Praying For Humanity

Where do you intend to pray next ?

While praying for humanity…would you like to try Turkey ?

Try praying in Antalya. Infact you can choose to do so standing atop the Crowne Plaza hotel on the beach in Antalya, with an unforgettable view in all of Turkey.  And then if you look deep and far enough towards south-east, you could perhaps spot signs of some of the most serious threats to global peace and security in the last two decades. Recently enough Antalya also echoed the fact that the world can be effective in combating such unprecedented threats as posed by terrorism today only if the nations cast aside their narrow interests and work in coordination with others to ensure that the global security does not continue its downward spiral, which it has been on since the last two decades. It would be imperative for the G20 leaders to agree on a common and coordinated approach to tackle this threat.

Summit

Of course security was primary in the minds of the leaders assembled for the G20 summit here. Yet, till date the 20 most powerful and influential nations stand deeply divided to be really effectual in restoring order around the world. Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing shows that the the terrorists appear to have been financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states. Russia has offered to cooperate with the US in the anti IS efforts in the past but unfortunately America refused, sending just a written note saying ‘we reject your offer’. Infact President Obama also told ABC News in an interview hours before the Paris attacks that ISIS was ‘contained’. He said ‘ from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq,and in Syria, they’ll come in, they’ll leave. But you don’t see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain’.

Life is always evolving and at a very fast pace, often teaching lessons. And now the realization that an effective fight against terror can only be staged together, is coming to everybody.

But possibly it is not all dark and desperate, yet. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which aims to dry up any financing for terrorist and criminal activities, has made a lot of progress and now has expanded from a mere 16 nations to over 190 today all of whom are committed to curbing the access to finance for such elements. It noted in its recent report that though the world has made progress in combating money laundering and terror financing, the methods used by these organisations have evolved and the global community must keep in step with the new methods. FATF has set itself the task to review whether all member nations have implemented adequate measures to criminalise terrorist financing and cut off terrorism-related financial flows and submitted a report to the G20 countries, with additional proposals to tighten the screws on terror bodies.

Organised crime groups often launder the proceeds of their crimes and move illicit funds through the financial system using complex networks of corporate vehicles such as companies service providers and trusts. Lack of transparency in the financial system enables them to do so undetected and facilitates the commission of corruption and tax crimes. Even though this issue has been high on the agenda of both G7 and G20 leaders in recent years, many countries have still not implemented effective measures to ensure that accurate information on the beneficial ownership of corporate vehicles is available to the competent authorities on a timely basis.

FATF is also combating the emergence of new technologies such as virtual currencies as existing legal frameworks do not always cover virtual currencies adequately and this creates blocks in monitoring of such routes for terror finance. The FATF has discovered that virtual currencies have already been abused ruthlessly for money-laundering purposes.

Middle East and Africa may be experiencing a hot war pitting the Western allies and the Russians in opposing camp, but it is not the only region where the Western nations find themselves faced with a powerful rival, who may not hesitate to use its muscle to push forward its agenda, which is often very different from the Western priorities, if not in a direct conflict. A bigger and potentially more dangerous rivalry, at least for the United States and its allies, is creeping up steadily in the South East Asia and Eastern Pacific areas. Consistent heavy spending by China has led to the emergence of a very strong and far reaching Blue Water Navy for the Asian giant, which is now second only to the US. As its martime prowess has increased, China has upped the ante in its relationship with its neighbours. China now has 300 warships, including aircraft carriers, submarines, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and the works. In addition, over the last few years, China has sought control of various island groups in East and South China seas, posing a serious threat to rival claims from nations like the Philippines, Vietnam and even Japan, whose collective naval forces are less than half that of China.

China’s newly developed naval doctrine clearly targets the US supremacy in the region and even in the Indian Ocean as the Chinese unfurl their plans to keep the United States beyond not only off the China seas but also right up to the Philippines and parts of the Eastern Pacific. The United States has decided to react through a ‘rebalancing’ of its naval assets, which essentially means stationing 60 pc of its navy in the eastern Pacific Ocean to deter China from being too adventurous. The US Navy will also get a fresh infusion of additional capital, with the spending set to rise to USD160 billion (EUR 144 billion), which almost matches the entire Chinese defence budget of USD 216 billion (EUR 197.7 billion). Nevertheless, the rise of China as a competing influence in the region makes the situation inflammatory as the Chinese leadership, if faced with a serious domestic threat, could raise the stakes in the area and could lead to an explosive situation.

Einstein was once reported suggesting with sincere and intense conviction to leave the atom alone in it’s original state and not break it into it’s fundamental particles, perhaps secretly knowing it’s catastrophic consequences. As long as the human race harbors thoughts of narcissistic barbaric socio-economic exploitation of fellow humans, conflicts will arise under misinterpreted and severely abused religious clouds leading to massacres time and again.