Nearly 1 million incidences of herpes zoster, which is also known as shingles, occur every year in the US, with an estimated one-third of all adults affected by age 80. Despite its prevalence, particularly between ages 50 and 59, it is still unclear why some individuals will develop shingles, and others will not.

In a population-based study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI), Mayo Clinic researchers build on their previous research from 2013, which linked asthma in childhood with an increased risk of shingles.

“Asthma represents one of the five most burdensome chronic diseases in the U.S., affecting up to 17 percent of the population,” said lead author Young Juhn, M.D., who is a general academic pediatrician and asthma epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic Children’s Research Center. “The effect of asthma on the risk of infection or immune dysfunction might very well go beyond the airways.”

Medical records for potential patients with shingles were reviewed in Olmsted County, Minnesota, where 371 cases with shingles — age 67 on average — were identified during the study period and compared against 742 control subjects. Of the 371 shingles cases, 23 percent (87 individuals) had asthma, compared with 15 percent (114 of 742) from the control group. The authors found that adults with asthma were at about a 70 percent greater risk of developing shingles, compared to those without asthma.

The researchers also noted that, with asthma and other atopic conditions accounted for, both asthma and atopic dermatitis were found to be independently associated with a higher risk of shingles. Shingles occurred at a rate of 12 percent in patients with atopic dermatitis (45 of 371 shingles cases) versus 8 percent (58 of 742) of the control subjects.

The underlying mechanisms are not clear; however, impairment in innate immune functions in the skin and airways is well-documented in patients with asthma or atopic dermatitis. Researchers believe that, because asthma helps suppress adaptive immunity, it may increase the risk of varicella zoster virus reactivation.

“As asthma is an unrecognized risk factor for zoster in adults, consideration should be given to immunizing adults aged 50 years and older with asthma or atopic dermatitis as a target group for zoster vaccination,” Dr. Juhn concluded.

The researchers note that neither inhaled corticosteroids nor vaccinations were associated with a higher risk of shingles. Rather, zoster vaccination was associated with a lower risk of shingles.

NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM mission core satellite analyzed extreme weather that affected the U.S. over the course of five days. Heavy rainfall, flooding and tornado outbreaks affected areas of the United States from the Southwest through the Midwest from Dec. 23, 2015 to Dec. 27, 2015.

GPM is an international satellite mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours.

An analysis was made of the rainfall that occurred during the period from Dec. 21, 2015 to Dec. 28, 2015. This analysis used data generated by NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). This analysis showed that during the past week the highest rainfall totals of almost 938 mm (36.8 inches) were measured by IMERG in the state of Alabama.

The GPM satellite passed above a line of tornadic thunderstorms moving through the Midwest on Dec. 23, 2015 at 2232 UTC (5:32 p.m. EST). GPM’s Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instruments had an excellent view of the violent weather occurring near the center of the satellite’s swath. The supercell thunderstorm that moved from northern Mississippi into Tennessee generated two tornadoes. Fourteen deaths alone occurred with tornadoes that hit Benton, Mississippi on Dec. 23, 2015.

GPM’s Radar (DPR Ku band) revealed the intensity of thunderstorms within this line of powerful storms. Many of those thunderstorms contained heavy showers that were returning 45 dBZ values or greater to the satellite (dBZ values (decibels of Z) represent the energy reflected back to the GPM satellite). At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. the data was used to create a color enhanced 3-D view of the GPM radar’s slice through the line of storms.

The low pressure area that brought the severe weather moved into the Great Lakes region on Dec. 29, 2015 bringing rain and snow from the Middle/Upper Mississippi Valleys across the Great Lakes and into New England.

By Daniel S. Miranda*

When Salvador Sánchez Cerén became president of El Salvador in June 2014, he named “security, education, and employment” as the priorities of his government.[1]

A former school teacher, Sánchez promised to raise investment in education to 6 percent of gross domestic product by the end of his five-year term.[2] Increased investment, however, has yet to be realized; current expenditure on education is just 3.47 percent of the country’s GDP.

Background

Access to education has expanded slowly since the end of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war in 1992. Over 70,000 people died in the conflict, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced.[3] Many Salvadorians fled the country, including 334,000 who reported that they entered the United States between 1985 and 1990.[4] In some parts of El Salvador students and teachers did not go to school out of fear for their personal security. Especially in the countryside, schools were damaged during fighting between rebels and the military.[5]

After the civil war three consecutive conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) administrations governed El Salvador, followed by the first president coming from the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), Mauricio Funes. Taking office in 2009, Funes introduced efforts to bolster the national education system, among other social programs. President Sánchez, an FMLN member who was Funes’ vice-president, has continued Funes administration programs by launching a series of new initiatives.[6] Today, El Salvador has a population of about 6.1 million.[7] Some 1,470,000 students were enrolled in primary and secondary school in 2014. That El Salvador has a large student population and a significant number of young people not attending school puts considerable pressure on the government to dedicate resources to improve school infrastructure, enrollment rates and security for students.[8]

Infrastructure

Improving school infrastructure remains a challenge. Students need a comfortable environment conducive to learning, but schools are chronically overcrowded. In rural areas, some children do not attend because the nearest school is far from their homes. Another thing keeping some children away from school is that gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18 often recruit children in primary school.[9] Additionally, some of the schools damaged by earthquakes and hurricanes have not been repaired or replaced.

The Education Ministry’s national education plan for 2014 to 2019 aims to address the infrastructure challenge. A strategic goal is the construction of pleasant school environments, which includes rebuilding and strengthening infrastructure, but the plan does not include a timeline. The Education Ministry should make a nationwide assessment of school infrastructure to determine where infrastructure repair and expansionist projects are most needed.[10]

School Supplies, Nutrition, and Technology

Children anywhere are less likely to attend school if they do not have adequate school supplies, clothing, and nutrition.[11] According to a survey by the Economy Ministry, the national poverty rate in 2013 was 28.9 percent.[12] The Student Food and Health Program provides free meals to students across the country. The Education Ministry says that in 2014 the program benefited close to 1.35 million children in 5,106 schools, 220 Salvadorian Institute for the Integral Development of Children and Adolescents (ISNA) centers, and 30 rural centers of the Ministry of Health.[13] A program launched by then-President Funes in 2010 called Programa Paquete Escolar (School Package Program) donates school supplies, uniforms, and shoes to pre-school and primary school students across El Salvador.[14]

Another presidential program, called Una Niña, Un Niño, Una Computadora (One Boy, One Girl, One Computer), is expected to deliver at least 50,000 computers to 2,600 schools across El Salvador by the end of 2015. President Sánchez launched the program this year. This initiative aims to provide access to a computer to each student in every school in El Salvador. Erlinda Handál, vice minister for Science and Technology, says it will benefit a million students at all levels of education this year.[15] Education Ministry statistics from 2014 indicate that many public schools did not have Internet service.[16] Although many students should benefit from access to a computer in school, many will still lack access to one at home. Continuing these programs can help ensure that all school children receive the basic supplies, technology, and nutrition that they need. 

Enrollment and Dropout Rates

Low enrollment in public and private schools at all levels is a matter of uttermost importance. In El Salvador only primary school is mandatory. Between 2009 to 2014, students enrolled at all levels of education in the country decreased by about 2.7 percent (from 1,915,420 to 1,619,386), with the enrollment decline in primary schools at nearly 12.6 percent (from 1,322,305 to 1,155,950). Gang recruitment and violence contributed to lower enrollment rates. Enrollment in pre-primary school, secondary school, and higher education actually increased. Still, the number of students at these three levels is disproportionate compared to the number of students in primary school, who make up the majority of the student population. Enrollment rates for females are lower than those for males.[17] Between 2009 and 2013 the number of students at all levels of education who dropped out increased by 5.3 percent (from 115,549 to 121,706).[18] Addressing low enrollment and high dropout rates will require not only strengthening the national education system, but making progress in bolstering economic development and increasing personal security.

The Security Challenge

El Salvador is grappling with the highest levels of violence and insecurity since the end of the civil war in 1992. Homicide spiked after a gang truce fell apart in 2012. Although President Sánchez has prioritized security, government efforts to increase public safely have been largely unsuccessful. The Civil National Police crackdown on organized crime prompted gangs to respond with even greater violence. El Salvador’s government will need to adjust its strategy to address the issue. The gangs themselves are impeding many Salvadorians’ educational opportunities. Children who rebuff gangs that are recruiting at schools risk losing their lives. A new security strategy should involve better protection in schools (as well as for children on their way to and from them) and restoring a truce so that gangs do not forcibly recruit school children.[19]

El Salvador is making progress in improving its national education system. Recent presidential and Ministry of Education programs have helped expand access to education, but enrollment rates remain discouragingly low. The current rate of investment in education, 3.5 percent of GDP, is too low.[20] Lack of security has affected enrollment in schools, especially at the primary level where gang recruitment is most intense. In order to achieve viable progress, the government needs to make steady and consequential increases in education investment beginning in 2016.

*Daniel S. Miranda, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Featured photo: A group of children and adults listen to a preventitive medicine class during a three-day medical cinic in San Vicente, El Salvador. (807th Medical Command)

[1] The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), “El Salvador profile – Leaders”, in BBC News, on September 9, 2014. Consulted on http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19401934 on December 18, 2015.

