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Bright Prospects For Morocco-Nigeria Bilateral Relations – OpEd

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Yesterday, Moroccan King Mohammed VI arrived in Nigerian capital Abuja for his first visit to the African country since he ascended to the throne in 1999. This historic visit constitutes the third leg of a larger Africa tour, which has already brought the king to Ethiopia and Madagascar and later to Zambia and Kenya.

According to the Nigerian Foreign Ministry statement, the king’s visit reflects “the Kingdom of Morocco’s desire — at the highest level — to foster partnerships with the African continent and promote cooperation along the South-South axis”.

Today and after having performed the Friday prayer, King Mohammed VI and the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari presided over the signing ceremony of several bilateral agreements in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, air services and renewable energy.

According to the Moroccan Press Agency the strategic partnership to develop the fertilizer industry in Nigeria is part of a shared vision by Morocco and Nigeria for the development of Africa and a strong will to reinforce economic ties between the two countries.

This south-south partnership touches on all the agricultural value chain, based on fertilizing solutions that are adapted to the Nigerian soil and cultivation, to the availability of fertilizers on the Nigerian market and to the setting up of support measures for local farmers.

It also provides for developing a platform for fertilizer production in Nigeria, and reinforcing the fertilizer market in this country.

This collaboration seeks to secure fertilizer supply for the Nigerian market at competitive prices, share a real know-how in terms of developing local blending facilities, promote innovation, research and development, reinforce local distribution channels, and extend the existing agricultural systems.

The final goal is to develop a sustainable agriculture in Nigeria while helping with the amelioration of farmers’ daily life in a spirit of south-south partnership.

Afterwards, HM the King and the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria chaired the signing ceremony of two agreements related to this partnership.

The first is an agreement between OCP-Ltd and Dangote Industries Limited for the development of a platform for fertilizer production in Nigeria, inked by Mostafa Terrab, CEO of OCP-Ltd, and Aliko Dangote, CEO of Dangote Industries Limited.

The second is a draft agreement between the OCP-Ltd and the association of fertilizer producers and suppliers in Nigeria for the development of the fertilizer market in Nigeria, inked by Mostafa Terrab and Thomas Etuh, chairman of the said association.

The two leaders also chaired the signing of five cooperation agreements. They are:

  • An agreement on visa exemption for official diplomatic and service passports, inked by foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar and Geofrey Onyeama, Nigerian foreign minister.
  • A bilateral agreement on air services, signed by Salaheddine Mezouar and Geofrey Onyeama.
  • A cooperation agreement on fisheries, inked by agriculture and fisheries minister Aziz Akhannouch and Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture and rural development.
  • A memorandum of understanding on the agricultural field, inked, on the Moroccan side, by Aziz Akhannouch, Hicham Belmrah, chairman of the board of the “Mutuelle Agricole Marocaine d’Assurance”, and Tariq Sijilmassi, president of the board of the “Crédit Agricole du Maroc”, and on the Nigerian side by Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture and rural development.
  • A cooperation agreement on the renewable energy field between MASEN and the Nigerian ministry of energy, civil engineering and housing, inked by Mustapha Bakkoury, chairman of MASEN board and Babatunde Raji Fashola, minister of energy, civil engineering and housing.

Mr Laoye Jaiyeola, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Economic Summit Group stated that the public and private sectors of both countries would collaborate to leverage on opportunities for sustainable economic growth.

Jaiyeola spoke at the Nigeria-Morocco Business Meeting, with the theme: “Business Climate and Investment Opportunities.”

According to him, improved business relations between Nigeria and Morocco will create mutual benefits, connect the continent’s markets and enhance competitiveness

This partnership between the two nations will take the bilateral ties to a new high and will sound the clarion call to form an all-directional, multi-layered and wide-ranging cooperation. This pragmatic cooperation in various fields between the two countries will feature fruitful achievements and exemplary highlights.

Morocco will continue to be present in Africa and reinforce south-south cooperation to contribute to the development of the continent. It is worth reminding King Mohammed’s vision for Africa that was well summarized in a statement he made at the Moroccan-Ivorian Economic Forum, held in Abidjan on February 24 2014, when he laid out a compelling vision for Africa’s development – He said that “This objective [prosperity for future generations] will even be more readily attainable when Africa overcomes its Afro-pessimism and unlocks its intellectual and material potential as well as that of all African peoples. Just imagine what our continent will look like, once it frees itself of its constraints and burdens!” Certainly, the current royal visit to Nigeria will grant bright prospects of Morocco-Nigeria bilateral relations.


US Unemployment Rate Falls To 4.6 Percent In November, New Low For Recovery – Analysis

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The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent in November, almost equal to the pre-recession lows in 2007. However, the sharp decline was partly due to people leaving the labor force, the employment to-population ratio (EPOP) was unchanged at 59.7 percent. It actually fell slightly for prime-age workers (ages 25-54), from 78.2 percent to 78.1 percent, although it is still 0.7 percentage points above its year ago level.

The establishment survey put job growth at 178,000, roughly in line with expectations. The revisions for the prior two months’ data were largely offsetting, leaving the average for the last three months at 176,000.

This would be a healthy pace for an economy that is near full employment, but the low EPOP suggests that the economy still has a substantial way to before the labor force is fully employed. While there is some evidence of an acceleration in the pace of wage growth, it is very weak.

The average hourly wage reportedly fell 3 cents in November after a sharp jump reported for October. These erratic movements are likely due to measurement error, but the November fall does weaken the case for accelerating wage growth. Wages have risen by 2.5 percent over the last year.

When we factor in the shift from non-wage to wage compensation (mostly a reduction in health care benefits), this means there is essentially no evidence of wage acceleration whatsoever. The Employment Cost Index showed a rise of just 2.3 percent in compensation over the last year. If the average hourly wage for the last three months is compared with the prior three months, there is a bit more evidence with an annual rate of increase of 2.9 percent, but this is still very limited.

It is also worth noting that the labor share of corporate income is still far from recovering to its pre-recession level. It actually fell slightly in the third quarter, from 68.9 percent to 68.3 percent. While there is a modest upward trend in the labor share over the last two years, it is still more than 3.0 percentage points below the pre-recession level.

The somewhat slower pace of job growth could be associated with a speedup in productivity growth. Productivity grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the third quarter, the fastest pace in two years. The quarterly numbers are highly erratic, and the 3.1 percent figure followed three quarters with negative growth, but it could be the beginning of an uptick in the growth rate. Productivity growth has been extraordinarily weak in this recovery, which is the reason that job growth has been relatively rapid in spite of weak GDP growth.

If the weak productivity growth is explained by the availability of low cost labor, which can be profitable to hire for low productivity jobs, then a tightening labor market would be expected to lead to more rapid productivity growth as workers switch from low paying, low productivity growth, to higher paying, higher productivity jobs.

Apart from the decline in the EPOP, most other data in the household survey was positive, most notably a drop of 220,000 in the number of people involuntarily working part-time to a new post-recession low. At the same time, those choosing to work part-time jumped by 327,000. This is likely a dividend of the Affordable Care Act with workers now having the option to get insurance through the exchanges so that they don’t need full-time jobs to get insurance through an employer. This number is now up by almost 2.2 million from December 2013, the month before the exchanges came into existence.

The percentage of unemployment due to people quitting their jobs rose to 12.5 percent. This is a new high for the recovery, which is equal to the pre-recession quit rates, although it is still almost 3.0 percentage points below the peaks hit in 2000. The duration measures all showed moderate improvements, with the average and median durations of unemployment spells hitting new lows for the recovery.

On the whole this report shows a relatively positive picture of the labor market. Job growth is still proceeding at a reasonable pace although wage growth remains moderate. The big question is how many people will come back into the labor force, but with no evidence of inflation, there seems little risk in waiting for the answer.

Europol Says Islamic State Changing Tactics To Maintain Threat In Europe

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As the Islamic State (IS) loses ground in the Middle East, the pattern of its recent terrorist attacks in Europe suggests that it has already adopted new tactics to attack the West, according to Europol.

These developments are highlighted in the report Changes in Modus Operandi of IS revisited published by Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC). The report provides an up-to date assessment of the threat this group poses to the EU, on which basis EU Member States can prepare for future attacks.

Currently the EU is facing a range of terrorist threats and attacks: from networked groups to lone actors; attacks directed by IS and those inspired by IS; the use of explosives and automatic rifles as well as bladed weapons and vehicles; and carefully prepared attacks alongside those that seem to be carried out spontaneously.

The so-called Islamic State has proven to be very effective in inspiring people to commit terrorist acts and in setting attacks in motion themselves, Europol noted.

According to Europol’s Director Rob Wainwright, “The last two years have seen a number of jihadist attacks, several of which have caused mass casualties. The scale of this threat has been widely acknowledged in Europe, triggering an intensified cooperation between police and security services across the continent leading to an increase of arrests and plots foiled before terror attacks could be carried out.”

“This shows that the increased cooperation and exchange of data between all relevant services across Europe is a successful means to mitigate the threat posed by IS,” Wainwright said, adding, “Nevertheless today’s report shows that the threat is still high and includes diverse components which can be only tackled by even better collaboration.”

Gilles de Kerchove, EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator stressed,  “We have to be vigilant, since the threat posed by the so-called Islamic State (IS) and returning foreign fighters is likely to persist in the coming years. These people are trained to use explosives and firearms and they have been indoctrinated by the jihadist ideology. An effective response requires a comprehensive approach and long term commitment. Of course, the primary responsibility in the fight against terrorism lies with the Member States. However, the EU and its agencies such as Europol can and should play a supportive role that helps respond to the cross-border nature of the threat.”

Slovakia: Law Passed Banning Islam From Becoming State Religion

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Slovakia has adopted a law, which effectively prevents Islam from becoming an official state religion in the country amid surging anti-Muslim sentiments across Europe.

The legislation, which had been proposed by far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), held that a religion needs to have at least 50,000 members, up from 20,000, so it could be registered as official.

It earned support from two-thirds of the parliament, which blocked another proposal that any religion had to have 250,000 followers so it can be considered an official faith.

