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Smokers 20 Percent More Likely To Quit When Cigarettes Cost $1 More

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Older smokers are usually more set in their ways, but a dollar increase in cigarette prices makes them 20 percent more likely to quit, a new Drexel University study found.

The study, published in Epidemiology, used 10 years of neighborhood-level price data to determine how it affected nearby smokers, focusing on those who skewed older.

“Older adult smokers have been smoking for a long time and tend to have lower rates of smoking cessation compared to younger populations, suggesting deeply entrenched behavior that is difficult to change,” said Stephanie Mayne, PhD, the lead author of the study who is a former doctoral student at Drexel and now a fellow at Northwestern. “Our finding that increases in cigarette prices were associated with quitting smoking in the older population suggests that cigarette taxes may be a particularly effective lever for behavior change.”

Taking a look at the local relationship between smoking habits and cigarette prices is an understudied but important area to look at, according to the senior author on the study, Amy Auchincloss, PhD, associate professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health.

“Results on this topic primarily have come from population surveillance,” she said. “But we had neighborhood tobacco price data and could link that to a cohort of individuals who were followed for about 10 years.”

Smoking cessation remains an important focus of public health efforts since it remains the largest preventable cause of death and disease in not just the United States, but the world.

The cohort Mayne and Auchincloss looked at included smokers ranging in age from 44 to 84 and stretched across six different places, including the Bronx, Chicago, and the county containing Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Data were taken from the study population between 2002 and 2012 as a part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Artherosclerosis (MESA).

In addition to finding that current smokers were 20 percent more likely to quit smoking when pack prices went up by a dollar, Mayne and Auchincloss’ team showed that there was a 3 percent overall reduction in smoking risk.

However, when the data was narrowed to heavy smokers (defined as smoking more than half a pack a day), there was a 7 percent reduction in risk. When prices increased by a dollar, heavy smokers also showed a 35 percent reduction in the average number of cigarettes they smoked per day, compared to 19 percent less in the overall smoking population.

“Since heavy smokers smoke more cigarettes per day initially, they may feel the impact of a price increase to a greater degree and be more likely to cut back on the number of cigarettes they smoke on a daily basis,” Mayne said.

While the data focused on a population older than 44, Mayne believes the price effect may be “similar or possibly stronger in a younger population.”

“Some research suggests younger adults may be more price-sensitive than older adults,” she pointed out.

Something she found, though, was that smoking bans in bars and restaurants did not appear to have any effect on smoking behavior in the study population. Although more research is likely necessary to see why that is and whether it’s true — Mayne will soon publish a study devoted to that — one possible explanation is that the economic pressures of a cigarette price increase provide a stronger incentive to quit than placing limits on smoking in public places.

Mark Stehr, PhD, an associate professor in Drexel’s School of Economics who also served as a co-author on the study, also had a thought on the bans’ effect.

“A ban may be circumvented by going outside or staying home, whereas avoiding a price increase might take more effort,” he pointed out.

Based on results from this study, raising cigarette prices appears to be a better strategy for encouraging smoking cessation across all ages.

“More consistent tax policy across the United States might help encourage more older adults to quit smoking,” Mayne said.

“Given our findings, if an additional one dollar was added to the U.S. tobacco tax, it could amount to upwards of one million fewer smokers,” Auchincloss said. “Short of federal taxes, raising state and local taxes and creating minimum price thresholds for tobacco should be essential components of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy – particularly in places with high tobacco prevalence.


Right Kind Of Collaboration Key To Solving Environmental Problems

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The coming decade may determine whether humanity will set a course toward a more socially and ecologically sustainable society. A crucial part of this goal is to develop a better understanding of how cooperation can be improved and become more effective, both within and among private stakeholders and public institutions.

“Collaborative governance is often highlighted as a solution to different environmental problems. For example, when small-scale fishermen agree to avoid overfishing or when states agree to reduce greenhouse gases. But we don’t know so much about how cooperation around environmental issues works in a complex world. Different actors want different things, different environmental problems are related to each other, and different groups have differing amounts of influence. Does cooperation actually lead to a better environment?” said Örjan Bodin, lecturer at the Stockholm Resilience Centre who conducts interdisciplinary research on better ways to handle diverse environmental problems.

One way to delve into these questions has been to study how different collaborative initiatives have engaged different actors and how these actors have chosen to work with each other. An ‘actor’ can be an individual, like a fisherman, but it can also be a city, business, non-profit or a country. Through studying these collaborative networks we develop a better understanding of how actors, both as a group and as individuals, act when confronted with different environmental problems.

“Our research shows that the ability to solve environmental problems is in part connected to the way these networks are structured – the patterns of collaboration between actors”, said Örjan Bodin.

The research shows that certain patterns are more suitable for solving different types of shared problems. For example, if the problem implies a high risk of actor free-riding on others’ efforts, the situation is improved by tightly linking the actors together. This could mean that two actors who cooperate with the same, third actor should also cooperate directly with each other, forming a triangle of cooperation.

“It also makes a difference whether the environmental problem is temporary or more permanent. If it’s temporary it can be more effective to have a cooperative network with a clearly chosen coordinator or leader to hold it together”, said Örjan Bodin.

The study also shows how the ability to solve problems even depends on how a network ‘aligns’ with the structures and processes found in the affected ecosystem. This means, for example, that if two actors deal with two different yet interconnected parts of the ecosystem they should work together.

“A good socio-ecological ‘fit’ would increase the possibilities of effectively solving environmental problems. So, for example, the development of sustainable fishing could be helped if two fishermen who fish for the same species collaborate with each other”, said Örjan Bodin.

You’re Fired! Why Not Negotiate A NAFTA Alternative? – Analysis

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By Sheldon Birkett*

Contentious political divisions over the macroeconomic impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on trade unions, labor, productivity, and capital shares have sharply juxtaposed free trade’s “winners” and “losers.” Calling NAFTA a “free trade agreement” (FTA) is highly misleading to the public, as many of the most harmful elements of the agreement are the non-trade aspects, such as labor standards, investor-state dispute mechanisms, environmental and safety regulations. NAFTA must be renegotiated in the interest of protecting sensitive trade industries while retaining the surplus value added within each member’s domestic economy. This can be done through renegotiating NAFTA into a plurality of industry-specific selective trade agreements.

This article covers NAFTA member’s historical positions, their current positions in the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations and examines the possible negotiating scenarios as proposed by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which could affect the outcome of the renegotiations. COHA has proposed policies to improve NAFTA, which can be enacted by following a selective trade liberalization model such as the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact.

There are many challenges to renegotiate NAFTA as a fair trade agreement. For instance, the growing necessity of Mexico and Canada to gain an upper-hand in the upcoming negotiations, not to be denied an adequate trade deal, is being sabotaged by the mainstream media’s inadequate coverage of NAFTA’s non-trade elements. Many of NAFTA’s non-trade elements have been shoehorned into the agreement, such as Chapter 11 Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).[i] Chapter 11 allows for the protection of investor rights, in which investors can receive monetary reward from a NAFTA government that has violated investors’ rights. Chapter 11 ISDS is contentious because it solves such disputes by a trade tribunal and not through due-process of national courts. For example, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) seems too preoccupied with covering the NAFTA renegotiations as “apocalyptic economic suicide.” Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau frantically runs around gaining support from state governors to maintain NAFTA in its current form.[ii] This narrative is misleading, as it portrays NAFTA as Canada’s economic life-support, which is far from the truth. Realistically, if NAFTA was terminated tomorrow it would only affect 1.47 percent of Canada’s total exports to the United States.[iii] As well, NAFTA has only had a small impact on the United States economy, as total trade with Mexico and Canada accounts for less than 5 percent of U.S. GDP at the time the agreement was ratified.[iv] It was also predicted that NAFTA would only have a 0.1 to 0.5 percent increase in U.S. GDP upon full implementation.[v] This suggests that NAFTA is surely more than just free trade; it is a set of legal rules that aim at increasing corporate profits at the expense of American, Canadian, and Mexican citizens. Therefore, a NAFTA alternative is necessary to retain the benefits of trade, but reject the corporatist nature of NAFTA 2.0.

American, Canadian, and Mexican Perspectives on 1990’s NAFTA Negotiations

In the face of a hostile U.S administration, characterized by the “twitter-diplomacy” of President Donald Trump, it is easy to forget the strategic grassroots organization throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in North America that fiercely opposed the idea of having further economic integration with the United States, which has been primarily dictated by corporate special interests. One of the U.S. trade officers who was negotiating industry-specific business concerns in NAFTA commented on the negotiating process of the U.S. Sectoral Advisory Committee (SAC) as “When you let a dog piss all over a fire hydrant, he thinks he owns it… [the executive branch] carried the hydrants to the dogs.”[vi] This is in reference to the power corporate lobbyist had over NAFTA’s legislation and the executive branch of the United States government during the original NAFTA negotiations. It is important to remember that during the ratification of NAFTA the Clinton administration made many side concessions to individual congressman who originally opposed the NAFTA deal, in order to build stronger bi-partisan support for the trade agreement.

Meanwhile, in Canada the Liberal opposition in 1989 fiercely opposed the NAFTA idea on economic grounds. However, as soon as the Liberals, led by Jean Chretien, won the 1993 federal election they made a u-turn on their opposition to NAFTA, bustling full speed ahead with ratifying the agreement.

In Mexico, under the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s strong influence among the executive, legislative, and federal government officials – along with the ironclad control over the trade union federation Confederación de Trabajadores de Mexico – suppressed all possible resistance from the indigenous or independent labor alliances within Mexico’s legislature.

On January 1, 1994, NAFTA was cheerfully celebrated by the business elites in North America, signifying a movement towards further trade liberalization and reducing non-trade barriers in favor of capital gains.[vii] Upon signing NAFTA, former President Bill Clinton remarked, “Now we must recognize that the only way for a wealthy nation to grow richer is to export, to simply find new customers for the products and services it makes.”[viii] Clinton’s remarks of an export-oriented growth model as the only way to grow a nation’s wealth is a narrow-minded approach to increasing societal wealth. However, recent anti-FTA sentiments in the United States coupled with unsavory U.S.-Mexico relations, and a naive Canadian government, begs the question: is NAFTA the only policy alternative towards North American economic integration? This is the question that this paper will seek to answer amongst the current NAFTA 2.0 renegotiations.