[2] ALVARADO Jimmy, “Promesa de Sánchez Cerén de invertir 6% del PIB en educación se atora este 2015” in El Faro, April 23, 2015. Consulted on http://www.elfaro.net/es/201504/noticias/16899/Promesa-de-S%C3%A1nchez-Cer%C3%A9n-de-invertir-6–del-PIB-en-educaci%C3%B3n-se-atora-este-2015.htm on December 18, 2015.

[3] RIBANDO SEELKE Clare, “El Salvador: Background and U.S. Relations”, in Congressional Research Service on May 19, 2015. Consulted on http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43616.pdf on December 18, 2015.

[4] GAMMAGE Sarah, “El Salvador: Despite End to Civil War, Emigration Continues”, in Migration Policy Institute on July 26, 2007. Consulted on http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/el-salvador-despite-end-civil-war-emigration-continues on December 18, 2015.

[5] MARQUES José and BANNON Ian, “Central America: Education Reform in a Post-Conflict Setting, Opportunities and Challenges”, in CPR Working Papers, April 2003. Consulted on http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/214578-1111661180807/20488027/CPRWPNo4.pdf on December 18, 2015.

[6] Ibid.

[7] The World Bank. Consulted on http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&country=SLV&series=&period= on December 18, 2015.

[8] Education Policy Data Center (EPDC) Consulted on http://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC%20NEP_El%20Salvador.pdf on December 18, 2015.

[9] The Economist, “Rivers of Blood”, on October 10, 2015. Consulted on http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21672337-crackdown-gangs-has-so-far-made-things-worse-rivers-blood on December 18, 2015.

[10] The Ministry of Education of El Salvador. Consulted on https://www.mined.gob.sv/jdownloads/Institucional/ejes_estratgicos_del_plan_nacional_de_educacin_en_funcin_de_la_nacin.pdf on December 18, 2015.

[11] MILLS Frederick, “Education Reform Gets High Marks in El Salvador”, in Council on Hemispheric Affairs on March 5, 2012. Consulted on http://www.coha.org/education-reform-gets-high-marks-in-el-salvador/ on December 18, 2015.

[12] The World Bank. Consulted on http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/elsalvador/overview on December 18, 2015.

[13] The Ministry of Education of El Salvador (MINED). Consulted on https://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php/ints/item/7260-presentan-consulta-ciudadana-de-ley-de-alimentaci%C3%B3n-escolar.html on December 19, 2015.

[14] Government of El Salvador. Consulted on http://www.proteccionsocial.gob.sv/index/index.php/programas/uniformes-zapatos-y-utiles/93-programa-de-dotacion-de-uniformes-zapatos-y-utiles-escolares-para-estudiantes-de-educacion-parvularia-y-educacion-basica-del-sector-publico on December 19, 2015.

[15] Government of El Salvador. Consulted on http://www.presidencia.gob.sv/el-programa-presidencial-un-nino-una-nina-una-computadora-beneficiara-a-mas-de-un-millon-de-alumnos-en-2015/ on December 19, 2015.

[16] The Ministry of Education of El Salvador (MINED). Consulted on http://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php/temas/estadisticas/item/6116-bases-de-centros.html on December 19, 2015.

[17] The Ministry of Education of El Salvador (MINED). Consulted on http://www.mined.gob.sv/EstadisticaWeb/publicacion/EDUCACION%20EN%20EL%20SALVADOR%20EN%20CIFRAS%202009%20A%202014_11.pdf on December 19, 2015.

[18] The Ministry of Education of El Salvador (MINED). Consulted on December 19, 2015.

http://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php/temas/estadisticas/item/7249-datos-de-matr%C3%ADcula-final.html

[19] Ibid.

[20] SOSA Byron, “Inversión Aún Es Insuficiente Dice UNICEF”, in La Prensa Grafica, on October 1, 2015. Consulted on http://www.laprensagrafica.com/2015/10/01/inversion-aun-es-insuficiente-dice-unicef on December 19, 2015.

Is an exorcist afraid? What is the devil’s favorite sin? These and other questions were tackled in an interview this summer with the Dominican priest, Father Juan José Gallego, an exorcist from the Archdiocese of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.

It has been nine years since Fr. Gallego was appointed as exorcist. In an August interview conducted by the Spanish daily El Mundo, the priest said that in his experience, pride is the sin the devil likes the most.

“Have you ever been afraid?” the interviewer asked.

“In the beginning I had a lot of fear,” Fr. Gallego replied. “All I had to do was look over my shoulder and I saw demons… the other day I was doing an exorcism, ‘I command you! I order you!’…and the Evil One, with a loud voice fires back at me: ‘Galleeeego, you’re over-doooing it.’ That shook me.”

Nevertheless, he knows that the devil is not more powerful than God. The exorcist recalled that “when they appointed me, a relative told me, ‘Whoa, Juan José, I’m really afraid, because in the movie ‘The Exorcist,’ one person died and the other threw himself through a window. I said to her ‘Don’t forget that the devil is (just a) creature of God.’”

When people are possessed, he added, “they lose consciousness, they speak strange languages, they have inordinate strength, they feel really bad, you see very well-mannered people vomiting and blaspheming.”

“There was a boy whom the demon would set his shirt on fire at night and things like that. He told me what the demons were proposing him to do: If you make a pact with us, you’ll never have to go through any more of what you’re going through now.”

Father Gallego also warned that “New Age” practices like reiki and some yoga can be points of entry for the demons. He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”

“When people are going through a crisis they suffer more. They can feel hopeless, People feel like they’ve got the devil inside,” he said.

By Terri Moon Cronk

A high-value Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leader killed by US-led coalition airstrikes Dec. 24 was just one of 10 ISIL leaders targeted and killed so far this month, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon via a live satellite feed from Baghdad, Warren said Syria-based Charaffe al Mouadan was “planning additional attacks against the West,” and was directly linked to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, leader of the cell responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris last month.

The ISIL leaders were killed in coalition airstrikes that took place from Dec. 7-27, he said, noting that several were external attack planners linked to the Paris attacks.

‘Striking at the Head of the Snake’

“In addition to our tactical operations, we are also striking at the head of this snake by hunting down and killing ISIL leaders,” Warren said.

Warren also provided descriptions of the other nine deceased ISIL leaders:

• Rawand Dilsher Taher, an external operations facilitator; and Khalil Ahmad Ali al-Wais, also known as Abu Wadhah of Kirkuk province, Afghanistan. Taher, killed Dec. 7 near Raqqah, Syria, was a trusted ISIL member who assisted with command and control and handling and transferring money and equipment. Abu Wadhad, the ISIL emir of Kirkuk province had a long history of targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces, and he was killed Dec. 7 near Huwayjah, Iraq.
• Abu Anas, an ISIL bomb cell facilitator, was killed Dec. 8 near Kirkuk, Iraq. His death, Warren said, “will disrupt ISIL’s ability to conduct [improvised explosive device] attacks near Kirkuk.”
• Yunis Khalash, aka Abu Jawdat, who was ISIL’s deputy financial emir in Mosul, was killed Dec 9. His death will burden senior ISIL cadre to find a technically skilled and trustworthy replacement, Warren said. Mithaq Najim, ISIL’s deputy emir in Kirkuk province was also killed Dec. 9 near Huwayjah, Iraq. “Najim’s removal disrupts ISIL’s ability to train, command and maintain fighters in Kirkuk province,” Warren said.
• Syria-based Bangladeshi Siful Haque Sujan was killed Dec. 10 near Raqqah, Syria. Sujan was an external operations planner and a United Kingdom-educated computer systems engineer, Warren said, adding Sujan supported ISIL hacking efforts, anti-surveillance technology and weapons development. “Now that he’s dead, ISIL has lost a key link between networks,” he said.
• Akram Muhammad Sa’ad Faris, also known as Akram Aabu, an ISIL commander and executioner, was killed Dec. 12 near his base of operations in Tal Afar, Iraq.
• Abdel Kader Hakim, another ISIL external operations facilitator, was killed Dec. 26 in Mosul, Iraq. Hakim was a veteran fighter and forgery specialist who had links to the Paris attack network, who also was part of ISIL’s external operations group who enabled attacks against Western targets. “His death removes an important facilitator with many connections in Europe,” Warren said.
• Tashin al-Hayali, an external operations facilitator, was killed Dec. 27 near Mosul, Warren said.

As I have noted a few times before, China is in the denial process, very much like Myanmar. Just as in Myanmar (former Burma) the Buddhist people – from top to bottom – are in the denial of their Rohingya population (an indigenous people who has lived in the northwestern part of the country bordering Bangladesh for millennia) the same goes for China where its authorities are in the denial of the Uyghur (Uighur) people that live in their ancestral homeland of East Turkestan (now called Xinjiang province) in China’s western frontier.

Beijing does not want the world to know of its horrendous crimes and abuses of human rights against the persecuted Uyghur people – how they have been made a third class citizen inside China and a minority in their own ancestral land of East Turkestan.