The party’s Chairman Andrej Danko said, “We must do everything we can so that no mosque is built in the future.”

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has said “Islam has no place” in the country.

Original article

Climate Change And Increasing Tornado Outbreaks

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Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms kill people and damage property every year. Estimated U.S. insured losses due to severe thunderstorms in the first half of 2016 were $8.5 billion. The largest U.S. impacts of tornadoes result from tornado outbreaks, sequences of tornadoes that occur in close succession.

Last spring a research team led by Michael Tippett, associate professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia Engineering, published a study showing that the average number of tornadoes during outbreaks–large-scale weather events that can last one to three days and span huge regions–has risen since 1954. But they were not sure why.

In a new paper, published December 1 in Science via First Release, the researchers looked at increasing trends in the severity of tornado outbreaks where they measured severity by the number of tornadoes per outbreak. They found that these trends are increasing fastest for the most extreme outbreaks. While they saw changes in meteorological quantities that are consistent with these upward trends, the meteorological trends were not the ones expected under climate change.

“This study raises new questions about what climate change will do to severe thunderstorms and what is responsible for recent trends,” said Tippett, who is also a member of the Data Science Institute and the Columbia Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate. “The fact that we don’t see the presently understood meteorological signature of global warming in changing outbreak statistics leaves two possibilities: either the recent increases are not due to a warming climate, or a warming climate has implications for tornado activity that we don’t understand. This is an unexpected finding.”

The researchers used two NOAA datasets, one containing tornado reports and the other observation-based estimates of meteorological quantities associated with tornado outbreaks.

“Other researchers have focused on tornado reports without considering the meteorological environments,” noted Chiara Lepore, associate research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who is a coauthor of the paper. “The meteorological data provide an independent check on the tornado reports and let us check for what would be expected under climate change.”

U.S. tornado activity in recent decades has been drawing the attention of scientists. While no significant trends have been found in either the annual number of reliably reported tornadoes or of outbreaks, recent studies indicate increased variability in large normalized economic and insured losses from U.S. thunderstorms, increases in the annual number of days on which many tornadoes occur, and increases in the annual mean and variance of the number of tornadoes per outbreak.

In the current study, the researchers used extreme value analysis and found that the frequency of U.S. outbreaks with many tornadoes is increasing, and is increasing faster for more extreme outbreaks. They modeled this behavior using extreme value distributions with parameters that vary to match the trends in the data.

Extreme meteorological environments associated with severe thunderstorms showed consistent upward trends, but the trends did not resemble those currently expected to result from global warming. They looked at two factors: convective available potential energy (CAPE) and a measure of vertical wind shear, storm relative helicity. Modeling studies have projected that CAPE will increase in a warmer climate leading to more frequent environments favorable to severe thunderstorms in the U.S. However, they found that the meteorological trends were not due to increasing CAPE but instead due to trends in storm relative helicity, which has not been projected to increase under climate change.

“Tornadoes blow people away, and their houses and cars and a lot else,” said Joel Cohen, coauthor of the paper and director of the Laboratory of Populations, which is based jointly at Rockefeller University and Columbia’s Earth Institute. “We’ve used new statistical tools that haven’t been used before to put tornadoes under the microscope. The findings are surprising. We found that, over the last half century or so, the more extreme the tornado outbreaks, the faster the numbers of such extreme outbreaks have been increasing. What’s pushing this rise in extreme outbreaks is far from obvious in the present state of climate science. Viewing the thousands of tornadoes that have been reliably recorded in the U.S. over the past half century or so as a population has permitted us to ask new questions and discover new, important changes in outbreaks of these tornadoes.”

Added Harold Brooks, senior scientist at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, who was not involved with this project, “The study is important because it addresses one of the hypotheses that has been raised to explain the observed change in number of tornadoes in outbreaks. Changes in CAPE can’t explain the change. It seems that changes in shear are more important, but we don’t yet understand why those have happened and if they’re related to global warming.”

Better understanding of how climate affects tornado activity can help to predict tornado activity in the short-term, a month, or even a year in advance, and would be a major aid to insurance and reinsurance companies in assessing the risks posed by outbreaks.

“An assessment of changing tornado outbreak size is highly relevant to the insurance industry,” noted Kelly Hererid, AVP, Senior Research Scientist, Chubb Tempest Re R&D. “Common insurance risk management tools like reinsurance and catastrophe bonds are often structured around storm outbreaks rather than individual tornadoes, so an increasing concentration of tornadoes into larger outbreaks provides a mechanism to change loss potential without necessarily altering the underlying tornado count. This approach provides an expanded view of disaster potential beyond simple changes in event frequency.”

Tippett said that more studies are needed to attribute the observed changes to either global warming or another component of climate variability. The research group plans next to study other aspects of severe thunderstorms such as hail, which causes less intense damage but is important for business (especially insurance and reinsurance) because it affects larger areas and is responsible for substantial losses every year.

Ralph Nader: Trump And His Betraying Makeover – OpEd

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Attention workers who voted for Trump, either eagerly or as a vote against  the hawkish, Wall Street favorite, Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump, less than a month after the election, has already begun to betray you.

You can often see where a president-elect is going by his nominations to high positions in his forthcoming administration. Across over a dozen crucial posts, Mr. Trump has chosen war hawks, Wall Streeters (with a former Goldman Sachs partner, Steven Mnuchin, as his pick for Treasury Secretary) and clenched teeth corporatists determined to jettison life-saving, injury and disease preventing regulations and leave bigger holes in your consumer pocketbooks.

In addition to lacking a mandate from the people  (he lost the popular vote), the president-elect continues to believe that mere showboating will distract from his breathtaking flip-flops in his campaign rhetoric. Remember his last big TV ad where he blasted “a global power structure” responsible “for robbing the working class” with images of Goldman Sachs flashing across the screen?

Fast forward several weeks and he has selected cabinet secretaries who want to dismantle the public school system with your taxes going to private schools, reduce regulation of banks, cut consumer protections and weaken labor laws and job safety standards. Other appointees say they want to privatize Medicare, which has led health insurance company stocks to soar, and some want to transfer Medicaid to even more hostile state manipulations.

Regarding national security, his White House advisors are advocates of imperial intervention and bombing Iran. Trump wants to renege on the Iran nuclear agreements the U.S. made with a dozen leading nations and risk escalation of hostilities.  Granted, Trump did talk about the Iran deal, with little knowledge of its careful safeguards and ongoing implementation. He also told voters that he didn’t believe in the U.S. policing the world with costly military might.

Perhaps the best sign of where Trump is heading comes from the major surge in the stock markets, the booming bank stocks anticipating looser regulations so they can speculate more readily with “other peoples’ money” and industries looking forward to more easily emitting pollutants into your air, water, and soil.

As an accomplished sleight-of-hand specialist – a failed gambling czar who always jumped ship with his gold and left his workers, creditors and shareholders stranded – Trump recently traveled to Indiana to brag about the decision by Carrier to keep intact 800 of the 2000 jobs it plans to ship to Mexico. You’ll recall Trump made Carrier, a subsidiary of giant United Technology (UT), his poster-child for showing how the U.S. is losing jobs under NAFTA.

Well Trump’s boast, for starters, will cost Indiana taxpayers $7 million for Carrier to agree, with presumably, additional goodies for United Technologies coming later. Already, UT and Carrier have long been loaded up with tax and other “incentives,” subsidies and all the complex corporate welfare that defense companies receive from the Pentagon.

Being a long-time recipient himself of crony capitalism, Trump hopes that his working class supporters will never catch on to this kind of back room “deal-making” when he is in the White House. Big corporations are drooling at the prospect of further tax cuts, weaker law and order (e.g. deregulation) and the many sub-visible freebies of the corporate welfare state.

Guess who gets left holding the bag? Why, you, of course, the workers and small taxpayers. Stay tuned, for more corporatists, Wall Streeters and militarists are on their way to Trump’s Washington.

A French writer once said, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Then there is Trump’s highly bruiseable and dangerous ego, as he gets up at 3am to tweet his mad impulses and false assertions.

Trump doesn’t like to be accused of disloyalty by workers who supported him. Therein lies some leverage. Laborers, who were crucial to the Boaster’s Electoral College victory, will have many opportunities to laser-focus on Trump’s betrayals in very personal ways. They should take them.

Moscow’s Latest Project For A ‘Muslim Patriarchate’ Set To Fail – OpEd

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Moscow’s latest effort to create a single administrative structure for Russia’s growing Muslim population will fail and fail for the same reasons earlier ones did: the absence of Islamic sanction for Russian Muslim spiritual directorates (MSDs), the ambitions of various Muslim leaders, and Moscow’s interest in continuing to play its divide and rule game.

Many Russian officials, overwhelmed by the complexity of the Muslim community within Russia and the existence of more than 80 MSDs supposedly in charge of its parts, have called for the creation of a single MSD over the Russian umma, a project some see as leading to the formation of a single Muslim “patriarchate” on the model of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The latest of these efforts has surfaced this past week, and it has attracted a great deal of media attention as, in the works of “Moskovsky komsomolets” “a new federal muftiate” (mk.ru/politics/2016/11/30/v-rossii-poyavilsya-novyy-federalnyy-muftiyat.html). But whatever aspirations its leaders or their government backers have, it is unlikely to become that.

On Wednesday, Albir Krganov, the mufti of Moscow, the Central Region and Chuvashia and until three years ago an associate of the Central MSD in Ufa, announced the creation of a Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia, a name that recalls the first MSD in Russia, the Orenburg Mohammaden Assembly (interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=65334 and ria.ru/religion/20161130/1482486913.html).

            “The current situation of the umma, to put it mildly,” he declared, “leaves much to be desired.” The muftiates are fighting among themselves and competing in their attempts to get money from foreign “’sponsors.’” That in turn has led to splits and confusion among the faithful over which fetwas to follow.

Krganov said his organization already had the support of “dozens” of regional ones and was interested in promoting discussion rather than the suppression of this or that MSD. The Assembly will be directed in the first instance, he concluded, at countering “pseudo-religious extremism and terrorism.”

