Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to be contemplating engineering a military coup in Qatar with the stakes in the Gulf crisis so high that a negotiated solution may prove difficult, if not impossible.

Neither side in the Gulf divide can afford to back down or be seen to have failed in achieving its objectives.

Caving in to Saudi and UAE demands that it break its ties to Islamists and militants and curb, if not shutter, Qatar-funded media like Al Jazeera, would amount to Qatar surrendering its ability to chart its own course, and like Bahrain becoming a Saudi vassal.

Bahrain has been walking in step with the kingdom since Saudi Arabia and the UAE with Qatari support helped its minority Sunni Muslim ruling family brutally squash a popular uprising in 2011.

Similarly, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE can tolerate a repeat of 2014 when Qatar appeared to put on public display the limits of their power by refusing to bow to the two states’ demands after they and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have this time raised the stakes by not only breaking off diplomatic relations but also declaring an economic embargo. The longer tiny Qatar with a citizenry of only 300,000 people resists Saudi and UAE pressure, the more embarrassing it is for the two Gulf states.

Amid indications that Qatar may have the political will and economic backbone despite the economic obstacles and commercial losses to hold out for some time to come, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will likely look for ways to increase pressure on the recalcitrant Gulf state.

Increased economic pressure could involve the withdrawal of Gulf deposits from Qatari banks, the closure of a partly UAE-owned pipeline that pumps Qatari gas to the UAE and Oman, and pressure on other Muslim states like Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan to join them in taking punitive economic measures.

The majority of Muslim and non-Muslim nations, except for the economically dependent six nations, including Bahrain, Egypt, the Maldives and Mauritania, who joined Saudi Arabia and the UAE in acting against Qatar have sought to remain on the side lines of the dispute. States like Pakistan and Bangladesh are, however, vulnerable because they rely to a significant extent on migrant workers’ remittances in the Gulf for their foreign currency reserves.

US President Donald J. Trump has come closest among outside powers to endorsing the Saudi-UAE-led action, but even he has so far refrained from turning words into deeds that would exert real pressure on Qatar.

Turkey and Iran are helping Qatar meet its food and water needs after Saudi Arabia closed the two countries’ land border, preventing one third of the Gulf state’s food and water imports from reaching it. Turkey, moreover, is sending troops to Qatar, which is home to the largest US military base in the Middle East, a possible reason why the US has not gone beyond words in its support for the Saudi-UAE campaign.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of predominantly Shiite Iraq appeared to also come to Qatar’s defense by countering some of the allegations that the Gulf state had funded militants. Mr. Al-Abadi told Shiite militias, according to Al Jazeera and other Qatar-controlled media, that a ransom paid by Qatar for the release of 26 members of its ruling family who were kidnapped in December 2015 while hunting in Iraq remained in Iraq’s central bank. News reports suggested that the ransom had been paid to Syrian militants and Iraqi security officials and was one straw that broke the Saudi and UAE camel’s back.

Oman, one of two Gulf states to have refrained from joining the Saudi-UAE campaign, has opened its ports to Qatari shipping that no longer can access key Saudi and UAE ports. Qatar maintains its access to international shipping lanes and can refuel its LNG vessels at alternative ports, including Singapore.

The UAE, with Qatar’s ability to retain its energy exports, its main source of revenue, undeterred would be damaging itself if it closed the partly Abu Dhabi pipeline from Qatar that supplies Dubai with 40 percent of its natural gas requirement.

International ratings agency Standard& Poor (S&P) reported that Qatari banks were strong enough to survive a withdrawal of all Gulf deposits plus a quarter of the remaining foreign funds the banks keep.

Deposits and other funding sources from Gulf countries represent about eight percent of total liabilities of Qatari lenders or $20 billion, S&P said. It said that in a worst-case scenario, only two lenders of Qatar’s 18 lenders would have to dip into their investment securities portfolio.

Failure to force Qatar on its knees any time soon would force Saudi Arabia and the UAE to look at other ways of forcing Qatar to comply, including regime change, either by invading the tiny Gulf state or engineering an internal coup.

UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash insisted last week that the Saudi-UAE campaign was “not about regime change — this is about change of policy, change of approach.”

Saudi and UAE media reports nonetheless suggest that the Gulf states may be gunning for a coup given that unlike in the case of Bahrain and the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in 2015, the legitimate, internationally recognized government of Qatar is unlikely to seek their military assistance.

In the latest episode of the Gulf media war, Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah-based Arab News, in the clearest sign yet that, the kingdom and the UAE were fishing in Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim’s military backyard, this week published an interview with retired General Mahmoud Mansour, an Egyptian military officer whom Saudi and Egyptian media described as the father of Qatari intelligence.

General Mansour has long been on the war path against Sheikh Tamim, and his father, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who abdicated as emir in 2013. General Mansour asserted that Sheikh Hamad and his long-standing prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber bin Mohammed bin Thani Al Thani, had attempted to foment unrest across the globe in the Gulf, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Russia.

Speaking separately to Al Arabiya, the Saudi tv network established to counter Al Jazeera, General Mansour accused Qatar of aiding and abetting Iranian efforts to penetrate the Arab world. “Iran needed to penetrate some Arab countries, needed an Arab force to introduce them more and more within the Arab fabric, so it addressed her intentions through the friend who lost their mind, Qatar,” General Mansour said.

UAE newspapers reported earlier that a little-known member of Qatar’s ruling family, Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al-Thani, who lives in Europe was forming an opposition party in exile.

Despite criticism of the emir, Qataris largely appeared to be rallying around the government in rejection of the effort to force their country to surrender its ability to graft its own policies.

It was not clear whether General Mansour maintains close contacts within the Qatari military and intelligence community.

An effort to replace Sheikh Tamim with a member of the ruling family more amenable to Saudi policies would not be the first time the kingdom has tried to influence who rules Qatar. In a gesture to former Saudi King Abdullah, Sheikh Hamad pardoned in 2010 a group of Saudis for their involvement in an attempted coup to overthrow him in 1996.

Qatar by holding out against Saudi Arabia and the UAE and garnering international support for a negotiated solution to the crisis is raising the stakes in what increasingly amounts to a risky poker game. Both the kingdom and the emirates feel emboldened and believe they need to strike while the iron is hot.

By Fouzia Khan

The works of artists from across the Kingdom are on display at the Nesma Art Gallery in an Islamic art exhibition in Jeddah. The exhibition is meant to reflect the cultural diversity and true soul of Islam.

Inspired by the spirit of the holy month of Ramadan, the paintings depict Islamic community life, culture and heritage. Many of the works contain Islamic calligraphy and offer a message of peace.

The exhibition will remain open for visitors throughout Ramadan.

Saleh bin Ali Al-Turki, chairman of Nesma Holding Co., said he believes it is a real achievement to feature myriad types of Islamic artwork by Arab and Saudi artists under one roof.

The works on display reflect the depth of the human soul and the link between Allah and the Holy Qur’an. Many of the paintings are clearly focused on the cultural traditions and civilization of Saudi Arabia and Islam, to emphasize how the country and its people have developed within the bounds of religion.

Mohammed Al-Ablan, an artist whose works have been exhibited around the world, said the exhibition has brought together artists from different schools of arts and their participation confirms that each artist has his own view.

Ola Hejazi, who is among the participating artists, told Arab News that most of the paintings depict the Holy Qur’an and mosques, and each artist has done this through their own distinct perspective.

“My painting shows my vision; Islam is not only about mosques, but also in making Dua’a (supplication) to Allah. So the girl in my painting is making Dua’a, which represents a simple and regular Muslim who can be anyone,” she said.

She explained that her painting also presented people who isolate themselves from the crowd and spend time in repentance, Dua’a is the most powerful way to connect to the Almighty.

She said some of the artists chose to write verses of the Quran but for her, presenting Dua’a is a spiritual feeling.

“It’s a secret only Allah knows, for he is aware of what’s inside our hearts,” she added.

By Matt Hadro

Dozens of Chaldean Christians were arrested by federal immigration officials over the weekend in the Detroit metropolitan area, leaving the local Church community with sadness and frustration.

“Yesterday was a very strange and painful day for our community in America,” Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit stated Monday in a Facebook post.

“With the many Chaldeans that were awakened by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and consequently picked up for deportation, there is a lot of confusion and anger,” he added.

Fr. Anthony Kathawa of St. Thomas Chaldean Church in West Bloomfield, Mich., told CNA June 12 that “As a community, we’re all suffering seeing the loss of our loved ones.”

On Sunday, the Detroit Free Press reported that ICE made around 40 arrests of Chaldeans in the Detroit area, according to community leaders.

ICE explained in a statement that Iraq, in negotiations with the U.S., had “agreed to accept” the individuals, who had criminal records.

“As a result of recent negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq, Iraq has recently agreed to accept a number of Iraqi nationals subject to orders of removal,” ICE stated.

A federal judge had also “ordered them removed,” ICE said, noting that their previous criminal offenses included homicide, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, and “weapons violations.”

A “majority” of those detained are now at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio.

Many of those with criminal records have served their time in prison and have since become good citizens and members of the community, local Church leaders insisted.

“We understand that maybe there was a problem in the past, but there’ve been a lot of people moving forward,” Fr. Kathawa told CNA. “They’ve changed, become better, made families in this great country of opportunity and peace.”

“And now with them leaving, it’s causing chaos within our community, within our families, within our Church,” he added.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who is a Chaldean Catholic of Assyrian and Armenian heritage, called the reported arrests “deeply troubling.”

“Chaldeans have been targeted by ISIS and subjected to genocide, as have other religious minorities. Their deportation represents a death sentence should they be deported to Iraq or Syria,” Eshoo said in an email statement to CNA.

“It has also been reported that the individuals have criminal records. If the offenses they committed have already been ‘paid for’ by serving an appropriate sentence, facing a death sentence via deportation is disproportionate and unjust,” she added.

Bishop Kalabat wrote that “The Church does not oppose justice, all hardened criminals that are a danger to society should be picked up. Many who were picked up are not hardened criminals but for the last decades have been great citizens.”

Regarding Sunday’s arrests, the local Church has been in touch with the State Department, members of Congress, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the matter, the bishop added.

Chaldeans are an Iraqi indigenous community and speak Aramaic. The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Church which uses the East Syrian rite.

The Chaldean Catholic community in Detroit dates back to the early 20th century, and an apostolic exarchate was established in 1982. There are around 150,000 Chaldeans in the Detroit area, which is the largest Chaldean diaspora community living outside the Middle East, according to the Chaldean Community Foundation.

Around 30,000 refugees were re-settled in Michigan since the Iraq War began in 2003, and more Syrian refugees are expected to be re-settled there in the coming years, the foundation noted.

Martin Manna, president of the locally-based Chaldean Community Foundation, told the Detroit Free Press that deporting the Chaldeans to Iraq “is like a death sentence.”

The U.S. State Department declared in March of 2016 that the Islamic State had committed genocide against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.

The fight to dislodge the Islamic State from Iraq is ongoing as parts of Mosul are still under the group’s control. Although the villages of many Christians in northern Iraq have been liberated, many are still not yet able to return to their homes. Many families are still dependent on aid groups for their livelihood.

There have been efforts in Congress to designate groups targeted for genocide, like Christians in Iraq and Syria, as P-2 refugees, which would expedite their resettlement process in the U.S. as refugees.

Contrary to rumors, the local Church had not signed off on any of the deportations, Bishop Kalabat insisted in a Facebook post on Monday.

“It has been rumored that our Church signed documents regarding the deportation issue. To my capacity, as a permanent member of the church synod, I would like to formally state that this is NOT true, and that was no signed document or any type of agreement made with the Iraqi government or anyone else, that would allow the deportation of Chaldeans to Iraq,” he stated. “There was no such thing discussed, signed, or issued.”

The arrests follow a spike in ICE immigration arrests that began with President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration at the beginning of his presidential term.

In the first 100 days after that order was signed, ICE reported in May that immigration arrests were up 40 percent in comparison with that same time period in 2016.

Several suspected militants, including the alleged mastermind of twin attacks in Tehran last week, were tracked down, detained or killed by Iranian authorities, a security official and a minister confirmed.

Police killed four Islamic State [IS] suspects in the southern province of Hormozgan, the ISNA news agency reported on Monday, quoting police chief Azizollah Maleki.

“Two of the killed criminals were foreign nationals… while the identity of other members is being investigated,” Maleki said, adding that weapons and an IS flag were seized during the raid.

Dozens of suspects have so far been arrested in the ongoing investigations into the attacks that killed 17 people on Wednesday – the first assault in Iran to be claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

Authorities said five Iranians, who had joined IS and travelled to its Iraq and Syria bastions, carried out Wednesday’s attacks on the parliament and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Late on Saturday, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said the alleged mastermind behind the attacks had been tracked down and killed outside the country.

“The mastermind who controlled the team… who had fled outside the country… paid the price for his crimes, with the cooperation of intelligence services of allied countries,” Alavi told state television, without providing further details.

At least 41 IS suspects have been arrested since the attacks, according to Alavi, who said Iran has dismantled suspected militant cells with increasing frequency in recent months.

From January to March 2017 “we dismantled 45 cells, while in the past two-and-a-half months alone we have dismantled more than 25 terrorist cells,” he said.

Officials have reported the arrests of suspected IS members in and around Tehran, as well as in the country’s centre, southern governorates, and western provinces near the Iraqi border.

