A recent Levada Center survey found that 39 percent of Russians say they identify with the place where they were born and grew up, a figure exceeded only by the history of their country and more than twice the 17 percent who identify with the Russian state (newsru.com/russia/21dec2017/opros.html).

In an interview with the After Empire portal, Roman Bagdasarov, a specialist on religion and culture, points out that the word motherland is “literally the place of birth” and therefore is fixed for all time, while the idea of “’a big motherland’” is inevitably a construction that changes as identities change (afterempire.info/2017/12/22/malaya_rodina/).

“The larger in size the ‘big’ motherland is, the more imagination is needed to embrace it,” the scholar continues. But while no Russian citizen has ever seen the entire country – it is too big for that — those who identify with it as a motherland do not have any doubts about their connection with it in its full extent.

At the same time, Bagdasarov says, people can change their “big” motherlands many times in the course of their lives either by moving or because of political changes; but no matter how much that happens, their “small” motherlands remain constant and unique. No one can change where he or she was born.

They may change their attitudes toward that place, but for Russians, there is a fifth line of the passport which continues to matter to them throughout their lives, “’the place of birth.’”

“In Soviet times,” After Empire points out, “regions of the empire such as oblasts and republics were often understood as ‘small motherlands.’” Estonia before 1991 was for its residents “’a small motherland.’” But after 1991, it became a “big” one – and now Bagdasarov adds, it may become once again a “small” one but this time within the European Union.

Sometimes when people change their big motherland for another, they compensate by becoming more conscious of other identities such as ethnicity, the cultural specialist says, as when ethnic Ukrainians left Tajikistan after the latter place became independent. But at the same time, they retain a link to the place where they were born even if it is less close.

But even without changes in political borders, individuals may change the way they link themselves to their small motherlands, viewing them as more important than they were, something that appears to be happening in many places in Russia, or less, depending on the social and political winds.

Topeka Hindu Temple (THT) has reportedly purchased a building in Kansas capital Topeka, which was formerly a Masonic Temple.

According to reports, this building was previously owned by Topeka “Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry”. It will be converted to a Hindu place of worship. Area Hindus, who have been living here since 1960s, used to travel to Shawnee for worship needs, which is about 60 miles.

THT, besides being a place of worship and religious rituals; will also celebrate various festivals, organize cultural and educational activities, hold events, raise money for charities; and be a gathering place for the community. This first Hindu temple in the area will be open to all, reports suggest.

Meanwhile, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, commended efforts of temple leaders and area community towards realizing this temple.

Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that it was important to pass on Hindu spirituality, concepts and traditions to coming generations amidst so many distractions in the consumerist society and hoped that this temple would help in this direction. Zed stressed that instead of running after materialism; we should focus on inner search and realization of Self and work towards achieving moksh (liberation), which was the goal of Hinduism.

THT is a non-profit organization and is now seeking donations and volunteers.

Chemotherapy for one type of leukaemia could be improved by giving patients a drug currently used to treat an unrelated condition, new research shows.

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is an aggressive cancer that stops healthy blood cell production. Chemotherapy is the standard treatment, but improvements are needed as the five-year survival rate in patients older than 60 is only 5-15 per cent.

Now, by studying how leukaemia cells infiltrate bone marrow, where blood cells are created, researchers led by a team from Imperial College London have made a crucial discovery.

Studying mice and human samples, they found that certain areas in the bone marrow support blood stem cells, and when these are overtaken by leukaemia cells, these stem cells are lost and production of healthy blood is significantly reduced. This can cause anaemia, infection, and bleeding in patients, and affects the success of chemotherapy.

Crucially, the team also discovered that a drug already approved to treat a condition known as iron overload can protect these important bone marrow areas and allow blood stem cells to survive. Their results are published today in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The study’s lead author, Dr Cristina Lo Celso from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: “Since the drug is already approved for human use for a different condition, we already know that it is safe.

“We still need to test it in the context of leukaemia and chemotherapy, but because it is already in use we can progress to clinical trials much quicker than we could with a brand new drug.”

The researchers are now hoping to team up with clinicians to begin human trials of the drug for AML. Understanding whether this drug is a viable option should take less than five years, as opposed to the 10-15 needed if an entirely new drug is developed.

The team conducted the study by filming the invasion of leukaemia cells into bone marrow in mice. This approach allowed them see both large overviews and incredible details of the bone marrow, revealing phenomena happening deep inside the bone marrow – a view usually inaccessible to direct observation in patients.

The group discovered that one of the spaces hit particularly hard by leukaemia were special regions of blood vessels where blood stem cells reside. These are the basic blood cells that can become all other types of blood cells, including red and white, generating billions of new cells every day of our life.

For this reason, these special blood vessel regions are vital for producing new healthy blood, and their destruction by leukaemia allows the disease to progress. The loss of these vessels was confirmed in humans by studying patient tissue samples.

To see if they could protect the vessels, the team tested a drug called deferoxamine. The drug is used to treat iron overload, which can happen for example when a person receives multiple blood transfusions.

Deferoxamine has also been used in the treatment of myelodysplasia, a disease related to leukaemia where young blood stem cells do not mature into healthy blood cells. Other researchers who contributed to this project, and are now based at Imperial, Max Plank Munster, and Oxford Kennedy Institute, showed that this drug increases bone marrow vessels in aged mice.

Dr Lo Celso’s group now found that the drug had a protective effect on the blood vessels in AML, allowing the rescue of healthy blood stem cells. Moreover, the enhanced vessels improved the efficiency of chemotherapy.

Delfim Duarte, a physician and PhD student who performed most of the experiments published today, said: “Our work suggests that therapies targeting these blood vessels may improve existing therapeutic regimes for AML, and perhaps other leukaemias too.”

A study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found the natural decline in lung function over a 10-year period was slower among former smokers with a diet high in tomatoes and fruits, especially apples, suggesting certain components in these foods might help restore lung damage caused by smoking.

The researchers found that adults who on average ate more than two tomatoes or more than three portions of fresh fruit a day had a slower decline in lung function compared to those who ate less than one tomato or less than one portion of fruit a day, respectively. The researchers inquired about other dietary sources such as dishes and processed foods containing fruits and vegetables (e.g. tomato sauce) but the protective effect was only observed in fresh fruit and vegetables.

The paper, which is part of the Ageing Lungs in European Cohorts (ALEC) Study, funded by the European Commission and led by Imperial College London, also found a slower decline in lung function among all adults, including those who had never or had stopped smoking, with the highest tomato consumption. Poor lung function has been linked with mortality risks from all diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and lung cancer.

The findings appear in the December issue of the European Respiratory Journal.

“This study shows that diet might help repair lung damage in people who have stopped smoking. It also suggests that a diet rich in fruits can slow down the lung’s natural aging process even if you have never smoked,” said Vanessa Garcia-Larsen, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health and the study’s lead author. “The findings support the need for dietary recommendations, especially for people at risk of developing respiratory diseases such as COPD.”

For the study, the research team assessed diet and lung function of more than 650 adults in 2002, and then repeated lung function tests on the same group of participants 10 years later. Participants from three European countries — Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom — completed questionnaires assessing their diets and overall nutritional intake. They also underwent spirometry, a procedure that measures the capacity of lungs to take in oxygen.

The test collects two standard measurements of lung function: Forced Exhaled Volume in 1 second (FEV1), which measures how much air a person can expel from their lungs in one second; and Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), the total amount of air a person can inhale in 6 seconds. The study controlled for factors such as age, height, sex, body mass index (an indicator of obesity), socio-economic status, physical activity and total energy intake.

Among former smokers, the diet-lung-function connection was even more striking. Ex-smokers who ate a diet high in tomatoes and fruits had around 80 ml slower decline over the ten-year period. This suggests that nutrients in their diets are helping to repair damage done by smoking.

“Lung function starts to decline at around age 30 at variable speed depending on the general and specific health of individuals,” explained Garcia-Larsen “Our study suggests that eating more fruits on a regular basis can help attenuate the decline as people age, and might even help repair damage caused by smoking. Diet could become one way of combating rising diagnosis of COPD around the world.”

Famine may be largely a thing of the past but in recent years the re-emergence of a disease that can kill wheat – which provides a fifth of humanity’s food – has threatened food security; now a breakthrough is being announced just before Christmas, in two companion papers being published in the journal Science.

In a world first, science has leaped a step ahead of an old foe that has recently re-emerged in some parts of the world, where it has devastated crops because of its ability to evolve, undoing much of the hard work that began in earnest with the Green Revolution – using natural techniques to isolate the first rust pathogen gene that wheat plants detect and use to ‘switch on’ in-built resistance.

The breakthrough in research targeting the stem rust foe – historically the most dangerous pathogen of wheat – will mean suspect samples could be analysed within hours in an emergency rather than weeks, potentially saving crops from being destroyed.

“For the first time it will be possible to do DNA testing to identify whether a rust in a wheat crop anywhere in the world can overcome a rust-resistance gene, called Sr50, which is being introduced in high-yielding wheat varieties,” said Professor Robert Park, corresponding author from the University of Sydney.

“This will indicate whether or not a given wheat crop needs to be sprayed with expensive fungicide quickly to protect against rust – which would otherwise devastate the crop in a matter of weeks.”

Rust disease epidemics have emerged at times in tandem with carefully refined selective breeding in cereals; the disease is once again extremely damaging in East Africa and is making a comeback in Europe.

The new findings are being published in one of the world’s leading journals, the US-based Science.

Mr Jiapeng Chen, a PhD candidate from the University of Sydney who initiated the work by sequencing and analysing the genome of a virulent rust isolate, said this was the first important step in addressing the diagnostic challenges posed by ever-changing fungi, which result in new rust pathogen strains.

Professor Park explained: “It’s like an ongoing arms race – we’ve got to keep one step ahead of this changing pathogen.

“The last major epidemic of wheat stem rust in Australia alone, in 1973, caused $AU300 million in damage – imagine what that would be today.”

Co-corresponding author, Dr Peter Dodds from the Commonweatlh Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, said demand for wheat in the developing world was expected to jump 60 percent by 2050 and in economic terms alone the ramifications were huge.

“Now that we’ve identified how stem rust strains are able to overcome Sr50 resistance – by mutation of a gene we’ve identified called AvrSr50 – this information can be used to help prioritise resistance genes for deployment.

“Our results so far show the plant immune system is able directly to recognise the fungal protein, said Dr Peter Dodds, from CSIRO’s Agriculture and Food team. “We are gaining a better understanding of the whole process – what’s going on at the protein level, at the gene level.”

Co-author Dr Kostya Kanyuka from Rothamsted Research, an agricultural science centre in the United Kingdom, said stem rust had been making a comeback in Europe, for example in Sweden as recently as this year, and was threatening Asia and the US.

“The highly virulent Ug99 race of the stem rust fungus – which emerged in 1998 in Uganda – has become even more potent as it has spread through Africa and the Middle East, with winds threatening to carry it into Asia,” Dr Kanyuka said.

US collaborators Professor Melania Figueroa, Professor Brian Steffenson and Dr Yue Jin were able to extend the results of the study by examining strains of the stem rust pathogen from other parts of the world, including the US and Africa.

“It is important to look at this gene in worldwide rust strains to gain a picture of where virulence is most likely to evolve,” Professor Figueroa said.

Professor Park, from the Plant Breeding Institute, part of the University’s Sydney Institute of Agriculture and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, said the results should also lead to a better understanding of how rust pathogens infect wheat, evading detection by the wheat plant, and causing yield losses.

“In addition to the immediate practical benefit regarding the important rust-resistance gene Sr50, our world-first finding could potentially have a longer-term payoff in the 10-15-year horizon,” he said.

Americans drink an average of 3.1 cups of coffee per day; for many people, the popular beverage is a morning necessity. When carrying a liquid, common sense says to walk slowly and refrain from overfilling the container. But when commuters rush out the door with coffee in hand, chances are their hastiness causes some of the hot liquid to slosh out of the cup. The resulting spills, messes, and mild burns undoubtedly counteract coffee’s savory benefits.

Sloshing occurs when a vessel of liquid–coffee in a mug, water in a bucket, liquid natural gas in a tanker, etc.–oscillates horizontally around a fixed position near a resonant frequency; this motion occurs when the containers are carried or moved.

While nearly all transport containers have rigid handles, a bucket with a pivoted handle allows rotation around a central axis and greatly reduces the chances of spilling. Although this is not necessarily a realistic on-the-go solution for most beverages, the mitigation or elimination of sloshing is certainly desirable. In a recent article published in SIAM Review, Hilary and John Ockendon use surprisingly simple mathematics to develop a model for sloshing. Their model comprises a mug on a smooth horizontal table that oscillates in a single direction via a spring connection.

“We chose the mathematically simplest model with which to understand the basic mechanics of pendulum action on sloshing problems,” J. Ockendon said.