It is not clear how much real support Krganov has. An earlier effort to create a new centralized MSD under his direction failed. In 2010, he created the Russian Association for Islamic Agreement (All-Russian Muftiate), but it failed to take off and in March of this year it was disbanded.

 

Prior to this week, there were four MSDs in Russia with aspirations to dominate the Russian umma either directly or through the other 78 regional MSDs: the MSD of the Muslims of Russia in Moscow, the Central MSD in Ufa, the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, and the MSD of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Russian officials have long been unhappy with this diversity of centers of religious authority. Earlier this year, Igor Barinov, head of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, called for uniting them because their existence gives “additional opportunities for extremist ideas to penetrate the umma” (ria.ru/religion/20161130/1482486913.html).

In his commentary on this latest move, Andrey Melnikov, editor of “NG-Religii,” is skeptical that the Russian authorities will get there way and manage to reduce even slightly the number of MSDs with which any government has to deal or even find an effective new ally in the war on extremism in this latest effort (ng.ru/faith/2016-11-30/2_6873_islam.html).

The reasons for that are three-fold. First, the MSDs, a joint government-religious project under tsars, communists and now the Russian Federation, have no basis in Islamic law and practice. Any group of Muslim communities at least now is free to form a new one, and all Muslim parishes have the right to go their own way and even have no ties to an MSD at all.

Second, the leaders of the four largest MSDs which do have all-Russian aspirations are doubly divided. On the one hand, their leaders have a long history of distrust in one another and regularly work at cross purposes. And on the other, they more than any single MSD could do reflect the diversity of Islam in Russia.

And third, while some officials might like “a Muslim patriarchate,” many are likely to be frightened of such an institution. Were it to be created, it would likely be more difficult to manage than the current situation in which Moscow can play one group against another and thus weaken both.

Moreover, if Moscow did manage to create a single MSD, the most likely outcome would be a refusal by many parishes and individual Muslims to have anything to do with it, something that would lead to more not less independence and diversity within Russian Islam and even promote the rise of an updated version of the underground Islam of Soviet times.

Indigenous Seafood Consumption 15 Times Higher Per Capita Than National Averages

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Coastal Indigenous people eat, on average, 15 times more seafood per person than non-Indigenous people in the same country, finds a Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program study published today in PLOS ONE. This highlights the need to consider food sovereignty and cultural identity as part of fisheries policy and Indigenous human rights.

“Having access to a global database that quantifies fish consumption specifically by Coastal Indigenous peoples is a critical contribution to Indigenous struggle on a number of fronts,” said Sherry Pictou, former Chief of L’s?tkuk (Bear River First Nation) and member of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples Coordinating Committee. “Most significantly, the generation of information about the consumption of fish as food marks the critical issue of Indigenous food sovereignty.”

The first global-scale analysis of its kind, the authors estimate that coastal Indigenous people consume 74 kg of seafood per capita, whereas the global average is 19 kg. The communities studied include recognized Indigenous groups, self-identified minority groups, and Small Island Developing States. These groups all share similar histories of marginalization and deep social and cultural connections to marine environments.

“The importance of the ocean for coastal Indigenous peoples goes way beyond seafood consumption, even though it’s often the main part of their diets,” said co-author Yoshitaka Ota, Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program Director of Policy. “For a lot of these communities, the practice of fishing forms a link to their culture that defines them as a people. It’s not just about eating fish, it’s about maintaining an identity as a distinct culture.”

The authors collected observed data and worked with local researchers to build a database of more than 1900 communities who altogether consume 2.1 million metric tonnes of seafood per year.

“This is the first time that Indigenous issues have been viewed in this global light in a quantitative way. If Indigenous people are not nationally recognized, they do not exist at the state level,” said lead author Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor, Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program Manager and Research Associate. “A global database shows the scale and the significance, which is extremely important to amplify their voices. It puts the people on the map.”

The ocean provides a vital source of food and economic security for these communities, while also shaping their cultural heritage and spiritual values for millennia. The study’s estimates are the base requirements for seafood, as only consumption was included and not employment and economic needs. Due to this reliance on ocean resources, climate and ecosystem changes are increasing the vulnerability of coastal Indigenous peoples.

The authors urge that not only must fish and ecosystems be protected, but also those lives and culture that depend on the ocean.

“Our goal is to provide data and analytical skills but support the community-level initiatives. We looked at this from a global perspective but we don’t advocate for top-down solutions,” said Cisneros-Montemayor. “Solutions have to come from the communities, they can lean on international laws and policy, but it has to be in a way that is appropriate to their needs and their context.”


Erdogan’s War On Women – OpEd

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Kurdish women in one of the strongest and most radical women’s movements in the world are taking a battering from the Turkish state with impunity – as Europe looks the other way.

By Dilar Dirik*

‘’We will resist and resist until we win!“ chants Sebahat Tuncel before her mouth is forcibly shut by half a dozen police officers who drag her along the floor and detain her in early November.

Nine years ago, a convoy of victory signs, cheerful slogans, and flowers received Tuncel as she was released from prison to enter parliament, having been elected while still inside. Tuncel, now in jail again, is one of dozens of Kurdish politicians from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) or the regional Democratic Regions Party (DBP) arrested by the Turkish security forces since late October under Turkish president Erdogan’s “anti-terror” operations against those challenging his authoritarian rule. This crackdown follows the attempted coup in July and represents a re-escalation of the war between the state and the Kurdish movement since the summer of 2015, ending a-two- and-a-half-year-long peace process. Like the advice given to the German anti-terrorist squad in the 1980s “Shoot the women first!” the toxic masculinity of the state became apparent in its declaration of a war on women; the strength of the militant Kurdish women’s movement poses the biggest threat to the system. Sebahat Tuncel’s case is not unique.

At the end of October, Gültan Kisanak was detained.  She was the first female co-mayor of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality and former MP,  who spent two years in the 1980s in the notorious Diyarbakir prison, where she survived the most atrocious forms of torture, such as having to live for months in a dog hut full of excrements because she refused to say  ‘I am a Turk‘. Her arrest was immediately followed by the violent arrest of Ayla Akat Ata, former MP and now spokeswoman of the Free Women’s Congress (KJA), the largest women’s umbrella organisation in Kurdistan and Turkey, which is among the 370 civil society organizations banned by the government since mid-November. She was hospitalised several times due to police violence during her parliamentary term and survived assassination attempts.

Selma Irmak is among the MPs elected from prison, where she spent more than 10 years on terrorism charges and participated in hunger strikes. Gülser Yildirim was imprisoned for five years before elections. Another MP is Leyla Birlik, who stayed with the civilians under military fire in Sirnak during the entire duration of the military lockdown, witnessing the brutal killings of countless civilians by the army. Her brother-in-law, Haci Lokman Birlik, activist and film-maker, was executed by the army in October 2015; his corpse was tied to an army vehicle and dragged through the streets. Soldiers filmed this and sent the video to Leyla Birlik with the message “Come pick up your brother-in-law”.

The list goes on. We chose such courageous women as our representatives. They are now political prisoners despite being elected by more than five million people.

The ultra-conservative policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) under Erdogan have led to the rise of violence against women in Turkey over the last decade and a half. Not only do high profile members of the administration, including Erdogan himself, frequently reject equality between women and men in favour of attitudes that normalise rape culture, gender violence and misogyny, the AKP further launches explicit physical attacks on women and LGBTI+ people. The hyper-masculine state not only collectively punishes the Kurdish community as separatists, terrorists, or conspirators against the state, it portrays Kurdish women activists as “bad women”, shameful whores and violators of the nuclear family.

Historically, rape and sexual torture, including post-mortem “virginity tests”, have been used by the Turkish state to discipline and punish women’s bodies as noted by Anja Flach in her book Frauen in der Kurdischen Guerrilla which has not been translated from German.  In prisons, women are subjected to intimate searches to humiliate them sexually. Recently, soldiers stripped the clothes off Kurdish women militants’ corpses and shared these images on social media. Another brutal video showed the Turkish army shooting guerrilla women in the head and throwing them off mountain cliffs. GermanG3 rifles were used in the video illustrating western complicity in these war crimes.

While such atrocities were often committed secretly in the 1990s, sharing images on social media is a new attempt at demoralising women’s resistance and demonstrating state power.  These methods resemble those of ISIS across the border and violate all war conventions. Sexually abusing an activist woman, who dares to challenge male hegemony, aims to break her willpower and deter further activism. The attacks on women politicians need to be read in this context.

Long before mainstream media was under fire in Turkey, reporters of JinHa, the first all-women news agency of the Middle East, were attacked. Committed to an explicitly feminist lens in their work, JinHa’s workers exposed the state’s crimes from a gendered perspective. Now JinHa is banned and several members are in jail.

The HDP is the only progressive opposition party left in Turkey with its secular, diverse, pro-minority, pro-women, pro-LGBT rights and ecological agenda. It has by far the highest percentage of women in its ranks. Even without the system of co-presidency, a policy of the Kurdish freedom movement which ensures shared leadership between a woman and a man, the vast majority of female mayors are in the Kurdish regions. Through a decades-long struggle, especially encouraged by the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, the active role of women in politics is a normal part of life in Kurdistan today.

The women of the HDP and DBP do not embody bourgeois ideas of representative politics and corporate feminism. Almost all politicians currently under attack have spent time in prison, been subject to police brutality, sexualised torture, assassination attempts or some form of violent treatment by the state. They are always at the forefront in the protests against the state and army.

Women were also significant actors in the peace process initiated by Abdullah Öcalan with the Turkish state in March 2013. Every meeting on Imrali Prison Island included women. In 2014, Öcalan recommended that women be represented in the meetings as an organised force, rather than only as individuals. Thus, Ceylan Bagriyanik joined the meetings as the representative of the women’s movement. The Dolmabahce Declaration, the first joint declaration between the warring parties included women’s liberation as one of the ten points for justice and lasting peace. The state and media were unable to make sense of the Kurdish movement’s insistence on the centrality of women’s liberation in the peace process.

