Putin, Obama Begin Talks at UN General Assembly

Meeting behind closed doors, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Barack Obama have begun a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

This marks the first meeting between the two world leaders in the last two years.

Both the Kremlin and the White House say that Putin and Obama will discuss the situations in Syria and Ukraine, among other international issues.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the meeting will last approximately 55 minutes, as both leaders have other events scheduled.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150929/1027683575/Putin-Obama-UNGA-Meeting.html#ixzz3n4WSHGbG

Journalism in Pakistan: Fear and Favor

Bina Shah

In this summer’s feel-good Indian movie “Bajrangi Bhaijaan,” a Pakistani TV reporter telephones his boss to tell him he has an explosive story about an Indian spy on Pakistani territory who’s not actually a spy, but a man trying to help a lost Pakistani child find her parents. The boss tells him the story isn’t sensational enough, then hangs up, leaving the reporter grumbling that the channel’s executives care only about making money, rather than telling a good story.

To anyone familiar with Pakistan’s broadcast media today, the scene will ring true.

While Pakistan is already known as the most dangerous country in the world for working journalists — one journalist in Pakistan dies every 38 days according to the Sri Lankan media expert Ranga Kalansooriya — Pakistan’s journalists also come under another insidious type of pressure. Corporate interests, political influence, and government attempts to regulate and censor information all put great strain on an institution still emerging from decades of suppression under military dictators. And while recent chaos and conflict have enabled Pakistani print and broadcast media to flourish, the industry now faces a crossroads: It is struggling to maintain journalistic ethics that run contrary to the commercial ethos in which it operates.

Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and prominent journalist, said recently that the newsroom was no longer a “hermetically sealed environment.” Rather, it has become the “domain of a corporate invasion.” That pattern matches a larger trend throughout South Asia, where a nexus among media proprietors, investors and advertisers limits the media’s ability to report without bias.

Ms. Rehman was speaking at the recent introduction of a program in which International Media Support, a Danish-government-supported organization, will provide technical, logistical and institutional training and support for the Pakistani media to address some of these issues over the next two years. Mr. Kalansooriya advises the organization.

Until 2002, Pakistan’s broadcast media was a narrow field; it had one radio station, Radio Pakistan, started in 1947 and one state-owned television channel, Pakistan Television, started in 1964; both were mouthpieces for officially slanted information, alongside privately held print media dominated by three major consortiums: the liberal Jang Group, owned by the media magnate Shakeel ur-Rahman (this group now owns the broadcast and web outlet GEO); the Nawai Waqt Group, which treads a right-wing line, and the English-language Dawn Group, the most moderate of the three (the newspaper Dawn was founded in 1941 in Delhi, India, by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan’s independence movement, to promote the moderate ideals of his Muslim League).

In 1962, the military dictator Ayub Khan curbed the press with an ordinance that gave the government powers to arrest journalists, confiscate newspapers and partly nationalize the press. Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq followed in the 1980s by allowing the state to prosecute publishers for printing stories his administration didn’t like.

Nevertheless, Pakistani print media gained strength and credibility in that era by fighting the censorship and by reporting, critically and openly, on Pakistan’s myriad ethnic and political conflicts.

Then, in 2002, Gen. Pervez Musharraf decided to open Pakistan to the global flow of information in order to reverse decades of isolation. He allowed private television channels and FM radio stations to obtain licenses, setting off a media boom. Their reporting during the conflicts that followed 9/11 and spilled over into Pakistan allowed these television channels to flourish, taking viewers away from state media in favor of more independent reporting.

Ironically, General Musharraf himself forced GEO off the air temporarily in 2007 when the channel criticized his suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. But today, out of office, the general once again flirts with the media as he tries to return to politics.

The media have grown to 40 news channels, 143 radio stations, and hundreds of national and regional newspapers. For that they are often called “vibrant.”

Another descriptor is “vulgar.” On prime-time television, news is sensationalized, with ratings the first consideration; alongside hysterical reporting are thrilling or tragic music and crude, insensitive graphics; virtually everything is “breaking news” in no hierarchy of importance. Meanwhile, large corporations like ARY and the Lakson Group have acquired media companies after discovering that controlling media can protect their corporate interests.

Advertisers get huge influence over what’s published or aired. Advertising breaks are frequent, and banners for commercial products run incessantly. Advertising also dominates front pages: one major newspaper group recently gave front-page ads prominence over headlines on all of its papers.