What these Uyghurs face is simply unacceptable by any civilized norm or standard. What the Chinese government is doing to them is simply racist, discriminatory and criminal to the core. Through a very calculated policy of political repression, social dehumanization, economic strangulation and religious persecution, it wants to Hanify (or Sinicize) the Xinjiang region so that the Uyghurs are marginalized as a people with no rights of their own in their own homeland setting the necessary backdrop for their forced exodus.

As part of this policy, the Uyghurs are denied the same opportunities and privileges that are bestowed on the majority Han. Thus, they are forced to settle for a life of humiliation and uncertainty, which includes among others: lack of education, denial of employment and healthcare services, upward mobility, safety and security. (It is worth pointing out here that in its zealotry towards Hanification of the region, the Chinese government has closed down Qur’anic and Uyghur language schools. This is also done partly to cut down their Islamic and cultural ties with other Muslims. Because of the Mandarin-based educational policy of the state, the Uyghurs can’t pass and find jobs in their own land. Consequently, their upward mobility in the society is almost impossible.) The party-state has institutionalized discrimination based on Uyghur’s distinct religion, habitus, physiognomy, language culture and socioeconomic status.

All these draconian policies against the Uyghurs are simply bizarre and inexplicable! After all, Xinjiang remains a very mineral rich territory where no Uyghur should live unemployed, undereducated or starved. And yet, they are forced to settle for a life of unemployment while the ethnic Hans from other territories are brought in droves into the job markets that the Uyghurs could do.

Rather than redressing the legitimate grievances of the Uyghurs, the Chinese authorities have been treating Xinjiang as their colony and are guilty of imperial itch in militarizing the territory. They are bent on changing the demography of the restive territory as if that measure would subside Uyghur sense of belonging and ethnic identity.

In the last few decades Beijing’s concerted Hanification efforts have only planted unfathomed mistrust and widened the animosity between the indigenous Uyghurs and the Han settlers. Tension has led to violence and brutal reprisals. Routinely, simple protests are brutally repressed. Even the moderate voices within the community asking for more inclusion have faced long prison terms.

Beijing is very crafty in exploiting terrorist events elsewhere to her advantage. It has often used the tragic events like the 9/11, Spain and London bombings by allegedly radicalized and misguided Muslim youths to justify its gruesome tortures and abuses of the Uyghur people. So, it was no surprise that it would again use the latest tragic events in France to unleash its unfathomed terror on the Uyghur people.

The matter was not overlooked by the veteran French journalist Ursula Gauthier, a Beijing-based correspondent for French magazine L’OBS since 2009. She wrote in an article published on November 18 — less than a week after coordinated attacks killed at least 130 people in Paris — that China had no basis in drawing parallels between the international pledge to fight against terrorism and its own version, that she calls “the merciless crushing of the Muslim Uyghur minority.”

“In other words, if China declares its solidarity with nations threatened by Islamic State, in return it expects the support of the international community in its own entanglements with its most restless minority,” she added.

In her article, Gauthier wrote that shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping assured French counterpart Francois Hollande of China’s commitment to fight against terrorism, Chinese police announced the capture of the leaders of a September 18 attack that claimed some 50 lives at a remote coal mine in Xinjiang’s Baicheng County.

“But, bloody though it was, the Baicheng attack had nothing in common with the 13th November attacks,” Gauthier wrote, according to an English translation of her original report published by China Digital Times. “In fact it was an explosion of local rage such as have blown up more and more often in this distant province whose inhabitants, Turkman and Muslim Uyghurs, face pitiless repression.”

Chinese authorities and state media presented a different version of the event. They said security forces, along with local officials and residents, carried out a 56-day operation against a group of “violent attackers” responsible for ambushing police and civilians at the mine.

All the alleged attackers were killed by November 12, according to the police.

While the Chinese police did not specify the ethnicity of the alleged attackers, Gauthier said they were a small group of Uyghurs “pushed to the limit, probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation.”

“But so long as the Uyghurs’ situation continues to get worse, China’s magnificent mega-cities will be vulnerable to the risk of machete attacks.” Gauthier wrote.

The piece drew strong criticism from the Chinese authorities. The Chinese authorities say they’re not renewing the press credentials for her whose recent reporting questioned Beijing’s “ulterior motives”. They want her out of China.

In a statement posted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry Saturday, spokesperson Lu Kang said Gauthier’s article “overtly advocates for acts of terrorism and killings of innocent civilians, and caused public outrage among the Chinese people.”

“Given that Gauthier failed to make a serious apology to the Chinese people for her wrongful speech advocating for terrorism acts, it is no longer appropriate for her to continue working in China.”

Human rights observers accuse China of being heavy-handed and treating the Uyghurs unfairly by restricting their freedom of religion and speech.

Gauthier is the first high-profile foreign journalist to be expelled from China since Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan in 2012.

On Gauthier’s expulsion, Chan tweeted, “Gauthier was told she could stay in China if she publicly apologized for… yep, you guess it: hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.”

Foreign journalists in China complain authorities are increasingly restricting press freedom in the country, making it harder and harder for them to report freely. Chinese officials deny the claim, and instead insist foreign journalists should play by the same rules as Chinese journalists and refrain from violating laws and regulations when reporting.

Well, that is how the authoritarian regime in China has been managing its business – crush it when it can, smile with a poker face when it suits and then expel when one cannot be touched by its draconian laws! Ms. Gauthier is expected to leave China on Thursday.

If China is serious about peace in the restive province it would be to her interest to listen to Gauthier’s advice and redress the grievances of the persecuted Uyghurs. The sooner the better!

By Fatih Karimov

German companies have proposed a 12 billion euro worth of investment in Iran’s petrochemical projects, Abbas Sheri Moqaddam, Iran’s deputy oil minister said without unveiling further details.

Sheri Moqaddam, who serves as managing director of Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC) said that foreign investors are keen to participate in petrochemical projects in Iran, the oil ministry’s SHANA news agency reported.

Over the past few years, foreign companies were afraid of participating in the petrochemical projects in Iran, the official said, adding today, various delegations from foreign companies visit Iran to study the investment opportunities thanks to recent international developments.

The international sanctions against Iran are expected to be lifted in about one month, following a deal between Tehran and the P5+1(the US, UK, Germany, France, China and Russia) last July.

Referring to the drop in oil and gas prices in global markets, Sheri Moqaddam also said construction of petrochemical units which are fed with gas is still profitable.

Iran’s petrochemical output hit 44.4 million tons in the past Iranian fiscal year (ended on March 20), 10 percent more year-on-year.

The country’s actual production capacity is around 60 million tons, but the shortage of natural gas as feedstock, old production units, and the problem of sanctions, which has dropped exports, have caused petrochemical complexes to work at lower capacities.

Iranian petrochemical plants use 37 million cubic meters of natural gas per day, while Iran could deliver only 2.8 million tons of ethane to plants during last year totally. The country planned to increase this volume to 4.2 million tons this year.

The Islamic Republic hopes to realize an output of 120 million tons of petrochemicals by 2020 and 180 million tons by 2025.

By Hossein Bozorgmanesh*

Following the recent terrorist attack by an American couple, who are said to be affiliated with Daesh terror outfit, on a welfare center in the city of San Bernardino in the US state of California, which left 14 people dead and 22 others injured, the US Congress decided to pass a new law to fight terrorism. According to the new law, citizens of 38 countries, who previously did not have to apply for a visa to travel to the United States, will now have to do so if they have traveled to countries like Iraq, Iran, and Sudan during the past five years. In addition, nationals of these countries with dual citizenship will need to apply for a visa before traveling to the United States.

The bill was first drawn up by the House of Representatives and turned into law following adoption by the Senate and final signing by the US President Barack Obama. The bill has elicited reactions from Iranian officials in an instance of which more than 100 deputies of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Iran’s parliament) wrote a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, describing the measure as a violation of the agreement reached between Iran and the six world powers in mid-July, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In another instance, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the measure by US Congress and government saying that during his talks with American officials, he has communicated dissatisfaction of Iran to American officials. Dissatisfaction of Iranian officials with the new US law caused US Secretary of State John Kerry to write a letter to his Iranian counterpart, emphasizing that the new law will respect Iran’s trade interests and some articles of it will not be implemented.

Many analysts and legal experts, however, believe that the contents of this letter and Kerry’s guarantee will not be a powerful guarantee for Iran as Kerry will have the post only for the next one and a half years in which Obama administration will be in office. Of course, Iran can take legal action through a dispute settlement commission set up between Iran and the P5+1 group, and while citing violation of Article 26 of JCPOA, which bans any form of restriction on trade with Iran, make the US government give a strong legal guarantee and assure Iran that it will not implement those articles of the new law, which limit travel by foreign nationals to the Islamic Republic. However, reactions to the new US visa law in Iran were not limited to diplomatic and political officials.

