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Travel Warnings For US Citizens In Egypt, Sudan

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The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum on Thursday issued a travel warning for Americans living in Sudan to “avoid areas of demonstrations, and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations.”

According to a released statement on the embassy’s website, U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and plans to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “may spark protests, some of which have the potential to become violent”.

The mission also reminded the U.S. citizens of the need for caution and awareness of personal security.

“Review your personal security plans; remain aware of your surroundings, including local events; and monitor local news for updates,” read the statement.

It said that activities in the mission would be limited, especially on Friday, due to a high risk of protests.

A similar statement was also issued by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt.

‘Recognize the State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital’

Meanwhile, political parties in the country called on Muslim countries to take concrete steps against Trump’s decision.

In a released statement on Thursday, the Popular Congress Party of Sudan, which participates in the Sudanese coalition government, said the governments of Islamic countries should take a strong attitude and concrete steps against the U.S. move.

The opposition Sudanese Congress Party also issued a statement condemning the decision underlining that it violated international laws and contradicted the UN resolutions.

On the other hand, the upper and lower chambers of the Sudanese parliament called on the Arab and Islamic countries to recognize the State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital in a reaction to the decision, according to the Sudan Tribune..

The paper also reported that some lawmaker also called on the government to expel the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Khartoum.

Despite widespread international opposition,Trump on Wednesday announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

According to Trump, the U.S. State Department has been told to begin preparations for relocating the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The dramatic shift in Washington’s Jerusalem policy triggered demonstrations in the occupied Palestinian territories, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq and other Muslim countries.

Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem — now occupied by Israel — might eventually serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Original article


Azerbaijan’s SOCAR To Supply Oil To Vietnamese Refinery

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By Maksim Tsurkov

SOCAR Trading, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state owned oil company SOCAR, agreed with the Vietnamese state owned company Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co. (BSR) and state oil trader PV Oil on oil supplies, the BSR reported on Dec. 8.

The agreement is non-binding.

Under the agreement, SOCAR Trading will supply three million barrels of Azeri Light oil per month and two million barrels of other types of oil per month to Dung Quat refinery in 2018-2021.

The Dung Quat refinery refines about 6.5 million tons of oil per year. Its production capacity is expected to increase to 8.5-9 million tons in 2021.

In January-November 2017, Vietnam imported four million barrels of Azerbaijani oil

India: Black Flags, Burning Incense Mark Sea Tragedy In Kerala

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By Ajith Lawrence

A crucifix is placed on old newspapers spread on a rickety wooden bed.

Nearby, along with burning incense, stands the photograph of a rosary-wearing Vinish Vincent.

No one knows for sure whether the 16-year-old is dead or live.

But most people in Vinish’s coastal village of Adimalathura in Kerala state assume he has perished.

A surviving companion saw Vinish struggling in the ocean after their fishing boat was submerged by Cyclone Ockhi, which struck on Nov. 30.

As well as an estimted 50 dead, at least 201 people were missing, a local church official said.

The hard-hit archdiocese of Trivandrum, near Kerala’s capital, is on a stretch of the Arabian Sea coast, near India’s southern tip, which has a large Catholic population.

Black flags and burning incense now dot 80 kilometers of the coastline, which includes villages and tourist facilities from Kovalam to southern Kanyakumari, which comes under Kuzhithurai and Kottar dioceses.

Vinish’s family, sitting in the open around his photograph, utter funeral prayers.

But occasionally they rush down to the sea to meet search boats returning with bodies or rescued people.

They hold a glimmer of hope that Vinish might still be alive, or at least of obtaining finality in the event of his body being recovered.

It was poverty that forced Vinish to go to sea, his father Vincent, an ailing retired fisherman, told ucanews.com.

Vinish’s elder brothers were all afraid of the ocean, but the younger sibling had happily taken up the opportunity to help his family, Vincent said amid tears.

Father Eugene Pereira, vicar general of the archdiocese of Trivandrum, said at least 50 people had died.

The official government data counted 32 dead and 92 missing in the disaster, but the priest said the official counts are inaccurate.

He said government officials had no record of the number of people at sea when the cyclone hit, but he had been told 201 people were still missing.

Father Pereira said his data was based on information provided by villagers, adding that the government had failed to give sufficient warning of the cyclone.

State Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said federal meteorological authorities only warned the state of a cyclone at noon on Nov. 30, when it was already starting to lash the coast.

Vinish and his companions, 36-year-old Sabu and 46-year Muthappan, went to sea as usual on the afternoon of Nov. 29 and were expected to return next day.

However, early on Nov. 30 gusting winds and huge waves struck their boat when they were some 30 kilometers from the coast.

All three started swimming, but after a few kilometers Vinish and Sabu struggled for breath as they battled huge waves, Vincent said quoting Muthappan.

“They disappeared soon,” Vincent said recalling the words of Muthappan, who was hospitalized after reaching the shore injured and fatigued.

In the parish churches that line the coast, funeral prayers punctuate the sound of wailing.

For example, the Catholic community gathered in full strength at Valiathura in their parish for the burial of Eappachan, a fishermen whose body was recovered.

Outside St. Antony’s church, a brown and grey building facing the beach, a young boy waded through the crowd distributing blue memorial cards that bore a photograph of Eappachan, a balding, clean-shaven man of 63.

An often quoted line from the Gospel of St. John at the top corner of each card read; “I am the resurrection and life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”

The Catholic faith sustains believers in such tragedies.

“God has a plan in all this,” said Maria Selvam in Vizhinjam village as she stood on the shore holding her grandson with one hand and a rosary with the other.

No one from Selvam’s family is missing or dead.

But she is praying that rescue boats will bring back people alive

All villagers were like family, she said, a reflection of the close-knit nature of these Catholic communities.

Five centuries ago Saint Francis Xavier baptized their forefathers, laying the foundation of the church in this region.

Successive missionaries under colonial Portuguese rule nurtured local Catholics and spread the faith along the coastline.

Now communities are gathering with families of those who perished or are still missing to sing hymns and say the rosary, the prayer they know by heart.

Shiny (only one name) is faced with the loss of most members of her family, as her husband, son, brother and father are missing, feared dead.

But she continues to pray that they will come home alive.

The Kerala state government has promised to continue search and rescue operations, assisted by the Indian Navy, until all the missing are found or people ask them to stop.

Prayers offered by Vinish’s loved ones and many other families continue, but hopes are fading with each passing day.

Pope Francis Says ‘Our Father’ Poorly Translated

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By Elise Harris

In a video series for Italian television network TV2000, Pope Francis said that “lead us not into temptation” is a poorly translated line of the Our Father.

“This is not a good translation,” the Pope said in the video, published Dec. 6. “I am the one who falls, it’s not (God) who pushes me toward temptation to see how I fall. A father doesn’t do this, a father helps us to get up right away.”

He noted that this line was recently re-translated in the French version of the prayer to read “do not let me fall into temptation.”

The Latin version of the prayer, the authoritative version in the Catholic Church, reads “ne nos inducas in tentationem.”

The Pope said that the one who leads people into temptation “is Satan; that is the work of Satan.” He said that the essence of that line in the prayer is like telling God: “when Satan leads me into temptation, please, give me your hand. Give me your hand.”

Just as Jesus gave Peter his hand to help him out of the water when he began to sink, the prayer also asks God to “give me your hand so that I don’t drown,” Pope Francis said.

The Pope made his comments in the seventh part of the “Our Father” television series being aired by Italian television network TV2000.

Filmed in collaboration with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, the series consists of nine question-and-answer sessions with Pope Francis and Fr. Marco Pozza, a theologian and a prison chaplain in the northern Italian city of Padua.

In each of the sessions, Fr. Pozza asks the Pope about a different line in the Our Father prayer, and the Pope offers his insights. A preview of the series was presented at the Vatican’s Film Library by Msgr. Dario Edoardo Vigano, head of the Secretariat for Communications.

The show also led to the publication of a book titled “Our Father,” which was released by the Vatican Publishing House and Italian publisher Rizzoli Nov. 23, and is based on Pozza’s conversations with the Pope in the video series.

Each of the first eight episodes of the series begin with an excerpt from conversation between the Pope and Pozza, which is followed by a second conversation between Pozza and another guest. The final episode will consist of the priest’s entire conversation with Pope Francis.

In his question to Pope Francis on the line “lead us not into temptation,” Pozza noted that many people have asked him how God can lead someone into temptation, and questioned what the phrase actually intends to say.

The question is one of the reasons the French bishops decided to make a request for a new translation of the Our Father that they believe conveys the meaning more clearly.

According to the French episcopal conference, the decision to make the change was accepted by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in June 2013.

The new translation, released Dec. 3 to mark the first day of Advent and the beginning of the new liturgical year, now reads “ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation,” meaning, “do not let us fall into temptation,” versus the former “ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,” or “lead us not into temptation.”

The Pope’s remarks do not change the translations of liturgical texts. Such a change would begin with a resolution by an episcopal conference in English-speaking countries.

In a previous episode of the “Our Father” series, Pope Francis said “it takes courage” to recite the prayer, because it means calling on someone else and truly believing that “God is the Father who accompanies me, forgives me, gives me bread, is attentive to everything I ask, and dresses me better than wildflowers.”

“To believe is a great risk,” and means daring to make the leap of faith, he said. Because of this, “praying together is so beautiful: because we help each other to dare.”

