(Civil.Ge) — With returns from more than half of the precincts, early official results of the proportional part of the October 8 parliamentary election show ruling GDDG party in lead with 50.5%.

UNM opposition party, which is contesting official results, has 26.6%, according to vote tally protocols from 2,014 out of 3,702 precincts.

An election bloc, led by Alliance of Patriots, has 4.77% of votes, falling slightly short of 5% threshold required for a party to win seats in the 150-member parliament under the proportional, party-list system.

Irakli Alasania’s Free Democrats has 3.9%, followed by State for People election bloc, led by opera singer Paata Burchuladze with 3.67%; Nino Burjanadze’s Democratic Movement – 3.27%; Labor Party – 3%; Republican Party – 1.44%.

Other 17 parties and election blocs, which were running in the elections, have less than 3% of votes combined.

If these early results stand, it means that only two parties – GDDG and UNM – will share 77 seats between each other proportionally to their votes as no other party is clearing 5% threshold.

The remaining 73 seats in the Parliament are contested in 73 single-mandate constituencies.

Early results of these races for majoritarian MP seats are not yet available.

Political parties and observers expect second round runoffs in many of the single-mandate constituencies.

A majoritarian MP candidate has to win over 50% of votes in order to be an outright winner; otherwise race will be pushed into the runoff between the two contenders with the best results in the first round.

Second round runoffs should be held no later than 25 days after the first round.

By Gohar Stepanyan*

Armenian environmentalists have warned that a boom in the fish-farming industry in the Ararat valley is drying up essential water sources in local communities.

The valley, which stretches for 90 km along the Armenian-Turkish border in the south-west, is Armenia´s most important agricultural region.

Although its artesian basin provides over 60 per cent of the country´s underground water, the local area is at risk of desertification.

Experts say that fish farming in the 6,600 kilometres square valley has exacerbated falling groundwater levels, with more than 30 communities in the valley facing water shortages.

Aram, a farmer who asked to remain anonymous, lives in the village of Mrgavet in the Ararat region. He said that the groundwater level on his plot of land has dropped by around 40 cm each year. He has to regularly deepen his well to ensure there is enough water to irrigate his land.

This year, Aram had to excavate the well by half a metre.

“The fact that we have no water is the fault of the fish farmers,” Aram said, explaining that previously it had been enough to dig down one metre for water to appear.

“Now, one can reach it only at a depth of 14 metres,” he said, meaning that residents were forced to use electric pumps.

Not so long ago, he continued, the groundwater was only 10 cm below the earth´s surface. Villagers had to ask the workers at the irrigation service to cut off the water supply to avoid their gardens being swamped.

“The water flooded basements and washed away all the [stores of] jars and potatoes. Back then, we dreamed about the water decreasing. Now we dream about having water,” Aram continued.

Many of his neighbours have stopped growing vegetables. One could not afford to deepen his well while another decided to just let his source of water dry up.

“People are doomed to starvation, if there is no water. But who thinks about us,” Aram said. “Around us are fish farms, which have pumped all the groundwater.”

DEPLETED RESOURCES

Fish farming in the Ararat Valley began in the Soviet era, but on a much smaller scale.

“At that time, the fish-farming industry was well balanced with the local market demand and did not present any danger for the environment, since it mainly used the natural outlets of artesian aquifers and did not exceed the self-recovery potential of the underground water resource,“ the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said in an assessment published earlier this year.

Then, in the 2000s, a fish-farming boom set in. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 230 fish farms were built with a total pond area of around 3,530 hectares.

Many were built close to each other, with little regard for the environmental impact or medium and long-term market demand.

“The drilling of artesian wells took place without any control or supervision by respective public agencies,” the USAID study noted. This resulted in “widespread and careless wastage of strategic freshwater reserves in violation of basic principles for safe usage of underground water resources”.

USAID cited research by the Clean Energy and Water Programme (CEWP), according to which the annual consumption of artesian water by fisheries in Ararat Valley totaled 1,493 million cubic metres. The self-recovery potential of the artesian aquifer is only 1,226.2 million cubic metres per year.

All this has led to a decrease in natural soil moisture. In the Masis region, for example, cracks have appeared in residential houses due to falling groundwater levels.

The artesian basin also provides drinking water and irrigation to the surrounding cities of Armavir, Etchmiadzin, Artashat and Ararat.

Ecologist Ashot Khoyetsyan told IWPR that the Ararat valley, which is around 850 metres above sea level, is now considered to be semi-desert terrain.

In addition, rainfall has decreased because of global climate change. According to the Armenian meteorological service, the average annual temperature has risen by 1.3 degrees and humidity has decreased by 10 to 12 per cent over the past 20 years.

“This is the formula for desertification,” Khoyetsyan said, noting that more and more areas had been affected.

The Ararat valley´s primary problem is falling groundwater, but this has in turn led to the formation of 30,000 hectares of secondary salt marshes. Armenia is not in a position to desalinate these areas.

“The soil erosion is rapidly developing in the Ararat Valley and covers about 10 per cent of the territory. This is a huge figure for the Ararat valley, which is also the sole ´breadwinner´ of the country,” Khoyetsyan said.

Another problem is the lack of a proper development strategy for the fish-farming sector. This has led to significant overproduction and a decline in revenues.

Armenia currently produces about 14,000 tonnes of fish per year, of which 20 per cent are exported to the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), according to the ministry of agriculture.

Hovik Aghinyan, chief hydrogeologist at the state Hydrogeological Monitoring Centre, said that a short-sighted use of resources has caused a widespread drop in water levels throughout the Ararat´s artesian basin.

The ministry of nature protection had closed many deserted and illegally dug wells, but these were mostly small ones, Khoyetsyan said.

In 2014 and 2015, the ministry of nature protection sealed 50 deep water wells, while 40 were conserved and another 225 blocked up. According to official figures, these measures helped save 1.32 billion cubic metres of water.

However, the USAID study cited a much smaller number of wells that had been sealed – only eight in 2015.

“Although this is a very good initiative, the rate at which illegal or abandoned wells are sealed is not comparable with the scope of the problem,” the report said.

In total, there are around 560 abandoned wells in different parts of the valley, of which 100 have significant capacity, according to the USAID report.

Khoyetsyan added that after the closure of the abandoned wells, groundwater levels rose in the communities around Masis, Sis, Hovtashat, Dashtavan and Zorak.

“It is necessary to change the irrigation system, review the use of natural resources: but the methods of land use remain the same,” he added

Garnik Petrosyan, deputy minister of agriculture, also told IWPR that the situation in the Ararat valley needed to be addressed through the effective use of water resources, drip irrigation systems and the introduction of new technologies.

“We are testing varieties of wheat, barley and legumes for the purpose of cultivation, if necessary,” Petrosyan said.

In February USAID announced the launch of the Advanced Science and Partnerships for Integrated Resource Development Project (ASPIRED), a three-year initiative designed to curb the rate of groundwater abstraction in the Ararat valley.

Its focus is on improving technical capacities and increasing access to water conservation and energy efficiency technologies. ASPIRED will survey the wells and springs in the Ararat artesian basin and install an automated control system to monitor groundwater abstraction in ten selected fisheries.

Germany´s state development bank KfW has also shown interest in providing assistance to the Ararat valley. On September 20, Aramayis Grigoryan, then acting minister of nature protection, met with a bank delegation.

“We do not know to what extent our German partners will agree to fund this programme, but some amount of support will be provided, that can already be said with confidence,” Grigoryan told journalists.

*Gohar Stepanyan is a reporter for Newspress.am. This article was published at IWPR’s CRS 827

The United Nations Security Council on Saturday failed to adopt two resolutions to end the bloodshed in Syria’s besieged eastern Aleppo.

Among the two resolutions, the one proposed by France and Spain failed to be adopted as it received a negative vote by permanent member Russia. Such a veto by any one of the Council’s five permanent members means a resolution cannot be adopted.

The second resolution, proposed by Russia was also not adopted by the Council as it failed to achieve a majority of its members voting in favour.

At the Security Council meeting, several members also recalled the recent briefing by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who had said that if urgent action is not taken to address the situation in the war-torn country, thousands of Syrians would be killed and towns, such as eastern Aleppo could be totally destroyed by the end of this year.

At the briefing, Mr. de Mistura had also stressed that the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) is a very important entity and that the suspension of bilateral negotiations between the two-chairs – United States and Russia – “should not and will not” affect the existence of the Group. He had also emphasized the importance of the humanitarian task force, as well as the possibility of a body that would effectively and “perhaps more stringently” support future cessation of hostilities.

The UN estimates that five years on, the Syrian conflict has driven more than 4.8 million refugees to neighbouring countries, hundreds of thousands in Europe, and displaced 6.6 million people inside the Syria against a pre-war population of over 20 million. Well over 200,000 people are believed to have died.

When the financial sector is constrained and monetary stimulus is needed the most, flattening the yield curve is not enough – quantitative easing affects the real economy through a direct-lending channel that depends crucially on the type of assets purchased. This column argues that the Fed’s decision to purchase mortgage-backed securities (rather than exclusively Treasuries) during its first phase of quantitative easing increased mortgage-refinancing activity by $600 billion and had significant effects on aggregate consumption. It also highlights an important complementarity between quantitative easing and countercyclical macroprudential policies such as loan-to-value ratio caps.

By Marco Di Maggio, Amir Kermani and Christopher Palmer*

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke famously quipped in 2014 that QE “works in practice, but it doesn’t work in theory”. Central banks around the world seem convinced; among others, the ECB, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan have recently expanded their large-scale asset purchasing programmes (LSAPs) to stimulate their economies. In the US, LSAPs increased the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by a factor of five between 2008-2014.¹ Notably, LSAPs have varied significantly in the types of assets purchased by central banks, from Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the US to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and corporate bonds in Japan. Despite this surge in the popularity of LSAPs worldwide, their effectiveness and the channels through which they affect the real economy have been at the centre of a vigorous policy and academic debate. Does quantitative easing (QE) affect the real economy? How? What should guide central bankers as they implement LSAPs?

