By Chayanika Saxena*

The ties between India and Tajikistan overall have been marked by cooperation, cordiality and closeness. The relations between the two countries thrive on a mutual understanding of the relevance of each other. Economically, where a resource-rich Tajikistan provides the burgeoning markets and manufacturing hubs in India access to energy and minerals, Tajikistan sees in India an able partner that can assist in developing its information technology, education and agrarian sectors. Strategically, there has been a history of cooperation between the two countries – spanning from the signing of bilateral defence cooperation agreement as far back as in 2002 to the elevation of their association to the level of ‘strategic partnership’ in 2012.

India and Tajikistan endeavor to further solidify their ties as they recognize that economic cooperation and their strategic congruence on vital issues can lead the way.

Economic Cooperation

Bilateral trade between India with Tajikistan is not at any significant level and much below its potential. One of the biggest dampeners to their economic engagement is lack of direct access. While Tajikistan majorly imports India’s pharmaceutical products, the Indian imports from Tajikistan have included cotton, aluminum and other minerals.

Working towards improving connectivity between India and Tajikistan, the two countries are currently looking at trans-national, regional initiatives for the same. For instance, Tajikistan has reiterated its support for the India-led the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) The development of Chabahar port by India in Iran, as the port-head to a web of rail and road links through Afghanistan, is also being touted as alternative route that will provide India access to Central Asian Republics, including Tajikistan.

Furthermore, both the countries have recognized that the proposed Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan Trilateral Transit Trade Agreement (PATTTTA) would be central to facilitation of trade between Tajikistan and the countries of the South Asian region.

Cooperation in health sector is another facet of engagement for India and Tajikistan. Given the growing number of people from Tajikistan visiting India for medical treatment, the countries have agreed to expand cooperation in the field of health. Tajikistan has welcomed India’s proposal to implement a tele-medicine project in Tajikistan by connecting reputed multi-specialty hospitals in India with hospitals in Dushanbe and other regions of Tajikistan for offering medical consultation and education.

India had also provided two million doses of oral polio vaccine through UNICEF in November 2010 to assist Tajikistan in managing a massive polio outbreak in the country. Giving the medical services in Tajikistan a shot in the arm, the Government of India gifted a high-quality ambulance to the Governor of Khorog city of the Gorno-Badakshan autonomous Region (Pamirs) in 2013. Added to which, India in September 2015, granted USD 100,000 in humanitarian assistance to Tajikistan for providing relief to the flood and mudslide-affected people of GBAO and Rasht valley in response to Tajikistan’s appeal for international humanitarian aid.

Strategic Cooperation: Defence and Security

Tajikistan’s importance for India lies in its geo-strategic location. Sharing its borders with China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan is located in proximity to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Apart from providing access to other Central Asian countries, Tajikistan assumes a significant place, especially in the context of India’s security equations involving Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has been reported that during the Afghan Civil War and the era of Taliban, India along with its Russian, Iranian and Uzbek allies had maintained its presence in Tajikistan to support the Ahmad Shah Massoud-led Northern Alliance. In fact, India is among the only four countries that operates a joint military base (with Tajik Air Force) (Farkhor) in Tajikistan.

Given the rising threat of the Islamic State in Central and South Asian regions, combined with problems associated with terror financing through narcotics, India and Tajikistan find their strategic and security priorities converge to tackle these concerns. Infiltration of extremists into their national borders due to the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan is commonly perceived as a major threat to domestic security and the stability of their shared neighborhood.

Dealing with the menace of terrorism, India and Tajikistan have decided to reinvigorate official-level interactions in the framework of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Counter Terrorism for strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism. The two countries have emphasized the need for continued cooperation between their security agencies, including information sharing mechanisms to counter the growing menace of extremism and terrorism. Both sides further emphasized the need for adoption of the “Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism” by the UN General Assembly.

On the defence front, India, as part of its bilateral defence cooperation agreement of 2002, has helped Tajikistan in refurbishing the Ayni airport near Dushanbe which is fully operational now. Assisting it in the re-operationalization of the air base, India’s Border Roads Organization in 2007 spent USD 70 million restoring Ayni, lengthening its runway to 1.9 miles, and building hangars including three hardened shelters, an air traffic control tower and perimeter fencing . Having brought it back into action, India has upped its efforts to secure the lease for this base given its strategic location; a task that has proven to be a tough call to this date due to Tajikistan’s reluctance in the face of Russian disapproval and rivaling Chinese investments.

India’s defence cooperation has not been restricted to material support alone. Capacity and institutional building of the armed forces of Tajikistan has been another area of cooperation. For instance, in 2003, New Delhi conducted its first Central Asian military exercise with Tajikistan. India’s donations to the Tajik defense ministry have included two Mi-8 helicopters along with critical spare parts, trucks and other vehicles, about 10,000 uniforms, and computers. In addition, hundreds of Tajik military cadets and officers have been trained at India’s National Defence Academy since 1998. India also funded the refurbishment of the Tajik Military Institute in Dushanbe. The cost of training Tajik military personnel is borne by India.

India and Tajikistan have cooperated on various multilateral platforms, including the United Nations and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where Tajikistan’s has extended its support to India’s bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations, it has also echoed India’s concerns on Afghan peace process. India and Tajikistan have maintained that the Afghan peace process has to be Afghan led, owned and controlled to bring about any sustainable improvements in its security situation.

As India reaches out to the Central Asian Republics for projecting its economic and strategic power, the increasing presence of the Chinese in the region will certainly leave an impact on India’s ambitions there. China’s increasing involvement in Tajikistan, courtesy its geographical proximity and the geo-strategically ambitious project of ‘One Belt, One Road (OBOR)’, is being seen as a potential factor that could swing away Central Asia from the Indian influence in a considerable way. Furthermore, the partaking of benefits of this cooperation between China and Central Asia by Pakistan has India concerned.

As OBOR still remains a work in progress, in the short and medium term, India must combine its increasing investments with careful soft power recalibration to keep these nascent democracies and republics on path of mutual cooperation and development.

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

By Amit Dasgupta*

China has mastered the art of bullying as strategy. Pradeep Khosla, an American of Indian origin, who is Chancellor at the University of California, San Diego, did not anticipate the reaction from Beijing, when he naively invited the Dalai Lama to give a talk at the university.

Through a blistering editorial in a Chinese daily, he was personally castigated for being used as a pawn by New Delhi ‘to divide China’. The editorial went a step further and warned that provocative actions would attract retaliation.

The language is by no means temperate or new, nor was it meant to be and reflected the official line.

For several decades, Beijing has cautioned the global community to be unilaterally mindful of its interests. Indeed, it considers this to be a legitimate entitlement, whether with regard to the Dalai Lama or Taiwan or its territorial ambitions. Under Xi Jinping’s ‘forceful diplomacy’, this has been fine-tuned. Today, hard talk, open threats and bullying are central to Beijing’s foreign policy strategy.

There is a background to this. China’s rise as an economic powerhouse whetted her appetite for superpower status. Drawing on the Monroe doctrine and the US experience, she sought regional hegemony, including through force. Recognising the threat of the Asia Pivot on her sphere of influence, for instance, Beijing’s usurped the South China Sea islands to establish military bases as a deterrent to those inimical to her interests.

Beijing gambled and arguably well on three counts: first, that there would be protests but they would not pose any significant challenge; second, the US would not exercise its military might to enter into a dispute; and third, once it effectively seized the islands and set up military bases, it would hold a strategic advantage in the Asia Pacific. All three effectively played out along the lines Beijing gambled.

The unanticipated challenge came from Manila under then President Benigno Aquino, who decided to take the matter to the UN. Beijing saw it as an insult and refused to participate in the hearings and challenged the legitimacy of the ruling. Simultaneously, she broke ASEAN unity and prevented any resolution that called her territorial expansion illegitimate. The opposition to the seizure now lies in shambles with the new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, taking a softer line. Only Japan stands in the way.

US President Donald Trump emerged as the new and significant threat. His cosiness with Taiwan and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s tough talk on South China Sea were a cause for anxiety and suggested that a fundamental shift in US foreign policy might be in the offing. Beijing opted for a forceful response, including the threat of war. A week later, both Trump and Tillerson did an about-turn and Beijing achieved a great victory.

Any strategist would advise against making empty threats. Trump played without knowing his cards and Beijing called his bluff.

This has worrying implications. At one level, the global community was confused as to what President Trump might do vis-à-vis China, as a hostile response from Beijing would plunge the world into chaos. At another level, the about-turn meant that bullying and open threats had won the day.

But there was yet another and more damaging development: The world which had, till now, known only one bully – Washington – now had a second contender, who surprisingly and unanimously won the first round. The victory will encourage Xi Jinping to perceive belligerence, expansionism and the pursuit of force as legitimate strategy.

For India, this requires rethinking her China engagement. For several decades, made more acute under Xi Jinping’s leadership, Beijing has resorted to action inimical to India’s interests and clearly aimed at belittling India. New Delhi, on the other hand, has repeatedly shown remarkable sensitivity towards China’s concerns, including championing a bigger role for Beijing in global affairs or endorsing a one-China policy.

The true test for Indian diplomacy would be to ascertain how far it is willing to go to recast its terms of engagement with Beijing and to persuade China to recognize that sustainable respect is not one-sided. Anything short of that would serve neither country’s interests.

*Amit Dasgupta is a former Indian diplomat. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

By Bipin Ghimire and Reza Ehsan*

In a country devastated by wars and lacking national cohesion, Afghan civil activists have consistently been in a state of alert to the unwanted and catastrophic events. Fuelled by aid from international donors, civil activism in Afghanistan has had a steady growth over the last decade during the involvement of the US and its allies with the country.

Civil activism in Afghanistan reached its peak in the last two years but failed to earn any positive response from the government — and accelerated by the direct attacks of insurgent groups on the activists, it seems that civil activism in the conflict-ridden nation is declining. An unprecedented democratic achievement is facing a tragic death.

On November 11, 2015, a mass of peaceful protestors surrounded the Presidential Palace in Kabul demanding justice in the case of beheadings of seven members of the Hazara community, including a seven-year-old girl, on the Kabul-Qandahar highway.

There was another round of protests — organised by the same activists — on May 16, 2016 against the re-routing of a power line project which was originally set to pass through the Bamyan province (a Hazara-dominated province) of central Afghanistan. However, the government apparently abandoned the previous plan and decided to proceed through Salang pass, a new route. The protestors were accusing the government of systematic discrimination against ethnic Hazaras who predominantly inhabit the central provinces of Afghanistan.

