By David Danelo*

(FPRI) — “So what do you think about The Wall?”

“Do we need The Wall?”

“Are they really going to build The Wall?”

For the past seven months, some version of this question has been a regular part of my dialogue with almost anyone who learns I live near the U.S.-Mexico border. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, any discussion of “The Wall” with other Americans usually referred to the celebrated 1979 Pink Floyd album. Now, when people ask me the question, it implies a request for a story, explanation, or perspective about either U.S.-Mexico border security or my policy position on immigration. Most interlocutors are rarely looking for new information, but rather seek affirmation or disagreement of their existing worldview on one or both issues.

For some, the 1,951 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border conjure the lawlessness, smuggling, and vice of the drug trade. For others, the border is an economic transit zone necessary to maintain efficient manufacturing, trade, and travel. The border can be a place of migratory sadness and tragedy where many die missing and forgotten. For a puritanical few, the border is a symbolic Spanish-speaking blight in a nation that should eliminate public use of all other idioms and make English the national language.

For me, first and foremost, the border is my home. I work in El Paso and own land in the West Texas mountains, two hours north of the Big Bend border area. After 10 years of studying international borders, I feel comfortable discussing not only the U.S.-Mexico border, but borders throughout the world. Border zones are cultural estuaries where ethnicities and politics blend and humanity—in myriad forms of beauty, complexity, and violence—finds full and direct expression. Barbed wire, guard towers, customs checkpoints, and passport control stations clearly delineate “The Other.” Where physical walls have existed—the West Bank, the Korean Peninsula, East and West Berlin—spontaneous conflict or persistent strife is normally a constant in the consciousness of both sides. Even without a wall, borders are still lines to be crossed; spaces that are gated by legal or structural means that keep some out permanently while others pass through without incident.

The English-Spanish Border

As FPRI concludes this special series on Mexico’s future, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar may seem an unlikely place to begin a discussion about the U.S.-Mexico border relationship. Yet, the history, language, and controversy surrounding The Rock offer insight and reminders to any policymaker offering simplistic answers to complex questions on border security, international migration, and political sovereignty. A miniature border ecosystem, Gibraltar’s 2.6 square miles and land border—only 0.75 miles in length—have been a thorn in Spain’s side since 1704, when a British-Dutch naval force seized the inlet from the Spanish monarch. Although the Spain-Gibraltar and U.S.-Mexico borders could not be more different, the basic conflicts—trade, travel, culture, controls, security, and sovereignty—are oddly similar.

With a population of 33,000—on par with Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino—the British satellite nation-state is one of the many regional cities whose Spanish (and, later, Mexican) appellation has Arab origins. Gibraltar derives from the Arabic Jabal Tariq—mountain of Tariq—named in 711 AD in honor of Tariq bin Ziyad, a slave-turned-general whose Muslim army conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula over a three year campaign. During the same time, Tariq’s army coined a large valley northeast of Madrid as Wadi-al-Hajarah, meaning valley of stones. The name carried across the ocean, best known today as Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city—one of many common Western names with origins in the Middle East.

For the British, Gibraltar’s strategic location has enabled access from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and African coastlines, shaping three centuries of naval strategy through multiple European conflicts and both world wars. Ownership of Gibraltar was one reason the British sought to control the Suez Canal, which would assure British control of sea lanes throughout the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Before Islam and the Romans, Gibraltar was seen by the early Europeans as the ultimate border—the Mediterranean Sea defined the known limits of civilization. The Greeks referred to Gibraltar as one of the two Pillars of Hercules—east of which, so legend claimed, was hidden the lost city of Atlantis.

Despite possessing ample personnel, technology, and infrastructure to govern both sides of the line, tensions endure between the United Kingdom and Spain over the strategic Mediterranean outpost. Spain claims the territory to this day, and bellicose rhetoric peaked following the Brexit result, in which 96% of Gibraltar’s voters voted to remain in the European Union. Following the referendum, the EU drafted a proposal suggesting that Spain could have the right to veto future trade agreements between Gibraltar and the EU. Although cooler heads eventually prevailed, the British compared the affront to the 1982 Falklands War in terms of threats to national sovereignty, and Spain countered—as the United States has also done to Mexico during binational conflicts—by increasing border controls to create traffic jams.

Like the U.S.-Mexico border, the paradox of Gibraltar is that those who live there feel a deep allegiance to their own region, while, at the same time, also share strong ties with the nation of their citizenship. For example, although the citizens of Gibraltar overwhelmingly voted in 2016 for Britian to remain in the European Union, they rejected referendums in 1967 and again in 2002 to officially become part of Spain by equally substantial margins. At the same time, although Gibraltar’s official national language is English, Gibraltarians call themselves Llanitos, or people of the little plain, and speak Llanito—a Mediterranean version of Spanglish—as an unofficial national language. Almost all Llanitos speak Spanish as well as English, and three-quarters of them are Roman Catholic. While comfortably British, they also define themselves in terms of an amalgamated identity and, like their Andalusian Spanish coastal neighbors, routinely bike, walk, and jog across international lines. The Llanitos appear at home on both sides of the border, yet have no interest in changing the distinction.

A Border is A Wall

When visitors to El Paso ask me about The Wall, many are surprised when I tell them it is already there. Since 2008, a barrier of tightly woven corrugated steel ranging 18-21 feet in height has run along the full length of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border. A concrete wall would add little more to this imposing structure, which, although it reduced the passage of migrants through the city itself, did little to alter migration trends, smuggling patterns, commercial trading, or cultural sentiments on either side of the border. In both security and symbolism, discussions of The Wall mean little, since its presence is already a way of life. Fortifications are, for border people, an outdated story that peaked a decade ago. The Wall already happened.

Like the Llanitos of Gibraltar, U.S.-Mexico border residents—themselves bilingual and bicultural—are acutely aware that they live in a “nation” with particularities that neither Washington, D.C. nor Mexico City can easily appreciate or understand. This especially applies to federal government intrusion on daily life. For example, although the U.S. Constitution protects American citizens from searches and seizures without a warrant or probable cause, the Border Search Exception in U.S. federal law grants U.S. Customs officers almost limitless authority to search anyone—U.S. citizens included—at all international border crossings. As part of this same legal code, U.S. Customs officers and Border Patrol agents also possess authorities to search suspected violators of U.S. federal law within 100 miles of any U.S. sea or land border—a region which includes over 200 million people, or about 2/3 of the American population. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, permanent immigration checkpoints are common features well beyond ports of entry—there is a checkpoint on every major road leading out of El Paso, and I drive through one every time I leave the city.

Despite the commercial prosperity that is likely to continue throughout Northern Mexico regardless of how NAFTA is renegotiated, people living on the border bear constant witness to the structural violence the border’s presence imposes on the region. The World Health Organization defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”[1] By this definition, international border crossings are the most common and widely accepted exercises in state violence both in the U.S. and throughout the world.

With minuscule exceptions, every internationally recognized country worldwide—along with numerous autonomous regions, ethnic enclaves, and self-policing nation-states—claims the right to defend its sovereignty against the threat of an outside attack, which international law defines in terms of violations of physical borders. Because the right of armed self-defense is enshrined militarily on this line on land (or, for island nations, along a coastal zone), borders themselves are space where people can only transit with state permission. At the U.S.-Mexico border, the government has vast authority—the same which governments worldwide claim—to incarcerate, detain, threaten, or intimidate anyone approaching the United States. From the visibility of barbed wire and armed guards to the presence of monitoring sensors and detention facilities, border residents worldwide are constantly aware of the violence of borders.

Security and Our Homeland

In Part I of this article series, I noted the late Professor Samuel Huntington’s concerns in 2005 that the United States and Mexico were inevitably destined for a civilizational clash. One of Huntington’s specific concerns was that, over the long term, identity politics in Northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest would result in a popular desire for both border communities to create a breakaway Spanish-speaking nation. Without articulating this concern using theoretical political science constructs, I see the same fear expressed by Americans clamoring for The Wall. In their view, the current level of structural violence, as defined above, is insufficient to address the cultural threat. Whether Latino, Muslim, or anything else, The Other represents an existential threat to an American way of life that must be guarded against at all costs.

As both a border resident and a longtime aficionado of crossing international lines, I feel affronted, puzzled, and saddened when adherents of this worldview describe the perceived threat the United States faces from Mexico in urgent, martial terms. Many Americans appear to see the U.S.-Mexico border as a place where many thousands of “potential terrorists” hide across the border awaiting the opportunity to sneak into the United States and commit heinous criminal acts. For example, the online newsletter Judicial Watch warned its readers in April 2015—and, later again, in August 2016—that ISIS has a training cell located in Anapra, a Cuidad Juárez suburb. That Fox News, the U.S. State Department, and even the town of Anapra denied the allegations—and, indeed, that the only evidence offered was a video of a “strange building” that was believed to look like a mosque—only cause some to believe the story more. For whatever it is worth to FPRI readers, I have been to Anapra, as have several of my field research students. None of us has discovered any evidence of an ISIS training camp.

