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Japan: Flesh-Eating Illness Infects Over 500 People

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Over 500 people were infected with a deadly flesh-eating disease in Japan this year, local media report. The virus ravages limbs and internal organs and can kill its victims in a matter of hours.

Some 525 patients – the highest number since records began in 1999 – have been afflicted with streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS), the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing data from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. Of these, 66 were in Tokyo followed by 40 in Kanagawa, 32 in Aichi, 31 in Fukuoka and 28 in Hyogo. Most of the victims were over the age of 30.

Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, or toxic shock syndrome (TSS) for short, recently made headlines after former American model and athlete Lauren Wasser shared her story about suffering from the flesh-eating disease after leaving in her tampon too long. It led to her right leg being amputated. The disease typically spreads through contact with an infected wound and starts with a fever, swelling and pain in the hands and feet. As it spreads throughout the body via the bloodstream, the bacteria start eating away at the organs and flesh, leading to delirium, confusion and ultimately, death.

The illness has a high mortality rate, with the US Center for Disease Control giving a survival rate of less than fifty percent. However, it can be treated early on through antibiotics or failing that, amputation.

“The signs of an STSS-infected area likely appear from the feet,” Ken Kikuchi of the Tokyo Women’s Medical University told the Asahi Shimbun. “The elderly should be careful about swelling of their feet and go see a doctor immediately when swelling appears.”


Philippines: 37 Workers Killed In Fire At Mall

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By Jeoffrey Maitem and Dennis Jay Santos

An American firm confirmed Monday that 37 employees at its call center in the southern Philippines had died after being trapped in a massive fire that broke out over the weekend at a shopping mall where they worked.

Meanwhile, firefighters had found and recovered all 37 bodies from the burned out New City Commercial Complex (NCCC) mall in Davao City, Mayor Sara Duterte said Monday. Authorities have not yet determined the cause of the fire, but on Christmas Day, the country’s justice secretary ordered a probe into potential criminal liability.

The mayor, who is a daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, said police forensics specialists were processing the bodies for proper identification. The recovery of the 37 bodies brought to 38 the number of people killed in the blaze. The body of the first victim was found over the weekend.

As the fire still raged on Sunday, city and public safety officials had said that 37 people remained trapped inside the burning shopping center, but there was little hope that they were still alive.

“It is with deep sadness that we confirm that the 37 Research Now SSI employees were lost in the fire that struck the NCCC mall,” Gary S. Laben, the chief executive of the Texas-based firm that specializes in digital research data, said in a statement issued Monday (Philippine local time).

The 37 victims were part of the firm’s 500-strong workforce in the Philippines, he said. Its call center was housed in the four-story mall.

“We offer our condolences and prayers to the families and loved ones of the victims,” Laben said.

“Words cannot express how saddened we are. We are grateful for the courageous response of the first responders and others who rushed to the scene,” he added.

Laben said the firm had arranged counselling for all its employees, and was helping to support funeral arrangements. The firm will also create a fund for contributions to provide further assistance to the families of the employees who perished in the fire, he said.

The inferno started on Saturday morning when the mall was busy with Christmas shoppers, and lasted into Sunday.

On Monday, Philippine Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II announced that he had directed the National Bureau of Investigation to look into the tragedy.

“The order was given for the NBI to determine the presence of any criminal liability which led to the fire and attendant loss of lives,” Aguirre said in a statement.

He said the NBI, the investigative arm of the justice department, was under instructions to file criminal charges “against any parties determined by it to be responsible.”

By punishing those responsible, the government could set an example to others “so that hopefully, there will be no repetition of these tragedies,” Aguirre said.

“For now, I respectfully request everyone to continue praying for all those affected by this tragedy,” he added.

A spokesperson for the mall’s operators denied allegations that were circulating about the mall’s fire exits being locked at the time of the fire or that it had no such exits.

“There is no truth to that allegation. In fact as per accounts of those who got out, they were able get out thru the fire exit,” Thea Padua told Agence France-Presse in a text message Monday.

Other fiery tragedies

The fire at the mall in Davao City was one of the worst fires to hit a commercial or shopping center in the Philippines in years.

In March 1996, 162 mostly young adults were killed when a fire broke out at the Ozone Disco pub in Manila, in what has come to be known as the world’s seventh deadliest club fire.

Two years ago, 75 people were killed after the Kentex plastics and rubber factory burned down in a northern Manila suburb.

The mall blaze occurred as city officials and emergency relief workers were busy responding to victims of flash floods elsewhere in Davao City, the largest town in the southern Philippines. The flooding was caused by torrential downpours from Tropical Storm Tembin (Vinta), which swept over surrounding Mindanao island after it made landfall on Thursday night.

The fire also came as security forces in Davao City – President Duterte’s hometown – were on heightened alert to thwart any possible terror attacks by Islamic State-linked extremists, two months after government forces routed them in Marawi, another city in Mindanao.

In September 2016, radical militants who claimed allegiance to Islamic State bombed a night market in the city, killing 15 people, as the president was visiting the area.

He was in Davao when the fire broke out at the NCCC mall. On Saturday, Duterte visited with relatives of the 37 SSI workers, as they were waiting for word about their missing loved ones.

Prehistoric Women’s Skeletons Show Impact Of Rigorous Manual Labor

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Women living around 7,000 years ago did a lot of heavy lifting in their early agrarian societies. Now skeletal analysis reveals they were even stronger than the top female athletes of today.

A woman’s work, they say, is never done and judging by data collected from the analysis of skeletons belonging to mid-Holocene Central European female agriculturalists, that certainly was the case for our forebears.

The contribution of women, living some 7 000 years ago, to vital agricultural tasks, such as digging, shifting grain and hauling heavy loads around, was essential to the success of farming. That the work was physically intensive is highlighted in a new study that reveals their upper body strength surpasses that of today’s elite female athletes.

The findings, published in the journal ‘Science Advances’, shine a new light on the distribution of tasks in prehistoric societies and refute the assumption that the women were confined to domestic chores and child rearing. The new work, carried out in part thanks to past EU support to the ADNABIOARC project, calls into question previously held ideas regarding the division of labour.

A window on the past

Our activities leave their traces in the skeletons we leave behind. Over the past 30 years, sexual dimorphism has been documented in anthropological studies examining temporal trends in bone strength associated with the intensification of agriculture and the development of a more sedentary lifestyle.

But because of the potential for sex-specific skeletal responses to mechanical loading, and a lack of modern comparative data, women’s activity in prehistory had been difficult to interpret. As the writers point out, ‘(…) among modern tennis players, side-to-side differences document substantially more responsiveness to mechanical loading in the male, relative to the female skeleton.’

Repeated stresses like lifting, pulling, and running leave their mark on bones. The shift from being hunter-gatherers always on the move to more weight bearing but sedentary farmers, about 10 000 years ago, left its mark on the skeletons now attracting the attention of anthropologists. The rigid, bent shinbones of men found in central Europe between 5300 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. – shaped by muscles constantly on the run – became progressively straighter and less rigid as people farmed more and roved less. But women’s shinbones didn’t change much during this same period. However, when researchers considered the upper arm bones they found a different pattern emerged.

A different analytical approach produces new evidence

Using 3D laser imaging system, the team recorded models of 89 shinbones and 78 upper arm bones from women who lived during the Neolithic (5300 B.C.E.–4600 B.C.E.), Bronze Age (3200 B.C.E.–1450 B.C.E.), Iron Age (850 B.C.E.–100 C.E.), and Medieval (800 C.E.–850 C.E.) periods in Central Europe.

They compared humeral and tibial cross-sectional rigidity, shape, interlimb loading and interlimb strength proportions in relation to a comparative group female athletes, as well as recreationally active control subjects, as a reference group of low-impact loading. The athletes were selected for the variety of intensity and directionality their sports involved: endurance runners, football (soccer) players and rowers were recruited for the study.

The team found that humeral rigidity exceeded that of living athletes, with loading intensity biased heavily toward the upper limb. Interlimb strength proportions among Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age women were most similar to those of living semi-elite rowers. The mean values for tibial rigidity were well below those documented for the runners meaning that the prehistoric activities involved less ground reaction forces (the force exerted by the ground on a body in contact with it).

These results suggest that rigorous manual labor was a more important component of prehistoric women’s behavior than was terrestrial mobility through thousands of years of European agriculture, at levels far exceeding those of modern women.

The ADNABIOARC (From the earliest modern humans to the onset of farming: the role of climate, life-style, health, migration and selection in shaping European population history) project was interested biological adaptations, technological innovations, and behavioural plasticity provoked by early migration and farming.

Cordis source: Based on information from the project and media reports

Goodbye And Good Riddance – OpEd

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By Jeremy Salt*

Holding hands, the US and Israel have decided to walk out of UNESCO. Nothing could be more appropriate. Two rogue states run by two dangerous buffoons. Two states that have wreaked immense violence across the Middle East ever since ‘Israel’ was implanted in Palestine. In addition to Palestine, the US has launched genocidal wars against three countries just since 1990, Iraq (twice), Libya and Syria and continues to back Saudi Arabia in its equally genocidal war on Yemen.

As for Israel, living permanently outside international law is a necessary condition of its existence. It should have been tossed out of the UN long ago, or at least suspended, until it mended its ways. After all, what club continues the membership of someone who does not obey the rules, is warned once, once, twice, thrice, even 50 times, but still refuses to obey the rules? But Israel does not have to mend its ways and remains a member of the ‘international community’ because another state that does not obey the rules, and shows no respect for international law either, the US, protects it at every level and in every way, fomenting even more violence.

UNESCO has done its best to protect the cultural heritage of Palestine. Nothing that is not Jewish matters to the Zionists and so little of it is Jewish that Muslim and Christian Palestine has been ravaged, not just once (1948) or twice (1967) but continuously. The destruction of Palestine is the necessary condition for the creation of Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish state.’ It is all or nothing: there can be no compromise, no either/or. The Palestinians have set forth options, one secular state, two states living side by side, but the only option acceptable to Israel is all Palestine for us and none for you.

The elimination of the Palestinian human presence in 1948 was accompanied by the destruction of close to 500 of Palestinian villages or hamlets, irrespective of their historical and cultural worth. More destruction followed after 1967, beginning with the demolition of the Magharibah quarter in 1967 to make way for a ‘plaza’ around the Haram al Sharif and continuing in the years that followed. The war also created the opportunity for more Palestinians to be driven out of their homeland, this time from the West Bank, where many had taken refuge during the Zionist onslaught in 1948.

The war was another opportunity to drive Palestine further into history, towards the point where the physical evidence had all been destroyed and the Zionists could say ‘What Palestine? There was never a Palestine here.’ In fact this is what they have been saying all along, anyway, convincing no-one outside their own ranks because the Palestinians have not gone away, because their numbers are increasing (possibly there are now more Palestinians between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan River than the Zionist settler population) and because too much of their history can still be seen on the landscape. This is why the danger to Al Aqsa, glowing above Jerusalem, is so great because it is the living symbol of the lies being told by the Zionists.

