Freedom is, arguably enough, the most cherished right of mankind. And, among them all guaranteed by the Indian Constitution under Article 19, it’s the Freedom of Speech and Expression that fashionably affects all Indians at the onset. Why, even the exercise of dissent towards the violation of any Freedom pivots upon the most basic of them all…Speech and Expression.

It is this very Freedom that primarily guarantees the Press as the Media is popularly known, the right to express. Despite popularly misunderstood, the Press in India has no special rights to express as distinct from the others yet exercises it in myriad ways tempered with a typical boldness symbolic of the Fourth Estate.

It is this Freedom that empowers the Fourth Estate to hold its own in face of Opposition from a powerful Legislature; a hard-nosed Executive or a rigid Judiciary. If the Press as Media was popularly known in the yesteryears did not exercise the Freedom of Speech and Expression with such alacrity, millions of human interest stories speaking reams of oppression, exploitation even trysts with freedom struggles and unlawful regimes would not have seen the light of the day.

It isn’t that the Press in India has the freedom to write about anything or report on any issue in any manner they like. Like all other Freedoms, the one of Speech and Expression isn’t without fetters. Article 19, that guarantees the Freedom, also lays down restrictions to the same. So, any act in the exercise of one’s Freedom of Speech and Expression is restricted if it compromises the Sovereignty and Integrity of the State; Security of the State; Friendly Relations with Foreign Countries; Public Order; Decency and Morality; Contempt of Court; Defamation and Incitement to an Offence.

And concurrently, the showdowns that members of the media have with the law and polity are triggered by the restrictions whose reasonableness too aren’t open to generic interpretation but are to be examined by a judiciary which alone is qualified to do so.
While the Press aka Media for all practical purposes had its role chalked out and demarcated for legal purposes, the emergence of the Social Media, the range of associated tools and its sporadic use across platforms has spawned an entirely new and rapidly burgeoning generation exercising the all-pervading Freedom of Speech and Expression, often even without realising the implications of it.

Oddly and not surprisingly, the restrictions to the Freedom of Speech and Expression mostly exercised by the Traditional Media were peppered with a sense of logic, equity and common sense more than the understanding of any lofty jurisprudence, was lost on the new entity – the Social Media.

The emergence of Social Media comprised not just the easy availability of platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr and others, it was a lot more. These being new entities, the rules of practice and associated pitfalls weren’t exactly known and, instead, evolved along the way. Now, as Social Media raced ahead almost concurrently beyond borders working their ways in legal structures, they provided no relief for the Indian state to avail a point of reference. Also, with the range of diversity in reach and use, an Indian context say in Gujarat was drastically unique in comparison to a Californian one in the United States of America and in, say, the county town Dumfries in Scotland. It was, like they say, each to its own.

So, countries across the world developed their own trends and concurrently emerged leaders in Social Media who laid the foundation for others to follow. Also, their reach and influence spread swiftly and cheaply to farthest corners of the world. It isn’t difficult or far-fetched for a Russian writer now to be influenced by the processes of logic laid down by say a Saudi influencer and vice versa.

That said, the laws of Freedoms particularly that of Freedom of Speech and Expression too face challenges that they were simply not geared for. The threats to national stability and incitement to violence come now from quarters that are way beyond jurisdiction or control.

So, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria popularly known as ISIS began to ‘source and recruit’ in Indian states through Social Media breaking the law here but remained safely beyond legal censure or apprehension owing to their physical position. Now, while the State may not have a Law to apprehend a situation that’s distinctly unique and sudden in threat, it can bring about an Ordinance or a Bill to address an issue that threatens the democratic fibre of the nation or simply addresses a legal lacuna. Like, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 that came into force following a national outrage after New Delhi gang rape that occurred on December 16th December 2012.

Stalking, even online, attracted penal attention. Now, its reach as an offence could be construed as a violation of the accused’s ‘Freedom of Speech and Expression’. Social Media’s scope being overwhelmingly comprehensive and increasingly expansive following the surge in ‘shared rights’ and ‘implicit terms,’ the violation too gets shared and extended to parties often even unaware of the extent of their legal liability.

Also, the Freedom of Speech and Expression is directly at risk when organisations, particularly so, Publications and Media companies explicitly prevent their employees from posting anything adverse or against company policy on Social Media platforms. That said, the best kept secret in the industry isn’t really opposed, contested or even resisted for obvious reasons. And, just for the record, the ‘bullying’ isn’t purely an Indian occurrence: Detailed editorial guidelines of the BBC, CNN even New York Times lay down the rules for employees in what could be considered a direct violation of one’s Freedom of Speech and Expression.

Never in India has been such a surge in dissent and polarisation across industries. If one were to take Social Media platforms seriously, there is extreme lawlessness across India where all Freedoms also, for all, are flouted almost as a rule. Every second Social Media post in the last three years has been peppered with Fears of Censorship, Government Interference in day to day lives and an Autocratic leadership at the Centre. That said, following every election that everyone in the Social Media tout as ‘the turning point’ and ‘posed to shock’ the government in question, a single party comes to power in overwhelming terms.

This only went on to indicate at the very onset, and now, underline clearly, that Social Media and most of its players seem sadly oblivious of the electorate’s views. There is a sharp disconnect between Social Media fears and the position at the grassroots. While the Freedom of Speech and Expression is said to be curbed and destroyed by the Centre, the allegations towards the same are preposterously ear-splittingly loud and vitriolic across platforms, defeating their own premise. If the fears were true, there would be silence. The reality across Social Media is, today, the most belligerent and for politically motivated reasons. Whether it’s the murder of a Gauri Lankesh, the stalking of a Varnika Kundu or the rape of an Indian nun in West Bengal, the Social Media has exercised in excessively vitriolic manners, the Freedom of Speech and Expression making wild conjectures and insidious allegations towards a select section even without basis.

The Centre maintained a silence even while the blames fell flat and its stand was vindicated by the truth that eventually tumbled out as has been the case.

To individual Muslim women who say wearing a head scarf or a head-to-toe Burqa is a personal choice, I say, I respect it. To Muslim women or men who pretend that the black seas with which the mullahs of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have been flooding the streets of urban India in recent weeks — demanding scrapping of the Triple Talaq Bill and “non-interference in Shariah laws” — is simply a sum total of the individual choices of a multitude of women, I say, you are either ill-informed or you lie. There is no denying the fact that most women who “choose” to invisibilise themselves in public do so because they have been brainwashed into believing that such is Allah’s command.

