When Professor Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago received the news that he had won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for “contributions to behavioral economics,” he faced an eager press with unusual mirth. What’s the story behind Professor Thaler’s jovial response?

Maybe he is laughing because the joke is finally on the empirically-starved economists whose dominance of the field is finally being challenged by a handful of increasingly noticed ‘behavioral economists.’ In turning the tide of mainstream economic thought, Thaler and his colleagues reject the myth of the hyper-rational consumer – “homo economicus” – who are primarily motivated to maximize utility. It has been a struggle for these less dogmatic economists who for almost three decades have incurred ridicule and condescension by the mathematical economists of the Chicago School of Economics, before people started questioning  theories of consumer behavior that are absurd on their face.

Years ago, I asked my Econ 101 professor after class whether the basis of economics is psychology. He gave me an incredulous look and asserted that economics was far too precise a discipline to be so vaguely rooted.

Perhaps Professor Thaler had a similar inquiry as a student watching his economics professors mark up the blackboard with intricate models of how markets and consumers work. Perhaps he was struck by a clear contradiction; He would ask, “Really?” Repeatedly, he would ask “Really?” because this was not how consumers he knew, including himself, operated when they bought or didn’t buy goods and services.

Thaler’s skepticism helped him produce books and articles showing an obvious but powerful truth: that people are consistently and predictably irrational and will act in a way that undermines their own self-interest. And contrary to the dogma of mainstream economics, the market overall doesn’t filter out such irrationality to avoid messy realities.

It’s a small wonder Dr. Thaler is jovial. He has reproduced what the much deprecated Home Economists and later the leading consumer advocates have documented ad infinitum. He built with more bracing analyses concise narratives involving many examples taken directly from consumer protection studies, together with his own common sense observations and candid descriptions of his own irrational behavior. For this he receives his profession’s most coveted prize, while home economists and consumer advocates keep toiling away, their heroism unsung to the majority of consumers who would benefit from this consumer-based wisdom regarding  buying and saving smarter than they have been doing  (e.g., avoiding frauds and harmful irrational choices) so as to protect their health, safety and pocketbooks.

The Nobel Committee praised Thaler as “a pioneer on integrating economics and psychology.” Maybe this is true in the case of the ‘dismal science’ of economics, but it does not account for the thousands of people who have worked to advise people to buy more nutritious foods, choose safer cars and medicines, be more savvy in buying insurance and borrowing and reject the deceptive ads from avaricious vendors flooding the airwaves.

Many mainstream economists got their kicks, promotions and consultantships by playing with complex numbers having concern for human experience, whether manipulated, gouged or drawn from ignorance, despair, fear, lack of time or gullibility. No matter their irrelevance to the real world, these economists were remarkably arrogant toward any of their “soft-headed” colleagues who worked in what was once called the ‘political economy’ or in the field of ‘consumer economics.’

I recall sharing a dinner table in the late nineties with Federal Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook (an adherent of the Chicago School of Economics), who sneeringly described Derek Bok of Harvard as someone who wouldn’t recognize a regression analysis if it hit him between the eyes.

Getting closer to reality, to on-the-ground evidence of the many human behavioral variables that cannot be quantified by computers so smugly, is the real challenge of social science. Thaler et al. now have the ‘prestige’ to press these other corporate economists to jettison their myths, climb down from their abstraction ladders and face the facts, urgencies and injustices of their time. Getting a grip on the way things really are may deny them some riches from their corporate patrons, for whom they so often shill. But it may encourage economists to embrace what their profession should be about: independent thinking, expanding knowledge and service to the public.

In a backhanded slam against his pompous or indentured (take your choice) brethren, Professor Thaler made a key point (quoted in the New York Times) in a presidential address at the American Economic Association in January 2016: “I think it is time to stop thinking about behavioral economics as some kind of revolution,” adding that, “all economics will be as behavioral as the topic requires.”

In an important sense, however, behavioral economics is a revolution – a revolution against the pitiless abstractions that have shaped the phony cost-benefit equations of corporatist economists who still work to undermine regulatory law and order in the fight against serious corporate misbehavior.

To understand the United States’ stratagem in the Pacific, and against North Korea in particular, one has to understand the fundamental changes that are under way in that region. China’s clout as an Asian superpower and as a global economic powerhouse has been growing at a rapid speed. The US’ belated ‘pivot to Asia’ to counter China’s rise has been, thus far, quite ineffectual.

The angry diplomacy of President Donald Trump is Washington’s way to scare off North Korea’s traditional ally, China, and disrupt what has been, till now, quite a smooth Chinese economic, political and military ascendency in Asia that has pushed against US regional influence, especially in the East and South China Seas.

Despite the fact that China has reevaluated its once strong ties with North Korea, in recent years, it views with great alarm any military build-up by the US and its allies. A stronger US military in that region will be a direct challenge to China’s inevitable trade and political hegemony.

The US understands that its share of the world’s economic pie chart is constantly being reduced, and that China is gaining ground, and fast.

The United States’ economy is the world’s largest, but not for long. Statistics show that China is blazing the trail and will, by 2030 – or even sooner – win the coveted spot. In fact, according to an International Monetary Fund report in 2014, China is already the world’s largest economy when the method of measurement is adjusted by purchasing power.

This is not an anomaly and is not reversible, at least any time soon.

The growth rate of the US economy over the past 30 years has averaged 2.4 percent, while China soared at 9.3 percent.

Citing these numbers, Paul Ormerod, an economist and a visiting professor at University College, London, argued in a recent article that “if we project these rates forward, the Chinese economy will be as big as the American by 2024. By 2037, it will be more than twice the size.”

It is no wonder why Trump obsessively referenced ‘China’ in his many campaigning speeches prior to his election to the White House, and why he continues to blame China for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program to this day.

As a business mogul, Trump understands how real power works, and that his country’s nuclear arsenal, estimated at nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, is simply not enough to reverse his country’s economic misfortunes.

In fact, China’s nuclear arsenal is quite miniscule compared to the US. Military power alone is not a sufficient measurement of actual power that can be translated into economic stability, sustainable wealth and financial security of a nation.

It is ironic that, while the US threatens to ‘totally destroy North Korea,’ it is the Chinese government that is using sensible language, calling for de-escalation and citing international law. Not only did fortunes change, but roles as well. China, which for many years was depicted as a rogue state, now seems like the cornerstone of stability in Asia.

Prudent US leaders, like former President Jimmy Carter understand well the need to involve China in resolving the US-North Korean standoff.

In an article in the Washington Post, Carter, 93, called for immediate and direct diplomatic engagement with North Korea that involves China as well.

He wrote on October 4, the US should “offer to send a high-level delegation to Pyongyang for peace talks or to support an international conference including North and South Korea, the United States and China, at a mutually acceptable site.”

A few days leader, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, quoted Carter’s article, and reasserted her country’s position that only a diplomatic solution could bring the crisis to an end.

In a recent tweet, Trump claimed that “Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid … hasn’t worked.”

He alleged that North Korea has violated these agreements even “before the ink was dry”, finishing with the ominous warning that “only one thing will work!”, alluding to war.

Trump is a bad student of history. The ‘agreements’ he was referring to is the ‘Agreed Framework’ of 1994, signed between President Bill Clinton and Kim Jong-il – the father of the current leader Kim Jong-un. In fact, the crisis was averted, when Pyongyang respected its side of the agreement. The US, however, reneged, argued Fred Kaplan in ‘Slate’.

“North Korea kept its side of the bargain, the United States did not,” Kaplan wrote. “No light-water reactors were provided. (South Korea and Japan were supposed to pay for the reactors; they didn’t, and the U.S. Congress didn’t step in.) Nor was any progress made on diplomatic recognition.”

It took North Korea years to react to the US and its partners’ violation of the terms of the deal.

In 2001, the US invaded and destroyed Afghanistan. In 2003, it invaded Iraq, and actively began threatening a regime change in Iran. Iraq, Iran and North Korea were already blacklisted as the “axis of evil” in George W. Bush’s infamous speech in 2002.

More military interventions followed, especially as the Middle East fell into unprecedented chaos resulting from the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. Regime change, as became the case in Libya, remained the defining doctrine of US foreign policy.

This is the actual reality that terrifies North Korea. For 15 years they have been waiting for their turn on the US regime change path, and their nuclear weapons program is their only deterring strategy in the face of US military interventions. The more the North Korean leadership felt isolated regionally and internationally, the more determined it became in obtaining nuclear devices.

This is the context that Trump does not want to understand. US mainstream media, which seems to loathe Trump in every way except when he threatens war or defends Israel, is following blindly.

Current news reports of North Korea’s supposed ability to kill “90% of all Americans” within one year is the kind of ignorance and fear-mongering that has dragged the US into multiple wars, costing the economy trillions of dollars, while continuing to make bad situations far worse.

Indeed, a recent Brown University Study showed that, between 2001 and 2016, the cost of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan has cost the US $3.6 trillion.

Perhaps, a better way of fending against the rise of China is investing in the US economy instead of wasting money on protracted wars.

But if a Trump war in North Korea takes place, what would it look like?

US Newsweek magazine took on this very disturbing question, only to provide equally worrying answers.

“If combat broke out between the two countries, American commanders in the Pacific would very quickly exhaust their stockpiles of smart bombs and missiles, possibly within a week,” military sources revealed.

It will take a year for the US military to replenish their stockpile, thus leaving them with the option of “dropping crude gravity bombs on their targets, guaranteeing a longer and bloodier conflict for both sides.”

Expectedly, North Korea would strike, at will, all of the US allies in the region, starting with South Korea. Even if the conflict does not escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, the death toll from such a war “could reach 1 million.”

Both Trump and Kim Jong-un are unsavory figures, driven by fragile egos and unsound judgement. Yet, they are both in a position that, if not reigned in soon, could threaten global security and the lives of millions.

Calls for diplomatic solutions made by Carter and China must be heeded, before it is too late.

By Jorge Valero

(EurActiv) — Catalonia’s independence vote held on 1 October failed to meet the international standards to be considered as a referendum, the head of the international observation mission told EURACTIV.com on Wednesday (18 October).

In a phone conversation with EURACTIV, Daan Evert said that “due to the circumstances and the government response” the vote held in the region could not be considered as a referendum.

The regional government reported that at least 900 people were injured during the 1 October vote as a result of the police intervention. The European Commission and the European Council President warned at the time that violence could not be the response.

Evert, a Dutch diplomat who works for the think tank The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, will present the final conclusions on the vote next week. He stressed that he did not work for the Govern [Catalonia’s regional government].

He explained that the referendum was also affected by the problematic referendum law passed by the regional parliament.

Catalonia’s opposition parties complained that the law had been approved in an “undemocratic” manner.

A few days after its adoption, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled that any unilateral referendum was to be considered illegal.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont based his declaration of independence on the referendum results. However, he immediately suspended independence and sought a dialogue with Spain.

Spain responded by requesting that the government return to the legal order by last Monday (16 October). The central government also offered a Constitutional reform to review Spain’s territorial model.

On Monday, Puigdemont declined to accept the Constitutional order as he insisted on the referendum results. “More than two million Catalans entrusted to the parliament the democratic mandate to declare independence”, he said in the letter sent to the central government.

Raul Romeva, Catalan Foreign Affairs counsellor, insisted on Wednesday that the referendum had taken place.

Despite “the very adverse circumstances…almost 2.2 million people cast their votes… and that represents a lot,” he said.

Romeva planned another last-minute visit to Brussels to address the international press before the extended deadline given by the central government expires on Thursday.

But he warned that the regional government would not backtrack on its intention to declare independence.

If the regional government fails to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s request, the central government will trigger Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution in order to seize competences and quash the political rebellion in the region.

Media reports suggest that the central government could take control of Catalonia’s fiscal competences and the regional police (Mossos d’Esquadra).

Catalonia, absent in the summit

The activation of Article 155 could happen just as Rajoy arrives in Brussels to attend the EU summit.

The leaders will discuss briefly the future of the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency, both currently based in London, after Britain leaves the EU.

Barcelona is one of the candidates to host the EMA.

Rajoy is not expected to bring the Catalan crisis up during the leaders’ gathering, a Spanish diplomat said.

The internationalisation of the crisis has been a priority for Catalonia in order to offset the lack of a legal basis for launching the independence bid.

“The European Commission must encourage international mediation,” Puigdemont said a day after the vote.

