By Cheryl Pellerin

A few thousand more troops for the train, advise and assist mission in Afghanistan would help to break what is now a stalemate with the Taliban, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other adversaries there, the commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission and of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Thursday.

Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. testified this morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the situation in Afghanistan.

U.S. and NATO troops perform two complementary missions in Afghanistan, Nicholson said: the U.S. counterterrorism mission, called Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, and the NATO train, advise and assist mission, called Operation Resolute Support.

“I have adequate resourcing in my counterterrorism mission,” the general said. But the train, advise and assist mission has a shortfall of a few thousand troops, he added, noting that the extra troops could come from the United States and its allies, many of whom are fighting in Afghanistan.

Bolstering Offensive Capability

Nicholson said offensive capability will break the stalemate in Afghanistan, and the Afghan security forces’ key offensive capabilities are their special forces and air force.

“As a result of our training, equipping and partnering, the 17,000-strong Afghan special forces are the best in the region,” the general told the Senate panel. “They now operate independently on roughly 80 percent of their missions.”

The Afghan air force also is gaining capability, he added, noting that its first ground-attack aircraft entered the fight in April and the force is now integrating intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets into new targeting processes.

According to a Defense Department statement issued Dec. 19, the fiscal year 2017 budget amendment requests $264 million to procure 53 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and to begin to refurbish and modify some of them. The request also would fund more aircraft already in the Afghan inventory, including 30 more armed MD-530 helicopters for $227 million, six more A-29 fixed-wing close-attack aircraft for $174.5 million, and five AC-208 fixed-wing aircraft for $80 million.

The request includes $69 million to train aircrew and maintenance personnel, and DoD officials said it will seek funding for more UH-60s and AC-208s in future fiscal years.

“Congressional approval of funding for the Afghan air force is key to improving the offensive capability of the Afghan national defense and security forces, [and] there is an urgency to this request in order to get these aircraft and aircrews into the fight as soon as possible,” Nicholson said.

The investment in the Afghan air force will help them take over responsibility for their own close air support, “and even more important, will lead to an offensive capability that allows them to overmatch the Taliban or any other group on the battlefield, anywhere around the country,” the general said.

No Safe Haven

Nicholson said the main objective in Afghanistan is to keep the nation from being used as a safe haven from which terrorists could attack the United States and its allies.

“Of the 98 U.S.-designated terrorist groups globally, 20 operate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, along with three violent extremist organizations,” Nicholson told the senators.

This is the highest concentration of terrorist groups anywhere in the world, and it underscores the counterterrorism platform’s importance in the Central Asia-South Asia region, because it protects the American homeland, he added.

“We remain very focused on the defeat of al-Qaida and its associates, as well as the defeat of Islamic State Khorasan Province, which is the ISIL affiliate in Afghanistan,” he said.

Many nations are committed to Afghanistan’s success, Nicholson said.

At NATO’s July summit in Warsaw, Poland, the alliance reaffirmed its commitment to sustain the Afghan national defense and security forces through 2020. At an October conference in Brussels, 75 countries and organizations confirmed their intention to provide $15.2 billion to Afghanistan development needs. And India dedicated another $1 billion on top of the $2 billion it already had given to Afghan development needs.

“These expressions of international commitment reflect the importance the world places on stability in Afghanistan and confidence in the Afghan people and Afghan government,” Nicholson said, noting that the NATO mission has an exceptional partnership with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and the security forces and people of Afghanistan.

No. 1 Goal

The general said the No. 1 goal of the Afghanistan fight is to protect the homeland from any attack emanating from the region.

“We have achieved that in the last 15 years, [but] we need to stay on top of that, because of this confluence of 20 terrorist groups in the region,” he said. “I believe this is an enduring commitment to keep pressure on these groups and help the Afghans move toward a successful end state.”

Success in Afghanistan might be the maintenance of the enduring counterterrorism effort to keep pressure on terrorist groups, Nicholson said.

“It means that we would destroy the Islamic State and al-Qaida inside Afghanistan, something we’re actively pursuing every day. It means that we would help the Afghan security forces and government to extend their control to a larger and larger percentage of the population,” he said. It means the NATO mission would help Afghanistan become a more stable and prosperous entity in a critical part of the world, he added.

“I recognize the distance of Afghanistan and the length of this [war] has been challenging for the American people to support,” Nicholson said. “However, I personally believe that this effort we’re undertaking there is protecting the homeland and preventing these terrorists from bringing their fight to our doorstep.”

India in the 21st Century is faced with a plethora of internal security challenges. What makes these challenges more complicated is that most of these internal threats also have an external dimension to it. The North-East region of India has its own distinct set of challenges: 98% of its borders are international, only 2% is connected to India through the strategic Siliguri Corridor (Upadhyay, 2016). Most of the tribes in the region such as the Nagas and the Mizos are distinct from the people in the mainland by virtue of their “Mongoloid” ethnicity and in fact share cultural similarities with people on the other side of India’s frontier in Myanmar (Rao, 2016). Moreover the North-East presents itself as an “India in miniature” because of the huge diversity within itself (Bhaumik, 2015).

Despite such challenges, the Central Government gave little attention to the region and their step-motherly treatment of the “Seven Sisters” continued for several decades. This policy of the government was taken advantage of by hostile states like China and Pakistan which wants to “bleed India by a thousand cuts” (Raza, 2016). India now suddenly finds itself being surrounded by a multitude of ethnic separatist and insurgent groups in the North-east, many of which have already created virtual parallel states in their areas of influence. The presence of such hostile states in the neighbourhood have also aided significantly in training, funding, arms supply, intelligence support etc of these groups. While such support have come from several states like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar also, but what makes the study of Chinese involvement in these insurgencies very interesting is the prominent role that they play in all these dealings.

The background to the problem

During Mao’s era, there was overt and official Chinese assistance. Such assistance gained momentum after the 1962 border conflict with India. The first of these insurgent groups in North-east to gain from Chinese assistance were the NNC1 in 1966, followed by the NSCN2, MNF3 etc (Bhaumik, 2015). They got trained in guerrilla warfare, learnt revolutionary Maoist ideals and also got access to sophisticated arms which they could not find anywhere else (Anant, 2012).

After Mao’s death and following the gradual normalisation of relations between India and China, the level of Chinese support dwindled but still continued (Doval, 2016). This was a time when Deng Xiaoping started his “open door” policy and wanted to be less involved in proxy wars with India.

The Recent Upsurge

It is suspected that Chinese support to militant groups in North-east India have seen an upsurge recently (Doval, 2016). This comes in the backdrop of the yet to be resolved boundary dispute. The Chinese were greatly infuriated by the response of the then Defence Minister of India, George Fernandes after India successfully conducted the thermonuclear tests in 1998 when he identified China as “potential threat number one”. Later on, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s letter to the US President Bill Clinton expressing the same view made China even more upset (Manoharan, 2012).

Moreover the India-US Nuclear Deal and the “Strategic Partnership” between them coinciding with the “Asia Pivot” strategy of the US made Beijing more apprehensive of the true nature of the partnership (Manoharan, 2012). While India denies being part of any China containment strategy, Beijing however seems to have stepped up their support to North-east militants. Recent arrests of Wang Qing, a Chinese Spy disguised as a TV reporter and Anthony Shimray, a key official and major arms procurer of the NSCN-IM4 in Patna highlighted the close connection China still have with these groups (Sharma, 2016). There are also intelligence inputs that Paresh Baruah, the Commander-in-Chief of the ULFA5 is hiding in Ruili, China. This was revealed very recently by L R Bishnoi, Additional Director-General of Police, Assam. He further said: “Chinese intelligences have been helping, directly or indirectly various insurgent groups of the North-eastern region that have their bases and hideouts inside Myanmar. These groups are under increasing influence of the Chinese agencies, and ULFA leader Paresh Baruah is among those top leaders who have been in regular touch with the Chinese liaison office in Ruili on the China-Myanmar border” (Kashyap, 2017).

Almost all the North-eastern militant groups continue to source sophisticated arms and ammunitions from Chinese companies like NORINCO6. But what is more worrying and significant is that these various north-eastern insurgency have come under the umbrella of a Chinese backed and NSCN-K7 -led grouping calling itself the “The United National Front of West Southeast Asia” (Parthasarathy, 2015). The Chinese however are clever not to be seen as a directly involved in the region as such linkages might also provoke India to create ruckus in Tibet or Xinjiang. They have also found in Pakistan a willing state with shared interests to conduct their activities in India (Manoharan, 2012).

The Chinese influence among the North-eastern groups also came in the limelight when Aurobindo Rajkhowa, leader of ULFA, appealed to the Chinese leadership on Dec 25, 2003 to provide them a safe passage and temporary shelter to China in the wake of the Indo-Bhut joint campaign to flush out the militants hiding in Bhutan which, however Beijing refused (Tribuneindia.com, 2003). China also enjoys tremendous clout over the Kachin Independence Army which is involved in an armed insurrection against the Myanmar Government and which also enjoys a cosy relationship with the North-eastern extremist groups (Parthasarathy, 2015). Moreover Chinese assistance to Myanmar in building a naval base at Sittwe Port in the Rakhine State (which is the closest Myanmarese port to India) might also enable it to enforce anti-access, anti-denial strategy to deny the Indian Navy the ability to operate there. This can have great implications for North-East India as it may lead to clandestine arms transfer through those waters for the insurgent groups in the region (Goswami, 2016).

Indian Response

Despite Indian suspicions over Chinese links to militant groups in the North-East for several decades, the government has been unable to come up with an effective strategy to control it. The 1962 Chinese aggression has also created an impression in the minds of the policy-makers that the lack of development in the North-east might be helpful in slowing down possible Chinese adventures in the region in future. This defensive mind set was also evident recently when the Indian Army opposed the construction of a proposed 1500 km road project along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh by calling it a “liability” (Chaudhury, 2016).

There is also a perception that the increase in such covert Chinese activities in the North-East is to pressure India to actively support the BCIM8 corridor project. While such an ambitious plan can help in the development of the North-East, India fears that it will flood the region with cheap and low quality Chinese goods which will further worsen its trade deficit with China (Sajjanhar, 2016). As such, the response from India towards this policy has been lukewarm.

Moreover while India has raised the issue of Chinese linkages with Beijing from time to time under the aegis of counter-terror cooperation, but such responses have often been criticised to be too soft in comparison to its geopolitical weight (Manoharan, 2012).

Conclusion

Keeping in mind the vast challenges that India faces not only in the North-east but also in other regions like Kashmir and Central India, there is a very urgent need to come up with a well-coordinated policy involving all the stakeholders such as the government, civil society etc to tackle it.

In addition, India should strengthen cooperation in the region with the ASEAN through initiatives like the Japan promoted “Partnership for Quality Infrastructure”, the BCIM Economic Corridor and the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor with the US. Some positive developments in this direction can also be seen with Japan pledging an assistance of Rs 5700 crore to strengthen highways in India’s North-east region (The Economic Times, 2016).

Moreover, issues of governance in the region especially the long standing demand of repealing AFSPA9 should be handled and addressed carefully and cultural and people to people interactions in the region should be promoted.

Diplomatically, India should show greater sensitivity to Chinese concerns especially with regard to Tibetan political activities in the region (Sharma, 2016) but such sensitivity should come at a reciprocal basis.

Lastly, more than anything else political will is necessary to convert India’s North-East into a strategic game-changer rather than using it as a pawn in this great game. Considering the amount of options that India has on the table with Japan and the US also willing to synergise their Asian policies with India’s “Act East” policy, it can be argued that India has never been in a better position to deal with China than now.

*Jyotishman Bhagawati is a postgraduate student of International Relations at South Asian University, New Delhi (A SAARC Initiative). He can be reached at bhagawati.jeevan@gmail.com.

Bibliography:
1. Bhaumik, S. (2015). Troubled Periphery. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India Pvt, Ltd.
2. Rao, V. (2016). NORTH EAST INDIA: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS. JSTOR, [online] 36(1), p.7. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41854649 [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].
3. Upadhyay, A. (2016). Terrorism in the North-East: Linkages and Implications. JSTOR, [online] 41(48), p.2. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418978.
4. Sharma, S. (2016). Insurgency in North-East India External Dynamics. Journal of Defence Studies, [online] 8(4), pp.3-7. Available at: http://idsa.in/jds/8_4_2014_InsurgencyinNorthEastIndia.html [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].
5. Manoharan, D. (2012). China’s Involvement in India’s Internal Security Threats: An Analytical Appraisal. Vivekananda International Foundation, 1(1), pp.5-56.
6. Parthasarathy, G. (2015). Cooperation on terror in North-East. [online] Trinuneindia News Service. Available at: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/cooperation-on-terror-in-north-east/95057.html [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].
7. Goswami, N. (2016). China’s Second Coast: Implications for Northeast India | Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. [online] Idsa.in. Available at: http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChinasSecondCoast_ngoswami_190614 [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].
8. Anant, A. (2012). Non-state armed groups in South Asia. New Delhi: Pentagon Security international.
9. Raza, M. (2016). Maroof Raza. [online] Maroofraza.com. Available at: http://www.maroofraza.com/outlook1-detail.html [Accessed 24 Jun. 2016].
10. Doval, A. (2016). Remote Control Rebels. [online] http://www.outlookindia.com/. Available at: http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/remote-control-rebels/270225 [Accessed 24 Jun. 2016].
11. Indiatoday.intoday.in. (2016). Indian Army warns Rs 40,000 crore Arunachal border road could be a liability. [online] Available at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/centres-act-east-policy-hits-roadblock-army-opposes-construction-of-1-500-km-highway/1/698745.html [Accessed 29 Jun. 2016].
12. Sajjanhar, A. (2016). Understanding the BCIM Economic Corridor and India’s Response. ORF Issue Brief, [online] (147), pp.2-6. Available at: http://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ORF_IssueBrief_147.pdf [Accessed 29 Jun. 2016].
13. The Economic Times. (2016). Japan pledges Rs 5,700-crore loan for highways in Northeast – The Economic Times. [online] Available at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/japan-pledges-rs-5700-crore-loan-for-highways-in-northeast/articleshow/51239887.cms [Accessed 29 Jun. 2016].
14. Kashyap, S. (2017). Chinese agencies helping North East militants in Myanmar. [online] The Indian Express. Available at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/chinese-agencies-helping-north-east-militants-in-myanmar-4468384/ [Accessed 9 Feb. 2017].
15. Tribuneindia.com. (2003). ULFA seeks Chinese help, asks for shelter. [online] Available at: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031229/main5.htm [Accessed 9 Feb. 2017].

Notes:
1. Naga National Council
2. National Socialist Council of Nagaland
3. Mizo National Front
4. National Socialist Council of Nagaland- Isac Muivah
5. United Liberation Front of Asom
6. The China North Industries Corporation
7. National Socialist Council of Nagaland- Khaplang
8. Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (Trade Corridor)
9. Armed Forces Special Powers Acts

By Giancarlo Elia Valori

OPEC, which is the cartel of the 14 major oil producers, has recently adopted a policy that is bound to change all future political, strategic and economic equilibria.

With a view to contributing to support the oil barrel price, the Vienna-based organization of the major Middle East oil producers has agreed to accept a very considerable output reduction, together with the Russian Federation and other countries, which is worth at least fewer 1.8 million oil barrels per day.

Also all the non-OPEC oil producing countries, as well as Russia, shall follow suit and play along, otherwise the six-month agreement – which can be renewed indefinitely – will have no value.

Obviously Russia plans to reduce its oil output and it is worth recalling that, in 2014, it was exactly the excess of Russian and North American oil supply to bring down the cost of crude oil below $ 100.

Currently, after Russia’s victory in Syria, it is precisely geopolitics which is knocking on the door of those who manage oil prices.

Russia wants to resume its growth pathway and recover the costs of the war in Syria and of its future power projection onto the Middle East.

The Sunni and the Shiite world want either to grow and diversify or recover from the long season of international sanctions – as is the case for Iran.

It is worth noting that the non-OPEC producers or, better, oil extractors, are Canada, Mexico, the United States, Bahrain – where only 8% of its GDP is generated by oil and gas, although it is a great centre of Islamic finance and aluminium production – Oman and, in Asia, China, Kazakhstan and obviously the Russian Federation, as well as, in Europe, Norway.

Saudi Arabia will account for approximately 50% of the expected total reduction in oil production, that is 486,000 out of the 10 millions produced every day.

Iran, which is very tried by sanctions, accepts the reduction which is implicit in the agreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia, but drops from 3.975 million barrels per day to 3.797.

OPEC will cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day, thus reaching 32.5 at the end of January 2017.

If the cut had not been made, the oil price per barrel would have fallen below 30 dollars, but currently the most reliable analysts estimate that oil prices may grow from 50/65 US dollars up to 70.

The higher cost of crude oil is quickly reflected in all related prices, thus favouring the start of inflation that many people – again with some naivety – are waiting in Western economies.

Incidentally, Russia does not trust much of OPEC promises but, together with other countries such as Kuwait, Algeria and Venezuela (all OPEC members), Oman (non-OPEC member), and Russia, it manages the “Review Committee on the evaluation of production agreements”. As a result of the agreements, also Russia has cut production by 100,000 barrels per day.

In this regard, it is also worth recalling that the agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC countries would enable the US shale oil producers to stabilize production or even to increase it.

At strictly technical level, Iran participates in the operation only considering the strategic situation in the Greater Middle East, while it would even need to increase its oil supply by at least one million barrels per day so as to regain its position and recover from the long period of sanctions.

However, as also the Iranian authorities know all too well, the country’s oil production is even on the wane, from 3.85 to 3.60 barrels per day.

After the end of the embargo, the Iranian ayatollahs have succeeded in increasing production only from 2.8 to 3.8 million barrels per day, but the problem is that, in such a market, the increase in supply immediately depresses the oil barrel price.

In fact, operators naively expected an unlimited oil flow from Iran which, however, failed to increase production and, indeed, OPEC itself has recently recorded a drop in the oil extracted by Iran from 3.85 to 3.60 million barrels a day, a clear sign of damage to the extraction system and of technological obsolescence – problems which cannot certainly be solved in a day.

The booming prices, caused by a substantial oil barrel market manipulation, will also benefit the Iranian Shiites, without diminishing Saudi Arabia’s economic and military chances.

At qualitative level, which is not a secondary aspect in these situations, the production of light and sweet crude oil typical of US oil fields has not much favoured the recent excess of production, unlike the OPEC sulphurous and medium-quality oil.

In recent years, the OPEC increase in oil production has originated over 50% of its excess supply exactly from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, namely 1.5 million oil barrels a day, while shale oil – which is the main enemy of the Vienna-based cartel – has decreased by over 500,000 barrels a day, considering that it is more sensitive than other sectors to the profitability guaranteed by its high price.

It is equally true that currently the increase in the oil barrel price favours even the US and Canadian shale oil, which becomes economically viable only above 60 US dollars per barrel. Some analysts even maintain that currently 60% of the remaining world oil production is precisely in the US shale oil sector, whose companies should gain a competitive advantage over the next five years.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that in recent years the production cost of the US oil barrel has dropped by 30-40%, while it has declined by only 20% in the OPEC area.

Hence, paradoxically, a clearly anti-American geoeconomic choice becomes an asset for the new US economy – halfway between oil and domestic manufacturing companies – according to Donald J. Trump’s designs.

Moreover, currently Saudi Arabia has reached its maximum production level, but it may have technological capabilities to increase it by 25% for a short lapse of time.

Today, after the agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC countries, the Brent futures maturing in February 2017 have temporarily exceeded 57 US dollars – a rise by over 5% compared to the closing of last Friday.

According to Merrill Lynch, the agreement between the two groups of oil producers – an agreement that Russia has developed for years (and it is worth recalling Putin’s statements in favour of Russia’s becoming an OPEC member) – will make the oil barrel price rise to 70 dollars by mid-2017.

Hence speculative capital will come back on oil markets, thus temporarily abandoning the other alternatives: non-oil commodities, currencies, gold and precious metals, as well as many government bonds.

Behold, Italy shall recalibrate its supply of public debt securities. It will not be an easy task.

Nothing, however, is yet decided and stable.

In fact, you may recall the underground war against OPEC waged by Kuwait in 1985, when the OPEC countries reported much larger oil reserves than the real ones because this boosted their production quota.

In principle, the OPEC reserves are supposed to be only 0.8 billion barrels as against the 1.3 billion barrels reported by the Vienna-based cartel.

In general terms, all OPEC official oil reserves could be larger than the actual ones by over one third.

Not to mention the fact that the real data on Saudi oil and gas reserves is still a state secret in the country.

Therefore the current OPEC’s policy line is to attract in the cartel, at least indirectly, all the external oil production, by marginally favouring even the US and Canadian production, which had been the target of the long bearish fight of Middle East oil countries.

The geopolitical effects are before us to be seen: much of the Middle East is united in adhering to the Russian strategies, while the United States – not to mention the ludicrous EU – are left at the starting post.

Egypt will receive one million Iraqi oil barrels a day, at a much lower price than Saudi Arabia’s, which had been initially promised to Al Sisi in the framework agreement envisaging 23 billion US dollars of aid on a yearly-basis.

Saudi Arabia did not implement the agreement with Egypt so as to punish it for its participation in the Russian-Alawite system in Syria.

Al Sisi has even reopened the hidden channels with the Lebanese Hezb’ollah and will contribute to the construction of an oil pipeline from Iraq to Egypt through Jordan – not to mention the fact that Egypt is already training four Iraqi army units for anti-terrorist operations.

Moreover, Egypt is fighting actively against the “Islamic State” in Libya, and especially in the Sinai region, and Daesh can now hit Egypt from its bases in Southern Libya.

Hence Al Sisi has envisaged to strengthen his ties with Algeria, which has similar problems.

In fact, this is exactly where the new oil proceeds will be channelled. They will be used to defend the extreme lines against the jihad – hence Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria.

They will also be used to stabilize the situation in Syria and the increase in crude oil price will also fund the modernization and diversification of the Russian economy.

Europeans will not jump on the bandwagon and, like the kids living in the outskirts, will remain in the railway stations to watch the trains leaving.

About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and member of the Ayan-Holding Board. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.

Source:
This article was published at Modern Diplomacy

By Satoru Nagao*

In recent months, Japan-India cooperation in the maritime commons has been a subject of animated discussion in strategic circles. Following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo in November 2016, there is speculation that India and Japan might strike up a dynamic partnership in the littoral-Southeast Asia.^[1] New Delhi and Tokyo have been active security players in Asia, with growing maritime presence in their near-seas. The Indian Navy and Japanese Self Defence Maritime Force have in recent years drawn closer, as evidenced by the increasing complexity to the Japan India Maritime Exercises (JIMEX) and exercise-MALABAR, where Japan is now a regular partner.^[2]

Tokyo has also sought to expand its defence trade with India, with a reported bid to export the US-2i amphibious aircraft to India, as also to undertake construction of maritime infrastructure^[3], most notably in the Andaman and Nicobar Island (ANI). According to recent news reports, Japan is seeking to extend its financial support via the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to upgrade naval air bases and construct new signals intelligence stations along the ANI chain, with the goal of monitoring Chinese submarine activity in the region. The eventual aim is to integrate the new network of sensors into the existing Japan-US “Fish Hook” Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) network.^[4] This would boost India’s trilateral cooperation with the Japan and United States in countering China’s assertive maritime policy in the Indo-Pacific region. The two countries have agreed to strengthen their maritime cooperation in the wider maritime commons.

Are Tokyo and New Delhi, in fact, going to expand their cooperation in the South China Sea?

Informed sources say they well might. During Modi’s visit to Japan, a joint statement categorically mentioned the importance of South China Sea security for both states. “The two Prime Ministers,” the statement read, “stressed the importance of resolving the SCS disputes by peaceful means, in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law including the UNCLOS.”^[5] This was much in keeping with a recent trend where India-Japan joint communiqués have taken care to mention the dispute in the South China Sea. Indeed, during Premier Shinzo Abe’s visit to New Delhi in December 2015, the SCS found clear reference in the joint statement. “The two Prime Ministers,” the joint statement read, “noted the developments in the South China Sea and called upon all States to avoid unilateral actions that could lead to tensions in the region.”

Interestingly, neither Japan nor India belongs to the Southeast Asian littoral. They also know well that their maritime cooperation mostly leads to an acerbic reaction from China, with calls to “countries from outside the area to stop pushing for the militarization of the South China Sea”. Despite the fact that the SCS remains an “outside” issue for Japan or India, both countries strangely display a keen interest in its affairs.

In order to decipher this peculiar dynamic, it is useful to pose three key questions: How important is South China Sea geographically for Japan and India? How do the territorial disputes in the critical waterway impact New Delhi and Tokyo’s geopolitical interests? What kind of security role do Japan and India see themselves playing in the South China Sea?

How important is South China Sea geographically for Japan and India?

Whereas 97 percent of India’s international trade by volume is conducted by sea, almost all of Japan’s international trade is ocean-borne. As energy-poor countries heavily dependent on oil imports from the Persian Gulf region, the two are seriously concerned by mercantilist efforts to assert control over energy supplies and transport routes. The maintenance of a peaceful and lawful maritime domain, including unimpeded freedom of navigation, is thus critical to their security and economic well-being.

In essence, the South China Sea is important for Tokyo and New Delhi for the critical sea lanes of communications that it hosts. The waterway enables regional energy and trade flows and commerce and is a key determinant for Indo-Pacific prosperity. SLOCs, however, are not the only reason why the South China Sea issue is important. The SCS is also important because it rims Southeast Asia, which is a strategically critical space. Situated in the middle of the Indo-Pacific, Southeast Asia is one of the most commercially dynamic regions in the world, and for many the epicentre of world geopolitics.

But Southeast Asia is peculiar because it isn’t really an integrated region. Unlike South Asia, where a power like India can be a net security provider, the picture in the Southeast Asian littorals is a lot more complicated. The fact that it is surrounded by great powers like China, Japan US, Australia and India, means Southeast Asia remains highly vulnerable to the great power game.

In many ways, Southeast Asia can be compared with Central Europe during the Cold War. The combination of East and West Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other European states was not quite politically integrated but still a strategically important place, surrounded by great powers. Like Southeast Asia today finds itself caught between China and the US, Europe in the Cold War, suffered due to the great power game between the US and Russia.

And yet, the South China Sea is unique because it involves overlapping territorial claims that pose a threat to geopolitical stability. Today, within its arbitrary “nine dotted line” (9DL), China claims more than 80 percent of the SCS. Despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s rejection of its historic rights within the 9DL, Beijing continues to build artificial islands in the South China Sea. Both Tokyo and New Delhi have worries about China’s power projection in the Southeast Asia and the Eastern Indian Ocean, using its new bases in the South China Sea. Some even fear that China could deploy submarines and launch fighter jets from its Spratlys islands and attempt to obstruct all foreign warships and airplanes in the region.

Yet, China’s provocative behaviour is not entirely unanticipated. In August 2013, during a symposium in Tokyo, Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera’s statement had carried a prescient warning. Onodera had reiterated that “China has and will make more and more advancement into the seas.” In the absence of military capability, the Japanese veteran political pointed out, China tries to promote dialogue and economic cooperation, setting territorial rows aside. But when it sees a chance, any daylight between a nation and its ally, China makes blunt advancements.^[6] Just as Onodera had predicted, Southeast Asian countries today have neither the capability nor their main ally’s support to deter Chinese assertiveness.

How does China’s assertiveness in the SCS impact New Delhi and Tokyo’s geopolitical interests?

Much of China’s maritime expansion is driven by its need to create a new military balance in the Asia Pacific. Since the 1950s, when China captured half of Paracel islands following France’s withdrawal from Vietnam, Beijing has dominated the Southeast Asian littoral. China occupied another half of the Paracel islands in 1974 just as the Vietnam War ended and America withdrew its troops from the region. After the Soviets’ own withdrawal from Vietnam in 1988, China moved to attack the Spratly islands. Even in the Philippines, the PLA Navy occupied the Mischief Reef, immediately after the US vacated Philippines bases.^[7]

It is the militarisation of the PLA that worries Japanese and Indian strategic experts. Over the past two decades, China’s submarine arm has grown from a few to almost 42 submarines. During the same period, Singapore acquired five submarines, while Vietnam got four, and Malaysia, two.

Both Japan and India know they do not individually possess the capability to counter China. In the absence of hard military power, they are both dependent on the United States to maintain a favourable military balance in that region. But the US is itself a declining power in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2000, the US Navy has acquired only 13 submarines while its total number of submarines has declined from 127 in 1990 to 73. Although US submarines are far more sophisticated than China’s, their numerical shortfall is significant.^[8]

In addition, there is growing sense that given its problems in other parts of the world, Washington cannot afford to focus all military power in Asia. Like smaller Southeast Asian countries, Japan worries about a scenario where US involvement in conflicts in the Eastern Europe and Middle East might leave Washington with a shrunken appetite for issues in the South China Sea.

This is not to say that the United States is vacating the Asia-Pacific anytime soon. Far from it. With the Trump team announcing plans to increase the number of warships from 276 to 350 for greater deployments in the East, not many doubt Washington’s Pacific ambitions.^[9] Japanese analysts do wonder, however, how America’s approach to the Asia-Pacific can “remain one of commitment and strength and inclusion” if it is, in the words of US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, simultaneously “countering Russian aggression and coercion in Europe, checking Iranian aggression and fighting ISIL’s malign influence in the Middle East.” It does appear odd that Washington today has neither the budget nor the warships for a sustained presence in the Asia-Pacific.^[10]

What kind of security role do Japan and India see themselves playing in the South China Sea?

For India and Japan, it appears, maintaining the military balance in Asia is a priority. Both sides would like to be ready for a worst-case scenario. In view of declining US military power, the best method for maintaining military balance is to cooperate with other regional powers. Each would ideally like to see China as a responsible power in the Pacific. India might particularly expect China to accept the Arbitral Tribunal’s decision in the same way that New Delhi embraced a tribunal ruling on the India-Bangladesh sea boundary dispute in 2014 in favour of Bangladesh. But modifying its strategic behaviour might be hard for Beijing, not least because the stakes for China appear much higher.

Strategic security in Asia has for a long time been underwritten by the United States. Its bilateral partnerships with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia have been critical in providing maritime security in the regional commons. Now that these alliances appear to be fraying, regional states need to develop closer intra-ties to tide over strategic uncertainties. Indeed, in the absence of preponderant US military power, the old system of strong bilateral ties with Washington system is not enough to maintain peace and order in this region; which is why Japan, India, Australia and Singapore are cooperating in the maritime realm. Their mini-lateral interactions could potentially culminate in a collective security system.

In this regard, the Japan-India-Australia Trilateral Dialogue held in June 2015 is a particularly significant initiative. By keeping the United States out of their grouping, the three sides sought to independently evolve a system of responsibility sharing in the maritime commons. It is now hoped that Vietnam, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian states would separately join the system to maintain the military balance with China. This is not to suggest that there is a deliberate attempt to isolate China.  Regional states are open to working alongside China, provided it agrees to acting responsibly under an agreed set of rules. Indeed, India, the US, Australia and other Southeast Asian countries have also all held joint exercises with China, even cooperating in areas such as anti-piracy patrols along the coast of Somalia. These examples indicate that this cooperative multilateral security framework is a good way to both establish strategic balance and defuse emerging tensions.

Japan-India Operational Cooperation

For a few years now, India has vigorously pursued the ‘Look East Policy’ as a guiding foreign policy principle. Under its broader ambit, New Delhi has supported regional security efforts in Southeast Asia.  An updated version—the ‘Act East Policy’—unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 seeks to widen India’s operational presence in the Asia-Pacific. Besides operational forays in Southeast Asia, New Delhi has also been providing support to regional armed forces. From providing training to Malaysian fighter pilots, to facilitating maintenance of Indonesian Air Force fighters, and offering air and land bases for the training of Singaporean forces, India has sought to expand its security contribution in maritime-Asia.

Japanese experts say Tokyo regards India’s defence relationship with Vietnam as a model to be followed in New Delhi’s security ties with other Southeast Asian countries. Alongside training naval submarine crews and fighter pilots, New Delhi has undertaken to supply spare parts of Soviet-origin warships and jets for the Vietnam Navy and Air Force, even donating some patrol ships.

For its part, Tokyo has been indirectly supporting Southeast Asia – providing maritime equipment including anti-piracy system, tsunami warning system, cyber defence system, and also building infrastructure. In addition, the Abe administration has also been donating maritime platforms to these countries. In the recent past, Tokyo has donated patrol ships to Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, also leasing a TC-90 training plane to the Philippines.

In effect, India-Japan cooperation is a potential source of strength for Southeast Asian countries. If their navies could forge a closer partnership in the South China Sea they could provide critical balance to the Asia pacific region. Japan’s superior infrastructure-building capability could help install operational systems — such as air control equipment — in the South China Sea, while India’s significant personnel training capacity can be leveraged to benefit regional maritime forces.

To this end, India and Japan seem to be moving towards a favourable arrangement – albeit progressively. In January 2014, when PM Abe visited Delhi, the two prime ministers “welcomed the launch of a bilateral dialogue on ASEAN affairs.” Japan and India have been encouraging practical trilateral strategic dialogues and have supported the idea of security through mini-laterals with Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Their active collaboration will result in more effective sharing of information, enabling Southeast Asian countries to better identify particular challenges in the maritime commons.

Connectivity and Infrastructure Building

India believes it is important to cooperate not only in the security realm but also in building connectivity and infrastructure in the wider Asian commons. During his last visit to Tokyo, Modi emphasised the importance of an inclusive outlook, to help create connectivity and build regional capacity on the inter-linked waters of the Indo-Pacific. India’s outlook complements Japan’s ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy^[11]’ in the Indo-Pacific region that has been driving regional prosperity. Underlining the intent of the two Asian powers, the statement reminded that Japan’s presence in the Malabar naval exercise “underscored the convergence in our strategic interests in the broad expanse of the waters of the Indo-Pacific.”^[12]

Clearly, maritime power is not the only area where Japan must compete with China. Beijing has steadily become one of the biggest donors of development aid in South East Asia. By providing massive aid and assistance to countries like Cambodia and Laos, Beijing has successfully created a rift within ASEAN members on how to tackle the South China Sea dispute.

To counter China’s growing influence, Japan has had to dig deep into its pockets, sponsoring entire networks of development projects in South East Asia. In this, it has sought support from regional states. Prime Minister Abe has also proposed a new initiative combining “human, financial and technological resources” to build up connectivity in South East Asia, including through Japanese Overseas Development Assistance projects.

In contrast, India’s development aid strategy for ASEAN has been relatively modest. While it has undertaken some infrastructure projects in Myanmar, New Delhi’s connectivity initiatives in Southeast Asia have been limited to involvement in the Asian Highway Project sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Importantly, India and Japan have expressed a willingness to include Africa in their development strategy, by implicitly setting up a rival to China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ project. By improving connectivity between Asia and Africa, through realising a free and open Indo-Pacific region, India and Japan hope to provide substantive maritime goods in Asia, also countering growing Chinese influence in the region. This is one reason why synergy between India’s ‘Act East’ Policy and Japan’s ‘Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (EPQI)’ is a good idea. Japan has set aside $700 billion over five years to finance infrastructure projects across the world under the EPQI initiative, which was unveiled at the -7 Summit in 2016.

For India, it is encouraging to see Japan’s interest in developing Iran’s Chabahar port, which will provide an alternate sea route to land-locked Afghanistan instead of depending on Pakistani ports. India also welcomes the prospects of cooperation with Japan for the promotion of peace and prosperity in South Asia, particularly Afghanistan.

The Way Forward

At a time when Asia faces the prospect of power disequilibrium, India and Japan, as natural allies, must help promote regional stability by adding concrete strategic content to their fast-growing relationship. Both sides are aware that the balance of power in Asia will be determined by events in East Asia and the Indian Ocean. As things stand, it is the developments in the South China Sea that threaten to have the most long-lasting impact on regional security.

Tokyo and New Delhi have an important role to play to advance peace and stability and help safeguard vital sea lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region. Since Asia’s economies are bound by sea, maritime democracies like Japan and India must work together to help build a stable, liberal, rules-based order in Asia.

Bilaterally, Japan and India need to strengthen their still-fledgling strategic cooperation by embracing two ideas, both of which demand a subtle shift in conventional thinking and policy. Their first objective would be to build interoperability between their naval forces. Together, Tokyo and New Delhi can undergird peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

*Satoru Nagao is Research Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation, Lecturer in Security at the Department of Political Studies at the Faculty of Law, Gakushuin University, and Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies

This article was originally published in GP-ORF’s Line in the Waters

^[1] Prakash Panneerselvam, Modi’s Trip to Tokyo: Takeaways for India-Japan Relations, The Diplomat, November 17, 2016 at http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/modis-trip-to-tokyo-takeaways-for-india-japan-relations/

^[2] India-Japan relations: the China factor, South Asia Monitor, February 1, 2014  http://southasiamonitor.org/news/india-japan-relations-the-china-factor/sl/7241; also Prashant Parmeshwaran, Japan to Join US, India in Military Exercises this Year, The Diplomat, July 1, 2015 http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/japan-to-join-us-india-in-military-exercises-this-year/

^[3] Satoru Nagao, The Importance of a Japan-India Amphibious Aircraft Deal, The Diplomat, December 12 2016 (Tokyo)

(http://thediplomat.com/2016/12/the-importance-of-a-japan-india-amphibious-aircraft-deal/ )

^[4] Abhijit Singh, India’s “Undersea Wall” in the Eastern Indian Ocean, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, June 15, 2016 https://amti.csis.org/indias-undersea-wall-eastern-indian-ocean/

^[5] Devirupa Mitra, South China Sea: India, Japan Indicate Dispute Should Be Resolved Under UN Law, The Wire, November 12, 2016, at https://thewire.in/79646/india-japan-modi-abe-visit-south-china/

^[6] Harumi Ozawa, Japan Could Be ‘Main Player’ in Asia Conflict: Minister, Defense News, August. 26, 2013 http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130826/DEFREG03/308260005/Japan-Could-Main-Player-Asia-Conflict-Minister

^[7] Ministry of Defense, Government of Japan “China’s activities in the South China Sea (Japanese), December 22 2015
http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/surround/pdf/ch_d-act_20151222.pdf

^[8]Vice Admiral Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for capabilities and resources, told that China has more diesel- and nuclear-powered submarines than the United States in February 2015.
China submarines outnumber U.S. fleet: U.S. admira,” Reuter, February 25 2015
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-usa-china-submarines-idUSKBN0LT2NE20150225

^[9] Yeganeh Torbati and Phil Stewart,  Trump could easily erase much of Obama’s foreign policy legacy, Reuter, November 10 2016 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-obama-foreignpolicy-idUSKBN1352UE

^[10] Ashton Carter, Meeting Asia’s Complex Security Challenges, The IISS Shangri La Dialogue: The Asia Security Summit June 4 2016.
https://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20la%20dialogue/archive/shangri-la-dialogue-2016-4a4b/plenary1-ab09/carter-1610

^[11] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Japan, Japan-India Joint Statement, November 11 2016
http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000202950.pdf

^[12] Raija Susan Panicker , Full Text of PM Narendra Modi’s Statement During His Visit To Japan, NDTV, November 11, 2016
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/full-text-of-pm-narendra-modis-statement-during-his-visit-to-japan-1624339?browserpush=true

A group of former Republican officials (including James A. Baker, Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz, Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw) is proposing a carbon tax starting the tax at $40 per ton, that would gradually increase.

The proceeds of the tax would be distributed to every American.

The average family of four would receive $2,000 annually in dividends. As the tax rises, so would their dividends. Since everyone would receive the same amount of revenue from the tax regardless of their income level, the dividend would make a bigger difference for poorer families than for wealthier ones.

It’s a win-win: Less carbon in the atmosphere, and more equal distribution of income.

That it’s being proposed by Republicans doesn’t make the idea any less worthy.

I’m aware that some on the left would rather use revenues from such a tax to invest in clean energy and other social causes rather than return the revenues directly to the public. That detail can be worked out.

The idea is getting a hearing in the White House. And in these dreadful times, that’s good news indeed.

What a disgrace the majority of MPs have shown themselves to be, as they have voted, by 494 votes to 122, to pass the government’s derisory little bill allowing Theresa May to “notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.”

Although numerous amendments were tabled — seven by Labour, others by other parties — all failed to be passed. On Tuesday, an amendment by Labour’s Chris Leslie, stating that “the government should not be allowed to agree a Brexit deal until it has been passed by both Houses of Parliament,” was defeated by 326 votes to 293 — a majority of 33 — including seven Tory rebels: as well as serial Brexit rebel Ken Clarke, the rebels were Heidi Allen, Bob Neill, Claire Perry, Antoinette Sandbach, Anna Soubry and Andrew Tyrie.

And last night, before the final vote, there was another blow — this one not to the hard-won sovereignty of Parliament, given away by MPs as though it was nothing, but to the three million EU nationals who live and work in the UK, when the amendment by Labour’s Harriet Harman, in her capacity as the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, guaranteeing EU nationals the right to stay in the UK, was defeated by 332 votes to 290 — a majority of 42. On this amendment, there were three Tory rebels — Ken Clarke, Tania Mathias and Andrew Tyrie.

On this amendment, the Guardian tried to claim that “[t]he fact that MPs have voted this down does not mean the MPs want EU nationals to have to leave the EU after Brexit. It means they accept Theresa May’s argument that Britain should not give any commitments until it can reach a deal with other EU countries ensure that Britons living on the continent are also guaranteed the right to say where they are.”

However, I simply don’t accept this argument, as I’m imagining the insecurity felt by EU nationals living and working here, many who have been here for decades, and I find it unacceptable that, for any reason, they can be reduced to being bargaining chips.

So let’s just recap on how we got here, shall we? Theresa May, the accidental Prime Minister, first refused to accept that the UK cannot leave the EU without Parliament being consulted, spending months fighting in the courts to prevent what Brexit was supposedly about — restoring sovereignty to the UK, because, in the UK, sovereignty resides with Parliament and very specifically not with just the Prime Minister.

Then when, after three months, the Supreme Court confirmed the High Court’s November ruling that Parliament must be consulted, May and her chief Brexiteer, David Davis, put together that derisory two-paragraph bill for MPs to endorse, which they expected them to pass without much discussion, instantly relinquishing the sovereignty that the Supreme Court had just confirmed resided with them.

Adding insult to injury, the government refused to issue a white paper until after the vote, and MPs dutifully humiliated themselves by voting by 498 votes to 114 to give Theresa May the power to trigger the UK’s exit from the European Union without having seen any detailed plans whatsoever. 47 Labour MPs voted against the bill, even though, absurdly, Jeremy Corbyn had insisted that all his MPs vote with the government, and they were joined by just one Tory (Ken Clarke), 50 SNP MPs, seven Liberal Democrats, and nine other MPs including Green MP Caroline Lucas.

However, as I explained at the time, in an article entitled, On Brexit, What a Pathetic, Leaderless Country We Have Become, 75% of MPs supported staying in the EU at the time of the referendum, including 185 Tory MPs and 218 Labour MPs, and to represent the 16.1m of us who voted to stay in the EU (48.1% of those who voted), at least 294 MPs should have voted against this bill, not just 114 of them — and last night’s vote on the third reading, at which that number was bumped up to 122, does little to suggest to the 16.1m of us who voted to Remain that Parliament has any notion of doing anything to represent us.

To make matters worse, when the white paper — ‘The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union’ — arrived, it was, as the Guardian explained in an editorial, “full of platitudes and empty rhetoric,” and served only to confirm that the government “is engaging in a troubling form of politics, where ministers can pursue their interest without compromise.” The Guardian’s editors added, “The executive has revealed nothing but contempt for institutional parliamentary forms. The white paper offers no scrutiny, no mechanisms to hold ministers to account, no ways of influencing the Brexit process.”

Moreover, Theresa May’s introduction to the white paper was an deeply insulting effort to co-opt the 16.1m of us who voted Remain into her disgraceful isolationist Little England project. In amongst the frothy, nonsensical optimism of her view of the UK, as “[o]ne of the world’s largest and strongest economies,” with “the best intelligence services” and “the bravest armed forces,” she had the nerve to state, “And another thing that’s important. The essential ingredient of our success. The strength and support of 65 million people willing us to make it happen. Because after all the division and discord, the country is coming together.”

That, of course, is patently untrue, and like numerous other people, I am enraged that Theresa May should seek so cynically to co-opt me and the rest of the 16.1 million people who voted to stay in the EU into her nationalist fantasy world, and dismayed that, last night, Parliament voted to hand her the power to trigger Article 50 without promising that EU nationals can stay in the UK, and without giving any meaningful power to MPs to challenge her on any basis whatsoever.

This is my opinion despite the optimism shown by Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, who claimed that Theresa May “will not be able to resist pressure to go back to the negotiating table if parliament rejects her Brexit deal with the EU,” as the Guardian described it.

The Guardian added that Starmer “dismissed the government’s claims that MPs would only be offered a vote on the deal on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, meaning they could either accept the terms struck by May or proceed to Brexit without a deal at all.” He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “The idea the prime minister would seriously say in 2019: ‘Well, rather than go back and see if I can improve and satisfy parliament I will simply crash out’ that would be a reckless act.”

Nevertheless, Chris Leslie, the former shadow chancellor, said the government “was still not offering a meaningful choice for MPs on its Brexit deal.”

“The government’s so-called concession falls short of giving parliament a meaningful vote,” he said, adding, “Ministers have failed to produce a new amendment, so their commitment will not be binding. The minister refused to give parliament the option to reject the deal and tell the government to go back to negotiate a better one. And on the nightmare scenario – that we could leave the EU with no deal at all, and face damaging barriers to trade with Europe – it seems parliament could have no say whatsoever.”

I’m with Chris Leslie, and I cannot but conclude that Parliament has desperately let down the 48.1% of voters in the EU referendum who do not want to leave the EU, and who regard the decision to do so as what it was — an advisory outcome that Parliament should be able to refuse to implement if, as has happened, an array of experts demonstrate that doing so will be an act of economic suicide unprecedented in our lifetimes.

As we wait to see if the Lords will do anything meaningful with the bill — with the Guardian noting that Labour and Liberal Democrat peers “will press for concessions on key issues including the status of European Union citizens living in the United Kingdom” — below is the full list of the 122 MPs who voted against the Article 50 bill at its third reading, including Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary and the fourth shadow cabinet member to resign rather than vote in favour of the bill.

These ought to be difficult times for the other MPs in constituencies that voted to Remain, and I hope those constituents will mobilise to prevent the disaster of a “hard Brexit” — and, hopefully, still to prevent Brexit from happening at all. As the Guardian notes in an editorial today:

It is tempting to say that MPs have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. That is because in many respects they have. Faced with a bill that sets in motion the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, which is as profoundly mistaken a decision as any that the UK parliament has taken in the postwar era, MPs have essentially said that last year’s referendum is sovereign and that they are powerless to put their foot on the brake or choose a different route.

Too many on both sides of the Commons nonsensically deployed their experience and expertise to vote for a bill they admitted to not supporting. Too many MPs genuflected to a referendum decision that sets Britain against its neighbours and its own place in the world and puts the UK economy at hazard.

The 122 MPs who voted against triggering Article 50 at the bill’s third reading

Labour – 52

Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East)
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow)
Graham Allen (Nottingham North)
Dr. Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting)
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree)
Ben Bradshaw (Exeter)
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West)
Lyn Brown (West Ham)
Chris Bryant (Rhondda)
Karen Buck (Westminster North)
Dawn Butler (Brent Central)
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth)
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley)
Ann Coffey (Stockport)
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Mary Creagh (Wakefield)
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow)
Geraint Davies (Swansea West)
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West)
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth)
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge)
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood)
Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside)
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford)
Mike Gapes (Ilford South)
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston)
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South)
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood)
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Dr. Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton)
Peter Kyle (Hove)
David Lammy (Tottenham)
Clive Lewis (Norwich South)
Rachael Maskell (York Central)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East)
Alison McGovern (Wirral South)
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Madeleine Moon (Bridgend)
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Stephen Pound (Ealing North)
Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall)
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn)
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington)
Owen Smith (Pontypridd)
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central)
Stephen Timms (East Ham)
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green)
Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge)

Conservatives – 1

Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe)

Scottish National Party – 52

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire)
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway)
Hannah Bardell (Livingston)
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South)
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber)
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North)
Philip Boswell (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith)
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Dr. Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife)
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West)
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde)
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East)
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire)
Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North)
Peter Grant (Glenrothes)
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts)
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East)
George Kerevan (East Lothian)
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Chris Law (Dundee West)
John McNally (Falkirk)
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South)
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South)
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East)
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West)
Dr. Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire)
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute)
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West)
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central)
Mike Weir (Angus)
Dr. Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan)
Dr. Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire)
Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock)
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire)
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East)
Angus Robertson (Moray)
Alex Salmond (Gordon)
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire)
Steven Paterson (Stirling)

Liberal Democrat – 7

Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland)
Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam)
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park)
Mark Williams (Ceredigion)
John Pugh (Southport)
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)

Green Party – 1

Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion)

SDLP – 3

Margaret Ritchie (South Down)
Mark Durkan (Foyle)
Dr. Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South)

Plaid Cymru – 3

Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Hywel Williams (Arfon)
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Independent – 3

Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West)
Lady Hermon (North Down)
Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East)

The tellers for the noes were: Marion Fellows (SNP – Motherwell and Wishaw) and Owen Thompson (SNP – Midlothian)

What happens next?

As the Guardian explained recently, Parliament is in recess between 9 February and 20 February, but after that the House of Lords “is expected to begin its scrutiny process with a two-day debate on the day parliament returns from recess. Further amendments could be agreed during the committee stage of the Lords, between 27 February and 1 March. Any amendments agreed by the Lords will need to be approved by the Commons, and the bill will pass back to MPs. This back and forth will continue until both houses agree, and the earliest this could effectively happen is 7 March. May’s self-imposed deadline for triggering article 50, agreed by parliament, is the end of March.”

If you’re a supporter of Britain staying the EU, and your constituency voted to Remain, but your MP supported the passage of the Article 50 bill, I’d say now is a good time to send them a strongly worded email suggesting that they should not take for granted your support or that of other constituents in the future – for Tory MPs, the fate of Zac Goldsmith ought to be instructive. And if your constituency voted Leave, but your MP was a Remain supporter, then I think you should encourage them to fight for what is right, and not to just think about how to save their seat.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to reinstate the travel ban imposed by President Trump. The New York Times has this story on the litigation and the Court’s opinion can be found here. The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court. Of course, if he’s not hankering for a fight, President Trump could simply rewrite the order and accomplish much of what he wanted. It seems that the order covers noncitizens outside the U.S., noncitizens already here, and Legal Permanent Residents. If Trump rewrote the order so that it applies only to noncitizens outside the United States, who by law have no due process rights, then a court would likely have no choice but to uphold it.

Notably absent from the Court’s decision is any discussion of 8 U.S.C. 1182(f). This statute is a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It provides, in pertinent part,

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

One can easily dislike or disagree with this statute as giving a president too much power; however, it is on the books and seems to clearly govern Mr. Trump’s travel ban. Yet, there is no discussion of this in the Court’s opinion. This is sloppy on the part of the Ninth Circuit. If the matter does reach the Supreme Court, hopefully the Justices will address the congressional statute that actually governs heart of the issue.

This article was published at The Beacon.

By Alasdair Macleod*

Most economists agree on one thing; price controls do not work. Many go on to say they create shortages of goods, which inevitably drives black market prices even higher than they would otherwise be. Price controls were last tried in the 1970s, and everyone swore, never again. The suggestion that they could return is laughed at today, even taken as madness. Only in Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

However, the likelihood of their reintroduction is greater than generally realized, and is increasing all the time now that there are signs of rising prices. So far, central bankers are claiming that an increase towards their inflation targets of two per cent in the CPI (already achieved in the US) is a sign that economic normality is returning. They are also confident they can manage the rate of price inflation, so it should not present a risk. But in all previous credit-driven business cycles, the rate at which prices increase has always been beyond the control of central banks. This article explains why, and highlights the central role of statistical propaganda, of which its promoters are hardly aware. It also suggests how inflation outcomes are likely to evolve. We shall start by looking at officially-recorded prices.

CPI Fallacies

The first of four major fallacies behind state-sponsored price statistics is the application of averages. Not one person on earth buys the products in the consumer price index in the proportions they are included in it, nor do they pay the assumed prices. Welcome to the macroeconomists’ favorite tool, the average. Averages allow them to plan our prices for us. We have all been averaged. Secondly, the prices are always historic, and what we bought yesterday is not the same as what we buy today, and even that differs from what we will buy tomorrow. Taking static numbers that no longer apply misrepresents dynamic markets that continually evolve.

Because the technique of averaging while assuming the economy is static permits economists to escape from the reality of considering individual people, they can then indulge in flights of fancy. In the name of improvement, we welcome hedonics. Hedonics, we are told, is a logical approach to adjusting prices for product improvements, and the likelihood that if the price rises for one product, at the margin people will buy a cheaper alternative. Again, this concept is flawed, because someone employed by the state sits in judgment on how you and I as individuals value the goods and services we buy, and what makes us choose between them. And given the state wishes to emphasize its success in the management of our affairs, this flaky concept is capable of being loaded to produce a desired result.

The last major error (there are other misconceptions, but we shall stop here) is to categorize our transactions into those defined as consumption, and those defined as non-consumption. We are left consuming non-consumption products. So here again, the person or committee in control of what is included in the index influences the outcome.

It is therefore hardly surprising that the official CPI under-records price inflation, because government econometricians have the means to do so. Little by little, distortions accumulate, and over time reality is left far behind. Underlying the whole process and sold to us as the advancement of science, is propaganda. Reduce the observed rate of price inflation to optimize our consumption. Reduce the GDP deflator to convince us the economy is growing. Reduce the rate of price inflation to lower the state’s pension and social security liabilities.

Unbiased attempts to replicate an index of inflation show a far higher rate. In the US, John Williams’s Shadow Stats shows a rate closer to 10% than the 2.1% shown on the official CPI-U statistic. That is the extent of the change in method since 1980. The Chapwood index confirms.

Imagine if the state admitted to the higher rate! The impoverishment of the masses, through loss of purchasing power of their wages and savings would become obvious to one and all, leading to widespread anger, discontent and labor disruption. The economy would clearly be in a prolonged slump, rivalling the 1930s. The Fed would be under considerable pressure to raise interest rates sharply to stop price inflation rising out of control. And the government would be transparently bust. None of this can be confessed to, in the national interest, so the propaganda becomes wholly justified.

There are surplus dollars deposited in America’s banking system, the quantity having doubled with over $6 trillion created since the Lehman crisis. If the public cottons on, perhaps it might end up dumping a tsunami of surplus fiat money. This is an ever-present risk in the world of unsound money, which is hostage to the valuation placed upon it by both the population and the foreign exchanges. Just imagine what would happen to the dollar, if the American public realized that its purchasing-power has been depreciating at a far faster rate than officially admitted, while the Fed funds rate has been suppressed to less than 1%.

This is why statistical propaganda has become central to economic and monetary policy. It is also why anyone who forecasts a deteriorating price inflation outlook from the current declared position misunderstands the true position. Analysts should be saying that the dollar’s rate of price inflation is expected to increase from the current level of roughly 10%. This is more accurate, but much more frightening, than saying inflation will rise from 2%. The inflation crisis is already well advanced, having been concealed for a considerable time. This is entirely due to statistical propaganda.

Possible Outcomes

The oldest cliché in politics is you can’t fool all the people all the time, and the eventual realization that ordinary people have been conned over their money is likely to provoke considerable discontent. The question is, how will the dénouement come about?

There are broadly two text-book paths before us leading towards monetary destruction, assuming an event such as an EU crisis doesn’t get there beforehand. The first path is relatively simple: the masses begin to see through the macroeconomic propaganda with little or no warning, and begin to dump their money in return for goods. This leads us directly into Mises’s crack-up boom, where the sole reason for buying goods is often to dump worthless currency. The second outcome is that interest rates are raised by the central banks to the point where widespread insolvencies are triggered, leading to a new financial crisis. This would be followed by a rescue of the banking system that requires another round of unlimited monetary and credit expansion. An additional round of limitless credit could then prove to be the currency’s final undoing. I shall consider each of these options in turn.

The People Stop Being Fooled

The dawning realization that inflation statistics have been telling anything but the truth has been made more likely by the Anglo-Saxon rejection of the political status quo in 2016. Brexit and Trump’s election are evidence that the silent majorities in two major thought-leading countries were in a mood for rebellion, and there are strong signs of similar dissent throughout Europe. The political classes are losing credibility and are no longer automatically believed, so surely this process of discovery by ordinary people has further to run.

There is little doubt that this year officially-admitted price inflation in the US will increase. Commodity and energy prices rose significantly last year, the stimulus to consumer spending from zero interest rates has bolstered nominal GDP, and President Trump’s plans for infrastructure spending and tax cuts will almost certainly lead to yet higher prices for US consumers.

As the reserve currency, it is the dollar that matters most, so we must take our cues from America. We are all waiting to see how monetary policy at the Fed evolves. If the Fed detects, as I believe is the case, that a Fed funds rate exceeding 2% risks triggering a debt crisis, they will go no further than that level. At that stage, the official CPI rate which is already at the Fed’s 2% target, could be commonly expected to rise to 4% and above. It would become increasingly obvious that consumer prices would actually be rising at a faster rate than that captured in the official statistics, because the evidence will have become undeniable. There would only be one option open to the authorities, and that is to perpetuate the propaganda over price inflation by introducing price controls, probably sold to us as a temporary measure (but we all know what that means).

Another Heave of the Credit Cycle

A second outcome could be interest rates are raised by the Fed beyond the point where a widespread debt liquidation is triggered. This is what happened in 2007, 2000, 1989 and 1980, illustrated by the declining peaks in the FFR in the chart below.

The Fed obviously thinks it can manage the credit cycle and avoid this happening again, just as it thought it could on all previous occasions. If the official rate of inflation increases, and continues to increase, the Fed will probably raise interest rates until a credit crisis occurs.

The dynamics behind this inevitability are worth considering. The stimulation to consumption from low nominal interest rates accelerates as prices rise, because real interest rates become more negative. A preference for buying goods and spending on services, relative to holding depreciating currency, begins to gain momentum. Businesses, seeing the expansion of consumer demand and rising prices, increase their own demand for low-cost capital to invest in production of goods, which are expected to be sold for higher prices. Bankers become increasingly confident in their lending to the point where they compete to lend. Fortunately for the banks, they have substantial reserves at the Fed to draw upon to increase their loan books.

The Fed cannot stand back and watch this self-feeding growth in consumer and economic confidence get out of control, because it accelerates price inflation. If it realizes the dangers of raising rates beyond a tipping point, the Fed will start talking about the need for “temporary” price controls to calm things down, as mentioned above. If it doesn’t, the FFR will be raised until a credit and banking crisis occurs.

In that event, the Fed will have no option but to rescue the banks by buying dodgy assets off them on an even greater scale than in the wake of the Lehman crisis. Bond prices will be underwritten by yet more massive QE, thereby guaranteeing government borrowing. We know this, because on every credit cycle the interventions become progressively larger, increasingly desperate and increasingly destabilizing.

We also know that every time we find the credit cliff has crumbled from under our feet and we find ourselves tumbling into the financial unknown, the Fed has rescued us by throwing increasing amounts of money and credit at the banks. The trick has always been to regain systemic confidence, which requires propaganda about money.

I would judge this to be the more likely outcome, in the absence of other major systemic risks impacting first. That ordinary people will discover the truth about unsound money for themselves is less likely. People want to believe the propaganda about the purchasing power of fiat currency, because the contrary thought, that it is potentially worthless, is too unpleasant to contemplate. The foreign exchanges, dominated by banks licensed by the American authorities, might be equally slow to understand they are victims of financial propaganda, either because of their culture or because they take their instructions from the Fed. But an escalation of price inflation without the Fed tightening cannot be ruled out. Markets, which represent the collective actions of individuals, always win over governments in the end, and theoretically that end can occur at any time.

Whether or not we face a deterioration of the purchasing power of fiat currencies without one last hurrah of the credit cycle, the American monetary authorities, with the acquiescence of those of the other nations, have relied on statistical propaganda to conceal the consequences of buying off economic reality by accelerating the debasement of fiat money. It is a path that leads inevitably to discovery of the monetary fraud, but not an acceptance of blame. It will be alleged to be the fault of free markets, and that is why governments will most likely be driven even further to control them, through the suppression of prices by regulation.

About the author:
*Alasdair Macleod is the Head of Research at GoldMoney.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

By Brig Anil Gupta (Retd)*

Consequent to eruption of militancy in Kashmir in the late 1980s and its extension to Doda District and Rajouri-Poonch in the 1990s, the migration of Hindu families to Jammu began. This was soon followed by migration of Muslims belonging to the militancy-affected areas. A large number of Gujjar settlements also erupted all of a sudden close to the International Border and around Jammu City.

However, this was followed by a very serious event which appears like a well-planned conspiracy to alter the demography of Jammu. A large number of members of a particular community commenced buying landed and built-up properties in parts of Greater Jammu. Even illegal encroachments of forest and government land by them were ignored by the government machinery.

During the last decade-and-half exclusive Muslim colonies have mushroomed around Jammu, some of them openly advertising in papers that plots will be sold to Muslims only. Though being illegal, these colonies are provided amenities like water and electricity by the government machinery. The settlements have been planned in such a manner that Hindu-dominated localities have been encircled.

Jammu is basically a Hindu-dominated area. In 1981, there were only two Muslim-dominated localities within the city. As per official figures of 1986-87, the religion-wise breakdown of Jammu was Hindus 88.5 per cent, Muslims 4.5 per cent, Sikhs 6.4 per cent and others 0.6 per cent. Thereafter, due to disturbed conditions in the state, proper census could not be conducted in 1991 and 2001.

As per Census-2011 which included religion-wise breakdown in the population data, the same for Greater Jammu is Hindus 78.36 per cent, Muslims 10.97 per cent and Sikhs 8.74 per cent.

It is essential to identify the factors that have led to this change. While there has been constant decline in the Hindu population (10.4 per cent since 1986-87 — the year of eruption of militancy), the Muslim population has more than doubled during the same period.

The growth rate is a major factor — Muslim growth rate is 24 per cent against the national average of 18 per cent. Another factor is migration from the Valley and other parts of Jammu region. Hindus from Jammu have migrated to other parts of the country. Though the majority of Kashmiri Muslims have acquired property in Jammu, they prefer to spend the summers in the Valley and return to Jammu in winters. Many have also shifted to Jammu to ensure smooth and continuous education for their children.

The governments in the past turned a blind eye to grabbing of state/forest land by Kashmiri Muslim migrants. Huge properties on these lands have been built by politicians, bureaucrats, police officials and government servants. The corrupt officials of the revenue department have not only helped these settlers grab the state/forest land adjacent to the National Highway and outskirts of the city but are also involved in altering the revenue records.

Taking the shelter of militancy, the nomadic tribes have settled in large numbers around Jammu. Apart from grabbing forest land, they have also taken on lease/bought from the locals land at very high rates and built settlements all along the possible routes of infiltration. They have also been allotted “Pattas”, a system to help landless locals in which state land is leased to them for a fixed annual rent, with the active connivance of the concerned government officials.

Emotional migration of Hindus is another contributory factor. The lack of higher educational facilities and job opportunities in Jammu has led to large number of youth moving to other cities/metros of the country leaving behind their parents. When parents grow old and are unable to manage due to inadequate medical facilities, they also prefer to leave Jammu to join the children. This makes land/property available for sale and migrants offer lucrative rates, often more than the prevailing market rate, to buy such properties thus adding to the demographic shift.

The source of funding remains a major suspense. Some fingers point towards Hurriyat and ISI as part of a well thought out strategy. NRI funding and liberal flow of petro-dollars to promote Salafism could also be the contributors. Most of these settlers prefer to retain property at their ancestral places as well thus ruling out sale of ancestral property as a legitimate source of funding.

Till early 1980s, there were only two known Muslim localities in Jammu. Thereafter, the number of colonies started mushrooming around the periphery of the old city and towards the North. Today there are more than 30 such colonies all around Jammu city in addition to about equal number of Gujjar bastis.

Jammu has also been victim to large-scale illegal immigrants belonging to the same community. These illegal foreign migrants belong to Bangladesh and Myanmar. The migration took place during the period 1998-2012. The migration, to a large extent, was backed by the politico-police nexus. Some of them even managed to acquire Citizenship and Voter Cards. Since these are illegal migrants, their figures are not included in the Census-2011. If their numbers are also added to the official figures, the increase in Muslim population will be even higher upsetting the demographic balance.

As per the government, 13,400 Myanmarese and Bangladeshi migrants are living in camps in Jammu. The actual figures are much more than the official figures.

The Myanmarese immigrants. the Rohingyas, belong to the Arakan region of Myanmar bordering Bangladesh. They follow Sunni Islam and belong to Indo-Aryan ethnicity. In 1982, the Myanmar government declared them as non-nationals thus rendering them stateless. This led to their migration to neighbouring Bangladesh, Thailand and even Pakistan. However, they were not welcomed in these Muslim countries as well. This led to their influx into India through the porous border with Bangladesh.

As per official estimates, there are 36,000 Rohingyas settled in seven states in India namely Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradeh, Kerala, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi.

Almost 1,700 Rohingya families comprising approximately 8,500 souls (official figures are 1,286 and 5,000, respectively) live in the settlement colonies of Rajiv Nagar, Kassim Nagar, Malik Market, Bahu Fort, Karyini Talab, Channi Rama, Vidhata Nagar, Railway Basti, Kargil Colony and Bhatindi areas of Jammu.

Bhatindi Ka Plot is home to the highest number of Rohingya migrants — 686 in total as stated by the Chief Minister in the legislative assembly. Many of them have acquired refugee status from UNHCR thus adding to plethora of “refugee” communities in Jammu region. As per official estimates, approximately 186 families are illegal and not registered with UNHCR.

Illegal settlements have mushroomed in areas such as Gol Gujral, Nandini Seora, and Tope. The J&K government has provided them basic amenities including health care and Anganwari schools. A madrassa is also being run by a fellow migrant Maulana Shafiq in Narwal Bala. A large number of NGOs and philanthropic organisations also help them besides benefiting from ‘zakat’ (charity).

Though majority of them earn their livelihood through daily labour and employment in local shops, dhabas, restaurants, and car washing stations, involvement of some of them in petty and heinous crimes cannot be ruled out. Due to fear of being deported, they prefer to avoid any controversy at present but the possibility of some black sheep among them is likely.

Jammu and its adjoining areas have also become safe haven for illegal Bangladeshi migrants who were brought here in the 1990s by unscrupulous contractors with the promise of helping them migrate to Pakistan through the Jammu border. They used to come in hordes. After repeated failed attempts to cross over to Pakistan, they gradually began to settle down in Jammu.

As per government of India figures given in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, in November 2016, there were around 2 crore illegal Bangladeshi immigrants staying in India. Their exact number in J&K is not known but is guessed to be approximately 10,000. Since they are not granted refugee status and are not registered with UNHCR, they are all illegal. They are staying in shantytowns in Muslim neighbourhoods.

Majority of the male members work as skilled labour like electricians, plumbers, welders, guards, gardeners, blacksmith etc., while the female members work as domestic help generally with Muslim families. They speak Hindi fluently and have merged well with the local population. They even migrate during summer to the Valley with well-to-do Muslim families, bureaucrats and police officers. Many of them have managed to obtain ration cards, voter cards, Aaadhar cards and Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC). They are suspected to be involved in crime as well as anti-national activities at the behest of the local mullahs and maulvis. It is also learnt that attempt is being made to motivate them to join ‘jehad’.

To add to these are Muslim migrants from states like Delhi, UP and Bihar. They number about 25,000 to 30,000 and work mainly as skilled labour and contractors. Some of them have even managed to acquire properties through marriages with local Muslim girls.

This demographic change will lead to increased influence of Hurriyat and other pro-separatist and pro-Pakistan elements in the communally-sensitive Jammu region which has so far displayed maturity and tolerance. It will further assist in Pakistan’s design of portraying the entire state of J&K as disturbed and disputed; provide a trigger for communal violence; provide logistics assistance and rest and recoupment base for terrorists; and create a dormant terror network to be activated at an opportune moment.

The demographic shift in favour of a particular community having record of supporting anti-national elements can have an adverse impact on national security interests — one of the two foreign terrorists killed in south Kashmir in October last year was identified as a native of Myanmar — and make the area vulnerable to radicalisation.

A few notorious families also indulge in smuggling of bovines thus hurting the local sentiments and creating a sense of fear and panic among the locals through crimes and mafia-like activities.

It is evident that the silence of those who oppose any move facilitating honourable return of Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley, Sainik colonies for veterans and issue of Domicile Certificate to West Pakistani refugees on the pretext of attempt to change the demography is not only perplexing but smells of communalism.

If not addressed well in time, it could become a communal flash point in the hitherto peaceful region. Jammu is fast emerging as a ticking timebomb.

*The writer is a Jammu-based political commentator, columnist, security and strategic analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

The Islamic State (Daesh) abducted 385 civilians late Thursday, including women and children, in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a senior Iraqi army official told Anadolu Agency.

“The security sources have confirmed that Daesh stopped 260 civilians in Zeibat village who were trying to run away from Kirkuk’s Havice district toward Peshmerga-held regions,” Capt. Khamid al-Obeidi said, adding that a separate group of 125 civilians were stopped in the village of Hamel in southern Kirkuk.

Al-Obeidi said the abductees are at risk of death because the militant group usually threatens to kill runaways.

All of the victims have been returned to Havice, according to al-Obeidi.

Original source

The human rights organization, Amnesty International, has been as expected busy trying to document the on-going atrocities in war-torn Syria, by the Syrian government, the armed opposition, and the ISIS and other terrorist organizations aided by the recruitment of tens of thousands of foreign jihadists.

This is a crucial task that has resulted in a number of Amnesty reports documenting the nature of extrajudicial killings, torture, inhuman treatments, abductions, and the like, perpetrated basically by the protagonists of all sides in this tragic conflict that has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and millions of refugees.

Without doubt, the Amnesty’s efforts must be lauded as reflections of a conscious and noble effort by this organization to live up to the expectations and diligently pursue the rights abusers in international forums. Those responsible for the horrific rights abuses in Syria must be held accountable no matter which side of the isle they stand. In this regard, presently there are a number of initiatives at the UN and other world forums to attend to this issue and, hopefully, bring to justice the perpetrators accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and serious unlawful rights abuses.

However, this does not mean that the Amnesty’s efforts on Syria are completely flawless and fully even-handed. Unfortunately, in comparing the Amnesty’s reports on violations by the government and the rights groups one detects signs of bias and even double standards, casting minor questions on the credibility of the organization. To give an example, in its 2016 report on the atrocities committed by the armed opposition groups, Amnesty International states that it has, “received a number of allegations of summary killings carried out” by these groups since 2011. This report is based on interviews with a few dozen witnesses, much like the more recent report on torture and summary executions in a Syrian prison. Yet, the word “alleged” does not appear in the latter report and the accounts of witnesses, including former Syrian prison guards, judges and doctors mostly interviewed in southern Turkey are basically adopted as facts.

Nor is there any attempt in the first report to give even an approximate number of summary executions — of Syrian government forces and those accused of acting as informants or sympathizers for Damascus — and, in fact, the report’s failure to probe this important issue constitutes a major weakness that bespeaks of political favoritism, particularly when compared with the meticulous attention to the numbers of those executed in the second report — that has triggered a major headline around the world regarding the Amnesty’s report that 13,000 detainees in a Syrian military prison have been executed between September 2011 and December 2015. As expected, there is no mention of the “mass graves” found in Aleppo with mutilated bodies, reported by Russian media after the liberation of Aleppo, in either report by Amnesty International, as if it is not interested in that subject since it does not pertain to the Syrian government.

Moreover, the Amnesty report on Syrian prison killings contains a number of discrepancies that defy logic. Case in point, even though it admits that it has gained the identity of some 59 executed from the 31 former detainees at the infamous prison, the report nonetheless concludes that “the victims are overwhelmingly ordinary civilians who are thought to oppose the government.” This aside, in fact, the report puts the number of executed during the above-mentioned period to be “between 5,000 and 13,000.” There is a rather huge gap between these two numbers bespeaking of incertitude, (just as there is between the confirmed 375 individuals who have reportedly died under torture and the like in that prison and the report’s simultaneous claim of “thousands”) that also raise questions, seeing how all the western media has settled on the latter number.

Another discrepancy is that Amnesty claims that it has come to its conclusions based in part on interviews with three doctors who worked at the Tishreen Military Hospital where the dead victims were taken to be “registered” before being buried in mass graves. Yet, in the subsequent section quoting those doctors they consistently refer to examples of deaths by torture, lack of medical care, etc., but not by hanging. This is very curious, since if Amnesty’s report that all victims ended up at this hospital then the question is why none of these doctors make the slightest reference to evidence of strangulation?

Not only that, this report relies extensively on the witness accounts of a few former detainees who state that they witnessed the victims carried out from the torture chambers below their cells inside coffins into trucks late at nights. Yet, the same doctors mentioned above are quoted elsewhere in the report about the “pile of bodies” in the trucks coming from Saydnaya Military prison, i.e., no mention of coffins. Call it the case of disappearing coffins. Or could it be that the trucks were at times simply loading or unloading “food or heaters” or ammo, as one former detainee maintains in the report?

Of course, this is not to whitewash the brutality and crimes of the Syrian army in this brutal war, only to point out the flaws in the standards of Amnesty International.

To give yet another example of the flaws in its recent report, Amnesty contradicts itself by on the one hand repeatedly stating that the alleged executions have happened in utmost secrecy and without the victims even knowing they were targeted for executions and, on the other, referring fleetingly to “detainees who witnessed the executions.” Yet, there is not one footnote in reference to any such detainee who could be counted on as witness to executions.

Indeed, this amounts to a comedy of errors on Amnesty’s part that leaves a lot to be desired. Amnesty International has sadly damaged its reputation by deviating from objective documentation of facts on Syria and, in effect, acting as an arm of Western policy on Syria. Of course, none of these criticisms detract from the above-stated acknowledgement of Amnesty’s critical contributions to the cause of human rights around the world including Syria.

Raymond Cardinal Burke is a brilliant defender of orthodoxy, one who has bumped heads with the pope. Which man is right is not for the Catholic League to say. But when either man is being unfairly maligned, it beckons a response.

Emma-Kate Symons is not content to side with the pope—she is bent on savaging Cardinal Burke. Not able to sustain a rational argument, she descends to vitriol.

She calls Burke a “renegade cleric” and a “rebel prince of the church” who seeks to “legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy.” He also works with a “conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance.” She did not say if he belongs to the Klan.

Burke is also charged with presiding over a “secretive society headquartered in Rome.” It’s called the Knights of Malta! He is also accused of presiding over “a far-right, neo-fascist-normalizing cheer squad out of the Holy See.” She did not say if they wear Brown Shirts.

Symons, acting like a good liberal, wants Burke silenced. She wants him kicked out of the Knights of Malta—it does not matter to her that it is a sovereign entity—and punished for enabling “extremism and neo-fascism” in the Catholic Church.

This kind of insane discourse is usually found on some alt-left blog site, the creation of an unemployed blogger writing on his laptop at Starbucks. That the Washington Post would provide a home for this trash tells us how low its standards have fallen.

By Mitchell Blatt*

Sumantra noted a research paper by Harvard’s Alastair Iain Johnston in the journal International Security that raises doubts about the narrative that China is becoming increasingly nationalistic.

One section of the paper highlights differences between attitudes of the youth and those of their elders.

Johnston wrote:

Moreover, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the data do not show that China’s youth express higher levels of nationalism than older generations. Indeed, it is China’s older generations that are more nationalistic than its youth. These findings—with due regard for caveats about representativeness— suggest that rising popular nationalism may not be a critically important vari- able constraining Chinese foreign policy.
…
Sometimes the claim is made that rising nationalism exists because it is assumed, though not shown, that official government policies such as the Patriotic Education Campaign, launched in the early 1990s, are having their intended effect.

As Johnston’s numbers suggest, China’s youth are in fact noticeably less likely than their parents to answer yes to questions of patriotism and nationalism like, “I would prefer to be a citizen of China,” “China is a better country than most,” and “You should support your country even when it is wrong.”

This makes sense for multiple reasons: 1.) Everywhere, young people are more likely than older people to believe in liberal values, among them skepticism of ultra-patriotic attitudes. 2.) Chinese since Opening & Reform began in 1978 have much more access to Western media through tourism, more open media (compared with the Mao era), the internet, and a large number who studied abroad in the West. 3.) The young Chinese are also more distant from the defining struggles of China’s national narrative–the Sino-Japanese War and World War II (or the “World Anti-Fascist War,” as it is officially known in China), the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War.

Although China is an objectively better country in which to live than it was during Mao’s time, some of the very facts that make it better–its safety and stability and its greater level of freedom–also result in there being less impetus for citizens to cling to nationalist narratives and more information available that makes them skeptical of one-party rule.

Thus China’s patriotic education campaign and Xi Jinping’s recent emphasis on celebrating the anniversary of Japanese surrender. Rather than illustrating rising nationalism, the fact that the government felt it needed to implement these programs shows the government fears nationalism is waning. (Johnston’s paper didn’t address claims that the government is trying to stoke nationalism; rather it focused on whether nationalism is rising among the public.)

But overly serious and transparently propagandistic moral and educational crusades don’t work very well on skeptical youth, who would rather watch a Hollywood superhero movie than sit in class playing on their phones. Just like how American youth laugh at the silly anti-drug videos shown in middle school health class, most Chinese students in middle school and college (where they must take politics classes) don’t take political education too seriously.

About the author:
*Mitchell Blatt moved to China in 2012, and since then he has traveled and written about politics and culture throughout Asia. A writer and journalist, based in China, he is the lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong guidebook and a contributor to outlets including The Federalist, China.org.cn, The Daily Caller, and Vagabond Journey. Fluent in Chinese, he has lived and traveled in Asia for three years, blogging about his travels at ChinaTravelWriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchBlatt.

Pressure on the Trump administration is mounting to adopt a tougher position towards Pakistani support of militants in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan itself. The pressure comes from a chorus of voices that include the US military, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and influential Washington-based think tanks.

The calls for a harder line were issued despite a Pakistani crackdown on militants in recent months that many see as half-hearted. It also comes days after China, at Pakistan’s behest, blocked the United Nations Security Council from listing a prominent Pakistani militant as a globally designated terrorist.

Pakistani officials hope that some of Mr. Trump’s key aides such as Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security advisor Michael Flynn, both of whom have had long standing dealings with Pakistan during their military careers, may act as buffers. They argue that the two men appreciate Pakistan’s problems and believe that trust between the United States and Pakistan needs to be rebuilt. Mr. Mattis argued in his Senate confirmation hearing that the United States needed to remain engaged with Pakistan

Pakistani media reported that Mr. Mattis had expressed support for the Pakistani military’s role in combatting terrorism during a 20-minute telephone conversation this week with newly appointed Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Military and Congressional support for a tougher approach was expressed this week in a US Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan during which General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, noted that 20 of the 98 groups designated by the United States as well as “three violent, extremist organizations” operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “That is highest concentration of violent, extremist groups in the world,” Gen. Nicholson said.

In testimony to the committee, General Nicholson called for “a holistic review” of US relations with Pakistan, arguing that the Taliban and the Haqqani network had “no incentive to reconcile” as long as they enjoyed safe haven in Pakistan.

“External safe haven and support in Pakistan increases the cost to the United States in terms of lives, time, and money, and it advantages the enemy with the strategic initiative, allowing them to determine the pace and venue of conflict from sanctuary,” Gen. Nicholson said.

The general’s words were echoed by Committee chairpersons, Republican senator John McCain and his Democrat counterpart, Jack Reed.

“Success in Afghanistan will require a candid evaluation of our relationship with Pakistan… The fact remains that numerous terrorist groups remain active in Pakistan, attack its neighbours and kill US forces. Put simply: our mission in Afghanistan is immeasurably more difficult, if not impossible while our enemies retain a safe haven in Pakistan. These sanctuaries must be eliminated,” Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Reed added that “Pakistani support for extremist groups operating in Afghanistan must end if we and Afghanistan are to achieve necessary levels of security.”

The pronouncements in the committee hearing gave added significance to policy recommendations made by a group of prominent experts, including former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and former CIA official and advisor to four US presidents Bruce Riedel, associated with among others The Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Middle East Institute, the New America Foundation and Georgetown University.

“The U.S. must stop chasing the mirage of securing change in Pakistan’s strategic direction by giving it additional aid or military equipment. It must be acknowledged that Pakistan is unlikely to change its current policies through inducements alone. The U.S. must also recognize that its efforts over several decades to strengthen Pakistan militarily have only encouraged those elements in Pakistan that hope someday to wrest Kashmir from India through force. The Trump administration must be ready to adopt tougher measures toward Islamabad that involve taking risks in an effort to evoke different Pakistani responses,” the experts said in their report.

The experts suggested the Trump administration should wait a year with designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism while it takes steps to convince Pakistan to fundamentally alter its policies.

Such steps would include warning Pakistan that it could lose its status as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA); prioritizing engagement with Pakistan’s civilian leaders rather than with the military and intelligence services; imposing counterterrorism conditions on U.S. military aid and reimbursements to Pakistan; and establishing a sequence and timeline for specific actions Pakistan should take against militants responsible for attacks outside Pakistan.

There is little to suggest a reversal of policy in recent Pakistani measures to crackdown on militants including imposing house arrest on Muhammad Hafez Saeed and other leaders of Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely viewed as a front for the proscribed group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the freezing of accounts of some 2,000 militants.

Apparently pre-warned that action may be taken against him, Mr. Saeed suggested during a press conference in Islamabad in mid-January that JuD may operate under a new name, a practice frequently adopted by militant groups with government acquiescence. Mr. Saeed said the new name was Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Freedom Movement). The Indian Express reported that JuD/LeT continued after Mr. Saeed’s house arrest to operate training camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

Various militants and analysts said the accounts targeted were not where funds were kept. Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhyvani, a leader of the virulently anti-Shiite group, Ahle Sunnat Wal Juma’at, a successor of Sipah-e-Sabaha, said in an interview that there were a mere 500,000 rupees ($4,772) in his frozen account.

Persuading Pakistan to alter its ways is likely to prove no mean task. The government as well as the military and intelligence believe that the United States favours Indian dominance in the region and has allowed India to gain influence in Afghanistan. Gen. Nicholson went out of his way in his testimony to thank India for billions of dollars in aid it was granting Afghanistan. Many, particularly in the military and intelligence, see the militants as useful proxies against India.

More vexing is likely the fact that military and intelligence support for Saudi-like and at times Saudi-backed violent and non-violent groups with an ultra-conservative, religiously inspired world view has become part of the fabric of key branches of the state and the government as well as significant segments of society.

Cracking down on militants, particularly if it is seen to be on behest of the United States, could provoke as many problems as it offers solutions. Mounting pressure in Washington on the Trump administration amounts to the writing on the wall. Pakistani leaders are likely to be caught in a Catch-22.

The solution might lie in Beijing. Many in Pakistan have their hopes for economic development pinned on China’s planned $46 million investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy. China, despite having so far shielded a Pakistani militant in the UN Security Council, is exerting pressure of its own on Pakistan to mend its ways. As a result, Pakistan is one area where China and the US could find common cause.

Although the media trashed Donald Trump’s inaugural address as radical and scary to the United States and the world, his views on American security policy nevertheless may be closest to that of the nation’s founders than those of any U.S. president since the early 1800s.

In his speech, the new president pledged that, “We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.” After George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq for no good reason and Barack Obama’s military overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, which also resulted in chaos and an increase in terrorism, U.S. re-adoption of its long abandoned foreign policy of being a “shining city on a hill,” if put into practice, would be a refreshing return to the founders’ vision.

Thus, Trump seemed to pledge less U.S. military intervention abroad while still defending the United States. He noted that “we’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own.” And he complained that the United States has “spent trillions of dollars overseas,” including on the armies of other countries, “while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.”

All of this factually true. For example, the United States alone accounts for 75 percent of the defense spending of the 28 mostly well-to-do countries of NATO, making it a very one-way street in terms of alliance costs and benefits. Yet as the 9/11 attacks were occurring, the U.S. military—which has been geared to be an offensive force to project American power overseas to police the world rather than to be a force to defend the United States—scrambled jets and sent them ineffectually out over the ocean. In contrast, Trump promised to focus on eradicating the genuine threat to the United States of radical Islamic terrorism.

Because the founders wanted to avoid the militarism of Europe’s monarchs, who continuously waged war with the costs in blood and treasure falling on their people, the U.S. Constitution authorizes the government only to “provide for the common defence.” The founders correctly believed that unneeded overseas martial adventures undermined the republic at home, something our post-World War II interventionist foreign policy establishment has forgotten.

So maybe Trump’s inaugural address failed to unify the Western alliance and even scared the United States’ wealthy free-loading allies. So be it; the platitude of invoking the need to “unify” is often a way to beat back uncomfortable but necessary threats to reform the status quo. Trump was correct when he earlier labeled NATO “obsolete,” because it wasn’t a very effective vehicle for addressing terrorism, and when he accused allied nations of not paying their fair share for Western security.

And nations around the world may be alarmed that the United States will no longer spend truckloads of money attempting to solve their problems—but usually abysmally failing—by using counterproductive military intervention or feckless foreign aid.

Trump’s inaugural address demonstrated that shaking things up was not just campaign rhetoric. Doing so in America’s failed security policy is long overdue.

This article appeared at Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.

Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planet — carbon, nitrogen and water — appeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements.

A UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it has discovered the existence of a white dwarf star whose atmosphere is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as in oxygen and hydrogen, the components of water. The white dwarf is approximately 200 light years from Earth and is located in the constellation Boötes.

Benjamin Zuckerman, a co-author of the research and a UCLA professor of astronomy, said the study presents evidence that the planetary system associated with the white dwarf contains materials that are the basic building blocks for life. And although the study focused on this particular star — known as WD 1425+540 — the fact that its planetary system shares characteristics with our solar system strongly suggests that other planetary systems would also.

“The findings indicate that some of life’s important preconditions are common in the universe,” Zuckerman said.

The scientists report that a minor planet in the planetary system was orbiting around the white dwarf, and its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by the gravitational pull of a planet in the same system. That change caused the minor planet to travel very close to the white dwarf, where the star’s strong gravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gas and dust. Those remnants went into orbit around the white dwarf — much like the rings around Saturn, Zuckerman said — before eventually spiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the building blocks for life.

The researchers think these events occurred relatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so, said Edward Young, another co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. They estimate that approximately 30 percent of the minor planet’s mass was water and other ices, and approximately 70 percent was rocky material.

The research suggests that the minor planet is the first of what are likely many such analogs to objects in our solar system’s Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of small bodies like comets and minor planets located in the outer reaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune. Astronomers have long wondered whether other planetary systems have bodies with properties similar to those in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears to confirm for the first time that one such body exists.

White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causes elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannot be detected by telescopes.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, describes how WD 1425+540 came to obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogen has been discovered, and one of only a few known examples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by a rocky body that was rich in water ice.

“If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects around other stars, as there now appears to be, then when rocky planets form they need not contain life’s ingredients,” said Siyi Xu, the study’s lead author, a postdoctoral scholar at the European Southern Observatory in Germany who earned her doctorate at UCLA.

“Now we’re seeing in a planetary system outside our solar system that there are minor planets where water, nitrogen and carbon are present in abundance, as in our solar system’s Kuiper belt,” Xu said. “If Earth obtained its water, nitrogen and carbon from the impact of such objects, then rocky planets in other planetary systems could also obtain their water, nitrogen and carbon this way.”

A rocky planet that forms relatively close to its star would likely be dry, Young said.

“We would like to know whether in other planetary systems Kuiper belts exist with large quantities of water that could be added to otherwise dry planets,” he said. “Our research suggests this is likely.”

According to Zuckerman, the study doesn’t settle the question of whether life in the universe is common.

“First you need an Earth-like world in its size, mass and at the proper distance from a star like our sun,” he said, adding that astronomers still haven’t found a planet that matches those criteria.

The researchers observed WD 1425+540 with the Keck Telescope in 2008 and 2014, and with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They analyzed the chemical composition of its atmosphere using an instrument called a spectrometer, which breaks light into wavelengths. Spectrometers can be tuned to the wavelengths at which scientists know a given element emits and absorbs light; scientists can then determine the element’s presence by whether it emits or absorbs light of certain characteristic wavelengths. In the new study, the researchers saw the elements in the white dwarf’s atmosphere because they absorbed some of the background light from the white dwarf.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) looks at key economic and social indicators, as well as policy, institutional, and regulatory changes in Ecuador in the decade since President Rafael Correa took office. The paper also looks at how the government dealt with the 2008–2009 world financial crisis and recession, and then a second oil price collapse beginning in 2014.

“The reforms and macroeconomic policy changes over the past decade, some of which were quite innovative, seem to have allowed for significant economic and social progress ― despite two major external economic shocks that triggered recessions in Ecuador,” said CEPR Co-Director and economist Mark Weisbrot, a coauthor of the paper.

Among the highlights, the paper finds:

• Annual per capita GDP growth during the past decade (2006–2016) was 1.5 percent, as compared to 0.6 percent over the prior 26 years.
• The poverty rate declined by 38 percent, and extreme poverty by 47 percent ― a reduction many times larger than that of the previous decade. This resulted from economic growth and employment, and from government programs that helped the poor, such as the cash transfer program Bono de Desarollo Humano, which more than doubled in size as a percent of GDP.
• Inequality fell substantially, as measured by the Gini coefficient (from 0.55 to 0.47), or by the ratio of the top 10 percent to the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution (from 36 to 25, as of 2012).
• The government doubled social spending, as a percentage of GDP, from 4.3 percent in 2006 to 8.6 percent in 2016. This included large increases in spending on education, health, and urban development and housing.
• There were significant gains in education enrollment at various levels, as spending on higher education increased from 0.7 to 2.1 percent of GDP. This is the highest level of government spending on higher education in Latin America, and higher than the average of the OECD countries.
• Government expenditure on health services doubled as a percentage of GDP from 2006 to 2016.
• Public investment increased from 4 percent of GDP in 2006 to 14.8 percent in 2013, before falling to about 10 percent of GDP in 2016.

The paper notes that these results were not driven by a “commodities boom,” but from deliberate policy choices and reforms that the Correa government enacted, including ending central bank independence, defaulting on illegitimate debt, taxing capital leaving the country, countercyclical fiscal policy, and ― in response to the most recent oil price crash ― tariffs implemented under the WTO’s provision for emergency balance of payments safeguards.

“Ecuador’s experience over the last ten years indicates that a relatively small, lower-middle income developing country is less restricted in its policy choices by ‘globalization’ than is commonly believed,” Weisbrot said.

In 1953, Englishman Edmund Hillary and Nepali Tenzing Norgay climbed over 29,000 feet to be the first humans to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on the Earth, in a triumph of human spirit and exploration. Now, climbers will be able to browse cat pictures on Facebook, as one of the mountain’s base camps is to get free WiFi.

Free WiFi will soon be made available at the Lukla-Everest Base Camp and Annapurna Base Camp, along Everest. This is not the first WiFi service on Everest, however, just the first free one. Previously, some base camp services offered WiFi at $5 an hour.

It becomes more difficult to lay telecommunication cables the higher one goes up the mountain, and Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) announced that they will have to use special ‘Okumura Model’ fibre-optic cables that can resist the extreme cold and winds atop Everest.

They also intend to introduce a system of wireless broadband transmitters to send microwave signals up and down the mountain in case extreme weather proves too much for the fiber optics.

“We have already discussed the project with the International Telecommunication Union, and they are also positive about providing such facilities,” said Digambar Jha, chairman of the NTA.

At 17,600 feet (5,364 meters) above sea level, the base camp will be the highest location on Earth with free WiFi. Nepalese authorities want to add WiFi services onto the world’s tallest mountain to improve communication and emergency services. In 2015 a record for deaths was set on the mountain, after an April avalanche killed at least 22. Previous rescue missions have been stymied by poor communication.

Jha also believes that improved free WiFi will boost tourism to the mountain, which already attracts around 35,000 visitors a year, about a thousand of whom set their sights on ascending Everest.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis hosted German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen at the Pentagon Friday to exchange perspectives on defense security issues with one of America’s closest allies, according to a statement issued by Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

The two leaders discussed the importance of the alliance between the United States and Germany, both bilaterally and as members of NATO, Davis said.

Mattis thanked the German defense minister for her country’s leadership in NATO activities, and acknowledged the role that Germany plays in fighting terrorism, specifically in the counter-ISIL coalition, Davis said.

Mattis also cited the strategic importance of Germany as the host to 35,000 U.S. personnel, the largest U.S. force presence in Europe, the spokesman said.

Davis said both leaders look forward to working together at the NATO Defense Ministerial in Brussels in Belgium and the Munich Security Conference in Germany next week.

By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

India and Israel were born as independent nations within nine months of each other in 1947 and 1948. Partition was a common feature of their creation, as modern nation states. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel and joined the United Nations. Then American President Harry S. Truman recognised the new nation on the same day.

The USA had supported the British initiative of 1917, which called for the establishment of a Jewish national home in, an initiative which became known as the Balfour Declaration (Arthur Balfour was then the British Foreign Secretary). Britain, responsible for the mandate of Palestine, until May 1948, later went on to oppose both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine. Arab and Muslim countries never reconciled to the Jewish state in the heart of Arab lands and had to struggle for recognition by the international community.

Arguing for a composite State, wherein Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish people would live side by side in a secular State, India had voted against the United Nations’ partition plan for Palestine. India’s vote was overruled by a majority vote approving the creation of Israel and Palestine as two independent States. (The Partition Plan got a two-thirds majority: the vote was 33 for and 13 against, with 10 states – including the UK – abstaining.)

Eventually, on September 17, 1950, India officially recognised the State of Israel, though India established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. It was Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao who approved the diplomatic opening to Israel, though it is under BJP-led governments that ties with Israel have received that extra fillip. Israel maintained a Consulate in Mumbai (the old Jewish Agency Office opened during the British Raj) which became the conduit for official exchanges and helped members of the Indian Jewish community to migrate to Israel.

Destiny and the cycle of history have brought India and Israel closer today than ever before. Israel has come a long way, leaving behind the complicated history of its creation and the turbulent years that followed which saw three Arab-Israeli wars. India too has discarded the baggage of history and the apprehension of vote-bank sensitive Indian politicians seems to have receded, as national interests of India and Israel have steadily converged over the decades. The burgeoning ties with Israel has not prevented India from reiterating its public support for the State of Palestine and exhorting both sides to negotiate a peaceful settlement, based on a two-State solution and secure borders. While this remains the official position of every Indian government, there is no hesitation in engaging with Israel publicly.

Currently, Israel is not under pressure on the Palestinian issue. Nor does it see a full-fledged Palestinian State as conducive to its long term security interest. Some issues, like the status of Jerusalem and return of refugees just cannot be solved, given the rigid positions on both sides. The current Israeli government, led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, belongs to the hard line Likud Party in coalition with conservative Jewish parties, in no mood for any compromise. With the West Asian region torn apart by civil wars raging in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and the rise of “Daesh” or the Islamic State, international attention has been deflected away from the Palestinian issue. Israel, therefore, is under minimal international pressure to reach any compromise with the Palestinians.

The only pressure that counts on Israel is American pressure and the Israelis have successfully neutralised pressure from the outgoing Obama government. The Trump Presidency will be aggressively pro-Israel. The Palestinians are also hopelessly divided between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas in Gaza. The turmoil in the region and the acute rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has forced a convergence of interest between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hence, Arab hostility towards Israel has mitigated somewhat, as geo-strategic competition between regional powers has grown.

The recent visit of Israeli President Reuvan Rivlin to India, last November, marks the maturing of India-Israel ties that have gradually blossomed, over the years. India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Israel in January 2016 and there has been an increase in the frequency of high level visits between the two countries, after the PM Modi’s government took office. It is widely expected that PM Modi may undertake the historic first visit by an Indian PM to Israel in 2017, when the two countries celebrate 25 years of diplomatic ties.

Israel, has on the other hand, has never wavered in its conviction, since the era of its first PM David Ben Gurion that India and Israel will ultimately be close friends. Ben Gurion and Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru exchanged correspondence regularly. Recognising that India’s support would be crucial to win support of other nations, as the process of de-colonisation gathered momentum and new independent States emerged in Asia and Africa, Israel worked overtime to convince a skeptical India to recognise the fledgling Jewish State. The Israeli leadership even roped in Albert Einstein, arguably the most famous member of the global Jewish community, to persuade Jawaharlal Nehru. Even Einstein could not convince Nehru, despite the latter’s deep admiration for the great scientist.

The growing reality today is that India-Israel ties have expanded steadily, encompassing sensitive areas like High Technology products, Defence equipment, Security, Intelligence, Agriculture, Water Management, Pharmaceuticals etc. Joint production and development of key defence items has emerged as an important domain of cooperation. Israel is today the 3rd largest source of key defence equipment for India. Israel has doggedly pursued its courting of India over the years, particularly at times when India needed critical defence supplies during conflicts with Pakistan, when other sources of supplies were not available quickly.

While India has reciprocated, she has tried to keep these growing ties off the radar screen. The reasons remain the same – ties with Arab and Islamic countries. There are, however, continuing worries about the stalled Free Trade Agreement, supply of Israeli armaments to China, boorish and arrogant behaviour by some Israeli tourists in India. Today, however, bilateral ties are no longer hostage to ties with other. Ties with Israel have broad bipartisan support in Indian politics. India’s dilemma becomes more acute when Israel cracks down on Palestinians. Israel’s iron-fist approach to Palestinian violence and confiscation of their lands promotes sympathy in India and anti-Israel feelings among Indian Muslims who are quick to demonstrate their sympathy for Palestinians. Strangely, Indian Muslims remain silent, when Hindus are regularly oppressed and persecuted in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Closer ties with Israel has gone hand in hand with closer ties with Iran and the Arab countries of the Gulf. Regular exchange of high level visits led to the decision to invite the UAE Crown Prince as the Chief Guest for India’s Republic Day in 2017. PM Modi sought out and met Israeli PM Netanyahu, during his visits abroad for multilateral meetings. There is no either/or choice and India will pursue closer ties with the Arab/Islamic countries and Israel. There is no pressure on India to make this choice. While Presidential visits have occurred, an Israeli PM has visited India. But no Indian PM has ever visited Israel. The stage is being set for PM Modi to make a historic visit to Israel, sometime in 2017 and become the first Indian PM to break this jinx.