G20 meets in Turkey today – but will Saudi and Turkish (and EU) support for ISIS be confronted?

November 15, 2015

The agenda of the G20 meeting starting in Turkey today will be dominated by Paris – and so it should.

The G20 is made up of 19 countries and the EU: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Union.

129 people died in Paris on Friday night and another 90 are still in critical condition. At least two of the terrorists had posed as refugees passing through Turkey and Greece just about a month ago. One more has now been identified as a known, 29 year old, “radicalised” French citizen.

The G20 is intended primarily as an economic forum, but Paris and Syria and ISIS can be expected to dominate. But I am not sure that any discussions about ISIS will be open enough or sufficiently meaningful in addressing root causes. To do that the agenda would have to include,

  1. the tacit support for ISIS from Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and
  2. the funding and growth of ISIS caused by the EU and US support of anti-Assad  rebels, and
  3. the misguided “multiculturalism” in the EU which – among other things – allows Saudi funded, radicalising mosques and madrassas all across Europe, and
  4. the EU “soft” policies which have now probably allowed at least hundreds of terrorists to be sneaked into Europe as “refugees”.

Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey are members of the G20, but their support for ISIS, not officially perhaps, but indirectly and by inaction and by default, will not, I think, be confronted directly. Turkey is a Nato member and is “protected” from criticism of its excesses. Criticism of Saudi Arabia is always muted from those countries dependent on oil imports or defence exports.

A great deal of ISIS financing is from private Saudi sources but surely not without the knowledge of the Saudi authorities. The official Saudi support is ostensibly for groups of Sunni rebels who are opposed to Assad and who are also said to be opposed – sometimes very mildly – to ISIS. Moreover some of these groups are no more than conduits to ISIS and al Qaida. Saudi Arabia’s primary aim seems to be to support anti-Shia groups and opposition to ISIS is only secondary. If ISIS was the only Sunni group available to oppose the Shia forces then Saudi Arabia would make sure they were supported.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally ‘God help the Shia’. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.”

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Sunni Gulf States, all want the Shia to be wiped off the face of the Earth and if that means supporting the murderous psychopaths of ISIS – well, the end justifies the means.

In the case of Turkey, it is also an overwhelming desire to prevent any Kurdish state which rules their actions. Turkish hatred of a Kurdistan is on a par with the Saudi hatred of the Shia. They are also against terrorism, provided that the Kurds are first defined as terrorists. And ISIS, as an enemy of their Kurdish enemies, is often their friend. Turkey sees Kurdish successes in Northern Iraq and parts of Syria as ominous and are quite happy to bomb Kurds in or close to Turkey, even if it helps ISIS to gain territory.

Greater Kurdistan dreams map from Jon Davis via Quora

Greater Kurdistan dreams map from Jon Davis via Quora

Turkey will not take actions against ISIS if there is any chance that Kurds may gain an advantage.

I don’t expect the G20 meeting to get more than empty statements from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Obama will order a few more air strikes. The EU is now a dithering and fractured entity. In fact the EU is now part of the problem and European countries (France, UK, Germany …) will need to act independently to oppose and attack the growth of ISIS. The G20 meeting in Antalya will get no commitments

  1. from Turkey to attack ISIS even if it helps the Kurds, or
  2. from Saudi Arabia to shut off all private funding for ISIS, or
  3. even to withdraw official Saudi support from Sunni groups who “leak” funds to ISIS, or
  4. from the EU to stop the funding from the Middle East of radicalising mosques and madrassas in Europe, or
  5. from the EU to winnow out the terrorists and criminals from among the influx of “refugees”

Sunni Muslims across the world need to pay more than lip-service to opposing the barbarism of ISIS. The Shia are already opposed to all things Sunni. But far too many Sunnis – by inaction – allow their own fanatics to prosper. They allow their fanatic imams to continue preaching their brand of hatred. They turn a blind eye to their radicalised sons and daughters. They too harbour dreams of the establishment of a new Islamic (Sunni, of course) Caliphate and have secret sympathies for the objectives of those “fighting” or murdering for this dream.