Nothing could be further from the truth. All Islam asks, of both women and men, is that they dress modestly. So argued the Lahore-based Maulvi Syed Mumtaz Ali Khan in his book Huqooq-e-Niswan (Rights of Women) published well over a century ago, in 1898. Even the late Sudanese Hassan Al-Turabi — a religious scholar, an Islamist accused by some of promoting terrorism in Islam’s name — said the same thing in 1973 in a paper.

Yes, there also exists the Burqa of individual choice. But there is mostly the Burqa which has spread like an epidemic across the Muslim world in recent decades thanks to Saudi petro dollars. Now, surprise, surprise, comes the ruling of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: “Women in Saudi Arabia need not wear head cover or the Abaya (a Burqa variant), as long as their attire is ‘decent and respectful’.”

If there is no mention of the Burqa in the Quran, nor is there a word about skull caps and the beard. Yes, there is a Hadith of the Prophet about Muslims keeping the beard and shaving off the moustache. But Muslims would do themselves a world of good by learning to distinguish the substantial from the superficial. For example, the Prophet also said: “He is not a believer whose stomach is filled while the neighbour to his side goes hungry.”

In parts of rural Maharashtra (elsewhere in the country too) even today, it is impossible to distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims, male or female, from the way they dress. The Burqa, the beard and the skull cap threaten this commonness. Does not the Ulema’s promotion of an exclusivist, monochromatic “Muslimness” wherein culture and religion are fused together, help in caricaturing, stereotyping an entire community?

Allah knows there is a long journey ahead for Indian Muslims on the road to reform and modernity. Yes, everyone has the right to question questionable practices at all times. But in these times of virulent Hindu majoritarianism when far too many yesterday’s “liberal Hindus” have turned into today’s “Hindu nationalists”, genuine liberal democrats owe it to themselves to choose their words and their forum responsibly. In a religion-soaked society, the liberal also needs to be clear about whether he is battling intolerance, obscurantism and communalism in the name of religion or religion itself.

To the “Hindu liberal” who sees no difference between the Trishul and the Burqa, I say, perhaps you can learn a lesson from a Norwegian example.

On the night of January 26, 2001, a 15-year-old African Norwegian school student, Benjamin Hermansen, was stabbed to death by two white-skinned neo-Nazis in Oslo, the country’s capital. This first-ever recorded racial killing in Norway “shook the moral self-assurance of this predominantly white-skinned country”. Hermansen’s murder triggered a “gigantic public outrage”. The Oslo Anti-racist Centre and the Norwegian Red Cross called for a torch-lit protest march on February 1. The turnout in response was such as Oslo had not seen since the anti-fascist mobilisation at the end of the Second World War.

Braving the biting cold, over 40,000 people — 8 per cent of the entire population of Oslo — turned up for the procession. The protest was headed by none less than the then Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg. Keeping him company was Oslo´s bishop, Gunnar Stålsett, and the city´s mayor, Per Ditlev Simonsen. “This is not our way, we shall not tolerate hate crimes,” vowed the prime minister at the rally. There were protests elsewhere in the country too. In the days that followed music concerts were held in many cities in memory of Hermansen.

As one report at the time observed, “In a tragic way, Benjamin has made Norwegian history. The Norwegian public has made a clear statement: This murder will not be forgotten. And it will have clear consequences”.

On January 17, 2002, an Oslo court sentenced the two accused neo-Nazis, Joe Erling Jahr and Ole Nicolai Kvisler to imprisonment for 16 years and15 years respectively. An accomplice, Veronica Andreassen, 18, saw Hermansen first and pointed him out as a suitable target for the group’s rage against “foreigners”, but she did not physically join the attack. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

Let’s return to the land of the Mahatma where nothing shakes “our moral self-assurance”. Norway in 2001 refused to forget one victim of hate crime. In post-Independence India, the victims of mass crimes are counted in hundreds at a time or with sickening regularity. And they are all too quickly forgotten.

By the United Nations’ definition of genocide, Indian democracy has the dubious distinction of subjecting its religious minorities to recurring genocidal attacks with the connivance, even sponsorship, of the state: Nellie 1983 (Muslims), Delhi and across India, 1984 (Sikhs), Bhagalpur, Bihar 1989 (Muslims), Mumbai 1992-93 (Muslims), Gujarat 2002 (Muslims), Kandhamal, Odisha 2008 (Christians), Muzaffarnagar, 2013 (Muslims). With the exception of Gujarat to an extent, the perpetrators and masterminds of the mass crimes elsewhere have gone unpunished. In recent years, we have evolved a new norm: Out-sourcing of violence to lynch-mobs.

Minorities in any democracy have three major concerns: Security, equity (non-discrimination) and identity (religion, culture). An Indian Muslim today feels more insecure than ever before. As the Sachar Committee’s report amply demonstrated, Indian Muslims have been victims of institutionalised discrimination for decades. With little security and lots of discrimination, clinging to identity seems to be the easy thing to do.

Muslims need to be told by their well-wishers that such defensive defiance is of little use; it detracts from the struggle for equal citizenship rights. But to a “liberal Hindu” who in today’s context says asking Muslims to keep their Burqas and skull caps away from a political rally is a principled liberal position, I say, this is not liberalism but capitulation to Hindu majoritarianism. Go take a lesson from Norway first about what it means to be liberal.

And to the parties that call themselves secular, I can do no better than quote from what Suhas Palshikar wrote in these columns: “It is not sad that Sonia’s Congress appears set to abandon the Muslims, the real sadness is that the Congress for long intellectually failed to realise and politically failed to practise a robust combination of reform and citizenship.” What is true of the Congress holds equally true of all the other somewhat-secular parties, the Left included.

This article was published by New Age Islam.

Good afternoon. I would like to thank Governor Linde and his colleagues at Banco de España for their hospitality and for co-hosting this conference on Spain’s journey from recovery from crisis to renewed confidence. There are many useful lessons that can be learned from Spain’s experience, so it is fitting to come together and reflect on the challenges overcome, and the challenges ahead as Spain builds upon its impressive economic gains.

Over the past 20 years, the world has learned the hard way always to be alert that the next economic crisis may be right around the corner. That has taught us two things: First, the importance of having strong buffers that enable a country to respond to difficult shocks. That means maintaining strong defenses like healthy fiscal buffers and robust capital levels in financial systems.

