(EurActiv) — The two civilians killed in a jihadist attack on a Mali tourist resort were both working for the European Union, the bloc’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday (19 June).

“Unfortunately, I can confirm that there were two victims among our European Union colleagues, a Malian woman and a Portuguese man,” Mogherini said after an EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

She said their deaths showed how strong EU ties with Mali and the region were as it struggles to cope with devastating poverty and an increasing terror threat.

The EU runs an advisory mission to help train the Mali armed forces and maintains a delegation in the capital, Bamako.

The Malian government said four attackers were killed and 36 hostages freed, with another five suspected jihadists in custody over Sunday’s attack near Bamako.

Jihadists are active in Mali’s troubled north and centre but attacks on civilians in and around the capital are much rarer.

The last major attack on civilians was in November 2015, when gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, killing 20 people.

No group has as yet claimed Sunday’s assault.

Earlier, Mogherini had declared “We stand together in our fight against terrorism,” in her opening remarks at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg.

“These are difficult and dramatic hours which testify to how European and Africans are brothers and sisters in both the fight against terrorism and in the solidarity of our response to it,” she said.

EU foreign ministers were meeting today in Luxembourg to discuss counter-terrorism as well as the Africa-EU partnership and EU support to Mali and the Sahel region. The EU recently agreed to provide a further €50 million to the G5 Sahel joint counter-terrorism force.

“Our partnership is very strong and will be consolidated, strengthened on the occasion of the Africa-EU summit this November,” Mogherini said.

The United Arab Emirates warned Qatar on Monday, June 19 that sanctions imposed by several of its neighbours could last for years unless Doha accepts demands which Arab powers plan to reveal in coming days, Reuters reports.

Qatar, which denies accusations by its neighbours that it funds terrorism and foments regional instability, held wargames with Turkish troops, showing off one of its few remaining strong alliances after two weeks of unprecedented isolation.

The Gulf diplomatic dispute has opened a rift between some of the main U.S. allies in the Middle East, after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain cut off tiny-but-wealthy Qatar from trade, travel and diplomacy two weeks ago.

Tough remarks by UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on Monday made clear that the countries seeking to isolate Qatar have no intention of backing down soon.

“Qatar will realise that this is a new state of affairs and isolation can last years,” Gargash told a small group of reporters in Paris on Monday.

“If they want to be isolated because of their perverted view of what their political role is, then let them be isolated. They are still in a phase of denial and anger,” he said, adding that a list of grievances for Qatar to address would be completed in the next days.

Qatar has relished support from Turkey during the dispute. Its state-funded pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera showed footage of a column of armoured personnel carriers flying the Turkish flag inside the Tariq bin Ziyad military base in Doha.

It reported that additional Turkish troops had arrived in Qatar on Sunday for the exercises, although military sources in the region told Reuters the operation actually involved Turkish troops that were already present rather than new arrivals.

By Mohammad Ghaedi*

US President Donald Trump made an arms deal valued at $110 billion with Saudi Arabia during his recent visit to this country a few weeks ago. The British government had made a similar arms deal with Saudi Arabia a few months earlier. These deals have been discussed as economic deals and been argued for because they could create jobs in the US and the UK. There are also some analysts who argue that these deals make a US ally, Saudi Arabia, stronger in the Middle East. However, since there are major differences between dealing in weapons and other commodities, arms deals cannot be considered as a common business. Therefore, the deal with Saudi Arabia cannot be considered as an ordinary transaction and needs to be more elaborated on due to its consequences and downsides. The most significant aspect of the deal is that in the long run, it will not be in the best interest of Americans and here are some reasons.

Pouring more weapons in the Middle East means further destabilization of the region and since security and peace are interconnected across the globe, chaos in the Middle East can easily impact peace in Europe, the US, and the rest of the world.

One might argue that these weapons are sold to provide the region with security and are meant for self-defense. However, the history of Saudi Arabia, including the way it uses weapons, does not back that argument.

Historically speaking, Saudi Arabia has mainly used its weapons to launch wars or support extremist groups. Saudis supported the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, by supplying him with weapons and money during his invasion of Iran in the 1980s. That war lasted eight years and resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. A more recent instance is Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is responsible for funding extremist groups in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya as well.

As a result of these conflicts, cities and homes are destroyed, families are torn apart, and people are killed and displaced. Survivors flee and try to get to safer areas in other countries. Many of them risk their lives in small boats to get to Europe and live as immigrants; a life, which will be neither easy for them, nor for citizens of the host countries. People in the host countries are afraid of newcomers and are uncomfortable around them. The fear is so strong that it even impacts politics, particularly elections, in European countries as well as the United States. Thus, a war in a region impacts not only lives of people in that region, but also, due to its domino effect, affects the rest of the world. No place will be safe from the harmful impact of wars fought with these weapons, which are supplied to regional countries now.

In addition to their international effect, such deals impact domestic politics in the buyer country as well. An example to the point is Iran’s arms deals with the US during the 1970s. Saudi Arabia is currently similar to what Iran was before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in many aspects, including in terms of its relationship with the US and the type of its political regime. Back then, Iran was a US ally in the region. Iran had an authoritarian king (known as Shah), quite similar to the current regime in Saudi Arabia. Iran’s Shah spent the country’s petrodollars to buy modern weapons from the United States (and other Western countries) while many Iranians were living in poverty. They were dissatisfied with these arms purchases due to the waste of money. The Iranian regime was a dictatorship and protesters could not have a say or impact the country’s policies.

At the same time, various groups, including the clergy, led by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, condemned Shah’s arms deals with Washington as a proof of his dependence on the United States and argued that the Shah was buying weapons so he could maintain his power. They made many references to these deals in their rhetoric against the Shah and finally succeeded to mobilize dissatisfied people and overthrew the Shah. A few months later, a hostage crisis, involving the former US embassy in Tehran, took place in the country, which led to total severance of diplomatic relations between Iran and the US. Missing Iran as a US ally at the height of the Cold War in 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis were disastrous for the US.

Saudi Arabia is very likely to go down the same path. Citizens of Saudi Arabia don’t have a say on their country’s policies, but it does not mean that they don’t have any opinions regarding their government’s behavior, particularly with regard to how their petrodollars are spent.

In such country, arms deals could potentially lead to a twofold dissatisfaction. First of all, people are dissatisfied because the money, which can be used to change the quality of their life, is being used to purchase weapons. This budget can make a change in the lives of millions of poor Saudi citizens. Of course, when it comes to figures on the severity of poverty in Saudi Arabia, there are no accurate statistics available to various organs of the United Nations, because Riyadh usually keeps such statistics secret. For example, in 2011 and at the height of the Arab Spring uprisings, Riyadh sent a group of journalists, who had released a report on poverty in this country, to jail. However, there are reports, which show that about 25 percent of Saudi Arabia’s citizens live below the poverty line. Therefore, in view of dissatisfaction of poor Saudi citizens with their livelihood state, purchasing billions of dollars worth of weapons from the United States by Saudi Arabia, which is tantamount to creating jobs for Americans, is quite concerning.

Social grievances and dissatisfactions could turn into social anger and result in some form of action. Arab Spring uprisings were actually struggles by disappointed and frustrated people to overthrow corrupt and dictatorial regimes, and the Saudi government is no exception to that rule. As a result, angry people are possible to target the foreign sponsors and suppliers of the dictatorial regime as well. Therefore, it is no surprise that terrorists behind September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were citizens of countries, which were considered as US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. A review of opinion polls conducted on the image of the United States among citizens of US allies in the Middle East backs this argument.

In addition to the generation of anger and hatred among citizens of the country that buys weapons from foreign states, arms deals have an impact on terrorist groups’ recruitment in the region as well. Purchased weapons are usually used to destroy homes and kill people in other countries and make the victims quite hostile and furious. This is not rocket science, but it is a simple logic, which says victims of such attacks try their best to harm the sources of their suffering in addition to their supporters. Therefore, they form or join violent groups to organize retaliation.

All in all, such arms deals have a negative impact on the current order not only in the Saudi kingdom, but also in the entire region and even the rest of the world. Peace, security, and stability are internationally interrelated and the situation in one region can easily influence the entire world. As terrorist attacks across the world, including in such major cities and regions as New York, California, Florida, London, Paris, Moscow, Baghdad, Karachi, and recently Kabul have showed, there are no safe and secure regions immune to terrorism in the world. Thus, it is imperative to look for comprehensive and long-term solutions to this problem and since political instability, regional wars and terrorism are fed by weapons, any such solution must take arms deals into account as well.

*Mohammad Ghaedi holds three master’s degrees in international relations, political science and government, and psychology, and is a Ph.D. student of political science with a focus on political psychology at Washington State University.

Reference:
*Saudi dissidents turn to YouTube to air their frustrations:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24719977.html
*Saudi Arabia’s riches conceal a growing problem of poverty:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/saudi-arabia-riyadh-poverty-inequality
*Military airplanes and helicopters account for the lion’s share of Saudi Arabia’s most recent arms deal with the United States. In addition to them, Riyadh is purchasing warships, tanks, and precision-guided bombs, which are all considered as military equipment and play an important part in wars of aggression.

India’s Prime Minister recently attended the plenary session of the 21st St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia. During the session while asked by the host NBC’s Megyn Kelly about Russian interference in the US Presidential elections the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin apart from talking about the US Intelligence community paused for a moment and took the opportunity to talk about the level of sovereignty that countries around the world exercise.

Worldwide there are not many countries that have the privilege of sovereignty. I wouldn’t like to offend anyone… that sovereignty is limited. And inside the military alliance it is officially limited. Their charters prescribe all prohibitions. And in practice it’s even stricter and more stringent; nothing is permitted but for what is allowed, and who allows that – the leadership (that is far away). So globally there are not many countries wielding sovereignty. And we have been protecting our sovereignty to the fact that we have our sovereignty. We can enjoy that foolishly but sovereignty is needed to defend our interests, it’s not a toy we needed to have our own development.

However, than Putin turned to the Indian Prime Minister sitting beside him and addressed him directly with regards to the threat to India’s sovereignty.

India has their own sovereignty. They hold it and possess it and I will tell the Honorable Prime Minister, I never told him although last night we had lengthy talks and a one-on-one dinner but I want to tell him right now – We know the position of the Indian Prime Minister and the Indian leadership and the Indian state with respect to all the attempts to incline India to occupy a position that would be favorable to someone but not to the Indian people (and against Russia). India, basing on their own sovereignty and in the character of a leader and the national interest (should) not let astray by those requirements and those who give this advice. But there are not so many countries like India worldwide, this is true and we must be aware of that. India is one of such countries, China maybe cited as another example and there are some other countries not numerous though. And if such attempts to guide someone, to dictate their will to someone from inside or outside the country will continue they will be detrimental to international affairs but I reiterate in closing this response this will come to an end sooner or later.

The serious issue that Putin had raised was further elaborated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a committee meeting on solidarity and cooperation with Asian and Africa nations, in Moscow just two weeks after the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was held.

During the conference, Lavrov underlined that “Russia traditionally has supported the aspiration of the Asian and African people, to decide their destiny independently”, and noted that “the desire to take destiny into one’s own hands is growing stronger.”

The Russian Foreign Minister further added:

This position was also manifested in the era of the struggle against colonialism. It manifests itself now. We know that many our Western partners are trying to turn these regions into territories of geopolitical confrontation pushing for unilateral solutions. (They) try to impose their adopted approaches to the internal problems of others. We know how hard it is to resist that taking into account the financial, economic and a number of other circumstances. And yet, we see that the desire to take destiny into one’s own hands is growing stronger. We stand in solidarity with this, Russia has followed this approach for many years.

We are very pleased that all our countries – Russia and all countries of Asia and Africa, together with most Latin American countries are supporters of multipolarity. And all our countries voted for the very important resolution, which the [UN] General Assembly approved last December. This resolution aims to promote the formation of a more justified and democratic world order. All the basic principles that our countries share are reflected in it. The resolution prevents interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. It also reflects the importance to respect the right of nations to choose their own destiny. In addition, it rules out the attempts to change regimes through state coups or impose their national laws and approaches extraterritorially.