On this subject how intriguing it is, and how frustrating for the Zionists, that in the half century they have been burrowing under and around the Haram al Sharif they have not found one object proving that the temple was ever there. There are far older structures whose ruins can be seen today. Turkey is full of them: the excavated temple at Gobeklitepe in south-eastern Turkey is 12,000 years old so how can it be that nothing is left of the grandiose structure said to have been built by Solomon where Al Aqsa now stands? The Bible speaks of a building more than 60 meters high, built from wood (the cedars of Lebanon) and huge blocks of stone. Similar material is said to have been used in the building of the second temple, completed in 515 BC and destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. It is said to have been of the same massive dimensions yet nothing has been found, no remnants of fallen stone pillars, no votive bowls, absolutely nothing, suggesting that if the temple did stand on this site the biblical descriptions were fantastically exaggerated (no surprise in a book full of fantastic exaggerations).

Furthermore, the modern day Zionists are connected to ancient Israel only by their religion. Their first colonists had no living connection with the land and no ethnic connection with the people who lived on it. Zionists continue to play on the living Jewish connection in Palestine over the centuries but do not mention that the Jews who were there when their forefathers arrived regarded Zionism as a heresy. Netanyahu’s claim that Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital for 3000 years could convince only idiots, seeing that Israel is only seven decades old and that the last Jewish state in Palestine collapsed in the sixth century BC.

In any case, irrespective of these questions, the ancient Jewish presence in Palestine cannot be accepted as justification for the destruction of what was there until the arrival of Zionist colonists in the late 19th century.

The Zionists share with the Crusaders the unsavory distinction of bringing to Palestine the greatest destruction known in its modern history. After conquering Palestine in the late 11th century the Crusaders massacred or drove all Muslims and Jews out of Jerusalem. The restitution of Muslim rule was followed from the early 16th century by four centuries of a long Ottoman peace until the British capture of Jerusalem in December, 1917. From that time onwards, Palestine has not known a day of peace. Violence and repression by the British occupiers was followed by massive violence, repression and dispossession by the Zionists, continuing down to the present day.

Jerusalem was always a prime target. Massacres and the seizure of Palestinian property in 1948 were repeated after the seizure of the eastern half of the city in 1967, followed by a continuing racist demographic war launched in complete breach of international law and the laws of any country claiming to be called civilized. What this underlines is that at heart Israel is not a modern state but a tribal, atavistic community that lives by its own brutal standards, certainly insofar as the Palestinians are concerned, and is indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks, when not actually contemptuous of what it thinks. For the Zionists to think that they can get away with this endlessly is a sure indication of the madness and delusions in their minds.

The US has now gone so far as to ‘recognize’ Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when in international law, Jerusalem is an occupied city, all of it, not just the eastern half, captured by force of arms and settled in direct violation of the laws or war. Commenting on the UN General Assembly vote rejecting the Trump declaration, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, openly threatened those who had voted in its favor. Names had been taken and punishment would be inflicted at the appropriate time. By voting for the resolution UN members had shown a lack of respect for the US, according to Haley: where, one might ask, is US respect for international law and the right of UN members to take independent decisions on the basis of that law?

The Trump declaration on Jerusalem has had an incendiary effect across the Middle East and amongst Muslims everywhere. It should be welcomed because it rips the last veil from the deceit known as the peace process. Mahmoud Abbas has had his nose rubbed in the dirt. The Saudi and Qatari governments, dealing with the Zionists behind the thinnest of veils, have had to fall into line on the question of Jerusalem. The Trump declaration has united Muslims across all divides.

By themselves, as brave as they are, as much fortitude and steadfastness as they have always shown, the Palestinians were never going to be able to defeat their enemies on their own. They were far too powerful. The road back to Palestine was always going to lead through the Arab world, as George Habash wrote in the 1950s, now to be extended, given the rise of Iran, to the Islamic world. Nasser fired up the Arab people in the 1950s and together, Hizbollah and Iran have again set an example of defiance of the US and Israel, so successfully that Israel is now well into preparations for the war intended to destroy them once and for all.

This will be an existential war for survival, an extremely violent war for which Israel has been making intensive preparations. It is warning of total destruction and Hasan Nasrallah is warning back that Hizbollah is ready with missiles that can reach any part of occupied Palestine. The stakes in Middle Eastern wars have never been higher, the possible consequences never graver and even potentially cataclysmic. The consequences of Trump’s declaration would have been so well known beforehand that it seems insufficient to call it stupid. Perhaps it was intended to bring on the war with Iran that Israel and the US have wanted for a long time.

*Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

To Contain Iran, Protect Its Interests And Prevent Regional War US Must Lead As Super Power – Analysis

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By Riad Kahwaji*

Over the past two decades, the world watched the United States manoeuvre inconsistently on many international issues, especially those related to the Middle East, as a boat with many captains sailing in a high sea. Foreign officials and analysts visiting Washington nowadays return home with more questions than answers. The sense of loss within the American leadership is quite strong, and is prompting many friends and allies to seek alternatives and new ways to ease their anxiety over what the future could be hiding for them. America’s allies abroad, especially in the Middle East and Asia, anxiously await Washington’s guidance and assistance as threats mount from rogue actors like Iran and North Korea.

If one of the U.S. allies today asks in Washington a simple question as: Who is our common enemy? There will not be a unified answer. Many would call this a symptom of a “democratic system.” But others would call it loss of vision. In the twentieth century, the U.S. Administrations – from both parties – were unified on issues like Fascism and Nazism and Communism as being sources of threat to the free and democratic world and hence branded the states that adopted them as enemies. During the Cold War era, the U.S. would not tolerate any sort of activities by communist movements on its home front and across the globe. Today, America’s enemy is not clearly defined.

One clear example on this is Washington’s policy towards Iran. Is Iran an enemy or a friend? If it is neither, then how one can deal with it or expect his allies to keep up with swings in position? At a time the U.S. Administration accuses Iran of supporting terrorism, Tehran’s lobby is very active in Washington trying to counter or undermine the policies of the U.S. government. This is very hard for a foreigner to understand. Same could be said today about Russia. Is it an enemy? Is the Cold War back? If not, then how one can explain what is happening in Ukraine, the Baltics, Syria and many other places?

So, the problem here is that either the U.S. officials are failing to communicate their policies properly and successfully to the rest of the world or their allies are yet to comprehend the changes America has been going through, and how much they affected it. Maybe it is both. To better understand the situation, one must review the major developments that have impacted the political scene inside and outside the United States and which subsequently led to the current status quo.

The U.S. emerged from the last Cold War victorious and asserted itself in 1990 as the sole super power and the world became unipolar. America’s economy was strong with hardly any debt and its military was superior to all. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U.S. came to the rescue of its small Arab Gulf ally a large number of countries where happy to answer Washington’s call to join the alliance to liberate Kuwait, and the operation was swift and decisive. When the U.S. home front was targeted directly by Al Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, almost the whole world sided with America and followed it in a global war on terrorism.

However, the two consecutive invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the exhausting efforts – to the very day – to deal with the consequences of the occupation and rebuilding of the two countries while fighting terrorists and maintaining unity of the land have taken their toll on the United States on all levels. Since 2001 until today the U.S. has lost over 5,000 soldiers in both countries and the war bill reached trillions of dollars, placing the country under debt. While the U.S. continues to maintain a strong military posture in the Middle East and other regions, its readiness and willingness to pursue policies that might lead it into wars has been greatly reduced and the appetite for military adventures no longer there.

The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have helped remove two regimes that were arch foes to Iran. This opened the way for Tehran to extend its influence into these two neighbouring countries and beyond. Uncovered documents from Al-Qaeda leaders and flow of events in the region since 2003 revealed the level of deep covert cooperation between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Jihadist groups – an alliance between Muslim Sunni and Muslim Shiite militants that was said hard to achieve and still doubted by many observers. This alliance allowed Tehran to wage a coordinated proxy war against the United States and its allies on many front in the region (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen).

All the Shiite militias that fought the U.S. forces in Iraq were trained and armed by Iran – a fact confirmed by all American government and military agencies that operated in Iraq before 2011. Al-Qaeda fighters who engaged U.S. troops in Iraq mostly came through Syria – Tehran’s main strategic ally in the region. Both countries were anxious of U.S. military presence on their borders and wanted it out. So both cooperated and collaborated with Sunni and Shiite proxy groups to engage the United States in a very costly war of attrition that proved very rewarding to Tehran, which is today the main hegemonic power in the Middle East with an ambitious ballistic missile program and a promising nuclear program. Burdened with trillions of dollars of debt and high casualty toll the United States opted to call it quits and pulled out of Iraq during President Barrack Obama Administration that also sought to eliminate the main reason that could force it into another war in the region by signing the nuclear deal with Tehran and adopting a policy of de-escalation with Iran that allowed the IRGC to spread its influence regionally to the wide extent seen today.

Realizing the magnitude of Iran’s hegemonic role and its threat to the interests of the United States and its allies in the region, the new U.S. Administration decided to reverse course. However, President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet have made heated speeches against Iran, but with little action. They announced combating terrorism as top priority. The current U.S. approach in fighting terrorists is based on engaging them from the air and relying more on “local partners” or what might be commonly known as proxy groups, such is the case in Iraq and Syria. The objective is to have little or no boots on the ground to avoid losses amongst American troops. According to U.S. Central Command Chief General Joseph Votel the current U.S. strategy is now based on “by, with and through,” meaning the fighting will be carried out by local partners and U.S. forces will work with local entities and communities in engaging and ousting the terrorists and then control and manage freed areas through local civil and security administrations or governments. This strategy that was initiated during the Obama Administration appears to be continuing under President Trump’s.

However, if the U.S. wants to rely on local partners then it will have to prove to be a reliable partner, meaning it will not leave them to their fate once Washington’s objectives are met because this will undermine America’s credibility and will make it hard to find partners in the region or other parts of the world when needed. The U.S. Administration is facing today a serious test in Syria and Iraq where all are watching to see how Washington will deal with its local partners who fought on the side of American troops against the gunmen of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) once the enemy is defeated and all territories are liberated. ISIS fighters have been driven out of most of the territory they once occupied in Iraq and Syria and are on the verge of total defeat. While freed territories in Iraq are being turned over to the Iraqi government forces, the areas liberated by the pro-U.S. Syrian Democratic Forcers (SDF) are being turned over to local civil administrations that are looking after the needs of the residents and providing an acceptable level of law and order. The SDF is made up of an alliance of Kurdish fighters of People’s Protection Units (YPG) and local Arab tribesmen.

