By Thomas J. Shattuck*

(FPRI) — On January 4, the People’s Republic of China announced the opening of four new flight routes over the Taiwan Strait. Instead of giving the region some time to process the announcement, planes began using these routes the same day. Due to the location of the routes and the unilateral nature of the announcement, Taiwan has protested the opening of the routes.

The new paths consist of one northbound route (M503) and three east-west extension routes (W121, W122, W123) that link to the main one. Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) has estimated that over 20 flights have used these routes daily since their opening.

In the announcement, China noted that opening up these additional routes would help with delays in an already congested flight area. To the casual observer, such an announcement makes sense: if there are too many flights on a specific route, it would make sense to open new ones to prevent flight delays. Who likes when their flight is delayed?

Behind these new flight routes, however, is the poor state of cross-Strait relations. Since May 2016, China has cut official communication with Taiwan due to the inauguration of Tsai Ing-wen and her refusal to acquiesce in Beijing’s demand that she accept the so-called “1992 Consensus” and the related “one China Principle.” China has also recently increased the number of “island encirclement” missions, whereby Chinese bombers and surveillance planes fly around Taiwan and occasionally breach its Air Defense Zone. Talk of a Chinese invasion—although the possibility of invasion remains remote—has been a topic of much discussion since December 2017, particularly after a Chinese diplomat threatened invasion if a U.S. ship ever makes a port call in Taiwan. When compared to these other issues, a commercial flight route could be seen as innocuous.

But the new flight route is all a part of China’s strategy—ratchet up pressure on Taiwan in both large and small ways—especially while the world is focused on the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. If China continues to increase measures to force Tsai’s hand, which of the many threats would she ask China to limit or remove first?

In response to the announcement, Tsai tweeted: “Cross-strait stability is [important] to regional stability. Recent unilateral actions by #China – including M503 flight route & increased military exercises – are destabilizing & should be avoided. #Taiwan will continue to safeguard the status quo. We call on all parties to do the same.”

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council reiterated Tsai’s point in a statement saying, “We believe . . . this is purposefully using civil aviation as a cover for improper intentions regarding Taiwan politics and even military affairs.”

China opened a similar route in January 2015, and Taiwan protested due to aviation safety concerns—the flights then (and now) were 7.8km away from Taiwanese airspace and cross paths with some domestic Taiwanese flights. By March 2015, Taiwan and China reached an agreement that one southbound flight route would remain open but the route was moved further west and that before China would open new routes, it would do so after consultation with Taiwan.

There is one slight, yet extremely important, difference between the 2015 spat and now. In 2015, the president of Taiwan was Ma Ying-jeou, a member of the Kuomintang, the party that advocates for closer ties with China. Now, in 2018, Tsai Ing-wen is president, and she is a member of the Democratic Progress Party, the party with a less favorable view of China. That’s the only change in the situation and thus the reason that the routes were opened again and the reason that China won’t be as amenable to compromise this time.

Taiwan under Tsai has limited leverage to push back against a more recalcitrant China, but it has done several things to make its stance known to China and the world. To try to press China into some sort of dialogue, Tsai’s government has called on the United States, Canada, and other countries to support Taiwan in this endeavor and for their planes to avoid using the new route. On January 18, the Taiwan CAA confirmed that it “has provisionally delayed approval of applications by two China-based airlines to operate additional cross-strait flights during the Lunar New Year holiday in protest at China’s unilateral decision to launch a northbound M503 route.” This postponement will affect nearly 200 flights and about 50,000 passengers.

Tsai has also made Taiwan’s stance known to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN organization that deals with global aviation issues. Unfortunately, since Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, it is also not a member ICAO and cannot broach the topic directly. It must work through other indirect channels, specifically its formal and informal allies in ICAO. ICAO is not likely to do anything with Taiwan’s complaint because Taiwan is not allowed to be a member of the organization. Moreover, the Secretary General of the organization is a Chinese citizen, and Taiwan was excluded from the 39th Assembly in Montreal in 2016 after attending at China’s request in 2013.

For these reasons, it is unlikely that ICAO will work in favor of Taiwan even though according to ICAO guidelines, before a country makes a change to a flight route, it must work with “all parties concerned.” And China did not do that. In fact, China only notified Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration two hours before it sent out the official notification. At of the time of writing, ICAO has not formally responded to Taiwan’s complaint.

For its part, the United States has encouraged “authorities in Beijing and Taipei to engage in constructive dialogue, on the basis of dignity and respect,” but has not done much else. The United States should be more forceful in its rebuke of China’s unilateral action because since Tsai’s inauguration, China has shown it is not willing to have any dialogue with Taiwan. For now, to quote the great Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, “it’s déjà vu all over again” for cross-Strait relations.

About the author:
*Thomas J. Shattuck is the Editor of Geopoliticus: The FPRI Blog, the Assistant Editor, and a Research Associate at FPRI. He received his BA in History and English from La Salle University in 2013 and his MA in International Studies from National Chengchi University in 2016. Thomas also received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Kinmen, Taiwan for the 2013-14 academic year.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

ICT fuelled rapid growth in US retail during the 1990s and 2000s. This column maps the adoption of universal product codes and scanners to show that the barcode was one of the main drivers of this growth. Companies adopting barcodes employed 10% more employees, delivered a wider range of products, and were more likely to procure from abroad.

By Emek Basker andTimothy S. Simcoe*

US labour productivity growth has averaged only 1.3% per annum since 2004, leading to a debate between optimists and pessimists on what this implies. The pessimists, such as Robert Gordon (2012), see slow growth as the new normal. Optimists, such as McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2016), point to the productivity-enhancing potential of technologies such as robots and artificial intelligence.

Despite their disagreement over future trends, both sides agree that rapid growth during the late 1990s and early 2000s was fuelled by the adoption of information and communications technology (ICT). The retail sector is often used as ‘Exhibit A’ for this argument (for example, by McKinsey 2001).

Most accounts of this retail revolution highlight the importance of technologies such as scanning and automated inventory management. But there remains little or no large-sample empirical evidence of the role played by these technologies. Our new research (Basker and Simcoe 2017) fills that gap. It uses by historical data on Universal Product Code (UPC) registrations to study the diffusion and economic impacts of the barcode system.

UPC diffusion

The first barcode scanner was deployed in a Marsh Supermarket, in Troy, Ohio, in 1974. The system was originally developed for use in food retailing, but the combination of barcodes printed on a package by the manufacturer and scanners used in-store by retailers made automated checkout and inventory tracking possible in all retail sectors.

The first six digits of a barcode are a unique firm identifier. We merge the name and address of each firm that had registered for a UPC symbol to the confidential Business Register of the US Census. Doing this means we can provide an economy-wide view of the diffusion and impact of this system.

Barcodes are only useful if stores have scanners that can read them, and scanners are only useful if product packages carry barcodes to scan. This is a classic ‘two-sided network’ problem, because the industry as a whole benefits from the adoption of the new standard, but each side – retailer and supplier – prefers to wait for the other to move first. In the food industry, the large retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers worked together to adopt the standard. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, who sold many of their products through the same channels as food manufacturers, were quick to join in. The top-left panel of Figure 1 shows that UPS-adopting firms accounted for 60% of industry employment in the US food and drug industries by the end of the 1970s.

Other retail industries adopted the UPC standard thanks to the influence of large general-merchandise retailers such as Walmart and Kmart. These firms started investing heavily in scanning and related technologies in the 1980s, and started requiring their suppliers to provide barcoded packages in 1983 (Kmart) and 1987 (Walmart). Figure 1 also shows a rise in manufacturer UPC adoption in categories like textiles, furniture, apparel, and electronics during that period.

Figure 1 Employment-weighted UPC adoption for selected manufacturing industries

Using firm-level data from the US Census Bureau, we find both direct and indirect evidence of network effects.

The direct evidence comes from scanner adoption patterns. We find that food stores were more likely to install scanners when more of their revenues came from selling goods produced by industries that were early UPC adopters.

The indirect evidence comes from UPC adoption patterns. We find that an increase in industry-average UPC adoption substantially increases the probability that a firm adopts the UPC, presumably because the share of adopting competitors increases along with the share of downstream retailers that have adopted complementary technologies.

What happened upstream?

We also examine what happened to manufacturers and wholesalers that adopted the UPC code. We focus on two outcomes: firm size, proxied by employment; and product innovation, measured by trademark registrations. Because the decision to adopt the UPC was not random, we use a matched sample difference-in-differences design to study the effects of adoption. Our estimates compare the change in outcomes following UPC adoption to the change over the same period in a sample of non-adopting firms. The non-adopting firms had the same size and pre-adoption growth rates.

We find that employment increased by about 10% in the year immediately after a manufacturer registered for a UPC, after which it stabilised at the new, higher level. The increase in employment following UPC registration was increasing in the share of the firm’s competitors that had also registered. This is consistent with the presence of network effects.

Overall manufacturing employment was relatively stable during our sample period, so this was clearly a partial-equilibrium effect. Given the magnitude and timing of this effect, we think the most plausible interpretation was that, as retailers began requiring their suppliers to use barcodes, manufacturers that adopted the UPC were able to secure new retail orders. They then hired new employees to meet those orders.

