The Indo-Pacific has become the consensus term for the Trump administration to address the region widely known as the Asia-Pacific. However, the United States is not the principal driver behind this recently popularised concept. Instead, look to Japan, India, and the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor to understand the Indo-Pacific.

By Harry Sa*

President Donald Trump wrapped up his first year of presidency with the all-important tour of the Asia-Pacific. Despite the novelty and unorthodox nature that have become so characteristic of his presidency, it was, by and large, an unexceptional visit by a sitting American president. He visited alliance partners, spoke out against North Korea, bolstered relations with China, and attended the 31st ASEAN summit in Manila. The itinerary could have been a carbon copy of any past presidential visit over the past two and half decades.

Amidst the banality, there was one conspicuous change. The familiar words Asia-Pacific were hardly, if ever, mentioned. Instead, the region was greeted with a new term: the Indo-Pacific. It was a clear signal that the United States wanted to not only demonstrate commitment to the region, but also expand its interests to the Indian Ocean. As of now, this is purely a cosmetic change with little import, especially in its current state. For any real understanding of the Indo-Pacific concept, we must look, not to the US, but to Japan to find anything of substance.

The “Indo-Pacific” and its Quadrilateral Roots

The idea of the Indo-Pacific has always been debated within the more esoteric circles of academics, think tankers, and policy-planners. Its roots can be traced back to the year 2002 with the creation of the Trilateral Security Dialogue, a series of high level meetings between old friends: the US, Japan, and Australia.

Five years later, in 2007, the group officially invited India, widening the geographic scope to the Indian Ocean. Unimaginatively dubbed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, it was an attempt to create an arc of democracies to ensure peace and stability across the two ocean regions.

The quadrilateral effort never really took off. China perceived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to be a Cold War-style containment strategy aimed at stemming Chinese growth. Beijing angrily lodged official diplomatic protests against the four countries, especially pressuring Australia. Canberra, then under the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, quietly relented and pulled out of the security arrangement.

In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard breathed new life into the idea by agreeing to host a modest number of US Marines in Darwin. However, this was under the auspices of former President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia policy and tilted towards Southeast Asia more so than the Indian Ocean.

This constant toggling between progress and stagnation has become the recurring theme of the Indo-Pacific. Nothing substantial or concrete would ever materialise, that is, until Donald Trump’s late-2017 trip to Asia.

Indo Pacific in Trump’s National Security Strategy

A month after returning from Asia, the Trump administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS) and again, the Asia-Pacific was nowhere to be found. In its place, to further underscore the intent to prioritise this geographic concept, the Indo-Pacific featured prominently as the first of the region-specific strategies in this document. The Indo-Pacific took precedence over other important regions where the US maintains deep and important commitments, like the Middle East and Europe.

Even for an ambiguous document meant only to describe the general strategic direction of the US, the relevance of the Indian Ocean is exceedingly vague. Aside from a few token references to India as a rising power and a promise to expand cooperation with the subcontinent, the NSS struggled to find relevance in the Indian Ocean.

Instead, it only highlighted issues that would nominally be grouped solely within the Asia-Pacific: China’s geopolitical ambitions, the tensions in the South China Sea, cross-Straits relations, the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis, relationships with alliance partners, and ASEAN. None of these issues warrant a discussion of the Indo-Pacific, and yet, the Trump administration saw fit to change the name in a foreign policy document that is symbolic, if not important. Aside from a cameo in the NSS, it is devoid of any real strategy. The reason for this is simple: the Indo-Pacific is not an American strategy. It is a Japanese one.

Indo-Pacific: Japan’s Road to Africa

In 2007, at Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s insistence, the Trilateral Security Dialogue was expanded to include India. That same year, PM Abe first publicly unveiled his vision in an address to the Indian Parliament titled “Confluence of the Two Seas”.

Almost a decade later, at the 2016 Tokyo International Conference on African Development, PM Abe introduced the Indo-Pacific as the centerpiece to a developmental strategy towards Africa. Finally, the strategy evolved into the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, officially launched at the African Development Bank meeting in March 2017.

Concerned with cooperation, development, and maritime security in the regions of Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Africa, it is quite apparent that the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor is Tokyo’s alternative to the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, now known as the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). Japan is throwing down the gauntlet at China’s feet, and thus far, it is really Japan alone.

Far more concerned with North Korean nuclear weapons and unfair Chinese trade practices, the US seems content to merely follow Japan’s lead and support it from the rear. During the Japanese leg of Trump’s Asia tour, the two nations signed a number of agreements that promised Indo-Pacific states better regulated and higher quality infrastructure development than the BRI.

Beyond that, however, the US is largely missing. What this means is that, much to the chagrin of Asian states, the US approach to the Asia-Pacific remains ad-hoc, piecemeal, and still to be a comprehensive regional strategy. Unless the US is once again ready to lead, it is Japan that the region will look to for further progress.

*Harry Sa is a Senior Analyst with the United States Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

US President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and relayed concerns that escalating violence in Afrin, Syria, risks undercutting shared goals in Syria.

According to the White House, Trump urged Turkey to deescalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees. Additionally, Trump urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces and reiterated that both nations must focus all parties on the shared goal of achieving the lasting defeat of ISIS.

Both Presidents welcomed the return of more than 100,000 Syrian refugees back to their country in the wake of the ongoing defeat of ISIS and pledged to continue to cooperate to help people return home, the White House said.

President Trump invited closer bilateral cooperation to address Turkey’s legitimate security concerns. The leaders discussed the need to stabilize a unified Syria that poses no threats to its neighbors, including Turkey.

President Trump also expressed concern about destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey, and about United States citizens and local employees detained under the prolonged State of Emergency in Turkey.

The two leaders pledged to improve the strategic partnership between the United States and Turkey, particularly in fostering regional stability and combating terrorism in all its forms, including ISIS, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), al-Qa’ida, and Iranian-sponsored terrorism, the White House said.

America’s global hegemony is the sum total of its domination in various regions of the world like Europe, Middle East, or East Asia. Today when the Americans look at East Asia, they see a hugely enriched and militarily powerful China increasingly challenging them.

By Manoj Joshi

In 2007, James Mann, a former Beijing correspondent for the Los Angeles Times penned a slim book titled “The China Fantasy” whose real punch lay in its subtitle: “Why capitalism will not bring democracy to China.”

At the time the book was dismissed as a “curious polemic” that went against the grain of the prevailing wisdom that over time, China would progressively liberalise and become a democracy, just as South Korea and Taiwan had. Successive administrations argued that the goal of American policy must be to “integrate China into the international community.” And a slew of specialists forecast the eventual democratic future of China.

Looking back at America’s China hallucination, you can speculate whether it was the Americans who deluded themselves or that they were cleverly played by the Chinese. As recently as 2012, Chinese leaders like its Premier Wen Jiabao spoke of the need for political reform and democracy. Often this was carefully tailored for global audiences such as, in one instance, a meeting of the World Economic Forum.

After 2017, that illusion is gone. As the Trump administration’s new national security strategy laments, “for decades, US policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post war international order would liberalise China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others.” The US suddenly realises that not only is China a competitor, but it could well be a principal threat to the American homeland and its global primacy.

