Saudi air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi militias on Thursday night toward the holy city of Makkah, according to the Arab Coalition command.

In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, the coalition command said the missile was shot down over Al-Wasliya area in Taif province, some 69 kilometers away from the holy city. No damage or injuries were reported.

The missile attack was “clearly a desperate attempt to disrupt the Hajj season,” said the statement.

The alliance command confirmed that the non-stop trafficking of missiles into Yemeni territory comes from the lack of control and monitoring at Al-Hodeida Port in western Yemen, “as well as the misuse of permits granted by the alliance to relief and goods shipments.”

The coalition said that “missile trafficking” is going on because of “the world community’s failure to take a decision to prevent such violations that prolong the war and endanger the lives of civilians.”

“The alliance reiterates its support for the decision of the legitimate Yemeni government for the endeavor of the UN envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Al-Chieck, to impose control on this vital sea outlet,” the coalition statement said.

Earlier, the Saudi-led coalition urged the UN to take control of Hodeida Port to enable the continuous flow of humanitarian support for civilians, but the UN refused to take responsibility. The Iran-backed Houthis have continued to disrupt operations at the key port despite an offensive by the coalition.

Thursday’s missile attack was the second to be aimed at Makkah. On Oct. 27, 2016, a Houthi missile launched from Yemen toward the holy city was shot down by Saudi air defense forces before it could reach its target.

Houthi forces have also launched numerous attacks on other targets, mostly along the Saudi border with Yemen, killing more than 100 soldiers and civilians.

Saudi Arabia, along with the UAE, organized the coalition in 2015 to support the UN-recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi amid an onslaught of Houthi militias and loyalist forces of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The coalition has accused Iran of arming the Houthis as part of Tehran’s destabilization efforts in the region.

The secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Yousef Al-Othaimeen, stated that the outrageous attempted assault on Makkah once again, after the first attempt last year in October, undoubtedly affirms the insistence of the Houthi and Saleh militias to target the holy sites in the Kingdom in implementation of conspiratorial plans against the country, its citizens and residents.

He described it as a futile attempt to destabilize the Hajj season, and an attack on all Muslims in the world, given the sacred city’s holiness as the cradle of revelation.

Al-Othaimeen said that this attack reflects very clearly the lack of seriousness on the part of the Houthi and Saleh militias to end the conflict in Yemen through peaceful means.

He reiterated the support of the OIC for the legitimate Yemeni government and for the efforts of the UN to find political solutions that will guarantee the security and stability of Yemen, while preserving its unity and territorial integrity.

He also reaffirmed the organization’s support for the ongoing efforts by Saudi Arabia to bring about peace in Yemen and to support its legitimate institutions. He affirmed the full solidarity of the OIC in all steps and measures the Kingdom takes to safeguard the country’s security and stability.

By Dr. Naser Al-Tamimi*

The decision by four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt — to cut ties with Qatar may have ramifications on India. For now, these will be mostly concentrated in the diplomatic sphere; however, pressure on New Delhi to pick sides is likely to grow as the Gulf crisis deepens.

So far, India has been working hard to maintain a neutral stance over the Gulf crisis to avoid any political and economic risks and ensure the well-being of Indian citizens working or living in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Certainly, India is watching the situation very closely as it has even more reason to be concerned about the developments in the Gulf region.

The Gulf states are among the most vital economic zones for India. Indeed, the GCC bloc was India’s largest trading partner in 2016. At the country level, the UAE and Saudi Arabia were among New Delhi’s Top 5 trading partners.

The GCC is also the second top destination, after the US, for Indian products. The six Arab Gulf countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — collectively received about 86 percent of total Indian goods destined for the Middle East, or nearly 16 percent (almost $41 billion) of India’s total exports in 2016, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Thus, if the crisis escalates amid continued decline in oil prices and low economic growth, this may adversely affect the demand for Indian goods.

Energy independence

Energy is another critical area of growing ties between India and the GCC states. India is the third largest oil consumer in the world (after the US and China), as well as the third largest oil importer, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

At present, a third of India’s crude imports, and about two-thirds of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, comes from the GCC. In 2016, Saudi Arabia was the largest oil supplier, providing India with almost 19 percent of its crude needs. Qatar was the top exporter of LNG, with its share hitting almost 62 percent of India’s total LNG imports last year.

Looking forward, India’s oil imports are expected to increase by more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) over the next decade. With expectations of rising demand, a group of Indian state petroleum firms plan to build a 60 million tons/year (1.2 million bpd) mega-refinery comprising three 20 million tons a year (400,000 bpd) crude distillation units (CDUs). As a result, the Indian government is encouraging Saudi Aramco and other GCC companies to buy stakes in these projects.

Importantly, India is at risk of growing environmental problems. Many of its major cities have heavily polluted air and rivers, raising questions about the sustainability of the economy’s rapid growth. Thus, New Delhi is looking to increase the share of natural gas in the country’s energy mix.

In this regard, India’s natural gas import needs are projected to more than double over the next decade. Its imports are expected to increase from 26.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2016 to around 57 bcm by 2026, mainly in the form of LNG, as gas pipelines from Iran or Turkmenistan became distant dream, according to BMI Research.

New Delhi is seeking Qatari investment in its power plants in return for long-term LNG supply contracts commitment. India’s Petronet already buys 8.5 million tons a year of LNG from Qatar under three long-term contracts, which expire in 2028-2029.

Consequently, the stability of the Gulf region is vital to India to ensure the flow of energy imports. Any escalation in the Gulf could lead to higher energy prices, and subsequently increase the financial burden on the Indian budget. To be sure, New Delhi’s energy imports bill (excluding petrochemicals and fertilizers) hit more than $89 billion (36 percent from the GCC states) in 2016, although it has almost halved since the decline in oil prices.

Financial stakes

Meanwhile, there are around 4-5 million people (650,000-700,000 in Qatar alone) of Indian origin working in the GCC countries. These Indian workers in the GCC states send remittances every year worth tens of billions of dollars, which are very important New Delhi’s public finance.

A prolonged crisis or uncertainty could increase insecurity, dampen economic sentiment and ultimately may lead to more Indian layoffs and thus a decline in remittances.

India also ranked fifth in the list of the largest investors in the GCC, with investments exceeding $2.5 billion, representing more than 8 percent of total foreign investments in the GCC in 2016. Between 2010 and 2016, the GCC attracted $199 billion in foreign investment, with India accounting for $21.1 billion or 11 percent of that, ranking it third after the US and UAE, according to the Arab Investment & Export Credit Guarantee Corporation.

Given India’s strategic interests and growing ties with all GCC states, New Delhi has rightly taken a neutral position over the Gulf diplomatic crisis, calling the concerned countries to resolve it peacefully and through dialogue. Indeed, as there is not much to be gained by getting too involved in the GCC dispute; it is logical to expect India to maintain its present cautious and balanced approach.

• Dr. Naser Al-Tamimi is a UK-based Middle East researcher, political analyst and commentator with interests in energy politics and Gulf-Asia relations. Al-Tamimi is author of the book “China-Saudi Arabia Relations, 1990-2012: Marriage of Convenience or Strategic Alliance?” He can be reached on Twitter @nasertamimi and e-mail: nasertamimi@hotmail.co.uk.

The Defense Department detected and tracked a single North Korea missile launch today at about 10:41 a.m. EDT, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said Friday in a statement.

The department believes the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected, Davis said.

Davis said the missile was launched from Mupyong-ni, and traveled about 620 miles before splashing down in the Sea of Japan. The Defense Department, he added, is working with its interagency partners on a more detailed assessment.

No Threat to North America

The North American Aerospace Defense Command determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America, Davis said.

The United States’ commitment to the defense of its allies, including South Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, remains ironclad, the spokesman said.

The United States also remains prepared to defend itself and its allies from any attack or provocation, he added.

U.S. Eighth Army and South Korean army personnel Friday conducted a second combined training event to exercise assets in view of today’s North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch, Eighth Army officials announced in a press statement.

This exercise once again utilized the Army Tactical Missile System and South Korea’s Hyunmoo Missile II, which fired missiles into territorial waters of South Korea along the country’s eastern coast July 5.

According to the statement, the ATACMS can be rapidly deployed and engaged and provides deep-strike precision capability, enabling the U.S.-South Korean alliance to engage a full array of time-critical targets under all weather conditions.