The authors derive their inspiration from an Ig Nobel prize-winning paper describing a basic mechanical model that investigates the results of walking backwards while carrying a cup of coffee. They use both Newton’s laws of physics and the basic properties of hydrodynamics to employ a so-called “paradigm” configuration, which explains how a cradle introduces an extra degree of freedom that in turn modifies the liquid’s response.

“The paradigm model contains the same mechanics as the pendulum but is simpler to write down,” Ockendon said. “We found some experimental results on the paradigm model, which meant we could make some direct comparisons.”

The authors evaluate this scenario rather than the more realistic but complicated use of a mug as a cradle that moves like a simple pendulum. To further simplify their model, they assume that the mug in question is rectangular and engaged in two-dimensional motion, i.e., motion perpendicular to the direction of the spring’s action is absent. Because the coffee is initially at rest, the flow is always irrotational.

“Our model considers sloshing in a tank suspended from a pivot that oscillates horizontally at a frequency close to the lowest sloshing frequency of the liquid in the tank,” Ockendon said. “Together we have written several papers on classical sloshing over the last 40 years, but only recently were we stimulated by these observations to consider the pendulum effect.”

Variables in the initial model represent (i) a hand moving around a fixed position, (ii) the frequency of walking, typically between 1-2 Hertz, and (iii) a spring connecting the shaking hand to the mug, which slides on the table’s smooth surface. Ockendon and Ockendon are most interested in the spring’s effect on the motion of the liquid.

The authors solve the model’s equations via separation of variables and analyze the subsequent result with a response diagram depicting the sloshing amplitude’s dependence on forcing frequency. The mug’s boundary conditions assume that the normal velocity of both the liquid and the mug are the same, and that the oscillation’s amplitude is small. Ockendon and Ockendon linearize the boundary conditions to avoid solving a nonlinear free boundary problem with no explicit solution. They record the equation of motion for the container to couple the motion of the liquid and the spring. In this case, the spring’s tension and the pressure on the walls of the container are the acting horizontal forces.

The authors discover that including a string or a pendulum between the container and the carrying hand (the forcing mechanism) lessens the rigidity and dramatically decreases the lowest resonant frequency, thus diminishing sloshing for almost all frequencies. “Our model shows that, compared to an unpivoted tank, the amplitude of the lowest resonant response will be significantly reduced, provided the length of the pendulum is greater than the length of the tank,” Ockendon said.

In conclusion, Ockendon and Ockendon use simplistic modeling and analysis to explain a common phenomenon that nearly everybody experiences. They suggest that future analysts investigate sloshing in a cylindrical rather than rectangular mug, or with vertical rather than horizontal oscillations, as both of these factors complicate the model. One could also examine the spring action’s effect on the system’s nonlinear behavior near resonance. Ultimately, researchers can employ basic ideas from this study to consider the nonlinear response of shallow water sloshing, which has a variety of real-world applications.

A federal judge in Seattle has partially lifted a ban on certain refugees imposed by the Trump administration.

On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, U.S. District Judge James Robart on Saturday issued a ruling to halt the ban on refugees from some majority-Muslim nations.

The ban originally went into effect in October after President Trump issued an executive order reinstating the refugee program “with enhanced vetting capabilities.”

Plaintiffs in the cases are refugees who “find themselves in dire circumstances, their family members who yearn to be reunited with them, and humanitarian organizations whose fundamental mission is to help these vulnerable refugees resettle in the United States,” Robart said. “Plaintiffs in both cases present compelling circumstances of irreparable harm inflicted by the federal agencies’ action at issue here.”

Robart said the ruling does not apply to refugees who do not have a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

Original source

Afghanistan’s strategic location is not only of an immense importance but also the tremendous natural resources the country possesses. According to AISA research, there are various types of valuable minerals in Afghanistan that are yet to be unearthed. Afghanistan potential as a rich country in terms of natural resources is of significant to driving the country’s donor dependent economy into a self-sufficient state. Lack of peace, exploitation of minerals by warlords, lack of regulation and infrastructure have not allowed the country to stand on its feet.

In this article, I will be looking at the general mining practices around the world and comparing it with Afghanistan and by the same token explain how the challenges that jeopardizes professional mining in the country.

Lack of detailed Geological and Geographical information of the mining sites

The fact is that Afghanistan has the most complex and varied geology in the world, it is very essential to study and collect enough of information regarding the geology and geography of the mining sites. Unfortunately, Afghanistan remained in war for almost 4 decades, from the foreign invasion to civil wars and it has paralysed the mining sector in terms of collection of geological data, geophysical prospecting which is directly related to the mineral discovery, subsurface geological features usually with economic objectives. Though, in this regard Afghanistan Geological Survey (AGS) is the national custodian of geoscientific information but mining sector needs more detailed information regarding minerals discovery.

The current mining operational practices and extraction of minerals, do not have enough of clues regarding the geology of the sites being mined, the hydrogeology of the area and more possible minerals being disturbed or avoided. The more important is the extraction of minerals indulges the more detailed geological, geographical and hydrogeological knowledge to avoid numerous environmental impacts and hazards which has to be taken in account.

Well defined Topography and Aerial Surveys

A topographic map with contour intervals gives detailed information regarding relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface and the identification of the specific landform.  Aerial surveys and mapping technologies have been used for over 40 years around the world in terms of assisting mining companies through all phases of a mine’s life, including exploration, resource evaluation, feasibility, mine design, development, operations and site rehabilitation.

From Afghanistan mining perspective, on small scale mining even though in some cases in large scale mining application most often we avoid the importance of Geographical information system (GIS), aerial digital surveys and we lack these foremost important facilities in order to come up with a successful mining practices. It is very essential for the companies working in mining sector to adopt the standard mining operations from start to end.

Selection of Suitable Mining Method

Mining method selection is one of the most critical and crucial part of mining engineering. However, the ultimate goals to select a suitable mining method is to maximum the profit, increase the extraction and recovery of mineral deposits and work on safe environment for the miners with least problems among the feasible alternatives.

The selection of a suitable mining method is a real problematic task that needs consideration of many technical aspects, economic, political and social aspects.

Technical feasibility, ore geometry and ground conditions are the important consideration that has to be taken in account along with low-cost mining operation.

Every ore body has its own unique occurrences with various properties, and engineering judgement in this particular part has a great effect on the decision in such versatile job of mining. In Afghanistan, mostly we have observed the old conventional surface mining methods, where in some cases it contradicts with the mineral deposit or ore body. It is very much important to study, search and adopt the current mining methods that are being used around the world.

Selection of Suitable machinery and Equipment

We have witnessed millions of dollars are being poured into the mining industry but we are failed to equip the mining operations with suitable advanced machinery and equipment. According to the directorate of Policy, MOM, encourages the importation of latest technology, quarrying equipment and machinery that would improve the efficiency, productivity of mining applications but unfortunately yet it is not brought into actions. Lapis lazuli and tourmaline mines of the rugged north-eastern province of Badakhshan are considered to be the richest assets of mining industry in Afghanistan, but due to improper mining and direct rivals in the violent competition between warlords disrupt the mining sites.

If these mines become standardised, formalized and facilitated with suitable equipment and machinery, a mine worker would not carry load of over a 100kg lapis lazuli down the valley.  The selection of these machinery and equipment varies in terms of the mineral deposit, method of mining and items of equipment to perform a specified task. Since we have most of the surface mining applications, the selection of equipment to extract and haul mined material, which includes both ore and waste, over the life time of mining pit.  With selection of suitable fleet of equipment and their application, not only minimize the capital cost but also minimize the operational costs. Keeping in consideration and classifying the equipment selection process into three main phases, such as type of fleet, size of equipment and calculation of the required numbers.

Lack of Advanced Technology & Software to Create Ore Body Model

The development and advancement of computer technology rapidly increasing day by day and it has made the mining applications very simple and easy. The very important and basic usage of the computerised software in the mining is the reserve estimation, geological modelling, layout evaluation and mine design, financial modelling, selection of equipment and scheduling, geotechnical information and monitoring the overall mining operation. The sad dilemma is that in Afghanistan mining sector most of the mines yet do not have the usage of all these software facilities.

It is important for the government and the Ministry of Mines (MoM) to urge the artisanal and small-scale mining companies to use recent advanced software such as SURPAC, MINEX, OPTIMUM, SURFUR, VULCAN, iGantt and many more. These latest and advanced software should become a part of academic excellence in universities for degree and diploma programs and government ought to arrange such informative seminars and workshops on this.  As these integrated computers aided mine planning and design software not only help to increase the deposit-grade recovery but also greatly reduces the cost.

Lack of Mining Experts

Mining is a versatile field, it needs a lot of knowledge and experience to understand. A mining expert and engineer ensure that new processes and advanced technologies are introduced so that current businesses are optimised, update and utilised. This can only be done by innovative ideas to ensure quantum leap in performance and competitiveness. The mining experts and engineers supposed to have scarce and crucial skills. Unfortunately, Afghanistan mining sector has got very less number of such skilful experts. In small scale mining, we have observed contract based labours those who are not mining engineers by profession neither they have earned mining diploma. A mining engineer and expert supposed to ensure the safe and efficient development of mines along with surface and underground mining operations, surrounding environment and technical skills.

Processing Plants

As the word ‘processing’ indicates to those methods are being employed in mining industry to clean, separate, and prepare coal, metals, and non-metallic minerals from mines into final marketable products. The processing plants are responsible for the extraction of the pure form of the mineral from the ore body which is later on securely packed and shipped to market and customers for further usage and conversion. This help in getting a first-hand revenue and profit thus mining company has direct connection and approach to market. Bakhund fluorite deposit (BFD) which is situated in Kandahar Province mined by a private mining company, their current production reaches up to 60000mt/year as they claimed to have a mechanised processing plant.

Their production can reach up to double of the current per year production.  Most of the small or large scales mines do not have well adequate processing plants where these mineral deposits are sent to neighbouring countries for processing and laboratory purposes which lessen the profit. It is very essential to have these processing plants in host countries rather than the profit is being shared and minimized.

Environmental Impacts

Environmental impacts have a direct relation with mining operations, if it is not carefully looked after it would create a mess that can have some serious hazards to human being, animal and plants. The mining sites which are mined supposed to be reclaimed and planted with trees and other plants in order to make sure soil erosion, land sliding and other disasters. While collecting the information and history, mining sites being mined are left behind without proper reclamation.

Afghanistan environmental law and National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) stresses out the law to be implemented after area being mined but unfortunately very less of this implantation is observed. The unprofessional way of mining, conventional mining method have brought water level into a record level down, but also contaminated it with various chemicals being used or dumped nearby water reservoirs.  The use explosives materials on mine sites could harm the and chemically pollute the air.

Way Forward

As mentioned, the above article gives a bird eye view over mining operational activities. There are few recommendations to mining sector of Afghanistan that the government should take them in account and must insure deciding whether mining is an appropriate land use.

• Before starting operational mining site activities, there should be a detailed feasibility study report, which would include acknowledgment of mining that modifies landscapes and has possible long-term impact on communities and natural resources, site geology, geographical information, operational mining methods and an economic feasibility report.
• There must be surety of socially sensitive or environmentally responsible mining.
• The government and private owned mines must insure the standard mineral processing equipment, i.e. crushing & screening, Grinding & classifying, separation equipment, thickening and dewatering.
• Hire more mining experts and engineers in industry who got skills in various mining software and GIS.
• Ensuring good governance and Mining free of corruption.

*Mohammad Ismail Amin is a mining expert and is based in Kabul. He can be reached at engismi6@gmail.com

This Christmas, let us take a moment to reflect on the true message of Prophet Jesus who is cherished and venerated by both Muslims and Christians alike.

While there are differences between Islam and Christianity, there is also a tremendous bridge between Muslims and Christians. Apart from being Abrahamic faiths which owe a common genealogy Prophet Jesus occupies a very revered position in Islam. Christians, perhaps because they call themselves Christians and believe in Christianity, like to claim ownership of Christ. It thus comes as a huge surprise to many of them to discover that the world’s second-largest faith, Islam, also stakes a claim to him.

In Islam, Jesus, or Isa, as he is known in the Qur’an, is a Prophet of God. The difference is that he is not divinized as he is in Christianity. In other words, Christ, for Islam, is not part of the Godhead or the son of God or God incarnate.

In the Qur’an, God spoke directly to Christians when he said: “O people of the Scripture! Do not exceed the limits in your religion, nor say of God aught but the truth. The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, was a Messenger of God and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary and a spirit, created by Him; so believe in God and His Messengers. Say not: ‘Trinity!’ Cease; it is better for you! For God is One God, glory is to Him, Far Exalted is He above having a son.” (Q 4:171)

Islam embraces the moral and ethical teachings of Moses and Jesus. Honesty, decency equality and dignity are central to even Prophet Muhammad’s message. The basic principles of tolerance and treating others the way we wish to be treated are the foundations of both faiths, repeatedly emphasized in their sacred texts. Like all prophets, Jesus provided lessons to be learnt from his life and teachings. In fact his tradition of peace, compassion, love, gentleness and need to be revived more than ever.