We face collective punishment for passing the highest election threshold in the world which requires a political party to win at least 10 per cent of the national vote to enter parliament. Our cities are razed to the ground, our loved ones murdered, burned alive, bombed, shot, or beaten to death. Our cultural heritage and environment are erased forever, our MPs dragged on the streets, our mayors replaced by governmental trustees against our will, our media censored, our social media blocked. By destroying the possibility of peaceful, legal politics within democratic frameworks, Turkey has left the Kurds with no other option than self-defence. International institutions, above all the European Union, have failed the Kurdish people in appeasing Erdogan. In other words, western governments support the systematic elimination of one of the strongest and most radical women’s movements in the world.

The philosophy of the Kurdish women’s movement proposes that every living organism has its mechanisms of self-defence, like the rose with its thorns. This concept is not defined in a narrow physical sense, but includes the creation of autonomous self-governance structures to organise social and political life. Protecting one’s identity against the state through self-defence is partly enabled by building self-reliant political institutions.

In an era when women’s naked corpses are exposed on social media by the army and elected officers are subject to torturous abuse by the capitalist-patriarchal state, women are fighting back to show that their honour is not up for men to define because honour does not lie between women’s legs; it lies in our resistance, the resistance culture established by the trailblazers of our movement. Our jailed politicians defend this honour.

From prison, the HDP co-chair Figen Yüksekdag sent this message: “Despite everything, they can’t consume our hope, or break our resistance. Whether in prison or not, the HDP and us, we are still Turkey’s only option for freedom and democracy. And that’s why they are so afraid of us. Do not, not a single one of you, allow yourself to be demoralised, do not drop your guard, do not weaken your resistance. Do not forget that this hatred and aggression is rooted in fear. Love and courage will definitely win“.

*Dilar Dirik is from northern Kurdistan (Turkey). She is an activist of the Kurdish women’s movement and writes on the Kurdish freedom struggle for an international audience. She is currently working on her PhD at the Sociology Department of Cambridge University.

This article was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is available by clicking here. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

Call For Trump Administration To Expand Role Of Tax-Exempt Hospitals

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A new report recommends that the Trump Administration take action to revise existing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policies governing community benefit spending by tax-exempt hospitals in order to encourage greater hospital involvement in activities that can improve health on a community-wide basis.

Research increasingly shows the outsize importance of healthy communities to population health. Affordable and safe housing, safe and welcoming neighborhoods, access to nutritious food, strong child development programs, and quality education together can lead to better health outcomes. Hospitals themselves have recognized the health impact of these broader social, economic and environmental conditions as well as the value of their involvement in activities aimed at improving social conditions.

Building on longstanding policies regarding tax exempt hospitals and community benefit spending, the report shows the Trump Administration can encourage greater hospital involvement in community-wide health by adopting a more flexible regulatory standard on what constitutes a community benefit.

Produced by researchers at the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH), the report identifies a series of steps that the IRS can take, working in collaboration with public health experts drawn from across government and private institutions and organizations, to modify existing community benefit policies to encourage greater population health activities. Such a change would be wholly consistent with hospitals’ own community health needs assessments (CHNAs), which focus on high priority community health needs that extend beyond clinical health care.

Nonprofit hospitals qualify for a tax exemption under the U.S. tax code as long as they provide a public benefit, known as a community benefit. In 1969 the IRS used its broad authority to establish a “community benefit” standard that permits hospitals to undertake activities that improve the health of communities as a whole, not just residents who are patients.

Hospitals today still devote the vast majority of community benefit spending to patient services, including charity care. Yet, increasingly hospitals are looking outside their walls to provide activities that improve health more generally, such as improvements to housing and the environment, economic development, child development, and efforts to reduce food insecurity. These efforts to move beyond the four walls of the hospital also align with hospitals’ increasing focus on achieving greater health care quality and efficiency that can promote overall patient health while reducing costs.

However, existing IRS policies create uncertainty for hospitals regarding the conditions under which many types of expenditures that can improve overall community health will count as a community benefit activity. This uncertainty may, in turn, make institutions potentially more reluctant to engage in community-wide health improvement efforts. The public interest in the adoption of a more inclusive community benefit policy is high. In 2011, U.S. taxpayers invested nearly $25 billion nationwide to support tax-exempt hospitals, and across all states, hospital community benefit spending is considerable.

“The public has an enormous stake in policies that broaden and clarify the scope of permissible community benefit activities,” said Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at Milken Institute SPH and the lead author of the new report. “This interest can be measured in the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that support tax-exempt hospitals.” At a time when the future of affordable insurance is uncertain, hospitals will continue to invest the great majority of their community benefit obligations in financial assistance for those in need. But with relatively minor adjustments, the IRS can considerably strengthen hospitals’ potential role as community health improvement actors, Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum and her co-authors assessed the current status of community benefit policy in the United States and analyzed the most up-to-date hospital CHNAs, which under existing law non-profit hospitals must conduct every three years. The researchers found that 72 percent of hospitals identified obesity, 68 percent identified mental health and 62 percent identified diabetes as the top health challenges of their communities.

The report, which was funded by The Kresge Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, suggests that hospitals could be encouraged to take steps to actively address these top health problems in their communities. To that end, the authors outline three policy opportunities that would help align U.S. tax policy with the growing focus on community-wide health improvement.

First, the IRS could issue guidance to hospitals stating that activities now designated as community building efforts but that promote population health on a community-wide basis will be treated as community benefit spending.

Such activities may include partnering with farmers markets to address obesity, or providing support to community organizations that develop safe and affordable housing. Existing IRS policy leaves hospitals uncertain about the range of “community building” efforts that go beyond their walls and that qualify as community health improvement spending.

Second, the IRS could bring greater transparency to community benefit reporting by creating a link between community health priorities documented through the community health needs assessment process and their community-benefit spending allocations.

IRS policy could require hospitals to report on the percentage of their community benefit spending that is linked to community-wide health needs identified through the CHNA process. For example, if a CHNA identifies childhood asthma as a major community health problem, a hospital could help support programs whose purpose is to reduce asthma triggers in homes and schools.

Third, working with experts drawn across the federal government the IRS could issue tax guidance on effective community-wide health improvement activities.

The IRS could receive guidance and support from a federal interagency group that includes experts not only in health, but in areas such as nutrition, education, the environment, transportation, the work force, and housing.

The policy opportunities outlined in this report would not require new legislation, said Maureen Byrnes, one of the study’s co-authors and a Lead Research Scientist at Milken Institute SPH. Instead, the IRS could use its broad authority to define community benefit to encourage hospitals to grow as leaders in the area of population health. Such a reform would require no additional appropriations and could be a major win for public health, Byrnes added.

Magnus Carlsen Clinches Third Consecutive World Chess Championship – OpEd

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Norwegian Chess maestro Magnus Carlsen has risen to Himalayan heights by extending his dominance over the chess world by winning the World Chess Championship for the third consecutive time in New York on November 30, beating his Russian challenger Sergei Karyakin in a tiebreaker.

Carlsen won the championship — organised by the International Chess Federation, FIDE — in 2013 and 2014, beating Indian origin Spaniard V. Anand. Karyakin, a child prodigy who became the youngest ever chess grandmaster at the age of 12, has known Carlsen for years and had little to lose, with no one even having expected him to reach the final. “Sergei has impressed everyone with his tenacity these last few weeks so he is perfectly capable of pulling an upset,” said Wesley So, who travelled to New York from Minnesota to watch the clash.

World number one Magnus Carlsen has won the world title for the third time after crushing the then world champion Anand in a spectacular manner ‘ not letting him win nay game in the tournament. Anand has not yet called it a day notwithstanding counseling by many of his well wishers, close associates and friends to retire with dignity. He refused and continues to play. Possibly, Carlsen did not fight Karyakin for the title as he had done against Anand who had been a reigning world champion for several years as Israeli player played for mischief in favor of Anand.

Reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Russian grandmaster Sergei Karyakin went head-to-head on Friday in the first game of a battle to determine the world’s top player. Carlsen — who has held the title since 2014 — made the opening move, as the first of 12 games got under way in New York. After 42 moves, the game ended in a draw, with the opponents scheduled to meet again on Saturday.

The young stars headed into the chess equivalent of extra time in soccer. Unlike the earlier rounds, which lasted an average of six hours, the rapid-play rules meant the players had just 25 minutes each, so each game was over in an hour. The accelerated games left plenty of opportunity for harried mistakes, and while predictions were difficult, Carlsen — a king of the blitz format and world number-one since 2010 — had remained favorite.

The Norwegian, who turned 26 last week, has played several blitz tournaments this year, beating US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in one in October. But he has occasionally shown flashes of losing his cool, as when he slammed the door of the press room after defeat in the eighth round, earning a fine of five percent of his prize money.

Carlsen and Karjakin played in a renovated building on the historic Manhattan waterfront, near Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. The championship has returned to the United States for the first time in 21 years; the last one was in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

Although Karyakin foiled predictions by tying Carlsen in 12 regular rounds, the Norwegian champion beat him in the final phase of four quick-fire extra games.

The battle for the world chess crown ended up in the dramatic tiebreaker after a win apiece and nine draws.

The win puts Carlsen, who achieved again a well deserved win, closer to the status of chess legends such as Garry Kasparov, who dominated the game for 15 years.

The last Russian to claim the title was Vladimir Kramnik in 2007.In a sign of the final’s significance to Moscow, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was in New York to see the start of the head-to-head. Much has been made of the clash as a reprise of the great Cold War chess battles of the 1970s, but Karyakin, who is from Crimea and supported Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula, has played down political overtones.

The tournament has prompted comparisons with the iconic 1972 showdown between American Bobby Fischer and the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky, two rivals in the Cold War-era whose showdown was dubbed the ‘Match of the Century’.

The two players know each other well; they occasionally chat on Skype, although they kept contact to a minimum in the run-up to the game. Carlsen is the bookmakers’ favorite but Karyakin — who practices at least six hours a day — is seen as having every chance of causing an upset.

