By Jill Richardson*

The end of the school year has a tendency to bring crises to my attention.

I’m a graduate teaching assistant, which means I have more face-to-face contact with the students than the professor I work for. I know their names and I know them as individuals.

There are often a few struggling students whom I’ve had on my radar all semester, or at least since they failed a midterm exam. I try to reach out and help them discover what went wrong, and then put them in touch with the resources they need to do better.

In my experience, most bad grades aren’t the result of laziness or poor intelligence. Often it’s something else.

In the best cases, it’s something simple. The student had four tests in a week and they failed mine. That student, so long as they have time to study, will do fine in the future.

But then there are the other cases. Generally it’s either something tragic happening in the student’s life — a best friend committed suicide or a parent is terminally ill — or it’s some form of mental illness or learning disability.

The most common issues I’ve seen are anxiety and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Sometimes it’s also depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or even an eating disorder.

I meet students in all phases of these problems. Some have had them for years and are in treatment. Others haven’t even been diagnosed yet, or they’re newly diagnosed and still trying to figure out how to live with the problem.

That’s something that takes time. It takes time to find a therapist you trust and build a rapport with. If you’re going to take antidepressants, it takes a month or two for them to have an effect. And some antidepressants have unbearable side effects, so it can take more than one attempt to find the right one.

It’s tempting to tell a student dealing with an anxiety problem to be responsible and to find the resources they need to do well in school. But that’s like telling a person with two broken legs to go walk to the emergency room so they can get the care they need.

When your mind is the problem, sometimes it’s hard to use that same mind to get to the solution.

While problems such as these are bound to crop up, how we react to them is our choice. A student suffering from any problem will be better off if their parents and teachers are understanding and supportive.

It takes time to deal with a new and as-yet-untreated anxiety problem. But the solution can be sought faster if parents let their children know they have their backs 100 percent and will do what’s needed to be supportive.

A student suffering from anxiety, ADHD, or any other physical or mental health challenge has a right to accommodation by the school. They often need other resources as well.

I worry about my students who equate their grades with their own self worth, and who believe their parents will be disappointed by anything less than an A. I wish I could tell them their parents love them for who they are, not what they do — but not every parent sees it that way.

If your child ended the school year with less than stellar grades, instead of judging — reach out. Ask what’s going on. Odds are your kid isn’t lazy or stupid, and a caring adult is sometimes all it takes to help.

*OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

By Felix K. Chang*

(FPRI) — In early 2015, Western leaders thought they had Russia cornered.  A year earlier they imposed on Russia economic sanctions, which ranged from restrictions on access to Western capital markets to bans on the export of oil-production technology, to punish it for its role in dismembering Ukraine.  Those sanctions and the Russian boycotts that followed threw Russia’s economy into turmoil.  With some justification, President Barack Obama declared that “Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters” in January 2015.  But two years later, Russia has stabilized its economy, annexed Crimea, and kept its “little green men” in eastern Ukraine.  What went awry?

Peak Pain

In financial terms, Russia felt the most damaging impact of the West’s economic sanctions within the first year of their imposition.  Suddenly, Russian companies, holding dollar and euro-denominated debt, had to repay their loans without the ability to refinance them.  Russian banks targeted by Western sanctions saw their overseas assets frozen.  That created a cash crunch.  Many companies were forced to suspend operations and slash jobs; some even required government capital injections to survive.  But they did survive.

Commodity Price Stabilization

Unfortunately for Russia, the West’s economic sanctions coincided with a steep drop in global oil prices.  That, more than anything else, exacerbated Russia’s economic woes, since much of the country’s economy depends on the production of commodities, primarily oil.  Oil prices plummeted from over $100 per barrel to under $35 per barrel in late 2015.  But then they began to recover the following year.  So too did the prices of other major commodities that Russia produces, including iron, aluminum, and copper.  No doubt global economic growth, which boosted commodity prices, helped Russia to better ride out Western sanctions.

Floating Currency

But the stabilization of commodities prices did not save Russia’s economy.  With economic sanctions darkening the country’s outlook, the value of the Russian ruble was cut in half.  At first, Russia’s central bank tried to defend it, consuming $200 billion in foreign exchange reserves in the effort.  But ultimately, Russia’s central bank took a leaf from the International Monetary Fund’s market-based playbook and allowed the Russian ruble to float.  That freed Russia’s central bank from having to defend the ruble and prevented an even greater outflow of hard currency that would have further undermined Russia’s economy.

Moreover, since commodities are generally priced in dollars, the sharply devalued ruble meant that though Russian companies faced falling prices for their goods, the dollars they did receive could be converted into more rubles.  That softened the economic blow—enough so that Russian energy companies could continue to reinvest in their businesses.  As a result, despite the sanctions on oil-production technology, Russia is able to produce more oil today than it did before the sanctions were imposed.

Inflation Control

With shortages of imported goods and more rubles in circulation, inflation became a real threat.  Rising prices ate away at the purchasing power of ordinary Russians.  But rather than reflexively enact price controls, Russia’s central bank used another market-inspired lever.  It raised interest rates, up to 17 percent by December 2014.  Credit naturally dried up, further depressing the Russian economy.  But fortunately for Russia, inflation was quickly brought under control.  That allowed Russia’s central bank to gradually lower interest rates to 10 percent, giving Russian companies much-needed breathing room to recover.

Fiscal Discipline

In the depths of its economic recession, Moscow could have increased government spending to boost economic activity.  But with falling revenues from Russian oil production, a surge in spending would have pushed Russia’s government budget deep into the red and fueled a potential economic crisis.  Instead, Moscow exercised fiscal discipline.  It held its spending in check and ran a budget deficit of only 3 percent of Russia’s GDP last year.  When more funds were needed, Moscow raised taxes and dug into its two sovereign wealth funds, draining a third of their assets before oil prices stabilized.

Wavering Western Resolve

Meanwhile, European companies, particularly German ones, gave Moscow hope.  They were never keen on the economic sanctions against Russia.  From the start, they lobbied German Chancellor Angela Merkel to water them down.  After they were imposed in 2014, German direct investment into Russia evaporated.  But only a year later, German companies returned, investing $1.8 billion into Russia.  Last year, they invested another $2.1 billion, more than they had in the year before economic sanctions were imposed.  Such continued investments have encouraged Moscow to question the strength of Western resolve.

Conclusion

The West’s economic sanctions have bent but did not break the Russian economy, despite its structural vulnerabilities.  What steadied it was a combination of several factors, the most important of which were the stabilization of global commodity prices and the market-oriented policies implemented by Russian authorities.  They made Russia’s economy more resilient and prevented an even deeper recession.

Ultimately, economic sanctions can make countries more vulnerable to global economic forces.  But rarely do they deliver a knockout blow themselves.  Western economic sanctions against Russia have proven the rule, rather than the exception.  Ironically, the West’s success in spreading open-market ideas at Russia’s central bank may have inadvertently weakened the effectiveness of its own economic sanctions.  If so, the further spread of such ideas could make economic sanctions even less effective in the future.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and other agencies.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

More than 160 civilians walked out of the besieged Philippines city of Marawi just after dawn on Saturday, June 3, deceiving Islamist fighters they encountered by hiding the identity of the many Christians among them, Reuters said.

The audacious exodus came after text message warnings that a major assault by Philippines aircraft and ground troops was imminent in the center of the southern city, where some 250 militants and more than 2,000 civilians remain trapped.

“We saved ourselves,” said Norodin Alonto Lucman, a well-known former politician and traditional clan leader who sheltered 71 people, including more than 50 Christians, in his home during the battle that erupted on May 23 in the town of more than 200,000 on the southern island of Mindanao.

“There’s this plan to bomb the whole city if ISIS don’t agree to the demands of the government,” he said, referring to local and foreign fighters who have sworn allegiance to the ultra-radical Islamic State.

Many evacuees told Reuters they had received text messages warning of a bombing campaign.

“We had a tip from the general commander that we should go out,” said Leny Paccon, who gave refuge to 54 people in her home, including 44 Christians. “When I got the text, immediately we go out … about 7 o’clock.”

By then, Lucman and his guests had begun their escape march from another area, holding white flags and moving briskly.

“As we walked, others joined us,” he told reporters. “We had to pass through a lot of [militant] snipers.”

Some of the civilians were stopped and asked if there were any Christians among them, said Jaime Daligdig, a Christian construction worker.

“We shouted ‘Allahu akbar’,” he told Reuters, adding that thanks to that Muslim rallying cry they were allowed to pass.

Those who fled included teachers from Dansalan College, a protestant school torched on the first day of the battle.

Christians have been killed and taken hostage by the militants, a mix of local fighters from the Maute Group and other Islamist outfits, as well as foreigners who joined the cause under the Islamic State banner.

The vast majority of Filipinos are Christian, but Mindanao has a larger proportion of Muslims and Islam is followed by the vast majority in Marawi City.

Lt. Col. Ray Tiongson of the Philippine Army claims Daesh’s (Islamic State) invasion of Marawi City and the spiraling security crisis the sudden attack spawned is “not the reason” Brig. Gen. Nixon Fortes, the general tasked with combating hostile elements on the island of Mindanao, has been let go.

However, an (unnamed) source told Reuters the decision was indeed driven by the commander’s failure to marshal troops to Mindanao island’s Marawi City despite substantial intelligence indicating the Maute criminal syndicate and foreign jihadists were assembling there.

If true, the lapse isn’t the only unforced error anti-Daesh forces in the Philippines have committed over the past few days.

The general’s ouster occurs just two day after a government bomb accidentally “missed” its Daesh target and “hit our troops,” killing 11 government soldiers, the Philippine defense secretary said. Two bombs were intended for Daesh positions, “but the second one missed … there must be some mistake there,” Secretary Delfin Lorenzana explained, according to CNN Philippines.

So far, the eleven days of fighting between the insurgents and government forces in Marawi City has resulted in the deaths of 19 civilians, 120 insurgents and 39 Philippine security personnel.

“If there’s open defiance, you will die,” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has told the militants.

The president, who is from Mindanao, has admitted that some of his family members pledge loyalty to Daesh.

“I have cousins on the other side,” Duterte said in an outspoken end-of-year interview. “You are you and I am me and I said, ‘if we meet in one corner, so be it,'” he continued. The belligerent leader, who declared 60 days of martial law on Mindanao, has threatened to literally eat terrorists as long their remains are seasoned with salt and vinegar.

Government forces expect to miss their deadline to eradicate the uprising by the end of Friday, defense officials said. Spokesman Restituto Padilla said “I don’t think we can meet the deadline to completely free Marawi of every single armed element on every street.”

