The first assault of the new Trump administration and Republican Congress upon Social Security has been launched. It comes in the form of release of a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, which of course these days is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Congressional Caucus.

Using some financial sleight-of-hand, this CBO report pushes forward by two years the date at which its ideologically driven experts claim Social Security benefits will exhaust the Trust Fund, and since the Social Security program is required to be self-financing, the date at which, barring adjustments by Congress in the program’s funding and/or benefit payment levels, promised benefits would have to be cut by what the CBO claims will have to be 31%.

Such a cut would clearly be a staggering blow to the finances and livelihoods of nation’s retirees, dependents and the disabled.

This end-of-the-year CBO report is at odds with a report issued earlier this year by the Trustees of the Social Security Administration, which projected that the Trust Fund, barring any changes in taxes or benefit payments, would be tapped out in 2033, and that at that point benefits, barring some fixes in Social Security financing, would have to be cut by an also horrific but far lower 21% (with the remaining 79% of benefit payments being covered by current employee FICA taxes being paid into the system).

How did the projection on Social Security move from a cut in benefit payments of by just over a fifth being required in 17 years to a cut by almost a third being required in just 15 years?

Well, the CBO decided, in its wisdom, that the estimates of economic trends being used by the SSA’s Trustees — a group about evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees, with Democrats having a slight edge — were too optimistic.

Specifically, for example, the CBO gnomes are projecting that the interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes will only be at 1.7% in 2026, rising to just 2.3% in 2046. Since the Trust Fund — composed of FICA taxes paid by workers — is invested by law entirely in these 10-year notes, that’s a pretty low rate of return to be projecting. In contrast, the Trustees, in their 2016 report earlier this year, projected 10-year rates in 2016 of 2.4%, rising to 2.7% in 2031. For the record, the 10-year rate today is 2.51%, well above even the Trustee’s projection, and almost a percentage point higher than the latest CBO figure for the year.

The CBO is also projecting a slower rate of wage growth than did SSA Trustees, and thus is predicting a lower amount of FICA tax payments into the fund, as well as a further decline in labor participation rates and productivity growth, and other factors that all point to reduced contributions to the Trust Fund going forward.

Remember, though, that the Trump campaign and the Republican Senate and House candidates running for election, have been all about boosting jobs, raising incomes and lowering taxes, all of which should logically, if it were to come to pass, improve Social Security finances, not worsen them.

This leaves us with only two ways to look at the new CBO report, which will now be cited ad nauseam by Republicans in Congress as a reason to cut back on Social Security benefits and on annual inflation adjustments to those benefits, to raise the retirement age for receiving full benefits (a disaster especially for poor workers who cannot continue the hard physical labor many of their jobs require), and to raise the FICA tax rate, already a regressive flat 6.2% for employees and employers. Either Trump and Congress are not really going to try to boost jobs and income, or are going to try using measures like deregulation and trade sanctions on imports that will not work, or the CBO is just providing a fraudulent projection to give a boost to Republican plans to gut Social Security.

So what’s really going on here?

It’s classic scare tactics.

The Republican game, one in which they are, as always, being shamelessly supported by many conservative Democrats, as well as by nearly every financial advisor in the financial industry, and by financial industry lobbyists, is and has been to frighten younger workers into thinking that they are never going to receive Social Security benefits by the time they reach retirement age. The goal is to drive a wedge between older workers and retirees on the one hand, who are looking at Social Security benefits as the mainstay of their lives in retirement (half of all Americans have no retirement savings — no IRA or 401(k) and no pension — and of those with savings, the average amount is $60,000 per family, according to the Economic Policy Institute, enough to pay out just $2400 per year in interest for life), and younger workers, who are being told Social Security will be going bust before they retire.

In 2016, according to the Social Security Administration, 61 million Americans, or about one-fifth of the country’s population and nine our of 10 of the nation’s elderly and disabled, are receiving Social Security benefits. Of these, 48% of couples and 71% of single retirees depend on those benefits for 50% or more of their income. Furthermore, 21% of retired married couples and 43% of single retirees depend on those benefits for 90% or more of their income. Cutting Social Security benefits, or reducing them by stealth through continued under adjustment for inflation each year, will wreak havoc with their lives.

Meanwhile the 75-year-old system, which has never missed a payment, has long been supported by all workers, young and old, first because of confidence that it will pay promised benefits, and equally importantly, because children and grandchildren paying into the system know that it is supporting their parents and grandparents, and helping to keep them out of poverty and also off the backs of their offspring. There is, in other words, an inherent solid logic in seeing Social Security as a national good for people of all ages.

The Republican strategy is to destroy this universal support by convincing the young that their FICA taxes are going into a black hole and that those funds won’t be available for them when it’s their turn to retire.

The idea is to pretend that Social Security is like an investment in stocks and bonds, and that the return is not very good in comparison to investing money in privately managed accounts (that’s what the Wall Street financial community wants: to get their hands on all those FICA funds totalling nearly a trillion dollars a year!).

But Social Security is not like a 401(k) fund. It is a government program funded by taxes and with benefits set by Congress. It is a wholly political construct, and it will be whatever the public demands it to be. Sadly, because most of the corporate media have bought into the Republican-led scam that Social Security is just an investment program with a poor return, many Americans are losing confidence in its future. And so for years, during which, as even now, small tweaks in the funding of the program could have made the program fully solvent right through the period when a large population of Baby Boomers will be increasing benefit outlays, and into the foreseeable future, and that in fact would allow it to be expanded (European public retirement programs pay benefits that are about twice as large as those paid by the US Social Security system!), nothing has been done.

Make no mistake: this CBO report is the opening salvo of an all-out assault on Social Security, as Republicans, now thanks to Trump’s presidential win, seek to take advantage of their full control of the levers of power in Washington for at least the next two or more likely four years, try to do as much damage to the program as possible.

The only answer is for progressives to organize massively in support of this last and most critical piece of the old New Deal legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt. It will require massive protests in Washington and major cities of the country, incessant pressure on all elected officials, and a concerted educational program so that all Americans understand that this program is critical to their and their parents’ and grandparents’ survival.

The truth is that despite a decade of dithering by Republicans and limp Democrats also anxious to cut the program’s cost on behalf of their Wall Street contributors, Social Security could be fully funded for another 75 years or more by simply eliminating the cap on income subject to the FICA tax (currently only the first $118,500 of income is taxes, rising to 127,200 next year), so that all income is taxed, and benefits could even be expanded by adding a small transaction tax of a fraction of a percent on all short-term stock trading (a measure that would not impact long term investors or retirement funds).

It is a critical time for this organizing to begin because the attack on Social Security promises to be rapid and brutal. On the upside, rallying and organizing around a defense of this program can be the core of a new progressive movement that can address all the key issues facing us in the year and presidential term ahead. Just as an example, it would be difficult to rescue, and impossible to expand Social Security benefits if Trump and Congress go ahead with announced plans to expand spending on the military instead of cutting military spending.

President-elect Donald Trump is accusing President Obama of putting up “roadblocks” to a smooth transition.

In reality, I think President Obama has been too cooperative with Trump.

In the waning days of his administration, I’d recommend Obama take the following last stands:

1. Name Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President power to fill any vacancy during the recess of the Senate. The Supreme Court is no exception: Justice William Brennan began his Court tenure with a recess appointment in 1956. Any appointments made this way expire at the end of the next Senate session. So if Obama appointed Garland on January 3, the appointment would last until December 2017, the end of the first session of the 115th Congress.

2. Use his pardoning authority to forgive “Dreamers.” With a flick of his pen, Obama could forgive the past and future civil immigration offenses of the nearly 750,000 young people granted legal status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Without an immigration offense on their records, they could more easily apply for legal status.

3. Impose economic sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election – including blocking all loans or investments by Russian nationals in all real estate ventures in the United States.

4. Protect the civil service from the Trump transition. Instruct all cabinet departments and agencies not to respond to any Trump transition team inquiry that might intimidate any individual members of the civil service.

5. Issue an executive order protecting the independence of all government fact-finding agencies: Included would be the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Energy Information. (Trump could repeal the order, but that would be politically costly.)

6. Issue an executive order protecting the independence of all Inspectors General in every cabinet department and agency. (Ditto.)

7. Issue a report on possible tax and benefit cuts, showing which state’s citizens will most benefit from tax cuts going to the richest Americans and largest corporations (overwhelmingly the citizens of blue states), and which will lose the most from cuts in Medicaid and repeal of Obamacare (overwhelmingly red states), along with estimates of such gains.

By Edward Hunt*

During its final years in office, the Obama administration has devised a new form of warfare with major implications for how the U.S. government confronts its enemies. With the ability to quickly locate and eliminate potential adversaries with little to no risk to U.S. forces, the Obama administration has begun to eradicate some of its main enemies in a new kind of exterminatory warfare.

So far, the Obama administration has applied its innovation to militant groups throughout the Middle East and the surrounding area. Its primary target has been the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), but it has expanded its campaign to include IS forces in Libya and al-Shabab in Somalia.

Remarkably, administration officials have made no secret of their intentions. Receiving significant cooperation from their allies and facing no serious opposition from the U.S. public, administration officials have confirmed that they intend to eradicate their targets as quickly as possible. They have promised to maintain their operations through the end of their time in office, and they expect to see comparable operations maintained well into the future.

The Goal: Eradicate ISIS

The Obama administration first began to develop its new model of exterminatory warfare in the late summer of 2014 when it faced a significant new challenge from IS. As IS began to acquire control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, the Obama administration began working on a new military approach to confront the militant group and eventually wipe it out.

On September 10, 2014, the day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Obama introduced his administration’s plans in a speech to the nation. From the White House, Obama announced that he had initiated a new military program to “degrade,” “destroy,” and “eradicate” IS. The military campaign “will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist,” he specified. With his remarks, Obama introduced a new military program to completely eliminate IS, saying that he hoped to contribute to a broader trend in world history in which “those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth.”

In the time since Obama announced the plans, additional officials have articulated similar goals. Although U.S. officials do not typically announce that they are planning to vanquish certain forces from the Earth, a number of administration officials have left no doubt that they intend to completely eradicate IS.

This past June, State Department official Brett McGurk provided the most direct confirmation of the administration’s intentions. After presenting the White House press corps with a map that showed various areas that remained under the control of IS, McGurk stated that “we have to wipe them off this map.”

A few months later, Secretary of State John Kerry made a comparable point. As he worked to put together a new program for the U.S. and Russian governments to work together to target militant groups in Syria, Kerry said that both the United States and Russia “have a mutual interest” in “terminating ISIL/Daesh, as fast as possible.”

Earlier this month, Colonel John Dorrian provided additional confirmation. Speaking to the Pentagon press corps, Dorrian announced that the U.S. government is working to terminate IS forces in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where coalition forces are now battling the militant group. The IS forces “are really the worst people in the world, and they have to be eradicated from Mosul as efficiently and as quickly as possible,” Dorrian stated.

As part of the campaign, U.S. forces have also devastated IS forces to the west of Mosul. ”We’ve conducted various strikes out there,” Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of coalition forces, acknowledged in a separate press briefing. “I don’t require a lot of justification for doing that,” he added. “There is ISIL out there that needs killing, so we’re killing them.”

Indeed, U.S. officials are waging a major military campaign to eradicate IS. Arguing that that the militant group poses a special threat to the Middle East and the rest of the world, they have made it their goal to completely eliminate the organization. “We want to wipe ISIL entirely off this map,” McGurk confirmed once again this past week.

In other words, U.S. officials have decided to wage exterminatory warfare against IS.

Assassinating Leaders

To wage exterminatory warfare against the Islamic State, the Obama administration has employed a number of specific measures. Taking advantage of the extraordinary air power of the U.S. military, the Obama administration has waged an unprecedented air campaign to kill its targets.

The Obama administration has been especially effective at killing IS’s senior leaders. Since its first began its military campaign against IS in August 2014, the Obama administration has killed hundreds of senior leaders, according to U.S. officials. “It’s a short career as a leader in ISIL,” U.S. Colonel Steve Warren acknowledged during a press briefing in March 2016. “You’re not going to last very long. You won’t make it to retirement.” The main reason, Warren specified, is that coalition forces are constantly killing IS leaders as well as their replacements. “We’ll kill them,” Warren stated. In some cases, “we’ve gone three deep in a position.”