Like all of us, I have implicit biases about my home, as well as a fondness and pride in the cultural norms of the inhabitants where I reside. Although Ciudad Juárez has endured its share of troubles, I think of the city as the place where my friends Fernando and Ana are preparing their two daughters for first Communion, or where Carlos and I meet up to watch soccer or boxing. To me, the border represents the potential for what the United States and Mexico can become: a culturally vibrant, economically competitive, binational partnership. Unlike Huntington, I see the prosperous future of Mexico as an outcome that benefits the United States, not one that comes at American expense.

To intimidate or inspire: that was the choice U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said that Americans offered the world when making policy and exercising power during his January 2017 Senate confirmation hearings. I find little to benefit either the U.S. or Mexico through increasing intimidation, either by building The Wall or through any other border security enhancement. On the contrary, I see the possibility for America’s best opportunity for sustaining a competitive advantage in the global economy to emerge by increasing labor mobility, reducing trade barriers, and collaborating on regional security. Although this worldview is not current U.S. policy, it remains aspirational throughout the U.S.-Mexico border. Indeed, the appreciation for both countries is perhaps the most profound expression that border residents could offer on how they see their country’s future: as inclusive, not exclusive, towards The Other side of the line.

About the author:
*David Danelo is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He teaches and conducts field research, consults on international border management, investigates geopolitical risk, and writes about intersections between policy, security and culture.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization, Geneva: 2002, p. 5.

This week the Senate Republican leadership unveiled its Obamacare replacement plan. Like its House counterpart, the misnamed Senate plan retains most of Obamacare’s core features.

Both the House and Senate plans allow states to obtain waivers providing relief from some Obamacare mandates, although the waivers in both bills are too restrictive to be of much value. For example, the Senate’s bill does not allow states to have waived two of Obamacare’s most destructive mandates — guaranteed issue and community ratings.

The healthcare debate is dominated by emotional rhetoric about how government-run healthcare is necessary to protect the vulnerable. For example, in May, Jimmy Kimmel Live host Jimmy Kimmel delivered a touching monologue about his newborn son’s open-heart surgery. Mr. Kimmel ended his monologue with a plea to retain Obamacare so all children can obtain life-saving treatment. After the monologue became a national sensation, many suggested that any Obamacare replacement plan be judged by a “Jimmy Kimmel test.”

Every decent human being supports a healthcare system that ensures children have access to medical care. However, this does not mean every decent person should support government-run healthcare. In fact decent people should oppose all forms of nationalized medicine.

Government intervention in healthcare distorts the marketplace with mandates, subsidies, and price controls. As is the case with any goods or services, price controls in healthcare result in shortages and even price increases as providers look for ways to offset their losses caused by the controls. This is why many Americans have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket under Obamacare.

Government-run healthcare can be deadly. Anyone who doubts this should consider the case of Laura Hillier, an 18 year-old Canadian who passed away from leukemia while on a government medical treatment wait list. This is one of many horror stories from Canada, and other countries with nationalized healthcare, of individuals who died while waiting for their turn to receive medical treatment.

One need not look to Canada to find casualties of government intervention in healthcare. In 2013 Sarah Murnaghan, a ten-year-old cystic fibrosis patient, almost died because of federal rules forbidding children her age from receiving organ transplants. Public outcry eventually forced the government to allow Sarah to receive the transplant, but how many Sarahs have died because of government organ transplant rules?

The Jimmy Kimmel test is a valid way to evaluate healthcare proposals. However, there should also be a Laura Hillier or Sarah Murnaghan test forbidding adoption of a new healthcare system that increases healthcare costs, creates healthcare shortages, or allows government to deny anyone access to healthcare.

The free market meets all these tests. In a free market, doctors voluntarily donate their time to help those in need, while private charities and churches fund charity hospitals and clinics. Such a system flourished in the days before Medicaid and Medicare, and would quickly return if the welfare state is eliminated.

Congress should be working to repeal all federal interference in healthcare, including by shutting down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA raises the cost of medicine, denies Americans access to effective treatments, and prevents individuals from learning about cost-effective ways to improve their health.

Unfortunately, a Congress that so quickly abandons its promise to repeal and replace Obamacare will not restore free-market healthcare — or otherwise reduce the welfare-warfare state — unless forced to do so by an economic crisis or demands from a critical mass of pro-liberty Americans.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By Johan Galtung*

“Why War?” was the title of an interchange of letters between Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, starting with Einstein’s letter to Freud dated “Caputh near Potsdam 30 July 1932“, answered by Freud from “Wien September 1932” (Why War- Freud). Soon 85 years ago.  What can we still learn from these giants, and what might they have learned in the meantime?

It is very easy to sit in judgment of a world war, a cold war and much else later; therefore that is not what we are going to do.  Rather, let us look at their approaches, as fellow human beings searching for answers to a question for humankind at all times: the curse of war.

It is a remarkable document, and highly recommended reading.  Sadly enough, there is even a certain freshness to it as official thinking has not progressed much beyond what they had to offer.

Einstein comes out as a realistic lawyer; Freud as a theoretical social scientist and macro-historian.  For Einstein this may have something to do with the double meaning of “law”: descriptive of reality and prescriptive for reality, discovering the former and imposing the latter.  Freud’s world is more abstract and chaotic.  There are two indelible “instincts”, Eros and Death-Thanatos. But they combine in complex ways and are difficult to separate. We cannot just turn Eros against Thanatos, peace against war as they both want. They see themselves as pacifists, hoping for the world to join them.

The simpler of the two, Einstein, states: “My first axiom /in/ the quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation of its sovereignty /to/ a legislative and judicial body to settle every conflict arising between nations”. Yet, “strong psychological factors are at work, which paralyze these efforts. Small determined groups regard warfare and the manufacture and sale of arms as occasions to advance their personal interests”. Greed.

As realistically true now as then; a law in the descriptive sense.

Not “uncultured masses” but “the so-called ‘intelligentsia’ is most apt to do this, with “no direct contact with life in the raw, but encounters it in its easiest synthetic form–upon the printed page”.

He then turns the “dark places of human will and feeling” over to Freud, from West to West, both unconscious of that limitation.  Freud has heard that “there are races whose life is passed in tranquility and know neither compulsion nor aggressiveness” and “can scarcely believe it” (see next week’s editorial on “Peaceful Societies”).

Freud believes that among primitives muscular strength was what counted, but gradually intellect and reason became stronger.  He sees in every society the strong trying to increase their power as force, and the weak trying to unite against them, l’union fait la force.

The units where this drama unfolds become bigger, “violence is overcome by the transference of power to a larger unity that is held together by emotional ties between members, ‘identity.’ Rulers seek a dominion of violence, the oppressed equal justice for all”.

Freud praises pax romana and “a peacefully united and flourishing France”, in spite of the horrors of violence that brought them there.

He joins Einstein: “Wars will only be prevented with certainty if mankind unites in setting up a central authority to which the right of giving judgment upon all conflicts of interest shall be handed over–a supreme authority, and its endowment with necessary power.” “There is no use in trying to get rid of men’s aggressive inclinations”.

Freud also has an axiom: “My belief is this.  For incalculable ages mankind has been passing through a process of evolution of culture. We owe to that process the best of what we have become, as well as a good part of what we suffer from. Though its causes and beginnings are obscure and its outcome uncertain–the cultural attitude and dread of a future war–may put an end to waging war. Whatever fosters the growth of culture works at the same time against war.”

The United Nations, and its Security Council in particular, were designed to do much of what Einstein and Freud wanted, but they hardly succeeded beyond the League of Nations.  LN was unable to stop Axis power belligerence, UN is unable to stop USA-Israel belligerence; LN was as unable to abolish colonialism as the UN to abolish neo-colonialism; neither is able to stop racism–argued so strongly by  Japan at the inception of the LN.  If there will be more peace in the world, it will probably be more due to moral sentiments and social processes.

The legal model, peace by law, dominates them to the point that they do not make “law” problematic.  And Einstein seems to buy into Freud’s “instincts” as innate, inherent inclinations in humans, not making them problematic.  Humans are capable of love and cooperation, of hatred and violence, as something innate, beyond doubt.

Nevertheless, that something may also be carried by Freud’s culture, reinforced or weakened, collective not only individual, and since they are both concerned with collective violence. Freud’s opening for culture was a step forward.  But: there are cultures and cultures.

And they both fail to unpack “conflict”,  making that problematic.  They use it not only as another word for violence but as something to be “settled”. However, they see that as a process from above they hardly would have accepted in their own problematic marriages. Why not education, why not people learning about conflicts and their solutions?