A couple of months later, on July 22, 2016, two explosions took place among the protestors during their second round of protests, which resulted in 80 casualties and left more than 231 injured. These protests became famous as ‘The Enlightenment movement’. After this explosion, the movement did not launch any further protests fearing attacks.

Hitherto, the social movements in Afghanistan have not been able to earn governments concessions. This situation has raised two questions — whether the civil movements are failing or does the government intend to get rid of civil activism.

The Afghan government has showed token acceptance of civil activism and democratic movements, merely to attract aid and assistance from the liberal world, particularly from the US. There are two reasons behind it — the totalitarian tradition of governance, which still casts its shadow over the conduct of the post-2001 bureaucrats and the over-concentration on security politics.

The post-2001 government in Afghanistan is old wine in a new bottle which replicates the 1970s bureaucratic settings. The same bureaucrats from 1970s-1980s totalitarian governments were recalled on the onset of Hamid Karzai’s administration. Not used to the democratic ways of governance, the Afghan officials lack both accountability and transparency to the public or civil activists.

This lack of democratic accountability is backed by the high political prioritisation on security issues. Such an over-focus on high politics have led to not only the official corps inherited from 1980s but also the President, a former World Bank official, turning a blind eye to non-security issues.

Incumbent President Ashraf Ghani, in one of his speeches to military officials, satirically criticised the media saying “winds come out of TV channels, we count on you; bombs come out of you”. Many media activists interpreted his words as not being sensitive to the media and popular opinion.

The decline of civil activism may allow the Afghan state to carry on with its priorities without civil griping in its ears. However, overwhelmed with its undemocratic bureaucratic background and its traditional governmental setup in place, it is prone to authoritarian rule.

The presence of the international community in the country since 2001 assisted civil activists to create an internal self-re-correcting mechanism within the Afghan society which constantly undercuts governmental aspirations for totalitarian behaviours.

To rescue the Afghan civil activists, firstly, the Afghan government needs to create a safe environment for their activities with specific protective measures to secure them against attacks by terrorists and insurgents. Secondly, the government should respond positively to their demands to keep civil movements alive which in turn encourages the armed opposition to seek their political demands through civil activism.

*Bipin Ghimire is a Doctoral fellow (International Relations) at the New Delhi-based South Asian University. Reza Ehsan is pursuing MA in development economics at the same institution. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

As India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled the government’s finance budget for the next fiscal, it included the External Affairs Ministry’s budget outlay of Rs 14,798 crore. India’s multilateral and bilateral aid and assistance programmes for its neighbouring and other developing countries form part of this financial allocation. This assistance is provided to immediate neighbouring countries and also to countries of Africa, Central Asia, South Asia and Latin America. It also caters for aid for disaster relief and humanitarian aid. The provision also includes aid assistance to Bhutan, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

In comparison with last year’s revised estimate (RE), the MEA will have additional INR 13.72 billion to spend. The overall budget for Ministry of External Affairs has been increased from INR 134.26 billion to Rs 147.986 billion. The capital budget for the next fiscal is INR 21.50 billion; which is INR 3.02 billion more than last fiscal’s revised capital budget of INR 18.47 billion. The international aid allocation for the next financial year is INR 64.79 billion whereas in the last fiscal the revised budget was INR 59.40 billion.

India will spend INR 1.50 billion on the strategic Chabahar port in Iran, INR 500 million more than in last fiscal. A commercial contract for the development and operation of Chabahar Port was signed between India, Iran and Afghanistan last year in Tehran during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit. The allocation for the port made a debut in last year’s revised budget as no allocation was made for the project in last year’s Budget, the government was later allocated INR 1.0 billion at the RE stage to start it.

The Modi government’s “neighbourhood first policy” is seeing aid worth hundreds of millions to neighbouring countries as well as those in the extended neighbourhood including the Indian Ocean rim countries of Mauritius and Seychelles but there has been a decline in allocated aid for countries like Afghanistan where India has already completed a few important development projects.

Bhutan, the biggest beneficiary of Indian foreign aid, will get INR 37.14 billion with INR 16.30 billion earmarked for capital expenses. The allocation for the year is INR 1.54 billion less than last year’s revised allocation of INR 38.68 billion. The Government of India had provided Bhutan with an assistance package of INR 45 billion towards the 11th Five Year Plan of Bhutan (2013-18) comprising of INR 28.0 billion as Project Tied Assistance (PTA), INR 8.50 billion for Programme Grant and INR 8.50 billion for Small Development Projects (SDPs).

India’s aid to Nepal for next fiscal is INR 3.75 billion, INR 550 million more than last year. The development assistance extended to Nepal in 2014-15 was INR 4.20 billion, and that in 2015-16 was INR 3.0 billion. Four lines of credit totaling INR 112.03 billion have been extended to Nepal so far.

Since 2005, the Government of India has committed INR 23.0 billion as grant assistance and INR12.9 billion under Lines of Credit for the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons and reconstruction of infrastructure in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka. India’s flagship project of assistance to Sri Lanka – the Housing Project for construction of 50,000 houses in the North, East and Central Provinces, had an overall commitment of over INR 13.72 billion in grants. Rehabilitation of the Northern Railway line, Palaly airport and Kankesanthurai harbor(Jaffna District, Northern Province); setting up vocational training centres and child care centres; construction of hospitals; livelihood and employment generation projects; women’s empowerment programme; construction of a cultural centre at Jaffna and other small developmental projects. Projects completed in 2015 include the Mahatma Gandhi International Centre in Matale (Central Province), Language Labs in Ampara, Matara, Badulla and Jaffna and a 200 bed ward complex in Vavuniya(Northern Province). Bilateral cooperation has continued to expand in various areas particularly, defence, economic, education, agriculture, development partnership,

Afghanistan will get INR 3.50 billion. There has been a deep reduction in the Indian support to Afghanistan. In 2015-16, INR 8.80 billion was spent in Afghanistan. This fell to INR 3.15 billion in the revised budget of 2016-17. The aid to Afghanistan is therefore down from the initial INR5.20 billion announced in the budget for 2016-17 but is up from the revised estimates for 2016-17. In several cases, the allocated amounts are closer to the revised estimates which are essentially the amounts likely to be spent in the current fiscal 2016-17 of which there are still two months to go.

Maldives has seen the highest jump in allocation — from INR 800 million last year to INR 2.45 billion, a three-fold hike. Other allocations to countries are Mauritius (INR 3.50 billion ), Seychelles (INR 3.0 billion), and Myanmar (INR 2.25 billion). In the field of development assistance, India had provided to Seychelles a grant of US$ 4.3 million for procurement of public transportation buses, medicines, ICT equipment and educational items.

In the case of Myanmar during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Myanmar from May 27-29, 2012. PM and President U Thein Sein signed 12 Agreements and MOUs including on USD 500 million Line of Credit, on Air Services, Border Areas Development, on Establishment of the Advanced Centre for Agriculture Research & Education (ACARE) Rice Bio Park Myanmar and Institute of Information Technology with Indian assistance, Establishment of Border Haats, Joint Trade and Investment Forum, MoUs for Cooperation amongst Think Tanks/ Institutes of the two countries and support for HRD through 500 training slots. With new road projects like the Trilateral Highway and Rhi-Tiddim road, India’s commitment to Myanmar’s development stands at US$ 2 billion.

India has responded promptly and effectively to assist Myanmar in humanitarian relief operations following natural calamities like Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the earthquake in Shan State in 2010 and cyclone Komen in 2015. Besides immediate relief material, medical assistance, supplies for rehabilitation work, biomass gasifiers, solar torches & lanterns, India also replaced 16 damaged transformers and given a grant of USD 200,000 to repair the Shwedagon Pagoda complex in Yangon.

India also gave assistance of USD 1 million for relief and reconstruction work in the quake affected zone in Shan State, of which 250,000 was given as a cash grant and the remainder used to finance reconstruction of 1 high school and 6 primary schools. India also donated US$200,000 in cash to GOM for Rakhine State rehabilitation. India again provided a sum of US$ 1 million to Government of Myanmar for promoting inter-communal harmony in Rakhine State which the Myanmar Government has chosen to use to construct 10 schools to serve both communities and promoting communal harmony.

Foreign policy analysts feel that these projects are being undertaken with Indian assistance at a time when China is increasing its presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. Therefore, even though Mauritius and Seychelles are located thousands of kilometres from the Indian mainland in the southern Indian Ocean, they are strategically important for India which has stepped up naval cooperation with these countries. Chinese submarines have been making forays through the Indian Ocean, something which has worried India. Bhutan, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed the warmest ties and had also last year joined the boycott of the then proposed SAARC summit in Islamabad which was eventually cancelled. India has undertaken a few development projects in Afghanistan including the Friendship Dam there which has sent an important message to the Afghans.

This article was published at South Asia Monitor.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2017, released in January, explores several factors affecting projected fossil fuel use and the resulting level of energy-related CO2 emissions over the coming decades.

Projected consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels is heavily influenced by fuel economy standards for light-duty vehicles and for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Across the modeling cases that keep existing laws and policies constant, projected use of these fuels varies depending on world oil prices that directly affect the prices of gasoline and distillate fuel oil and on production and disposition of hydrocarbon gas liquids. Hydrocarbon gas liquids are classified as petroleum products but are primarily produced at plants that process liquids-rich wet natural gas rather than at crude oil refineries.

Natural gas consumption is sensitive to natural gas prices, which are affected by the development of U.S. natural gas resources. Consumption is also affected by regulations and incentives related to fuels and technologies that compete with electricity generation fueled by natural gas. Efficiency standards for buildings, furnaces, and other appliances also influence the demand for both natural gas and electricity. Coal consumption largely depends on the power sector regulatory environment and competition from other electricity-generating fuels such as natural gas and renewables.

With the exception of one case that assumes the Clean Power Plan is not implemented, all AEO2017 cases reflect current laws and final regulations in effect as of mid-October 2016. In recent years, EIA has alternated between heavy and light versions of the AEO, with the heavy version incorporating additional cases and Issues in Focus articles that are not provided in the light version.

