Christians are an endangered species in the Middle East, endangered not only by the threat of violent extremism that targets them but also their feeling that they must flee to survive.

Every day during this year’s Easter season, I listened to commentators on the right and the left talk about the fast-disappearing Middle East Christians not in terms of saving them but in terms of who is to blame.

Middle East Christians are a statistic in a political debate that crosses the political divide and the religious divide between Jews and Muslims.

Yet no one is really doing anything to protect them from extinction.

I am so tired of listening to Israelis claim that Israel does more to protect Middle East Christians than any of the Middle East countries. Israelis claim Israel is the only safe haven for Christians.

The day after Easter, an official of the Jewish Agency for Israel posted a tweet declaring, “As Christians flee the Middle East, I’m proud to live in Israel, which has five times as many Christians as it did in 1948. Happy Easter.”

The statement offended me. Yes, the Christian population of Israel may have increased slightly, but only after taking a major hit following Israel’s creation.

Tens of thousands of Christians were among those that were forced to flee in 1947 and 1948, becoming refugees, including my cousins and uncles.

Other Christians living in the West Bank under Jordanian control experienced Israeli military brutality during the 1967 war 50 years ago. Since that time, Israel has expropriated large areas of Christian-owned lands in Christian areas including Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Nazareth, and even in occupied Jerusalem.

Today, Israel stands in the way of allowing my family to claim our land, which is adjacent to the illegal settlement of Gilo. Gilo was founded on Palestinian lands forcibly confiscated by Israel in the 1970s. In our case, the Israeli military destroyed a home, expelled my relatives, sealed the water well diverting it to Gilo and surrounding it with Jewish-owned settler homes under the gaze of “Gilo Park.”

The Jewish Agency did not mention that discriminatory practice!

Yet, despite this reality of oppression, it is true that the Christian population has increased slightly in Israel. Of course, statistics can be manipulated. If there were only five Christians left in Israel because of Israel’s oppression, and that population increased to six, Israel would boast about it as a “massive 20 percent increase.”

Nearly 80 percent of all Middle East Christians live in Egypt. The remaining live in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.

This past Palm Sunday, Daesh terrorists attacked Coptic Christian worshippers in Egypt on Palm Sunday, forcing Egypt’s Christians to cancel their Easter services.
Many in the Muslim world expressed outrage at the suicide bombings that claimed 45 lives and wounded hundreds more. The terrorists targeted a church in Tanta, the seat of Egypt’s Christian community, and a church in Alexandria.

It was not the first time. Both cities have seen terrorism targeting Christians in the past.

Yet denouncing the violence against Christians is not enough from the Muslim world. Islam is the dominant religion in the Arab world and it is their responsibility not only to protect the Christian minority, but to celebrate the Christian existence.

Too often, Christians are marginalized and exploited like trophies in a window for political purposes. Only a handful of Christian leaders are invited to speak at Muslim conferences or events. Worse, many of the largest Islamic conventions in Western countries like the US are held on the same dates as the most important Christian holidays, Easter and Christmas.

Many Christian churches have opened their doors widely to support Middle East Christians. They stand in awe when I tell them my father is from the Holy City of Jerusalem, and my mother is from Bethlehem, the origins of Christian faith. Both are under extreme Israeli duress.

As an Arab Christian, I identify with Muslims far more than Muslims identify with Christians. I view myself as being Christian and “Muslim by culture.” I am proud to be a part of the Muslim world, but I am always disappointed so few Muslims offer anything more than rhetorical support for our plight.

I am constantly cautioned to be silent about Christian-Muslim relations, and told I should only speak of us as “Arabs.” We are no different, they say. Yet the Muslim community is reaching to great heights in America and elsewhere not as “Arabs” but as Muslims. They find solidarity in their religious beliefs in the face of horrendous persecution in the West.

Anti-Muslim racism is a frequent topic. Not discussed, though, is the fact that Christian Arabs are also discriminated against, not just in America, where Americans see no difference between Christian Arabs and Muslims, but in the Arab world, too.

That needs to end. We need to openly discuss it.

The Arab and the Muslim worlds have an obligation to support Christian Arabs and Middle East Christians that include those who do not view themselves as being “Arab” such as Chaldeans, Assyrians and Phoenicians.

When will we be respected? Because honestly, I am tired of listening to Israel do all the talking with their exaggerated “love” and their twisted data.

Muslims are not stealing my land in Palestine. It is Israel. And yet there is not one Muslim or Arab nation standing up for our defense.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We had very useful and constructive talks with Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Adel al-Jubeir.

We discussed our relations, primarily in light of agreements that have been reached at the top level. We have a positive view on our political dialogue, inter-parliamentary ties, cooperation in power generation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, implementation of joint projects in agriculture and investment cooperation.

We talked at length about regional and international issues, above all considering the continued aggravation of problems in the Middle East and North Africa. We agree on the threat of international terrorism, above all the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which directly threatens the security of regional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia.

We pointed out that our countries have the capability to make a positive impact on the efforts of the international community to settle regional crises, including in Syria, Yemen and several other countries.

We stand together on overcoming stagnation in Palestinian-Israeli relations by promoting a two-state solution and other principles sealed in international law, such as the Arab Peace Initiative proposed by the late King of Saudi Arabia 15 years ago.

We reaffirmed the growing importance of strategic dialogue between Russia and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, often referred to as the Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC. We shared opinions on the events planned for 2017 within the framework of the Russia-GCC strategic dialogue.

We expressed gratitude to our Saudi friends for their attention to Russian pilgrims during the upcoming annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Overall, we are satisfied with the results of our talks, which have confirmed our mutual resolve to continue to develop Russian-Saudi relations to the benefit of our nations and in the interests of stability in the Middle East and North Africa.

Question (addressed to both ministers): Do you think the exchange of visits by Russian and Saudi officials will help you find new points of contact in your fruitful cooperation on Syria? Will King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud make a visit to Moscow soon?

Sergey Lavrov (speaking after Adel al-Jubeir): I fully agree with my Saudi friend’s opinion of the Russian-Saudi relations, which have been on the rise recently. However, we have more ambitious plans.

The Intergovernmental Commission, whose chairs met in Moscow in December 2016, has become more active. Its members have plans for a plenary meeting this autumn. These plans include discussions of practical investment projects, including in energy and agriculture. We are pondering plans for nuclear energy cooperation. A Rosatom delegation visited Riyadh this month. Twelve intergovernmental projects are being discussed; they will certainly boost our relations to a fundamentally new level.

During a recent visit to Riyadh, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko met with His Royal Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who reaffirmed his intention to accept the invitation he received from President of Russia Vladimir Putin to visit Russia at his convenience.

As I have said, we appreciate the Saudi authorities’ attention to Russian pilgrims. Today our partners have kindly agreed to take additional measures to make the Russian pilgrims’ stay and travel to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia even more comfortable.

I would like to mention another important element of our relations: ties between our regions. Over the past few months, the heads of Tatarstan, Ingushetia and Chechnya visited Saudi Arabia, where they met with senior Saudi officials.

I fully agree with what my Saudi colleague and friend said about a settlement for Syria. Russia and Saudi Arabia wholeheartedly support the decisions taken by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and the UN Security Council, including Resolution 2254.

Question (addressed to both ministers): Saudi Arabia has said more than once that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be removed, either by political or military means. Have you smoothed over your differences on Syria regarding President al-Assad’s role in the country’s future?

Sergey Lavrov: As we have said when answering the previous question, I cannot say that there are any insurmountable differences in our views on Syria. Russia and Saudi Arabia are both members of the ISSG and its ceasefire and humanitarian task forces. These task forces meet in Geneva every week to discuss issues within their competence. Also, Russia and Saudi Arabia co-authored UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which sets out the principles for a Syrian settlement, including that the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria.

Of course, the practical implementation of this principle must be discussed and coordinated between the Syrian government and the entire range of the opposition, as per Resolution 2254.  It was with great difficulty and only with support from external players, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, that the talks have been launched. There is hard work ahead under the UN guidance. It involves the external players using their influence on the Syrian parties to urge them to act as constructively as possible to find mutually acceptable solutions in the name of their country’s future.

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has reaffirmed his country’s support for the Astana process. Our efforts in Astana have helped us reach a ceasefire agreement, and we are working now to ensure compliance with it and to create a mechanism for responding to ceasefire violations. The idea of the Astana process was a major, and possibly decisive, argument that led to the resumption of the Geneva talks. We want to develop these two processes in a coordinated manner.

Question (for both ministers): The Iranian armed forces and Hezbollah in Syria are being accused of implementing a plan to change the demographic situation in many Syrian cities. In addition to this, they are being accused of committing genocide. The possibility of withdrawing the Iranian troops and Hezbollah combat units from Syria was discussed but the situation hasn’t changed. What do you think about the role of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria? What can be done in this regard?

Sergey Lavrov (speaking after Adel Al-Jubeir): With regard to your question about “ethnic cleansing”, in fact, this process is the result of an agreement between the Syrian government and the corresponding opposition groups in a particular region. We believe it can be instrumental in reducing the death toll.

During hostilities, the opposing sides and those who want to help them often have to make decisions that are not ideal from the point of view of preserving the principles of a settlement. We are convinced that such measures are beneficial on a temporary basis to save people’s lives. The liberation of eastern Aleppo proved this. The methods used back then helped save many lives. Unfortunately, we don’t see any attempts to learn through this experience when it comes to Mosul, Iraq, now.

As for the presence of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, as you may well be aware, we do not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. We operate on the premise that both were invited to Syria by a legitimate government. Of course, we are aware of Saudi Arabia’s position. Clearly, we are not on the same page in that regard, to put it mildly. Nonetheless, we share the view that all without exception Syrian sides and all without exception external actors who have any influence on these sides should be involved in the process if we want to resolve this crisis. Of course, terrorist organisations recognised as such by the UN Security Council, such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, must be excluded from the process. Just like Russia and Saudi Arabia, Iran is a member of the ISSG and has declared its commitment to UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Being part of the Astana process, Iran, along with Turkey and Russia, is one of the three guarantors of the ceasefire regime, which is critical at this stage. In this sense, this is a common position of both Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia’s Shura or Advisory Council, in a sign that the kingdom is polarized over Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s plans to diversify and streamline the economy and liberalize its austere moral and social codes,
has rejected a proposal to establish sports colleges for women.

