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France’s Middle East Peace Initiative And The Hamas Conundrum – OpEd

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The exact location in Paris where France’s Middle East peace conference took place on June 3 was not announced in advance to the world’s media. The precaution was fully justified on security grounds. For just prior to the meeting of some thirty foreign ministers from around the globe, Hamas had issued a statement condemning the French initiative. Hamas, be it remembered, rules nearly 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, and is supported by unknown numbers of Palestinians – perhaps a majority – in the occupied territories.

“Any proposals to bring the two parties back to the negotiating table,” declared Hamas leader Yahya Moussa to the website Al-Monitor, “aim at slaying the Palestinian cause. The international community cannot offer any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without the approval of Hamas, which won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.”

Moussa’s last point is rather sparing with relevant facts. The legislative elections of 2006 indeed gave Hamas a substantial lead over its Fatah rivals, and after much bargaining the two parties agreed to form a national unity government. But sharing power was the last thing Hamas wanted. In a bloody fratricidal coup, it fought, defeated and expelled its Fatah rivals in the Gaza strip. In fact Hamas rules Gaza by might, not by right.

Moussa had more to say regarding the French initiative. Hamas’s solution to end the conflict, he declared, is based “on the Israeli withdrawal from the entire Palestinian territories occupied since 1948, the return of the Palestinian refugees who have been displaced from their home and lands since 1948, and the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Hamas will always opt for armed resistance, he added, until the “restoration of Palestinian rights.”

Hamas is quite explicit as regards its objectives. It intends to continue its armed struggle until it has defeated Israel and rendered Mandate Palestine judenrein. Global opinion, West and East, consistently ignores, or underplays, this factor in the equation. Almost without exception the world supports the two-state concept as the answer to the perennial Israel-Palestine dispute. This was the ideal set out by France’s President François Hollande, as he launched the ministerial peace conference: “two states living side by side in peace.” How peaceful co-existence can be achieved when Hamas, representing a substantial proportion, if not the majority, of Palestinians is opposed tooth and nail to any accommodation with Israel – that is the question not asked, and therefore left unanswered.

Any yet, in acknowledging the difficulty of the task before the international community, Hollande perhaps nodded in the direction of the Hamas conundrum. Referring to the fact that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority had been invited to this first of France’s two projected peace conferences, he said: “We cannot substitute for the (absent) parties. Our initiative aims at giving them guarantees that the peace will be solid, sustainable and under international supervision.”

Could “international supervision” guarantee that a new, sovereign Palestine in the West Bank would not very quickly be infiltrated by Islamic State, as well as taken over by Hamas, either through force of arms or by democratic election? What then of Israel’s security, with Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport and Israel’s road and rail infrastructure under direct threat of rocket and missile attack?

French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault gave a press conference after the summit. He said that the participating ministers had decided to set up teams by the end of June charged with working on “economic and security incentives for the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a deal.” The security incentives he mentions would need to be very explicit and substantial if they are to be meaningful.

The joint communiqué issued after the conference emphasised that the status quo is not sustainable, and stressed the importance of both sides demonstrating, “with policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution in order to rebuild trust and create the conditions for fully ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resolving all permanent status issues through direct negotiations … also recalling relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and highlighting the importance of the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.”

The Arab Peace Initiative, let it be said, has been comprehensively rejected by Hamas. Its basis is an undertaking to normalize relations between the Arab world and Israel in return for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute on a two-state basis. Although incorporated into US Middle East policy by President Obama early in his administration, Israel has been equivocal about it until quite recently. On May 30 Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, surprised many by saying: “The Arab peace initiative includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians. We are willing to negotiate with the Arab states revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002 but maintains the agreed goal of two states for two peoples.”

More than two weeks passed. Then on June 15 a spokesman for the Arab League rejected Netanyahu’s offer to negotiate. “This is completely unacceptable,” said Secretary-General of the Arab League, Dr Nabil Elaraby, “because the Arab Peace Initiative has a certain philosophy and a certain order.” This delayed response should perhaps be considered as a first move in a longer diplomatic game, especially so in light of the specific mention, not once but twice, of the Arab Peace Initiative in the joint communiqué following the Paris conference.

What was not mentioned, but ought perhaps to be seriously considered, is the concept of establishing a sovereign Palestine within the framework of a new legal entity – a confederation, either comprising only Israel and Palestine, or even a three-party confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine. In a confederation sovereign states link themselves together to co-ordinate common action on critical issues. A new, weak Palestinian state would be instantly vulnerable to IS and Hamas – but not only Palestine, for both are already knocking on Israel’s and Jordan’s doors. A three-partner confederation might be conceived specifically to achieve close military and economic cooperation, thus providing not only high-tech security for all three, but also the basis for the future growth and prosperity of each partner.

If something along these lines emerges after France’s second conference, planned for the end of 2016, the whole enterprise will have been worthwhile.


Dutch And French Want Their Own EU Referendums – OpEd

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First, the Dutch; and now, the French…

French leader Marine Le Pen says there should be a similar referendum about EU membership in France after Britons voted to leave the 28-nation bloc.

Earlier, Dutch MEPs called the British vote historic and demanded their own referendum.

Most Europeans see the EU as a disaster, where unelected and corporate controlled officials are brought to power, unaccountable to anyone.

The European public became outraged this year when the EU in their own report rather comically admitted it’s incredibly corrupt and couldn’t account for 120 billion euros of taxpayers money. To Brussels, this was business as usual. To the British public, who send Brussels’ way more than 200 million pounds/week, this became a major problem. Hence, the Brexit.

The out of control muslim migration approved by Berlin who apparently felt it can make a decision without consulting any of the 28 member states, including those who aren’t even members of the EU bloc, just infuriated the continent further. All European nations now realize they cannot give away their sovereignty and border control neither to Brussels or Berlin. Besides, Berlin already tried to control the continent once before, didn’t quite work out.

Should more referendums take place, and they most certainly will, the EU is as good as done despite globalists and corporations spending billions on keeping the unnatural “Union” together.

Spain’s Center-Right PP Wins Rerun General Election

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Spain voted in repeat general election on Sunday in efforts to end its worst political stalemate in recent history. With aftershocks from Brexit still being felt, all eyes were on the leftist Podemos party that was calling for structural reforms of the EU.

But with almost all of the votes counted in Sunday’s General Election, Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP) of acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has won over 30 percent of the seats, with up to 137 PP politicians to be represented in the parliament.

The victory has cemented the acting prime minister’s right to continue governing Spaniards, Mariano Rajoy said, praising the success of his PP party.

“We won the election, and we demand the right to govern,” he said during a victory speech in Madrid. On Twitter, Rajoy thanked all PP members, saying “the victory is yours and of those Spaniards that believed in this project.”

The Unidos Podemos party showed disappointment with its third place in the election results, saying it expected to perform better.

“These are not good results, they are not what we expected,” Podemos political press secretary Inigo Errejon said.

“They are not good for Unidos Podemos and we don’t think they’re good for Spain because they reverse the move for political change.”

The leader of Spain’s Ciudadanos party said he is ready to initiate talks with the PP party and discuss the question of forming a coalition government.

The collaboration between the PP and Ciudadanos party, which garnered 32 seats, would still be seven seats short of securing a majority. However, the coalition could potentially gain another six seats from regional parties.

According to exit polls, the Unidos Podemos (United We Can) alliance led by the leftist Podemos party would have from 91 to 95 seats in the 350-strong assembly, Reuters reported, citing the poll by state broadcaster RTVE. The Socialists could get 81-85 seats, while Spain’s liberal Ciudadanos (Citizens) party might have up to 30 seats.

The preliminary numbers mean the PP party didn’t get enough seats to form a government on its own, not reaching the required majority of 176 lawmakers.

Over 36 million Spaniards were eligible to vote Sunday, with four big parties and six smaller regional ones expected to win seats in the parliament. Turnout was 51.17 percent at 16:00 GMT, according to official data. Voting closed at 18:00 GMT.

Balkans Shaken By UK Choosing EU Exit

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Balkan officials have voiced concerns about the uncertain future of the EU following Britian’s vote to leave the EU, while affirming their commitment to European integration.

Bulgarian leaders were vocal in their disappointment with UK’s decision to quit the European Union, with Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and President Rosen Plevneliev calling it “a bad day for Europe”.

Plevneliev said on Friday that he was “deeply sorry about this result” and “deeply concerned that today, nationalists and populists are celebrating on the streets of Europe”.

Borissov said the EU has to show it can go on without the UK, and declared himself against “any negotiations for special status [with the UK ] … because they will break the union apart”.

Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Daniel Mitov, warned against “a domino effect” and stressed the need for deeper integration of the countries within the EU.

Romanian officials also expressed regret about the vote in the UK, adding that Romania remains attached to the European project.

”Romania’s economy as well as national currency will not be negatively influenced by the results of the referendum in the UK,” President Klaus Iohannis said on Friday.

“It is very important for Romanians – including those living and working in the UK – to understand that we must keep calm and should not worry,” Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said.

Officials in Croatia, the EU’s newest member state, also voiced concern about the exit vote.

Foreign Minister Miro Kovac called the UK vote “a heavy blow to the unity of the European Union”.

He added that EU member states needed to start a public debate on how the EU can be organized differently and brought “closer to citizens”.

He did not expect immediate economic consequences for Croatia from the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, as there are no major economic ties between the two countries.

Vesna Pusic, a Croatian MP and candidate for UN Secretary-General, said fear had prevailed over reason in the British referendum.

She told regional N1 channel that the referendum outcome was “not just an extremely bad decision for Britain, but also very dangerous for Europe”, possibly meaning “the beginning of the destruction of the European idea”.

There is also confusion in the Balkan states, which are not yet part of the EU, but are hoping to join the bloc in future.

“The referendum result in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union is not good news,” Kosovo’s European Integration Minister, Bekim Collaku, wrote on Facebook.

“For us, [Kosovo] which has a powerful aspiration for EU membership, it is painful that one of the member countries, one of the first to recognize our independence and among the most supportive in our European path, will leave the EU,” he added.

Ismet Ramadani, a former Macedonian MP and now head of the Euro-Atlantic Council of Macedonia, told BIRN that the UK referendum outcome will certainly have a negative effect on Macedonian politics, boosting voices that are propagating Euro-scepticism and anti-EU sentiments.

Albania’s former Prime Minister, Pandeli Majko, now an MP, wrote on Facebook: “UK votes to exit the EU. Inside or out of the union, London remains a precious friend for Albanians”.

The former head of Albanian Parliament, Jozefina Topalli, also on Facebook, wrote: “The UK bids adieu. The disintegration of Europe has started.”