AEO2016 included cases that explored the implications of extended policies in the form of continuing rounds of more stringent regulations under existing laws or the continuation of tax credits currently scheduled to expire. These cases show how changes in laws and regulations affect projected fossil fuel use and related CO2 emissions. Similarly, the No Clean Power Plan cases in both AEO2016 and AEO2017 show how projected fuel use and emissions might be affected if the Clean Power Plan is not implemented.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2017

Petroleum and other liquids are used in the United States primarily for transportation. Two cases in AEO2017 that consider a wide range of world oil prices produce the greatest range in CO2 emissions from petroleum liquids. Petroleum-related CO2 emissions totaled 2,325 million metric tons (MMmt) in 2016. In the Low Oil Price case, these emissions increase to 2,454 MMmt of CO2 by 2040, and in the High Oil Price case these emissions fall to 1,901 MMmt by 2040.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2017

Natural gas use and emissions show significant sensitivity to the different assumptions in the Oil and Gas Resource and Technology cases in AEO2017. In the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, higher natural gas resources and more optimistic assumptions for drilling technologies result in more natural gas production and lower natural gas prices. Lower prices result in more natural gas consumption in every sector, especially the electric power sector.

In the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, emissions of CO2 from natural gas use rise from 1,493 MMmt in 2016 to 1,991 MMmt in 2040. In the AEO2017 Low Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, which has less optimistic assumptions for resources and technology, these emissions fall to 1,295 MMmt of CO2 by 2040. This is the only scenario in the AEO2017 analysis where natural gas CO2 emissions in 2040 are lower than they were in 2016.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2017

Under Reference case assumptions for natural gas and coal markets, the level of CO2 emissions from coal use is most affected by whether or not the Clean Power Plan is implemented. Across the AEO2017 cases, coal-related CO2 emissions after 2022 are highest in the No Clean Power Plan case, rising to 1,446 MMmt in 2040. Coal-related CO2 emissions are lowest in the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, as low natural gas prices lead to greater use of natural gas for power generation and less use of coal. In this case, coal CO2 emissions fall from 1,483 MMmt in 2016 to 797 MMmt in 2040.

Total energy-related CO2 emissions reflect the effects of economic growth, consumer behavior, energy prices, and government policies at both the federal and state levels. Across the AEO2017 cases, projected total energy-related CO2 emissions are highest in the case that uses Reference case assumptions with the exception that the Clean Power Plan is not implemented. By 2025, energy-related CO2 emissions in this case are 12% below the 2005 level, compared with 15% below the 2005 level in the Reference case with the Clean Power Plan. By 2030, the gap between projected emissions in the two cases widens, with the No Clean Power Plan case showing a 13% reduction from the 2005 level and the Reference case with the Clean Power Plan case showing a 19% reduction from the 2005 level.

The AEO2017 case with the lowest energy-related CO2 emissions changes over the projection period. In 2025, the High Oil Price case has the lowest total energy-related CO2 emissions, at 4,960 MMmt, or 17% below the 2005 level. By 2030, the Low Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case and the Low Economic Growth case both result in emissions that are roughly 21% below the 2005 level. By 2040, the Low Economic Growth case results in the lowest emissions across the AEO2017 cases, at 4,616 MMmt, or 23% below the 2005 level.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2017 Interactive Table Viewer

Principal contributor: Perry Lindstrom

By Syed Badrul Ahsan*

After the fiction-peddling Pakistan-apologist Sarmila Bose, we have a new myth-maker in our midst. Junaid Ahmad sets out on a mission to explode ‘myths’ behind the creation of Bangladesh. Ironically, he ends up being only a maker of myths.

And that is not all. His fiction, a result of a fervid imagination at work, begins to implode right at the beginning. The implosion runs its full course, all the way to the end of a work which is clearly trapped in a time warp dating back to the 1960s and early 1970s. The jacket of the book, ‘Creation of Bangladesh: Myths Exploded’, highlights the writer’s ‘accomplishments’ as an academician, researcher and management consultant in Pakistan.

As you go through this fiction of what he would like to see presented as history, you realise that there is nothing of an academic nature about the work and certainly the research is but another term for propaganda. As for the management bit, this writer with a background in consultancy should never have ventured into the expansive field of history, a subject certainly not his forte. But wait. He is also said to have been a student at Concordia University and then McGill University in Canada in the mid-1970s. The education appears to have been flawed, a waste, for such prestigious universities hardly ever produce scholars of the kind which Ahmad has made himself out to be.

So what is Junaid Ahmad’s sin? Fundamentally it is one of profound ignorance. The ignorance is founded on the premise, his premise, of anger at the brutal manner in which the state of Pakistan was dismembered in 1971. East Pakistan, after the murder of three million Bengalis at the hands of the Pakistan occupation army, simply ceased to exist.

Junaid Ahmad’s anger has its roots in the transformation of Islamic Pakistan’s eastern province into the secular People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Could the two wings of Pakistan, with a thousand miles of Indian territory between them and despite all the bloodletting caused by the Pakistan Army, have remained a single country? For an answer, observe Ahmad’s disquiet about the role Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not or would not play following the surrender of his nation’s army in Dhaka. Bhutto could not influence a yet imprisoned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to agree to some arrangements to keep Pakistan united.

Ahmad’s naivete goes up by leaps and bounds. If Bhutto could not bind Mujib to a deal before letting him go free, he could at least have stayed his hand in the matter of Pakistan’s recognition of Bangladesh as a sovereign state on the eve of the summit of Islamic nations in Lahore in 1974, couldn’t he?

How much more ignorant can a ‘scholar’ get to be? The war is over, East Pakistan is dead and gone, the world has begun conducting business with a free Bangladesh, but Junaid Ahmad sulks. Had his comprehension of the history of 1971 been of the informed kind, his sulking would not be overly worrying. But then, throughout this tome of a work which the Pakistan authorities seem cheerfully to have gone around distributing to the outside world, Ahmad spews the kind of lies that would put any student of history, even in Pakistan, to shame.

During the war, if Ahmad is to be believed, the Pakistan Army was a bunch of decent, polite soldiers whose business was saving East Pakistan from the Mukti Bahini. The Mukti Bahini started it all, says he. It was in place even before it took shape in the course of the war. The myth-making goes on, at an increasingly faster pace. The villains were all in the Awami League, particularly Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. There were other villains, and they were the Hindus of India. That is Junaid Ahmad’s take on history.

There is something psychologically wrong about this ‘scholar’. For him the trauma associated with 1971 has nothing to do with the genocide the Yahya-Tikka junta initiated in March. Nothing was wrong with Bhutto’s decision to stay away from the National Assembly session called for early March. The problem was the ‘Awami League and its fascist political policies, the terrorist group of Mukti Bahini, the propaganda campaign of the Indians and some global media outlets….’

In essence, what you have here is nonsense elbowing out history. The Bengalis, says this ‘scholar’, murdered thousands of people, especially Urdu-speaking Biharis throughout the war. That is pretty intriguing a proposition. It boils down to a shamelessly revisionist version of history the world has so far not been made familiar with. The writer, in his time warp, of course, blatantly papers over the realities of the conflict, one created by his own country, as they were observed and have been recorded by history.

He does not speak of the massacres committed by the Pakistan Army through Operation Searchlight, but goes into a rant about the ‘armed resistance’ the soldiers met at the residential halls of Dhaka University on the night intervening March 25-26. The responsibility then devolved on the soldiers, didn’t it, to sort out the mess and restore order? Ahmad says not a word about the sorting out being the organised murder of sleeping students at the university.

This work is carefully but crudely orchestrated anti-history, certainly condoned if not actively supported by the establishment in present-day Pakistan. In a very large way, it is one more hint of why successive governments in Pakistan, along with those rabid elements which have kept their eyes shut to the atrocities committed by their soldiers in Bangladesh, have stayed away from taking a rational view of history.

Junaid Ahmad cheers the military crackdown of March 25, after the Awami League had engaged in ‘loot, plunder, and massacre of the people loyal to Pakistan’. Not a word is there in this account from this faux historian of the gruesome killings of teachers of Dhaka University in the initial stages of the genocide. Not a whisper is there on the killings of the revered Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta and Gobindo Chandra Dev. Should we be surprised? Not if we have already been exposed to Ahmad’s hate directed at Hindus and, of course, at the secular nation of Bengalis.

Everything that went wrong for Pakistan in 1971 had to do with India, with its Hindu mentality, with the secret workings of Delhi’s Research and Analysis Wing. Racism drips from every word Junaid Ahmad writes.

This work is a study in unadulterated insanity. Junaid Ahmad stumbles on ‘discoveries’ relating to India-Bangladesh ties the world remains ignorant of. And how does that happen to be?

The writer thinks that in October 1971, the Bangladesh government-in-exile and the Indian government arrived at a deal that would, post-war, ensure an Indian military and administrative presence in Bangladesh. There would be no armed forces formed by Bangladesh since a required number of Indian soldiers would stay on in the new country. Vacant posts in Bangladesh’s civil service would be filled by Indian civil servants.

Ignorance, you see, plumbs newer depths at every point. And the ten million Bengali refugees who found sanctuary in India? Ahmad comes forth with a new ‘discovery’: they were largely Hindus and they were terrorists in the guise of refugees. And the young Bengalis who joined the Mukti Bahini? To Ahmad, they were ‘brainwashed Bengali students’.

And did you know that even Indian military officers were part of the Mukti Bahini? You bet you didn’t know that, but it appears that Junaid Ahmad’s excessive patriotism as a Pakistan leaves him maimed as a teller of history.

Junaid Ahmad’s interpretation of history as it was shaped in the course of Bangladesh’s War of Liberation ends up shaming him. Scholars through the ages have never been peddlers of falsehood. Ahmad peddles lies and, therefore, cannot be treated as a scholar. For him, the Pakistan occupation army was a body of innocent, professional men serving their country.

Ahmad does not speak of the killings and rape and pillage these soldiers, abnormally driven by religious and racist hate, committed day after day in the occupied country. Hindus are an obsession with him. He moves to the Ziaur Rahman era in Bangladesh in order to find validity in his attitude toward Hindus.

Observe his encomium to Bangladesh’s first military dictator: “He weeded out the Hindus from public services, police, and army. These Hindus after their termination went to India and sought asylum. This also clearly proves that the Indians were present in large numbers in the civil and military establishment of Bangladesh since her creation.”

Junaid Ahmad’s work should be read for the amusement it typifies, for the tragicomedy it seems to be propagating. Once that is done, it should either be flung out of the window or relegated to a dark corner where no human hands can reach. The book does not deserve respect and neither does its author. Pakistanis would do well to steer clear of this pamphleteer masquerading as a historian.

