Last week was a particularly disastrous week for Parliament, when a horribly large majority of MPs voted to let Theresa May, the Prime Minister, do what she wants regarding Britain’s exit from the EU — and what she wants, as she has made clear, is as “hard” a Brexit as possible — one in which, in order to exercise some spurious control over immigration, we are forced to abandon the single market and the customs union, which will be insanely damaging to our economy.

The MPs’ unprovoked capitulation, by 494 votes to 122, in the vote allowing May to trigger Article 50, which launches our departure from the EU, came despite three-quarters of MPs believing that we should stay in the EU, and despite the narrow victory in last June’s referendum, which, crucially, was only advisory, although everyone in a position of power and authority has since treated it as though it was somehow legally binding.

The MPs’ capitulation was also disgraceful because, following the referendum, a handful of brave individuals engaged in a court battle to prevent Theresa May from behaving like a tyrant, and undertaking our departure from the EU without consulting Parliament. Both the High Court and the Supreme Court pointed out that sovereignty in the UK resides in Parliament, and not just in the hands of the Prime Minister, and that Parliament would have to be consulted.

Leave voters resented this intrusion of reality into their fantasy world, and the judges were subjected to widespread abuse for pointing out what Leave voters were supposed to have wanted all along (as they revealed that what they really want is a Tory dictator), but, shameful as this was, it was overshadowed by MPs’ craven refusal to accept their sovereignty, as they bowed down before Theresa May and gave her absolutely everything she wanted.

At the weekend, a handful of commentators expressed their dismay at this turn of events — although nowhere near enough, demonstrating the extent to which our mainstream media is plagued by a persistent right-wing bias. Two columns of note were in the Observer — ‘Parliament has diminished itself at this turning point in our history’ by Andrew Rawnsley, and ‘What use is sovereignty when MPs deny their conscience over Brexit?’ by William Keegan.

The only good news, however, came via a poll “conducted by ICM for the online campaigning organisation Avaaz on the day the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to trigger article 50,” as the Guardian described it, which revealed that “[a] clear majority of the British public oppose Theresa May’s uncompromising Brexit negotiating position and are not prepared for the UK to crash out of the EU if the prime minister cannot negotiate a reasonable exit deal.”

In a result described as “a sign that public support for the government’s push for a hard Brexit is increasingly precarious,” just 35% of those who responded to the polling “said they backed Britain leaving the EU without an agreement with other states.” If no agreement is reached, the UK would have to rely on World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs, and, as the Guardian explained, MPs and business leaders have said that this will “devastate the economy.”

In contrast, in what was described as “a welcome boost for soft Brexit campaigners,” over half of those surveyed (54%) “backed either extending negotiations if a satisfactory deal could not be reached, or halting the process altogether while the public was consulted for a second time.”

34% said Theresa May “should continue negotiating” if a satisfactory deal could not be reached, while an addition 20% “backed halting the process pending a second referendum on the terms of the deal.”

Those backing a second referendum include the Liberal Democrats and “a cross-party group of MPs including the Labour MPs David Lammy, Heidi Alexander and Ben Bradshaw, as well as the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas.”

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, said the poll findings “proved the government’s position was indefensible.” He said, “Our best hope of stopping a ruinous hard Brexit that nobody voted for and few want is if the public rally round to fight it, as Brexit grows more unpopular. That means uniting many who voted leave but now want to avoid the economic catastrophe of quitting the single market, and who want to protect those European citizens who contribute so much to Britain’s economy and society.”

Bert Wander, Avaaz’s campaign director, said the results “showed May was at odds with the public over Brexit, and called for the House of Lords to ensure that Britons had the right to force May to continue negotiating.” As he pointed out, “Two-thirds of the public don’t want Theresa May dangling us over the Brexit cliff without a safety net and the Lords can intervene and save us from that fate. We need the right to send May back to Brussels if all she brings us is a bad deal for Britain.”

Yesterday, there was further cause for hope when Dick Newby, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, said that he was “confident that enough peers would back amendments on issues such as the rights of EU citizens [to stay in the UK] and parliamentary votes on the final Brexit deal to defeat the government and force a rethink.”

This is good news, because, last week, when MPs voted overwhelmingly for Theresa May to trigger Brexit, they failed to secure a single amendment, leaving EU citizens in the UK facing a disgracefully uncertain future as “bargaining chips.” Their inability to secure any amendments also mean that their entire involvement in the Brexit negotiations is dependent upon the whims of the Prime Minister, who, as is becoming increasingly obvious, has no interest whatsoever in MPs’ involvement.

Newby said that he “expected around 230 Labour and Lib Dem peers to back an amendment on EU citizens, as well as most of the crossbenchers and at least two Tory peers,” and he added that, because some Tory peers are expected to abstain, the numbers should be sufficient to “easily defeat the government.”

He added, “There are a lot of members of the group for whom Europe is the big thing that has motivated them in politics,” and also admitted, “We were complacent, truth be told. But things have turned and people on our side feel very strongly about it.” He also said all peers “had been told to cancel leave or prior engagements.”

Labour peers have tabled “eight amendments on issues from EU nationals to quarterly reporting to parliament about the Brexit process” (similar to the thwarted amendments in the House of Commons), but with some important additions — former cabinet minister Peter Hain, for example, “has tabled several amendments, including one on the Northern Irish border, which Newby said was gaining traction,” as it deserves to, and another backed by crossbench peer Lord Pannick QC, who opposed the government in the Supreme Court over the need for parliamentary approval of the triggering of article 50. Pannick’s amendment “would require a parliamentary vote on the final Brexit deal, specifying that it should take place before any deal is approved by the European commission or parliament.”

Labour peers have, apparently, promised not to try to derail Theresa May’s plan to trigger Article 50 by the end of March, but Newby said that Labour peers “may be prepared to be more openly pro-European than Labour MPs because they did not have to answer to constituencies.”

As he explained, “What’s the point? If you’re 65 and a Labour peer and been pro-European all your life, why just sit on your hands? A lot of them are taking it into their own hands, because I talk to a lot of them.”

He also said of the Labour peers in general, “What have they got to lose? There are very many strong Europeans in the Labour party. They all know Corbyn is taking the Labour party down a destructive path, they are all beside themselves.”

Newby also addressed the threat by an unnamed government source, who said, “If the Lords don’t want to face an overwhelming public call to be abolished they must get on and protect democracy and pass this bill.” He called it an empty threat, and explained, “There is zero capacity in Whitehall to worry about House of Lords reform, it’s ludicrous to even contemplate it.”

As the Lords continue to discuss Brexit, the only other news of note since last week’s vote is a report by a new thinktank, Global Future, which suggests, damningly, that Brexit’s major aim — to return control of our borders — will not work, and will only lead to a “vanishingly small reduction” in the numbers of  immigrants. I have been staying this all along — and, of course, what is also overlooked by pro-leave evangelists is the extent to which immigrants are vital to the UK economy and their contribution is irreplaceable.

Global Future’s report “shows total net immigration, which at the latest official estimate was 335,000 in the year to June 2016, could be expected to fall by no more than 15%, to 285,000 a year,” as the Guardian described it, adding, that future free trade deals with non-EU countries suggest that “even this reduction could be wiped out.”

This was acknowledged last week by Liam Fox, the international trade minister, who accepted that “he did not know of any new free trade deal that did not also include liberalisation of migration rules between the two countries signing such agreements.” As the Guardian noted, “Australia and India have already indicated they will seek preferential access for their workers as part of a free trade deal,” despite Theresa May’s evident racism on a recent trip to India, when she made it clear how much she dislikes allowing any immigrants into the UK, unless, of course, they are wealthy.

The Global Future report concludes that, “While ending freedom of movement is psychologically appealing to those who want a sense of control of our borders, the reality is such a move would create more the illusion of control. People looking for substantial reductions are likely to be disappointed with the eventual figure of 50,000 or less.”

Its director, Gurnek Bains, added, “The extent to which this impact is worth the myriad of economic and political problems that pulling out of free movement would create needs to be reflected upon. In addition, promising more than can be delivered on migration risks creating a firestorm in the future.”

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ leader, who backed the findings of the report, said, “In return for this self-inflicted wound it is unlikely that the Conservative Brexit government will be able to deliver its promise of dramatically reduced immigration.”

My hope is that all of these blows to the government’s “hard Brexit” plans are inching us closer to where we need to end up — staying in the EU because leaving and engaging in the single biggest act of economic suicide in our lifetimes is too great  price to pay — but I’m not holding my breath. This is going to be a long struggle, because those of us who want to stay in the EU are up against spectacularly delusional nationalists, whose self-regard is so colossal that they are unable to comprehend how deluded they are.

Note: For further information about Brexit, please read Ian Dunt’s excellent article for Politics.co.uk, ‘Everything you need to know about Theresa May’s Article 50 nightmare in five minutes.’ Dunt is the author of the invaluable book, Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?

By tagging individual bumblebees with microchips, biologists have gained insights into the daily life of a colony of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) in unprecedented detail. The team found that while most bees are generalists collecting both pollen and nectar over the course of their lifetime, individual workers tend to specialize on one of the two during any given day, dedicating more than 90 percent of their foraging sorties to either pollen or nectar. The observations also revealed that individual bumblebee workers differ vastly in terms of their foraging activity.