A former Montenegrin Foreign Minister, Miodrag Vlahovic, told BIRN that “for us, natives” from the Balkans, this new era will be unpleasant.

“We should now act wisely, with a right balance between caution and determination,” he said. “A gloomy situation, indeed.”

Serbian officials used the situation to confirm their commitment to European integration. “We will continue on our EU path since we obtained the trust of our citizens for this in the last elections in April,” Prime Minister-designate Aleksandar Vucic said.

Foreign minister Ivica Dacic said Serbia will take all necessary measures to maintain economical and financial stability against disturbance on international financial markets.

In Bosnia, Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic said Britain remained a key friend of Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the result of the referendum. Zvizdic called the decision of the UK citizens surprising.

“We expected the decision of British citizens to be different, but we respect the democratic will expressed by the referendum,” he said, adding that the UK’s decision “will not consistently delay the EU integration process of Bosnia.”

Forced Migration: Some Sobering Realities – Analysis

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There is an unprecedented global phenomenon of people uprooted and displaced due to conflicts and disasters. The need to contain and reverse this trend is dire. The immensity of the problem requires no less than a global solution, underscoring a shared responsibility among different actors of the international community.

By Mely Caballero-Anthony*

The figures on forced migration released recently by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) present alarming trends that the global community should pay attention to for a better perspective of their implications to state and people’s security. The UNHCR’s 2015 Global Trends Report stated that the number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution in 2015 reached 65 million.

This latest number is five million more than the 2014 figures of 59.5 million. According to the UN agency, this record displacement is unprecedented in human history, and exceeds the number of people displaced during the Second World War period.

Who Are the Forced Migrants?

The International Migration Organisation (IOM) puts displacement along the category of irregular/forced migration, broadly defined as cases that occur outside the regulatory norms of the countries of origin, transit and destination. Both the IOM and the UNHCR consider irregular or forced migrants to include refugees, asylum seekers and those with specific needs such as trafficked persons, stateless persons and internally displaced due to conflicts and natural disasters.

The UNHCR Report notes that of the 65 million displaced people, 21 million are refugees, three million are asylum seekers and 41 million are those internally displaced within their own countries. The total number of 65 million, when measured against the world’s population of 7.4 billion people, means that one in every 113 people around the world is now either a refugee, an asylum seeker or internally displaced.

While half of these refugees come from war-torn countries—Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia – it is noteworthy that the other half are also from developing countries in the global south that experience a range of conflicts and humanitarian disasters.

Beyond the Numbers

Understanding the gravity of the crises of massive global displacement compels one to go beyond the numbers and examine the plight of these people on the move. Behind every number is an individual, a family, a group and a community who face not only an uncertain future but also have to endure the physical and mental pain and suffering of being rendered homeless—either internally displaced or forced to flee to another country to seek refuge and hope to be resettled in another country.

According to UNHCR, on average about 42,500 people are forced out of their homes every day, and about two thirds of these are women and children. A number of these women are exposed to great risks of violence and sexual abuse, often at the hands of unscrupulous smugglers and human traffickers.

Children on the other hand face greater dangers. Many of these children are separated from their parents or are travelling alone. The UNHCR Report notes that children make up 51 per cent of the world’s refugees. So far, there were 98,400 asylum requests from unaccompanied or separated children, which is the highest total the UNHCR has seen. According to them this is “a tragic reflection of how global forced displacement is disproportionately affecting young lives”.

This staggering figure also highlights the plight of the most vulnerable group of forced migrants whose lives are at risk as they take on treacherous journeys in search for safety and security. In September 2015, the searing image of a lifeless body of a young boy washed ashore in Turkey after having crossed the Mediterranean Sea raised questions about how the international community ought to respond to such humanitarian tragedies.

It has been reported that since late 2015, an average of two children die every day as hundreds of families take on perilous journeys to escape conflict and despair, and this number is expected to grow, according to the UNHCR and UNICEF, the UN fund for children’s rights and protection.

Not Only a European Problem

Most of the attention on forced migrants had focused mainly on the challenges facing Europe as destination countries like Italy, Germany and Greece tried to provide immediate shelter, while many others grappled with the massive influx of people desperate to enter. The push-back against irregular migrants particularly against refugees, has been strong.

The choices presented to many polities in Europe are often starkly framed: economic issues such as unemployment, worries about social cohesion, fears about religious extremism and security against concerns about human rights, humanitarianism and international solidarity.

But Europe alone does not bear the burden. According to one refugee expert, Khalid Koser, 85 per cent of refugees are found in the developing world. Refugee camps are bursting in countries like Lebanon and Jordan, and in African countries like Kenya—a fact often missed in the debates about the refugee crises in Europe.

Asia has its share of refugees, despite the absence of major wars in the region. The UNHCR 2015 figures show that Southeast Asia is home to more than 500,000 refugees and asylum seekers who are from within the region and beyond. Be they the boat people stranded at sea or the stateless ones camped in refugee camps in Thailand, their plight presents challenges to governments in ASEAN and the humanitarian community to demonstrate a serious and collective effort to deal with the urgent humanitarian needs of these people.

Shared Responsibility

At the UN General Assembly Meeting in September 2015, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had implored the international community to act collectively to address the crises of massive forced displacement. Mr Ban had called for a global compact and a greater sharing of responsibility among states to deal with the unprecedented humanitarian crises facing the global community.

To be sure, addressing the complexity of challenges of providing security and protection to the massively displaced population around the world requires comprehensive measures and at multiple levels that are sustainable and people-oriented. These include a range of efforts from providing immediate shelter, allowing safe passage to legalising migration and resettlement.

It also requires stepping up law enforcement to individuals and groups involved in human trafficking and migrant smuggling syndicates. Undertaking such a huge challenge requires the involvement of different actors—local communities, civil society, private sector, regional and international agencies to ease the burden on states.

All these measures, however, do not negate the fact that preventing massive population displacement begins at home. Helping states and societies to avoid the escalation of conflicts to widespread violence and wars can go a long way in preventing and controlling the unfolding humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century.

*Mely Caballero-Anthony is Associate Professor and Head of the RSIS Centre of Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Saudi Arabia-France To Promote Strategic Partnership

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After a very successful two-week business and political visit to the US, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in France on Sunday.

He thanked US President Barack Obama for extending to him and his delegation a warm reception and most generous hospitality.

In a cable of thanks, the deputy crown prince said: “I am pleased to extend to Your Excellency my deep thanks for the warm reception and generous hospitality accorded to me and the accompanying delegation.

“Mr. President, I would like to commend again the historical and strategic relations between our two countries. The discussions held during the visit will contribute to deepening and strengthening these relations and enhancing the bonds of mutual cooperation. They will help achieve the interests of our two countries and their friendly peoples under the leadership of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Your Excellency.

“I wish you continued good health and happiness, and for the friendly people of the US, further progress and prosperity.”

The deputy crown prince then flew to France from the US.

According to a statement from the Royal Court, the visit to France is in response to an invitation from the French government.

In France, he will meet President François Hollande and a number of French officials to discuss issues and topics of common interest and aspects of cooperation between the two friendly countries, the statement said.

The French visit is of great significance because of the political, diplomatic, military, economic and other matters that will be taken up in talks with President Hollande, Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as well as Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

The French Embassy in Riyadh announced that the French president would receive the deputy crown prince at the Élysée Palace on Monday.

According to the embassy’s statement, the deputy crown prince and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will preside over a meeting of the Third Saudi-French Joint Committee on Tuesday and will also discuss the comprehensive bilateral strategic partnership and regional issues.

Visits between the two countries are an expression of the positive developments in relations and confirms that the Kingdom enjoys a varied industrial base, an environment that encourages the private sector, organizational and administrative frameworks that enable it to develop strategic partnerships and relations with countries such as France, and attract high-tech and value-added investments.

Senior officials in France spoke about distinguished political and economic relations between Riyadh and Paris, especially in light of the 80 French companies working in the Kingdom which contribute to nationalyzing technology as well as training 27,000 Saudis.

Saudi-French relations, which began between King Faisal and the French President Charles de Gaulle in 1967, are distinctive because of the convergence of views on many regional issues, including Syria, Iraq, Iranian intervention in the region, Yemen, Libya and the fight against terrorists.

Earlier, before leaving the US for France, the deputy crown prince, who is also chairman of the board of directors of Misk Charitable Foundation, signed with Bill Gates, the co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a cooperation agreement for training Saudi leaders working in the charitable field.

The agreement covers the transfer of the best means of governance to charitable foundations in Saudi Arabia, and also developing charitable products in the Kingdom.

Turkey’s Erdogan To Betray Gaza For Israeli Gas – OpEd

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Israeli and world media have featured screaming headlines over the past few days that Turkey and Israel are about to resume diplomatic relations broken off after Israeli naval commandos murdered 10 Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 (including one U.S. citizen).  The freeze between the two countries cut off Israeli trade and military coöperation with one of the largest and most influential Muslim nations in the region.  Prior to the massacre, Turkey and Israel’s militaries conducted joint military exercises, intelligence agencies freely shared information, and bilateral trade flourished.

I should add that much of the ISIS oil pumped in Iraq ends up purchased by Israel via Turkish ports.  So in this illicit trade, both appear allied.

Since 2010, Turkey has had three key demands in order to resume ties: financial compensation to the victims, an Israeli apology, and lifting Israel’s siege of Gaza.  As outlined in the press, Turkey will have two of those three conditions met.  Israel will pay $20-million to the families of the victims.  It has already apologized.  But Israel adamantly refused to lift the siege.  Instead of holding fast until his demands were met, Erdogan caved.

Israel has only agreed to permit Turkey and Germany to build a new hospital in Gaza and to build a new sewage treatment and power plant there.  Turkey will also be permitted to aid in reconstruction of the 20,000 homes destroyed in the 2014.  But it will be forced to unload all shipments at the Israeli port of Ashdod.  This is ironic because the entire purpose of the Mavi Marmara trip was to break the Israeli blockade.  After Israel hijacked the ship and kidnapped the passengers it forced them to Ashdod, where Israeli authorities promptly stole millions of dollars worth of electronic equipment and personal belongings of the victims.  Meaning that Turkey has acceded to the very conditions which the Mavi Marmara sought to end.

A further dark irony of the Turkey-Israel agreement is that as soon as the next war between Israel and Gaza breaks out, these Turkish projects will be among the first Israel will destroy.  Just as it did during Operation Protective Edge when it destroyed every government building, the Islamic University and infrastructure like power and sewage plants.  In an earlier conflict it destroyed a nascent project to rebuild the Gaza seaport funded by the Dutch and French.

