On April 8, 2017, two Policemen were killed in an encounter with cadres of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a splinter group of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), at Mahabung village in Simdega District.

On April 4, 2017, two youth, identified as Birsa Purti (25) and Bandeya Munda (22), were shot dead at Toner village under Murhu Police Station in the Khunti District of Jharkhand. Police claimed that Bagrai Champia, an ‘area commander’ of the PLFI, was involved in the twin killings. However, the reason behind the killings is yet to be ascertained.

On March 27, 2017, PLFI cadres killed a civilian, David Soy (20), outside his house in Gompilla under the Torpa Police Station in Khunti District. They suspected him of being a ‘police informer’.

On March 24, 2017, three cadres of the Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), another splinter group of the CPI-Maoist, were killed in an internecine clash at Seeta Chuan under the Mohammadganj Police Station in Palamau District. One of the killed TPC cadres was identified as ‘zonal commander’ Ajay Yadav, carrying a reward of INR 500,000 on his head. The other two killed were identified as ‘area commanders’ Krishna Kharwar and Ravindra Mahto. Police recovered one AK-47 rifle, one INSAS rifle, one semi automatic rifle, one .303 rifle, along with 630 live bullets, 23 magazines, 11 cell phones, several Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), 50 meters of Codex wire, and six back packs.

On March 20, 2017, a group of CPI-Maoist cadres killed a teacher, identified as Charku Yadav aka Sandip Yadav (30), at Jori village in Gumla District. CPI-Maoist cadres also left a pamphlet which labelled Yadav a ‘police informer’.

According to partial data collated by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 22 persons, including 13 civilians, two Security Force (SF) personnel, and seven Left Wing Extremists (LWEs), have been killed in LWE-linked incidents in Jharkhand in 2017, thus far (data till April 9, 2017). During the corresponding period of 2016, there were 30 such fatalities (seven civilians, seven SF personnel, and 16 LWEs).

The spike in fatalities among civilians in the recent past is worrisome. Civilian fatalities through 2015 stood at 16, the lowest number of such fatalities recorded in the State during the course of a year since the formation of the CPI-Maoist on September 21, 2004. The number doubled, at 32, in 2016.

Though no fatality has been registered in the SF category so far in the current year, SF fatalities had also doubled to 10 in 2016, as compared to five in 2015. Significantly, as in the case of civilians, 2015 had recorded the lowest ever fatalities in the SF category since the formation of the CPI-Maoist. A previous low of six SF fatalities was recorded in 2007.

Though the number of militants killed increased from 37 in 2015 to 40 in 2016, there was a significant dip in the kill ratio achieved by the SFs, which dropped to 1:2 in 2016, from 1:5 in 2015. Out of 37 LWEs killed in 2015, at least 25 were killed by the SFs, while 12 were killed in internecine clashes. Similarly, out of 40 LWEs killed in 2016, at least 20 were killed by the SFs while remaining the 20 were killed in internecine clashes.

Overall fatalities in 2016 increased by 39.65 percent, as compared to 2015, from 58 to 81. Overall fatalities in 2015 were the lowest to be recorded in the State since 2006, when they were 94.

Unsurprisingly, other parameters of violence in the State also registered a significant surge in 2016. According to SATP data, the state recorded at least eight major LWE-linked incidents (each involving three or more killings) resulting in 36 fatalities, including 10 civilians, seven SF personnel and 19 LWEs in 2016, as compared to three such incidents in 2015, resulting in 18 fatalities, including three civilians and 15 LWEs. LWEs also triggered at least 12 bomb blasts in the State in 2016, as against seven such incidents in 2015. Further, the Maoists gave bandh (total shut down) calls on 11 occasions in 2016, as compared to six such bandh calls in 2015.

The number of Districts from where killings were reported also increased through 2016 as compared to 2015. Out of a total of 24 Districts in Jharkhand, fatalities were reported from 13 in 2016: Gumla(14); Khunti and Palamu (13 each); Ranchi and Latehar (11 each); Giridih and Simdega (four each); West Singhbhum (three); Bokaro, Hazaribagh and Lohardaga (two each); and Chatra and Seraikela-Kharsawan (one each). 12 Districts recorded such fatalities in 2015 – Palamu (15); Khunti and West Singhbhum (six each); Gumla and Hazaribagh (five each); East Singhbhum, Lohardaga and Ranchi (four each); Latehar (three); and Chatra, Giridih and Godda (two each).

Another dimension of concern is the fact that activities of Maoist splinter groups also increased through 2016. The prominent among these include PLFI, TPC, Jharkhand Prastuti Committee (JPC), Jharkhand Sangharsh Jan Mukti Morcha (JSJMM), and Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad (JJMP). Out of the 31 civilians fatalities recorded in 2016, while 14 civilians were killed by the CPI-Maoist, 16 were killed by these various groups – 12 by PLFI, two by JPC, and one each by JJMP and TPC. One civilian was killed during cross firing between CPI-Maoist and PLFI. All the 10 killings in the SF category were, however, carried out by CPI-Maoist. The 40 LWEs killed belonged to four groups – PLFI (18), CPI-Maoist (15), JJMP (three), TPC (three), and JSJMM (one). In 2015, CPI-Maoist was responsible for all the 16 civilian and five SF personnel deaths. 35 of the 37 LWEs killed belonged to four groups – CPI-Maoist (26), PLFI (five), two each from JPC and TPC. The group identity of the remaining two could not be ascertained. Reports indicate that there were, in fact, around 19 LWE groups operating in and out of Jharkhand.

The surge in LWE activities in Jharkhand was in conformity with the rising trend recorded across the country through 2016.

Though the recent surge gives legitimate cause for concern, SFs have managed to keep the situation well under control. It is useful to recall that, at the peak of Left Wing insurgency in 2007, Jharkhand had recorded a total of 217 fatalities. The highest number of civilian fatalities stood at 79 in 2011, while the maximum of 67 deaths among SF personnel was registered in 2009.

SFs have arrested a significant number of Maoists in Jharkhand over the past years. According to data provided by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) at least 462 LWEs were arrested in 2016 in addition to 381 such arrests in 2015. At least 396 Maoists were arrested in 2014 and 332 in 2013. Mounting SF pressure also resulted in the surrender of 40 Maoists in 2016, as against just 14 such surrenders in 2015. There were 19 surrenders in 2014.

Meanwhile, in addition to several measures taken in the past to strengthen the security apparatus in the State, the Central Government increased the existing strength of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) deployed in the State in 2016. According to reports, as on November 30, 2016, there were 40 battalions of CAPS in Jharkhand – 22 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) battalions, 10 Jharkhand Armed Police (JAP) battalions and eight Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) battalions.

This apart, the Jharkhand Cabinet, on special instructions from State Chief Minister Raghubar Das, approved the formation of Civil Defense Volunteers units in 19 Districts. 100 volunteers would be roped in for each District and would receive five sessions of training for six days each. The volunteers are to be trained to handle law and order issues arising at the local level, and would be paid INR 250 for each training day and the same amount for each day of service. The districts to be covered under the scheme included Chatra, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Dumka, Garhwa, Giridih, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Jamtara, Khunti, Koderma, Latehar, Lohardaga, Pakur, Palamu, Ramgarh, Saraikela, Simdega and West Singhbhum.

The successes of such measures, however, heavily depend on the strength and quality of the State Police Force as it is the Police Force that constitutes the first line of defense against any kind of internal threat. Regrettably, however, Jharkhand continues to suffer significant deficits on this count. According to the latest data provided by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), the State had a police-population ratio (policemen per hundred thousand population), as on January 1, 2016, of 167.92, significantly lower than the sanctioned strength of 229.19, though much higher than the national average of 137.11. The Police/Area Ratio (number of policemen per 100 square kilometers) stands at 70.49, as against the sanctioned strength of 96.21 (the national average is 54.69). At least 20,503 Police posts are vacant in the State, against a sanctioned strength of 76,692. Moreover, there were just 113 apex Indian Police Service (IPS) Officers in position as against the sanctioned strength 149, undermining the effectiveness of operations and decision making.

Jharkhand has been the second worst Left Wing Extremism affected State since 2007 (Chhattisgarh leads the table), with the exceptions of 2013, when Jharkhand topped the list followed by Chhattisgarh in 2013; and 2010, when West Bengal led the table followed by Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, but has succeeded in controlling the menace to a large extent. As compared to the situation between 2006 and 2011, when overall fatalities, on year on year basis, increased every year with the exception of 2010, such fatalities have declined between 2011 and 2015, with an aberration in 2013. However, in view of the recent spike in LWE activities in Jharkhand, it will be premature to suggest that the problem is on a consistent path to resolution. It is useful to keep constantly in mind the fact that LWEs have, on several occasions in the past in almost all the areas of their influence, fought back successfully to revive flagging capacities, and this has been the case in Jharkhand as well. There is, consequently, need to urgently address capacity deficits and retain both political and operational focus to ensure that the relative gains of the past years are not dissipated as a result of any neglect or complacence on the part of the state and its agencies.