Last week, the government declared that they were officially under invasion and that Marawi had fallen to Daesh militants occupying a majority of the city’s strategic positions, Sputnik reported.

The pro-Islamic State factions, Abu Sayyaf and Maute, are led by emir Isnilon Hapilon. Both have long been active in the Philippines, with Abu Sayyaf maintaining a campaign of high-profile kidnappings and executions.

Hours before the invasion began, Duterte told RT the US in general and CIA in particular sought to disrupt and destabilize his administration. The attack begun as Duterte was meeting with Putin. Days before the meeting with Putin, Duterte said he would restore better relations with China, as they were more important partner than the US. Are the Philipines undergoing a CIA backed regime change?

By Siraj Wahab

Explosions ripped through the funeral of an Afghan anti-government protester in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens in fresh carnage that saw tensions rise in a city already on edge.

The latest killings, which could provoke a new cycle of bloodshed, bring the number of people killed this week to 101, with hundreds injured in one of the worst bouts of violence in the Afghan capital for years.

Witnesses reported three back-to-back blasts during the burial of Salim Ezadyar, who was among four people killed on Friday when a protest over spiraling insecurity in Kabul degenerated into street clashes with police.

The hilly, windswept cemetery was littered with human remains, with one witness telling AFP that “people were blown to pieces” due to the impact of the blasts.

“So far seven dead bodies and 119 wounded people have been brought to Kabul hospitals,” Waheed Majroh, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, told AFP.

The funeral of Ezadyar, the son of an influential Afghan senator, was attended by senior government figures including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, but they escaped unharmed.

No group has so far claimed the attack, with the Taliban — the biggest insurgent group in Afghanistan — denying any involvement.

The fresh killings are likely to further polarize a city that has been on edge since a truck bombing on Wednesday in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter killed 90 people and wounded hundreds, in the deadliest attack on the Afghan capital since 2001.

President Ashraf Ghani made a televised appeal for national unity after the funeral bombings. “The country is under attack,” he said. “We must stay strong and united.”

Baker Atyani, a veteran journalist who has covered militant groups for two decades, blamed the chaos on the power struggles within the Afghan government and the ineffective role of the international coalition led by the US.

“The Haqqani network has said it was not behind the attack; Daesh, which goes by the name the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), said it is not behind the attack; and we have heard the denial from Taliban — all this is strange,” said Atyani.

There is chaos in Afghanistan because “of there being a state with two heads — President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah,” he added.

Ghani is a Pashtun while Abdullah is of mixed Pashtun-Tajik heritage but is often seen as having supported the latter group more strongly. Atyani said the rivalry between the two ethnic groups is very well known.

He added that there has been uncertainty and a deep struggle for power in Afghanistan ever since Abdullah refused to accept the results of the last presidential elections. “It was the former US Secretary of State John Kerry who came up with this weird equation through which he created a slot for a chief executive when there was no such provision in the Afghan constitution,” said Atyani.

“If you look at the larger picture in Afghanistan, this is the failure of all those foreign countries who came into Afghanistan under the US leadership. They could not deliver what they promised to the Afghan people. The international coalition has, in the last 13 years, spent over $1 trillion and yet they failed to bring peace and development to the war-ravaged country,” said Atyani.

“Today, a mere 10 percent of the Afghans have access to electricity,” he added.

The government has blamed the Taliban-allied Haqqani network for the attack.

Atyani said he did not believe in the allegations leveled against Pakistan by the Afghan government.

“There is no love lost between the NDS (National Directorate of Security of Afghanistan) and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan). As an observer, I do not buy the Afghan intelligence’s assessment that Pakistan is behind this attack. This is not correct.”

According to Atyani, the chaos in Kabul would directly benefit the Taliban. “In any case the writ of the Afghan government does not run large in many districts and towns. In some, there are shadow governments led by the Taliban and in some others there is Daesh which has added to the confusion. There has been no method in Daesh’s madness. All their attacks have been directed against the civilians.”

A large delivery van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge in the British capital late Saturday evening, striking a number of people who were left bleeding on the pavement. Near the scene of the road terror, attackers also stabbed at least two people. At least one of the victims died, and the casualty toll was expected to rise.

Heavily armed police patrolled the area and told everyone to move to safety. There were reports that shots had been fired, suggesting the attackers escaped. Authorities declared the incident was a terrorist attack.

Amid rumors and speculation about other incidents, police indicated a violent attack in another South London neighborhood several kilometers away might have been linked to the terrorists. But they later said the carnage on London Bridge and in Borough Markets was not connected to a separate stabbing in Vauxhall.

Prime Minister Theresa May said authorities were devoting all possible resources to tracing the source of the attacks and keeping London safe.

​The U.S. Embassy in London issued an alert to U.S. citizens in the area.

Few details of what occurred were confirmed officially in the chaotic first hours after alarms were sounded about a wild driver aiming at pedestrians on London Bridge, but multiple sources on the ground — witnesses, bystanders and journalists — provided details that established what had happened.

London’s Metropolitan Police posted tweets updating the situation throughout the night and launched a social media campaign calling on the public to “RUN, HIDE, TELL” — in other words, to first go to a safe place quickly. “If there’s nowhere to go, then HIDE,” the police announcement said. “Turn your phone to silent and turn off vibrate. Barricade yourself in if you can,” and call police when it is safe to do so.

London Bridge and a subway station at the span’s southern end were closed off immediately after the incident began, after 10 p.m., local time, and traffic was halted over a wide area.

Several witnesses had said it appeared those involved in the first part of the attack, on London Bridge, escaped after knocking over pedestrians on the bridge.

News media published an image of a large white delivery van that apparently ran off a road in South London after leaving the bridge. Its doors were open, as if all occupants had fled, and the vehicle was partly crumpled against a street light.

May was monitoring the situation from her office at 10 Downing Street. In Washington, President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, said U.S. security officials were following the events in London closely, and that Trump was up to date on the details.

Trump himself posted a note on Twitter saying, “Whatever the United States can do to help out in London … we will be there.”

His first tweet about the London attack, sent several minutes earlier, appeared to refer to the incident in the context of his administration’s efforts to restrict immigration to the U.S.: “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”

London Map
London Map

London Bridge crosses the River Thames between central London and the South London neighborhood known as Borough Market, which lies several hundred meters from the bridge itself.

Many people witnessed what took place and gave their accounts to police and news reporters. Most said they saw a white van heading toward Borough Market veer off the roadway at high speed, probably in excess of 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), and drive into pedestrians; about five to eight people who had been walking across the bridge were hit and thrown to the pavement.

Other witnesses said they saw at least two people who had been stabbed in a restaurant close to Borough Market.

Saturday’s incident came less than two weeks after a terror attack in Manchester, England, killed 23 people following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The pop star, who was badly shaken by the attack but uninjured, was scheduled to return to Manchester Sunday to perform a benefit concert for victims of the suicide attack and their families.

VOA’s Luis Ramirez and Jamie Dettmer contributed to this report.

By Henry George

At 10:30 pm on Saturday June 3, London witnessed the latest in a string of jihadi terror attacks that have so far hit Afghanistan, Iraq, and Manchester. ISIS has also taken over the town of Marawi in the southern Philippines, showing that as its central state is rolled back inch by inch it has the potential to expand elsewhere.

The attack on London Bridge saw 7 people killed by being run over by a white van or stabbed by the three terrorists who then went on a stabbing rampage that ended in Borough Market. British armed police arrived on the scene in 8 minutes from the time of the alert, where they shot all 3 men dead, who were wearing what turned out to be fake suicide vests.

The attacks struck at another landmark in the capital of the West’s home to parliamentary democracy; London Bridge is a landmark with deep historical significance, and to launch an attack on it was an attempt to reach the same level of psychological impact as that on Westminster Bridge back in March. Borough Market is a popular tourist and local attraction, and is always full of people. If the attackers had managed to obtain AK-47’s or another similar firearm, or indeed if they’d actually had real suicide vests, the death toll could have been catastrophic. As it was, the country is grateful that they only had a vehicular missile and blades to finish the job. That is what we’ve come to in the West.

What we are seeing is, as Maajid Nawaz and others have described, a full blown global jihadist insurgency. The jihadists have taken their campaign of terror beyond mere terrorism and have elevated it to the levels of highly decentralised, insurgent, Fourth-Generation warfare.

Through the communications networks of the internet they are able to coordinate and contact each other constantly and at speed. If they use anonymising software like VPN’s or Tor, or particularly Telegram, a private messaging service with end to end encryption that is extremely difficult to monitor or hack into, then they can reduce their visibility online, making them harder to track.

This makes it easier to create what Marc Sageman calls ‘leaderless networks’, where groups of jihadists can operate at a level of autonomy and without the need for a central command hierarchy dictating their every move that has never before been seen, and is a boon for the terrorists while proving a nightmare for our security services and governments.

Added to this, recruitment to the insurgency is facilitated by the easy dissemination of radical Islamist propaganda and ideological material via the internet: through jihadi websites and forums, through oil rich Saudi-funded Salafi organisations who spread their puritanical form of Islam to millions in the West through the use of their own websites, YouTube and other video sharing platforms, and through satellite TV channels that host hate preachers who regularly call for the genocide of Jews. ‘heretical’ Muslims and non-Muslims. This gives ideological fuel to those who wish to access it, both online and through the network of Saudi affiliated Salafi and Deobandi mosques that have proliferated across the country; the Didsbury Mosque where Salman Abedi worshipped hosted preachers who called for Sharia Law and the destruction of the West.

As Kenan Malik and Nawaz argue, this has been going on for decades and stretches back to the 1980’s if not earlier. Thanks to the politics of multiculturalism instantiated in the 80’s, there has been a growth in communalism in the UK with each minority group progressively cutting its ties with mainstream society, reverting to cultural norms that might best be left in the middle-ages, while being represented by self-elected speakers who often have ties with organisations who represent the most extreme views present within those communities. This particularly pertains to the Muslim community in Britain, where although not all Muslims buy into this radical form of Islam, many in the younger generation certainly do.

A recent example of how this communalism backfires comes in two forms: the head of the government’s Prevent counter-extremism strategy in Manchester, Samyia Butt has been discovered to be affiliated with Muslim Engagment and Development, (Mend) an organisation that has shown support for extreme Islamist positions and includes ISIS imagery in its campaign posts. In order to avoid confusion, an official in charge of the government run counter-extremism scheme is herself affiliated with an extremist Islamist organisation. And this in the city where the Manchester bomber lived and who attended Salford University whose official policy is to boycott Prevent.