As reported, the US Defense Department said it detected and tracked a single North Korea missile launch Friday at about 10:41 a.m. EDT.

The Defense Department said it believes the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The missile was launched from Mupyong-ni, and traveled about 620 miles before splashing down in the Sea of Japan.

South Korea has provided a humanitarian assistance package to Sri Lanka for drought relief. A Korean Parliamentary delegation handed over the relief material including eight lorry-mounted water bowsers to President Maithripala Sirisena at the President’s Official Residence in Colombo on Friday.

The keys of the water bowsers were handed over by two leaders of the Korean Parliamentary Delegation, Hong Moon-jong and Yoo Ki-june, two senior members of the Korean National Assembly. Minister of Disaster Management, Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Korean Ambassador Won-sam Chang were also present on this occassion.

President Sirisena thanked the Government and the people of South Korea for providing assistance to drought victims. “Nearly 2/3rds of the country is badly affected by the droughts and the people are in need of water, the bowsers donated by Korea are quite useful,” he said.

Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa said the bowsers would be dispatched immediately to the drought affected districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Trincomalee Districts.

Referring to close bilateral cooperation, the President thanked Korea for providing employment to nearly 30,000 Sri Lankans and looking after them properly.

Leader of the delegation, Hong Moon-jong thanked Sri Lanka for the support extended to Korea at the international forums. He said that the Korean employers are quite satisfied about job performances and efficiency of Sri Lankan workers. He said that the delegation is visiting Sri Lanka to attend the events to mark the 40th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Former Korean Minister of Oceanic Affairs, Yoo Ki-june said an island nation like Sri Lanka could make maximum utilization of the vast sea resources and added that Korea’s technical knowledge in the fisheries sector could be shared with Sri Lanka to develop fishing industry in this country. He suggested that the cooperation in the fisheries sector could be established through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

President Sirisena welcomed the proposal for cooperation in fisheries sector and said with the support of Korean technical support Sri Lanka could further increase fish exports to Europe and other countries.

Spain’s Ministry of the Treasury and Public Function published on its website Friday the figures for the State deficit of the month of June, together with the combined deficit of the Central Government, Autonomous Regions and Social Security for May, stated in national accounting terms.

In the period January-June, the State posted a deficit of 13.25 billion euros, 38.4% less than in the first half-year of 2016. In GDP terms, the State deficit was equivalent to 1.14%, 0.79 percentage points less than the same period 2016.

Excluding accrued interest, the State has a primary surplus of 114 million euros compared with the negative primary balance of 7.48 billion recorded in the first half-year of 2016.

In the first half-year, non-financial state revenue amounted to 84.30 billion euros, compared with the 80.02 billion recorded in the same period 2016.

Revenues from taxes and social security contributions amounted to 78.04 billion euros, of which 24.23 billion correspond to current tax on income and property, and 49.92 billion to tax on production and imports, up by 5.7% largely due to the performance of tax revenue from VAT which grew by 6.6% compared with the first half-year of 2016.

With regard to other revenues, interest income grew by 5.7 %. Conversely dividends and other income shrank by 12.7% due to Bank of Spain profits falling by 519 million euros, which was partially offset by dividends from ENAIRE amounting to 292 million, with no corresponding amount in 2016.

As at June 2017, non-financial state expenditure stood at 97.55 billion euros, 3.9% lower than in the same period 2016.

Current and capital transfers between Government Authorities, which are the largest expenditure items (56.2% of State spending), totalled 54.81 billion, down by 4.4%.

This drop was due to the lower volume of transfers made to the State Public Employment Service to finance unemployment benefits, down by 1.51 billion euros. Also lower was the volume of transfers to the Autonomous Regions, down by 1.2%, and the volume of transfers to Central Government bodies, down by 14%.

Expenditure on intermediate consumption also shrank by 7%, as did employee remuneration expense, down by 5.4%, and accrued interest, down by 4.6%. Other items recording decreases were current international cooperation and the contribution to the EU, down by 14.7% and 12% respectively.

Among the items of current expenditure which increased were social benefits other than social transfers in kind, which grew by 1.6% as a result of the growing cost of civil service pensions, up by 3.9% over the same period 2016. Other current expenditure also increased by 30.9%, almost entirely due to the 533 million euro increase in spending compared with 2016, to cover the electricity deficit, which is funded by increased taxation.

Among capital spending we would highlight investment aid, up by 26.6% due to contributions to ADIF-High Speed in the amount of 187 million euros. Meanwhile, gross capital formation totalled 2.13 billion, 2.5% less than in 2016.

In the period January-May the consolidated deficit of the Government Authorities, excluding Local Authorities, fell to 1.59% of GDP compared with the 2.17% recorded in the same period the previous year. This figure excludes the net balance of aid to financial institutions, which at month-end May posted a negative figure of 299 million euros.

Venezuela faces potentially radical changes to its constitution this weekend, after years of economic collapse and shortages.

In the midst of the political upheaval, the Venezuelan bishops are urging both the government and the people to seek a respectful, democratic solution.

“The country is in ruins, people are dying of hunger, there are a number of children dying every month in the hospitals. This demonstrates that the government has not been on top of the circumstances,” said Cardinal Jorge Urosa of Caracas in an interview with Venezuelan journalist Carlos Croes.

He stressed that the administration of President Nicolas Maduro must dialogue with the country’s legislature, the National Assembly, whose majority is in opposition to the regime.

The government’s misunderstanding and mishandling of the country’s problems, the cardinal continued, is “something that works against peace in the country.”

“The way forward is respect, tolerance, and the government seeking an understanding with the opposition leaders,” he said.

Time to come to this understanding, however, is running out. This weekend Maduro will take the first step toward rewriting the Venezuelan constitution and reorganizing the government: holding a vote for members of the constituent assembly which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution.

The boycott of the process by the opposition will likely result in the dissolution of the National Assembly and further restrictions on the opposition within Venezuela. This move by Maduro follows previous attempts to dissolve the National Assembly through the Supreme Court and the shutdown of an October 2016 recall referendum of Maduro’s government – a constitutional right instated by Maduro’s predecessor and mentor within the country’s socialist party, Hugo Chavez.

The constitution which Maduro seeks to re-rwite was adopted in 1999, shortly after Chávez came to power.

In recent years, the Venezuelan economy has collapsed, resulting in food and medical shortages, as well as struggles with housing, utilities, and other basic necessities. As a result, Maduro’s popularity has plummeted, leading to a rise of opposition to the government and public protests around the country.

Previously, the Church in Venezuela has tried to broker agreement between the government and the opposition, though those negotiations have fallen through. Since then, the Venezuelan bishops have argued for a democratic resolution to the crisis. Cardinal Urosa again argued for democratic negotiations to resolve the issue, and warned that the widespread opposition – as high as 80 percent – to the constituent assembly would only make things worse.

“That is a problem that the government has to face and try to resolve from the democratic point of view,” he stated.

“We’re with the people and most Venezuelans don’t want the Constitutional Assembly,” he said. The bishops of Venezuela, the cardinal continued, “are defending the rights of the people which are being abused by an inefficient government.” He said that the most concerning aspects of the suffering the Venezuelan people face are the shortages of food and medication.

The Venezuelan bishops’ conference later issued a statement reinforcing calls for democratic processes and warning against rewriting the constitution. “Everything suggests that what is sought is to establish a socialist, Marxist state and military, by dissolving the autonomy of powers, especially the legislative powers,” warned the conference. They also warned the populace against starting riots or other forms of violence, stating that it could further destabilize the country.

The government has banned protests that could “disturb or affect” Sunday’s election for the constituent assembly, with fines of between five and 10 years for protestors.

Around 100 people have been killed in anti-government protests since April.

The bishops’ stance against the constitutional rewrite has not been without opposition of its own. Earlier this week, the publisher San Pablo, who distributes the “Sunday Page” – a Sunday bulletin for Venezuelan parishes about the Gospel and meditations – warned the faithful there was a false edition of the bulletin which had been distributed to parishes around the country.

In the false edition of the bulletin, which promoted the constitutional assembly, faithful are advised that the process “is like the permanent Revolution, it is a revolution within the Revolution and we must always be revising the Constitution.”

“We are calling you to be attentive and not be fooled, ” the publisher warned. The warning was later distributed by the Venezuelan bishops.

According to the Caracas daily El Nacional, Holy Family parish in Carora was attacked by government supporters July 27.