Despite these efforts, EU countries and international organisations did not respond to the regional government’s calls for mediation. Leaders and EU institutions insisted it was a domestic issue and only called for dialogue within the constitutional order.

On Wednesday Romeva said that “we are not the ones demanding the mediation, but dialogue…. The problem is not the lack of mediation, but the lack of will” to talk.

Snap elections?

In order to overcome the political crisis the central government, supported by the Socialist Party, offered a Constitutional reform agreed by all the parties in the Parliament.

The reform was Rajoy’s concession to Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, who had previously been reluctant to agree to invoke Article 155 but has now changed his mind.

But Barcelona did not accept this offer.

As an alternative, Catalonia could avoid the suspension of part of its autonomy if the Govern calls a snap election on Thursday, Sanchez said.

The option of snap elections was not seriously considered by the central and regional governments. Romeva told reporters that “this is not the scenario right now… it is not part of our programme”.

Rajoy’s ruling PP has not clarified whether letting the Catalans decide in new regional elections would help avoid the partial suspension of the region’s autonomy.

In the past regional elections held in 2015, a majority of Catalan voters (52%) did not support pro-independence parties.

The Socialist leader Sanchez visited Brussels today to take part in a conference organised by his European political family.

Sanchez also met with the European Parliament president Antonio Tajani and is due to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday.

The lack of progress in finding a solution between Madrid and Barcelona took place against the backdrop of the worsening situation in the region.

Around 800 companies moved their headquarters from Catalonia to other regions due to the legal uncertainty. According to David Veredas, a professor at Vlerick Business School, Catalonia could lose around €6.7 billion and no longer be the richest region in Spain.

Meanwhile, the arrest of the leaders of two pro-independence organisations triggered fresh protests in the streets.

Romeva referred to Jordi Sanchez (Catalan National Assembly) and Jordi Cuixart (Omnium Cultural) as “political prisoners” who were sent to prison “because of their opinions”.

The judge accused them of organising demonstrations aiming at “impeding the application of the law”. Both of them were accused of sedition.

The unopposed invasion of Kirkuk by troops ostensibly loyal to Baghdad of uncertain provenance and without anything other than token Peshmerga resistance to occupation of so strategically important an asset, the petrochemical capital of Iraq, is a back-room deal. The terms of that deal are not hard to divine.

By Matthew Parish*

On 16 October 2017 the contested oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northeastern Iraq, occupied by the Iraqi Kurds since 2014 and heavily protected by thousands of Peshmerga (the battle-hardened military forces of the Kurdish autonomous territory in Iraq), fell to militias apparently loyal to the Iraqi central government.

The speed with which Kirkuk surrendered was remarkable. The invading Iraqi soldiers, variously described as members of the Popular Mobilisation Units (an Iranian-backed irregular militia with inferior training and experience compared with that of the Peshmerga) or the Iraqi Federal Police (a notoriously dysfunctional and ineffective force trained by the United States) arrived at the outskirts of Kirkuk only on 15 October 2017, and immediately occupied Kirkuk’s rich oil field infrastructure just outside the city: apparently without any resistance whatsoever. The very next day they rolled tanks and armoured personnel carriers directly into central Kirkuk, again without opposition of substance.

Video footage showed Iraqi troops sitting on the outside of their vehicles: a mysterious battle formation to besiege an ostensibly hostile city of almost one million people packed with aggressive defending troops. Shots seem to have been fired only in the vicinity of BBC reporters. No casualties were recorded. The Peshmerga were reported as having fled. Kirkuk is the centre of Iraq’s oil fields and its lucrative associated revenues. It would be disappointing if a well-trained and experienced military force fled from such an asset, when that army has no prior history of routs and, to the contrary, is known for viscerally fighting to the death in pursuit of Kurdish national interests.

Contrast this with the nine months it took similar forces to defeat an occupying urban militia in Mosul, Iraq’s second city close to Kirkuk and approximately twice the size.That invasion entailed a massive military and civilian death toll from the resulting carnage: by any measure involving tens of thousands of casualties. Yet barely five hours after the reported start of the invasion of Kirkuk, there was photo footage of soldiers loyal to Baghdad peacefully sitting in the Governor’s chair in his undamaged office in central Kirkuk. No military preparations seem to have been undertaken before Iraqi forces advanced upon the city. Some of the very limited video footage emerging of the Iraqi advance upon the city showed the elderly, women and children dancing in the streets as smiling tank commanders waved back.

Official statements reflecting these events were equally if not more strange. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the operation in Kirkuk was necessary “to protect the unity of the country, which is in danger of partition”. It was not clear how risking internal Iraqi military conflict by placing rival militias in direct confrontation with one-another would ameliorate this danger. Abadi described the Iraqi armed forces in glorious terms, as “heroic” and “committed to our strict directives to protect civilians”. Seldom do Iraqi politicians feel compelled to enunciate such niceties. The head of the Peshmerga, ostensibly but clearly ineffectively protecting the city from invasion, inexplicably blamed the swift and bloodless occupation upon a “plot against the people of Kurdistan” by another Kurdish group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that was not present in Kirkuk in significant numbers.

Ankara announced that it was “ready for any form of cooperation with the Iraqi government to end the PKK presence in Iraqi territory”. This was also a strange observation, because the PKK, a Kurdish insurgency group based in Turkey, was not in Kirkuk either but is associated with the PUK, accused of a “plot against the people of Kurdistan”. The Iraqi central government denounced the presence of PKK fighters in Kirkuk (who were not there) as “tantamount to a declaration of war”, although there was no conflict of substance in the occupation of Kirkuk.

Prime Minister Abadi announced that he did not want an armed confrontation with the Kurds (even though his government had accused the PKK of declaring war) and, perhaps most mysteriously, he announced that he would accept Kirkuk being governed by a “joint administration”: something virtually unheard of amidst the chaos and uncompromising confrontation of contemporary ethnically divided Iraq.

It does not take a huge leap of the imagination to appreciate that this entire narrative is fallacious. The unopposed invasion of Kirkuk by troops ostensibly loyal to Baghdad of uncertain provenance and without anything other than token Peshmerga resistance to occupation of so strategically important an asset, the petrochemical capital of Iraq, is a back-room deal. The terms of that deal are not hard to divine.

Firstly, Kurdish politics are split between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), loyal to the Kurdish government in Erbil (that enjoys close relations with Turkey); and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a Kurdish political movement supported by Iran and associated with Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey including the PKK. The PUK’s headquarters are in Iraqi Kurdistan’s second capital, Sulaymaniyah. The narrative emerging from both Erbil and Ankara was that the PUK / PKK were to blame for everything in Kirkuk, even though they were not present. This should give rise to suspicion.

Secondly, although Erbil announced that the Peshmerga, in Kirkuk under the control of the KDP, were prepared to defend Kirkuk to the death; and although the Peshmerga have repeatedly shown extraordinary ferocity and fearlessness in battles throughout Iraq and Syria, in this case it seems likely that the KDP instructed the Peshmerga under their control guarding Kirkuk to melt away and to provide whatever Iraqi forces that decided to enter the city free passage. Otherwise it would be impossible that those forces would have been able to project footage of their sitting comfortably, undisturbed and uninjured, in the Kirkuk governor’s office within a matter of just a few hours.

Thirdly, the Iraqi forces participating in the presumptive invasion of Kirkuk must have known that they would enter the city unopposed. Otherwise they would never have proceeded to advance upon a heavily-defended large city within a mere 24 hours of arriving there and therefore without the necessary pre-onslaught preparations. Moreover they would not have been videoed riding into town smiling and cheering. These events are obviously staged. One does not normally invade an armed Iraqi city smiling and sitting atop one’s tank.

Fourthly, if the Iraqi invaders knew they would not substantially be opposed then the unopposed occupation of Kirkuk must be the result of a hidden political agreement between Baghdad and Erbil. What could the terms of that agreement be? One possibility is that Baghdad and the KDP, with Ankara’s support, have agreed to share custody of Kirkuk (and hence its oil revenues): that is suggested by Prime Minister Abadi’s talk of a “joint administration”. The question then arises as to why Baghdad and the Kurds have never been able to agree upon a “joint administration” of Kirkuk before. An inability to agree how to share revenues from the Kirkuk oil fields has been a source of frustration between Baghdad and Kurdistan for a decade. What changed?

From this it may follow that the key to the apparent new era of peaceful coexistence between Kurdistan and Baghdad may be elimination of the PUK and Sulaymaniyah. If, as it appears, the events surrounding the apparent occupation of Kirkuk by Iraqi forces are directed at common blame of the PUK, then it may be that removal of the PUK from the revenue-sharing equation is the goal of the “joint administration” that now apparently forms the basis of Baghdad-Erbil cooperation in the Kirkuk area. The KDP is happy to share Kirkuk oil revenues with Baghdad, as long as no part of those revenues go to their political rivals the PUK. Ankara is delighted to participate in this vision, and because the only pipeline from Kirkuk goes through Turkey Ankara may be able to enforce a deal that excludes the PUK. Thereby Ankara may undermine the PKK that plagues Turkey as a domestic insurgency movement, and also the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a PUK-run administration in northern Syria that Ankara regards as a threat right upon its border.

If this analysis is correct, then many dangers lay ahead. Firstly, elimination of Sulaymaniyah / the PUK / the SDF / Rojava (the name given by the SDF to Kurdish-controlled northern Syria) from a process of political dialogue and compromise is surely likely to backfire. If the PUK consider that they are being cut out from a fair share of Kirkuk oil revenues – the principal source of funds across Iraq and Syria – then they may turn to violence or propagation of instability to obtain what they consider as rightfully theirs. Rojava is a bulwark against both the Islamic State and Damascus, and is supported by the United States. It is not desirable that Rojava or the PUK falter. Moreover the PUK is not going anywhere. It remains an important force in Iraqi Kurdish politics. The idea that the KDP will overcome the PUK and Sulaymaniyah to impose political hegemony upon Iraqi Kurdistan is not realistic given the tribal nature of Kurdish politics. Iran may intervene to support its PUK ally.

Even more concerningly, whatever Iraqi forces now occupy Kirkuk may renege upon their promise of “joint administration”. In accordance with the spirit of Iraq’s uncompromising factional politics, they may just decide to keep Kirkuk for themselves. Should they do that; or should the KDP decide that the presence of forces in Kirkuk loyal to Iraq’s central government is no longer convenient to them, then Iraqi forces may suddenly be faced with a genuine battle with the Peshmerga seeking to reoccupy Kirkuk, that they may well lose. The Peshmerga are effective fighters.

It is almost inconceivable that the Kurds gave up occupation of such valuable a prize as Kirkuk without a fight. Whatever inchoate arrangement was reached which led to these events, it would seem likely unstable and with the potential to damage an important Kurdish interest group whose assent is necessary for Iraq’s future stability. Through the lens of divided Kurdish interests, a new perspective might be obtained upon Kurdistan’s independence referendum on 25 September 2017. Given that it was impossible for Kurdistan to perform the outcome of this referendum (i.e. actually declare independence), why did it take place? Was the referendum exercise the product of a complex political confrontation between two rival Kurdish factions? That remains to be seen.

*Matthew Parish is an international lawyer based in Geneva and the Managing Partner of Gentium Law Group. He was formerly a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Leicester. www.matthewparish.com

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of TransConflict.

Bad deals. Very bad – unless, of course, they are minted in the United States, with Make America Great Again credentials. Hardly the stuff of presidential clout and oratorical flair, but the US president is making good his word to rain on the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with an overbearing enthusiasm.

In doing so, the JCPOA joins a growing cupboard of potentially obsolete and endangered agreements of varying benefit and quality, be it the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, or the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nationalists, populists, and activists of all creeds are floundering to find meaning in such gestures.

The Friday speech was filled with customary Trumpist goodies, including the ultimate point that certification of Iranian compliance and general all round good behaviour would not be forthcoming. Instead, President Donald Trump gave a speech shot through with rhetorical punches, ignoring such positions as that taken by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic agency. Iran, claimed Amano, actually had one of the world’s “most robust nuclear verification regime.”[1]

Central to the Trump barrage were various claims. Among them was the padding of the al-Qaeda link, suggesting that Iran had its share of blame for the September 11, 2001 attacks, irrespective of what ideological underpinnings and differences might have existed.

“The regime remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and provides assistance to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist networks.” All of these show neat compression, with political interests and differences avoided before the all driving monolithic force of Teheran, the designated supreme bogeyman in regional Middle Eastern politics.