While he became the youngest grandmaster in history at just 12-years-old, Karyakin admitted it would be hard to beat Carlsen, who is known for his relentless attacks and confidence under pressure. Trying to wrest the title from Carlsen is the 26-year-old Ukrainian-born Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin. The prize purse of $1.1 million will be divided 60-40 between the men, who are treated like rock stars in their countries.

For years, chess seemed to be played in a bubble, far from mainstream media. But it never grew out of style in Carlsen’s Norway, where TV programs were pre-empted for important games. There are an estimated 600 million players worldwide. By contrast with the glitzy, high-tech championship, chess enthusiasts can be found playing in hundreds of New York outdoor public spaces, such as Central Park. Some of these urban street players are homeless.

In the USA, organizers faced a challenge: how to popularize a sedentary sport with little visible action in a society where most fans favour dynamic sports like football, boxing, basketball and baseball. Still, chess has its fervent American fans, including Jay Z, Jude Law, Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) classifies it as a sport, as do more than 100 countries. It requires not only brain acrobatics but also the physical stamina to sit as long as six hours at a time for three weeks. The board battle pits figures of medieval warriors, kings, queens, bishops and knights against each other in ever-changing plots as dramatic as the “Game of Thrones.” Electronic versions of the game register about 1 billion downloads a year of hundreds of apps, says Ilya Merenzon, the Moscow-based chief executive officer of Agon Ltd, which owns the marketing rights to the World Chess brand for the championships and the qualifying games leading up to it.

Karjakin was 12 when he became the youngest grandmaster, and Carlsen was a grandmaster at 13. “When I was young, I was used to winning games in a very aggressive style, and I would attack all the time and I was used to my opponents cracking,” Carlsen said. “But when I got to the highest level, then people defended better, so now I’m more pragmatic. Whatever risks I take, I try to control the game.”

Carlsen has cashed in through sponsorships, his own chess app and modeling for ads. He appeared in G-Star Raw’s Spring/Summer fashion ad campaign along with actress and model Lily Cole. He also was selected by Cosmopolitan magazine as one of the sexiest men of 2013. Since then, he’s also been the world’s No 1 player.

All costly 600 seats for inaugural game were sold out, starting at $75 apiece. Two games were played on consecutive days, followed by a one-day break, for a total of 12 games. Tens of millions of fans followed live online, free of charge through the worldchess.com website and affiliate partners. In addition, $15 via Pay-Per-View buys the game in virtual reality, allowing fans to experience the game as if they were there by wearing special goggles.

Observations

New York hosted the first championship with two grandmasters of the Smartphone generation Carlsen and Karyakin — “a battle of two of the finest minds on the planet. The goal was to make chess a pop culture event.

The world championship battle is billed as the youngest ever in terms of the players’ cumulative ages: Carlsen is 25 and Karyakin is 26. It is also the first between players who came of age in the computer era, representing a generational shift in the game.

In another first, the world championship was broadcast from its trendy Manhattan venue using virtual reality.

The defending world champion is a 25-year-old Norwegian who’s been named one of the world’s sexiest men. Magnus Carlsen is tops in an endurance sport that doesn’t require him to move from his chair. It’s called chess.

At a news conference in New York, Karyakin said he had come to bring the crown back to Russia, calling this “the dream of my life”, Russian news agencies reported. “We are here to put up a fight,” he said.

Carlsen, the highest-rated player in chess history, again aims to win the World Chess Championship, the most eagerly awaited match in a generation, starting Friday in New York.

This match comes as Moscow and Washington’s relations have plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War due to disagreements on Syria and Ukraine.

The Russian president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is unable to attend the championship after being denied a visa, possibly because he has been on a US Treasury blacklist since 2015 over financial ties to the Syrian government.

“This is the first time in the history of the world championships that the (FIDE) president is not at the match,” Ilyumzhinov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday.

Carlsen has been called the ‘Mozart of Chess’, and has inspired wide interest in the game in Norway since first winning the world title in 2013. He has picked up endorsements and deals that earn him some $2 million a year. He has a huge fan following, has done modelling and even launched his own app called Play Magnus.

Karyakin, currently ranked ninth in the world, was born on Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014. He struggled with finding sponsors before moving to Russia in 2009 and becoming a citizen.

The two players split the $1.1-million (one million Euros) prize, with the winner getting three-fifths of the purse and the loser taking home the rest. The competition initially offered prize money of 600,000 Euros ($637,000) for the winner, and 400,000 euros for the losers, but that was changed to 550,000 and 450,000 Euros respectively because the battle went into extra time.

Construction Of Practical Quantum Computers Radically Simplified

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Scientists at the University of Sussex have invented a ground-breaking new method that puts the construction of large-scale quantum computers within reach of current technology.

Quantum computers could solve certain problems – that would take the fastest supercomputer millions of years to calculate – in just a few milliseconds. They have the potential to create new materials and medicines, as well as solve long-standing scientific and financial problems.

Universal quantum computers can be built in principle – but the technology challenges are tremendous. The engineering required to build one is considered more difficult than manned space travel to Mars – until now.

Quantum computing on a small scale using trapped ions (charged atoms) is carried out by aligning individual laser beams onto individual ions with each ion forming a quantum bit. However, a large-scale quantum computer would need billions of quantum bits, therefore requiring billions of precisely aligned lasers, one for each ion.

Instead, scientists at Sussex have invented a simple method where voltages are applied to a quantum computer microchip (without having to align laser beams) – to the same effect.

Professor Winfried Hensinger and his team also succeeded in demonstrating the core building block of this new method with an impressively low error rate at their quantum computing facility at Sussex.

Professor Hensinger said: “This development is a game changer for quantum computing making it accessible for industrial and government use. We will construct a large-scale quantum computer at Sussex making full use of this exciting new technology.”

Quantum computers may revolutionise society in a similar way as the emergence of classical computers. Dr Seb Weidt, part of the Ion Quantum Technology Group said: “Developing this step-changing new technology has been a great adventure and it is absolutely amazing observing it actually work in the laboratory.”

The World Needs More Energy – OpEd

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Our planet is blessed with abundant resources that can generate enormous energy, provide raw materials for wondrous technologies, and build modern homes, roads and other structures – to support every man, woman and child on this earth. But can and will political powers make them available to the people who need them?

Of all these resources, energy is the most important. Nothing happens without energy.

For most of mankind’s history, human or animal muscle, wood and animal dung, water power, and plant or animal oil provided our energy. But the amount and quality of that energy was limited, and therefore what people could do was also limited.

Then, almost suddenly, people began using coal, and then oil, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power. Our abilities, and our dreams, began to reach for the heavens – at least in many countries. Sadly, many other countries lagged far behind, and many still do.

They are held back, condemned to continued energy poverty – and thus to real poverty and the diseases, malnutrition and desperation that go with that absence of modern energy. This is partly because many nations are governed by incompetent, corrupt leaders, who care only about enriching themselves, their families, and their close friends, allies and supporters.

But it is also because callous, imperialistic people in rich countries use exaggerated, imaginary or phony environmental concerns and fake disasters to justify laws, regulations and excuses not to let poor countries use fossil fuels or nuclear power or develop their economies.

They tell us we should only use renewable energy. They say nuclear power is dangerous, and oil, gas and coal are dirty and cause dangerous climate change. They don’t seem to think or care about the poverty, diseases and starvation that we suffer because we do not have fossil fuels.

And when they talk about renewable energy, they mean the very limited energy – and economic growth – that come from wind and solar power, or from growing crops for energy instead of to feed our hungry people. They even oppose hydroelectric power for poor nations.

They are rich and well fed, enjoying amazing homes and jobs and technologies in their modern countries. But they tell us poor Africans (and other people) that we must limit our energy and dreams to whatever can come from expensive, insufficient kinds of energies to serve our large and growing populations. This is greedy and selfish, the kind of attitude of people who only think of themselves.

Yes, they use renewable energy, but only a little. Almost all their energy still comes from oil, gas, coal, nuclear and hydro power. Only a tiny amount comes from wind, solar or biofuels – that they say should be our only sources of energy.

They have money and power, and they can influence what happens to us. But they are causing massive poverty, disease, starvation and death in third world countries.

I support clean energy and don’t want to see dangerous global warming. I agree that everyone should help ensure that we live in a clean environment. Everyone wants that, and to see their children and grandchildren living in a clean environment.

But that does not mean we should accept more poverty. It does not mean these rich, powerful people should be able to take away our right to live. It does not mean they have a right to put make-believe scare stories in our papers, on our televisions and radios, and on the internet.

It does not mean they should invent claims that our planet is boiling and we are causing droughts and floods – and so we should throw away coal and other cheap energies that we need to survive.

Maybe they are right, and humans are warming the earth or changing the climate – a little. But our weather and climate have always changed, and the world was even warmer during the dinosaur era than it is today, and much colder during the ice ages, with no human activities. Climate change has been going on for millions of years ago, but that doesn’t mean today’s changes are because of humans or will be disasters.

Environmental agencies and groups say the world is changing and try to tell us what to do to prevent these changes, which they say will all be bad. But getting rid of poverty and disease is also a big change that would be good for all of us, and cannot happen without fossil fuels.

We’ve all been scared to death by horror movies, especially films that are just plausible enough to make us think it could happen. But when these movies (or computer models) are used to scare us away from fossil fuels, that is wrong and we should not be frightened.

What these rich country movie actors, politicians, regulators, scientists and activists forget is that our planet and environment have existed for millions of years, have changed over and over, and will continue to exist either with or without human interference. But we humans have to live here too.

Denying people their right to use fossil fuels is the worst thing someone can do to a fellow human. Western powers developed massively due to cheap fossil fuels and today live like kings. They have no right to deny their living standards to people in developing countries.

Who invented the terms “developing countries” or “third world countries” anyway”? All countries have been developing at some point. In fact, they are always still developing, all the time.

The only wrong interpretation is to say “third world countries” do not have a God-given right to use all their energy, minerals and other resources to develop themselves, and get rich, create good jobs for their people, end poverty and disease, and grow enough food to make everyone well fed and healthy.

