U.S. Weighs Bolder Effort to Intervene in Syria’s Conflict

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Rebels in northern Syria celebrated on Wednesday next to what was reported to be a government fighter jet.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, hoping that the conflict in Syria has reached a turning point, is considering deeper intervention to help push President Bashar al-Assad from power, according to government officials involved in the discussions.

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A Tactical Shift in Syria

 

Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A man with his wounded daughter outside a hospital in Aleppo in September after shelling by the Syrian government.

While no decisions have been made, the administration is considering several alternatives, including directly providing arms to some opposition fighters.

The most urgent decision, likely to come next week, is whether NATO should deploy surface-to-air missiles in Turkey, ostensibly to protect that country from Syrian missiles that could carry chemical weapons. The State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said Wednesday that the Patriot missile system would not be “for use beyond the Turkish border.”

But some strategists and administration officials believe that Syrian Air Force pilots might fear how else the missile batteries could be used. If so, they could be intimidated from bombing the northern Syrian border towns where the rebels control considerable territory. A NATO survey team is in Turkey, examining possible sites for the batteries.

Other, more distant options include directly providing arms to opposition fighters rather than only continuing to use other countries, especially Qatar, to do so. A riskier course would be to insert C.I.A. officers or allied intelligence services on the ground in Syria, to work more closely with opposition fighters in areas that they now largely control.

Administration officials discussed all of these steps before the presidential election. But the combination of President Obama’s re-election, which has made the White House more willing to take risks, and a series of recent tactical successes by rebel forces, one senior administration official said, “has given this debate a new urgency, and a new focus.”

The outcome of the broader debate about how heavily America should intervene in another Middle Eastern conflict remains uncertain. Mr. Obama’s record in intervening in the Arab Spring has been cautious: While he joined in what began as a humanitarian effort in Libya, he refused to put American military forces on the ground and, with the exception of a C.I.A. and diplomatic presence, ended the American role as soon as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled.

In the case of Syria, a far more complex conflict than Libya’s, some officials continue to worry that the risks of intervention — both in American lives and in setting off a broader conflict, potentially involving Turkey — are too great to justify action. Others argue that more aggressive steps are justified in Syria by the loss in life there, the risks that its chemical weapons could get loose, and the opportunity to deal a blow to Iran’s only ally in the region. The debate now coursing through the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A. resembles a similar one among America’s main allies.

“Look, let’s be frank, what we’ve done over the last 18 months hasn’t been enough,” Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, said three weeks ago after visiting a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. “The slaughter continues, the bloodshed is appalling, the bad effects it’s having on the region, the radicalization, but also the humanitarian crisis that is engulfing Syria. So let’s work together on really pushing what more we can do.” Mr. Cameron has discussed those options directly with Mr. Obama, White House officials say.

France and Britain have recognized a newly formed coalition of opposition groups, which the United States helped piece together. So far, Washington has not done so.

American officials and independent specialists on Syria said that the administration was reviewing its Syria policy in part to gain credibility and sway with opposition fighters, who have seized key Syrian military bases in recent weeks.

“The administration has figured out that if they don’t start doing something, the war will be over and they won’t have any influence over the combat forces on the ground,” said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer and specialist on the Syria military. “They may have some influence with various political groups and factions, but they won’t have influence with the fighters, and the fighters will control the territory.”

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Post-Storm Cost May Force Many From Coast Life

New York and New Jersey residents, just coming to grips with the enormous costs of repairing homes damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, will soon face another financial blow: soaring flood insurance rates and heightened standards for rebuilding that threaten to make seaside living, once and for all, a luxury only the wealthy can afford.

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Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Dave Heinrichs removed water-damaged insulation from his brother-in-law’s house in Tuckerton Beach, N.J., on Nov. 7, just over a week after Hurricane Sandy hit.

Homeowners in storm-damaged coastal areas who had flood insurance — and many more who did not, but will now be required to — will face premium increases of as much as 20 percent or 25 percent per year beginning in January, under legislation enacted in July to shore up the debt-ridden National Flood Insurance Program. The yearly increases will add hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to homeowners’ annual bills.

The higher premiums, coupled with expensive requirements for homes being rebuilt within newly mapped flood hazard zones, which will take into account the storm’s vast reach, pose a serious threat to middle-class and lower-income enclaves. In Queens, on Staten Island, on Long Island and at the Jersey Shore, many families have clung fast to a modest coastal lifestyle, often passing bungalows or small Victorian homes down through generations, even as development turned other places into playgrounds for the well-to-do.