Original source

As various elections were held across Europe in past months, the continent was swept with a wave of hope and fear. However, after the UK’s decision to exit the European Union, this wave has been more characterized by fear about the future outlook of the European Union (EU) rather than hope. In the meantime, presidential election in France drew more attention from policymakers and analysts due to domestic, regional and international reasons. Increased support for nationalistic slogans as well as a stronger anti-capitalism stance in the country, were among domestic reasons behind that support. At the regional level, most concerns were related to security, economic and political conditions of the EU following Britain’s divorce as well as increasing clout of Russia in Eastern Europe. On international level, US President Donald Trump’s approach to the EU, especially to future security and economic cooperation with the bloc, has drawn attention from researchers.

In view of the above facts, experts on Europe have been asked to answer the following two questions in order to do away with ambiguities related to the impact of the election in France on the future outlook of the EU and the country’s relations with Germany.

1. Which part of economic, political, defense and other issues constituted the most important concern that Germany had about elections in France?

2. What impact will the French election result and victory of Emmanuel Macron have on the future relations between France and Germany, and basically on the future outlook of the European Union?

Mohammad Hossein Taheri, resident expert at Iran-Eurica Institute

Answer to Q1: Political aspects are more important to Germany

During French presidential election campaigns, possible election of Marine Le Pen was the most important concern for Germany as the main supporter of a powerful Europe. If it had happened, realization of Le Pen’s promises about holding a referendum on France leaving the European Union would have led to Frexit and practically caused one of the main driving forces behind the EU to fall into disorder, leaving Germany alone under difficult conditions to struggle for the survival of the bloc.

Another concern that Germany had about election of Le Pen was that it would be a test of rightist and populist tendencies in the country. Her election could have accelerated the spread of radical right across the EU countries. Such development could have also affected the German society and pushed it toward bipolarization. It would have mentally strengthened rightwing German parties, including the radical right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the one hand, while on the other hand, would have stirred fears among German people and the leading parties, causing them to show confrontational reactions. The aforesaid concerns were not special to Germany’s Christian Social Union (CSU) or the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and were common among most important parties in Germany. Of course, Le Pen’s anti-EU viewpoints were mostly about economic issues, but their political aspect was source of more serious concern for German politicians.

From Germany’s viewpoint, Emmanuel Macron was the best option in the French presidential election and Le Pen was the worst. During the French election, German politicians did not hide their preference for the election of Macron. Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble clearly noted that the German government supported Macron. He had noted that policies adopted by the next French president should not be at odds with policies adopted by EU institutions, so that, following up on EU’s future plans and goals would be facilitated. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel had clearly supported Macron.

Answer to Q2: Macron’s election put an end to domino-like election of Eurosceptic parties

Election of Emmanuel Macron provides better conditions for the strengthening of the European Union in the future. He wants an independent budget for Europe, a common European ministry of economic affairs and finance as well as an independent parliament for the eurozone countries. Of course, Macron is said to have been critical of Germany’s economic policies, but has drawn support from German officials due to common grounds that he has with them. During a speech at the Humboldt University of Berlin in January 2017, Macron said he supported the European Union and wanted Germany to be in it. When it comes to the EU policies and the issue of immigrants, Macron is on the same line as Germany and supports the Schengen Area and euro as single currency, while seemingly having similar views on Russia, Syria and free trade as Germany. The most important impact that Macron’s election will have on the future outlook of the European Union is that he put an end to domino-like election of anti-EU parties across the continent. Now, France can be expected to work with Germany to further boost the power of the European Union.

Germany was the first destination of Macron’s foreign visits, which started on Monday, May 15. Before the visit, Merkel had noted that during his election campaign, Macron strongly defended the unity of Europe. She added, “We will do our best not only to help France, but also to move toward unity of Europe along with France.” During the visit, the two sides discussed economic issues and plans of interest to both France and Germany.

It must be noted that in addition to Le Pen, election of some other candidates could have led to tension in Germany’s relations with France. For example, if François Fillon had been elected, his economic policies would be largely in line with those of Angela Merkel, but the two countries could have held different views with regard to other issues, including how to deal with Russia and Turkey, immigrants, and the future of the European Union.

German politicians, therefore, have a positive view of Macron’s election and see a promising perspective both for bilateral relations and European policies. As a result, it seems that election of Macron can have a positive impact on bilateral relations between France and Germany and the two countries are not expected to face major challenges with regard to the European Union.

Behzad Ahmadi
Senior expert on Europe

Answer to Q1: Germany is concerned about economic conditions of France.

The most important concern that Germany has is about economic conditions of France, especially after Britain’s exit from the EU. Since the 1970s, France has not have a balanced state budget as a result of which the country has been regularly grappling with budget deficit. This means that Paris has not been able to comply with the most important mechanism adopted to bring stability to the eurozone, which is preventing budget deficit from surpassing three percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2016, France’s general spending amounted to 56.2 percent of its gross domestic product, which has been the highest figure among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), while the corresponding figure for Germany has been 44.3 percent of the GDP. In order to comply with the rule that says budget deficit should not exceed three percent of the GDP, Macron must save more than 60 billion euros in the next five years, which seems quite difficult if not impossible.

Market reforms and reducing unemployment are other major economic challenges facing Macron and he does not seem to have any better plans for tackling these challenges compared to his predecessor, François Hollande. Under these conditions, one can claim that Berlin’s most important concern about the French election and Macron’s coming to office is about economic policies of the country and the role that Paris can play in improving conditions in the eurozone and, subsequently, paving the way for economic convergence across Europe. Following the economy, political and defense issues related to the European Union, including the reaction to Britain’s exit from the EU, countering Russia’s geopolitical measures in Eastern Europe and finding solutions to such issues as the immigration wave will be on the two countries’ agenda.

Answer to Q2: Strengthen the European’s integration pillar

France, along with the United States, is among the closest allies of Germany. In fact, European convergence has been one of the main pillars of Germany’s foreign policy, along with trans-Atlantic relations, looking to the east, as well as preserving Western values and international order through higher responsibility discourse. These goals can be achieved through the France-Germany axis. Due to the rising power of Germany, especially because of its economic might, in recent years, on the one hand, and weakening of France, mostly due to its economic and other domestic problems, on the other hand, the balance in their relations seems to have been disturbed in favor of Germany.

It is of critical importance that the new French president would be able to restore balance to the two countries’ relations and revitalize the European convergence drive. The trans-Atlantic pillar of Germany’s foreign policy had been already shaken after election of new US President Donald Trump and London’s exist from the bloc, which has been followed by disturbance in the West’s liberal order. Now, another pillar of the country’s foreign policy is being threatened and, therefore, it was very important who would be elected in France and how he or she would help the European convergence as one of two major links connecting Germany to the West. Therefore, is can be said that the result of France’s presidential election in 2017 and Macron’s victory in addition to the forthcoming elections in Germany will greatly determine the future outlook of relations between Paris and Berlin and, to a large and very serious extent, the future of the entire Europe and the West. After election of Macron in France and increased possibility of Merkel winning a third term in office through the forthcoming elections in Germany, concerns in this regard seem to have been dispelled to a large extent.

Ali Esmaeili Ardakani

Answer to Q1: Germany formulates large-scale European policies in view of domestic conditions in France

German officials were mostly concerned about the French election due to domestic doubts that existed among the country’s policymakers and elites about pursuing EU’s policies. In the meantime, cooperation in promoting the European Union around the pivot of politics and security was the most important concern that German officials had about the French election. It seems that as the main axis of EU’s identity, in addition to closely monitoring domestic developments in France, Germany must pay attention to one issue: the public opinion and public demands in France.

German officials must closely monitor domestic developments and the main demand of the French public opinion, because this issue can revive France and encourage it to play its past role after the country was actually frozen due to populist and nationalist policies during elections.

A review of the general atmosphere governing media, parties and voters that accounted for 40 percent of those who opposed Macron’s policies, during the French election, will show that France cannot follow a purely anti-nationalist policy and pursue EU’s goals with the past enthusiasm. If German officials pay attention to this atmosphere when formulating the European Union’s large-scale policies, they may be able to painstakingly review those policies, which France, as a strategic partner within the EU, is expected to accept.

On the other hand, helping the new French president make plans to boost investment in the country with the goal of creating new jobs and also revisiting immigration and border policies can be of great assistance to Paris. This assistance will reduce the clout of populist media in the country and offer a solution to the gap that exists between public and social expense, on the one hand, and collective defense expenses, on the other hand, considering that this gap was the main ground used for maneuvering by opponents of Macron during the election.

Answer to Q2: The European Union must review its security and defense policies

Following election of Macron and after a long period in which the European Union had to grapple with such problems as immigration, economic crisis, spread of terrorism, and the Brexit, at the present time, past doubts and ambiguities surrounding the bloc’s future policy and identity have been relatively dispelled. The emphasis put by Macron on the collective spirit of the bloc was evidence to this issue.

Macron has continuously stressed the need to boost EU’s defense capability in cooperation with Germany. Efforts made to bolster NATO while pursuing policies that transcend the bloc’s limits, giving priority to reducing tensions with Russia, formulating a clear strategy to cooperate with China, and serious involvement in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and problems in the Persian Gulf are all signs of continued cooperation between Germany and France. Determining these priorities can get Europe back to its heyday, because Germany will also agree to these priorities.

Meanwhile, since trans-Atlantic ally of the European Union, that is, the United States, lacks a clear strategy at the present time, the European Union must review its defense and security policies more diligently. The more serious is this review, the higher is the possibility that the China-Russia axis will be happy about it.

Interviewer: Dalileh Rahimi Ashtiani. M.A student of University of Tehran

By Paula Wright*

In her speech to the nation after the London Bridge atrocities, Theresa May mentioned the urgent need for a more nuanced debate and that this, at times would mean having “difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations.” We Liberty Belles are five women from diverse social, ethnic, racial and political backgrounds who are attempting just that. For our efforts, we were recently targeted by a group calling themselves “Hope Not Hate” as “emerging voices of the far right.” The writer made no serious attempt to contact us for comment and made numerous inferences without any evidence to support them. The article contained zero quotes from us voicing far right opinions, because none exist. Accusations of racism are especially spurious given the fact that one of our founders – Natoya – is mixed race and another – Catherine – is from an ethnic minority.

None of us hold any “extreme right-wing views”. We as a group came together to discuss our issues with feminism and why we do not believe it works towards genuine equality. As such we have spent little or no time discussing far right ideologies. A look at our personal blog posts will confirm this. The statement that some of us are involved in the Men’s Rights community is true. However, as people are increasingly beginning to realise – particularly since The Red Pill documentary – the objectives and opinions of the Men’s Rights community have nothing to do with the far right.

We are libertarians, classical liberals and one of us identifies as socially conservative. No amount of research and digging on us will ever suggest otherwise. We have no links with The National London Forum beyond one of our number speaking there on a platform about male genital mutilation. Had she known of any links with the anti-Semite David Irving, or any bigot, she would not have accepted the offer – in fact several other members of the group had never even heard of The London Forum until Hope Not Hate’s article. By David Lawrence’s standards, had Elizabeth found herself standing at the same bus stop as Irving, he would accuse her of “sharing a platform” with him. No reasonable person, never mind a serious researcher or a journalist, should be that ungracious or naive. We are five ordinary women not professional speakers with advisors and agents.

Elizabeth also did an interview with THA talks, an online radio station whose slogan is ‘free speech for open minds’. She had no idea that they had given a platform to far right and Holocaust denying guests but a quick glance at their front page shows that they have also interviewed members of the Socialist Workers Party so they cannot be described as a far-right outlet; they are what they say on the tin, something laudable in this day and age.

We were accused of associating with “Nazi apologist” Claire Khaw. Liberty Belle Natoya Raymond, a talented journalist, met with Claire Khaw personally to find out who the person behind the extreme online persona was and found a timid keyboard warrior. We find her opinions repugnant and have refused to share a platform with her in the past.*

We all support free speech however. We believe radicalism and hate can only be defeated by open, robust dialectic and that censorship only benefits authoritarian extremists. We have nothing to hide. Rather, we have a passion for true egalitarian values. To be as clear as possible, the values we stand for are:

Democracy, classical liberalism, free speech, civil rights, equality before the law, small government, free markets.

These are all antidotes to far right and far left authoritarianism.

Some of us personally now have a genuine fear for our own safety and the safety of our families, given that “Hope Not Hate” appear to have their own links with Antifa via Searchlight Magazine and Unite Against Fascism. Antifa extremists are currently on trial in the US for carrying out unprovoked violent attacks on women and men who they believe to hold right wing views. In the light of this, David Lawrence’s labelling of us in those terms without having done proper research or making any attempt to contact us individually to find out our actual opinions is a possible threat to our safety. His article effectively targets us as persons of interest for sinister and violent left-wing groups, such as Antifa and BAMN. We wonder in fact, if his article was written specifically with that cowardly goal in mind.

We hope that reasonable people will defend us from such thuggish attempts to intimidate and silence political dissent from centrist moderates like ourselves.

Every survey in the last 30 years has shown that while a majority of UK citizens embrace egalitarian values, only a minority identify as feminist.  There are many reasons we do not support feminism but perhaps most importantly we feel it represents a threat to the things we hold most dear; the well-being of our children, positive relationships between men and women and the stability of the family. We are five centrist women not a right-wing movement. We are not traditionalists and we are not radicals. We are individuals. We work, we write, we study and we care about the internal instability of West right now. We want to actively and positively contribute to the future.

As mothers to children of various ages, we also realise the value of a work-life balance, of having quality time with our children and partners – equal partners, not rivals – with a common life goal. With the help and support of our partners we willingly trade off a negligible “pay gap” for the profound gift of being mothers to our children when they most need it.

Life is measured in the legacy you will leave. For most of us – men and women – that will be our children. Feminism will never change that. If that’s “right wing”, we are in big trouble.

