Donald Trump gave a speech Friday at South Carolina’s Boeing facility, where the new 787 “Dreamliner” was unveiled. He said the plane was “built right here” in South Carolina, and that “our goal as a nation must be to rely less on imports and more on products made here in the U.S.A.“

That’s pure fantasy. I’ll let you know why in a moment.

He also called for “a very substantial penalty to be paid when they fire their people and move to another country, make the product, and think that they are going to sell it back.” And said he’ll lower taxes and get rid of regulations that send our jobs to those other countries. “We want products made by our workers in our factories stamped by those four magnificent words, ‘Made in the U.S.A.’”

Trump doesn’t seem to know anything about global competition, and what’s really holding back American workers.

In fact, almost a third of Boeing’s Dreamliner comes from abroad.

And not from low-wage countries. In fact, the Dreamliner’s components come from countries with high taxes and high regulations, good wages, strong unions, excellent schools including technical education, and universally-available health care.

For example:

1.The Italian firm Alenia Aeronautica makes the center fuselage.

2. French firm Messier-Dowty makes the aircraft’s landing-gear system.

3. German firm Diehl Luftfahrt Elektronik supplies the main cabin lighting.

4. Swedish firm Saab Aerostructures manufactures the access doors.

5. Japanese company Jamco makes parts for the lavatories, flight deck interiors and galleys.

6. French firm Thales makes its electrical power conversion system.

7. Thales selected GS Yuasa, a Japanese firm, in 2005 to supply it with the system’s lithium-ion batteries.

Oh, and the first delivery of the Dreamliner is scheduled to take place next year – to Singapore Airlines. Currently there are 149 orders for it from worldwide customers including British Airways and Air France.

In other words, contrary to Trump, the Boeing Dreamliner is made all over the world and will be sold all over the world.

Trump’s “America First” economics is pure demagoguery. We get a first-class workforce by investing in Americans’ education, training, infrastructure, and healthcare – and rewarding them with high union wages.

We don’t boost the competitiveness of American workers through xenophobic grandstanding.

Humanity is in desperate need of individuals and organizations to speak up for their right to live free from the threat of state violence. Instead we have a human rights industrial complex which speaks for the powerful and tells lies in order to justify their aggressions. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are at the top of this infamous list. They have a pattern and practice of giving cover for regime change schemes hatched by the United States, NATO partners and gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty International recently released a report “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria” which claimed that the Syrian government executed between 5,000 and 13,000 people over a five-year period. The report is based on anonymous sources outside of Syria, hearsay, and the dubious use of satellite photos reminiscent of Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations in 2003. There is plenty of hyperbolic language like “slaughterhouse” and “extermination” but scant evidence of the serious charges being made.

Human Rights Watch joined the fray just days later, with claims that the Syrian government used chlorine gas against civilians fleeing Aleppo. Once again, the claims had little evidence, just mud thrown against a wall in the hope that some of it will stick. It is the al Nusra front which attacked the Aleppo refugees as they struggled to get within the Syrian army lines. One day there is a report on execution, another day chemical weapons, barrel bombs the next day and so on. These phony organizations never mention that the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria was brought about by western intervention and its head chopping jihadist allies.

The Syrian war isn’t over, but that government and its allies are winning and they will determine the future of that nation. It is Russia, Turkey and Iran who are convening peace talks between Syria and the opposition and that is why the effort to discredit them goes on.

Beginning in 2011 the United States used a tried and true method of getting support for imperialism. A foreign leader is accused of being a tyrant who terrorizes his nation. The claims silence critics, get buy in from corporate media and cynical politicians and ultimately lead to death at the hands of the so-called saviors. There are 9 million Syrian refugees precisely because of collusion between the west and its gulf monarchy allies. The suffering of the civilian population is the fault of these parties and it is only the determination of the Syrians and help from their allies which prevented it from going the way of Libya.

Now that the jihadists are on the run and their one-time backer Turkey has switched sides, the jig is up. But the imperialists will not go away quietly. That is why Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reappear at a crucial moment.

New president Donald Trump is quite literally a wild card. During his campaign he claimed he would not support regime change but his personality and policy are erratic. It is never clear what he means or wants. His staff are equally amateurish and the direction of American foreign policy is anyone’s guess. One day he wants better relations with Russia and the next he makes a futile demand that it return Crimea to its neo-Nazi overlords. But republicans and democrats in the war party are quite clear on their plans. They are not giving up in their quest for hegemony and they need all the credibility they can get. Enter Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to provide propaganda at just the right moment.

If they were at all serious in their stated goal of giving voice to the abused, they could use their ample resources to criticize the United States domestically and around the world. When president George Bush instigated the invasion or Iraq in 1991 they repeated the fable of soldiers killing babies in incubators. They never explained or apologized for their actions. They continued their awful partnership in 2011 when they provided cover for the Obama administration’s attack on and destruction of Libya.

Neither organization will denounce the American carceral state, the world’s worst. They might attack the modern-day police slave patrol which kills three people every day. They could ask why the United States has an implicit right to decide that Libya or Syria or Somalia can be destroyed and their populations be forced to suffer. But taking on those issues would be in defiance of their true mission, creating the conditions necessary to allow the United States to commit aggressions without fear of public opposition.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are not friendly to the people of the world. They pick on the weak and the targets of imperialist attack and tell lies on behalf of those who violate human rights on a mass scale. Despite playing a lead role in the Syrian disaster, the United States was invited to be an observer at the upcoming peace talks. Enter AI and HRW to help make sure that if the Trump administration should participate, it won’t be making any changes they need worry about. The human rights industrial complex is dependably on the side of the evil doers and their dirty deeds.

By Harsh V. Pant

The Trump administration, after making a chaotic start at home, has started venturing abroad. Not surprisingly, Asia remains its big focus.

So far, Trump has managed to antagonize the Mexican president and the Islamic world as well as harangue the Australian prime minister and the French president. More interestingly, after reaching out to his Chinese counterpart via a letter in which he expressed a desire to form a “constructive relationship”, Trump decided to accept the traditional US approach of pursuing a “One China” policy.

US defence secretary James Mattis was in Asia recently as the first member of the Trump cabinet on foreign shores for talks with Japan and South Korea—two of America’s closest allies. This visit was an attempt to underscore the importance of Asia in Trump’s foreign policy matrix.

Expectations from the new defence secretary are high as he is widely viewed as a bulwark against an inexperienced White House. Trump’s pronouncements about the need for allies to pull their weight have led to some concerns in the region about his administration’s priorities. These concerns have been reflected in the promptness of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s visit to the US immediately after Trump’s victory.

Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him after his election when he visited Trump Tower in Manhattan the week after Trump’s victory. In Asia, Mattis tried to address the North Korean threat, China’s moves in the South China Sea, and calm jittery allies unsure over Trump’s campaign pledges to pull US troops out of overseas bases in the region.

In Tokyo, Mattis met his Japanese interlocutors but he did not ask them to cough up more to pay for protection from the US, as President Trump had suggested during the campaign. His most significant statement was a reiteration of the US defence commitment to backing Japan in its dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands, which China has claimed as its sovereign territory and calls Diaoyu. Much like his predecessor, Mattis too reaffirmed that the uninhabited islands, which have large gas reserves in their territorial waters, are covered by the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the US.

Though he took on China by suggesting that it “shredded the trust of nations in the region” with the island-building and by using political pressure on states in the region, he refrained from calling for an increase in American military presence in the region. Abe’s visit to the US last week saw Tokyo offering direct financial, engineering and technical input for Trump’s proposed infrastructure development programme as well as other proposals for cooperation in cutting-edge technologies such as commercial aircraft, robots and artificial intelligence. This plan, the ‘Japan-US growth and employment initiative’, is the centrepiece of Abe’s outreach to Trump. Tokyo is hoping to embed the larger US-Japan relationship in the economic leverage that it can bring to bear on it.

In South Korea, Mattis addressed the controversy over the joint decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) battery in response to North Korean ballistic missile development. He had already reaffirmed American commitment to the deployment of a Thaad system to defend against North Korean ballistic missiles despite recent pressure from China to cancel the deployment.

In a veiled reference to China’s concerns that a Thaad radar could be used to look into Chinese territory, Mattis said “there’s no other nation that needs to be concerned about Thaad other than North Korea”. He, however, warned that if Pyongyang used nuclear weapons against the US or its allies, it “would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming.”

The regional response to the Trump administration’s initial moves has already begun. After hitting back at Mattis for his comments on the Senkaku Islands, Chinese warships cruised around the contested islands this week, in a likely response to Mattis’ remarks over the weekend that Washington “will continue to recognize Japanese administration of the islands”. The Chinese media is threatening Washington regularly these days for what it argues is an inflammatory approach by the new administration.

North Korea has test-fired the Pukguksong-2 missile, a surface-to-surface medium-to-long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, just when Abe was in Washington. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is making good on his promises to warm relations with China in contrast to the recent tensions between the two countries over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

Other states are waiting and watching, given the unpredictability of the Trump administration. Despite the rhetoric, the new dispensation in Washington is largely following the path laid down by its predecessor for now. Structural constraints are proving too formidable to articulate an alternative response to rapidly evolving regional realities. But it’s not readily evident if this is sustainable in the long term, given the strong views of the US President and his inner team. At the moment, Trump is encountering the limits of presidential power, much like his predecessors.

This article was originally published in Live Mint

By C Uday Bhaskar*

The successful launch of 104 satellites on a single rocket by the Indian Space Resarch Organisation (ISRO) on February 15 is a world record and Indian space scientists are to be commended for this accomplishment.

Certain characteristics of the Indian launch accord ISRO a distinctive niche in the global space endeavour. ISRO is the most cost-effective among its peers and this is illustrated in the total investment or spend in space by the major players.