While many homeowners are beginning to rebuild without any thought to future costs, the changes could propel a demographic shift along the Northeast Coast, even in places spared by the storm, according to federal officials, insurance industry executives and regional development experts. Ronald Schiffman, a former member of the New York City Planning Commission, said that barring intervention by Congress or the states, there would be “a massive displacement of low-income families from their historic communities.”

After weeks of tearing debris from her 87-year-old, two-story house on the bay side of Long Beach, N.Y., Barbara Carman, 59, said she understood the need to stabilize the flood insurance program, but she compared coming premium increases to “kicking people while they’re down.”

Ms. Carman and her husband, who had hoped to retire in a few years, were reconsidering whether they could afford to remain on the coast on fixed incomes. But she said she feared that even selling their home could be hard.

“Only wealthy people could afford it, I guess, not middle-class people,” she said. “You’re going to price us out of here.”

The heightened financial pressure has emerged as an unintended consequence of efforts to stop the government subsidization of risk that has encouraged so many to build and rebuild along coasts increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather. Supporters of the effort acknowledged that it would squeeze lower-income residents but said it was vital for the insurance program to reflect the risk of living along the shore.

“The irony is, if we allowed market forces to dictate at the coast, a lot of the development in the wrong places would never have gotten built,” said Jeffrey Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s chapter in New Jersey. “But we didn’t. We subsidized that development with low insurance rates for decades. And we can’t afford to keep doing that. Should a person who lives in an apartment in Newark pay for someone’s beach house?”

Because private insurers rarely provide flood insurance, the program has been run by the federal government, which kept rates artificially low under pressure from the real estate industry and other groups. Flood insurance in higher-risk areas typically costs $1,100 to $3,000 a year, for coverage capped at $250,000; the contents of a home could be insured up to $100,000 for an additional $500 or so a year, said Steve Harty, president of National Flood Services, a large claims-processing company.

Premiums will double for new policyholders and many old ones within three or four years under the new law.

Across the board, rates will begin rising an average of 20 percent after Jan. 1, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency; rate increases had previously been capped at 10 percent. For properties older than the flood insurance program, where premiums cost half as much as for newer buildings, those discounts are being phased out, through yearly rate increases of 25 percent.

Second homes and businesses will see these increases next year without exception. Primary homes will lose their discounted rates if repairs cost more than half the value of the home, if the home has had recurring flood damage or if the owner refuses an offer of money to help elevate or relocate the building — the exact situations being confronted by many homeowners affected by Hurricane Sandy. The discounted rates disappear if owners sell, let their policies lapse or make major improvements.

The practice of grandfathering is also being discontinued: homes that were built in areas deemed safe at the time, but later added to flood hazard areas, will no longer be treated as though they are on high ground.

At the same time, avoiding the expense of flood insurance will become harder for middle-class homeowners, many of whom have historically dropped their policies after a few uneventful years even though it is required for homeowners with federally backed mortgages who live in flood-prone areas. Lenders who do not enforce the requirement will face higher penalties.

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What we get wrong about China

 

 

By Bhaskar Chakravorti, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Bhaskar Chakravorti is senior associate dean of International Business and Finance and founding executive director of the Institute for Business in the Global Context at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.The views expressed are the author's own.