So what exactly has Turkey won and Gaza lost?  Most importantly for Turkey, Israel plans to extract massive amounts of oil and gas off its seacoast from the Mediterranean.  A number of nations and militant groups dispute Israel’s plans.  Both Gaza and Lebanon claim portions of these fields are in their territory.  Hezbollah, no doubt, looks forward to attempting to sabotage any resource production off the Lebanese coast.

Israel is hard at work attempting to ensure the security of these new oil platforms.  When Turkey was out of the picture, Israel negotiated with Cyprus and Greece to ship its product to Europe.  But Turkey, with its powerful military forces, was a wildcard.  Now, with Turkey back on the team, Israel not only has one less enemy to worry about, it could conceivably receive assistance from the Turkish military in protecting the facilities.

What’s in it for Turkey?  A significant portion of the likely $2-billion cost of the project along with a percentage of the tens of billion in revenue generated by transshipment through Turkish territory.  You can easily see when faced with a choice between loyalty to Gaza and a financial bonanza, which outcome Erdogan preferred.

Israel’s new Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, was reported to have made a secret visit to Turkey in recent days.  Though Israeli media says he went to ask Turkey to shut down Hamas activities inside the country, Turkish media said he came to discuss oil. Haaretz reports that Turkey agreed to shut down all military activities of Hamas on its soil (I’d only heard Israel claim once during this period that a Hamas operative planned a terror attack from Turkey). Hamas political activity will continue there.  Though both oil and Hamas may’ve been subjects on the table, my guess is that Cohen came primarily with barrels of oil and dollar signs flickering in his eyes.

Though this subject hasn’t been mentioned in the media, Israel and Turkey also have common interests in Syria, where the Muslim nation supports Sunni rebels (some say ISIS itself) fighting the Assad regime on the northern front; and Israel supports al-Nura rebels on the southern front.  What form such cooperation may take isn’t clear.  But you can be sure that both will be exploring their options.

Israeli media also report another visitor to Turkey’s Ottoman-style presidential palace: Hamas chief, Khaled Meshal.  This visit can’t be a happy one for the Hamas leader.  He’ll essentially be told by Erdogan that Turkey’s commitment to Gaza has evaporated.  Hamas will have little or nothing to show for it.  And all Erdogan’s bluster over the past few years about how he remained steadfast for Gaza in the face of Israeli barbarity–all that will be for naught.

The two groups shut out of the benefits of the oil-gas revenue are Gazans and Israelis.  You read that right.  Oh, a few Israeli oligarchs, IDF ex-generals and intelligence chiefs who transformed themselves into consultants will reap almost all the billions.  Bibi and the Likud will take some of the spoils as well.  But the average Israeli?  Not a hope in hell that this will benefit him or her.  Remember that Israel is the poorest of 32 OECD countries and has the fifth most striated economy.  It has 18 families which own 60% of the country’s corporate equity.  There will be no trickle-down benefit to the poor in Israel.  So if you’re counting winners and losers, the result is a given.

This article was published at Tikun Olam

Britain’s Voyage To A Destination Unknown Led By A Captain Unfound – OpEd

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The EU Consumer Rights Directive — one among a plethora of rights that millions of British voters blithely threw away on Thursday — affords European citizens the right to change their minds after the rather unmomentous action of, for instance, buying some Tupperware. The assumption is that consumers deserve protection from deceptive sales practices. In transactions that involve false promises, the buyer has a right to determine she made a mistake and get her money back.

Why should British voters not now have some analogous way of rectifying a choice that some — perhaps many — now view as having been made in error?

“I was very disappointed about the results [of the EU referendum]. Even though I voted to leave, this morning I woke up and the reality did actually hit me. But if I had the opportunity to vote again, it would be to stay,” a British voter humbly admitted when interviewed at Manchester Airport on Friday.

How many other voters share her “buyer’s remorse”?

And how many people voted Leave as a symbolic protest, confident that as pollsters, bookkeepers, the financial markets, and the media told them, Remain would win? In other words, how many votes were cast for Leave on the assumption it wouldn’t happen?

Never mind. Britain has spoken. What has been done can’t now be undone — at least that’s the consensus voiced by the political establishment. Indeed, some European leaders were quick to reinforce that conclusion by declaring, “leave means leave.”

But is there really no way to reverse Brexit?

Is the notion of a reversal an affront to democracy? Would it dangerously compound the existing instability? Or might it instead reflect a basic human understanding that people individually and collectively on occasions make terrible mistakes and that mistakes can often be rectified.

What inviolable political principle is it that says 65 million people need to suffer the consequences of the ill-considered choices of a minority?

The promise offered by Leave was for “independence,” “sovereignty,” and “taking our country back.” It sounded wonderfully straightforward. The reality of complex, messy, and protracted withdrawal negotiations will reveal, however, that the destination towards which Britain is now headed is actually unknown.

The ballot paper looked simple: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

But after the voting had finished, the top two questions being asked on Google in the UK were, “What does it mean to leave the EU?” and “What is the EU?

While making its recommendations on the exact wording of the referendum last September, Britain’s Electoral Commission noted:

Referendum campaigners have a key role to play in informing people what the issues are in a referendum. The campaigns are the main source for highlighting to potential voters the implications of each potential outcome, encouraging people to vote and influencing how they vote. [My emphasis]

Yet as a BBC report in April pointed out:

Just about everything in the EU referendum debate is contestable, as soon as one side produces a “fact”, the other side challenges it with a contradictory “fact”.

At the end of the 16-page leaflet the British government circulated around the UK in April, it said:

This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.

Following David Cameron’s decision to step down as prime minister and before the process of EU withdrawal begins, the British people are boarding a ship taking them to a destination unknown led by a captain who has yet to be found.

The European Council says:

We now expect the United Kingdom government to give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be.

At the same time, it underlines the fact that the:

United Kingdom remains a member of the European Union, with all the rights and obligations that derive from this. According to the Treaties which the United Kingdom has ratified, EU law continues to apply to the full to and in the United Kingdom until it is no longer a Member.

The process doesn’t begin until Britain’s prime minister invokes Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and who that prime minister is, given that we know it won’t be David Cameron, is a choice that should in fact be determined neither by Conservative Members of Parliament, nor the Conservative Party Conference.

It’s time for a general election.

Whoever then ends up as Britain’s next prime minister will, by the electorate, have explicitly been assigned the task of taking the UK out of the EU.

If it turns out, however, that British voters, through the parliamentary system, end up placing in office another prime minister who unequivocally favors continued membership of the UK in the EU, then it seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that Britain will have spoken once again but this time exercised its right to say, we made a mistake.

Divorce papers once served, don’t have to be signed. They can be torn up.

Whether through a general election or by an undemocratic process, Boris Johnson is likely to become Britain’s next prime minister.

But before that happens, the British public should be in little doubt that by leading Brexit, Johnson was simply trying to hoodwink his way into Downing Street.

This is what fellow Conservative MP and government minister, Anna Soubry, now says:

You look at all the newspaper columns he’s ever written — he’s never said, “I’m for Out.” And he positively told people — people like Nicholas Soames — “I’m no Outer.” And when I confronted Boris with all of this, all he will ever say to me is, “It’ll be alright, it’ll all be alright.” And you know what I think? I think he didn’t think that they would win. That’s why it was going to be alright. But for his own interests, wanting to be Prime Minister, he went for Leave, because it would serve him.


Vietnam: Thugs Target Non-State Buddhist Sect Members

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Alleged state-linked thugs have intimidated a Vietnamese family who are members of a Buddhist sect that operates outside of government control, says the family’s father.

Vo Van Buu, an adherent of an unauthorized branch of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church, told RFA that local authorities blocked approaches to his family’s home in southwestern Vietnam’s An Giang province.

Local officials also sent hooligans on motorbikes to threaten and assault his wife and daughter, said Buu.

“Since June 20, the government has deployed 40 to 50 people to block both ways to my home,” Buu said. “They even put up a hammock in which to lie in front of the house.”

He also said up to 70 people harassed his wife and daughter on June 22, forcing them to stay home.

Buu said some of the harassment that his family experienced was seemingly done to try and prevent them partaking in anniversary services celebrating Hoa Hao’s formation in 1939.

Vietnam’s ruling communists officially recognizes the Hoa Hao religion, which has around 2 million adherents in the Southeast Asian nation. However the state enacts severe controls on nonconforming Hoa Hao groups that do not align themselves with the state-sanctioned branch.

How Concerned Should China Be About Brexit? – Analysis

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At first glance, the unexpected referendum result on Brexit—the UK’s exit from the EU—appears to be bad news for China’s interests in both the UK and EU. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to resign following the loss of the “Remain” vote in the referendum puts into question the multibillion dollar Sino-UK cooperation agreements signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the UK last year, in particular the Hinkley Point nuclear project, whose lead developer Électricité de France is considering withdrawing from due to the project’s escalating costs.

Now, with the coming loss of political support from Prime Minister Cameron, opposition against China’s nuclear investment, especially from the security lobby, could be strengthened. This could endanger China’s strategic plan to use Hinkley Point as a showpiece project that would lead to further nuclear projects in the UK and Europe.1 Likewise, China’s carefully cultivated relations with other EU member-states could come undone following Brexit, with the emboldened leaders of the European far-right, including Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, issuing calls for referendums across Europe on exits from the EU.2

Approvingly citing the Maoist aphorism “There is great disorder under Heaven; the situation is excellent,” the Slovenian political theorist Slavoj Žižek notes that Brexit presents a “chance to be fully exploited.”3 While Žižek was hoping but not hopeful that this unprecedented political opening would be seized by the Western Left, China is one of the Great Powers that could make good use of the unexpected opportunities created by the political and economic upheaval caused by Brexit. During the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, for example, France raised the prospect of EU intervention in the South China Sea dispute, with the French Defence Minister recommending joint EU naval patrols in the South China Sea to defend freedom of navigation.4 However, now with the sudden political threat of Frexit and other member-state exits from the EU—not to mention the economic threat of global recession—the chances of the EU nations investing in such expensive naval patrols have considerably decreased, giving China additional breathing room to maneuver in the South China Sea.5

Another strategic opportunity for China arising from Brexit concerns President Xi’s “Belt and Road” initiative, and in particular, the use of “Belt and Road” projects as a means of exporting China’s industrial overcapacity. One of the primary factors behind the strong “Leave” vote in the Brexit referendum and the rise of the European far-right has been the unequal distribution of the fruits of globalization within the affected economies. While the most visible social consequence of globalization has been the emergence of a class of wealthy elites circulating between their residences in global capitals like London, New York, and Singapore, globalization has also created an underclass of unemployed and underemployed citizens who have not been able to adjust to the loss of Western industrial jobs to the cheaper manufacturing hubs of China and Southeast Asia, or the more recent offshoring of Western service jobs to rising global IT hubs like Mumbai. As Jonathan Freedland writes of the “losers” of globalization who voted for Brexit:

“Leavers were to be found—though not exclusively—among those who are poor, either out of work or in what are universally derided as ‘crap jobs’: answering the phones in call-centers or stacking shelves in warehouses, on insecure ‘zero-hours’ contracts without benefits. They live in towns, rather than more cosmopolitan cities, often in the shadow of shuttered factories or closed mines, in places that are rundown, if not outright derelict. This is the England that has been left behind, a match for those parts of the American rust-belt that have rallied to Trump.”6

Indeed, American economists recently confirmed that China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 was a key moment in globalization that led to the loss of over 1 million and perhaps even over 2 million manufacturing jobs in the US, in particular in sectors like “apparel, leather goods, plastic plumbing fixtures and surgical and medical equipment” where US-based manufacturers were unable to compete with the influx of cheaper Chinese imports.7 This will be an important issue in November’s US general elections, when America’s “losers” of globalization are widely expected to turn out in large numbers to vote for the populist Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.8

The populist anger felt in the UK and across the EU that was in part caused by the loss of manufacturing jobs through globalization hence creates an opening for China’s European “Belt and Road” investments. Apart from the usual infrastructure megaprojects, “Belt and Road” investments also come in the form of the establishment of industrial zones, as well as investments in heavy industry. In Malaysia, for example, China has invested almost 3 billion USD in heavy industry in the East Coast Economic Region, a special economic zone that has been twinned with an industrial park in Qinzhou, China.9 In Central and Eastern Europe, the Great Stone Industrial Park is a key site of economic cooperation between China and Belarus, while Chinese investments in heavy industry and industrial parks were among the highlights of President Xi’s recent state visits to the Czech Republic, Serbia, and Poland.10 Indeed, China has even set up industrial parks in the US, with a prominent example being the network of Chinese factories in South Carolina that was started almost two decades ago by the Chinese consumer appliance manufacturer Haier’s establishment of a refrigerator factory.11 A concerted effort by China to establish industrial parks and to invest in heavy industry in the UK, Europe, and the US could meet the popular demand in the West for the return of manufacturing jobs, generate popular goodwill for China, and help reduce industrial overcapacity in the Chinese economy.

However, China has to take care to ensure that its investments do not trigger Sinophobia, especially given how the Brexit vote in the UK, the rise of the far-right in Europe, and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the US have all been accompanied with nationalistic xenophobia, which has been stoked by the social and economic pressures of the European refugee crisis. Given that this refugee crisis has been fed by the civil war in Syria and the insecure borders of Libya, the events of Brexit, the looming disintegration of the EU, and the possibility of a Trump presidency in the US—all of which can be expected to shatter establishment politics in the West—may all be considered to be stages of an epic event of blowback from ill-considered Western intervention in Libya and Syria. US-led Western intervention in Libya, which culminated with the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, created a situation of political instability and intensified jihadist insurgencies in Libya and West Africa, and these in turn have transformed Libya into a major gateway to the Mediterranean for a flood of African migrants hoping to establish better lives in Europe. Likewise, US-led Western intervention on behalf of rebel forces in the Syrian civil war has intensified the conflict and triggered massive refugee flows into Europe.12

Western xenophobia against the refugees, which currently manifests as Islamophobia, could easily transform into Sinophobia, especially given the negative messaging about China in the powerful Western media. Recent examples in the Western media include stories about China’s detained human rights activists,13 the Yulin dog meat festival,14 China’s activities in contested areas like Africa and the South China Sea,15 the bad behaviour of Chinese tourists,16 and the vulgar spending habits of China’s nouveaux riches in Vancouver.17 The Western media may even see it as its responsibility to challenge Chinese news reports. A recent example is the Wall Street Journal’s deflation of claims published in the Chinese news media about global support for China in the South China Sea dispute.18 To reduce the potentially serious risk to its investments in the West of media-driven Sinophobia, China will have to develop media strategies that are far more sophisticated than they currently are. Recent Chinese investment in Hollywood movie productions is a step towards strengthening Chinese soft power in the West, but more still needs to be done.19

In the meantime, “acquisition oriented” Chinese investors are taking advantage of the post-Brexit plunge in the value of the Pound Sterling to look for bargains in the UK’s property and business sectors.20 While China’s economic planners worry about the possible impacts of Brexit on China’s trade with the EU—China’s second-largest trading partner—as well as the possible impacts of Brexit on the proposed Sino-EU free trade and investment agreements, the People’s Bank of China and China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have declared themselves ready to work with other central banks, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to help regulate global financial flows and “smooth out any volatility and uncertainties” following the massive shock to global financial markets arising from the Brexit vote.21

References:
Adams, Christopher. “China seeks to build chain of UK nuclear plants.” Financial Times, October 22, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. https://next.ft.com/content/8fa43dd2-77e4-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.

Archdeacon, Olivia. “China adds Nigeria to its African Empire.” CapX, April 14, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://capx.co/nigeria-becomes-the-second-nation-in-chinas-african-empire/.

Bell, Rudolph. “How a Greenville man has brought 2,200 new jobs from China.” Greenville Online, June 6, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/money/business/2016/06/06/greenville-resident-specializes-recruiting-jobs-china/85321968/.

Black, Tim. “Syria Truce: Western Intervention Eats Itself.” Spiked Online, February 23, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/syria-truce-western-intervention-eats-itself/.

“Brexit a possible golden opportunity for China, say analysts.” AFP, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/brexit-a-possible-golden-opportunity-for-china-say-analysts.

“Brexit: David Cameron to quit after UK votes to leave EU.” BBC News, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36615028.

Bruk, Diana. “Check Out the Insanely Lavish Lives of the Rich Kids of China.” Cosmopolitan, April 14, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a56901/rich-chinese-kids-vancouver-sports-cars-instagram/.

Craw, Victoria. “Marine and Marion Le Pen call for referendum in France on European Union membership.” News.com.au, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/marine-and-marion-le-pen-call-for-referendum-in-france-on-european-union-membership/news-story/068da59bad58f7707d9d4bf9b034cd5e.

Escobar, Pepe. “Why the UK Said Bye Bye to the EU.” Sputnik, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160624/1041883503/eu-nrexit-escobar.html.

Freedland, Jonathan. “From Brexit to Trump?” New York Review of Books, June 25, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/06/25/from-brexit-to-trump/.

Gosselin, Peter, and Dorning, Mike. “After Doubts, Economists Find China Kills U.S. Factory Jobs.” Bloomberg, June 19, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-18/after-doubting-economists-find-china-killing-u-s-factory-jobs.

Hirsh, Michael. “Why Trump and Sanders Were Inevitable.” POLITICO Magazine, February 28, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/why-donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders-were-inevitable-213685.

Kuperman, Alan J. “Obama’s Libya Debacle.” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/obamas-libya-debacle.

Lichfield, John. “Brexit could lead to ‘domino effect’ in Europe as far-right celebrates referendum result.” The Independent, June 25, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-could-lead-to-domino-effect-in-europe-as-far-right-celebrates-referendum-result-a7101391.html.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “A New Type of International Relations: Xi Jinping’s 2015 State Visits to UK, Vietnam and Singapore.” Eurasia Review, November 9, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.eurasiareview.com/09112015-a-new-type-of-international-relations-xi-jinpings-2015-state-visits-to-uk-vietnam-and-singapore-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “Central and Eastern Europe and China’s ‘Belt and Road’: Xi Jinping’s 2016 State Visits to Czech Republic, Serbia and Poland.” Eurasia Review, June 22, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.eurasiareview.com/22062016-central-and-eastern-europe-and-chinas-belt-and-road-xi-jinpings-2016-state-visits-to-czech-republic-serbia-and-poland-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “China and the Eurasian Economic Union: Prospects for Silk Road Economic Belt,” Eurasia Review, May 14, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.eurasiareview.com/14052015-china-and-the-eurasian-economic-union-prospects-for-silk-road-economic-belt-analysis/.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “China’s ‘Belt and Road’ and Southeast Asia: Challenges and Prospects.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Southeast Asia, 33-42. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 2015.

Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “Recent Developments in Sino-EU Relations: 2014 and 2015 State Visits by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang.” Eurasia Review, July 5, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.eurasiareview.com/05072015-recent-developments-in-sino-eu-relations-2014-and-2015-state-visits-by-xi-jinping-and-li-keqiang/.

Logan, Nick. “First Brexit, then Nexit? Netherlands’ Geert Wilders calls for referendum.” Global News, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://globalnews.ca/news/2783859/first-brexit-then-nexit-netherlands-geer-wilders-calls-for-referendum/.

McGuire, Caroline. “Chinese tourist horrifies visitors at sacred Japanese temple after jumping into 1200-year-old shrine’s pond to collect lucky water in his plastic bottle.” Daily Mail, June 16, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3642969/Chinese-tourist-horrifies-visitors-sacred-Japanese-temple-jumping-pond-1200-year-old-shrine-collect-lucky-water-plastic-bottle.html.

Mui, Ylan Q. “Britain’s exit from E.U. sends global economies into tailspin.” Washington Post, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/britains-exit-from-eu-sends-global-economies-into-tailspin/2016/06/24/b898124a-3a3f-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html.

Page, Jeremy. “Beijing’s Claims of South China Sea Support May Not Hold Water.” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/beijings-claims-of-south-china-sea-support-may-not-hold-water-1466138014.

Phillips, Tom. “The disappeared: faces of human rights activists China wants to silence.” The Guardian, June 9, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/jun/09/the-disappeared-faces-human-rights-activists-china-silence.

Rainey, James. “Wanda’s Legendary Buy Is Just the Beginning of China’s Investment in Hollywood.” Variety, January 13, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://variety.com/2016/film/news/wanda-legendary-buy-china-1201678463/.

Roman, David. “France to Push for Coordinated EU Patrols in South China Sea.” Bloomberg, June 5, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-05/france-to-push-for-coordinated-eu-patrols-in-south-china-sea.

Sakoui, Anousha. “China Has Hollywood’s Attention. It Wants More.” Bloomberg Businessweek, September 5, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-04/china-has-hollywood-s-attention-it-wants-more.

Schuman, Michael. “Who Wins From Brexit? China.” Bloomberg, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-24/china-could-be-the-biggest-winner-from-brexit.

