By Ranjit Gupta*

Aleppo, the crossroads of civilisation for millennia, Syria’s largest city, and its main commercial and cultural centre, is also the most important strategic gateway from Turkey into Syria. Controlling Aleppo is essential for any ruler to control Syria. Therefore, the battle for Aleppo is crucial for the future of Syria and indeed the Levant.

Aleppo was the last city to join the uprising against Assad. It got divided into government and rebel-controlled areas around mid-2012, along lines that had remained largely unchanged till fighting intensified greatly – particularly from June 2016 onwards – culminating in the current relentless, indiscriminate and the most lethal bombardment of rebel controlled parts of the city by Russian and Syrian air forces in nearly six years of war. Hospitals have been hit and civilian casualties are rising as supplies run out and soon, supply routes will no longer be available.

Having little or no choice left, the main insurgent groups in Aleppo such as Ahrar Al Sham, who are themselves ultra-radical, have coalesced under the umbrella of Jaysh al-Fateh and inevitably joined hands with al Qaeda linked Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly known as the Jabhat al-Nusra Front). This renaming is a ruse that nobody takes seriously. Even moderate rebel groups backed by the West have little option but to ally with these radical salafi jihadis. However, none of this can be a justification for what has now become a no holds barred aerial assault, the worst of the five-and-half-year old war. On 08 October 2016, China, which has consistently voted with Russia on UN resolutions relating to the Syrian crisis, felt constrained to abstain on the Franco Spanish Resolution demanding an immediate halt in the aerial strikes on Aleppo in the UN Security Council. Nevertheless Russia brazenly vetoed this Resolution, making it abundantly clear that it is determined to ensure that the Assad regime wins control of Aleppo, immaterial of what the world thinks.

Russia is well aware of US President Barack Obama’s steadfast refusal to get militarily involved in Syria; and now in the past four months of his presidency, chances of assertive US counter intervention are almost nil. Other Western countries have supplied arms but have refrained from military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al Assad in Syria like they had done in Libya; and with Europe facing multiple internal challenges, they cannot take any meaningful counter action. West Asian Sunni countries are simply incapable of doing so and in any case, Saudi Arabia is deeply involved in the debilitating, self-defeating Yemeni quagmire of its own creation. Finally, the most assertive foreign power that could have done something meaningful – Turkey – has changed its policies dramatically in the wake of the coup in Ankara, with Erdogan and Putin having met 3 times in three months – in St Petersburg in August 2016; at the G20 summit in September 2016; and in Istanbul in October 2016.

Turkey’s primary priority in Syria henceforth will be curbing the Syrian Kurds. Russia knows it has a relatively free hand and is taking the fullest advantage of current regional and global geopolitical ground realities.

It may take a few weeks or even a few months but Assad’s victory in Aleppo is now assured, backed up also by the proactive involvement of Iranian patronised Hezbollah and various Shia militias. With victory in Aleppo, Assad will have gained control of all the major cities – Damascus, Hama, Homs, Latakia, etc. However, to gain full control of even the Western two-fifths of the country – which includes these cities and where 70 per cent of Syria’s population lived – Assad has to gain control over the highly strategic Idlib province that is still largely under the control of the rebels. This will take time, possibly even a couple of years.

Winning control of Aleppo will not mean an end to the war in Syria. Peace in Syria is many years away. The main consequences of an Assad/Iran/Russia victory in Aleppo are likely to be following:-

1. Possibilities of any new regime or even transitional arrangements towards a new regime would become largely academic.

2. Assad will continue as the ruler of Syria albeit only of a truncated part of the country for the foreseeable future until such time as Russia and Iran decide that they are ready for an alternative.

3. Syria will find itself de facto partitioned into a western part under Assad; the relatively sparsely populated, comparatively arid and economically weak central part where the rebels will be jostling for control with Assad on the one hand and the Islamic State on the other; a de facto Kurdish autonomous zone along much of the border with Turkey – which will face continuous assaults from the Islamic State (IS), some rebel groups and, in some locations, from the Assad regime also, but pre-eminently from Turkey; and, finally, territories under the control of the (IS) that will be under full-scale assault from all sides, particularly from Western powers.

4. The effort to overthrow Assad will be transformed into a long-term Sunni guerrilla insurgency. The situation in Syria becoming an Afghanistan like scenario cannot be ruled out.

5. However, the most significant consequence will be a very considerable reshaping of the geostrategic landscape of West Asia. Iran will emerge as the undisputed regional hegemonic power. Russia will upgrade its naval and air bases into major facilities on a permanent basis and ensure a long-term strategic niche role for itself in West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. The more than a century old unchallengeable Western domination of West Asia will finally end.

* Ranjit Gupta
Distinguished Fellow and Columnist, IPCS; former Indian Ambassador to Yemen and Oman; and former Member, National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), India

Iran has deployed a fleet of warships to the Gulf of Aden, the republic’s naval commander has confirmed. The deployment follows US cruise missile strikes on Yemeni positions thought to be under Houthi rebel control.

The Iranian Navy has sent the warships to international waters for a mission that includes entering the area off the southern coast of Yemen, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari confirmed on Wednesday. The area is among the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.

“The fleet will provide security to sea ways for Iranian vessels and protect Iran’s interests on the high seas,” Sayyari told Press TV.

“The 34th Fleet is comprised of the Bushehr logistic vessel and Alborz destroyer, and will conduct a three-month mission.”

The commander said the fleet had departed from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas in Iran. He dismissed claims the fleet has been deployed to intervene in the conflict in Yemen.

Iranian ships have been tasked with providing security for civil boat traffic and protecting commercial vessels and oil tankers from pirates in the region, the rear admiral told Iranian television on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia, which has fought a long war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, accuses Iran of supporting the group – a charge denied by Tehran.

“The Iranians have a permanent presence in that part of the world … [as] there is a lot of instability in the Red Sea and Iranian ships are there to prevent pirates from boarding Iranian ships and they’ve been doing that for a number of years now, having also protected the ships of other countries,” political analyst and Tehran university professor Mohammad Marandi told RT, adding that the “real problem is the US presence” in the region.

The US military carried out “limited self-defense strikes” in Yemen on Thursday, in retaliation for recent attacks on an American naval destroyer, USS Mason, which has been operating north of the Bab Al-Mandab Strait.

According to the Pentagon’s initial assessments, three “radar sites” in the Houthi rebel-controlled area of Yemen were destroyed in the attack.

The attack on coastal targets was carried out by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the destroyer USS Nitze, NPR reported.

The Houthis have denied carrying out the attack, however. A military source reportedly told Saba news agency – a media outlet run by the group – that the assault did not come from areas under its control.

“These allegations are unfounded and the army as well popular forces have nothing to do with this action,” the source said.

“The US allegations just came in the context of creating false justifications to pave the way for Saudi-led coalition to escalate their… attacks against Yemen and to cover for crimes continually committed by the aggression coalition against the Yemeni people and to continue an all-out blockade,” the spokesman added.

He said the army is ready to confront any future aggression against the country, whatever the justification.

Last week, around 150 people were killed and hundreds injured in one of the bloodiest incidents in the Yemeni conflict. Saturday’s bombardment reportedly carried out by Saudi-led coalition jets devastated a funeral ceremony held in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia has denied responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, images and footage of what some have claimed to be fragments of a US-made bomb found at the scene of the deadly strike in Sanaa have emerged online. Following the incident at the funeral hall, missiles targeting a US Navy guided missile destroyer were fired from the Yemeni shore, according to Pentagon, which said the rockets, which failed to hit the ship, allegedly came from territory controlled by Houthi rebels.

By Pepe Escobar*

Donald Trump, with nothing to lose, may be finally ready to go nuclear. Not literally, of course; this is all about Cold War 2.0.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is worried the situation between the US and Russia today is even more dangerous than during the Cold War. President Putin’s foreign policy adviser Sergey Karaganov argues we’ve been at a pre-war situation for at least eight years now, since the Georgia fiasco. There are even calls to “bring back the Cold War” – when the rules of engagement were clear.

Six months ago the Valdai Club published a crucial report jointly signed by Andrey Sushentsov, associate Professor at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and the Wilson Center’s Michael Kofman warning that a US-Russia hot war could surge “unexpectedly” in a simultaneous “vertical and horizontal escalation.”

That would be a consequence, once again, of the absence of clear rules and “no tangible separation between war and peace” – configuring a variation of full spectrum war that includes electromagnetic space and cyberspace, as the first targets in the conflagration would be command and control, finance, energy and information networks.

Hillary Clinton by now has been solidly unveiled as the certified candidate of the Wall Street-industrial-military-surveillance complex – a bipartisan ‘War Party’ nebulae uniting neocons and neoliberalcons. As I argued, she is ready to go to war and has even coined a remixed axis of evil.

And that brings us to the frankly surrealist scenario of Donald Trump as The Last Man Standing between sanity and WWIII.

Hello, Daisy

It ain’t over till the last (rigged?) Diebold machine sings. November 8 will be all about turnout in a basketful of “deplorable” states.

And for all the 24/7 scandal time of non-stop groping and kissing and lewd locker room misbehaving, Trump seems to be ready to limp toward the finish line just as he began; an all-out populist/nativist/nationalist fighting open borders (a Clinton mantra, as revealed by the latest WikiLeaks Podesta email dump); “free” trade; neoliberal globalization; and regime change/bomb them into democracy/”humanitarian” imperialism.

US East Coast business circles discreetly supporting Trump’s platform are encouraging him to focus on only two issues; “to attack Obama and Clinton for blowing up Libya and Syria, creating the flow of refugees that is disrupting the civilized world;” and to attack Hillary as a Wall Street surrogate, stressing “the 2008 debacle was engineered by derivative manipulations where losses were reimbursed to Wall Street, while middle class home owners were not bailed out. These firms are all supporters of Hillary.”

And then there’s the ultimate, defining issue; the US-Russia Cold War 2.0 that could turn into WWIII. Washington is de facto holding open a nuclear first-strike capacity against Russia, part of the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine – and Hillary fully supports it. To unmask her as ‘Mother Warmonger’, businessmen supporting Trump have suggested he go – literally – nuclear, issuing a remixed version of the notorious ad that guaranteed the 1964 electoral victory to Lyndon Johnson.

