Just Foreign Policy News
October 14, 2011
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I) Actions and Featured Articles
***Action: Press Congress to Oppose the Bahrain Arms Sale
Rep. Jim McGovern and Sen. Ron Wyden have introduced a resolution of disapproval to block the proposed arms sale to Bahrain. Broad Congressional support for this resolution would increase pressure on the Administration to speak up about human rights in Bahrain.
Ask your Representative and Senators to add pressure on the Administration to change its policy on Bahrain by signing the McGovern-Wyden resolution.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/bahrainarmsdeal
"Convenient" Base Is Unexamined Excuse for U.S. Silence on Bahrain Crackdown
The New York Times called the U.S. naval base in Bahrain a "convenience," but it’s still being used as an excuse for U.S. silence on the crackdown in Bahrain.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/convenient-base-is-unexam_b_1009992.html
Garamendi: where left-leaning budget hawks align w GOP & libertarian DoD cost-cutters
Rep. Garamendi’s office created a document where you can see the overlap between "left" and "right" proposals to cut the military budget.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1040
Gareth Porter: FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation
While the Obama administration vows to hold the Iranian government "accountable" for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI "sting" operation.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105458
Countdown to Drawdown
There is no timetable for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. 62% of Americans wants all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within two years, but the Pentagon wants to keep them there until at least 2024. We’ve created a website to publicize these facts and track the drawdown to build pressure for a real withdrawal timetable.
http://countdowntodrawdown.org/
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The Congressional Progressive Caucus announced that it sent proposals to the co-chairs of the "Supercommittee." Key recommendations include a responsible end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion relative to the CBO baseline. They also propose $816.7 billion in savings from reduced non-war military spending over the next decade compared to the President’s budget request. They also propose a small tax on transactions of exotic financial products [a proposal being promoted by the "financing for development" community.]
2) Mitt Romney’s pledge to reverse President Obama’s "massive defense cuts" is inane, writes public radio host Matt Miller in the Washington Post. The president’s proposed trims of roughly $400 billion over the next decade are barely a 5 percent reduction from inflated future sums that are already half again higher than what we spent to tame the Soviet Union. Romney’s $30 billion a year Pentagon boost could pay for a national initiative to recruit a new generation of top college graduates to teach in our toughest, high-poverty schools, Miller notes.
3) David Petraeus, the former general who led the Afghanistan war and now heads the CIA, has ordered his intelligence analysts to give greater weight to the opinions of battlefield commanders in evaluating the success of the war, AP reports. Their input could improve the upcoming report card for the war, AP notes. The most recent U.S. intelligence assessment offered a dim view of progress in Afghanistan.
Bahrain
4) Relatives said a Shiite opposition leader jailed in Bahrain is gravely ill and prison authorities have not provided him with proper treatment, AP reports. Hassan Mesheima and seven other opposition leaders were convicted in June by a special security court of trying to overthrow Bahrain’s Sunni rulers and sentenced to life in prison.
Afghanistan
5) An itinerant preacher detained by the Afghan intelligence service arrived at a hospital badly beaten, suffering from kidney failure, and slipping in and out of consciousness, the New York Times reports. Doctors said they were not sure he would survive. This week the UN released a detailed report concluding that torture by the Afghan agency and the police was common and entrenched. The US and other Western nations finance and train the Afghan security forces.
Israel/Palestine
6) Peace Now says the Israeli government has submitted plans to build a new neighborhood of Jewish housing in a part of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 lines close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the New York Times reports. The neighborhood would be located on the southern flank of East Jerusalem, the part of the holy city that the Palestinians want as the capital for their future state of Palestine.
Peace Now said that unlike other recent Israeli construction projects in East Jerusalem that had expanded existing neighborhoods, "the new plan creates an entirely new footprint of a new Israeli neighborhood in East Jerusalem." The practical consequence would be to "complete the isolation between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem" and constitute "a game changer that significantly changes the possible border between Israel and Palestine."
Colombia
7) Colombian labor leaders worry whether they can still hold the world’s attention, now that the trade agreement with the U.S. has been approved by Congress, the Miami Herald reports. "The debate around the free trade agreement helped make violence against union members an international issue," said National Union School General Director José Luciano Sanín, who added that President Juan Manuel "Santos can’t travel anywhere without being asked ‘how are the unions doing?’"
Now that the FTA has been ratified, the pressure to make changes could "taper off," said Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff and international economist for the AFL-CIO. "Before the vote takes place, governments have usually been really focused on labor issues and giving a good showing," she said. "The day after the vote, there can be fall-off in the effort and good will." Lee said the AFL-CIO will keep lobbying U.S. legislators to ensure the trade agreement is not implemented until all the Colombian labor reforms are in place.