NAFTA’s 2.0 Positions and Future Negotiating Scenarios

The release of Trump’s 17-page Summary of Objectives for the NAFTA Renegotiations provides a “subpar” America First solution, particularly for Canada and Mexico. Trump’s call for tighter North American rules of origin, asymmetrical investor-protection rules, and abolishment of NAFTA’s Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism is sure to irritate America’s closest trading partners.[ix] Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism allows Canadian and Mexican government to go to an independent bi-national panel to work out trade dispute with the United States. As well, the entirety of Trump’s negotiating strategy is hypocritical – the executive director of the Sierra Club stated, “Based on today’s ‘plan,’ one could be forgiven for concluding that Trump’s opposition to the TPP was merely political theater.”[x] The Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland, seems determined to “defend” a Canada-E.U. Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) style NAFTA 2.0, which has eroded Canada’s system of supply management, according to NDP MP Tracy Ramsey.[xi] [xii] However, Trudeau’s so-called “sunny-ways” strategy appears anything but reassuring for Canadians.[xiii] In Mexico, the Mexican government wants to maintain the benefits gained from NAFTA while at the same time seeking to modernize the agreement – specifically seeking higher labor market integration, free access for goods and services, and energy security.[xiv]

The first round of negotiations, out of six rounds, started on August 16th in Washington D.C. The Peterson Institute for International Economics has outlined four possible scenarios that could play out during the negotiations, given Trump’s erratic rhetoric when it comes to trade policy (i.e. his threat to terminate NAFTA on April 27, 2017 followed by his decision to modernize the 23-year-old trade agreement). The first scenario is that Canada and Mexico would capitulate to the U.S. demands; however, this is very unlikely given the “one-sided” nature of Trump’s demands. Secondly, the “modernizing” NAFTA approach would mean stronger labor and environmental standards, holding private companies to the same standard as state-owned corporations, and the allowance of free flow of digital services. However, this second scenario is unlikely as this would ruin Trump’s protectionist “America First” political ideology. The third scenario is the termination of NAFTA. Although full-out termination might sound radical, it is entirely within the scope of possibilities given Trump’s threats last April. Nonetheless, the third scenario would not be a bad option for Canadians, as the Canadian government would be able to revert to the suspended 1989 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA). If Trump refuses to accept a CUSFTA agreement, the Canadian economy would only see modest losses.[xv] If Trump makes good on his promise to terminate NAFTA, the Mexican economy would see a substantial decline in its foreign direct investment (FDI) – resulting in a decline of the peso. The fourth scenario would be to muddle through the challenges of NAFTA making compromises between the merits of protectionism and liberalization.[xvi] This outcome seems the most probable, given the Canadian government’s naiveté towards Trump’s so-called willingness to “negotiate,” and the growing hostility between Trump and President Peña Nieto over U.S.-Mexico immigration. Agreeing on compromises when it comes to NAFTA is not new. For example, one of the main reasons the Mulroney government signed onto NAFTA in 1992 was the independent binational nature of the Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism, as it allowed some labor protection within NAFTA’s dubious set of industry-friendly regulations. According to a Canadian Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “[the Chapter 19 dispute settlement process] was the bare minimum Canada would accept in negotiations […] without [it] Canada would not have signed the FTA.”[xvii] It is possible for NAFTA’s trading partners to compromise on trade when it is at the benefit of their own special interests; however, when it is at the cost of losing their support from their political base they turn inwards. With the current nature of Trump’s foreign relations, it is fair to expect everything and nothing.

COHA’s Policy Recommendations

In the meantime, while the “three amigos” are bickering over the NAFTA renegotiations, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs has already proposed solutions to progressively “modernize” NAFTA, to protect labor standards, environmental regulation, eliminate corporate friendly provisions and improve overall trading relations between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. On September 13, 2010, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs published the article Negotiating A New NAFTA: What and Why This is Needed. COHA set out three main objectives to “modernize” NAFTA, all of which are still highly relevant today: i) A new NAFTA (or NNAFTA) should allow governments to enact policies that target discriminatory trade and non-trade practices within a regional free trade agreement; ii) labor and environmental standards must be equitably standardized among Canada, the United States, and Mexico; however, this does not mean harmonization with U.S. regulation. This includes guaranteeing a common living wage, worker safety, and welfare criteria to aid the negative macroeconomic sectoral shifts in the North American economy; iii) Governments must proceed in a negotiating strategy that is fair and equitable to all parties involved.[xviii]

Given these policy recommendations, determining the benefits of NAFTA is ambiguous, because all partners in the trilateral agreement heavily participate in intra-industry trade, or “production sharing operations.” Production sharing operations occur when value is added to imported products, such as non-processed and semi-processed raw materials, through manufacturing and then exported again to other countries.[xix] Heavy reliance on intra-industry trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States has resulted in a considerable amount of inflow of foreign domestic investment (FDI), but unfortunately, foreign investment has not been retained in the respective countries. Most of the surplus value added to the goods are exported and re-sold internationally. The effects of production sharing operations are most heavily felt in Mexico, as their exploitative special exporting process zones (or EPZs) keep little foreign investment within the domestic economy, as goods produced within EPZs are exported from Mexico after being processed. In Canada there has been a substantial increase in FDI because of NAFTA, but Canada’s total share of North American FDI has declined because of the increasing outflow of FDI to the rest of North America. Similarly, the U.S. economy has suffered under NAFTA. The United States now imports more than it exports to NAFTA partners as a result of major shifts in the U.S. economy from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy. In addition, Clinton’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, intended to aid laborers affected by NAFTA, has provided little assistance to a disenfranchised American populace. On all sides of the bargaining table, the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada should be optimistic about “modernizing” a less than adequate NAFTA agreement. However, Canadian and Mexican officials must stand strong against a less than adequate Trump administration. Despite the chance for compromises to be made at the upcoming negotiations, it may be worth the costs incurred to terminate NAFTA and revert to selective trade liberalization.

Canada-U.S. Auto Pact 1965: Selective Trade Liberalization, A NAFTA Policy Alternative?

The Canada-U.S. Auto Pact of 1965 is a good example of how protected intra-industry trade can benefit each trading partner. The Canada-U.S. Auto Pact was “designed to permit North American (primarily U.S. multinational) producers to rationalize production facilities” by removing U.S. and Canadian tariffs on trans-border shipment of vehicles and equipment parts. [xx] For producers to participate in the Auto Pact, manufactures had to achieve a minimum level of status of origin, which required 50 percent of the product to be manufactured in either the U.S. or Canada. In addition, for the product to qualify for duty-free preferential treatment, manufactures had to maintain a ratio between the net sales of vehicles made in Canada and the net sales of vehicles sold in Canada. This was in addition to trade regulation, which required that the value added to vehicles must be maintained at (or above) the level of origin in the base year (1964).[xxi] In contrast to the deregulatory nature of NAFTA, such regulatory requirements ensured that manufacturing in both countries was maintained at a certain level. Although it may seem unrealistic, it is in the best interest of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to revert to bilateral selective trade liberalization agreements, which primarily aim to protect sensitive trade industries while at the same time retaining an inflow of FDI within the domestic economy, by limiting the ability for manufacturers to exploit the surplus value gained through domestic manufacturing. A 1986 National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 1953 found that “Canada-U.S. Auto Pact selective trade liberalization provisions did not substantially improve the efficiency of Canadian automobile production relative to U.S. production,”[xxii] as it only improved Canadian automotive efficiency by 3 percent between 1970 and 1979.[xxiii] The Canadian and American automotive industry was oligopolistic, which has restricted the ability for manufacturers to achieve the highest possible efficiency from the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact. In 2001 the Auto Pact was determined to be illegal by the World Trade Organization, but by then NAFTA had effectively replaced previous free trade agreements.

Conclusion

Despite the failure of the Auto Pact to reach its full potential, selective trade liberalization agreements should be advocated as a means of replacing NAFTA. It is necessary for NAFTA members to tread lightly in the upcoming negotiations not to inflict further damage upon the North American economy while considering policy alternatives.

If selective trade liberalization agreements were to replace NAFTA – in the event Trump terminates NAFTA – it would be necessary for each respective industry to critically examine the macroeconomic costs and benefits, and be transparent with employees, of the impact of free trade on unemployment before Canada, the United States and Mexico collude into any further negotiations. There is no doubt that there are macroeconomic benefits to gain from David Ricardo’s trade theory of comparative advantage, but to truly reap the benefits from international trade, it is necessary to examine all the variables at play. Either way, NAFTA renegotiations are going to bring about change for the better, or for the worse.

*Sheldon Birkett, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by Jim Baer, Senior Research Fellow, and Arianna La Marca and Laura Ruiz, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] “NAFTA’s Chapter 11: Corporate Cases,” Public Citizen, 2017, https://www.citizen.org/our-work/globalization-and-trade/naftas-chapter-11-corporate-cases. NAFTA Chapter 11: “If a company believes that a NAFTA government has violated these new investor rights and protections, it can initiate a binding dispute resolution process for monetary damages before a trade tribunal, offering none of the basic due process or openness guarantees afforded in national courts.”

[ii] Katie Simpson, “Liberals to step up NAFTA charm offensive in Washington come September,” CBC, August 3, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-nafta-washington-us-trade-renegotiations-1.4232349.

[iii] Scott Sinclair, Pierre Laliberte, “What is the NAFTA advantage?” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, June 2017,https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2017/06/What_is_NAFTA_Advantage.pdf.

[iv] Angeles Villarreal, Ian F. Fergusson, “The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),” Congressional Research Service, May 24, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42965.pdf.

[v] Ibid.

[vi]Laura Macdonald, Mildred A. Schwartz, “Political Parties and NGOs in the Creation of New Trading Blocs in the Americas,” International Political Science Review, April, 2002, Vol. 23(2), p. 135-158.

[vii] Bob Herbert, “In America; Nafta And the Elite,” The New York Times, November 10, 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/10/opinion/in-america-nafta-and-the-elite.html.

[viii] “December 8, 1993: Remarks on the Signing of NAFTA,” Miller Center, 2017, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-8-1993-remarks-signing-nafta.

[ix]Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Euijin Jung, “Scenarios for Concluding the NAFTA Talks,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, July 24, 2017, https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scenarios-concluding-nafta-talks.

[x] Pete Dolack, “Trump’s Re-negotiation Proposal Will Make NAFTA Worse,” counterpunch, July 26, 2017, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/26/trumps-re-negotiation-proposal-will-make-nafta-worse/.

