By Shastri Ramachandaran*

The world could be too much with us in 2018, in a sense that Wordsworth may never have foreseen. In fact, the New Year would begin with a lot of the world in India when leaders of 10 ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations), governments come as Republic Day guests to commemorate 25 years of India-ASEAN relations. Never before has the R-Day had so many international guests.

That may set the tone for another year of hectic diplomacy when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be supping at the high tables of the G20 (Group of 20), SCO (The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) even as the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) may have to deal with serious challenges looming large in the neighbourhood. It is a moot point whether 2018 would be better than 2017.

India has quite a bit to show for 2017. It became the 42nd member of the elite Wassenaar Arrangement, which could ease the way towards the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Justice Dalveer Bhandari’s re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in November was a major diplomatic victory. He won 183 of the 193 votes in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and all the 15 votes in the Security Council after the UK opted out of the race in the 12th round. The year ended on a high Nehruvian note with India defying the U.S. to join 127 other countries in the UNGA to condemn and reject President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Although miffed, Israel is determined to strike it rich in business, including sales of military equipment, with India. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the first high-level visitor in the New Year; and, he expects to clinch scores of deals for the business delegation coming with him on his four-day trip. However, there is the small matter of an ongoing police probe against Netanyahu on charges of corruption and fraud. He has been interrogated five times, and Israeli press reports suggest that Netanyahu could be arrested any time.

Should that happen, the question is whether Modi would proceed, as planned, with his tour of Palestine, a few weeks after Netanyahu’s visit. Regardless of that, January promises to be hectic, with Modi slated to make his debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos – the first by a Prime Minister in 20 years, the last one being H D Deve Gowda in 1997; and, the India-ASEAN Summit in New Delhi. On the calendar for 2018 are also visits by the King of Jordan, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The BRICS Summit in South Africa, Sixth IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Summit in Delhi and SCO in China are events where Modi has proven that he can perform like a past master for making India’s presence felt. And, preparing for these comes naturally to the seasoned hands in the MEA.

The worrying part — politico-diplomatic — is in the neighbourhood. It is no small matter that Bhutan did not vote with India but was among the 35 countries that abstained on the UNGA vote against Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. National elections in Bhutan are due in October 2018, and according to those in the know, this time, too, the battle is likely to be on pro- and anti-Indian platforms.

The Maldives is another part of South Asia where India is not the flavour of the season. It is out of favour with President Abdulla Yameen, which raises the question of whether Modi would be able to visit the islands in 2018.

After the landslide victory of the Left Alliance in Nepal, and given the time it took for the Indian government and the Prime Minister to greet the electoral winners, reviving the warmth in India-Nepal ties in 2018 could be a Himalayan task.

The Chinese deciding to sit out the winter in Doklam is a rude reminder of a new front where India has to be on high alert and work overtime to ensure that: one, diplomacy prevails; and two, Sino-Indian differences do not erupt into a dispute.

And it is not all quiet on the western front either. Pakistan will continue to trouble India, and relations between South Asia’s nuclear powers is expected to remain troubled; and, the general election in Pakistan in July 2018 is unlikely to make any difference.

All things considered, despite the pitfalls, 2018 is not without promise.

*Shastri Ramachandran is a senior editor of IDN-INPS and independent commentator on regional and global affairs based in New Delhi. This article first appeared in DNA on 1 January 2018. It is being reproduced by arrangement with the writer.

I am angry with the Mizrahi elite. Very angry indeed.

Mizrah is the Hebrew word for East. Eastern Jews are those who lived for many centuries in the Islamic world. Western Jews are those who lived in Christian Europe.

The words are, of course, misnomers. Russian Jews are “Westerners”, Moroccan Jews are “Easterners”. A look at the map shows that Russia is far to the East of Morocco. It would be more accurate to call them “Northerners” and “Southerners”. Too late, now.

Westerners are generally called “Ashkenazim”, from the old Hebrew term for Germany. Easterners were usually called “Sephardim”, from the old Hebrew term for Spain. But only a small part of the Easterners are actually descended from the flourishing Jewish community in medieval Spain.

In today’s Israel, the antagonism between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim is growing stronger from year to year, with vast political and social repercussions. It is no exaggeration to see this as the determining phenomenon of current Israeli society.

Before I continue, allow me to state (once again, I am afraid) my personal part in this.

My last few years in Germany, before we fled, were spent in the shadow of the ascent of the Swastika, the last half year already under Nazi rule. I came to hate Germany and everything German. So when our ship reached the port of Jaffa, I was enthusiastic. I was just ten years old, and the Jaffa of 1933 was in every respect the exact opposite of Germany – noisy, full of exotic smells, human. I loved it.

As I learned later, most of the early Zionist “pioneers” who arrived in Arab Jaffa hated it on sight, because they identified themselves as Europeans. Among them was the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl himself, who did not want to go to Palestine in the first place. On his only visit here, he hated its Oriental character. He vastly preferred Patagonia (in the Argentine).

Fifteen years later, during Israel’s war of independence, I was promoted to the lofty rank of squad-leader and had the choice between new immigrant recruits from Poland or Morocco. I chose the Moroccans and was rewarded by them with my life: when I was lying wounded under fire, four of “my Moroccans” risked their lives to get me out.

It was then that I got a foretaste of things to come. Once, when we got a few precious hours of leave, some of my soldiers refused to go. “The girls in Tel Aviv don’t go out with us,” they complained, “for them we are blacks.” Their skin was just a little bit darker than ours.

I became very sensitive to this problem, when everybody else still denied its very existence. In 1954, when I was already the editor-in-chief of a news-magazine, I published a series of articles that caused a huge stir: “They (expletive) the Blacks”. Those Ashkenazim who did not hate me before, started to hate me then.

Then came the riots of “Wadi Salib”, a neighborhood in Haifa, where a policeman shot a Mizrahi. My paper was the only one in the country to defend the protesters.

A few years later the small group of Mizrahim started an unruly protest movement, expropriating the American term “Black Panthers”. I helped them. Golda Meir famously exclaimed: “They are not nice people”.

Now, many years later, a new generation has taken over. The Internal conflict dominates many aspects of our life. The Mizrahim make up about half the Jewish population of Israel, the Ashkenazim form the other half. The division has many manifestations, but people don’t like to talk about them openly.

For example, the great majority of Likud voters are Mizrahim, though the party leadership is predominantly Ashkenazi. The opposition Labor Party is almost completely Ashkenazi, though they just elected a Mizrahi leader, in the vain hope that this will help them to overcome the profound alienation of the Mizrahim.

My opposition to the treatment of the Mizrahim was primarily a moral one. It sprang from the desire for justice. It also sprang from my dream that all of us, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, would eventually be submerged in a common Hebrew nation. But I must confess that there was another motive, too.

I have always believed – as I believe now – that there is no future for Israel as a foreign island in the Oriental sea. My hopes go much further than just peace. I hope for Israel’s becoming an integral part of the “Semitic region” (an expression I invented long ago).

How? I have always entertained a monumental hope: that the second or third generation of Mizrahim will remember its heritage, the times when Jews were an integral part of the Muslim world. Thus they would become the bridge between the new Hebrew nation in Israel and its Palestinian neighbors, and indeed the entire Muslim world.

Being despised by the Ashkenazim as “Asiatic” and inferior, would it not have been natural for the Mizrahim to reclaim their glorious heritage, when the Jews in Iraq, Spain, Egypt and many other Muslim countries were fully integrated partners in a flourishing civilization, at a time when Europeans were mainly barbarians?

Jewish philosophers, mathematicians, poets and medical doctors were partners of that civilization, side by side with their Muslim counterparts. When the persecution and expulsion of Jews and the inquisition were facts of life in Europe, Jews (and Christians) enjoyed full rights in the Muslim world. They were accorded the status of “Peoples of the Book” (the Hebrew Bible) and fully equal, except for being exempted from army service and paying a tax instead. Anti-Jewish incidents were rare.

When all the Jews were expelled from Christian Spain, only a small minority immigrated to Amsterdam, London and Hamburg. The vast majority went to Muslim countries, from Morocco to Istanbul. Curiously enough, only a handful settled in Palestine.

However, when masses of Oriental Jews arrived in Israel, my hopes were dashed. Instead of becoming the bridge between Israel and the Arab world, they became the most ardent Arab-haters. The centuries of Muslim-Jewish culture were erased, as if they had never existed.

Why? Being despised by the “superior” Ashkenazim, the Mizrahim started to despise their own culture. They tried to become Europeans, more anti-Arab, more super-patriot, more right-wing.

(Though one Mizrahi friend once told me: We don’t want to be a bridge. A bridge is something people trample on.)

Yet no one can escape from himself. Most Mizrahim in Israel speak with an Arab accent. They love Arab music (presented as “Mediterranean” music), and have no love for Mozart and Beethoven. Their features are different from European ones. All the more reason to hate the Arabs.

The erasing of the Eastern-Jewish culture is all-encompassing. Israeli children of Eastern descent have no idea of the great writers and philosophers of their heritage. They don’t know that the Christian Crusaders who conquered the Holy Land butchered Muslims and Jews alike, and that Jews defended Jerusalem and Haifa shoulder to shoulder with their Muslim neighbors.

Rabbi Moses Maimonides – the great Rambam – is well known, but only as an important rabbi, not as the friend and personal physician of Saladin, the greatest of Muslim heroes. The many other medieval Sephardic intellectuals are hardly known at all. None of them appears on our paper money.

