By Faisal J. Abbas*

This year, Davosians were finally able to sample the massive changes that have been taking place in Saudi Arabia. With a busy outreach program and an impressive delegation — comprising ministers, business executives and Saudi members of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders and Global Shapers — this was Vision 2030’s international coming-of-age moment.

Participating at such events (and the WEF’s annual meeting in particular) is enormously important when it comes to telling one’s story, correcting wrong perceptions and convincing possible investors or boosting the confidence of current ones. For some reason, Saudi Arabia has rarely taken such events seriously or fully understood their impact or importance, but this appears to have changed over the past two years. The Kingdom has been participating, opening up to international events and granting unprecedented access to foreign media.

Of course, there is a flip side to this new “openness,” and the counter argument now is that these efforts are nothing more than a massive charm offensive. Several people I spoke to in Davos feel that serious questions remain unanswered, in particular with regard to the outcome of the crackdown on corruption in which a number of the country’s most powerful princes and richest businessmen have been held under investigation at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton hotel.

While the participating ministers did their best to answer every question addressed to them, observers need to remember that Saudi Arabia — like anywhere else on the planet — is not perfect, nor is it pretending to be. It is going through unprecedented change, which inevitably means a bumpy ride, and we need to allow time for results to emerge.

As for what is going on at the Ritz, the latest is that those who have been found innocent have been released without charge, others have settled and the rest will now be officially charged and put on trial; until then, it is only fair to both the accused and the legal system to wait for the outcome.

That aside, it would be both cruel and unfair to label the enormous and serious reforms that have taken place in the Kingdom as a publicity stunt. Indeed, the list of impressive women in the Saudi Davos delegation (many for the first time!) are not hired actresses or present for aesthetics. In fact, it is thanks to one of these participants — Princess Reema bint Bandar — that restrictions on female sport activity, as well as attending football matches at stadiums, are now a thing of the past.

Curbing the powers of the religious police, allowing women to drive, reopening cinemas and opening the country to foreign investment are only some of the real deliverables that the vision crafted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has already achieved.
There will always be those who have doubts — but this is a good thing, as such an enormous reform plan needs the occasional reality check. This is exactly why the National Center for Performance Measurement (a government initiative set up to track its deliverables) has set up camp on the promenade outside the WEF convention center in Davos. At the pop-up shop, visitors can see not only how the Saudi government is performing, but also how it compares to other governments around the world.

• Faisal J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News. Twitter: @FaisalJAbbas

By Frank Kane

Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi energy minister and chairman of Aramco, said that the value of the forthcoming initial public offering (IPO) in the national oil company will be determined by the markets, and not by the company itself or the government.

Al-Falih told a session of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos that the Aramco IPO should be seen in the context of the much wider economic agenda in the Kingdom, including the rest of the multibillion-dollar privatization program.

“Aramco is on the top of that list, but the valuation is not a single target. (Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Salman and all the others involved in the privatization process realize it (the value of the IPO) is going to be a market-determined value. We cannot set the price of the shares, the market will do that.”

Official estimates of the valuation of the IPO have so far been set at $2 trillion for the whole company, which would give a value of $100 billion for the sale of a 5 percent stake, as has been suggested in official statements about the IPO, slated for 2018.

“Aramco is a great company and that has been proven for decades. It will be listed when the time is right. We (Aramco) and the government have done a lot to prepare for that. But the valuation is for the market to do, not the company or the government,” Al-Falih said.

He added that Saudi Arabia had 260 billion barrels of oil reserves, according to a “conservative” estimate. “The Kingdom is more interested in optimizing the value of those 260 billion barrels. So the global framework we are working in is to reduce boom and bust, which is destructive and bad for jobs and for consumers.”

Al Falih’s comments came on a CNN panel session entitled “The New Energy Equation” with leaders of the global oil and gas industry. Also on the panel were Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry, his Indian counterpart Dharmendra Pradhan, and Daniel Yergin, prize-winning author and industry analyst.

The panel was asked if it thought the output-cuts alliance between Russia and OPEC, which has helped reduce global production and led to a recent recovery in the oil price, would last through 2018.

Novak said: “The deal between OPEC and non-OPEC, under the leadership of Al-Falih, showed that it is not only possible to overcome economic but also political difficulties. It has proven to be efficient and can be used in the future.”

Al-Falih said that the OPEC target remained to balance production and demand for oil: “We have got to be careful we don’t go out of balance for a while and for the glut to resurface. We have got to manage this fragile market and stay the course. Everyone if focused on that for 2018.

“I think it’s highly unlikely we’ll exit the deal in 2018. We should aim for a gradual smooth exit in 2019,” he added.

On the “shale revolution” — which has enabled the US to become a major producer of oil and driven down the price — Perry said: “I don’t think shale will be a spoiler for the world oil industry. The reforms going on on Saudi Arabia, Mexico and India can drive consumption and innovation.”

Novak said: “We should not be afraid of shale oil production in general. It is still a small part of overall global production.

The panel was generally skeptical that the era of “peak oil” — when global production would start to deteriorate — was imminent. Pradhan said: “India will be depending on conventional energy sources for the next 20 years. We are a developing country and I am confident that our requirement will continue to grow.”

Yergin agreed saying, “I think we’re seeing about as strong demand for oil as we’ve ever seen, and I don’t think it will peak until 2035-40.”

Just before a surprise eruption of New Zealand’s Ruapehu volcano in 2007, seismic tremor near its crater became tightly correlated with twice-monthly changes in the strength of tidal forces, a new study has found. The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that signals associated with tidal cycles could potentially provide advanced warning of certain types of volcanic eruptions.

“Looking at data for this volcano spanning about 12 years, we found that this correlation between the amplitude of seismic tremor and tidal cycles developed only in the three months before this eruption,” said Társilo Girona, the study’s lead author. “What that suggests is that the tides could provide a probe for telling us whether or not a volcano has entered a critical state.”

Girona, a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, led the research during a postdoctoral appointment at Brown University, working with Brown professor Christian Huber and Corentin Caudron, a postdoctoral researcher at the Ghent University in Belgium.

Earth’s tides rise and fall daily due to the gravitational tug of the Moon as the Earth rotates. During full and new Moons, the lunar gravitational pull lines up with that of the sun, which makes the daily tidal bulges a little larger during those Moon phases. During the first- and third-quarter Moons, the daily tidal bulge is a little smaller. This twice-monthly change in tidal amplitude is sometimes referred to as the fortnightly tide. While we normally think of tides in terms of rising and falling waters, these gravitational stresses also affect the planet’s solid crust. The question of whether gravitational stresses may influence volcanic activity is longstanding in the Earth sciences.

“A lot of research has been focused on whether or not tidal forces can trigger eruptions, and there’s no definitive evidence whatsoever that they do,” Huber said. “We wanted to take a different angle with this study and look at whether there’s some detectable signal associated with tidal forces that can tell us something about a volcano’s criticality.”