But we have also seen that playing defense alone is not enough. So, the second lesson is to make institutions and markets flexible enough to ensure more resilient and speedier recoveries. That was a key takeaway in this morning’s discussion of fiscal policies and labor markets. All countries will need resilience and flexibility to respond to a world changing at a breathtaking speed, driven by new technologies and by globalization. What that means in practice is to create a policy framework to encourage and make the most of innovation and economic dynamism by facilitating experimentation, while at the same time ensuring that people’s skills, and markets and institutions are flexible enough to absorb the inevitable creative destruction that the future holds.

I will return to both these points in a moment, but first a word about the European setting.  IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde spoke in Berlin last week about European integration—both the successes and the remaining gaps in the Euro Area’s financial architecture.

Euro Area Financial Architecture

Those include the need to create a unified capital market, to complete the banking union, and to establish a central fiscal capacity. She advocated a rainy-day fund. Building these buffers at the European level are a key unfinished reform agenda item.

Strengthening the architecture of the euro area has been and remains a key priority for all European countries, because each has a stake in a healthy and prosperous Europe. But none of that relieves national governments of the responsibility for addressing vulnerabilities in their own sphere and promoting higher levels of growth and well being for their own citizens.

That is what I would like to focus on today—how national policies have been essential to recovery within the policy framework defined by the Euro Area. So, let’s take a moment to look back at how Spain responded to adversity over the past decade, and to take note of Spain’s significant economic achievements—most notably the resurgence of international competitiveness.

Spain’s experience demonstrates what can be gained when a country’s leaders work with common purpose to increase the flexibility of its economy.  And it is instructive for other countries that may face similar challenges.

In the run-up to the Global Financial Crisis, this country and its lenders, seduced by the low rates and ample credit availability that came with currency union, generated an overheating of demand, an unsustainable real estate bubble, and rapidly rising private debt. Wage growth outstripping productivity led to a 30 percent faster increase in Spain’s unit labor costs, compared with countries like Germany, ultimately making exports uncompetitive.

By 2012, output was plummeting along with real estate prices, the construction industry had crashed, and unemployment was above 25 percent—higher for young people. Banks were failing, and the government’s fiscal position was eroding rapidly as it sought to combat the crisis. Fortunately, Spain had a significant fiscal buffer in its modest pre-crisis public debt that helped it to address the aftermath of the boom.

Spain’s membership in the European Monetary Union meant that the standard countercyclical policy responses of exchange rate devaluation and loose monetary policy were not available to the Spanish authorities. I don’t want to make light of Europe’s eventual contribution to Spanish recovery. The ECB crucially opened the money supply taps in 2012, and the ESM helped to restore financial stability. These supportive policies from Europe were important catalysts in Spain’s recovery.

Internal Devaluation

But as a member of a currency union, overheating and a loss of competitiveness left Spain facing the daunting task of achieving an internal devaluation, which is economic adjustment with your hands tied behind your back.

As you know, this was accomplished with tough fiscal measures and labor market reforms that supported wage moderation and greater employer flexibility. Bank restructuring reduced NPLs and shifted lending to more productive purposes. So, Spain used its buffers, and created flexibility where it was most needed to improve its external competitiveness.

The results speak for themselves: growth at more than 3 percent for the past three years, and GDP above its pre-crisis level. It’s also worth noting that per capita GDP in PPP terms has reached an all-time high. With its recent acceleration, Spain is steadily making up for losses suffered during the crisis in the convergence process with richer European economies.

Exports relative to GDP are now 10 percentage points above 2007 levels. The economy is also more competitive, with the costs of Spain’s exports relative to its trading partners reduced nearly 15 percent in real terms. In contrast, countries like Germany and France saw little movement after the crisis.

Most importantly, 1.8 million jobs have been created—about half of those lost in the crisis and about one-fourth of all Euro Area job creation in the past four years. However, youth unemployment remains unacceptably high.

A Successful Adjustment

Spain’s successful response to the crisis demonstrates that internal adjustment within a monetary union is possible. It was a difficult adjustment for the Spanish people. But the Spanish economic house was in danger of collapsing in a storm, and Spain managed to shore it up.

Now, the global and European economies are recovering and strengthening. So, as we at the IMF like to say, the time has come to fix the roof while the sun is shining.

Taking bold measures during a crisis, as Spain did, is extremely difficult; taking bold measures during the good times can be even harder, as there may be less political urgency to act.

But that is where Spain stands now—the reform imperative is, of course, to preserve what has been achieved, but also to avoid losing momentum and to push ahead.

The strong economic performance seen over the past few years masks weaknesses that still leave the country vulnerable to shocks.

Today, with the sun shining on the global economy, Spain is receiving some lift from strong foreign demand.  This is not a time to take global growth for granted, as a likely medium-term scenario involves some slowdown.  The present recovery has a strong cyclical component.  As that cycle proceeds, global interest rates are headed higher, and financial conditions tighter.  At the same time, the multilateral trade system, which has been a source of growth and jobs for millions of people, is subject to new uncertainty amidst threats of trade actions. In short, downside risks are accumulating.

That is where bolstering Spanish defenses and rebuilding the buffers that were so critical to smoothing the process of adjustment becomes so important. Fiscal reserves that were essential during the crisis still need to be rebuilt. In particular, public debt is still close to 100 percent of GDP—almost three times higher than at the eve of the crisis. That debt burden needs to be reduced.

Ongoing Fiscal Reforms

In simple terms, the fiscal effort is not yet complete. Future adjustments can be gradual, but they should be persistent and structural in nature. The private sector, too, has more to do to strengthen its own balance sheets. The process of removing NPLs and distressed assets from bank books needs to continue, and weaker firms with high debt levels still need to strengthen their balance sheets.

At the same time, there is still the need for greater flexibility in labor markets to provide a new engine of growth. While job growth is strong, the unemployment rate remains about 16½ percent and is more than twice that for the young. More than 40 percent of all unemployed have been without a job for more than a year. And too many new jobs are temporary, with nearly half of the new hires being employed on a temporary basis. This keeps productivity and wages low in too many sectors. While the impact of informality on these statistics is hard to pinpoint, Spain surely has unfinished business in the area of labor market reform.

That reform is sure to be difficult, but it should be viewed fundamentally as an opportunity. Active labor market policies could put more people to work and help young people get a leg up. Easing conditions for employers to rely less on fixed-term contracts would encourage more investment in workers’ human capital.