*The author is Associate Editor of Daily Observer, a daily published from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

By Zainab Calcuttawala*

A policy of nationalizing chunks of an economy inevitably creates oligarchs who skim profits off the country’s natural resources.

As such, you won’t be surprised to learn that the largest energy companies in the world are owned and operated by governments, and they include: Saudi Aramco, Russian Gazprom, China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), National Iranian Oil Co., Petroleos de Venezuela, Brazil’s Petrobras and Malaysia’s Petronas. How they’re run varies wildly—as does where their wealth goes.

While we’ve all been inundated with the massive amount of press on the scandals engulfing Brazil’s Petrobras, there are a few that stand out for creating and maintaining some of the world’s most interesting and colorful political leaders, who have grown their wealth through holdings in state-run oil and gas in some cases, and through more direct means in other cases.

Five state-run oil wealth stories stand out in today’s world: Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Angola and Brunei.

Vladimir Putin, Russia

Estimates of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wealth only comes in ranges because most of his wealth is hidden through offshore companies or under clandestine financial devices.

The lower end of the range sits at US$40 billion – a 2007 figure based on research by mid-level Kremlin advisor Stanislav Belkovsky, which he later said had grown to US$70 billion. At this level, Putin already stands among Forbes’ Top 10 rankings of the world’s richest billionaires, though the magazine commented in 2015 that it could not verify enough of his assets to put him on the list.

Earlier this week, the International Business Times said Putin’s fortune could be as much as $200 billion.

The majority of Putin’s wealth comes from his stakes in the oil sector. He is said to own 37 percent of Surgutneftegaz, 4.5 percent of Gazprom.

“At least $40 billion,” Belkovsy told the Guardian in 2007. “Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about.”

Putin’s trophies of wealth are far from subtle. His $1 billion palace on the Black Sea features “a magnificent columned façade reminiscent of the country palaces Russian tsars built in the 18th century,” according to the BBC, which also procured evidence that a secret slush fund had been created by a group of oligarchs to build the estate for Putin, personally.

It’s definitely not a lifestyle one can afford on a declared annual salary of around US$140,000.

In a 2012 dossier, Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov (later murdered) claimed that the Russian president owns a total of 20 palaces, four yachts and 58 aircraft.

“In a country where 20 million people can barely make ends meet, the luxurious life of the president is a brazen and cynical challenge to society from a high-handed potentate,” he said, according to the Telegraph.

But according to Putin himself, his wealth is not measured in money. In Steven Lee Myers’ book The New Tsar, Putin is quoted as saying: “I am the wealthiest man not just in Europe but in the whole world: I collect emotions.”

“I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia. I believe that is my greatest wealth.”

Azerbaijan

In 2003, Ilham Aliyev became the newly elected president of Azerbaijan. Thirteen years later, his name appeared in the Panama Papers – a massive leak of financial documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which revealed the shady financial dealings of some of the world’s most powerful political figures.

Months before the October 2003 presidential elections in Azerbaijan, Fazil Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s tax minister, began paperwork to form AtaHolding – a company that has become one of the nation’s largest conglomerates. It holds interests in telecommunications, construction, mining, and oil and gas for a total value of $490 million, according to the last filings in 2014.

A second entity – this time a foundation – called UF Universe holds more assets, but Panamanian laws regarding the confidentiality of foundations are strict, which makes uncovering dollar amounts difficult.

Aliyev’s two daughters and wife also have links to offshore companies managed by Mossack Fonsenca. Incidentally, Aliyev just named his wife Vice-President of Azerbaijan.

How much is the First Oil Family worth these days? No one really knows, but enough to make it onto this list.

Kazakhstan

Kazakh President-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev was also named in the Panama Papers as a tax haven owner. He had two companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, which he used to operate a bank account with an unknown amount of funds, and a luxury yacht.

The revelations were particularly loaded with hypocrisy because of Nazarbayev’s push to encourage his country’s wealthy to repatriate funds from abroad in order to make them taxable.

“We’ve raised many rich people: billionaires, millionaires,” he said, when oil prices tanked in 2014 and the government began using sovereign wealth funds to fund operations. “They are showing off; (their) pictures in Forbes… They look good, with makeup, well-groomed, well-dressed. But it is Kazakhstan that enabled you to earn all this money… Bring the money here. We’ll forgive you.”

Angola

Things here may be about to change, because President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has said he plans to step down after decades in power, and won’t be running in August’s presidential elections, but still plans to control the ruling party. Here, wealth is all about Sonangol, which has been marred in controversy since the president last year named his daughter as the head of the state-run oil company.

Angola has massive oil wealth, yet the bulk of the country’s 22 million people live in poverty, and critics say he’s mismanaged the country’s oil wealth and created an elite that largely consists of his massively rich family. But this scheme is being hit hard by the fall in oil prices that began in mid-2014, and the people are no longer complacent in their poverty.

The president’s daughter, worth an estimated US$3.4 billion before she took over the state-run oil company, has been described by Forbes as Africa’s richest woman.

Brunei

And here’s one that’s probably not even on your radar, but it will be—sooner rather than later.

Vast reserves of oil and natural gas have made Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei one of the richest leaders in the world. The Sultan is believed to be worth US$40 billion at the low end, and while ‘his’ holdings officially belong to Brunei, in reality they belong to the royal family.

Brunei is the third-largest oil producer in Southeast Asia, and pumps out, on average, 180,000 barrels per day. The royal family has controlled everything to do with oil and gas since the 1970s, and the line here between royal family assets and national assets is exceedingly blurry.

Vulnerable or Not?

The thing about these political oil leaders is that they’re not really vulnerable—yet. It would take an event such as that which brought down Gaddafi (said to secretly be worth US$200 billion) in Libya to change this.

In Brunei, things may be about to change, and the Sultan may find his wealth considerably downsized. Oil production is down 40 percent since 2006, and what’s left has lost a great deal of value due to low oil prices. Nearly 96 percent of Brunei’s exports are oil, gas and related products—that tops even Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. Brunei could run out of oil in just over 20 years, but then again, the Sultan is said to have massive real estate holdings to tide him over.

Angola’s president is stepping down and the oil price crisis has hit him hard, but he’ll still control the ruling party and a new president will defer to him (and his daughter).

In Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev is president for life. In Azerbaijan, the family elite is as strong as ever and will continue to be so through any means necessary. In Russia, sanctions simply haven’t worked because they are designed to target those around Putin, and Putin appears to have designed it so they are always vulnerable to him first and foremost.

As Russian businessman and former Putin friend Sergei Pugachev notes to the Guardian, and as reported by U.S. News and World Report: “Everything that belongs to the territory of the Russian Federation Putin considers to be his. Everything – Gazprom, Rosneft, private companies. Any attempt to calculate it won’t succeed. … He’s the richest person in the world until he leaves power.”

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Secret-Wealth-Of-The-Worlds-Richest-Oil-Billionaires.html

It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017. There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.

Any objective and independent reporter would be able to report what I am about to say, but unfortunately there are too many lazy and incompetent reporters prepared to swallow the latest moonshine about the Catholic Church. If there were a Pulitzer for Fake News, the competition would be fierce.

Ireland’s Mother and Baby Commission completed its inquiry into this issue and released a statement on March 3rd about its findings today. The probe was a response to allegations made by a local historian, Catherine Corless, who claimed that 800 babies were buried in a tank outside the former Mother and Baby home that was operated by the Bon Secours nuns.

The statement issued by the Mother and Baby Commission never mentions anything about a mass grave. Having completed a test excavation of the Tuam site, it found “significant quantities of human remains” in most of the underground sewage chambers. “These remains involved a number of individuals with age-at-death ranges from approximately 35 foetal weeks to 2-3 years.”

That’s the story. If there were “mass graves,” not only would the official statement mention it, but so would Katherine Zappone TD, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs; she issued her formal remarks today. She says absolutely nothing about any “mass graves.” Moreover, when the government’s Interim Report was issued on July 12, 2016, it also made no mention of “mass graves.”

“Experts Find Mass Grave at ex-Catholic Orphanage in Ireland.” That is what the Associated Press reported on March 3rd. The author, Shawn Pogatchnik, offers no evidence and no citation from the government’s report to prove his allegation.

AP should know better given its lousy record on this subject. On June 3 and June 8, 2014, AP ran news stories on this subject and later had to apologize for making several factual errors. It now owes readers another apology.

Reuters did a good job reporting on this issue: it never mentioned anything about the mythical “mass graves.” The Belfast Telegraph Online also offered an accurate account, but it was misleading in one way: it quoted Joan Burton of the Labor Party who cited the work of Corless, concluding that “it now appears” that there was “some kind of mass grave.” Her conjecture is based on Corless’ discredited account.

Here is an excerpt from my 2014 report, “Ireland’s ‘Mass Grave’ Hysteria.”

“The notion that a mass grave existed in the site of the Home is oddly enough credited to the same person who says there never was one. His name is Barry Sweeney. Here’s what happened.

“In 1975, when Sweeney was 10, he and a friend, Frannie Hopkins, 12, were playing on the grounds where the home was when they stumbled on a hole with skeletons in it.

“He [Sweeney] is quoted in the Irish Times saying ‘there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number.’ How many were there? ‘About 20,’ he says.”

Douglas Dalby of the New York Times did a good job checking the facts and his account supports what I wrote. He quotes Sweeney saying, “People are making out we saw a mass grave. But we can only say what we seen [sic]: maybe 15-20 small skeletons.”

The appetite to believe the worst about the Catholic Church, and Ireland’s nuns, is so great that many in the media will believe anything negative about it. Yet we know from the McAleese Report on the Magdalene Laundries that not a single nun was ever sexually assaulted by one of the sisters and that the conditions were not “prison like.”

We also know that the movie, “Philomena,” was another smear job. Philomena Lee, upon whom the film was based, voluntarily turned her out-of-wedlock baby over to the nuns at the age of 22. After she signed a contract freely handing over her child to the nuns, the sisters helped her to find gainful employment. Contrary to what the movie said, Philomena never once set foot in the U.S. looking for her son. Indeed, she never set foot in the U.S. until it was time to hawk the movie.

Mass graves. Sexually assaulted women. Children stolen. It is all a lie. It’s about time this non-stop assault on truth and the Catholic Church stopped before no one believes anything the media tell us anymore about all matters Catholic.