Yet I am an optimist, in this respect also.

I believe that a new Mizrahi intelligentsia will search for its roots. That with the rise of its social status, social complexes will give way to a normal patriotism. That a fourth or fifth generation will come forward and struggle not only for equality, but also for peace and integration in the region.

As our Arab friends would say: Inshallah.

By Jim Hightower*

Every decade or so, America’s mass media are surprised to discover that migrant farmworkers are being miserably paid and despicably treated by the industry that profits from their labor.

Stories run, the public is outraged, assorted officials pledge action, then… nothing changes.

Several news reports recently have re-documented that the shameful abuse of these hard-working, hard-traveling families continues.

A Los Angeles Times report revealed that, even if they receive the legal minimum wage, many farm laborers earn less than $17,500 a year because of the low pay and the seasonal nature of their work. Moreover, they are often “housed” in shacks, old chicken coops, shipping containers, and squalid motels.

This year, though, multibillion-dollar agribusiness interests from Florida to California are uniting in a push for new assistance — not for workers, but themselves.

While they backed Trump for president, many are now expressing shock that he may actually try to fulfill his campaign promise to cut off the flow of undocumented immigrants to their fields.

They now admit that these immigrants make up as much as 70 percent of the industry’s workforce, so they’ve rushed to Washington, demanding a special exemption from their president’s planned lockout of Mexican laborers.

In the process, they’ve suddenly re-characterized the very migrants they’ve been so callously mistreating as noble employees who are essential to U.S. food security.

Big Ag deserves no special break at all. But if Trump and Congress give any help to them, they should be required to pay a living wage, provide decent family housing and health care, and treat all farmworkers with the respect due to the people who put food on our tables.

To help push for basic human justice, connect with the United Farm Workers at ufw.org.

*OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

By Matthew McCaffrey*

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now the only topic more controversial than Trump, and certainly the only one causing a larger number of pointless debates. Given this dubious distinction, it’s fitting that The Intercept’s Kate Aronoff has brought the two issues together in a recent commentary on the film. Intercept writers tend to be strong on topics like war and government surveillance, but weak on economics, and Aronoff’s article, which combines both of these, is a predictably mixed bag. Yet she does raise an important point: in The Last Jedi, the Star Wars franchise has abandoned its abstract good-versus-evil narrative and taken a more specific political stand in an ongoing class conflict.

A lot of The Last Jedi revolves around the question of whether the Jedi order as such was really as good and as valuable as the legends about it have led people to believe. Luke Skywalker firmly denies that it was. Aronoff rightly sees this criticism, and the film in general, as a “rebuke of elite politics and the rule of experts, whether they wield spreadsheets or light sabers,” and also as an effective dismissal of “the prequels’ eugenicist argument that access to the force is genetic destiny.”

So far, so good. The trouble though is that Aronoff mainly views the class conflict in The Last Jedi in overly-simplistic terms as a struggle between the proletariat and the “one percenters,” or as she indicates, between the philosophies of the Obama and Trump administrations, respectively.

This kind of approach to class struggle is based on a somewhat vulgar interpretation of Marx that divides society into the broader groups of rich and poor. Yet this common understanding of class overlooks some vital questions about the foundations of conflict, for example, issues like how the rich got rich and exactly how the exploiters are able to take advantage of the rest of society with impunity. On these issues, the populist view has little insight to offer. Fortunately, there is another, older tradition that does provide some answers: the classical liberal view of exploitation.

This theory, which Marx and his followers later adapted to serve their own needs, originated in the works of the 19^th-century French liberals. The liberals viewed political power and its privileges as the main sources of class distinctions. Society can be divided between the productive class and the political class: the former creates wealth through peaceful cooperation and trade, while the latter systematically redistributes wealth by force. Ultimately, some groups in society are net beneficiaries of this exploitation, while others are net losers from it. The political class is not limited, however, to holders of public office. In fact, the liberals stressed the particular harm of the powers that states bestow on their favored producers. Monopoly privileges drive a wedge between consumers and entrepreneurs and make it possible for firms to exploit artificially restricted markets at the expense of society. The state thus establishes and institutionalizes class distinctions and, inevitably, conflicts.

One of the most destructive ways political privilege is used is in support of the state in its war-making activities. As Mises pointed out, war takes the efficiency of the market and puts it to inhuman use in the creation of increasingly devastating technologies that states are only too happy to use, but that hold little or no value for a peaceful society. This is especially relevant for Star Wars.

The liberal theory of class struggle is on full display in The Last Jedi. It’s particularly obvious during the scenes on the casino planet Canto Bight. During a brief visit there, Rose Tico takes a moment to explain to the former stormtrooper Finn exactly how its inhabitants became so wealthy: “Only one business in the galaxy can get you this rich: selling weapons to the First Order.”

Decades of galactic conflict have destroyed the chance for most entrepreneurs to profit in any other way than by inventing increasingly-devastating tools of war. A deeper, more liberal point though is that the patrons of Canto Bight aren’t evil simply because they’re rich: they’re evil because they got rich by selling weapons of mass destruction to the various states of the galaxy: the Empire, the First Order, and yes, the Republic and the Resistance too. There’s an especially effective moment where the slicer DJ looks through a weapons dealer’s sales records only to find an order of X-Wings among the inventory. In other words, even the Resistance, ostensibly fighting for truth and justice, is entangled in the same destructive web of galactic politics as its more obviously evil enemies.

This is not the only disturbing aspect of the Resistance, incidentally. As others have observed, participation in the Resistance isn’t a matter of choice: Finn and others, for example, are forcibly prevented from leaving it. You can style yourself a noble leader of the Resistance all you want, but at the end of day, if you’re forcing others to die for your vision of galactic politics, you’re one of the bad guys. War is evil, no matter what your political organization calls itself; and although this implication of the movie is surely unintentional, it’s nevertheless instructive and needs repeating.

The class conflict in The Last Jedi thus isn’t just between the First Order and the Resistance, but also exists within each organization as well. This is perhaps one reason why both Captain Phasma and Vice Admiral Holdo are so eager to make examples of insubordination in the lower ranks.

Aronoff comes close to making these points, but without the liberal theory, she never quite gets to the heart of the problem: states are the primary sources of class conflict as well as war. Her piece does, however, conclude with a useful insight: pining for the good old days and desperately trying to recreate them is a path to disaster (it’s vanity, to use Luke Skywalker’s word). Yearning for the Obama era or the Old Republic (which I can’t resist pointing out Aronoff repeatedly misidentifies as the New Republic) is basically nostalgia for a world that never existed (it’s also a metaphor disgruntled Star Wars fans might take to heart). The real problem is about a lot more than just deciding who gets to be in power: it’s about whether power and its privileges should exist at all.

As DJ points out: “It’s all a machine, partner. Live free, don’t join.”

About the author:
*Matt McCaffrey, former Mises Research Fellow, is assistant professor of enterprise at the University of Manchester.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Attorney General Jeff Sessions kicked off the New Year by reversing the Obama-era guidance for federal prosecutors to limit their enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, Sessions’ announcement came days after California’s law legalizing recreational marijuana sales went into effect. Sessions’ action thus runs counter to the wishes of the majority of the people in the most populous US state, as well the people of the 28 other states (and DC) that have legalized some form of marijuana use.

Federal laws criminalizing marijuana and other drugs have failed to reduce drug use. However, they have succeeded in giving power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats what was, before 9-11, the go-to justification for violating our civil liberties. The federal war on marijuana has also wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Far from reducing crime, outlawing drugs causes crime by ensuring criminals will control the market for drugs. Outlawing drugs also provides incentives for drug dealers to increase the potency, and thus the danger, of drugs, as higher potency products take up less space and are thus easier to conceal from law enforcement.

The US Constitution does not give the federal government any authority to criminalize marijuana. Thus, the question of whether marijuana is legal is one of the many issues reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. If the Constitution gives Congress the power to ban marijuana, then why was it necessary to amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to ban alcohol?

Sessions’ usurpation of state marijuana laws is the type of federal intrusion into state issues usually opposed by conservatives. Sadly, too many conservatives are just as willing to sacrifice constitutional government and individual liberties for the war on drugs as they are for the war on terror.

Conservative hypocrisy is especially strong when it comes to medical marijuana. Many Americans have used medical marijuana for conditions such as cancer and glaucoma. Yet many conservatives who (properly) decry Obamacare’s mandate forcing every American to purchase health insurance cheer Jeff Sessions’ effort to deprive suffering individuals of the medical treatment of their choice. Cruel paternalism in healthcare policy is often associated with progressives, but unfortunately conservatives are just as guilty.

States that have legalized medical marijuana have fewer deaths related to opioid abuse. These states have also experienced a decrease in crime and black market activity. This is perhaps because some have found medical marijuana a viable alternative to opioids.

Laws outlawing marijuana criminalize peaceful behavior that, while potentially harmful to the individual, does not violate the rights of others. Therefore, these laws, like all laws authorizing government force against peaceful, if immoral, actions, are incompatible with a free society. Once again we see the hypocrisy of conservatives who decry progressives’ war on tobacco and fatty foods, yet support jailing marijuana users.

Federal laws outlawing marijuana violate the Constitution, justify violations of civil liberties, and increase violence. By criminalizing nonviolent behavior voluntarily chosen by individuals, drug laws undermine the moral principles underlying a free society.