The researchers chose to study Ruapehu volcano in part because its activity has been closely monitored for years by GNS Science, a research institute in New Zealand. The mountain is a popular tourist attraction and home to two ski resorts, so officials want to be aware of any warning signs that it might erupt. That monitoring provided a long and continuous data set for the researchers to study.

In particular, the team was interested in data from seismic sensors located near the volcano’s crater. Those sensors pick up volcanic tremor, a low-level seismic rumble that provides a persistent signal of activity within a volcanic system. Using a sophisticated statistical technique, the researchers combed through 12 years of seismic data, looking for any period when the seismicity was correlated with lunar cycles. They found that for most of those 12 years, there was no correlation between tremor and lunar cycles, except the few months before a steam-driven eruption on Sept. 25, 2007, when a strong correlation emerged.

During those three months, the amplitude of tremor rose and fell ever so slightly in lock step with the fortnightly tidal cycle. While the fluctuations in seismic amplitude were subtle, the strength of the correlation to the tidal cycle was not. The correlation was as strong as 5 sigma, the researchers say, meaning that the probability that pattern arose by chance is about one in 3.5 million.

To understand how tidal forces were affecting Ruapehu during those three months, the researchers used a model of seismic tremor that they had developed previously. Volcanoes like Ruapehu have a vertical conduit through which lava rises, and a solid rock plug at the top. Gases released from the lava form a pocket between the rocky plug and the lava pool. That gas pocket can resonate against the plug, which creates seismic tremor.

The model suggests that when the pressure of the gas pocket reaches a critical level — a level at which a steam eruption is possible — the differing stresses associated with changing tidal forces are enough to change the amplitude of tremor.

“That’s what we think was happening in 2007,” Huber said. “When the pressure in the system became critical, it became sensitive to the tides. We were able to show that the signal is detectable.”

None of the other indicators geologists typically use to anticipate eruptions raised any warning flags in 2007. So a tidal signal could be a way of predicting steam-driven eruptions, which are otherwise hard to predict.

“We’d like to collect more data from other eruptions and other volcanos to see if this tidal signal shows up elsewhere,” Huber said. “Then we can start to think about using it as a potential means of predicting future eruptions of this kind.”

US Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Todd Young (R-IN), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced on Tuesday a bipartisan Senate resolution condemning the Burmese campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya and calling for the “safe, dignified, voluntary and sustainable return” of the refugees who have been displaced by this violence.

The Senators were also joined by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Chris Coons (D-DE).

The resolution comes as planned repatriation from Bangladesh to Burma has been postponed amid fears that the repatriation as currently planned would be neither safe nor voluntary.

“The crimes that have been perpetrated against the Rohingya are horrific and will haunt us for generations to come,” said Merkley, who led a congressional fact-finding mission to Burma and Bangladesh in November. “In the refugee camps in Bangladesh, I spoke with Rohingya who described systemic campaigns of rape and murder. I was shown the burns of women who fled as their homes burned around them. I saw the drawings made by children that depicted the Burmese military shooting innocent villagers as they fled. After a campaign of such violent ethnic cleansing, we must ensure that any repatriation of the Rohingya to their homeland is voluntary, safe and dignified.”

“The Burmese military’s systematic and deplorable campaign of violence against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities displaced hundreds of thousands of people. I look forward to working with the administration and the international community to ensure refugee returns are voluntary, safe, and dignified,” said Senator Young. “An estimated 23,000 Hoosiers have ties to Burma. I will continue to help lead bipartisan efforts in Congress with respect to Burma—including holding the government there accountable and fostering deeper ties between Americans and Burmese from all backgrounds.”

“The continued persecution and horrific ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya by the Burmese military must stop, and we will not waiver until the perpetrators are held accountable,” Kaine said. “Today, we are speaking with bipartisan unity in calling on Burma and Bangladesh to protect the Rohingya and ensure they can return home in a manner that is safe and dignified.”

“The systematic human rights abuses committed against the Rohingya people in Burma have shocked all people of conscience. Since August, more than 650,000 innocent men women and children have been forced to flee a campaign of unspeakable violence that the United Nations has called a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing,’” said Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Now, as the governments of Burma and Bangladesh move forward with repatriation plans, many Rohingya believe their return home will be met with more violence. These displaced families deserve to have confidence that their return will be safe, voluntary and dignified. The United States and the international community should stand for nothing less.”

The full text of the bipartisan resolution follows below

Urging the Governments of Burma and Bangladesh to ensure the safe, dignified, voluntary, and sustainable return of the Rohingya refugees who have been displaced by the campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by the Burmese military.

Whereas, on August 25, 2017, attacks on security posts in Burma by the military group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army resulted in a brutal, systematic, and disproportionate reprisal by the Burmese military and security forces on Rohingya villages in Rakhine State;

Whereas more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since the Burmese military commenced its scorched-earth campaign, with the burning of villages and local monuments, and reports of widespread gang rape, starvation, killing, and forcible deportation;

Whereas the Government of Burma has consistently denied access to the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar established to investigate human rights violations around the country;

Whereas Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina proposed that “safe zones” be created inside Burma to protect all civilians irrespective of religion and ethnicity under United Nations (UN) supervision;

Whereas the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s mandate is to provide, in collaboration with other actors, international protection to refugees and to assist them in finding durable solutions through voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement;

Whereas the UN General Assembly has repeatedly affirmed UNHCR’s function of facilitating the voluntary repatriation of refugees and, in recognition of the importance of sustainable return, has widened its mandate to include providing assistance for their rehabilitation and dealing with the consequences of their return;

Whereas the fundamental operational principles of voluntary repatriation are safety, to include legal and physical safety, and dignity, to include treatment with respect and full acceptance by their national authorities, including the full restoration of refugees’ rights;

Whereas, on November 23, 2017, the Government of Burma and the Government of Bangladesh signed an agreement, known as the “Arrangement”, on the return of displaced persons from Rakhine State, which is modeled after the 1992 repatriation agreement between Burma and Bangladesh;

Whereas the Arrangement includes references to restoring normalcy and human rights in Rakhine State, for refugee returns to comply with international standards of safety, dignity, and voluntariness, and to commencing a process to address root causes in line with the Rakhine Advisory Commission recommendations;

Whereas approximately 236,000 Rohingya refugees returned to Burma under the terms of the 1992 agreement, only to continue to be denied citizenship, face prejudice, violence, and persecution, and in many instances be forced to live in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps with their freedom of movement restricted;

Whereas Burma’s 1982 citizenship law stripped Rohingya of their Burmese citizenship, rendering them stateless;

Whereas the Government of Burma continues to systematically discriminate against the Rohingya people, including by continuing to restrict registration of Rohingya births and to deny them freedom of movement, access to healthcare, land, education, marriage, voting rights, and political participation;

Whereas the Government of Burma has repeatedly abused land use laws to unjustly seize land from Rohingya refugees;