It is hard to predict what will happen in the Trump White House. A senior diplomat tells me that he would prefer to watch old episodes of House of Cards rather than watch news programmes. A veteran of the Barack Obama administration predicts that President Donald Trump will not last even a few months. The rigours of the actual presidency will wear him out. Trump likes the theatre, but he will not have the stomach for the grind. Speaking to a woman in the State Department is amusing. She says that the analysts suffer from whiplash. The political direction comes from Twitter in the rush of messages dispatched from the President early in the morning but then is modulated and shaped by his advisers later in the day. “We don’t know what is going on,” she said. These are all seasoned Washington, D.C., insiders. None of them sees anything normal about the Trump White House.

It would be easier to report on the Trump presidency if it were plagued by scandals. That is familiar territory. What you have instead is a power battle inside the Trump administration that does not seem capable of being controlled. This is more Game of Thrones than House of Cards. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is at loggerheads with Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway says things that are at odds with what is reported by White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Rumours flood Washington that various factions inside the Trump administration are leaking stories in order to damage their competitors. Trump, says one insider, is content being the emperor above them, a Mortal God who allows his underlings to wage a war of all against all. Trump, in his bathrobe, eating his Big Mac on a silver plate, watching television in the dark—he is a cross between the overestimated Wizard of Oz and the omnipotent Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes.

Meanwhile, Trump’s nominees for his Cabinet to run the major Ministries of the federal government idle their time. He has sent so many billionaires with such thin resumes and such thick ideological dispositions that the Senate, which has the right to oversee these appointments, simply cannot digest the information fast enough. The people who have taken their seats are stunningly incompetent or adversarial to their own posts. Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary, is a billionaire who has financed campaigns against public education. Tom Price, the Health and Human Services Secretary, was a former Congressman who fought Obama’s health care plan as if it were the greatest threat to the United States. These are people with little broad credibility.

No wonder that James Mattis, the Defence Secretary, and Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, seem stable. Mattis believes against all evidence that Iran and the Islamic State—fundamental adversaries—are somehow allied. Tillerson, as head of Exxon, has shown little capacity for statesmanship outside corporate interest. Nonetheless, in comparison to the others, these men seem the epitome of distinction. As the ship of state splutters, these men struggle to control the tiller.

To Russia with love

It sometimes seems as if Russia, not the U.S., won the Cold War. Democratic Party politicians continue to suggest that Russia was able to sufficiently influence the election to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning. Suggestions of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence bedevil the political discourse. The “deep state” in the U.S.—namely the intelligence agencies—has perhaps leaked sufficient information to damage quite seriously any possibility for Trump to ease the tension between the U.S. and Russia. The resignation of Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was the first casualty of these leaks. Others will follow. The “deep state”, abused in public by Trump, will not be taken lightly. He made a grave error in crossing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its more mysterious cousins. They will make Trump pay.

Meanwhile, the National Security Council is in serious disarray. Trump’s closest ideological ally, Steve Bannon, has brought politics into the heart of what is often considered as a sanctum for intelligence and military analysts. They do not want domestic politics to intervene in their decision-making. This is their conceit. Bannon’s presence brings American political considerations into discussions of national security. Sitting near Bannon is an art historian with no experience in the world of intelligence or security. Professor Victoria Coates writes a blog at the RedState website and helped former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on his book. Perhaps she is there because she will help Trump digest the conversations. He likes one-page presentations “with lots of graphics and maps”, according to The New York Times. One official in the White House told the newspaper: “The President likes maps.” He is a deeply visual person. Reading irritates him. His ex-wife Ivana Trump once said that beside his bed, Trump kept a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. One should rest assured that he most likely never read it.

It was perhaps reasonable for Trump to consider what the Americans call a “reset” on its policy with Russia. Tensions between the U.S. and Russia have damaged U.S. power both in Europe and in West Asia. Threats over the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) expansion eastward have pushed countries inside Europe to either become more belligerent against Russia—and thereby damage relations with a major supplier of natural gas—or to move closer to Russia—and thereby threaten the unity of Europe. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union lost much of its toehold in North Africa and West Asia, particularly when the Egyptian government pivoted from the Soviet Union to the U.S. around 1979-80. Now, with U.S. policy in the region in disarray, the Russians have strengthened their position in Syria, Iran, Egypt and Libya. Trump’s theory of a reset was logical from the standpoint of U.S. power. It would have served to rein in Russian ambitions. But that is now in the past. It would be too suspicious for Trump to make a deal with the Russians. The “deep state” will insist that the bellicosity be maintained. Trump will preside over the further decline of American power.

Bibi and Donald

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sarah, are in deep trouble inside Israel. They face charges of corruption and might very well see the inside of a prison cell before Netanyahu, also known as Bibi, leaves office. This was the context of their visit to the U.S., where Trump gave them a royal welcome. They were photographed inside the Oval Office, sitting on the cream coloured chairs with Trump and his wife, Melania. It was as if the Trumps and the Netanyahus had not a care in the world.

At their joint press conference, Netanyahu seemed deeply enamoured of Trump. Bibi spoke in his customary baritone voice, but he laughed in a totally uncharacteristic way—almost flirtatiously. Trump fumbled his way through a discussion about Israel’s occupation of Palestine. He offered, with no real assessment, that the two-state solution was no longer U.S. policy. Netanyahu seemed to revel in this new period, with the idea that the Palestinian state was no longer on the table an appealing one for him. But this idea of the one-state solution should trouble all parties. What would it mean? No journalist was permitted to ask a question about this new reality. Would Israel annex the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both areas now treated as occupied territories under international law? If Israel does annex these areas, would the Palestinians who live there be granted full citizenship of Israel? If this happens, it is likely that the Palestinians in Israel would be in the demographic majority. The idea of the “Jewish State” would be annulled by the new facts on the ground. If Israel does not give the Palestinians full citizenship, then will the Palestinians of the annexed regions have to live in a permanent apartheid situation? Would the international community tolerate such apartheid rules? None of this was raised in the press conference, nor did the leaders explain it.

Trump was happy to be there with a man who fawned upon him. It made the press conference palatable. Facts are intolerable to Trump. He likes spin and perception. Adulation is what he requires. In a testy exchange with CNN’s Jim Acosta, Trump said: “I would be your biggest fan in the world if you treated me right.”

A recent article in the Washington Post has carried a rather paradoxical headline: “Hezbollah, Russia and the US help Syria retake Palmyra,” [1] but it also offers clues as to how the Syrian theater of proxy wars might transform under the new Trump Administration. Under the previous Obama Administration, the unstated but known policy in Syria had been regime change, and any collaboration with the Syrian government against the Islamic State had simply not been on the cards.

The Trump Administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different perspective, a fact which is obvious from Donald Trump’s statements on Syria during and after the campaign. Being an ardent supporter of Israel, Donald Trump has assured Benjamin Netanyahu that he will regard Israel’s regional security as seriously as the security of the US, therefore it is implausible that the Trump Administration would directly collaborate with the Syrian government, Hezbollah, or the Iranian resistance axis in general which is the single biggest threat to Israel’s regional security.

It is mentioned in the aforementioned article by Liz Sly, however, that the US has carried out 45 air strikes in the vicinity of Palmyra against the Islamic State targets in the month of February, which must have “indirectly” helped the Syrian government and Hezbollah militia recapture Palmyra along with Russia’s air support.

As I have mentioned before that expecting a radical departure from the six year long, Obama Administration’s policy of training and arming Sunni militants against the Shi’a regime by the Trump Administration is unlikely. However, the latter regards Sunni jihadists as a much bigger threat to America’s security than the former. Therefore some indirect support and a certain level of collaboration with the Russians and the Syrian government against the radical Sunni Islamists cannot be ruled out.

Here let me emphasize that President Trump has been in the office for less than two months, it’s too early to predict his approach to the region once he has been fully briefed and has assumed a position of responsibility. His stance on the Middle East region and Syria in particular will unfold in the coming months and years.

What would be different in the respective Syria policy of the two markedly different US administrations, however, is that while the Obama Administration did avail itself of the opportunity to strike an alliance with Kurds against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but it was simply not possible for them to come up with an out of the box solution and use Shi’a militants against Sunni jihadists.

The Trump Administration, however, is not hampered by the botched legacy of the Obama Administration in Syria, and therefore it might align itself with the Kurds as well as the Russians and the Syrian government against the Islamic State militants in Syria.

Two obstacles to such a natural alignment of interests, however, are: firstly, Israel’s objections regarding the threat that Hezbollah poses to its regional security; and secondly, Turkey which is a NATO member and has throughout nurtured several Sunni militant groups during the six year long civil war would have serious reservations against the new American administration’s partnership not only with the Russians and the Syrian government but also with the PYD/YPG Kurds in Syria, which Turkey regards as an offshoot of separatist PKK Kurds in southeast Turkey.

It should be remembered here that the Syrian civil war is actually a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arab militants, the Shi’a Arab regime and the Syrian Kurds. And the net beneficiaries of this conflict have been the Syrian Kurds who have expanded their area of control by cleverly aligning themselves first with the Syrian regime against the Sunni Arab militants since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to August 2014 when the US declared a war against one faction of the Sunni Arab militants, i.e. the Islamic State, after the latter overran Mosul in June 2014; and then the Syrian Kurds aligned themselves with the US against the Islamic State, thus further buttressing their position against the Sunni Arab militants as well as the Syrian regime.

Although the Sunni Arab militants have also scored numerous victories in their battle against the Shi’a regime, but their battlefield victories have mostly been ephemeral. They have already been evicted from Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq and their withdrawal from Mosul against the Iraqi armed forces with American air and logistical support is only a matter of time.

In Syria, the Sunni Arab militants have already been routed from east Aleppo by the Syrian government troops with Russian air support. Although the Islamic State is still occupying Raqqa and parts of Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria, but it’s obvious that the Islamic State is going to lose Raqqa either to the Syrian Kurds or to the Syrian government. The Islamic State has already lost Palmyra to the Syrian government troops and its gains in Deir ez-Zor don’t appear sustainable either.

The only permanent gains of the Sunni Arab militants would be Idlib in western Syria, Daraa and Quneitra in southern Syria, and a few pockets in northern Syria, like al-Bab, which has already changed hands from the extreme faction of Sunni Arab jihadists, the Islamic State, to the relatively moderate factions of the Sunni Arab militants through Turkish support and intervention.

Notwithstanding, as I have already mentioned that for the first three years of Syrian civil war, from August 2011 to August 2014, an informal pact had existed between the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds against the onslaught of the Sunni Arab militants, until the Kurds broke off that arrangement to become the centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s policy in the region.