As scanning and automated inventory management made it possible for stores to handle a wider assortment of goods, manufacturers also responded by providing greater variety. Figure 2 shows that for the grocery sector, there was a sudden acceleration in products stocked, new products introduced and new trademark registrations by grocery manufacturers starting in the 1980s. This occurred just as the UPC was diffusing through that retail channel.

Figure 2 New product introductions, US trademark applications and average stock-keeping units per store in the grocery sector, 1968-1992

We look beyond groceries, again using the Census microdata, this time linked to the US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Case File Dataset (Dinlersoz et al. 2017). In a difference-in-difference specification, we find that the annual propensity of manufacturing firms to register for a new trademark increased substantially after they obtained a UPC.

International supply chains

Using industry-level trade data for the period between 1975 and 1992, we were also able to show a correlation between UPC adoption and international trade flows. US imports grew significantly faster for products in manufacturing industries in which there was a larger increase in domestic UPC adoption. We found no such correlation between domestic UPC adoption and exports.

These findings suggest that, as retailers grew in scale and scope and employed scanning and complementary information technology that allowed better inventory management, they increasingly procured from abroad. This is likely to have intensified competitive pressures faced by domestic suppliers. The results also suggest the increase in variety for consumers was even greater than indicated by domestic trademarking results. Our results complement the finding by Broda and Weinstein (2006) that variety of imported goods increased fourfold between 1972 and 2001.

A long-run revolution

In January 2017, Tim Harford highlighted the barcode as one of “50 Things That Shaped the Modern Economy”. His choice highlights the idea that a ubiquitous and seemingly trivial piece of everyday life could have dramatic implications for efficiency and industrial organisation.

Nevertheless, these dramatic changes did not happen overnight. The first scan took place in the mid-1970s. Manufacturers began to adopt barcodes in large numbers during the 1980s. The rapid growth of large retail chains and the associated productivity gains primarily occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s (Basker et al. 2012, Foster et al. 2006). Throughout this 30-year period, organisations at both ends of the supply chain made investments in complementary technological, organisational, and process change.

The US Census estimates that e-commerce accounted for 9.1% of all retail sales in the third quarter of 2017, and this share is increasing. Retailers are making large investments in the distribution infrastructure needed to support direct-to-consumer delivery, such as logistics and warehouse automation (Lopez 2017, Bashin and Clark 2016). It is too soon to say whether this will create the next wave of ICT-fuelled retail productivity growth, but our study shows that this would not be unprecedented.

Authors’ note: Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

*About the authors:
Emek Basker, Principal Economist, US Census Bureau

Timothy S. Simcoe, Associate Professor of Strategy and Innovation, Boston University Questrom School of Business

References:
Bashin, K, and P Clark (2016), “How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race” Bloomberg Technology, 29 June.

Basker, E, S Klimek, and P H Van (2012), “Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the ‘Big Box’ Store”, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 21(3): 541-582.

Basker, E, and T Simcoe (2017). “Upstream, Downstream: Diffusion and Impacts of the Universal Product Code”, NBER Working Paper 24040.

Broda, C, and D E Weinstein (2006), “Globalization and the Gains from Variety,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(2): 541-585.

Brynjolfsson, E and A McAfee (2016), The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, W W Norton, Inc.

Dinlersoz, E M, N Goldschlag, A Myers, and N Zolas (2017), “An Anatomy of Trademarking by Firms in the United States”, unpublished paper, US Census Bureau.

Foster, L, J Haltiwanger, and C J Krizan (2006), “Market Selection, Reallocation and Restructuring in the U.S. Retail Trade Sector in the 1990s”, Review of Economics and Statistics 88(4): 748-758.

Gordon, R G (2012), “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds”, NBER Working Paper 18315.

Lopez, E (2017), “UPS, Amazon Invest Heavily in Logistics Networks to Keep up with E-Commerce” Supply Chain Dive, 28 April.

McKinsey (2001), U.S. Productivity Growth: 1995-2000, McKinsey Global Institute.

The future of Europe is still uncertain. Though security is the real priority for all countries, each of them understands the process of achieving security by its own.

Lithuanian and Latvian authorities increased political activity and intensified preparing to NATO summit that will take place in Brussels in July 2018. It is obvious that they will not miss a chance to attract attention and money to the problem of national security and the Armed Forces. Their statements show adherence to the chosen way of “asking US, EU and NATO for help.”

The so called Snow Meeting dedicated to European security took place on 11-12 January in Lithuania. Foreign security policy experts discussed the main challenges facing the transatlantic community and ways to respond to them.

This was a high-level event that cost big money. What for? What was the real purpose of the conference? According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, “the participants of the event discussed possible solutions for the strengthening of allied security in the face of conventional and hybrid threats.”

But the real purpose of this conference was to demonstrate that the Baltic States authorities are not going to give up the idea of further keeping NATO and EU interest in them. They try to convince NATO that without its support “the World is in great danger.” Thus, according to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, “transatlantic security depends on the security of the Baltic States.”

The message is clear – the Baltic States again need more money, more troops and military equipment. Only under these conditions the Baltic States are ready to maintain peace in the region.

Dalia Grybauskaitė is more than sure in further NATO support and sometimes allows herself to use an unacceptable tone, demanding more and more. She humiliates not only herself but Lithuanian nation. The role of a pleading nation in EU and NATO does not fit the independent Lithuania that has a long history of struggling for sovereignty.
Latvia is also ready to be a recipient of foreign military assistance.

On January 9, Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Bergmanis was so proud of foreign support that share with LTV correspondent a secret information. He said that “in August 2018, the greatest military exercise since the restoration of the country’s independence will take place in Latvia.”

He underlined also that “there’s no telling yet precisely how many troops will be involved, but allied troops are to be present as well.” This facts can be called transparent. Latvians are not fully aware of the military event that will be conducted on their territory. So he admitted Latvia’s helplessness. The authorities do not even try to rely purely on themselves.

As a result the Baltic States have nothing their own in the military sphere: only taken, given, bought or deployed. There is a question if there is any national military science or research programs that could help to develop national Armed Forces? Where are national development of weapons and military equipment?

The Baltic States have no more national secrets or even plans. We share our secrets with other states but leave nothing that should be our own pride, that could demonstrate our uniqueness. We share our “today” with others and we can lose our “future” as the independent nations. Foreigners will never defend our Motherland better than we ourselves. We are just needed or not needed, and this could change in a second. With what will we stay?

If elections is meant to earn legitimacy through representation of the populace, then the higher is the turnout in an election the greater will be the legitimacy of a regime and vice versa. The questions of representation and regime legitimacy are mainly addressed through elections in the post 2001 Afghanistan. Though the course was bumpy at times, it is still the most popular way of demonstration of their political will by ordinary Afghans. However, reducing the role of elections only to a way of expressing their political will by Afghans undermines the enormous role that the elections can play in the stability in Afghanistan. If properly conducted, elections have the potential to end marginalization of the population and strengthen order and extend government’s writ in the country.

Technically, the existing electoral system is not responsive to the ground realities in Afghanistan. It exclude huge number of people from expressing their will and forces them to develop feelings of being marginalized. The focus of this discussion is mainly parliamentary elections, never the less it also covers provincial councils and district council elections.

The whole province is constituency in the parliamentary as well as in the provincial council elections according to the existing system. Under the current system, candidates for the provincial council and National Assembly are subject to undergoing competition throughout the province. Candidates whose constituents are limited or whose area of influence is home to insurgency fail to compete with candidates from the relatively secure areas and thus they fail in elections.  This practice has pushed a large number of social, religious and ethnic groups to marginalization in many parts of the country.

Additionally, electorates in the existing electoral system, though vote for their favorite candidate they lose track of their parliamentarian after they are elected. Since every parliamentarian represents their respective province and the geographical and security limitations overshadow their reach to the whole province they also lose track of their electorates. This foggy situation creates a web of intricacies that creates distances between the parliamentarians and their constituents. The situation creates a sense of marginalization among the general public, particularly among those who don’t have means to stay connected to their parliamentarians.

More importantly, the existing system paves the way for candidates mainly from the urban centers to win elections while candidate who represent areas that are home to insurgency cannot win in the elections. Although a direct correlation between insurgency and under-representation is a bit difficult to establish the previous elections are manifestation of a correlation between the two.Areas that are home to insurgency are the areas that doesn’t have representations in the National Assembly. Shinwari and Khugyani districts in Nangrahar, Zadran in Loya Paktia(Paktia, Paktika and Khost) and some districts in Ghazni emblem the fact. Nangrahar is home to six districts of Shinwari tribe, but has only one Member of Parliament in the National Assembly, Khogyani live in three districts in Nangrahar but has no member in the National Assembly. Zadran live in ten districts of Loya Paktia but has no representation in the National Assembly.

All the stated districts are home to insurgency and are relatively insecure than other districts in their respective provinces.

The nature of the ongoing insurgency is such that it needs to be neutralized on village level, where it starts. Military stand point reinforces the fact that hearts and minds must be won on the village level to defeat the insurgency in its infancy, failure to do so will spread insurgency to cities and urban centers.

To conclude, deprivation of the volatile areas’ residents means pushing them to further exclusion and vise versa. Giving residents of the volatile areas an opportunity to express their political will shall strengthen their sense of being part of the system and this will improve the security situation across the country. Citizens in such areas will see themselves in the system and will help the government extend its writ to different parts of the country.