Sinclair, Ian. “The West and Syria: the corporate media vs. reality.” Open Democracy, March 4, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/west-and-syria-corporate-media-vs-reality.

Sudworth, John. “South China Sea: The mystery of missing books and maritime claims.” BBC News, June 19, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36545565.

Tasch, Barbara. “‘The only difference’: The ghost of Gaddafi is hovering over the European refugee crisis.” Business Insider, October 18, 2015. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.sg/the-european-refugee-crisis-and-libya-2015-10/.

“Will China take over the Hinkley Point nuclear project?” The Week, May 13, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.theweek.co.uk/60778/will-china-take-over-the-hinkley-point-nuclear-project.

Wu, Wendy. “China-led AIIB ready to help soothe Brexit stresses.” South China Morning Post, June 25, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1981462/china-led-aiib-ready-help-soothe-brexit-stresses.

“Yulin dog meat festival begins in China amid widespread criticism.” BBC News, June 21, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36583400.

Žižek, Slavoj. “Could Brexit Breathe New Life into Left-Wing Politics?” Newsweek, June 24, 2016. Accessed June 26, 2016. http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-eu-referendum-left-wing-politics-europe-zizek-474322.

Endnotes:
1 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “A New Type of International Relations: Xi Jinping’s 2015 State Visits to UK, Vietnam and Singapore,” Eurasia Review, November 9, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/09112015-a-new-type-of-international-relations-xi-jinpings-2015-state-visits-to-uk-vietnam-and-singapore-analysis/. Christopher Adams, “China seeks to build chain of UK nuclear plants,” Financial Times, October 22, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, https://next.ft.com/content/8fa43dd2-77e4-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89. “Will China take over the Hinkley Point nuclear project?” The Week, May 13, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.theweek.co.uk/60778/will-china-take-over-the-hinkley-point-nuclear-project. “Brexit: David Cameron to quit after UK votes to leave EU,” BBC News, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36615028.

2 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Recent Developments in Sino-EU Relations: 2014 and 2015 State Visits by Xi Jinping And Li Keqiang,” Eurasia Review, July 5, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/05072015-recent-developments-in-sino-eu-relations-2014-and-2015-state-visits-by-xi-jinping-and-li-keqiang/. Victoria Craw, “Marine and Marion Le Pen call for referendum in France on European Union membership,” News.com.au, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/marine-and-marion-le-pen-call-for-referendum-in-france-on-european-union-membership/news-story/068da59bad58f7707d9d4bf9b034cd5e. Nick Logan, “First Brexit, then Nexit? Netherlands’ Geert Wilders calls for referendum,” Global News, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://globalnews.ca/news/2783859/first-brexit-then-nexit-netherlands-geer-wilders-calls-for-referendum/. John Lichfield, “Brexit could lead to ‘domino effect’ in Europe as far-right celebrates referendum result.” The Independent, June 25, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-could-lead-to-domino-effect-in-europe-as-far-right-celebrates-referendum-result-a7101391.html.

3 Slavoj Žižek, “Could Brexit Breathe New Life into Left-Wing Politics?” Newsweek, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-eu-referendum-left-wing-politics-europe-zizek-474322.

4 David Roman, “France to Push for Coordinated EU Patrols in South China Sea,” Bloomberg, June 5, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-05/france-to-push-for-coordinated-eu-patrols-in-south-china-sea.

5 Ylan Q. Mui, “Britain’s exit from E.U. sends global economies into tailspin,” Washington Post, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/britains-exit-from-eu-sends-global-economies-into-tailspin/2016/06/24/b898124a-3a3f-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html.

6 Jonathan Freedland, “From Brexit to Trump?” New York Review of Books, June 25, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/06/25/from-brexit-to-trump/.

7 Peter Gosselin and Mike Dorning, “After Doubts, Economists Find China Kills U.S. Factory Jobs,” Bloomberg, June 19, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-18/after-doubting-economists-find-china-killing-u-s-factory-jobs.

8 Michael Hirsh, “Why Trump and Sanders Were Inevitable,” POLITICO Magazine, February 28, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/why-donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders-were-inevitable-213685.

9 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “China’s ‘Belt and Road’ and Southeast Asia: Challenges and Prospects,” in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Southeast Asia (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 2015), 37.

10 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “China and the Eurasian Economic Union: Prospects for Silk Road Economic Belt,” Eurasia Review, May 14, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/14052015-china-and-the-eurasian-economic-union-prospects-for-silk-road-economic-belt-analysis/. Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Central and Eastern Europe and China’s ‘Belt and Road’: Xi Jinping’s 2016 State Visits to Czech Republic, Serbia and Poland,” Eurasia Review, June 22, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/22062016-central-and-eastern-europe-and-chinas-belt-and-road-xi-jinpings-2016-state-visits-to-czech-republic-serbia-and-poland-analysis/.

11 Rudolph Bell, “How a Greenville man has brought 2,200 new jobs from China,” Greenville Online, June 6, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/money/business/2016/06/06/greenville-resident-specializes-recruiting-jobs-china/85321968/.

12 Barbara Tasch, “‘The only difference’: The ghost of Gaddafi is hovering over the European refugee crisis,” Business Insider, October 18, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.sg/the-european-refugee-crisis-and-libya-2015-10/. Alan J. Kuperman, “Obama’s Libya Debacle,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/obamas-libya-debacle. Tim Black, “Syria Truce: Western Intervention Eats Itself,” Spiked Online, February 23, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/syria-truce-western-intervention-eats-itself/. Ian Sinclair, “The West and Syria: the corporate media vs. reality,” Open Democracy, March 4, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/west-and-syria-corporate-media-vs-reality.

13 Tom Phillips, “The disappeared: faces of human rights activists China wants to silence,” The Guardian, June 9, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/jun/09/the-disappeared-faces-human-rights-activists-china-silence.

14 “Yulin dog meat festival begins in China amid widespread criticism,” BBC News, June 21, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36583400.

15 Olivia Archdeacon, “China adds Nigeria to its African Empire,” CapX, April 14, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://capx.co/nigeria-becomes-the-second-nation-in-chinas-african-empire/. John Sudworth, “South China Sea: The mystery of missing books and maritime claims,” BBC News, June 19, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36545565.

16 Caroline McGuire, “Chinese tourist horrifies visitors at sacred Japanese temple after jumping into 1200-year-old shrine’s pond to collect lucky water in his plastic bottle,” Daily Mail, June 16, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3642969/Chinese-tourist-horrifies-visitors-sacred-Japanese-temple-jumping-pond-1200-year-old-shrine-collect-lucky-water-plastic-bottle.html.

17 Diana Bruk, “Check Out the Insanely Lavish Lives of the Rich Kids of China,” Cosmopolitan, April 14, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a56901/rich-chinese-kids-vancouver-sports-cars-instagram/.

18 Jeremy Page, “Beijing’s Claims of South China Sea Support May Not Hold Water,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/beijings-claims-of-south-china-sea-support-may-not-hold-water-1466138014.

19 James Rainey, “Wanda’s Legendary Buy Is Just the Beginning of China’s Investment in Hollywood,” Variety, January 13, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://variety.com/2016/film/news/wanda-legendary-buy-china-1201678463/. Anousha Sakoui, “China Has Hollywood’s Attention. It Wants More,” Bloomberg Businessweek, September 5, 2015, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-04/china-has-hollywood-s-attention-it-wants-more.

20 “Brexit a possible golden opportunity for China, say analysts,” AFP, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/brexit-a-possible-golden-opportunity-for-china-say-analysts. Jennifer Li, “Hong Kong property investors cash in on Brexit,” South China Morning Post, June 25, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.scmp.com/business/money/article/1981536/hong-kong-property-investors-cash-brexit.

21 Michael Schuman, “Who Wins From Brexit? China,” Bloomberg, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-24/china-could-be-the-biggest-winner-from-brexit. Pepe Escobar, “Why the UK Said Bye Bye to the EU,” Sputnik, June 24, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160624/1041883503/eu-nrexit-escobar.html. Wendy Wu, “China-led AIIB ready to help soothe Brexit stresses,” South China Morning Post, June 25, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1981462/china-led-aiib-ready-help-soothe-brexit-stresses.

Stopping Illegal Migration From Bangladesh: Need For Comprehensive Approach – Analysis

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By Anand Kumar

The electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in Assam has brought the focus back on the issue of illegal immigration. After all, this was one major issue on which the party has come to power. Now that the BJP is in power at both the state and the central level, people will demand its resolution once and for all. Failure to provide a viable solution to this long pending issue will make people sceptical about the commitment of the party over the issue. In any case, it will be difficult for the BJP to sell the same issue again and again.

The party seems to be alive to this reality as the issue of illegal migration was prominently highlighted at its National Executive meeting held recently in Allahabad on June 12-13, 2016. Members of the National Executive acknowledged the fact that Assam has faced an unchecked infiltration from neighbouring Bangladesh for decades on. It was further stated that the problem has now reached Himalayan proportions and could mean a “death-knell to Assam’s identity, culture and traditions besides severely affecting state’s economy and people’s livelihood.”1 The resolution at the National Executive also blamed successive governments for turning a blind eye to the problem and indulging in vote bank politics.

The sealing of India’s border with Bangladesh has always been a problem. It is particularly notorious for its porosity. A large part of this border is riverine and rivers keep changing their course. What is worse, in the rainy season the flood water often uproots border pillars. Moreover, people living right up to the border do not make border management any easier.

The government however seems determined to seal the Indo-Bangladesh border or at least that part of the border that Assam shares with Bangladesh. The new Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has already stated that sealing the border with Bangladesh in the next two years is one of his two top priorities. A decision to this effect was taken by Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a review meeting on border management held on June 02, 2016. Bangladesh shares 4096 km of international border with India of which 284 km is with Assam. It was stated during the meeting that about 224 km of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam has already been fenced. It was also pointed out that “there are 122 locations (60.7 km) in Assam where physical barrier is not present”. The government has now decided that “100 locations covering 11.9 km will have physical barrier i.e. fence and 22 locations covering 48.8 km of riverine areas will have non-physical barriers including technological barriers which will be achieved by June 2017.”2

To secure sensitive areas, the government now wants to make “full use of technological solutions”. This will be achieved by “networking of equipments like high resolution cameras, radars, unattended ground sensors, optical fibres, infra-red sensors, aerostats, hand-held thermal imagers, etc. and integration of these with command and control architecture.”3 The use of high-tech gadgets to keep watch over riverine areas or those areas which are difficult to seal could prove to be useful. However, at the end of the day, any technology is only as effective as the man sitting behind it or operating it.