Moreover, U.S. officials insist that they must continue with their assassination program. As new leaders rise to fill the ranks, U.S. officials keep targeting them for elimination. “We must keep systematically eliminating every key leader we find, and we must deny them safe haven wherever they may seek it,” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has insisted.

As they have grown increasingly effective at killing IS leaders, administration officials have also grown increasingly confident in their operations. For example, McGurk recently declared that the U.S. government would soon succeed in killing the Islamic State’s “caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “It’s a matter of time until we eliminate him,” McGurk stated. “His days are very much numbered.”

After making his point, McGurk also confirmed that coalition forces would continue with the broader program of assassinating all IS leaders. “And those are operations we don’t always talk about, but that is happening every single day, every single night,” McGurk stated. “When we see their leaders, we make sure that their leaders are eliminated.”

In short, U.S. officials are waging a major assassination program in which they are killing hundreds of IS leaders. Not only have they made it their goal to assassinate all of the current leaders of IS, but they have continuously worked to kill anyone who steps in to replace them. “And as these leaders are replaced, we target and kill their replacements,” McGurk has confirmed.

Exterminating Combatants

As U.S. officials have worked to systematically eliminate the Islamic State’s leaders, they have also conducted a far more extensive campaign against the militant organization. Over the past two years, U.S. officials have worked with coalition forces to launch more than 15,000 airstrikes against IS as part of a comprehensive military campaign to systematically kill as many IS fighters as possible.

This past August, Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland described the extent of the campaign during a press briefing that was hosted by the Pentagon. In his statement, MacFarland explained that coalition forces have killed tens of thousands of IS fighters. “We estimate that over the past 11 months we’ve killed about 25,000 enemy fighters,” MacFarland stated. “When you add that to the 20,000 estimated killed prior to our arrival, that’s 45,000 enemy taken off the battlefield.” Moreover, MacFarland noted that it has become increasingly easy to kill IS militants. “We don’t see them operating nearly as effectively as they have in the past,” he noted. The trend “makes them even easier targets for us so as a result they’re attrition has accelerated here of late.”

Continuing with his remarks, MacFarland then shared some of the reasons why IS forces have become such easy targets. For starters, he noted that the group’s leaders have been forcing noncombatants to guard various locations. “They can grab a bunch of people minding their own business off the street, throw them in the back of a pickup truck, and drop them off at a checkpoint with some AKs and say, ‘defend this checkpoint,’” MacFarland explained. “And they’ve done that. We’ve seen them do that in places.”

In addition, MacFarland noted that IS leaders have begun to replace fighters with administrative people, who typically have no combat training. “We know that they’ve taken a lot of their administrative folks and pushed them out to the front lines,” MacFarland stated. “They’re not really supposed to be there.” Consequently, MacFarland found that it had become much easier to kill IS targets. “And as soon as they demonstrate hostile intent, then we’ll take them out,” he said.

Through such efforts, U.S. officials have waged a devastating war against the Islamic State. By continually assassinating IS leaders and targeting any IS operatives on the battlefield, including those people who may have been forced into working for the organization, U.S. officials have killed tens of thousands of people and given very real meaning to their promise to eradicate IS.

Extending the Campaign

In fact, the Obama administration has recently begun to extend its campaign to eradicate the Islamic State. Viewing its program against IS in Iraq and Syria as a great success, the Obama administration has expanded its program to target the group’s other branches. This past November, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter confirmed the move when he noted that “in addition to destroying ISIL in Iraq and Syria, we’re also pursuing and destroying them everywhere else in the world.”

As part of its broader mission, the Obama administration has focused much of its effort on the IS branch in Libya. Since the branch has attracted thousands of IS fighters, the Obama administration has identified the branch as its next major target for elimination. Certainly, “they need to be taken out,” a senior State Department official said earlier this year. “There’s going to be, I think, a substantial effort required to extirpate them entirely.”

In June 2016, the Obama administration then began working to fulfill its objective, using the same model it was using to eradicate IS from Iraq and Syria. “They will eventually all be eliminated,” State Department official McGurk declared in late October 2016, referring to IS fighters in the Libyan city of Sirte. “That’s simply a military proposition and it is a matter of time.” Moreover, McGurk confirmed that coalition forces had already begun to achieve their objectives. “We are removing their leaders from the battlefield one by one and in a quite dramatic fashion,” he noted. In early November, McGurk then confirmed that coalition forces had largely succeeded in their efforts. Currently, “if you look at Sirte, Daesh has almost been entirely eliminated from Sirte,” McGurk observed.

More recently, U.S. Special Envoy for Libya Jonathan M. Winer has also confirmed that coalition forces have largely eliminated their targets. There has been “rapid progress” in the effort “to eradicate ISIL from the city and surrounding areas,” Winer noted in a hearing before members of Congress.

Indeed, the Obama administration has made swift progress in its campaign to eradicate IS fighters in Libya. Although administration officials have not disclosed exactly how many IS fighters have been killed in the operations, they made it clear that coalition forces have quickly eliminated the great bulk of their targets. Ultimately, “it was important to eliminate them” and “we did that,” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter acknowledged last week.

Applying the Model

Having devised a powerful new model of exterminatory warfare, the Obama administration has also experimented with additional applications. Rather than limiting its new approach to IS and its offshoots, the Obama administration has applied its model to other militant groups around the world.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration provided a powerful signal of its willingness to wage exterminatory warfare against other militant groups when it launched airstrikes against the militant group al-Shabab in Somalia, killing about 150 al-Shabab fighters in a single attack. It was “a very successful strike,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook announced at the time. Moreover, the strike was quite significant because of the people who were targeted. As The New York Times reported, the strike was “a sharp deviation from previous American strikes, which have concentrated on the group’s leaders, not on its foot soldiers.” In other words, the Obama administration launched the strike to eliminate al-Shabab members that could be seen as having hostile intent, just as it has been doing in Iraq and Syria.

More recently, administration officials have also confirmed that they harbor much greater ambitions for their mission in Somalia. No longer willing to tolerate the existence of al-Shabab in the country, they have concluded that they must eradicate the group.  “We’ve got a major planned offensive to really sort of, I hope, terminate the al-Shabaab challenge in Somalia,” Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed this past September.

In fact, the offensive has already begun. As The New York Times has disclosed in a series of recent reports, coalition forces have been steadily escalating their ongoing military operations against al-Shabab over the past year, mainly by using the same tactics that have been used against IS and its offshoots. In other words, the Obama administration is now applying its new model of exterminatory warfare to al-Shabab, demonstrating its willingness to apply its approach to other militant groups around the world.

The Long-Term Outlook

As the Obama administration has devised and implemented its new model of exterminatory warfare, it has also made it clear that the U.S. government is only just beginning to apply the new approach to U.S. enemies. Although the Obama administration insists that its current targets will soon be eliminated, it expects that the U.S. government will continue to wage similar kinds of warfare well into the future.

For the most part, administration officials have based their predictions on their expectations for their ongoing military campaign against the Islamic State. Concerned that certain elements of IS might survive the military assault and perhaps even regroup under a new name, administration officials have said that there will continue to be a need to eliminate new threats. President Obama made the point this past August when he announced that “even as we need to crush ISIL on the battlefield, their military defeat will not be enough.” Certain “networks will probably sustain themselves even after ISIL is defeated in Raqqa and Mosul.” In other words, Obama believed that new threats will emerge and will need to be eliminated. Moving forward, “we will dismantle these networks also,” Obama promised.

A few weeks later, U.S. General Joseph L. Votel made a similar point during a press briefing at the Pentagon. In the years ahead, “we will continue to deal with the next evolution of ISIL,” Votel stated. In fact, people should not get “the impression that when we finish with Mosul or Raqqa that we’re done,” he added. “We’re not. We will continue to deal with them.”

More recently, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has made the same prediction. After noting in a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations that IS will probably “morph into something else or other similar extremist groups will be spawned,” Clapper argued that the U.S. government would continue working to confront the new threats. “And I believe we’re going to be in the business of suppressing these extremist movements for a long time to come,” Clapper noted.

In short, officials in the Obama administration largely agree that the U.S. government has only just begun applying the administration’s new form of exterminatory warfare to militant groups around the world. Administration officials may insist that they are going to eliminate IS and other militant groups, but they also expect that their operations will spawn new groups that will need to be confronted in similar ways.

The Final Factor

Of course, the architects of the new exterminatory warfare have also had to deal with one additional factor that they had not initially expected: the victory of Donald Trump in the recent presidential election. Currently, it is unclear how the incoming Trump administration will proceed with the ongoing wars of eradication.

Certainly, Trump has signaled that he intends to direct similar operations against U.S. enemies. During the presidential campaign, Trump pledged in a radio commercial to “quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS.” Moreover, Trump has appeared more than willing to escalate military operations. In contrast to the Obama administration, which has primarily worked to eradicate the leaders and fighters of its targets, Trump has suggested that it will be necessary to eliminate the family members as well. “You have to take out their families,” Trump insisted.

Trump has since clarified his remarks, saying that he only intends to “go after” families and not kill them, but he has also made it clear that he maintains the same overall objective. When he delivered his major policy speech on terrorism this past August, Trump promised to wage major military campaigns to eradicate IS and other militant groups. “My administration will aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS,” Trump stated. It will also “decimate Al Qaeda,” he added.

Indeed, Trump has indicated that he intends to perpetuate the new form of exterminatory warfare. Although it remains unclear whether Trump will escalate the operations to include families and other civilians, he has criticized Obama for not going far enough, signaling that he intends to implement more aggressive policies. Consequently, it remains likely that the officials in the Obama administration will see their innovation applied and extended under the Trump administration, with the United States waging exterminatory warfare well into the future.

*Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary. Originally published in Lobelog.

Responding to Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov’s complaint about Moscow’s unilateral taking of more funds from the regions – see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/12/minnikhanov-slams-moscows-unilateral.html — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared that “Tatarstan must know its place” and not expect any concessions from the center (vip-rm.info/?p=2806).

In short, what the Moscow leader was saying is that Tatarstan should simply put up and shut up rather than think that it has any rights even to raise the kind of question that is likely on the minds of many in regions from which more money is being taken and thus the Russian constitution’s talk about federalism is just that, talk and only talk.

In a commentary for Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir Service, Ayrat Fayzrakhmanov and Artur Khaziyev says that Medvedev’s hardline is certain to be counter-productive not only in Tatarstan but across the Russian Federation however popular it may make him in Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin (idelreal.org/a/28202502.html).

At a time of economic difficulty and budgetary stringency, they write, it is “completely natural that donor regions don’t like paying more to the central budget and thus it is a normal situation when one of their heads expresses dissatisfaction about such things.” To act otherwise, as Medvedev has done, thus is profoundly troubling.

In Russia today, however, “such natural expressions are viewed as thunder from out of a blue sky,” as something that should not be tolerated, Fayzrakhmanov and Khaziyev say. Indeed, as they point out, Medvedev directly declared that all such talk “on this issue must “stop now.”

Medvedev’s reaction, they continue, is “a disturbing signal not only and even not so much for the regions. It is one for the country as a whole. The stability of the political system is the result of maintaining a balance of interests in it, among various social strata, among people with varied views, and between donor regions and donor recipients.”

After all, as they reasonably point out, “how can a balance of interests be found if the various sides are prohibited from raising them?” And that is especially true when there is an economic crisis and when the pie to be divided is getting smaller not larger, forcing money to be shifted from one group to another.

Thus, it is wrong to dismiss what Minnikhanov said as a reflection of Tatarstan’s special case as the only republic with treaty relations with Moscow and as one of the few donors. “It s completely possible,” the two analysts write, that he “expressed what almost every second subject of the federation now thinks.”

And that is especially likely to be true today, Fayzrakhmanov and Khaziyev conclude, “when requirements for spending are being shifted onto the shoulders of the regions while incomes are ever more being concentrated in Moscow.” In short, Medvedev hasn’t ended this conflict: he has simply raised the stakes.

This galaxy has a far more exciting and futuristic classification than most — it hosts a megamaser. Megamasers are intensely bright, around 100 million times brighter than the masers found in galaxies like the Milky Way. The entire galaxy essentially acts as an astronomical laser that beams out microwave emission rather than visible light (hence the ‘m’ replacing the ‘l’).