Honduras
8) A study by the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University of Honduras said Honduras stands to break world records with its murder rate — estimated at 86 per 100,000 inhabitants — putting it ahead of war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, AFP reports.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Progressive Caucus Releases Recommendations to Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
Congressional Progressive Caucus, 10/14/11
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=61§iontree=5,61&itemid=444
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) today sent policy proposals to Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, Co-Chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, recommending that the work of the committee focus on creating jobs, raising revenues through fair taxation and protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The CPC identified more than $4 trillion in savings, which would increase to more than $7 trillion if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire on schedule. The recommendations direct the savings toward job creation, the single most important means to reduce the deficit.
[…] The proposals would reduce the nation’s deficit by trillions of dollars, put Americans back to work and protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Key recommendations include a responsible end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion; enacting the Fairness in Taxation Act, creating a millionaire tax that generates $872.5 billion; and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving $157.9 billion.
[…] Full text of the proposals is available here.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=79§iontree=5,79
[…] Derivatives and Speculation Tax
The People’s Budget would impose a small tax on transactions of exotic financial products. Assuming a 25% behavioral reduction in transactions resulting from a tax, Dean Baker and Robert Pollin estimate that various taxes on financial derivative products (financial instruments deriving their value from some other underlying asset, such as a stock, currency, or index) could generate upwards of $63.5 billion annually.Specifically, a tax on swaps (taxed at 0.01% per year to maturity and assuming an average life to maturity of 1.5 years)-including credit default swaps-could generate roughly $34.8 billion. A tax of 0.01% on each side of futures and forwards transactions could generate roughly $10.7 billion. A 0.5% tax on option premiums (the right to purchase a stock at a set price at a future date) could generate roughly $6.3 billion. Additionally, a 0.01% tax on all foreign exchange spot transactions could generate roughly $11.7 billion annually (this latter option is a proper "Tobin tax," rather than a derivatives tax). The tax rates on derivative and speculative financial products proposed by the People’s Budget would represent a smaller relative increase in transactions costs, so a 25% reduction in transactions seems reasonable, if not conservative. A larger behavioral response would decrease revenue relative to projected levels, but would conversely further the policy goal of taming speculation and encouraging more productive investment. Assuming a larger 50% reduction in transaction, Baker and Pollin estimate that these speculation taxes would raise $43.2 billion annually.
Savings $43.2 billion annually
Responsibly End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
The People’s Budget accounts for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These operations have cost $1.3 trillion, excluding debt service. The People’s Budget provides $161.4 billion in OCO funding for 2012 (the funding level in the CBO baseline), after which all OCO funding is ended. The Congressional Research Service estimates that this sum would be more than sufficient to safely and deliberately withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. Responsibly ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will save $1.6 trillion over the 2013- 21 period, relative to the CBO baseline.
Savings $1.6 trillion
Realigning Department of Defense Priorities
Over the last two years, a rare consensus has emerged among a wide range of Washington policymakers: any deficit reduction plan must tackle Department of Defense spending. Specific proposals for conventional forces include: reducing active duty Army personnel strength to 427,000 by 2014 (a decrease of 120,000); reducing the Marine Corps personnel strength by 30% to a force of 145,000 by 2014; reducing the Navy by 20% to a fleet of 230 ships; and reducing the Air Force by 15%, reducing the number of squadrons by 18 of 60. These force structure savings would total $593.7 billion over the 2012-21 period. Specific proposals for strategic capabilities include reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, cancelling the Trident II missile, limiting modernization of nuclear weapons infrastructure and research, and selectively curtailing missile defense and space programs. No savings are assumed from TRICARE, the military health care program for active duty personal, military retirees, and their dependents. Overall, these policy proposals would gradually reduce defense appropriations by $692.2 billion over the 2012-21 period, relative to the CBO baseline. Relative to higher spending levels in the president’s budget request, they would represent $816.7 billion in savings over the next decade. In both cases, the savings are well within the bounds of the savings identified as reasonable by the Sustainable Defense Taskforce (SDTF) report. SDTF, a bipartisan group of defense experts, released a report in June 2010 that detailed a series of options, which, if taken together, would save $960 billion over a decade.
Savings $692.2 – $960 billion
2) Mitt Romney’s defense cult
Matt Miller, Washington Post, October 12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-defense-cult/2011/10/12/gIQAdCBSfL_story.html
[Miller is co-host of public radio’s "Left, Right & Center."]