According to a well-informed source at the Pentagon the Trump Administration does not yet have a plan for the day after the defeat of ISIS in Syria. “There is no clear plan yet as to what to do, and whether U.S. troops in Syria will stay there to assist the SDF and along with our air assets provide cover against attacks by pro-Syrian regime forces or they will just pick up and leave,” the source who asked not to be named said. Nevertheless, U.S. officials also fear the prospect of an ISIS comeback due to the continued unrest and political turmoil in Syria and Iraq.

If the U.S. abandons its allies and their territories get overrun by pro-Syrian regime forces made up of predominantly Shiite militias led by IRGC officers, the civil war will continue in the country creating an environment that would permit extremist groups to re-establish themselves. Hence, the defeat of ISIS does not necessarily mean the war on terror in Syria and even Iraq is over. Only with a political settlement that leads to a transition of power in Syria and proper power-sharing in Iraq one can safely say the root-cause for the rise of terrorists groups there has been eliminated and war on terror in that part of the world is won. The U.S. is believed to have about 1,000 Special Forces troops in Syria and about 7,000 troops in Iraq. This is a much smaller footprint for the U.S. on the ground compared to what it had in Iraq before troops were pulled out in 2011.

Moreover, the Trump Administration has just broadened its war on terrorism to re-include Shiite extremist groups such as Hizbullah, the IRGC main power-projection force in the Arab world. Vice President Mike Pence recently reminded the world that America’s war on terrorism started when IRGC-Hizbullah suicide bombers blew up the Marines base in Beirut killing 241 troops. After the September 11, 2001, attacks the U.S. shifted its attention from the IRGC and Hizbullah to the Sunni extremist forces like Al-Qaeda and later ISIS. However, after Iran has successfully managed to use Hizbullah and other IRGC militias to spread its influence over various areas of the Middle East, the Trump Administration appears to have decided to refocus on Hizbullah and the IRGC. The Congress has passed a series of bills imposing sanctions on both entities, and is expected to impose tougher measures in the coming months. The Trump Administration refused to recertify the nuclear deal with Iran and referred the issue to the Congress, in a step seen by most observers as an escalation against Tehran for pursuing an ambition ballistic missile program and for its destructive “behaviour” in the Middle East.

While Washington wants to use sanctions and other means of soft power to force Tehran back on the table to renegotiate the nuclear deal and include clauses related to its ballistic missiles and expansionist policies in the region, America’s allies want to see tougher action and possible use of hard power. Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab Gulf Allies as well as Israel share a heightened threat perception of Iran and want to see the United States take tougher steps, including use of military force if need be to compel Tehran to change its policies and pull out of its areas of control in the Arab world, especially, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The Saudis have grown even more concerned recently when an Iranian ballistic missile sneaked to their Houthi allies in Yemen targeted Saudi capital Riyadh. Saudi leaders have grown more aggressive in their reaction and Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir threatened to retaliate against Iran directly in the future.

But the mood in Washington is not in favour of any hard approaches and certainly most of the leadership is not yet ready for another war in the Middle East, especially when the North Korean nuclear threat has substantially increased reaching the Administration’s top list of priorities. The United States is suffering from too much fatigue to prepare itself for two wars (Iran and North Korea). Its current political and economic conditions can permit it to deal with one crisis at a time and currently the North Korean crisis is more pressing and poses a strategic threat, while Iran is at the moment a security threat with the possibility of becoming a strategic threat in the future.

Therefore, the U.S. and its Middle East allies agree on regarding the IRGC and Hizbullah as a threat, however they are certainly not on the same page on how to deal with it. This will certainly affect the situation in the volatile Middle East region. Lack of U.S. action and leadership plus the continued heightened threat perception of Iran throughout the region will likely prompt America’s allies to take things into their own hands, which will increase the threat of a large-scale regional war breaking out forcing the U.S. to step into it in order to protect its vital interests there. Israel has escalated its air strikes against Hizbullah and IRGC in Syria and has sent out warnings to various regional and international powers that if the IRGC and Hizbullah continue to consolidate their military capabilities in Syria and Lebanon it will have to react at a certain point. Hence, today the Middle East could see a major regional war breaking out either from a reaction by Saudi Arabia or Israel against Iran and its proxies. In either case, America will find itself under tremendous pressure to intervene in one form or another.

To avoid being dragged into an untimely war the U.S. Administration must develop a solid and realistic policy. Making fiery statements against Iran and using sanctions as the only tool of pressure will not yield any results. On the contrary, it could lead to counter robust moves by Iran that will increase its control over the region and accelerate its ballistic missiles and nuclear programs. Tehran is not a player that one could easily bluff. Washington should either mean its threats to Iran or avoid making them at all because they will only increase Iran’s threat perception and push it to launch counter or pre-emptive moves.

So Washington has two choices: First, forget about its differences with Iran and accept it as the hegemonic player in the region – as the Obama Administration did – and provide limited support to its allies or help them to resolve their differences with Tehran. Second, pursue the current policy of escalation but according to a clear cut plan that includes a military dimension that will seek to contain Iran and its proxies and compel them to pull back and check their threats to the interests of the United States and its allies. By leading in a forceful manner with a clear vision, Washington could prevent the region from sliding into an all-out war and deliver a strong message to Tehran that the U.S. is back and willing to go all the way to protect its interests.

The Iranian regime is very vulnerable and cannot afford public humiliation in a military confrontation or even a war of attrition on its own territories. Therefore, Tehran will likely think twice before taking further action that will place it on a direct war footing against a super power like the U.S. Iran has been heavily investing in its proxy forces in order to avoid direct confrontations and because this policy has been rewarding. But if the U.S. was to change rules of engagement and confront it directly, Iran will very likely behave differently and be open for a peaceful resolution.

*Riad Kahwaji, is the founder and director of INEGMA with a 28 years of experience as a journalist and a Middle East security analyst.

Catalonia: How Not To Deal With A Separatist Movement – OpEd

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By Yossi Mekelberg*

Insanity was once defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the current period of European political madness, early elections and referendums are being repeatedly used in futile attempts to resolve political crises, as a substitute for vision and leadership. In most cases the results do nothing but highlight the deep divisions, mainly because the root causes of the issues at hand have not been adequately dealt with.

Last Thursday’s elections in Catalonia demonstrated exactly this. Catalan nationalism, whether one likes it or not, was not going to disappear just because the people of the region were asked to vote in an election for their regional Parliament. Rather than strategy, the move smacked of desperation by the central Spanish government and its Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The elections only further demonstrated that Catalans are divided over the issue of separating from Spain. The results cannot be called a decisive victory for the separatist parties, who won 70 of the 135 seats, although they still maintain a majority in the Catalan Parliament. Rajoy, on the other hand, is clearly the big loser. He gambled on voters to do the job for him of killing off the nationalist challenge, and lost. Those parties who do not want to break away from Spain are in a minority in the Catalan Parliament, and Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party recorded its worst ever result; it was all but wiped out, losing 8 of its 11 seats.

These results also highlight that Rajoy’s ill-judged decisions to impose direct rule after the Catalan Parliament declared independence, to go after the members of the Catalan government who supported the region’s independence, and then to call an election, have all backfired. Accusing Catalan President Carles Puigdemont of sedition and rebellion and jailing other members of the deposed Catalan government for similar offenses, was an overreaction made in panic. Turning Puigdemont, a rather lackluster leader, into an almost Che Guevara-style rebel with a European arrest warrant on his head, was only ever going to entrench nationalist resistance to Madrid. Though the arrest warrant was withdrawn last month, the damage had already been done. And now the regional election results have left Spain and Catalonia on the verge of further confrontation, and an out-of-sorts EU facing a major crisis brewing within its borders.

Turning to the European angle of Catalonia’s search for independence, the ousted Puigdemont, who is in self-imposed exile in Brussels, has declared all along that the secessionists’ desire was to part company from Spain, but not leave the EU. But for the EU the best result would have been a victory for those who want to remain part of Spain. The very idea of a region within one of its member states declaring independence sends shivers down the EU’s spine. Its very existence is based on membership of sovereign states that are admitted on the basis of meeting political, social, economic and legal criteria. Would any territory within a member state that declared independence be automatically admitted to the EU? Or should it undergo the same strict admission process as other states applying for membership? There are dozens of other separatist movements waiting on the wings, and watching with great interest how the EU and its individual members are approaching the Catalan quest for independence. If Brussels is too sympathetic to the secessionist cause this would legitimize, even encourage, other similar movements across the continent. On the other hand, there is a recognition that international law, at least ostensibly, is on the side of those who aspire to self-determination. Article 1 of the UN Charter states that one of the organization’s fundamental objectives is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” This is not something EU law can ignore.

There is no escape from the fact that there is a real clash between international law’s stand on self-determination, which would appear to support the Catalan secessionist cause, and article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which gives central government the power to suspend some of a region’s autonomy if it “fails to fulfil the obligations imposed upon it by the constitution or other laws, or acts in a way seriously prejudicing the general interests of Spain.”

It would be foolish to think that what Europe needs right now is more separatist and secessionist movements, motivated by parochial nationalism. These movements and their ideologies have their origins, as in the case of Scotland, or Brexit, in a reductionist approach driven not only by a different history and culture, but by a strong sense of being economically exploited by central government. The rise of this nationalist discourse contains the seeds of a return to a divided and war-ridden Europe, a disturbing trend that urgently requires a collective effort to roll back.

However, this can be done only by constructive engagement between different factions and ideas within a society, and through a genuine understanding of the root causes of the rise of nationalism, especially the question of why it continues to draw support despite its disastrous record in Europe, including Spain. Nevertheless, to simply dismiss Catalan aspirations to self-determination, and to treat the region’s leaders like bandits, accusing them of treason and sedition, will only make matters worse and certainly won’t make their stand or their supporters go away.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. Twitter: @YMekelberg

Robert Reich: A Year With Trump – OpEd

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Last week, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch stood on the White House lawn, opining that Donald Trump’s presidency could be “the greatest presidency that we’ve seen, not only in generations, but maybe ever.”

I beg to differ.

America has had its share of crooks (Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon), bigots (Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan), and incompetents (Andrew Johnson, George W. Bush). But never before Donald Trump have we had a president who combined all these nefarious qualities.

America’s great good fortune was to begin with the opposite – a superb moral leader. By June of 1775, when Congress appointed George Washington to command the nation’s army, he had already “become a moral rallying post,” as his biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, described him, “the embodiment of the purpose, the patience, and the determination necessary for the triumph of the revolutionary cause.”

Washington won the war and then led the fledgling nation “by directness, by deference, and by manifest dedication to duty.”

Some two hundred forty years later, in the presidential campaign of 2016, candidate Trump was accused of failing to pay his income taxes. His response was “that makes me smart” – thereby signaling to millions of Americans that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump also boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.” In other words, it’s perfectly okay for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy.

Trump sent another message by refusing to reveal his tax returns during the campaign or even after he took office, or to put his businesses into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, and by his overt willingness to make money off his presidency by having foreign diplomats stay at his Washington hotel, and promoting his various golf clubs.