In fact, the stakes are bigger than ever, because the future of work is in flux.  The whole world faces the immense challenge of adapting to the transformative effects of new technology. For countries to take advantage of the digital economy and advances in artificial intelligence, they must build a policy foundation that embraces and enables change. This applies to advanced and developing economies alike.

There is little time for hesitation or distraction.  Jack Ma, the founder and chairman of China’s Alibaba Group, recently quipped that in this world of change at a breakneck pace “if you are three years behind, you are a century behind.”

His point is clear: only countries that have their policy act together can create the right climate for new technology and new business models to flourish and be a source of new wealth.

So, what to do?

Preparing the Younger Generation

Spain needs to equip its young people with the higher productivity skills that tech-oriented businesses will demand. That requires resources for education and training—resources that will only come from sound fiscal policies that make room for investing in human capital.

Labor markets must be more flexible so that businesses can respond to a rapidly evolving marketplace. When companies are nimble and flexible, they can combine capital, technology, and people in new ways, generating growth and jobs for all of their employees and communities.

These are issues that Spain has in common with many other European countries. Everyone is grappling with the same structural problem—how to get ahead when the price of failure is lost competitiveness, the lost opportunity to raise income levels, and a lost generation of young people.

Ongoing reforms are essential for countries that hope to keep up in the global competition for markets. How countries respond to today’s hard realities may end up determining who wins and who loses:  aging work forces, inequality, lack of competition in product and service markets, misallocation of resources through the banking system, and insufficient R&D. Europe faces all of these realities.

And then there are the new opportunities:  online retailing, third-party mobile payments, Fintech, big data.  Countries must position themselves today by investing for tomorrow. And that leaves little space for failing to address the structural legacies laid bare by the financial crisis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Spain has made more progress than many other European countries. Now, taking on difficult and comprehensive reforms is the path to avoid falling behind. The combination of strong buffers and increased flexibility were essential for getting Spain through the crisis, and remain essential for the future.

The strong growth you are experiencing represents the fruits of reform—the success of policies that introduced flexibility in to the economy. But if Spain’s commitment to reform slackens, it’s hard to see this higher growth being sustained in the long term. The key to future dynamism is the continued pursuit of flexibility that encourages innovation and strengthens competitiveness and resilience.

Clearly, this requires more than any one country itself can guarantee. Global partners must avoid sudden shocks, and that includes threats to world trade from protectionism.

Europe must continue to strengthen the architecture of integration. Spain has its own challenges that it must address to enable it to ride the winds of change. We at the IMF look forward to being Spain’s partner on that journey.

Thank you.

Let’s clarify Turkey’s current installed energy power. Today, we will bring important figure to the energy market employees. The recently announced installed power generation is 85,200 megawatts. We have a peak figure – as of August 2017 – that is around 49-50 thousand MWe. The national grid system is having difficulties in supply electricity in case of local demand above 50,000 MWe. One other calculation is as follows. As of 2017, Turkey generated 300 billion Kwh electricity. If you divide that figure into total number of hours per year (8760 hours), you get an average figure of 34 thousand MWe.

There are thermal power plants that have not been operated in 85.200 MWe. There are power plants that have not generated electricity at all for the last 9-10 years. There are hydroelectric power plants which are not in operation.

There are solar power plants operating at 2500 hours a year and wind farms operating at 3000 hours a year. Availabilities of these plants are low but they are added in full capacity in installed power.

Idle power plants are not deducted from inventory list. What is the reason? Those public workers on official duty do not talk, but retirees are commenting. A long and fruitless procedure is required. Decision of political will, official decree is required for deduction.

The Hopa thermal power plant has not been in operation for the last 10 years. Tunçbilek Thermal Power Plant’s 1-2 units have not been in operation for the last 15 years and it is doubtful that they will be able to work after that. Two units of Afşin-A Thermal Power Plant have not been working for the last 10 years. Other units do not reach to full capacity. Afşin-B Thermal Power Plant repair is completed after the fire during maintenance.

Hamitabat’s old 1154 MWe combined cycle thermal power plant is not running and do not operate at full load. It does not work at all because a new plant has been rebuilt nearby from scratch and is on. But the old one still appears on the installed power list.

If you collect the power of power plants that are not working or are not taken out of inventory because of the prolonged procedure, you are doing a great miscalculation. When talking about the total installed capacity, you take into account this situation, you need use actual figures.

The same situation also had used for visible- total proven coal reserves in Turkey. Fortunately, the actual proven capacity figure was finally corrected by the responsible public organization.

International companies, international organizations (World Bank, International Energy Agency IEA, especially the US DOE and EIA) interested in our market make this improvement for us.

They keep our installed power in more realistic numbers. We hope that we will make the necessary corrections in the near future, and we will not continue to mislead ourselves, we will be realistic.

By Ryan McMaken*

Ever since the early days of Donald Trump’s campaign, his immigration policy has been centered around spending big bucks on immigration enforcement. From his famous border wall to stepped-up federal deportation operations, few would describe Trump’s policies as laissez-faire, and most involve increasing the size and scope of government.

But, there are other ways of addressing concerns around immigration, however, and they don’t all require spending taxpayer money.

Here are four ways to improve immigration policy that don’t make government any bigger or more intrusive in our lives:

One: Free Trade, Always

One of the oddest and most counter-productive positions often taken by anti-immigration activists is opposition to free trade.

What these economic nationalists fail to realize is that free trade, which increases prosperity for all countries involved, helps to reduce the incentive for migration in the first place.

The economic benefits of free trade are apparent. Countries that liberalize their trade grow richer — and countries that restrict their trade impoverish their citizens.

But there are sociological benefits to free trade as well. By engaging in trade, persons and communities can gain access to the capital, products, and services offered by others in other nations. In the context of US-Mexico relations, for example, this means that Mexican workers and consumers can benefit from Americans capital and entrepreneurial know-how without having to uproot their lives, move far away from family, and learn a new culture.

In the context of foreign relations, free-trade advocates have long noted that if “goods don’t cross borders, armies will.” This is all the more true in the context of migration: “if goods and services don’t cross borders, migrants will.” And a wall won’t be enough to stop it.

Unfortunately, many opponents of immigration don’t understand how trade works, and think it’s a zero-sum game in which one side gains at the expense of the other. Even worse, when opponents of immigration and trade succeed in their efforts to punish and prohibit trade, they succeed only in impoverishing all parties involved, while also creating the impetus for even greater flows of migration in the future.