Just like their domesticated cousins, the honey bees, bumblebees play important roles as pollinators, thus helping in agriculture and fruit production. But despite the ecological services they provide, many aspects of their biology still remain a mystery. By outfitting each bumblebee with a radio frequency identification, or RFID, tag — similar to the ones used to protect merchandise from shoplifters — the researchers were able to keep tabs on them at all times and log the data automatically instead of relying on human observations limited to certain times.

“The way these studies have typically been done requires a human observer sitting in front of a hive entrance and taking notes all day, and nobody wants to do that,” said Avery Russell, the lead author of the study. Russell is a doctoral student in entomology and insect in the lab of Daniel Papaj, a professor in the University of Arizona’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “With the RFID chips, we can track every nectar and pollen collection trip made over each worker’s lifespan and a portion of the colony’s lifespan.”

The researchers then used this data to determine how patterns of specialization on each food type differed at timescales of a day or over a lifetime. The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Once a bumblebee queen has mated, she burrows into the ground and overwinters. The following spring, she emerges and starts a hive that lasts until the fall. A typical bumblebee colony grows to about 75 workers, with about 40 to 50 going out and foraging on flowers for nectar and pollen. After the colony’s growth phase, the colony produces unfertilized eggs that hatch into males. The male bumblebees then disperse in search for other unmated queens to begin the cycle anew.

“Each individual bee only lives between two weeks to a month at the most,” Russell said, “and even though they behave as generalists over their lifetime, our study showed that they tend to specialize on one food source over the course of a foraging day.”

The researchers were surprised to find a vast difference in efficiency, with the most active foragers making 40 times the number of trips each day as the least active workers.

“Interestingly, when we studied the morphology between very active foragers and workers that barely leave the hive, we found that bees with more sensitive antennae foraged more,” Russell said.

Similar variation has been in observed in honey bees and other eusocial species, where some workers are much more active than others, but no one had seen it to this extreme due to the limits of human observations.

“If you watch a bee only for an hour or so, you can’t say what it will do over the course of a few days or over its whole life,” Russell said. “We don’t yet know why, but it could be that workers that forage less do so because they aren’t quite as skilled at foraging as others and make themselves useful by doing more around the hive.”

To track the bees’ behavior, the team superglues tiny RFID tags to the backs of the bees. Each tag weighs only 2 to 3 percent of the bee’s weight. A Y-tube connects the hive to two arenas, one that offers pollen and one that offers nectar. When a bee leaves the hive to forage, it can choose to go to the pollen chamber or the nectar chamber. Two RFID readers mounted at the entrance keep track of the bees going in and out and help the researchers collect a wealth of data.

“This setup gives us information about directionality,” Russell explained. “Is the forager leaving or returning from foraging? We also get an idea of whether a bee goes from one chamber to the other, or whether it makes repeated trips to only one chamber, and we get to know how long the trips were.”

Since the team was especially interested in the sequence of the foraging trips over the course of the day, some heavy lifting was needed to make sense of all the data. To do this, Russell enlisted the help of Sarah Morrison, a doctoral student in the UA’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who studies orbital dynamics and the evolution of solar systems.

“Each RFID reader only spits out timestamps and the identity of the bee, so if you want to know what the bees are doing, you need to parse all that information and turn it into things we can understand,” Russell said. “For example, how many trips a forager makes per day.”

While honey bees are known to be very consistent and tend to stick to one species of plant and often one type of reward over a day, a phenomenon known as floral consistency, bumblebees were thought to be more generalist. The present study came somewhat as a surprise in that Russell’s team found the bees tend to make strings of foraging runs for the same reward on a given day.

“One possible explanation is that foraging for pollen versus nectar requires very different behavioral regimes, so it makes sense for them to focus on one at a time,” he said. “Also, in many cases pollen and nectar are not both available from the same plant species.”

Researchers still don’t know why bees switch between foraging for nectar or pollen.

“It is possible they take cues from the brood,” Russell said, “in that they produce pheromones that say ‘we need more of this or more of that.'”

Bumblebees that specialize in a task, either over the course of their lifetime or over the course of a foraging day, turned out to be no more active than their generalist peers, however. Neither were they found to be larger, more able foragers — raising the question as to why they specialize in the first place.

“One of the reasons bees might specialize could be some sort of memory constraint,” Russell said. “Rather than having to switch back and forth between dealing with many different floral designs and constructions, it might be more efficient to just stick with one for the duration of a foraging day.”

As for the more domestic individuals that were found to forage far less than their more adventurous colleagues, Russell said that this might reflect economics of skill allocation.

“Those that are less good at foraging probably shouldn’t go foraging in the first place,” he explained, “as that requires a lot of learning how to recognize a flower and how to collect the nectar. Foragers hone their skills over dozens, if not hundreds, of visits until they figure out how to efficiently pry open the lips of a snapdragon flower, for example. Plus, they have to use visual and olfactory cues to learn which are the rewarding and the non-rewarding flowers.”

The global proliferation of overweight and obese people and people with type 2 diabetes is often associated with the consumption of saturated fats.

Scientists at the German Diabetes Center (Deutsches Diabetes-Zentrum, DDZ) and the Helmholtz Center in Munich (HMGU) have found that even the one-off consumption of a greater amount of palm oil reduces the body’s sensitivity to insulin and causes increased fat deposits as well as changes in the energy metabolism of the liver. The results of the study provide information on the earliest changes in the metabolism of the liver that in the long term lead to fatty liver disease in overweight persons as well as in those with type 2 diabetes.

In the current issue of the “Journal of Clinical Investigation”, DZD researchers working at the German Diabetes Center, in conjunction with the Helmholtz Center in Munich and colleagues from Portugal, published a scientific investigation conducted on healthy, slim men, who were given at random a flavored palm oil drink or a glass of clear water in a control experiment. The palm oil drink contained a similar amount of saturated fat as two cheeseburgers with bacon and a large portion of French fries or two salami pizzas.

The scientists showed that this single high-fat meal sufficed to reduce the insulin action, e.g. cause insulin resistance and increase the fat content of the liver.

In addition, changes in the energy balance of the liver were proven. The observed metabolic changes were similar to changes observed in persons with type 2 diabetes or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is the most common liver disease in the industrial nations and associated with obesity, the so-called “metabolic syndrome,” and is associated with an increased risk in developing type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, NAFLD in advanced stages can result in severe liver damage.

“The surprise was that a single dosage of palm oil has such a rapid and direct impact on the liver of a healthy person and that the amount of fat administered already triggered insulin resistance”, explained Prof. Dr. Michael Roden, scientist, Managing Director and Chairman at the DDZ and the German Center for Diabetes Research (Deutsches Zentrum für Diabetesforschung, DZD). “A special feature of our study is that we monitored the liver metabolism of people with a predominantly non-invasive technology, e.g. by magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This allows us to track the storage of sugar and fat as well as the energy metabolism of the mitochondria (power plants of the cell).”

Thanks to the new methods of investigation, the scientists were able to verify that the intake of palm oil affects the metabolic activity of muscles, liver and fatty tissue. The induced insulin resistance leads to an increased new formation of sugar in the liver with a concomitant decreased sugar absorption in the skeletal muscles – a mechanism that makes the glucose level rise in persons afflicted with type 2 diabetes and its pre-stages.

In addition, the insulin resistance of the fatty tissue causes an increased release of fats into the blood stream, which in turn continues to foster the insulin resistance. The increased availability of fat leads to an increased workload for the mitochondria, which can in the long term overtax these cellular power plants and contribute to the emergence of a liver disease.

The team of Prof. Roden suspects that healthy people, depending on genetic predisposition, can easily manage this direct impact of fatty food on the metabolism. The long-term consequences for regular eaters of such high-fat meals can be far more problematic, however.

Seagrass meadows – bountiful underwater gardens that nestle close to shore and are the most common coastal ecosystem on Earth – can reduce bacterial exposure for corals, other sea creatures and humans, according to new research published in Science Feb. 16.

“The seagrass appear to combat bacteria, and this is the first research to assess whether that coastal ecosystem can alleviate disease associated with marine organisms,” said lead author Joleah Lamb of Cornell University’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, where she is a Nature Conservancy NatureNet fellow.

Senior author Drew Harvell, Cornell University professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and an Atkinson Center Fellow, had been running an international workshop and examining the health of underwater corals with colleagues near small islands at Spermonde Archipelago, Indonesia. But after a few days, the entire research team fell ill with dysentery, and one scientist contracted typhoid. “I experienced firsthand how threats to both human health and coral health were linked,” Harvell said.

Lamb returned with an international team armed to test the waters. On these small islands freshwater is sparse, surface soil is thin and just off shore the marine environment teems with solid waste, sewage and wastewater pollution. Generally, the islands – though filled with people – do not have septic systems.

The group used Enterococcus assays, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard of health risk levels for wastewater pollution in recreational waters, to see whether seagrass meadows influenced bacterial levels. Water samples taken near the beaches exceeded exposure levels by a factor of 10. But, Lamb’s team found threefold lower levels of Enterococcus in seawater collected from within seagrass meadows.