Mitt Romney is part of a cult – the cult of ever higher defense spending.
Republican members of this cult believe that the only way in today’s media and political culture to signal you are "strong" on defense is to propose a bigger defense budget than Democrats.
Democratic members of this cult believe that the only way to avoid losing elections to Republicans is to call for as much or more defense spending than the GOP.
Guess what happens to the boundaries of debate when this "my defense budget is bigger than yours" mentality dominates official Washington? As with so many pseudo-debates between the two parties, intelligent thinking – or, really, any thinking at all – is the first casualty.
Romney is plainly prepared to make that sacrifice in his quest for power. In his speech at the Citadel last week, and again in the GOP debate Tuesday night, Romney pledged to reverse President Obama’s "massive defense cuts."
But since Obama hasn’t cut defense spending (he’s raised it for three years) – and since the president’s proposed trims from projected defense increases are a small fraction of what a saner America would undertake – Romney’s position is untenable.
[…] A few facts make the inanity clear:
Defense spending was about $740 billion in the fiscal year that just ended, up from $698 billion when Obama took office. Since we spent about $450 billion a year (adjusted for inflation) during the Cold War, that means we’re spending over 50 percent more today. But back then we faced a giant enemy nation with huge military arsenals, not nimble terrorist networks and smaller rogue states.
Romney sees these facts on the PowerPoint slide and says: Let’s take it up another $30 billion a year.
But the United States already accounts for nearly half of the world’s military spending. We spend about nine times more than China; 17 times more than Russia; and 33 times more than Iran, North Korea and Syria combined (according to "The Military Balance 2011," published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies).
Meanwhile, the president’s proposed trims of roughly $400 billion over the next decade come off of a base of about $8 trillion in projected spending during that period, during which defense is set to rise to nearly $900 billion a year by 2021. The members of the cult scream that Obama’s "cuts" will devastate our security. But that’s impossible when it’s barely a 5 percent reduction from inflated future sums that are already half again higher than what we spent to tame the Soviet Union.
[…] The price of this pinched debate is enormous. In Los Angeles, where I live, state budget cuts have left schools in poor neighborhoods with classes swelling to 45 students. I spoke to a teacher the other day who has one class with 53 kids in it! Los Angeles has cut the school year to 175 days to save money. The U.S. average is 180. Many countries whose children will compete with ours for jobs put in 200 to 220 days a year. Similar cutbacks are occurring in school districts across America.
What’s the matter with us? Does anyone really think bankrolling a military empire while letting schools decay is a recipe for success? Mitt’s casual $30 billion a year Pentagon boost could pay for a national initiative to recruit a new generation of top college graduates to teach in our toughest, high-poverty schools.
[…]
3) Petraeus tells CIA analysts to heed troops on war
Kimberly Dozier, AP, October 14, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gP2f8CY2iE_rsiHyWcT1gECxpAjw
Washington – David Petraeus, the former general who led the Afghanistan war and now heads the CIA, has ordered his intelligence analysts to give greater weight to the opinions of troops in the fight, U.S. officials said.
CIA analysts now will consult with battlefield commanders earlier in the process as they help create elements of a National Intelligence Estimate on the course of the war, to more fully include the military’s take on the conflict, U.S. officials say.
Their input could improve the upcoming report card for the war.
The most recent U.S. intelligence assessment offered a dim view of progress in Afghanistan despite the counterinsurgency campaign Petraeus oversaw there and painted a stark contrast to the generally upbeat predictions of progress from Petraeus and other military leaders. Petraeus has made no secret of his frustration with recent negative assessments coming primarily from the CIA, and said during his confirmation hearing that he planned to change the way the civilian analysts grade wars.
[…]
Bahrain
4) Family of Jailed Bahraini Shiite leader says he is gravely ill, lacks proper treatment
Associated Press, Friday, October 14, 2:45 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/family-jailed-bahrain-shiite-leader-gravely-ill-lacks-proper-treatment/2011/10/14/gIQAzsOnjL_story.html
Manama, Bahrain – A Shiite opposition leader jailed in Bahrain is gravely ill and prison authorities have not provided him with proper treatment, relatives said on Friday.
Hassan Mesheima’s son Mohammed told The Associated Press his father was treated for cancer before he was jailed in March for his role in protests for greater rights by the Gulf kingdom’s Shiite majority. He said his father told him the cancer has returned and that he needed more treatment. Mesheima’s family asked authorities to facilitate it, but "our efforts were rejected," his son said in a phone interview.
Mesheima and seven other opposition leaders were convicted in June by a special security court of trying to overthrow Bahrain’s Sunni rulers and sentenced to life in prison.