These were not just ethical lapses. They directly undermined the common good by reducing the public’s trust in the office of the president. As the New York Times editorial board put it in June 2017, “for Mr. Trump and his circle, what matters is not what’s right but what you can get away with. In his White House, if you’re avoiding the appearance of impropriety, you’re not pushing the boundaries hard enough.”

A president’s most fundamental legal and moral responsibility is to uphold and protect our system of government. Trump has degraded that system.

When as a presidential nominee Trump said that a particular federal judge shouldn’t be hearing a case against him because the judge’s parents were Mexican, Trump did more than insult a member of the judiciary. He attacked the impartiality of America’s legal system.

When Trump threatened to “loosen” federal libel laws so he could sue news organizations that were critical of him and, later, to revoke the licenses of networks critical of him, he wasn’t just bullying the media. He was threatening the freedom and integrity of the press.

When, as president, he equated Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members with counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, by blaming “both sides” for the violence, he wasn’t being neutral. He was condoning white supremacists, thereby undermining the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights.

When he pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, for a criminal contempt conviction, he wasn’t just signaling it’s okay for the police to engage in violations of civil rights. He was also subverting the rule of law by impairing the judiciary’s power to force public officials to abide by court decisions.

When he criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, he wasn’t just asking that they demonstrate their patriotism. He was disrespecting their – and, indirectly, everyone’s – freedom of speech.

When he berated the intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he wasn’t just questioning their competence. He was suggesting they were engaged in a giant conspiracy to remove him from office – potentially inviting his most ardent supporters to engage in a new civil war.

America has had its share of good and bad presidents, but Donald Trump falls far below anything this nation has ever before experienced. In less than a year, he has degraded the core institutions and values of our democracy.

We have never before had a president whose character was so contrary to the ideals of the republic. That Senator Orrin Hatch and other Republicans don’t seem to recognize this is itself frightening.

Kurdish Government Accepts Baghdad’s Conditions To End Dispute

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By Suadad Al-Salhy

The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has agreed on the conditions stipulated by Baghdad’s federal government to solve outstanding problems between the two governments.

Talks will be resumed to end the punitive measures in the Kurdish region, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi said on Tuesday.

The KRG held a controversial referendum on independence in late September inside the region and disputed areas seized by the Kurdish forces during the past years.

Baghdad responded by imposing a series of punitive measures on the region including banning international flights into and from the region’s airports, shutting down the border crossings between the region, Turkey and Iran, and launching a huge military campaign to drive the Kurdish forces back to the 2005 constitutionally approved border.

Considering the September referendum illegal, Baghdad took steps to reinforce federal writ in and around the region, which has been autonomous since 2003. Abadi said there is a dispute between Baghdad and the KRG over the border of the region and the running of the border of the country.

“The constitution was clear relating to the border of the region and it was recognized (by the constitution) as the border of the region on March 9, 2001, but the regional (Kurdish) forces were out of these borders,” Abadi said on Tuesday in his weekly press conference.

“Also, the border (of the country) should be exclusively under the control of the federal government… so we took several measures to control the border and the border crossings.

“Now the regional government and the (Kurdish) officials said that they agree on these two points (conditions) and let’s talk,” Abadi said.

“I consider this an essential change… but we want to reiterate two things — which are the referendum was illegal and (there will be) no return to it (the results) again. The second thing is the recognition of the 2003 borders of the region and the borders (of the country) should be under the control of the central government.”


Iran Lauds UN’s Jerusalem Vote As ‘Awakening Of Public Opinion’

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Iranian Supreme Leader’s Senior Advisor Ali Akbar Velayati said the UN General Assembly’s vote to urge reversal of U.S. decision on Jerusalem indicates “awakening of world’s public opinion”, IRNA reports.

Addressing a press conference, Velayati said ‘Palestine is the number one issue of the Islamic world.’

Referring to the global reactions towards the recent decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to relocate Washington’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he said the move indicated that the Palestine issue is vital for the whole world.

On December 21, Armenia joined 128 other nations on Thursday, December 21 when the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to condemn Trump’s decision.

India: Reds On The Tracks – Analysis

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By Ajit Kumar Singh*

In the night of December 19, 2017, at around 11 pm, an armed squad of about 15 Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres, including some women, carried out an attack at the Masudan Railway Station in the Jamalpur area of Monghyr District, Bihar. The Maoists set ablaze station property, including the signaling panel, hampering rail services, and abducted two railway employees present at the station – Assistant Station Master [ASM] Mukesh Paswan and porter Narendra Mandal. Though the movement of trains was restored after the fire was doused at around 5:30am, it had to be suspended again at 6:40am following a phone call, reportedly from the Maoists, threatening to kill the captives if traffic was not stopped. An unnamed railway official stated, “Assistant station master Mukesh Paswan and porter Narendra Mandal at Masudan were held captive and taken away to some undisclosed location at about 11:30pm. The panic-stricken ASM called the Malda [West Bengal] DRM [Divisional Regional Manger] to inform that the Maoists had threatened to kill them if the movement of trains continued [on Masudan track].” After the State Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) launched a joint search operation, the Maoists released the two men in a hilly area at Jamalpur. Train services were restored thereafter. Interestingly, there was no force deployment at the station, which falls within a Maoist-affected region, even when the Maoists had called for a 24-hour Bihar and Jharkhand bandh (shut down) on December 20, 2017, protesting police action against their (Maoist) cadres.

Around 100 Maoists abducted a railway employee and ‘hijacked’ the Danapur-Durg Express in the Bhimbandh area of Lakhisarai District, Bihar, in the intervening night of August 2-3, 2017. A statement by the CRPF noted, “Train no-13288 Danapur Durg Express train was hijacked near the Bhalui station [in Bhimbandh area of Lakhisarai] around 2:30am (on August 3). The cabin man who was on duty was also abducted.” The siege ended after an exchange of fire took place between personnel of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and the ‘hijackers’. However, no casualty was reported from either side. The railway employee was subsequently released. Interestingly, intelligence inputs, almost a month prior to the incident, had warned about the assembly of several Maoist leaders in the Bheembandh area and combing operation were ongoing. An unnamed CRPF official claimed, “We along with Seema Sashastra Bal and Bihar Police forces were already combing the area.” The attack coincided with the “martyr’s week” observed by Maoists between July 28 and August 3 each year, to commemorate their men killed in encounters.

On May 29, 2017, CPI-Maoist cadres blew up railway tracks between Chiyanki and Karmabad Railway Stations in Palamu and Doghar Districts in Jharkhand. The traffic on the route was disrupted for nearly 10 hours till a railway team reached the incident site and reinstalled the broken lines. The incident took place during the 24-hour State-wide bandh called by the Maoists in Jharkhand to protest the alleged ‘anti-poor policy’ of the State Government.

According to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), the Maoists have targeted Indian Railways on at least five occasions in the current year (data till December 25, 2017). However, no casualty was reported in any of these incidents. 100 such incidents have been reported since 2004, including those in the current year. These incidents have resulted in at least 162 fatalities and 210 persons injured. In the worst ever attack on the railways by the Maoists, at least 148 persons were killed and more than 145 injured, when the Maoists attacked Howrah-Kurla Gyaneshwari Express, a passenger train, in the Sardiya area of the Jhargram region in the West Midnapore District of West Bengal in the early hours of May 28, 2010. The incident occurred during the “black week” [May 28-June 2, 2010] declared by the Maoists. The most recent attack on the railways by the Maoists, which resulted in fatalities, took place on November 30, 2013, in which three Policemen were killed and two were injured, as about 20 CPI-Maoist cadres attacked a Police team escorting the Patna-bound Sahebganj-Danapur Intercity Express near Jamalpur city in Munger District. Police disclosed that the attackers were travelling on the train and attacked the Police party when the train was passing through a tunnel one km from Jamalpur railway station. After shooting the Policemen, the Maoists collected the four rifles of the Policemen, cut the vacuum brake hosepipe and got off the train.

Actual incidence of rail sabotage by the Naxalites [Left Wing Extremists (LWES)] during this period may be much higher. Indeed, on April 23, 2010, the then Union Minister in the Ministry of Railways, Mamata Banerjee, had informed the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament), “Railways has become a target of Naxals. Incidents of attacks by Naxals nearly doubled to 58 in 2009 from 30 in the previous year. 56 incidents were reported in 2007.” The Government has not provided such data for earlier or later periods.

These attacks have resulted in massive losses to railways’ property. In her April 23, 2013, statement, Mamata Banerjee had disclosed in the Rajya Sabha, “We have lost Rs. 500 crore [period not specified] because of Naxal bandhs [shut downs] and obstructions. We have lost about 40 per cent of our business due to Maoist violence and agitations like bandhs. These have hit our operations to a great extent.” Most recently, Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways Rajen Gohain informed the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) on December 14, 2016, that the railways lost INR 702,92,441 in LWE attacks in 2015 alone. He further stated that the maximum damage to railway property by Naxalites was caused in the year 2014, though he did not provide the figure. The Government has not provided such data for earlier or later periods.

Meanwhile, the Government continues with its rhetoric within and outside Parliament that “safety is accorded the highest priority by Indian Railways and all possible steps are undertaken on a continual basis including upgradation of technology to aid safe running of trains”. These claims are not backed by the record, either of vulnerabilities to Maoist attacks and other crimes, or of the sheer quantum and frequency of Rail accidents across the country.

Indeed, according to the 12th report of Standing Committee on Railways (2016-17) on Safety and Security in Railways presented to the Lok Sabha on December 14, 2016, the Railway Protection Force (RPF), in place of its meager sanctioned strength of about 76,000 personnel, had only about 69,000 personnel in position. The report noted, further, that the Government admitted, “given the magnitude of train operations in the country that the present [sanctioned] strength of the RPF is not adequate”. The Indian Railways carry over 22 million passengers and over three million tons of freight per day across a network spanning 119,630 kilometres.

The system of providing security on the Indian Railways at present includes a three-tier security system of District Police, Government Railway Police (GRP) and RPF. There is a well-defined separation of duties and powers of the three agencies. However, according to the Safety and Security in Railways report, the Government itself has “opined that the three tier security system of RPF, GRP and District Police is not fully effective to deal with security related aspects. Multiplicity of law enforcement agencies over Railways may sometime leads to confusion among public and grey areas among these agencies.”

Earlier, in February 2015, a Ministry of Railways White Paper released with the “objective to show the challenges that the organization is facing today”, had noted, “Investments in safety have also been insufficient.”

The Indian Railways have often been described as the “lifeline of the nation”, and their disruption, particularly by the LWEs is a matter of very serious concern. Despite the long history of Naxalite attacks on the Rail networks, the responses remain lackadaisical, with little done in terms of measurable indices to tackle the problem. As the Maoists come under pressure across the country, and particularly in their regions of erstwhile dominance, the temptation to escalate attacks on soft targets such as the railways will increase. There is little evidence of any urgency in the Government’s response to this potential threat.

* Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Pakistan: Defenseless Minorities – Analysis

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By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty*

Eleven civilians were killed and 56 injured in a suicide attack by two Islamic States (IS, also Daesh) terrorists on the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, on December 17, 2017. Police Guards stationed at the church entrance and on its roof killed one terrorist but the second detonated his explosives-filled vest outside the prayer hall, Provincial Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti confirmed, causing all the casualties. Police Official Abdur Razaq Cheema disclosed further that two other terrorists managed to escape. At the time of the incident there were nearly 400 worshippers in the church for the pre-Christmas service. The IS claimed the attack.

One seven-year-old boy was killed when an unidentified terrorist hurled a hand grenade at a Christian colony in the Chaman area of Qilla Abdullah District, Balochistan, on December 1, 2017. “It was a hand grenade which caused the explosion at the colony’s gate,” Gul Mohammad, a local Police officer disclosed, adding, “The blast also smashed windows in nearby homes.”

On October 7, 2017, terrorists hurled a hand grenade at a church at Shah Zaman Road in Quetta, but no casualties were reported.

According to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), these were the three terrorism-related attacks on Christian community in which 12 persons were killed and 56 others sustained injures during the current year (data till December 25, 2017). During the corresponding period of 2016, there were two such incidents which had resulted in 76 fatalities and 305 persons injured. No such incident was reported during the remaining period of 2016.

Terrorist attacks on Christians are not a new phenomenon in the theocratic state of Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan has witnessed at least 25 such incidents resulting in 246 fatalities and 603 persons injured since March 2000 (data till December 21, 2017). Some of the prominent terrorism-related incidents targeting the Christian community across Pakistan included:

March 27, 2016: At least 74 people were killed and more than 300 injured in a suicide blast inside the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in the Iqbal Town area of Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab Province, when Christians were celebrating Easter. ‘Spokesperson’ of the Jama’at-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ehsanullah Ehsan declared, “We had been waiting for this occasion. We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter. It was part of the annual martyrdom attacks we have started this year.”

March 15, 2015: At least 15 persons, including 13 Christians and two Policemen, were killed and more than 70 were injured, when two suicide bombers attacked two churches near the Youhanabad neighbourhood in Lahore, sparking mob violence in which two terrorists were killed. Youhanabad is home to more than 100,000 Christians. JuA had claimed responsibility for the attack as well.

September 22, 2013: At least 79 worshippers, including 34 women and seven children, were killed and another 130 were injured when two suicide bombers attacked a Christian congregation at the historic All Saints Church in the Kohati Gate area of Peshawar, the provincial capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province, on September 22, 2013. Ahmed Marwat, ‘a spokesman’ for the Jundullah group, a faction of the TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack, and declared, in a statement to the media, “Until and unless drone strikes are stopped, we will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land. They are the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them.”

March 10, 2010: Six persons, including two women, were killed and seven persons were injured when over a dozen terrorists armed with Kalashnikov rifles, pistols and hand-grenades attacked the office of World Vision International, a US-based Christian aid agency, in the Oghi village of Mansehra District in KP.

December 25, 2002: Three women were killed and 15 persons were injured in a grenade attack on the United Presbyterian Church near Sialkot in Punjab.

September 25, 2002: Seven persons were killed and another three were injured in a terrorist attack on a Christian welfare organisation’s office, Idara Amn-o-Insaaf (Institute for Peace and Justice), in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. Lashkar-e-Islami Mohammadi (LIM), a little-known terrorist group, was blamed for the attack.

August 5, 2002: Six persons were killed and another four were injured in a terrorist attack on a Christian missionary school in the Jhika Gali Town of Murree tehsil (revenue unit) in Rawalpindi District of Punjab.

March 17, 2002: Five persons were killed and more than 40 were injured, including the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Pakistan, in a grenade attack during the Sunday morning service at the Protestant International Church located between the American and Russian Embassies in the heavily protected area of the Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad.

October 28, 2001: 17 Christians – including five children – and one Policeman were killed and nine persons injured, when six gunmen opened fire on a church in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur District in Punjab.

Other than Christians, other religious minorities have regularly faced atrocities across Pakistan. The Jinnah Institute of Pakistan, in a report titled State of Religious Freedom in Pakistan 2015, had noted that, during the period 2012-2015, at least 543 incidents of violence were recorded against religious minorities in Pakistan. Shias were targeted on at least 288 occasions during this period, followed by Hindus (91 occasions), Christians (88 occasions), and Ahamadiyas (76 occasions).

Christians constitute a meagre 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population of 193 million. While they have been victims of terrorist atrocities, they have also been intermittently attacked in mass and targeted violence by Islamist extremists. Right-wing vigilantes and mobs have taken the law into their own hands, killing at least 69 people over alleged blasphemy since 1990, according to an April 13, 2017, report. Most recently, a Christian teenager, Sharoon Masih (17), was beaten to death by his classmates for drinking from the same glass used by a Muslim student in the Vehari District of Punjab on August 30, 2017. Media reports indicated that the boy was killed just because of his faith. His mother Razia Bibi had warned Sharoon not to mix with the boys who practiced Islam after one of them had reportedly told him (Masih), “You’re a Christian don’t dare sit with us if you want to live.” Sharoon was just on his fourth day at his new school at the Government Model MC High School in Burewala.

Christians have been systematically targeted by Pakistan’s perverse blasphemy laws, which prescribe a mandatory death sentence for any act purportedly bringing Islam and its Prophet to disrepute. Most recently, a Christian man, Nadeem James Masih, was sentenced to death on September 15, 2017, for blasphemy. Nadeem was arrested in July 2016, after his friend Yasir Bashir told the Police that he sent him a poem on WhatsApp that was insulting to Islam. Following the incident, Masih fled from his home in Sara-e-Alamgir town in Punjab to escape an angry mob that had gathered there, but later surrendered to the Police. His trial continued for more than a year at the Gujrat Jail in Punjab. Besides the death sentence, Masih has been fined PKR 300,000. While not a single convict has ever been executed for blasphemy in Pakistan, there are currently about 40 people on death row or serving life sentences for the crime, according to a release dated April 26, 2017, by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Underlining the weakness in the existing blasphemy law, the Islamabad High Court asked Parliament on August 11, 2017, to make changes to the current decree to prevent people from being falsely accused of the crime. In a 116-page order, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui suggested that Parliament amend the law to require the same punishment of the death penalty for those who falsely allege blasphemy, as for those who commit the crime. “Currently, there is a very minor punishment for falsely accusing someone of blasphemy,” the judgment noted.

Significantly, then Federal Minister for Minorities’ Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was killed on March 2, 2011, by terrorists of the Fidayeen-e-Muhammad, a TTP faction, and al Qaeda Punjab Chapter, for his opposition to the country’s blasphemy laws. Christians have also been attacked for opposing often forcible conversions to Islam. Asia Bibi (46), a Christian woman from the Sheikhupura District of Punjab, who has been sentenced to death and has been in prison for the last four years following a conviction for blasphemy, in her memoir Blasphemy, describes how she had been asked to convert to Islam to ‘redeem herself’. The Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, came forward in her support and asserted that the blasphemy law had been abused in her case. Taseer was later killed by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri on January 4, 2011, for his support to Asia Bibi and a campaign for amendment to the blasphemy law.

As SAIR had noted earlier, seeds of religious intolerance have been systematically sown in Pakistan since its inception in 1947 – and, indeed, even earlier, during the struggle for independence. There was a further and escalating radicalization during and after the regime of military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq. Since then, Pakistan has witnessed rising attacks against all minorities, including the Christians. The 2017 Annual Report of USCIRF noted that “during the past year, the Pakistani Government continued to perpetrate and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations. Religiously discriminatory constitutional provisions and legislation, such as the country’s blasphemy and anti-Ahamadiyas laws, continue to result in prosecutions and imprisonments.”

Moreover, there were many instances that reiterated the fact that religious extremists have enormous support across Pakistan. In the most recent assertion of radicalized groups in the country, the Federal Government bowed down before violent Islamist protesters. On October 2, 2017, the National Assembly passed the ‘Election Bill 2017’, making changes in the Khatm-e-Nabuwat [finality of Prophet-hood] clause of the earlier Bill. Soon after, countrywide protests led by Tehreek-e-Labaik of Pakistan (TLP), an Islamist party, erupted against this change. Other pro-Muslim parties, such as Pakistan Sunni Tehreek and Tehreek-e-Khatme Nabuwwat (Movement for the Finality of Prophet-hood) also lent their support, demanding the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid for removing the clause which, according to these groups undermined Islamic beliefs and amounted to blasphemy. Mounting pressure, the protestors began camping at Islamabad’s Faizabad Traffic Interchange from November 6, 2017. The Government restored the original clause on November 17, 2017, but the Islamists continued with their protest. Eventually, on November 25, 2017, bloody clashes took place just outside Islamabad, in which at least six people were killed and another 200 were injured. Speaking from the site of the clashes, TLP ‘spokesman’ Ejaz Ashrafi declared, “We are in our thousands. We will not leave. We will fight until end.” Clashes also took place elsewhere in the country and continued on November 26 as well. Order was restored only after the resignation of Law Minister Hamid on November 27, and with the Army mediating between the protest leaders and the Government.

Christians in particular and other religious minorities at large will continue to suffer as long as the establishment maintains its policy of appeasement of Islamist extremists and fundamentalists. Given the past record of the state policy, there seems to be no foreseeable end to this tragic chain of events.

*Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Egypt: 15 Executed For 2013 Sinai Terror Attack

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Egypt executed 15 people on Tuesday after they were convicted on terrorism charges for an attack on armed forces in North Sinai in 2013.

The militants were executed at the Prison of Wadi Al Natrun, west of Cairo, and the Prison of Burj Al Arab in the Mediterranean Sea city of Alexandria.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry oversaw the executions.

The inmates had been convicted of “acts of violence” and were executed after court rulings against them became final.

Ezzat Ghonein, director of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, said the militants were convicted for taking part in violence in the city of Al-Arish located in the northern Sinai Peninsula following the 2013 military coup.

Prosecutors accused the defendants of “targeting military personnel” and “possessing illegal weapons” — charges the suspects denied in court.

Militants have been increasingly targeting security forces around Mount Sinai since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

Last month, over 300 people were killed by a gun and bomb attack on a Sinai Penninsula mosque.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi vowed to combat the terrorists.

“We will respond to this act with brute force against these terrorists,” el-Sisi said in a televised address.

“This terrorist act will strengthen our resolve, steadfastness and will to stand up to, resist and battle against terrorism.”