Turkmenistan: Animal Rights Activist Arbitrarily Detained

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Police in Turkmenistan arbitrarily detained a prominent animal rights activist, Galina Kucherenko, on December 7, 2017, and are holding her at an undisclosed location, Human Rights Watch said today. Police also detained Kucherenko’s adult daughter, Valeria, but later released her. Turkmenistan’s international partners should urgently and publicly call on the Turkmen government to disclose Kucherenko’s whereabouts and release her immediately.

On December 7 at about 11:30 a.m., police broke into Kucherenko’s apartment in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, taking the apartment’s metal door off its hinges, and detained Kucherenko and her daughter. At one point the police dragged Kucherenko across the floor. The officers said they were responding to a complaint allegedly filed by neighbors about their pets.

Valeria Kucherenko has asked the police about her mother’s whereabouts, but they gave varying answers. Kucherenko remains forcibly disappeared as long as authorities fail to disclose her whereabouts.

“The detention of Kucherenko and her daughter is a stark reminder of the threat that people in Turkmenistan face if they criticize the government,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Turkmen government tolerates no criticism, not even on the treatment of stray animals.”

Kucherenko, 52, is an animal rights activist who has openly criticized the round-up of stray animals and animal cruelty in Turkmenistan, including on the Russian-language social media site Odnaklassniki.ru.

Kucherenko’s daughter told Human Rights Watch that police took her to several police stations and promised her that they would allow her to see her mother. However, when police released her at about 5:15 p.m., they refused to provide any information on her mother’s whereabouts. Before they released her, police required her to sign an explanatory statement and pay a 50 manat (about US$14) fine for resisting police.

An officer at the Ashgabat police station where Valeria Kucherenko had been detained told a Human Rights Watch researcher by phone that Galina Kucherenko had been taken to court but did not provide details on when she would appear before the court, what charges she would face, and where she would be taken after her court appearance. When she spoke with Human Rights Watch, Valeria Kucherenko had not been able to get to the court to try to determine whether the officer gave her accurate information.

She said that when she returned to the apartment after she was released, all of their pets – 27 cats and one dog – were gone. The apartment appeared to have been ransacked – pillows and pots were scattered and food had been spilled onto the floor. Police had put the door to the apartment back on its hinges, but the lock was broken and she was unable to properly secure the apartment.

The Kucherenkos’ detention took place two days after a December 5 meeting in Ashgabat of the Joint Committee within the framework of the European Union-Turkmenistan Interim Trade Agreement, a high-level meeting between EU and Turkmen Foreign Affairs Ministry officials. The annual meeting covers political and economic developments and key aspects of EU development cooperation programs.

The Kucherenkos’ detention also comes amid a spate of threats and attacks on the handful of activists and journalists who remain in Turkmenistan, including Kucherenko and Soltan Achilova, an independent journalist. Turkmen authorities have repeatedly harassed and intimidated Kucherenko in recent months. On November 15, unidentified men knocked on Kucherenko’s door demanding that she sign a police summons and remained there for about 25 minutes. Just 15 minutes earlier, a police official called her and told her that she must report to the police station in relation to a complaint allegedly filed against her by another activist.

In November, after repeated unexplained internet outages at her home, Kucherenko learned that her Internet Protocol address had been blocked, meaning she could not access the internet. Representatives of the Ashgabat City Telephone Network told her that her internet access would not be restored.

Prior to the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, which Turkmenistan hosted in September, police warned Kucherenko that she could face 25 years in prison, without specifying for what. Kucherenko told Human Rights Watch that security agents in civilian clothes persistently conduct surveillance on her.

“Turkmenistan’s international partners, including the EU, should act swiftly and publicly call on the Turkmen authorities to immediately release Kucherenko,” Denber said. “The Turkmen government needs to immediately cease arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances of its citizens and unconditionally restore freedom of expression.”

WTO Ministerial Conference: Staying Alive – Analysis

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The World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference opening in Buenos Aires on 10 December 2017 is not expected to yield significant positive results. It is taking place against a background of stalled negotiations, deepening divisions over the trade agenda and threats to the functioning of the multilateral trading system.

By Evan Rogerson*

If the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 11th Ministerial Conference did not exist there would be little reason to invent it. The two-yearly cycle of Ministerials prescribed in the WTO’s founding Agreement has helped to raise expectations of concrete results each time, with the accompanying risk of high-profile failure.

The last two Ministerials, at Bali in 2013 and Nairobi in 2015, achieved a degree of success by salvaging elements of the shipwrecked Doha Development Agenda that were still serviceable, Trade Facilitation and the prohibition of agricultural Export Subsidies. However there are no such useful items to hand this time. The scope for success is correspondingly more limited and the risks are that much greater.

Divergences: Still a Challenge

The preparatory process in Geneva has narrowed the range of issues but not the divergences that bedevil them. Some, like Trade and Environment, intellectual property, industrial tariffs and anti-dumping rules, have effectively been put in the freezer. In Agriculture, the Ministerial might at most agree on the Indian public stockholding issue and – hopefully – the Singaporean initiative on Export Restrictions.

The major negotiating subjects like trade-distorting domestic subsidies to agriculture or the tariff barriers that persist in the sector are in the too-hard tray. In Services the one possible area for progress, domestic regulation, has stalled. In the so-called Development area, a number of proposals to expand special and differential treatment for developing countries remain as far from agreement as they have been for nearly 20 years.

Meaningful work in the WTO on key current and future issues like investment and electronic commerce remains blocked. And, though it is not formally on the Ministerial agenda, the United States refusal to allow new appointments to the Appellate Body threatens the Dispute Settlement system and will inevitably overshadow the meeting.

Limiting Fishery Subsidies: Vital But Not Assured

One issue that cries out for action at Buenos Aires is the subsidisation of fishing that imperils the sustainability of fish stocks. Prohibiting such subsidies, including those that encourage illegal and unreported fishing, by 2020 is part of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14. This can only be done effectively through a multilateral agreement in the WTO.

Fishery subsidies have been a part of the WTO negotiating agenda from the start of the Doha Round, but these negotiations have taken on increased urgency with growing recognition of the crisis of the world’s oceans. It is a case where work in the WTO is supported by NGOs and civil society as well as by political endorsement at the highest level.

Despite all this, even modest results are not assured. The negotiating scope has contracted to the point where all that remains in the frame for prohibition at this stage are subsidies to illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Agreeing to stop subsidising illegal activities is not exactly a huge step forward, but it would at least go in the right direction.

Nonetheless, as the negotiators left Geneva for Buenos Aires the outlook was cloudy. Some major developing countries are insisting on carve-outs that would significantly weaken any agreement, and there is also the ever-present risk of the issue being held hostage against other unrelated concerns. It is now for the ministers to try to resolve. A failure on their part would be a bad sign not only for the WTO but also for the ability of the global community to deliver on the SDGs – the Sustainable Development Goals as endorsed by the United Nations.

Political Direction: Little Chance of Agreement

If the outlook for progress on specific issues at Buenos Aires is bad, the overall political situation of the multilateral trading system is worse. These meetings normally produce a Ministerial Declaration which reaffirms the core values of the system, brings together any specific decisions and outlines directions for future work.

The declarations from Bali and Nairobi and the agreed “Elements for Political Guidance” from Geneva in 2011 have proved useful in enabling negotiations to continue in some areas despite the stalemate in the Doha Round. This time, however, the effort to produce a draft declaration was abandoned in the face of deep divisions about the status and purpose of the system and US unwillingness to continue with the process.

The Argentinian conference chair may try to renew the effort at the Ministerial, but the chances of success are poor.

Faultlines, Leadership Deficit Exposed

This situation exposes the faultlines that threaten the WTO’s stability. One such is the reassertion of a defensive view of development, based on exceptions from rules and refusal to engage in the WTO on other issues, such as electronic commerce, until the Doha agenda is completed, even though its moribund state is obvious. This position is espoused in particular by a number of African countries but is also lent tactical support by major emerging economies even though they are leaders in exploiting the growth potential of electronic commerce.

This disconnect between negotiating positions and real economic interests is glaring. Rather than counter it with effective advocacy for the development benefits of a forward-looking trade agenda, too many other WTO members – notably the US – are just turning away from the multilateral arena.

The leadership deficit in the WTO and its costs have been considered at more length in an earlier RSIS Commentary (220/2017). In Buenos Aires, the best we can hope for is that those members who are still committed to the multilateral system make their voices heard forcefully and in unison. It is also likely that some will step up efforts to build plurilateral agreements in areas where progress is blocked at the broader level. These actions may be second best, but they will be essential to keep the system functioning.

*Evan Rogerson is the former Director of the Agriculture and Commodities Division of the WTO Secretariat, Geneva. He contributed this specially to RSIS Commentary.

Stretchable Battery Created Made Entirely Out Of Fabric

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A research team led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has developed an entirely textile-based, bacteria-powered bio-battery that could one day be integrated into wearable electronics.

The team, led by Binghamton University Electrical and Computer Science Assistant Professor Seokheun Choi, created an entirely textile-based biobattery that can produce maximum power similar to that produced by his previous paper-based microbial fuel cells.

Additionally, these textile-based biobatteries exhibit stable electricity-generating capability when tested under repeated stretching and twisting cycles.

Choi said that this stretchable, twistable power device could establish a standardized platform for textile-based biobatteries and will be potentially integrated into wearable electronics in the future.