This situation is replicated across the country with Muslim organisations falling prey to the Salafi Islamist ideology that is pumped around the world using Saudi oil money. Seen in this light, the fact that the number of jihadis in Britain that are on the security services’ radar stands at 23,000 is perhaps no longer inexplicable, even while remaining a shockingly high number. By the way, 3,000 of that number apparently pose a high risk, while the rest pose a ‘residual’ risk. Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, was a ‘residual’ risk.

This is what we in the West and around the world are dealing with. We are facing a motivated foe which has the means to communicate with each other; the means to operate in a diffuse, decentralised manner with a lack of hierarchy and who operate in small units and sub-networks that makes it harder to get a grip on them; the means to obtain funds to further their campaign against those they deem the infidel; who are able to manipulate the media and online platforms to wage psychological warfare against us; who carry out genocidal attacks on civilians (the Yazidis and Middle-Eastern Christians) in order to further terrify while desensitising us and who attack significant landmarks and public areas and populations to further affect us psychologically, economically and politically.

The Salafi-Jihadists have been waging Fourth-Generation warfare against us for the better part of 25 years. We have not understood their motives that are based in parts of the texts; we have not understood their strategy in trying create a division between Muslims and the West in order to advance their goal of creating a new caliphate, and we have not understood their tactics for bringing this about.
We need to wake up and educate ourselves fast. We have been at war for decades and we haven’t even known it.

If we do not wake up, London and the rest of the world will continue to burn.

About the author:
*Henry George studied for a History BA at Royal Holloway, University of London. He then studied for a War Studies MA at King’s College London, focusing on ISIS inspired terrorism and Fourth Generation Warfare for his dissertation. He also blogs here, focusing on issues surrounding identity politics, political philosophy, free speech and cultural issues broadly linked to the West’s decline. He can be reached on Twitter at @intothefuture45.

Source:
This article was published by Bombs and Dollars

Numerous users of Uber published posts on social media stating that prices for trips had increased three or four times compared to the usual tariffs following the terror attack on London Bridge.

The Uber taxi service increased tariffs on Saturday night in central London following the terror attack on London Bridge, UK media reported Sunday, citing witnesses who tried to use the taxi service.

According to The Sun newspaper, numerous users published posts on social media stating that prices for trips had increased three or four times compared to the usual tariffs.

Journeys normally costing around 7 UK pounds ($9) were hiked up to as much as 40 pounds in line with Uber’s peak demand rates.

Hey @Uber — you’re really going to surge price x2.1 during a terrorist attack in #London??? Lower than low. #londonbridge #emergency pic.twitter.com/yXHFZsYZkT

— Amber Clemente (@yankeeamber) June 3, 2017

Uber, on its part, said in a statement that fare surges had been stopped as soon as it learned about the attack.

On Saturday, at 22:08 local time (21:08 GMT), a vehicle struck pedestrians on London Bridge. The vehicle with three suspects continued to drive from London Bridge to Borough Market, after which the suspects left the vehicle and carried out a stabbing attack at the market. The attackers were confronted by the police and shot dead within minutes.

In just a few minutes, a deadly rampage swept through a busy Saturday night in central London, killing seven, and injuring nearly 50 others. Witnesses described in detail how the deadly tragedy unfolded in the streets of the British capital.

Eyewitnesses said that the three assailants were driving over London Bridge in a nondescript Hertz rental van, when they accelerated to “about 50mph,” according to Holly Jones, a BBC journalist, caught in the attack.

“We thought it was a car accident but as we got closer we could see a lot of blood and bodies. There was a pregnant woman on the right who was severely injured and on the left there was a man being resuscitated, but he started breathing. We don’t know whether the woman survived,” one witness told the Guardian.

One more witness identified as Eric Siguenza told the BBC that three men “jumped out of the van and that’s when they started attacking people on the road.”

“As they headed down the stairs, as they were running towards the people, they were shouting, ‘This is for Allah,’” he said.

They were just yards from Borough Market, a popular nightspot. It was just after 10pm, minutes after the Champions League Final wrapped up in Cardiff, and the streets were full of revelers.

The violence occurred in full view of hundreds of onlookers.

“I saw a man in red with quite a large blade, I don’t know the measurement, I guess maybe 10 inches. He was stabbing a man… he stabbed him about three times fairly calmly,” an eyewitness, who identified himself as Ben, told The Telegraph.“It looked like the man had maybe been trying to intervene but there wasn’t much that he could do, he was being stabbed quite coldly and he slumped to the ground.”

“They stabbed this girl maybe 10 times, 15 times. She was going, ‘Help me, help me,’” an eyewitness named Gerard told the BBC, saying that he lobbed a bottle at the assailants to try to scare them off.

Many sought refuge in the cafes in the market square. But safety was temporary, as the attackers went inside the cafes, stabbing indiscriminately.

“He stabbed her in the neck,” eyewitness Elsbeth Smedley told CNN, recounting an attack on a waitress. “He stabbed another man in the back, and then he ran out of the restaurant.”

Police said that they received the first call about the attack at 10:08pm. An armed unit was dispatched immediately. Eyewitnesses described a cacophony of gunfire. Within eight minutes, the three stabbers were dead. The canisters the terrorists had strapped to their bodies were crude fakes.

The manager of a pub in the vicinity of the attack told RT that armed police stormed into the building and “basically asked us to leave.” A woman in the pub said the experience was “terrifying,” and that she could see a person lying on the ground from the window.

Another witness, a young man, told RT that he was on the bridge at the time the carnage took place, and saw a man being arrested by police just next to him. He was, however, unable to describe the man, as his face was covered with a hood.

“I did not really see. I tried to snap it but I just had been told to run,” he said.

Shortly after the attack, police issued a ‘Run, Hide, Tell’ warning for civilians, designed as a response to mass attacks in public places.

The local underground station was shut, hospitals were placed on shutdown, and the entire district cordoned off. People were forced to walk with hands on their heads, police stopped and searched suspicious groups, and tourists wandered around, unable to return to their hotels.

By Ben Flanagan

British Prime Minister Theresa May has called for stronger counter-terrorism measures following Saturday’s killing spree on the streets of London — the third deadly terror attack in the UK in less than three months.

Three attackers drove a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby, killing seven people and wounding 48, before the assailants were shot dead by police.

“It is time to say enough is enough,” May said in a statement outside her Downing Street office on Sunday.

“We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” she added, calling for new measures that could include longer jail sentences for some offenses and new cyberspace regulations.

May said the series of attacks in the UK were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth.

“While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is — to be frank — far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said, urging Britons to be more robust in stamping it out in society.

King Salman sent a cable of condolences to May.

“We have received the news of the terrorist attack that took place in London, which resulted in deaths and injuries,” King Salman said.

The Muslim World League (MWL) condemned the terrorist attack.

MWL Secretary-General Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa stressed upon the league’s consistent position toward terrorism and its supporters.

Terrorists aim to target the UK’s excellence as a model of tolerance and human coexistence, he said, adding that these groups’ ideology includes exporting their misery and despair as well as attacking the values of this civilized state in order to create a civilizational and cultural conflict.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the London attack. But one analyst on terrorism told Arab News the incident comes at a time when Daesh is stepping up attacks on global targets.

Peter Lehr, lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University, Scotland, said the killing spree in London “bears all the hallmarks” of a Daesh attack.

He pointed to a previous call by Daesh spokesman Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani, who urged followers to attack Western targets by any means necessary.

“Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him from a high place,” Al-Adnani said in 2014.

Lehr said: “This attack perfectly fits the bill. What is important in this regard is that unlike the Manchester suicide bombing, carrying out such an attack doesn’t require any advanced skills such as bomb making nor any lengthy preparations, which makes it more likely to be discovered by intelligence (services) or police before the perpetrators are ready to strike.”

Eyewitnesses of Saturday’s terror atrocity described harrowing scenes as the attackers’ white van veered on and off the bridge sidewalk, hitting people along the way. The three men then ran into an area packed with bars and restaurants, stabbing people indiscriminately.

One eyewitness told Arab News that she saw a man with his throat cut stumbling away from the scene. “We saw a man coming off the bridge with blood all over him and it looked like he had his throat slashed,” she said. “He was holding his neck.”

Mark Rowley, head of counter-terrorism police, said eight officers had fired about 50 bullets to stop the attackers, who were wearing what turned out to be fake suicide vests.

Police on Sunday arrested 12 people in east London, where at least one of the attackers is believed to have resided, according to Sky News.

Saturday’s attack came five days before the UK parliamentary election on Thursday, which May said would go ahead as planned. The string of terror attacks in the UK is likely to be central issue of debate in the last few days of campaigning.

Around two weeks ago, a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a concert by US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England. In March, in an attack similar to Saturday’s, five people died after a man drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in central London and stabbed a policeman.

World leaders, including those from the Middle East, were quick to condemn the recent attacks in London.

An official source at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the Kingdom’s “strong condemnation and denunciation of the attacks.”

In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency, the source offered the Kingdom’s condolences to the families of the victims and to the UK government and people, wishing a speedy recovery to the wounded.

The official source reiterated the “Kingdom’s solidarity with the United Kingdom against terrorism and extremism which target security and stability around the world without exception.”

Last night, our country fell victim to a brutal terrorist attack once again. As a result I have just chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee and I want to update you with the latest information about the attack.

Shortly before 10:10 yesterday evening, the Metropolitan Police received reports that a white van had struck pedestrians on London Bridge. It continued to drive from London Bridge to Borough Market, where 3 terrorists left the van and attacked innocent and unarmed civilians with blades and knives.

All 3 were wearing what appeared to be explosive vests, but the police have established that this clothing was fake and worn only to spread panic and fear.

As so often in such serious situations, the police responded with great courage and great speed. Armed officers from the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police arrived at Borough Market within moments, and shot and killed the 3 suspects. The terrorists were confronted and shot by armed officers within 8 minutes of the police receiving the first emergency call.

Seven people have died as a result of the attack, in addition to the 3 suspects shot dead by the police. Forty-eight people are being treated in several hospitals across London. Many have life-threatening conditions.

On behalf of the people of London, and on behalf of the whole country, I want to thank and pay tribute to the professionalism and bravery of the police and the emergency services – and the courage of members of the public who defended themselves and others from the attackers. And our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and with their friends, families and loved ones.

This is, as we all know, the third terrorist attack Britain has experienced in the last 3 months. In March, a similar attack took place, just around the corner on Westminster Bridge. Two weeks ago, the Manchester Arena was attacked by a suicide bomber. And now London has been struck once more.

And at the same time, the security and intelligence agencies and police have disrupted 5 credible plots since the Westminster attack in March.