Meanwhile, the government still seeks to control the media; Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulatory Authority wants an existing law amended to permit “de-linking” of television channels from their satellites if they broadcast “objectionable” or “unwanted” material.

While many in the media retain editorial integrity in the face of these pressures, Pakistani media houses have yet to come up with an industrywide code of conduct or self-regulatory body. Nor have they been able to stay unbiased. Often they blatantly take sides in political conflicts, even while describing themselves as protectors only of the public good.

So, what is the way forward? Ensuring the safety and security of Pakistani journalists is the best starting point; the industry’s foot soldiers need more training, as well as job tenure and pensions. Forming unions is another necessity, as well as creating a framework of regulation that offers protection against state and corporate pressure.

But what Pakistan’s media needs most is a unified sense of its own professional conscience, so that it can continue to thrive as it fulfills its ultimate duty to Pakistanis: to report the news free from bias and influence, while telling a good story that will catch citizens’ attention.

Does the military still control Pakistan?

By Owen Bennett-Jones



 Some call it military rule by stealth. Others prefer to describe it as the generals and the politicians working harmoniously in the national interest. But however you look at it, there's no denying the Pakistan army's political power is growing.

It all dates back to the Peshawar school attack of 16 December 2014 when the Pakistani Taliban murdered 132 schoolboys.

Within days the civilian leadership had formulated a 20-point National Action Planto confront the militants, curb their hate speeches, control their religious seminaries and cut their finances.

Aware that the civilian courts are generally reluctant to convict Jihadists, the parliament then passed a constitutional amendment to establish military courts.

The army then announced new "apex committees" that brought together senior politicians, bureaucrats, intelligence officials and military officers.

As many as 50,000 suspected militants have been detained or arrested and in another sign of the state's resolve, Malik Ishaq, the leader of a formidable sectarian group, Lashkar e Jhangvi, was shot dead by police in what is widely believed to be an extra-judicial killing.

The crackdown has led to sharply reduced levels of militant violence.

And with media highlighting the role of the army chief General Raheel Sharif, the army is enjoying a surge of public support.

But for all the hopes that the Peshawar School attacks might have marked a significant turning point, some wonder whether the National Action Plan will bring lasting change.

After all, Pakistanis could be forgiven for thinking they have seen it all before.

Tens of thousands of suspected militants were detained by General Musharraf's regime in 2007, only to be released a few months later.

Since the state lacks the capacity to investigate the detainees the same could well happen again.

When he announced the National Action Plan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stated that Pakistan would no longer distinguish between the "good" Taliban (who fight Pakistan's enemies) and the "bad" Taliban (who attack targets in Pakistan itself).

Selective targets

But in reality the state is still being selective about which groups it targets.

Pakistani-based Jihadist groups with a history of fighting Indian forces in the disputed territory of Kashmir are being left alone.

So too are the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan-facing Haqqani Network which stands accused of mounting recent attacks in Kabul.

Perhaps most controversially of all Lashkar e Toiba (or as its renamed itself, Jamaat ud Dawa), the group accused of mounting the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has not been confronted.

The group's leader Hafeez Saeed is frequently quoted in the Pakistan press.

And no-one is expecting further legal action against, for example, LSE graduate Omar Sheikh who has been convicted of involvement in the 2002 murder of the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl. His appeal has been pending since 2002.

Nor is there likely to be any resolution of the case of Mumtaz Qadri who in 2011 killed the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer.

Qadri, who objected to Taseer's calls for reform of the blasphemy laws, enjoys hero status in Pakistan.

Neither the army nor the government will want to risk undermining public support for the National Action Plan by including Qadri in its net.

Privately officials say they have to prioritize militants who attack targets within Pakistan.

But even that claim is questionable. Fearing a violent backlash, the state has hesitated to confront militants in their strongholds in Southern Punjab.

The risks are real. Within three weeks of Malik Ishaq's death, for example, Lashkar e Jhangvi hit back with a suicide bomb attack that killed the Home Minster of Punjab, Shuja Khanzada.

There are also questions about the impact of the National Action Plan on Pakistan's notoriously volatile civil/military relations.

Elected representatives both in the national parliament and provincial assemblies complain that they have been cut out of decision-making.

Cult of personality

Some also express fears about an emerging cult of personality around Army Chief General Raheel Sharif.

Posters of him have appeared on billboards throughout Pakistan's biggest city Karachi.

Mysterious websites, which seem to have access to images sourced from the military, praise him to the skies.