Those countries that have called the tune in international affairs for several centuries, they are reluctant to give up this role, although objectively they can no longer do this, as they did in previous eras. But we and I know that your countries share these positions, we do not try to defend our interests through confrontation. Our cause is certainly fair. This is understandable to everyone, and we want a consensus in international relations.

What the President of Russia and its Foreign Minister are referring to is India’s tilt and closeness to, according to a recent study – the network of global corporate control that can be termed the Global Oligarchy. It is this tilt that is inviting geopolitical confrontations into India dragging India more and more into the conflicts of other nations. It is precisely to avoid this ‘fight for global dominance’ being imported into their countries that the Non Alignment Movement came into existence. India has historically been the founder and leader of NAM leading the third world countries and creating a power bloc in itself. India has sent a strong signal in choosing to skip the last NAM summit held in Venezuela. This was the first NAM summit that was not attended by an Indian PM, except for 1979 when caretaker PM Charan Singh skipped the summit in Havana.

However still, it is not too late and the nations of the world still look up to India in this post-crisis world to lead them forward. The only question is who will lead India?

*The New Delhi Times is an independent news and information venture. We bring into sharp focus the most important political and cultural stories that are shaping contemporary India. Our goal is to add critical perspectives to these stories through rigorous reporting, objective analyses, and expert commentary. We encourage Citizen Journalism and urge our readers to take active role in reporting of facts and news that is largely ignored by large media companies. If you would like to contribute, please email your story suggestions to tndtimes@gmail.com. This article was published here.

New Jersey’s Morris County may find itself becoming the battleground between two diametrically opposed political philosophies. One of the battlers is a County Freeholder candidate who reveres the legacy and patriotism of President Ronald Reagan while the other candidate holds up avowed socialist Bernie Sanders as a role-model for the Democratic Party.

Despite media reports claims that most New Jersey residents are weary from the news media’s “we gotcha” political stories, there is one race that appears to be gaining the interest of not only partisans, but also local historians. Morris County voters have a choice between two candidates for Freeholder who embody the current trends within the two political parties: Republican candidate Heather Darling, a respected attorney, is up against Democrat Dr. Rozella Clyde, an educator and left-wing activist, for the vacant Freeholder seat.

According to most of her press releases and her campaign website, “Dr. Clyde is campaigning on a ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt-Bernie Sanders-style’ platform geared to the needs of Morris county residents. Her platform addresses the sustainability of Morris County’s economic development, environmental policies, transportation options, social equity, and political access; economic and social equity and justice; infrastructure; and civic engagement.

“Specific policy examples include plans to support small business development over “large-box” stores, support the development of more effective and sustainable mass transit, and make Morris County a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants,” the press releases emphasize.

“In other words, Clyde is socialist who wishes to do good with other-people’s money. She wishes to select who gets government support for their businesses as part of what progressives now call social equity. Even more telling is her wish to make Morris County a sanctuary for illegal aliens, even it they are danger to not only American citizens but also a danger to national security,” said Dean Parkle, a retired police captain. “What is equally disturbing is her obsession with environmental policies that have been tried and found to be costly job-killers and lead to more costly corruption,” he added.

Clyde’s most disturbing goal for Morris County is to have it classified as a “Sanctuary county” totally ignoring proof that such policies are magnets for criminal aliens, radical Islamists and foreign spies. “This is a woman from a political party that’s successfully turned a mainstream voice for millions of Americans into a “soft tyranny” run by elites who wish to transform one of the 13 original states to become a part of the union into a social and political laboratory. Clyde is part of the radical fringe within New Jersey’s Democratic Party along with other local candidates and party campaign managers and strategists such as James Devine,” noted former military intelligence operative and NYPD detective Michael Snope.

According to a Conservative Base news story, Republican Congressman Steve Scalise, the House Majority Whip, and several others were shot during a baseball practice on Wednesday morning at a recreational facility in Alexandria, Virginia. The Republicans were practicing for an upcoming charity congressional baseball game. There were no democrats present at that time since they had practiced earlier in the morning.

After the shooter — a former Bernie Sanders campaign worker named James T. Hodgkinson — left Rep. Scalise in critical condition and wounded four others including two police officers, a New Jersey Democratic political strategist, James Devine, responded by introducing the hashtags #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen to his Twitter account: “We are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people. Why is it a shock when things turn violent? #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.”

“Devine is the kind of political activist Marx had in mind when he advised: ‘Accuse others of what you do.’ In the Democrats case, they have the full support and help of the majority of news people,” said former police officer and security director Walter Piedmont. “They accused Tea Party demonstrators of being violent when there was no violence while the leftist Democrats actually embrace the use of violence and vitriol,” Piedmont added.

The vitriolic Devine has pursued public office and has been a consultant for numerous New Jersey Democratic campaigns. He also worked in the offices of New Jersey lawmakers.

“During riots, violent protests, looting and other criminal activities, it’s a sure bet the news media will minimize the violence and destruction while the Democratic Party leaders will defend these lawbreakers and blame the targets of groups such as Black Lives Matter, Code Pink and multi-billionaire George Soros’ numerous far-left organizations,” notes decorated cop Dean Parkle.

In 2015, New Jersey election officials charged Devine with almost two-dozen separate election-law violations. The Election Law Enforcement Commission claimed he never reported nearly $79,000 in contributions and more than $70,000 in expenditures involving his Central Jersey Democratic Leadership Committee. Yet, Devine continues to work as a political strategist for a party that allows ex-convicts — Devine was convicted in 2014 for shoplifting lettuce, protein powder and hair conditioner — to seek public-office or manage a political campaign.

Manufacturing had a modest rebound, adding 74,000 jobs between November and April. However the sector shed 1,000 jobs in May.

By Alan Barber and Dean Baker*

There was growth overall in blue collar jobs last month. Construction showed modest growth, the growth in mining employment slowed modestly, and manufacturing employment shrank very slightly. Construction added 11,000 jobs, continuing a slower pace of growth since the winter. After adding 88,000 jobs from December 2016 to February 2017, the sector has added just 10,000 jobs in the subsequent three months.

Mining was showing a modest recovery after the slump in world energy prices led to large job losses from September of 2014 to October of last year. Since October, the sector has added 40,200 jobs, but only 6,600 of these were in May. It’s worth noting that virtually all the job gains since October come in the support activities sector, which has added 40,300 jobs over this period. Coal mining has added just 1,700 jobs.

Manufacturing also has had a modest rebound, adding 74,000 jobs between November and April. However the sector shed 1,000 jobs in May. As is likely the case with construction as well, it appears that unusually warm winter weather allowed more people than usual to be employed in January and February.

This means that the sectors did not see the normal uptick in employment that would come with warmer weather in the spring. As a result, the seasonally adjusted data shows weak growth, or as in the case of the May manufacturing number, an actual decline. While construction employment may continue to grow modestly, it is likely that manufacturing employment will be flat or trend slightly downward. It is worth noting that the one-month employment diffusion index for manufacturing, which measures the percentage of industries adding workers, fell slightly under 50 last month, meaning that a larger number of industries are reducing employment than increasing.

Maryland led the way in construction employment in May, adding 4,300 new jobs. This was 3.0 percent higher than April and 2.2 percent higher than last year at this time. At the other end of the spectrum, Pennsylvania lost 6,300 jobs since January, down 2.3 percent from January.

Other rust belt states that saw declines in construction include Wisconsin (down 1,500 jobs from April, a 1.3 percent change) Ohio (down 2,100 jobs, a drop of 1.0 percent), Michigan (down 300 jobs or 0.2 percent), West Virginia (down 0.3 percent) and Iowa, which lost 200 jobs a -0.3 percent change. While other rust belt states did see gains in construction last month, only Wisconsin has averaged positive growth over the last three months at 1.06 percent.

As noted, the manufacturing sector lost 1,000 jobs in May. This decline was due to a loss of 3,000 jobs in nondurable goods, specifically clothing related sectors and plastic and rubber products. Interestingly, food manufacturing continues to add jobs. It added 600 jobs in May and 49,400 jobs in the last year, an increase in employment of 3.3 percent.

By state, Iowa led the way adding 2,300 jobs in May, an increase of 1.1 percent over last month. However, the state is still down 1,600 jobs from last year, a drop of 0.8 percent. The only other Rust Belt state that added jobs in May was Illinois with 500 new manufacturing jobs for an increase of 0.1 percent.

Job losses in these states were concentrated along the eastern Great Lakes with New York leading the way at 3,700 jobs lost (-0.8 percent), followed by Ohio (-3,600 jobs, a loss of 0.5 percent), and Pennsylvania (-2,800 jobs, a drop of 0.5 percent). The picture does not look much better if we go back to January when Donald Trump took office. During this period, Ohio lost 8,500 manufacturing jobs followed by Pennsylvania at -6,800 jobs and New York at -5,700 jobs. The only Rust Belt states gaining jobs over this time were Iowa (2,300), Illinois (2,700), Wisconsin (3,700) and Michigan with 4,100 new manufacturing jobs.

As noted, mining jobs increased modestly in May. Support activities were the main source of jobs in the sector at 7,900. This was offset by losses in non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying and metal ore mining. Contrary to reports by some members of the Trump administration, coal mining only added 400 jobs last month. Coal mining employment in West Virginia is down by 100 since Donald Trump was inaugurated.

The economy as a whole added 138,000 jobs last month. However, with construction and manufacturing employment leveling off, it is unlikely that blue collar jobs will have a significant impact on job growth going forward.

*Alan Barber is Director of Domestic Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. Dean Baker is an Economist and Co-Director at CEPR.

By Henry George*

On the morning of Monday, June 19, at 00:21 am, a white van ploughed into a crowd of worshippers who had exited the Finsbury Park Mosque. 10 people were injured, eight are in hospital with several whose conditions have been described as very serious. One person was killed.

The far-right terrorist, for that, is what we must call him, was held down by members of the congregation while the police were called. The imam protected him from the anger of the crowd so that the police could do their job properly when they arrived. The man reportedly said that he’d done his job, and apparently shouted that he wanted to kill all Muslims.

This attack came just over a year after the murder of the MP Jo Cox by another far-right terrorist. Anniversaries are important for terrorists.  The Manchester bombing came 4 yours after the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich.

Last week, Grenfell Tower in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea caught fire and has resulted in the likely deaths of around 79 people. The safety concerns of the residents had been ignored. The workmanship of the refurbishment, hired out to a series of contractors, had been substandard. Now, this blackened tower stands like a tomb, reaching into the sky and berating us for the lack of thought for those at the bottom of society.

The London Bridge attack took place on June 3, and shook the capital and country, already off balance after the attack in Manchester; this was followed by the fire. Now, this. Londoners could be forgiven for feeling like society is seriously fraying at the seams. After the Manchester attacks, there were calls to carry on, as usual, to not allow the terrorists to divide us and to not let it alter our attitudes to each other or to life.

Of course, this didn’t happen, bar some much talked up events where the efforts made by the media to draw attention to their healing and harmonious nature only served to instill in the minds of many people that there are those who are endeavouring to paper over the cracks, encouraging us to dance and sing, and all the while it feels more and more like some black wave is rushing towards us, threatening to drown us, with every attack, every disaster, every instance of political upheaval.

The Finsbury Mosque attack is what happens when the great societal conversation, the dialogue between people from different walks of life, breaks down and is replaced by mistrust, fear and suspicion. The extremists from both ends of the ideological spectrum, whether it is the Islamists, the far-right ethno-nationalists, or indeed the militant far-left, thrive in this polarised environment, as more and more people are driven into their ranks seeking some kind of psychological and spiritual safety.

