A large-scale theater production based on the New Testament will have its opening night in the southern Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram on Jan. 20.

Archbishop Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum said that 150 artists and around 50 animals will participate in Ente Rakshakan (My Savior), reported The Hindu.

“Most of the cast and crew consist of non-Christians. This comes at a time when motives, including that of religious conversion, are attributed to such attempts,” said Archbishop Soosa Pakiam.

Soorya Krishnamoorthy, one of Ente Rakshakan’s producers, said the two-hour long show takes the audience through the life of Jesus.

Krishnamoorthy told The Hindu that the production would be put on at two different venues each month.

The opening night is at the Salvation Army School grounds in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala state.

Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh’s declared state of emergency provides no justification for a crackdown on peaceful dissent around the January 19, 2017, deadline for the new government to take office, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Since January 15, security forces loyal to President Jammeh have arbitrarily detained at least five officers and enlisted men suspected of opposing Jammeh’s bid to remain in office. Since Jammeh rejected the December 1, 2016, election results on December 9, Gambian authorities have arbitrarily arrested opposition sympathizers and closed four independent radio stations. The state of emergency raises fears of further repression against opposition supporters around the planned January 19 inauguration of president-elect Adama Barrow. Many Gambians have fled the country out of concerns for their security.

“Respect for human rights must not be a casualty of the current political crisis,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa deputy director. “The declared state of emergency must not be used as a pretext to crack down on peaceful dissent.”

Jammeh and Gambia’s National Assembly, which his party controls, on January 17 declared a 90-day state of emergency. If authorized by the National Assembly, this would empower Jammeh to suspend certain basic due process rights, including the prohibition on detaining individuals without charge.

In announcing the state of emergency on state television, Jammeh said that “civil liberties are to be fully respected” but that “acts intended to disturb public order and peace” were banned.

Several Gambian youth organizers told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that they anticipated Gambians would take to the streets on January 19 to celebrate Barrow’s inauguration. “We’re not scared anymore,” one said. “We just want this to be over.” One Gambian activist who said that intelligence officers detained and beat him on January 10, said that they warned him, “If you try to do anything on January 19, we will crush you like bedbugs.”

Since January 15, authorities have detained and held incommunicado at least five members of the armed forces – including Capt. Babucarr Bah, Capt. Demba Baldeh, and Lt. Col. Hena Sambou – for supporting or planning to support Barrow. Sources said the soldiers are believed to be detained at the National Intelligence Agency and have had no contact with family members.

The arrests contradict an executive order announced by Jammeh on January 10 that there would be “no arrests” until January 31.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has announced that it is preparing a military force led by Senegal and Nigeria for possible intervention if Barrow is prevented from assuming the presidency. Should an ECOWAS intervention occur, all measures need to be taken to ensure the protection of civilians and respect for human rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.

“The protection of human rights should be at the core of any solution to Gambia’s political crisis,” said Corinne Dufka, associate Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “If ECOWAS deploys military force, all sides will need to ensure the safety of civilians.”

By Valerie Anne Jill I. Valero*

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won the elections in July in convincing fashion, effectively ensuring policies and initiatives espoused by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet little to no resistance in the Diet. LDP managed to capture majority of the seats in both the House of Representatives and House of Councillors, an unprecedented achievement in Japanese electoral politics.

With the Diet firmly behind him, Abe can be expected to carry on with his domestic and foreign initiatives and policies. His Proactive Contribution to Peace policy, for instance, can be expected to continue. He can also be expected to push for, if not explore, certain developments or changes, such as constitutional revision.

Plans for constitutional revision

With the consolidation of power, constitutional revision is becoming closer to actuality. The ruling government fulfills the condition of the Peace Constitution’s Article 96, which states that a two-thirds majority is required in order to undertake constitutional revision. A highly contested and sensitive subject, especially for the Japanese public, there are plans to convene a referendum to open the discussion on the merits, concerns, and parameters of revision.

It remains unclear, however, what specific parts of the Constitution Abe intends to push for revision; while there is substantial speculation that Article 9 will be the priority, there is also an assumption that Abe will set its sights on other provisions.

There is also the matter of Emperor Akihito’s public address on 8 August indicating his wish to abdicate. It falls on the government to explore options (i.e., revise existing laws of succession) should the Emperor absolutely decide to relinquish his throne. The news of possible abdication coincided with speculations of the Emperor’s expanded political role in the Constitution being part of Abe’s revision agenda.

Initiatives towards the improvement of Russo-Japanese relations

The year 2016 saw advances toward the improvement of Russo-Japanese relations, which have been contentious since the end of World War II due to the Northern Territories dispute. Differences in policy and perspective remain with regard to the contested territories and Russia’s military interventions, but have not hindered Japanese and Russian officials from conducting talks, the most notable of which to date is the Japan-Russia Summit Meeting in May at Sochi. Abe visited Russia twice in 2016 (May and September), while Pres. Vladimir Putin visited Japan in mid-December – his first visit to the country since 2005.

Both countries have reiterated their territorial claims, rapprochement efforts notwithstanding. While a resolution to the Northern Territories dispute may not materialize soon, it is expected that Japan and Russia will work to expand bilateral relations through more high-level dialogues and visits, trade, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Japan’s initiatives under the Abe administration to reach out to Russia have inevitably introduced certain complications, as far as security relations are concerned. Washington has expressed some reservation at recent developments in Russo-Japanese relations given that Japan is arguably its most important ally in East Asia. How the dynamics of the US-Japan alliance is going to be impacted by Japan’s conscious efforts to improve Russo-Japanese relations merits observation.

Continued clashes with China on territorial claims and regional maritime security

Japan launched a diplomatic protest against Chinese incursions near the contested waters of the East China Sea, which has occurred sporadically and most notably in the first half of August 2016. Conflicting claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands have been an enduring concern in Sino-Japanese relations and prospects for resolution, if not dialogue, have been punctuated by a growing number of incidents, which range from surveillance to incursions in the contiguous zones. Japan and China also have competing claims on Okinotorishima; however, this has received far less attention in comparison to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands conflict.

Sino-Japanese relations, as far as maritime security is concerned, has become more complicated not only by China and Japan’s own territorial conflicts, but also by China’s militarization activities overall and Japan’s more vocal and proactive stance in other regional territorial conflicts such as the South China Sea. In particular, Japan has increased its support to other parties involved in the South China Sea dispute, engaging in more exchanges, promoting maritime domain awareness, and providing assistance to reinforce maritime security capabilities. For instance, Japan supported the Philippines in its arbitration case against China, and has sought greater bilateral cooperation in maritime security through the institution of dialogues, joint military activities and technology transfers. In the latter half of 2016, Japan provided coast guard patrol boats and TC-90 surveillance aircrafts in fulfillment of the Agreement Concerning the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology signed in February.

From a geopolitical standpoint, the regional maritime situation reflects mutual wariness, with Japan seeking to counterbalance China, and China opposing what it perceives as Japanese attempts at military resurgence.

Developments impacting Japanese trade and economy

Two crucial developments this year stand to impact Japan in terms of trade and investment for years to come – the speculated withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. It is worth noting Japan’s reaction to these two major developments and worth observing how the country intends to navigate such possible, if not imminent, shifts in the regional and global economic landscape.

Japan and the future of the TPP. In what observers considered to be a surprising move, the Japanese parliament ratified the TPP in November despite president-elect Donald Trump’s initial pronouncement that he intends to pull the US out of the agreement, which would weaken it and render it superfluous despite the intended goal of creating a set of comprehensive rules and a highly liberalized trade and investment environment.

The TPP would be a landmark trade agreement among Asia-Pacific economies. More importantly for Japan perhaps, is that the TPP plays an integral part in Abe’s economic growth strategy – TPP is expected to increase Japan’s global market access and pave the way for a more open Japanese market, and provides an important counterbalance to China’s ever spreading economic influence in East Asia by way of the alternative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, as well as a means to keep Washington engaged in the region beyond the realm of defense and security.

The ratification indicates Japan’s continued commitment to the TPP, but analysts likewise suggest that this commitment compels the government to step up and push further, particularly to persuade the impending Trump administration to change its mind about the agreement. If not, the ratification is seen as an opportunity to discuss further modifications to the TPP and for to Japan work out its own limitations and liberalization problems.

Japan’s reaction to UK’s exit from the EU. The British exit from EU (Brexit) following a referendum in June, made headlines all over the world. Arguably, one of the strongest reactions to Brexit came from Japan. British media outlets took pointed notice of “Japan’s Message to the United Kingdom and the European Union,” referring to the 15-page memo released through the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a cautionary statement from an important non-EU country and whose lead might be followed by other third parties. The message outlines 18 requests directed at the UK, EU, and both UK and the EU concerning the impact of Brexit on existing and prospective trade and investment. It must be noted that Japan has long treated UK as its gateway to the European market, which implies a solid bilateral economic relationship, and one that stands to be complicated by the latter’s decision to withdraw from the EU.

About the author:
*Valerie Anne Jill I. Valero is a Senior Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Ms. Valero can be reached at vivalero@fsi.gov.ph

Source:
CIRSS Commentaries is a regular short publication of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) focusing on the latest regional and global developments and issues. The views expressed in this publication are of the authors alone and do not reflect the official position of the Foreign Service Institute, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Government of the Philippines.

‘Hybrid Courts with international judges’ is arguably the most controversial phraseology in the Transitional Justice lexicon in Sri Lanka today. The range of emotions associated with its usage and employment range from one extreme to the other.

While there is little doubt that Sri Lanka needs a judicial mechanism which musters international confidence and support, insistence on ‘Hybrid Courts with international judges’ by the 11 member Consultative Task Force (CTF) as the judicial answer to impunity has converted the justice debate in the country to a semantic slug-feast demanding attention to the phrase ‘Hybrid Courts’. This necessitates a close examination of six existing hybrid tribunals to understand the contexts of their functioning and the viability of this judicial model in Sri Lanka.

Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)

SCSL earned the distinction of being among the first Hybrid Court formed to try grave violations of international law in 2002 and the only hybrid court to convict a head of State among others. Created in the backdrop of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the Rome Statute establishing the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), the SCSC took birth on the wisdom that merging domestic and international elements accord a greater sense of legitimacy to criminal trials apart from being economically less prohibitive.

Interestingly, the desire to have UN assistance for a quasi-international trial was mooted by the Sierra Leone government itself, the finer aspects of which were ironed out after deliberations between the Secretary General and the UNSC. The Court was established pursuant to an agreement between the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Sierra Leone government which materialized on 16th January 2002. Significantly, the agreement was internalized through a national legislation giving a strong domestic color and making it a hybrid arrangement.