Bahrain’s Information Authority denied allegations that Mesheima’s health was deteriorating and said the 64-year-old opposition figure was not being mistreated in prison.
[…] Last year, while Mesheima was in self-exile in London and receiving cancer treatment, he was tried in absentia along with 24 other Shiite activists accused of plotting to overthrow the Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled the island nation for more than 200 years.
Bahrain’s leaders dropped the case in February at the height of the anti-government protests. Many observers saw that as an attempt by the Sunni rulers to ease the pressure of the massive wave of street marches and sit-ins by the Shiite majority.
After getting guarantees that he wouldn’t be arrested, Mesheima returned to the country to support the anti-government protests, which were inspired by other Arab uprisings.
Then in March, Mesheima and hundreds of opposition leaders, activists, protesters, athletes and Shiite professionals like doctors and lawyers were arrested when authorities declared martial law to quell this year’s unprecedented unrest in Bahrain, the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Al Wefaq said in a statement Thursday that Mesheima’s health was "in critical condition" and urged authorities to provide appropriate medical care for him. Bahrain’s most senior Shiite cleric, Sheik Isa Qassim, warned the government against "ignoring Hassan Mesheima’s illness" at Friday prayers.
[…]
Afghanistan
5) Preacher Held By Afghan Spy Agency Is Near Death
Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, October 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world/asia/preacher-held-by-spies-of-afghans-is-near-death.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – An itinerant preacher who had been detained for 12 days by the Afghan intelligence service arrived at a hospital badly beaten, suffering from kidney failure, and slipping in and out of consciousness, said doctors at the hospital and local health clinic where he was treated Thursday. They said they were not sure he would survive.
The man was admitted to the hospital in the eastern province of Khost on Wednesday morning, said the doctors, who requested anonymity because they feared retribution from local members of the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security.
This week the United Nations released a detailed report concluding that torture by the Afghan agency and the police was common and entrenched at some facilities, even as the United States and other Western nations finance and train the Afghan security forces. The Khost Province office of the intelligence agency was one of five where the United Nations report said that it found "compelling evidence of torture" to obtain information and confessions.
"We are aware of the incident and we are monitoring the situation," said Georgette Gagnon, who is in charge of human rights for the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan.
Afghan intelligence agents wearing local dress known as shalwar kameez swarmed the public hospital in Khost City, the capital of Khost Province, where the man, Maulavi Abdullah, 30, was admitted Wednesday. They kept both doctors and reporters from talking to the patient with the exception of two doctors who were treating him.
"The detainee has been beaten really badly, and both his kidneys may have stopped working," one doctor said. The man cannot drink and is being given fluids by IV, the doctor said, adding, "There are no signs of torture on his body or open wounds, but he has been kicked and punched in the belly, which may have damaged his kidney and other internal vital organs."
[…] Family members of the detainee said that Maulavi Abdullah was a high school teacher in Sorbari district and also served as a mullah at a village mosque. In addition, they said, he is an itinerant teacher of the Koran. Such teachers go from village to village and stay for as long as the community welcomes them, teaching the Koran in the mosque and occasionally meeting with other itinerant evangelicals.
Maulavi Abdullah was at one of these meetings in Khost City 13 days ago when, on his way home to Sorbari district, he was detained by intelligence agents, said his younger brother, Maulavi Habibullah.
"He has been beaten with ruthlessness," Maulavi Habibullah said. "Whenever you touch a part of his body, he shouts in pain. He has not urinated in the past few days, except once he urinated, which was bloody urine."
Israel/Palestine
6) New Jewish Housing Planned in East Jerusalem
Rick Gladstone, New York Times, October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/middleeast/new-jewish-housing-planned-in-east-jerusalem.html
The Israeli government has submitted formal plans to build a new neighborhood of Jewish housing in a part of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 lines close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the anti-settlement Israeli group Peace Now reported Friday.
The neighborhood, Givat Hamatos, would be located on the southern flank of East Jerusalem, the part of the holy city that the Palestinians want as the capital for their future state of Palestine.
Peace Now, which opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, said in a statement that unlike other recent Israeli construction projects in East Jerusalem that had expanded existing neighborhoods, "the new plan creates an entirely new footprint of a new Israeli neighborhood in East Jerusalem."
The practical consequence, the group said, would be to "complete the isolation between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem" and constitute "a game changer that significantly changes the possible border between Israel and Palestine."
The project, which would create 2,610 homes, was first proposed a few years ago and must still undergo an eight-week appeal period under Israeli law. It would be the first entirely new Jewish area in Jerusalem since 1997.