DGIST’s research team has found a candidate substance which can prevent and cure Parkinson’s disease. By using this substance, the team also has identified the mechanism of dopaminergic neuronal death inhibition.

Parkinson’s disease is a representative neurological degenerative brain disease caused by the death of dopaminergic neurons in the middle cerebral blood. It is a disease with high incidence in the population over the age of 60 and the symptoms are body tremor and stiffness, slow motion, posture instability, etc.

It is known that mutation or low expression of parkin protein, a part of the system which hydrolyzes intracellular proteins, accelerates the accumulation of toxic proteins that must be removed in cells and induces dopaminergic neuronal cell death and Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative brain disease.

Currently, Parkinson’s disease is classified as a rare incurable disease, one of the Korean government’s four major target serious illnesses. However, there are no drugs that can prevent the death of dopaminergic neurons.

The senior researcher Yoon-Il Lee’s research team and Professor Yunjong Lee’s research team have continuously conducted studies on the development of candidate substances to cure Parkinson’s disease and their mechanisms. The researchers performed a high-throughput screening method to identify drug candidates that promote dopaminergic neuronal cell activation by inducing the expression of the parkin protein, the cell protection gene which can inhibit the death of dopaminergic neurons.

As a result, it has been identified that cortisol , known as a stress hormone, induces the expression of the parkin protein and prevents dopaminergic neuronal death by eliminating the accumulation of cell death factors through ubiquitin proteasome system.

In addition, the team has demonstrated the mechanism by which cortisol induces the expression of the parkin protein and CREB transcriptional regulator through the hormone receptor regulates the expression of the parkin protein through the cell and animal model experiments. The study also has assured the possibility that cortisol can be used as a therapeutic agent for degenerative Parkinson’s disease.

The senior researcher Yoon-Il Lee stated, “The significance of this study is that it has identified that the expression of parkin protein induced by a moderate level of stress hormone cortisol could be an important factor in maintaining the viability of dopaminergic neurons. We will continue to conduct follow-up studies such as clinical studies so that the Parkinson’s disease will be curable in the future.”

The ELO system, which most chess federations use today, ranks players by the results of their games. Although simple and efficient, it overlooks relevant criteria such as the quality of the moves players actually make.

To overcome these limitations, Jean-Marc Alliot of the Institut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse (IRIT – CNRS/INP Toulouse/Université Toulouse Paul Sabatier/Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès/Université Toulouse Capitole) demonstrates a new system, published on 24 april 2017 in the ICGA Journal (International Computer Games Association) .

Since the 1970s, the system designed by the Hungarian, Arpad Elo, has been ranking chess players according to the result of their games. The best players have the highest ranking, and the difference in ELO points between two players predicts the probability of either player winning a given game.

If players perform better or worse than predicted, they either gain or lose points accordingly. This method does not take into account the quality of the moves played during a game and is therefore unable to reliably rank players who have played at different periods. Jean-Marc Alliot suggests a direct ranking of players based on the quality of their actual moves.

His system computes the difference between the move actually played and the move that would have been selected by the best chess program to date, Stockfish. Running on the OSIRIM supercomputer1, this program executes almost perfect moves.

Starting with those of Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900), all 26,000 games played since then by chess world champions have been processed in order to create a probabilistic model for each player. For each position, the model estimates the probability of making a mistake, and the magnitude of the mistake.

These models can then be used to compute the win/draw/lose probability for any given match between two players. The predictions have proven not only to be extremely close to the actual results when players have played concrete games against one another, they also fare better than those based on ELO scores. The results demonstrate that the level of chess players has been steadily increasing. The current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, tops the list, while Bobby Fischer is third.

Under current conditions, this new ranking method cannot immediately replace the ELO system, which is easier to set up and implement. However, increases in computing power will make it possible to extend the new method to an ever-growing pool of players in the near future.

A chemistry professor in Florida has just found a way to trigger the process of photosynthesis in a synthetic material, turning greenhouse gases into clean air and producing energy all at the same time.

The process has great potential for creating a technology that could significantly reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change, while also creating a clean way to produce energy.

“This work is a breakthrough,” said UCF Assistant Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo. “Tailoring materials that will absorb a specific color of light is very difficult from the scientific point of view, but from the societal point of view we are contributing to the development of a technology that can help reduce greenhouse gases.”

The findings of his research are published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial photosynthesis process similar to the way plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and sunlight into food. But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo’s method produces solar fuel.

To see an explanation see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTuwe2SruA&feature=youtu.be

It’s something scientists around the world have been pursuing for years, but the challenge is finding a way for visible light to trigger the chemical transformation. Ultraviolet rays have enough energy to allow the reaction in common materials such as titanium dioxide, but UVs make up only about 4 percent of the light Earth receives from the sun. The visible range — the violet to red wavelengths — represent the majority of the sun’s rays, but there are few materials that pick up these light colors to create the chemical reaction that transforms CO2 into fuel.

Researchers have tried it with a variety of materials, but the ones that can absorb visible light tend to be rare and expensive materials such as platinum, rhenium and iridium that make the process cost-prohibitive.

Uribe-Romo used titanium, a common nontoxic metal, and added organic molecules that act as light-harvesting antennae to see if that configuration would work. The light harvesting antenna molecules, called N-alkyl-2-aminoterephthalates, can be designed to absorb specific colors of light when incorporated in the MOF. In this case he synchronized it for the color blue.

His team assembled a blue LED photoreactor to test out the hypothesis. Measured amounts of carbon dioxide were slowly fed into the photoreactor — a glowing blue cylinder that looks like a tanning bed — to see if the reaction would occur. The glowing blue light came from strips of LED lights inside the chamber of the cylinder and mimic the sun’s blue wavelength.

It worked and the chemical reaction transformed the CO2 into two reduced forms of carbon, formate and formamides (two kinds of solar fuel) and in the process cleaning the air.

“The goal is to continue to fine-tune the approach so we can create greater amounts of reduced carbon so it is more efficient,” Uribe-Romo said.

He wants to see if the other wavelengths of visible light may also trigger the reaction with adjustments to the synthetic material. If it works, the process could be a significant way to help reduce greenhouse gases.

“The idea would be to set up stations that capture large amounts of CO2, like next to a power plant. The gas would be sucked into the station, go through the process and recycle the greenhouse gases while producing energy that would be put back into the power plant.”

Perhaps someday homeowners could purchase rooftop shingles made of the material, which would clean the air in their neighborhood while producing energy that could be used to power their homes.

“That would take new technology and infrastructure to happen,” Uribe-Romo said. “But it may be possible.”

By Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury

In South Asia in the present century, the most important bilateral initiative between India and Bangladesh has been the attempt to resolve the long-standing border dispute that arose after Partition of 1947 –the Land Border Agreement (LBA) and the exchange of enclaves (Chhitmahals), in other words fragments of land between these two countries. However, even after more than one year of implementation of the Agreement, the question still remains how far this exchange of enclaves and its population can pave the way to resolve other unsettled issues, which are very crucial to deal with in post-LBA period.

Despite being a positive step in initiating exchange of territories and population, there are certain hiccups. In India, the focus has now been shifted from identity crisis faced by erstwhile enclave dwellers in the pre-LBA situation to issues of mal-governance on the one hand and conflict of interest between the Centre and the State of West Bengal in the post-LBA years on the other. The political tussle between the Centre and the State has apparently transformed the enclaves into sites of contestation for power.

Recognition as new citizens

The visit of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bangladesh in 2015 witnessed the endorsement of the momentous LBA (1974) which has, at long last, conferred a legal identity to people living in enclaves within the geographical territories of both India and Bangladesh. This historic agreement facilitates the transfer of 111 enclaves measuring 17,160.63 acres from India to Bangladesh. India at the same time received 51 enclaves measuring 7,110.02 acres which were in Bangladesh. Prior to this historic agreement, the 2011 Protocol as signed between Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Hasina agreed to maintain the status quo in addressing the issue of adverse possessions of land, where by India will receive 2777.038 acres of land and will transfer 2267.682 acres of land to Bangladesh. The 2011 Protocol was made in accord with the state governments of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and West Bengal but could not be implemented due to lack of congenial political atmosphere. Thus, the unresolved issues pertaining to the un-demarcated land boundary of approximately 6.1 km in three sectors viz. Daikhata-56 (West Bengal), Muhuri River-Belonia (Tripura) and Lathitila-Dumabari (Assam); exchange of enclaves; and adverse possessions addressed in 2011 Protocol are thus implemented by LBA 2015.