We now know who will be leading the two most important nations for the global economy – for the next four years in the United States’ case, and for a decade in China’s. By the time President Obama is ready to leave office, China will have passed the U.S. in GDP terms, at least according to a report by the OECD. But with GDP no longer Chinese leaders’ top concern, the country has its sights set on catching up with the U.S. in another area – innovation.
On a recent to visit to speak at the World Economic Forum's Summer Davos in Tianjin, I was struck by the sense of urgency among Chinese leaders to close the gap when it comes to innovation. It was clear to me that it is time for the U.S. to pay close attention, because urgency in China is generally followed by execution.
Unfortunately, America has worked itself up over the wrong issues as far as “competitiveness” is concerned: we bemoan the fact that China has taken our jobs (and 42 percent of Americans believe that China is already the world’s largest economy, a Pew survey suggested). But those worried about the country’s future would be better served focusing on U.S. competitiveness in innovation, something that has the potential to put this country’s growth back on track.
The problem is that there is a general (and misplaced) belief that China will always be a loser, that it can only imitate, not innovate. Critics argue that its society is too top-down and that American innovation will always be buoyed by Silicon Valley.
More from CNN: U.S. needs an infrastructure bank
But the reality is that it is naïve to believe China cannot narrow the gap in innovation, and the second Obama administration would do well to consider that America could actually learn a thing or two from across the Pacific. And it could start by grappling with some widely held myths:
1. There is no innovation in China, only piracy and imitation.
Most innovation begins with imitation; America got its start by imitating inventions from the Old World. Meanwhile, many Chinese "imitations," such as Alibaba, Tencent or Sina Weibo, have moved far beyond being mere copies of their U.S. counterparts. Each is solving problems uniquely relevant to Chinese businesses and consumers, something that could create platforms for innovations that are propelled into global markets.
2. The Chinese approach to innovation is too top-down and state-led – real innovation only comes from the bottom-up.
The Chinese state is committed to bringing China to the ranks of the innovative nations by 2020. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs might shudder at this top-down approach. Yet consider, for example, where the American entrepreneur would be if the U.S. government had not funded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that gave birth to the Internet. The state must play a role in investing in foundational innovations, such as the Internet and mobile technologies. Once these foundations are laid, then a competitive bottom-up ecosystem will encourage creative destruction. But sadly, U.S. government investment in such foundational innovations has been on a steady decline.
3. Intellectual property rights protection in China is too weak to encourage innovation.
China's weaker intellectual property protection could, arguably, make it easier to foster a climate conducive to open innovation. Of course, a balance needs to be struck between open access to intellectual property and protecting it – with no protection, innovation will stall, because investors need returns on their investment. Unfortunately, in the U.S., intellectual property protections block innovation just as much as they promote it.
4. In a globalized economy, sustaining innovation requires investment in international markets; China's brand and soft power abroad is weak and dated.
Despite several unresolved issues such as territorial disputes and balance of trade, China's influence in the world's fast-growing regions, including Africa, Latin America and East Asia, is growing more rapidly than that of the United States. When Chinese innovations look for inputs or consumers and they turn to these markets, they are likely to have as many opportunities as well-known U.S. brands – perhaps even a better chance. Indeed, when it comes to ties with Africa and Latin America, China is often one step ahead of the U.S.
5. China's education model emphasizes rote learning; innovation can only flourish in environments that encourage exploration, critical thinking and a broad education in the liberal arts tradition.
The danger with the Chinese approach is that if you don’t expose students to other disciplines and encourage critical thinking, they may lack the breadth to blossom into creative problem-solvers and risk takers. However, the U.S. system has some severe deficits of its own. A recent U.S. Department of Commerce report, for example, highlights a growing gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Notably, immigrants are the ones filling the education gap – half the start-ups in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants.
Sure, the Chinese model of innovation needs plenty of work, but in many ways China is also learning from the U.S. and following in our early footsteps. As China moves up the curve and adds the uniqueness of its own experience and approach, it may create a new hybrid model that has lessons for other nations, including the United States.
Remember, it’s true that the global positioning system is a product of the U.S. Department of Defense. But the Chinese were the ones who gave us the compass in the first place.
Chakravorti is author of “The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World.”  

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Cambodian NGO: PTT entry would benefit consumers

Cambodian NGO: PTT entry would benefit consumers

• Published: 29/11/2012 at 10:25 AM
• Online news: News

A Cambodian NGO believes that investment by Thailand's PTT oil conglomerate in petroleum projects in the region would promote competition and benefit consumers.

Thailand's largest petroleum firm said lastThursday it is currently studying options for petrochemical and oil refinery projects in three Asean countries -- Cambodia, Indonesia and Myanmar.
It includes a pre-feasibility study of a world-scale refinery and petrochemical complex in Vietnam at an estimated cost of US$28.7 billion.
In an interview with Cambodia's Phnom Penh Post, Mam Sambath, director of Development Partnership in Action, an NGO, commented positively on the news, believing that it would promote competition within the industry which in turn brings cheaper prices for consumers.
PTT would not be the first foreign oil company to operate in Cambodia. Last year, the Cambodian government signed joint-venture agreements with China National Automation Control System and Chinese-Sino to construct a US$600 million oil refinery in its Kampot province. The US giant Chevron has also been granted a concession for offshore oil drilling.
The Phnom Penh government is expected to receive about $500 million annually from the deals.

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