America’s global hegemony is the sum total of its domination in various regions of the world like Europe, Middle East, or East Asia. Today when the Americans look at East Asia, they see a hugely enriched and militarily powerful China increasingly challenging them.

This is where India comes in, as a principal balancer of China in a region now termed the “Indo-Pacific”. China looms large in the western Pacific, even though the US remains the most powerful nation from the military point of view. But Japan, tainted by its past, even now finds it difficult to assume a larger role in the security of the region. Vietnam and Australia lack heft and are economically dependent on China.

By stretching the region to incorporate India and the Indian Ocean, China looks smaller. India’s economy may be a fifth of China’s and its military much weaker, but its size, location and potential make it a peer competitor of China. By mid-century, India’s economy could exceed that of the US and be second only to China. And you can be sure, this will be accompanied by the rise of Indian military capacity as well.

Because of its border dispute and the China-Pakistan relationship, New Delhi has never had any illusions about China. It has actively engaged Beijing, and made no bones that it sees it as an adversary. In recent years, as China surged economically and militarily, things have become a bit difficult. Beijing is now expanding its reach in South Asia. It has recently taken a 99-year lease of Hambantota Port that it had earlier built; this month, a coalition of pro-China Communist parties have swept the elections in Nepal and the Maldives has ratified an FTA with China. Chinese naval vessels, rare in the Indian Ocean a decade ago, are now deployed routinely. And last week, the visiting Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi blandly told India that China disapproves of the concept of spheres of influence.

Under its new strategy, the US promises that it “will help South Asian nations maintain their sovereignty as China increases its influence in the region.” It also says it will support India in its “leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region.” India needs the US, as much as the Americans need us.

The arrival of Xi Jinping as the most powerful political figure since Deng Xiaoping has changed things. Far from liberalizing, Xi is doubling down on the hold of the Communist Party on the country. Xi’s speech and in the recent 19th Party Congress was a profound rejection of western values, particularly liberal democracy. His idea of reform is the need to build an efficient authoritarian state which he offered as a model for other countries.

If the Pakistan experience is anything to go by, we must accept that it is uncommonly difficult for the US to get rid of its international fantasies. Even so, in word and deed till now, the Trump administration is sold on the Indian partnership. There is an opportunity here which can serve us well, if we relentlessly pursue the national interest and not get distracted by illusions, of which we have our own share.

This article originally appeared in Hindustan Times.

The Spaniards who have emigrated to other countries since the economic crisis have done so under worse conditions than other recent emigrants from the rest of Southern Europe.

By Carmen González Enríquez and José Pablo Martínez Romera*

This paper compares the situation of Spanish skilled emigrants –based on the results from the first European survey on the issue– with that of the Greeks, Italians and Portuguese. Although unemployment and the risk of poverty among Spanish university graduates has been higher than the average for other national groups since the economic crisis, the Spanish took longer to emigrate than other Southern Europeans. Spanish emigrants have also enjoyed less secure positions in their destination countries, suffering higher unemployment and lower average salaries than their European counterparts. They have faced greater life difficulties, partly because they left in more precarious conditions, but also because their command of the local language is weaker. Furthermore, because only 36% of Spanish emigrants register at their consulates in destination countries, this analysis estimates that the total number of Spanish emigrants is nearly three times the official statistic.

Analysis1

Introduction

The economic crisis since 2008 has had a much greater impact on Southern Europe than on other parts of the continent, prompting a noticeable increase in both unemployment and economic emigration. This has given rise to a new wave of internal migration within the EU from the South to the North, and a further external movement of emigrants to the Americas and other continents.

Within this context, and at the worst moment of the crisis, four institutions from Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain cooperated to undertake the survey ‘Emigrating in times of crisis’.2 The survey’s data allows, for the first time, a comparison between the experience of recent Spanish emigration and that from other Southern European countries. The study focused on five groups of international emigrants: Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Irish and Spaniards. These have been the most affected by the economic crisis that began in 2008 in terms of unemployment and state budget cuts. The questionnaire –prepared in five languages and accessible online through the Survey Monkey program– ran for three months (from 21 May to 18 August 2013) and received a total of 6,750 valid responses (1,543 of which were Spanish). The questions focused on different aspects of the migrant experience: the emigrant’s situation in the country of origin, the reasons for leaving and the difficulties encountered in the destination country, including employment and income situation. In this paper, the data for Irish emigrants has been excluded in order to focus on the more homogenous group of Southern Europeans.

The first problem facing researchers attempting to analyse the characteristics of recent Spanish emigration is the absence of sufficient statistical information. For this reason, all the quantitative studies that have been undertaken have employed survey techniques relying on ‘snowball samples’ which use Internet and social media to conduct the survey (either physically or electronically), to publicise it and to contact with more emigrants.

The survey ‘Emigrating in times of crisis’ excludes individuals who emigrated before 2007, along with those who are not native Spaniards, Greeks, Italians or Portuguese, and those with less than university education.3 With these restrictions, the sample number to be analysed was limited to 4,058 individuals (982 of which were Spanish).

A late emigration

One important conclusion derived from the comparison between the four countries of the sample is that Spanish emigration occurred later than the others –despite the fact that the economic crisis began in Spain earlier, as a result of the end of the property boom in 2007–. The data presented in the following graph is derived from the survey and is consistent with the evolution of departures documented by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in which a significant increase in emigration is registered in 2012. The comparison with the rates of departure among those interviewed from the other three countries of the region reveals that the rate of Spanish emigrants leaving Spain was below that of the other countries until the second half of 2010 and began to overtake them in 2011.

Comparing the evolution of departure rates with the changes in the unemployment rate among university graduates in the four countries, the divergence between them becomes apparent: the unemployment rate of Spanish university graduates is, together with the Greek, the highest in the group since 2008.

On the other hand, the high Spanish unemployment rate is not offset by a sufficient state protection that could, in theory, mitigate the consequences of unemployment on the well-being of such individuals. Data from Eurostat shows that the percentage of the population with a university education at risk of poverty (with a disposable income below 60% of the median) was highest in Spain during the period examined. From this comparison it follows that there are factors other than employment or income that have limited the departure of native Spaniards as emigrants.

More motivated by unemployment

The higher weight of unemployment as a cause of emigration in the case of Spaniards appears clearly in the responses of emigrants to the direct multiple-choice question as to their main reasons for emigrating. In contrast, the desire to improve levels of education and skills, to try new experiences, to advance professionally or raise income prospects, or to find new business opportunities, were less important factors for Spanish emigrants than for those from any of the other countries.

Before deciding to emigrate, Spaniards were much more frequently unemployed than the other emigrants in the sample (48% versus an average of 39% in the three other countries). Because the Spanish emigrant’s mobility is most frequently induced by unemployment, the emigrant project tends to be undertaken with less preparation and inferior negotiating power. Furthermore, as will be shown below, the success of the Spanish emigrant project is lower than those from the other countries of Southern Europe, both in terms of the type of labour situation secured and the levels of income obtained.