President Trump should fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with someone who respects the Constitution and individual liberty. Also, officials from states with legal medical or recreational marijuana should refuse to cooperate with those tasked with enforcing federal marijuana laws. If President Trump and state officials stand up for liberty, the people will join them in saying no to Jeff Sessions.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European Commission on Monday adopted a Joint Communication proposing an EU strategy for Iraq in order to address the many challenges the country faces following the territorial defeat of Daesh (Islamic State).

The proposal outlines both ongoing and longer term EU support to the country, fully taking into account the Iraqi government’s priorities.

Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission said, “Iraq is at a crossroads in its history following the territorial defeat of Da’esh at great sacrifice. It is now crucial to act quickly and rebuild the country with the participation of all the components of Iraqi society, to promote and protect fundamental rights and the rule of law in each and every area: only inclusiveness can guarantee true reconciliation so that Iraqis can close once and for all with the past. This needs international support and we are ready to contribute, to keep supporting the Iraqi people and government in these challenges, for the sake of the people of the country and the region”.

In the same vein, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides, who has visited Iraq several times to assess EU aid projects on the ground said, “The EU has been providing emergency assistance to the Iraqi people since the beginning. Humanitarian needs remain high and many people remain displaced by conflict. I have seen first-hand the suffering in places like Mosul and Fallujah and it is crucial that all aid efforts continue to be impartial and neutral. It is essential to support all Iraqi’s in need of assistance today and tomorrow, for as long as it takes.”

The strategy focuses on delivering continued EU humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people and facilitating the stabilisation of areas liberated from Da’esh, with three million displaced Iraqis still unable to return home. It also seeks to address the longer term reform, reconstruction and reconciliation efforts that Iraq needs to pursue in order to consolidate peace and build a united, democratic country in which all citizens can fully enjoy their rights in greater prosperity.

According to Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica,  “As Iraq takes steps towards a more stable future, the EU is committed to being a key partner in reconstruction, stabilisation and longer term sustainable development. The EU aims to strengthen concrete support to the Iraqi people in a wide range of areas, to foster economic growth, good governance and strengthening the judicial system as well as boosting education.”

The EU’s support focusses on the following strategic objectives:

• Preserving the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and supporting
• Iraqi efforts to establish a balanced, accountable and democratic system of government;
• Promoting sustainable, knowledge-based and inclusive economic growth;
• Strengthening Iraq’s national identity and reconciliation amongst its diverse communities;
• Promoting an effective and independent justice system;
• Addressing migration challenges,
• Supporting Iraq’s good relations with all its neighbours.

The actions proposed in the Joint Communication will be discussed with EU Member States at the Foreign Affairs Council on January 22 and with the European Parliament, and will contribute to a new EU strategy for Iraq.

By Greg Wilcox

Qatar has been strongly criticized for its alleged funding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK by a senior British Army veteran and counter-insurgency expert, who also called the group a “terrorist organization.”

Col. Tim Collins, who served in Northern Ireland and the second Iraq War, was speaking in Westminster and said the Muslim Brotherhood was a problem in the UK and that the government needed to challenge it more.

He also hit out at Qatar for allegedly funding the organization, questioning why they would “hurt a friend.”

“(The Muslim Brotherhood) has been a problem and continues to be a problem in the United Kingdom and we need to challenge it — and indeed it is challenging our response to terrorism,” Collins told Arab News.

“In fairness to Turkey they are not actively promoting it in this country. I understand why they would have a close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood given the nature of Turkish politics, but the Qataris are actively funding this, what do they think they are doing?”

“We are a close ally and we stood by them in tumultuous times. They’ve been isolated in the Gulf yet we’ve stood by them, we have to ask them to show their friendship and comradeship and stop doing this.

“It’s not using leverage, what you say to friends is ‘why are you hurting us, why are you doing this?’”

Four years ago the UK government ordered a review into the Muslim Brotherhood. The result, the Jenkins Commission, concluded that the organization — while outwardly purporting peaceful means to promote its agenda — was willing to use violence and terror in pursuit of its long-term goals and that aspects of its ideology and tactics “are contrary to the (UK’s) national interests and security.”

Collins said he would go further and describe the Brotherhood as an out and out terror group.

“I believe they are a terrorist organization,” he said.

“They have tried to rubbish and make an issue out of the Contest (UK counter-terrorism) strategy … which is there to confront radical Islam.

“We have to work with allies and friends to reduce (the Muslim Brotherhood’s) influence.

“We have to be careful; we don’t want to sow disharmony in our attempts to reduce its influence. We need to challenge it and to do so in such a way we don’t offend, isolate or alienate our Muslim population so we have to be very careful in how we do that.”

With its conference on the next MFF on January 8-9, the European Commission is stepping up work on its proposal for the EU budget after 2020, due to be presented in May. The President of the European Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, contributes to the debate, voicing regions’ and cities’ concerns about possible cuts to cohesion policy – Europe’s main investment tool – and warning of the dangers of a centralised, divided and territorially blind European Union.

“Do we really want a Europe with less training for job seekers, less infrastructure for sustainable transport, less energy efficiency for social housing, less broadband for rural areas or less integration opportunities for migrants?” asked Mr Lambertz. ” If this is the solution to squaring the circle from the budget hole that Brexit and the new financial needs for defence, security and migration will leave, then the Union is wandering off in the wrong direction. ”

“Thanks to the 2014 reforms, cohesion policy is an innovative policy that delivers results on the key challenges of today: jobs, competitiveness, climate change, energy and broadband ,” said the CoR president, adding: “Investment in cohesion policy is an investment in citizens. Reducing cohesion policy would put the European construction at risk, broadening divisions between East and West, North and South, urban and rural communities. ”

The CoR President also invites EU Member States to provide the financial resources the EU needs to respond to new urgent challenges such as defence, security, social policies and migration. This should include both increasing national contributions and removing current vetoes on the introduction of new own-resources tools such as taxes on polluting emissions, the activities of big web operators and financial transactions.

To those who argue that grant-based policies are no longer needed in Europe, Lambertz pointed out the persistent fall in public investment in most Member States. “The recovery of the EU’s economies is an opportunity and a risk. If most citizens see the recovery only in media reports and statistics and not in daily life, their frustration will pave the way for a new wave of populism and nationalism. We need to invest to bring the benefit of our recovering economies to all, both in the stronger Member States and in the weaker ones,”Lambertz said.

#CohesionAlliance

To make the case for a stronger cohesion policy after 2020, the CoR, together with leading EU territorial associations, launched the #CohesionAlliance: a grass-roots movement open to anyone who believes that EU cohesion policy must continue to be a pillar of the EU’s future.

Since its launch in October last year, the Alliance has continued to attract new signatories every day, including regional and local authorities, business associations, academia, trade unions and think tanks.

By Gjergj Erebara

Two main opposition leaders, Lulzim Basha and Monika Kryemadhi, have said they aim to join forces and escalate their protests to bring down Edi Rama’s government.

Albania’s two main opposition parties announced on Monday that they intend to bring down Edi Rama’s centre-left government through united protests.

The head of the Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, met his junior partners from the Socialist Movement for Integration, LSI, on Monday and warned that their joint political action, which started with protests in parliament last year, would now be “intensified”.

Monika Kryemadhi, chairman of the LSI, said in a separate meeting that her party would collaborate with the Democrats in “a series of protests” that would aim to “overthrow” Prime Minister Rama.

Both parties held a protest in the parliament that turned violent last December, claiming that Rama’s Socialist Party was violating the constitution by electing a temporary General Prosecutor in the last session of the year.

Opposition MPs let off smoke bombs while their supporters clashed with police forces outside, hoping to block the vote on the temporary General Prosecutor.

After their attempt failed, the opposition then vowed to renew their protests in January. Neither Basha nor Kryemadhi announced a date for the next protest.

By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed*

The well-respected New York Times (NYT) newspaper recently published a report claiming that the Egyptian authorities, contrary to official announcements, are not against US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. The NYT also attached recordings, which it claims are of an Egyptian intelligence officer coordinating with Egyptian broadcasters, explaining the position of the Egyptian government and asking them to agree with it and promote it.

The NYT has a long-standing reputation for journalistic integrity and fact-checking, but the Times, just like any other paper, can be flexible or inflexible with its ethics, in accordance with its publisher’s wishes.

I would argue that no journalist in the world is entirely objective or without bias. We can see that borne out in the coverage from media opposed to Trump, which has become quite unprofessional and has often focused on personal insults.

The report about the Egyptian intelligence officer follows the theme of many recent stories by the NYT about the region, in that it appears to serve the interests of the Qatari authorities, whose PR activities include using journalists to publish both fake and actual news that reflects negatively on those with whom they have disagreements.

When I listened to the recordings, I did not discover any new political position. All Arab countries approved the Arab initiative, which explicitly accepts West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and recognizes Israel as a state.

When Trump insisted on activating the decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, all Arab countries voiced their opposition, albeit in the knowledge that they could not stop it.

At the same time, however, the majority of Arab countries did not want to follow the lead of Iran or Qatar, both of which seek to incite regional people for reasons which have nothing to do with Palestine or Jerusalem; rather, they are part of the regional political game.

Qatar has used exaggeration and incitement since the 1995 coup led by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifah, who is still governing from behind the curtain, against his father.

We should not forget how American jets, flying from a base in Qatar, were bombing Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, while at the same time the Qatari media was calling for jihad against the American infidels.