After decades of very poor PR, the army is now producing emotive, patriotic rock songs to bolster support for the anti-Jihadist campaign.

While Pakistani liberals worry about these developments, they simultaneously concede that if the counter narrative to the Jihadists has a militaristic air, its only because the civilians have failed to come up with an effective information strategy of their own.

The contest for public support has had an impact on Pakistan's previously irrepressible TV news channels.

Many have become so nervous about upsetting the army that they are making use of a 30-second delay on live broadcasts so that the sound can be muted before it's transmitted.

Originally brought in to stop uncritical interviews of Jihadists, the mechanism is now being used to protect the army's reputation.

One prime time TV host described how her voice was muted as soon as she used the word "military".

The person controlling the mute button did not know if she was going to say something supportive or critical of the men in uniform - so decided to play it safe.

The army's ascendency means that despite his strong electoral mandate Nawaz Sharif is unable to pursue some of his objectives.

His desire to improve relations with India has run up against the army's insistence that the intractable Kashmir issue should be at the forefront of any talks process.

---

General Raheel Sharif

• Received his military commission in 1976

• Studied military leadership in Germany, Canada and Britain

• Commanded several infantry units, some on the disputed Line of Control in Kashmir

• His brother, Shabbir Sharif, received two of the country's highest military awards after he was killed during the 1971 India-Pakistan war

• Previous appointments include inspector-general of training and evaluation at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, and head of the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, Abbottabad.
• Thought to have played a key role in switching the focus of the army from confronting India to fighting militancy.

---

Wary embrace

Mr Sharif has also been blocked from pursuing legal action against the man who removed him from power last time round, General Musharraf.

The army is unwilling to see a former chief on trial for treason.

For now the government and the army are locked in a wary embrace.

They are working together but in part that is because the civilian politicians fear that if they allow a gap to emerge between them and the military there will be another coup.

Some wonder how long the current situation can last.

"Let me tell you what I have learnt from history," said Pakistan's most prominent human rights lawyer, Asma Jahangir.

"Our army doesn't want power. It wants absolute power."

Pakistani politican wants to add anti-Ahmadiyya chapter in school syllabus

Speaking to a KhatmeNabuwat conference in Mardan, speaker of Pakistan’s KP (Khyper Pakhtunkhawa) Provincial Assembly Asad Qaiser said that “Provincial government will soon add a chapter on the belief of KhatmeNabuwat in the syllabus.” Asad Qasier is a politician from Swabi District of KP Province and is affiliated with PTI (Pakistan Tehrik e Insaf) which is considered to be a “liberal nationalist party”, lead by former cricketer Imran Khan.

Speaking to the conference he further said “Devotees of Prophet Muhammad PBUH will thwart any Qadiani (Ahmadiyya) conspiracies” and said “According to the constitution of Pakistan those who do not believe in Khatm e Nabuwat are outside the fold of Islam” The conference was attended by District Nazim of Mardan Himayatullah Mayar, Vice President of Mardan Divison Mushtaq Seemab, former MNA Muhammad Qasim, former Deputy Speaker Ikramullah Shahid, President of Traders association Ahsanullah Bacha, Vice President Traders association Haji Rehmat Gul & Arshad Manan. District Nazim Mardan also announced a public holiday in the district for next year’s conference. Khatme Nabuwat is an extremist organization that seeks to “educate” Muslims against the dangers of “Qadianiyat” (Ahmadiyya) and has several times openly called for the killing of Ahmadiyya Muslims.

Read more at: https://www.rabwah.net/pakistani-politican-wants-to-add-anti-ahmadiyya-chapter-in-school-syllabus/

Petition in Pakistan court seeks ban on Eid sacrifice by Ahmadiyya Muslims

A petition seeking directives for Chiniot police to prevent the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from offering ritual sacrifice on Eid ul Adha was disposed of by Lahore High Court with a directive for the DPO to proceed in the matter in accordance with law. On receiving the order a few days before Eid, the DPO sought guidance from the inspector general of Punjab police. The DPO has yet to receive a response from the office of the IGP. In the petition submitted on September 12, Nasir Mahmood, a Faisal Town resident, had submitted that he had read in an online newspaper published by the community that sacrificial animals would be slaughtered on the Eid day at Chenabnagar. He said that the Constitution did not allow the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to sacrifice animals on Eid ul Azha. He had requested the court to direct Chiniot police to prevent the community from sacrificing animals.

