By Rahul D. Manchanda, Esq.*

Never in America’s history has she been in more danger of a “false flag” attack from her enemies, both foreign and domestic, than she is now. The contemporary term “false flag” describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them.

Historically, the term “false flag” had its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent’s true battle flag before (but not while) engaging the enemy has long been accepted as a permissible ruse de guerre; by contrast, flying a false flag while engaging the enemy constitutes “perfidy.”

Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, can (by extension) also be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation.

America has been thoroughly infiltrated by a mighty and wealthy foreign power and menace, while her people are suffering financially, and she is now poised to be sacrificed on the altar of history for a one world government headquartered overseas.

The Neo-Con/Communist natives are restless, they desperately want their World War 3, and they are wanting to move their wealth and power to their next world empire, which will be the final one in their sick deluded minds, unopposed and permanent.

Now that Hillary Clinton has been “theoretically re-indicted” by the FBI for the email scandals (although they are being obstructed by our very own US Department of “Justice” under Attorney General Loretta Lynch) this has effectively ruined her chances of becoming President through legal channels, so they only have one more option – and that is a false flag attack leading us directly into World War 3 in a nuclear war, using all of their carefully placed traitors in the Pentagon, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, and cooperative local police departments all throughout the United States, with a declaration of a state of emergency in both the United States, and abroad.

This is why it is vitally important that all Americans, both in the private and public sector, start watching their government and elected leaders like “hawks.”

Americans need to use the Neo-Con’s mantra of “See Something, Say Something” against them.

The Neo-Con/Stasi/Communist’s Zersetzung (organized gang-stalking under Bill Clinton’s Community Oriented Policing “COPS” program) needs to be turned by the People against them, and the American People need to watch each and every single one of them like they would watch a lunatic holding an AK-47 in a mall.

The Neo-Cons simply can not be trusted, as they work for the Plutocrats, who desperately want to hold on to their power, and will not willingly relinquish it to the People by way of Donald Trump and his Populist Revolt and Uprising.

Some examples of real false flags throughout history having routinely disastrous results, wherein the “winners” re-wrote history, include the:

(1) 1914 Battle of Trindad fought between the British auxiliary cruiser RMS Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar which had been altered to look like Carmania;

(2) World War II German commerce raider Kormoran which surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941 while disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship;

(3) trial of Otto Skorzeny, who planned and commanded Operation Greif, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials included a finding that Skorzeny was not guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms;

(4) 1788 incident wherein the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border allowing King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates’ consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790);

(5) September 1931 incident wherein Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway;

(6) Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involving Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war with Poland;

(7) November 26, 1939 incident wherein the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border blaming Finland for the attack using the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later;

(8) 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involving scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs to be blamed on Cuba and a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro’s communist government;

(9) Reichstag fire which was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on February 27, 1933 using as “evidence” by the Nazis that the Communists were beginning a plot against the German government, whereby Adolf Hitler, who was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany four weeks before, on January 30, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to counter the “ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany” – and then with civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates;

(10) April 4, 1953 incident wherein the CIA was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by carrying out false flag attacks “on mosques and key public figures” to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government, code-named “TP-Ajax,” the tactic of a “directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party” involving the bombing of “at least” one well known Muslim’s house by CIA agents posing as Communists;

(11) 2008 shooting of two minibuses carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia who wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day, in a volatile area on the border of Abkhazia and the Republic of Georgia, wherein President Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it, providing a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation’s attention on an external enemy, leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election;

(12) assassination of Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters;

(13) Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, wherein captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau;

(14) Algerian civil war in the middle of 1994 wherein death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks;

(15) Mexican wars of 1819 and 1846-48;

(16) Spanish-American War of 1898 involving the surprise explosion of the battleship Maine at Havana, Cuba wherein the Hearst Press accused the Spanish, and then the USA declared war on Spain conquering the Philippines, Guam and Cuba;

(17) World War I in 1914-1918 wherein a U-boat torpedo hit the ocean liner “Lusitania” near Britain and some 1200 people, including 128 Americans, on board lost their lives, and subsequent investigations revealed that the major explosions were inside the Lusitania, as it was secretly transporting 6 million pounds of artillery shells and rifle ammunition, as well as other explosives on behalf of the Morgan Banking Corporation to help Britain and France;

(18) World War 2 in 1939-1945 where a U-boat torpedo hit the ocean liner “Atheni” near Britain, with some 1100 passengers, of which 311 were Americans;

(19) US naval intelligence planning and suggesting “8 insults” to bring Japan into war with the US, where President Roosevelt executed this plan immediately and also added some other insults, enraging Japan, such as a total blockade of Japanese oil imports, as agreed between the Americans, British and the Dutch – FDR also declared an all-out embargo against Japan and forbade them the use of the Panama Canal, impeding Japan’s access to Venezuelan oil;

(20) one of many incidents provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor some 6 months later;

(21) Korean War in 1950-1953 wherein South Korean incursions (the Tiger regiment etc.) into North Korea (1949) led to contrary claims and into war – the cause of this war was covert action involving leaders of Taiwan, South Korea and the US Military Industrial Complex (John Foster Dulles has been mentioned as an organizer of the hostilities);

(22) Vietnam War in “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident” wherein the American destroyer Maddox was supposedly attacked twice by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin – but which never happened;

(23) Grenada invasion whereby the Grenadian leader, Maurice Bishop, who favored the left and invited Cubans to build infrastructure to accommodate long range Soviet aircraft, was deposed and executed in October 19, 1983 – six days later the US invaded, with the supposed reason that American medical students studying in Grenada were in danger due to a “Cuban presence” – and of course the new leader supported by the US favored more traditional values and the right;

(24) Panama invasion wherein an incident between American and Panamanian troops led to invasion and the earlier Carter administration plan to hand control of the canal over to Panama was cancelled;

(25) US-Israeli sponsored wars between Iraq and Iran from 1980-1988;

(26) Desert Storm War (First Gulf War) in 1991 wherein Saddam Hussein asked for permission from the US (via their ambassador April Gillespie) to invade Kuwait, and got an answer that the US was not concerned with “Arab quarrels” – this was a trap, and after Saddam occupied Kuwait, George Bush Sr. mobilized a coalition of some 40 nations to “liberate Kuwait” and smash the recently-built Iraqi military power base – this incident also involved a media hoax wherein the daughter of a Kuwaiti US Ambassador played a nurse on TV, and then testified to “witnessing” Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait;

(27) War on Terror launched by the Bush administration in October 2001 – claimed to be the response to terrorism, especially the 9-11 incidents;

(28) Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan invasion);

(29) Enduring Justice (Second Gulf war); and

(30) countless others.

Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on October 1, 1940, under the entry Rules of Land Warfare, states:

“National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse – in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded.”

The American Soldiers’ Handbook states:

“The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins.”

The 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 (Protocol I) states:

Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy – 1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: (a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; (b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and (d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.

Article 38. – Recognized emblems – 1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Lion and Sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.

Article 39. – Emblems of nationality – 1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations. 3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1(d), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.”

It is vitally important to note that while the United States may have these codes and regulations, her enemies, both foreign and domestic, are not bound by these Rules.

The American People (and indeed the rest of the world) need to be exceptionally on guard and vigilant before the upcoming November 2016 election, and even many months afterwards, because the Neo-Cons/Communists may still try and get their World War 3, even if Donald Trump is elected.

After all, September 11, 2001 took place a full 9 months after George W Bush was sworn in at his Inauguration in January 2001, and this was blamed on Osama Bin Laden who was a known CIA Asset and who allegedly declared War on America in 1998 – he might have been the Neo-Cons’ insurance plan, cooked up during the 8 year Clinton Administration from 1992-2000.

And of course, 9-11 is what led to the wholesale bloodshed and regime changing wars for the past 15 years, leaving the Middle East in flames, with countless millions of innocent lives and refugees lost forever, the greatest genocide and bloodbath the world has ever known.

And don’t think that these crazed Neo-Con psychopaths won’t do it again, especially when there are only a few more countries left to “take out” now – Russia, Iran, and North Korea – as opposed to 20.

About the author:
*Rahul D. Manchanda, Esq., Ranked amongst Top Attorneys in the United States by Newsweek Magazine in 2012 and 2013.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

On May 19, Paris’s first virtual reality (VR) theatre opened its doors, promising viewers an unparalleled experience using VR headsets and headphones that propel them into a virtual world for 40-minute shows. Yet the designer Tomás Dorta, a professor at the University of Montreal, does not believe in it.

“Viewers wearing individual headsets are isolated from others, which is contrary to the collective experience we are looking for when we go to the movies,” Dorta explained.

With two doctoral students, Sana Boudhraâ and Davide Pierini, he wanted to measure the virtual reality experience and compared VR headsets with an immersive projection system using a concave-spherical screen, developed by his research team and called Hybrid Virtual Environment 3D (Hyve-3D). Dorta immersed 20 subjects of various ages in both types of virtual environments and noted their reactions and behaviour.

“Ultimately, the people much preferred the virtual reality without headsets, because they could interact with other viewers and share their impressions in real time. They appreciated the social aspect of the experience,” said the researcher, who published his findings in the ACM Digital Library on October 28, the same day he presented his study at the 28e Conférence francophone sur l’interaction homme-machine, held in Fribourg, Switzerland.

While viewers using VR headsets must continuously look around to explore the scene, which often hinders the storytelling and the cinema experience, Hyve-3D viewers miss none of the action and have the same immersive feeling. Moreover, VR headsets restrict users to an individual experience, in which a big part of the non-verbal communication (i.e., facial expressions, gestures, and postures) is precluded, notes the article’s abstract.

Le Monde disappointed

The study’s conclusions are consistent with those of the newspaper Le Monde’s “Chronique des révolutions numériques,” whose authors visited the City of Light’s virtual reality theatre on May 19. “The experience met expectations and the films lived up to technology’s promise,” said the article. “But the reality of VR can sometimes be unsettling for the viewer: contact with a column near the seat, screens that fog up in the heat of the action, or a sudden itchy eye, can quickly ruin the show.”

Dorta believes that fans of horror or action films would be much better served by a theatre equipped with a system such as Hyve-3D. He himself worked on a prototype that can be seen at the Hybridlab design research laboratory in the J.-Armand-Bombardier Pavilion, near Polytechnique Montréal. “It seems the market is going crazy for virtual reality,” he said. “In my opinion, VR headsets are not the way to go.”

His device is not limited to the entertainment industry. Using a computer tablet interface, professors and their students can literally walk into the projects they are working on. Matching words with action, he guided a Forum reporter through the halls of UdeM’s Faculty of Environmental Design, which he had previously modelled in 3D. “Architects and engineers could present their projects in the same way to their clients. Imagine entering the home or office you want to build. You could zoom into the bathroom, walk down the stairs, and go into every room,” all the while drawing in 3D.

A feature of Dorta’s system even allows you to position the furniture. You can see your house being built right before your eyes… as if you were there.

By Md. Muddassir Quamar*

In June 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured Mosul, the capital of northern Iraqi province of Nineveh, and later in the month, the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi chose the city to proclaim the establishment of a global Sunni caliphate. The way ISIS had run over the city with Iraqi forces meekly surrendering to the militants had underlined the fragility of Iraqi armed forces.

The ISIS continued to govern the city as its prized possession in Iraq and was brutal with religious minorities, especially the Yazidis and Assyrian Christians. Demographically one of the most diverse cities in Iraq, the area is rich in oil and minerals and the Mosul refinery had become one of the major sources of revenue for the ISIS. The second largest city in Iraq lies at a strategic location close to Turkish and Syrian borders and Iraqi Kurdistan.

The city served as the political base of ISIS in Iraq and provided it with a strategic location to expand in all directions and to control the supply lines for weapons and other resources to ISIS-held territories in northern Syria and Anbar province.

Before the takeover by the ISIS, the city was one of the major trading and economic centres in northern Iraq and was the hub of business. For Turkey, the region has political importance because of its domestic Kurdish question and hence it has coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to seal its borders to prevent ISIS or Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from launching attacks inside Turkey. Further, the small town of Bashiqa has been used by Turkey as a base for training Kurdish Peshmarga fighters since December 2015 and it also led to frictions between Ankara and Baghdad.

The post-ISIS scenario is not clear as major stakeholders, including the KRG, Baghdad and allied militias and Sunni tribal fighters and their external backers US, Iran and Turkey have not yet agreed upon the future of Mosul. Ideally the KRG might take over the city and allow for reconstruction and return of Christians and Yazidis who had migrated due to ISIS oppression.

Before the October 2016 offensive by Iraqi armed forces and allied militias along with Kurdish Peshmarga and limited US ground forces and air support, attempts in January 2015 and March 2016 to retake the city had failed.

The battle launched on October 16, 2016, has made fast advances and has put the ISIS on the back-foot evoking hope of liberation of Mosul. The ISIS, however, has not given up and has continued to fight and, according to some analysts, might prefer to engage in a protracted urban warfare. It has continued to fight on both fronts opened by Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmarga on the northeastern and eastern sides, respectively, and has used suicide bombings and put up mines to prevent the advances of pro-government forces. It continues to clutch on to the city and even opened a third front by attacking Kirkuk to divert the offensive on Mosul.

One of the most significant aspects of the battle for Mosul has been the fear of use of chemical or other lethal weapons by the ISIS. Media reports suggest that on October 22 the ISIS set a sulphur plant on fire leading to fear of toxic fumes hampering advancing forces.

Further, the differences among the allies, especially with Turkey wanting to have a role in the battle and the Iraqi government’s refusal in this regard, have created fissures and fears of the ISIS taking benefit.

Mosul is largely a Sunni city and fears have been expressed that the use of Shia militias in the offensive can lead to the Sunni population turning their back to the government and supporting the ISIS. Turkey has demanded that Shia militias be not allowed to enter the city after its liberation to prevent the massacre of its Sunni population. Such differences cast a cloud over the battle and underscore the sectarian divisions afflicting Iraq since the US invasion in 2003.

Nevertheless, the ongoing offensive seems determined to retake Mosul and quick early advances have created hopes that the battle will end soon. It is expected that the ISIS under pressure from the advancing forces will abandon the city and flee to its other strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

If it otherwise tries to engage in a long urban warfare and takes civilian hostages, it can also lead to a humanitarian crisis. Early signs indicate that unlike the case of Dabiq in Syria that was retaken by the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels without much resistance earlier this month, the ISIS is determined to fight in Mosul.