Qatari hypocrisy and fraud continue to this day. “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff’s recent exposé of the Trump administration, has quickly been translated into Arabic by Qatar, and published on social media. However, the Qatari translation is just 120 pages long, compared to Wolff’s 260-page book, because it selectively highlights the passages that mention Saudi Arabia in a negative way, twisting it to suit its purposes.

Such distortion is common. Even during live broadcasts of Trump’s speeches, Qatari interpreters have misquoted him to suit Qatar’s position.

This is the credibility of the NYT sources.

The Qataris and the Muslim Brotherhood have filled the internet and social media with false garbage: Invented interviews with political commentators, for example, or analyses falsely attributed to German and British papers.

They have also played on the Western press’s eagerness for stories on the region, and willingness to publish without properly verifying sources — because if the sources were mentioned, the stories would lose any credibility.

Countries like Egypt need to tackle major issues with sensitivity — unlike Qatar, which does not hesitate to gather US bases, Taliban offices, and Sheikh Qaradawi in one place.

The Muslim Brotherhood and their Qatari allies have been trying for two years to provoke the Egyptian people in every way possible in order to destabilize the present regime. The Brotherhood also exploits public support for Palestine, but for reasons that have nothing to do with Palestine, and the exaggeration of the importance of these recorded phone calls should be viewed within that same context.

It is not difficult to understand Egypt’s position. Cairo understands the consequences Palestinians could face if the Trump administration is challenged. The US is among the biggest supporters of refugee relief programs and the only country capable of influencing Israel. Egypt also realizes that Trump’s decision can be dealt with in the same way the 1995 Congress decision to move the embassy was dealt with, and that was never implemented.

The embassy will not be moved for five years, and during this time Trump may change his mind, or another president may reverse the decision. Understandably then, Egypt has no interest in entering into a losing battle just to satisfy its instigators. And because of the incitements of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, 15 Palestinians were pointlessly killed and 600 injured in confrontations with the occupying forces.
Moreover, it is naïve to believe that leaking recorded phone calls to the media can remove political obstacles, whether in regards to an alternative capital or resettling refugees. These are complex issues, and they will not be solved as long as Netanyahu is prime minister.

The goal of the campaigns of the Qataris and the Muslim Brotherhood is to portray leaders of countries that are at odds with them as treacherous, and incite others to assassinate or overthrow them. This is what the Muslim Brotherhood did with President Sadat when he signed the Camp David Accords.

I can understand if a journalist, as the New York Times did, promotes Qatari messages, but only if he explains that they come from Qatari sources. Then readers have enough context to really understand the story.

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.

A new study published Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Geoscience reveals that strong El Nino events can cause significant ice loss in some Antarctic ice shelves while the opposite may occur during strong La Nina events.

El Niño and La Niña are two distinct phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by how water temperatures in the tropical Pacific periodically oscillate between warmer than average during El Niños and cooler during La Niñas.

The research, funded by NASA and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, provides new insights into how Antarctic ice shelves respond to variability in global ocean and atmospheric conditions.

The study was led by Fernando Paolo while a PhD graduate student and postdoc at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. Paolo is now a postdoctoral scholar at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Paolo and his colleagues, including Scripps glaciologist Helen Fricker, discovered that a strong El Niño event causes ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica to gain mass at the surface and melt from below at the same time, losing up to five times more ice from basal melting than they gain from increased snowfall. The study used satellite observations of the height of the ice shelves from 1994 to 2017.

“We’ve described for the first time the effect of El Niño/Southern Oscillation on the West Antarctic ice shelves,” Paolo said. “There have been some idealized studies using models, and even some indirect observations off the ice shelves, suggesting that El Niño might significantly affect some of these shelves, but we had no actual ice-shelf observations. Now we have presented a record of 23 years of satellite data on the West Antarctic ice shelves, confirming not only that ENSO affects them at a yearly basis, but also showing how.”

The opposing effects of El Niño on ice shelves – adding mass from snowfall but taking it away through basal melt – were at first difficult to untangle from the satellite data. “The satellites measure the height of the ice shelves, not the mass, and what we saw at first is that during strong El Niños the height of the ice shelves actually increased,” Paolo said. “I was expecting to see an overall reduction in height as a consequence of mass loss, but it turns out that height increases.”

After further analysis of the data, the scientists found that although a strong El Niño changes wind patterns in West Antarctica in a way that promotes flow of warm ocean waters towards the ice shelves to increase melting from below, it also increases snowfall particularly along the Amundsen Sea sector. The team then needed to determine the contribution of the two effects. Is the atmosphere adding more mass than the ocean is taking away or is it the other way around?

“We found out that the ocean ends up winning in terms of mass. Changes in mass, rather than height, control how the ice shelves and associated glaciers flow into the ocean,” Paolo said. While mass loss by basal melting exceeds mass gain from snowfall during strong El Niño events, the opposite appears to be true during La Niña events.

Over the entire 23-year observation period, the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica had their height reduced by 20 centimeters (8 inches) a year, for a total of 5 meters (16 feet), mostly due to ocean melting. The intense 1997-98 El Nino increased the height of these ice shelves by more than 25 centimeters (10 inches). However, the much lighter snow contains far less water than solid ice does. When the researchers took density of snow into account, they found that ice shelves lost about five times more ice by submarine melting than they gained from new surface snowpack.

“Many people look at this ice-shelf data and will fit a straight line to the data, but we’re looking at all the wiggles that go into that linear fit, and trying to understand the processes causing them,” said Fricker, who was Paolo’s PhD adviser at the time the study was conceived. “These longer satellite records are allowing us to study processes that are driving changes in the ice shelves, improving our understanding on how the grounded ice will change,” Fricker said.

“The ice shelf response to ENSO climate variability can be used as a guide to how longer-term changes in global climate might affect ice shelves around Antarctica,” said co-author Laurie Padman, an oceanographer with Earth & Space Research, a nonprofit research company based in Seattle. “The new data set will allow us to check if our ocean models can correctly represent changes in the flow of warm water under ice shelves,” he added.

Melting of the ice shelves doesn’t directly affect sea level rise, because they’re already floating. What matters for sea-level rise is the addition of ice from land into the ocean, however it’s the ice shelves that hold off the flow of grounded ice toward the ocean.

Understanding what’s causing the changes in the ice shelves “puts us a little bit closer to knowing what’s going to happen to the grounded ice, which is what will ultimately affect sea-level rise,” Fricker said. “The holy grail of all of this work is improving sea-level rise projections,” she added.

Exercise can reverse damage to sedentary, aging hearts and help prevent risk of future heart failure – if it’s enough exercise, and if it’s begun in time, according to a new study by cardiologists at UT Southwestern and Texas Health Resources.

To reap the most benefit, the exercise regimen should begin by late middle age (before age 65), when the heart apparently retains some plasticity and ability to remodel itself, according to the findings by researchers at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (IEEM), which is a collaboration between UT Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

And the exercise needs to be performed four to five times a week. Two to three times a week was not enough, the researchers found in an earlier study.

“Based on a series of studies performed by our team over the past 5 years, this ‘dose’ of exercise has become my prescription for life,” said senior author Dr. Benjamin Levine, Director of the Institute and Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern. “I think people should be able to do this as part of their personal hygiene – just like brushing your teeth and taking a shower.”

The regimen included exercising four to five times a week, generally in 30-minute sessions, plus warmup and cool-down:

• One of the weekly sessions included a high-intensity 30-minute workout, such as aerobic interval sessions in which heart rate tops 95 percent of peak rate for 4 minutes, with 3 minutes of recovery, repeated four times (a so-called “4 x 4”).
• Each interval session was followed by a recovery session performed at relatively low intensity.
• One day’s session lasted an hour and was of moderate intensity. (As a “prescription for life,” Levine said this longer session could be a fun activity such as tennis, aerobic dancing, walking, or biking.)
• One or two other sessions were performed each week at a moderate intensity, meaning the participant would break a sweat, be a little short of breath, but still be able to carry on a conversation — the “talk test.” In the study, exercise sessions were individually prescribed based on exercise tests and heart rate monitoring.
• One or two weekly strength training sessions using weights or exercise machines were included on a separate day, or after an endurance session.

Study participants built up to those levels, beginning with three, 30-minute, moderate exercise sessions for the first 3 months and peaked at 10 months when two high-intensity aerobic intervals were added.

The more than 50 participants in the study were divided into two groups, one of which received two years of supervised exercise training and the other group, a control group, which participated in yoga and balance training.

At the end of the two-year study, those who had exercised showed an 18 percent improvement in their maximum oxygen intake during exercise and a more than 25 percent improvement in compliance, or elasticity, of the left ventricular muscle of the heart, Dr. Levine noted. He compared the change in the heart to a stretchy, new rubber band versus one that has gotten stiff sitting in a drawer.

Sedentary aging can lead to a stiffening of the muscle in the heart’s left ventricle, the chamber that pumps oxygen-rich blood back out to the body, he explained.

“When the muscle stiffens, you get high pressure and the heart chamber doesn’t fill as well with blood. In its most severe form, blood can back up into the lungs. That’s when heart failure develops,” said Dr. Levine, who holds the S. Finley Ewing Chair for Wellness at Texas Health Dallas and the Harry S. Moss Heart Chair for Cardiovascular Research. He also holds the Distinguished Professorship in Exercise Sciences at UT Southwestern, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Earlier research by UT Southwestern cardiologists showed that left ventricular stiffening often shows up in middle age in people who don’t exercise and aren’t fit, leaving them with small, stiff chambers that can’t pump blood as well.