Families in the area reported that its roof “was damaged by stones and Molotov cocktails thrown by groups symapethic to government and officials of the Venezuelan National Guard.”

By Jack Pannell*

On July 17, President Trump declared that “The US once again calls for free and fair elections and stands with the people of Venezuela in their quest to restore their country to a full and prosperous democracy.”[i] Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, also has called for a “transition to democracy” in the South American nation. A Senate bill introduced in May by Senator Cardin asserted the need for democracy in Venezuela and proposed that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) lead the effort to distribute food and medical supplies to the beleaguered nation.[ii] The bill was co-sponsored by eight senators on both sides of the aisle.

Despite their rhetoric in favour of democracy as well as economic assistance to the Venezuelan people, the United States’ priority is the same as it has been since Chavez’s democratic election in 1998. The removal – at any cost – of the government that sought to break U.S economic hegemony in Latin America. Senator Marco Rubio went so far as to threaten to cut U.S aid to Haiti, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic if they didn’t vote for sanctions against Venezuela at the Organization of American States.[iii] Assertions of the need for democracy are deeply hypocritical given repeated attempts by the U.S government to undermine and remove the Chavez regime, while exhibiting a tacit endorsement of violent opposition in the process.

The United States has a long history of using its economic might and covert operations as a tool to topple leftist governments across the hemisphere, and Venezuela is no exception. Declassified documents have revealed that “it is clear that NED [National Endowment for Democracy], Department of Defence (DOD), and other U.S. assistance programs provided training, institution building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved” in the failed coup against Chavez in 2002. When the businessman, and brief president of Venezuela, Pedro Carmona, temporarily seized power, Washington quickly endorsed the illegal coup d’état in Caracas. These actions certainly do not represent the United States’ purportedly high-minded goal of bringing democracy to Venezuela, or its self-proclaimed status as the leader of the free world.

The United States has also funnelled tens of millions of dollars of “aid” to Venezuela giving backing to a series of anti-government groups. Chavez also overwhelmingly won the 2004 recall referendum on his presidency with 58 percent of the vote. His victory was somewhat undermined when the NGO Sumate, a polling organisation, released an exit poll placing Chavez 18 percentage points behind. Sumate had played a key role in lobbying for the referendum. Both the Organization of American States and the Carter Foundation monitored the vote and declared it to be free and fair. President Carter himself has accused Sumate of deliberately publishing this skewed data, despite a ban on releasing any polling before results were announced, to influence voters and help propagate false allegations of fraud.[iv] A leaked document from 2005 reveals a directive by then President Bush to make $3 million USD available to the organization to, “help us continue to catalyse Sumate’s efforts.”[v] Another document reveals that the NED provided over $30,000 to the NGO, and when its heads were facing prosecution it was seen as, “a blow against Sumate and [United States] interests in Venezuela”.[vi]

After the United States failed to back the coup and delegitimize Chavez’s re-election in 2004, they continued to attempt to undermine democratic rule in Venezuela. Another leaked cable from 2006 laid out Ambassador William Brownfield’s plan for the democratically-elected government, in the lead up to the 2006 Venezuelan election, as follows:

1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez’s Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.[vii]

When a foreign power intervenes in the elections in the United States it is an outrage that receives wall to wall coverage in the U.S. media. When it is the United States attempting to undermine the leader of a sovereign foreign power who has just won resounding re-election it receives little to no coverage.

President Trump has also given implicit support to the opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, meeting with his wife in the Oval Office. Lopez, shortly before his transfer from prison to house arrest, sent out a mobile video urging the military to overthrow President Maduro, claiming that they “have the right, and the duty, to rebel”. If not democratic then Lopez is at the very least pro-business. This is something that will no doubt hearten Secretary Tillerson who, as CEO of Exxon, oversaw the company’s loss of around $10 billion USD when Chavez expropriated foreign oil assets in 2007.

The condemnation by U.S. politicians of violence during protests in Venezuela is ironic given the fact that leaked files reveal that Eduardo Fernandez, while working for the private development firm Development Alternatives, Inc., (DAI), described the leaders of violent right-wing protesters in 2009 as “our grantees”.[viii] The majority of DAI funds are provided by USAID. Other files show that the State Department invited Nixon Moreno, a right-wing student torchbearer, as a “young leader” to an International Visitors Program in 2004.[ix] This is despite the fact that the government was aware that Moreno had led a mob in the town of Merida “who marched on the state capital to lynch MVR governor Florencio Porras,” during the April 2002 coup.[x]

The U.S has repeatedly supported violent opposition to the Venezuelan Government and has time and again shown its disregard for Venezuelan sovereignty and democracy. There is no reason to treat current demands for democracy and for access of USAID to Venezuela as anything more than a continuation of long term U.S policy to remove from power any Latin American government that attempts to oppose U.S dominance of the region, and promote Latin American autonomy and independence.

*Jack Pannell, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by Sebastian Chavarro, Extramural Contributor, and Sheldon Birkett and Tobias Fontecilla, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] Hilary Clarke, “Trump Calls Venezuela’s Maduro a ‘bad leader,’ Threatens Toughter Sanctions” CNN.Com, July 18, 2017, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15d5611af188509b?projector=1

[ii] Ben Cardin, “Venezuelan Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act of 2017” 114th Congress, May 3, 2017, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Final%20VZ%20leg.pdf

[iii] Antonio Maria Delgado, “Rubio tells Haiti, Other Nations to Defend Democracy in Vote on Venezuela Sanctions” Miami Herald, March 27, 2017, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article141080013.html

[iv] Bart Jones, “Venezuela: Divisions Harden After Chavez Victory” National Catholic Reporter September 4, 2004, http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004c/090304/090304a.php

[v] “Venezuela’s Sumate After the White House” Wikileaks, June 14, 2005, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05CARACAS1805_a.html

[vi] “Sumate Directors Harassed, Facing Possible Detention” Wikileaks, February 9, 2006, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS339_a.html

[vii] “USAID/OTI Programmatic Support for Country Team 5 Point Strategy” Wikileaks, November 9, 2006, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS3356_a.html

[viii] “GBRV Police Target USAID/OTI-Funded Democracy Programs” Wikileaks, August 27, 2009 https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09CARACAS1132_a.html

[ix] “Student Leader Seeks Asylum” Wikileaks March 19, 2009, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07CARACAS591_a.html

[x] “Students Protest in Merida” Wikileaks, June 2, 2006, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS1627_a.html

Fifteen years ago this week, Vladimir Putin signed the law “On opposing extremist activity,” a measure that is now Paragraph 282 of the Russian Criminal Code and one that as amended and applied over the years has become almost as terrifying as the notorious Article 58 that Stalin used against all and sundry to fill the GULAG.

Initially, Yekaterina Bogdanova of the 7×7 news agency says, many human rights activists were skeptical of the measure but did not “massively criticize it” because it appeared to include certain protections. But those have been ignored by the regime and the courts and the constitutional rights of Russians are being trampled upon (7×7-journal.ru/item/97104).

“The number of sentences under ‘extremist’ paragraphs has been growing at more than arithmetic progression, and the list of extremist materials has already grown geometrically. Defenders of freedom of speech now speak more often about the need if not for complete ‘liquidation of ‘the anti-extremist’ law, then at least its major overhaul,” she says.

The Russian law has been criticized by international organizations who have pointed out that many of its victims now must be called political prisoners because they are being punished by the Kremlin not for criminal actions but because the regime does not approve of what they think or say.

European countries have laws against extremism, but the number of cases there has been very small, but in Russia, “more than 650” such cases were brought last year alone, up from only 137 in 2011. This has happened, SOVA head Aleksandr Verkhovsky says, because “our Russian courts simply forget to assess the level of social danger” of any action – even though that is required by the law itself.

Perhaps even worse, the SOVA chief continues, has been the compilation and expansion of lists of “extremist materials,” including books, articles, and videos, and then banning them is “stupid.” Nonetheless, the list continues to grow, from fewer than 80 in 2007 to more than 4,000 now.

And in many cases, the term “extremism” has been applied to things that no international standard or even Russian law in general would justify and without any regard to the danger that this or that statement or picture represents. But everything is lumped together, and the term now means little more than something the authorities don’t like at a particular moment in time.

Banning publications is “a Russian innovation,” Bogdanova says; but banning organizations is something done in many countries. But experts see a problem with the way in which Russia has done so. The application of this part of Paragraph 282 is so elastic that the number of organizations declared extremist has risen from eight in 2007 to 47 in 2015.