According to the aforementioned pact, the Syrian government had informally acknowledged Kurdish autonomy and in return the Kurdish militia had defended the areas in northeastern Syria, particularly al-Hasakah, alongside the Syrian government troops against the advancing Sunni Arab militant groups.

Moreover, it would also be pertinent to mention that unlike the pro-America Iraqi Kurds led by Massoud Barzani, the Syrian PYD Kurds as well as the Syrian government are also ideologically aligned, because both are socialists and have traditionally been under Russian sphere of influence.

Thus, another such alliance between the Syrian Kurds and the Syrian government against the Islamic State is plausible, and it would be a wise move by the Trump Administration to avail itself of a two-pronged strategy to liberate Raqqa from the Islamic State: that is, to use the Syrian government troops to put pressure from the south and the Kurds to lead the charge from the north of Islamic State’s capital Raqqa.

Sources and links:
1- Hezbollah, Russia and the US help Syria retake Palmyra. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syrian-army-retakes-the-ancient-city-of-palmyra-from-the-islamic-state/2017/03/02/fe770c78-ff63-11e6-9b78-824ccab94435_story.html

By Ryan McMaken*

Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress this week has been hailed as good politics from both supporters and opponents alike. The Washington Times declared that Democrats were left “befuddled, in ruins” after the speech. Meanwhile, CNN’s Van Jones fell for what should have been regarded as cynical theatrics: Trump’s parading out the widow of a dead Navy SEAL — a soldier who died in a botched raid ordered by Trump himself. This display prompted Jones to declare that Trump “became president of the United States in that moment, period.”

Trump hit all the right rhetorical beats with soaring language about the future and “we” and “us” doing wonderful things together while un-ironically declaring that “Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope.”

Perhaps more alarming, however, are the more concrete declarations about policy. This wasn’t just a speech in which Trump promised to solve everyone’s problems. He promised to make government bigger, more active, and a lot more expensive.

And, of course, a lot of people loved it.

No Cuts to Spending

Since the very beginning of his campaign, it has always been apparent that Trump has never had any interest in cutting government spending. Like most politicians who vow to run government “like a business,” Trump imagines that he’ll just spend taxpayers’ money “better” than others.

But none of the reforms favored by Trump have ever included making any substantial cuts to federal spending whether it be on the military or on social spending. He hasn’t even talked about freezing government spending or slowing it down.

When it comes to social spending, it will be business as usual. It’s significant that Trump didn’t even mention Social Security or Medicare — which are the two biggest single components of the federal budget’s social spending. Social Security by itself (in 2016) was 23 percent of all federal spending, while Medicare was 15 percent.

However, he has also given no indication that he plans to reduce Medicaid (12 percent of the budget, and quickly growing) either. Says Trump in his speech: “we should give our great State Governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.”

In other words, don’t expect any Medicaid cuts.

So, right off the bat we know that Trump has no intention of touching half the federal budget:

But of course, Trump isn’t going to stop with simply not cutting anything. He plans to actively increase government spending above and beyond the continual growth we see in social spending.

Big Spending Plans

Trump has pledged what he calls “a $1 trillion investment” in additional spending on “infrastructure.” It’s unclear if this is outright government spending or loan guarantees and other crony-capitalist strategies designed to funnel taxpayer money to “private” companies receiving government funds to build roads.

Given that federal spending on transportation in 2016 was 90 billion dollars, an additional $1 trillion would be an enormous increase over current spending levels.

And, of course, there is the border wall, which one could conceivable classify as “infrastructure” if one were so inclined. Even if we use the low-ball GOP figure of 15 billion for the wall’s costs, that in itself would amount to one-sixth the cost of all transportation spending — which is largely infrastructure spending — in 2016.

On top of it all of this is more proposed spending on military and law enforcement such as the border patrol.

In the speech, Trump announced: “I am sending the Congress a budget that rebuilds the military.” This claim is itself based on an absurd premise since the US military is already funded at level above Reagan-era Cold War levels. Nevertheless, Trump has already proposed a $54 billion dollar increase to military spending, which would be an increase of nearly 9 percent over 2016 levels.But Trump doesn’t plan to stop with just Pentagon spending. He has re-energized the federal War on Drugs, threatening states that have legalized marijuana, while giving the Drug War a prominent place in his speech:

“We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth — and we will expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted.”

Military and federal law-enforcement spending makes up over 21 percent of the total budget, while transportation spending accounts for an additional 2 percent. Once we add this to the more-than fifty percent of the budget that’s off-limits social spending, we’re now looking at about 75 percent of the federal budget that Trump indicates he will either leave to Congress or will actively seek accelerated spending.

What Will He Cut?

That leaves 25 percent of the budget from which to make major cuts in order to pay for Trump’s spending plans. How does he propose to do that?

Trump has already indicated he plans “to pay for his military spending increase by cutting $54 billion from other parts of the federal budget.”

Will he cut from poverty programs like disability insurance and food stamps and housing programs? It’s possible, but it’s going to be tough going politically. Poverty-related programs are popular among voters.

Moreover, that “other” 25 percent of the budget is already shrinking since Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are crowding out those programs. Baby Boomers are retiring and driving up retirement-based social spending while Medicaid continues to expand as a result of Obamacare. While it’s true that Trump plans many reforms to Obamacare, cutting back on Medicaid-based subsidies is not one of them.

And, of course, all of this totally ignores the budget deficit, which was more than half a trillion dollars in 2016. If Trump wanted to be at all serious about deficit reduction, he’d already be talking about cutting 50 billion from overall spending, and that would be just a small dent in the deficit. But, where is Trump going to propose an additional 50 billion in cuts on top of the 54 billion he’ll need to cut to finance his military spending plans? And then, on top of that, he’ll need to make cuts to cover his infrastructure plans.

More Debt, More Deficits, More Money Creation

Once we start looking at the numbers, we quickly see that the only realistic scenario to come out of this is more federal spending and zero deficit reduction. Unless tax receipts pick up substantially, we’ll likely see bigger deficits.

And, as we know, bigger deficits mean one thing: more money printing and more of the hidden tax known as inflation. It also means future taxpayers will be on the hook for more interest on the debt.

Trump wasn’t about to let any of this get in the way of a good speech, though.

As many presidents have already proved, you can’t go wrong with making a long laundry list of promises to the voters. Promise not to cut any of their social benefits, and promise to increase spending elsewhere. It’s a winning political formula.

Unfortunately, as far as budget realities go, the plan doesn’t look quite so solid.

About the author:
*Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Send him your article submissions, but read article guidelines first. (Contact: email; twitter.) Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Source:
This article was published by MISES Institute

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has accused the West of interfering in Macedonia’s internal affairs in order to realise its project of a ‘greater Albania’.

In the second official statement in less than a day, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that foreign interference in Macedonia’s affairs had taken on extreme forms.

Russia insisted that although former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his VMRO DPMNE party had won the December 11 general election, Western politicians wanted to hand power to the runners-up, the Social Democrats.

The statement said that EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and “other high-ranking officials of the so-called ‘enlightened Europe’”, had continued to exert unprecedented pressure on President Ivanov, demanding that he give the post of prime minister to the opposition Social Democrats and their ethnic Albanian parrtners.

“The head of the self-proclaimed [state of] Kosovo Hashim Thaci has joined the EU officials, calling on the Macedonia Albanians to take their rights into their hands in accordance with the Greater Albania project which includes vast areas in a number of Balkan states,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“This is just fresh evidence proving that the quasi-state of Kosovo is one of the main sources of instability in the Balkan region,” the statement said, quoted by the Russian Tass agency.

The statement said that on December 11, the ruling party gained the most votes in the election and despite much manipulation, the opposition, “openly supported by the EU and US, had to face a defeat.

“The Macedonian people should decide their future themselves, without having to face foreign interference,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

On Thursday, the Russian ministry issued a similar statement, saying that the political crisis in Macedonia was provoked by external interference in the country’s internal affairs.

“Attempts, which are actively supported by EU and Nato leaders, are being made to make Macedonians accept the ‘Albanian platform’ designed in Tirana … office based on the map of the so-called Greater Albania, which illustrates its territorial claims to vast regions in neighbouring Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece,” it said.

Meanwhile, Western politicians have urged Ivanov to allow a new coalition of Macedonian opposition and Albanian parties take power because they have a majority of 67 out of the 120 seats in parliament.

EU foreign policy chief Mogherini visited Skopje on Thursday and urged Ivanov in person to scrap his decision and hand a mandate to form a government to Zaev.

“It would be impossible for anyone to convince anyone in the democratic world that a majority of MPs that represent the majority of citizens in a unitary state cannot be allowed to form a government,” she said.

“This breaks the spirit of democracy. This is inconsistent with basic democratic principles… [and] with the Euro-Atlantic integration process” Mogherini told reporters.

Similar messages on Wednesday and Thursday arrived from the US ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, from the EU Enlargement Commissioner Hahn and from the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/russia-jumps-into-macedonia-election-crisis-03-03-2017#sthash.yRgWpYCM.dpuf

By Lisa Ferdinando

The U.S. military conducted precision strikes Friday in Yemen against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to target the dangerous terrorist group that is intent on attacking the West, a Pentagon spokesman said.

With Friday’s actions, the United States has carried out more than 30 strikes in Yemen since yesterday against the terrorist group, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters.

“These counterterrorism strikes were conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen,” Davis said, adding, “U.S. forces will continue to target [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] militants and facilities in order to disrupt the terrorist organization’s plots and ultimately to protect American lives.”

The results of the strikes are still being assessed, Davis said.

Aimed At Degrading Terrorist Capabilities

The aim of the strikes is to keep the pressure on the terrorists and deny them access and freedom of movement within traditional safe havens, Davis said. “They’ve taken advantage of ungoverned spaces in Yemen to plot, direct and inspire terrorist attacks against the United States,” he added. “We’ll continue to work with the government of Yemen and our partners on the ground to defeat [the organization] and deny it the ability to operate.”

The actions since have targeted militants, equipment and infrastructure in the governorates of Abyan, Al Bayda and Shabwah and will degrade the terrorist group’s ability to coordinate external terror attacks and limit its ability to use territory seized from Yemen’s legitimate government as a safe space for terror plotting, the captain said.

U.S. forces have not been involved in or near any firefights in Yemen since late January, Davis said. In that January operation, Navy Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens was killed and three other U.S. service members were wounded.