The intuition behind LSAPs is to flatten the yield curve and stimulate borrowing, investment, and spending by bidding up the price of long-term debt through massive central bank purchases.² Recent work has suggested several channels through which LSAPs may affect the economy –Krishnamurthy and Vissing-Jørgensen (2011) describe these channels and provide empirical evidence from asset yields on the relative importance of each, concluding that Fed MBS purchases affect MBS yields more than do Fed Treasury purchases.³ Under the duration-segmentation or portfolio-rebalancing channels, purchasing any long-term assets will be effective stimulus because investors will reallocate their resources to other long-duration assets not purchased by the central bank. If, however, the financial intermediation sector is acutely constrained, there will be only limited spillovers of central-bank purchases to other asset classes and the effectiveness of LSAPs will depend on the specific assets purchased. Our recent study uses the mortgage market as a laboratory to uncover new empirical evidence for this limited-spillovers view of LSAPs (Di Maggio et al. 2016).

Exploiting mortgage-market segmentation to identify causal effects

Because macroeconomic policy is intended to affect the entire economy, it is notoriously difficult to find a suitable control group for comparison to ascertain its effectiveness. For traction, our empirical strategy exploits the segmentation of the US mortgage market and the Federal Reserve Act restriction that the Fed can only purchase government-guaranteed debt. In particular, the Fed is prohibited from purchasing so-called non-conforming loans, which exceed published conforming loan limits and/or have loan-to-value (LTV) ratios above 80%.⁴

To understand how QE purchases differentially affected various mortgage segments, we use a novel database that merges loan- and borrower-level panel data, allowing us to track borrowers across mortgages and to account for credit demand and supply shocks that might otherwise confound our results. In addition to interest rates, we focus on the volume of refinance mortgage origination in each segment, an approach that has several advantages over existing methodologies. Event studies that investigate secondary-market yields may overstate the real effects of LSAPs because of imperfect pass-through of MBS yields to primary-market mortgage interest rates (Fuster et al. 2013, Scharfstein and Sunderam 2013). Moreover, interest rates themselves are only observed conditional on loan origination, meaning that interest rate changes may also overestimate the effectiveness of a given QE campaign by assuming perfect availability of credit.

The direct lending channel of LSAPs

Figure 1 summarises our main finding, which is robust to several alterative regression specifications. During the first three months of QE1 purchases, we find that financial institutions more than tripled their monthly origination of GSE-eligible refinance mortgages (blue line), while the origination of so-called jumbo loans above the conforming loan limit (red line) increased much less dramatically over the same time frame.⁵ Was this heterogeneous response to QE1 a product of QE1’s significant MBS purchases? Yes – Figure 1 also shows that QE2 purchases, which consisted exclusively of Treasuries, had no differential effects on the jumbo and non-jumbo segments. Moreover, the disparity in QE1 effectiveness seems to rely on frictions in the lending industry. While QE3 also involved MBS purchases, QE1 occurred at a time when the banking sector was much less healthy and had much stronger differential effects than did QE3, visible in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Note: Figure plots the dollar volume of refinance mortgage origination above and below the conforming loan limit.
Source: Authors calculations scaled for data coverage using BlackKnight LPS Data.

These results suggest a direct lending channel of QE, whereby Fed MBS purchases constitute de facto direct lending to households in a way that would not have happened if the Fed had not purchased MBS during QE1. Conservatively using the jumbo segment to model the counterfactual of what would have happened to the conforming segment if QE1 purchases had not included Agency MBS, we estimate that QE1 MBS purchases (instead of an amount of Treasuries that would have equivalently moved the yield curve) increased refinance-mortgage origination by at least $600 billion, substantially reducing interest payments for refinancing households, and resulting in larger average annual savings than the one-time stimulus checks. We also find that many households with LTVs lower than 80% cashed-out on average an additional $12,000. Our back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that these savings and the corresponding boom in equity extraction increased mortgagors’ consumption by $76 billion. Surprisingly, we find that the QE1-induced reduction in interest rates can only explain about 25-45% of the observed increase in the refinancing volume, reinforcing the importance of using data on quantities (instead of just asset prices) to measure the effectiveness of monetary stimulus.

The intensive margin response of household mortgage debt

The granularity of our data also allows us to study how this QE1-driven differential expansion in credit for the GSE segment of the mortgage market affected household borrowing and saving decisions. Figure 2 plots the LTV distribution for borrowers with an initial LTV between 80% and 90% that refinanced during the beginning of QE1, along with the LTV distribution of these refinancing borrowers’ subsequent mortgages.⁶ We observe significant bunching at the 80% LTV cutoff for Fed-purchase eligibility, highlighting the tightness of credit for mortgage market segments not directly stimulated by Fed MBS purchases. Around 34% of households who refinanced a mortgage with a current LTV of 80-90% (thus initially ineligible for purchase by the Fed) delever into an 80% LTV mortgage, increasing their equity position and decreasing their liquid wealth by an average of $9,000.

Figure 2

Note: Figure plots the LTV distribution of loans with an 80-90% LTV that refinanced during the first six months of QE1 along with the LTV distribution of the subsequent refinance mortgages.
Source: Authors calculations using BlackKnight LPS Data.

GSE LTV policy was also important for conforming borrowers that levered against their home equity by cash-out refinancing. Figure 3 shows that about 22% of borrowers with an initial LTV between 70-80% levered to an 80% LTV refinance mortgage, cashing out an average of $4,000 and significantly affecting refinancing borrowers’ consumption. This household balance sheet response to interest rate changes and its dependence on current home equity highlights how accommodative monetary policy may not benefit distressed regions, where borrowers have less equity to extract, nearly as much as comparatively non-distressed areas, where outstanding LTVs are lower on average (see Beraja et al. 2016 for further discussion of the regional heterogeneity in QE effectiveness).

Figure 3

Note: Figure plots the LTV distribution of loans starting with a 70-80% LTV that refinanced during the first six months of QE1 along with the LTV distribution of the subsequent refinance mortgages.
Source: Authors calculations using BlackKnight LPS Data.

Using our statistical model of the relationship between QE1 purchases, debt origination, and equity extraction, we evaluate the effectiveness of an oft-proposed macroprudential tool: countercyclical leverage caps. Specifically, we investigate what would have been the effect of an increase in the GSE LTV cap from 80% to 90%. While low-downpayment loans are frequently maligned as a contributor to the housing crisis, leverage ratios would ideally be tight during credit expansions and loose during contractions to smooth macroeconomic shocks.

We estimate that this simple policy would have increased the number of refinancing households by over 410,000 during the first six months of QE1, a $92 billion increase in refinance mortgage origination. Notably, this policy would have also generated an almost 20% increase in equity cashed-out ($10 billion) with potentially important effects on aggregate demand. Ultimately, such a policy would have been more effective in terms of refinances and aggregate volume than the Home Affordable Refinancing Program, partly because raising LTV caps would have increased cash-out refinances (and thus aggregate consumption) in a way that HARP eligibility restrictions did not allow.⁷ This highlights that LSAP policies ought not to be designed in a vacuum – there is an important complementarity between mortgage market policy and the effectiveness of Fed MBS purchases.

Conclusion

When LSAPs are needed the most, simply bending the yield curve through purchasing government debt is not effective for stimulating the mortgage market (a key sector of the economy for the transmission of monetary policy). Purchasing mortgage-backed securities when banks are reluctant to lend can very effectively open a direct-lending channel from central-bank purchases to households. Given the limited spillover of Fed purchases during times of stress, Federal Reserve Act provisions that restrict Fed purchases to government-guaranteed debt have important consequences in allocating credit to certain sectors (i.e. housing) and particular segments within those sectors (i.e. conforming mortgages). There is a strong interaction between GSE policy and the effectiveness of MBS purchases, with the latter depending crucially on the former. Our counterfactual estimates suggest that countercyclical maximum LTV requirements would have made Fed QE purchases significantly more effective.

References:
Beraja, M., A. Fuster, E. Hurst, and J. Vavra (2015), “Regional heterogeneity and monetary policy”, Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Bernanke, B. (2012) “Monetary Policy since the Onset of the Crisis.” Remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 31 August.

Bernanke, B. (2014) “A Conversation: The Fed Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, Interview with Liaquat Ahamed, Brookings Institution, 16 January 2014.

Bernanke, B. (2015) The Courage to Act: A Memoir of the Crisis and Its Aftermath, W. W. Norton.

Curdia, V. and M. Woodford (2011) “The Central Bank’s Balance Sheet as an Instrument of Monetary Policy”, Journal of Monetary Economics 58(1), 54–79.

Di Maggio, M., A. Kermani, and C. Palmer (2016) “How Quantitative Easing Works: Evidence on the Refinancing Channel”, NBER Working Paper No. 22638.

Fuster, A., L. Goodman, D. O. Lucca, L. Madar, L. Molloy, and P. Willen (2013) “The rising gap between primary and secondary mortgage rates”, Economic Policy Review 19 (2).

Gertler, M. and P. Karadi (2011) “A model of unconventional monetary policy”, Journal of Monetary Economics 58 (1), 17–34.

Greenwood, R., S. G. Hanson, and G. Y. Liao (2015) “Price Dynamics in Partially Segmented Markets”, HBS Working Paper.

He, Z., and A. Krishnamurthy (2013) “Intermediary asset pricing”, The American Economic Review, 103(2), 732-770.

Krishnamurthy, A. and A. Vissing-Jorgensen (2011) “The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 215.

Scharfstein, D. S. and A. Sunderam (2013) “Concentration in Mortgage Lending, Refinancing Activity and Mortgage Rates”, NBER Working Paper No. 19156.

Vayanos, D. and J.-L. Vila (2009) “A Preferred-Habitat Model of the Term Structure of Interest Rates”, NBER Working Paper No. 15487.

Endnotes:
[1] LSAPs are commonly referred to as quantitative easing. Bernanke lobbied unsuccessfully for the press to adopt the term ‘credit easing’ instead of quantitative easing (Bernanke, 2014).