Although unemployment is a stronger factor in Spain as a reason for emigrating than in the other countries of the group, unemployment is not –according to the explanation of their own experience by those surveyed– the most cited reason in Spain or any of the other three countries. This result also coincides with the studies undertaken on Spanish emigrants by the International Organisation for Migration and the University Institute for Migration Studies.4 The protagonists of recent skilled emigration from Southern Europe explain their decision above all as the result of a general lack of prospects. As Shown in Figure 4, the option ‘I did not see a future for myself in my country’ was chosen by 50% on average across four countries, a response that expresses a profound pessimism with respect to possible future developments, and something which has also been documented in the Spanish case by other studies.5

Less successful

Furthermore, a comparison of the survey results reveals that the situation of Spanish emigrants in their destination countries is weaker than that of emigrants from the other countries. On the one hand, the Spanish were unemployed in their destination countries more frequently than the Portuguese or the Italians, and on the same level as the Greeks.

On the other hand, among the emigrants who have gained employment, Spaniards are over-represented in the occupations that require the least amount of education and skills and under-represented among the professions.

In keeping with this unequal situation in the labour market, the incomes of Spanish emigrants in their destination countries are lower than the average. Their presence is strongest amongst those earning less than €1,000/month and they are also concentrated at the intermediate income levels, between €1,000 and €3,000. But they have very little representation at the highest levels.

An analysis of the logit correlations allows us to measure the weight of ‘being Spanish’ and of ‘being unemployed before emigrating’ on the employment situation encountered in the destination country.6 The logit model shows that the likelihood of a Spanish emigrant being employed in the destination country is 44% lower than for an emigrant from one of the other three countries. On the other hand, unemployment in the country of origin is a strong predictor of the employment situation in the destination country: if the emigrant was working before emigrating, the likelihood that he is now also employed in the destination country is 70% higher than if he were unemployed in the country of origin before emigrating. Given that Spanish migrants were more frequently unemployed before emigrating than the Greeks, Portuguese or Italians, they are found to be unemployed in destination countries also more frequently than the others.

Lower human capital (language)

One important factor related to the lower success of skilled Spanish emigration is a lack of foreign-language proficiency. More than half of the Spaniards interviewed (55%) point to this as one of the problems encountered in the destination country, compared with only 31% among the Portuguese, 35% among the Italians and 37% among the Greeks. These figures are consistent with the results of the Special Eurobarometer Number 386 (European Commission, 2012), a monograph dedicated to the use of foreign languages in Europe: the Spanish have the lowest level English-language proficiency of any European member of the EU. Only 14% of Spaniards said they know it well enough to have a conversation –less than half the EU average (32%) and far behind the leading countries, such as Sweden (82%) and Denmark (79%)–. The use of German among Spaniards (1%) is also at the bottom levels of the European rankings: the average in the EU is 5%. Only in the case of French, which 4% of Spaniards say they speak well enough ‘to hold a conversation in this language’, is Spain close to the EU27 average (5%), although it remains below Portugal (8%) and Ireland (10%).

In the case of the Spanish, this lower language proficiency in the destination country reduces job opportunities and, in general, makes it more difficult to deal with any procedure, be it the search for lodging, the administrative bureaucracy to acquire official recognition for degrees or to receive medical attention, or any other activity which requires fluency in the local language. Therefore, to the question as to what problems they had encountered in the destination country, Spanish emigrants pointed more often than the other national groups to the difficulties in finding work (25% compared with 14% as an average among the other groups), to secure medical insurance (13% compared with 6%), to rent lodging (34% versus 30%) or to acquire degree recognition (16% compared with 7%); in addition, they received job offers below their level of qualifications 23% of the time, compared with only 7% on average among the other emigrants of the group. Only 17% of Spanish emigrants said they had no difficulties, compared with 30% of the Greeks, 37% of the Italians and 32% of the Portuguese.

Few have registered with their consulates

Although it is legally compulsory to register at a Spanish consulate in the destination country for all those residing for more than three months outside Spain, there are no enforcement mechanisms to either sanction lack of compliance or to provide incentives for its fulfilment, especially with respect to those individuals in the early phase of their emigration experience and who do not yet know how long they will reside in the destination country. Registration at a consulate must be done in person and, in many cases, requires travelling from the place of residence to another city in the country where a Spanish consulate is located. On the other hand, the advantages of registration are scant and since 2013 there has even been a cost: losing access to free public health service in Spain.7

The survey results show that this under-registration is a common problem among the four countries of Southern Europe, and especially in the Greek case: only one in every seven emigrants from the country has registered abroad. In the Spanish case, only 36% of those who have emigrated since 2007 were registered at the time of the survey. From this figure it follows that one would have to multiply by 2.7 the number of those who have registered to obtain an estimate for the real number of native Spanish emigrants abroad.

The likelihood of registering rises with an emigrant’s length of stay: among the Spanish who emigrated before 2007, 78% were registered, but only 26% of those who emigrated during 2012 had registered. This suggests a pattern of behaviour in which the emigrant only goes to a consulate once emigration is firm.

Source: survey ‘Emigrating in times of crisis’.8

On the other hand, together with the length of stay, the specific destination country is the other discriminating factor: the likelihood of an emigrant registering at a consulate in an EU destination country is lower than for emigrants to any other (non-EU) region of the world.

When considering the motives for not registering with a consulate, the perception that registration is not useful and is not worth the cost (time, travel, paperwork, etc) stands out as a dominant reason. The legal aspect (it is obligatory to register) barely carries any weight in the decision. This suggests that under-registration will continue to be usual in the future unless the required procedure is made far easier (for instance, by providing an online registration option) and positive incentives are provided.

Conclusions

The effect of the economic crisis on the emigration of university graduates has been felt later in Spain than in the other countries of Southern Europe, even though the impact of the crisis on the unemployment rate and on the percentage of university graduates at risk of poverty has been sharp and fast. Since 2008 unemployment among university graduates in Spain and Greece has been the highest in the EU and Spain heads the ranking of the percentage of university graduates at risk of poverty. On the other hand, Spain shares with Italy, Greece and Portugal the same kind of Mediterranean ‘welfare state’ in which the family plays an important role in complementing state-provided services. As a result, the additional family protection cannot explain the differences in the behaviour of Spanish emigrants.

The Spanish waited longer to emigrate than other Southern Europeans; they started out unemployed in their own country more frequently than the others, and their reasons for emigrating were based less on life strategies to improve their skills or professional prospects than on the imperative to find work. This seems to indicate that there are other non-economic factors in Spain –stemming from an aversion to geographic mobility– which influence decisions on whether or not to emigrate.

Because of this more notable resistance to geographic mobility, Spanish emigrants have left their own country in more vulnerable conditions and with less negotiating power. Their integration in their destination countries is less successful in terms of employment and income, and their life experience presents more difficulties. Another influential factor is related to human capital and foreign-language proficiency. This factor works against emigrants from Spain since, like the rest of the Spaniards, they have a deficit in this area that places them in a weaker position in the labour market of their destination countries.

*About the authors:
Carmen González Enríquez, Senior Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @rielcano

José Pablo Martínez Romera, Research Assistant, Elcano Royal Institute | @jpmromera

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute. Original version in Spanish: Debilidades de la emigración española

Notes:
¹ The publication Migraciones devoted its latest issue (number 43) to recent Spanish emigration. The issue also included a longer version of the study presented in this paper.

