Scientists said that the Rising Star Cave system has revealed yet more important discoveries, only a year and a half after it was announced that the richest fossil hominin site in Africa had been discovered, and that it contained a new hominin species named Homo naledi by the scientists who described it.

The age of the original Homo naledi remains from the Dinaledi Chamber has been revealed to be startlingly young in age. Homo naledi, which was first announced in September 2015, was alive sometime between 335 and 236 thousand years ago. This places this population of primitive small-brained hominins at a time and place that it is likely they lived alongside Homo sapiens. This is the first time that it has been demonstrated that another species of hominin survived alongside the first humans in Africa.

The research, published in three papers in the journal eLife, presents the long-awaited age of the naledi fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber and announces the new discovery of a second chamber in the Rising Star cave system, containing additional specimens of Homo naledi. These include a child and a partial skeleton of an adult male with a remarkably well-preserved skull.

The new discovery and research was done by a large team of researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), James Cook University, Australia, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States, and more than 30 additional international institutions have today announced two major discoveries related to the fossil hominin species Homo naledi.

The team was led by Professor Lee Berger of The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a National Geographic Explorer in Residence. The discovery of the second chamber with abundant Homo naledi fossils includes one of the most complete skeletons of a hominin ever discovered, as well as the remains of at least one child and another adult. The discovery of a second chamber has led the team to argue that there is more support for the controversial hypothesis that Homo naledi deliberately disposed of its dead in these remote, hard to reach caverns. 1The dating of Homo naledi is the conclusion of the multi-authored paper entitled: The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa, led by Professor Paul Dirks of James Cook University and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

The naledi date is surprisingly recent. The fossil remains have primitive features that are shared with some of the earliest known fossil members of our genus, such as Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis, species that lived nearly two million years ago. On the other hand, however, it also shares some features with modern humans. After the description of the new species in 2015, experts had predicted that the fossils should be around the age of these other primitive species. Instead, the fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber are barely more than one-tenth that age.

“The dating of naledi was extremely challenging,” noted Dirks, who worked with 19 other scientists from laboratories and institutions around the world, including labs in South Africa and Australia, to establish the age of the fossils. “Eventually, six independent dating methods allowed us to constrain the age of this population of Homo naledi to a period known as the late Middle Pleistocene.”

The age for this population of hominins shows that Homo naledi may have survived for as long as two million years alongside other species of hominins in Africa. At such a young age, in a period known as the late Middle Pleistocene, it was previously thought that only Homo sapiens (modern humans) existed in Africa. More critically, it is at precisely this time that we see the rise of what has been called “modern human behaviour” in southern Africa – behaviour attributed, until now, to the rise of modern humans and thought to represent the origins of complex modern human activities such as burial of the dead, self-adornment and complex tools.

The dating game

The team used a combination of optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments with Uranium-Thorium dating and palaeomagnetic analyses of flowstones to establish how the sediments relate to the geological timescale in the Dinaledi Chamber.

Direct dating of the teeth of Homo naledi, using Uranium series dating (U-series) and electron spin resonance dating (ESR), provided the final age range. “We used double blinds wherever possible,” says Professor Jan Kramers of the University of Johannesburg, a uranium dating specialist. Dr. Hannah Hilbert-Wolf, a geologist from James Cook University who also worked on the Dinaledi Chamber, noted that it was crucial to figure out how the sediments within the Dinaledi Chamber are layered, in order to build a framework for understanding all of the dates obtained.

“Of course we were surprised at the young age, but as we realised that all the geological formations in the chamber were young, the U-series and ESR results were perhaps less of a surprise in the end,” added Professor Eric Roberts, from James Cook University and Wits, who is one of the few geologists to have ever entered the Dinaledi Chamber, due to the tight 18cm-wide constraints of the entrance chute.

Dr. Marina Elliott, Exploration Scientist at Wits and one of the original “underground astronauts” on the 2013 Rising Star Expedition, says she had always felt that the naledi fossils were ‘young’. “I’ve excavated hundreds of the bones of Homo naledi, and from the first one I touched, I realised that there was something different about the preservation, that they appeared hardly fossilised.”

Homo naledi’s significant impact

In an accompanying paper, led by Berger, entitled Homo naledi and Pleistocene hominin evolution in subequatorial Africa, the team discuss the importance of finding such a primitive species at such a time and place. They noted that the discovery will have a significant impact on our interpretation of archaeological assemblages and understanding which species made them.

“We can no longer assume that we know which species made which tools, or even assume that it was modern humans that were the innovators of some of these critical technological and behavioural breakthroughs in the archaeological record of Africa,” says Berger. “If there is one other species out there that shared the world with ‘modern humans’ in Africa, it is very likely there are others. We just need to find them.”

John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wits University, an author on all three papers, says: “I think some scientists assumed they knew how human evolution happened, but these new fossil discoveries, plus what we know from genetics, tell us that the southern half of Africa was home to a diversity that we’ve never seen anywhere else”.

“Recently, the fossil hominin record has been full of surprises, and the age of Homo naledi is not going to be the last surprise that comes out of these caves I suspect,” adds Berger.

A new chamber and skeleton

In a third paper published at the same time in eLife, entitled New fossil remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa, the team announces the discovery of a second chamber, within the Rising Star cave system, which contains more remains of Homo naledi.

“The chamber, which we have named the Lesedi Chamber, is more than a hundred meters from the Dinaledi Chamber. It is almost as difficult to access, and also contains spectacular fossils of naledi, including a partial skeleton with a wonderfully complete skull,” says Hawks, lead author on the paper describing the new discovery. Fossil remains were first recognised in the chamber by Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker in 2013, as fieldwork was underway in the Dinaledi Chamber.

The name “Lesedi” means “light” in the Setswana language. Excavations in the Lesedi Chamber began later, and would take nearly three years.

No easy access

“To access the Lesedi Chamber is only slightly easier than the Dinaledi Chamber,” says Elliott, who was lead excavator of the fossils from the new locality. “After passing through a squeeze of about 25cm, you have to descend along vertical shafts before reaching the chamber. While slightly easier to get to, the Lesedi Chamber is, if anything, more difficult to work in due to the tight spaces involved.”

Hawks points out that while the Lesedi Chamber is “easier” to get into than the Dinaledi Chamber, the term is relative. “I have never been inside either of the chambers, and never will be. In fact, I watched Lee Berger being stuck for almost an hour, trying to get out of the narrow underground squeeze of the Lesedi Chamber.” Berger eventually had to be extracted using ropes tied to his wrists.

The presence of a second chamber, distant from the first, containing multiple individuals of Homo naledi and almost as difficult to reach as the Dinaledi Chamber, gives an idea of the extraordinary effort it took for Homo naledi to reach these hard-to-get-to places, says Hilbert-Wolf.

“This likely adds weight to the hypothesis that Homo naledi was using dark, remote places to cache its dead,” says Hawks. “What are the odds of a second, almost identical occurrence happening by chance?”

So far, the scientists have uncovered more than 130 hominin specimens from the Lesedi Chamber. The bones belong to at least three individuals, but Elliot believes that there are more fossils yet to be discovered. Among the individuals are the skeletal remains of two adults and at least one child. The child is represented by bones of the head and body and would likely have been under five years of age. Of the two adults, one is represented by only a jaw and leg elements, but the other is represented by a partial skeleton, including a mostly complete skull.

Meeting naledi

The team describes the skull of the skeleton as “spectacularly complete”. “We finally get a look at the face of Homo naledi,” said Peter Schmid of Wits and the University of Zurich, who spent hundreds of hours painstakingly reconstructing the fragile bones to complete the reconstruction.

The skeleton was nicknamed “Neo” by the team, chosen for the Sesotho word meaning “a gift”. “The skeleton of Neo is one the most complete ever discovered, and technically even more complete than the famous Lucy fossil, given the preservation of the skull and mandible,” said Berger.

The specimens from the Lesedi Chamber are nearly identical in every way to those from the Dinaledi Chamber, a remarkable finding in and of itself. “There is no doubt that they belong to the same species,” said Hawks. The Lesedi Chamber fossils have not been dated yet, as dating would require destruction of some of the hominin material. “Once described, we will look at the way forward for establishing the age of these particular fossils,” said Dirks. Elliot added, however, that as the preservation and condition of the finds are practically identical to that of the naledi specimens from the Dinaledi Chamber the team hypothesizes that their age will fall roughly within the same time period.

Berger believes that with thousands of fossils likely remaining in both the Lesedi and Dinaledi Chambers, there are decades of research potential. “We are going to treat ongoing extraction of material from both of these chambers with extreme care and thoughtfulness and with the full knowledge that we need to conserve material for future generations of scientists, and future technological innovations,” he said.

52 scientists from 35 departments and Institutions were involved in the research.

Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Adam Habib said: “The search for human origins on the continent of Africa began at Wits and it is wonderful to see this legacy continue with such important discoveries”

“The National Geographic Society has a long history of investing in bold people and transformative ideas,” said Gary E. Knell, president and CEO of the National Geographic Society, a funder of the expeditions that recovered the fossils and established their age. “The continued discoveries from Lee Berger and his colleagues showcase why it is critical to support the study of our human origins and other pressing scientific questions.”

Public display

The original fossils of these new discoveries, as well as those from the original Rising Star Expedition will be put on public display at the Maropeng, the Official Visitors Centre for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site from May 25th. This exhibit of the largest display of original fossil hominin material in history forms part of an exhibition called “Almost Human”.

The exhibition will be housed in ‘The Gallery’. This state-of-the-art exhibition space was built as part of the Gauteng Infrastructure Upgrade Project. This is the second completed construction, the first being the upgrade to the Hominin House facilities at Maropeng.

Maropeng is getting ready to receive thousands of visitors wanting to the see the exhibition and the new fossils. In 2015, when Homo naledi was first put on display, some 3 500 visitors per day made their way to Maropeng. “It was an extraordinary thing to experience,” said Michael Worsnip, Managing Director of Maropeng. “It was something like a pilgrimage – a wonderful celebration of our heritage as a country, a continent and a planet.”

(Civil.Ge) — Georgian border guards denied entry to members of a controversial pro-Kremlin biker group, who reportedly intended to attend the May 9 ceremony in Tbilisi, marking the 72nd anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe.

“We have stated it clearly that we would not have allowed the organized groups of the so called Night Wolves in Georgia. The border officers repeatedly denied entry to [several] organized groups of the Night Wolves. As a result of the work of the Interior Ministry, the Night Wolves group failed to conduct the [planned] large-scale performance in Tbilisi,” the Ministry told Civil.ge on May 9.

“We will not welcome the future visits of these groups in Georgia,” the statement also said.

The Ministry, however, added that from two to three bikers “who had no signs of [belonging to] the Night Wolves group” managed to enter Georgia as tourists. The Ministry was, most probably, referring to the bikers who appeared in Vake Park in Tbilisi on May 9, where the memorial of the Unknown Soldier is located and where every year Georgian WWII veterans gather to commemorate the WWII anniversary.

The “Night Wolves” are widely known for staging events and activities in support of the Kremlin’s policies, including those beyond the Russian border.

“The Russian-Georgian Youth Union,” a pro-Kremlin group in Georgia said on April 27 that they were closely working with the “Night Wolves” to celebrate the May 9 – Georgian public holiday marking the end of World War II in Europe – in Tbilisi. The organization also said they were expecting the “Night Wolves” President Alexander Zaldostanov to be among the visitors.

The news sparked outcry in the local public; many citizens expressed protest on Facebook and petition websites, with demands that the government prohibit entry of the “Night Wolves” to the country.

The Georgian Interior Ministry produced a gradually evolving response to the situation.

On April 28, Deputy Interior Minister Shalva Khutsishvili said that the issue of the “Night Wolves” planned visit would be studied by the Ministry’s special commission which would define whether the events planned by the biker club in Georgia went against the country’s interests.

Later, Khutsishvili told IPN news agency that the Ministry considered the “Night Wolves”visit to Georgia on 9 May as “undesirable.” The Deputy Minister said that the events planned by the biker club in Georgia were “unacceptable for a large part of [the Georgian] society,” and did not “correspond to the spirit of the May 9 celebrations.”

On May 2, several Russian motorcyclists reported being denied entry into Georgia at the Russian-Georgian border, saying that about 50 other people they knew about encountered the same problem. The bikers said they believed they will not be able to enter Georgia until after May 9, and noted that the entry denials automatically applied to all motorcycle riders.