[xi] “Canada’s goals for ‘progressive’ NAFTA include labour and enviromental standards, gender equality,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), August 14, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-negotiations-freeland-canada-goals-1.4246141.

[xii] Supply management, or government procurement, is the way in which governments source raw materials for the production of goods.

[xiii] “Justin Trudeau’s ‘sunny ways’ a nod to Sir Wilfrid Laurier,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), October 20, 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ns-prof-trudeau-sunny-ways-1.3280693. “Sunny Ways” is in reference to Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election victory speech, which he made reference to Sir Wilfrid Laurier speech to build unity over French Catholic Schools disputes in Manitoba in the late 1800’s.

[xiv] Gabriel Stargardter, “Mexico sets out NAFTA goals ahead of re-negotiation talk: document,” Reuters, August 1, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-mexico-idUSKBN1AH4VW.

[xv] Scott Sinclair, Pierre Laliberte, “What is the NAFTA advantage?” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, June 2017,https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2017/06/What_is_NAFTA_Advantage.pdf.

[xvi]Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Euijin Jung, “Scenarios for Concluding the NAFTA Talks,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, July 24, 2017, https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scenarios-concluding-nafta-talks

[xvii] “Dispute Settlement in the NAFTA: Fixing an Agreement Under Siege,” Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, May 2005, http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/38-1/FAAE/report-9/

[xviii] “Negotiating A New NAFTA: What and Why This is Needed,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, September 13, 2010, http://www.coha.org/negotiating-a-new-nafta-what-and-why-this-is-needed/.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Melvyn Fuss, Leonard Waverman, “The Canada-U.S. Auto Pact of 1965: An Experiment in Selective Trade Liberalization,” National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1986, http://www.nber.org/papers/w1953.pdf.

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Ibid.

India-Afghanistan Relations: Innovating Continuity – Analysis

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By Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy*

Bilateral relations between India and Afghanistan have been characterised by ‘friendly engagement’ and underscored by positive public perception in both countries; this has continued after the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government took office in May 2014. Even then, emerging realities in and related to Afghanistan necessitate innovative action from both countries in at least three key sectors:

  • Political
  • Economy and developmental partnership
  • Security

Political

Overall, over the past three years, political relations between India and Afghanistan have witnessed more flow than the perceived ebb. Both countries held national elections in 2014. The new dispensation in India treaded cautiously during the Afghan presidential election and also during the initial months of incumbent Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s presidency. The commonly held perception at that time was that this caution was due to President Ghani’s overtures to China and Pakistan. However, India demonstrated strategic patience and gauged developments; it continued with its developmental assistance and engagement in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, as President Ghani’s disenchantment with the establishment in Pakistan grew, he began investing relatively more effort towards strengthening Afghanistan’s relations with India. Since May 2014, several high-level visits have taken place between the Indian and Afghan governments, including those of India’s vice president, prime minister, external affairs minister, national security adviser (NSA), and minister of law and justice; and Afghanistan’s former president, incumbent president, chief executive officer (CEO), NSA, deputy foreign minister, and army chief. Recently, the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan met Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIG), soon after the latter signed a peace deal with the Afghan government. This was the first such interaction between the two sides, and given that Hekmatyar, who is now politically vocal and active in Afghanistan, has enjoyed the patronage of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) throughout his years as a terrorist, the meeting demonstrates New Delhi’s constructive approach towards the Afghan peace process. Moreover, it can also be viewed as part of India’s broader efforts to play a greater, more proactive and responsible role in the overall regional stability and cooperation.

The overarching theme of Indo-Afghan political relations over the past three years has been that of camaraderie and productive exchanges. To build on this and ensure continuity, it would be useful to diversify engagements/cooperation to multiple levels and formats.

Economy and Developmental Partnership

Since 2001, India has spent US$ 2 billion on development assistance in Afghanistan. The past three years have seen continuity on this front. The previous government in New Delhi initiated numerous infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including the construction of Route 606, the new Afghan parliament complex and the Salma Dam (officially, the Afghan-India Friendship Dam); the establishment of the Afghan National Agricultural Sciences and Technology University (ANASTU); and investments in small development projects and skill-building-related initiatives.

After taking charge in 2014, the Modi government ensured completion of key pending projects such as that of the parliament and Salma Dam – both of which Prime Minister (PM) Modi jointly inaugurated with President Ghani during his visits to Afghanistan in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Visas for Afghan businesspersons and tourists were further liberalised; 500 scholarships were announced for the children of the martyrs of Afghan security forces; restoration of the Stor Palace was completed. In 2016, India pledged an additional US $1 billion in assistance to Afghanistan. To overcome the obstacle of land contiguity posed by Pakistan, the India-Afghanistan Air Freight Corridor became become operational in June 2017, which has shipped agricultural produce, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment etc.. Additionally, India has steadily been working with regional countries on developing landlocked Afghanistan’s connectivity to facilitate trade and movement of goods. In 2016, India, Iran and Afghanistan signed the Trilateral Agreement on Establishment of International Transport and Transit Corridor (the Chabahar Agreement) and by September 2017, India will begin shipping 35,000 containers of wheat to Afghanistan via Iran’s Chabahar port.

At present, bilateral trade between India and Afghanistan stands at US$ 700 million. New Delhi’s economic relations with Kabul have been overshadowed by the development partnership, which is characterised in part by the view that sustainable development in Afghanistan requires long-term investment in the country. Economic relations will eventually have to evolve into one where the trade and investment component is bigger in proportion than the aid money India spends in Afghanistan so that both countries can benefit. Currently, all sectors of the Afghan economy need a sustainable boost. These matters could be partially addressed by developing a conducive environment (for instance, ease of doing business on issues such as formalities and joint ventures) and encouraging businesses and educational institutions (both small and big) from India and elsewhere to expand their footprint into Afghanistan.

The telecom sector is a potent area of cooperation given India’s efforts in this sector in Afghanistan since 2001 and especially now given the NDA government’s Digital India initiative. Three months after India launched the South Asian Satellite, the Afghan Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology has reportedly requested India to launch a special satellite exclusively for its use. Cooperation in the textile sector too has potential. India’s textile market is expected to touch US$ 250 billion by 2019, and Afghanistan is looking to revive its textile sector. A visit by Ms Smriti Irani – India’s union cabinet minister of textiles as well as minister of information and broadcasting – who is popular in Afghanistan as a television actor – would be an excellent step in public diplomacy and useful to kick off cooperation on this front.

Security

Bilateral engagement in security-related issues has seen continuity and some enhancement. Although India is hesitant to supply lethal weapons to Afghanistan, it delivered three unarmed Cheetal helicopters and four refurbished Mi-25 assault helicopters to the Afghan Air Force (AAF) in April 2015 and December 2016, respectively. In 2016 and 2017, New Delhi participated in multiple Russia-led regional multilateral meetings aimed at addressing the security situation in Afghanistan and its neighbourhood, in addition to participating in other ongoing initiatives. Meanwhile, the new administration in the US may be considering different ideas regarding Indian participation in resolving the security situation in Afghanistan. India, too, is evaluating its options.

To that end, it might be useful for India to develop a framework of engagement that envisions human security in the broader ambit of security cooperation. Periodic consultations and exchanges could be held on short and long-term issues and involve Afghan local leaders, civil society members, police personnel and professionals from medical, telecom, education sectors. India enjoys tremendous goodwill in Afghanistan and New Delhi must try to find innovative and varied ways to enhance it, especially in the public diplomacy area. Cost-efficient methods could be explored for this purpose. Simple initiatives like visits by Indian cinema and television stars (even to promote their movies) could provide a sense of normalcy in the prevailing tense circumstances.

India can certainly ‘afford’ to be more proactive in Afghanistan, but proactiveness can be practised smartly. India should demonstrate confidence strategically and also continue to engage with Afghanistan in its unassuming style.

*Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy
Deputy Director, IPCS
Email: rajeshwari@ipcs.org

Military Relationships, North Korea Dominate Dunford Pacific Trip

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By Jim Garamone

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has wrapped up a trip to South Korea, China and Japan that had been planned months ago, but it could not have happened at a better time.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford noted he has global responsibilities with challenges posed by Russia, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iran and Afghanistan among them. “But I think this is about as important a place as I can be,” he said.

This is because of the recent activity by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The chairman’s trip ensured “our allies have no confusion at all about where we are in our overall policy and in the military dimension of that policy,” he said.

North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missile tests were front and center in the chairman’s conversations with regional leaders. He wings back to Washington having reassured South Korean and Japanese allies and having had a substantive conversation with a myriad of Chinese leaders.

The chairman communicated America’s “ironclad” commitment to the security of both South Korea and Japan, while stressing the need for trilateral relationships among the three nations.

He also worked to open up an effective dialogue with Chinese leaders to manage crises and to mitigate the risks of miscalculation. “This is the heart of our military-to-military relationship with China,” Dunford told reporters traveling with him.

Articulating U.S. Policy

The chairman came out to the region with the objective of articulating U.S. policy to make sure there is no ambiguity for any of the players in the region. This was particularly true of the military dimension of U.S. policy in the region.

Chinese Gen. Fang Fenghui, the People’s Liberation Army’s chief of the joint staff, invited Dunford and his party to visit. “What we had hoped to do was come to an agreement on the framework within which we could manage crises, and we were able to do that,” Dunford said.

Dunford and Fang signed the Joint Staff Dialogue Mechanism agreement during an Aug. 16 ceremony in the Ba Yi, the Chinese army’s headquarters in Beijing. The first meeting under the agreement will be in Washington in November “and that will be focused on establishing effective crisis communications,” Dunford said. “Ideally, I’d like to see us connected at the operations level – the National Military Command Center [in the Pentagon] to the equivalent in China – 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he added.

During his trip, Dunford met not only with military leaders of South Korea, China and Japan, but also with those nations’ civilian leaders. In South Korea, he met with President Moon Jae-in. In Japan, he met with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and in China he met with President Xi Jinping. With all of the government leaders, he spoke about the challenge of North Korea and the collective efforts to deal with the issue.

With the South Korean and Japanese allies, he spoke further about the deterrent posture of the alliance and the capability development needed to defend the region. An example of that is the Japanese decision to procure and base the Aegis Ashore missile defense system.

“We also spoke about the need for trilateral military-to-military cooperation [and] interoperability,” the chairman said.

Dunford noted that Japan and the United States made progress in anti-submarine warfare, integration of ballistic missile defense, exchanges of officers during exercises, and other matters. “I feel very good about the trajectory of our mil-to-mil relationship with Japan,” he said.