We set up our sub-group Ladies for Philip Davies in support of Philip Davies’ attempts to challenge radical feminist policies in UK parliament; policies which actually do little to help women, pay lip service to men’s issues and waste precious time and resources. Davies is constantly slandered by feminist groups as a misogynist, a lie which goes unchallenged by the mainstream media.  Other lies and misrepresentations which go unchecked are:  

Philip Davies blocked a bill to provide free hospital parking for carers

Via email, Davies told us, ”Who can possibly disagree with this in principle. I certainly don’t…However the Bill only applied to people with an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance – that is only 1 in 6 carers.  Hospitals made clear that to pay for this other customers would have to pay more which means 5 out of 6 carers would have had to pay extra for hospital parking if this Bill had become law. Hardly good for carers.” He added, “There is nothing in law that prevents hospitals from giving discounts to people who go to hospital regularly (not just carers) and many of them do. Indeed existing government guidelines say they should, so this could be best left to hospitals to sort out rather than create a law which clearly would have been a nightmare to implement”

Philip Davies tried to block a Bill to stop animals being used in circuses

This is an outright lie. “There has never been a debate on a private member’s Bill for Wild Animals in Circuses”

Philip Davies tried to block a Bill providing first aid training for children in schools.

Davies is not against first aid training for children in schools, he is against compulsory first aid training for children in schools. Making first aid training a mandatory part of the national curriculum links it to the Ofsted inspection process, adding yet more pressure to a system already under bureaucratic stress. He added, “In my area of Bradford, results are so bad they might need to use the time for extra maths or English lessons but we should trust the teachers to decide what is most needed in their school.” Davies is also a champion of community associations such as Cubs, Scouts, Brownies and the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, where children can learn first aid and other skills.

Philip Davies tried to block a bill which protects women from domestic violence

The Istanbul Convention does nothing to help victims of domestic violence. As Davies points out, “You cannot make something illegal, more illegal.” Further, it completely ignores the fact that a third of victims of domestic violence are men (by some studies this number rises to 50%). Davies was the only politician who researched the utility of the bill in other countries which had ratified it and found it had zero effect on domestic violence rates. You can hear Davies speak about this in our interview with him. The Istanbul Convention is a clear example of virtue signalling masquerading as policy. But this kind of signalling is not without cost; it wastes precious parliamentary time and taxpayers money.

As you can see, the devil is in the detail. Compare this reality with Women and Equalities leader Sophie Walker’s assertion about Philips as, “basically is a sexist misogynist who puts his own ego ahead of his constituents” and it appears that Walker is blinded by the plank in her own eye.

In the face of this slander and unprecedented mainstream media support for the Women and Equalities Party, a party with zero seats in parliament, Davies has maintained his constituency seat in Shipley by a huge majority in the election. Hilariously, feminists were at first wrong-footed, and were celebrating his ‘defeat’ on Twitter with their usual grace.

The Women and Equalities Party slogan has been “Equality is good for everyone” yet they have tied themselves in knots with their own doublethink definition of what equality means. The founder of the party, Catherine Mayer wrote in The Guardian, “Equality under the law is mistaken for equality”.

In a pre-election failure  interview with Channel 4 News, Sophie Walker, the WEP candidate “parachuted” into Shipley to challenge Davies’ seat said, “Philip Davies is a proponent of the idea that you can achieve equality by treating everybody equally.” In any other world, this would be a shining endorsement. But the WEP’s definition of equality is not the one which was borne from the Enlightenment, the one which abolished slavery from the West, which won suffrage for all men and women and ended racial segregation in US schools (something which is worryingly on the rise again in the US, being pushed by so-called ‘liberal progressives’). No, the WEP definition of equality is more redolent of something found in the pages of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron or Orwell’s Animal Farm, where “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” In the case of the WEP, with their focus on equality of outcome and not equality of opportunity, women (or more accurately women who are feminists) deserve more rights and ‘equality’ than the rest of us.

This is something we Liberty Belles fundamentally disagree with.  We do not believe in ‘positive’ discrimination – a position which clearly betrays a lurking fear that women really are inferior to men. Yet, everywhere we turn to assert our opinion, we find progressives and feminists – male and female – insisting we are oppressed.

Like Davies, we stuck our heads above the parapet to challenge the feminist status quo, and in return, we now find ourselves in their sights and under their scrutiny. We are confident the reading public will see this specious attack for what it is and ask them to watch our interview with Philip Davies to judge for themselves where we stand on the political spectrum.

Paula Wright
Contact porlawright@gmail.com

On behalf of The Liberty Belles

Elizabeth Hobson @anti_fembot

Natoya Raymond @ladies4pd

Paula Wright @SexyIsntSexist

Catherine Kitsis @Femalefedupwith

Belinda Brown @bbhippopotamus

Catch up with the #LibertyBelles on their You Tube channel and via Studio Brule

*Edit: a previous draft of this essay asserted the Claire Knaw had referred to Natoya Raymond as a “half-caste”. It was actually an associate of Knaw who did this. The comment was later deleted but not before Natoya captured a screenshot.

The views expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bombs and Dollars, where this article was published.

The case of eight men who could face imminent execution following a military trial shows why Egyptian authorities should place a moratorium on the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said.

The eight civilians, six of whom are in custody, were sentenced to death on May 29, 2016, after a trial on terrorism charges that denied them basic due process rights and relied on confessions that the defendants said were obtained under torture. If the Supreme Military Court for Appeals denies the defendants’ appeal, the six men in custody could be executed as soon as Defense Minister Sedky Sobhi and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ratify their death sentences.

“Egyptian authorities have been using military trials to dodge the already threadbare due process protections in regular courts, and we fear these trials may become rubber stamps for the death penalty,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Military courts should never be used against civilians, and they should certainly not be allowed to condemn civilians to death.”

Sobhi should cancel the death sentences and order military prosecutors to drop the case, and if there is evidence against the men or their co-defendants, Egypt’s prosecutor general should charge them in a regular court, Human Rights Watch said.

Since 2013, military courts have sentenced at least 60 defendants to death in at least 10 cases. Six of these sentences have been approved and carried out. While military courts have handed down far fewer death sentences than the hundreds issued by regular courts since 2013, they do not provide even the limited due process protections available in those courts. Egyptian authorities have tried more than 7,400 civilians in military courts since al-Sisi decreed a law in October 2014 that vastly expanded military court jurisdiction.

The eight men were among 28 tried together on terrorism charges. Only one of the 28 was a member of the military. The court sentenced 12 to life in prison, six to 15 years, and acquitted two.

Military prosecutors alleged that the men had supported or belonged to a group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood that obtained explosives and weapons and plotted to carry out surveillance and attacks on government and security officials.

Human Rights Watch reviewed the military prosecution’s 20-page indictment, a 149-page defense memo, and the 37-page military court verdict. Human Rights Watch also interviewed two defense lawyers, one defendant who was sentenced to death but lives outside Egypt, and relatives of five other defendants.

The relatives said that the authorities arrested the five men between May 28 and June 2, 2015, and did not provide information about their whereabouts for weeks. The families inquired in local police stations and sent telegrams to various government offices but received no response. Some learned of their relatives’ whereabouts weeks later, when they received calls from people who saw the men in detention. The authorities did not officially acknowledge that the men were being accused of crimes until July 10, 2015, when some of the men appeared in a video released by the Defense Ministry that accused them of belonging to “the biggest terrorist cell threatening national security.”

Five of the men told their relatives that interrogators had tortured them, including with beatings, electric shocks, and hanging in painful stress positions. Three said they were then forced to read confessions written for them. Two told their relatives that the Defense Ministry’s Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance Department had held them in Cairo’s Nasr City neighborhood, in a facility that Human Rights Watch independently confirmed belonged to military intelligence. None of the men were allowed access to lawyers during their detention, interrogation, or initial questioning by military prosecutors.

The men’s trial, known as Case 174 of 2015, began on September 17, 2015. Military prosecutors charged the defendants with manufacturing explosives, acquiring defense secrets, possessing firearms, and violating article 86 of the penal code – Egypt’s primary anti-terrorism statute. The law provides for life imprisonment or the death penalty for anyone who helps lead a group that uses terrorism to “disrupt the provisions of the constitution or laws, prevent state institutions or public authorities from carrying out their work, assault citizens’ personal freedoms or general rights, or harm national unity or social peace.” Under article 86, anyone who supplies such a group with money, weapons, or explosives can also receive the death penalty.

The indictment Human Rights Watch reviewed relied entirely on the testimony of Major Hani Soltan, an officer with military intelligence Group 77. Soltan testified that on May 24, 2015, during a routine inspection of troops returning from leave, military personnel discovered a concealed camera pen in the possession of a conscript assigned to the Defense Ministry’s general secretariat. After interrogating the man, Soltan testified, he was able to uncover the plot and identify the members of the “terrorist cell.”

Prosecutors did not charge any of the 28 defendants with an act of violence but said the men were preparing for attacks by stockpiling weapons and conducting surveillance on security officials, including Gen. Medhat al-Menshawy, the head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Security Forces, who commanded the brutal 2013 dispersal of a mass sit-in in Cairo that left at least 817 protesters dead in one day.

In March and April 2017, Human Rights Watch sent letters to six Egyptian institutions including the presidency and Defense Ministry, expressing serious concerns about death sentences handed down in military courts and urging al-Sisi and Sobhi not to approve the death sentences in this case or another case in which seven men were sentenced to death by a military court in connection with a deadly explosion at a stadium in Kafr al-Sheikh. Human Rights Watch also said that Egyptian authorities should place a moratorium on the death penalty in all regular and military courts in view of the sharp rise in the number of death sentences, turbulent political upheaval, and failure to pass a comprehensive transitional justice law in Egypt since the military removed the country’s first freely elected president in July 2013.

In 2015, six men were executed following an unfair military trial in which they were accused of participating in attacks on security forces, including a gunfight that killed army officers. In that case, Human Rights Watch determined that three of the men could not have participated in the attacks because authorities had arrested them months earlier and they were in detention at the time. Nevertheless, they were sentenced to death and executed by hanging after Sobhi and al-Sisi ratified their sentences.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a punishment that is not only unique in its cruelty and finality, but also inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

Egypt’s military courts violate several key elements of due process, including the defendants’ right to be informed of the charges against them, to access a lawyer, to have a lawyer present during interrogations, and to be brought promptly before a judge. Judges in the military justice system are military officers subject to a chain of command, without the independence to ignore instructions by superiors.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates international law. The Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Egypt ratified in 1982, has stated that civilians should be tried by military courts only under exceptional circumstances and only under conditions that genuinely afford full due process. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which interprets the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ratified by Egypt in 1984, has stated that civilians should never face military trial and that military courts should not have the power to impose the death penalty. The African Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance, adopted in 2003, prohibit military trial of civilians under all circumstances.

Ministers and high-level officials from 85 countries sent a strong signal in a statement adopted at the Ministerial Conference, during the Eighth International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development, which opened in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 11.

Seven voluntary actions in the Ministerial Declaration outline ways to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy system, from establishing national sustainable energy action plans, to developing internationally recognized minimum energy performance standards in all sectors, and advancing methods for public data collection and indicators on energy for sustainable development.

The event was held under the auspices of EXPO 2017 ‘Future Energy,’ and for the eighth time, is co-organized by the five UN regional commissions, coming full circle in Astana, where the first forum was held in 2010. High-level participants addressed sustainable energy challenges and opportunities in five ministerial dialogues covering sustainable energy, energy security, regional trade and infrastructure, the energy-climate-food nexus, renewable energy in Central Asia and promoting new technologies and innovations. More than 1,000 people attended the Ministerial Conference.

At the opening ceremony, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, acknowledged that the global energy transition is underway.

Speaking on behalf of the five regional commissions, Dr. Akhtar said, “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, together with market, infrastructure and technology advancements have great potential to shape a future powered by clean, sustainable energy. However, to accelerate the transition to a world based on sustainable energy, and to address the aspects of quality of life and uneven distribution of energy, we must deal with the long-term challenges and opportunities.”

Dr. Akhtar emphasized that energy supply enhancements are critical to address existing deficits and meet the needs of over 1.4 billion people without energy access. She stressed that reducing dependence on fossil fuel sources is also urgent, as the carbon budget to keep the world within 2 degrees of warming is dwindling.

Mr. Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, noted the immense potential nationally and globally for growth in GDP and employment through growing the green economy. Mentioning the Kazakh proverb “what is sown by fathers will be harvested by children,” he described energy as “crucial for development” and noted the need for balancing sustainable development and environmental protection as a commitment to future generations. The Prime Minister also expressed hope that the Ministerial Conference and its Declaration will further promote the long-term cooperation of all stakeholders on sustainable energy.

In her address, Ms. Olga Algayerova, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), underlined the critical need to close the gap between current actions and commitments on the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, and what is truly needed to achieve their
implementation.

Since the late 1990s Bangladesh has been witnessing a large scale of militant and terrorist activities and attacks throughout the country. But in recent times, the pattern of these militant and terrorist activities drastically changed revealing a suspicion of having close ties with the global terrorist and militant organizations like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Subsequently, the militants often targeted and killed a number of bloggers, atheists, non-Muslim preachers and priests since 2013 and the level of such incidents is increasing alarmingly.

These incidents took place on the heels of the Global Terrorism Index’s (GTI, 2015) assessment that the country is ‘vulnerable to high terrorism risk’. The GTI score of the country was already on the rise from an historic low of 4.1 in 2012 to 5.47 in 2013 to 5.92 in 2014. However, this trend and recent increase need to be contextualized within the historical developments of militancy in the country and counter-terrorism efforts pursued since 2006.

