America is imploding, or so it seems. In the last couple of weeks we saw a wave of top-level hirings, firings, resignations and feuds.

And then, we also witnessed neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. First came the not-too-well publicized rally by white supremacists on the University of Virginia campus bearing torches and chanting white nationalistic – or more correctly Christian fascist – slogans. The march was a precursor to a much larger, nastier and virulent rally in Charlottesville the next day where a 32-year old woman was killed by a neo-Nazi activist.

Many analysts blame the POTUS for the violence that ensured there by waking up or giving new life to the once dormant fascist, racist and bigoted elements within the USA. Remember Trump’s hateful speeches and comments during the presidential campaign? His campaign was full of bigotry and racism, which saw its culmination with the travel bans he imposed as soon as he was sworn in as the President. His core message has been all about saving White America – a far cry from the current makeup within the USA, which has steadily been becoming very diverse.

The all-exclusive supremacist ideology anywhere, including apartheid Myanmar, in our time exploits Darwinist fearmongering about the ‘other’ race or religion. That is, unless the ‘others’ are eliminated or their growth minimized the ‘supreme’ race is in danger of extinction; it will lose its identity or (more properly) the privileged status – thus, becoming a second or third-class entity. So, here in the USA the white supremacists, like their counterparts in Europe, have been selling the fearmongering statistics that unless the influx of the outsiders – legal immigrants and illegals alike – from Asia, Africa and Latin America – is totally stopped, they will become a minority in the USA within the next 25 years. With that change in demography they see an existential threat to their white race.

With Trump in the Oval Office the fascist, neo-Nazis see him as their avatar. Trump’s “Making America great again” echoes slogans from the fascist movements of the past. For them, it’s now or never moment to stop their ‘abandonment’ by the White House. They are emboldened to organize such neo-Nazi rallies in various parts of the USA. Already we are seeing the rise of vigilantism in the streets and subways across many American cities, and attacks and vandalism of mosques and Jewish cemeteries with the president rationalizing violence on the right. Additionally, the Department of Justice is run by a man – Jeff Sessions – known for his cavorting with the KKK in his youth. Lest we forget, the Trump administration has also cut funding for groups dedicated to spotlighting and fighting white supremacy.

When asked about Charlottesville violence, President Trump was unable to schmooze like a normal politician. As a matter of fact, he did a terrible job in condemning white supremacists shouting slogans like “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” He tried to equate the behavior of those evil, divisive neo-Nazi forces in Charlottesville with those that rallied against their hateful message of racism and bigotry by insisting that there were ‘many sides’ to blame for the violence. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides,” Trump said.

His initial condemnation of violence “on many sides” suggested a willful ignorance of the mere fact that one side seeks the extermination and ethnic cleansing of the non-whites via genocidal violence, and are willing to use violence to achieve these goals. The other side, on the other hand, offers a principled stand against fascism, seeking to eliminate the threat of fascist violence. Equating the intent and purpose of the two groups is simply disingenuous.

Facing mounting pressure from political leaders, Trump issued a second statement, nearly 48 hours after the incident. “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminal and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Trump said. While this was a powerful and the right message, during his press conference a day later, however, he flip-flopped and tried to downplay the role of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who participated in the rally and brought violence to the idyllic college town by saying that there were some “very fine people” mixed among them.

Obviously, he tried to humanize inhumane neo-Nazi protesters by saying that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis…Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.” This framing once again revealed his deplorable blindness to a rally that was, at its core, motivated by extreme hate, as seen in the mass chants of “blood and soil” (a reference to historic Nazi rhetoric seeking to create a right to land for “indigenous” whites only), by protesters wielding torches and yelling “Jews will not replace us!”, and engaging in mass violence against counter-protesters.

Trump’s freewheeling remarks ultimately walked back the positive statement he had made a day earlier. His equivocation or failure to condemn neo-Nazism and bigotry is simply repugnant. Even some Trump supporters and Jewish Republicans have condemned the president’s spread-the-blame response and statement.

“There are no good Nazis and no good members of the [Ku Klux] Klan,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement. “We join with our political and religious brethren in calling upon President Trump to provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and antisemitism,” the statement said.

But for many Jews, the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday (August 12) and Trump’s vacillating response were of a whole other order. “No one, whether Republican, independent or a Democrat … wants to see the Klan or Nazis parading down the streets of the United States, as if they’re taking over,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after the famed Nazi hunter, and its Museum of Tolerance. “No one could ever compare neo-Nazis, the Klan and white supremacists to demonstrators that are demonstrating against them,” said Hier, who delivered one of several prayers at Trump’s inauguration. “To equate the two sides,” he went on, “is preposterous.”

The leading organization of Orthodox rabbis also weighed in with a statement condemning the president’s comparing white supremacist marchers to counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville. “There is no moral comparison,” said Rabbi Elazar Muskin, president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “Failure to unequivocally reject hatred and bias is a failing of moral leadership and fans the flames of intolerance and chauvinism.” The statement was particularly notable given Trump’s support among Orthodox Jews, who, unlike more secular Jews, supported the president in large numbers. (Jews constitute about 3% of the electorate.) His son-in-law Jared Kushner is a practicing Orthodox Jew.

If President Trump loved his daughter Ivanka, who had converted to Judaism before marrying Jared, one is simply bewildered to understand his rhetoric! With almost universal condemnation of his mixed messaging, Trump has since then tried to recapture moral high ground, which he never had, by condemning racism and bigotry. I wish he had come out unambiguous much earlier!

No one should, however, misconstrue where Trump’s heart is. It is with the fascists. Thus, he had no qualms about the alleged virtues of their cause when he compared Southern Confederate General Robert E. Lee to George Washington, and lamented the tearing down of “our beautiful statues and monuments” that iconize slavery, segregation, and white supremacy. Trump wondered “where does it stop?” with regard to pulling down the statues, a clear wink to the fascist right he continues to court.

The admiration for neo-Nazi fascism is nothing new in the USA. These admirers are not and were never aliens; they come from all facets of the American society, as it’s the case today and as it was back then during the heydays of the Third Reich.

On the night of February 20, 1939, some 20,000 Nazi sympathizers gathered at a “Pro-America Rally” inside Madison Square Garden in New York City proclaiming that George Washington was the “first fascist” and mocking FDR – the man who was then president as “Franklin D. Rosenfeld.” They characterized his New Deal as a “Jew Deal.”

That day, some 80,000 anti-fascist protesters gathered outside the hall. Some fought with police while trying to get inside the Garden to shut down the Nazi event. History shows that those anti-Nazi protesters were on the right side of history.

I am glad that there are many such activists throughout the USA. It was no accident that when thirty White Supremacists rallied in Boston last Saturday, August 19, there were thousands of Bostonians – whites and nonwhites alike – that showed up to protest their message of hatred. Only after 90 minutes the neo-Nazis had to pack up and leave.

Fascism is a cancerous ideology and must be fought to save humanity – irrespective of whether it is showing its ugly face in Suu Kyi’s Myanmar or Trump’s America. Sadly though, most Americans are poorly educated about their country’s past. Most of them are unaware that in the 1930s, thousands of Adolph Hitler’s American admirers were politically active throughout the country. They are unaware of the Silver Legion of America, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist group that ran William Dudley Pelley for president on a third-party ticket in 1936.

While a sympathizer to fascism and white supremacy may not find faults with white-robed Ku Klux Klan members marching down the American streets (with or without the hoods) chanting their hateful slogans, but such events create anxiety amongst American Blacks.

It was quite natural, therefore, for men of conscious to condemn Trump’s equivocation. One after another many members of President Trump’s advisory boards have resigned. Thanks to Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck & Company – one of the biggest drug-makers in the USA, to start the process by resigning from the American Manufacturing Council (AMC). [Nearly ten years ago, I had the privilege of meeting him while he was the President of the manufacturing division, and I was the Director of Center of Excellence within the research division of Merck.]

As white nationalists, the American fascists, clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia while the POTUS Trump was equivocating sending mixed messages, Ken decided to act. If Mr. Trump could not condemn the hate groups, Ken Frazier – the son of a janitor and grandson of a man born into slavery – could not support him. As the only Afro-American CEO in the group, Ken resigned from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, one of several advisory groups Trump formed in an effort to forge alliances with big businesses. His decision required guts, and thanks God that he had plenty of such, which motivated many other members to resign from Trump’s advisory groups.

Mr. Trump – who had hitherto tried to sell himself as a darling amongst the business executives who could make ‘America great’ again – had no option but to disband two CEO councils after a slew of major business leaders quit last week to protest what they said was the president’s failure to sufficiently condemn the neo-Nazi and other racist groups in Charlottesville clashes.

The fallout is not limited to the AMC alone. Even within Trump’s Christian evangelical base that voted overwhelmingly (80%) for him during the presidential election, New York City mega-church pastor A.R. Bernard has stepped down. Carl Icahn, Trump’s advisor on Regulatory Affairs has also stepped down last Friday.

Last Friday, all 17 members of the White House advisory commission on the arts and humanities, including several from Hollywood, resigned en masse to protest President Trump’s divisive comments on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. “Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville,” the arts group wrote in a letter to Trump. “The false equivalencies you push cannot stand.” “Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values,” they wrote. “Your values are not American values.”

The collapse of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities marks the latest break between the Trump White House and the arts community, which had widely embraced President Obama, and marks his further isolation. The committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan and acts as an advisory panel on cultural issues. It is among dozens of mostly ceremonial White House panels that advise the president on business, education and other issues. It draws from Hollywood, Broadway and the broader arts and entertainment community. First Lady Melania Trump is the honorary chairwoman.

The committee works with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, along with other federal partners and the private sector.

These resignations and counter-protests against white supremacist rallies speak volumes about what is wrong with Trump presidency. No wonder his job approval rate has sunk below 30%.

Shake-ups within the White House is nothing new. But perhaps never in the last four decades have we seen so many high-level shuffles in such a short time as we saw in the last four weeks. Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief Strategist, has stepped out of the White House. He has been a very polarizing figure in the Trump inner circle, accused often of being a White House leaker and in bad terms with Jared Kushner, Trump’s trusted advisor and even the new Chief-of-staff John Kelly. Bannon was an influential voice inside the White House, feeding and encouraging Trump’s (white) nationalist and populist instincts.

In the process, Bannon reaped an infamous reputation as a puppet master pulling the strings in the Oval Office, with pop culture portrayals ranging from the moniker “President Bannon” to his depiction as the grim reaper on “Saturday Night Live.” Those portrayals — coupled with a Time Magazine cover that declared him “the great manipulator” — often angered Trump, who chafes at being outshined.

Since his inclusion as a powerful advisor to the president, there have been repeated calls to fire him – even from the GOP, which never died down. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Bannon’s departure, but claimed the decision for him to leave was mutual.

“We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency,” Bannon told The Weekly Standard after his departure from the White House. He still has his buddies like Gorka and Miller within the White House.

As hinted above, the dark forces have tried to control American society since the country’s inception. Racists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigots have always been there. Sometimes they have been on the fringes; other times, they have held power in many states and in Congress. The reason new manifestations of these dreadful ideologies need to be resisted is that they are never completely defeated, and, if not opposed, they can gain in popularity and power.