Saleemudin, a Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya spokesperson, lamented that it had become very difficult for community members to sacrifice animals on Eidul Azha. He said he had been receiving reports for several years about use of police force by sectarian groups to prevent community members from performing the ritual. He said that instead of arranging security for community members who wanted to sacrifice animals on Eid, the police were preventing them from doing so. Saleemuddin referred to an incident from last year in Sabzazar area. He said that a few days before Eid Hanjarwal police had raided the house of an Ahmadiyya family and taken into custody a male member. He said the man was released after the family submitted a written undertaking assuring the police that they would not slaughter an animal on the Eid day. He said similar incidents had been reported by community members in Sant Nagar and Township in 2013. Similar incidents were reported this year from Sant Nagar, Township, North Cantonment, Mustafa Town and Johar Town. Male member from Ahmadiyya Muslim families and their sacrificial animals were reportedly detained by the police. They were released after they submitted a written assurance that they would not slaughter any animal during Eid days. Speaking to the Media, North Cantonment DSP Mansoor said he did it to prevent unrest in the area.

Read more at: https://www.rabwah.net/petition-in-pakistan-court-seeks-ban-on-eid-sacrifice-by-ahmadiyya-muslims/

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‘Marx is back in fashion’ - Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell

Karl Marx has “come back into fashion,” newly appointed Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has said, after winning the support of French left-wing economist Thomas Piketty.

McDonnell told the BBC on Sunday that the 19th century socialist revolutionary thinker was a “definitive analyst” of the capitalist system, even though many “might disagree with his conclusions.”

He added that Marx’s seminal work, “Capital,” is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the capitalist system.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s appointment of McDonnell as shadow chancellor ruffled feathers in the party’s parliamentary ranks, with some MPs believing his economic beliefs are not centrist enough to win a general election.

During his first speech at the Labour party conference in Brighton, McDonnell pledged to launch "aggressive" measures on large tax-dodging corporations like Starbucks and Amazon.

“We are embarking on the immense task of changing the economic discourse in this country. We are throwing off that ridiculous charge that we are deficit deniers,” he said.

“We are saying, tackling the deficit is important but we are rejecting austerity as the means to do it. We are setting out an alternative based upon dynamically growing our economy, ending the tax cuts for the rich and addressing the scourge of tax evasion and avoidance.” 

Asked about Marx on BBC Radio 5 Live, McDonnell said: “If you look at our capitalist system, one of the definitive analysts of how it works – not whether it is condemned, or whether it is right or wrong, just the mechanics of how it works, when it was first formed and how it would be developed – actually was Marx.

“If you look at most of the institutions that are teaching economics today, Marx has come back into fashion because people have gone back to his analysis of just the basics of how the system works.

“People might disagree with his conclusions about what to do with the system, but actually to understand how the system works he comes up with some interesting analyses that have been built in to traditional and fairly classical economics.”

His remarks come after celebrated French economist Thomas Piketty accepted a role in Labour’s new economic advisory committee.

The professor, who won global recognition for his international bestseller, “Capital in the 21st Century,” will “discuss and develop ideas” around the party’s economic policies and strategy.

“I am very happy to take part in this economic advisory committee and assist the Labour Party in constructing an economic policy that helps tackle some of the biggest issues facing people in the UK,” Piketty said.

“There is now a brilliant opportunity for the Labour Party to construct a fresh and new political economy which will expose austerity for the failure it has been in the UK and Europe.”

The newly appointed committee will also include, amongst others, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and professors Ann Pettiffor and Simon Wren-Lewis.

Corbyn said the group would deliver his "economic vision".

“I was elected on a clear mandate to oppose austerity and to set out an economic strategy based on investment in skills, jobs and infrastructure. Our economy must deliver security for all, not just riches for a few.

“I am delighted that John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor has convened this group to advise the leadership as we set out our economic vision.”

However, “Corbynomics” as it has been dubbed, has been criticized by former City watchdog Lord Turner, who said voters may not be swung by the veteran left-winger’s policies.

Turner, who chaired the Financial Services Authority (FSA) during the 2008 financial crisis, questioned Corbyn’s policy of people’s quantitative easing.

“The legitimate concern is that if monetary finance is proposed by people who come from a strongly socialist tradition – a tradition that has tended to reject the idea of any disciplines on public expenditure – there is a danger in practice that it would be used to excess. That is the concern which Corbyn would have to address,” he warned Monday.