Many Iranians took to severe task the new measure by the US government and Congress through posts on weblogs and such social networks as Facebook. In doing so, they have posted messages of protest on the Facebook page of Alan E. Eyre, the Persian-speaking spokesperson of the United States Department of State, to voice their objection to the US government’s measure. The criticism raised by Iranians about the new US visa law is focused on three main points:

• Firstly, apart from a hostage taking situation in Australia’s Sydney, which was carried out by a man of Iranian origin and led to deaths of three citizens, no Iranian has ever been implicated in other terrorist attacks taking place in Western countries over the past years, including in the 9/11 attacks, bombing attacks in Spain and the British capital, London, the terror attacks in French capital, Paris, and finally in the terrorist attack in California’s San Bernardino. On the contrary, the key role in such operations has been consistently played by the nationals of such countries as Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, though they face no visa restrictions for traveling to the United States.
• Secondly, the US government and Congress have not put countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are major hubs for the activities of such terrorist groups as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and recently Daesh, on the list of visa restrictions and this proves that, basically speaking, the approach taken to this issue by the American statesmen has been a political approach, which has nothing to do with security considerations.
• Thirdly, this law is in blatant violation of Article 26 of JCPOA, which bans new sanctions against Iran on any ground, because the new law practically bars foreign tourists and businesspeople from traveling to Iran and circumvents the nuclear deal.

In conclusion, a review of the new US visa law will reveal that the law will have no positive effect on the national security of the United States, because it has been built on political considerations and cannot prevent individual or group terror attacks. On the other hand, the new US visa law should be considered as the greatest failure for the United States’ public diplomacy toward Iran in recent years.

This law has stirred widespread discontent among Iranians and such a behavior by Washington in the early stages of the implementation of JCPOA has increased the possibility of the failure of the nuclear deal in future. If such obstructionist efforts continue in coming years, the possibility of the nuclear deal ending in failure will greatly increase. On the opposite, the United States’ compliance with its obligations as per JCPOA and avoiding any effort to circumvent the Vienna agreement on ground of such issues as Iran’s alleged support for terrorism or its conventional missile tests, can increase the possibility of the success of JCPOA and turn the Vienna agreement into a role model for the success of international agreements to be presented to the entire world. Otherwise, JCPOA would be in for the same fate that befell the nuclear agreement between the United States and North Korea in 1994.

* Hossein Bozorgmanesh
Expert on Middle East Issues

By Sven Milekic

Activists said they were attacked before staging a protest in Zagreb against an annual mass to commemorate the death of WWII Croatian fascist leader Ante Pavelic.

More than 70 anti-fascist demonstrators gathered on Monday evening in front of a church in central Zagreb to protest against the mass commemorating Pavelic, who ruled the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia, NDH, between 1941 and 1945.

The demonstrators carried placards accusing Pavelic of being responsible for the what they called the genocidal policies of the NDH.

“Ante Pavelic is a war criminal and doesn’t belong in Croatia’s public sphere… He is responsible for over 200,000 deaths in concentration camps,” one of the activists said in a speech.

Some of the people who gathered in front of the church before the service made Nazi salutes at the protesters and called them “Serbs”.

The protesters also claimed they were attacked by a group of about 15 hooligans using bats and rubbish bins before the protest, but suffered no significant injuries. The police however did not register any attack or did arrest anyone.

Some 300 people attended the service, which is held to mark Holy Innocents’ Day.

The service was not as overtly political as in previous years, when it has openly celebrated Pavelic and the NDH.

The priest said in his sermon that everyone “has the right to pray for someone who is deceased” but suggested that this should not be misused for political ends.

Last year, a leading organisation dedicated to hunting down Nazi criminals and confronting anti-Semitism, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, condemned the mass as an insult to the victims of the NDH.

Pavelic escaped from Yugoslavia after the war in 1945, spent three years in hiding in Italy, then secretly fled to Argentina.

He was wounded in an assassination attempt in Argentina in 1957 and died on December 28, 1959 in Madrid, where he was buried.

The NDH functioned as a fascist state with racially-discriminatory laws against Serbs, Jews and Roma.

According to research, over 83,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists were killed at Jasenovac, the biggest concentration camp in the region, which was run by the notorious Ustasa unit of the NDH.

By Nick Cunningham

OPEC says that $10 trillion worth of investment will need to flow into oil and gas through 2040 in order to meet the world’s energy needs.

The OPEC published its World Oil Outlook 2015 (WOO) in late December, which struck a much more pessimistic note on the state of oil markets than in the past. On the one hand, OPEC does not see oil prices returning to triple-digit territory within the next 25 years, a strikingly bearish conclusion. The group expects oil prices to rise by an average of about $5 per year over the course of this decade, only reaching $80 per barrel in 2020. From there, it sees oil prices rising slowly, hitting $95 per barrel in 2040.

Long-term projections are notoriously inaccurate, and oil prices are impossible to predict only a few years out, let alone a few decades from now. Priced modeling involves an array of variables, and slight alterations in certain assumptions – such as global GDP or the pace of population growth – can lead to dramatically different conclusions. So the estimates should be taken only as a reference case rather than a serious attempt at predicting crude prices in 25 years. Nevertheless, the conclusion suggests that OPEC believes there will be adequate supply for quite a long time, enough to prevent a return the price spikes seen in recent years.

Part of that has to do with what OPEC sees as a gradual shift towards efficiency and alternatives to oil. The report issued estimates for demand growth five years at a time, with demand decelerating gradually. For example, the world will consume an extra 6.1 million barrels of oil per day between now and 2020. But demand growth slows thereafter: 3.5 mb/d between 2020 and 2025, 3.3 mb/d for 2025 to 2030; 3 mb/d for 2030 to 2035; and finally, 2.5 mb/d for 2035 to 2040. The reasons for this are multiple: slowing economic growth, declining population rates, and crucially, efficiency and climate change efforts to slow consumption. In fact, since last year’s 2014 WOO, OPEC lowered its 2040 oil demand projection by 1.3 mb/d because it sees much more serious climate mitigation policies coming down the pike than it did last year.

Of course, some might argue that even that estimate – that the world will be consuming 110 mb/d in 2040 – could be overly optimistic. Coming from a collection of oil-exporting countries, that should be expected. Energy transitions are hard to predict ahead of time, but when they come, they tend to produce rapid changes. Any shot at achieving the world’s stated climate change targets will require a much more ambitious effort. While governments have dithered for years, efforts appear to be getting more serious. More to the point, the cost of electric vehicles will only decline in real dollar terms over time, and adoption should continue to rise in a non-linear fashion. That presents a significant threat to long-term oil sales.

At the same time, OPEC also issued a word of caution in its report. While oil markets experience oversupply in the short- to medium-term, massive investments in exploration and production are still needed to meet demand over the long-term. OPEC believes $10 trillion will be necessary over the next 25 years to ensure adequate oil supplies. “If the right signals are not forthcoming, there is the possibility that the market could find that there is not enough new capacity and infrastructure in place to meet future rising demand levels, and this would obviously have a knock-on impact for prices,” OPEC concluded. About $250 billion each year will have to come from non-OPEC countries.

In a similar but more disconcerting conclusion, the Oslo-based Rystad Energy recently concluded that the current state of oversupply could be “turned upside down over the next few years.” That is because the drastic spending cuts today will result in a shortage within a few years. To put things in perspective, Rystad says that the oil industry “needs to replace 34 billion barrels of crude every year – equal to current consumption.” But as a result of the collapse in prices, the industry has slashed spending across the board and “investment decisions for only 8 billion barrels were made in 2015. This amount is less than 25% of what the market requires long-term,” Rystad Energy concluded. The industry cut upstream investment by $250 billion in 2015, and another $70 billion could be cut in 2016. The latter figure did not take into account the recent decision by OPEC to abandon its production target, which sent oil prices falling further.

So what are we to make of this? There could be plenty of oil supplies in the future, but as it stands, the industry is massively underinvesting? This illustrates a troubling tension within the oil industry. Oil prices will be set by the marginal cost of production, and recent efficiency gains notwithstanding, marginal costs have generally increased over time. Low-cost production depletes, and the industry becomes more reliant on deep-water, shale, or Arctic oil, all of which require higher levels of spending. In many cases, these sorts of projects are not profitable at today’s prices. The price spikes seen in 2011-2014 sowed the seeds of the current bust, but the pullback today could create the conditions of another spike in the future. OPEC could be a bit too sanguine with its call for $95 oil in 2040.

At the same time, future price spikes set up the possibility of much greater demand destruction, especially if alternatives become more viable. This is the difficult balancing act that the industry must pull off over the next few decades.

Article Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/10-Trillion-Investment-Needed-To-Avoid-Massive-Oil-Price-Spike-Says-OPEC.html

It is with profound bemusement these days that I find myself targeted on a near-daily basis by Fethullah Gülen’s media empire, led by Today’s Zaman, implying that I am now somehow the accomplice to terrorist sympathizers. As usual, the claims made by this sort of propaganda strain credulity and rely on a broad array of manufactured evidence – a skill that the Gülenists appear to have honed over the years.

As someone who has traveled to and worked in Russia since the 1970s, it seems that the Gülenists are running a fairly sophisticated Soviet-style information operation, with targeted and disciplined messaging that is optimized for foreign consumption. The goal is not necessarily persuasion, but confusion – to muddy the waters with enough bogus claims that the audience gives up on figuring out the truth.