As of end 2016 the total spending in the space sector is as follows: USA – $39 billion ; China $6 bn ; Russia $5 bn ; Japan $3.5 bn; and India $1.2 bn. ISRO has acquired a certain credibility of being able to offer relatively low-cost launches and it is estimated that across the board the Indian option is between 50 to 60 percent less expensive than its competitors.

This low-cost is enabled by the relatively lower wages paid to the average Indian space scientists and technicians and this advantage needs to be nurtured for the long-term by ISRO.

The credibility of ISRO apart, the Indian space effort has a clear development and human-security focus and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has indicated that India will offer space related technical assistance to its South Asian neighbors.

Most of the satellites launched on Wednesday were for foreign clients – 101 in total – and a US based entity had as many as 88 nano-satellites called Doves. These small under 5 kg platforms offer valuable surveillance of very small objects and have a number of potential applications.

While ISRO has acquired certain niche competence in satellite launch, it still operates below the heavy satellite category. The Wednesday launch has a total payload of below 1400 kgs. India needs to acquire appropriate cryogenic engine capability that will allow it to launch heavier payloads above the current 1.5 ton ceiling.

*C Uday Bhaskar is Director, Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at cudaybhaskar@spsindia.in

Friday the annual Munich Security Conference is kicking off, bringing together some of the world’s most influential voices on security and defense at the Bayerischer Hof hotel. While most people will be analyzing and over-analyzing the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Team Trump, I think it is much more interesting to cast a look backward at the past.

Ten years ago at this event, a much younger pre-Botox Vladimir Putin, approaching the end of his second presidential term and only months after the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, used his platform at the Munich Conference to aggressively lash out at the perceived injustices of the international system, and lay into the US foreign policy establishment with no small amount of bitterness. It was a real Khrushchev-shoe-banging kind of moment. Here are some of my thoughts on the speech at the time.

This famous 2007 Munich speech was also the opportunity for Putin to elaborate Russia’s worldview (nevermind that it mostly nonsense) and provide what the Kremlin sees as a guiding framework for its role in the world based on the rejection of US-led unipolarity. To quote Putin:

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world. And this is not only because if there was individual leadership in today’s – and precisely in today’s – world, then the military, political and economic resources would not suffice. What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilisation.

Don’t you love that characteristic mocking and permanent big chip on shoulder? But he was just warming up. Later came this gem:

Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. Mr Teltschik mentioned this very gently. And no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

That’s right, the guy who unleashed a disastrous civil war in Chechnya resulting in more deaths and disappearances than a minor genocide is building up his case that the projection of American power must be halted. Or, at the very least, America’s horrifically miscalculated adventures in Iraq should indicate that we need to stop talking about human rights abuses in Russia.  He wasn’t finished of course.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

So the guy whose government oversaw the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the poisoning of Litvinenko (and currently, Vladimir Kara-Murza), the jailing for ten years of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (and current conviction of Alexei Navalny), has a bone to pick on international law with the arrogant neocons in Washington.

But again, you have to admit that much of this text is brilliant – were it coming from someone with an ounce of credibility, enough of this speech makes sense. It’s a patented Russian cocktail of just enough truth, a sprinkling of facts to help the crazy go down.

From here Putin goes on to propose that we reject the current architecture of global security and move toward multipolarity – in others words, Russia is back and demands its seat at the table.

Well, back now in 2017 they certain have that seat at the table, and they certainly find themselves in the news headlines every single day, with an American president who voices many of the same arguments from Munich 2007. Even Germany, as I am writing this, is talking about the US threat to European unity and security.  So the obvious question: is Putin satisfied? Hardly.

More on that to come very soon.

By Namrata Hasija*

The South China Sea issue has flared tensions not only between China and the other claimants Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines but also the US, Japan and Australia. However, the international community has ignored Republic of China’s (Taiwan) claims over South China Sea – and this despite the fact that Taiwan controls Taiping Island which is the biggest island in South China Sea before China started building artificial islands in the region.

On July 12, 2016 when an arbitral tribunal in The Hague issued a landmark ruling, overturning many of China’s claims in the South China Sea, it was PRC and ROC which refused to accept the decision. This ruling was the result of a case filed by the Philippines against the People’s Republic of China, in 2013, raising legal objections to Beijing’s claims and behaviour in the disputed area.

Taiwan shares many of its South China Sea claims with the PRC which were initiated by the Chiang Kai-Shek government right after the Second World War and before it shifted to Taiwan. Taiwan, in fact, claims to have historical documents supporting its claims. However, Taiwan’s claims were also challenged in the case Republic of Philippines v/s People’s Republic of China but as it is not part of any UN Convention it was unable to defend its case. It was refused even an observer status in the case. The ruling declared Itu Aba, known as Taiping Island in Taiwan, as a rock and not an island, as it cannot sustain a human community without external aid.

Taiwan held rescue drills in November 2016 after the Tribunal decision to reassert its claim on Taiping Island and surprisingly got no backlash from Mainland China. In a way, China sees ROC protecting its own rights in the region as China sees the ‘1992 consensus’ as the base of their relationship. According to the consensus, both sides agree that there is one China although the definitions are different.

China also demonstrated its right over the area and towards the end of December 2016, a group of Chinese warships, led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier, passed south of Taiwan and entered the top half of South China Sea in what China termed ‘a routine exercise’.

It is high time that Taiwan differentiated its position from Beijing’s claim on South China Sea; otherwise Taiwan will be seen as serving China’s cause. If China is successful in its plans for South China Sea, it can use it to deploy submarines and navy against Taiwan.

Taiwan has spoken about resource sharing and development in the region same as China, however, China has not defined how that can be done. Taiwan can take the opportunity and define clearly how it can be done.

*Namrata Hasija is Research Associate at South Asia Monitor and President, Taiwan Alumni Association in India. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Pakistan’s largest exploration and production (E&P) company, Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC) has announced its half yearly (1HFY17) financial results. The Board of Directors also approved payment of one Rupee per share interim dividend.

Both the financial results and dividend payout are below expectations.

OGDC has posted a net profit of R15.38 billion (EPS: Rs3.58), down 4%YoY, while up 5%QoQ. The earnings are lower than with major deviation coming from lower topline, higher operating expenses and exploration costs partially compensated by lower effective tax rate.

While the 1HFY17 earnings are down 12%YoY to Rs30.01 billion (EPS: Rs6.98) owing to lower realized gas prices (result of lagged oil price linkage). The earnings are expected to increase onwards due to improvement in realized gas prices and significant addition in flows from KPD-TAY, Sinjhoro and TAL Block.

The major takeaways are:  1) Topline remained flat on quarterly basis at Rs41.52 billion, however, it improved by 5%QoQ owing to improved oil production and higher oil price, 2) operating expenses increased to Rs15.28 billion in 2QFY17, 3) exploration expense increased 33%YoY due to relative differential in dry wells’ expenses, 4) though other income was relatively flat at Rs4.25 billion and 5) tax expenses declined by 27% to Rs4.29 billion due to lower effective tax rate.

(EurActiv) — Operation Sofia, the EU’s mission to prevent illegal immigration in the Mediterranean, has captured 101 traffickers, neutralised 387 boats and rescued 33,296 migrants at sea in the year-and-a-half it has been operating. Euractiv Spain reports.

The news was announced on Thursday (16 February) by the operation’s head Manlio Scopigno, at a seminar in Geneva on refugee protection and international humanitarian action organised by Webster University.

“Our specific mandate is to identify, capture and immobilise ships carrying illegal immigrants, not to save lives at sea,” said Scopigno.

“However,” he added, “it is our legal and moral obligation to save anyone who is in distress at sea and that is why we have rescued more than 33,000 people since we began the operation.”

The brigadier general said the different fleets making up Operation Sofia had rescued 33,296 immigrants, although he estimated that this figure represented only 13% of those who had tried to cross the Mediterranean in the same period.

Additionally, during the 18 months since operations began, the forces involved in Operation Sofia have managed to arrest 101 traffickers and seize 387 boats.

The naval mission EUNAVFOR MED operation “Sofia” began in June 2015 with the aim of fighting the mafias that smuggle immigrants into the central Mediterranean and monitoring of the arms embargo following a UN Security Council resolution.

A year later, the foreign ministers of the EU decided to extend its mandate for twelve months and extend its responsibility, adding a specific programme to train the Libyan coastguard services.

“Because we cannot enter the Libyan coast, we try our best to train them that they know how to intercept the vessels,” Scopigno said

Ayub Qasem, an admiral in the Libyan Navy, told EFE that Operation Sofia is a simple propaganda operation, “a failure”, which has not achieved its objectives.

Qasem said European politicians, not the military, as responsible for the failure of the mission and accused them of using the ban on access to Libyan territorial waters as an excuse.

From 1 January to 8 February this year, 9,355 migrants arrived on Europe’s shores using central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. 231 perished in the attempt, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

During the same period last year, 6,030 migrants managed to cross the Mediterranean and 90 died.

All EU citizens and third country nationals entering or leaving the EU will be systematically checked against databases, e.g. of lost and stolen documents, under a regulation voted on Thursday.

The new rules were agreed by Parliament’s negotiators and the Council of Ministers in December.

“Securing our external borders means building up a strong shield against terrorism in Europe and preserving the right to life, which is the corollary of all rights. Every life that we save by unveiling a potential foreign fighter is worth the journey, and systematic checks against databases are a mandatory step towards this minimum protection that we have a duty to ensure for our citizens,” said rapporteur Monica Macovei (ECR, RO).

The new regulation, which amends the Schengen Borders Code (SBC), was presented by the European Commission in December 2015. It obliges member states to carry out systematic checks on all persons crossing EU external borders against databases of stolen and lost documents, the Schengen Information System (SIS) and other relevant EU databases. The checks will be mandatory at all air, sea and land borders, on both entry and exit.