That would be something to fully enrage the neocon cabal supporting Hillary, as in the Dr. Strangelove minion Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, who is openly peddling all-out military “victory” against both Russia and China.

Milley’s speech was of course fully authorized. It can be easily deconstructed as an act – like in the last hurrah of the neocons. There are serious characters even inside the Pentagon who see the melting of the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) mechanism as pure madness. As for the (lame duck) White House, Secretary of State John Kerry broke off negotiations with Foreign Minister Lavrov only briefly. Moscow keenly pointed out that it was Kerry who renewed his calls one day after the supposed serious break.

A New York business source connected to the ‘Masters of the Universe’, on condition of anonymity, unveils part of the mystery: “The United States threats over bombing all of Assad’s forces were retracted almost immediately under orders to Obama from above. Kerry took the initiative of a call to Lavrov for immediate renewal of talks under similar orders. The United States does not intend to get involved in a nuclear war that we most certainly will lose, as the Russians have leaped generations ahead in defensive missiles and their air space is effectively sealed.”

As for the MAD doctrine, “it is effectively over. As Brzezinski has said, if this is true, and it is, then the United States has ceased to be a global power.”

Slingshot time

And yet, all across US corporate media, neocons, neoliberalcons and their shills continue to huff and puff. “Syraq” is already a de facto, indirect, mini-World War, pitting NATO and the GCC against the “4+1” (Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah), and China (and that makes it a NATO-GCC proxy war against the top two BRICS/SCO members).

Wallowing in the campaign mudslinging-fest, the Clinton (Cash) Machine accuses WikiLeaks of being “a propaganda arm of the Russian government” in favor of their “pet candidate, Trump”, as Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta blames the “criminal hack” of his emails on Russia and denounces Trump’s “bromance” with Putin. Neo-McCarthyism is the (hysterical) rule; virtually the whole US establishment considers Trump’s conciliatory approach to Putin and Russia as treason by a Trojan Horse.

Even more alarming, both the US and Russia military seem to be on a razor’s edge. “Bomb shelters” is now a common conversation topic. The CIA plan of waiting for Russia to go bankrupt before the military modernization program is ready in 2017 is rubbish. And to top it off, accidents can – and may – happen. MAD no more: just stark raving madness, as the absolute incapacity of the War Party to read Russia’s red lines keeps increasing the possibility of shadow war slouching into hot war.

Twitter-machine Trump notoriously does not read. If only one of his advisers could summarize the thesis behind a provocative book, Theology of Provocation, launched in France earlier this year.

The central thesis, as exposed by Professor Gérard Conio, is that neoliberalism, as imposed by practitioners of the New World Order and financial elites, is not the opposite of totalitarian communism, but rather its apex, with a tiny minority of masters wielding life-and-death power over a vast majority of slaves.

Hillary is the anointed – warmongering – representative of these masters; or to quote 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature Bob Dylan, she’s only a pawn in their game, while Trump consciously positions himself as the unlikely outsider. She is actually the Goliath. If he wants to come out as the winning David, his (nuclear) slingshot has got to be a remixed “Daisy”.

*Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of “Globalistan” (2007), “Red Zone Blues” (2007), “Obama does Globalistan” (2009) and “Empire of Chaos” (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is “2030”, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.

This week’s decision by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to delay ruling on an appeal in the country’s most notorious blasphemy case and the thousands of security personnel deployed in its capital, Islamabad, in anticipation of a verdict, lay bare the degree to which Saudi supported ultra-conservative worldviews abetted by successive Pakistani governments have changed the very nature of Pakistani society.

At stake in the court case is more than only the life of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian mother of five who has been on death row since 2010 when she was convicted of insulting the prophet Mohammed in a bad-tempered argument with Muslim women.

The court has yet to set a new date for the appeal, but ultimately its decision on Ms. Bibi’s fate will serve as an indication of Pakistan’s willingness and ability to reverse more than four decades of Saudi-backed policies, including support for militant Islamist and jihadist groups that have woven ultra-conservative worldviews into the fabric of Pakistani society and key institutions of the state.

In an ironic twist, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with his close ties to Saudi Arabia is groping with a dilemma similar to that of the kingdom: how to roll back associations with puritan, intolerant, non-pluralistic interpretations of Islam that hinder domestic economic and social progress and threaten to isolate his country internationally.

It’s a tall order for both countries. Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family founded the modern day kingdom by forging a power sharing agreement with ultra-conservative followers of 18th century preacher Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Al Sauds constitute the only Gulf rulers who cloak their rule in religious legitimacy granted by the country’s ultra-conservative religious establishment. Losing that legitimacy could endanger their survival.

Successive Pakistani governments benefitted and abetted almost half a century of massive Saudi funding of ultra-conservative thinking in a bid to enhance Saudi soft power and counter more nationalist, revolutionary and liberal worldviews. Pakistani and Saudi interests long jelled in the support of militant Islamist and jihadist groups that targeted Muslim minorities viewed as heretics by ultra-conservatives, confronted with US backing Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan, nurtured the rise of the Taliban, and served Pakistan in confronting India in its dispute over Kashmir.

In doing so, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan unleashed a genie that no longer can be put back in a bottle. It has pervaded Pakistani society and branches of government in ways that could take a generation to reverse.

The timing of the delay of the court ruling may have been coincidental but it came days after the Sharif government took a first step in seeking to change course.

Pakistan’s civilian, military and intelligence leaders had gathered three days earlier for an emergency meeting in which Sharif and his ministers warned that key elements of the country’s two-year old national action plan to eradicate political violence and sectarianism, including enforcing bans on designated groups, reforming madrassas, and empowering the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) had not been implemented. The 20-point plan was adopted after militants had attacked a military school in Peshawar in December 2014, killing 141 people, including 132 students.

In a blunt statement during the meeting, Foreign Minister Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry charged that Pakistan risked international isolation if it failed to crack down on militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba; and the Haqqani network – all designated as terrorist groups by the United Nations. Mr. Chaudhry noted that Pakistan’s closest ally, China, with its massive $46 billion investment in Pakistani infrastructure, continued to block UN sanctioning of Jaish-i-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar, but was increasingly questioning the wisdom of doing so.

The court delayed its ruling after one of the judges recused himself because of his involvement in legal proceedings related to the 2011 assassination of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, a former elite police force commando. Taseer was a vocal opponent of Pakistan’s draconic blasphemy laws and supported Ms. Bibi.

Mr. Qadri became a hero despite being sentenced to death. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Islamabad to honour him after he was executed earlier this year. Authorities feared that a court ruling in favour of Ms. Bibi would spark mass protests. The delay in the court ruling simply postpones a potential confrontation.

It is a confrontation that was long coming. Pakistan’s blasphemy law fits decades-long Saudi use of its political clout and financial muscle to promote anti-blasphemy laws and curtailing of freedom of expression and the media beyond its borders.

The Saudi effort benefitted in the post 9/11 era from a global trend in democracies and autocracies alike to curb free speech. “The issue of blasphemy is destroying whatever strands of pluralism remain,” warned Pakistani researcher Nazish Brohi.

Notions of blasphemy propagated by the Saudi Arabia have led the kingdom to execute those that refuse to publicly subscribe to its narrow interpretation of Islam. In Bangladesh, secular bloggers risk being hacked to death while jihadists slaughter those they think have insulted their faith in an effort to stymie all debate. Pakistan’s electronic media regulator this year took two television shows off the air during Ramadan for discussing the country’s blasphemy laws as well as the persecution of Ahmadis, a Muslim sect viewed by ultra-conservatives as non-Muslim.

A proposal in recent years by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to criminalize blasphemy in international law legitimizes curbs on free speech and growing Muslim intolerance towards any open discussion of their faith. The proposal was the culmination of years in which the kingdom pressured countries to criminalize blasphemy and any criticism of the Prophet Mohammed.

Increasingly, the pressure constituted the kingdom’s response to mounting anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobia in the wake of attacks by the Islamic State in European and Middle Eastern nations, including Paris, Ankara and Beirut, and the October 2015 downing of a Russian airliner, and mounting criticism of Saudi Arabia’s austere interpretation of Islam and massive violations of human rights.

The criminalization of blasphemy and the notion of mob justice resembles campaigns on Western university campuses for the right not to be offended. Both propagate restrictions on free speech and arbitrary policing of what can and cannot be said.

In a lengthy article in a Nigerian newspaper, Murtada Muhammad Gusau, chief imam of two mosques in Nigeria’s Okene Kogi State debunked the Saudi-inspired crackdown on alleged blasphemists citing multiple verses from the Qur’an that advocate patience and tolerance and reject the killing of those that curse or berate the Prophet Mohammed.

Saudi anti-blasphemy activism and efforts to curb press freedom date back to 1980 when the government wielded a financial carrot and the stick of a possible rupture in diplomatic relations in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the airing on British television of Death of a Princess, the true story of a Saudi princess and the son of a general who were publicly executed for committing adultery.

Saudi Arabia forced Britain to recall its then ambassador, James Craig, in protest against what it called “the British Government’s negative attitude toward the screening of the shameful film.” In addition, the kingdom imposed limitations on visas extended to executives of British companies while US construction companies were asked not to subcontract British firms.

Saudi Arabia further banned British Airways from flying its Concorde from London to Singapore through the kingdom’s air space. The ban together with a similar one by Lebanon forced BA to chart a longer route for the supersonic flight, which wiped out its profit margin.

Scholars Thomas White and Gladys Ganley argued that “the film was perceived by Saudis as a violation of privacy since it represented a first look behind a closely drawn curtain into Islamic law as applied in Saudi Arabia, into Saudi culture, and, perhaps most devastating, into the behaviour of members of the ruling regime… Much of Saudi criticism of the film was directed towards what was called its portrayal of Islam as a harsh, insensitive religion, since the princess was depicted as having been summarily executed without a confession or a trial. The severity of punishment and the speed with which the princess was executed put doubts in the minds of viewers as to the fairness of Koranic justice.”

Concepts of justice as well as of freedom of expression are at the core of Asia Bibi’s case. So is the question of the kind of state and society Pakistan should be. It is an issue both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are grappling with as they realize that what long was a politically convenient strategy in their various geopolitical struggles is becoming a political and international liability. The problem for both is that reversing course is easier said than done and involves travelling down a volatile, perilous road.