However, in order for the Afghan government to achieve the above ideal, it needs to revisit the existing electoral system and replace the current electoral system with the single member system. The existing electoral system was designed for a period of time when the country was newly experiencing democracy and taking baby steps towards a more representative system. The current situation calls for a system that ensures more inclusivity.

To close, single member districts in parliamentary and provincial councils’ elections will trigger greater representation throughout Afghanistan that in turn will result in greater stability and enhanced state writ in Afghanistan.

*Ahmadullah Archiwal is a Kabul based researcher and can be reached at Archiwal@gmail.com

The European consortium Ocean2020, in which Indra is one of the main partners, has landed a contract worth €36 million for the largest defense R&D initiative to date backed by the European Union’s new European Defense Fund.

Conceived for research in technologies that reinforce situational awareness in extensive naval environments, the project is part of the EU’s Preparatory Action on Defense Research (PADR), which will lay the foundation for a much more ambitious future R&D program running from 2021 to 2027.

The Ocean2020 consortium is led by Leonardo with the participation of 42 partners from 15 Member States, including large companies, SMEs, universities, research centers and defense ministries in their roles as end users. The European Defense Agency selected the project in a competitive tender involving several other consortia. This initiative is the first example of joint European collaboration for research in this sector.

Indra is among the three most prominently influential companies in the project. It also maintains a first-level responsibility to lead the work package that will design the entire system’s architecture.

Ocean2020 will address the integration of an extensive variety of unmanned platforms (fixed wing, rotary wing, surface and underwater vessels) with naval units that will exchange data with command and control centers via satellite. This environment of maximum complexity will certainly be a test for the naval version of Indra’s unmanned Pelicano helicopter.

Following extensive simulation work, the consortium will conduct two live demonstrations of maritime surveillance and interdiction operations. The first one will be undertaken in 2019, coordinated by the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea, where Indra’s unmanned Pelicano aircraft will be tested to demonstrate its advanced surveillance capabilities and flexibility to interoperate with the most advanced platform systems of different countries. The second test will be coordinated by the Swedish Navy in 2020 in the Baltic Sea to check the improvements made after the first battery of exercises.

All the data gleaned by the platforms involved in the demonstrations will be processed and sent to the Operations Centers of the different participating Navies and also to a prototype Joint Maritime Operations Center, which will be located in Brussels to reinforce the interoperability of future operations. Indra will lead in the development of this demonstrator with a view to laying the foundations for a future European command and strategic control capability to plan and direct EU military operations within the European Union’s Global Strategy Implementation Plan on Security and Defense.

The project has the backing and collaboration of Spain’s Directorate General of Armament and Equipment and the Spanish Navy. The OCEAN2020 consortium also comprises the company GMV and the SME Seadrone, both Spanish entities, thus increasing the weight of Spanish participation.

“Hot Bunking” is a common practice mostly in the naval armed forces and on submarines where several soldiers share the same bed. The bed is still warm from the prior user, hence the term hot bunking. When sleeping quarters are limited, as they particularly are on submarines, and when staffing is required around the clock, soldiers both work and sleep in shifts. This could mean as many as three people share the same bunk on a submarine.

Due to the overcapacity in many overseas site facilities and offshore platforms, there have been that practice for the workers to also work and sleep in shifts. This type of hot bunking would provide more bed space.

The idea of sharing space for sleeping has led to other means in which people might also share limited resources. The term “hot desking” has been created to mean several shift workers who share the same central desk at different times of the day. Since they don’t work the same shifts, the desk would otherwise not be occupied. From a perspective of saving space, “hot desking” is an economical and now more popular practice in the business world.

Another idea related to hot bunking is the idea of people in companies sharing cars, or the idea of several people owning a shared car. This is still called hot bunking a car, though as it becomes more common, it may soon lead to a different term. Again the focus is on pooling resources, saving space and money.

Not everybody is a fan of hot bunking, and it has sometimes been used in armed services in a discriminatory way. Fears particularly in the US military about women and men using the same sleeping quarters, or even more so, concern about people with alternative lifestyles in the US armed forces has led to accusations that occasionally hot bunking is used to keep certain people from serving the same shift and sleeping at the same time.

Often the practice of hot bunking is not based on discrimination but merely a practice of best using resources. It can give you pause to think about what it might be like to never get to sleep in a freshly made bed. Yet it is only one of the many sacrifices people in active military service must make to perform their jobs under difficult circumstances.

When we were at Bechtel facilities in Tengiz Kazakhstan, we visited the nearby Turkish Contractor’s site a few miles away. Compared to our major contractor’s site facility, which was purchased from the former Hungarian State contractors, and kept in operation with minimum renovation, Turkish site facility was new, and much better.

Each worker/ technician/ engineer had a separate room with shower and toilet. They had satellite TV access, latest PC hardware and software, construction machineries, all in good condition, machine shop etc.

They had delicious fresh food, and very civilized working environment. They were subcontractors of TCO and Bechtel at oil field, pipeline construction and engineering in the offices. I have been other Turkish contractors’ site facilities in overseas construction; we had very civilized working conditions everywhere. Food was always extraordinary. Workers lived in reasonable high standard accommodations, no mention of “hot bunking”. However nowadays we have another interesting development in our local market. Due to their ultra low prices, and their concurrence with high penalty clauses, companies from Far East are receiving power plant/ steam boiler orders in our own local market.

Careless investors are placing orders to those FarEast companies just because they are too cheap. Not only Western companies but also our own construction companies are not in competition with those low prices. FarEast companies are constructing three CFB based thermal power plants in the local market where they bring 500+ qualified labour to the each site for civil works and site installation activities.

Our local laws and regulations don’t prohibit them to bring such large scale labour inflow. “Hot Bunking” is an untold but almost always general practice in their site facilities.

Other than that, our local investors don’t care about quality/ performance/ efficiency of the final product they are purchasing, all they care about the cheapest price. The cheapest price is the virtue of FarEast companies. When you declare the expected cheapest price in any tender, FarEast have always a better / lower price than that.

There are explanations that these new foreign workers are either soldiers or young prisoners with good manners. They work hard, 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, in a civilized environment, with a clean bed to sleep, 3 shifts of good meal. The most important issue to point out is that they have a sort of “Hot Bunking” practice in their accommodation facilities. You are to accommodate so many number of workers in that available small space.

Solution to cut site expenses lies in “Hot Bunking”. FarEast companies are getting the order turn-key, complete with design, fabrication, procurement, leaving almost nil to the local partner. They are much cheaper than the Western companies, although they are rather inexperienced/ or shy in their early design. It is strange to disclose the latest news that their crane/ material/ equipment cargo containers also carry food (rice, beans, spices etc) inside. Local partners have great difficulties, high risk, and high unforeseen costs in their customs clearance.

Their design drawings are not at the best standards. Most of the time, they can’t meet the guaranteed figures, expected performances. They also do not care details and importance of environmental protection equipment since these are not importance in their home country.

It is a common saying that “FarEast companies have no backbones. They have very flexible ethics” which means certain red-flag warnings in application of anti-corruption measures. Earlier we hoped that service business- civil works and site installation would be ours at all times, by all means. Not any more.

Now it is time to create our own technologies as lead companies, there is no more subcontracting. We need to focus on high value, high technology items; not only the traditional construction. Many of our companies are focused on working as simple “contractors” with only interest in the “C” (construction) of the “EPC” contracts. “Engineering” is usually a small part of the project but the procurement is a big ticket, where a lot of profit is.

Taking economics into account, the companies need to focus on turn key projects to build the local expertise we are talking about. The problem is such that people only focus on the things they understand. A professional who knows a little about the technical matters and risks of building a power plant will end up focusing on the price. Because this will be the only way he will be able to provide “value”.

We often have trouble to assign tangible value to the intangibles to convince people about its benefits. $ signs show up in people’s spreadsheet cells, how do you assign $ value to quality, which will enable you to have more efficiency, less breakdown and of course more productivity? This is a never ending fight between CAPEX and OPEX. The client gets a cheap plant and pays arm and a leg to operate it. It is simply stupid economics! But if one’s intention is to build a junk then get qualified for the payment then nothing else matters. I am afraid it is about building stuff not about building things that function well and pay back and make financial sense.

That’s why, I would like to extend the meaning of a project to longer time duration; say 5 years after the delivery to account for the operations results. Then, the front-end-heroes, or we call them the early participants of projects that way will see that their evaluations and personal stakes lie in a longer term, not just ending when the keys of a plant is delivered.

How many times have you heard things like: “…well, I will be retired then, it will not be my problem, etc…”.

When I explain these thoughts, local decision makers of big private local contracting companies start to stare at me with empty faces, but time has changed, so their organizations should also be changed/ restructured accordingly, otherwise they will face the consequences, since it is the world of the fittest. Our Public companies have the following attitude these days. They say “Since we should get 3- offers and evaluate for almost 3-months for each bolt we need, we cannot finalize any investment in the modern times in a reasonable short period of time. Therefore we ask private investors to make the investment. We expect the maximum rental fee for our treasury.” Good point, good thinking, very logical. Surprisingly traditional Turkish scope at an industrial construction covers only civil works and site installation, plus maybe some construction of administration buildings / some catering. That is all. It is a pity. Most of our companies don’t have courage to exceed these simple activities.