However, the researchers also found that the heart chamber in competitive masters-level athletes remains large and elastic, and that even four to five days of committed exercise over decades is enough for noncompetitive athletes to reap most of this benefit.

In the current study, researchers wanted to know if exercise can restore the heart’s elasticity in previously sedentary individuals – especially if begun in late middle age. Previous studies from Dr. Levine’s research program have shown substantial improvements in cardiac compliance in young individuals after a year of training, but surprisingly little change if the training was started after age 65.

To start the study, researchers recruited 53 participants, ages 45 to 64. Many came from the Dallas Heart Study, which includes 6,000 Dallas residents and is the only single-center heart study of its size and multiethnic composition. The Dallas Heart Study is designed to improve the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of heart disease.

In a new study of childhood mortality rates between 1961 and 2010 in the United States and 19 economically similar countries, researchers report that while there’s been overall improvement among all the countries, the U.S. has been slowest to improve.

Researchers found that childhood mortality in the U.S. has been higher than all other peer nations since the 1980s; over the 50-year study period, the U.S.’s “lagging improvement” has amounted to more than 600,000 excess deaths.

A report of the findings, published Jan. 8 in Health Affairs, highlights when and why the U.S.’s performance started falling behind peer countries, and calls for continued funding of federal, state and local programs that have proven to save children’s lives.

Among the leading causes of death for the most recent decade, the researchers say, were premature births and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Children in the U.S. were three times more likely to die from prematurity at birth and more than twice as likely to die from SIDS.

The two leading causes of death for those 15 to 19 years old in the U.S. during the same time period were motor vehicle accidents and assaults by firearm. Teenagers were twice as likely to die from motor vehicle accidents and 82 times more likely to die from gun homicide in the U.S. than in other wealthy nations.

“Overall child mortality in wealthy countries, including the U.S., is improving, but the progress our country has made is considerably slower than progress elsewhere,” said Ashish Thakrar, M.D., an internal medicine resident at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and a lead author of the study. He added: “Now is not the time to defund the programs that support our children’s health.”

Thakrar notes that while the U.S. spends more per capita on health care for children than other wealthy nations, it has poorer outcomes than many. In 2013, the United Nations Children’s Fund ranked the U.S. 25th in a list of 29 developed countries for overall child health and safety.

To better understand when and why the U.S. performance in improving child death rates began faltering compared to peer nations, Thakrar and colleagues tracked child mortality rates for the U.S. and 19 nations that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The members include Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, among others, which have similar levels of economic development.

While previous studies have also tracked U.S. mortality over time, they’ve only done so for children in specific age groups, Thakrar says, and to his knowledge, the new study is the first to describe the full burden of excess mortality in the U.S. for children and adolescents of all ages.

The researchers analyzed mortality and population data from the Human Mortality Database and mortality and cause of death data from the World Health Organization for all children 0 to 19 years old from 1961 to 2010.

Some 90 percent of these deaths, the researchers say, occurred among infants and adolescents 15 to 19 years old. In the most recent decade studied (2001-2010), infants in the U.S. were 76 percent more likely to die and children 1 to 19 years old were 57 percent more likely to die than their counterparts in peer nations.

“The findings show that in terms of protecting child health, we’re very far behind where we could be,” said Christopher Forrest, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s senior author and a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We hope that policymakers can use these finding to make strategic public health decisions for all U.S. children to ensure that we don’t fall further behind peer nations.”

The research team called on officials to fully fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance to millions of disadvantaged children, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps). Applying public health research and solutions to gun violence and car crashes can also help level the playing field for U.S. children, adds Forrest.

(Civil.Ge) — The Tbilisi City Court found on January 5 Georgia’s ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili guilty of abusing power in pardoning the former Interior Ministry officials, who were convicted in the high-profile murder case of Sandro Girgvliani, and sentenced him to three years in prison in absentia.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, few weeks after Girgvliani’s murder in 2006, Mikheil Saakashvili promised Data Akhalaia, then head of the the Interior Ministry’s Department of Constitutional Security, to pardon those officials from the same Department, who would be willing to claim responsibility for the murder, and would not reveal the identities of those who ordered and committed the murder.

The prosecution also argued that on November 24, 2008, Saakashvili “abused his official power, and following his illegal promise given to David Akhalaia and bypassing the Pardon Commission, pardoned Geronti Alania, Alexandre Ghachava, Mikheil Bibiluridze and Avtandil Aptsiauri and halved their prison terms, enabling the application of a pre-term release mechanism to them.”

According to the Tbilisi City Court, Mikheil Saakashvili was sentenced to four years in prison and was banned from holding public office for two years. Saakashvili’s sentences, however, were reduced pursuant to the country’s Law on Amnesty, and subsequently, the ex-President was sentenced to three years in prison with a 1.5-year ban on holding public office.

The murder of a 28-year-old Sandro Girgvliani, after his reported altercation with high-ranking Security Ministry employees, and the subsequent handling of the case by Saakashvili’s administration has attracted harsh criticism nationally and internationally, with the European Court of Human Rights saying in its judgment that the Court was “struck by how the different branches of State power… acted in concert in preventing justice from being done in this gruesome homicide case.”

The Tbilisi City Court ruling drew criticism from members of the opposition United National Movement (UNM), who have been dismissing the prosecution’s claims as “politically motivated,” and have been stressing on the President’s exclusive constitutional right to pardon prisoners.

UNM’s Zaza Bibilashvili, who convened a special press briefing today, said the judge who preceded over the case was “a criminal,” and accused him of following the instructions of ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and the incumbent officials of the Georgian Dream government.

President Giorgi Margvelashvili slammed the court ruling as well. The President said the reaction of Saakashvili’s government to Girgvliani’s murder case had caused “extreme concern in the Georgian society from the very beginning,” but added that it was “alarming” that the Prosecutor’s Office had used the President’s constitutional right “as a reason for launching prosecution.”

Mikheil Saakashvili commented on the court ruling as well, saying “the ‘decision,’ as well as the parallel legal process in Kyiv, clearly demonstrates that the oligarchic governments in both Ukraine and Georgia are working – in a synchronized and completely coordinated fashion with each other – against me as a leader of the fight against corruption, the oligarchs and the robbing the people.”

This is the first sentence delivered against Saakashvili in Georgia. The former president is wanted by the authorities on three additional criminal cases, which he denies as politically motivated.

Mikheil Saakashvili was appointed as the head of the Odessa region in south-western Ukraine on May 30, 2015, a day after President Petro Poroshenko granted him the country’s citizenship. Saakashvili resigned from the post in November 2016, after his relations with Poroshenko soured, becoming an opposition leader and creating his own political party – the Movement of New Forces – in early 2017.

Poroshenko stripped Mikheil Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship on July 26, 2017, when the latter was outside of the country. Saakashvili, however, managed to return to Ukraine forcefully, and launched street rallies against the Ukrainian President. In December 2017, the Ukrainian authorities launched a criminal case against Saakashvili and arrested him twice, but the ex-President was freed from custody first by his supporters, and then by a court decision.

By S. Binodkumar Singh*

In keeping with the Government’s policy to release more security forces-held lands to the civilians, the Sri Lanka Army released another 133.34 acres on December 28, 2017, in the Keppapilavu area of Mullaitivu District to the civilian Tamil owners. As of December 1, 2017, the Army had released a total of 55,510.58 acres of land in Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya Districts in the Northern Province, in addition to the 133.34 acres released on December 28 in Keppapilavu. As on March 1, 2016, the Army was occupying 67,427 acres of land belonging to Tamil civilians in the Northern Province. The Army commenced the gradual release of private property used by the armed forces after the conclusion of the Eelam War on May 17, 2009.

Earlier, Sri Lanka had transformed the Menik Farm Displacement Camp in Mullaitivu District into Menik Farm village, an apparel village with garment factories, as part of a new US$ 1.8 million national apparel initiative at village levels. The Displacement Camp was at one time considered the world’s largest refugee camp, sheltering close to 300,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It was closed at the end of 2012, as all IDPs had been resettled. The national apparel village project aims at setting up 150 Mini Apparel Factories across the country. 73 of the 150 factories are dedicated to conflict affected areas, including 38 in the Northern Province and 35 in the Eastern Province. On November 14, 2017, Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen addressing the opening ceremony of the first factory in the Menik Farm village, declaring, “We want these 150 factories to form their own apparel companies or cooperatives one day and share their profits among them. Reconciliation would be a distant dream without provision of livelihood to war affected families.”

Meanwhile, furthering the constitution-making process, the Constitutional Assembly (CA), which was formed on March 9, 2016, to draft a new Constitution for the island nation, replacing the current Constitution adopted in 1978, had 10 meetings, so far. At the 6th to 10th meetings of the CA held on October 30, October 31, November 1, November 2 and November 8, 2017, an Interim Report of the Steering Committee set up under the CA was debated. The Interim Report was submitted to the CA by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as Chairman of the Steering Committee on September 21, 2017, and stressed that Sri Lanka should remain one undivided and indivisible country, where maximum devolution should be granted. It argued explicitly for the inclusion of specific provisions in the Constitution to prevent secession (division of the country). The report proposed that provincial councils would be the primary unit of devolution, while local bodies had been named as the implementing agency of both the central Government and the provincial councils.