A megamaser is a process where some components within a galaxy (like gas clouds) are in the right stimulated physical condition to radiate intense energy (in this case, microwaves).

This megamaser galaxy is named IRAS 16399-0937 and is located over 370 million light-years from Earth. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image belies the galaxy’s energetic nature, instead painting it as a beautiful and serene cosmic rosebud. The image comprises observations captured across various wavelengths by two of Hubble’s instruments: the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).

NICMOS’s superb sensitivity, resolution, and field of view gave astronomers the unique opportunity to observe the structure of IRAS 16399-0937 in detail. They found it hosts a double nucleus — the galaxy’s core is thought to be formed of two separate cores in the process of merging.

The two components, named IRAS 16399N and IRAS 16399S for the northern and southern parts respectively, sit over 11,000 light-years apart. However, they are both buried deep within the same swirl of cosmic gas and dust and are interacting, giving the galaxy its peculiar structure.

The nuclei are very different. IRAS 16399S appears to be a starburst region, where new stars are forming at an incredible rate. IRAS 16399N, however, is something known as a LINER nucleus (Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Region), which is a region whose emission mostly stems from weakly-ionized or neutral atoms of particular gases. The northern nucleus also hosts a black hole with some 100 million times the mass of the sun.

By Mary Rezac

The story of Sister Teresita Castillo and the supposed Marian apparitions of Lipa City, Philippines reads something like a mystery novel.

A negative judgement given in a document signed by local bishops and subsequent suppression of the devotion most likely drove the visionary nun out of the convent.

Years later, some bishops involved in the disapproval of the case allegedly came forward with deathbed confessions, saying they only ruled against the apparitions on threat of excommunication.

A document from the 1950s that would further clarify the case is still being kept secret in the archives of the Vatican.

Then in May of this year, the local Archbishop Ramon C. Arguelles announced that the Holy See had reiterated its negative judgement on the supernatural nature of the apparitions. The reiteration was a rebuttal to the archbishop, who had a few months prior announced (without Vatican approval) that the apparition had been reapproved as supernatural.

The exchange was just the latest in a decades-long ping-pong match between the Vatican and the local clergy over whether or not the popular local devotion should be officially approved.

As it currently stands, the apparitions of Mary in Lipa – known as Mary, Mediatrix of all Grace – are officially considered “not supernatural in nature” by the Holy See.

The highest recognition that the Catholic Church gives to an alleged miracle is that it is “worthy of belief.” If investigations determine an event to be fraudulent or lacking in supernatural character, a rejection may be issued.

Alternatively, the Church may declare that there is nothing contrary to the faith in a supposed miraculous phenomenon – but without making a determination on whether a supernatural character is present.

However, in an unprecedented move in this case, the Lipa apparitions are not considered supernatural, but local devotion is still allowed.

“I believe it to be the singular case in history where you have a negative judgement, but the devotion is allowed,” Michael O’Neill, a Catholic miracle researcher and author who runs the website miraclehunter.com, told CNA.

Visions in gardens and rose petals from heaven

This unique, mysterious and still-contentious case all began with a young nun in a quiet convent garden in 1948.

Sr. Teresita, also known as Sr. Teresing, was just 21 years old when allegedly, Mary began appearing to her in the garden of her Carmelite convent in Lipa City. On September 12, 1948, the young nun was outside praying when one of the garden vines began to shake. She then heard the voice of the Virgin Mary, who asked Teresita to kiss the ground and return to the same spot for fifteen days.

Sr. Teresita returned, and Mary reportedly appeared to her on a cloud, dressed in simple white robes with a small belt, hands clasped, and a golden Rosary hanging from her right hand.

According to the visionary nun, throughout her 19 appearances that year, Mary stressed humility, penance, prayers for the clergy and the Pope, and to pray the Rosary. Teresita reported that there was one secret for herself, one for the Carmel convent in Lipa City, one for China, one for the entire world from the Blessed Mother.

At her final appearance on November 12, 1948, Mary reportedly called herself by the title “Mediatrix of All Grace.” Also associated with the apparition are rose petals that seemed to fall from heaven, and appear to be emblazoned with images of Jesus, Mary and the Saints.

The mysterious negative ruling

Fast forward three years later, to 1951. Sr. Teresita left the convent sometime in 1950, likely because of all the controversy surrounding the apparitions.

The local bishop, Alfredo Verzosa y Florentin, had approved the veneration of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Grace, and the devotion easily grew in popularity in the already-Marian spirituality of the Filipino faithful.

Despite the approval from the local bishop, a committee of Church hierarchy in the Philippines declared on April 11, 1951, that “there was no supernatural intervention in the reported extraordinary happenings including the shower of rose petals in Lipa.”

The statement also contained the contentious phrase “until final decision on the matter will come from the Holy See”.

Bishop Rufino Santos, who became apostolic administrator after the decision, ordered that no petals be given to anyone by the Lipa Carmelite community; and that the statue of Our Lady, Mediatrix be withdrawn from public view.

Veneration of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Grace remained officially disallowed for decades after the judgement of the committee, until February of 1990.

On February 11, 1990, the nephew of Bishop Cesar M. Guerrero, one of the signers of the 1951 negative judgment, swore in an affidavit that his uncle signed the document under duress and was a believer in the authenticity of the apparitions, according to a book about the Lipa apparitions by June Keithley. The Catholic Bishops Conference in the Philippines did not respond by press time to requests for comment on the matter.

Local devotion grows

Later that year, a sister at the Lipa Carmel convent requested on her deathbed that the statue of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace be brought back for veneration. The community obliged, and the statue was displayed in the convent chapel the next day.

Soon after, Msgr. Mariano Gaviola, Archbishop of Lipa at the time, lifted the ban from Bishop Rufino Santos and allowed the statue to be displayed.

In 2005, Most Reverend Ramon C. Arguelles, the new and still-current Archbishop of Lima, kicked off a campaign to further spread devotion and to place a statue of the Mediatrix of All Grace in parishes throughout the country, and publicly professed his personal devotion and belief in the apparition on numerous occasions.

The ping-pong match continues

Archbishop Arguelles felt so passionately about the devotion that on Nov. 12, 2009, on the 61st anniversary of Mary’s alleged final appearance to Sister Teresita, he officially lifted the 1951 ban on public veneration of the image, and formed a new commission to re-examine the apparition and related phenomena.

Once again, about a year later, the Vatican shut it down.

“We, the undersigned Archbishops and bishops, constituting for the purpose a special Commission, having attentively examined and reviewed the evidence and testimonies collected in the course of repeated, long and careful investigations, have reached the unanimous conclusion and hereby officially declare that the above mentioned evidence and testimonies exclude any supernatural intervention in the reported extraordinary happenings – including the shower of petals – at the Carmel of Lipa. This declaration is the official communication of the final decision on the matter, as approved by the Holy See,” the bishops said in a statement.

But Archbishop Arguelles’ personal faith in the devotion did not budge. After declaring in another homily his personal devotion and belief in the apparitions, he released an official statement of approval of the apparitions on Sept. 12, 2015 declaring “that the events and apparition of 1948 also known as the Marian phenomenon in Lipa and its aftermath even in recent times do exhibit supernatural character and is worthy of belief.”

Which brings the saga to this past Spring, when the archbishop once again had to revoke his statement of official approval of the supernatural nature of the apparitions.

It’s likely the first time ever that the Vatican and a local bishop have had so much back and forth over a supposed apparition, O’Neill said.

“This is completely historic that the archbishop flipped over a Vatican confirmation of a previous judgement, and historic that the Vatican has come back over and flipped back a statement of the local bishops; those two things have never happened before,” he said.

What’s the problem?

What makes the alleged apparitions and related phenomena – the rose petals – so contentious?

O’Neill said that while it is not known for sure, there are a few reasons that the Holy See may be hesitant to declare the apparitions as supernatural.

One of these reasons, he said, may be because Sr. Teresita’s first mystical experience was actually an encounter with the devil.

“There has always been the question of whether the devil was disguised in further apparitions,” he said.

Another issue could be the complexity of the various related phenomena surrounding the apparition, O’Neill said, including the shower of rose petals and a claim from several children who said they saw the statue come to life.

“So when you look at this – do you approve the whole thing? Or do you approve just the apparitions? Or what’s true or what’s a hoax? It’s a little bit of confusing territory when you have to deal with these many different types of mystical phenomena,” O’Neill said.

So many mysteries remain with this supposed apparition.

Where are these affidavits of the supposed deathbed confessions of bishops who claim they were coerced into the negative judgement? How thoroughly did the original committee of bishops examine the case – and what led them to the negative judgement? Archbishop Arguelles, as well as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

If the document surfaced that confirmed Pope Pius XII’s approval of the negative judgement in 1951, there would be no way to reopen the case. But such a document, if it does indeed exist in this case, would be in the archives of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which only releases documents to the public, with few exceptions, once they are more than 80 years old.

On a recent visit to Lipa, O’Neill said he was able to visit the convent where Sr. Teresita supposedly had visions of Mary.

The sisters there, he said, remain privately devoted to Mary, Mediatrix of all Grace. Though they remain obedient to the Holy See, they, as well as many of the faithful, quietly hope the case could be reconsidered in the future.

In a country with 33 canonically recognized icons of Mary, the country’s Marian devotion is “incredible,” O’Neill said.

“So there’s a great amount of disappointment among the people of the Philippines who followed this devotion, but they remain obedient to the Holy See.”

By Carola García-Calvo and Fernando Reinares*

Spain has not been exempt from the unprecedented jihadist mobilization worldwide prompted by the Islamic State (IS) organization, though Spain is not among the Western European countries most affected, neither in absolute terms nor relative to the size of its population.[1] Between June 2013, when the first anti-IS (then still anti-ISIL) counterterrorism operation was launched inside Spain, and August 2016, the total number of detainees for IS-related terrorist activities was 130. Until the Summer of 2016, some 190 departed from Spain to join the ranks of IS in both Syria and Iraq as foreign fighters. Six of the latter were arrested upon return–though the actual number of returnees can be estimated as being up to five times larger–and are included in the figure of detainees.

To explore patterns of involvement at the individual level of analysis, we have gathered information and built a database on 130 detainees, in the Elcano Database on Jihadists in Spain (EDBJS). Our sources were the Interior Ministry’s press releases, police reports and publicly accessible court documents at the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) in Madrid, the only jurisdiction in Spain dealing with terrorism offences. Our database has also benefitted from interviews with law enforcement experts and information gathered from systematic searches of media sources indexed in Factiva.[2] The body of information assembled was thus treated both quantitatively and qualitatively.[3]

Most individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities are men (83.8%) aged between 20 and 44 at the time of detention (80.3%), more often than not–56.7%–they were married. 43% are nationals of Spain and 41.4% are Moroccan nationals. Five out of every ten are immigrants and four out of ten are second generation descendants of (mainly) Moroccan immigrants. Some 13.3% are converts. Six out of ten were enrolled in secondary education, twice the number of those who only attended primary school. Three times as many as those detainees with only working class jobs, have been in middle class or lower middle class jobs. 16.7% had no known occupation at the time of detention, and one third had a previous criminal record as ordinary delinquents.

In Spain, just like elsewhere, different patterns of becoming involved in IS-related activities can be observed; this affects the range of expressions a terrorist threat may eventually adopt. In this sense, becoming involved as an individual acting alone is not the same as becoming involved with others as part of cells, groups and networks (CGN).[4] In this article we will explore how exactly the 130 individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist offences became involved. We also look at the position they occupied inside the CGN most of them belonged to. We will explore the nature, size, composition, scope and functions of the CGN these detainees joined. Finally, we will also look how many of them were willing to become foreign fighters or to carry out attacks in Spain, the two options being not mutually exclusive.

Modalities of Involvement and Position of Individuals in Cells, Groups and Networks (CGN)

Only 4.6% of all those arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities since 2013 became involved alone, i.e. isolated from other jihadists; they were literally lone actors, not just single actors (Table 1). When lone actors eventually plot or execute attacks, they are often referred to as “lone wolves”. This epithet is used to label those self-radicalized jihadists who act independently and solely at their own initiative.[5] However, in the case of Spain, the small number of detainees who qualify as lone actors were above all dedicated to the exaltation of IS and the spreading of its propaganda via the internet and the social media. Among them, two intended to travel to Syria and join the ranks of IS, whereupon they would have ceased being lone actors. Interestingly, we found no women among lone actors.