These activities are simple, hard work with minimum cost, almost with minimum value added value. It is so sad to say that our companies cannot handle basic engineering, they cannot handle overall leadership. So we all handle the hard work, whereby our international partners get the biggest portion of the scope and profit.

We all have the same design software and hardware available as elsewhere, and we can purchase the necessary technical license to handle design works of all types’ thermal power plants.

In the international markets, today US or UK companies, German/ French/ Italian even our local companies are too expensive. They can not receive any order in our local market due to their high market prices. On the other hand China, Indian, Korean companies are relatively much cheaper in turn key EPC contracts.

If we do not show our engineering expertise, our market will soon be dominated by these FarEast companies and as a result our local companies will be barely doing only the simple hard work with lowest profit margins. We visualize a sort of inability/ immobility in our local contracting companies. That is unfortunately created by our public companies over the years while looking for international foreign companies. All we need is courage, at least within our own environment. We should start to construct our own thermal power plants by ourselves.

Foreign companies cannot design; construct power plants to fire our special local indigenous lignite. Only Turkish engineers can do it, since we live all our life with this local fuel.

It is our sincere feeling that those local investors who dare to place order to Chinese contractors have great difficulties, high risk, and high unforeseen cost in their project execution. Our local private companies are to decide if they will continue to have simple works all the time, and vanish, or make drastic change and start doing new investments on engineering talent by supplying the engineering staff with appropriate software and hardware, plus necessary technical licensing, to enable their companies work as turnkey EPC contractor as leading company.

That is the most important key decision now.

And the earth brothers had worked all together
like a song sung together
was ripped up
by the hooves of horses bred in the Edirné palace, — Nazim Hikmet- THE EPIC OF SHEIK BEDREDDIN

Two things that Americans miss the most are better economic times at home and US global greatness. In essence, Americans miss what their nation used to be.

Domestically, life was not as it had been in recent decades; No longer were RVs and jet skiers in every house and great Christmases and New Years Eve parties were things of the past, etc.

Globally, America had a greater button and everyone knew it. Now even Ecuador, let alone North Korea, dares challenge America.

Who is to blame? Politicians who caused the decline and the Media, which failed to highlight and effectively scrutinize that decline.

It is the politicians who caused the huge budget and trade deficits by allowing all the ‘unfair’ agreements that the US signed. On top of those ‘terrible deals’, it was the politicians who put, others, non-whites, ahead of the interest of the whites by allowing people from ‘shithole’ countries to invade America. The Media was there, but kept dealing the Americans ‘fake news’.

Trump provides the answers to all that is wrong with America in a language that even Klu Klux Klan and NRA members can understand. No political jargon and no complex economic terminology; only pure street talk language.

NAFTA, NATO, Nato, China, aid to third world countries, among other things, have eaten into the pie that should have been mainly for the Americans. It is hard to disagree with that if you are an American, isn’t it?

When Trump tells Kim Jong Un that “my Button is bigger than yours,” one can’t help but think of Clint Eastwood. That is the kind of an image Americans want to be identified by, and that is exactly what Trump promises to deliver. The long lost image of actions and greatness.

As for negative social changes, it is argued that aliens from other countries have brought it to America. Crime and other un-American behavior are squarely the result of welcoming people without proper ‘vetting’, goes the argument.

The solution: Build a huge wall that ensures that all of Latin America stays out. It has worked to keep the Palestinians out of Israel, and it should be just as effective to keep all the opportunist of the South out. As for other ‘shit-holers’, ban them from coming; Simple and clear. For the poor and disenfranchised of America who just manage to get by, that sounds like beautiful music.

Simply put, Trump knows the grievances of America and speaks it in a language they can understand. By addressing the reasons behind the economic decline through breaking past ‘unfair’ contracts and dealings he is mostly touching the feelings of less fortunate America. And by vowing to make America’s button be respected again he addresses the better-off, the racists and ultra nationalists of America.

While the media is focused on Trump’s tweets, weight and his extra-marital affairs with porn stars, Trump appears to be grabbing Americans imagination by the…

While his thinking may or may not have scientific or mathematical backing, it still resonates positively because the majority of Americans are neither economists or sociologists nor do they trust them. They would care less if there is scientific data to the contrary. After all, it is the politicians, economists, sociologists and all the other “ists” and their polished language that landed American where it is today and Trump is none of them.

His much younger friend who is just as inexperienced in politics, Mohammed Bin Salman, is playing the same game. Like the Americans, the Saudis are not having it as easy as before. Unemployment is high, incomes low, inequality on the rise, and not only are state subsidies being phased out, but for the first time taxes are being introduced.

The solution: Divert all the resentment and anger of the public to the filthy rich. The very people that Bin Salman was dining with yesterday are now his enemies. By cracking down on the elite and seizing their wealth and prestige, Bin Salman not only provides the poor of the Kingdom an avenue to vent their resentments, but also comes across as Robin Hood and offers hope.

In essence, Bin Salman is using the public’s vengefulness against the filthy rich to make them see a savior in him. This is the way that rulers distance themselves from the resentment of the masses by putting on a Robin Hood hat. Bin Salman has turned the tables upside down. He is insinuating that while he might be a royal he behaves like none of them. You’ve got to love that type of character, especially if you are poor and uneducated and own only hope.

By allowing women to drive and go to football games, he is projecting an image of a new Saudi Arabia where people enjoy freedoms that they have never dreamed of in the past. The problem with that is that he is undermining the very structure of the Kingdom. The very people he wishes to play the Robin Hood card with are the poor, uneducated and who, under any circumstances, resent being placed at par with women.

Whatever game these two men are playing is working for now. The problem is that they are both incapable of seeing beyond tomorrow and are not equipped to foresee the consequences of their actions to the future generations.

The two leaders understand what words and actions they can employ to get support from the public, but it is absolutely clear that they have no idea where it will lead. What is clear though is that they appear to care less where it leads. Their main concern is only crossing the bridge, not what lays beyond it.

Of course, the danger to the world is that if your foes ignore the size of your button, you may have to press it just a little to prove to them that it does exist and that it is indeed bigger.

The danger to Bin Salman is that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that effectively belongs to and sets an example to all Muslims. Unhinged freedoms for women, bikini resorts, etc. on the holiest of lands will not go well with millions of Muslims. Bin Salman can play and maneuver as he wishes, but undermining what Islam is about could spell far greater dangers for him and the Kingdom.

Trump might have sold off his casinos, but gambling is in his blood. While he sees in Kim Jong Un a young reckless man with dangerous toys, he is willing to gamble on another young man, Mohammed Bin Salman. Their relationship and style could prove a catalyst for where America, the Middle East and the world are headed.

Wildlife ecologists studying the rare Spotted owl in the forests of California have discovered that large, intense wildfires are not responsible for the breeding territory extinction that has been reported recently.

Instead, the researchers found that post-fire logging operations, which are common on both private and national forest lands, were in fact causing the declines in the territory occupancy of this imperiled wildlife species. In areas, where no logging took place following large forest fires, the scientists failed to detect any significant effect in the spotted owls’ territory occupancy or extinction rate.

“This is good news for declining California spotted owls because this is something that we can control–we can make policy decisions to stop post-fire logging operations in spotted owl habitat,” says Dr. Chad Hanson, a research ecologist with the John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute and the study’s lead author. His team’s article is published in the open access scientific journal Nature Conservation.

The study sheds light on recent large fires, such as the 99,000-acre King fire from 2014 which affected the Eldorado National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As a result, spotted owl occupancy declined in the northern portion of the King fire area. However, the present study finds post-fire logging is to blame.

Post-fire logging removes important spotted owl foraging areas in “snag forest habitats” created by patches of intense fire, explain the scientists. These habitats are rich in small mammal species preyed on by the owls, whereas post-fire logging destroys these habitats, causing higher territory extinction rates.

The study also reports that many of the spotted owl territories in the King fire, which were previously described as lost due to the fire, had in fact already been unoccupied for years before it occurred. Other factors acting before the fire turn out to have been responsible for the occupancy changes at these sites.

The scientists’ findings also help to explain why previous research has found very high spotted owl occupancy in the 257,000-acre Rim fire in the Sierra Nevada prior to post-fire logging, which was then followed by a decline in owl territory occupancy after such logging occurred.

“These results were not surprising considering that spotted owls evolved with forest fires, but logging is a new disturbance to which they are not adapted,” says co-author Monica Bond, a wildlife ecologist with the Wild Nature Institute.

Wildlife researcher and co-author Derek Lee, also affiliated with the Wild Nature Institute, adds, “It is time to stop thinking logging will help the forest; we need to take a much more hands-off approach to forest management, so natural processes can be re-established.”

The study’s results coincide with the strong consensus among hundreds of U.S. scientists opposing post-fire logging operations due to a wide range of ecological harms. Pro-logging members of the U.S. Congress have recently pointed to large forest fires as a justification for proposed logging bills that would override most environmental laws and dramatically increase logging, including post-fire logging, on U.S. National Forests and other public lands.

The results of this study indicate that such legislative proposals would contradict scientific evidence, and harm spotted owls populations. Other studies have also indicated that increased logging would substantially reduce forest carbon storage, and increase greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.