Confederate statues and monuments are symbols of slavery, racism and bigotry. They cannot be brushed away as part of American history. There is a very real danger in the Trump administration’s toying with fascism via threats to criminalize journalists, his support for physical assault against leftist protesters, and his providing of cover to violent right-wing militants in Charlottesville. Considering Trump’s latent fascist tendencies, the emergence of a full-blown fascist state is something we can no longer afford to ignore.

As recently noted by Professor Anthony DiMaggio of Lehigh University, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of far-right militia members across the country, and more than 900 individual groups. If the rise of armed insurrections by Cliven and Ammon Bundy and their supporters, in addition to the dozens of acts of right-wing terrorism that have occurred in recent years have not jolted our mind, let the events in Charlottesville be a sufficient wakeup call that the far right is willing to use extreme methods to pursue their political goals.

We can defeat such dark forces by educating each other about the harms of their evil agenda. Ours may be a slow process and a long march, but is essential to save our humanity. I am sure if Americans know about harms of exclusivist white supremacy they would be less inclined to fall for it. Surely, we cannot afford any politician flirting with the dark forces and their toxic ideology no matter how it is packaged.

A jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $417m (£323m) to a woman who claimed she developed ovarian cancer after using the company’s talc-based products such as Johnson’s Baby Powder for feminine hygiene, The Guardian reports.

The verdict in favour of California resident Eva Echeverria was the largest yet in lawsuits alleging J&J failed to warn consumers adequately about the cancer risks of its talc-based products.

“We are grateful for the jury’s verdict on this matter and that Eva Echeverria was able to have her day in court,” said Mark Robinson, her lawyer, in a statement.

The verdict by the Los Angeles superior court included $70m in compensatory damages and $347m in punitive damages. J&J faces 4,800 similar claims nationally and has been told to pay more than $300m after verdicts by juries in Missouri.

“We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s baby powder,” J&J said.

Echeverria’s lawsuit was the first out of hundreds of California talc cases to go to trial. The 63-year-old claimed she developed terminal ovarian cancer after decades of using J&J’s products. Her lawyers argued J&J encouraged women to use its products despite knowing of studies linking ovarian cancer to genital talc use.

J&J’s lawyers countered that studies and federal agencies have not found that talc products are carcinogenic.

Leaders struggle to enact foreign policy as citizens unite around values and form alliances with likeminded people overseas.

By Joergen Oerstroem Moeller*

The world is moving into the era of value-driven societies replacing an era of economics, the industrial age and materialism – a seminal shift in culture, attitude and behavior not seen since the second half of the 18^th century with the French Revolution and the arrival of manufacturing and industrialization.

Social networks cut across time, geography and national borders. Non-economic social and cultural values confront economic values of business and commerce. Political ideology focusing on distribution of wealth is yielding ground to humanistic attitudes and a rollback of spreading denaturalization. Recalibrating is found in business ethics in support of human rights, including drives to battle child labor, pollution and global warming.

Opponents appeal to nationalism and fears about change. The legacy from the Age of Enlightenment – objectivity – for now has given way to subjectivity, and reality is what one can convince sizable numbers of people to accept as reality. All countries have been hit, but the main victims are the United States and Britain. China, despite political leaders raising barriers for cross-border communication, may prove decisive for how fast the revolution goes or, alternatively, be stopped in its tracks with unprecedented political repercussions.

Regardless of the age we live in, power games determine winners and losers and the distribution of benefits and burdens. Until now, power broadly speaking had three parameters: military, economic tools and persuasion. Values and the principles by which we live can override each of these parameters – the ability to shape perceptions by capturing the curiosity and trust of citizens, defining what is right or wrong, permissible or not, and ultimately drawing lines for what can or cannot be achieved. Leaders occupy what once was called the moral high ground, but now define the terrain instead of adapting to established norms.

The 2016 US presidential election demonstrates the strength of this power parameter and how it was wielded. Saboteurs – for the purposes of this argument, it’s irrelevant whether it was Russian interference or Trump campaigners – relied on an onslaught of insinuations, disparate and scornful language, and spurious comments to shape an image of leading candidate Hillary Clinton as unelectable. She was forced to chase down unrelenting ghosts to repair a tainted image while Donald Trump had free hand to suffuse and hijack debate with superficial and freewheeling assertions, brushing away demands for evidence to support his claims.

Inevitably the rules for exercise of power, the institutional structure and players are redrawn. In global politics the demise of the nation-state establishes this changing paradigm, linked and geared to project hard power through the military power parameter. But shaping perceptions signifies that power is projected more via soft power, often across borders, where the nation-state is increasingly challenged to justify its prerogative or monopoly.

Before his election, Trump promised to take the United States out of the Paris agreement to combat global warming, and he kept his promise. But that does not mean that the United States has effectively reneged on its commitments. During Trump’s announcement, he argued that he was elected to serve Pittsburgh, not Paris. Even so, 30 mayors from US cities including Pittsburgh, New York and Washington confirmed that they would continue work to curb climate change. They were supported by 80 university presidents and more than 100 businesses. Soon afterward, Jerry Brown, governor of California, visited China to discuss merging carbon trading markets. China is working to introduce a national market for trading carbon-emissions certificates, embedding economic incentives. The goal is to curb emissions to gain market share by lowering costs. A bigger market allows more efficiency, though experience suggests that implementation and fulfilling expectations are less easy than described by textbooks.

Still, US states and cities enter the arena to manage their own foreign policy, possible with soft power and trade, irrespective of the president, executive orders or legislative inertia. Over a longer time horizon such alliances circumventing the nation-state will have repercussions for hard security. The people of California may eventually feel more in common with the people of China and struggle to envisage military action against the Chinese. For now, the defiance centers on carbon-dioxide emissions, but it may not stop there. In short, this shows that soft-power relationships can challenge playing the national card on hard-security decisions. Like the residents of Washington State or New York who share perceptions with neighbors in Canada or Texans with Mexicans, many in California and beyond may discover more ties with people of urban China than fellow US citizens.

The winds of value-driven communities and societies bind people together and blow away strict nationalist considerations.

In Europe, Brexit illustrates a similar trend. Most people view the negotiations as the exclusive competence of the British government and Parliament, but this is incorrect to say the least. In July, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, received Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Wales’ First Minister Carwyn Jones who explained their nations’ positions on negotiations to remove the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland out of the European Union. All parties stressed that the meetings were not negotiations, not yet.

Constitutional experts have posited that Westminster cannot conclude terms for the UK’s withdrawal without the consent of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland parliaments as EU law is incorporated directly into the devolution statutes. The Scots and Welsh are assessing options, and those parliaments will make their stances clear to Westminster. Indeed, Scotland has already said it prefers staying in the Single Market, which the British conservative government has ruled out.

Without doubt, the purpose of the visits was to reiterate and strengthen what Barnier already knew, namely that these two members of the United Kingdom do not share Westminster’s negotiating stance. Let’s not mince words. Scotland and Wales are acting on their own behalf, bypassing the UK as nation-state and taking control of foreign policy on an issue of vital interest. Having done so once reduces impediments for doing it again.

Almost simultaneously, Britain’s opposition leader, Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn, also visited Barnier. Again, the parties stressed the meeting was not a negotiation and yet “They wanted to hear what our overall approach is and to let us know what their overall approach is, not only for article 50 but also for transitional and final arrangements,” said shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer to the Guardian newspaper. He described a “frank exchange of positions” and suggested it could be “first of a number of meetings.”

Cross-border social networks and values can aggressively be used as foreign policy instruments by anyone. The Islamic State offers the caliphate as a non-nation-state concept, and the Christian right in the United States and operatives like Steve Bannon, former advisor in the Trump administration, attack critical journalism and praise crackdowns on homosexuality in Russia, openly admiring President Vladimir Putin and urging the United States to follow his lead. Many groups in the United States and elsewhere are tempted by illiberal democracy as seen in Russia and Turkey and reliance on strongmen who support their populist causes.

Irrespective of nationality, people reach across borders, united by common values, to defy policy positions adopted by their own governments.

*Joergen Oerstroem Moeller is a visiting senior fellow with ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. He is also an adjunct professor at Singapore Management University & Copenhagen Business School and an honorary alumni of the University of Copenhagen.

Artificial intelligence can help with the earlier detection of skin cancer

That is the claim of researchers, who say that new technology being developed at the University of Waterloo and the Sunnybrook Research Institute is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help detect melanoma skin cancer earlier.

The technology employs machine-learning software to analyze images of skin lesions and provide doctors with objective data on telltale biomarkers of melanoma, which is deadly if detected too late, but highly treatable if caught early.

The AI system–trained using tens of thousands of skin images and their corresponding eumelanin and hemoglobin levels–could initially reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies, a significant health-care cost. It gives doctors objective information on lesion characteristics to help them rule out melanoma before taking more invasive action.

The technology could be available to doctors as early as next year.

“This could be a very powerful tool for skin cancer clinical decision support,” said Alexander Wong, a professor of systems design engineering at Waterloo. “The more interpretable information there is, the better the decisions are.”

Currently, dermatologists largely rely on subjective visual examinations of skin lesions such as moles to decide if patients should undergo biopsies to diagnose the disease.

The new system deciphers levels of biomarker substances in lesions, adding consistent, quantitative information to assessments currently based on appearance alone. In particular, changes in the concentration and distribution of eumelanin, a chemical that gives skin its colour, and hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, are strong indicators of melanoma.

“There can be a huge lag time before doctors even figure out what is going on with the patient,” said Wong who is also the Canada Research Chair in Medical Imaging Systems. “Our goal is to shorten that process.”

Wong developed the technology in collaboration with Daniel Cho, a former PhD student at Waterloo, David Clausi, a professor of systems design engineering professor at Waterloo, and Farzad Khalvati, an adjunct professor at Waterloo and scientist at Sunnybrook.

The research was recently presented at the 14th International Conference on Image Analysis and Recognition in Montreal.

New research suggests long-term, high-dose supplementation with vitamins B6 and B12 — long touted by the vitamin industry for increasing energy and improving metabolism — is associated with a two- to four-fold increased lung cancer risk in men relative to non-users.

Risk was further elevated in male smokers taking more than 20 mg of B6 or 55 micrograms of B12 a day for 10 years. Male smokers taking B6 at this dose were three times more likely to develop lung cancer. Male smokers taking B12 at such doses were approximately four times more likely to develop the disease compared to non-users.

Epidemiologists from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and National Taiwan University report their findings in the Aug. 22, 2017 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

This is the first prospective, observational study to look at the effects of long-term high-dose B6/B12 supplement use and lung cancer risk. These supplements have been broadly thought to reduce cancer risk.

For this study, Theodore Brasky, PhD, of the OSUCCC – James, and colleagues analyzed data from more than 77,000 patients participants in the VITamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) cohort study, a long-term prospective observational study designed to evaluate vitamin and other mineral supplements in relation to cancer risk. All participants were aged between 50 and 76 were recruited in the state of Washington between the years 2000 and 2002. Upon enrolling in the study, participants reported information to researchers about B-vitamin usage over the past 10 years. This included dosage information — a critical but often missing detail needed for strong risk assessment and association research.