“The genetic sequencing work pinpointed the kinds of bacteria – all in difficult, arduous conditions,” said Harvell. “It showed exactly what was in the water. The beautiful oceanside water looked blue-green, but truly it was filled with dangerous pollution – some really bad stuff in the water close to shore.”

While research is beginning to reveal the mechanisms driving bacterial-load reductions in these ecosystems, it is evident that an intact seagrass ecosystem – home to filter-feeders like bivalves, sponges, tunicates (marine invertebrates) – removes more bacteria from water.

As seagrass meadows and coral reefs are usually linked habitats, Lamb’s team examined more than 8,000 reef-building corals for disease. The researchers found lower levels – by twofold – of disease on reefs with adjacent seagrass beds than on reefs without nearby grasses. “Millions of people rely on healthy coral reefs for food, income and cultural value,” said Lamb.

Harvell, Lamb and their colleagues agree that these findings are key to conserving seagrass ecosystems. “Global loss of seagrass meadows is about 7 percent each year since 1990,” said Lamb. “Hopefully this research will provide a clear message about the benefits of seagrasses for human and marine health that will resonate globally.”

Regions around the world promote aquaculture to help feed populations, as diseases for many ocean-dwelling plants and animals increase, Harvell said, “Our goal is to stop measuring things dying and find solutions. Ecosystem services like seagrass meadow habitats are a solution to improve the health of people and the environment. Biodiversity is good for our health.”

In a meeting with his Israeli counterpart on the margins of the Munich Security Conference in Germany Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis underscored the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and its qualitative military edge, a spokesperson for Mattis said in a statement.

Mattis attended the conference on the current leg of an overseas trip in which he also participated in meetings with NATO defense ministers and defense leaders from partner nations in the fight to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Regional, Policy Issues

The secretary and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman discussed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Feb. 15 visit to Washington, as well as other mutual defense and regional policy issues, Higgins said.

“They concluded the meeting agreeing to continue close collaboration and consultation on a range of bilateral defense activities and initiatives,” she added.

A guitar from Kurt Cobain’s personal collection has gone on sale February 16 in a charity auction on eBay, NME reports.

The late Nirvana frontman owned the instrument – a Hagstrom Blue Sparkle Deluxe – from late 1992 (apparently a Christmas gift to himself) until his death in 1994. Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love, later gifted the guitar to a friend who played in an unspecified Seattle grunge band, before the instrument came into the possession of Nathan Fasold, a Portland-based collector of music memorabilia.

The guitar is now the subject of a charity auction on eBay, which will run until February 26 – the auction coinciding with what would have been Cobain’s 50th birthday on February 20.

Fasold has collaborated with eBay for Charity for the listing, with 10% of proceeds from the final sale of the guitar going to Transition Projects, Inc. – a Portland-based nonprofit that helps more than 10,000 people every year transition from homelessness to housing.

Earlier this month, 1000 musicians and Nirvana fans gathered in Italy to perform a cover of the 1991 grunge classic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

For the second time in a week, a Russian comedian has released a prank call with a top member of the U.S. Congress.

“Hello Mr. Prime Minister, how are you?” Arizona Sen. John McCain told a man known as Vovan, who was posing as Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

After exchanging pleasantries, the prankster said he wanted to talk about U.S. sanctions on Russia.

McCain told him he was sending a letter to President Trump, urging him to send “lethal weapons” to Ukraine to fight Russia.

The senator told the prankster he would do “everything I can to be of assistance” to push Trump to support his country.

“I have to be very frank with my friend, the prime minister. I do not know what the president is going to do,” McCain said.

McCain said his allies in Congress would fight legislatively if Trump attempts to ease sanctions on Russia.

“I will keep you informed as I hear of the decisions being made by the White House. As you know, there’s a great deal of confusion now, but we will continue to advocate — including our Senate leader, Sen. McConnell — for maintaining sanctions and increasing sanctions,” McCain told the prankster.

“But I have to tell you, my friend, I cannot predict what this president will do. That’s why we must keep the pressure on.”

Earlier this week, Vovan posted on his Facebook page a similar conversation with California Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

The comedian, posing as Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, and Waters discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia and Donald Trump’s position on them.

He went on to tell Waters that he has “good relations with Ms. Clinton.”

The comedian informed Waters that Russians hackers affected elections in the African province of Limpopo.

He told Waters Vladimir Putin advisors “Bovan” and “Lexus” ordered the alleged hacking.

“What are their internet names?” Waters inquired.

He then informed Waters that Putin invaded Gabon and she seemed to believe it.

The comedian told Waters about Putin’s new “hackers weapon.”

“Our president, he was in his office, and he watched the TV,” Vovan said in broken English. “And what happened, his TV channel changed by itself to Russia Today and it was interview with Putin.

“So, I don’t know, somehow they got access to TV lines,” he said.

“It happened to me, too!” Waters exclaimed in response.

“I was on the (House) floor talking and I got blacked out and Russia Today with an ad came on for 10 minutes.”

Vovan’s accomplice could be heard laughing in the background.

“That’s terrible,” he said.

“Yep, absolutely,” Waters said.

“We tried to find out who was responsible for it because C-SPAN manages our communications system and they could not give us a good explanation. They simply said it was a technical difficulty.”

Waters ended the call by saying she wanted to stay in touch and in the future “meet face-to-face.”

Intriguing coalition manoeuvres are taking shape in the opposition camp in Malaysia amid talk of an early general election.

By Joseph Chin Yong Liow*

Malaysia’s general election is not due until August next year. But the fact that UMNO (the United Malays National Organisation) branch and divisional meetings have been brought forward to this year has prompted speculation that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak may call the election later this year. This would allow the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition to capitalise on the anticipated celebratory mood come August, when Malaysia celebrates 60 years of independence.

However, there are also factors that mitigate against prospects for an early election. Malaysia watchers would be quick to point out that in 2013, Prime Minister Najib waited until the eleventh hour to request the dissolution of Parliament (by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong or King), paving the way for the 13th General Election. The forecast for the Malaysian economy this year is also hardly rosy: the value of the ringgit continues to plummet, US dollar-denominated exports are slowing down, and foreign bank lending has contracted in the wake of the 1MDB crisis.

Opposition Coalition Moves

Even so, rumours of an early election have spurred the opposition into action.

There is talk of a potential alliance between Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, or Bersatu, the new political party comprising disgruntled former UMNO members led by the nonagenarian former prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and PAS, the Islamist party, that has captured the headlines. Should a Bersatu-PAS alliance materialise, its significance should not be dismissed, especially given recent strains in PAS’ relationship with erstwhile political allies in the opposition movement, and its flirtation with UMNO.

It is ironic that as supposed fundamentalist Islamists, PAS has, in fact, been a member, either directly or indirectly, of every political alliance that has existed in the country since 1957. Indeed, it was once involved in an ill-fated union with UMNO from 1973 to 1978 under the BN umbrella. Despite that falling out, PAS continues to cultivate links with UMNO.

This time, the prospect of UMNO-PAS collaboration is being pursued ostensibly in the name of Malay-Muslim unity. This now finds expression in UMNO’s support for PAS’ call for review of the Malaysian Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act of 1965, the pet agenda of the conservative president of PAS, Abdul Hadi Awang. If tabled and passed when Parliament sits next month, it would pave the way for the controversial implementation of hudud (the Islamic penal code).

PAS’ Twists and Turns

For the leadership of PAS, pressing the hudud agenda has served a dual purpose apart from the obvious demonstration of Islamist credentials. First, it allowed party conservatives to deliberately foment a crisis with the DAP (Democratic Action Party), an ally they deeply distrust and have always preferred to keep at a distance. Second, it also allowed the party to purge itself of progressive elements who seemed prepared to sacrifice the imperative of Malay-Muslim unity at the altar of democracy and pluralism.

PAS has succeeded on both counts. By 2015, the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition which united PAS with the DAP (and Parti Keadilan Rakyat as well) all but collapsed. Meanwhile, the 2015 PAS party election deepened a rift between conservatives and progressives, culminating a year later in a split which saw the progressive faction leave PAS to form Amanah, which in turn immediately aligned itself with the DAP and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).

There was a further logic that precipitated PAS’ move to sidle up to UMNO. PAS is not merely an Islamic social movement, but a political party that, by definition, must aspire for political power. In order to achieve this, PAS must secure seats: in state legislatures, in Parliament, and in Cabinet.

However, in the 2016 split, the breakaway Amanah faction took with them its nine parliamentary seats out of a total of 21 that PAS won in the 2013 polls. Simply put, PAS desperately needs to win at least an additional nine seats, if not more, to bolster its fading fortunes. To that end, PAS pursued prospects for collaboration with UMNO in the hope that the latter would stand aside and allow PAS candidates to contest in some UMNO strongholds, and UMNO would refrain from contesting in PAS-held seats.

For UMNO, support from PAS would allow it to further cement its hold on the rural vote in the Malay hinterland. Yet, while each is hoping for the other to make tactical concessions on seat allocations, it remains unclear if either is prepared to do so.

