Top-ranked Roman Catholic Loyola Marymount University (LMU), rooted in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions, is hosting the Project “Om” yoga worldwide event on May 13, said to be “a mindful movement”.

In Hinduism, “Om”, considered a mystical syllable containing the universe, is used to introduce and conclude religious work. Project “Om” is billed as the world’s largest yoga class of one million bodies. Bank of America is one of the sponsors.

LMU also offers Master of Arts in Yoga Studies, said to be one of its kind in the world; which explores yoga’s relationship to religion and spirituality, immerses in yogic philosophy and teaches Sanskrit.

Hindus have welcomed Catholic LMU for promoting yoga. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, urged all the US universities and colleges to introduce multi-beneficial yoga in the lives of their student communities.

Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.

Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.

Through a combination of 3-D modeling, digital fabrication and other techniques, a Dartmouth-led research team has replicated sections of popular, outdoor rock climbing routes on an indoor climbing wall. The study demonstrates how these technologies can be used strategically to reproduce large-scale environments by considering how users interact with such sites.

The research will be presented on May 9 at the 35th Annual ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Denver, Colo., and has been published as part of CHI 2017’s proceedings.

The research team reconstructed the most challenging sections or “cruxes” of two expert climbing sites outside, New Hampshire’s “Things As They Are Now (TATAN)” and Utah’s “Pilgrimage,” on a climbing wall indoors. Both sites have a difficulty rating of 5.12a. The study focused on the key rock features in each crux that the climber used for the ascent, as fabricating an entire crux would be cost prohibitive.

To replicate the climbing routes indoors, the team created 3D reconstructions of the rock walls using multi-view stereo. They also shot reference video of the climber’s ascent to capture where he supported his body and to estimate his skeletal poses, including the contact regions for his hands and feet on the rock wall. This information was critical to isolating the rock wall’s geometry, which informed the shapes of the holds and where they would need to be fastened later on the indoor wall.

Once the routes, rock features and climbing holds were 3D modeled, the team used rapid prototyping, and molding and casting techniques, to create climbing holds similar to those found at indoor climbing gyms. The holds are first fabricated out of foam using a CNC router, which naturally has a gritty texture; then the final hold is cast with high strength resin.

The study compared climbers’ moves on the indoor replicas to those outdoors and found a close visual match between the climbers’ poses on the original and replication. The climbers agreed that the movement felt similar and indicated that they liked the idea of climbing a replica of a route that was located nearly 2,000 miles away.

“We’re bridging between large-scale and small-scale fabrication. By fabricating only key pieces of the rock face, we’re able to recreate outdoor environments without the need for oversized gantries or other non-standard manufacturing equipment,” said lead author and rock climbing enthusiast, Emily Whiting, an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College. Whiting and co-author Ladislav Kavan, an assistant professor at the University of Utah, used to climb together when they were postdocs at ETH Zurich. “Since there’s limited time and accessibility at remote climbing locations, the ability to train at a convenient indoor gym can make the difference between success and failure,” adds Whiting.

Outdoor climbing routes have long served as a natural source of inspiration for creating training tools for the climbing community. For example, the “campus board,” an inclined board with thin horizontal slats, which was invented by Wolfgang Güllich in 1988, continues to be found in many indoor climbing gyms today. It is credited with enabling some of the best climbers to help train for some of the toughest terrain in the world. In like manner, replicas of outdoor routes using fabricated holds have the potential to provide climbers with invaluable site-specific training.

The team hopes that their work inspires future research in environment-scale fabrication as well as related scientific and technological questions, including measuring and replicating friction properties of natural materials, and studying the biomechanics of human locomotion in challenging conditions.

US President Donald J. Trump spoke Wednesday with President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea to congratulate him and the Korean people “on his great election victory and their peaceful, democratic transition of power,” according to the White House.

In a statement, the White House said President Trump and President Moon agreed to continue to strengthen the United States-South Korea alliance and to deepen the enduring friendship between the two countries.

President Trump said he looks forward to working with President Moon and invited him to visit Washington at an early date. President Moon accepted the invitation, the White House said.

“Having refused to admit his errors, the [FBI] Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.” -— US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

Any sense that Donald Trump had found some accord with James Comey of the FBI gathered from his investigative zeal regarding Hillary Clinton’s improper use of a private email server should always have been doubted.

Trump is not a president who likes matters accountable and clear, except in a jaw-jaw sort of a way, the brute who wants to avoid surprises while always keeping one in reserve. The language of the hectoring bully is never far, the turn that means genuine conversation is always going to be hard to have.

The language of dismissal regarding the FBI Director was that of an assassination. Comey, came the announcement via Sean Spicer, “has been terminated and removed from office”. The letter to Comey, penned by Trump, cited agreement with US Attorney General Jeff Sessions that “you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”

Erratically, Trump had thrown in his weight behind Comey when things suited him. The political winds were favourable in November, when he had Hillary Clinton on the ropes. “What he did,” claimed Trump on the issue of reopening the investigation into the Clinton emails, “brought back his reputation”.

The edifice of support was, however, a rotten one, and the Attorney General’s department was already hatching a plan to undermine and outflank Comey. The Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, attempted to find some common ground across the spectrum regarding the FBI director’s yawning faults. “Almost everyone agrees the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.”

As for Rosenstein himself, he found it difficult to “defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails” and did “not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”

From the other side of the stalls, Comey had been harangued over supposedly selective judgements. The Democrats, still smarting from their election loss, found it inexplicable that Comey would first close the case against Clinton without prosecution in July last year only to then declare, 11 days prior to the election, that the inquiry had been reopened because of the discovery of more juicy emails.

The tune from Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer altered on Tuesday, modified by a less plaintiff voice and concern that the constitution was not so much being rocked as ravaged. “We know that the House is investigating Russian interference in our election that benefitted the Trump campaign. We know the Senate is investigating. We know the FBI has been looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians – a very serious offence. Were those investigations getting too close to home for the president?”

There is little doubt that Comey has been rattled by the attention, which has, for the most part, been negative. In his May 3 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, hyperbole intruded to make certain claims questionable. One related to the material from Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin, which ran, according to Comey, in the order of “hundreds and thousands” of emails. Among them were more than just smidgens of classified information.

As luck would have it, Comey’s claims that such a mountain of information had manifested itself were rebuffed by his own organisation. There was nothing in the order of hundreds of thousands, merely two email chains containing classified information to husband Anthony Weiner.

The lack of faith shown in Comey by the Democrats packaged a few parcels of ammunition for Trump. The president naturally took to Twitter as the carnage unfolded. “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer stated recently, ‘I do not have confidence in him (James Comey) any longer.’ Then acts so indignant.”[1]

Such a sacking does show, with some clarity, that the affairs of this Republic are bound to get more sordid before they get better. Trumpland is a truly fractious environment, one where battlegrounds and territory will be fought with primeval ferocity between the executive and its various arms. “The administration of justice,” claimed Democratic Representative Eric Swallwell Jr., “must remain free of political influence, and President Trump just leaped over that line”.

This line has not so much been leaped over as redrawn. The moment Trump entered the White House he made it clear that conflict with traditional agencies, bureaucracy and institutions was inevitable. Draining the swamp, as he likes to term it, is akin to cracking a few skulls and breaking regulations in the name of reform.

This tarnishing episode has covered few in glory. The White House is hunkering down behind a wall of authoritarian protection, keen to immunise itself frorm disconcerting inquiries that might question its wisdom and probity. The Democrats, having also had their issues with the FBI, are now seeking a separate, independent office to target Trump. The politics of the Republic is moving into another ugly phase.

Notes:
[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/862135824745467905

The FBI said Wednesday it is seeking information on the leadership of the al Nusrah Front (ANF), a foreign terrorist organization, to include information on Muhammad al-Jawlani.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of Muhammad al-Jawlani.

In 2011 al-Jawlani, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, and Abu Muhammad al-Golani, established ANF. In 2013, al-Jawlani, as a leader of ANF, pledged the organization’s allegiance to al Qaeda and its leadership. In 2016, al-Jawlani claimed that the ANF was changing its name to Jabhat Fath Al Sham, or “Conquest of the Levant Front,” which has also been known as Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jabhet al-Nusra, The Victory Front, and al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant.

The US State Department designated ANF as a foreign terrorist organization under the Immigration and Nationality Act and a specially designated global terrorist entity. In May 2013, al-Jawlani was named a specially designated global terrorist, by the U.S. State Department, blocking all his property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. persons from dealing with him.

The FBI is seeking information on the leadership of the al Nusrah Front (ANF), a foreign terrorist organization, to include information on Muhammad al-Jawlani.

On July 24, 2013, the UN Security Council ISIL (Da’esh) and al Qaeda Sanctions Committee placed al-Jawlani on its list of sanctioned terrorists, making him subject to an international asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.

US Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat-Oregon) on Wednesday placed a hold on the nomination of Sigal Mandelker to be Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Wyden said he will maintain that hold until the Treasury Department provides the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Finance Committee information and documents related to Russia and its financial dealings with President Trump and his associates. On Tuesday, May 9, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner announced that the Committee had made a request to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

“I have stated repeatedly that we have to follow the money if we are going to get to the bottom of how Russia has attacked our democracy,” Wyden said. “That means thoroughly review any information that relates to financial connections between Russia and President Trump and his associates, whether direct or laundered through hidden or illicit transactions. The office which Ms. Mandelker has been nominated to head is responsible for much of this information.”

Wyden is the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees much of the Treasury Department. The Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence marshals the Treasury Department’s intelligence and enforcement functions to combat financial crimes and threats, including money laundering. Senator Warner has stated that he is withholding his support for Ms. Mandelker until the documents requested by the Intelligence Committee have been provided.

Relatedly, with regard to the Trump Administration’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, Wyden said that he has “long been a critic of Director Comey, for his views about surveillance and torture, his stance on secret law and his conduct during the investigation into Secretary Clinton.”

Nevertheless, Wyden said President Trump’s decision “to fire him now, in the midst of an investigation into Trump associates and their ties to Russia, is outrageous.”

Wyden called for Comey to be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of the investigation into Russia and Trump associates at the time he was fired.

“There can be no question that a fully independent special counsel must be appointed to lead this investigation. At this point, no one in Trump’s chain of command can be trusted to carry out an impartial investigation,” Wyden said.

Oregon Senate colleague Jeff Merkley mirrored those comments.

“Trump’s explanation for firing Comey is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Trump’s pattern of firing people who are investigating him is downright Nixonian, and Members of Congress of both parties should treat it with the same gravity that our predecessors did during Watergate,” Merkley said.

Malaysian IS operative in Syria Muhammad Wanndy bin Muhammad Jedi has been killed in a drone attack on 29 April 2017. Who is Muhammad Wanndy and who will succeed him?

By Nur Azlin Mohamed Yasin*

Malaysia’s confirmation of the death of Muhammad Wanndy bin Muhammad Jedi is expected to strengthen the disruption of several terrorist plots on Malaysia by the self-styled Islamic State (IS). While the radicalisation and recruitment of IS members are due to many factors, one key driver has been the presence of recruiters online. Until his death, Wanndy had been a prominent recruiter of support for his threats against the country.

Wanndy’s death indirectly capped the Malaysian Branch’s success in disrupting several terrorist plots by IS. It has arrested more than 250 IS members and supporters in Malaysia over the past five years, notably since the growing prominence of IS in the Syria conflict.

Who is Muhammad Wanndy bin Muhammad Jedi?

The 26-year-old Wanndy travelled to Syria with his pregnant wife in January 2015. He had narrated in his social media account that he had made the travel through Butterworth in Peninsular Malaysia and then to Thailand, Turkey and eventually Syria. Wanndy had been an online supporter even before he migrated to Syria.

However, he was identified in early 2015 after he appeared in a 30-second video where he was seen smiling whilst holding the head of a beheaded victim of IS. Since then, his supporters had been following him online via his several online monikers which included ‘Abu Hamzah al Fateh’, ‘Abu Sayyaf al Malizi’ and ‘Wakasilu Huruhara’.

Wanndy and his wife were active in their social media accounts. For their supporters, they shared their life stories in IS territory and propagated IS ideology to justify their motivations and actions. They portrayed life in IS as one filled with blessings, often posting heart-warming pictures of their family and gathering of friends, showing camaraderie among IS members.

With their supporters, they appeared warm and friendly. With his adversaries, Wanndy was aggressive. He released threats and showed off his military skills. He was always updated on counter terrorist developments in Malaysia. As the mastermind behind the Movida attack in Puchong, Selangor in June 2016, Wanndy was first to announce the perpetrators to be two members from the ‘junud khilafah wilayah Malizia’.

Both attackers were arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Further investigations show that Wanndy was involved in several other IS cells in Malaysia including the ‘Al-Qubro Generation’ and ‘Kumpulan Gagak Hitam’. Other reports likened him to IS Indonesian militant in Syria, Bahrun Naim and suggested them working together to network operatives in Malaysia and Indonesia. Such cooperation would assist in the travels of militants. Both were purported to be part of IS external operations unit responsible for attacks outside of IS territories.

Will There Be Another Wanndy?

When news of Wanndy’s death first seeped into the jihadi online community, his supporters sought his wife’s words for confirmation. The latter announced on 30th April 2017 that the news was credible. She explained that she had identified Wanndy’s body herself. While his supporters were quick to accept the news as it was told, the Malaysian authorities were doubtful initially.

No picture of Wanndy’s body had been released. There were speculations that he might have staged his own death with the plan to return to Malaysia and to escape being targeted by American drones. This is especially so after he was listed as a ‘most wanted’ terrorist by the United States early April 2017. There were also reports of him siphoning off money from Malaysian operatives and of him having trouble with the IS leadership because of the absence of a successful attack in Malaysia.

Confirmation of his death on 8 May 2017, though, does not completely banish the expanding IS network in Malaysia. The IS ideology has spread, providing fertile ground for a replacement of recruiters and coordinators. They could be located in IS territories like Wanndy or even on home ground.

From Syria and Iraq, it is hard to predict his successor. Many Malaysians in IS territories have died in battles. Those believed to be alive have been absent online for at least a year. These include Malaysians known online as ‘Fudhail Omar’, ‘Akel Zainal’ and ‘Zahar’. Known as the ‘cook’, ‘drummer’ and ‘former Malaysian soldier’ respectively, they have been in Syria since 2014 and 2015. They were once very active, having thousands of followers online. Their tapering presence online started in 2015 when social media companies started shutting down their accounts. This raised concerns on whether they are now operating only on encrypted communication platforms.

Wives of Operatives

The Malaysians in IS territories who are visibly online today are wives of IS militants. They show no aggressive approach to recruit or radicalise and use the online platform more as an online diary where they jot their thoughts and emotions. However, this does not rule out their capabilities for active participation.

The case of Malaysian ‘Dr Shams’, has shown how women can be effective recruiters. In 2014 and 2015, ‘Dr Shams’ manned her own blog where she shared tips on how to travel to Syria to inquiring radicalised individuals. On home ground, avid IS supporters and Wanndy’s fans too represent a pool of individuals who could be inspired to fill in his shoes in their strife to continue their perceived battle.

The key challenge today is in keeping up with the communication platforms recruiters and supporters are using. The last five years have allowed these like-minded individuals to find each other via open and public communication platforms such as social media. Today, our adversaries have largely moved on to encrypted platforms and possibly even the real-world.

Inter-agency Cooperation is Key

Terrorists know no geographical boundaries or limitations in their operations. This is seen in their inter-linkages such as those in terrorist groups in this region. Their networks are global, their target audience transcends communities from different fields and industries, and their communication exploits all means available today and tomorrow.

The multi-pronged approach very much called for in the fight against terrorism is urgently needed. However, this multi-pronged approach can only be attained through inter-agency cooperation which has real challenges. Political milieu and different interests of states, political parties, security, technology and communication agencies are among our barriers to working together. Until we push for a change, our weaknesses remain our adversary’s playing field.

*Nur Azlin Mohamed Yasin is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Japanese car giant Toyota has seen profits fall for the first time in half a decade, BBC News said.

The firm said it sold more cars in the year to March 2017 than in the previous 12 months but that higher costs and currency fluctuations hit results.

The profit of 1.83 trillion yen ($16.1bn) was down 21% from 2016-17.

Toyota has warned next year’s profits will be even lower, due to the strength of the Japanese currency.

The carmaker’s prediction is based on a forecast that the yen will average around 105 to the US dollar in the year through to March 2018, compared with 108 yen in the last financial year.

Toyota, which has lost its top-selling carmaker status to Germany’s Volkswagen sold 10.25 million vehicles over the year, up from 10.19 million units a year earlier.

However income from those sales was slightly down at 27.6 trillion yen.

The carmaker has been struggling in the US, its biggest market. Sales fell in North America as it battled to meet demand for bigger cars such as sport utility vehicles, which have become more affordable to drive thanks to lower petrol prices.

Earlier this year Toyota said it would invest $10bn in the US over the next five years.

Kudos to Texas Rep. James Frank for securing the right of faith-based entities to carry out their mission without undue encroachment by the government. Under his legislation, which passed yesterday, these institutions can now proceed without fear of state pressure to compromise their doctrinal prerogatives.

Faith-based social service institutions exist to serve the welfare of those they represent. Catholics, Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and others all have organizations that provide services to the needy and the dispossessed within their communities. They should be encouraged by the public sector in this effort, facilitating their success whenever possible.

It is astonishing how many “progressive” activists seem not to care about the fundamental right of Mormon adoptive agencies to place children in their care with fellow Mormons. That the right of Mormons to do so needs to be explained suggests that their critics are out of touch with reality, or that they harbor a prejudice in need of serious correction.

The Dallas News ran a headline yesterday, “Texas Adoption Agencies Could ban Jews, gays, Muslims under House bill.” Why didn’t it mention Catholics? Is that because Catholics have been assigned the role of victimizer?

As a Catholic, I would hope that my Evangelical brothers and sisters would not hesitate to discriminate against Catholics by seeking to place children in their care with Evangelical adoptive parents. Children are best served when they are justly paired with adoptive parents who share their demographic and belief orientations.

President Trump said this week that he supports Black Colleges. Only an  idiot would accuse him of fostering bigotry by showing preferential treatment for blacks. And only an idiot would accuse faith-based institutions of fostering bigotry by showing preferential treatment to their own.

We commend the logic and reasoning of Jennifer Allmon of the Texas Catholic Conference, and the sincerity and erudition of Rep. Frank. We hope this Texas bill becomes law and serves as a model to all states.

Newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron, according to one of his biographers, embodies a new phenomenon in France known as “zombie Catholicism.”

Once among the most Catholic countries in the world, sometimes called the “eldest daughter of the Church,” France has seen serious decline in churchgoing numbers in modern times. While more than 50 percent of people still identify as Catholic, only 5 percent regularly attend Mass.

Still, in France’s recent presidential election, a latent Catholic identity in many of France’s citizens proved to be a powerful political tool.

Sociologists Emmanuel Todd and Hervé Le Bras were the first to label the phenomenon in their book “Le mystère français” in which they explain that “Catholicism seems to have attained a kind of life after death. But since it is a question of a this-worldly life, we will define it as ‘zombie Catholicism.’”

“Zombie Catholics” of France share certain characteristics, the sociologists noted. They typically come from regions of the country where resistance to the French Revolution was the strongest.

“Highly educated and meritocratic, they also privilege a traditional ordering of professional and domestic duties between husbands and wives; strong attachment to social, community, and family activities; and a general wariness over the role of the state in private and community affairs, including ‘free schools’ (Catholic private schools),” they wrote.

According to Marc Endeweld, a biographer of Emmanuel Macron, the new president embodies this “zombie Catholic” phenomenon. Although born into a secular family, Macron asked to be baptized at age 12. While not a regular churchgoer, Macron symbolizes “those territories of Christian tradition that benefit from social structures and economic systems capable of counterbalancing globalization, in contrast to the more Jacobin territories that have lost the protection of the state.”

In the “zombie Catholic” stronghold region of Brittany, Macron won 3 out of every 4 votes. Having never been elected to any other political office, he ran as the head of a new movement, En March!, instead of an established political party. His politics have been described as liberal and progressive, though he has said he hopes to transcend the divides of the left and right political parties. At 39, he is the youngest president to ever be elected in France.

He was not the only candidate who appealed to the latent Catholics of France during the election season. François Fillon, former prime minister of France and a practicing Catholic, shocked pundits and political commentators throughout the country when he pulled ahead in the Republican party and beat out the moderate former Prime Minister Alain Juppé (himself a self-described “agnostic Catholic”) by a wide margin.

His Catholicism was such a strong part of his political identity that a headline in the newspaper Libération proclaimed: “Help, Jesus has returned!”

President-elect Macron has said that he supports the French principle of secularism (laïcité). He has also said that “we have a duty to let everybody practice their religion with dignity,” though he believes that “when one enters the public realm, the laws of the Republic must prevail over religious law.”

Taking the generous way out, former FBI Director James Comey sent a farewell letter on Wednesday to friends and agents, in which he notes he does not bear a grudge and notes that “a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all” and adds that “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”

Comey urges the FBI, which he described as “a rock of competence, honesty, and independence” to continue its “mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution” and concludes by saying that his “hope is that you will continue to live our values and the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. Working with you has been one of the great joys of my life. Thank you for that gift.”

Full letter below, via CNN:

To all:

I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.

I have said to you before that, in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty, and independence. What makes leaving the FBI hard is the nature and quality of its people, who together make it that rock for America.

It is very hard to leave a group of people who are committed only to doing the right thing. My hope is that you will continue to live our values and the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.

If you do that, you too will be sad when you leave, and the American people will be safer.

Working with you has been one of the great joys of my life. Thank you for that gift.

Jim Comey

*****

That’s the good FBI cop. The bad cop emerged in a NYT report on the last days of Comey. Some details:

*****

By the end, neither of them thought much of the other. After President Trump accused his predecessor in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”

For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.

* * *

Mr. Comey’s fate was sealed by his latest testimony about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and the Clinton email inquiry. Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was “mildly nauseous” to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history. At that point, Mr. Trump began talking about firing him. He and his aides thought they had an opening because Mr. Comey gave an incorrect account of how Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, transferred emails to her husband’s laptop, an account the F.B.I. later corrected. They also assumed that because Democrats were mad at Mrs. Clinton for recently blaming her loss on Mr. Comey, there might not be as much objection if the president fired him.

Moscow has been unsuccessful in reversing the decline in the number of children Russian women choose to have – its pro-natalist policies simply aren’t funded heavily enough to have a chance to do so – and so it was inevitable someone would call for imposing special taxes on those who don’t have three or more children.

The attractions of such an idea for the cash-strapped Russian government are obvious. Instead of having to come up with more money to prevent the country’s further demographic decline, it might actually force Russians to do what the Kremlin wants and collect more in taxes at the same time.

But such proposals are almost certainly dead on arrival. On the one hand, they would be extremely unpopular, especially in big cities where ever smaller families are the norm. And on the other, they likely wouldn’t work. Nonetheless, they appear certain to spark a new round of debate about what Moscow might try to do to stave off demographic collapse.

In today’s Izvestiya, journalist Darya Filippova reports that Yury Krupnov, the director of the Moscow Institute of Demography has sent Vladimir Putin a proposed draft law that calls for providing more benefits for women with children and imposing a tax on those who have none or even too few (izvestia.ru/news/699494).

The demographer argues that such steps are necessary to change attitudes about having more children. At present, he says, only 6.5 percent of Russian families have at least three children; but they account for 20 percent of all children in the country. Their status and benefits need to be raised. At the same time, that of those with two or fewer needs to be lowered.

Obviously, improving the situation of those with more children will have some positive demographic consequences, and moving in that direction is something many experts support. But given Moscow’s lack of money and the general trend among urban Russians to have fewer children regardless of benefits, such steps will have less impact than many expect.

The experts Filippova queried were supportive of the goals but doubtful of the utility of taxes on those with few or new children. But the clearest indication that this idea is going nowhere has come from Elena Mizulina, a Russian parliamentarian who has championed some of the most regressive and repressive Kremlin measures in the past.

She described Krupnov’s proposal as “a provocation” intended to destabilize society rather than help resolve its problems (kp.ru/daily/26676/3699137/ and znak.com/2017-05-10/elena_mizulina_vystupila_protiv_vvedeniya_naloga_na_malodetnost).

By Michael Lelyveld

China’s government is struggling to control its financial sector as an economic growth spurt raises concern about off-book bank loans.

Last month, official media initially cheered after the government announced better-than-expected economic figures showing that first-quarter gross domestic product rose 6.9 percent from a year before.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) quarterly estimate easily topped the government’s target of “about 6.5 percent” for all of 2017.

“Amid a rising tide of protectionism and increasing policy uncertainties, China’s economy remains resilient, which has contributed a lot to global growth,” the official Xinhua news agency said as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its 2017 growth forecast from 6.5 to 6.6 percent.

The government credited a 7.7-percent increase in the tertiary or service sector, accounting for 56.5 percent of the quarter’s GDP. But foreign reports focused on recovery of the secondary sector or manufacturing, which rose 6.4 percent with record monthly steel output in March.

“Once again, China’s policymakers leaned on infrastructure and real estate investment to drive expansion,” Reuters said.

The initial optimism over the GDP performance soon gave way to concerns over how it was achieved.

Too much credit, too much debt, too much risk, officials said.

“Accurate judgment of potential financial risks serves as a precondition for maintaining financial security,” President Xi Jinping warned at a meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on April 25.

“The country must strengthen risk prevention … to avoid neglecting any risk or hidden trouble,” Xinhua cited Xi as saying.

On May 1, a senior official of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) voiced greater concern over credit emissions.

“China’s overall leverage level is reasonable but is rising at an alarming pace, especially in the financial sector,” wrote Xu Zhong, head of the PBOC’s research bureau, in the weekly Caijing Magazine.

Behind the country’s high GDP numbers are troubling forces in financing and the murky world of unregulated or “shadow” banking that may be beyond the government’s control.

‘Harshest crackdown in history’

Economic worries continued Monday as the government released disappointing trade figures for April.

Imports rose 11.9 percent and exports gained 8.0 percent in dollar terms, falling short of growth in March and analysts’ expectations, Reuters said.

But warnings over heavy leveraging in the economy remain the overriding concern.

In a commentary last week, Xinhua said regulatory agencies would target shadow banking and “other undesirable practices,” citing calls for “the harshest crackdown on financial risks in history.”

Real estate investment and construction, which drive production in steel and building materials, have spurred credit schemes that elude regulation.

The combination of stimulus spending, unregulated lending and property speculation helped push the quarterly GDP over the target mark.

The PBOC belatedly tried to reduce lending in January to restrain the building boom and related industries, but a Bloomberg News report on financing suggests that the effort failed.

“Since late last year, the PBOC and regulators have taken steps to rein in risks to China’s financial system, including raising short-term interest rates, clamping down on leverage in the bond market, and curbing funding for property speculation,” Bloomberg reported on April 18.

“The measures have sent debt-reliant borrowers scurrying to shadow financing,” the report said, referring to unregulated loans made largely by affiliated operations of regulated banks.

Moody’s Investors Service has valued the shadow finance sector at U.S. $8.5 trillion (58.5 trillion yuan).

A sudden 754-billion yuan (U.S. $109-billion) surge in shadow lending took place in March when the PBOC tried to cut back on traditional bank loans and bond financing in an effort to cool speculation in the overheated property market.

Despite a wave of local measures aimed at barring investment in multiple dwellings, banks responded with alternate financing and shadow bank loans to fund eager buyers.

After a spike in January, the PBOC clamped down on home mortgages and traditional bank lending, only to see a jump in shadow financing schemes.

Official bank loans during the quarter fell 8.5 percent from a year earlier to 4.22 trillion yuan (U.S. $612.8 billion). But aggregate financing, which includes shadow lending, set a record at 6.93 trillion yuan (U.S. $1.0 trillion), pumping up the property bubble.

In March, loans to households jumped to 797.7 billion yuan (U.S. $115.8 billion), accounting for 78 percent of all new loans for the month.

The short-term lending apparently took the place of mortgages to finance property purchases, said Wendy Chen, a Nomura Securities economist in Shanghai, according to Reuters.

Property demands unleashed

The shadow financing surge highlights the demand for property that previous government policies unleashed.

After a downturn in property prices in 2014, regulators encouraged developers and buyers with easy bank loans to fuel economic growth. The real estate market has now proved hard to turn off.

While the NBS cited signs of slower price growth for new homes in March, many cities have still reported year-on-year gains of more than 20 percent.

Fears of credit tightening have threatened to spread into China’s stock markets. The Shanghai Composite Index suffered its biggest drop of the year on April 24 with a 1.37-percent decline due to credit concerns.

The sudden slide in the market may have been the reason behind Xi’s chilling statement on risks to the Central Committee the next day.

The group study meeting attended by Politburo members followed a series of warnings over credit and debt.

At a press conference after its spring meeting in Washington on April 21, the IMF indicated that it expects credit tightening will slow China’s economic growth pace this year.

“We also see some new focus of policies on reining in financial stability risks, in the shadow banking particularly, and as these measures take hold we do expect some slowdown of the very strong momentum going into the second half,” said Markus Rodlauer, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.

Official media reports have recognized the risk that the country faces from either excessive credit or abrupt tightening.

“China is walking a tightrope between deleveraging and maintaining growth,” said a Xinhua analysis on April 25.

“The IMF has warned of breakneck expansion in bank lending and dangerous real estate bubbles. Effective measures are essential to resolve these problems to prevent them from growing too costly to solve,” said another Xinhua report.

Enhancing risk controls

In the wake of the first-quarter results, the PBOC and the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) have promised new steps to enhance risk controls.

Banks have been pressured to stop making shadow loans backed by high-interest offerings known as wealth management products (WMPs).

Last week, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also vowed that “no hidden risks will be neglected” in the effort to keep the financial sector under control.

Dwight Perkins, a China expert and Harvard University professor emeritus of political economy, said he expects the PBOC to move carefully on shadow banking.

“I think there is a broad view that they should be a bit more effective in regulating shadow banking, but shadow banking by itself is not a bad thing,” Perkins said in a phone interview.

Originally designed to circumvent strict interest rate controls, which have since eased, shadow financing still allows lenders to avoid administrative restrictions, Perkins said.

“Some of it is problematic. When financial people give them too much free rein, there’s going to be a subset of them that take high risks and may increase non-performing loans,” he said. But much of the financing comes from regulated banks, in any case.

Sudden or sweeping new restrictions on the shadow sector could expose the economy to higher risks than allowing it to continue.

“Some big, abrupt administrative action certainly could be disruptive,” said Perkins. “If they just set out to prohibit any further lending of a certain type, that might create problems.”

Other analysts have speculated that the high GDP growth rate of the first quarter will give the government room to rein in credit and excessive industrial production more effectively for the rest of the year without worrying whether its 6.5-percent GDP target will be met.

On the other hand, pro-growth forces may push for higher GDP numbers to make a show of success for the leadership in time for the 19th National Congress of the CPC in the fall.

Some economists have argued that the government should scrap the GDP goal-setting exercise altogether as a vestige of the central-planning past.

“They’ve got to get away from this GDP target, but nothing’s going to happen until after this party congress,” Perkins said.

By James Borton

Despite the Trump administration’s abrupt withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Hanoi wants Washington to know that it remains a viable economic and strategic partner and is poised to check the hegemonic influence of their longstanding rival China.

The agenda in the Trump-Xi meeting at Mar-a-Lago failed to address any of the intractable South China Sea issues, and US freedom of navigation operations near Chinese military outposts in the Spratlys seem to have dramatically fallen off the Pacific horizon. These geopolitical issues have left many wondering whether the upcoming visit of Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Washington is a proactive step of Hanoi to boost cooperation and to deepen a partnership with the U.S., all in an effort to prevent Washington’s further retreat from its position in Asia.

Naturally, the Vietnam’s delegation has high hopes that it will gain some assurance that Trump will travel to Vietnam in November to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Conference. Meanwhile among several policy shapers in Hanoi’s Diplomatic Academy, there’s a feeling that Vietnam is a low priority for President Trump, who’s primary, if not only Asia focus remains China and the North Korean nuclear threat.

“They also want to get a reading on how the Trump administration plans to engage the region economically after the president canceled the TPP, in which Vietnam would have been a major beneficiary,” claims Murray Hiebert, a senior advisor and Southeast Asia director at the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

In an executive order in late April, Mr. Trump recast his campaign message to “Buy American, Hire American.” His patriotic refrain opposes free trade deals since he claims that they take away jobs from Americans. His strident language argues that he would protect American workers against competition from low-wage countries.

Consequently, he intends to “negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back,” which allow the U.S. to quickly terminate the deals in 30 days “if somebody misbehaves.”

At times, Mr. Trump’s message appears straight out of his 2016 campaign playbook. His trade stance mirrors a growing feeling among many Americans that international trade deals have hurt the US job market. However, most consumers realize that price is the bottom line. Nevertheless, his executive order is directed to federal agencies that require them to buy American-made goods and to cut down on waivers and exemptions to those rules.

For now, the business community believes that the Trump administration is detached from the reality that goods are sold cheaper in the U.S. because they are made overseas; and that US companies also benefit from trade deals, making trillions of dollars selling their own products overseas.

Republican Senator John McCain has described US withdrawal as a “serious mistake that will have lasting consequences for America’s economy and our strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region.” He said the decision will “forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade barriers, open new markets, and protect American invention and innovation”

More significantly, it will “create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road at the expense of American workers.”

The US withdrawal creates a political and economic vacuum that China is more than eager to fill. Beijing has wasted little time in seizing the opportunity in the absence of clear Asia Pacific policies from Washington. Chinese Communist leaders have ramped up their globalization efforts and have championed the virtues of free trade. In an address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos at the start of the year, Chinese President Xi Jinping likened protectionism to “locking oneself in a dark room” and signaled that China would look to negotiate regional trade deals.

While Vietnam, a war-hardened nation, can’t choose its neighbors, it can certainly choose its friends. Once-implacable foes burdened by a bloody and tragic history, Washington and Hanoi increasingly share overlapping strategic interests that could redirect the trajectory of security cooperation in the contested South China Sea.

What’s clear is that the U.S. and Vietnam signed a Comprehensive Partnership in 2013, which covered trade, development, and maritime security but did not call for specific action. Vietnam has applauded the Trump administration’s strong language when the White House referred to “China’s military fortress” in the South China Sea. However, this rhetoric has quickly faded since the administration has called upon China to pressure North Korea to forego any further nuclear and missile tests.

“However, the US decision not to conduct more assertive freedom of navigation operational patrols (FONOPS) earlier this spring sent a clear message to ASEAN that they could not count on the U.S. to counter-balance China,” claims Professor Carlyle A. Thayer, director of Thayer Consultancy based in Australia.

The ambivalent and inconsistent State Department Asia policy is reflected in the most recent rhetoric of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who delivered an emphatic message last week to foreign ministers from Southeast Asian nations that militarization and construction in the South China Sea must stop while territorial disputes in the area are worked out.

Tillerson’s message – aimed at China, which has reclaimed thousands of acres of land in the South China Sea in recent years – underscored that Southeast Asia remains a very strategic partner for the U.S. on a host of issues, including trade and security cooperation. Vietnam makes no pretense that it wants the United States to continue to be its leading trading partner.

Two decades after trade normalization, the U.S. and Vietnam are now drawn closer together due to China’s economic and geopolitical rise. The withdrawal from TPP remains particularly disappointing on the trade front for Vietnam. It lacks a comparable bilateral free trade agreement with the U.S., since it’s their largest export market.

For the Vietnamese, their economic progress is uneven. Ho Chi Minh City alone accounts for 23% of national output and 24% of exports – far in excess of its 9% share of population. Nevertheless, Vietnam’s economic success has been accompanied by a dramatic reduction in poverty. Its $200 billion economy, almost 40 percent of which comes from manufacturing, has grown sharply since 2011, largely on foreign investment in the export of goods like smartphones.

Real GDP will grow by 6.2% in 2017 – the same rate as 2016. A significant pickup in exports (supported by depreciation of the dong) and strong growth in private final consumption are the main drivers. Vietnamese gains in manufacturing offset an unsteady performance in agriculture and this is especially evident in the Lower Mekong Delta.

According to market observers, Hanoi plans to introduce a number of market-friendly reforms to boost confidence in their economy.

Looking forward, the Trump administration’s focus on bilateral trade agreements with major trading partners provides little scope for engagement with Southeast Asia, or even the possibility of a re-packaging of the TPP.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

By Perparim Isufi

Yet another government in Kosovo has fallen before its mandate should have ended after MPs backed a no-confidence vote in the administration.

Isa Mustafa’s government in Kosovo was defeated on Wednesday after MPs backed an opposition motion of no-confidence.

Of 120 MPs in parliament, 78 voted for the motion, with only 34 backing the current government.

Along with the opposition Vetevendosje party, MPs from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, and NISMA, and some deputies from the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, also voted against the government.

Mustafa’s government became the third in Kosovo in a row to fall without completing its four-year term.

Made up of the PDK and Mustafa’s own Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, it has undergone a torrid time as both the EU and US pushed it to take tough decisions on key issues that have been pushed under the carpet for years.

The opposition has been demanding elections for two years, mainly because of the controversial agreements that the government signed in Brussels in 2015 on border demarcation with Montenegro – that is still to be voted on in parliament – and on establishing an autonomous Association of Serb-majority Municipalities.

The ruling coalition has faced bitter opposition both outside and within institutions over both of these issues.

Opposition MPs have even resorted to using teargas in parliament to disrupt matters.

However, the government has been under strong international pressure to get moving with the border deal with Montenegro in particular.

The EU says it cannot proceed with visa liberalisation for Kosovo – an importance issue for the country – until the border issue with Montenegro is laid to rest.

Opposition parties insist the deal threatens to rob Kosovo of valuable pasture and farmland.

History of political crises

Kosovo’s two ruling parties, the PDK and LDK, have a history of bumpy relations. They established a coalition government in 2007, which oversaw Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008.

That coalition fell apart in 2010, when LDK leader Fatmir Sejdiu was forced to resign as President of Kosovo after the Constitutional Court ruled that keeping that post along with his party leadership contradicted the constitution.

On being elected President in 2008, Sejdiu had frozen his party duties but the Constitutional Court ruled that this was not enough.

Sejdiu’s resignation as President then prompted the withdrawal of the LDK from the government.

Subsequent elections resulted in a new coalition between the PDK led by Hashim Thaçi and Behgjet Pacolli’s Kosovo New Alliance, AKR, which governed until spring 2014.

That May, six months before his regular term as Prime Minister was due to end, Thaçi decided on snap elections.

The decision to dissolve parliament came after MPs failed to resolve two key issues: transformation of the lightly armed Kosovo Security Forces into a regular army and the reservation of seats for non-Albanian communities in parliament.

While other political groups backed the initiative, the opposition Vetevendosje party objected. Its leader, Albin Kurti, said Thaçi should have resigned as PM for failing to fulfil his key promises.

“He promised an army for Kosovo and has not realised the promise… so he must resign. If he does not resign, the opposition should dissolve the government. We should not allow the government to dissolve the parliament,” Kurti said in the parliament.

‘Deformed’ system cannot deliver consistency

Sociologist Artan Muhaxhiri told BIRN that politics in Kosovo was suffering serious structural deformations.

“One of the main reasons for this is the personalisation of the processes of making and breaking coalitions by party leaders,” he said.

“Lack of internal democracy and decision-making … have deprived government coalitions of consistency and of a regular spirit of cooperation,” Muhaxhiri added.

The current political system was not sustainable, he continued. “In Kosovo governments, budgets and the subsequent success of ministers are not achieved on the basis of merit but on the basis of the affiliations of the leader and clans around him,” Muhaxhiri said.

“Normalisation of the political spectrum can be achieved only through radical changes in the political mentality of the decision-making political personalities, which could take years,” Muhaxhiri said adding that it would also require more active engagement from ordinary citizens.

Petrit Zogaj, director of the Pristina-based monitoring organisation FOL [Speak-Up], told BIRN that building a democratic culture in Kosovo needs to “go beyond the constitution and paragraphs of law.

“On paper, we have the basic rules on how institutions should function, but in order to respect those rules, we need a better democratic culture,” Zogaj said.

“Due to the lack of a democratic culture and tradition, Kosovo is on the verge of creating another culture in which institutions cannot complete their regular constitutional mandates,” he added.

According to Zogaj, the political scene needs to see a new system in which coalitions are formed on the basis of ideology.

“Over the years, almost all the political parties, except Vetevendosje, have been in government coalitions. This has created a sense of complicity,” he concluded.

In a new article, World Obesity Federation experts consider the argument for obesity as a chronic relapsing disease process. They note that obesity fits the epidemiological model of a disease process except that the toxic or pathological agent is food rather than a microbe.

The question of whether obesity should be called a ‘disease’ has sparked controversy for most of the last century. In their Obesity Reviews position statement, Dr. George Bray and his colleagues examine how an abundance of food, low physical activity, and several other environmental factors interact with genetic susceptibility.

They draw parallels to chronic diseases, noting that the magnitude of obesity and its adverse effects in individuals may relate to the virulence or toxicity of the environment and its interaction with the host.

“Accepting the concept that obesity is a chronic disease process is important for several reasons,” said Dr. Bray. “First, it removes the feeling that patients alone are responsible for their excess weight. It also focuses attention on the ways in which this disease process can be tackled. And finally, it shows that if we can successfully treat obesity, many of its associated diseases will be eliminated.”

In an accompanying letter to the editor, experts agree that declaring obesity to be a disease could benefit those people who are suffering with obesity and wish to have access to medical advice and support, “whilst also strengthening the call for dealing with the social determinants, obesogenic environments and systemic causes of individual weight gain.”

They also note that recognizing obesity as a disease may reduce individuals’ internalized stigma, change the public discourse about blame for the condition, and have benefits in countries where health service costs are funded from insurance schemes that limit payments for non-disease conditions or risk factors.

Edmonton International Airport in Canada will become the first airport in the world to use on a daily basis the Robird, a lifelike robotic bird that will scare real birds away from the airport, starting at the end of May.

The Robird is produced by Clear Flight Solutions (CFS), a University of Twente (The Netherlands) spinoff company.

Edmonton International Airport (EIA) will be the first ever airport in the world to integrate a full suite of unmanned aerial system services into their daily airport operations. Starting in the second quarter of 2017, Clear Flight Solutions  and AERIUM Analytics will focus on safely integrating UAS technology at the Edmonton airport. The primary focus will be on enhancing EIA’s Wildlife Management Plan while supporting continued growth of the Edmonton Metro Region’s aerotropolis.

The Wildlife Management Plan will integrate CFS’s Robird™ technology to guide birds safely away from air traffic, while discouraging nesting near airside operations and glide paths. The Robird has been proven around the globe to be an effective, ecologically-friendly method of bird control. The high-tech Robird mimics the flight of an actual falcon in realistic fashion, making its flight behavior so indistinguishable from its natural counterpart that other birds believe that their natural enemy is present in the area.

“This is truly a historic moment for our company but especially for the entire aviation industry,” said Nico Nijenhuis, CEO of Clear Flight Solutions. “We currently operate our Robirds in a variety of places, but taking the step towards full integration within daily operations at an airport is huge. For years, there has been a lot of interest from airports. To now officially start integrating our operations at a major Canadian airport is absolutely fantastic.”

“Front runner in innovation”

As part of the integrated suite of services, CFS AERIUM will be providing UAS mapping and inspections services to support EIA’s maintenance programs and future economic development efforts. These operations will continue from the flight missions that have been diligently conducted prior to this release.

The missions were completed to satisfy Safety and Hazard Identification Risk Assessments requirements in addition to demonstrating competency. UAS missions have been conducted under tight supervision within 400m of active runways. CFS AERIUM will continue working awards full integration into airside operations in a professional, safe, and effective manner.

“The Robird was the missing link in our integrated service model,” said Jordan Cicoria of AERIUM. “Our relationship with Clear Flight Solutions has created an opportunity to have a positive ecologically-friendly impact on local industries at and surrounding the airport. In a world so focused on innovation Edmonton International Airport is an industry front runner and we are proud to have a partnership with Clear Flight Solutions that allows us to actually translate innovation into value,” said Tim Bibby of AERIUM.

The speed at which sign language users understand what others are ‘saying’ to them depends on whether the conversation partners are left- or right-handed, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham worked with British Sign Language (BSL) signers to see how differences in sign production affect sign comprehension. In BSL a signer’s dominant hand produces all one-handed signs and ‘leads’ when producing two-handed signs.

They discovered that in general right- and left-handed signers respond faster when they were watching a right-handed signer.

However, left-handed signers responded more quickly to complex two-handed signs made by signers who ‘led’ with their left hand. Similarly, right-handed signers reacted more swiftly to two-handed signs from fellow right-handers.

PhD student Freya Watkins and Dr. Robin Thompson published their research in the journal Cognition (April 2017).

Dr Robin Thompson commented: “Had all signers performed better to right-handed input, it would suggest that how signers produce their own signs is not important for understanding. This is because right-handed signers are most common and signers are most used to seeing right-handed signs.

“However, as left-handed signers are better at understanding fellow left-handers for two-handed signs, the findings suggest that how people produce their own signs plays a part in how quickly they can understand others’ signing.”

Forty-three Deaf fluent BSL signers took part in the experiment, which had both right and left-handed participants make judgements about signs produced by left or right-handed sign models.

Participants were shown a picture followed by the sign for common words such as ‘chocolate’, ‘guitar’ and ‘desk’, and then were asked to decide if the picture and sign matched. The question was whether or not handedness during sign production would influence sign comprehension.

The results are in line with a weak version of the motor theory of speech perception – that people perceive spoken words in part by checking in with their own production system, but only when comprehension becomes difficult, for example in a noisy environment.

(RFE/RL) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned against any attempts to disrupt the May 19 presidential election.

In a May 10 speech, Khamenei said that those disrupting Iran’s national security “will be given a strong slap.””

The Iranian leader said that if Iranians participate in the vote while observing “legal and Islamic parameters” then the election will be “a source of honor for the Islamic republic.”

Khamenei, who has the last say in all state matters in Iran, added, “But if they break the law, operate in an immoral way, or speak in a way that will encourage enemies, then the elections can be seen as a loss.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rohani, who is seeking a second term, is facing two main conservative rivals, including hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is said to have Khamenei’s support.

A warming climate could affect the stability of alpine grasslands in Asia’s Tibetan Plateau, threatening the ability of farmers and herders to maintain the animals that are key to their existence, and potentially upsetting the ecology of an area in which important regional river systems originate, says a new study by researchers in China and the United States.

Though temperature changes could destabilize the fragile ecosystem of the area, variations in rainfall appear to have no similar effect. The study involved varying two factors likely to change with a warming climate – temperature and rainfall – in test plots over a five-year period. The project is believed to be the first to simultaneously examine the effects of temperature and rainfall changes on ecosystem stability.

“We were concerned about the variability of the total community plant cover over time,” said Lin Jiang, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences. “Significant warming could reduce the stability of the grasslands, which would increase the variability of plant biomass production that could be a significant issue for people living in the region. We believe the effects of climate change could be particularly dramatic in this area.”

The research, conducted by scientists from Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Georgia Institute of Technology, was scheduled to be published May 10 in the journal Nature Communications. The research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China, the National Nature Science Foundation of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The Tibetan Plateau is an area of about 2.5 million square kilometers in which summertime high temperatures seldom rise above 25 degrees Celsius and nighttime temperatures could drop below freezing even in the summer. Because of the altitude, temperature extremes and high winds, more than two-thirds of the Plateau is grassland used for grazing yak, sheep and other animals. About 9.8 million people live in the area, which is also the source for several of Asia’s major river systems.

“Our results suggest that under a warmer climate, the ecosystem would provide less forage production in drought years, and more biomass production in wet years – which is undesirable,” said Jin-Sheng He, a professor in the Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University. “Reduced plant production temporal stability could mean that this alpine ecosystem may not be able to provide stable forage for the livestock that local people rely on. Reduced stability may also have consequences for other ecosystem services, such as climate regulation and water conservation.”

The researchers found that the stability of the grasslands was affected not by the richness of plant species, but by the effects on dominant species and the asynchrony of the species.

“We found that climate warming lowers stability through increasing species synchrony in which the biomass of a few dominant species increased while that of most rare species declined,” said He. “That indicates the alpine grasslands that have well adapted to cold environments owing to their long-term evolutionary history may be jeopardized in the future.”

Experimentally, the researchers created test plots in which some were heated to two degrees Celsius above the surrounding grasslands. At the same time, the researchers varied the amount of rainfall onto the plots, with some sections receiving 50 percent more water, and others receiving 50 percent less. There were also control sections in which temperature and rainfall were not adjusted. Each of the six conditions were replicated six times, for a total of 36 test plots.

Over a period of five years, the researchers studied the growth of different grass species by weighing the biomass production from the different test plots. The research was done at the Haibei Alpine Grassland Ecosystem Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Jiang was surprised that the dramatic variations in rainfall didn’t affect the grass species, and hadn’t expected much impact from the temperature change, which translates to about 3.6 degree Fahrenheit. “The plants appear to be able to tolerate significant variations in the amount of water available,” he said.

While the Tibetan Plateau is unique for its size and high average altitude, there are other areas of the world with similar conditions. “If these findings can be generalized to other alpine ecosystems, we may need to be concerned about large variations in biomass production in these other areas, as well,” Jiang added.

The study adds to knowledge about the Tibetan plateau, which has not been well studied because of its geographical isolation and harsh climate.

“The Tibetan plateau is sometimes called the third pole because there are so many high mountains and so much of the area is covered with snow and ice,” said Jiang. “Ecologically, it is a very important region, but relatively few ecological studies have ever been done there.”