[2] Then-Chairman Bernanke explained the rationale in a 2012 speech: “As investors rebalance their portfolios… the prices of the assets they buy should rise and their yields decline as well. Declining yields and rising asset prices ease overall financial conditions and stimulate economic activity through channels similar to those for conventional monetary policy.”

[3] Under the portfolio-rebalancing channel, the central bank affects the return of different assets by affecting their relative supply. The segmentation channel posits that QE is effective when intermediaries are unable to arbitrage across different market segments in the short run (Vayanos and Vila 2009, Greenwood et al. 2015). The capital-constraints channel emphasizes that LSAPs can offset the decline in private lending from disruptions in financial intermediation (Gertler and Karadi 2011, Curdia and Woodford 2011, He and Krishnamurthy 2013).

[4] We focus on government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) mortgages instead of low-downpayment FHA mortgages (also eligible for Fed purchase) for our analysis to be able to compare market segments with similar lending standards. An important exception to the 80% LTV cutoff for GSE mortgages was made possible by the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP), a policy we show had visible effects on the effectiveness of Fed MBS purchases. Additionally, mortgages with private mortgage insurance (PMI) are exempt from the 80% LTV requirement, although the PMI industry was virtually nonexistent in 2009.

[5] Lending standards in the prime conforming and prime jumbo mortgage market segments are broadly comparable. Our regression framework allows us to account for several forms of observed and unobserved borrower heterogeneity.

[6] While the LTV distribution of all outstanding mortgages (not shown) is uniform, refinanced mortgages’ current LTVs were much more likely to be close to 80%, additional evidence of the frictions associated with non-GSE–eligible refinancing during this time period.

[7] That said, we do find evidence that HARP significantly alleviated deleveraging behavior by allowing eligible high-LTV borrowers refinancing opportunities.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

The European Union was a creation of CIA, especially of “Wild Bill” Donovan, the first organizer of the Office for Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Agency, and of Walter Bedell Smith, the first President of the Agency. The idea was simple and rational, namely to organize the non-NATO European countries and the Alliance ones in a network of US-EU bilateral economic relations, which would serve as “glue” of the European Federalist Movement led by a lukewarm pro-European man, Winston Churchill.

All this pending a war, which was considered forthcoming, between the United States, Europe and the USSR, and an economic penetration of free Europe by the Soviets.

Oil, some non-oil commodities and various minerals had been used by Russia to enter the West European markets, waiting for reaping the political benefits of those moves.

Hence the first step was the “Anglo-American loan” in London equal to 206 billion pounds, which began in 1946 and was fully repaid in 2006. It was negotiated by John Maynard Keynes and it was such as to transfer every British economic and colonial asset to Wall Street.

Later, the second step was a limitation on the British nuclear weapons, which had to be few and of “last resort”; the final step was a series of trade links which favoured the United States, also in Great Britain.

A historical and linguistic link through which the United States wanted to penetrate the future EU, simplified and relegated to the impossible level of “United States of Europe” and make it economically and strategically subordinate.

Hence the industrial reconstruction fostered by the Marshall Plan and by the European Recovery Program (ERP) was the transfer of North-American second and third technologies to the defeated countries, which produced “mature” goods and services at a low price and repurchased in dollars. The goods that the United States had no longer interest in producing in their country triggered the new European growth off. It is also worth recalling that the ERP had been offered also to the URSS.

This is basically what the United Europe was and still partly is.

A “federation” of nations in which Great Britain controlled Germany and wanted to remain the arbiter of the Mediterranean against Italy and France. A “federation” in which it also intended to manipulate and enlarge its link with the United States, which often took it too seriously.

Germany became an economic power to resume the Third Reich project without waging a war and, as soon as the USSR collapsed, it regained the Slavic and Germanic East in a short lapse of time.

The Cold War was the “family photo” of the winners with the main losers of the Second World War, and the primary glue was the fight against communism, created in World War I, developed in World War II and acting as political intermediary of most European national party tensions.

The Cold War was the final part of the “European civil war” about which the recently deceased Ernst Nolte spoke.

In that context, Great Britain wanted to believe in its old imperial memories and kept a significant military standing, so as to make the United States understand that it was not like South Carolina and to defend itself autonomously from a possible continental Europe partially or totally in the hands of a Communist enemy.

In Cold War Europe, everybody played the game of European unity and of sovereign autonomy, both when the neighbour was conquered by its PC or by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. Only Italy did so weakly and irrationally.

Hence today more than ever in the past, Europe is a paradox in itself. It survives in a rhetoric which, in the future, will manifest itself with its anthem, Ode to Joy, by Schiller and Van Beethoven, but it lives just as constantly intermediating between the Brüder, the “brothers” of the European continent, by also accepting the adverse geopolitics devised by the United States: no serious presence in the Middle East; the Maghreb region left naively at first to the pro-Soviet “liberation movements” and later to the frenzy of “total democracy”; the Balkans given as a guarantee to the dubious “self-managed” socialism of Marshal Tito, already designated heir apparent to Stalin – that cost a lot of money to Italian taxpayers..

A Europe surrounded by wolves that the New World Order was playing precisely with the USSR.

The three subsequent “doctrines” of nuclear use developed by NATO proved it.

From massive retaliation to “flexible response” until the most recent doctrines, all NATO doctrines have proposed Europe as the bone of contention and trigger of war.

Hence everything was planned for a future confrontation, the Mors Aeuropae, to be accomplished in a short lapse of time, while the freezing of equilibria was equally quick, but unexpected.

As André Malraux said, “the United States are the first nation which has become powerful without pursuing this goal”.

Two factors have changed this scenario completely: Brexit and China’s new global presence.

It is worth recalling that the United States have never accepted the euro and have considered it an account currency in the EU or, more severely, a global monetary nuisance.

I can remember the old banknotes of the Bank of England when there was speculation that the UK might enter the euro: “We will not enter”, they said in Threadneedle Street, “since the Euro means participating in others’ debt without guarantees, because the currency as such is not a guarantee.”

Hence, now with Brexit and Prime Minister Theresa May who manages it, the issue is turning irrelevant, but the British Premier has created, with a stroke of geopolitical genius, a new axis for Great Britain, namely China.

China has already had excellent relations with Great Britain: a case in point is Hinkley Point C, a nuclear power plant which is worth 18 billion pounds, of which China holds a 30% stake. The deal was managed by David Cameron and Xi Jinping.

Even the future reactors Sizewell and Bradwell are supposed to have a Chinese share of funding, as well as support towards foreign merchant banks.

Now Prime Minister May has delayed the project, causing some nervousness in China, but she wants some clarifications on the British national security mechanisms for all the plants concerned.

It is worth noting that Chinese investment in the UK is already higher than China’s investment in Germany, France and Italy.

It is also worth recalling that the jobs created thanks to the Chinese investment in Great Britain are as many as 265,000.

China, which knows the history of the euro and of “European federalism” all too well, does not want to be bogged down – except for large, clear and profitable business – in financial mechanisms not yet stabilized but indeed, being deconstructed, as the single European currency, which was created for political purposes, but will soon die for the same reasons.

On the other hand, a currency was “reversed time” and even “signum potestatis” – indeed, precisely the monetary “sign” of the military and political might of the king portrayed on it. Something very different from the “bridges”, like those on the euro bank notes – all highways in the void, or rather Roman aqueducts.

However, let us revert to Prime Minister May: China will become Great Britain’s economic bulwark after Brexit, although – due to its complex strategy towards China – as early as 1990, Great Britain has used also the direct channels between the EU and China.

Now Great Britain will use its national channels and, certainly, Prime Minister May will manage the Chinese strategic support to: a) become the pivot of China’s presence towards the EU; b) balance, with China, the possible US mainmort, also strengthening its conventional nuclear and military apparatus; c) become the end point, for Northern Europe, of the major Belt and Road initiative devised by Xi Jinping that, with Great Britain, would arrive easily to the North Atlantic Ocean and would touch the US initial Ocean.

About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and Khashoggi Holding’s advisor. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy.

An Egyptian court on Saturday held its first hearing on a government appeal against a lower court ruling in June that rescinded an agreement to hand over control of two key Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

The Supreme Administrative Court heard prominent rights lawyer and former presidential candidate Khaled Ali argue that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir belong to Egypt. Ali submitted evidence, including Egyptian atlases dating back to the early 20th century.

Egypt’s government, which announced the agreement in April, argues that Saudi Arabia had only temporarily handed over control of the islands to Egypt in 1950, fearing they would be attacked by Israel.

The agreement sparked the largest anti-government protests in Egypt since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took office in June 2014. It was announced during a high-profile visit to Cairo by the Saudi monarch, King Salman, in which he pledged billions of dollars to Egypt in loans and investment, prompting speculation that the transfer of sovereignty was the price for financial aid. Since then many official documents and historical evidence has emerged from both the Saudi and the Egyptian sides to show that the islands were indeed Saudi.

The government, additionally, argues that returning the islands to Saudi control is a presidential prerogative and that only parliament has the jurisdiction to ratify or reject the agreement. Egypt’s 596-seat legislature is packed with El-Sisi supporters.

The uninhabited islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba control the narrow shipping lanes leading north to the ports of Eilat and Aqaba, in Israel and Jordan respectively.

Ahmed El-Shazli, the presiding judge, adjourned the hearings until Oct. 22.

By Mitchell Blatt*

Donald Trump isn’t unqualified to be president just because of the latest video released on him bragging about sexually assaulting women. He’s already been rendered disqualified for the office of the presidency for multiple other things he has said and done. This video would be enough to disqualify him if it was only the first disgraceful thing released about him. As it stands, the video emphasizes and crystallizes the personality aspects that already disqualify him—his entitlement, his arrogance, his uncontrollable narcissism, his extreme sexism (which already had him spending a week attacking a Miss Universe winner for her alleged weight gain), and his general loutishness and hateful demeanor.