Conclusion: let nature and culture share the “instincts” as innate inclinations that cultures process; include how conflicts can be “settled” by solving incompatibilities; focus not only on how to change humans so as to reduce violence but also on how to change social and natural reality so as to accommodate solutions.  Plus, include the lasting traces of the violence of the past, the traumas.

The building blocks are all there. Yet more can be gained by proactive work on conflict and trauma than by reactive work on violence.

*Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. Prof. Galtung has published more than 1500 articles and book chapters, over 470 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and more than 170 books on peace and related issues, of which more than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years – 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press.

European exporters reported a 10% increase in the number of trade barriers they encountered in 2016 alone. 372 such barriers were in place at the end of last year in over 50 trade destinations across the world. The 36 obstacles created in 2016 could affect EU exports that are currently worth around €27 billon.

According to the Report on Trade and Investment Barriers released Monday by the European Commission, thanks to its effective Market Access Strategy, the Commission succeeded last year in removing as many as 20 different obstacles hindering European exports.

Commenting on the report, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said, “We clearly see that the scourge of protectionism is on the rise. It affects European firms and their workers. It is worrying that G20 countries are maintaining the highest number of trade barriers. At the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg, the EU will urge leaders to walk the talk and resist protectionism. Europe will not stand idly by and will not hesitate to use the tools at hand when countries don’t play by the rules.”

The Trade and Investment Barriers Reports are published annually since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis. This year’s edition is fully based on concrete complaints received by the Commission from European companies. They concern a wide range of products covering everything from agri-food to shipbuilding industries.

G20 members figure prominently among countries having created the highest number of import obstacles. Russia, Brazil, China and India top the list. Most of the new protectionist measures reported in 2016 appeared also in Russia and India, followed by Switzerland, China, Algeria and Egypt.

The Commission strongly defends European businesses against rising protectionist tendencies. Its efforts brought tangible results in 2016. The Commission managed to restore normal trading conditions in 20 various cases affecting EU exports worth €4.2 billion. South Korea, China, Israel and Ukraine top the list of countries where the EU succeeded in tackling barriers.

The EU food and drink, automotive and cosmetics sectors are those who benefited the most from the recent EU action. To give a few examples, following an EU intervention, China suspended labelling requirements that would otherwise affect the €680 million-worth EU cosmetics exports; Korea agreed to bring its rules for the size of car seats in line with international rules and Israel enabled companies from the whole of the EU to request market authorisation and export their pharmaceutical products.

All this was made possible thanks to the effective cooperation between the Commission, EU Member States and European business representatives through the EU Market Access Strategy and improved relations with trading partners under the recent EU’s trade agreements.

The Market Access Strategy is a pivotal part of the EU’s efforts to create the best possible conditions for European firms to export around the world and to ensure an effective enforcement of international trade rules.

The measures targeted in the report do not cover the trade defence measures. Anti-dumping or anti-subsidy duties, imposed in line with WTO requirements, are tools that serve to restore fair trading conditions. They are used by the EU and many of its partners to ensure a level-playing field.

The Russian Northern Fleet’s Project 955 underwater missile cruiser, aka submarine, Yuri Dolgoruky has successfully test-fired a Bulava missile from the Barents Sea and hit all the designated targets at the Kura practice range in Kamchatka, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

“The Project 955 Borey-class underwater missile cruiser Yuri Dolgoruky has made a successful launch of a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile from the designated area of the Barents Sea towards the Kura practice range in Kamchatka. The launch was made from the submerged position in compliance with a combat training plan,” the Defense Ministry said.

It is unclear if the Russian launch was in response to any recent US or NATO drills: at the end of May, the Pentagon conducted its first successful test interception of a simulated ICBM attack, modeling a possible escalation in hostilities with North Korea.

“The parameters of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile’s flight trajectory were practiced in the normal regime. According to the confirmed data of the registering equipment, the warheads of the intercontinental ballistic missile performed a full cycle of the flight and successfully hit the designated targets at the practice range,” the Defense Ministry said.

The last time a Bulava missile was test launched was on September 27 when the submarine Yuri Dolgoruky performed an experimental salvo launch of two ICBMs from the White Sea towards the Kura practice range in the Russian Far East.

The Yuri Dolgoruky submarine is the Project 955 Borey-class lead vessel. The underwater cruiser is armed with a set of Bulava sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and also with torpedoes. The sub can be armed with cruise missiles. It has a full displacement of 24,000 tonnes, is about 160 meters long and 13 meters wide. The R-30 Bulava is a solid-propellant ballistic missile developed specially for Project 955 submarines. It can deliver 10 warheads of 150 kilotonnes each to a distance of 10,000 kilometers.

In 2015, the strategic nuclear submarine made the National Interest list of the most deadly Russian submarines. This is what it reported:

The fourth-generation Project 955 submarines are equipped with 16 RSM-56 Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missiles with a range of 8,000 kilometers (nearly 5,000 miles). Each Bulava SLBM is fitted with up to ten thermonuclear warheads.

The Borei-class subs “promise to provide the Russian Navy with a potent long-range capability for years to come,” the National Interest noted.

The Russian Navy operates three Borei-class submarines, the flag ship Yury Dolgoruky, Alexandr Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh. The first two were commissioned in 2013, while the latest one is in active service since December 2014.

The first submarine of the Project 955-A Borei-II class, dubbed Knyaz Vladimir, is expected to enter service in 2017. By 2020, the Russian Navy plans to operate a total of eight Borei-class ballistic missile submarines, three Project 955 subs and five Project 955-A watercraft.

The Borei-class submarines are expected to remain in service for decades to come, at least until 2040.

NASA said Monday that it has achieved a significant milestone in its effort to make supersonic passenger jet travel over land a real possibility by completing the preliminary design review (PDR) of its Quiet Supersonic Transport or QueSST aircraft design.

QueSST is the initial design stage of NASA’s planned Low Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) experimental airplane, otherwise known as an X-plane.

Senior experts and engineers from across the agency and the Lockheed Martin Corporation concluded Friday that the QueSST design is capable of fulfilling the LBFD aircraft’s mission objectives, which are to fly at supersonic speeds, but create a soft “thump” instead of the disruptive sonic boom associated with supersonic flight today.

The LBFD X-plane will be flown over communities to collect data necessary for regulators to enable supersonic flight over land in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

NASA partnered with lead contractor, Lockheed Martin, in February 2016 for the QueSST preliminary design. Last month, a scale model of the QueSST design completed testing in the 8-by 6-foot supersonic wind tunnel at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

“Managing a project like this is all about moving from one milestone to the next,” said David Richwine, manager for the preliminary design effort under NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology Project. “Our strong partnership with Lockheed Martin helped get us to this point. We’re now one step closer to building an actual X-plane.”

After the success of completing the PDR, NASA’s project team can start the process of soliciting proposals later this year and awarding a contract early next year to build the piloted, single-engine X-plane. The acquisition for the LBFD X-plane contract will be fully open and competitive, with the QueSST preliminary design data being made available to qualified bidders. Flight testing of an LBFD X-plane could begin as early as 2021.

Over the next few months, NASA said it will work with Lockheed on finalizing the QueSST preliminary design effort. This includes a static inlet performance test and a low-speed wind tunnel test at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

By Mitchell Blatt*

Trump supporters don’t terribly like immigrants or Muslims, and white Democrats like African-Americans more than white Americans.

Those are some of the findings of a large-scaled post-election study by John Sides, professor of political science at George Washington University. The survey data comes from multiple surveys by YouGov of 45,000 respondents, including 8,000 respondents who were interviewed both in 2011-2012 and 2016. One of the questions asked voters to rate certain ethnic and religious groups on a thermometer scale:A few things that can be said:

• For all groups surveyed, immigrants and Muslims rated second to last and last, respectively, but the difference was much greater with Republicans and Trump primary voters.
• Trump voters ranked white people more favorably than any other group ranked them and ranked minorities (excluding Jews) lower than every other group.
• While Trump voters ranked Jews slightly lower than did Republicans as a whole, their rating of Jews is lined up pretty evenly with the rating of Jews by Democrats, white Democrats, and the population at large–around 75.
• Democrats ranked blacks, Hispanics, and Jews noticeably higher than they ranked whites. Even white Democrats ranked blacks and Jews slightly higher than they ranked whites. The gap in the ratings of whites by Democrats as a whole is thus due partially, but not entirely, to the fact that there were many more blacks and Hispanics represented in the survey sample of “Democrats” (as opposed to “white Democrats”).
• Trump voters ranked blacks slightly more favorably than Hispanics, while Republicans as a whole ranked Hispanics slightly more favorably. It can be hypothesized that Trump’s intense focus on immigration and illegal immigration attracted voters who held more unfavorable views of Hispanics.
• Overall, the ranking order of groups by Trump primary voters seems to align with the frequency and intensity of attacks Trump made on various groups. Take the distinction in rankings between blacks and Hispanics: Trump railed non-stop against illegal immigration and even went so far as to accuse a Hispanic judge (whom he referred to as “Mexican”) of being biased on account of his ancestry. His comments about African-Americans were less direct, couched in tone deafness appeals to make urban “hellholes” safer, and his comments about Jews, the few times he mentioned Jews, were often veiled in symbolism (the Star of David tweet). As for Muslims, he said he would ban them from entering the country.