Whereas UNHCR is working closely with the Government of Bangladesh and partners to provide protection and assistance to the Rohingya refugees and to support the host populations affected by the influx;

Whereas the Government of Burma has not reached an agreement with UNHCR on its role in the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of Rakhine State refugees;

Whereas Myanmar Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Dr. Win Myat Aye, on December 28, 2017, announced that the repatriation process will begin on January 22, 2018;

Whereas there is concern that up to 100,000 Rohingya could be at risk of forced return into two “model villages” or supported by 1,200 tents provided by the Government of Burma, without assurances of their safety or details regarding long term solutions to address root causes of Rohingya disenfranchisement;

Whereas “model villages” and similar tactics in Burma dating back to colonial rule have been used to strategically shift population groups and deepen religious and cultural divides;

Whereas on December 12, 2017, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two journalists reporting and documenting atrocities against the Rohingya, were arrested and on January 10, 2018, formally prosecuted with violating the “Official Secrets Act,” further risking Burma’s democratic transition;

Whereas UNHCR, as of December 17, 2017, reports that conditions in Burma’s Rakhine State are not yet conducive to enable safe and sustainable return, as refugees continue to flee Rakhine State into neighboring Bangladesh;

Whereas UNHCR reports that those who arrive have suffered immense violence and trauma in Burma, with some having witnessed the deaths of family members and friends and most having little or nothing to return to, with their homes and villages destroyed; and

Whereas there is concern that deep divisions between communities remain unaddressed and humanitarian access is inadequate: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate—

(1) condemns the violence and displacement inflicted on Burma’s Rohingya and other ethnic minorities;

(2) calls for an immediate halt to all hostilities by Burmese authorities;

(3) condemns the attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militant group;

(4) calls on the Government of Burma to allow full access to Rakhine State and ensure the full participation of UNHCR, the internationally endorsed organization tasked with ensuring that refugee returns are voluntary, safe, dignified, and meet international refugee and human rights standards, and that the voices of refugees are represented in order to ensure the sustainability of such returns and to prevent further waves of displacement;

(5) commends the positive role of the Government of Bangladesh in receiving Rohingya refugees to date and urges the Government of Bangladesh to continue allowing the full participation of UNHCR and human rights organization in accessing refugee camps;

(6) calls on UNHCR and international nongovernmental organizations to play a role in monitoring repatriation efforts by the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma to ensure a process that meets international norms for voluntary, safe, and dignified repatriation;

(7) calls on the UN to consider the feasibility of Bangladesh’s proposal for a “safe zone” or for a peacekeeping mission to protect and defend vulnerable communities under international supervision;

(8) agrees that any return of Rohingya should include guarantees that any returns of refugees will be voluntary and dignified, that there will be no threats to protection or security upon return, that refugees will be able to return to their places of origin or other locations as desired, and be able to enjoy equal rights with others in Burma, including the restoration or granting of full citizenship, freedom of movement, and access to basic services;

(9) recognizes that any forced relocation of Rohingya refugees into temporary settlements, IDP camps, “model villages,” or other areas not of refugees’ choosing is unacceptable;

(10) calls on the Government of Burma to allow for a flexible and practical approach to dealing with evidence of Rohingya residence in Burma, recognizing that the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh possess a wide range of documents and that some refugees have no documents and will need to establish their residence by other means;

(11) calls on the Government of Burma to address root causes consistent with the Rakhine Advisory Commission recommendations and fully implement all of the recommendations of the Commission, including providing equal access to full restoration or granting of full citizenship for the Rohingya population;

(12) calls on the Government of Burma to acknowledge and address the issue of statelessness for the Rohingya, the deprivation of rights, and institutionalized and pervasive discrimination of the Rohingya population in order to bring about any sustainable solutions;

(13) commends the Government and the people of Bangladesh for their extraordinary generosity and efforts to provide shelter and relief for nearly 1,000,000 Rohingya refugees forced to flee their homes in Burma;

(14) calls on the Government of Bangladesh to ensure all refugees have freedom of movement and under no circumstances are subject to unsafe, involuntary, precipitous, or uninformed returns to Burma; and

(15) calls on the Government of Burma to immediately release journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

By Daniela Vincenti

(EurActiv) — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni told business leaders in Davos on Wednesday (24 January) that migration cannot be solved by countries alone – it needs a concerted action, but also public-private investments.

“It is necessary to face this problem not as a Mediterranean problem that has to do with Greece and Italy, but as a European and international problem,” Tsipras told a panel at the World Economic Forum.

Waves of migrants coming to Europe from both sea and land have disrupted relations between EU member states since 2015.

In December, during their last 2017 summit, EU leaders failed to find an agreement on how to solve the refugee crisis, with several eastern member states refusing to take in refugees.

Disagreements over migration are deeply anchored in political disputes, making the issue even more politicised.

“Many leaders in the EU believe that if the problem is not in their backyard, it is not their problem,” Tsipras complained. “If they believe they can have a Europe à la carte, it is a problem for the future of Europe,” he insisted.

More than a problem of refugees, it is a problem of economic migrants, risking their lives in crossing the Mediterranean, said Gentiloni, stressing that the EU has to find a sustainable strategy that will allow to stem the flow and defuse the time bomb.

Taking the example of Mexico, a constant US migration conundrum, Gentiloni said the EU needs to find a lasting commitment as the problem cannot be solved overnight.

Turning illegal into legal migration

Gentiloni said it was becoming urgent to define policies which disrupted the network of criminal and illegal migration and put in place a proper framework for regular and safe migration.

Tsipras echoed Gentiloni: “The problem is not migrant flows, the problem is why those people cannot live in their country.”

Africa is already the youngest continent on the planet with 60% of the population under 25, about 30% of whom are unemployed. The lack of prospects for young Africans fuels illegal immigration, sending thousands of people on the road to Europe in search of a better life.

With the projected population growth – the African continent will see its population double by 2050 according to UN estimates – it is missing 18 million jobs per year.

The failure of Aid

“Aid has not worked,” said Yemi Osinbajo, the vice-president of Nigeria, one of the most populated countries in Africa.

“Africa is becoming the obvious choice for investment, but there are no quick fixes,” he added, pleading for a real partnership between the EU and Africa that would comprise a cocktail of solutions centred on job creation and investment.

Osinbajo said Africa did not need a Marshall plan but quality investment that would help spread know-how, allowing young people to become entrepreneurs and take their destiny into their hands.

“The quality of cooperation is key,” insisted Gentiloni, whose country is the third-largest investor in Africa, after China and the United Arab Emirates. “We need more cooperation and investment than aid,” he added.

The EU will be making decisions on its next budget beyond 2020 (the Multiannual Financial Framework, or MFF) while simultaneously negotiating Brexit, so rationalising aid will come as a welcome move.

At the next summit in February, EU leaders are expected to discuss plans to carve out a new financial instrument aimed at decreasing the number of migrants who arrive in Europe illegally.