Georgia: Ruling Party, Opposition Meet Over Constitutional Amendments

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(Civil.Ge) — The representatives of both parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition parties are attending the meeting organized by the ruling Georgian Dream Democratic Georgia party aimed to achieve consensus over constitutional amendments.

MP Archil Talakvadze, leader of the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority, who is chairing the meeting, told the participants that “all important issues of constitutional reform” will be discussed.

“We have gathered today to discuss all important issues of constitutional reform. We also have an opportunity to meet in Strasbourg, at the meeting offered by the Venice Commission,” MP Talakvadze said in his opening remarks on August 18.

“I think that we will reach an agreement on the key issue – it is the new constitution that will ensure the country’s long-term, democratic development, human rights protection and peaceful coexistence for all members of the society,” Talakvadze said.

Meanwhile, a group of Georgian civil society organizations issued a statement before the meeting on August 18, calling on political parties to achieve consensus over constitutional amendments.

“Although a number of issues cause serious controversy in the draft constitutional amendments and the provisions on presidential elections, justice and human rights still remain problematic, we suppose that it is essential to achieve consensus around the parliamentary election system. In case of failure to reach an agreement and of maintaining an unfair election system, we will receive the constitution approved by one party that will further fuel up political confrontation, increase tensions between political parties, harm the country’s reputation, as well as hamper its stable development and moving closer to Euro-Atlantic structures,” the joint statement reads.

“We call on the parties not to guide themselves by narrow party positions, but made a decision in line with the country’s interests. We think that special responsibility for positive completion of this process lies on the ruling political team. We hope that the ruling political party will take concrete steps towards achieving consensus,” the group said.

The Parliament of Georgia adopted the constitutional amendments with its second reading on June 23. The third and the final hearing will be held in autumn 2017.

The opposition slams the ruling party for its decision to postpone the introduction of proportional electoral system to 2024, as well as the decision to ban the creation of political party blocs ahead of elections.

Three Risks And Three Scenarios For Ukraine – OpEd

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By Roman Rukomeda*

There is no doubt that Russia continues to influence Ukraine by all possible means available. Cyber warfare became the main direction of Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine in the first half of 2017.

However, the Ukrainian authorities are alleged to be using the undeclared war with Russia as the main reason for the lack of reforms and transformations in the country.

One of the key risks in Ukraine is the perception of people of the absence of effective efforts to fight corruption on all levels. During the July EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv, President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said Ukraine needs to speed up its fight against corruption.

Otherwise, there will be no serious progress in the dialogue with the EU regarding financial support (the next €600 million tranche from the EU to Ukraine is dependent on real results in the fight against corruption).

For that reason, the Ukrainian president will be keen to show some results in fighting corruption at the middle level. However, without any major agreements with internal players in Ukraine, it is rather unlikely that real measures to fight corruption on the top level will be carried out.

Another important risk for Ukraine is retaining an oligarchic model of power that does not promote the development of strong and transparent democratic institutions, an advanced level of political institutional culture, or build integrity and implement European values.

President Poroshenko is criticised for playing the role of the chief oligarch in Ukraine, using his political position to secure strong influence over the media, various industries, the financial sector, security, law enforcement and the courts.

At the same time, as President, he exercises informal control over the somewhat unstable coalition in Parliament and over the cabinet of ministers. Consequently, all the other main oligarchs in Ukraine now either support the president or oppose him, resulting in several challenges in sorting out the national economy properly.

The third most important risk is the open threat from Russia. It is present not only in the form of military operations in Donbas but also potentially in the spheres of economy, media, information technology and energy, to mention but a few.

It is very clear that Russia is currently by no means ready to recognise the independence of the Ukraine state and its right to decide on what level of relationship it would have and what position it would take on the issue of integration with the EU and the Euro-Atlantic community. Consequently, this complicated situation will continue for quite some time.

I see three scenarios. Let’s start with the optimistic one. Following his declarations, Ukraine will intensify its internal reforms and transformations. Besides the implementation of NATO approaches and standards in the defence and security sector, the Ukrainian authorities will initiate a real and massive fight against corruption.

For that purpose, the judicial reform will be urgently conducted and the first wave of high-level corrupt officials (MPs, ministers and deputy ministers, prosecutors, judges etc.) will go to jail after open court trials, with transparency for public decisions. The rule of law will be strengthened, and the oligarchic model will start to shift towards a democratic model.

This will ruin the existing monopolistic schemes in the national economy and open up markets, making Ukraine attractive for foreign investors. NATO will continue to support Ukraine and will start discussing the possibility of a Membership Action Plan for Kyiv after 2020.

The EU will confirm that Ukraine’s reforms are satisfactory and launch the new plan of economic support for Ukraine in autumn of 2017. Russia will slowly prepare the withdrawal of its troops from Donbas under pressure from Western sanctions and growing internal problems.

The pessimistic scenario.

Ukraine will sink into deep internal controversy. The fight for the decreasing amount of state resources between the oligarchic groups will escalate, resulting in political instability (early parliamentarian or even presidential elections).

Massive internal protests (partly inspired by different oligarchic groups) could lead to serious unrest, conflicts with the police or National Guard and civilian casualties. Ukraine could once again move towards a new internal revolution on the basis of total war between different oligarchic groups that will try to seek support from outside players (EU, USA and Russia).

Consequently, the state system will become less effective and economic, social and technological development will fail, as will integration into the EU and NATO. Ukraine will effectively follow the pattern of third world countries, creating a large number of security risks in the region for all of its neighbours.

Russia will exploit this situation and try to launch a new military offensive in Donbas or establish control over the Ukrainian authorities through political, economic, media and other ways of manipulation. The state will be seized from the Ukrainian people by oligarchs.

The realistic scenario.

This scenario is the most probable and will combine elements of the two scenarios mentioned above. It is more likely that the current Ukrainian government will continue to reform the country, but at a slow pace, preparing the grounds for controlling key media actors as well as continuing to exercise control over major economic and financial resources in the country.

The main political partner will continue to be the National Front party. Oligarchs will redirect business to the west. The Government will try to fight corruption at a low and medium level, but impunity for corruption will continue at a high level.

The EU and NATO will nevertheless continue to support Ukraine but without deep integration’ in the absence of structural internal changes. Ukraine will slowly move along the path of a developing democracy, but the road will be long and painful. A joint solution on Donbas may eventually be reached in the conflict with Russia, while the issue of Crimea will be put on hold indefinitely.

*Roman Rukomeda is a political expert.

Discovering Racism And Then Discovering It Anew – OpEd

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I grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, a faculty brat in a university town where minority people were few and far between. There were a few black kids in our high school — the children of people employed at UConn. There were also working-class Puerto Ricans in the area — American citizens but who knew that back then? — who had fled north from the economically devastated US colony of Puerto Rico to work in a big textile mill in nearby Willimantic.

Storrs was a liberal community. The civil rights movement and later the early anti-Vietnam War movement both had early and active support there, our school teachers were for the most part liberals who went beyond the core curriculum to teach us to question things, and (within limits) to pursue our ‘60s-era interest in alternative life-styles and politics.

But I did get a sense for what real racism was about, despite living in such an island of liberalism.

My mother was a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and her parents still lived down there, just outside of town in a huge log cabin on a pond. Grandpa, a decorated mustard-gassed veteran of World War I, and a super-patriot, was a no-nonsense coach and headed the physical education program for the segregated Greensboro School District.

A generous-hearted woman who left home to serve as a Navy WAVE during World War II, my mother ended up posted at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for most of the war. After meeting and marrying my Dad, and moving to Storrs, where the University of Connecticut had hired Dad as an electrical engineering professor, she become quite liberal in her views, including on race. (Though one vestige of her upbringing — a conviction that mixed-race marriages would never work out — never left her. “Think of the children!” she would say when I’d argue with her, as if it were obvious.)

I remember back in the ‘50s, when I was probably about 8 or 9 years of age, that we drove down to Greensboro to visit my grandparents. It was before the days of the interstate highway system, and in the heyday of that ubiquitous roadside rest stop, Howard Johnsons, a favorite of all travel-weary kids because of the many flavors of ice cream they sold.

When we had crossed over into Virginia, and came upon one of those orange-roofed icons, dad stopped the car and we all piled into the cool lobby. I headed for the men’s room, but was caught up short by the sight of two fountains along the wall, with signs saying “whites” and “coloreds.” I asked my dad what that meant, and he explained to his wide-eyed son.

The idea of people with different skin color having to drink from different water fountains seemed bizarre to me, and I remember going to the colored fountain, more out of curiosity than rebelliousness, because I wanted to see if the water was different. (I don’t know what I expected: colored water?) My mother got upset — I suspect because from her upbringing she was used to such things and probably worried that it might create a scene.

Then I went to find the men’s room and was this time confronted by four, instead of two doors. That really floored me. Even at that young age, I knew that shit and piss were unpleasant smelling and dirty whether they emanated from white or “colored” bodies. I like to think I went into the “colored men’s” restroom, but I can’t remember what I actually did.

I left that Hojo’s with my mind jolted. Now I was noticing lots of black people as we drove along deeper into Dixie, and it was obvious that they were poor, living in usually unpainted shacks and mostly walking, while the whites we saw were driving nice cars and living in nicer houses, where one didn’t notice any black people.

When we got to Greensboro and to my Grandparents’ house, which was called Pinecroft — I think because the building had been a dance hall there in the pine woods before my grandparents bought it and made it their house — I briefly forgot the lessons I was learning. There weren’t any black people living around the neighborhood, and besides, the area around the pond was full of snakes and turtles and there were canoes to paddle around and to catch them. I was in heaven.

But one day my Grandpa offered to take me with him on some errand. It was a chance to ride in his big white convertible — an Oldsmobile, I think — so I was excited. On the way home, he stopped to get gas at one of those typical roadside gas stations that dotted the South — a small dilapidated one-bay garage and office, and a couple of pumps in front.

Grandpa pulled up to the pumps and turned off the engine. He looked around (this was long before the days of self-pumping). It was a typically hot, humid summer Carolina day, with insects humming but no other sound. There was an old black man with curly white hair sitting in the shade on a stoop at the office door. He hadn’t budged.

“Hey boy!” my Grandpa shouted rudely. “Git on over here and pump us some gas!”