In terms of their planning and execution, the recent attacks are not connected. But we believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face, as terrorism breeds terrorism, and perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully-constructed plots after years of planning and training – and not even as lone attackers radicalised online – but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.

We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Things need to change, and they need to change in 4 important ways.

First, while the recent attacks are not connected by common networks, they are connected in one important sense. They are bound together by the single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division, and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.

Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time. But it cannot be defeated through military intervention alone. It will not be defeated through the maintenance of a permanent, defensive counter-terrorism operation, however skilful its leaders and practitioners. It will only be defeated when we turn people’s minds away from this violence – and make them understand that our values – pluralistic, British values – are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.

Second, we cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet – and the big companies that provide internet-based services – provide. We need to work with allied, democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremism and terrorist planning. And we need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.

Third, while we need to deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online, we must not forget about the safe spaces that continue to exist in the real world. Yes, that means taking military action to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But it also means taking action here at home. While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.

So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out – across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations, but the whole of our country needs to come together to take on this extremism – and we need to live our lives not in a series of separated, segregated communities but as one truly United Kingdom.

Fourth, we have a robust counter-terrorism strategy that has proved successful over many years. But as the nature of the threat we face becomes more complex, more fragmented, more hidden, especially online, the strategy needs to keep up. So in light of what we are learning about the changing threat, we need to review Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy to make sure the police and security services have all the powers they need.

And if we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for terrorism-related offences, even apparently less serious offences, that is what we will do.

Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public. But it is time to say enough is enough. Everybody needs to go about their lives as they normally would. Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values. But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change.

As a mark of respect the 2 political parties have suspended our national campaigns for today. But violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process. So those campaigns will resume in full tomorrow. And the general election will go ahead as planned on Thursday.

As a country, our response must be as it has always been when we have been confronted by violence. We must come together, we must pull together, and united we will take on and defeat our enemies.

Experts at this year’s Euroanaesthesia congress in Geneva (3-5 June) will discuss the unusual and challenging problem of how to perform emergency medical procedures during space missions.

“Space exploration missions to the Moon and Mars are planned in the coming years. During these long duration flights, the estimated risk of severe medical and surgical events, as well as the risk of loss of crew life are significant,” according to Dr Matthieu Komorowski, Consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK. “The exposure to the space environment itself disturbs most physiological systems and can precipitate the onset of space-specific illnesses, such as cardiovascular deconditioning, acute radiation syndrome, hypobaric decompression sickness and osteoporotic fractures.”

In the event of a crew member suffering from an illness or injury, they may have to be treated and cared for by personnel with little formal medical training at their disposal and without the equipment and consumables that would be available in a comparable situation on Earth.

Dr Komorowski noted that, “In the worst-case scenario, non-medical personnel may have to care for an injured or ill crewmember. Far from low earth orbit, real-time telemedicine will not be available and the crew will need to be self-reliant.” He added that, “Duplication of skills will be critical to enhance crew safety, especially if the doctor on board himself becomes ill, injured, incapacitated or dies. As such, extending basic medical training to most crewmembers will be extremely important.”

Despite these measures, Dr Komorowski cautioned that, “In remote environments, medical and surgical conditions with a low probability of success that also require using vast quantities of consumables are often not attempted. Similarly, during future space exploration missions, the crew must prepare for non-survivable illnesses or injuries that will exceed their limited treatment capability.”

Dr Komorowski will discuss various solutions and countermeasures that could be applied and discuss how they have been inspired by the needs of medical care in austere environments such as Antarctic polar bases, expeditions to remote areas, and during military operations here on Earth. These include ideas such as matching crew members for blood type to enable transfusions in an environment where blood products will not be available, or making use of on-demand 3D printing of medical equipment rather than carrying items that would most likely not be needed during the mission.

In the event of a serious problem such as a cardiac arrest, it may be necessary to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); an especially difficult procedure to perform in microgravity. This will be covered by Professor Jochen Hinkelbein, Executive Senior Physician, Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. He is also President of the German Society for Aerospace Medicine (DGLRM).

Prof Hinkelbein pointed out that “Since astronauts are selected carefully, are usually young, and are intensively observed before and during their training, relevant medical problems are, fortunately, rare in space. However, in the context of future long-term missions, for example to Mars, with durations of several years, the risk for severe medical problems is significantly higher. Therefore, there is also a substantial risk for a cardiac arrest in space requiring CPR.”

The space environment presents a number of unique problems that must be overcome in order to deliver emergency medical care. In microgravity it is not possible to use one’s body weight to perform actions such as CPR as would be done on Earth, and there are strict limits on the amount of medical equipment and consumables that can be taken on a mission.

Prof Hinkelbein will outline the different methods of CPR that have been tested in microgravity experiments onboard aircraft and in specialized underwater space simulators. The research conducted by his team found that using a ‘hand-stand’ technique was the most effective way to treat a cardiac arrest and most closely matched the guidelines used here on Earth. In situations where that method couldn’t be used such as small confined spaces, the alternative is the Evetts-Russomano method of wrapping the legs around the patient to prevent them floating away while performing compressions was judged to be the best alternative.

He concluded that, “In the context of future space exploration, the longer duration of missions, and the consecutively higher risk of an incident requiring resuscitation increase the importance of microgravity-appropriate medical techniques.”

By Mihai Popșoi*

(FPRI) — In early March 2017, Vlad Plahotniuc, media mogul and head of the ruling Democratic Party in Moldova, proposed a bill to change the country’s parliamentary electoral system from proportional to first-past-the-post. Plahotniuc realized that under the current proportional electoral system his party stood no chance of remaining in power after the 2018 legislative elections. The move was no surprise, as many analysts predicted that Democrats would attempt to change the electoral system in order to hold onto power.

Questions of Legitimacy

With a conformable majority in parliament, one would expect Plahotniuc easily to get his way. In reality, things are more complicated because the majority that Plahotniuc relies on is contested. Despite winning only 19 seats in the last election, the Democratic Party has more than doubled its faction, which now has 42 seats. Eleven seats belong to the Liberal Party, a junior coalition partner. On May 25, the party announced its withdrawal from the coalition a day after the mayor of Chisinau and senior vice president of the Liberal Party had been detained on corruption charges. However, Liberal Party Chairman Mihai Ghimpu considers the arrest political retribution for the party’s refusal to support changing the electoral system. The Liberal Party is likely to be replaced by the nine Liberal Democrat defectors who are currently part of the newly created European People’s Party parliamentary group led by Iurie Leanca. Leanca is often viewed as a Plahotniuc ally and potential future Minister of Foreign Affairs. Plahotniuc co-opted defectors from the Party of Communists and the Liberal Democratic Party after orchestrating a hostile takeover against these two opposition groups in parliament. Thus, since 2014, the Democratic Party was joined by one Socialist, 14 Communists, and 8 Liberal Democrat defectors. Many Moldovans view Plahotniuc’s 42 seats and, therefore, the entire ruling majority as illegitimate.

Similarly, the Democratic Party controls about half of the country’s 900 mayors, despite winning less than a third of mayoralties in the 2015 local elections. Plahotniuc’s tactic of getting lawmakers and mayors to defect and join his party by hook or by crook—coupled with his vast financial, media, and administrative resources—make all of the other parties vulnerable in the face of a single member majoritarian system. Under the proposed system, Plahotniuc could make better use of his unfair competitive advantage by employing either corruption or coercion to turn promising candidates to his sideFor these reasons, every other major political party opposes this bill, including the Action and Solidarity Party, the Dignity and Truth Party, as well as the Party of Communists. That is why Plahotniuc has channeled all of his resources towards building a perception of vast popular support for the proposed change. A national media campaign was launched along with a massive effort to collect signatures in support of Plahotniuc’s bill. Yet, the Democratic Party public relations team may have gone a bit too far when they claimed to have collected almost one million signatures, which amounts to about half of Moldova’s adult population. It did not stop there. The Democratic Party just commissioned the largest poll in Moldova’s history with over 12,000 respondents, compared to the usual national polls of only 1,200 respondents. Apart from the data that was made public, the Democratic Party now is likely to have access to information that allows it to gerrymander electoral districts and co-opt candidates to further cement its competitive edge.

Nonetheless, electing legislators directly in single member districts is an appealing proposition for many voters. Prior to Plahotniuc’s monopolization of political power, some of the parties that now oppose the bill, such as the Liberal Democratic Party, once favored a first-past-the-post system. But more importantly, Plahotniuc and his team have presented first-past-the-post as a simple system of direct political representation, which provides voters in a district a clear choice between individual contenders. This new system is contrasted with the more cumbersome proportional representation system based on party tickets. However, as political science literature indicates, majoritarian systems are generally better suited for consolidated democracies, while countries in transition, such as Moldova, tend to benefit more from a proportional system of representation. Majoritarian systems over-reward the winner, being prone to “electoral dictatorship,” reducing the need for compromise and consensus-building. These negative features can exacerbate tension in multiethnic societies. The unfairness of the majoritarian system also results from the systematic exclusion of smaller parties with more diverse views, in time leading to a two party system alternating in power.

Facing strong domestic contestation, Plahotniuc’s ruling majority is hard pressed to find external validation of this major electoral reform. The Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law, is the leading authority in this regard. It has already stated that a national consensus is advisable for such an overhaul of the electoral system. The support of President Igor Dodon’s fellow Socialists would help to provide the appearance of national consensus that Plahotniuc needs.

Dodon and Plahotniuc: Reluctant Partners?

A compromise solution in the form of a mixed electoral system could be presented as a national consensus between the ruling majority dominated by the Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists, which is nominally in opposition to the government even though its former leader serves as president of the country. The compromise bill envisages that 51 MPs would be elected under the current closed list proportional system, while the other 50 would be elected if they received a plurality of votes in single member districts. Many, including people in his former party, were surprised when President Dodon proposed a mixed system on April 18. However, this was not the first time Dodon and Plahotniuc adopted similar positions, despite their fierce public rivalry.

There have been numerous instances in which the Party of Socialists has cooperated with Plahotniuc’s Democratic Party, despite ongoing public acrimony between the two camps. Democrats have recently granted two ambassadorships (Moscow and Minsk) to people affiliated with Igor Dodon. At the same time, as the anti-corruption agency is arresting people affiliated with the Liberal and Liberal Democratic parties, Socialists appear to be spared such attention. Similarly, Plahotniuc did not oppose Dodon’s firing of the Defense Minister, whereas Dodon did not stand in the way of Plahontiuc appointing his protégé to head Moldova Gas Company, controlled by Gazprom. Socialists have also supported several controversial bills put forward by the Democratic Party, including the most recent amendments to the Audiovisual Code opposed by many media organizations. Moreover, Plahotniuc’s media empire consistently attacked Dodon’s opponent during the presidential elections. Their relationship has transitioned from one of outright competition to de facto cooperation on many sensitive topics. Many Moldovans view their relationship today as one marked by tacit cooperation.