By Chris Calton*

Austrian economists often employ the pedagogy called “Crusoe economics” to illustrate the foundational principles of economic theory. Robinson Crusoe is alone on an island. He has nothing but his own body at his disposal, and he needs to find food and construct a shelter to survive. So what does he do?

He starts punching trees, of course!

Okay, Robinson Crusoe doesn’t punch trees — that would be a recipe for bloody knuckles and wasted time. But in the game Minecraft, in which players are plopped into a world in a very Crusoean situation, punching trees is how they obtain the initial materials they need to start constructing a shelter and tools.

But while Minecraft may not accurately illustrate real-world physics and biology, it does illustrate many (not all) of the foundational principles of economics. Before we can consume, we have to mix our labor with nature. In the world of Minecraft, this is done by punching trees to obtain wood. Wood, then, serves as a factor of production; throw a few blocks of wood together, and you get a crafting table — a higher-order production good — which allows you to craft lower-order goods like shovels, swords, and pickaxes.

Murray Rothbard wasn’t writing about crafting tables and pickaxes in Man, Economy, and State. He was writing about berry picking and fishing poles. But the principles are apparent in both worlds. “To acquire fish,” Rothbard writes, Robinson Crusoe “must have a pole or net, to acquire shelter he must have logs of wood … and an axe to cut the wood.”

Fish and shelter are among the basic consumer goods one might seek in Minecraft, and the player has to spend labor (well, virtual labor) to craft production goods like the fishing pole or the wood blocks and doors for the shelter — and an axe is certainly handy for cutting down future production time for players who make the initial investment in crafting one.

The stages of a production process play out in Minecraft, as well. Rothbard writes that “any process … of production may be analyzed as occurring in different stages. In the earlier or ‘higher’ stages, producers’ goods must be produced that will later cooperate in producing other producers’ goods that will finally co-operate in producing the desired consumers’ good.”

If a player wants to craft a fishing rod, punching trees is simply the first stage of production. Next, they most create a crafting table. Then, they have to use blocks of wood to create sticks. And just as in the real world, the player must obtain string by killing spiders (well, not so much like the real world, but the economic principles are still apparent here — labor mixed with nature). By following the proper recipe — which Rothbard calls a “unique type of factor of production that is indispensable in every stage of every production process” — the player can combine sticks and string into a fishing rod. Finally, with this production good in hand, the player can obtain “raw fish” — another factor of production. By cooking the raw fish in a furnace (created in a completely separate line of production), the player finally obtains the consumer good: “cooked fish.”

Minecraft serves as a model of a simple, developing economy that — not unlike the real world — continues to develop by accumulating capital. Crafting tables allow you to create more goods, and furnaces allow you to transform materials like coal and ore into metal ingots, with which even better items can be crafted. By continually combining raw materials into increasingly complex goods, players have constructed extremely intricate and majestic cities. But all of this building begins with nothing more than a character and an untouched world.

As Minecraft itself evolved, multiplayer options developed in which many players can participate in the same world. Just as when Crusoe met Friday, opportunities for trade grew out of these multiplayer servers. It would probably be a step too far to say that players spontaneously developed money by engaging in indirect exchange until the most liquid good emerged, but commodity monies have been established via currency in these servers — usually being a rare metal or gem. Thus, as the Minecraft economy grows, direct and indirect exchange takes place, mimicking a real-world economy.

The parallels between Minecraft and Crusoe economics can only be carried so far, and of course, not everything in the game perfectly correlates to a distinct economic concept. But Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world, especially among young children who might be coming into an age in which an introduction to basic economic concepts can plant seeds for their future studies. As we try to think of ways to bring these ideas to the next generation, it might be worth paying attention to what lessons can be taught through this popular medium.

And if your kids accuse you of ruining their favorite game with dismal economic lessons, you can always hand them a copy of Economics in One Lesson as an alternative.

About the author:
*Chris Calton is a Mises University alumnus and an economic historian. He is writer and host of the Historical Controversies podcast. See also his YouTube channel here.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

The air your teenage daughter breathes may be causing irregular menstrual cycles. Well documented negative health effects from air pollution exposure include infertility, metabolic syndrome and polycystic ovary syndrome. This study is the first to show that exposure to air pollution among teen girls (ages 14-18) is associated with slightly increased chances of menstrual irregularity and longer time to achieve such regularity in high school and early adulthood.

“While air pollution exposures have been linked to cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, this study suggests there may be other systems, such as the reproductive endocrine system, that are affected as well,” said corresponding author Shruthi Mahalingaiah, MD, MS, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine and a physician in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston Medical Center.

The menstrual cycle is responsive to hormonal regulation. Particulate matter air pollution has demonstrated hormonal activity. However, it was not known if air pollution was associated with menstrual cycle regularity, until now.

The researchers used health and location data gathered in the Nurses’ Health Study 2 plus air pollution exposure metrics from the EPA air quality monitoring system to understand a participants’ exposure during a particular time window. They found exposure to air pollution in during high school was correlated with menstrual cycle irregularity.

“Implications on human disease may come through reducing emissions on a global and individual level,” said Mahalingaiah.

The findings appear in the journal Human Reproduction.

In both cell cultures and mouse models, a drug used to treat Hepatitis C effectively protected and rescued neural cells infected by the Zika virus — and blocked transmission of the virus to mouse fetuses.

Writing in the current online issue of the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Brazil and elsewhere, say their findings support further investigation of using the repurposed drug as a potential treatment for Zika-infected adults, including pregnant women.

“There has been a lot of work done in the past year or so to address the Zika health threat. Much of it has focused on developing a vaccine, with promising early results,” said senior author Alysson Muotri, PhD, professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine, director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.

“But there is also a great need to develop clinical strategies to treat Zika-infected individuals, including pregnant women for whom prevention of infection is no longer an option. They represent the greatest health crisis because a Zika infection during the first trimester confers the greatest risk of congenital microcephaly.”

Outbreaks of Zika virus in Brazil in 2015 and 2016 were marked by an increased incidence of newborns with congenital malformations, most notably undersized heads (microcephaly) and significant neurological abnormalities. A great deal of research has focused on the pathology of Zika infections, including earlier work by the Muotri lab and collaborators that described how the virus is transmitted from mother to fetus by infecting cells that, ironically, will later develop into the brain’s first and primary form of defense against invasive pathogens.

In its latest work, however, the Muotri lab sought clinical solutions. The team investigated an antiviral drug called sofosbuvir, approved and marketed under the brand name Sovaldi to treat and cure hepatitis C infections. The drug works by inhibiting replication of the hepatitis C virus; researchers noted that both hepatitis C and Zika belong to the same viral family and bore strong structural similarities that could make sofosbuvir effective against the latter. In addition, it had been reported that sofosbuvir was protective against Zika in different cell types.

In tests using human neural progenitor cells (NPCs) — self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate neurons and other brain cell types — the scientists found that exposure to sofosbuvir not only rescued dying NPCs infected with the Zika virus, but restored gene expression linked to their antiviral response.

In subsequent tests using an immunodeficient mouse model infected by Zika, intravenous injections of sofosbuvir significantly reduced viral loads in blood serum compared to a placebo group. Moreover, fetuses of Zika-infected pregnant mice did not show detectable Zika virus amplification in the sofosbuvir-treated group.