Extremely Dangerous al-Qaida Affiliate

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula remains an extremely dangerous al-Qaida affiliate, and is taking advantage of the chaos in the country from the civil war there, Davis said, noting that the organization “has more American blood on its hands” than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria does.

Davis said al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a “deadly terrorist organization that has proven itself to be very effective in targeting and killing Americans, and they have intent and aspirations to continue doing so.”

The organization is integral to al-Qaida and remains intent on attacking Western targets, specifically the United States, a defense official said, speaking on background.

Total group strength in Yemen is in the “low thousands,” the official said, adding that it remains a local and regional threat and directly contributes to the instability inside Yemen.

“This is a dangerous group locally, regionally and transnationally, to include against the United States, the West and our allies,” the official said.

The terrorists have “skillfully exploited the disorder in Yemen to build its strength and reinvigorate its membership and training,” the official said, noting that because members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula tend to be from Yemen, they can blend in with the tribes there.

There have been notable successes against the group, the official said, including killing some of its key leaders.

Iraq Update

In other news, Davis updated reporters on progress in Iraq in liberating western Mosul from ISIS. Iraqi forces have cut across Highway 1, effectively isolating Mosul from the Syrian city of Raqqa, he said. Some areas in the north are still ISIS-controlled, he said, so Mosul is not completely severed from Raqqa.

“But in terms of having a road, that road is now cut,” he said.

Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found evidence that a mineral found in Martian meteorites — which had been considered as proof of an ancient dry environment on Mars — may have originally been a hydrogen-containing mineral that could indicate a more water-rich history for the Red Planet.

Scientists at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), who led an international research team in the study, created a synthetic version of a hydrogen-containing mineral known as whitlockite.

After shock-compression experiments on whitlockite samples that simulated the conditions of ejecting meteorites from Mars, the researchers studied their microscopic makeup with X-ray experiments at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) and at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS).

The X-ray experiments showed that whitlockite can become dehydrated from such shocks, forming merrillite, a mineral that is commonly found in Martian meteorites but does not occur naturally on Earth.

“This is important for deducing how much water could have been on Mars, and whether the water was from Mars itself rather than comets or meteorites,” said Martin Kunz, a staff scientist at Berkeley Lab’s ALS who participated in X-ray studies of the shocked whitlockite samples.

“If even a part of merrillite had been whitlockite before, it changes the water budget of Mars dramatically,” said Oliver Tschauner, a professor of research in the Department of Geoscience at UNLV who co-led the study with Christopher Adcock, an assistant research professor at UNLV.

And because whitlockite can be dissolved in water and contains phosphorous, an essential element for life on Earth — and merrillite appears to be common to many Martian meteorites — the study could also have implications for the possibility of life on Mars.

“The overarching question here is about water on Mars and its early history on Mars: Had there ever been an environment that enabled a generation of life on Mars?” Tschauner said.

The pressures and temperatures generated in the shock experiments, while comparable to those of a meteorite impact, lasted for only about 100 billionths of a second, or about one-tenth to one-hundredth as long as an actual meteorite impact.

The fact that experiments showed even partial conversion to merrillite in these lab-created conditions, a longer duration impact would likely have produced “almost full conversion” to merrillite, Tschauner said.

He added that this latest study appears to be one of the first of its kind to detail the shock effects on synthetic whitlockite, which is rare on Earth.

Researchers blasted the synthetic whitlockite samples with metal plates fired from a gas-pressurized gun at speeds of up to about half a mile per second, or about 1,678 miles per hour, and at pressures of up to about 363,000 times greater than the air pressure in a basketball.

“You need a very severe impact to accelerate material fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of Mars,” Tschauner said.

At Berkeley Lab’s ALS, researchers used an X-ray beam to study the microscopic structure of shocked whitlockite samples in a technique known as X-ray diffraction. The technique allowed researchers to differentiate between merrillite and whitlockite in the shocked samples.

Separate X-ray experiments carried out at Argonne Lab’s APS showed that up to 36 percent of whitlockite was transformed to merrillite at the site of the metal plate’s impact with the mineral, and that shock-generated heating rather than compression may play the biggest role in whitlockite’s transformation into merrillite.

There is also evidence that liquid water flows on Mars today, though there has not yet been scientific proof that life has ever existed on Mars. In 2013, planetary scientists reported that darkish streaks that appear on Martian slopes are likely related to periodic flows of water resulting from changing temperatures. They based their analysis on data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

And in November 2016, NASA scientists reported that a large underground body of water ice in one region of Mars contains the equivalent of all of the water in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes. Rover explorations have also found evidence of the former abundance of water based on analysis of surface rocks.

“The only missing link now is to prove that (merrillite) had, in fact, really been Martian whitlockite before,” Tschauner said. “We have to go back to the real meteorites and see if there had been traces of water.”

Adcock and Tschauner are pursuing another round of studies using infrared light at the ALS to study actual Martian meteorite samples, and are also planning X-ray studies of these actual samples this year.

Many Martian meteorites found on Earth seem to come from a period of about 150 million to 586 million years ago, and most are likely from the same region of Mars. These meteorites are essentially excavated from a depth of about a kilometer below the surface by the initial impact that sent them out into space, so they aren’t representative of the more recent geology at the surface of Mars, Tschauner explained.

“Most of them are very similar in the rock composition as well as the minerals that are occurring, and have a similar impact age,” he said. Mars is likely to have formed about 4.6 billion years ago, about the same time as Earth and the rest of our solar system.

Even with more detailed studies of Martian meteorites coupled with thermal imaging of Mars taken from orbiters, and rock samples analyzed by rovers traversing the planet’s surface, the best evidence of Mars’ water history would be an actual Martian rock taken from the planet and transported back to Earth, intact, for detailed studies, researchers noted.

“It’s really important to get a rock that hasn’t been ‘kicked'” like the Martian meteorites have, said Kunz, in order to learn more about the planet’s water history.

A national research network led by UNC School of Medicine’s Joseph Piven, MD, found that many toddlers diagnosed with autism at two years of age had a substantially greater amount of extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) at six and 12 months of age, before diagnosis is possible. They also found that the more CSF at six months – as measured through MRIs – the more severe the autism symptoms were at two years of age.

“The CSF is easy to see on standard MRIs and points to a potential biomarker of autism before symptoms appear years later,” said Piven, co-senior author of the study, the Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD). “We also think this finding provides a potential therapeutic target for a subset of people with autism.”

The findings, published in Biological Psychiatry, point to faulty CSF flow as one of the possible causes of autism for a large subset of people.

“We know that CSF is very important for brain health, and our data suggest that in this large subset of kids, the fluid is not flowing properly,” said Mark Shen, PhD, CIDD postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study. “We don’t expect there’s a single mechanism that explains the cause of the condition for every child. But we think improper CSF flow could be one important mechanism.”

Until the last decade, the scientific and medical communities viewed CSF as merely a protective layer of fluid between the brain and skull, not necessarily important for proper brain development and behavioral health. But scientists then discovered that CSF acted as a crucial filtration system for byproducts of brain metabolism.

Every day, brain cells communicate with each other. These communications cause brain cells to continuously secrete byproducts, such as inflammatory proteins that must be filtered out several times a day. The CSF handles this, and then it is replenished with fresh CSF four times a day in babies and adults.

In 2013, Shen co-led a study of CSF in infants at UC Davis, where he worked with David Amaral, PhD, co-senior author of the current Biological Psychiatry study. Using MRIs, they found substantially greater volumes of CSF in babies that went on to develop autism. But they cautioned the study was small – it included 55 babies, 10 of whom developed autism later – and so it needed to be replicated in a larger study of infants.

When he came to UNC, Shen teamed up with Piven and colleagues of the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS), a network of autism clinical assessment sites at UNC, the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Washington.

In this most recent study of CSF, the researchers enrolled 343 infants, 221 of which were at high risk of developing autism due to having an older sibling with the condition. Forty-seven of these infants were diagnosed with autism at 24 months, and their infant brain MRIs were compared to MRIs of other infants who were not diagnosed with autism at 24 months of age.

The six-month olds who went on to develop autism had 18 percent more CSF than six-month olds who did not develop autism. The amount of CSF remained elevated at 12 and 24 months. Infants who developed the most severe autism symptoms had an even greater amount of CSF – 24 percent greater at six months.

Also, the greater amounts of CSF at six months were associated with poorer gross motor skills, such as head and limb control.

“Normally, autism is diagnosed when the child is two or three years old and beginning to show behavioral symptoms; there are currently no early biological markers,” said David G. Amaral, director of research at the UC Davis MIND Institute. “That there’s an alteration in the distribution of cerebrospinal fluid that we can see on MRIs as early as six months, is a major finding.”

The researchers found that increased CSF predicted with nearly 70 percent accuracy which babies would later be diagnosed with autism. It is not a perfect predictor of autism, but the CSF differences are observable on a standard MRI. “In the future, this sort of CSF imaging could be another tool to help pediatricians detect risks for autism as early as possible,” Shen said.

Piven added, “We can’t yet say for certain that improper CSF flow causes autism. But extra-axial CSF is an early marker, a sign that CSF is not filtering and draining as it should. This is important because improper CSF flow may have downstream effects on the developing brain; it could play a role in the emergence of autism symptoms.”

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh*

He is well-known as the Middle East’s deadliest and Iran’s most dangerous man. He prioritizes offensive tactics and operations over defensive ones, and rejoices in taking overconfident selfies with his troops and proxies in battlefields in many countries, including Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

When it comes to authority, he is Iran’s second man after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Being a staunchly loyal confidante to Khamenei, Qassem Soleimani has great influence over foreign policy.

By exploiting Iran’s 1979 revolution, and by proving his loyalty and determination to advance its revolutionary principles by any means — including brute force or war — Soleimani rose from being a construction worker in Kerman to his current position in a short period of time. For nearly two decades, he has been the head of Iran’s Quds Force.

He was previously sanctioned by the US, Switzerland and the UN Security Council via Resolution 1747. The US formerly designated the Quds Force a supporter of terrorism. He was also on America’s Specially Designated Global Terrorists list.

Despite all this, and although his actions qualify him to be among the world’s top global terrorists, Soleimani is operating freely, violating sanctions and traveling. More importantly, he is more powerful than ever.

Soleimani was not boasting when he wrote in a message to US Gen. David Petraeus: “You should know that I… control policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. The ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who’s going to replace him is a Quds Force member.”