Word that the Givat Hamatos project was proceeding injected new worries into the increasingly troubled relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and further dimmed hopes for a resumption of peace negotiations.
Reacting to the news, the chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who was in Paris with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying it proved "the Israeli government wants to destroy the peace process and the two-state solution."
[…]
Colombia
7) Colombian unions hope trade deal doesn’t mask continued violence
Jim Wyss, Miami Herald, Thu, Oct. 13, 2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/12/v-fullstory/2452880/colombian-unions-hope-trade-deal.html
For the last half decade, Colombia’s union leaders have enjoyed the international spotlight – as a pending free trade agreement with the United States brought the country’s dismal labor record into sharp focus.
Now that the United States ratified the agreement on Wednesday, labor leaders wonder if they can still hold the world’s attention.
Despite making huge security gains over the last few years, Colombia remains the most dangerous place on the planet to be a union member. According to Colombia’s National Union School, or ENS, 63 percent of all union-related homicides in the world over the last decade took place in this Andean nation.
The issue of labor violence in Colombia was one of the main sticking points of the free trade deal, which was signed in 2006 but not ratified until this week.
"The debate around the free trade agreement helped make violence against union members an international issue," said ENS General Director José Luciano Sanín, who added that President Juan Manuel "Santos can’t travel anywhere without being asked ‘how are the unions doing?’"
With the approval of the deal, however, labor leaders will have to work overtime to keep the world’s attention, he said.
By Colombian standards, union members are safer than they have been in 26 years. During the first nine months of the year, there were 22 union-member assassinations in Colombia. In 2010, there were 51 murders. While it’s still a global record, it’s down dramatically from 1996 and 2002, when there were 281 and 201 union-member homicides, respectively.
The violence decimated union rolls, as membership dropped from about 12 percent in the 1980s to 4 percent now, the ENS said. The United States, by comparison, has unionization rates of 12 percent, according to government statistics.
To complicate matters, very few of the crimes against labor leaders are ever investigated or solved.
Human Rights Watch recently pointed out that of the 2,886 union-member murders registered since 1986, the government’s conviction rate is less than 10 percent.
In 2007, a special unit was created in the prosecutors’ office to deal with crimes against union leaders. Since its inception, there have been 195 union-member homicides and only six convictions, Human Rights Watch said.
[…] Concerns about labor violence and impunity led Colombia and United States authorities to sign a 37-point "Labor Action Plan" in April. Although not legally binding, the plan is supposed to be in place before the FTA is implemented. The initiative stiffens penalties on labor violations, reinforces the right to unionize and adds 95 officers to the specialized unit in the prosecutors’ office, among other reforms.
But six months after its signing, very few of the provisions have been met, Sanín said.
The government has insisted that the Labor Action Plan is a work in progress and will be fully implemented by the time the FTA comes online – in about a year. And the pace of reform is expected to pick up next month when the government creates a Ministry of Labor.
But now that the FTA has been ratified, the pressure to make those changes could "taper off," said Thea Lee, the deputy chief of staff and international economist for the AFL-CIO, one of the United States’ largest labor organizations. "Before the vote takes place, governments have usually been really focused on labor issues and giving a good showing," she said. "The day after the vote, there can be fall-off in the effort and good will."
Lee said the AFL-CIO will keep lobbying U.S. legislators to ensure the free trade agreement is not implemented until all the Colombian labor reforms are in place.
[…]
Honduras
8) Honduras on path to break murder world record
AFP, October 13, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hI_m3Vh6yG0a9WUuhMdEYxe_o1xg
Tegucigalpa – Honduras stands to break world records with its murder rate — estimated at 86 per 100,000 inhabitants — putting it ahead of war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, a study said Thursday.
The study by the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University of Honduras said the murder rate was 43.7 per 100,000 inhabitants during the first semester of 2011, up from 36.6 for the same period last year.
Those figures far outpaced countries known for high violence, such as Brazil, Venezuela and South Africa.
Honduras violence left 3,587 people dead during the first six months of this year, up from 2,929 victims during the same period in 2010. At this rate, Honduras will reach 86 murders per 100,000 inhabitants by the end of this year, according to the observatory’s coordinator Migdonia Ayestas.
The group said that Honduras, a small Central American country of eight million, had an average of 20 violent deaths a day in 2010, 85 percent of them caused by shootings and 15 percent by non-ballistic weapons.
Honduras leads 207 countries with its murder rate this year, according to a UN study that estimated it at 82.1 deaths per 100,000 people. It is followed in the region by El Salvador (66) and Guatemala (41.4).
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