In fact, here is a thought for all African leaders: A collective mindset supporting development will make Africa as great as any other region on earth. We all just need to unite around this idea.

The recent United States elections disappointed many people, but made many others happy. To me, they may be a very good thing. They might mean the new President Trump will be a good leader for the entire world. He might make more people question these claims that fossil fuels cause dangerous global warming – and encourage everyone to use more oil, gas and coal to improve our lives, until smart people someday discover different energy sources that really do work.

We all desire to be healthy and live better lives, just like people in developed countries. Yes, we have had greedy, selfish leaders in the past who might have contributed to our status today. But we can and must learn from our mistakes, and Mr. Trump wants to correct his and Mr. Obama’s mistakes.

African and other countries need abundant energy for economic growth. They need all kinds of energy, especially fossil fuels, to become modern and make people’s lives better.

Anyone who tries to prevent us from using these energy resources is denying us our right to improve our lives, and even our right to live, which is the most fundamental right of any human. That is wrong and immoral, and we will no longer tolerate it.

*Steven Lyazi is a student and worker in Kampala, Uganda. He served as special assistant to Congress of Racial Equality-Uganda director Cyril Boynes, until Mr. Boynes’ death in January 2015.

Phoenix Unlikely To Rise From Democratic Party’s Ashes – OpEd

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After almost four decades of disregard for a decomposing cadaver, party progressives appear ready to cremate the Democratic Party’s corpse and give it a requiem mass doubtful that their minority status will allow them to revive the party. Not the majority, however, who seem hopeful for a Lazarus’ resuscitation without a Jesus in their midst; a legion of career politicians tending to their own personal needs. Little wonder that Democratic members in Congress quickly have declared the Revolution brought in by Bernie Sanders, and represented in the progressive platform enacted in the summer, as dead on arrival, allowing for the De-evolution to continue under the leadership of two old generals: Nancy Pelosi (House) and Charles Schumer (Senate).

A mummified party led first by Bill Clinton and later by Barack Obama did fool a lion’s share of the population into thinking the Democratic Ass was alive and kicking, but this 2016 tell-tale presidential election has finally unfolded to tell the truth in contemporary American politics. The myth of a diverse but united Democratic Party has held as truth up to and including Obama’s presidency; however, Hillary Clinton, lacking the manifest and cunning scoundrelism of husband Bill, just couldn’t keep the raggedy and diverse troops marching in step without a single unifying drummer.

Although the Democratic Party continued to present itself as a big tent accommodating and giving shelter to diversity, be it large racial/ethnic minorities, or myriad other single- issue contingents, it never superimposed a common goal for all, a single banner to take to battle. Unlike in other memorable time – Bill Clinton’s presidential run in1992 – when James Carville’s “The economy, stupid!” was coined as a campaign battle cry to defeat Bush Senior, Hillary Clinton seemed to think she could defeat Trump without one. And Sanders’ gift to her of a modified version of that same slogan was not adopted when it could have won the day; an effective version absent of criticism for Obama’s handling of the economy.

It was the power-elite in the Democratic Party that force-exiled too many poor white Democrats into joining Trump’s bigopats. And an election that Democrats should have won by 10-15 million votes ended in an Electoral College fratricidal defeat… taking place in Rust Belt states where insurgent Democrats broke party ranks.

Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner’s interview with President Obama on November 9 the day after the presidential election-cataclysm provides us with a sober reality of the how and why of the Democratic Party’s demise in American politics: the alternating in governing by Tweedledee-Democrats and Tweedledum-Republicans to be no more.

In the interview, Barack Obama stated that when he turns over the keys of the federal government to Donald Trump, he (Obama) can claim “without equivocation” that the country is a lot better off, indicating the economy is stronger, the federal government works better, and the US standing in the world is higher.

Well, Mr. President, here’s where your “equivocation” takes place. The economy is stronger, true, but the benefits have been harvested by an upper few, with inequality between haves and have-not not just simply increasing but accelerating during his two terms in office. As for the federal government working better, that’s challengeable and could be logically refuted depending on the subjects involved in the relationship. And the claim of a better US standing in the world is just as debatable, perhaps more so than the prior claim. If anything, critics of Obama’s foreign policy could rightfully claim that improvement in global relations needs to be measured not by how the US is viewed by its allies and friends, but by its peaceful progress with adversaries and competitors. US’ deterioration in relations with Russia, originating in a profoundly neoconservative State Department, coupled with an ever-deteriorating situation in the Middle-East, weigh heavily on an overall failed foreign policy. Obviously, Obama’s Nobel Peace prize in 2009 was ridiculously premature, perhaps presented to him as prepaid expectations and not for a few months in office without tangible accomplishments.

One would have to be unrealistically optimistic to believe in a possible resurgence of the Democratic Party; not unless immediately taken over by a strong, dedicated progressive wing. And that has been quickly put to rest with Pelosi and Schumer taking the reins in Congress. For Progressivism to take root in America once again, as it did within the Democratic Party of the 1930’s, it will have to be seeded, and allowed to germinate and grow in a field of its own… and not just within the confines of a party that is nothing but a milder version of the predatory capitalism represented by the Republican Party.

Russia’s Manoeuvring Of Conflicts For Enhancing Military Exports – Analysis

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By Vidya Sagar Reddy Avuthu

Contrary to Western assessments that Russia’s military intervention in Syria would only deepen the economic crisis it is already facing, Vladimir Putin is tactfully turning this situation into an advantage. He is betting on the enormous Russian military-industrial complex with the logic that increasing the cash flow into this sector would create jobs and enhance military exports, reviving the economy. He is not alone in this thought. Foreign military sales is one of the principal sectors of the US national economy creating millions of jobs, supporting local industries, and promoting innovation.

Russia provided ideological and military support to Communist forces in Asia, influencing the outcome of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts during the Cold War. The fallout of these conflicts continues to overshadow emerging security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific. In this context, the Asia-Pacific region, which is grappling to respond to the rise of a regional hegemon, appears to be most promising for exporting Russian weapon systems.

It is hard to substantiate whether Russia is a direct stakeholder in the stability of the Asia-Pacific. Its principal support to China in the South China Sea dispute is more of a measure to obtain a reciprocal response from China in its own altercations in Europe and West Asia. The conflicts in Ukraine and Syria continue to interrupt Russia’s plans to establish a network of energy pipelines, which is a major source of revenue for the country. The deteriorated political relations with Ukraine also means a setback for Russia’s military exports since it is dependent on Ukraine-made engines and sensors.

Amid these tensions, Russia has swung to Asia-Pacific, concluding a string of strategic partnerships and securing export orders for its defense industry. China is set to buy 24 Russian Su-35 fighter jets and 36 S-400 air defense systems. India has also finalized a deal to buy the S-400 which only adds to the dominance of Russian military equipment in its arsenal. India and Russia are also discussing the exportation of jointly developed BrahMos cruise missiles to other countries such as Vietnam.

During the recent BRICS Summit in Goa, India finalized the $2 billion deal to lease a second nuclear powered attack submarine (SSN) from Russia. India is currently operating an Akula II class SSN, rechristened the INS Chakra, on lease since 2012 for a period of ten years. India will also be buying four improved Talwar class frigates from Russia for $3 billion. Two of these ships will be built in Russia and the other two in India with the former’s assistance. These four add to the six commissioned warships of the same class, all built in Russia.

The decision to let the initial two warships be built in Russia has come as a surprise since India has already built the next generation Shivalik-class frigates domestically and has approved the construction of seven follow-on Project 17A stealth frigates by Indian shipbuilders. India will also need to buy the required power plants for these new frigates independently from Ukraine as the latter refuses to export military equipment to Russia due to the ongoing conflict. The fact is that Russia has already semi-built these frigates in its shipyard, but is struggling to obtain the engines from Ukraine. The Indian-Russian deal will arrange for these engines to be supplied to Russia through a third party (India) and the finished platforms will be commissioned for the Indian Navy.

The cruise missile salvo launched from the Caspian Sea flotilla against the targets in Syria is not only a show of force for Russia but also a live demonstration for elevating the export potential of its missiles. Several international customers including a few countries in Southeast Asia have expressed interest in the Russian Klub cruise missiles. As Russia’s official arms exporter Rosoboron export puts it, this interest in cruise missiles leads to more orders for Russian warships and submarines because these cruise missiles require transportation and command and control platforms for deployment. Vietnam is keen to acquire land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles given the ever increasing threats from China to its territorial integrity. It has already purchased six Kilo class submarines from Russia, which will be armed with the Klub.

Russia’s military equipment has a steady demand in the Asia-Pacific and other regions, partly due to the absence of issue linkages such as the human rights record the Western democracies would entangle their prospective buyers with. Russia is also generally insensitive to the security interests of its clients as evidenced by large deals with Vietnam, China, and India despite those nations’ concerns about one another.

Building on this demand and increasing its political leverage, Russia is even mulling reopening Soviet-era bases in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. For example, Russia is in discussions with Egypt, which is keen on allowing Russia to operate military bases in the country, thereby increasing the latter’s military footprint in the Mediterranean. There is speculation that Russia is also interested in renewing bases in Cuba and Vietnam. This will allow Russia to closely monitor both US and Chinese naval activities, especially in the South China Sea.

Military might has always been a source of inspiration and pride for Russians, but military power does not automatically translate into economic well-being for the country. This is where Putin’s strategy comes into play, building on Russia’s vast military industrial apparatus for both international stature as well as the economic build up of the country. The Syrian conflict and the emerging security situation in the Asia-Pacific are being exploited for this purpose. The success of this economic strategy can only be awaited.

This article originally appeared in CIMSEC.


TPP And Malaysia: New Reality, Missed Opportunity – Analysis

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The effect of the end of the TPP on Malaysia goes beyond the immediate economic loss of increased benefits of free trade. It shifts the balance of power further towards China, while losing out on the chance for an external trade agreement to enforce better standards of business and governance practice.