As Harrison (2006) in his article, A New Hub of Terrorism? In Bangladesh, an Islamic Movement with Al-Qaeda Ties is on the Rise published in The Washington Post, argued that the strategically located nation of Bangladesh is going to be a new regional hub for terrorist operations after analyzing some case studies of killing and bombing by several militant organizations like JMB, JMJB, HuJI-B and others. Also the recent killings of the Rajshahi University professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee on 23 April and the killing of Xulhaz Mannan, a gay rights activist, and his friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy in the capital Dhaka on 26 April 2016 are showing the growing strength of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh revealing the truth of several security and terrorism analysts’ comments on the Bangladeshi militants’ close links with the global jihadists.

On the basis of primary data, the study examines the growing nature, historical development, causes, consequences, impact, socio-political dimensions, and security challenges of the religious militancy in Bangladesh along with the role of state level institutional arrangements and their limitations in order to combat militancy and terrorism in Bangladesh.

The central argument of the study is that Bangladesh is facing a growing intensity of religious militancy revealing close ties with the global jihadists where banned religious parties and groups are responsible for the recent attacks and killings of the bloggers, atheists, university teachers and non-Muslim priests due to their feeling of alienation from the liberal democratic system; political, economic, social and cultural suppression over the fundamentalists; their goal of establishing own religious ideology within the political system; the weak presence of the main political opposition (BNP) in political affairs; and the limitations of several counter terrorism mechanisms to combat militant activities properly.

Methodology

A combination of qualitative and quantitative approach is used to attain the objectives of the study. Both primary and secondary sources of data and information are used in carrying out this study. Primary data have been collected through proportionate random sample survey using close-ended structured questionnaire from 50 students of different departments at Dhaka University considering proper representation of sex (50% male and 50% female) and religious views (Islam-80%, Hindu-18% and Buddhist-2%). Secondary data have been acquired through content analysis where related information and data are collected from all relevant books, journal articles, published and unpublished research works, daily newspapers etc. The collected data have been validated through crosschecking with each other and with the secondary sources.

Understanding (Religious) Militancy

The word militancy comes from the 15th Century Latin ‘militare’ meaning “to serve as a solider”. Militancy is the related modern concept described as a defensive organizational ideology grew out of the Anglo-Saxon ‘Fyrd’. Nowadays, the term militancy is synonymously used with the term ‘terrorism’, ‘fundamentalism’ as well as ‘extremism’.

Dimensions of Religious Militancy

Militancy as a social movement has three common elements- goals, collective actors and collective action (Hall, 1995: 5). Freilich et al. (2001: 163-210) argued about the following five dimensions:

Origin and Development Political Islam and Militancy in Bangladesh

Islamist militant groups in Bangladesh which emerged in the 1990s have undergone several transformations. Originally grown out of the volunteers who joined the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, these groups have since then taken different shapes.

Since the 1990s, five ‘generations’ of militant groups appeared on the scene. In some measures, the militant groups have come full circle: they began as a result of a global agenda fighting an ‘atheist’ Communist system (war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan) to now being part of establishing a global ‘khilafat’ (by joining the IS in Syria and Iraq) via pursuing a circumscribed local agenda for a period in the early 2000s (Riaz, 2016: 2).

Five Generations of Bangladeshi Militants

Ali Riaz (2016) in his recent study “Who are the Bangladeshi ‘Islamist Militants’?” divided Bangladeshi militants into five generations.

First Generation: The first generation of militants was the product of the Afghan War (1979-1992). In 1984-88, almost 3000 volunteers along with a group of ‘ulama’ travelled to Afghanistan to participate in the war. Between 1988 and 1992, Shafiqur Rahman, a returnee of the Afghan war, established HuJI-B. Here, the members of the leadership were older, mostly madrassah (particularly Deobandi) educated, and hailed from rural areas.

Second Generation: After 1996, the group moved its bases to the northern and northwestern parts of the country, and adopted the name “Qital fi Sabilililah”. Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Asadullah Ghalib, leader of the AHAB, joined forces in 1998 and established the JMB with the objective of transforming Bangladesh into an ‘Islamic state’. The group and its affiliate JMJB, under the leadership of Shaikh Abdur Rahman, Siddiqur Rahman (Bangla Bhai) and Asadullah Ghalib, established a reign of terror in the northwestern part of Bangladesh.

Third Generation: As the JMB and HuJI-B were gradually transforming, a new organization with international connections and a global agenda appeared on the scene: the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT). The Bangladesh chapter of the HT was founded in 2001 by a university professor who had studied in the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth Scholar. The new generation is characterized by its technical skills, being students of universities, and well versed in global political events.

Fourth Generation: The arrests and execution of the JMB leaders in 2006-2007, followed by strong CT efforts weakened the militant groups. Then the HuJI and the JMB continued to reorganize renewing group named the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). Inspired by Anwar al Awlaki and led by local Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani, the ABT began to attract new recruits in 2012.The group reflects a young generation of jihadist in Bangladesh, which uses cyberspace extensively in propagating jihadist ideology and training manuals to guide terror attacks.

Fifth Generation: With the announcement of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in September 2014 that the organization was establishing a branch in South Asia, AQIS came into being. In February 2015, Zawahiri called upon the Muslims of Bangladesh to launch a massive public uprising against the enemies of Islam. In early July the law enforcing agencies arrested Maulana Mainul Islam, the alleged AQIS chief coordinator in Bangladesh along with eleven other AQIS activists. The defining feature of the new generation is that they are inspired by, and connected to, the transnational terrorist groups, intend to pursue their objective of establishing an Islamic state in Bangladesh and participate in the global militant Islamist movements.

Trends of Militancy in Bangladesh

Since the mid-1980s Bangladesh has been witnessing a dramatic rise of militant and terrorist activities along with a wider scale of killings, bombing, arson etc. According to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database (GTD), between March 1986 and December 2014, there have been 1,049 terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. The following graph is showing that the whole 1990s and from 2010-13 Bangladesh witnessed almost 70 percent militant attacks due to political turmoil, lack of consensus among major political forces, verdict regarding war criminals etc.

Factors and Causes of Religious Militancy in Bangladesh

The issue of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh is related to various factors. Riaz (2007) identified four factors with the rise of Islamist militancy as a political ideology:

• Crisis of hegemony of the Bangladeshi ruling class
• Crisis of legitimacy of the post-1975 military regimes
• Politics of expediency of the secularist parties
• Ineffective resistance of civil society

Datta (2007) and Quamruzzaman (2010) identified the following factors and causes of militancy:

• Unemployment, illiteracy, poverty and resource deprivation
• Politicization of Islam, growth of madrassas and upsurge of religious parties
• Perceived official patronage along with the ISIS/Al-Qaeda’s presence
• Economic dislocation, social disorganization and political blame game
• Easy access to arms and Ideological apparatuses

Data Presentation and Analysis: Survey Findings

Perception on ‘Religious Militancy’

This section deals with the perception of the students of Dhaka University on religious militancy as a concept. Here, 36 percent participants perceive religious militancy as ‘religio-centered terrorism’. Then 14 percent respondents consider the concept as ‘campaigns of violence by fundamentalists’ in order to establish their own religious ideology diminishing the liberal democratic order as well as establishing a political system based on religious texts i.e. Khilafat of ISIS based on Sharia law. Indeed, 22 percent participants regard the term as ‘a militia movement having goals, collective actors and collective action’ of religious individuals, groups or parties displaying engaging in violence for ensuring political, ideological, economic, or social interests.

Also 24 percent students support ‘All’-the argued three options- to sketch religious militancy as a religio-centered militia movement demonstrating campaigns of violence by fundamentalists and extremists having goals, collective actors and action in order to establish a religious order. Only 4 percent respondents feel pity to choose the option ‘others’ where they would like to consider religious militancy as a ‘form of violence using religion as shield to acquire political goals’.

Existence of Religious Militancy in Bangladesh

As the question concerning the existence of religious militancy was crucial for the students due to their lack engagement in militant as well as counter-militant activities and the arguments of both parties i.e. the militant organizations are taking responsibility of the terrorist attacks upon the bloggers, atheists, non-Muslim priests and preachers whereas the law and order maintaining authority is taking defense arguing that these activities are not done by militants or terrorists rather criminal activities. Indeed, 60 percent participants select the option ‘yes’ giving their consent in favor of the existence of religious militancy in Bangladesh. They perceive that as the main targets of attackers are bloggers (more specifically who write against religion), atheists, non-Muslim priests and preachers so these activities reveal a religion-motivated fundamentalist nature committed by the people of Islamist militant organizations.

Then 10 percent respondents choose the option ‘no’ arguing that these so called militants activities are nothing but a part of international conspiracy to weaken the harmonious pluralist fabric of Bangladesh by using religion as a fault-line to divide the society between majority and minority. Also 28 percent students answer ‘not sure’ regarding the existence of religious militancy in Bangladesh. Their argument is that the nature of religio-centered violence in Bangladesh is not like the Middle East or Europe, but these terrorist events to some extent have connection with religious militant activities. Only 2 percent students argued in favor of ‘others’ showing confusion regarding the existence of militancy in Bangladesh.

Religious Militancy as a potential threat to National Security of Bangladesh

Theoretically and empirically there exists a negative relationship between religious militancy and national security within both national and global order. A lion’s share of the participants, 70 percent, put their consent in favor of ‘yes’ where they consider the rise and rapid expansion of Islamic militancy as a potential threat to the security order of Bangladesh. Because the attacking strategies of militants can be considered as ghostly terror which poses a continuous threat to national security of Bangladesh. Only 8 percent participants answer in favor of ‘no’ arguing that Islamic militant activities are not posing such threat to the national security of Bangladesh rather these can be explained group activities where one group is committing violence against another to secure its ideological supremacy. Indeed, 22 percent respondents select ‘may be’ as their answer intending that any religious militant activity reveals dilemma for national security order like other criminal activities; but religious militancy can be considered as the most horror episodes to the national security because it also fragments the social fabric of Bangladesh.

Causes of Creating Religious Militant Organizations

One of the core findings of the study maps the major causes of creating religious militant organizations in Bangladesh. Among the 50 students of Dhaka University only 6 percent respondents regard ‘due to the alienation from the liberal democratic system’ as the major cause of the rapid expansion of religious militancy in Bangladesh. Then 24 percent participants consider ‘political, economic, social and cultural suppression over the fundamentalists’ as the root cause of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh where comparatively low level of modernization of the traditional Islamic society hinders the healthy representation of the fundamentalists within the holistic order causing the creation of collective militant psyche among them.

Majority of the respondents, 66 percent, strongly take the position in favor of ‘establishing own religious ideology within the political system’ by the religious groups that reveals its public face by creating Islamic militant organizations in turn. Globally, the militant organizations like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Taliban and others already prove their goals to establish Islamic state based on Sharia law. Connecting this issue with the national perspective they argue that militant organizations like the HuJI-B, JMB, JMJB, Ansarullah Bangla Team etc. are continuously committing terrorist activities to insert their ideology as religious-political forces within the political system. Only 4 percent select their answer as ‘others’ where Islamist militancy is rising due to communal feelings or the provocation of fundamentalists.

Connection of Religious Militancy with the recent attacks on bloggers and non-Muslim preachers and priests

The connection of religious militancy with the recent attacks on bloggers and non-Muslim preachers and priests is one of the major contemporary issues in the realm of academia, media, civil society as well as development partners and donors of Bangladesh. Here 32 percent participants consider these attacks as ‘militant attack’ where Islamic radical psyche of the militants drives them to commit such kind of criminal offences.

Then 28 percent respondents perceive these contemporary attacks on bloggers and non-Muslim preachers and priests as ‘terrorist attack’ where terrorist organizations are occurring such deadly events in the name of religion in order to attain their certain interests. This is also a tactics of them that they would commit but the perception would be against the Islamic militants. Indeed, 32 percent participants think these attacks as ‘fundamentalists’ attack’ arguing that the Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh are committing these deadly attacks for establishing their ideology as well as demonstrating their power and supremacy within this pluralist liberal order. Only 8 percent respondents consider these recent attacks as a ‘rootless act’ due to the sensitive comments against Islam.

Responsibility of Islamic political parties in Bangladesh for religious militancy

This section was little bit critical for the respondents due to the similarity of the violence of militants with the Islamic political parties along with a maximum portion of ideological indifferences. Surprisingly 38 percent students take their position in favor of ‘yes’ which indicates the involvement of the major Islamic parties in the rise and expansion of Islamic militant organizations in Bangladesh. The Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates are often found in violent militant activities lonely as well as jointly with the militant organizations like JMB, JMJB, HuJI-B etc. across the country.

Here 24 percent students argue in favor of ‘no’ where their stance shows that since the colonial period the religious political parties are involved in the political, social, economic and cultural development of Bangladesh. Rather the rise of militancy is initiated by the West to retain their influence in the LDCs like Bangladesh after the incident of 9/11 as a part of its ‘war on terror’ strategy. Also their stance reveals the indirect connection of the major and alienated Islamic political parties provoking the militant organizations. Also 34 percent participants choose the option ‘not sure’ due to the ambiguity between the violent activities of the Islamic parties and the terrorist activities of the Islamic militant organizations. As the pattern of the attacks and the similarities in terms of ideology and faith are almost same so the responsibilities of the Islamic parties cannot be denied in the rise and expansion of religious militancy in Bangladesh. Only 4 percent regard the ‘others’ as their answers are that most religious political parties are not responsible rather to some extent in specific acts.

The next question deals with to specify Islamic parties responsible for religious militancy in Bangladesh the respondents are found to continue their rhythm of choosing answers subsequently. Here 18 percent participants consider ‘Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)’ as the major actor for rise of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. Subsequently, 12 percent respondents choose ‘Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B)’ as the leading terrorist organization which is spreading and strengthening Islamic militant order in Bangladesh. Most importantly 38 percent consider ‘Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its Affiliates’ as the major forces of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. After the banning by the judiciary, the party takes the militant pathway to prove their existence and their roots in the society. Also some of the JI leaders were found affiliated with the Islamic militant organizations through the reports of media. Indeed 30 percent students regard ‘others’ as their answer where 10 percent consider these all parties responsible; 10 percent indicate the involvement of Ansarullah Bangla Team and ISIS; and 10 percent say don’t know exactly about the involvement of these parties in militancy.