By Lisa Ferdinando

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis on Wednesday said he wants to thank Vietnamese officials for their support on the North Korean issue.

“They have been supporting the United Nations sanctions at some cost to them,” he said to reporters traveling with him from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Hanoi, Vietnam.

The cost to Vietnam includes lost trade with North Korea, Mattis said, “so we appreciate the leadership on that leading by example and stepping up.”

The secretary said he wants to pay his respects to Vietnamese officials during his visit and “thank them for their support on the [North Korean] issue.”

‘Productive Dialogue’ in Vietnam

The United States and Vietnam are building a positive future together, Mattis said, adding that he looks forward to a productive dialogue that is a continuation of other U.S. visits and engagements. He is expected to discuss freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the respect for international rule of law and national sovereignty.

Vietnam has one of the region’s fastest-growing economies, he said. “Freedom of navigation and access in the South China Sea will be critical to them economically, of course, and their security efforts,” he added.

In Hanoi today, Mattis toured the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency with U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel J. Kritenbrink. The agency, which works to recover remains of missing service members, says more than 1,600 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.

Indonesia Visit ‘Very Successful’

The secretary said his visit to Indonesia was “very successful visit in terms of shared understanding of the security issues in the region, from counterterrorism to freedom of navigation.”

While in Jakarta, Mattis met with Chief of Defense Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto. The secretary watched Indonesian special forces demonstrate their skills, including deploying from helicopters with dogs, intercepting a simulated suspect, smashing bricks with their heads, beheading snakes and drinking snake blood.

“You could imagine how much training went into each individual there, that they were able to do that,” Mattis said. “When you watch a force do that many things perfectly, you can imagine that they can also put the bigger issues together.”

Global surface temperatures surged by a record amount from 2014 to 2016, boosting the total amount of warming since the start of the last century by more than 25 percent in just three years, according to new University of Arizona-led research.

“Our paper is the first one to quantify this jump and identify the fundamental reason for this jump,” said lead author Jianjun Yin, a UA associate professor of geosciences.

The Earth’s average surface temperature climbed about 1.6 degrees F (0.9 C) from 1900 to 2013.

By analyzing global temperature records, Yin and his colleagues found that by the end of 2016, the global surface temperature had climbed an additional 0.43 degrees F (0.24 C).

Co-author Jonathan Overpeck said, “As a climate scientist, it was just remarkable to think that the atmosphere of the planet could warm that much that fast.”

The spike in warming from 2014 to 2016 coincided with extreme weather events worldwide, including heat waves, droughts, floods, extensive melting of polar ice and global coral bleaching.

The new research shows that natural variability in the climate system is not sufficient to explain the 2014-2016 temperature increase, said co-author Cheryl Peyser, a UA doctoral candidate in geosciences.

In the current paper, the researchers also projected how frequent such big temperature spikes would be under four different greenhouse emission scenarios. Record-breaking temperature jumps and the accompanying extreme weather events will become more frequent unless greenhouse gas emissions decline, the team found.

Figuring out the mechanism for the temperature spike built on previous work by Peyser, Yin and others.

The earlier work showed that although the Earth’s surface warming had slowed from 1998 to 2013, heat from additional atmospheric greenhouse gases was being sequestered in the Pacific Ocean. The strong 2015-2016 El Niño roiled the ocean and released all the stored heat, causing a big jump in the Earth’s surface temperatures.

“Our research shows global warming is accelerating,” Yin said.

The research paper, “Big Jump of Record Warm Global Mean Surface Temperature in 2014-2016 Related to Unusually Large Oceanic Heat Releases,” by Yin, Overpeck, Peyser and Ronald Stouffer, a UA adjunct instructor in geosciences, is online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Overpeck is dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The Visiting Scientist Program of Princeton University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation funded the research.

In early 2017, Yin and Overpeck were having lunch at Wilko, a restaurant near the University of Arizona campus, and Yin mentioned how fast the globe was warming.

Overpeck said, “I knew it was warming a lot, but I was surprised at how much it warmed and surprised at his insight into the probable mechanism.”

The two scientists began brainstorming about expanding on Peyser and Yin’s previous work.

The researchers analyzed observations of global mean surface temperatures from 1850 to 2016, ocean heat content from 1955 to 2016, sea level records from 1948 to 2016 and records of the El Niño climate cycle and a longer climate cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation — 15 different datasets in all.

The analysis showed the 0.43 F (0.24 C) global temperature increase from 2014 to 2016 was unprecedented in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Although some release of heat from the Pacific Ocean is normal during an El Niño, the researchers found much of the heat released in 2014-2015 was due to additional warming from increases in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Yin said, “The result indicates the fundamental cause of the large record-breaking events of global temperature was greenhouse-gas forcing rather than internal climate variability alone.”

The researchers also projected how often a 0.43 F (0.24 C) global temperature increase might occur in the 21st century depending on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted worldwide between now and 2100. The team used four representative concentration pathway, or RCP, models that project future climate change between 2006 and 2100.

For the low-emission RCP scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2020 and decline thereafter, temperature jumps of at least 0.43 F (0.24 C) might occur from zero to one time in the 21st century, the team found.

For the highest-emission RCP scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions rise unabated throughout the 21st century, spikes of record warm temperatures would occur three to nine times by 2100. Under this scenario, such events would likely be warmer and longer than the 2014-2016 spike and have more severe impacts. The world is on track for one of the higher emission scenarios, Peyser said. Adapting to the increases in the frequency, magnitude and duration of rapid warming events projected by the higher emission scenario will be difficult, the scientists write.

Yin said, “If we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we can reduce the number of large record-breaking events in the 21st century — and also we can reduce the risk.”

On June 14, 2015, Israeli security forces were in a small village near Ramallah hunting down a Palestinian man they wanted for questioning. The Palestinian, 22 year-old Abdullah Ghneimat, was startled when he saw the Israeli forces trying to surround him in the Israeli-occupied village of Kafr Malik and he started to run. As the chase went on and the Israelis got close, one of their jeeps hit a large stone and flipped over, landing on top of Ghneimat and killing him.

Israel never publicly explains why they want any Palestinians; they just arrest them, imprison them in “temporary detention” that can last months or even years, and even torture some of them, all while denying the “suspects” any rights to lawyers or the legal process. Ghneimat’s death might have been the end of the matter because of this — but his family decided to file a lawsuit against Israel for wrongful death.

Last week, after making the family jump through hoops in the legal system, hitting roadblock after roadblock, the Israelis decided to try a new strategy; one that only Israel could get away with. They filed a lawsuit against the Ghneimat family seeking tens of thousands of dollars for the damage that was caused to the jeep.

Normally, there would have had to have been a public warrant for the wanted man’s arrest, and the accused would have been allowed to hire a lawyer to defend himself. But Israel lives by two sets of rules: One for Jews and one for non-Jews.

