance its Iranian<br />
foe from policy-making in Baghdad.<br />
In the wake of former dictator Saddam<br />
Hussein’s <strong>August</strong> 1990 invasion of<br />
Kuwait, Riyadh severed relations with<br />
Baghdad and closed its border posts<br />
with its northern neighbour.<br />
Ties have remained strained even after<br />
Saddam’s ouster in the 2003 US-led<br />
invasion of Iraq, since when successive<br />
Shia-dominated governments in Baghdad<br />
have stayed close to Tehran.<br />
But Sadr’s rare visit to Saudi Arabia<br />
came at the invitation of Riyadh, which<br />
played up his meeting with Crown Prince<br />
Mohammed bin Salman.<br />
Two weeks later, Sadr followed up<br />
by holding talks in Abu Dhabi with its<br />
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed<br />
Al-Nahyan, strongman of the United<br />
Arab Emirates (UAE) and close ally of<br />
his counterpart in the kingdom of Saudi<br />
Arabia (KSA).<br />
“Hosting Sadr in Riyadh and Abu<br />
Dhabi shows regional rivals and particularly<br />
Iran that KSA/UAE are capable of<br />
tapping into and influencing intra-Shia<br />
A picture shows two Russian S-400 Triumf S-400 Triumf missile system at the<br />
Russian Hmeimim military base in Latakia province, in the northwest of Syria, on<br />
December 16, 2015<br />
AFP<br />
That is no small task, given the<br />
complexities of Syria’s civil war.<br />
Moscow backs the Syrian government,<br />
which also is aided by Iran<br />
and Lebanon’s Hezbollah as it claws<br />
back territory from Syrian rebels<br />
and Islamic State fighters.<br />
The US military is backing a collection<br />
of Kurdish and Arab forces<br />
focusing their firepower against IS,<br />
part of a strategy to collapse the<br />
group’s self-declared “caliphate” in<br />
Syria and Iraq.<br />
“The reality is we’ve worked<br />
through some very hard problems<br />
politics in Iraq,” said Fanar Haddad, a research<br />
fellow at the Washington-based<br />
Middle East Institute.<br />
For the Gulf monarchies, “Sadr would<br />
be a prize catch: authentically Shia-Iraqi,<br />
distrustful if not disdainful of Iran and<br />
with a genuinely organic and loyal grassroots<br />
following.”<br />
‘Pulling the strings’<br />
The pro-Western Arab states of the Gulf<br />
aim to show that Iran no longer holds a<br />
monopoly on influencing policy in Baghdad,<br />
according to Iraqi political scientist<br />
Hashem al-Hashemi.<br />
Tehran “prided itself on pulling all the<br />
strings among the Shias (of Iraq) but it<br />
seems that several strings are now beyond<br />
its grasp, like that of the Sadrists”,<br />
Hashemi said.<br />
In June, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider<br />
al-Abadi, also a Shia, held meetings in<br />
Saudi Arabia, four months after a visit to<br />
Baghdad by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel<br />
al-Jubeir, a first of its kind since 2003.<br />
For Michael Knights, a researcher at<br />
the Washington Institute, such interaction<br />
with Riyadh could come at a price.<br />
“Tehran will view the Saudi Arabian<br />
engagement by Abadi and Sadr as<br />
another reason that Abadi must be displaced<br />
as premier in the 2018 elections,”<br />
and, in general, we have found a<br />
way to maintain the deconfliction<br />
line (that separates US and Russian<br />
areas of operation) and found a way<br />
to continue our mission,” Lieutenant<br />
General Jeffrey Harrigian, the<br />
top US Air Force commander in the<br />
Middle East, said in an interview.<br />
As both sides scramble to capture<br />
what is left of IS’s caliphate, the risk<br />
of accidental contacts is growing.<br />
“We have to negotiate, and<br />
sometimes the phone calls are<br />
tense. Because for us, this is about<br />
protecting ourselves, our coalition<br />
said Knights.<br />
“And Iran will work hard behind the<br />
scenes with money, media and weapons<br />
to make that happen.”<br />
But at the same time, Haddad<br />
warned that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi<br />
should not count too heavily on Sadr to<br />
restore their influence in Baghdad at the<br />
expense of Tehran.<br />
“They should moderate their expectations<br />
as to how much he will be willing<br />
to deliver,” he cautioned.<br />
Tehran has played a major political,<br />
economic and military role in Baghdad<br />
since the end of Saddam’s rule, during<br />
which Shias were barred from powerful<br />
posts and Shia-majority Iraq fought a<br />
partners and destroying the enemy,”<br />
Harrigian said, without commenting<br />