Thus, heavy UN involvement and a strong willingness on the part of the Sierra Leone government to take a lead in forming the court were defining elements of this judicial venture. Significantly, the SCSC remains the only hybrid court to have successfully completed its mandate.

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

Unlike Sierra Leone which witnessed heavy UNSC involvement, the UN General Assembly was at the forefront of transitional justice efforts in Cambodia. Additionally, the Cambodian government’s willing to permit UN involvement in the trial process of Khmer Rouge leaders similar to Sierra Leone was an integral feature of this arrangement started in 2006.

However, unlike Sierra Leone, Cambodia exerted superior negotiating powers in driving out key bargains in negotiations with the UN partly due to the absence of UNSC involvement in the exercise. The establishment of the Court was through a domestic law after a successful agreement with the UN on the clear understanding that the law to be applicable would be a domestic one.

Interestingly, ECCC had a majority of domestic judges, a suggestion incorporated by the Sri Lankan CTF. Thus both the governments of Sierra Leone and Cambodia were co-operative stakeholders in creating hybrid mechanisms through a domestic law in the aftermath of strong UN involvement, albeit with varying intensities.

In addition, a realization that stand alone national trials could not be conducted in the wake of paucity of resources and sufficiently trained manpower in both these countries was a contributing factor for international involvement.

Special Panels of the Dili District Court (Timor Leste)

Established in East Timor in 2000 to try individuals responsible for atrocities committed in the aftermath of the 1999 UN mandated referendum which voted for independence, the Special Panels were the handiwork of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). Unlike Sierra Leone and Cambodia which witnessed creation of domestic structures with strong UN assistance, East Timor was a case which saw full involvement of the UN given the absence of an independent state apparatus in the country.

This handholding by the UN created Panels which though international was termed ‘Hybrid’ due the involvement of local judges. Resource crunch, absence of experts and a hostile political climate in Indonesia lead to the abandonment of the judicial experiment midway in May 2005 in favor of other transitional justice measures. However, despite its abrupt ending the Court is significant for the unprecedented UN involvement in its conceptualization making it an international effort given a domestic dressing.
Regulation 64 Panels (Kosovo)

Like East Timor, the prosecution of serious crimes in Kosovo witnessed full UN ownership under the leadership of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Vested with the power to issue Regulations mandating prosecutions, initial attempts in creating an appropriate judicial mechanism met with infrastructural and resource constraints. Owing to a crisis of credibility and the need to have greater international judicial participation, UNMIK created courts known as ‘Regulation 64 panels’.

Interestingly, the Kosovo tribunal is the only one of the two hybrid mechanisms created in a territory already having a War Crimes Court namely the ICTY. Unlike Sierra Leone and Cambodia and like East Timor Kosovo witnessed whole scale UN involvement through Chapter VII resolutions which saw UN authorities being given power to formulate legal structures. In such a scenario, the latter trials have a far greater international component than the former ones.

Bosnian War Crimes Chamber

Established specifically for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber along with Kosovo’s Regulation 64 panels is the other Hybrid Court created in a territory witnessing exercise of jurisdiction by an existing Court- the ICTY.

A brainchild of the UN Security Council to ease the load of the ICTY and logically culminate the mandate of the latter, the court is a full time product of UN intervention. Over time the Court has assumed a domestic character and tends to be categorized as such except to the extent of UN efforts involved in its creation.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)

Created to prosecute individuals involved in the February 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, the STL is unique in its mandate to focus attention on a specific event and its causes.

Similar to East Timor and Kosovo in its establishment through a Chapter VII resolution, the STL has all the markings of an international court due to concerted UN involvement in its establishment but for the presence of Lebanese judges. In addition like Sierra Leone and Cambodia, the STL was established, inter alia at the request of the host state.

Conclusion

With the Sri Lankan government not interested in international involvement in the trial process and UN enthusiasm for a Hybrid mechanism in the country still not ascertainable, it is important that the transitional justice debate moves to a “substance” oriented one as opposed to a “form” one that is being witnessed currently. The logic of hybrid courts are based on an understanding that a common framework of such courts exist which can be domestically replicated in the Sri Lankan setting.

While international judges are an integral component of the hybrid court mechanism, such courts in reality are more about international involvement, strong UN participation and co-opting host states to willingly accept a shared international mechanism in the broader interest of justice. Given the nature of the conflict, the cry for justice and the official position of the Sri Lankan government any judicial mechanism in the Country would be unique Sri Lankan model with appropriate UN and international involvement whether termed ‘Hybrid’, ‘domestic’ or otherwise. This model would be Sri Lanka’s unique contribution to International Criminal Justice and should necessarily have the blessings of the international community to be a legitimate exercise.

*Abraham Joseph is a PhD candidate in International Criminal Law from NLSIU, Bangalore and an Assistant Professor in Ansal School of Law, Ansal University, Gurgaon.

To overcome multiple energy challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region, the newly formed Committee on Energy, convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), is meeting for the first time this week.

Development in the Asia-Pacific region is hampered by isolated energy networks that cause some countries to experience energy shortages, while others have an energy surplus.

It is estimated that as recently as 2014, power outages cost India 5 percent of its GDP, while surplus wind and solar power generation is being curtailed in other countries due to oversupply. Development of cross-border power-grids can open up opportunities for both economic growth and decarbonization.

Additionally, half a billion people across Asia and the Pacific have no access to electricity, creating an energy access gap.

“The region’s approach to energy infrastructure planning must be recast to usher in a regional vision for trading of electricity and gas between countries. Modern policies that spur innovation, drive down costs and level the playing field for new technologies are needed. A scale up of both public and private investment in energy access projects is long overdue to bring modern energy to half a billion mainly rural poor across the region,” said Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Executive Secretary of ESCAP, during her opening statement at the Committee.

Prior to the opening of the Committee this week, government officials, private sectors and experts met to exchange ideas on the critical issues facing Asia-Pacific’s transition to sustainable and clean energy. The policy dialogue provided insights for Committee deliberations as well as the upcoming theme study “Regional Cooperation for Sustainable Energy” for the 73rd ESCAP Commission Session, scheduled to be held in May 2017.

The Committee will discuss key energy priorities for the region including: accelerating uptake of renewables and energy efficiency; establishing cross-border energy connectivity; promoting regional approaches to energy security and ensuring the region moves towards a sustainable energy future in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

As part of the Committee agenda, a ministerial panel brought together high-level officials to review the energy transition required to support the Sustainable Development Goals and energy connectivity for regional economic cooperation and integration. Panellists highlighted their country’s energy needs, successes and challenges, and outlined other priorities to ensure that energy systems and infrastructure are resilient to climate change and disasters.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which was launched Thursday at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, is an initiative to shorten the response time to epidemics by creating vaccines that could be released quickly once an outbreak occurs.

By financing and doing the research before a crisis erupts, CEPI would dramatically speed up the ability to counter the spread of an infectious disease such as Ebola. CEPI was conceived by some of the launch partners who met at the Annual Meeting in Davos a year ago.

The 47th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is currently taking place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland,

“This has grown out of the lessons learned – what was good about our response to the Ebola crisis and what went wrong,” said Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway. “The international response was too late, but now we know how to respond faster the next time.”

With $460 million in initial funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, and promises for a total of $700 million, the program involves the global vaccine manufacturers. With the advance work that CEPI will do, prepared vaccines could go straight to phase-three trials and get regulator approvals faster.

“What CEPI does is take the things that we do in battle and do them in peace time,” explained Andrew Witty, Chief Executive Officer of GlaxoSmithKline in the UK.

Epidemics have become more frequent in today’s interconnected world.

“What happens in Lagos will affect Davos tomorrow,” warned Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK, who noted that there is still no licensed vaccine for Ebola. “The world is incredibly vulnerable.” With CEPI, “we will change the paradigm for how we get vaccines for these epidemics.”

Added William H. Gates III, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the US: “Unfortunately, even though there is substantial risk for epidemics, there is not a natural market for vaccines. You have to get governments to create the right incentive structure. If you can predict what the pathogens are going to be and can get vaccines stockpiled, then that would be a very good response. This is a substantial step that deals with a problem that can keep you up at night if you aren’t ready for it.”

“We need to mobilize this research,” agreed Alpha Condé, President of Guinea. “If we had had a vaccine a lot quicker, the Ebola epidemic wouldn’t have spread as far. We want to see a vaccine that is 100% effective and financed.” He said he hopes that CEPI would not only allow for a quick response to a disease outbreak, but would also help countries like Guinea develop the local capability to react to healthcare emergencies.

Dear President Obama:

I listened to your farewell address to the nation on C-Span radio (January 10, 2017) and read the text in its entirety. Its strength lies in recounting basic values of a civil society, the struggle to improve a democratic society, and memorable referents to both. To those of us who have followed your eight years in office and urged you to attach deeds to words on behalf of a stronger civil society – from which almost all justice and protected freedoms have emanated – the address masked lost opportunities on a major scale in connecting words to actions.

In past years, I’ve written you letters specifically addressing this gap and how to jumpstart with your bully pulpit and policies these inexpensive and voluntarily used facilities for democracy. While you and others have recognized the need for robust rights and modest remedies, far less attention has been given to facilities that make it ever easier to mobilize and organize for the use of these rights and remedies. Throughout your address you plead for a “call to citizenship” that “has given work and purpose to each new generation,” and “the imperative to strive together as well, to achieve a greater good” (See Harvard Law Professor Richard D. Parker’s book, Here the People Rule).

In a corporate economy relentlessly entrenching a corporate state, it behooves you to propose to the people facilities by which they can find one another and come together as workers, consumers, taxpayers, voters, candidates and as local communities. These include stronger labor union organizing and rank and file rights, consumer checkoffs to band together publicized by the government and/or required to be attached to billings by regulated companies, stronger class action facilities for commonly aggrieved individuals, local and state initiative, referendum and recall facilities for the accountabilities of public servants, expanded “standing to sue” by taxpayers to challenge the corporate subsidy state’s many programs with their cloistered immunities, audience networks and other facilities to give meaning to the historic ownership of the public commons presently controlled by corporations, such as the public lands and taxpayer-funded government R&D giveaways to corporations.

These are just some of the concrete organizing facilities that can give life to paper rights and remedies. How else can your words that “change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and come together to demand it” or “But that potential will be realized only if our democracy works” or “All of us, regardless of party should throw ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions,” be given concrete applications?

You stressed more than once the responsibility to “respect and enforce the rule of law.” In the area of civil rights and criminal justice reform, you speak with considerable credibility. But in the area of corporate lawlessness and runaway presidential power, both overseas (as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner) and domestically (as with deprivation of due process, illegal surveillance and secret evidence) your unlawful record is gravely lacking. (See, for example, Law Professor Jonathan Turley’s article in the Washington Post, “Ten Reasons We’re No Longer the Land of the Free” (January 15, 2012).

For over four years I and others have asked you to make a major address advancing functional content to the kinds of verbal exhortations you have given to the citizenry to exercise their civic powers for a better society. We proposed you go to a nearby large hotel ballroom or public auditorium in DC to speak and meet with over 1000 civic leaders with millions of members around the country (Jimmy Carter did this as president-elect in 1976). These leaders would include urban and rural associations, health, environmental, labor, consumer, housing, child welfare and anti-poverty groups, secular and religious charities and other pillars of the non-profit, job-intensive civil society. You could have given higher visibility to their efforts, encouraged more people to participate in their endeavors and, most importantly, outline a platform for strengthening the citizenry’s role, now so sorely subordinated to commercial and bureaucratic vested interests, to assure a broadly functioning democracy and political economy. In short, proposing the universal tools to give muscle and supremacy to “we the people” as befits our Constitution’s fundamental preamble.

Alas, you have not even responded to this offer to advance such an enduring legacy. By contrast, you have given visibility and prominence to many profit-seeking corporations, as in your trip to India boosting sales for Boeing and Harley-Davidson, your many trips to corporate production sites and your many invitations to the White House of sports champions and a few days ago five novelists. Don’t you see the asymmetry here? Don’t you see the asymmetry in your walking across Lafayette Square to pay homage to the Chamber of Commerce in 2010, while declining to visit the nearby headquarters of labor AFL-CIO? Or right after your inauguration in 2009 driving to dinner with right-wing columnists at the home of George Will? You have seemed more attentive to those who oppose you than to those “who brung you there,” to quote a vernacular southern saying.

In a similar vein, it is intriguing to note that you have learned from those who disagree with you and have power like the corporatists (causing your restricted, overly complex Obamacare without even the public option) but not from those who you ideally agree with but have opposed for political expediency. This anomalous practice is not unrelated to losses by the Democratic Party, starting in 2010, of many state legislatures, state governorships and, most defeating for your agendas, of the U.S. Congress. Excessive caution on restoring the inflation-gutted federal minimum wage or investing in public works (infrastructure) or cracking down on corporate crime and a myriad of corporate subsidies – among other missed opportunities – contributed to political isolation.

As you become an active post-presidential citizen (noted in the last words of your farewell address), can you manage to address an assembly of 1000 civic leaders in Washington, DC with a profoundly galvanizing presentation around the organizing facilities that further people banding together for various common causes to implement the principle of making government more self-governance?

Given my dozens of letters to you that have gone unacknowledged and unanswered (See my collection of letters to you and George W. Bush in the book Return to Sender sent to you in 2015). I do not expect a response. But that is no barrier to addressing civic leaders “right there with you, as a citizen” for a formidable start to your self-declared role post January 20, 2017.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Wednesday morning Donald Trump bashed NBC, tweeting: “Totally biased NBCNews went out of its way to say that the big announcement from Ford, G.M., Lockheed & others that jobs are coming back to the U.S., but had nothing to do with TRUMP, is more FAKE NEWS. Ask top CEO’s of those companies for real facts. Came back because of me!”

Here are four takeaways from Trump’s latest tantrum:

1. As usual, Trump has his facts wrong. Analysts say Ford’s decision to expand in Michigan rather than in Mexico had mostly to do with the company’s long-term plans to invest in electric vehicles. It’s easier for companies to find highly skilled workers to build new products, such as electric cars, in the United States than in Mexico.

GM said its plan was approved before the election, but it was “accelerated” under pressure from Trump. Relatedly, Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat Chrysler chief executive, said Chrysler’s plan to build some cars in the U.S. had been in the works for more than a year and had nothing to do with Trump. Marchionne credited the decision to talks with the United Auto Workers.

2. Once again, the tweet reveals Trump’s pathological narcissism. All Trump can think of about is “TRUMP,” which he capitalizes, then insists that the jobs “Came back because of me!” This is the rant of a child wanting attention and praise, not someone who will shortly be President of the United States.

3. It’s also dangerous. Although Trump’s outrage at NBC – like his condemnation of other specific media outlets that don’t report what he wants – is harmless now,  it could threaten press freedom when Trump has power over regulators at the FCC and antitrust division who could make life difficult for targeted media outlets.

4. It’s intended to divert attention from the big stuff. Trump’s specific deals with particular companies diverts attention from his larger initiatives that will hurt working Americans.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act, for example, will leave at least 18 million Americans without health insurance next year.

Trump’s cabinet picks are overwhelmingly anti-worker. Andrew Puzder, Trump’s nominee for the Labor Department, wants to get rid of Obama’s overtime rule, which, if implemented, is expected to add $12 billion to workers’ wallets over the next decade. And Puzder is against the minimum wage.

And the huge corporate tax cuts and military buildup Trump is pushing will give congressional Republicans a rationale to cut Medicare and Social Security, in order to avoid bigger budget deficits.

A few jobs “saved” is nothing compared to these and other hardships Trump will be imposing on working Americans.

All told, Trump’s tweet tantrum reveals a great deal about the man who’s soon to be president of the United States. None of it inspires confidence.

In conjunction with the Libyan Government of National Accord, the US military conducted precision airstrikes in Libya last night, destroying two Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant camps 28 miles southwest of Sirte, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

In a statement, Cook said the ISIL terrorists targeted in the strikes included individuals who fled to the remote desert camps from Sirte to reorganize, and they posed a security threat to Libya, the region and US national interests.

“While we are still evaluating the results of the strikes, the initial assessment indicates they were successful,” the press secretary said. “This action was authorized by the president as an extension of the successful operation the U.S. military conducted last year to support Libyan forces in freeing Sirte from ISIL control.”

The United States remains prepared to further support Libyan efforts to counter terrorist threats and to defeat ISIL in Libya, Cook added. “We are committed to maintaining pressure on ISIL and preventing them from establishing safe haven,” he added.

“These strikes will degrade ISIL’s ability to stage attacks against Libyan forces and civilians working to stabilize Sirte, and demonstrate our resolve in countering the threat posed by ISIL to Libya, the United States and our allies.”

By Michael Lelyveld

With the end of one smoggy year and the start of another, China’s government has issued revised plans for producing and consuming high-polluting coal.

On the last day of 2016, the government’s top planning agency released new five-year targets for trimming China’s massive coal production capacity as some two-dozen northern cities maintained the highest red-alert warnings for soot-laden smog.

The new goals did not offer any immediate relief to gasping residents. But over the longer term, China plans to reduce its annual coal production capacity by 800 million metric tons in 2020 compared with 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.

In addition to cutting its “outdated” capacity, China will increase the use of “cleaner” coal by 500 million tons, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It was unclear from the report whether lower quality coal would be reduced by the same amount.

The addition of 500 million tons of cleaner or “advanced” coal would result in a net annual reduction of 300 million tons of capacity by 2020, the Financial Times reported.

The new targets appear to redefine directives from the cabinet-level State Council last February that called for cutting production overcapacity by 500 million tons in “the next three to five years,” while consolidating another 500 million tons under “more efficient operators.”

The numbers are important for at least two reasons.

First, as the source of about half the world’s coal output, China has struggled with up to 2 billion tons of production overcapacity, weighing heavily on prices.

Second, China accounts for about half the world’s coal consumption, making it a leading contributor to climate change and smog.

No direct effect on smog

David Fridley, a staff scientist with the China Energy Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said the capacity cuts would have no direct effect on the current smog problem.

“China still has excess coal production capacity, so reducing capacity won’t necessarily translate into a reduction in production, but it will ensure that remaining capacity is more firmly in the hands of large state producers,” Fridley said by email.

China’s smog crisis has been a challenge for the government as northern cities have been buried under continuous heavy pollution in December and January with barely a break.

On Jan. 3, the National Meteorological Center issued its first national red alert as “fog” covered the Beijing- Tianjin-Hebei region, as well as the provinces of Henan, Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu, Xinhua said.

At least 72 cities declared smog alerts, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). Concentrations of fine particulates known as PM 2.5 soared to more than 20 times the safe levels established by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In reports from China’s 338 cities, nearly 62 percent suffered from PM 2.5 levels at least four times the WHO safe limit, according to MEP data on Jan. 4.

Complaints about traffic restrictions, grounded flights, and closed schools may account for the NDRC’s decision to announce the new coal rules on New Year’s Eve, when attention may have been drawn elsewhere.

The revised five-year plan is one of several steps taken during the air quality crisis.

The government has been trying to highlight its anti-pollution enforcement efforts, citing MEP penalties against more than 500 enterprises and construction sites along with 10,000 vehicles.

But total fines of 243 million yuan (U.S. $35.2 million) by Dec. 30 were not enough to keep Hebei’s coal-burning steel mills from operating despite shutdown orders, according to state media reports.

Energy-intensive industries to blame

In a BBC interview, Sam Geall, executive editor of the environmental website chinadialogue.net, attributed the smog problem to a combination of factors including adverse wind conditions and a resurgence of manufacturing in the northeast.

Geall cited “energy-intensive industries in the region around Beijing.”

“Traditionally, there’s a lot of steelmaking around there. Those industries haven’t been faring that well, but there seems to have been some government spending to try to offset job losses,” he said.

While the mills have kept running, government agencies have threatened more anti-pollution steps.

On Dec. 26, China’s Supreme People’s Court and top prosecutorial body issued a series of interpretations that define violations as environmental crimes.

Under the rulings, crimes such as falsifying environmental monitoring data could be punished by imprisonment of up to seven years and monetary fines, Xinhua said.

At a Jan. 6 press conference, MEP Minister Chen Dining said the agency is evaluating the emergency smog plans of 20 cities “to improve their response ability.”

In the capital over the weekend, Beijing’s acting mayor, Cai Qi, pledged to spend 18.2 billion yuan (U.S. $2.6 billion) this year to improve air quality.

On Monday, Beijing issued yet another warning of “seriously polluted” conditions with a yellow alert, the third-highest level in its color-coded scheme.

But the NDRC’s new targets for the coal industry may prompt concerns that the government is not doing enough.

Comparison of the old and new coal rules is difficult since Xinhua’s account fails to mention its earlier reports that the industry had already reached its 2016 capacity reduction target of 250 million tons in November.

Deducting that volume from the newly-announced net capacity decrease of 300 million tons would leave little more to cut by 2020 if interpretations of the new targets are correct.

Without further details, it is hard to tell whether the new rules represent greater reductions or a numbers game.

The matter becomes murkier

Making the matter even murkier, the government has acknowledged that last year’s capacity cuts were too much and too fast, resulting in coal shortages at power plants and a sudden price spike.

Some mines reopened after they were counted as closed to take advantage of higher prices and rising demand. How these are being counted now is another unknown.

At a Beijing press conference on Jan. 5, Li Yangzhe, deputy head of the National Energy Administration (NEA), restated the government’s goals under its new Five-Year Energy Plan in favorable terms, stressing gains in renewable energy rather than immediate anti-smog steps.

“The increase in non-fossil fuels and natural gas will account for more than 68 percent of the total expected increase in energy consumption,” Xinhua quoted Li as saying.

But a more direct effect on the smog problem may come from the NDRC’s projected increases in both coal production and consumption under the five-year plan.

The agency said that production will rise from 3.75 billion tons in 2015 to 3.9 billion in 2020, while consumption would grow from 3.96 billion to 4.1 billion tons.

On Tuesday, Xinhua said China would try to cap coal consumption at 4.1 billion tons by 2020 and reduce its share of energy use to under 58 percent from 64 percent in 2015.

The government has announced similar caps in the past.

The planned increases break a trend of declining coal consumption since a high of 4.24 billion tons in 2013, dimming hopes for reduced emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and smog.

In its annual World Energy Outlook last November, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) projected a slight 0.5-percent average annual decrease in China’s coal demand through 2040, but IEA officials recently voiced uncertainty over whether demand had peaked in 2013 or not.

Philip Andrews-Speed, a China energy expert at the National University of Singapore, said the cuts in surplus coal capacity will do “nothing effective” to reduce CO2 emissions or smog, since China is continuing to build more coal-fired power plants.

While the NEA plan calls for non-fossil sources to provide 15 percent of China’s energy by 2020, emissions savings will depend on whether renewable energy takes precedence over thermal power in dispatch to the grid, Andrews-Speed said.

China’s energy-related CO2 emissions are expected to reach a high around 2030 before tapering off, according to the IEA.

Broken environmental promises

But China’s coal plans may cloud the outlook for smog as the government’s economic policies continue to cause pollution despite environmental promises.

Last year, China’s smog problems worsened when northern cities turned on their coal-fired winter heating systems, but the spike in steel production also played a major part.

Thanks to the government’s economic stimulus policies and support for infrastructure projects, steel demand staged a recovery in 2016 on strong price growth in the midst of ordered cuts in production capacity.

Through November, large and medium-sized mills reported profits of 33.15 billion yuan (U.S. $4.8 billion) compared with a year-earlier loss of 52.91 billion yuan (U.S. $7.67 billion), the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said.

The turnaround in steel allowed the government to trumpet improved results in industrial profits, which rose 9.4 percent in the 11-month period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported.

But the results came one day after the State Council ordered administrative punishments of deputy governors in Hebei and Jiangsu provinces for allowing previously-closed steel mills to reopen and take advantage of the price hikes.

Inspectors found Hebei iron and steel makers operating despite suspension orders during the red-alert smog period in Beijing, the official English-language China Daily said.

Reports have suggested that the plants could face severe penalties, but the measures appear to be relatively mild so far.

On Jan. 3, the NDRC announced that it had raised electricity rates for “outdated” steel mills by 66 percent to 0.5 yuan (U.S. 7.2 cents) per kilowatt-hour.

Steel plants in the “restricted” category will pay an additional 0.1 yuan (U.S. 1.4 cents) per kilowatt-hour, Xinhua reported.

Fridley said coal use is expected to decline in the heavy industrial sector through 2020, but the economy’s demand for electricity will continue to boost coal-fired power.

“It’s not that China wants to burn more coal, but in the power sector, non-coal generation capacity is simply not enough to completely offset thermal generation beyond a certain level of growth,” said Fridley.

“And lungs will continue to suffer,” he said.

I am not writing an essay, or any research paper. I am writing in simple language what I am pondering. This is an instantaneous pondering over literature. I guess most of the people know or think what I am going to focus. Yet, different kinds of issues gyrate in my mind while discussing about literature with anybody. Moreover, I face some common questions from my students while delivering lecture in the classroom. This writing is a reaction to my encounter with these situations.

This piece of writing is not intended for the scholars; rather it is for them who can bring out some leisure to think even after living in this material anti- leisure society. Anyhow, some common questions have been disturbing my psyche for quite a long time. Some are saying, some are asking, some are criticizing. Even I have encountered some long arguments in the virtual world with some knowledgeable friends. But the issue has not been solved. I can’t promise that it is going to be solved in this write up, yet I am writing. Like all my writings, this one is also like an adventure. As long as I am writing, I don’t know the destination or decision.

The following questions are the most common that I have faced:

1. What is the utility of literature?
2. Thousands of classics are there in the world of literature. What differences have they brought about in the world?
3. A writer sacrifices a lot: he becomes nocturnal over his writing table, struggles with adverse situations, burns in the flame of alienation, becomes considered as an outsider in the society and is victimized with misunderstanding. After all these he creates a piece of art. Is this suffering worth taking? Does the society care what he thinks of justice and politics and humanity?

Before looking for answers, I think a couple of questions should be considered:

1. If no more literary works are created in the society, will the society run?
2. If yes, then why should one practice literature? Or why does a writer write?

The answer to the first question is ‘yes’ for sure. Aren’t the non readers eating and drinking and living? Don’t their children make them proud? Moreover, aren’t the non readers the majority of the society? Moreover, aren’t they more recognized as social beings? Rather, a writer is often misunderstood and labeled as unsocial and stranger in the society. If literature doesn’t exist, won’t people do jobs? Won’t they attend ceremonies? Won’t they celebrate birthdays, holidays, and vacations? Won’t they sleep at night? Won’t they enjoy sex? Readers of literature have always been a sect of minority. Even in developed countries (‘what development means’ is another issue of debate, for now I accept traditional meaning) more than half of the population doesn’t read literature. We don’t see any visible top to bottom change in the society by reading literature. Then? Then the answer to the second question must be found. There may be some possible answers:

1. Personal sufferings: A writer suffers from a special- inexplicable species of pain created by political, social and environmental situation of the world. After observing contemporary world, the writer examines it on the basis of history and then he realizes that he has a lot to say. Quoting Manik Bandopadhyay: ‘I write to express what I can’t make people understand in any other way.’
2. Existential Crisis: Here the term ‘existential’ should not be taken only as the famous philosophical branch. Every writer is infected with the question WHY. Albert Camus said, ‘we become so habituated to live that we never ask why we live.’ A writer can’t decide to lead a crammed- photocopy life, he intends to be a masterpiece. What should one do after being born only once in this world, having death ahead as the ultimate destination with only one human life? Did the world miss me when I was nonexistent? When I won’t exist, will there be any difference? Then have I come to this world like a lottery- ticket? Will I leave this world like a lottery- ticket too after leading a weak life satisfying the society and adapting the situations and giving up freedom? Writing, painting or composing music is the result of a search for authentic life. Human being is essentially authenticity- searchers. He gives birth to children to consider himself as a creator. He tries to be better than others in job or family or sex or business or politics. One of the most refined searches for authenticity is creating art.
3. Social liability: a writer writes to show responsibility to the society. Some writers consider literature as a weapon to reform the society.

Hence, practicing literature is no more an objective activity; I think it has never been though. All the people will accept literature—this kind of hope is not a folly but logically a mistake in the global context. Common people will buy one more kilogram of rice than buying a book. I am not teasing, it is the reality. To create or accept art, leisure is essential, where is that thing in this material society? The so called leisure the inhabitants of this modern (what we mean by modern is another issue of debate) society get after earning money and satisfying society and family is not adequate to think or do something deep and significant.

Instead of being bookish or newspaper ‘articlelish’, we can realize this truth observing our surrounding urban reality. Now is the age of corporate life. People are looking for corporate jobs to be reclaimed. We see the bankers and other corporate job (I refrain from writing ‘service’) holders to run from dawn to dusk. They enter the office building early in the morning and don’t know when they are going to come out. When they reach their home, most often it is after dark. Their brain is tired with monotonous file work, their soul is bothered with the heavy demand of the boss and their mind is full of jealousy to the promotion of their colleagues.

This is a kind of capitalist hegemony. They don’t feel the necessity to find anything greater to run after. What do they do after coming home? They rebuke their children for not studying properly; they watch a drama or commercial movie or an item song on TV and then sleep only to repeat themselves in the next morning. Firstly, government has to take responsibility to create leisure for its citizens. Doing this could have been easier for us than other nations as ours is essentially an agricultural society. Our fishermen, farmers, boatmen have created deeply philosophical folk- arts (what are we if they are folks?) while fishing, cultivating and crossing rivers. Secondly, to create leisure government must be, according to Plato, not politician but philosopher—Philosopher King. If the state doesn’t virtually allow leisure, then the reader and the writer must be superman to be able to dig out leisure sacrificing temptation. It is a matter of happiness that some supermen have created great art in our country. A couple of questions again:

1. If the non readers read literature, would their existence get any new dimension?
2. If yes, then what is the way to make them literature- oriented?

Plato has responded to the second question partially. A country has some responsibilities and commitments to arts and culture. The more people become poor, the more they have to run after money only to survive; the more people will be detached from literature.

This is why we see that, there is hardly any educated (definition of education is another confusing question) man in our country who don’t know the masters of Bangla literature. Again, we hardly find any Bangali who is interested to know these masters’ philosophy. This society has unrolled such a frame in front of us in which we are compelled to pour our existence only to preserve our life in body and this frame is adverse to question or enquiry or curiosity. It promotes anti- curiosity culture. Our people rarely feel any curiosity to know. Their life is spent wandering how to be attributed with society-defined meaning in this society- imposed frame. If they don’t feel curiosity in their mind, they won’t search. If they don’t search, they won’t create knowledge. If a human being doesn’t look for the authentic meaning of his own existence, if he doesn’t ponder over the mystery of creation and life, if he doesn’t feel the necessity to create his own standpoint, if he accepts the materially motivated education system of the society and remains ignorant of the multidimensional aspect of life, if he thinks that religion is a hereditary property, he doesn’t care if literature is created or not. If he doesn’t feel curiosity, he won’t look for answer.

Knowledge has been contaminated in a well- planned way. This capitalist society has demolished the difference between knowledge and information. Present generation has accepted the demolition without knowing that this is a demolition. Knowledge has also been attached with money and profession. What do we find in job recruitment guides as general knowledge except some information? Why do the job seekers cram this information? For a job definitely. So a job becomes the aim of knowledge. For which book Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize? We tick Geetanjali among the four options and feel like being wise. But we don’t understand or think that this is only information. It will be knowledge if we read Geetanjali, try to understand what this Bangali poet wrote one hundred years ago, and proceed to understand his philosophy. Question should be raised in my mind why this book is important. Did Tagore write it to help me pass BCS? Obviously not. Then why? We usually don’t think.

Universities have departments for literature. Institutionalization and categorization of literature is another far- reaching conspiracy and coming to colonization and neo- colonization period it has become a western notification. Literature doesn’t have much material value. This immaterial characteristic of literature is a threat for a specific sect. Hence, they feel risk- free if literature can be imprisoned inside classroom. Students are concerned of examination only, they look for suggestion, will achieve certificates and hanker after slavery to earn money and literature will be deviated from its main objective.

Simultaneously, students of other departments don’t consider literature as their subject. They think, “We are students of BBA/ LLB/ Economics/ Political Science, so we don’t need to read literature.” This is called categorization as a result of which literature has been imprisoned in a specific status or class or group of people instead of being universal. A major sign of the downfall of a nation is when it mocks the most important thing/people. We don’t see any difference between watching advertisements on TV and reading/writing literature.

Now come to the first question: do the non readers lose anything? It is next to impossible for the non readers to understand the loss. Literature is like drinking alcohol. It is bitter on the tongue but intoxicating inside the brain. Is it possible to enjoy the intoxication for a man who never drank? The difference is, literature doesn’t damage liver. Difference is, literature doesn’t promote immature death, and rather it creates the possibility of reincarnation. It is difficult to make people realize the utility of art. Which is art-in-reality and which is art-in-appearance is also a matter of consideration. There is a vast difference between a novel-in-appearance and a novel- indeed. Writing something in the format of a poem is not always a poem. Narrating an event in short space doesn’t ensure a standard short story. The differences can’t be understood overnight. It depends on practice and this practice is supposed to be started from primary education and family. When we are reading literature, we are reading life, we are reading ourselves, we are looking for Man—the Man Eternal. If art doesn’t exist, then what should exist? If a human being doesn’t search the significance of his existence, then what should he search? If he is not creative, then what is a better option? Art means looking for truth and looking for truth demands sacrifice and sufferings. If a man doesn’t want truth, then what should he want? Happiness?

Everybody is looking for happiness. Can happiness be achieved without truth? Material society teaches only to collect. Dedication and sacrifice is omitted in practical life only to practice in the textbook. Present society is highly body- centered. Realizing the necessity of art is the matter of a great mind, hence the happiness of literature is afforded only by the man- searchers.

There is no intentional difference between a rickshaw puller and a billionaire businessman. Both are hankering after certainty, security and happiness. Yet, we see none of them happy. Nobody claims to meet happiness. Anxiety is their constant companion. Therefore, the life we see around us can’t ensure happiness. Then where is it? I suppose the answer to this question couldn’t be discovered yet. But in a single word we can say, truth is happiness. Falsehood or lie can’t be a source of happiness. It may be the mask of happiness at best. Now the question is: what is truth? I think no other issue is as relative as this one. Whether absolute and self evident truth exists or not is the effort of curious minds. Achieving truth is a pursuit. Who are observing this pursuit? Are the above mentioned people doing it? Are our familiar businessmen, jobholders and labourers doing it? If it were so, then the situation of the society wouldn’t be like the monster of Frankenstein. We are now frightened of our own creation.

Society doesn’t want writers. Society has necessity, not demand for literature. It is a strange paradox. Society wants to cover its wound with emollient. Writer pricks it with his pen. Bleeding is essential in cumulus to relieve poison. Society can’t easily admit this necessity. The purpose of a writer is to discover truth. Truth may be pleasant, may be ugly. Whatever the truth is, it is aesthetic. Claiming any absolute truth about human life doesn’t suit a writer. He is not judge. He must not give verdict. Readers’ wish fulfillment is not his job. He shouldn’t impose his own life- philosophy on the readers. The dialogues on a character’s lip will be the character’s speech, not the writer’s. Readers often consider the character as the writer.

This is where the writer is victimized with misunderstanding. Great writers usually strike on the belief of the readers. He shakes the existential foundation of a reader. The reader often feels heartbroken. The writer breaks, so that the reader feels the necessity of rebuilding. For this reason usually great writers are unpopular. Usually readers don’t think beyond boundary, they don’t like to, they feel unsecured out of boundary. When a writer, preserving the boundary, provides wish- fulfillment type writing, that is a limited literary work, can’t overcome its own age. When a writer pulls the root of existence, he hardly finds anybody to welcome him. That’s why Sidney Sheldon is much more popular than George Orwell. That’s why Syed Waliullah’s world class novels are not familiar to the people. That’s why many people don’t even know the name of Akhteruzzaman Elias. This is the reality; great writers are divorced from mass people. A writer must overcome himself to merge with other’s life and dream. A certain level of psychological development is necessary to understand the great writer which is usually rare and rarer in Bangladesh.

When I find only myself, my surroundings, my well and woe in someone’s writing, that writer may seem sympathetic but when a writer shows what I could have been, maybe I don’t find myself there, but that is more valuable for me. There are lots of windows inside the head and heart of human beings. Literature opens those windows. What the reader will see through those windows is up to the reader. ‘Wow, I have found myself in this book’ or ‘I emotionally cried while reading this book’ are not the feelings provided by great books. Literature makes one realize the necessity of searching oneself.

By birth man comes to this world with a mind. But promoting this mind to a greater mind is the job of a saint. Proper anointment is necessary for this promotion and for this promotion there is no alternative to literature. A standard novel/poem/short story may make readers laugh or cry which a cheap piece of writing may do as well. The difference is, great literary works may or may not make readers laugh or cry but instigates spiritual promotion to a greater mind through enlightenment. A non-philosophical write up can’t be classic.

If after reading a novel/poem/short story the reader feels attachment without receiving a new insight, it is not a great writing for me. If the reader remains the same person before and after reading the piece, it will not be memorable for him. He will soon forget it. Good literature enlightens. The reader feels as if he were not the same person: spiritual promotion and evolution is going on.

We live in a world covered with well crafted- beautifully designed- apparently perfect carpet. The writer overturns or removes the carpet in front the readers’ eye.

*Imran Khan works with the daily Asian Age in Bangladesh. He has taught English Language and Literature in Notre Dame University Bangladesh. An earlier version of this appeared at The Asian Age Bangladesh

A new computational model that performs at human levels on a standard intelligence test has been developed by a Northwestern University team. This work is an important step toward making artificial intelligence systems that see and understand the world as humans do.

“The model performs in the 75th percentile for American adults, making it better than average,” said Northwestern Engineering’s Ken Forbus. “The problems that are hard for people are also hard for the model, providing additional evidence that its operation is capturing some important properties of human cognition.”

The new computational model is built on CogSketch, an artificial intelligence platform previously developed in Forbus’ laboratory. The platform has the ability to solve visual problems and understand sketches in order to give immediate, interactive feedback. CogSketch also incorporates a computational model of analogy, based on Northwestern psychology professor Dedre Gentner’s structure-mapping theory. (Gentner received the 2016 David E. Rumelhart Prize for her work on this theory.)

Forbus, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, developed the model with Andrew Lovett, a former Northwestern postdoctoral researcher in psychology. Their research was published online this month in the journal Psychological Review.

The ability to solve complex visual problems is one of the hallmarks of human intelligence. Developing artificial intelligence systems that have this ability not only provides new evidence for the importance of symbolic representations and analogy in visual reasoning, but it could potentially shrink the gap between computer and human cognition.

While Forbus and Lovett’s system can be used to model general visual problem-solving phenomena, they specifically tested it on Raven’s Progressive Matrices, a nonverbal standardized test that measures abstract reasoning. All of the test’s problems consist of a matrix with one image missing. The test taker is given six to eight choices with which to best complete the matrix. Forbus and Lovett’s computational model performed better than the average American.

“The Raven’s test is the best existing predictor of what psychologists call ‘fluid intelligence, or the general ability to think abstractly, reason, identify patterns, solve problems, and discern relationships,'” said Lovett, now a researcher at the US Naval Research Laboratory. “Our results suggest that the ability to flexibly use relational representations, comparing and reinterpreting them, is important for fluid intelligence.”

The ability to use and understand sophisticated relational representations is a key to higher-order cognition. Relational representations connect entities and ideas such as “the clock is above the door” or “pressure differences cause water to flow.” These types of comparisons are crucial for making and understanding analogies, which humans use to solve problems, weigh moral dilemmas, and describe the world around them.

“Most artificial intelligence research today concerning vision focuses on recognition, or labeling what is in a scene rather than reasoning about it,” Forbus said. “But recognition is only useful if it supports subsequent reasoning. Our research provides an important step toward understanding visual reasoning more broadly.”

During the  spring of 2016 a number of large presumed house terraces were identified by the authors at Korshamn. As a consequence high resolution geophysical surveys using ground-penetrating radar were carried out in September 2016.

Korshamn is one of the main harbour bays of the island of Björkö, situated outside the town boundaries of the Viking town of Birka. The survey revealed a major Viking period hall on the site, with a length of around 40 meters. Based on the land upheaval the area of the Viking hall can be dated to sometime after 810 AD. The hall is connected to a large fenced area that stretches towards the harbor basin.

“This kind of Viking period high status manors has previously only been identified at a few places in southern Scandinavia, for instance at Tissø and Lejre in Denmark. It is known that the fenced area at such manors was linked to religious activities” said Johan Runer, archaeologist at the Stockholm county museum.

During the survey a predecessor for the Viking Age manor was also identified at the site: a high status manor that existed during the Vendel period, prior to the establishment of the Viking Age town of Birka.

Both the identified buildings and their continued use from the Vendel period to the Viking Age correlate well with the “ancestral property” of Birka’s royal bailiff Herigar as mentioned in Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii. Herigar was Christianized by Ansgar, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, during his first mission c. 830 AD, and he built the first church on his land.

“The consequences of our discoveries cannot be overestimated: in terms of the emergence of the Viking town of Birka, its royal administration and the earliest Christian mission to Scandinavia,” said Sven Kalmring, researcher at the Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie, Schleswig.

“The results highlight the benefits of using non-intrusive geophysical surveys for the detection of archaeological features and, once again, prove to be an invaluable tool for documenting Iron Age building remains in Scandinavia,” said Andreas Viberg, researcher at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University.

With the United States looking set to step back from the international arena, China will likely take on an larger role to preserve the global economic system of which it has been a major beneficiary, agreed a panel in a session on Asia’s growing leadership role at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

However, the future looks distinctly multipolar, with no single leader emerging to fill the leadership vacuum created by a US retreat. It is important that incumbent powers such as the US and the European Union make space for the rise of Asia and other centers of power, the panelists said.

The 47th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is currently taking place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.

Mustapa Mohamed, Minister of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia, who was personally involved in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, said the US withdrawal from the TPP will certainly have an impact on the world economy. He added, however, that China, India and ASEAN are growing fast, confident in their potential, and focused on creating jobs and making growth equitable and sustainable. While supporting the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) being negotiated between ASEAN and six neighboring countries, and regional integration within Asia, Mohamed underlined the need to continue creating and expanding linkages with the outside world, perhaps by revitalizing the World Trade Organization.

“Things happen for a good reason,” said Li Daokui, Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, People’s Republic of China, adding that the TPP was essentially a flawed idea because it makes no sense for a country far from the region to try to forge relations while bypassing China, the biggest trading powerhouse. He said that China would be the natural leader of economic integration in the region. China and ASEAN see eye-to-eye on this, he said, adding that this only leaves India, although China is keen to “get everybody on the bicycle … and pedal hard.”

The United States’ inward turn – at a time when other countries are forging partnerships and creating initiatives such as the BRICS New Development Bank, China’s One Belt, One Road initiative and free trade agreements in the Pacific – will harm the US the most, said Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, USA.

While China is the undisputed economic and trade leader in Asia, ASEAN is the “great untold success story of our times,” said Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He said ASEAN has turned the “Balkans of Asia” into a highly prosperous and peaceful region, and has been a key player in the “miraculous, peaceful rise” of China by creating an enabling regional environment of harmony. The China-ASEAN relationship is marked by mutual respect, he noted, and their trade graph is rising steadily. Mahbubani also made a case for China assuming the leadership role to see RCEP through.

Anthony F. Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia, Malaysia, said there is significant intra-ASEAN start-up activity, and members must work towards making borders irrelevant, particularly for digital and fintech businesses, to fully realize the potential of this 700-million-strong market.

Li pointed out that China considers its relationship with the US to be most important, and said China’s leadership style – if and when it assumes greater leadership globally – will be very different from the style with which the US has led. Instead, he said, China follows a more Confucian philosophy of leading by action and not words.

Nevertheless, Mahbubani said, China must prepare to take a more assertive stance if the situation warrants, particularly since, as the world’s largest importer and exporter, China has the largest stake in maintaining a peaceful global system. At the same time, he added, incumbent powers must do away with “absurd rules“ such as those that reserve the top positions at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for a US and EU citizen, respectively, and prepare to share power with newly emerging countries.

Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said Thursday that Britain would stand up for free markets, free trade and globalization, and will work to ensure that they work for everyone.

“Forces that underpin the rules-based international system that is key to global security are somehow at risk of being undermined,” May warned. “The sense among the public is that mainstream political leaders have failed to hear their concerns for too long.”

May was speaking in an address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, which is currently being held at Davos, Switzerland.

The Brexit, Britain’s decision by referendum last year to leave the European Union, was the outcome of this failure, according to May. The British “chose to build a truly global Britain,” she said. “It means that Britain must face up to a period of momentous change. The UK will step up to a new leadership role.”

Britain will become even more global and internationalist, according to May, adding it is not turning its back on Europe.

“We are a European country and proud of our European heritage, but we are also a country that has always looked beyond Europe. I want the UK to emerge from this period of change as a truly global Britain, a country that goes out into the world. We are going to be a confident country that is in control of its own destiny once again.”

This new global role will not compromise Britain’s identity, May argued. “A global Britain is no less British because we are a hub for foreign investment.” Britain will continue to promote international cooperation wherever it can, she said, noting that she has convened a panel at the Annual Meeting this year to address slavery.

In building this global Britain, “we have to take the people with us,” May said, recognizing that “talk of greater globalization can make people fearful.” She added: “We must never forget that our first responsibility as governments is to serve the people. We need to do more to respond to the concerns of people who feel that the modern world has left them behind.”

To win the trust of the people will require new approaches by government and business, May explained. Businesses will have to show that they are playing by the same rules as everybody else. May
said she welcomes The Compact for Responsive and Responsible Leadership, sponsored by the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. The compact aims to create a corporate governance framework with a focus on the long-term sustainability of corporations and the long-term goals of society.

Governments may have to adopt industry strategies to make markets, trade and globalization more fair and inclusive, with the benefits widely shared, the prime minister stressed.

“I am determined to stand up for free markets, free trade and globalization” and “to use this moment to provide responsive and responsible leadership to bring the benefits of free trade to every corner of the world,” May said.

May concluded: “We must step up and take control to make sure that free trade and globalization work for everyone.”

UN-brokered talks to finally reunify Cyprus after 43 years offered hope, but obstacles remained and any deal would have to be approved in referendums on both sides. Greek Cypriots rejected the settlement put forward by the United Nations in 2004.

By William Chislett*

The reunification of Cyprus is one of the world’s longest running and intractable international problems. The latest talks in Geneva in January 2017 between Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek-Cypriot President, and Mustafa Akıncı, his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart, after 20 months of negotiations, made significant progress. The issues of territorial adjustments and security and guarantees are the most sensitive and core issues yet to be resolved and ones that will determine whether a solution can be reached and approved in referendums on both sides.

Analysis

Background

The Mediterranean island has been divided since Turkey’s invasion in 1974 in response to the Greek military junta’s backing of a coup against President Makarios aimed at enosis (union with Greece).¹ Cyprus is the only divided country in Europe and its capital, Nicosia, is also split in two.

Figure 1. Partitioned Cyprus

Partitioned Cyprus. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

The consequences of the invasion include:

• Some 35,000 Turkish troops still occupy 36.2% of the territory of Cyprus.
• Around 160,000 Greek Cypriots were permanently displaced from the northern part of the island. About 43,000 Turkish Cypriots left the south and went north.
• Up to 200,000 settlers from Turkey are estimated to be living in the internationally-unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). They are altering the island’s demographic structure.
• The TRNC (total population estimated at around 300,000 excluding Turkish troops) is an increasingly costly burden for Turkey. It is much poorer than the Greek-Cypriot side (population 848,000). The average per capita income of Turkish Cypriots is around half that of Greek Cypriots.

The leaders of the two communities agreed in 1977 to move towards a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation, with political equality. Negotiations culminated in a referendum in 2004 on both sides to approve a UN-arranged reunification plan under Kofi Annan, but it was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots (and approved by 65% of Turkish Cypriots). The plan stumbled on Greek-Cypriot concerns about the continuation of Turkish troops, among other things.

The Annan plan proposed the creation of the United Cyprus Republic covering the whole island except for the area of the British military bases. The country would consist of two constituent states joined by a minimal federal government apparatus incorporating the following elements:

• A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members, allocated according to population (per present levels, four Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots), and selected and voted in by parliament. An additional three non-voting members would be assigned 2:1.
• A President and Vice-president, chosen by the Presidential Council from among its members, one from each community, to alternate in their functions every 20 months during the council’s five-year term of office.
• A bicameral legislature:
  • A Senate (upper house), with 48 members, divided 24:24 between the two communities.
  • A Chamber of Deputies (lower house), with 48 members, divided in proportion to the two communities’ populations (with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community).
• A Supreme Court composed of equal numbers of Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot judges, plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the Presidential Council.
• The plan included a federal constitution, constitutions for each constituent state, a string of constitutional and federal laws, and a proposal for a United Cyprus Republic flag and a national anthem. It also provided for a Reconciliation Commission to bring the two communities closer together and resolve outstanding disputes from the past.

A deal, which as in 2004 would have to be approved by both sides in referendums, could help revive Turkey’s moribund bid to become a full EU member. As a result of reunification, Ankara would be expected to finally open its airports and ports to Greek-Cypriot traffic and recognise the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member since 2004 (the EU acquis do not apply in the internationally-unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north of the island).

Failure to do this led the European Commission in December 2006 to freeze eight of the 35 chapters (policy areas) in Turkey’s EU accession process. A settlement would bring the TRNC into the EU’s fold and would resonate beyond the tiny island, as it would open the door to new cooperation between NATO and the EU. Cyprus (not including the TRNC) is a member of the EU but not NATO; Turkey is a member of NATO but not the EU. Both countries have blocked effective cooperation between the institutions.

The protagonists involved in the current negotiations, Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek-Cypriot President, and Mustafa Akıncı, his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart, are the most pro-reunification set ever. They, rather than the UN, are driving the process, which would mean that a settlement would not be perceived as something imposed from outside. Anastasiades voted in favour of the reunification in the 2004 referendum, while Akıncı, a former Mayor of the Turkish-Cypriot part of Nicosia (1976-90) is more pragmatic than his predecessors.

The atmosphere between the two sides is generally good, though Turkey criticised the tenders announced last year by the Greek-Cypriot government for offshore hydrocarbon exploration at a time of intensified reunification negotiations. Ankara says part of the licence areas are within the continental shelf of Turkey.

The state of play following the breakdown of talks in Geneva

Hopes were high, unrealistically so, that a comprehensive, viable and lasting agreement would finally be struck at the talks in Geneva on 9-11 January between the Cypriot leaders after 20 months of intensive negotiations. The Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and the UK, guarantor powers of Cyprus’s independence from Britain since 1960, were also there to discuss the security parameters of any deal. The United Nations, whose peacekeeping troops have patrolled a buffer zone for decades known as the ‘green line’, said the ‘moment of truth’ had arrived to settle the ethnic division. Greek Cypriots joked that everybody was eager to maintain the good climate of negotiations except they forgot there was an intractable Cyprus issue.

Progress was made before the Geneva talks on substantial issues related to governance and power sharing, the economy, the EU and property. The constitutional provisions of a settlement were agreed, including:

• Union in whole or in part with any other country or any form of partition or secession or any other unilateral change to the state of affairs shall be prohibited.
• The two constituent states shall hold equal political status and will have defined administrative boundaries that they will autonomously govern.
• Effective participation in the Federal Government by the two communities, with specific clauses as regards decision-making so that neither side may claim authority or jurisdiction over the other.
• Prohibition of encroachment both by the federal government within the constituent states’ areas of competence and by either constituent state to the other constituent state’s area of competence.
• Each constituent state shall have the right to establish specific criteria as regards the acquisition of its internal citizenship status.
• Regulating the exercise of voting rights of those citizens of the State who choose a place of domicile or establish themselves and practice a trade or profession in the constituent state of which they do not hold internal citizenship status.
• Establishing effective deadlock-resolving mechanisms in order to both strengthen the functionality of the State and protect the rights of the constituent states and, by extension, of the communities.
• The Republic of Cyprus is and will remain a member-state of the EU after the settlement.

Both sides exchanged maps in Geneva for the first time ever outlining rival proposals for territorial boundaries. That was a historic development. Past peace negotiations reached a ballpark range of between 28.2% and 29.2% of Cypriot territory remaining under Turkish-Cypriot control (down from the current 36%).

The issues of territorial adjustments and security and guarantees are the most sensitive and core issues yet to be resolved and ones that will determine whether a solution can be reached. UN-brokered talks in November 2016 at Mont Pèlerin, Switzerland, on the criteria for territorial adjustment produced no results.

While the Greek Cypriots want the guarantor system dismantled as they believe it is obsolete because Cyprus is an EU and UN member-state and it would keep the island under the perpetual influence of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s President, ruled out a full withdrawal of its forces unless Greece also agreed to pull out its troops (estimated at around 1,000). Akıncı said one side demanding that the other remove its troops, although there are many more Turkish and Greek troops, would rule out a mutually acceptable solution.

Security is a key issue and one that boils down to a matter of trust. The Turkish-Cypriot minority has bitter memories of the intercommunal violence during the 1960s and 1970s and wants their security to be guaranteed, while Greek Cypriots see the Turkish troops as an occupying force. The question is who would act as guarantors of a deal. The EU, of which Cyprus is a member, the UK, which has two military bases on the island, or the same three countries as under the 1960 treaty (Greece, Turkey and the UK)?

‘The source of many of the problems that we still face today has been the Treaty of Guarantee’, said Anastasiades. ‘Regrettably, as the historic events validate, the Treaty has failed to serve its purpose or positively contribute to the smooth functioning of the Republic’.

A working group met on 18 January in Mont Pèlerin to identify specific questions on security and guarantees and how to address them. Discussions at a political level will reconvene once there is progress on technical matters.

Decades of negotiations have not allayed the inherent mistrust and suspicion on both sides. Greek Cypriots are suspicious of Turkey’s end-intentions and Turkish Cypriots mistrustful of the aims of the Greek-Cypriot community. In a bid to put these fears to rest, Anastasiades proposed a multinational police force should be established during a transition period to deter or address any threats to either community.

The better prospects for a settlement come at a time when Erdoğan has become increasingly authoritarian, following a failed coup last July to overthrow him and a savage cycle of attacks by ISIS and renewed violence by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In addition, relations with the EU are at an all-time low. The toll on the economy has been heavy (the lira fell by around 20% against the US dollar last year).

Erdoğan’s most immediate domestic priority is to gain support for constitutional changes that would usher in an executive presidency, something he has long hankered after. Turkey’s parliament passed the final two sections of the 18-article new constitution earlier this month after the ruling Justice and Development Party obtained the necessary 330 or more votes –a three-fifths majority– required for changes and to send them to a referendum for final approval. The articles will now be debated one by one in a second reading. Erdoğan will not want to make any concessions over Cyprus that lose him the support of nationalists in parliament.

Mindful of the pitfalls of holding a referendum, as the former British and Italian Prime Ministers can attest, the two leaders are unlikely to sign anything they believe their voters will reject. Anastasiades is on record as saying that if he reached a deal and it was rejected by Greek Cypriots he would not stand for re-election in February 2018.

Conclusions

The progress made so far and the political will of the Cypriot leaders suggests that a settlement is within reach, but Cyprus has been here before and hopes have been dashed.

About the author:
*William Chislett, Associate Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute.

Appendix: timeline

“All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.” — Aristotle

“It’s a very different system and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader.” — Donald Trump on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 82% approval rating.

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato,” said the twentieth century philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead. To which I suggest that Whitehead’s assertion could be largely accepted if we substitute, as far as I am personally concerned, the word Greek to that of Plato.

If we think of people such as Descartes, Spinoza, Saint Tomas, down to Hegel, Nietzsche, Locke, Croce, Hume, Kant, Sartre, Heidegger, the customary list of philosophers that crowds each traditional high school handbook — traditionally forgotten as high school ends — that list seems to defeat Whitehead’s assertion. Nevertheless,  it is obvious that Whitehead the mathematician, or Bertrand Russell, with whom he shared the writing of Principia Mathematica, has a personal opinion of philosophy, that applies only to Greek philosophers, which I personal fully share and extend to Vedic philosophers, as the only ones that really tried, and succeeded, to shape the human world with the powerful creativity thought.

The human world seems to have been primarily been shaped by Caesars, Alexanders, Napoleons, Washingtons, by merchants, bankers, scientists, messiahs, that all expressed the power of army, commerce, money, science, and of course religion. But at least in two locations such as Greece and India (and for two specific brackets of time) that are largely coincident in both places for some centuries around the Fifth Century Before the Common Era, the task of shaping the human world was taken by thinkers.

Those thinkers not only molded their contemporary human world, but determined a lasting imprint on the human species, which is still on-going, because it is safe to assert that even though they did it in different directions, those Greek and Indian “Philosophers” really manufactured a human world that is still the one in which we live.

As Buddha correctly says that man is what he thinks, there is no doubt that as far as thought is concerned we are still in what Greek and Indian philosophers were able to produce in the realm of thinking. As far as the western world is concerned, other thinkers haven’t changed the human world, they just added some footnotes. As a logical consequence of this, in Athens, as well as in Varanasi, a peculiar man was born that shaped society: in Greece, the Athens Man, in India the Varanasi Man, both of who are still alive.

Of course the “Man” born in Athens is quite different from “Man” born in Varanasi, but even if this is not the proper place to discuss distinctions between them, for the sake of what we want to argue here, we must say that by and large Greek Philosophers worked in a way that the Athenians’ Man could conquer the world by gaining knowledge of the Laws of Nature, while Indian Philosophers worked in a way that the Varanasi’s Man could conquer God, gaining knowledge of Laws of Mind.

In this respect a good book — of which unfortunately I don’t remember the title — started with an excellent statement: “India has a population intoxicated by God,” to which one could confront that by saying that “Occident has a population intoxicated by science”. And that last intoxication could be much more dangerous as we can clearly derive from the fact that thanks to the West’s scientific progress human mankind is now constantly in danger of survival, which hardly could be considered a greatest achievement of mind.

With all of that introduced, it could sound a bit surprising the fact that some comments on Donald Trump’s presidency are introduced with a reference to Greek Philosophers — more such as the title of these planned seven articles refer to a confrontation with such a past personality as Aristotle (who by the way Trump might usefully remember that he educated Alexander), but it may very well be that Trump’s highest challenge is to properly manage the final step of an evolutionary progress that could detach the modern world from some of the Greek philosophy inheritance which has lasted 25 centuries.

Why? As Trump’s administration takes power on Jan 20, it looks as if the fight over his policies that actually started during the election campaign will possibly increase rather then shrink. As such, this fight will extend from the economy where he will promote the social attitudes that he will adopt, with such a powerful critical stamina in the contenders that it will be difficult to really understand what were the “polemos” — which along with Heraclitus is “the father of all human actions, and is the one that distinguishes free me from slaves” — is a constructive opposition or just a remainder of the electoral competition, which will last until the next elections.

But, to clarify the proper confrontation of Trump vs Aristotle, let’s forget for a moment those fields of competition, and let’s go back to what we call “The Man from Athens”. However as seen, even for his spectacular passing from Rome, Paris, Salamanca, London, and Bonn before attaining New York, we could say that the Man changed of course his form of  dressing, spoke another language, but essentially remained as he was conceived in Athens.

And this is exactly the main point: it is now, that for the first time in centuries, that he can radically change, and become the Man of L.A., as a result of two extraordinary new events: the new role of entertainment in man’s life, and the powerful competitor of “corporations” as a new individual. These are the key dramatic changes that could make obsolete after 25 centuries the Man of Athens.

But before examining the radical changes introduced by such events, a question could be properly asked: Why should we take as a reference Athens for the birth of man?

There is nothing that can express better that reference then the Pericles speech officially of 431 Before Common Era.

  “… Our form of Government does not imitate the laws of neighboring states. On the contrary, we are rather a model to others. Our form of government is called a democracy because its administration is in the hands, not of a few, but of the whole people. In the settling of private disputes, everyone is equal before the law. Election to public office is made on the basis of ability, not on the basis of membership to a particular class. No man is kept out of public office by the obscurity of his social standing because of his poverty, as long as he wishes to be of service to the state. And not only in our public life are we free and open, but a sense of freedom regulates our day-to-day life with each other. We do not flare up in anger at our neighbor if he does what he likes. And we do not show the kind of silent disapproval that causes pain in others, even though it is not a direct accusation. In our private affairs, then, we are tolerant and avoid giving offense. But in public affairs, we take great care not to break law because of the deep respect we have for them. We give obedience to the men who hold public office from year to year. And we pay special regard to those laws that are for the protection of the oppressed and to all the unwritten laws that we know bring disgrace upon the transgressor when they are broken.”

If we move to another key speech of last century the continuity of that vision is more then evident. John F. Kennedy  on June 11, 1963 delivered on TV one of his finest discourses in which the connection to the Man of Athens is totally clear.

“Good evening my fellow citizens, this afternoon the presence of Alabama National Guardsman was required on the University of Alabama to carry out final and unequivocal order .. for the admission of two clearly qualified students who happened to be born Negros that they be admitted peacefully to the campus… I hope that every American, regardless from were he lives will stop and examine his conscience… This nation was founded by men of many nations.. it was founded on principle that all men are created equal and the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man is threatened.. it ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive service in places of public accommodations such as hotels, restaurants, theaters and retails. .. and it has to be possible for citizens of any color to register and vote in a free election.. this is not the case for Negros.. discrimination exists in every state, every city of the union….. Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise.. we face a moral crisis ..our task, our obligation is to make that revolution .. next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to make a commitment that race has no place in American life or law.”

Here despite XXIV centuries we can recognize the common roots, of the man from Athens to that of New York (occasionally born in Boston).

But if that is the sign of continuity, it is also from the same Pericles’s speech that we get the sign of Trump’s radical departure. Pericles says,  “Let me add another point. We have had the good sense to provide for our spirits more opportunities for relaxation from hard work than other people. Throughout the year, there are dramatic and athletic contests and religious festivals.”

That entertainment, that was enunciated as a complementary part of the Athens Man, has started playing a total different role in Man’s life.

With the radio, TV, movie the role of entertainment has become a sort of dictator. It establishes values, sets emotions, defines alliances. Entertainment has become the driving force of mankind, and has immensely enhanced the importance of the birth of the “Corporate Individual”. Let us notice first that in principle there is no reason why Corporations should be recognized the same rights that have biological men. But day after day, law after law, judicial decision after judicial decision corporations have become the most powerful competitors to the biological individuals — to the point that now they can even openly finance a Presidential campaign. And given the disproportion of financial tools available to a common citizen compared to a powerful corporation, obviously in political elections now they have the final say. As a consequence the “polis” of Pericles are due to disappear, substituted by a “corporation state”.

The role of Entertainment and of the Corporations are the factors behind the change of the Athens Man into the L.A. Man.

Trump of course, is not the initiator of the process, but there are important signs that a process of a radical change that started basically in the 1950s will come to a sort of conclusion with his administration. Is this good or bad? Is this an improvement of a worsening? Is the coming of the Man from L.A. inevitable, or we can try to go back to that of Athens?

One thing is sure: we cannot discharge the innovation on the basis of past remembrance as we cannot approve it merely on basis of newness. We better make a rapid check on key pillars in course of change obviously not with the pretentious objective of exhausting the matter.  As such, we will try to explore Trump’s behavior in relation to some of Aristotle’s fundamental books:

a. Politics
b. Physics
c. Ethics
d. Metaphysics
e. Rhetoric

With this rapid journey in form of articles that we’ll provide every week, always viewed through the lens of the two radical changing factors, the role of Entertainment and the  birth of the Corporation, we hope to possibly offer a better view of the radical departure of Trump’s vision of man, from Aristotle’s concepts. It is hoped this will make us gain a better perspective of Trump’s role in the future. And we can close with one more statement taken from Pericles’s speech defining the Man from Athens.

“In short, I assert that the city of Athens, taken all together, is a model for all Greece, and that each Athenian, as far as I can see, is more self-reliant as an individual and behaves with exceptional versatility and grace in the more varied forms of activity”.

Trump can very easily say that the USA is going to be a model, not only for Americans, but for all citizens in the world.

Next: Trump vs. Aristotle:  Politics

By Terri Moon Cronk

U.S. precision airstrikes on two Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant training camps near Sirte, Libya, are estimated to have killed more than 80 enemy fighters, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday.

On the eve of leaving his position as defense secretary, Carter told reporters at the Pentagon the airstrikes were vital in the American and coalition forces’ campaign to “deal ISIL the lasting defeat it deserves.”

The secretary said many of the estimated dead were fighters who had converged on the camps after fleeing from local partner forces that cleared Sirte last month with U.S. help. Sirte is nearly 28 miles southwest of the training camps that were struck last night.

Strikes Targeted External Plotters

The operation involved the United States in conjunction with its partners and Libya’s Government of National Accord, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

“The fighters training in these camps posed a security risk to Libya, its neighbors, our allies in Africa and Europe, and to the United States and its interests,” he said.

“Importantly, these strikes were directed against some of ISIL’s external plotters, who were actively planning operations against our allies in Europe,” Carter noted. “These were critically important strikes for our campaign and a clear example of our enduring commitment to destroy ISIL’s cancer — not only in Iraq and Syria, but everywhere it emerges.”

Strikes Help Sirte’s Liberation

As the U.S. assessment of the airstrikes in Libya continues, Cook said, the initial analysis is the strikes were successful in destroying the camps, and their destruction will degrade ISIL’s ability to threaten the Libyan people or disrupt efforts to stabilize Sirte after its liberation.

Two U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bombers, which took off from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, primarily conducted the joint direct attack munitions hit both camps, the press secretary said.

“The use of the B-2 demonstrates the capability of the United States to deliver decisive precision force to the Air Force’s Global Strike Command over a great distance,” he noted, adding that the use of the bombers was a decision by commanders, given the capabilities of the platform and the requirements of the mission.

The spokesman showed surveillance video at one of the camps where he described ISIL members as moving equipment such as homemade bombs and shells.

“We have been watching [the training camps] for some time,” he added.

Counter-ISIL Progress in Iraq, Syria

The secretary said while the airstrikes in Libya were carried out, gains were made in Mosul, Iraq, by the Iraqi security forces.

“Our local partners in Iraq, with our advice and assistance, managed to secure all critical areas in eastern Mosul, Carter said. “As they now prepare to clear the western part of Mosul, I’m confident that ISIL’s days in Mosul are numbered.”

Cook said work to clear pockets of resistance remains, but nearly all of Mosul east of the Tigris River is in Iraqi hands for the first time in two-and-a-half years.

“Iraqi security forces now control the eastern ends of all five bridges linking east and west Mosul. And Prime Minister [Haider] al-Abadi and Iraqi military commanders have hailed this as a major accomplishment,” he said.

Senior ISIL Leader Killed in Raqqa

And, while partner forces continue to isolate the city of Raqqa, Syria, Cook confirmed the death of Abu Anas al-Iraqi, a member of ISIL’s senior leadership council, following a raid on Jan. 8 as the terrorist traveled to Raqqa.

“Al-Iraqi was a long-time associate of ISIL’s senior leadership, dating back to its origins of Al-Qaida in Iraq. He oversaw media and financial operations and was a member of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle,” Cook said.

Before 2007, al-Iraqi was chief propagandist for al-Qaida in Iraq and incited and directed attacks against U.S.’ and coalition forces in Iraq, the press secretary added.

“His death is a reminder to ISIL’s leadership that they will find no shelter anywhere on the battlefield. And as Secretary Carter just described, the coalition and our local partners have seized every opportunity to accelerate ISIL’s defeat. The events of the last 24 hours certainly demonstrate that,” Cook said.

By Xiangming Chen and Taylor Lynch Ogan*

Shenzhen is China’s very own Silicon Valley. Find out how it has become innovative by tracing its rapid growth and strategic transition; what are the four of its most innovative companies, and what are the key factors that make it an innovative ecosystem in which companies have thrived.

Many informed people would have heard about Shenzhen, which has grown, at a breakneck pace, from a small village and China’s first special economic zone to a prosperous megacity and an emerging centre of innovation over three decades. Yet how many people, even in the global corporate community, have heard about BYD, which happens to have risen from Shenzhen to the world’s manufacturing leader in rechargeable batteries and electric vehicles in 20 years? Probably not many. Besides the tale of Shenzhen as a “miracle city”, there is a story to be told about how and why Shenzhen has also become a global hub for innovative companies like BYD. While our previous article in this magazine focused on the rise of BYD with Shenzhen,1 this article has two purposes. The first is to look at how Shenzhen has become innovative by tracing its rapid growth and strategic transition as a favourable backdrop and then profiling four of its most innovative companies. The second is to examine the key factors that make Shenzhen an innovative ecosystem in which companies have thrived.

Rapid Growth and Quality Transition

Few companies can perform well if their home city does not create and sustain healthy demographic and economic growth. This has not been a problem for Shenzhen, which has been one of the fastest growing cities in China and the world for the last 35 years. In fact, no other city anywhere in the world has gained more population than Shenzhen since 1980 (see Figure 1 below).

Unlike any other large city in China, Shenzhen has maintained a small proportion of its population (only about 30%) as officially registered with hukou. Besides the approximately 70% or eight million long-term residents included in Shenzhen’s total population, there are as many as another eight million short-term residents in Shenzhen today, bringing the total to around 18 million.2 This qualifies Shenzhen as China’s largest immigrant city. The inflow of human resources through the large influx of immigrants has contributed to Shenzhen’s innovative capacity (see later).

The rapid growth of Shenzhen’s economy has both paralleled and facilitated its structural shift favouring innovation. After averaging about 35% annually for its GDP growth through 1995, Shenzhen kept its annual growth at around 14% through 2014. As a result of this slowed but sustained high growth, Shenzhen’s GDP per capita in 2014 reached around $25,000, the highest of all Chinese cities. At this pace, Shenzhen’s GDP per capita is expected to hit $36,000 in 2020, equaling the 2012 figure for Hong Kong.3 Driving the more recent and future growth is the accelerated development of services and the relative contraction of manufacturing (see Figure 2 below).

The still substantial share of GDP in manufacturing is no longer produced by the labour-intensive and low-tech assembling industries that dominated the earlier phase of Shenzhen’s economic development. Instead Shenzhen’s manufacturing has become increasingly high-tech, new-tech, and clean-tech favouring such industries as new information technology, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, numerical control tools, and robotics. With this shift, the value added of these new industries as a share of GDP rose from 28.8% in 2010, to 35.6% in 2014.

Shenzhen’s industrial upgrading has been accompanied and fostered by the continued growth of human capital. As Figure 3 on the next page shows, as the number of college graduates rose, the highly educated base of the population became stronger. In Shenzhen today, college educated talents relative to its permanent population stand at 37.1%, higher than 28.6% in Beijing, and 23.4% in the New Pudong district of Shanghai. Shenzhen’s expanded human capital has translated into a greater and more effective capacity of R&D at both the firm and aggregate levels. From 2009 to 2014, the firms’ share of Shenzhen’s R&D stayed over 90%, and Shenzhen’s R&D budget as a share of GDP stood at 4.2%, doubling the national average of 2% and far exceeding the 2.5%, which is regarded as the international norm for innovative economies. High levels of investment in R&D have paid off in the number of patents Shenzhen has applied for and been granted. In 2014, Shenzhen applied for 82,254 patents, up from 42,279 in 2009, and was granted 53,687 patents, up from 25,894 in 2009.4 Shenzhen-based companies also accounted for 46.9% of all Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications from China in 2015. By then Shenzhen led all large Chinese cities in the number of patents applied and grant for 12 years in a row. Through June 2016, Shenzhen accounted for 51.8% of all applied patents in China.5

*About the authors:
Xiangming Chen has been serving as the founding Dean and Director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies (CUGS) at Trinity College since July 1, 2007. Chen leads CUGS in developing and strengthening meaningful and synergistic linkages of teaching, research, and service in urban and global studies, broadly defined, between Trinity’s academic programs and its various forms of experiential learning on campus, in Hartford, and globally.

Taylor Lynch Ogan, Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut

Source:
This article appeared at The European Financial Review, and is reprinted with permission.

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017, ministers of G20 countries called on members to continue on the path of inclusive growth, warning against protectionism.

“If you want to get more inclusive growth, you need more free trade,” said Wolfgang Schäuble, Federal Minister of Finance of Germany, which holds the G20 presidency. Schäuble added that the G20 should be redoubling efforts to promote inclusive growth as part of free trade.

Nicolas Dujovne, Minister of Treasury of Argentina, said that, after being closed to international trade, his country will embrace globalization. “The new administration is opening the economy and wants to open up and receive the benefits of globalization to generate more inclusive growth,” he said, acknowledging that trying to avoid competition and openness is not good for Argentina. Argentina will take over the G20 presidency after Germany.

Mehmet Şimşek, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, said that protectionism is bad for global growth. He added that inclusive growth – a key focus of the 2015 Turkish G20 presidency – is important for creating jobs and reducing income inequality. “Evidence shows that inequalities constrain global growth,” he said. Despite a drop in the value of the Turkish lira, he reassured investors that the fundamentals are still there.

While too early to comment on the incoming US administration’s policies, Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance of South Africa, said that, he expects the US to continue to play a key role in enabling global growth and creating the right framework for inclusivity. “Collective determination can lift global growth and ensure all economies benefit at the right time,” he said.

Responding to a warning from Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to not threaten Britain for leaving the European Union, Schäuble countered, “We don’t’ want to punish the UK [for Brexit].” He explained: “We’re not happy with the decision and I don’t think it’s good for the UK or Europe … We need to minimize the damage to the EU and UK.” Schäuble added: “If you want to make our economies stable, we all agree the direction is for more growth inclusiveness and sustainability.”