Original article

Trump As Balfour – OpEd

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In Hebron on December 7, over 20 Israeli soldiers arrested 14-year-old Fawzi Al-Junaidi, blindfolded him and marched him off to detention. The image of the arrest, the violence of it, startled many people. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned the arrest and said sharply: “Israel is a terrorist state. We will not abandon Jerusalem to the mercy of a child-murder state.”

Erdogan was referring to the renewed controversy over Jerusalem. On December 6, President Donald Trump declared that the United States would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To move the embassy suggests that Israel’s capital is no longer to be Tel Aviv but Jerusalem. This action is against long-standing international policy, which sees Jerusalem as an “international city”—one that would be governed by various parties to protect the city’s special status as home to major religious sites of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Trump’s statement on Jerusalem rattled Palestine, where the people have long worried about the seizure of East Jerusalem, which the United Nations deems to be part of Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the rest of the old city. Protests broke out in the West Bank, in Jerusalem and in the Gaza Strip. These were largely non-violent, a mirror of the frustration of the Palestinian people with the collapse of their national liberation project.

Dangerous escalation

On December 8, which was a Friday and therefore a day of prayer for Muslims, Israeli forces gathered in a show of force near the Al Aqsa mosque, revered by Muslims as the third holiest site in Islam. Prayers went on as usual in the mosque, although the tension on the streets was palpable. It provoked protests from Palestinians in the city, who marched in small groups chanting: “Jerusalem is ours, Jerusalem is our capital.”

Israeli forces descended upon the demonstrations with ferocity. Israeli troops on horseback galloped down Salah Eddin Street in the old city, scaring passers-by. The soldiers smashed up shops and arrested men, women and children. The Red Crescent said that about 800 Palestinians had been injured and a handful, mostly in Gaza, had been killed. Israeli forces used a combination of rubber bullets and live fire in the West Bank and Jerusalem and air strikes against Gaza. Two days later, on December 10, an Israeli military vehicle ran over a five-year-old Palestinian girl in the city of Hebron, perhaps the tensest city in Palestine.

It was in Hebron that 14-year-old Al-Junaidi was arrested and detained. His uncle said that the boy had gone out to get medicine and food for his family. This young boy cares for his father, who had undergone surgery recently. The incident moved the uncle to say: “We are the children of Palestine. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine in the hearts and minds of our children. They will never be able to erase it.”

Wisam Hashlamoun, a Palestinian photojournalist, took the iconic picture of Al-Junaidi. About 50 Israeli soldiers attacked a group of Palestinian youths, Hashlamoun recounts. Al-Junaidi fell to the ground, sustaining a head wound. The soldiers “pulled him to his feet and encircled him”, which is the moment Hashlamoun photographed the boy. “It definitely didn’t occur to me that this photo would become a symbol,” Hashlamoun said. “I wanted to expose Israeli violence.”

Israeli state media concentrated on a few rockets fired into Israel from Gaza and the stabbing of an Israeli security guard at the entrance of Jerusalem’s bus station. These acts of violence were taken to justify the massive use of force by the Israelis against Palestinians—spurred on by Trump’s inflammatory declaration. It is inevitable that Palestinians will respond to the Israeli violence, which comes on top of the occupation that has lasted over 50 years. Little wonder that some Palestinians chanted: “We don’t need empty words. We need stones and Kalashnikovs.”

No wonder, too, that many world leaders—from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani—have called Trump’s statement a “dangerous escalation”. It will only create far more violence. The European Union and the U.N. have roundly condemned Trump’s statement.

Jerusalem as emblem

In 1947, the U.N. passed Resolution 181 which placed Jerusalem under the administration of the U.N. It was to be a city governed by a “special international regime”. The countries of the world recognised Jerusalem as a special place, precious to the major Abrahamic religions and located in the midst of tensions between the new state of Israel, exiled and occupied Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states.

Over the years, the U.N. Security Council has voted seven times to condemn the Israeli 1980 Basic Jerusalem Law, which claims the city as the “eternal and indivisible” capital of Israel. The first of these resolutions, 478 in 1980, was passed unanimously, with an abstention from the U.S. But even former (and late) U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie suggested that Jerusalem was a unique city. “We must share a common vision of that ancient city’s future—an undivided Jerusalem, with free access to the holy places for peoples of all faiths.” At the same time, the U.S. held that it had the right to have its embassy in Jerusalem. Any instruction from the U.N. to move its embassy, Muskie said in 1980, would not be binding.

The tone in the Security Council in 1980 was strongly against an Israeli annexation of Jerusalem. Pakistan’s then Ambassador to the U.N., Naiz A. Naik, said that as international pressure mounted against Israel, it had “revived with increased vigour the obsessive Zionist scheme to Judaise the Holy City of Jerusalem by destroying its historical personality and turning it into ‘the eternal capital of Israel’”. Israel’s then Ambassador to the U.N., Yehuda Zvi Blum, responded that Jerusalem had been the capital of Israel from its origin and that Israel would not honour any U.N. approach to the city. “Israel will not allow Jerusalem to become another Berlin,” Blum said, “with all that implies not only for the welfare of its citizens but also for international peace and security.”

Israel, with U.S. backing, ignored the U.N. It would, over the course of these past 50 years, gradually annex pieces of Jerusalem and weaken the Palestinian hold on the city. Land grabs in East Jerusalem came alongside the encroachment of Jewish settlers into and the expansion of the Jewish quarter in the old city. The attrition of Palestinian space in the city included the operation to destroy the Mamilla Cemetery, a site of immense importance for Palestinian history (“Grave Silence”, Frontline, February 21, 2014).

‘No, Mr Trump’

A week after Trump’s declaration, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence and former Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., wrote a stinging open letter to him. “No, Mr Trump,” he wrote, “Jerusalem is not Israel’s capital.” His letter is a rebuke to Trump. “If you want to rectify your misbegotten and cavalier act,” he wrote, “you can issue a statement recognising the Palestinian state and its capital in East Jerusalem. Otherwise, forget whatever sweet words you blandish at us. Native inhabitants of what is called America have coined the phrase, ‘White man speaks with forked tongue’. We have known that phrase since 1917.” That this comes from the heart of the Saudi establishment says a great deal about the tensions in the region. Many suggest that Saudi Arabia is preparing a public diplomatic opening to Israel, although Trump’s action might have ended that possibility.

From Beirut, Lebanon, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, called Trump’s statement the Second Balfour Declaration. The first Balfour Declaration was made by the then imperial power, Britain. It promised to seize Palestinian land and give it to European Jewish settlers; this would be an antidote to European anti-Semitism. Trump’s declaration, by the current imperial power, gives Israelis carte blanche to seize more Palestinian land. In both cases, Nasrallah said, no one spoke to the Palestinians. It is for this reason that Nasrallah called for an intifada—an uprising, the Third Intifada.

Trump’s inflammatory decision came just before he signed an extension that allowed the U.S. embassy to remain in Tel Aviv. The U.S. embassy will not move to Jerusalem for at least six months, when Trump will again have to revisit the twice-annual ritual in the U.S. for the President to sign this extension. It is unlikely that the U.S. will actually move its embassy. This seems more dangerous theatre than anything else. It is another of Trump’s mischievous political acts; he pleases his base, including conservative Christian evangelicals, and he creates news.

Meanwhile, in Palestine, children like Al-Junaidi suffer. It has been their lot for decades.

This article originally appeared in Frontline (India.)

Scientists Get Early Look At Hurricane Damage To Caribbean Coral Reefs

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When hurricanes Maria and Irma tore through the Caribbean, they not only wreaked havoc on land, but also devastated ocean ecosystems.

Coral reefs off St. John, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, suffered severe injury during the storms, say scientists from the University at Buffalo and California State University, Northridge who traveled there in late November to assess the damage — the first step in understanding the reefs’ recovery.

Some coral colonies lost branches. Others were cloaked in harmful algal growth. Many — weakened by the hurricanes — were left with ghostly, feather-like strands of bacteria hanging off open wounds where bits of coral had been scraped off.

Researchers also observed sites where whole coral colonies, akin to individual trees in a forest, had been swept away by the fury of the storms.

“Hurricanes generate huge waves. The effect is like sandblasting — the waves carry sand and debris, such as bits of broken coral, onto the reefs, striking them over and over again,” said Howard Lasker, PhD, professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Lasker led the research trip with Peter Edmunds, PhD, professor of biology at Cal State Northridge. The team, funded by the National Science Foundation’s rapid response research program, spent two weeks aboard the F.G. Walton Smith, the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science’s research vessel. Scientists said damage varied by location.

“In shallow waters, what we found certainly lived up to our expectations — holy, moly this was bad news,” said Edmunds, who has spent 31 years studying St. John’s reef. “But when we went deeper, it became more nuanced. It was still beautiful. There were corals, sea fans and some fish swimming around. Then you would look more closely, and you would see tumbled corals and missing corals in spots where you had seen corals just three months before. There were changes, but there certainly was a tremendous amount still there. I think it’s very encouraging.”

The team included scientists from UB, Cal State Northridge, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, National Park Service and Georgia Aquarium.

An “interesting natural experiment”

Coral reefs act as habitats for fish and other wildlife, providing food for communities worldwide and generating tourism dollars for seaside economies.

The recent hurricanes presented a rare opportunity for Lasker and Edmunds to study how corals recover from disasters — an important line of research in a warming world where rising ocean temperatures are stressing reefs.

“It’s an interesting natural experiment,” Lasker said. “You could not, in good conscience, conduct such an experiment on your own as a scientist, and it is sad to see these beautiful places in the ocean damaged so severely. But we can learn from this — it gives us the chance to better understand the process of recovery.”

Corals, often thought of as plant-like, are actually tiny marine animals. They build colonies that rise from the ocean floor to form the colorful, whimsical structures that people know as reefs. As time goes on, Lasker and Edmunds will study how quickly coral recruits repopulate damaged sites, and whether injured colonies bounce back or die.

Lasker and Edmunds have been researching St. John’s reefs for years. Their team has been documenting which coral species live there, and examining photographs dating back to 1987 to determine how the reefs’ composition has changed.

The focus is on understanding the balance between hard, stony corals, which form the backbone of ocean reefs, and softer, more flexible gorgonian corals — tree-like species that form an underwater forest of sorts, providing habitat for small fish and other aquatic life.

The hurricanes add an unexpected variable to this work.

During the recent research trip, the team assessed damage at sites off of St. John’s southern coast, in an area that is part of the Virgin Islands National Park. In the coming months and years, the scientists will revisit many of these spots to see how coral communities are — or aren’t — recovering.

Edmunds says what remains of the St. John’s reef is still quite beautiful, populated with an abundance of coral with the ability to reproduce, if given time. Despite these encouraging signs, however, he notes that today’s reefs are much more vulnerable than in past decades, given climate change and other stressors.

For coral reefs, hurricanes are like wildfires

Lasker compares the effect of storms on reefs to the effect of wildfires on forests.