The special message of Islam is twofold. It first completes the message of the previous prophets—and we must not forget that Muslims recognize the Judaic prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah who have also been adopted by Christianity—by putting an end to the dispute between the Nestorians and Jacobites about the nature of Christ: Muslims believe that Christ is of the Spirit of God, not God Himself, because God “begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him” (Q 112:1-4).

Jesus was but one in this long line of Prophets and Messengers, calling the people to worship One God. He came specifically to the People of Israel, who had at that time gone astray from the straight path of God. Jesus reckoned: “And I have come confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden to you, and I have come to you with a proof from your Lord. So fear God and obey me. Truly! God is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. This is the Straight Path.” (Quran 3:50-51)

Jesus did not expound a new religion. That very religion which had been the religion of all the Prophets was also his religion, and it is towards that religion that he called people. He believed in the true teachings of the Torah which were extant in his time. The Gospel which was revealed to Jesus was an authentic revelation, but we know that the New Testament which the Christians obey was written after the departure of Jesus.

God did not reveal any of the Books in order to repudiate the previous ones; each confirmed and supported the preceding ones. As a matter of fact, every messenger of God was sent to this world as a witness, a preacher, a harbinger of good tidings and a Warner.

The Qur’an repeatedly stresses the fundamental fact that none of the Prophets of God, no matter in which part of the world they appeared, denied the Prophets who had preceded them. On the contrary, each Prophet confirmed the message of his predecessors and sought to promote the mission which was the sacred legacy of them all.

The Qur’an does not believe that Jesus is divine but it devotes more space to the story of his virginal conception and birth than does the New Testament, presenting it as richly symbolic of the birth of the Spirit in all human beings (Q 19:17-29; 21:91). The Quranic writings say Jesus was betrayed and sentenced to die on the cross. According to Islamic narrative, Jesus was not crucified; instead, a man who looked like him was. Muslims believe Jesus did not die but risen bodily to Heaven by God, from whence he will return to Earth before the Day of Judgment to restore justice and to defeat al-Masih ad-Dajjal (“the false messiah”), also known as the Antichrist.

Jesus, who was born to Mary (called “Maryam” in Arabic), is mentioned about hundred times in the Quran. He is referred to by name in as many as 25 different verses of the Quran and six times with the title of “Messiah” (or “Christ”, depending on which Qur’anic translation is being used). He is also referred to as the “Messenger” and the “Prophet” but, perhaps above all else, as the “Word” and the “Spirit” of God. No other prophet in the Quran, not even Muhammad, is given this particular honour. In fact, among the 124,000 prophets said to be recognised by Islam – a figure that includes all of the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament – Jesus is considered second only to Muhammad, and is believed to be the precursor to the Prophet of Islam.

The Islamic version of the Jesus story tracks quite closely to the one that Christians know. The Quran has a whole chapter about Mary, who is the only woman mentioned by name in the holy book. The other female figures are identified only by their relation to others, such as the wife of Adam and the mother of Moses, or by their title, such as the Queen of Sheba .Mary is mentioned more times in the Quran than in the entire New Testament. Prophet Muhammad described her as one of the four “perfect” women in the history of humanity.

Jesus had an affinity with Muhammad, and had predicted his coming (Q61:6), just as the Hebrew prophets were believed by Christians to have foretold the coming of Christ. The Qur’an, possibly influenced by Docetic Christianity, denied that Jesus had been crucified, but saw his ascension into heaven as the triumphant affirmation of his Prophethood. In a similar way, Muhammad had once mystically ascended to the Throne of God. Jesus would also play a prominent role beside Muhammad in the eschatological drama of the last days.

The Muslim Jesus is the patron saint of asceticism who renounces the world, lives in abandoned ruins, identifies with the poor and champions the virtues of poverty, humility, silence and patience. “Jesus was a constant traveller in the land,” reads one Islamic saying, “never abiding in a house or a village. His clothing consisted of a cloak made of coarse hair or camel stub. Whenever night fell, his lamp was the moonlight, his shade the blackness of the night, his bed the earth, his pillow a stone, his food the plants of the fields.” “Jesus used to eat the leaves of the trees,” reads another, “dress in hair shirts, and sleep wherever night found him. He had no child who might die, no house which might fall into ruin; nor did he save his lunch for his dinner or his dinner for his lunch. He used to say, ‘Each day brings with it its own sustenance.'”

The Qur’an gives a very fair estimate of the persona of Jesus. He was merely a human being. He was one born from the womb of a woman, who possessed a physical body, who had all the attributes characteristic of human beings who had a known genealogy, who was subject to all the limitations of a human being and. He slept, ate, felt the discomfort of heat and cold and was so human that he was even put to the test by Satan. How could any reasonable person believe that such a being was either God or a partner or associate of God in His godhead? But the Christians continue to insist on the divinity of the Messiah, whose life has been portrayed in their own Scriptures as that of a human. The fact of the matter is that they do not believe at all in the historical Messiah. They have woven a Messiah out of their imagination and have deified that imaginary being.

The fact that Jesus is truly and fully human is clear from the fact that he has a human body (Luke 24:39), a human mind (Luke 2:52), and a human soul (Matthew 26:38) a human will, and human emotions

Time and again the Qur’an insists that, like Muhammad himself, Jesus was a perfectly ordinary human being and that the Christians have entirely misunderstood their own scriptures. But it concedes that the most learned and faithful Christians – especially monks and priests – did not believe that Jesus was divine; of all God’s worshippers, they were closest to the Muslims (Q5:85-86).

Islam rejects the Christian concepts of Trinity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. The Islamic conception of Jesus — devoid of divinity and outside the Trinity — is in sync with the beliefs of the earliest Jewish and Christian sects, who viewed Jesus as Messiah, but not as Son of God.

The Muslim devotion to Jesus is a remarkable example of the way in which one tradition can be enriched by another.

*Moin Qazi is the author of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker .He has worked in the development finance sector for almost four decades. This article was published by New Age Islam.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced on Sunday that he will move his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

In a statement on Facebook, Morales said he that the return of the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem was one of the most important themes he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked about during a recent conversation and he ordered his Chancellor to begin the process.

The announcement comes soon after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to move the American embassy out of Tel Aviv, where all embassies are currently located, to Jerusalem. Some analysts have criticized Trump’s decision because of an international consensus to avoid recognizing the ancient city as the capital of Israel as peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis are ongoing.

Guatemala is the first country to follow Trump’s lead on moving embassies to Jerusalem, but the Czech Republic is also considering a move, according to the Guardian.

Morales’ announcement comes days after his country was one of only seven nations to vote against a United Nations resolution that urged the UNired States to reverse its decision to move its embassy, the BBC reported.

Trump threatened to cut off U.S. funding to countries that voted in favor of the resolution.

“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” he told reporters at the White House last week. “Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

Original source

By Prakash Khadka

Since Nepal legalized abortion in 2002 there has been an epidemic of gender-based abortions. At least 50,000 abortions a year are performed after parents find out their unborn child is a girl.

Gender identification of fetuses is illegal but many clinics do not follow the 11th amendment to the country’s civil code that details how abortions can be performed. In Section 28C, the code prohibits the termination of a pregnancy for the sole purpose of sex-selection with a maximum punishment of two years in prison.

However, the law is flouted so much that there was a marked decrease in the female birth rate. A study in 2013 by British researchers Melanie Dawn Frost and her team found there were 742 girls per 1,000 boys in 2007-2010, down from 1,021 girls per 1,000 boys in 1998-2000.

For married couples the preference for a male child is the main motivation because traditionally, girls leave the family when they are married to serve their in-laws. They are also an economic burden due to the dowry system. Few people question the misogyny that underlies these cultural beliefs.

The desire for boys is higher in urban areas. The Nepal demographic health survey in 2011 found that the number of gender-based abortions in towns was twice as high as in rural areas. The practice may be higher in educated and wealthy families given that the proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion rises with household wealth, from 3 percent in the poorest households to 18 percent in the wealthiest.

Indeed, I remember an incident when the Nepal medical council suspended a reputed gynaecologist for three months on the charge of sex-selective abortion in Patan city in 2015.

The normal cost of an abortion is around US$10-15 but depending upon the period of gestation and other factors, the cost can be cranked up to US$150 or more.

It has become a lucrative revenue stream for many private hospitals and clinics even though some carry out the procedure without a license, which makes many abortions both illegal and unsafe.

Half of induced abortions are estimated to be unsafe. It’s a worldwide problem. According to the World Health Organization about 22 million unsafe abortions occur every year resulting in the deaths of 47,000 women and maiming an additional 5 million internationally.

Back in Nepal, the Ministry of Health and Population reported that at least 90,000 women received comprehensive abortion care in 776 government recognized clinics in 2013-2014.

In early 2017, My Republica reported that, out thousands of women who access abortions in Kathmandu, 30 percent are teenagers. What effect will this have on their ability to give birth later in life? Especially if the abortions are performed by unlicensed medical staff.

Often, women are forced to terminate. Sex-selective abortion is sometimes the result of families pressurizing the woman to have a boy. It is a sad irony that what was originally framed as a woman’s right to choose has become the right of the patriarchal society to choose between a girl or boy.

Deep-rooted shame and stigma is a further issue faced by women who access terminations even leading to divorce. How long until we realize that women are not a birthing machines?

Some might say that safe abortions are a skillful medical intervention to terminate the pregnancy. But abortion itself is an unsafe and, if you are killing someone, how can it be safe?

The fact that it is female foetuses that are terminated shows that discrimination against women starts even while they are still in the womb. Worse still, it is an act where the women herself takes part in discrimination against her own kind.

Due to the use of contraceptives and the provision of abortion there has been a decline in fertility from 4.6 births per woman in 1996 to 2.6 birth per women in 2011. The population growth rate has been controlled from 2.25 percent in 2001 to 1.35 percent in 2011.

Reducing the population was part of the goal when Nepal legalized abortion and allowed international family planning services to operate but unfortunately the number of boys are starting to outnumber girls creating an imbalanced society.

The 2011 census found that males outnumber females up to the age of 14 but the number of females is higher in age groups of 15 and above. This is surely not what legislators had in mind.

International family planning agencies are well-funded and highly active. After all, limiting the number of family members can be helpful for poorer families who must manage from hand to mouth.

The reproductive rights argument is raised in favor of women or couples who want to space their children apart but what about the rights of unborn? Are they not human?

They are not just blob of tissue! A human is a human and inalienable rights remain whether they are born or unborn.

The wife of an imprisoned writer and human rights defender has escaped China and has safely landed in the United States after a rescue operation, according to ChinaAid.

Li Aijie, the wife of imprisoned netizen writer and human rights activist Zhang Haitao, successfully fled China with her son after threats against them became too great to withstand, ChinaAid said.

Li’s husband Zhang Haitao was arrested in 2014, and on January 15, 2016, he was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” and “prying into and illegally supplying intelligence abroad” and sentenced to 19 years in prison by the Urumqi Intermediate Court. The conviction documents cited 69 China social media WeChat posts and 205 Twitter posts, including retweets of others’ tweet, as evidence of inciting subversion of state power.

Li, a stalwart advocate for her husband, not only received constant threat by various China security agents but also was beaten by her own relatives for refusing to divorce him. Government agents threatened to compromise Li’s brother’s job and interrogated her 80 year-old mother to pressure them into convincing Li to divorce Zhang, according to ChinaAid.

Because of her husband’s case and her own uncompromising advocacy effort, she has been facing enormous threat against her. She had to escape covertly, with the help of ChinaAid and other friends.

Bob Fu, president and founder of ChinaAid, said that he is grateful for the active support of the Trump administration and the U.S. officials in various departments, embassies, and consulates for their speedy assistance to Ms Li and her son, especially those in Thailand, China and Hong Kong. Former Hong Kong Democrat Party leader and legislator attorney Albert Ho was a key member of the rescue strategy as well.

The new extra-regional player in China seems to want to provoke internal anti-India debates in individual South Asian nations.

By N. Sathiya Moorthy

At a time when New Delhi continues to be guarded in its comments on sovereignty-centric independent decisions of its neighbours, the new extra-regional player in China, seeking a fast-tracked proactive regional role, seems wanting to provoke internal anti-India debates in individual South Asian nations. The idea is obvious: to try and alienate as many as in these nations against India, by seeking to project the larger neighbour as hegemonic, as was being attempted during the forgotten ‘Cold War’ earlier.

Claiming that India has zero sum mentality in the region, the Global Times, often reflecting the party thinking in Beijing, has said that New Delhi’s outdated strategic mentality cannot “dampen the strong enthusiasm” in the region for deepening cooperation with China. But China stands exposed as the Global Times article, coming as it does after an immediate earlier one, on similar lines and less diplomatically vituperative seems keen on stirring regional peace and balance in the neighbourhood.