The Trump speech was also insistent that softening the moves on Iran had been a mistake. The regime, he insisted, was starving of oxygen when President Barack Obama went soft. (It was not, but that hardly ruffles feathers in Trumpland.) “The previous administration lifted these sanctions, just before what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime, through the deeply controversial 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.”

Figures receive their fictive gloss; amounts are given a curious dressing. The deal, argues Trump, saw a “massive cash settlement of $1.7 billion from the United States, a large portion of which was physically loaded onto an airplane and flown into Iran.” Other monies also supposedly fell into Iranian coffers: the “immediate financial boost and over $100 billion its government could use to fund terrorism.”

Considering that much of this involved simply thawing and ultimately releasing Iranian assets frozen by the US to begin with, the point is a moot one. The fact-checking wizards have also made the point that the $1.7 billion cash claim involved a decades old claim between Washington and Teheran that was ultimately settled.[2]

The tables are being turned from the Iranian capital. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif argued that the speech itself violated the agreement, in spirit if not the letter. If there was a breaker of rules and engagements, it was the US, lauding over what had been agonising negotiations.

“I have,” claimed Zarif, “already written nine letters (to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini) listing the cases where the United States has failed to act on or delayed in its commitments under the JCPOA.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani retorted that Trump’s views were formed on “baseless accusations and swear words.” New sanctions directed at Teheran’s missile programme were also deemed unconscionable. “Our achievements in the field of ballistics,” claimed a disapproving Zarif, “are in no way negotiable.”

Other powers are left in a bind. With decertification happening from Washington, what are allies and other negotiating partners to do? The UK’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was bound to be unpredictable, but insisted that his country needed “to keep that deal going – it’s been a great success for UK diplomacy.” Whatever Trump’s ramblings, the deal lived “to fight another day, and that’s a good thing.”[3]

In the final analysis, it may well turn out that Trump is simply firing the first blows against an arrangement that ultimately conceals legitimate Iranian ambitions to acquire a nuclear option. In the current climate, where North Korea is rubbing US noses in the dirt of desperation with each ballistic missile test and defiant nuclear run, officials might be biding their time.

Trump, interestingly enough, seems to want it, to push the incentive rather than drive any disincentive. “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout.”

No surprise, then, on Trump’s reference in the speech about an alleged, if unsubstantiated claim of collusion between the DPRK and Iran. “There are also many people who believe that Iran is dealing with North Korea.” Belief, for some, is truly all that matters.

Notes:
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-usa/trump-strikes-blow-at-iran-nuclear-deal-in-major-u-s-policy-shift-idUSKBN1CI24I

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/14/fact-checking-president-trumps-speech-on-the-iran-deal/?utm_term=.605222b35865

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41622903

apan has long been beset by persisting demographic challenges – an ageing population, a shrinking workforce, and a reluctance to embrace immigration. However, as computers and robots are poised to take over many job sectors, Japan can bank on its technological innovation and emerge unscathed.

By Tan Ming Hui and Christopher H. Lim *

Imagine a Japan without Japanese. According to a doomsday clock developed by Tohoku University, there will only be one Japanese left in 1759 years. With a persistently low birth-rate well below replacement level, on top of a longstanding reluctance to accept immigration, the population is rapidly ageing and its workforce is shrinking.

Japan’s working age population (aged 15 to 64), which peaked in 1995 at 87.26 million, has dropped to 76.56 million in 2016. The figure may drop further to 41.47 million in 2065 based on low-fertility projection. Furthermore, Japan has historically been very resistant to immigration. The number of registered foreign residents accounted for 2.3 million in 2016, merely two percent of the population. Since March 2017, the government has put in new measures to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers, making it quicker for them to attain permanent residency. While a positive step forward, the measures will only achieve long-term effect if Japan’s problem of integration can be overcome.

Aversion to ‘Aliens’

Integration of foreign residents has been a huge challenge for years. The colonisation of Taiwan in 1895 and Korea in 1910, as well as labour shortages during World War II, brought many Korean and Chinese to Japan. Zainichi, which means ‘residing in Japan’, refers to the approximately 600,000 ethnic Koreans and 40,000 ethnic Chinese, and their descendants, who remained in Japan after the war.

Despite being regarded as Japanese nationals as colonial subjects, they were reclassified as ‘foreigners’ or ‘aliens’ under the 1947 Alien Registration Law, until the 1960s when they received a ‘special permanent resident’ status. Nevertheless, the Zainichi population continues to face discrimination in employment, education, housing and marriage even though most of them, especially the later generations born in Japan, speak only Japanese and are culturally indistinguishable from ethnic Japanese. Some have converted to Japanese citizens and many feel pressured to adopt Japanese names to hide their ancestry.

To meet the demand for labour during the bubble economy of the 1980s, the Japanese government relaxed its immigration policy in 1990 to allow Nikkeijin to work and reside in Japan. Nikkeijin refers to people of Japanese descent born and raised abroad, mainly in Latin America. They assumed that Nikkeijin, being ethnically Japanese, would easily assimilate into Japanese society.

On the contrary, language and cultural barriers meant that many had a hard time fitting in. After the 2008 economic crisis when unemployment soared, the government started a programme that pays Nikkeijin to return to their country of origin with the agreement of never returning.

It remains difficult for immigrants to integrate and for Japan to embrace multiculturalism. To be accepted permanently into Japanese society, one would need to fulfil all three criteria of being ethnically, culturally and linguistically Japanese. Japanese people have long subscribed to the belief of Japanese cultural and ethnic homogeneity; a myth that is often supported by the ruling elites and reflected in policymaking.

A genre of text called nihonjinron, which focuses on Japanese exceptionalism, remains popular in Japanese discourse despite being largely discredited by foreign scholars. Seemingly, given the conservativeness and exclusiveness of the Japanese society—is there hope for the Japanese economy?

Technology Takes Over the Workforce

Along with the rest of the world, Japan faces an ongoing technological revolution. The rapid advancement of automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) may eventually replace workers in both manual and knowledge-based sectors. AI has evolved into an information system coupled with a range of technologies that is capable of perceiving the environment and collecting data; analysing and understanding the information collected, and making informed decisions and providing guidance based on analysis.

Moreover, machine-learning technology has allowed research in AI to develop the capacity for experience-based self-learning instead of depending on hard coded rule-based algorithms. With the quickening pace of technological development, a large portion of all jobs can be taken over by computers and robots as long as the work can be codified.

While most countries view these trends warily, bracing themselves for significant job loss, computers and robots are instead seen as a welcomed solution to Japan’s labour shortage. In 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a “robotics revolution”, arguing that Japan’s demographic challenge was an incentive to boost innovations in robotics and AI.

Japan’s love for cutting-edge technology is not new. For many years, Japan has maintained a reputation for being a technological giant; leading the world in innovation, research, and entrepreneurship in digital and advanced technology. Even way back in 1982, the Japanese government pushed forward a Fifth Generation Computer Systems project, which aimed to develop supercomputers with “artificial intelligence” and reasoning capabilities.

Although the project ultimately did not reach its ambitious goals or meet with commercial success, it was truly ahead of its time. The existential threat facing Japan will provide the fuel needed for the country to rekindle its past technological drive.

Japan Can Buy Time?

Given the society’s apprehension towards foreigners, robots and smart computers would fit in more harmoniously in the workforce. In fact, robots are often portrayed as friendly forces and helpmates in Japanese popular culture. Examples include the beloved manga characters Astro Boy and Doraemon. Rather than job-stealers, robots are generally accepted as assistants working alongside humans to increase productivity, and essential to Japan’s progress and advancement of the economy. In particular, humanoid robots are seen as having the potential to develop human-like qualities.

In addition, the expanding Human Cloud can help Japan meet its business and productivity demands of “non-codifiable” activities, such as in providing relatable customer service or other jobs requiring creativity or empathy. Human Cloud refers to an ecosystem of independent professionals who performs specific tasks or projects remotely and on-demand. They do not have to reside in Japan and could be anywhere in the world as long as they have access to the Internet.

The combined development of AI (including robotics) and Human Cloud are arguably huge game changers for businesses and job markets in both manufacturing and services sectors globally. Potentially, Japan can survive even with fewer Japanese if it can revitalise its traditional stronghold of advanced technology, and make effective use of AI and Human Cloud augmentation for its economic benefits.

This will also help to buy time for the Japanese society to address the integration issues, to re-examine their beliefs about national identity, or even revive their birth rate. Without the burden of the massive unemployment created by the technology “tsunami” as observed in other countries, some may even see Japan’s shrinking population as a blessing in disguise.

*Tan Ming Hui is an Associate Research Fellow and Christopher H. Lim is a Senior Fellow in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

1. Some background information on Catalonia as part of Spain

• As in Canada and Belgium (and, to a certain extent, the UK), centre-periphery tensions constitute a permanent feature of Spain’s political landscape.

• Spain undertook early and effective state-building in the 15th-18th centuries but a late and more troubled nation-building process in the 19th-20th centuries, with strong regional identities in competition, particularly in Catalonia and the Basque Country. They were never ‘independent’ in the modern sense, being parts of composite monarchies, but have some historically distinctive traits.

• Nevertheless, Spain is one of the very few cases in Europe in which national integrity has been successfully preserved: not a single territorial change has occurred in the past 200 years (colonial possessions aside, which were not an integral part of Spain)

• Despite its initially conservative bias, peripheral nationalism became partly associated with freedom and the fight against central authoritarianism. Regional self-government was linked to democracy: devolution to Catalonia in all the democratic periods (1873-74, 1914-23 and 1931-39) and its suppression under the dictatorial regimes of Primo de Rivera (1923-31) and Franco (1939-76).

• After its transition to democracy in the late 1970s, Spain can be considered a federation in all but name, with 17 autonomous communities having extensive devolved powers, guaranteed by the Constitutional Court.

• Although the 1978 Spanish Constitution states that sovereignty resides with the Spanish people as a whole, it also specifies that regions and ‘nationalities’ have a right to political autonomy.

• Catalonia today is wealthier than the Spanish and EU average, and enjoys more powers than almost any other region in Europe, including the protection of the Catalan language.

• Nationalism in Catalonia was linked to both the peasantry and part of the bourgeoisie. The region simultaneously experienced industrialisation (it bordered France, with a weak Spanish state but a large internal market) and a so-called ‘cultural renaissance’.

• During the 20th century, Catalan economic growth attracted large-scale immigration from all over Spain.

• While Catalans only account for around 16 % of Spain’s population, the region is wealthy and accounts for 19% of GDP

Contrary to a widespread perception, the Castilian (Spanish) language spoken more in everyday use than Catalan. In Barcelona and other urban areas, 75% of the population usually speak Spanish, while Catalan is employed to a greater extent in the countryside. A full 99% of Catalans can understand Spanish and 95% are familiar with Catalan.

• The region enjoys a high degree of self-government regulated by the 2006 Catalan Statute. Despite the Constitutional Court ruling in 2010 that certain articles were unconstitutional (dealing with an autonomous judiciary and self-recognition as a ‘nation’), Catalonia has extensive powers in:

• Civil law, police, culture, language, education, health care, agriculture, fisheries, water, industry, trade affairs, consumer affairs, savings banks, sports, historic heritage, environment, research, local government, tourism, transport, media and a wide range of other issues.

• Catalonia also has its own tax collection system, although funding –and social security benefits– is mainly controlled by the central government. Although foreign policy is an exclusive power of the central government, the regional government has its own external action and a strong network of offices abroad.

• The Catalan nationalist parties’ share of the vote has remained fairly stable:

2. Factors explaining Catalonia’s bid for independence

• Until the mid-2000s Catalan society was roughly split into three equal parts:

a) A group comprising the rural population and the urban middle and upper classes, who feel that Catalonia is a stand-alone nation due to its distinctive language and culture and greater prosperity than the rest of Spain.

b) A sociologically less cohesive group made up of the descendants of immigrants from other Spanish regions who retain a predominantly Spanish identity and have Castilian as their mother tongue.

c) Those with a shared Spanish-Catalan identity who tend to be truly bilingual.

• This mixed and complex sociological structure resulted in the dominance in Catalonia of two big moderate parties: the Catalan branch of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE-PSC) to the centre-left and the regionalist Convergencia i Unió (CiU) to the centre-right, which was in office for most of the period 1980-2010.

• Before 2010, it was unusual for more than 20% of Catalans to support independence.

• The political status quo changed around 2010 for a number of reasons, some of them resulting from long-term developments and some due to short-term factors.