Following our first press conference announcing the global investigation, I was attacked by a slew of anti-Semitic Gülenists on social media via a troll army. Then, suddenly and comprehensively, the trolls stopped and uniformly shifted toward the current “Al-Qaeda narrative,” which they appear to believe will play better to Western audiences.

At the core of this latest round of hyperbole is a lawsuit filed on December 7 before a Pennsylvania District Court which seeks redress on behalf of three plaintiffs who were thrown in jail on false charges by Gülen’s orders. According to the complaint, parallel state operatives acting on orders from the cleric allegedly planted fake evidence, fabricated search warrants, secured illegal wiretaps and ultimately arrested plaintiffs without any legal basis.

However instead of attempting to disprove any of these serious allegations, Today’s Zaman has leapt into action with no fewer than six articles to date to attack the plaintiffs and counsel and falsely attempt to argue terrorism ties based on the same old twisted arguments and bogus claims which have already been disproven in the original case.

Think about the meaning of this for moment: in what other country on earth would you find a major news publication hysterically publishing one-sided defenses for a private citizen who is being sued in a U.S. civil suit? Secondly, it requires a breathtaking level of chauvinism by the Gülenists to actually believe that this is a sufficient response to the urgent concerns raised in the lawsuit, as well as the cascading series of corruption scandals being revealed.

Lastly, what does it tell us that Gülen’s media group isn’t even bothering to deny the key allegation that the he was involved in framing people? Are we to understand that they agree and acknowledge their complicity? They appear to be laboring under the misapprehension that it’s OK to commit crimes so long as they first paint their victims as terrorist sympathizers.

There has been a remarkable separation in recent weeks between what the real media is discovering about the Gülen movement and the sensational fantasies being peddled by Today’s Zaman.

While Gülenist media dedicates its column inches to invented terrorism sympathies, other international media are reporting the real story about Fethullah Gülen. In Anaheim, California, the school board is pushing forward a moratorium on the approval of charter schools because of the abuses known be committed by the Gülen organization. “Why are charter schools continuing to hide their funding, ownership, and financial relationships? Why don’t they allow open access to financials, including budgets and salaries, even though they spend taxpayer money, just like public schools do?” said one trustee in the press release.

Separately, the Chicago Sun-Times uncovered a scheme by the Gülen-affiliated Concept Schools to illegally funnel more than $5 million of taxpayer money out of the state and out of the country. This investigation points to the illicit financial flows that have been suspected for years – that the Gülen sect is embezzling taxpayer funds from the U.S. charter school network to fund their international recruitment activities and their core mission to destablize the elected government in Turkey.

In recent months there have also been a series of investigative reports published in U.S. media such as USA Today, Daily Caller, and Forbes revealing alarming levels of secretive lobbying activities and other abuses of the U.S. political system by the Gülen sect.

So where are the answers to all these questions? Why is Today’s Zaman continuing to hide behind diversionary claims, instead of dealing with the real issues and joining the dialogue the rest of the world is having about this group’s pernicious activities?

We are patiently waiting for the Gülenists to come to their senses and engage in a responsible fashion with regard to these serious allegations. These tactics of dissimulation and blood libel are wearing thin, and fall very short of their proclaimed values.

There has been much talk about a “war on police” in 2015. The story goes that police in America are in great danger from a rise in violent attacks against them. It is suggested that the attacks are stirred up by criticisms and protests of police misconduct.

As the end of the year approaches, however, we find that the war on police is a myth, with deaths of police at near the record low. Instead, the war in America seems to be a war by — rather than on — police, with police killing about three people a day this year.

Radley Balko presents the numbers on shooting deaths of police in a Tuesday Washington Post article. Balko relays that, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 38 cops have been shot dead in America this year. Balko further notes that this number includes “at least one suicide and two cases in which a cop was shot by another cop.” The 2015 gun-related deaths of police, Balko relates, are among the least of any year from the last nearly 150 years of data.

There are occasions when a cop is killed just for being a cop. But, this is far rarer than many media reports and statements from police and politicians would suggest. For example, some people jumped to blame the killing of Fox Lake, Illinois cop Joseph Gliniewicz in September on a war on police. But, evidence was later made public indicating Gliniewicz, who was worried about potential repercussions for his misconduct including embezzlement, orchestrated his suicide to make it look like he had been murdered while investigating suspicious individuals.

A couple years earlier, Texas cop Adam Sowder was shot dead by Henry Magee when Sowder and eight other cops conducted a raid on Magee’s home. A grand jury declined to indict Magee who had explained that he acted to defend his family from the cops who he thought were robbers.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on December 26 an assessment that police shot dead nearly 1,000 people this year, and Mapping Police Violence calculated that, through December 15, police killed, at least 1,152 people this year in America. Among the killed individuals are people who were justifiably shot to end an immediate threat to kill or seriously injure others. But, the lives lost include also individuals who posed no such threat.

In 2015, people around America have been drawn to the stories of some of the individuals who police have killed without apparent justification. Consider the deaths of Noel Aguilar in Long Beach, California; Eric Garner in New York, New York; Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland; Jeremy Mardis in Marksville, Louisiana; Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Illinois; Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; and Christian Taylor in Arlington, Texas. Then ask yourself this question: Is there a war on police or a war on us?

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

By Felix K. Chang*

During visits to Central and Southeast Asia in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled Beijing’s aspiration to create what it called the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.  Both would entail the construction of new infrastructure to better connect the present-day countries along what was once the ancient Silk Road between China and Europe.  The former would do so over land with roads, railways, and airports; the latter across the ocean with seaports.  China’s two-part aspiration is now commonly referred to as its “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

At the time of Xi’s unveiling, China was near the zenith of its economic power.  Not even the 2008 global financial crisis seemed able to derail China’s economic ascent.  Some saw the “One Belt, One Road” initiative as a way for China to extend not only its economic, but also its political reach across Eurasia.  India had begun to worry about what it considered to be China’s “string of pearls,” a series of Chinese-built seaports across the Indian Ocean.  Others viewed the initiative even more broadly as an ambitious effort to reorient global commerce towards China.

But since then the air of invincibility surrounding China’s economy has dissipated.  China’s engines of growth—export manufacturing and infrastructure construction—have sputtered, as the debt that fueled them and the overcapacity that they created have ballooned.  Over the last year and half, Chinese leaders have been forced to repeatedly “fine tune” their economy to keep it growing.  They boosted China’s government spending, devalued its currency, cut its interest rates six times, lowered its bank reserve ratio seven times, and even directly intervened in its stock market.  Still, China’s economy continues to slow.

That slowdown has spurred Chinese leaders to seriously begin to shift their export and infrastructure-led economy to one that is driven by consumers.  How successful that transition will be is uncertain.  But one thing is clear, the “social stability” so prized by the Chinese Communist Party has begun to fray.  Popular unrest is on the rise.  The number of labor protests in China has soared from about 100 in 2010 to almost 2,500 in 2015.[1]

Thus, Beijing has every incentive to keep its giant manufacturing and infrastructure-construction state-owned enterprises (SOE) humming, as its economy makes the transition.  Seen in that light, China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative looks less like a well-planned strategy and more like a scramble to keep the order books of its SOEs full.  New infrastructure contracts abroad would help do that; and once built that new infrastructure might help Chinese manufacturers export at a lower cost.

One can see China’s push to build more infrastructure projects from Indonesia to Pakistan.  In September, a Chinese-led consortium won approval from Indonesia to build a $5.5-billion high-speed railway in Jakarta.  But the consortium won only after it agreed that the Indonesian government would not have to guarantee the Chinese loans needed to finance the railway’s construction.  While that concession may have secured the approval, it also increased the potential financial losses that the consortium would have to bear if anything goes wrong.  With such large and complex construction projects, it is hard to ensure that will not happen.

Surely, China expected a different outcome after its construction companies built a port at Gwadar for Pakistan in 2007.  Despite a total investment of over $1 billion, the port has remained virtually idle.  Now China is doubling down on the Gwadar project.  It has promised $45.7 billion in fresh financing to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a series of energy, road, railway, and pipeline projects that will more closely tie Gwadar to China.

Of course, China can still benefit from such infrastructure projects even if they turn out to be unprofitable.  The new road, rail, and pipeline routes through Pakistan will enable China to import strategic resources, like oil, natural gas, and minerals, from the Middle East without being reliant on sea routes through the Indian Ocean.  The projects could also deepen China’s “all-weather” friendship with Pakistan by creating new constituencies within Pakistan that benefit from the economic activity that the trade routes to China could foster.

Other land-based links to China could do the same. The Kunming-to-Bangkok railway is another example.  The portion of it in China is already finished; the portion in Laos broke ground in December; and the final portion in Thailand is slated to begin construction in May 2016.  Given the massive scale of Chinese trade, even if a small portion of it is redirected over the railway, it could reshape the economic interests of a small country like Laos.  Indeed, China may hope to use the railway to pry Laos away from its traditional ally, Vietnam, and gain another friend in ASEAN.  On the other hand, China would not benefit to the same degree from Chinese-built seaports and airports that are not directly connected to it.  While they may boost trade in the host country, the course of that trade could be redirected elsewhere, if trade with China does not evolve as expected.