Political Alliances Transcending Geopolitics

The European Union has already linked its €100 million proposed assistance to Moldova to the government’s respect of “effective democratic mechanisms, including a multi-party parliamentary system.” An even stronger message came from the European People’s Party (EPP) and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament. The EU Parliament actually postponed the €100 of macro-financial assistance over concerns regarding the changes of the electoral system. The Venice Commission would also be hard pressed not to acknowledge the obvious lack of political consensus in the country. Given the less than enthusiastic reception that Plahotniuc gets in Brussels, he has turned his focus to the White House. As a fellow businessman who also believes in “the art of the deal,” Plahotniuc made overtures of cooperation to the Trump team even before the inauguration of Donald Trump; he presented Moldova to Trump as a bridge between Russia and the West.

Yet, as U.S.-Russia relations started to deteriorate over Syria, Moldova’s “deal maker” switched gears and re-branded Moldova and his Democratic Party into a bastion of Western values standing against Russia and President Dodon. This branding effort is not consistent with Moldova’s political reality. In order to better shape his own narrative, Plahotniuc hired two leading lobbying groups, Podesta-Group and Burson-Marsteller, to represent his interests in Washington and Brussels.

At the same time, the ad-hoc coalition in support of political pluralism also cuts across geopolitical preferences of the five political parties, three of which are pro-Western (Liberal Democratic Party, Action and Solidarity Party, Dignity and Truth Party), while the other two are more Russia-oriented (Party of Communists and Our Party). Despite risk of a major political crisis, the current situation has a silver lining. Geopolitics, no matter how pervasive, does not pre-determine policy positions. Therefore, the hope that Moldova can become a country with parties focused less on geopolitics and more on governance still lives on.

About the author:
*Mihai Popșoi is an Associate Expert with the Foreign Policy Association of Moldova

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Trump is a short-term problem. The China challenge — on the other hand — is a continuing and long-term problem.

By Rajesh Rajagopalan

The contrast could not be greater. In Beijing, dozens of world leaders, strong and weak alike, kowtowed as President Xi Jinping outlined what he characterised as the “project of the century”, the so-called ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ that would expand China’s influence across Asia and the Indian Ocean. In Washington, President Trump, just over a hundred days into his presidency, is careening from one self-inflicted crisis to the next as it becomes clearer by the day that he is far more incompetent and ill-prepared for the office than even his worst critics had imagined.

Still, the contrast should not be overblown, especially its consequences for India’s external strategy. The challenge that China represents will be with us a lot longer than the Trump administration. And the US will remain a necessary partner for India and other states in the region to ensure an Asian balance. In assessing strategic needs, New Delhi should take a somewhat longer view than the Trump administration.

There was some hope that the new Republican administration would reverse what was seen as President Obama’s lackadaisical approach to China’s growing power and influence and to the pressure this put on American partners in the Asia-Pacific region. And some of President Trump’s statements, even when he was a candidate, appeared to suggest that he would take a more active role in countering China. But over the last few weeks, the White House has reversed itself, supposedly because it was seeking China’s help in controlling North Korea. The administration has even stopped its routine FONOPS (Freedom of Navigation Operations) in the South China Sea for a period to curry Beijing’s goodwill, though it has conducted one such FONOP since then.

Though the Trump administration’s fickleness is a problem, it is also imperative not to be overwhelmed by the contrast between an assertive, confident, seemingly strategically adept China and a bumbling Washington. Instead, the focus should be on the somewhat longer-term trends in the balance of power in the region and its imperatives.

What such a longer-term perspective would suggest is that China’s challenge to India’s interests is only set to grow further. Though China’s economic growth has slowed somewhat, China is still continuing to pull farther away from India with each passing year. Even if China’s growth rate slows to about five percent, and India’s growth rate increases to about eight percent, what China adds to its economy every year would still be about three times what India adds, ensuring that the gap between the two will continue to widen.

Of course, economic growth is not all. Having more money helps only if one is able to convert that into power resources. Here too, China does a much better job. For example, despite no previous experience with aircraft carriers, it is now building one domestically that is larger than the next Indian carrier, the domestically-built Vikrant. While India is struggling to build infrastructure in the northeast along the China border, China is building a highway and rail network that will connect it all the way to Europe, after completing an excellent communication networks to the Indian border. And while it took India three decades to build a light combat aircraft, China is well on its way to deploying a fifth-generation fighter, the J-20.

There are many reasons and excuses for India’s administrative and other infirmities, of course, but the simple truth is that India is not only relatively poorer but has trouble even converting whatever wealth it has into power resources. In addition, India’s risk-averse, defensive strategic mindset has not changed sufficiently to meet the challenge posed by China.

The growing power disparity with China will impact India in myriad ways, not only as greater military threat on its borders and in the seas around India, but also in terms of China’s political impact on India’s neighborhood as well as in larger global politics, especially in multilateral forums. Unlike India, China does consider military force as a tool to be deployed proactively, as can be seen by the way in which it has effectively taken control of much of the South China Sea. India should also expect continued heavy weather in multilateral settings, with China now even more willing to use these to constrain and contain India. In the neighborhood, China’s assertiveness and willingness to balance India will lead smaller states to play New Delhi and Beijing off against each other, forcing India on the defensive.

These strategic challenges will be with us for a considerable period of time, because the balance of power on which this is based will not change sufficiently in the coming decade or possibly even two.

It is unlikely to last beyond its current four-year term, assuming President Trump is not impeached even before the current term ends. Admittedly, the heated talk in Washington about an impeachment because of collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia is probably exaggerated. There is, as of now at least, little direct evidence of any collusion. What is more likely is that Russian involvement in the US 2016 election was dictated by President Putin’s personal dislike of Hillary Clinton, who he suspected was involved in an attempt to scuttle Putin’s own election in 2011. But a fairly open-ended investigation, which is what is likely now that former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been appointed Special Counsel to look into the allegations of collusion, has ways of going in unpredictable directions, and possibly unearthing serious acts of omission or commission that could at the very least further damage Trump.

But even assuming Trump is not impeached, his chances in the 2020 presidential elections seem poor, considering his current dismal popularity ratings. Some Republicans such as Ohio governor and former presidential candidate John Kasich are already making noises about running against Trump. If Trump continues his poor performance, we should expect more to join the fray. A number of Democrats are already gearing up for a serious challenge in 2020, and it is difficult to see Trump winning a second term (even keeping in mind the record of pollsters in the 2016 campaign). In brief, Trump is likely to be, at best, a one-term president.

But even if Trump wins in 2020, India’s essential strategic requirement will not change. India faces a far stronger China for a considerable period of time and it needs as many strong partners as it can get to increase Indian capacity to meet this challenge. While it would have been better if India had an American partner today that it can depend upon, it will still need an American partner in four or eight years because the China threat will still be with us. This strategic imperative should guide Indian policy.

Trump’s transactionalism and incompetence is a problem, but in strategic terms, it is a short-term problem. The China challenge, on the other hand, is a continuing and longer-term problem. New Delhi should try to limit any damage Trump may cause and seek any opportunities that are available, while waiting out the Trump administration.

What might take place on a random summer Saturday night in a European capital city? It might be full of armed police rushing to a pub, barking at patrons to lie down immediately, because there’s a possibility of a bomb that might go off. There will be texting to colleagues who work in an area, to ask if they are okay. Friends will call each other advising them to avoid certain “no-go” areas. There will be a constant refreshing of one’s Twitter feed or the feeling of being glued to a news channel if you’re at home. It is BBC writing there’s a “Van incident at a bridge”, a euphemism, of course. But everyone will know what it means, what just happened, and who might be responsible. No one talks about it in civilised circles anymore, and certainly not on the BBC. It is watching a high trust society behave like a war zone. It is police tweeting and asking public to “run, hide and tell”. It is police making hundreds of late night revellers walk in a straight line with hands up palms open, in a scene that is more familiar in Kashmir or Xinjiang. The same country, which saw off the Spanish Armada, Napoleon and Hitler. It is the feeling of abject, ignominious surrender.

I was born in India. I have seen Islamist terrorism far more than any average Westerner. Let me tell you something, which your media will avoid mentioning. The I word. There’s a difference between terrorism and insurgency. Forget all the predictable responses. Forget suited apologists on TV blaming these outrages on colonialism, poverty, racism, rise of Islamophobia, Katie Hopkins, Alt Right, anything under the Sun, except the obvious. Forget Hijab wearing head bobbing Feminists blaming it on Israel and Palestine problem. Forget scripted responses, of political leaders who talk about the goodness of human nature or the evil of “international terrorism”, or ready-made laminated placards with I Heart *current city under attack*, forget the FB profile flags, hipsters “sending love and good vibes”, tea lights, candle marches, empty platitudes.

Understand the character of an insurgency. An insurgency is a movement. Insurgency need not be coordinated or centrally planned. One of the most well-researched insurgency groups, the Naxalite movement, consisting of groups of Maoist radicals was at war with the Indian government for over a decade at its peak. It was hardly centralised or even coordinated. Most of the insurgents were localised with different operational ability, doctrine, and pace. Small groups of them, usually in ultra-left universities, poisoned by a common ideology, planned to overthrow a system which it deemed unworthy.

Budapest, Prague or Bratislava is not facing what London, Paris, Brussels and St Petersburg is facing. Or for that matter, Kashmir, Xinjiang or Manila. Lone Wolf terrorism is a myth. There are sleeper groups in every big Western city. The immediate hard-Right or hard-Left reaction would be to blame either immigration or histories of colonisation for terrorism. But tell me, how many Indians and Chinese and Koreans do you find bombing random cities across the world? How many Russians, Georgians and Ukrainians are mowing down 8 year olds? There’s conflict in every one of these places, there’s been a history of poverty and colonialism and authoritarianism in each of these societies. Those factors are mute, with regards to this specific set of circumstances concerning Islamism. Colonialism doesn’t cause Islamist terrorism, otherwise Manila wouldn’t be under siege by ISIS.

After the dust settles, there will be a further cry for interventions in Middle East from the usual voices. 37^th time the charm. The last time we ravaged the North African coastline standing between an ever-burning Middle East, and an impoverished continent and that hasn’t worked out well, to put it kindly. The other side will claim that the War on Terror has been a failure from the start. But we never had a War on Terror, we had war on tyrants. Tyrants who, by sheer force were battling terrorists for much longer than us.