• External long-term factors:

a) Globalisation and EU integration can encourage secession: free trade and international governance mean that states no longer need to be big to exploit economies of scale. The economic and political risks of independence are lower in a supranational area such as the EU.

• Internal long-term factors:

a) Catalonia’s own nation-building after the 1980s (regional education, regional television).

b) Tension with the Spanish national project after 1978, despite moderate nationalists contributing to Spanish governance from 1977 to 2012: a feeling of mutual distrust.

• External short-term factors:

a) In 2012 the Scottish National Party (SNP) negotiated a binding referendum for Scottish independence, setting out a plausible and respectable precedent for democratic secession within Europe.

b) Stability measures linked to the Eurozone crisis –EU-led austerity and the central control of regional finances– encouraged populist messages of fiscal rebellion (similarly to UKIP and Lega Nord).

• Internal short-term factors:

a) From 2008 onwards, Spain (including Catalonia) suffered a deep economic, social and political crisis.

b) The Spanish Constitutional Court, following an appeal by the centre-right PP partially outlawed the 2006 Catalan Statute in 2010.

c) The PP replaced the Socialists in power in Madrid in late 2011, giving rise to fears of a move towards re-centralisation.

d) Nationalist elite polarisation, outbidding competition and the rise of secessionism in 2012.

• Support for secessionism reached a peak of 49% in 2010, subsequently declining. The most recent survey by the Catalan government’s Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), conducted in July 2017, shows that only a minority of Catalans (35%) support independence (see Graph overleaf).

• In recent surveys, 76% of Catalans actually identified with Spain. Support for Catalan secession is far from overwhelming.

• QUESTION IN THE POLL: “Catalonia should…?”: be an independent state (red), maintain the status quo (green), acquire a new status and greater powers within a federal Spain (yellow) or be a region (grey)

3. Secession and EU membership

• The existence of the EU itself may be an encouragement to secession: ‘Independence in Europe’ is the slogan of Scotland’s SNP and ‘Catalonia, a new state in Europe’ was the slogan of the huge September 2012 demonstration in Barcelona, which marked the beginning of the current independence process.

• However, since Catalans and Scots wish to remain in the EU, its rigid rules on enlargement are an obstacle:

‘When a part of the territory of a Member State ceases to be a part of the state, eg because that territory becomes an independent state, the treaties will no longer apply to that territory’ (EC President R. Prodi, 2004).

‘A new independent state would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the EU and the Treaties would no longer apply on its territory’ (Letter to the UK House of Lords from EC President J.M. Durão Barroso, 2012).

• Simultaneous or, at least, ‘fast track’ accession has been proposed:

• Negotiations on membership can take place during the period between a ‘yes’ referendum and the planned date of independence (no need to leave and apply for readmission).

• The EU would adopt a simplified procedure for accession negotiations, not the traditional procedure.

• In any case, such an agreement would depend on political will and be subject to unanimous ratification by all member states. It is ‘wishful thinking’, since consensus is unlikely for Scotland and impossible for Catalonia.

4. Why are Catalonia and Scotland different? (1/3)

• An agreed process in Scotland vs unilateralism in Catalonia. The Catalan case involves flouting the rule of law, both in Spanish and European terms: ‘The Union shall respect their essential state functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the state…’ (article 4.2 Treaty).

• There are important political differences:

• Pro-Europeanism in Spain vs Brexit in the UK:

• Scottish nationhood within a multinational UK vs potential intergroup conflict according to identity/language in Catalonia, where two nation-building projects co-exist.

• The ‘Revolt of the Rich’: Catalan nationalism can be perceived as selfish and rejecting solidarity while that is not the case with Scotland.

• There is a sharp division between the rural, with a majority in favour of secession), and the urban, with a majority against:

5. Attempts to ‘internationalise the conflict’

• Internationalising the secession process has become a key factor in the Catalan strategy. As the Spanish Parliament and Constitutional Court insist the region has no right to self-determination, the only alternative is to seek external actors to put pressure on Madrid for a referendum.

• The underlying logic is sometimes idealistic: despite the dominant paradigm of territorial integrity, the EU and the international community should support the ‘Catalan democratic mandate’. But it also appeals to realism: foreign governments and financial markets cannot afford a chaotic default given Spain’s public-debt burden and the importance of the Catalan economy.

• The Catalan bid has so far received no foreign support: Merkel, Hollande, Obama, Cameron, Macron, Trump, Juncker, Tusk and all international leaders except Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro explicitly support a united Spain and the rule of law.

• A change in the position of international leaders is unlikely given their strong reluctance to support or pragmatically accept independence as secessionist parties have always failed to win a clear majority and polls show that Catalans remain wary of independence (not to mention a unilateral process).

• Catalan public opinion (around 70%) supports a mutually-agreed referendum, although it is debatable whether it would be an adequate instrument to solve such a complex controversy.

• Referendums are not suited to highly divided societies. Places like Belgium and Northern Ireland, for instance —where cleavages are based on entrenched identity, linguistic or religious divisions— hardly ever resort to them. When they do, the experience has been traumatic, both exposing and deepening sectarian hostility.

• Given the strong correlation between language and political preferences on the issue of Catalan independence, a referendum may become a divisive zero-sum mechanism, in which a small —and probably unstable— majority imposes its preferences in a manner not easily reversible. Divided societies need power-sharing strategies and consociational arrangements to defuse conflicts.

• Some international media and segments of Spanish and European public opinion are in favour of a referendum but such a debate does not imply they support unilateral action.

• Third-party states will not challenge the interpretation by the state concerned of its own national Constitution (as it is a merely internal affair), particularly in the case of a UDI (since there is no case for remedial secession).

6. What next?

• According to the most recent polls, when Catalans are asked a binary question (‘yes’ or ‘no’ to secession), a majority are against but society is riven down the middle:

• Such a divisive stalemate could be avoided by devising a new form of accommodation within Spain.

• Without external support, with Catalans deeply divided and with no chance of effective territorial control by the Catalan government, Spain is not on the point of disintegration but the territorial crisis is here to stay.

• Without Catalonia there would be no Spain since the Spanish national project would be voided, while Scotland is seen in the UK as ultimately more dispensable.

• Although the case for a Catalan secession is weak, it is obvious that some kind of political compromise will be required to encourage 50% of the Catalan population to be comfortable within the Spanish state.

• Recent events have generated much uncertainty, including:

The unofficial or illegal referendum held on 1 October, with a 40% turnout and a widely criticised over-reaction by the National Police and Civil Guard.

A situation of high social unrest and the political mobilisation of the pro-Spanish segment of Catalan society.

The exit of many of the most important Catalan companies, generating doubts in the fragile nationalist coalition.

The suspension of the unilateral declaration of independence in the regional parliament.

The Spanish government’s request to the Catalan government to clarify the situation regarding the declaration of independence, which may lead to the partial suspension of self-government (federal coercion).

The possibility of further mobilisations in the streets (the Catalan Maidan?), which cannot be ruled out.

• Nevertheless, these events also provide an important window of opportunity following the announcement by the PP and the PSOE of the possibility of constitutional reform.

This article was published by the Elcano Royal Institute.

By Ki Suh Jung

Since August 25, 270,000 Rohingya are reported to have fled Burma to escape violence and persecution inflicted by the Burmese military, who have reportedly killed hundreds. Despite calls from world leaders such as fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai to stop the violence, Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has instead supported the military’s crackdown, claiming that critics of her policies were being deceived by “a huge iceberg of misinformation.” International condemnation has not compelled Suu Kyi to resolve the conflict in Rakhine State, so it is time for additional measures to be taken. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as the regional intergovernmental organization of which Burma is a member, is well-positioned to do so and should broker a cessation of violence against the Rohingya by applying diplomatic and economic pressure on Burma.

The Rohingya are one of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities who are at odds with the predominant Buddhist country due to a complicated history. Although they have resided in what is now Rakhine State in northwestern Myanmar since as early as the 12^th century, many Muslim laborers migrated to the region during British rule from 1824-1948. When Myanmar achieved independence, the government claimed that the entire Rohingya people were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied them citizenship. Bangladesh asserts that they are Burmese.

The purposes of ASEAN, as delineated in the 1967 ASEAN Declaration are, among others, “to accelerate…social progress and cultural development in the region” and “to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law.” The Rohingya crisis violates those aims and therefore the spirit of ASEAN. This situation may seem to be a Burmese domestic issue and not ASEAN’s problem, since Bangladesh, which has received the bulk of the Rohingya refugees, is not a member nation of ASEAN. However, ASEAN countries have themselves seen an influx of refugees, as those who have escaped by boat have been temporarily situated in Thailand and Indonesia. As the conflict in Rakhine continues, ASEAN nations will have to assist with a more permanent refugee resettlement policy.

ASEAN can take a tiered approach to dissuade the Burmese military from inciting further violence. First, the leaders of ASEAN and its member states should also condemn Suu Kyi’s inaction. So far, they have largely remained silent on the issue, but it is time they take a stand. Given ASEAN’s policy of noninterference regarding domestic matters of member states, the regional bloc’s break from that principle by itself would send a strong signal to Myanmar. Next, they can consider imposing sanctions on Myanmar. Since much of Myanmar’s trade is with ASEAN countries, applying economic pressure would likely be effective. Thailand, which ranks second in both export destination and import origin for Myanmar, and Singapore, which is third in import origins, are especially well positioned to pressure Myanmar should they restrict trade.

The risk that Myanmar may close itself off from the regional or international community in the face of such sanctions exists, and so careful consideration must be given before ASEAN decides to take action to that scale. We must not forget that Myanmar practiced isolationism from 1962 to 2011, and prior to the political and economic reforms that started six years ago, the country’s only other experiment with democracy was from 1948 to 1962. Excessive pressure on the fledgling democracy could convince it to cut ties with its neighbors and revert to ruling with a heavier hand.

To be clear, the goal should not be to force upon Myanmar a permanent solution regarding the status of the Rohingya people; not yet, anyway. The issue is complex, going back generations, and it will not be resolved overnight. But the Burmese government and military need to immediately stop the violence against the innocent Rohingya. Only then can the two parties start working towards an acceptable and lasting solution.

Perhaps Suu Kyi, who once said, “Human beings the world over need freedom and security that they may be able to realize their full potential,” has shed her longstanding role as a human rights activist and embraced her current job as politician. It may be that she is experiencing difficulty dissenting against the majority view of the public she leads, or she is simply disinterested. And perhaps ASEAN has merely watched the crisis in Rakhine develop because it is dedicated to its principle of noninterference. But neither reasoning is excusable. If ASEAN wants to be viewed as a significant player in the international community as it strives to be, it needs to prove it by stepping in to resolve issues that occur in its own backyard. After all, isn’t that why ASEAN was created in the first place?

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was published.

By Indra Ekmanis*

(FPRI) — In 2016, twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 52 newborns in Latvia became former citizens of a country that no longer exists. They are Latvia’s “non-citizens”—a stop-gap status designed for people who moved to Latvia during the Soviet era, most of whom are Russian speakers, that has become a chronic blight on Latvia’s post-Soviet democratization.

Non-citizenship is not the same as statelessness. It affords most of the rights and privileges of citizenship, with the exceptions of voting and working in the civil and security services. Nor is it unavoidable. Non-citizen parents can simply opt-in to register their child as a Latvian citizen at birth. Naturalization or later registration is also an option for many. Today, about 238,000 individuals—11% of the country’s population—are Latvian non-citizens, compared to 29% in 1995. Still, newborn non-citizens are living relics of a system designed to temporarily cope with post-Soviet transition, not one designed to define children two generations into an independent, democratic Latvia.

Efforts to Change the Non-Citizen Policies

In September 2017, Latvian President Raimonds Vējonis introduced a legislative initiative to parliament (Saeima) that would chip away at this long-standing post-Soviet institution. Children born to non-citizen parents after June 1, 2018 would be automatically registered as Latvian citizens unless parents choose the citizenship of another country. Vējonis’ proposal simply removes the option of “non-citizen” for newborns, hastening the end to a status that is already well on its way towards resolving itself (less than 0.3% of births in 2016 resulted in non-citizenship). And yet, despite a broad spectrum of support, the president’s initiative failed in the Saeima, thanks to the veto power of National Alliance (NA), a right-wing alliance in the governing coalition, and the lack of political will to break the coalition over this issue.