By Rashaad Ali*

Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump has promised to repeal the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), and has in fact reaffirmed his commitment to withdraw from the landmark trade deal. Described as the “gold standard” for free trade agreements for its tariff-cutting measures and standards of compliance, it features 11 other countries, namely Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile. These countries stand to benefit economically by reducing or removing tariffs, while the United States is able to gain a strategic foothold in Asia.

All this is set to change with the current Obama administration suspending efforts to win congressional approval for the TPP, preferring to leave it to the incoming president and predominantly Republican lawmakers to handle. Prior to Trump’s latest announcement, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared the TPP useless without US participation.

Malaysia and its Hedging Strategy

From a Malaysian perspective, the threat of the end of the TPP has a number of repercussions that will affect both economic and political aspects of the country. When managing its relations with the US and China, Malaysia has practised a strategy of hedging itself against the two major powers.

While it accommodated the American pivot to Southeast Asia and negotiated on the TPP, Malaysia also courted China, opting to participate in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) while similarly expressing a strong desire for involvement in China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. China is Malaysia’s largest trading partner with an estimated total trade of US$100 billion, and on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent visit to Beijing, also signed bilateral deals worth US$34 billion.

Despite fears of Chinese encroachment, these deals appear to be strategy consistent with Malaysia’s foreign policy. However, the results of the US presidential election throw this into doubt. The new administration’s inward approach causes Malaysia to lose its leverage over the two countries, and whatever bargaining power it may have had may well be rescinded, strengthening China’s hand. The potential end of the TPP signals a strong withdrawal from Malaysia on the part of the US, leaving the way open for China. In light of these developments, Malaysia’s agreements with China should be re-examined considering the change in the status quo.

RCEP: The Remaining Option

The remaining option to the TPP is China’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), inclusive of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines and Singapore as well as Australia, India, Japan, Myanmar, New Zealand, South Korea and Thailand. Much like the TPP, it offers to reduce and remove various trade tariffs but without regulatory caveats.

For Malaysia’s developing economy, signing on to a trade deal would have given its economy a much needed injection. 2016 was an especially bad year, with a dependency on oil revenue exposing the economy’s weakness, slowing exports, a currency that continues to weaken and domestic issues such as 1MDB sorely affecting consumer confidence. What RCEP offers that the TPP does not however, is much less oversight and regulation on various aspects of economic freedom and liberalisation.

Easing Pressure for Compliance

This is another loss for Malaysia suffered due to the withdrawal of the TPP. Attached to the signing of the document were various other measures that signatory countries had to adhere to, such as stricter environmental laws, labour practices, and rules that govern state procurement of contracts. In the first two examples, countries are expected to abide by the new guidelines; Malaysia has in fact taken steps, albeit small, towards improving its labour laws. In the example of state procurement, a more transparent form of bidding would have drastically reduced the potential for collusion and corruption in the process of bidding for state contracts.

Signing the TPP would have required states to accede to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), theoretically reigning in the ability for state extraction. Despite exemptions in the agreement for bumiputera laws and the carving out of public-private partnerships, the TPP would have represented an opportunity to force institutional change in Malaysia’s governance.

By signing on to the trade deal, Malaysia would have had to adhere to its various standards and regulations, making government and business dealings more transparent and less vulnerable to corruption, while reducing or removing labour and environmental exploitation. The alternative in RCEP does not provide the same pressure.

Tilt Towards China?

A forced tilt towards China due to a new dawn in American politics seems a likely reality for Malaysia in the coming future. Indeed there are signs that the Malaysian government are cognisant of this fact. Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi recently stated that the country is willing to deepen its cooperation with China, including in areas of military. This followed statements by Prime Minister Najib Razak before the US election, where he spoke of pushing ties between Malaysia and China to new heights, as well as the benefits of the deals for the people of both countries for “decades to come”.

Malaysia will soldier on without the TPP. The real damage of its potential withdrawal is the loss of improvement in areas of governance. Economic freedom demands institutional change, and it was hoped that economic liberalisation could lead to greater democratisation in Malaysian politics. Despite a centralised government, a disjointed opposition and scandal-ridden administration, there is still room for progressive policy-making. With the imminent withdrawal of the TPP comes the removal of any external pressure to revamp and reform key institutions of governance in the country.

*Rashaad Ali is a Research Analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Where Giant Galaxies Are Born

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An international team of scientists, with IAC participation, has discovered that the biggest galaxies in the universe develop in cosmic clouds of cold gas. This finding, which was made possible using radio telescopes in Australian and the USA, is published in the journal Science.

Galaxies are usually grouped into clusters, huge systems comprising up to thousands of millions of these objects, in whose interior are found the most massive galaxies in the universe. Until now scientists believed that these “supergalaxies” formed from smaller galaxies that grow closer and closer together until they merge, due to gravitational attraction.

“In the local universe we see galaxies merging” said Bjorn Emonts, the first author of the article and a researcher at the Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA) in Madrid “and we expected to observe that the formation of supergalaxies took place in the same way, in the early (now distant) universe.”

To investigate this, telescopes were pointed towards an embryonic galaxy cluster 10 thousand million light years away, in whose interior the giant Spiderweb galaxy is forming, and discovered a cloud of very cold gas where the galaxies were merging. This enormous cloud, with some 100 thousand million times the mass of the Sun, is mainly composed of molecular hydrogen, the basic material from which the stars and the galaxies are formed. Previous studies had discovered the mysterious appearance of thousands of millions of young stars throughout the Spiderweb, and for this reason it is now thought that this supergalaxy condensed directly from the cold gas cloud.

Instead of observing the hydrogen directly, they did so using carbon monoxide, a tracer gas which is much easier to detect.

“It is surprising,” said Matthew Lehnert, second author of the article and researcher at the Astrophysics Institute of Paris, “how cold this gas is, at some 200 degrees below zero Celsius. We would have expected a lot of collapsing galaxies, which would have heated the gas, and for that reason we thought that the carbon monoxide would be much more difficult to detect.”

However, combining the interferometers VLA (Very Large Array) in New Mexico (USA) and the ATCA (Australia Telescope Compact Array) in Australia, they could observe and found that the major fraction of the carbon monoxide was not inthe small galaxies.

“With the VLA”, explained Helmut Dannerbauer, another of the authors of the article and researcher at the IAC who contributed to the detectoin of the molecular gas, “we can see only the gas in the central galaxy, which is one third of all the carbon monoxide detecte with the ATCA. This latter instrument, which is more sensitive for observing large structures, revealed an area of size 70 kiloparsecs (some 200,000 light years) with carbon monoxide distributed around the big galaxy, in the volumen populated by its smaller neighbours. Thanks to the two interferometers, we discovered the cloud of cosmic gas entangled among them”.

Ray Norris, another of the authors of the study and researcher at the CSIRO and Western Sydney University underlined that, “this finding shows just what we can manage to do from the ground with international collaboration.”

According to George Miley, a coauthor of the article, and whose group at the University of Leiden (the Netherlands) discovered and studied this embryonic cluster with the Hubble Space Telescope at the end of the 90’s: “Spiderweb is an astonishing laboratory, which lets us witness the birth of supergalaxies in the interiors of clusters, which are the “cosmic cities” of the Universe” And he concludes: “We are beginning to understand how these giant objects formed from the ocean of gas which surrounds them.”

Now it remains to understand the origin of the carbon monoxide.

“It is a byproduct of stellar interiors, but we are not sure where it came from, or how it accumulated in the centre of this cluster of galaxies. To know this we will have to look even further back into the history of the universe,” said Emonts.

Morocco Hosts World’s Largest Solar Plant – Analysis

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By Fabíola Ortiz

The ambitious Moroccan plan for harnessing heat coming from the sun in the Sahara desert and turning it into electricity has drawn international attention, also during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22), held in Marrakesh, between November 7-18.

Two hundred kilometres Northeast drive from the COP22 venue lies the 450 hectares Noor solar complex. When it starts fully operating in 2018, it will power over one million households and curb 760,000 tons per year of greenhouse gas emissions.

The whole Moroccan capital city Rabat fits in this power station said to be the world’s largest solar plant compared to the size of the European city of Barcelona. Noor is located at the desert town of Ouarzazate surrounded by the Atlas mountain range and its Berber villages. Named as the gate to the desert, Ouarzazate has also become the gate to tapping the solar energy.

“Since the world became aware in the Earth Summit Rio 92 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) of the urgent need to address climate change, the Kingdom of Morocco has resolutely sought to ensure that its proactive policy of sustainable development and environmental protection is in line with the international community’s global effort,” said the Moroccan King Mohammed VI, at the COP21 in Paris when the world leaders agreed on a deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the planet’s warming by the end of the century.

Morocco receives about 3,000 hours of sunlight per year, being the Sahara desert a perfect place to harness the sun’s rays. This North African country enjoys no fossil fuel reserves and it relies almost exclusively on imports to meet its domestic requirements.

In line with the Twenty-Second Conference of Parties in Marrakech and as part of the responsibility of proving its green credentials with climate commitments, the Noor complex is part of Morocco’s strategy to produce 42% of its power mix generated from renewable sources by 2020 – a goal that has been applauded by the UN.

Morocco publicized a series of constitutional, legislative and regulatory reforms. Energy transition has apparently become a top priority.

The country announced a US$13 billion plan for expanding wind, solar and hydroelectric power generation to increase its share of renewables in less than a decade to come.

Currently, the $9 billion Noor facilities generate 160 megawatts (MW). When the next two phases are completed and the solar turbines start running to its full potential, it is expected that Noor will generate more than 500MW. The next phases – Noor 2 and Noor 3 – are expected to begin their operations in 2017 and 2018,.

To finance the mega structure, Morocco has secured loans of US$519 million from the World Bank, 654 million euros from German bank KFW and partly from the African Development Bank, the European Commission and European Investment Bank.

The project is being developed by a consortium of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) together with ACWA Power – a developer, investor and operator owned by eight Saudi conglomerates and head-quartered in Saudi Arabia.

The company is currently operating in 11 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Southern Africa and South East Asia. The MASEN sells the electricity generated in Noor to the National Office for Electricity and Water.