Most of the terrorists in the West are second generation Westerners often from completely cocooned communities who are self-radicalised, and who have travelled and pledged allegiance to a foreign entity, foreign state and ideology. They did this because they could never identify with their nation of their birth. Because a healthy civic nationalism in Western countries is shunned by the ruling (borderless) elite. Humans need the identity of a tribe. A flag to wave. When they are refused one, they don’t suddenly turn non-tribal. They just choose another identity. Millions once chose the Red flag and pledged allegiance, millions now choose a Black flag. And Britain is now broken in either flying Union Jacks or the Flag of Europa.

The future of Europe is not bright. Thomas Hegghammer in his paper in 2016, pointed out four factors that has led to Europe being a battleground. There’s one single specific second generation migrant community who are expected to economically underperform, and therefore radicalise further. That will be aided by the growth in the number of available jihadi entrepreneurs, or in simpler terms, recruiters for Islamists, and Imams in ghettos and mosques funded by our Gulf partners in Terrorism who we just sold millions of dollars worth of arms to continue funding civil wars and destabilise Middle East even further. That will lead to persistent conflict in the Muslim world, and aided by our lack of penetration online.

You of course won’t see any mention of these in the media, because that would mean accepting hard politically incorrect facts. That would mean accepting that the “winning hearts and minds” strategy has failed. That would mean, no we are not united in the West and yes, a fellow country-man might be plotting to bomb the local nightclub your daughter visits on a Friday night. Hashtags have failed. Candle light vigils have failed. Accepting that this is an insurgency would mean accepting that the only option is to have classic counter insurgency strategy, with eyes and ears within the community, deep penetration and surveillance. In short, the debate between liberty and security will need to be decided in favour of security—at least temporarily. That would mean less taxpayer money being spent on droppingKAB500s on White Toyotas in Syria, and less British troops stationed in Lithuania, and more spent on armed beat cops patrolling our neighbourhoods. It would mean more cash spent on community penetration not seen since The Troubles, more Royal Navy patrolling and disrupting people smugglers and the NGOs that collude with people smugglers.

As someone, who originates from a country, at war with Islamist terrorism since the mid ’80s, let me tell you something which I have seen and which might come to the West soon. The primary duty of a state is to protect its citizens. Nothing else. Not policing alleged hate speech, not giving moral support to drug addicts, not investigating idiotic microaggressions. But to provide security to those who pay taxes. If and when a state fails to do that, the citizens take up arms themselves. And you can take it from me, you don’t want to see that in your country.

This article was published at Quillete.com

There is a saying that goes: “Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.” This has been Israel’s dilemma from the very beginning.

The Zionist movement, which held its first conference 120 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, wanted Palestine but not the Palestinians. They achieved this objective 50 years later in what Israel termed as its “war of independence.”

Then in 1947-48, the Palestinian homeland was captured, and millions of its people were cruelly evicted following a harrowing war and many massacres.

That dynamic was not at work when the rest of historic Palestine was occupied during the war of 1967.

Ali Jarbawi, a professor of political science at Birzeit University, told the Economist that Palestinians were “lucky” they “were defeated so fast and so massively.”

The rapid events of the war made it too difficult for Israel to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as it did to hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, during what its civilians call the Nakba of 1948 —  the “catastrophic” loss of their homeland.

Well, perhaps “lucky” is a bit of a stretch, since the last 50 years of military occupation has wrought untold pain and misery on Palestinians. It has been a period in which international law has repeatedly been violated by Israel. It has been a period in which Palestinians escalated their resistance, non-violent for most of it, but at times less so. The price was, and remains, terribly high.

This resultant reality drove Israeli commentator, Gideon Levy, to declare in a recent article in Haaretz that in the “terrible summer of 1967,” Israel had “won a war and lost nearly everything.”

The loss that Levy refers to is hardly material. “A state that celebrates 50 years of occupation is a state whose sense of direction has been lost, its ability to distinguish between good and evil, impaired,” he wrote.

The loss for Palestinians, however, was far greater. They watched as Arab armies were either defeated on a massive scale, or they simply evacuated their positions, conceding East Jerusalem with little fight.

Indeed, the defeat brought shame, but also the realization that Palestinians must claim their own position at the center of the fight. The events of the war made that realization quite effortless.

On the morning of June 5, 1967, the entire Egyptian Air Force was destroyed, its entire fleet still sitting on the tarmac. Within the next 24 hours, the air forces of Jordan and Syria were also pounded.

By June 7, Jordan had ceded Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

By June 10, Israel had captured the Gaza Strip and the entire Sinai Peninsula, from the Suez Canal, down to Sharm El-Sheikh.

Syria was forced to concede its strategically and economically prized Golan Heights.

Thanks to American and Western support, Israel soundly defeated the Arabs. Within days, Israel had occupied three times more territories than it did post-1948.

While Palestinians experienced another Nakba as a result of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Israel celebrated its “liberation” of Jerusalem, and the redeeming of biblical “Judea and Samaria.”

In Israel, and around the world, Jewish nationalism took on a new meaning. Israel’s “Invincible Army” was born, and even cynical Jews began to view Israel differently, a victorious state, maybe once an impulsive colonial gambit, but now a regional, if not international, force to be reckoned with.

There had been so much abrupt change during those short, but painful, days of the war. The existing refugee problem was now exacerbated and compounded by the war and the creation of 400,000 new refugees.

The international response to the war was not promising. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, on Nov. 22, 1967, reflecting the Johnson administration’s wish to capitalize on the new status quo, suggesting Israeli withdrawal “from occupied territories” in exchange for normalization with Israel.

The rest is history and an agonizing one. Israel entrenched its occupation; built hundreds of illegal settlements and is yet to implement a single UN resolution pertaining to the occupation, or previous violations.

The Washington-led consensus on Palestine perceives no other solution to the conflict but the two-state solution; it deems armed resistance as a form of terrorism; and it sees the right of return for Palestinian refugees as impractical.

Palestinians who dare operate outside this “acceptable” paradigm are to be ostracized, boycotted and forced to change.

But the war and occupation have also entrenched the sense of nationhood among Palestinians. Prior to the war, the Palestinian people were fragmented between those who remained in their original homeland — later renamed Israel; those who lived in the West Bank and Jerusalem under Jordanian control, and those in Gaza, under Egyptian administration. Indeed, the Palestinian identity was in tatters.

The 1967 war united Palestinians, although under Israeli political and military control. Within years, the Palestinian national movement was thriving and its leaders, mostly intellectuals from all Palestinian regions, were able to articulate a new national discourse that remains in effect to this day.

On June 7, 1967, when Israel’s then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol learned that Jerusalem was captured, he uttered his famous quote: “We’ve been given a good dowry, but it comes with a bride we don’t like.” The “dowry” being Jerusalem, of course, and the “bride” being the Palestinian people.

Since then, that unwanted (so-called) bride has been shackled and abused; yet 50 years of such mistreatment are yet to break her spirit.

And in that, there is a source of hope. Now that Israel, rich and powerful, has control over the whole of historic Palestine, it also controls a population nearly the same size as the Jewish population living on that same land.

The land is already shared between two people but under entirely different rules. Jews are governed through a democratic system almost exclusively tailored for them, and Palestinians subsist under an apartheid regime designed to keep them marginalized, occupied and oppressed.

Fifty years later, it is crystal clear that military solutions have failed. That apartheid can only contribute to further strife, bring more pain and misery, but never true peace.

The 1967 war is a lesson that war is never the answer, and that a shared future is possible when we all understand that violent occupation can never bring a just peace. Only coexistence, based on equal rights for both peoples, will.

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement follows the path of previous presidents who have undermined international climate agreements. We disagree with Trump but it is important to understand his actions in the context of the history of the United States regarding previous climate agreements. Once again, the political problems in the US are bigger than Trump. His action brings greater clarity to the inability of the US government to confront the climate crisis and clarifies the tasks of people seeking smart climate policy.

The US Has Always Prevented Effective International Climate Agreements

The US has consistently blocked effective climate agreements because both parties in power have put the profits of big energy before the climate crisis when it comes to domestic and international policies. The Republicans proclaimed themselves the “drill baby drill” party while the Democrats are the “all of the above energy” party. Both slogans mean the parties seek to ensure US corporations profit from carbon energy. Both have supported massive oil and gas infrastructure and extreme energy excavation including the most dangerous forms, i.e. tar sands and fracking. Both parties have also supported wars for oil and gas. All of these positions will be viewed as extreme as the world confronts the great dangers of the climate crisis and the US will be deservedly blamed.

If we go back to the Clinton-Gore administration and the Kyoto Protocol we find the US pushing a “free market” trade in pollution credits, where corporations would buy the right to pollute in other places around the world, i.e. poor and developing countries. Gore made sure other countries understood the US’ position. As Mitchel Cohen writes:

Gore commandeered the Kyoto conference. The U.S. government, he said, would not sign the Accord – as limited as it was – if it imposed emissions reductions on industrial countries. Instead, he demanded that the rest of the world adopt his proposal that would allow industrial nations like the U.S. to continue polluting by establishing an international trade in carbon pollution credits. Gore’s “solution” – like Obama’s – was to turn pollution into a commodity and buy and sell it in the form of “pollution rights”. The free market trade in “pollution credits” would simply shift around pollution and spread it out more evenly without reducing the total amount of ozone-depleting greenhouse gases. It would allow the United States and other industrial countries to continue polluting the rest of the world.

The Kyoto Protocol failed. Rather than reducing climate gas emissions by the 5 percent target, there was a significant increase of 58 percent from 1990 to 2012.

In Copenhagen, the story is more complex but has the same result — the US undermined efforts for an agreement with enforceable reductions in climate emissions. The US role in Copenhagen become more fully understood when Edward Snowden leaked documents showing intense US spying on other nations participating in the climate talks. The most important spying was on the Danish government where the US leaked a draft of a plan for enforceable emissions standards; and on China where the US intruded into a meeting where the Chinese, Indians and others were working on a similar plan.Chinese negotiators entered into the talks willing to undertake mandatory emissions cuts but instead the US falsely turned China into the villain. The editor of the Ecologist, Oliver Tickell, summarized what happened:

Looking at the evidence as a whole there can be little doubt that the Copenhagen climate talks were deliberately and highly effectively scuppered by a ‘dirty tricks’ operation carried out by the NSA and other US security agencies – including the pivotal leak to The Guardian of the Danish text.