“Hurricanes have always occurred,” Lasker said. “They can cause extensive damage, but then the populations start to recover. It’s analogous to forest fires: After a number of years, the forest starts returning. There’s a period of disturbance, and then the system recovers.”

But scientists still have a lot of questions about this rebound.

For example, few investigators have looked in detail at the plight of soft corals — Lasker’s area of expertise. There are clues that these species may fare better than their stony counterparts after a disaster, but more research needs to be done to understand how storms, warming waters and ocean acidification can alter the composition of reefs and whether these changes are permanent or short-lived, Lasker said.

“These are magnificent ecosystems,” he said, “and we really know very little about how they change and recover after disasters.”

When it comes to the future of reefs, Edmunds said, the question is not “are reefs going to disappear?” The bigger question is: in what form will they exist?” he said. “I don’t see signs that they are going to disappear. They will persist, but in what form?”

Technique To Allow AI To Learn Words In Flow Of Dialogue Developed

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A group of researchers at Osaka University has developed a new method for dialogue systems*1. This new method, lexical acquisition through implicit confirmation, is a method for a computer to acquire the category of an unknown word over multiple dialogues by confirming whether or not its predictions are correct in the flow of conversation.

Many conversation robots, chatbots, and voice assistant apps have appeared in recent years; however, in these systems, computers basically answer questions based on what has been preprogrammed. There is another method in which a computer learns from humans by asking simple repetitive questions; however, if the computer asks only questions such as “What is xyz?” in order to acquire knowledge, users will lose interest in talking with the computer.

The group led by Professor Komatani developed an implicit confirmation method by which the computer acquires the category of an unknown word during conversation with humans. This method aims for the system to predict the category of an unknown word from user input during conversation, to make implicit confirmation requests to the user, and to have the user respond to these requests. In this way, the system acquires knowledge about words during dialogues.

In this method, the system decides whether the prediction is correct or not by using the user response following each request, its context, by using machine learning*2 techniques. In addition, this system’s decision performance improved by taking the classification results gained from dialogues with other users into consideration.

Chatbots in the market speak to anyone in the same manner. However, as dialogue systems become popular in the future, computers will be required to speak by learning from a conversational partner according to the situation. This group’s research results are a new approach towards the realization of dialogue systems in which a computer can become smarter through conversation with humans and will lead to the development of dialogue systems with the ability to customize responses to the user’s situation.

Notes:
*1 Dialogue system

A dialogue system (or conversational system), a part of artificial intelligence, is a computer system intended to converse with a human in natural language. Many speech-enabled IVR (interactive voice response) applications, humanoid robots, and text-based chatbots have been developed in recent years.

*2 Machine learning (AI)

Machine Learning is a method using algorithms to analyze data, learn from it, and then make a determination or prediction. Machine learning includes supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning. In supervised learning, the computer is trained with a set of examples (dataset) that contains the correct answer; through which it becomes able to make judgements in different situations.

This research, entitled Lexical Acquisition through Implicit Confirmations over Multiple Dialogues, was presented at SIGDIAL 2017, 18th Annual SIGdial Meeting on August 17, 2017.


Macron’s Promise On Development Expenditure Broken In 2018 Budget Law

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By Marion Candau

(EurActiv) — France adopted its 2018 budget, but expenditure on development aid is well below what President Emmanuel Macron had promised.

The draft budget law (PLF) was adopted by the French parliament on Thursday (21 December). But it was a big disappointment for French NGOs: deputies increased the public development assistance budget by only €100 million.

French President Emmanuel Macron had pledged to allocate 0.55% of gross national income (GNI) to development aid by 2022 compared to 0.38% in 2016. To make this commitment a reality, the French ODA should have gone from the current €9 billion to €15 billion in 2022, an increase of €1.2 billion each year for five years. Far from the €100 million expected in 2018.

“The discrepancy between political speeches and acts is glaring! With an increase of just €100 million, we are still far from the €6 billion required to achieve Emmanuel Macron’s commitment,” said Michael Siegel, in charge of advocacy on development aid for Oxfam.

France is far from achieving 0.7% of GNI dedicated to development aid, an objective that EU ministers, including Paris, have pledged to respect.

To boost the French contribution, however, Emmanuel Macron said he was ready for a “considerable budgetary effort for the next five years.”

According to OECD data, only six of 28 EU countries – Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom – achieved the target of 0.7% set by the United Nations in 2016.

NGOs see this as a worrying signal in terms of tax justice: with the abolition of the ISF (tax of solidarity on wealth), and the lowering of the corporate tax rate, the tax system is lightening the burden on the richest 1%. NGOs claim this tax cut could be better used to improve public services or increase development assistance.

“The lost €3.5 to €4 billion could for example allow France to more than double its official development assistance budget to fight against extreme poverty in the world or to give up the planned cuts in the housing budget, “said Manon Aubry, Oxfam spokesperson.

Speaking to students at the Sorbonne university in Paris last September, Emmanuel Macron said he was in favor of the idea of transferring the entire revenue from the tax on financial transactions to the fight against extreme poverty and climate change- another promise he has broken.

“By refusing to allocate 100% of the tax revenue on financial transactions to development aid, MPs gave up €700 million that could have allowed for example 1 million children to access primary education or nearly 10 million people to access basic health services for one year,” said eight French NGOs.

On the government side, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, acknowledged a few weeks ago that the increase in the ODA budget was not enough to achieve a target of 0.55% but that the president had asked to work on a “realistic trajectory”.

“The hour of truth will be in the next budget and the following one,” assured the minister.

But the additional €500 million in ODA expenditure planned until 2020 will hardly change the situation.

Hackers Could Guess Your Phone PIN Using Its Sensor Data

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Data from the physical sensors in a smart phone could be used by hackers to guesacs the security PIN and unlock it.

Instruments in smart phones such as the accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensors represent a potential security vulnerability, according to researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), whose research was published in the open-access Cryptology ePrint Archive on 6 Dec.

Using a combination of information gathered from six different sensors found in smart phones and state-of-the-art machine learning and deep learning algorithms, the researchers succeeded in unlocking Android smart phones with a 99.5 per cent accuracy within only three tries, when tackling a phone that had one of the 50 most common PIN numbers.

The previous best phone-cracking success rate was 74 per cent for the 50 most common pin numbers, but NTU’s technique can be used to guess all 10,000 possible combinations of four-digit PINs.

Led by Dr Shivam Bhasin, NTU Senior Research Scientist at the Temasek Laboratories @ NTU, researchers used sensors in a smart phone to model which number had been pressed by its users, based on how the phone was tilted and how much light is blocked by the thumb or fingers.

The researchers believe their work highlights a significant flaw in smart phone security, as using the sensors within the phones require no permissions to be given by the phone user and are openly available for all apps to access.

How the experiments were conducted

The team of researchers took Android phones and installed a custom application which collected data from six sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, proximity sensor, barometer, and ambient light sensor.

“When you hold your phone and key in the PIN, the way the phone moves when you press 1, 5, or 9, is very different. Likewise, pressing 1 with your right thumb will block more light than if you pressed 9,” explains Dr Bhasin, who spent 10 months with his colleagues, Mr. David Berend and Dr. Bernhard Jungk, on the project.

The classification algorithm was trained with data collected from three people, who each entered a random set of 70 four-digit pin numbers on a phone. At the same time, it recorded the relevant sensor reactions.

Known as deep learning, the classification algorithm was able to give different weightings of importance to each of the sensors, depending on how sensitive each was to different numbers being pressed. This helps eliminate factors which it judges to be less important and increases the success rate for PIN retrieval.

Although each individual enters the security PIN on their phone differently, the scientists showed that as data from more people is fed to the algorithm over time, success rates improved.

So while a malicious application may not be able to correctly guess a PIN immediately after installation, using machine learning, it could collect data from thousands of users over time from each of their phones to learn their PIN entry pattern and then launch an attack later when the success rate is much higher.

Professor Gan Chee Lip, Director of the Temasek Laboratories @ NTU, said this study shows how devices with seemingly strong security can be attacked using a side-channel, as sensor data could be diverted by malicious applications to spy on user behaviour and help to access PIN and password information, and more.

“Along with the potential for leaking passwords, we are concerned that access to phone sensor information could reveal far too much about a user’s behaviour. This has significant privacy implications that both individuals and enterprises should pay urgent attention to,” said Prof Gan.

Dr Bhasin said it would be advisable for mobile operating systems to restrict access to these six sensors in future, so that users can actively choose to give permissions only to trusted apps that need them.

To keep mobile devices secure, Dr Bhasin advises users to have PINs with more than four digits, coupled with other authentication methods like one-time passwords, two-factor authentications, and fingerprint or facial recognition.

Solar System May Have Formed In Bubble Around Giant Star

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Despite the many impressive discoveries humans have made about the universe, scientists are still unsure about the birth story of our solar system.

Scientists with the University of Chicago have laid out a comprehensive theory for how our solar system could have formed in the wind-blown bubbles around a giant, long-dead star. Published Dec. 22 in the Astrophysical Journal, the study addresses a nagging cosmic mystery about the abundance of two elements in our solar system compared to the rest of the galaxy.

The general prevailing theory is that our solar system formed billions of years ago near a supernova. But the new scenario instead begins with a giant type of star called a Wolf-Rayet star, which is more than 40 to 50 times the size of our own sun. They burn the hottest of all stars, producing tons of elements which are flung off the surface in an intense stellar wind. As the Wolf-Rayet star sheds its mass, the stellar wind plows through the material that was around it, forming a bubble structure with a dense shell.

“The shell of such a bubble is a good place to produce stars,” because dust and gas become trapped inside where they can condense into stars, said coauthor Nicolas Dauphas, professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences. The authors estimate that 1 percent to 16 percent of all sun-like stars could be formed in such stellar nurseries.

This setup differs from the supernova hypothesis in order to make sense of two isotopes that occur in strange proportions in the early solar system, compared to the rest of the galaxy. Meteorites left over from the early solar system tell us there was a lot of aluminium-26. In addition, studies, including a 2015 one by Dauphas and a former student, increasingly suggest we had less of the isotope iron-60.

This brings scientists up short, because supernovae produce both isotopes. “It begs the question of why one was injected into the solar system and the other was not,” said coauthor Vikram Dwarkadas, a research associate professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This brought them to Wolf-Rayet stars, which release lots of aluminium-26, but no iron-60.

“The idea is that aluminum-26 flung from the Wolf-Rayet star is carried outwards on grains of dust formed around the star. These grains have enough momentum to punch through one side of the shell, where they are mostly destroyed–trapping the aluminum inside the shell,” Dwarkadas said. Eventually, part of the shell collapses inward due to gravity, forming our solar system.