Validity of confession taking the liability of killing or attacking by ISIS or Al-Qaeda

This sub-section entirely deals with the perception of the students regarding the validity of the confession taking liability of the contemporary killing or attacking through internet by ISIS (Ansarullah Bangla Team) or Al-Qaeda (Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent- AQIS).However, 10 percent participants perceive this confession of killing or attacking by ISIS or Al-Qaeda as ‘completely true’ arguing that these terrorist organizations mainly target the Muslim majority countries having fragile governance, weak pluralist social fabric, parochial political culture, lack of compromise and conflict resolution mechanism among the major political forces.

As these organizations spread their access from the Middle East to South East Asia so Bangladesh is considered a hub of geostrategic land connecting the mentioned two major regions. Indeed, 66 percent respondents think the validity of this confession of the liability as ‘to some extent’ indicating that both ISIS and Al-Qaeda have strong affiliation with the local as well as national level Islamic militant organizations in terms of patronizing, training, skilling, making plans for attack, recruitment and so on. So they are just constructing a pathway by smoothing the global-local ties for establishing a religious militant order including Bangladesh.

Surprisingly 20 percent choose the option ‘not true’ which shows their perception in defense of criminal and terrorist activities by the militant organizations rather than implementing the agenda of ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Also the scale and pattern of global jihadist violence largely differs from the militant activities in Bangladesh. Here 4 percent students choose ‘others’ arguing that they do not know anything about the confessions.

Recruitment or targeted to recruit in militant organizations of Bangladesh

Recruitment or targeted to recruit is a central thrust of the militant organizations in Bangladesh. Here 28 percent respondents perceive that ‘students of Madrasha’ are the first and foremost choice to be recruited as the members of the militant organizations due to their lack of modernization, poor access in social as well as printing-electronic media, lack of proper understanding about the Sharia law and the fundamentals of Khilafat, blind irrational belief upon the commanders etc. allowing the most easiest way to conduct militant activities. Indeed, 32 percent participants consider that basically the ‘leaders of banned Islamic political parties’ are joining with these militant organizations in order to retain their political and organizational influence and status posing threat to the power structure. Also the feeling of alienation from the mainstream political fabric bounds them to affiliate with the militants.

Then 18 percent students choose that ‘general people’, who could be motivated easily by using religion, are the important targets of recruitment by the militants. The frustrated young generation, socially and economically alienated people and the people having a strong anti-liberal sentiment are highly targeted by the Bangladeshi Islamic militant organizations. Also 22 percent support the option ‘others’ where 8 percent consider that all are recruited as militants; 4 percent seem that socially frustrated young generation due to unemployment and drug addiction; 10 percent think anyone can be recruited as militants.

Impact of militancy on Bangladesh’s relations with India, the USA and European countries

It is evident that terrorist, militant and extremist activities centering religion are always a matter of concern and pressure within the realm of foreign and diplomatic relations with other countries. 72 percent respondents consider ‘yes’ as their answer indicating that they strongly believe that such kind of militant and terrorist activities would hamper the bilateral as well as multilateral diplomatic and economic relationships with the major allies like India, the USA and other European countries.

Already Bangladesh lost the ‘GSP’ in the US market and many of EU business partners revealing the lack of security and certainty due to the violent militant events. As the rise and expansion of militancy in Bangladesh is also a security issue for India more specifically North East India where secessionist movements are going on. For this reason it is often evident the interference of India within the national political arena of Bangladesh. Then 12 percent consider ‘no’ as the answer arguing that as the rapid growth of economy, well reserved foreign currency, shining garments and industrial sectors and many developmental issues are getting importance to the foreign partners. Religious militancy will not hinder the relationship because no of them is out of militancy and terrorism. Also 16 percent choose the answer ‘not sure’ because they feel that globalization of terrorism and militancy endangered the states like Bangladesh who are in stage of ‘pre-takeoff’. As the development partners put conditions regarding militancy but lack of proper evidences create a grey area for them.

Effectiveness of the Counter Terrorism (CT) mechanism to counter the Militants

Here 18 percent consider the counter terrorism (CT) mechanism ‘completely active’ because of having legal as well as institutional arrangements. The existing Criminal Code and politically driven laws like the Special Powers Act of 1974, the Public Safety Act 2000, Speedy Tribunal Act and the Suppression of Terrorist Offences Act 1992,the Law and Order Disruption Crimes (Speedy Trial/Amendment) Act 2005arethe legal instruments to punish terrorist and militant offenders. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Bureau (CTIB), Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit (a specialized unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police) are the institutional arrangements for combating militant attacks, cybercrimes, terror financing and mobile bank related crimes.

Majority of the students, 56 percent think that the counter terrorism mechanism is ‘medium active’ because the legal and instruments are still in the process of development as the pattern of militant and terrorist violence could not be sketched properly. Also the role of RAB is still in huge question and criticism. Then 20 percent students consider the CT mechanism ‘less active’ arguing that this mechanism is using politically by the government party against the opposition parties. Also the legal and institutional arrangements are not made following the international standards. Only 6 percent participants regard ‘others’ argued that they are not sure about effectiveness of CT mechanisms.

Conclusion

It appears from the above analyses that the scale of religious militancy in Bangladesh is increasing day by day revealing a close tie with the global militant organizations. Here Islamic militancy is threatening the national security of Bangladesh where the militants play a key role in order to exert their own religious doctrine, ideology and supremacy within the political system. The militants are getting stronger and conducting their violent activities in Bangladesh due to the lack of political integration of the religious forces within the liberal fabric; feeling of alienation of the militants; political, economic, social and cultural suppression over fundamentalists etc. However the recent attacks and killings of bloggers, atheists, university teachers, non-Muslim priests and preachers indicate the presence of militancy in Bangladesh revealing the vulnerabilities of the counter terrorism mechanisms as well as ‘Zero Tolerance’ stance of the government.

These violent incidents by the militants also affect negatively the diplomatic as well as economic relations with India, the USA and European countries. In order to uproot the core of Islamic militancy the state should modernize the madrasha system; integrate or assimilate the religious forces within the liberal order; design a technology and strategy based counter terrorism mechanisms etc. In a nutshell, religious militancy in Bangladesh would be a utopia if democratic tradition, norms and values could be institutionalized following a culture of deliberation and compromise.

*Abu Sufian Shamrat, M.S.S. in Political Science, is a researcher in Bangladesh. Shamrat is the highest gold medal awardee in the history of Dhaka University convocations. He writes on political, social, global, as well as strategic issues in the leading national and international dailies and journals. He can be reached at: shamrat08du@yahoo.com

(This article first appeared in South Asia Journal)

References
Ahmad, Mumtaz (2008), ‘Islam, State, and Society in Bangladesh’, in John L. Esposito, J. O. Voll, and Osman Bakar (Eds.), Asian Islam in the 21st century, New York: Oxford University Press
Barkat, Abul (2006), ‘Economics of Fundamentalism and the Growth of Political Islam in Bangladesh’, Social Science Review, Vol. 23, No. 2, December
Barkun, Michael (1996), ‘Religion, Militias, and Oklahoma City: The Mind of Conspiratorialists’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 8
Datta, S. (2007), ‘Islamic militancy in Bangladesh: The threat from within’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1
Freilich, Joshua D., Jeremy A. Pienik, and Gregory J. Howard (2001), ‘Toward Comparative Studies of the U.S. Militia Movement’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. 42
Gohel, Sajjan M. (2014), ‘Bangladesh: an Emerging Centre for Terrorism in Asia’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 8, Issue 3, June, ISSN 2334-3745
Hafez, Mohammed M. (2003), Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers
Hall, Melvin F. (1995), Poor People’s Social Movement Organizations: The Goal is to Win, London: Preager
Hoffman, Bruce (1998), Inside Terrorism, New York: Columbia University Press
Quamruzzaman, AMM (2010), The militia movement in Bangladesh: Ideology, Motivation, Mobilization, Organization, and Ritual (an unpublished MA Thesis at the Department of Sociology of Queen’s University)
Riaz, Ali (2007), Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Complex Web, New York: Routledge
Riaz, Ali (2016), ‘Who are the Bangladeshi ‘Islamist Militants’?’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Weinberg, Leonard and Ami Pedahzur (Eds.) (2004), Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism, London: Frank Cass

By Dr. Arshad M. Khan*

When Donald Trump began his presidential campaign no one believed he could possibly be elected. When David Cameron went to the country on EU membership, he could not imagine ‘Remain’ losing. So it was with Theresa May. Ahead in the polls by 21 points she sought an unassailable majority.

Whatever the reasons — and there are many — she received a drubbing, her party down by 13 seats. Instead of increasing her majority, she actually lost it. Yet she has cobbled together a working majority coalition and will remain prime minister. The real question is how long?

Safer to be feared than loved, advised Machiavelli. She is neither. Her co-chiefs of staff Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy have commanded a Fortress May, resistant to advice, aggressive to the extent of upsetting colleagues even members, and where reporting bad news is thought disloyal. The whole reminiscent of the Nixon presidency rather than, say, Ronald Reagan whose humor often deflected serious issues — as when he observed he wasn’t worried about the deficit … it’s big enough to take care of itself.

Shut out as they were, colleagues left May to run the election campaign — one of the worst and notable only in her absence from public view. In contrast, and to everyone’s surprise, Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn ran a superb campaign. He accepted the fact of Brexit including the immigration restrictions to follow EU departure even though he had been opposed to it. He looked ahead and focused on ways to help with jobs, housing, etc. As a result the Labor Party, written off by some commentators as about to disappear as a viable opposition, actually gained 32 seats, ousting several government ministers in supposedly safe seats with comfortable past majorities. His clearly left agenda prompted his post-election claim, “We’ve changed the face of British politics.” The Labor Party’s showing clearly strengthens the grip of the left within it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, Donald Trump was entertaining a leader from Europe. If a reader’s thoughts fly to Emmanuel Macron the new French president, it is perfectly logical. But no. It was President Klaus Iohannis of Romania. They talked about the 2 percent of GDP NATO Defense spending guideline, which Mr. Trump insists on labeling a ‘contribution?’ And Mr. Iohannis desired visa-free travel to the U.S. for Romanians.

They talked about NATO’s Article 5 referring to common defense, which in Romania’s context can have only one meaning: The U.S. would come to the aid of Romania in the event of a Russian attack. Not a soul in the U.S. would support war with Russia (with a possibility of being blown up) on Romania’s behalf. Sad, but true, as the Hungarians learned in 1956.

If Theresa May has her troubles, so does Donald Trump. James Comey, the F.B.I. Director he fired, has been testifying under oath before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and called him a liar. Lucky for Trump, it is not so easy to remove an elected U.S. president as it is to change a Conservative Party leader in Britain.

About the author:
*Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former Professor based in the US. Educated at King’s College London, OSU and The University of Chicago, he has a multidisciplinary background that has frequently informed his research. Thus he headed the analysis of an innovation survey of Norway, and his work on SMEs published in major journals has been widely cited. He has for several decades also written for the press: These articles and occasional comments have appeared in print media such as The Dallas Morning News, Dawn (Pakistan), The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Monitor, The Wall Street Journal and others. On the internet, he has written for Antiwar.com, Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Eurasia Review and Modern Diplomacy among many. His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in its Congressional Record.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Tho Bishop*

Ludwig von Mises dedicated a great amount of ink to the role that ideas play in shaping society. Not only does his analysis illustrate why it is so important to educate the public on topics such as economics, but also explains the enormous danger posed by widely accepted political myths. Examples include various false narratives such as deregulation caused the financial crisis, that American healthcare costs are driven up due to “capitalism,” or FDR saved America from the Great Depression. Of course these various fictions, which all enjoy the support of most of the “intellectual” class, all conveniently lead to policy prescriptions that justify ever greater government intervention into the economy and individual’s daily lives.

In recent years another dangerous myth has worked its way into the American zeitgeist: that government is the only thing guaranteeing us a free and open internet.

Cloaked in the friendly phrase “net neutrality” is an agenda of greater government control. The idea turned into political action in 2015 when the Obama administration ordered that internet providers be treated as public utilities when the FCC reclassified them under Title II of the Communications Act. This move gave the government the ability to regulate the services provided by broadband companies. As a Title II utility, a company would be required to treat all websites equally, and prevented from engaging in behavior like making Netflix load faster than MySpace. While this was sold as a way to protect small companies from being bullied by larger ones, we’ve actually seen the opposite happen in practice. T-Mobile, for example, was criticized for violating net-neutrality when it offered free video streaming as a way to build its positioning among mobile network providers.

In fact, the biggest winners of net neutrality are companies like Google which are granted a massive advantage over online providers, since they don’t fall under the Title II classification.

Case in point, earlier this year online users around the world were prepared to pitch up torches and pitch forks when Congress repealed an Obama-era rule preventing ISP providers from being able to profit off consumer data. The response is understandable, there is a reason why “clear my browser history”: has become a popular last request. But lost in the outrage over the thought of companies like AT&T and Verizon gaining the ability to auction off your private information were a few key points: (1) the rule was new and had yet to be put in practice, so this did not reflect any real change in the status quo; and (2) companies like Google and Facebook still have free rein to do whatever they want with your data. The value of their data mining services would have benefited from government shutting down broadband providers.