And things are getting worse, not only with respect to the application of the law but also with respect to the law itself as ever more provisions are added not to provide new protections but to allow the authorities to apply it ever more widely. Perhaps Bogdanova’s most useful contribution is to list these expansions of what she calls “the well forgotten old.”

In short, she demonstrates that at 15, Paragraph 282 is now vastly more dangerous than it was at its birth, with no sign that it will be reined in anytime soon.

At the last press conference before the Spanish government heads off on vacation, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on Friday, July 28 that his government would lodge legal action with the Spanish Constitutional Court against Catalonia’s latest bid to lay out a path to independence from the rest of Spain, Deutsche Welle reports.

Rajoy’s announcement addressed a procedural reform that lawmakers in Catalonia had approved on Wednesday that would allow the region’s government to fast-track its approval of laws of secession without debate and within a single day. The head of government and his advisers believe that Spain’s top court will find the proposed reform unconstitutional for violating the right to political participation.

The proposed reform lacks “the most elemental democratic guarantees,” Rajoy said, making it a clear violation of both the Spanish Constitution and the region’s Statute of Autonomy, which outlines the areas of self-governance that are independent from Madrid.

The autonomous institutions of Catalonia and the bureaucrats who serve them “cannot be used to deliver an action that blatantly contradicts law,” Rajoy added.

The prime minister from the conservative People’s Party and his government adamantly oppose the Catalan secessionist movement, which wants the semi-autonomous region in Spain’s northeast to split off from the rest of Spain and become its own sovereign state.

Frequent alcohol consumption is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes in both men and women, according to a new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes), with alcohol consumption over 3-4 week days giving the lowest risks of diabetes.

Previous studies have consistently suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption – in terms of amount consumed – is associated with a lower risk of diabetes compared with abstention in men and women, whilst heavy consumption is associated with a risk greater than or equal to that of abstainers. However previous studies examining the role of drinking patterns (number of days drinking per week rather than volume) in relation to diabetes risk have given inconsistent findings, and studies on the effects of particular types of beverage are likewise inconclusive.

The present study, by Professor Janne Tolstrup and colleagues from the National Institute of Public Health of the University of Southern Denmark, examined the effects of drinking frequency on diabetes risk, and also considered association with specific beverage types.

The study used data from the Danish Health Examination Survey (DAHNES) from 2007-2008, in which Danish citizens aged 18 and over completed a self-reporting questionnaire including items on lifestyle and health. Those who already had diagnosed diabetes were excluded, as were women who were pregnant or had recently given birth (likely to result in a change in drinking habits). The study comprised 70,551 DAHNES participants who had given details of alcohol consumption. Follow up information, continued until 2012 with a median follow up of 4.9 years, was gathered via linking to Danish nationwide registries.

Drinking patterns from the questionnaires were established as follows: abstainers — lifetime and current — distinguished to reduce the risk of bias in the results as a consequence of current abstinence being chosen because of health issues; and individuals drinking alcohol — at frequencies of less than 1 day per week; 1-2 days/ week; 3-4 days/ week and 5-7 days/ week. Frequency of binge drinking (of 5 or more beverages on one occasion) was reported as never; less than one day per week; and once or more per week.

Consumption of specific beverage types — wine, beer and spirits – was coded as less than one drink per week, 1-6 drinks per week and 7 or more drinks per week for women and 7-13 and 14 or more drinks per week for men. Beverage specific and overall average weekly alcohol amounts were calculated. Participants were also asked whether their alcohol consumption had increased, decreased or remained stable over the previous 5 years. Information on incident diabetes was obtained from the Danish National Diabetes Register.

The data was adjusted for various confounders: age, sex, level of education, body mass index, smoking status, diet (frequent or infrequent intake of fibre rich bread or grain, vegetables, salad, fruit and fish), leisure time activity, current or previous hypertension and family history of diabetes.

During follow up, 859 men and 887 women developed diabetes. In terms of weekly alcohol amount, the current findings mirrored those of previous studies — the lowest risk of developing diabetes being found in individuals consuming moderate amounts of alcohol. Men consuming 14 drinks per week were found to have a 43% lower risk of diabetes relative to no alcohol intake, and women consuming 9 drinks per week had a 58% lower risk compared with women who did not drink at all.

In terms of frequency, the data revealed that consumption of alcohol 3-4 days a week gave the lowest risk of diabetes — a 27% lower risk in men and a 32% lower risk in women – when compared to individuals drinking less than one day per week.

The study found no clear evidence of an association between binge drinking and diabetes risk, which the authors suggest may be due to low statistical power since few participants reported binge drinking.

Regarding beverage type, moderate to high intake of wine was associated with a lower risk of diabetes, in line with previous studies. The authors suggest that this might be due to a beneficial effect that polyphenols in wine have on management of blood sugar, giving red wine in particular a potential protective impact. Men and women who consumed 7 or more drinks of wine per week had a 25-30% lower risk of diabetes compared with those having less than 1 drink of wine per week.

Consuming between 1 and 6 beers per week gave a 21% lower risk of diabetes in men compared with men drinking less than 1 beer per week, while beer was not associated with diabetes risk in women. The authors found no statistically significant association between average weekly alcohol amount of spirits and diabetes in men. In women, however, having 7 or more drinks of spirits per week was associated with an 83% increased risk of diabetes when compared with women consuming less than 1 drink of spirits per week.

The authors conclude: “Our findings suggest that alcohol drinking frequency is associated with the risk of diabetes and that consumption of alcohol over 3-4 weekdays is associated with the lowest risks of diabetes, even after taking average weekly alcohol consumption into account.”

Shocking new research suggests that Western men’s sperm count has more than halved between 1973 and 2011, an average of 1.4 % per year. Scientists are still uncertain as to the cause of the dramatic drop but have argued that their findings must be taken seriously and that action must be taken to address what could become a major public health crisis.

A new study published in the journal ‘Human Reproduction Update’ has sounded the alarm bells after showing that since the 1970s, the concentration of sperm per millilitre of semen amongst men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand fell by nearly 60%.

The findings are particularly alarming as they show that the problem shows no sign of leveling off, so the portion of men who are either subfertile or completely infertile will likely increase, meaning more couples will struggle to conceive. In some Western societies already dealing with the challenges of population stagnation or decline, such as Italy and Germany, this will only add to their long-term demographic woes.

More pressing, lower sperm count predicts an overall shorter life expectancy and are associated with certain forms of cancer and sexual development disorders.

‘The results are quite shocking,’ commented Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist and lead author of the study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He argues that although IVF treatment can offer solutions for successful conception, little has been done to address the root causes of the problem. ‘This is a classic under-the-radar public health problem that is really neglected,’ he added.

The study, the largest meta-analysis ever done on the issue to date, examined data from 185 studies between 1973 and 2011, covering nearly 43 000 men. The team split the data based on whether the men were from Western countries or from elsewhere. After taking factors into account such as age and how long men had gone without ejaculation, they found that sperm concentration had fallen from 99 million per ml in 1973 to 47.1 million per ml in 2011.

The danger of falling sperm counts has often been peddled as a myth, with sceptics arguing that previous research was based on skewed samples because men are more likely to get their sperm examined if they fear they are already infertile. The new study overcame this criticism, as it looked at primarily young men who had never conceived and had no idea about their fertility status.

In contrast, no such trends were seen for non-Western men, although the authors of the current study caution that there haven’t been enough major and substantial studies undertaken in other countries. However, a 2016 study of 30 000 men in China’s Hunan province found that sperm count had declined 18 % between 2001 and 2015. The authors of that study argued that environmental pollution could be to blame.

Unfortunately, the jury is still out on what is causing the phenomenon among Western men. Echoing the suspicions of the Chinese study team, public health advocates fear that chemicals such as those in pesticides, flame retardants, cosmetics and plastics are to blame. These substances are known as ‘endocrine disruptors’ as they can interfere with the body’s hormone systems and Western societies are saturated with them.

More research will undoubtedly need to be conducted over the coming years to address a public health issue that could have devastating consequences for future generations.

Cordis Source: Based on media reports

Climate change is increasing water scarcity around the world and the inter-dependencies of global trade mean that the impact could ripple far and wide, including across Europe, as the EU-funded project IMPREX warns.

European mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to the increase of high impact hydrological extremes rely on both improved forecasting coupled with an accurate quantification of the likely impact. Impact assessments need to look at a wide range of issues such as: the effect on citizen safety; agricultural production; transportation; energy production; urban water supply, and ultimately, overall economic productivity. A recent study ‘Dependencies of Europe’s economy on other parts of the world in terms of water resources’, carried out as part of the EU-funded IMPREX project, contributes to the development of a comprehensive risk assessment.

Based on an analysis of where the goods consumed by European citizens or used by businesses are produced, the IMPREX research finds that almost 40% of the EU’s water demand is fulfilled by countries outside Europe. Furthermore, the study identifies that some European staples such as animal feed, rice and cotton, all come from regions experiencing increasing water scarcity, presenting a potential vulnerability for the European economy.

Understanding demand, as well as supply

The basis for the study was the fact that commodities of international trade contain ‘virtual water’ embedded within them, as components necessary for their production. Therefore, combining knowledge about the source and flow of this virtual water, as it enters and leaves regions, can shed light on the water dependencies of economies.

Perhaps the most obvious example is with agriculture-based products that are water-intensive, dependent upon water availability at various locations and stages in the production process. This makes the production vulnerable to threats such as fresh water pollution, droughts or river flow reductions. The IMPREX data mapped specific crops imported by Europe against their regions of origin, tracing instances where produce comes from regions facing degrees of water scarcity. Examples put forward being the import of cotton, rice and sugar cane from Australia and South Africa, both facing severe water scarcity.

In order to calculate the ‘water footprint’ generated by the flow of the production and consumption of these commodities, IMPREX looked at three source water components referred to as green, blue and grey. The green water footprint representing precipitation water stored in soil and evaporated, transpired or incorporated by plants, relevant for agricultural, horticultural and forestry products. Blue water has been sourced from surface or groundwater resources and has either evaporated, been incorporated into a product or taken from one body of water to another, usually for irrigated agriculture, industry and domestic water use. Grey water is water that assimilates pollutants to maintain quality and safety standards.

The IMPREX team were able to build a ‘Virtual Water Trade Model’ which correlates the annual global trade flows of major industrial products, crop products, livestock products to national production, for each of the green, blue and grey water footprints. The model covers the years 2006-2013, the most recent years for which data is reliably available. The study found that the EU’s production and consumption water footprints for this period were respectively, on average, 517 km3 and 600 km3 per year.

Developing the vulnerability assessment framework

Commenting on the results of the study, Professor Bart van den Hurk, the IMPREX project coordinator has said, ‘Right now it is more like an alert.’ Indeed, the study forms the baseline for the project’s next stage, which is to assess the actual likely impacts, and so potential vulnerability, of different European economic sectors.

IMPREX will ultimately support European governments, policy-makers and private companies with their sustainable development planning, integrating the influence of population growth, increased demand for products and services, and climate change.

Cordis Source: Based on project information and media reports

Does wearing make-up affect academic performance? The new study investigates the “Lipstick Effect” among college students.

Female students wearing make-up get higher grades than those not wearing make-up, a new study has found. The surprising results, published in Cogent Psychology, are the culmination of the first study into how academic performance is affected by the so-called “lipstick effect” – a psychological phenomenon in which wearing cosmetics can make an individual feel a sense of overall enhancement in self-esteem, attitude, and personality.

Cosmetics have a well-documented effect on wearers’ psychology, in that the wearer feels more physically attractive and enjoys a consequent higher sense of self-esteem. But a less well-known effect of this boost in self-esteem is that cognitive abilities may also be influenced, in that they are improved by positive emotions. As psychologists have previously proved that positive emotions can indeed improve academic performance, the authors of this paper set out to prove that make-up can directly improve academic performance.

To investigate, Rocco Palumbo of Harvard Medical School along with colleagues from the University of Chieti, Italy, devised a psychological experiment in which female undergraduates were sorted into groups and given a series of tests.

The test comprised of answering multiple choice questions about a chapter from a general psychology textbook. Before each of the three groups took the test, they all undertook a different mood-influencing task. One group applied make-up, another listened to “a positive music excerpt”, and a third coloured a drawing of a human face. The hypothesis was that the make-up group would experience the greatest lift in positive feelings, and would therefore outperform the other two groups academically.

The study found a significant increase in cognitive performance from the group who listened to positive music however, as predicted, the make-up group performed the best. Test scores were significantly higher compared to those obtained after listening to positive music and therapeutic colouring. Make-up, it seems, really can improve academic performance.

A pair of engineers at the University of Delaware has developed a process to form interwoven polymer networks more easily, quickly and sustainably than traditional methods allow. Their secret ingredient? Blue light.

Abhishek Shete, graduate research assistant in materials science and engineering, and Christopher Kloxin, assistant professor in materials science and engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering, describe their method in a paper featured on the cover of the 24th issue of Polymer Chemistry. The paper is titled “One-pot blue-light triggered tough interpenetrating polymeric network (IPN) using CuAAC and methacrylate reactions.”

Polymers, which are materials made from chains of molecules, are found in everything from food to clothing to cars. Two or more types of polymer chains with different individual properties can also be linked together to form interpenetrating polymeric networks, materials that often combine favorable mechanical properties from each polymer such as high strength and toughness.

“These chemistries independently are used in a broad range of applications,” from dental composites, automobile bumpers to drug delivery materials, Shete said.

However, the process of linking polymers is not simple. It requires two chemical reactions, which are typically initiated through either a lengthy two-step process or a one-step process induced at elevated temperatures and longer time spans.

The method Kloxin and Shete developed is one step and works rapidly at room temperature and ambient conditions.

They use 470-nanometer blue light, which is similar to blue LED light used to detect certain body fluids in crime scene investigations. This light triggers reactions with a photosensitizer called camphorquinone and an activator called amine. These materials are commonly utilized in polymeric dental composites for filling cavities.

The light irradiates the materials to photostimulate the two chemical reactions, but not simultaneously. First up is a reaction called the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) click polymerization. This reaction is facilitated by copper, and polymerization occurs in steps. Next is a reaction called the methacrylate polymerization, which forms a plastic-like material in a manner similar to adding links to a growing chain. “This is unique in the way the blue light induces sequential reactions,” says Kloxin.

The end result is a material that Kloxin and Shete describe as a “glassy film,” less brittle than pure methacrylate and stronger than pure CuAAC at higher temperature. The films made from this IPN material also exhibit shape memory– when deformed, it can be returned to its original size and shape with 15 minutes of heating at 80 degrees Celsius.

This blue-light approach to form interpenetrating polymer networks saves time and energy, but those are not its only advantages. For one, this approach allows Kloxin and Shete to control the pair of chemical reactions with increased precision, allowing them to fashion the polymer networks into complex shapes. This rapid method also keeps the ingredients from separating in a way that could otherwise interfere with the formation of an interpenetrating polymer network.

In addition, the new process requires none of the solvents or additives commonly used in plastics manufacturing, often added to prevent brittle fracture. The materials reported by Kloxin and Shete exhibit enhanced toughness that overcomes this brittleness without any solvents or additives, also making it a greener synthetic approach.

The team has filed a provisional patent for the method described in the new paper. “These chemistries could be attached to other molecules,” Kloxin said, and the team will test their applications to form hydrogels, dental materials and other polymer networks.

Angelina Jolie has been accused of child exploitation after the bizarre casting process for her latest movie was revealed – with impoverished Cambodian children being forced to stage a mock battle for money, NME said.

The actress has directed First They Killed My Father, a Netflix film about the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in 1970s Cambodia.

But in a recent Vanity Fair interview, the unorthodox process to cast Cambodian child actors was revealed – with casting directors visiting orphanages, circuses, and slum schools in order to cast children who had “experienced hardship”.

“The casting directors set up a game, rather disturbing in its realism: they put money on the table and asked the child to think of something they needed the money for, and then to snatch it away”, the article revealed.

“The director would pretend to catch the child, and the child would have to come up with a lie.”

And while the part eventually went to child actress Srey Moch, Jolie openly revealed that the experience had forced her to relive traumatic past experiences.

“Srey Moch [the girl ultimately chosen for the part] was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time,” Jolie said.

“When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back. When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.”

The unorthodox casting process has left UNICEF ambassador Jolie facing accusations of child exploitation.

The backlash comes ahead of the film’s release on Netflix later this year.