Al-Quds day saw a march by Hezbollah supporters and other Islamist extremists march through the centre of London. They, of course, blamed the Grenfell fire on the ‘Zionists’. The March saw the flags of Hezbollah and other terror groups flying. This is not a sign of a healthy society.

After the Grenfell fire, there was a protest against the negligence the residents felt at Kensington and Chelsea Council, the local municipal authority. A crowd of angry protesters surged into the council building and tried to make it upstairs but were stopped by police. Later, the protest took to the street, marching through central London, shouting their anger, at the government, at society, at the clear evening sky. There is evidence that many of the protestors were far-Left militants, as evidenced by the signs carried. This is where the majority of the chants for the overthrow of the democratically elected government came from.

The ‘Day of Rage’ protest planned to coincide with the Queen’s Speech this week has been infiltrated by far-Left radicals who will use the grief and anger of the residents of Grenfell and the surrounding area for their own malign political purposes: namely, toppling a government they see as illegitimate despite its having won the General Election. Even the residents have raised concern over these ideologues using their pain for their own gain.

Far-right extremism is on the rise, with the Prevent counter-radicalisation scheme seeing a sharp increase in the number of people being referred for worrying far-right behaviour. ISIS wanted to divide us as a society, to turn us into two armed camps, Muslim v non-Muslim. Last night, they succeeded. They cannot be allowed to succeed again.

Now, more than ever, it is vital that we have those ‘embarrassing’ conversations that Theresa May spoke of in her speech following the London Bridge attack. It is only through dialogue that we can diffuse the brewing tensions that people in London and across the country can feel, even if they do not wish to admit to it. It is far, far better to have combat with words, rather than combat with weapons. It is only if we speak the truth to the best of our ability that we can gain some control over the chaos that threatens to unleash itself on our society.

Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone, demonstrated that multicultural societies are lower in trust than monocultural societies. People tend to hunker down in their nests and engage with each other less. This is not an option for us, as the last few weeks have proven. We must engage, we must discuss, we must debate, we must argue, we must not let offence at people disagreeing with ideas hold us back.

The only option for our increasingly diverse society is to have an increasingly free and open debate. The alternative is to hunker down even more and allow the cracks to grow and the tension to rise.

That would be the worst thing we could do.

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

Source:
This article was published by Bombs and Dollars

A two-week old conflict in the Gulf goes to the core of key issues in international relations that hamper the fight against political violence and govern diplomatic relations: the absence of an agreed definition of terrorism that allows autocrats to abuse efforts to counter extremism by repressing non-violent critics and the ability of small states to chart their own course and punch above their weight.

Proponents of maintaining the term terrorism as a multi-interpretable catchall phrase argue that one man’s terrorist is another’s liberation fighter. While that is no doubt true, it applies to persons and groups that see violence as a legitimate tool but misses the mark when applied to non-violent critics, particularly proponents of a pluralistic, democratic environment and/or forms of Islamic governance that challenge monarchical autocracy.

Authoritarian leaders like the Gulf ruling families, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi have a vested interest in either imposing their definition of terrorism on the international community or preventing it from adopting a definition. The absence of a definition has allowed them to brutally suppress basic human rights, including freedoms of expression and the media, and to put tens of thousands of non-violent critics behind bars.

Bahrain this week, in a bid to pressure the United States to adopt the Saudi-UAE definition of terrorism that includes any group, violent or not, that challenges government or potentially questions their autocratic rule, expelled Qatari military personnel working at a US military base on the island state. The expulsion was the first indication that the Gulf crisis could affect the US defensive umbrella for the region as well as operations to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In a twist of irony, Bahrain’s minority Sunni Muslim ruling Al Khalifa family relies on support of the Muslim Brotherhood, a main target of the Saudi-UAE-led boycott of Qatar, to counter opposition from the Gulf state’s Shiite majority. Yet, it has been exempted from the ire of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Bahrain joined the Saudi-UAE-led boycott of Qatar and accused Doha of seeking to overthrow its government.

There is little doubt that Qatar maintains ties to jihadist militants as does Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, there is also little doubt that the Saudi-UAE effort to force Qatar to adopt their sweeping definition of terrorism would undermine US-backed efforts to maintain a back channel to militants.

In one such instance, the US State Department in a letter to US Republican Congressman Peter J. Roskam during the 2014 Gaza war noted that Qatar was important in efforts to get Hamas, the Islamist group that traces its roots to the Muslim Brotherhood and controls Gaza, to accept a ceasefire with Israel. The department further pointed out that Qatar was also funding the internationally recognized Palestine Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We need countries that have leverage over the leaders of Hamas to help put a ceasefire in place. Qatar may be able to play that role as it has done in the past,” Assistant Secretary for Legal Affairs Julia Frifield said in the letter. At the same time, Ms. Frifield admitted that the US was pushing Qatar to be more compliant in its crackdown on funding of political violence, which she described as “inconsistent.”

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, but not the United Nations. The EU has kept Hamas on its terrorism list despite a controversial EU court ruling that it should be removed.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear, two weeks into the boycott of Qatar, to be struggling to present Qatar with their demands or what Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir termed “grievances.” While there was no explanation why demands had not yet been tabled, it seemed likely that the two Gulf countries were trying to establish which demands stood a chance to garner international support. They have said they would put forward their demands within days.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have signalled through their media and various statements by officials that they want Qatar to break its ties to Islamists, including the Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as shutter Qatar-sponsored media, first and foremost among which the Al Jazeera television network.

Speaking in an interview, UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash lumped the Brotherhood, Hamas and Al Qaeda together as terrorist organizations and demanded that Qatar be put under some kind of international supervision.

“If we get clear strategic signals that Qatar is going to change and it will stop funding violent Islamist militants that is the basis for a discussion, but we would need a monitoring system. We do not trust them. There is zero trust, but we need a monitoring system and we need our western friends to play a role in this,” Mr. Gargash told The Guardian. In separate comments to journalists in Paris, Mr. Gargash suggested that the Saudi-UAE-led effort to isolate Qatar “may last for years.”

Many in the international community, including the United States, which could emerge as the major mediator in the Gulf crisis, are unlikely to support curbing of the press. Saudi Arabia and the UAE more over differ over the degree to which the Muslim Brotherhood poses a problem.

If that were not enough to complicate the formulation of a list of demands, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested that seeking to ban the Brotherhood was all but impossible. Speaking to the House Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Tillerson cautioned that designating the Brotherhood, with an estimated membership of 5 million, as a terrorist organization would “complicate matters” with America’s relations with foreign governments.

“There are elements of the Muslim Brotherhood that have become parts of governments. Those elements… have done so by renouncing violence and terrorism,” Mr. Tillerson said. He said groups affiliated with the Brotherhood that commit violence had already been added to the US terrorism list.

By breaking off diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposing an economic boycott on the Gulf state without a clear definition of demands that stood a chance to win international support, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have put themselves in a position in which they are effectively grappling for a face-saving exit strategy.

In the process, they have highlighted the danger of not clearly defining what constitutes terrorism and who is a terrorist not only for the rule of law and defense of human rights but also for the credibility of autocrats who abuse the void in their bid to arbitrarily impose their will.

The United States, France, Iran, Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey and Kuwait have urged both sides to quickly resolve their differences in negotiations. The calls put Saudi Arabia and the UAE further on the spot as long as they do not table a clear set of demands that resonate with the international community.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.

This is the most comprehensive and detailed catalog release of candidate exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, from Kepler’s first four years of data. It’s also the final catalog from the spacecraft’s view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.

With the release of this catalog, derived from data publically available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive, there are now 4,034 planet candidates identified by Kepler. Of which, 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets. Of roughly 50 near-Earth size habitable zone candidates detected by Kepler, more than 30 have been verified.

Additionally, results using Kepler data suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets. Both results have significant implications for the search for life. The final Kepler catalog will serve as the foundation for more study to determine the prevalence and demographics of planets in the galaxy, while the discovery of the two distinct planetary populations shows that about half the planets we know of in the galaxy either have no surface, or lie beneath a deep, crushing atmosphere – an environment unlikely to host life.

The findings were presented at a news conference Monday at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

“The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near Earth-analogs – planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth,” said Mario Perez, Kepler program scientist in the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Understanding their frequency in the galaxy will help inform the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth.”

The Kepler space telescope hunts for planets by detecting the miniscule drop in a star’s brightness that occurs when a planet crosses in front of it, called a transit.

This is the eighth release of the Kepler candidate catalog, gathered by reprocessing the entire set of data from Kepler’s observations during the first four years of its primary mission. This data will enable scientists to determine what planetary populations – from rocky bodies the size of Earth, to gas giants the size of Jupiter – make up the galaxy’s planetary demographics.

To ensure a lot of planets weren’t missed, the team introduced their own simulated planet transit signals into the data set and determined how many were correctly identified as planets. Then, they added data that appear to come from a planet, but were actually false signals, and checked how often the analysis mistook these for planet candidates. This work told them which types of planets were overcounted and which were undercounted by the Kepler team’s data processing methods.

“This carefully-measured catalog is the foundation for directly answering one of astronomy’s most compelling questions – how many planets like our Earth are in the galaxy?” said Susan Thompson, Kepler research scientist for the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and lead author of the catalog study.

One research group took advantage of the Kepler data to make precise measurements of thousands of planets, revealing two distinct groups of small planets. The team found a clean division in the sizes of rocky, Earth-size planets and gaseous planets smaller than Neptune. Few planets were found between those groupings.

Using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the group measured the sizes of 1,300 stars in the Kepler field of view to determine the radii of 2,000 Kepler planets with exquisite precision.

“We like to think of this study as classifying planets in the same way that biologists identify new species of animals,” said Benjamin Fulton, doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, and lead author of the second study. “Finding two distinct groups of exoplanets is like discovering mammals and lizards make up distinct branches of a family tree.”

It seems that nature commonly makes rocky planets up to about 75 percent bigger than Earth. For reasons scientists don’t yet understand, about half of those planets take on a small amount of hydrogen and helium that dramatically swells their size, allowing them to “jump the gap” and join the population closer to Neptune’s size.

The Kepler spacecraft continues to make observations in new patches of sky in its extended mission, searching for planets and studying a variety of interesting astronomical objects, from distant star clusters to objects such as the TRAPPIST-1 system of seven Earth-size planets, closer to home.

Ames manages the Kepler missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

DNA found at archaeological sites reveals that the origins of our domestic cat are in the Near East and ancient Egypt. Cats were domesticated by the first farmers some 10,000 years ago. They later spread across Europe and other parts of the world via trade hub Egypt.

The DNA analysis also revealed that most of these ancient cats had stripes: spotted cats were uncommon until the Middle Ages.

Five subspecies of the wildcat Felis silvestris are known today. All skeletons look exactly alike and are indistinguishable from that of our domestic cat. As a result, it’s impossible to see with the naked eye which of these subspecies was domesticated in a distant past. Paleogeneticist Claudio Ottoni and his colleagues from KU Leuven (University of Leuven) and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences set out to look for the answer in the genetic code. They used the DNA from bones, teeth, skin, and hair of over 200 cats found at archaeological sites in the Near East, Africa, and Europe. These remains were between 100 and 9,000 years old.

The DNA analysis revealed that all domesticated cats descend from the African wildcat or Felis silvestris lybica, a wildcat subspecies found in North Africa and the Near East. Cats were domesticated some 10,000 years ago by the first farmers in the Near East.

The first agricultural settlements probably attracted wildcats because they were rife with rodents. The farmers welcomed the wildcats as they kept the stocks of cereal grain free from vermin. Over time, man and animal grew closer, and selection based on behavior eventually led to the domestication of the wildcat.

Migrating farmers took the domesticated cat with them. At a later stage, the cats also spread across Europe and elsewhere via trade hub Egypt. Used to fight vermin on Egyptian trade ships, the cats traveled to large parts of South West Asia, Africa, and Europe. Bones of cats with an Egyptian signature have even been found at Viking sites near the Baltic Sea.