The rule change is a response to terrorist threats in Europe, as demonstrated by the recent attacks in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, and the phenomenon of “foreign fighters”, i.e. EU citizens joining terrorist groups in conflict zones, such as Daesh in Syria and Iraq.

The resolution was approved by 469 votes to 120, with 42 abstentions.

Targeted checks in the event of lengthy delays

However, if these systematic checks slow land and sea border traffic too much, EU countries may carry out only “targeted” checks instead, provided that a risk assessment has shown that this would not lead to threats to, inter alia, internal security or public policy.

People who are not subjected to a “targeted” check would at least have to go through an ordinary check to ascertain that their travel documents are valid and establish their identities.

Transition period

At air borders, member states may use targeted checks for a six-month transition period after the new regulation enters into force. This period may then be prolonged by a maximum of 18 months in some exceptional cases, e.g. where airports lack facilities to perform systematic checks against databases and need more time to adapt.

Never mind the traditional first hundred days.  Within US President Trump’s first twenty days in office the broad outlines of his policy for the Middle East had emerged.  It clearly has two over-riding objectives – to defeat Islamic State (IS) and to cut Iran down to size.  In the Trump world view, both IS and Iran represent clear and present dangers to the stability, values and way of life of the civilized world in general, and the US in particular.

Both on the campaign trail, and once he was in office, Trump has reiterated his intention to eliminate “radical Islamic terrorism”.  Back in 2015, at the height of the Syrian and Iraqi refugee migration into Europe, the London Daily Express reported an IS operative claiming that more than 4,000 covert IS gunmen had been smuggled into western nations – hidden amongst innocent travellers, refugees and migrants. The report continued: “The operative said the undercover infiltration was the beginning of a larger plot to carry out revenge attacks in the West in retaliation for the US-led coalition airstrikes.”

Objectionable as his proposed travel ban may be, as well as inept in its execution, the disruption and mayhem caused by IS in Syria and across large areas of Iraq, as well as its pernicious activities in Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, must be presumed to be the rationale for his controversial and disputed travel restrictions on the citizens of those countries as well as of Iran.

As regards Sudan, IS militants have been active ever since they infiltrated the country in 2015.  A senior IS figure, accused of helping to plan the terrorist attack on the Bardo museum in Tunis in which 21 people were killed, was extradited to Tunisia in December 2016.

Libya, war-torn since the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, was soon penetrated by IS jihadists intent on toppling the UN-backed Government of National Accord. Khalifa Haftar, the government’s military commander, is currently seeking Russian support in an effort to overcome them.

In Somalia the extremist terrorist group al-Shabab was once strongly aligned with al-Qaeda.  In 2015 a large segment defected, pledged their allegiance to IS, and turned on their erstwhile comrades.  Al-Shabab is intent on disrupting the country, overthrowing the administration and establishing Sharia law – one group favouring the al-Qaeda version; the other pledged to IS and the pretensions of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to be the caliph of all Muslims worldwide.. With al-Shabab controlling large areas of the country, it was only by decamping to a heavily-guarded former air force base in the capital, Mogadishu, that legislators felt safe enough to elect their new president, Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo, on 8 February 2017.

Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2015 between two factions claiming to constitute the Yemeni government, quickly morphed into a hydra-headed monster.  Not only did the Shi’ite Houthi forces clash with the Sunni forces loyal to the legal government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but IS militants moved in to oppose the Islamist terror group calling itself  AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), already active in the conflict.  Saudi Arabia, fearful of the Iranian-backed Houthi seizing control of the country, then joined the fray in support of Hadi, and Iran responded by intensifying its support for the Houthi rebels.

“The support that the Houthis enjoy from their northern neighbour Iran,” wrote Sir Graeme Lamb, former head of UK Special Forces, in September 2016, “is very real, be it political, propaganda, psychological, hands-on training, specialist advisors, weaponry, sanctuary or financial support. Without it, the rebel cause would probably slump.”

As for Iran, Trump has made no secret of his distaste for the regime in general and the nuclear deal struck under the leadership of his predecessor, Barack Obama, in particular.  On the campaign trail Trump variously pledged “to dismantle the disastrous deal” and to “force the Iranians back to the bargaining table to make a much better deal.”  After taking office he described it as “the worst deal I’ve ever seen negotiated.”  In a lengthy TV interview, he described Iran as “the number one terrorist state”, maintaining that the nuclear deal had weakened America and emboldened Iran’s leaders.

When Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels began planting mines in the strategic waterway at the straits of Bab al-Mandeb, Trump personally warned the Islamic Republic that it was “playing with fire.”  As a counter measure he not only despatched the destroyer USS Cole to the area, but announced a fresh round of anti-Iran sanctions, targeting 13 individuals and 12 organizations.

The tit-for-tat continues.  Iran’s test-firing of ballistic missiles on 1 February  provoked US national security adviser Michael Flynn to announce that he was putting Iran “on notice”.  The result? A deliberate snub by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a second round of missile firings on 8 February.  Trump believes his predecessor, ex-President Obama, obsessed by his desire to conclude the nuclear deal, gave away far too much both diplomatically and in hard cash (“we gave them $1.7 billion in cash, which is unheard of, and we put the money up and we have really nothing to show for it”).  In due course Trump may seek to renegotiate the terms of the nuclear deal, though the obstacles to doing so are formidable given that five other world powers were signatories in addition to the US – the UK, Russia, France, China and Germany.

Set against Trump’s twin objectives of defeating IS and reducing the power and potential nuclear capability of Iran, other aspects of US-Middle East policy take second place.  Washington’s reaction to Israel’s renewed settlement building program was restrained, and Trump’s declared intention of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem seems to have been put on the back burner.  He and Benjamin Netanyahu hit it off on a personal level during the Israeli prime minister’s visit on 15 February, but references to a possible resumption of peace negotiations were indeterminate.

To achieve his major objectives in the Middle East Trump will need the cooperation, overt or covert, of Russian President Vladimir Putin.  The price to the US will be to endorse an even stronger Russian presence, both physically and diplomatically, in the region. Believing Russia to be less threatening than radical Islamism, it is a price Trump may well be prepared to pay.

North Korea has been in the news, almost always for the wrong reasons. Besides conducting nuclear tests, missile launches, merciless executions of suspects and rampant human rights violations, now the news come that Kim Jong-nam, North Korea’s current ruler Kim Jong-un’s elder half-brother was assassinated in a Malaysian airport.

This does not surprise Korea watchers, given past history dating back to the Chosun dynasty when eliminating a family member to remain in power was not uncommon. But this time, the Kim Jong-nam’s killing has deeper significance in the context of regime survival, or that what is believed. The manner of his killing opens up many worms on the internal situation in North Korea.

Early Childhood

First, who was Kim Jong-nam? He was the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and elder half-brother of current leader Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-nam was born in May 1971 (some reports say 10 June 1970) in Pyongyang to father Kim Jong-Il and mother Song Hye-rim. She was a popular film actress and the daughter of South Korean communist intellectual who opted for North Korea during the Korean War. She was already married to another man with a child and four or five years elder to Kim Jong-Il when she began a romantic relationship with him. As Korea is a conservative society, Kim Jong-Il kept this sordid relationship secret even with his father Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-nam was already born when Kim Jong-Il was declared the candidate to succeed his father and therefore the need to keep the relationship a secret was felt. Most of his childhood was spent with his maternal grandmother and maternal aunt, Song Hye-rang, who was an author and widow with two kids of her own. Kim Jong-nam finally forged a relationship with his grandfather Kim Il-sung when his birth could no longer be kept secret. Song Hye-rim died in Moscow in 2002.

In 1979, Kim Jong-nam started studying overseas in Russia and Switzerland and returned to North Korea after a decade. His exposure to different political and economic systems led him to question the system back home, which in turn strained his relations with his father. He was even threatened of being sent to a political prison camp to work in a coal mine. This experience led Kim Jong-Il not to ever make him his successor. When the country faced drought in the 1990s, the junior Kim was involved in auditing the state’s finance and witnessed public executions of factory managers accused of stealing state money. This was a shocker and disillusioned him. But the junior Kim was flush with money himself, which made him lead a lavish lifestyle, visiting casinos and thereby earning the name of being a “party boy”.

Available information suggests that Kim Jong-Il was fond of his son when he was sent overseas for studying but his attitude towards him changed when he noticed progressive ideas in him which he had acquired during his stay overseas. By the late 1970s, Kim Jong-Il married Ko Yong-hui, an ethnic Korean repatriated from Japan and a dancer in the prestigious Mansudae Art Troupe. Finally the senior Kim set up a household with Ko and fathered three children with her, the middle one being the current leader Kim Jong-un. So, the void left by Kim Jong-nam when he left overseas for study was filled by Ko and the three children.

Unlike Kim Jong-Il’s other wives, Ko took interest in affairs of the state. She was ambitious and befriended close aides and generals. The first family politics started surfacing when Kim Jong-nam returned to North Korea in late 1980s and rumours started spreading on the question of succession, which child shall be positioned to succeed Kim Jong-Il, though discussion on the issue of hereditary succession was frowned upon. Soon, Ko was seen as a the country’s first lady, and seen as laying the groundwork for one of sons, Jong-un or his older brother, Jong-chol, to become hereditary successor.

When Kim Jong-nam was arrested at a Tokyo airport in May 2001 with a counterfeit passport, it not only embarrassed the Kim family but exposed that the North Korean elites sometimes travel using passports with assumed identities. Because of his overseas training and Tokyo experience, he was ruled out from contention to succeed his father. Ko was clever enough to play politics by using this Tokyo incident to promote one of her sons to succeed Kim Jong-Il. This provided enough fodder to analysts to discuss the alleged rivalry between Jim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un, which were indeed exaggerated.