(EurActiv) — Britain will try to keep as many aspects of its EU membership in place as possible during a transition period of up to three years after Brexit, finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday (28 July).

But Hammond told BBC radio that EU nationals would have to register with the authorities starting from the expected departure date of March 2019 as the government comes up with a new immigration system.

“Many things will look similar” and goods will continue to flow between Britain and the EU in “much the same way as they do now” even after the scheduled departure date of March 2019, he said.

“I think there’s a broad consensus that this process has to be completed by the scheduled time of the next general election which is in June 2022,” he said.

Hammond, who campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU in last year’s referendum but now supports withdrawal, is seen as an advocate of a more moderate “soft Brexit” in contrast to more hardline ministers.

According to the Financial Times, Hammond unveiled the plan to business leaders earlier this week, arguing there was not enough time to negotiate a “bespoke” deal before the March 2019 deadline.

“He told us the Europeans now agree a cliff edge would harm both parties,” a person present at the meeting told the FT.

But one of the thornier issues yet to be negotiated is the right of EU citizens to travel and settle in Britain.

More than a decade of immigration from the bloc under freedom of movement rules was a major factor in the June 2016 referendum that saw British citizens vote to leave the EU.

Prime Minister Theresa May has so far insisted that Brexit needs tougher immigration rules, including an end to free movement of EU citizens.

According to Hammond, “Europeans will still be able to come into the UK” during the transition period, “but they will have to register with the authorities so we know who’s coming and who’s going”.

“We’ve been clear that it would be some time before we are able to introduce full migration control between the UK and the EU,” he said.

By Conn Hallinan*

The splintering of the powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into warring camps—with Qatar, supported by Turkey and Iran, on one side, and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), supported by Egypt, on the other—has less to do with disagreements over foreign policy and religion than with internal political and economic developments in the Middle East. The ostensible rationale the GCC gave on June 4 for breaking relations with Qatar and placing the tiny country under a blockade is that Doha is aiding “terrorist’ organizations. The real reasons are considerably more complex, particularly among the major players.

Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn once described the Syrian civil war as a three-dimensional chess game with five players and no rules. In the case of the Qatar crisis, the players have doubled and abandoned the symmetry of the chessboard for “Go,” Mahjong, and Bridge.

Tensions among members of the GCC are longstanding. In the case of Qatar, they date back to 1995, when the father of the current ruler, Emir Tamin Al Thani, shoved his own father out of power. According Simon Henderson to of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE “regarded the family coup as a dangerous precedent to Gulf ruling families” and tried to organize a counter coup. The coup was exposed, however, and called off.

Riyadh is demanding that Qatar sever relations with Iran—an improbable outcome given that the two countries share a natural gas field in the Persian Gulf—and end Doha’s cozy ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, if there is any entity in the Middle East that the Saudis hate—and fear—more than Iran, it is the Brotherhood. Riyadh was instrumental in the 2013 overthrow of the Brotherhood government in Egypt and has allied itself with the Israelis to marginalize Hamas, the Palestinian version of the Brotherhood that dominates Gaza.

But fault lines in the GCC do not run only between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Oman, at the Gulf’s mouth, has always marched to its own drummer, maintaining close ties with Saudi Arabia’s regional nemesis, Iran, and refusing to go along with Riyadh’s war against the Houthi in Yemen. Kuwait has also balked at Saudi dominance of the GCC, has refused to join the blockade against Doha, and is trying to play mediator in the current crisis.

The siege of Qatar was launched shortly after Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, when the Saudi’s put on a show for the U.S. President that was over the top even by the monarchy’s standards. Wooed with massive billboards and garish sword dances, Trump soaked up the Saudi’s view of the Middle East, attacked Iran as a supporter of terrorism and apparently green-lighted the blockade of Qatar. He even tried to take credit for it.

Saudi Arabia, backed by Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE, along with a cast of minor players, made 13 demands on Doha that it could only meet by abandoning its sovereignty. They range from the impossible—end all contacts with Iran—to the improbable—close the Turkish base—to the unlikely—dismantle the popular and lucrative media giant, Al Jazeera. The “terrorists” Doha is accused of supporting are the Brotherhood, which the Saudi’s and the Egyptians consider a terrorist organization, an opinion not shared by the U.S. or the European Union.

On the surface this is about Sunni Saudi Arabia vs. Shiite Iran, but while religious differences do play an important role in recruiting and motivating some of the players, this is not a battle over a schism in Islam. Most importantly, it is not about “terrorism,” since many of the countries involved are up to their elbows in supporting extremist organizations. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s reactionary Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the root ideology for groups like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, and all the parties are backing a variety of extremists in Syria and Libya’s civil wars.

The attack on Qatar is part of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive new foreign policy that is being led by Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman. Since being declared “monarch-in-waiting” by King Salman Al Saud, Mohammed has launched a disastrous war in Yemen that has killed more than 10,000 civilians, sparked a country-wide cholera epidemic, and drains at least $700 million a month from Saudi Arabia’s treasury. Given the depressed price for oil and a growing population—70 percent of which is under 30 and much of it unemployed—it is not a cost the monarchy can continue sustain, especially with the Saudi economy falling into recession.

Underlying the Saudi’s new-found aggression is fear. First, fear that the kind of Islamic governance modeled by the Muslim Brotherhood poses a threat to the absolutism of the Gulf monarchs. Fear that Iran’s nuclear pact with the U.S., the EU and the UN is allowing Tehran to break out of its economic isolation and turn itself into a rival power center in the Middle East. And fear that anything but a united front by the GCC—led by Riyadh—will encourage the House of Saud’s internal and external critics.

So far, the attempt to blockade Qatar has been more an annoyance than a serious threat to Doha. Turkey and Iran are pouring supplies into Qatar, and the Turks are deploying up to 1,000 troops at a base near the capital. There are also some 10,000 U.S. troops at Qatar’s Al Udeid Airfield, Washington’s largest base in the Middle East and one central to the war on the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Any invasion aimed at overthrowing the Qatar regime risks a clash with Turkey and the U.S.

While Egypt is part of the anti-Qatari alliance—the Egyptians are angry at Doha for not supporting Cairo’s side in the Libyan civil war, and the Egyptian regime also hates the Brotherhood—it is hardly an enthusiastic ally. Saudi Arabia keeps Egypt’s economy afloat, and so long as the Riyadh keeps writing checks, Cairo is on board. But Egypt is keeping the Yemen war at arm’s length—it flat out refused to contribute troops and is not comfortable with Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam. Cairo is currently in a nasty fight with its own Wahhabist-inspired extremists. Egypt also maintains diplomatic relations with Iran.

Besides the UAE, the other Saud allies don’t count for much in this fight. Sudan will send troops—if Riyadh pays for them—but not very many. Bahrain is on board, but only because the Saudi and UAE armies are sitting on local Shiite opposition. Yemen and Libya are part of the anti-Qatar alliance, but both are essentially failed states. And while the Maldives is a nice place to vacation, it doesn’t have a lot of weight to throw around.

On the other hand, long-time Saudi ally Pakistan has made it clear it is not part of this blockade, nor will it break with Qatar or downgrade relations with Iran. When Riyadh asked for Pakistan troops in Yemen, the national parliament voted unanimously to have nothing to do with Riyadh’s jihad on the poorest country in the Middle East.

The largely Muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia are also maintaining relations with Qatar, and Saudi ally Morocco offered to send food to Doha. In brief, it is not clear who is more isolated here.

While President Trump supports the Saudis, his Defense Department and State Department are working to resolve the crisis.  U.S. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson just finished a trip to the Gulf in an effort to end the blockade, and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is threatening to hold up arms sales to Riyadh unless the dispute is resolved. The latter is no minor threat. Saudi Arabia would have serious difficulties carrying out the war in Yemen without U.S. weaponry.

And the reverse of the coin?

Doha’s allies have a variety of agendas, not all of which mesh.

Iran has correct, but hardly warm, relations with Qatar. Both countries need to cooperate to exploit the South Pars gas field, and Tehran appreciated that Doha was always a reluctant member of the anti-Iran coalition, telling the U.S. it could not use Qatari bases to attack Iran.

Iran is certainly interested in anything that divides the GCC. The Iranians would also like Qatar to invest in upgrading Iran’s energy industry and maybe cutting them in on the $177 billion in construction projects that Doha is lining up in preparation for hosting the 2022 World Cup Games. Also, some 30,000 Iranians live in Qatar.