Republican Congressmen who had already put up with him spreading racism, attacking POWs, attacking the families of dead soldiers, attacking female reporters, attacking the profession of journalism, and attacking anyone who ever said anything halfway critical of Trump are starting to finally jump ship. Some have called for Trump to drop out and his vice presidential candidate Mike Pence to be promoted to the top of the ticket. Others have said they will not vote for Trump for president.

Bombs + Dollars has been against Trump since before he won the nomination. We pointed out the very things that made Trump deplorable before much of the GOP finally appeared to realize the problem (or, more likely, before they realized the political problem was so great they could no longer whitewash it). On January 24, I wrote, as a representative of this publication:

Here we have a candidate who threatens to sue newspapers for reporting on his bankruptcies, who said he would “certainly” create a government database of Muslims in America, who incited his fans to physically assault a non-violent protester and said that they were right to do so, defended Putin from charges that he kills political opponents by equivocating the United States with Russia (“Our country does plenty of killing, too”), and his personal account tweets racist messages about “white genocide”. This is all fact. He has done it all. No amount of politically correct denials from Team Trump can change the reality.

Since then, Trump has only added to the list of disqualifying actions.

When Trump won the Republican nomination, Bombs + Dollars reiterated our opposition: #NeverTrump means never Trump. In that editorial, we did not endorse a candidate, instead opting for an anti-endorsement of Trump. We will maintain our policy of not endorsing a candidate as a publication, but we will be printing endorsements of individual Bombs + Dollars writers and editors. As such, this functions as my personal endorsement.

First, the Republican Party doesn’t deserve to have Trump replaced on their ticket. Any attempt to replace Trump this close to the election would result in a three-way Syrian-style war of legal fighting that would make Bush v. Gore look boring. The Republican Party would be fighting both the Democrats and the Trump campaign. But aside from practical considerations, the GOP just doesn’t deserve to have a mulligan after having lost this election.

There have been many principled conservatives who knew Trump was a terrible person and an unelectable candidate. #NeverTrump had been saying loud and clear for months that the same man who insulted John McCain early on in his campaign for being a POW would implode. Imagine the surprise when he did!

Trump lost almost all of the public polls in the spring—and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz won most of them. So now, one month before the election, when Trump is losing badly and a video just came out that would guarantee he couldn’t turn it around, much of the party’s elected Congresspeople finally wake up to the realization?

Sorry, Republican Party, but your denouncements at this moment look more opportunistic than principled. You should have let the #NeverTrump delegates vote at the convention on whether they could vote against Trump when they gave you an out. The party leadership didn’t even let them vote on it, and they even appeared to break party rules with arm twisting or outright fraud when they withdrew the petitions of three states. The Republican Party made its bed, and now it must lie in it.

My endorsement, and why the “burn it down” crowd is wrong

There’s only one reason to vote for or against a candidate, and that is because one candidate is preferable to the other(s) on the basis of her or his positions on the issues, qualifications, character, values, or other rational reasons. Many Trump supporters, as I have documented, don’t give a damn about policy. Instead many are voting for Trump because they say they hate politicians, the “establishment,” or “political correctness,” and because of cultural grievances. The Globalists don’t respect us! Let’s burn the party down!

Some long-time right-wing/conservative/Republican (pick your describer for the Trump faction) bloggers are even saying they will go back to being Democrats out of anger towards the #NeverTrump crowd. Well, thank you, Ace of Spades, for admitting one thing #NeverTrump has been saying all along: that Trumpists aren’t even conservatives or Republicans.

If someone really does think that deporting 12 million illegal immigrants, banning Muslims, building a wall, and cracking down on international trade is good policy, then I would strenuously disagree with that person, but by all means it would be logical for them, based on those beliefs, to support Donald Trump for president. Voting for him in order to “send a message” or because you hate the GOP leadership or whatever just isn’t logical. Your vote for Trump or Clinton will have a real impact, not symbolism, on how America is governed.

So the question is, which candidate is preferable? Based on policy proposals, qualifications, character, values, and almost any other rational reason, it is no contest: Hillary Clinton is preferable to Donald Trump by any measure.

Hillary Clinton is better for the economy, stronger and smarter on defense, and more conservative.

Donald Trump has said he would consider raising tariffs on imported goods to 35 or 45 percent. Although Hillary Clinton has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership after facing pressure from Bernie Sanders and the left, she appears to generally be relatively pro-free trade in her actual views, and in her professed views she has never come near expressing as much opposition as has Trump.

Trump has released a tax plan that would blow up the budget deficit and increase the national debt by more than $5 trillion in ten years (versus current projections), according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Clinton’s plan would increase the deficit by $200 billion. Trump has furthermore proposed to pay off the entire $19 trillion national debt in 8 years, despite having little revenue come in. When asked how the hell he thinks he could do that, he suggested the U.S. could default on its debt, much like how Trump defaulted on hundreds of millions of dollars of business debt he has personally guaranteed. Trump has also promised to spend “twice as much” as Clinton on infrastructure spending, to continue funding Social Security and entitlement programs at unsustainable rates, and to do nothing to cut spending. Thus, Clinton is the better choice for those who want an agenda of economic growth and fiscal responsibility.

On defense, Clinton has promised to keep NATO together, to defend NATO allies if Russian were to invade, and to maintain America’s present alliances at a time when China is becoming more aggressive in asserting vast claims to most of the South China Sea. In most election years, this would be the default position for both sides, but this year the Republican nominee has suggested he might not defend NATO allies from invasion and that he would consider withdrawing troops from South Korea and Japan and letting those nations develop nuclear weapons.

Finally, it should also be noted that Clinton is more likely to defend the civil liberties of Americans. Trump’s disturbing tendencies towards authoritarianism go beyond his proposals to torture foreign POWs and kill civilian relatives of suspected terrorists, proposals which are both immoral and illegal as is. He has also disparaged the constitutionally-protected rights of American citizens, bracketing “freedom of the press” in quote marks when whining about newspapers reporting negative stories on him and proposing to ratchet up libel laws such that newspapers could be threatened for reporting accurate stories. He even said that he would be open to trying American citizens suspected of terrorism at military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay.

Hillary Clinton is more qualified and has better judgment.

Clinton has served in multiple functions of government—from first lady to Senator to Secretary of State. One can take issue with certain of her decisions. As first lady, she failed miserably to build support for President Bill Clinton’s healthcare plan. She has admitted that voting to give President George W. Bush the authority for the Iraq War as Senator was a mistake. As Secretary of State, she presided over the terribly mismanaged Libya conflict. Still, she knows how government works. She understands the practical and tough choices that she will be faced with, between diplomacy and military might, between compromising to move forward and sticking up for American values. She even appears to have basic knowledge about things like the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and what the nuclear triad is. (Her campaign issues detailed policy papers, and she speaks comfortably about the issues.) That cannot be said of Trump, who appears confused on any specific issue he is asked about, including the above mentioned questions. Again, this should be a very simple and easy question that both the Democratic and Republican candidates pass, but in this case Trump didn’t pass.

So Clinton already surpasses Trump on qualifications just by having any qualifications, but what’s more there are also some positive things she has done as Secretary of State that display good judgment and abilities. Her focus on “pivot[ing] towards Asia” indicates that she has a smart vision as to where the biggest foreign policy challenges will take place in the coming years. Her pressure on the government of Myanmar to work towards becoming more democratic has produced positive results. The country, which borders China to the southwest, has held its first (semi-)democratic elections. Beyond being a win for human rights, the fact of a more democratic and open Myanmar has allowed President Obama to nominate the first ambassador to Myanmar in two decades and lift some sanctions and thus improve U.S.-Myanmar relations, putting pressure on China.

When it comes to judgment, Trump has a tendency to say crazy things. “Bomb the shit out of them.” “He’s a loser.” “…blood coming out of her wherever…” You get the point. Clinton is more even-keeled and would do a better job thinking about the consequences and complexities of her decisions.

Hillary Clinton has better character and values.

Donald Trump’s constant depraved attacks on ordinary Americans are an indication of his character. He has a poor character, and his values include sexism, racism, and unlimited greed. His treatment of his creditors, investors, and the Americans who do pay taxes to fund the government while he brags about having “used the tax laws to my benefit,” by paying little to no taxes, are yet another example of his lack of regard for anyone but himself. That he used money donated to his personal charitable foundation to purchase personal items, like an autographed Tim Tebow helmet, and settle personal legal bills should that he is irredeemably corrupt and without moral standards.

Once again, Hillary Clinton leaves much to be desired on the area of character, too. She shades the truth like a lawyer on certain issues. But she doesn’t lie anywhere near as frequently or as brazenly as Trump, who says outright falsities to serve whatever fake position he is trying to create. Her family’s use of their own foundation creates perceived conflicts of interest, but there is little indication that the Clinton Foundation engaged in actual corrupt behavior approaching that of Trump.

Just like how -10 is greater than -100, Clinton has stronger moral character than Trump.

Why not a third-party candidate?

There are two questions here: who is the best candidate on the ballot, and engaging in what action will do the most to bring about a (more) favorable outcome? Even if there were a third-party candidate on the ballot whom I thought was better than Trump and Clinton, I would still not vote for him or her if I thought that my vote for him would have less impact in bringing about the outcome of defeating Trump. That being said, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is also himself a worse choice than Clinton in my view. That he fumbled a question about Aleppo, can’t name a single foreign leader he respects, and doesn’t even appear to know who the name of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Moreover, his “non-interventionist” foreign policy ideas are dangerously similar to the half of Trump’s views that align with “non-interventionism,” which could result in the U.S. pulling out from the world and not supporting allies.

Clinton is the best choice to elect a sensible president.

As I said, my choice ultimately comes down to this: What action can I take to have the most influence in bringing about a preferable outcome? Given that I don’t think Gary Johnson is a preferable outcome in the first place, I wouldn’t even want him to be president. Given that a vote for a third-party candidate would almost certainly have no influence in electing that candidate, and that there is an action I could take that would have more impact in electing a candidate who is preferable to the other choice, I wouldn’t vote for a third-party candidate. The action I could take that would have the most impact in electing a sensible candidate—one with whom I disagree on many issues, but who fits into the safe confines of historical American presidents—and stopping the election of a world-historical terrible candidate is to vote for Hillary Clinton. So Clinton is my choice and the choice I would encourage others who support a strong, conservative, and pluralistic America to vote for.