“It’s still unclear, however, whether the Egyptian domestic cat descends from cats imported from the Near East or whether a separate, second domestication took place in Egypt,” said researcher Claudio Ottoni. “Further research will have to show.”

The scientists were also able to determine the coat pattern based on the DNA of the old cat bones and mummies. They found that the striped cat was much more common in ancient times. This is also illustrated by Egyptian murals: they always depict striped cats. The blotched pattern did not become common until the Middle Ages.

Scientists believe they have discovered the reason behind mysterious changes to the climate that saw temperatures fluctuate by up to 15°C within just a few decades during the ice age periods.

In a new study published today, the researchers show that rising levels of CO2 could have reached a tipping point during these glacial periods, triggering a series of chain events that caused temperatures to rise abruptly.

The findings, which have been published in the journal Nature Geoscience, add to mounting evidence suggesting that gradual changes such as a rising CO2 levels can lead to sudden surprises in our climate, which can be triggered when a certain threshold is crossed.

Previous studies have shown that an essential part of the natural variability of our climate during glacial times is the repeated occurrence of abrupt climate transitions, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger events.

These events are characterized by drastic temperature changes of up to 15°C within a few decades in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. This was the case during the last glacial period around 100,000 to 20,000 years ago.

It is commonly believed that this was a result of sudden floods of freshwater across the North Atlantic, perhaps as a consequence of melting icebergs.

Co-author of the study Professor Stephen Barker, from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: “Our results offer an alternative explanation to this phenomenon and show that a gradual rise of CO2 within the atmosphere can hit a tipping point, triggering abrupt temperature shifts that drastically affect the climate across the Northern Hemisphere in a relatively short space of time.

“These findings add to mounting evidence suggesting that there are sweet spots or ‘windows of opportunity’ within climate space where so-called boundary conditions, such as the level of atmospheric CO2 or the size of continental ice sheets, make abrupt change more likely to occur. Of course, our study looks back in time and the future will be a very different place in terms of ice sheets and CO2 but it remains to be seen whether or not Earth’s climate becomes more or less stable as we move forward from here”.

Using climate models to understand the physical processes that were at play during the glacial periods, the team were able to show that a gradual rise in CO2 strengthened the trade winds across Central America by inducing an El Nino-like warming pattern with stronger warming in the East Pacific than the Western Atlantic.

As a result there was an increase in moisture transport out of the Atlantic, which effectively increased the salinity and density, of the ocean surfaces, leading to an abrupt increase in circulation strength and temperature rise.

“This does not necessarily mean that a similar response would happen in the future with increasing CO2 levels, since the boundary conditions are different from the ice age,” added by Professor Gerrit Lohmann, leader of the Paleoclimate Dynamics group at the Alfred Wegener Institute.

“Nevertheless, our study shows that climate models have the ability of simulating abrupt changes by gradual forcing as seen in paleoclimate data.”

Building on this study, the team intend to produce a new reconstruction of global ice volume across the last glacial cycle, which will help to validate their proposition that certain boundaries can define windows of instability within the climate system.

The ceremony of raising flags of India and Pakistan, which became new full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the Astana summit, was held at the SCO headquarters in Beijing on June 15, on the day of the 16th anniversary of the SCO founding. The flag of India was located between the flags of the SCO and Kazakhstan, and the flag of Pakistan was between the flags of Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

Becoming a new “G8” the Shanghai Cooperation Organization now has four nuclear powers and two of the world’s largest economies, forming a quarter of the world’s GDP and uniting almost half of the world’s population.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, this will make the organization even more influential, not only within Eurasia, but also in the international arena.

“The expansion of the SCO will undoubtedly contribute to ensuring that it will become more powerful and influential in the political, economic and humanitarian spheres,” Russian President said at the SCO leaders’ meeting in Astana on Friday, June 9.

Fight against terrorism and the situation in the Middle East was also one of the main issues on the agenda of the summit – its participants signed the Convention on Countering Extremism.

“The underground groups of ISIS members have been created in the SCO member states; this was shown by the investigation of the terrorist attack in St Petersburg. As far as we know, ISIS is plotting to destabilize Central Asia and Russia’s southern regions, so we need to improve the interaction between security agencies of the SCO states, including regional counterterrorism structures,” Vladimir Putin said.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed that Russia is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, especially in Syria.

“We all know this. I think this is the right call to support our common work on combating terrorism, especially in Afghanistan. We alone should not get face to face with this threat endangering the whole Central Asia,” he said.

In turn, Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid special attention to the significant economic potential of the SCO countries, noting the importance of the Silk Road project, which implies new transport corridors between Asia and Europe.

“We call for simplifying trade procedures between our countries step by step. We support the development of a coordinated road connectivity program. In addition, we propose to create a union of think tanks for the economy and a business association for e-commerce,” the PRC leader said.

At the summit, the SCO leaders adopted the Astana Declaration, which reflects the consolidated approaches of the member states to the further development of the organization and agreed assessments on key international issues.

According to Ilgar Velizade, Head of the Baku-based South Caucasus Club of Political Scientists, the main result of the meeting was the demonstration of different states’ readiness to move in one direction, starting from their own current interests.

“There is a desire to intensify cooperation on such important issues as the creation of a unified system of transport communications, development of common mechanisms for cargo transportation, coordination of activities to combat terrorism. Of course, declarative statements and their practical implementation are not the same, but there is a desire of the states to work together, involve expert groups, carry out coordinated work at the level of departments to achieve the goals,” the expert told PenzaNews.

In his opinion, the most practical statement made during the summit was the proposal to simplify trade procedures between the SCO members.

“It is difficult to say which statements were of the most importance, but the most practical one was the proposal to sign an agreement on trade facilitation within the framework of the formation of institutions for regional economic cooperation,” he said.

Meanwhile, from his point of view, the inclusion of such major geopolitical and geo-economic players as India and Pakistan into the SCO will help to change the format of cooperation.

“They often point out to the figures showing that accession of India and Pakistan will increase the population of people in the SCO to 43-44% of the world’s figures, their GDP will reach about 33 trillion dollars. The organization is transformed from the regional into a trans-regional one and can function to solve a much larger number of problems, including international ones,” Ilgar Velizade said.

In turn, Taisiya Marmontova, the head of the service for analysis and monitoring of the sphere of interethnic relations at RSI Kogamdyk Kelisim under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, reminded that the Kazakhstan SCO presidency was associated with several primary tasks.

“The main priorities of Kazakhstan’s presidency are strengthening of regional security, development of economic cooperation, disclosure of transit and transport potential, deepening of cultural and humanitarian ties in the context of implementing the SCO Development Strategy until 2025,” the expert said.

At the same time, in her opinion, acceptance of India and Pakistan into the organization is a quite contradictory fact.

“On the one hand, their joining the ‘Big Six’ will increase the world authority of the organization: there will be over 40% of the total population of the Earth in the SCO. On the other hand, there are fears that the contradictions between India and Pakistan will exacerbate the problems that already exist in the SCO. In particular, this is the unresolved issues related to the economic component of interaction,” Taisiya Marmontova explained.

Meanwhile, Ruslan Izimov, the head of the Eurasian Studies Program of the Institute of World Economy and Policy (IWEP) under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – the Leader of the Nation, called the entry of India and Pakistan into the SCO one of the main outcomes of the summit.

“This process was not easy and lasted for several years. Finally, it has come to an end and this opens a completely new stage in the SCO activity,” the analyst said, stressing that this event was worth a lot of diplomatic efforts from Kazakhstan during its SCO presidency.

Moreover, in his opinion, the most important agreements signed at the summit were the Convention on Countering Extremism and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

“Recently, international terrorism and extremism has become the most acute global problem. The fight against this ‘social evil’ unites the efforts of many international actors,” Ruslan Izimov stressed.

According to him, the main threat for the Central Asian region and all the SCO countries is posed from the territory of Afghanistan.

“Inclusion of India and Pakistan allows to practically ‘surround’ Afghanistan from all sides, which will contribute to a more effective fight against the spread of terrorism and extremism,” the expert said.

However, analyzing the prospects for the future SCO countries relations, he pointed out some possible difficulties.

“As for the future prospects, the situation is ambiguous. Much will depend on preserving the principle of consensus and the so-called ‘Shanghai spirit’, which for many years allowed all SCO members to find a common vision and common ground. It is important to emphasize that the inclusion of new participants into the SCO opens up a number of new opportunities for the countries. In particular, it would be more correct for Kazakhstan and other countries of Central Asia to think about how to use the emerging situation in their own interests,” the expert said.

Meanwhile, in his opinion, Central Asian countries fall under the serious economic influence of China, and it is necessary for them to diversify their export routes, sources of investment and a list of key economic partners.

According to Ruslan Izimov, in this context, India, with its potential and minimal political interests in the region, would be ideally suited for the role of a balancer.

In turn, Vadim Kozulin, Deputy Chairman of the Eurasian Commission for Foreign Affairs and Economic Policy, (EECO), stressed that at the end of the summit the SCO has acquired a global scale, “uniting half of the world.”

“Moreover, the organization united that part of the world, where today the main political and economic changes are taking place. According to some observers, this is a ‘club for meetings and conversations’ without rigid decision-making mechanisms. But is it too bad? Today, the world lacks precisely this thing – dialogue and mutual understanding. The SCO has created such a platform, and now it has become much broader. And this is why the organization is very important,” the expert said.

At the same time, he reminded that the new members of the organization have difficult bilateral relations.

“The SCO is getting more problems, but international organizations exist to address them. The format of the SCO perfectly suits it – it is not worse than, for example, the G7. When there is a real common problem, the SCO can create tools for a collective response,” Vadim Kozulin said.

He also stressed that India and Pakistan, which joined the SCO, are very familiar with the problem of terrorism.

“The antiterrorist center works very effectively in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Exchange of information and joint operations will now become much more effective. I think that a significant event has happened in the world, the value of which we will be able to estimate only in the future,” the analyst concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/64159-2017

By Victoria Marklew*

(FPRI) — British Prime Minister Theresa May triggered the two-year countdown to Brexit—the United Kingdom’s departure from the 28-member European Union (EU)—in late March 2017. Since the June 2016 referendum, there has been a steady drum beat of analysis about the impact of the referendum’s result on economies, markets, and politics—some of it backed by hard data, some pure conjecture about what is, after all, an unprecedented event. There are myriad problems to solve over the next two years, from the status of expats to what to do about the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. In many ways, Brexit can be seen as a backward step, a turning away from international cooperation, pulling up the symbolic drawbridge and retreating into a “Little England” mentality. It is certainly easy to outline the likely negative consequences, not least in light of the political confusion within Britain caused by the outcome of the June 8 general election. However, in one respect, Brexit might actually have a positive impact, namely in the development of capital markets in the EU-27.

Drumbeat of Negatives

Many commentators are throwing out numbers about the negative impact of Brexit on GDP growth and income across Europe. The Center for Economic Performance has concluded that every EU member will lose income after Brexit, but that the loss for the UK will be about twice the loss for the remaining 27 members combined.[1] However, a lot depends (as ever when economics is involved) on what data you look at, as well as on what deals and Euro-fudge the politicians come up with in the coming months. Most assume that the hit will be worse for the UK than for the EU-27, given the probable loss of preferential trade access to the EU markets. Around half of the UK’s merchandise trade is with the EU; Brexit implies higher tariff and non-tariff barriers to that trade. The impact of the loss of free trade with the UK on the EU-27 is harder to quantify, but some data suggests a disproportionately high negative impact on Germany, Belgium, and Ireland. Not all EU exports to the UK will stop, of course, and the size of the hit depends on the actual terms of the Brexit deal. In the event of a “hard” Brexit, i.e., the UK leaves the single market altogether, everyone will be affected by the sharp increase in direct and indirect trade barriers (long lines of lorries waiting to clear customs at Dover; no automatic reciprocal standards recognition; etc.).