Figuring out Turkey these days can reduce one to reading tea leaves.

On one hand, Ankara’s support for Qatar seems obvious. Qatar backs the Brotherhood, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party is a Turkish variety of the Brotherhood, albeit one focused more on power than ideology. Erdogan was a strong supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and relations between Cairo and Ankara went into the deep freeze when Egypt’s military overthrew the Islamist organization.

Qatar is also an important source of finances for Ankara, whose fragile economy needs every bit of help it can get. Turkey’s large construction industry would like to land some of the multi-billion construction contracts the World Cup games will generate. Turkish construction projects in Qatar already amount to $13.7 billion.

On the other hand, Turkey is also trying to woo Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies for their investments. Erdogan even joined in the GCC’s attacks on Iran last spring, accusing Tehran of “Persian nationalist expansion,” a comment that distressed Turkey’s business community. As the sanctions on Iran ease, Turkish firms see that country’s big, well-educated population as a potential gold mine.

The Turkish President has since turned down the anti-Iran rhetoric, and Ankara and Tehran have been consulting over the Qatar crisis. The first supportive phone call Erdogan took during the attempted coup last year was from Qatar’s emir, and the prickly Turkish President has not forgotten that some other GCC members were silent for several days. Erdogan recently suggested that the UAE had a hand in the coup.

Is this personal for Turkey’s president? No, but Erdogan is the Middle East leader who most resembles Donald Trump: he shoots from the hip and holds grudges. The difference is that he is far smarter and better informed than the U.S. President and knows when to cut his losses.

His apology to the Russians after shooting down one of their fighter-bombers is a case in point. Erdogan first threatened Moscow with war, but eventually trotted off to St. Petersburg, hat in hand, to make nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And after hinting that the Americans were behind the 2016 coup, he recently met with Tillerson in Istanbul to smooth things out.  Turkey recognizes that it will need Moscow and Washington to settle the war in Syria.

The Russians have been carefully neutral, consulted with Turkey and Iran, and have called on all parties to peacefully resolve their differences.

There is not likely to be a quick end to the Qatar crisis, because Saudi Arabia keeps doubling down on one disastrous foreign policy decision after another, including breaking up the Arab world’s only viable economic bloc. But there are developments in the region that may eventually force Riyadh to back off.

The Syrian War looks like it is headed for a solution, although the outcome is anything but certain. The Yemen War has reached crisis proportions—the UN describes it as the number one human emergency on the globe—and pressure is growing for the U.S. and Britain to wind down their support for the Saudi alliance. And Iran is slowly but steadily reclaiming its role as a leading force in the Middle East and Central Asia.

There is much that could go wrong. There could be a disastrous war with Iran, currently being pushed by Saudi Arabia, Israel and neo-conservatives in the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. and Turkey could fall out over Syria.  The Middle East is an easy place to get into trouble. But if there are dangers, so too are there possibilities, and from those springs hope.

*Foreign Policy In Focuc columnist Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com.

The agri-food industry offers a bright future for the youth, in Singapore and abroad, amid discouraging youth employment prospects globally.

By Jose Montesclaros*

In 2016, Singapore saw the smallest annual increase in its employment statistics since 2003, according to the Ministry of Manpower. Moreover, only 80% of university graduates surveyed in 2016 from the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and Singapore Management University, were able to find jobs within six months. In fact, those finishing from polytechnics had better outcomes, with 91% of fresh graduates and 95% of post-national service graduates employed within six months. This implies the non-intuitive outcome that there is less demand for individuals with more years of education.

These trends paint a discouraging picture of the future, a sentiment which can be seen among some youth in social media. This is also shown in a rough and perhaps even anecdotal survey by The Straits Times where nine out of 15 students interviewed in 2014 shared concerns they may not be able to own a car and a house in the future, what are seen by some as “basic goods” today.

Wider Trends: Youth Unemployment in Perspective

This situation is not unique to Singapore, with graduates from European countries flocking to Asia with hopes of better opportunities. Add to this the high expectations and perceptions of self entitlement that today’s millennials express, and it is no wonder that there is greater disappointment. In the extremes, in fact, suicide is increasing at the greatest rate in youths, globally.

However, depression need not be the order of the day.

A look at the global environment shows that today’s situation is not a result of the youth’s (graduates, and even young professionals) inability to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment. Rather, it is a natural result of certain imbalances resulting from several transitions happening globally.

To begin with people are working longer and retiring later, leaving fewer job vacancies amid the large demographic of people finishing school and entering the world’s labour force. In cities, urban populations are also growing at a faster rate, through births and migration, than jobs being created.

Lastly, we are facing the Fourth Industrial Revolution — after steam, electricity and electronics/information technology — which the World Economic Forum describes as greater digitisation and integration of technology into other activities such as healthcare and transportation. This offers greater opportunities for increasing productivity, while at the same time, opening us up to the risk of job displacement too.

The economic slump is also to blame. An industry or sector of the economy cannot simply create new jobs if demand for products in that industry is not growing. In luxury goods, the consultancy Bain and Co reports that global demand actually fell from US$ 251 billion in 2015 to an estimated $249 billion in 2016. Slowing or negative growth in demand for these commodities means equally slow/negative growth in demand for workers in related industries. This is understandable, with more individuals saving than splurging on luxury goods.

Silver Lining in Agri-Food?

These are just some of the reasons for today’s situation, and all these need to be recognised so that the youth will not blame themselves for this situation, and so that integrated approaches to cope can be identified.

Contrary to trends in luxury goods, a silver lining can be seen in the prospects for more jobs in the agri-food industry, as shared by speakers at the recent Youth Engagement Event held alongside the World Agricultural Forum in Singapore, 6-7 July 2017.

Firstly, there is growing demand for food on the back of population growth especially in developing countries, with projections of demand growth of 58% to 98% by 2050 according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (UN FAO). To meet this growing demand, producers will need to cope with the challenge of climate change, which threatens to reduce yields in agricultural production.

Scientists will be needed to develop crops of the future which will be able to withstand droughts and flooding, with additional potential of fortifying food with more of needed vitamins and nutrients.

Industrial Revolution 4.0

On the back of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, more work will also be needed in developing and prototyping applications of digital technologies to agriculture, from drones that can monitor fields and spray the right quantity of chemicals, to crop analytics that help farmers to calibrate their use of inputs to maximise profits, and also compare yields across areas. More young entrepreneurs today, in Singapore and abroad, are venturing into startups that develop these products to support food production, as well as in applying these in modern, high-tech urban farms.

At the same time, consumers are demanding higher quality food products, so that more jobs are needed in the field of safety testing, sterilisation and quality assurance. One of the emerging food safety threats is resistance of diseases to antibiotics meant to address them.

These can have high social and welfare costs, estimated at up to $124.5 trillion from world GDP by 2050, according to the RAND Corporation. No small part of this will be in food, as two-thirds of the estimated future growth of applications of antibiotics is expected to occur in animals like livestock.

Lastly, as more individuals are living in cities, companies are realising economic benefits of shorter supply chains whenever food is produced domestically, as there are less middlemen to pay off to transport commodities. This also allows them to reduce the food miles, or the ecological footprint caused by transport of food from exporting to importing countries, or from far-off rural areas to cities. Urban planners, consultants, and supply chain specialists with exposure to food and agriculture will likely be in greater need in helping cities and companies adjust to the new normal of a world of cities.

Future Directions

Looking forward, more support can be given to developing future professions linked to agriculture, as highlighted above. While not a panacea that can address job loss in other sectors, the agri-food industry can nonetheless contribute more jobs for the youth, while at the same time helping secure food through new discoveries and technologies.

In Singapore, this can be in the form of more targeted training curricula, and encouraging more internships, in agri-food. Singapore’s imperative of becoming a fully fledged digital nation may also be complemented by efforts at identifying agricultural applications for tech knowledge, in high tech farming as well as food safety, among others.

*Jose Montesclaros is an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is part of a series on the World Agricultural Forum 2017 held on 6-7 July 2017 in Singapore, co-organised by the WAF and RSIS.