About the author:
*Mitchell Blatt moved to China in 2012, and since then he has traveled and written about politics and culture throughout Asia. A writer and journalist, based in China, he is the lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong guidebook and a contributor to outlets including The Federalist, China.org.cn, The Daily Caller, and Vagabond Journey. Fluent in Chinese, he has lived and traveled in Asia for three years, blogging about his travels at ChinaTravelWriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchBlatt.

(Civil.Ge) — Race for majoritarian MP seats will go into second round in 51 out of total 73 single-mandate constituencies, where no candidate is garnering more than 50% of votes, according to early official results of the October 8 parliamentary elections.

GDDG ruling party said it is eyeing constitutional majority in the new Parliament by winning most of the runoffs.

The ruling party is already winning majority of 77 seats, which were up for grabs under the proportional, party-list nationwide vote.

But the final makeup of the 150-member Parliament in Georgia’s mixed electoral system will only be defined after the second round runoffs in the 51 single-member districts.

GDDG majoritarian MP candidates are winning outright victory without requiring second round in 22 districts, according to partial official results.

GDDG candidates will feature in all, but one, 51 runoffs; the ruling party had its candidates in 72 out of 73 single-mandate districts.

If GDDG wins at least 42 of those 50 runoffs, the ruling party will likely be on track to gaining constitutional majority of 113 seats in the new Parliament – something the party is far short of in the outgoing legislative body. The estimation is still tentative as it relies on partial election results.

“We are convinced that we will win all the second round runoffs in the single-mandate constituencies and the Georgian Dream will win constitutional majority in the Parliament,” ruling party’s executive secretary, Irakli Kobakhidze, said on October 9.

In most of the single-mandate constituencies, where the races were pushed into the second round, GDDG candidates will face contenders from the UNM opposition party, which has claimed that the vote was rigged and is now mulling over its future steps.

The race appears to be going into the second round in the district No.66 in Zugdidi municipality, where UNM MP candidate, Sandra Roelofs, Georgia’s ex-first lady, is in a close race with GDDG candidate Edisher Toloraia, who is leading by the margin of just 153 votes.

In the town of Gori, ex-defense minister Irakli Alasania, whose Free Democrats party is failing to clear 5% threshold in party-list vote to enter the parliament, is close to pushing the race for majoritarian MP into the second round against first-placed GDDG candidate, who has 33.5% of votes. Alasania has 461-vote lead over third-placed ex-defense minister Irakli Okruashvili.

Free Democrats majoritarian MP candidate also made it to the second round in Chiatura, where he will face the first-placed GDDG candidate.

In Khashuri, a candidate from Industrialists-Our Homeland election bloc won the first round with 32% of votes and will face the second-placed GDDG candidate, MP Valeri Gelashvili, in the runoff.

A dozen police officers, joined by officials from Turkey’s treasury and the county’s broadcasting watchdog, marched into the pro-Kurdish IMC-TV television station, sealed off its control rooms and forced the channel off the air during a live program on democracy, the Associated Press reports.

The station had anticipated the raid ever since the government, using powers it acquired by declaring a state of emergency in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt, last week ordered IMC-TV and 22 other broadcasters to shut down.

The bold act of censorship nonetheless stunned staff members Tuesday in the channel’s studio.

“Long live hell for the oppressors!” IMC-TV coordinating editor Eyup Burc shouted during the live broadcast. “We stand against coups and we stand against those who use coups to carry out their own coup.”

As Turkey prepares to extend by another three months the state of emergency it imposed after July’s failed military coup, critics fear President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the uprising as an excuse to silence his detractors.

The government says it needs more time to eradicate a network linked to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, which the government accuses of orchestrating the attempted coup. But Turkey already has used the emergency powers to carry out an unprecedented purge of people suspected of links to the cleric and has extended the crackdown to go after Kurdish and left-leaning media outlets.

Comments Erdogan made this month suggesting the state of emergency could last as long as a year have reinforced concerns about the president’s aims. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, has accused the government of leading a “counter-coup.”

The state of emergency allows the government to rule by decree with limited parliamentary involvement. Some 32,000 people allegedly connected to the coup have been arrested, while tens of thousands of teachers, soldiers, police officers, judges and prosecutors have been dismissed or suspended from government jobs for suspected links to Gulen, who denies any involvement in the coup attempt.

Hundreds of schools and foundations run by the movement, which the government has listed as a terror organization, have been shut down or taken over. Media outlets once owned by Gulen have been closed down while prominent journalists they employed have been arrested.

Authorities more recently have moved against pro-Kurdish and leftist groups, using a government decree to dismiss 11,000 left-leaning teachers and to force off the air television and radio stations accused of acting as mouthpieces for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Among them was a children’s television station broadcasting cartoons in the Kurdish language.

“Fears that the government would make opportunistic use of the state of emergency to silence critics who have nothing to do with the July 15 coup attempt have come true,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for Human Rights Watch.

More than 100 journalists have been arrested since the state of emergency was declared and thousands lost their jobs or had press credentials canceled by the government, according to the Journalists’ Association of Turkey. Human Rights Watch said the clamp down on broadcasters “effectively ends critical television news reporting in Turkey.”

The suppression of critical voices has not been limited to news organizations.

Novelist Asli Erdogan, who wrote for the Ozgur Gundem daily newspaper, was arrested on charges of membership in an armed terror organization. Also rounded up was singer Atilla Tas, who had acquired a large social media following for his humorous criticisms of Erdogan and the government.

“What the uniformed coup plotters could not achieve on July 15, (the government) has achieved by extending the state of emergency,” Republican People’s Party legislator and spokeswoman Selin Sayek Boke said. “They usurped the parliament’s most basic powers of enacting laws on behalf of the people.”

IMC-TV, which promotes Kurdish and other minority issues, also was ordered shut down for alleged links to the PKK. Like the Gulen movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party is outlawed as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.

The station, which rejects the accusation, already was removed earlier this year from Turkey’s largest satellite platform for allegedly engaging in “terrorist propaganda.” It was operating through another satellite and via the internet before this week’s raid.

“The state of emergency allows them to make these accusations without any proof and without taking any one to court,” IMC-TV News Director Hamza Aktan, who was in the station’s control room at the time of the raid, told The Associated Press. “Channels they do not like and who do not follow their line are easily being disposed of.”

Nebi Mis, the political research director at the pro-government Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research think tank in Ankara, defended the purges.

“Those who carried out the July 15 coup not only infringed on human rights, but also on the people’s right to life. A policy of full purification is necessary,” Mis said.

Silencing Kurdish media outlets also was appropriate since the state of emergency encompasses other outlawed organizations, he said. Yet authorities may have “gone overboard” in some cases by going after media outlets that criticize the government, Mis said.

Erdogan and other officials acknowledge that some innocent people have been caught up in the upheaval. The government has promised to set up centers to process claims of unfair dismissals.

For decades, neuroscientists and physicians have tried to get to the bottom of the age-old mystery of post-traumatic stress disorder, to explain why only some people are vulnerable and why they experience so many symptoms and so much disability.

All experts in the field now agree that PTSD indeed has its roots in very real, physical processes within the brain – and not in some sort of psychological “weakness”. But no clear consensus has emerged about what exactly has gone “wrong” in the brain.

In a Perspective article published this week in Neuron, a pair of University of Michigan Medical School professors — who have studied PTSD from many angles for many years — put forth a theory of PTSD that draws from and integrates decades of prior research. They hope to stimulate interest in the theory and invite others in the field to test it.

The bottom line, they say, is that people with PTSD appear to suffer from disrupted context processing. That’s a core brain function that allows people and animals to recognize that a particular stimulus may require different responses depending on the context in which it is encountered. It’s what allows us to call upon the “right” emotional or physical response to the current encounter.

A simple example, they write, is recognizing that a mountain lion seen in the zoo does not require a fear or “flight” response, while the same lion unexpectedly encountered in the backyard probably does.

For someone with PTSD, a stimulus associated with the trauma they previously experienced – such as a loud noise or a particular smell — triggers a fear response even when the context is very safe. That’s why they react even if the noise came from the front door being slammed, or the smell comes from dinner being accidentally burned on the stove.

Context processing involves a brain region called the hippocampus, and its connections to two other regions called the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Research has shown that activity in these brain areas is disrupted in PTSD patients. The U-M team thinks their theory can unify wide-ranging evidence by showing how a disruption in this circuit can interfere with context processing and can explain most of the symptoms and much of the biology of PTSD.

“We hope to put some order to all the information that’s been gathered about PTSD from studies of human patients, and of animal models of the condition,” says Israel Liberzon, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at U-M and a researcher at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System who also treats veterans with PTSD. “We hope to create a testable hypothesis, which isn’t as common in mental health research as it should be. If this hypothesis proves true, maybe we can unravel some of the underlying pathophysiological processes, and offer better treatments.”

Liberzon and his colleague, James Abelson, M.D., Ph.D., describe in their piece models of PTSD that have emerged in recent years, and lay out the evidence for each. The problem, they say, is that none of these models sufficiently explains the various symptoms seen in patients, nor all of the complex neurobiological changes seen in PTSD and in animal models of this disorder.

The first model, abnormal fear learning, is rooted in the amygdala – the brain’s ‘fight or flight’ center that focuses on response to threats or safe environments. This model emerged from work on fear conditioning, fear extinction and fear generalization.

The second, exaggerated threat detection, is rooted in the brain regions that figure out what signals from the environment are “salient”, or important to take note of and react to. This model focuses on vigilance and disproportionate responses to perceived threats.

The third, involving executive function and regulation of emotions, is mainly rooted in the prefrontal cortex – the brain’s center for keeping emotions in check and planning or switching between tasks.

By focusing only on the evidence bolstering one of these theories, researchers may be “searching under the streetlight”, says Liberzon. “But if we look at all of it in the light of context processing disruption, we can explain why different teams have seen different things. They’re not mutually exclusive.”