What it Means to be an “American”

The clash of identity politics was evident in voters’ ideas about what it means to be an “American,” a word that is often thrown around, but is interpreted by some to mean “white” and by Democrats and Republicans as emphasizing different sets of values. Predictable divergences arise in the above survey results.

Trump voters were the most likely of all to hold ethnocentric and identity politics-influenced views about being an American, and Rubio voters were more likely than Cruz voters:

However, nearly one-in-three (30 percent) of Trump primary supporters said that European heritage is important. Fewer supporters of other Republican primary candidates endorsed this criterion—9 percent of Kasich supporters, 16 percent of Cruz supporters, and 22 percent of Rubio supporters.

About 63 percent of Republicans, and 69 percent of Trump primary voters, said that it is important to have lived in America for most of one’s life. Fewer Democrats (49 percent) agreed with this. Similarly, 63 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of Trump primary voters said that being born in America is important to being American. About 47 percent of Democrats agreed. Finally, there were larger di erences in terms of whether being Christian is important: 30 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans, and 63 percent of Trump primary voters considered this fairly or very important.

Another question of interest is what voters think about living in a majority-minority nation, a likely future for the U.S. based on demographic trends.
Voters were asked if they agree with the following statements, including that with a more diverse population, “There will not be enough jobs for everybody.”

That seems like a very stupid contention. Whether or not there are “not enough jobs” shouldn’t have anything to do with the racial composition of a place. People of all races compete for jobs. Two countries of the same population, one that is 100% racially homogenous and another that is majority-minority, would both have the same number of people competing for jobs. They would also have the same number of consumers creating demand, for that matter, so it can be expected that the number of jobs would increase in the long-term due to increased demand. A more plausible argument is that the skill sets of the populations might have an impact on which areas of the economy faced greater competition.

However, even if the statement isn’t rational from an objective perspective, it is one way to gauge public opinion about diversity. One negative statement that was lacking from the question set, however, was asking respondents whether they thought increased diversity might result in increased social divisions, a possibility that some voters might have selected if asked.

Broadly, Sides points to data that suggests a larger proportion of voters were motivated by views on race and identity politics in 2016 than in 2012. In 2012, voters who held negative views of blacks were more likely to vote Democrat than they were in 2016. I have two theories, which are not mutually exclusive, for why:

1. The Republican nominees in 2008 and 2012 were ideological conservatives who didn’t emphasis race, identity, or immigration to a large degree. By contrast, Trump wasn’t very ideologically conservative but did emphasis identity politics. “White working class” voters who are not ideologically conservative on economic issues thus would have little reason to vote for Romney and more reason to vote for Trump. At the same time, ideological conservatives who are not motivated by identity politics had less reason to vote for Trump than for Romney. Thus Clinton had success in some highly educated, affluent conservative suburbs; the Democratic nominee won Orange County, birthplace of Richard Nixon, for the first time since the Great Depression.
2. Liberal and Democratic rhetoric and policies have increasingly emphasized identity politics in recent years. The language of “intersectionality” pushes identity to the forefront, asking whites, Asians, and Jews to account for their “privilege.” Whenever a news event happens, there is a jump to talk about the identity of the person involved, resulting in headlines like this one from the Huffington Post: “North Korea Proves Your White Male Privilege Is Not Universal.” The rise of Black Lives Matter, which coincided with riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, also put racial divisions at the forefront. It is not surprising in this atmosphere, which emphasises identity, that white conservatives would also be more motivated by their ethnic identity.

Now here are some related articles from B+D about identity politics and Trump’s appeals to racism:
Trump tweeted white supremacist “#WhiteGenocide” tweets in January
Trump tweeted “Star of David” tweet attacking Clinton for “corruption”
Trump refused to condemn the KKK when asked on CNN
Blatt at The Federalist: Trump is Killing Republicans with Minorities
Exit polls: Trump underperformed Bush, other pre-Obama Republicans with minority voters

And on liberal identity politics:
How left-wing smears about racism come back to bite them
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama break from liberal political correctness
“Black Lives Matters have also ideologically expanded”: Chat with Robbie Travers

*Mitchell Blatt has been based in China and Korea since 2012. A writer and journalist, he is the lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong guidebook and has contributed to outlets including The National Interest, National Review Online, Acculturated, and Vagabond Journey. Fluent in Chinese, he has lived and traveled in Asia for three years, blogging about his travels at ChinaTravelWriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchBlatt.

This article was published at Bombs and Dollars.

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments about President Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban against foreign nationals from six majority-Muslim countries in their next term. In the meantime, people with no relationship with the US won’t be able to enter.

The case will be heard “during the first session of October Term 2017,” as the government “has not requested that we expedite consideration of the merits to a greater extent,” the court said.

Foreign nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who have a “bona fiderelationship” with the United States ‒ such as a relative or a work or educational opportunity ‒ will still be able to enter the country.

A “bona fiderelationship” would mean “a close familial relationship” to qualify for the exemption, the court said. “As for entities, the relationship must be formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading” the executive order. Such an entity could be an educational institution or a business that is hiring the foreign citizen.

A State Department spokeswoman told Reuters that the travel ban would be implemented “in an orderly fashion” in response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

“We will keep those traveling to the United States and partners in the travel industry informed as we implement the order in a professional, organized, and timely way,” Heather Nauert said Monday, adding, “We are also in contact with our partners in the implementation of the United States Refugee Admissions Program, and will keep them apprised of changes as they take effect.”
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Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in part, noting that he would grant the government’s request in its entirety and objecting to the court “keeping the injunctions in place with regard to an unidentified, unnamed group of foreign nationals abroad.”

The compromise will invite “a flood of litigation until this case is finally resolved on the merits,” Thomas wrote. His dissent was joined by two of his fellow conservatives on the bench, Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by Trump earlier this year.

The justices will hear arguments about the second iteration of Trump’s travel ban, which was issued in early March, after the first, harsher version was put on hold by multiple courts. The second executive order, which Trump has complained was “watered down,” was set to go into effect on March 16 for a 90-day review period, but was halted before that could happen.

In mid-June, the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld the majority of an injunction issued by US District Court Judge Derrick Watson in March. His injunction blocked the Trump administration from enforcing two sections of their revised travel ban. However, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit later concluded that the injunction was too broad.

The court granted the government’s application to stay the lower courts’ injunctions that prevent enforcement “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

“We leave the injunctions entered by the lower courts in place with respect to respondents and those similarly situated, as specified in this opinion,” the court wrote.

The 9th circuit’s decision to stay the suspension of refugee admissions was also partly overturned, and narrowed to apply only to those who have a “bona fide relationship” to an American individual or entity.

“But when it comes to refugees who lack any such connection to the United States, for the reasons we have set out, the balance tips in favor of the Government’s compelling need to provide for the Nation’s security,” the court said.

Trump called the Supreme Court’s announcement a “clear victory for national security.”

“Today’s ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting our Nation’s homeland,” the president said in a statement. “I am also particularly gratified that the Supreme Court’s decision was 9-0.”

Two days after the 9th Circuit upheld much of the injunction, Trump had issued a memo to his secretary of state, attorney general, secretary of homeland security and director of national intelligence, instructing their agencies to begin internal vetting reviews and to activate the travel and refugee bans 72 hours after the injunctions are lifted.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the Pentagon on Monday to discuss the importance of the US-India relationship and the role of both nations in cooperating to foster democratic laws and principles, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said.

In a statement summarizing the meeting, White said Mattis applauded India’s long-term efforts to promote stability in the Indian Ocean region.

“The two pledged to continue the strong defense partnership between both nations and broaden military to military engagements,” she added.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Prime Minister Modi, thank you for being here with us today. It’s a great honor to welcome the leader of the world’s largest democracy to the White House.

I have always had a deep admiration for your country and for its people, and a profound appreciation for your rich culture, heritage and traditions. This summer, India will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its independence, and on behalf of the United States, I want to congratulate the Indian people on this magnificent milestone in the life of your very, very incredible nation.

During my campaign, I pledged that if elected, India would have a true friend in the White House. And that is now exactly what you have — a true friend. The friendship between the United States and India is built on shared values, including our shared commitment to democracy. Not many people know it, but both American and the Indian constitutions begin with the same three very beautiful words: We the people.

The Prime Minister and I both understand the crucial importance of those words, which helps to form the foundation of cooperation between our two countries. Relations between countries are strongest when they are devoted to the interests of the people we serve. And after our meetings today, I will say that the relationship between India and the United States has never been stronger, has never been better.