Why is legislation affecting less than 100 people annually important? Its failure highlights the persistent and pernicious political focus on 25-year-old grievances that do much more harm to modern Latvia than they do to ease old wounds.

By any analytic standard, Latvia is a liberal democracy. It is a full member of the European Union and NATO, and has seen almost no ethnic violence as a result of post-Soviet independence. Still, ethnic identity plays a major role in shaping political discourse.

This is particularly evident on the far ends of the political spectrum. The leftist party, Harmony, which draws support from Latvia’s significant Russian-speaking population, until recently had a cooperation agreement with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. The right-wing National Alliance teeters on the edge of radical nationalism. Harmony is the largest party in the 100-member Saeima with 24 seats. NA has 17 seats, but is part of the center-right governing coalition. This political split is a legacy of 50 years of Soviet occupation, which brought with it Russification policies and a brutally executed demographic shift that shrunk the proportion of ethnic Latvians to barely half of the population. Efforts to restore a Latvian nation-state as the primary promoter of titular culture (as Germany promotes German culture or France, French culture) were heavy-handed and blunt; Russian speakers, after years of having considerable social advantages in the Soviet system, were left in limbo. External pressures from the United States, other European countries, and Russia on issues such citizenship and education policies exacerbated chaotic institutional change. Grievances of both ethnic Latvians and non-citizen Russian speakers were left ignored, leaving language and ethnicity as a convenient scapegoat in future politics.

A quarter of a century later, the dramatic problems of ethnic integration loom large in Latvia—both at home and abroad. Recent research argues that the narrative of ethnic conflict is overplayed, particularly when it comes to the experiences of daily life. Still, issues like the national language, minority education system, and citizenship remain favored fodder for parties who hope to capitalize on a politicized ethnic split. Even the term “nationality” (tautība) is unclear in Latvia—whether it is possible for ethnic minorities to become “Latvian” (as opposed to “of Latvia”) has been unclearly legislated. With 2018 parliamentary election campaigns ramping up, Vējonis’ proposal leaves an opening to double-down on “who” can really be “Latvian.”

The Continuing Debate over “Soviet” Millennials

The National Alliance’s forceful argument against extending automatic citizenship to the children of non-citizens cites the risk that it may inadvertently grow a voter bloc more loyal to Russia than to the Latvian state. This argument should be a familiar enough to Western analysts, who have oft-pointed to large Russian-speaking populations on Russia’s Western border (around 35% of Latvia’s total population) as a potential fifth columns. Nay-sayers also stress that parents should have the ultimate say in the citizenship of their child, and that “forcing” Latvian citizenship on the children of non-citizen parents infringes on that right.

But counterarguments are simple. The choice of non-citizenship infringes more on the political rights of the child than of the parents, and an argument that decades from now, the 50 “would-have-been-noncitizen” babies born per year will swing the country toward Russia stands on shaky ground. Right-wing lawmakers would be better served addressing the feeling of disenfranchisement among Russian speakers that contributes to pro-Russian sentiments, than denying basic rights of citizenship to these children.

The Debate Continues

The debate on the non-citizen topic has become symbolic, not quantitative. No longer do non-citizens make up nearly a third of the population as they did 25 years ago. Now, only 11% of the Latvian population have not become citizens of any state, and their reasons are often much more benign than hostile. For one, non-citizens can much more easily travel to Russia than Latvian citizens, while also having EU travel benefits. Many have plans to naturalize, but others see no real need to go through the process. Certainly, some post-Soviet holdouts, many of whom cannot speak a sentence in Latvian 25 years on, remain staunch in their opinion that citizenship should have been automatically granted in 1991. But barriers to becoming a citizen for youths and Latvian speakers have eased considerably. A 2013 change in citizenship law, which was geared toward retaining ties with Latvia’s growing diaspora, relaxed laws for citizenship acquisition. As a result, the number of children born as non-citizens is less than a quarter of what it was five years ago, even as the number of overall births increased.

The influence of Russian media and a large minority school system (nearly 40% of schools in Riga, the country’s capital, are minority schools) contributes far more to divisions between Russian speakers and ethnic Latvians than the type of passports they carry. Bridging such rhetorical and spatial divides—perhaps by reducing inadvertent segregation or increasing access to independent Russian-language media—are institutional issues that must be delicately handled to advance integration. Still, automatic, birthright citizenship could go a long way toward reducing the feeling of Russian-speaker disenfranchisement in the Latvian political system.

Despite persistent integration issues—and there certainly are many—the Latvian population would much rather politicians focus on broad-based issues like corruption or health care than provoking unnecessary ethnic divisions. Many studies have repeatedly confirmed that Russian-speakers in Latvia largely perceive the country as home, and a dramatically aging population means Latvia is in desperate need of young citizens. Continuing an archaic policy of bestowing “former Soviet citizenship” on Latvia’s newborns does little to move the nation forward, neither at home, nor in the eyes of the international community. It’s high time this status was put to bed.

About the author:
*Indra Ekmanis is a Title VIII Research Scholar at the Kennan Institute in the Woodrow Wilson Center

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

In the last five years, Xi has established unprecedented control over the party and the government. But this also means his mistakes and missteps have been magnified.

By Manoj Joshi

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has begun its 19th Congress in Beijing today (18 October). On Monday, the 18th Congress came to an end following its seventh plenary session, the communique of which indicated that there could be surprises in store in terms of the selection of the top leaders. It focused on the achievements of the anti-corruption fight, indicating that this key instrumentality will continue to be used ruthlessly by President Xi Jinping in the coming period and will probably get a fresh endorsement by the 19th Congress.

We will learn little about what is really happening in the week thereafter. Though Xi will present his work report on the very first day, which will list the achievements of the last five years and outline the roadmap for the future. It will give us a fairly good idea about the direction China will be headed in the coming years.

By 24 October, we may get another important signal – indicators about how the party constitution is being amended to reflect Xi’s theoretical contributions. The wording of the amendment will signal Xi’s stature. So far there has been a great deal of speculation as to whether the contributions are inserted in his name, or merely put in without reference to him. If they are termed as ‘Xi Jinping Theory’, it would place him at the level of Deng Xiaoping, and if they are termed ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, that would bring him even to the level of Mao, though Xi would hesitate to go so far.

As of now, it must be pointed out that though Xi has accumulated much more power than any Chinese leader since Deng, the leadership is still seen as a collective one even though he was designated “the core” of the Central Committee (CC) by the sixth plenum of the 18th Congress in 2016.

By October 24, the day the Congress ends, we will know the lineup of the new central committee. The presence or absence of some of the leaders will indicate the lineup of the apex leadership – the politburo (PB) and its all powerful standing committee (PBSC) – which will be known on 25 October.

We already know who the new general secretary will be unless, improbably, he emerges even more powerful than he is expected to be and moves up one notch higher to the rank of chairman.

Xi Jinping’s term

What Xi’s five-year term, which began in 2012, has seen is an unprecedented effort to consolidate his powers through multiple means – an anti-corruption campaign to defang rivals, creating new networks of loyalty within the CPC and the government, neutralising existing patronage networks not beholden to him such as the Communist Youth League and restructuring the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) higher command to enhance his own authority as the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC).

Xi has been hugely successful. Not only has he whipped the CPC into line, but also the PLA, which had developed dangerous notions of autonomy and had become thoroughly corrupt at the top levels. As many as 23 of the 31 provincial party secretaries have been turned over since 2016 and an unusually large number of retirements in the military and political hierarchy will help Xi to install his own team in the CC, PB, PBSC and the CMC.

Xi began his term pushing for market reforms. The third plenum of the CPC’s 18th Congress called for giving a decisive role to the market. However, this has not happened. Instead, the emphasis appears to be towards a steady re-assertion of the political power of the CPC across the board in Chinese society.

This has involved a systematic crackdown on human rights activists and civil society institutions, as well as generally tightening of CPC control over society through new national security legislation and rules to narrow the limit of freedom available in China’s controlled cyber space.

Clearly, the emphasis now is on the necessity of the CPC to maintain control over the country and its institutions, rather than taking the next step and opening up the economy to the outside world. Indeed, the pressure on China’s private sector is to become more like the state-owned enterprises by instituting CPC committees at all levels. In other words, ensuring that their key decisions are taken through party channels. China’s ambitious vision encapsulated in the ‘Made in China 2025 plan‘ envisages state-owned giants and the controlled private sector seeking global pre-eminence in areas like robotics, semi-conductors and electric vehicles.

All this prevents the reforms that are needed to keep the economy going, such as tackling the debt-burdened state-owned enterprises. In addition, restrictions on capital export have dampened the internationalisation of China’s economy. Experts say that the Chinese economy, which is still growing at a handsome rate, still depends on investment and credit, instead of transiting to one based on consumption. Though the CPC is making efforts to reform, such as promoting “rule by law,” the weakening of civil society institutions and freer press aids good governance, rather than hampering it.

As the CPC goes into its 19th Congress, China would like to present the vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through the Chinese Dream, built up by the Belt Road Initiative through a newly energised CPC, a restructured PLA with an all-powerful leader at its head.

In the last five years, Xi has established unprecedented control over the CPC and the government system. Which means, his mistakes and missteps can have a dramatically magnified impact. And this does not take into account issues over which China would have little or no control such as geopolitical developments in China’s periphery, developments on North Korea, or a global economic crisis.

This article originally appeared in The Wire.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

The conflict between the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian government is the point of greatest tension, but also of EU weakness towards its East, as well as the point of greatest tension between Russia and Europe still today.

The European Union cannot solve this problem, just because it currently has the same armies that ironically Stalin asked the Pope to have – hence it will be closed to its East.

Unlike Jason and his Argonauts – owing to the clash going on in Ukraine – Europe will not be able to find the “Golden Fleece”.

And the “Golden Fleece” is the beginning of the Greek myth: Jason who travelled to Colchis to look for gold – an initiation theme – and married the sorceress Medea. Now Europe is depriving itself of the new way of communication with the land of Colchis to accept the orders of a power that is obviously doing its utmost to harm the EU, the Euro, the EU exports, etc.

Currently none of the two main parties, namely Russia and Ukraine, has any intention to implement or at least to formally comply with the Minsk II agreements of February 2015.

In what did those agreements consist? It will be worth recalling the origins and the development of the conflict.

After the various “Orange Revolutions” of February 2014 – which were US operations – when the long wave of protests called the Euromaidan movement culminated in the removal of the regularly elected President Viktor Yanukovych, violent riots broke out in the Eastern part of the country – traditionally the region most linked to the Russian-speaking world and the Russian culture.

The Ukrainian activists of the pro-Russian Eastern region feared the marginalization – and hence the future ban – of the Russian language and also rejected the new resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism, traditionally linked to the Third Reich and the Nazi mythologies.

At that juncture the armed insurgency took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and spread also to the other cities of the Russian-speaking neighboring regions. Indeed, most of the Ukrainian people is Russian-speaking.

At the end of summer 2014 a real war broke out between the Ukrainian armed forces and the rebels operating within the “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Hence, in late August 2014, Ukraine decided to proceed with a diplomatic solution.

It was the typical problem of the Ukrainian forces since they were badly organized, badly trained and could not face the rebels of the two “pro-Russian” Republics, who were much better organized and optimally motivated.

Finally, on September 5, 2014, the representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the OSCE observer, gathered in the capital of Belarus and signed the Protocol called “Minsk-I”.

It was essentially an agreement for the ceasefire and the exchange of prisoners.

Ukraine promised to adopt a law on the special status of the two regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

From the very beginning it was an agreement written in the sand. Meanwhile clashes and firefights went on, in addition to bombings on the inhabited centres.

Nevertheless it was in January 2015 that tension mounted again.

The reason lay in the fact that the Ukrainian military, who came to the region in force, planned to fully reconquer the Donbass, while the “rebels” of Donetsk and Luhansk, too, thought they could expand the territory of their own pro-Russian republics.

On both sides, however, the forces on the field were not enough to achieve their respective goals.

And the Donetsk and Luhansk military fought very well, albeit with a much lower number of soldiers than the Ukrainian army.

Ukraine, however, decided to resume diplomatic negotiations.

Therefore the above stated “Minsk-II” agreement was signed by Russia, Ukraine, the Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, France, Germany, the usual OECD observers and the delegates from the other secessionist Ukrainian provinces, which had not been officially invited to the meeting.