Issuing a statement following the submission of the Interim Report, R. Sampanthan, Leader of the Opposition and of the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), stated, on September 21, 2017, “The successful conclusion of this Constitution-making process on the basis of an acceptable, reasonable and substantial national consensus would bring about a firm finality to this issue. Sri Lanka would perpetually be a united undivided and indivisible country in keeping with the basic and Supreme Law of the country, and on the basis of the free will and consent of its entire people.” Further, on January 3, 2018, Sampanthan added, “I have not the slightest doubt that we made the correct decision in backing Mr. Sirisena. We were sick of the Rajapaksa government which had been particularly unjust and unfair to the Tamil civilians. I have no regrets about the decision we made, though the Tamil people, and consequently those of us who represent them, expected greater performance from the government.” In the keenly contested Presidential Election held on January 8, 2015, TNA supported common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena, leader of the New Democratic Front (NDF), which emerged victorious, securing 6,217,162 votes (51.28 per cent) against 5,768,090 votes (47.58 per cent) polled by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent President and candidate of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA).

Significantly, in another step forward in Sri Lanka’s path to sustained peace, and paving the way to set up the Office for Missing Persons (OMP) to trace around 20,000 people still missing eight years after the end of the nearly three-decade-long civil war, the Constitutional Council (CC) submitted the names of seven nominees for the OMP to President Maithripala Sirisena, on December 8, 2017. There were more than 100 applicants seeking to be members of the OMP, among whom the seven were selected, and their names had been sent to the President for approval. The Bill to establish the OMP was introduced on May 22, 2016, and on June 21, 2017, was passed unanimously in Parliament. On July 20, 2017, President Sirisena signed the OMP Act.

Notably, to launch a television channel to promote reconciliation, on December 20, 2017, the Cabinet approved the establishing of a “Channel of Reconciliation”, a television studio complex in the Northern Province. It was decided to obtain a land plot of 100 perches (3,025 square yards) for this purpose from the Meesalei Weerasingham Central College premises in Jaffna. Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation has been entrusted with this project according to a Cabinet paper submitted by Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera. Further, underlining the Government’s commitment to resolve the ethnic issue, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, while addressing a ceremony to distribute title deeds under the theme ‘Our house in our land,’ at Hatton Dunbar Grounds in Nuwara Eliya District noted, “The war is over, and the people elected Maithripala Sirisena as the President in January 2015 with a mandate to rebuild the country. But there is no development without peace. We as Sri Lankans have to unite as one. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has come forward for peace building for the first time. They wanted a political solution for their demands.”

Similarly, President Sirisena, addressing the Religious Coexistence Convention held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) in Colombo on December 12, 2017, observed, “Today, we are gathered here because deep down we know that we have a problem in this country. The ethnic and religious conflicts in this country resulted in a 30-year war. The war was ended through a military solution. Our Forces were able to defeat a separatist terrorist organization but we have not managed to defeat the beliefs that led to it. We all know that ideas and beliefs cannot be defeated with arms. It can only be replaced with a better, more positive belief. I strongly believe that our local temples and religious institutions do not preach conflict. The religious leaders always try to direct the people in the right direction. All philosophies, be it Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, strive try to correct society.”

Nevertheless, the assault of international organizations against the Sri Lanka Government continues. Human Rights Watch (HRW) Geneva Director John Fisher on November 15, 2017, urged the United Nations (UN) members to insist that Sri Lanka adopt an action plan and timeline to implement Geneva proposals as promised to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution adopted in October 2015, and argued, “The Sirisena government made key pledges at the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2015 to ensure justice, accountability, and security sector reform. The failure of the government to fulfill most of these promises has brought its commitment to reform into question and dashed hopes of victims and affected communities. Sri Lanka is in danger of not just standing still on rights, but backtracking on essential reforms. UN members need to look beyond the increasingly hollow promises of reform, and insist that the government present an action plan and timeline for honoring its commitments.” Similarly, the three-member United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention comprising José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez, Leigh Toomey and Elina Steinerte who visited Sri Lanka from December 4-15, 2017, to assess the country’ situation regarding the deprivation of liberty, on December 15, 2017, urged the Government to introduce urgent reforms to the ‘outdated’ legal framework to end arbitrary detention in the country. The delegation identified significant challenges to the enjoyment of the right to personal liberty in Sri Lanka, resulting in arbitrary detention across the country.

Meanwhile, on June 20, 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers approved Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s proposal to appoint a Committee of Ministers chaired by him and a Committee of Officials to assist and to coordinate the UNHRC recommendations made in the consensus resolution adopted in October 2015. Further, on November 1, 2017, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe launched the five-year National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights at a ceremony held at the Parliament Complex. Speaking at the event, the Prime Minister declared the time had come to reaffirm human rights in the country. The National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2017-2021 documents goal-oriented activities in the Human Rights arena, aimed to strengthen national processes and mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights through substantial constitutional, legislative, policy and administrative frameworks.

Through 2017, the National Unity Government (NUG) has made remarkable efforts to press forward the reconciliation process by reaching out to the Tamils and initiating constitutional and legal reforms. It has furthered the much-awaited Constitution-making process by debating the Interim Report of the CA Steering Committee in Parliament. It has also passed enabling legislation to establish the OMP to help find the missing persons of the war era. Colombo’s record on these parameters compares favorably with almost any other post-conflict society in the world, and certainly improves on the conduct of Western expeditionary forces in various theatres of strife across the world. But unrealistic expectations and criteria that are not applied to a multiplicity of conflicts – both current and past – are being imposed on Sri Lanka by elements within the international community. These are contaminating the discourse within the country, deepening polarization between the communities, and obstructing the process of reconciliation, rather than contributing in any constructive measure to a peaceful resolution.

* S. Binodkumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

By Deepak Kumar Nayak*

A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper, Ashish Patra (29), was killed during an exchange of fire between Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres and Security Force (SF) personnel in the Chakarbandha Hills near Balthar village under Barachatti Tehsil (revenue unit) in Gaya District on January 2, 2018. According to sources, on January 1, after receiving specific intelligence regarding Maoists’ movement in the area, a search operation was launched by the SFs. On the next day (January 2), at around 3.30pm, an exchange of fire took place between the two sides in which the CRPF trooper sustained injuries and died later.

It was the first fatality recorded in this category (SFs) in the State, after a gap of almost one year and three months. The last SF fatality was registered on October 3, 2016, when three motorcycle-borne suspected CPI-Maoist cadres shot dead Quuam Ansari, the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of Kotchi Police Station, in Gaya District. The OIC was on a morning walk when the assailants attacked, killing him on the spot.

Remarkably, in 2017, SFs had achieved their best ever kill ratio against the Maoists, on year on year basis, since the formation of CPI-Maoist in 2004. They had killed nine Maoists without suffering a single loss in 2017. By contrast, in 2016, they had lost 15 of their own personnel, killing just nine Maoists.

Further, SFs arrested 98 Left Wing Extremists (LWEs) through 2017. The arrested cadres included three ‘area commanders’, one ‘zonal commander’, and one ‘secretary’ of the North Bihar Zonal Committee (NBZC) of the CPI-Maoist. Most recently, on December 14, 2017, Police arrested Manoj Sada, a CPI-Maoist ‘area commander’, active in Farakiya diara (riverine area) under Morkahi Police Station area in Khagaria District, was arrested from his hideout at Jhamakia Musahari by the Police. A pistol and some live cartridges were recovered from his possession. SFs arrested 104 Maoists in 2016.

Mounting SF pressure also led to the surrender of 17 LWEs in 2017, in addition to 24 surrenders in 2016. The cadres who surrendered in 2017 included Maheshi Yadav, a Maoist ‘zonal commander’ of the Morhar Nilanjan sub-zone. Yadav carried a reward of INR 50,000 on his head.

At least 25 incidents of recovery of arms and ammunition by SF personnel were reported in 2017. In a recent incident of recovery, on December 26, 2017, the Police seized an AK-47 rifle, a semi-automatic rifle, five country-made pistols, four revolvers and over 700 live cartridges during a raid at Tikarampur under the Mufassil Police Station in Monghyr District. There were 32 such instances of recovery in 2016.

Not surprisingly, the trend of declining fatalities in LWE)-linked violence established since 2011, with two exceptions in 2012 and 2016, was re-established in 2017. According to partial data collated by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 24 persons, including 15 civilians and nine Maoists, were killed in the State in 2017, as against 32 persons, including eight civilians, 15 SF personnel and nine Maoists, killed in 2016. Significantly, 2015 had witnessed the lowest number of such fatalities, nine (four civilians, three SF personnel and two Maoists) recorded in the State since the formation of CPI-Maoist in September 2004. A lone fatality (SF, January 2) has been reported in the current year so far (data till January 7, 2018).

Unsurprisingly, on July 26, 2017, Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar, the Director General (DG) of the CRPF, claimed that the area controlled by CPI-Maoist had “shrunk in three States in the last two and a half years… There is substantial decline in areas controlled by Naxals [Left Wing Extremists (LWEs)] in Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. Disturbances in these areas are very less…”

However, other parameters of violence suggest that the Maoists still retain a significant presence and operational capabilities. Fatalities among civilians are witnessing an increase in recent years. After, touching an all time low of four fatalities in this category in 2015, the lowest recorded in the State since the formation of CPI-Maoist in September 2004, it doubled to eight in 2016, and almost doubled further in 2017, reaching 15. Most recently, on December 18, 2017, CPI-Maoist cadres abducted and hacked to death two security guards of a private Construction Company in Jamui District.