As a consequence, the office of the Registrar-General of India, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and District Magistrate, Cooch Behar, India along with Deputy Commissioners of Lalmonirhat, Panchagarh, Kurigram and Nilphamari, Bangladesh worked systematically and in a coordinated manner to collect the ‘choice of nationality’ from the residents of the enclaves. The implementation process was designed in three phases: The agreement and protocol came into effect from midnight of 31 July 2015. The transfer of territorial jurisdiction, exchange of strip maps and ground demarcation of the boundary were completed by 30 June 2016 and the entire movement of people took place from mid November 2015 till the end of November 2015. The assumed number of people opting for Indian citizenships from Indian enclaves in Bangladesh was estimated to be around 13, 000. Nevertheless only 987 people chose Indian citizenship. On the other hand, 14,221residents in Bangladeshi enclaves in India opted for Indian citizenship making the total number 15,208. These people who were de facto stateless, for all intents and purposes became new citizens of India.

Make-shift camps as sites of contestation

Temporary rehabilitation camps were set up at three places, namely, Mekhliganj, Haldibari and Dinhata in Coochbehar district in close proximity of the villages in the surrounding areas in order to facilitate social integration of the camp dwellers with their respective mainlanders.  The new entrants were welcomed with much enthusiasm. The campmates were provided with clothes, utensils, tarpaulin, stove, blankets, mattress, and pillows for survival. More so, each family was provided with the house allotment letter along with the house keys. Yet feelings of marginalization gradually have come on surface as time passed by since their migration from Bangladesh. These feelings are the outcome of unsatisfactory measures by government.

After a month, the canteen which was built up at the initial phase to help the campmates was discontinued. Dry dole in form of ration was distributed among the new citizens comprising 30 kg rice, 5 kg lentil, 1 kg salt, 1 kg powder milk and 5 litres each of mustered oil and kerosene oil on the first week of every month. However, the items provided in the form of dry dole fail to meet the everyday requirements of the camp dwellers. Having faced resentments within the camps 5 kg extra rice is being provided to the households consisting more than 5 members.

Lack of employment and gradual depletion of personal resources the camp dwellers continue to face food shortage and are often compelled to buy everyday food items from the local markets with their limited amount of resources. Detachment from cultivable land for their livelihood has increased dissatisfaction of the campmates. Despite getting access to local hospitals and to government schools for their children the camp dwellers are disillusioned with the health and education facilities being provided to them by the State government.

The State government has offered 100-day work cards to each family along with jobs in jute mills as temporary arrangement to provide the camp dwellers with a source of income. As these people had been engaged in a variety of professions such as teaching, business, farming, carpentry in Bangladesh they wish to be immediately placed in jobs that are commensurate with their skills and qualifications. In fact, the campmates have raised their voice against the State government’s policy of rehabilitating them in apartments.

Local political leaders of the opposition parties intend to utilise this situation to gain political support. Being inspired by these leaders the campmates have written a letter to the Prime Minister and planed to submit memorandums to the local district officials of Coochbehar district expressing their discontent against the state government’s rehabilitation measures. Moreover, camp dwellers’ right to vote has become an important issue for contestation between the ruling party and the opposition.

Land question emerged as a major concern for the enclave dwellers

While the ratification of the LBA is no doubt a welcome development in bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh, the implementation of the agreement needs a lot of consideration. It has been discovered meanwhile that land records of ownership have been misplaced or lost and the final decision may be based on word of mouth of the locals residing in the enclaves within Indian territory. The former enclaves are uncharted land: the land admitted to the official territory through surveys has to be distributed among individuals who have become new citizens. Though the process has been started by the State government the pace is not very satisfactory.

The right to vote has been issued to the new citizens, residents of enclaves under the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2016 with effect from 4 March 2016. In West Bengal State elections held on April – May 2016, for the first time voter identity cards have been issued to the enclave dwellers. Out of a total population of 15,208 only 9778 enclave-dwellers of Cooch Behar cast their votes for the first time. Under the circumstances, it is important to expedite the process of issuing voter identity cards to the enclave dwellers without which they are still considered as ‘illegal foreigners’.

Pro-active policies needed for hassle free rehabilitation of these new citizens

The lack of coordination between the Centre and the State creates a serious challenge to development projects in the enclaves and their surrounding villages. The delay in the infrastructural work has been due to the blame game between the two. It is noteworthy that the Central government is supposed to disburse the compensation package of INR 1005.99 crore to the state for the rehabilitation of the new citizens as well as the up gradation of the infrastructure of the enclaves in India and also for the development of the district of Coochbehar as a whole. But according to the State officials only INR 40 crore has been received as of now and the rest of the package is yet to be received from the Centre.

The State government may think of early implementation of already planned skill development programmes for the new citizens to strengthen their confidence while reducing demoralising effect. It may pave the way to open up employment opportunities. The State government may encourage local self help groups for promotion of their products. With the help of NGOs the State government may think of organising public awareness programmes on benefits of government packages among the people, once stateless, now are being recognised as new citizens of India.

(Civil.Ge) — Sokhumi authorities began issuing residence permits to ethnic Georgians of Abkhazia, following a four-year-long uncertainly over the legal status of residents of Gali District, the region’s predominantly ethnic Georgian-populated area.

According to the local internal affairs ministry, the residence permits are issued for a renewable term of five years and are designed for “foreign citizens or persons without citizenship.” The ministry also reported on April 21, that the residence permit holders living out of Abkhazia for over six months would be stripped of the document.

The document allows its owners to retain Georgian citizenship, to reside in the region and cross the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) with the rest of Georgia. It will not, however, give full political rights to its holders.

According to Sokhumi-based newspaper Nuzhnaya, the residence permit enables its holder to sell and bequeath property in Abkhazia, but does not permit the property purchase. Sokhumi authorities also plan to start consultations with the Moscow on recognizing the residence permits as travel documents for entry to and exit from the Russian federation.

The document is pointedly intended for the ethnic Georgian residents of Gali district – the only part of Abkhazia with remaining Georgian population that has survived several waves of ethnic-based expulsion. The number of ethnic Georgians eligible for the “residence permits” will be limited, however. According to the region’s internal affairs ministry, applicants for the permits will need to provide documents proving that they have lived in Abkhazia for at least ten years since 1999.

The citizenship passport, the other available document for Abkhazia’s residents, according to the region’s law on citizenship, can only be owned by an ethnic Abkhaz, also a person who is not an ethnic Abkhaz, but who lived in Abkhazia from 1994 to 1999, and who is not a citizen of another state, except the Russian Federation.

When combined, the two provisions effectively exclude almost half of Gali district’s 80-thousand strong pre-war population on top of the remaining 200 000 ethnic Georgians from other parts of Abkhazia, who fled the region as a result of the 1992-1993 armed conflict.

Aslan Kobakhia, the region’s interior minister who oversees the “passportization” process, warned local residents at a public meeting on April 21 that those ethnic Georgian residents who would try to possess Abkhaz citizenship (instead of residence permit) while simultaneously retaining the Georgian citizenship, would “forever lose Abkhazia.”

Authorities in Sokhumi suspended issuing Abkhaz passports to ethnic Georgian residents of the region in 2013, fearing that the process might result into, as some Abkhaz officials put it, “Georgianization of Abkhazia.” Almost 23 000 Gali residents were removed from the voters’ lists in 2014, shortly before the region’s presidential election on August 24.

As a result, only 603 voters were registered in Gali district during the legilslative polls held by Sokhumi authorities on March 12, 2017. The Abkhaz authorities were also unable to conduct local council elections that took place in the rest of Abkhazia in 2016. The outgoing Sokhumi parliament had to issue a special decision, prolonging the term of Gali district council elected in February 2011.

According to 2011 census by the Abkhaz authorities, over 46,000 ethnic Georgians live in Abkhazia, mainly in the Gali district, which makes over 19% of the breakaway region’s population.

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor have written a letter to the president of the University of Michigan protesting the school’s football team attending a papal audience on April 26; attendance is voluntary.

The professional atheists have become completely unhinged over the spectacle of college jocks receiving an “Apostolic Blessing” by Pope Francis. “The practice violates the well-established constitutional principle that the government must remain neutral toward religion.”

Their constitutional acumen is appalling. On January 2 last year, in a speech he gave in Louisiana, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made it clear that the Constitution was never meant to be neutral about religion. Indeed, he said, “there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition.” While one religion cannot be favored over another, that does not mean that religion cannot be favored over non-religion.

Most of the Founders were Christian, and none was hostile to religion. They were decidedly biased in favor of a robust public role for religious expression, something FFRF wants to stamp out.