“This suggests that one, the drug was well-tolerated by the Zika-infected pregnant mice and two, more importantly, that it was able to arrest Zika replication in vivo and stop transmission from mother to fetus,” said Muotri.

The researchers emphasize that their findings are preliminary, with much more work to be done. “But they also illustrate the immediate translational potential of repurposing a drug that is already in wide clinical use for a similar viral infection,” Muotri said. “Until there is approval of a Zika vaccine, we think this is an approach that needs to be pursued whole-heartedly.”

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh*

After an investigation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the federal prosecutor’s office last week ordered the German police to carry out raids around the country on properties linked to suspected Iranian spies. The Iranian agents are believed to have spied on persons and organizations “on behalf of an intelligence unit associated with Iran.”

The Iranian authorities have declined to comment on this critical issue in order to evade responsibility. The regime has successfully escaped accountability since its establishment in 1979.

Espionage poses a threat to Berlin’s and the EU’s security. The EU and Germany should take this issue extremely seriously and reconsider their full support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. In addition, Germany ought to reconsider its increasing business deals and trade with the Iranian regime. These policies only strengthen the regime’s institutions, which are behind such heinous and illegal acts.

It is also worth noting that Germany’s appeasement policies and increasing trade with the regime make it much easier for Iranian spies to infiltrate Berlin.

Iran’s espionage in the West highlights the fact that appeasing the Iranian leaders with trade and sanctions relief only empowers them, making them stronger and more destructive as they pursue their hegemonic and ideological ambitions. This causes further instability and conflicts.

There are two major Iranian institutions that plan and orchestrate espionage in foreign countries. First is the Quds Force — an elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The second institution is the Ministry of Intelligence under the leadership of hard-line cleric Mahmoud Alavi, who was appointed by the so-called “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani.

Last week US Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Indonesia and Vietnam. His mission was to begin implementing the new US National Defense Strategy which calls for expanding and transforming Washington’s network of alliances and partnerships in the Asia-Pacific into a “networked security architecture”.

The primary goal of the US strategy in Asia is to win the “great power competition” against China. But ‘winning’ will take both hard and soft power. Nevertheless, Mattis and the Trump administration seem oblivious to this fact and to the US loss of soft power in the region. They need a reality check.

For 70 years the United States has dominated Southeast Asia with both hard and soft power– the capability to use economic or cultural influence to shape the preferences of others. Soft power underpins and makes possible robust hard power relationships. Just a few years ago, US soft power in the region was strong. Its hard (military) power is still dominant and may even grow but its soft power has declined both absolutely and relative to that of China.

The latest evidence of this was the reaction of the Philippines regarding the January 17 USS Hopper freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) near Scarborough Shoal. This FONOP came on the eve of Mattis’s departure and set the context for his trip. The Shoal is claimed by China, Taiwan and the Philippines. The US Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed through the 12 nautical mile territorial sea around the disputed feature. The Hopper’s transit was in innocent passage which is generally considered legal if somewhat provocative. China requires permission for such passage by warships and objected.

For the U.S. this was a demonstration of international law. But it got no support from its ally the Philippines. Indeed to its chagrin, Philippine Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said “For us China’s protest against the US warship’s passage is really a problem of America because we have come to a point that we now have an independent foreign policy. The problem of America today is no longer the problem of the Philippines.”

The US Embassy in Manila responded that “We believe that ‘US military personnel partnering with the [Armed Forces of the Philippines] is a more accurate description of the role of any US military presence here.” Jay Batongbacal, a prominent Philippines analyst, said the Duterte government’s response could help China and hinder the U.S. by lending credence to Beijing’s claims.

Another example of a US blind spot is the effect on US soft power of the U.S. withdrawal from its proposed Trans Pacific Trade (TTP) Initiative. Both Indonesia and Vietnam had strongly supported it. In October 2016 Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in reference to the US withdrawal “Now you say ‘I will walk away, that I do not believe in this deal.’ How can anyone believe in you anymore?”

Yet — in a trip departure interview — Mattis, when asked if he thought the withdrawal had an impact on US relationships in the region, replied, “I’m confident it does not.” If he really believes this, it is a dangerous blind spot in his perspective.

The sad truth is that US soft power relationships in Southeast Asia are much shallower and more ephemeral than the U.S. thinks. Look at some troubling facts. Despite US enticement and pressure, US allies Australia, Japan and the Philippines have so far declined US requests to join its freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea against China’s claims. Indonesia has expressed disapproval over US “power projection” there. US relations with Thailand have not been close since the military coup there in 2014 and it seems to be leaning towards China. Malaysia/US relations have been brittle since the U.S. took a legal interest in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s international financial dealings. Even staunch US strategic partner Singapore seems to be seeking a more neutral position between the two.

This reality has been evolving for some time. But it clearly manifested itself last August when ASEAN leaders and their dialogue partners, including China and the U.S., held a series of key security meetings in the Philippines. The joint communiqué of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting strongly favored China’s preferences over its opponents within ASEAN as well as those of the U.S. Some saw this as a new diplomatic low for the U.S. Indeed, according to Philippines analyst Richard Heydarian “…[it was] a slam dunk diplomatic victory for China.”

Despite this reality, Mattis and the Trump administration are charging ahead trying to entice Indonesia and Vietnam into a de facto ‘contain China coalition’. The U.S is likely to again be disappointed and even embarrassed not the least because of the Trump administration’s own unpredictability and vagueness about its Asia policy.

Indonesia has sharp differences with China regarding the area of the South China Sea north and east of Natuna where their claims may overlap. Mattis tried to hit all the right notes. He pledged to help Indonesia become a maritime power and indirectly expressed support for Indonesia’s claim vis a vis that of China by referring to the disputed area by Indonesia’s name for it –the North Natuna Sea. According to Indonesia’s Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, Mattis “will try to remove” limitations on co-operation between Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) and the US military.

But non-aligned Indonesia and the U.S. have very different world perspectives. They differ sharply regarding US policies and actions in the Middle East– especially the recent move of its embassy to Jerusalem. While the U.S. sees ASEAN as a useful bulwark against China, Indonesia’s current interest in leading ASEAN and in regionalism itself seem to have faded. US-Indonesian military ties have been troubled.

In the late 1990s they were suspended due to alleged human rights abuses by the Indonesian military. More important, many Indonesians in high places remain suspicious of U.S. motives and worried about the potential destabilizing effect of the US-China competition. They want Washington “to exercise restraint.” Ryacudu has suggested that ‘if regional countries can manage the South China Sea on their own, there is no need to involve others.’

Vietnam also has sharp differences with China regarding the South China Sea. Vietnam does have a policy of “diversification and multilateralization of relations with the major powers and Mattis appealed to Vietnam’s concerns with China. But it is steadfastly non-aligned. Indeed, its long standing policy is the “three nos” – no participation in military alliances, no foreign military bases on Vietnamese territory, and no reliance on one country to fight against another. The U.S. may well provide more arms and engage in more naval interaction, port visits and intelligence sharing – but these gestures are a far cry from enlisting Vietnam in an anti China coalition.