The rejection of the proposal by a 76:73 vote came a day after Saudi Arabia, which severely curtails not only women’s but also basic human rights, was elected as a member of the United Nations Women’s Rights Committee.

“Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief. It’s absurd,” said Hillel Neuer, director of watchdog UN Watch.

The rejection by the council that has only advisory and no legislative powers was but the latest indication that Prince Mohammed is encountering difficulty in ensuring popular endorsement of his reform plans enshrined in a document entitled Vision 2030.

In a bid to counter widespread criticism of the kingdom’s austerity program that effectively constituted a unilateral cancellation of its social contract, King Salman restored bonuses and allowances for state employees earlier this week.

Confronted with sharply reduced oil prices, Saudis who had bargained for a cradle-to-welfare state in exchange for surrendering political rights and accepting an austere, puritan interpretation of Islam governed by the kingdom’s ultra-conservative religious establishment, saw their salaries reduced and subsidies for utilities and gasoline cut in the last year as part of the austerity program.

Many Saudis vented their frustration and anger on social media, the one space in which the kingdom tolerates a limited degree of criticism. In one instance, Saudi writer Turki Al Shalhoub, who has 70,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted a cartoon showing Saudis being crushed under taxes. He referred to prince Mohammed’s plan as “the vision of poverty.”

Vision 2030 was designed to diversify the Saudi economy away from its dependency on oil exports, streamline the bureaucracy in a country in which two thirds of the indigenous workforce is employed by the state, encourage women to become a greater part of the workforce, and cater to aspirations of youth who account for half of the population by liberalizing social and moral codes and offering them greater leisure time opportunities. The plan is designed to take Saudi autocracy into the 21st century rather than loosen the ruling Al Saud’s absolute grip on power.

Ultra-conservative backlash has pockmarked every bend of Prince Mohammed’s path. Saudi Arabia’s Middle East Broadcasting Center Group (MBC Group), owned by Waleed bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, scion of a family with close ties to the Al Sauds, was forced to revoke and apologize for a campaign aimed at empowering women. Some viewers called for a boycott of MBC.

Ultra-conservatives, in response to a schedule of festivals, film screenings in a country with no cinemas, and performances by Cirque Du Soleil, Universe Science, the Light Festival, and the Lion King rolled out by the General Authority of Entertainment, railed against “sin” and “evil.” Twitter user Tamim (@m_1385) charged that “indecency, mixing with Muslims’ women, dancing and music cannot be called entertainment, it’s an invitation for debauchery and sinning.”

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, told Al-Majd TV in January that concerts and cinemas were harmful and cause immorality. Sheikh Abdul Aziz and other ultra-conservative scholars were however cautious not to confront the ruling family head on.

Instead, Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, called for a referendum, asserting that a majority of Saudis opposed concerts. Other scholars have targeted performers as well as the entertainment authority as an institution in lieu of the ruling family.

Prince Mohammed highlighted the role of sports, culture and entertainment with a recent announcement of plans to build what he touted as the world’s first cultural and sports city on the southwestern edge of Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital. The 334-kilometre complex would include a safari park. The prince asserted that the city was part of his plans to diversify the economy and create jobs. The city is scheduled to open in 2022, the year that Qatar is slated to host the World Cup.

Saudi Arabia has long resisted pressure by international sports associations and human rights groups to grant women full rights. Saudi public schools offer girls no physical education in a country that has one of the world’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes. There are no public sporting facilities for women and women’s sports clubs often operate in a legal netherland.

Saudi Arabia, alongside Iran, is the only country that bars women from attending men’s sporting events. In a country that enforces strict gender segregation and bans women from driving, women are subject to the whims of their mail guardians when it comes to issues like marriage, education and freedom of movement.

The limitations of Prince Mohammed’s reforms were evident in restrictions imposed on women’s gyms the kingdom hopes to establish in the near future. Princess Reema bint Bandar, vice president for women’s affairs at the General Authority of Sports, said the gyms would not be allowed to engage in competitive sports such as soccer, volleyball, basketball and tennis. Instead, they were mandated to focus on techniques that contribute to weight loss and fitness, such as swimming, running and bodybuilding.

While Saudi Arabia may be unique in the Gulf in the degree of its denial of women’s rights, it is largely in good company when it comes to repression of basic human rights. Saudi suppression of all criticism has however recently put Qatar that seeks to project itself as a cutting edge 21st century state on the forefront of the struggle for all kinds of rights in a bind.

Human rights groups are pressuring Qatar not to extradite 49-year old Saudi human rights activist Mohammed Abdullah Al-Otaibi who fled to the emirate after being charged in December with “participation in forming an association and announcing it before acquiring the necessary license… participation in drafting, issuing, and signing a number of statements …over internet networks that include offending the reputation of the kingdom…” and “making international human rights organizations hostile to the kingdom by publishing on a social media site false reports about the kingdom…”

Human Rights Watch warned in a statement that Qatar’s return of Mr. Al-Otaibi could amount to refoulment, which violates the prohibition in customary international law on returning a person to a real risk of persecution.

Qatar might find it difficult to reject a Saudi extradition request under security arrangements of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that groups the six conservative, oil-rich Gulf states and is dominated by Saudi Arabia, the region’s behemoth. Yet, already under fire for its controversial labour regime in advance of the 2022 World Cup, extradition of Mr. Al-Otaibi would further undermine its efforts to project itself as a progressive rights defender on the international stage.

By Hans Mathias Moeller

On April 7, Rakhmat Akilov stole a commercial truck outside a restaurant and mowed down pedestrians along Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Akilov crashed the truck into the Åhléns department store and escaped via a nearby subway station. He was arrested shortly thereafter. The terrorist attack killed four and injured fifteen.

Stockholm Attack Likely Inspired by Islamic State

No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the Stockholm attack to date, but stated intentions, a history of similar attacks, and the tactics and techniques employed all suggest that the attack was inspired by the Islamic State (ISIS). The police investigation is still at an early stage, but initial findings indicate that Akilov perpetrated the attack in support of ISIS. Like many lone wolf terrorists he was active on the Internet and social media and broadcasted his support for Sunni terrorist activities on ISIS propaganda videos and photos from the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

The degradation of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has led the group to compensate by inciting lone actors to perpetrate “do-it-yourself attacks” behind “enemy lines.” Increased counterterrorism pressure from global security services has also forced a tactical adaptation from ISIS and alike to promote individual terrorism that reduces detection and increases operational success. The call for individual terrorism or lone wolf attacks is evident in ISIS’ online magazines.

In the November 2016 issue of Rumiyah, ISIS provided technical specifications of suitable trucks and recommended trucks that would arouse little suspicion, could easily be rented or stolen, and that could inflict a large number of causalities due to their size and speed. Rumiyah also referenced high crowd density areas, such as outdoor attractions and pedestrian areas, as suitable targets. Recent attacks in Berlin, Germany; London, UK; Nice, France; and now Stockholm, Sweden indicate that supporters continue to act on these instructions.

Sweden Vulnerable to Further Terrorism and Radicalization

Sweden is vulnerable to terrorism and religious extremism. Despite making progress to overcome shortcomings in anti-terrorism legislation, Sweden still lags behind many countries in Europe as well as neighboring countries. In Sweden, it is not a criminal offense to be associated with a designated terrorist group. Swedish lawmakers have been reluctant to define it a crime because it could undermine freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. At the same time, the absence of such a law has enabled at least 300 individuals in Sweden to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq and then return to Sweden without facing any charges. Sweden has little deterrence in place against joining terrorist groups.

Another challenge is Sweden’s approach toward returning ISIS fighters, and how officials determine whether they have disengaged from terrorism or are motivated to recruit and carry out further attacks. Few effective programs exist in local municipalities to detect and counter radicalization, including countering the ideological narrative. Sweden is also lagging behind in this area compared to many other countries in Europe, including Denmark and Norway.

A plausible explanation for this passiveness is a fear in Sweden of demonizing Islam, which some feels could play into the hands of anti-immigration parties and polarize society. As a result, radical Islam has received less attention and has been given an opportunity to grow.

Sweden is vulnerable to ISIS recruitment and the Salafist ideology the group represents. This is evident in the number of individuals that have traveled to Syria and Iraq. Sweden is one of the largest exporters of foreign fighters per capita in Europe. A plausible explanation is that some immigrants are triggered by personal and political grievances they have developed as a consequence of Sweden’s failed integration policies and unregulated immigration.

Sweden’s housing segregation, complete with inadequate schooling, and difficulties entering the labor markets appears to have created marginalization and feelings of social exclusion. These feelings breed frustration and resentment among some toward the Swedish government. The growth of anti-immigration parties and Islamophobia plays into the Salafist narrative of a clash between civilizations. ISIS can tap into these grievances and offer a sense of belonging, empowerment, and purpose.

Therefore, Sweden needs to strike a balance between reactive and proactive counterterrorism measures and consider how to strengthen anti-terrorism legislation, handle returning fighters, and properly address terrorism motivated by radical forces within Islam. Sweden also faces serious integration challenges. Long-term counter terrorism measures must address root causes and structural factors, such as alienation and social exclusion, to make pathways to terrorism less attractive.

Sweden’s Short-term Terrorism Threat

According to the Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen), Sweden has traditionally been more of a hub for terrorist supporters engaged in recruitment, funding, logistical support, and planning of attacks in the Middle East and Africa. Sweden is also an exporter of terrorists to countries in Europe. Osama Krayem and Belkaid Mohamed, from Stockholm and Malmo were identified as perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in Paris, France in November 2015 and in Brussels, Belgium in March 2016. The attack in Stockholm now indicates that Sweden is facing a similar threat as countries in Western Europe. However, it is important to remember that Sweden is not a priority target in the same sense as many countries on the continent, including France, UK, Turkey, Belgium, and Germany.

The most recent and urgent threats are acts of individual terrorism or lone wolf assailants that are either inspired or acting of behalf of ISIS or Al Qaeda (AQ). Both ISIS and AQ have called on supporters to carry out “do-it-yourself” attacks because it increases operational success as single individuals can operate under law enforcement radar with a low risk of detection and disruption. Terrorist techniques and tactics are rudimentary and do not require any logistical support. Yet, the lack of logistical support can also undermine the effectiveness or outcome of an attack. Recent attacks in Europe indicate that vehicle ramming techniques, bladed weapons, and homemade explosives are favored techniques.

This trend of lone assailant attacks is likely to continue and will pose a threat to Sweden in the immediate short-term. This attack modality can be replicated on a mass scale. The Internet has made it easier to access instructions and material on what tactics and techniques to use and what targets to select. Attacks generally do not require any substantial pre-operational planning and capabilities.

Sweden like many other European countries will likely continue to see terrorists favoring soft targets and open-access venues. The lack of perimeter or access controls at hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, concerts, movie theaters, and airport check-ins makes them easier to penetrate for lone actors and more difficult to defend against. Attack against these targets also increases the likelihood of higher causalities due to crowd density and maximize fear and anxiety because it undermines the public’s confidence in security and safety at public places.

The terrorist threat to Sweden and the rest of Europe will likely increase during national holiday celebrations, sport events, and pre-election periods. These are events that have been singled out by ISIS and AQ. National holidays and sport events are symbolic targets and larger crowd densities can inflict greater causalities. Attacks in pre-election periods can sway the election outcome in favor of a specific candidate or party. The targeting of national elections can favor right-wing candidates and parties that promote repressive counter terrorism measures, anti-immigration policies, and Islamophobia. Such candidates and parties can, in theory, create an environment that makes moderate Muslims more susceptible to radicalization and recruitment.

Therefore, terrorist attacks leading up to national elections in Sweden, France, and Germany, cannot be ruled out.

This article was published at Geopolitical Monitor.com

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The new manager of an old Yugoslav military complex denied allegations that the authorities are preparing a bunker to serve as command post for declaring martial law in the country.

Oliver Andonov, the new manager of the remote Jasen military complex, a site which includes a derelict former Yugoslav army bunker, denied media allegations that the authorities were preparing the site to use after declaring martial law to prevent the opposition forming a government.

“I deny all allegations that something is being prepared there in relation to some kind of coup,” Andonov told Telma TV on Tuesday.

Fears that violence could be used to prevent an opposition-led government and maintain the right wing VMRO DPMNE and its leader Nikola Gruevski’s hold on power increased after the Fokus weekly at the weekend cited unnamed army, police and counter-intelligence sources as saying that the Jasen complex near Skopje is being prepared to serve as a shelter and a command post.

The report alleged that the complex is to serve President Gjorge Ivanov and Gruevski as a “command post for detaining coup plotters” in case the new parliamentary majority led by the Social Democrats, SDSM, overcomes the current institutional blockade imposed by the VMRO DPMNE and manages to elect a new parliamentary speaker and establish a new government.

“The scenario witnessed by army, police and counter intelligence sources would be put into effect if the SDSM and the [ethnic] Albanian parties, who control a majority of 69 MPs [in the 120-seat parliament], decide to end the parliament blockade and elect a new speaker and a government at an alternative [parliamentary] session without the VMRO DPMNE,” claimed the Fokus report.

“This would be used by President Ivanov as a pretext for declaring a state of emergency,” it alleged.

Ivanov’s office declined to make any comment to BIRN on Monday or Tuesday about the allegations that the complex is being prepared to accommodate the president in such a scenario.

But the appointment of Andonov, a former provisional Interior Minister who is seen as close to the leadership of the right-wing VMRO DPMNE party, as the new manager of Jasen, has only fuelled such fears.

Commenting on the media reports, security expert and former army spokesperson Blagoja Markovski warned that the armed forces are legally prohibited from being used against Macedonian citizens.

“Macedonia’s president cannot use the army against citizens,” Markovski said, adding that this would be against the Law on Military Service.

He added that the army has the right to disobey orders from its supreme commander, President Ivanov, if they are unlawful.

The bunker at Jasen, built after WWII and designed to accommodate some 100 people in case of war, was a top military secret during Socialist Yugoslavia.

The complex, which is situated amid a vast mountainous forest area some 20 kilometres south-west of Skopje, was first opened to the public in the mid-2000s and has since then served as an elite resort and hunting ground with its military facilities left unused.

Markovski said he believes that the Jasen bunker complex is now practically in ruins. However, he said that the bunker can be put in function in a relatively short time, but only with a massive investment in revamp and modern equipment.

“At this moment Jasen is defunct as a command post and can serve only as a shelter,” he said, adding that the bunker complex would need a ground-up revamp including installation of new communications equipment in order to become functional once more.

Macedonia has not been able to elect a new government since December’s early polls.

The crisis deepened on March 1, when President Gjorge Ivanov, who was elected head of state as the VMRO DPMNE’s candidate, refused to grant SDSM leader Zoran Zaev the mandate to form a government, despite the opposition leader having secured a majority in parliament, insisting that would jeopardize the country’s soveregnity.

The SDSM said the VMRO DPMNE was afraid to lose power because its leaders fear standing trial.

Several senior party figures, including VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, are currently facing criminal investigations and indictments by the Special Prosecution, SJO, which they claim are politically motivated.

(Civil.Ge) — Georgian Ambassador to Israel Paata Kalandadze met with the Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III on April 24, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

During the meeting, the Georgian Ambassador raised the issue of the Jerusalem Patriarch’s April 10 meeting with a group of Abkhaz pilgrims, specifically on the reports of Abkhaz media sources that Theophilos III has reportedly promised the pilgrims to “pray for Abkhazia, its residents and the country’s leadership.”

According to the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Patriarch responded to Ambassador Kalandadze that he did not attach a political context to the meeting and received the visitors only as Christians who came to the Holy Land to pray.

This is the second time Theophilos III has met a delegation from Abkhazia. The previous meeting took place last year on April 28 with participation of Abkhaz MP Said Kharazia, who now serves as the deputy chairman of the region’s legislature.

Greek-born Theophilos III (Ilias Giannopoulos, b. April 4, 1951) was enthroned as the Jerusalem Patriarch in November 2005.

US president Donald Trump is not a truly independent political leader but merely a puppet of US corporations, military and intelligence, and who serves their interests, Syrian President Bashar Assad has told the Latin American TeleSUR TV network.

Trump pursues “no own policies” but only executes the decisions made by the “intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, the big arms manufacturers, oil companies, and financial institutions,” the Syrian leader said in an exclusive interview with TeleSUR.

“As we have seen in the past few weeks, he changed his rhetoric completely and subjected himself to the terms of the deep American state, or the deep American regime,” Assad added.

He referred to the fact that Trump came to power on a political platform promising a departure from the interventionist policy of the previous US president, Barack Obama, but soon forgot his promises and ordered a missile strike against the Syrian air base following a chemical weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib province.

The Syrian president also said that it is “a complete waste of time to make an assessment of the American president’s foreign policy” as “he might say something” but what he really does depends on “what these [US military and business] institutions dictate to him.”

He also added that it “is not new” and “has been ongoing American policy for decades.”

“This is what characterizes American politicians: they lie on a daily basis… That’s why we shouldn’t believe what the Pentagon or any other American institution says because they say things which serve their policies, not things which reflect reality and the facts on the ground,” Assad told TeleSUR.

He went on to say that the US continues to pursue its age-long policy aimed at establishing and maintaining a global hegemony by turning all countries that oppose it into war zones.

“The United States always seeks to control all the states of the world without exception. It does not accept allies, regardless of whether they are developed states as those in the Western bloc or other states of the world,” the Syrian leader explained.

He also added that “what is happening to Syria, to Korea, to Iran, to Russia, and maybe to Venezuela now, aims at re-imposing American hegemony on the world because they believe that this hegemony is under threat now, which consequently threatens the interests of American economic and political elites.”

Assad expressed similar views in an interview with Russia’s Sputnik news agency about a week ago. “The regime in the United States hasn’t changed,” he said, adding, “since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has been attacking different countries in different ways without taking into consideration the Security Council or the United Nations.”

He also said that for the US, “the end justifies the means, no values, no morals at all, anything could happen.”

Despite his criticism, Assad once again confirmed the readiness of the Syrian government to cooperate with the US if it could change its attitude towards respecting other countries’ sovereignty and that of Syria in particular.

One way dictators take over democracies is by threatening the independence of a nation’s courts. Donald Trump is doing just this.

Connect the following dots:

1. In January, Trump blasted a federal judge for staying his travel ban. “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” he tweeted.

2. In February, after the judge made the stay permanent, Trump issued a veiled threat: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

3. Last week, after another federal judge issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s travel ban, Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, said “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power.”

4. On Tuesday, after another federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a threat to take away funds from sanctuary cities, the White House issued a statement condemning the judge as “unelected.” The statement charged “this San Francisco judge’s erroneous ruling is a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country, empowering the worst kind of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and putting thousands of innocent lives at risk. This case is yet one more example of egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge.”

5. On Wednesday, Trump said he was considering breaking up the court of appeals for the 9th Circuit, in which these three federal judges hear and decide cases. “There are many people who want to break up the 9th Circuit,” he said. “It’s outrageous.” The 9th Circuit Court covers Arizona, California, Alaska, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Washington and Hawaii, as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Eighteen of the court’s 25 judges were appointed by Democratic presidents.

It is the job of the Justice Department to provide a reasoned case for overruling a federal judge’s decision. In condemning individual judges and threatening to break up the court of appeals instead, Trump is attacking the foundations of the separation of powers in the Constitution.

This assault on the federal judiciary is an abuse of Trump’s constitutional authority – yet another ground for impeachment.

In his address to the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) cadres at Camp Hebron on March 21, 2017, the group’s ‘headquarters’, on the outfit’s 38th ‘Republic Day’, ‘general secretary’ Thuingaleng Muivah declared, “NSCN had consultative meetings with the people on talks consecutively for eight times. The historic Framework Agreement recognizes the unique history, identity, sovereignty and territories of the Nagas. It also recognizes the legitimate right of the Nagas to integration of all Naga territories.” The Framework Agreement was signed on August 3, 2015.

However, on February 23, 2017, central government’s interlocutor for Naga Talks and Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Chairman R.N. Ravi observed, ‘“The framework agreement is less-than-one-page document; it tells about broad parameters within which the final settlement will be worked out. So it’s the principles within which we will work out the settlement. It does not mention anything about Manipur or any State; it does not compromise the territorial integrity of Manipur.” On the question of secrecy, he added, “A framework agreement is not the final agreement and you do not serve half-cooked meal. We believe it is not in the larger interest to release the details now. But I have explained it to all the stakeholders by and large by going and meeting with them on what it contains. An incomplete agreement can create issues”.

Despite these continuing ambiguities and different interpretations of the ‘historic accord’, there was a further consolidation of peace in Nagaland through 2016. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the State accounted for a total of six insurgency-linked fatalities, including four civilians [none of which could be clearly linked to any specific militant formation] and two militants, through 2016, as against 46 fatalities, including 14 civilians, nine Security Force (SF) personnel and 23 militants, in 2015, reflecting a drop of 87 per cent in total fatalities.

In terms of civilian fatalities, year 2016 was the most peaceful since 2010, when the State had not recorded a single fatality in this category. Before that, it was way back in 2003 fewer civilian fatalities (three) than in 2016 were recorded.

Significantly, there was no fatality among SFs through 2016, thus reestablishing the trend of zero fatalities in this category secured since 2009, with an aberrant 2015, when nine SF personnel were killed, the highest recorded in the State since 1998, when there were 14 SF fatalities. The number of militant fatalities also dropped considerably from 23 in 2015 to just two in 2016. The spike recoded in SF and militant fatalities in 2015 was primarily due to the unilateral abrogation of the cease-fire arrangement by the Khaplang faction of the NSCN (NSCN-K) on March 27, 2015. The ceasefire agreement with NSCN-K had been signed on April 28, 2001. NSCN-K was linked to 33 out of the total of 46 insurgency-related fatalities in Nagaland in 2015.

There has also been a considerable improvement in terms of the geographic dispersal of violence. In 2016, fatalities were recorded in only three Districts – Dimapur (3), Tuensang (2) and Wokha (1). In 2015, killings had been reported from eight Districts – Tuensang (14), Mon (11), Dimapur (7), Zunheboto (5), Phek (4), Kohima (2), Mokokchung (2) and Wokha (1). Nagaland has a total of 11 Districts.

Only two incidents of explosion, resulting in injuries to six persons, were recorded in 2016; as against six such incidents registered in 2015, which had resulted in one fatality and 10 persons injured.

Even internecine clashes between Naga outfits have registered a decline, both within and beyond the territorial limits of the State. According to SATP data, no fratricidal killing involving Naga groups was recorded inside Nagaland in 2016, as against six such incidents in 2015 resulting in four deaths and one person injured. Further, in 2016, two incidents of Naga group clashes, resulting in one death and one injury, were recorded outside the State, as against nine such incidents resulting in 11 deaths and six persons injured in 2015.

The state recorded six incidents of abduction in which six persons were abducted through 2016, as against 11 such incidents in which 15 persons were abducted in 2015. On October 2, 2016, a driver of a Manipur bound truck was abducted and was kept at an unspecified place near the New Secretariat area of Kohima. The abductors later demanded a ransom of INR 1 million for his safe release. On receipt of the information, Police launched a search and rescue operation and secured the release of the victim. During the operation police arrested one of the three abductors, ‘lieutenant’ Kewepe Wetsah (30), of the ‘Federal Government of Nagaland’ (FGN), while the other two managed to escape

However, reported incidents of extortion increased from 24 in 2015 to 31 in 2016 (both abduction and extortion tend to be under-reported, so the actual incidence may be higher). Worried by the rising incidents of extortion, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) registered a case titled “Extortion and unlawful collection by NSCN-K from individuals and organizations” on September 18, 2016, with a summary allegation: “Large scale extortion and unlawful tax collection on behalf of the banned organisation NSCN-K from the individual and organisations etc , by the cadres of NSCN-K in Dimapur and Kohima areas with the directions from self-styled brigadier Isac Sumi of NSCN-K and other leaders. The cadre namely – S. Khetoshe Sumi arrested on 31-07-2016, along with many unlawful documents related to extortion, tax collection and war like stores and drugs etc.”

Though the level of extortion prevalent in the state remains worrisome there is significant improvement in the overall security situation after the reversal of the trend witnessed in 2015. This has been possible principally due to the pressure created by SFs against NSCN-K in its strongholds, both within and beyond the State. News reports indicate that Special Forces from the Indian Army were involved in operations against NSCN-K militants along the Indo-Myanmar border. In one such incident, SFs launched an operation on August 19, 2016, targeting a NSCN-K camp located close to the International border (border pillar 151) in the vicinity of Chen Moho village in the Mon District of Nagaland. “The raid was part of many operations intended to maintain pressure on the NSCN-K,” an unnamed senior Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) official disclosed, adding, “These operations have been ongoing, and will continue.”

SFs also arrested 142 militants in 86 incidents through 2016 in addition to 171 such arrests in 92 incidents through 2015. Those arrested in 2016 included 32 militants of NSCN-K; 25 cadres of the Kitovi-Neokpao faction [earlier known as Khole-Kitovi] of NSCN (NSCN-KN); 19 from NSCN-IM; 16 from the Reformation faction of NSCN (NSCN-R); 11 from the Non-Accordist faction of the Naga National Council (NNC-NA); five each from the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) and the People’s Revolutionary Army of Kangleipak (PREPAK); two from the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP); and one militant each from the ‘Government of the People’s Republic of Nagaland (GPRN/NSCN), Naga National Council (NNC), Dima Halam Daogah-Dilip Nunisa faction (DHD-N), Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA)-1, I.K. Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS) and Liberation of Achik Elite Force (LAEF). The Group identity of 20 militants remained unspecified. Top arrests made during 2016 included ‘finance secretary’ of the NSCN-K, identified as Max Asukomi, and the ‘defense secretary’ of NSCN-K, identified as Kughato Chishi.

A lasting peace continues to evade Nagaland primarily due to the failure of the Governments, both at the Central and the State level, to reach to a final understanding, principally as a result of the proliferation of competent Naga armed factions and the issue of the ‘integration’ of Naga areas across State boundaries. While the Framework Agreement holds out the promise of a settlement with the most powerful of these factions, NSCN-IM, it has exacerbated difficulties with the others. Crucially, imminent changes in the NSCN-IM leadership – Isak Chisi Swu, the other signatory to the Framework Agreement died on June 28, 2016, and Muivah, at 83, is also in poor health – may alter, if not disrupt, the talks process. The gains in Nagaland have, no doubt, been dramatic; but they remain fragile.

Two years after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by world leaders in New York, the ongoing practical question is how to finance the needs of such an ambitious and universal agenda.

It has been estimated that if the world’s developing countries are to achieve the targets set out in the global development blueprint, an additional public investment of at least $1.4 trillion per year will be needed. This is admittedly a hefty figure and a significant burden for governments given the still fragile recovery of the global economy. The fundamental question we need to ask ourselves is how we can finance some of the most basic needs for local populations and communities to live healthy and productive lives.

As Asia and the Pacific is home to more than 4.5 billion people, exploiting domestic revenue sources is critical. Relying on the government alone to finance sustainable development needs of the region will not be enough. We need more innovative solutions that draw resources from both public and private sectors. While national governments are expected to shoulder the bulk of the responsibility, evidence has shown that a committed private sector can play a catalytic role in accelerating the attainment of the SDGs.

The Addis Ababa Action Agenda adopted by the international community in 2015 has provided us with the guiding principles for finding the financial resources to implement the 2030 Agenda. This week senior policymakers, including finance ministers and central bank chiefs from across the region are meeting at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific (ESCAP) headquarters in Bangkok to brainstorm a SDGs’ financing action-plan focused on three financing for development (FfD) priorities for the region; namely, domestic resource mobilization, financing sustainable infrastructure, and enhancing financial inclusion.

In terms of domestic resource mobilization, there is now an emerging consensus that an effective tax policy and strategic public spending have the potential to support inclusive and sustainable development. However, the resource mobilization and redistributive potential of tax policies is largely underutilized in Asia-Pacific developing countries. Unlike advanced economies, most developing countries in the region predominantly rely on indirect taxes which have much less redistributive impact. Personal income tax collection in most Asian countries is less than 2 per cent of GDP compared to nearly 9 per cent in developed countries, while property taxes collect less than half a percentage of GDP in poorer countries against around 2 per cent in more well-off nations.

While tax incentives may help in dealing with the issue of the large informal economy and the problem of tax evasion, their use needs to remain cognizant of the specific features and overall development objectives of countries. Moreover excessive tax competition to attract investment and promote trade has affected resource mobilization by developing countries in the region.

For infrastructure, Asia-Pacific financing needs are huge, estimated at close to 10.5 per cent of GDP annually in the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States. Public-private partnerships (PPP) are being encouraged in many countries in the region but there is a need to strengthen government capacities to assess, implement and leverage the right blend of financing for such projects. Moreover, regulatory approaches of governments may need to be revisited to help develop inclusive, resilient and environment friendly infrastructure. Regional cooperation and risk sharing across borders will also be needed if multi-country PPP projects are to happen.

In this respect, development and integration of capital markets and institutional investors’ base has great potential to support private sector infrastructure projects. It is interesting to note that the region is also currently turning to innovative capital market innovations such as green bonds which have grown rapidly, for example in China, amounting to $36 billion of issuance in 2016 and accounting for 39% of global issuance.

Building inclusive finance for all is a critical element of financing for development. Access to financial services reduces poverty, allows people access to opportunities and promotes economic growth.

Unfortunately, the region is home to 55 per cent of the world’s unbanked population, with women more unbanked than men. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 96 per cent of all enterprises and 62 per cent of the work force, yet receive only 19 per cent of total bank lending in the region.

In such an environment, a regulatory approach tailoring prudential norms to risk profile can enable micro-commercial establishments to offer basic financial services on behalf of banks. It should be noted, however, that while national policy makers are giving increasing recognition to policies that promote financial inclusion, regulators have been more prudent due to the higher credit risk nature of small borrowers. The main issue, therefore, is how to strike the right balance between financial inclusion and financial stability.

Another interesting aspect of financial inclusion is the emerging FinTech companies that are successfully leveraging information technology to enhance financial access. These companies range from mobile money and payments companies such as AliPay in China, to micro lending and credit scoring companies such as Lenddo’s social media based credit scoring algorithm in Singapore. However, the challenge is the need to address cyber risks related to these and for regulatory clarity on their status.

Progress in these three dimensions of financing-for-development priorities are critical to move Asia and the Pacific forward in achieving SDGs. This will enable countries in the region to go a long way in footing the bill for ensuring the future well-being of their people.

*Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) and the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Every year, worldwide wine industry suffers losses of more than ten billion US dollars from damaged assets, production losses, and lost profits due to extreme weather events and natural disasters.

A multidisciplinary European-Australian team of researchers led by Dr. James Daniell of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) examines the extent to which regions are affected by the risks and how climate change influences wine industry. At the 2017 Annual Conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, Daniell presented a global risk index for wine regions.

The wine regions of Mendoza and San Juan in Argentina are exposed to the highest risks due to extreme weather and natural hazards worldwide. Kakheti and Racha in Georgia come in at number 2, followed by Southern Cahul in Moldova (number 3), Northwest Slovenia (number 4), and Yaruqui in Ecuador and Nagano in Japan (number 5). These are the first results of a current worldwide study and the first release of the global risk index for wine regions presented by the head of the study, Dr. James Daniell, of the Geophysical Institute (GPI) and the Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM) of KIT at the 2017 Annual Conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna in the session of “Natural hazard event analyses for risk reduction and adaptation.”

The EGU honored Daniell by granting him the “Early Career Scientist Award in Natural Hazards for 2017.” The study is carried out and the index is developed in cooperation with seismologists, meteorologists, and representatives of other disciplines from KIT, Australian National University, University of Adelaide, Griffith University, University of New South Wales, and University College London as well as Risklayer GmbH, a company located in Karlsruhe.

The study covers more than 7,500 wine regions in 131 countries. There is no wine region in the world that is not exposed to extreme weather or natural disasters. Events, such as frost, hail, floods, heat, drought, forest fires, and bushfires as well as earthquakes make worldwide wine industry lose more than 10 billion US$ every year according to conservative estimations. These losses result from damaged assets, losses of production, and lost profit.

Cold Waves, Frost, and Hail

“Cold waves and frost have a large impact,” James Daniell said.

In the last few days, much frost occurred across Europe, with Slovakia, Bosnia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, and Czech Republic having the worst impact. Hailstorms are one of the largest yearly natural threats to European winemakers.

Traditional wine countries like France and Italy have seen huge losses in the past five years due to hail and frost, with many losses being recorded in the regions of Burgundy and Piedmont. The hail losses from 2012 to 2016 in some vineyards totaled 50 to 90 percent of the value of the crop and caused long-term damage to many old vines.

It is not just Europe that is affected by hail. All over the world, winegrowing regions are affected by at least one hail event per year, which can cause damage to the single vintage or to multiple vintages depending on the growth phase of the vines.

According to James Daniell, hail nets can save the crop in most cases, given a large hail event. “Cost-benefit analyses generally show that the premium wines should be the ones covered by hail nets, with insurance or other cheaper methods used for other wines.”

Earthquakes

Earthquakes have the ability to knock out the infrastructure of entire wine regions for a number of years. In the past years, earthquakes struck Chile, New Zealand, and the USA, among other smaller events causing damage around the world. Over 125 million liters of wine were lost in Chile in 2010, mainly due to the failure of steel tanks.

“Earthquake-resistant design could have saved many millions of liters,” Daniell said.

Earthquakes also cause large losses to buildings, tanks, barrels, equipment, and chemicals. Even small earthquakes do not only cause financial loss, but also historical loss by destroying tasting rooms and rare wine collections. A few dollars investment in stabilization mechanisms, such as quake wax, zip ties or bolts, can often save millions of dollars loss. In addition, natural disasters are associated with losses of jobs and tourism.

Climate Change

Global climate change will have both positive and negative effects on wine industry, according to the study. Researchers expect a general shift of wine-growing regions southward and northward, while some wine regions closer to the equator may be lost. Many wines may indeed improve.

“The English, Canadian, and Northern China wine regions will likely increase production markedly and continue to improve their market share and quality of production,” predicted Dr. Daniell.

The scientists expect that many wineries will master climate changes by changing grape varieties or harvest times. In addition, they will profit from new grape strains, innovative technologies to optimize production and reduce damage due to biological pathogens and insects, and new methods to overcome extreme weather events.

Other Risks: Bushfires, Floods, Volcanic Eruptions

The study also covers problems, such as bushfires causing smoke taint to vines. However, smaller-scale studies are required before the results can be included globally in the index.

In addition, the effects of floods on vines are being explored. Nevertheless, a major volcanic eruption would likely cause the largest global impact to the wine industry, examples being the Laki eruption of 1783/84 or the Tambora eruption in 1815 which caused the famous “year without a summer” in 1816. Atmospheric changes, lack of sunlight, and global transport problems could cause major issues not only for the wine industry, other food security issues would likely be more important.

Despite all these hazards, the wine industry continues to grow and diversify.

“Through detailed natural hazard analysis, research can help winemakers and governments alike to prepare adequately for the natural hazards that they face and to reduce losses,” Dr. James Daniell said. The geophysicist born in Australia also developed the CATDAT database covering socioeconomic data on natural disasters. Last year, he published CATDAT statistics, according to which 8 million people died and over 7 trillion US$ of loss were caused by natural disasters since 1900.

The Biggest Wine Producers in the World and Their Main Threats:

Italy: 4.9 billion liters (2016, Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin/OIV)) – Hail, frost, earthquake

France: 4.2 billion liters (2016, OIV) – Frost, hail, storm

Spain: 3.8 billion liters (2016, OIV) – Hail (Northwest), frost, heat

USA: 2.25 billion liters (2016, OIV) – Frost, earthquake, storm

Australia: 1.25 billion liters (2016, OIV) – Frost, storm, hail, bushfire

Recent articles have declared that deposits of mineral raw materials (copper, zinc, etc.) will be exhausted within a few decades. An international team, including the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has shown that this is incorrect and that the resources of most mineral commodities are sufficient to meet the growing demand from industrialization and future demographic changes.

Future shortages will arise not from physical exhaustion of different metals but from causes related to industrial exploitation, the economy, and environmental or societal pressures on the use of mineral resources. The report can be read in the journal Geochemical Perspectives.

Some scientists have declared that mineral deposits containing important non renewable resources such as copper and zinc will be exhausted in a few decades if consumption does not decrease. Reaching the opposite conclusion, the international team of researchers shows that even though mineral resources are finite, geological arguments indicate that they are sufficient for at least many centuries, even taking into account the increasing consumption required to meet the growing needs of society. How can this difference be explained?

Definitions matter: reserves and resources

“Do not confuse the mineral resources that exist within the Earth with reserves, which are mineral resources that have been identified and quantified and are able to be exploited economically. Some studies that predict upcoming shortages are based on statistics that only take reserves into account, i.e. a tiny fraction of the deposits that exist”, explained Lluis Fontboté, Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva.

To define reserves is a costly exercise that requires investment in exploration, drilling, analyses, and numerical and economic evaluations. Mining companies explore and delineate reserves sufficient for a few decades of profitable operation. Delineation of larger reserves would be a costly and unproductive investment, and does not fit the economic logic of the modern market.

The result is that the estimated life of most mineral commodities is between twenty to forty years, and has remained relatively constant over decades. Use of these values to predict the amount available leads to the frequently announced risks of impending shortages. But this type of calculation is obviously wrong, because it does not take into account the amount of metal in lower quality deposits that are not included in reserves and the huge amount of metal in deposits that have not yet been discovered.

Some studies have produced figures that include the known and undiscovered resources, but as our knowledge on ore deposits in large parts of the Earth’s crust is very fragmentary, these estimates are generally very conservative.

The vast majority of mined deposits have been discovered at the surface or in the uppermost 300 meters of the crust, but we know that deposits are also present at greater depths. Current techniques allow mining to depths of at least 2000 to 3000 meters. Thus, many mineral deposits that exist have not yet been discovered, and are not included in the statistics.

There have been some mineral shortages in the past, especially during the boom related to China’s growth, but these are not due to a lack of supplies, but to operational and economic issues. For instance, between the discovery of a deposit and its effective operation, 10 to 20 years or more can elapse, and if demand rises sharply, industrial exploitation cannot respond instantly, creating a temporary shortage.

Environment and society

“The real problem is not the depletion of resources, but the environmental and societal impact of mining operations”, said Professor Fontboté.

Mining has been undeniably linked to environmental degradation. While impacts can be mitigated by modern technologies, many challenges remain. The financial, environmental and societal costs of mining must be equitably apportioned between industrialized and developing countries, as well as between local communities near mines and the rest of society.

“Recycling is important and essential, but is not enough to meet the strong growth in demand from developing countries. We must continue to seek and carefully exploit new deposits, both in developing and in industrialized countries”, said the researcher at the University of Geneva.

The importance of research

But how can we protect the environment while continuing to mine? Continuing research provides the solutions. If we are to continue mining while minimizing associated environmental effects, we need to better understand the formation of ore deposits, to open new areas of exploration with advanced methods of remote sensing . The continual improvement of exploration and mining techniques is reducing the impact on the Earth’s surface.

“Rapid evolution of technologies and society will eventually reduce our need for mineral raw materials, but at the same time, these new technologies are creating new needs for metals, such as many of the 60 elements that make up every smart phone”, added Professor Fontboté.

The geological perspective that guided the present study leads to the conclusion that shortages will not become a threat for many centuries as long as there is a major effort in mineral exploration, coupled with conservation and recycling. To meet this challenge, society must find ways to discover and mine the needed mineral resources while respecting the environment and the interests of local communities.

While religion was a major factor in the recent Jakarta election for governor, fear of oppression and social welfare were significant issues framed by Anies-Sandi and successfully used to mobilise voters. Strategic issue-framing could be replicated in the 2019 presidential election to shape political contestation.

By Chaula Rininta Anindya*

The Jakarta gubernatorial election for 2017 was a tight race between Basuki “Ahok” Tjahja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat (Ahok-Djarot) and Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno (Anies-Sandi). Yet, Anies-Sandi surprisingly won with a huge margin of 16 percent against Ahok-Djarot. Despite having led in the first round against the other candidates, many had predicted that it would be unlikely for Ahok-Djarot to win against Anies-Sandi, particularly with the voters of defeated first round candidates Agus Yudhoyono and Sylviana Murni (Agus-Silvi) being inclined to support Anies-Sandi.

The underlying factor is that Anies-Sandi and Agus-Silvi’s voters shared a similar objective to vote for a Muslim Governor to lead Jakarta. The Jakarta election was beyond choosing the next governor of the capital city. The path of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who began his journey to the presidency by first running in the Jakarta election, illustrates the centrality of the capital in Indonesian politics. This year’s Jakarta election could set the pattern for the upcoming presidential election.

Strategic Issue-Framing

The Islamist groups promoted the necessity of voting for a Muslim candidate to lead Jakarta. It is based on their interpretation of Surah Al-Maidah Verse 51 by which they believed Muslims should only be led by a Muslim. Their interpretative approach represents the method of modern salafi groups in implementing the core tenets of their ideology through the concept of al-wala wal-bara (loyalty and disavowal).

The concept of al-wala directs the loyalty of the Muslim community to the ummah, whereas the concept of wal-bara refers to the disavowal to anything that is seen as unIslamic and has the potential to threaten the sanctity of the religion.

In this light, religion could be seen as the fundamental issue in the Jakarta election. Nevertheless, religion is primarily an enabler to mobilise support. The main issues that mobilised support for Anies-Sandi were not necessarily religion, but the fear of being oppressed plus social welfare concerns. Anies-Sandi and their supporters smartly framed these issues to garner support.

The first issue was the fear of being oppressed; it represented the concept of existential identity – the fear that the group which they belong to is under threat. In essence, the concept of al-wala wal-bara also addresses the fear of being under threat whereby a believer cannot practise an Islamic way of life if they are led by a non-Muslim leader. It clearly threatens the belief that binds the group together.

Ahok-Djarot’s latest video campaign also heightened this fear. It was circulated a few weeks before the second round. The beginning of the video had stirred controversy; there was a scene when an Islamist group held a rally while holding a big banner with the words “Crush Chinese” written. The Islamist groups perceived this scene as a form of oppression because it labelled them as a reactionary movement.

It creates a sense of urgency for the Muslims not to vote for a non-Muslim leader for fear that he would continue to oppress the Muslim community at large. Even though the main purpose of the video was promoting unity in diversity, the opening point backfired on Ahok-Djarot.

Nothing Intrinsically Religious

The second issue was social welfare, with Anies-Sandi touching upon the Jakartans’ housing grievances. They promised low-income earners would get a home-loan with zero down payment. Although it seemed impossible to implement this project, this issue was strategic in addressing the despair of the poor in Jakarta.

Furthermore, the poor people who became the victims of Ahok’s forced eviction also viewed that voting for Ahok was not an option. For instance, the victims of forced evictions at a neighbourhood of fishermen in North Jakarta strongly opposed Ahok’s relocation solutions arguing that the relocated housing was way too far from the place they work.

The religious factor nothwithstanding, Anies-Sandi and their supporters used strategic-issue framing to mobilise the support. The religious rhetoric is one of the most effective issues in a Muslim majority country like Indonesia. But what actually had been done by Anies-Sandi were firstly to address the grievances of Jakartans and later finding a particular means of framing or context that resonated the most within the society, in this case the Muslim-majority Jakarta.

A similar approach could also be employed in secular society, but in this context the rhetoric is not religion but nationalism. President Donald Trump had successfully garnered support in the United States through his campaign promoting the nationalist spirit of “America First”. He once stated that he would no longer surrender the US or its people to the false promise of globalism. This resonated with a large group of Americans who believed that the US was in a state of decline.

In other words, there is nothing unique with the methods employed by Anies-Sandi and their supporters. Strategic issue-framing is a useful tactic to mobilise support.

Now for the Presidential Election

The pattern of strategic issue-framing might be replicated in the 2019 presidential election. With Jokowi predicted to run for a second term, his political rivals presumably will employ a similar method to undermine him. However, the question will be what issues and rhetoric are going to be addressed, especially as Jokowi is a Muslim and Javanese.

It will no longer be valid to use the rhetoric of “voting for a Muslim leader”, unless the rumours perpetrated in the past – that Jokowi was a secret Christian, of Chinese ethnicity, and having communist sympathies – were revived. If the rumours circulate again when the presidential election draws closer, Jokowi should change his strategy because relying on mere performance would be insufficient to secure his position.

*Chaula Rininta Anindya is a Research Assistant with the Indonesia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is part of a series on the 2017 Jakarta Election.

In their “eviction notice” sent on January 2, 2017, to media, the Biswamohan Debbarma faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT-BM), along with Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) and the People’s Democratic Council of Karbi-Longri (PDCK), set March 31, 2017, as their deadline for Bengalis and Hindi speakers to quit Tripura, parts of Assam and West Bengal. The notice declared, “We strongly oppose heinous killings by Indian Army and rehabilitation programme for Bangladeshi Bengalis…. We hereby would like to notify Indian citizens (Bengali and Hindi speaking people) to quit Kamatapur (consisting parts of Assam and West Bengal), Karbi-Longri (Karbi Anglong Hill District in Assam), and Tripura.” The notice was signed by KLO ‘chairman’ Jiban Singh Koch, NLFT-BM ‘organising secretary’ Sengphul Borok and PDCK ‘chairman’ J.K. Lijang. The trio is reported to be associated with the United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFWESEA), a consortium of Northeast militant groups mentored by the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) and the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I).

These threats notwithstanding, Tripura (along with Mizoram) remained the most peaceful State in the entire Northeastern region of India, in terms of insurgency-related fatalities. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), there were no such fatalities in 2016, a trend largely consistent since 2013; though 2014 was an exception with four fatalities [two civilians and two Security Force (SF) personnel]. At peak, 514 such fatalities were recorded in 2000, including 453 civilians, 16 SF personnel and 45 militants. The Northeast region as a whole registered 160 fatalities, including 61 civilians, 17 SF personals and 82 militants, in 2016.

Other indices also confirm that there was further consolidation of normalcy through 2016. Thus, according to SATP data, no extortion or abduction incident was recorded through 2016. Five persons had been abducted in three incidents in 2015.

As militant activities declined on ground, no incident of arrest was reported through 2016. Nine militants had been arrested in 2015.

Meanwhile, mounting pressure by SFs led to a spike in the surrender of militants in the State. 27 militants, all from NLFT-BM, surrendered in 2016, as compared to seven militants (also from NLFT-BM) in 2015. In one major incident, 12 NLFT-BM cadres accompanied by 19 family members, including eight children, surrendered to the Tripura Police along with their arms and ammunition on April 11, 2016.

Moreover, the border management infrastructure is being made robust in order to stop the ingress and outflow of militants and illegal immigrants. In this regard, UMHA Joint Secretary (Border Management) Susheel Kumar, during his visit to the State, on June 24, 2016, disclosed, “By December next year (2017), Tripura’s 856 kilometers border with Bangladesh will be completely fenced.” He stated that fencing along 775.26 kilometers had already been completed, while 63.43 kilometers was presently being fenced. Fencing along the remaining 17.31 kilometers “has to be created on the zero line for which permission from the Bangladesh government is required” and “all disputes would be resolved to mutual satisfaction and the work completed by December 2017.”

Insurgency is under definite control. But there are lingering threats. On January 4, 2017, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar observed, “Till a few years back the problems created by the militants has come down but still there is no room for self-complacency because we are aware that still across the border in Bangladesh a section of Tripura militants have its camp (sic). They may not be in huge number but are adequately powerful to harm us.”

There are also several issues which have the potential to derail the progress towards further normalization.

One of these issues relates to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) along with two other tribal parties, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) and National Conference of Tripura (NCT), formed a joint forum named the All Tripura Indigenous Regional Parties Forum (ATIRPFP) on January 15, 2017, to oppose the Bill. Announcing the formation of the joint forum, ‘convener’ N.C. Debbarma stated, “Three indigenous political parties have formed the forum to safeguard and protect the interests of the tribals in the State, who form one third of the population. We are of the clear opinion that the Bill is detrimental to the interest of the indigenous people… Bangladeshi migrants through this proposed law would be settled in eastern and northeastern India depriving the original people of the region of basic rights.” The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha (lower House of Parliament) on July 19, 2016, and now under the scrutiny of a parliamentary committee, seeks to enable Hindus, apart from Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who have fled to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh without valid travel documents or those whose valid documents have expired in recent years, to acquire Indian citizenship through the process of naturalization. In a clear demonstration that this issue is potentially dangerous for the prevailing peace in the State, during a 12-hour bandh (shutdown) called by ATIRPFP in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) region on February 8, 2017, at least 50 persons were injured in sporadic clashes.

Another such issue is the demand for separate tribal Tipraland State by the IPFT. Indeed, on August 23, 2016, at least 20 people were injured and 15 vehicles were set ablaze in State capital Agartala, in ethnic clashes between indigenous tribals and Bengalis, after a rally organized by IPFT to mark its eighth ‘Tipraland’ Statehood Demand Day.

Meanwhile, the third round of tripartite peace talks scheduled for July 7, 2016, and involving State Government, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) and NLFT-BM, the lone active insurgent group in the State, could not take place. According to reports, Biswamohan Debbarma’s presence during the talks had been sought by the State Government and the matter had been communicated to the UMHA officials engaged in the talks with three representatives of NLFT-BM – ‘foreign secretary’ Utpal Debbarma, and ‘commanders’ Suron Debbarma and Tapan Koloi. As the outfit failed to commit to Debbarma’s participation in the talks, the process stalled. In 2015, two rounds of peace talks were held with NLFT-BM. During the 2nd round, NLFT-BM delegates requested the presence of former militant leader and INPT ‘president’ Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawal in the peace talks. According to an unnamed senior Police official, privy to the matter, “the State Government officers and representatives of the Home Ministry did not agree to it and instead enquired about Biswamohan Debbarma. The NLFT [BM] delegates could not give any satisfactory reply.”

The All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), which was the only other Tripura based active group earlier, is now largely defunct. Its ‘chairman’ Ranjit Debbarma, on May 18, 2016, had expressed his willingness to bring his one time rival group, NLFT-BM, to the negotiating table. No incident linked to ATTF was reported in 2016.

Another outstanding issue is the repatriation of displaced Bru (Reang) refugees housed in seven camps in Kanchanpur (North Tripura District) to Mizoram, which has not made much progress and has, in fact, reached a standstill. On February 21, 2017, the umbrella organisation of displaced Brus, the Mizoram Bru Displace People’s Forum (MBDPF), stated that the Bru refugees had decided not to return to Mizoram as the Mizoram Government has ‘refused’ to meet their demands. The MBDPF said that a public meeting was held at all the seven relief camps on February 14 and 15, 2017, in which the refugees expressed their unwillingness to return to Mizoram by raising their hands. The public meeting was conducted as per the decision taken during the meeting of Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) in Guwahati on February 12, 2017, in which the MBDPF was entrusted to submit the public decision within three months. The JMG meeting, comprising representatives of the Home Department of Mizoram and Tripura and MBDPF, was inconclusive. MBDPF demands include the allotment of at least five hectare land to each repatriated Bru family, enhancement of the rehabilitation package, provision of free ration for two years, INR 5,000 per month to be given to each family, and the Brus be given the same status as the Kashmiri Pandits. Only about 5,407 Brus out of the total of 32,876, have returned to Mizoram thus far.

Peace in Tripura was restored after the extraordinary success of a prolonged Police-led counter insurgency campaign, backed by rare sagacity of the political executive of the State under the leadership of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar. The residual issues of tribal discontent arising out of relentless demographic shifts need to be urgently addressed, both to bring a better quality of life to the tribal population, and to end the enduring friction between various population segments in the State.

(RFE/RL) — Afghanistan’s Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive on April 28, promising to target military assaults on U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in an e-mailed statement boasted that the militant group now controls more than half of the country, citing a U.S. report in February that said the Afghan government controls only 52 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts.

This year’s offensive was named “Operation Mansouri” after the Taliban leader killed last year in a U.S. drone strike.

“Mansouri Operations will differ from previous ones in nature and will be conducted with a twin-tracked political and military approach,” said Mujahid, explaining that the Taliban will begin building institutions in areas under their control, establishing what he called “social justice and development” mechanisms.

He didn’t say whether this means that the militants will apply their brand of justice, which when they ruled Afghanistan included public executions and chopping off the hands of convicted thieves.

Apparently foreshadowing the spring offensive, a Taliban attack earlier this week on an army base in northern Afghanistan was among the most devastating ever in the country, killing more than 140 Afghan soldiers.

The White House has admitted that no other vetting was needed for former national security adviser Michael Flynn beyond the background check conducted by the Obama administration, shifting responsibility for the ongoing scandal to the previous president.

Flynn filled out the government’s Standard Form 86 (SF-86) to renew his security clearance in January 2016, a month after he gave a speech in Moscow at an international conference hosted by RT, even though he was no longer a government employee. Flynn was able to maintain his active clearance because he was the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (IG) has opened an investigation to determine whether Flynn failed to obtain approval prior to receiving payment from a foreign government, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee announced Thursday.

During the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said the Trump administration welcomes the investigation. When he was asked if the White House was “satisfied” with the transition team’s vetting of the retired lieutenant general, he noted the previous administration approved Flynn’s security clearance.

“General Flynn was a career military officer who maintained a high-level security clearance throughout his career in the military. His clearance was last reissued by the Obama administration in 2016 with full knowledge of his activities that occurred in 2015,” Spicer said.

I guess my only point is to explain how the process works and who adjudicated that,” he added when asked to clarify.

Spicer also noted, as he had on Wednesday, that it is up to individuals to update their information between clearance reviews. It wasn’t necessary for the Trump transition team or the White House to conduct any further vetting, he implied.

“Every government employee who’s eligible for a clearance goes through the same process… We don’t have a unique process,” Spicer said. “Why would you re-run a background check on someone who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency that had and did maintain a high level security clearance?”

Incoming administrations are expected to do additional vetting, however. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger, described Spicer’s response as the perfect storm of “the administration’s scandals, secrecy, foreign ties and ineptitude seem[ing] to all come together.” Jason Easley of the left-leaning Politicususa wrote that Spicer “did indirectly admit… that the White House was incredibly lazy and the work on the transition was unprofessional and shoddy.”

Both Spicer and Flynn’s attorney have said that the Pentagon knew of Flynn’s visit to Russia. The “DIA’s letter actually confirms” that the DOD “was fully aware of the trip,” lawyer Robert Kelner said in a statement.

Pentagon records showed that the DIA and the US Defense Attache Office in Moscow emailed back and forth in December 2015 “to ensure embassy awareness” of Flynn’s trip to Russia for the RT event. There were also various internal email exchanges at the end of November 2015 “regarding actual and potential interaction” with Flynn. He was in contact with the DIA’s Office of Security “in August and September 2016 for the purpose of updating his foreign travel records.”

Being aware of the trip and approving the trip are not the same thing, however. In October 2014, shortly after Flynn was forced out as DIA director, he was explicitly counseled in a letter from the DIA that he was bound by the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which “prohibits receipt of consulting fees, gifts, travel expenses, honoraria, or salary by all retired military personnel, officer and enlisted, regular and reserve, from a foreign government unless congressional consent is first obtained” from the secretaries of defense and state.

Beyond the stated awareness of Flynn’s trip to Russia, such permission was not outlined in an IG letter to the House Oversight Committee, which is also investigating Flynn. In addition, the “DIA did not locate any records referring to or relating to LTG Flynn’s receipt of money from a foreign source,” the letter said. Flynn received more than half a million dollars in combined payments from Turkey and Russia before becoming the national security adviser, and retroactively registered as a foreign agent in early March.

Flynn was forced to resign in mid-February after he “inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding his phone calls with the Russian Ambassador,” he said in his resignation letter.

Israel has resorted to three main strategies to suppress Palestinian calls for justice and human rights, including refugees’ right of return: Rewriting history, distracting from present realities and claiming the Palestinian narrative as an Israeli one.

The rewriting of history happened much earlier than some historians assume. Israel’s propaganda machine went into motion almost simultaneously with Plan Dalet, which saw the military conquest of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its inhabitants. But the discourse regarding the Nakba (Catastrophe) that befell the Palestinians in 1947-48 was constituted in the 1950s and 1960s.

In an article entitled “Catastrophic thinking: Did Ben-Gurion try to rewrite history?” Shay Hazkani revealed the fascinating process of how Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion worked closely with a group of Israeli Jewish scholars to develop a narrative about what had taken place in 1947-48: The founding of Israel and the destruction of Palestine.

Ben-Gurion wanted to propagate a version of history consistent with Israel’s political position. He needed “evidence” to support that position. The “evidence” eventually became “history,” and no other narrative on the Nakba was allowed to challenge Israel’s.

“Ben-Gurion probably never heard the word ‘Nakba,’ but early on, at the end of the 1950s, Israel’s first prime minister grasped the importance of the historical narrative,” Hazkani wrote. Ben-Gurion assigned scholars in the civil service to fashion an alternative history that permeates Israeli thinking to this day.

Distracting from history, or the current reality of the horrific occupation of Palestine, has been in motion for nearly 70 years. From the early myths of Palestine being a “land with no people for a people with no land,” to today’s claim that Israel is an icon of civilization, technology and democracy surrounded by Arab and Muslim savages, Israel’s official distortions are relentless.

While Palestinians are gearing up to commemorate the war of June 5, 1967 that led to the ongoing 50-year military occupation, Israel is throwing a big party. The absurdity does not escape all Israelis. “A state that celebrates 50 years of occupation is a state whose sense of direction has been lost, its ability to distinguish good from evil, impaired,” commentator Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz newspaper.

“What exactly is there to celebrate, Israelis? Fifty years of bloodshed, abuse, disinheritance and sadism? Only societies that have no conscience celebrate such anniversaries.” Levy says Israel won the 1967 war but has “lost nearly everything else.” Since then, Israel’s arrogance, detestation of international law, “ongoing contempt for the world, the bragging and bullying” have reached unprecedented heights.

Levy’s article is entitled “Our Nakba.” He is not trying to claim the Palestinian narrative, but is succinctly registering that Israel’s military triumphs were an affliction, especially as they were not followed by any sense of national reflection or attempt to correct the injustices of the past and present.

But the process of claiming the term “Nakba” has been pursued cunningly by Israeli writers for many years. For them, “the Jewish Nakba” refers to the Arab Jews who arrived in the newly independent Israel, largely on the urgings of Zionist leaders for Jews worldwide to “return” to the biblical homeland.

A Jerusalem Post editorial complained that the “Palestinian propaganda juggernaut has persuaded world public opinion that the term ‘refugee’ is synonymous with the term ‘Palestinian’.” Israelis trying to hijack the Palestinian narrative to create an equilibrium in the discourse, one that is inconsistent with reality.

The editorial puts the number of “Jewish refugees” of the “Jewish Nakba” at 850,000, slightly above the number of Palestinian refugees who were expelled by Zionist militias upon Israel’s founding. Luckily, such disingenuous claims are increasingly challenged by Jewish voices as well. A few, but significant, voices among Israeli and Jewish intellectuals worldwide are daring to re-examine Israel’s past.

They are rightly confronting a version of history that has been accepted in Israel and the West as the uncontested truth behind Israel’s birth in 1948, the military occupation of what remained of Palestine in 1967, and other historical junctures.

These intellectuals are leaving a mark on the Palestine-Israel discourse wherever they go. Their voices are particularly significant in challenging official Israeli truisms and historical myths.

Writing in The Forward, Donna Nevel refuses to accept that discussion of the conflict starts with the war and occupation of 1967. Nevel is critical of the so-called “progressive Zionists” who insist on positioning the conversation only on the question of occupation, thus limiting any possibility of resolution. Not only is the ‘two-state solution’ defunct and practically impossible, but the very discussion precludes the Nakba of 1948.

The “Nakba doesn’t enter these conversations because it is the legacy and clearest manifestation of Zionism,” Nevel wrote. “Those who ignore the ‘Nakba’ — which Zionist and Israeli institutions have consistently done — are refusing to acknowledge Zionism as illegitimate from the beginning of its implementation.”

This is why Israeli police recently blocked the March of Return, conducted annually by Palestinians in Israel.

For years, Israel has been wary that a growing movement among Palestinians, Israelis and others worldwide has been pushing for a paradigm shift in order to understand the roots of the conflict. This new thinking is a rational outcome of the end of the “peace process” and the demise of the “two-state solution.”

Unable to sustain its founding myths yet unable to offer an alternative, Israel’s government is using coercion to respond to the budding movement: Punishing those who commemorate the Nakba, fining organizations that participate in such events, and perceiving as traitors Jewish individuals and groups that deviate from official thinking.

In such cases, coercion hardly works. “The March (of Return) has rapidly grown in size over the past few years, in defiance of increasingly repressive measures from the Israeli authorities,” wrote Jonathan Cook in Al-Jazeera. It seems that 70 years after Israel’s founding, the past still looms large.

Fortunately, Palestinian voices that have fought against Israel’s official narrative are now joined by a growing number of Jewish voices. Through a new, common narrative, a true understanding of the past can be attained, with the hope that a peaceful vision for the future can replace the current one, which can only be sustained by military domination, inequality and propaganda.

The Tibetan people have inherited variants of five different genes that help them live at high altitudes, with one gene originating in the extinct human subspecies, the Denisovans. Hao Hu and Chad Huff of the University of Texas, Houston, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published April 27th, 2017 in PLOS Genetics.

The people of Tibet have survived on an extremely high and arid plateau for thousands of years, due to their amazing natural ability to withstand low levels of oxygen, extreme cold, exposure to UV light and very limited food sources. Researchers sequenced the whole genomes of 27 Tibetans and searched for advantageous genes.

The analysis identified two genes already known to be involved in adaptation to high altitude, EPAS1 and EGLN1, as well as two genes related to low oxygen levels, PTGIS and KCTD12. They also picked out a variant of VDR, which plays a role in vitamin D metabolism and may help compensate for vitamin D deficiency, which commonly affects Tibetan nomads. The Tibetan variant of the EPAS1 gene originally came from the archaic Denisovan people, but the researchers found no other genes related to high altitude with Denisovan roots.

Further analysis showed that Han Chinese and Tibetan subpopulations split as early as 44 to 58 thousand years ago, but that gene flow between the groups continued until approximately 9 thousand years ago.

The study represents a comprehensive analysis of the demographic history of the Tibetan population and its adaptations to the challenges of living at high altitudes. The results also provide a rich genomic resource of the Tibetan population, which will aid future genetic studies.

Tatum Simonson added: “The comprehensive analysis of whole-genome sequence data from Tibetans provides valuable insights into the genetic factors underlying this population’s unique history and adaptive physiology at high altitude. This study provides further context for analyses of other permanent high-altitude populations, who exhibit characteristics distinct from Tibetans despite similar chronic stresses, as well as lowland populations, in whom hypoxia-related challenges, such those inherent to cardiopulmonary disease or sleep apnea, elicit a wide-range of unique physiological responses. Future research efforts will focus on identifying the interplay between various adaptive versus non-adaptive genetic pathways and environmental factors (e.g., hypoxia, diet, cold, UV) in these informative populations to reveal the biological underpinnings of individualized physiological responses.”

Girls start believing they aren’t good at math, science and even computers at a young age — but providing fun STEM activities at school and home may spark interest and inspire confidence.

A study from the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) finds that, when exposed to a computer-programming activity, 6-year-old girls expressed greater interest in technology and more positive attitudes about their own skills and abilities than girls who didn’t try the activity.

The results suggest both a need and an opportunity for teaching computer science, in particular, in early elementary school, said Allison Master, a research scientist at I-LABS and the study’s lead author. Introducing concepts and skills when girls are young can boost their confidence and prompt interest in a field in which women today are underrepresented.

“As a society, we have these built-in beliefs that are pushing boys toward certain activities more than girls. So our thought was, if you give equal experiences to boys and girls, what happens?” Master said. “We found that if you give them access to same opportunities, then girls and boys have the same response — equal interest and confidence.”

The study, published online in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, involved 96 6-year-olds, evenly divided among boys and girls, who were randomly assigned one of three groups. In the first group, each child programmed a robot, then answered survey questions; in the second group, each played a storytelling card game, then answered the same questions, while those in the third group only answered the questions. The survey was designed to collect kids’ opinions of technology activities, like the robot, and their beliefs about whether girls or boys are better at computer programming and robotics.

Programming, the researchers explained to the children, is “when you tell a computer or a robot or a phone what to do.”

For the robot activity, children chose an animal-like robot. They first followed step-by-step instructions on a smartphone to “tell” it to move forward, backward, right or left, then chose the instructions themselves, effectively programming the phone to control the movements of the robots. The study found that after completing the robot activity, the boys and girls showed equal interest in technology and their own feelings of self-efficacy, or confidence in their own abilities.

But when compared to the “control group” of children who played the card game or only answered the survey without playing a game, the difference was striking: The designed activity with the robot reduced the gender gap in technology interest by 42 percent, and the gap in self-efficacy by 80 percent.

In other words, girls who programmed the robot were much more likely to express interest in programming and confidence in their own abilities to perform technology-related tasks than the girls who didn’t work with the robot.

Co-author and I-LABS co-director Andrew Meltzoff said, “Experience in programming the robot movement was something that both boys and girls thought was fun. But the most important finding is that we brought the girls’ interest and motivation in STEM up to the level of the boys. This was a big impact for a brief, well-designed intervention. How long will it last? That’s an important question for future scientific experiments.”

The findings suggest that incorporating more programming activities in the classroom or at home may ignite and sustain girls’ interest, Master said. Summer camps, after-school programs and other partner- or group-oriented activities present natural opportunities.

“The important thing is to make activities accessible to all children in a fun way that also helps them build skills,” she said.

The study’s robot activity did not, however, appear to change the children’s stereotypes about whether boys or girls are better at programming and robotics. While the girls who programmed the robot indicated greater confidence in their own abilities, that confidence did not alter their stereotypes, picked up from the culture, about girls and boys in general. The authors pointed to the potential of other experiences, such as meeting or seeing a woman programming a robot or working in a STEM field, for shifting these more deeply-held stereotypes.

“Stereotypes get built up in our heads from many different sources and experiences, but perhaps if we give girls more experience doing these kinds of activities, that will give them more resources to resist those stereotypes,” Master said. “They might be able to say, ‘I can still be good at this and enjoy it, despite the cultural stereotypes.'” The researchers hope to test this in future studies.

President Trump released an outline of changes he hopes to see in the federal income tax. If his proposal became law, we would have a better tax system than we do now.

One major change would be reducing the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 15%. The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, which is responsible for the “tax inversions” and other corporate financial manipulations that keep revenues from US corporations overseas. Rather than trying to pass regulations to prevent this activity, a better policy is to make it attractive for corporations to do business in, and keep their revenues in the United States.

On the personal income tax side, rates would be lowered slightly and most deductions would be eliminated, compensated for by a doubling of the standard individual deduction. Only deductions for charitable contributions and home mortgage interest would remain: a testimony the the effectiveness of the lobbying done by non-profit organizations and real estate interests. Slightly lower rates would be a slight improvement, as would simplifying the tax code.

Trump also calls for eliminating the estate tax. There are obvious interests that will push back on this, calling it a tax break for the rich, but the fact is that income tax has already been paid on the money that people leave in their estates, and the estate tax amounts to a double tax. Of course, some will argue that the rich should be double-taxed, and I’m guessing this recommendation will meet with substantial resistance as the debate does ahead.

Those are the major changes, and they (along with the smaller changes Trump recommends) all have solid arguments to support them. If it’s a choice between the current tax code and one that implements these recommended changes, we’d be better off taking Trump’s tax package. We’ll see where the debate goes on this. There will surely be compromises along the way, and while I don’t like to be pessimistic, my guess is that the compromises will all make Trump’s proposals worse.

This article was published at The Beacon.