Now this is not to say that we shouldn’t strive for an open, more secure internet with greater privacy controls. We absolutely should — just as we should strive for stable financial markets, greater access to affordable healthcare, and taking necessary action to end financial depressions. The problem comes when looking to government as the solution, rather than taking individual responsibility — especially at a time when even Western governments have come to increasingly embrace online political censorship.

Luckily, it seems as America’s Tweeter-in-Chief may be pointed in the right direction. His FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, has made a name for himself as a vehement opponent of “net neutrality” and has staked out an aggressive agenda to roll back the Obama-era regulations.

Of course the best way to secure an open internet is by allowing for greater online competition. Considering the barriers of regulation at a federal, state, and local level it’s not a surprise we haven’t seen greater investment in alternative broadband providers. President Trump just last week made a great spectacle out of the absurd labyrinthine layers of regulation holding up infrastructure investments in the US and his desire to get rid of them. That same approach is desperately needed for America’s cyber infrastructure.

The internet is an incredible tool that has radically changed human society, with the potential to do even more. The last thing we should ever want to do is treat that power like a public utility.

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

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

The Islamic State group was developing a laptop computer bomb to blow up a commercial aircraft, according to Israeli government spies who hacked into the militants’ operations.

A small Syria-based cell of IS bomb makers was hacked months ago, an effort that led to the 21 March “laptop ban” on direct flights to the US from ten airports in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa, the New York Times reported.

The Israeli cyber penetration was the source of US information about how the group was developing explosives that couldn’t be detected by standard screening because they looked identical to laptop batteries, according to the Times.

The intelligence was so good that it also included the detonation method for the bombs, the Times said, citing two US officials familiar with the operation.

The work was a rare success of intelligence against the constantly evolving, encryption-protected and social media-driven cyber operations of the militant group.

Following the US laptop ban, the UK announced a similar prohibition for flights originating from six countries.

In late May, US aviation security officials stepped back from imposing a ban on carry-on computers on flights coming from Europe, which had been proposed to guard against possible bomb-laden electronics from the Islamic State group.

But the Department of Homeland Security said a ban – already in place for US-bound flights from the Middle East – could still be implemented for Europe if the threat level worsens.

In a phone discussion with European Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, the DHS Secretary John Kelly “made it clear” a ban on passengers carrying tablet and computer-sized electronics on board flights to the US “is still on the table”.

Israel’s contribution to the intelligence on the laptop bombs became public after President Donald Trump revealed details of the plot to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a 10 May White House meeting.

Trump’s disclosure “infuriated” Israeli officials, according to the Times.
Original source

In the wake of the Brexit referendum, Spain submitted a negotiation proposal to the UK on Gibraltar that put joint sovereignty, dual nationality for the Gibraltarians and respect for their autonomy on the table. The Gibraltarians, who voted in favour of remaining in the EU, will be able to capitalise on the opportunity that this solution represents.

By Martín Ortega Carcelén*

The almost unanimous vote by the Gibraltarians for remaining in the EU places them in a very delicate position vis-à-vis Brexit. The first option is leaving the Union with the loss of EU freedoms that this entails. Gibraltar should weigh another option in line with the Spanish proposal on joint sovereignty tabled in October 2016 at the UN. This offer involves at least five advantages, which will be considered in the present analysis: (1) it takes into account the will of the Gibraltarians; (2) the positive economic potential for the inhabitants of Campo de Gibraltar and the Gibraltarians is enormous; (3) the alternative scenario of isolation would be extremely damaging to Gibraltar; (4) it would put an end to a quarrel between allies and friends; and (5) it would enable Gibraltar’s specific but definitive integration into the EU. Over the course of the EU negotiations on Brexit, both the UK and the Gibraltarians will have to take difficult decisions about the future of Gibraltar.

Analysis

The referendum held on 23 June revealed something essential for the Gibraltarians: their political identity is clearly distinct from that of the British. The result demonstrated a striking gulf between the colony and the mother country. In Gibraltar, 95.9% of the vote (with an extremely high turnout of 83.6%) was in favour of remaining in the EU, a figure that was a long way from the overall UK result of 48.1% in favour of remaining. The other areas that supported remaining in the EU were Scotland, with a 62% vote, London (59.9%) and Northern Ireland (55.7%), underlining the typically significant discrepancy with the result in Gibraltar.

After the referendum, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, made concerted efforts to ensure that the negotiations would enable an intermediate statute and proposed a ‘flexible’ Brexit. But successive pronouncements by Theresa May’s government and the report published by the House of Lords on 1 March about the consequences of Brexit for Gibraltar made it clear that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU freedoms would also apply to Gibraltar.¹

On 29 March the UK presented Brussels with notification that it was triggering article 50 of the EU Treaty. Shortly thereafter, there was a verbal sparring match when certain voices in London (Michael Howard was among those to wade in) used Gibraltar as a device to stoke up the most extreme nationalist sentiments. In reality, the Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU are of such magnitude and include so many actors that Gibraltar appears only as a minor hurdle at the end of the process. This side-issue should be handled bilaterally between Spain and the UK, as the European institutions have acknowledged. This formula is inevitable because Gibraltar does not constitute British territory, but rather a territorial concession by Spain, and because the UK continues to control the colony’s foreign affairs. Bearing in mind the enormous difference between Brexit as an essential issue and secondary problem of Gibraltar, the ratcheting up of the rhetoric was much ado about nothing. The untimely way in which Gibraltar was brought up reflects the desire, on the part of some, to inflame the Brexit debate, and was therefore for internal consumption at a time of initiating some difficult negotiations, in a country that continues to be divided by a historic decision. Such pronouncements were not heard in Gibraltar, and were received calmly by the Spanish authorities, who have always exhibited a constructive attitude towards negotiations on the UK’s departure from the EU.

Content of the joint sovereignty proposal

In the months following the Brexit referendum, Spain’s reaction was swift and proactive. On 4 October 2016 Spain submitted a proposal to the Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly to negotiate with the UK in order to reach an agreement about a joint sovereignty regime enabling the continued application of the EU treaties to Gibraltar.² The proposal included joint Spanish-British sovereignty of the territory, dual nationality for the Gibraltarians and a special statute within the EU, as ideas to get negotiations underway.

The outstanding points for Spain’s ambassador to the UN were as follows:

• Gibraltar’s self-governance would be able to continue and be easily incorporated into the Spanish constitutional system (article 144 of the constitution enables this possibility).
• The Gibraltarians would be able to retain British citizenship and acquire Spanish nationality too if they desired.
• Gibraltar’s access to the single market and the other EU freedoms would be ensured, while retaining its own tax system and other exceptions, subject to respect for EU legislation. Spain would endeavour to ensure that Gibraltar stood to benefit from EU policies and its specificity was respected.
• The dismantling of the fence, erected by the UK in 1909, and the border on the isthmus, would bring about a stimulation of the region’s economy, which would benefit not only the surrounding Campo de Gibraltar and its towns, but also Gibraltar itself.
• Spain and the UK would jointly exercise authority over international relations, defence, security and safeguarding Gibraltar’s external borders.
• The Ambassador also underlined that the new regime would not interfere in the Gibraltarian way of life, customs or traditions, because it would respect the plurality of a place that has British and Andalusian cultural roots.

The negotiation proposal put to the UK at the UN is subject to the broader framework of the EU negotiations on Brexit. These are multilateral by definition and therefore difficult to conduct and conclude. According to British studies, Brexit will have negative consequences for the UK, but other countries like Spain will also need a process of adaptation owing to the significant bilateral relations in terms of trade and investment and the presence of numerous expatriates from each country living in the other, as Spanish government documents reported in the press have highlighted.³ The issue of Gibraltar will not be in the foreground at the start of European talks, and it is not possible to know in advance when it will be addressed, or the impact that other aspects of the general talks will have on the Gibraltar question. It will have to be addressed at some point, however, and it is then that the considerable benefits of the Spanish offer will make themselves evident.

Five advantages

An objective analysis of the negotiating points set out reveals the following advantages. In the initial proposal: (1) the wishes of the Gibraltarians are taken into account; (2) the economic potential for the inhabitants of the Campo de Gibraltar and the Gibraltarians is vast; (3) the alternative scenario of isolation would be very damaging, above all for Gibraltar; (4) it would put an end to a colonial dispute between allies and friends; and (5), last but not least, it would enable Gibraltar’s specific and definitive integration into the EU.

(1) Gibraltar’s remaining in the EU would respect the democratically-expressed wishes of the Gibraltarians. In the 23 June referendum they showed an almost unanimous desire to stay in the Union. The Gibraltarians see their future within the EU, and a solution such as that set out here would enable this goal to be achieved, while preserving Gibraltar’s identity and history. If the UK’s determination to leave the EU is ultimately imposed on the Gibraltarians, this would run counter to the British government’s promise to take their wishes into account when altering their international status.

The electoral verdict of the Gibraltarians, albeit without any legal force, was so overwhelming that it became a statement of political identity, and represents a break with Gibraltar’s recent history. The Gibraltarians had voted in referendums on their international status on two previous occasions. In 1967 they supported continuing under British control, in a referendum that the UN judged to be contrary to its resolutions. After this vote, Gibraltar sought independence, an aspiration that was rejected by the UN on the grounds that the juridical position of Spain, which had yielded the territory in the first place, had to be taken into account. In a second referendum held in 2002, the Gibraltarians rejected a joint sovereignty plan, although at that time the UK was not facing departure from the EU, a circumstance that has now changed. The Gibraltarian and UK authorities maintained at that time that since the Gibraltarians had expressed their desire to continue being a territory under British sovereignty, a decolonisation process no longer applied. But the categorical response of the UN was that it was the UN itself that should determine the end of the decolonisation process.

Such antecedents show that the two attempts at independence (in 1967) and of a regime dependent on the UK (constitutional order of 2006) were incapable of ending Gibraltar’s ‘colonial’ status. Neither of these two pathways could be definitive, as the UN has emphasised, for the simple reason that the origin of Gibraltar was a territorial concession from one sovereign state, Spain, to another, Great Britain, with a clause for its return. Any change in the judicial status of that concession gives rise to a Spanish right to recover the territory, according to the Treaty of Utrecht on which the territorial transfer is based.⁴

The impossibility of independence, endorsed by the UN, together with the democratic desire to continue in the Union are two undeniable facts that present the Gibraltarians with a dilemma. If Gibraltar wants to continue its dependence on the UK, it will have to be outside the Union. If, on the other hand, Gibraltar wishes to be an EU territory, where it can benefit from a special statute, it will have to do so in collaboration with Spain. If the latter course is chosen, the Gibraltarians will need to ask the UK for talks with Spain about a joint sovereignty regime that respects the identity of Gibraltar.

(2) Secondly, the Spanish proposal for talks sets out the prospect of significant benefits for the economies of the both Campo de Gibraltar area and the Rock. The interdependence of the economies is currently recognised by all concerned. Towns in the Campo de Gibraltar have benefitted from various industrial plans and continue to have enormous potential in sectors such as oil refining and logistics. Various studies conducted by the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce have found that some 8,000 Spanish workers are employed on the Rock, and that Gibraltar is a highly significant source of income for the surrounding area. But these reports also acknowledge that the benefits are mutual. Whether in terms of trade, tourism or human flows, Gibraltar derives considerable advantages from the surrounding area. Fabian Picardo himself has underlined this interdependence. On 30 January Picardo told the European Parliament that relations between Gibraltar and the adjoining hinterland were ‘a European success story to be proud of’.⁵ In the same session, with a conciliatory tone, he added that ‘Gibraltar would consider any reasonable solution to safeguard border flows’.⁶

If the interdependence is strong as things stand, full integration of Gibraltar into the surrounding region would increase the benefits for all. The eradication of the border and flourishing cooperation in various economic sectors would facilitate the development of the zone, founded on such elements as a bilingual workforce and access to a large population including the provinces of Cádiz and Málaga. This would enable Gibraltar to consolidate itself as a financial and services centre within the EU regulatory framework, to the advantage of the entire region. Joint use of the airport would represent a boost to transport and tourism. Its strategic location between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and as a point of contact between Europe and Africa would also be given a significant boost. Until such time as economic studies place a figure on the economic benefits of eradicating the border, there is little doubt that this step would result in sustained economic growth.

(3) Thirdly, the Spanish proposal seeks to avoid a situation that is undesirable for Gibraltar and the surrounding region. The UK’s departure from the EU will mean the end of the free movement of goods, workers, services and capital for Gibraltar too. This would transform the current frontier into an external border of the Union, and justify greater control of all types of transit. Likewise, Gibraltar would lose access to European regional funds and policies. The document drawn up by the House of Lords, published on 1 March, explicitly says in its conclusions that ‘any loss of access to the Single Market in services, or to its cross-border workforce, could significantly harm Gibraltar’s economy’. If Gibraltar is excluded from the EU area there would clearly also be a negative impact on the neighbouring regions, but less serious than the impact the Rock would have to endure. Despite the prospect of losing employment, the Campo de Gibraltar has a population in excess of 250,000 and a considerable network of industry and services. By contrast, the impossibility of tapping into the EU freedoms of the free movement of services and capital that it currently enjoys would be a severe blow to the Gibraltarian economy.

Gibraltar’s departure from the EU would reopen the question of the territorial isolation of the Rock, envisaged in the Treaty of Utrecht to avoid contraband and risks to Spain’s security. It should be remembered that the border was opened in the 1980s as a consequence of Spain joining the European Community. The history of the time shows that the decision was taken in the belief that the exchanges would facilitate talks on sovereignty. The Brussels declaration of 27 November 1984 established an explicit link between free movement and the start of the negotiating process, on the eve of Spain’s entry into the Common Market. The fact that the UK has now decided to leave the Union triggers a rebus sic stantibus effect on Spain’s opening of the border and the other agreements struck in that context. In other words, a fundamental change of circumstances vis-à-vis the Brussels agreement would enable the restoration of the preceding situation.