Two: Restrict Welfare Programs

Last week, The Washington Post reported the Trump administration was planning changes to immigration policies which would penalize immigrants that receive government-funded benefits:

Current rules penalize immigrants who receive cash welfare payments, considering them a “public charge.” But the proposed changes from the Department of Homeland Security would widen the government’s definition of benefits to include the widely used Earned Income Tax Credit as well as health insurance subsidies and other “non-cash public benefits.”

Given that a sizable portion of taxpayer-funded benefits come in the form of non-cash benefits in the United States, this is a significant change. It’s also important to note that this is for legal immigrants, and not for illegal immigrants who are already technically barred from receiving most benefits.

For legal immigrants collecting both cash and non-cash benefits, the proposed changes means welfare recipients will have a harder time maintaining legal residency in the US.

Advocates for more immigration often point out that the proportion of immigrants that receive government benefits is not higher than the native-born population. That’s fair enough, but why subsidize immigrants at all?

The Trump policy could be improved, though, by providing a way for immigrants to simply opt out of all government welfare programs. Moreover, any potential migrant who does agree to renounce all government benefits should be fast tracked to legal residency. Similarly, private families, firms, and non-profits groups need the flexibility to “sponsor” immigrants, and to guarantee that the immigrants in question will not collect government benefits.

Three: Don’t Confuse Citizenship with Immigration

One problematic aspect of the immigration debate is that it is often assumed that legal residents must also become citizens quickly.

This is a bad assumption, and it does not follow that, just because a person lives in a country, that he or she must also be granted citizenship in that country. After all, citizenship is not a “right” in the way private property is, but is a type of administrative status that allows a person to more greatly influence the political system. Citizens, of course, can legally vote.

Lessening this connection between residency and citizenship would also lessen political pressure to use the power of the state to further curtail migration of workers. After all, much of the fear behind mass-migration situations — both in the US and elsewhere — stems from the fact that native-born residents realize it is exceptionally easy in many cases for new residents of the obtain citizenship — and thus voting rights. For most legal immigrants in the US, for example, five years of residency is all that is required. In some cases, such as for immigrants married to citizens, only three years of residency is required.

Rather than seeking to expand citizenship, states ought to look to expand private property rights for migrants so that citizenship becomes largely irrelevant. Besides, a migrant who is secure in his employment and possessions has much less motivation to participate in the political process. As Ludwig von Mises noted in his own commentary on immigration, the more laissez-faire a political system is, the less relevant politics becomes to our daily lives.

Four: Recognize that Government Enforcement Is a Mess

When it comes to enforcing immigration laws and regulations, the US government acts with all the precision and competence it does in veterans’ health care and mail delivery.

In what Lew Rockwell has called “the tragedy of immigration enforcement” federal immigration regulation often takes the form of federal agents raiding private businesses, seizing private property, and regulating private contracts between employers and employers. Agents also threaten entrepreneurs with draconian fines and jail terms.

The end result is the destruction of capital and a disincentive for employers to hire anyone. As Rockwell notes, this only encourages more criminality:

If mainstream employers are afraid of lifetime jail terms, they will not hire. And that leaves only marginal employers to pick up the slack. These include drug operations, fly-by-night underground businesses, gray markets, prostitution rings, and other things from the seedier side of life.

Or the result could be no employment at all, which means turning to crime itself. In other words, these efforts attempt to stop the best part of immigration and enhance the worst. For this we can thank the government.

Moreover, the immigration quotas set by federal policymakers are purely arbitrary numbers pulled out of the air. Federal planners have no idea what the correct number of immigrants is, or what kind of immigrants are best suited for the work force. Only private employers and entrepreneurs can know this.

Even worse are current efforts to implement “E-Verify” as an anti-immigration measure. As a sort of governmental “permission to live” database, E-Verify can be used to deny private-sector employment and housing to persons who don’t receive the proper government “OK” for private contracts and transactions. Needless to say, the potential for abuse is alarming.

Increasing Federal power to centrally plan the activities of workers, employers, and others will bring with them all the downsides we’ve come to expect from government regulation.

Ultimately, a good question to ask ourselves is whether or not a proposed immigration-related policy increases the power of the state, or shrinks it.

All too often, the assumed “answers” lie in more government spending, more government agents, more laws, more rules, and more regulation. In fact, there are numerous options that can be implemented in the process of lessening the power of the state. And that is a good thing in itself.

About the author:
*Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Send him your article submissions, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

By Lester DeKoster*

Marx always insisted that he derived his system from a careful study of history. Marxists are fond of insisting that they think “concretely,” which means they always stick to the facts. That this is not really the case may be shown by an illustration.

Let us suppose that a student of Marxism grasps the truth that the concept of the classless society, the earthly paradise, is not only the capstone of Marxist theory but is also the capstone of Marxist propaganda. It is this vision which distinguishes Marxism from other forms of violent social criticism, like, say, anarchism, which has never been a serious contender for men’s allegiance. Sensing, then, that Marxism draws much of its propa­ganda appeal, both consciously and unconsciously, from the concept of a perfect society, the critic begins to examine that idea in some detail.

He finds, first of all, as we have noted, that the Marxist is very vague about the whole notion of the classless society. Marx hardly discussed it systematically. Lenin generalized about it, and Stalin was much too busy explaining its delayed arrival to wish to theorize concerning it. If the critic presses the matter, and asks for more detail, he learns that the Communist draws no blueprints of the classless society now. Why? Well, basically because he cannot. Why not? Because it is impossible to do so in current language and thought-forms. Once more, why not? Because the very concepts and language which men now employ are fashioned by the environment of class struggle out of which they, like all spiritual forms, arise. Our very habits of thought are conditioned by class struggle. This is true because, Marx taught, matter always controls the forms of logic, psychology, and language. This is simply materialism.

Therefore the language, logic, and thought-forms of history as we live it cannot apply to the new society, where there will be no struggle. Thought-forms on this side of the revolution do not apply to life on the other side. History has in this sense no claim on the classless society—the same history, of course, from which Marx claimed to draw his certainty that the classless so­ciety would be achieved.

Suppose, in the second place, that the critic insists that there must be something to be learned about the classless society on this side of the revolution, and points out that the Marxist him­self does, after all, talk and think about it. And suppose that the critic proceeds to argue that communist experiments have been tried and found wanting, and communal enterprises have often failed; he then tries to apply the causes of these failures, as he understands them, to the idea of the classless society. What then?