That is now a real possibility.  If the Chinese economy continues to soften, it means that China will need to import fewer raw materials and export fewer finished goods.  In the second half of 2015 China’s monthly imports fell 10 to 20 percent from a year earlier; and its exports slipped too.  Unless global demand revives or Chinese consumers pick up the slack, Beijing might well expect its “One Belt, One Road” initiative to yield more long-lasting political than economic benefits.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and other agencies. Earlier, he served as a senior planner and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Department of Defense and a business advisor at Mobil Oil Corporation, where he dealt with strategic planning for upstream and midstream investments throughout Asia and Africa.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] “Number of strikes and worker protests in China hits record high in November,” China Labour Bulletin, Dec. 3, 2015.

By Salim Furth, Ph.D.*

A smaller share of total income goes to hired labor in Puerto Rico than in any state in the U.S. In Puerto Rico, hired workers take home 25 cents of every dollar in net private-sector income, the rest going to investors, proprietors, and the self-employed.[1]

In the U.S. as a whole, employees earn 56 percent of private income. (There are more precise ways to calculate labor’s full share of income in the U.S., but this paper uses a method that matches U.S. and Puerto Rico data.[2]) Even in sparsely populated, resource-rich states such as Wyoming and Alaska, hired labor’s share is 40 percent or more.[3]

Big Pill, Small Impact

The primary reason for Puerto Rico’s extremely low labor share is its specialization in pharmaceutical manufacturing, an industry that uses vanishingly little labor in its productive process.

The Economic Census of Island Areas records that Puerto Rico shipped $77 billion of manufactured goods in 2012. Of those, $51 billion worth were “pharmaceuticals and medicines,” and another $9 billion were “medical equipment and supplies.”[4]

Because Puerto Rico’s manufacturing industry is so concentrated, it is unsurprising that it has aggregate statistics unlike anywhere else in the U.S. However, the degree of difference is astounding: In Puerto Rico, just 8 percent of manufacturing income goes to hired labor, compared to 61 percent nationwide. Manufacturing dominates Puerto Rico’s income statistics, yielding 55 percent of net domestic private-sector income in 2013. On the mainland, manufacturing of all types accounted for only 13 percent of private income.

Hired labor’s share of income is not puny because manufacturing workers are poorly paid—the average compensation was 39 percent higher in manufacturing than elsewhere—but because Puerto Rican factories use so few workers in the productive process. In 2013, just 95,000 out of a workforce of 1,030,000 were employed in manufacturing.[5]

Subsidies and Regulations Distorted Manufacturing

Puerto Rico ended up with such an extreme industrial concentration thanks to two federal laws. Section 936, a tax provision, offered subsidiaries of U.S. corporations very favorable corporate tax treatment if they located in territories.[6] But the maritime Jones Act, which is still in effect, granted a shipping monopoly to a handful of shippers, who use their power over consumers to raise prices much higher than competitive levels.

The two laws attracted an industry that produces high-value goods that are very small and light: pills. The labor-intensive aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, such as research and marketing, remained on the mainland. Puerto Rico received billions in investments for the factories that stamp out billions of pills that Americans rely on for daily health. Pills are small and light enough that the costs added by the Jones Act were outweighed by the tax benefits.

Most other manufacturers found that the costs of the Jones Act, Puerto Rico’s unresponsive government, expensive electricity, and rigid labor laws outweighed the tax benefit. These manufacturers stayed away.

Since Section 936 lapsed in 2006, Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical sector has stalled, shedding 36 percent of its workforce.[7]

Laborious Regulation

Even in other sectors of Puerto Rico’s economy, hired labor’s share of income is lower than the U.S. average. Dropping manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, all of which are geographically unique, Puerto Rico’s hired labor share of income is lower than 48 states[8] and 8 percentage points lower than the U.S. average.

Puerto Rico has strict regulations on labor that are intended to benefit workers. The minimum wage in Puerto Rico is closer to the median wage than in any U.S. state, and Puerto Rico has European-style laws that make it difficult to fire workers. In spite (or perhaps because) of these laws, Puerto Rican employees earn a smaller share than their mainland counterparts.

At the same time, investors, proprietors, and workers are splitting a smaller pie: Puerto Rico’s economy has failed to converge to mainland levels of productivity and income. Strict labor laws failed to distort the distribution of income in the intended direction. Investment incentives plus strict labor laws only attract factories that use very little labor. Moreover, strict labor laws restrict growth and lower productivity, shrinking the pie and making everyone poorer.

Conclusion

Puerto Rico’s experience is a reminder that government does a terrible job at directing economic development. If Congress had pursued economic freedom for Puerto Rico throughout the 20th century, the island’s economy would have developed sustainable patterns of production and trade that reflect its true comparative advantages.

In response to Puerto Rico’s current fiscal crisis, Congress has received a variety of poorly conceived proposals intended to siphon federal money to Puerto Rico or to shield the island’s failed public utilities from reforms. No bailout, however, can address the underlying policy failures that have kept Puerto Rico from growing.

Congress and Puerto Rico’s government should pursue economic freedom by repealing the maritime Jones Act, lowering the minimum wage, rooting out local corruption, and liberalizing labor markets. With full economic freedom, Puerto Rican workers can expect to receive a bigger slice of a bigger pie.

About the author:
*Salim Furth, PhD, is Research Fellow in Macroeconomics in the Center for Data Analysis, of the Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity, at The Heritage Foundation. The author thanks Astrid Gonzalez for research assistance.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation

Notes:
[1] Unless otherwise noted, figures are for 2013. Earlier data, such as for 2005, is substantially similar. Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, Statistical Appendix of the Economic Report for the Governor and Legislative Assembly, “Table 11: Functional Distribution of Net National Income by Major Industrial Sector,” http://www.bgfpr.com/economy/statistical-appendix.html (accessed December 17, 2015).

[2] See, for example Scott Winship, “Workers Get the Same Slice of the Pie As They Always Have,” Forbes, December 16, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottwinship/2014/12/16/workers-get-the-same-slice-of-the-pie-as-they-always-have/ (accessed December 17, 2015).

[3] State sectoral income data based on Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Data, Annual Gross Domestic Product by State, 2013. State-industry depreciation rates assumed equal to industry national average, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Section 6: Income and Employment by Industry, 2013.

[4] U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 Economic Census of Island Areas, “Table 6- 2012 Value of Shipments by Manufacturing Industry for Puerto Rico (IA1200IPRM06),” http://www.census.gov/econ/islandareas/historical_data.html#prm (accessed December 17, 2015).

[5] Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, Statistical Appendix of the Economic Report for the Governor and Legislative Assembly, “Table 33: Number of Employed Persons by Major Industrial Sector,” http://www.bgfpr.com/economy/statistical-appendix.html (accessed December 17, 2015).

[6] See Scott Greenberg and Gavin Ekins, “Tax Policy Helped Create Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Crisis,” Tax Foundation, June 30, 2015, http://taxfoundation.org/blog/tax-policy-helped-create-puerto-rico-s-fiscal-crisis (accessed December 17, 2015), and General Accounting Office, “Puerto Rico and the Section 936 Tax Credit,” Report to the Chairman, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, June 1993, http://www.gao.gov/assets/220/218131.pdf (accessed December 17, 2015).

[7] Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, Statistical Appendix of the Economic Report for the Governor and Legislative Assembly, Table 33: Number of Employed Persons by Major Industrial Sector.

[8] The lowest two are Delaware and South Dakota.

By Milan Alley*

Recently The Telegraph posted an article questioning why we seem to be so afraid to actually educate children on the subject of religion. In the UK Religious Education is a required course in schools, but it doesn’t appear to actually teach much about religion. And the UK high court ruled that, starting from the next academic year, “non-religious world views” would be included as a part of the RE curriculum, and found on the religious studies GCSE.

Author Celia Walden agrees that, seeing as only 30 percent of the UK considers itself religious, “[I]t would make sense to include agnosticism, atheism, humanism and secularism on the syllabus – but only if RE dares to do what it says on the tin in the first place.”

I, for one, am on the side of Walden. As a US citizen, born and raised in our oftentimes woefully incompetent public educational systems, we lacked any sort of RE courses. Private schools are fortunate enough to include RE in the curriculum, because they are privately funded and won’t receive any backlash from parents. Which is the real reason RE hasn’t reached the states. We have a separation of church and state, but that doesn’t have to extend to the spread of knowledge. Unfortunately, many parents don’t see it that way, and will find almost any excuse to throw a fit these days. From parents complaining about students being taught about Islam in their social studies class to the FFRF writing letters to protest a principal leading prayers at a school-sanctioned Christian event, we just can’t seem to find a nice even ground in the states when it comes to religion.

Which is really a shame, because children today could use as much unbiased information about the world’s religions as they can get. Not only would the inclusion of RE classes in US schools help students to decode the turmoil razing the Middle East, it would also provide the younger generation with a deeper understanding of humanity’s collective history. Religion has had a major impact on both art and technology in the past and was a part of every core civilization. Not only does understanding humanity’s past help prepare us for the future, but by providing a richer understanding of religion for the next generation, we are paving the way to help combat extremism. On top of that anyone who wants to travel or plans on interacting with people of different backgrounds needs a basic primer on world religions

If done properly, Religious Education classes can be taught without pushing any religion – or non-religion, in the case of humanism, agnosticism, and atheism – at all, which is the main concern of many parents. Package it as a history course and give it a non-offensive name like “Religion and Societal Development” without diluting and downgrading religion in the curriculum.