(Civil.Ge) — President Giorgi Margvelashvili appointed Davit Bakradze, who has served as the state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration since 2014, as Georgia’s new ambassador to the United States, replacing Archil Gegeshidze.

Intention of the government and the President to appoint Bakradze as Georgia’s ambassador to the U.S. was first announced in early September.

Bakradze said after meeting President Margvelashvili on October 12 that Georgia’s NATO integration; strengthening of Georgia’s self-defense capabilities; issues related to Georgia’s territorial integrity were the focus of his work in his capacity of the ambassador.

Before becoming the State Minister in November 2014, Bakradze served as Georgia’s ambassador to Greece; before that he served at the Georgian embassy to Finland before March 2012; in 2006-2008 he led the first European department at the Georgian Foreign Minister; before that he worked at the Georgia’s embassy to Switzerland. In 1997-2002 Bakradze served at the Georgian National Security Council.

Saudi and Chinese armed forces began the “Exploration 2016” joint military exercise on Wednesday.

Special Forces of the Royal Saudi Land Forces and their counterparts in the Red Army were involved in the war games in the Chinese city of Chengdu.

The flags of the two states were raised at the beginning of the launch ceremony. This was followed by a speech delivered by mission leader Lt. Col. Walid Ettalhi, expressing his thanks to friends in the People’s Republic of China for the warm reception and generous hospitality. He stressed that the two countries’ relationship is based on ties of brotherhood, friendship and the great history.

Ettalhi pointed to the continued cooperation between the two countries at all levels, expressing his pride in participating in theses exerises, which reflect the strong relationship between the two countries.

“The exercises aim to exchange experiences between the two sides in specialized areas. This comes within the framework of military cooperation between the two countries, and is an extension of the strong relationship between the Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China,” Ettalhi said.

The exercises began in earnest shortly after Ettalhi’s speech.

Meanwhile thousands of kilometers west, Special Forces units of the Royal Saudi Land Forces are currently participating in a joint military drill with their French counterparts in the French city of Pamiers.

The Santol exercises kicked off earlier last week and focus on training the Special Forces to deal with real-world situations.

The drill forms part of a joint training program with the French side and comes within the framework of mutual military cooperation between Saudi Arabia and France.

By Jim Garamone

American and South Korean military leaders met at the Pentagon today to discuss the alliance between the two countries and ways to make the alliance even stronger.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed to his counterpart, South Korean Army Gen. Lee Sun-jin, that the United States has an ironclad commitment to the defense of South Korea.

This is the 41st Military Committee Meeting between the two countries since 1978.

Also participating in the discussions were Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of U.S. Pacific Command; Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the commander of Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea; and South Korean Navy Rear Adm. Chung An-ho, acting chief director of strategic planning.

Dunford affirmed that despite the nuclear and missile threat from North Korea, the U.S.-South Korea alliance will continue to grow firmer and stronger, and the U.S. will continue its ironclad commitment to the defense of the Korean Peninsula.

Lee emphasized “proactive cooperation” with the United States, including establishing a practical collaboration system and deployment of the U.S. Army’s terminal high altitude area defense anti-ballistic missile system.

Deployment of THAAD is a direct answer to North Korea’s nuclear and missile program.

North Korea’s Nuclear Program

Both military leaders strongly denounced North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations, stating they pose a serious threat to the Korean Peninsula, to the region and to global peace and stability. North Korea first detonated a nuclear device in October 2006. It was the culmination of a secret nuclear program believed to be started in the early 1980s.

The most recent test was last month, and civilian experts estimated the size of the blast was two times that of the Hiroshima bomb in 1945. North Korean newspapers stated the device is small enough to be mounted on a ballistic missile.

In their meeting, Dunford and Lee agreed to continuously develop effective response measures in order to deter, and if necessary, respond to additional provocations from North Korea.

Conventional Force Structure

While the North Korean nuclear and missile programs are the most recent threat from the country, the North also maintains large conventional forces. Officials estimate the North Korean army has about 1 million soldiers equipped with around 5,500 tanks, 8,600 artillery pieces, 2,200 infantry fighting vehicles and about 4,800 multiple rocket launcher vehicles. Much of this equipment is antiquated, officials said, but the sheer numbers alone give the North Korean army a significant capability.

North Korea’s navy has about 60,000 sailors with submarines, landing ships, three frigates and about 450 gunboats. The North Koreans launched a missile from submarine in August, escalating an already tense situation.

The North Korean air force has about 110,000 active duty personnel and 940 aircraft. Some of the aircraft are antiquated MiGs, but they also maintain about 30 MiG-29s — a highly capable multi-role fighter.

North Korea also has a large special operations arm.

North Korea is working on building its cyberwar capabilities, DoD officials said. The December 2014 hack into Sony Pictures, constant hacking of U.S. DoD sites, and attacks against South Korean banks and agencies are just the tip of the iceberg, officials said.

There are so many reasons to dislike Donald Trump. When he isn’t calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, he is standing by the prosecution and imprisonment of the innocent Central Park Five, whom he helped to convict. His family made its fortune building housing which excluded black people. He stole money from the gullible masses through scams like Trump University. The same man who owned the Miss Universe title and fat-shamed the winner now wants to be president of the United States.

His opponent Hillary Clinton takes credit for destroying the nation of Libya. She pressured the Haitian government to keep the minimum wage from rising to a mere 60 cents per hour. She aided the overthrow of the elected government of Honduras. As secretary of state she used her office to work for the Clinton Foundation and tried to hide by using a non-secure server system and lied to Congress about deleting incriminating emails.

Which one is the sole target of media and elite denunciation? The bigot with a big mouth and bad manners, not the insider with a history of catastrophe and corruption left in her wake. Even Republicans deserted him when a recording of Trump making sexist comments was recently made public. The New York Times and their cohorts in corporate media claimed falsely that he might drop out of the race. Of course the tape was revealed the same day that Wikileaks executed another document dump showing the corruption of the Clintons, the Democratic Party and all their cronies. What a helpful coincidence for team Hillary.

Trump didn’t need an off the record conversation to prove his piggishness. He is quite proud of it and reveals it himself on a regular basis. The level of piling on was the only significant part of the story.

Trump has proven himself to be a better foil for the Democratic Party than any other Republican could possibly be. They purposely made themselves the white peoples party but depend on their voters to implicitly understand that fact. Trump makes the racism explicit. In doing so he helps the Democrats make the phony case that only they can be trusted to bring fairness to the political system. The result will be disaster if Hillary Clinton emerges victorious.

Democrats love to give their presidents a pass even though they can be counted on to make Republican dreams come true. Republicans fantasized about ending the legal entitlement to welfare but Bill Clinton carried out the policy. George W. Bush claimed a right to imprison anyone indefinitely if he said they were terrorists. Barack Obama went further and claimed and acted on a previously unknown presidential right to kill whomever he chose.

These Democratic outrages are met with silence and Trump is paving the way for worse treachery to come. There was no reason for anyone to change their mind about Donald Trump because his boorishness was again made public. This degree of ruling class acclamation for one candidate is unprecedented. Republicans jumped ship and unendorsed him despite the fact that millions of their voters chose Trump as their nominee.

Gross comments are not the reason for their flexibility. Heavy hitter fund raisers like Sheldon Adelson weren’t giving Trump the time of day. They certainly weren’t giving him any money. The fund raising haul is a Hillary Clinton specialty and was well under way before the world heard Donald brag about groping women.

The proof of duopoly connivance has never been clearer. Of course the press had to work up outrage over the Trump tape. Wikileaks revealed the contents of Hillary’s speeches before corporate audiences. She and her husband have gotten rich by doing the business of the 1% and simultaneously got their buy in for her campaign. Of course, Republicans also bow down to the ruling classes. When the unpredictable Trump made noises about the trade deals beloved by both parties he wrote his political obituary.

Trump supporters like their guy, warts and all. They are very unhappy with the Republican leadership who are pushing him under the bus. This ginned up frenzy is meant to keep Democrats from staying home on election day or voting for the Green Party instead of for corrupt Hillary. The only way to pull the awful Hillary over the finish line is to raise the level of disgust directed at Donald.

No stone is being left unturned. In their herculean the effort to make the unlikeable Hillary likeable, the Democrats also resurrected the canard of Russian involvement in the damning email leaks. In the next four weeks we can expect to hear more filthy talk and claims of Putinite conspiracy. The nonsense is all in the service of keeping both wings of the duopoly happy with the result.

The Democratic rank and file will have to struggle and protest no matter who is elected. In fact they will have to force themselves to protest more if Hillary wins. If the past is any indication of future behavior, Democrats will say nothing when she privatizes Social Security or starts World War III. They will just shrug their shoulders and be grateful that Trump isn’t the one bringing on disaster.

The General Assembly today appointed by acclamation the former Prime Minister of Portugal, António Guterres, as the next United Nations Secretary-General, to succeed Ban Ki-moon when he steps down on 31 December.

Mr. Guterres, aged 67, was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015. He will become the world’s top diplomat on 1 January 2017, and hold that post for the next five years.

Adopting a consensus resolution put forward by its President, Peter Thomson, the Assembly acted on the recommendation on the UN Security Council, which on 6 October forwarded Mr. Guterres’ name to the 193-member body as its nominee for UN Secretary-General for a five-year period, ending 31 December 2021.

Thanking the General Assembly for appointing him as the next Secretary-General, Mr. Guterres said he was grateful to the Member States for their trust in him as well as for the transparent and open selection process they undertook.

“I believe this process means that the true winner today is the credibility of the UN. And it also made very clear to me that, as Secretary-General, having been chosen by all Member States, I must be at the service of them all equally and with no agenda but the one enshrined in the UN Charter,” said Mr. Guterres.

He also underlined that alleviating the suffering of the vulnerable people, in particular the refugees and those in conflict zones, and gender equality would remain key priorities for him during his tenure.

Secretary-General-designate Guterres also reiterated his belief in the values of peace, justice, human dignity, tolerance and solidarity, as well as his belief that diversity is a “tremendous asset” and not a threat.