“There is a clear and pressing need for flexible and stretchable electronics that can be easily integrated with a wide range of surroundings to collect real-time information,” said Choi. “Those electronics must perform reliably even while intimately used on substrates with complex and curvilinear shapes, like moving body parts or organs. We considered a flexible, stretchable, miniaturized biobattery as a truly useful energy technology because of their sustainable, renewable and eco-friendly capabilities.”

Compared to traditional batteries and other enzymatic fuel cells, microbial fuel cells can be the most suitable power source for wearable electronics because the whole microbial cells as a biocatalyst provide stable enzymatic reactions and a long lifetime, said Choi.

Sweat generated from the human body can be a potential fuel to support bacterial viability, providing the long-term operation of the microbial fuel cells.

“If we consider that humans possess more bacterial cells than human cells in their bodies, the direct use of bacterial cells as a power resource interdependently with the human body is conceivable for wearable electronics,” said Choi.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Binghamton University Research Foundation and a Binghamton University ADL (Analytical and Diagnostics Laboratory) Small Grant.

The paper, “Flexible and Stretchable Biobatteries: Monolithic Integration of Membrane-Free Microbial Fuel Cells in a Single Textile Layer,” was published in Advanced Energy Materials.

Revising Story Of Dispersal Of Modern Humans Across Eurasia

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Most people are now familiar with the traditional “Out of Africa” model: modern humans evolved in Africa and then dispersed across Asia and reached Australia in a single wave about 60,000 years ago.

However, technological advances in DNA analysis and other fossil identification techniques, as well as an emphasis on multidisciplinary research, are revising this story. Recent discoveries show that humans left Africa multiple times prior to 60,000 years ago, and that they interbred with other hominins in many locations across Eurasia.

A review of recent research on dispersals by early modern humans from Africa to Asia by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Hawai’i at Manoa confirms that the traditional view of a single dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa around 60,000 years ago can no longer be seen as the full story.

The analysis, published in the journal Science, reviews the plethora of new discoveries being reported from Asia over the past decade, which were made possible by technological advances and interdisciplinary collaborations, and shows that Homo sapiens reached distant parts of the Asian continent, as well as Near Oceania, much earlier than previously thought. Additionally, evidence that modern humans interbred with other hominins already present in Asia, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, complicates the evolutionary history of our species.

New model: Multiple dispersals of modern humans out of Africa, beginning as early as 120,000 years ago

The authors brought together findings from multiple recent studies to refine the picture of human dispersals out of Africa and into Asia. While scientists once thought that humans first left Africa in a single wave of migration about 60,000 years ago, recent studies have identified modern human fossils in far reaches of Asia that are potentially much older. For example, H. sapiens remains have been found at multiple sites in southern and central China that have been dated to between 70,000 and 120,000 years ago. Additional finds indicate that modern humans reached Southeast Asia and Australia prior to 60,000 years ago.

However, other recent studies do confirm that all present-day non-African populations branched off from a single ancestral population in Africa approximately 60,000 years ago. This could indicate that there were multiple, smaller dispersals of humans out of Africa beginning as early as 120,000 years ago, followed by a major dispersal 60,000 years ago. While the recent dispersal contributed the bulk of the genetic make-up of present-day non-Africans, the earlier dispersals are still evident.

“The initial dispersals out of Africa prior to 60,000 years ago were likely by small groups of foragers, and at least some of these early dispersals left low-level genetic traces in modern human populations. A later, major ‘Out of Africa’ event most likely occurred around 60,000 years ago or thereafter,” explained Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Multiple interbreeding events

Recent genetic research has resolved the question of whether or not modern humans interbred with other ancient hominins – they definitely did. Modern humans interbred not only with Neanderthals, but also with our recently-discovered relatives the Denisovans, as well as a currently unidentified population of pre-modern hominins.

One estimate is that all present-day non-Africans have 1-4% Neanderthal heritage, while another group has estimated that modern Melanesians have an average of 5% Denisovan heritage. In all, it is now clear that modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and perhaps other hominin groups likely overlapped in time and space in Asia, and they certainly had many instances of interaction.

The increasing evidence of interactions suggests that the spread of material culture is also more complicated than previously thought.

“Indeed, what we are seeing in the behavioral record is that the spread of so-called modern human behaviors did not occur in a simple time-transgressive process from west to east. Rather, ecological variation needs to be considered in concert with behavioral variation between the different hominin populations present in Asia during the Late Pleistocene,” said Christopher Bae of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

In light of these new discoveries, our understanding of human movements across the Old World has become much more complex, and there are still many questions left open. The authors argue for the development of more complicated models of human dispersals and for conducting new research in the many areas of Asia where none has been done to date.

Additionally, it will be important to review materials collected prior to the development of modern analytic methods, to see what more can now be learned from them.

“Fortunately,” said Katerina Douka, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, “there have been an increasing number of multidisciplinary research programs launched in Asia over the past few decades. The information that is being reported is helping to fill in the gaps in the evolutionary records.”

“It is an exciting time to be involved with interdisciplinary research projects across Asia,” added Bae.


Could Death Rates Have Swung The 2016 US Election?

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Significant increases in the death rates of white, middle-aged people over the last 15 years appear to be tied to increases in Republican voting that helped lead to Donald Trump’s election in 2016, according to a new study led by a Drexel University researcher.

Examining data for white people between the ages of 45 and 54, Usama Bilal, MD, PhD, and his co-researchers found that Trump was more likely to win counties where the middle-aged white death rates increased significantly from 1999 until 2016 than his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton.

A chart showing the average change in the premature deaths of 45-54 year-old white people in roughly 91 percent of US counties, broken down by presidential election results. Credit  Courtesy of Drexel University.
A chart showing the average change in the premature deaths of 45-54 year-old white people in roughly 91 percent of US counties, broken down by presidential election results. Credit: Courtesy of Drexel University.

“We believe that counties where mortality has been increasing in the last decade have seen higher degrees of social disruption — such as changes in employment availability, health care accessibility and/or poverty levels — leading to changes in voting patterns,” Bilal said.

On average, a 15.2 death increase per 100,000 middle-aged white people was tied to a 1 percent vote swing for the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, the study showed.

“Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had less than a 1 percent difference between the two parties in the 2016 election,” said Bilal, a post-doctoral researcher at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health. “Of these four states, the GOP won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, allowing them to secure the electoral college vote.”

Bilal, along with Emily Knapp, of Johns Hopkins University, and Richard Cooper, MD, of Loyola University (Chicago), started thinking about a study looking into this on election night in 2016, when Bilal was a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins. Public health scientists have noted often that white mortality rates appear to have changed in recent years. So Bilal and his co-authors studied this population in the context of another study that attributed these deaths to the increased availability of prescription opioids, drug overdoses and weaker public assistance programs.

“We entertain the idea that mortality itself is a marker of underlying social conditions that are often reflecting in changing political landscapes,” Bilal said of the study that was published in Social Science and Medicine.

Using data from 2,764 counties (roughly 91 percent of the counties in the U.S), Bilal and his team found that counties that voted Republican, after being Democrat for 2008 and 2012, showed an average increase of 10.7 deaths per 100,000 middle-aged white residents over the last 15 years.

But if counties that voted Democrat in 2008 and 2012 stayed Democrat for 2016, the death rates there actually declined over the last 15 years by 15.7 per 100,000, on average, the study discovered.

The researchers didn’t just focus on mortality rates and their potential affect on vote-swings. They also took a look at whether vote swings were more evident in counties with wider health inequalities.

“In our study, health inequality refers to the difference in life expectancy between the people in the top 25 percent of income versus the bottom 25 percent,” Bilal explained.

In any county that had gone Republican, just once, in 2000, 2004, 2008 or 2012, there were markedly higher levels of health inequality. For counties that voted Republican in 2008 and 2012, the study showed almost 30 percent wider inequalities.

But that doesn’t mean things were completely even in Democrat counties. On average, the difference in life expectancy was 7.23 years in Republican counties, but still 6.6 years in Democrat counties.

“Health inequalities are the sign of a society that does not do enough to protect the public’s health, where poorer people have less access to health-promoting resources (such as healthier foods, safer neighborhoods or even health care) and are more exposed to environmental hazards (such as pollution, crime or unwalkable neighborhoods),” Bilal said “Our research has shown that the Republican party vote share increased in areas where these health inequalities are wider.”

All of the mortality and inequity results were consistent when the researchers limited their data to six of the key states that helped flip the 2016 election to Republicans: Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida.

More work is needed (potentially studying the United Kingdom’s Brexit or the rise of far-right groups in European elections) to get a better idea of the strength of associations, but Bilal feels the study definitely shows that “politics and health are intertwined.”

“We should consider public health as a potent marker of social upheaval,” Bilal said. “Moreover, the health of the electorate — especially those middle-aged folks who are dying prematurely — is central to a democracy.”

For Women With Genetic Risk, Bi-Annual MRI Beats Mammograms

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Intensive surveillance including a dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) exam every six months was far more effective in detecting breast cancer in younger women with a high-risk genetic profile than an annual mammogram, according to a research team based at the University of Chicago Medicine and the University of Washington, Seattle.

The results, presented Dec. 8, 2017 at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, suggest that for this population, intensive efforts to “downstage” aggressive breast cancer by finding small early lesions in women with high-risk mutations are crucial to improving outcomes.