Last year, on Sunday, July 23, a young Jordanian worker with a furniture moving company was delivering to a building in Amman, Jordan. Several Israeli security guards assigned to Israel’s embassy in Jordan were living there and had purchased the furniture. For some reason, the Israeli embassy guard and the delivery worker, 16-year-old Mohammed Jawawdah, got into a verbal argument.

The Israeli guard must have been really angry because he fired a volley of bullets against the unarmed teenager, killing him and also the building’s Jordanian landlord.

Israel would not allow the Jordanians to interrogate the guard, who asserted that the 16-year-old charged at him with a screwdriver during the fight.

That’s Israel’s justice. An Arab pulls out a screwdriver and the Israeli blows him away with an automatic weapon.

Who is telling the truth? What I have learned over the years is that the side that refuses to allow full disclosure is usually guilty.

A similar thing happened in March 2014, when Jordanian-Palestinian Judge Raed Zeiter was shot dead by a heavily armed Israeli border officer as he was traveling through a checkpoint between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan.

Again, in this case, the victim was shot dead by the Israelis, who then asserted that, out-of-the-blue, Zeiter tried to kill them. The guard was never tried.

To make matters worse, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to offer an apology, instead expressing a lame, meaningless “regret” to Jordan. A “regret” is not an apology, it is an expression that means the whole thing is an annoyance and Netanyahu wishes it would just go away.

Of course, when a Palestinian kills an Israeli it always becomes a major case and there is no end to the punishment meted out by Israel.

Remember the 2016 case of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria and the immobile and wounded Palestinian teenager Abdul Fatah Al-Sharif? Azaria was called to a scene where two Palestinian teenagers had been shot by other Israeli soldiers, who asserted they had been attacked by the Palestinians.

With the teenager lying on the ground bleeding, immobilized by a serious wound, Azaria viciously, in cold blood and without an ounce of humanity, shot him in the head.

Finally, after months of protests, Azaria was forced to go on trial. An Israeli judge sentenced Azaria to 18 months in prison for manslaughter, while Palestinians accused of throwing stones are often held for years. Azaria’s father got a nice solidarity call from Netanyahu. The judge also explained Azaria didn’t even express any “regret” for shooting the Palestinian. Had he expressed regret, he might have received an even lighter sentence. Under pressure from Israeli leaders, Azaria’s sentence was still reduced by four months.

Here’s the catch: Azaria might have got away with the killing. He lied, asserting that the seriously wounded Al-Sharif tried to reach for a weapon. However, a lone Palestinian, Imad Abu Shamsiya, who was watching the incident unfold from a nearby window, captured the incident on video. The video was released by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Despite Azaria’s slap-on-the-wrist conviction, the Israelis went after the videographer with a vengeance.

This is Israel’s vicious history. The Israeli soldiers and law enforcement officers commit egregious crimes that go unpunished, while everyone else is punished to the extreme, usually with their lives, in disputed incidents that Israel cloaks.

A senior Iranian military official reaffirmed the Armed Force’s commitment to boosting the country’s military capabilities, and slammed delusive plans for launching negotiations on Iran’s missile program and defense power.

In comments on Wednesday, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri described as “mere delusion” the calls for talks on Iran’s missile and defense affairs or on the regional resistance to despotic and hegemonic regimes.

He also underlined that the Iranian Armed Forces would press ahead with plans to strengthen the country’s defense capabilities given the enemies’ overt threat of military action.

In comments in October 2017, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei categorically rejected the idea of negotiations on Iran’s defense power, stressing that the Islamic Republic will press ahead with plans to boost its might and build up its defense capabilities.

“As we have announced several times in the past and announce it once again, the country’s defense capabilities and power are not subject to negotiations and bargaining,” Ayatollah Khamenei said at the time.

Europol said it recently supported seven mixed teams of Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional) and Guardia Civil in a successful strike against Iraqi illegal immigration in which six individuals were arrested in Spain. The criminal organization transferred Iraqi illegal immigrants from their country into the Schengen Zone.

The investigation began last February when Spanish police officers found six individuals from Iraq inside a refrigerated truck in Teruel (Spain). On the same day and later on in March they located two people concealed in the same conditions in Valencia, alongside eight illegal immigrants in Teruel, who called the emergency services as they feared they were dying from the cold inside the truck.

The network transferred the Iraqi illegal immigrants from Spain to the UK inside refrigerated trucks. The criminals took advantage when the drivers were sleeping to introduce the people inside the vehicles. They were a group composed of six to eight individuals or families with children and they had to stay in the truck for 30 or 40 hours under temperatures that were not higher than 4ºC.

On 17 January 2018, Spanish police officers carried out six house searches in Spain. As a result, a large amount of documents, several electronic devices and EUR 15,000 plus USD 8,000 were confiscated. Five individuals were arrested in Valencia, alongside one in Bilbao. Currently, the suspects are being interrogated while the forensic teams are performing the extractions of the mobile devices.

Europol has supported the investigation since the beginning by providing continued analytical and forensic support. On the action day, one Europol expert was deployed to provide on-the-spot support with mobile office and data extraction tools.

Time is running out for action to stem climate change and, while the world is still debating whether the change is real, weather migrants and refugees are becoming a reality, experts told a session on environmental risks at the World Economic Forum.

In a few months’ time, Cape Town in South Africa will become the first major city in the world to completely run out of water, if nothing changes before then, as a result of drought. Other parts of the world are facing weather-related crises on a similar scale.

There is insufficient urgency in meeting the goals on climate change set in the Paris Agreement and more radical measures are required to address the issues, speakers said.

The issues of environment and sustainability need to be pushed to the top of the corporate agenda as the problem is too large for governments alone to tackle. “We need a new contract between capital, corporations and government,” said Philipp M. Hildebrand, Vice-Chairman, BlackRock Inc.

He said he was starting to see a “sea change” in the way corporations are looking at climate issues. This relates, in part, to the transfer of wealth to a generation that cares about sustainability and climate issues, and also to the growing commitment by companies to environmental, social and governance principles, especially as research is starting to show that these practices, when integrated into business, may actually offer better returns to investors.

Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001); Chairman and Co-Founder, Generation Investment Management, USA, said humanity still has the opportunity to take control of its destiny but it will only happen if more people accept the imminent danger and cost of climate change. This is beginning to happen. “There is a building wave. We are in the early stages of a sustainability revolution. It has the magnitude of the Industrial Revolution but the speed of the digital revolution,” he said. However, he cautioned, time is of the essence.

Peter O’Neill, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, said the climate issue had become more mainstream in conversations over the past few years but this did not help countries such as his, which recently experienced a long drought that precipitated serious food shortages. He warned that climate change not only threatened communities but also nations. At least a third of countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, to which Papua New Guinea belongs, are in danger of disappearing as a result of climate change.

“The world seems to think they have time. But there are real communities already suffering,” he said.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Coordinator, Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), Chad, said the rainy season was now much shorter, causing hardship for local farmers. Lake Chad is an example of an extreme weather development, with 90% of the lake having evaporated over the past 40 years. This has resulted in food shortages and an increase in conflict among lakeside communities over resources.