For this new analysis, researchers used statistical techniques to adjust for numerous factors including: personal smoking history, age, race, education, body size, alcohol consumption, personal history of cancer or chronic lung disease, family history of lung cancer and use of anti-inflammatory drugs.

“This sets all of these other influencing factors as equal, so we are left with a less confounded effect of long-term B6 and B12 super-supplementation,” explains Brasky. “Our data shows that taking high doses of B6 and B12 over a very long period of time could contribute to lung cancer incidence rates in male smokers. This is certainly a concern worthy of further evaluation.”

Brasky notes these findings relate to doses that are well above those from taking a multivitamin every day for 10 years.

“These are doses that can only be obtained from taking high-dose B vitamin supplements, and these supplements are many times the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance,” he said.

Two additional studies are underway at The OSUCCC – James to further evaluate high dose, long-term B6 and B12 supplementation and lung cancer risk. One study will examine associations in post-menopausal women in order to confirm the current finding of no elevated risk in women. The second will examine B6/B12 high dose, long-term supplementation in a second large prospective study of men in an effort to determine whether the increases risk observed in the current study can be replicated.

By Bhaskar Roy*

The incessant vitriolic attacks on India from the Chinese official media, the foreign ministry and the defense ministry on the Doklam issue is becoming tiresome.

The tirade has included browbeating, insults and threat of military action to teach India a “bitter lesson”. The English language daily, Global Times can be called the “Rottweiler” of China’s media warfare machinery. ( Please see SAAG paper No. 6279, Dated 19-July-2017 for China’s “Three warfares ” strategy).

But media outlets like the Xinhua news agency,The People’s Daily, and The China Daily, as well as statements from Chinese foreign and defense ministries need to be taken seriously in India, because these are markers for India – China relations. These give the Indian government and Indian strategic community an insight into the mind of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Tiresome though the Chinese propaganda may be, there is a serious requirement not to brush things under the carpet, hoping China can be appeased . Some top advisors to the Indian government, with profound expertise on China stated that India’s first priority is China,its second priority is China, and its third priority is China .Yet a cautionary advice went with it – Do not provoke China. Once a CCP cadre told this writer that the “Chinese respect the strong and blackmail the weak”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked the extra mile to embrace President Xi Jinping and China, to enhance bilateral relations and build trust . When Mr. Modi was entertaining Xi in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, in 2014, Chinese troops entered Indian territory, crossing the LAC . But Mr. Modi decided to put it aside and pursue his foreign policy based on friendship with all, including China and Pakistan. Pakistan it was known would be a difficult case, but China was expected to respond responsibly.

India’s firm stand on the Doklam issue has taken China by surprise, hence their disjointed response through the strategy of “Three warfares”. It is, therefore, not surprising that they have resorted to disingenuous fabrications. A senior diplomat in China’s foreign ministry, Wang Wenli told a visiting delegation of Indian journalists that Bhutan had conveyed to China through diplomatic channels that Bhutan had no claims on Doklam! But Bhutan’s demarche to China on June 29 released by the Bhutanese government in the public domain, pointed out that Doklam was Bhutanese territory disputed by China. China violated existing agreements by trespassing into the area. Bhutan asked the Chinese government to withdraw its troops to the pre- June 16 position and restore status quo. At Bhutan’s request,Indian troops went in, as per Article 2 of the India- Bhutan Friendship Treaty of 2007, that neither side shall allow its territory to be used for activities harmful to the other’s national security .

The threat to India’s Siliguri corridor, the narrow strip of land that joins the rest of India to its North- East is well known and need not be discussed here . But two points need to be red-flagged . Why is China so keen to get Doklam and give up its claims on other parts of Bhutanese territory?

It is well known that China has been fomenting unrest and separatism in North- East India for decades , starting from Naga leader Phizo’s visit to China in 1958 to as recently as the early 2000 s, supplying arms and ammunition to insurgent Naga, Assamese and other separatist groups . The larger plan is to dismember India, a plan unlikely to be discarded any time soon. The Chinese are apparently waiting for a government antagonistic to India to return in Bangladesh, when they can reactivate their strategy, having realized that the Myanmar route may no longer be available.

Whatever the Global Times may be seen as, it is a fact that this paper is a subsidiary of the CCP mouthpiece, The People’s Daily .No media outlet in China can be higher than The People’s Daily. According to the CCP constitution and the state constitution, the media comes under full control of the party and the state, and the party is supreme. Finally, President Xi has ordained that the media only serves the party and the state . All reports and stories are vetted politically before publication.

Hence, how do the Indian people and the government react when The Global Times (August 15) launches a blistering attack on Prime Minister Modi by name , accusing him of trying to derail China’s Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI ),of confronting China , seeking war,and pursuing hegemony in South Asia? The article also accuses India of disrupting BRICS, saying that BRICS has barely made any progress in recent years because of India’s policies. It has also charged that any international organization in which India has a significant say cannot play its due role.

Some concern has to be raised whether Mr. Modi will attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Xian, China, in September because of the Doklam issue. If he skips the Xian conclave and sends some lower level functionary ,China may lose face. It is unlikely however, that Mr. Modi will do such a thing , given the dignified silence that the government of India has demonstrated in the face of Chinese provocations, trying to draw India into a war of words. In his Independence Day (Aug 15) address to the nation, the PM did not touch upon Doklam or anything Chinese. The Chinese machinery must read that.

A more sensible comment comes from Li Qiayan of the China Institute of International Studies ( Xinhua, August 17 ). Li quoted an old Chinese proverb– “a good neighbor is better than a distant friend” adding “China has no desire to enter into a war with its neighbor”. In the same breath he went on to say that China and India are two developing giants with a wide range of common interests and a “sensible bilateral relationship will definitely benefit over two billion people”.

China has been blocking India’s strategic and security interests such as opposing India’s entry into the Nuclear Supplier’s Group (NSG), and putting a technical hold on listing Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar in the UN terrorist list. Instead of screaming at China, India chose to engage China diplomatically. The question now arises – Is there something brewing in the country’s internal politics?

It defies logic why China took this action of entering Doklam at a time when the 19th Congress of the CCP is coming up later in the year. All party congresses are important because changes are made in the top echelons of the party, and policies are set forth. The 19th Congress, however, will be a landmark for Xi Jinping. He will not only start his second term, but may lay the foundation for a third term in 2022, breaking the established practice of two terms for the Party General Secretary. Xi has lined up his chosen successors to the five retiring from the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) and has chosen members for positions in the Politburo, as well as provincial heads and other important posts.

Xi has forcefully established himself as the most powerful leader of China after Mao Zedong. He has had himself declared as the “core” of the leadership, a concept which Deng Xiaoping, father of ‘reform and opening up’ had gradually diluted and dismantled. The visionary Deng and his colleagues, who were persecuted by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, realized too much power in one person could be disastrous for a nation. They decided on collective leadership. That appears to have been overturned by Xi.

Xi has sold to the people of China his “Chinese Dream” or rejuvenation of China to its old glory on a fast track. He, with the help of his trusted aides, floated the Belt and Road Initiative, which is both a strategic and economic initiative. With the Chinese economy beginning to slow down and domestic overcapacity building up, China has to go abroad. According to a recent IMF assessment, China’s domestic debt is on a dangerous path. Debt load could soar from 235 percent of GDP last year to 290 percent in 2022.

The BRI seems to be slowing down. Its flagship project, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is being widely questioned in Pakistan. Chinese private companies are reluctant to invest in BRI or the CPEC. China needs India to join the BRI and invest in the CPEC. India’s refusal has angered Chinese officialdom and left them frustrated.

Xi has used the crackdown on corruption to mainly target his political enemies, both in the civilian and military sectors. This has caused problems,with people in both sectors nursing their grudge. Characteristically in China, they lie low when a big wave comes and bide their time. They have a long memory . And Xi is well aware of these things.

In the inner conclaves of the congress Xi may be questioned on many issues including economic down turn, job losses, high price rise, closure of factories and small businesses, and unpaid wages. China’s aggressive and threatening power projection has faced reverses.

Under these conditions would Xi Jinping have embarked on a misadventure like in Doklam?

In spite of the vast power that Xi Jinping has acquired, he still has not been able to bring down former top leader Jiang Zemin personally. Jiang’s vast network, through eroded by Xi,has not been wiped out.

Jiang loyalist PBSC member, Liu Yunshan is in charge of literary and propaganda work; hence the official media is under him. Earlier he had tried to trap Xi in Hong Kong affairs leading to the Occupy Central and Umbrella Movement campaigns . Similarly, he tried to set up Xi on Taiwan. Xi survived both, but internally he suffered some damage.

Xi Jinping also brought down two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong. Both were Jiang loyalists. And they would have their own loyalists in the PLA.

On the Doklam issue, both propaganda and the PLA are involved. India’s unilateral withdrawal has been set as the only condition for talks on the Doklam issue. Hence it is urgent that President Xi steps in and quietly does the needful, while saving face.

Damage, however, has been done to bilateral relations. China has lost trust among Indians, sadly.

*The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at email grouchohart@yahoo.com

Financial institutions’ drive to become more “experience-driven” is opening the door to potential competition from global technology giants, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum.

According to the report, Beyond Fintech: A Pragmatic Assessment of Disruptive Potential in Financial Services, the challenge to banks and insurers is down to large technology firms hollowing out the value proposition of these institutions by carrying out more core functions, even as banks and insurers lean ever more heavily on them to compete.

Another finding of the report, which aims to examine the impact of innovation on the financial ecosystem, is that fintech start-ups, while achieving success in terms of changing the basis for competition, have had less impact than expected in disrupting the competitive landscape.

“The partnership between banks and large tech companies risks not staying a reciprocal one,” said Jesse McWaters, lead author of the study, and Project Lead, Disruptive Innovation in Financial Services at the World Economic Forum. “Financial institutions increasingly rely on technology firms for their most strategically sensitive capabilities, but can so far only offer their ongoing business in return.”

The report draws on interviews and workshops with hundreds of financial and technology experts. It highlights cloud computing, customer-facing artificial intelligence and “big data” customer analytics as three capabilities that are becoming critical to the competitive differentiation of financial institutions. All three are domains where technology giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook have far deeper experience than their financial services counterparts and where scale effects will make it difficult for financial institutions to catch up. As a result, many banks and insurers are turning to technology firms to provide these core functions.

Examples include:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides services to dozens of finance companies, including Aon, Capital One, Carlyle, Nasdaq, Pacific Life and Stripe
• Brazil’s Banco Bradesco Facebook app, which allows customers to conduct day-to-day banking from Facebook, relying on the social network’s customer data analytics to target users
• Capital One and Liberty Mutual’s “Alexa” solution (a voice-activated personal assistant), which allows customers to check balances, pay bills and track spending through these devices

While these partnerships can accelerate innovation, the report points out that they also pose a risk should large technology players choose to enter financial services in direct competition with retail banks and insurers.

“Tech giants would be able to pick and choose their points of entry into financial services; maximizing their strengths like rich datasets and strong brands, while taking advantage of incumbent institutions’ dependence on them,” said McWaters. As a result, financial institutions will likely need to walk a challenging line between capitalizing on the services of large technology players and becoming dependent on them.