FFRF wants to know how the university would react to the outrage that might accompany a meeting of the students with a “top Muslim cleric,” or with an atheist such as Richard Dawkins. But the pope is not simply a religious figure, he is a head of state: He represents the Holy See. Imams and Dawkins are private citizens. The pope is also the Vicar of Christ.

The zealots at FFRF must be awfully bored to get this enraged over college kids sitting in St. Peter’s Square listening to the pope. Their pettiness is on a par with their sophomoric approach to the First Amendment. They need to get over themselves and move on before the guys with the white jackets show up.

Contact: info@ffrf.org

Modernity has never lacked for critics, people who see only regression from a nobler or more glorious past when men were men and women liked them that way. But for the economic or cultural historian, such an outlook is the sheerest balderdash.

If I had lived a thousand years ago, I would almost certainly have scratched out a precarious living, constantly on the edge of starvation, chronically ill, and culturally embedded in an inescapable wasteland of vicious error and destructive superstitions. I would never have thrilled to a song by Handel, a concerto grosso by Bach, a symphony by Beethoven or Brahms. I would never have watched any of Shakespeare’s plays or read any of his poetry. I would never have encountered even the intellectual gems that existed in the works of Aristotle or the classical Greek dramatists, never have learned Euclidean geometry, never have met with the ancient contributions to astronomy, because I would almost certainly have been illiterate and too far removed from any place that harbored learned people. And in those days, before the development of printing with movable type, the only means of spreading existing knowledge remained as always before the laborious copying of existing works by hand and the slow passage of copies from hand to hand. In short, life would have been poor, nasty, brutish, and short, even if not solitary.

People who glamorize the remote past practice a highly selective filtering of gold from a mountainous mass of ugly, toxic dirt. Life was hard even for those who sat in luxury above the masses and exploited them. They knew nothing of bacteriology; their children died in droves. The masses worked against heavy odds to extract enough from the soil to make their survival possible, and many failed to meet the test. Even if one doesn’t like industrialization and its consequences, one cannot escape the reality that what preceded modernity was materially, intellectually, and culturally close to zero for nearly everyone. Something is surely amiss when modern critics, enjoying all the material comforts and conveniences as well as the cultural amenities available at the push of a button, venture to dismiss modernity as if it were something even one in a thousand of them would give up.

This article was published at The Beacon.

By Jennifer Chisholm*

In Brazil, where affirmative action policies, like university quotas for racial minorities and children of the working class, have been contentious—what are the possible solutions for this malady?

As has been the case in the United States, affirmative action strategies have been unanimously defined by broad national social policies designed to cope with redressing social inequalities—be they matters of racial/ethnic or gender issues. Affirmative action policies, intended to “level the playing field”, are providing more opportunities to marginal groups which have often been historically denied openings for socioeconomic advancement. In Brazil, the most visible and polemic of these policies has witnessed the implementation of affirmative action policies known as discriminação positive or “positive discrimination”, these have come in the form of quotas to attend Brazil’s most prestigious state and federal universities since 2001. These quotas, aimed at minorities and lower-income students who attend public schools, have been mostly contentious due to their use of racial quotas.

The problem lies in the fact that Brazilians are famously ambivalent about strict racial categories due to a longstanding and a tangled history spiced with a multiracial heritage. This cultural legend has featured a multi-generational racial mixing that has saved Brazil from the pitfalls of radical anti-racism. This phenomenon, known as “racial democracy”, was first famously expounded by Gilberto Freyre in his celebratory tome on Brazilian cultural history, The Masters and the Slaves.

Given this ambivalence, many Brazilians have, in fact, challenged the use of racial quotas in universities, alleging that they are impractical due to the difficulty of defining who is black, brown, or otherwise. Proponents of such strategies, however, insist that quotas are necessary to effectively address the real systemic racial inequalities in Brazil’s complex academic system. More amenable to the average Brazilian are the quotas mobilized to accommodate lower income students who, attending the nation’s underfunded public schools, are less likely to earn prized places in public universities, which offer free tuition and are typically amongst the most reputable institutions of higher education in the country. In Brazil, there is a much stronger sense of class identity, which might lead its citizens to support class-based quotas instead.

In some ways, it makes sense to respect these more fluid racial categories when discussing affirmative action strategies in Brazil. This is because the country is famous for its multiracial heritage and its less rigid ambivalence towards racial categories. The recent implementation of racial quotas has been meant to rectify underrepresentation of black, indigenous, and lower-income students in Brazil’s top universities, representing a radical departure from how Brazilians now see themselves and their society. As such, these quotas then became fiercely debated— with a popular argument being that Brazil is too racially-mixed for people to be adequately categorized into neat racial categories. Proponents of quotas argue that the idea that race does not exist in Brazil is a myth (known as the “myth of racial democracy”) due in part to highly visible instances of miscegenation and that quotas are necessary to address real racial inequalities in the country’s national educational system. These activists essentially have worked for a stronger, more responsive racial classification system that more accurately depicts instances of racial discrimination.

Considering this, does it make sense to field affirmative action policies that mandate strict delineations between races and classes, given that racial categories have always tended to be fluid there? It is surely alien to Brazilian tradition and it’s shaping of understandings of race in Brazil over the decades to something immutable, as has been the case in the United States.^[i] One might even find something liberating about how Brazilians view race. There are famous stories of black Brazilians like Xica da Silva, an enslaved woman who became the mistress of a wealthy plantation owner, joined the society of Brazilian elites and subsequently insisted on being treated as a white woman. Stories like this promote the idea of racial democracy and that boundaries can be effortlessly transcended. However, the messiness of matters of race in this context can obscure the realities of racism. On a positive note, the forcing of strict racial imperative, through the use of quotas has prompted a multitude of discussions about race and racism in Brazil and has, in turn, helped make the issue of racial discrimination more visible. Ultimately, it may be necessary to “firm up”, so to speak, racial categories in Brazil in order to best rectify past and current injustices suffered by the country’s racial minorities and its working class.

*Jennifer Chisholm, Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ Brazil Unit. Additional editorial support provided by Aline Piva, Research Fellow and Head of the Brazil Unit at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

^[i] For more on the similarities of race in Brazil and the United States, see Reginald G. Daniel’s  Race and multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: converging paths? (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006).

As politicians and public figures in the West repeated the usual bland Easter messages marking Holy Week, the world’s largest religious persecution continues to be conveniently suppressed from the news agenda. In 2016, 90,000 Christians were murdered for their faith, a global genocide that has continued unabated this year. On Palm Sunday, two attacks on Churches in Egypt resulted in 44 dead and more than 100 wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility for both bombings.

These attacks were the bloodiest in recent years and come after a series of coordinated assaults against Egypt’s Coptic community. This February dozens of Christian families were forced to flee their homes in North Sinai, as ISIS publicly vowed to drive Christianity out of the region for good. The repeated campaign of violence suggests the security forces of Egypt are either unable – or unwilling – to protect the nation’s Christian citizenship. Often after these attacks, the security services are so slow to respond that perpetrators are rarely caught or even pursued.

Egypt’s government broadcasts a good rhetoric of solidarity, repeatedly claiming to do all within its power to put a stop to anti-Christian violence. And yet the record of the Egyptian security services suggests at best, extreme compliancy, or at worse, tacit support for the persecution and complicity. Following the Palm Sunday attacks, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt’s President) authorised a three-month state of emergency. This was presented as a bold step to demonstrate how serious the government was in responding to this attack. In truth, it is a convenient cover to further increase the executive’s powers so it can continue to wage its war against the political opposition. The Christian persecution is effectively ignored. Furthermore, the government actually restricted the national coverage of the Palm Sunday attacks in an effort to downplay the devastation. Additional political moves, such as the passing of a law to arbitrarily halt the building of Churches, exhibit the true motives of Egypt’s ruling class.

Egypt’s Christians are not alone in their plight. Christian communities in all Middle-Eastern states face extinction. Twenty years ago, Christians made up 20 per cent of the population of this region, now there are less than 4 per cent. In Iraq, the number has fallen from 1.5 million to 150,000. Whether it be from state-sponsored persecution or the murderous forces of Islamist terror groups, Christians are dying in the very cradle of their faith, a region they have been rooted within for 2,000 years. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a German-based secular organisation, 80 per cent of all religious discrimination is directed towards Christians, making it the most persecuted faith in the world. A new generation of martyrs on a scale perhaps never before seen and yet largely ignored by an apathetic commentariat.

In a few days Pope Francis will visit Egypt. Christians, abandoned by their government, are now hoping the Pontiff will call for meaningful action to protect them, rather than the words of futile rhetoric offered by the government.