“This study demonstrates, for the first time, that aggressive breast cancers can be caught early, without excessive recalls or biopsies,” said Olufunmilayo Olopade, MD, a distinguished service professor of medicine and human genetics and director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics. “Because of intensive surveillance and high quality care the majority of high-risk women in this study–most of whom had highly penetrant genetic mutations–have not developed breast cancer.”

The study was designed to evaluate psychosocial distress levels and quality of life in women undergoing intensive surveillance.

Between 2004 and December 2016, the researchers recruited 305 women into a clinical trial. Volunteers had to have a lifetime breast cancer risk greater than 20 percent. More than half of the women enrolled (53%) had mutations in breast cancer related genes, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 or CDH1. Ten volunteers dropped out before the first round of screening.

The women who enrolled had to have mutations in one of 11 known breast cancer-related genes, or a diagnosis of breast cancer or carcinoma in situ before age 35, or a mother or sister diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50 (before age 40 for those of African ancestry). The mean age at entry was 43.3 years.

After evaluation by a physician and a genetic counselor, participants were scheduled to undergo a clinical breast examination and a DCE-MRI scan every six months, and a digital mammogram every 12 months. Study subjects also had BROCA panel genetic tests looking for 12 genes associated with a predisposition to breast cancer. Those with high genetic risk mutations who completed five years of the study protocol were offered continued screening. (Enrollment closed in December 2016.)

Over the course of the study, the researchers performed 2,111 DCE-MRIs (on average, about seven per participant) and 1,223 mammograms (four per participant). All cancers detected during the study were smaller than a centimeter.

The researchers found 17 cancers: four ductal carcinoma in situ and 13 early stage breast cancers. Fifteen of those cancers occurred in participants with pathogenic mutations. Eleven involved BRCA1, three involved BRCA2, and one involved CDH1. None of the cancers had spread to the lymph nodes. The mean tumor size was 0.61 centimeter.

The 17 patients who developed a cancer were followed continuously for a median of 5.3 years (range 0.5 to 11 years). All remain alive and free of systemic disease. Anxiety levels decreased over time and quality of life for the participants improved.

The study authors recommend “further interventional studies evaluating this novel screening approach to personalize breast cancer risk assessment and prevention.”

In this study, DCE-MRI every 6 months “performed well for early detection of invasive breast cancer in high-risk women, accomplishing the ultimate goal of breast cancer screening–detecting node-negative, invasive tumors less than 1 centimeter,” said Olopade, an American Cancer Society Clinical Research professor. “These scans performed especially well in BRCA1 mutation carriers, who are at risk for aggressive subtypes of breast cancer.”

“Mammograms remain important for most women,” Olopade said. “But for women at high risk who are getting a DCE-MRI every six months, annual mammograms could probably be eliminated.” For this group of younger women at significantly elevated risk, especially those with a BRCA1 mutation, we strongly support getting a DCE-MRI every six months.”

“The central goal of our study was to understand the needs of the highest risk women,” said study co-author Mary Claire King, PhD, professor of genome sciences and of medicine at the University of Washington and the Walt Disney-American Cancer Society Research Professor for Breast Cancer. King has advocated for all women to be offered testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 at about age 30, regardless of personal or family history of cancer, so that women with mutations can take action to prevent cancer in their futures.

“My concern is that mammography and MRI be used in ways that make sense given a woman’s personal genetics,” she said. “Women with mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 have very different needs for surveillance for breast disease than do women with no mutations in these genes. This is particularly true for healthy young women with mutations. It’s truly critical to offer intensive surveillance to still-healthy women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.”

Putin’s Announcement Of Candidacy Shows Need For Kremlinology Has Returned – OpEd

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The need for Kremlinology to understand what is going on in Moscow is increasingly important, Yakub Koreyba says, because “there are no politics in Russia in the classical understanding of term,” and consequently people must once again draw conclusions about what is going on from things like the ranking of figures on the mausoleum.

The Polish commentator, an MGIMO graduate who writes regularly for Russian outlets, argues Putin’s announcement of his candidacy for president, something that came as no surprise to anyone, underscored this “Brezhnevization” of Russian political life in which people must focus on form rather than content and on how rather than what.

In a Rosbalt essay, he says that “the ‘who is who’ in Russia to an ever smaller degree is connected with formal laws and institutions and ever more dependent on their personal position in the court in which finally has been converted all that is usually called the political elite” (rosbalt.ru/posts/2017/12/07/1666714.html).

At the same time, Koreyba says, “the public portion of the political process finally has been transformed into an element of propaganda which is intended to mask rather than to reflect the true essence of the process.” That means observers must look beyond what is said to how it is presented to gain some insight into what is taking place.

By using this approach, the commentator offers four conclusions on the basis of the way Putin announced his candidacy. First of all, he says, the Putin regime remains fixated on formal procedures of the democratic process even though there is no real alternative to the incumbent, an indication that it has not found an alternative way to proceed.

Second, the announcement was intended to send a message that Putin is opposed to the elite: “Everything is in the best Russian traditions which were creatively developed by the Bolsheviks: the tsar is good, the boyars are bad, the bureaucrats are thieving, and the intelligentsia is traitorous.”

Given that, Putin wants to stress that he bases his power on the people rather than the elite, a strategy that may make for good electoral politics but that could lead to trouble after the election with those who will form his immediate entourage and carry out – or not – his orders and commands.

Third, the announcement sent a clear signal that the Putin regime will continue to rely on a mobilization of the population because under the current economic crisis, it has no choice but to do so if it is to have any hope of maintaining political stability.

And fourth, the announcement ceremony shows that the Putin regime has an almost “Freudian fixation on young people and on youth as such,” a focus intended to suggest that there are good reasons to be hopeful about the future. All this means that “life will become better” for “comrade political technologists” if not for the country over the next six years.

From Barak To Trump – OpEd

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Ehud Barak has “broken the silence”. He has published an article in The New York Times attacking our prime minister in the most abrasive terms. In other words, he has done exactly the same as the group of ex-soldiers who call themselves “Breaking the Silence”, who are accused of washing our dirty linen abroad. They expose war crimes to which they have been witnesses, or even participants.

But apart from the attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, Barak has used the article to publish his Peace Plan. A former chief-of-staff of the Israeli army and a former prime minister, Barak is obviously planning a comeback, and his peace plan is part of the effort. There seems to be, anyhow, open season for Peace Plans in our region.

I respect the intelligence of Barak. Many years ago, when he was still the deputy chief-of-staff, he unexpectedly invited me for a talk. We discussed the military history of the 17th century (military history is an old hobby of mine) and I soon realized that he was a real expert. I enjoyed it very much.

On a spring evening In May 1999, I was part of a huge jubilant crowd in Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square after Barak had won the Knesset elections and become prime minister. He promised us “the dawn of a new day”. In particular, he promised to make peace with the Palestinians.

Intellectually, Barak is superior to all other politicians on the Israeli scene. Soon enough it appeared that this may be a handicap.

Intelligent people tend to be arrogant. They despise people of lesser mental powers. Knowing that he had all the answers, Barak demanded that President Clinton call a meeting with Yasser Arafat.

On the morrow I spoke with Arafat and found him deeply worried. Nothing has been prepared, no prior exchange of views, nothing. He did not want to go to the meeting which he thought was bound to fail, but could not refuse an invitation from the president of the US.

The result was catastrophe. Barak, sure of himself as usual, presented his peace plan. It was more accommodating than any prior Israeli plan, but still fell far short of the Palestinians’ minimum. The meeting broke up.

What does a diplomat do in such circumstances? He announces that “we had a fruitful exchange of views. We have not yet reached total agreement, but the negotiations will go on, and there will be more meetings, until we reach agreement.”

Barak did not say that. Neither did he say: “Sorry, I am totally ignorant of the Palestinian point of view, and I shall now study it seriously.”

Instead, Barak came home and announced that Israel had proposed the most generous terms ever, that the Palestinians had rejected everything, that the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea, that we have “no partner for peace”.

If this had been declared by a right-wing politician, everybody would have shrugged. But coming from the leader of the Peace Camp, it was devastating. Its effects can be felt to this very day.

SO HERE comes Barak, the new Barak, with a brand-new Peace Plan. What does he say? The aim, he writes, is “separation” from the Palestinians. Not peace, not cooperation, just separation. Get rid of them. “Peace” is not popular just now.

How separation? Israel will annex the new Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the “settlement blocs” – the clusters of Jewish settlements beyond the Green Line but close to it. He agrees to “land swaps”. And then comes the killer: “overall security responsibility in the West Bank will remain in the hands of the Israel Defense Forces as long as necessary.”

And the sad conclusion: “Even if it is not possible to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this stage – and it probably is not…”

If there is one Palestinian who would accept these terms, I shall be surprised. But Barak, then and now, does not care for the views and feelings of the Palestinians. Just like Netanyahu, who at least has the decency not to propose a “Peace Plan”. Unlike Trump.

DONALD TRUMP is not a genius like Barak, but he also has a Peace Plan.

A group of right-wing Jews, including his son-in-law (also no genius, he) have been working on this for months. He has proposed it to Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, to the new Saudi Crown Prince and other Arab princes. It seems to provide for a Palestinian State composed of several small isolated enclaves on the West Bank, without Jerusalem and without an army.

This is sheer lunacy. Not one single Palestinian and not one single other Arab would accept this. Worse, anyone proposing such a caricature of a state betrays utter ignorance.