For customers, the entry of large technology firms into financial services could mean entrusting both their financial and non-financial data to the same company. For policy-makers it would raise serious questions about how best to avoid both anticompetitive behaviour and the inappropriate use of personal data in decision-making.

The findings suggest a move away from a focus on the potential competitive threat of high-tech financial services start-ups, typically called “fintechs”. Much research, including the World Economic Forum’s 2015 report on The Future of Financial Services, suggested that “niche” fintechs could stage a broader disruption of the financial system. But, while they have deeply influenced the direction of innovation in the industry, there are growing doubts about their ability to directly challenge incumbent financial institutions.

“Fintechs have changed the basis of competition in financial services, but not the competitive landscape” said Rob Galaski, Partner, Americas FSI Regional Leader, Deloitte Canada, and co-author of the report. “Fintechs now define the tempo and direction of innovation in financial services, but high customer switching costs and the rapid response of incumbents has challenged their ability to scale”.

Robo-advisers, which provide automated investment advice to customers at low fees, provide an instructive example of incumbents responding to fintech. Early innovators like Betterment and Wealthfront have shown significant growth, with assets under management of $6.7 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively, at the end of 2016. However, they have been dwarfed by incumbents that have created their own robo-advisory offerings, such as the Vanguard Advisor platform, which had $47 billion in assets under management as of the end of 2016.

“The ability to be a fast follower has proven more important than being first for large financial institutions,” said Galaski. “Agile incumbents have used the fintech ecosystem as a supermarket for capabilities, making the ability to nurture and rapidly form partnerships a critical ingredient to banks’ competitive success.”

Another of the report’s findings notes the emergence of distinct financial systems in China, Europe and the United States, raising concerns for international regulatory coordination. The report observed that, in China, large technology companies like Ant Financial (a subsidiary of Alibaba) and Tencent (the parent company of WeChat) have emerged as leading providers of a range of financial services – a striking departure from the traditional bank-led model dominant in the United States.

Meanwhile in Europe, the forthcoming enactment of the Second Payment Services Directive (more commonly called PSDII) is expected to open up banks’ customer data, creating an environment of more active competition between incumbents and new entrants.

“Technology is not driving a global convergence in customer experience, instead divergent customer demand and regulatory priorities are creating distinctly regionalized financial ecosystems” said Bob Contri, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP (US); Deloitte Global Financial Services Industry Leader, and an adviser to the report. “This could pose a serious challenge to regulatory coordination, as regulators struggle to understand the disparate impact of global regulations on each region”.

An estimated 17.6 million Americans live within one mile of an active oil or gas well, according to a study published, in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The study, by researchers at PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute; the University of California, Berkeley; and Harvey Mudd College, is the first peer-reviewed nationwide measurement of the number of people living in close proximity to actively producing oil and gas wells.

Studies have found that active oil and gas production degrades the quality of air, surface water and groundwater; contaminates soil; and elevates exposures to noise and light pollution.

When people live within a mile of these operations, they have a higher risk of being hospitalized for numerous medical issues, including heart and neurological problems, cancers and increased asthma incidence and severity, according to separate peer-reviewed studies. Residential proximity to these operations has also been associated with adverse birth outcomes, including pre-term birth, lower birth weight, neural tube defects and congenital heart defects.

But only a few peer-reviewed studies quantifying populations in proximity to these operations have been published, and those studies do not tie pollution emissions to specific types of oil and gas development operations.

“Our study was specifically designed to determine how many Americans have increased health risks from potential exposure to pollutants emitted from oil and gas development,” said Eliza Czolowski, a research associate at PSE and lead author on the study.

In addition to calculating a national population total, researchers produced a state-by-state comparison that revealed several states with especially high percentages of their population living near active wells. West Virginia topped the list, with roughly half — 50 percent — of residents living near an active oil or gas well. Oklahoma was close behind, at 47 percent of residents living near active wells. “When one in two members of a population are potentially exposed to a health risk, that’s a significant public-health concern,” Czolowski said.

About a quarter of Ohioans — 24 percent — reside near active wells. Texas had the highest number of residents — 4.5 million — living near active wells. Children 5 years old or younger, a notable subgroup in the study because of their vulnerability to environmental exposures, number at 1.4 million living near active wells in the U.S.

The researchers looked at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wells, which typically use sand, water and chemicals to release oil or gas from rock formations — a process generally referred to as “unconventional” — as well as active conventional oil and gas wells.

“Despite the differences in conventional and unconventional oil production techniques, the health risks can be very similar,” Czolowski said. Many air pollutants, including benzene, formaldehyde and particulate matter, are emitted from both conventional and unconventional operations because they are co-produced with oil and gas, not specifically because a well is hydraulically fractured, Czolowski explained. Emissions of air pollutants from associated activities such as well drilling and truck traffic are also not specific to hydraulic fracturing.

The researchers note that some of the well data they sought was unavailable. They encourage additional studies that follow similar rigorous, public-health focused methodologies, especially those that take well density — a variable excluded from their analyses — into account.

The study concludes that given the large number of individuals and large percentages of populations potentially exposed to pollutants emitted from oil and gas development, protective regulations and policies should be considered. Health-protective policies could include minimum distances between these operations and places where people live, play and learn, as well as the wide deployment of the best available air pollution-reduction technologies.

By Shelley Kasli*

More than 12 lakhs (1.2 million) bankers working in around 10,300 branches around India are on a one-day nationwide strike protesting against the policies adopted by the government towards the sector. Around 12 lakh financial instruments valued around Rs 7,300 crore would not be cleared. The strike is organized by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), which is an umbrella body of nine unions, including All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW).

Among the 17-point charter of demands, the main demands are relating to government’s denial of adequate capital to public sector banks thus creating conditions for privatization, AIBEA said in a statement.

“Privatization of banks would mean privatizing the Rs 80 lakh crore of common people’s money available in our banks. This is dangerous for the country and our people. Privatisation of banks would also result in denial of loans to priority sectors like agriculture, rural development, education, etc”, AIBEA added.

Other demands include no write-off policy for non- performing assets (NPAs) of corporate loans, declaring wilful default of loans as criminal offence and implementation of recommendations of Parliamentary Committee on recovery of NPAs, AIBEA General Secretary C H Venkatchalam said.

This is not the first time the Bankers have gone to strike. As we reported last year, when the entire nation was busy in the #JNUrow in the ongoing debate on tolerance, a very important development with major consequences to everyone in the country had seemingly gone unnoticed. It was during this time that the Indian government announced a series of major banking reforms, including lowering its stake in state-owned banks to a staggering 51 per cent. The announcement was met with nationwide resistance from the bankers. It should be understood that this is not a case of just the banks.

Just before the Demonetisation move was announced even BSNL employees held a nation-wide protest against the privatization of BSNL. The day the BSNL employees went on strike the “government approved an ambitious plan to sell loss-making state-owned companies, subsidiaries and select manufacturing plants to strategic buyers, setting the stage for the return of privatisation after more than a decade”.  Touted under what is called as the Strategic Sale of PSUs, there is a wholesale privatization of what is termed as distressed assets (state units) underway. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that this historic plan was approved when the entire nation was busy fighting foreign spies infiltrated SIMI terrorists.

Across the country farmers, traders, retailers and even a section of the press have been raising their voices against these policies. Although the Indian government has repeatedly claimed the support of 125 crore Indian for the Demonetisation drive, there has been a massive wave of protests and violence against it across the country. It is to paint a rosy picture of India to the international financiers that these events were largely not given its due attention by the mainstream media. We have already exposed these claims in our recent report here Demonetisation & GST Myths Exposed By Parliamentary Committee Report & Statistics.

The NPA Scam

According to a report by Credit Suisse published in October 2015, the total amount of money owed to the state-owned banks alone was calculated to be Rs 3.04 lakh crore. Here’s a list of the top 10 companies with the largest debt. Here is a simple explanation of how the scam works as explained in our Global War on Cash Series.

Most of these loans are classified in banking books as Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). In simple terms, an asset is tagged as non-performing when it ceases to generate income for the lender, meaning these loans became unrecoverable bad loans. But wait, when the companies themselves are making good profits how could their loans be termed NPAs?

According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Shashi Kant Sharma, a significant part of NPAs amount to fraudulently obtained advances and a large part of these loans may now be irretrievable as they are likely to have been transferred abroad. He also said that in recent times, there have been frauds against institutions, frauds committed against banks, especially public sector banks that are struggling. NPAs do not just reflect badly in a bank’s account books, they adversely impact the national economy.

So what has the Government been doing about this? Well, simply writing it off the books. Government has been writing off such corporate debts in lakhs of crores of rupees under what is called ‘revenue forgone’ now known by a new fancy name ‘revenue impact of tax incentives’. Data presented by Santosh Kumar Gangwar in a question answered in Rajya Sabha on 2nd August 2016 show the extent of such revenue foregone in 2015-16 – this is estimated to be Rs 6.11 trillion.

According to the ‘Revenue Forgone Statement’ corporate companies on an average get tax waiver of Rs 7 crore every hour or Rs 168 crore every day or Rs 5.32 lakh crore every year. It’s close to three times the amount said to have been lost in the 2G scam. About four times what the oil marketing companies claim to have lost in so-called “under-recoveries” in 2012-13. In the nine years from 2005-06 to 2013-14, the corporate karza maafi amounted to Rs 36.5 lakh-crore. That, in case you like the sound of the word, is Rs 36.5 trillion. This is how the richest 1% of Indians get to own 58.4% of the country’s wealth.

Now this debt write-off is also a major fraud and has been continuing on a regular basis since a long time. Even the Supreme Court has reprimanded RBI whose responsibility it is to keep a watch on this and ordered it to share the list of major defaulters which RBI didn’t had any information on.

So where has all the money gone? The US Department of Commerce estimates that each $1 billion in trade deficit translates to about 13,000 to 19,000 lost jobs for Americans – meaning that every $1 billion sucked out of India will stabilize atleast 13,000 jobs in the US. How many jobs would RS 36.5 trillion that the govt. wrote off save? Roughly around 80 lakh American jobs, enough to sustain entire US economy with job/wage guarantee multiplier effects setting in. This same 80 lakh jobs it was promised in 2011 will be created in India instead by FDI in Retail. No one asked from where the money for investment would come from when the entire US-EU economies themselves were running bankrupt?

PARA – A New Central Bank For Strategic Sale Of India

To resolve the issue of Large Stressed Loans there is a push to privatize the public sector banks by creating a Central Bad Bank along the lines of the US TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) termed here as the PARA (a centralized Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency). The only difference is that while TARP was designed to bailout the bankrupt banks and companies and were taken over by the US government, PARA in contrast is designed to sell-off the state owned units to those same companies and banks that went bankrupt in 2008.

The idea is mooted by the deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, Viral Acharya. Before appointed as the deputy governor Acharya was a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business. It is here that Mr. Acharya came up with the idea published in the co-authored research paper that analyzed “the precarious condition of public sector banks” in India. The paper found that “the onus of remedying this situation through radical reform lies primarily with the Government.” In conclusion the paper recommended a fix: Privatize public sector banks or reallocate their assets.