As the old man, his bones clearly creaking and stiff, worked himself up to standing position and shuffled over towards the pump I watched him in shock and embarrassment. Why, I wondered, had Grandpa, who, while an old man to me at the age then of probably no more than 60, was still obviously much younger than this fellow he was yelling at, called him “boy”?

I knew right away at that point that something was seriously wrong.

As I grew older, and as we made subsequent pilgrimages to Mom’s folks over the years, I came to understand that my grandparents were racists. That despite their having grown up in upstate New York before Grandpa got hired as a young man by the Greensboro School District, they had acclimated to the racist environment of the Old South quite easily — something I often puzzled over until much later in life when I learned the racist past of the north in general, and of upstate New York State in particular.

In any event, that early eyeful I got has stayed with me, and it colored my attitude towards my grandfather ever since. I know he was a kind man, and I believe my mom that he was a devoted coach to both the white and black athletes he trained over the years, but I always felt uncomfortable about his racism, which he never bothered to even try to hide.

Now, in Charlottesville, Virginia, we’ve seen that ugly face of White America that I got a glimpse of back then in my grandfather, rise up out of the muck in which it had sunk in the years since the Woolworth counter sit-in in Greensboro and other civil rights struggles. It turns out that the ugly reality of racial hatred and white supremacy that characterized the South for centuries never really went away. It reared its head anew with the election of President Barack Obama, whose occupancy of the “White” House stuck in the craw of the nation’s racists from day one and for eight years, and has now burst forth in full fury with the subsequent election of Donald Trump, a man who deliberately used open support for racists as his ticket to the presidency, and continues to back them as president, much as Adolf Hitler used open support and advocacy of vicious anti-semitism, anti-Roma and anti-Communism to fuel his rise to power.

Trump’s election has even unmasked the more deeply buried racism of whites in the North, who at least since the 1960s had kept their ugly bigotry well hidden behind closed doors, even as they supported zoning laws, bank redlining and corrupt real estate agents in keeping housing and schools separate and unequal in states like Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

We’ve come a long way since the days of segregated washrooms and segregated water fountains, though it’s not surprising to me that it would be North Carolina that would kick off the latest ugly fight to keep trans-gendered people from using the washrooms of their choice, instead forcing them to use the washroom appropriate for their gender at birth.

The thing is, what we’re seeing now is a new militancy by those who hope to drag us back to those ugly days of American apartheid.

It’s disturbing to see the nation’s leader defend the ugly white miscreants who so comfortably wear swastikas on their clothes or skin and Nazi helmets or the white “conehead” hoods of the KKK on their heads, marching en masse with torches blazing down American streets. But maybe this “coming out” of racism is a good thing.

Black and brown, yellow and red people have been living with this ugly and frightening racism for all these years, and yet since Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act, we white folks have kind of missed it or closed our eyes to it. We have our minority friends, but they’re mostly too polite to talk about how much they have to worry every time there’s a cop car behind them on the road, or if they’re parents, when they send their kids off to college or just off to school in the morning.

The thugs who descended on Charlottesville armed with guns, spears, clubs and raw hate intent on causing mayhem in the name of White Power have always been among us and have been hurting and threatening our black, brown, yellow and red — and Jewish and Muslim — brothers and sisters all along, working in the shadows, in state legislatures, in city halls, and in Congress.

Now that one of them is in the White House, and that they’ve felt emboldened to come out in the open, we know who they are, and we know what they want. We also know why non-white Americans are so alienated, fearful, angry and impatient with us supposedly “evolved” .white people.

The deadly poison of racism has been exposed. Now it cannot be denied or ignored. It, and its powerful advocates and promoters have to be rooted out and eradicated.


North Korea’s Desired ‘New Normal’ – Analysis

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What is the primary motivation of the regime to make such a show of its crude strength?

By Pinaki Bhattacharya

Everyone studying the morbid science of nuclear weapons and their missile delivery systems knows Siegfried Hecker. He was the former director of the Los Alamos labs that designed the new US warheads during the Barack Obama Administration. He is the only American scientist to have visited the Yongbyon nuclear complex of North Korea.

Hecker, who is known as a plutonium scientist, gave an interview to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) on the North Korean capacities. He said on 15 May 2017: “They (North Koreans) have also demonstrated over many years that they can launch relatively short-range missiles reliably. We have to assume they can mate the warheads and the missiles so as to reach targets anywhere in South Korea and Japan.”

Asked what is the average yield of the top line atomic weapons Pyongyang has, Hecker said they would be in the range 15-20 kilotons i.e. a kind of a bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

Is that a deterrent enough against the United States interests in the region? No, is the usual response. For, both Japan and South Korea are under the ‘nuclear umbrella’ of the US, codified under formal security treaties between them.

What has proved a game changer in the whole situation was the 4 and 28 July tests that even Hecker considered to be Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea’s state news outlet, the most recent Hwasong-14 missile reached an altitude of 3,725 kilometres (2,315 miles) and flew a distance of 998 kilometres (620 miles) for 47 minutes before landing in the water off the Korean peninsula’s east coast, close to Japan.

Hecker was interviewed again earlier this month — on 7 August. He categorised the missile launches of Pyongyang on 4 and 28 July as ‘ICBMs.’ In fact, he had told the BAS interviewer that he did not think the longer range missiles were ready yet to join the active arsenal of North Korea.

Moreover, he had pointed out that the re-entry vehicle of the ICBM needs the ability to withstand very high degrees of temperature in the endo-atmospheric phase of the missile’s ballistic path. Kim Jong Un’s scientists might not have been able to master the technology to house the nuclear warhead on the missile. On top of that, if the missile had to have a hit on a designated target, by fooling sophisticated missile defence systems like THAAD and Aegis, they needed to have advanced re-entry vehicles, possibly in a guided mode in the final phase.

The nuclear warheads also require a very delicate machining process, when both the weight and volume get to stage where they can be fitted on a missile tip.

In the earlier interview of May this year, Hecker had contemplated about the plutonium and uranium enrichment process of making nuclear warheads. So, the total number of ready weapons can be calculated between 15-20. For, the availability of natural uranium (U-238) limits the number of warheads a country can have.

Having said that, it remains a fact that after North Korea moved out of the NPT, they could have redirected plutonium and uranium from their power generation reactors. Even that would be a difficult process because of the limits of technology and trained man-power pools for separating plutonium and U-235 from a nuclear reactor based on fission reactions, and that too in a world where there are severe sanctions on technology and training.

What remains in the chain of decision-making then is the mental state of Kim Jong Un, the North Korean Dear Brother — the son of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il — who would give the codes for launch. Is he a rational actor or not? There is no reason to doubt that, based on one simple fact that the nation’s gross domestic product rose by four per cent, thus reflecting a fairly well-oiled administration. Besides, Hecker himself had certified that young Kim is of sound health and mind, in the May interview.

Finally then, what is the primary motivation of the regime to make such a show of its crude strength?

According to me, the reasons are two: one, North Korea wishes to negotiate but do that from a position of relative strength — the nuclear weapon tipped missiles are for guaranteeing regime survival and sustenance.

And two, North Korea wishes to emerge from its ‘splendid isolation,’ through a carefully calibrated process of joining the mainstream of nations. That is the desired ‘new normal’ for the Hermit Kingdom. The question: Is the world ready for it?

Cuba At A Crossroads – OpEd

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By Raudiel Peña Barrios*

Cuban society seems to be in some kind of stupor. At this point in 2017, I should be writing about the constitutional reform project or the new fundamental rights Cuba needs. But right now, everything seems to be going slower than ever. We are facing a road so long that it makes us wonder more than ever about our direction and the future of our society. We have to build a democracy that respects the interests not only of the majority but also those of the minority.

We need a change in our political leadership – but no one knows how exactly Cuban citizens will participate in this process – and we need a democratic system. There have been some advances, but they have not yet been firmly established. For example, the growth of small-scale entrepreneurship in Cuba: over half a million citizens are in this sector. However, the government still announces new restrictions on them.

It seems that no one remembers that 2018 is just around the corner, the year that Raúl Castro said he would step down from power. Whoever his replacement might be will need strong popular support. There’s fear surrounding the idea of elections, but it is essential that our government has legitimacy.

Monetary unification, when our economy starts operating under one single currency, should be announced by one of the new leaders. Cuba has had two official currencies since 1994. The regime created the CUC (Peso Cubano Convertible) principally to facilitate the tourist transactions. The US dollar is equivalent to 25 Cuban pesos and around 87 cents of a CUC. The return to one single currency is one of Cuba’s main economic challenges.

This process could be a disaster under Cuba’s current circumstances. The leaders who’ll direct this change won’t have the moral support of the past generation, who participated in the Cuban Revolution.

The country’s government uses the word “conceptualisation” to describe its new economic model and the ambitious development plan that runs until 2030. But this “conceptualisation”, as it was called at the last congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2016, attempts to adapt Cuba’s socialist system while ignoring key aspects.

This project does not mention any changes to Cuba’s political and judicial system, as if was possible to separate these elements from the economic model. It also ignores the Marxist tenets that, at least according to official discourse, remain part of state’s ideology. The constitutional amendments have not been put up for open debate and a new electoral law has yet to be adopted.

The development plan was conceived on the basis of GDP growth averaging around seven per cent. Cuba’s economy ended 2016 in recession, despite the 2014 Foreign Investment Law and 2008 reforms that gave more autonomy to state-owned companies and allowed citizens to sell and buy vehicles and properties and create small businesses.

Cuba likes to boast of its famous achievements, its educational and health-care systems. But there are notable exceptions. One case was that of student Karla María Pérez González, from Universidad Central Marta Abreu de Las Villas, expelled earlier this year just because she belonged to +Somos, a political organization not recognised by the regime. Such action is unconstitutional and calls into question the universality of the right to education.

Cuban news media raises such problems, but there’s little conversation about the underlying causes. For instance, it’s all very well to talk about food shortages, but there’s little data about the challenges of our agriculture and the missed opportunities because there are no foreign investments. The regime chooses to frame food production as a question of national security.

And how will the changing relationship with the US affect Cuba’s economic situation?

The policy of normalisation with the United States seems to have been put on hold since June when President Donald Trump banned financial transactions with military-run companies and announced new travel restrictions. However, Trump’s statements in themselves made clear that the relationship with Cuba remains an issue in the White House.

The US business community is still very interested in investing in Cuba, and both Democrats and Republicans have discussed the embargo. But this is another crossroads. Is Cuba prepared for regular trading with the United States, like any other nation in the world?

I think not.

We have to consider how we would manage full diplomatic and economic relationships with Washington while maintaining our sovereignty.