She said local solutions to the problem are necessary as countries cannot wait for solutions to be crafted at a global level. “It is difficult to change the consumer behaviour of people trying to survive. Energy is a luxury for a country like mine.” She added her voice to the call for faster and more radical change to turn the situation around.

A spotlight was shone on the consumer as a driver of change. If individuals insist on climate and environmentally friendly alternatives, it will pressure manufacturers and other companies to change the way they operate and what they provide. Governments can also use incentives and legislation to change behaviour.

Renewable energy is widely seen as a significant part of the solution in the fight against climate change, particularly as costs have dropped dramatically. However, the reality is that more than 30% of energy is provided by fossil fuels and this will not change dramatically in the near future unless cheap and easy solutions are found to store alternative energy.

Former president of Georgia and ex-governor of Odessa Oblast Mikhail Saakashvili is making a movie – “The Revival of Ukraine” -whose teaser has already landed online.

“This is something amazing. Look – space and freedom. This is beauty! It’s a miracle!” Saakashvili says in the teaser, then falls on the wet sand on his back and spreads his hands.

The video was shot on the Black Sea coast near Odessa.

Saakashvili earlier announced on his Facebook page that the upcoming film will consist of several parts: “A New State”, “A New Economy”, “A New Army”, “New Geography”, “New Technologies” and “New People”.

In an interview on the program “Más de uno”, on Onda Cero, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stressed that if Carles Puigdemont returns to Spain, he will be arrested under the arrest warrant issued by the courts. As regards the Debate on the State of the Nation, he remarked that this could be held in the spring.

Carles Puigdemont

Rajoy stressed that if Carles Puigdemont is “fraudulently” invested, this will be appealed against before the Constitutional Court. “The Government of Spain will do everything possible to ensure that the law is upheld in Spain, that is our obligation and I will uphold this obligation.” He explained that the application of Article 155 has shown that Spanish democracy has instruments to defend itself against those who seek to attack it.

In this regard, Rajoy underlined that he hopes that the institutions in Catalonia respect the law in order to recover “institutional, economic and social normality,” which “is what the vast majority of people want.” He added that if Carles Puigdemont returns to Spain, “he will be arrested” under the arrest warrant issued by the courts against him and because that is “the order received by senior police officers in Spain.”

When asked about the possibility, if the option to invest Carles Puigdemont fails, of Oriol Junqueras becoming the candidate to be invested as President of the Regional Government of Catalonia, Rajoy clarified that “that is a decision that falls to the courts”. He added that, depending on the decisions taken by political leaders, we will see whether they want to continue in a period of instability or whether they want to try and re-build.

The future of Catalonia

In relation to the intention of the President of the Regional Parliament of Catalonia, Roger Torrent, to hold a meeting, Rajoy expressed his surprise because he had never previously held “a meeting with any president of a regional parliament to see how to organise an investiture session.”  Rajoy pointed out that he will not get involved in anything outside of the scope of his powers, such as “anything related to judicial affairs”, because “this is a democracy with a separation of powers.”

Rajoy stated that his government took the decisions it needed to take in relation to Catalonia, decisions that were not easy and that they principally focused on the application of Article 155 of the Constitution, with the consensus of the PSOE [Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party] and of Ciudadanos, and on calling the elections that were held on 21 December 2107.

2018 Budget

In relation to the approval of the public accounts for 2018, Mariano Rajoy stressed that the government is “not developing plan B”, but rather that it is “in talks to try and approve the Budget.” As regards this dialogue process, he explained that “we have to allow some time” because “these things, as you know, are not easy” and “take their time.” At any event, he emphatically stated that “there will be a Budget.”

Rajoy also asserted that, once the issues surrounding the Budget become clear, a Debate on the State of the Nation could be held. “I would like to do this in the spring,” he remarked.

On this point, Rajoy underlined that, fortunately, the Spanish economy has recovered, it is now generating confidence, economic growth and jobs are being created and, furthermore, this year the deficit target of 3.1% has been met and the risk premium has fallen to 80 basis points (in the past it had risen above 600 basis points).

“European political systems are going through radical changes,” Paolo Gentiloni, Prime Minister of Italy, told participants in a special address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

“Political fragmentation is a new feature of the old continent,” he added. New political groups are forming in response to widespread discontent, offering shortcuts and demagoguery. Frequently, these groups ask the right questions but offer the wrong answers.

Large segments of population are indeed dissatisfied, migration remains a hot-button issue and social cleavages remain open under the long shadow of the global and European financial crises.

“Inequality is still rising, reaching intolerable levels, even as growth increases,” he said. We cannot end up in a world with a cosmopolitan digital elite and an army of discontented workers.” He added: “Today we must answer positively and decisively the call for a stronger Europe. Our history and roots are not synonymous with protectionism.”

In another special address, Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of Germany, also highlighted the shared challenges of migration and rising polarization in Europe. Polarization is worse than it has been in decades and, 100 years after the catastrophe of the First World War, she expressed worries that some of the lessons of history might be forgotten.

“Germany is a country committed to finding multilateral solutions. Unilateral action and protectionism are not the answer,” she said. We want an ever-closer union, she added. “Let us not shut ourselves off from the world. Let us keep pace with the best in the world and prepare ourselves to withstand the crises of the future.”

Merkel also called for a common European foreign policy. “We need to send clear, united signals to China, the United States and other large markets. We will fail if we do it separately,” she said.

A college principal was killed by a Grade 12 student who had accused him of blasphemy in Pakistan’s northwest region.

Sareer Ahmed, principal of New Islamia Public College in Charsadda, was shot dead on Jan. 22 by Faheem Ashraf after they had argued over the student being marked absent for skipping classes to attend a protest sit-in in Islamabad by Islamist parties last November.

The assailant accused the principal of blasphemy as an excuse for the shooting, according to investigators.

Zahoor Afridi, a district police officer, told media that no evidence was found to suggest that the slain principal had committed any blasphemy.

“This killing is yet another shameful reminder of how easy it still is to manipulate the existing blasphemy laws to avenge personal grievances,” a statement by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said.

Last year, Mashal Khan’s murder by a mob at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan led to countrywide outrage and calls for the blasphemy law to be modified.

Khan had been accused of blasphemy over social media, although an investigation found Khan to be innocent.

“It is regrettable that no lessons are being learned from these incidents and no action is being taken at all by authorities to prevent such episodes,” HRCP said.

“This incident is further confirmation of the slide toward extreme intolerance in societies on the one hand and, on the other hand, the apathy and inability of the authorities to meet the challenges of extremism.”

Blasphemy remains a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan and allegations do not need to be proven before provoking murder.

Rights groups say the law is abused to victimize religious minorities or settle personal scores.