Answering the journalists’ query on the matter on May 3, Georgian Interior Minister Giorgi Mghebrishvili replied: “don’t worry, they are not coming.”

On May 2, the ‘Night Wolves’ press secretary Anna Komarova said that the club might not go to Georgia after all. According to Komarova, Alexander Zaldostanov wanted to go to Georgia, but promised a visit to the so called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ leader Alexander Zakharchenko, and also needed to be in Saint Petersburg on May 6.

It’s always important from the standpoint of peace that America and Russia, two major nuclear powers, continue to practice diplomacy.

The 20th century, with hundreds of millions dead as a result of government wars, provides us all with valuable lessons on the importance of diplomacy.

Below, I discuss the recent meeting with Trump and Lavrov, the accusations of Russia interference with our election, the Comey firing, and the safe zones that that are being set up in Syria:

Reprinted with permission from RonPaulLibertyReport.com.

By Tho Bishop*

South Korea has a new president: Moon Jae-in. Moon’s election is a major win for the Korean liberal party, who had been out of power for a decade.

While Moon was likely helped by the corruption scandal that brought down former president Park Geun-hye, the darkest shadow had to be the growing tensions between the US and North Korea. From that perspective, Moon’s election is a strong rebuke against the US status quo.

Lost in all the news last week regarding the House’s vote on replacing Obamacare was the near-unanimous vote to increase US sanctions on North Korea. This was simply the latest in a serious of moves by Washington to escalate a showdown with the unpredictable “hermit kingdom.” The Trump administration is also looking for other nations to follow suit. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said America’s aim is to “to fully implement the United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding sanctions, because no one has ever fully implemented those.”

While China has taken steps of its own to pressure the North Korean regime, Washington and Beijing differ in their aims. While Tillerson has suggested the US seeks North Korea to abandon its arsenal, a request that would likely require the removal of the Kim regime, China desires de-escalation. Moon has made it clear he favors the latter approach, viewing sanctions as a means “to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table.”

Moon and Trump will also have a key disagreement on the THAAD missile-defense system. While the US had the agreement of the prior government to install the weapons system, the program has been highly controversial — even before Trump suggested South Korea may have to pay for it.

Not only has China raised concerns about the scope of THAAD’s radar into their own country, but it was so unpopular that it was even opposed by Ahn Cheol-soo, Moon’s conservative opponent. The missile system becoming partially operational sparked protests throughout South Korea from those worried about war with the North. Protest signs throughout the country have carried messages like “Hey, U.S.! Are you friends or occupying troops?”

The concern of South Korea becoming a puppet to Washington was undoubtedly an asset to Moon. While it is easy for Americans to sabre-rattle for war with North Korea from the safety of half the world away, it is South Koreans who are the most in danger. As Moon noted in an interview with Time:

If the U.S. makes a preemptive strike against the North, there is a chance of the North striking back against the South. If that happens, South Korea will suffer, not the U.S. But that will also cause damage to U.S. troops based in South Korea and to many American citizens living in South Korea.

Of course, as South Korea’s new leader, Moon’s influence will extend far beyond tensions with North Korea. In that respect, Moon’s rhetoric would fit right in with the Washington established.

Moon championed an economic platform that called for fiscal stimulus of over $8 billion, wants to create over 800,000 public sector jobs, and seeks to expanded social benefits. Meanwhile he remains conveniently vague about how he plans to pay for it, simply saying he’ll increase taxes on “the rich.” In spite of high unemployment rates among young South Koreans, he’s vowed to raise the nation’s minimum wage.

As Steve Kim, a member of Students for Liberty South Korea, notes:

He is just a typical Keynesian who believes in multiplier effect. Bad for Korea.

As such, while it is clear that Moon Jae-in’s election is a defeat for America, it could end up being one for the South Korean people as well.

About the author:
*Tho Bishop directs the Mises Institute’s social media marketing (e.g., twitter, facebook, instagram), and can assist with questions from the press.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

In the last year or so, many countries, either within coalitions, or on a solitary basis have been striking at ISIS where it is supposed to be based. An American strike, even, blasted their money hideout and apparently starved them of the much-needed cash for their world operations.

But, the truth of the matter is that the more you hit ISIS, the stronger it becomes and the more lethal and dangerous it gets. So, what is the secret of its strength that world security forces and world intelligence community are unable to understand, up to now?

First and foremost, it must be said that ISIS is a religious school of thought that preaches the return to the glorious past of Islam: the unified religious “commandership of the faithful” imarat al mu’minin that is itself the foundation of the concept of ummah “nation of Islam,” stretching around the globe among all Muslims irrespective of their color, culture or creed.

The dismemberment of the ummah into countries is, according to the traditionalists, a ploy used by the enemies of Islam to weaken its resolve.

A proof of that is that when Islam was represented by the Caliphate system of government, it ruled the world from Spain to China, between the 8th and the 16th century: the Golden Age.

For ISIS, the West is responsible for the demise of Islam, since the fall of Grenada in 1492. After the Reconquista, the European nations became more aggressive vis-à-vis Muslim countries: Spain and Portugal attacked the Maghreb to deter any future design on its part to re-conquer the Iberian Peninsula and reestablish the lost al-andalus.

However, the question that comes to mind right away is: what is the difference between ISIS and al-Qaeda, both nebulous violent organizations bearing in mind that ISIS has a fixed address, the proto-state of ISIL whereas al-Qaeda is to be found everywhere and nowhere?

Al-Qaeda, from the word go wanted to rid the Muslim world from the corrupting influence of the “Crusaders” salibiyun i.e. the Christian West, and, then, set up the unifying system of governance: Caliphate khilafa that will bring the whole Muslim world under the banner of Islam or rather al-Qaeda.

As for ISIS, it founded the Caliphate from the start, called all Muslims to show allegiance to the self-declared Caliph al-Baghdadi and set about to fight the West afterwards, with the ultimate goal to unify Muslims. This is argued quite clearly by Bruce Hoffman:i

“Their dispute, however, seems to be predicated mostly on timing and process. In a nutshell, Zawahiri still argues that the far enemy has to be eliminated and Muslim lands completely cleansed of Western and other corrupt local influences before the caliphate can be established. Baghdadi, as the events of June 2014 showed, saw no reason to wait and instead took the offensive by attacking near enemies both in Syria and Iraq and declaring himself caliph.”

The West Continuous Drive To Emasculate Islam

Islam, since its inception, was always seen in a bad light by the Christian world that aimed incessantly to annihilate its faith and civilization through seemingly different blows of great intensity and dire consequences and multiple plots.

The West’s emasculation of the Muslim world has manifested itself through history in the following aspects, according to traditionalists:

1: The Crusades

The Muslims consider that the Christian world rather than been thankful to the Muslim world for bringing civilization to Europe through the conquest of Spain in 711.

A Andalusian civilization that gave birth to such great thinkers as Averroes (1126-1198) and Maimonides (1135-1204), etc. and was the precursor of the European Renaissance (14th-17th) which is the bridge between the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, the Christian Europe launched humiliating crusades from 1096 to 1487, sanctioned by various Popes. For some thinkers like the two brothers, former Muslims converted to Christianity, Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, the Crusades are a form of “Christian Jihad”.ii

On the other hand, many historians today see the Crusades as the Christian religious sanctification of Western mercantilism and dispossession by the means of violence:iii

“Historians have viewed the Crusades as a mixture of benefits and horrors. Onone hand, there was a new knowledge of the East and the possibilities of trade to be found there, not to mention the spread of Christianity. On the other hand, Christianity was spread in a violent, militaristic manner, and the result was that new areas of possible trade turned into new areas of conquest and bloodshed. A number of non-Christians lost their lives to Christian armies in this era, and this trend would continue in the inquisitions of the coming centuries.”

Saladin, the great Muslim leader (1138-1193) turned against the Crusaders, decisively defeating them at the battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187. The victory at Hattin was followed by the easy re-conquest of various Crusader’s lands and towns, above all the holy city of Jerusalem, which had been in Christian hands for 88 years. Saladin waited to take possession of the city until October 2, 1187, because the date corresponded with the anniversary of the Prophet’s miraculous ascension to heaven, according to the Muslim calendar.

In contrast to the Crusaders’ bloodbath when they had taken Jerusalem, Saladin acted with great magnanimity towards the Christian and Jewish residents. He forced the Franks to retreat to the coast of Syria and Palestine. In 1192 he signed a truce with Richard the Lionhearted. A recent Western movie entitled the “Kingdom of Heaven,” recognized his magnanimity and paid tribute to his qualities of tolerance and acceptance of the other.iv

2: Colonialism

For the Muslims, the West has, since the end of the Islamic Golden Age (8th-16th), been at work trying to diminish the Islamic civilization, to lead the world. Probably, the best illustration of that is the Scramble for Africav (1880-1914) known also as New Imperialism, which was the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers.

Muslim Sub-Saharan Africa was literally emasculated: missionaries converted the population to Christianity by financial persuasion or sheer force, colonial powers destroyed Koranic schools, outlawed Arabic language and the use of Ajamivi scriptvii and tried to curtail the Islamic faith by putting constraints on the religious Sufi lodges of the Tidjanes.viii

3: Dissolution Of The Ottoman Caliphate

The second manifestation of the enmity of the West towards Islam was during WWI (1914-1918), when the Allied Forces, after winning the war against the Central Powers of which the Ottoman Empire was part, decided to liquidate this Islamic empire which was, indeed, the last Caliphate. For The Muslims, the fall of this empire is attributed to the greed of the West to control the world, but in reality the problems of this empire began back in the 19th century.ix

Indeed, the period of defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era (1908-1920) with the Young Turk Revolution. The Allies dictated the terms of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire with the Treaty of Sèvres (August 10, 1920), which was supposed to be the treaty of peace between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire, but in reality it was the “surrender” of the Ottomans. Soon after, in October 29, 1922 Kamal Attaturk, a Turkish officer proclaimed The Turkish Republic, modern and Secular putting an end, with the blessing of the West, to the Caliphate.

4: The Loss Of Palestine

On November 2, 1917, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote a letter to Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, promising to set up a homeland for the Jews in Palestine, it became known as the Balfour Declaration:x

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Since then, Britain and the Western countries have been nurturing, supporting and arming the Jewish state in its continuous aggression against the Palestinian rights and the Arab World. In 1948, the United Nations partitioned Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states. The same year Israel declared its “independence” and has been, since, denying the Palestinians an independent state of their own on the grounds that such a state will represent a threat to the former’s existence.

However, since, Israel emboldened by American and European support has waged, on a regular basis, wars on many Middle Eastern countries and in the last two decades on Hamas in Gaza.

For several decades, the Palestinians have been suffering either in the strip of Gaza or the West Bank, that are no more than open sky prisons, or in the various countries where they live as expatriates, and the Western world has been unable or unwilling to solve, once for all, their predicament.

For many Muslims, the US and Europe are hypocritical when it comes to solving the Palestinian conflict, they continue to bolster Israel’s aggressive military potential while making empty promises to the Palestinians, who continue to suffer under inhuman conditions. So, Palestinians not only do not have the right for self-determination, but are not allowed, either, to acquire the means to combat for their independence. The only thing they are allowed is to wait and suffer interminably in open sky territorial prisons.

For Muslims, this negative attitude towards the conflict is meant to keep the Muslim world weak and on its knees. Israel is an implant or rather an aircraft carrier meant to serve the purpose of the West in the region: control the source of oil and its flow routes.

5: The Gulf Wars

Many Muslims believe that the United States and the West provoked the First Gulf War to topple Saddam and destroy Iraq, which was a permanent threat to Israel’s existence and, also, a threat to America and its friends and interests in the region. Apparently, the American Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, ensnared megalomaniac Saddam to invade Kuwait, by making the following statement, reported by The New York Times:xi

“But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 1960s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi (Chedli Klibi, Secretary General of the Arab League) or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly.”

Such a statement was taken on its face value by the Iraqi leadership as an “invitation” to deal with Kuwait as they see it fit. Having always considered Kuwait as part of Iraq and lured by its wealth and riches, Saddam gave the order to his army for the ill-fated invasion that will herald the beginning of his end.

Though most Muslims do not agree with his secular drive, yet they consider him as a “hero” of the Islamic cause on the grounds that his overall aim was to unite the Arab world and sow the seed for the much-desired “ummah” that will later be extended to the rest of the Muslim world. However, the “planned” downfall of Saddam led to the disintegration of the Arab world into ethnic entities, a dream nurtured, for a long time, by the arch enemy of Islam, Israel.