A Cuba without an embargo could export and import products and services to the US, the biggest market in the world and just 90 nautical miles away from our shores. Foreign investment could be part of many sectors of our economy. But how would this be managed? Unrestricted trade comes with many of its own challenges.

Cubans need to empower themselves, and not because the US government says so but because we need new ways of political participation.

Cubans need to play an active part in changing our current policies and laws, and not just an abstract discussion about the future of our country.

It is impossible to envisage Cuba’s future without the active participation of its citizens. This is a fundamental step towards a true economical, political and social development. We need to decentralize power in favour of local institutions.

Cuba needs a culture of debate based on respect for those who disagree and a complete rejection of the false consensus that has caused us so much harm.

Cuba is a country that sometimes appears to go forward but also, so many times, seems frozen in time. A generation of young Cubans has to negotiate their way between reminiscences of the past, calls for a “change of mentality” in Cuba’s society, economic advances and setbacks and a lot of scepticism.

Some of them stay, but each day some of them some of them leave the country. This could be the biggest choice of all.

*Raudiel Peña Barrios is a Cuban lawyer. This article was published by IWPR

Siberia: Knife Attacker Wounds Seven, Islamic State Claims Responsibility

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(RFE/RL) — A knife-wielding man went on a stabbing rampage in the Russian city of Surgut on August 19, wounding seven people before he was shot dead by police, investigators say.

The extremist group Islamic State (IS) claimed the attacker was one of its militants, according to the IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency.

The Investigative Committee described the suspect as a local resident born in 1994, and said that investigators were looking into “his possible psychiatric disorders.”

The statement gave the number of victims at seven, down from an earlier tally of eight.

Investigators opened a criminal probe into attempted murder.

Interfax news agency quoted the regional Interior Ministry as saying that authorities did not suspect terrorism as the likely motive.

Regional officials said four of the wounded remained in a serious condition.

Surgut is the center of Siberia’s oil industry. The city has 300,000 residents and is located some 2,100 kilometers northeast of Moscow.

The IS group also claimed responsibility for attacks in Spain on August 17 that left 14 people dead.

Barcelona: Sagrada Familia Originally Main Target Of Terrorists’ Botched Bombing Plot

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The Catalonian terrorist cell, responsible for the twin attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, originally planned to carry out a major bombing campaign with explosive-laden vans. Antoni Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral masterpiece was reportedly their main target.

Wednesday’s apparent accidental explosion at their Alcanar hideout forced the terrorists to adjust their sinister plans. The group of jihadists plotted to construct a number of bombs to blow up at least three targets in Barcelona, the Spanish online portal El Espanol reported Saturday.

Citing police sources, the online publication reported that potential targets included Gaudi’s iconic masterpiece, the basilica of the Sagrada Familia. La Ramblas in Barcelona, the scene of the van attack on Thursday, was second on the list. The third potential target for the terrorists might have been the port area of Barcelona.

The initial plan for the multiple attacks envisioned assembling up to three improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Some reports indicate that the jihadists mulled hiring a large truck, or several smaller vans to inflict a maximum carnage.

Catalan authorities have already revealed that the terrorist network planned a much bigger atrocity than the ones which unfolded in Barcelona and Cambrils Thursday and Friday.

“They were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona, and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed to commit attacks of an even bigger scope,” said Josep Lluis Trapero of Catalonia’s police at a news conference Friday evening.

The initial plan was scuppered when the terrorists allegedly mishandled the explosive material and accidentally blew themselves up in the safe house in Alcanar. It is believed that at least two suspects died in that explosion.

The accident apparently prompted other members of the terrorist cell to switch to plan B, staging the ramming attack on La Ramblas using a rented van that had no explosives.

A few hours later, five more members of the cell were shot dead by police as they ran over and stabbed people in Cambrils. These two attacks killed 14 and injured more than 130 people.

Examining the ruins of the Alcanar explosion site, investigators found an arsenal of explosive material; including dozens of tanks of butane gas and traces of the triacetate triperoxide (TATP) explosive, dubbed the ‘Mother of Satan.’

Triacetone triperoxide has been used by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other terrorists before – the 7/7 bombings in London and the November 2015 Paris attacks. TATP which looks like a white powder is highly unstable and difficult to detect; but it can explode with a force that’s roughly 80 percent as strong as TNT. Terrorists presumably planned to detonate the gas by using TATP explosives.

If the terrorists’ original plan succeeded, the death toll might have been significantly higher. The Sagrada Familia is the most visited tourist attraction in Barcelona. In 2016, 4.5 million people entered the basilica’s unfinished yet stunning interior, El Espanol reported.

Construction of the Sagrada Familia began in March 1882 by Francisco de Paula del Villar. Antoni Gaudi accepted the commission in 1883 adapting the initial design of the Catholic Church sanctuary to his unique style.

From 1914 until his death in 1926, the Catalan architect dedicated himself exclusively to the work of the Holy Family cathedral. Following Gaudi’s death, construction progressed slowly.

The unfinished facade was first lit in 1952 and nine years later the museum was opened to the public. So far, roughly 70 percent of the cathedral has been built. The basilica, which is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, should be fully completed by 2026.

Investigators believe the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils were organized by a cell of at least 12 terrorists. Five of them were killed in Cambrils and four others detained. Authorities have also identified three others, two of whom could have died in Alcanar.

In the latest development, police raided the house of an imam in the town of Ripoll Saturday. The cleric, identified as Abdelbaki Es Satty, authorities believe, might have served as the spiritual leader of the terrorist cell involved in the dual attacks. The imam was last seen Tuesday according to his landlord, a day before the explosion in the village of Alcanar Platja.

On Saturday, Spanish authorities announced that the terrorist cell has been fully dismantled, but that the manhunt for other suspects is ongoing. “The cell has been completely dismantled,” Spain’s interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido told reporters.

“We can’t say the investigation is finished until we locate or detain all those who we think form part of this terror cell,” added Joaquim Forn, interior minister of Catalonia. Police are still searching for Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, who has not been ruled out as possibly being the van driver in Barcelona.

Does The Quran Ask Us To Follow The Sunnat Of The Prophet? – OpEd

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The teaching of the religion or Allah’s Deen is through revelation of the Book to the Messengers of God or the prophets. The revelations are connected with the different phases in the prophetic mission and incidents. It was also therefore experiential learning for the prophet and the people of his times. The teaching is also by way of the stories of the previous prophets and their people. The prophet is also cited as the best model to follow since he epitomizes the Book in his words and deeds in the matter of following the religion as detailed in the Scriptures or revelations. However, when we talk about the religious requirement to follow the Sunnat of the prophets, which includes besides their example in religious matters, their personal preferences, way of dressing, dietary habits etc., is such a requirement demanded by the scriptures? Do any of the Scriptures ask us to follow the Sunnat of the prophets? Let us examine the evidence from the Quran.

Sunnat which has the trilateral root Sīnnūnnūn occurs 16 times in the Quran and only once does it refer to the practices of people as under.

“….and guide you to the [good] practices (Sunana) of those before you” 4:26

We are to follow the Quran which guides us to the good practices (Sunana) of previous people. We are not asked to follow the Sunana of good people directly, but take the guidance from the Quran. Taking guidance directly has the problem that besides good practices, people may also have a few bad practices. The prophets were also not above practices that were looked upon with disapproval by Allah as we shall see.

The remaining 15 occurrences of the word in 11 different verses, describe the Sunnat or the practice of Allah. There is no verse in the Quran that refers to the Sunnat of the prophets. The prophets follow Allah and are an example to follow in the worship of Allah and in all matters of religion but there is no command to follow their Sunnat which would include their personal ways, preferences and practices.

“Similar situations (Sunanum) [as yours] have passed on before you, so proceed throughout the earth and observe how was the end of those who denied” (3:137)

The verse above speaks about repeating patterns. History repeats itself because Allah does not change His Sunnat or ways.

Say to those Kafaru (those warring against the Prophet and hindering him) [that] if they cease (from hostilities), what has previously occurred will be forgiven for them (all their past acts of hostility and persecution). But if they return [to hostility] – then the precedent (Sunnatu) of the former [rebellious] peoples has already taken place (they have already been punished on the battle field. This verse was after the battle of Badr). 8:38

[That is Our] established way (Sunnata) for those We had sent before you of Our messengers; and you will not find in Our way (liSunnatina) any alteration. 17:77

Also 4:26, 15:13, 18:55, 33:38, 33:62, 35:43, 40:85, 48:23,

The Command to Follow the Prophets

We are asked to follow the prophets and the prophets instruct us in the religion of Allah. The Quran asks us to follow them in their religion and not in their Sunnat.

Without doubt, among men, the nearest of kin to Abraham, are those who follow him, as are also this Prophet and those who believe: And Allah is the Protector of those who have faith. (3:68)

Say, “Allah has told the truth. So follow the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth; and he was not of the polytheists.” (3:95)

And who is better in religion than one who submits himself to Allah while being a doer of good and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend. 4:125

Also 16:123 in which we are asked to follow the Millat-e-Ibrahim or his religion.

We are to follow the religion of Abraham and not his Sunnat.

Follow Jesus (pbuh) 3:53, 3:55,

Follow the Messenger Muhammad (pbuh)

Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they find written in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel, who enjoins upon them what is right and forbids them what is wrong and makes lawful for them the good things and prohibits for them the evil and relieves them of their burden and the shackles which were upon them. So they who have believed in him, honored him, supported him and followed the light which was sent down with him – it is those who will be the successful. (7:157)

Also 2:143, 3:20, 3:31

The scope of what we are asked to follow the Messenger Muhammad (pbuh) is detailed in the cited verse 7:157. It does not include the Sunnat of the prophet but the religion of Allah only.

Further Evidence That the Command to Follow the Prophets Excludes Their Sunnat

Take the example of Jesus (pbuh) who never married. If we are to follow his Sunnat, then we should also not marry. Conversely, do we marry because it is the Sunnat of our Prophet? There is no command or religious duty to marry. If we marry, it is not because it is the Sunnat of our prophet, but because there is a permission to marry and we have a need or desire to get married and a religious requirement to remain sexually restricted to only our spouse. So, follow the messenger does not mean follow the messenger in non-religious matters also.  You may, if you choose to, but that is not part of your religion.

Excellent Examples to Follow

The root is Hamza Sīnwāw (Uswatun)

The Quran asks us to follow a specific example of Abraham and his followers and the example of Muhammad (pbuh).