Suspect behind the killing

There are speculations that it was Kim Jong-un who got his half-brother killed. Whether this is true or not, the rumour is not going to die down given the happenings and acts of the leader back home. Answer to the question whether Kim Jong-un conspired to kill could be both Yes and No. Yes, because one can see that for regime survival Kim Jong-un can go to any extent and would not hesitate to execute or eliminate a potential or perceived threat to his survival. No, because Kim Jong-nam was not interested to be the leader and therefore no threat at all to the regime. All accounts suggest that Kim Jong-nam was not a threat or a credible rival to the current leadership.

In fact, he had no interest in the job. He had no idea about the nuance of governing a country and his outlook was quite different. Moreover, he was living under some protection from Chinese authorities and had made Macao his base. It was therefore not in Kim Jong-un’s geopolitical interest to eliminate his half-brother. There is a view, however, in some quarter in Pyongyang that Kim Jong-nam was admired by some elderly Korean elites and enjoyed their special affection. Any rumour of Kim Jong-nam posing a political challenge to his younger brother can be rubbished because the two persons who possibly could have propped up him were his aunt Kim Kyong-hui and uncle Chang Song-thaek. While Madame Kim effectively retired from political life, Chang was executed on Kim Jong-un’s orders in December 2013 and therefore no longer relevance in power circles.

How did he die? There are conflicting opinions. The Malaysian government is investigating the matter at the moment and already arrested three persons, two women and a man. Death out of a heart attack is also a possibility. First, the Malaysian police arrested a female carrying a Vietnamese passport suspected in connection the death of Kim Jong-nam. She was detailed at the terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and was identified on the travel document as Doan Thi Huong born on 31 May 1988. Kim died on 13 February 2017 when he was on his way to the Chinese territory of Macau, where he had been living reportedly under China’s protection.

As mentioned, Kim was living in exile for many years and kept a low profile. He never publicly expressed interest in challenging his half-brother for North Korea’s leadership, though he was critical of the regime. He was opposed to dynastic style of the political rule and that may have been perceived as threat.

Yet, given the brutality of Kim Jong-un regime, speculations that Kim Jong-un was behind the killing does not die down so easily. If confirmed, that would clearly depict the brutality and inhumanity of the present regime in Pyongyang. According to South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, there was a long-standing order from the North Korean leadership to eliminate this family member. It is believed that there was an attempt in 2012 to kill him as well but failed.

Kim Jong-nam had not gone through immigration for his flight to Macau when he was attacked with a chemical spray. According to South Korean media reports, Kim was jabbed with a poisonous needle or a cloth by two women, reportedly on the order of Kim Jong-un. There are rumours that given the recalcitrance of Kim Jong-un, China preferred an affable Kim Jong-nam to lead North Korea. If true, that in itself was a direct threat to Kim Jong-un and thus had to be eliminated at any cost, even if it meant fratricide.

Interestingly, the two half-brothers apparently never met and there was obviously no love between them. During the Chosun dynasty, eliminating a brother or an uncle in a royal household if seen as a threat or potential threat was not uncommon and if this logic is applied to Kim Jong-nam’s killing, it is believable that Kim Jong-un regime had a hand. After all, he had put to death his powerful uncle, Jang Song Thaek in 2013 whom he perceived too close to China and getting more powerful.

The timing of the assassination is equally important as Kim Jong-un defied international sanctions and fired off a new type of solid-fuel land-based ballistic missile just a week before the killing. That was a message Kim was sending not just to the US and Japan but to South Korea and China, besides inside his own regime. Kim Jong-nam favoured reform, a position that China shared and that was his undoing.

North Korea under the leadership of a third-generation Kim Jong-un is one of the poorest countries, though its nuclear program remains unstoppable. The question is, why did Kim Jong-un choose this time to eliminate his potential rival, his half-brother if at all that was the case? The developments in the neighbouring South Korea where popular protest brought down a sitting President could have unnerved him. That could have made him feel insecure, as he probably believes that loyalty based in fear is safe.

Since he was arrested in Tokyo’s Narita airport with a fake passport, Kim Jong-nam has been leading an unstable life and mostly lived overseas in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore. He was even afraid to return to Pyongyang to attend his father’s funeral in 2011 for fear of his life. His life had become a subject of international interest. The regime in Pyongyang must have known that assassinating Kim Jong-nam would make international headlines but still could have felt the risk worth-taking because of less reported internal situation worsening day by day.

Eliminating a potential threat is not unusual for a dictator. In North Korea’s case, it is the brutal manner it is executed that makes hair-raising tales. Kim Jong-un had his own uncle and once the second most powerful man in the country, Jang Song-taek executed in public in 2013, and pictures of Jang being dragged out of a court room by security guards before his execution were splashed throughout in the media. Even former defence minister Hyon Yong-chol and Kim Yong-jin, a premier were executed. The human rights group North Korea Strategy Centre estimates over 1,000 officials have either been executed or tortured before execution.

What does this suggest for an outside observer? The incessant purges show that the regime is unstable. Thae Yong-ho, the former deputy ambassador to England who defected has spoken candidly about the manner in which dissent is punished and the increasing disillusionment among the elite. If Kim Jong-nam’s assassination indicates anything, it is possible to believe that there is some sort of plan of a coup brewing inside the country which is why more purges could be expected in the coming days.

The developments in North Korea must be worrying to South Korea. An unstable North Korea, though welcome if it leads to collapse, is also a big headache for the South and for the region. It is difficult to predict what could be the next provocation as South Korea and the US prepare for massive joint military drills in March 2017. South Korea is also experiencing problems in domestic politics after President Park Geun-hye was impeached. Despite the real threat constantly coming from the North, the decision of the Park government to deploy Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence battery from the US is being opposed by the opposition Minjoo Party. Presidential hopeful of the opposition Minjoo Party Moon Jae-in not only argues for resumption of inter-Korea economic projects but has even suggested that he would visit the North first if elected to be the President. South Korea’s relation with Japan is not good either as history issues continue to cloud bilateral ties despite common threat from North Korea. These pose a big challenge to President Donald Trump too.

Did Kim Jong-nam possess any political ambition, which is why he was seen as a potential threat by his half-brother and therefore merited elimination? From what he had shared with journalists and people outside of the country, he was opposed to “dynastic succession” and openly criticised the manner the country is being governed.

This in itself was seen as a threat and thus merited elimination. After his father’s death in December 2011, he had become more vocal in his views. He had shared his views with Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist that Kim Jong-un’s ability to maintain “absolute power” would lead the country to collapse without reform. He also said that reform would lead to the collapse of the Kim dynasty and that his brother would be little more than a puppet figure, used by the ruling elite.

Kim Jong-nam was not ever in line of succession. According to his son Kim Han-sol, born in Pyongyang in 1995 and never met his grandfather, his father was not interested in politics. Despite this, he remained a target and his life had been in danger. According to a North Korean spy who revealed in 2012, an attempt was made in 2010 to run Kim over by a taxi, which did not succeed. The whereabouts of Kim Jong-chul, Kim Jong-Il’s middle son, apparently passed over for succession for being too effeminate, is not known. He was last spotted at an Eric Clapton concert in London in 2015.

North Korea’s History of assassinations

Since North Korea emerged as fractured part of the Korean peninsula following the Korean War, the country is involved in a series of assassinations or such attempts. The dictatorial government has never balked at eliminating dissent and making sure that alternate power centres do not form at home. Not only ‘side branches’ of the Kim family sent into exile or killed, occasionally one followed by the other, those seen as potential power centres such as Thaek or the defence minister or premier were executed.

No wonder all eyes point to the current Kim Jong-un regime as the main suspect. The two women and a man are believed to be North Korean agents for the sensational assassination of Kim Jong-nam. The bizarre manner of the killing bears all the hallmarks of a North Korean hit. Traditional purges, executions, mysterious car crashes in a country with almost no traffic are common ways to get rid of enemies or suspected enemies.

Some other assassinations or attempts associated with the Kim regime are (a) the failed 21 January 1968 incident when 31 North Korean commandos known as Unit 124 dispatched to Seoul to storm presidential Blue House and kill President Park Chung-hee; (b) 1983 Rangoon bombing when three North Korean agents hid a bomb in the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Rangoon on 9 October 1983, before then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan was due to lay a wreath there, killing 17 South Korean officials and two presidential aides but escaping the president for being late; (c) killing of Choi Duk-keun, a South Korean diplomat stationed in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok in October 1966 in a revenge attack; and (d) killing of a member of the extended Kim family, Yi Han-yong, a cousin of Kim Nong-nam, by North Korean assassins on the street in 1997.

Two more incidents were equally chilling. One incident was in 2009. Pyongyang is said to have ordered the killing of Hwang Jang-yop, who had been secretary of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party until he defected in 1997. He had sought asylum at the South Korean embassy in Beijing, becoming the highest-level defector from North Korea. The agents were said to have been paid $40,000 to kill Hwang but failed in their attempts till finally he died of natural causes at the age of 87 in 2010. The other chilling experience was in 2011 when a defector to South Korea, alleged to have been a secret North Korean agent, was arrested in 2011 for trying to assassinate Park Sang-hak, another defector who had turned into an outspoken critic of the regime in Pyongyang. The agents, identified as An also failed in his attempt and was captured. Park is still around speaking against the regime in Pyongyang.

In the latest case of defection, Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s deputy ambassador in London became one of the highest-ranking officials ever to defect in August 2016. According to him, Kim Jong-un would be prepared to attack the US with nuclear weapons, but that the regime will one day fall. Kim does not have the means to attack the US at the moment but he is developing the ability. The defector says that once there was an effective nuclear arsenal, Kim would be prepared to use it. It would not be surprising if news surface on some attempt on Thae’s life, presently living in Seoul under South Korea’s protection.