The battle for Mosul is important because it will determine the future of the ISIS and the retaking of Mosul will send an important message that the terrorist groups have no place in the future of Iraq and Syria.

It is significant in many ways.

Firstly, it comes after several reverses for the ISIS in the past few months in both Iraq and Syria where it has lost territories to the Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Secondly, its sources of finance and supply have been choked leading to build up of pressure and reports of many foreign fighters abandoning the group.

Thirdly, it indicates that both within Iraq and among external forces involved in the Iraqi theatre there is clarity on how to fight the ISIS. Fourthly, it also exposes the weakness of the terrorist group against a sustained and determined attack.

Finally, it also underlines the need for a coordinated effort to strike the vital stakes of the ISIS that has so far evaded the actors involved. In fact, the major countries involved in Iraq including Iran, Turkey and the US as well as their Iraqi partners in Shia militias, Sunni tribal fighters, Kurds and the Iraqi government have in the past hardly agreed on any political or military step to fight the ISIS.

With the advances made by the Iraqi and Kurdish forces, it is hoped that the battle for Mosul will not be prolonged. However, it would be futile to undermine the ISIS and its destructive machinery as it has the potential to unleash a reign of terror to prevent its rout from the city.

Reports suggest that its leadership, including ‘Caliph’ al-Baghdadi, has abandoned Mosul and are based in Raqqah in Syria. It also means that it can be working towards completely abandoning the city under intense pressure.

The retaking of Mosul will give impetus to the coalition working to oust the ISIS from Iraq and can pave the way for further operations to liberate all ISIS-controlled territories.

A swift victory over the ISIS will be ideal but with the ISIS determined to fight, it may take longer. Even though the liberation of Mosul may not lead to immediate advances in other areas under ISIS control and the post-ISIS scenario not yet clear, it will have far reaching ramifications for the future of Iraq and will be a symbolic victory over the ISIS.

*Dr. Md. Muddassir Quamar is a researcher at the Middle East Institute, in New Delhi. Tweets @mmqmudy

A recent study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports highlights a newly identified virus – named Moku after the Hawaiian Island from which it was isolated – in the invasive wasp, Vespula pensylvanica. The research also warns that transmission of these kinds of viruses, especially from invasive species which can spread viruses to new locations, is a threat to pollinator health worldwide.

Particularly under threat are honey bees, which are as vital to our food systems as the crops they pollinate, and which are prone to a range of emergent diseases including Moku and Deformed wing virus (DWV).

The Moku virus was identified through a collaboration of institutes with complementary expertise.

Purnima Pachori of the Platforms & Pipelines Group at the Earlham Institute (EI) carried out the bioinformatics work of separating out host and viral genetic material, which allowed for the analysis and identification of the novel Moku virus led by Gideon Mordecai (based at the time at the Marine Biological Association (MBA), Plymouth).

“It’s brilliant that our computational biology expertise at EI could contribute to the characterisation of a new virus which can be a threat to pollinator health worldwide” said Purnima.

It was through work at the MBA that the true uniqueness of the Moku virus revealed itself. Gideon Mordecai said, “The use of next generation gene sequencing techniques has led to a rapid increase in virus discovery, and is a powerful tool for investigating the enormous diversity of viruses out there.”

The study has highlighted the importance of monitoring invasive species for broad-range viruses as well as the potential for transmission of these pathogens. Dr Declan Schroeder, Head of the Virus Ecology Group at the MBA explains: “The true significance of this discovery lies in the potential ramifications that a new biological invasion could cause. Could we be seeing history repeating itself? Similar to the Spanish invasion of the Inca and Aztec empires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was the smallpox and measles viruses that inflicted the most damage on the individuals of these populous nations. Here we are seeing an invasive wasp bringing in a new virus to honey bees.”

The likelihood is that Moku has the ability to spread throughout the endemic population of honey bees in Hawaii. Gideon Mordecai concludes that “future challenges will be assessing the biological relevance of these novel pathogens and the role they play in the ecology of their hosts.”

The consumption of high oleic canola oil enriched with Omega-3 significantly reduces the concentration of triglycerides in the blood.

A team of scientists from the University of Granada (UGR), the Research and Development Functional Food Centre (CIDAF, from its abbreviation in Spanish, centre in which the UGR collaborates with other companies and institutions) and the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at Canada has shown that consuming canola oil (an improved form of rapeseed, with less than 2% erucic acid) enriched with Omega-3 reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Researchers have once again proven that the famous Omega-3 is a potent regulator of cholesterol metabolism. This time, scientists analyzed the plasma from 84 volunteer patients, who presented at least one symptom of metabolic syndrome, after eating different types of oils with different fatty acid composition.

That way, they found that said fatty acid reduces the PCSK9 concentration in plasma. PCSK9 is a protein associated with high levels of LDL cholesterol in blood and with other cardiovascular diseases. The consumption of high oleic, Omega-3 enriched canola oil not only significantly reduced the concentration of triglycerides, but also resulted in a significant reduction (a 10%) of the PCSK9 protein concentration in plasma, compared to the other dietary treatments.

The mechanism of action of this protein is based on the destruction of the receptors of LDL cholesterol, preventing the uptake of LDL by the cells and increasing their plasma concentrations, resulting in an increased risk of atherosclerosis and other related diseases.

These results, from the trial called “Canola Oil Multicentre Trial Intervention (COMIT)”, represent the first line of scientific evidence on changes in the PCSK9 protein plasma concentration after ingestion of different types of fat from the diet.

“In conclusion, we can state that although the mechanism of action for the consumption of different fatty acids on plasma concentrations of PCSK9 is being investigated, we should not forget the importance of dietary fat in the prevention of the risk of cardiovascular diseases” Celia Rodríguez, UGR and CIDAF researcher, lead author of the study, said.

The results from this work have been presented at the Conference from International Academy of Nutrition and Aging and the International Experimental Biology Conference, and they have been published in two international journals: Lipids and Vascular Pharmacology.

The first “Battle of Kunduz” took place from April to October 2015 for control of the city, where Taliban forces were playing cat and mouse for months and finally overran the city, forcing government forces to flee. The capture marked the first time since 2001 that the Taliban had taken control of a major city in Afghanistan. The Afghan government claimed to have largely recaptured Kunduz by October 1 in a counterattack. But by 6 October, the Taliban had recaptured substantial portions of Kunduz.

In the confusion, on October 3, long after the government had supposedly recaptured the city, still looking for the Taliban command centre, US fighter pilots ominously circled the Kunduz emergency care trauma hospital. It had been installed and administered by Doctors without Borders (MSF), the only state-of-the-art facility in the war-torn province.

For 45 minutes, like ominous clouds, the planes fired pot shots, as if warming up, taunting or warning the doctors and patients, who started to flee and were mowed down. Finally, the pilots of the gunships launched full scale fire at 2am, on both the hospital and civilians fleeing what was clearly the target of US wrath.

A year later, the Canadian MSF head, Stephen Cornish, described the assault at a memorial gathering at Toronto General Hospital honouring the 42 victims, both the MSF doctors and their patients, killed by US forces. In keeping with NGO tradition, Cornish wouldn’t lay the blame on specific individuals, though there were dozens of eye witnesses. He just kept insisting that there be an independent inquiry.

The US military refused, quickly deciding it was multiple errors of command and execution. The US forces were changing their shift and got confused. A sleep-deprived Green Beret Major in charge of the US force believed that the Afghan commandos were under fire from the Taliban control centre. The local headquarters of Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, was 500 m from the hospital.

The hospitals was clearly marked to avoid precisely such error. MSF had warned US and Afghan authorities of the hospital’s location ahead of time, but bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after it notified military officials it was under attack. ‘Sorry, human error.’ No one, sleep-deprived or otherwise, was held responsible. Not a peep from the official Afghan authorities in Kunduz.

This case is frightening, “a turning point” according to MSF Canada President Heather Culbert. “That the US would violate one of the fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law by attacking civilians in a medical facility was appalling.” Even worse, there have been an increasing number of violations of international humanitarian law that have taken place in the 12 months that followed.

Even worse, no one was charged, despite the sleepy ‘smoking gun’. The US military has ‘status of forces’ agreements with all countries precisely for that reason, allowing it to spirit out its guilty soldiers before they can be brought to account, whether it be for murder, rape or worse.

The ‘fall’ of Kunduz to the Taliban prompted a number of Afghan parliamentarians to call for the resignation of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic Abdullah Abdullah. In response Ghani’s office replied that he had ordered an investigation into how Kunduz City fell so quickly.

Instead of putting things ‘in order’, the Afghan government continues to watch Kunduz go back and forth between the Taliban and the Afghan National Army. As MSF honoured their fallen last month, the Taliban forces once again took the center of the city, forcing the only remaining hospital to evacuate staff and patients.

Syria is the most dangerous spot for MSF. In February 2016, two MSF-supported hospitals in Idlib District and Aleppo were bombed, killing at least 20 and injuring dozens of patients and medical personnel, it is not clear by whom. In April 2016, an MSF hospital in Aleppo was bombed, killing 50, including six staff and patients. Again, it is unclear who did the bombing.

They get flack from both sides wherever they operate. A few weeks after the Kunduz tragedy, an MSF hospital in Sa’dah, Yemen was bombed by the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition, and then again in January 2016, killing 6. In November 2015, an MSF hospital was bombed by a Syrian Air Force helicopter, killing seven and wounding 47 people near Homs.

In Kunduz, the hostility is greatest from government officials, who distrust them, humiliated by their inability to maintain order. I suggested to Cornish: Is it revenge? A warning that you shouldn’t even be here? No comment. Cornish just insisted that hospitals should be out of bounds in conflict situations. But ‘sleep deprivation’ hardly accounts for the Kunduz tragedy.

The account of the battle for Kunduz reads like a video game. The ‘good guys’ in bullet-proof armour on adrenaline and/or drug-induced highs, using night vision goggles and infrared cameras, guns and grenades, like toys in a dazzling arcade. The ‘bad guys’ — poorly armed guerrillas who perversely refuse to submit to the ‘good guys’. The thrill of a brush with death for US soldiers, before returning to the US with a few ‘scalps’, wild tales of adventure, and some war booty. US pilots in Iraq even produced a video of how they mowed down helpless civilians for fun. In Oliver Stone’s Snowden this is graphically depicted, happening from the NSA base in Hawaii.

The alarming degeneration of the security situation which Kunduz demonstrated prompted UN Security Council Resolution 2286 in May 2016, which calls for greater protection of civilians, medical facilities and personnel in war zones. Instead of seeing a decrease in atrocities since the resolution, however, attacks and deaths increased by 50%.

The reckless attack on the hospital in Kunduz made me think of the inviolability of churches and mosques in feudal times, how this honorable tradition was lost in the secular 20th century, where Nazis burned the churches full of civilians. In an age without belief, hospitals become the substitute inviolable, sacred spot. But nothing is sacred anymore. The ‘good guys’ have lost their aura of fighters for a sacred cause.

Kunduz also recalls fire bombing of Dresden by the Allies in WWII, the symbol of the mass bombing of civilians that killed tens of thousands of civilians, in an attempt to destroy the morale of the enemy, setting a precedent for US bombing in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Red Cross reports that its work has actually become more dangerous since the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of the US as world policeman. So we should not be surprised by Kunduz. It is merely another example of the US doing what it knows best: using military might to terrorize, in hopes that its victims will submit to its will. To brazenly target hospitals indeed is a turning point, a turning backwards to past crimes, crimes we once piously attributed only to the enemy. But where there is no enemy left, everyone becomes a target. We are the enemy.

Our only hope is to ‘turn back’ the system of imperialism and its ideology of materialism, and to restore the sense of spirituality which has been eroded by it.

https://crescent.icit-digital.org/authors/eric-walberg

News reports are focusing on the decision by Anthony Weiner to seek help for cybersex addiction and exhibitionism. Getting lost in the discussion is the most serious aspect of this story: the welfare of the four-year-old son of Weiner and Huma Abedin, Jordan.

It would be helpful to reconsider the timeline.

• August 29: The New York Post breaks a story about Weiner sexting a middle-age woman with a lurid picture of himself; his son was lying next to him in bed.
• August 31: The New York Post runs another story, this time featuring Weiner using his son as a “chick magnet” to lure sexual relations.
• August 31: Citing the stories in the New York Post, I file a formal complaint with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), the New York branch of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. I ask them to investigate Weiner for sexually abusing Jordan.
• August 31: The Daily Mail Online, after questioning a spokesman from the ACS, cites my intervention as the trigger that launched the investigation.
• September 21: The Daily Mail reveals that Weiner was sexting a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina. The FBI is summoned.
• September 22: The New York Police Department (NYPD) commences an investigation of Weiner. While looking for child pornography and related matters relevant to my request—I asked for a probe of Weiner on the grounds that he may have sexually abused his son—the police found hundreds of thousands of emails sent by Abedin to her colleagues, including to Hillary Clinton (on her private server). The NYPD then contacted the FBI.
• September 26: I receive a phone call from ACS saying my request for an investigation of Weiner was approved and was underway.
• September 27: I receive another phone call from ACS, questioning me further regarding my involvement.
• October 3: The FBI seizes Weiner’s laptop, phone and tablet.
• October 28: The FBI-Weiner probe is made public.

‘Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely – and the right to be heard.’ — Hillary Clinton on Feminism.

The fight between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is in the last stage. Political analysts all across the globe believe if Clinton wins, women power will win and feminist policies will get a boost. Feminists reject the very Realist notion of war and state being the ultimate protector of liberties. Feminists argue that there are gender discrimination’s based on economic inequalities and the stereotypical roles assigned to women because of structured patriarchal institutional set ups existing in society. This includes the military and explains the role of women in non combatant roles. Rosemary Grant argues that the Realist theory of war endorses patriarchy and it is patriarchy that needs to be checked if women are to be treated as human beings having human rights.

The Convention on the elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) proposed by the United Nations in 1979, questions patriarchal discriminations directed against women that subject them to economic and emotional torture.