In September 1952, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) looked back at New York on board the Queen Elizabeth. He was bound for Europe, to introduce the continent to his latest film Mousieur Verdoux. On the ship, Chaplin learned that the United States government would only let him return to the USA – where he had lived for the past three decades – if he subjected himself to an Immigration and Naturalization inquiry into his moral and political character. ‘Goodbye’, Chaplin said from the deck of the ship. He refused to submit to the inquiry. He would not return to the USA until 1972, when the Academy of Motion Pictures gave him an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

Why did the US government exile Chaplin? The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) – the country’s political police – investigated Chaplin from 1922 onwards for his alleged ties to the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). Chaplin’s file – 1900 pages long – is filled with innuendo and slander, as agents exhausted themselves talking to his co-workers and adversaries to find any hint of Communist association. They found none. In December 1949, for instance, the agent in Los Angeles wrote, ‘No witnesses available to testify affirmatively that Chaplin has been member CP in past, that he is now a member or that he has contributed funds to CP’.

Beside the charge that he was a communist, Chaplin faced the accusation that he was ‘an unsavory character’ who violated the Mann Act – the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910. Chaplin had paid for the travel of Joan Barry – his girlfriend – across state lines. Chaplin was found not guilt of these charges in 1944. It has subsequently been shown in a number of memoirs and studies that Chaplin was cruel to his many wives (many of them teenagers) and ruthless in his relations with women (Peter Ackroyd’s 2014 book has the details). In 1943, Chaplin married the playwright Eugene O’Neill’s daughter – Oona. She was 18. Chaplin was 54. They would have eight children. Oona Chaplin left the United States with her husband and was with him when he died in 1977. There was much about Chaplin’s life that was creepy – particularly the way he preyed on young girls (his second wife – Lita Grey – was 15 when they had an affair and then married; he was then 35). FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had considerable evidence to sift through here, but none of it was found to be sufficient to deport Chaplin.

What was the smoke that got into Hoover’s nose from the fire of Chaplin’s politics? From 1920 onwards, it was clear that Chaplin had sympathies for the Left. That year, Chaplin sat with Buster Keaton – the famous silent film actor – to drink a beer in Keaton’s kitchen in Los Angeles. Chaplin was at the height of his success. With Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith, Chaplin created United Artists, a company that broke with the studio system to give these four actors and directors control over their work. Chaplin was then working on The Kid (1921), one of his finest films and based almost certainly on his childhood. Keaton recounted that Chaplin talked ‘about something called communism which he just heard about’. ‘Communism’, Chaplin told him, according to Buster Keaton, ‘was going to change everything, abolish poverty’. Chaplin banged on the table and said, ‘What I want is that every child should have enough to eat, shoes on his feet and a roof over his head’. Keaton’s response is casually insincere, ‘But Charlie, do you know anyone who doesn’t want that?’

Chaplin came to the United States just after the Russian Revolution. He saw the growing lines of unemployment and distress in the United States – an unemployed population that grew from 950,000 (1919) to five million (1921). This was a time of great class struggle – the Palmer Raids conducted by the government against the Communists, on the one side, and the general strike in Seattle as well as the Battle of Blair Mountain by the mineworkers of Logan County, West Virginia, on the other side.

Chaplin’s silent films were anchored by the figure of the Tramp, the iconic poor man in a modern capitalist society. ‘I am like a man who is ever haunted by a spirit, the spirit of poverty, the spirit of privation’, Chaplin said. That is precisely what one sees in his films – from The Tramp (1915) to Modern Times (1936). ‘The whole point of the Little Fellow’, Chaplin said in 1925 of the tramp figure, ‘is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he’s still a man of dignity’. The working-class, the working-poor, are people of great resourcefulness and dignity – not beaten down, not to be mocked. Chaplin’s sympathy for the working-class defines all his most famous silent films.

It was Chaplin’s popularity and his message that disturbed the FBI. ‘There are men and women in far corners of the world who never have heard of Jesus Christ; yet they know and love Charlie Chaplin’, noted an article that an FBI agent clipped and highlighted in Chaplin’s file. Chaplin’s plainly depicted criticism of capitalism did not fail to impress the world’s peoples nor disturb the FBI. ‘I don’t want the old rugged individualism’, Chaplin said in November 1942, ‘rugged for the few and ragged for the many’.

The great limitation in his films is the depiction of women. They are always damsels in distress or rich women who are desired by poor men. There are few ‘women of dignity’, women who – at that time – were in pitched battles for their own rights. In fact, many silent films in both the UK and the US disparaged the Suffragette movement of their time – from A Day in the Life of a Suffragette (1908) to A Busy Day (1914, which was originally titled A Militant Suffragette). In this latter film, only six minutes long, Charlie Chaplin plays a suffragette who is boorish and then dies by drowning.

The film was released the same year as Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes to unite suffragette politics with socialism. Pankhurst, unlike Chaplin, would join the Communist Party and – in 1920 – would author A Constitution for British Soviets. She would leave the Communist Party, but remained a devoted Communist and anti-fascist for the rest of her life. If only Chaplin’s sexism had not blocked him from celebrating his contemporaries such as Pankhurst, Joan Beauchamp (another Suffragette and founder of the British Communist Party) as well as her sister Kay Beauchamp (co-founder of The Daily Worker, now Morning Star) and Fanny Deakin.

What drew Chaplin directly into the orbit of institutional left-wing politics was the rise of fascism. He was greatly troubled by the Nazi sweep across Europe. Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator (1940) was his satire of fascism – a film that should be watched by all in our times.

Two years after that film was out, Chaplin flew to New York City to be the main speaker at a Communist-backed Artists Front to Win the War event. Chaplin took the stage at Carnegie Hall on 16 October 1942, addressed the crowd as ‘comrades’ and said that Communists are ‘ordinary people like ourselves who love beauty, who love life’. Then, Chaplin offered his clearest statement on Communism – ‘They say communism may spread out all over the world. And I say – so what?’ (Daily Worker, 19 October 1942). In December 1942, Chaplin said, ‘I am not a Communist, but I am proud to say that I feel pretty pro-Communist’.

Chaplin was impressed by the principled and unyielding stand taken by the Communists against fascism – whether during the Spanish Civil War or in the Eastern Front against the Nazi invasion of the USSR. In 1943, Chaplin called the USSR ‘a brave new world’ that gave ‘hope and aspiration to the common man’. He hoped that the USSR would ‘grow more glorious year by year. Now that the agony of birth is at an end, may the beauty of its growth endure forever’. When asked a decade later why he was so vocal about his support for the USSR – including with appearances at the Communist fronts such as the National Council for American-Soviet Friendship and the Russian War Relief – Chaplin said, ‘during the war I sympathized much with Russia because I believe that she was holding the front’. This sympathy remained through the remainder of his life.

Chaplin had not calculated the toxicity of the Cold War era in the United States. In 1947, he told reporters, ‘These days if you step off the curb with your left foot, they accuse you being a Communist’. Chaplin did not back off from his beliefs or betrayed his friends. At that same press conference he was asked if he knew the Austrian musician Hanns Eisler, who was a Communist and who wrote the music for many of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. He had fled Nazi Germany for the United States to work in Hollywood. Eisler had composed songs for the Communist Party (he would write music for the anthem of the German Democratic Republic – Auferstanden Aus Ruinen). Chaplin came to his defense. When asked about his association with Eisler at that 1947 press conference, Chaplin said that Eisler ‘is a personal friend and I am proud of the fact…I don’t know whether he is a communist or not. I know he is a fine artist and a great musician and a very sympathetic friend’. When asked directly if it would make any difference to Chaplin if Eisler was a communist, he said, ‘No it wouldn’t’. It took a lot of courage to defend Hanns Eisler who would be deported from the United States a few months later.

When Chaplin died in Switzerland in December 1977, he was mourned far and wide. In Calcutta, where a Left Front government had only just come to power in a landslide in June, artists and political activists gathered the next day to mourn him. The main speaker at the memorial service was the Bengali film director Mrinal Sen. In 1953, Sen had written a book on Chaplin – illustrated by Satyajit Ray.

Neither Sen nor Ray had made any of their iconic films as yet (both released their first films in 1955, Ray’s Pather Panchali and Sen’s Raat Bhore). ‘Without a moral justification’, Sen said at the memorial meeting, ‘cinema is ridiculous, is atrocious, is an outrage. It is a social activity. It is man’s creation’. The gap between art and politics should not be too wide, Sen warned. He was thinking of Chaplin’s films, but also of his own. At that time, Sen was working on Ek Din Pratidin (One Day, Everyday), a superb film that chronicles the possibilities of women’s emancipation. Here Sen went far beyond Chaplin. His communism included women.

This article was originally published at Vijay Prashad’s blog.