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The Macedonian and Greek Prime Ministers have agreed to intensify UN-sponsored talks on their long-standing ‘name’ dispute, announcing a set of concessions aimed at showing their good faith during their first meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced that his government will rename the country’s main airport and highway towards Greece, both currently called Alexander the Great, as part of concessions reached with his Greek counterpart at their first meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

“Our actions show our good faith. This testifies to the fact that we have no irredentist aspirations towards our neighbour,” Zaev said in a joint press conference following their meeting, adding that the new names for the airport and highway will not provoke Greece.

In an overt attempt to soften relations between their countries, Zaev stated that the highway to neighbouring Greece will be named “Friendship”.

On the Greek side, Tsipras said that as a sign of good faith, his government is also ready to make concessions and allow its neighbour closer cooperation with the EU and other regional initiatives.

“I am referring to the candidacy of our neighboring country to the Adriatic-Ionian initiative and to the promotion of the ratification of the second phase of the association agreement with the EU in the Greek parliament,” Tsipras said.

Both Prime Ministers announced that they agreed to increase their efforts in the ongoing UN-sponsored talks for finding a solution to the 25-year-long name dispute between them.

Instead of the appointed name negotiators, from now on “The ministers of foreign affairs will be in charge of the negotiations under our auspices. (…) This will allow the process to become more dynamic and substantive,” Zaev said.

While Zaev said that any solution to the name dispute, which has been blocking Macedonia’s EU and NATO accession aspirations, must not jeopardise the identity of his country, Tsipras underlined that such a solution for a new name of Macedonia must be Erga Omnes, a Latin term meaning “towards everyone”.

The “name” dispute centres on Greece’s insistence that use of the word Macedonia implies a territorial claim to the northern Greek province of the same name. Athens insists that a new name must be found that makes a clear distinction between the Greek province and the country.

As a result of the unresolved dispute, in 2008, Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO entry and it has also blocked the start of Macedonia’s EU accession talks, despite several positive annual reports from the European Commission on the country’s progress.

Zaev and Tsipras’ meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum was the first direct meeting between a Macedonian and a Greek prime minister in seven years.

It was also the first meeting between Zaev and Tsipras following Macedonia’s change in government in May last year, and since both countries moved to warm their relations and restart the “name” talks after three years of stalemate.

Back at home, Macedonia has an equally challenging task of building a common stance between all of the key political players in the country on the latest set of ideas for a name solution that UN mediator Matthew Nimetz handed to both sides.

For that reason, Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that a “coordination meeting” of all the political party leaders, including President Gjorge Ivanov, has been set for Saturday in Skopje.

The main opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party, which in the past played hardball on the name issue, confirmed to MIA news agency that its president, Hristijan Mickovski, would be attending this meeting.

The effort to build an internal consensus comes ahead of Nimetz’s announced visit to Skopje and Athens. He is expected to arrive in both capitals sometime next week to get both countries’ takes on his latest proposals.

Do you take a packed lunch to work or buy a sandwich from the shop? The carbon footprint of your sandwich could be having a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions according to new research.

Researchers at The University of Manchester have carried out the first ever study looking at the carbon footprint of sandwiches, both home-made and pre-packaged. They considered the whole life cycle of sandwiches, including the production of ingredients, sandwiches and their packaging, as well as food waste discarded at home and elsewhere in the supply chain.

Altogether the team looked at 40 different sandwich types, recipes and combinations. They found the highest carbon footprints for the sandwiches with pork meat (bacon, ham or sausages) and those containing cheese or prawns.

Of the recipes considered, the most carbon-intensive variety is a ready-made ‘all-day breakfast’ sandwich which includes egg, bacon and sausage. The researchers estimate that this type of sandwich generates 1441 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq.). This is equivalent to CO2 emissions from driving a car for 12 miles.

The sandwich with the lowest carbon emission equivalent is a simple home-made favorite, ham and cheese. The study also found that making your own sandwiches at home could reduce carbon emissions by a half compared to ready-made equivalents.

According to the British Sandwich Association (BSA) more than 11.5 billion sandwiches are consumed each year in the UK alone. Around half of those are made at home and the other half are bought over the counter in shops, supermarkets and service stations around the country. That means the UK spends nearly £8 billion a year on the breaded snack, at an average cost of £2 per snack.

Professor Adisa Azapagic, from the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Sciences, said, “Given that sandwiches are a staple of the British diet as well as their significant market share in the food sector, it is important to understand the contribution from this sector to the emissions of greenhouse gases.”

“For example, consuming 11.5 billion sandwiches annually in the UK generates, on average, 9.5 million tonnes of CO2 eq., equivalent to the annual use of 8.6 million cars.”

The results show the largest contributor to a sandwich’s carbon footprint is the agricultural production and processing of their ingredients. Depending on the type, this can account for around 37%-67% of CO2 eq. for ready-made sandwiches.

Keeping sandwiches chilled in supermarkets and shops also contributes to their carbon footprint. This can account for up to a quarter of their greenhouse gas emission equivalent. Then there is the packaging material which comes in at up to 8.5 % and, finally, transporting materials and refrigerating sandwiches themselves adds a further 4%.

The study concludes that the carbon footprint of the snacks could be reduced by as much as 50 per cent if a combination of changes were made to the recipes, packaging and waste disposal. The researchers also suggest extending sell-by and use-by dates to reduce waste.

Professor Azapagic, who also heads up the Sustainable Industrial Systems research group, added: “We need to change the labelling of food to increase the use-by date as these are usually quite conservative. Commercial sandwiches undergo rigorous shelf-life testing and are normally safe for consumption beyond the use-by date stated on the label.”

The BSA also estimate that extending the shelf life of sandwiches by relaxing such dates would help save at least 2000 tonnes of sandwich waste annually.

The study also recommends reducing or omitting certain ingredients that have a higher carbon footprint, like lettuce, tomato, cheese and meat. Reducing ingredients, such as cheese and meat, would also reduce the amount of calories eaten, contributing towards healthier lifestyles.

A modified flu virus has now been used in experiments to successfully inhibit the growth of pancreatic cancer, according to an early study by Queen Mary University of London.

The study, led by Dr Gunnel Halldén and funded by the charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, suggests that the new technique could potentially become a promising new treatment for patients with the aggressive disease, and could be combined with existing chemotherapy to improve chances of survival.

First author Dr Stella Man from Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary said, “We’ve shown for the first time that pancreatic cancers can be specifically targeted with a modified version of the common flu virus.

“The new virus specifically infects and kills pancreatic cancer cells, causing few side effects in nearby healthy tissue. Not only is our targeting strategy both selective and effective, but we have now further engineered the virus so that it can be delivered in the blood stream to reach cancer cells that have spread throughout the body.

“If we manage to confirm these results in human clinical trials, then this may become a promising new treatment for pancreatic cancer patients, and could be combined with existing chemotherapy drugs to kill persevering cancer cells.”

Each year around 9,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The disease is particularly aggressive and has the lowest survival rate of all cancers – fewer than five per cent of patients diagnosed survive for five years or more.