on the volume of calls.<br />
The risks of miscalculation came<br />
into full view in June, when the US<br />
shot down a Syrian Su-22 jet that<br />
was preparing to fire on US-backed<br />
forces on the ground.<br />
US officials, speaking on condition<br />
of anonymity, said those were<br />
not the only aircraft in the area. As<br />
the incident unfolded, two Russian<br />
fighter jets looked on from above<br />
and an American F-22 stealth aircraft<br />
kept watch from an even higher<br />
altitude, they said.<br />
After the incident, Moscow publicly<br />
warned it would consider any<br />
planes flying west of the Euphrates<br />
River to be targets. But the US military<br />
kept flying in the area, and kept<br />
talking with Russia.<br />
Dividing line down the Euphrates<br />
In Syria, US-backed forces are now<br />
consumed with the battle to capture<br />
IS’s former capital of Raqqa.<br />
More than half the city has been retaken<br />
from IS.<br />
Officials said talks were underway<br />
to extend a demarcation line<br />
that has been separating US- and<br />
Russian-backed fighters on the<br />
ground as fighting pushes toward<br />
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, centre right, meeting with Iraqi Prime<br />
Minister Haidar al-Abadi, centre left in Mecca on June 19, 2017 <br />
AFP<br />
1980-1988 war against Shia but non-Arab<br />
Iran.<br />
According to the Carnegie Middle<br />
East Centre, Iranian exports, not including<br />
fuel, tripled between 2008 and 2015<br />
to reach $6.2bn.<br />
Apart from military advisers on the<br />
ground in Iraq, Iran also sponsors several<br />
armed groups, in particular the paramilitary<br />
Hashed al-Shaabi units that are<br />
playing a key role in fighting the IS jihadist<br />
group.<br />
On his return from Saudi Arabia, Sadr<br />
renewed calls for the dismantling of<br />
armed groups, a stance which “makes<br />
him particularly attractive to KSA/UAE”,<br />
said Haddad.<br />
IS’s last major Syrian stronghold,<br />
the Deir al-Zor region.<br />
The line runs in an irregular arc<br />
from a point southwest of Tabqa<br />
east to a point on the Euphrates<br />
River and then down along the<br />
Euphrates River in the direction of<br />
Deir al-Zor, they said.<br />
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis,<br />
during a visit to Jordan this week,<br />
said the line was important as USand<br />
Russian-backed forces come in<br />
closer proximity of each other.<br />
“We do not do that (communication)<br />
with the (Syrian) regime. It<br />
is with the Russians, is who we’re<br />
dealing with,” Mattis said. “We<br />
continue those procedures right on<br />
down the Euphrates River Valley.”<br />
Bisected by the Euphrates River,<br />
Deir al-Zor and its oil resources are<br />
critical to the Syrian state.<br />
The province is largely in the<br />
hands of IS, but has become a priority<br />
for pro-Syrian forces. It also is<br />
in the crosshairs of the US-backed<br />
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).<br />
SDF spokesman Talal Silo said<br />
last week that there would be an<br />
SDF campaign towards Deir al-Zor<br />
“in the near future,” though the<br />
SDF was still deciding whether it<br />
would be delayed until Raqqa was<br />
fully taken from Islamic State. •<br />
But the firebrand cleric, whose own<br />
armed supporters fought fierce battles<br />
against US and government forces in the<br />
wake of the invasion, has steered clear of<br />
openly condemning Hashed al-Shaabi,<br />
which was set up at the request of the Shia<br />
religious hierarchy in post-Saddam Iraq.<br />
Arar starting point<br />
Furthermore, Haddad stressed, a warming<br />
in ties between Riyadh and Sadr<br />
cannot be compared to close relations<br />
between two states.<br />
“We’re still a long way from Iraqi-Saudi<br />
relations coming anywhere near the<br />
depth or complexity of Iraqi-Iranian ties,”<br />
he said.<br />
But in a first decisive step, Riyadh and<br />
Baghdad have announced plans to reopen<br />
the Arar desert crossing, their main<br />
border post and a potential alternative<br />
to Iraq’s posts with Iran that are used for<br />
most of its imports.<br />
The border has been shut for most of<br />
the past three decades to all travellers<br />
except Iraqi Muslim pilgrims heading to<br />
and from Mecca in western Saudi Arabia.<br />
The announcement was made during<br />
a joint inspection of the Arar post by<br />
Iraqi and Saudi officials as well as Brett<br />
McGurk, the senior US envoy to the international<br />
coalition fighting IS. •