World leaders at UN lay out sharply different views on Syria

World leaders laid out sharply differing views of the Syrian conflict and the world at large Monday, opening a U.N. global gathering that aims to wrestle with other crises like a historic flood of refugees and the rise of groups like the Islamic State.

The U.N. secretary-general for the first time called for the Syrian crisis to be referred to the International Criminal Court, while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said its recent nuclear deal with world powers had a broader goal: "We want to suggest a new and constructive way to recreate the international order."

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a $1 billion pledge for U.N. peace efforts.

And Jordan's King Abdullah II made a heartfelt defense of the kinder side of the Muslim world in the face of "the outlaws of Islam that operate globally today."

"When and how did fear and intimidation creep so insidiously into our conversation when there is so much more to be said about the love of God?" he asked, also quoting the Quran on mercy.

The king has called the rise of extremist groups like the Islamic State, and the crises they have caused, "a third world war, and I believe we must respond with equal intensity." Jordan borders both Syria and Iraq, and Syrian refugees now make up 20 percent of Jordan's population. Iraq and Turkey also groan under the strain of millions of refugees.

Ban Ki-moon's state of the world address to leaders from the U.N.'s 193 member states insisted on a political solution to the conflict in Syria, now well into its fifth year with more than a quarter of a million people killed.

Ban said five countries "hold the key" to a political solution to Syria: Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.

President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, hours ahead of their first face-to-face meeting in nearly a year, gave no sign of closing their deep divide on the Syrian crisis.

Obama said of Syrian President Bashar Assad, "when a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people, that is not a matter of a nation's internal affairs." The U.S. is prepared to work with any country, including Russia and Iran, to resolve Syria's conflict, Obama said.

The U.S. president also took jabs at Russia and China, without naming names. "The strong men of today become the spark of revolution tomorrow," Obama warned. And he added in a critique of restrictions on speech, "You can control access to information ... but you cannot turn a lie into truth."

Putin, who showed up the U.N. gathering for the first time in a decade and was not at Russia's seat in the chamber when Obama spoke, called for the creation of a broad international coalition against terror, following his country's surprising moves in recent weeks to increase its military presence in Syria and to share intelligence on the Islamic State group with Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The Russian leader dismissed the West's concerns about his country's ambitions in Syria, "as if they have no ambitions at all," and he called it "an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate" with the Syrian government.

Ukraine's table just in front of the speaker's stand was empty as Putin spoke. The country struggles against pro-Russia separatists in its east, while Russia denies supporting them.

Rouhani, who entered the chamber smiling, appeared to align with Putin's call for a U.N. Security Council resolution consolidating the fight against terror, saying "we propose that the fight against terrorism be incorporated into a binding international document and no country be allowed to use terrorism for the purpose of intervention in the affairs of other countries."

Other crises at the center of this week's discussions include the related refugee and migrant crisis, the largest since the upheaval of World War II.

Ban warned that resources to address these crises are dangerously low. "The global humanitarian system is not broken; it is broke," he said. The U.N. has just half of what it needs to help people in Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen, and just a third of what's needed for Syria.

The U.N. chief, in unusually hard-hitting words, also blamed "proxy battles of others" for driving the fighting in Yemen, and he warned against "the dangerous drift" in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it is essential for the international community to pressure both sides to re-engage.

Others speaking Monday included French President Francois Hollande, who again declared that Assad "cannot be part of the solution," and Cuban President Raul Castro, who also has a meeting planned with Obama.

Some, including Obama, Xi and Hollande, already addressed the General Assembly over the weekend during a separate global summit on sweeping new U.N. development goals for the next 15 years.

Putin's UN speech showcases Russias view of the shifting global order

Andrei Korobkov

Putin’s speech at the UN is further indication that the Kremlin feels more confident on the global stage. The Syria crisis and the ISIS threat are now being used by Moscow as assets to highlight its important role in dealing with global challenges.

Russian President President Vladimir Putin attends a luncheon hosted by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, at United Nations headquarters. Photo: AP

The speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the UN General Assembly, with its mention of a broad-based coalition to take on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS), has already attracted a lot of attention in the media for the impact that it might have on global security.

However, Putin did not express any new ideas, but rather, voiced his consistent and even more decisive position on international affairs. Once again, he laid out Russia’s concerns over NATO expansion, the increasing influence of radical Islamist organizations and the crisis of the international system founded after the Second World War.