I’m proud to announce to the media, to the American people, and to the Indian people, that Prime Minister Modi and I are world leaders in social media — (laughter) — we’re believers — giving the citizens of our countries the opportunity to hear directly from their elected officials, and for us to hear directly from them. I guess it’s worked very well in both cases.

I am thrilled to salute you, Prime Minister Modi, and the Indian people for all that you are accomplishing together. Your accomplishments have been vast. India has the fastest growing economy in the world. We hope we’re going to be catching you very soon in terms of percentage increase, I have to tell you that. We’re working on it.

In just two weeks, you will begin to implement the largest tax overhaul in your country’s history — we’re doing that also, by the way — creating great new opportunities for your citizens. You have a big vision for improving infrastructure, and you are fighting government corruption, which is always a grave threat to democracy.

Together, our countries can help chart an optimistic path into the future, one that unleashes the power of new technology, new infrastructure, and the enthusiasm and excitement of very hardworking and very dynamic people.

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Prime Minister, to create jobs in our countries, to grow our economies, and to create a trading relationship that is fair and reciprocal. It is important that barriers be removed to the export of U.S. goods into your markets, and that we reduce our trade deficit with your country.

I was pleased to learn about an Indian Airlines recent order of 100 new American planes, one of the largest orders of its kind, which will support thousands and thousands of American jobs. We’re also looking forward to exporting more American energy to India as your economy grows, including major long-term contracts to purchase American natural gas, which are right now being negotiated, and we will sign them. Trying to get the price up a little bit.

To further our economic partnership, I’m excited to report that the Prime Minister has invited my daughter, Ivanka, to lead the U.S. delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this fall. And I believe she has accepted.

Finally, the security partnership between the United States and India is incredibly important. Both our nations have been struck by the evils of terrorism, and we are both determined to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism. Our militaries are working every day to enhance cooperation between our military forces. And next month, they will join together with the Japanese navy to take place in the largest maritime exercise ever conducted in the vast Indian Ocean.

I also thank the Indian people for their contributions to the effort in Afghanistan, and for joining us in applying new sanctions against the North Korean regime. The North Korean regime is causing tremendous problems and is something that has to be dealt with, and probably dealt with rapidly.

Working together, I truly believe our two countries can set an example for many other nations, make great strides in defeating common threats, and make great progress in unleashing amazing prosperity and growth.

Prime Minister Modi, thank you again for joining me today, and for visiting our country and our wonderful White House and Oval Office. I enjoyed our very productive conversation this afternoon, and look forward to its continuation tonight at dinner. The future of our partnership has never looked brighter. India and the United States will always be tied together in friendship and respect.

Prime Minister Modi, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)

PRIME MINISTER MODI: (As interpreted.) President Donald Trump and First Lady, Vice President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen of the media: Right from the opening tweet to the end of our talks, President Trump’s welcome, which was filled with friendliness, his warm welcome to the White House by himself and the First Lady, I would like to thank both of you from the bottom of my heart for this warm welcome.

I would also like to give a special thanks to you, President Trump, for having spent so much time with me, for having spoken such kind words about me and my country. And I would like to tell you that I’m eager to welcome your daughter to India for the Entrepreneurship Summit.

President Trump, I’d once again like to thank you for the time that you have spent with me. I’d like to give you special thanks for that.

My visit and our talks today will mark a very important page in the history of the collaboration and cooperation between our two nations. The talks between his Excellency, President Trump, and myself today have been extremely important from all points of view, for several reasons: Because they were based on mutual trust; because of the convergence and similarities they revealed in our values, and our priorities, and in our concerns and interests; because they focused on the highest levels of achievement in our cooperation, and mutual support, and partnership; because our two countries are global engines of growth; because the all-around or comprehensive economic growth and joint progress of both countries and both societies is the main objective for both the President and myself, and will remain so; because the top priority for both President Trump and myself is to protect our society from global challenges like terrorism; and because our aim is the strengthening of India and the USA — two great democracies in the world — friends.

Our robust strategic partnership is such that it touches upon almost all areas of human endeavor. In our conversation today, President Trump and I have discussed all dimensions of India-U.S. relations at length. Both nations are committed to a bilateral architecture that will take our strategic partnership to new heights.

In this relationship, in both countries, increased productivity, growth, job creation, and breakthrough technologies — an engagement towards all these are, and will remain, strong drivers of our cooperation, and will give further momentum to our relationship.

We consider the USA as our primary partner for India’s social and economic transformation in all our flagship programs and schemes. I am sure that the convergence between my vision for a “new India and President Trump’s vision for “making America great again” will add new dimensions to our cooperation.

I am very clear about the fact that India’s interests lie in a strong, and prosperous, and successful America. In the same way, India’s development and its growing role at the international level are in the USA’s interest.

One of our common priorities will be the development of trade, commerce, and investment links. And in this regard, in the technology, innovation, and knowledge-economy sectors, the expansion and deepening of cooperation is also among our priorities. Towards this end, we shall take steps to further strengthen our successful digital partnership.

Friends, we are not just partners by chance. We are also partners in dealing with current and future challenges that we may be faced with. Today, during our meeting, we discussed the serious challenges of terrorism, extremism, and radicalization, which are the major challenges facing the world today. And we have agreed to enhance our cooperation in fighting against these scourges. Fighting terrorism and doing away with the safe shelters, sanctuaries, and safe havens will be an important part of our cooperation.

With respect to our common concerns on terrorism, we will also enhance our sharing of intelligence, and exchange information to deepen and expand our policy coordination as far as possible.

We also spoke at length on regional issues. The increasing instability, due to terrorism, in Afghanistan is one of our common concerns. Both India and America have played an important role in rebuilding Afghanistan and ensuring its security. In order to attain our objectives for peace and stability in Afghanistan, we will maintain close consultation and communication with the U.S. to enhance coordination between our two nations.

In the Indo-Pacific region, in order to maintain peace, stability, and prosperity in the region, this is also another objective of our strategic cooperation in this area. The increasing possibilities for enhancing cooperation in order to protect our strategic interests will continue to determine the dimensions of our partnership. We will continue to work with the USA in this region.

With regard to security-related challenges, our enhanced and growing defense and security cooperation is extremely important. We have spoken at length on this subject as well.

The strengthening of India’s defense capabilities, with the help of USA, is something that we truly appreciate. We have also decided to enhance maritime security cooperation between the two nations. President Trump and I have also spoken about strengthening bilateral defense technology and our trade and manufacturing partnership, which we believe will be mutually beneficial to us.

We also discussed international issues and our common strategic interests. In this context, we are extremely grateful for the continued support of the United States for India’s membership of international institutions and regimes. We truly appreciate the support, because this is also in the interest of both our nations.

President Trump, I thank you for your feelings of friendship towards India and myself. I deeply appreciate your strong commitment to the enhancement of our bilateral relations. I am sure that under your leadership, our mutually beneficial strategic partnership will gain new strength, new positivity, and will reach new heights, and that your vast and successful experience in the business world will lend an aggressive and forward-looking agenda to our relations.

In this journey of India-America relations, I think I would like to thank you for providing great leadership. Be assured that in this joint journey of our two nations towards development, growth and prosperity, I will remain a driven, determined, and decisive partner.

Excellency, my visit today and the extensive talks I have held with you have been very successful, very fruitful. And before leaving this mic, I would like to invite you to India, along with your family. And I hope that you will give me the opportunity to welcome you and host you in India.

And at the end, once again, I’d like to thank you for the warm welcome extended by you and the First Lady to myself and my delegation, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you.

By Harsh V. Pant

As PM Narendra Modi meets US President Donald Trump, expectations may be low but the hype is not. Modi is a charismatic leader and his charisma has allowed him to score points whenever he travels abroad. There is a sense in some quarters that he will be able to pull it off once again with Trump. Modi himself has suggested that he looked forward to the opportunity of having an in-depth exchange of views. “My USA visit is aimed at deepening ties between our nations.

Strong India-USA ties benefit our nations & the world,” he had tweeted before his visit. This will be Modi’s fifth state visit to the US but the first under the Trump Presidency which makes it far from a straightforward affair. For its part, the Trump Administration has sent signals that they will warmly welcome the Indian PM with Trump leading the way.

Describing  Modi as “a true friend”, Trump has tweeted “Look forward to welcoming India’s PM Modi to @WhiteHouse on Monday. Important strategic issues to discuss with a true friend!” He will be hosting Modi for a “working dinner”, the first for a foreign leader in his five-month term. The appointment of Kenneth Juster as US Ambassador to India is being seen as a good move for bilateral ties. He knows India well and has worked on a range of India-related initiatives in the past. The US State Department has made it clear it expects Modi’s “visit will strengthen ties between the US and India and advance our common interest in fighting terrorism, promoting economic growth and prosperity, and expanding security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.”