The main thing, says Liberzon, is that “context is not only information about your surroundings – it’s pulling out the correct emotion and memories for the context you are in.”

A deficit in context processing would lead PTSD patients to feel “unmoored” from the world around them, unable to shape their responses to fit their current contexts. Instead, their brains would impose an “internalized context” — one that always expects danger — on every situation.

This type of deficit, arising in the brain from a combination of genetics and life experiences, may create vulnerability to PTSD in the first place, they say. After trauma, this would generate symptoms of hypervigilance, sleeplessness, intrusive thoughts and dreams, and inappropriate emotional and physical outbursts.

Liberzon and Abelson think that testing the context processing theory will enhance understanding of PTSD, even if all of its details are not verified. They hope the PTSD community will help them pursue the needed research, in PTSD patients and in animal models. They put forth specific ideas in the Neuron paper to encourage that, and are embarking on such research themselves.

The U-M/VA team is currently recruiting people with PTSD – whether veterans or not – for studies involving brain imaging and other tests.

In the meantime, they note that there is a growing set of therapeutic tools that can help patients with PTSD, such as cognitive behavioral therapy mindfulness training and pharmacological approaches. These may work by helping to anchor PTSD patients in their current environment, and may prove more effective as researchers learn how to specifically strengthen context processing capacities in the brain.

By Elise Harris

On Sunday Pope Francis announced that he will hold a consistory of cardinals on the Nov. 19 vigil of the close of the Jubilee of Mercy, during which he will elevate 17 new cardinals – including three Americans.

“Dear brothers and sisters I am happy to announce that Saturday, Nov. 19 at the vigil for the closing of the Holy Door of mercy, a consistory will take place for the nomination of 13 cardinals from 5 continents,” the Pope said Oct. 9.

“The fact that they come from 11 nations expresses the universality of the Church, which announces and bears witness to the good news of the mercy of God in every corner of the earth.”

Opened Dec. 8, 2015 – the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception – the Jubilee is set to close Nov. 20, with the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

Among the 17 new cardinal-elects are three Americans: Archbishop Blasé Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis and Bishop Kevin Farrell, prefect of the new Congregation for Laity, Family and Life.

Others of voting age include: Archbishop Mario Zenari, who is and will remain apostolic nuncio to the “beloved and martyred” Syria; Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui; Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid; Archbishop Sergio da Rocha of Brazil; Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dakha, Bangladesh; Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo of Merida, Venezuela; Archbishop Joseph de Kesel of Malines Brussels; Bishop Maurice Piat of Port-Louis, Mauritius Island; Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, Mexico and Archbishop John Ribat of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

In addition to the 13 new electoral cardinals, Francis has nominated four others who are of non-voting age due to their notable service to the Church: Anthony Soter Fernandez, Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Renato Corti, Archbishop Emeritus of Novara and Sebastian Koto Khoarai, O.M.I, Bishop Emeritus of Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho.

Additionally, he nominated Fr Ernest Simoni, an Albanian priest from the diocese of Shkodra, whose testimony of the persecution of the Albanian Church under the communist regime the Pope cried at during his 2014 daytrip to the country.

The consistory will be the third of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the most recent of which took place last year on Valentines Days.

Francis has, as in previous years, stuck close to his vision of having a broader, more universal representation of the Church in the College of Cardinals, elevating many bishops who come from small countries or islands that have never before had a cardinal, as well as from countries which present particular challenges in terms of pastoral outreach, such as those stricken with violence or persecution.

Out of the Pope’s new nominations, seven come from countries that have previously never had a cardinal, including: the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Mauritius Island, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Lesotho and Albania.

With the 17 new cardinal-elects included, the number of voting cardinals comes to 121, and the number of non-voters to 107, for a grand total of 228.

By Emil Ilgar

Iran’s non-oil trade balance stood at $1.398 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year(started on March 21).

According to the monthly report of Iran’s Custom Administration, Iran exported $21.706 billion worth of commodities, 5.99 percent more than in the same period of the last fiscal year, while its imports decreased by 2.61 percent to $20.308 billion.

Iran includes gas condensate and liquid gases in its non-oil export basket, while the total amount of Iran’s gas condensate, propane, butane and other liquid gases was about $7 billion.

China was Iran’s major trade partner during the last six months. According to the report, China shares 18.43 percent of Iran’s total non-oil exports as well as 23.93 percent of Iran’s total imports.

Germany also increased exports to Iran by 26.04 percent to $1.122 billion.

Last week marked the fifteenth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the longest war in US history. There weren’t any victory parades or photo-ops with Afghanistan’s post-liberation leaders. That is because the war is ongoing. In fact, 15 years after launching a war against Afghanistan’s Taliban government in retaliation for an attack by Saudi-backed al-Qaeda, the US-backed forces are steadily losing territory back to the Taliban.

What President Obama called “the good war” before took office in 2008, has become the “forgotten war” some eight years later. How many Americans know that we still have nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan? Do any Americans know that the Taliban was never defeated, but now holds more ground in Afghanistan than at any point since 2001? Do they know the Taliban overran the provincial capital of Kunduz last week for a second time in a year and they threaten several other provincial capitals?

Do Americans know that we are still wasting billions on “reconstruction” and other projects in Afghanistan that are, at best, boondoggles? According to a recent audit by the independent US government body overseeing Afghan reconstruction, half a billion dollars was wasted on a contract for a US company to maintain Afghan military vehicles. The contractor “fail[ed] to meet program objectives,” the audit found. Of course they still got paid, like thousands of others getting rich off of this failed war.

Do Americans know that their government has spent at least $60 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces, yet these forces are still not capable of fighting on their own against the Taliban? We recently learned that an unknown but not insignificant number of those troops brought to the US for training have deserted and are living illegally somewhere in the US. In the recent Taliban attack on Kunduz, it was reported that thousands of Afghan security personnel fled without firing a shot.

According to a recent study by Brown University, the direct costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars thus far are nearly five trillion dollars. The indirect costs are virtually incalculable.

Perhaps Afghanistan is the “forgotten war” because to mention it would reveal how schizophrenic is US foreign policy. After all, we have been fighting for 15 years in Afghanistan in the name of defeating al-Qaeda, while we are directly and indirectly assisting a franchise of al-Qaeda to overthrow the Syrian government. How many Americans would applaud such a foreign policy? If they only knew, but thanks to a media only interested in promoting Washington’s propaganda, far too many Americans don’t know.

I have written several of these columns on the various anniversaries of the Afghan (and Iraq) wars, pointing out that the wars are ongoing and that the result of the wars has been less stable countries, a less stable region, a devastated local population, and an increasing probability of more blowback. I would be very happy to never have to write one of these again. We should just march home.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel should stress the urgent need for key rights reforms during her visits to Mali, Niger, and Ethiopia. Between October 9 and 11, 2016, Chancellor Merkel will meet officials in each country to discuss migration to Europe, as well as German support for the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.

“Any serious discussion of migration from Africa to Europe needs to focus on the grave human rights violations and governance concerns at home that force people to flee their countries,” said Wenzel Michalski, Germany director at Human Rights Watch. “Ethiopia and Mali are key examples of countries where serious crimes by the security forces and lack of accountability are fueling refugee flows, and Germany’s priority should be to end these abuses.”

Merkel’s visit comes against the backdrop of intensified European Union efforts to secure migration cooperation agreements with origin and transit countries in Africa. A new “partnership framework” for relations with these countries, announced in June, signaled the EU’s intention to place migration control at the core of its foreign policy and development aid.

There is a risk that this approach will create an incentive for countries to engage in abusive policies to block departures or restrict freedom of movement, with a devastating impact on the ability of asylum seekers to reach places of genuine safety and of individuals to exercise their right to leave their own country.

In Mali, Chancellor Merkel should raise concerns over government failure to curb and address security force abuses, including torture, arbitrary arrests, and executions, Human Rights Watch said. The abuses have been regular features during and since the 2012-2013 armed conflict in Mali and have contributed to the radicalization of some Malian youth. Merkel should also raise concerns over government corruption and urge the government to provide more support for the country’s weak rule of law institutions, including the judiciary.

German participation in the UN peacekeeping operation in Mali (MINUSMA) should bolster efforts by the Malian government to protect civilians from the rampant banditry and lawlessness in large areas of the country.

In Ethiopia, Chancellor Merkel will attend the opening of an African Union building. While there, she should raise with the government the urgent need to end the use of excessive force by security forces against protesters, and to release thousands of protesters who have been arbitrarily detained over the past year. She should express support for a credible, international investigation into the deaths of more than 500 protesters. Merkel should also press the government to lift government restrictions on media reporting and access to the internet and social media.

Tensions and public frustration over security force killings and other abuses against protesters in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region, have spread to other parts of the country in recent months and risk spiraling into a wider crisis if the Ethiopian government does not change course, Human Rights Watch said.

“Chancellor Merkel has an important opportunity to address some of the root causes of migration: unchecked rights abuses and poor governance in countries like Ethiopia and Mali,” Michalski said. “Germany’s long-term partnerships, including security cooperation in both countries, can only benefit from progress on the core human rights concerns.”

By Shubh Soni

The 2016 US Presidential Election is a contest between a man who has little to lose and a woman whose entire career of thirty years in public service is at stake.

When Mr. Trump announced his intention to run for the presidency in 2016, it was widely regarded as a joke — maybe even a publicity stunt for his many business ventures. This sentiment was echoed as far back as 2011 when Donald Trump first claimed he wanted to run for the highest political office in the United States — comedian Seth Meyers, speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner remarked: “Donald Trump has been saying he will for a President as a Republican; which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”

Throughout the primary process, Mr. Trump’s campaign strategy only added fuel to this narrative. By insulting not only his fellow Republican candidates, or his opponents in the Democratic party, but also his large sections of the US populace (Mexican immigrants, women, African-Americans), it seemed as though Mr. Trump had embraced a strategy which was unconventional to say the least.

