Category Archives: Society

Britain, European Court, Government, Human Rights, Legal, National Security, Politics, Society

Surveillance legislation: Conflicts exist between freedom and security…

SNOOPING LAWS

The announcement of a new surveillance law has fostered the suspicion that a voracious security state is elbowing aside the rights of civilians to communicate in private. There may well be cause for mistrust – but such concerns lie in the manner of the law’s introduction, and much less so the provisions it contains.

The UK Government justifies bringing in ‘emergency’ legislation as it intends to keep a full-blown register (a ‘who’s who of public enemies) that will shore up the power of government bodies to gather data on British citizens.

This is a law which has been agreed upon in principle by party leaders at Westminster behind closed doors. The speed of its introduction has raised many eyebrows, not least because this is a process that has not been open to public consultation and one which clearly adds to the impression that the Government is seizing for itself unwarranted powers.

In reality, though, the ‘emergency’ being enacted upon is more banal. In a few years, the law may actually benefit the libertarian cause. The exact cause for adopting parliamentary legislation in the first place is down to a legal case launched by the Open Rights group. Although the organisation is temporarily dormant, it has been made active following an April ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). That ruling would have lifted the requirement for telecommunications companies to keep a wide range of billing data on their customers for a period of 12 months.

Keeping this data available to the authorities is the reason for instigating emergency legislation. This is preferable than to suddenly ‘going dark’, and appears to require no immediate development in changing the status of our security. Important concessions have been conceded: an independent privacy and civil liberties board is to be created, and there will be a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This sets the limit on digital surveillance. The emergency amendments will also expire in 2016, so that new laws can be created once the review has been completed and appraised.

Some critics argue that what we need is smarter surveillance, not yet more of it. This far reaching extension of government spying on our daily lives, they say, would be illiberal and possibly ineffective.

Since this Bill is also about interception (and not just retention of data) many people will want to know what the additional protections will be if we are to have any confidence in such powers. One requirement is greater transparency so that we know how and why this data is being used. Government openness around surveillance can be improved without compromising security.

The Government has promised an annual transparency report. The concerns of libertarians will be whether it is sufficiently comprehensive, but that can only be deduced once the full details are known. In his annual report, the Interception Communications Commissioner, Sir Anthony May, said: ‘The unreliability and inadequacy of the statistical requirements is a significant problem which requires attention.’ Sir Anthony also expressed ‘considerable sympathy’ with those who are hazy and unsure about the details and implications of snooping legislation.

The Government has made a strong case for law enforcement agencies to be given access to communications traffic (which precludes its content as this would require a warrant) in the investigation of serious crime and terrorism.

The Coalition remains divided over how wide the new powers should be. The Prime Minister has indicated that he favours revisiting the option of wider snooping powers, but Nick Clegg remains opposed. But however surveillance legislation evolves it is right that a sunset clause exists in the Bill to curtail its powers in 2016. That forces a renewal by the next Parliament – but only after a wider democratic debate about how best to strike the balance between privacy and security.

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Economic, Financial Markets, Government, Politics, Society

The global economy and the threats it faces…

FLASHPOINTS AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Never has the world been subject to a constant flux of shifting alliances as it is in modern times. The world is once again in turmoil, from Iraq to the West Bank and from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. The geographical stakes and risks are extraordinarily high leading some strategic thinkers to compare the global landscape to that which preceded the First World War a century ago.

When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) produced its April 2014 forecast of 3.6 per cent global output for the current year it added an important caveat. It warned that geopolitical factors, at the time mainly thought to be the turmoil in Ukraine, posed a potential threat to its projections.

There are, however, five major geopolitical flashpoints which currently pose a threat to economic stability:

  • The ISIS advance in Iraq

That a small ragtag of some 30,000 jihadists born out of Syria’s civil war could be a threat to Iraq, with its American trained forces and weaponry, would have seemed inconceivable just a few weeks ago.

But ISIS is well funded, as a result of wealth created from kidnappings on the Turkish border, secret donations from Sunni Gulf states and the seizure of bank deposits in Mozul. It is also battle hardened from Syria.

Its seizure of refineries in Northern Iraq threatens the country’s oil production of 3.4m barrels a day or 11 per cent of the world’s current supply.

Brent Crude has exceeded, once again, $113 a barrel. So far the valuable fields of Baghdad, including those operated by BP, remain in operation. But that cannot be guaranteed even with any form of US-led intervention.

  • Middle East peace process

The recent unification deal between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas led to deadlock with Israel over future negotiations. Then came the kidnapping of three Israel youths from a bus stop on the West Bank; murdered in haste after being wrongly identified as Israeli soldiers. Tit-for-tat followed which has ultimately led to high level tensions in the Middle East with the Government of Binyamin Netanyahu amassing 40,000 troops who appear ready for a land invasion and incursion into the Gaza Strip.