Following Snowden’s revelations, we know that they had the ability to do that in spades. They also had motives. The US wanted:

• to protect their politically powerful fossil fuel industries, and their right as a nation to carry on polluting;
• to avoid having to pay out billions of dollars in climate funding to developing countries;
• to deny China the global leadership role it sought to secure for itself, and instead leave it humiliated;
• to present the USA and its President Barack Obama as trying against the odds to secure a climate agreement, in the face of obdurate resistance by other countries.

The operation was, in other words, spectacularly successful. The rest of the world were played for suckers. China emerged with a bloody nose. And the US was free to carry on letting rip with its emissions.

Making this more confusing for people in the United States are the false statements of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign where she claimed the she and Obama came to the rescue and saved the world from China. This falsehood is described as an alternative reality by some of those who covered the meetings.

The US Undermines the Paris Agreement

We reported extensively on the Paris climate agreement when it happened noting that it was a small and inadequate step because the goals were not strong enough and there was no enforcement to ensure countries met their promised reductions in climate gasses. We were not alone in this analysis. In a newsletter after the agreement, COP21 An Opportunity For Climate Justice, If We Mobilize, we wrote:

Friends of the Earth International described the agreement as “a sham.” The New Internationalist, measuring the deal against the People’s Climate Test developed before COP21, described it as “an epic fail on a planetary scale.”  Climate scientist James Hansen said it was a “fraud . . . fake . . . bullshit.”

Analysts blamed the United States for the weakness of the agreement, writing COP 21 crafted “the deal according to US specifications in order to insulate Obama and the agreement from attacks.” Obama insisted that the 31-page agreement exclude emissions reductions targets and finance requirements from the legally binding parts of the deal because making those binding would have required US Senate approval, which he could not achieve due to the power of the oil, gas and coal lobbies influence, especially over the Republican Party. Also excluded from legal enforcement was a clause in the agreement that would expose the US to liability and compensation claims for causing climate change.

While we are critical of the shortcomings of the Paris agreement we also recognize it is a step to finally — after 21 years of trying — get an international agreement approved by all but two countries (Syria and Nicaragua). Dahr Jamail correctly summarizes the situation when he describes the Paris Accord as not going far enough but Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement endangering life on Earth. He points to the reaction of the world in response to Trump, with uniform opposition to his decision. The new French president Emmanuel Macron urged US scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs to come to France and help “make the world great again” by working to confront the climate crisis. Environmental groups focused on climate change were uniformly critical with some describing the action as making the US a rogue nation. Trump was already unpopular around the world, protested wherever he went, but now he has become a pariah.

The Task of the Movement is Clarified

There was an immediate reaction to Trump’s decision with protests at the White House and around the world, with mayors and governors saying they will abide by the climate pact and with business leaders leaving Trump’s business advisory board in protest. The climate justice movement, already growing, will build on this decision by growing even more. The long history of US climate inaction from both parties demonstrates we must build independent political power that undermines those who profit from the status quo and makes both parties face the reality of climate change.

Persistence is a key. The day before Trump’s announcement ExxonMobil shareholders and investors voted to require the company to report annually on climate related risks to the corporation. This took decades of work by shareholders inside ExxonMobil. Similar shareholder resolutions are being passed by shareholders of other companies and other votes are very close to passage at energy utilities. The oil and gas industry must be held responsible for their role in the climate crisis. Litigation against ExxonMobil for hiding the truth about climate change for four decades is advancing in what will be the crime of the century with great liability.

There is tremendous momentum around transitioning to a clean energy economy. Jobs in clean energy in the US are at 800,000 and growing and around the world at 10 million workers. In the last three years there has been an 83 percent increase in solar jobs and 100 percent increase in wind jobs. Solar employs more people in the US than oil, gas and coal combined. This January all new energy came from solar and wind without any increase in oil, gas, nuclear and coal. Renewables now account for 18 percent of total installed operating capacity in the US. Renewables accounted for 64 percent of all new electrical generating capacity installed last year in the US. Researchers report that gas powered cars will disappear in the next decade and the oil industry will collapse. Investor advisers are telling people to expect the demise of the industry. The US is just scratching the surface potential of this new economy.

Keep protesting because resistance to the oil, gas and coal agenda continues to be critical. People power has been reported by the industry as the greatest threat to their expansion. Infrastructure protests continue to grow at a time when science tells us to stop developing such infrastructure. Similarly protests are occurring against oil trains turning into a nationwide resistance against the oil trains’ high risks to communities.

Another national effort is focused on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which serves as a rubber stamp for the oil and gas industry. For the past five moths, the FERC has only had two commissioners out of five seats, leaving it without a quorum and unable to approve new fossil fuel projects. Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) is working to prevent the conformation of new commissioners until FERC stops serving the oil and gas industry and starts serving the health and safety of communities impacted by its projects. On May 25, BXE disrupted a Senate hearing focused on the FERC commissioners. More actions are planned. Visit BeyondExtremeEnergy.org to get involved. There is something for everyone to do.

Another form of extreme energy is nuclear power. Indigenous communities in the Southwest are mobilizing to stop uranium mining on the rim of the Grand Canyon in a sacred site. If the Canyon Mine succeeds, toxic ore will be trucked 300 miles through tribal lands to a mill close to the Ute Mountain Utes. This month, a Haul No! Tour is being held to raise awareness and hold actions. There is a long legacy of poisoning the air, land and water from abandoned uranium mines throughout the US. On a related note, Ban the Bomb actions are planned on June 17 in support of a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

On the electoral front, Trump’s move ensures climate will be a centerpiece of the 2018 and 2020 elections as the US cannot actually withdraw from the Paris agreement until after the 2020 presidential race. We cannot allow the fraudulent debate commission (really a front for the two corporate parties) to not ask a single question about climate change. There are massive majorities in favor of staying in the climate agreement – 70 percent of all voters, majorities in both major parties and among independents. In every state this is a majority position. But the reality is the US has a government owned by big energy and Wall Street investors who profit from climate pollution.

The current Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, attended a meeting in Saudi Arabia where ExxonMobil made a multi-billion dollar deal to explore gas off the coast of Mexico and build a refinery in Texas. The US government has been marinated in oil for decades, with presidents and vice presidents who have come from the oil, gas and related industries. Now is the time to change that. We need to make 2020 an election that produces a president who leads on effective actions to address the climate crisis.

Finally, we agree with Ken Ward, a former deputy director of Greenpeace facing felony charges for shutting down an oil sands pipeline, that Trump’s action is an opportunity. The fig leaf of the inadequate Paris agreement has been removed. The world can advance in creating an agreement not held back by the United States. The movement for a new energy economy must now build enough power to put in place real solutions to the climate crisis. As with many other issues, Trump’s actions crystallize the reality we have been facing for many presidential administrations so the movement now knows what it must do.

The Trump administration this week appeared to take a potential step closer to backing efforts plotted by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to destabilize Iran; possibly topple its Islamic government; and force Qatar to fall into line with Gulf policies that target Iran, political Islam, and militants; with the appointment of a seasoned covert operations officer as head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Iran operations.

The appointment of Michael D’Andrea, a hard-charging, chain-smoking operative, alternatively nicknamed the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, whose track record includes overseeing the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, suggested that the CIA was likely to take a more operational approach in confronting Iran in line with President Donald J. Trump’s Saudi and UAE-backed hard line towards the Islamic republic, which involves a possible push for regime change.

Mr. D’Andrea took up his new post at a moment that the US focus appeared to be shifting to Iran as the Islamic State suffered significant defeats with the near fall of Mosul in Iraq and the imminent fall of Raqqa, the group’s self-declared capital in Syria.

Saudi support of militant groups in Pakistani Balochistan that operate across the border in the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan is abetted by a US policy that allows militancy to fester by failing to recognize links between multiple conflicts in South and Central Asia.

Balochistan serves as a safe haven for the Afghan Taliban and as a transit station in the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan to Iran and beyond. It is also the focal point of at least two regional proxy wars: the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the perennial dispute between Pakistan and India. Pakistan accuses Indian intelligence of supporting Baloch separatists in retaliation for Islamabad’s backing of militants in Kashmir.

Mohammad Baksh Sajdi, the assistant commissioner of the Baloch district of Kharran, in a demonstration of the influence of Saudi-inspired, anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism, recently banned barbers from “cutting beards in a fashionable way which is against the principles of Islam according to all religious scholars.” A similar edict was issued in Balochistan’s Omara district. A magistrate in Kharran re-imposed the ban after it was cancelled by the government because it was illegal.

Mr. D’Andrea, who converted to Islam to marry his Muslim wife rather than out of religious conviction, brings an impressive covert operations record to challenging Iran. Mr. D’Andrea was reportedly involved in the use of torture in interrogations of suspected militants under President George W. Bush.

He also played a key role in the targeting in 2008 of Imad Mugniyah, the international operations chief for Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah who maintained close ties to Iran. Mr. Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus in an operation carried out together with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. Mr. D’Andrea was also involved in the ramping up of US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen that target Islamist militants.

The New York Times noted that Mr. D’Andrea’s appointment came as some US officials, including Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, were pushing for a US policy of regime change in Iran.

Mike Pompeo, an advocate in the past of military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, wrote last summer before his appointment by Mr. Trump as CIA director that “Congress must act to change Iranian behaviour, and, ultimately, the Iranian regime.”

Other senior Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary General (retired) James Mattis and National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, are believed to be hardliners when it comes to Iran.

Mr. D’Andrea’s appointment stroked with an emerging Saudi strategy to escalate the kingdom’s proxy war with Iran by fomenting unrest among the Islamic republic’s ethnic minorities as well as to confront together with the United States Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Yemen. The Trump administration has already stepped up support for Saudi Arabia’s two-year old, ill-fated intervention in Yemen.

Iran is unlikely to stand by idly if Saudi Arabia and the US were to initiate covert operations against it. “There’s just one small problem: Iran is unlikely to back down,” said US Naval Postgraduate School Iran expert Afshon Ostovar. Mr. Ostovar noted that Iran’s ability to operate through proxy groups like Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiite militia, Palestine’s Islamic Jihad, and militias in Iraq was “its most strategic asset.”

As a result, the US-Saudi-UAE strategy risks Iran retaliating by attempting to stir trouble among Shiites in Bahrain, home to a low-level insurgency since the island’s Sunni Muslim minority regime brutally squashed a popular uprising in 2011 with the support of Saudi troops, and in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich, predominantly Shiite Eastern province.

To be sure, Shiites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are Bahrainis and Saudis first and Shiites second. But decades of discriminatory policies in both regions have left their toll, and offer Iran potential opportunity to stir the pot.

Saudi Arabia’s Okaz newspaper reported this week that authorities had foiled an attack on US forces based in Qatar. The newspaper said the foiled attempt was planned by an Al Qaeda unit headed by a Qatari national.