Mrs. Clinton on the other hand is making a second and what could be her final attempt at becoming the first woman POTUS. Her desire to hold the office however predates 2008 elections which she lost to President Obama. This perception around not just Mrs. Clinton, but also her husband President Clinton, has been that here is a couple that would do anything to advance their careers. While comparisons to the fictional Underwoods (from the TV series House of Cards) might be too far-fetched, this perception has only gained steam due to the various scandals that have surfaced in the recent months — Mrs. Clinton using a private server; donations for the Clinton Foundation which were not disclosed to the State Department; President Clinton’s various transgressions and the cover-ups that followed, etc. Indeed, one the biggest proponents of this narrative, Christopher Hitchens, dedicated an entire book (cleverly titled No One Left to Lie to) to the Clintons.

Given this context, it was interesting to see the strategies adopted by the two candidates at the first presidential debate.

Trump vs. Clinton: Election strategies

Mr. Trump, having established a core base of supporters through the primary process, changed tact and attempted to be more “Presidential”. He refrained from calling his opponent ‘crooked’ (as he often does on social media); instead referring to her as Secretary Clinton. He also did not bring up President Bill Clinton’s transgressions during the debate (although post the debate he did make certain comments to media personnel). Secretary Clinton on her part stuck to the task of projecting herself as a woman ready to take on the presidency. She expressed how she had sound policies in place on a range of issues — from healthcare to ISIS — that would improve the lives of middle class Americans. On being provoked by Mr. Trump, she remarked she had not only prepared for the debate, but also the presidency.

These strategies adopted in the first debate however are not ideal for either of the two candidates.

Being “Presidential” does not come naturally to Mr. Trump. While he started the debate well, by constantly interrupting his opponent and showcasing her weaknesses, he was unable to keep-up with the pretence. Secretary Clinton gained significant ground as the debate progressed, and Mr. Trump ended the night on the defensive and his remark that he had a better temperament than his opponent received scoff and laughter. Donald Trump’s best strategy is to attack and he needs to stick to it. Having said that, he would have to be careful who exactly these attacks are against. Instead of targeting women and minority communities as he has done in the past (and as he has incorrectly done post the debate), his jibes need to be solely targeted at his opponent. There is enough fodder to feed the cattle and if he can get some of the undecideds, and the disgruntled millennials who so ardently supported Senator Bernie Sanders through the primary process, Mr. Trump has a serious chance at winning.

Given that she has a lot more to lose, the task before Mrs. Clinton is more difficult. While most analysts might say she won the first debate, what this election cycle has shown time and again is that analysts are not always right (and this election cycle, rarely right). And in a post-Brexit world, the saying — “anything can happen in politics” — is only truer.

Change agent: While the Obama Presidency has significantly revived the American economy from the dark days of the 2008 financial crisis, income inequality and the narrative of ‘occupy Wall Street,’ the one percent vs. the ninety nine percent, still reverberate among the voters, particularly the millennials. And while Mrs. Clinton carries baggage from her dealings with Wall Street, she can still come across as a strong change-agent. A smart move would be to give her former opponent Bernie Sanders an even bigger role in the final days of the campaign trail, and even echo some of his policy narratives. A Clinton-Sanders partnership is key for Mrs. Clinton in getting the millennial/young voter on board.

Humility and thirty years in public service: At the Democratic National Convention, President Bill Clinton made a stirring speech highlighting his wife’s achievements over the course of her career. Mrs. Clinton would be served well if she took this narrative forward and stressed repeatedly how from her early 20s to now, she has always been in touch with the average American, and tries her best to ensure each American has an equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream. This message has to be put across with humility. An admission of certain errors in these thirty years may even help her campaign — after all, who in their career, be it in the private or public sector, doesn’t make mistakes? An attempt needs to be made to make a human connect with the voter.

Not afraid to lose: This is perhaps the trickiest of all steps and also perhaps the most important. A full disclosure, from emails, Clinton Foundation donations, wall-street speeches, to health records, will go a long way in building voter trust and reducing the impact of jibes from her opponents. It will also put pressure on Mr. Trump to disclose his financial dealings — something he has been avoiding for a while. And as comedian John Oliver has highlighted in his latest episode of Last Week Tonight, Mr. Trump has a lot more skeletons in his closet than Mrs. Clinton. This strategy will allow Mrs. Clinton to take control of a narrative she has so far been unable to shrug off.

What makes this election fascinating is that the best strategy for each of the respective candidates, is also their biggest weakness. A “non-Presidential” Donald Trump risks alienating large sections of society; a full disclosure by Mrs. Clinton on the other hand can give her opponent more material to target her with. Having said that, any strategy which deviates from the ones mentioned above, gives the candidates’ opponent a strong upper hand — Donald Trump cannot sustain being “Presidential”; Mrs. Clinton risks coming across as entitled should she stress too much on policy and her “readiness” for the job.

While election results are too difficult to predict, what is certain is that the US Presidential Election of 2016 makes a strong case to be included in game theory classes at universities across the world.

By Behzad Khoshandam*

More than one year after signing of Iran’s nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was based on “the choice of reconciliatory strategic necessity,” the Iran issue was raised 18 times during the first presidential election debate between U.S. Republican and Democrat candidates, Donald trump and Hillary Clinton, on September 26, 2016. During that debate, discussions were made about Iran’s power and role in the Persian Gulf, Middle East and the world and the necessity for the United States to either return to the Iran option, or counter Iran’s rising role in the world. Another important point in that presidential debate was the impact of the Iran deal on the United States’ foreign policy beyond 2016.

Frequent references by US presidential candidates, both from the Republican and Democrat parties, to a wide spectrum of issues related to Iran, both in this debate and in their other remarks, are indicative of the fact that Iran will continue to remain an exception in the United States’ foreign policy far beyond 2016.

Under President Barack Obama, the Iran issue remained an exception despite the beginning of negotiations, which Obama had promised to get underway with Iran without any preconditions. This state of being an exception gradually changed the viewpoints of major international actors about Iran’s capacities to create stability or challenged in the Middle East region, which includes the Levant, the Mesopotamia, and the Persian Gulf subregions. Therefore, one can claim that in the forthcoming years, the United States’ foreign policy with regard to Iran will be shaped by four legacies of Obama, which include Daesh, proxy wars, the refugee crisis, and redefinition of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in the Middle East.

Under these conditions, the specifications of the Iran exception, to which both US democrat and republican presidential candidates have been referring, is undergoing change. At a time that the United States is trying to create an America-oriented Middle East, the Iran exception aims to create a new Middle East based on nation-states, localized, and oriented toward regional nations. In such a Middle East, the role played by the Iran exception will be a strategic role based on civilizational backgrounds and experiences, which date back to several thousand years ago. It is obvious that Americans, including the present presidential candidates from both major parties, are facing remarkable problems for having a good grasp of Iran.

In the absence of such a strategic view to the Middle East and in view of the stabilizing role played by the Iran exception in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, it is hard for the United States to accept the benefits of the JCPOA that was signed by Iran and the P5+1 group of countries on the basis of a win-win logic. As a result of these conditions, Iran is expected to rapidly embark on new cooperation with allied forces in the region, which will not be a desirable option for the United States.

A complete example of the approach taken to the region by this Iranian exception was materialized in the cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria. The alliance between Russia and Iran and an effort to find a solution to the Syria crisis by these two actors in rivalry with the West is not desirable to the United States. If this alliance ends up in the formation of a joint military front, the Iran exception will become less controllable, its soft and hard power potentialities in the Middle East will increase and, as a result, conflicts between Iran and the United States in the Middle East will escalate.

Iran’s increasing spiritual influence in its surrounding regions as well as Syria has turned the Iranian forces and other groups that are allied with this country into experienced actors. Most probably, in order to counter the Iran-led resistance axis, the U.S. will boost its investment in Iran’s regional allies, topped by Saudi Arabia and Israel, and also in some non-state actors. In doing this, the United States is also trying to engineer the public opinion and the civil society in Iran to bring them in line with the West’s intentions and approaches in Iran’s surrounding regions and will continue its efforts in this regard.

Of course, the Iranian nation and the public opinion in the country consider the United States as a desecuritizing and untrustworthy country due to the background of relations between the two sides. However, if a tangible practical change takes places in the United States’ behavior toward Iran’s xenophobic people, Iranian politicians are sure to make a serious change in their attitude toward the United States in a way that would help create sustainable security.

Therefore, the main profound concept that one can derive from the first debate between Trump and Clinton is the necessity of changing the future American administration’s strategies and policies toward the Middle East and those discourses that are supported by Iran. If the 45^th US president were ready to make such a paradigm-based U-turn toward the Middle East, he could prevent further deterioration of the situation in the Middle East. In this new Middle East, exceptional actors will see the United States as a factor in helping management of the regional affairs and finding fair solutions to the existing conflicts in the region, without making any effort to dominate the region under the excuse of establishing security within new global retrenchment.

The realization of the American dream and making America great, as claimed during US presidential debates in 2016, would not be possible through the corridors of the Wall Street or populist slogans aimed at promoting Islamophobia and racial hatred. American ideas in the Middle East can be only realized on the basis of the final result of the forthcoming presidential polls and through taking real and serious decisions by the United States to adapt the next American government to the ideas and solutions and strategies cherished by exceptions to the US foreign policy in the Middle East.

*Behzad Khoshandam
Ph.D. in International Relations & Expert on International Issues

“It just is nothing foreign to consciousness at all that could present itself to consciousness through the mediation of phenomena different from the liking itself; to like is intrinsically to be conscious.” — Edmund Husserl

Voices all across the journalistic circles have elicited the response that the media plays a critical role in politically negotiated conflicts. Whether it is the uprising in Kashmir over Hizb-ul-Mujahidden operative Burhan Wani’s death, use of pellet guns by the forces, the K question in India Pakistan relations, the Israel Palestine conflict or the Naxalite movement in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, west Bengal and Orissa, the mediation process has been effective is some ways in establishing peace in the affected regions.