He finds that the Marxist rejects abruptly all analogies drawn from history. Why? Because the classless society is, you will recall, strictly speaking beyond history. History as we know it, gov­erned by the dialectic and conducive to struggle, will cease when the classless society comes into being. This being so, all argument drawn from present history cannot apply to post-history, to the classless society. The Marxist will not be bound by the lessons of history, the same history which is supposed to validate Marxism. . . .

Or, finally, the critic draws one last arrow from his quiver. He seeks to project conclusions drawn from the nature of man himself into the new society. If man is like this, then in the classless society he must react like that, and so on. Briskly the Communist reminds him that the only “man” history knows is the victim of class struggle, whether he be of the proletariat or of the bourgeoisie. This kind of man will not exist in the class­less society. Therefore any inference drawn from the one kind of man will not necessarily, or even probably, apply to the other. In judging the classless society, the Marxist accepts no responsi­bility to what history or introspection teach concerning the nature of mankind.

In summary, the Marxist denies that any aspect of history as we now know it can be used as a standard of judgment in the discussion of the classless society. This places him in an enviable argumentative position, or, rather, this removes the concept of the classless society out of the realm of argument altogether. The idea of the classless society becomes amorphous enough to be all things to all Marxists, and nothing to all critics. Between it and history there is, in reality, no logical passage at all. On this subject the Communist and the anti-Communist volley their charges over a bottomless gulf—the chasm which divides history from post-history.

This chasm between the dispensations is important. It repre­sents for Marxism (though no Marxist puts it so) that hill which in Pilgrim’s Progress is where the great burden of historical evil drops away. This infinite gulf between history and the classless society is for Marxism the unintentional recognition that man must pass through the infinite, in some sense, before he can enter “heaven.” The complete break which Marxist theory makes be­tween history and the new society means, in fact, that man as he is will never get into the new world unaided.

It is quite inconceivable how a Marxist who lived before and through the revolution could enter the classless society. How could he, in reality, put on the “new man” in lieu of the man who had been formed by all the tensions of class struggle? And if he brought into the new society any of the vestiges of the old, they could become germs from which evil might once more develop.

It is provocative how closely the Marxist position parallels Christian doctrine. It is Christian teaching that nothing of his­tory shall enter unchanged into heaven. It is Marxist doctrine that nothing of history pertains to the classless society. But in Christianity the “new man” of heaven will be the “old man” reborn. The continuity is not broken. This rebirth, however, is not the work of the man, but the work of God.

Marxism, based as it is on philosophical materialism, has no concept of rebirth. At some point in history, the same persons who make the revolution, who staff and support the dictatorship of the proletariat, are supposed to enter the classless society. The fact that that process is presumed to be gradual obscures but does not lessen the tension which holds between things of “this” history and things of “that” post-history. The Marxist who makes that fateful crossing from history into post-history would leave his very self behind, for that self has been nurtured on the thought, the logic, the passions, the struggles, and the material realities of history. Without these, what kind of self, on Marxist grounds, remains? . . .

To escape historical evil the selves which now live and act in history would have to be destroyed. So long as the self of man is not regarded as sui generis, that is, a particular after its own kind, but rather as derivative from the material substratum which forms it, that self must disappear if the material undergoes radical change. This means that the men who conduct the revolution, who staff and support the dictatorship of the proletariat, could not enter the promised land. Nor could their children, born in the context of struggle. The gulf between history and post-history is fixed, and affords no crossing. This is instructive. It means simply that man cannot save himself.

This article is an excerpt from Communism & Christian Faith, with a new introduction by Pavel Hanes (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian’s Library Press, 2018), 67–71.

About the author:
Lester DeKoster (1915–2009) became director of the library at Calvin College and Seminary, affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America, in 1951. He earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1964, after completing a dissertation on “Living Themes in the Thought of John Calvin: A Bibliographical Study.” During his tenure at the college, DeKoster was influential in expanding the holdings of what would become the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies, one of the preeminent collections of Calvinist and Reformed texts in the world. DeKoster also amassed an impressive personal library of some ten thousand books, which includes a wide array of sources testifying to both the breadth and depth of his intellectual vigor. DeKoster was a professor of speech at the college and enjoyed taking up the part of historic Christianity and confessional Reformed theology in debates on doctrinal and social issues that pressed the church throughout the following decades. Both his public debates and private correspondence were marked by a spirit of charity that tempered and directed the needed words of rebuke. After his retirement from Calvin College in 1969, DeKoster labored for a decade as the editor of The Banner, the denominational magazine of the Christian Reformed Church. This position provided him with another platform from which to critically engage the life of the church and the world. During this time DeKoster also launched, in collaboration with Gerard Berghoef (a longtime elder in the church) and their families, the Christian’s Library Press, a publishing endeavor intended to provide timely resources both for the church’s laity and its leadership.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute.

Israel courts African nations with Muslim minority populations to overcome a longstanding bloc of opposition at the United Nations.

By Raluca Besliu*

An Israeli campaign is underway in sub-Saharan Africa on winning over African nations, which, partly due to significant Muslim minority populations, have often constituted a bloc of opposition at the UN.

In June 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first non-African leader to participate in a Summit of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. The following November, he attended Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi, joining leaders from other African countries and holding several bilateral meetings. In 2016, Netanyahu had already become the first Israeli prime minister in three decades to travel to Africa, visiting Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. According to Atlantic Council expert J. Peter Pham, such encounters “represent a remarkable testament to how much of a priority the Israeli government has made of Africa.” In April of this year, Netanyahu announced a deal with the UN refugee agency to resettle African asylum seekers, keeping 16,000 in Israel and sending 16,000 to Western countries. The next day, under political pressure in Israel, he suspended the deal, outraging Israeli human rights activists. While the suspension holds for now, the prime minister emphasized that it would be reexamined.

With growing investments in East and West African countries, Israel is becoming a key player on the continent. Israel’s expansion in Africa, like that of China, India and Turkey, is facilitated by relative pullback by the United States and France. The involvement focuses on geostrategic and security interests, particularly forming allies to support Israel in international bodies and fight against jihadist movements to gaining new trade partners and access to markets. So far, the strategy is working as African countries embrace this role.

Historically, Afro-Israeli relations have fluctuated. In the 1960s, Israel provided assistance to newly independent African states in varied fields, ranging from agriculture and medicine to defense and infrastructure construction. More than 30 Israeli diplomatic missions operated in Africa until the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria. In the war’s wake, the Organization of African Unity instructed its members to cease diplomatic ties with Israel. All except Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland did so. Israeli-African collaboration continued in some fields, including agriculture and development. Israel, fearing opposition forces in states such as Chad, Togo and the former Zaire, also ensured military support to mainly authoritarian regimes. Most African countries resumed diplomatic relations with Israel in the 1990s. Israel currently has ties with 40 out of the 48 sub-Saharan African countries, yet only 10, including Kenya and Senegal, have embassies. Israel is now pushing to regain observer status in the African Union, after losing this role when the Organization of African Union was replaced by the AU.