Statistics reveal that the maximum casualties in almost all conflicts are women and children. Biological factors play a crucial role in determining political Participation. During the freedom movement in India, several women participated in the fight against the British Rule but post independence this gender division is very evident. Women are expected to perform roles that do not cover politics and military engagements. Recently the Indian Air Force commissioned women officers into services and such a move was widely welcomed by the Indian establishment and vox populi. But the roadmap has still not been made.

In the opening statement of the UNESCO charter it is stated that wars are made in the minds of men. Men, being a strong word here since it excludes women from constructive roles they play in times of conflict and peace. In Vietnam and El Salvador the victims were women and children and after the war was over pesant women had a tough time assessing the damages.

If Clinton wins, this will be a victory of feminist movement and it is being speculated that more and more women will be assigned positive roles in political decision making processes. National Security and Balance of power in International Politics strictly fit into male narratives excluding women totally. It is hoped that if Clinton comes to power national security will no longer remain a male centric concept.

Feminism, analysts believe is the advocacy of the rights of women. National security is a patriarchal concept that gives men the power to control the masses including women. It is this notion that needs to be challenged. CEDAW needs to be strengthened and restructures. For justice fast track courts need to be set up. It was in 2000 that Rape was identified as a war crime.

Clinton says that one needs to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential. This can only happen if patriarchal notions of state, national security and war are redefined and women are included in the decision making process. That women are soft on terror is another debate in itself but Clinton’s win will be a win for all the women trying to break the stereotypical roles and assert their rights in a patriarchal world.

By Nick Cunningham

A technical meeting that was supposed to iron out some wrinkles for a deal to cut oil production ended in acrimony over the weekend, and OPEC’s effort at coordination could be at yet another impasse.

Following the Algiers agreement at the end of September, a tentative deal that called for a collective reduction in oil output in the range of 200,000 to 700,000 barrels per day, OPEC scheduled a meeting on October 28-29 in Vienna to put some meat on the bones of the pact so that it could be officially sealed at the end of November.

But after weeks of papering over differences between its members and trying to put some positive spin on the prospects for a deal, OPEC not only failed to agree on individual production quotas, but its members also bickered over data and even which countries are supposed to participate. The group spent two days negotiating, and came away with nothing more than a statement that said they would continue talking.

The biggest hang up at this point is Iraq, which has two fundamental complaints. First, Iraqi officials dispute the data being used to calculate its oil production levels, arguing that the sources OPEC is using for its official estimates are underestimating Iraq’s output. That would hamstring Iraq more than it feels is fair, forcing it to cut deeper under the deal.

More importantly, Iraq is demanding an exemption from the deal entirely, arguing that it should be allowed to produce as much as possible because of its costly war against the Islamic State. Iran, Nigeria and Libya have been granted exemptions, due to the effect of sanctions (Iran) and disrupted supply because of security issues (Nigeria and Libya) – Iraq wants the same treatment.

That resulted in some friction at the Oct. 28 gathering in Vienna, a meeting that reportedly stretched on for 12 hours. As the WSJ notes, the success of this type of agreement at the end of November tends to require a consensus from lower-level officials ahead of time, something that did not occur this past weekend. That casts some serious doubt on the viability of the overall deal. On Oct. 29, another meeting with non-OPEC producers such as Brazil, Russia, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Oman and Kazakhstan, also ended with very little progress and zero commitments. Moreover, non-OPEC countries will have little impetus to offer any concessions if OPEC itself cannot come to terms. Russia said upfront that it would not cut its production, and it would only freeze if OPEC agreed to cut first.

The challenges standing in the way of the deal were evident right after the Algiers announcement at the end of September. Getting all members on board for a production cut was always going to be an uphill battle. But after this weekend, the odds of a deal look increasingly grim. “It’s more likely that OPEC will come away with no decision in November than that they’ll reach an agreement,” Fabio Scacciavillani, chief economist at the Oman Investment Fund, told Bloomberg on Oct 30. “If they are able to agree, it will likely be a wishy-washy deal that’s hobbled by too many exemptions.”

With competing interests, the discord seen over the weekend in Vienna was somewhat predictable. And the results of the fallout are predictable too: oil prices dropped more than 1 percent on Monday during early trading, with both WTI and Brent dipping below $50 per barrel and dropping close to one-month lows. Hedge funds and other money managers cut their long positions on oil futures and increased short bets for the week ending on October 25, a sign that the markets are losing confidence in a deal. “The price balloon is deflating in response to increasing doubts that OPEC will deliver a credible agreement on production control,” David Hufton, CEO of brokers PVM Group, told Bloomberg. “The combined OPEC and non-OPEC dance rhythm is one step forward followed by two steps back.”

In fact, the chances of a deal might deteriorate even further in the remaining days before the official meeting at the end of November. OPEC likely increased oil production in October, which would require even steeper cuts than they previously laid out. That could put a deal of any significance entirely out of reach.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Can-Oil-Markets-Survive-An-OPEC-Implosion.html

By Manpreet Sethi*

When the second largest democracy and the most powerful country of the world begins the process of choosing a new leader for itself, it is automatically a matter of global concern. Obviously then, for the last year or so, the twists and turns in the complicated US presidential elections have been on the watch of every government and international analyst across the world. It is now only a matter of weeks before the new occupant of the White House will be decided between Senator Hillary Clinton and billionaire business tycoon Donald Trump. However, neither of them has particularly impressed, nor emerged as a discerning student of nuclear issues.

Given that the US holds a formidable nuclear arsenal that can destroy the Earth several times over, it is normally expected of US presidential candidates to display a reasonably sophisticated understanding of relevant issues. It should, at the least, be enough to inspire confidence in their capability to be stable and able commanders of thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles. In the 2016 presidential race, however, it is disconcerting that a group of US air force officers in the nuclear command and control structures have signed an open letter expressing reservation on the idea of entrusting nuclear launch codes to Donald Trump. Even more distressing is the fact that the letter does not repose faith in the other candidate either!

Meanwhile, at a more tangible level, the stance of the two candidates on significant nuclear issues is peppered with vague articulations and evasive statements to even direct questions posed to them at various instances. Of course, nuclear matters are complex and one cannot expect a deep understanding of all dimensions. But what has emerged so far has not been very reassuring on whether and how the incoming President would seek to address the many complicated issues that he/she would inevitably confront on the contemporary nuclear landscape.

Amongst the early contenders for attention would be North Korea’s nuclear behaviour. Both candidates seem to believe that China holds the key to the problem and that it could/would be pressurised to use its leverages with Pyongyang to get Kim Jong-un to mend his ways. However, it is not clear what leverages the US itself has over China, and even more importantly, as to why Beijing should be inclined to do US bidding when it enjoys the benefits of North Korean heckling of its largest rival. Trump has expressed readiness to directly engage with Kim and that might be a direction worth exploring. Hopefully, he would realise the folly of his other idea of finding a solution to the problem through further nuclear proliferation into US allies in the region. Clinton, meanwhile, is likely to continue with more or less the same approach as that of the Obama administration – more sanctions and international consensus building on dealing with the delinquent state – the limits of which have long been upon us.

Another nuclear issue on which Trump and Clinton have diametrically opposite views is on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) concluded with Iran in 2015 and which began being implemented earlier this year. The Republicans have been strident critics of the agreement. Trump and his running mate have mentioned their intention to “rip up the Iran deal” and re-open negotiations to extract greater concessions from Tehran. It is quite likely though that he would end up unravelling the fragile arrangement currently in place. Clinton, meanwhile, has been a supporter of the agreement and is likely to continue with implementation of the agreement while keeping a close watch on Iran’s nuclear and missile activities.

On nuclear security, Clinton has clearly rated the threat of nuclear terrorism as an urgent priority and expressed the desire to find ways of getting nations to secure their nuclear material since Obama wound down his Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) initiative in March 2016. She has been candid in expressing great concern over the threat of a jihadist takeover of the Pakistani government, thereby gaining control over the country’s nuclear weapons and posing a danger to international security. Trump too has rated the threat of access by non-state actors to nuclear material high on his list of nuclear priorities, but has not articulated any roadmap to address the issue. It can be expected that the next US President will keep his/her focus on the issue.

The outgoing administration of President Obama has set into motion a very expensive process of nuclear modernisation. A trillion dollars have been pledged towards making the ‘ageing’ US nuclear warheads and delivery systems safe, secure and reliable. This includes investing in systems such as nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which have been criticised for their adverse impact on strategic stability. Acknowledging this, Clinton has, in some of her pronouncements on the subject, expressed a willingness to re-look at the decision for its wider implications on triggering a new arms race and vitiating nuclear stability. Having been part of arms control negotiations with the Russians on the New Start treaty as Secretary of State, Clinton can be expected to have been sensitised on strategic stability issues. Trump, however, is likely to hold a more puritan Republican line on this subject setting into motion an action-reaction cycle with other near nuclear peers.

There is no doubt that the manner in which these four issues are handled would have direct and indirect implications for India. Stemming further proliferation, enhancing nuclear security, as well as steps towards nuclear modernisation that add salience to nuclear weapons and compel the country to respond with measures to redress its own deterrence, are all consequential matters. It can be largely expected however, that the next US administration, irrespective of who heads it, will continue to honour India’s nuclear accommodation into the non-proliferation regime. As a nuclear technology proficient nation with a large nuclear energy market potential, and as a nuclear armed nation with a reasonably modest arsenal, India is too large to be ignored by any US President. By now, New Delhi has the experience of dealing successfully with both Republican and Democrat Presidents and it must continue to develop this relationship further on basis of common nuclear interests and concerns.

Meanwhile, it needs to be highlighted that irrespective of the personal predilections of US Presidents, the administration has a tendency to mould him/her into positions that are largely acceptable and conventional. Fortunately or unfortunately, the system does not allow its Presidents to stray too far. President Obama started his White House journey with an inspiring and radical speech at Prague that described a new nuclear agenda for the US. But myriad vested interests and lobbies at work constantly tugged at his coattails to bring him back into line with traditionalist positions. It is indeed ironical that the President who put the weight of his personal conviction behind a nuclear weapons free world is leaving office having approved a major modernisation of the country’s nuclear weapons.

The next few weeks are going to be extremely interesting and it is certain that Trump and Clinton will be monitored incessantly. In fact, every time they utter the word nuclear, it will be scrutinised for its national and international implications. And, once one of them is the President of the US, their nuclear pronouncements will hopefully acquire greater depth and maturity. The world cannot afford anything less.

* Manpreet Sethi
Senior Fellow and Project Leader, Nuclear Security, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi

By Milivoje Pantovic

Former Yugoslav Army general Momcilo Perisic has gone on trial in Belgrade for alleged espionage, accused of passing confidential military documents to the United States.

Momcilo Perisic, former chief of staff of the Yugoslav Army and deputy prime minister of Serbia, went on trial on Wednesday at the High Court in Belgrade for allegedly passing state secrets to the United States.

Perisic, who is on trial alongside two other men, lieutenant-colonel Miodrag Sekulic and civilian Vladan Vlajkovic, has pleaded not guilty.

The trial has been closed to the public after the prosecution said the defence ministry and the Serbian Army wanted the documents that were allegedly passed to the US to remain confidential.

However the defence protested against the court’s decision to hold the trial behind closed doors, arguing that the documents could be seen on the website of the Hague Tribunal, Serbian public broadcaster RTS reported.

The army prosecutor filed charges against Perisic in 2002, while he was serving as the head of the parliamentary committee for security, accusing him of handing over secret data to a US diplomat at a hotel in central Serbia.

According to media reports, Perisic met US diplomat John David Neighbor and gave him military documents about the army’s participation in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

Both were arrested, but Neighbor was quickly released because he had diplomatic immunity, and the US immediately denied that any secret data had been handed over.

The case was overseen by the Belgrade military court until 2005, when it was transferred to a regular court in the Serbian capital, but proceedings were then suspended when Perisic was sent to The Hague for trial.

He was acquitted of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal in 2013.

The Tribunal’s appeals chamber ruled that Perisic was not responsible for the wartime atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serb Army in Sarajevo and Srebrenica because it was not under the command of the Yugoslav Army.

It also found him not guilty of failing to punish his subordinates who participated in the shelling of the Croatian capital Zagreb.

Speaking about the espionage accusations in his only media interview after his war crimes acquittal, he said that because he managed to win a case at the Hague Tribunal, he could win in a Serbian court as well.

By David W. Murray, Brian Blake and John P. Walters*

Thanks to advances in science, we have never known so much about the effects marijuana use has on the human body, particularly, the fragile brain. Yet, in a political era when scientific research is regularly marshalled to end public policy debates, the powerful, growing scholarship on marijuana has largely been ignored or dismissed. Indeed, marijuana use seems to be one of the glaring areas in modern life where wishful thinking reigns over rationality.

Yet, as the lesson of tobacco demonstrates, when Americans are given the scientific facts about serious threats to their health, they adjust their behavior and insist on measures to safeguard their communities. In the instance of marijuana, the public can be forgiven for not knowing the true threat. With the assistance of a sympathetic media, marijuana legalization advocates, many seeking to profit off the drug, continue to sell romantic falsehoods and outright lies. They casually dismiss the growing list of serious concerns about marijuana emerging from scientific scholarship and survey research, or just cry “reefer madness” without examining the evidence.

Amidst the current marijuana public policy discussion, more than ever, concerned citizens, community leaders, lawmakers, educators, and parents need to better understand the growing body of research about this drug. What follows is a compilation and discussion of the latest research, including reports that are beginning to come in on the effects legalization has had in Colorado and neighboring states—including increased criminal activity even with legalization. While all research has limitations, what we do know is becoming clearer by the day, and it will make many question what they thought they knew about this drug of abuse.