Table 1: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) by sex and modality of involvement (%)

Source: Elcano Database on Jihadists in Spain (EDBJS).

It should certainly not be overlooked that IS-inspired individuals involved as lone actors pose a potential threat to Western societies, Spain included. IS’s leadership, as its well known, has made repeated calls for terrorist acts by individual supporters difficult for police and intelligence services to detect and arrest.[6] The limited presence of such individuals among the detainees in our database of 130 cases might therefore misrepresent their actual relevance. Be that as it may, fact remains that 95.4% of all those detained in Spain during that period involved those who were in the company of others, i.e. members of CGN.

This statistical distribution of all the mentioned detainees according to their modality of involvement shows a remarkable continuity when compared with those of individuals convicted in Spain for jihadist terrorism offences or who died as a result of acts of suicide terrorism over the preceding nine years. Between 2004 and 2012, exactly 5% of these became involved on their own, as lone actors. On the other hand, 95% were involved as members of cells and small groups, sometimes connected with jihadist organisations abroad (primarily in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa) though, on other occasions, they operated independently from such entities.[7]

Whether involved on their own as lone actors, or in the company of others, as part of CGN, all the detainees included in our database had as their organization of reference Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or its successor IS.[8] However, about a quarter of them, for some time prior to aligning with ISIL (later IS), initially had the Al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) as their jihadist organization of reference.[9] This is a common pattern among Western European foreign fighters, the French Cannes-Torcy network being one case in point.[10]

Focusing on individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities who became involved in the company of others – the overwhelming majority — it is remarkable that 77.9% were integrated into CGN that had some kind of organizational link with IS at different levels of IS’ structure. The remaining 22.1% were members of jihadist CGN that were merely inspired by IS’ ideology and propaganda (Table 2). In contrast to the men, of whom some (26.9%) only had lose ideological affiliations, all women in the dataset were part of CGN, interacting in one way or the other with IS.

Table 2: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by sex and type of link with the jihadist organization of their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

Detainees in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities who participated in CGN occupied different position inside such ensembles. For the purpose of this article we distinguish, inside each CGN, between centre or first-tier, intermediate circles or second-tier, and periphery. Individuals in the first-tier were mainly devoting themselves to leadership, coordination and indoctrination tasks. Individuals of the second-tier undertook a diverse range of functions, including engaging in preparations to become foreign fighters. Individuals in the periphery of their corresponding CGN were basically recruited with the purpose of turning them into foreign fighters.

Accordingly, 26.7% of all those individuals arrested in Spain between June 2013 and August 2016 for IS-related terrorist activities who were involved in the company of others were located in the first-tier of their corresponding CGN. Another 51.5% of them were located in second-tier circles; exactly half of them were preparing their own journeys to Syria and Iraq. The remaining 21.8% were located in the periphery of the CGN to which they belonged (Table 3).

Table 3: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by position in their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

Consistent with the tasks performed in the core, prominent among detainees having central positions were men aged in the average between 34 and 35. They were mainly of Spanish nationality and had typically worked in the tertiary (service) sector of the Spanish economy or were unemployed.[11] Individuals arrested who were positioned in the centre of the CGN to which their belonged came across as better informed about the Islamic creed–in a Salafist version- and Sharia law than those placed in the other two tiers. Their knowledge about the Salafist interpretation of Islam could be considered relevant in just a quarter of the cases.

Even though men dominate the second-tier of CGN, the percentage of women increases in this intermediate positions fourfold when compared to the first-tier. Individuals in this second-tier were also five years younger than those in the first-tier, with an average age of 29.2. Those detainees positioned in the second-tier were mostly Spanish nationals, most of them unemployed or working in the service sector, having a rather rudimentary knowledge of the the Salafist interpretation of Islam and its corresponding notion of sharia law.

In the periphery, men also predominated although here women accounted for one third, which means an eightfold increase compared to the first-tier and a doubling with respect to the second-tier. Consistent with the aim of becoming foreign fighters, the average age of detainees who were placed in the periphery was 23, that is to say, eleven years younger than those in the first-tier or inner circle and six years below that of the second-tier. Those in the periphery were mainly of Moroccan nationality, many of them unemployed or students and not well-informed about Islam and sharia.

Detainees by Nature, Size, Composition and Scope of their CGN

64% of all those detained in Spain for IS-related activities over the three-year period beginning in June 2013 were active as members of newly formed CGN (Table 4). That is to say, cells, groups or networks established from 2011 onwards – after the outbreak of the civil war in Syria – gathering individuals with no previous involvement in jihadist activities. The remaining 36% of these detainees were, by contrast, part of CGN which may be described as of a regenerated nature. The latter can be differed from the former by the fact that at least one member had been involved in jihadist activities in the country prior to the current mobilization over Syria and Iraq.

Table 4: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by nature of their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

The number of detainees who belonged to CGN allows us to tentatively estimate the size of these jihadist aggregates by distributing them according to the total number of individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities, between June 2013 and August 2016, who belonged to the same cell, group or network. Following this approach, four of every 10 (43.6%) were apparently part of rather extensive CGN whereas three out of every 10 seemed to have been integrated in, respectively, medium-size (27.4%) and small-size (the remaining 29%)— size cells, groups and networks (Table 5).

Table 5: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by total number of detainees from their same CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

Observing the different nationalities existing among the individuals arrested who were part of the same CGN makes it possible to assess the degree of internal homogeneity or heterogeneity of these aggregates. With this in mind, we distributed these individuals according to the nationalities of the detainees who were members of the same CGN. There are detainees who were part of the same CGN and shared only one nationality, detainees part of the same CGN but predominantly – over 75% – from one nationality, detainees part of the same CGN but mixed in terms of nationalities, even if the majority – between 50% and 74% – were having the same, and finally detainees who were part of the same CGN but with more diverse nationalities.

As we can see, individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities who, based on data about fellow detainees from the same jihadist aggregate, appear to have belonged to rather heterogeneous CGN, account for slightly over half of the total. The highest percentage were apparently integrated into mixed CGN, with the majority of them being Moroccan nationals (Table 6). Detainees who had no less than three quarters of its members composed by nationals of Spain became particularly salient among those individuals who had joined more homogeneous aggregates.

Table 6: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by nationalities among detainees of same CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS. Note: Table includes data only about individuals belonging to middle and large size CGN

Meanwhile, no more than 31.1% of all the detainees who became involved as part of CGN were actually part of cells, groups and networks confined to the Spanish territory (Table 7). On the contrary, the vast majority of those individuals who became involved in the company of others (exactly, 68.9%), belonged to CGN that operated in two or more countries and were therefore transnational in scope.

Table 7: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by scope of their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

For nearly eight out of 10 of the latter (75.7%) the transnational links of their CGN extended to Morocco, specifically to northern places such as Tetouan, Fnideq or Nador, all of which are close to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as well as to peninsular Spain (Table 8). For almost half of the same subset of detainees (47.1%) transnational links extended as far as Turkey. Lower figures correspond to Tunisia (21.4%) and Egypt (12.9%), with Libya, Mali and Indonesia each amounting to 8.6%. Turkey was, however, the real transit country on the way to Syria and Iraq for the foreign fighters originating from Spain. Turkey is also where Spanish jihadists related to IS had placed delegates, or benefitted from the help of IS facilitators who received them, provided them with accommodation, and helped them cross the border into the ‘Caliphate’.

For nearly four out of 10 in the same subset of detainees (37.1%), the transnational CGN they belonged to had links to Belgium, and for about two out of 10 (22.9%) to France–both countries in which their jihadist ensembles had at least one member. It was precisely in France and Belgium that IS established the operational network whose members planned and executed the concatenated attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris, and of 22 March 2016 in Brussels.

Table 8: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016)
by geographical scope of their transnational CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

It is worth mentioning, in this respect, that two of the detainees in Spain had links with the IS Paris-Brussels network. One of them, with dual Algerian and French nationality, but living in France, was arrested in Almería on April 2014. He was related to a purported operational head of IS’ operations in Europe, Salim Benghalem.[12] Another, himself resident of Torrevieja in the province of Alicante, who joined up with IS in Syria in 2014, was arrested in Warsaw in June 2015 and subsequently handed over to the Spanish authorities. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the presumed ringleader of the 13 November terrorists, had ordered him to return to Europe after receiving training in the use of arms and explosives.[13]

Detainees According to the Diverse Functions of Their CGN

The cells, groups and networks within which most individuals arrested in Spain were integrated, performed a wide variety of overlapping functions. As a whole, 95% of these detainees, were part of CGN focusing on radicalisation and recruitment tasks (Table 9). Moreover, some 74.8% were part of CGN sending foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. These are the highest percentages found for this set of detainees who became active as jihadists in the company of other fellow militants.

We also found that women tended to be concentrated precisely in those CGN that focussed on radicalisation, recruitment and the dispatch of foreign fighters. This reflects the fact that women arrested in Spain for IS-related activities were mainly performing such tasks via social media. However, while women had taken on an active role in this domain, it was still men who formed the core leadership of the CGN they were part of–something clearly exemplified by of one of the most important jihadist congeries dismantled in Spain by the police as a result of Operation Kibera.[14]

Table 9: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) involved with others, by sex and the functions of their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

60.5% of detainees involved with others were part of CGN which carried out financing tasks. Existing information suggests that they basically obtained money to cover their own economic needs, derived from their involvement. To raise money they benefited from donations and collections held in neighbourhoods such as Príncipe Alfonso in Ceuta, or in places of worship such as the M-30 Mosque in Madrid. However small-scale drug trafficking was also a source of income.[15] The members of one cell dismantled in spring 2015 in the province of Barcelona planned other forms of fund-raising, such as kidnapping for ransom, or creating a cultural association that would allow them to apply for subsidies.[16]

By contrast, two individuals were arrested in Girona, on July 2016, because of the money remittances they had sent to IS, by means of designated intermediaries located in Turkey, and following instructions from IS. In addition to contributing half of their personal monthly income, they relied on crowdfunding through Internet, asking fellow Muslims who were unwilling to migrate to Syria and Iraq themselves for an economic contribution to jihad, usually small quantities of between 50 and 100 Euro.[17] In order to transfer funds, just like in the case of a network offering logistic support to IS whose members were arrested on February 2016 in the provinces of Alicante and Valencia, and in Ceuta, they resorted to international money transfer companies, or money service business, using intermediaries, or the traditional hawala method.[18]

56.3% of the detainees were active within CGN whose members distributed IS propaganda. In some cases, they simply disseminated propaganda created by the jihadist organisation’s media platforms. In other cases, such as with a network whose members were arrested in March 2015 in the provinces of Ávila, Ciudad Real, Barcelona and Girona, they translated the content generated by IS media outlets into Spanish. However they also produced content of their own which was more accessible to the offspring of immigrants or young Moroccans resident in Spain.[19]

Especially significant, however, in terms of the threat that IS poses to Spain, is the evidence that, of all the detainees 33.6% belonged to CGN with operational capabilities. Significant in this same respect is also the fact that 31.9% of them were members of CGN that undertook terrorist training activities on Spanish soil. Moreover, similarly about one third had joined CGN which were willing to launch attacks within Spain.[20]

From Radicalised Muslims in Spain to Foreign Fighters in Syria

No less than six out of every 10 individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities between June 2013 and August 2016–exactly 63.2% of all detainees–had either travelled to Syria and Iraq, had tried to travel, or had the intention of doing so (Table 10).[21] Remarkably, women appeared more likely to travel and join IS ranks abroad than men. While nearly nine out of every 10 detainee women had either travelled to these conflict zones, had tried to travel there, or intended to travel, the same holds true for no more than 6 out of every 10 detainee men. Those women responded positively to the explicit call from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to settle in the ‘Caliphate’ and contribute to its consolidation and expansion.

Table 10: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) who had travelled to conflict zones, tried to travel, or had intention of travelling, by sex (%)

Source: EDBJS

As anticipated, detainees involved with others inside CGN were also more likely to travel abroad and join the IS ranks if located in their periphery (76.5%) than if placed in intermediate (65.2) or core (56.6) positions (Table 11). Even when, more often than not, detainees in the first and second tiers had travelled to Syria and Iraq, tried to travel or had the intention of travelling, they devoted much of their efforts at radicalising and recruiting, sometimes even training, individuals with the specific purpose of turning them into foreign fighters.