Everything happened on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital – as was the case with the Minsk-I agreement – in the sumptuous Independence Palace. It was an agreement envisaging 13 points: 1) immediate and full ceasefire in the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk as from midnight on February 15; 2) pull-out of all heavy weapons and withdrawal of troops by both sides with the aim of creating a security zone on minimum 50 kilometers apart for artillery and 140 kilometers for multiple rocket launchers. However, the pullout of the above-mentioned heavy weapons had to begin no later than the second day after the start of the ceasefire and finish within 14 days. The process had to be assisted by OSCE with the support of the Trilateral Contact Group; 3) OSCE effective monitoring and verification of the ceasefire and pullout of heavy weapons from the first day of pullout; 4) on the first day after the pullout a dialogue had to start on the ways for conducting local elections in accordance with the Ukrainian law and the Minsk I agreements in the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk; 5) pardon and amnesty had to be provided by means of a law forbidding persecution and punishment of people in relation to the events that took place in the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk; 6) the release and the exchange of all prisoners and illegally held persons had to be ensured; 7) safe access, delivery, storage and distribution of humanitarian aid to the needy had to be provided on the basis of international rules and mechanisms; 8) definition of the ways to fully restore social and economic relations and connections, including social transfers such as payments of pensions, wages and welfare benefits; 9) restoring full control of the State border to the Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone; 10) pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision, as well as disarmament of all illegal groups; 11) constitutional reform in Ukraine, with a new Constitution the key element of which had to be decentralization and also approval of permanent legislation on the special status of the Donetsk and Luhansk districts; 12) the issues related to local elections had to be discussed and agreed upon by Ukraine with the representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk districts; 13) intensification of the activities of the Trilateral Contact Group.

It was a weak agreement, just to play for time.

An agreement that was reached also thanks to a very strong pressure put by France and Germany.

The Minsk-II agreement was a rift between the Franco-German axis and the US interest, which had previously dominated the European strategy.

This was the core of the matter at that stage.

The United States was thinking of a new war to make the Russian Federation think twice and see reason since – after the USSR collapse – Russia had not resigned itself and adapted to be the poor Asian country depending on the IMF’s and World Bank’s funds and selling its oil and minerals off.

As Francesco Cossiga said, however, “Americans are always about to wage a war and later, when they are stuck in it, they do not know how to break through”.

Least of all, the United States wanted to join the Eurasian peninsula and the “Greater Russia”, according to Zbigniew Brzezinsky’s old idea.

It would be the end of its geopolitical project.

Furthermore, Ukraine is the contact point between the Russian Federation and the EU area that has accepted the US missile rearmament and “signal war” programme in Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania.

As said in the United States, it is formally positioned “against the Iranian missiles”, but no one is so naive not to understand what this new positioning is really for.

It is from Ukraine that the safety and security of those installations is controlled and that we can react to a possible attack by Russia and its allies on the US bases at the edges of the Russian Federation.

It is worth clarifying that they are US and not NATO installations.

The United States has also de facto declared war on Russia, with Resolution No. 758 of the US Congress adopted on December 4, 2014.

A resolution stating that Russia was an “aggressor State” that had invaded Ukraine and ordered the shooting down of the MH17 flight of Malaysian Airlines that took place on July 17, 2014 – something which is still uncertain. Furthermore the Resolution called upon NATO to apply Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, should Russia invade Ukraine.

Yet there is a not negligible fact to consider: Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

Considering the aforementioned Resolution, the US President could legally declare war on Russia without requiring further authorizations from the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The Pentagon sent 100 tanks to Eastern Europe shortly after voting on that Resolution, while the Ukrainian government was full of strange characters at that stage such as Natalia Jaresko, US citizen, Minister for Economy until April 2016 and Aivaras Abromavicius, a Lithuanian citizen and investment banker, married to a Ukrainian lady, who resigned on February 3, 2016. Without fearing of falling into the temptation of “conspiracism”, it is also worth recalling that George Soros, the point of reference of the many foreigners present in the Ukrainian government at the time, publicly stated in a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria on May 25, 2014 that he had funded the Euromaidan coup.

In Resolution 758 there is also an explicit reference to Georgia and Moldova, which could be treated by the USA as points of friction and attrition against the Russian Federation if the situation in Ukraine developed according to the best predictions.

Said points could cause a US war against the Russian Federation just as with Ukraine.

Nevertheless let us revert to the Franco-German axis in the Minsk-II agreements.

There were three sets of reasons for the finally vigorous behaviour of the Franco-German duo. Firstly, since September 2015, the pro-Russian militias had tripled their control area up to the Sea of Azov. Secondly, 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers were trapped in the Debaltsevo bulge and, southwards, the neo-Nazis soldiers – particularly loved by US Senator McCain – were encircled by the pro-Russian militias of the Azov division.

Thirdly, the increasingly disorganized Ukrainian army could certainly not reconquer the Donbass.

The defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces marked the end of the project – nurtured in the EU Eastern region – of a new Hanseatic League that would unite the rich and powerful German-Baltic-Polish North to the fertile lands of the Golden Fleece, namely Ukraine.

This was precisely the “dream” that had convinced Germany to accept the US policy line on Ukraine.

In an infra-European perspective, said project was also a German way to clearly oppose the EU Mediterranean areas.

The idea was to have an autonomous sea of reference and leave the Mediterranean to the poor Southern European countries, deprived of means and resources, as well as flooded by African migrants and overburdened by massive public debt.

Nevertheless even if the United States had provided more weapons to Ukraine, no success would have been recorded by the anti-Russian front on the ground.

In that case, it was Angela Merkel who flew to Putin’s Russia to ask for putting an end to the conflict and later visited President Obama to stop the transfers of weapons to Ukraine.

President Obama always hoped that the truce would fail, while Putin did not need it because he was already the strongest on the ground.

Currently Russia can control NATO’s Southern Flank from Crimea – which was not illegally annexed, as Western documents repeatedly state – including remote control from the US missile base in Devreselu, Romania.

With the appropriate security of the area, Russia can always exert control again from Crimea and also from the “friendly” Ukraine.

Ukraine could be an irrenounceable asset also for the Atlantic Alliance, as Western military stations in that country could control the axis stretching from Novorossisk to Sevastopol, the real key connection for Russia in the region.

Said axis is decisive also for Russia’s operations in Syria.

At economic level, the clash between Ukraine and Russia is also very dangerous for Russia’s gas distribution to the EU.

The Russian Federation cannot use the natural gas it exports to Europe as a real tool for political pressure, considering the magnitude of the clashes that block any influence action outside the Ukrainian area.

Furthermore Russia tends to support two pipeline projects encircling Ukraine, namely Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline stretches from Narva Bay, Russia, on the border between Finland and the Baltic countries, up to Lubmin, along the German coast on the border with Denmark.

The TurkStream pipeline stretches from Anapa in the Krasnodar region, Southern Russia, up to Kiyikoiy in the Turkish Thrace after crossing the Black Sea.

The recently reactivated Turkstream pipeline will above all meet the Turkish interest. It will naturally join the TransAdriaticPipeline (TAP) and reach Italy, thanks to the Turkish Botas carrier, without infringing the EU rules that accept the crazy sanctions against the Russian Federation.

However, we still need to be careful: on August 2 last, President Trump’s Administration signed a new law called “Countering America’s Adversary Through Sanctions Act”, which extends the energy sanctions against Russia significantly.

The Russian strategic logic in Ukraine basically works on the assumption that the breaking of trade and economic ties with Russia and the loss of the Donbass are the beginning of default for the Ukrainian economy.

Ukraine, however, is still able to acquire resources from both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, regardless of the problematic situation of its economy.

Until when, however, the interests of the United States and its ever less convinced allies will be such in that region as to afford the costs for maintaining a failed state such as Ukrain,e which is not even capable of waging a real proxy war against the Russian Federation?

The Russian economy finds it hard to back the war in Ukraine, but it cannot certainly withdraw from the conflict.

The war stagnation, however, now favours the Ukrainian Republic, which is supported by the United States and the international financial institutions, while Russia is still constrained by international sanctions and the stagnation of the oil price, which is yet showing some signs of recovery.

Hence, as Italians and Europeans, are we interested in following Zbi Brzezinsky’s old geostrategic psychosis, which keeps us in check and slave at any price to the United States? Or can we finally think for ourselves with the independence of mind to open the doors to the Russian economy, without having to pay this now meaningless seventy-year-long tax to those who won the Second World War (and made us pay it also immediately afterwards)?

Hence, we can assume a further strategic separation between the two NATO mainstays, namely Europe and the United States, with the EU putting an end to sanctions. Or we can assume a heroic exit – the only possible today – of Putin who decides to launch the final attack on current Ukraine so as to later redesign the geopolitics of the Great Mediterranean region.

About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and member of the Ayan-Holding Board. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Sprawling mining operations in Brazil are destroying much more of the iconic Amazon forest than previously thought, says the first comprehensive study of mining deforestation in the world’s largest tropical rainforest.

The research, published in Nature Communications, finds that mining-related forest loss caused roughly 10 percent of all Amazon deforestation between 2005 and 2015, much higher than previous estimates.

Surprisingly, roughly 90 percent of deforestation related to mining occurred outside the mining leases granted by Brazil’s government, the University of Vermont-led study finds. Mining-induced deforestation was 12 times greater outside the mine lease areas than within them, extending as far 43.5 miles (70 km) beyond mine borders.

“These results show that mining now ranks as a substantial cause of Amazon forest loss,” said Laura Sonter of UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment. “Previous estimates assumed mining caused maybe one or two percent of deforestation. Hitting the 10 percent threshold is alarming and warrants action.”

Mining infrastructure is a key form of off-lease deforestation, researchers say. This includes worker housing and new transportation routes – roads, railways and airports. Built by mining companies or developers, these routes also enable other forms of deforestation, including agriculture, which remains the leading cause of Amazon forest loss.

“Our findings show that Amazon deforestation associated with mining extends remarkable distances from the point of mineral extraction,” said Gillian Galford of UVM’s Gund Institute and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.

The findings come as Brazil’s government considers legislation that would further ease environmental regulations and lift restrictions on mining in protected and indigenous areas. Currently, when companies apply for mining leases, they do not need to account for any damage their operations may cause offsite, researchers say.

For the study, researchers tracked landscape changes around the Amazon’s 50 largest active mines, analyzing 10 years of deforestation data from Brazil’s Space Agency (INPE).

“We hope these findings help government, industry and scientists to work together to address this issue,” said Sonter, who led the study as a UVM postdoctoral researcher, before joining the University of Queensland (Australia).

Rainforests provide many benefits, including helping to regulate the planet’s climate, housing rich plant and animal biodiversity, and soaking up carbon dioxide, researchers say. They note that global efforts have successfully helped to curb other causes of Amazon loss, such as agriculture and cattle.

Key minerals targeted by mining companies in the Amazon include iron ore for steelmaking and bauxite to produce aluminum.

In a Journal of Internal Medicine study of more than 3 million Danish and Swedish adult women, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination was not linked with 44 serious chronic diseases. The authors did report an increased risk of developing celiac disease–an autoimmune condition triggered by dietary gluten; however, the increased risk was only observed in Denmark. Because previous research has shown that celiac disease is markedly underdiagnosed in the general adult population in Denmark, the findings may be due to unmasking of pre-existing celiac disease. No other serious safety concerns were found.

Because HPV immunization programs target girls aged 9 to 12 years, the majority of post-licensure evidence of the safety of HPV vaccines comes from young adolescents; however, adult women are also getting HPV vaccinated through catch-up programs or by choice at their own expenses.

“This is the most comprehensive study of HPV vaccination safety in adult women to date. It is not unreasonable to expect different safety concerns in adult women compared with young girls, and our study is an important supplement to the safety studies in young girls,” said lead author Dr. Anders Hviid, of the Statens Serum Institut, in Denmark.

Clean drinking water can be easy to take for granted if your home taps into treated water sources. But more than 44 million people in the U.S. get their water from private domestic wells, which are largely unregulated.

Of those, a new report estimates that about 2 million people could be exposed to high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in their water. The study appears in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology.

Long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic, which is found in the earth’s crust and is widely distributed in the environment, can potentially cause a variety of health problems including cancers. Also, recent research suggests that for pregnant women, low-level exposure could affect fetal growth and pre-term birth.

Municipal water-treatment systems can filter arsenic out, but monitoring and mitigating contaminants in well water is up to private owners. Determining who might be getting exposed to arsenic from their well water on a national scale hasn’t been adequately sussed out. So Joseph D. Ayotte and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wanted to fill that gap.