Interestingly, the BJP looks at the favourable outcome of the assembly election in Assam as a major ideological victory for the party, and not just as another electoral victory. The party thinks that its stand against illegal immigration has been endorsed by the Assamese people. The party now also appears keen to fulfill the promises made on the issue. But the problem is approach taken by the party may not effectively solve the problem. First of all there is a need to realise the border shared by Assam is only a small part of the total border shared by India with Bangladesh. As a result, even if this border is completely sealed other parts of the border remain porous. The illegal immigrants can still pour in from other areas. No doubt, in Assam there is a growing sentiment against illegal immigration, but the same can’t be said about the state of West Bengal or even Tripura. In fact, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had challenged then BJP’s prime ministerial-candidate Narendra Modi to touch even one such person in her state. In the past, it has been seen that people who were supposed to check infiltration actually encouraged it as part of their narrow vote bank politics.

The state government is also planning to update National Register of Citizens (NRC). Actually, the first visit of the new chief minister of Assam was to the headquarters of the state agency that is involved in the process of updating NRC. Even in this area the government is going to face major problem as migrants have been pouring into Assam for over a century now. Though the Assam Accord had set March 25, 1971 as the cut-off date, there are other clauses which entitle people of Bangladeshi origin to claim citizenship.

In the absence of commitment from other states, it would be difficult for the new state government to even check the problem of illegal immigrants. Assam has long been the gateway for illegal immigrants, but now the gateway has shifted to other areas. These illegal immigrants can very well come through states like West Bengal and then move on to the other parts of the country including Assam. This phenomenon is already in progress. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh know well that if they stay in one place it would be easier for state agencies to identify and deport them. Hence they disperse once they cross the border. Today one can find them from Kashmir to Kerala.

However, this is not to suggest that illegal migration is insurmountable and no solution can be found. But an effective solution would require a comprehensive approach where all the affected states – especially those that border Bangladesh – would have to adopt a uniform policy against illegal migration. This means that steps taken in Assam have to be replicated in other Indian states bordering Bangladesh. The very approach of institutions responsible for checking illegal migration also needs to change, in the absence of which any amount of effort is bound to deliver only partial results.

Views expressed are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/stopping-illegal-migration-from-bangladesh_akumar_240616

Fight Against Fraud Uncovers Large Fortunes Hidden Since Before Economic Crisis

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A new edition of the World Wealth Report was published on Thursday which revealed that the number of millionaires in Spain has risen by some 15,000 individuals. Furthermore, this report, published by the consultancy firm Cap Gemini, points to this increase exceeding a total of 65,000 people since the start of the crisis.

The explanation, according to the figures handled by the Spanish Tax Agency, is that the majority of the cases do not affect new personal fortunes amassed during the crisis, but rather are individuals who previously had a high net wealth hidden overseas, meaning that these people could not be controlled by the Spanish Tax Agency and hence did not pay the corresponding taxation.

These fortunes have largely been uncovered as a result of the new information instruments and the campaign for the fight against fraud started up back in 2012 by the Tax Agency; in fact, according to the report, that was the first year of the crisis in which the rise in the number of “new millionaires” began.

In addition, the Spanish government said, it should not be forgotten that the extraordinary tax regularization amnesty implemented by the government in 2012 resulted in almost 30,000 taxpayers regularizing their income and assets for the sum of 40 billion euros that had previously been hidden. Similarly, the obligation to declare assets and rights located overseas through the Tax Form 720 meant that, as from 2013, more than 200,000 taxpayers have declared their assets overseas for a sum of close on 140 billion euros.

Of the total assets declared, according to the information provided by the Tax Agency, taxpayers declared more than 13.7 billion euros in goods and rights overseas for the first time.

How US Federal Government Limits Valid Scientific Research On Marijuana

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The use of medical marijuana for millions of patients suffering from a wide range of health conditions and the subsequent therapeutic benefits has long been documented. Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam, have determined that Cannabis sativa (a.k.a. marijuana) can benefit patients suffering from a wide range of conditions, including cancer, epilepsy, chronic pain, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

So given all the health benefits for people experiencing debilitating health issues, why does the federal government continue to stifle valid, externally valid scientific research on Cannabis sativa?

In a recent paper published in Science, researchers at The University of New Mexico including Associate Professor Jacob Vigil in the Department of Psychology and Assistant Professor Sarah Stith in the Department of Economics, concluded that the federal government continues to make it extremely difficult to conduct any meaningful research on the risks and benefits of medicinal use of Cannabis sativa.

“Millions of patients have been granted the authorization to use medical Cannabis and Cannabis-based products by their respective state Health Departments and four states have begun taxing and regulating Cannabis sold for ‘recreational’ purposes,” said Vigil and Stith. “However, the federal government continues to categorize Cannabis sativa as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, a more restrictive categorization than that used for cocaine, methamphetamine and PCP.”

The definition of a Schedule I drug includes a “high potential for abuse,” and “no currently accepted medical use,” implying “a lack of accepted safety use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision, according to Vigil and Stith.

National Institute on Drug Abuse control

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) controls the supply of Cannabis sativa to researchers. The active agent in Cannabis, Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, has potency levels in the products that NIDA supplies that fall far below those of medical Cannabis sativa regularly sold and used in the U.S., significantly limiting the external validity of most clinical research designed to study the effects of Cannabis sativa on health, both positive and negative.

“This has created a truly unique and an unnecessary paradox in modern medicine, in which physicians are authorizing treatments to patients, and patients are regularly using medication without a scientific basis of knowledge on patient outcomes, forced rather to rely only on scientifically invalid or anecdotal information,” Vigil and Stith said.

Apart from following internal human subject protection procedures, such as Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, a scientist designing a clinical trial on the effects of Cannabis sativa using human subjects must conduct several independent and lengthy procedures that include filing for an Investigational New Drug (IND) with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), registering the study and obtaining approval from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and purchasing the Cannabis sativa to be used in the study through NIDA.

“An IND requires a level of specificity that may be difficult to achieve with a plant product or even undesirable when one takes into account the variation of natural phenotypes and the range of products used by patients, Vigil and Stith said. “In the case of new drug development with the intent to commercialize, such oversight may be prudent, but it is unclear why a study on, for example, the effects of smoked Cannabis sativa on driving impairment would also require an IND after receiving approval by a qualified Institutional Review Board.”

DEA approval

After filing for and receiving IND approval from the FDA, the scientist must also register the study and receive approval from the DEA, an organization tasked with the conflicting interest of “enforcing controlled substances laws and regulations,” which currently prohibit possession or distribution of Cannabis sativa, obvious components of any clinical investigation. The only exception is for Cannabis sativa purchased through NIDA. In other words, all Cannabis sativa used for research purposes must be purchased through NIDA, despite the fact that NIDA’s stated mission is to bring “the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction.” No mention is made of research related to therapeutic benefits or the potential for non-addictive recreational use.

Despite petitions from other universities, the NIDA Cannabis sativa supply is grown exclusively at the University of Mississippi since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. It is not uncommon for researchers to invest several years navigating this system only to receive a rejection from one of the controlling federal entities, and typically the DEA, which carries a notorious record of stalling, impeding, or otherwise obstructing sound medical Cannabis research, according to the U.S. Drug Policy Alliance (Drug Policy Alliance, accessed January, 2016).

Potency issues

Another issue with what little research the U.S. government has approved is the limited potency of the Cannabis sativa products available through the University of Mississippi. Reliance on this single source completely restricts researchers from conducting clinical trials using products that match the potency levels of products used in vivo, i.e., studies that would enable scientists to assess the therapeutic benefits and negative side effects of the medicinal Cannabis sativa actually used by tens of millions of people in the U.S.

The highest level of THC currently available through NIDA is 12.4 percent (National Institute on Drug Abuse, accessed January 2016). As of December, 2015, out of all the currently funded NIH grants with the term ‘Marijuana’ (n = 51) or ‘Cannabis’ (n = 50) in the Project title, nearly every study addressed Cannabis use as a problem behavior, and only two studies measured the (analgesic) effects of Cannabis sativa in real time, each using products with potency levels between 3.5 percent and 7 percent THC. In contrast, a study presented by the owner of a state-certified Cannabis sativa testing laboratory at the 249th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society found that the Cannabis sativa sold in Colorado averaged 18.7 percent THC levels with some strains registering as high as 35 percent THC.

In addition to dosing directly with the plant product, a variety of concentrates have been developed for vaporizing or ingesting edibles, both arguably healthier options than smoking. In New Mexico, the Department of Health has presently capped the THC potency levels in such products at 70 percent (a level that was widely protested as to low by visibly ill patients that attended a recent public medical advisory board hearing).

“Clearly, results from studies using Cannabis sativa obtained from the University of Mississippi offer little to no insight into the effects actually experienced by medical marijuana patients in terms of both therapeutic benefits and negative side effects, if any,” Vigil and Stith said.

What physicians think

A recent poll conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine showed the vast majority of physicians in the U.S. believe that medical Cannabis is a safe and effective pharmacological agent for certain mental and physical health conditions (Adler & Colbert, 2013).

“With increasing morbidity rates associated with prescribed narcotic abuse (particularly among non-Hispanic Whites) there is a legitimate place for Cannabis sativa as an alternative and perhaps primary therapeutic option for patients with a broad range and severity of negative health symptoms,” Vigil and Stith said.

The substitutability of Cannabis sativa for alcohol might also reduce the exorbitant number of deaths and costs associated with alcohol abuse and drunk driving.

“Unfortunately, both the costs and benefits of medicinal use of Cannabis sativa remain essentially unknown, and because the federal government effectively bans clinical research on Cannabis sativa, citizens, including many severely ill individuals, may suffer and die unnecessarily from both the unknown risks and the unknown benefits of consuming Cannabis sativa,” Vigil and Stith added.

Discovery Of Newborn Exoplanet May Help Explain Planetary Evolution

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A team of international researchers have discovered the youngest fully-formed exoplanet ever detected, orbiting a young star 500 light years from Earth.

The newfound planet, known as K2-33b, most closely resembles Neptune in size when compared to planets in our own solar system, and orbits its star once every five days.

Researchers behind the discovery, which include Dr Sasha Hinkley of the University of Exeter, believe the planet is only five-10 million years old – as so still in its infancy in astronomical terms and when compared to Earth, which is 4.5 billion years old.

It also means it is the youngest, fully formed planet to have been identified and one of the few newborn planets to have been discovered to date.

The research team hope that the pioneering discovery will help astronomers to gain a greater understanding of the processes behind the evolution of planets across the galaxy. The research is published in respected scientific journal Nature on Monday, June 20 2016.