Putin also warned against what he describes as the hegemonic influence of certain powers (implying the U.S.) and reiterated the reasons that lie behind Russia’s policy in Ukraine, such as the power vacuum that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO's expansion eastward.

Some see Putin’s speech at the UN and his upcoming meeting with his American counterpart Barack Obama in New York as a political victory, marking his triumphant “return” to the world’s political arena after a period of ten years in which he did not address the UN General Assembly.

However, let’s be clear. This is not about Putin’s triumphant return, for the simple reason that he never went away. The fact is that both Russia and the West continue to view the world as a vast Eurocentric playground (not so much geographically, since it includes North America, but in terms of civilization, culture, politics and economics).

THIS SYSTEM, WHICH DOMINATED THE WORLD IN THE POST-WAR ERA, IS NOW UNRAVELING BEFORE OUR VERY EYES

This system, which dominated the world in the post-war era, is now unraveling before our very eyes. Therefore, just because the West “excluded” Putin for a while does not mean that he “left” world politics — on the contrary, in Russia his prestige and influence in the last two years have grown significantly, especially in the so-called Global South.

The opening shots in the new dialogue come as no surprise, since the West has cornered itself on the Middle East. The result is European panic over the influx of refugees, which, incidentally, is not the largest the continent has ever seen.

Meanwhile, the United States is beginning to understand that 45 years of supporting groups hostile to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has not only failed, but facilitated the rise of movements far more aggressively minded towards the West.

In recent days the situation has been exacerbated by information leaked to the press about the colossal sums of money spent on training fighters from Syria’s “democratic opposition” — first the news that most of the trained group immediately switched allegiance to ISIS, and then that around $500 million had gone on training another such unit consisting of five (!) soldiers.

So it is not just a matter of total disarray and the lack of any clear concept in Syria, but of manifest large-scale corruption. Therefore, no matter how unpleasant, we have to recognize the fact that the Assad regime is a far lesser evil than either ISIS or the total collapse of the Syrian state.

It is a bitter pill for the West to swallow, since it vindicates the Russian president and underscores the importance of Russia in settling the Middle East crisis.

Incidentally, the process of rethinking U.S. policy in the Middle East began much earlier, in the first years of Obama’s presidency, the culmination of which was the signing of an agreement on Iran and the de facto recognition of the failure of the previous tactic and the need for coordinated action against the common enemy in the form of Sunni fundamentalism.

Will this lead to compromise in other areas, including Ukraine? Yes and no. A Middle East agreement per se will not cause such a shift. But the overall dynamics of the conflict are certainly pushing the West in that direction.

There are at least three factors nudging the West towards a possible compromise. First, European leaders are horrified at the migration flows from the Middle East and do not want to encounter an even larger exodus out of Ukraine.

Second, the ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian army is by now well understood by everyone.

Third, there is growing irritation in the West over the lack of real reform and the growing corruption in Ukraine. These factors could indeed help bring about some progress.

However, the unfolding 2016 U.S. presidential campaign makes any concessions to Moscow very risky for Obama, who is already portrayed as having ceded the strategic upper hand to Putin in the Middle East. This year’s meeting of the UN, already important because of the 70th anniversary milestone, has taken on even greater meaning now that we have seen Putin and Obama outline their views of the future in such stark contrast.

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Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Is Just Another Huge Tax Cut for the Rich

Donald Trump has spent weeks talking like a populist, promising to make the rich pay their fair share and attacking his opponents as puppets of the party’s wealthy donor base. Some of us concluded Trump was running to the left of the Establishment on taxes. Now Trump has released his “plan” to “reform” taxes, and it’s clear this conclusion was totally wrong.

Trump’s proposal is extremely similar to all the other Republican plans. He would cut the top tax rate to 25 percent, even lower than the 28 percent rate proposed by Jeb Bush. While Trump would not eliminate taxes on investment income, as Marco Rubio proposes, he likewise plans to eliminate the estate tax, which currently applies only to inheritances over $10 million.* Trump says he will pay for all this by eliminating “loopholes,” but fails to identify these loopholes. Even if he cleaned out every deduction in the tax code, there is not enough revenue to make up for the enormous tax cuts he would supply to the rich.
Who’d have guessed — the rich Republican who inherited an enormous real-estate empire from his father wants to cut taxes for rich people in general and wealthy heirs in particular! Trump seems to have reached the same conclusion as all of his opponents: Actually running on a populist tax plan in a Republican primary has the benefit of appealing to a popular position, but the cost of making Republican power brokers apoplectic, whereas merely pretending to have a populist plan has most of the same benefits and none of the costs. In retrospect, taking Trump’s rhetoric at face value was an extremely terrible idea, and we should feel bad.

Russia Surprises U.S. With Accord on Battling ISIS

By MICHAEL R. GORDON


For the second time this month, Russia moved to expand its political and military influence in the Syria conflict and left the United States scrambling, this time by reaching an understanding, announced on Sunday, with Iraq, Syria and Iran to share intelligence about the Islamic State.

Like Russia’s earlier move to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad by deploying warplanes and tanks to a base near Latakia, Syria, the intelligence-sharing arrangement was sealed without notice to the United States. American officials knew that a group of Russian military officers were in Baghdad, but they were clearly surprised when the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command announced the intelligence sharing accord on Sunday.

It was another sign that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was moving ahead with a sharply different tack from that of the Obama administration in battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, by assembling a rival coalition that includes Iran and the Syrian government.

The effort, which Mr. Putin is expected to underscore in his speech at the United Nations on Monday, not only puts Moscow in a position to give military support to Mr. Assad, its longtime ally in the Middle East, but could also enable the Kremlin to influence the choice of a successor if Mr. Assad were to eventually leave power.

Russia’s moves are raising difficult questions for the Obama administration, which remains deeply conflicted about American military involvement in the Syria conflict. Ensuring that the Russian military and the United States-led coalition, which is carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State, “deconflict” and avoid running into each other is only part of the problem: The Obama administration and the Kremlin do not appear to agree even on the main reason for the conflict.

American officials, who have long cast Mr. Assad as the primary source of instability in Syria, assert that the Syrian leader’s brutal crackdown provided an opening for jihadist groups and that the crisis cannot be resolved until a political transition is negotiated that requires him to leave power. But Russian officials see the Syrian government as a bulwark against further gains by groups like Islamic State and Nusra Front and sometimes suggest that the defeat of the Islamic State should come before a negotiated solution for the Syrian conflict.

Even as the United States has banked on a diplomatic strategy of trying to enlist Russia’s cooperation in Syria, the Kremlin has continued to jolt the White House with its unilateral military and political moves.

“This is not yet coordinated,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday at the start of a meeting in New York with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. “Our presidents will be meeting tomorrow. This is the beginning of a genuine effort to see if there is a way to deconflict, but also to find a way forward that will be effective in keeping a united, secular Syria that can be at peace and stable again without foreign troops present, and that’s our hope.”

Robert S. Ford, the former American ambassador to Syria, said that Russian officials have long said they are not wedded to Mr. Assad but have insisted his government is legitimate and rebuffed efforts to impose a successor.

Adding to the United States’ concern, Russian surveillance drones have conducted about half a dozen reconnaissance missions from a recently bolstered base near Latakia. The drones have flown over Latakia, western Idlib, and western Hama, according to a senior United States official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments.

American analysts have not detected any Islamic State fighters in those areas, the official said. That raises the prospect that, despite its stated focus of fighting the Islamic State, Russia may take the opportunity to attack Syrian opposition fighters who are focused on battling Mr. Assad’s government and who are also backed by the United States.

Mr. Putin has been dismissive of the Pentagon program to train and equip the moderate Syria opposition — an effort that has yielded only a small handful of fighters. At the same time, new volunteers have been arriving to replenish the ranks of the Islamic State even more quickly than they are killed.

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President Obama addresses 70th session of the UNGA (FULL SPEECH)

Putin suggests discussing resolution on coordination of forces fighting against IS

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the global community to establish an international anti-terrorist coalition with participation of Islamic countries.

"In reality, we propose to be guided not by ambition, but by common values and common interests. We call for joining efforts on the basis of international law for solving new challenges and create a broad international anti-terrorist coalition," Putin told the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.

"Like the anti-Hitler coalition, it can bring together different forces that will decisively fight against those who, like Nazis, sow evil and antihumanism," he added noting that "Muslim countries should become key participants of the coalition."

Putin has described as hypocritical loud-spoken statements about fighting terrorism on the part of those who use extremists for achieving their own goals.

The Russian president has called to account those who created conflict situation in Middle East and allowed terrorism to spread and ask them "Do you understand what you’ve done?

Video - 'Do you realise what you've done?' Putin addresses UNGA 2015 (FULL SPEECH)