The risk now is of Israel escalating the current difficulties into a much wider conflict with the threat, for example, to Middle Eastern oil lanes and production.

  • Iran nuclear talks

The July 20 deadline set for Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions fast approaches.

Despite some rather conciliatory language from President Rouhani of Iran, intelligence suggests little ground has been given on vital issues such as reducing the numbers of centrifuges and ending experiments with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The US tilt at diplomacy with Iran has been met with heavy resistance in Congress. President Obama has been finding it hard to persuade Capitol Hill to ease the financial and economic sanctions that brought Tehran to the bargaining table in Geneva.

Western oil and banking interests are champing at the bit for an end to sanctions that could re-open Iran as a lucrative market.

  • Ukraine-Russia

Flashpoints continue on the borderlands of Western Europe. President Putin shows no signs of backing down from his efforts to infiltrate and recolonize Russian speaking enclaves in Eastern Ukraine.

The so-called ‘Putin doctrine’ – the idea that Moscow is planning to retake areas of vital Russian interest reaching into the Baltics – is almost certainly a myth because that would mean directly confronting NATO.

But the threat to gas supplies following cut-offs to Ukraine is a clear and present danger that will become worse as time moves on.

The crisis already has led to a Russian pivot towards Asia in the shape of the Chinese natural gas deal in which London-based Glencore is involved in financing.

Creating a secure environment in Ukraine, in which Western assistance is co-ordinated by the IMF (where monies can be released), is proving extraordinarily difficult to enact.

  • South and West China Seas

Many strategic experts see this as the theatre for the next great strategic rivalry with China and the US – that has moved much of its navy into Pacific waters – eventually clashing.

At present the dispute is manifesting itself in proxy stand-offs between Japan and China and Vietnam and China.

There are overlapping claims to islands such as Senkaku in the Okinawa Sea that are claimed by both China and Japan.

Similarly, South Korea and Japan have clashed following large scale Korean naval operations in the region.

There are fears that a collision of war ships, an attempt to run blockades or guns fired in error could provoke an all-out war.

The tensions, serious as they are, could be unexpectedly good news for BAE Systems and other defence firms as surplus Asian nations rebuild their rundown defences.

Nevertheless, a conflict in the region – the locomotive of manufacturing output – could be devastating for Western economies.

General Western Outlook

The immediate highest risks for Western economic output come from an interruption of oil supplies in the Middle East and gas supplies from Russia via the Ukraine.

However, America’s increased oil and gas fracking activities together with new gas finds – such as those off the coast of Israel – make the world a little less vulnerable than it was after the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and the first Iraq war of 1990-91.

More serious long-term threats come from the China seas where a battle for hegemony, not dissimilar to that which caused two world wars, looks to be underway.

Globalisation has produced rich rewards in terms of fast economic development, industrialisation and prosperity.

But it has also brought with it profound new strategic concerns that could damage confidence and crush output at a time when the West is still recovering from the financial and Eurozone crisis.

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Government, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Society, United Nations, United States

Israeli/Palestinian conflict: A need for restraint…

MIDDLE EAST

Intro: It must surely be in the interests of both sides in this missile strewn battle not to let their actions spiral out of control

In the first three days of its air offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas – to which Islamic Jihad is affiliated – the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) struck more than 780 targets in Gaza, including leaders of the organisation, rocket-launchers and missiles which have been deliberately hidden and concealed among the territory’s civilian population.

In response, Hamas has been firing hundreds of its own rockets at Israel from shifting launch-sites in the Gaza Strip.

What makes this latest outbreak so terrifying in the endless tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the extraordinary intensity of both the provocation from Hamas, and the response from Israel: Hamas for the first time in years has been directly targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. As a result, nearly three million people in these cities have been forced into bomb-shelters over recent days.

In the past week, Hamas rockets have also been fired at targets as far away as Hadera and Haifa in northern Israel, and at the heavily-protected Dimona plant where Israel’s nuclear weapons are made and assembled.

Hamas’s military wing, the Army of Al-Qassam, has only been able to display such ambition because it has recently added a formidable new weapon to its armoury of more than 11,000 missiles – a clutch of Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of 100 miles. Before now, the maximum range of their rockets had been in the region of 50 miles.

With this dramatic escalation in Hamas’s ability to strike deep into Israel, the IDF is poised for a ground invasion of Gaza.

It is no understatement to say that the inevitable bloodshed and carnage that would follow such a development could inflame tensions throughout the Middle East, especially if Hamas manages to incite a general Palestinian uprising or intifada.

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Given the horrific chaos that already exists in Syria and Iraq, it is little wonder that world leaders are deeply anxious and calling for restraint on both sides.