(4) The proposal to negotiate a joint sovereignty arrangement with the UK also entails the enormous advantage of normalising this aspect of relations between two countries that are partners and allies. Relations between Spain and the UK are excellent, but it is obvious that Gibraltar mars them at times and raises sensitive issues. The presence of nuclear submarines, the incidents between coastguards, the dropping of concrete blocks on the seabed and the use of the airport are some of the examples of awkward situations that would be better left behind. The rhetorical excesses of the two sides should also be toned down. A territorial concession made 300 years ago for military purposes no longer makes sense between allies, above all when the UK could continue using its base. The special colonial status that was subsequently given to the British possession does not justify independence, according to declarations of the UN. It is thus a case of an irregular situation that impedes bilateral relations, and could be resolved with good will in a negotiated and peaceful way. An agreement between Spain and the UK would not affect British interests and would safeguard the wishes of the Gibraltarians.

(5) Finally, the ideas for talks submitted by Spain pave the way to Gibraltar’s specific but definitive integration into the EU. Since the UK joined the European Community in 1972, Gibraltar has benefitted from a special arrangement, inasmuch as the European Customs Union does not apply to it, which de facto means that the free movement of goods will be affected. VAT is not levied either, and the territory is not part of Schengen. Apart from these and other exceptions, the remaining EU regulations are applicable, and the UK is responsible for this in accordance with article 355(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

This special regime has given rise to a major problem as far as taxation and contraband are concerned. By not levying VAT or applying the special tax collected by the EU as an excise duty on such products as tobacco and alcohol, Gibraltar imports considerable quantities of such goods that are subsequently smuggled into Spain, with the consequent harm to Spanish and EU coffers. The European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, estimated in 2014 that more than half the tobacco smuggled into Spain came from Gibraltar. Similarly, the special regime enables ships to be refuelled without such indirect taxes being levied, which amounts to unfair competition.

Turning next to direct taxation, Gibraltar is subject to EU regulations, and the European rules on companies and financial practices, in spite of which it has used its special position to facilitate tax avoidance. In specific terms, the European Commission has launched an investigation into agreements with 165 companies on tax rulings between 2011 and 2013, companies that in many cases have no more than a fictitious presence in Gibraltar. The Commission considers that these fiscal agreements are the equivalent of state aid, prohibited by article 107 (and onward) of the TFEU. The investigation is not over yet but the Commission’s report is devastating.⁷ Similarly, exemption from taxes on online gambling businesses operated by companies based on the Rock has led to a case between the UK and Gibraltar. Using another fiction, Gibraltar allows companies registered there to pay winnings on bets free of tax, when the winners of such bets would have to pay tax at a rate of 15% in the UK and 25% in Spain. It is interesting to note that the preliminary hearing brought before the EU Court of Justice is a dispute between the British tax authorities and the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association. In this case, the EU’s Advocate General has said that the UK and Gibraltar cannot consider themselves as two separate entities for the purposes of complying with taxation regulations.⁸

Gibraltar’s various taxation practices described thus far entail serious harm to Spanish (and British) revenues and to the EU itself, which is also deprived of the excise duty on goods originating from outside and converted into contraband. It is true that the Gibraltarian authorities have made efforts to comply with the standards introduced in recent years on money laundering and other financial regulations. Such efforts are insufficient, however, as the cases lost by the UK in the name of Gibraltar at the European Court of Justice show; likewise the OECD’s repeated warnings issued to the Rock. Gibraltar’s position impedes other aspects of European cooperation, such as the declaration on Sites of Community Importance (SCI) in the sea, which affects fishing and environmental protection, an issue that gave rise to an ongoing crisis between 2013 and 2015,⁹ and also the progress of legislation on interior and justice issues, and the regulation of civil aviation.

If Gibraltar wants to continue belonging to the EU, as the referendum clearly showed it does, its judicial and economic practices need to respect European legislation. Gibraltar can enjoy a special regime within the EU. It can become a first-class financial and services centre in the context of its region. In order to do all this it needs to establish a new modus operandi consistent with its desire to belong to the Union. Spain’s proposal for talks emphasises that, on the basis of joint Spanish-British sovereignty, Gibraltar would continue ‘to benefit from the free movement of workers, capital and services… In addition, Spain will ensure that Gibraltar benefits from EU policies and will propose that the EU establish the exceptions necessary to take into account the special situation of Gibraltar, as long as they are compatible with EU law’.

Coming of age

The result of the Brexit referendum shows that the Gibraltarians are ready to take important decisions about their future. The prospect of independence has been repeatedly rejected by the UN. The imposition of customs controls on an external border would cause Gibraltar’s economy to go into steep decline, and legal problems with Spain to multiply. Amid the prospect of this undesirable scenario, the Gibraltarians, hitherto the wards of Britain, have the opportunity to declare their coming of age and take a new course of action. The 96% of the population that stated their preference to remain in the EU can ask the UK to negotiate with Spain to maintain their European status. The joint sovereignty proposal takes the interests of the Gibraltarians and the entire region into account. It is an open and inclusive proposal. As things currently stand, the old dilemma of being forced to choose between being British or being Spanish no longer makes sense, because the Gibraltarians can enjoy both nationalities at the same time. The real choice is between being European citizens and keeping an outdated and possibly isolated ‘colonial’ status.

As far as the economy is concerned, Gibraltar’s current economic model has a poor outlook in the event of leaving the EU. Isolation would impede access to the surrounding region and the European market. The Gibraltarians’ coming of age should also be couched in terms of economic viability in the future. The democratic desire to remain in the EU must be consistent with the fulfilment of European regulations on economic, business and financial activities. It is the price that comes with participating in the world’s foremost economic hub, with the highest standard of living and levels of rights and freedoms.

The Brexit referendum revealed that there is a gap between the interests of the UK, on the one hand, and the interests of Gibraltar on the other. Even if in the end the UK decides not to complete the process of separating from the EU (because of an about-turn in public opinion, for example) the referendum of 23 June would still demonstrate the enormous difference of interests between the colony and the motherland. In such circumstances, the Gibraltarians will need to take a rational decision about their future, without renouncing their own characteristics and identity. Gibraltar’s starting point justifies a specific statute that needs to be enshrined within the EU framework. The offer of negotiations advanced by Spain is appropriate because Gibraltar would be able to enjoy significant autonomy, similar to or greater than that it has at present, preserving its British character and adding a Spanish element that in fact already exists owing to the strong ties it has with the surrounding region.

At the moment, the Gibraltarians’ position on the proposal of joint sovereignty is one of reticence, although differences have also been observed from the UK’s position. It is possible that as time goes by the advantages of such a proposal will become clearer. Even in Gibraltar voices have started to be heard that may pave the way to future agreements. Appearing before the European Parliament on 30 January the Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, said: ‘Gibraltar has always had a different status in the EU to the UK and in so far as the remaining member states agree and Gibraltar wishes, we should be able to enjoy any opt in or make other realistically and geographically sensible arrangements’.¹⁰

Conclusion

The result of the Brexit referendum reveals a tension between British and Gibraltarian interests. The UK’s withdrawal from the EU will very probably mean a loss of Gibraltarian access to the European freedoms. On becoming a non-EU territory, Gibraltar’s border controls will need to become more stringent, and the situation prevailing prior to the 1984 Brussels Declaration may be restored. In the face of such a prospect, the citizens of Gibraltar will have two options: either deciding to leave the Union, like the UK, or opting to remain through an agreement with Spain that respects their identity, autonomy and traditions.

In October 2016 Spain tabled a proposal for a new solution on Gibraltar, which included joint Spanish-British sovereignty over the territory, dual nationality for the Gibraltarians, political autonomy and a special statute within the EU as ideas to kick-start talks. Obviously, multilateral negotiations first need to be conducted on Brexit, and the Gibraltar issue will only by tackled at the end. But the Spanish proposal provides clear advantages and takes the interests of all parties into account. While it falls to the UK to make a decision on the proposal, the people of Gibraltar, who have expressed their almost unanimous desire to be European citizens, have the opportunity to demand a future that is compatible with their preference to remain part of the EU.

About the author:
*Martín Ortega Carcelén, Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute and Senior Lecturer in International Law at the Complutense University of Madrid | @globalmartin

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

Notes:
¹ House of Lords, ‘Brexit: Gibraltar’, 1/III/2017.

About a third of the world’s fish stocks are being overfished, meaning they’re being harvested faster than they can reproduce, and species that spawn seasonally in large groups are especially vulnerable, easy for fishers to locate and plucked from the water often before they’ve seeded the next generation.

A team led by marine scientists from The University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have discovered a way to use the incredibly loud, distinctive sounds that fish make when they gather to spawn–not to catch them but to protect them. The team developed an inexpensive yet accurate method for estimating how many fish are in a spawning aggregation, based on their mating calls. Accurate data on when and where fish spawn, as well as how many there are, would help fisheries managers design effective management practices and monitor the ongoing health of a fishery.

“It can be extremely challenging to get a complete picture of fish spawning events because they can happen over very short to very long times and are often in difficult environments such as murky water,” said Brad Erisman, assistant professor at UTMSI and senior author of a study published June 13 in the journal Scientific Reports. “Our work opens an acoustic window into these exciting spawning events.”

The paper’s lead author is Timothy Rowell, a graduate student of Octavio Aburto-Oropeza’s at Scripps.

The researchers developed the method specifically for the Gulf corvina, a popular fish in Mexico’s Gulf of California, but it can be adapted to any fish that make courtship sounds such as cod, groupers and croakers, including the endangered totoaba, a species that is also endemic to the Gulf of California.

Each spring, the entire adult population of Gulf corvina–more than 2 million fish–migrates to a small area at the northern tip of the Gulf of California. When the males start calling to attract mates, the sound is deafening. Using underwater microphones called hydrophones, Rowell discovered that these fish can make sounds up to 192 decibels–enough to damage your eardrums if it were on land.

“It’s louder than a rock concert,” said Erisman. “It’s louder than standing less than a meter from a chain saw.”

Hear the spawning sounds of the Gulf Corvina and learn more about the research from: “Can Sound Save a Fish?”

All that noise is dangerous to the fish, too, because it leads fishers right to the corvina spawning aggregations. Over about 20 nights each spring, they can harvest more than a million fish with minimal effort. Because the entire species spawns in one place, they are extremely vulnerable.

Until now, it has been difficult to monitor the population, but there is anecdotal evidence that illegal fishing is on the rise and that the fish being caught are getting smaller over time, both signs that they might be overfished.

“Over-harvesting from the aggregation site could result in the functional extinction of the species in the ecosystem, which would have negative effects on the local economy and cause the fishery to collapse,” said Rowell. “This is why sustainable harvest levels need to be set. At the moment we do not know what these levels are.”

Rowell and Erisman’s new acoustic method for monitoring spawning populations could help ensure that corvina fishing is sustainable in the long run.

“The fishers are by no means the enemy here,” said Erisman. “They’re actually the ones who have provided us with all the information and access to the resource, and they’re the ones most interested in sustainability.”

Erisman and Rowell are part of an international research group, the Gulf of California Marine Program, that has created an interactive online tool called dataMARES where anyone can study how corvina populations are changing. And those who fish, fisheries managers and conservationists can now do a better job of keeping corvina populations sustainable.

“The idea is we try to bring all the stakeholders, different groups that have a vested interest in the fishery and the environment, together to try to work it out,” said Erisman. “And it’s nice that science is playing a role in that.”

From birds to mammals, from fish to reptiles, the immediate reaction to an impending threat to the animal itself is usually to flee or to stop moving in an attempt to go unnoticed. However, when parents feel threatened in the presence of their young, their reaction is completely different: they seek to protect them. What happens in the brains of the parents for them to to be willing to sacrifice their own life in the interest of their offspring’s safety?

A team lead by neuroscientists from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, in Lisbon, Portugal, has discovered that this radical change in the parents’ behavior (from self-defense to defending their young) depends on the action of the so-called “love hormone”, oxytocin, on the neurons of the amygdala, a specific brain structure known for its crucial role in the processing of emotional reactions. Their results have been published in the journal eLife.

Oxytocin is responsible for the bonding between mothers and their young, and within couples. Its effects are not well understood; oxytocin probably has many functions, therefore making its difficult.

Experts do know, however, that its release into the amygdala is able to inhibit that basic self-defense reaction they call freezing, when the animal ceases to move.

Nonetheless, the potential usefulness of this inhibition had not been elucidated. The new study, which was done on female rats that had recently given birth, solves this mystery by bridging the gap between these two phenomena.

“We put both things together”, said Marta Moita, who led the study. “We developed a new experiment that allows us to study the mother’s defensive behavior either in the presence or the absence of her pups, while at the same time testing whether oxytocin’s action in the amygdala is required for the regulation of this behavior.”

Since oxytocin acts on many parts of the brain, affecting many behaviors, it is usually difficult to interpret the results when manipulating this hormone. But in the new experiments, said Marta Moita, “we manipulated a circuit where we know precisely how oxytocin leads to inhibition of freezing. So we are very sure of our interpretation of the behavioral results.”

The experiments consisted in conditioning the mother rats, in the absence of their pups, to associate a peppermint scent with the imminence of an innocuous electric shock. After training, these female rats perceived the odor as a threat and froze accordingly.

Priority swap

Once the training was over, the team started by showing that, in the pups’ presence, the mothers didn’t freeze, as they had when they were alone. On the contrary, they now tried to protect their offspring from the peppermint odor by attacking the tube where the odor was coming from, or piling up bits of material from the nest to block the tube – or, if the pups were a little older, by nursing them, grooming them and generally keeping them in close contact with themselves.