To map well-water arsenic levels, the researchers developed a model incorporating tens of thousands of existing arsenic measurements from wells across the U.S. They also considered factors that affect arsenic concentrations, including regional rainfall, geology and aquifer chemistry.

The model identified arsenic hotspots where wells would likely have levels of arsenic higher than 10 micrograms per liter, the threshold concentration set by the Environmental Protection Agency as the maximum contaminant level.

Hotspots were largely concentrated in New England, a swath of territory in the upper Midwest, the Southwest and southern Texas. Based on these findings, the study estimated that the affected wells serve about 2.1 million people, many of whom might be unaware of the potential health hazard.

The takeaway, researchers say, is that all private well owners should test their wells for arsenic. The information could help officials analyze health risks and possible mitigation strategies.

Among the first two people who recruited me to activism after I completed military service in the Vietnam War were the Palestinian scholar Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and the Egyptian scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni. They were formidable and brilliant role models for a young Palestinian trying to work out how best to help his people.

Abu-Lughod wrote the only book worth reading about the Palestine conflict, “The Transformation of Palestine,” while Bassiouni was instrumental in defining Arab civil rights and was the chief architect of the International Criminal Court.

Both men gave voice to the growing American Palestinian movement. Abu-Lughod later retired as a professor at Bir Zeit University and Bassiouni continued to pursue a celebrated career in international law.

They shared a fundamental approach to the Palestine-Israel conflict many activists ignore: You cannot achieve 100 percent. What you can do is achieve what you can, have respect for the truth, and then build the foundation to achieve more.

When Abu-Lughod asked me to become involved in fighting for Palestinian justice, becoming the spokesman for the Arab American Congress for Palestine, I couldn’t say no. I wanted to be a doctor, like several relatives, but with Abu-Lughod’s guidance I pursued communications and journalism, two skills lacking in our community.

It was through Abu-Lughod that I understood the challenges Palestinians faced in America. Anger did not work in influencing Americans, he explained. It distorted our cause and was often mischaracterized as hate. Palestinians don’t hate Jews. But their anger over Israel’s atrocities can be so intense it appears like hate.

Abu-Lughod believed Palestinians needed to establish common ground with mainstream Americans. We needed to make a strong connection. A bond. In America, “perception is reality,” he would often explain.

That became my mantra. The solution was clear. Change perceptions and change American foreign policy. Our cause needed to look like “their” cause.

Americans would listen to a Palestinian activist who looked like them, sounded like them and didn’t just speak “English,” but spoke “American.”

It was a decision by my father, George. Dad insisted I learn English, not Arabic, even though for the first decade of my life, my mother, Georgette, often spoke only Arabic to me. That made me as American as everyone else. It made the message I conveyed more effective in connecting with the American sense of fairness and justice. I wrote hundreds of Letters to Editors complaining about biased, inaccurate coverage.

The idea of perception was so strong, Abu-Lughod selected me to publicly debate key Israeli figures, including Foreign Minister Abba Eban on national TV when I was only 22.

Bassiouni taught me success is often built from failure. In other words, people who are successful often became successful by acknowledging and understanding their failures. If you ignore your failures — pretending they never happened — you are doomed to live in those failures for ever.

I ended up going into journalism as a profession on the basis of those lessons. Bassiouni was one of my first major interviews.

He also believed Palestinians needed to become more “American” in order to influence Americans. We had to establish that bond of understanding and support by building that friendship.

I quickly discovered Palestinians often can’t break free of their anger. Instead of pursuing solutions, we pursue punishment. We want to punish Israel. Recognizing failure is foreign to our culture. Pride is more important than doing what needs to be done.

When Americans look at Palestinians, they see anger. They see foreigners. They see the image painted by Israel. We feed into that false image with our anger and by acting “foreign.” Palestinians in America were pushed into a stereotype painted by racist Hollywood movies and an American news media driven by Israeli propaganda.

Palestinians were made to look bad. And we helped that process through our anger, our frustrations, and by failing to connect with Americans.

Compromise is an essential aspect of victory. Rejecting compromise leaves only two outcomes, victory or defeat. Arabs can’t achieve victory, so we learn to live in defeat.
Even to this day, many argue that the American people are slaves to Israeli propaganda, and yet they don’t think it’s important to create a propaganda of our own to counter Israel’s and change the perception of Americans.

“Just give them the truth,” I am told by activists who then dive into an angry and endless denunciation of Israel’s crimes, which are many. But maybe they are too many for Americans to clearly see.

Both men died, Abu-Lughod in May 2001 and Bassiouni only last month. The logic they espoused is absent from many of today’s activists who believe they can force Americans to see the truth through confrontation, protests and attacks rather than through effective strategic communications and compromise as persuasion.

They used to refer to the “wandering Jew.” But I think that label has been taken over by Palestinians. We have no leaders advocating professional communications or clever messaging as strategies to win over American public support.

In fact, many Palestinians and Arabs believe it is a waste of time to lobby Americans, even though they often complain about all the support America gives Israel in terms of money and politics.

It might explain why this conflict has gone on for so long. As a reminder of how long it has been, next month we will mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

With no real leaders in America, Palestine is more enslaved today than it ever was.

Princess Reema Bint Bandar Bin Sultan, president of the Community Sports Union, has opened the newest Studio 5 gym in Jeddah, which is based on electronic registration and scheduling sport sessions.

The princess seeks to encourage women to exercise in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Studio 5 is the latest women’s gym in Jeddah. It is based on choosing the time of classes through electronic registration. The gym offers its subscribers a special electronic account for each participant in which they can monitor the number of classes they participate in and determine the appropriate dates and times.

On October 13, Turki Al-Sheikh, president of the Saudi Olympic Committee, issued a decree appointing Princess Reema Bint Bandar as president of the Saudi Federation for Community Sports, as the first woman to head a sports federation in Saudi Arabia.

By Hossein Ajorlou*

During his speech at this year’s annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) mounted a stern verbal attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan accused Tehran of making efforts to destabilize the region and violate the nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Now, the question is why the UAE adopts such sharp positions against the Islamic Republic of Iran? In response, one can claim that although the UAE has extensive economic relations with Iran, when it comes to political matters, it has consistently adopted a policy, which has been against Iran. The main reasons behind adoption of that policy include profound differences that exist between the two countries, the UAE’s alignment with Saudi Arabia and the United States, and finally, the differences that Tehran and Abu Dhabi have over three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf.

Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the United Arab Emirates emerged as an active member of a group of regional Arab states, which subsequently established the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC]. This country considered the Islamic Revolution in Iran as a major threat to its political stability, because a country like the UAE, which follows conservative policies, could not tolerate a country with revolutionary positions in its neighborhood. After the Iraqi imposed war against Iran started, the UAE, along with other member states of the GCC, rushed to help Iraq. In return, the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, clearly asserted that the three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, including the Greater and Lesser Tunb islands and Abu Mousa Island, belonged to the Arab nation and had been occupied by Iran.

Dubai gradually turned into an important trade hub in West Asia as a result of the economic policies adopted by the rulers of the United Arab Emirates. Part of that prosperity, however, was owed to extensive trade with Iran, whose volume kept incessantly rising. As a result, the UAE has been following two contradictory policies with regard to Iran. On the one hand, Abu Dhabi, which is the biggest emirate in the UAE, has been following hostile policies against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its hostility against Tehran has been increased in parallel to the rise in its power as a function of the rising global energy price. On the other hand, the emirate of Dubai has had better relations with the Islamic Republic due to the high volume of trade between that emirate and Iran.

Following major upheavals in the Arab world, which started in 2011, the UAE’s anti-Iran policies were further strengthened, because this country, like most other Arab states along the southern rim of the Persian Gulf, blamed actions taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran as one of the reasons for those developments.

This trend led to downgrading of political relations between the two sides in the early 2016 following escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The UAE officials intensified their verbal attacks against Iran. They also took further steps against Iran, which covered a wide range and included anti-Iran measures within the international bodies, increasing media propaganda against Iran, making anti-Iran efforts through the UAE’s lobby groups and its embassy in Washington, harassing Iranians living in the UAE, refraining from issuing visa to Iranian teachers working in the UAE, and conducting provocative military drills in the Persian Gulf. On the whole, the following instances can be enumerated as the most important reasons behind rising tensions between the United Arab Emirates and the Islamic Republic of Iran:

1. Having different views on international politics: Due to adopting conservative positions and also as a result of its alliance with the United States of America, the UAE has had different viewpoints on international politics compared to Iran, which has been consistently calling for a change in the unjust structure of the international system and has been at serious odds with the United States as well.

2. Fear about increasing influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran: The United States of America, the Zionist regime of Israel and Saudi Arabia are fearful because of the unreal threat that they perceive as a result of the rising power and influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the region. Another reason behind the UAE’s anti-Iran measures is the misconception that its leaders have about the spreading influence of the Islamic Republic across the Persian Gulf region. It seems that officials of the UAE consider the Islamic Republic of Iran as a serious threat to them on the basis of the misconception that they have about the rising influence of Iran in the region. As a result, they believe that Iran’s rising influence threatens their very survival.

3. Differences over the issue of Yemen: The United Arab Emirates has been an active member of the Saudi-led coalition that has been engaged in a military invasion against Yemen to suppress the country’s Ansarullah movement. As a result, the Emirati forces have been working along with the Saudi military to help those Yemeni forces, who are still loyal to Yemen’s former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. On the opposite, the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken sides with the popular government ruling Yemen and has been throwing its weight behind Ansarullah. This issue has been a bone of contention between the two sides.

4. Convergence with Saudi Arabia: Another variable, which has greatly affected the UAE’s anti-Iran policy, is increasing convergence between the interests of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. During recent years, there has been a special convergence between these two countries, the highlight of which was probably severance of both countries’ relations with Qatar. It seems that whenever these two countries have common norms and ideas about international issues, some sort of convergence followed by increased cooperation takes shape between them. In this case, common factors between the UAE and Saudi Arabia include the need to further bolster the GCC, a feeling of threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran, both countries’ conflict of interests with Qatar, common oil policies as well as a common mentality shared by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

5. Territorial disputes between Iran and the UAE over three Iranian islands: The United Arab Emirates has a claim to ownership of three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, including the Greater Tunb, the Lesser Tunb, and Abu Mousa. Iran, however, has persistently rejected the UAE’s claims while asserting its sovereignty over these islands. During recent years, and in parallel to increasing economic and military power of the UAE, the country has been insisting more on its unrightful and illegal claim. The United Arab Emirates is apparently trying to take advantage of the opportunity provided to it by the conflict of interests between Iran, on the one hand, and the West – especially the United States – and Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, and give legitimacy to its claims by getting more countries in line. However, due to lack of adequate evidence to prove the UAE’s claim and also because of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political and military power, it has not been able to do anything in this regard yet.

Conclusion

The United Arab Emirates is one of the Persian Gulf countries, which while having extensive economic relations with Iran, also suffers from powerful and serious conflict of interests with the Islamic Republic when it comes to regional and international policies. As a result, it has teamed up with the United States of America and Saudi Arabia in taking various measures against the national interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran. On the other hand, Iran has tried to avoid any reciprocal actions against the UAE in line with good neighborly relations and also due to various trade and economic advantages that Dubai has for Iran and in a bid to protect the interests of Iranian businesspeople and other nationals that reside in the UAE. However, the Islamic Republic of Iran must warn officials of the UAE not to sacrifice the existing political and economic relations between the two countries as a result of the perceived threat of Iran, which has been cooked up by Saudi Arabia. Iran must advise the Emirati leaders to adopt policies, which would facilitate good neighborly relations through a better approach to the existing realities in the Persian Gulf region. At the same time, the Emirati officials must note that the Saudi hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula, which has so far led to the war in Yemen and severance of relations with Qatar, may turn into a threat to them in the future as well. This is true because continuation of Saudi Arabia’s policy will gradually strip all Arab states of the Persian Gulf region of their independence.

* Hossein Ajorlou
West Asia Analyst

Sebastian Kurz, 31, is likely to become Austria’s new Chancellor following the October 15 election. He would be the youngest-ever head of government in the European Union and to many of his supporters will be seen as a bold new face ready to lead Europe through and past the ongoing crises over migration, integration, fiscal authority, and identity that have dominated European politics, within and without the EU, in recent years. A new leader of Europe’s populist right is likely on the horizon, yet he has received little international attention compared with candidates such as Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage who were always long shots.