There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent example (Uswatun Hasana) for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and [who] remembers Allah often. (33:21)

The verse draws attention to the prophet’s example as far as belief and hope in Allah and the Last Day and Allah’s remembrance is concerned. It is in these matters particularly; the example must be followed. There is not even a hint that his Sunnat in matters outside the religion must be followed.

There has already been for you an excellent example in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, “Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone” except for the saying of Abraham to his father, “I will surely ask forgiveness for you, but I have not [power to do] for you anything against Allah. Our Lord, upon You we have relied, and to You we have returned, and to You is the destination. (60:4)

There has certainly been for you in them (Abraham and his followers) an excellent example for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day. And whoever turns away – then indeed, Allah is the Free of need, the Praiseworthy.(60:6)

There is an example of Abraham and his followers which is recommended to be followed and another example of Abraham when he prayed for his father that is mentioned with disapproval which is not to be followed.

Clearly, the cited verses of the Quran draw attention to the example of the prophets in certain matters approvingly for emulation and, with disapproval in a matter that must be avoided. These cannot be taken as a command to follow their Sunnat in matters that are not connected with the religion as enunciated in the Quran.

Following the Prophet’s Sunnat in our Salat

The Quran speaks of the requirement to offer regular Salat at prescribed times of the day, preferably in congregation. This is a religious requirement and we follow the example of our prophet because we are asked to follow his example in all religious matters. There is an unbroken tradition of offering Salat 5 times a day and we learn the same from our elders and pass on the tradition to our children. Where is the problem or scope for any dispute about it? The Quran mentions the positions also – standing, bowing, prostrating and since this is prescribed as a religious duty in which we are to follow the example of our Prophet, we do so.

The question of tradition can be disputed when the practice varies since the Shia follow a different ritual in their congregational prayer from the Sunni. Ritual is important in what we perform in congregation, else ritual has less importance. Ritual binds people and therefore important but serves no other purpose. So, if you are praying alongside the Shia, follow their ritual to bind with them and if you are praying alongside the Sunni, follow theirs.  Binding with fellow Muslims is good and you will be rewarded for it, and most certainly not punished if you follow the rituals of people other than your own sect. You can also pray occasionally with the Jews and the Christians, the only caveat being, you do not do anything that is prohibited in the Quran which is become like them leaving your own religion.

The Quran Guides, the Ahadith Misguide

The Quran is the complete and only reliable guide to following the religion of Allah and since we are to follow our Prophet in all religious matters, there cannot be any better guide than the Book. If you follow any other book, the onus is on you that you do not go against the letter and spirit of the Quran in any manner. Beyond any doubt, the Quran does not ask us to follow the Sunnat of the Prophet or the Sunnat of any of the prophets, unless their Sunnat pertains to the religion and the commands and prohibitions of Allah. Even in these matters, you are asked to follow their personal example from personal experience or from what the Quran reports was their practice with approval.

Since the Prophet is not in our midst, the only reliable guide to his Sunnat in religious matters is the Quran and not the alleged sayings and practices of the Prophet based on hearsay which is what the Ahadith are. We need to be even more circumspect when the Ahadith contradict the Quran which is often the case.

The Ahadith were compiled in the 9th century by At-Tirmidhi (Uzbek died 892), Imam Bukhari – (Uzbek died 870), Abu-Dawud (Persian died 889), Ibn Majah (Persian died 887), Al-Nasai (Persian died 915), Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (Persian died 875), Ibn Hanbal (Arab died 855) and several others. The books of the first six compilers form part of the Kutub Al-Sittah or the six books. The fact that all the six major compilers were contemporaries in the era of Islam’s Golden period under the Abbasid dynasty could be because the compilation may have been a political project to bend Islam to the political compulsions of the Caliph and the Mullahs. The Ahadith contradict the Quran on every subject and if these alleged sayings of the Prophet (pbuh) are authentic, then we should wonder whether the Prophet spent all his life preaching against the message of the Quran! Clearly this is unthinkable, and therefore we must reject the Ahadith as the work of Satan and the alleged sayings which contradict the Quran as blaspheming the Prophet and the Quran.

The over emphasis in our theology on following the Sunnat of the Prophet is only to make the Ahadith central to a Muslim’s faith since there is no other source for knowing the Sunnat of the prophet. Deifying the prophets is a common human failing and this human weakness has been cleverly exploited.  The Muslims are made to think that they are loving and honoring the Prophet by following his Sunnat, when, they are being misled on his real Sunnat in religious matters, for which the only authentic source is the Quran and not the unreliable Ahadith.

*Naseer Ahmed is an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant after having served in both the Public and Private sector in responsible positions for over three decades. He is a frequent contributor to New Age Islam where this article was published

Creative Anti-Nazism – OpEd

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The people of Durham , N.C., have the right idea. Not only have they taken down a Confederate war statue themselves, but they’ve lined up en masse to turn themselves in for that crime, overwhelming the so-called justice system.

The people of Wunsiedel, German, have the right idea. They’ve responded to Nazi marches by funding anti-Nazi groups for every Nazi marcher, and cheering on and thanking the marchers.

The people of Richardson, Texas, have the right idea. Members of a mosque intervened between anti-Muslim demonstrators and violent would-be defenders, and left the rally with the anti-Muslims to discuss their differences at a restaurant.

Every situation is different, and the same approach won’t work everywhere, or even necessarily work more than once in the same place. The bigger and less accountable the target — for example state or federal government instead of local — the tougher the challenge. But local actions and global communications can create momentum.

Here in Charlottesville, Va., for example, we have giant statues that would be hard to move. And smashing them would offend more people than leaving them up. Or at least that’s the case with Lee and Jackson. Pulling down the generic Confederate soldier and turning ourselves in for it by the thousands might work.

But there’s no reason we can’t cover the statues with giant curtains reading: “DANGER: Enter at risk of racism, bellicosity, and erroneous history.” There’s nothing stopping us from erecting better statues ourselves, as people did in Baltimore before their city was moved to take the Confederates down. I’d like a statue of Olaudah Equiano. Giant helium balloons and projected lights are also tools available. Public officials could compete for getting their names on Lee’s horse’s ass.

Eons ago when we pushed UVA to raise wages to $8/hour, stores and houses in Charlottesville put up signs in their windows in support. “Lee does not speak for me” signs could be everywhere. Every City Council meeting and public-speaking period thereof could be packed with advocates for the cause. Judges hearing court cases, and state legislators interfering in local public space could be targeted with nonviolent, educational, and lobbying efforts, including protests, sit-ins, petitions, and public debates. We could ask them to emancipate Emancipation Park and bring them an emancipation proclamation to sign. The ghosts of people Lee enslaved could haunt them. We could begin addressing each of them as Trump Supremacists until they act against his racist agenda.

A people’s march from Charlottesville to Richmond could tell the state government to let our city decide on its own public monuments. It could also insist that Virginia take its Robert E. Lee statue out of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Perhaps Lee himself could lead the march on horseback with posters displaying statements he made in opposition to any Confederate monuments. Ghosts could emerge from Arlington Cemetery to protest that “We were supposed to be his memorial. A war maker’s land turned into a display of the dead is memorial enough.” UVA students could take a break from streaking the lawn and streak Emancipation Park with signs: “The only thing obscene here is a monument to racism and war!”

We could put up educational monuments in Emancipation Park: A monument displaying the racial wealth gap or the whites-only federal benefits of decades gone by, a monument to all the people enslaved in the U.S. South after emancipation, a monument to Charlottesville’s Sister Cities, a monument to peace. We could hold teach-ins. We could hold teach-ins and discussions that we invite those we disagree with to participate in. We could ask the world, including everyone who once boycotted North Carolina for gay rights, to boycott Virginia. We could all take a day off, have a party in every street, and ask “Why should we work? Robert E. Lee forced others to work for him and he’s our public hero!”

I could go on. Anyone could go on. The options are endless, and do not include the counterproductive tools of violence.

Bannon Out At White House, But His Legacy Remains – OpEd

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Justice is a process, not a human resources decision. Let’s keep our focus on the root of the problem, not just what blooms.

The firing of Steven Bannon should be claimed as a peoples’ victory, a win for the resistance movement that has continued to make clear that we will not accept white supremacists in the White House. Which means, of course, our work continues.

Bannon was the architect of a presidential candidacy and administration founded on a white supremacist, racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and ablest nightmare. Bannon championed white ethno-nationalist, anti-Muslim propaganda as the helm of Breitbart News, which he translated into policy proposals at the White House, including drafting the Muslim travel ban, undermining the rights of workers, plans to disenfranchise voters of color, and supporting a bill to slash all documented immigration into the U.S. by half.

While we are gratified by his departure, we know his legacy remains, both in the White House and through the dangerous upsurge in white ethno-nationalism around the country he has helped spark.

But as he packs his office and progressives celebrate, our work of uprooting all manifestations of white supremacy from the halls of power remains.

White supremacists just marched less than a week ago in Charlottesville, where a woman was killed by a car driven by a White nationalist – and more rallies are planned.

Forty-one men — 31 who have never been charged with a crime — continue to deteriorate and languish in Guantanamo Bay, and Trump wants to add more.

Sanctuary cities have lost funding and immigration arrests have increased.

Trump supports a proposal to use private military contractors to fight the war in Afghanistan.

Some younger people have recently wondered aloud what they would have done during times of moral crisis like the Civil Rights movement and the internment of Japanese Americans. The answer I tell them is, “you’re doing it now.” The fight for justice for all those in Trump’s warpath remains. Bannon is out, but Trump continues to surround himself with staff and cabinet members, such as Gen. John Kelly, Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos, who champion all that we stand against.

But our resistance is strong. And we’re keeping our eye on the prize as Confederate statues are toppled around the country and all those who believe in justice take to the streets. As we said upon Trump’s election, “Together with all those who value freedom, justice, and self-determination, we must resist and prevent at all costs a slide into American fascism.” Resistance is, and will remain, our civic duty.

*Vincent Warren is the Center for Constitutional Rights Executive Director. The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.


Mattis Arrives In Jordan To Discuss Security Issues

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By Lisa Ferdinando

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Jordan Sunday as part of a trip to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to strategic partnerships in the Middle East and Europe.

Speaking to reporters on his plane, Mattis said he will be meeting with King Abdullah II and the chairman of the Jordanian joint chiefs of staff, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat.