Like previous assassination case, investigations shall continue. In Kim Jong-nam’s case, the Malaysian authorities are probing the matter and it remains unclear if there shall be any definite proof suggesting to Pyongyang’s involvement.

<em*>Dr. Rajaram Panda is currently Indian Council for Cultural Relations India Chair Visiting Professor at Reitaku University, JAPAN. E-mail: rajaram.panda@gmail.com Disclaimer: The views expressed are author’s own and do not represent either of the ICCR or the Government of India.

Islam itself is not the source of terrorism, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday during a speech at the Munich Security Conference where US Vice President Mike Pence was in the audience.

She added that it was crucial to include Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism.

“The joint fight against Islamic terrorism is one area where we have the same interests and we can work together,” Merkel said.

She said Europe’s ties with Russia remained challenging, but it was important to work with Russia in the fight against terrorism.

Merkel, who met with Pence one-on-one following their addresses, acknowledged that Europeans couldn’t fight global issues like extremist terrorism alone, saying “we need the military power of the US.”

She renewed a call for Islamic religious authorities to speak “clear words on the demarcation of peaceful Islam and terrorism in the name of Islam.”

Germany, under increasing pressure by US leaders to increase its military spending, would do “everything possible” to meet a NATO target for spending 2 percent of economic output on defense by 2024, Merkel told the conference.

Pence sought to assure allies that the Trump administration will back NATO and stand with Europe even as it looks for new ways to cooperate with Russia.

Pence warned allies that they must pay their fair share to support NATO, noting that many lack “a clear or credible path” to do so.

On Russia, the US would not relent in pushing it to honor the Minsk cease-fire accords with Ukraine, said Pence.

“The US will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground, which as you know, President Trump believes can be found,” the vice-president said.

Merkel appealed to the US and others to support and bolster multilateral organizations such as the EU, the UN and NATO, an alliance to which Pence pledged America’s commitment was “unwavering.”

Pence sought immediately to address concerns raised by President Donald Trump’s comments questioning whether NATO was “obsolete.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that in his mind, NATO and the EU defense complement each another. “A strong Europe cannot mean Europe alone, just as I don’t believe ‘America first’ means America alone.”

Russia called for an end to what it said was an outdated world order dominated by the West.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov offered a diametrically opposed global vision, just hours after Pence vowed to stand with Europe to rein in a resurgent Moscow.

“I hope that (the world) will choose a democratic world order — a post-West one — in which each country is defined by its sovereignty,” said Lavrov.

The time when the West called the shots was over while NATO was a relic of the Cold War, he said.

In its place, Moscow wanted a relationship with Washington that is “pragmatic with mutual respect and acknowledgment of our common responsibility for global stability.”

Hours before Lavrov addressed the conference, Pence told the same forum that the US will stay loyal to its old friends.

“The US is and will always be your greatest ally. Be assured that President Trump and our people are truly devoted to our transatlantic union,” Pence said.

By Arul Louis

India has cautioned against any slide back in the ongoing reform process in the United Nations Security Council, saying it was suffering from a “legitimacy deficit” that is miring it in inefficacy and irrelevance.

The task of reforming the Council and enlarging it to make it more representative had been blocked for almost two decades by the opposition of some members led by Italy – and including Pakistan – to having a negotiating text. Without such a document, negotiations are not possible.

India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin told a meeting of the Inter Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on Council reforms that the paper produced in the last session of the General Assembly stressed that the points of convergence should be built and there could be no progress without a negotiating document.

He said that when the chair of the last IGN session, Sylvie Lucas, presented the paper, “no one questioned how many spoke and how many did not”.

“Why go down that path now?” he asked alluding to attempts by some members to scuttle the convergence document.

“The process at this stage has all the conditions to build on the work of previous sessions and to move forward based on the work already done by your predecessors,” he told the co-chairs of the current IGN session, Mohamed Khaled Khiari of Tunisia, and Ambassador Ion Jinga of Romania.

In the 2014-15 session of the Assembly, due to the initiative of its President Sam Kutesa, a negotiating text based on a survey of members was adopted paving the way for serious discussions and giving the process a boost.

In the last session, that momentum was lost, but there was slight progress with the document on convergence. It only said that an “enlarged Council should consist of a total of members in the mid-20s, within an overall range of 21-27 seats, with the exact number to emerge from the discussions of Member States on the key issues of ‘categories of membership’ and ‘regional representation’.”

Akbaruddin criticised the status of the reform process as “neither natural nor normal”.

It was “not normal and not natural that, we, as responsible representatives of states continue to cocoon ourselves from the enormity of the changes underway and articulate views endlessly with no framework for setting our house in order,” he said.

“At a time of growing dismay with the existing international order, our persistent inability to move the reform process forward is viewed as the inability of the multilateral system to fix what is broken,” Akbaruddin said.

“We are at a crossroad from where reform is the only way to maintain relevance,” he said, appealing to the co-chairs of the IGN to “breathe new life into the process”.

Russia says its warplanes have successfully hit positions held by the Daesh extremist group in Syria’s northern province of Raqqah, the stronghold of the militant outfit in the war-torn Arab country.

In a statement released on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Tupolev Tu-95 jets had taken off from Russia and flown over Iran and Iraq to get to Syria’s Raqqah, where they targeted Daesh positions “using X-101 cruise missiles.”

The Russian warplanes successfully destroyed the militants’ bases and training camps as well as a Daesh command center, the statement said.

It further said that Sukhoi Su-30CM and Su-35 fighter jets based at the Hmeymim air base, in Syria’s Latakia Province, provided air cover for the Raqqah operation.

All Russian aircraft returned safely to their bases after the Friday mission, the statement added.

Russia launched its campaign against Daesh and other groups in Syria at the Damascus government’s request in September 2015.

In a separate development on Friday, the US Defense Department said that Daesh ringleaders were fleeing Raqqah amid advances by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed militant group comprised mostly of Syrian Kurds.

“We are starting to see now that a lot of senior ISIS leaders, a lot of their bureaucrats… are beginning the process of leaving Raqqah,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis, using an English acronym for Daesh.

“They have definitely taken note of the fact that the end is near in Raqqah,” he said, describing the Daesh withdrawal as “very organized, orderly.”

Davis also said that Daesh now controls only one road that connects Raqqah to the city of Dayr al-Zawr and lies along the north bank of the Euphrates River.

Separately on Friday, Aleppo Governor Hussein Diab warned that Daesh had pumped large amounts of Euphrates’ water and was seeking to flood areas in eastern Aleppo, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported.

He said all public construction companies and concerned bodies were on alert to do everything necessary to mitigate possible damage from the Daesh sabotage.

Last December, the Syrian army managed to wrest full control over Aleppo, which had long been divided between government forces in the west and the militants in the east.

Original source

You may not realize it but alien subatomic particles raining down from outer space are wreaking low-grade havoc on your smartphones, computers and other personal electronic devices.

When your computer crashes and you get the dreaded blue screen or your smartphone freezes and you have to go through the time-consuming process of a reset, most likely you blame the manufacturer: Microsoft or Apple or Samsung. In many instances, however, these operational failures may be caused by the impact of electrically charged particles generated by cosmic rays that originate outside the solar system.

“This is a really big problem, but it is mostly invisible to the public,” said Bharat Bhuva, professor of electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University, in a presentation on Friday, Feb. 17 at a session titled “Cloudy with a Chance of Solar Flares: Quantifying the Risk of Space Weather” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

When cosmic rays traveling at fractions of the speed of light strike the Earth’s atmosphere they create cascades of secondary particles including energetic neutrons, muons, pions and alpha particles. Millions of these particles strike your body each second. Despite their numbers, this subatomic torrent is imperceptible and has no known harmful effects on living organisms. However, a fraction of these particles carry enough energy to interfere with the operation of microelectronic circuitry. When they interact with integrated circuits, they may alter individual bits of data stored in memory. This is called a single-event upset or SEU.

Since it is difficult to know when and where these particles will strike and they do not do any physical damage, the malfunctions they cause are very difficult to characterize. As a result, determining the prevalence of SEUs is not easy or straightforward. “When you have a single bit flip, it could have any number of causes. It could be a software bug or a hardware flaw, for example. The only way you can determine that it is a single-event upset is by eliminating all the other possible causes,” Bhuva explained.

There have been a number of incidents that illustrate how serious the problem can be, Bhuva reported. For example, in 2003 in the town of Schaerbeek, Belgium a bit flip in an electronic voting machine added 4,096 extra votes to one candidate. The error was only detected because it gave the candidate more votes than were possible and it was traced to a single bit flip in the machine’s register. In 2008, the avionics system of a Qantus passenger jet flying from Singapore to Perth appeared to suffer from a single-event upset that caused the autopilot to disengage. As a result, the aircraft dove 690 feet in only 23 seconds, injuring about a third of the passengers seriously enough to cause the aircraft to divert to the nearest airstrip. In addition, there have been a number of unexplained glitches in airline computers – some of which experts feel must have been caused by SEUs – that have resulted in cancellation of hundreds of flights resulting in significant economic losses.

An analysis of SEU failure rates for consumer electronic devices performed by Ritesh Mastipuram and Edwin Wee at Cypress Semiconductor on a previous generation of technology shows how prevalent the problem may be. Their results were published in 2004 in Electronic Design News and provided the following estimates:

• A simple cell phone with 500 kilobytes of memory should only have one potential error every 28 years.
• A router farm like those used by Internet providers with only 25 gigabytes of memory may experience one potential networking error that interrupts their operation every 17 hours.
• A person flying in an airplane at 35,000 feet (where radiation levels are considerably higher than they are at sea level) who is working on a laptop with 500 kilobytes of memory may experience one potential error every five hours.