They say the longest journey begins with the first step. The first step for the U.S. regarding Southeast Asia is to recognize reality. Then it needs to adjust its policies and approach accordingly. Ignoring reality is both delusional and dangerous.

*Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China. This piece first appeared in the IPP Review.

By Akash Vashishtha and Rohit Wadhwaney

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged ASEAN leaders to strengthen maritime collaboration with his country during a speech here on Thursday that was widely believed to be aimed at countering China’s growing influence in South and Southeast Asia.

Modi was hosting the leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at a two-day a summit in New Delhi to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Indo-ASEAN relations.

“India shares the ASEAN vision for rule-based societies and values of peace. We are committed to work[ing] with ASEAN nations to enhance collaboration in the maritime domain,” Modi told the visiting leaders from the Southeast Asian bloc.

They included Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha.

“Our shared voyage goes back thousands of years. Your collective presence in India has touched every Indian,” Modi said.

As the summit ended on Thursday, India and the ASEAN bloc issued a joint statement, the Delhi Declaration, in which they agreed to “further strengthen and deepen the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership for mutual benefit” across a wide spectrum of issues.

Among these, India and ASEAN reaffirmed their bilateral commitment “to work closely together on common regional and international security issues of mutual concern.”

The declaration stressed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, maritime safety and security, as well as “freedom of navigation and overflight in the region” and “unimpeded lawful maritime commerce” – an apparent reference to China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea.

In addition, the declaration resolved to “deepen cooperation in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, violent extremism and radicalization through information sharing, law enforcement and capacity building.”

‘Trying to gain an edge’

According to Indian security experts, Prime Minister Modi used the occasion to articulate India’s so-called “Look East” doctrine. This aims to expand ties with countries in East Asia to contain China’s growing influence in the region.

In South Asia, Beijing is building and financing mega-infrastructure projects in neighboring countries, such as a major port and highways in Sri Lanka, that are seen as a direct challenge to India’s influence in its own back yard.

“The Indian government is now building a momentum with strategic initiatives. These [ASEAN] nations also view China as a challenge and are hoping to find a trustworthy, reliable partner to counter China’s bullying tactics,” Vinay Kaura, coordinator at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Rajasthan, told BenarNews, referring to tensions over the South China Sea.

Of the 10 ASEAN nations, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei have territorial claims over the sea, which China claims in its entirety. The other five countries that form the ASEAN bloc are Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

In 1962, neighboring Asian giants India and China fought a full-blown war that killed over 2,000 people during the course of a month, according to official figures. Decades later, the two countries continue to have skirmishes over territorial disputes along India’s northeast border.

“India is trying to gain an edge at this time by trying to exert more pressure on China. India is left with no option but to send this message that it will not be a silent spectator to China’s bullying,” Kaura said.

“But at the same time, India needs to garner enough economic resources and modernization to help these countries in order to ensure that the South China Sea remains free for navigation,” he added.

A senior official of India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on condition of anonymity that discussions at the summit were oriented toward issues of maritime security between India and ASEAN in view of China’s military assertiveness in the 3.5 million sq-km (1.4 million sq-mile) resource-rich sea.

“Humanitarian and disaster relief efforts, security cooperation and freedom of navigation will be the key focus for our maritime cooperation,” Modi said at the summit, as he unveiled postage stamps marking the silver jubilee of India-ASEAN friendship.

Modi’s statement came a day before India celebrates its 69th Republic Day. It will honor the leaders of the 10 ASEAN nations as chief guests during a parade in New Delhi that showcases the country’s military and cultural prowess.

The unusual move to have 10 foreign dignitaries as chief guests, instead of one, is a strategic decision by the Modi government to enhance India’s foothold in the Asia-Pacific region, which is largely influenced by China, Kaura said.

Indian honors for Southeast Asians

During the summit, Modi held separate bilateral meetings with President Duterte, Prime Minister Najib, Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

He also announced the Padma Shri Award – India’s fourth highest civilian honor – for one person from each ASEAN country, in what was described as an “unprecedented and symbolic gesture of India-ASEAN bonding” by the government.

The awardees include Nyoman Nuarta, an Indonesian sculptor; Ramli-bin Ibrahim, an Indonesian dancer; Jose Concepcion, a businessman from the Philippines; and Somdet Khottayan, the supreme patriarch of Thailand’s Buddhist clergy.

“The government is only underlining a process and a policy initiative. There is hardly any change,” Praveen Jha, a professor at the Center for Economic Studies and Planning at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told BenarNews, referring to India’s relationship with ASEAN. “It seems India is just trying to play a discourse on China.”

Bitcoin’s price has increase more than 12-fold in the past four years, and the combined market of crypto-assets is now valued at more than $500 billion. Such valuations have caused many to think that the market is overheated.

“I tend to think of bitcoin as an interesting experiment, not a permanent feature of our lives,” said Robert J. Shiller, Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA. Schiller compared the market to a speculative bubble that rouses public interest. “It involves contagious stories about people making a lot of money.”

But beyond the hype of a single crypto-currency, thousands of other digital currencies have been introduced, and blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, carries the potential of providing decentralized, incorruptible ledger, which could be used in a variety of other contexts.

Whether or not crypto-currencies offer a widespread, scalable alternative to traditional currencies depends greatly on their efficiency of use and on how well they function as a store of value. Volatility in the bitcoin market carries risks for those who hold their savings in the market, and many prefer to see bitcoin as an asset, rather than a replacement for central-bank-created currency.

Regulators around the world have raised concern about the way in which crypto-currencies make it easy to move money anonymously. As such, they provide a useful tool for illicit activities, such as money laundering.

“I do think [crypto-currency] needs to be regulated, just like anything I would want to become mainstream should be regulated,” said Neil Rimer, General Partner and Co-Founder, Index Ventures, Switzerland. Regulation could be one way of increasing public trust in the experiment.

Not only are nations seeking to regulate the use of crypto-currency, many are also seeking to take advantage of the disruptive innovation associated with it. For example, Sweden is considering the creation of its own digital currency, an “e-krona,” which would complement traditional notes and coins, said Cecilia Skingsley, Deputy Governor of the Swedish Central Bank (Sveriges Riksbank). “Cash is going out of fashion very quickly,” she added, and digital currencies could provide consumers greater convenience and, potentially, efficiency.

Some developing nations have also seen the potential of becoming part of the crypto-currency movement. “A lot of smaller economies now – they start to think if we just make our regulation a little bit more crypto-friendly we can attract a lot of investment and a lot of talent,” said Jennifer Zhu Scott, Principal, Radian Partners, Hong Kong SAR.

The staying power and pricing of bitcoin suggest that crypto-assets will continue to have a disruptive impact on global finance, but they raise more questions than answers about what shape that disruption will take.

Chances of a heart attack are increased six-fold during the first seven days after detection of laboratory-confirmed influenza infection, according to a new study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Public Health Ontario (PHO).

“Our findings are important because an association between influenza and acute myocardial infarction reinforces the importance of vaccination,” said Dr. Jeff Kwong, a scientist at ICES and PHO and lead author of the study.

In the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers found a significant association between acute respiratory infections, particularly influenza, and acute myocardial infarction.