Few Western leaders actually dispute the torment of Middle Eastern Christians. But with each anti-Christian attack, the same old copy-and-paste statement is trotted out, ‘thoughts with the victims’, ‘standing firm with our allies’ – but nothing in the form of concrete action. A policy that effectively boils down to looking the other way until the Christians of the region are gone for good. Atrocity after atrocity is met with ever more brazen appeasement.

As the craven West continues to watch and ‘condemn’ this ongoing genocide, Christians on the ground display their bravery each day in simple acts of worship, fully in the knowledge that in doing so, they risk extreme violence and even death for them and their families.

Pope Francis arrives on 28 April. We pray the visit brings tangible developments to Egypt’s beleaguered Christians, who for decades have been promised the right of freedom to worship – but have received only lies and useless words.

*The Dignitatis Humanae Institute aims to uphold human dignity based on the anthropological truth that man is born in the image and likeness of God and therefore has an innate human dignity of infinite worth to be upheld. The Institute promotes this understanding by supporting Christians in public life, assisting them to present effective and coherent responses to increasing efforts to silence the Christian voice in the public square.

I have for a long time wished for an interview with His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah. While I am still waiting for that interview, I was indeed granted an interview with His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, Chairman of Sharjah Media Council, who agreed to reveal some of the secrets of Sharjah leadership.

By the end of our conversation, it was confirmed that the Emirati do not like boasting. This is what Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, former minister of Economy and current Minister for Tolerance,  told me in 2015, when I interviewed her about the aid provided by the UAE to the Syrian refugees.

At that time, when Western voices were criticizing a so-called lack of involvement of the Gulf countries, Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi told me, ”We don’t like to boast with our aid and help given to the needy…This is our culture, to give but to remain silent, humble and modest….”

This is a fact that is often undetected by Western perceptions.

Indeed, His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, does not like to speak about his achievements. He has sworn: “I shall build Sharjah before I die”, and he has turned it into a beacon of culture and education.

However, it will be always for others to reveal the progress, so one must collect pieces of conversations to make up the whole picture.

Sharjah’s state politics is education, philanthropy and communication with the world, and the words “education” and “knowledge” are pronounced here every second.

If all governments did that, the world would be a better place.

Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, reveals some of the leadership secrets of the Ruler of Sharjah – solid communication with the people, actual response to needs, education and patriotism.

“He loves being on the ground, helping people in a discrete manner, not only in Sharjah, but across the world…but he doesn’t want to talk about it! We tried once to showcase all of the mosques and schools that he has built and he said: NO! Let us not show off!” said Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi.

Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi continues: “He and his wife, involved in humanitarian aid, work for the prosperity of Sharjah and mankind, focused on the human being and prosperity. The ruler of Sharjah believes that one should be proud if one works for his society! So he set up the Children’s Parliament in 1997 in Sharjah, for children between 5-12, to develop skills in the youth, and some of them are now working in various Government departments.”

According to Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, the goal of His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi is to grow the seed in the children about how to serve the country best, by becoming a diplomat, politician, or expert, when they grow up.

His Highness “also ensures special care for all social categories, and one good creation is the mobile surgery, the mobile care for the elderly and has direct communication and contact with the citizens, which is the best example of government communication in the world, through a program on a radio channel and a program on a TVchannel that allows citizens to call live and submit a problem, then the TV presenter calls the governmental department and tries to solve the problem. Every twp weeks, His Highness Sheikh Sultan, Ruler of Sharjah, will come to the TV channel to solve problems live,” said Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi.

Since the 1980s, Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, the wife of the Sharjah Ruler, has been involved in humanitarian work in other countries where she has dedicated herself to helping victims of conflict, especially children.

The UAE is a country that has economically grown 324 times in 44 years only and has reached that level of development that allows it currently to have a UAE Space Agency that works with NASA on the first Arab mission for planet Mars, Amal.

When asked what is the secret of the country, Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi said: “Unity in diversity: Dubai is economically strong and has unique creative visions , Adu Dhabi provides diplomacy, Sharjah ensures education – priority is given to research, 120 million USD are spent on scientific research every year….We raise the best students, for instance, the Mars mission is taking place in Dubai, but the team are all Sharjah graduates …so, the emirates complement each other. We are lucky to have our leaders!”

When you insistently ask why are the Emirati leaders are so constructive and visionary, you may have the modest reply that “here in the UAE, we all learn from each other, and leaders have the ability to be close to the people, this is the big secret”.

I suddenly remembered that in the Western world, the arrogance of the leaders and lack of communication between the elected and the electorate have become the new culture, so…. this may be indeed the secret of the UAE culture of excellence.

The Emirate of Sharjah, meaning “the rising sun,” is the third biggest of the seven United Arab Emirates. It was first inhabited 6,000 years ago, the first to have an airport in the Gulf area in 1932, the first to have a cinema in 1945. It was the cultural capital of the Arab world in 1998 and the capital of Islamic Culture in 2014, due to a sophisticated cultural infrastructure, including specialized museums such as Sharjah Archeological Museum, the Natural History Museum, Sharjah Museum of Science, Sharjah Art Museum which organizes a wide range of exhibitions including modern and futuristic art, the Islamic Museum, the Heritage Museum.

Every year, the emirate holds the “Sharjah Cultural days” in one city in the world, celebrating the Emirati culture through festivals and exhibitions. With 80 programs, and dozens of thousands of students enrolled, the University of Sharjah is one of the largest in the Arab world. It was founded in 1997 by Sheikh Sultan, Ruler of Sharjah, who strongly believes that “developing the human being is the cornerstone of development”.

*Marcela Ganea is an academic and international journalist. She holds a BA in Foreign Languages, an MA in Security Studies and a PhD in American Studies. She writes on the geopolitics, foreign policy, economy, security, Space, media, education, and culture.

Despite tensions over Ukraine and interference with elections, Russia and the US must lead on nuclear security

By Richard Weitz*

Having completed his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in talks that apparently focused on Syria and Korea, Donald Trump has now met with most of the world’s key leaders with the exception of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite all the earlier talk of bromance between the two leaders, a delay is not surprising in light of the controversy surrounding Russia.

When this meeting occurs, the discussion will likely focus on military and political developments in Syria, Ukraine and other regions. The two presidents might also discuss non-interference in national elections and promoting security in Afghanistan and Central Asia, where Washington and Moscow agree on the imperative of limiting Islamic extremism but differ on how to do so.

The most crucial issue for their first personal encounter will be arms control, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear security – the three main dimensions of Russian-US strategic cooperation. The latter two issues have greater prospects, since Moscow and Washington agree on the need to deny North Korea, Iran, and other state and non-state actors access to nuclear weapons.

Neither Russia nor the United States wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons, test ballistic missiles or engage in WMD proliferation. US policymakers see these activities as direct threats to US security, while Russian leaders fear that they could cause conflict on their borders and strengthen US alliances in Asia, in addition to other problems.

The Trump administration has ordered a review of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Russia can help sustain what is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action by pressing Tehran to limit its long-range ballistic missile development program as well as Iran’s confrontational regional policies. Moscow and Washington should also discuss directly, as well as with other parties, what nuclear activities Iran should pursue after the current nuclear deal expires.

Russia and the United States must renew their partnership for preventing, detecting, deterring and responding to threats of nuclear terrorism. For example, Moscow and Washington could take measures to make the global nuclear fuel cycle more safe and proliferation-resistant; consolidate, secure and minimize civilian use of highly enriched uranium; share best practices on responding to nuclear emergencies; and counter illicit nuclear trafficking. With strong Russian-US nuclear security leadership, the world’s nuclear future will be safer.

Despite the obstacles, Trump and Putin might even impart new momentum to Russian-US arms control, especially by breaking with outdated Cold War–era frameworks.

In a February 23 interview with Reuters, Trump referred to Moscow’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Forces (INF) Treaty as “a big deal,” one he planned to raise with Putin. He also called the Russian-US New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limits the two nations’ longer-range strategic offensive systems, “a bad deal.” Media accounts report that Trump told Putin in their January 28 phone call that he would not extend New START after it expires in 2021.

On December 22, Trump also announced on Twitter that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” The next day, the president elaborated that, he would not shy away from “an arms race [since]… we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”

Trump’s remarks are hardly definitive as his administration has yet to fill many of senior- and mid-level agency positions. Such officials would lead the impending comprehensive nuclear posture review and other national security assessments to generate options for future defense initiatives, arms-control policies and budget programs.

And Trump’s comments differ from the post–Cold War US policy of relying less on nuclear weapons and more on conventional arms and diplomatic tools. The improving precision and effectiveness of conventional weapons enable US non-nuclear forces to achieve missions that previously required nuclear weapons.

Still, Trump will likely continue Obama’s plans to develop the next generation of US nuclear forces, including a new intercontinental ballistic missile, strategic bomber and ballistic missile launching submarine. Since this modernization will take decades, the United States should want to continue START-like limits on Russian nuclear forces. For the next decade, Russia can more easily expand its nuclear arsenal due to its ongoing rearmament program, which has added dozens of new strategic delivery vehicles each year.