6: Support To Pro-American Undemocratic And Patriarchal Regimes

For Muslims, America has always been a major player, since independence, in the politics of the region, a true kingmaker. America nurtured many lackey governments that defended its economic interests and political stakes in the region at the expense of the under-privileged in the area. As such, the poor in non-oil-rich countries got poorer and the rich richer.

Most of these regimes being tribal and patriarchal encouraged corruption, nepotism and embezzlement to stay in power and also co-opted their critics and opposers and created a political system made of parties and politicians in their pay. So, people either had to stoop and play the game or face death and imprisonment.

Reactive behavior Of Muslims

Islamic revival (saHwa islamiyya):

The Iranian revolution of 1979 brought a new potent player in the MENA region: Islam, the very same player that was marginalized after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.

To fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, during their ill-fated campaign of 1979-1989, the Americans not willing to commit their own troops, especially after their defeat in Vietnam, resorted to making use of the potent concept of Jihad. As such, they encouraged thousands of Muslim youth to come fight the atheist Soviets. The Pakistanis coached them and trained them and the Americans armed them and provided the necessary logistics. The Soviets were defeated and their defeat was to be the beginning of the end of the USSR and consequently the Cold War (1947 – 1991).

At the end of the war, the Pakistanis and the Americans, feeling encumbered by the presence of the Jihadists decided to round them up and send them home, not realizing the danger they would pose to their governments given their ideological conditioning and their military expertise. Indeed, once home many started creating security problems to their governments and nurturing local terrorism.

Those who evaded repatriation from Pakistan gathered around Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi billionaire, and founded al-Qaeda, which was adopted and supported by the Taliban, the new radical rulers of Afghanistan.

The Islamic revival movement, saHwa islamiyya, that started in the 1980s and which believed that the answer to all the ailments of the Muslim ummah is re-Islamization, splintered in two concomitant movements:

A da’wa movement:

This movement was spearheaded by oil-rich Saudi-Arabia in the early 1980s. It aimed exclusively to allow this country to lead the Muslim world especially at a time when the Shia revolutionary Islamic Republic Iran was rising to power. To achieve leadership, the Saudi establishment financed generously predication associations and organizations located both home and in Muslim countries with one sole objective: to spread wahabismxii xiii and counter Shia influence. This movement progressively led to the “orientalization” shrqanat of swaths of Muslim communitiesxiv and the resurrection of radical Islam, either in the form of verbally-violent salafism or physically-violent jihadim. Both movements made use of modern technologies of information and communication to put pressure on society and convert people to their cause. As such, hundreds of predication television channels mushroomed in the Gulf States, broadcasting Koran chanting sessions, as well as, endless hours of predication by star predicators like the Egyptian Amr Khaled, who has hundred of videos on YouTube and his own website.xv Encyclopædia Britannicaxvi introduced this Muslim televangelist in the following terms:

“Khaled’s attire was far from that of a typical Muslim preacher. Whereas his counterparts wore flowing robes and long beards, he was garbed in tailored suits and sported a moustache. His flamboyant presentations, in person and on television, were peppered with humour or occasional outbursts of tears. Nevertheless, he was first and foremost a traditionalist, telling young Muslim women that removing their headscarves was “the biggest sin.””

The New York Times Magazine, in reference to Khaled’s popularity in the Arab countries, described him in its April 30, 2006 issue as “the world’s most famous and influential Muslim television preacher.” Amr Khaled has, also, recently been chosen as one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time Magazine.xvii

A Jihadi movement:

As stated earlier in this work, the violent and uncompromising Jihadi movement started in Afghanistan after the ill-fated invasion of this country in 1979 by the Soviets, with the inception of al-Qaeda by the rich Saudi Bin Laden. The first violent action of this infamous Jihadi organization was the assassination of Commander Ahmed Shah Massud.

On September 9, 2001, two days before the cataclysmic attacks on New York (the World Trade Center) and Washington DC (Pentagon), known in the Jihadi literatue as ghazwat New York “the conquest battle of New York.” He was the commander of the United Front guerrilla opposition to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and was assassinated in the Afghan town of Khvajeh Baha Od Din by two Arab men posing as journalists. Following the horrible and murderous events of 9/11 of the US, al-Qaeda, in spite of the worldwide coalition to eradicate it, conducted violent actions around the globe through dormant cells or just local sympathizers, proving that the West was scoring low in the Muslim world.

However, following the Arab Spring events, another more violent and uncompromising Jihadi movement rose to infamy in the Levant, ISIS by taking control of swaths of territories in Iraq and Syria and promoting and promising the re-establishment of the Caliphate as sine qua non condition for the regaining of past Muslim glory and might.

Unlike, al-Qaeda, ISIS used the whole repertoire of horrible violent acts to terrorize enemies whether Muslim or other: rape, sexual assault, sexual slavery, beheading, public slaughtering, dismembering, and burning of captives. For ISIS, all people that did not espouse its ideals were enemies to be annihilated.

Christians were even more loathsome and despicable enemies because they are behind the downfall of the Islamic civilization and the emasculation of its people since the end of the 15th century.

Rejection Of Patriarchy And Tribalism: Arab Spring

After the independence of most Muslim countries during the 20th century, hopes run high among the population that democracy will settle in and bring prosperity, but with time this proved to be but a wishful thinking. The reigning oligarchies, whether of monarchial or military origin, resorted to time-old tribal practices to rule and stay in power, such as:

• Nepotism;
• Blood alliance;
• Corruption;
• Co-optation;
• Tribal tyranny;
• Respect of seniority;
• Use of state violence;
• Emasculation of the population, etc.

To stay in power and gain some sort of legitimacy, the “tribal” leaders cultivated, through their parties and the state-run propaganda machinery, as well, a cult personality that gave them fake legitimacy to eliminate the opposition and continue to dilapidate public funds. They bestowed upon themselves the powerful title of za’im, which has no equivalent in the English language in terms of its strength “benevolent and powerful leader.” Thus, Gamal Abdenasser, Saddam, Assad, Ali Saleh, Gaddafi, etc. who were indomitable tyrants ruled for ages and inflicted much pain on their “beloved” people whom they supposedly “strived to serve.”

These political systems created four political classes:xviii

• Class 1: Ruling nomenclature and supporters;
• Class 2: Rentier retinue and business people;
• Class 3: Religious regime-apologetic class; and
• Class 4: Have-nots.

Those who were not happy with the regimes were eliminated physically, put in prison or marginalized according to the degree of their “crime” or lèse-majesté.

The strength of these regimes and the secret of their longevity can be attributed to two important factors: the control of the security forces and the control of the media to use as a propaganda machine. However, with the advent of the digital revolution at the beginning of this millennium, the Muslim tyrants lost, forever, the control of this important and trenchant weapon.

This ultimately led to the Arab Spring which swept the dictators to the dustbin of history, but brought, alas, instead, failed regimes or theocratic rule and prepared the ground for the appearance of such oddities as ISIS, which is but the reflection of an Islamic world that refuses modernity, democracy, respect of human rights and rule of law. This proves, in many ways, that the tug of tribal tradition and patriarchal dominance are stronger in the psyche of the Muslim man than freedom of choice and expression and the ideals of democracy.

Islamism: The Return To The Past

The majority of fundamentalist Muslims seem to live more in the past than they do in the present time or even the future, for that matter.

Indeed, there is always a glorification of the people of the past: salaf saliH (the venerable ancestors) and their actions, writings and beliefs are reported faithfully. This encourages the pious, good and docile Muslims to look at the past and discard the future because the future is about taking risks to change the past and that can only be a bad omen.

This unreasonable veneration of the past aims to create a Muslim citizen obedient to the ruler wali al-amr and to the religious institutions that benefit greatly, of course, from this unquestionable allegiance. The much-esteemed tradition and the worship of the past have contributed duly to the making of a Muslim individual totally regimented and obedient, carrying, for life, three weights chained to his feet: religion, tradition and the glory of the past. These weights are meant to keep him looking back rather than ahead, docile and obedient, rather critical and entrepreneur.

But, as said earlier, this time-old form of domination was obliterated in many circles as the result of the advent of the Muslim cyber citizen that evolved, as a result, from the Muslim subject. The Muslim millennials are, currently, at work changing society slowly but surely, xix because, though, they respect the past want to live badly in the future.

However, those who have not been able to get rid of their shackles have been brainwashed by religious zealots and radicals to be used as cannon fodder to advance their cause and ideology in the world by using them as human bombs to sow terror worldwide ad create havoc.

Way Out

For the Muslim world to get rid of the curse of the past and advance into the future, must undertake the following painful but paying steps:

• Reform the faith: outlaw, in no vague terms, violence, terror and dislike of the creed and culture of the other;
• Revamp education: Instill in education the values of criticism and innovation;
• Empower women: Provide necessary education to women, especially in the countryside;
• Adopt modernity and democracy; and
• Make all people equal and accountable.

Endnotes:
i. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-03-29/coming-isis-al-qaeda-merger?cid=nlc-twofa-20160331&sp_mid=51049333&sp_rid=Y2h0YXRvdUBnbWFpbC5jb20S1&spMailingID=51049333&spUserID=MTEzMjkzNDU5OTY5S0&spJobID=900054153&spReportId=OTAwMDU0MTUzS0
ii. http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Jihad-Muslims-Crusades-Killing/dp/0825424038
iii. http://history-world.org/crusades.htm
iv. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/
v. Pakenham, T. 1991.The Scramble for Africa. London: Abacus
vi. Ajamiyy is an Arabic word meaning “non-Arabic”. In a West African context, “Ajami” is used in particular to refer to the writing of non-Arabic languages in Arabic characters. This practice is attested in practically all Muslim areas of West Africa, including at least Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. It continues to the present despite being propagated almost exclusively through traditional religious instruction, usually without government funding or recognition; in this sense, it might be called a non-governmental literacy, as opposed to literacy whose norms are passed on through a government-organised school system. See: https://www.afrikanistik-aegyptologie-online.de/archiv/2010/2957
vii. Chtatou, M. 1992. Using Arabic Script in the Writing of the Languages of Moslem People of Africa.Rabat, Morocco:Institute of African Studies Publicatins.
viii. Tidjane or Tijanniyah is a Sufi religious lodge widely spread in West Africa. The founder of this important order Sīdī ‘Aḥmad al-Tijānī (1737–1815), who was born in Aïn Madhi, present-day Algeria and died in Fes, Morocco, founded the Tijānī order in the 1780s—sources vary as to the exact date between 1781[1] and 1784.[2] Tijānīs speaking for the poor, reacted against the conservative, hierarchical Qadiriyyah brotherhood then dominant, focusing on social reform and grass-roots Islamic revival. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijaniyyah
ix. The different historical periods of the Ottoman Empire are as follows: Rise (1299-1453), Growth (1453-1683), Stagnation and reform (1683-1827), Decline and modernization (1828-1908) and Defeat and dissolution (1908-1922)
x.  “The Balfour Declaration”. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2013. Yapp, M.E. (1 September 1987). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923. Harlow, England: Longman. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-582-49380-3.
xi. The New York Times of September 23, 1990
xii. is a religious movement or branch of Sunni Islam. It has been variously described as “ultraconservative”, “austere”, “fundamentalist”, “puritanical” (or “puritan”) and as an Islamic “reform movement” to restore “pure monotheistic worship” (tawhid) by scholars and advocates, and as an “extremist pseudo-Sunni movement” by opponents. Adherents often object to the term Wahhabi or Wahhabism as derogatory, and prefer to be called Salafi or muwahhid.
It is a Muslim sect founded by Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), known for its strict observance of the Koran andflourishing mainly in Arabia.
xiii. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/12206377/What-is-Wahhabism-The-reactionary
xiv. http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/in-maghreb-an-irresistible-tug-of-religion-and-tradition_39157
xv. http://amrkhaled.net/
xvi. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Amr-Khaled
xvii. http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615754_1616173,00.html
xviii. http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/in-morocco-it-is-not-about-what-you-know-but-who-you-know_26731
xix. http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/moroccos-silent-cultural-revolution_38562

After two years of bloody, indiscriminate savagery perpetrated on poor Yemen, the Saudi rulers are now on the verge of dragging the US in the Yemen conflict with their planned amphibious assault on the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah Port, which currently serves as the main venue for the inflow of international aid to the starving, besieged population. If successful in convincing Trump to get on board with their invasion, the Saudis are sure to turn the dire situation in Yemen into a major catastrophe, despite their propaganda campaign to sell it to the aid organizations and the world community as an act of benevolence.