Risk For UMNO

Given mounting pressure because of the 1MDB controversy and persistent rumours that the upper echelon of UMNO may not be as united as they appear, PM Najib simply cannot afford to risk antagonising the UMNO rank and file, which would almost certainly be the case if he gave up UMNO-held seats to PAS.

The cloud of uncertainty that shrouds relations with UMNO has prompted PAS to gravitate back to the opposition. Enter the latest in a long line of renegade UMNO parties, Bersatu. Its president Muhyiddin Yassin, himself a former deputy prime minister and deputy Umno president, has openly engaged PAS in discussions with an eye to an electoral pact. To lend credence to the effort, both parties have formed a working committee tasked with exploring a possible framework for collaboration.

Meanwhile, Nik Abduh Nik Aziz, conservative leader of the PAS youth wing – and who has developed a reputation as an avowed champion of the Malay-Muslim cause – raised eyebrows by making a surprise visit last week to a church in Kuala Lumpur where he engaged clergy in a cordial discussion on racial and religious harmony.

Not unlike its dalliance with UMNO, PAS’ apparent interest in returning to the opposition fray appears to be governed more by pragmatism than piety. For PAS, a working relationship with Bersatu would give it access to the latter’s election machinery in Johor and Kedah, two states where Bersatu is strong and PAS weak despite its numerous attempts at making inroads.

PAS could conceivably also use Bersatu as a mediator in order to keep Amanah from contesting in its traditional strongholds in Kelantan and Terengganu.

For Bersatu, the objectives are equally utilitarian – keep PAS away from UMNO while strengthening the opposition by bringing PAS back into its stable. To succeed, and given the trust deficit that exists between them, Bersatu would have to assume the challenging role of interlocutor between PAS on one hand, and the DAP and Amanah on the other. This scenario would not be dissimilar to what transpired in 1990, when PAS and DAP were held together by the UMNO offshoot of the day, Semangat ’46.

Coalition-building manoeuvres currently underway in the opposition camp doubtless put forward an intriguing prospect, not least of which is the apparent reconciliation between Dr Mahathir and his former protege turned nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim, and the possibility of PAS and the DAP working together yet again, albeit indirectly.

United Mostly Over Najib?

Yet this enthusiasm barely masks the reality that the opposition is still a motley crew held together by little more than a shared desire to see PM Najib removed from power (an objective which PAS is far less enthused about) and to avoid multi-cornered fights.

Removing Mr Najib will require them to defeat UMNO, and this will be a daunting task. As the incumbent, UMNO and its Barisan allies remain in possession of a sizable war chest.

Its grip on East Malaysia also remains secure. And there is the matter of UMNO’s core support base of the rural Malay vote, which has been conditioned over decades to respond to what they are told are threats – real or imagined – to their race and religion. This narrative remains a failsafe means through which the incumbent can mobilise support. To that effect, it is hardly a coincidence that controversy has been stirred over deceptively mundane matters such as the nomenclature of hot dogs, cakes served in McDonalds restaurants, and pig bristles in paint brushes.

Even if UMNO and BN can be defeated, crucial questions remain: will there be a consensus among the opposition as to who will be prime minister? What will PAS do about its hudud agenda? On what terms would a governing modus operandi be predicated, now that Bersatu has joined and PAS might return? As opposition parties strive to cobble together an understanding as the general election looms, they would do well to remember that the Malaysian political landscape is strewn with the graves of yesterday’s coalitions and causes.

*Joseph Chin Yong Liow is Professor of Comparative and International Politics and Dean, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This first appeared in The Straits Times.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on November 8, 2016, the entire country was caught unaware and was shocked, not knowing what would be the outcome. Many critics predicted that demonetisation would destabilise the economy, lead to loss of jobs and there would be riots.

Several international journals and critics were also surprised that the Prime Minister of a large populated country like India could take such a bold decision, with 30 per cent of the country’s population consisting of daily wage earners or belonging to lower income group and 80 per cent of transactions in the country being carried out in cash. Economists and political observers across the world have been following the events in India with great interest and scrutiny.

Now, three months after demonetisation, things have become nearly normal in the country and the doomsayers are eating their words. No riots or serious disturbances took place anywhere, reflecting the fact that majority of the common man welcomed the initiative of Prime Minister Modi, in spite of the inconvenience experienced by them.

What is noteworthy is the fact that the common man in India have been hoping against hope that any Prime Minister would take some strong steps to curb black money and wipe out corruption in the country. People believed that Modi’s objective in ordering demonetisation was positive and praiseworthy and they further thought that Modi’s promises are genuine.

Many impartial observers across the world now wonder as to whether any other Prime Minister in India or government in any other developing country could have issued such massive demonetisation order and survived the wrath of the people, who were subjected to considerable hardships due to lack of cash for transaction.

Prime Minister Modi has come out of the acid test, winning admiration all round.

Prime Minister Modi has been repeatedly saying that demonetisation is only the first step in his onslaught against corruption and black money in the country. The people, by and large, have accepted this statement at face value and have supported him. They are now looking forward to know as to what further step Modi would initiate to take his anti-corruption drive to the logical end.

The opposition parties and pledged critics of Modi are now saying that demonetisation will not drive out black money and it would again start generating and Modi cannot stop it. Modi has to prove his critics wrong and people want him to prove it effectively.

Obviously, people are in a hurry to see the results of demonetisation. They want corrupt people to be hauled up and punished effectively to create fear amongst the corrupt and dishonest individuals and groups.

The problem for Modi is that the government machinery at his disposal is itself largely corrupt. This has become fully evident when it was found during the peak period of the demonetisation exercise that several bank officials themselves colluded with the black money holders and helped them convert black money into white. Some of them have been caught but more may have remained undetected so far.

Another problem for Modi is the slow progress of judicial proceedings in dealing with corruption cases and the capability of the corrupt people and black money holders to circumvent the law or misinterpret the law with the help of highly skilled lawyers, some of whom are politicians themselves.

The entire country, including the critics and pledged admirers, are closely watching the next step of Modi. The anxiety of the anti-corruption crusaders is whether the challenges before Modi in continuing his battle against corruption would become too formidable for him to tackle.

By Chayanika Saxena*

India and Afghanistan as modern, independent nation-states have often attempted to bolster their bilateral ties on the premise of having a collective, common past. And, while these two South Asian states may have charted different journeys since their respective independence, poised at times in opposition to the other, yet the ties between India and Afghanistan have sustained all the ebbs and flows of times, particularly at the popular level.

Both countries stand at contrasting junctures today. Where India is an example of political and economic success with a reasonable degree of social cohesion, Afghanistan remains riven by sectarian conflict, shaky political institutions and an uninspiring economy. As Afghanistan attempts to re-build itself, the help extended by India has contributed a fair share in this process.

The Indian assistance to Afghanistan, which was renewed with the ouster of Taliban in 2001, has strategic, developmental and moral dimensions to it. Where an amount of USD 2 billion has already been spent by India in Afghanistan for its development, another USD 1 billion was assured to it at the 2016 Brussels’ Conference.

Developmentally, India has involved itself in Afghanistan in four sectors: (i) humanitarian assistance; (ii) mega infrastructure projects; (iii) small and community-based development project, and (iv) education and capacity development. The Afghan Shura-i-Milli (National Assembly/Parliament) and Salma Dam in Herat were inaugurated in the last two years, indicating India’s commitment to enable Afghanistan in delivering basic services to its people and ensure rule of law.

Moralistically, there are two clams kept by India in context of guiding the re-development of Afghanistan. First, India believes that it can serve as a model example of political, economic and social success that Afghanistan can take lessons from. Second, it holds that as international gaze turned on Afghanistan to eliminate bases of terror that had been promoted by different countries for their own reason, it has come to vindicate India’s long-standing fight against terrorism, making India a rightful partner of Afghanistan in its quest for peace and stability.

Strategically, the assistance extended by India to Afghanistan is a result of complex bilateral, regional and international equations. Bilaterally, strengthening of strategic ties between India and Afghanistan can (i) help in eliminating terror hideouts that are still being used to execute attacks in both countries, and (ii) provide India access to resource-rich Central Asia. Regionally, India and Afghanistan are aware that their ties are impacted by and leave an impact on Pakistan. Therefore, for India in particular, a strong, stable Afghanistan would come to mean less Pakistani interference in the country, which otherwise has spelt greater troubles for India. Internationally, for India the successful re-development of Afghanistan will serve to bolster its claim of being a rising global power with bilateral and regional pre-eminence.

Following from the potential that strengthened ties between India and Afghanistan hold, the two countries entered into ‘Strategic Partnership’ in 2011 with the aim of “training, equipping and capacity building programs for Afghan national security forces”. Mindful of regional and international sensitivities, this partnership, it is enshrined “is not directed against any state or group of state”. Rather, it delineates Indian interest in ‘cooperative security’ to deal with issues that are of common concern, including terrorism. This partnership agreement is also demonstrative of India’s ‘soft power’ as it lays considerable emphasis on people-to-people ties and social and economic development of Afghanistan alike.

The way ahead for India and Afghanistan as bilateral partners is clear – they want to cooperate. However, punctuated by regional and international dynamics, the path ahead for them is not so straight. There are many scenarios that post-2014 drawdown period has thrown up – (i) an unpredictable Washington, which while has reportedly committed to maintaining troop presence in Afghanistan, can go back on it anytime soon; (ii) emerging alliance between Russia, China and Pakistan over Afghan peace process; (iii) changing opinion of Russia and Iran on Taliban, where reports of assistance and talks have already been reported; (iv) a weakening Afghan state that has effectively lost 50% of its territorial control, and (v) an expanding Taliban whose attacks are getting deadlier and under whose eye, poppy production has increased by 43% compared to 2015. In these circumstances, reinforcement of Indian trust in the Afghan state could mean a lot, yet nothing at the same time.

India has steadfastly maintained that peace in Afghanistan can be re-instated only through a process that is ‘Afghan-owned and Afghan-led’. Adding another dimension to it of late, the Indian government has also sounded that he peace process has to be ‘Afghan-controlled’ as well. In the face of many external alliances and concerts that are emerging to bring peace to Afghanistan, albeit without taking into account the sensibilities of the country, are bound to go no far than the existing ones have. In this context, India’s direct attempts to indirectly assist the Afghan state to bolster its institutions and service delivery mechanisms have not only earned India praises, but they are also enabling Afghanistan to carve a better future for itself.

*Chayanika Saxena is a Research Associate with Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. This has been excerpted from a SPS policy paper by the author. For a detailed account of evolution of India-Afghanistan ties you can purchase SPS Brief “India re-calibrates ‘strategic ties’ with Afghanistan” (7,700 words). Contact: editor@spsindia.in

The US Senate on Friday in a 52 to 46 vote confirmed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (Dem) blasted the confirmation, claiming the vote should have been delayed until emails containing Pruitt’s correspondence with the fossil fuel industry are released next Tuesday per a judge’s order.

“What happened today was an egregious cover up, and a total abdication of the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to vet nominees before voting,” Merkley claimed.

According to Merkley, “As Oklahoma Attorney General, Scott Pruitt has protected polluters over the public at every step of the way. He has opposed clean air and clean water standards again and again, even when our children’s health is at stake.”

Merkley said it was wrong to hold the Friday vote today “before Senators and the American people have had the chance to see the full truth about Scott Pruitt.”

A cross-party bill in the Italian Senate proposes heavy fines and even jail time for individuals or media outlets who “undermine” democracy and publish “false, exaggerated or biased” news online and refuse to amend copy within 24 hours.

“There have always been ‘fake news’ or hoaxes, but they have never been spread at the rate we see today. Because of this, it is no longer possible to put off the debate,” said a statement prefacing the legislation, submitted by Adele Gambaro, a member of the small centrist Liberal Popular Alliance, whose initiative has the support of the bigger parties.

Ordinary ‘fake news’ reporting would merit a fine of €5,000 ($5,300), while “hate campaigns against individuals” or stories “aimed at undermining the democratic process” could result in €10,000 ($10,614) penalties. News items that would “cause alarm to the public” or “damage the public interest” will be punishable by up to one year in jail.

Traditional media outlets – newspapers and TV – would be exempt from the legislation.

“The internet has certainly expanded the boundaries of our freedom by giving us the opportunity to express ourselves on a global scale,” wrote Gambaro. “But freedom of expression cannot turn into a synonym for lack of control where control, in the information era, means correct news, for the protection of users.”

Additionally, operators of any online news outlets – including bloggers, and forum administrators – would have to apply for a license from the state to operate their website, as well as submitting their name, address, and tax data.

The proposal also calls for students to undergo special “media literacy” courses that would help them distinguish between reliable and deceptive sources of information.

By Amity Saha

Myanmar is an ethnically diverse country of Asia with its ethnic and religious minorities having a complex and contested history. There are 135 recognised national ethnic groups, according to the 1982 Citizenship Law. They are again labelled into eight major national ethnic races — such as Bamar (approximately two-thirds of the population), Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine and Shan.

Among them, almost 90 per cent of the population is Buddhists, four per cent Muslims, four per cent Christians and about two per cent Hindus. Most Christians belong to ethnic minorities, including Chin, Kachin and Kayin. Some Muslim communities are officially recognised as a distinct ethnic group (like the Kaman), others are known as “Bamar Muslims”, “Chinese Muslims” or “Indian Muslims”.

Rohingya Muslims comprise the largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar, with the majority living in Rakhine state. They self-identify as a distinct ethnic group with their own language and culture. Rohingya people have always felt the ancient connection to Rakhine state. Successive governments have rejected these claims and Rohingya were not included in the list of recognised ethnic groups. So, now most Rohingya people are documented as stateless.

The 1947 Panglong Conference visualised the creation of a federal union based on voluntary association and political equality. Upon getting independence in 1948, Myanmar was a quasi-federal union largely dominated by the Bamar ethnic group. Later, self-determination, greater autonomy and an equitable share of power and resources claimed by ethnic minorities have driven armed conflicts within the country in diverse range and quantity.

In 2015, the preceding Parliament adopted a package of laws seeking to “protect race and religion”. These laws discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities and women in violation of Myanmar’s international obligation. The “Religious Conversion Law” launches a State-regulated system for changing religion, which contravenes the right to freedom of religion or belief. The “Population Control Healthcare Law” approves a selective and coercive proposition to population control, including a potential requirement of 36 months birth spacing that would violate women’s right to choose the number and spacing of their children. The law could be used to target areas with significant minority communities. The “Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage Law” bars Buddhist women from marrying non-Buddhist men — irrefutably that is violating a person’s right to choose a spouse.

A State’s prerogative to grant or remove nationality is guarded under international law. The 1982 Citizenship Law of Myanmar is discriminatory and breaches the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality. According to CRC, Article No.7; this violates the right of every child to obtain nationality; as it fails to defend the attainment of citizenship for children born in Myanmar with no genuine link. It also gives overly wide powers to the government to invalidate citizenship without due protection. It has led and continues to lead to statelessness.

Myanmar has one of the largest stateless populations — around 1,090,000 — in the world; predominately Rohingyas in Rakhine state. The Rohingyas’ lack of citizenship worsens their vulnerability to a range of human rights violations.

In June 2014, the government initiated a citizenship verification process, piloted in Myebon town; located in Sittwe district of Rakhine state. Rohingyas refusing to identify themselves as “Bengali” were disqualified from the verification process. Those granted citizenship in Myebon were allowed to vote in 2015 but their freedom of movement and access to basic services and livelihood after receiving citizenship has not been enhanced. On June 7, 2016, a citizenship verification process — conducted within the framework of the 1982 Citizenship Law — was relaunched in Kyaukpyu, Myebon and Ponnagyun.

Rohingya and Kaman people face harsh boundaries in freedom of movement. Their stated purpose is to ensure security but their application is disproportionate and discriminatory by exclusively targeting Muslims. The majority of Rohingyas live in northern Rakhine state, where they require official authorisation to move between, and often within, townships. For example, a village departure certificate is required to stay overnight in another village. The procedures to secure travel are arduous and time-consuming. Failure to comply with requirements can result in arrest and prosecution. Restrictions routinely lead to felony, so law enforcement people and government officials are used to harassing people.

Since the June 2012 violence, township administrators have imposed a curfew in northern Rakhine state, allegedly to “protect the safety of both communities”. It has been regularly extended since 2012. The curfew is reportedly based on Section 144(1) of the Myanmar Code of Criminal Procedure, which permits temporary orders in urgent cases and requires a Magistrate or delegate to issue the curfew order. OHCHR has received credible allegations that the applicable procedure as per Section 144(1) has not been meeting the terms. The curfew gives wide discretionary powers to the authorities, including limitations on assembly and prohibiting movement between dusk and dawn. The curfew limits the ability of Muslims to worship and practice religion freely by limiting gatherings of more than five people. Apparently, it is only enforced against the Rohingyas. While a separate Presidential State of Emergency order was lifted in March 2016 in northern Rakhine state, the curfew remains in place.

Most of those displaced by the 2012 violence reside in central Rakhine state, in approximately 39 IDP camps. Restrictions on movement in camps are severe and many are under extreme security measures. In certain locations, there is strict control of access and exits through security checkpoints. According to the nature of these camps, many camps could be considered as places of deprivation of liberty, even like passing life in confinement, under international law.

The blanket restrictions on freedom of movement for Muslim communities clearly violate international human rights law, which requires any limitations to be necessary and proportionate. The restrictions discriminatingly target the Muslim population and severely constrain their access to livelihoods, food, healthcare and education. Lifting these restrictions is essential to addressing other human rights and humanitarian concerns in Rakhine state.

*Amity Saha is a Research Assistant (International Affairs) at Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA). Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

The Leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has reportedly threatened to strike Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor in the south of the country.

In a televised address, Nasrallah claimed the armed group was capable of hitting any strategic target inside Israel, including the atomic facility.

The Hezbollah chief also warned that the Lebanon based movement – branded a terrorist organization by the EU and US – would turn Israel’s nuclear arsenal against it. Israel is estimated to have more than 100 nuclear weapons, though their existence has never been confirmed or denied by the Israeli government.

Describing Donald Trump’s Middle East policy as ‘‘confusing,’‘ Nasrallah also said the US president’s meeting on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu had effectively marked the end of Middle East peace process. That saw Trump drop a US commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Original source

Officials from China’s communist government have expelled dozens of South Korean Christian missionaries following a series of police raids on church groups.

According to a recent report from Asianews, authorities arrested four missionaries and deported at least 32 more last week as part of an ongoing crackdown against Christian evangelizing. The missionaries had been working in the northeast Yanji region of the country, providing assistance to fugitives fleeing North Korea.

Dozens of South Korean Christian missionaries had traveled to China in past months and along with preaching the Christian gospel, they sought to help defectors navigate the perilous journey across the Yalu River, which separates China and North Korea.

The South Korean government in Seoul has confirmed reports that some Korean missionaries had been arrested in China, the Breibart website reported. Some of the missionaries had been working in China for decades.

Although foreign missionary work is illegal in China, local authorities have often turned a blind eye to evangelizing efforts by South Korean missionaries, taking advantage of the free humanitarian service they provide as well as the substantial bribes paid in order to avoid prosecution.

In recent years, however, China’s President Xi Jinping has tightened government control over religious activity in the country, often targeting Christians.

Alzheimer’s disease, which currently affects more than 40 million people, is the most common neurodegenerative disease in elder people. Early diagnosis is crucial both to treat the disease and to help the development of new medicines, as it hasn’t been possible to find a cure so far.

The development of Alzheimer’s has been proven to be closely linked to structural changes — related to the gray matter, responsible for processing information — and functional ones — related to the white matter, which connects the different regions of the brain through fibers — in the brain connectivity network, since a significant loss of fibers also causes functional alternations, such as memory loss.

However, diagnosis remains a challenge in spite of the scientific advances made, and to date it hasn’t been possible to determine how functional cerebral activity deteriorates the structural one and vice versa, which is a key element to better understand the development of this type of diseases.

In this regard, computer aided diagnosis (CAD) is an important tool since it helps physicians to understand multimedia content obtained in tests carried out in patients, which allows a simpler and more effective application of the treatment. One such procedure is medical imaging, which provides high resolution “live” information on the subject matter and allows the use of information related to the disease contained in the image. The BioSip research team, belonging to the University of Malaga, in collaboration with a group of researchers from the University of Granada, has been studying biomedical images and signals for years.

Researchers Andrés Ortiz, Jorge Munilla, Juan Górriz and Javier Ramírez (from the universities of Málaga and Granada) have recently published, in the renowned International Journal Of Neural Systems, a similar article called Ensembles of deep learning architectures for the early diagnosis of the Alzheimer’s disease. Said study presents a method for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s by the fusion of functional and structural images based on the use of the deep learning technique.

This Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique aims to model high-level data abstractions in order to enable computers to differentiate the brain of a healthy person from that of an ill person, by automatically extracting the affected regions of interest.

As the researchers explain, “the study uses deep learning techniques to calculate brain function predictors and magnetic resonance imaging to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. To do this, we have used different neural networks with which to model each region of the brain to combine them afterwards”.

The study explores the construction of classification methods based on the Deep Learning architectures applied to brain regions defined by the Automated Anatomical Labeling (AAL), a digital atlas of the human brain. To this end, images of the gray matter of each area of the brain have been divided according to the regions separated in different sectors by the AAL, which have been used to train deep learning neural networks specialized in the different regions of the brain. The knowledge acquired by said networks is subsequently combined by different fusion techniques presented in this paper.

Classification architecture

The result of this work is a powerful classification architecture that combines supervised and unsupervised learning to automatically extract the most relevant features of a set of images. The proposed method has been evaluated using a large database from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).

The results of this work, which has included patients with other cognitive deficits that can develop Alzheimer’s within two years, show the potential of AI techniques to reveal patterns associated with the disease. The accuracy rates obtained for the diagnosis allow to take a great step in the knowledge of the neurodegenerative process involved in the development of the disease, besides being useful as a starting point for the development of more effective medical treatments.

On the other hand, the techniques developed may serve as a starting point for the improvement of accuracy in the diagnosis of other dementias such as Parkinson’s disease.

By N Sathiya Moorthy*

At the annual Raisina Dialogue held in New Delhi from January 17-19, 2017, Sri Lanka’s Resettlement Minister Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka said the two nations would soon commence negotiations for an accord for India to develop the eastern Trincomalee port in his country. In July last, Fonseka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said a Singaporean company, Surbana Jurong, was to undertake the assignment. Sri Lanka and Surbana Jurong, an infrastructure major, had signed an MoU a month earlier, though the MoU was confined to preparing a master-plan for Trincomalee development.

More recently, there have been reports that the Sri Lankan Government has been talking to India and Japan for developing Trincomallee, as an industry zone. Earlier, when the Rajapaksa regime was around, a high-power industry team from India visited the country, a decision was announced for developing a ‘pharma hub’ in the East. But no forward movement has been reported, yet.

There is also nothing to conclude that the ‘choice’ for an overseas partner, if any, and especially of India for developing the strategically important Trincomallee town and port, had been made. For developing the town as an industrial zone implies the simultaneous development of the port. More importantly, there is nothing official to show that India has since accepted it. If anything, the New Indian Express has since claimed that India was not interested in the offer. Whether or not there was/is a communication gap within the Sri Lankan government — that too on a sensitive issue involving an equally sensitive Indian neighbour — neither government has since denied the New Indian Express’ claims.

In Beijing, Sri Lankan Ambassador Karunasena Kodittuvakku said on the nation’s Independence Day, on 4 February, that there was no question of allowing Chinese military to operate in the southern port city’s China-funded industry zone. Despite reservations, including those from President Maithiripala Sirisena and the entire political Opposition and also from ruling front partners, the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been going ahead with the transfer of 85 per cent stakes in the Hambantota port to the Chinese construction firm.

The implication is that even Trincomallee town and port, and other industrial zones could be developed only without any license for the investor-country’s military or other security agencies to be around. The same could be – and should be – the case in the case of Trincomallee, whoever be the investor-country. The reverse should be truer, and be seen as being so.

Independent of what Minister Fonseka or PM Wickremesinghe has said, or whether India is interested or not, there are elements in the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 that confers a special status on Trincomalee. Any Sri Lankan initiative to develop the Trincomalee port would hinge on it. Alternatively, Sri Lanka would have to (unilaterally) rescind it.

‘Appendix B’ to the Accord, signed between Sri Lanka’s then President J.R. Jayewardane and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is a document titled “Exchange of letters between the President of Sri Lanka and the Prime Minister of India”. Initiated by Rajiv Gandhi and acknowledged by Jayawardene, Para 2 of the letter begins by saying that they had agreed that they “will reach an early understanding about the relevance and employment of foreign military and intelligence personnel with a view to ensuring that such presences will not prejudice Indo-Sri Lanka relations”.

But in the specific context of Sri Lanka’s eastern port, Para 2 (II) has this to say: “Trincomalee or any other ports in Sri Lanka will not be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests.” Para 2 (III) continues in a near-similar vein, but specific to the World War vintage Trincomalee oil tank farm: “The work of restoring and operating the Trincomalee Oil Tank will be undertaken as a joint operation between India and Sri Lanka.”

The oil tank farm got a mention in Annexure B letter after reports indicated that Sri Lanka was planning to lease it out to a firm, supposedly acting as a front for the US at the height of the ‘Cold War’. India-Sri Lanka-US relations were some kind of a love-triangle then, just as the India-Sri Lanka-China relations are seen now.

The issues need to be contextualised to India-US relations and mutual suspicions after the Bangladesh War, especially in the light of the US sending out the Seventh Fleet to try and stalemate the war, which India won even before USS Enterprise entered the Indian waters. More importantly, it flowed even more from Sri Lanka’s suspicions and fears about India, after the latter had caused the division of another larger neighbour, Pakistan, and the creation of a new nation, Bangladesh.

Earlier reports at the time had said that Sri Lanka was leasing out land and licensing Voice of America (VoA) Radio to set up transmission towers in the country. Some Indian strategic thinkers said that it was aimed at eves-dropping on India, post-Bangladesh War, after the US learnt that Diego Garcia, not far away from the Sri Lankan coast in the Indian Ocean, was not enough.

In context, Para 2 (IV) of the Rajiv-Jayewardene stated underscored “Sri Lanka’s agreement with foreign broadcasting organisations will be reviewed to ensure that any facilities set up by them in Sri Lanka are used solely as public broadcasting facilities and not for any military or intelligence purposes”. More recent news reports have claimed since that VoA is winding up shop in Sri Lanka as it was found to be economically unviable (possibly because the tastes of GenX listeners have changed).

Reading between the lines, it follows that either India develops Trincomalee if Sri Lanka so desires, or should let the latter go elsewhere for the same. It also implies that involving third nations (whether the US then, or China now, or anyone else later on) even in developmental projects would require an evaluation of India’s concerns, if any, on the security front.

It’s thus that Sri Lanka offered the Hambantota Port first to India, under Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga and successor Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka went to China only after India showed disinterest in the port project, after finding it to be wholly uneconomical.

Did it imply that while evaluating the Hambantota Port project for economic viability, India also had the opportunity to assess security risks, if any, if the project went to any third-nation, especially a historic adversary such as China? If it was so, how was it conveyed to Sri Lanka, and what alternatives did India have to offer then now that it was not interested in the Hambantota Port project for the host-nation to develop and grow?

Alternatively, what guarantees would India have required for a third-nation engagement of the development kind in Sri Lanka, then and now? It’s not clear if India had found the answers, or even addressed the query in a more realistic way, without tying down Sri Lanka’s growth and development to its own interest and funding capabilities in third-nation projects of the kind?

The same applies to Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City project, where China’s role and share (for land) were whittled down to an extent after India expressed ‘concerns’. But the very same coalition government of President Maithiripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe looked the other way while deciding to sell 85 per cent of the stakes in the original Hambantota Port project, including 15,000 acres of land (as free-holding or with free-access) to the Chinese builder and funding agency.

If today the sale of Hambantota land to the Chinese agency is stalled, it would be either due to the Rajapaksa-centric public protests against the proposal, or to the internal bickering between President Sirisena and PM Wickremesinghe, or both. It won’t be because of India and Indian concerns, expressed in whatever form(s) or otherwise.

Likewise, if Sri Lanka’s Ports Minister and ex-cricketer Arjuna Ranatunga now wants the government to have decisive stakes in the Colombo Port terminal project (different from Colombo Port City) — and not the Chinese — it again should be due to non-India reasons. Ranatunga was among the first to back the Hambnantota sale proposal, but modified his stand to promise that the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) would be in charge of port security, and Sri Lanka would have the majority stakes.

The question thus narrows down to either India funding Sri Lanka’s development projects that it considered economically unviable or let Sri Lanka find other financial/construction partners. If nothing else, India cannot stand in the way nor be seen as doing so, citing its own ‘security concerns’ that are valid and justified otherwise.

It’s acknowledged that 70 per cent of all traffic in Colombo Port is because of south India’s high seas trade. In the context of China entering Sri Lanka in a very big way as a development partner, the question arose if India needed to create alternatives for its high seas trade. The fact remains that the Rajapaksa government did not offer the Colombo Terminal Project to India, or any other, and made it a China-only proposal/project, for reasons best known (only) to it.

But could India have thought ahead about the ongoing works for developing high-sea ports at Vizhinjam (Kerala) and Enayam (Tamil Nadu), at a distance of merely 37 km, and put in the moneys in Colombo terminal project, instead? If it’s a question of viability, whether in the case of Hambantota or now in Trincomalee, then there are also reported issues about Enayam project, for instance.

Alternatively, is there a way, India should reconsider the Enayam project, for instance, see if equal/equitable economic viability could be bestowed, for instance, on Trincomalee, rather than cry wolf later on – and to no avail ? The issue is simple. Either India gives Sri Lanka what it wants (modified, however, to whatever way possible, to ensure fiscal sense), even if it meant loss, or not complain.

Now, India may also have to study the Chinese proposals and projects more closely to see if their development plans for third-nation investments around India make fiscal and economic sense over the long- than medium-term, or if they are giving greater weight to their own ‘geo-strategic’ and security concerns in the Indian Ocean? In context, India also needs to consider if making tit-for-tat investments, including on maritime security, of Vietnam, for instance, to try and check China would have made greater sense after it had won over neighbours, instead — rather than the other way round?

Whoever is in power, there seems a clear but unspelt out national consensus in Sri Lanka about its own development projects and security. They would not want to do anything to upset the Indian neighbour on the security front — accord or no accord. It’s because they also share the same concerns. But they are not going to wait endlessly for India to be ready (financially and politically) to be able to make massive development investments in their country.

It’s only in the way that a Rajapaksa here or a Wickremesinghe there says it, and works on it, or works around it — and expresses it – that differs. Whether it’s Hambantota Port earlier, or Trincomalee now (or reportedly so), India is seen as taking the decision not to invest time, money and energy on the development part — and purportedly putting fiscal costs ahead of security concerns.

Unsaid, the Sri Lankan one-liner is simple: “India cannot have the cake and eat it too.” Expanded, it means that whoever is the ruler, Sri Lankans are more worried about their own immediate priorities of development, job-creation, income-generation and growth, than India’s distant security concerns. In the post-war era, Sri Lankan rulers are also under domestic compulsion to show the people that they are going in the right direction, and not just on the ethnic and war-crimes probe fronts, but more so in making every-day life and livelihood more comfortable and aspiration-driven.

To them all, India or China, the US or Russia, is only a means to an end — but not an end in itself. In the process, if they do not care about the price that Sri Lanka as a nation would have to pay for the economically unviable decision that their rulers take, it’s their decision — and not that of India. It’s though unclear if they have at all evaluated the costs — fiscal and economic, political and security-wise — over the medium- and long terms (which is what the Hambantota land-sale is also about).

*N Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter, of the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Pope Francis on Friday sent a message of encouragement to the hundreds of religious and community leaders participating in a meeting of popular movements being held this week in California.

“It is the Church, the Christian community, people of compassion and solidarity, social organizations. It is us, it is you, to whom the Lord Jesus daily entrusts those who are afflicted in body and spirit, so that we can continue pouring out all of his immeasurable mercy and salvation upon them,” Pope Francis said in his Feb. 17 message to a regional meeting of popular movements being held in California.

“Here are the roots of the authentic humanity that resists the dehumanization that wears the livery of indifference, hypocrisy, or intolerance.”

The Feb. 16-18 conference being held in Modesto, about 30 miles southeast of Stockton, was organized with the support of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and the PICO National Network.

The PICO network was a recipient of part of a $650,000 grant from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Documents from the foundations posted to DCLeaks.com claimed the grant was part of a strategy to use Pope Francis’ U.S. visit to shift the priorities of the Catholic Church in the United States “to be a voice on behalf of the poor and communities of color.”

“PICO and FPL have been able to use their engagement in the opportunity of the Pope’s visit to seed their position in the long-term project of shifting the priorities of the U.S. Catholic Church to focus on issues of injustice and oppression,” the memo said.

The conference aims to promote the structural changes for greater justice in racial, social, and economic areas.

“It makes me very happy to see you working together towards social justice,” Pope Francis said in his message to the meeting. “How I wish that such constructive energy would spread to all dioceses, because it builds bridges between peoples and individuals. These are bridges that can overcome the walls of exclusion, indifference, racism, and intolerance.”

The Pope confronted the “invisible tyranny of money” as a disability and restriction to human dignity and the common good. He also discouraged corrupt acts which leads to the benefit of a few and to the ruin of many families.

“The economic system that has the god of money at its center, and that sometimes acts with the brutality of the robbers in the [Samaritan] parable, inflicts injuries that to a criminal degree have remained neglected. Globalized society frequently looks the other way with the pretense of innocence. Under the guise of what is politically correct or ideologically fashionable, one looks at those who suffer without touching them.”

Pope Francis said we must instead respond with change to a system that better reflects loving our neighbor as ourselves. Emphasizing the need for immediate action, he said it is our responsibility to pay attention to present realities, which if unchecked may develop a dehumanizing system that is harder to reverse.

“These are signs of the times that we need to recognize in order to act. We have lost valuable time: time when we did not pay enough attention to these processes, time when we did not resolve these destructive realities. The direction taken beyond this historic turning-point … will depend on people’s involvement and participation and, largely, on yourselves, the popular movements.”

The call for action comes at a time of immigration reform and a refugee crisis.

Pope Francis reiterated the question of the lawyer to Christ in the Gospel of Luke: “Who is my neighbor? … My relatives? My compatriots? My co-religionists?” He recognized that the lawyer’s hope may have been for Christ to label neighbors and non-neighbors.

“Do not classify others in order to see who is a neighbor and who is not,” the Pope exhorted. “You can become neighbor to whomever you meet in need, and you will do so if you have compassion in your heart. That is to say, if you have that capacity to suffer with someone else. You must become a Samaritan.”

Recalling that those at the conference have a commitment “to fight for social justice, to defend our Sister Mother Earth and to stand alongside migrants,” Pope Francis affirmed this choice and shared reflections on “the ecological crisis” and that “no people is criminal and no religion is terrorist.”

“The ecological crisis is real,” he emphasized first. “Science is not the only form of knowledge, it is true. It is also true that science is not necessarily ‘neutral’ — many times it conceals ideological views or economic interests. However, we also know what happens when we deny science and disregard the voice of Nature. I make my own everything that concerns us as Catholics. Let us not fall into denial. Time is running out. Let us act. I ask you again – all of you, people of all backgrounds including native people, pastors, political leaders – to defend Creation.”

“No people is criminal and no religion is terrorist,” Pope Francis then said. “Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist. No people is criminal or drug-trafficking or violent.”

He recognized, however, that “there are fundamentalist and violent individuals in all peoples and religions – and with intolerant generalizations they become stronger because they feed on hate and xenophobia.”

“The wounds are there, they are a reality. The unemployment is real, the violence is real, the corruption is real, the identity crisis is real, the gutting of democracies is real,” he continued, identifying the world’s suffering as a “gangrene” whose stench has become unbearable, leading to more hate, quarrels, and even a “justified indignation.”

In the face of this crisis, he said Christians have an opportunity to impact the world: “We also find an opportunity: that the light of the love of neighbor may illuminate the Earth with its stunning brightness like a lightning bolt in the dark.”

He ended his message in reference to the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: “let us give everything of ourselves: where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, let us sow pardon; where there is discord, let us sow unity; where there is error, let us sow truth.”

In the course of his message, he thanked Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Bishop Armando Ochoa of Fresno, Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, Bishop David Talley of Alexandria, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

“I would also like to highlight the work done by the PICO National Network and the organizations promoting this meeting,” Pope Francis also said. “I learned that PICO stands for ‘People Improving Communities through Organizing’. What a great synthesis of the mission of popular movements: to work locally, side by side with your neighbors, organizing among yourselves, to make your communities thrive.”

By Michael Lelyveld

China has cut coal production for the third year in a row, according to government figures, despite a host of reasons to doubt that it did.

Based on official data, China’s mines produced 3.36 billion metric tons of coal last year, down sharply by 9.4 percent from 2015. The decrease marked the biggest annual drop so far since production peaked in 2013.

The steep decline reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) would be good news for environmental advocates seeking reductions in smog and greenhouse gas emissions, if it turns out to be true.

China produces and burns about half the world’s coal, accounting for 64 percent of the country’s energy supply last year, based on official data.

Largely coal-fired power, winter heating and the recent resurgence of steel production have been blamed for China’s unrelenting bouts of urban smog.

While the reported drop in coal production suggests that conditions are getting better, China’s frequent smog alerts make the opposite case that coal-caused pollution has been getting worse.

Over 57 percent of China’s 338 cities monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) suffered varying degrees of air pollution late last month. Nearly 20 percent reported “serious” or “heavily polluted” air, state media said.

The cumulative 13.2-percent cut in officially-reported coal output since 2014 suggests citizens could see some relief, but doubts about the figures may outweigh NBS claims.

Reason for concern

One reason for concern is a widely reported disruption of the coal market in the second half of 2016, caused by the government’s poorly executed plan to shed surplus production capacity at China’s mines.

Last February, the cabinet-level State Council responded to a three-year slump in coal prices and profits by ordering mines to reduce overcapacity by 500 million tons a year and to consolidate another 500 million tons under more efficient operators by 2020.

After months without progress in meeting targets set for 2016, the government’s top planning agency pressured the mines to make rapid cuts, resulting in sudden shortages at power plants and a price spike of over 50 percent.

At the end of 2016, the price of coal used for power production stood at 639 yuan (U.S. $93) per ton, up 72.7 percent from the start of the year, the official English-language China Daily said.

Production surged in the third and fourth quarters as idled mines reopened to reap the profits and meet the demand.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) authorized an increase in operations and urged 900 mines to boost output by a collective 1 million tons a day.

Coal output rose each month from September through December as the mines responded, although the output never reached year-earlier levels, according to NBS data.

But the NBS calculations are impossible to verify, in part because the agency apparently neglects to update adjustments to its year-earlier figures.

On its website, for example, the NBS claims that coal production fell by 5.1 percent and 3.0 percent in November and December respectively from the comparable 2015 periods.

But calculations based on the posted data yield smaller declines of 2.7 and 1.8 percent.

And although production officially lagged, China’s coal imports soared 25.2 percent last year to 255.5 million tons, the General Administration of Customs said.

Unauthorized coal production

The inconsistencies are compounded by questions about whether unauthorized coal production is counted at all, even after it is detected by the authorities.

On Jan. 17, for example, 10 miners were killed by a cave-in at the Danshuigou mine near Shuozhou city in northern China’s Shanxi province, due to “illegal” and “over-quota” production as well as “poor maintenance,” the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) said.

China National Coal Group (ChinaCoal), the owner, had a provincial quota of 75,000 tons per month, but it produced 400,000 tons in November and 260,000 tons in December, SAWS said, according to a Reuters report.

The agency cited “fake safety measurement data,” but it did not make clear whether the extra output was included in NBS reports. ChinaCoal has launched a company-wide investigation of illegal production at over 50 of its mines, a spokesman said.

Tim Wright, professor emeritus of Chinese studies at Britain’s University of Sheffield and an expert on China’s coal industry, said that skepticism over the official data is justified.

“With the government calling for cuts in production, the incentive is to report them, whatever the reality,” Wright said in an email message.

While it is hard to tell whether over-quota production is included in the NBS reports, Wright said that “even if it is, most of it is not found out.”

Wright noted that China has previously made major revisions to coal data to correct underreporting, but the acknowledgments may come years after the fact.

In 2015, the NBS revised coal figures for 2000 to 2013, making upward adjustments of 7 percent for production and 14 percent for consumption, according to calculations by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Wright said that production numbers for 1999-2000 were similarly raised retroactively by over 20 percent.

The higher totals for those years may distort comparisons with more recent unrevised figures.

In 2011, a study for Stanford University and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also found that production reports from China’s provinces over the previous decade often topped national totals by as much as 500 million tons a year, suggesting a large illegal coal trade.

Push for cleaner energy sources

Despite the doubts, at least one key statistic seems to support the NBS estimate that coal production declined last year.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) reported that the volume of coal used in power generation fell 3 percent last year, while electricity consumption rose 5 percent.

Electricity use rebounded after a scant increase of 0.5 percent in 2015. The results for coal use appear to reflect the push for cleaner sources from renewables and natural gas, as well as reactions to the price increase.

In a response to the smog crisis, the NEA also announced last month that it had ordered the cancellation of 104 coal-fired power projects in 13 provinces, some of which were already in progress.

But China’s five-year energy plan released by the NDRC in December suggests that even if coal production did fall last year, the decrease may be temporary as the government seeks to support economic growth.

The plan would allow coal production to rise from 3.75 billion tons in 2015 to 3.9 billion tons in 2020, while consumption would grow from 3.96 billion to 4.1 billion tons.

The NDRC’s latest revised targets for reducing production overcapacity in the five-year plan call for cuts of 800 million tons by 2020 compared with 2015. By then, coal’s share of primary energy would be lowered to 58 percent.

Over the longer term, the share of coal is expected to fall below 45 percent by 2035 with increased contributions from gas and non-fossil sources, according to the recently released BP Energy Outlook for 2017.

Wright said it is unclear how much of last year’s increase in smog alerts can be correlated with changes in coal volumes due to other variables.

“Obviously, much of (the smog) is coal related,” he said.

By Chayanika Saxena*

As peace remains elusive in Afghanistan, the lifting of international sanctions on Gulbuddin Hekmatyar which has paved the way for his return to the political ‘mainstream’ of the country has evoked varying responses. These reactions have varied from this development being seen as a step in the direction of peace and reconciliation to an act that does more harm than good to the peace process. And then, we also have the Taliban that has dubbed Hekmatyar’s action as an act of treachery against the (common) cause of jihad.

Internationally, too, the opinion, it seems, is divided although not overtly so. Where the US and other trans-Atlantic stakeholders have been forthcoming on the acceptance of this deal, it was reported that the Russians had placed the removal of sanctions against Hekmatyar under ‘technical hold’. Incidentally, this hold coincided with the Russian display of inclination for talks with the Taliban ‘movement’, which as is known, had rivalled Hezb-e-Islami for patronage and funds from ISI.

India too has expressed its reservations over the deal, less for any moralistic reason and more so because it is aware of the support Hekmatyar had enjoyed in Pakistan and which it may continue to do.

It is interesting to note that a faction of Hezb-e-Islami had already parted ways with the militant movement to become part of the political process in 2004 itself — Hezb-e-Islami (Afghanistan); a political party of which the son-in-law of Hekmatyar, Ghairat Baheer, too, is part.

HIG’s entry into the political mainstream could gain from this existing presence of a party that was born out of it and carries a similar name. Moreover, the government too in its amnesty provisions has ensured HIG a role in the political and military institutions. With the much due elections to Parliament and District Councils (hopefully) around the corner, HIG could test the political waters for itself.

The peace deal, for all the reactions it has elicited, has largely been hailed as a success for the National Unity Government that has been dealing with fissiparous tendencies since its inception. In fact, the ‘return’ of Hekmatyar is being projected solely as a dedicated effort of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, given that non-Pashtuns have generally despised Hekmatyar for his ‘past’ and that former President Hamid Karzai (who is a Pashtun) could not bring the former ‘warlord’ to renounce violence and join the political mainstream.

Hekmatyar, with his political and social influence in the Pashtun dominated regions, can hopefully deliver support to the Pashtun President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani in the upcoming elections and bolster the latter’s position vis-à-vis the increasingly discredited Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. It is worth noting that both Hekmatyar and Ghani are from the same major tribe – Ghilzai.

As of now, the peace process in Afghanistan, which is being given another push with the proposed conduct of a six-nation talk this month (Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, India and Afghanistan), could place the peace deal with Hekmatyar as an example demonstrating that peace is possible. But the question is: At what cost?

*Chayanika Saxena is a Research Associate at the Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in