The economic effects of Brexit extend far beyond trade. What might be the impact on productivity among the EU-27 from losing free trade access to the large UK market? Without delving into the minutiae of this particular economic debate, the idea is that the more places you trade with, the higher the productivity of your exporters. So “losing” some part of trade with the UK could have long-term negative impacts on productivity across the EU. And what about foreign direct investment (FDI)? The UK is the largest recipient of FDI among the EU-28 averaging, according to UNCTAD data, $56 billion a year in 2010-2014 period, with just under half of this amount coming from EU partners. Some 72% of investors cite access to the European single market as important to the UK’s attractiveness to FDI. Will some of this cash instead go to others in the EU-27, or will it be “lost” to Europe altogether?

There will certainly be an impact on the EU budget. The accountants are still calculating the numbers, but as one of the largest contributors to the EU budget, the loss of UK membership will hurt. Either other countries will have to make up the difference (unlikely to be popular), or they will have to agree to spending cuts (politically tricky). Britain’s total contribution to the €145 billion EU budget in 2015 was €18 billion, the third-largest contribution after Germany (€24 billion) and France (€19 billion), and ahead of Italy (€14 billion). The absence of the UK’s contribution will leave a sizable gap to fill.

One of the thorniest issues to untangle, of course, will be the status of migrants. Just how this issue will unfold is anyone’s guess. Many expats from, say, Poland may have set up near-permanent homes in the UK, while those from Romania may be more intent on sending money back home for a couple of years. Again, much depends on the deal cut by the politicians, but Romania and Bulgaria will certainly see a negative hit to their migrant labor workforce. Will they go elsewhere within the EU?

Glimmers of Positives

There may be some winners as a result of Brexit. The relocation of a couple of EU agencies from the UK to the continent will presumably be a bit of a boost to the cities where they end up; other governments certainly think so. In late April 2017, the French government officially made its bid to house the European Banking Authority, noting that Paris hosts four of the eight largest banks in the EU-27. Frankfurt is also vying for the agency, noting it is already home to the European Central Bank (ECB), its Single Supervisory Mechanism, and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority. Many cities in the EU-27 have put in a bid to house the European Medicines Agency and its 900 scientists and European-wide medicines regulation.

Aside from all these potential boons, however, there is one area in which the British voters may inadvertently have given a long-term boost to the rest of the EU: the development of capital markets across the Union. Here, there are three particular issues to consider: the revival of the Capital Markets Union project; the potential shift of banking operations out of London; and the possible relocation of euro clearing.

Revamping the Capital Markets Union Project

The Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a European Commission project to create deeper and more integrated capital markets across the EU. Launched two years ago as part of the Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe, the project is intended to give companies access to more sources of finance at a lower cost, and ultimately to make the financial system more resilient. In particular, the CMU aims to give businesses access to sources of funding beyond the traditional continental reliance on bank loans. This reliance has been problematic for the EU’s banks, leaving them not only heavily exposed to the health of regional business, but also at risk of policy lending impacting their portfolios. It has certainly been a financing constraint for many companies. The CMU would also lessen dependence on London’s capital markets—a hitherto unspoken aim of the project that is now becoming more overt.

The CMU project had begun to flag before last year’s referendum. However, on May 17, 2017, Reuters reported on a Commission draft document on CMU that mentioned talks of updating the project and noted that London has traditionally pooled liquidity and provided risk management services for the rest of the EU. The draft concludes that Brexit means that a “deep re-engineering” of the financial system is necessary. On June 8, 2017, the Commission duly announced that the CMU would be “rebooted” and vowed to create “an integrated capital market in the European Union by 2019.” The next step may come in the third quarter of 2017 when the Commission is expected to propose ways to strengthen the powers of the EU’s European Securities and Markets Authority (something Britain had long opposed) in order to make CMU more effective.

Whatever the final details of the proposals for CMU, it is rapidly becoming clear that the Commission is not likely to accommodate Prime Minister May’s vision of negotiating a trade agreement that includes financial services. Instead, the Commission appears intent on using the disruption of Brexit to galvanize the CMU.

Corporate Relocation: A Potential Win for Cities across Europe

It is also likely that Brexit will lead many of the large financial institutions currently based in London to shift some portion of their operations to locations within the EU, such as Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris, or the Netherlands, in order to ensure they retain access to the single market. Just how significant the total move of personnel might be, and how much the move will boost the receiving cities, remains to be seen. Some news headlines have claimed the large global banks are planning to move about 9,000 jobs within the next two years, but estimates of total finance-related job losses vary from 4,000 to 232,000. Some 13 institutions have so far stated publicly that they plan to bulk up their European operations, with Frankfurt and Dublin as the front runners. For now, it seems that the largest banks are taking a two-step approach, starting with some initial relocations to make sure all the licenses, technology, and infrastructure are in place to accommodate what could be a more sizable move in a year or two. A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said that the bank plans to relocate “hundreds” of London employees to its offices in Dublin, Frankfurt, and Luxembourg: “We are going to use the three banks we already have in Europe as the anchor for our operations. . . . [We] will have to move hundreds of people in the short term to be ready for Day One . . . and then we will look at the longer-term numbers.”

Just how many staff end up moving depends on the details of the Brexit negotiations. The heart of the issue is the concept of “passporting.” With an EU passport, a bank can operate throughout the Union, but be regulated by just one country. Without passporting rights, a London-based branch loses the right to operate in the EU—hence the scramble to set preliminary operations elsewhere ahead of Brexit. A related issue is whether the Bank of England (BoE) will demand that European banks convert their branches into subsidiaries. To date, the BoE has allowed the European banks to operate in the UK as branches, which requires lower capital requirements than full subsidiaries and can be regulated by their home authorities. But the BoE has recently warned the banks to be ready to set up full subsidiaries and to submit to BoE regulation, if the Brexit negotiations do not allow some form of reciprocity to be maintained. BoE Governor Carney has called for the UK and EU to make a deal to recognize each other’s rules post-Brexit, to at least maintain some form of reciprocity even if full passporting does not happen. But this form of reciprocal regulation has never before been agreed on such a large scale.

The BoE is most concerned about large investment banking operations, which carry a lot of risk and large balance sheets. It’s not just the American banks that are looking to move to maintain access to the EU market; several European banks base the bulk of their investment banking activities, such as sales and trading, in London. Without reciprocity, the UK’s Prudential Regulatory Authority would become the overseer of, say, Deutsche Bank London post-Brexit, and as a subsidiary, the institution would be required to boost its capital significantly in order to support its business in the UK. The loss of reciprocity and the requirement to convert branches to subsidiaries could mean some €40 billion in extra capital would have to be raised across the big EU banks. It’s not surprising, therefore, that many banks reportedly are privately warning that this development would hasten their exit from London. The BoE has given financial institutions until July 14, 2017 to set out their post-Brexit plans. Many are likely to assume the worst and plan for more large-scale moves, not wanting to suddenly be wrong-footed if reciprocity does not happen. And once such a plan is committed to paper, it is much more likely to be implemented.

While a loss of 9,000 jobs would only represent about 2% of the employment in London’s financial sector, the shift of operations to, say, Frankfurt, is likely to develop momentum over time. The German authorities, along with their Irish, French, and Dutch counterparts, are already quietly, yet actively, courting the big banks. Before we look at what such a move might mean for the cities that “win” London’s global financial business, there is one more issue to consider: the concept of clearing.

The Question of Clearing

The G20 has made it mandatory to settle most simple derivatives trades through clearing houses, and London dominates the clearing industry. LCH, the clearing house that is owned by the London Stock Exchange, clears over 50% of all interest-rate swaps across all currencies; around 75% of those in euros are cleared in London. The city currently clears €927 billion worth of euro-denominated transactions each day. The ECB tried previously to force euro-denominated clearing to move out of London; it lost the 2015 court case. But Brexit will likely revive its determination to gain direct control over euro-denominated clearing.

A study by consultancy firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young), commissioned by the London Stock Exchange and published in November 2016, warned that if clearing were forced out of London, 83,000 British jobs could be lost and a further 232,000 affected. London is pushing for “equivalency” whereby European firms would be able to use clearing houses in countries that the European Securities and Markets Authority deems to have equivalent regulations, as it already does with America. Clearing houses require collateral from the counterparties using them, and so are subject to close supervision wherever they operate. Hence, the European Commission is arguing that the systemic importance of the British clearing houses for the euro area may require new and stricter oversight—either supervision by EU regulators or forced relocation. The latter is apparently gaining support among EU policymakers, who could force European banks to use EU-based clearing houses.

On May 4, 2017, the Commission announced that it is looking into new rules for euro-denominated clearing, including the relocation of services away from London. LCH maintains that Brexit should have little impact; after all, the U.S. is fine with the fact that almost all dollar interest rate swaps are cleared in London, so why should the EU insist on relocation? UK Chancellor Philip Hammond has taken the stance that leaving clearing in London benefits everyone and that forcing a move would be disruptive.

At the EU level, however, even such apparently technical decisions carry an overlay of political considerations—and an acrimonious “hard” Brexit will increase the likelihood of a forced relocation in clearing. Such a move may not seem like a big deal in and of itself, but money tends to pool where the services are based, and the clearing industry has become the heart of the global financial services sector in London.

Time for the EU’s Big Bang?

If the loss of passporting rights, the need to capitalize subsidiaries, and/or the forced relocation of euro clearing business lead to more financial sector operations moving from London to elsewhere in the EU, how much might the EU-27 benefit? To answer this question, taking a look at Britain’s own recent experience will provide some clues.

October 1986 saw the launch of a series of financial market reforms in Britain, known as the Big Bang. A sweeping set of changes deregulated the City of London, leading to significant structural changes in the UK’s financial markets and turning London into a financial capital to rival New York. In particular, the change from traditional face-to-face share dealing to electronic trading helped London to outpace its European competitors and become a magnet for international banks. On October 27, 1986, an advertisement in the Financial Times promised a new financial centre, three miles to the east of the City at Canary Wharf, which would “feel like Venice and work like New York.” Although forced into bankruptcy in 1992 as it struggled to find tenants, from the late 1990s, development in Canary Wharf took off. Across the financial services sector, particularly that segment based around international finance, profits, salaries, and bonuses boomed.

Today, the services sector as a whole is the powerhouse of the UK economy, accounting for almost 80% of GDP. According to a recent government research paper, in 2016, financial and insurance services contributed £124.2 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy, accounting for 7.2% of the UK’s total GVA. London accounted for 51% of the total financial and insurance sector GVA in the UK in 2015. Across the entire country, there are over one million jobs in the financial and insurance sector (3.1% of all UK jobs). The UK had a surplus of over £60 billion on trade in the financial and insurance sectors in 2016. Finally, in fiscal year 2015-16, the banking sector alone contributed £24.4 billion to UK tax receipts in corporation tax, income tax, national insurance, and through the bank levy.[2]

London had been a vibrant international city before 1986, and financial services were already a growing segment of the economy—but there is little doubt that the push to attract international financial services has been a major boost to the economy and in particular to the now-thriving area of Canary Wharf. In this area to the east of the traditional City, global banks have their European headquarters in gleaming high rise towers; a massive underground shopping mall caters to workers and visitors alike; and the staff that spill out into the area’s bars and restaurants every evening hail from all corners of the EU, indeed of the globe. Ten or fifteen years from now, will Frankfurt—or Dublin, or Amsterdam—be home to the new Canary Wharf?

A Europe Resurgent?

As former British PM Harold Wilson purportedly said in 1964, “a week is a long time in politics.” This statement is particularly apt for the European Union, where (for now) 28 countries each have their own domestic political priorities and timetables. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, it is notable how unified the EU-27 are over one issue: they are all singularly annoyed at the UK. How long that unity lasts once Brexit negotiations get to the nitty gritty of details remains to be seen, and a new round of uncertainty has been added to the negotiating process thanks to Britain’s June 8 general election. Rather than boosting the number of seats that her Conservative Party holds in the House of Commons, PM May’s decision to call an election unexpectedly led to fewer seats, resulting in a hung parliament (i.e., no single party commands a majority of the House). Such self-inflicted confusion is unlikely to engender much lasting sympathy from the rest of Europe, adding to Britain’s political and diplomatic isolation going forward. With almost all of the EU-27 guaranteed to lose out in some way from Brexit, it would not be a surprise if the 27 stay unified in their desire to rake the UK over the coals.