As for the fate of the giant Wolf-Rayet star that sheltered us: Its life ended long ago, likely in a supernova explosion or a direct collapse to a black hole. A direct collapse to a black hole would produce little iron-60; if it was a supernova, the iron-60 created in the explosion may not have penetrated the bubble walls, or was distributed unequally.

Other authors on the paper included UChicago undergraduate student Peter Boyajian and Michael Bojazi and Brad Meyer of Clemson University.

Malaysia: Prime Minister Najib Faces Electoral Test In 2018

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By Razlan Rashid

Corruption-tainted Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak faces elections in 2018, which, many believe, he could survive despite a stiff challenge from the opposition spearheaded by two former government leaders.

Buoyed by rosy projections for economic growth, Najib kept former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at bay in 2017 by mounting legal challenges against them, and he also doled out pre-poll fiscal goodies to voters.

“The prime minister, I think, did a good job in disseminating that the economy is doing well,” geo-political expert Azmi Hassan told BenarNews.

“There have been instances that could be considered as missteps, like dealing with the high cost of living, but I think the government realized its mistakes and rectified them,” he said.

Under Malaysia’s constitution, a general election must take place every five years, and the next one is required before August 2018.

The opposition came close to unseating Najib’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition in the 2013 election, but has since struggled to field a candidate who could challenge the prime minister in the next general election.

Najib will decide a date for the 14th general election, and local reports said he could call polls for as early as the second half of February.

Earlier this month, during the annual assembly of his of United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, the 64-year-old leader courted the religious sensibilities of its Malay Muslim membership as he effectively kicked off his electoral run with a rousing speech.

“At this father of all elections, we will battle and fight until the end,” Najib told the more than 2,500 party faithful who had gathered in Kuala Lumpur. “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! (God is Great! God is Great!).”

That speech, supporters say, could help Najib in a potential electoral battle against Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, Mahathir, who has joined his bitter foe, Anwar in leading a new opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope).

Mahathir, 92, who served as prime minister from 1991 to 2003, has branded Najib, his one-time protégé, as corrupt, but Mahathir has indicated he does not want to be PM again.

The 70-year-old Anwar, meanwhile, is serving a prison sentence on a sodomy conviction. But, according to his lawyers, Anwar is scheduled to be released in June – another reason for Najib to hold elections much sooner, instead of giving his ex-deputy enough time to unite the opposition during the run-up to elections.

Shadow of 1MDB

Yet in 2017, Najib again was unable to shake off allegations of corruption linked to a multi-billion dollar scandal over a state sovereign wealth fund that he founded, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and which will likely overshadow him on the campaign trail in 2018.

Najib has consistently denied taking money from 1MDB. He has been implicated in the scandal because almost $700 million of money linked to 1MDB was deposited into his private bank accounts in 2013, but he has said the money was donated by the Saudi royal family and not used for his personal gain.

This year, federal investigators in the U.S. expanded lawsuits against businessmen associated with Najib, alleging they were involved in stealing and laundering $4.5 billion from the fund.  The U.S. court documents repeatedly refer to Najib as “Malaysian Official 1.”

The 1MDB affair has beleaguered Najib since July 2015 and led to calls for his resignation, but the issue did not come up during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in September, according to the White House.

Bigger thorn

Mahathir and Anwar have been Najib’s fiercest critics, leading calls for the prime minister to resign over 1MDB.

According to analysts, Mahathir has become an even bigger thorn for Najib.

Mahathir led UMNO to five election wins and, according to political observers, Malaysians still adore him despite Najib’s efforts to vilify him.

“Mahathir has a lot of followers and supporters who appreciate him the most,’ Muhammad Khairy, a government worker, said. “They know what he has done for the country for 22 years, we all can clearly see that.”

Mahathir’s leading the opposition coalition might just be enough for Malaysians to vote for a new leader, said his counsel, Haniff Khatri, told BenarNews.

“Of course, Mahathir’s presence in leading the charge for the opposition is the most-crucial factor in getting the Malaysian public to vote for a change of government,” he said.

But a legal move recently mounted by Najib’s government could complicate things for the opposition in 2018.

In November, a government-appointed panel, the Royal Commission of Inquiry, recommended that Mahathir and Anwar be criminally investigated, along with other former government officials, in connection with billions of dollars in central bank losses during the 1990s, when Mahathir was in power and Anwar served as his deputy.

Showing solidarity with Palestinians, Rohingya

In rallying support for an electoral run from his party’s Muslim Malay base, Najib lately has been vocal on international issues that play on religious sentiment. In recent weeks and months, he has led rallies to show solidarity for Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims, as well as the Palestinians in the wake of the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Pandering to such sentiment is crucial for attracting voters in the majority-Muslim nation, analysts say.

“Najib has demonstrated that he is willing to go against the grain if the Jerusalem and Rohingya issues are taken into account,” analyst Azmi Hassan told BenarNews. “This style of leadership is highly appreciated by the people.”

Last Friday, Najib told a rally that although President Trump received him warmly at the White House, he would not compromise on the sanctity of Islam.

“The United States may be a superpower, but do not look down on Malaysia. We have our pride and dignity, too, we have not asked for loans from the United States,” Najib said.

‘Taking care’ of voters

Apart from rallying voters on issues with religious undertones, Najib’s strategy of “taking care” of rural voters, including in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, could propel him to electoral victory, according to businessman Malaysian Ab Wahab Ali.

Analysts agree that amid the vitriol-fueled criticisms from Najib’s opponents, reports from World Bank estimating that the Malaysian economy is likely to expand 5.8 percent this year and 5.2 percent next year could sway sentiments in favour of the ruling party.

Muhammad Khairy, the government worker, expects Najib to call an election in March or April – after the Chinese Lunar New Year and before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in mid-May.

He believes this will happen after the government hands out payments from Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (BR1M), a program created by Najib that hands out cash payments of 1,200 ringgit (U.S. $294) nationwide as part of his administration’s effort to ease the burden of the lower-income Malaysians.

“My prediction for the 14th general election is on March and by that time BRIM payments have been made,” Muhammad Khairy told BenarNews.

“This would win the heart of suburbs.”

Hata Wahari contributed to this report.

Chess Tournament Puts Sports Governance And Saudi Change Under Microscope – Analysis

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Saudi Arabia’s hosting of an international chess tournament focuses attention on the fundamental problem wreaking havoc in international sports governance and shines a spot light on the limitations of covert Saudi-Israeli cooperation in confronting Iran and political Islam and the Palestinians’ ability to be a game spoiler.

By seducing the World Chess Federation (FIDE) to grant the kingdom hosting rights with a $1.5 million check that amounted to four times the federation’s standard annual fee, Saudi Arabia joined the likes of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in using sports to polish its troubled international image.

The Saudi effort comes at a time that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to convince Saudis, the kingdom’s allies, and foreign investors that he is diversifying and reforming the economy and transforming a nation imbued by Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism into a 21st century, knowledge-driven state.

The tournament takes place almost two years after the kingdom’s grand mufti and top religious authority, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, opined that Islam forbids chess as a form of gambling and a waste of time.

The Saudi bid faced two obstacles: strict dress codes for women and Israeli participation. The way the kingdom sought to overcome the obstacles says much about Prince Mohammed’s approach and the limits of his ability to introduce change.

Women’s dress codes proved easiest to address and served to highlight Prince Mohammed’s moves to increase women’s participation in the work force, lift a ban on women’s driving, and grant women access to male sporting events in a limited number of stadiums.

Saudi Arabia’s concession on women’s dress codes for the chess tournament mirrored the limited nature of Prince Mohammed’s reforms for women that failed to challenge the core of discriminatory practices in the kingdom: male guardianship that gives men the power to decide for women.

Similarly, in a country that insists on women being fully covered, female participants in the chess tournament are not entitled to dress the way they may want to. Instead, they can avoid the hijab by wearing dark blue or black formal trousers and a high-necked blouse.

Allowing at least seven Israelis to participate in the tournament would have been far trickier. It would have been the first time that Israelis would have officially been allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia and would inevitably have been seen as yet another indication of increasingly close, albeit covert, ties between the kingdom and Israel.

Saudi Arabia’s refusal to grant the Israelis visas demonstrated that an Israeli presence would have been a bridge too far. It would have added to mounting indications that Saudi Arabia has been willing to compromise on minimal Palestinian conditions for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, including control of East Jerusalem, in its effort to work with Israel in confronting Iran and political Islam.

The refusal’s underlining of the sensitivities evoked by Palestine is all the starker when contrasted with Saudi Arabia’s willingness to grant entry to a player representing Qatar despite the fact that the kingdom six months ago cut off all economic, diplomatic and air, sea and land links to the Gulf state in a so far failed bid to force it align its foreign and defense policy with that of its bigger brother.

By refusing the visas, Saudi Arabia demonstrated that the Palestinian issue may not be the root of the Middle East’s multiple problems, but that its resolution is a sine qua non for normalizing Israel’s relations with much of the Arab and Muslim world and facilitating cooperation and the pursuit of perceived common interests.

The refusal also shielded the kingdom from possible controversy during the tournament if some players refused to sit at a chess board with an Israeli. A unidentified Palestinian champion had already declared that he would refuse to play an Israeli. “We are not in a normal situation with Israel, so I can’t act as if it is,” the player said.

If other recent sporting events are anything to go by, more players may well have adopted a similar attitude. Saudi judoka Joud Fahmy bowed out of the first round of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro to avoid competing against Israel’s Gili Cohen. The Saudi Olympic committee declared at the time that Ms. Fahmy had suffered injuries during training.

The sensitivity of projecting normalcy in relations with Israel was also evident in October when Israelis participated in the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament. Israelis took part as representatives of the International Judo Federation rather than their country, and were banned from displaying national symbols.

Ironically, the UAE is the only Arab country to host an Israeli embassy, even if it is not accredited to the Emirates, but to the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The embassy, nonetheless, is Israel’s diplomatic presence in the Gulf.

All of this, coupled with some national chess federations and players protesting against FIDE’s decision to grant Saudi Arabia hosting rights despite its human rights record and refusal to ensure all qualified players would be able to participate, testifies to the inextricable relationship between sports and politics.

Literally everything involving Saudi Arabia’s hosting of a chess tournament is political. The very fact that Saudi Arabia is the host is political. FIDE’s decision to look the other way in exchange for a financial contribution when it comes to access for players and women’s rights is political. Saudi Arabia’s visa policy is political as is the kingdom’s willingness to concede on women’s dress.

Yet, FIDE like all other international sports federations denies that there is any link between sport and politics. The denials enable a world in which political corruption is at the root of sports’ multiple scandals involving financial and performance corruption and in which transparency and accountability are rare quantities.

The chess tournament in Saudi Arabia like the judo competition in the UAE suggests that an ungoverned relationship between sports and politics raises not only fundamental problems of governance but impinges on players’ rights. The chess tournament also suggests that it takes much more than a sporting event for a country to successfully polish its tarnished image.

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