Mediation is the means by which conflict situations are addressed and catered to in order to not distort the peaceful social fabric of affected lands. Talks, dialogues, military intervention, negotiations, bilateral meetings etc are all various manifestations of mediation. One important aspect of mediation is neutrality. This is to ensure both sides of the warring factions are given a platform to present their viewpoints. The media provides this platform. Unfortunately sensationalism has overshadowed ethical journalism and hence maintaining a neutral stand and showcasing empathy for the warring factions are no longer possible. Those who take sides are branded as pseudo liberals giving rise to a fresh set of debates.

The end goal of any mediation process is conflict resolution and management. In common parlance conflict resolution is the course of action by which two or more parties engaged in a disagreement, dispute, or debate reach an agreement to resolve the issue. Historically all confidence building measures and mediation by the United Nations has failed as Pakistan continues to create havoc on the Indian soil through terrorism and proxy wars.

What the media can do?

1. The Media can give a voice to the warring factions to settle their dispute
2. It can inform the government and the masses about the issue generating a constructive debate
3. It can act as the negotiator through eminent panellists and experts suggesting measures to mitigate conflict
4. The media can generate public opinion through digital polls aiding conflict resolution etc.
5. Through Litigation the media can coax the judiciary to settle matters legally
6. Media can open the gates to explore many possibilities of resolution

Mediation is essentially a third party intervention to facilitate negotiation for a mutually accepted solution.The mediation process in conflict resolution is distorted if the mediator does not maintain a neutral stand. During the cold war India chose to remain non-aligned with any of the blocs focussing on its internal and external economic growth and development. It is important to note here that the mediation process is often not time bound and can go on endlessly as in the case of Kashmir (1947). More than that, the warring factions must be willing to negotiate to reach a settlement.

Mediation essentially leads to arriving at mutually beneficial solutions for the warring factions. However the mediator may or may not be able to resolve the issue but in International Politics mediation is seen as a powerful tool that has the potential of changing the geopolitical dynamics of conflict. Clausewitz had opined that war or conflict is simply extension of politics by states using other means. Therefore it would not be incorrect to conclude that almost all conflicts are politically driven now-a-days. The channel of communication plays a pivotal role in mitigating conflict. The focus of the mediator should be on solutions and not positions.

The fourth estate has become a larger than life entity and media trials have become a norm in communication studies. But the role of mass media is both escalation and de escalation of conflict cannot be ignored. It is media that could provide a middle path to any pre existing conflict scenarios. Discussions play a key role here. The primetime television debates are designed to provide alternatives to existing conflicts through serious brainstorming sessions. Very rarely a solution has not been discussed but given the history of commercialisation of the media, neutrality has gone for a toss. We are misguided by pseudo liberal journalists.

Whether the media can play the role of the mediator, is open to subjective interpretation but given the outreach of the mass media today it surely can facilitate the negotiation process.

*Vishakha Amitabh Hoskote. MA MPHIL (International Relations,Political Science, Development Communication)

I can recall the day the combustion system of my car stopped working. I towed it to the nearest workshop and came to know that the fuel filter, fuel pump and carburetor have been chocked due to accumulation of wax. The mechanic also told me that this has happened because you don’t drive car daily and the excessive wax present in petrol choked the lines etc. He also advised me to use HOBC instead of regular petrol. When I shared by experience with my other friends, they also confirmed facing similar problem. One of the findings was common that often HOBC is not available at all the outlets, even those located in the most posh areas.

This prompted me to talk to the owners of petrol pumps being run by different oil marketing companies OMCs. All of them gave me a copybook reply, “We don’t get enough supply of HOBC from OMCs”. When I probed further the finding was most surprising that only one refinery in Pakistan, Pak Arab Refinery (PARCO) produces HOBC. I also discovered that with the induction of cars based on latest technology consumption of HOBC has increased manifold but there has not been corresponding increase in its production in the country.

I continued my search and met two more surprises: 1) the other refineries operating in Pakistan are incapable of producing HOBC and the government owned largest OMC, Pakistan State Oil Company is not keen in importing HOBC and 2) the second refinery of PARCO to be constructed at Khalifa Point, having a capacity to refine 250,000 barrel oil per day has been delayed. This should have commenced production by 2010. I also found out that even if the construction is done on ‘war footings’ at Khalifa Point refinery, it will not be possible to commence production by 2020.

The prevailing situation prompts following questions:

1. What were the factors that didn’t allow PARCO to expand its ‘Mid Country’ capacity?
2. Why the sponsors deferred construction of ‘Khalifa Point’ refinery?
3. Why other refineries continue to produce lower distillate?
4. Why refineries (other than PARCO) are operating below optimum capacity utilization?
5. Why huge quantities of POL products are being imported despite local refineries operating below optimum capacity utilization?

Finding replies of the above stated questions is the responsibility of the incumbent government.

However, prevailing situation offers golden opportunity to foreign investors to examine investment potential of constructing new refineries as well as expanding prevailing capacities in Pakistan.

By putting Russian missiles in Kaliningrad and conducting joint exercises with Belarusian forces, Vladimir Putin is creating a new “Cuban missile crisis,” one that threatens Europe and the world and that the Kremlin leader won’t end unless the West takes action to force him to back down, according to Andrey Sannikov.

The leader of the Belarusian opposition campaign, European Belarus, says that “the aggressive actions of Russia now can with complete justification be called ‘the Cuban missile crisis’ in Europe.” Putin has consciously escalated tensions and “one can even speak about preparations for military action,” he says (charter97.org/ru/news/2016/10/8/226350/).

There cannot be any doubt about what Putin is doing or about Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s participation in it, given that the Belarusian leader has declared that he is “prepared to throw the Belarusian army into the defense of the interests of Russia,” Sannikov says, a statement that has ominous implications in the current situation.

Sannikov argues that “European politicians must stop looking for signs of ‘a peace maker’ in the dictator Lukashenka and recognize that the territory of Belarus, thanks to Lukashenka’s regime, is completely part of Russia’s military plans.”

The situation is tense and of real concern, Sannikov says, because “all attempts of the West and above all the US to reach agreement with Putin have led only to an escalation of tension in the world. The unpunished bombing of the peaceful population in Syria by Russian aviation has led only to the further enflaming of the conflict in the Middle East.”

As far as Putin is concerned, Syria is “the best means” for giving Russian forces training for other tasks. And “what the Kremlin is doing today in Europe with the use of the territory of Belarus looks like preparation for a major military operation in which Europe would be invaded via the Suwalki corridor.”

Given what Putin has done in Kaliningrad and with Belarus, “Russia would be able to envelop in ‘a pincers’ a significant part of Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic countries and Poland,” the Belarusian opposition leader says.

“Western politicians must stop being complacent in their relations with dictators, stop hoping that their aggression will stop on its own, and take adequate measures in order to oppose this aggression,” Sannikov says. Otherwise, the future of Europe and the world is truly going to be bleak.

By J Nastranis

Over the past decade, Ban Ki-moon has worked ceaselessly to bring countries together to accelerate the global response to climate change. As he is fond of saying, he has visited communities on the climate frontlines, from the Arctic to the Amazon, and has witnessed how climate impacts are already devastating lives, livelihoods and prospects for a better future.

Some two months ahead of relinquishing his post as UN Secretary-General on completion of the second five-year term on December 31, he will have his efforts rewarded, allowing him to leave behind a valuable legacy.

The UN announced on October 5 that the historic Paris Agreement to address climate change would enter into force on November 4 – in the aftermath of enough countries having signed onto the landmark accord to bring it to the emissions threshold.

“This is a momentous occasion,” said Ban as the latest instruments of ratification were accepted in deposit. “What once seemed unthinkable, is now unstoppable. Strong international support for the Paris Agreement entering into force is a testament to the urgency for action, and reflects the consensus of governments that robust global cooperation, grounded in national action, is essential to meet the climate challenge,” he added.

But he cautioned that the work of implementing the agreement still lay ahead. “Now we must move from words to deeds and put Paris into action. We need all hands on deck – every part of society must be mobilized to reduce emissions and help communities adapt to inevitable climate impacts,” Ban stressed.

The Agreement provides that it shall enter into force 30 days after 55 countries, representing 55 percent of global emissions, have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance or accession with the Secretary-General. As of October 5, 73 countries and the European Union had joined the Agreement, exceeding the 55 percent threshold for emissions.

The pact was signed in New York on April 22 by 175 countries at the largest, single-day signing ceremony in history. It was adopted in Paris by the 195 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at a conference known as COP21 in December 2015.

The Agreement calls on countries to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future, as well as to adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change. Specifically, it seeks to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The requirements for entry into force of the Paris climate accord were satisfied on October 5 when Austria, Bolivia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Malta, Nepal, Portugal and Slovakia, as well as the European Union, deposited their instruments of ratification with the Secretary-General.

Earlier, New Zealand and India signed onto the Agreement, following the 31 countries, which joined at a special event at the UN on September 21 during the UN General Assembly’s general debate. Earlier that month, the world’s two largest emitters, China and the United States, joined the Agreement.

The Agreement will now enter into force in time for the Climate Conference (COP 22) in Morocco in November, where countries will convene the first Meeting of the Parties to the Agreement. Countries that have not yet joined may participate as observers.

Patricia Espinosa, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in Bonn, said: “Above all, entry into force bodes well for the urgent, accelerated implementation of climate action that is now needed to realize a better, more secure world and to support also the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.”

“It also brings a renewed urgency to the many issues governments are advancing to ensure full implementation of the Agreement,” she added. “This includes development of a rule book to operationalize the agreement and how international cooperation and much bigger flows of finance can speed up and scale up national climate action plans.” she added.

In an earlier statement, Ban highlighted that strong international support for the Paris Agreement entering into force is “testament to the urgency for action, and reflects the consensus of governments that robust global cooperation is essential to meet the climate challenge”.

Ban urged all governments and all sectors of society to implement the Paris Agreement in full and to take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen climate resilience, and support the most vulnerable in adapting to inevitable climate impacts.

Congratulating all of the signatories of the Agreement, the Secretary-General encouraged all countries to accelerate their domestic processes to ratify the Agreement as soon as possible.