Dr Hinkley, a Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics and Astronomy at Exeter, described the discovery as “providing an extraordinary snapshot of the planet formation process.”

He said: “It is extremely rare to find a planet at this stage of its infancy, and gives us a unique opportunity to try and understand more about how all planets form and develop, including Earth. We would really like to know if this planet formed at its present location, or perhaps formed much farther from the star, and moved much closer in.”

“This is a crucial development, as it will give us the opportunity to discover a more in depth understanding of the life cycle of planetary systems. In the same way that a person’s development is more easily understood if you can study them from being a baby, through childhood and into adulthood, so our understanding of the planets will only increase by learning more about them during their early existence.”

The team of astronomers detected the new planet using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, during its K2 mission, which identified a recurring dimming in the light emitted by the planet’s host star that hinted that an orbiting planet was regularly passing in front of it.

When stars form, they are encircled by dense regions of gas and dust, called protoplanetary disks, from which planets form. By the time a young star is a few million years old, this disk has largely dissipated and planet formation is mostly complete.

The star orbited by new exoplanet has a small amount of disk material left, indicated by observations from NASA’s Spitzer space telescope, suggesting it is in the final stages of dissipating.

“Astronomers know that star formation has just completed in this region, called Upper Scorpius, because roughly a quarter of the stars still have bright protoplanetary disks,” said Trevor David, the first author on the paper and a graduate student working with professor of astronomy Lynne Hillenbrand. “The remainder of stars in the region do not have such disks, so we reasoned that planet formation must be nearly complete for these stars, and that there would be a good chance of finding young exoplanets around them.”

Dr Hinkley said that the team were able to study how frequently the light emitted from the star dimmed, and by how much, to determine the orbit and size of the new exoplanet.

A Neptune-sized transiting planet closely orbiting a 5-10 million year old star appears in Nature. The work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and included data funded by NASA.

Humans And Artificial Intelligence Should Coexist, Experts Say

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Experts at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions tackled the issue of artificial intelligence and what it means for humans, concluding that they can and should coexist. The pertinent issue is how humans can leverage artificial intelligence to enhance the outcome of new technologies and improve quality of life, and not focus on the narrative of human vs machine. However, rapid technological advances underline the urgency for policy-makers to redesign educational systems so that younger generations are adequately prepared for a workplace that will see more automated processes.

“By some estimates, 47% of existing jobs in the US could be replaced by automation,” said Wendell Wallach, Scholar, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University, USA. “When the World Bank used similar methodology, it came up with 69% in India, and 77% in China. If that’s truly the case, we are talking about tremendous jobs being lost,” he added. The central concern is: what are we training our children for in the future? How should they be cooperating with these technologies to go beyond what any machine alone can realize and perhaps bring about super intelligence, he asked.

Lee Sedol, Grand Master, Korea Baduk Association, Republic of Korea, pointed to the need to think ahead and focus on solving disruptions brought on by technologies such as driverless vehicles. “We will see driverless cars become a reality in the future, but that will not cause too much confusion. Humans and self-driven cars can coexist. But, if there are many such cars in 20-30 years’ time, we will not need drivers anymore.” Lee was defeated in a historic Go match with artificial intelligence software earlier this year.

Turning to his globally watched face-off with AlphaGo, created by artificial intelligence firm Google DeepMind, Lee said a rematch in future is unlikely, as he did not enjoy the experience of playing against the software. “If I were to play again, with the knowledge and experience I gained from that match, I would have more opportunities to win. But I don’t think I will play with AlphaGo again. There was no exchange of emotions when I played against it. However, in the game, the level of pressure was out of my imagination. It’s very difficult to play without feeling and emotion.”

On lessons that can be drawn from that match, the panel agreed that software such as AlphaGo has many practical, applications in areas with massive amounts of data that the human mind is unable to compute, such as analysing recurring patterns for national disease intervention programmes, for example.

Dileep George, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Vicarious, USA, noted that there is no shame in machines defeating humans in games. Pointing to the example of chess software, he said that it has not stopped humans from engaging in the game, nor have spelling-bee competitions disappeared because computers can spell better. Such technology developments have had the unintended and positive impact of forcing people to connect more with one another, he argued.


Ambulatory Surgery Centers Saved $38 Billion In Private Health Spending – OpEd

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New research from the Healthcare Bluebook (sponsored by the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association) indicates the privately insured population saved $38 billion by using Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) instead of hospital outpatient departments for day surgeries. That figure includes $5 billion of lower out-of-pocket costs paid by patients directly.

What is remarkable is that only 48 percent of procedures (such as joint replacement) that can currently be done in either setting are actually done in ASCs. Assuming it would not be appropriate for three percent of surgeries to be done at ASCs (due to complexity), the study estimates that shifting the balance of procedures to ASCs would save yet another $38 billion. Plus, shifting other procedures, not currently done at ASCs, would save another $56 billion.

Why are private insurers and employers leaving this money on the table? The study notes that hospitals are concentrated and have stronger bargaining power over payers than do ASCs. So, why do not more ASCs open up? Because ASCs are often owned by physicians, laws discriminate against them versus non-profit hospitals. Although federal laws do not discriminate against ASCs as badly as they do physician-owned hospitals, laws in some states prevent new ASCs from entering markets to compete against hospitals. (See this New Jersey law, for example.)

Nevertheless, insurers and employers should be able to do a better job of getting rates down. The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) reduced costs of joint replacement, cataract surgery, and arthroscopy by $6.4 million in two years by implementing “reference pricing,” whereby high-quality settings with a wide range of fees were paid the same reference price (based on the low-cost providers’ fees). If patients wanted higher-cost facilities, they paid the difference out of pocket.

CalPERS’ reference pricing started in 2008. How can it not be the norm today? Evidence continues to build that health insurance, as it is currently designed in the United States, does not add value.

This article appeared at The Beacon

Reflections On Brexit Vote: Triumph Of Irrationality – OpEd

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The Brexit vote in the UK is yet another reminder of the perils of direct democracy in today’s complex “post-industrial” age putting severe limits on the ability of average citizens to make informed choices about complicated economic and socio-political issues. But, thankfully, the British political system is based on representative democracy, which is why the legally non-binding referendum ought to be ignored by the British lawmakers, most of whom are in favor of remaining in the Union — for good reasons.

Faced with the problems of economic stagnation, terrorism, refugees, the deepening right/left cleavage, and so on, the European Union is facing uncertain future and maybe headed toward a bigger crisis of governability in case the Brexit vote translates into Britain’s actual departure from the Union, which in all likelihood would trigger a break-up of the British Union; Scotland Wales have opted to remain in EU and now there are calls for a fresh Scottish referendum on independence. Equally important, the Brexit vote has raised new concerns about the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the peace between them, which has been much helped by their EU membership. Neither economically nor in terms of their security, the British people are not served by the Brexit campaign, which has prophesied disaster of biblical proportion with the myth of an EU super-state and marauding masses of immigrants.

Concerning the latter, UK admits some 360,000 immigrants annually, many of them due to brain drain from the South, which is not a terribly huge number that can be negotiated down within the EU context, e.g., by a so-called new Luxembourg Compromise emulating the past concessions to France. Some minor revisions of the EU Treaty to accommodate UK might be necessary in order to stem the anti-EU tide in the island country that has much benefited, e.g., in terms of its environmental laws, from EU membership.

On a broader level, the Brexit vote represents a backlash against globalization and its side-effects in terms of (national) identity. The anti-EU right-wing politicians who exploit the refugee and immigration issues to the advantage of their identitarian politics of exclusion often conveniently ignore the plus sides of immigration, seeing how Germany’s labor shortage problems are somewhat remedied by the huge influx of fresh labor from Syria and elsewhere.

Not only that, the European far-right in particular is completely wedded to a sinister myth of a centralized EU depriving member states of their sovereignty, when in fact it is abundantly clear that the EU is not moving toward a “single state” and is fully governed by the “union method” of coordinated action by the national governments. In other words, there are structural limits on European integration, ignored by the far-right populists who demonize the EU and scapegoat it for problems that are national in character, such as uneven growth or stagnation.

On the other hand, the Brexit turmoil in UK is aided by the monumental miscalculations of Prime Minister David Cameron, who capitulated to the extremists in his own party and has now doomed his country to a disastrous course that, logically speaking, ought to be frozen and reversed in the House of Commons. Britain is too crucial a part of the continent to depart from the European Union, which would be exposed to potential German hegemony if indeed the exit vote culminates in an actual EU exit. Hopefully, the British people can learn from the major shocks of the referendum’s divisive results and can swing back to rationality, for there is only one word to describe the result, that is, the triumph of irrationality.

Colombia And FARC Agree To Peace Agreement Ending Decades-Long Armed Conflict – OpEd

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By Larry Birns and Peter Bolton*

On Wednesday spokespersons from both the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced that after years of peace talks they have finally reached a conclusive agreement that will lead to a complete bilateral ceasefire. The historic announcement marks the end of the half-century-long civil war that has claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced millions across the country’s rural areas.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri (known by the alias Timochenko) shook hands at a ceremony in Havana, where the talks have been held since they began in 2013. Cuban President Rául Castro presided over the event and stood by as Timochenko, the Marxist rebel group’s most senior leader, reached out his hand to President Santos, a former defense minister during the Uribe administration and member of the conservative Party of the U. Also in attendance was Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose country played a key role in encouraging the FARC to enter negotiations, as well as UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the leaders of several other Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Santos spoke in jubilant terms about bringing the protracted and bloody conflict to an end, noting that for many Colombians, war is all they know. He said: “Colombia got used to living in conflict. We don’t have even the slightest memories of what it means to live in peace.” Timochenko, holding back tears in an emotional statement, said: “May this be the last day of war.”

According to a joint communique, the two delegations reached a mutual position on safety guarantees for demobilized guerrillas and a program for reintegration into civilian life. The FARC’s leadership is said to have issued an order to “silence all rifles,” which will be followed by a decommissioning process in which all arms will be surrendered and put out of use. The Colombian government will immediately end operations against the FARC in exchange for an agreement to disarm 180 days after the signing of a final peace deal.

Ivan Cepeda, a congressman from the left-wing Alternative Democratic Pole who was an early advocate of dialogue, emphasized that the outcome was not just the result of the efforts of the Colombian government, but also many sectors from across Colombian society including social movements, unions, and human rights organizations. Amongst these groups is Marcha Patriótica, a popular movement coalition of over 2,000 grassroots organizations that organized the historic march for peace in April 2013, in which hundreds of thousands of Colombians descended on the county’s capital city Bogotá to demonstrate in support of peace.