Bhuva is a member of Vanderbilt’s Radiation Effects Research Group, which was established in 1987 and is the largest academic program in the United States that studies the effects of radiation on electronic systems. The group’s primary focus was on military and space applications. Since 2001, the group has also been analyzing radiation effects on consumer electronics in the terrestrial environment. They have studied this phenomenon in the last eight generations of computer chip technology, including the current generation that uses 3D transistors (known as FinFET) that are only 16 nanometers in size.

The 16-nanometer study was funded by a group of top microelectronics companies, including Altera, ARM, AMD, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Marvell, MediaTek, Renesas, Qualcomm, Synopsys, and TSMC

“The semiconductor manufacturers are very concerned about this problem because it is getting more serious as the size of the transistors in computer chips shrink and the power and capacity of our digital systems increase,” Bhuva said. “In addition, microelectronic circuits are everywhere and our society is becoming increasingly dependent on them.”

To determine the rate of SEUs in 16-nanometer chips, the Vanderbilt researchers took samples of the integrated circuits to the Irradiation of Chips and Electronics (ICE) House at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There they exposed them to a neutron beam and analyzed how many SEUs the chips experienced. Experts measure the failure rate of microelectronic circuits in a unit called a FIT, which stands for failure in time. One FIT is one failure per transistor in one billion hours of operation. That may seem infinitesimal but it adds up extremely quickly with billions of transistors in many of our devices and billions of electronic systems in use today (the number of smartphones alone is in the billions). Most electronic components have failure rates measured in 100’s and 1,000’s of FITs.

“Our study confirms that this is a serious and growing problem,” said Bhuva. “This did not come as a surprise. Through our research on radiation effects on electronic circuits developed for military and space applications, we have been anticipating such effects on electronic systems operating in the terrestrial environment.”

Although the details of the Vanderbilt studies are proprietary, Bhuva described the general trend that they have found in the last three generations of integrated circuit technology: 28-nanometer, 20-nanometer and 16-nanometer.

As transistor sizes have shrunk, they have required less and less electrical charge to represent a logical bit. So the likelihood that one bit will “flip” from 0 to 1 (or 1 to 0) when struck by an energetic particle has been increasing. This has been partially offset by the fact that as the transistors have gotten smaller they have become smaller targets so the rate at which they are struck has decreased.

More significantly, the current generation of 16-nanometer circuits have a 3D architecture that replaced the previous 2D architecture and has proven to be significantly less susceptible to SEUs. Although this improvement has been offset by the increase in the number of transistors in each chip, the failure rate at the chip level has also dropped slightly. However, the increase in the total number of transistors being used in new electronic systems has meant that the SEU failure rate at the device level has continued to rise.

Unfortunately, it is not practical to simply shield microelectronics from these energetic particles. For example, it would take more than 10 feet of concrete to keep a circuit from being zapped by energetic neutrons. However, there are ways to design computer chips to dramatically reduce their vulnerability.

For cases where reliability is absolutely critical, you can simply design the processors in triplicate and have them vote. Bhuva pointed out: “The probability that SEUs will occur in two of the circuits at the same time is vanishingly small. So if two circuits produce the same result it should be correct.” This is the approach that NASA used to maximize the reliability of spacecraft computer systems.

The good news, Bhuva said, is that the aviation, medical equipment, IT, transportation, communications, financial and power industries are all aware of the problem and are taking steps to address it. “It is only the consumer electronics sector that has been lagging behind in addressing this problem.”

The engineer’s bottom line: “This is a major problem for industry and engineers, but it isn’t something that members of the general public need to worry much about.”

Despite vowing not to use depleted uranium (DU) weapons in its military action in Syria, the US government has now admitted that it has fired thousands of the deadly rounds into Syrian territory.

As Foreign Policy Magazine reports:

US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Airwars and Foreign Policy that 5,265 armor-piercing 30 mm rounds containing depleted uranium (DU) were shot from Air Force A-10 fixed-wing aircraft on Nov. 16 and Nov. 22, 2015, destroying about 350 vehicles in the country’s eastern desert.

Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman John Moore said in 2015 that:

US and coalition aircraft have not been and will not be using depleted uranium munitions in Iraq or Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve.

Now we know that is not true.

Numerous studies have found that depleted uranium is particularly harmful when the dust is inhaled by the victim. A University of Southern Maine study discovered that:

…DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise, exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different concentrations.

The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. ‘These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,’ the team wrote in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

We should remember that the United States is engaged in military activities in Syria in violation of international and US law. There is no Congressional authorization for US military action against ISIS in Syria and the United Nations has not authorized military force in violation of Syria’s sovereignty either.

The innocent citizens of Syria will be forced to endure increased risks of cancer, birth defects, and other disease related to exposure to radioactive materials. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of the enrichment of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants and has a half-life in the hundreds of millions of years. Damage to Syrian territory will thus continue long after anyone involved in current hostilities is dead.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

It is not the brain that determines if people are right or left-handed, but the spinal cord.

This has been inferred from the research results compiled by a team headed by private lecturer Dr Sebastian Ocklenburg, Judith Schmitz, and Prof Dr H. C. Onur Güntürkün. Together with colleagues from the Netherlands and from South Africa, the biopsychologists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum have demonstrated that gene activity in the spinal cord is asymmetrical already in the womb. A preference for the left or the right hand might be traced back to that asymmetry.

“These results fundamentally change our understanding of the cause of hemispheric asymmetries,” conclude the authors. The team report about their study in the journal “eLife”.

Preference in the womb

To date, it had been assumed that differences in gene activity of the right and left hemisphere might be responsible for a person’s handedness. A preference for moving the left or right hand develops in the womb from the eighth week of pregnancy, according to ultrasound scans carried out in the 1980s. From the 13th week of pregnancy, unborn children prefer to suck either their right or their left thumb.

Arm and hand movements are initiated via the motor cortex in the brain. It sends a corresponding signal to the spinal cord, which in turn translates the command into a motion. The motor cortex, however, is not connected to the spinal cord from the beginning.

Even before the connection forms, precursors of handedness become apparent. This is why the researchers have assumed that the cause of right respective left preference must be rooted in the spinal cord rather than in the brain.

The influence of environmental factors

The researchers analyzed the gene expression in the spinal cord during the eighth to twelfth week of pregnancy and detected marked right-left differences in the eighth week – in precisely those spinal cord segments that control the movements of arms and legs. Another study had shown that unborn children carry out asymmetric hand movements just as early as that.

The researchers, moreover, traced the cause of asymmetric gene activity. Epigenetic factors appear to be at the root of it, reflecting environmental influences. Those influences might, for example, lead to enzymes bonding methyl groups to the DNA, which in turn would affect and minimize the reading of genes. As this occurs to a different extent in the left and the right spinal cord, there is a difference to the activity of genes on both sides.

For the study, the team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum collaborated with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands as well as the Dutch Radboud University and the South-African Wellenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University.

Recent wildfires in Chile had a devastating impact on the country, its people and the environment.

At least 11 people were killed and thousands were forced from their homes, the town of Santa Olga was destroyed and more than 160,000 hectares of forest was razed.

The smoke plume generated by the fires stretched more than 2,000km out over the Pacific Ocean – about the same distance as from Amsterdam to Moscow.

Scientists are using satellite imagery to learn more about smoke plumes and this work has potential benefits for human health, society and economies, as well as our understanding of the climate.

How the images are made

The Satellite Application Facility on Ozone and Atmospheric Chemistry Monitoring (O3M SAF), is one of eight EUMETSAT SAFs providing operational data and software products to a dedicated user community and application area.

Maurits Kooreman, of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and Junior Scientist working on the project for the SAF, produced the image (attached) of the smoke plume from the fires in Chile.

He used imagery from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME-2) instruments on EUMETSAT’s Metop-A and –B satellites, overlaid on imagery from the MODIS imager onboard NASA’s Terra satellite. The O3M SAF GOME-2 product shown is called the Absorbing Aerosol Index (AAI).

“As fires produce soot, as well as water, the plumes consist of a mix of the two,” Kooreman explains.

“Possibly, the smoke particles in the plume are acting as condensation nuclei for the water vapour to condense on, producing a mix of soot and water droplets.

“The colourful overlay in Figure 1 shows the AAI, distinguishing the soot particles from the water droplet cloud. The red values indicate an AAI of more than 3, where a value of 2 is already considered to indicate significant aerosol (fine particles in the air) presence.”

Kooreman said the O3M SAF has been studying the smoke plume from the first day it was visible on satellite imagery – 20 January – and monitoring its progress and development in terms of the AAI.

“It shows very well that fires cause smoke and water clouds and, in this case, we can see how the smoke and clouds are really mixed together. We use the AAI to distinguish regions where there is smoke and where there are clouds.”

Who needs this information?

Dr Piet Stammes, Senior Scientist at KNMI and working in the O3M SAF as well, said the imagery demonstrates the meteorological processes taking place as a result of a very dramatic, deadly and environmentally damaging wildfire.

“In principle, this information can be used by anyone who wants it but it is particularly important for the aviation community, which needs to know where the smoke is going,” Stammes said.

“The information is also used by the climate research community because this smoke is causing the absorption of solar radiation. Climate researchers want to establish the amount of radiation from the sun that is absorbed by the smoke.

“So the information is used both for nowcasting a hazard and the climate research community.”

Health, land use and climate – why we monitor smoke from space

One of EUMETSAT’s key objectives is to monitor the atmospheric composition, not just smoke from fires but also more generally in terms of pollution, because of the potential, immediate health impacts and the long-term, global effect on the climate.