Meanwhile, a new mood of Europhilia seems to be building across the continent in something of a backlash to the wave of nationalism that marked the Brexit vote. Overtly pro-European politicians have seen success in Austria, the Netherlands, and most notably, in France. Recently elected French President Emmanuel Macron, a former banker, is actively courting the finance and technology industries to France, wooing French expats, British-based banks, and American scientists as he looks to reform the French economy and give the Euro-project a major shot of adrenaline. His energy is helping to cement the narrative of a forward-looking EU with Brexit as an annoying detail. This wave of euphoria dovetails nicely with the approach of Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker who seems, along with his chief of staff Martin Selmayr, to be trying to build a consensus view on the continent that Brexit is first and foremost a British problem and less of a worry for Berlin, Lisbon, or Tallinn.

Macron has outlined an ambitious agenda for EU reform: he wants intra-Eurozone transfers and investment; funds from a common budget, administered by a beefed-up parliament; and new institutions like a finance ministry. His party, La République En Marche (Republic on the Move), now dominates the 577 seat National Assembly with a very firm majority of 350 seats following elections in June 2017. If the newly elected Deputies can maintain party cohesion, Macron could make progress on his reformist agenda at home, and at the EU level, although low voter turnout in the parliamentary elections may undermine his ability to claim a mandate for reform.

Above all, Macron’s European vision will depend on support from the other EU powerhouse, Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel looks set to claim another victory in the upcoming general election in September 2017. Her center-right political supporters would likely baulk at ambitious proposals for fiscal transfers within the Eurozone, and some of the EU-27—particularly in Eastern Europe—may not be thrilled at the return of a Union dominated by the Franco-German “engine.” However, after over a decade in power, Merkel may be looking to cement what will likely be her final term in office with some overtly pro-EU reforms.

So, how might all this play out? If President Macron can keep his new government together; if Chancellor Merkel wins one final mandate; if the CMU is revived at the same time that major financial institutions and their investment capital start to relocate to the Union; and if the narrative of a chaotic and suffering Britain against a unified and forward-looking EU is maintained—then we may indeed be seeing the advent of a Europe resurgent. That’s a lot of ifs; but even without political momentum from France and Germany, or with a “soft” Brexit that maintains much of the UK’s preferential trade access, the EU is likely moving toward a new era of capital markets development, with positive implications not just for financial services, but for the Union’s economy as a whole.

About the author:
*Dr. Marklew is an independent writer and speaker on international economic and political developments.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Center for Economic Performance, Brexit Analysis No. 2, http://cep.lse.ac.uk (March 2016)

[2] House of Commons, Financial Services: Contribution to the UK Economy, Briefing paper number 6193 (31 March 2017)

By Ryan McMaken*

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced an increase in the Federal Funds rate to 1.25 percent. The last time the target rate reached so high was in September of 2008, when the rate was 2.0 percent.

In October of that year, the target rate fell to 1.0 percent, and was moved down to 0.25 percent in December. It remained at 0.25 percent for the next 83 months.

This week’s rate increase was the third increase since December 2016, when the Fed increased the rate from 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent.

Compared to the last seven years, this policy looks hawkish by comparison. On the other hand, compared to the 1990s — which were at the time seen as an era of low rates — current policy remains remarkably accommodative.

Other central banks, however, continue to take no action.

For example, the Bank of England recent voted to keep rates at a record low 0.25 percent. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan is making no change and keeping rates near zero. Last week, the European Central Bank kept is target rate at negative 0.4 percent. In the wake of this week’s Fed decision, the People’s Bank of China elected to take no action either. 

If we look at all these central banks together, the Fed does appear to be the odd man out:

Perhaps the most notably development is the Fed’s announcement of plans to “normalize” its balance sheet and reduce in size the huge $4.4 trillion balance sheet it has accumulated since 2009. According to CNBC:

On top of the rate hike, the committee said it will begin the process this year of reducing its balance sheet, which it expanded by buying bonds and other securities in order to fight the housing crisis. Minutes from the May meeting indicated officials already had begun discussion about putting a set limit each month on the amount it would let run off as it conducts its policy of reinvesting proceeds…

“The committee currently expects to begin implementing a balance sheet normalization process this year, provided the economy evolves broadly as anticipated,” the post-meeting statement said.

According to information released Wednesday, the roll-off cap level will start at $6 billion a month for the level of principal payment proceeds from Treasurys it will let run off without reinvesting. The remainder will be reinvested.

The Fed will increase that cap level at a pace of $6 billion each quarter over 12 months until the cap reaches $30 billion a month.

For agency and mortgage debt, the cap will be $4 billion a month initially, with quarterly increases of $4 billion until the level reaches $20 billion a month.

Once both targets are met, the total runoff per month will be $50 billion. Several Fed officials have said publicly they expect the runoff program to continue until the balance sheet declines to about $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

If the Fed manages to implement this plan, we’re still only looking at a reduction to 2010 levels, and 2010 was not exactly an age of tight money at the Fed.

Moreover, it’s rather unlikely we’ll ever see this actually happen. Bill Gross, for example, remains doubtful:

I think that the Fed can’t follow through with their … plan and I think that the Fed can’t follow through with what they’re suggesting in terms of the sell-backs in the Treasury market.”

And why won’t the Fed follow through?

Well, as Jason Schenker points out at Bloomberg, reducing the balance sheets requires a robust economy, and it’s not clear the US has that right now. Moreover, recent history has not provided much hope in this respect:

The ECB’s attempt to reduce its balance sheet was a complete failure, and it almost resulted in a recession. Policy makers were forced to reverse course, and it necessitated the massive quantitative easing program the ECB has since been implementing since, putting the current size of the ECB balance sheet at 4.1 trillion euros ($4.57 trillion) — more than double the level at the end of its reduction program. In other words, a one-third reduction in the ECB balance sheet subsequently necessitated its doubling from the newly reduced level. This shows how difficult balance sheet “normalization” could be for the Fed.

For all its talk of balance sheet normalization, the Fed may similarly struggle. After all, once hooked on the sauce of cheap money, financial markets don’t want to see the punch bowl taken away. If the ECB offers a lesson, it’s that shrinking the balance sheet can necessitate a rather quick, and even more drastic, expansion.

The Fed’s state itself notes its plans depend on “the economy evolv[ing] broadly as anticipated.

At this point, the Fed is clearly in a mine field. It has been seeking to raise rates for some time, to give the Fed some room to move if the economy does fall back into recession. At 1.25 percent, matters have improved, but rates are no where near where they were in 2007 (above 5 percent) at the beginning of the last crisis. However, given the weakness of the economy, it’s not at all clear that current markets could ever survive an attempt to raise rates even halfway to the five percent rates we saw a decade ago. In any case, even some minor tightening of policy is can be dangerous, as Thorsten Polleit recently explained:

To keep the boom going, the central bank must keep interest rates below their natural levels. It cannot raise them back to “normal.” First and foremost, higher interest rates would make the boom collapse. The credit market would collapse, stock and housing prices would tumble, and the financial system and the economy as a whole would go into a tailspin.

One may ask: Why is the Fed then raising rates then? Perhaps the Fed’s decision-makers think that the US economy has overcome the latest crisis and higher interest rates are economically justified. Others might wish to tighten policy for getting the short-term inflation adjusted interest rate out of negative territory.

Be it as it may, the disconcerting truth is this: Fed rate hikes will close the gap between the natural interest rate and the actual interest rate level. This, in turn, amounts to putting a brake on the boom, bringing it closer to bust. It is impossible to know with exactitude at what interest rate level the US economy would fall over the cliff.

One thing is fairly certain, though: The US economy, and with it the world economy, is caught between a rock and a hard place. Maybe the Fed’s current rate hiking spree will bring about the bust. Or the Fed refrains from raising rates further and keeps the boom going a little bit longer.

About the author:
*Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Send him your article submissions, but read article guidelines first. (Contact: email; twitter.) Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

As President Trump escaped a Washington shocked by his efforts to nix an FBI investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election, he landed in a Middle East in which endemic tension and conflict are far worse. It became obvious during his stops there that the president wants the United States to align even more with Israel and the Arab Sunni states against Shia Iran.

This development will please those nations, who worried about greater U.S. rapprochement with the Iran, based on that country’s signing a deal with the world’s great powers, including the United States, suspending its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Israel and the Arab Sunni states had rocky relations with the Obama administration, because it had led the international drive toward the nuclear deal, which to their chagrin even the Trump administration acknowledges Iran is honoring.

The United States also has technically honored the deal by terminating U.S. sanctions imposed against Iran’s nuclear program, but it has retained sanctions against that country’s missile program and its sponsorship of terrorism. The remaining sanctions rankle Iran because they continue to cast a shadow over its international commerce, especially on important financial transactions.

Despite disappointment in Iran with the results of the nuclear deal, the country just decisively re-elected Hassan Rouhani, its main architect. The 57 percent of Iranians who voted for Rouhani want more outreach to the West, more foreign investment to goose Iran’s rickety economy (resulting from prior international sanctions and excessive government intervention in the economy), more individual freedom, and the release of opposition leaders. Because of Rouhani’s impressive election margin—the next candidate to him, a hardliner, got only 38 percent of the vote in a high-turnout election—he has the power of the people to leverage against Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and also the weakened hardline faction.

Yet notwithstanding this favorable result, Trump doubled down in support of Iran’s Sunni enemies, of which Saudi Arabia is the regional ring leader.

Although Iran leaves a lot to be desired in safeguarding human rights, it is better than Saudi Arabia, the 11th worst country in the world in ensuring political rights and civil liberties (according to Freedom House); Iran is also more democratic than the Saudi kingdom.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently directly or indirectly promoted competing versions of militant Islam, which have spawned terrorism. Iran’s sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah has mainly affected Israel, whereas U.S. ally Saudi Arabia’s militant Sunni ideology has contributed to the rise of al- Qaeda and ISIS worldwide. Which is more of a threat to the United States?

Therefore, although Iran is far from a paragon of liberal democracy and human rights, neither are its Sunni opponents in the Middle East, including Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s Egypt, which is worse than was his predecessor Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime on such issues.

So why, in the face of the Iran nuclear agreement and the promising re-election of Rouhani, did Trump double down on alignment with the autocratic Sunni states instead of running a more even-handed policy in the Middle East by continuing the Obama administration’s improvement in relations with Iran?

Oil, that’s why. The United States has always let Saudi Arabia get away with murder (literally, because 14 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis), because it regards that nation as the leader of the OPEC oil cartel and the world’s “swing” oil producer. If Saudi Arabia had as much power over the global oil market as U.S. policymakers think it does, maybe that would be a necessary compromise, but it doesn’t.

OPEC’s oil embargo in 1973, which created gas lines in the United States, is still seared into the collective memory of the U.S. government. But that memory is flawed, because the embargo actually failed. Industrial economies are fairly resilient to oil shocks and the gas lines in the United States were caused by government controls on the price of oil. Demonstrating that the oil embargo failed, subsequent wars in the Middle East have brought no more embargoes.

More generally, OPEC has always been a paper tiger, plagued by secret cheating on oil production as the oil price increases. Like most resource cartels, such cheating makes them ineffective, and OPEC has not been very successful in raising the long-term price of oil above what a free market would have produced. And with the fracking boom again making the United States the world’s largest oil producer, the United States has even less incentive to coddle the Saudis.

Finally, many Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, get more than 80 percent to 95 percent of their export revenues from fuel and therefore need to sell their oil more than consuming nations need to buy it.