Table 11: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) who had travelled to conflict zones, tried to travel, or had intention of travelling, by position in their CGN (%)

Source: EDBJS

A large majority of detainees part of CGN who had travelled to conflict zones, had tried to or had the intention of doing so were actually arrested by Spain’s police agencies before they reached Syria, Iraq and, exceptionally, other IS-related destinations (Table 12). Most underwent detention while already decided to make the journey, while they were preparing for it, at the point of embarking upon it, or even in transit. About one out of every 10 (9%), were arrested on their return (Table 12). Interestingly, the percentage of women arrested while in transit (42.9%) is particularly salient and nearly multiplies by four the figure observed for men (11.3%).

Table 12: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) who had travelled to conflict zones, had tried to or had the intention of doing so, by sex and stage of travel at the time of detention (%)

Source: EDBJS

As many as 76.3% of these detainees that became or intended to become foreign fighters for IS had at their disposal, inside Spain, a network facilitating their journeys to the ‘Caliphate’ (Table 13). Some 16.9% made use of the assistance offered by activists established in the combat zone (Syria and Iraq), and the remaining 6.8% depended upon recruitment networks in other countries. The differences between men and women shown in Table 13 reflect a somewhat higher propensity for women to be recruited online, establishing a personal contact with someone already based in these countries.

Table 13: Individuals arrested in Spain for IS-related terrorist activities (June 2013-August 2016) who had travelled to combat zones, had tried to or had the intention of doing so, by sex and according to their facilitator (%)

Source: EDBJS

Apart from the detainees who were once foreign fighters or aspired be, there has existed a small, but at least until the summer of 2016, growing number of jihadist militants in Syria and Iraq, mainly – but not exclusively – in the ranks of IS, originating from Spain (Figure 1). Towards the end of 2013 these were thought to number around 20, by mid-2014 some 50, one year later 116, and at the end of 2015 almost 140. In February 2016 it was calculated that the number of foreign fighters from Spain in Syria and Iraq was 153 and six months later this figure had risen to around 190.[22]

Figure 1: Cumulative number of detainees in Spain for IS-related activities and the number of foreign fighters from Spain to Syria and Iraq (June 2013-August 2016)

Source: EDBJS and Spain´s Ministry of Interior.

Between November 2013 and August 2016 the number of foreign fighters that had travelled from Spain to Syria and Iraq increased approximately at a rate of five per month. In the summer of 2016 there was no indication that this trend would remit or reverse. However, latest updated figures may reflect that more individuals are being identified by the security services rather than there was a real and sustained increase of the phenomenon. It is estimated that at least 47 of them, that is to say around 25%, have lost their lives in these Syria and Iraq: seven or eight in suicide attacks and the rest in the course of armed confrontations, or as a result of the aerial strikes carried out by the international coalition against IS since September 2014.

Taken together these around 190 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq originating from Spain (up until August 2016), consist of both Spaniards and Moroccan residents of Spain. Particularly prominent among the Spaniards are those characterised by being the young offspring of Moroccan immigrants. Some of them were born in Ceuta and Melilla, others were hailing from Catalonia and Madrid. About 10% of the foreign fighters who went from Spain to Syria and Iraq in 2013-16 were thought to be women.[23]

Conclusion

In the case of Spain, the vast majority of the 130 individuals arrested between June 2013 and August 2016 for IS-related terrorist offences took part in jihadist activities with others and not as lone actors. Actually, they were typically part of cells, groups, or networks (CGN) of varying size, homogenous as well as heterogeneous ones. Inside these CGN, detainees fulfilled various tasks, occupying different positions, partly due to their social skills. More detainees belonged to new, transnationally operating and IS-linked CGN than those who were part of regenerated CGN which lacked cross-border ties, operated solely at the national level and were only inspired by IS.

Moreover, nearly all detainees who became involved with others belonged to CGN whose members were collectively engaged in radicalisation and recruitment functions. Yet they also regularly belonged to other jihadist aggregates that dispatched foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, or that carried out fund-raising and propaganda distribution on behalf of IS. A majority of all those individuals arrested had either travelled to Syria and Iraq, had tried to travel, or intended to travel. Three out of 10 belonged to cells, groups or networks that had operational capabilities, carried out training activities on Spanish soil and were willing to carry out attacks inside the country–a fact which, in addition to the phenomenon of foreign fighters originating from Spain, reflects the highly networked and organized terrorist threat inherent to the jihadist mobilization prompted by IS.

*About the Authors:
Carola García-Calvo, Ph.D. is a Researcher in the Program on Global Terrorism at Elcano Royal Institute and an Associate Lecturer on International Terrorism at Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, both in Madrid. Fernando Reinares is the Director of the Program on Global Terrorism at the Elcano Royal Institute and a Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, also in Madrid, as well as Wilson Center Global Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Source:
This article was published in the journal Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume X, Issue 6 (December 2016).

Notes:

[1] See, on this issue, Fernando Reinares, “How to Counter Jihadist Appeal among Western European Muslims”, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, Wilson Brief, December 2015; URL: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/how-to-counter-jihadist-appeal-among-western-european-muslims

[2] Factiva, a Dow Jones product, is a database drawing upon approximately 25,000 sources of information emanating from more than 200 countries in 28 languages.

[3] Here we wish to acknowledge the outstanding help on both data collection and database maintenance provided by Álvaro Vicente, Research Assistant of the Program on Global Terrorism at Elcano Royal Institute.

[4] It is not always easy to distinguish between cells, groups and networks. As we understand it for the purpose of this article, cells are smaller and tend to exhibit a greater degree of internal hierarchy and cohesiveness. Groups tend to be larger but have more blurred contours and are usually also a less formalized. Networks are more complex and overlapping aggregates, where individuals may also belong to other cells or groups.

[5] On this issue, see Petter Nesser, Islamist Terrorism in Europe (London: Hurst and Company, 2015), pp. 253-65.

[6] Thomas Hegghammer and Petter Nesser (2015), “Assessing the Islamic State commitment to attacking the West”, Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 9, nr 4, p. 16-17; Europol, European Counter Terrorism Centre, “Lone actor attacks. Recent developments”, The Hague: Europol, 2015.

[7] Carola García-Calvo and Fernando Reinares (2014), “Pautas de implicación entre condenados por actividades relacionadas con el terrorismo yihadista o muertos en acto de terrorismo suicida en España (1996-2012)”, Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano, Documento de Trabajo 15/2014; URL: http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/wcm/connect/9eb6d480463cfadabea8fe1c56628e08/DT152014-GarciaCalvo-Reinares-Pautas-implicacion-condenados-terrorismo-yihadista-muertos-terrorismo-suicida-Espana-1996-2013.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=9eb6d480463cfadabea8fe1c56628e08

[8] Between February 2013 and June 2014, the Islamic State (IS) was still known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

[9] This circumstance came about before the al-Nusra Front was formally designated as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and, therefore, prior to ISIL being expelled from the global structure of al-Qaeda. See Fernando Reinares (2015), ‘Yihadismo global y amenaza terrorista: de al-Qaeda al Estado Islámico’, Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano, ARI 33/2015, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/web/rielcano_es/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_es/zonas_es/terrorismo+internacional/ari33-2015-reinares-yihadismo-global-y-amenaza-terrorista-de-al-qaeda-al-estado-islamico; also, Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, Doha: Brookings Doha Center, Analysis Paper no. 13 (2014); URL: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/en_web_lister.pdf

[10] “Raid on ISIS suspect in the French Riviera”; URL: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/france-suspected-isis-link; “La tentaculaire cellule islamiste de «Cannes-Torcy»”, 26 March 2014; URL: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2014/03/26/01016-20140326ARTFIG00399-la-tentaculaire-cellule-islamiste-de-cannes-torcy.php;

[11] The following three paragraphs are based on the data corresponding to the period June 2013-May 2016, offered in Fernando Reinares and Carola García-Calvo, Estado Islámico en España, (Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano, 2016), pp. 61-62; URL: http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/web/rielcano_es/publicacion?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_es/publicaciones/informe-estado-islamico-espana; “Cellule de Cannes-Torcy : le terrorisme, affaire de potes”, 16 December 2015, http://www.liberation.fr/france/2015/12/16/cellule-de-cannes-torcy-le-terrorisme-affaire-de-potes_1421308

[12] Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Nathaniel Barr, “Recent attacks illuminate the Islamic State’s Europe attack network”, Jamestown Foundation Hot Issue, 27 April 2016; URL: https://jamestown.org/program/hot-issue-recent-attacks-illuminate-the-islamic-states-europe-attack-network/

[13] “El cerebro de los atentados de París envió a España a un yihadista que fue detenido”, Europa Press, 21 November 2015; URL: http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-cerebro-atentados-paris-envio-espana-yihadista-fue-detenido-20151121113934.html

[14] Operation Kibera, conducted by the antiterrorism branch of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía (CNP) in five subsequent phases, from August 2014 to September 2015. See Ministerio del Interior, Oficina de Comunicación y Relaciones Institucionales, Nota de prensa, 16 December, 2014; URL: http://www.interior.gob.es/noticias/detalle/-/journal_content/56_INSTANCE_1YSSI3xiWuPH/10180/2997422

[15] Guardia Civil, Jefatura de Información, and Cuerpo Nacional de Policía, Comisaría General de Información, Diligencias Previas 02/2009, Atestado Policial 9883/2013, delivered 24 June 2013 to the National Court’s Central Investigative Court no. 2, p. 22-25; ‘La Brigada Al Andalus recaudaba fondos para la yihad en la mezquita de la M-30’, El Español, 10 April 2016; URL: http://www.elespanol.com/espana/20160410/116238422_0.html

[16] Audiencia Nacional, Juzgado Central de Investigación no. 1, Auto, 10 April 2015, p. 4; “Dinero público para hacer la yihad”, El Blog de El Español, 17 April 2015; URL: http://blog.elespanol.com/actualidad/dinero-publico-para-hacer-la-yihad

[17] Ministerio del Interior, Oficina de Comunicación y Relaciones Institucionales, “La Guardia Civil cree que la documentación incautada a los detenidos en Arbúcies (Girona) revelará datos relevantes sobre la financiación de DAESH desde España”, Nota de prensa, 27 July 2016;URL: http://www.guardiacivil.es/es/prensa/noticias/5878.html

[18] Ministerio del Interior, Oficina de Comunicación y Relaciones Institucionales, “Los siete yihadistas detendidos por la Policía Nacional crearon una red delictiva internacional para enviar material logístico a las organizaciones terroristas Jabhat al Nusra y Daesh”, Nota de prensa, 7 February 2016, p. 3; URL: http://www.interior.gob.es/es/web/interior/noticias/detalle/-/journal_content/56_INSTANCE_1YSSI3xiWuPH/10180/5599678/

[19] Audiencia Nacional, Juzgado Central de Instrucción no. 6, Auto of 15 March 2015, p. 3; “El líder de la célula yihadista evitó su arresto en España al irse a Siria”, Europa Press, 13 March 2015; URL: http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-lider-celula-yihadista-evito-arresto-espana-irse-siria-20150313194150.html

[20] See Fernando Reinares and Carola García-Calvo, Estado Islámico en España, op. cit., pp. 66-68; URL: http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/web/rielcano_es/publicacion?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_es/publicaciones/informe-estado-islamico-espana

[21] These data further corroborate a well-known argument on foreign fighting as the more frequent choice of Western-based jihadists, as advanced by Thomas Hegghammer in “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting”, American Political Science Review, vol. 107, no. 1 (2013), pp. 1-15.

[22] Europa Press, ”190 combatientes del Daesh viajaron a Siria o Irak, un 25% ha fallecido y un 15% retornó”, 15 October 2016;URL: http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-190-combatientes-daesh-viajaron-siria-irak-25-fallecido-15-retorno-20161015100747.htmlhttp://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-190-combatientes-daesh-viajaron-siria-irak-25-fallecido-15-retorno-20161015100747.html

[23] Interview conducted by Dr García-Calvo with a senior law-enforcement officer of the Secretaría de Estado de Seguridad, Ministerio del Interior, in the second week of September 2016.

By J Nastranis

The world’s 48 most impoverished and vulnerable countries have reason to rejoice. The United Nations General Assembly in New York finally established a Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries.