EUMETSAT Atmospheric Composition Calibration and Instrument Team Leader Dr Rüdiger Lang said if the fires were in the Mediterranean, rather than Chile, and the smoke plume was drifting over heavily populated areas, rather than over the ocean, there would be real implications for human health, not only from the fires themselves but also from the smoke.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service is using information like the AAI and other data from EUMETSAT to help model the behaviour of smoke plumes and pollution, so that how they travel and how they evolve can be forecast, like rain can be forecast, for example.

Lang points out that fires are not necessarily bad for vegetation – they can be part of a natural cycle – but more frequent fires, hotter temperatures and more droughts can have a lasting impact on vegetation and land use.

The aerosols created by biomass burning are released into the lower atmosphere, where they have a warming effect by absorbing and storing energy.

In this case, climate change can be both a precondition for, and a result of, changes in biomass burning frequency.

O3M SAF to become the Atmospheric Composition Monitoring SAF

From 1 March 2017, the O3M SAF will change its name to the Satellite Application Facility on Atmospheric Composition Monitoring (AC SAF).

The name change will better reflect the type of work the SAF carries out, Dr Stammes said.

“The change illustrates a new phase and that our products are not only for the ozone community but also for the air quality and atmospheric composition community,” he said.

Instruments used to monitor smoke plumes

Satellite instruments are used to measure different aspects of fires and smoke plumes: the particles, as discussed above; the chemical aspect, as fires create significant amounts of carbon monoxide; and fire radiative power.

Instruments onboard EUMETSAT’s low-earth-orbiting Metop-A and –B satellites and geostationary Meteosat satellites currently measure these aspects and the capacity to do so will grow with the new and improved instruments to be carried on the next generation of these satellites, which are due to be launched within the next five years.

By Hamidreza Azizi*

There are serious doubts over the exact route of the US domestic and foreign policies under Donald Trump due to his controversial positions on various issues. In the meantime, one of the important issues that attracted the attention of observers and analysts even before the election of Trump and during the election campaign was his approach toward Russia and the possible policy of the US new administration toward the Kremlin. During the time the results of the elections were officially announced, Trump’s conciliatory approach toward Moscow has shown itself in his positions and comments from admiring Putin’s approach to expel the Russian diplomats from the US to questioning the accusations against the Kremlin stating that it intervened in the process of the US presidential elections.

In this context and regarding this issue, two important issues related to each other can be presented. First, how much gap is between words and actions of Trump on the subject of Russia, and basically to what extent it is possible for him to adhere to his current approach toward this issue. Second, if this approach enters into the practical phase, how this will change the subject areas and major regional issues in the international arena. Among these areas, it seems that what is more important than others for Iran is the impact of the possible reconciliation process between Moscow and Washington on the Middle East and current developments in the region.

Trump, Russia and the US Doctrinal Documents

In examining the topic of discussion, first of all, it should be noted that given the past history and the current state of relations between Russia and the US, the realization of what Trump stated in his positions on Russia means to fundamentally change the US foreign policy direction, and this will be beyond the usual tactical changes at the time of the change in the US Presidents. In this context, studying the US National Security Strategy document released on 2015 can be helpful.

Under the preamble of this document, what is known as the “Russian aggression” is called one of the main challenges against the US national security. But the most important part of this document related to Russia is the part called “strengthening our traditional alliance with Europe” and a section of it reads: “We assure our allies to prevent further Russian aggression by fulfilling our security commitments, and increasing accountability through training and holding military exercises as well as by being present in the Central and East Europe.”

In what follows in this section, the issue of Russia is discussed in more detail, and it reads: “Through applying sanctions and other tools, we will try to impose more and heavier costs to Russia, and at the same time, we will deal with the Russian false and deceptive promotion. We will stop the Russian aggression, and will be vigilant against her strategic capabilities, and will help our allies and partners deal with the Russian aggression in the long term. At the same time, we will leave the doors open for the extensive cooperation with Russia in the field of common interests. Russia might choose a different path, i.e., the path of peaceful cooperation where the respect for independence and the democratic development of the neighboring states are considered.”

Looking at this part, the contrast between this document on the subject of Russia and the positions expressed so far by Trump about this state is clearly seen. In fact, based on Trump’s comments, it can be argued that he not only has not believed in issues like “the Russian false and deceptive promotion”, but also at times he has spoken of the need to reduce the US commitment to the NATO. At the same time, it is clear that the “peaceful cooperation” with Russia is not subject to the Moscow’s selection of a “different path”. In the meantime, however, it is unlikely that on issues such as the NATO – with regard to the interests of the US military sector and the military industry as well as the presence of high-ranking generals within the framework of Trump’s desired government – the coming change is a fundamental and an infrastructure change, but it can be expected that the NATO’s provocative agendas toward Russia, particularly plans such as the missile defense shield in East Europe will be no longer on the US government’s agenda like before.

Moreover, it is expected that the new US government under Trump will stop to make the improved relations with Russia conditional on the Moscow’s changed approach to the surrounding environment, especially the issue of Ukraine, and at least the US will enter into a process of cooperation with Russia in the subject areas with common interests. This is evident in Trump’s emphasis on the joint counter-terrorism operations with Russia in Syria. This can directly prepare the ground for the cooperation and coordination between the two states within the framework of the Middle East region.

Trump and Russia, the Status of the Middle East and the Prospect of Iran

Over the past two years, particularly since the rise of the explosive crisis in Syria, and coinciding with the emergence of the terrorist group – the ISIS – in the region, the growing trend of cooperation and coordination between Iran and Russia in the region has reached a point that some even go beyond the concept of “partnership”, and talk of the formation of an “alliance” between the two states.

In the meantime, considering the terms of the formation of this special relationship between Tehran and Moscow provides the context for a better understanding of the possible future changes.

In short, it can be said that the common interests between Tehran and Moscow in a particular time on the issue of Syria played a role, and pushed them towards a multilateral cooperation in this state. These common interests include preventing the spread of terrorism in the region, keeping Bashar al-Assad as a reliable ally in Syria, and opposing the further development of the US influence in the Middle East and any change in the political map of the region in favor of Washington. But now, the possibility of improved relations between Washington and Moscow is raised under the situations that the ISIS is approaching its end in Iraq, and states ranging from Iran to Russia and even Turkey are fighting against it in Syria. Moreover, the presence of Bashar al-Assad in power seems certain, at least until the end of a transition period – when he cedes the power to his allies to manage the situation – and the US under Trump has also announced she has no plans to develop the US further influence and presence in the Middle East.

But the problem is that the common interests between Iran and Russia do not mean that the two states share interests/opinions in all areas, because, for example, the two sides have expressed different positions on an important issue such as the federal or centralized structure of the next government in Syria. On the one hand, it can be said that common interests between Tehran and Moscow will not be necessarily followed in the future of Syria as vigorously as now. On the other hand, during this period Russia has repeatedly shown that she is willing to achieve an understanding and a consensus with the US, and she is considering that it is more stable and reliable to have a solution between major powers achieved in the context of the realistic approach governing her foreign policy. This issue was evident in her two Syrian cease-fire talks with the US without the presence of Iran.

However, all this does not mean that Iran is excluded from the framework of Russia’s approach to the Middle East, and this also does not mean what is called the “betrayal of Russia” in the conventional literature. First, it should be noted that in the current situation, the fact that Russia is ensured that the US will not show any future opposition caused Moscow to be involved in the process of advancing the political process in Syria first with Iran and Turkey and then with more focus on Turkey. This means that even under Trump, Iran can still play a role, but her role depends on how she defines her interests, how much she diversifies the options available, and how she plays with these options. In other words, it is Iran that can increase the benefits of continued participation, and possibly costs of being excluded for Russia in such a way that the interests of Iran will be met in this framework. Establishing positive balance in the regional and trans-regional arena in order to benefit from more options, on the one hand, and strengthening the existing cooperation with Russia within a commitment framework – and possibly establishing it within the framework of multilateral organization cooperation – on the other hand, can be considered as the two available options for Iran in this area.

* Hamidreza Azizi
Assistant professor at Shahid Beheshti University (SBU),
Fellow at IRAS

*Source: IRAS

By the end of the first month of President Trump’s Administration we are in a better position to evaluate the policies and direction of the new President. An examination of foreign and domestic policy, particularly from a historical and comparative perspective will provide insights about whether America is heading for a catastrophe as the mass media claim or toward greater realism and rationality.

We will proceed by examining whether Trump pursues diplomacy over warfare. We will evaluate the President’s efforts to reduce US foreign debt and trade burdens with Europe and Asia. We will follow with a discussion of his immigration and protectionist policies with Mexico. Finally we will touch on the prospects for democracy in the United States.

Foreign Policy

President Trump’s meeting with the leaders of Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada were largely successful. The Abe-Trump meeting led to closer diplomatic ties and a promise that Japan would increase their investment in automobile manufacturing in the US. Trump may have improved trade relations by reducing the trade imbalances. Trump and Abe adopted a moderate position on the North Korean missile test in the Sea of Japan, rejecting a further military build-up as the liberal-neo-con media demanded.

US-UK meeting, in the post-Brexit period, promised to increase trade.

Trump moved to improve relations with China, clearly backing the ’single China’ policy and proceeding to re-negotiate and re-balance trade relations.

The US backed the unanimous UN Security Council vote to condemn North Korea’s missile launch. Trump did not consider it a military threat or rising to the level of additional sanctions.

Trump’s policy of reconciliation with Russia in order to improve the war against Islamist terrorism has been stymied. Led by the witch-hunting left liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren, neo-conservative militarists and Democrats pronounced Russia as the primary threat to US national security!

The rabid, ceaseless mass media blitz forced the resignation of Trump’s National Security Adviser, Ret. General Michael Flynn, on the basis of an 18th century law (the Logan Act) that prohibited private citizens from discussing policy with foreign leaders. This law has never been implemented. If it were enforced, hundreds of thousands of American citizens, most especially the big-wigs among the 51 ‘Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’, as well as the foreign affairs editors of all major and minor US media outlets and foreign policy academics would be on the ‘chain-gangs’ with convicted drug dealers. Never embarrassed by absurdity or by trivializing tragedy, this recent ‘Tempest in the Teapot’ has whipped up passionate calls by the media and Democratic Party operatives for a new ‘Nine-Eleven Style Investigation’ into General Flynn talks with the Russians.

Trump’s setback on his National Security Adviser Flynn has put the prospects for improved, less bellicose foreign affairs in danger. It heightens the risk for a nuclear confrontations and domestic repression. These dangers, including a domestic anti-Russian McCarthy-style purge of foreign policy ‘realists’, are exclusively the responsibility of the ultra-militarist Democratic Party-Neo-Conservative alliance. None of this addresses the serious domestic socioeconomic problems.

Rebalancing Foreign Spending and Trade

Trump’s public commitment about rebalancing US relations with NATO, namely reducing the US share of funding, has already started. Currently only five NATO members meet the required contribution. Trump’s insistence on Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, France and 18 other members fulfilling their commitments would add over $100 billion to NATO’s budget – reducing US foreign imbalances.

Of course, it would be far better for all if NATO was disbanded and the various nations re-allocate these many hundreds of billions of dollars for social spending and domestic economic development.

Trump has announced a major effort to reduce US trade imbalances in Asia. Contrary to the claims, often made by foreign trade ‘experts’ in the mass media, China is not the only, or even the largest, among the ‘offenders’ in exploiting unbalanced trade with the US.

China’s current account trade surplus is 5% of its GDP, while South Korea’s is 8%, Taiwan’s 15% and Singapore’s is 19%. Trump’s target is to reduce the US trade imbalances to $20 billion dollars with each country or 3% of GDP. Trump’s quota of $100 billion dollars stands in marked contrast to the ‘Asian Five’s’ (Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) current trade imbalance of $700 billion dollars in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund.

In sum, Trump is moving to reduce external imbalances by 85% in order to increase domestic production and create jobs for US-based industries.

Trump and Latin America

Trump’s Latin America policy is focused primarily on Mexico and to a much lesser degree on the rest of the continent.

The White House’s biggest move has been to scuttle Obama’s Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, which favored multi-national corporations exploiting Chile, Peru and Mexico’s work force, as well as attracting the neo-liberal regimes in Argentina and Uruguay. Trump inherits from President Obama numerous military bases in Colombia, Guantanamo, Cuba and Argentina. The Pentagon has continued Obama’s ‘cold war’ with Venezuela – falsely accusing the Venezuelan Vice President of drug trafficking.

Trump has promised to alter US trade and immigration policy with Mexico. Despite the widespread opposition to Trump’s immigration policy, he lags far behind Obama’s massive expulsion of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. America’s deportation champion was President Barack Obama, who expelled 2.2 million immigrants and their family members in eight years, or approximately 275,000 a month. In his first month in office, President Trump has deported just one percent of Obama’s monthly average.

President Trump promises to re-negotiate NAFTA, imposing a tax on imports and enticing US multinational corporations to return and invest in America.

There are numerous hidden advantages for Mexico if it responds to Trump’s policies with its own ‘reciprocal protectionist’ economic measures. Under NAFTA, 2 million Mexican farmers went into bankruptcy and billions of dollars have been spent importing (subsidized) rice, corn and other staples from the US. A ‘Mexico First’ policy could open the door for a revival of Mexican agriculture for domestic consumption and export; this would also decrease out-migration of Mexican farm workers. Mexico could re-nationalize its oil industry and invest in domestic refineries gaining billions of dollars and reducing imports of refined petroleum products from the US. With an obligatory import-substitution policy, local manufacturing could increase the domestic market and employment. Jobs would increase in the formal economy and reduce the number of unemployed youth recruited by the drug cartels and other criminal gangs. By nationalizing the banks and controlling capital flows, Mexico could block the annual outflow of about $50 billion dollars of illicit funds. National-popular policies, via reciprocity, would strengthen the election of new leaders who could begin to purge the corrupt police, military and political leadership.

In sum, while the Trump policies may cause some short-term losses, it can lead to substantial medium and long-term advantages for the Mexican people and nation.

Democracy

President Trump’s election has provoked a virulent authoritarian campaign threatening our democratic freedoms.

Highly coordinated and endless propaganda by all the major media and the two political parties have fabricated and distorted reports and encouraged elected representatives to savage Trump’s foreign policy appointees, forcing resignations and reversals of policy. The forced resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn highlights the Democratic Party’s pro-war agenda against nuclear-armed Russia. Liberal Senators, who once made grand speeches against ‘Wall Street’ and the ‘One Percent’, now demand Trump reject working with Russian President Putin against the real threat of ISIS while supporting the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Liberal icons openly push for sending more US warships in Asia to provoke China, while opposing Trump’s policy of favorably re-negotiating trade deals with Beijing.

There are many hidden dangers and advantages in this partisan political warfare.

Trump has exposed the systemic lies and distortions of the mass media, confirming the distrust held by a majority of Americans for the corporate news media. The low opinion of the media, especially held by Americans in the economically devastated center of the country (those described by Hillary Clinton as the ‘deplorables’) is clearly matched by the media’s deep disdain for this huge portion of the electorate. Indeed, the constant media chatter about how the evil ‘Russians’ had hacked the US presidential elections giving the victory to Donald Trump, is more likely a ‘dog whistle’ to mask their unwillingness to openly denounce the ‘poor whites’- including workers and rural Americans – who overwhelmingly voted for Trump. This class and regional element goes a long way to explain the constant hysteria over Trump’s victory. There is widespread fury among the elites, intellectuals and bureaucrats over the fact that Clinton’s big ‘basket of deplorables’ rejected the system and rejected its coiffured and manicured media mouthpieces.

For the first time there is a political debate over freedom of speech at the highest levels of government. The same debate extends to the new President’s challenge from the enormous, uncontrolled police state apparatus (FBI, NSA, CIA, Homeland Security, etc..), which expanded massively under Barack Obama.

Trump’s trade and alliance policies have awakened the US Congress to debates over substantive issues rather than internal procedural quibbles. Even Trump’s rhetorical policies have aroused mass demonstrations, some of which are bona fide, while others are bankrolled by billionaire supporters of the Democratic Party and its neo-liberal expansionist agenda, like the ‘Grand Sugar Daddy of the Color Revolutions’ George Soros. It is a serious question whether this may provide an opening for genuine grass-roots democratic-socialist movements to organize and take advantage of the rift among the elite.

The bogus charges of ‘treasonous’ communication with the Russian Ambassador against Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, while still a civilian, and the convoking of the Logan Act against civilians discussing foreign policy with foreign governments, opens up the possibility of investigating legislators, like Charles Schumer and several hundred others, for discussing US strategic policy positions with Israeli officials…

Win or lose, the Trump Administration has opened a debate on the possibilities of peace with a nuclear superpower, a re-examination of the huge trade deficit and the necessity to stand-up for democracy against authoritarian threats from the so-called ‘intelligence community’ against an elected President.

Trump and the Class Struggle

The Trump socio-economic agenda has already set in motion powerful undercurrents of class conflict. The media and political class have focused on conflicts over immigration, gender issues, and relations with Russia, NATO and Israel as well as intra-party politics. These conflicts obscure deeper class antagonisms, which grow out of Trump’s radical economic proposals.

President Trump’s proposal to reduce the power of the federal regulatory and investigatory agencies, simplify and lower taxes, curtail spending on NATO, re-negotiate or scrap multilateral agreements and cut the budgets for research, health and education all seriously threaten the employment for millions of public sector workers and officials across the country. Many of the hundreds of thousands of protestors at the women’s rallies and marches for immigration and education are public employees and their family members who are under economic threat. What appears on the surface to be protests over specific cultural, identity or human rights issues are manifestations of a deeper and more extensive struggle between public sector employees and the agenda of a privatizing state, which draws its class support from small business people attracted by lower taxes and less regulatory burdens, as well as private ‘charter school’ officials and hospital administrators.

Trump’s protectionist measures, including export subsidies, pit the domestic manufacturers against multi-billion dollar importers of cheap consumer goods.

Trump’s proposals for deregulated oil, gas, timber, more agro-mineral exports and major infrastructure investments are supported by bosses and workers in those sectors. This has provoked a sharp conflict with environmentalists, community-based workers and producers, indigenous peoples and their supporters.

Trump’s initial effort to mobilize domestic class forces opposed to continued budget-draining overseas warfare and in support of market relations-based empire building has been defeated by the combined efforts of the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus and their supporters in a liberal-neo-conservative-militarist political elite coalition and their mass supporters.

The evolving class struggle has deepened and threatens to tear apart the constitutional order in two directions: The conflict can lead to an institutional crisis and toward the forceful ouster of an elected president and the installation of a hybrid regime, which will preserve the most reactionary programs of both sides of the class conflict. Importers, investors and workers in extractive industries, supporters of privatized educations and healthcare, warmongers and members of the politicized security apparatus may take total control of the state. On the other hand, if the class struggle can mobilize the public sector workers, workers in the commercial sector, the unemployed, the anti-war democrats and progressive IT entrepreneurs and employers dependent on skilled immigrants, as well as scientists and environmentalists into a massive movement willing to support a living wage and unify around common class interests, deep systemic change becomes possible. In the medium term, the unification of these class movements can lead to a progressive hybrid regime.