The impending attack on Hodeidah, apparently receiving the approval of US Defense Secretary James Mattis in his recent tour of the region, is part of a broader campaign to end the two-year-old civil and inter-state war in favor of the Saudi-led coalition and their Yemeni puppets seeking to destroy the Houthi power, which showed its popular support in the demonstration of literally hundreds of thousands protesting the Saudi atrocities in the streets of Sanaa last March.

Clearly, then, the campaign to wrest control of Hodeidah is only the first step that is designed to be extended all the way to Sanaa some 300 kilometers away. (1) The immediate upshot of this campaign is to put the lives of some 7 million Yemenese civilians in serious jeopardy, as the Houthis and nationalist Yemense will surely put up a heroic resistance against the invaders, particularly in the mountainous regions, somewhat similar to the Saudi-Yemen war of 1934, which culminated in the Taif Treaty and the absorption of parts of Yemen into Saudi territory. The long history of territorial and political clashes between the two countries notwithstanding, it is, of course, a caricature of reality by the Saudis and their US protectorate power to depict the present conflict as an Iran-induced proxy war.

But, as the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of any war.

With respect to the US’s involvement, which is presently limited to airstrikes and covert war against al-Qaeda in Yemen and providing logistical support for the Saudi war campaign, the operation to seize Hodeidah Port will certainly require a new level of US force commitment that might result in counter-attacks against the US forces and thus spiral out of control. The Americanization of the Yemen conflict, championed by Mattis, carries huge risks for US’s interests in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, where the pro-Houthi sentiments among the fellow Iraqi Shiites run high; in fact, more than Iran, the Houthis look for spiritual guidance to Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf, who only needs to issue a religious decree in defense of the Houthis for popular anger to be directed against the US forces in Iraq. Even without such a decree, or fatwa, the US runs the risk of such enormous backlashes, by appearing to take a side in a ‘sectarian conflict’ against the Shiites. The net result would be, in a word, getting mired in the Yemen quagmire, which can be ended only through political negotiation.

Yet, instead of prudent negotiation, the Saudis have now fixed their gaze on Trump’s planned visit, date unconfirmed so far, hoping to convince Trump to use the occasion to echo their Iranophobic trumpet and put a seal of approval on their self-delusional, short-sighted wishful plan to “reunify Yemen” under the pro-Saudi militias led by the former president Mansur Hadi. In fact, chances are that the Houthis and their allies will retaliate by launching more missile attacks inside Saudi Arabia, thus taking the war to the Saudis themselves.

Strong historical similarities with Vietnam exist that are worth reviewing by the Trump administration before it falls into the Saudi trap. This is clearly a recipe for disaster and the ruse of war and a quick and decisive defeat of the rebel Houthis is a figment of Saudi imagination, presently infecting Pentagon’s chief, who ought to know better the precious lessons of history. Mattis and Trump ought to listen to the UN’s urging against such an attack — that will only distract from the war on terrorism and benefit al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations operating in parts of Yemen today.

(1) For a map of the Yemen conflict see: Mapping the Yemen conflict | European Council on Foreign Relations

With China’s strong economy and military power, most governments in the world do not want to antagonize the Asian giant. As China gives them huge trading opportunities,  these governments take extra care not to do anything that will displease China. These conditions are so ridiculous that the government of a Buddhist country like Sri Lanka refused to give a visa to the Dalai  Lama out of offending China.

While many governments across the world seem to think that Tibet will permanently remain under China, there are two entities who think otherwise.
One entity is Chinese government itself , which has a huge fear that its immoral and unethical aggression of Tibet and suppression of Tibetan people will not remain unchallenged for long and it will  have to pay the price. This fear makes China react aggressively to any country  welcoming the Dalai Lama or praising him for his  lofty standards with malice for none.  Today, it appears that the only person that China fears in the world is the Dalai Lama and his moral authority.

The other entity  is the Tibetan people living in Tibet and in exile, who are confident that they will get their mother land back sooner or later. They have great faith that the moral power  that they  have will  force  the military and economic power of China into silence.

When the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh a few days back, China sent several protest letters to the Government of India which ignored such unethical objection and the Dalai Lama’s visit was completed with satisfaction for one and all in Arunachal Pradesh.

Recently a few members of the  US House of Representatives met the Dalai Lama at his main temple in  Dharamshala, which has been objected by China as usual. China lodged a protest with the US government against the meeting of the members of the US Congress with the Dalai Lama,  as if  the US House of Representatives should get permission from China to meet the Dalai Lama. Of course, such protests have been ignored by the members of the US House of Representatives who told the Tibetans, “You will not be silenced.  The brutal tactics of the Chinese government to erase race, culture and language of Tibetan  challenges the conscience of the world. We will meet the challenge.”

Many observers  are now surprised  that President Trump’s rhetoric on China has been considerably softened and the US government, like many other governments in the world, appeara to be appeasing China. The members of  US House of Representatives who met the Dalai Lama have clearly highlighted the fact that the people of the US do not approve the changed approach of President Trump towards China.

The very fact that China is so sensitive about  any positive reference to  the Tibetans or the Dalai Lama anywhere in the world clearly indicates that China thinks that the last word has not been said about its occupation of Tibet. The fear of China is not about the world governments, but about the  citizens  of the world who realize that Tibetans have been wronged and the world view that  China is an aggressor. China realizes that even after six decades of its occupying Tibet, the world is still concerned about its occupation.  It has no way to silence the conscience of the world.

The Tibetans have to keep their spirits high and clearly be conscious of the fact that the world conscience remembers the Tibetans, in spite of China’s efforts to erase Tibet as a country in the world history.

The members of the US House of Representatives have listened to their conscience and reflected that of the world when they clearly condemned the role of China in suppressing Tibetans during their visit to Dharamshala.

By Loaai Alakwaa*

During 2014, Yemen observers suspected former President Ali Abdullah Saleh of facilitating, if not orchestrating, the Houthi military expansion into the Governorates of Amran and Sana’a. At that time, Saleh and his loyalists at the General People Congress (GPC) were leading a counterrevolution against President Abdrahbu Mansour Hadi and his backers from the Islah party (Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood), who had spearheaded the “Arab Spring” uprising of 2011.

On July 8, 2014, the battle-hardened Houthi fighters, locally known as the Popular Committees (PCs), seized control of the city of Amran, the northwestern gateway into the capital Sana’a. By the evening of September 21, the PCs had captured the Sana’a City Municipality. Although the Houthi-Saleh alliance was implicit at first, it was formalized in early August with the formation of the Supreme Political Committee (SPC). The anti-Hadi coup had achieved its goal.

Deeply Rooted Conflict

Between 2004 and 2010, Saleh’s government waged six brutal military campaigns, known as the Sa’da wars, against the Houthis. At that time, the Houthi movement was comprised of a relatively small militia based in the northern governorate of Sa’da. The Houthis are a Zaydi revivalist movement, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, but closely associated with the Sunni branch of Islam.

Although it may be easier to classify the Houthis as Shi’ites, especially since they have recently started embracing Twelver Shi’ite practices, such a label is technically inaccurate. Retired Colonel Patrick Lang, who served as the U.S. defense attaché in the American embassy in Sana’s in the early 1980s, argues:

“There does not exist a natural affinity between the Yemeni Zaidis and the 12er [i.e. follower of the 12th imam] Shi’ite of southern Iraq and Iran. The Zaidiya follows a system of religious law that more closely resembles that of the Hanafi Sunni “school” of law than that of the Shi’ite of Iran or Iraq. The Zaidi scholars profess no allegiance to the 12er Shi’ite scholarship of the Iranian teachers… ”.

The Houthis harbored numerous grievances with the central government, including, but not limited to, the underdevelopment of their region, increasing cooperation with the U.S. in the post 9/11 era, and the perceived encroachment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-backed Wahhabi (ultra-conservative Salafi) doctrine into the Zaydi heartland. When the pro-Saleh military and tribal forces attempted to arrest Hussein al-Houthi (the founding-father of the Houthi movement, officially named Ansar Allah or Supporters of God), fighting broke out, leading to al-Houthi’s execution and sparking a six-year armed conflict with the Saleh regime.

While ostensibly leading the military campaign against the Houthis, Saleh made a point of deploying mainly units led by Major General Ali Mohsen Saleh al-Ahmar, a veteran general and an influential tribal figure dubbed as the second strongest man in Yemen. Reportedly, General al-Ahmar was the biggest obstacle to Saleh’s plan to hand over the presidency to his eldest son, Ahmed.

Saleh’s plan aimed at hitting two birds with one stone. On one hand, the protracted military campaigns depleted al-Ahmar’s forces and led to tribal blood libels with the tribes of the northern highlands. The battle plans also preserved the better-equipped and well-trained Republican Guard brigades under the command of Brigadier General Ahmed Ali, Saleh’s son and heir. It has been widely reported that every time the military was close to encircling the Houthis, Saleh would order the military to cease-fire and retreat. Other reports, however, confirmed that while fighting the Houthis, Saleh was also arming them. Supplying both sides with weapons to both neutralize and deplete the enemies’ forces was one of the former Yemeni president’s favorite tactics.

Saudi Arabia joined the fighting in 2009, helping Saleh by bombing Houthi positions. In one of the more intriguing episodes of the combat, Saleh’s regime, which provided the Saudi Air Force with the coordinates of bombing targets, provided them with the location of Ali Mohsen’s headquarters, claiming it was a Houthi headquarters. Sensing something was off with the location of the target, Saudi Air Force pilots aborted the mission, double checked the coordinates and discovered that they had almost unwittingly assassinated one of their close allies in Yemen. Despite their support, the Saudis have always been deeply suspicious of Saleh’s motives and this incident reinforced that belief.

In early 2010, both sides signed a cease-fire, ending a conflict that had resulted in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of internally displaced people. In addition to the human and financial toll, the government, in effect, ceded control of Saada and the surrounding areas to the Houthis and their tribal allies. The following year, as the “Arab Spring” spread throughout the Middle East, the Houthis joined the protests, demanding Saleh’s resignation.

After being driven out of power in 2012, Saleh maintained a vast network of tribal, military, and bureaucratic allies, cultivated throughout his three decades in power. During the following couple of years, he would undermine his successor, President Hadi, aided by the latter’s ineffectiveness. More importantly, Saleh would build an alliance with the Houthis and use his military and tribal networks to exact revenge on those whom he felt had betrayed him. Among them were the Houthis’ mortal enemies – Ali Mohsen of the Islah Party and the Al-Ahmar family (not related to Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar), then the strongest tribal family in the country.

The Houthis were gaining strength and expanding beyond their region for the first time. They took advantage of the government’s state of paralysis and, aided by Saleh, who instructed his loyalists to stand down and let the Houthis roll through, they eventually took the capital with little resistance.

Since the takeover of Sana’a and the state institutions during the fall of 2014, several developments have occurred. President Hadi was placed under house arrest and when he managed to escape and flee to Aden, Houthi and Saleh forces rolled south, taking over provinces on the way until they reached Aden. With President Hadi facing the prospect of fleeing the country, Saudi Arabia launched a military campaign, ostensibly to support Yemen’s “legitimate” government and prevent the complete takeover of the country.

Operation Decisive Storm, launched on March 26th 2015, shocked observers, perhaps none more than Saleh and the Houthis, who did not expect Saudi Arabia to intervene militarily in the country. This intervention would bring Saleh and the Houthis even closer as they faced a common military threat, despite their history of hostility.

Tensions Flaring

Almost ten months have passed since the formal political agreement between the GPC and the Houthis that resulted in the creation of the SPC. Under the new political agreement, the constitutional declaration announced in February 2015 by the Houthi-backed Supreme Revolutionary Committee (SRC) – the de facto ruling body ever since President Hadi fled to Aden – would be nullified. The new agreement would restore the state’s institutions by evacuating all stationed SRC “supervisors”. Additionally, the SPC agreement specified that both sides (Houthis and GPC) would alternate the presidency of the SPC every four months. The facts on the ground have differed with the SRC supervisors still exercising power, and the Houthis refusing to relinquish their hold of the SPC’s presidency. The shortcomings of the SPC agreement have been a source of constant frustration to Saleh and his political allies.