In doing so, the Global Times has simultaneously referred to Sri Lanka’s debt-for-equity swap-deal on the Hambantota Port project, and neighbouring Maldives’ maiden FTA, both with China, and Maldives’ President Abdulla Yameen’s fast-tracked state visit to Beijing, too. There is no denying the Chinese gaining an upperhand in the region, especially in India’s IOR neighbourhood than earlier, but it does not automatically means that Beijing has gained an upperhand viz. India, too, in regional affairs. These are two different issues, and not two sides of the same coin, either.

Narrow-minded, but who

“Indian media outlets still regard China’s acquisition of the port, which provides access to Indian Ocean sea lanes, as a ploy to create more Chinese strategic and economic footholds in the region,” the Global Times said. “Maldives has just inked a free trade agreement with China. The construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is being earnestly pushed forward despite terrorism and political instability.”

“It would be too narrow-minded of India to see China’s cooperative activities as exploitative strategies to squeeze its sphere of influence in South Asia,” said the Maldives Independent quoting extensively from the Global Times, and observing that the Chinese tabloid was “barely concealing its glee at its neighbour’s apparent discomfiture.” In context, the Global Times claimed that “Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other regional countries are also willing to intensify ties with India if the latter can satisfy their needs for growth…Disappointingly, New Delhi insists on a zero-sum mentality, interpreting any activity by Beijing from a geopolitical perspective.”

As may be recalled, soon after Maldives’ Parliament rushed through the China FTA in a hurriedly-called session, to facilitate its signing when Yameen visited Beijing only days later, the Global Times had advised that India would do nothing but upset itself if it tried to prevent closer trade ties with Maldives. It denied political intrigue behind the FTA, but added: “Political relationships are sometimes a barometer of economic ties.. It won’t be easy for India to maintain its political influence in South Asia if its own economic presence is weakening. If India thinks its position is threatened, it should consider how it can give more benefits to its neighbours through win-win economic cooperation.”

As if taking the cue from the Global Times, the Vaguthu, a Maldivian site identified with the Yameen regime and leadership, fired the first and strong salvo at India, without provocation and even without waiting for the ink to dry on the former’s unbalanced and uncalled for criticism. Describing India as the ‘best friend’ and ‘closest friend’ until recently, one Adam Nawaz lists out in the Vagathu article India sending troops to neutralise the 1987 coup-bid and also donating the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Male. But “today the picture has changed… India is also not Maldives’ best friend. Today, India is an enemy. Today, India looks at Maldives with jealously, selfishness and hatred”, he writes, also listing out out his ‘reasons’ (?):

“Today, some people in India have said openly that India should send the military and change the Maldives’ government. In this context, the write-up refers to “India doing a lot of unethical things” like “suspected supply of weapons and other aids to terrorists in neighbouring Sri Lanka.” As if to trigger the ‘Islamic angle’, the unconvincing write-up also refers to “Kashmir, where India has been acting against international policies, laws and regulations for many years.” In this context, the Vagathu article refers to the change in “India’s behaviour and policies after an ‘extremist Hindu’ in Narendra Modi, came to power. He has a history of acting tough, especially against Muslims.”

The Vagathu article also says that India is “becoming jealous that Maldives is becoming a capable country that would not have to beg India for everything. Secondly, Maldives is an Islamic country, and doing good for Muslims is not India’s policy now. The third is: Maldives’ strengthening ties with China. India does not approve of China giving aid to other countries for development projects and giving free aid. According to the Vagathu, “Today, Maldivians know the truth about India.. Today, Maldivians have to find a ‘new best friend’. The time has come for Maldives to find a new best friend after ending the heart-to-heart relation with India. That best friend should be able to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Maldives in the international arena.”

No marks for guessing who that ‘new best friend’ is and what in political terms, Maldives, or Yameen’s Maldives expects from that relationship. The reference is of course to China, and apart from free aid or heavy indebtedness in the name of development funding, Yameen’s Maldives also wants China to stand by his leadership and government in international fora like the UN, where the country’s current human rights record, and possibly democracy record from the recent past to the immediate and medium-term future may come up for censure of one kind or the other.”

The four-party Joint Opposition (JO) has since lost no time in condemning the Vagathu’s scurrilous attack on the Indian Prime Minister, by name and religion. In separate tweets, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, half-brother of Yameen, called the anti-India rhetoric “outrageous” and his successor, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, “strongly condemned.. President Yameen’s ‘reckless foreign policy.. destroying relationship with India” and added, “Maldives should be sensitive to India’s security and safety.”

‘Neighbourhood First’

As always, India had avoided commenting on individual neighbour’s independent decisions on inevitable cooperation with other regional and extra-regional players. Where India has commented in the past, it has at best been bilateral-centric, without talking about their third-nation relations. Such a course would also tantamount to India seeking to interfere in their internal mechanism and third-nation relations, which New Delhi has consistently avoided.

Sad but true, the Indian media has often been alive to neighbours and neighbourhood only in the context of their American relations in the Cold War era and China ties since then. Most of them seldom report the visits of dignitaries from those nations to India, and/or bilateral discussions at the highest levels being held in New Delhi, and even signing of bilateral agreements of great significance. India’s national media make up for their neighbourhood indifference and callousness by over-reacting when they are caught on the wrong foot on China now, and the US and Pakistan earlier.

Less said about the Delhi-based strategic community, which first gloated that India was already in the Pacific Ocean and the IOR neighbourhood did not matter anymore — first when India-US relations began warming up following economic reforms, and more so after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. They ignored PM Modi’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, pronounced at his Inauguration in end-May 2014, and laid greater and near-exclusive stress on American initiatives on ‘Indo-Pacific’, changing the nomenclature too thus, from the original ‘Asia-Pacific’.

‘India First’ recalled

Lest possibly the Indian media discourse could well go out of tangent, and end up being seen as reflecting the ‘official line’ as with the Global Times and establishment China, New Delhi broke its silence of the previous weeks on Maldives-China ties, and confined its comments almost exclusively to the FTA. Ahead of the Vagathu article, in what the Maldives Independent observed as a ‘guarded response’, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar refused to comment on the same, saying that they had not seen the full document.

India welcomed the FTA as long as it contributed to the peace and stability in the region, Raveesh Kumar said. “As you are aware India attaches the highest importance to its relations with Maldives. We are also committed to support democracy, development and stability in Maldives.. It is our expectation that as a close and friendly neighbour Maldives will be sensitive to our concerns in keeping with its ‘India First’ policy,” he said in the weekly media briefing.

Bulldozing its way?

The Indian statement said a lot, and said nothing. The reverse may be truer, but that is how diplomacy is conducted, especially by old-guards like India, in a world where a new-comer like China seeks to bulldoze its way through. There is no denying that the Chinese mood in the region, and elsewhere, too, is bullish at the moment, and the Global Times articles in recent times especially seems to reflect a ‘bull in a China shop’ mentality, viz. India in particular.

It is possible that Doklam or not, China is upset about India not joining its OBOR initiative, which would have gained greater political and economic legitimacy only then. Today, despite China’s claims to the contrary, much of the world sees OBOR only as an extension of China’s strategic initiative, reviving the forgotten Ming Dynasty’s ‘Maritime Silk Route’ ambitions and achievements that is fashionable more in terminology rather than reality.

Though China that way wants to project the Hambantota swap-deal only as a part of the OBOR initiative, the Sri Lankan Government side, while acknowledging the possibility, has been more forthright in conceding that the swap deal was necessitated more by the pressing need for the nation to offload its massive debt-burden, incurred during the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. In another common neighbour, Myanmar, members of the former military junta, who still have a decisive say in Parliament and political administration despite democratic change-over under Aung San Sui-Kyi, have been more apprehensive about China, maybe given their long years of association while in direct power and control of the nation’s affairs.

Nothing justifies the Global Times provocative articles on and against China’s own perceptions about India’s role in the neighbourhood, and India’s perceived inability, or unwillingness, or both, when it comes to under-writing some neighbours’ over-ambitious development projects, which do not meet their own economic needs but can only satisfy the geo-strategic initiatives of the investor-nation, China in this case.

Very Chinese, not original

India has had to deal with similar situations in the Cold War past too. At the time, after the ‘Bangladesh War’ in particular, the US, even after establishing a military base in nearby Diego Garcia, was reportedly looking around for installations on Sri Lanka mainland, if only to keep an eye on India, then perceived also as being on the Soviet side in regional and global affairs. In context, what China is doing in the neighbourhood may be new to China, but not to India.

The latter needs only to flip through the back pages of neighbourhood relations, and substitute certain names and phrases, and also amounts with certain others, and the emerging scenario requires no further prediction. It is very similar in the case of other geostrategic initiatives of China, launched in the name of geoeconomic cooperation. It is just following the American example from the Cold War era mostly, just by substituting an ‘all-American’ nomenclature with a very Chinese one.

Even the Global Times kind of India-bashing, possibly aimed at triggering anti-India discourse, if not decisions, in neighbourhood nations, is not new. For instance, at the height of the Cold War and despite the personal rapport between Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka did provide refuelling facilities for Pakistan Air Force (PAF) at the height of the Bangladesh War (1991), only months after India had rushed air-support for quelling the ‘First JVP insurgency’ that was already knocking at Colombo’s gate. It was based on the mistaken belief that after Bangladesh, India could well turn its ‘attention’ to other neighbours, including Sri Lanka.

India actually did not do anything of the kind. Instead, it let Sri Lanka have the strategically critical Katchchativu, close to the Indian shores as a part of a bilateral agreement, only three years hence, ahead of UNCLOS-I and forming part thereof. If Tamil militancy happened in Sri Lanka a decade later, and India was seen as ‘arming and training’ them, it owed to the ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom, in which India did not have any hand.

Other nations may have had a ‘negative role’ in the pogrom, at least in not curbing the street-violence when they were purportedly close to the Colombo dispensation of President J.R. Jayewardene, and also had a lot of concerns for human rights violations across the world, after their own experiences during the World War II in particular. When the Tamil refugees began flowing into the country in their tens of thousands, post-pogrom, India did not want an unenviable, Bangladesh-like situation, when forced-out refugees forced India’s hands in turn to fight a war that it never possibly wanted, and never premeditated, either.

The rest, as they say, is history, be it on Bangladesh, be it in Sri Lanka then, and Maldives, Afghanistan and the rest of the immediate neighbourhood, since. Otherwise, the China-centric media panic in India owes to inadequacies and poor understanding of the historic Indian approach to the neighbourhood, which alone PM Modi reiterated and highlighted even more at his inauguration — and which South Block has been improving and improvising upon, without dumping it, or having to dump it.

Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan will visit Russia on Tuesday, December 26 for a non-official meeting of the leaders of CIS member-states.

The president is currently in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi for a two-day official trip.

Sargsyan is scheduled to meet Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili, prime minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, parliament speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, as well as Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II.

At the meetings, the sides will discuss vital issues included in the bilateral agenda.

Pope Francis used his traditional Christmas address on Monday to call for peace in Jerusalem and highlight the plight of children scarred by conflict.

Tens of thousands of worshippers gathered at the Vatican to hear the pope’s fifth “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and the World) message.

“We see Jesus in the children of the Middle East who continue to suffer because of growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.

“Let us pray that the will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders.

“May the Lord also sustain the efforts of all those in the international community inspired by goodwill to help that afflicted land to find, despite grave obstacles, the harmony, justice and security that it has long awaited,” the pope said.

He also mentioned other global flashpoints such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan and Venezuela, and said the “winds of war are blowing in our world. Let us pray that confrontation may be overcome on the Korean Peninsula and that mutual trust may increase in the interest of the world as a whole,” the 81-year-old said.

Earlier, celebrating midnight mass in Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, attacked the wars that “the Herods of today fight every day to become greater, to occupy more space.”

In a criticism of the US recognition this month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the archbishop said: “Jerusalem is a city of peace, but there is no peace if someone is excluded. Jerusalem should include, not exclude.”

Meanwhile, both Christians and Muslims throughout the Middle East celebrated the day. In the central Syrian city of Homs, there was great fanfare for the first time in years after the end of battles between regime and opposition forces — with processions, shows for children and even decorations among the ruins.

In Iraq, too, this year marked a positive turning point for the Christian community in the northern city of Mosul.

Muslims in Pakistan not only took part in Christmas festivities, but also hosted celebrations for their Christian friends and neighbors.

Throughout the country, Christian residential areas were bedecked with Christmas trees, stars and baubles. The bazaars in major cities, adorned with festive wreaths, were buzzing with last-minute shoppers.

Pakistan civil and military leaders extended greetings to the Christian community, and said the day underscored the teachings of patience, tolerance and kindness.

New University of Colorado Boulder-led research shows that a long-held hypothesis about the factors that govern species ranges largely holds true, but may be the result of a previously underappreciated ecological mechanism.

The prediction, first iterated by Charles Darwin in 1859, holds that climate factors will limit species expansion in more stressful environments (such as cold or dry regions), but that interactions with other species, like competition and pollination, will limit a species range in less stressful environments, where the climate is more temperate.

The new CU Boulder study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that while the broad outline of Darwin’s hypothesis holds true–the effects of species interactions on a specific plant population increased in conjunction with decreasing environmental stress–there is a nuance to the commonly held model.

“Darwin and others have said that what drives this pattern is gradients in density or diversity of interacting species, but instead it seems to be effects of stress on growth, survival, reproduction and germination of the plant species,” said Allison Louthan, who led the research while completing her PhD dissertation in CU Boulder’s Environmental Studies Program.

At three field sites in central Kenya that varied in overall aridity, the researchers studied the population dynamics of Hibiscus meyeri, a common flowering plant, over a period of four years. The ubiquity of this particular flowering species, Louthan said, makes it a useful model system for studying differences in population dynamics across an ecological gradient.

As expected, pollination, herbivory and competition with other herbs and shrubs played a strong role in setting the edges of the plant’s range in the wetter sites. Those same interactions, however, did not seem to have a strong hand in H. meyeri’s expansion to drier sites.

“This research provides a guide about where and when species interactions are important and where they are less important,” said Louthan, now a post-doctoral researcher at Duke University. “Understanding the different forces that set limits to a species range and allow populations to expand or contract is crucial for understanding both ecological and evolutionary dynamics.”

Next, the researchers plan to expand their experimental method to other systems, in order to continue studying how a species reacts to various factors across a broad geographic area.

“Even before climate change, a major question was why species have the range limits that they do, and what the importance was of climate versus interactions with other species in setting these limits,” said Dan Doak, a professor in CU Boulder’s Environmental Studies Program and a coauthor on the study. “Now, with ongoing climate change, these questions are much more pressing. This work shows that multiple forces matter in shaping where a species lives and also that the mechanisms driving these effects are not what biologists have usually assumed.”

In accordance with the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA) the Office of Compliance (OC) compiled and published shocking statistics listing (1) the number of settlements paid to its employees and interns after allegations of abuse by legislators; (2) the total amount of dollars paid by US Treasury to the victims of Congressional workplace abuse.

The US taxpayers were made to pay millions of dollars in financial settlements for hundreds of incidents of Congressperson abuse, including gross sexual harassment, against interns, staff and office employees, of both sexes. This ‘slush and shush’ fund was hidden from the American people. Many abused victims were paid-off and intimidated into silently watching the elected officials parade themselves as paragons of virtue and champions of their voters.

The data, published by Congressional Office of Compliance, covered a period starting in 1997 to November 2017. In that period, 264 victims of abuse, some by a number of Congresspersons, came forward with their complaints. The US Treasury secretly paid over $17 million dollars to the victims while the identities of the abusing Congresspersons are not identified and are protected under the 1995 statute.

In other words, the members of the US Congress, including serial sexual abusers and uncontrolled bullies, have shielded themselves from public exposure, so they could continue preying on their employees with impunity and without any personal material loss or humiliating exposure to their families. Thus protected, they could expect to be re-elected to abuse again and the taxpayers would pay their secret ‘pay-offs’!

Political Party Leadership in Congress and the Protected Abusers

An examination of the political party affiliation of the Congressional leaders and the Presidents during this 20-year period of abuse reveals that both parties were engaged in shielding offenders and perverts among their ranks.

During the first 10 years (1997-2007), Congress was controlled by the Republican Party. Under their leadership, the Treasury secretly paid over $11 million in compensation to the victims.

Democrats controlled the ‘House’ during the next three years (2008- 2011) when the Treasury paid over $2.5 million dollars. As a result of this perverse form of ‘bipartisan cooperation’, abusive officials from both parties were free to abuse, humiliate and exploit their employees and young interns with impunity.

In the last five years (2012-2017), Republicans, once again, controlled the House and oversaw the secret payout of over $3.5 million for ‘bipartisan’ abuse.

Moving from monetary payment to the number of abused employees, we find 133 were subjected to abuse under the Republicans (1997-2007), 48 under the Democrats between (2008-2011) and another 73 victims under the latest period of Republican control (2012-2017). All victims, who came forward with their complaints, faced a gauntlet of procedural intimidation, ‘counseling’, ‘cooling off’ periods and legal restraint to remain silent.

If we examine Congressional abuse on a per capita basis, Republicans abused on an average, 13 victims a year while the Democrats harassed 12 victims a year. There is a comforting level of uniformity and continuity of abuse in the US political system under both Republican and Democratic control of Congress. This indicates a shared political culture and practice among America’s ‘Solons’. Whatever wild-eyed rhetorical ideological differences, both parties cooperate with great civility in the abuse of their employees.

Indeed, the sense of feudal privilege over employees, viewing workers and interns as peasants, invoking the once outlawed ‘droit de seigneur’, pervades the Halls of Congress. This culture of feudal abuse, so common in the private sector, in giant corporations, Hollywood and the media, has metastasized to the centers of US political power, leaving untold thousands of brutalized victims and their helpless loved ones to deal with the long-term effects of humiliation, bitterness and injustice. For every abused young employee, treated like a serf by an all powerful legislator, there are dozens of helpless family members, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and spouses, who must deal with decades of silent resentment against these abusers.

None of this is surprising given how both parties have been financed and controlled by corporate leaders, Hollywood moguls and Wall Street speculators, who have exploited and abused their employees with impunity until the recent ‘Me-Too’ movement erupted spontaneously. Given the transformation of the workplace into a kind of neo-feudal estate, the ‘Me-Too’ movement may be seen as a latter-day ‘Peasant Revolt’ against the overlords.

Presidential Leadership and Abuse in the Workplace

Several Presidents have been accused of gross sexual abuse and humiliation of office staff and interns, most ignobly William Jefferson Clinton. However, the Congressional Office of Compliance, in accord with the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 does not collect statistics on presidential abuses and financial settlements. Nevertheless, we can examine the number of Congressional victims and payments during the tenures of the various Presidents during the past 20 years. This can tell us if the Presidents chose to issue any directives or exercise any leadership with regard to stopping the abuses occurring during their administrations.

Under Presidents William Clinton and Barack Obama we have data for 12 years 1997-2000, and 2009-2016. Under President George W Bush and Donald Trump we have data for 9 years 2001-2008 and 2017.

Under the two Democratic Presidents, 148 legislative employees were abused and the Treasury paid out approximately $5 million dollars and under the Republican Presidents, 116 were abused and Treasury and over $12 million dollars was paid out.

Under the Democratic Presidents, the average number of abuse victims was 12 per year; under the Republicans the average number was 13 per year. As in the case of Congressional leadership, US Presidents of both parties showed remarkable bipartisan consistency in tolerating Congressional abuse.

Congressional Abuse: The Larger Meaning

Workplace abuse by elected leaders in Washington is encouraged by Party cronyism, loyalties and shameless bootlicking. It is reinforced by the structure of power pervasive in the ruling class. Congress people exercise near total power over their employees because they are not accountable to their peers or their voters. They are protected by their financial donors, the special Congressional ‘judicial’ system and by the mass media with a complicity of silence.

The entire electoral system is based on a hierarchy of power, where those on the top can demand subordination and enforce their demands for sexual submission with threats of retaliation against the victim or the victim’s outraged family members. This mirrors a feudal plantation system.

However, like sporadic peasant uprisings in the Middle Ages, some employees rise up, resist and demand justice. It is common to see Congressional abusers turn to their office managers, often female, to act as ‘capos’ to first threaten and then buy off the accuser – using US taxpayer funds. This added abuse never touches the wallet of the abuser or the office enforcer. Compensation is paid by the US Treasury. The social and financial status of the abusers and the abusers’ families remain intact as they look forward to lucrative future employment as lobbyists.

This does not occur in isolation from the broader structure of class and power.
The sexual exploitation of workers in the Halls of the US Congress is part of the larger socio-economic system. Elected officials, who abuse their office employees and interns, share the same values with corporate and cultural bosses, who exploit their workers and subordinates. At an even larger level, they share the same values and culture with the Imperial State as it brutalizes and rapes independent nations and peoples.

The system of abuse and exploitation by the Congress and the corporate, cultural, academic, religious and political elite depends on complicit intermediaries who frequently come from upwardly mobile groups. The most abusive legislators will hire upwardly mobile women as public relations officers and office managers to recruit victims and, when necessary, arrange pay-offs. In the corporate sphere, CEOs frequently rely on former plant workers, trade union leaders, women and minorities to serve as ‘labor relations’ experts to provide a progressive façade in order to oust dissidents and enforce directives persecuting whistleblowers. On a global scale, the political warlords work hand in glove with the mass media and humanitarian interventionist NGO’s to demonize independent voices and to glorify the military as they slaughter resistance fighters, while claiming to champion gender and minority rights. Thus, the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was widely propagandized and celebrated as the ‘liberation of Afghan women’.

The Congressional perverts have their own private, secret mission: to abuse staff, to nurture the rich, enforce silence and approve legislation to make taxpayers pay the bill.
Let us hope that the current ‘Me Too!’ movement against workplace sexual abuse will grow to include a broader movement against the neo- feudalism within politics, business, and culture and lead to a political movement uniting workers in all fields.

By Adam P. MacDonald*

Introduction

There is a steady growing interest in and involvement of external actors within the Arctic. Of these states, China consumes considerable academic and media interest in Canada.1 Although there is near-universal agreement that Beijing’s current Arctic engagements are conducted within accepted state and legal practices, there are disputes as to their underlying motivations, ultimate aims, and impact upon the regional order, and Canada’s role and place within it. The most concerned about China’s increasing capabilities and activities in the North claim Beijing is subtly positioning itself either to remake or thwart the regional political architecture to gain unobstructed access to newly opening shipping routes and natural resources prospects, thereby compromising the interests and sovereignty of the Arctic states. China’s entrance, furthermore, is represented as one of the most significant future stresses upon an already geopolitically-sensitive region, as states both inside and increasingly outside compete for influence and power, which will squarely place Ottawa at odds with Beijing.2 This emerging strategic reality has motivated calls for Ottawa to prepare for such an eventuality, developing the required political rules and restrictions domestically and regionally, and military assets able to operate in the North to deter any possible Chinese revisionist predilections.3

Depictions emphasising the challenges China poses to Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security, however, are largely informed by the larger literature related to Rise in China, and the stability of the Arctic in general. By no means entirely dismissing concerns about China in the Arctic, these arguments rely upon these larger frameworks to contextualize and explain Chinese thinking and action in the North, vice a more surgical and analysis of China’s actual current Arctic engagements. Much remains uncertain about China’s interests and strategies for the Arctic, but Canada should avoid simple characterizations of this phenomenon (and the issue of external actors in general) and instead, focus upon how to shape and influence Beijing’s actions within the Arctic towards supporting the current regional political order which is increasingly focused upon addressing complex and complicated social, economic, and environmental issues associated with the region’s growing accessibility, with respect to which China and Chinese entities play a role.

China as an Emerging Arctic Player

Over the past three decades, China’s engagements in the Arctic have expanded both in size and scope, since the launch of their Polar program, largely defined by scientific research, in the 1980s. Beijing, however, has not (nor is expected to anytime soon) published an Arctic policy given the region’s relative lack of importance in Chinese foreign policy compared to other areas such as Africa and the Middle East (which produce immediate and significant contributions to their continued economic development and international political influence). China’s strategy towards the Arctic, therefore, remains in a ‘state of nascent formulation’ concerning its views of the region and its role and place within it.4 Official Chinese commentary on the Arctic is sparse, but Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Ming’s October 2015 speech at an international conference in Iceland signalled China’s desire to become an involved regional actor vice a passive observer.5 The Arctic is a long-term focus for Beijing, due to the intersection of the region with a number of Chinese interests, including: the climatic impacts upon Asia due to the changing ecology of the North; the opening up of resource extraction prospects, shipping lanes, and fishing grounds; and a venue within which China to project influence as a great power. Despite the lack of official documentation and commentary, scholars generally agree that there are three major trajectories Beijing is pursuing to build deeper relations in the Arctic: scientific research; trade and economic partnerships; and involvement in the regional political architecture.6

As a large, rising power with uncertain (or at least undeclared or not fully formed) intentions, views, and strategies for the region, China’s engagement in the Arctic warrants investigation. Those most concerned with the detrimental effects of this phenomenon upon Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security are correct in emphasizing China’s regional engagement is no longer a hypothetical, but a reality, and it will not be a passing fad.7 With that in mind, however, accounts of the challenges to Canada’s interests in the Arctic in general tend to narrowly focus upon and fuse the issues of sovereignty and security together, and in the process, fixate upon state-based threats, of which China is conceptualized as the latest challenger, conjuring up anxieties that territorial integrity is at risk. Such portrayals not only distort, inflate and simplify China’s presence and involvement in the North, but also collapse all of Canada’s northern interests under a broad, loosely defined, and greatly exaggerated banner of territorial sovereignty, when in fact, a plethora of diverse but highly interconnected set of interests underpin Ottawa’s regional policy which need to form the basis of any holistic assessment of Beijing’s impacts to Canada in the Arctic.8 However, herein, we will focus upon three broad concerns associated with a more Arctic-oriented and engaged China in terms of their impact upon Canadian sovereignty and regional stability:

• Possible maritime sovereignty challenges by Beijing over the Northwest Passage and Extended Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claims;
• The motivations and impact of increasing Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) investments and operations in the Canadian Arctic; and
• Chinese attempts to obstruct and/or restructure the regional political order.

Maritime Sovereignty Challenges?

China has no territorial claims in the Arctic, and has avoided comment on any of the outstanding maritime claims between the Arctic coastal states. Beijing, furthermore, has accepted the Nuuk Criteria as a pre-condition for gaining entry into the Arctic Council, which includes respecting the sovereignty and sovereign rights of the Arctic states, as well as acknowledging the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the legal regime of the region.9 Even the most pessimistic assessments of China’s intentions towards the Arctic acknowledge there is no evidence of a territorial revisionist strategy unfolding, but suspect Beijing has kept the door open to employ legal and political tools to limit and dilute Arctic coastal states sovereign rights over maritime regions in the future.10

The major concern in terms of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic is use of the Northwest Passage (NWP). The debate about the NWP is not over who owns the waterways – there is no objection to Canadian ownership – but whether, as Washington asserts,11 the passageways constitute an International Strait establishing Transit Rights for shipping, rather than Internal Waters, as Ottawa claims, which would require shipping to receive prior consent before transiting. Washington and Ottawa have an agreement which respects their opposing legal positions, but in actuality means American shippers will inform Canadian authorities before transits are undertaken.12 It is unclear whether China, which has stated an interest in using the passageway,13 would be willing either to negotiate a similar protocol, or accept Canada’s designation of the NWP as Internal Waters.

As the world’s largest exporter state, China has an interest in securing unobstructed and expeditious shipping movements globally, and may be inclined to side with the American position on this matter. David Curtis Wright, furthermore, speculates Beijing in the future may promote a Svalbard Treaty-like protocol for the NWP, which accepts Canadian sovereignty but also guarantees uninhibited access and transit through the Passage for maritime traffic.14 Beijing to date, however, has not proposed (nor seems interested in) the idea, as moving towards such a position would entail clarifying their stance on the status of the Northern Sea Route (controlled by Russia), a traffic route Chinese shippers are far more interested and active in than the NWP.15

For Chinese shipping companies, a major consideration in altering transit paths is cost savings, which could be substantial, given the shorter distances of the NWP compared to southern routes, but there are significant risks, including the lack of hydrological data and navigation infrastructure, which have tempered Chinese assessments of the benefits of utilizing the Passage.16 These do not pose a permanent deterrent to Chinese interest in the NWP, but rather, provide further justification for Ottawa to invest in an Arctic shipping corridor program by positioning navigation and search and rescue assets, as well as reliable hydrographic and meteorological information along these routes, and thereby offering incentives for shippers to report to Canadian authorities.17 Unlike Russia and its Northern Sea Route, however, Canada is not promoting the NWP as an international shipping route, and it may be averse to creating such a system which would enable and therefore encourage further usage. With yearly transits increasing 144% since 2004 (mostly due to tourism),18 Canada must prepare for increased use of the NWP and thus be willing to negotiate protocols with Beijing (and other shipping states).19 The aim of these actions should not be conditioned upon ascertaining their legal acceptance of Canada’s Internal Waters designation, but to build rules and regulations – and be able to enforce them – which protect shipping, the ecology of the region, and those who inhabit it. To that end, Canada must continue to work with both Arctic states and shipping-intensive countries in producing new shipping rules and regulations for the region, such as the recent work through the International Maritime Organization (of which China is a member), which was successful in the creation of the Polar Code that took effect this year.

Another area of possible contestation is Beijing’s ambivalence towards the Extended EEZ claims of Canada (and other Arctic states), although Ottawa is still completing its formal submission.20 It is understandable that China would prefer minimizing Extended EEZ claims (for if accepted by the UNCLOS regulatory body allows states ownership of developing the resources within this water space), in order to retain a greater portion of the Arctic Ocean as the ‘High Seas’ and ‘Common Heritage of Humanity,’ as defined by UNCLOS. However, it does not follow that they are willing to legally or otherwise challenge these claims, especially considering their own ambiguity of the extent and rights of their Extended EEZ claims in the South China Sea, an area of far more importance currently for Chinese leaders. Would Beijing issue a definitive legal position on these matters in the Arctic, thereby tying their hands legally in the South China Sea considering their current strategy for that region is to remain legally ambivalent about the nature of their maritime claims while ensuring effective occupation of disputed islets? Comparisons between ongoing maritime disputes in the Arctic and the South China Sea, specifically China’s views and strategies for each, must acknowledge the significant geopolitical distinctions between them, including the fact China is a user state in the former case, vice a coastal one in the latter, and the peaceful nature of these disputes in the Arctic, as opposed to the military buildups defining those in the South China Sea. As over 75% of the suspected undiscovered oil and gas reserves in the Arctic21 are within undisputed territorial and maritime sovereign realms of the Arctic coastal states, Beijing has little to gain by being obstructionist towards both the Extended EEZ claims of Arctic states and the determination mechanisms outlined in UNCLOS. They, however, have a lot to lose in terms of souring relations with the region and raising further doubts of their commitment to UNCLOS as one of the foundational legal regimes of the international system, which benefits Beijing immensely as the world’s largest exporter state.

China’s Arctic Economic Endeavours: The Strategic Buyer Approach

Some commentators have argued that China has adopted a ‘Strategic Buyer’ approach towards the Arctic region, as Chinese companies, specifically, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), move to secure increasing share holdings of Western companies, joint ventures, and purchasing of natural resources through special partnerships.22 Attempting to seize territory or resources in the Arctic is not practical, thus, Beijing looks to utilize its SOEs to gain entry into and operate within domestic confines and regulatory schemes to become important stakeholders influencing government decision-making. SOEs, therefore, are not simply seeking new areas of growth and profit, but are under the explicit direction of Beijing forming an important aspect of their resource diplomacy to establish economic dominance as an investor and trading partner in Arctic economies.23 Within such a position, China could leverage economic ties for political gain, which, in part, may explain the Nordic countries’ support of their Permanent Observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013.

Alongside legitimate concerns about the political relationship between Beijing and Chinese SOEs, there are fears these entities will import poor labour and environmental practices employed in other resource-rich and loosely-regulated areas in which they are active (specifically Africa) which could have horrendous consequences for the sparsely-populated and ecologically- sensitive Canadian Arctic. Another apprehension is the strategic implications of increasing trade relations – highlighted by China’s conditioning of further free-trade talks on Ottawa restructuring investment rules and building a pipeline to the British Columbia coast, which are controversial domestically24– being used by Beijing as a tool of economic coercion in any diplomatic dispute, as illustrated by its temporary cessation of relations with Norway following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo.

Greater economic ties with China raise regional as well as strategic challenges, but Ottawa has taken some action to minimize these risks while finding portals for further engagement with the world’s second largest economy. First, Ottawa has enacted tough laws on SOEs since one of China’s biggest state enterprises – the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) – purchased Canadian oil company Nexen in 2012. This undoubtedly was a blow to Beijing, but Chinese companies have shown a willingness to abide by stronger regulations as they look to invest in not only lucrative but politically stable countries such as Canada, even among grumblings that regulations are too strict and not clear.25 Chinese SOEs, as well, have begun to change their corporate image, including ownership and management relations, to ease Western concerns of political interference by Beijing.26 As also outlined in the Northern Strategy, Canada emphasizes that external actors must respect the indigenous peoples who live in the Arctic – and their representation in regional institutions – ensuring Beijing (and others) understand the region is a homeland and not simply an economic or strategic arena; a condition China accepted as part of the Nuuk Criteria in order to be admitted as a Permanent Observer in the Arctic Council.

The possibility of becoming beholden to Chinese interests as they wedge themselves into the Canadian Arctic economically (with current investments estimated at over $400 million27) must not be taken lightly. However, instead of restricting access to the market due to fear, Ottawa should be constructing a more competitive environment, underpinned by a strong regulatory framework, by encouraging the involvement of other economic partners such as Japan and South Korea, who are also interested in the region. Rhetoric of China’s impending economic dominance, however, rarely is accompanied by actual statistics of the rate and intensity of their investments and economic operations in Canada (and other Arctic states),28 and thus, such narratives are more hypothetical conjecture than detailed analyses of Chinese commercial holdings, activities, and political influence accrued as a result.

Finally, China’s willingness to retaliate economically against states during disputes has by and large been short term, with Beijing’s economic engagements not conditioned exclusively upon obtaining favourable political concessions from trading partners. The denial of Chinese investments projects in Iceland and Norway over concerns of possible connections to the Chinese military did not lead to any major repercussions by Beijing.29 This demonstrates the ability of Arctic states to exercise diligence against suspicious Chinese entities and practices without jeopardizing the entire relationship.

Challenging the Regional Order

Perhaps the gravest concern with respect to China’s involvement in the Arctic is at the strategic level. Some commentators argue that China is playing a long ‘con game,’ acting as a non-threatening entity presently, but in reality, it is positioning itself for an eventual revisionist challenge, seeking opportunities to marginalize the Arctic states and their decision-making authority.30 While showing deference presently to the Arctic states, China self-identifies as a ‘Near Arctic State’ and ‘Arctic Stakeholder,’ but remains ambiguous as to how and to what degree it thinks it should be involved in the regional political order. As the region’s importance to China augments, Beijing may become more vocal and active in promoting its polar rights and interests, falling in line with the more ‘assertive’ tone and posture Beijing has adopted towards ‘core national interests’ in its foreign policy.31

The rationale underpinning a possible Chinese revisionist strategy in the Arctic is well-covered academic terrain, but there are few specifics on how this process would unfold, and with what mechanisms. One speculation, however, is the employment of the Chinese military as Beijing develops polar-capable naval and air asserts (including nuclear powered submarines32) as part of its comprehensive military modernization efforts.33 The presence of a Chinese naval task group in the fall of 2015 off the coast of Alaska fueled concerns that Beijing may use its burgeoning naval capability to promote, perhaps aggressively, its ambitions, interests, and status as a polar power. Chinese naval vessels, for example, could be employed in the Arctic to not only demonstrate an ability to operate in the region, but also to signal Beijing’s position on the nature and extent of Canada’s and other Arctic states’ sovereign realms and authority at sea.

Narratives of a polar revisionist China usually depict the Arctic as a particularly vulnerable region, and criticize political leaders’ persistent under-appreciation of the changing strategic landscape and resolve to ensure Canadian sovereignty and security are appropriately defended in this new environment.34 China’s entrance, according to this line of thinking, is driven by and contributes towards an already stressed geopolitical region as competition over resources and sovereignty at sea has motivated the development of increased military forces in the region (framed in the often used but ill-defined ‘militarization’ nomenclature35). These frictions, it is predicted, will continue to grow, and as a result, erode the regional political architecture, which was designed during the peaceful geopolitical environment of the 1990s, that is not equipped to deal with the emergence of an ultra-competitive and possibly adversarial landscape.36

Forecasts, however, of the region becoming a geostrategic flashpoint punctuated by resource scrambles, contestations over sovereign realms, and possibly, arms races, are narratives which have a long historical lineage in popular accounts of the North, despite their failure to materialize in any meaningful way.37 Even if China harbours revisionist intents, the pathways and process Beijing would employ are shaped by the forces and factors underpinning the current regional order. The Arctic is a stable region characterized by a rule-bound regime of developed countries (including the homelands of two nuclear powers), the absence of war and failed states, and the promotion of regional norms of cooperation and consensus within an inclusive political architecture.38 The Arctic regime should not be dismissed out of hand as ill-equipped to deal with a new strategic environment, for it has demonstrated an ability to do so (most importantly, in the early-to-mid-2000s) by adequately thickening institutional bodies, norms, and signaling of intent in order to dispel and discredit possible destabilizing competition between them.39 This confluence of factors in the Arctic may make it one of the more successful regions in stemming the excesses of geopolitical competition, as exemplified by the maintenance of cordial regional relations despite heightened tensions between the West/NATO and Russia. It is not, therefore, the absence of drivers and sources of geopolitical rivalry (including emanating from other regions) which explains the continuation of the Arctic Peace, but rather, the resiliency and adaptability of the regional political regime to promote and ascertain acceptance by involved actors that the current political architecture is in their respective national interests to support, or at a minimum, to not oppose.40

This does not preclude geopolitical competition playing an increasingly important and contentious role in the region. Greenland, in transition away from Danish rule, and with abundant natural resources, is the most likely place China may try to create a regional partner or possible ally.41 These pressures are already motivating European states to enhance relations with Nuuk to ensure that, even if independent, Greenland remains a firm regional and military ally with the West. However, the impact of the structural power configurations and institutional characteristics of the region on the calculus of Beijing is largely under-appreciated, especially in analyses which assume China is taking more risks and becoming over-confident, considering that all of the region’s principal actors, including Russia,42 have some degree of strategic suspicion towards China.

The expanding reach and ability to operate in a variety of operational environments of the Chinese navy is commensurate with Beijing’s goal of becoming a maritime power, but it remains far from certain it would be employed (let alone in a confrontational manner) in the Arctic, as its expeditionary operations up to now have been peaceful and usually undertaken in support of global security operations. Beijing’s use of military assets in maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas demonstrates a desire to minimize the possibility of American primacy influencing the eventual resolution of the disputes, as well as broader regional security and political issues. But the use of/threat of force in Asia does not necessarily indicate a willingness to employ these tactics in other regions where such territorial interests are absent, especially considering that both the United States and Russia reside in this region.43 The deployment of naval assets, however, may be to probe and gauge American and others’ positions with respect to foreign military vessels operating in their EEZs (which is authorized under UNCLOS), considering China is opposed to others doing the same in its maritime spaces. At present, however, there is no indication Beijing views the Arctic as a military arena within which to expand their power and presence, nor is it prioritizing the development of polar-capable assets in their modernization plans.

Contextualizing Concerns of China’s Arctic Entrance

Assessments that a growing Chinese presence in the Arctic could compromise Canadian Northern sovereignty and security tend to rely upon larger global analyses of Beijing’s actions and intents as becoming more revisionist as it becomes a great power, more than upon China’s actual current activities in the Arctic. The ‘Assertive China’ narrative, in particular, has become a dominate paradigm in the West, characterizing Beijing as both increasingly unsatisfied with and having a capability and willingness to obstruct and/or challenge global configurations of power. Determining Beijing’s commitment or opposition to the current international order – encompassed in the ‘status-quo/revisionist power’ debate – is heavily influenced by a number of competing schools of thought from the discipline of International Relations Theory, particularly structural-based theories concerning periods of power transition between established and rising powers, and the forces that promote either stability or conflict during these times. Attempts to fit China into this mutually-exclusive categorization appears to be an exercise more designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of these concepts than towards a tool to understand Chinese foreign policy, in part, perhaps, to privilege parsimonious analysis in an effort to provide advice and guidance to policy makers and the public, writ large.44 These ideas heavily influence the framing of China’s Arctic endeavors by assigning revisionist intent to Beijing, and thus interpreting their actions as at a minimum an attempt to obstruct and undermine rules and norms to achieve narrowly-defined interests (i.e. weaken domestic and regional regulatory and decision-making systems to gain access to resources and markets), and at worse, a comprehensive strategy to alter the regional political landscape geopolitically towards its advantage (i.e. creation of alternative institutional bodies to redistribute decision-making powers). The concept of revisionism, however, is usually poorly operationalized and loosely defined to the point where any action on the part of Beijing falls under this categorization, calling into question whether such a classification schema is useful in understanding China’s interests and interactions with the regional order, which itself is not a static entity, but is evolving over time.

Characterizations of China as a new and destabilizing participant in an emerging Arctic geopolitical battleground tend to over-emphasize the certainty, abilities, and confidence of Beijing to remake regional dynamics, while under-estimating the resiliency and adaptability of the regional architecture to diffuse areas of possible tensions and socialize its members into supporting a stable political environment. Despite the existence of some Chinese academic and media discussions calling for a more assertive strategy,45 Beijing’s actions have been conducted through legal and accepted channels, including participating at a low and non-intrusive level in the regional political architecture. Furthermore, China’s interests in the Arctic align with its broader foreign policy goals of diversifying energy and resources suppliers, securing trade routes, and becoming more active in global and regional governance instruments commensurate with its growing great power status and role. Viewed in isolation, therefore, Beijing’s activities in the Arctic appear to have augmented markedly, when in fact, the region remains a low priority and is more a reflection of China’s rise as a major power searching for partnerships, influence, and access to markets and resources throughout the international system at large, rather than a surgical and targeted approach to turn the North into a new ‘core national interest.’

Another contributing factor to the portrayal of China as a polar revisionist power is the apparent need for a threat narrative in order to have a sustained public discussion on the region, evident in the persistent inability of successive Canadian governments to develop a strategy for sustained investment and interest in the North.46 Speculations of a more muscular Chinese approach towards the region are the latest justifications for increased Canadian military and constabulary forces in the Arctic.47 These deficiencies, however, pre-date China’s interest in the region and would continue to be criticized in their absence. Nonetheless, it is easier to conceptualize state-based rather than non-state based threats in generating sustained public interest and debate, even though the latter is of a more real and immediate challenge than the former.

Furthermore, a fixation on the possible deployment (overtly or covertly) of Chinese military forces to the region confuses potentialities with probabilities, and may detract resources and efforts towards the more realistic and immediate challenges confronting Canadian defence and security in the Arctic, which pertain largely to societal-level, constabulary matters vice state-based, military threats.48 While political and military leaders must be mindful of all possible defence and security challenges, in reality, prioritization for resourcing and planning for the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic must be suitable, given the nature of the threat in the region, and sustainable, due to the unique regional factors which make force development, deployment and projection significant challenges.49 It is not, however, that state–based threats should not be prepared for – particularly with respect to enhancing surveillance to increase domain awareness (including sub-surface) – but rather, to ensure they do not consume the entirety of the security discussion of the most pressing issues in the Arctic and derail development of capabilities which are needed in the current threat environment.

Conclusion

China presents a numbers of challenges to Canada and its interests, but rather than reluctantly accommodating Beijing out of resignation that attempts to do otherwise are futile, there needs to be acknowledgment that a greater Chinese presence in the Arctic has many potential benefits. These benefits include having a strong partner in scientific research and investment, as well as legitimizing the regional order by including external actors. This does not preclude revisionist intentions on the part of Beijing, the political motives and decision-making processes of which remain shrouded in uncertainty, but to assume China’s intentions are fixed, unmovable, and hostile may unnecessarily exacerbate regional relations at a critical moment when Arctic states – including Canada as a self-proclaimed Arctic power – must show leadership in building pathways for its inclusion. China’s regional involvement is part of a larger process of the internationalization of the region,50 in which Ottawa’s focus should remain upon achieving consensus between the Arctic states and external actors in managing the complex and growing human and environmental security matters affecting the region, vice military build-ups and sovereignty-anxiety based rhetoric to counter Beijing’s Arctic arrival. Simple characterizations must be avoided, both as they relate to Chinese intentions and impact (of which the emergence of various academic camps on this issue, in order to differentiate from each other, sometimes promote), and of China as a monolithic entity in complete control of its citizenry and economic companies operating abroad, although its influence is greater over them as compared to other states, specifically its State-Owned Enterprises.

Reconciling the need to find pathways for deeper engagement with China while mitigating risks and building capacities to manage differences is being advocated by a number of prominent Canadian scholars. They advocate facilitating a more balanced and nuanced public debate and informed government approach to relations with Beijing, much as Australia has accomplished recently.51 Increasing Chinese activity in the Arctic, and the possible impact upon Canada, is the latest and most visible rationale for such a dialogue on the relationship, which is and will continue to be complicated and complex.

About the author:
*Adam P. MacDonald, BA, MA, enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2004, graduated from Royal Military College in 2008, then served for a further six years as a naval officer. Adam is currently an independent academic based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a regular contributor to the Canadian Naval Review, East Asia Forum and Frontline Defence. He is affiliated with the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Nova Scotia, and is a member of the Nova Scotia Health Authority Research Ethics Board. Analyzing the study of China’s rise in International Relations Theory; military developments in the Arctic; and the ongoing political transition in Myanmar are his current academic foci.

Source:
This article was published by the Canadian Military Journal, Volume 18, Number 1, Page 18.

Notes:

1. For an overview of the interests and activities of other Asian states in the Arctic alongside China’s see: Per Erik Solli, Elana Wilson Rowe and Wrenn Yenee, “Coming into the Cold: Asia’s Arctic Interests,” in Polar Geography, 2013, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 253-270.
2. David Curtis Wright, “The Panda Bear Readies to Meeting the Polar Bear: China and Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty Challenge,” The Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, March 2011.
3. For an example of such an argument, see: Rob Huebert, “Why a Defence Review is Necessary and Why It Will Be Easy to Get the Arctic Wrong,” in Canadian Naval Review, 2016, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 22-26.
4. Linda Jakobson and Jingchao Peng, “China’s Arctic Aspirations,” SIPRI Policy Paper, November 2012, No. 34.
5. Claudia Strambo, “China in a Heterogeneous and Complex Arctic,” Arctic Resilience Report, 17 November 2015, at http://arctic-council.org/arr/china-in-a-heterogeneous-and-complex-arctic/.
6. Caitlin Campbell, “China and the Arctic: Objectives and Obstacles,” US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Report, 13 April 2012; Bree Feng, “China Looks North: Carving Out a Role in the Arctic,” Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, 15 April 2015, at http://www.asiapacific.ca/canada-asia-agenda/china-looks-north-carving-out-role-arctic; Marc Lanteigne, “China’s Emerging Arctic Strategies: Economics and Institutions,” The Centre for Arctic Policy Studies, The University of Iceland, 2014; and David Curtis Wright, “China’s Growing Interest in the Arctic,” in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2013, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 50-70.
7. Rob Huebert, “Canada and China in the Arctic: A Work in Progress,” in Polar Commission, Summer 2012, at http://www.polarcom.gc.ca/index.php?page=canada-and-china-in-the-arctic; David Curtis Wright, “The Dragon Eyes the Top of the World: Arctic Policy Debates and Discussion in China,” China Maritime Studies Institute Naval War College, No. 8, September 2011.
8. There are four overarching interests listed in the Northern Strategy, which remains Canada’s official Arctic policy: exercising sovereignty; promoting social and economic development; protecting the North’s environmental heritage; and improving and developing northern governance. “Canada’s Northern Strategy: Our North, Our Heritage; Out Future,” Government of Canada: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 2009, at http://www.northernstrategy.gc.ca/cns/cns-eng.asp
9. “Arctic Council Rules of Procedures,” in The Arctic Council, 15 May 2013, Annex 2: Accreditation and Review of Observers: 7 Criteria for Determining Observer Status,” at https://oaarchive.arctic-council.org/bitstream/handle/11374/940/2015-09-01_Rules_of_Procedure_website_version.pdf?sequence=1.
10. David Curtis Wright, “The Panda Bear Readies to Meet the Polar Bear: China and Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty Challenge.”
11. For a detailed explanation of the American position, see: James Kraska, “The Law of the Sea Convention and the Northwest Passage,” in The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 257-281. See also: Michael Byers, Who Owns the Arctic: Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North (Madeira Park, BC: Douglas and McIntyre, 2009), specifically, Chapters 3-5.
12. The Agreement on Arctic Cooperation, signed by Canada and the United States in 1988, states that US icebreakers conducting transits through the NWP shall seek the consent of the Government of Canada prior to transit, but which will always be accepted. This agreement does not include other types of vessels, but since its enactment, no other US government vessel has traversed the NWP, with the possible exception of submarines doing so covertly.
13. Nathan Vanderklippe, “China Reveals Plan to Ship Cargo Across Canada’s Northwest Passage,’ in The Globe and Mail, 20 April 2016, at https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-reveals-plans-to-ship-cargo-across-canadas-northwest-passage/article29691054/
14. David Curtis Wright, “The Dragon Eyes the Top of the World: Arctic Policy Debates and Discussion in China,” p. 35. The Svalbard Treaty, which entered into force in 1925, is an international agreement between 42 states that recognizes the sovereignty of Norway over the island group, but limits the full exercising of this authority as it also enshrines the rights of the citizens of the respective signatory states to engage in commercial and scientific activities on the islands and in their territorial waters.
15. As with the NWP, Beijing remains ambivalent about its de jure positon on the designation of the NSR, but in reality, accepts Russian ownership as internal waters. Andreas Kuersten, “Russian Sanctions, China, and the Arctic,” in The Diplomat, 3 January 2015, at http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/russian-sanctions-china-and-the-arctic/.
16. Frédéric Lasserre, Lyin Huang, and Olga Alexeeva, “Is China’s Interest for the Arctic Driven by Arctic Shipping Potential?, in Asian Geographer, 2015, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 59-71.
17. “The Integrated Arctic Corridors Framework,” The PEW Charitable Trusts, 26 April 2016.
18. Ibid.
19. Beijing may not want to commit to prior consent, but rather, to simply advise Canada of its passage. In such a scenario, if Beijing shippers are in accordance with international and domestic shipping regulations, Canada could guarantee acceptance of such transits under these pre-conditions. Frédéric Lassere, furthermore, asserts that researchers from the Polar Research Institute of China, China’s pre-eminent organization responsible for Polar expeditions, have told him that in any future transits of the NWP, they shall inform Canadian authorities beforehand. Frédéric Lassere, Linyan Huang and Olga Alexeeva, “China’s Strategy in the Arctic: Threatening or Opportunistic?”, in Polar Record, 2015, at https://corpus.ulaval.ca/jspui/bitstream/20.500.11794/876/1/China%20Arctic
    %20opportunistic%20Polar%20Record%20OA%20FL%20LH%202015.pdf.
20. Assessments that Beijing may come to dispute Extended EEZ claims of the Arctic states does not derive from official positions or declarations but rather stems from some non-official commentary, including the often cited assertions of a former Chinese admiral in 2010 that China, as representing one-fifth of the world’s population, must be active in securing the designation of the Arctic Ocean as the ‘Common Heritage of Humankind,’ which does not belong exclusively to the Arctic states (Jakobson and Peng, p. 15).Besides the uncertainty as to whether these views are held by Chinese leaders, such a line of argument is more likely in response to any possible re-assertion of Sector Theory (as once promoted by Russia) of dividing the Arctic Ocean into territorial sea-like domains governed by the Arctic coastal states, than opposing Extended EEZ claims.
21. Dag Harald Claes and Arild Moe, “Arctic Petroleum Resources in a Regional and Global Perspective,” in Geopolitics and Security in the Arctic: Regional Dynamics in a Global World, Rolf Tamnes and Kristine Offerdal, (Eds.) (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 97-120.
22. Timothy Curtis Wright, “China’s New Arctic Strategem: The Strategic Buyer’s Approach to the Arctic,” in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2013, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 1-36; Hubert, “Canada and China in the Arctic: A Work in Progress.”
23. The effects of Chinese investment is most pronounced with respect to the small but resources rich states, such as Iceland and Greenland, eliciting alarmist predictions of an impending flood of Chinese capital and workers over these sparsely populated polities. Such predictions, however, to date have not come to fruition. Marc Lanteigne, pp. 22-25.
24. “China Open to Historic Free-Trade Deal with Canada Under Certain Provisos,” in The Globe and Mail, 15 January 2016, at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/china-open-to-historic-free-trade-deal-with-canada-under-certain-provisos/article28208595/.
25. “Chinese Companies Feel Misled by Canada, Report Says,” CBC News, 7 June 2016, at http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-mining-ambassador-investors-infrastructure-1.3619228
26. Wendy Dobson and Paul Evans, “The Future of Canada’s Relationship with China,” Institute for Research on Public Policy, December 2015, p. 12.
27. James Munsom, “China North: Canada’s Resources and China’s Arctic Long Game,” in iPolitics, 31 December 2012.
28. The fact, for example, that Canada and Australian companies each have larger investment profiles in Greenland vice their Chinese counterparts is absent in such commentaries. Klaus Dodds, and Mark Nutall, The Scramble for the Poles (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016), p. 143.
29. Marc Lanteigne, p. 15.
30. Roger W. Robinson Jr., “China’s ‘Long Con’ in the Arctic,” Macdonald-Laurier Institute, September 2013; James Munsom, “China North: Canada’s Resources and China’s Arctic Long Game.”
31. David Curtis Wright, “The Dragons Eyes the Top of the World: Arctic Policy Debate and Discussion in China,” p. 38.
32. Mark Romanow, “Submarine Proliferation and the Impact for Canada,” in Frontline Defence, 2016, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 28-34.
33. Caution must be employed, however, in distinguishing assets which are polar capable and those which are developed specifically for polar missions. For example, the recent commissioning of a military icebreaker by the Chinese Navy is a continuation of an existing capability tasked with ensuring the navigability of the Bohai Sea (an important economic region along the Chinese coastline) during the winter, and not a new requirement with the intention of using them in the Polar regions, although they could be used in such a capacity. “China Launches a New Icebreaker,” in Popular Mechanics, 7 January 2016, at http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a18867/china-launches-new-icebreaker/.
34. Rob Huebert, “Why a Defence Review is Necessary and Why It Will Be Easy to Get the Arctic Wrong.”
35. Abhijit Singh, “The Creeping Militarization of the Arctic,” in The Diplomat, 16 October 2013, at http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/the-creeping-militarization-of-the-arctic/ ; Rob Huebert, “The Newly Emerging Arctic Security Environment,” Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, March 2010. For counter-arguments to the militarization of the Arctic portrayal, see: Adam P. MacDonald, “The Militarization of the Arctic: Emerging Reality, Exaggerations and Distraction,” in Canadian Military Journal, Summer 2015, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 18-28; Paal Sigurd Hilde, “The ‘new’ Arctic – The Military Dimension,” in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2013, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 130-153.
36. Scott G. Borgerson, “Arctic Meltdown: The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming,” in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 2, pp. 73-77; James Graff, “Arctic: Fight For the Top of the World,” in Time Magazine, 1 October 2007, at http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1663848,00.html.
37. Rolf Tamnes and Sven G. Holtsmark, (Eds.) “The Geopolitics of the Arctic in Historical Perspective,” in Geopolitics and Security in the Arctic: Regional Dynamics in a Global World, Rolf Tamnes and Kristine Offerdal, New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 12-48; Dodds and Nutall, Scramble for the Poles, pp. 14-17.
38. Wegge Nord, “The Political Order in the Artic: Power, Structures, Regimes and Influence,” in Polar Record, 2011, Vol. 241, pp. 165-176.
39. The mid-2000s were defined by the planting of a Russian flag on the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole; the resumption of Russian bomber and naval patrols in the Arctic; the re-ignition of the political dispute between Canada and Denmark over the ownership of Hans Island (including the dispatching of warships and political representatives to assert sovereign claim over the barren rock); and the building up and stationing of military forces in the region by all the Arctic states. Such developments, however, while usually overblown both in terms of their impact and intent, created a popular portrayal of the region as being on the brink of conflict. In part to allay such concerns, the Arctic coastal states issued the Ilulissat Declaration, confirming their intent to resolve outstanding maritime sovereignty disputes peacefully through UNCLOS, which was affirmed as the legal regime of the region.
40. Adam P. MacDonald, “Arctic Politics: From Stable to Scramble,” in Frontline Defence, 2016, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 52-56.
41. The growth of Chinese economic interest and activity in Greenland is being monitored by Danish intelligence, which assess that the strategic importance of the relationship will increase as China comes to see the Arctic as an important source of resources. “Intelligence Risk Assessment 2015,” Danish Defence Intelligence Service, 11 November 2015, at https://fe-ddis.dk/eng/Products/Intelligence-Risk-Assessments/Pages/Intelligence-RiskAssessment-2015.aspx
42. On the strategic tension with Sino-Russian relations with respect to the Arctic, see: Stephanie Pezard and Timothy Smith, “Friends if We Must: Russia and China in the Arctic,” in War on the Rocks, 6 May 2016, at http://warontherocks.com/2016/05/friends-if-we-must-russia-and-chinas-relations-in-the-arctic/. For the practical challenges of greater Sino-Russian economic cooperation in the Arctic, see: Ekaterina Klimenko, “Russia’s Evolving Arctic Strategy,” SIPRI Policy Paper, September 2014, No. 42.
43. Adam MacDonald, “Enlarging Fleet, Expanding Mandate: China’s Determination to Become a Maritime Power,” in Canadian Naval Review, 2016, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 4-9.
44. Adam P. MacDonald, “Access, Assurance and Acceptance: Moving Beyond the Status-Quo/Revisionist Power Debate in Investigating China’s Emerging Foreign Policy Strategy,” in Facing China as a New Global Superpower: Domestic and International Dynamics from a Multidisciplinary Angle, Huhua Cao and Jeremy Patiel, (Eds.) (New York: Springer, 2016), pp. 171-196.
45. Most observers readily admit that such commentary is not Chinese policy or necessarily reflective of government views, but it is unclear the relationship between such discussions and the ability and extent Beijing regulates, monitors and encourages them. The dampening of provocative statements in Chinese academia and the media with respect to the Arctic in 2011, for example, appears to have been motivated by Beijing’s assessment that such commentary had undermined their position to join the Arctic Council with their Permanent Observer application being deferred until 2013. Jakobson and Peng, p. v.
46. P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “Canada and the Asian Observers in the Arctic Council: Anxiety and Opportunity,” in Asia Policy, July 2014, No. 18, pp. 22-29; P. Whitney Lackenbauer and James Manicom, “Canada’s Northern Strategy and East Asian Interests in the Arctic,” The Centre for International Governance and Innovation, 2013.
47. Levon Sevunts, “Canada’s Defence Review and the Arctic,” Radio Canada International, 8 April 2016, at http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/04/08/canadas-defence-review-and-the-arctic; Rob Huebert, “Why a Defence Review is Necessary and Why it Will be East to Get the Arctic Wrong.”
48. P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Adam Lajeunesse, “The Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic: Building Appropriate Capabilities,” in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2016, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 7-66.
49. Adam MacDonald, “The Canadian Armed Forces and the Arctic: Maintaining a Suitable and Sustainable Role,” CDA Institute Analysis, May 2016.
50. For an overview of this phenomenon, see: Peter Hough, International Politics of the Arctic: Coming in From the Cold (New York: Routledge, 2013).
51. Dobson and Evans, “The Future of Canada’s Relationship with China;” David Mulroney, Middle Power Middle Kingdom: What Canadians Need to Know about China in the 21^st Century (Toronto: Penguin Group, 2015).

More than three dozen candidates have registered or plan to register to run against Vladimir Putin for the office of Russian president, but perhaps the most striking is Ayna Zairbekovna Gamzatova, the wife of and advisor to Akhmad Abdulayev, the head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Daghestan.

Her supporters have announced plans for a meeting on December 30 in Makhachkala so that she can file registration documents in Moscow by January 1 (riaderbent.ru/supruga-muftiya-dagestana-vydvigaetsya-v-prezidenty-rossii.html).

Gamzatova is an impressive figure in her own right. She is a member of the Russian journalists’ union, the chief editor of the republic journal Islam, and the head of a media holding in that North Caucasus republic which owns television, radio and print outlets. But she is most widely known as the wife of the Daghestani mufti.

Because of that, some Daghestanis oppose her candidacy because they do not think that the wife of a mufti should be running for the presidency of Russia.

Many Americans have been shocked by recent revelations of the extent of sexual harassment in Congress. However, no one should be too surprised that those who spend their lives defending and expanding the welfare-warfare state engage in immoral personal conduct. It is only natural that an immoral system, like the welfare-warfare state, tends to attract individuals likely to practice personal immorality.

The welfare-warfare state is built on a foundation of taxation and fiat currency controlled by a secretive central bank. While some type of taxation may be necessary to fund the few legitimate functions of government, taking people’s money to fund a redistributive welfare state at home and a global empire abroad is nothing more than theft. The Federal Reserve’s erosion of purchasing power is also a form of theft.

The welfare-warfare state relies on violence. Every law preventing us from living our lives as we choose — whether forbidding us from working for below minimum wage, preventing us from smoking marijuana or drinking raw milk, telling private business owners who can and cannot use what restroom, or requiring us to purchase government-approved health insurance — rests on the threat of force being used against those who refuse to obey.

The warfare side of the welfare-warfare state is obviously rooted in violence. War inevitably leads to deaths, including the deaths of innocents. A permanent warfare state is also the quickest way to lose our liberties. This is why the Founding Fathers counseled against standing armies and foreign entanglements.

The neocons and “humanitarian interventionists” who control our foreign policy have disregarded the wisdom of the Founders. They actually promote endless wars not to protect our security but to promote “democracy” and “universal human rights.” They are impervious to evidence of the failure of military interventions to achieve these goals and indifferent to the human and fiscal costs of endless war. They dismiss the loss of innocent lives — including the deaths of children — as unavoidable “collateral damage,” while using their influence in the media to spread pro-war propaganda. They also smear their opponents as aiding America’s enemies and sympathizing with terrorists.

No one holding political power wants to admit the system he supports is immoral and a failure. Therefore, defenders of the welfare-warfare state rely on lies and deceptions. They ignore all evidence of the failure of big government to accomplish its ends, instead pretending they can fix the system with a few reforms. They also work with allies in the media to promulgate the lie that without the welfare state the masses would remain poor and uneducated, and without the warfare state we would be overwhelmed by those who hate us for our freedoms. They never mention that many foreigners hate America because of the suffering caused by our hyper-interventionist foreign policy.

The welfare-warfare state is built on violence and deceit. It is thus inevitable that many of those participating in this immoral system will combine their immoral politics with immoral personal conduct. Hopefully the revelations of sexual misconduct among the welfare-warfare state’s Capitol Hill and media defenders will lead more Americans to question the morality and the wisdom of allowing the federal government to run the world, run the economy, and run our lives.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.