The Technology Bank is intended to help least developed countries strengthen their science, technology and innovation capacities, foster the development of national and regional innovation ecosystems that can attract outside technology and generate home-grown research and take these advancements to market.

The origins of the idea date to 2011 when UN member states established the Istanbul Programme of Action for Least Developed Countries. This ten-year programme of action included the improvement of scientific and innovative capacities of the world’s poorest nations.

It specifically called for the establishment of a Technology Bank to “help improve LDCs’ scientific research and innovation base, promote networking among researchers and research institutions, [and] help LDCs access and utilize critical technologies”.

The UN Office of The High Representative has supported the initiative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) since 2011. This long-standing priority of the least developed countries is also confirmed in the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda and in Sustainable Development Goal 17.

The Technology Bank is expected to begin operations in 2017 with headquarters in Turkey. It will be financed by voluntary contributions from member states and other stakeholders, including the private sector and foundations. Turkey would provide facilities and services, having already contributed an initial $1 million.

Gyan Chandra Acharya, High Representative and Under-Secretary-General for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, welcomed the formal establishment of the Technology Bank.

“The global community has a responsibility to ensure that these nations are supported as they make progress towards strengthening their science, technology and innovation capacities for eradicating poverty, accelerating structural transformation and building resilience,” Acharya said.

“The establishment of the Technology Bank is a vital milestone in this journey, which my office has consistently supported. I thank the Government of Turkey for hosting it and call on the Government of Turkey and all the development partners to provide committed and sustained levels of support for its effective operationalization,” he added.

The poorest countries in the world cannot eradicate poverty, achieve strong and sustainable development and build resilience without expanding their scientific and technological bases, Acharya explained. “They need to effectively utilise technology to leapfrog various stages of their development process in order to meet the goals of the Istanbul Programme of Action and the 2030 Agenda,” he added.

Greeting Turkey’s offer to host the Technology Bank and its support for its establishment, Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Vice-President of the General Assembly, encouraged other member states to do the same.

“It is through mechanisms like this that the concept of leaving no one behind”, as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 “comes to life”, he told the General Assembly on December 23.

Particularly SDG Target 17.8 calls for the full operationalization of the Technology Bank and the science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017. This long-standing priority of the least developed countries is also confirmed in the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The representative of Thailand, speaking in explanation of position on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, urged States and entities in a position to provide voluntary financial and technical assistance to the Bank to do so to ensure its timely operation.

Strengthened international development cooperation would bolster efforts aimed at reaching the requisite financial resources that remained critical to the economic and social uplifting of the least developed countries.

“A new organ of the General Assembly has emerged,” said the representative of Bangladesh, speaking on behalf of the least developed countries. For the first time in history, the Assembly had established an instrument to foster technology enhancement for least developed countries, he said. “This is a major breakthrough and a historical moment for the United Nations,” he added.

Apart from leading to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the move to establish the Technology Bank also showed that least developed countries were not alone in their drive for sustainable development.

The Technology Bank would work to reduce the digital divide and help to facilitate the implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries. “This is just the beginning, he said, urging all to make efforts to mobilize resources to operationalize the Technology Bank.

The representative of Turkey said the Technology Bank’s establishment was a significant accomplishment and a manifestation of solidarity with least developed countries. In that context, the Technology Bank would seek to build capacities and enable the transfer of critical technologies and to bridge technology gaps. Underlining that the mobilization of sustainable resources was a must, he said that while Turkey would continue to do its part, funding was a responsibility shared by all stakeholders.

Explaining the background, UN-OHRLLS said: The overarching objective of the Technology Bank is to help the least developed countries build the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) capacity that they need to promote the structural transformation of their economies, eradicate poverty and foster sustainable development.

The specific objectives as set out in the Charter of the Technology Bank forwarded to the General Assembly by the Secretary-General on August 29, 2016, are:

– To strengthen the science, technology and innovation capacity of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), including the capacity to identify, absorb, develop, integrate and scale-up the deployment of technologies and innovations, including indigenous ones, as well as the capacity to address and manage Intellectual Property Rights issues;

– To promote the development and implementation of national and regional STI strategies;

– To strengthen partnerships among STI-related public entities and with the private sector;

– To promote cooperation among all stakeholders involved in STI, including, researchers, research institutions, public entities within and between LDCs, as well as with their counterparts in other countries;

– To promote and facilitate the identification, utilization and access of appropriate technologies by LDCs, as well as their transfer to the LDCs, while respecting intellectual property rights and fostering the national and regional capacity of LDCs for the effective utilisation of technology in order to bring about transformative change.

Preparatory work towards the Technology Bank culminated with the report of the feasibility study prepared by a High-Level Panel of Experts in 2015. The Panel’s recommendations highlighted that the Technology Bank, modelled on the United Nations University, had the potential to strengthen national capabilities and provide expertise to the world’s least developed countries, ensuring that they are no longer left behind in achieving internationally agreed development goals.

The panel underscored that the establishment of the Technology Bank was not only required but also feasible. On that basis the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to take the steps necessary to launch and operationalize the Technology Bank by 2017.

In order to expedite the process the Secretary-General appointed the members of the Governing Council of the Technology Bank once formally established by the General Assembly. The first meeting of the Governing Council took place on July 26-27, 2016 at UN Headquarters. It elaborated a three-year Strategic Plan for the new UN institution.

The Secretary General asked Professor Mohamed H.A. Hassan, president of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), to serve as the Chair of the Governing Council and Under-Secretary General Acharya to be his representative in the Council and serve as vice-chair.

In the period leading up to the formal establishment of the Technology Bank, the members of the Governing Council provided support to the Secretary General in undertaking the necessary steps towards its operationalization.

Exact predictions of policy outcomes and estimates of the state of the economy are routine; expressions of uncertainty are rare. This column argues that with the US approaching the beginning of an administration, the incredible certitude of past governmental policy analysis will soon seem a minor concern relative to what lies ahead. Whereas analysis with incredible certitude makes predictions and estimates that are possibly true, analysis in a post-truth world makes predictions and estimates that are clearly false.

By Charles Manski*

Estimating the impact of almost any economic policy change is fraught with uncertainty. As Alan Auerbach put it: “In many instances, the uncertainty is so great that one honestly could report a number either twice or half the size of the estimate actually reported” (Auerbach 1996). I couldn’t agree more. I have, over the past five years, repeatedly criticised the prevalent practice of economic policy analysis with incredible certitude (see Manski 2011a, 2011b, 2013, 2014 2015).  I have specifically commented on official governmental practices in the US.  Exact predictions of policy outcomes and estimates of the state of the economy are routine.  Expressions of uncertainty are rare.  Yet predictions and estimates often are fragile, resting on unsupported assumptions and limited data.  So the certitude of exact predictions and estimates is not credible.

The US now approaches the beginning of an administration headed by a new president who appears incapable or unwilling to distinguish fact from fiction.  I worry that the incredible certitude of past governmental policy analysis will soon seem a minor concern relative to what lies ahead.  Whereas analysis with incredible certitude makes predictions and estimates that are possibly true, analysis in a post-truth world makes predictions and estimates that are clearly false.

To explain my concerns, I first reiterate some of my criticism of existing practices.  Considering prediction of policy outcomes, I have called attention to the influential Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predictions, called ‘scores’, of the federal debt implications of pending legislation.  CBO staff are dedicated civil servants who are aware that the budgetary impacts of complex changes to federal law are difficult to foresee.  Yet Congress has required the CBO to make point predictions ten years into the future, unaccompanied by measures of uncertainty.

Considering estimation of the state of the economy, I have documented incredible certitude in the official economic statistics published by leading federal statistical agencies including the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau.  These agencies report point estimates of GDP growth, unemployment, and household income without accompanying measures of error.  Agency staff know that official statistics suffer from sampling and non-sampling errors.  Yet the practice has been to report official statistics with only occasional measurement of sampling errors and no quantification of non-sampling errors.

Seeking to explain why incredible certitude has been the norm, I have found it natural as an economist to conjecture that analysts respond to incentives.  Many policymakers and members of the public resist facing up to uncertainty, so analysts have motivation to report certitude.  A story circulates about an economist’s attempt to describe his uncertainty about a forecast to US President Lyndon B. Johnson.  The economist is said to have presented the forecast as a likely range of values for the quantity under discussion.  Johnson is said to have replied: “Ranges are for cattle. Give me a number.”

Although President Johnson did not want to hear the economist forecast a range of values, I think it safe to assume that he wanted to hear a number within the range that the economist thought plausible, perhaps the center of the range.  I expect that the economist interpreted Johnson’s request this way and complied.  Likewise, I feel comfortable conjecturing that the government economists who produce CBO scores and official economic statistics have generally intended them to express the central tendency of their beliefs about the quantities in question.  Some corroborative empirical evidence is available in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, which elicits both point and probabilistic predictions of GDP growth and inflation from members of its panel of forecasters.  Analysis of these data shows that the point predictions typically are close to means or medians of the probabilistic ones (Engelberg et al. 2009).

Looking ahead, I am deeply concerned about the future practice of policy analysis in the Trump administration.  So much has already been written about the tenuous relationship between the president-elect and reality that I shall not attempt to document the phenomenon afresh.  Instead, I will cite the clear and frightening writing of Ruth Marcus, who recently opened her periodic column in the Washington Post as follows (Marcus 2016):

“Welcome to – brace yourself for – the post truth presidency. ‘Facts are stubborn things’, said John Adams in 1770, defending British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, ‘and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.’  Or so we thought, until we elected to the presidency a man consistently heedless of truth and impervious to fact checking.”

Marcus went on to comment that Trump had an incentive not to respect truth. She wrote:

“The practice of post truth – untrue assertion piled on untrue assertion – helped get Donald Trump to the White House. The more untruths he told, the more supporters rewarded him for, as they saw it, telling it like it is.”

I have two worries about how the new administration will regard policy analysis.  One is that it will severely cut back funding for the regular data collection that makes possible the publication of official economic statistics.  The other is that the analysts who staff federal agencies, who have had a strong reputation for political neutrality and integrity, will be pressured to cook findings to suit whatever the president believes. Coherent policy discussion, which has already become difficult in an increasingly partisan governing environment, may become impossible when the White House considers even basic facts to be malleable.

A constructive way to mitigate the potential damage may be to establish research centres and statistical agencies outside the executive branch of the federal government that can provide honest and well-informed predictions of policy outcomes and estimates of the state of the economy.  Perhaps the Federal Reserve Board and Congress can provide part of what is necessary, but I expect that part will have to come from non-governmental entities.  The US presently does not have the requisite institutions.  A suitable exemplar may be the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the UK.

However we strive to provide honest and well-informed policy analysis, I continue to believe that our society would be better off we were to face up to uncertainty.  Many of our contentious policy debates stem in part from our failure to admit what we do not know.  We would do better to acknowledge that we have much to learn than to act as if we already know the truth or can infinitely manipulate it.

About the author:
* Charles Manski, Board of Trustees Professor in Economics, Northwestern University

References:
Auerbach, A (1996), “Dynamic Revenue Estimation”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 10: 141-157.

Engelberg, J, C Manski, and J Williams (2009), “Comparing the Point Predictions and Subjective Probability Distributions of Professional Forecasters”, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 27: 30-41.

Manski, C (2011a), “Policy Analysis with Incredible Certitude”, The Economic Journal 121: F261-F289.

Manski, C (2011b), “Should official forecasts express uncertainty? The case of the CBO”, 22 November.

Manski, C (2013), Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Manski, C (2014), “Facing up to uncertainty in official economic statistics”, VoxEU.org, 21 May.

Manski, C (2015), “Communicating Uncertainty in Official Economic Statistics: An Appraisal Fifty Years after Morgenstern”, Journal of Economic Literature 53: 631-653.

Marcus, R (2016), “Welcome to the Post-Truth Presidency,” Washington Post, 2 December.

The prosecution of writers and journalists charged with terrorism and separatism for their association with a newspaper raises serious concerns for freedom of expression in Turkey, Human Rights Watch said. The first trial hearing began on December 29, 2016, for four defendants detained since August and five others who are also being tried.

The four jailed defendants are the well-known novelist Aslı Erdoğan, the writer Necmiye Alpay, and newspaper editors İnan Kızılkaya and Zana Kaya. The prosecutor’s indictment accuses the four – and five others who are at liberty – of “spreading propaganda” for and being members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and of attempting to destroy the unity of the state. If convicted of the latter offense, they would face life in prison without parole.