I am afraid that Sunnis anywhere (and for me that means all over Europe and the Middle East, Africa and even India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia) who do not declare themselves – by word and action – to be against the Islamic Caliphate must be taken to be supporters of, and sympathisers with, ISIS.

Mayhem in Paris – and I wonder which Muslims are celebrating?

November 14, 2015

The mayhem in Paris is not over yet. So far 40 dead are reported and 100 have been taken hostage.

So tell me again that the religion of Islam and its high priests bear no responsibility.

Or that any peaceful side of Islam has not been obliterated by its barbaric manifestations.

Or that this is probably the barbarism of just a few Sunni fanatics and should not tarnish all Muslims.

Or that there are not Madrassa-brainwashed Muslim youths across Europe who are not secretly celebrating.

Or that no money from Saudi Arabia was involved either in the brainwashing or in the barbarism.

Or that it is not misguided multiculturalism which has provided the space for their isolation and their radicalisation.

And I wonder how many hundreds if not thousands of killers have been sneaked into Europe among the – no doubt – real refugees and asylum seekers?

Someday humans societies will grow up and all organised religions and their brainwashing of children will be obsolete. But not for a very, very long time.

High jinks for Modi in London

November 13, 2015

At least it allows him to forget (temporarily) the debacle in Bihar.

Best buds: David Cameron,narendra Modi and Boris Johnson – photo AP via Daily Mail

I don’t suppose he would have given his RSS salute while in London (which in terms of comic value always reminds me of Peter Ustinov in Romanoff and Juliet).

Modi RSS salute

Modi RSS salute

Even though the RSS salute is ludicrous enough it must be said, in his defence, that I do not recall that he has ever been photographed in khaki shorts and bearing his danda.

Is the Scottish Nationalist Party inherently racist?

November 13, 2015

The natural corollary for any “nationalist” party is a discrimination against “non-nationals”. In fact it is very difficult to be a “nationalist” without also being xenophobic. In many countries in Europe the nationalist parties are very often also anti-immigrant and inherently racist to varying degrees. Nationalist, racist parties are usually on the far-right and often have a Nazi or a neo-Nazi past

Ruth Wodak …… divided these parties into four groups: “parties [that] gain support via an ambivalent relationship with fascist and Nazi pasts” (e.g., in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and France), parties that “focus primarily on a perceived threat from Islam” (e.g., in the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland), parties that “restrict their propaganda to a perceived threat to their national identities from ethnic minorities” (e.g., in Hungary, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and parties that “endorse a fundamentalist Christian conservative-reactionary agenda” (e.g., in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria)

Occasionally the nationalists come from the far-left as with Syriza in Greece or the far-left parties in Portugal. The Scottish Nationalist Party is about as far left as you can get without being just another Communist Party. But it is now becoming clear that the SNP also has a nucleus of not only xenophobic but also anti-semitic views. In the latest instance the party and the party leader have had to apologise abjectly for one of their member’s “grotesque” anti-semitic views.

Daily Mail: A Scottish Nationalist MSP was at the centre of a race-hate storm last night after sharing an anti-Semitic image online which was compared to the ‘very worst of Nazi propaganda’. Sandra White made a humiliating apology to a Jewish group which condemned the ‘bizarre and hateful’ image she circulated to her thousands of followers on social media website Twitter.

But campaigners said that she should be disciplined for ‘retweeting’ the disturbing cartoon. A petition, which had 500 supporters last night, was launched by campaigners calling on the Glasgow Kelvin MSP to quit. ………. As the row intensified last night, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon apologised to the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (ScoJec) for the ‘abhorrent’ post, which Mrs White insisted she had accidentally retweeted.