It is easier to spread the influenza virus (flu) than previously thought, according to a new University of Maryland-led study released today. People commonly believe that they can catch the flu by exposure to droplets from an infected person’s coughs or sneezes or by touching contaminated surfaces. But, new information about flu transmission reveals that we may pass the flu to others just by breathing.

The study “Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence for the potential importance of airborne transmission because of the large quantities of infectious virus researchers found in the exhaled breath from people suffering from flu.

“We found that flu cases contaminated the air around them with infectious virus just by breathing, without coughing or sneezing,” explained Dr. Milton, M.D., MPH, professor of environmental health in the University of Maryland School of Public Health and lead researcher of this study. “People with flu generate infectious aerosols (tiny droplets that stay suspended in the air for a long time) even when they are not coughing, and especially during the first days of illness. So when someone is coming down with influenza, they should go home and not remain in the workplace and infect others.”

Researchers from the University of Maryland, San Jose State University, Missouri Western State University and University of California, Berkeley contributed to this study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Milton and his research team captured and characterized influenza virus in exhaled breath from 142 confirmed cases of people with influenza during natural breathing, prompted speech, spontaneous coughing, and sneezing, and assessed the infectivity of naturally occurring influenza aerosols. The participants provided 218 nasopharyngeal swabs and 218 30-minute samples of exhaled breath, spontaneous coughing, and sneezing on the first, second, and third days after the onset of symptoms.

The analysis of the infectious virus recovered from these samples showed that a significant number of flu patients routinely shed infectious virus, not merely detectable RNA, into aerosol particles small enough to present a risk for airborne transmission.

Surprisingly, 11 (48%) of the 23 fine aerosol samples acquired in the absence of coughing had detectable viral RNA and 8 of these 11 contained infectious virus, suggesting that coughing was not necessary for infectious aerosol generation in the fine aerosol droplets. In addition, the few sneezes observed were not associated with greater viral RNA copy numbers in either coarse or fine aerosols, suggesting that sneezing does not make an important contribution to influenza virus shedding in aerosols.

“The study findings suggest that keeping surfaces clean, washing our hands all the time, and avoiding people who are coughing does not provide complete protection from getting the flu,” said Sheryl Ehrman, Don Beall Dean of the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering at San José State University. “Staying home and out of public spaces could make a difference in the spread of the influenza virus.”

According to the authors, the findings could be used to improve mathematical models of the risk of airborne influenza transmission from people with symptomatic illness and to develop more effective public health interventions and to control and reduce the impact of influenza epidemics and pandemics. Improvements could be made to ventilation systems to reduce transmission risk in offices, school classrooms and subway cars, for example. Meanwhile, we can all heed the advice to stay home, if possible, when we are beginning to get sick to prevent even greater numbers of flu cases. And, get vaccinated — it is not perfect but does prevent a significant amount of severe illness.

By Elise Harris

On his last day in Peru, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to imitate Jesus, who embraces the poor and suffering, and brings hope.

The Pope urged Peru’s youth to look to their grandparents and elders in order to discover “the DNA that guided their great saints,” telling them “do not lose your roots! And you, grandparents and elders, keep passing on to the new generations the traditions of your people and the wisdom that charts the path to heaven.”

“I urge all of you not to be afraid to be the saints of the 21st century,” he said, telling Peruvians that there is no better way to protect their hope “than to remain united, so that these reasons for hope may grow day by day in your hearts.”

Pope Francis offered Mass at Lima’s Las Palmas Airbase on Jan. 21, his last day in Peru, bringing an end to his Jan. 15-21 tour of South America, which also included a three-day visit to Chile.

In his homily, he acknowledged the difficulties Catholics in Peru face. “Sometimes what happened to Jonah can happen to us. Our cities, with their daily situations of pain and injustice, can leave us tempted to flee, to hide, to run away,” the Pope said.

Jonah is an Old Testament prophet depicted in a scriptural book of the same name, who attempted to “flee the presence of the Lord” rather than follow a call from God.

Looking around, “Jonah, and we, have plenty of excuses to [flee],” Pope Francis said, noting that while Lima has many people who are well-off, it is also populated by the homeless: “’non-citizens,’ ‘the half-citizens’ or ‘urban remnants’” found on the streets, many of whom are children.

Faced with the desperation of people in extreme poverty, Francis said some Catholics can contract “Jonah syndrome” – which causes them to be indifferent, “deaf” and “cold of heart” to others.

Quoting his predecessor, Benedict XVI, Francis said “the true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer.”

A society that is unable to accept the suffering of others and which is “incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘com-passion,’” he said, “is a cruel and inhuman society.”

The Pope noted that in the day’s Gospel reading, Jesus did the opposite of Jonah: rather than fleeing, he entered a city to encounter those who were desperate and suffering, and to bring them hope.

Francis encouraged Peruvians to respond with the attitude of Jesus, who entered Galilee “to sow the seeds of a great hope.”

A seed of hope, he said, had been passed down through the apostles and the great saints of Peru, and is present now “in order to act once more as a timely antidote to the globalization of indifference.”

“In the face of [Jesus’] love, one cannot remain indifferent,” he said.

“He begins to bring to light many situations that had killed the hope of his people and to awaken a new hope,” and calls new disciples, inviting them to walk at a different pace which allows them to notice “what they had previously overlooked, and he points out new and pressing needs.”

Jesus is involved in the lives of his people and is not afraid to get others involved too, Francis said, adding that he calls us and wants to anoint us so that “we too can go out to anoint others with the oil capable of healing wounded hopes and renewing our way of seeing things.”

The Pope said Jesus also wants to awaken in Catholics a hope which “frees us from empty associations and impersonal analyses,” and encourages faith to enter “like leaven” into every aspect of our daily lives.

God will never tire of going out to meet his children, he said, asking “how will we enkindle hope if prophets are lacking? How will we face the future if unity is lacking? How will Jesus reach all those corners if daring and courageous witnesses are lacking?”

“Today the Lord calls each of you to walk with him in the city, in your city,” he said. “He invites you to become his missionary disciple, so that you can become part of that great whisper that wants to keep echoing in the different corners of our lives: Rejoice, the Lord is with you!”

After Mass, Pope Francis thanked all those who helped organize his visit, including Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the country’s civil authorities and the many volunteers who dedicated their time.

Francis noted that he began his trip by speaking of Peru as a land of hope, which he said comes from the country’s rich biodiversity, its various cultures and traditions, and because of its youth, “who are not the future but the present of Peru.”

Private and secure communications are fundamental human needs. In particular, with the exponential growth of Internet use and e-commerce, it is of paramount importance to establish a secure network with global protection of data.

Traditional public key cryptography usually relies on the computational intractability of certain mathematical functions. In contrast, quantum key distribution (QKD) uses individual light quanta (single photons) in quantum superposition states to guarantee unconditional security between distant parties.

Previously, the quantum communication distance had been limited to a few hundred kilometers, due to the optical channel losses of fibers or terrestrial free space. A promising solution to this problem exploits satellite and space-based link, which can conveniently connect two remote points on the Earth with greatly reduced channel loss because most of the photons’ propagation path is in empty space with negligible loss and decoherence.

A cross-disciplinary multi-institutional team of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by Professor Jian-Wei Pan, has spent more than ten years developing a sophisticated satellite, Micius, dedicated to quantum science experiments, which was launched on August 2016 and orbits at an altitude of ~500 km. Five ground stations are built in China to cooperate with the Micius satellite, located in Xinglong (near Beijing), Nanshan (near Urumqi), Delingha (37°22’44.43”N, 97°43’37.01″E), Lijiang (26°41’38.15”N, 100°1’45.55”E), and Ngari in Tibet (32°19’30.07”N, 80°1’34.18”E).

Within a year after the launch, three key milestones for a global-scale quantum internet have been achieved: satellite-to-ground decoy-state QKD with kHz rate over a distance of ~1200 km (Liao et al. 2017, Nature 549, 43); satellite-based entanglement distribution to two locations on the Earth separated by ~1200 km and Bell test (Yin et al. 2017, Science 356, 1140), and ground-to-satellite quantum teleportation (Ren et al. 2017, Nature 549, 70). The effective link efficiencies in the satellite-based QKD were measured to be ~20 orders of magnitudes larger than direct transmission through optical fibers at the same length of 1200 km. The three experiments are the first steps towards a global space-based quantum internet.

The satellite-based QKD has now been combined with metropolitan quantum networks, in which fibers are used to efficiently and conveniently connect numerous users inside a city over a distance scale of ~100 km. For example, the Xinglong station has now been connected to the metropolitan multi-node quantum network in Beijing via optical fibers.

Very recently, the largest fiber-based quantum communication backbone has been built in China, also by Professor Pan’s team, linking Beijing to Shanghai (going through Jinan and Hefei, and 32 trustful relays) with a fiber length of 2000 km. The backbone is being tested for real-world applications by government, banks, securities and insurance companies.

The Micius satellite can be further exploited as a trustful relay to conveniently connect any two points on Earth for high-security key exchange. To further demonstrate the Micius satellite as a robust platform for quantum key distribution with different ground stations on Earth, QKD from the Micius satellite to Graz ground station near Vienna has also been performed successfully this June in collaboration with Professor Anton Zeilinger of Austrian Academy of Sciences. The satellite thus establishes a secure key between itself and, say, Xinglong, and another key between itself and, say, Graz. Then, upon request from the ground command stations, Micius acts as a trusted relay. It performs bitwise exclusive OR operations between the two keys and relays the result to one of the ground stations. That way, a secret key is created between China and Europe at locations separated by 7600 km on Earth. This work points towards an efficient solution for an ultra-long-distance global quantum network.

A picture of Micius (with a size of 5.34 kB) was transmitted from Beijing to Vienna, and a picture of Schrödinger (with a size of 4.9 kB) from Vienna to Beijing, using approximately 80 kbit secure quantum key for one-time-pad encoding.

An intercontinental videoconference was also held between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Austria Academy of Sciences, employing the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-128 protocol that refreshed the 128-bit seed keys every second. The videoconference lasted for 75 min with a total data transmission of ~2 GB, which included 560 kbit of the quantum key exchanged between Austria and China.

The prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) praised Iran for its assistance to Iraq in the war against terrorism, ensuring that Erbil will never allow the Kurdish region’s territory to be used for posing threats to Iran.

In a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on Sunday, Nechirvan Barzani gave an assurance that the Iraqi Kurdish region will never allow any party to employ its territory for posing a potential threat to the Islamic Republic, describing that as “a redline for Erbil.”

Expressing gratitude to Iran for its supports for Iraq in the fight against the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group, the visiting prime minister said his government is in favor of a united and integrated Iraq, and stressed the need for all parties to abide by the Iraqi constitution and try to solve the problems within the framework of law.

Barzani also voiced Erbil’s willingness to broaden economic ties with Tehran, inviting Iranian investors to get involved in development projects in the Kurdistan region.

For his part, the Iranian president highlighted the necessity for Iraqi groups to enjoy their legitimate rights by respecting the constitution and the country’s territorial integrity.

Calling for stronger regional cooperation against hostile plots that undermine security and stability in the region, Rouhani said outsiders do not care about the people of the region and only seek to achieve their long-term objectives.

He finally hailed the idea of closer trade interaction between Tehran and Erbil through mutual investment and activities of the two sides’ business people.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, the Kurdish prime minister arrived in Iran on Sunday in his first visit since the KRG held the controversial referendum.

People in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq voted for independence in September 2017 amid rising tensions and international opposition.

The referendum set off a chain of events, culminating in a military confrontation between Erbil and Baghdad.

The Iraqi government forces launched a major operation in Kirkuk on October 16 and took control of its oil fields and a strategic military base without any armed clashes.

Analysts believe that the decision to hold the referendum in the face of near-universal condemnation was a colossal miscalculation, saying the former president of the KRG, Masoud Barzani, has undermined his legitimacy.

In October, the KRG announced it was prepared to freeze the results of the referendum.

Infant mortality rates in Texas vary dramatically even across neighboring zip codes, according to a new analysis and mapping tool from researchers at The University of Texas System and UT Health Northeast.

The analysis and searchable map, which are the first of their kind in Texas, use data from Texas Vital Statistics Linked Birth and Death Records from 2011-2014.

In Fort Worth, for example, the infant mortality rate was over six times higher in the 76164 zip code than in neighboring 76107. Among just black mothers in Houston, there was an eight-fold difference in infant mortality rates across the city. Some zip codes in the state have not experienced an infant death in this four-year time period, whereas others have experienced more than 1 percent of their infants dying before their first birthday.

The zip code level rates were calculated for communities with 400 or more births in this four-year period, and were identified by the mother’s zip code of residence at delivery. The data were obtained from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).

“What this reveals is that the infant mortality picture is dramatically more complex than we knew,” said David Lakey, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs for UT System. “The state average, which is lower than the national average, obscures zip codes where rates are terribly high. Some of the higher city or county level rates, on the other hand, have obscured the variation within communities, including neighborhoods where rates are very low.”

The variations, said Lakey, are both geographic and racial/ethnic. White women in Texas have a relatively low risk of their baby dying within the first year after birth. However, as with the infant mortality rate for all infants, there are significant community-level differences in infant mortality rates among this group. The highest infant mortality rates for white infants were seen outside the major metro areas. For example, Longview and Wichita Falls each had more than one zip code with a white infant mortality rate that was two or more times the overall infant mortality rate in the state.

Of the three major racial/ethnic groups in Texas, Hispanic women have the lowest rate of infant mortality. However, as with white women, infant mortality rates for Hispanic women varied greatly based on where they lived when they were pregnant. In San Antonio, for example, adjacent zip codes 78203 and 78220 both had Hispanic infant mortality rates that were over double the state rate.

Non-Hispanic black families in Texas and the U.S. are disproportionately impacted by infant mortality. However, as for infants of Hispanic and white mothers, mortality rates for infants of black mothers varied across zip codes, even within the same city. Within Houston, for example, mortality rates for infants of black mothers varied eight-fold across zip code, from 3.3 to 28.7 deaths per 1,000 births in zip codes 77077 and 77026, respectively.

Although the map shows the wide geographic variation in the state, it does not show why the variation exists. Researchers with UT System will continue to work towards understanding why this variation exists and what can be done to reduce rates overall. UT System is also making public use data files available, as well as other technical information, to facilitate work by other researchers.

“Texas is deeply committed to reducing infant mortality in every community,” said Lakey. “Having a lower than average rate, nationally, is not enough, particularly when we know that there are communities where rates are tragically high. What this kind of analysis should enable us to do, moving forward, is to even more precisely identify what best practices to emulate, where to target our interventions, and how best to deploy our resources. We strongly encourage others to make use of this data, and to work on finding solutions. The sooner we can understand why babies are dying, the better off we will all be.”

Computers can play a pretty mean round of chess and keep up with the best of their human counterparts in other zero-sum games. But teaching them to cooperate and compromise instead of compete?

With help from a new algorithm created by BYU computer science professors Jacob Crandall and Michael Goodrich, along with colleagues at MIT and other international universities, machine compromise and cooperation appears not just possible, but at times even more effective than among humans.

“The end goal is that we understand the mathematics behind cooperation with people and what attributes artificial intelligence needs to develop social skills,” said Crandall, whose study was recently published in Nature Communications. “AI needs to be able to respond to us and articulate what it’s doing. It has to be able to interact with other people.”

For the study, researchers programmed machines with an algorithm called S# and ran them through a variety of two-player games to see how well they would cooperate in certain relationships. The team tested machine-machine, human-machine and human-human interactions. In most instances, machines programmed with S# outperformed humans in finding compromises that benefit both parties.

“Two humans, if they were honest with each other and loyal, would have done as well as two machines,” Crandall said. “As it is, about half of the humans lied at some point. So essentially, this particular algorithm is learning that moral characteristics are good. It’s programmed to not lie, and it also learns to maintain cooperation once it emerges.”

Researchers further fortified the machines’ ability to cooperate by programming them with a range of “cheap talk” phrases. In tests, if human participants cooperated with the machine, the machine might respond with a “Sweet. We are getting rich!” or “I accept your last proposal.” If the participants tried to betray the machine or back out of a deal with them, they might be met with a trash-talking “Curse you!”, “You will pay for that!” or even an “In your face!”

Regardless of the game or pairing, cheap talk doubled the amount of cooperation. And when machines used cheap talk, their human counterparts were often unable to tell whether they were playing a human or machine.

The research findings, Crandall hopes, could have long-term implications for human relationships.

“In society, relationships break down all the time,” he said. “People that were friends for years all of a sudden become enemies. Because the machine is often actually better at reaching these compromises than we are, it can potentially teach us how to do this better.”

Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015 with a bold, double-edged promise: that he would build a “great wall” on the border separating the United States and Mexico, and that he would make Mexico pay for it.

That polarizing statement, since repeated ad nauseam by commentators on both sides of the political spectrum, quickly went on to become one of the defining hallmarks of Trump’s presidential campaign.

According to three political scientists from the University of California, Riverside, Trump’s remarks also galvanized his voter base in the initial stages of his campaign, particularly in areas that had experienced considerable Latino population growth in recent years.

“Support for Trump early in the campaign was drawn from areas where citizens had lived experience with Latino growth, suggesting that the political ascent of Trump represents an adversarial reaction among racially threatened Americans to the expansion of Latino populations in their own communities,” said UCR’s Benjamin J. Newman, an associate professor of public policy and political science; Loren Collingwood, an assistant professor of political science; and Sono Shah, a Ph.D. candidate in political science.

The trio’s findings, published earlier this month in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, demonstrate that Trump’s use of inflammatory language — including his promise to construct a “great wall” and additional comments describing Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists” — served to “activate” latent support for his candidacy among Republican voters in areas such as Riverside County; Broward County, Fla.; and Jerome County, Idaho.

The researchers compared the results of four geocoded surveys conducted by the New Jersey-based Monmouth University Polling Institute: one in March 2015; one in early June 2015, prior to Trump’s campaign announcement and inflammatory statements deriding Latinos; one in early July 2015, roughly a month after the announcement and statements; and yet another nearly a month later, in early August.

The evaluations — each of a national random sample — measured respondents’ favorable or unfavorable impressions of several candidates slated to compete in the 2016 presidential election, including Trump.

Newman, Collingwood, and Shah then merged the results of these surveys with data from the 2000 Decennial Census and 2010-2014 American Community Survey, which allowed them to gauge increases in county Latino populations between the same years.

Following Trump’s infamous remarks about “rapists” and “the wall,” made in June 2015, the researchers observed a statistically significant increase in support for his presidential candidacy among people identifying as Republican who lived in areas experiencing pronounced growth in the Latino population.

“Residing in a high-Latino-growth area is predictive of support for Trump following,” they deduced, “but not before his utterance of inflammatory and bellicose comments about Mexican immigrants.”

Such findings suggest Trump’s stoking of immigration-related fears effectively catalyzed support among his nascent voter base. Future research, the political scientists said, could examine whether these findings also apply to Arab Americans and Muslim immigrants, two additional groups Trump’s campaign rhetoric targeted in the lead-up to his election.

More than seven years after Pennsylvania officials requested that the disposal of radium-laden fracking wastewater into surface waters be restricted, a new Duke University study finds that high levels of radioactivity persist in stream sediments at three disposal sites.

The contamination is coming from the disposal of conventional, or non-fracked, oil and gas wastewater, which, under current state regulations, can still be treated and discharged to local streams.

“It’s not only fracking fluids that pose a risk; produced water from conventional, or non-fracked, oil and gas wells also contains high levels of radium, which is a radioactive element. Disposal of this wastewater causes an accumulation of radium on the stream sediments that decays over time and converts into other radioactive elements,” said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

The level of radiation found in stream sediments at the disposal sites was about 650 times higher than radiation in upstream sediments. In some cases, it even exceeded the radioactivity level that requires disposal only at federally designated radioactive waste disposal sites.

“Our analysis confirms that this accumulation of radioactivity is derived from the disposal of conventional oil and gas wastewater after 2011, when authorities limited the disposal of unconventional oil and gas wastewater,” said Nancy Lauer, a Nicholas School PhD student who led the study.

“The radionuclide ratios we measured in the sediments and the rates of decay and growth of radioactive elements in the impacted sediments allowed us to essentially age-date the contamination to after 2011,” she explained.

The researchers published their findings in a peer-reviewed policy paper in Environmental Science and Technology.

To conduct the study, they collected stream sediments from three wastewater disposal sites in western Pennsylvania, as well as three upstream sites, and analyzed the radioactive elements in the sediments. Samples were collected annually from 2014 to 2017 at disposal sites on Blacklick Creek in Josephine, on the Allegheny River in Franklin, and on McKee Run in Creekside.

In 2011, in response to growing public concern about the possible environmental and human health effects of fracking wastewater, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection requested that the discharge of fracking fluids and other unconventional oil and gas wastewater into surface waters be prohibited from central water-treatment facilities that release high salinity effluents. However, the disposal of treated wastewater from conventional oil and gas operations was allowed to continue.

“Despite the fact that conventional oil and gas wastewater is treated to reduce its radium content, we still found high levels of radioactive build-up in the stream sediments we sampled,” Vengosh said. “Radium is attached to these sediments, and over time even a small amount of radium being discharged into a stream accumulates to generate high radioactivity in the stream sediments.”

“While restricting the disposal of fracking fluids to the environment was important, it’s not enough,” he said. “Conventional oil and gas wastewaters also contain radioactivity, and their disposal to the environment must be stopped, too.”

Researchers demonstrate for the first time the potential of existing technology to directly detect and characterize life on Mars and other planets. The study, published in Frontiers in Microbiology, used miniaturized scientific instruments and new microbiology techniques to identify and examine microorganisms in the Canadian high Arctic — one of the closest analogs to Mars on Earth.

By avoiding delays that come with having to return samples to a laboratory for analysis, the methodology could also be used on Earth to detect and identify pathogens during epidemics in remote areas.

“The search for life is a major focus of planetary exploration, but there hasn’t been direct life detection instrumentation on a mission since the 70s, during the Viking missions to Mars,” explained Dr Jacqueline Goordial, one of the study’s authors. “We wanted to show a proof-of-concept that microbial life can be directly detected and identified using very portable, low-weight, and low-energy tools.”

At present, most instruments on astrobiology missions look for habitable conditions, small organic molecules and other “biosignatures” that generally could not be formed without life. However, these provide only indirect evidence of life. Moreover, current instruments are relatively large and heavy with high energy requirements. This makes them unsuitable for missions to Europa and Enceladus — moons of Jupiter and Saturn which, along with Mars, are the primary targets in the search for life in our solar system.

Miniature instruments could bring big findings

Dr Goordial, together with Professor Lyle Whyte and other scientists from Canada’s McGill University, took a different approach: the use of multiple, miniature instruments to directly detect and analyze life. Using existing low-cost and low-weight technology in new ways, the team created a modular “life detection platform” able to culture microorganisms from soil samples, assess microbial activity, and sequence DNA and RNA.

To detect and characterize life on Mars, Europa and Enceladus, the platform would need to work in environments with extreme cold temperatures. The team therefore tested it at a remote site in a close analog on Earth: polar regions.

“Mars is a very cold and dry planet, with a permafrost terrain that looks a lot like what we find in the Canadian high Arctic,” said Dr Goordial, who carried out the research while she was a doctoral student/ post-doctoral fellow at McGill University. “For this reason, we chose a site about 900 km from the North Pole as a Mars analog to take samples and test our methods.”

Using a portable, miniature DNA sequencing device (Oxford Nanopore MiniON), the researchers show for the first time that not only can the tool be used for examining environmental samples in extreme and remote settings, but that it can be combined with other methodology to detect active microbial life in the field. The researchers were able to isolate extremophilic microorganisms that have never been cultured before, detect microbial activity, and sequence DNA from the active microbes.

Finding DNA in Martian permafrost may be key

“Successful detection of nucleic acids in Martian permafrost samples would provide unambiguous evidence of life on another world,” said Professor Whyte.

“The presence of DNA alone doesn’t tell you much about the state of an organism, however — it could be dormant or dead, for example,” added Dr Goordial. “By using the DNA sequencer with the other methodology in our platform, we were able to first find active life, and then identify it and analyze its genomic potential, that is, the kinds of functional genes it has.”

While the team showed that such a platform could theoretically be used to detect life on other planets, it is not ready for a space mission just yet.

“Humans were required to carry out much of the experimentation in this study, while life detection missions on other planets will need to be robotic,” said Lyle Whyte, who teaches in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill. “The DNA sequencer also needs higher accuracy and durability to withstand the long timescales required for planetary missions.”

Nevertheless, Dr Goordial and her team hope this study will act as a starting point for future development of life detection tools.

Useful o

n Earth too

In the meantime, the platform has potential applications here on Earth. “The types of analyses performed by our platform are typically carried out in the laboratory, after shipping samples back from the field. We show that microbial ecology studies can now be done in real time, directly on site — including in extreme environments like the Arctic and Antarctic,” said Dr Goordial.

This could be useful in remote and hard to sample areas, in cases where bringing samples back to the lab may change their composition, and for gaining information in real time – such as detecting and identifying pathogens during epidemics in remote areas, or when conditions are rapidly changing.

And one day it may indeed provide conclusive evidence for life beyond Earth. “Several planetary bodies are thought to have habitable conditions, it’s an exciting time for astrobiology,” said Dr Goordial.

By Baria Alamuddin*

Possibly one of the biggest scandals of the Obama administration was the blocking of active investigations into Hezbollah and Iran’s complicity in the deadly global trade in drugs and armaments. Former US Treasury official Katherine Bauer testified that these investigations were “tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.” In recent days, the US Justice Department has reopened these investigations. This couldn’t come a moment too soon.

We all remember former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cozying up to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as part of their anti-American axis. It later came to light that this alliance brought forth a vast drug-trafficking operation, which saw Venezuelan cocaine sales skyrocket from 50 to 250 tonnes a year — mostly bound for the US. In and around 2007, Venezuela’s state airline was ferrying large quantities of cash and drugs to Tehran each week, returning laden with weapons and Hezbollah operatives.

Venezuela was just one segment of Iran and Hezbollah’s strategy for cultivating crime networks in South America, operating via Lebanese and Syrian communities across the continent. US officials recognized that Hezbollah was becoming one of the largest global crime networks, yet this flew in the face of the criminally naive Obama administration orthodoxy that the Islamic Republic could be sweet-talked into becoming a constructive member of the international community. Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan was an advocate of cultivating Hezbollah’s “moderate elements,” commending the movement’s success in “assimilating” into the Lebanese political system, just as Hezbollah was rolling up its trousers to wade into the blood-soaked Syria conflict. In reality, the 2015 nuclear deal emboldened Tehran, eased the constraints of sanctions, and removed global pressures as European nations trampled each other in the unseemly stampede to tap into Iran’s oil economy.

Figures like Lebanese arms dealer Ali Fayad, who the Obama administration missed an opportunity to extradite from the Czech Republic, are today deeply involved in diverting a flood of Russian heavy weapons to Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and the wider region. Similar routes transported chemical weapons used by Bashar Assad against his people: Just one strand of a dense clandestine network connecting Iran, North Korea and entities like the Pakistani A.Q. Khan network for smuggling nuclear and ballistic materials.

Hezbollah’s ambassador to Tehran, Abdallah Safieddine, reputedly oversaw one of the world’s largest drug-smuggling operations, laundering around $200 million per month out of the US from profits of narcotics imports. At one point an “entire Quds Force network” was active in the US, laundering money and trafficking drugs and weapons. Counter-narcotics officials amassed detailed information about this activity, which ran in parallel with plots to assassinate foreign diplomats and terrorist operations elsewhere. However, Obama hindered investigations (known as Project Cassandra) by his own law enforcement agencies and blocked preventative action; even though US agents discovered that narcotics revenues were being channelled to Iraqi Shiite militants who were then engaged in killing American troops. Nevertheless, during 2016 some Hezbollah personnel were indeed arrested by US police on drugs trafficking charges.

A DEA official who led these investigations commented: “(Hezbollah) were a paramilitary organization with strategic importance in the Middle East, and we watched them become an international criminal conglomerate generating billions of dollars for the world’s most dangerous activities, including chemical and nuclear weapons programs and armies that believe America is their sworn enemy.”

Hezbollah previously dabbled in arms smuggling and criminal activity, but observers were dumbfounded by this wholesale shift into global organized crime from around 2006. Hezbollah strongholds became awash with foreign currency, with cash reserves of US dollars in Lebanon doubling to $16 billion in just a few years. This was massively important in helping Hezbollah rearm and rebuild its infrastructure after the 2006 war with Israel. Hezbollah operations in south Beirut during April 2017 against local drug dealers appear designed to ensure a monopoly over the drugs trade. Hezbollah was criticized for behaving like a state within a state by embarking on such actions.

Iran’s shared border with Pakistan and Afghanistan is one of the world’s busiest drug smuggling corridors (an estimated 140 tonnes a year). The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is well placed to monopolize this cross-border trade. This has had terrible consequences inside Iran, with up to 10 percent of Iranian nationals estimated to be drug addicts — the highest proportion in the world.

With Hezbollah heavily implicated in Syria, Iranian financial transfers to the movement recently soared to an estimated $800 million, yet this is exceeded by the approximate $1 billion a year it is reported to receive from narcotics, arms trafficking and organized crime. Data indicates that the IRGC may double its formal budget (around $8bn) through illicit economic activities. After encroaching on territory formerly held by Daesh, Iran’s new corridor of control through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean opens up lucrative and potentially destabilizing pathways into the heart of Europe.

Tehran’s proxy militias of Al-Hashd al-Shaabi (the Popular Mobilization Forces) in Iraq act like gangsters in the expanding territories they control, with militants fighting among themselves to monopolize the oil smuggling trade around Basra; reportedly conducting systematic kidnappings of Sunnis and often murdering them after ransoms are paid; and engaging in the full spectrum of organized crime: Extortion, drugs, expropriating property, terrorizing local people, and the theft of historical artefacts. As primary benefactors of laundered funds from Hezbollah’s American narcotics network, Al-Hashd factions are said to be investing these funds in activities to perpetuate Tehran’s cultural control: Universities, schools, religious institutions and paramilitary training for young people — all calculated to indoctrinate Iraqi Shiites into Iran’s theological model of Wilayat al-Faqih.

Iran has reportedly become deeply complicit in arms smuggling throughout Africa. Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Senegal and other states are key proliferation hubs, with a broad range of African insurgent and terrorist groups benefiting from Iranian military munificence. Several West African states also became integral parts of Hezbollah’s cash-laundering network for billions of dollars of drugs money flooding out of the US. Sudan had been a key ally in facilitating Iranian arms smuggling towards conflicts that claimed countless lives. However, GCC states notched up a remarkable success in drawing Sudan away from Tehran’s orbit.

Intelligence officials describe a standard operating procedure of Hezbollah, Quds Force and Iranian diplomats establishing connections through the Lebanese diaspora across Africa and the Americas. Front companies and smuggling routes are then established and evangelical Shiite institutions are set up to cultivate local support and nurture proxy groups. These channels are then exploited for a variety of illicit purposes. Iran’s support for the Houthis in Yemen, meanwhile, offers opportunities to expand new routes through Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean.

The US Justice Department’s reopening of investigations into Iranian crime networks may have to start from scratch, having lost institutional expertise and on-the-ground sources after Project Cassandra was closed down. We have yet to see whether these investigations are a stepping stone to decisive action against Iran and its proxies, or whether this is more empty rhetoric against both Tehran and the Obama administration.

After the investigation announcement, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah came out with a vigorous denial of any involvement in drugs, claiming that such activities violated the movement’s fundamental principles. I fervently wish this was true, just as I wish that Hezbollah had adhered to its founding principles of being a Lebanese nationalist bastion against Israel — yet a mountain of evidence tells us otherwise.

All this illustrates why Tehran constitutes a greater proliferation threat than Pyongyang. While tiny North Korea is an isolated and encircled failed state in Far East Asia, imperialist oil-rich Iran is expanding out of Central Asia, through the Middle East and towards the shores of Europe. Tehran is furthermore aggressively branching out through Africa, Latin America and South Asia, profiting from organized crime to bankroll its blueprint for paramilitary expansionism. With each successive year that the world turns a blind eye to these activities, Iran becomes stronger, more belligerent, wealthier and wider-reaching.

Even though the Trump administration is willing to revisit evidence of Hezbollah’s role in narcotics and arms trafficking, much of the West remains stubbornly in denial that Iran, Hezbollah and Al-Hashd al-Shaabi are pursuing a coherent long-term strategy for aggressively expanding their influence. What will it take for Europe to wake up to the Iranian proliferation threat? Automatic weapons in the hands of Eastern European anti-democracy militias? The streets of Hamburg, Paris and Barcelona awash with heroin? Or a 9/11-style major terrorist atrocity?

*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

By Frank Kane

World leaders from business, politics, academia, the arts and media have begun the snowy journey up the Swiss Alps — by car, train or helicopter — to attend the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

Amid what the WEF organizers called an “unprecedented participation by global leaders,” the meeting will welcome 70 heads of state, including US President Donald Trump, who surprised them with a late acceptance of an invitation he declined last year.

Trump will address the meeting on Friday, in virtually the last event before it ends.
About 2,500 people will attend the gathering, themed around the subject “creating a shared future in a fractured world,” to discuss major issues affecting world politics, economics, business and the environment.

“The meeting will focus on reinvigorating international collaboration as a way of solving shared challenges in an era increasingly defined by societies under strain and competition between nations,” the WEF said.

The issue of women’s’ greater participation in world and national politics and economics is a major item on the agenda, and the WEF has made a statement of its own by appointing an all-female board of co-chairs to oversee the proceedings.

Men still outnumber women in the official participation lists, however. Only 21 percent are female, but this is a higher level than ever before, WEF said.

There is a high level of involvement from the Middle East and North Africa. Mirek Dusek, the WEF’s director for the region, said: “We are really seeing engagement deepen from the economies and countries of the Middle East. There is an even stronger delegation this year from Saudi Arabia.”

The changes within the Kingdom last year under the Vision 2030 strategy to reduce oil dependence have prompted renewed interest in the country’s affairs. There are several high-ranking Saudi ministers at Davos, and it will feature on at least a dozen panels, discussion sessions and cultural events at the meeting.

Business will also be conducted in separate events outside the formal WEF structure, with Saudi Aramco, the national oil company expected to launch an initial public offering this year, taking part in many of them.

Among other Saudi organizations represented at Davos will be the ministries of commerce and investment, economy and planning, finance, foreign affairs, transportation, and communications. The Saudi banking authorities and Riyadh stock exchange are also listed among participants, as are sports and other investment organizations.

A big delegation is also expected from the UAE, traditionally a big participant in WEF, while eight other regional heads of state are expected to attend.

Dusek said the presence of Trump helped make the event “historic.” The last-minute acceptance by the American president — the first by a White House incumbent since 2000 — has created some stir at the Swiss town, 1,560m up in the Alps. Its normal population of about 11,000 rises dramatically each January, with armies of support staff looking after the delegates.

Security, provided by the Swiss police and army, will be tighter than ever because of the US presidential presence. Sources said some of Trump’s own large security entourage will have to be housed in Zurich, a two-hour car ride away, because the town itself is full.

Professor Klaus Schwab, the WEF’s founder and executive chairman, said: “Our world has become fractured by increasing competition between nations and deep divides within societies. Yet the sheer scale of the challenges our world faces makes concerted, collaborative and integrated action more essential than ever.

“Our annual meeting aims to overcome these fault lines by reasserting shared interests among nations and securing multi-stakeholder commitment to renewing social contracts through inclusive growth,” he added.

The world of celebrity will be represented by pop singer Elton John, Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett, and Indian actor and director Shah Rukh Khan. All have received WEF awards for their charitable and humanitarian work.

(RFE/RL) — An Iraqi court has sentenced a German woman of Moroccan origin to death for joining the extremist group Islamic State (IS).

Judicial spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said on January 21 that the German national was convicted of participating in attacks against security forces and offering the militant group logistical support.

The woman, whose name was not given, can appeal the sentence.

She was captured by Iraqi forces during the battle for the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last year, Bayrkdar said, adding that she acknowledged joining IS after traveling from Germany to Syria and then to Iraq along with her two daughters.

Both daughters later married militants.

Iraqi forces detained a number of foreign women as they drove IS fighters from large swaths of territory they once controlled in northern and central Iraq.