Key Recent Findings:

• Journal of the American Medical Association: “There is little doubt about the existence of an association between substance use and psychotic illness…studies suggest that the association between cannabis use and later psychosis might be causal, a conclusion supported by studies showing that cannabis use is associated with an earlier age at onset of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia.”
• Society for the Study of Addiction: “Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood. Regular cannabis use in adolescence is also associated strongly with the use of other illicit drugs.”
• World Psychiatric Association: “Evidence that THC is a component cause of psychosis is now sufficient for public health messages outlining the risk, especially of regular use of high-potency cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids.”
• American Academy of Pediatrics: “The adverse effects of marijuana have been well documented” and include “impaired short-term memory, decreased concentration, attention span, and problem solving” which “interfere[s] with learning.”
• American Psychological Association: “Heavy marijuana use in adolescence or early adulthood has been associated with a dismal set of life outcomes including poor school performance, higher dropout rates, increased welfare dependence, greater unemployment and lower life satisfaction.”
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Persistent adolescent-onset cannabis users” showed “an average 8-point IQ decline from childhood to adulthood.”
• Clinical Psychological Science Journal: Duke University and UC Davis researchers “found that those dependent on cannabis experienced more financial difficulties, such as paying for basic living expenses and food, than those who were alcohol dependent.”
• Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence: States that have legalized “medical” marijuana find an association with higher 12th grade drop-out rates, lessened college attainment, and increases in daily smoking. Further, there is a dose/response relationship between adverse impact and years of increased exposure under legalization.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA: Since legalizing marijuana, Colorado climbed to number one among states for both youth (12-17) and college age adults (18-25) marijuana use.

Discussion:

The further acceptance of marijuana legalization and commercialization in some states will lead to a greater availability of the drug. Greater availability and acceptance will lead to greater use of marijuana, both in the sense of more users, and likely further in the sense of more frequent and greater consumption.

In states that have legalized already there is strong evidence that adult use has surged upward. There is further evidence that use by youth will also increase.

Youth use of marijuana in states that have now commercialized sales was already more extensive than national norms, however, reports since the first commercialization began in January, 2014, indicate growing use amongst all age groups.

As marijuana use intensifies, the consequences of such use and abuse accelerates. These consequences are considerable, and will impose significant costs, both personal and economic, on health and social well-being.

Finally, and perversely, evidence is strong that the consequences will include not only continued, but intensified and entrenched criminal activity associated with drug use. Indications are clear that the criminal and violent black market capitalizes on increased marijuana availability and use. Marijuana commercialization/legalization is advancing both a public health and a public safety disaster.

We shall review recent evidence of the health-related consequences in this document. In a later accompanying document we will assess the impact on use of drugs beyond marijuana, as well as the impact on further criminal drug markets.

Though comparisons between marijuana and other substances of abuse are frequently made to the effect that marijuana is not proportionally lethal, there are nevertheless other measures of the drug’s dangers. Former National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Bob DuPont has termed marijuana “the most dangerous drug,” in part because of the sheer prevalence of what is the most widely used illegal substance in the world, and in part because the effects are not always felt or experienced by those affected. They can nevertheless be measured and are real. In some instances, research shows that they appear irreversible, even after abstinence.

Among the more troubling findings are those showing a relationship between marijuana use and psychotic episodes, diminished memory, verbal skill, and other cognitive performance, lowered life achievements, criminal and anti-social behavior, school leaving and academic failure, and even lowered life satisfaction.

Most concerning, perhaps, are the findings that heavy, early marijuana use is associated with a loss of intelligence over the life course. Specific supporting citations for other statements will be found below.

Further, Dr. Wayne Hall’s twenty-year review of the literature in the journal Addiction, as we will present in greater detail in the review, showed a clear relationship between youth marijuana use and subsequent use of other drugs. As Hall has argued:

The relationships between regular cannabis use and other illicit drug use have persisted after statistical adjustment for the effects of confounding variables in both longitudinal studies and discordant twin studies… The order of involvement with cannabis and other illicit drugs, and the increased likelihood of using other illicit drugs, are the most consistent findings in epidemiological studies of drug use in young adults.

In general, the health risks of marijuana use are reasonably well known, and based on long-standing research that now consists in multiple studies across many nations, exploring many dimensions of what is a very complex drug.

The last decade has witnessed an intensification of concern and stimulated even more studies of marijuana’s manifold impact, involving several areas of the body and the mind. The comprehensive nature of the physiological impact mirrors, to some extent, the widespread dispersal of the body’s naturally-occurring endocannabinoid receptor system.

There are additional physiological concerns, many based on smoking as the manner of consumption, focused on its effects on the cardiac and respiratory systems. These threats are real and mounting.

But the most compelling investigations regarding risk are emerging from studies of the brain, however the drug is consumed. These include both the structure and the functioning of the neurophysiology of the brain, and they further extend into discoveries regarding the consequences of brain activity, as we have mentioned, such as cognition, memory, learning, executive performance, and general behavior. Moreover, they also include examinations of drug dependency and what is termed “marijuana use disorder.”

That is, both the brain as an organ as well as “the mind,” the very personhood, of the individual are affected by the chemistry of the drug. Most concern is focused on the principle intoxicating element, the THC, which shows signs of being actively toxic to the nervous system, the potency of which in modern forms is escalating dramatically under marijuana commercialization.

We must acknowledge that many studies demonstrate a risk that is emergent, and not fully known; multiple factors and confounders do coincide and must be accounted for before we argue “causation” for the effects that have been shown. Nevertheless, a substantial and repeated body of research that, taken piece by piece, showing “associations” or “correlations” or “predispositions,” must now be seen as sufficient, when taken together, to establish a clear and present danger.

In some measure, the worst effects are contingent, in the sense that not all forms of use by all individuals will produce the direst impact. But by now the evidence is compelling that certain forms of use, under certain circumstances, is deeply damaging.

Simply put, any honest observers must accept that the preponderance of evidence, as suggested by our review of recent literature which follows, demonstrates a high risk from marijuana use that is now overwhelming.

What we find is research from several related lines of inquiry, all pointing in the same direction. The risks are only worsening with time, in each line of inquiry, serving to confirm a congruence with the findings from other arena.

Studies of various marijuana disorders of behavior are being underpinned and given a basis by studies of the brain and its performance; showing consistent patterns from several interrelated domains of impact. Moreover, as over time the tools brought to bear have become more sophisticated and able to measure subtle and consequential effects, the sense of concern over what we are doing to youth is only mounting.

Though all users, even adult non-frequent users, have been shown to suffer some deficits through marijuana intoxication, and though there are further indications that even young adult casual users undergo structural brain changes, the evidence is far more robust and more worrying in other circumstances.

Danger increases, that is, when any of the following conditions are co-present with marijuana use: the existence of co-morbidities (or even predispositions), especially collateral substance dependencies or psychological deficits; certain genetic profiles that confer greater susceptibility; heavy, frequent use (daily use being the most threatening), especially of high-potency varieties; and especially exposure at a developmentally young age, during periods of highly consequential brain formation and calibration, generally ranging from prenatal or pediatric exposure up to young adulthood.

Where more than one of these factors is present, the risks escalate; where the developmentally young smoke high-potency cannabis frequently for an extended period – most markedly those with predisposing psychological deficits – the effects can be catastrophic in their lives, including dramatic “psychotic breaks.” These effects appear to be, in some cases, largely irreversible.

And it is this “worst-case scenario” that, perversely, is being fostered by state legalization and commercialization measures, thereby ensuring the greatest magnitude of damage.

A further implication of these facts concerns our emerging knowledge of the risks, given that most longitudinal studies showing long-term adult impacts were carried out without an appreciation of how the various factors above conferred greater vulnerability.

Often, studies that failed to find major impact were based on samples of adults, not adolescents, who were not exposed to heavy, frequent, newly-potent THC doses. Yet the commercialization of marijuana has resulted in marijuana potency that eclipses anything we have ever previously seen, in some cases by orders of magnitude. Highly potent “edibles” and concentrated cannabis extractions, like “shatter” are taking potency levels once common in the two- to three-percent range up to 80 percent. The consequence is that most everything we thought we knew about marijuana’s risks needs to be re-assessed under contemporary conditions, and most every danger, as we progressively uncover them, turns out to be heightened.

These finding are warnings of grave danger, with the promise of yet more to be discovered. Not all is “proven,” and not all establishes independent causation, but the evidence is strong enough, and growing daily, to activate in public policy a “precautionary principle.” That is, the evidence is strong enough to warrant a clear directive not to proceed further. Simply put, the pathway of legalization must not be pursued.

Recent Research and Findings: An Annotated Review

What has research over the past two decades revealed about the adverse health effects of recreational cannabis use? (full article), Addiction, (2014).
“Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood. Regular cannabis use in adolescence is also associated strongly with the use of other illicit drugs.”

Unintentional Pediatric Exposures to Marijuana in Colorado: 2009-2015, JAMA Pediatrics, (2016).
“Annual RPC pediatric marijuana cases increased more than 5-fold from 2009 (9) to 2015 (47). Colorado had an average increase in RPC cases of 34% (P < .001) per year while the remainder of the United States had an increase of 19% (P < .001).”

AMA Wants Marijuana Products to Have Warnings Against Use in Pregnancy, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, (2015).
The American Medical Association seeks warnings against marijuana use in pregnancy.

Cannabis Use and Earlier Onset of Psychosis, JAMA Psychiatry, (2011).
“There is little doubt about the existence of an association between substance use and psychotic illness. National mental health surveys have repeatedly found more substance use, especially cannabis use, among people with a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. There is a high prevalence of substance use among individuals treated in mental health settings,6 and patients with schizophrenia are more likely to use substances than members of the wider community. Prospective birth cohort and population studies suggest that the association between cannabis use and later psychosis might be causal, a conclusion supported by studies showing that cannabis use is associated with an earlier age at onset of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia.”

The Impact of Marijuana Policies on Youth: Clinical, Research, and Legal Update, American Academy of Pediatrics, (2015).
“The adverse effects of marijuana have been well documented, and studies have demonstrated the potential negative consequences of short- and long-term recreational use of marijuana in adolescents. These consequences include impaired short- term memory and decreased concentration, attention span, and problem solving, which clearly interfere with learning. Alterations in motor control, coordination, judgment, reaction time, and tracking ability have also been documented; these may contribute to unintentional deaths and injuries among adolescents (especially those associated with motor vehicles if adolescents drive while intoxicated by marijuana). Negative health effects on lung function associated with smoking marijuana have also been documented, and studies linking marijuana use with higher rates of psychosis in patients with a predisposition to schizophrenia have recently been published, raising concerns about longer-term psychiatric effects. New research has also demonstrated that the adolescent brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex areas controlling judgment and decision-making, is not fully developed until the mid-20s, raising questions about how any substance use may affect the developing brain. Research has shown that the younger an adolescent begins using drugs, including marijuana, the more likely it is that drug dependence or addiction will develop in adulthood. A recent analysis of 4 large epidemiologic trials found that marijuana use during adolescence is associated with reductions in the odds of high school completion and degree attainment and increases in the use of other illicit drugs and suicide attempts in a dose-dependent fashion that suggests that marijuana use is causative.”

American Academy of Pediatrics Reaffirms Opposition to Legalizing Marijuana for Recreational or Medical Use, American Academy of Pediatrics, (2015).
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reaffirms its opposition to legalizing marijuana, citing the potential harms to children and adolescents.

Half-Baked — The Retail Promotion of Marijuana Edibles, New England Journal of Medicine, (2015).
“[E]dibles that resemble sugary snacks pose several clear risks. One is over-intoxication….At high doses, THC can produce serious anxiety attacks and psychotic-like symptoms. This problem is augmented by differences in the pharmacokinetic and metabolic effects of marijuana when it is ingested rather than smoked. In addition, case reports document respiratory insufficiency in young children who have ingested marijuana.”

Adverse Health Effects of Marijuana Use, New England Journal of Medicine, (2014).
A review of the current state of the science related to the adverse health effects of the recreational use of marijuana, focusing on those areas for which the evidence is strongest.
A New England Journal of Medicine Article about Marijuana,
Psychology Today, (2014) summarizes the adverse health effects as published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

UN: cannabis law changes pose ‘very grave danger to public health’, The Guardian, (2014).
United Nations International Narcotics Control Board warns of “very grave danger” from legalizing marijuana.

Damaging Effects of Cannabis Use on the Lungs, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, (2016).
“Cannabis smoke affects the lungs similarly to tobacco smoke, causing symptoms such as increased cough, sputum, and hyperinflation. It can also cause serious lung diseases with increasing years of use. Cannabis can weaken the immune system, leading to pneumonia. Smoking cannabis has been further linked with symptoms of chronic bronchitis. Heavy use of cannabis on its own can cause airway obstruction. Based on immuno-histopathological and epidemiological evidence, smoking cannabis poses a potential risk for developing lung cancer.”

Marijuana use in adolescence may increase risk for psychotic symptoms, American Journal of Psychiatry, (2016).
Regular marijuana use significantly increased risk for subclinical psychotic symptoms, particularly paranoia and hallucinations, among adolescent males.

Heavy, persistent pot use linked to economic, social problems at midlife: Study finds marijuana not ‘safer’ than alcohol, Clinical Psychological Science, (2016).
Science Daily’s review of a research study that followed children from birth up to age 38 has found that people who smoked cannabis four or more days of the week over many years ended up in a lower social class than their parents, with lower-paying, less skilled and less prestigious jobs than those who were not regular cannabis smokers. These regular and persistent users also experienced more financial, work-related and relationship difficulties, which worsened as the number of years of regular cannabis use progressed.

The impact of adolescent exposure to medical marijuana laws on high school completion, college enrollment and college degree completion,
Drug & Alcohol Dependence, (2016).
States that have legalized marijuana find an association with higher 12th grade drop out rates, lessened college attainment, and increases in daily smoking. Further, there is a dose/response relationship between adverse impact and years of increased exposure under legalization.

Early marijuana use associated with abnormal brain function, lower IQ, Lawson Health Research Institute, (2016).
“Previous studies have suggested that frequent marijuana users, especially those who begin at a young age, are at a higher risk for cognitive dysfunction and psychiatric illness, including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”

Marijuana Users Have Abnormal Brain Structure and Poor Memory, Northwestern Medicine, (2013).
“Teens who were heavy marijuana users — smoking it daily for about three years — had abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks, reports a new Northwestern Medicine® study. A poor working memory predicts poor academic performance and everyday functioning. The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana, which could indicate the long-term effects of chronic use. Memory-related structures in their brains appeared to shrink and collapse inward, possibly reflecting a decrease in neurons.”

Young adult sequelae of adolescent cannabis use: an integrative analysis, Lancet Psychiatry, (2014).
Adolescent cannabis use has adverse consequences in young adulthood:
“We recorded clear and consistent associations and dose-response relations between the frequency of adolescent cannabis use and all adverse young adult outcomes. After covariate adjustment, compared with individuals who had never used cannabis, those who were daily users before age 17 years had clear reductions in the odds of high-school completion…and degree attainment…, and substantially increased odds of later cannabis dependence…, use of other illicit drugs…, and suicide attempt.”

Traditional marijuana, high-potency cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids: increasing risk for psychosis, World Psychiatry, (2016).
“Evidence that [THC] is a component cause of psychosis is now sufficient for public health messages outlining the risk, especially of regular use of high-potency cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids.”

Monitoring Marijuana Use in the United States; Challenges in an Evolving Environment, JAMA,(2016).
“Use of marijuana or any of its components, especially in younger populations, is associated with an increased risk of certain adverse health effects, such as problems with memory, attention, and learning, that can lead to poor school performance and reduced educational and career attainment, early-onset psychotic symptoms in those at elevated risk, addiction in some users, and altered brain development.”

Marijuana use and use disorders in adults in the USA, 2002–14: analysis of annual cross-sectional surveys, Lancet Psychiatry, (2016).
Commenting on this study to the Associated Press, Dr. Wilson Compton, Deputy Director of NIDA said, “if anything, science has shown an increasing risk that we weren’t as aware of years ago.” He added that other research has increasingly linked marijuana use to mental impairment, and early, heavy use by people with certain genes to increased risk of developing
psychosis.

Prenatal marijuana exposure, age of marijuana initiation, and the development of psychotic symptoms in young adults, Psychological Medicine, (2015).
Prenatal marijuana exposure linked to bad childhood outcomes; if effect is further “mediated” through early onset marijuana use, strong association with negative adult outcomes, such as arrest, low educational performance, unemployment.

One in six children hospitalized for lung inflammation positive for marijuana exposure, American Academy of Pediatrics, (2016).
Colorado: 16% of exposed children admitted to hospital for lung inflammation tested positive for MJ metabolite.

Cannabis use increases risk of premature death, American Journal of Psychiatry, (2016).
Cannabis use in youth increases the risk of early death.

Scientists Call for Action Amidst Mental Health Concerns, The Guardian, (2016).
“Most research on cannabis, particularly the major studies that have informed policy, are based on older low-potency cannabis resin.” According to Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London: “It’s not sensible to wait for absolute proof that cannabis is a component cause of psychosis. There’s already ample evidence to warrant public education around the risks of heavy use of cannabis, particularly the high-potency varieties. For many reasons, we should have public warnings.””

Marijuana use in adolescence may increase risk for psychotic symptoms, American Journal of Psychiatry, (2016).
Chronic marijuana use in adolescent boys increases risk of developing persistent subclinical psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, paranoia). “For each year adolescent boys engaged in regular marijuana use … subsequent symptoms increased by 21% and… paranoia or hallucinations increased by 133% and 92%, respectively. This effect persisted even when [study] participants stopped using marijuana for 1 year.”

Heavy, persistent pot use linked to economic, social problems at midlife, Clinical Psychological Science, (2016).
“Regular long-term [marijuana] users also had more antisocial behaviors at work, such as stealing money or lying to get a job, and experienced more relationship problems, such as intimate partner violence and controlling abuse.”

Effects of Cannabis Use on Human Behavior, Including Cognition, Motivation, and Psychosis: A Review, JAMA Psychiatry, (2016).
This longitudinal study documented adolescent-onset (but not adult-onset) persistent cannabis users showed neuropsychological decline ages 13 to 38 years. “Longitudinal investigations show a consistent association between adolescent cannabis use and psychosis. Cannabis use is considered a preventable risk factor for psychosis… strong physiological and epidemiological evidence supporting a mechanistic link between cannabis use and schizophrenia… raise[s] the possibility that our current, limited knowledge may only apply to the ways in which the drug was used in the past.”

Marijuana use disorder is common and often untreated, National Institute of Health/NESARC, (2016).
“People with marijuana use disorder are vulnerable to other mental health disorders … onset of the disorder was found to peak during late adolescence. …People with marijuana use disorder…experience considerable mental disability. …Previous studies have found that such disabilities persist even after remission of marijuana use disorder.”

The health and social effects of nonmedical cannabis use, World Health Organization, (2016).
“There is a worrying increasing demand for treatment for cannabis use disorders and associated health conditions in high- and middle-income countries, and there has been increased attention to the public health impacts of cannabis use and related disorders in international policy dialogues.”

AKT1 genotype moderates the acute psychotomimetic effects of naturalistically smoked cannabis in young cannabis smokers, Translational Psychiatry, (2016).
“Smoking cannabis daily doubles an individual’s risk of developing a psychotic disorder, yet indicators of specific vulnerability have proved largely elusive. Genetic variation is one potential risk modifier.”

What’s That Word? Marijuana May Affect Verbal Memory, JAMA Internal Medicine, (2016).
Researchers found a “dose-dependent independent association between cumulative lifetime exposure to marijuana and worsening verbal memory in middle age.”

Adolescent Cannabinoid Exposure Induces a Persistent Sub-Cortical Hyper-Dopaminergic State and Associated Molecular Adaptations in the Prefrontal Cortex., Cerebral Cortex, (2016).
“We report that adolescent, but not adult, THC exposure induces long-term neuropsychiatric-like phenotypes similar to those observed in clinical populations…. findings demonstrate a profound dissociation in relative risk profiles for adolescent versus adulthood exposure to THC in terms of neuronal, behavioral, and molecular markers resembling neuropsychiatric pathology.”

Cannabis increases the noise in your brain, Biological Psychiatry, (2015).
“At doses roughly equivalent to half or a single joint, ∆9-THC produced psychosis-like effects and increased neural noise in humans. The dose-dependent and strong positive relationship between these two findings suggest that the psychosis-like effects of cannabis may be related to neural noise which disrupts the brain’s normal information processing activity.”

Marijuana Use: Detrimental to Youth, American College of Pediatricians, (2016).
“Marijuana is the leading illicit substance mentioned in adolescent emergency department admissions and autopsy reports, and is considered one of the major contributing factors leading to violent deaths and accidents among adolescents.”

Chronic Adolescent Marijuana Use as a Risk Factor for Physical and Mental Health Problems in Young Adult Men, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, (2015).
Evidence suggests that youth who use marijuana heavily during adolescence may be particularly prone to health problems in later adulthood (e.g., respiratory illnesses, psychotic symptoms).

Developmental Trajectories of Marijuana Use among Men, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, (2015).
“Young men who engage in chronic marijuana use from adolescence into their 20s are at increased risk for exhibiting psychopathic features, dealing drugs, and enduring drug-related legal problems in their mid-30s.”

Appraising the Risks of Reefer Madness, Cerebrum, (2015).
“Cannabis is generally accepted as a cause of schizophrenia (though less so in North America, where this topic has received little attention),” notes Dr. R. Murray, an Oxford University Professor of Psychiatry.

Prenatal exposure to cannabinoids evokes long-lasting functional alterations by targeting CB1 receptors on developing cortical neurons, Adán de Salas-Quiroga, (2015).
“Prenatal exposure to cannabinoids evokes long-lasting functional alterations by targeting CB1 receptors on developing cortical neurons.” “This study demonstrates that remarkable detrimental consequences of embryonic THC exposure on adult-brain function, which are evident long after THC withdrawal, are solely due to the impact of THC on CB1 receptors located on developing cortical neurons.” Embryonic exposure increased seizures in adulthood and the consequences of prenatal THC were lifelong; even though the cannabinoid receptors after withdrawal appear normal, there is an apparent impact on connectivity.

Association Between Use of Marijuana and Male Reproductive Hormones and Semen Quality: A Study Among 1,215 Healthy Young Men, American Journal of Epidemiology, (2015).
“Regular marijuana smoking more than once per week was associated with a 28% … lower sperm concentration and a 29% … lower total sperm count after adjustment for confounders.”

Is Marijuana Use Associated With Health Promotion Behaviors Among College Students? Health-Promoting and Health-Risk Behaviors Among Students Identified Through Screening in a University Student Health Services Center, Journal of Drug Issues, (2015).
“Results showed marijuana users were more likely to use a variety of substances and engage in hazardous drinking than non-users.”

Psychosocial sequelae of cannabis use and implications for policy: findings from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, (2015).
“Findings…suggest that individuals who use cannabis regularly, or who begin using cannabis at earlier ages, are at increased risk of a range of adverse outcomes, including: lower levels of educational attainment; welfare dependence and unemployment; using other, more dangerous illicit drugs; and psychotic symptomatology.”

Young brains on cannabis: It’s time to clear the smoke, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, (2015).
“There is certainly cause for concern about the amount and frequency of cannabis use among youth….Recent evidence shows that early and frequent use of cannabis has been linked with deficits in short-term cognitive functioning, reduced IQ, impaired school performance, and increased risk of leaving school early – all of which can have significant consequences on a young person’s life trajectory….Heavy cannabis use in adolescence is also a risk factor for psychosis….Youth aged 15-24 spent the largest number of days in a hospital for a primary diagnosis of mental and behavioral disorders due to the use of cannabinoids.”

Association Between Lifetime Marijuana Use and Cognitive Function in Middle Age and Long-term Marijuana Use and Cognitive Impairment in Middle Age, JAMA Internal Medicine, (2016).
“These studies have generally shown reduced activity in those with long-term marijuana use in brain regions involved in memory and attention, as well as structural changes in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and cerebellum.”

Denial of Petition To Initiate Proceedings To Reschedule Marijuana, Federal Register/DEA Review of “Scientific Evidence of [Marijuana’s] Pharmacological Effects, If Known”, (2016).
“Individuals with a diagnosis of marijuana misuse or dependence who…initiated marijuana use before the age of 15 years, showed deficits in performance on tasks assessing sustained attention, impulse control, and general executive functioning compared to non-using controls. These deficits were not seen in individuals who initiated marijuana use after the age of 15 years…. Additionally, in a prospective longitudinal birth cohort study of 1,037 individuals, marijuana dependence or chronic marijuana use was associated with a decrease in IQ and general neuropsychological performance compared to pre-marijuana exposure levels in adolescent onset users. The decline in adolescent-onset users’ IQ persisted even after reduction or abstinence of marijuana use for at least 1 year…. The deficits in IQ seen in adolescent-onset users increased with the amount of marijuana used. Moreover, when comparing scores for measures of IQ, immediate memory, delayed memory, and information-processing speeds to pre-drug-use levels, the current, heavy, chronic marijuana users showed deficits in all three measures.”

*About the authors:
David W. Murray, Senior Fellow

Brian Blake, Senior Fellow and Director, Corporate Relations

John P. Walters, Chief Operating Officer

Source:
This article was published by Hudson Institute

By Philippe Armand de Bonneval*

Slavery, a word that many people today would equate with the past, a horrible system where a part of society would use its position of power to treat other human beings as nothing more than property. Unfortunately, the business of taking advantage of poor, weak, or otherwise disadvantaged people is still very much a reality in many parts of the world. Although 90 percent of countries have some form of legislation that directly defends the most basic human rights of each individual, many of these nations still do not have either the mechanisms to protect this liberty or laws defining what constitute human trafficking up to the United Nations’ (UN) standards.[i]

Forced Labor and Sex Slavery

Latin American countries are no exception to this rule; every country has some human trafficking activity. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) most recent comprehensive report on human trafficking, which compiled data from 2010 to 2014, 96 percent of the human traffic in the Americas is for either forced labor or sexual exploitation.[ii] The former is the highest form of traffic detected in Latin America. Most cases that were brought to justice involved the construction and manufacturing sectors, each with a high demand for cheap labor.

But one should not point to such statistics to minimize the prevalence of sex-based trafficking. The important part here is the difference between detection and occurrence. For the UNODC, detected crimes are only the ones that the countries in question actually reported to the UN body. From this, sex trafficking might very well be the real number one human traffic business in the region; but it is harder to quantify and fight against. This makes all the more sense considering the fact that in some countries in the region, prostitution is legal. For example, both Mexico and Panama have clear regulations outlining prostitution as a legitimate business and how it should function within their borders.[iii] Legal prostitution greatly entices human trafficking, creating more demand for sex workers and reinforces the perception of women as little more than valuable commodities. In 2008, the U.S. State Department even went as far as to say, “sex trafficking would not exist without the demand for commercial sex flourishing around the world.”[iv]

Moreover, despite the alarming pattern of human trafficking that UNODC investigations has revealed, few Latin American states appear willing to act upon this information. It would seem, according to the UN agency, that most trafficking is made between border countries, usually from the poorer country to a more developed one. For instance in Argentina, where 697 victims of human trafficking were documented between 2010 and 2013, the majority (34.5 percent) was from Bolivia. The economic relationship previously mentioned, can be observed here, with Argentina having a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of 12,198 USD compared to the 2,317 USD of Bolivia’s in 2013.

The Northern Triangle

The World Bank confirms the correlation between the development level of a country and how vulnerable it is to human traffic by saying in a note from 2009 that “Poverty is one of the primary risk factors to create vulnerability to trafficking.”[v] The situation is particularly daunting in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”, comprised of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Gang violence has ravaged the region for many years, so much so that El Salvador’s 2015 homicide level made it the most violent country in the world that was not at war.[vi] As a result of this violence, millions of people have been forced to flee the region rendering them completely vulnerable to human traffickers that can easily take advantage of their precarious situation. Children are targeted more than any other group because they are often fleeing the scene on their own. As orphans of the gang war, they represent the easiest prey for traffickers to go after since nobody would even notice that they are missing.

The question of how to cut down the violence in this particular region of Latin America remains a pressing problem. One of the first issues to address would be corruption. All three countries in the Northern Triangle fell in the bottom 10 percent of Transparency International’s 2015 corruption index. If officials are easily manipulated through bribes, neutralizing illegal businesses will be all the more difficult. A solution could be to try to increase public workers’ wages in the region, as it would improve their quality of life and thus make them less susceptible to corruption. Regrettably, even though the Northern Triangle is where the situation seems to be the worst, bribery remains a problem throughout Latin American countries, with only Chile and Uruguay falling under the non-corrupt category of the 2015 transparency index.[vii]

Conclusion

With many underlying problems—gang violence, strong economic disparities, and corruption—the continent still needs to deal with many challenges to completely eradicate human trafficking. Countries should try to implement in the long run real legal mechanisms up to UN standards; enforcing human rights and thus making offenders more accountable for their horrible actions. But perhaps the best area to start in the short term would be to address the economic disparities by trying to raise wages to deter officials from being bribed.

*Philippe Armand de Bonneval, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] “2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons – Unodc.org.” UNODC. November 2014. Accessed November 2, 2016. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf

[ii] “2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons – Unodc.org.” UNODC. November 2014. Accessed November 2, 2016. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf

[iii] “100 Countries and Their Prostitution Policies.” ProCon.org. May 18, 2016. Accessed November 2, 2016. http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772

[iv] Ventura, Iris. “The R I Se of H Um a N T R a Ffick in G in C E N Tr Al A Me R Ic a.” Setton Hall Law. 2016. Accessed November 2, 2016. http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1728&context=student_scholarship

[v] “Human Trafficking: A Brief Overview – World Bank.” December 2009. Accessed November 2, 2016. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/244362-1239390842422/6012763-1239905793229/Human_Trafficking.pdf

[vi] “Central America Violent Northern Triangle.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed November 02, 2016. http://www.cfr.org/transnational-crime/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle/p37286

[vii] E.V., Transparency International. “Thank You for Donating ToTransparency International!” Transparency International. Accessed November 02, 2016. http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015/

By John R. Haines*

(FPRI) — Moldova held its first nationwide presidential election in sixteen years on Sunday, 30 October with 49.03 percent of registered voters casting ballots for nine candidates. The first-place finisher was Igor Dodon, who represents the Russia-favoring Socialist Party also known as the “PSRM” (Romanian: Partidul Socialiştilor din Republica Moldova; Russian: Partija socialistov Respubliki Moldova). Mr. Dodon received 48.5 percent of votes cast, falling just short of the 51 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff. With nearly all ballots counted, Mr. Dodon held out hope late Sunday that polling stations in Gagauzia and Moldova’s third-largest city, Bălți, would push him over the threshold, but in the end, he still fell short.

Map of Moldova with Bălți highlighted in red (Source: Wikipedia)

The runoff election is scheduled for Sunday, 13 November, when Mr. Dodon will face the second-place finisher, Maia Sandu of the Action and Solidarity Party known as the “PAS” (Romanian: Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate). She received 38.2 percent of votes cast in the first round. The next nearest candidate was Dumitru Ciubaşenco, a journalist and the candidate of the populist Our Party (Partidul Nostru), who was far behind at 5.56 percent.

Ms. Sandu is Moldova’s Education Minister and a forceful advocate for the “pro-European direction” (proyevropeyskogo kursa) pursued by the current national government in Chişinău. Boris Shapovalov, vice chair of Moldova’s abjectly pro-Russia civic organization Motherland-Eurasian Union (Rodina–Yevraziyskiy Soyuz),[1] said this about Ms. Sandu:

Maia Sandu is in reality, as we say in Moldova, the presidential candidate of the European Union and the United States Embassy.[2]

Igor Tulyantsev, who leads Motherland, said in September that the election was a “false choice” between the European Union and the Russian Federation:

EU accession is the wrong direction for Moldova. We have no one in the EU who’s asking us to join. So now Romania offers this scheme: join with us, liquidate Moldovan nationhood, and you’ll be part of the European Union—that’s the main argument of the political elites.[3]

“Oh no, not Dodon, God fobid! We’ll lose everything” (Of, numai nu Dodon, doamne-ferește! Vom pierde totul!). That was the reaction of Mihai Ghimpu to the prospect of Mr. Dodon winning the runoff election. Mr. Ghimpu—he leads Moldova’s Liberal Party (Partidul Liberal) and is a former acting Moldovan president (September 2009-December 2010)—is skeptical that Ms. Sandu could prevail in the runoff election:

Bringing in 150 thousand more people than in the first round and getting all of them to vote for you, I think that’s much, much harder than shouting that Ghimpu is treacherous . . . [4]

That last comment is a reference to Ms. Sandu’s call on Wednesday evening, 26 October (five days before Sunday’s election) for Mr. Ghimpu to withdraw from the race in order to deny Mr. Dodon an outright majority.[5] Dorin Chirtoacă— Chişinău’s mayor and a Liberal Party colleague of Mr. Ghimpu, whom he represented in discussions with Ms. Sandu—said that Mr. Ghimpu agreed to withdraw before Sunday’s election on the condition that Ms. Sandu would “agree to sign a union agreement with Romania.”[6] She refused, stating in a widely reported response, “Maia Sandu and Dorin Chirtoacă don’t decide on a union. The people decide this issue, if you believe in democracy.”[7] Mr. Chirtoacă replied:

We must be united because we’re all in the same boat, so disagreements only benefit Dodon. If we pull out, you’ll say you don’t need Ghimpu’s votes. It’s no good to be so arrogant on the eve of a presidential election. There’s no way forward other than union [with Romania] over the next four or eight years.[8]

While Mr. Dodon outpaced Ms. Sandu in the first round of voting by a healthy margin, the outcome of the second-round runoff election is by no means clear. Many factors that may affect the results of the runoff election are difficult to weigh with precision. One of these is the open question of how many of the half (50.7%) of Moldova’s registered voters who did not participate in the first-round will decide to vote in the runoff election.

Another difficult to rate factor is the influential role of Moldova’s oligarchs led by Vladimir Plahotniuc, the country’s so-called “Grey Cardinal” [Russian transl.: seryy kardinal; Romanian: eminența cenușie]. Mr. Plahotniuc leads the Democratic Party [Romanian: Partidul Democrat din Moldova; Russian transl.: Demokraticheskaya partiya Moldovy], whose candidate in the October presidential election, Marian Lupu, withdrew four days before voters went to the polls. While the move was characterized as an effort by Mr. Plahotniuc to help Ms. Sandu, she condemned it as an effort to “compromise me,” adding “Plahotniuc, as a matter of fact, wants to help him, Dodon.”[9] She called Mr. Lupu’s withdrawal “desperate” and “a poisoned apple”[10] (un măr otrăvit) and posted a statement on her Facebook page that ended with the following:

Neither I, nor the Moldovan people, need Plahotniuc’s support. The people will know how to make the right choice.[11]

Ms. Sandu kicked off her runoff campaign by asserting, “Yesterday’s elections showed very clearly that we have a cardboard government” (Vcherashniye vybory pokazali ochen’ yasno, chto u nas kartonnoye pravitel’stvo).[12]

I will cooperate with the Government if they want to do the right things, and if they want to abuse power, to mimic reform, and so on, I will not cooperate with them.[13]

She went on to demand that Chişinău allow “diaspora” Moldovans to vote in the runoff on the basis of presenting “a valid identity card” rather than a valid Moldovan passport. She also demanded Chişinău open more polling stations abroad.[14]

Mr. Dodon set his goal in the runoff at 60 percent[15] promising “to be a good president, both for those who want to see Moldova move closer to the EU and for those who want to be closer to the Russian Federation.”[16]

Some social media commentators have observed sardonically that the country’s first round of voting occurred on Halloween and that the second round will be held on the 13^th.[17] Another commentator quipped that the key to predicting the outcome of the runoff election is “mathematics and conspiracy theories”.[18] Those conspiracy theories range from Transdniestrian interests that face being marginalized by a Dodon-led national government, to United States Ambassador James Petit “tightly holding her [Ms. Sandu’s] hand and controlling the entire political process.”[19] Some suggest Romania and Ukraine will also exert influence in Ms. Sandu’s favor, fearing a pro-Russia Dodon government on their border. The mathematics differs between the two candidates: Mr. Dodon needs to prevent Ms. Sandu’s coalition of pro-European parties from mobilizing the electorate, and to keep turnout at or below the level in the first round. She needs to mobilize voters, especially younger voters who turned out in low numbers. One commentator suggests Ms. Sandu may be forced “to agree to cooperate with the de facto leadership of the Democratic Party,” an oblique reference to Mr. Plahotniuc. Others suggest such cooperation would in the end help Mr. Dodon “by putting an end to the protracted debate over who in the race is Plahotniuc’s current favorite.”[20] In the event Mr. Dodon wins, writes political analyst Victor Ciobanu, Mr. Plahotniuc will “rationalize the electoral result” to extract “carte blanche for further political maneuvers” from Washington and Brussels.[21]

Mr. Dodon likely has a slight edge over Ms. Sandu, if for no other reasons given the outcome of the first round and the very contracted runoff campaign. It is uncertain whether the coalition of Moldova’s pro-European political parties expected to coalesce around Ms. Sandu in the runoff will, in fact, do so effectively. So, too, it is uncertain whether Mr. Dodon can overcome the pattern of past Moldovan candidates who win the first electoral round just to lose the second, as occurred in the 1996 presidential election and in the 2011 Chişinău mayoral election. This may in part reflect whether pro-Russian interests decide they are better off with or without Mr. Dodon in Chişinău and whether turnout stays below 50 percent. And then there is the enigmatic role played by Mr. Plahotniuc, who, among other things, has worked hard to develop relationships in Washington. Finally, there is no question that foreign interests—Moscow on the one side, and Washington, Brussels, Kyev, and Bucharest on the other—will play an important, overt role in Moldovan political life through 13 November, and most likely beyond.

About the author:
*John R. Haines is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee. He is also a Trustee of FPRI.

Source:
This article was published at FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Motherland-Eurasian Union is closely tied to Russian Deputy Prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, who serves as President Putin’s special envoy to Moldova’s separatist Transdniestria region known formally as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic [Russian transl.: Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika; Romanian: Republica Moldovenească Nistreană].

[2] “Igor’ Dodon obespechit prorossiyskiy kurs, Mayya Sandu – proamerikanskiy.” Tsargrad [published online in Russian 30 October 2016]. http://tsargrad.tv/article/2016/10/30/prezidentskie-vybory-moldavija-vybiraet-mezhdu-rossiej-i-gosdepom. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[3] “Tulyantsev v efire rossiyskogo TV nazval vybory v Moldove «konkursom krasoty oligarkha».” Rodina [published online in Russian 5 September 2016]. http://rodina.md/hronika/710-tulyantsev-v-efire-rossijskogo-tv-nazval-vybory-v-moldove-konkursom-krasoty-oligarkha. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[4] “Așa grăit-a Mihai Ghimpu: ‘Of, numai nu Dodon, doamne-ferește! Vom pierde totul!’.” Deschide [published online in Romanian 1 November 2016]. http://deschide.md/ro/stiri/politic/2604/. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[5] “Alegeri în Republica Moldova: Maia Sandu i-a cerut lui Mihai Ghimpu să se retragă din cursă.” Agerpres [published in Romanian 27 October 2016]. http://www.agerpres.ro/externe/2016/10/27/alegeri-in-republica-moldova-maia-sandu-i-a-cerut-lui-mihai-ghimpu-sa-se-retraga-din-cursa-12-08-34. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[6] Ibid.

[7] ” Dorin Chirtoacă este gata să o sprijine pe Maia Sandu, dar pune o singură condiție.” All Moldova [published online in Romanian 26 October 2016]. http://www.allmoldova.com/ro/news/dorin-chirtoaca-este-gata-sa-o-sprijine-pe-maia-sandu-dar-pune-o-singura-conditie. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[8] Agerpres (27 October 2016), op cit.

[9] “Maia Sandu despre retragerea lui Marian Lupu: Cu acest măr otrăvit, Plahotniuc vrea să-l ajute, de fapt, pe Dodon.” Moldova.org [published online in Romanian 26 October 2016]. http://www.moldova.org/maia-sandu-despre-retragerea-lui-marian-lupu-cu-acest-mar-otravit-plahotniuc-vrea-sa-l-ajute-de-fapt-pe-dodon/. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[10] “Maia Sandu: Nu am nevoie de sprijinul lui Plahotniuc, vrea sa-si spele imaginea prin a declara un sprijin FALS pentru mine.” HotNews.ro [published online in Romanian 26 October 2016]. http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-21377551-maia-sandu-nu-nevoie-sprijinul-lui-plahotniuc-vrea-spele-imaginea-prin-declara-sprijin-fals-pentru-mine.htm. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[11] Moldova.org (26 October 2016), op. cit. The statement reads in the original Romanian: “Nici eu, nici oamenii din Moldova nu avem nevoie de sprijinul lui Plahotniuc. Oamenii vor ști să facă alegerea corectă.”

[12] “Komanda Mayi Sandu prizyvayet k mobilizatsii vo vtorom ture.” Ava.md [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. https://ava.md/2016/11/01/komanda-mayi-sandu-prizyvaet-k-mobilizacii/. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[13] “Mayya Sandu rasskazala kak budet rabotat’ s pravitel’stvom yesli stanet prezidentom.” Publika.md [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://ru.publika.md/mayya-sandu-rasskazala-kak-budet-rabotat-s-pravitelstvom-esli-stanet-prezidentom_1949761.html. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[14] “Mayya Sandu vydvigayet neskol’ko trebovaniy v kontekste vtorogo tura vyborov.” Panorama [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://pan.md/vyiboryi-2016/mayya-sandu-vyidvigaet-neskolko-trebovaniy-v-kontekste-vtorogo-tura-vyiborov. Lasty accessed 1 November 2016.

[15] “Igor’ Dodon o vtorom ture vyborov: Nasha tsel’ – 60% i vyshe.” Actualitati [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://actualitati.md/ru/vnutrennyaya-politika/igor-dodon-o-vtorom-ture-vyborov-nasha-cel-60-i-vyshe. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[16] “Igor’ Dodon: YA budu vsenarodnym prezidentom, nezavisimo ot geopoliticheskikh vzglyadov i predpochteniy.” Actualitati [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://actualitati.md/ru/obshchestvo/igor-dodon-ya-budu-vsenarodnym-prezidentom-nezavisimo-ot-geopoliticheskih-vzglyadov-i. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[17] “Vtoroy tur: Igor’ Dodon ili Mayya Sandu?.” Newsmd [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://newsmd.md/articles/14949-vtoroy-tur-igor-dodon-ili-mayya-sandu.html. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] “Kandidatu v prezidenty ot Partii sotsialistov Igoryu Dodonu ne khvatilo vsego pary protsentov, chtoby stat’ novym glavoy gosudarstva.” Alfanews.md [published online in Russian 1 November 2016]. http://alfanews.md/ru/politica-ru/item/10904-vtoroj-tur-igor-dodon-ili-majya-sandu/10904-vtoroj-tur-igor-dodon-ili-majya-sandu. Last accessed 1 November 2016.

In the Indian chapter on China, the last word may never be written. From a veritably tiny footprint on the global economy and little influence outside its borders, China has today transformed itself into a remarkable economic power, the world’s manufacturing workshop, its foremost financier, a leading investor across the globe from Africa to Latin America, and, increasingly, a major source of research and development. Its government sits atop an astonishing level of foreign reserves and there is not a single business anywhere in the world not having felt China’s impact, either as a low-cost supplier or as a formidable competitor.

Meanwhile, the US, the world’s sole economic hyper-power so far stands much diminished; humbled by its foreign-policy blunders and a massive financial crisis, its credibility after the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is at an all-time low and its economic model is in shambles. The once-almighty dollar today finds itself at the mercy of China and the oil-rich states. Its Syrian adventure today is held to ransom by the increasing belligerence displayed by Russia, not least because of Putin’s aggressiveness to regain the Russian position on the world map.

All of this raises the question of whether China will replace the US as the hegemon of the world, the rule setter for the global economy and the enforcer, and what it would mean for India. Given the variety of reasons for the growing conflicts of interest between India and China, a careful analysis would be in order. In the following paragraphs, an endeavour has been made to outline the key issues that would impact Indian strategic interests and policies.

How China Perceives Itself

It is important to understand how China’s influential elite perceive their own country before examining other issues. There are several themes consistent throughout Chinese writing, all based on the premise of the Chinese being exceptional. Specifically, the Chinese see their country as unlike any other, given their long history, pursuit of peace, and inherently defensive rather than offensive approach to international relations. China’s influential elite take a comparative and quantitative approach when looking at their country in relation to the rest of the world. They see a China rising in power in a world that is trending towards multipolarity. This trend favours China’s approach to international relations and is bound to further increase China’s role and stature on the world stage. But this time frame, in which their power is growing and the world is becoming more multipolar, is limited and fraught with danger. It is a window of strategic opportunity for China, which must make the most of it, continuing its fast-paced economic developments and social transformation while limiting any external threats to peace and stability. The Chinese influential elite uniformly espouse the idea that China is unique and does not behave as other states do. China is very proud of its 5,000 years of history and culture. For two millennia, China considered itself the hub of civilization. Lieutenant General Li Jijun, in attempting to explain China to an audience at the U.S. Army War College, noted proudly that “China is the only uninterrupted civilization in world history.”

Chinese historians often boast that China has engaged in more than 6,000 battles in 4,000 years. General Li credited the country’s longevity despite these conflicts to “the soul of the Chinese nation, which makes unremitting efforts for self-improvement and stresses morality and respect for others and national unity.” The importance of national unity to the Chinese is a result of invasions and defeats suffered at the hands of the west in the 19th century. This “century of humiliation” had a profound effect on China’s self-image, which long had been one of cultural, technological, and moral superiority. This experience likely contributed to what General Li termed a Chinese “unifying consciousness” dedicated to “maintaining the unity of the country and its territorial integrity and sovereignty.” Despite frequent invasions and threats to China’s territory, China maintained its pursuit of peace.

The story of explorer Zheng He has come to symbolize this uniquely peaceful disposition to the Chinese. Purportedly, eighty-seven years before Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic, Zheng He made seven voyages, involving 27,000 people and 200 ships, to more than 30 countries and regions. As General Li told the students at the U.S. Army War College, “Unlike later Western explorers who conquered the land they discovered, this fleet did not subdue the newly discovered lands by force. This was not a voyage to plunder the local populace for treasure nor was it one to establish overseas colonies.” Zheng’s mission was “simply to convey friendship and goodwill and to promote economic and cultural exchanges.” On the 600th anniversary of Zheng’s first expedition, the China Daily featured an opinion piece on Zheng’s peaceful missions, noting how they are still symbolic of China’s peaceful nature: “Six hundred years after Zheng, China cherishes a similar desire to befriend the world. But regrettably its goodwill is demonized because established powers fear a resurgent China.”

However it is equally important to see this perceived notion of being ‘victimised’ by the west as a likely precursor to Chinese designs of being a power to reckon with. As has been seen in the recent past, almost all actions of the Chinese are more or less aimed at creating this image of themselves in the mind of the world audience. Unfortunately, only limited access exists as to how the Chinese themselves see the future, owing to their extreme focus on secrecy leaving the analyst with little choice but to rely on own perceptions and other analyses done across the globe.

A World Order Centred on China

It would be immature to imagine China becoming like the western countries as it grows in power and in the size of its economy. The Chinese government and people have a different concept of society and polity; community-based rather than individualist, state-centric rather than liberal, authoritarian rather than democratic. China has 2,000 years of history as a distinct civilisation from which to draw strength and would not simply fold up under western values and institutions. The world order that China would construct may look very different from what has been under American leadership. It will reflect Chinese values rather than western ones. Beijing may overshadow New York, the renminbi may well replace the dollar, and Mandarin may take over from English. There may no longer be the evangelism of markets and democracy. Although China is much less likely to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states it may in return demand that smaller and less powerful states explicitly recognise its primacy (just as in the tributary systems of old). Its increasing belligerence towards the littoral states in the East and South China seas is indicative of this urgency for recognition and primacy.

The flip side, however is that China will have to continue its rapid economic growth and maintain its social cohesion and political unity to sustain such an eventuality which may or may not be possible. Beneath the powerful economic dynamo lie deep tensions, inequalities, and cleavages that could well derail a smooth progression to global hegemony. Throughout its long history, centrifugal forces have often pushed the country into disarray and disintegration. China’s stability hinges critically on its government’s ability to deliver steady economic gains to the vast majority of the population. China is the only country in the world where anything less than eight per cent growth year after year is believed to be dangerous because it would unleash social unrest. Most of the rest of the world only dreams about growth at that rate, which speaks volumes about the underlying fragility of the Chinese system. The authoritarian nature of the political regime is at the core of this fragility. It allows only repression when the government faces protests and opposition outside the established channels. The trouble is that it will become increasingly difficult for China to maintain the kind of growth that it has experienced in recent years. China’s growth currently relies on an undervalued currency and a huge trade surplus. This is unsustainable, and sooner or later it will precipitate a major confrontation with the west. Any number of factors could hypothetically trigger such a confrontation; it could be the unrest in the European Union post Brexit, or it could be a Trump victory in the US elections. China may well have to settle for lower growth which results in unrest domestically rather than confront the west; domestic unrest could still be controlled, trouble abroad would indeed be a very different story.

If China is able to surmount these hurdles and eventually become the world’s predominant economic power, globalisation will have to take on Chinese colours. Democracy and human rights will probably lose their lustre as global norms but there may be greater room for experimentation with different economic models.
Relevance for India: China’s ascendancy to the position of hegemon would bring to bear on India pressure both in terms of economic and political systems. Naxalites and Maoists may be supported either covertly or overtly, but more likely this support would become ‘in- your-face’ and India may witness a move towards communism. What could be more dangerous and detrimental to India is such a move creating the scope for secessionism or breakdown of the entity that we know as India. On the economic front, India’s comparable growth may not remain palatable to China, and in a position to dictate terms, it would well do so. The scenario could be the new face or even the reason for conflict.

Chinese Military and Naval Aspirations

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. Two very important issues of Missile Defence and Naval capabilities have been examined to understand the reverberations in Asia (definitely impacting India) and the world at large. Though Beijing was known to be developing or improvising missile defence systems for long, there were very few indicators from the Communist state on how far it has gone in terms of technological prowess and sophistication. It is only recently that information pertaining to this has trickled out, primarily due to the Chinese themselves wanting the world to know of their increasing capabilities. Similarly, the People’s Liberation Army (Navy)’s gradual expansion beyond the South China Sea and the focus on what Beijing calls, “military operations other than war” highlight the shift in policy and strategy towards protecting its international lines of supply, humanitarian relief, and naval diplomacy.

China undertook a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) test on 11 January 2010, which it claimed was an exo-atmospheric interception. Beijing was known to be developing missile defence systems for long but there were very few indicators on how far it has gone in terms of technological prowess. By releasing very few details on the nature of the test, China has left many questions on its actual capability. China’s demonstration of its ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability in January 2009 was also anticipated for long, though it came with much lesser shock and awe. China succeeded in shaking the world in January 2007 with the display of its Anti-Satellite (ASAT) capability, by intercepting and destroying a weather satellite in low-Earth orbit. Since then, it was expected that China’s next technological breakthrough to be displayed to the world would be its ballistic missile interception capabilities. True to China’s deceptive strategies and postures, there were few indicators to the existence of a new, exclusive longer-range BMD system, outside the Hongqi series.

That Beijing deliberately withheld details of the system involved in the January 2010 intercept only added to the ambiguity on the nature and capabilities of the system supposedly used for this intercept. This has prompted China watchers and military analysts to speculate on the Chinese BMD programme and the permutations of systems and capabilities. On the political side, the January 2010 intercept unravelled yet another instance of Chinese hypocrisy on major security issues including space weaponisation and ballistic missile defence. Similar to the manner in which China conducted the ASAT test in Jan 2007 after years of activism against weaponisation and military uses of outer space, the BMD intercept also contradicted China’s long-standing opposition to ballistic missile defences and concerns over their potential to trigger regional arms races and instability. However, the Chinese demonstration of a BMD capability was long overdue given its innate ambitions to counter the US-backed theatre missile defence (TMD) deployments in East Asia and the potential implications of the Eastern European BMD deployment on its nuclear deterrent.

Relevance for India: It would also be anybody’s guess what this means in the Indian context. This programme would not only provide an effective shield against the Indian (existing and likely future) missile capabilities but also opens up another avenue for the Pakistani military establishment to get its hands on such technology. Also a nuclear weapon state, backed by a BMD shield, is perceived to have a natural advantage through its ability to offset first-strike from the enemy through its defences, while also ensuring survivability of its assured destruction/massive retaliation capability through a second strike. As a result, instead of creating stability, BMDs produce a contrarian effect, one which postulates competition for interception capabilities that consequently triggers arms races rather than containment of proliferation. Just as the US BMD plans in Eastern Europe and TMD deployments in East Asia complicated the deterrence equations vis-à-vis Russia and China, the Chinese demonstration of an exo- atmospheric interception capability is destined to dramatically alter the strategic equations in Asia and especially in the Sino-Indian region.

It is quite typical of China to give bare minimum details on a major technological capability demonstration and then leave the rest of the world to do the guessing. Realising the utility of ballistic missile defence and space weaponry in the military element of its rising power profile and posturing and despite its vehement opposition to space weaponisation and missile defences, China initiated commensurate actions to strengthen its deterrent capability by improvising alternate or secondary response systems to the US missile defence. What is ostensibly against the US systems, poses considerable threat to Indian interests. Missile defences were initially seen as an ideal way out of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) trap. Threats of assured destruction and massive retaliation have primarily guided deterrence equations between nuclear powers; it is equally true that the propriety of leaving space for mutual vulnerability is now finding few takers. This naturally takes away from the credibility of the Chinese argument that such systems are only a means of deterrence against the US and definitely need inclusion in any Indian contingency planning.

A Jan 2010 US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) report analysed the capabilities and the future direction of the People’s Liberation Army (Navy), or PLA(N). The ONI assessment differs substantially with the conventional Indian view of a China racing unstoppably towards being a naval superpower. The assessment notes China’s recent deployment of Task Groups, each consisting of two warships and a replenishment vessel, for anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. This marks the first time in over 600 years that a Chinese flotilla has operated in waters beyond China’s immediate vicinity. But the report concludes that none of these operations indicates a desire on the part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to develop a constant global presence. Beijing’s ambition appears to remain focused on the East Asian region, with an ability to protect the PRC’s maritime interests in distant seas when required. Historically, an inward focus which the Chinese Navy adopted around 1495 continued through Mao’s revolutionary war, which brought the communists to power. Thereafter a coastal navy was sufficient to enforce China’s claims over most of the East and South China Seas, and the need to deter Taiwan from declaring independence. But the US Navy’s dominating presence in the Asia-Pacific and need to protect China’s supply lines convinced Beijing of the need for greater naval power.

China’s Defence White Paper of 2008 called for expanding the navy’s operating range and a greater role in international security. The PLA(N)’s most key acquisition is a sophisticated anti-air capability, which would allow its ships to operate in distant seas, far from land-based air-defence systems. The already formidable Luyang-I class of destroyers have been upgraded to the Luyang-II class and the Jiangkai II frigates have been introduced both of which are linked with an air-surveillance network as good as America’s world-standard Aegis system. Submarines, both conventional and nuclear, are seen as key deterrents in the PLA(N). Finally, any argument tending towards the analyses offered by the ONI report puts paid by the acquisition of the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, renamed the Liaoning, with 24 J-15 fighter aircraft, 6 Z-18F Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) helicopters, 4 Z-18J Airborne Early Warning (AEW) helicopters and 2 Z-9C Rescue helicopters. This is being projected as a training ship while China is now in the process of designing its indigenous aircraft carrier. Given the rate at which the Chinese churn out military hardware, it may not be very long before they are a recognised and thorough-bred Blue Water Navy.

Relevance for India: China is likely to replace its large number of low-tech submarines with smaller numbers of modern, high-capability submarines. But, while the number of surface ships may remain constant, the fleet of 62 submarines will increase over the next 10-15 years to 75. In that time-frame, India’s submarine fleet will be about one-third that of China’s. Even more worrisome is the programme to develop the world’s first Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM), a variant of China’s Dong Feng–21 missile. This may not even have a US equivalent for another few years to come. The ASBM’s peculiar flight path involving a mid-course trajectory correction will make it very difficult to intercept. What may seem as China trying to protect its own interests (to the Americans) may well turn out to be another attempt to create a ring around India in the Indian Ocean. Knowing fully well Indian vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean rim, and given its equations with its neighbours, all recent Chinese overtures seem to be aimed at ensuring supremacy in the region. The activities in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, with massive infrastructure development of ports and military/ naval facilities are an indicator of the same.