Kurz’s Rise – Aus Iuridicum

Rapidly rising through the youth wing of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), Kurz was elected its head in 2009 and then promoted directly into the party’s upper echelon in 2011 when he was named to the newly-created post of state secretary for integration at age 24.

From the earliest days, Kurz embraced a populist right-wing worldview although he initially steadfastly avoided divisive rhetoric that could have derailed his rise. Kurz used his post as state secretary to publicize these ideas, while also astutely employing the leeway afforded by his youth to take positions deviating from the ÖVP platform.
In 2013 Kurz was elected to the national legislature, also winning the most direct ‘preference votes’ of any candidate and a third more than the ÖVP’s then-head Michael Spindelegger. The ÖVP received less overall votes than the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and again went into government as the junior coalition partner. Kurz was rewarded with the second-highest post of any ÖVP leader when he was named foreign minister.

Austrians see themselves both as core members of the ‘West’ but also as traditionalists and the inheritors of a unique culture. The historic heft of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, a separateness from Germans and Germany that was cemented by the divides caused by the Enlightenment and birth of Protestantism, and steady decades-long growth in income and living standards all have served to shape an image of Austria and Austrians as reasoned yet traditional, sober yet dandy, and reserved yet welcoming. It is precisely in this image that Kurz has tried to cast himself.

Even Kurz’s critics are quick to acknowledge that from the beginning of his career he had a remarkable ability to gauge the prevailing zeitgeist, all the while grounding himself in the core Austrian conservatism that the ÖVP represents. In contrast to populist politicians who have at best half-convicningly attempted to portray themselves as outsiders, Kurz embraces the fact he has had his sights set on a political career since his youth. Kurz recognized the quickest route to ‘authenticity’ was to never speak the word.

Kurz, the Foreign Minister

As Foreign Minister, Kurz was able to play host and diplomat to Austria’s wide variety of partners. He also judiciously avoided controversy in mainstream international media. On issues where Kurz would perhaps have been more vocal, he accepted his role as a government minister and did not speak out overly loudly when he disagreed with his party’s leaders, while tweaking those of the SPÖ, the senior coalition partner, in a way that did not offend Austrian sensibilities.

Kurz’s four years in the foreign ministry saw a series of regional and political crises, attesting to his political skill. Three months after taking office, Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash was arrested on a visit to Vienna on the request of US authorities. The arrest came two day’s before Moscow’s controversial referendum in Crimea and struck at the core of domestic politics in Ukraine, where Firtash long played an outsize role. Yet Kurz did not shy from being thrust in the spotlight, in fact he appeared to be hungering for it, with the then-27-year old even offering to mediate Russia and Ukraine’s disputes over Crimea.

Kurz ultimately backed sanctions, sensing the prevailing winds in Europe. However, he was vocal in calling for European business’ interests to be considered even before Italian, Hungarian and Cypriot politicians subsequently took up such positions. The move played well domestically in Austria, where many criticize great power games, perhaps with a slight, albeit unstated view towards the rearview mirror given their fatal role in Austria’s own history. Austria’s Raiffeisen bank also derives most of its profits from Eastern Europe and is the largest foreign player in Russia’s banking market. Russian President Vladimir Putin also travelled to Vienna in June 2014, his first post-Crimea visit to a Western country, with Kurz vocally defending the invite and signing of a controversial pipeline deal at the same time EU and US officials were deliberating sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.

Kurz’s time as foreign minister also coincided with Europe’s migration crisis, which was nearly simultaneous with his push towards the spotlight when he backed the stance of Austria’s eastern and southeastern neighbors even while then-Chancellor Werner Faymann waffled on the issue. By February 2016, Kurz was publicly embracing not only the positions of Warsaw, Budapest, and Ljubljana, but their rhetoric as well. In March 2016, Austria had closed its borders to most asylum seekers. By the end of May of that year, Faymann resigned. He was subsequently replaced by Christian Kern, the current head of the SPÖ.

Kurz took advantage of the weakness of the senior leadership within the SPÖ and his own ÖVP to push his personal agenda and reputation to the fore. Kurz has even sought to use the largely-symbolic rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Vienna holds for 2017, to promote his political agenda. Kurz was bold enough to broadcast this intention, declaring in an interview with Der Spiegel that he would use the post to push for the lifting of sanctions against Russia. He has also used the platform to again propose he mediate a solution to the conflict in Donbas, even writing an English-language op-ed for Politico on the subject this September. Demonstrating Kurz’s eye for the future, however, a number of senior staff members have left Kurz’s Foreign Ministry since the start of the year, promoted as Austria’s new ambassadors to some of its leading partners. A further major reshuffle is expected after the election, a possible indication that Kurz will continue to cut a prominent figure on the international stage.

Kurz, the Candidate: Dressed to Impress

A year after Faymann’s resignation, the Kern government collapsed, prompting the elections that will be held on 15 October. The interim period saw the contested and contentious 2016 presidential run-off election, in which the initial result was annulled and the far right Freedom Party’s (FPÖ) Norbert Hofer was narrowly defeated by independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. Kurz had refused to endorse either candidate. Yet it was the fact that the run-off featured neither a candidate of the SPÖ nor the ÖVP for the first time that appears to have most shaped Kurz’s current candidacy.

Van der Bellen, an alumnus of Austria’s relatively minor Green Party, was seen by many on the Austrian right as nearly as radical as Hofer. The Austrian presidency is also largely symbolic – although Hofer’s platform included steps that would have been unprecedented by the Austrian executive. As a result, there was little domestic political cost to Kurz remaining neutral.

The lack of an SPÖ or ÖVP candidate in the final round highlighted the shifts underway at the heart of Austrian politics, and the weakness of then-ÖVP leader Reinhold Mitterlehrner, who stepped back in May, enabling Kurz’s ascent.

Kurz, however, attached a number of conditions to the proposal that he lead the ÖVP. The decades-old party fell in line behind Kurz quickly, even agreeing to campaign under the joint branding of ÖVP and ‘Kurz List – the New People’s Party’. Kurz’s image, rhetoric, and bold proclamations on the campaign trail have put the party comfortably in the lead in the polls.

The lead Kurz maintains in the polls has come primarily at the expense of the far-right FPÖ, although incumbent Chancellor Christian Kern has done his party no favors following a series of scandals. Kern’s SPÖ is polling behind the FPÖ in most polls and he has declared that he would prefer to lead the opposition than re-form a coalition with the ÖVP.

Kurz and Kern’s relationship was already poor but the latest scandal around the SPÖ alleges a controversial former election advisor set up social media pages aimed at besmirching Kurz, only dampening the possibility for a renewed coalition. Yet Kurz also knows the difficulties inherent to forming a government with the FPÖ, despite having adopted much of its rhetoric in his own campaign. Such a government could come under some degree of EU censure, as it did the last time the ÖVP and FPÖ formed a government in 2000. The FPÖ then was the larger of the two parties but would undergo a series of splits while in government.

Although the FPÖ of today has long since coalesced under the leadership of Heinz-Christian Strache, it too will be wary of a coalition with the ÖVP, albeit less over concerns of an EU rebuttal than over Kurz continuing to encroach on its political space.

Get Shorty – the Chancellor? the future EU Commission President?

Kurz is likely to become Austria’s most prominent Chancellor on the international stage in decades. His willingness to be outspoken and take on issues far afield from Austria steadily grew during his tenure in the foreign ministry. Beginning with his early proposal to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv towards the end of his term, he was sufficiently confident to publicly endorse incumbent Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski ahead of that country’s December 2016 election.

Kurz’s alliances in the Balkans and Eastern Europe are extensive and he was one of the few leading EU politicians outside the region to defend Hungary’s crackdown on migrants and refugees. Kurz’s economic policies are more traditionally liberal than those of the Visegrad Group but are also tinged by his populist bent. Nevertheless, he sees himself as a leading exponent of the same cultural conservatism embraced by leaders such as Viktor Orban or Nigel Farage. He is telegenic and well-spoken and has shown a knack for youth politics, of particularly importance in Austria where the voting age is 16.

On May 8, France elected Emmanuel Macron as president in a vote that many hailed as a landmark victory for Europe’s centrist establishment. In October, Austria is likely to elect Kurz as its next chancellor, in a vote that the populist right will hail as its own landmark victory.

*Max Hess is a senior political risk analyst with the London-based AEK international, specializing in Europe and Eurasia.

All across the nation, students are learning about genocide committed in the twentieth century, yet most know next to nothing about genocide taking place right now. That’s partly because the victims are Christians: many academics and journalists have become accustomed to seeing Christians as victimizers, not victims, thus leaving them unmoved when reports surface about genocide against the faithful.

“Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians Oppressed for their Faith, 2015-17,” is a study released by Aid to the Church in Need, an organization chaired by George J. Marlin. Its findings are devastating.

“In 12 of the 13 countries reviewed,” the report notes, “the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms in the period 2015-17 than within the preceding two years.” Genocide has been recorded in Syria, Iraq, and northern Nigeria, either by ISIS or affiliates such as Boko Haram.

North Korea is singled out for persecuting Christians. Its atrocities include starvation, abortion, and hanging Christians on crosses over a fire; others were run over by steamrollers.

As usual, Muslim madmen go about killing converts in public, and they do so with impunity. This is in line with the stated goal of Islamists, namely, the “eradication of Christians, and other minorities.” In Sudan, the killing is orchestrated by the government.

One of the report’s most salient findings, which deserves greater attention, is something that Catholics, and indeed all Christians, need to confront. “The defeat of Daesh [ISIS] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction.”

Notice that the report did not say that more dialogue is needed: it said ISIS must be crushed. That is a glum, yet realistic, conclusion; it is certainly supported by the evidence.

Now that ISIS is on the run throughout the Middle East, the time to finish the job is more important than ever before. As the report says, “Many [Christians] would not survive another similar violent attack.”

This report deserves a wide audience.

After the U.S. and its NATO-partners invaded Libya in 2011 and killed its leader Muammar Gaddafi, the country is being into chaos and suffering from political instability and violence by different terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and AQIM.

Two opposing forces are currently competing for political power in Libya. The first one is the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli. Another is the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk supported by the Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and elected by popular vote.

It is noteworthy that Khalifa Haftar has managed to succeed in fighting extremists and jihadists in six years. Besides, thanks to Haftar, a tribal unification process has been going on in Libya. His combat-capable army currently has 60,000 soldiers.

The LNA controls the most important coastal oil terminals located in Libya’s ‘oil crescent’ that includes Ras Lanuf, Es Sider, Marsa al-Brega, and Zuwetina oil-exporting ports. These towns export about a half of all the Libyan oil.

At the end of May, 2017, Khalifa Haftar established control over the strategically important Ufra Airbase located 500 km south-west of Tripoli. At the beginning of July, 2017, Field Marshal announced total liberation of Benghazi, the second important city in Libya, from terrorists. Despite the risk of being arrested by the detachments controlling Tripoli, that victory was also celebrated by the inhabitants of the capital, not only by the residents of the east of Libya.

The LNA currently controls more than 80 per cent of the country. Actually, the real political power in Libya is concentrated in the hands of Khalifa Haftar.

In his turn, Prime Minister of Libya Fayez al-Sarraj only formally controls the western part of the country and has more symbolic than actual influence on the current situation in Libya. He has never managed to expand his power out of Tripoli in 18 months.

Fayez al-Sarraj doesn’t have any armed forces. Several armed groups in and around Tripoli only support the Prime Minister but are not subject to his authority. He can give orders only to the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade (TRB) in Tripolitania headed by Haithem Al-Tajouri.

Besides, the Libyan Prime Minister has failed to solve problems including outrageous crimes of numerous armed groups, restoration of justice and health care, and electric energy supplying.

Obviously, due to unsolved internal problems Fayez al-Sarraj and his government lost popular support and confidence of ordinary Libyans.

Meanwhile, supporters of Khalifa Haftar have already begun collecting signatures in support of his authority throughout the country. The Libyan Youth Movement (LYM) wants Haftar to control Tripoli. According to the activists, they have already collected 700,000 signatures in order to receive popular support before the end of Fayez al-Sarraj’s term of office in December, 2017.

Undoubtedly, it will take years to completely restore statehood in Libya and the power institutions. However, Khalifa Haftar is currently the only real force that is able to stabilize the situation in the foreseeable future in the country.

* Adel Karim is an independent investigative correspondent.