Cepeda also paid tribute to the role of the international community and solidarity with the process from across the world. He noted that in addition to hosting the talks in its capital city, Cuba had along with Norway served as guarantor of the peace talks, while Venezuela and Chile had worked in an accompaniment role.

The talks have been going on since 2013 and deadlines have been extended on several occasions. A final deal in which all of the finalized agreements will be codified together in one document is expected in the coming months. Once signed, the agreement will be put to a referendum in which the Colombian public will have the opportunity to accept or reject its terms.

After a long period of equivocation on the part of the United States, the dialogue belatedly received U.S.-endorsement from Secretary of State John Kerry when he met with representatives of both negotiating teams during a visit to Cuba earlier this year. Representatives from the United States were in attendance along with diplomats from several European nations.

To be sure, the talks have been controversial from the outset. Opponents to dialogue from the political right have argued that negotiating with the FARC, whom they consider to be “terrorists,” has been a dangerous and immoral surrender to violent insurrection. Former President Álvaro Uribe, whose administration engaged in an aggressive counter-offensive against the FARC and other leftist insurgent groups, has been a particularly outspoken opponent of dialogue, even launching a signature drive denouncing the peace talks as promoting “impunity” for the FARC. Uribe’s preferred candidate in the 2014 presidential election, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, promised throughout the campaign to discard the peace talks in favor of a return to all-out counter-insurgency, with the hope to defeat the FARC militarily and force a surrender on less agreeable terms. Santos defeated Zaluaga in what was widely seen as a public referendum on the continuation of the dialogue.

On the other side of the political spectrum, fears have been voiced that a disarmament of the FARC might leave its demobilized members defenseless against right-wing violence. Such concerns are based in large part on the FARC’s experience from the previous attempt at peace in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which several thousands of members of the Unión Patriótica were murdered. The political party, which was made up partially of FARC members but also leftist intellectuals, was formed to provide the radical left a route into electoral politics after the finalization of a peace deal and formal end to hostilities. Indeed, one of the major areas of contention in the current round of talks has been an agreement regarding a path into peaceful politics for the FARC.

But Santos has struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, arguing for the importance of democracy and the inclusion of all perspectives. Though maintaining that the FARC will always be his sworn enemy, he said that battles would in future be fought through political debate rather than through violence. He said: “Now that we have agreed peace, as head of state and as a Colombian, I will argue, with equal determination their right to express and to continue their political struggle by legal means, even if we never agree. That is the essence of democracy to which we welcome.”

COHA’s view

Santos was the primary example of a war monger as Minister of Defense in the Uribe government and one of the most predictable and flagrant human rights violators. His aggressive anti-guerrilla policies included the 2008 incursion into Ecuadorian territory that led to the deaths of over twenty militants and sparked the 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis. However, with his actions throughout the peace process, he has shown himself to be a peacemaker of considerable caliber.

Despite the growing pressure for him to further engross Colombia as the United States’ main ally in South America, he has persisted to present himself as a Latin Americanist and not a U.S. pawn in the region. The way that he has come out in favor of the peace agreement will no doubt be looked back on as one of the major events in Colombian history. Though it is perhaps wise to wait for the referendum by the public, COHA sees Santos as a potential nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership throughout the talks.

For the guerrillas, there is terrible risk that they are taking, especially in terms of how the Unión Patriótica genocide decimated some of their leading figures and forced them to retreat back into the jungle. Their decision to take a leap into the unknown by laying down their weapons has been brave and commendable.

Just as the Santos government has a responsibility to move toward demilitarization of the countryside, the FARC too will have to adapt to a culture of non-violence and come to terms with its past. But with the strength of the Marcha Patriótica and other social movements, there is now a strong base for a resurgent left in Colombia to participate in the political process through peaceful and democratic channels.

Though there is much to celebrate, there is also much work still ahead. All parties now need to focus on building institutions that will foster peace and greater democracy for Colombia’s future.


*Larry Birns, Director at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Peter Bolton, Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Groups Calls For UN To Suspend Saudi Arabia From Human Rights Council

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The United Nations General Assembly should immediately suspend Saudi Arabia’s membership rights on the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. A two-thirds majority of the General Assembly may suspend the membership rights of any Human Rights Council member engaged in “gross and systematic violations of human rights.”

Saudi Arabia, as the leader of the nine-nation coalition that began military operations against the Houthis in Yemen on March 26, 2015, has been implicated in numerous violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented 69 unlawful airstrikes by the coalition, some of which may amount to war crimes, killing at least 913 civilians and hitting homes, markets, hospitals, schools, civilian businesses, and mosques. The two organizations have also documented 19 attacks involving internationally banned cluster munitions, including in civilian areas. Saudi Arabia should be suspended from the Human Rights Council until it ends unlawful attacks in Yemen and conducts credible investigations that meet international standards or agrees to and cooperates with an independent international inquiry.

“Saudi Arabia has amassed an appalling record of violations in Yemen while a Human Rights Council member, and has damaged the body’s credibility by its bullying tactics to avoid accountability,” said Philippe Bolopion, deputy director for global advocacy at Human Rights Watch. “UN member countries should stand with Yemeni civilians and suspend Saudi Arabia immediately.”

UN institutions have repeatedly denounced violations by the Saudi-led coalition, as well as by the Houthi forces and their allies. In 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found the coalition responsible for 60 percent of recorded child deaths and injuries, and nearly half of 101 attacks on schools and hospitals. In March, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, stated that the coalition was responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together.

Earlier in 2016, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for the United States, United Kingdom, and France to suspend all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia until it curtailed its unlawful airstrikes in Yemen and credibly investigated alleged violations.

Saudi Arabia has strongly resisted all accountability measures, the two groups said. After threatening to withdraw funding from critical UN programs, Saudi Arabia in June compelled the UN secretary-general to remove the coalition from his “List of Shame” for killing and maiming children and attacking schools and hospitals in Yemen. In 2015, Saudi Arabia used its position on the Human Rights Council, aided by its allies, to obstruct the creation of an independent international investigation into alleged violations by all sides. Neither Saudi Arabia nor a national Yemeni commission of inquiry has carried out credible investigations into coalition attacks that may have been laws-of-war violations. Allowing Saudi Arabia to obstruct independent scrutiny and avoid accountability threatens the credibility of both the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said.

Since Saudi Arabia joined the Human Rights Council in January 2014, its crackdown on all forms of dissent at home has continued unabated, executions have surged, and discrimination against women and the Saudi Shia minority community remains systematic and entrenched.

“As the Human Rights Council commemorates its tenth anniversary, it should be recommiting to accountability, not allowing countries that commit gross and systematic abuses to remain members,” said Bolopion. “The General Assembly’s failure to suspend Saudi Arabia could seriously harm the rights council’s credibility.”

Spain’s Repeat Elections: PP In Stronger Position, But Deadlock Remains – Analysis

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By William Chislett*

The Popular Party (PP) defied expectations and won more seats in the repeat election, but still far from an absolute majority, while Unidos Podemos (UP), the new radical left-wing alliance, failed to overtake the centre-left Socialists as polls had widely predicted. Parliament, however, remained as fragmented as after last December’s inconclusive election.

The PP captured 137 seats, up from 123, the Socialists 85 (its worst result ever), down from 90, Unidos Podemos (Together We Can), forged in May between the anti-establishment Podemos and United Left (the revamped communist party), won the same number of seats (71) as these two parties gained separately last December and the centrist Ciudadanos (C’s) 32, eight fewer (see Figure 1). By running on the same ticket, Podemos and United Left had expected to benefit from the d’Hondt system of proportional representation.Commentary-Chislett-Spain-repeat-fig

The PP’s results put Mariano Rajoy, the acting Prime Minister, in a stronger position to lead a new government, but he faces the same obstacles as before in his bid to form a coalition that has an absolute majority (176 seats). The Socialists refused to back or join a government led by the PP, widely tainted by corruption scandals, unless Rajoy stepped down. Having won close to 700,000 more votes (33% of the total) despite the corruption cases, Rajoy is unlikely to throw in the towel.

C’s had agreed a pact with the Socialists’ leader Pedro Sánchez, but this did not garner enough support in parliament. This time round these two parties have fewer seats between them (117 as against 130), 20 fewer than the PP’s 137 and making it unlikely that the pact would be resurrected. Ideologically C’s are not that distant from the PP, but their leader Albert Rivera would have to eat his words to form a minority government with Rajoy.

Equally, UP and the Socialists (156 seats) do not have the absolute majority or very close to it forecast by polls. The Socialists are licking their wounds because of their worst-ever result, including winning fewer seats in their fiefdom of Andalusia than the PP for the first time, but do not have to face the humiliation of being pushed into third place by UP as they remain the dominant party on the left. Had UP overtaken them, the Socialists would have faced an agonising dilemma: forming a government with UP as the minority partner, which they showed no signs of wanting to do and which the business community dreaded, or allowing the PP to form a minority government by abstaining at the investiture vote, which is now one of the possible scenarios. UP is the common enemy of the Socialists, the PP and C’s.

Podemos, formed only in 2014 and born out of the movement of the ‘indignant ones’, and C’s (created in Catalonia and which did not go national until 2014) upended the two-party system of the PP and Socialists last December, but since then have not managed to make further inroads into the political establishment. The PP and the Socialists won 222 seats between them, nine more than last December (101 fewer than in 2008).

C’s won 377,000 fewer votes and UP lost 1 million. C’s supporters deserted the party for the PP and UP’s for the Socialists. The UP’s vote (5 million), mostly young adults, was less than the combined vote of Podemos and United Left (6.1 million) last December and represented a big smack in the face for the abrasive campaign and strategy of Pablo Iglesias, the UP leader. It would seem that voters were not convinced by Iglesias’s labelling of UP’s ideology as ‘new social democracy’, to the outrage of the Socialists.

The PP, with the most loyal supporters, many of whom are pensioners, benefited from the lower voter turnout (69.8% as against 73.2% last December) and probably from Brexit and the market turmoil that followed it which probably fuelled a ‘flight to safety’ (represented by the PP) among Spanish voters. Sánchez blamed Iglesias for the rise in the PP’s vote.

The Spanish economy is growing again (the strongest among the big euro zone countries), jobs are being created, albeit mainly temporary ones and the unemployment rate is still above 20% (26% in 2013), and consumer spending is picking up. Rajoy claims credit for the recovery.

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), the Italian Marxist theorist, famously declared ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born’. The results of Spain’s election show that the ‘old’ still has a lot of life in it and the ‘new’ has not really yet been fully born. Spaniards are hoping this will not necessitate third elections.

About the author:
*William Chislett
, Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

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