Indian Defence Imperatives with the Chinese Factor

Certain defence analysts had predicted that China may attack India by 2012. At that time this prophecy seemed farfetched because China would not want a war till it became a true super power by 2050 and would only go to war with a 100 percent chance of success. China is also India’s leading trade partner, and common sense dictates that good economic relations are a logical antidote against war. Finally, in the event of war in the foreseeable future, the Indian Navy would be in a position to wreck havoc with China’s oil tankers ferrying the Middle East oil through the straits of Malacca, Sunda and Lombak straits. The Indian Air Force would also be utilised.

Unfortunately increasing signs of belligerence such as the large number of border transgressions in the last few years, the September 2009 Chinese firing across the LAC (the first since 1986, and the first since the 1996 “no firing agreement”), and in northern Sikkim may be the early signs of conflict. At this stage a very serious mistake to make is assuming that the United States would lend any credible support by deterring China and pressurising Pakistan. While New Delhi’s broad national interests do generally appear to coincide with Washington, it must be remembered that no country will go to war against nuclear armed foes unless directly threatened. Given Pakistan’s undeniable geo-strategic location, the Americans cannot be expected to “take out” or “neutralise” Pakistani nuclear weapons, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the terrorists. Neither should it be assumed that America has joint control over Pakistani nuclear weapons. It is good to have close ties with the USA, but it’s prudent not to outsource Indian national security to any external power. By the same analogy, it can be safely assumed that the US will have no part whatsoever to play in any possible Sino-Indian conflict except perhaps that of a mediator, but that too, only remotely and at a later stage.

Being masters of the art of long term strategic planning, Chinese strategy seems to be to keep India tied down by the triple threats from China, Pakistan and Pakistani sponsored terrorists. It would be in Indian interest for the foreign ministry to stop justifying China’s daily incursions by talking about differing perceptions on the Line of Actual Control. China will stop its incursions only when it’s deterred by India’s conventional and strategic defence capability. A possible change in the “no first use” nuclear policy and simultaneous increase in defence expenditure from the present percentage of GDP to a more substantial amount would also give the right signals.

Conclusion

While China’s influential elite may seem concerned about a direct military confrontation with the United States, Japan, and India, they are far more concerned about the possibility of containment efforts by any—or all—of these countries. The threat of containment, however, is less of a military threat and more of a diplomatic, political, and economic one. The influential elite also express concern over the fluctuating, unpredictable, and seemingly unstable nature of the democratic process in all of these countries. This has been dealt with in more detail in Part II of this analysis.

In a move that may complicate Britain’s exit from the European Union, the London High Court ruled on Thursday that the Prime Minister can’t trigger the Article 50 clause without approval from Parliament. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty governs the leaving of the European Union by a member state, and the United Kingdom was preparing for the most opportune moment when it will initiate it.

Three senior judges of the High Court ruled that “the government does not have the power under the Crown’s prerogative” to start EU exit talks. Theresa May’s Government, which held the opinion that this article can be initiated without Parliament approval, said it will appeal before the Supreme Court.

Even though 52 percent of the public voted in favor of leaving the European Union, a clear majority of members of Parliament supported remaining in the EU. That means that pushing the decision to Parliament may prove difficult.

May wants to begin negotiations on leaving the EU by the end of March 2017.

(EurActiv) — The first trials of thousands of suspects arrested in the wake of Turkey’s failed 15 July coup aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will begin in early 2017, Ankara’s chief prosecutor said on today (3 November).

Thousands of ex-soldiers, legal workers and civilians are currently in jail pending trial on suspicion of involvement in the coup, which Ankara says was masterminded by the US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen.

“Without giving an exact date, we are expecting to begin the first trials at the start of 2017,” Ankara’s chief prosecutor Harun Kodalak said in comments published by Turkish media.

He added: “There could be a trial or trials opened in the last month of this year but it is in 2017 that we are planning to open a series of trials,” he said.

The trials are expected to be the most substantial legal process in Turkey in its modern history, with purpose-built facilities needed to be set up in some areas.

The scale of the crackdown and the duration of the suspects’ stay in pre-trial detention has caused international concern and strained Turkey’s ties with the European Union.

Gülen, who has been based in the United States since the late 1990s, has vehemently denied the claims of his involvement in the coup.

President Erdoğan also today accused Germany of being a “haven for terrorists” and warned that it would be “judged by history”.

He claimed that the Bundesrepublik has long harboured militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, and far-leftists from the DHKP-C, which has carried out armed attacks in Turkey.

“We are concerned that Germany, which has protected the PKK and DHKP-C for years, has become the backyard of the Gulenist terror organisation,” Erdoğan said, referring to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

“We don’t have any expectations from Germany but you will be judged in history for abetting terrorism … Germany has become an important haven for terrorists,” he told a ceremony at his palace in the capital Ankara.

Turkish officials have in recent days said two civilians, a theology lecturer named Adil Öksüz and businessman Kemal Batmaz, were in charge of organising the coup bid from the Akinci airbase in Ankara.

According to prosecutors, the two were in the United States and only returned to Turkey two days before the attempt to overthrow Erdoğan’s regime.

Batmaz is in custody in Sincan prison outside Ankara. Embarrassingly for the Turkish authorities, Öksüz was detained in the aftermath of the coup but then released and is now on the run.

According to Kodalak, video footage has confirmed that Batmaz was at the base on the night of the coup. Batmaz has denied involvement in the coup.

Turkish officials have said that Öksüz was the so-called “imam” of the plot and in charge of coordinating between Gülen and the army.

But Kodalak said Batmaz “could be as important as Adil Öksüz and even his superior”.

According to a report Wednesday by Turkey’s NTV television (2 November), the authorities had thwarted a mass escape plan by 5,544 coup suspects.

It is common in presidential campaigns for surrogates to speak at events or take part in media interviews where they vouch for a presidential candidate. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has many such surrogates, including her former presidential primary opponent Bernie Sanders, her husband and former United State President Bill Clinton, and First Lady Michelle Obama. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, as is typical of presidential campaigns, also uses Clinton’s vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine as a surrogate. What is unusual is that Bill Weld, the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, has also joined the ranks of Clinton surrogates.

Weld, interviewed Tuesday at MSNBC by Rachel Maddow, said that he was on her show “to vouch for Hillary Clinton.” And vouch for Clinton he did throughout the interview.

Asked by Maddow if people should vote for the Libertarian presidential ticket in states where there appears to be a close race between Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, Weld answered that Weld fears “for the country” if Trump is elected, that Trump is “stirring up envy and resentment and even hatred,” and that Trump threatens US foreign policy and the nation’s “position in the world at large.” Weld did not say “vote for Clinton,” but it is easy for viewers of the interview to fill in those blanks.

Not satisfied with Weld’s implicit call for voters to support Clinton, Maddow pushed for more explicit direction from Weld. And Weld obliged. Asked why a person would vote for the Libertarian ticket headed by presidential nominee Gary Johnson in a state with a close Clinton versus Trump race, Weld answered that he has “a lot to say” about Clinton to such voters who choose not to vote Libertarian. Weld proceeded praising Clinton who he says he has known for 40 years and has worked with professionally. “I know her well personally; I know her to be a person of high moral character, a reliable person, and an honest person, however so much Mr. Trump may rant and rave to the contrary,” Weld continued. In contrast, Weld, in the interview, argued that Trump behaves like a bully and cannot “competently manage the office of the presidency.”

Narrowing in more on Weld’s vote recommendation, Maddow proceeded to ask Weld the following question: “Do you honestly believe that Gary Johnson would be a better president than Hillary Clinton?” Breaking from expectations based on the history of American vice presidential nominees, Weld did not say that the head of his presidential ticket would be the best choice for president and then launch into a list of reasons. Instead, Weld gave lukewarm praise for Johnson while sidestepping the direct question. “I think he’d be capable of being a good chief executive and, yes, a commander-in-chief” said Weld regarding Johnson. Weld then returned in his answer to his focus on how Clinton is a much better choice for voters than is Trump, asserting that a President Trump would bring “chaos to the country” while a President Clinton would bring a “very businesslike and capable and competent approach to our affairs.”

Included in Weld’s defense of Clinton is his declaration during the interview that people should “just ignore,” because “there is nothing there,” the Friday disclosure by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey that the FBI has reopened its investigation of Clinton for mishandling classified information. Maddow then questioned Weld regarding whether his opinion on the matter conflicts with a press release in which Johnson starts off saying, as quoted by Maddow, “The newest revelations about Hillary Clinton demonstrate why America should be scared of both Clinton and Trump.” Asked by Maddow if Weld agrees with the press release, Weld confirmed that he does not. Weld then immediately proceeded in his answer to list “a number of substantive issues” on which he disagrees with Johnson — something Weld did not do in regard to Clinton.

Weld’s divergence from the expected message of a Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee should not be too surprising. On May 19, the day after Johnson declared his preference that the Libertarian National Convention delegates choose Weld for the vice presidential slot, Jesse Walker, writing at Reason, pointed to Weld’s “anti-libertarian positions” on both domestic and foreign issues before concluding “if I wanted to elect an Iraq hawk for gun control, I could vote for Hillary Clinton.” Several months later Weld has come out in the open to effectively answer Walker with a resounding “Hear, hear!”

Since his nomination at the Libertarian National Convention, Weld has continued to endorse positions contrary to the Libertarian Party platform and libertarian ideas. These positions include outlawing people listed on the US government’s so-called terror watch lists from buying guns and nominating far-from-libertarian individuals to the US Supreme Court.

Weld has also been busy promoting Clinton during his time as the Libertarian vice presidential nominee, though maybe never before so brazenly as in his interview this week with Maddow. In September, for example, Weld declared in an MSNBC interview that he thinks “very highly” of Clinton and that he is “not sure anybody’s more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States.” Then, last week, Weld issued a statement, directed to people who are undecided between voting for Clinton or Trump, that goes on and on about how terrible Trump is but neglects to suggest voting for the Libertarian ticket.

Weld appears to have been in the tank for Clinton for quite a while. A curious observer would have to wonder if Weld has supported Clinton’s election since before his nomination at the Libertarian National Convention.

With so many Republican establishment individuals opposing Trump and even jumping to support Clinton, it is not far-fetched to think an effort would be made to put a Clinton supporter on the Libertarian presidential ticket. Indeed, David French, who Bill Kristol was once promoting as a potential independent presidential candidate to foil Trump, wrote a National Review article expressing his desire that the Libertarian National Convention delegates nominate a presidential candidate that anti-Trump Republicans could support. French suggested that Johnson may be alright in the top spot on the ticket, though French also expressed some reservations. Weld might very much satisfy many such “Never Trumpers” by using his platform as the vice presidential nominee to encourage people to vote for Clinton.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

Scholars at the Urban Institute, staunch defenders of Obamacare, have previously struggled to find ways to report Obamacare’s good news by pointing out “there is no meaningful national average” of premium hikes. More recently, they have concluded that Obamacare coverage is 10 percent less expensive than employer-based coverage.

Comparing average employer-based premiums to the second-lowest cost Silver benchmark Obamacare plans, the Urban Institute scholars found lower Obamacare premiums in 38 states plus Washington, DC. These are the unsubsidized Obamacare premiums, adjusted for age, actuarial value, and utilization associated with actuarial value.

“Actuarial value” and “utilization” refer to Obamacare plans indemnifying fewer costs than employer-based plans. They have higher premiums, co-insurance, and co-pays. Premiums will be lower for such plans because a higher share of costs is paid directly by patients and not third-party insurers. Further, those with higher direct spending will consume fewer health resources, are more likely to seek less expensive services, et cetera. So, the Urban Institute scholars grossed up Obamacare premiums by 18 percent to adjust for these effects.

After this adjustment, Obamacare premiums were 10 percent less expensive. Before praising the study, let me quibble with two issues. First, there needs to be another adjustment, because comparing unsubsidized Obamacare premiums to actual employer-based premiums misses the fact that 85 percent of Obamacare beneficiaries receive tax credits subsidizing coverage, whereas 100 percent of beneficiaries of employer-based plans pay premiums with pre-tax dollars, excluded from their household taxable income. These are two very different tax treatments. Net premiums after including these effects are more interesting than the gross premiums before the tax benefits. However, such a comparison would be dauntingly hard to estimate.

Second (and related), there is an income effect that invites adjustment. The tax shield of employer-based benefits is biased towards high-earning employees with high marginal income tax rates. So, many lower-earning employees have more health benefits than they would prefer. They would rather take home higher wages. However, the employer-based system denies them this choice.

Although Americans are right to criticize Obamacare, the Urban Institute’s latest study raises an important question about the status quo: Why do we allow employers to make our choice of health plan, which results in higher premiums?

This article was published at The Beacon.

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located at TIFR’s Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays of about 20 GeV, on 22 June 2015 lasting for two hours.

The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona, and moving with a speed of about 2.5 million kilometers per hour struck our planet, causing a severe compression of Earth’s magnetosphere from 11 to 4 times the radius of Earth. It triggered a severe geomagnetic storm that generated aurora borealis, and radio signal blackouts in many high latitude countries.

Earth’s magnetosphere extends over a radius of a million kilometers, which acts as the first line of defence, shielding us from the continuous flow of solar and galactic cosmic rays, thus protecting life on our planet from these high intensity energetic radiations.

Numerical simulations performed by the GRAPES-3 collaboration on this event indicate that the Earth’s magnetic shield temporarily cracked due to the occurrence of magnetic reconnection, allowing the lower energy galactic cosmic ray particles to enter our atmosphere.

Earth’s magnetic field bent these particles about 180 degree, from the day-side to the night-side of the Earth where it was detected as a burst by the GRAPES-3 muon telescope around mid-night on 22 June 2015. The data was analyzed and interpreted through extensive simulation over several weeks by using the 1280-core computing farm that was built in-house by the GRAPES-3 team of physicists and engineers at the Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty.

This work has recently been published in Physical Review Letters

Solar storms can cause major disruption to human civilization by crippling large electrical power grids, global positioning systems (GPS), satellite operations and communications.

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope, the largest and most sensitive cosmic ray monitor operating on Earth is playing a very significant role in the study of such events.