Securing Israel’s diplomatic interests represents the main official reason behind Netanyahu’s visits and renewed African focus. Before attending the ECOWAS, he told Israeli media that he aimed to “dissolve … this giant bloc of 54 African countries that is the basis of the automatic majority against Israel in the UN and international bodies.”

Israel’s diplomatic rapprochement may be reaping fruits. In 2015, Israel resisted an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution demanding it open its undeclared nuclear facilities to UN inspectors, partly because several African states abstained or voted against it.  Even on issues as tense as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some progress can be seen. In December, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected a resolution recognizing Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, and Pham suggests it was a small victory for Israel that only 27 of the 44 members of the Africa Group who are not also members of the Arab League voted in favor. For years, African states had mostly supported Palestinian self-determination, not surprising given that sub-Saharan Africa is home to a considerable Muslim population.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2010, around 30 percent of sub-Saharan Africans were Muslims. The sub-region West Africa has a Muslim majority, just over half the population, and East Africa has 30 percent. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is expected to more than double by 2050 with the Muslim population reaching 35 percent.

The implication for Israel is that the Palestinian cause could gain more support in Africa. Olusola Isola, a Woodrow Wilson Center scholar, suggests that Israel direct efforts at carving “African countries’ understanding on the position of Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinian question and in the context of the Middle East conflict and [….] market itself more on the diplomatic sphere.” The goal: Gradually sway countries with smaller Muslim populations to support Israel or, at a minimum, avoid antagonism and intense opposition to Israeli policies.

Regardless of stances on the Palestinian question, many African countries seek closer ties with Israel in other geopolitical fields such as security and counterterrorism. Extremist movements, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia, are a threat in East and West Africa alike. Israel’s security knowledge is perceived as beneficial, especially in terms of technological surveillance, collecting and digitizing personal data, and border-control systems. Israel has direct interest in supporting African states to fight terrorism and monitor jihadist movements, and preventing destabilization of Egypt, its southern neighbor – all in the context of “furthering collective security on the global platform,” notes Isola, adding that is why France and the United States also fight terrorism on the continent. “Israeli security is intrinsically connected with the total extrication of terrorist groups from all parts of the world, including from African countries.”

Six of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa with Ethiopia in the lead, and trade is another central reason for Israel’s interest. Africa, despite present-day challenges, is still very much the continent of the future. Pham emphasizes that “there are considerable stakes for an economy such as Israel’s to be able to tap the dynamic region.” Africa is also the youngest continent, and Pham points out that by mid-century, one in four workers in the world will be African. With only $1 billion in annual Israeli-African trade value, Israel has barely started exploring this market. Almost two thirds of current trade takes place with South Africa, mostly for diamonds. African states seek access to sophisticated technology in a multiple domains including military applications, surveillance, irrigation, water management and solar energy. African states also hope to diversify arms and military technology suppliers to become less dependent on the United States and Europe.

During ECOWAS, Netanyahu announced an investment of $1 billion in solar energy to benefit the 15 member countries over the next four years with implementation by Energiya Global, Israel’s leading solar developer. The first project: a $20 million solar field at Roberts International Airport in Liberia, estimated to supply 25 percent of the country’s power.  In December, Israel signed an agreement with the United States to increase Africa’s energy access and electricity deficiencies through innovative solutions. The partnership is part of a $7 billion, five-year Power Africa project, launched by the Obama administration.

For the most part, Israel’s rapprochement focuses on many of the same areas as during the 1960s and 1970s: military support and raw goods like diamonds. Israel still conceptualizes development, security and economic assistance as exchangeable for votes in international organizations, punishing any non-compliance. In early 2017, following a UN Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, Israel cut aid to Senegal for supporting the resolution. Despite policy sophistication, Israel does not seem ready to quit the traditional carrot-and-stick approach. It may find that long-term connections of mutual interest are more productive.

*Raluca Besliu is a freelance journalist focused on women’s and children’s rights, refugee and human rights issues, and peace and post-conflict reconstruction. She graduated from the University of Oxford with an Msc in Refugees and Forced Migration after studying international affairs at Vassar College. She founded the nonprofit organization Save South Kordofan. Follow her on Twitter.

By Jeremy Black*

(FPRI) — That Jeremy Corbyn, the leader since 2015 of Britain’s Labour Party, the official opposition, has long been linked to anti-Semitism is no news other than to the public. We shall come to some of the relevant aspects, but the point of this note is to look forward, rather than to reiterate the evidence, and in particular to consider the consequences of Corbyn’s anti-Semitic connections for the Anglo-American alliance.

The United States of course has several allies whose culture can scarcely be described as philo-Semitic: think about the depiction of Jews in the media of Egypt and many other states. Yet, for the U.S. and the allies, the key element in these cases is the transactional nature of the relationship. That is not really a prospect if Corbyn wins the next general election, which is due in 2022 by the latest. The attitude of the Trump administration towards Corbyn is already hostile; the ambassador has been reluctant to spend time with him. This is scarcely surprising given the reflex anti-Americanism of Corbyn’s worldview. Happy to present himself as the friend of Hamas and Hezbollah, he had been a keen participant in Russian, Iranian, and Palestinian propaganda fronts. Corbyn also has a longstanding personal and political linkage with Latin American enemies (critics is too soft a term) of the United States, notably in Venezuela and Cuba. He has never seen an anti-American cause he did not want to embrace. In this, indeed, Corbyn has shown consistency throughout his long political career, a point also true of his allies and advisors. Anti-American during the Cold War, they were automatically pro-Soviet. Indeed, it is his hostility to Washington that helps Corbyn justify his support of the Russia of Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB officer, and some in his circle have been willing to take the largesse of Russian propaganda fronts.

Anti-Semitism is an important part of Corbyn’s worldview, though not necessarily a historical position within the Labour party. Among the British political parties, Labour was the natural home for Britain’s Jews in the early- and mid-twentieth century, not least because so many identified with progressive causes. Prominent Labour figures, such as Harold Wilson, the party leader from 1963 to 1976, had Jewish friends and were sympathetic to Israel, seeing both as linked. Tony Blair, Labour leader from 1994 to 2007 and Gordon Brown, leader from 2007 to 2010, were both pro-Israeli, as Brown’s speech in Israel in 2009 made clear. Edward Miliband, leader from 2010 to 2015, is Jewish.