“Morocco is making the best out of the resource it has, it has got sun and capability to develop industrial capacity. At the end of the day, we want to deliver stable and reliable electricity with a fix price and continuous supply for the next 25 years. It is fundamental for ground development and social wellbeing,” said Paddy Padmanathan, Chief Executive Officer of ACWA Power.

The power mega complex uses a technology called Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Its costs are higher because of the use of lenses and mirrors rather than the broadly known photovoltaic panels that have usually lower installation costs. On the other hand, the CSP technology allows to store around eight hours of energy. That means saving energy to use at nights and in cloudy days.

“We take the heat of the sun and run the steam turbine. We don’t need to use the electricity immediately because we are able to store it efficiently. That is the big advantage of the CSP system, it is much more versatile,” explained the civil engineer who has been the ACWA’s CEO since 2006.

Padmanathan is of the view that setting up renewable plants in remote areas where there are usually places that tend to have the poorer standards of living conditions is a way of “revitalizing remote regions on the back of investments like this”.

“Morocco has demonstrated that you can deploy this type of project with scale. It is replicable if you use a transparent procurement process”, he told IDN.

Asked if it can inspire other developing countries, Padmanathan said countries like Jordan, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia have shown interest in the Noor plant. “We also received visits from Peru and Chile”, he recalled. Those two countries share the Atacama desert in South America with huge potential of harnessing the sunlight for power generation.

Understanding Trump’s Beefed Up Economics – OpEd

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By Jonathan Power

Donald Trump is changing the right wing’s economic spots. He is doing what Franklin Roosevelt did at the time of the Great Depression by increasing government spending – although it was the rearmament brought on by entering World War 2 that was an even more important factor in lifting America out of the doldrums.

Trump is following what Hitler did so successfully before World War 2 when he rebuilt Germany’s economic strength with autobahns and industrial subsidies (not rearmament in the beginning, as is often said). He is walking in the footsteps of President Richard Nixon who when he changed course with a new economic policy said, “We are all Keynesians now”.

John Maynard Keynes was the greatest economist who ever lived. For reasons that were shameful politicians have not listened to his advice as often as they should. The Germans, with their urge to austerity, have gone the other way, carrying (or pushing) nearly every European state with them, apart from Poland and Sweden which did not follow the herd and now have the best economic growth record of the last few years.

But Obama has certainly been Keynesian. Inheriting an economy totally messed up by President George W. Bush and the collapse of the big bank, Lehman Brothers, he set about being a hands-on Keynesian. He has achieved a lot although he would have achieved a lot more if his ambitious spending plans hadn’t been constantly opposed and thwarted by the Republicans in Congress. The U.S. in recent years has by the year outshone the Europeans in economic development, apart from Sweden and Poland.

It is ironic that Trump wants to follow in the footsteps of Obama rather than the Congressional Republicans. He wants to prime the pump even more with a massive investment in infrastructure. Even building his “wall” (now to be a fence) on the border with Mexico will produce plenty of jobs! The Republicans will be compelled to support him.

What will the Europeans now do – refute him or emulate him? Angela Merkel is holding firm, even as I write chiding Greece to continue with its debilitating austerity program. Germany with its amazing successful exports can afford to make big mistakes by imposing austerity at home. Other, less successful, economies can’t.

Most economists agree on this. Most politicians including the top echelon of the European Commission have ignored their advice. Why the politicians in power all over Europe did this no one seems to have a satisfactory explanation. But, like lemmings, they took Europe over the cliff. Not even Obama could persuade them to turn back.

Austerity, a profoundly false concept, argues the Nobel Prize winner for economics in the New Statesman magazine, “has been pushed by politicians who have frightened people- orchestrated fear – with the idea that the economy could not but collapse under the burden of public debt … Austerity in the days of the Great Depression could do little, since a reduction of public expenditure adds to the inadequacy of private incomes and market demands, thereby tending to put even more people out of work.

Keynes in 1936 with his book “General Theory” ushered in the basic understanding that demand is important as a determinant of economic activity, and that expanding rather than cutting public expenditure may do a much better job of expanding employment and activity in an economy with unused capacity and idle labour.

In Europe over the last few years the austerity policy did not help in the announced objective of reducing the ratio of debt to GDP (national income), indeed, sometimes quite the contrary. Neither was it necessary in order to get necessary reforms such as longer working hours in some countries, raising the retirement age in all and the elimination of institutional rigidities such as labour markets in order to impose austerity.

These are quite separate things from the policies of austerity but politicians have mixed them up. Hence, for example, they have pushed in Greece and a number of other countries for pensions to be reduced rather than encouraging people to work more years. (Indeed that would help in other ways – by reducing the demand for immigrants.)

At last, after causing enormous unnecessary damage to countless people’s lives, European leaders, eyes slowly opening, have started to change their policies. They have begun to pursue a hybrid policy of somewhat weakened fiscal austerity with monetary expansion, thanks in part to the vision of Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, who has pumped trillions of euros into the economy.

Do policy makers understand that if they engineer rapid economic growth they will cut the deficits they worry about? It seems not, again with the exception of Sweden and Poland. Memories are short. Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama did just this. Donald Trump is going to do the same.

*Jonathan Power syndicates his opinion articles. He forwarded this and his previous Viewpoints for publication in IDN-INPS. Copyright: Jonathan Power.

US Gasoline Inventories, Consumption, Production And Exports Increased Over Past Year – Analysis

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As of November 25, U.S. gasoline inventories reached 226.1 million barrels, a 9.3 million barrel increase from the same time last year and the highest level for this time of year since at least 1990. Gasoline inventories have been elevated all year despite strong domestic consumption and exports. High gasoline crack spreads, the difference in value between a gallon of gasoline and a gallon of crude oil, have encouraged continued high utilization of U.S. refining capacity. The fall refinery maintenance season had less down-time compared with last year, helping to further drive high levels of production and inventory.

Consumption of gasoline in September, the most recent monthly data point, set a record high for the month at 9.5 million barrels per day (b/d), 203,000 b/d higher than the previous September record set in 2015. Weekly product supplied data indicate that strong demand for gasoline continued into the fall, with the second week in November setting a new high of 9.4 million b/d of finished motor gasoline product supplied compared with 9.1 million b/d at the same time last year.

screen-shot-2016-12-02-at-4-59-24-pmCrack spreads in the U.S. have remained relatively high despite a typical seasonal decrease. The New York Reformulated Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending (RBOB) to Brent crack spread dropped from 47 cents per gallon on November 1 to 25 cents per gallon on November 18. While rapid, this decline is common around the November timeframe and, relative to recent years, crack spreads remain high for the season, providing incentive for refineries to run (Figure 1).

The average New York RBOB to Brent crack spread through mid-November 2016, 33 cents per gallon, is the highest dating back to at least 2009 and is greater than spreads for all of November in 2015 and 2014 by 1/2 cent and 10 cents, respectively.

U.S. refinery and blender net production of finished motor gasoline was 10.3 million b/d in September, 303,000 b/d higher than the previous September. Refinery output remains strong even in the late fall; the first two weeks of November had a net output of 10.5 million b/d and 10.2 million b/d, respectively, compared with output of 9.7 million b/d and 9.6 million b/d for the same weeks last year.

Gasoline prices are closely linked to crude oil prices, with both relatively low compared with recent historical levels. The Cushing, Oklahoma, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) spot price on November 21 was $47.48 per barrel (b), above the November 2015 average of $42.44/b. However, this was well below the previous three-year (2013-2015) November average of $70.70/b. U.S. gasoline prices follow a similar pattern; the price for U.S. regular gasoline was $2.15 per gallon as of November 28, up 10 cents from the same time last year. However, 2016 prices for U.S. regular gasoline are still relatively low compared with the November average of $2.77 per gallon for the previous three years.

screen-shot-2016-12-02-at-5-00-45-pmIn addition to strong domestic gasoline demand, exports have also been high. September 2016 exports were 564,000 b/d, up 208,000 b/d over the year-ago level. The Gulf Coast (Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 3), accounted for 92% of total U.S. gasoline exports in September of this year. The bulk of U.S. exports go to Mexico, which alone accounted for 60% of total U.S. motor gasoline exports in September.

Beginning in late August, 2016, EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report began publishing weekly petroleum export estimates based on near-real-time export data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. gasoline exports have increased rapidly between September and early November. While weekly gasoline exports have declined sharply over the past several weeks, they remain well above monthly export levels since 2010 (Figure 2).

U.S. average regular gasoline and diesel retail prices dip slightly

The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price fell less than one cent from the previous week to $2.15 per gallon on November 28, up nearly 10 cents from the same time last year. The Rocky Mountain price fell four cents to $2.15 per gallon, while the West Coast price fell two cents to $2.57 per gallon. The East Coast and Gulf Coast prices each fell one cent to $2.16 per gallon and $1.91 per gallon, respectively. The Midwest price increased nearly three cents to $2.04 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price dropped less than one cent and remained at $2.42 per gallon on November 28, virtually the same as a year ago. The Rocky Mountain and Gulf Coast prices each dropped one cent to $2.45 per gallon and $2.29 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast price dropped less than one cent and remained at $2.73 per gallon, while the Midwest price was unchanged at $2.36 per gallon. The East Coast price rose less than one cent to $2.45 per gallon

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 1.9 million barrels last week to 100.8 million barrels as of November 25, 2016, 3.3 million barrels (3.2%) lower than a year ago. Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels and 0.3 million barrels, respectively, while East Coast and Midwest inventories each increased by 0.1 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 4.4% of total propane inventories.

Residential heating fuel prices increase

As of November 28, 2016, residential heating oil prices averaged nearly $2.40 per gallon, just over one cent per gallon more than last week and almost four cents per gallon higher than last year at this time. The average wholesale heating oil price is almost $1.59 per gallon, nearly four cents per gallon more than last week and 16 cents per gallon higher than a year ago.

Residential propane prices averaged nearly $2.08 per gallon, almost two cents per gallon more than last week and about 11 cents per gallon more than one year ago. Wholesale propane prices averaged $0.64 per gallon, two cents per gallon more than last week and 14 cents per gallon more than last year’s price.

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