Discussions are to include shared security interests in Jordan, the secretary said. Mattis, who is on his first trip to Jordan as defense secretary, described the country as an old ally and friend of the United States.

In the talks Monday, the secretary is expected to express U.S. appreciation for Jordanian efforts to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and to re-affirm the U.S. commitment to “stand shoulder to shoulder with Jordan in facing regional and global challenges,” Pentagon officials said in a statement announcing the trip.

Reaffirming Commitment to Turkey

Mattis is scheduled to meet Aug. 23 in Turkey with Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli, Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Çavusoğlu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Turkey has many concerns, Mattis said.

“They’re a frontline state against terrorists right there in Syria and all the chaos,” he told reporters. “They’re a frontline state on dealing with refugees, who are traumatized as any as you’ll ever find in, I think, the history of the world.”

The secretary said he will be reaffirming the U.S. commitment to work with Turkey, collaborate on efforts to address regional security and stability, and continue efforts to find or make common ground on areas of disagreement.

In addition, Mattis said, he wants to better understand and help address Turkey’s legitimate security interests, continue straightforward and open dialogue, and ensure that both the United States and Turkey are operating with transparency.

The secretary is expected to emphasize the “steadfast commitment of the United States to Turkey as a NATO ally and strategic partner, seek to collaborate on efforts to advance regional stability, and look for ways to help Turkey address its legitimate security concerns, including the fight against the PKK,” the Pentagon statement said. The PKK, designated in 1997 as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, has been responsible for numerous attacks in Turkey.

Supporting Ukraine’s Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity

The secretary concludes the trip Aug. 24 with his first visit as defense secretary to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he is scheduled to meet with Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and President Petro Poroshenko.

Mattis told reporters he will commemorate Ukraine’s Independence Day and will underscore the U.S. commitment to a strategic partnership and support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He said he will also highlight the U.S. train, equip and advise efforts to build the capacity of Ukraine’s forces.

Barcelona: If Only The World Had Listened To Mubarak – OpEd

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By Abdellatif El-Menawy*

In the past two years there have been at least 17 major terrorist attacks in Europe, killing nearly 400 people, injuring hundreds more and leaving countless families mourning the loss of their loved ones.

For too long, Europeans thought the waters of the Mediterranean would be sufficient to isolate them from the terrorism coming from the south and east, even though they received innumerable warnings throughout the last three decades of the 20th century.

They did not realize the danger until the barbarism was upon them, and now it is too late: there were many reactions to the most recent terrorist attack in Barcelona, in which 14 people died, but surprise was not among them.

After every terrorist attack in Europe, the world is appalled. The streets are filled with rescue teams, emergency responders and security forces. After each attack, eyewitnesses give their accounts about what they have seen and some talk of their narrow escape from death. Others campaign to help victims, to try to find the missing and to comfort their loved ones.

After every such incident, I wonder why the world, especially Europe, has taken so long to see what was coming. Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, certainly did.

Not long after the September 11 attack on the US in 2001, Charles Lambroskin, editor-in-chief of the French newspaper Le Figaro, asked Mubarak for his thoughts on combating terrorism. Mubarak replied: “The solution is to convene an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations to draft a convention criminalizing terrorism, in which the signatory states pledge not to receive terrorists on their territory and not to allow them to open training camps on their national soil and to prevent them from passing from one country to another.

“There would be an international boycott of governments that refuse to implement this agreement. I first presented this draft to the Strasbourg Parliament in 1986, how much time we have wasted since then.”

Mubarak also predicted the American response to the attack on its soil, and advised the US not to play the same game as its enemies: “They are waiting for your repressive measures to start, and from the blood and the debris will come a new generation of them demanding revenge on America.” His opinion, in other words, was that the medication should not be the same as the disease.

“When the fundamentalists tried to assassinate me in 1995 in Addis Ababa, my first reaction was anger,” Mubarak recalled. “The reaction expected from me as a military man was to respond with force, but I soon realized that killing innocent people was the worst solution. Instead I preferred to conduct an investigation led by the Egyptian intelligence services, which ultimately resulted in the identification of the perpetrators.”

On the right to asylum, he said: “The right to asylum is guaranteed by democratic principles, but it is unacceptable for a democratic state to grant political asylum to criminals. The murderer has no right to claim human rights. If someone commits a crime in France, don’t think he will be able to go to Egypt. I will hand him over to France immediately.”

For a long time, the Egyptian vision of the threat of terrorism and the way to fight it was clear, but many countries in the world, especially the West, could not understand it until they were faced with terrorism themselves. Only then did this lead to the start of talks about the “war on terror.”

The concept of war needs to be redefined. In its traditional sense it has become an outdated and obsolete concept, and the danger of terrorism is far more sophisticated.

The world must realize that it is about to embark on a long battle on several fronts.

Many networks must be penetrated before we can stop all terrorists. “We have to use intelligence before we put our hands on the organizers, monitor the remittances across the world and follow up on the Internet,” Mubarak said. “All that is required is patience and the use of police and intelligence. If a plane fires a rocket at a mountain in Afghanistan, this will not help anything. With intelligence, however, you can hit the right mountain containing a cave hiding a terrorist leader.”

Where would the world be now if it had listened to him?

• Abdellatif El-Menawy is a critically acclaimed multimedia journalist, writer and columnist who has covered war zones and conflicts worldwide. He can be reached on Twitter @ALMenawy

Former Iranian President Appeals To Supreme Leader Over House Arrests

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(RFE/RL) — Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has appealed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to end the house arrest of two reformist leaders who have been restrained without charge for more than six years.

Khatami on August 20 posted the appeal on his website, urging Khamenei to “resolve” the house arrest of reformist politicians Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hossein Musavi.

The two men have been held under house arrest since 2011 because of their role in mass protests in 2009 against alleged election fraud.

Khatami, who headed a reformist government between 1997 and 2005, has himself been barred from appearing in the media since the protests.

“Only your intervention can allow this issue to be resolved, which is in the interests of the regime and would be a sign of strength,” Khatami wrote in his appeal to Khamenei.

Karubi on August 16 declared a brief hunger strike to support his demand that he be given a trial. But he ended the action the following day after reportedly being assured that intelligence agents would no longer be stationed outside his house.

Iran’s Judiciary on August 20 denied that the agents had been removed.

Khamenei has frequently criticized the 2009 protests as “sedition” and has said that the leaders of the protests must repent before he would consider releasing them.

Karrubi, 79, is reportedly in poor health and has been hospitalized several times in recent weeks. Some analysts have expressed concern that if he dies in custody, new protests could ensue.

Charlottesville Shows Legacy Of Slavery Continues To Disunite America – Analysis

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By Manoj Joshi

America has always had a certain vanity about being a beacon of democracy and republicanism. Recent events in Charlottesville reveal that this democratic colossus has feet of clay. Clashes in the small Virginian town, near Washington DC, have been triggered by those opposing the removal of the statue of Robert E Lee, commander of the armies of the Southern states of the US who sought to perpetuate African-American slavery in the US in the 1860s. And 150 years later, the current US President Donald Trump is finding it difficult to condemn their actions, even though many of them profess neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideals. To their credit, a majority of Americans are appalled at the behavior of their president.

The enslavement of people kidnapped from Africa by the millions is a stain on American history that just won’t go away. One reason for this is the incomplete integration of the US. The American constitution formally accepted slavery till the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, a reluctant and inadvertent consequence of a war which was actually fought to keep the American Union intact, not abolish slavery. Indeed, African-Americans only got their civil rights including the right to vote in the mid 1960s, fifteen years after all Indians got them. Racism still pervades the US with white politicians, especially in the South, using all kinds of tricks to disenfranchise the poorer blacks and Hispanics.

The persistence of historical memory, leaping over decades and centuries is not, of course, unusual; there are those in India who are still fighting the battle of Haldighati and have never gotten over the disaster of the 3rd battle of Panipat. And so, this twisted American Civil War replay in Charlottesville.

Following their defeat, Southern states were under martial law and US Congress even saw some African-American legislators in the 1860s and 1870s, but then came a reversal, and they were once again condemned to the bottom of America’s social pile, along with a system of apartheid that forcibly separated the lives of black and white people till the mid 1960s.

In this period, African-Americans were lynched on the flimsiest of pretexts and white Southerners sought to recapture their racist history by honouring many of those who fought against the Union by erecting statues and naming schools and institutions after them. It’s recently that we have seen a movement to remove them.

Charlottesville is at the epicentre of this historical churning. It is a small, pleasant town with a well-known university founded by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US, who had estates nearby. He is the principal drafter of the American Declaration of Independence and a towering intellectual of liberal democracy. Another nearby estate belonged to George Washington, the first president of the country, and the man who led its armies to victory.

Slavery loomed much larger in their minds. For one, both used slaves to work their estates. But they were conscious that they were leading a democratic revolution as well. For that reason the word “slavery” never figured in the American constitution, even though a fifth of the American population were African-Americans, mostly slaves. They were counted for the purpose of allocating seats in the US Congress, but needless to say they did not have the vote, leave alone liberty.

Jefferson was ambivalent about slavery, even terming it as a terrifying “fire bell in the night.” But when he died, he simply parcelled out his slaves in his will like any property, including his own children from an African-American mistress. Washington, to his credit, freed or manumitted his slaves on his death.

The election of Donald Trump has opened these terrible wounds. Some whites continue to believe that the US is, or ought to be, a white nation, even though blacks have been there for as long as them, albeit involuntarily. They attack immigration for diluting the country’s whiteness and globalisation for the loss of jobs. Many of these angry white men are the core constituency that propelled Trump to victory.

This article originally appeared in The Times Of India.

India: Activists Protest 60 Children’s Deaths At Hospital

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Some 200 Catholic priests, nuns and social activists, marched with banners and lighted candles along a major New Delhi street on Aug. 16 protesting against “negligence” that caused the death of more than 60 children in a government hospital.

“Sad, that many precious lives were lost due to negligence of some people,” said Father Mathew Perumpil, secretary of the Catholic bishops’ office of health.

The deaths occurred at Baba Raghav Das hospital in Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh state amid reports of corruption and allegations that the hospital ran out of medical supplies including oxygen because of unpaid bills.

The deaths were reported between Aug. 7-14, and most happened in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

However, hospital officials told media that encephalitis, and not lack of oxygen, was the cause of the deaths.

The deaths shocked the nation as local media have continued to report about irregularities and nonpayment of bills, accusing hospital officials of corruption. But the government insisted that deaths were caused by encephalitis.

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