The Quds Force is a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It is the most important military and revolutionary organization, and is officially tasked with exporting Iran’s ideological, religious and revolutionary principles beyond the country’s borders.

Soleimani is in charge of extraterritorial operations, including organizing, supporting, training, arming and financing predominantly Shiite militia groups; launching wars directly or indirectly via these proxies; fomenting unrest in other nations to advance Iran’s ideological and hegemonic interests; attacking and invading cities and countries; and assassinating foreign political figures and powerful Iranian dissidents worldwide.

Under his leadership, the Quds Force has been accused of failed plans to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US, and to assassinate then-Saudi Ambassador to the US Adel Al-Jubeir. An investigation revealed that the Quds Force was also behind the assassination of Lebanon’s Sunni Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

It was also implicated in the 9/11 attacks. US Federal Judge George Daniels issued an order stating that Iran, its Lebanese Shiite proxy Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda were jointly responsible for the terrorist attacks.

The Quds Force fomented unrest in Iraq, providing deadly, sophisticated bombs such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that killed many civilians and non-civilians, including Iraqis and Americans.

Soleimani rules over roughly 20,000 Quds Force members. However, it can also use forces from the IRGC and Basij in case of emergencies. In addition, Soleimani technically commands fighters from militias that Iran supports and helped create. He also hires fighters from many countries, including Afghanistan, to fight as proxies.

So in actuality, Soleimani commands at least 150,000 militants, many designated as terrorists and belonging to designated terrorist groups. This is why Iran has been repeatedly ranked as the top state sponsor of terrorism by the US State Department.

Based on my research, there are more than 250 terrorist groups worldwide, with different religious and sociopolitical backgrounds. Roughly 25 percent of them are funded, trained or supported by only one entity, the Quds Force.

Strategic alliances

The Quds Force has made alliances with non-Shiite terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Its links to Al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks are overwhelming. Iran provided “safe harbor for some Al-Qaeda leaders,” said a European intelligence analyst. “The (Quds) Force’s senior leaders have longstanding ties to Al-Qaeda, and since the fall of Afghanistan, have provided some Al-Qaeda leaders with travel documents and safe haven.”

This explains why terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda have never attacked Iran. Christopher Harmer, a former aviator in the US Navy in the Gulf, told the New York Times that Soleimani is “a more stately version of Osama Bin Laden.”

The difference between Soleimani and people such as Bin Laden or Daesh’s Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is that Soleimani operates under the “legitimacy” of a state and government institution. As a result, no matter how much his actions might be more widespread and harmful, he gets away with it.

In almost every country and conflict in the region, Soleimani appears to play a destabilizing role in order to advance Tehran’s hegemonic and ideological interests, and to tip the regional balance of power in its favor.

He and the Quds Force have infiltrated top security, political, intelligence and military infrastructures in several nations, including Syria and Iraq. He chooses which foreign leaders and politicians to rule, and he has operatives and agents worldwide.

The Quds Force has also given birth to many designated terrorist groups, including Asaib Al-Haq and Kataib Al-Imam Ali (KIA), which use horrific tactics similar to Daesh. KIA is known for showing videos of beheadings and burning bodies, and Asaib Al-Haq reportedly receives some $2 million a month from Iran.

Many people see the blood of innocents — including Syrian, Yemeni, Lebanese, Bahraini and Iraqi children and women — on Soleimani’s hands. He is responsible for deaths in many countries in the region and beyond.

He has declared that the unrest and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa “provide our (Iran’s) revolution with the greatest opportunities… Today, Iran’s victory or defeat no longer takes place in Mehran and Khorramshahr. Our boundaries have expanded, and we must witness victory in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. This is the fruit of the Islamic revolution.”

Meticulous, nuanced examination of Soleimani’s background and activities reveal that he is an overconfident, brazen, brutal general who prioritizes offensive military operations and deployment of hard power over defensives tactics.

He is not a common general who solely focuses on military strategies. He is also an ideologue and revolutionary general who frequently expresses support for, and loyalty to, Iran’s revolutionary Shiite values and the supreme leader.

Spreading ideology via hard power

While some Iranian politicians believe their country should wield power via its ideology, Soleimani thinks it should spread its ideology via hard power. His strategies and military tactics include influencing the sociopolitical and socioeconomic processes of Arab countries via the Quds Force by supporting and assisting in establishing militias in several countries.

Soleimani does not just seek to take military control or increase Tehran’s influence in Arab countries. His other fundamental objective is to spread the revolutionary ideologies of Iran and the supreme leader via military interventions, scuttling US and Israeli policies in the region, and damaging the national security of other regional powers. From his perspective, this ideological objective can be best achieved by making alliances and strengthening militia or terrorist groups across the region.

The international community should hold Soleimani and the Quds Force accountable. Countries, including the US, should take unilateral action against both. Charges of crimes against humanity should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC). UN Security Council sanctions should be pursued.

The nuclear deal has provided financial, strategic and geopolitical opportunities for Soleimani. Attempts should be made to block those opportunities. Countering Soleimani and the Quds Force via robust methods, such as political pressure and financial sanctions, can be a very powerful tool to curtail Iran’s regional meddling.

*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated, Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business. He can be reached on Twitter @Dr_Rafizadeh.

Security services have foiled 13 potential terror attacks in Britain since 2013, its most senior counter-terrorism policeman said Monday, March 6, with more than 500 active investigations at any one time, AFP reports.

Mark Rowley, assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said incidents inspired by the Islamic State group were a “large part” of the problem although Al-Qaeda remained a significant threat, while the far-right was also an issue.

He was speaking at the launch of a campaign for more community involvement in combating terrorism, and revealed that one-third of the most high-risk investigations had been helped by information from the public.

“Together, the UK intelligence community and police have disrupted 13 UK terrorist attack plots since June 2013,” Rowley said.

“The threat is becoming more varied and the move towards low-tech attacks on crowded places, like those we have seen in major European cities and beyond, makes it even more important everyone remains vigilant.”

He added: “We’ve got over 500 investigations at any one stage.”

A study from the Henry Jackson Society, a conservative think tank, found Islamic-inspired terror offences almost doubled, from 12 each year between 1998 and 2010 to 23 each year in the following five years.

An analysis of 269 such offences since 1998 also found most perpetrators were British or dual nationals and a disproportionately high number were Muslim converts.

Women are also increasingly involved, accounting for four percent of incidents between 1998 and 2010, but 11 percent between 2011 and 2015.

The threat level for international terrorism in Britain has been “severe”, meaning an attack is considered highly likely, since August 2014.

Islamist attackers killed 52 people in suicide bombings on the London transport system in July 2005 and there have been isolated incidents since.

The United States made an airstrike on Yemen’s Abyan Governorate against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters, bringing to 40 the strikes there in the past five nights, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis confirmed on Monday.

Since the first airstrike against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen on Feb. 28, “We will continue to target [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] militants and facilities to disrupt the organization’s plot and protect American lives,” the captain said.

The strikes have been coordinated with and done in full partnership with the government of Yemen with the goal of denying al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula terrorists’ freedom of movement within traditional safe havens, Davis said.

The captain also confirmed the deaths of three al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula operatives in March 2 and 3 airstrikes in Yemen.

Usayd al Adani, whom Davis described as a longtime al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula explosives expert and facilitator who served as the organization’s emir, was killed in a U.S. airstrike March 2 within the Abyan Governorate. Killed with him was former Naval Air Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee Yasir al Silmi.

Killed March 3 was al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula fighter and communications intermediary for Adani, Harithah al Waqri, Davis said.

“[Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] has taken advantage of ungoverned spaces in Yemen to plot, direct and inspire terror attacks against the United States and our allies,” he said. “And we will continue to work with the government of Yemen to defeat [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula].

Article written by Terri Moon Cronk

By Terri Moon Cronk

US Defense Department officials detected and tracked multiple missile launches out of North Korea today, four of which landed in the Sea of Japan, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Monday.

Davis said the four medium-range ballistic missiles were launched from the northwest corner of North Korea, traveled over the Korean Peninsula and out into the sea, totaling about 1,000 kilometers in distance, or more than 620 miles.

Missiles Land Off Japan’s Coast

The missiles landed in the vicinity of Akita Prefecture off the coast of Japan near that nation’s exclusive economic zone, he said. The EEZ is defined as a sea zone prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.

“The North American Aerospace Defense Command detected that the missiles from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” Davis said. “This [North Korean missile launch] is very similar in terms of the path and the distance of the three missiles that flew into Japan’s EEZ in September 2016.”

He added, “These launches, which coincide with the start of our annual defensive exercise, Foal Eagle, with the Republic of Korea’s military, are consistent with North Korea’s long history of provocative behavior, often timed to military exercises that we do with our ally,”

The United States stands with its allies “in the face of this very serious threat and are taking steps to enhance our ability to defend against North Korea’s ballistic missiles, such as the deployment of a [Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense] battery to South Korea, which will happen as soon as feasible,” Davis said.

The National Museum’s new exhibition at the National Gallery, “The Great Graphic Boom. American Prints 1960–1990”, focuses on a largely unknown dimension of this American breakthrough, namely its keen interest in the graphic arts. “The Great Graphic Boom” opened on 3 March and will run until 28 May 2017, Art Daily said.

With its multicultural society and openness to refugees and immigrants, the United States was in full cultural bloom before, during, and after World War II. This sparked off an innovative creativity that would reverberate throughout the global art scene. Bold brushstrokes and vibrant fields of colour dominated the abstract expressionism of the New York school. Around 1960, however, many younger artists began gravitating towards other modes of expression and sought out collaborations with various fine-art printers. Pop art found its muse in the era’s popular culture and consumerism, while minimalism reduced everything to a system of repetitive forms.

Works by 23 artists, both well-known and less familiar, are on display. Featured attractions include Barnett Newman’s major Cantos series (1964) and Agnes Martin’s On a Clear Day (1973), as well as Robert Rauschenberg’s use of found objects and Jasper Johns’s reworking of mundane subject matter such as flags and letters. Lithography and silk-screen prints were the media of choice for many artists, while Helen Frankenthaler, Donald Judd, and Brice Marden explored older techniques such as woodcuts and etching. Roy Lichtenstein’s famous Brushstroke is a natural inclusion here, as are Andy Warhol’s portraits of Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy. Other highlights include Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans and Louise Bourgeois’s Ste Sebastienne.

The exhibition has been curated by Øystein Ustvedt.