The reasons behind the poor survival rates include late diagnosis of the disease and the cancer’s rapid development of resistance to current therapies. To avoid drug resistance, the use of mutated viruses has emerged as a promising new strategy for attacking cancers in a more targeted way.

The research, published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, took advantage of a unique feature of pancreatic cancer cells – the presence of a specific molecule called alpha v beta 6 (αvβ6), which is found on the surface of many pancreatic cancer cells but, crucially, not on normal cells.

The team modified the common flu virus to display an additional small protein on its outer coat that recognises and binds to αvβ6-molecules. Once the virus enters the cancer cell, the virus replicates, producing many copies of itself prior to bursting out of the cell and thereby destroying it in the process. The newly released viral copies can then bind onto neighbouring cancer cells and repeat the same cycle, eventually removing the tumour mass altogether.

The researchers tested the viruses on human pancreatic cancer cells, which had been grafted onto mice, and found that they inhibited cancer growth.

The concept of using modified viruses has previously shown promising results in various cancers including brain, head and neck, and prostate. The researchers say that their new virus is more specific and efficacious than previous viral versions, and has the added advantage of being able to co-operate with chemotherapy drugs that are currently used in the clinic.

The flu virus is further modified so that it is unable to cause disease in healthy individuals.

Maggie Blanks, CEO of Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund said, “It’s exciting to see research we’ve funded at Barts Cancer Institute since 2009 – both in modifying viruses as a potential treatment for pancreatic cancer and progressing knowledge about alpha v beta 6 – come together in this study with such positive results. Developing more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer becomes more urgent every year as the incidence of the disease increases, and we hope to see this research progressed further.”

As with all potential new therapies, advancement towards human clinical trials will require more time as lead researcher Dr Gunnel Halldén, from Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary, explains: “Currently, we are seeking new funds to support further development into clinical trials within the next two years. With this funding in place, early phase trials will usually take about five years to determine whether or not the therapy is safe and effective.”

As one of the first technologies used to generate electricity, hydroelectric power has historically provided the largest share of renewable electricity generation in the United States.

However, this year EIA expects wind power to surpass hydroelectricity, based on forecasts in the latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. Different factors lead to uncertainty about the forecast level of electricity generation from each energy source.

Because few new hydro plants are expected to come online in the next two years, hydroelectric generation in 2018 and 2019 will largely depend on precipitation and water runoff.

Although changes in weather patterns also affect wind generation, the forecast for wind power output is more dependent on the capacity and timing of new wind turbines coming online.

Both hydro and wind generation follow seasonal patterns. Hydro generation is typically highest in the spring when precipitation and melting snowpack increase water runoff. Wind generation is typically highest in the spring and fall, reflecting the capacity-weighted mix of seasonal patterns in wind across the country.

Hydro often has slightly higher annual capacity factors, or utilization rates, averaging 38% in 2016 compared with wind’s 35%.

EIA’s hydroelectric generation forecasts over the next two years are mostly based on projections of water runoff. After a relatively wet year in 2017—when hydro provided 7.4% of total utility-scale generation—hydro generation is expected to be slightly lower at 6.5% of total utility-scale generation in 2018 and 6.6% in 2019.

EIA expects significant levels of new wind capacity to come online in 2018 and 2019, similar to the trend in recent years. EIA’s most recent Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory survey shows wind capacity increasing by 8.3 gigawatts (GW) in 2018 and 8.0 GW in 2019.

If these new generating units come online as scheduled, they would add 9% to U.S. utility-scale wind capacity by the end of 2018 and another 8% by the end of 2019.

Because much of the new electric capacity comes online in the final months of each year, these capacity additions affect the subsequent year’s electricity generation values. EIA expects wind to provide 6.4% and 6.9% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States in 2018 and 2019, respectively, up from 6.3% in 2017.

Principal contributor: Owen Comstock

By Sajad Abedi*

Syria’s field developments have practically changed regional equilibrium, as analysts today report the new regional order in Western Asia.

The fact is that the victory of the Syrian army in Aleppo and the positive outlook for the Mosul liberation operation in Iraq today have shaken the terrorists’ position so that even their supporters do not even have the power to use these terrorists to influence the talks in the region. Saudi Arabia, which has been plunged into the Yemeni war, has witnessed the weakening of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and has lost its international reputation for the global hatred of terrorists. Qatar is no longer able to play with the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, because even the Western-backed terrorists in Syria are no longer willing to accept this terrorist group as their ally.

The result of such a situation is the holding of an Astana summit without the presence of supporters of terrorism and the Americans’ limited role. Although these talks continue in Geneva, and perhaps in the coming peace talks, Europeans have a greater role, but at present, the Syrian arena has caused transatlantic players to leave West Asia at least and leave their allies in Leave the Middle East alone.

The West Asia region has seen two different situations in the last half century. The first situation was based on the conflict between regional governments and the role of trans-national powers through the identification of gendarmes for the region. Following the gradual removal of the United Kingdom, the United States was well versed in this model, following the Pahlavi regime as its successor to the region, following this model. But in the second model, which occurred during the Bush period, transatlantic powers like the United States and Britain, with direct military presence, tried to directly determine the order of the region and not use the proxy method. Their excuse for direct involvement was not only the internal conflict in the region, but also the emergence of a self-made phenomenon called terrorism.

But now, considering the important role that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has played in Syria and Iraq, we are witnessing the formation of a third model of regional order. In this model, a regional power like Iran has the potential of restoring stability to other countries involved in the civil war, and diplomatically so powerful that it can capture other regional and transatlantic actors such as Turkey or Russia Accompanied by yourself. In such a situation, the order of the region is determined by a supreme regional power, and other actors must set their own interests based on the ratio of those with the highest power.

Undoubtedly, the powers that had ever gained the benefits of the role of Western powers in the region would not be happy with the new order and seek to tension. However, if the Arab powers, if viewed realistically, will find that approaching Tehran and working with Iran to restore stability to the region and end the ferocious wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen can be in the interest of all countries. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and other governments that have already paid for the direct US and British military presence in the region should know that if they bring stability to the Middle East through cooperation with Iran, they will incur fewer costs And will no longer need to use their oil dollars for the benefit of Western governments.

The intrinsic order of the West Asian region is a phenomenon that has not been experienced for nearly a century, and maybe recent developments in Syria and Iraq could help it. The global experience has shown that Europeans, through the same model, were able to turn the green continent from a built-up to continental shelf after World War II, and so the fate could be ahead of the Middle East, of course, if the hands behind the curtain And the warlord lobbies allow the establishment of such an order.

About the author:
*Sajad Abedi is a Resident Research Fellow at the National Security and Defense Think Tank. He obtained his Ph. D. degree in National Security from the Nationl Defense University under group of leader of Islamic Republic of Iran. His research interests pertain to Arab-Israeli studies, the Cyber Security studies and National Security.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy