Under the intense heat of a midday sun, a newly developed film can dissipate the sun’s thermal energy in the form of infrared radiation, resulting in a cooling effect, a new study shows.

The advancement offers a simple way to keep buildings and other objects cool, whereas most current cooling techniques, such as air conditioning, involve a high level of energy input.

Passive radiative cooling involves drawing heat from surfaces and emitting it into space as infrared radiation. While some materials that can achieve this effect at nighttime have been developed, day-time radiative cooling presents a different challenge because solar absorbance still exceeds cooling power capabilities.

Here, Yao Zhai and colleagues developed a thin film of visibly transparent polymers that harbor randomly distributed microspheres of glass; these materials combined, and coated in a nanoscale layer of silver, were found to reflect about 96% of solar irradiation under noon-time conditions, yielding greater than 100 Watts/meter2 radiative cooling power.

The material is lightweight and easily conforms to curved surfaces. Perhaps most importantly, the authors note, the material is relatively easy to mass produce.

Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD) is believed to be the largest militant group in Pakistan. General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, told Congress last week that 20 of the 98 groups designated by the United States as well as “three violent, extremist organizations” operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By Azaz Syed by James M. Dorsey*

Muhammad Hafez Saeed, the recently detained UN and US-designated global terrorist and one of the world’s most wanted men, plans to register his group, Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely seen as a front for another proscribed organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as a political party in Pakistan, according to sources close to the militant.

The move comes days after Mr. Saeed and several other JuD leaders were put under house arrest in a bid to fend off potential steps against Pakistan, including inclusion on President Donald J. Trump’s list of countries whose nationals are temporarily banned from travel to the United States, and punitive steps by an Asian money laundering watchdog.

In a further effort to fend off pressure, Pakistan’s State Bank, the country’s monetary authority said it had installed a long overdue automated system to detect money laundering and terrorism financing. The announcement followed last year’s freezing by the bank of the accounts of 2,000 militants – a move described by both analysts and militants as ineffective because those accounts were not where militants keep their assets.

Meanwhile, the State Department, in a hint of a possibly tougher line towards Pakistan. refused in recent days to issue a visa to Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, an Islamic scholar who is deputy chairman of Pakistan’s Senate and a member of parliament for Jama’at-i-Islami (F), a political party with close ties to the Taliban. Mr. Haideri was scheduled to travel to New York to attend a meeting of the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) at the headquarters of the United Nations.

In response, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani announced that the Pakistani parliamentary body would ban its members from travelling to the US unless it received an explanation for the refusal. The US embassy in Islamabad has so far refrained from explaining the decision.

JuD sources said its transition to a political party was in part designed to stop cadres from joining the Islamic State (IS). They said some 500 JuD activists had left the group to join more militant organizations, including IS. They said the defections often occurred after the Pakistani military launches operations against militants in areas like South Waziristan.

Writing in Dawn, Pakistani security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana argued in favour of allowing JuD to transition into a political party. A “major challenge for the state is how to neutralise groups that once served its strategic purpose. The most practised way in a post-insurgency perspective is to reintegrate them into mainstream society,” Mr. Rana wrote.

“The state can freeze their assets, shut down their charity and organisational operations, put their leaderships under different schedules of anti-terrorism laws, try their leaders in courts of law, and, in the worst case, strip them of their nationality. But will this eliminate the problem?” Mr. Rana added.

JuD’s application, which since Mr. Saeed’s arrest has suggested that it would be operating under a new name, Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Freedom Movement), a practice frequently adopted by militant groups with government acquiescence, would however in the minds of Western officials and analysts and some Pakistanis test the sincerity of a recent Pakistani government crackdown on militants. JuD is believed to have close ties to the Pakistani military and intelligence. A JuD leader said the group would register with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) under its own name rather than under a new one.

Mr. Saeed is believed to be among others responsible for the 2008 attacks on 12 targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal Hotel, a train station, a café and a Jewish centre. Some 164 people were killed and more than 300 wounded. The US government has a bounty of $10 million on Mr. Saeed for information leading to his capture. Mr. Saeed, who was once a LeT leader, has since disassociated himself from the group and denied any link between JuD and LeT.

A JuD leader said that the group might wait with registration with the ECP and let the current focus on the group fade away. “We have decided to go in the politics. However, we’ll let the current phase evolve after having been put on the government’s watch list before registering,” the leader said.

JuD sources said the decision to go into politics and register with the ECP was taken days before last month’s crackdown on the group.

Some analysts believe that JuD would have to get a court order to be allowed to register given that its designation by the United Nations and the United States bans it from conducting business as normal, including performing financial transactions. ECP registration requires providing audited accounts.

JuD sources said the group has $19 million in assets that were in accounts of local officials of the group in various districts in the country.

JuD is believed to be the largest militant group in Pakistan. General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, told Congress last week 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.

Gen. Johnson was speaking amid mounting pressure on the Trump administration to adopt a tougher position towards Pakistani support of militants from a chorus of voices that include the military, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and influential Washington-based think tanks.

“JuD is the biggest non-state actor in Pakistan. It has the largest infrastructure in the country,” Mr. Rana said in an interview. JuD is believed to have 100 offices across Pakistan. A JuD leader said the group had trained more than two million cadres and employs 12,000 people.

*Azaz Syed is a prominent, award-winning Pakistani investigative reporter for Geo News and The News. He is the author of the acclaimed book, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War On Al Qaeda

One of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to clean up the judiciary, ie, one of the 3 main branch pools of fetid water known as the governmental “swamp” that he intends to “drain.”

But no other branch of the U.S. Government will ever more feverishly resist going quietly into the night, as this nation’s Judiciary.

This is because this 3rd branch of government is entirely made up of people who are literally, experts in the law, trials, evidence, discovery, and jurisprudence.

This means that these people have literal “black belts” in dispensing tyranny, all under the color of law and authority.

One of the greatest tragedies and hallmarks of modern American jurisprudence is that any judge, at any time, can rationalize or justify, under the color of law and authority, any and all tyrannical, unconstitutional, malicious, judicially activist, unjust, unfair, unethical, politically biased, racist, sexist, unethical, and even illegal court decisions with enough “legal mumbo jumbo,” and this one of the greatest weaknesses of the Common Law System (Judicial Based/Interpreted Legal Decisions) rather than a Civil Code-type law (Black and White right and wrong judicial decisions), such as can be found in Europe.

This immense power vested in Judges is the GREATEST reason that they need to be closely and deeply vetted for any and all ties to foreign powers, financial institutions and banks, fringe-groups, political groups, extremist protected class groups, activist groups, and other potential pollutants to a clean and pure judiciary that respects the U.S. Constitution – in fact judges should be vetted and scrutinized more than the standards used to determine whether or not a foreign visitor is a terrorist or not, as promulgated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, because a bad judge can do far more harm to the United States and its Citizenry, than any terrorist ever could.

Where once the Common Law was a very useful and in fact helpful type of body of law choice in America, leading to universally acceptable progressive decisions such as giving women and minorities the right to vote, civil rights laws and amendments, questioning and then eradicating out of date concepts and value systems that did not comport with modern life, today it has literally been hijacked by the most extreme, activist, anti-American, unconstitutional, civil liberties hating gaggle of Deep State Oligarch/Plutocrat-controlled screeching Neo-Conservative/Neo-Liberal Communist hysterics that have, over the past few decades, reduced our body of law and U.S. Constitution to a shambles.

The Deep State Oligarchs/Plutocrats have learned that by funding and supporting the various and different “Protected Classes” and “tapping into their passions,” that they could then control them and direct them as “useful idiots” to attack and turn them on their enemies, ie, anyone who stands in the way of their total and complete, unbridled and unopposed power.

In other words, the most wealthy and powerful have learned to use these protected classes, the most repressed and beaten down of American society, to destroy or undermine anyone that interferes with their tyranny.

Donald Trump has come out in the open, lambasting this nation’s thoroughly corrupted judiciary, railing against those corrupted and beholden judges (both federal and state), who have now decided to take up their legal arms against him, to both destroy and undermine his vision and presidency, and these judges are retaliating and lashing out with the vim and vinegar of hellfire and scorn.

They repeatedly support the issuance of press statements or using their fellow like-minded and similarly controlled scoundrels in the legislature (US Senate and Congress) about how they, like the Federal Reserve, are “above politics” and should not be questioned in their unbridled authority, or that their comfy and cushy judicial positions (sometimes lifetime appointments) should not, and can not, ever be questioned or usurped, in the most unconstitutional displays of jealously holding on to their gilded power thrones.

Their sheer shamelessness and unabashed thirst for power, and refusal or “offended sensibilities” to be questioned by the American People that they serve, or the President of the United States who was elected by the People, is truly disgusting to watch, and often speakers like American Bar Association President Linda Klein come out and publicly attack and castigate the President of the United States, just because he has recently dared to exercise his First Amendment Rights to criticize what he perceives to be rampant judicial corruption in the federal and state judiciary, first as a regular U.S. Citizen, then as a Presidential Candidate, and now as this country’s full-fledged elected U.S. President.

The bad news for these jealous vampire-like corrupted and activist judges is that now, President Donald Trump can actually do something about this serious judicial corruption problem in the United States, while before, as a regular citizen, he also had to just sit there, shut up, and take their abuse.

President Donald Trump has proven his love for the U.S. Constitution when he hoisted and submitted Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a heroic and herculean effort to save the American Republic, and to rescue it from the evil Satanic cabal that has subverted and undermined its courts all throughout America, from the civil, to the criminal, to the family, from the federal bench all the way down to the state and local.

The character of the U.S. Supreme Court is ultimately what will shape and filter what goes on at the federal/state/local level, but this will take time, possibly many years.

However it is worth the wait, and the smart and intelligent judges will know that the writing is on the wall – either they love and respect the U.S. Constitution, and abstain from activism and monetary/political corruption, or they will be handily and quickly swept out of power (at best) or jailed (at worst) by the very document and People that they loath, abuse, and hate.

Hispanic immigrant and African American men work in jobs with the highest risk of injury, according to a new study of workplace injuries and disability.

“We found that their risk was higher even when we accounted for education and other demographic characteristics,” said lead author Seth Seabury, director of the Keck-Schaeffer Initiative for Population Health at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Disparities in economic opportunities for minorities lead them to take more hazardous jobs that raise their risk of injury and disability.”

For the study published in the February edition of Health Affairs, USC researchers found that men ages 18 to 64 who are Hispanic immigrants have the highest average workplace injury rate at 13.7 per 1,000 workers, followed by African American men (more than 12), and U.S.-born Hispanic men (nearly 12), white men (11.8), and Asian Americans (nearly 10). Other ethnicities have a rate of around 11 per 1,000 workers.

The researchers from USC Schaeffer Center, the Keck School of Medicine at USC and Boston University analyzed two sets of data that had similar demographic characteristics. One set, from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2006 to 2013, included 11.6 million respondents. The other, the Survey of Income and Program Participation by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for years 1996, 2001, 2004 and 2008, included 198,000 respondents.

More injuries, more disability

A higher expected workplace injury rate is linked to an elevated risk of disability, but especially so for older workers ages 50 to 64, the researchers found. African Americans in this age bracket have a 4.4 percent rate of work-related disability, followed by foreign-born Hispanics (4.2 percent); Asian Americans (4 percent) and U.S.-born Hispanics (3.5 percent).

Older whites have the lowest disability rate – about 2.5 percent.

The researchers did not identify the underlying causes of the disparities, but discrimination has been a factor in poor worker safety throughout history. The study noted, for example, that a researcher, J. William Lloyd, more than 40 years ago found steel workers who were black were assigned to work the top-side of the coke ovens, and were consequently exposed to high levels of cancer-causing emissions.

“Historically, ethnic minorities have faced some of the worst job conditions,” said Seabury, who is also an associate professor of ophthalmology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “The United States has made progress in reducing on-the-job injuries, but our findings indicate that disparities still exist. Minority workers experience worse health.”

The researchers said that, because they focused on workplace injuries for this study, they may have fallen short of capturing the full extent to which working conditions can hurt the health of minority and immigrant workers.

Bias in the workplace

The researchers listed possible factors that may contribute to disparities in work-related injuries, such as a bias in assigning minority workers to the riskiest tasks, or discrimination in hiring and promotion.

“Based on our findings, policy makers and regulators may need to review whether employers are systematically assigning people of different races and ethnicities different jobs or job tasks according to their risk,” the researchers wrote.

Investing more in lowering injury risk is expensive, and it could lead employers to lower wages or reduce job opportunities, the researchers noted.

“Care needs to be taken to ensure that efforts to make workplaces safer do not at the same time reduce economic opportunities for vulnerable populations,” they wrote. “The issues raised here will only become more salient and politically charged as the U.S. population continues to become more diverse.”

The grand bargain between the society and institution of state is people surrendering their liberties that exist in the state of nature and accepting the authority of the state with implied understanding that the state in turn will work for the welfare of citizens. For any state the raison d’état for existence of the state can be none other but service and welfare of the citizens. The Pakistan movement was anchored on the premise that people would be better off in new state managed by their own kind. Through the effective leadership of the founding fathers, and the confidence that the majority of Muslims posed in them, the idea of Pakistan. that was a question of minority rights, became a geographic reality.

Each society has unique factors responsible for the breeding of extremism and terrorism. Any policy dictated by external actors for tackling the threat of terrorism without a holistic understanding of the underlying factors that prompted a certain mindset or organizations is bound to fall short. The targeting of governance structure has been a deliberate action by terrorist organizations to instill fear in the minds of people and expose the inability of the state structure to deter terrorists from attacking at will. The destruction of selected state institutions and functionaries serves the terrorists objective of making the state to come to terms with the agenda of terrorists.

Pakistan is a unique case where apart from other factors, primarily the governance gaps, it has provided a working space for extremist and terrorist organizations. Charitable wings of proscribed organizations fill the void left by the state. Many state functions especially the welfare of the people is performed by such organizations. Consequently, through soft power tools, negative non-state actors develop strong connections with the people of certain areas. Popular support that such organizations derive from certain sections of the Pakistani society is linked with the inefficient state apparatus. The connection between state and society is made through good governance. Citizens that are ignored and marginalized through inefficient governance are easy targets.

Supporters of such organizations ask what has the state done for them. When they compare the benefits they derive from the state and proscribed charitable organizations, their loyalty lies not with the state, but with extremist organizations. Alternative political systems with skewed religious interpretations favoring a certain brand of extremism that such organizations aim to implement through the use of force becomes attractive for people suffering under the prevailing system of governance.

The narrative of Pakistan on national security fails to appreciate the connection that governance has with security. The state came up with National Internal Security Policy (NISP) 2014-2018 that explains a two-pronged strategy to deal with the menace of extremism and terrorism. Comprehensive Response Plan (CRP) is about winning hearts and trust of the public for combating extremism and terrorism. The Composite Deterrence Plan (CDP) is to embolden and make the internal security apparatus efficient. The factors that lead to terrorism one-way or other in Pakistan are connected with the absence of good governance. The state has become a hard state that focuses on the resolution of disputes, and challenges to the state emanating from non-state actors primarily through force utilization.

Unless the state takes a holistic view and improves its governance the narrative of extremists is difficult to be fundamentally challenged.

The attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar on December 16, 2014 can arguably be called a 9/11 moment for Pakistan’s war on terrorism. In the aftermath of attack, the state charted the 20-point National Action Plan for combating the menace of terrorism. This plan, however, fails to include the problem of governance that has provided the enabling environment for the extremist mindset. The alleged role that non-state actors have played in foreign policy implementation tools of the state is a reflection of bad governance on the part of the state where certain roles of the state have been assumed by non-state actors often using their acceptance in society for promoting extremist ideology for increasing their constituency.

Donald Trump, the 45th US president in his inaugural speech made clear his intentions about taking the fight against religion-inspired terrorism to a logical conclusion. He said, “We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth.”

Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State in his confirmation hearing, elaborated Trump’s security agenda in tackling negative non-state actors. He said, “Radical Islam poses a grave risk to the stability of nations and the well-being of their citizens. These groups are often enabled and emboldened by nations, organizations, and individuals sympathetic to their cause. These actors must face consequences for aiding and abetting what can only be called evil.”

James Mattis, the US Secretary of Defense in his prepared answers to questions posed by the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services termed the presence of extremist elements along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as an operation issue affecting the security situation in Afghanistan. Sanctuary denial to extremist elements through kinetic means can only a create vacuum that will be filled by one or other extremist outfit. Extremist and terrorist outfits are adept at morphing into the next version.

The international and regional pressure and demands on Pakistan to ‘do more’ against extremist and terrorist organizations will increase under the current US president. Pakistan’s actions on war against terrorism cannot be indifferent to demands from international powerful state actors. Governance as a non-kinetic response to constituency of extremist and terrorist organizations is the need of hour for breaking the connection between extremist organizations and the people they recruit for their cause.

*The writer is Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute, a think-tank based in Islamabad

The relatively short history of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, since it morphed from Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ) and subsequently rebranded from al-Qaeda Iraq (AQI) to the group brandishing black flags decorated with the slogan, “There is No God but Allah [God],” has harvested a staggering amount of attention around the world and even dominated the security agenda’s of major states, particularly that of the US.

In Arabic, ISIS is translated as al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham or Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham. According to the Associated Press, “al-Sham refers to a region stretching from southern Turkey through Syria to Egypt (also including Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan).” The English word for this area is “Levant,” hence the ISIL translation.

These varied translations and applications have some defense analysts fuming, as it is difficult to gain a wider and nuanced perspective of what is occurring, and what the international response may be, should be, or will be to counter the wanton violence of this well-organized and highly-skilled terrorist group.

ISIS’ imposition of ruthless strictures and untenable conceptions of self-claimed Islamic devotion, driven by its proud and illegitimate use of violence, has disordered the West and its principle partners concerning an appropriate strategy to confront the group. Several years into perhaps the most multifaceted and ambiguous wars since the professed “War on Terror” (WoT), the US had no tenable strategy to combat ISIS. As was the case during the administration of former President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump has come under frequent fire for failing to inherently understand ISIS, Iraq, and security needs across the Middle East. Even under the resolve of the new US President, the US-led coalition operates without a concrete military strategy in place.

Despite some territorial losses, ISIS retains a relatively healthy recruitment campaign from the very states it targets, and yet the dearth of attention given to the group in terms of its social identity is even more deficient. Several years after the US and countless other states called into question ISIS’ caliphate claims, ISIS continues to be treated not as an insurgency, but as a principal actor in an interstate conflict, using weapons and applying logic associated with regular warfare. Robert Spencer, author of Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth about the War We’re In, wrote about the US’ misunderstanding of “the problem they are dealing with facing and thus choose the wrong remedies to deal with it.”

Senior US officials have made unsettling intimations about the US’ strategy, capability, and understanding of the situation and their enemy. Even prior to what was at one point considered a possible defeat of Syrian Kurds during the six-month siege of Kobanî, the US attempted to contain the fallout associated with the battle and its outcome.

“Our focus,” stated US Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken, “in Syria is in degrading the capacity of [ISIS] at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself.” He further stated that, “[t]he tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobanî where we may or may not be able to fight effectively.”

Before, during, and after the intensive siege of Kurdish forces in Syria’s northern city, the media mad considerable contributions to the obfuscation and manipulation of the identity of the enemy, not just by using the different translations and the various acronyms. The Washington Post, Central News Network (CNN), Daily Mail, and Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) have reported widely on ISIS as “Islamists” and ISIS as an “Islamic” group. Newsweek and Russia Today (RT) have referred to ISIS as “radicals,” The Huffington Post has regularly used the terms “radical hardline militants.” Express, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), frequently employ the term “extremist(s)” when reporting on ISIS. “Fundamentalist(s)” often appears in ISIS stories told by all of these media sources in addition to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and The Guardian.

These terms have formed part of the profound security discourse on ISIS and the radicalization of its followers. Radicalization is a critical yet consistently sidelined aspect of this conflict, and Western attention to the critical issue of radicalization has not kept pace with the processes underlying terrorism and the field of terrorism studies more broadly.

“Islamophobia” coupled with states’ tendency to randomly apply the terms “fundamentalist,” “extremist,” “radical,” and Islamist/Islamic,” as well as Islamic Extremism (IE) and Violent Islamic Extremism (VIE), has likely encumbered the capacity of states to appropriately formulate and act on strategies and policy to address these issues.

Identity has been a conspicuously missing element in West’s ISIS strategy even though identity plays a pivotal role in luring individual (including youth) to join groups like ISIS. Since 2008, it is estimated that dozens of young Somalis living in the west (i.e., the US, Canada, the United Kingdom [UK], the Netherlands, and Australia, among other countries) have participated either directly or indirectly in Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgency.

Dina Al Raffie explains, “[s]tudies on radicalization find identity to stand at the fore of the radicalization process. Success partially lies in the radical’s ability to provide the radical-to-be with a distinctive identity.” A 2011 report on youth radicalization, identity, and support for al-Shabaab, funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in Ottawa, highlights the centrality of identity to radicalization, which emerged as a theory.

Michael King and Ali Mohamed, in the report, wrote about the idea being “rooted in the educated supposition of academics, the professional insights of security officials, and the personal experiences of Somali diaspora members.” Participants of the Promoting Peace and Preventing Youth Radicalization conference connected to the report emphasized the importance of identity, describing it as reflecting “the growing consensus among many terrorism researchers about identity as having a role in the radicalization process leading to violence.”

How these matters of identity and radicalization are linked to the media and the media’s treatment of both requires renewed gauging. While attendees of the Promoting Peace and Preventing Youth Radicalization conference were discussing expedients of radicalization, studies elsewhere have been looking at radicalization and the media. Pakistan has been on the front lines of the US-led WoT for years but radicalism has confronted the state of Pakistan and its society throughout its history. While the media has played a role in the radicalization of people, communities, and organizations, the media itself been affected by radicalization.

Thus, a two-way process can be observed, which adds further exigency to the situation of focusing and therefore countering radicalization and radicalism with the aim of addressing violent terrorism. The cases are linked to ISIS and the US-led coalition strategy to address the group, and it’s following. Perhaps the greatest threat posed by ISIS is its capacity to connect with populations in nearly every region of the world, irrespective of their social class and economic position in a given society.

ISIS’ campaign, which the radicalization of Muslims and non-Muslims in many different countries fuels, is a strong indication that states determined to stop a group like ISIS continue to lose the war. Intense violence witnessed over recent months reinvigorates a puzzle that emerges from matters associated with ideologies, communication (part of the security discourse propagated by the media), and radicalization, as cited in a report published by the US Department of Defense Advisory Committee (DODAC) as far back as 2004. Much of the same issues associated with that puzzle continue to be debated today, for example see the Interim Report and Recommendations (June 2016) by Homeland Security Advisory Council’s (HSAC) Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee, with relatively little actual policy recommendation having been made.

Christian Leuprecht, Todd Hataley, Sophia Moskalenko, and Clark McCauley discussed the importance of addressing radical ideologies in 2009, referring to the DODAC, that “in the marketplace of ideas, the West is losing market-share.” The need for countering radical ideologies, despite having been recognized by the DODAC roughly a decade ago, further ground has since been lost,” according to Leuprecht, Hataley, Moskalenko, and McCauley.

As with the US-led coalition against ISIS, which operates without a baseline strategy, the most unfortunate and expensive failure in addressing radical ideology was the “failure of strategy.” There is much to be gained by countries well beyond the West by addressing such questions as: What are the values that currently support jihadist violence? What audience currently accepts these values?

Troubled by states ignoring such questions, Leuprecht, Hataley, Moskalenko, and McCauley underscore the importance of producing counter-narratives. With a narrow task, counter-narratives should respond to “narratives with the clearest link to violence,” according to these experts, but can also offset the media’s misguided portrayal of groups like ISIS that continue to be labeled inaccurately and are arbitrarily marked in one way or another.

Irrespective of the territorial power and willingness to actually control territory, as ISIS has shown, the group’s tactical, operational, and strategic activities illustrate the circuitous nature of the terrorist threat, and the opportunities that still exist for states to address the largely ignored issues of radicalization, radical ideologies, and their role in countering them in ways that might prove far more effective than bombs, even if those bombs are being used as part of an elusive military “strategy” devoid of any real direction or aim.

*This article was co-authored with Stewart Webb of Defense Report and was previously published in The Times of Israel as “War of Words: Radicalization and the Security Discourse on ISIS,” on Oct. 18, 2014.

*About the authors:
Scott N. Romaniuk is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of International Studies, University of Trento (Italy). He is an Associate Researcher with the Center for the Study of Targeted Killing (CSTK) at the University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth) and the Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK) (Italy). Email: scott.romaniuk@unitn.it.

Stewart Webb is the editor of DefenceReport. He holds an MScEcon in Security Studies from Aberystwyth University (UK) and a BA in Political Science from Acadia University (Canada). He is the co-editor of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Modern War (2015), Taylor & Francis

Leave it to The Washington Post (WaPo) to run Joe Scarborough’s February 7 screed “Trump’s Dangerous Lie About Russia“, which gives credence to the chatter on Joe and his MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski being an item.

Contrary to “Morning Joe“, Donald Trump didn’t equate the US with Russia. Rather, he (upon further review) touches on something that many US establishment types and others don’t grasp. Some other countries aren’t as bad as portrayed, with the US having noticeable faults, that at times are downplayed. As highlighted in Daniel McCarthy’s February 8 National Interest article “The Media’s Selective Outrage Over Trump and Russia“: “A comparison isn’t the same things as an equivalence.”

Trump has previously suggested the belief that the US is the best country in the world. His now well known comments to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly don’t contradict that view. The more earnest of patriots can be critical of their nation, while showing respect to other countries. It continues to be quite ironic how many US establishment folks talk about some other countries (notably Russia) in need of a reality check.

On MSNBC, retired US Army General Barry McCaffrey, has repeatedly expressed indignation over Trump’s answer to O’Reilly. McCaffrey characterized it as anti-American. At the same time, McCaffrey is fine with insulting Russia and its head of state. Trump’s critics portray him as being immature in his manner. On Russia, these very same detractors typically appear just like that. Trump and his opponents stand to learn a good deal from each other. As former Australian diplomat Gregory Clark suggests, Trump’s attitude towards Russia is one of his better stances.

The longtime American patriotic commentator Patrick Buchanan, wasn’t at all offended by what Trump said to O’Reilly. In recent years, Buchanan’s appearance time on US mass media TV has noticeably declined.

In his WaPo rant, Scarborough rehashes several fallacies. It has become habitual to cherry pick what Putin says. Contrary to Scarborough’s spin, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t seek a return to the USSR or Russian Empire. Putin said that it’s foolish to recreate either of the two.

Relative to that thought, his comments on the Soviet demise have been misrepresented. As is true with many, if not most, or all of us, Putin can at times be not so well polished when expressing himself. A responsible media source should take that into consideration. The way the Soviet Union broke up caused much suffering – the very essence of what Putin and many other former Soviets (Russian and non-Russian) note. Their recollection doesn’t necessarily lead to the desire to go back to the Soviet period. Russians aren’t monolithic when assessing their country’s past.

Scarborough and The WaPo (which approved his piece) show ignorance, regarding deaths as a result of Stalin’s policies. Following the Soviet breakup, academics have had greater access to the Soviet archives. Since this development, Western academics such as Timothy Snyder and (if I’m not mistaken) the late Robert Conquest, have concluded that the fatalities from Stalin’s rule weren’t as great as some stated – inclusive of Scarborough’s quoted low end figure.

Regardless, that period was brutal – something which many patriotically proud Russians acknowledge. The Russians weren’t alone in having harsh elements as the USSR was multiethnic. Putin himself has backed commemorative efforts to honor those who suffered during that era, in addition to his having openly denounced Lenin (more than once) and honor some of the anti-Communist Russian Civil War era leaders.

Scarborough’s comparative depiction of the US (good) and Soviet (bad) roles in Afghanistan omit another comparison, having to do with the (put mildly) problematical US Cold War role in Southeast Asia. In any event, post-Soviet Russia is definitely not on the same negative par of the Soviet Union. Pardon to feel a need to repeat that, along with some other missives from my prior commentary. Keep in mind the regurgitated comments running counter. Scarborough is on record for saying that a Putin-Stalin comparison is “apt“.

Relative to what the now present US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested to Florida Senator Marco Rubio (during the former’s confirmation hearing): Scarborough would be hard pressed to prove a clandestine Russian government sanctioned murder of journalists and political opponents. That grouping remains quite evident in Russia. As is unfortunately true in other countries. Russia has some intolerant individuals outside of government, who violently take matters into their own hands.

Robert Berschinski’s February 7 Foreign Policy article “Trump Should Praise Vladimir Kara-Murza – Not Vladimir Putin“, omits what the US president should be doing in line with his take, as opposed to Berschinski. Trump would benefit from utilizing a knowledgeably savvy (on Russian issues) adviser, who shares his Russia related views. Such a person can authoritatively tell someone like Berschinski to get off the hypocritical high horse and be more objective. For example, where’s the US establishment outrage over the murder of Ukrainian journalist Oles Brizha?

In Kiev regime controlled Ukraine, numerous individuals have been either jailed, beaten and killed, for reasons that appear to be politically motivated. When visiting that entity: Samantha Power, Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Joe Biden, haven’t said anything against these violently intolerant acts.

The focus of Berschinski’s article, Vladimir Kara-Murza, doesn’t pose any threat to the Russian government. There’re numerous others in that country, criticizing the Russian government and Russia en masse, without any noticeable health problems. (Among other things, my January 20, 2017 Strategic Culture Foundation article, addresses the deaths of some other Russians who’ve opposed the Kremlin.) To date, there’s no detailed proof of a government sponsored plan to poison Kara-Murza. There’s reasonable room to wonder about the origin of his most unfortunate affliction.

It’s of course reprehensible to poison/murder people for their views. In the US, another kind of media related killing is evident. Granted, that it’s more preferable to being physically slain. I’m referring to those people shafted for having a valid and different perspective from the establishment preferred neocon to neolib slant. Instead of respectfully acknowledging this reality and seeking a constructive diversity, the Democratic Party connected Lawrence O’Donnell finds another cause.

O’Donnell claims that Trump got neocon WaPo columnist George Will fired from Fox News. Perhaps that network decided it’s well represented enough with neocon pundits that include Charles Krauthammer and Stephen Hayes. At last notice, Will still has his WaPo column. Fox News didn’t seem to replace Will with a pro-Russian alternative point of view. Forget about seeing such a regular contributor at The WaPo, NYT, CNN, MSNBC and numrous other leading Anglo-American media venues.

US mass media segments like the February 2 Charlie Rose moderated exchange with Julia Ioffe and Amy Davidson reveal a considerable lack of diversity. Not all is bleak. As an example, the February 8 aired John Batchelor Show, featured an informative roughly forty minute segment on Ukraine, in sharp contrast to California Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ outburst against Russia’s invasion of Korea (sic). For her edification, Waters and countless others would benefit from listening to Batchelor’s frequent (pretty much weekly) exchanges with Stephen Cohen – expressing views that are very much censored in US mass media. Batchelor also features US foreign policy establishment pundits on Russian matters.

As is, Anglo-American mass media has an unwritten rule about which kind of Russia related commentary will get greater play and payola.

Michael Averko is a New York based independent foreign policy analyst and media critic. This article initially appeared at the Strategic Culture Foundation’s website on February 17.

According to the BBC, Yale President Peter Salovey announced that Calhoun College would be renamed because John C. Calhoun’s legacy and principles are “at odds with the university’s values.” Calhoun served in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, as Defense Secretary, and as Vice President of the United States. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College in 1804. So what were his principles? During the presidential campaign of 1843, Calhoun put forth these 7 points: “Free trade, low duties, no debt, separation from banks, economy, retrenchment, and a strict adherence to the Constitution.” I would imagine that most readers of this blog would likely support a majority of these points, if not all of them. Moreover, Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government was an original and masterful examination of the nature of man, government, and constitutionalism. It is one of the greatest works of American political theory.

It is doubtful that Salovey or any of the name-change agitators have ever read the Disquisition and are likely unaware of the seven principles mentioned above. What they do know is that Calhoun was pro-slavery, and in our race-obsessed society that’s all they want to know. No further examination or thought is needed. We are awash in a tide of presentism: an unthinking adherence to present-day attitudes with which we interpret past events. It’s a great thing we live in a country where we cannot even imagine owning another human being. But, dear reader, I would venture that both you and I, had we been born in 1782 in one of the thirteen states, we too would have accepted a world in which human bondage was a feature.

Take the example of Abraham Lincoln, who was born in 1809. He did not believe in the social or political equality of blacks and whites and opposed blacks serving on juries, voting, or marrying whites. In 1862, Lincoln drafted a constitutional amendment to preserve slavery in hopes of luring the CSA back into the Union. That same year, Lincoln hosted a delegation of freed slaves at the White House and asked them to support a plan for colonization in Central America. Given what he saw as the natural differences between the two races, Lincoln believed it would be better if blacks left North America and created a home elsewhere. Yes, Honest Abe was no liberal.

As I said before, it’s a good thing that we have a hard time understanding Calhoun’s and Lincoln’s views on race. But just because we have been raised in different times with different values does not give us a license to write either man off because, using the yardstick of 2017, both would be considered racists.

As an old and elite University, Yale should promote the study of history, efforts to learn from history, and a respect for history. Attempting to erase John C. Calhoun from the historical record is an act of intellectual cowardice. Yale, shame on you.

This article was published at The Beacon.

Donald Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway charges that media coverage of Donald Trump lacks “respect for and recognition of the dignity for the office of the president.”

No, Kellyanne, it’s Donald Trump who lacks respect for and recognition of the dignity of the office of the president.

A small sampling of Trump’s words and actions from recent days:

1. After being told of a Texas state senator who wants to require convictions before the state can forfeit property, Trump asks for the senator’s name and says “we’ll destroy his career.”

2. In response to criticism by Senator John McCain that his Yemen operation wasn’t successful, Trump says McCain “only emboldens the enemy! He’s been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore.”

3. After Senator Richard Blumenthal relates that his Supreme Court nominee finds Trump’s criticisms of the courts “demoralizing,” Trump blasts Blumenthal “who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him.”

4. Trump tells the press that “daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom,” after Nordstrom dropped her line due to declining sales.

5. Trump tells military officials that America’s “very dishonest press doesn’t want to report” acts of terrorism.

6. Trump threatens to “end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths,” when there’s no evidence of “needless deaths” in sanctuary cities.

7. When his ban on entry to the United States from 7 Muslim countries, which exempts Christians, is stayed by a federal judge, Trump attacks the “so-called judge,” saying “if something happens blame him and court system.”

8. When the ban is upheld by the court of appeals, Trump calls the court “disgraceful.”

9. He tells a meeting of senators that he would have won New Hampshire in the presidential election if not for the “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from neighboring Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire – despite not one iota of evidence this occurred.

10. In that same meeting he Trump taunts Democrats by telling them “Pocahontas is now the face of your party,” his insult of choice for Senator Elizabeth Warren.

11. Trump warns Mexican President Pena Nieto that he’s ready to send U.S. troops to Mexico to stop “bad hombres down there” if Mexico’s military can’t control them.

12. He berates Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for assuming the U.S. would follow through on its deal to take some refugees that had come to Australia.

13. At a National Prayer Breakfast Trump asks attendees to “pray for former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger” (who replaced him as the host of NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice) because the show’s ratings haven’t reached the level they did with Trump as the star.

14. Trump continues to rake in money from his businesses that benefit from his being president.

Every day that goes by, Trump further disgraces the office he holds. His lack of respect for the presidency knows no bounds.

Last month marked 44 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision declaring a constitutional right to abortion. Roe remains one of the Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions. Even some progressive legal theorists who favor legalized abortion have criticized Roe for judicial overreach and faulty reasoning.

Throughout my medical and political careers, I have opposed abortion. I believe abortion is the killing of an innocent human life and, thus, violates the non-aggression principle that is the basis of libertarianism. Unfortunately many libertarians, including some of my close allies, support legalized abortion. These pro-abortion libertarians make a serious philosophical error that undermines the libertarian cause. If the least accountable branch of government can unilaterally deny protection of the right to life to an entire class of persons, then none of our rights are safe.

While I oppose abortion, I also oppose federal laws imposing a nationwide ban on abortion. The federal government has no authority to legalize, outlaw, regulate, or fund abortion. Instead of further nationalizing abortion, pro-life Americas should advocate legislation ending federal involvement in abortion by restoring authority over abortion to the states.

Congress should also end all taxpayer funding of abortion and repeal Obamacare’s abortion mandates, along with the rest of Obamacare. Forcing pro-life Americans to subsidize what they believe to be murder is, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “sinful and tyrannical.” That is why I was glad that one of the first actions of the new House of Representatives was to pass legislation ending all taxpayer support for abortion. Hopefully the bill will soon pass in the Senate and be signed into law by President Trump. Congress should follow this action by passing legislation allowing antiwar taxpayers to opt out of funding the military-industrial complex as well.

The House-passed bill also repeals Obamacare’s mandates forcing private businesses to cover abortion and birth control under their health insurance plans. Of course I oppose these mandates. But, unlike many other opponents of the mandates, I oppose them because they violate the rights of property and contract, not because they violate religious liberty.

Opposing the mandates because they violate the religious liberty of a few, instead of the property rights of all, means implicitly accepting the legitimacy of government mandates as long as special exemptions are granted for certain groups of people from certain groups of mandates.

President Trump has already protected pro-life taxpayers (and unborn children) by reinstating President Reagan’s Mexico City policy. The Mexico City policy forbids US taxpayer money from being used to support any international organization that performs abortions or promotes abortions. Using taxpayer money to perform and promote abortions overseas is not only unconstitutional and immoral, it also increases resentment of the US government. Unfortunately, as shown by the recent Yemen drone strikes, President Trump is unlikely to substantially change our militaristic foreign policy, which is responsible for the deaths of many innocent men, women, and children.

Ending taxpayer support for abortion is an important step toward restoring limited, constitutional government that respects the rights of all. However, those who oppose abortion must recognize that the pro-life cause’s path to victory will not come through politics. Instead, pro-lifers must focus on building a culture of life through continued education and, among other things, support for crisis pregnancy centers. These centers, along with scientific advances like ultrasound, are doing more to end abortion than any politician. Anti-abortion activists must also embrace a consistent ethic of life by opposing foreign policy militarism and the death penalty.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

School voucher programs, which use government funds to support students attending private schools, are rising in popularity around the United States. Today, dozens of states offer this type of program to students, and that number is expected to increase. President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, is a strong advocate for these programs.

These programs raise important questions about church-state issues. In the US, private schools are dominated by religious organizations. According to government data, more than 80 percent of all private school students attend religiously affiliated schools. By providing monetary support for enrollment in religious schools, vouchers have the potential to change the funding of religious activities in the US, at a time when many churches are already struggling financially.

A research team centered at the University of Notre Dame wanted to find out what effect vouchers have on the religious communities that accept them, so they explored the finances of Catholic churches that operate elementary schools around Milwaukee, home to one of the oldest and best-known voucher programs in the nation.

By tracking church finances over time along with changes in Milwaukee’s voucher program, the researchers were able to see how voucher expansion affected both educational and non-educational finances for the churches running schools.

“The data suggest that vouchers offer hope to struggling churches, but that hope comes at a price,” said Daniel Hungerman, associate professor of economics at Notre Dame. “Vouchers keep some parishes open by making churches act more like schools.”

In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper published Feb. 13, the researchers show that voucher expansion appears to bring in enough money to help prevent church closures and mergers.

“In an era where many churches face financial hardship, this is an encouraging result,” Hungerman said.

However, the researchers found no evidence of vouchers increasing religious activity overall. Instead, Hungerman said, voucher expansion caused significant declines in church donations and church spending on non-educational religious activities. The overall declines are large, the researchers estimate: Since 2000, the Milwaukee voucher program has led to a $60 million decrease in non-educational church revenue in the churches studied.

“Beyond any implications these results have for education policy, these findings underscore the potentially dominant role vouchers may play in American religion in coming decades,” Hungerman said. “Perhaps the most striking result in the paper is that, for the average church running a voucher-accepting school in the data, vouchers provide more revenue than any other source — even worshipers. Clearly, both those who care about education in America and those who care about the vibrancy of American religion would do well to consider how the meteoric rise of vouchers could transform struggling churches.”

When Google Books digitized 40 years worth of copyrighted and out-of-copyright issues of Baseball Digest magazine, Wikipedia editors realized they had scored. Suddenly they had access to pages and pages of player information from a new source. Yet not all information could be used equally: citations to out-of-copyright issues increased 135 percent more than issues still subject to copyright restrictions.

Those are the results of a new study, “Does Copyright Affect Reuse? Evidence from Google Books and Wikipedia,” conditionally accepted in Management Science. By studying how copyright laws restrict the free exchange of information, author Abhishek Nagaraj also found pages that could benefit from copyrighted information received 20 percent less traffic than pages that could benefit from out-of-copyright information. That presents a significant disadvantage to Wikipedia readers. Copyrighted images suffered even more lack of distribution or reuse because they cannot be paraphrased and repurposed like written information.

Perhaps more importantly, the study’s findings suggest how an Internet without copyrighted material may be better used to create new content, and not just allow people to consume what’s already out there.

“There is a big debate about what copyright restrictions do to the diffusion of knowledge. Some people say copyright laws have not caught up with the digital age,” said Nagaraj, an assistant professor of management at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

With just about everything available online now, Nagaraj chose to study Baseball Digest for several reasons. First, it is one of only a small number of publications that Google Books digitized in its entirety in 2008. Second, Baseball Digest ‘s copyright status changed over time; the copyright of issues published before 1964 was never renewed and therefore, all pre-1964 issues entered the public domain 28 years after their respective publication dates.

At the same time, issues published in 1964 and after are not subject to renewal and remain under copyright, at least until 2020. These conditions gave Nagaraj the ability to study citation variation–under copyright and not under copyright–of the same publication. Third, Nagaraj contends that baseball’s popularity would make his experiment “economically meaningful.”

Nagaraj created two samples based on the digest’s publication years and on 541 players’ Wikipedia pages. The players were all nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame and made their professional debuts between 1944 and 1984. By creating a “quality metric” for each player based on the number of times they played in an all-star game, Nagaraj ensured that each player in the sample had a significant baseball career. The result was a dataset that counts the number of citations to Baseball Digest on each player’s Wikipedia page as well as the number of images and word citations.

The data revealed three primary results: 1) There was no variation in using information from copyrighted and out-of-copyright sources before the Google Books digitization process; 2) After Baseball Digest was digitized, Wikipedia editors started using both non-copyrighted and copyrighted information but moreso of the former; and 3) The effects varied by the type of content. Text material was reused regardless of its copyright status. For example, factual information that Babe Ruth hit a homerun moved from the Digest to Wikipedia smoothly because it could be rewritten. However photos of players and teams were reused more rarely because they could not be reproduced with any variation unrestricted by copyright protection.

“Well-known players like Yogi Berra were less affected by this variation because there are enough alternative sources of information besides Baseball Digest,” explained Nagaraj. “But there are many players for whom we have limited information. People seeking information about these players are most hurt by copyright law.”

This deficiency in the transfer of knowledge impacts not only Internet users who are looking for information but also users seeking to create new content. Nagaraj hopes his work will provide evidence for re-evaluating the value of copyright laws.

“The loss from future copyright extensions is likely to be high. If we want to incentivize new creative work using historical information, we need to fix the system,” said Nagaraj.

Russia said it considers the North Korean missile test, conducted on February 12, another demonstrative act of ignoring the UN Security Council resolutions on this subject.

“In this context, we cannot but express our regret and concern,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a Monday statement.

The Ministry urged all concerned parties to show restraint and refrain from any action that would further escalate tensions.

“We believe that the Korean Peninsula issues, including the nuclear issue, can be resolved only though political and diplomatic means,” the Ministry said, adding, “Peace and stability in the region can be achieved only by rejecting confrontation in favor of efforts to improve the overall military and political situation in Northeast Asia.”

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on an invitation from the Government of Australia will leave for Australia Monday for a four-day official visit.

The Prime Minister’s visit will also signify the 70th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and Australia.

The Sri Lankan delegation led by PM Wickremesinghe will participate in the bilateral discussions with the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and several other ministers in Melbourne and Canberra.

Several bilateral agreements will also be signed between Sri Lanka and Australia during the visit, according to the Sri Lanka government.

While speaking about Catalonia during an interview on the “Los Desayunos de TVE” program, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, argued that “we are better together, we are more, we are much better.” He also said that this is an important and difficult issue, although they will try to resolve the situation “with the greatest of common sense and balance.”

Rajoy underlined his intention for the current legislature, “to last as long as it can” because that is “reasonable” and because “this is a positive message to send out.” In this regard, he said that will not call new elections and that he will present the Budget for 2017.

On the issue of public accounts, Rajoy stressed that, “we are going to talk to everyone.” He went on to highlight one particularly positive and important fact: “We have already approved the spending ceiling, what we can spend and the revenue area,” he said.

Furthermore, Rajoy rated the first 100 days of this new government highly because, besides approving the spending ceiling, the first steps have been taken towards agreements on various issues, including education and pensions.

“Certain steps are being taken in the right direction,” Rajoy said, adding he hopes that, “we are all up to the task.”

With regard to Catalonia, Rajoy again called for compliance with the law because any other action would erode, “the rules of coexistence,” and, “we would no longer be in a democratic society based on the rule of law.”

After recalling that the world is moving towards processes of integration and not division, Rajoy stressed that, “we are better together, we are more, we are much better, we are united by our history” and “we are the oldest nation in Europe.”

Rajoy said he believes that the solution now requires three things: firstly, to talk about the real issues (regional financing, long-term care and infrastructure, etc.); secondly, to make sure that institutions serve all citizens (and not only those in favor of independence); and, thirdly, to recover the internal cohesion destroyed by “the pro-independence movement.”

Nevertheless, Rajoy accepted that Catalonia is one of the issues that most “concerns” him and that it is a “difficult” problem. Nonetheless, the Government of Spain will try to resolve it “with the greatest of common sense and balance,” he said.

In this vein, Rajoy defended the government’s action as being “very clear, very sharp and very understandable.”

According to Rajoy, he has met his obligation to guarantee the unity of Spain, national sovereignty and the equality of all Spaniards, and that he is now letting the courts act against those who broke the law on November 9.

Rajoy described the fact that the Regional Government of Catalonia is now being “conditioned, blackmailed and threatened” by “a group of extremists such the CUP” as “very dangerous.” rajoy said that this not only relates to the matter of independence but that, “there could be a change in the economic and social model of Catalonia that could lead to a situation that, in my opinion, would not be good for anyone.”

By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

India-Israel relations today are taken for granted. Bilateral ties are stable and growing stronger.

This was not so when Israel was born as an independent nation, in the teeth of Arab opposition. The new State had to struggle for the international community’s recognition, after David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel and joined the United Nations on 14 May, 1948. Ben-Gurion went on to become the first PM of Israel.

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 abstaining.)

The USA had supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (Arthur Balfour was a British Foreign Secretary), which called for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. US President Franklin D Roosevelt had, however, assured the Arabs in 1945 that the USA would not intervene without consulting both the Jewish and the Arab peoples living in the region.

Britain, the colonial power, made responsible for the mandate of Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine, as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Currently, except for Egypt and Jordan, no other Arab or Muslim country has diplomatic relations with Israel, and most Islamic countries ban travel of Israelis and Jews to their countries

Israel’s conviction, and where Einstein fit in

Israeli leaders never wavered in their conviction, since the era of Ben-Gurion, that India and Israel would ultimately be close friends. Ben-Gurion and Nehru exchanged correspondence regularly. “Hodu” is the word for India in the Hebrew Bible, and the Jewish people, discriminated and persecuted in every country, have a long memory of their co-religionists finding refuge in India and thriving as a community, without discrimination.

Recognising that India’s support would be crucial to win support of other nations, as the process of decolonisation 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 roped in Albert Einstein, arguably the most famous member of the global Jewish community, to persuade Jawaharlal Nehru.

Einstein, though a self-declared Jewish nationalist, was not an ardent supporter of Zionism, the movement that began in Europe to establish a Jewish homeland. Einstein had declared that the Zionist enterprise was threatened by “fanatical Arabs” (1938), but he argued that a Jewish homeland could become “a centre of culture for all Jews, a refuge for the most grievously oppressed, a field of action for the best among us, a unifying ideal, and a means of attaining inward health for the Jews of the whole world”.

He lauded the “young pioneers, men and women of magnificent intellectual and moral calibre, breaking stones and building roads under the blazing rays of the Palestinian sun” and “the flourishing agricultural settlements shooting up from the long-deserted soil… the development of water power… [and] industry… and, above all, the growth of an educational system … What observer… can fail to be seized by the magic of such amazing achievement and of such almost superhuman devotion?” (Letter to Manchester Guardian, 1929)

The duality in Einstein’s thinking was reflected in his admiration for the liberal vision of a bi-national Arab-Jewish state. Einstein declared that “I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish State… My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power… I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain.” (New York, 1938).

Yet, Einstein did not take up Ben-Gurion’s offer to become Israel’s first President, saying it would pose a moral dilemma for him.

Nehru’s dilemma

Jawaharlal Nehru was fully aware of Jewish history and the travails of the Jewish people in Europe. He wrote eloquently and sympathetically about the plight of the Jewish people and the horrible atrocities they faced in Europe in the Holocaust.

Nehru’s dilemma was clear, when he wrote that the Palestinian Arabs had lived in Palestine for centuries, and depriving them of their land, in order to create a Jewish State, would be grossly unfair, though he also acknowledged that the Jewish people had lived in Palestine for centuries.

It was clear that Nehru was against the partition of Palestine, and subscribed to the liberal view, also shared by Einstein to some extent, of a bi-national Arab-Jewish Palestine. The Partition of India had also left an open wound that was still fresh.

Einstein’s letter to Nehru

On 13 June 1947, Einstein wrote a four-page letter to Nehru, first praising India for having taken up the cause of abolishing untouchability, and saying the Jewish people were also victims of discrimination and persecution, with a pariah status.

Appealing to Nehru, Einstein praised him as a “consistent champion of the forces of political and economic enlightenment”, and exhorted him to rule in favour of “the rights of an ancient people whose roots are in the East”. Einstein pleaded for “justice and equity”, adding that “long before the emergence of Hitler, I made the cause of Zionism mine, because through it, I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong”.

Einstein went on to say that “the Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimised and hounded as a people, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has… Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination…through the return to the land to which they were bound by close historic ties… Jews sought to abolish their pariah status among peoples”.

To drive home his argument, Einstein wrote in his letter: “The advent of Hitler underscored with a savage logic all the disastrous implications contained in the abnormal situation in which Jews found themselves. Millions of Jews perished… because there was no spot on the globe where they could find sanctuary… The Jewish survivors demand the right to dwell amid brothers, on the ancient soil of their fathers.”

Recognising Nehru’s dilemma, Einstein went on to highlight: “Though the Arab of Palestine has benefitted… economically, he wants exclusive national sovereignty, such as is enjoyed by the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria [sic]. It is a legitimate and natural desire, and justice would seem to call for its satisfaction.” This satisfaction would be in the form of a Palestinian State.

Post-World War 1, the Allies gave the Arabs 99% of Arab lands liberated from the Ottoman Empire, to meet Arab national aspirations, and five independent Arab states were created. One per cent was reserved for the Jews “in the land of their origin”, for the establishment of Israel.

In Einstein’s words: “In the august scale of justice, which weighs need against need, there is no doubt as to whose is more heavy.”

According to Einstein, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised a homeland for the Jewish people, redressed the balance of justice and history.

Einstein’s final appeal to Nehru was to brush aside “the rivalries of power politics and the egotism of petty nationalist appetites” and to support “the glorious renaissance which has begun in Palestine”.

Nehru’s response

Nehru’s response to Einstein’s letter reflected his deep moral dilemma. Nehru did not hedge this, and acknowledged that India’s policy was dictated by realpolitik, despite moral posturing.

Nehru wrote that national leaders, “unfortunately”, had to pursue “policies… [that were] essentially selfish policies. Each country thinks of its own interest first… If it so happens that some international policy fits in with the national policy of the country, then that nation uses brave language about international betterment. But as soon as that international policy seems to run counter to national interests or selfishness, then a host of reasons are found not to follow that international policy.

This was Nehru’s explanation for India voting against the partition of Palestine, and the creation of a Jewish State. The compelling reasons were India’s own partition, India’s large Muslim population which, like other Muslims elsewhere, was instinctively pro-Palestinian, seeing the issue as an Islamic cause, and India’s need for support from inter alia Arab countries, in the impending 1948 war over Kashmir with Pakistan.

Nehru went on to argue in his letter: “I confess that while I have a very great deal of sympathy for the Jews, I feel sympathy for the Arabs also… I know that the Jews have done a wonderful piece of work in Palestine and have raised the standards of the people there, but one question troubles me. After all these remarkable achievements, why have they failed to gain the goodwill of the Arabs? Why do they want to compel the Arabs to submit against their will to certain demands [i.e., partition and Jewish statehood]”?

Eventually, India officially recognised the State of Israel on 17 September 1950. At the time, Nehru said: “We would have [recognised Israel] long ago, because Israel is a fact. We refrained because of our desire not to offend the sentiments of our friends in the Arab countries.”

Though Einstein could not convince Nehru immediately, despite the latter’s deep admiration for the great scientist, his letters did play a crucial role in convincing Nehru.

This article was originally published in CatchNews

Iranian physician Ahmadreza Jalali, who was arrested in Iran ten months ago, has been reportedly sentenced to death. Although charges have not yet been announced publicly by Iranian Judiciary, Jalili’s wife maintains that they are political and include the charge of “collaborations with enemy stats”.

Jalali resides in Sweden with his family and news of his sentencing was confirmed by his wife Vida Mehrannia. He is an expert and researcher in the field of medical disaster management and has published extensively on the topic.

Mehrannia has told Zamaneh that following a transfer from ward 7 to ward 209 of Evin Prison on January 31, Jalali had a meeting with Judge Salavati who confirmed that a death sentence has been issued in his case.

She added that the Judge has asked him to end his hunger strike which Jalali has declined.

Meanwhile Caroline Pauwels director of University of Brussels, which has collaborated in the past with Ahmadreza Jalali, has told the media that Jalali has been sentenced to death and that the sentence may be executed within two weeks.

The news was reported on the Persian Radio France which has also quoted his peers saying that his arrest may be linked to his communications with the international academic community including Israeli scientists.

Since December 26, Ahmadreza Jalali has been on a hunger strike in protest to his imprisonment conditions, the pressures in prison and his lack of proper and timely access to an attorney.

His spouse reports that up until last Tuesday the jailed physician had already lost twenty kilos in weight. She indicates that they the family have had no news of Jalali since the announcement of his sentence and expressed grave concern regarding his mental and physical wellbeing.

The charges against Jalali are not clear yet, but his spouse maintains that he has reportedly been charged with “collaboration with enemy countries”.

She added that the interrogators in Evin prison have also told Jalali that because he has allegedly refused to fully cooperate with the investigation, they will slap him with an additional charge of “enmity against God” – this charge carries a death sentence with it.

Mehrannia has emphasized that her husband has completely denied the charge of collaboration with enemy countries.

Jalali’s access to counsel has been precarious. His attorney has been allowed to sit in some interrogation sessions but he has been denied access to his full case file.

Jalali has also been told by Judge Salavati that his choice of attorney is not acceptable by the court.

Mehrannia has confirmed that the Government of Sweden, Italy and Belgium as well as EU officials have been making an effort to secure the release of Jalali.

She expressed hope that in his coming trip to Iran, the Norwegian Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven could press for concrete action regarding the case of her husband.

Trump promises to reform the post World War II global order. Neelam Deo discusses how India can benefit from the changes Trump will cause in the existing trade structure as well as the transformation of trade networks in Europe after Brexit.

By Neelam Deo*

The appointment of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States is a turning point in world affairs. This will not only bring to an end the post-World War- II global governing order, it will also reconfigure the might of countries like India in trade relations for years ahead. India would do well to examine opportunities to reform trade agreements in its favour as the tectonic plates of the current global order shift.

During his campaign, Donald Trump vowed to ‘Make America Great Again’, touting the belief that the U.S. has lost its pole position among nations, economically and politically. Granted, 70 years since Western dominance was cemented through the establishment of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions, it is now Asian countries that occupy a central role in the global economy. China is now the world’s second-largest economy and Japan the third.

India is the world’s sixth-largest economy, and the fastest growing. This economic expansion has led to a profound shift in political prominence. The Indian government remains committed to global economic integration, and its influence is growing.

The U.S. may remain the most powerful country in the world with the largest economy, an estimated GDP of $18.5 trillion in 2016, and in what counts most in today’s knowledge-driven world: a globally unmatched university and technology innovation ecosystem. But the gap with other countries has narrowed. For example, when the People’s Republic of China emerged in 1949, its economy was a tenth of the U.S.’. Today, it is roughly $11.5 trillion in nominal terms and has already exceeded the U.S. in PPP terms. India’s GDP was $23 billion in 1949, whereas it was an estimated $2.095 trillion at the end of 2015.

Trump, who calls himself the ‘disrupter-in-chief’, has threatened to shatter the established order, both within the U.S. and globally, in order to halt the ravages of globalisation on the U.S. economy. In order to keep American jobs in America, Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Trans Pacific Partnership and announced on numerous occasions that he will place high tariffs (35-45 per cent) on imports from China and Mexico, reject the North American Free Trade Agreement and maybe even leave the World Trade Organisation. This kind of protectionism could start a trade war once other countries retaliate. The old trade agreements, which traditionally favoured developed nations could have lasted longer had not Brexit commenced the unravelling of the EU Single Market and revived a preference for bilateral trade agreements. Now their demise seems more imminent.

This comes at a time when the Indian government has also recognised that numerous bilateral, regional and multilateral trade agreements focused on goods rather than services, resulting in a continuing deficit in India’s current account.

The Trump administration’s preference for bilateral trade deals, and its obsession with domestic manufacturing, could be the opportunity for India to demand that trade in services be incorporated into the new arrangements. Equally, Trump’s demand to negotiate the price at which the U.S. procures drugs from pharmaceutical companies can be an opening for India to reopen discussions on IPR issues. These have been among the obstacles to more reasonable health care costs in the U.S. and an irritant in Indo-U.S. relations.

With the expected changes to the global trade framework in the wake of Trump’s election and Brexit, countries like India, which had no influence in 1949, are now considerable powers in their own right and in a better position to ensure that the new trade frameworks are less skewed in favour of the old powers. The geo-economic world order could be disrupted sooner than expected.

About the author:
*Neelam Deo is a co-founder of Gateway House – the Indian Council on Global Relations. The Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue, their flagship annual event, is being held on February 13-14 in Mumbai.

Source:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, this article was originally published in DNA on the 3rd of February 2017, and has been republished with permission.

By Die Morina and Doruntina Baliu

President Hashim Thaci announced a new Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he said was intended to encourage mutual forgiveness among Kosovo’s Albanians and Serbs.

Hashim Thaci on Monday launched consultations to establish the new commission, saying that reconciliation between Kosovo’s Albanians and Serbs was not dependent on Serbia apologising for its role in the 1998-99 war.

“Someone could ask if an apology comes first and then reconciliation. But the truth is that reconciliation cannot have conditions, but it happens with the will [to achieve it] and a good feeling,” said Thaci, who was the political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army during the conflict.

He said that remembering what happened during the war and establishing the truth was important, but also argued that people should not seek revenge.

“New generations must know what previous generations did. Mutual trust must be earned, not denying [what happened] but taking responsibility and respecting the dignity and integrity of the parties [involved],” he said.

Thaci said that the commission would support the judiciary in prosecuting war crimes.

As well as senior state officials and ambassadors, representatives of Kosovo Albanian and Serb war victims’ families attended Monday’s consultative meeting about the establishment of the commission.

“First, the truth must come out, then the reconciliation,” said Bajram Qerkini, a representative of Kosovo Albanian families of missing persons.

“There are more than 100 children under the age of eight who are still missing. We are the people who can lay down the hand of reconciliation at the moment when the truth comes out,” Qerkini added.

The Kosovo Serb representative of missing persons’ families, Milorad Trifunovic, also appealed for justice.

“We want to know the truth about those who committed crimes and we want justice. Everything can be replaced but people’s lives. Let’s head toward reconciliation,” Trifunovic said.

Kosovo officials offered backing for the proposed commission.

“There are thousands of innocent victims and there is still no justice for them. Dozens of massacres took place, for which no one has been convicted,” said the head of the Kosovo Assembly Kadri Veseli.

Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said that despite what happened in the past, Kosovo and Serbia should not be held hostage by history, arguing that the commission could assist in the process.

“All this will help to clarify a common future,” Mustafa said.

But Thaci’s initiative was greeted with scepticism by a former European diplomat who said that a similar commission, launched by former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kustunica in 2001, failed to achieve anything.

“This commission needs to find a common goal of both ethnicities and a credible person who represents both communities to lead this initiative,” said Daan Everts, the former chief of the OSCE mission in Kosovo.

(RFE/RL) — Pakistani officials say at least 13 people were killed and dozens wounded when a large explosion hit a protest rally near the Punjab provincial assembly in the city of Lahore on February 13.

The blast ripped through the crowd of hundreds of pharmacists, who were protesting new amendments to a law governing drug sales.

Mushtaq Sukhera, the inspector-general of police in Punjab, said five police officers were killed in what he described as a “suicide attack.”

“The bomber exploded himself when successful negotiations were under way between police officials and the protesters,” Sukhera told reporters.

Sameer Ahmad, the Lahore deputy commissioner, said 58 people were wounded, including nine who were in critical condition.

A loud bang could be heard on live television, which showed smoke billowing up as people ran from the scene, some of them carrying injured victims.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The militant group warned that the attack was the start of a new campaign against government institutions.

The group also claimed responsibility for a bombing during Easter last year that killed more than 70 people in a public park.

In a statement, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said his country would continue to fight militancy.

“We have fought this fight against the terrorists among us, and will continue to fight it until we liberate our people of this cancer, and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us,” he said in a statement.

Security in Pakistan has improved markedly in recent years but extremist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State still pose a threat and have carried out deadly attacks.