The risk may be higher for older adults, patients with influenza B infections, and patients experiencing their first heart attack. The researchers also found elevated risk – albeit not as high as for influenza – with infection from other respiratory viruses.

“Our findings, combined with previous evidence that influenza vaccination reduces cardiovascular events and mortality, support international guidelines that advocate for influenza immunization in those at high risk of a heart attack,” said Kwong.

The researchers looked at nearly 20,000 Ontario adult cases of laboratory-confirmed influenza infection from 2009 to 2014 and identified 332 patients who were hospitalized for a heart attack within one year of a laboratory-confirmed influenza diagnosis.

“People at risk of heart disease should take precautions to prevent respiratory infections, and especially influenza, through measures including vaccinations and handwashing,” said Kwong.

The researchers add that patients should not delay medical evaluation for heart symptoms particularly within the first week of an acute respiratory infection.

Billionaire investor George Soros says the Trump administration is “a danger to the world,” and the opposition the president has garnered will make him a “temporary phenomenon” which “will disappear in 2020 or even sooner.”

During a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, Soros, 87, who heads the Soros Fund Management and Open Society Foundations, slammed President Donald Trump and his leadership, CNBC reports.

While laying into Trump, who is also in Davos for the forum, Soros mentioned the current drama unfolding between North Korea and the US.

The billionaire said Trump’s handling of the situation with North Korea is moving the US towards nuclear war, because it is unwilling to accept North Korea as a new nuclear power.

Soros added that US actions against the small Far East country “creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed.” Such a rapid development could “induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority preemptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war.”

Soros called this possible move by the US “a self-contradictory strategy,” CNBC reports.

However, Soros didn’t stop there on the dangers of Trump’s presidency.

“Not only the survival of open society but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” he said, CNBC reports. “The rise of leadership such as Kim Jong-un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the United States have much to do with this.”

Soros even gave his advice on how to thwart a nuclear war by suggesting a “carrot and stick” approach, in which North Korea is rewarded by the US for holding off on developing its nuclear weapons further than it already has.

Soros also predicted that Trump’s stint in the White House may not last a full term.

“Clearly I consider the Trump administration a danger to the world,” Soros said. “But I regard it as a purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020 or even sooner.”

The billionaire investor said he expects a “landslide” win by the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, the Straits Times reports.

Earlier this month, Soros said the European Union is on the verge of collapse, and said he believes Russia is becoming “a resurgent nationalist power.”

Late last year, one left-leaning political group backed by Soros called MoveOn was planning a nationwide “take to the streets”protest in the event Trump fired special counsel Robert Mueller before Christmas. Mueller is overseeing the probe into alleged ties between Trump and Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

The announcement came even after Trump said he was not considering such a move.

In a six-month study recently concluded, a research unit affiliated with two hospital institutions and a university in Ottawa found that a reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked daily also reduced a smoker’s dependence on opioids.

The study, “Management and Point-of-Care for Tobacco Dependence (PROMPT): a feasibility mixed methods Community Based Participatory Action Research project in Ottawa, Canada,” was published in the latest issue of BMJ Open. This latest research by The Bridge Engagement Centre (The Bridge), affiliated with The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, followed a previous study at The Bridge of 856 participants drawn primarily from the homeless community.

When that study revealed that 96 per cent of the participants smoked, compared to just 9 percent of the Ottawa population, The Bridge undertook the second study to determine if it could reduce the prevalence of addiction among the homeless.

“The majority of the homeless are at high risk,” said Smita Pakhale, MD, FRCPC, MSc, Clinician-Scientist Lead at The Bridge, and a member of the American Thoracic Society’s Tobacco Action Committee. “If they have housing, they fear losing it; 79 percent have no ready access to food; mental health issues, caused by stress and/or generational problems, are up to eight times more prevalent among the homeless than in the general population. They cope with these problems by turning to caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes, which are readily available.”

The second study, The Participatory Research in Ottawa: Management and Point-of-Care for Tobacco Dependence (PROMPT), followed 80 of Ottawa’s most vulnerable residents for 6 months while providing peer support, regular counselling with a mental health nurse, free Nicotine Replacement Therapy (nicotine patch, gum, inhaler), and peer-led life-skills workshops.

The content of the study and its administration was a joint effort by The Bridge and the participants who were trained in the ethics of recruitment and management. This joint action, Dr. Pakhale said, placed participants in the driver’s seat which built their confidence and helped them to focus on a productive future.

PROMPT’s findings included a reduction in the participants’ daily cigarette use from an average of 20 a day at the start of the study to the average of nine a day at the study’s end. There was also an 18.8 percent reduction in the use of opioids such as heroine, fentanyl and Oxycontin.

More than a third of PROMPT participants reported an overall improvement in quality of life, including returning to work, greater community engagement and community support, accessing drug treatment programs and school enrolment.

The Bridge research team will expand the scale of the PROMPT project in an upcoming e-cigarette project funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research.

“The PROMPT project demonstrates that a community-based tobacco dependence program can foster positive life changes,” said Dr. Pakhale. “Moreover, PROMPT’s patient engagement and tobacco management model, a whole-person strategy, can be used to deal with the growing opioid crisis in North America.”

By Terri Moon Cronk

As Turkey continues its attack on Kurdish forces along the Syrian border town of Afrin, the Defense Department says the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is the common threat in the region, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White told reporters Thursday.

Published reports say Turkey launched the Afrin military operation Jan. 20.

“[We] are working very closely with Turkey,” White said. “They are a NATO ally, and they have legitimate security concerns, so we’re going to continue to engage with them. It’s very important for all parties to remember that the common threat is ISIS, and we need all parties to focus on that mission.”

Inducing Friction

“Turkish operations in Ephraim and all operations in Ephraim that have the effect of inducing friction into the equation, of making it hard to focus on why we’re in Syria — which is the defeat of ISIS in the Euphrates River valley — are a negative thing,” Joint Staff Director Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said.

“[We] also recognize Turkey has a legitimate national security interest and they’re very close to the problem. They’re the only NATO ally that actually has an active insurgency operating on their territory, so we understand all of those things,” the general said.

McKenzie emphasized that the United States has not trained or provided equipment for any of the Kurds in the Ephraim pocket, adding, “We’re focused on the Euphrates River valley operations to the south and to the east.”

The United States is trying hard to accommodate Turkey’s national security interests with the reasons why the U.S. military is in Syria, the general said.

Continuing Discussions

“And we think to a large degree, there’s overlap,” he added. “There [are] certainly areas that we disagree with, but we think we have an opportunity to perhaps come together and those discussions are continuing.”

The situation between Turkey and Kurdish fighters is a “distraction,” White said. “We have to focus as allies on the mission at hand,” she added, “and that’s defeating ISIS.”

The United States is helping Turkey with its active insurgency, she said. “We’re talking to them about those security concerns. We take them very seriously.”

But again noting that the common threat is ISIS, she said, the job is not done. “[We] need to get everyone focused on that,” she added. “And we will continue to talk to Turkey. We ask that Turkey de-escalate. But again, the focus, the priority for us, is to defeat ISIS.”

The worldwide race to create more, better and reliable quantum processors is progressing fast, as a team of TU Delft scientists led by Professor Vandersypen has realised yet again. In a neck-and-neck race with their competitors, they showed that quantum information of an electron spin can be transported to a photon, in a silicon quantum chip. This is important in order to connect quantum bits across the chip and allowing to scale up to large numbers of qubits. Their work was published in the journal Science.

The quantum computer of the future will be able to carry out computations far beyond the capacity of today’s computers. Quantum superpositions and entanglement of quantum bits (qubits) make it possible to perform parallel computations. Scientists and companies worldwide are engaged in creating increasingly better quantum chips with more and more quantum bits. QuTech in Delft is working hard on several types of quantum chips.

Familiar material

The core of the quantum chips is made of silicon. “This is a material that we are very familiar with,” explained Professor Lieven Vandersypen of QuTech and the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft, “Silicon is widely used in transistors and so can be found in all electronic devices.”

But silicon is also a very promising material for quantum technology.

PhD candidate Guoji Zheng said, “We can use electrical fields to capture single electrons in silicon for use as quantum bits (qubits). This is an attractive material as it ensures the information in the qubit can be stored for a long time.”

Large systems

Making useful computations requires large numbers of qubits and it is this upscaling to large numbers that is providing a challenge worldwide.

“To use a lot of qubits at the same time, they need to be connected to each other; there needs to be good communication”, explained researcher Nodar Samkharadze. At present the electrons that are captured as qubits in silicon can only make direct contact with their immediate neighbours. Nodar: “That makes it tricky to scale up to large numbers of qubits.”

Neck-and-neck race

Other quantum systems use photons for long-distance interactions. For years, this was also a major goal for silicon. Only in recent years have various scientists made progress on this. The Delft scientists have now shown that a single electron spin and a single photon can be coupled on a silicon chip. This coupling makes it possible in principle to transfer quantum information between a spin and a photon.

Guoji Zheng said, “This is important to connect distant quantum bits on a silicon chip, thereby paving the way to upscaling quantum bits on silicon chips.”

On to the next step

Vandersypen is proud of his team: “My team achieved this result in a relatively short time and under great pressure from worldwide competition.” It is a true Delft breakthrough: “The substrate is made in Delft, the chip created in the Delft cleanrooms, and all measurements carried out at QuTech,” added Nodar Samkharadze. The scientists are now working hard on the next steps.

Vandersypen said, “The goal now is to transfer the information via a photon from on electron spin to another.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting that, “Israel has always aimed to be a ‘light unto other nations’ – we can offer security, food, clear water and many technological solutions.”

“I hope we can help people around the world and in our corner of the world,” he said. Israel is more closely aligned with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and several other countries in the Middle East than it has been for decades, said Netanyahu. One element of common ground is the stance against Iran. Another element is the desire of neighboring countries to benefit from Israeli civilian technology in areas such as agriculture and water. “There is a great promise for regional peace in developments such as these,” he said.

On Iran, the prime minister said he sees the present nuclear deal as deeply flawed. Just because a bad deal was signed, it doesn’t mean it has to be retained, Netanyahu added. There was a similar deal until recently with North Korea and the outcome, he said, has not been good. “The most important thing for Israel is to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.”

On Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that peace can only be based on truth and reality – denying that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is “a fantasy”. He continued: “The seat of the Israeli government has always been in Jerusalem. [US] President Trump made history by recognizing history.” Under any arrangement we will of course keep the status quo in terms of access to holy sites of all the major faiths, he added.

On relations with the Palestinians, sticking points include security, Hamas and ISIS. When Israel removed settlements from Gaza, Netanyahu said, Hamas came in and fired thousands of rockets at Tel Aviv and other cities. Israel does not want to see a repeat of that and is proposing a different model, he added. “Let Palestinians govern themselves, but we need to maintain security.” This is a realistic model for an enduring peace, he said.

By Lisa Ferdinando

The United States and Vietnam are “like-minded partners” that have a forward-looking relationship, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Thursday as he concluded a visit to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

Mattis and Vietnamese Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich met Thursday to discuss regional security issues. The secretary said he also met with the president of Vietnam and the general secretary of the Communist Party there.

“This is the normal coordination, collaboration, consultation, as we work out a relationship with Vietnam, and leaving things in the past as our starting point,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him en route to Honolulu after leaving Vietnam.

He said the United States and Vietnam share values based on mutual respect and common interests, including freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and recognition of national sovereignty.

“We’re finally finalizing details on the possible visit of U.S. carriers going to Vietnam sometime this spring,” Mattis said. Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said Mattis and Lich agreed to work toward a visit by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to Da Nang in March.

Enhancing US-Vietnam Defense Cooperation

At the meeting, the two leaders committed to enhance defense cooperation based on a three-year plan of action agreed upon in October, with a focus on maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well as peacekeeping operations, White said.

Mattis and Lich also noted recent progress on the Cooperative Humanitarian and Medical Storage Initiative and robust Coast Guard cooperation, including the arrival of a former U.S. Coast Guard cutter in Vietnam in December, she added.

Mattis highlighted the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which reaffirms the U.S. commitment to work with partners such as Vietnam to sustain the rules-based order in a free and open Indo-Pacific region, White said.

Mattis also expressed appreciation for Vietnam’s close support to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency mission in Hanoi, White said, as it works to recover U.S. personnel missing from the war. The secretary is committed to working with Vietnam to address remaining legacy of war issues, White added.

Honolulu Meeting with South Korean Counterpart

Mattis said he will meet in Hawaii with the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Navy Adm. Harry Harris, as well as with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo.

The U.S. and South Korea have an “ironclad alliance,” Mattis said. Discussions are to include denuclearization efforts on the Korean Peninsula, in light of three unanimous United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea, he said.

The secretary highlighted diplomatic efforts on the North Korean issue, noting he was recently in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability of the Korean Peninsula.

“We’ll continue to hold the line and provide credible military options so the diplomats can speak from a position of strength and persuasion,” he said.

In a wide-ranging conversation with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria at the World Economic Forum, His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan described US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as “a complication for Jordan” and for a Palestinian peace plan – even as he pinned hopes on the viability of an eventual American peace proposal and underscored the need for US participation in the peace process.

Asked by Zakaria about US President Donald Trump’s statement that the Iran sanctions waiver he recently approved would be the “last one”, King Abdullah II said, “The Jordanian position is that we have been fully supportive of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East for everyone,” adding that “we understand the position of the Europeans and the US, and hope they come to a common understanding.”

Describing Jerusalem as a city sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, he said that, despite the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, “We cannot have a peace process or a peace solution without the participation of the United States.” He added, however, that “the hiccup is the Palestinians don’t think the US is an honest broker.”

When asked whether he thought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was serious about a two-state solution, the King responded, “We have to reserve judgment. I have my scepticism.” A one-state solution, he suggested, could only be judged on whether equal rights would be granted to Palestinian Arabs.

King Abdullah II reflected on the Arab Spring, saying it was “started by young people who wanted change – change that they deserved,” but that it was “hijacked by religious organizations with an extremist agenda.” The current turmoil of the Middle East contrasts poorly with Africa, he said: “They have trade, they are combating terrorism. Africa has moved beyond where we are in the Middle East. When you look at Africa, they’re showing us the right direction.”