About the author:
*Milan Alley is an American author and researcher, majoring in religion, theology, arts and politics. Published in Liberty Unyielding and World Politics Journal, she is planning a Masters and is interested in Terrorism, Religion and Middle Eastern studies. You can follow her on twitter @MilanEchevarria.

Source:
This article was published at Bombs and Dollars.

By Ryskeldi Satke*

The deterioration of Turkish-Russian relations over the shooting down of Russian jet Su-24 on Turkey’s border with Syria last month triggered Russia’s “soft power” machine to unleash waves of anti-Turkey propaganda in Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan. It has been known for years that the Kremlin uses information as a tool for political purposes in the post-Soviet world. Russia’s propaganda effect has been well observed in Ukraine and it is still waging a “news war” against the Ukrainian government. However, since the date of the incident of the downing of the Russian military plane by a Turkish aircraft, a barrage of anti-Turkish propaganda has been filling TV channels and airwaves in the Kyrgyz Republic and elsewhere in the region. This news “frenzy”, as Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has put it, and rightly so, has become a concern in the country.

The Kyrgyz leader has also suggested that Turkey “should apologize for downing Russian jet”, criticizing Ankara for making a “wrong” decision. Almazbek Atambayev’s statement comes after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where the Kremlin-led security organization CSTO has convened for a summit. Nonetheless, the Turkish government has repeatedly stated that no apologies will be issued for shooting down the Su-24 after the Russian aircraft’s violation of Turkish airspace. In light of the dramatic developments between Turkey and Russia, the Turkic nation of Kazakhstan urged both Ankara and Moscow to investigate the incident, punish those responsible and restore ties.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has clearly indicated that the Turkey-Russia conflict can be resolved only by joint efforts from Moscow and Ankara. Aksakal Nursultan Nazarbayev, as the Kazakh leader was called by Turkish leadership in 2009, restrained himself from taking sides in the dispute, as Russia has continued its retaliatory action against Turkey. As a result, Kazakh Minister of Foreign Affairs Erlan Idrissov told Reuters in Vienna earlier this month that “it is for Russia and Turkey to come to terms”, adding that Kazakhstan would offer its assistance to alleviate the conflict upon request.

Alas, the Kyrgyz President showed less wisdom in his support of Vladimir Putin in this case, citing the Kyrgyz Republic’s experience with foreign aircraft incursions into the country’s airspace. Almazbek Atambayev didn’t specify as to which experience he was referring, but by all means the Kyrgyz President’s reference to Turkey’s downing of the Russian jet for violating Turkish airspace cannot be compared with Almazbek Atambayev’s reasoning, due to repeated violations of Turkey’s airspace by Russia on multiple occasions.

The Turkish government has warned the Kremlin previously that further incursions by Russian aircraft into Turkish territory wouldn’t be tolerated. Despite Turkey’s objections, Russia has conducted itself in a “business as usual” manner, leaving Ankara no choice but to use its sovereign right to defend Turkish territory. In the case regarding the Kyrgyz leader’s suggestion, the rationale behind the Kyrgyz President’s call for Turkey to apologize to Russia is unclear. There is little known about the timing of Almazbek Atambayev’s improper statement, and it simply was not helpful in finding ways to resolve the conflict between Moscow and Ankara, diplomatically speaking.

It is true that Central Asian states have found themselves in a difficult political environment after the incident. Turkey is a brother nation and trading partner to Turkic republics while Russia has historically been a dominating political and economic power in Central Asia. Notwithstanding, Kazakhstan was able to continue its course for multi-vector foreign policy after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and further invasion of Ukraine, which boosted the Kazakh government’s cooperation on a global level. Regretfully, that is not the case with the Kyrgyz Republic. Under President Almazbek Atambayev, Kyrgyzstan has made a series of missteps that have dramatically effected the country’s political and economic situation. The stagnant economy consistently forces hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Kyrgyz Republic to travel abroad for work, whereas rampant corruption of the state institutions is sliding the country of six million to greater uncertainty.

By the end of 2015, President Almazbek Atambayev’s promotion of Russia’s Eurasian Union project had produced less economic relief for the poverty stricken nation, further degrading living conditions for many working families in the country. Another blow has come from the Kremlin this month regarding Russia’s grand hydro projects, which were promised by Vladimir Putin to the Kyrgyz Republic in 2012. Almazbek Atambayev announced that Russia is unable to complete the projects due to financial difficulties after oil prices slumped and western sanctions were imposed over Ukraine.

And yet, the Kyrgyz President is commenting on Turkey’s “wrong” motives to shoot down the Russian jet while nearly two million of the Kyrgyz Republic’s population, or 30,6 percent, is living below the national poverty lines, according to the World Bank’s report in 2014. Piling social and economic issues in the Kyrgyz Republic is going to test the leadership of President Atambayev next year. The right move for the Kyrgyz President in this economic crisis is to execute badly needed political and economic reforms in the country. What Kyrgyzstan doesn’t need is Almazbek Atambayev’s counterproductive position, as in the case when he criticized Turkey and suggested that Ankara apologize to Vladimir Putin.

Turkey’s efforts to promote closer cultural, economic and political ties with Central Asian states were welcomed by the majority of the Turkic nations in the 1990s. Today, these relations are certainly appreciated in the Kyrgyz Republic, where Turkish sponsored schools and Manas University in the capital Bishkek have been providing opportunities to the country’s young generations. Over the years, Turkey has been committed to its neutral approach in Kyrgyzstan, avoiding engagement in domestic politics by promoting educational programs.

Turkey’s trade and investments in Kyrgyzstan are insignificant, as opposed to China’s spending spree on infrastructure projects. So, as Russia’s influence is gradually fading away in greater Central Asia after the Kremlin’s blunder in Ukraine, and now in Syria, Turkey may have more opportunities to play a positive role in the region, which applies to the Kyrgyz Republic as well in spite of the negatives.

*Ryskeldi Satke is a writer-researcher with news organizations and research institutions in Central and East Asia, Turkey, the EU and the US. Contact e-mail: rsatke at gmail.com

The Beltway sniper offers lessons on Israel’s continuing struggles with Palestinians

By Paul Driessen and Glenn Taubman

When we planned our recent trip to Israel with 50 other Northern Virginians, we didn’t expect that it would coincide with the latest spasm of Palestinian violence against Israelis. We didn’t anticipate that this new war would be more insidious than past “intifadas,” with almost daily violence coming out of nowhere, with no warning, rhyme or reason.

No one is exempt. Old people have been stabbed and brutalized on city streets; so have young mothers with toddlers, rabbis in study halls, students in cars, people praying. Soldiers have been attacked at checkpoints. Children have been forced to watch their parents murdered in front of them. People waiting for buses have been rammed by cars and split open by meat cleavers.

A rocket hit Sderot, where a menorah atop a yeshivah was crafted from rockets that had previously rained down on this beautiful city, and where a colorful playground caterpillar doubles as a bomb shelter during frequent attacks. The Iron Dome defense system took out another flying bomb over Ashkelon.

Our group never wavered in its countrywide visit, but we were always looking around warily for signs of trouble. In some places an armed security guard accompanied us.

A suburban Jerusalem shopkeeper told us he and his six-year-old twins experience constant rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at their house. He asked plaintively, “How do I explain that to my children?” Many nearby neighborhoods endure similar threats.

We thought back to October 2002, when the Beltway sniper and his young accomplice paralyzed the DC region for weeks, sowing fear and keeping people from pumping gas, buying groceries, holding soccer practices, or venturing from their homes. We ponder what happened in Paris and Mali, Chattanooga and San Bernardino, Boston and Fort Hood, Belgium and other countries.

Americans might try to imagine 50 or 100 copycats doing the same thing for weeks, months or years on end, and exhorting others to join them. Would they send their kids to school or engage in normal activities under such terrorism? Might they want the National Guard deployed? How would they respond if snipers return, or Paris and San Bernardino become more commonplace?

While many of these attacks occur in what the news media likes to call “Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory,” many have actually occurred in pre-1967 Israel, including downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv suburbs like Netanya and Ra’anana. As tourists, we saw firsthand how such random attacks sow fear, changes in daily life and calls for retaliation.

Markets had fewer people, restaurants were less crowded, businesses suffered. Mothers refused to send their children to school for almost a week, until more troops patrolled the streets. Life in cities gradually began returning to “normal” as our trip ended, but the stabbings and shootings continue.

News stories and anti-Israel activists often say more Palestinians than Israelis have died in these attacks – and repeat the vicious canard that “alleged perpetrators” have been “victims” of “extra-judicial summary executions.” In reality, the assailants were shot and killed while attempting to murder as many Israelis as possible; they were killed in the act by Israelis who are increasingly arming themselves for protection.

Israelis recognize that police and soldiers cannot be everywhere, and too often arrive only in time to count bodies and prevent additional murders. Self-protection under these circumstances is a citizen’s duty, and those attacking Israelis do so knowing the response is likely to be swift and uncompromising.