In line with this sentiment, the US has approved the sale 22 Guardian unmanned surveillance planes, worth $2-3 billion, on the request of the Indian Navy which requires these drones for intelligence and reconnaissance purposes. With this, India has become the first country outside NATO to operate them. The US has also announced its decision to help India’s power grid by providing $7.5 million to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy. Lockheed Martin and Tata have signed a pact to make F-16 fighter planes in India. All these are signalling mechanisms to showcase the continuing strength of Indo-US ties.

But Indian concerns are many and not likely to get resolved easily. Modi will be raising Indian concerns which include the US decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord and review the H1B visa program, under which thousands of skilled Indians go to the US. The Indian disapora, a key constituency of Modi, is hoping he would raise with Trump concerns over the H1B visas, widely used by Indian tech companies to send IT professionals to the US. Trump’s executive order in April calls for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop “visa abuses” and he remains committed to enforcing his ‘Hire American’ rules which he is hoping will protect jobs of US workers.

To underscore the salience of economic and trade ties for bilateral relations, Modi will be meeting top US corporate honchos including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook. A number of CEOs of Indian-origin, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Deloitte’s Punit Renjen will also be part of this outreach. Modi will be making a case that India’s economic success is also beneficial to America’s economic future.

On issues like terror and Islamist extremism, Modi and Trump have converging views. On Pakistan, the US is in favour of tightening the screws and Modi’s hard-line vis-a-vis Pakistan suits that perspective. Regional security is another area where the two nations will find much to agree on. The two will also make an attempt to revive the civil nuclear pact which has seen little movement in recent months. But it is clear that New Delhi has decided not to overdo Modi’s outreach in the US. Compared to his earlier Madison Square Garden gig, he will be hosting a relatively low-key community event for around 1,500 people.

Modi’s visit is being closely watched both at home and abroad. At home, there is curiosity to see what kind of chemistry he is able engender with Trump and whether the past momentum in the relationship can be sustained. Abroad, American allies and adversaries, who are still struggling with the Trump phenomenon, will be trying to discern some larger trends regarding American foreign policy. China, in particular, has shown some concerns about this visit already.

Responding to a question about India-US cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of the Modi-Trump meet, the Chinese foreign ministry has already warned India and the US not to disturb “peace and stability in the South China Sea.” The Chinese spokesperson said, “With concerted efforts of China and ASEAN countries the situation there is cooling down. We hope other countries especially non-regional countries can respect the efforts by the regional countries to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea and can play a constructive role in this regard.” Trump’s inconsistency has rattled Beijing and if Modi steers the Indo-US ties back to its earlier trajectory, China will certainly be uncomfortable. Deepening defence ties between India and the US as underscored by the drone deal will further exacerbate Chinese concerns.

Obama had declared India-US ties the “most defining partnership” of the 21st century. In his own way, Trump has been equally effusive about the future of this bilateral partnership. But given the domestic turbulence he faces and his crowded foreign policy agenda, Modi will need to ensure that India is on Trump’s radar for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, it won’t take long for the two bureaucracies to take the sheen off this partnership. And this won’t be good news for Modi’s domestic and foreign policy agenda.

This article originally appeared in Indian Express.

By VP Haran*

Bhutan like other neighbors, watched with interest and some anxiety as National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept the polls in May 2014. Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi was an enigma to them. They were unsure of what the foreign policy of the Modi government would be. Bhutan was no exception. The invitation to South Asian leaders for the swearing in ceremony was a reassuring message from the new government that it attaches the highest priority to strengthening relations with neighbours. The visit of Bhutan’s PM Tshering Tobgay to Delhi and his meeting with our PM reassured him about the continuity of India’s policy towards Bhutan.

To give practical effect to the ‘neighborhood first’ policy, Modi chose Bhutan for his first foreign visit as prime minister, less than a month after taking office. On the eve of the visit, PM Modi said he is looking forward to his, “first ever visit to Bhutan and to nurturing and further strengthening India’s special relations with Bhutan.” The visit, arranged at very short notice, went off smoothly and achieved the objective. PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the 600 MW Kholongchu HEP; announced that India will set up a national level digital library in Bhutan; and that there would be no embargo on export of essential items like rice, wheat, milk powder etc to Bhutan. By the time visit was over, Bhutan was confident that India’s policy towards Bhutan would continue. Subsequent developments have proved this assessment right. Meaningful progress has been achieved in the ongoing development projects, security cooperation and in the decisions announced during the visit.

Cooperation on mutual security concerns has been progressing satisfactorily in the interest of both the countries. Law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border have stepped up sharing of intelligence to keep a tab on terrorist and other anti-social activities along the border. Infrastructure for the promised National Digital Library of Bhutan has been put in place and steps are underway to make the Library operational soon. India-assisted development cooperation projects are proceeding well and Bhutan should be able to meet the targets for the 11th Plan which ends by June 2018. Continuing high level exchanges with Bhutan, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee paid a successful visit to Bhutan in November 2014.

Bhutan has shown keen interest in opening a Consulate in Guwahati. Recalling the historical ties of cooperation and friendship, Bhutan’s PM Tshering Tobgay said in the inaugural ceremony of Namami Brahmaputra festival in Assam in April 2017 that he has asked the Indian government to allow opening of Bhutan’s consulate in Guwahati. People on both sides of the border have had close contacts for several centuries and have economic and cultural exchanges on a daily basis, taking advantage of the open border. India has decided to accept Bhutan’s proposal to open the consulate. This would be welcome news to Bhutan.

Hydro power is the most important area of India-Bhutan bilateral economic cooperation. During the visit, PM Modi said hydropower cooperation with Bhutan “is a classic example of win-win cooperation and a model for the entire region.” Three India assisted HEPs – Chukha, Kurichu and Tala – with a total capacity of 1416 MW are presently operational. They account for 13 per cent of Bhutan’s GDP and a third of its exports and have contributed immensely to the development of Bhutan. India buys all the surplus power from these projects. At Bhutan’s request, in 2008, the then Indian PM Manmohan Singh , during his visit to Bhutan agreed to India working with Bhutan to set up additional 10,000 MW of generating capacity by 2020. This commitment was reiterated during PM Modi’s visit. This target of 2020 was unrealistic even when conceived, as injection of massive funds for these projects would have overheated the Bhutanese economy. Implementation would need to be stretched out and this is understood by both sides.

Presently, four projects are under execution. Of these, 720 MW Mangdechu is expected to be commissioned on schedule next year. The 1200 MW Punatsangchu 1 and 1020 MW Punatsangchu 2 have fallen way behind schedule, due mainly to geological surprises encountered during construction. Commencement of work on the Kholongchu project, for which PM Modi laid the foundation stone, has got delayed and needs to be speeded up. Unlike earlier projects that are inter-governmental, Kholongchu and three other projects are to be executed as JVs between Bhutan and Indian PSUs. Progress on the other three could build on the model developed for Kholongchu. The National transmission grid being implemented with Indian assistance is progressing well.

Bhutan does not favour entry of private companies in the energy sector. Reports on privatisation of Indian PSUs is causing some anxiety in the context of PSUs involvement in JVs, as Bhutan does not want to end up having to deal with private companies few years later. Reassurance on PSUs involved in JVs would help clear the air. Progress is necessary on the other projects identified as part of 10,000 MW program, even if implementation is taken up later.

Tariff for power supplied by Bhutan is considered low by some Bhutanese who see reports in Indian media about the high cost of power generated in India and the cost at which we export power to Bangladesh and Nepal. Tariff is fixed as per a mutually agreed formula based on cost of generation, agreed rate of return, increase in tariff in adjoining region of India, etc. Policymakers in Bhutan recognise the importance of an assured market at an agreed tariff and would not like to leave power trade to the vagaries of market fluctuations.

Bangladesh has also shown interest in setting up a major HEP in Bhutan, with the aim of importing power generated from the project. This will be possible only if power is allowed to be transmitted through India. India has responded positively to the proposal, making both Bhutan and Bangladesh happy.

Guidelines for cross border trade in electricity have been announced by India. Comments have been sought on draft guidelines for the same. Since it involves trade in power with our neighbors, it would be useful to consult them. Regulations should facilitate trade on commercial lines and provide for transmission of power across India by our BBIN partners. This would be in accordance with our desire for greater economic integration with neighbors.

Focus is required on some long pending bilateral issues/projects like problems faced by Indian traders, Integrated check post at the Jaigaon/Phuentshoeling border, indiscriminate and unscientific mining of Dolomite in Bhutan causing serious problems in Northern West Bengal etc.

In overall terms, India and Bhutan have worked together closely over the past three years to further their common interests. “Bhutan and India share a very special relationship that has stood the test of time,” PM Modi said in Bhutan. The positive developments since his visit testify to the same.

* VP Haran
Former Indian Ambassador to Bhutan

The White House on Monday said there are indications that Syria’s military is preparing for a chemical attack, and warned that nation’s President Bashar al-Assad that if such an attack is committed then there will be a “heavy price” to pay.