Thus, if President Trump learned more about the oil market and the Middle East, he would wisely continue the Obama’s effort to run a more even-handed foreign policy toward the region. But alas, he doesn’t seem to have the curiosity or the inclination.

This article was published at InsideSources.com and is reprinted with permission.

By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera*

The dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings with the promise of further human advancement. And yet, while humanity should be aspiring for a better life, disturbing events like the terrorist attacks in Manchester, London, and the Philippines, and the recent white phosphorus attack in Raqqa, Syria, point to humanity’s burial of its own journey toward a better world. The 17th century philosopher Pascal rightly explained, “Humanity is great, because it knows itself to be wretched.” Is there then, with advance human intellect, still hope of creating a better world and preventing or minimising the loss of human life? Machiavelli (The Prince, Chapter III) has said, “It is necessary not only to pay attention to immediate crisis, but to foresee those that will come and to make every effort to prevent them.”

In Sri Lanka, this year, over 200 lives were lost and half a million affected from the torrential rainfall that caused floods and landslides; it was the same cycle of rain with a different magnitude than last year. The nation’s vulnerability to such natural disasters in the near future and years ahead should be taken into highest consideration. The attitude of a reactive response to crisis situations should change.

A proactive methodology designed to minimise casualties should be considered. When asked about the vision for 2050, the 100 ministries within Sri Lanka and the newly created ones, indicate vagueness and uncertainty.

Sri Lanka’s future will depend on the choices that are created today for a better tomorrow. For this, it is important to question the reference template used to make such choices – is it outdated or still a relevant template? For example, in the last budget, the Sri Lankan government increased taxes of electric vehicles.

However, at the UNFCCC COP 21 in Paris, the president pledged to the sustainability project, followed by supporting remarks by the prime minister in New York. This is a relevant template. The question then is how to bridge the gaps in policy making?

Sri Lanka could play a significant role in the next few decades due to pivotal geo-strategic positioning. Therefore, it is very important to identify and discuss the national challenges for the next 25 to 50 years, and even beyond. Demographic shifts, urbanisation, population ratios and the challenges that Sri Lanka could face from within and from outside powers are some salients to be considered. For this there is a need to prepare foresight maps for the nation, its institutions and ministries for a long term 50 year time horizon and with correct methodology, so that the nation can be easily steered from regime to regime and mandates could be identified in a scientific method. This does not happen in Sri Lanka at present.

In Sri Lanka, ministries have been connected and the government claims that this has been done scientifically. For instance, Education and Highways have been clubbed; similarly, Finance and Media have been clubbed. There is no connection among the subject areas of these ‘scientifically’ clubbed ministries. Additionally, the ministries’ mandates are spread in an ad hoc manner. Sometimes they overlap or duplicate the process. When institutes are created or reset this way, they lose their strategic direction and focus.

It appears that the quality of governance has been replaced by quantity. In a country, the grand strategy is spelled out by its leaders and the strategy has to be adjusted justifiably to accommodate changes in the context. If it cannot be justified, the government should not create new entities that will burden its budget and could even derail the grand vision.

As per to the Millennium Project, “The decision support software and foresight systems are constantly improving: for example, big data analytics, simulations, collective intelligence systems, indexes and e-governance participatory systems.” Integrating foresight systems to a society is a priority and many governments have already included it years ago. In 2016, the Sri Lanka Foresight Initiative was launched by this author with the Millennium Project which operates in over 60 countries to improve policymaking and strategic narrative on key priority areas by engaging government and all others in important stakeholders in the society.

Unfortunately since its launch in May 2016, till now there has not been a single inquiry or request to implement this methodology. The powerful Delphi platform that is used has benefited many countries and the Sri Lankan Millennium Node could visit ministries and institutes and assist and train the officers to develop the foresight map. According to futurist Dr Puruesh Chaudhary who operates the Pakistan node for Millennium Project, “Futures thinking facilitate the process of institutionalized decisions amongst the leadership corridors improving learning faculty and increases the quality of policy inputs and strategic outcomes.” She eloquently explains the importance of inculcating future study to government policy making in her latest book ‘The Big Idea: Next Generation of Leadership in Pakistan needs a ‘New-Think’.

For a country like Sri Lanka which aspires to be the ‘Miracle’ or ‘Wonder of Asia’, its leaders should craft the foresight map that takes the country to the aspired destination.

* Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Director General, Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), Sri Lanka & Columnist, IPCS

Views expressed here are personal and do not reflect those of the Government of Sri Lanka or the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS).

The US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system deployed in the Republic of Korea, has been put on combat duty, said Colonel Rob Manning, the US Forces Korea spokesperson.

“US Forces Korea confirms the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system is operational and has the ability to intercept North Korean missiles and defend the Republic of Korea,” Manning has been quoted by the world media.

Chinese authorities called for immediately stopping the deployment of THAAD in South Korea, because they believe that the system is directed, in particular, against the PRC.

“China’s position on the THAAD issue has not changed. We oppose the deployment of the US missile system to South Korea and call on all parties to immediately stop this process. We are ready to take necessary measures to protect our interests,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang.

According to South Korean media, the THAAD battery has from four to nine moving caterpillar tracks. Each of them is designed for eight interceptor missiles. However, the official data has not yet been published. The battery will also be equipped with a TPY-2 TM anti-missile radar. The range of such interceptors is reportedly not more than 200 km.

Commenting on the difficult situation in the region, Denny Roy, Senior Fellow, East-West Center, explained that the US position is that THAAD can help protect South Korea from a potential North Korean missile attack.

“In my view, the actions of North Korea amply justify the deployment of THAAD and the Chinese objection is invalid.Even if it was true that, as the Chinese allege, the US military plans to use THAAD to surveil China, the THAAD system would have an insignificant impact on China’s security. The United States can already detect Chinese missile launches by other means, and in any case China has a secure second-strike capability.It is absurd for China to complain about THAAD when China helped to bring about the THAAD issue by enabling bellicose North Korean behavior—both by helping North Korea get nuclear weapons, and more recently by protecting North Korea against the impact of economic sanctions. Moreover, China’s real objection to THAAD is that China does not want to see the United States deepen its alliances in Asia by tying Japan and South Korea into a US-led anti-missile defense system, so the THAAD issue is a surrogate for Chinese fears of an ‘Asian NATO’,” he told PenzaNews.

Answering the question about potential difficulties around the THAAD after the change of South Korean leadership, the expert suggested that the situation will not change fundamentally.

According to Roy,  while Moon Jae-In is a known opponent of THAAD, “he seems to realize that once THAAD is deployed, it will be difficult to remove it. Moon also said a sixth North Korean nuclear test would make THAAD inevitable. So THAAD is likely to stay, even if controversially.”

According to Roy, THAAD has increased tensions in the region because China has chosen to make it a major issue.

“In any case, US-China relations appear good at the moment despite THAAD, demonstrating that this is a discretionary issue for China,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bonnie Glaser, former consultant for US Departments of Defense and State, Senior Adviser for Asia, Director, China Power Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies, expressed confidence that the deployment of the US anti-missile system in South Korea is a necessary step.

“THAAD is necessary to defend US assets in South Korea because North Korea is increasingly provocative and unpredictable. It could engage in nuclear blackmail,” the expert explained.

According to her, the American anti-missile system in South Korea should not be of concern to other countries, in particular, Russia and China.

“The effect on the deterrents of Russia and China is minimal,” former consultant for US Departments of State stressed.

In turn, Grant Newsham, Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, with experience as a US Diplomat and US Marine Officer, shared the opinion of THAAD’s extremely insignificant influence on “large and sophisticated PRC and Russian nuclear arsenals.”

“THAAD is a single weapons system with relatively limited capabilities for what it can defend against. The Chinese and Russians have very good scientists and they know THAAD’s limitations. It is hard to believe that the PRC and Russian missile and nuclear capabilities are so tiny and useless that THAAD poses a threat to them,” the expert said.

In his opinion, East Asia is more unsettled today than it has been for decades.

“North Korea is the immediate problem and unless prevented from doing so, it will within a matter of years have the capability to launch nuclear armed missiles against the United States – and other US allies such as Japan, South Korea, and even Australia,” Grant Newsham said and added that the effects of the potential conflict will be felt globally.

From his point of view, THAAD is essential for the ROK to defend itself from North Korean missile attacks.

“A government’s obligation is to defend its citizens. If the ROK government did not do everything possible to protect South Korean territory and citizens it would be criminally responsible for not doing its duty,” the analyst explained.

According to him, the THAAD system was introduced lawfully and in accordance with South Korean law.

“The bigger concern – well beyond THAAD – is the possibility the new South Korean administration might reinstitute the failed ‘Sunshine Policy’ with North Korea. This would be huge benefit for the Kim regime, but would also shake the US-ROK alliance. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. My guess is that the US-ROK alliance will survive,” Grant Newsham said.

In his opinion,the objections of the Chinese side in this matter are inappropriate.

“North Korea has a steadily developing missile and nuclear capability that threatens South Korea – and Japan as well. It also threatens the PRC just as much, but China appears to be unconcerned about a nuclear armed North Korea as long as it seems to only be threatening ROK, Japan, and the United States. This is short-sighted cynicism at its worst,” the expert said.

Meanwhile, according to him, Donald Trump’s comment that South Korea will pay for THAAD shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

“[Donald] Trump sometimes says things without great introspection beforehand, but that’s just his style. National Security Advisor, HR Herbert McMaster, did a good job of clarifying things – or at least watering down what Mr. Trump said. Still, the damage – such as it was – had already been done. Biggest effect is on the upcoming ROK presidential election, though probably not a decisive effect,” former US Diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Wendell Minnick, Senior Asia Correspondent, Shephard Media, also called THAADa great system for the area.

“It offers not just high altitude, but low and medium altitude defense against missiles. For this reason, the Chinese are clearly unhappy because some of their ballistic missiles fall within range of planned strikes on US and Japanese military target,” he explained.

It’s a very simple system to assemble and is transportable, making it a pragmatic system against a new threat or new war zone, he said.

“China is never happy about ballistic missile defense systems, especially those being set up in Taiwan, that make it harder for China to effectively use its massive conventional ballistic missile arsenal. China’s short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan now number around 1,300. This does not include the medium range DF-21 capable of knocking out aircraft carriers,” the analyst said.

Meanwhile, in his opinion, there is some irony in China’s complaints.

“China has an arrow and prepared to unleash it on you. You buy a shield and China calls it unfair. The THAAD system is not an offensive missile system. It is designed to shoot down missiles coming down on your neighborhood. If your neighbor has a vicious dog scaring your children, you have the right to build a fence around your property,” Wendell Minnick explained.

In turn, Xu Jin, Research Fellow at Institute of World Economics and Politics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also noted that the situation of Korean Peninsula is deteriorating.

“North Korea’s missile launching and its nuclear program have made many troubles in this area. Based the perception of threat from the north, ROC decided to deploy the THAAD system. I personally understand ROC’s decision,” the Chinese expert said.

Although there exists some uncertainty, the new president of South Korea will not cancel the deployment, he said.

“I don’t think aggression is a suitable term to describe North Korea’sbehavior because it does not attack the ROC or the US. But its future behaviors definitely will lead to greater escalation of tension,” Xu Jin added.

According to him, we cannot exclude the possibility of armed conflict between the hostile parties.

“The Trump Administration faces a dilemma that if it retreats from military operations, it will tell the whole world US government is a paper tiger. But if it decides to take military operations, it means an armed conflict between two nuclear powers which is very dangerous,” the Chinese analyst concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/63959-2017

Following the ascension of Trump, a swirling ocean of newsfeed has persistently threatened to overwhelm the US rebalance to Asia.

By Sunjoy Joshi and Samir Saran

New Delhi and Washington, DC, have officially confirmed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meeting President Donald Trump for the first time on 26 June, as the two countries aim towards “a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement” and “consolidation of (their) multi-dimensional strategic partnership.” A pithy, succinct line that could do with some unpacking.