In fact, the response by Israelis exactly reflects Washington, DC Chief of Police Cathy Lanier’s recent advice: Citizens should do more than run or hide. They should “take the gunman down, take the gunman out. It’s the best option for saving lives before the police can get there.”

What do the Palestinian Arabs gain from their murderous mayhem, inspired by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Arab media and many imams? Absolutely nothing, because the vicious attacks destroy any notion within Israel that it has a true partner for peace.

They destroy any hope or belief that West Bank and Gaza Strip Arabs will ever govern themselves peaceably, in close proximity to Israel’s major cities, sole international airport and neighborhoods teeming with children – even if their “two-state solution,” settlement removal and other demands are met.

The media, United Nations, State Department and boycott-divestment groups frequently claim the Palestinian side merely wants a state of its own next to Israel. However, the blatant refusal of attackers and their supporters to accept even pre-1967 Israel – or even depict Israel on maps – shows they are intent on keeping this 90-year war boiling for their own nationalistic or religious supremacy purposes.

Abba Eban famously said “the Arabs never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity” for peace. They seem determined to continue that dismal record, and many want Israel obliterated.

With our own eyes, we saw that Israel is a place of marvelous vitality, creativity and diversity: amazing food, archaeology, culture, science (cell phone apps, desalination plants, miracle cancer treatments and much more), agriculture, beaches, secularism and profound spirituality. Its racial and ethnic tolerance, its human rights record – while not perfect – are worlds better than anything found in its neighboring countries, where ethnic and religious minorities are routinely repressed, tortured and massacred.

Under horribly adverse conditions, dating back decades before its founding almost 68 years ago, Israelis have built a thriving and energetic society, a marvel on the ruins of their ancient past and recent Jewish history. They are not going anywhere, nor should they be expected to – anymore than the English should leave England or Americans the United States.

Indeed, Israel has integrated some 600,000 Jews who were driven penniless from Arab lands after its 1948 independence, plus millions of other Jews and non-Jews from around the world over later decades. Its Christian population has risen from 34,000 in 1949 to 170,000 today. As they built new lives in their adopted land, Israel prospered with them.

By contrast, virtually no Arab countries have accepted or integrated any Palestinian Arabs, many of whom still claim “refugee” status generations after this long war began. They treat refugees from the current Iraq-Syria conflagration the same way, while driving out or murdering non-Muslims. How many Syrians are in Saudi Arabia or Qatar today, instead of Germany or France?

Israel’s Jews live the Jewish people’s dream of a sovereign state reborn in its ancient homeland, and they are there to stay, along with Circassian, Christian, Druze, B’hai, Arab and other Israelis we met. In sad parallel, the Palestinian Arabs have built a society based on death, perpetual grievance, medieval attitudes and beliefs, and murder-suicides they mistakenly call martyrdom.

The sooner they sheath their knives, step out of the Middle Ages, and accept the fact that their Jewish neighbors will be in Israel for another 3,000 years, the sooner they too will have a chance to thrive in a country of their own. The first genuine steps would be a wonderful way to begin 2016.

*Paul Driessen is a policy analyst and Glenn Taubman is an attorney in Northern Virginia. They have made many trips to Israel and studied Jewish, Israeli and Holocaust history for years.

By Veronica Nicolosi

The El Niño weather phenomenon is expected to be the fiercest in 18 years at the start of 2016 and threatens to adversely affect crop and livestock production prospects in Southern Africa, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

A reduced agricultural output would follow on 2015 disappointing season, which has already contributed to higher food prices and “could acutely impact the food security situation in 2016,” said to a special alert released on December 22 by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS).

GIEWS said that the season for planting maize in Southern Africa had already experienced delays, while crops sown faced the prospect of being negatively affected due to inadequate rains and higher temperatures. “It’s the sixth week of the cropping season now and there’s not enough moisture in the soil,” said Shukri Ahmed, FAO Deputy Strategic Programme Leader – Resilience.

According to FAO, Southern Africa’s small-scale farmers are almost entirely dependent on rain, rendering their output highly susceptible to its variations. While El Niño’s impact depends highly on location and season – the impact of El Niño on agricultural production appears more muted in northern areas – past strong episodes have been associated with reduced production in several countries, including South Africa, which is the largest cereal producer in the sub-region and typically exports maize to neighbouring countries.

FAO had already warned in March 2015 that the current El Niño would be strong – and it now appears to be the strongest episode in 18 years. It will peak at the start of 2016, before the usual harvest time for farmers in Southern Africa.

“Weather forecasts indicate a higher probability of a continuation of below-normal rains between December and March across most countries,” according to the GIEWS alert.

South Africa has already declared drought status for five provinces, its main cereal producing regions, while Lesotho has issued a drought mitigation plan and Swaziland has implemented water restrictions as reservoir levels have become low.

Rising prices intensify risks

The likelihood of another poor season is troublesome as it comes on the heels of a poor one that has already depleted inventories, tightened supplies and pushed up local prices, according to FAO experts. The Subregional maize production fell by 27 percent in 2015, triggering a sharp increase in the number of people already vulnerable to food insecurity in the region.

“Maize prices in southern Africa are really getting high,” said Shukri Ahmed. “Moreover, currencies in the sub-region are very weak, which together can exacerbate the situation.”

While the drought affects many crops, including legumes, which are an important contributor to local nutrition, maize is grown by 80 percent of the subsistence farmers in the subregion.

Wholesale maize prices are up 50 percent from a year earlier in South Africa, while retail maize prices have doubled in Malawi and Mozambique. As households are already reeling from the previous poor harvest devote more income to basic needs, their access to critical farm inputs – such as seeds and fertilizers – is jeopardized.

Beyond southern Africa, GIEWS analysis of El Niño-related conditions also points to agricultural stress in northern Australia, parts of Indonesia and a wide swathe of Central America and Brazil.

El Niño’s effect is also being felt elsewhere in Africa, with FAO field officers in Ethiopia reporting serious crop and livestock losses among farmers and pastoralists.

Erlier in December, FAO also issued a warning that there is an increased risk of Rift Valley fever (RVF), especially in East Africa. Outbreaks of RVF, which primarily affects sheep, goats, cattle, camels, buffaloes and antelopes, but can also be lethal to humans, are closely associated with periods of El Niño-linked heavy rainfall, which bolster habitats for the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

The options to counter the possible human and animal disease threats include the use of insect repellents in households and vaccination of animals in target areas, but quality vaccines are needed as well as teams to be sent to the field immediately.

Action Plan

To reduce the adverse effects of El Niño, FAO has already triggered several interventions across southern Africa that are also building on existing programmes following last season’s reduced production.

“FAO is working on a twin track approach with governments and other partners across the subregion to address both the immediate and longer term needs. Appropriate crop and livestock interventions intended to minimize the effects are already being up-scaled,” said David Phiri, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa.

FAO’s immediate interventions focus on supporting farmers by providing drought tolerant crops, seeds and livestock feed and carrying out vaccinations. The Organization is also supporting longer-term resilience-building approaches among vulnerable groups, including the rehabilitation of irrigation systems, improving farmers’ access to rural finance, and supporting wider use of climate-smart agricultural technologies. Several countries have already produced national plans that address the impact of El Niño on agriculture.

“Innovative interventions implemented in southern Africa in recent years have been particularly successful,” according to FAO. Many of these good practices, including the rapid expansion of market-based interventions, non-conditional cash transfers and vouchers, adoption of climate smart technologies for both livestock and crop production systems, have been used to good effect in other crises.

“We are grateful for the contributions made by the development partners so far, but there are still significant funding shortfalls. We will need to rapidly adopt and scale up the innovations that have proved successful in the past,” said Phiri.

(RFE/RL) — The Iranian Revolutionary Guards fired rockets near three western warships as they were entering the Persian Gulf in what a U.S. military spokesman on December 29 called a “highly provocative” act.

The rockets were not fired at the warships, but Iranian vessels were conducting a test on December 26 and a U.S. aircraft carrier came within 1,500 yards of being hit by a rocket, U.S officials said.

The U.S. Truman aircraft carrier was given only 23 minutes’ notice, said Navy Commander Kyle Raines, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.

“These actions were highly provocative, unsafe, and unprofessional and call into question Iran’s commitment to the security of a waterway vital to international commerce,” he said.

The western warships were on a routine transit through the narrow Hormuz Strait at the mouth of the Gulf when the incident occurred, he said.

“While most interactions between Iranian forces and the U.S. Navy are professional, safe, and routine, this event was not and runs contrary to efforts to ensure freedom of navigation and maritime safety in the global commons,” Raines said.

China aims to have discussions with Sri Lanka next year on a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in a bid to build stronger trade and investment ties, according to an article posted on the Sri Lanka Prime Minister’s website .

According to the article, China’s Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said China will also step up negotiations next year on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, as well as the free trade agreement between China, South Korea and Japan.

China’s Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang, cited in the article, said the Belt and Road Initiative aims to improve regional connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa and involves big-ticket infrastructure projects, adding that the initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and covers about 4.4 billion people in more than 60 countries and regions.