“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer in a statement.

“As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” Spicer said, adding that, “If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”

The White House did not provide further information regarding the alleged potential attack.

By Fatjona Mejdini

The ruling Socialist Party, under Prime Minister Edi Rama, are set for another term in government, preliminary results suggest.

According to Albania’s Central Electoral Commission, CEC, preliminary results show that the Socialist Party, PS, in power since 2013, won 47.86 per cent, after 66 per cent of votes have been counted.

The opposition Democrats, led by Lulzim Basha, came second with 28.33 per cent, while the junior partner in the ruling coalition, the Socialist Movement for Integration, LSI, came third with 14.38 per cent of votes.

PS’ results suggest that the party may be able to form the government alone, as it is likely to hold 73 of 140 seats in parliament.

According to CEC, the turnout was 45 per cent – one of the lowest ever reported for a general election in Albania.

In 2013, the general election turnout was 52.7 per cent and around 1,750,000 people voted. On Sunday, according to preliminary calculations, 1,514,851 people voted out of a possible 3,452,260.

Due to low voter turnout, CEC even decided to postpone polling station closures by an hour, from 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

Although election day passed relatively peacefully, the interior ministry opened a phone line so that anyone who had information about vote-buying or pressure being applied to voters could report issues to the police.

Earlier in the day the deputy prime minister, Ledina Mandija in a interview with News 24 said that the Prosecutor’s Office had received information that certain armed groups had been travelling in cars with no license plates and had been involved in vote buying. The incidents were reported in Delvine, Lezhe, Lushnje, Velipoje and Shkoder.

Minister of Interior Dritan Demiraj said that based on his information there has been an increase in vote-buying on election day.

Local media also reported that tensions were flaring between supporters of LSI and PS. Various people from both sides have alleged intimidation. Incidents were reported in the northern city of Shkodra and there was a physical altercation in the port city of Durres, News 24 reported.

LSI also stated that one of its members in the coastal northwestern town of Shengjin, has been shot.

Police initially reported that shootings occurred in a restaurant in the port area. They said that at the site of the shooting a shell casing was found, and that no one seeking treatment for a gunshot had sought help in area hospitals.

(Civil.Ge) — Georgian leaders congratulated the country’s Muslim community on the occasion of the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Sunday, stressing their role and the contribution to the “common homeland.”

“I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate you on the end of the month-long fasting – the celebration of spiritual purification and the victory of the good,” President Giorgi Margvelashvili said in a statement on June 25.

“The Muslim community, as an integral part of our society, contributes to Georgia’s development through its everyday work and its devotion to the country. Therefore, your happiness – is the happiness of each of us,” Margvelashvili added.

“We have a common homeland and the history of our co-existence goes back to centuries: we are connected through great friendship and this is the wealth of this country,” Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said in his June 25 statement. “It is of great pride that our close relations and respect to each other is transmitted generation-to-generation,” he added.

PM Kvirikashvili spoke of “common homeland” in his Iftar dinner address as well, which he hosted for the country’s Muslim leaders and the diplomatic corps on June 23. “Your role in the development of our common homeland is very important … today as well, Georgian Muslims stand ready to defend their homeland and contribute to the development of the country.”

“I am proud that our administration has been particularly supportive of the Muslim community,” Kvirikashvili said, listing the Government’s programs targeting the Muslim community, including the introduction of budgetary sponsorship, registration and reconstruction of Mosques and the opening of prayer rooms in several army bases.

Similar messages were voiced Parliamentary Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze, who also congratulated the Georgian Muslims with Ramadan Bayram in a written statement on June 25. “For centuries, we have lived and worked together for the better future our common homeland, we have shared sorrow and happiness. The whole country is celebrating the festival together with you.”

In Georgia’s 2014 population census, 398,677 people (10.7%) reported to adhere to Islam. In Kvemo Kartli and Adjara, they make 42.9% and 39.7% of the population, respectively.

In many federal subjects of the Russian Federation, there are now multiple Muslim Spiritual Directorates each headed by a more or less independent mufti who has the authority to issue fatwas, the Arabic term for “legal opinions,” that are intended to guide the lives of Muslims.

But as Islam has become more important in the lives of the Muslims of Russia, that has created a problem for them as well as one for the Russian state. Muslims have the option to choose among the fatwas on offer, many of which contradict each other, and the Russian state is faced with uncertainty about just what advice even Russian-based muftis are giving.

That is not a new problem or exclusively a Russian one. Within Islam, believers are remarkably free to choose which fatwas they consider authoritative; and in Russia, there have long been complaints about the absence of any one single Muslim “patriarch” or “pope” who alone can speak with legal authority.

However, this problem has been compounded in Russia by three factors: the remarkable and largely uncontrolled growth in the number of MSDs which has meant that in most federal subjects there is more than one, the impact of foreign missionaries and scholars on the Muslims of Russia, and the low – thanks to Soviet oppression – level of religious knowledge among them.

In a comment for Radio Liberty, journalist Lyubov Merenkova describes the problem this way: Within Islam, “there is no clear structure in which one body is subordinate to another and fulfills the directives of the one above it. No one has the right to issue fatwas which operate on the entire territory of the country. And while there is a supreme mufti, he is no more ‘supreme’ than the leaders of other major Muslim organizations of Russia” (kavkazr.com/a/podelili-musulman/28557132.html).

Further complicating this situation, she continues, is the fact that it is enshrined in state law which allows believers to form a primary organization and then any three of these have the right to form a superordinate one on their own.

At present, according to the MSD of the Russian Federation which is within the Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR), there are 136 superordinate Muslim organizations or MSDs of various titles (dumrf.ru/common/org). But that list is clearly incomplete. It doesn’t include, for example, the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia which was set up in November 2016.

Four institutions, what some call the super-MSDs because they include other MSDs as members, are recognized as especially authoritative: the SMR, the Central MSD, the Coordination Center for Muslims of the North Caucasus and the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia – although one commentator says there are now really seven that deserve that ranking (ng.ru/ng_religii/2017-06-21/13_422_raiting.html).

“From a legal point of view,” Merenkova continues, “all these structures are parallel and their leaders have equal rights.” But in reality, they don’t even control the actions of their subordinate MSDs and muftis in many cases. (The head of the Central MSD calls himself and is called by others “the supreme mufti” only because his body is the heir to the original MSD created in tsarist times.)

That is creating legal chaos within the Muslim community. In some small places, there may be several MSDs represented and their muftis may have issued fatwas which contradict one another. In one village, the journalist there, there often are “three organizations” and so Muslims are free to choose which fatwa they will be guided by.

And there is no clear way out, Marenkova says. Not only are Muslim parishes free to exit existing MSDs and create new ones, but existing MSDs are free to ignore the super-MSDs of which they are a part or even shift from one of these to another at their complete discretion. There is little those above can do to stop that.

Buddhist, Christian and Muslim clergy are calling for the release of suspected Tamil separatists held for years under Sri Lanka’s controversial anti-terrorism laws.

The prisoners are believed to have been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act issued during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war. The law gives the military sweeping powers to detain and arrest people deemed to be threats to national security.

Venerable Bellanwila Wimalarathana Thero said that there are 81 suspected Tamil rebels who have been detained for 22 years under the terrorism law. They were arrested on suspicion of having links with the Tamil Tiger rebel group during the war or soon after it ended in 2009.

“Still the charges against them are not established,” he said at the Congress of Religions at Maha Bodhi Society on June 21 in Colombo.

“If the state needs to rehabilitate them, please do it and release them,” said the Buddhist monk.

Anglican Father Noel Fernando said the suspects were not yet indicted in a court of law. “It is a humanitarian issue and the state should take steps to produce them in courts,” he said.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act is a draconian piece of legislation adopted by the Sri Lankan parliament on 1979 and it provides police with broad powers to search, arrest, and detain suspects.

Under the law, a person can be detained for up to 18 months (renewable by order every three months) if a cabinet minister has reason to believe or suspects that any person is connected with or concerned with any unlawful activity.

Unlawful activities may include even pasting posters on walls, and is punishable with death.

The Congress of Religions decided to send an appeal to the Sri Lankan president for a suitable solution.

The governments that constitute the intelligence partnership known as “The Five Eyes,” are meeting on June 26-27, 2017, in Ottawa to discuss how to bypass encryption. The governments may pursue a dangerous strategy that will subvert the rights and cybersecurity of all internet users, according to Human Rights Watch.

Forcing technology companies to give governments “back door” access into all digital communications will do little to prevent terrorists from shielding their activities. But technologists and digital security experts have warned that imposing any requirement to build back doors into encryption or banning end-to-end encryption would broadly undermine cybersecurity. Technologists caution that companies cannot build a “back door” that can only be used by law-abiding officials, while keeping out bad actors. Governments should instead promote strong encryption as a key component of cybersecurity.