Significantly, the meeting precedes the G-20 gathering in Hamburg, with the prospect of President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel once again locking horns. Modi had recently visited Germany, Spain, France and Russia, creating ground for some interesting dynamics as he heads to meet Trump.

Reasons for anxiety on the strategic front are aplenty. Following the ascension of Trump, a swirling ocean of newsfeed has persistently threatened to overwhelm the US rebalance to Asia that had just about put the US-India relationship on an even keel. Now, the aggressive Trump take on outsourcing and associated visa regimes, as well as the differing public declarations regarding the Paris Agreement by Trump and Modi, are threatening to rock the boat.

These are not necessarily uncharted waters. Practically every new US presidency has begun with some uncertainty over the India-US relationship. The reasons are obvious. India’s fractious democracy has invariably confounded investors, financiers, market movers and strategists alike. However, given time, every US administration has learnt that India as a democracy demands strategic patience.

Invariably, after a year or so spent courting other global actors, the merits of investing in and developing the India partnership become obvious to every US president. Most recently, President Barack Obama’s early and brief dalliance with the G-2 made way for the Pivot to Asia and the signing of the Asia Pacific vision document with India in 2015.

Hence, any skepticism regarding the future of this relationship is easily overstated. The experience of the past few administrations in both countries also reveals that it was the lead taken by the political leadership that has been responsible for the flowering of the relationship — at times even to the chagrin of their own bureaucracies and the commentariat. Whether it was the 123 Agreement of 2008, or the January 2015 “Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean Region,” the strategic political push from the very top was unmistakable.

Just like the 123 agreement, the Joint Vision of 2015 was also, in many ways, a first for India. It had put itself out, almost on a limb, to boldly join the US in articulating a joint vision not just for the bilateral partnership, but also for Asia and beyond. And it did so unabashedly by proclaiming this as a righteous union of the “world’s two largest democracies” — a rare instance when India used normative virtue as the foundation for a bilateral agreement.

This was also that unique occasion when India, known for its wariness and hedging its alliances, stepped out and signed on to a vision for the entire sweep of the Asia Pacific. In doing this, it recognised the Indo Pacific not just as a sub-region of the Asia Pacific but also as a geostrategic maritime domain in its own right. PM Modi’s Act East Policy found resonance in the American Pivot to Asia proposition.

However, the normative appeal of the US now looks a trifle jaded. This is especially so when viewed in the light of the ambivalence cast on the centrality of the Asia-Pacific by an ‘America First’ policy. The paradox is that this is happening at a time when the contests of the region are simultaneously moving westwards, thanks to a host of geopolitical developments. Given these trends, what the United States may today perceive to be “faraway” concerns are moving ever closer to its spheres of influence.

Any scenario in which China becomes the primary strategic influencer of outcomes in the Indian Ocean challenges the US status as the predominant Asian power.

Alongside this, we are witnessing the return of Vladimir Putin to Afghanistan, as his newfound penchant for a partnership with Pakistan begins to upend Cold War assumptions that have shaped US presence in the region. In addition, the sudden sharp schism within the Gulf Cooperation Council in an already complicated West Asia is significantly testing the US resolve in the region.

Therefore, at a time when there is evidence of a fair amount of rebalance in this part of the world, there is certainly the need for a “consolidation of (the India-US) multi-dimensional strategic partnership.” It becomes imperative then to move beyond the vagaries of the 24X7 news cycle and reiterate the strategic repositioning of the India US partnership based on three key points of cohesion.

First, taking a cue from the 2015 document, the India-US relationship is increasingly based on a cohesion of norms. Logically this translates into an imminent convergence on international law, dispute resolution, and a host of matters related to global governance including the provision of Global Public Goods (GPG). The two sides need to reaffirm the importance of safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region, including the South China Sea.

Even while admitting that there may be differences between us on the issue of freedom of navigation, there can be little doubt that the region has the same importance in our geo-economic calculus. India’s three largest trading relationships lie in East Asia and 55% of its trade flows through the South China Sea.

Can this vision progress to a normative framework co-created with other countries in the region? For instance, can the US and India propose a guidance document on the Blue Economy with other like minded countries? This would stipulate normative approaches to key issues such as infrastructure investments, coastal security, dispute resolution, and community led consultative processes.

That leads to the second cohesion, a shared understanding around Asian connectivity over land, sea, and the digital domain. There is need for an alternative blueprint to the BRI that the US and India, with other partners, must propose — one that connects East, South, Central Asia and Africa.

This framework must integrate a host of bottom up initiatives to explore sustainable and innovate ways to fulfill Asia’s aspirations for infrastructure, employment, and economic opportunities, rather than tie countries down to binding commitments around finance and repayment of debt. The possibilities are endless and encompass hard infrastructure, digital connectivity, knowledge clusters and value chains that straddle the two oceans, from Palo Alto to Bengaluru, Tokyo to Tel Aviv and every place in between.

The cohesion in norms and connectivity then necessitates the third — a cohesion of power. Over time, the individual assessments, approaches and responses to the politics of the region will increasingly harmonise.

Some key building blocks are in place. As part of their 10 year Defence Framework Agreement inked in Jan 2015, the two sides agreed to pursue joint development and production projects. Importantly, the US has reaffirmed India’s status as a “major defence partner.” It is working to relax India-specific regulations on export controls, and amending Export Administration Regulations (EAR) for transfers of particular items to India. The new rule also amends the law so that companies will not need a licence after becoming a Validated End User (VEU).

The logistics pact, signed in August 2016, after almost a decade of negotiations, has added a new dimension to the partnership. The new India specific logistics support agreement — Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) — is on the verge of being operationalised.

However, the underlying transformation is far deeper. Common weapon systems, joint use of facilities and common defence infrastructure and logistics will, over time, work to align strategic postures as well as security assessments and responses.

Given the unfolding dynamics of the region, both the US and India are compelled to have strong relations with countries such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the ASEAN countries. They are also compelled to manage a complex relationship with China. For, China is a vital economic partner for both countries, even as it remains a strategic challenge that needs to be accommodated.

India’s position is further complicated by the reality of a 4,000 km long border, and a restive niggling Western front that the Dragon is ever ready to stoke. India may see the CPEC as an infringement on its sovereignty, but the BRI as a project is slowly but surely capturing the imagination of Asia as well as Europe. China is positioning it as the big promise of the 21^st century to further trade, development and prosperity through an economically integrated Asia and Europe. It is clear that strategically, China is on a determined “march West”, wherein the contest for control of the Indian Ocean and Eurasia are part of a greater push which has but one destination — the heart of Europe.

They need to do this, not by themselves, but in conjunction with allies, through treaties and agreements, with cajoling, handholding and networked security arrangements. The network of treaties, norms and rule based agreements across the full sweep of the Indo Pacific must continue to evolve. Not to do so would be to allow Beijing to set the terms of engagement in this region by default.

This piece had begun by highlighting the virtue of strategic patience that has been the hallmark of the US in its dealings with India. Now, as the US discovers through its own experience that all true democracies can and do become fractious, when contentious domestic debates distract from strategic choices, it may be India’s turn to return the favour and demonstrate strategic patience.

There is merit in waiting: a stronger India is by itself a net positive for the United States as it finds itself stretched to capacity in Asia; and a US that emerges from its current political churn is bound to be a reliable partner as India stands up to defend a rules based order in this part of the world.

(EurActiv) — Hungary’s populist prime minister said Monday (19 June) that he sees no chance for a single EU-wide migration policy, just days after the bloc launched legal action against Budapest for refusing refugees under a controversial solidarity plan.

“To say that there will be one integrated, single European migration policy, I do have my doubts and I do not see any chance for this,” Viktor Orbán told the Benelux and Visegrád group leaders meeting in Warsaw ahead of an EU summit in Brussels later this week.

“Hungary is open to any negotiations to this end but we would like to continue to remain realists,” the Hungarian PM added.

The EU launched legal action last week against Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for refusing to participate in relocating 160,000 refugees under a 2015 plan set up when more than one million people landed on Europe’s shores, mainly in Italy and Greece.

Brussels had set a June deadline for Warsaw and Budapest to start accepting mainly Syrian, Eritrean and Iraqi asylum seekers. Prague has also come under pressure after effectively dropping out of the relocation plan.

Orbán argued Monday that his government’s rejection of refugees and migrants was intended to preserve the Central European country’s identity.

“Let us not create a European migration policy – and this is the Hungarian position – as a result of which we will no longer be the kind of people we are now,” Orbán said.

“We would like to preserve what we are today, the kind of people that we are today.”

European sources have said some EU countries have been setting unacceptable conditions by refusing Muslims, black people or large families, with Eastern European states the worst for discriminating on religious or racial grounds.

They have also blamed the delays in implementing the EU relocation programme on governments trying to screen jihadists in the wake of terror attacks, a lack of housing and education for asylum seekers, and other logistical problems.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel shot back at Orbán, insisting that the principle of EU “solidarity isn’t flexible”.

“If we play the game where everyone has their own individual definition of solidarity, it’s the end of the European Union. Solidarity is the basis of the European project,” said Bettel at the joint press conference of seven prime ministers in Warsaw.

Heads of government from Benelux states Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as well as Visegrád group nations including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia met for multilateral talks in Warsaw ahead of a key EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (22 June) focused on Brexit.

(Civil.Ge) — Speaking at his press briefing on June 19, Parliamentary Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze criticized President Giorgi Margvelashvili for hampering the constitutional reform process and reiterated his earlier call for a live televised discussion between the two leaders on the draft constitution.

“[Margvelashvili’s refusal] confirms the President’s positions are very weak, he has chosen a very wrong road from the very beginning: this was a road of confrontation with the [Constitution Reform] Commission, the road of confrontation with the Parliament, and now that the reform proved successful, the President entered a deadlock; exactly due to that, regretfully, he rejected our proposal,” Kobakhidze said.

Kobakhidze, however, added that he is still “willing” to engage in a televised discussion with the President.

The Parliamentary Chairman first offered to hold a televised discussion on June 17. “I am ready to discuss the constitutional amendments together with the President and inform the public of the proposed changes,” he said, adding that the President’s had voiced “unjustified, groundless” criticism of the reform process.

“I am sure that through the discussion the public will be convinced that the document is in line with legal principles,” Kobakhidze noted.

President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s administration responded to the proposal a day later. Giorgi Abashishvili, head of the President’s Administration, said on June 18 that the President welcomed the Parliamentary Chairman’s invitation, but instead, offered the Presidential Palace as a venue for such discussions.

“The President has always supported the broad [political and public] involvement in the constitutional reform process and its high legitimization, therefore, we would like to suggest holding the meeting at the Presidential Palace with wide media coverage and with participation of the President, the Parliamentary Chairman, the Prime Minister, the Public Defender, political parties, civil society organizations, experts, business associations,” Abashishvili noted.

“The fact of the matter is,” Abashishvili went on, “the constitutional reform process has entered a very difficult stage and in order to avoid a zero consensus, which the President is constantly talking about and which the Venice Commission is indicating at, it is essential to take clear, real, effective steps.”

Irakli Kobakhidze commented the President’s response on June 18 as well, saying the President “is not willing to help reach consensus and avoids the format that would have helped the public to have a comprehensive view about the constitutional amendments.”

“The President, who has been the main opponent of the constitutional reform process for the last few months, should not find it difficult to defend his positions before the public in live broadcast,” the Parliamentary Chairman said then.

The constitutional reform, championed by the ruling Georgian Dream and personally Parliamentary Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze was launched in the frames of the Constitutional Reform Commission in December 2016. The Commission`s work and the subsequent public discussions were marred by opposition claims that the ruling party aimed to craft a system that would solidify its hold on power. Proposed elections of the President through indirect, parliamentary vote and the proposed rule attributing wasted votes to the winner in the proportional parliamentary polls were particularly criticized.