Except for calling for more military spending, Trump’s team has reversed campaign rhetoric about denigrating US foreign military alliances. This reversal is understandable. This network of security partnerships, while costly in terms of US defense spending and sometimes lives, provides unparalleled US strategic advantages over potential rivals with foreign military allies, forward operating and staging bases, diplomatic and intelligence assistance, and international legitimacy for even primarily US unilateral operations.

Yet, the United States must think creatively regarding how to give Russia a larger stake in the European security order to minimize tensions and costs for all parties. US officials should reassess Russian proposals for a new European Security Treaty if the process can truly renew commitments to Helsinki Principles or a version of the Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty that would provide more transparency and restraints on military activities in Europe.

Trump’s remarks on the INF Treaty are well-targeted. Russian officials have routinely dismissed US claims regarding Russian treaty violations as unfounded, hypocritical, part of a post-Ukraine containment strategy or most recently as “fake” news seeking to sabotage efforts of the new administration to improve Russian-U.S. relations. Until the allegations of Russian cheating are resolved, the US Senate is unlikely to ratify another major bilateral arms-control treaty.

More generally, Russian behavior regarding the INF Treaty and the growing reference to nuclear weapons in Moscow’s discourse have led to declining support for arms control among US political leaders. Trump could make resolving the INF dispute a central driver of renewed Russian-US ties and the two countries’ joint contribution to global security.

Washington and Moscow made an unsuccessful effort to induce other countries to adhere to the INF Treaty a decade ago. Now with Trump threatening to allow New START to expire and engage in an unbridled nuclear arms race, other countries might be more willing to adopt some restraints on their own weapons.

One deal might be that, in return for a US promise not to withdraw from New START and consider extending the treaty after expiration in 2021, Russia would acknowledge that it has an INF-covered system and eliminate the missile, its launchers, and related research and development infrastructure in a verifiable manner as well as stop further development, testing, production and deployment of INF-banned missiles.

If Moscow refuses to eliminate the contested missile, the Trump administration might instead allow Russia to count INF-range missiles within Russia’s New START limits in exchange for a similar waiver for some US strategic system.

The Trump administration could even seek a more comprehensive arms-control deal that would encompass more weapons types, such as non-strategic tactical nuclear weapons, non-deployed and reserve warheads, space-based weapons, long-range conventionally-armed hypersonic glide vehicles and ballistic-missile defenses. Trump is unlikely to make unilateral concessions, so any constraints must be equivalent if not identical.

To address concerns about the capabilities of the other nuclear powers, Trump and Putin might jointly approach China, Britain, and France to accept unilateral limits, make their nuclear activities transparent and join in multinational confidence-building measures.

With the new US administration open to rethinking Russian-US relations and nuclear security, the time has come to reconsider old truths and seek new paths to a more secure nuclear future.

*Richard Weitz is senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia and East Asia as well as US foreign, defense and homeland-security policies. He would like to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for supporting his research and writing on nuclear non-proliferation issues.

Donald Trump wants to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, in order to “make the United States more competitive.”

This is truly dumb, for 5 reasons:

1. The White House says the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Baloney. After corporate deductions and tax credits, the typical corporation pays an effective tax rate of 27.9 percent, only a tad higher than the average of 27.7 percent among advanced nations.

2. Trump’s corporate tax cut will will bust the federal budget. According to the Congress’s own Join Committee on Taxation, it will reduce federal revenue by $2 trillion over 10 years. This will either require huge cuts in programs for the poor, or additional tax revenues from the rest of us.

3. The White House says the tax cuts will create a jump in economic growth that will generate enough new revenue to wipe out any increase in the budget deficit. This is supply-side nonsense. The Congressional Research Service reviewed tax cuts since 1945 and found no evidence they generate economic growth. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both cut taxes, and both ended their presidencies with huge budget deficits. Bill Clinton raised taxes, and the economy created more jobs than it did under Bush or Reagan.

4. American corporations don’t need a tax cut. They’re already hugely competitive as measured by their profits – which are at near record highs.

5. The White House says corporations will use the extra profits they get from the tax cut to invest in more capacity and jobs. Rubbish. They’re now using a large portion of their profits to buy back their shares of stock and to buy other companies, in order to raise their stock prices. There’s no reason to suppose they’ll do any different with even more profits.

Don’t fall for Trump’s corporate tax giveaway. It will be a huge windfall for corporations and a huge burden on ordinary Americans.

By C.Jay Engel*

Greece is on the hook for a €7 billion debt repayment in July, but may not be prepared to meet the obligation. If Europe doesn’t agree to come to an alternative agreement, the IMF may step in and bail them out again. This, according to the New York Times, which writes:

As the International Monetary Fund approaches the seventh anniversary of the contentious Greek bailout, it is torn over whether to commit new loans to a nearly bankrupt Greece.

The fund has been criticized for overcommitting financial resources to the European debt crisis.

Yet the I.M.F. has an obligation to lend to countries that are in financial need as well as to safeguard global financial stability.

Ostensibly, the role of the IMF is to safeguard global financial stability and it therefore would rather continue to throw money into the black hole of Greece than let it default. What this amounts to economically is a grand case of wealthier governments propping up overly indebted poorer countries against any standard of financial prudence. And since no government acquires its wealth in the first place, the IMF acts as a mechanism of wealth transfer. As the New York Times observes:

For example, the €30 billion the fund lent to Greece in 2010 was 30 times more than the sum of Greece’s financial contribution to the fund as a member, which is called a quota. The loan is one of the largest in the history of the fund, which was formed in 1944.

Of course, this money above and beyond Greece’s own “quota” came from the taxpayers of other countries, who don’t get any benefit at all out of the IMF’s wealth transfer scam. As we near Greece’s repayment date, we are going to get nothing from the press about the Western taxpayers on the hook for the Greece bailout — and neither are we going to hear anything about the creation of debt by central banks which makes these debt crises a reality in the first place. Instead, we are going to get a surface debate about whether Europe or the IMF should compromise over Greece’s dire and never ending problem.

About the author:
*C.Jay Engel is an investment advisor at The Sullivan Group, an independent, Austrian-School oriented, wealth management firm in northern California. He is especially interested in wealth preservation in our era of rogue Central Banking. He is an avid reader of the Austro-libertarian literature and a dedicated proponent of private property and sound money. Visit his economic blog, TheAustrianView.com.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

To really address Trumpism and the denial of man-made climate change, we have to assume moral responsibility, not only for our actions but for our beliefs themselves. Philosophy has a crucial role to play today in addressing the moral challenge we face in terms of the weakening of our normative commitments.  The antidote to Trumpism must involve recommitting ourselves to epistemic values, including especially the universality and value of truth.

By Sam Ben-Meir*

In recent years, President Donald Trump has used his Twitter account @realDonalTrump to share his thoughts on climate change – for example, in December 2013 he tweeted: “…global warming is a total, and very expensive hoax.” And in January 2014, Trump asks: “Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?”

In September 2016, Kellyanne Conway clarified the administration’s position, suggesting that climate change exists but is “naturally occurring.” The administration’s official position, however, does not avoid the epistemic and moral pitfalls in adopting a hypothesis which the evidence overwhelmingly points against.

Epistemology (or the theory of knowledge) is concerned with, among other things, what right we have to the beliefs we hold – in other words, it is a normative enterprise: it asks not merely the descriptive-psychological question of how people happen to come to acquire their beliefs, but rather how they should do so.

The mathematician and philosopher William Clifford in “The Ethics of Belief”, famously argued that it is morally wrong to believe anything, anywhere, at any time on insufficient evidence. To make his point, Clifford uses the example of a ship-owner who allows himself to believe that his vessel is seaworthy without giving it the proper inspection – thereby dooming all the passengers aboard.

“He knew that she was old and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy… Before the ship sailed, however he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections … he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy. He watched her departure with a light heart and benevolent wishes for the exiles and their strange new home which was to-be. And he got his insurance money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.”

First and foremost, Clifford contends that if a person is aware of evidence against a hypothesis and aware of no good evidence in support of it, and nevertheless allows himself to believe it because it provides him private satisfaction, he has done an epistemic and moral wrong. It is often pointed out that the philosopher William James attacked Clifford’s view (in his essay “The Will to Believe”), yet he agreed with this fundamental principle. What he rejected was Clifford’s secondary claim – namely, that if an individual has evidence neither for nor against a belief, it is wrong for him to either accept or reject it. Rather, his ‘epistemic duty’, so to speak, is to withhold judgment on the matter until further evidence comes to light; that is, to remain agnostic. In the second case James thought that with respect to religious belief, it was permissible to allow the passions (the will) to guide or determine belief.