Mr. Guterres also applauded the work of the current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and said that he would try his “utmost to honour” Mr. Ban’s legacy.

Ten years to the day after his own appointment as Secretary-General, Mr. Ban said: “Secretary-General-elect Guterres is well known to all of us in the hall. But he is perhaps best known where it counts most: on the frontlines of armed conflict and humanitarian suffering,” referring to his time as head of the UN refugee agency.

Noting that he has long valued his advice, and long admired his spirit of service, Mr. Ban declared: “He is a wonderful choice to steer this Organization as we build on the progress of the past decade, while addressing the insecurity and uncertainties of today’s world.”

Frederick Musiiwa Makamure Shava, President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), also congratulated Mr. Guterres on his election, saying that the Secretary-General-designate “is a strong humanitarian advocate and a successful leader,” and that he looks forward to working with him.

The Assembly’s resolution also welcomed the historic process Member States set in motion late last year: the selection of a new United Nations Secretary-General, traditionally decided behind closed-doors by a few powerful countries, has for the first time in history, involved public discussions with each candidate campaigning for the world’s top diplomatic post.

These so-called ‘informal briefings’ between the candidates, UN Member States and civil society representatives kicked off on 12 April, when the first three candidates presented their ‘vision statements’ and answered questions on how they would promote sustainable development, improve efforts to create peace, protect human rights, and deal with huge humanitarian catastrophes should they be selected to lead the Organization.

Mr. Ban also praised UN Member States for the selection process and emphasized that it “opened the [selection] process to the world.”

He further noted that the new steps taken this year established a new benchmark of openness and engagement.

The selection process included, for the first time in the history of the Organization, public hearings with the General Assembly where candidates presented their vision and responded to the questions fielded by the Member States. These informal hearings were also televised and webcast.

The process started off with a joint call from the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council formally soliciting candidates and from the outset, acknowledged the importance of geographic and gender balance in senior posts.

For his part, Assembly President Thomson highlighted that the selection process underscored the principles of transparency and inclusivity.

“It was a process that specifically sought out candidates who embody a firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the [UN] Charter; who exemplify the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity; and who have proven leadership and managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations, and strong diplomatic, communication and multilingual skills,” said Mr. Thomson in his remarks.

“I am confident that Mr. Guterres will serve the global community with dedication, as a moral authority, and be the voice of our collective conscience and humanity, throughout his term,” he added.

Assuring the Secretary-General-designate of his full support throughout the present session of the General Assembly, the body’s President stressed that he would do everything within his power to facilitate a smooth transition.

In this context, Mr. Guterres will be participating in a meeting called by President Thomson, on 19 October, to discuss with the General Assembly the critical, priority and emerging issues for the global Organization.

By Alyn Ware*

The United Nations General Assembly has on October 13 affirmed António Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as the next United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG). The UN Security Council had on October 5 nominated him for the position after considering 13 candidates.

Guterres will have a number of challenges as he prepares to take up the UNSG position in January 2017. These include implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, addressing climate change, managing the continuing global refugee crisis, ensuring progress on disarmament, curtailing armed conflicts in a number of countries and regions, and reducing the tensions between Russia and the West, and between China and its neighbours in East Asia.

The expertise of Guterres in managing the global refugee crisis appears to have been one critical factor in securing support for his UNSG candidacy from the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA), any one of which has a veto over the final selection of the UNSG. It is widely recognized that Guterres has managed this issue incredibly well in very difficult circumstances.

However, the fact that Guterres never directly challenged the nuclear weapons policies of the P5 during his term as Prime Minister of Portugal, might also have been an influential factor in him getting the Security Council endorsement ahead of the other candidates. The P5 are all nuclear-armed, and are the ones most responsible for a continued lack of progress in achieving multilateral nuclear disarmament.

“How Guterres addresses nuclear disarmament as UN Secretary-General, will be a critical question,” according to Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute. “The objective to eliminate nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction was agreed by all UN members in the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly. The unconditional obligation to achieve this goal was unanimously affirmed by the World Court. But so far this objective has not been met and humanity still lives under the existential threat of nuclear annihilation. The UN Secretary-General has a responsibility and mandate to act on this core global issue.” 

There was strong public sentiment that this should have been the time for a female Secretary-General. All the previous UNSGs have been men, and the President of the UN General Assembly had specifically requested that women be among the candidates nominated.

As such, there were a number of female candidates who appeared to have a good chance at the top UN job. This included Helen Clark, Head of the UN Development Program and former New Zealand Prime Minister, and Christina Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They had recently facilitated extremely important international agreements – the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the new Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, a poll of UN staff around the world on who would be the most effective UN Secretary-General put Helen Clark as a clear favourite from within the UN for the position. Guterres and Figueres were second and third in the UN staff poll.

However, both Clark and Figueres and their countries, have been strong advocates of disarmament – a position that might have impacted on possible support from the P5 members for their candidacy. The P5 countries are not only the main nuclear-armed States, they are also amongst the world’s largest producers and merchants of conventional weapons. New Zealand has banned nuclear weapons, whilst Costa Rica has gone even further and abolished their army. The prospect of a UNSG with experience and a strong commitment to disarmament might not have been so favourable to the P5.

So does this mean the Guterres will be weak on nuclear disarmament as UN Secretary-General? Not necessarily.

Ban Ki-moon, the retiring UNSG, was also not very strong on nuclear disarmament when he was elected as UN Secretary-General, but became more so while in office.

As Foreign Minister of South Korea, a country in an extended nuclear deterrence relationship with the USA, he had joined with other nuclear-reliant countries in opposing a number of United Nations nuclear disarmament initiatives and resolutions.

And, in one of his first initiatives as UNSG, Ban announced that the UN Department for Disarmament would be folded into the Department of Public Information (effectively closing the office) and the position of UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament would be cancelled.

However, Ban reversed this decision following strong appeals from non-nuclear States and civil society, who argued that nuclear disarmament was a primary objective of the United Nations. He established a UN Office of Disarmament Affairs and re-instated a top-level position – the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the level of Under-Secretary-General.

Ban then took a number of initiatives, which have resulted in him being probably the most active UNSG ever on nuclear disarmament. These include the development and promotion of a Five-Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament, co-chairing a UN Security Council Summit on nuclear disarmament with President Obama, visiting key locations such as Hiroshima and the former nuclear test site in Kazakhstan, and direct outreach to parliamentarians and civil society on this issue.

Encouragement to Antonio Guterres from non-nuclear States and civil society will probably be important to ensure that he also takes a strong leadership role on this issue like Ban Ki-moon. As such, the Co-Presidents of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, a global cross-party network of legislators, sent a letter to Guterres on October 13 appealing to him to place nuclear disarmament as one of his top priorities.

The letter, cosigned by PNND Co-Presidents who are leading parliamentarians from around the world, highlights the specific connections between nuclear disarmament and the achievement of peace, security and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The tensions exacerbated by nuclear threat postures prevent the global cooperation required to meet the SDGs. And the $100 billion spent annually on maintaining and modernizing nuclear weapons systems is sorely needed to instead address climate change and fund the other SDGs.”

In addition, PNND, Mayors for Peace and Religions for Peace plan to meet with Antonio Guterres early in 2017 to emphasise the importance of his leadership in this area, explore actions he could take, and present him with ‘A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Our Common Good’, a joint statement signed by parliamentarians, mayors and religious leaders. The statement ‘calls on world leaders to commit to nuclear abolition and to replace nuclear deterrence with shared security approaches to conflicts’ and ‘urges states to advance a nuclear weapons convention or framework of agreements that eliminate nuclear weapons.’

“There is no moral justification for nuclear weapons,” said Ela Gandhi, one of the religious leaders endorsing the joint statement. Gandhi, who is the grand-daughter of Mahatma Gandhi and a Co-President of Religions for Peace, was speaking at the United Nations on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

“People of faith the world over cannot but reject nuclear weapons – including their possession and the threat of their use – as an affront against God and creation.” The United Nations event was part of Chain Reaction – a series of civil society actions and events around the world demonstrating public support for a nuclear-weapon-free world and encouraging action at the United Nations.

As UN Secretary-General, Guterres would also have a strong mandate from the United Nations General Assembly and the majority of UN members to take leadership on nuclear disarmament. The first UN resolution putting forward the objective of nuclear disarmament has been followed by annual resolutions on the issue. And, later this October the UN is expected to adopt a resolution that will initiate UN-led negotiations on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons leading to their elimination.

On the other hand, reliance by nuclear-armed States and their allies on nuclear weapons does not appear to be waning. Rising tensions between nuclear-armed states, including over the Ukraine and in the South China Sea, have led to heightened nuclear threat postures and re-affirmation of nuclear deterrence.

As such, most of the nuclear armed and allied States have indicated that they will not join the UN negotiations next year to prohibit nuclear weapons, which will severely limit its impact. If the new UN leader is to play an effective role in facilitating nuclear disarmament, he will need to be able to assist in managing or resolving these conflicts so that the countries currently relying on nuclear weapons, can build confidence that security can be met without them.

This is not impossible. The PNND letter to Guterres notes that international law and the United Nations provide “mechanisms to resolve conflicts and achieve security without reliance on nuclear weapons, or on any threat or use of force.” These include diplomacy, mediation, arbitration and adjudication.

Russia and the West might currently be at loggerheads over Ukraine, for example, but compare this with the territorial dispute between Russia and Norway over delineation of the continental shelf running from their north coasts all the way to the North Pole.

This was resolved through arbitration (Law of the Sea Tribunal) and diplomacy. The conflict between the USA and Iran had all the signs of another war in the Middle East, yet was resolved diplomatically with the help of a third party – the European Union.

“The United Nations has played a key role in mediating nuclear-weapons-related disputes in the past – and in other disputes involving nuclear-armed countries,”says Rachel Day, research officer for Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.

“By promoting and employing diplomacy and conflict-resolution approaches to key conflicts, the new UN Secretary-General could help bridge the gap between non-nuclear states – many of whom are calling for unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons – and the nuclear-armed states, who say that peace and security is an important prerequisite for nuclear disarmament.”

By simultaneously promoting nuclear disarmament and the achievement of security by non-nuclear means, the new UNSG could ensure progress on both, and help achieve the aspiration of the first UN resolution for the elimination of nuclear weapons. This would indeed be an achievement of the highest order.

*Alyn Ware is Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Co-founder of UNFOLD ZERO, a global platform on the role of the United Nations in achieving the peace and security of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

On October 3 last the Russian Federation suspended the agreement reached in 2000 with the United States to downblend the bilateral surplus plutonium for nuclear weapons. The two powers had 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium each, at least according to the agreement signed in June 2000, at the time of the famous Reset between Russia and the United States.

The above stated agreement was reconfirmed in 2010, .but President Obama’s 2017 budget submission proposes a “dilution and disposal” approach as enabling the plutonium to be disposed of sooner, at lower cost and with lower technical risk than conversion to mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. Incidentally, some technological considerations are appropriate in this regard.

Mixed-oxide fuel, which accounts for 5% of the nuclear fuel currently used, consists of plutonium recovered from nuclear reactors mixed with depleted uranium, which can also produce electricity.

Hence, for budgetary and strategic reasons, President Obama has proposed halting the construction of a facility in South Carolina to downblend the plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial reactors.

However, regardless of the plutonium downblending technology, the MOX use had been defined in the 2010 agreement between Russia and the United States.

Hence, in essence, as early as last April, Vladimir Putin has been accusing the United States of not keeping their word, as they have failed to destroy military plutonium by instead permitting a reprocessing method that allows plutonium to be extracted and used again in nuclear warheads.

The bill Putin submitted to the State Duma sets out pre-conditions for the 2000 agreement to be resumed, including the reduction of US military infrastructure and troops in the countries that joined NATO after September 1, 2000, namely Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Putin also requires the lifting of all US sanctions against Russia and “compensation for the damage they have caused to the country.”

Furthermore, in May 2015, President Obama drew a line under the completed “Megatons to Megawatts” program by terminating a state of national emergency that had been declared in 2000 to help to ensure payments to Russia under the 1993 agreement.

The agreement regarded the US downblending of surplus military highly-enriched uranium that could not be assigned otherwise.

President Obama told Congress that “the conversion of 500 tons of highly-enriched uranium extracted from Russian nuclear weapons was over”.

In fact, in 1993, the US and Russian governments signed an agreement to purchase, over a 20-year period, 500 tons of Russian “surplus” highly-enriched uranium from nuclear disarmament and military stockpiles.

The material was bought by the United States for use as fuel in civil nuclear reactors.

Under the deal, the United States had to transfer to Russia a similar quantity of natural uranium to that used to downblend the highly-enriched uranium.

The deal was signed and complied with by Russia until last year.

The agreements suspended by Putin also include the Research & Development one signed in 2003 and again related to the nuclear sector.

We must consider, however, the complex strategic logic behind these seemingly quick Russian decisions.

The main shock was Ukraine.

During the Russian operations in the country, Putin and his aides launched many nuclear signals to NATO.

In March 2015 Putin said that he “could put the nuclear system on alert during Crimea’s annexation”.

Hence Russia still wants to “escalate to terminate” a possible nuclear attack on the EU and NATO, while continuing to perfect the sub-nuclear weapons and focusing on an increasing role of the nuclear strategy in its military posture towards the West.

A case in point was the simulated nuclear attack on Sweden in August 2015.

What is missing, in fact, is the implementation of the New Start Treaty signed in 2015 by Obama and Medvedev, which reduces to 1,550 the nuclear warheads available to each of the two countries.

The Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and the strategic bombers have been both reduced to 700 units.

The United States, however, have 741 launchers with 1,481 nuclear warheads, while Russia has 521 launchers with 1,735 warheads.

From this viewpoint, apart from the other military nuclear technologies, the United States and Russia have an equivalent potential. The difference is that the Russian weapons seem to be better and more effective than the American ones, from the technological and operational viewpoints.

Nevertheless the United States have not honoured the deal with Russia, thus instilling the legitimate doubt that much of the plutonium and uranium assigned by Russia is used by the United States for military purposes.

Putin, however, is right in substance and has probably not studied the US arguments and reasons well.

Let us go back in time: in the 1990s, the United States reported to have a surplus of 61.5 metric tons of plutonium out of a total equal to 90 metric tons, all intended for military use.

Russia had a stock of 180 metric tons of plutonium, 128 of which already adapted for military use, while also reporting to have a surplus of 50 metric tons of fissile material.

Plutonium is always hard to be downblended: either it is used to produce MOX, which is suitable for civil nuclear power plants, or it is “immobilized”, which means it is mixed with highly radioactive material, so that these substances can cover and prevent the radiation of plutonium itself.

However, with a with to making the radioactive material safe, a long and complex industrial process is needed.

The United States had started to build their own ad hoc facility along the Savannah River banks in South Carolina but, for various organizational and technical reasons, the cost of the project agreed with Russia proved to be not affordable for the federal government.

There is speculation that today the completion of the project agreed by the United States with Russia would cost over 30 billion dollars.

Hence President Obama stopped the construction of the facility in the Savannah River site.

At that juncture, the above stated dilute and dispose approach was developed.

It consisted in mixing plutonium with inert material and burying it underground in New Mexico.

As already noted, this is the reason why President Obama halted the construction of the facility in the Savannah River site and started the dilute and dispose project.

In the agreements with Russia, however, the only way to manage excess plutonium is the production of MOX – the dilute and dispose approach is not contemplated at all.

In fact, as underlined by Russia, this technique leaves the plutonium isotopic composition intact.

Hence there is the not remote possibility that plutonium can be extracted from the ground and used again for military purposes.

Therefore, at technical and political levels, Putin is right and, as also US scientists maintain, nothing prevents the buried plutonium from being really reused for military purposes.

However, both for technical and scientific reasons and for a cost analysis, the United States cannot really afford to convert all military plutonium into MOX.

Hence what can be done?

The US plutonium can be transferred to IAEA, which could downblend it in “third party” facilities, also under the Russian Federation’s control, or deal with a European nuclear country to downblend the US plutonium, again under Russian control.

Nevertheless, we must once again note the growing US military and technological backwardness, which seems ever more suited to an Iraq or Syria-style war rather than to a fair confrontation on an equal footing.

If the EU begins to think wisely on these issues, time will come to envisage a small pan-European nuclear military unit, particularly capable of seriously controlling its own borders.

But we already know that this is an impossible dream.

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 at Modern Diplomacy.

Efforts by the Brazilian government over the past 15 years to curb deforestation have been a widely celebrated success, but a new study finds that there’s more deforestation happening in Brazil than official accounts suggest.

The study, led by researchers from Brown University, compared data from Brazil’s official Monitoring Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by Satellite Project (PRODES) with two independent satellite measures of forest cover. The study found that about 9,000 square kilometers of forestland not included in PRODES monitoring were cleared from 2008 to 2012. That’s an area roughly the size of Puerto Rico.

“PRODES has been an incredible monitoring tool and has facilitated the successful enforcement of policies,” said Leah VanWey, co-author of the research and senior deputy director at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. “But we show evidence that landowners are working around it in ways that are destroying important forests.”

The research is published in the journal Conservation Letters.

PRODES has been a key part of Brazil’s effort to curb deforestation, an effort that has had significant success. In 2003, 25,000 square miles of Amazon rainforest were lost to deforestation. That dropped to an average of 5,300 square miles between 2009 to 2013, according to the PRODES monitoring system.

The problem, the researchers say, is that PRODES monitors only primary Amazon rainforest. It excludes dry forests, another critical biome in the region, as well as secondary forests — land that was cleared many years ago and has since become reforested. PRODES also excludes discreet forest plots smaller than 6.25 hectares (about 15.4 acres).

“PRODES essentially masks out these regions and treats them as non-forest,” VanWey said. “We wanted to compare the PRODES maps with satellite sources that just look at canopy cover, without those exclusions. We showed that while deforestation in large plots of primary rainforests has declined, it has expanded in these areas not tracked by PRODES.”

The independent measures of forest loss used in the study came from the Global Forest Change project and the Fire Information for Resource Management Systems.

The 9,000 square kilometers of untracked deforestation that the study found could have ramifications beyond the loss of critical forests. Brazil uses PRODES to calculate how much greenhouse gas the country emits through the burning of forest biomass. This study suggests that Brazil’s deforestation-related greenhouse gas emissions are nearly twice as high as PRODES estimates.

“Brazil recently ratified the Paris Climate Agreement, which mandates substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels,” VanWey said. “By missing so much deforestation in PRODES measurements, Brazil is overestimating their emissions reductions.”

VanWey and her colleagues say their results show that Brazil needs to update its detection and enforcement strategy to better reflect the realities of land use on the ground.

“There’s been a transformation in the way people do agriculture,” VanWey said. “At the same time, the landscape has changed with emergence in recent decades of these secondary forests. We suggest that enforcement and monitoring regimes need to be updated for that new reality of land management.”

VanWey stressed, however, that the news from this research isn’t all bad. The study verified that Brazil’s efforts to curb deforestation have been successful, albeit with important caveats.

“In some ways this is an optimistic story because it shows that the enforcement activities through PRODES were incredibly effective in protecting primary forest,” she said. “But these other forest areas are important as well, and they’re worth protecting.”

Despite the many disastrous impacts of climate change, there are some regions of the globe that might benefit from hotter temperatures.

A team of researchers from Virginia Tech have predicted that water availability in the Blue Nile Basin of Ethiopia may increase in coming decades due to global climate change. It could also lead to increased crop production, spur massive hydroelectric power projects, and foster irrigation development in the region.

“For all the catastrophic impacts of climate change, there are some silver linings,” said Zach Easton, associate professor of biological systems engineering. “The sad irony is that climate change may be the catalyst Ethiopia needs to become a food-exporting country.”

The research team used a suite of climate and hydrologic models to predict the impact of climate change on water availability and sediment transport in the Blue Nile. Most previous Nile Basin climate impact studies have only focused on water availability, but the study conducted by the team at Virginia Tech was a first of its kind to to assess sediment transport, a big problem in the basin where some of the highest erosion rates in the world have been measured.

The findings of the study were recently published in the journal Climatic Change.

“Ethiopia could experience increased water accessibility making growing seasons longer and potentially allowing for two crops to be grown per year,” said Moges Wagena, from Assosa, Ethiopia. Wagena is first author on the paper and also associated with the Abay Basin Authority, a water resource management entity for one of Ethiopia’s 12 water basins. Wagena is one of Easton’s doctoral candidates in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, housed in both the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering. The team also included Andrew Sommerlot, another of Easton’s doctoral candidates; Daniel Fuka, a post-doctoral student working with Easton; researchers from the University of Maryland; and the International Water Management Institute, Nile Basin Office. The work was funded by the World Bank and the International Water Management Institute.

The team coupled hydrologic models with bias-corrected and downscaled Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 models, known as CMIP5, for the project. Previously, studies that looked only at temperature and precipitation from the climate models found an increased rate of water availability of just 10 percent, where Easton and Wagena found potentially 20 to 30 percent more streamflow available in the region in the coming decades.

One potential problem that the analysis identified was increased sediment transport in the rivers due to increased water flow. The increased sediment has the potential to reduce the capacity of reservoirs and dams, making massive hydroelectric projects like Ethiopia’s largest dam currently under construction, the Grand Renascence Dam, less efficient in storing the 65 billion cubic meters of water that could potentially turn its turbines.

“Greater water availability is certainly a positive outcome, but this is countered by more sediment. One way to combat that is through installing conservation practices on farms, for instance using cover crops and low- and no-till planting methods to make the soil healthier, more stable, and reduce erosion,” said Easton.

While climate change is and will continue to cause untold problems, nuances in climate-induced weather events could benefit the Blue Nile Basin with increased rainfall in the area.

“It’s interesting, because much of the Blue Nile Basin is well above 5,000 feet in elevation, giving it pretty much an ideal climate for agriculture with low humidity, low disease and pest pressure, and potentially great water availability, which could spur development,” said Easton.

Mothers who purchased antidepressants at least twice during pregnancy had a 37-percent increased risk of speech and/or language disorders among their offspring compared to mothers with depression and other psychiatric disorders who were not treated with antidepressants, according to new research. Results by scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Medical Center will be published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between maternal antidepressant use and speech/language, scholastic, and motor disorders in offspring. The study benefited from large sample population and followed the children beyond age 3,” said Alan Brown, MD, MPH, Mailman School of Public Health professor of Epidemiology and Columbia professor of Psychiatry. The speech/language disorders included expressive and receptive language disorders and those involving articulation of sounds.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as fluoxetine, citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, fluvoxamine, and escitalopram cross the placenta and enter the fetal circulation. There are also increasingly used during pregnancy.

Based on a sample of 845,345 single, live births between 1996 and 2010 taken from national registries in Finland, the exposure groups were classified as mothers who purchased SSRIs once or more before or during pregnancy (15,596); those diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder one year before or during pregnancy but did not purchase antidepressants (9,537); and mothers who neither purchased antidepressants nor were given depression-related diagnoses (31,207).

Since the extent of SSRI exposure was greater for mothers with more than one SSRI purchase during the pregnancy, Dr. Brown and colleagues also examined exposure by number of purchases (one, two, or more), and conducted two supplemental analyses to determine whether associations between maternal purchases of two or more SSRIs and the risk of speech/language disorders in offspring were further affected by the severity of depression. The results did not change appreciably and remained statistically significant.

“We believe that our finding about children of mothers who purchased at least two SSRI prescriptions during pregnancy is particularly meaningful because these women are more likely to have taken these medications, and more likely to have been exposed for a longer period and to larger amounts of the SSRI in pregnancy, compared to women who filled only one prescription,” noted Dr. Brown. However, in the whole sample, irrespective of number of purchases, the risk of speech/language disorders was increased among offspring of mothers who used SSRI during pregnancy as well as the offspring of mothers with depression and other psychiatric disorders who did not take an SSRI. There also was no evidence that maternal SSRI exposure was related to academic performance and motor disorders in offspring.

“The strengths of our study include the large, population based birth cohort, prospective data on SSRI purchases during pregnancy, a comparison group of mothers with depression who were not taking antidepressants, and an extensive national register database that included other known confounders,” noted Dr. Brown. “However the severity of maternal depression cannot be ruled out as an explanation for the increased childhood speech and language disorders among mothers who filled more than one SSRI prescription, and further study is warranted.”

Although Dr. Brown and colleagues were not able to confirm that the purchased medications were taken, the association between maternal SSRI and clinical speech and language disorders was present only among mothers with more than one SSRI purchase during pregnancy. In addition, earlier studies have also shown correlations between data from prescription registries and self-reported use of antidepressants.

Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes and other telescopes have performed an accurate census of the number of galaxies in the Universe. The group came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times as many galaxies in the observable Universe as previously thought. The results have clear implications for our understanding of galaxy formation, and also help solve an ancient astronomical paradox — why is the sky dark at night?

One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the Universe contains. The Hubble Deep Field images, captured in the mid 1990s, gave the first real insight into this. Myriad faint galaxies were revealed, and it was estimated that the observable Universe contains about 100 billion galaxies [1]. Now, an international team, led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, have shown that this figure is at least ten times too low.

Conselice and his team reached this conclusion using deep space images from Hubble, data from his team’s previous work, and other published data [2]. They painstakingly converted the images into 3D, in order to make accurate measurements of the number of galaxies at different times in the Universe’s history. In addition, they used new mathematical models which allowed them to infer the existence of galaxies which the current generation of telescopes cannot observe. This led to the surprising realisation that in order for the numbers to add up, some 90% of the galaxies in the observable Universe are actually too faint and too far away to be seen — yet.

“It boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the Universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes,” said Christopher Conselice about the far-reaching implications of the new results.

In analysing the data the team looked more than 13 billion years into the past. This showed them that galaxies are not evenly distributed throughout the Universe’s history. In fact, it appears that there were a factor of 10 more galaxies per unit volume when the Universe was only a few billion years old compared with today. Most of these galaxies were relatively small and faint, with masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way.

These results are powerful evidence that a significant evolution has taken place throughout the Universe’s history, an evolution during which galaxies merged together, dramatically reducing their total number. “This gives us a verification of the so-called top-down formation of structure in the Universe,” said Conselice.

The decreasing number of galaxies as time progresses also contributes to the solution of Olbers’ paradox — why the sky is dark at night [3]. The team came to the conclusion that there is such an abundance of galaxies that, in principle, every point in the sky contains part of a galaxy. However, most of these galaxies are invisible to the human eye and even to modern telescopes, owing to a combination of factors: redshifting of light, the Universe’s dynamic nature and the absorption of light by intergalactic dust and gas, all combine to ensure that the night sky remains mostly dark.

Notes:
[1] The limited speed of light and the age of the Universe mean that the entire Universe cannot be seen from Earth. The part visible within our cosmological horizon is called the observable Universe.

[2] The study uses data from Perez-Gonzalez et al. (2008), Kajisawa et al. (2009), Fontanta et al. (2004, 2006), Caputi et al. (2011), Pozzetti et al. (2009), Mortlock et al. (2011), Muzzin et al. (2013), Mortlock et al. (2015), Duncan et al. (2014), Grazian et al. (2015), Tomczak et al. (2014) and Song et al. (2015).

[3] The astronomer Heinrich Olbers argued that the night sky should be permanently flooded by light, because in an unchanging Universe filled with an infinite number of stars, every single part of the sky should be occupied by a bright object. However, our modern understanding of the Universe is that it is both finite and dynamic — not infinite and static.

The term ‘Known Unknowns’, hitherto fore unheard of in India, and definitely not in the Indian strategic context, is a clarion call for Indian strategists to wake up to the reality of a post modern scenario where the severity of multifarious situations poses new and inexplicable dangers to the very sovereignty of the nation; if unheeded, it threatens to annihilate the very concept of united India as we know it. An initial look did surprise us of the extent to which the Indian establishment chose to ignore or conveniently overlook such very real possibilities. We try and put down some thoughts garnered from perspective; the factual information has been gleaned from very public sources of information and nothing written in succeeding paragraphs purports to be classified at all. In fact such is the free flow of information in contemporary times that it is shocking at times how “frog-in-the-well” our entire attitude has been; though equally encouraging is the role being played by an ever increasingly aware media and the growth of strong, democratic and independent thought which has an increasing influence on public thought and policy & decision making.

Another imperative for prompting such thought is that the world today is no longer a place where entire countries can choose to exist in seeming isolation. Severally connected and hinged economies often give rise to the term ‘shrinking world’, and not without reason. Such has the interdependence of trade and commerce become that it is no longer possible to survive singly. The other facet to this rule is the fact that policies, not only foreign but domestic as well, need to be shaped and re-shaped with each shift in the global tide. Often clarity of thought and purpose is lost in the intertwining of so many factors contributing towards fashioning the strategic and national aims of a country; this especially true when the focus is on new concepts and fresh ideas. As in the post-crisis business world, innovation seems to be the key word.

Concept of Known Unknowns and relevance in the Indian context

The concept of Known Unknowns has been studied and written about by Nathan Freier for the US Army War College. It is essentially unconventional strategic shocks in defence. Such shocks that by their sheer strategic impact, surprise and the potential for disruption and violence, they would demand the focused attention of defence leadership, as well as the decisive employment of defence capabilities in response. The US found 9/11 and the events after that catastrophe challenging for its defence establishment, but according to Lt Col Freier, a strategically dislocating surprise would be next, and just around the corner. And sure enough, we have a global war against the Islamic State, which is now threatening to turn into a new cold war between the US and Russia owing its dimensional shift in Syria. What with so many imponderables as Iran, North Korea, and even its failure in Afghanistan and its inability to deal with the Taliban in frontier districts of Pakistan, could the ‘strategically dislocating surprise’ come from this part of Asia? Could the stand off between India and Pakistan, both nuclear states be the catalyst to reorient strategy, investment and missions in so far as the US is concerned? Given that unconventional challenges lie definitely outside the realm of traditional war fighting, does not necessarily mean that it is non-violent, non-state, or unorganized.