In addition, the Maoists carried out three blasts in 2017, in addition to four in 2016. They attacked railway properties on at least three occasions each, in both these years. Also, they were found involved in 11 incidents of arson in 2017, and 10 in 2016. At least eight incidents of abduction (in which 18 persons were abducted) by Maoists were reported in 2017 as against just two incidents (in which six persons were abducted) in 2016.

The Maoists also issued six bandh (shut down strike) calls on different issues in 2017, in comparison to four such calls in 2016. The December 18-20, 2017, bandh witnessed the most violence, when an armed squad of about 15 CPI-Maoist cadres, including some women, carried out an attack at the Masudan Railway Station in the Jamalpur area of Monghyr District in the night of December 19, 2017, at around 11 pm. 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. After the State Police and CRPF launched a joint search operation, the Maoists released the two men in a hilly area at Jamalpur. According to the SATP database, Bihar has accounted for at least 62 Maoist-linked attacks on the Railways since September 21, 2004 (data till January 7, 2018). These attacks have resulted in 25 deaths (nine civilians and 16 SF personnel) and 32 persons injured.

Meanwhile, according to CRPF sources, three pockets – the Jamui/Nawada/Giridih triangular section, the Gaya Aurangabad section, and the Lakhisarai/ Monghyr/ Banka/ Jamui section – still record significant CPI-Maoist influence. For instance, a report dated December 25, 2017, noted that three groups, each comprising of 20-25 CPI-Maoist cadres, were seen in the border areas of Banka District.

Disturbingly, splinter groups of the CPI-Maoist, such as the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI) and the Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), mainly based in Jharkhand, also continues to made their presence felt in Bihar as well. On October 16, 2017, PLFI cadres shot dead a contractor after he refused to comply with extortion demands at Diha village under the Guraru Police Station area in Gaya District. Police said contractor Ramadhar Singh was allegedly shot dead by armed squad of the PLFI, after he refused to pay the “levy” demanded by them. On April 9, 2017, suspected cadres of the TPC, raided the construction site of Gas India Limited (GAIL), the agency engaged in laying gas pipeline passing through Gurua Police Station area of Gaya District of Bihar, and ‘ordered’ stoppage of work for the company’s failure to pay the ‘levy’ demanded by the outfit. On March 1, 2017, the TPC ‘zonal commander’ Anil Kushwaha aka Rakesh Mishra and 10 cadres killed one Jitendra Kharwar (18) over delay in serving them food in Rohtas District.

Meanwhile, according to a December 13, 2017, report, the Centre and the State Government have devised a strategy to combat the Maoist menace in Bihar. Under the new strategy, named ‘Mission 100’, hundred people will be identified and brought to book for their involvement in organised crime and Maoist activities. Under the ‘mission’, the central agencies would strike at the source of income (read extortion) of the Maoists and also confiscate the ill-gotten property of their strategists. The report stated further that in November 2017, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated the process of attaching the property of two senior Maoists – Pradyuman Sharma aka Kundan, head of the Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee (BJSAC)’s Magadh zone, and Sandeep Yadav aka Badka Bhaiya, in charge of the BJSAC’s Madhya zone. Yadav carries an INR 500,000 reward on his head in Bihar and INR 2.5 million in Jharkhand. Similarly, the Bihar Government has announced INR 50,000 on Sharma while he carries a reward of INR 500,000 in Jharkhand. Bihar’s Special Task Force (STF) disclosed that Sandeep and his family have accumulated assets worth INR 15.2 million, and Pradyuman and his family members have property worth more than INR 12.8 million. Inspector General of Police (Operations) Kundan Krishnan disclosed, “Sandeep’s wife Rajwanti Devi, who is enrolled as a contract teacher at a Banke Bazar (Gaya) primary school, has withdrawn salary of Rs 675,424 over the years but she does not go to the school. Such is Sandeep’s terror that no one has lodged a complaint on it so far. Rajwanti’s bank balance is Rs 749,546, which is disproportionate to her known sources of income.” The report also says Rajwanti owns a .66 acres plot in Gaya, valued at approximately INR 5 million, and a flat in Ranchi worth INR 3 million. Sandeep’s brother Dhan is also a Maoist. Meanwhile, Pradyuman and wife Shanti Devi have millions deposited in his bank, while their children study in expensive private institutions. His brother Pramod, resident of Hulasganj in Jehanabad District, reportedly owns 38 small- and medium-sized plots, mostly of agricultural land, said to be worth INR 5 million in all.

Further, the State has deployed 10 battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) to fight LWEs. These include seven battalions of CRPF (five regular and two Commando Battalion for Resolute Action, CoBRA, battalions) and three battalions of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). Further, four helicopters have been stationed in the Ranchi District of neighboring Jharkhand for anti-Maoist operations in Bihar.

The fight still lacks critical muscle, as the Bihar Police continues to lag in terms of capacities to deal with the challenge. According to the latest Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) data, as on January 1, 2017, Bihar has 74.76 Police personnel per 100,000 population, the lowest in the country and far below the national average of 150.75. Bihar, however, fares better than the national average on Police/Area Ratio (number of policemen per 100 square kilometers) at 83.05, as against the national average of 60.83. In both these categories, the sanctioned strength for Bihar is much higher, at 107.73 and 119.67 respectively. Moreover, there are 42 vacancies of IPS officers in the State against the sanctioned strength of 231. An unnamed senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the State disclosed on December 30, 2017, that among the 189 serving IPS officers in the Bihar cadre, 36 were on central deputation.

The Maoist rebels are persistent in their efforts to restore their sway in the State. The Administration, consequently needs to gear up and strengthen its responses – particularly in terms of State Police capacities – to neutralize the enduring Maoist challenge.

* Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

There are more than 8 million species of living things on Earth, but none of them — from 100-foot blue whales to microscopic bacteria — has an advantage over the others in the universal struggle for existence.

In a paper published Jan. 8 in the prestigious journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, a trio of scientists from universities in the United States and the United Kingdom describe the dynamic that began with the origin of life on Earth 4 billion years ago. They report that regardless of vastly different body size, location and life history, most plant, animal and microbial species are equally “fit” in the struggle for existence. This is because each transmits approximately the same amount of energy over its lifetime to produce the next generation of its species.

“This means that each elephant or blue whale contributes no more energy per gram of parent to the next generation than a trout or even a bacterium,” said co-author Charles A.S. Hall, a systems ecologist with the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse, New York. “We found, rather astonishingly, by examining the production rate and the generation time of thousands of plants, animals and microbes that each would pass on, on average, the same amount of energy to the next generation per gram of parent, regardless of size. A single-celled aquatic alga recreates its own body mass in one day, but lives for only a day. A large female elephant takes years to produce her first baby, and lives much longer than the alga. For all plants and animals of all sizes these two factors – rate of biomass production and generation time – exactly balance each other, so each contributes the same energy per gram of parent to the next generation in their lifetime.”

The bottom line, Hall said, is that all organisms are, on average, equally fit for survival.

Hall’s co-author, James H. Brown, a physiological ecologist at the University of New Mexico, said, “The fact that all organisms are nearly equally fit has profound implications for the evolution and persistence of life on Earth.”

The third author on the paper, which was published online, is mathematical biologist Richard M. Sibly of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

The scientists tackled an intriguing question about life on the planet, beginning with some common knowledge. On one hand, they noted, microscopic, unicellular bacteria, algae and protists that weigh only a few micrograms live fast, generate much new biomass per day or even per minute, and die young, often within hours. On the other hand, mammals such as a 100-foot blue whale can live up to 100 years but generate new biomass, including babies, much more slowly.

The authors ask a sweeping question: How can such enormous variation in reproduction and survival allow persistence and coexistence of so many species? Their answer: Because there is a universal tradeoff in how organisms acquire, transform and expend energy for survival and production within constraints imposed by physics and biology.

In their research, the authors built a model of energy allocation, based on data involving rates of energy investment in growth and reproduction, generation times (commonly considered 22 to 32 years for humans) and body sizes of hundreds of species ranging from microbes to mammals and trees. They found an exactly equal but opposite relationship between growth rate and generation time among all these organisms.

The net result is what the authors call the “equal fitness paradigm.” Species are nearly equally fit for survival because they all devote the same quantity of energy per unit of body weight to produce offspring in the next generation; the higher activity and shorter life of small organisms is exactly compensated for by the slower activity and greater longevity of large organisms.

Hall said the tradeoff between rate of living and generation time is one reason for the great diversity of life on Earth: No one size or life form has a built-in advantage over another. The apparent benefits of being larger (for example, bigger males are more likely to win in competition for mates) are compensated for by the fact that larger animals are typically less productive over time.

“There is no single way of living and using energy that is best,” Hall and Brown said. “Given the array of environmental conditions on the planet, one kind of organism might gain a temporary advantage, but such gains will soon be countered by other, competing organisms. The result is what evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen called the ‘Red Queen phenomenon,’ based on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass: All species must keep running to keep up with others and stay in the evolutionary race.”

The opioid epidemic has become so severe it’s considered a national public health emergency. Addiction to prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone and morphine, has contributed to a dramatic rise in overdose deaths and health care costs. What many don’t realize, it’s also associated with an alarming number of children placed into foster care.

In a study published in this month’s issue of Health Affairs, researchers analyzed the association between the rate of opioid prescriptions in Florida and the number of children removed from their homes due to parental neglect.