That’s where the real problem lies: it is much worse than just not knowing. It demonstrates abysmal contempt for the Palestinians and for Arabs in general, a basic belief that their feelings, if any, don’t matter at all. This is a remnant of colonial times.

Palestinians, and Arabs at large, do have deep feelings and convictions. They are a proud people. They still remember the times when Muslims were incomparably more advanced than the barbarian Europeans. To be treated like dirt by the US president and his Jewish entourage hurts them deeply, and may lead to a disturbance in our region that no Arab prince, hired by the USA, will be able to control.

THIS ESPECIALLY concerns Jerusalem. For Muslims, this is not just a town. It is their third holiest place, the spot from where the Prophet – peace be upon him – ascended to heaven. For a Muslim to give up Jerusalem is inconceivable.

The latest decisions of Trump concerning Jerusalem are – to put it mildly – idiotic. Arabs are furious, Israelis don’t really care, America’s Arab stooges, princes and all, are deeply worried. If disturbances erupt, they may well be swept away.

And what for? For one evening’s headline?

There is no subject in our region, and perhaps in the world – that is more delicate. Jerusalem is holy to three world religions, and one cannot argue with holiness.

In the past I have devoted much thought to this subject. I love Jerusalem (contrary to the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who was disgusted by it and left it in a hurry after one single night). The early Zionists disliked the city as a symbol of all that is wrong and foul in Judaism.

Some twenty years ago I composed a manifesto, together with my late friend, Feisal al-Husseini, the leader of Jerusalem’s Arabs and the scion of its most noble family. Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians signed it.

Its title was “Our Jerusalem”. It started with the words: “Jerusalem is ours, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims, Christians and Jews.”

It went on: “Our Jerusalem Is a mosaic of all the cultures, all the religions and all the periods that enriched the city, from earliest antiquity to this very day – Canaanites and Jebusites and Israelites, Jews and Hellenes, Romans and Byzantines, Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Mamelukes, Othmanlis and Britons, Palestinians and Israelis.

“Our Jerusalem must be united, open to all, and belonging to all its inhabitants, without borders and barbed wire in its midst.”

And the practical conclusion: “Our Jerusalem must be the capital of the two states that will live side by side in this country – West Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of the State of Palestine.”

I wish I could nail this Manifesto to the doors of the White House.

If You Make Under $75,000, You Lose – OpEd

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By Jim Hightower*

Sam Rayburn, a legendary speaker of the U.S. House in the 1940s and ’50s, offered this piece of ethical advice for lawmakers who were conflicted over whether to vote for the people or the lobbyists: “Every now and then,” he said, “a politician ought to do something just because it’s right.”

How quaint! Today’s House speaker, Paul Ryan, has perverted Rayburn’s ethics, advising his Republican majority to vote for anything just because it’s right-wing.

Along with Donald Trump and Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Ryan is now trying to push America’s tax law so far to the right that it’s horribly wrong.

Tax proposals can be complex, but this 429-page monster is shockingly easy to understand: The Trump-Ryan-McConnell triumvirate intends to take money from millions of working families and give it to the world’s wealthiest people and richest multinational corporations.

Of course, when they talk publicly about their proposal, they claim it’s all about “helping” you working stiffs. It’s “real tax reform for everyday hardworking Americans,” trumpeted our president.

In private, though, they reveal to their biggest campaign donors that the plan lets them “help themselves” to the people’s money, giving these corporate elites a huge windfall — “the biggest ever,” bragged Trump.

In fact, the 400 richest families in America would average $5.5 million in new tax breaks. Meanwhile, if your income is under $75,000 a year, you’ll end up worse off.

Forget trickle-down economics — the GOP is practicing tinkle-down economics.

Why would they push such an evil, shameful policy? Because it’s not you common voters they care about. It’s the moneyed elites who fund their re-election campaigns.

As one Republican pusher of this tax giveaway, New York Rep. Chris Collins, put it: “My donors are basically saying: ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’“

China’s Belt And Road Initiative: Prospects And Pitfalls – Analysis

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By Ashok Sajjanhar*

Chinese President Xi Jinping initially mooted the idea of Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and 21st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in September and October, 2013, respectively. Subsequently, the two projects together came to be known as ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) Initiative. The Concept was re-christened as ‘’Belt and Road Initiative’’ (BRI) when opposition surfaced to the idea of one nation dictating the existence of ’one belt, one road’ in a globalised world in which ‘many belts and many roads’ exist. Greater clarity was provided on the idea at the Belt Road Forum (BRF) organized in Beijing in mid-May, 2017. According to Chinese authorities, more than 100 countries participated in the Forum, many of them at Head of State/Government level. India was the only major country that did not attend.

In his address at the BRF on May 14, President Xi called BRI as the project of the century to benefit people across the world. He stated that ancient silk routes opened windows of friendly engagement among nations and embodied the spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit. Xi declared that BRI will promote friendship, shared development, peace, harmony and a better future for all countries. BRI, Xi declared, is a new model of win-win cooperation and would make economic globalization, open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all. By constantly hearkening back to the history of East-West exchange, China is striving to propagate a narrative of a globalization in which China had a central and ostensibly benign role. Xi Jinping professes to rekindle the same old ‘Silk Road Spirit’.

Prospects

BRI spans some 65 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe covering 70 per cent of the world population, three-quarters of its energy resources, a quarter of goods and services, and 28 per cent of global GDP ($21 trillion). Beijing’s rationale appears to be clear: these are large, resource-rich nations in close proximity to it with a severe infrastructure deficit, which China has the resources and expertise to redress. By boosting connectivity, China can hope to spur growth in the short term, gain access to valuable natural resources in the mid-term and create new booming markets for its goods into the extended future.

China’s inability to fully absorb its supply-side production capacity — the problem of under-absorption — has been an inherent feature of China’s economic story. Since the 2008 global economic crisis, China’s investment-intensive export-oriented model, relying on massive reciprocal import demand in high income economies to absorb Chinese production, has widely been acknowledged as unsustainable. The steel sector has become symbolic of this overcapacity. For instance today, China can produce 1.2 billion metric tons of steel, 50 per cent more than what is required for domestic and export markets.

The key motive for China appears to be much bigger and more ambitious. It wants to consolidate its position at the centre of global supply and manufacturing networks. This is crucial for the outlook of the global economy over the coming decades. China understands that as its economy matures and income levels rise, the lower-wage industries that have fuelled the country’s growth so far will migrate to less-developed nations where labour costs are lower.

An overriding objective of BRI is to address China’s deepening regional disparity as the country’s economy modernises. Beijing hopes its transnational infrastructure building program will spur growth in China’s underdeveloped hinterland and rustbelt.
By investing in infrastructure, Xi hopes to find a more profitable home for China’s vast foreign-exchange reserves, most of which are in low-interest-bearing American government securities. He also hopes to create new markets for Chinese companies, such as high-speed rail firms, and to export some of his country’s vast excess capacity in cement, steel and other metals. And by encouraging more Chinese projects around the South China Sea, the initiative could bolster China’s claims in that area.

Xi has launched BRI at a time when Chinese foreign policy has become more assertive, even aggressive. This has meant that BRI is often interpreted as a geopolitical venture rather than a purely economic one. There is considerable truth in this assessment.

BRI is one of President Xi’s most ambitious foreign and economic policy projects. At the recent 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, BRI was enshrined in the Party Constitution signalling the depth of Chinese commitment, giving it greater policy heft and added pressure to succeed.

Many foreign policy analysts view this initiative largely through a geopolitical lens, seeing it as Beijing’s attempt to gain political leverage over its neighbors and to rapidly fill the vacuum created by the increasingly isolationist policies being pursued by US President Donald Trump. Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement has played into China’s hands. Trump’s dependence on Chinese support to contain North Korea has also given greater leverage to China.

Making this bold vision into reality will require an extraordinary alignment of financial resources, technical skills, political commitment and international cooperation. None of these can be taken for granted.

It is estimated that financial resources to the tune of $4.4 trillion ($1.4 trillion for SREB and $3 trillion for the maritime component) would be required to implement the initiative. China has claimed that nearly $900 billion worth of deals are already underway.
Beijing’s plan is for China-led financial institutions to lend money to countries willing to participate in BRI to create the required infrastructure, deploy the surplus Chinese manpower to build them and ensure that China’s hitherto idle state-owned enterprises construct them.

It is however a moot point whether China on its own will be able to marshal the requisite financial resources required for this ambitious venture. Moreover, it is debatable if Chinese or regional financial institutions would be willing to extend credit to countries with dubious credit-worthiness. Thus far, a significant amount of Belt Road investment has flowed to countries with relatively weak credit profiles. 42 out of the 68 countries identified under BRI are either rated below investment grade or not rated by Moody’s at all. At the same time, China’s armed forces are being upgraded and reoriented to protect Chinese investments and personnel abroad. According to informed estimates, China’s Navy, for instance, plans to build 400 warships and 100 submarines by 2030.

There is an equally important strategic imperative. If it materialises, BRI, which will girdle the globe, will extend China’s economic, diplomatic and military power well beyond its borders and across the world and place China virtually on par with the US. China’s ambition is to achieve this by 2049, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Pitfalls

China will need its neighbors’ cooperation for realization of its objectives. However, its handling of regional antagonism in recent years has further exacerbated tensions in the area.

The BRI vision statement claims “Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” which include a “mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty.” Contrary to this, China has escalated sovereignty disputes by pressing territorial claims against its neighbors.

A vital reason for India to stay away from the Belt Road Forum on May 14-15, 2017 in Beijing was China’s utter disregard for India’s core concerns on its sovereignty and territorial integrity with respect to the $ 56 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which has been billed as the flagship project of this initiative. In the South China Sea, China has challenged Vietnamese claims by moving a state-owned oil rig into disputed waters and constructed airstrips suitable for military aircraft on disputed features in the Spratly Islands.

China has shown total contempt for international law by rejecting the ruling of the UN tribunal regarding its claims in the South China Sea. On the Doklam Plateau in 2017, China challenged Bhutan’s sovereignty by attempting to extend a road into disputed territory leading to a military standoff with India. These actions directly contradict the BRI vision statement and send a signal to China’s neighbors that it will aggressively use its instruments of power to assert claims over disputed territories. China’s approach to CPEC, Bhutanese and South China Sea disputes increases the perception that China is unwilling to harmonize regional stability and security with its nationalist objectives.

A few recent cracks in Beijing’s plans for dominance and influence highlight the complicated road to infrastructure based leverage faced by China.

On November 14, 2017, according to a South China Morning Post report, the government of Nepal decided to abandon the $2.5 billion deal to build the Budhigandaki hydroelectric project dam with the Chinese state company China Gezhouba Group. The deal was scrapped because it was signed without an open tender process, which was required by law. Ironically, the agreement was originally signed a few weeks after Nepal joined the BRI.

Then, last week, Pakistan, China’s all-weather friend, also decided to pull out of the $14 billion Diamer-Bhasha dam with China because it refused to accept the strict deal conditions.

Two major projects therefore have been cancelled within a week, in both cases because the terms were considered by the recipient countries, which are closely tied to China, to be unfair and inequitable. This inevitably also raises issues about the commercial viability and financial credibility of some other projects. The Belt and Road seems to be faltering in its initial, conceptual financial stage.

Another glaring example is that of Hambantota port which has become the proverbial millstone around Sri Lanka’s neck. A worrying development emerged in July, 2017 when Sri Lanka was forced to give control of the deep-water port to China for 99 years in exchange for Chinese debt settlement. Huge delays in implementation of high profile, prestigious projects in Singapore, Indonesia and several other countries have occurred due to serious local obstacles and problems.

If full transparency is ensured through competing public tenders, the adequacy, suitability and quality of the Chinese equipment being used could also soon become issues of concern.
The importation of tens of thousands of Chinese workers to install Chinese equipment displacing the employment for locals also leads to significant political fallout.

Conclusion

The above discussion points to an urgent need for China to rethink and reconfigure its financing strategy for overseas development projects.

Several analysts have expressed concern that smaller states could become overly dependent on Chinese loans and trapped in debt servitude to Beijing. To make matters worse, China is finding it hard to identify profitable projects in many belt-and-road countries (Chinese businessmen in central Asia call it “One Road, One Trap”).

When declining China’s invitation to participate in the Belt Road Forum in Beijing in May, 2017, India had stated:

We are of firm belief that connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognized international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality. Connectivity initiatives must follow principles of financial responsibility to avoid projects that would create unsustainable debt burden for communities; balanced ecological and environmental protection and preservation standards; transparent assessment of project costs; and skill and technology transfer to help long-term running and maintenance of the assets created by local communities. Connectivity projects must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It is essential for China to go back to the drawing board, engage in serious and sincere dialogue with its neighbours and participants in BRI, ensure respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, uphold the internationally accepted norms of transparency, good governance and observe principles of financial responsibility, skill and technology transfer etc for the Initiative to have some possibility of success.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author:
*Ashok Sajjanhar
is President, Institute of Global Studies, and a former Ambassador of India to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA

Brexit: UK’s May Rushes To Brussels After Commission Says ‘Sufficient Progress’ Made

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(EurActiv) — Theresa May rushed to Brussels in the early hours of Friday morning (8 December), after the European Commission said all-night divorce talks had made “sufficient progress” to move on to the second phase of Brexit negotiations.

May and Juncker outlined the progress made on the three issues of citizens’ rights, the Irish border and the divorce bill, and agreed to move on to talks about the UK’s future relationship with the bloc, at a joint press conference at Commission headquarters on Friday morning.

Speculation that a deal had been reached mounted after Juncker’s chief of staff Martin Selmayr tweeted a picture of white smoke earlier on Friday morning.

The agreement will be passed on to the European Council and member states will decide whether or not to accept it in time for next week’s summit (14-15 December).

“The decision is now in the hands of the 27 heads of state and government,” Juncker said. “I am sure they will share our appraisal.”

The Commission president welcomed the deal on citizens’ rights, saying: “Today we bring back certainty” for EU citizens in the UK. He stressed that the right of EU citizens in the UK – and UK citizens in the EU – to live, work and study would remain the same, and that they would retain the right to family reunification, healthcare and social security.

Under the deal struck, these rights would be protected by UK law, not the European Court of Justice. Read the text of the deal here.

On Ireland, Juncker said he had spoken first with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar then May on Thursday night in a bid to break a deadlock over the wording of a deal on future border arrangements.

“The peace process is a priority,” the Commission president said, adding that the EU would continue to support peace and reconciliation on the island.

“The EU27 stand firmly behind Ireland and the peace process,” he said.

May also hailed Friday’s agreement as “a significant improvement” on the version that was rejected by her Northern Irish coalition partners the Democratic Unionist Party earlier in the week.

She stressed that it had required “give and take on both sides” but that the deal to be put to the European Council was “a hard-won agreement in all our interests”.

Juncker highlighted that today’s announced breakthrough does not constitute a final deal, but a step along the road: “Let me be clear: we still have a lot of work to do. This is not the withdrawal agreement.”

Tusk says the hardest is still to come

Following May and Juncker’s joint press conference, European Council President Donald Tusk made a statement at 9:00 am.

He agreed that sufficient progress had been made and said he would recommend to the EU’s 27 heads of state and government that they move Brexit talks on to the second phase concerning the UK’s future relations with the EU and the two-year transitional period after it leaves the bloc in March 2019.

“We are ready to discuss a two-year transition period but we have our conditions,” he said.

During a transition period, Tusk insisted that the UK would have to respect the whole of EU law, including any new laws, the EU budget, judicial oversight and any related obligations.

“And decision-making will continue between the EU27 without the UK,” he added. “This is the only reasonable solution.”

Tusk said he was satisfied with Friday’s agreement, which he described as “a personal success for Theresa May”, but warned that “the most difficult challenge lies ahead”.

The two sides now have less than a year to close a deal on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.


Georgia ‘Closely Monitoring’ Jerusalem Developments

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(Civil.Ge) — “We have looked carefully at the statement made by the President of our strategic partner, the United States of America, regarding Jerusalem,” and “are closely monitoring the developments as this issue is being widely discussed internationally, including at the United Nations” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia said on December 7.

“Georgia supports the efforts of the international community aimed at the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which should be achieved through an agreement based on dialogue,” the Ministry also wrote, adding that “Considering this, we are carefully following the developments and will continue consultations with our partners.

The statement came shortly after Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili rejected the appeal by a ruling party MP Shota Shalelashvili that Georgia should support the United States decision to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem and recognize it as the country’s capital.

The Prime Minister said then that the country would “state its position on the basis of its national interests, considering the international situation and the threats that exist in the region.”

Afghanistan: Child Laborers Exposed To Abuse

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By Barat Ali Jafar*

Up to half of all child labourers working in districts in Balkh province have been victims of serious sexual assault, new research has found.

An investigation by the Afghan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Organisation (AHRRAO) revealed between four and five children out of every ten had suffered abuse.

Researchers said many of the assaults went unreported due to the victims’ sense of shame. They said that community elders and local leaders were also refusing to name offenders for fear of being themselves attacked.

Fardin (not his real name), a 15-year-old from Kamarband-e-Baba Yadgar in Mazar-e-Sharif, described being beaten and raped while working in the city’s market.

“I’ve always worked at the market pulling my wheelbarrow as my father is too ill,” he said. “Whenever I spot someone buying goods I run over to them and ask if they want help carrying it.

“One day I saw a man who had bought vegetables and other items and I offered to take them home for him. He asked me how much I charged and when I told him 20 Afghani, he put his goods in my wheelbarrow and told me to follow him.

“We went down the street to his home and he asked me to take the goods inside. But when I stepped into the house there were two other men there and instead of paying me they grabbed me and pulled me into a room where they locked the door and beat me up.

“I screamed a lot but no one came. They threw me to the ground, took my trousers off, tied my hands up and raped me.”

AHRRAO, which has been operating in Afghanistan’s northern provinces since 2010, carried out its study into child abuse between June and August 2017.

Researchers interviewed a total of 906 children from five districts in Balkh, including Nahr-e-Shahi, Balkh, Dehdadi, Sholgarah, and Khulm.

Resha Jaweed, a spokesman for the NGO, confirmed that many of the boys had kept the attacks secret for fear of shaming their families.

In response to the study, IWPR undertook its own investigation, interviewing a number of child workers in and around the markets of the Rawza Sharif mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan’s fourth-largest city. Several children who were willing to talk about how they had suffered.

Jamil, a 13-year-old who polishes shoes in the city, said, “I’ve been working around the mosque for two years now. I work every day from 7am in the morning until the evening.

“We have seven people in our family and because my father is old and cannot work I’m the one who has to make money in order to buy food.

“I don’t go to school – if I did where would my family get food from? My mother also begs in the city to make money.”

Jamil went on to explain how he had once been sexually assaulted as he walked home one evening.

He said, “I’d been roaming around Rawza Sharif all day and hadn’t worked much. By the time evening came I decided to buy some bread with the money I’d earned but I had nothing left to pay to get home.

“So I started out on foot and was almost halfway when a white Corolla stopped and the driver offered to give me a lift.

“I told him I was happy to walk but he insisted he was going in my direction so I jumped in.

“Soon after I got into the car I noticed we were going in the wrong direction. The man took me to a house where he beat me up and later raped me. I cried a lot but there was no one around to help. Afterwards he just put me back in his car and dropped me on the street of my home.

“I didn’t tell my mother what had happened. I just said I’d been beaten up by another boy and she told me not to come home so late.”

Ahmad Wahid Habibi, head of legal aid in the provincial department of juvenile rehabilitation, told IWPR that child labourers represented an easy target.

He said criminals often forced children into pickpocketing gangs or drug smuggling operations, and that the same youngsters were frequently sexually exploited.

He said, “So far this year prosecutors have been made aware of eight boys and 14 girls being sexually abused.”

Zakir Rasouli, the head of a child support programme affiliated with the Balkh department of labour and social affairs, said that child labour was a longstanding problem.

He said that a recent survey of Mazar-e-Sharif found just over 1,000 children working in a variety of jobs from selling ice cream, fruit and scrap metal to collecting bottles for recycling. Around a third of them were not attending school at all.

“The survey showed just how big an issue this is,” he continued. “Poverty and poor employment opportunities force families to send their children out to work which exposes them to exploitation. The research found children as young as seven working the streets, earning from 30 Afghani to 300 Afghani (4.5 US dollars) a day.”

Esmatullah Nasari, who runs the Empowerment Centre for Women (ECW), said that his organisation was currently working with local officials as well as religious scholars and activists to help reduce instances of sexual abuse.

“The abuse of children by those in positions of power appears to have become an unpleasant aspect of Afghan culture,” he said, noting the ongoing practice of “bacha bazi” – literally, boy play, which involves older men making young boys perform at private parties, after which they are often sexually abused.

“Our main goal is to stop this… and we’re currently helping a boy who was sexually assaulted in Mazar-e-Sharif a year ago take his case through the courts.”

Mazar-e-Sharif activist Najib Paikan told IWPR that he was hugely concerned by the problem and the apparent unwillingness by victims and their families to report offenders.

“A lack of public awareness and the failure of parents and families of victims to report these offences has prepared the ground for further acts of violence and rape,’ he said.

“If this issue of sexual assault isn’t stopped in its tracks it will spread and could have very dangerous consequences for our society.

“At the very least community representatives made aware of allegations of abuse should report such cases to the courts so the judiciary has the opportunity to bring these criminals to justice.

“If the nation doesn’t question and doesn’t investigate we can’t expect to solve this issue. Staying silent is just as big a crime,” he concluded.

Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence, some officials appeared unwilling to tackle the issue.

Mohammad Afzal Hadid, head of Balkh’s provincial council, told IWPR “I don’t deny there may be instances of sexual abuse here – these sorts of incidents could occur in any corner of the city – but I am not aware of specific cases.”

Bashir Tawhidi, deputy governor of Balkh province, refused to be interviewed on the subject at all.

“Don’t get me involved in this controversy,” he said. “Address your questions to human rights bodies – I don’t have time.”

This report was produced under IWPR’s Supporting Investigative Reporting in Local Media and Strengthening Civil Society across Afghanistan initiative, funded by the British Embassy Kabul. This article was published by IWPR’s ARR 583

Researchers Establish Long-Sought Source Of Ocean Methane

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Industrial and agricultural activities produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Many bacteria also produce methane as a byproduct of their metabolism. Some of this naturally released methane comes from the ocean, a phenomenon that has long puzzled scientists because there are no known methane-producing organisms living near the ocean’s surface.

A team of researchers from MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has made a discovery that could help to answer this “ocean methane paradox.” First, they identified the structure of an enzyme that can produce a compound that is known to be converted to methane. Then, they used that information to show that this enzyme exists in some of the most abundant marine microbes. They believe that this compound is likely the source of methane gas being released into the atmosphere above the ocean.

Ocean-produced methane represents around 4 percent of the total that’s discharged into the atmosphere, and a better understanding of where this methane is coming from could help scientists better account for its role in climate change, the researchers say.

“Understanding the global carbon cycle is really important, especially when talking about climate change,” saidCatherine Drennan, an MIT professor of chemistry and biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “Where is methane really coming from? How is it being used? Understanding nature’s flux is important information to have in all of those discussions.”

Drennan and Wilfred van der Donk, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears in the Dec. 7 online edition of Science. Lead authors are David Born, a graduate student at MIT and Harvard University, and Emily Ulrich, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Solving the mystery

Many bacteria produce methane as a byproduct of their metabolism, but most of these bacteria live in oxygen-poor environments such as the deep ocean or the digestive tract of animals — not near the ocean’s surface.

Several years ago, van der Donk and University of Illinois colleague William Metcalf found a possible clue to the mystery of ocean methane: They discovered a microbial enzyme that produces a compound called methylphosphonate, which can become methane when a phosphate molecule is cleaved from it. This enzyme was found in a microbe called Nitrosopumilus maritimus, which lives near the ocean surface, but the enzyme was not readily identified in other ocean microbes as one would have expected it to be.

Van der Donk’s team knew the genetic sequence of the enzyme, known as methylphosphonate synthase (MPnS), which allowed them to search for other versions of it in the genomes of other microbes. However, every time they found a potential match, the enzyme turned out to be a related enzyme called hydroxyethylphosphonate dioxygenase (HEPD), which generates a product that is very similar to methylphosphonate but cannot be cleaved to produce methane.

Van der Donk asked Drennan, an expert in determining chemical structures of proteins, if she could try to reveal the structure of MPnS, in hopes that it would help them find more variants of the enzyme in other bacteria.

To find the structure, the MIT team used X-ray crystallography, which they performed in a special chamber with no oxygen. They knew that the enzyme requires oxygen to catalyze the production of methylphosphonate, so by eliminating oxygen they were able to get snapshots of the enzyme as it bound to the necessary reaction partners but before it performed the reaction.

The researchers compared the crystallography data from MPnS with the related HEPD enzyme and found one small but critical difference. In the active site of both enzymes (the part of the protein that catalyzes chemical reactions), there is an amino acid called glutamine. In MPnS, this glutamine molecule binds to iron, a necessary cofactor for the production of methylphosphonate. The glutamine is fixed in an iron-binding orientation by the bulky amino acid isoleucine, which is directly below the glutamine in MPnS. However, in HEPD, the isoleucine is replaced by glycine, and the glutamine is free to rearrange so that it is no longer bound to iron.

“We were looking for differences that would lead to different products, and that was the only difference that we saw,” Born said. Furthermore, the researchers found that changing the glycine in HEPD to isoleucine was sufficient to convert the enzyme to an MPnS.

An abundant enzyme

By searching databases of genetic sequences from thousands of microbes, the researchers found hundreds of enzymes with the same structural configuration seen in their original MPnS enzyme. Furthermore, all of these were found in microbes that live in the ocean, and one was found in a strain of an extremely abundant ocean microbe known as Pelagibacter ubique.

It is still unknown what function this enzyme and its product serve in ocean bacteria. Methylphosphonates are believed to be incorporated into fatty molecules called phosphonolipids, which are similar to the phospholipids that make up cell membranes.

“The function of these phosphonolipids is not well-established, although they’ve been known to be around for decades. That’s a really interesting question to ask,” Born said. “Now we know they’re being produced in large quantities, especially in the ocean, but we don’t actually know what they do or how they benefit the organism at all.”

Another key question is how the production of methane by these organisms is influenced by environmental conditions in the ocean, including temperature and pollution such as fertilizer runoff.

“We know that methylphosphonate cleavage occurs when microbes are starved for phosphorus, but we need to figure out what nutrients are connected to this, and how is that connected to the pH of the ocean, and how is it connected to temperature of the ocean,” Drennan said. “We need all of that information to be able to think about what we’re doing, so we can make intelligent decisions about protecting the oceans.”

Fundamental Principles Of Income Tax Reform – OpEd

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As 2017 was rushing to its end, the U.S. House and Senate passed different versions of income tax reform legislation, one of the Trump Administration’s top policy priorities. If a reconciled bill emerges from conference committee and is approved by majorities in both chambers of Congress before year’s end, the legislative effort would fulfill the president’s promise to oversee the first significant change to the U.S. income tax code since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House.

At the time of this writing, no one knows the devilish details of the final tax reform law, if it is in fact passed in time to take effect before a new tax season begins on January 1, 2018. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that, no matter how well-intentioned and how consistent with the principles of public finance 2017’s tax reform attempt may be, the law’s provisions ultimately will be influenced heavily by a political process that is sensitive to the influence of well-organized special interest groups. Tax reform inevitably creates winners and losers.

Tax Simplification. Few voices on the left or the right of the political spectrum are heard in support of today’s income tax code, which is thousands of pages long and filled with credits and exemptions that benefit some taxpayers at the expense of others. Individuals spend hundreds of hours every year to keep the income and expense records necessary to comply with the law and complete their income tax returns. Many people unknowingly an unintentionally violate the tax laws because of their complexity and impenetrability. In an ideal world, tax laws would be simple, few credits and exemptions would be available and tax returns could be filed on a postcard.

Broad Tax Bases and Low Tax Rates. Complex tax codes with multiple tax brackets distort the decisions people make between work and leisure and between spending and saving. Such distortions are minimized by reducing the number of income tax brackets and lowering the rates at which earned income is taxed. Evidence from here at home (the tax cuts overseen by presidents Kennedy and Reagan as well as from around the world) show that reductions in income tax rates generate increases in income tax revenue far larger than seen following tax rate increases because individuals’ incentives to spend time and effort avoiding paying taxes are weakened when tax rates are low.

Virtually all of the tax revenue increases from lower tax rates comes from high income earners for two reasons. First, only individuals in the top 60 percent of income earners pay any income taxes at all. Second, it is only those individuals who can afford to pay tax lawyers and accountants for advice on how to take advantage of tax law provisions that allow them to shield their incomes from taxation.

On the corporate income tax side, it is critical to get tax rates down to levels consistent with the rest of the world, meaning a top rate of 20 percent not nearly 40 percent. Corporations do not pay income taxes, only people do. Because corporate income taxes are shifted to their owners, employees, suppliers and customers, one can make a principled argument for an income tax rate of zero for corporations.

Revenue “Neutrality” is a Unicorn. While it may be possible in theory to reform the tax code in ways that hold tax revenue constant, it is impossible in political practice. Every effort to modify tax laws elicits lobbying efforts aimed at shifting the taxpaying burden onto others’ shoulders. Realtors and developers fight to the death to keep the income tax deduction for mortgage interest payments, politicians representing cities and states with high income tax rates defend deductions on federal income tax returns for state and local income tax payments, and on and on. Because changes in the tax code inevitably create winners and losers, tax reform never can be neutral in another sense, namely that taxpayers’ behaviors are unaffected by whatever changes are adopted; they act rationally to minimize reform’s effects on their income tax bills.

Why should anyone but a politician worry about income tax cuts not reducing income tax revenue in the first place? If the federal government is unwilling to balance its budget by raising enough revenue to meet its expenditures, it should heed the advice of Adam Smith (and Charles Dickens’s Mr. Micawber) to lower its spending to meet its revenue.

This article was published by The Beacon.

If Trump Revolution Is Possible, So Is A Progressive One – OpEd

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By John Feffer*

Don’t kid yourself: 2016 was a revolutionary year in the United States.

Yes, I know, the United States is a deeply conservative country. Americans don’t engage in periodic attempts to overthrow the system. There is no viable political party that threatens the status quo. When protesters gather in Washington, they have no intention of storming Congress, the White House, or the Federal Reserve.

The most radical movements, like Occupy Wall Street, are leaderless and amorphous, and thus toothless.

Americans are so conservative that the revolution that created the country in the 18th century appears in history books as more a break from England than a break from tradition.

So, when a revolution does occur, Americans can’t even recognize what’s in front of their eyes.

The election of Donald Trump last year was revolutionary — even though it took place through established institutions and had all the hallmarks of a reaction (to the Obama “revolution”). Trump supporters thrilled to their candidate’s promises to tear down everything that hitherto represented the establishment: all politicians, Wall Street, the Pentagon, federal institutions, Hollywood, even the international community.

This urge to destroy even carried over to the cultural level, where Trump effectively abolished “political correctness” — a derogatory term for what other folks would just call being respectful. Such a sweeping transformation of social conventions was comparable to French revolutionaries creating their own calendar, replacing the names of the months with such peculiarities as Brumaire and Thermidor.

Don’t be fooled by Trump’s own elite cred. Many revolutionaries — George Washington, Lenin — came from the same segment of society that they aimed to overthrow. Also, don’t fall for the “restoration” rhetoric of the Trumpistas. The America of the past that they invoke is imaginary. They are out to construct a bold, new America that combines elements of the past — racism, homophobia, extreme wealth — with a new vision of shrunken government and corporations run amok. It is an overturning of the liberal order that has prevailed for much of the last century.

Of course, the Trump victory resulted from the same kind of improbabilities as most revolutions. His electoral margin was miniscule (a matter of some 80,000 votes in three key states, though he in fact lost the overall popular vote by millions more). He benefited from the huge intervention of unrestricted “dark money” made possible by the 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. And he had the twin tailwinds of WikiLeaks and Russian digital skullduggery (which might have been a single tailwind, protestations of Julian Assange notwithstanding).

In other words, Trump didn’t represent an overwhelming urge by a majority of Americans to upend their own society. Ever since Russian revolutionaries called themselves Bolsheviks (the majoritarians) when they were so manifestly the political minority, insurrectionists have made misleading claims about their popular support. Trump is a man of the (ever-diminishing slice of the) people.

There’s another important revolutionary aspect to consider. All revolutions are doomed to eat their own. The insurrectionists have their knives out. The bloody feast has begun.

A Russian Meal

In the old days, when insurrectionists feared a counter-coup and had to clear out of the royal palace as soon as possible, they stole whatever they could easily transport — the silverware, a few bottles of fine wine, priceless paintings sliced from their frames and rolled up.

Trump and his cronies always planned a grand looting of the commonwealth. But the increased tempo of their snatch and grab in recent days suggests that they’re feeling a certain desperation as the Russiagate noose tightens. There’s the gerrymandering of the two national monuments in Utah that will open up vast tracts to energy and mineral companies. There’s the tax reform package that will reward America’s wealthiest. There’s the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which is a big give-away to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his U.S. backers.

Even if they believe that they can escape the Russian probe, the Trump insurrectionists are certainly worried about next year’s mid-term elections. They are checking their watches to see how much longer they can use their positions for maximum personal benefit.

Yes, of course, they all protest loudly that they’re serving their country. But you probably didn’t hear the mumbled end of their sentence. They’re serving their country…to the wolves.

Now, in a fitting turnabout, they are also worried about being served.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has already pleaded guilty to lying about his Russia contacts. The plea also involves cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller. That means that the investigation will acquire more details not only about what took place after the election, but also before the election.

In light of the ongoing revelations, major administration figures have had to recast their earlier stories of their contact with Russia and WikiLeaks, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We used to call such initial statements “perjury.” But revolutionary times demand a new revolutionary language: and thus Kushner and Sessions simply “misremembered.”

The president has already tried to diminish the importance of earlier indictments against former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates, as well as foreign policy advisor George Papadopolous. It won’t be so easy for Trump to diminish the importance of Kushner or Sessions. As we slouch further into this era of implausible deniability, the president himself will be backed against the wall, not by counter-revolutionaries with pitchforks but lawyers with summonses. Imagine all the delicious secrets contained in his tax returns alone.

Of course, it’s not just the Russia probe that’s causing a change of personnel in the Trump administration. Infighting, scandal, and sheer incompetence have already claimed Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Tom Price, Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci, and Sebastian Gorka.

As in any revolution, the truly ruthless are waiting in the wings for their chance. Rumors abound of a shake-up at the highest level that would expel Rex Tillerson, a relative vegetarian among the carnivores, and replace him at secretary of state with the truly repellent Mike Pompeo. The new CIA chief, according to The New York Times report that Trump later blasted as “fake news,” would be Tom Cotton. The young Arkansas Republican will soon be the standard-bearer for the new Republican Party, someone who can combine the aggression of the neo-cons with the social conservativism and “common touch” of the Trump wing.

Look upon 2020 and despair! Cotton is far more dangerous than Trump or even the telegenic evangelist Mike Pence.

Such is the logic of revolution. After Lenin: Stalin.

On the Bright Side

As with all revolutions, the Trump insurrection has opened people’s eyes to the potential instability of all that had previously seemed solid. If the Clinton dynasty could come to an end at the hands of someone so obviously ill equipped to lead the country, then perhaps the institutions of the status quo are not as firmly entrenched as conventional wisdom would make them out to be.

First off, the victory of an outsider has encouraged other outsiders, this time on the progressive side of the spectrum, to get involved in politics, from transgender candidate Danica Roehm snagging a seat in the Virginia state house to Liberian refugee Wilmot Collins becoming mayor of Helena, Montana. There are two Indivisible chapters in every congressional district, and much of the new electoral energy is coming from women. According to Emily’s List, 20,000 women have thrown their hat into the political ring (including my former IPS colleague Daphne Wysham, who is running for a seat in the Oregon statehouse).

The resistance is not confined to the electoral arena. The Black Lives Matter movement is mobilizing with renewed energy against the uptick in racism in the Trump era.

Then there’s the widespread resistance to sexual harassment.

At one level, the accusations that continue to take down powerful men in the entertainment industry, politics, commerce, and journalism represent the determination by victims to get rid of the “bad eggs.” But such a campaign promises to be much more: a thoroughgoing resistance to the combination of privilege (generally male) and power (also overwhelmingly male).

Replacing a few malefactors is hardly revolutionary. Transforming American institutions so that they no longer reproduce patriarchy — well, that’s a paradigm shift.

Revolution is in the air. Why should the far right have all the fun?

*John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands.

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