However, when the scientists then blocked oxytocin activity in the mothers’ amygdalas, the mothers started to freeze as soon as they perceived the threat, independently of the age of the pups – forgetting, so to speak, their maternal “duties”.

This work provides a new experimental framework “to study the signals transmitted by the pups that make their mother’s brain release oxytocin into the amygdala in the face of danger”, triggering the defensive strategy to protect their offspring, said Marta Moita. “We know that chemical communication is very important, but we still haven’t identified the sensory stimuli that activate oxytocin”, she added.

Another result worthy of note was the fact that the older pups whose mother, instead of tending to them, had responded to the threat by freezing (because oxytocin in her amygdala was inhibited), did not learn to recognize the peppermint odor as a threat. More specifically, when these pups were later placed by themselves in a box, and exposed to the same odor, they did not freeze. On the other hand, the pups whose mothers had duly cuddled them did freeze when confronted with the same situation. A pheromone emitted by the caring mother might be at the root of this type of learning by the older pups, Marta Moita speculated.

“In all likelihood”, she concluded, “similar mechanisms may be at play in us humans.”

By Jim Garamone

Even if Congress acts now to rid the Defense Department of looming sequestration spending cuts, it will take years of stable and higher budgets for DoD to dig out of the readiness hole, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

The secretary discussed the President’s fiscal year 2018 defense budget request with the senators. As in his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last night, he urged the senators to repeal sequestration and give the department stable budgets to work with.

“I retired from military service three months after sequestration took effect,” Mattis said. “Four years later, I’ve returned to the department, and I have been shocked by what I have seen about our readiness to fight.”

The troops bore the brunt of sequestration, he said, and carried on the worldwide deployments needed to keep America safe. “But our troops’ stoic commitment cannot reduce the growing risk,” the secretary said. “It took us years to get into this situation. It will require years of stable budgets and increased funding to get out of it.”

The situation is exacerbated by 30 continuing resolutions Congress has passed rather than real budgets, the secretary said.

External Forces

Further exacerbating the situation are four external forces acting on the military, he added, the first being the fact that the U.S. military has been at war for the last 16 years.

“When Congress approved the all-volunteer force in 1973, our country never envisioned sending our military to war for more than a decade without pause or conscription,” Mattis said. “America’s long war has placed a heavy burden on men and women in uniform and their families.”

A second force is the global situation, Mattis told the senators. Russia is arming itself and looking for ways to challenge the international order. China is a rising power seeking to expand its sphere of influence. Iran is exporting instability throughout the Middle East, and North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

“A third force is adversaries actively contesting America’s capabilities,” Mattis said. “For decades, the United States enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain or realm. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted and operate how we wanted. Today, every operating domain — outer space, air, sea, undersea, land and cyberspace — is contested.”

A fourth force, the pace of technological change, influences the capabilities needed for the future, the secretary told the senators, necessitating new investments, innovation and new program starts.

“Each of these four forces … requires stable budgets and increased funding to provide for the protection of our citizens and for the survival of our freedoms,” he said. “I reiterate that security and solvency are my watch words as secretary of Defense.”

Moving Forward

The fiscal 2017 budget started the road back to readiness, the secretary said. Congress granted an additional $21 billion to address vital warfighting readiness shortfalls. The fiscal 2018 request is for a $639 billion top line. This is a 3 percent increase and will allow the department to continue rebuilding readiness, Mattis said. The fiscal 2019 budget will benefit from a strategy review already underway in the Pentagon, he told the panel, adding that he anticipates that request will ask for a top line that’s 5 percent higher.

“Moving forward, the [fiscal] 2019 budget, informed by the national defense strategy, will have to make hard choices and reshape the 2019 to 2023 defense program,” Mattis said. “The department will work with President Trump, Congress and this committee to ensure future budget requests are both sustainable and provide the commander in chief with viable military options that support America’s security.”

A massive fire has engulfed a residential high-rise building in London, prompting the London Fire Brigade to dispatch at least 40 fire engines and 200 firefighters.

The blaze at Grenfell Tower in West London extends from the second floor to the top floor of the 27-story building, the London Fire Brigade said.

London Metropolitan Police said an evacuation is underway.

“At this stage we are aware of two people being treated at the scene for smoke inhalation,” London Metropolitan Police said in a statement. “We await an update as to whether there are any further injuries.”

London Metropolitan Police said they were called at 1:16 a.m. “to reports of a large fire at a block of flats in the Lancaster West Estate, W11.”

Over the past week, white supremacists have launched repeated death threats against Washington’s The Evergreen State College in Olympia.  At least three sets of threats were sent or phoned to the campus by white supremacists, who said they planned to bring weapons to the school and massacre students and faculty.

Evergreen is known as one of the most progressive campuses in the nation.  Rachel Corrie studied at the school and interrupted her studies to travel to Gaza where she was killed by the IDF.  The Black Lives Matter movement is heavily supported on campus.  The Olympia Food Coop began the movement to boycott Israeli products, which led to a lawsuit sponsored by the Israeli government and Standwithus.  That suit, after being dismissed, was reinstated by the State Supreme Court, where it has returned to the Superior Court.

In a strange convergence of interests, white supremacists hate Evergreen almost as much as the Israel Lobby does.  For years, SWU and the Israeli foreign ministry have targeted the students and faculty for opprobrium, falsely claiming they are anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic.

But the recent spate of massacre threats has taken the hate to a new level.  Given the atmosphere of hysteria and fear in this country in the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, his targeting of Muslim refugees, and the imputation that leftists are traitors to the nation, these threats are ominous and deeply disturbing.  There have been numerous shootings and mass murder over the past few years directed against Muslims, foreigners, the LGBT community, and Blacks.  At the University of Washington, a white supremacist shot an Antifa protester and nearly killed him during a protest against Milo Yiannopoulos.  No one can doubt that an institution like Evergreen would make a choice target for these types of individuals.

As with similar previous incidents, FoxNews, Breitbart and other right-wing media outlets have focussed on perceived outrages on campus, promoted them, and outraged their listeners into taking matters into their own hands.  The incident began when students held a day-long discussion on race which was restricted to students of color.  Non-minority students and faculty were asked to leave campus to their minority colleagues.  A white (Jewish) faculty member refused.  This led to an angry confrontation between students and administrators.  The aggrieved professor proceeded to regale the right-wing news cycle with serial interviews, ginning up the controversy even further.  That is how the matter reached its current fever pitch.

It is clear that the Trumpist news media are directly responsible for these outbreaks of mass white supremacist hysteria.  They’ve done it before.  They’ve gone on the rampage against individuals and made their lives a living hell.  While there is a First Amendment right to free speech, when media irresponsibly provoke threats and actual acts of violence they must accept responsibility.

Whatever incident provoked the ire of the right-wing media, this result can in no way be justified.  It’s one thing to tussle over issues of race in a contentious, hot-headed manner and quite another to provoke homicidal maniacs to break out their weapons and converge on an American college campus to take justice into their own hands.  Will FoxNews’ new Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, only be satisfied when he sees the limp bodies of coeds riddled with bullets on College Walk like Kent State in 1969?

The school administration has banned anyone on campus from carrying weapons or any sort of self-defense equipment.  This is to guard against a white supremacist entering campus intending to engage in mayhem.

This article was published at Tikun Olam

The text of the speech delivered by ORF Vice President Samir Saran at the inauguration of the 9th BRICS Academic Forum in Fuzhou, China.

By Samir Saran

Excellencies, colleagues and friends, members of the academic community and think tankers from the BRICS countries..

Warm greetings from the Indian academic delegation. We are delighted to be here and look forward to two days of debates, discussions and the opportunity to renew old friendships and begin new ones. On behalf of our team, I thank our hosts, the China Council for BRICS Think Tank Cooperation for the wonderful setting and immaculate arrangements, and for all the work that has gone into putting this together.

We, the BRICS Think Council met this morning to take stock of all that transpired under the Indian leadership of BRICS in 2016 and to deliberate on what we would like our governments to pursue under the Chinese Presidency. We will, at the end of the two days, put forward an outcome document that will capture our wish list flowing from the conversations that will happen here. Each of you — through your presentations and interventions will co-author this document — so I encourage all to participate vigorously in the debates that lie ahead.

This is a special year. We are meeting at the 9th Academic Forum, and at the end of this year, we will be completing 10 years of our cooperation.

As we complete the first decade of this partnership, it is perfect moment to look back and look ahead. It is perhaps time to restate the BRICS agenda, relocate the role of BRICS in the world of today — that is changing fast — and reaffirm the organising principles that brought us together.

The BRICS agenda and its role must continue to be shaped by two words: “change” and “alternative”.

We came together to change the lives of millions in our countries, and in countries around us, that have been left out of the economic mainstream and have been left behind. Their lives must change, their aspirations need to be catered to. We must consider their future to be ours. This ambition is now encapsulated in the SDG Goals and other development challenges that humanity has accepted as being vital. BRICS must lead this process with their energy and leadership, with their experience and resources and with compassion — a changed development paradigm must be at the core of the BRICS agenda for the next 10 years.

The second word we must always focus on is “alternative”. We must achieve this change through alternate pathways, one that are inclusive, democratic, participatory and sustainable. A BRICS counter-narrative, an alternative must be crafted amongst the academic community. We are unlikely to change the world if we follow the same pathway that the developed world discovered. Be it healthcare or wellness , be it migration policies, be it the way we organise our cities and fuel them, educate our people and unleash their creative energies, we will need to discover and document BRICS solutions that will offer a counter point to the knowledge regimes that define the world of yesterday. And this must be a central quest of the BRICS academic community.

As we move towards being this force of positive change, we will need to create more institutions and frameworks to make it happen. The New Development Bank, the Contingency Reserve Arrangement are just the beginning. The BRICS institutionalisation would be a pre-requisite for its success. In 2016, the Indian Presidency recognised this to be the single most important aspect of BRICS development — it proposed research institutions, rating agencies, bodies that would strengthen trade and commerce and frameworks that would deepen intra-BRICS cooperation. This project must indeed be continued under the Chinese leadership as we move to South Africa in 2018.

I mentioned that we need to relocate BRICS in the new world. Indeed it is a new world, since we last met in New Delhi, change has swept through US and Europe and more change is coming. Some of the assumptions of the past decade around trade and globalisation may no longer be valid and nationalism and petty politics seems to be a secular phenomenon.

The BRICS leadership is needed at these times.

As we infuse energy and leadership into these two processes, revitalise global trade, global financial flows, movement of people and ideas and indeed challenge the disruption to the process of global integration, it will require all of us to make a new case and a new blue print — where our individual roles and collective responsibilities will need to be reaffirmed. We will need to navigate this process through our own political systems, something that clearly is not easy for some of us.

A quick note of caution, even as we witness power vacuum and leadership gap, we must resist the temptation to fill those spaces with more of the same, The hegemonic structures and actors must not be replaced by a new hegemon. The paternalistic political structures must not be now owned by a different country or group of countries, otherwise we will not be agents of change and creators of counter-narratives. We will remain the servers of status quo and prisoners to power.

It is time to restate the organising principles of BRICS as I see them. Two factors more than any other have allowed us to come together and work together over the past 10 years.

• Respect for sovereignty of each other, and those around us, and,
• The common demand for pluralism and democracy in the conduct of international affairs.

BRICS has always respected sovereignty and sovereign equality. It is only here at BRICS that irrespective of our GDPs and military might, each of us have equal voice, equal voting rights and plural discursive space. We have respected each others’ sovereign concerns admirably and we have served the cause of democracy in the conduct of international relations well. We have to preserve and re-serve these organising principles.

Even as we all evolve in our own ways, these must remain the core principles for BRICS. There have been some headwinds recently that have drawn my attention to these aspects. Since we are among friends, I should unhesitatingly draw your attention to these — if we lose this ethos and ethic — we lose the BRICS.

I thank our hosts once again and look forward to two days with you. Namaste.

A new study published by the scientific journal Addiction reveals that the incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome – often caused by mothers using opioids during pregnancy – is increasing in the United States, and carries an enormous burden in terms of hospital days and costs.

The number of US hospital admissions involving neonatal abstinence syndrome increased more than fourfold between the years 2003 and 2012. In 2012, neonatal abstinence syndrome cost nearly $316 million in the United States.

Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a constellation of symptoms that occur in newborn infants exposed to addictive illegal or prescription drugs in utero. Infants affected by NAS typically show a number of neurological symptoms and behaviors (e.g., tremors, seizures) as well as poor feeding and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Standard management of NAS involves the administration of opioids for opioid withdrawal, with additional medications for stubborn cases or instances of multi-drug exposure. This drug administration has been performed traditionally in the hospital setting, consuming valuable and finite hospital resources.

In this study, researchers measured the inflation-adjusted health care provider costs and length of hospital stay for almost 28,000 infants with NAS, compared with over 3 million infants without NAS. They found that between 2003 and 2012, NAS admissions increased more than fourfold, resulting in a surge in annual costs from $61 million and 67,869 hospital days in 2003 to nearly $316 million and 291,168 hospital days in 2012. For an infant affected by NAS, the hospital stay was nearly 3.5 times as long (16.57 hospital days compared with 4.98 days for a non-NAS patient) and the costs more than three times greater ($16,893 compared with $5,610 for a non-affected infant).

In an era of increasingly constrained health-care resources, the rising incidence of NAS has significant implications for policymakers, hospital administrators and health care providers nation-wide. Increased public health initiatives are needed to target, educate and provide resources for women of reproductive age to decrease in utero drug exposure.

Additionally, given the large variation in screening and treatment of NAS, further study is needed to determine the most effective assessment and management strategies, with a focus on developing therapeutic plans that offer more cost-efficient management of NAS.