“Through my experience as a foster parent, I’ve seen first-hand how the foster system has been overwhelmed by children removed from homes where the parents are opioid-dependent,” said lead author Troy Quast, PhD, of the University of South Florida College of Public Health. “My goal in this study was to gain insight into the factors behind this surge.”

Quast and his colleagues reviewed 2012-2015 data on Florida’s 67 counties submitted to the federal government’s Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. They found that in 2015, roughly two out of every 1000 kids and teens were removed from their homes due to parental neglect, reflecting a staggering 129 percent increase since 2012.

According to the Florida Drug-Related Outcomes Surveillance and Tracking System, the number of opioids prescribed during this same time period rose 9 percent. In 2012, doctors prescribed 72.33 prescriptions for every 100 residents. The rate grew to 81.34 by 2015, averaging 74.1 prescriptions during the 2012-2015 time frame. It’s important to note the rate dropped 2.5 percent in 2013, following the implementation of several new state policies regarding pain clinics and a prescription drug monitoring program.

The range of Florida’s opioid prescription rate was dramatic. Some counties averaged about one prescription a year for every three people, while other counties had as many as 1 ½ opioid prescriptions per person each year. The highest rates were found in predominantly white counties.

The analysis by Dr. Quast and his colleagues showed that on average, for every additional 6.7 opioid prescriptions per 100 people, the removal rate for parental neglect increased by 32 percent. This estimated increase corresponds to roughly 2000 additional children removed, resulting in an annual state fiscal cost of $40 million. Previous studies have shown children removed from their homes due to parental neglect have a greater likelihood of juvenile delinquency, teen motherhood, mental and physical health problems and adult criminality.

“While the reported drop in opioid prescription rates over the last two years is encouraging, unfortunately it appears illicit opioid use has more than offset the decrease,” said Dr. Quast. “We need to keep affected children in the forefront of our minds when tackling this crisis.”

By Ray Sherman

Elderly statesman Mahathir Mohamad has officially become the standard bearer for Malaysia’s opposition, with the 92-year-old former longtime leader saying he is prepared to take the helm in the hopes of unseating scandal-plagued Prime Minister Najib Razak through upcoming elections.

But reactions from observers and government officials have been mixed to the opposition’s move to pick the former prime minister, who ruled for 22 years from 1981 to 2003 and developed a reputation as an autocratic ruler, as its main hope for defeating the incumbent.

Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) over the weekend named Mahathir as its prime ministerial hopeful after the country’s general election, which is due by August, although Najib is expected to call the polls earlier on in 2018.

“I thank you for nominating me as prime minister. I’m already 92 years, I won’t be there for long,” Mahathir, who will turn 93 in July, said to cheers during a convention held by the opposition bloc on Sunday.

Should PH win the election, Mahathir would serve as prime minister to pave the way for his once bitter foe, imprisoned opposition de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, to take over as PM if granted a royal pardon for a sodomy conviction, officials said. Without the pardon, Anwar would be barred from politics for five years.

Sunday’s decision means that Mahathir could return as prime minister 15 years after he stepped down from the position.

The four opposition PH parties unanimously appointed Mahathir during their convention to challenge Najib, the leader of the Barisan Nasional coalition and the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party.

“The good thing is PH can lay claim to having an experienced candidate on its side and that it can make critical choices in the run-up to the 14th general election, by consensus,” Azmi Hassan, a Malaysian geopolitical analyst, told BenarNews.

“The bad thing is that choosing Mahathir may distance a lot of voters as he had a lot of bad history. This factor matters the most to on-the-fence voters,” he added.

Another analyst, Hisomuddin Bakar with the independent research firm Ilham Center, described the move as bold.

“It would greatly impact Malay voters in urban and semi-urban areas,” he told BenarNews, referring to constituents from Malaysia’s ethnic majority who make up the voting base of UMNO, Mahathir’s former party.

But Khairy Jamaluddin, the current minister for youth and sports, said Mahathir’s candidacy would cause political instability.

“This will cause upheaval in PKR and create uncertainty among investors, not knowing how long Mahathir will be prime minister before Anwar takes over,” Khairy told reporters on Sunday, referring to Anwar’s People’s Justice Party (PKR).

In a series of tweets, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, a minister in Prime Minister Department, lambasted the choice of Mahathir, but hailed it as “absolutely good news” for BN.

“PH shows how all these years of talking of reform and giving young people a chance were mere rhetoric,” one of his tweets read.

Putting the past behind

Mahathir came out of retirement amid allegations that billions of dollars from state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) were misused by Najib and others. Mahathir has since branded Najib, his one-time protégé, as corrupt and has led calls for his resignation. Najib has denied allegations of wrongdoing in the 1MDB affair.

“The main goal now is to topple UMNO and Najib,” Mahathir told journalists on Sunday.

As an autocratic leader decades ago, Mahathir threw several opposition leaders into jail, including Anwar in the late 1990s.

“It wasn’t easy for the parties that were formerly my enemies to accept me, but they know the importance of bringing down the current government,” Mahathir said.

“Those who were uneasy with me, my policies … my actions and although it is difficult for them, they realize that what is important is not the past, but what is in the future.”

Anwar is serving a five-year jail term for sodomy – a charge that he and his supporters insist is politically motivated. He is set to be released on June 8, according to the Prison Department.

Sunday’s announcement also saw Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the People’s Justice Party president, being named as the opposition’s hopeful for the job of deputy prime minister, should the opposition win the election.

While a date for the general election has not been announced, PH is not recognized formally as a political alliance. The Registrar of Societies (ROS) demanded additional documents, which the opposition submitted.

The ROS director could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Hareez Lee in Shah Alam, Malaysia, and Hata Wahari contributed to this report.

For all his revolutionary talk on the campaign trail, Donald Trump, as presidents have before him, has been co-opted by the U.S. foreign policy establishment to run pretty much the same national security strategy as his predecessors. That is because new presidents, most of them former governors, have been elected on domestic issues and have little foreign policy experience when they take office (the only recent exception was George H. W. Bush), therefore relying on people that the establishment recommends from their political party. In the case of Trump—who had some good commonsense instincts in the campaign that promised a more a more restrained foreign policy—it is a shame that the interventionist generals he has around him have largely won the day over that laudable intuition.

Much to the alarm of establishment figures, Trump initially proved reluctant to accept the NATO alliance’s Article V pledge for the U.S. to defend rich European nations long after the Cold War was over. Even more horrifying to the elite, he agitated for East Asian allies to do more for their own defense, including possibly acquiring nuclear weapons. Trump has been reduced by the generals to merely taking pride that U.S. allies have agreed to pay a little more of the defense bill.

Yet even here, if the traditionally stingy allies cough up a little more and the United States tries to stay out of overseas quagmires, as Trump insinuated during the campaign, why does Trump’s plan call for a big increase in the defense budget. Instead defense spending could be reduced if allies do more and the United States drops its exorbitantly expensive role as policeman of the world. Furthermore, after long being the only federal department that couldn’t pass an audit, the bloated and wasteful Department of Defense finally may be getting serious about conducting one.

In certain instances, the United States could even rely on what the new strategy calls the “revisionist” powers—Russia and China—to ensure stability by policing regions close to them. For example, Russia could be allowed to police a modest sphere of influence in its “near abroad” in Eastern Europe, much as the United States polices its own sphere of influence in the entire Western Hemisphere. Although the American foreign policy elite likes to pretend that spheres of influence are “so yesterday,” this reasoning usually only applies for those of foreign countries, not that of the United States. And if the United States can’t live with a nuclear North Korea and deter it with the most powerful nuclear arsenal on the planet (which it can), as it did when radical Mao Zedong got nuclear weapons in the 1960s, then instead of attacking the North—as seems increasingly likely—why not give a wink and a nod to a surprise Chinese ground invasion of the Hermit Kingdom? A lightning ground invasion of North Korea is the only way to be sure all the North’s nuclear weapons are collected before they can be used. And China, North Korea’s ostensible ally with a common border, is the only country that could conduct a surprise attack on that nation. China could then install a friendly government in the North. However, the American foreign policy establishment would be appalled by the thought of either of these scenarios, because despite severe U.S. overextension abroad, in their view, the United States must remain the global hegemon.

Such American overextension is best illustrated by the United States currently accounting for 37 percent of the world’s military spending, yet only 22 percent of its economic power. If U.S. national security depends on a strong economy, which Trump correctly claims in the new strategy, a reduction in defense spending—in addition to entitlement reform, which Trump has rejected—would help with the humongous debt burden of $20.6 trillion that the U.S. government has already racked up and that the Republicans are ballooning by $1.45 trillion with their needless tax cut in a currently buoyant economy. If Republicans are unimpressed with current economic growth rates, they should remove the drag the current debt induces on them, instead of creating the sugar high of tax cuts that make the debt burden worse. For good reason, General Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cogently argued that the nation’s debt was the biggest national security issue facing the country, but Trump and congressional Republicans don’t seem to get the disconnect between Trump’s national security strategy and his economic policy.

Another contradiction in Trump’s strategy is that his “fair trade”—that is, veiled—economic protectionism will ultimately make the American economy, and therefore national security, weaker. In contrast, free trade and capital flows would ensure a healthier U.S. economy in the long term. Therefore, counterintuitively, long-term U.S. national security depends on reducing defense expenditures, entitlement spending, and debt—not cutting taxes until these difficult tasks are completed—and allowing free commerce and capital flows to make the economy stronger.

This article was published at Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.