On November 28, 2016, both sides announced the formation of a National Salvation Government which failed to garner international recognition, even from the Houthis’ primary regional ally, Iran. It is worth noting that prior to the formation of the government, the GPC had been holding back on joining a “post-Hadi” government due to the Houthis’ refusal to implement the conditions of the SPC agreement signed between them. The agreement entailed the withdrawal of their PCs and SRC supervisors from the ministries and institutions of the state. However, internal considerations (GPC base) and perhaps the failure of the UN talks forced Saleh to agree with the condition that the Houthis would fulfill their previous commitments, something they have not done so far.

The SRC continues to harass Saleh allies through lawsuits, physical threats, and assault, in addition to the methodical exclusion of long-term bureaucrats and officials associated with Saleh from both government and security services. Several GPC ministers have complained of physical harassment by the PCs or their deputies (Houthi appointees), with several of them refusing to go back to work under the current situation. At the same time, the Houthis have been appointing their supporters, many of whom lack any experience, to positions of influence.

Another source of contention has been the Houthis’ systematic changes to the education curriculum of the country, with an emphasis on sectarian ideologies that until recently were alien to Yemeni society. As for the state media, the Houthis, through their Minister of Information, are conspicuously ignoring any news or speeches by Saleh or the GPC ministers while giving extensive coverage to their leader and ministers.

The Future of the Houthi-Saleh Alliance

The Houthis’ actions display an obvious lack of political experience and trust in Saleh, who, in return, mistrusts the Houthis. This mutual suspicion will probably lead to an abrupt end to the alliance as soon as the war is over, if not sooner. The alliance has not been ideological; it is, rather, a temporary marriage of convenience created to face the challenge of the Saudi-led war.

How the marriage ends depends on who manages to strike a deal with Saudi Arabia. Each side has an interest in maintaining its unity, but also realizes that its long-term survival and legitimacy might hinge on abandoning its current partner. While viewed by officials in Riyadh as an Iranian proxy, the Houthis benefit from the fact that thus far the Saudis have refused to work with Saleh, whom the Saudis view as ungrateful and duplicitous. Despite treating him following the attempt on his life and having funneled billions of dollars into his government over the years, Saleh has handed the country over to a group that has links to their mortal enemy, Iran. On the other hand, the Saudis’ view of the Houthis has matured, and they recognize that they are a force on the ground that will be part of Yemen’s long term solution, as evident by the frequent meetings in Dhahran Aljanoub between Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Houthis spokesperson, and members of the Saudi national security apparatus.

There have been many recent armed skirmishes between Saleh and the Houthis that have threatened to escalate the war into a full-blown military confrontation between both sides. Each time, Saleh has worked on de-escalating, knowing full well that any dispute would currently harm him more than it would the Houthis. That being said, and despite the friction, the military alliance seems relatively cohesive due to a shared sense of danger. Yet, reports indicate that the majority of the fighting is being conducted by Saleh’s Republican Guards, while the Houthis seem more preoccupied with maintaining influence on population centers.

Former President Saleh remains popular throughout the country, as illustrated by his presence in the large protest held recently in Sana’a. He is aided by his vast tribal alliances and his ideological moderation, and his supporters are regionally and culturally diverse. The Houthis understand that Saleh and his allies maintain control and influence, in theory, over official state institutions such as the parliament and the Sana’a-based ministries. The SPC and the NSG do not have any constitutional or legal legitimacy or international recognition, and this factor might push the Houthis to break the alliance if challenged by the GPC. Just as the Houthis will be part of any future settlement in Yemen, so will Saleh’s GPC. Although it is clear that Saleh himself will not be part of any settlement, a combination of incentives and threats will be needed for him to end his spoiler role. Unfreezing his assets, removing the travel ban, and retaining a political future for his son could alter Saleh’s behavior.

Two years after the launch of the Saudi-led military coalition to restore president Hadi and curtail Houthi military expansion, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansar Allah, called for a “state of emergency” to “purge state institutions from traitors” and to “redirect all government resources to the war efforts”. Such a one-sided declaration following the formation of the SPC and the GPC-Houthi NSG can widen the gap between the Houthis and Saleh.

Although the Saleh and Houthi alliance has withstood a two-year conflict, the depletion of resources, international pressure, and loss of territory, the cracks in their alliance are as large as ever. Both sides have openly criticized each other, especially throughout recent weeks, pointing to an alliance that is crumbling. That said, there are still no signs that any party in the ongoing conflict is willing to abdicate or yield.

*Loaai Alakwaa is an advisor at Gulf State Analytics. Based in New York, Alakwaa is a Middle East political and security consultant with government and private sector experience. He managed congressional affairs for the Embassy of Yemen in Washington, DC from 2010 to 2014 and worked at the Permanent Mission of Yemen to the United Nations in New York in 2015. Alakwaa has worked on multiple projects in the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on security, political and economic development, and public relations.

This article was originally published by Gulf State Analytics on May 10, 2017.

The seven big cats that went extinct towards the end of the last Ice Age, including several sabre-toothed cats, are those which lost the greatest proportion of their prey, according to an international team of scientists who believe the African Lion and Sunda clouded leopard are next on the list.

A new study led by scientists from the universities of Sussex, Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCru), Aarhus and Goteborg has assessed whether Ice Age extinction trends could be applied to populations of big cat species now, by using a new global database FelidDIET.

The team researched the cause of extinction of seven large cats from the Ice Age: four different types of sabre-toothed cats, the cave and American lions and the American cheetah. They discovered that if these animals were alive today on average, only 25 percent of their preferred prey species would still remain across their former natural ranges – the majority have gone extinct, partly due to human pressure. The team believe this devastating loss of prey species was a major contributing factor to the extinction of these big cats.

The team have also used the database to work out whether a similar decline in the availability of prey species now could lead to the demise of some of the world’s most well-known big cat species. They have discovered that if all the currently threatened and declining prey species within big cat natural ranges were to go extinct, only 39 percent of the African lion’s prey and 37 percent of Sunda clouded leopard’s would remain.

Worryingly the researchers believe that if this prey loss trend continues this poses ‘a high risk of extinction’ to these two big cat species in particular. They also report that prey diversity within the geographical ranges of tiger, leopard and cheetah puts them at risk too.

Dr Chris Sandom, from the University of Sussex, said: “This joint study clearly shows that if primary big cat prey continues to decline at such a rate then big cats, including lion, Sunda clouded leopard, tiger and cheetah are at high risk of extinction.

“Where prey species have, or are likely to become extinct, this poses a serious risk to the big cat species which feed on them and we now know this is the continuation of an unhappy trend which began during the last Ice Age.

“We need to buck this Ice Age trend once and for all and to reinforce the urgent need for governments to protect both big cat species and their prey.”

Professor David Macdonald, Director of the University of Oxford’s WildCRU, remarked: “The fairy-tale consequences of Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard being bare are all too vividly real for modern big cats. Our study of the consequences of prey loss – ‘defaunation’ in the jargon – is about, in everyday language “what if” or perhaps better “if only”: without the extinctions of the Pleistocene, in which the fingerprints of humanity are all to incriminating, there would have been between one and five more felid species in most places today. He adds: “The Churchillian aphorism that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it was painfully in mind when we saw how many of the prey of lions and East Africa and of clouded leopards in Indo-Malaya look set to go down the same drain down which their counterparts in other regions have already been flushed.”

Dr Dawn Burnham, another WildCRU co-author, added: “NIMBYISM has taken its toll on our own part of the world – where today only the Eurasian lynx represents biggish cats in Western Europe, our calculations suggest there would have been at least three more large felids had the prey species survived to sustain them.”

Einstein’s theory of gravity, also referred to as General Relativity, predicts that a rotating body such as the Earth partially drags inertial frames along with its rotation.

In a study recently published in EPJ Plus, a group of scientists based in Italy suggests a novel approach to measuring what is referred to as frame dragging. Angela Di Virgilio of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, INFN, in Pisa, Italy, and her colleagues propose using the most sensitive type of inertial sensors, which incorporate ring lasers as gyroscopes, to measure the absolute rotation rate of the Earth.

The experiment aims to measure the absolute rotation with respect to the local inertial frame, which is what is referred to as frame dragging. In principle, the ring laser should show one rotation around the Earth’s axis every 24 hours. However, should observation by reference to fixed stars in the sky show a slightly different rate of rotation, the difference can be attributed to frame dragging.

The authors’ proposed experiment, called GINGER, requires two ring lasers to provide a reference measurement. It suggests comparing experimental GINGER data with the kinetic Earth rotation rate independently measured by the International Earth Rotation System Service (IERS). According to the authors, their proposed solution can accurately test the frame dragging effect at 1%.

This is a vast improvement compared to previous experiments, such as the 2011 Stanford Gyroscope Experiment, Gravity Probe B (GPB), which agreed with General Relativity’s prediction for the frame dragging with an estimated 19% margin of error. Or the 2016 measurement of the dragging of the plane of an orbiting satellite, using laser ranged satellites like the satellite LARES, which boasted a 5% margin of error. The authors expect that, ultimately, the satellite-based approach could even deliver accuracy below the 1% error measurement threshold.

Today, there are both anticipated and unanticipated dangers. There can also be avenues for cooperation. Leadership is crucial. As with the 1975 Helsinki Conference, Track II leadership may be an important factor in highlighting shared stability concerns and a strengthening of the rules of the game.

By Rene Wadlow*

There have been over the years since the 1953 armistice periodic increases of tensions related to the policies of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Currently, the nuclear program and missile launches of North Korea, the establishment of sophisticated anti-missile systems in South Korea, increased sanctions against North Korea voted by the United Nations Security Council as well as a new administration in Washington has led to an escalation of tensions. While tensions in the past have been managed by diplomatic discussions or changes in policy, there are always dangers that conflict management may fail due to miscalculations, misinterpretations of military moves, misinterpretations of aims and strategies. The misinterpretations and the failures of conflict management were important factors in the start of the Korean War in 1950 as well as the intervention of Chinese “volunteer” troops. [1]

Today, we are at a time when crisis triggers are ready. Crisis triggers are actions which occur prior to the onset of overt physical hostility between adversary States. Fortunately, not all triggers are pulled. Yet we must ask ourselves if the current tensions could slip out of the control of conflict management techniques.

It is difficult to predict events or to know what can be helpful in the current situation. Some international relations specialists, such as Morton Kaplan hold that it is extremely difficult if not impossible to predict single events. [2]

There have been efforts within the U.N. system to analyze the nature of crisis triggers, the likelihood of violence breaking out, and the type of mediation and preventive diplomacy which could be carried out. [3]

For Korea, certain “rules of the game” of conflict management have been worked out. Rules of the game constitute a framework for standards of behavior which maintain restraint, unless there is a breakdown or serious miscalculation. There needs to be some degree of common interest among the parties which makes possible the development of these rules of the game for conflict management. The Chinese government has been calling for restraint and warning that the rules of the game may not hold. “The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering.” China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi has been quoted by the Chinese Press Agency XinhObjectively, a lowering of tensions and a return to the status quo ante should be possible. But objective conditions do not always keep the rules of the game in place. In 1909 R. Norman Angell published his bestseller The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to their Economic and Social Advantage. He set out the evidence that wars would no longer occur in Europe as they did not make economic sense. The rules of the game among European Powers put into place in 1815 at the end of the wars of Napoleon were holding and had facilitated an international and relatively prosperous economy. Europe is now marking the 100th anniversary of some of the major battles of the 1914-1918 War.

After the 1990 end of the Cold War, efforts for the mutual benefit from economic efforts were strengthened by the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Seoul in 1992. A large number of South Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese companies have invested in China which is a major trading partner for all the regional countries. However, the institutional framework required for regional integration is still missing. There is no regional free-trade agreement nor a security framework such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe provided for the 1975-1990 Cold War period and continues today.

Today, the tensions around the two Korean States, the USA, China, Russia, and Japan are somewhat like the pre-1975 Helsinki period when tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Powers periodically rose, fell and rose again. Certain rules of the game had been set but were not formalized in treaties. Tensions but also conflict management were largely US-USSR affairs. Other countries in Europe were on the sidelines. Neutrals such as Finland, Sweden and Switzerland were largely ignored.

During the prelude period leading to the 1975 Helsinki Conference there were useful unofficial contacts among non-governmental organizations and academics – what is now called “Track II processes.” These contacts and exchanges of publications helped pave the way for later governmental negotiations. As changes took place, especially in the USSR and Eastern Europe, we later found people we knew in Track II efforts in official positions.

It is not clear to me what Track II efforts are possible concerning the Koran tensions and how open participants can be, especially those from the Korean States. The nuclear-missile issues may be beyond what Track II effort can usefully undertake. However, issues of energy, food, the environment and trade – often now called “human security issues” could be undertaken with benefit.

Track II initiatives must include persons from the two Korean States, the USA, China, Russia and Japan. However, other may take the initiative of organizing the Track II meetings. Pope Francis on his recent return from Egypt called attention to the dangers of the Korean tensions. Thus it may be that some Catholic institutions could take a lead.

Today, there are both anticipated and unanticipated dangers. There can also be avenues for cooperation. Leadership is crucial. As with the 1975 Helsinki Conference, Track II leadership may be an important factor in highlighting shared stability concerns and a strengthening of the rules of the game. [4]

*Rene Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

Footnotes

1. Glenn D. Paige. The Korean Decision, June 24-30 1950 (New York: The Free Press, 1968) and Allen S. Whiting. China Crosses the Yalu. The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York: McMillan Co; 1960)
2. Morton A. Kaplan. System and Processes in International Politics (New York: John Wiley, 1957) and Charles E. Hermann.International Crises Insights from Behavioral Research (New York: The Free Press, 1972)
3. Frank Edmead. Analysis and Prediction in International Mediation (New York: U.N. Institute for Training and Research, 1971)
4. For a good overview of Track II efforts in different parts of the world, see Oliver P. Richmond and Henry F. Carsey (Eds.). Subcontracting Peace: The Challenges of NGO Peacebuilding (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005)

By John Feffer*

The last thing Europe needs right now is advice from Americans, particularly American progressives.

After all, we failed to prevent Donald Trump and his cronies from seizing the White House or the far-right wing of the Republican Party from taking over Congress. Before that, we were unable to push President Obama to the left on critical domestic issues like health care or to dismantle the worst features of the U.S. war economy.

Still, an outside perspective can sometimes be useful. And I write this letter not only out of great concern but out of an even greater affection.

The European left has been one of the most powerful and successful progressive movements in history. It was the motive force behind European integration, which brought peace and prosperity to a war-torn continent. It entrenched social welfare policies so thoroughly that even conservative political parties — like Germany’s Christian Democrats — have accepted the basic tenets. It promoted cultural policies that have made Europe one of the most tolerant places on Earth.

All of that is now at risk because of a pincer attack by right-wing populism and neo-liberal globalism. And the European left is at perhaps its weakest position since the end of World War II.

Consider the recent presidential election in France.

The French have turned back the National Front’s Marine Le Pen — vive la France! But it wasn’t a victory for the left, which failed to pull together before the election or convince enough voters to advance a leftist into the second round.

The incumbent Socialist Party attracted only 6 percent in the first round of voting. Progressive candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who abandoned the Socialist Party, pulled in a more respectable 20 percent — but then refused to back centrist Emmanuel Macron in the run-off. As many as one-fifth of Melenchon’s supporters were prepared to vote for Le Pen, while nearly one-third were so disgusted with the choice in the second round that they preferred not to vote at all.

The center and the far right have lured away the base of the French left. Macron and his new centrism have captured the pro-European, multicultural, and youth vote. Le Pen, meanwhile, has made inroads with the economic left with her unabashedly anti-globalization, pro-working class program. What’s left for the French left is nostalgia and, in the case of Melenchon, a ridiculous foreign policy that embraces authoritarians of the right (Vladimir Putin of Russia) and left (Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela).

It’s not just France. The Labor Party in the UK is poised for a historic rout in the upcoming elections. Spain, Denmark, Poland, and Hungary are all in the hands of conservative parties. Right-wing populism, which received a shot in the arm by the Brexit vote, has laid siege to the European Union. The far right has made strong bids for power recently in Austria and the Netherlands. In the battle between the left’s internationalism and the far right’s xenophobia, the latter seems to be getting the upper hand.

The European left is in need of reinvention. Here’s a few unsolicited recommendations.

A Four-Point Plan

1. Support the European Union — a reformed European Union.

The UK Labor Party made an enormous mistake by not coming out strongly against the Brexit vote. Some MPs worked tirelessly against Brexit (and one, Jo Cox, was even assassinated for her beliefs). But the Labor Party leadership, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular, didn’t do enough to present a unified party message or rally the base to keep Britain in the EU. It will now suffer the political consequences of its decision in the upcoming British elections.

There are good reasons to be disenchanted with the EU. It’s not a particularly democratic institution. It has supported economic policies that result in greater inequality — both within and between member countries.

But, as I’ve written elsewhere, “reasons for disenchantment are not the same as reasons for disengagement. After all, the EU remains a far greener and more equitable economic space than the United States. Brexit is a wake-up call for proponents of European integration to transform the EU into a more perfect union: by making its political structures more accountable and its economic benefits more evenly distributed.”

This should be the program of the left: a new Europe.

2. Champion a new progressive economic platform.

Melenchon attracted a good number of supporters with his Keynesian proposals to inject 100 billion euros into the French economy, impose higher taxes on the rich, and increase social welfare programs. It was a bold, but expensive program.

Melenchon gestured in the direction of sustainability, but the left has to put environmentalism at the very center of a new economic policy. The most feasible method of challenging the global economic order — with its gross inequalities, its structural corruption, its utter callousness — is with the lever of climate change. This is the threat that the left can use not just to rein in the worst excesses of neoliberalism but to restructure the global economy.

At the same time, voters are disgusted with entrenched bureaucracies — and that applies to old-style unions and the civil service as well. Young people throughout Europe can’t get jobs because of these fossilized bureaucracies. The European left has to embrace innovation and not just redistribution. The flexisecurity model developed by Denmark in the 1990s — which focuses on training workers for new jobs rather than trying to preserve old unproductive jobs, all within a strong social welfare state — was one such innovation.

3. Reject Putinism.

It was startling in the French elections that the only candidates to reject Vladimir Putin were Emmanuel Macron and the Socialist Party’s Benoit Hamon.

Marine Le Pen argued that France should adopt Putin’s economic model (presumably with French oligarchs, an exclusive reliance on energy industries, and widespread corruption). But since Putin is a far-right-wing leader, it at least made sense for Le Pen to voice her support. Also understandable were the warm feelings toward Putin of Francois Fillon, the somewhat more traditional conservative candidate.

Less comprehensible was the position of Melenchon, a critical thinker who had nothing critical to say about Putin’s domestic policies of silencing critics or foreign policies of seizing territory, backing dictators, and hacking into elections in other countries.

Of course, the European left must reject a revived Cold War with Russia. And there are plenty of opportunities to work with Moscow on common interests. But Vladimir Putin and his determined covert operation to undermine the EU and boost far-right political leaders in Europe are a significant threat to the European left (and the European project overall).

4. Go local, go international.

The left has always been internationalist in perspective. It should continue this tradition by supporting European integration, international efforts to combat climate change, and compassionate policies toward refugees.

But the left, and the European left in particular, must address the local, particular concerns of people throughout the continent. According to 2005 data, only 22 percent of Europeans have moved outside their region or country — compared to 32 percent of Americans who moved outside the state where they were born. A lot of people in Europe, in other words, are not mobile. They have a strong sense of place. The contemporary left has generally been very sensitive to indigenous cultures. Sometimes, however, that principle hasn’t extended to cultures closer to home.

There needs to be a political movement that combines this internationalist perspective with a genuine sensitivity to the local that goes beyond a merely rhetorical adherence to what the EU calls “unity in diversity.”

Upcoming Challenge

The next test for the European left will be the German elections in September. The Social Democratic Party, after nominating Martin Schulz as party head to go up against Angela Merkel, was until recently closing the gap with the Christian Democrats. Then it lost two regional contests in a row. Still, it has a good shot at winning the third, in the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Mainstream pundits argue that the SPD’s focus on economic inequality isn’t reaching voters more concerned about security, crime, and refugees. In the egalitarian Germany of the past, when it had at one point the lowest income inequality in the world, the SPD’s message might not have resonated. But that Germany no longer exists.

According to a report last year from a German bank,

Whereas in 2000 the top 20 percent of earners were taking in 3.5 times the amount of those in the bottom 20 percent, that ratio has now increased to five times.

Earnings in the bottom ten percent of German society actually decreased significantly in real terms across this period, with an increase in earnings of 6 percent clearly being outpaced by a 24 percent rise in consumer prices.

In contrast the top of German society saw earnings increases of 39 percent.

So, the SPD’s inequality platform, unfortunately, should indeed rally voters.

Neither Putin nor the EU, however, will be much of an issue in the German election: Both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats are wary of the former and enthusiastic about the latter. Given its recent two losses in regional elections, the SPD could probably fine-tune its sensitivity to local issues.

But the key issue for the German left — as with the European left — is to present something new to voters, something authentic, something that goes beyond an unjust status quo. The takeaway from the French elections is that the French want to upend politics as usual. If the left doesn’t come up with an unusual politics of its own, it will be upended as well.

*John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he had planned to dismiss FBI Director James Comey even before receiving recommendations from top Justice Department officials.

“I was going to fire Comey. My decision,” Trump told NBC News on May 11. “I was going to fire him regardless of recommendation.”

The comments apparently contradict the administration’s earlier explanation for Comey’s firing.

Initially, the White House said the firing was at the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Comey had been overseeing a criminal investigation into suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and potential ties to the Trump campaign. The firing on May 9 stunned lawmakers and roiled Washington politics.

Democratic lawmakers, and some Republicans, publicly doubted the justification Trump gave for firing Comey — that the FBI chief had not properly managed the investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her e-mail practices.

Over the next 48 hours, the reasoning for the firing apparently changed.

In his first comments on the matter at the White House on May 10, Trump said Comey was fired because he “was not doing a good job” as FBI leader.

During the NBC interview, the U.S. president added that Comey is “a showboat” and a “grandstander” and that the FBI was in “turmoil,” making it necessary to fire the director.

Trump insisted he never pressured Comey to drop the Russia-related FBI investigation.

Democrats have pressed for an investigation to determine whether the Trump team colluded with the Russians in an effort to interfere in the 2016 election.

During his NBC interview, Trump restated his earlier comments that Comey had assured him three times that he was not under investigation.

Iraqi Security personnel successfully foiled an attempt to assassinate Health Minister Adela Hamoud, officials said Wednesday.

“A grenade was placed in the ministry’s building by one of the staff who had hidden it inside the ceiling of the second floor in preparation for using it to assassinate the minister,” according to a statement by the ministry.

“Security authorities were informed and they rushed and found the grenade planted in one of the secondary ceilings of the second floor and dealt with it,” it said.

A source within the Ministry of Health who wanted to remain anonymous, told Anadolu Agency the grenade was found on the floor of the inspector general of the ministry. It is unclear if the Hamoud and the inspector general work on the same floor.

The source said security secured the area where the grenade was found and prevented staff from entering.

Hamoud belongs to the Shia National Alliance bloc and was questioned last month by parliament about charges of corruption and mismanagement, but the lawmakers voted to keep her in her post.

An investigation is underway into the attempted assassination.

Original article

As the Philippines battles with militant groups in Mindanao, ISIS supporters have reimagined the area as “Wilayah Asia Timur” as part of ISIS’ strategic shift in East Asia. ISIS terrorists in Southeast Asia may revert to crime and banditry as part of their so-called jihad.

By Jasminder Singh and Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani*

In June 2016, ISIS released a video that recognised the pledges of allegiance of various miltant groups in Mindanao. In that video Isnilon Hapilon, leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) was recognised as amir of the ISIS groups. It also alluded to the conglomeration of ISIS elements in the Philippines. The A’maaq News Agency, an ISIS mouthpiece acknowledged the presence of ten such groups in six locations throughout Mindanao. This would include the four featured in the video, ASG, the Maute Group (MG), and Katibah al-Muhajir, a cell consisting of migrants from Malaysia and Indonesia.

At about the same time, An-Naba’, ISIS’ official weekly newsletter and other sources had begun reporting news of skirmishes and attacks, and the taking over of militant camps, as if they were engaging in regular warfare. On 24 November 2016, in an attempt at securing territory, MG planted the ISIS flag in front of the municipal hall of Butig, Lanao del Sur, in a siege that displaced close to three quarters of the population of the town. It took six days for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to push MG back into the hills.

Epicentre of Terrorism in Southeast Asia

In January 2017, following President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncements, the AFP Chief of Staff ordered the Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) to decimate terror groups in the area, including ASG and MG. Since the launch of the operations in Western Mindanao, ISIS has had to reconsider its strategy in Southeast Asia.

Firstly, ISIS no longer considers qital tamkin (conquering of territories) as the primary modus operandi of terrorism in the Philippines. While battlefield successes will be celebrated in its propaganda, the group understands that they are facing a Westmincom that is determined to wipe terrorism out of Mindanao in six months from January 2017.

In line with this shift in strategy, Daesh called on its terrorists and supporters to conduct theft or robbery of non-Muslims, claiming that it is permissible to take their lives as well as property. In the eighth edition of Rumiyah, the ISIS journal just released this month, Daesh encouraged any action – crime, warfare or terrorism – that causes economic harm on non-Muslims and their governments.

This strategy is familiar to various Jemaah Islamiyah-affiliated terrorist groups and their supporters in this region, including ASG, who have been carrying out attacks and robberies to obtain fa’i, wealth forcibly obtained outside of war using religious justification. According to ideologues like Abu Bakar Ba’ashir, fa’i would be used for terrorist attacks as part of their so-called jihad.

Larger Scope

Secondly, since the bar has been lowered for the distant “soldiers of the caliphate”, ISIS is able to assert a stronger image of its global reach by claiming responsibilities for attacks that happen in a larger scope of terrorist activities. This is reflected in the eighth edition of Rumiyah, in which ISIS dedicated an entire page to illustrate the operations by Daesh-affiliated terrorists. The infographics detailed statistics on the operations carried out in the Philippines. What has not gone unnoticed is Rumiyah’s referral to the terrorists as being part of the “khilafah in East Asia” instead of being specific about where the operations actually took place.

These strategic shifts had been duly communicated to ISIS-affiliated terrorists and supporters in the region. In recent weeks, online Daesh sympathisers have begun popularising the terms Wilayah al-Filibin and Wilayah Asia Timur (Malay: East Asia Province) using them interchangeably. Most recently, encouraged by ISIS news reports of the region, they have re-imagined al-Filibin as constituting the locus of ISIS’s operations in Sharq Asiya (East Asia).

As a result, new groups have formed with the idea that they would have to accommodate foreign fighters in their ranks. On 6 April 2017, the Jama’at al-Muhajirin wa al-Ansar bi al-Filibin (JMAF) was formed, pledging allegiance to Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi, operating in Maguindanao, Cotabato and Davao, and led by Esmail Abdulmalik alias Abu Turaifi.

Local Insecurity, Regional Threat

While ISIS’ strategic shift in Southeast Asia could be attributed to AFP’s commitment to neutralise the terror threat in Mindanao, several domestic issues are withstanding. Firstly, one reason why militant groups pledged loyalty to ISIS is a sense of disillusionment with the peace deal negotiations. To be clear, ground sentiments, in areas controlled by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), show strong support for President Duterte’s uncompromising stance against corruption, illegal drugs and ASG.

The majority of Muslims in Mindanao have invested hope in the peace deal and the Duterte administration, noting that criminal and narcotic activities have declined despite the nagging worry that corruption could be derail all these. The remaining minority with affiliations to bandits or small-time militias still view violent extremism as an attractive means for power or criminal-economic gain, especially when terrorist ideologues popularise the claim that fa’i is part of jihad.

Secondly, there is also concern that armed groups and corrupt politicians or government officials may link up with narco-criminals or Daesh-affiliated groups to perpetuate economics of insecurity in Mindanao. Political and family feuds may have encouraged support for or against terrorist groups. For instance, one cannot ignore the fact that Farhana Maute, MG’s matriarch, is believed to be involved in a political conflict with a Butig politician, or that MG was the Maute clan’s private extortion militia, before it started using ISIS imagery.

Thirdly, and most importantly, aside from Mindanao being a global village of “migrant fighters” from as near as Malaysia and Indonesia to as far as Morocco, the Duterte administration needs to devise specific strategies to intercept and deal with returnees from Syria and Iraq. This would be a déjà vu scenario of Southeast Asian fighters returning to the Philippines following the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s.

As a measure to pre-empt this threat, countries in the region have already agreed to share intelligence on returning militants since early 2016. If this issue is not addressed, new groups consisting of foreign fighters and returnees may continue to emerge despite military operations in Mindanao.

*Jasminder Singh is a Senior Analyst and Muhammad Haziq Jani a Research Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

Moon Jae-In is the new President of South Korea, elected with 41.4% of votes. The leader of the Democratic Party, who is the current president, had already been considered favoured in opinion polls, especially compared to Hong Yoon-Pyo, the leader of the Liberty Korea Party who, however, got 23.3% of votes.

The election of the leader of the Democratic Party, namely the Minjoo Party, puts an end to the multi-annual centre-right political hegemony represented by the old Saenuri Party, which last February, following the impeachment and dismissal of former President Geun-Hye Park, split off and changed its name to Liberty Korea Party.

The turnout rate was particularly high, with 77.2% of people who cast their vote.

However, who is the 66-year-old lawyer who has a long history as human right lawyer and civil rights defender?

He has already had significant political experience as Chief of Cabinet of former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun. He was also a member of the South Korea’s Parliamentary Assembly and finally founded the progressive daily newspaper Hankyoreh.

At political level, the new South Korean President wants, above all, peaceful reunification with North Korea.

He is reproposing the Sunshine Policy adopted by two former South Korean President, namely Kim Dae-Jung and Roh-Moo Yun, who still seems to be the reference point for Moon Jae-In.

Moreover, the newly-elected President has also declared he is a “friend of America”, especially because it spared South Korea from the experience of war Communism and because it long sustained its economic growth.

In essence, the new South Korean leader wants a rebalancing of relations between South Korea and the United States and, in particular, South Korea’s full autonomy with regard to the reunification policy with North Korea.

Obviously, the very idea of reunification between the two Koreas is based on autonomous enhancement and upgrading of South Korea’s military system and on a project for economic merger between the two old regions – a tragic relic and memory of Cold War in Asia, the region in which there was the fiercest and longest clash between the United States, the USSR and China.

As Park Geun-Hye said in 2014, reunification would be an “economic bonanza”.

That idea was supported both by Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, who were both interested in defusing the regiona militarily and, above all, in creating an economic and financial success case in the Pacific, so as to support both China’s growth and Japan’s economic cycle.

The only one that explicitly opposed said idea in 2014 was Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the North Korean Workers’ Party.

The issue, however, is complex, considering that North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities have led to a long sequence of UN Security Council’s Resolutions, ranging from No. 1718 to 1874 and 2087, as well as a set of harsh economic sanctions.

North Korea needs to give priority to its nuclear and military potential compared to the reunification project, as it is the only guarantee for the stability of its ruling class.

Conversely, South Korea needs to internationalize the Korean issue, so as to permit a reunification which, in its plans, would enable North Korea to redress its economy and create a productive boom that would make the reunited Korea a big and stable “Asian tiger”.

South Korea thinks of reunification mainly as an extraordinary opportunity for its economic growth.

Moreover, this would also be in US interest.

Obviously, North Korea’s progressive destabilization would endanger China, which has 1,420 kilometres of terrestrial borders with North Korea, as well as the Russian Federation, which has 17 kilometres of terrestrial borders with North Korea and 22.1 kilometres (equivalent to 12 nautical miles) of maritime borders.

If the polarity between China and the United States loosened, exactly in relation to the future of North Korea, this would be the primary strategic key to reunification between South and North Korea.

Russia would be the natural reference point for restructuring the North Korean nuclear and missile potential, which would become a guarantee for security throughout the South Pacific region.

On the economic front, South Korea’s new President is well-known for his fight against the chaebol, namely the large industrial conglomerates which have so far produced both South Korea’s economic growth and the many corporate restrictions and impediments that prevent it today.

Furthermore, South Korea records a very low birth rate, which naturally weakens its economic momentum, and a welfare crisis that, for the first time since the 1950s, makes the ghost of mass poverty loom large.

Hence currently the political and economic dialectics in South Korea lies between the “protected” and the “marginalized”, in a two-thirds society where poor people increase and the protection for those who are still at work decreases, matched by a parallel increase of the unemployed, the old “reserve production army” stabilizing wages at their lowest level.

As stated by the new President, on the geopolitical front, South Korea shall “learn to say no to America”, especially with regard to the THAAD missile defence network, which, however, should be largely paid by South Korea.

In addition, South Korea should “take the lead in the flow of events” regarding the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.

Translated into current language, South Korea could start a series of talks with North Korea so as to make it lower the military guard and, above all, put its defence directly into the hands of the national government – and not only of the relationship between South Korea and the United States.

Would it be enough? Yes, if the rejection of the THAAD system is followed by a series of economic and military measures to reassure North Korea.

Said measures would make the Russian Federation and China enter the Korean strategic framework and both countries are expected to rebalance the system, while the United States loosens its grip on South Korea.

From an economic viewpoint, the reunification of the two Koreas is supposed to cost a sum ranging between 25 billion and 3.5 trillion US dollars. The target should be the possible doubling of North Korea’s GDP four years after reunification.

And again, bearing these calculations in mind, reunification should cost additional 50 or 67 billion US dollars.

Hence, South Korea cannot bear these costs on its own and should raise at least 50% of the funds needed abroad.

Another scenario to be considered is the one which seems to be the most likely today, that is North Korea accepting the minimum number of domestic economic reforms needed to preserve the status quo indefinitely.

The second scenario – again for North Korea – suggests a short-term economic collapse that would entail huge costs both at humanitarian level and for securing North Korea’s nuclear, biological and conventional weapons, with a possible mounting of tensions in South Korea, which could not solve North Korea’s implosion on its own.

A further possible scenario is a war between the two Koreas, which would trigger off unimaginable tensions in China, Russia, and Japan.

Obviously, at least since the 1990s, South Korea’s ruling class has assumed the primary criterion that – even avoiding the most dangerous and unfortunate choices – reunification will be a very slow process, in which no South Korean government will do anything to favour an economic, strategic or political crisis in North Korea.

Furthermore, 67% of people in South Korea believes that the two Koreas should be reunited, but 56% of South Koreans think that their country would lose, rather than benefit from the reunification process.

At geopolitical level, reunification could entail the strategic autonomy of Korea, with the North Korean armed forces leaving South Korea, thus eventually playing China against the United States and the other way round.

North Korea, however, is a buffer zone China needs to avoid an even closer alliance between South Korea and the United States.

China does not want reunification through the North-South war – the worst scenario for China – while the best scenario for it is the current status quo between the two Koreas preventing the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, which would spread to the Chinese territory, while South Korea keeps on recording high investment flows to China.

Hence, China backs North Korea, but only to a certain extent and it accepts the cost for maintaining the two Koreas, instead of envisaging reunification which would be China’s worst economic and security scenario.

In all likelihood, a reunited Korea would be a new Vietnam for China, as well as a non-compliant power and a strong economic competitor.

In the future, we can even imagine a maritime block between the United States and Japan, which would rebalance a continental block between China, Russia and the reunited Korea, while the United States should anyway succeed in persuading South Korea to avoid the military alliance with China.

Even from this viewpoint, in the future, the United States will tend to record a sequence of crises in the Korean region, both working on the assumption of a slow reunification, which would in any case make its armed forces leave the Korean peninsula, and working on the assumption that the status quo is maintained between the two Koreas, which is the situation in which the alliance between South Korea and China is optimal, thus also ensuring a faster and more stable reunification.

Obviously, the stability of the Korean Peninsula is essential also for Japan’s security.

For Japan, the best scenario would be a status quo between the two Koreas leading to North Korea’s gradual denuclearization.

As a second option, Japan prefers Korea – also reunited – to remain friendly to the United States and, of course, to Japan, as well as economically open and enabling the US forces to keep on staying in the region.

South Korea wants to get closer to China as much as Japan shall get closer to the United States so as to preserve the balance of strategic potentials in the Korean Peninsula and in the rest of the old “co-prosperity area” of the Japanese Empire.

For Russia, the option is primarily economic: between 2000 and 2004 bilateral trade between Russia and North Korea grew by 36% and that between Russia and South Korea by 23%.

As to the two Koreas’ issue, the Russian Federation would like to reach a highly unlikely result: a united Korea in which Russia can make the South relinquish its security relationship with the United States.

More rationally, Russia wants a reunification maintaining the United States in the region and paradoxically keeping China away from it.

Nevertheless, in all likelihood, a reunited Korea would still be a primary asset for China, but only the US economy – together with the other major ones – could bear the cost of reunification, albeit slow.

About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and member of the Ayan-Holding Board. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

The Constitution suddenly seems to have bestirred itself and declared itself, through its many Washington spokespeople, to be in crisis.

I’m sorry, interjects the world, but what the hell took you so long?

We laid out the clear Constitutional violations of Trump’s financial and business interests on the day he became president (in the real sense, not the media event months later when “He finally became president” by bombing enough people) at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org.

Since the later hours of Day 1 back in January through the present instant, the clear and documented (when not openly bragged about) Constitutional offenses have been piling up.

As of a 2015 disclosure to the Federal Elections Commission, Trump owns stock in the maker of the missiles he sent into Syria, Raytheon, as well as numerous other weapons makers, Canadian tar sands, etc. Trump has continued, escalated, and threatened numerous illegal and immoral wars. That he may be personally profiting from them just adds to the supreme international crime, which of course already violates the U.N. Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, supreme laws of the U.S. under the Constitution.

Trump has unconstitutionally discriminated against refugees, been stopped by the judiciary, and immediately done it again.

Trump has pushed policies that will aggravate climate change, a crime against humanity that can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court even against a non-member. On December 6, 2009, Trump signed a public letter to President Barack Obama urging action to protect the earth from climate change. “If we fail to act now,” the letter read, “it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.” Trump is knowingly endangering all human (and many non-human) residents of the United States, right along with the other 96% of humanity.

Trump openly sought to intimidate voters prior to his election, and fought the counting of ballots where they existed, was elected with a minority of votes, was elected with numerous votes uncounted and numerous voters blocked from voting by the partisan stripping of the rolls and by ID laws, following a nomination principally decided by dramatically biased media coverage. If none of that put the Constitution into crisis, why keep the rotting document around at all?

Pre-presidency but still available grounds for impeachment, Trump violated, according to the list in Alan Lichtman’s book on Trump impeachment, the Fair Housing Act, New York charity law, tax laws, the Cuban embargo, casino regulations, the RICO statute, laws against employing undocumented immigrants, and of course laws against sexual assault. You don’t have to have never been in Congress to spot a pattern of criminality here.

Of course there is one charge against Trump that has not been proven, risks confrontation with a nuclear armed government, and needlessly adds a xenophobic excuse to the dozens of solid reasons that last year’s U.S. election was illegitimate. So of course this is the one everybody wants to focus on: blaming Russia for exposing the Democratic Party’s slanting of its own primary against its strongest candidate. Let’s remember that the people who have most vigorously pursued this approach are the same people who nominated possibly the only candidate who could have lost to Donald Trump.

Now we come to a charge of possible, conceivable, or an appearance of possible or conceivable obstruction of justice — and perhaps something or other at the base of the story around which justice was being sought. If we can remove Trump this way, by all means, proceed. And proceed with impeachment, not with a 2020 election campaign by some otherwise repulsive candidate who plans to win by virtue of not being Trump and somehow surviving four years of Trumpism.

But here are my concerns:

The coverup is not worse than the crime. Serious crimes are available as impeachment charges, and overlooking them effectively permits them going forward, along with any other crimes, as long as there’s no coverup.

We have yet to see any actual evidence of any actual Russian influence on the U.S. election. Toying with hostility toward a nuclear government is more reckless than anything (else) Trump has done. Can you impeach and try Trump for obstructing an investigation into what all the corporate media refer to as if it were established fact, without actually focusing on whether there is any evidence, and without demonizing Russia?

If some lesser crimes are proven that involve Russia in some way, can you try them without advancing the notion that the fundamental crime is friendship with Russians?

Can you keep in perspective the hypocrisy that all of this telegraphs to the earth? Barack Obama recorded a campaign ad for a French candidate in last week’s election, while Samantha Power was busy accusing Vladimir Putin of trying to influence the French election. The U.S. has openly sought to influence dozens of elections, including Yeltsin’s (the Trump of Russia?), not to mention overthrowing dozens of governments — still being pursued in Syria. How does this look? Wouldn’t it look better to at least add in a few articles of impeachment for the highest of crimes even if Russia isn’t involved in them?

And, yes, I mean even crimes committed by Obama and Bush and others before them. I’m not expecting consistency. While I supported impeachment for Bush and Obama as well as Trump, one cannot expect all Democrats to have gone that far in supporting the rule of law when Obama was drone master — although they may now ask Republicans to reach that higher standard of integrity. I understand that partisanship is strong poison. I just ask for at least the appearance of seriousness — even if only because going into a trial in the U.S. Senate with charges that are already proven makes a conviction far more likely.

The bigger concern, of tamping down the warmongering, of lowering the risk of nuclear conflict should be made to appeal to as many as can hear it.

Impeachment certainly should be pursued, and certainly cannot wait. But it will only establish the proper threat of impeachment for the next person to hold the office if it is done for the right reasons in the right way. The right way includes being led by the public. We, not Congress, must decide when there is a crisis.

(EurActiv) — China hosts on Sunday (14 May) a summit showcasing its ambitious drive to revive ancient Silk Road trade routes and lead a new era of globalisation, just as Washington turns inward in favour of “America First” policies.

Leaders from 28 nations, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will attend the two-day meeting at Yanqi Lake, located in a Beijing suburb near the Great Wall.

But Western powers seem less enthusiastic about the project, with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni the only leader coming from the Group of Seven industrialised nations.

The forum will promote President Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR), a massive Chinese-bankrolled infrastructure project to link the country with Africa, Asia and Europe through a network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks.

China’s push comes as Washington’s leadership in global trade is changing under US President Donald Trump’s nationalist “America First” stance.

In Europe, anti-globalisation sentiment has grown among voters and the continent has been rattled by Britain’s looming exit from the European Union.

“There is a pressing need in today’s world to have a shared, open and inclusive cooperation platform… to jointly tackle global challenges,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters ahead of the summit.

“What we need is not a hero that acts alone, but partners of cooperation that stick together,” he said.

China’s ‘rejuvenation’

OBOR spans some 65 countries representing 60% of the global population and around a third of global GDP. The China Development Bank alone has earmarked $890 billion for some 900 projects.

Analysts are sceptical that the Asian giant can take the lead in global commerce, while also cautioning that an integrated world trade system where China’s ruling Communist party sets the rules could come with serious risks and hidden costs.

The European Union’s ambassador to Beijing, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, recalled that EU companies have repeatedly complained about unequal market access in China.

“We hope China will implement domestically what it is preaching internationally,” Schweisgut told reporters on Tuesday.

“The Chinese market, when it comes to investment, is not as opened as the European market to Chinese companies.”

But Europe’s large absence is a “missed opportunity” indicative of a “very inward-looking, very Eurocentric” outlook on the rise as leaders have less to gain politically at home from engagement with China, said Jean-Pierre Lehmann of Switzerland’s IMD business school.

“China’s a reality and it’s not going to go away. We can make things better by engaging with China instead of needlessly containing it,” he said.

For China, OBOR is a practical solution to relieve domestic overcapacity that plagues its industrial sectors such as steel.

It is also a way to expand its strategic global influence – a key concern for Xi, who frequently trumpets the goal of a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.

China’s propaganda machine is working hard to promote OBOR, with the official Xinhua news agency boasting that it has published 30,000 stories related to the programme in the past three years.

“After the elapse of 1,300 years… powerful and prosperous China is emerging from the depth of history and returning to the centre of the world arena,” the official Xinhua news agency has declared.

‘One Belt, One Way’

Trump’s decision to withdraw from the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement gave countries “added incentive” to join OBOR, June Teufel Dreyer of the University of Miami said.

But she added: “What may look like benefits may turn out to entrap (participating countries) in a China-centred spider web.”

New York-based Fitch Ratings expressed concern that “genuine infrastructure needs and commercial logic might be secondary to political motivations”, leading to “a heightened risk of projects proving unprofitable”.

Struggling countries could be saddled with Chinese loans requiring payment regardless of project performance, Fitch Ratings said.

Meanwhile, reports of trains loaded with Chinese goods trundling towards Europe laden but returning empty have led to the quip “One Belt, One Way,” Dreyer said.

The forum will be China’s first chance since OBOR’s launch in 2013 to formally communicate its policies to participants on a large scale, said Li Ziguo, deputy director of the OBOR research centre at the China Institute for International Studies.

“Many projects have been signed, but these need to be implemented on the ground,” he said.

Yang Shu, of Lanzhou University’s Institute for Central Asian Studies, said many countries still do not really understand the project.

“Even China is still unclear on what the ultimate goal is,” Yang said.

Astronomers have produced a highly detailed image of the Crab Nebula, by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves seen by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to the powerful X-ray glow as seen by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. And, in between that range of wavelengths, the Hubble Space Telescope’s crisp visible-light view, and the infrared perspective of the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The Crab Nebula, the result of a bright supernova explosion seen by Chinese and other astronomers in the year 1054, is 6,500 light-years from Earth. At its center is a super-dense neutron star, rotating once every 33 milliseconds, shooting out rotating lighthouse-like beams of radio waves and light — a pulsar (the bright dot at image center). The nebula’s intricate shape is caused by a complex interplay of the pulsar, a fast-moving wind of particles coming from the pulsar, and material originally ejected by the supernova explosion and by the star itself before the explosion.

This image combines data from five different telescopes: The VLA (radio) in red; Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared) in yellow; Hubble Space Telescope (visible) in green; XMM-Newton (ultraviolet) in blue; and Chandra X-ray Observatory (X-ray) in purple.

The new VLA, Hubble, and Chandra observations all were made at nearly the same time in November of 2012. A team of scientists led by Gloria Dubner of the Institute of Astronomy and Physics (IAFE), the National Council of Scientific Research (CONICET), and the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina then made a thorough analysis of the newly revealed details in a quest to gain new insights into the complex physics of the object. They are reporting their findings in the Astrophysical Journal.

“Comparing these new images, made at different wavelengths, is providing us with a wealth of new detail about the Crab Nebula. Though the Crab has been studied extensively for years, we still have much to learn about it,” Dubner said.

More children could wind up in hospital emergency rooms suffering from allergy-induced asthma if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and cause longer oak pollen seasons, according to a new study.

The new research finds that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase through the end of this century, the oak pollen season in some areas could extend by up to eight days. People with oak pollen allergies, particularly children, will have longer exposure to pollen that can induce allergic asthma. That could increase the associated hospital emergency room visits for allergic asthma by 10 percent in the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast combined, the new study finds.

Allergic asthma associated with oak pollen sends more than 20,000 people to emergency rooms every year, and the increase in pollen could result in a 10 percent increase in hospital ER visits by 2090, according to the study’s authors.

These additional ER visits would add an estimated $10.4 million to the $346.2 million cost that would be expected under baseline conditions through 2090, according to the new study published in GeoHealth, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

“We found that the severe climate change scenario had a substantial impact on public health,” said Susan Anenberg, an environmental scientist at Environmental Health Analytics, LLC, in Washington, D.C., and lead author of the new study.

The study is part of a growing area of research on the health impacts of climate change and the economic burden to individuals. Previous research has already shown that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has caused ragweed, another strong allergen, to produce higher concentrations of pollen, according to the study’s authors.

The new study could help doctors anticipate changes in allergic asthma as the climate changes, said Samantha Ahdoot, a pediatrician in Alexandria, Virginia, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

“I would hope that this research would help the public and policymakers to understand that changes that occur in the environment, whether it is plant life or climate, trickle down and ultimately affect the health of people,” she said.

In the new study, Anenberg and her colleagues calculated the number of emergency room visits for allergic asthma across the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast today and in the future using observed relationships between oak pollen and asthma ER visits in Atlanta, Cincinnati, and New York City.

They found that there were 21,200 oak pollen-related allergic asthma ER visits in 2010. Of those visits, 70 percent were children under the age of 18, indicating that children may be more vulnerable to climate change-related health impacts, according to Anenberg.

The study’s authors used climate models and known relationships between temperature, precipitation, and oak pollen to estimate the oak pollen season length under both a moderate climate change scenario and a severe climate change scenario.

Combining the emergency room visit and climate model information, the study’s authors found that the most severe climate change scenario would increase ER visits in the three regions by 5 percent in 2050 and by 10 percent in 2090. Under a moderate climate change scenario, the number of visits would only increase by 4 percent, avoiding more than half of the emergency incidents in the severe scenario, the study found.

“The impact of oak pollen on human health in the United States is extensive and likely worsening over time with climate change,” Anenberg said. “Our results could be underestimating a much bigger problem, since environmental changes could also affect other pollen types and other health outcomes.”