Risks to national security which may not be fully anticipated or predicted would thus constitute Known Unknowns; that they exist can be conceived but yet they are not being imagined or expected. Defence strategy usually faces the critical flaws of being reactive in nature and lacking imagination. This is attributed to the otherwise strict hierarchical controls owing to the nature of the job; it however leaves strategy planning and decisions susceptible and vulnerable to surprise. Aversion to institutional change is another key factor. Yet the Known Unknowns stretch conventional wisdom to such an extent that it becomes difficult to ferret out a likely and suitable response, whereas their broad and fundamental implications rise and mature fast leaving little room for the system to adjust itself to the strategic and inherent changes. Concepts face the challenge of change and existing paradigms are questioned; prevailing strategy and assumptions are undermined leaving strategists little choice but to venture into uncharted territory.

What does this concept mean for India? The relevance of such disruptive and strategic shocks would find its roots in the very nature of India’s sub continental environment and the rapidly changing global economic scenario, which forces India to look into newer and unexpected areas of likely conflict. Given the history of animosity that engulfs the country historically, it becomes that much more a lucrative target for various sections of neighbouring establishments. Also with the rapid economic growth of modern India and its increasing clout in global affairs, it needs to forge new and meaningful relationships to further strengthen and consolidate its own position on the world stage. In drawing a parallel to the US, India has had its share of challenges like 26/11 and every new day announces new stories of insurgent and naxalite violence. China and Pakistan continue to be painful thorns in the side, and with both neighbours taking a hostile stand, the security establishment has its work cut out for it. Central Asia has always been strategically important and in the last three decades has faced intense turmoil with it being the new arena for wars, conflicts, socio-political changes and mushrooming religious fundamentalists. Its proximity to India and the vulnerability associated with it, should give a new focus to our policies, both domestic and foreign. New avenues for meaningful dialogue need to be explored and all available means of ensuring territorial integrity and the security of Indian citizens will have to be undertaken. Above all, conceptual framework should be reinforced with a strong military establishment, and a proactive doctrine. Indian strategists will do well to always be on their toes, since most state and non state antagonists are unlikely to change or just disappear; instead they may find new and innovative means to bleed the Indian behemoth.

Points to ponder for the Indian political and defence establishments

What is India’s geo-strategy? What are its regional and global objectives? Is there focus on forming a coherent long term strategy or are we just blundering our way about international diplomacy? All these questions and more need to be answered by the Indian polity and thereafter the defence hierarchy. Endemic to the Indian system where the military functions as an arm of and under a civilian government, is the greater role played by the polity and the bureaucracy, in formulating policies. The defence establishment which implements these policies also needs to be given greater autonomy as also an implicit faith imposed in their ability to function apolitically, yet at the same instance provide valuable inputs to further governmental policies. Such a move has historically has been viewed with apprehension by the civilian establishment (and indeed, the sub-continent is rife with enough examples, both Pakistan and Bangladesh being cases in point). However this would also pave the way for flexibility and innovation in the functioning of the defence forces and thereby reduce the chances of getting shocked strategically!

In the regional context of the sub-continent, we continue to face relentless attack by subversive forces under various garbs. Does the fact that a country which is not only one eighth of the Indian landmass, but has been carved out of it, continues to implement strategy with impunity with the sole aim of bleeding India, tell us something? Are we indeed unable to deal with this imbalance for almost 70 years? Where dialogue and diplomacy may not work due to the inherent nature of the Pakistani mindset (it has always found itself threatened by India), can we switch tracks and look at such an infusion of economics, that it will becomes impossible for Pakistan to ignore the impact and therefore be forced to change its policies, or at least reign in those non state players who work towards subversion in Indian territory?

Where China has had the liberty of implementing various policies to bring it to the point of being an economic giant, India has been progressing too, albeit ponderously. On the one hand is the vibrancy of the Indian democracy and on the other is the lack of political will to implement measures for growth. These have in fact worked to further China’s subversive strategies, giving it a perfect platform to fuel naxalism inside Indian territory. Indeed, the growth story in India sometimes seems to be despite the government, not because of it! With its economic status well cemented, China also harbours ambitions of being a global power militarily. To that end, it has made rapid strides in bringing in technology and upgrading the fighting capabilities of its forces. It postures more frequently in a threatening manner, based on its historic border disputes with India. The recent spate of military/ naval posturing in the Indian Ocean region, the South China Sea, and the upcoming China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or the new Silk Route, are all signs of muscles being flexed by the Chinese dragon. However there seems to be little or no response and definitely a complete lack of coherent and well thought out strategy on our part. This is further taken as a sign of weakness and exploited increasingly. Alarming reports suggest that China has managed to slowly extend its hold over disputed border territory. Its increasing military clout is evident from its growing presence in the Indian Ocean which is essential to China’s projection of its power, but also a potential threat to Indian interests. What are we doing about these issues? At the end of the day, we do not have any cogent long term strategy in place and only now and very slowly waking up and gearing ourselves for a potential conflict with China. In its quest for energy and petroleum globally, China seems to succeed much more than does India. The infusion of Chinese funds into African economies and the number of successful bids in Central Asia and Africa for oilfields, is surely putting China in a more secure position by the day. Even the conduct of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was meant to announce its arrival on the global stage. Surely these issues need to be examined.

Traditionally India held its non aligned status (but with a dash of convenience thrown in) through the Cold War years. With the break up of the USSR and the US emerging as the single and uncontested global hegemon, India found itself drawn into a closer relationship with the US. On its part the US also cannot ignore the rapid growth of Indian economy and has shown all signs of positive engagement with us. Yet, as they say in diplomat-speak, ‘There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests’. Contradictory to its engagement with India, the US continues to indirectly fuel conflict in the sub-continent through its policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To be fair to the US, it is unable to deal with its own creation (yet again!) and therefore cannot afford the collapse of the Pakistani establishment (and the nuclear dimension to boot!) and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It then becomes incumbent on India to initiate positive relations by whatever means possible. Ultimately, Indian interests must be supreme for India and going by the analogy of permanent interests, it too should re-examine all avenues for its growth, security and consolidation of status. Post the economic meltdown in 2008 the US found itself more and more dependent on economies with strong growth. And what better candidate than a democracy (surrounded by all other forms of governance) with tremendous prospects in the foreseeable future. The question therefore is where are we headed in our relations with the US? Can all these positives not be leveraged to bring about a change in our regional equations? Policies may not change overnight, but concerted efforts would at least pave the way for a brighter future.

Indian capabilities both overt and covert face the prospect of erosion due to the lack of coherent long term strategies and egoist polity and bureaucracy, which resists the very idea of fresh infusion in thought processes. A paradigm shift in our outlook based on where our national interests lie is essential to the continued economic success and to obviate any possibility of attacks on our security and territorial integrity. It is therefore of paramount importance that a proactive and consistently innovative approach be adopted to geo-strategic concerns. Such a move would invariably herald the renaissance of India.

*Amitabh Hoskote, PHD (Development & Conflict Studies) & Vishakha Amitabh Hoskote, MA, MPHIL (International Relations, Political Science & Development Communication)

On October 11, following revelations that Hillary Clinton’s top aides were implicated in an anti-Catholic email exchange, I condemned the remarks. But I also said that she was “not responsible for this Catholic bashing.”

Given the latest revelations—her campaign chairman, John Podesta, admits to being actively engaged in sabotaging the Catholic Church—she cannot escape culpability any longer. She now owns this issue.

We know that left-wing activist Sandy Newman asked Podesta for advice on how to “plant the seeds of the revolution [within the Catholic Church].” Podesta replied that he is on it. To wit: He confessed to creating two phony Catholic entities, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, both launched for the express purpose of upending the Catholic Church.

What Podesta admits to doing is far more serious than any disparaging comments made by the Clinton team about Catholicism. Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary’s communications director, has been incredibly   insulting, but Podesta’s role is downright pernicious: He is seeking to foment a “revolution” within the Catholic Church.

If conservative Christians were plotting to sow divisions within the ranks of Judaism or Islam—setting up faux Jewish and Muslim organizations—there would be holy hell to pay. But when left-wing secularists seek to crash the Catholic Church, the media yawn.

Hillary Clinton is now the story: She has done absolutely nothing about Podesta’s vile anti-Catholic campaign. She is an utter disgrace.

Contact: press@hillaryclinton.com

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has announced a North American tour for 2017, NME reports.

Having headlined Desert Trip festival last weekend, Waters has now confirmed that he’ll tour the U.S. and Canada next year.

The ‘Us + Them’ tour will kick off in May in Kansas City, with the stint running until October. In a press release, Water says that he will perform new material during the stint: “Probably 75% of it will be old material and 25% will be new, but it will be all connected by a general theme”.

Waters used his set at last weekend’s Desert Trip to launch a scathing attack against Donald Trump, slamming him as a ‘sexist and racist pig’.

As he performed ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’ from ‘Animals, Waters displayed images of Trump as a sheep, holding a dildo as a rifle, in a KKK hood, making a Nazi salute, as well as showing him with sagging breasts and a micro-penis. When he sang the line “ha ha, charade you are,” the screens showed Trump’s face with the word “CHARADE” written across it. A series of Trump’s most infamous quotes were also displayed.

The iconic Pink Floyd inflatable pig also made an appearance, this time with the slogan ‘fuck Trump and fuck his wall’.

“It’s rare somebody like me gets a platform like this, so I’m going to use it,” said Waters, before paying tribute to the people of Palestine and honouring the BDS Movement. “I encourage the government in Israel to end the occupation.”

Remember what Sun Tzu said in his book entitled “The Art of War”? It begins thus: “All wars are based on deception.”Last month the Indian DGMO, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh proclaimed that the Indian Army performed a ‘surgical strike’ on ‘Terrorist launch pads’ in Pakistan next to the Line of Control (LoC). The statement was met with joy all across India as it was taken at face value and the general public in India felt that Pakistan was given a relevant response after its so-called connection in the Uri attack.

As the term surgical implies, it is a defined military attack on just a legitimate military target. It is usually conducted by air and Special Forces. The idea is to only engage a military installation with surprise and an element of secrecy. Such strikes are usually carried out to remove particular targets and for this reason require a perfect Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance (ISR).The case on the Line of Control; attacks are usually loud with massive fire support. A silent night attack does not go well with the deployment and defense patterns along the heavily fenced LoC. Hence, contact with the Pakistani troops should have been specific. Pakistan, rejecting as ‘baseless’ Indian claims that it carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan, condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations across the LoC.