Clifford’s ship-owner serves as an illustration for this administration’s attitude to our current environmental situation. Whether man-made climate change is occurring is no longer an object of serious scientific contention. The IPCC reports that: “Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reduction in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes… It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

We must begin to ask ourselves whether we have any epistemic right to the belief that anthropogenic global warming is not a reality when virtually all the scientific evidence points to the fact that this is a reality which has already begun to exact a devastating toll – in terms of climate refugees, desertification, and the rapid loss of biodiversity. The bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef reveals the far-reaching impacts of climate change, which has led to rising ocean temperatures and an increase in its acidity.

Last month, Trump pledged to break financial commitments to the United Nations Green Climate Fund (GCF) as pledged by former President Barack Obama in accordance with the multinational Paris Climate Agreement. Newly-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has rolled back former President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired plants, ending the former administration’s so-called “war on coal” – an industry which provides far fewer jobs than in tourism or renewable energy.

The Executive Order President Trump signed on March 28th, 2017 rolls back agreed-upon emission standards and repeals the initiatives outlined in The Clean Power Plan in several critical ways, including a reversal of its goal to replace coal- and gas-fire power plants with renewable energy power plants. This expresses not only a dogmatic faith that anthropogenic climate change is not real, but also a self-interested and tunnel-like vision of the world which repositions fiction as facts.

The essence of Trumpism lies in its tendency to create the conditions under which we recklessly fail to give due weight to things like justification, evidence and warrant — we enable ourselves to act in ways that are epistemically wrong. Nowhere is this more evident than in Trump’s disregard for man-made climate change.

Presently, Trump is behaving like Clifford’s ship-owner – he permits himself to believe whatever he wants, that which he finds most-convenient, expedient and desirable. The ultimate critique of Trumpism is not simply whether we still value basic principles including what defines truth, but whether we are able to perceive objective reality at all.

Trumpism, with its readiness to cling to unsubstantiated claims, hearsay, rumors, and conspiracies is in turn making it easier for all of us to behave – epistemically speaking – like Clifford’s ship-owner; we are becoming credulous for the sake of short-term economic self-interest. In the context of climate change, we should see Clifford’s doomed émigrés not simply as ourselves, but also our posterity. By not responding effectively and rapidly enough to address the looming threat of climate change, we may fail to prevent a geological tipping point, on the other side of which lies a vast unknown.

The real tragedy is not simply that Trump is not doing anything to combat climate change; the fact is that little was accomplished in this respect under the Obama administration as well. In speaking to the Guardian on December 12th, 2015, James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who did much to popularize the dangers of climate changes, dismissed the Paris talks as a “fraud” and “just worthless words.” Those were strong statements from someone who believes passionately in imposing carbon taxes. (“As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned,” Hansen added.)

Trump has avoided the prevalent hypocrisy of saying that we believe that man-made climate change exists while doing next to nothing to significantly address it; but he falls into a much graver error – namely in allowing himself to be persuaded that man-made climate change is not real – as this is a belief to which neither he, nor anyone, is epistemically entitled, given the massive evidence against it. And, as Clifford shows, to convince ourselves of propositions in a such an irresponsibly self-serving manner is also a moral wrong.

To really address Trumpism and the denial of man-made climate change, we have to assume moral responsibility, not only for our actions but for our beliefs themselves. Philosophy has a crucial role to play today in addressing the moral challenge we face in terms of the weakening of our normative commitments.  The antidote to Trumpism must involve recommitting ourselves to epistemic values, including especially the universality and value of truth. With its outright disdain for objective reality and its repeated assertion of “alternative facts”, Trumpism represents the dismissal of self-critical thought; which is not only extremely dangerous, given the precarious situation that is enfolding daily before our eyes, but the first fateful step towards a crude mental barbarism.

*Sam Ben-Meir, PhD is an adjunct professor at Mercy College. His current research focuses on environmental ethics and animal studies. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

President Trump’s about-face on Syria has left many of his supporters reeling. Repeatedly on the campaign trail — and over the past several years — he has mocked President Obama’s decision to get involved in a “regime change” project in Syria. He correctly warned Obama back in 2013 that if you attack Syria, “very bad things will happen.” In his first several weeks in office the president has gone from praising Syrian President Assad for his fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda, to agreeing that “Assad can stay,” to suddenly resurrecting the Obama mantra of “Assad must go!” All in a matter of two weeks!

But what happens if Trump, who is apparently under the spell of the neocons, is successful and Assad is finally overthrown? According to a new study by the prestigious, London-based IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, the chief beneficiaries of such a “success” will be ISIS.

According to the Jane’s study, it is Assad’s government rather than US-backed “moderate” rebels who are most taking the fight to ISIS in Syria. Some 43 percent of ISIS’ battles were fought against Assad’s forces, while only 17 percent of its battles were fought against US-backed forces. Mostly due to Assad’s military advances in Syria, ISIS has lost about half its territory thus far this year.

IHS Markit senior Middle East analyst Columb Strack concluded that:

It is an inconvenient reality that any US action taken to weaken the Syrian government will inadvertently benefit the Islamic State and other jihadist groups. The Syrian government is essentially the anvil to the US-led coalition’s hammer. While U.S.-backed forces surround Raqqa, the Islamic State is engaged in intense fighting with the Syrian government around Palmyra and in other parts of Homs and Deir el-Zour provinces.

Americans must understand one thing about Trump’s sudden shift toward regime change in Syria: if he takes out Assad, ISIS wins.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention, and the EU renews its strong support to this successful international disarmament instrument that has helped the world to take steps for the full and complete eradication of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. This is also an occasion to call on all States not yet party to the Convention to ratify or accede to it without delay and unconditionally. The world should have already got rid of such horrifying means.

What happened in the town of Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017, with its horrific consequences, causing the death and injuries of scores of civilians including children and relief workers, reminds us once again of the importance of the full observance of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the important role of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

We reiterate our appreciation for the OPCW, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 laureate, and its dedicated staff for their work, very often in very challenging circumstances. The EU Member States which account for 40% of the OPCW annual budget and the EU through significant contributions have supported its core activities and specific operations.

More than one hundred years after the first massive use of them, chemical weapons, including of toxic chemicals, are still used against people who can have no escape from them. We reiterate our strong condemnation of the use of chemical weapons anywhere, at any time, by anyone, under any circumstances. We are fully committed to countering the re-emergence of chemical weapons and the evolving threat of chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups or other non-state actors, to eradicating non-state actors’ possession of such weapons, and to ensuring full accountability for any State or non-state actor which use them.

By Aline Robert

(EurActiv) — Both candidates in the second round of France’s presidential election need the support of the country’s extreme left voters. To win them over, the National Front is highlighting the similarities between their candidate and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Even 24 hours on, the European Parliament’s radical left GUE/NGL group, just like the French left, had difficulty accepting the defeat of its standard-bearer at the hands of liberal Emmanuel Macron and extreme-right Marine Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday (23 April).

Gabi Zimmer, the group’s president, sent round a statement on Monday evening (24 April), congratulating Mélenchon and his team on their “big success” in the first round.

“Jean-Luc ran a most engaging and modern campaign which enlightened the electorate by standing up for democracy, social and workers’ rights and a sustainable development,” she wrote. “This way, he directly addressed the hopes of the younger generation who had been failed by years of austerity and neglect.”

The statement made no mention of Macron and placed the responsibility for the success of the extreme right firmly on the shoulders of the elites in power. Neither did it mention upcoming events or recommend how the GUE/NGL’s supporters should vote in the second round.

Ambiguity

This position represents a clear and surprising new direction for the party. When National Front (NF) founder Jean-Marie Le Pen contested the second round of the 2002 presidential election, the extreme-left called its supporters out to block him, even if it meant voting for conservative Jacques Chirac. This time, Mélenchon’s “Unsubmissive France” is the only party not to have made a similar recommendation.

“We all have to vote according to our conscience,” he said after the first round.

Le Pen senior immediately picked up on this lack of a voting recommendation, which he described as “very dignified”.

Mélenchon is “very correct,” he said on radio station France Inter. “I find this very dignified from a candidate who made a remarkable breakthrough and who was, I must say, the best speaker.”

But with the support of large numbers of young voters at stake, the absence of a recommendation is seen as dangerous and irresponsible by many, including the Socialist Party, which strongly criticised Mélenchon.

The veteran far-left politician is seen as having left the door open to a high rate of abstention in the second round, which is likely to play into Le Pen’s hands. The hashtag #SansMoiLe7mai (without me on 7 May), has been doing the rounds among Mélenchon’s supporters on social media, although it is not officially endorsed by his campaign.

And while the extreme-left hesitates, the National Front is trying to gain the upper hand.

“Among his voters, many would refuse to vote for Macron anyway and many could vote for us,” Florian Philippot, the extreme-right party’s number two, said on France Info.

Convergence on Europe

The NF has drawn up flyers like the one below to highlight just how close Le Pen and Mélenchon’s campaigns are.

With a certain amount of exaggeration and bad faith, the NF put together a list of all the points where the two campaigns converge. But for Mélenchon, leaving the EU was only ever a Plan B, a threat to wield if negotiations got tough. His policy of ending the posting of workers was also meant to be implemented under certain conditions.

And the NF has many other policies that do not figure on the flyer and do not match with those of the extreme-left, such as ending immigration and the national preference for employment. But the comparison remains troubling.

Yet more troubling is Mélenchon’s apparent tolerance for abstention, despite the fact that his own campaign pledged to make voting compulsory, as it is in some other European countries. In Belgium, for example, non-voters can be fined or even struck off the electoral register for up to ten years.

According to a poll by Ifop/fiducial, around 19% of Mélenchon supporters intend to vote for Le Pen in the second round, while 51% plan to vote for Macron. One-third of Republican candidate François Fillon’s supporters said they would cast their second vote for Le Pen.

But the final result, the polling company estimates, will be a 60%-40% victory for Macron.

US and South Korean officials met on Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea for the fifth bilateral dialogue between the two countries on counterterrorism.

Acting Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism Alina Romanowski led the US delegation, which included officials from the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, and the National Center for Counterterrorism. The 18-member Korean interagency delegation was led by Ambassador for International Security Affairs, Choi Hong-ghi.

The meeting aimed at deepening the US-South Korea counterterrorism partnership, particularly in Southeast Asia and as South Korea prepares to hold the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.

“The United States views the Republic of Korea as a vital and highly capable partner in this endeavor,” said the US State Department in a statement.

Topics included global and regional terrorist threats, terrorist use of the Internet, interagency cooperation, and aviation and border security, according to the State Department.

The conflict ridden Kashmir is witnessing yet another shift, an angry and fearless new generation. Now even the students — both boys and girls — have joined the routine protests and the scene is changing altogether. It is also changing the role of women and conflict in Kashmir.

Recently, on stopping their young boy of barely six years old from going out while the stone pelting and clashes were occurring, the parents got somewhat a strange and shocking reply from him. The boy angrily shouted, “Now when you have two sons (he and his elder brother), even if only one of the two lives, it is ok. One should die for Kashmir”. This scenario reflects that a conflict ridden upbringing and witnessing a bleeding environment has laid its indelible impact on a vulnerable lot and the conflict socialization/indoctrination is at its peak with highly disastrous ramifications.

Conflict as a way of life

Now even small children are memorizing and enjoying the freedom slogans/songs and in many families it is a form of entertainment to teach such things to kids. My dad says that a new difficult Kashmir is emerging as there was a time in Kashmir when people used to worry for the security of their daughters given the gendered norms, but now the scene has changed altogether, and parents must now worry about their sons.

It is usual for bands (Hartals) of very small kids to fearlessly stop and damage vehicles. However, having the backing of their elders the kids usually don’t bother to abuse the people using private transport. What does it infer and where will such a deviant socialization lead us in the future. It is worth pondering about the children who are throwing stones today when they even don’t know the reason they are doing so, and will they hesitate to become guerillas tomorrow when they are mature and aware of the history? This all means that a new difficult Kashmir is in the offing and without any serious intervention a big mess is to follow. We are gradually landing in a Kashmir where a civilian will be scared of another fellow civilian. A new range of social conflicts will further destroy our social fabric.

An Emerging (Fringe) Mainstream

Currently, the Valley is witnessing many changes and the reason is purely the situation at the moment. Now public and intellectual circles are somewhat merging and their thought is not much different. Even intellectuals are flowing with the tide. A new, but different, majoritarian thought is being shaped and everybody is subscribing to it. The new mainstream, which was the erstwhile separatism fringe, has evolved and the conventional mainstream has been reduced to a fringe minority. Hardly anybody dares to challenge this new mainstream — including the intellectuals. A fair chunk of this mainstream is keeping a low profile or merging into the new dominant group. Now even the former political workers are trying to show the angry masses that they have not voted or will not in future simply to survive amid this new wave.

Routine Crisis Mishandling Adding Fuel To Fire

Every civilian killing or torture or harassment turns has a long-lasting ripple effect on society and becomes a strong motivation for the younger lot to justify their anti-social actions, or what is normally called anti-national activities.

The recent incident of using a human shield by forces or the torture of students in colleges has further deteriorated the trust deficit and added to the perception that they are the “enemy”. Now there is video of everything happening on the ground. Every torture video of civilians is goes viral on social media and adds fuel to fire.

Stability seems almost impossible because both civilians and the Armed Forces are hostile against each other. All of this has severe implications on peace building and thus shapes an alarming future.

Mass Anger And High Trust Deficit

It may not be wrong to say that the Kashmir conflict is experiencing a fresh revival and the incessant demand for Azadi (secession) is at an all time high — even in the country side.

The recent lowest by-poll turnout (7.14) clearly reflected that people are not happy with elections amid the ongoing violence and political instability.

There are drastic changes in the design of the protests and clashes as well. Earlier the stone pelters used to throw stones and flee. It was thus unplanned and unorganized, but now they fight face-to-face and force the region’s security forces to fire, and even be killed.

A new conflict glory culture has also evolved as in the eyes of the majority of the youth, who believe it that to die for Kashmir is an honor and worthy of dignity.

This is the rebirth of a new 1990’s Kashmir — a new difficult Kashmir. The clashes and stone pelting now are more planned, more organized and fearless and it is certainly equally a big challenge for the state and security forces.

On the other side, militants and their videos on social media further energize the protesting youth who openly clash with security forces almost on a daily basis. The protesting youth now don’t see themselves just as militant supporters, but they view themselves as actually being militant. People, especially the youth, are trying their best to confront security forces during live encounters so that the militant is saved. This is a recent trend and almost unstoppable now.

As mentioned, the army has even recently used human shields to avoid the stone pelting of their vehicles – that action only further added to the anger of the masses. This has all resulted in an enemy perception with hatred at an all-time high, and  the people don’t expect any healing touch or the revocation of AF(JK)SPA in Jammu and Kashmir from the government.

The fact is that people believe that the government has failed to grasp the volatile Kashmir dynamics and more often their irresponsible statements have further deteriorated and aggravated the situation. Instead of seriously pondering over such a grave situation on the ground, the state always resorts to short-term tactics — such as implementing an internet or communication blockade in the name of law and order. Even among a large chunk of the society that usually does not participate in anything like protests or polling or political or separatist activities, hopelessness is now common — hopelessness with the system.

Need For An Immediate Intervention

As conflict permeates through the young vulnerable minds, the urge for separatism — and even linking the political issue with Islam (Azadi barai Islam)  — has become the new reality as reflected in the graffiti that plasters the walls across Kashmir.

Wisdom demands acting wisely and displaying a vision for a peaceful Kashmir that is currently on a war footing. The Centre should start delivering on the much hyped Insaniyat (humanity) and Jamhooriyat (democracy) for the sake of true Kashmiriyat in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Instead of thinking more on the procedures, the authorities must sincerely worry for the peace building in Kashmir — especially when the summer is about to set in. Be that elections or other activities, peace and a peaceful environment must be the prerequisite, as continuing with such routine exercises amid violence and chaos actually defeats the goal.

A close relative who was on election duty in the Budgam area recently narrated a horrible story. The situation in his election booth turned so violent that he bade his last goodbye over the phone to his family members, while witnessing a massive attack on the school that happened to be his polling station. The employees and everybody else were loudly crying inside the school, which was being bombarded by massive stones from a hillock.

Democracy, violence, lawlessness and such open crimes cannot go together in such an unaccounted and inexperienced way. Those in power should realize this and start negotiating with the angry youth as earlier as possible lest the new difficult Kashmir will turn to an impossible Kashmir. Kashmir needs some able leadership at the helm to see the change on the ground.

Last Word

The scene is currently completely different and chaotic on the ground. Now a civilian is scared of another civilian and police personnel think twice before visiting their families. Political workers feel insecure and killings and torture continues as routine. Everyone seems aghast and every Kashmiri is under stress — the stress posed by the anemic circumstances and daily happenings. The atmosphere at the moment simply tells that yet another summer may be lost to one violent uprising.

The Centre has to take sincere initiatives and start dialogue to build peace in Kashmir. As per some media sources; CM Mehbooba wants an agenda of alliance to be implemented, especially the talks on Kashmir. It still remains to be seen if Kashmir see a change on the ground after her recent meeting with the Prime Minister.