According to Acharya, “Banks in India haven’t typically failed except for small banks here and there. But the trouble is that a public sector bank cannot under the current statute be sold to a private sector bank.” It is here that PARA comes into picture. PARA would provide a mechanism to create a government-driven asset reconstruction company – a Bad Bank, where banks can park their stressed assets and be merged or picked up by private players.

Now with traditional Indian businesses at a standstill and government units stressed out the hedge-vulture funds are already circling India to pick up their prizes. Under the Strategic Sale of PSUs, there is a wholesale privatization of what is termed as distressed assets (state units) underway.

What is taking place today is the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in the history of this world. Contrary to a myth long popular in the West and now espoused by the East it’s been the poor of the world that finance the rich not the other way round. At the end it was the decades of hard earned public money that was sucked to bail out the ailing Indian banking system that in turn would bailout and stabilize the bankrupt Western-European economies and corporations.

*Shelley Kasli is the Co-founder and Editor at GreatGameIndia, a quarterly magazine on international affairs providing global intelligence through strategic analysis by placing events in a geopolitical and historical framework to better understand international developments and the world around us.

Wednesday August 23 was something of a red letter day in Arab-Israeli politics. Not only was Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, closeted with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, but the US team of peace negotiators landed in Israel after a whirlwind tour of Middle East capitals. How Putin views US President Donald Trump’s efforts to foster credible peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is not known. What is undoubted is that Putin is determined to expand Russia’s influence in the Middle East, and that he would jump at the chance of brokering Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Immediately after the UN Security Council passed its Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016, Russia issued a statement that far from endorsed the attempt to impose the structure of a two-state solution on Israel. Direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis without any preconditions was what Russia favored. “We would also like to reaffirm our readiness to host a meeting of the leaders of Israel and Palestine in Moscow.”

The main burden of Netanyahu’s conversations with Putin this week were undoubtedly about the dangers of allowing Iran to obtain a permanent foothold in a post-conflict Syria. But he might have touched upon the possibility of Russia out-trumping Trump on the Jerusalem embassy issue.

During his presidential campaign, Trump stated unequivocally that he would move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was equally keen to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and is pursuing that possibility with determination. To avoid compromising the delicate negotiations currently in progress, led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Trump has so far delayed acting on the embassy issue. This provides Putin with a political window of opportunity that will not remain open for very long.

At present not a single foreign embassy is located in Jerusalem. This is because in international eyes the exact status of Jerusalem remains undetermined. Back in 1947 the original two-state UN plan envisaged Jerusalem as “a corpus separatum under a special international regime” to be administered by the United Nations. The UN as a whole, like the European Union (EU), still clings to this concept. But incongruously, both the UN and the EU also assert their support for the objective of “a viable state of Palestine in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” Now, Jerusalem is either an international entity or part of it is Palestinian. It cannot be both.

The UN Security Council in its latest pronouncement on the subject at least appears consistent.  Urging countries and organizations to distinguish “between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”, its Resolution 2334, makes no mention of an internationalized Jerusalem, but refers three times to “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.”

2334 was passed by 14 of the 15 members of the Security Council, with only the US abstaining. Of the 15, only one nation has recognized the logical implications of what they voted for – namely that if East Jerusalem is Palestinian territory, then West Jerusalem must be an integral part of sovereign Israel.

On 6 April 2017 Russia issued a quite astonishing statement. While reaffirming its support for the two-state solution and that East Jerusalem should be the capital of a future Palestinian state, Moscow declared: “At the same time, we must state that in this context we view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

This declaration, ground-breaking in itself, carries a corollary. Countries normally site their embassies in the capital city of the country with which they have established diplomatic relations. Is Putin politically in a position to take the statement to its logical conclusion?

Russia is currently fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Iran in Syria, supporting President Bashar al-Assad in his battle to retain power. Iran, its satrap Hezbollah, and Assad’s Syria are all ferocious enemies of Israel and would certainly be opposed to any move that enhanced Israel’s status. On the other hand, Russia owes them little, and their battlefield collaboration did not inhibit Moscow’s recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

As regards the Palestinians, Putin has fostered good relations with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, but they are as nothing compared with Russo-Israeli relations, which are flourishing. There is Gazprom’s multi-million 20-year contract, signed in 2016, to market Israeli liquefied natural gas from the vast Tamar field. Moreover Putin is courting Israel to grant Gazprom a share in the even vaster Leviathan field.

Collaboration is also being developed in a whole variety of other areas including free trade, nuclear and other hi-technology, space cooperation and agriculture. Moving the Russian embassy to West Jerusalem could do nothing but enhance this burgeoning relationship.

Were Putin to make this move in the US-Russian chess game being played for influence in the Middle East, there is no question of a checkmate, but he could certainly call “Check”. It would prove Russia’s consistency on Jerusalem, and provide it with a notable advantage.

In early June 2017, an image surfaced on Russian social media showing a surface-to-air missile (SAM) container-launcher associated with the S-300VM (“Antey-2500”) system being unloaded at Alexandria Port, Egypt. Manufactured by Russia’s Almaz-Antey Aerospace Defense Concern, the highly mobile S-300VM is among the most advanced long-range SAM systems offered by Russia for export. The delivery of the Antey-2500 to Egypt reflects Cairo’s desire to bolster its air and missile defenses, and follows its earlier acquisition of short-range Tor-M1E/M2E and medium-range Buk-M1–2/M2E SAM systems as well as an unspecified number of Protivnik-GE 3D surveillance radars from Russia. Does the S-300VM deal represent a threat to Israel?

Designed to intercept aerial and ballistic targets, an S-300VM system includes a 9S457ME command post, 9S15ME surveillance radar, 9S19ME ballistic missile early warning radar, and 9S32ME fire control radar, as well as 9A83ME transporter-erector-launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and 9A84ME transporter-erector-launcher (TEL)/transporter-loader vehicles (this differs from the older S-300V, which, in addition to the 9A83 and 9A84, also includes 9A82 TELARs and 9A85 TEL/transporter-loaders). The system is equipped with two types of long-range SAMs: the 120–130km (75–80 mile) range 9M83ME, which is carried by 9A83ME TELARs, and either the 200–250km (125–155 mile) range 9M82ME or the 350km (217 mile) range 9M82MDE, which is carried by 9A84ME TELs/transporter-loaders.

According to Russia’s state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport, “the SAMs use a combined flight control method: inertial guidance with mid-course updates and semi-active homing in the terminal phase of flight.” It remains unclear whether the Egyptian S-300VM deal includes the standard 9M82ME or its longer-range 9M82MDE variant; the 9M82M-series container-launcher seen in the aforementioned June 2017 image may house either the former or the latter, and Russian and Egyptian sources have not publicly disclosed many details about the deal.

As long as Cairo refrains from deploying its new long-range SAM systems in the Sinai Peninsula (in accordance with the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty), an Egyptian S-300VM armed with 200–250km range missiles will not pose an immediate threat to Israeli airspace. As a 2014 Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) article observes, “an interceptor with a 200km range could barely reach Israeli territory from the western side of the Suez Canal.” Moreover, at such ranges the 9M82ME will see a significant reduction in its performance.

A 350km interceptor, on the other hand, allows Egypt’s Air Defense Command to cover almost the entirety of Israeli airspace, even when the S-300VM is not deployed in the Sinai.

That said, the presence of Egyptian S-300VM SAM systems (with or without longer-range interceptors, and in or out of the Sinai Peninsula) will not tilt the balance of power in Cairo’s favor, particularly when taking into account Israel’s acquisition of low observable F-35I Adir fighters, which are being procured in response to the proliferation of advanced SAM systems and fighter aircraft in the Muslim world. However, Egypt’s highly mobile S-300VM systems will still complicate Israeli Air Force (IAF) operations in the event of conflict and will pose a threat to Israeli civilian air traffic.

The marked improvement in Jerusalem’s relationship with Cairo under Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, particularly in the sphere of counter-terrorism, has meant that, despite the above, some in Israel’s security establishment do not view the Antey-2500 deal as a potential threat. Speaking at a conference in May 2015, then-IAF chief Major-General Amir Eshel dismissed concerns about the then unconfirmed deal, telling journalists: “Are you kidding me? We’re at peace with them.”

Others in Israel’s security establishment, however, are uneasy about the deal, and for a good reason. Speaking to journalists that same month on condition of anonymity, one senior Israeli intelligence official noted that, “I don’t know what kind of threat Egypt looks at when they decide to buy it.” Indeed, neither Libya nor Sudan (which border Egypt) field credible air forces. At the same time, the prospect of an armed confrontation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia is simply non-existent. This leaves Israel as the only neighboring state at whom Cairo may direct its SAMs.

In an attempt to reassure Israeli concerns, an Egyptian official told Reuters rather ambiguously in 2015 that, “if we are getting [the S-300VM], its because we’re looking east, not north.” The official’s statement can only be interpreted as a reference to Iran, given that, as already noted, a Saudi-Egyptian conflict is not a realistic prospect. Indeed, while Iranian aircraft do not threaten Egypt due to the distances involved and the presence of other non-friendly states in between, Iran does field a growing arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) that have Egypt within reach.

According to Rosoboronexport, the 9M82ME and 9M82MDE are capable of intercepting ballistic targets traveling at speeds of up to 4.8 km/s (Mach 14) and at distances of up to 30 km (19 miles); this is greater than the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors currently in service with Egypt’s Air Defense Command.

However, the PAC-3 utilizes “hit-to-kill” technology, making it more effective against high-speed ballistic targets than a semi-active radar homing missile with a blast-fragmentation warhead (such as the 9M82ME/MDE). Also, there is no reliable test data on the 9M82M-series of SAMs that attests to their alleged high probability of kill.

Hence, rather than procure the S-300VM from Russia, Cairo could have opted for the US-built PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in order to better address the Iranian missile threat. The latter is purely a missile defense system and would therefore not be perceived as a threat by Israel.

Given the above, Egypt’s decision to procure the S-300VM is a clear reflection of Cairo’s desire to distance itself from Israel’s closest ally — the United States — in favor of Russia. As the aforementioned INSS article notes, the S-300VM and other Egyptian arms contracts with Russia reflect “Egypt’s interests in changing the balance of its relations with the two superpowers and reducing its exclusive dependence on the United States.” Considering that the Antey-2500 is of no relevance to counter-terrorism, Jerusalem should treat Cairo’s drift into Moscow’s orbit with suspicion. As one senior Israeli military official noted: “The problem is that the S-300 has nothing to do with counter-terrorism.”

The same is true for many of the other Russian arms sales to Egypt. They, too, have little or no relevance to the fight against terror. Examples include the aforementioned Tor and Buk-series of SAM systems, as well as a 2015 contract signed by Cairo and Moscow for the delivery of some 50 MiG-29M/M2 fighters. The Egyptian Air Force (EAF) already operates modern US-built F-16C/Ds and French-built Rafale DM/EM multi-role fighters. These aircraft posses superior air-to-ground capabilities to the MiG-29M/M2, raising questions as to why the EAF needs the MiGs in the first place, especially when considering that the introduction of a Russian platform will further complicate logistics.

Unlike the United States and Israel, which are stable democracies with shared values, Egypt is under authoritarian rule, frequently politically unstable, and has historically witnessed regimes that have been hostile to both Washington and Jerusalem — most recently, the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Despite the marked improvement in relations under President Sisi, the large majority of Egyptians still view Israel with great hostility. Hence, Egypt’s procurement of the S-300VM and other advanced weapon systems from Russia that are of little or no relevance to counter-terrorism should be viewed with concern in Jerusalem.

Israel must engage with Russia for the purpose of limiting the sale of such systems in the future. Doing so is vital not only for Israel’s national security, but also because it could aid Washington in limiting Moscow’s influence in the Mediterranean. At the same time, both Israel and the United States must continue their cooperation with Egypt on counter-terrorism and encourage Cairo to focus its resources on the procurement of weapon systems that are relevant to the fight against terror.

This article was originally published on the author’s Medium page.

*Guy Plopsky holds an MA in International Affairs and Strategic Studies from Tamkang University, Taiwan. He specializes in air power, Russian military affairs and Asia-Pacific security. You can follow him on Twitter.

The latest roadmap to a 100% renewable energy future from Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson and 26 colleagues is the most specific global vision yet, outlining infrastructure changes that 139 countries can make to be entirely powered by wind, water, and sunlight by 2050 after electrification of all energy sectors.

Such a transition could mean less worldwide energy consumption due to the efficiency of clean, renewable electricity; a net increase of over 24 million long-term jobs; an annual decrease in 4-7 million air pollution deaths per year; stabilization of energy prices; and annual savings of over $20 trillion in health and climate costs. The work appears August 23 in the journal Joule, Cell Press’s new publication focused on sustainable energy.

The challenge of moving the world toward a low-carbon future in time to avoid exacerbating global warming and to create energy self-sufficient countries is one of the greatest of our time. The roadmaps developed by Jacobson’s group provide one possible endpoint. For each of the 139 nations, they assess the raw renewable energy resources available to each country, the number of wind, water, and solar energy generators needed to be 80% renewable by 2030 and 100% by 2050, how much land and rooftop area these power sources would require (only around 1% of total available, with most of this open space between wind turbines that can be used for multiple purposes), and how this approach would reduce energy demand and cost compared with a business-as-usual scenario.

“Both individuals and governments can lead this change. Policymakers don’t usually want to commit to doing something unless there is some reasonable science that can show it is possible, and that is what we are trying to do,” said Jacobson, director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere and Energy Program and co-founder of the Solutions Project, a U.S. non-profit educating the public and policymakers about a transition to 100% clean, renewable energy. “There are other scenarios. We are not saying that there is only one way we can do this, but having a scenario gives people direction.”

The analyses specifically examined each country’s electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industrial, and agriculture/forestry/fishing sectors. Of the 139 countries–selected because they were countries for which data were publicly available from the International Energy Agency and collectively emit over 99% of all carbon dioxide worldwide–the places the study showed that had a greater share of land per population (e.g., the United States, China, the European Union) are projected to have the easiest time making the transition to 100% wind, water, and solar. Another learning was that the most difficult places to transition may be highly populated, very small countries surrounded by lots of ocean, such as Singapore, which may require an investment in offshore solar to convert fully.

As a result of a transition, the roadmaps predict a number of collateral benefits. For example, by eliminating oil, gas, and uranium use, the energy associated with mining, transporting and refining these fuels is also eliminated, reducing international power demand by around 13%. Because electricity is more efficient than burning fossil fuels, demand should go down another 23%. The changes in infrastructure would also mean that countries wouldn’t need to depend on one another for fossil fuels, reducing the frequency of international conflict over energy. Finally, communities currently living in energy deserts would have access to abundant clean, renewable power.

“Aside from eliminating emissions and avoiding 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming and beginning the process of letting carbon dioxide drain from the Earth’s atmosphere, transitioning eliminates 4-7 million air pollution deaths each year and creates over 24 million long-term, full-time jobs by these plans,” Jacobson said. “What is different between this study and other studies that have proposed solutions is that we are trying to examine not only the climate benefits of reducing carbon but also the air pollution benefits, job benefits, and cost benefits.”

The Joule paper is an expansion of 2015 roadmaps to transition each of the 50 United States to 100% clean, renewable energy and an analysis of whether the electric grid can stay stable upon such a transition. Not only does this new study cover nearly the entire world, there are also improved calculations on the availability of rooftop solar energy, renewable energy resources, and jobs created versus lost.

The 100% clean, renewable energy goal has been criticized by some for focusing only on wind, water, and solar energy and excluding nuclear power, “clean coal,” and biofuels. However, the researchers intentionally exclude nuclear power because of its 10-19 years between planning and operation, its high cost, and the acknowledged meltdown, weapons proliferation, and waste risks. “Clean coal” and biofuels are neglected because they both cause heavy air pollution, which Jacobson and coworkers are trying to eliminate, and emit over 50 times more carbon per unit of energy than wind, water, or solar power.

The 100% wind, water, solar studies have also been questioned for depending on some technologies such as underground heat storage in rocks, which exists only in a few places, and the proposed use of electric and hydrogen fuel cell aircraft, which exist only in small planes at this time. Jacobson countered that underground heat storage is not required but certainly a viable option since it is similar to district heating, which provides 60% of Denmark’s heat. He also said that space shuttles and rockets have been propelled with hydrogen, and aircraft companies are now investing in electric airplanes. Wind, water, and solar can also face daily and seasonal fluctuation, making it possible that they could miss large demands for energy, but the new study refers to a new paper that suggests these stability concerns can be addressed in several ways.

These analyses have also been criticized for the massive investment it would take to move a country to the desired goal. Jacobson says that the overall cost to society (the energy, health, and climate cost) of the proposed system is one-fourth of that of the current fossil fuel system. In terms of upfront costs, most of these would be needed in any case to replace existing energy, and the rest is an investment that far more than pays itself off over time by nearly eliminating health and climate costs.

“It appears we can achieve the enormous social benefits of a zero-emission energy system at essentially no extra cost,” said co-author Mark Delucchi, a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley. “Our findings suggest that the benefits are so great that we should accelerate the transition to wind, water, and solar, as fast as possible, by retiring fossil-fuel systems early wherever we can.”

“This paper helps push forward a conversation within and between the scientific, policy, and business communities about how to envision and plan for a decarbonized economy,” writes Mark Dyson of Rocky Mountain Institute, in an accompanying preview of the paper. “The scientific community’s growing body of work on global low-carbon energy transition pathways provides robust evidence that such a transition can be accomplished, and a growing understanding of the specific levers that need to be pulled to do so. Jacobson et al.’s present study provides sharper focus on one scenario, and refines a set of priorities for near-term action to enable it.”

By Elise Harris

After a joint meeting during Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s visit to Russia this week, both he and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said the trip marks “a new stage” in relations between their Churches.

This stage, they said, is thanks not only to Pope Francis’ meeting with Patriarch Kirill in Havana in February 2016, but is also due to the loaning of the relics of St. Nicholas to Russia over the summer, drawing millions of Orthodox faithful for veneration.

Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, was welcomed to Patriarch Kirill’s residence at the monastery of St. Daniel Aug. 22, where the two met as part of Cardinal Parolin’s Aug. 21-24 visit to Moscow.

Taking place 18 months after meeting between Francis and Patriarch Kirill, Parolin’s visit marks the first time a Vatican Secretary of State has traveled to Moscow in 18 years.

According to an Aug. 23 statement from the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, at the beginning of the meeting Patriarch Kirill said the meeting between he and Cardinal Parolin was possible due to “the development of relations between the Russian Federation and the Holy See.”

“But it is with still greater satisfaction that I see the development of relations between our Churches,” he said, noting that his meeting with Pope Francis provided new impetus for cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.

“This fact testifies that a new stage has indeed begun in our relations with events of great importance, which have been possible because in Havana we agreed our positions on many current issues,” he said, adding that “this communion of positions allows us to build plans and give them real content.”

Cardinal Parolin echoed the sentiment, offering Pope Francis’ greeting to “my brother Kirill,” and affirming the patriarch’s observation that the Havana encounter “has laid the foundation for a new stage in the relationship between our Churches, giving new impetus to these relations,” according to Vatican Radio.

A key highlight of the conversation between the two was the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas of Bari, one of the most revered saints in the Russian Orthodox Church, to Moscow earlier this summer.

Consisting of several fragments of his ribs, the relics were flown on a chartered plane to Moscow, where they stayed in the Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior from May 22-July 12 before going to St. Petersburg from July 13-28, marking the first time in nearly 1,000 years that the relics of the 4th century saint had been moved from their resting place in Bari.

Calling the visit of the relics an “exceptional event for the story of our Churches,” Cardinal Parolin said the event is an example of “the ecumenism of sanctity, it’s true, it exists.”

“The saints unite us because they are close to God and so it is they who help us to overcome the difficulties of past relations due to previous situations, and to always walk more rapidly toward fraternal embrace and Eucharistic communion,” he said.

According to the statement from the patriarchate, more than 2.3 million Orthodox faithful from all over Russia cued up to venerate the relics, at times waiting 6-10 hours to get in. Many elderly and sick also came, and were able to skip the long lines.

Patriarch Kirill noted that when they waived goodbye to the relics, he told his faithful that “neither ecclesiastical diplomacy nor government diplomacy could do as much for the development of relations between the Catholic world and the Orthodox world as what St. Nicholas did.”

St Nicholas, he said, “has entered into the history of relations between our Churches as a particularly brilliant and luminous page. It is a spiritual consequence of our meeting in Havana.”

As with prior meetings Cardinal Parolin had this week, other key talking points between the two were conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the need to seek peaceful solutions while working together to provide humanitarian aid.

On the crisis in Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill stressed that the Church “can play no other role than that of pacification when people are in conflict with each other,” and voiced gratitude for the fact that “our Churches share much the same position on the role of the Church in the conflict in Ukraine.”

Cardinal Parolin voiced much the same point of view in his meeting with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, President of the Department for External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, the day before.

In his comments, Patriarch Kirill noted that “conflicts do not last forever and sooner or later they end,” but questioned that “if all social efforts are involved in the conflict, then who will pick up the stones?”

“I appreciate very much the fact that once again we have found mutual understanding on the role that our Churches must play in the reconciliation of the population in Ukraine,” he said.

When it comes to the Middle East, mention was made of the agreement the two Churches found on conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa during last year’s meeting in Havana.

“The collaboration between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church in providing humanitarian assistance to the populations suffering due to conflicts in the Middle East can be an important factor of unity,” Patriarch Kirill said, adding that cooperation in providing aid can provide a basis for common projects in the Middle East in the future.

Following his meeting with the patriarch, Cardinal Parolin visited Putin at the presidential residence in Sochi, nearly 900 miles southwest of Saratov.

During their hour-long meeting “carried out in a positive and cordial climate, one of respect and listening to each other,” they had an “open exchange of views on various subject matters relating to international and bilateral relations,” according to a statement from the Holy See press office.

They exchanged gifts, with Cardinal Parolin giving the Russian president a bronze olive branch as a symbol of peace, and Putin giving the Vatican secretary of state a set of collector coins commemorating the 2014 Olympics, which were held in Sochi.

Cardinal Parolin is travelling back to Moscow, where he will say a private Mass at the nunciature Aug. 24 before his return to Rome.

The most popular Democratic leader by far is still former President Barack Obama. Despite this popularity,  many of the signature accomplishments of his modest legacy are being brutishly unraveled – being repealed , suspended or slated for extinction – by the Trumpsters. Donald Trump seems to revel in the destruction of consumer, investor, environmental, work and public land protections and standards. Whether at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration or the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump’s big-business friends are running the very agencies tasked with regulating them.

Trump vehemently supports breaking the Iran nuclear accord – one of Obama’s highpoints that cooled off what could have been a rush to military conflict in that turbulent region. Abysmally ignorant about its contents, Trump is nonetheless impulsively determined to do just that in last year’s presidential campaign, alarming leading military experts.

What should Barack Obama be doing about the unfolding Trumpian nightmares dangerously enveloping so many defenseless and anxious Americans?  Tradition has it that outgoing presidents go quietly, do not assail their successor in office, if only because the latter is in a position to strike back. Already, Trump has been actively waging war against his predecessor’s legacy.

But there are many other ways in which Obama can respond without getting into a messy Twitter war with the unstable Tweeter-in-Chief. Granted, Obama is spending time laying the groundwork for his presidential library to preserve his past. It is the future of this country that needs his high profile attention. Word has it that he is working with his former Attorney General, Eric Holder, to get candidates and voters ready for next year’s crucial Congressional elections. If so, he needs to be more media-visible to get the attention of millions of people.

Here are some ways Obama can strengthen the people’s resistance to many of Trump’s destructive efforts which harm his own voters as well as those citizens who opposed his candidacy.

1. He can raise funds to expand the staffs and programs of existing citizen organizations straining to preserve and defend conditions that help people from all backgrounds. Obama, as president, went to nearly five hundred major fundraisers outside Washington to court campaign donors. By contrast, fundraising for civic action groups, ranging from civil rights/liberties to consumer, environmental and health initiatives, will not be dissipated on gouging political consultants, empty television ads and cowardly candidates unwilling to speak truth to power.
2. He can elevate already declared positions to block Trump and his Wall Street collaborators from words to action. For example, earlier this year over 100 outdoor-recreation companies – led by Patagonia and REI – paid for full-page advertisements telling Trump in no uncertain terms to lay off the public lands. Obama can nudge them to hire some full-time lobbyists on Capitol Hill to provide them with early alerts and guidance as the looming assault on national forests, wilderness areas and national parks gets underway. Big majorities of Americans agree with these companies, but they are not organized to focus on a handful of Senators and Representatives who need some firm education.
3. Obama can help start new civic advocacy groups. He has close contacts with people who are very rich and share his views. For example, there needs to be new organizations filling important vacuums on such important matters as what the Trump FCC wants to do to the Internet (end net neutrality), to increase concentration of ownership in the mass media – which is already in a few giant corporate hands – and to deliberately ignore the 1934 Communications Act which conditions licenses on providing public interest programming.

There needs to be additional civic groups to propose good directions and to oppose Trump’s forthcoming reduction of taxes for the rich, and, very importantly, to organize prominent retired military, national security and diplomatic officials who are against aggressive wars and seek dynamic diplomacy to wage peace, and to move toward full Medicare for all with free choice of doctor and hospital – with more efficient and better outcomes.

The reality is that Barack Obama is a big draw. No one comes close to playing such a role. He can get big media, attract large audiences, and raise large sums of money for the civic groups. The civil society has built and protected our democracy throughout history. Moreover, he can surely elevate public morale in an era of Trumpian gloom, flakery and attract new leadership to invigorate a leaderless Democratic Party down to the local levels.

If you agree, start petitions with your own ideas for Obama getting with America’s future and not just chronicling his eight year presidency’s past. His silent withdrawal has been astonishing and disturbing. He doesn’t yet realize what a historically crucial role he can play in the next few years.

Brief training in mindfulness strategies could help heavy drinkers start to cut back on alcohol consumption, finds a new UCL study.

After an 11-minute training session and encouragement to continue practising mindfulness — which involves focusing on what’s happening in the present moment — heavy drinkers drank less over the next week than people who were taught relaxation techniques, according to the study published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

“We found that a very brief, simple exercise in mindfulness can help drinkers cut back, and the benefits can be seen quite quickly,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Sunjeev Kamboj (UCL Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit).

The researchers brought in 68 drinkers, who drink heavily but not to the point of having an alcohol use disorder.

Half of them were trained to practise mindfulness, which teaches a heightened awareness of one’s feelings and bodily sensations, so that they pay attention to cravings instead of suppressing them. They were told that by noticing bodily sensations, they could tolerate them as temporary events without needing to act on them. The training was delivered through audio recordings, and only took 11 minutes. At the end of the training participants were encouraged to continue practising the techniques for the next week.

The other half were taught relaxation strategies, chosen as a control condition that appeared to be just as credible as the mindfulness exercise for reducing alcohol use. The study was double-blind, meaning neither experimenters nor participants knew which strategy was being delivered.

“We used a highly controlled experimental design, to ensure that any benefits of mindfulness training were not likely explained by people believing it was a better treatment,” said co-author Dr Tom Freeman (Senior fellow of the Society for the Study of Addiction), who was part of the research team while based at UCL.

The mindfulness group drank 9.3 fewer units of alcohol (roughly equivalent to three pints of beer) in the following week compared to the week preceding the study, while there was no significant reduction in alcohol consumption among those who had learned relaxation techniques.

“Practising mindfulness can make a person more aware of their tendency to respond reflexively to urges. By being more aware of their cravings, we think the study participants were able to bring intention back into the equation, instead of automatically reaching for the drink when they feel a craving,” Dr Kamboj said.

Severe alcohol problems are often preceded by patterns of heavy drinking, so the researchers are hopeful that mindfulness could help to reduce drinking before more severe problems develop.

“Some might think that mindfulness is something that takes a long time to learn properly, so we found it encouraging that limited training and limited encouragement could have a significant effect to reduce alcohol consumption,” said co-author Damla Irez (UCL Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology).

“We’re hopeful that further studies will replicate our findings and provide more insight into how mindfulness training could be most effective in practice. Our team is also looking into how mindfulness might help people with other substance use problems,” said co-author Shirley Serfaty (UCL Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology).

The stimulant methamphetamine, also popularly known as ‘speed,’ ‘ice’ and ‘meth,’ is linked to a heightened risk of stroke among young people, reveals a review of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

A stroke caused by a bleed into the brain (haemorrhagic) rather than a clot (ischaemic) is the most common type associated with taking this drug, with men twice as likely to succumb as women, the findings show.

Given the often disabling or fatal consequences of a stroke, and the increasing use of methamphetamine among young people, particularly in countries around the Pacific rim (North America, East and Southeast Asia, and Oceania), the findings are a cause for concern, warn the researchers.

They base their findings on a comprehensive trawl of research looking at a potential link between methamphetamine use and associated stroke risk in young people (under the age of 45), and published up to February 2017.

They found 77 relevant pieces of research out of 370, including epidemiological studies and case report series.

Some 81 haemorrhagic and 17 ischaemic strokes were reported. Both types were around twice as common in men as they were in women.

In the case reports/series, eight out of 10 strokes associated with the use of methamphetamine use among young people were haemorrhagic.

This is much higher than reported rates of this type of stroke in people under the age of 45 (40-50%) or in older people (15-20%), the researchers point out.

Methamphetamine can be swallowed, inhaled, or injected. Haemorrhagic strokes were equally associated with swallowing the drug and injecting it while inhalation was the most common method of getting high associated with ischaemic stroke.

Haemorrhagic stroke was associated with vascular abnormalities, such as high blood pressure and vasculitis (inflamed blood vessels), in a third of cases. Repeated use of methamphetamine can drive up blood pressure even in those whose blood pressure is normal to start with, say the researchers.

Risk of death was also higher after a haemorrhagic stroke: one in four people recovered completely, but a third died. This compares with complete recovery for one in five people and death in one in five after an ischaemic stroke.

“With the use of methamphetamine increasing, particularly more potent forms, there is a growing burden of methamphetamine related disease and harms, particularly among young people, in whom the majority of methamphetamine use occurs,” write the researchers.

“Indeed, it is likely that methamphetamine abuse is making a disproportionate contribution to the increased incidence of stroke among young people observed over recent years,” they add.

Adm. Scott Swift, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Wednesday relieved the commander of Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command, according to a Navy press statement.

Rear Adm. Phil Sawyer, who has already been nominated and confirmed for the position and promotion to vice admiral, will assume command immediately, the Navy said.

Aucoin was relieved of command after four accidents involving Navy ships in the Pacific this year, the latest being the collision involving the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain with the merchant vessel Alnic MC on August 21.

In a separate press release, the search for missing sailors assigned to the USS John S. McCain continues in the South China Sea and within the ship itself.

On Tuesday, Adm. Scott Swift, commander, Pacific Fleet, announced that the remains of a number of the 10 missing John S. McCain Sailors were discovered within the ship.

On Wednesday, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps divers continue to search the ship, seeking to locate more of the missing Sailors. In addition, they are conducting inspections of the damage to inform repair plans. More divers will join the effort Aug. 24.

At sea, search efforts are focused on an area east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore where the USS John S. McCain was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic. The area centers around the point of collision, and is expanding to encompass a greater area as time goes on.

On Tuesday, the Royal Malaysian Navy discovered the potential remains of a missing Sailor while searching the area. The remains were transferred to the U.S. Navy where efforts are underway to determine identification.

Both the RMN and the Republic of Singapore Navy continue to assist the U.S. Navy in the search. Those efforts on Wednesday, involved RSN ships Gallant and Fearless, RMN ship Leiku and two SH-60S helicopters from USS America (LHA 6).

The incident will be investigated to determine the facts and circumstances of the collision, the Navy said.

By Cheryl Pellerin

In the early hours on August 20, Iraqi security forces launched their latest offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the northwestern city of Tal Afar, the Operation Inherent Resolve deputy commander said Wednesday.

British army Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones briefed the Pentagon press corps live from Baghdad, announcing that the liberation of Tal Afar and the rest of Nineveh governorate would essentially end ISIS’s military presence in northern Iraq.

He said all ISF branches are taking part in the operation. Three Iraqi army divisions, the Counter Terrorism Service, the federal police, the Emergency Response Division, the Iraqi local police and the Popular Mobilization Forces all are under the command of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

“They’ve made a really positive start but we should expect it to be a tough fight,” Jones added. “As always, the coalition will be there in support, providing equipment, training, intelligence, precision air and ground artillery fires, and combat advice.”

Iraq Operations

Once Tal Afar is liberated, Jones said, much remains to be done.

Iraqi fighters must drive Daesh, a local name for ISIS, from Hawija, north of Baghdad, and from the stretch of the Euphrates River Valley leading to the Syrian border, he added.

“The momentum is clearly with the Iraqi security forces and they have the intent and capability to complete the military defeat of Daesh in Iraq. And the coalition will be there in support all the way,” Jones said.

More than 15,400 square miles have been liberated; 31,660 square miles if Syria is included.

“The Iraqi security forces have prevailed in the toughest urban battle since World War II. As a result, about 4 million people are able to live their lives, free from Daesh’s tyrannical rule. Another million-and-a-half [people] have been liberated in Syria,” Jones said, adding, “Daesh are losing on all fronts and our partners have irresistible momentum.”

In many ways the challenge starts when the fighting stops, he said.

The Iraqi government, with the United Nations and others, has worked hard to help internally displaced people return home, restore essential services and start the slow process of recovering from the great trauma cities like Mosul have suffered, the general said.

In Ramadi, more than 330,000 people have returned home. Nearly 14,500 children are back learning in refurbished schools. In Fallujah, 400,000 have returned. Housing and jobs projects are helping a gradual return to normality and supporting livelihoods, he added.

“What always strikes me most on the streets is what the people are doing — their resilience and determination to take back their lives,” Jones said.

Syria Operations

In Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, with coalition support, are into the third month of clearing Raqqa, Jones said.

“As expected,” he said, “the fighting is tough and the SDF face heavy resistance, not least from improvised explosive devices. But the SDF are making incremental gains on multiple fronts, and ISIS fighters are suffering considerable losses.”

This week alone, the coalition conducted more than 250 strikes on tunnel systems, improvised explosive device factories, enemy rocket-mortar positions and command-and-control nodes. Tough weeks lie ahead, Jones added, “but the enemy is suffering and the pressure is translating into progress on the ground, building by building.”

He said the deconfliction line south of the Euphrates River is holding, keeping the SDF and regime forces apart and allowing both to stay focused on fighting ISIS.

“We will continue to use these deconfliction procedures as forces continue to advance against ISIS-held areas in Syria,” Jones said.

Last week, the general said, he met with the Raqqa and Tabqa civil councils.

“The councils are doing a good job,” he said, “working at acting on behalf of the people, channeling assistance to IDPs, providing security in liberated areas and starting the slow process of restoring essential services.”

He added, “Each time I return to towns like Ayn Issa and Tabqa, there are more signs of recovery. Manbij marked the one-year anniversary of its liberation last week. The town is thriving and the markets bustling, offering an insight to what Raqqa can look forward to.”

Coalition Unity

Jones, who is winding up more than a year in theater, said he wanted to end with a few words as a senior non-U.S. coalition member.

“Up front, this has always felt like a coalition. The unity of the coalition is one of the greatest strengths we have: 69 nations and four international organizations united against a common enemy,” he said.

The U.S. provides vital leadership and fighting power but this is a team effort, he added, noting that 30 nations contribute to Operation Inherent Resolve, with more than 3,800 non-U.S. troops in Iraq today.

Jones said every nation plays a vital role, no matter what size its contribution.

The recovery and success of the Iraqi security forces is built on the capacity-building effort, he said — coalition nations, and largely non-U.S. forces, have trained more than 110,000 troops. Other nations also have provided a large percentage of all airstrikes.

“You’ll find coalition nations contributing to virtually every element of the campaign, and we couldn’t do it without them,” Jones added.

“Despite all the progress, we know there’s still much to do after the liberation of Mosul and Raqqa,” he said, “and it will take the continued commitment of all our nations to secure the military defeat of Daesh.”

Many in Moscow and the West dismiss the military forces of the five post-Soviet Central Asian countries, but they are wrong to do so, according to Marat Shibtov, a military affairs specialist at Alma-Ata’s Center for Military-Strategic Research, who says that in most cases, they have far greater defense capabilities than observers think.

In a major article on the Regnum news portal today, he marshals an impressive array of data about the size of forces, their armaments, government military spending, and combat experience (regnum.ru/news/polit/2313004.html) in order to dispel the image the militaries of this region have and to offer four conclusions:

• “Despite the existing stereotypes, the armed forces of the countries of the region are not badly armed and have sufficient numbers for current tasks.”

• “The armed forces of the countries of the region carefully follow current trends in armaments and tactics which are being manifest in present-day local wars.”

• “Considering that the main danger is the penetration on the territories of the countries there of groups of militants numbering up to approximately 300 people, they have completely sufficient military potential to respond adequately.”

• “The possible shortage of professionalism can be completely compensated by the firepower of artillery and aviation that even in many population points like Iraq’s Mosul leads to victory.”

Racism is not a new phenomenon and while it is an ongoing daily reality for vast numbers of people, it also often bursts from the shadows to remind us that just because we can keep ignoring the endless sequence of ‘minor’ racist incidents, racism has not gone away despite supposedly significant efforts to eliminate it. I say ‘supposedly’ because these past efforts, whatever personnel, resources and strategies have been devoted to them, have done nothing to address the underlying cause of racism and so their impact must be superficial and temporary. As the record demonstrates.

I say this not to denounce the effort made and, in limited contexts, the progress achieved, but if we want to eliminate racism, rather than confine it to the shadows for it to burst out periodically, then we must have the courage to understand what drives racism and design responses that address this cause.

Otherwise, all of the best ideas in the world can do no more than repeat past efforts at dialogue, education, nonviolent action and the implementation of legislation designed to protect civil rights or even outlaw violence, which doesn’t work, of course, as the pervasive violence in our society demonstrates and was again graphically illustrated by the recent outbreak of ‘white nationalist’ violence in Charlottesville in the United States.

Racism directed against indigenous peoples and people of color has been a significant factor driving key aspects of domestic politics and foreign policy in many countries for centuries. This outcome is inevitable given the psychological imperatives that drive racist violence.

Racism – fear of, and hatred for, those of another race coupled with the beliefs that the other race is inferior and should be dominated (by your race) – is now highly visible among European populations impacted by refugee flows from the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, racism is ongoing and highly evident among sectors of the US population but also in countries like South Africa as well as Australia and throughout Central and South America where indigenous populations are particularly impacted. But racism is a problem in many other countries too.

So why is fear and hatred of those of a different race so prominent? Let me start at the beginning.

Human socialization is essentially a process of terrorizing children into ‘thinking’ and doing what the adults around them want (irrespective of the functionality of this thought and behavior in evolutionary terms). Hence, the attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors that most humans exhibit are driven by fear and the self-hatred that accompanies this fear. For a comprehensive explanation of this point, see and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

However, because this fear and self-hatred are so unpleasant to feel consciously, most people suppress these feelings below conscious awareness and then (unconsciously) project them onto ‘legitimized’ victims (that is, those people ‘approved’ for victimization by their parents and/or society generally). In short: the fear and self-hatred are projected as fear of, and hatred for, particular social groups (whether people of another gender, nation, race, religion or class).

This all happens because virtually all adults are (unconsciously) terrified and self-hating, so they unconsciously terrorize children into accepting the attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors that make the adults feel safe. A child who thinks and acts differently is frightening and is not allowed to flourish.

Once the child has been so terrorized however, they will respond to their fear and self-hatred with diminishing adult stimulus. What is important, emotionally speaking, is that the fear and self-hatred have an outlet so that they can be released and acted upon. And because parents do not allow their child to feel and express their fear and hatred in relation to the parents themselves (who, fundamentally, just want obedience without comprehending that obedience is rooted in fear and generates enormous self-hatred because it denies the individual’s Self-will), the child is left with no alternative but to project their fear and hatred in socially approved directions.

Hence, as an adult, their own fear and self-hatred are unconscious to the individual precisely because they were never allowed to feel and express them safely as a child. What they do feel, consciously, is their hatred for ‘legitimized’ victims.

Historically, different social groups in different cultural contexts have been the victim of this projected but ‘socially approved’ fear and hatred. Women, indigenous peoples, Catholics, Afro-Americans, Jews, communists, Palestinians…. The list goes on. The predominant group in this category, of course, is children (whose ‘uncontrollability’ frightens virtually all parents until they have been successfully terrorized and tamed).

The groups that are socially approved to be feared and hated are determined by elites. This is because individual members of the elite are themselves terrified and full of self-hatred and they use the various powerful instruments at their disposal – ranging from control of politicians to the corporate media – to trigger the fear and self-hatred of the population at large in order to focus this fear and hatred on what frightens the elite. This makes it easier for the elite to then attack the group that they are projecting frightens them, which is why Donald Trump and various European leaders encourage racist attacks. See, for example, ‘This expert on political violence thinks Trump is making neo-Nazi attacks more likely’. It is also useful for providing a basis for enhancing elite social control through such measures as legislative restrictions on human rights and expanded police powers.

Historically speaking, indigenous peoples and people of color have been primary targets for this projected fear and self-hatred, which explains the psychological origins (which underpin and complement the political and economic origins) of practices such as the Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism in earlier centuries. Racism allows elites and others to project their fear and self-hatred onto indigenous people and people of color so that elites can then seek to destroy this fear and self-hatred.

Obviously, this cannot work. You cannot destroy fear, whether your own or that of anyone else. However, you can cause phenomenal damage to those onto whom your fear and self-hatred are projected. Of course, there is nothing intelligent about this process. If every indigenous person and person of colour in the world was killed, elites would simply then project their fear and self-hatred onto other groups and set out to destroy those groups too.

In fact, of course, western elites are now (unconsciously) projecting their fear and self-hatred onto Muslims as well and this manifests behaviourally in many ways, including as war on countries in the Middle East. And when the blowback from these wars manifests as ‘terrorist’ attacks on western countries (assuming they aren’t ‘false flag’ events, which is often the case), such as the recent attack in Barcelona, it is simply used by elites, employing their corporate media particularly, to justify more intrusive social control under the guise of ‘enhanced security’, as mentioned above.

If you are starting to wonder about the sanity of all this, you can rest assured there is none. Elites are insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane’. Unfortunately, the individuals who are mobilized in response to this projection are also insane, as a cursory perusal of their written words and even modest attention to their spoken words will readily illustrate. See, for example, ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’.

So is there anything we can do? Fundamentally, we need to stop terrorizing our children. As a back up, we can provide safe spaces for children and adults alike to feel their fear, self-hatred and other suppressed feelings consciously (which will allow them to be safely released). By doing this, we can avoid creating more insane individuals who will project their fear and self-hatred in elite-approved directions. See ‘My Promise to Children’.

If you are fearless enough to recognize that elites are manipulating you into fearing those of other races (or religions) whom we do not need to fear, any time is a good time to speak up and to demonstrate your solidarity. You might also like to sign the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

You are also welcome to consider using the strategic framework explained in Nonviolent Campaign Strategy for your anti-racism campaign. And if you want to organise a nonviolent action to combat racism in a context where violence might erupt, you can minimize the risk of this violence by following the comprehehensive list of guidelines here: ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Suppressed fear and self-hatred must be projected and they are usually projected in socially approved ways (although mental illnesses and some forms of criminal activity are ways in which this suppressed fear manifests that are not socially approved).

In essence, racism is a manifestation of the mental illness of elites manipulating us into doing their insane bidding. Unfortunately, many people are easy victims of this manipulation because they are full of suppressed terror and self-hatred too.