Although the Indian Army did not endow with the details of the operations and hence many military minds questions remained unanswered. The Pakistani military denied the occurrence of such an attack and with video confirmation showed that Indian shelling was countered successfully. Immediately the news came out, many military question needs authenticity. This is so because the ground situations did not match with the notion of surgical strike taught in various military establishments globally.

What we need to comprehend that Pakistan has been in a state of war for the last 10 years and every encounter that involves India would only make them more eager to demonstrate their ability. Now that is just the army that we are talking about. We have not even have begin to talk about the scores of Jihadist organizations that are being nurtured for specifically this kind of eventuality. And here we are going to try and pretend that Pakistan does not support such organizations. The most important issue is that of Pakistan’s tactical nukes. Logically, no state is fool enough to invest time and money in developing weapons it does not intend to use. They surely will be used in case of a ‘misadventure’.

If Modi is trying to call this a bluff, he is doing so at a very high risk. India cannot afford a war with Pakistan. It fully understands the implications of this an endeavor on its development. India should not try to push the limit too far as if the Modi government opts for a military response, it will be neglecting the wisdom of past Indian Prime Ministers, who recognized the costs of a risky, destabilizing crisis dwarf the scant political, reputational, and coercive effects.

Another important aspect is that Indian media is again creating hype. At the moment, India is refusing to back off and uses the power of their media to spread lies about Pakistan and hence manipulating the state of affairs even more. Their media has already spread lies about the alleged surgical strike that never took place, causing a state of confusion, even embarrassment to India. The Indian affiliate of CNN, recently carried an interview with SP Ghulam, making up a story about a Pakistani police officer ‘confirming’ that surgical strikes took place. After the release, SP Ghulam firmly denied speaking to any Indian journalist. He also expressed his anger over his fake voice making rounds in Indian media. Indian Media has no credibility whatsoever but a Propaganda arm for Indian Government is Shameful indeed. No doubt, India is mostly on the wrong side of the truth or humanity but they keep lying for the sake for national interest no matter how immoral their actions.

BBC reporters on both sides of the border check with the locals and they not aware of any military incursion. So if there is an indication of troop incursion, you should provide the evidence to the public. A senior police officer on the Indian side told BBC reporter that there was heavy artillery fire from the Indian side on Pakistani posts but Indian army did not cross LOC. It all depends on what is the definition of a surgical strike? May be Indian army’s definition is destroying the military posts with long range artillery fire. Modi in a public rally in Lucknow few days ago did not make any reference to the surgical strike.

It would not be wrong to say that LoC is certainly not the place to carry out a classical surgical attack. Since even the legitimate targets were not attacked, the claims by Lt Gen Ranbir are not based on military realities of the Line of Control rather they are based on deception. The UN, in a latest statement, also alluded to a dichotomy between the term used and the situation on ground. Just like any other citizen, we must stand by our country and soldiers but will definitely use our conscience before believing anything on what politicians say.

*Saima Ali works for Strategic Vision Institute Islamabad and can be reached at Saima@thesvi.org

There are not just two opinions about the suitability of Republican hopeful Donald Trump for the US presidency in advancing capitalist and imperialist ideals — even as the ruling Democratic party, pursuing the Bushdom’s imperialist policy as its own, has lost its legitimacy and worthiness to be the American rulers.

Unlike Democrats, who have rallied in a unified fashion around Mrs. Clinton for the most part, the Republican Party has splintered around the divisive candidate since Donald Trump first began gaining traction among voters more than a year ago. All of them welcomed the Trump phenomenon as a morale boost for Hillary. However, as the trend began slowing changing in his favor, many Democrats and Republicans opposed him.

First there is a feeble protest from within the Republican Party as, interestingly, less than a week after several GOP officials called for Donald Trump to step down from the ticket, some have decided to back him again. After publicly repudiating Donald Trump, some Republicans have reclaimed their spots behind the candidate, saying they still plan to vote for him in spite of recent revelations.

That’s the odd middle ground where several Republican officials and candidates find themselves this week. For them the “nasty” comments made by Trump during the primaries were not disgusting but now Trump’s fanatic rhetoric has become totally “unacceptable” under any circumstance. Now they argue: “It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party’s nominee.” They have backtracked, telling KILN radio in Nebraska that they will vote for Trump in November. Sen. Deb Fischer (R) of Nebraska, for instance, revised her choice: “I support the Republican ticket and it’s a Trump-Pence ticket.” Perhaps they see the victory for Trump for granted now. Sen. John Thune (R) of South Dakota faced a similar dilemma after calling for Trump to step down on Twitter. He, too, decided to remain among Trump’s voting bloc. Then Darryl Glenn, a Republican candidate running for a Colorado Senate seat, swayed his position similarly. Solid backing for Trump!
Those who now still oppose Trump candidacy are “establishment” people who had earlier forcefully supported Trump thinking his candidature would strengthen Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances to White House as the first woman president of the NATO leader nation. In an increasingly unconventional election year, partisanship hasn’t proved as strong of a tie as it once did. A quarter of elected Republican officials, along with a growing list of prominent conservatives – most recently commentator Glenn Back – have sided with the “Never Trump” movement. A few have even endorsed Hillary Clinton’s run for president.

The group of outspoken Republicans has cited the businessman’s brash rhetoric and unorthodox attacks on others as factors that make him unfit to serve as president. Dozens of party members who had previously pledged their support to Trump changed their tune after The Washington Post canvassing for Hillary, “unearthed” a decade-old recording in which he boasted of his aggressive and non-consensual sexual conduct with women.

Even as the dust settles, it seems that not everyone who decried the candidate’s remarks plans to follow through on denouncing him entirely. For some, speaking out against Trump may be about protecting their own image, but defaulting back to the party’s ticket allows them to maintain vital ties in Congress.

For Republicans who have given less-than-enthusiastic endorsements to Trump, or even shifted their stances, there’s an opportunity to stand in line with the post-2016 Republican party, whatever form it takes. If brazen Trump supporters make up the party’s majority, they can find favor in the crowd for supporting the candidate. But if the party takes a more moderate, traditionally conservative shape next year, they’ll be among those who condemned Trump’s racist and sexist rhetoric.

Other defectors and non-endorsers, like New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte or Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, are skirting the lines of party loyalty to save their own campaigns. In their battleground states, where attracting moderates remains a key campaign plan, Senator Ayotte has formally denounced Trump, while Senator Toomey has refused to come to a public conclusion.

As a candidate who has brought first-time and disenfranchised voters to the forefront in massive numbers, Trump has proven he can mobilize a passionate group of people. The pressure from voters has been mounting to support Trump. They also have a lot of constituents who strongly support Trump and view defection as disloyalty.

The Republican candidate’s view that America should remain great in its own right, and that its involvement in international partnerships is more of a burden than a blessing, is naturally antithetical to international cooperation. After his first debate with Hillary Clinton, several US allies expressed fear of an isolationist America withdrawing from a dangerous world, putting “America first,” in Trump’s words, and giving little weight to anybody else’s opinion.

Meanwhile, the UN’s top human rights official has joined the chorus of Donald Trump critics. UN human rights chief and Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein told reporters that he is very concerned about the Republican presidential candidate’s attitude towards human rights issues, particularly the use of torture. “If Donald Trump is elected, on the basis of what he has said already and unless that changes, I think it’s without any doubt that he would be dangerous from an international point of view,” said Prince Zeid, who spent many years living and studying in the USA. Last month, Zeid also criticized Trump’s reliance on divisive racial and religious rhetoric, which he said could put already vulnerable people at greater risk of losing their rights. “We have to be on guard to see that in the end vulnerable populations, populations at risk, do not again see their rights deprived because of a view that is in the ascendancy based on false premises,” he said. The human rights chief said that his concern for the potential consequences of Trump’s election compelled him to speak out.

With Election Day less than one month away, the factions that constitute today’s Republican Party may have reached a parting of the ways, as House Speaker Paul Ryan and presidential nominee Donald Trump engage in an extraordinary political struggle over the soul of the GOP. Will Nov. 9 mark the beginning of the return of the GOP of Representative Ryan – traditional, conservative, devoted to smaller government and lower taxes? Or is the Republican Party now the Party of Trump, nativist, populist, nostalgic for an undefined past?

If Trump loses, the outcome is far less predictable. It is possible that he will fade almost as quickly as he emerged, defeat having punctured his bellicose image. Presidents are the face of their party. Trump would win the election and almost certainly would win this intramural contest, as well. The billionaire’s priorities and supporters would define the GOP after four (or eight) years in power.

Donald Trump is sure what said during the primaries was just an essential gimmick to impress upon the Republicans choose as candidate for the presidency and he won that. Quite likely Trump would, if what the trends suggest is real, win the White house too. His tough views pushed virtually all his Republican primary rivals in his direction. Opposition to a path for citizenship for those present in the US illegally may now be a litmus test for future GOP presidential aspirants. Similarly, Trump may have flipped the party’s long-standing pro-free trade position. His tirades about jobs lost to China and Mexico, and the need to reverse that trend, get the crowds at his rallies roaring.

Demographic trends within the Republican Party underlie many of these attitudes. The GOP is becoming whiter, older, more male, and less educated than the nation as a whole. During the years of the Obama presidency, GOP gains among whites and men have enabled the party to offset corresponding Democratic gains among nonwhites and women.

Whether or not Trump would be a defiantly hawk to pursue the Bushdom rule of invading energy rich Arab world more aggressively than what Bush-Obama duo have done so far, is different matter, but obviously American voters do not expect him to be the first ever elected revolutionary leader to wind down all ongoing terror wars and honestly and sincerely work for global peace.

American public, which remains a helplessly silent spectator of what the pentagon-CIA duo has been doing world side, is ready now for any political eventuality.

Whether that works for Republicans, and produces a party that can win presidential elections at a time when the US is becoming less white, remains to be seen.

After a long period of stable gridlock, American politics has entered a newly chaotic period. The party coalitions are realigning too. It does mean the GOP may be entering a period of instability unprecedented in the modern era. If Trump loses, party leaders may vacillate between approaches, first attempting to unite the GOP around a general anti-Clinton philosophy, then perhaps acceding to certain aspects of Trumpism.