That this is not an isolated incident is apparent from the recent headlines:

Abstinence for Diwali

November 10, 2015

It’s Diwali tomorrow (Deepavali in the South today).

Abstinence is hard but a Shubh Diwali to one and all.

Not everything is sweet, but what isn’t sweet is fried!!

All that I have to abstain from 

Diwali abstinence

Diwali abstinence image from facebook

Paris conference – in the best case – cannot achieve more than 0.17ºC impact on climate

November 10, 2015

Bjorn Lomborg has a new survey paper out in Global Policy

Impact of Current Climate Proposals, Bjorn Lomborg, Global Policy, Article first published online: 9 NOV 2015, DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.12295

Lomborg’s survey and calculations only reinforce my view that the coming Paris climate conference is almost completely irrelevant to climate. So called climate policy is fundamentally flawed since the climate effect of the actions emanating from the policies cannot be measured, predicted or monitored.

Paris is essentially about wealth redistribution and that too based on ineffective tools. In fact, the primary tool, which is the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, is not even known for certain to be a tool. Lomborg shows that assuming that climate models are correct in their assumptions of the impact of CO2 (which they are not), and assuming that all promises are binding (which they will not be), and assuming that all countries live up to their “promises” (which they won’t), then by 2100 the impact on climate could, at worst be 0.048ºC, and at best, be all of 0.17ºC.

Abstract

This article investigates the temperature reduction impact of major climate policy proposals implemented by 2030, using the standard MAGICC climate model. Even optimistically assuming that promised emission cuts are maintained throughout the century, the impacts are generally small. The impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100. The full US promise for the COP21 climate conference in Paris, its so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) will reduce temperature rise by 0.031°C. The EU 20-20 policy has an impact of 0.026°C, the EU INDC 0.053°C, and China INDC 0.048°C. All climate policies by the US, China, the EU and the rest of the world, implemented from the early 2000s to 2030 and sustained through the century will likely reduce global temperature rise about 0.17°C in 2100. These impact estimates are robust to different calibrations of climate sensitivity, carbon cycling and different climate scenarios. Current climate policy promises will do little to stabilize the climate and their impact will be undetectable for many decades.

….

Conclusions

Based on climate model simulations, the emission cuts that have been proposed by the US, the EU, China and the RoW will reduce temperature increases by the end of the century, but almost all of the expected warming will still take place by 2100.

Because the climate policy impacts from individual countries are almost additive, they can be almost perfectly partitioned as is evidenced in Table 1. This shows that in the optimistic case, the EU and China each reduce mean global temperature by 2100 of about 0.05°C, and the US and the RoW each reducing a bit more than 0.03°C.

Table 1. Impact of climate policies, optimistic and pessimistic, for RCP8.5, using MAGICC, summary of finds described throughout the text
Change in temperature
°C year 2100 Pessimistic Optimistic
US INDC 0.008 0.031
US CPP 0.004 0.013
EU INDC 0.017 0.053
EU 2020 0.007 0.026
China INDC 0.014 0.048
RoW INDC 0.009 0.036
Global INDCs 0.048 0.170

As Wigley (1998) found for the Kyoto Protocol, the emissions reductions promised until 2030 will do little to stabilize the climate and their impact will be undetectable for many decades. This clearly indicates that if we want to reduce climate impacts significantly, we will have to find better ways than the ones currently proposed.

There will be much spin after Paris. Whether agreement is reached or not, and whether promises made are binding or not, it will surely be spun to seem to be a resounding success.

But it will all be, in the most optimistic case, for achieving all of a 0.17ºC impact on climate. And based on climate models which don’t work. And on unnecessary and pointless actions for a 100 years, which will achieve nothing of their objectives, but which will make life more difficult, especially for the energy-poor.

Sweden Democrats trying to terrorise asylum seekers – on behalf of the “people of Sweden”

November 10, 2015

The Sweden Democrats are trying to strike new terrors into refugees and asylum seekers currently on Lesbos, and thus prevent them from coming to Sweden. To this end they have been distributing a flyer in the name of “the people of Sweden”.