“Encryption protects billions of ordinary people worldwide from criminals and authoritarian regimes,” said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Agencies charged with protecting national security shouldn’t be trying to undermine a cornerstone of security in the digital age.”

The Five Eyes is an intelligence sharing partnership between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Law enforcement and intelligence agency representatives from each state will gather in Ottawa to discuss shared national security concerns. The meeting is expected to address the increasing use of end-to-end encrypted communications as a challenge to surveillance and seek a coordinated approach.

In recent years, law enforcement officials in some Five Eyes countries have contended that they are losing some of their ability to investigate crime or prevent terrorism because advances in consumer encryption have led some channels of information that were previously accessible to “go dark.” Companies like Apple and WhatsApp have begun to integrate “end-to-end” encryption into their products by default, which makes it impossible for even the companies to retrieve unscrambled user data at the request of the government because the firms do not hold the decryption “keys.” Some officials have gone further and sought legislation to ensure that their governments can access all encrypted data, even if this would force companies to build “back doors” or other vulnerabilities into phones and applications to bypass encryption.

Australian Attorney General George Brandis plans to raise the need for new restrictions on the encryption built into popular messaging applications with Five Eyes counterparts, stating that existing laws “don’t go far enough.”

In March, in the immediate aftermath of the Westminster attack, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd called end-to-end encryption on apps such as WhatsApp “completely unacceptable” and stated that “there should be no place for terrorists to hide.” On June 13, UK Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a counter-terrorism joint action plan that calls for greater access to encrypted communications.

The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act allows authorities to compel companies to take undefined “reasonable” and “practicable” measures to facilitate interception, including of unencrypted data. Authorities are still determining the exact scope of what companies will be required to do under the law with respect to encryption.

Law enforcement officials in the US have also repeatedly called for companies to build back doors into encryption. In 2016, media reports released draft legislation that would have required technology companies to provide access to encrypted information in an “intelligible format” upon court order. The bill did not specify how companies would have to unscramble encrypted information, but it would have effectively forced companies to bypass encryption and other security features. The bill faced widespread criticism from security experts and privacy groups as unworkable and harmful to cybersecurity and was never formally introduced.

In February 2016, US authorities also sought a court order to force Apple to build a back door into an iPhone that was used by one of the attackers in the 2015 San Bernardino attack. Apple challenged the order, and authorities eventually withdrew it because they were able to access the phone’s data without Apple’s help.

In 2016, Canada held a consultation on its national security framework, which expressed concern over security agencies’ diminished ability to investigate crimes due to the use of encryption. It also stated that Canada had no legal procedure to require decryption.

Many officials from Five Eyes countries claim they do not seek “back doors.” But they don’t explain how companies that don’t hold encryption keys could provide exceptional access for law enforcement to unencrypted data without a back door. To implement such a requirement, companies would be forced to redesign their products without security features like end-to-end encryption.

Back doors create weaknesses that can be exploited by malicious hackers or other abusive government agencies. Billions of people worldwide rely on encryption to protect them from threats to critical infrastructure like the electrical grid and from cybercriminals who steal data for financial gain or espionage. The vast majority of users who rely on encryption have no connection to wrongdoing.

Encryption built into phones and messaging apps can also help safeguard human rights defenders and journalists from abusive surveillance and reprisals, including threats of physical violence. In 2015, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, recognized that encryption enables the exercise of freedom of expression, privacy, and a range of other rights in the digital age.

Governments have an obligation to investigate and prosecute crime and protect the public from threats of violence. But proposals to weaken encryption in popular products will not prevent determined criminals or terrorists from using strong encryption to shield their communications. A recent survey shows that determined, malicious actors would still be able to access such tools made by companies outside the Five Eyes countries, which would not be subject to their laws.

Ordinary users will be more vulnerable to harm, online and offline, if technology firms are forced to weaken the security of their products, Human Rights Watch said. Instead of weakening encryption, governments should better train law enforcement officials to use investigative tools already at their disposal, including access to the vast pool of metadata from digital communications or location data that is not encrypted, consistent with human rights requirements.

“If the Five Eyes countries force tech companies to build encryption back doors, it would set a troubling global precedent that will be followed by authoritarian regimes seeking the same,” Wong said. “These governments should promote strong encryption instead of trying to punch holes in it, which would lead to a race to the bottom for global cybersecurity and privacy.”

Loving pandas isn’t just a feel-good activity. Recent Michigan State University (MSU) work shows China’s decades of defending panda turf have been good not just for the beloved bears, but also protects habitat for other valuable plants and animals, boosts biodiversity and fights climate change.

The study points to a path going beyond pandas to even more benefits of conservation.

“Hidden roles of protected areas in the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services” was published in this week’s journal Ecosphere.

“Sometimes unintended consequences can be happy ones – and give us ways to do even better as we work toward sustainability,” said Jianguo “Jack” Liu, MSU’s Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and director of Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS). “Pandas are leading us to even greater ways to care for nature, and health of humans and the planet.”

Many of those answers came from above. Andrés Viña specializes in remote sensing – carefully examining tree cover from satellite images. A big part of conservation in China has been restoring and protecting forests. Over several decades, the government there has introduced sweeping programs to convert farmlands back to forests, ban logging and harvesting of wood products and replant acres of trees.

They’ve also established nature reserves specifically to protect habitat suitable for pandas.

What Viña and Liu discovered in analyzing data was that not only are the forests in the reserves thriving, and in ways that benefit more than the iconic pandas.

“Reserves are created thinking about the pandas – but we wanted to see if they provide more benefits than just the pandas,” Viña said. “A lot of work is focused in regards to the pandas, but we wanted to ask about other animal and plant species. How are these nature reserves doing for biodiversity and for carbon sequestration?”

The answer: Extra points scored for benefits to both people and the environment. The forests inside reserves, and in areas outside the reserves’ borders, are providing critical canopy materials – the leaves and branches – that soak up carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change.

Forests outside of reserves, the study shows, are often growing faster than in the reserves. But that isn’t a downfall of reserves, Viña said. Rather, reserves usually had a head start in forest preservation, and in many cases have reached their maximum growth and density.

The researchers also have found that not all forests are created equal – both in panda appeal and for biodiversity.

Many of those forests come with an understory rich with bamboo – a necessity for pandas. The study notes that the types of forest present opportunities to improve. In some areas, the original goal of reforestation was to retain soil and water. That meant planting fast-growing conifers close together. Years later, that strategy has blocked the sun from reaching the ground, suppressing plant diversity – including not much bamboo.

Viña said in the future it would be good to allow more spacing between planted trees and include different varieties to allow for more robust forests. The researchers also discovered that forests in lower elevations – areas not generally targeted for panda habitat – are not being protected in the same way.

“We are seeing efforts that are moving in the right direction and showing positive results for nature and for humans,” Viña said. “Now it’s time to continue those efforts, and fine tune them to continue to get even more benefits.”

When Mark Martindale decided to trace the evolutionary origin of muscle cells, like the ones that form our hearts, he looked in an unlikely place: the genes of animals without hearts or muscles.

In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the University of Florida scientist and colleagues found genes known to form hearts cells in humans and other animals in the gut of a muscle-less and heartless sea anemone. But the sea anemone isn’t just any sea creature. It has superpower-like abilities: Cut it into many pieces and each piece will regenerate into a new animal.

So why does the sea anemone regenerate while humans cannot? When analyzing the function of its “heart genes,” study researchers discovered a difference in the way these genes interact with one another, which may help explain its ability to regenerate, said Martindale, a UF biology professor and director of the Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine.

The study’s findings point to potential for tweaking communication between human genes and advancing our ability to treat heart conditions and stimulate regenerative healing, he said.

“Our study shows that if we learn more about the logic of how genes that give rise to heart cells talk to each other, muscle regeneration in humans might be possible,” Martindale said.

These heart genes generate what engineers calls lockdown loops in vertebrates and flies, which means that once the genes are turned on, they tell each other to stay on in an animal’s cells for its entire lifetime. In other words, animals with a lockdown on their genes cannot grow new heart parts or use those cells for other functions.

“This ensures that heart cells always stay heart cells and cannot become any other type of cell,” Martindale said.

But in sea anemone embryos, the lockdown loops do not exist. This finding suggests a mechanism for why the gut cells expressing heart genes in sea anemones can turn into other kinds of cells, such as those needed to regenerate damaged body parts, Martindale said.

The study supports the idea that definitive muscle cells found in the majority of animals arose from a bifunctional gut tissue that had both absorptive and contractile properties. And while the gut tissue of a sea anemone might not look like a beating heart, it does undergo slow, rhythmic peristaltic waves of contraction, much like the human digestive system.

Study authors argue that the first animal muscle cells might have been very heart-like, Martindale said.

“The idea is these genes have been around a long time and preceded the twitchy muscles that cover our skeleton,” Martindale said.

Continued research could one day allow scientists to coax muscles cells into regenerating different kinds of new cells, including more heart cells, Martindale said.