“The charges against Aslı Erdoğan, Necmiye Alpay, and others far surpass previous recent cases by accusing writers and journalists of attempting to destroy the unity of the state through their writing, editing, or association with a newspaper,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director at Human Rights Watch. “Those on trial should never have been jailed, and misusing the criminal law at the expense of free speech contributes nothing to combatting terrorism in Turkey.”

The purported evidence against Erdoğan and Alpay consists of their membership on the advisory board of the Özgür Gundem newspaper and columns they wrote in the newspaper, which the prosecutor accuses of being an organ of the PKK.

Kızılkaya and Kaya are charged as editors of the newspaper. Özgür Gündem was temporarily closed by court order on August 16 and permanently closed by government decree on October 29, along with 14 other mainly Kurdish media organs.

Others on trial are a human rights lawyer, Eren Keskin, who was formerly listed as Özgür Gündem’s editor and was a columnist for the newspaper; advisory board members Ragip Zarakolu, a book publisher; Filiz Koçali, a journalist and Özgür Gündem columnist; Kemal Sancılı, the newspaper’s publisher; and Bilge Contepe, an environmental activist.

They are charged with spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization under the Anti-Terror Law, article 7/2, and membership in an armed organization under the penal code, article 314/2.They are also charged with attempting to destroy the unity of the state (separatism) under article 302/1 of the penal code, which states: “Anyone who commits an act aimed at placing the territory of the nation wholly or partially under the sovereignty of a foreign country, undermining the independence of the nation, destroying its unity, or separating a portion of those territories under the sovereignty of the country from the country’s administration, shall be sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.”

While Erdoğan and Alpay obtained bail on the separatism charge in November, they remain in pretrial detention under the other charges.

“Under its state of emergency, Turkey has once again become the world leader in jailing journalists and prosecuting them on terrorism charges,” Sinclair-Webb said. “2016 will be remembered as the year Turkey’s president attempted to silence all critical and independent media in the country.”

Identity politics is hardly a new development. In one form or another, it has been around for millennia. But beginning in the 1960s in the United States of America, identity politics began to take on greater importance in the marshaling of support for political candidates and policies. The civil rights movement represented a revolt by blacks as such (along with their nonblack supporters) against the denial of political equality that had been their lot for centuries. The politics of black identity, however, quickly spilled over onto other groups, giving rise to a revitalized women’s movement, a Chicano movement, a homosexuals’ movement, and a variety of others based on an ascribed or avowed personal identity. In each case, the supporters of an identity movement made the identity as such the principal if not the only basis for the expression of their political interests and engagement. This narrow focus put them at odds with previous political interest groups such as the Democratic and Republican parties, each of which attempted to gather a variety of self-identified persons under a “big tent” that would seek political power and split the loot among all those in the tent.

As identity politics developed after the 1960s a parallel but related development gave rise to what would become known, especially among opponents, as political correctness, an attempt to control speech and conduct that would (or so it was alleged) demean or disadvantage the members of one or more identity-political groups. This development became most conspicuous on college campuses, where zealous leftist faculty members and weak-kneed administrators imposed increasingly stringent control of speech and action by students and faculty members. Kangaroo courts were created where those charged with violations of political correctness could be punished and before which they were generally presumed guilty and often denied the opportunity to confront or cross-examine those who had charged them with violations of the college code. In the wider society, political correctness became increasingly entrenched in workplaces, news media, government offices, and other public and private areas.

By the end of the twentieth century, white heterosexual men had become almost the only group not assigned a protected status, and indeed the one generally presumed to be guilty of the oppression of all the others, often by assumption rather than according to ordinary standards of proof. Needless to say, straight white men and traditional women did not appreciate having been turned into the presumptive guilty parties in a panoply of condemned speech and behavior.

Their resentment came especially to the fore in the presidential campaign of 2016, when Donald Trump made himself the declared champion of their grievances and the unashamed mocker-in-chief of political correctness in general. This stance, along with his egregious views on international trade and immigration, allowed him to marshal enough support to win the presidency. But the establishment, which had long ago embraced political correctness across the board, was not about to fade away gracefully, and its horror at Trump’s election is already being transformed into counter-revolutionary efforts to stymie or derail many of Trump’s initiatives even before he takes office.

The decisive role of identity politics in the recent election and in reactions to it, especially by progressives, seems to represent an instance of what James Buchanan, one of the principal creators (along with Gordon Tullock) of the modern discipline of public choice analysis, called romanticism. For Buchanan, romanticism was the presumption that voters can select office-holders and public policies (e.g., by means of referendums) that will benefit large sectors of the electorate, rather than benefit mainly the office-holders themselves and their principal financial supporters. The general assumption in public choice analysis is that political actors are self-interested fully as much as actors in the market or other areas of private life outside the governmental realm. This assumption, however, has been difficult to square with certain actions aimed at securing a large-scale collective good (e.g., voting itself when the electorate numbers many thousands or millions and hence the probability that anyone’s vote will be decisive in determining the election’s outcome is infinitesimal).

Public choice analysts and economists in general have tended to view such problematic actions as irrational. After all, it seems that actors are bearing positive personal costs in order to obtain a collective good even though the expected value of their action is effectively zero, owing to the tiny likelihood of their action’s having a decisive effect and hence creating a benefit.

In chapter 3 of my book Crisis and Leviathan, I argue that this standard view of the irrationality of individual actions aimed at securing a large-scale collective good is incorrect because it fails to take into account the way in which each actor actually benefits from his actions. The resolution of this puzzle requires that we recognize the importance of each actor’s self-perceived identity. Because the establishment and maintenance of one’s identity requires that one act publicly in solidarity with like-minded comrades, such action does confer a benefit even for a single individual. Those who free-ride on the cost-bearing of others do not obtain the solidarity benefits required to validate their identity. Hence, millions of people do act—for example, they go to the polls and mark a ballot notwithstanding the negligible probability of their vote’s being decisive.

Buchanan and his followers were too quick to ascribe irrationality—or romanticism—to those who follow the dictates of identity politics. This is not to say that the collective goods they seek to be seen as assisting in obtaining are indeed virtuous or valuable or outcomes that will actually benefit them in any way other than the fulfillment of their psychic yearnings for comradeship. But there is nothing at all novel about people’s sacrificing for such indirect ends; indeed, history is replete with such sacrifices. People want what they want, and often they want simply to be seen as standing faithfully among the ranks of the “good guys,” however they conceive of such a group. It is worse than unfortunate that nowadays so many people are willing to go to the political barricades merely in solidarity with those who support political correctness, anti-immigration measures, and restrictions of international trade. But such actions do not warrant a characterization as irrational or romantic, as opposed to merely misguided.

This article was published at The Beacon

Egypt’s cabinet approved on Thursday the Egyptian-Saudi maritime border demarcation agreement and referred it to the parliament for ratification.

The agreement stipulates that the two islands of Tiran and Sanafir fall within Saudi territorial waters.

The administrative court had annulled the agreement in June and affirmed that the two islands fall within Egypt’s borders. The State Lawsuits Authority, representing the government, challenged verdict later.

The Supreme Administrative Court is set to rule on Jan 16 on the government’s appeal against the annulment of the agreement.

The agreement, signed during Saudi King Salman bin Abdel Aziz’s first official visit to Cairo in April, stirred controversy, with critics accusing President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of “selling Egypt” to Saudi Arabia in return for aid.

Original source

North-East monsoonal conditions are gradually establishing over Sri Lanka, the country’s Meteorological Department said Friday.

According to the Department, several spells of light showers will occur in the Eastern and Uva provinces and in the Hambantota district.

Showers or thundershowers may occur in a few places in the Southern, Sabaragamuwa and Central provinces, the department said, adding that fairly strong winds can be expected at some places, particularly in the Western, Central and Uva provinces.

Temporary localized strong winds during thundershowers are expected and the public is requested to take adequate precautions to minimize damages caused by lightning, the department warned.

The amount of energy generated by renewables fluctuates depending on the natural variability of resources at any given time.

The sun isn’t always shining, nor is the wind always blowing, so traditional power plants must be kept running, ready to fill the energy gap at a moment’s notice. Because the grid has no storage, and unlike coal or nuclear, there is no control over the fluctuating production of renewable energy, the energy they produce has to be consumed straight away, or risk collapsing the electrical grid.

On particularly windy days, for example, surges in power generated by wind turbines have been known to overwhelm the electrical grid, causing power outages. To avoid this, operators of large power plants sometimes resort to paying consumers to use electricity on particularly sunny and windy days when there is too much excess power in the system, in order to balance the supply and demand of energy at the grid.

Dealing with the peaks and troughs of intermittent renewable energy will become increasingly challenging as governments try to phase out of more stable coal-powered energy sources in the coming decades. In order to mitigate or manage these fluctuations in renewable energy, we need to understand the nature of these fluctuations better. Professor Mahesh Bandi, head of the Collective Interactions Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) has used turbulence theory combined with experimental wind plant data to explain the statistical nature of wind power fluctuations in a single-author paper published in Physical Review Letters.

Wind speed patterns can be depicted as a wind speed spectrum on a graph. In 1941, Russian physicist Andrei Kolmogorov worked out the spectrum of wind speed fluctuations. Subsequently, it was shown that the spectrum for wind power follows the exact same pattern. However, until now, it was simply assumed that these spectra were identical due to the relationship between power and speed, where power equals wind speed cubed. But this proved to be a red herring. Professor Bandi has shown for the first time that the spectrum of wind power fluctuations follows the same pattern as wind speed fluctuations for a different reason.

Kolmogorov’s 1941 result applies to measurements of wind speed made at several distributed points in space at the same time. But wind power fluctuations at a turbine are measured at a fixed location over an extended time period. The two measurements are fundamentally different, and by carefully accounting for this difference, Professor Bandi was able to explain the spectrum of wind power fluctuations for an individual turbine.

We can think of turbulence as a ball of air, or an ‘eddy’, of fluctuating wind speed. Long time-scale, low frequency eddies can span hundreds of kilometers. Inside these large eddies are shorter time-scale, high frequency eddies that might span a few kilometers. Therefore, if all of the turbines in the same wind plant fall within the same short and long time-scale eddies, the energy they produce fluctuates as if the entire plant were one giant turbine. This is exactly what Professor Bandi found when he looked at the wind power fluctuations of all of the turbines in a wind plant in Texas.

In fact, even geographically dispersed wind plants can exhibit correlated fluctuations in power if they fall within the same short and long time-scale eddies. However, as the distance between wind plants increases, their power fluctuations start to decouple from each other. Two geographically dispersed wind plants might encounter the same long time-scale wind speed fluctuations whilst encountering completely distinct shorter time-scale wind speed fluctuations.

In the past, some scientists have underestimated the problem of turbulence, arguing that the power produced by geographically dispersed wind turbines in windy and calm locations at any one point in time will average out when they reach a centralized grid. However, Professor Bandi’s findings show for the first time, that this phenomenon, known as ‘geographic smoothing’, only works to a certain extent.

The power generated by geographically dispersed turbine plants averages at high frequencies, because while one plant might fall within the short time-scale eddy, the other might not. In other words, the surge in power output at one plant is averaged out by a trough in power output from another, far-away plant at high frequencies. But because the plants still fall within the same long time-scale eddy, the power they produce will have correlated fluctuations at low frequencies.

A surge in power at one wind turbine plant will coincide with the surge at a far-away plant within the same long time-scale eddy, meaning that the power they feed to the grid cannot be averaged out. This means that there is a natural limit to how much one can average fluctuations in wind power; a limit beyond which fluctuations can continue to wreak havoc on the grid. Using data from 20 wind plants in Texas and 224 wind farms in Ireland Professor Bandi showed that this limit exists in reality.

“Understanding the nature of fluctuations in wind turbine power has immediate implications for economic and political decision making,” said Professor Bandi.

Due to the variability of renewables, coal-fired power plants providing back-up energy are kept running in case of sudden power outages, meaning that more energy is produced than needed. This means that ‘green’ energy is still contributing to carbon emissions, and there is an associated cost of maintaining reserve energy, that will only increase as the proportion of renewables increases in the years to come. The discovery of a limit in geographical smoothing, articulated by Professor Bandi, will enable better estimates of the operative amount of reserves that needs to be maintained.

This discovery will also impact environmental policy. By considering the limit for averaging fluctuations of power, combined with the availability of different renewable resources such as sun, wind and waves in a particular area, policy-makers will be better equipped to work out optimal combinations of different energy sources for specific regions

“Understanding the nature of fluctuations for wind turbines could also open up other avenues of research in other fluctuating systems,” said Professor Bandi.

Martin Schulz, the European Parliament president who is returning to German politics, does not expect to run as the Social Democrats’ (SPD) candidate for chancellor next year, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday, December 30.

Schulz’s decision not to run, if confirmed, would likely clear the way for SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel to be the party’s candidate to challenge conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid for a fourth term in office next year, Reuters says.

Germany is due to hold parliamentary elections in September. Spiegel, without citing a source, said in its online edition that Schulz had indicated to close associates before Christmas that he no longer expected to be the SPD’s candidate for chancellor.

Schulz said in November he would not stand for re-election as speaker of the EU legislature and would instead campaign for a seat in Germany’s federal parliament next year.

He made no comment on suggestions he may succeed departing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier or become the SPD candidate to challenge Merkel for the chancellery.

However, many SPD members had hoped Schulz would run for chancellor, rather than the gaffe-prone Gabriel, who has been dubbed “Mr Zig Zag” by media for his policy reversals.

The SPD is junior partner in a grand coalition with Merkel’s conservatives.

A survey of 2,504 voters by pollster Forsa published on December 28 put support for Merkel’s conservative bloc at 38 percent, with the SPD the second largest party on 20 percent.

Gabriel, 57, has a difficult job. As deputy chancellor in Merkel’s grand coalition, he has to show he is fit to lead the nation while also heading a centre-left party whose policies are often at odds with much of German public opinion.

In the last year, the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has enjoyed a surge in support, siphoning voters away from the larger established parties. The Dec. 28 Forsa poll put support for the AfD at 12 percent.

As of January 1, Aarhus (Denmark) and Pafos (Cyprus) will hold the title of European Capital of Culture.

The cultural program will officially begin on January 21 in Aarhus. The opening ceremony for Pafos 2017 will take place on January 28.

According to Commissioner Tibor Navracsics, “The title of European Capital of Culture is a unique opportunity to bring communities together through culture and to foster strong local, European and international partnerships for the future. I wish Aarhus and Pafos every success for the coming year.”

Both cities have come up with programs that showcase centuries of culture while using different art forms to address the socio-economic problems facing Europe today, according to the Commission.

‘Rethink’ is the central theme of Aarhus 2017. The Danish city will show how arts, culture and the creative sector can help us to re-think and shape our basic social, urban, cultural and economic patterns of behavior and find new solutions to common challenges. A rooftop Viking saga performance, an art exhibition stretching across the city and the coastline, a “Creativity World Forum” and an international children’s literary festival are just some of the many events which will bridge the past with creative ideas for the present and future.

Aarhus 2017 will launch its cultural program with children at the heart of the celebrations. Hundreds of children from the Central Denmark region will gather in Aarhus to imagine the future in a series of events entitled “Land of Wishes”. As night falls during the opening ceremony, a spectacular show filled with pageantry, Viking spirits and gods in the sky will mark the start of the city’s year as European Capital of Culture.

‘Linking Continents, Bridging Cultures’ is the common thread running through hundreds of events organised by Pafos 2017. The first Cypriot city to host a European Capital of Culture embraces its experiences of multiculturalism and its geographical proximity to the Middle East and North Africa to strengthen relations between countries and cultures. Pafos is set to become an immense open stage, an ‘Open Air Factory’, where a tradition of thousands of years of cultural life in open spaces meets contemporary ways of creating, thinkingand living.

The opening ceremony for Pafos 2017 is inspired by one of the themes for the year’s cultural program: ‘Myth and Religion’. New life will be given to the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea and other narratives from the history of Pafos in a unique spectacle of music and dance. During the opening weekend on 28-29 January, the city will be converted into an Open Air Factory with numerous shows and artistic performances.

By Ana Maria Touma

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Friday designated Social Democrat Sorin Grindeanu as the country’s new Prime Minister.

The move ended days of uncertainty following the Social Democrat Party’s convincing victory in the December 11 legislative elections.

Grindeanu, 43, former minister for telecommunications in Victor Ponta’s government, has 10 days to come up with a cabinet and pass a confidence vote in parliament on his program.

The centre-left coalition between the Social Democrats, PSD, and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, ALDE, holds a solid majority in both chambers of parliament.

The PSD chair Liviu Dragnea and Prime Minister-designate Grindeanu announced that the party’s executive would convene on January 3 to vet the cabinet proposals.

The Prime Minister will announce the government in the afternoon and the new cabinet will be voted on in parliament on January 4.

A cut in VAT and a big hike in the minimum wage are already scheduled for January 1, fulfilling the PSD’s campaign promises – but raising fears that Romania’s budget deficit will rise above the European Union ceiling of 3 per cent of GDP.

A 15-per-cent wage increase for health and education workers has also been approved by parliament, while the PSD also wants to raise welfare spending.

Iohannis rejected the PSD’s first nominee, Sevil Shhaideh on Tuesday without giving a reason. Sevil Shhaideh, a 52-year-old former Development Minister was Muslim ethnic Tatar minority from the south-eastern port of Constanta.

In her first public appearance after her rejection, Shhaideh said during a talk-shaw on Thursday that she and her family were threatened on several occasions for being Muslim and her two children hadn’t left the house for fear of getting hurt.

“I was not prepared for this level of hatred,” she said, bursting into tears. “I was born here and this is where I grew up,” she added.

The President’s rejection of Shhaideh angered the Social Democrats, who initially threatened to suspend Iohannis but then nominated a second candidate, stating that it was their last effort to avoid a political crisis.

Sources close to the President said on Thursday that he thought Grindeanu was a better proposal than Shhaideh.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/veteran-social-democrat-grindeanu-officially-appointed-romanian-pm-12-30-2016#sthash.eNEr2HWh.dpuf

(Civil.Ge) — De facto South Ossetian Leader Leonid Tibilov announced at his December 29 press conference that the referendum on renaming breakaway South Ossetia to “South Ossetia – Alania” will coincide with presidential elections in April, 2017.

“In my view, we need to rename our state into South Ossetia – Alania, just like it is [in the case of] North Ossetia – Alania [referring to North Ossetia, one of Russia’s republics in North Caucasus], and after that, unite with North Ossetia within the Russian Federation as the state of Alania. But there are different opinions on the issue of renaming our republic, and we will take them into account,” Tibilov explained.

Tibilov first proposed to rename the region in December, 2015.

The breakaway republic’s leader was also planning to conduct the referendum on joining the Russian Federation in July 2016.

Tibilov announced on May 26 that Tskhinvali would postpone the referendum until after presidential elections.

A number of websites long blocked in Uzbekistan have been made available for internet users in the past few days, just the latest development in an apparent wave of liberalization sweeping the country.

Among the outlets whose websites can now be viewed without use of proxy servers are the BBC, RFE/RL’s Uzbek service (Ozodlik), Moscow-based Ferghana.ru and EurasiaNet.org. Perhaps even more strikingly, blocks on the websites of organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and the People’s Movement of Uzbekistan opposition group have also been lifted.

Quite what prompted the authorities to adopt this measure is not yet known. And the permissiveness has not been universal.

The editor of opposition news website eltuz.com, Germany-based Umida Niyazova, said most of the formerly banned sites became available for viewing on December 29.

“But our site is still blocked. It will take a week or so before we can draw any conclusions [about what is happening],” Niyazova told EurasiaNet.org.

eltuz.com is a particularly popular resource for its regular output of topical and controversial news stories, much of which focus on the everyday problems of people in Uzbekistan. The website is also well-known for its coruscating caricatures of political figures.

Uzbek political analyst Rafael Sattarov was doubtful that the websites of independent media or opposition movement would remain unblocked for long in Uzbekistan.

“The websites for Ozodlik or the BBC have not always been blocked in Uzbekistan, and as far as the international organizations are concerned, what is most likely is that the special services have simply changed the jamming system,” Sattarov said.

As it is, the authorities appear to be operating under some degree of self-willed delusion.

On December 13, the chairman of the government’s information technology committee, Ilhom Abdullayev, spoke at an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe event in Vienna and denied flatly that Uzbekistan blocks any websites.

“In Uzbekistan, we do not block any websites. If any actions concerning access to information or media is taking place, it is only in strict compliance with the law and on the basis of relevant court rulings,” Abdullayev replied when asked why his government prevented internet users from viewing certain websites.

The global community has created a multiplicity of so-called legal tools aimed at preventing nuclear weapon proliferation, including legally binding treaties to voluntary agreements and regional committees, such as the Nuclear Supplier Group.

NSG has two sets of guidelines meticulously enlisting the nuclear materials, equipment, and technologies subject to export controls. These guidelines require the importing party to ensure that there trade shall not in any way contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation. Since the India-Pakistan’s application for NSG membership, politics of NSG has gained massive attention of international community in few months.

NSG membership of India and Pakistan revolves around major power politics. India has been granted the status of a special waiver, whereas Pakistan is facing a discriminatory attitude of the major powers. The most ironic aspect of this issue is that NSG was established in response to India’s nuclear testing to stop nuclear proliferation and now its entry is being strongly supported by major powers of the group.

Additionally, on December 6, 2016, Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi, the former chair of Nuclear Suppliers Group, presented a proposal consisting of nine points for NSG membership —  it has been observed by the international community that these points are suitable to India, but not for Pakistan. If Grossi’s criteria is adopted then India can claim that it has already taken all measures according to NSG guidelines, while leaving Pakistan at a disadvantage.

The first point of the suggested criteria is regarding the separation of current and future civilian and nuclear facilities — under the 2008 exemption India has already notified a separation plan, whereas Pakistan hasn’t formally notified its separation plan to IAEA despite  having separate military and civilian’s facilities.

As such, currently, in the context of proposed NSG criteria, Pakistan is technically ineligible for NSG membership.

The second point saus that states must have enforce IAEA’s Additional Protocol. This point also suits India as it has already signed the additional protocol with IAEA.

Although the nature of India’s additional protocol with IAEA is weak it will help India to fulfill the basic criteria. However, Pakistan has no hesitation in signing the additional protocol with IAEA, but it will take time and in this regard India has another advantage over Pakistan.

Another point is that candidates must commit to not conducting any nuclear tests in the future. Both India and Pakistan can fulfill this clause but, such commitments are more like a political commitment and are not legal binding and as such any member state can break their promise, as India violated the IAEA safeguards in 1974.

The next point is not to indulge in any proliferation activity. both India and Pakistan being responsible nuclear weapon states have been already committed to not using any item transferred.

Another salient clause is: “An understanding that due to the unique nature of the non-NPT Party applications, non-NPT applicant would join a consensus of all other Participating Governments on the merits of any non-NPT Party application.” The last clause of the proposed criteria was just to project that this criteria is not state-centric and the group has maintained its objective by imposing a pre-condition on India that it will not oppose Pakistan’s entry when Pakistan has fulfilled the new criteria that is actually developed for India. But it still has a major weakness as India has strong supporters in the group and they can refuse Pakistan’s membership on behalf of India, as the NSG works on consensus.

The analysis of Grossi’s formula presents that NSG guidelines are influenced by major powers of the groups, especially the US’ support to India’s membership that deeply rooted in its own geostrategic and geo-economics interests.

In this regard India is given benefits and being a Nuclear Non-proliferation member, state-specific conditions are formulated to favor India. Such state-centric discriminatory policies present that major powers are using non-proliferation regimes as a tool to peruse their own interests and such these dynamics really undermine the global non-proliferation efforts.

Adopting Grossi’s formula and granting membership to India will be a major setback to the non-proliferation regime as such a membership will provide India access to the latest nuclear related infrastructure and technology that will enable India to commercialize the manufacturing of nuclear power plants, as well as permitting  India to enhance vertical proliferation and disturb the balance of power and regional stability.

In the light of these scenarios, ideally NSG states must address the above mentioned challenges as well as the complex proliferation dealings and networks of India that evade multilateral trade controls along with the most pressing issue of their discriminatory approach towards Pakistan.

*Asma Khalid, Associate at Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) Islamabad.