Sweden Democrat's flyer image Expressen

Sweden Democrat’s flyer – image Expressen

The whole thing has been written in, presumably Word and a font size of 14 for the body text and has then been right-justified. In their great wisdom the Sweden Democrats seem to think that this will be more readable for those used to reading from right to left. They seem not to have realised that reading a right-justified document, but from left to right is particularly stupid. I suppose it was beyond their limited capacity to translate their welcoming messages into Arabic (right-justified and then read right to left).

Sweden Democrat supporters have already set fire to some 60+ buildings ear-marked for housing the refugees. And now only the tents are left.

NO MONEY
NO JOBS
NO HOMES

You might have heard positive things about our country and the Swedish people. That we are friendly, generous and hardworking. This might be true, but our society is falling apart. 

Our wealth is gone. We have to borrow money to provide education and basic health care for our citizens. Due to decades of mass immigration our previously safe country is not safe anymore. Not only do we have a very high number of shootings and gang related violence, where grenade attacks in public spaces are no longer surprising, but Sweden now also demonstrates the second highest number of rape reports in the entire world.

Sweden is temporarily helping those who flee war and terror, but we can currently only offer tents and camp beds. And you will eventually be sent back home.

Sweden is a modern Western country. Here women and men are equal. Forced marriages and polygamy will never be accepted. Halal slaughter, wearing niqab or burqa in public places will be forbidden in our country.

Sweden Democrats               SD-Women      The People of Sweden

There are many things about Swedish policy I don’t like. It makes no sense to me that temporary residence is not granted first before permanent residency. It makes no sense either that the homage to “multi-culturalism” (rather than to mono-cultural, multi-ethnicity) has effectively forced immigrants not to integrate. It makes no sense that highly qualified and skilled newcomers are not made proper use of.

But the Sweden Democrats have neither the intelligence nor the authority to speak for me.

 

Corbyn’s 8º genuflection for Remembrance Day

November 9, 2015

I can’t help comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Michael Foot and finding Corbyn a pale imitation. Foot caused the Labour Party to split and his 1983 election manifesto was called the “longest suicide note in history”. Foot lost the election in a landslide. Corbyn is now attempting to follow that route. If his acolytes succeed in removing some of the more centrist Labour MP’s, I suppose new, new, Labour could split again. It will be interesting to see if Labour keeps him for the next election and by how much he can lose. Especially since Corbyn is not of the calibre that Foot was. Foot wins in intellect, in charm, in leadership qualities (however misguided the direction), in rhetoric and above all in having some class. Compared to Foot, Corbyn seems almost boorish.

An Army general has just pointed out that committing not to use your most potent weapon, if it was ever needed, was not a very sound defence strategy or policy. Corbyn is enraged at this incursion of military servants into his politics.

His latest debacle is his reluctant attendance at the the Remembrance Day ceremonies. He did wear a poppy after threatening not to, but the depth of his unwilling genuflection is now causing comment. As I was once instructed in Japan, the Emperor commanded 60º, ancestors about 45º and the CEO got 30º.  I would have expected honourable dead soldiers of the Great War would have been worth at least 30º. Corbyn managed about 8º.

A very stiff neck indeed.

Corbyn 8 degrees

Corbyn’s 8 degree genuflection – original photo from daily mail

 

RSS can take credit for Modi and BJP getting thrashed in Bihar

November 8, 2015

Counting has started in the Bihar elections. Narendra Modi and the BJP have made massive and desperate attempts in the last few weeks to win the state. Exit polls yesterday were however predicting a close run battle.

The Hindu nationalist RSS (less so the ineffective VHP, but not for want of trying) and their BJP minions have been particularly vocal in anti-muslim, anti-beef nonsense. The anti-beef campaign gained attention around the world for its stupidity since Hindus were eating beef for much longer than they haven’t been. But the final straw and greatest blunder was when RSS/BJP leaders started attacking Shah Rukh Khan and even former President Abdul Kalam as being  “non-Indian”.

The results are now coming in and it is proving to be a disaster for Modi and the BJP. Currently the Grand Alliance are leading in 159 seats and the BJP grouping are leading in  73 seats. More than twice as many seats as the BJP+ is more than just a drubbing or a thrashing, It is a vicious rejection not, I think, primarily of Modi’s economic policies, but of the growing perception that he is not keeping his fanatic, idiot god-men and madmen in check. But it proves that Modi is beatable. Amit Shah is not some magic election strategist. Nitish Kumar is not doing as well as Laloo Prasad Yadav in number of seats, but Nitish Kumar has put himself back on the stage as a potential Prime Minister in a coalition, government aligned against the BJP. Lalloo Prasad has been declared politically dead many times, but he is on his 4th resurrection (at my count).

It is reported that Modi has called Nitish Kumar to congratulate him.

If Modi wants a second term, he is going to have to not only dump the RSS and the VHP, but he will need to distance himself from them.

Greenpeace endangers national economic security and is deregistered in India

November 7, 2015

Greenpeace has been deregistered in India and has 30 days to shut down. They intend to challenge the deregistration in court. But their brand of eco-fascism (“we know best what is good for you”) is a luxury that India can ill afford. When per capita energy consumption in India is just one tenth of that in Europe, and one fifteenth of that in US, Greenpeace’s attempts to block coal and nuclear power in India is unconscionable.

Greenpeace in India just reflects the views and values of its foreign membership. Most of this membership is from developed countries and represents the do-gooding, self-righteous attitudes of  a comfortable, energy-guzzling middle class. In Europe, these members are often from the hard-left who, after the fall of communism, have found themselves politically homeless. They have become a political lobby group hiding under the cloak of being a welfare organisation. They not only believe they “know best what is good for others”, they also want to impose that on others. In the developing world, Greenpeace are as “colonialist” as the empire builders of the 19th century and try to impose their values and their solutions by legal and extra-legal means. In India this colonialist attitude showed up with their local “rajahs” acting as feudal lords believing they had the right of droit de seigneur. In nearly every developing country their campaigns are opposed to development projects.

In India their efforts to show that solar energy could be an alternative to coal back-fired badly. They sponsored a solar pv installation at a village in Bihar but only ended up promoting coal power. The villagers now refer to coal power as “real power” and solar power as “fake power”.

Scientific American: Over three months, engineers set up 70 kilowatts of photovoltaic cells on the rooftop of public buildings scattered throughout the village. They installed 224 batteries to store the energy. …. All told, the installation cost 2.7 crore rupees ($407,050). ……

The day the power came was one of celebration. …. Then, the wealthy families plugged in energy-inefficient televisions and refrigerators. With the power suddenly facing heavy demand, the batteries drained within hours.

The microgrid operators scrambled to fix the mess. The village electrification committee decided to restrict electricity supply to five hours at nighttime. Greenpeace put up posters telling people not to use energy-hungry appliances such as rice cookers, electric water heaters, irons, space heaters and air coolers. ….. One month after the rollout, Greenpeace invited Bihar’s former chief minister, Nitish Kumar, to inaugurate the solar village. ……. One week later, trucks rolled in and set up a 100-kW transformer in town, connecting Dharnai to the grid. ….. Power is now free for Kumar and his neighbors who are below the poverty line. Others pay 3 rupees per kilowatt-hour of electricity. As of July, villagers were getting electricity day and night, …….

Meanwhile, enrollment in the solar program has fallen to 120 households, down from 380 at the start ……..At present, solar power in Dharnai costs at least three times as much as grid power. It can support only expensive energy-efficient appliances, such as CFL bulbs. A CFL bulb in India costs 700 rupees ($10), while an incandescent bulb costs 10 rupees (15 cents).

Now Greenpeace India has lost its registration, on the surface for violating financial regulations applying to NGO’s with foreign funding, but more fundamentally, for being anti-development and a threat to the economic security of the country.

NDTV: India has cancelled Greenpeace International’s license to operate and gave the group 30 days to close down, citing financial fraud and falsification of data, …… Last year, the government withdrew permission to Greenpeace to receive foreign funding, saying the money was used to block industrial projects.

Under the latest order issued by authorities in Tamil Nadu where Greenpeace is registered, the government said it had found that the organisation had violated the provisions of law by engaging in fraudulent dealings. ……. A government official confirmed that the closure order had been issued on Wednesday but did not elaborate.

In recent months the federal government has toughened rules governing charities and cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 groups for failing to declare details of overseas donations.

In India, Greenpeace has blindly opposed almost every project concerned with coal mining, coal power plants, nuclear power plants, GMO crops, forest clearing, and even building of dams. They have opposed India’s tea exports in the name of supporting plantation workers. They have openly supported candidates from a particular political party (AAP). They have tried to influence elections. Agitation has been the name of their game and foreign support has been brought in to manage conflicts that they initiate. The government’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) has estimated that Greenpeace India’s activities depress growth by 2 -3%.

The New Indian Express:

Months before Tamil Nadu’s crackdown on Greenpeace, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in September had cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of Greenpeace India. It was alleged that the NGO misused foreign funding for political activities which prejudicially affected the country’s public and economic interests.

The Home Ministry Dossier on ‘Greenpeace Activities’ with Express said that NGO was found violating the FCRA by engaging in political activities to influence and lobby for the formulation of policies of its liking. “Not only Greenpeace activists are involved in agitation, they also invited foreign activists like Emma Rachel Tranquility Gibson (UK national) for handling conflict / team dynamics, prioritisation and difficult decisions and her given task was ‘Election Project’as mentioned in the terms of reference of her job,” the MHA dossier said ……..

The financial irregularities are concerned mainly with hiding the use that foreign funds are put to:

An on-site inspection of the NGO’s accounts and records conducted on September 24 to September 27, 2014 found that Greenpeace first transferred foreign contribution received in FCRA designated bank account to FCRA utilisation account and from there to five other bank accounts without informing the authority concerned.  The NGO also shifted its office and activities from Chennai to Bengaluru without approval /intimation of the Ministry. It claimed that Greenpeace was also involved in international negative campaign against India’s most popular tea brands to reduce India’s export by publicising questionable forensic tests in an undisclosed foreign lab.

“ On October 27-28, 2013, Greenpeace India also invited a 10-member team of international activists (1 US and 9 Bangladesh nationals, nine being on tourist visa) to visit three coal block locations, Waidhan and Mudwani (Baiga Basti) in district Singrauli and Amelia to conduct an environmental study on coal blocks allocated to power plants in the district. The team also attended a meeting organised by a NTPC plant employee, Shyam Kishore……all the payments in respect of boarding and lodging were made by Greenpeace India.”

Timeline 

  • April 9, 2015: Centre freezes Greenpeace India’s seven bank accounts over FCRA violation
  • May 5: Greenpeace India’s executive director Samit Aich tells staffers that they have one month left to fight; face imminent shut down
  •  May 27: Delhi HC allows Greenpeace to utilise two accounts for collecting donations
  • May 28: District Registrar, Chennai, sends notice on inspection of Greenpeace India office in Chennai by Sub-Registrar (Chit & Society)
  • June 3: Sub-Registrar (Chit & Society) inspects Greenpeace office
  • June 16: Showcause notice sent by District Registrar on several irregularities and violations found during inspection
  • August 4: HC directs District Registrar to allow petitioner to peruse documents that RoS based its allegations on
  • October 5: Greenpeace sends extensive rebuttal through its counsel
  • November 4: District Registrar passes order cancelling Greenpeace India’s registration