Okaz’s report came in the wake of a suicide bombing in Qatif in the Eastern Province and a Saudi and UAE-sponsored media campaign against Qatar because of its ties to Iran and alleged support for militants. Saudi Shiite activists accused a US-trained Saudi interior ministry unit of having instigated the Qatif bombing in an effort to bolster the kingdom’s claim that it is a victim of Iran-inspired political violence.

Qatar announced amid the Saudi-UAE campaign that six of its soldiers had been wounded in Yemen “while conducting their duties within the Qatari contingent defending the southern borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

In a move reminiscent of past Qatari efforts to placate UAE and Saudi criticism, Qatar was reported to have expelled several officials of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, who were involved in the group’s activities on the Israeli occupied West Bank.

In the latest episode of the Gulf cyberwar, leaked mails from the email account of the UAE ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, whose authenticity was confirmed by Huffpost and The Intercept, showed the UAE looking at ways to influence Iran’s domestic situation.

The UAE was also pressing the Trump administration in cooperation with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies to move its US air force base, the largest in the Middle East, out of Qatar.

The emails also revealed efforts to persuade US companies not to pursue opportunities in Iran. Various media reports suggested that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were gunning for the removal of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani as emir of Qatar.

A proposed agenda for a meeting this week between senior UAE officials and Foundation executives included discussion of possible US and UAE “policies to positively impact Iranian internal situation”. Among the list of policies were “political, economic, military, intelligence, and cyber tools,” and efforts “contain and defeat Iranian aggression.” The agenda also included countering Qatari support for Islamist and militant groups; its “destabilizing role in Egypt, Syria, Libya, the Gulf;” and “Al Jazeera as an instrument of regional instability.”

The Foundation, which has played a leading role in arguing against the 2015 agreement that ended the Iranian nuclear crisis and lifted crippling international sanctions against the Islamic republic, enjoys funding from wealthy US conservatives, including gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, who supported Mr. Trump’s election campaign and is a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

The Saudis backed by the US are likely to be fishing in murky ponds in Iran. Baloch groups are largely delineated along either nationalist or Sunni Muslim ultra-conservative lines with Pakistani intelligence backing religious groups against the nationalists.

However, communities like the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan, Iran’s oil-rich province that Arabs call Ahwaz after the region’s main city, are deeply divided and factitious and often a cesspool of personal, political and ideological rivalries. Various of the Ahwazi and Baloch groups maintain links with one another. Yet, sorting out who is who is often an almost impossible task.

In an assertion of ethnic identity, thousands of Iranian Arabs attended in March 2017 an Asian soccer competition match between Esteghlal Ahvaz FC, the local team in the Khuzestan capital of Ahwaz, and Qatar’s Lekhwiya SC dressed in traditional Arab garb.

Ahwaz Monitor, an Iranian Arab website, said the fans were protesting government efforts to suppress their identity. It said the fans cheered their team in Arabic rather than Farsi and chanted “Arabic is my identity and honour” and “Al Ahwaz for Ahwazis and all Gulf state residents are dearest to us.” Fans also reportedly recited poetry celebrating their region’s Arab heritage.

The website created last summer by Iranian Arab activists is emblematic of the factitiousness of exile Iranian ethnic minority groups. Yasser Abadi, an Ahwazi activist, who founded the website, rejected allegations that it was Saudi-backed or had links to militant Saudi-backed groups like Jundullah in Balochistan or the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Al-Ahwaz (Harakat Al-Nizal L’Tahrir al-Ahwaz) that has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Khuzestan.

Al Nizal is believed to have close ties to Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatives in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The group’s spokesmen appear on Wesal TV, a Saudi-based, virulently anti-Shiite satellite broadcaster.

Mr. Abadi insisted that he had funded the site himself, paying GBP 350 for three years of Internet hosting. The site “doesn’t need Saudi or Arab League support or encouragement,” Mr. Abadi said.

Mr. Abadi described Saudi policy towards Khuzestan as “volatile’ and geared towards “militarizing the region.” Mr. Abadi said most Ahwazis rejected violence because of the death and destruction they see elsewhere in the Middle East. He said his group relied on “Arab influence,” which he defined as indirect “media support, Arab votes in UN sub-committees against Iranian practices…publications, and legal support.”

Iran watchers noted that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has allowed some voice of dissent to be heard. “The more that this happens, the less the Saudi-backed separatists win. What the separatists want is the polarisation of views and to incite the regime to attack the (Iranian Arab) community, thereby securing a popular backlash. In recent weeks, they have conducted more murders, mostly of security personnel but also of non-security officials. They want mass arrests and public executions in order to establish themselves as the vanguard of the Ahwazi resistance,” one expert said.

A US-based Hindu group has welcomed Hindu descent Dr. Leo Varadkar, 38, on being in line for being the youngest and 13th Prime Minister (Taoiseach) of Ireland.

Varadkar was elected as Leader of the Fine Gael Party on June 2, 2017, following the retirement of Enda Kenny, and it is expected that he will be appointed as PM later in June. During the 2015 Irish Marriage referendum Varadkar became the first openly gay Irish government minister.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA), said that Hindu community world over was pleased at Varadkar’s possibility of becoming PM and was hoping that he would ensure that minorities were treated with equality and respect they deserved in Ireland under his command.

Ireland needs to understand that it is becoming diverse and thus pluralism and co-existence would be a wiser and more mature approach, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said.

Rajan Zed urged Varadkar to fix Ireland’s education system and make it fair for minority religions/denominations and non-believers as the Ireland Government appeared to have failed to put an end to religious preferences in admissions to schools. Religion should not play any role in admissions to Irish schools and religious discrimination in tax funded schools was quite unfair and should be unacceptable in 21st century Ireland. Practice of religious majority controlling the school doors and schools indulging in kind of state-sanctioned indoctrination was simply wrong and should end, Zed noted.

Zed further said that either all major religions/denominations and non-believers’ viewpoint should get equal time in the curriculum of state-funded schools or no religion should be taught or religion should be taught after school hours to those who opted for it. Imposing a different religion/denomination on primary school age children while they practiced another religion/denomination or no-religion at home could be very confusing and conflicting for the little kids.

Rajan Zed also urged Varadkar to work with both the houses of Ireland Parliament (Oireachtas)—Senate (Seanad Éireann) and House of Representatives (Dáil Éireann)—to re-evaluate the matrix of opening prayers by revising the Standing Orders of Dáil and Seanad, so that prayers of other religions could be read by invited diverse religious leaders. Ireland was a diverse society now and the Parliament of a parliamentary democracy like Ireland should be representative body of all its citizens, including the minorities, Zed added.

Moreover, Ireland needs to urgently empower and integrate its maltreated and vulnerable Traveller community; the largest minority of the country and a distinct group that existed for centuries; who reportedly faced blatant discrimination and social exclusion, Zed stated.

Rajan Zed pointed out that Traveller community in Ireland reportedly regularly faced prejudice, poverty, racism, hostility, stereotyping, scapegoating, harassment, illiteracy, unemployment, and distrust; experienced discrimination at an individual and institutional level; lacked in accommodation and access to credit; received inadequate healthcare; frequently denied access to various goods, services, and facilities; deficient in access to decision making and political representation; lacked equality of access, participation and outcome in education.

The Chinese government should acknowledge its role in the massacre of untold numbers of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators around June 4, 1989, and hold perpetrators to account, Human Rights Watch said, adding that authorities should allow commemorations of the occasion, and release those imprisoned for having done so in the past.

The Tiananmen Massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gatherings of students, workers, and others in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and other cities in April 1989, calling for freedom of expression, accountability, and an end to corruption. The government responded to the intensifying protests in late May 1989 by declaring martial law.

On June 3 and 4, the military opened fire and killed untold numbers of peaceful protesters and bystanders. In Beijing, some citizens attacked army convoys and burned vehicles in response to the military’s violence. Following the killings, the government implemented a national crackdown and arrested thousands for “counter-revolution” and other criminal charges, including disrupting social order and arson.

The government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings.

“While President Xi Jinping preaches openness on the world stage, his government buries the truth about the Tiananmen Massacre through silence, denial and persecution of those who mark the occasion,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Until Beijing reverses course and owns up to its past atrocities, Xi’s calls have little credibility.”

As in past years, to preempt dissent and commemoration of the Tiananmen Massacre, Chinese authorities have heightened surveillance and control of activists as June 4 draws closer. In May, the police in Guangzhou repeatedly harassed human rights lawyer Huang Simin and her partner, writer Li Xuewen, forcing them out of the city. Guangzhou police also broke up a gathering of activists at a restaurant, including Wang Aizhong, who was detained and interrogated for hours after the gathering at a police station. Over a dozen police officers in Shandong Province blocked a group of activists from going to retired professor Sun Wenguang’s home to attend a gathering to commemorate the Tiananmen Massacre.

Over the past year, a number of activists have been detained, charged, or sentenced for commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre. In March, authorities in Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital, charged Chen Bing, Fu Hailu, Luo Fuyu, and Zhang Junyong with “inciting subversion of state power” for producing and selling a liquor named “Eight Liquor Six Four,” a homophone for “89.6.4,” the numerical date of the massacre. In March a Chengdu court sentenced activist Chen Yunfei to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he organized a memorial service for victims of the massacre. In April, Guangzhou-based activist Liu Bing was detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he held up a poster in public calling for people to go to the street to protest on June 4.

While the last individual known to have been imprisoned for his involvement in the 1989 pro-democracy protests was released in October 2016, many other participants have been re-incarcerated for their continuing pro-democracy activism, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, Sichuan activists Liu Xianbin and Chen Wei, and Guangdong activist Guo Feixiong. Under President Xi, the Chinese government has aggressively cracked down on a broad array of human rights, targeting civil society activists, further constricting freedom of expression and religion, as well as increasing ideological control.

While the Chinese government continues to ignore international and domestic calls for justice for the Tiananmen Massacre, foreign governments have adopted new measures to bring accountability for human rights violations around the world. In December 2016, the US Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which will allow the US to impose sanctions and deny visas to individuals credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights violations. In the UK, legislators will also be voting on proposals similar to the Magnitsky Act which, if passed, will enable the UK government and private entities to apply for the freezing of assets of human rights abusers around the world. In May 2017, the Canadian government announced that it will support a Senate bill that would expand Canadian sanctions legislation against human rights abusers, freezing their assets and denying them visas.

“New mechanisms to act against rights violators abroad are renewing hopes that one day those responsible for the Tiananmen Massacre could be held accountable,” said Richardson. “This should give pause to President Xi and other Chinese leaders who continue to commit serious rights abuses.”