Ever since the Israeli state was created in 1948, and carved out of land that used to be Palestine, there has always been a sense of grievance among Palestinian Arabs, many of whom were dispossessed when Jewish settlers moved in.

Although 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs still live in Israel, huge numbers left their land and moved to Gaza – a strip of territory 25 miles long by seven miles at its widest – which is now home to 1.5 million people and one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

Whatever the rights and wrongs – and there are wrongs on both sides – it is perhaps understandable that their descendants feel resentment towards Israelis who live on land they believe is rightfully theirs.

This resentment has resulted in continual attacks on Israel by Palestinians, and the latest cycle of violence started after Hamas kidnapped three Israeli schoolboys on June 12 in a bid to boost its popularity among Palestinians in the run-up to elections in less than six months time.

The militant group coldly murdered its teenage captives – possibly in panic after discovering they were not Israeli soldiers who could be used as bargaining chips to swap for released Hamas prisoners.

Even President Mahmoud Abbas, who governs the Palestinian Authority in coalition with Hamas, reluctantly condemned the atrocity – although cynics said this was to ensure continued US and EU financial aid.

But in swift retribution, Israeli vigilantes kidnapped a Palestinian teenager and killed him. He was almost certainly burnt alive, for it has been reported that soot was found in his throat and lungs.

The Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the vigilante killing in the strongest terms, saying those responsible for the crime would be met with the full weight of the law.

Nevertheless, the Israelis felt so violated by the callous murder of their own three teenagers, that Netanyahu had to act in response to his people’s demands that something had to be done to smash the Hamas terrorist network.

Yet, this was almost certainly what the ruthless strategists of Hamas had cynically intended. For incurring the wrath and anger of Israel is a vote-winning move for them – particularly since they now possess their new long-range missiles to hit back with. Indeed, as soon as Israel launched its revenge offensive, the Syrian made M-302 missiles were wheeled into action – even though Hamas does not have proper guidance systems. As a result, some of the rockets either ended up in the sea or exploded harmlessly in open countryside.

How many of these long-range missiles Hamas have in total is not clear, but it is likely to be in the low tens. Most likely they came from Iran.

A blog on the IDF website recently suggested a ship carrying them was intercepted by Israeli commandos in March in the Red Sea, off the African coast. It stated that the ‘Iranian weapons’ on board were ‘destined for Gaza terrorists’. The ship was due to drop them off in Sudan, from where they would be delivered overland to Gaza via Egypt.

The Israelis, too, have brought into action their own state-of-the-art weaponry – not least their extraordinarily effective US -financed Iron Dome defence system. This instantly detects any missile launch from Gaza, and computers in a command truck calculate the trajectory and target destination, enabling a Tamir interceptor missile to destroy the rocket high in the air.

The ingenuity of the Iron Dome is that it can work out if the missile is likely to hit a populated area, in which case it is demolished. If it is heading for the countryside or the sea, it is left to explode.

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In Hamas’s last massed rocket assault, in 2012, Iron Dome had an 84 per cent success rate against 426 incoming missiles. This partially explains why, despite missiles being fired by both sides, there have been no Israeli deaths so far, compared to more than 85 Palestinian fatalities.

While IDF warplanes and drones pound Hamas targets, Netanyahu has called up 40,000 reservists to signal to Hamas that he is serious about a ground incursion into Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu will be reluctant to send in his ground troops, however, because the civilian casualties will be considerable. He will not want to risk such action being broadcast across the world with howls of anti-Israeli sentiments flowing back.

Netanyahu has to tread a very fine line. While many of his people are desperate for revenge against Hamas, he will not want to wipe them out altogether. If he did so, he might open the way for another and more extreme terrorist group to take over. It is known that a branch of the brutal and elusive militant group ISIS – which is causing Iraq and Syria to run with blood, having declared its own caliphate in northern areas of the two countries – already has an outpost in Gaza.

Israel does not need a bloody campaign of attrition, with all the negative publicity that would give rise to.

It is particularly concerned about neighbouring Jordan, a volatile country where local support for ISIS is growing and which is having to combat the terrorist group on its border with Iraq.

For its part, Hamas is under pressure, too. Its paymasters and chief weapons suppliers, Iran and Syria, are preoccupied with other matters – not least ISIS.

And the advent of the new Egyptian quasi-military government of President Sisi, who is hostile to all Islamist organisations, has led to a shutdown of the underground tunnels that Hamas uses to move arms and goods into Gaza from neighbouring Egyptian Sinai.

Iran has now cut off the $14million it gives Hamas each month because of the organisation’s backing for the Sunni rebels in Syria.

It must surely be in the interests of both sides in this missile strewn battle not to let their actions spiral out of control.

 

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