The relationship between Labour and the Jewish community was challenged by Labour radicals from the late 1960s onward. To the Generation of ’68, Israel after the Six Day War was part of the American system—a “neo-imperialist,” “neo-colonialist” power. That background remains all-too-present in their thoughts. Forget the plight of Syrians, Yemenis, or the Turkish Kurds, forget dictatorship or authoritarianism in much of the Islamic world. None of those causes lend themselves to the stale but oh-so-convenient platitudes of anti-Americanism. And for Corbyn and his allies, everything is political. So, it is easy for them to suggest that Diaspora Jews, most of whom support Israel even if they are (like many Israelis) exasperated by aspects of Israeli policy, are part of the problem. Easy to argue that calling attention to Labour anti-Semitism is “weaponizing” criticism of Corbyn. And so on.

Does this matter to the United States? After all, there are Americans who share some or all of these toxic views, and they do not direct American policy. Well, in Britain, the consequences of a Corbyn victory would be very unhappy. First, although in serious decline in relative terms, Britain is still a major power and an important one for the West. In terms of military strength, it is one of the top ten in the world, and in many criteria in the top five. This is particularly so in terms of nuclear capability, naval power, and overall fighting effectiveness. Politically, Britain has links with many states and an ability and willingness to deploy strength in “out-of-area” spheres. It remains one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

For the United States, Britain’s appeal is increased by the problems posed by other allies. Germany is unwilling to invest in defense, and many German politicians appear unable to take a consistent line against Russia. Germany, India, and Japan have not been willing to deploy their forces in meaningful armed conflict to assist the United States. In each case, their relationship with the Americans is heavily transactional.

Within NATO, only Britain and France have serious military capability, and Britain has long tended to be more supportive of American goals and methods. Intelligence links and cybersecurity between the U.S. and Britain are extremely close. This cooperation was shown in American support for action against Russian espionage after the Salisbury poisonings, notably the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closing of Russian consulate in Seattle. Far from being Putin’s boy, President Trump backed these major expulsions in support of America’s closest European ally, helping to ensure that Putin could not simply shrug off Britain’s response.

Corbyn poses a danger to intelligence links, both Anglo-American and more generally. These links involve one of Britain’s high-quality contributions to the West’s wellbeing. Apparently, intelligence (including some on Salisbury) is already being withheld from Corbyn at Privy Council level as he and his entourage are not trusted. This is unprecedented in the treatment of the leader of the opposition.

Britain’s role in the West’s protection would be endangered at once by a Corbyn victory. For this, and other reasons, anti-Western powers, notably, but not only, Russia are likely to invest efforts in furthering his cause, just as Russia backs the Scottish nationalists and just as the Soviet Union armed the Provisional IRA. If America’s front line in part runs through Britain, then it is scarcely surprising that Russia wishes to undermine it. To do so would be to help wreck NATO, to make Europe neutralist, to leave Eastern Europe vulnerable, to discourage Japan (with which Britain has close and developing military links), and to undermine the American position in the Middle East.

Well, what to do? There are no easy fixes. Admonishment does not easily work, as President Obama showed in 2016 when he backed Remain during the Brexit referendum campaign. Indeed, such pressure can be counterproductive.

Subversion was long used by the Soviets, notably in Northern Ireland and in backing militant trade unions. In addition, the sudden death in 1963 of Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour leader from 1955, after he had gone to the Soviet embassy for tea, now, in the aftermath of the Salisbury poisoning, looks even more suspicious. It opened the door to Wilson, his left-wing rival, a politician who was less close to America, and who was suspected by MI5 of being pro-Soviet: some of his friends were certainly Soviet agents. Much scholarly work on British political history is innocent of such speculations and of the entire dimension of subversion; which simply shows how naïve it is. Russia does not need to murder Corbyn. Instead, as in the 1980s, it is more likely to align with those wishing murderous harm to British and Western interests.

Corbyn’s election would definitely pose a problem for the United States; although it is worth pausing to note how far a lack of clarity over American policy in the future is not helpful. It is all-too-easy to focus on the travails of the current president, but the likely direction of foreign policy is totally unclear, whether the next administration be led by a Democrat or a Republican. At any rate, all American policymakers need to pay more attention to the problems that will be created if a Corbyn, or Corbyn-like, or even Corbyn-lite, government came to power in Britain. On the present evidence, it would be anti-American, anti-NATO, anti-Israel, and with all the noxious accompanying preferences. Trump is certainly not an anti-Semite, and an anti-Semitic British prime minister will probably alienate any American president. Greater clarity from American leadership of both parties about a common American vision for the Atlantic Alliance in general and the Special Relationship in particular is necessary.

The international stance of a notional Corbyn government is perhaps a moot point in geopolitical terms. Yet, there is also a morality at stake in politics, both content and culture. I had initially planned to write this article six months ago, but decided not to do so as I do not like to launch personal attacks. I was wrong. Every man is an enigma to himself and others, but you can know something by considering the reflexes that cast light on their attitudes, as well as by scrutinizing their associates. Jeremy Corbyn fails on every count. Historians shy away from being “judgmental” and leave morality to others. That is also wrong. Rather than being charitable and seeing Corbyn as a “useful idiot” or a “holy fool,” he should be called out as a bad man, a dangerous leader, and a major threat to his country and his party.

About the author:
*Jeremy Black, a Templeton Fellow at FPRI, is professor of history at Exeter University. Jeremy Black’s books include Britain from 1945 to Brexit (Indiana UP), The World of James Bond (Rowman and Littlefield) and Maps of War (Bloomsbury).

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

By Barry Donegan*

Over the past two months, London’s murder rate has for the first time risen above that of New York City. The shift in data follows a year-over-year downward trend in New York’s murder rate and a surge in gun crime that has plagued London since 2014.

London’s Metropolitan Police Service reported 15 murders in February and 22 murders in March, whereas the New York Police Department reported 14 murders in February and 21 in March, according to Reuters.

A spike in stabbing attacks has also contributed to London’s increased murder rate, as 31 of the 47 murders in London this year have been carried out with knives.

Both cities have similar total populations around 8 and half million residents.

According to Get West London, a London Assembly report noted that in the 12 months leading up to October of 2017, gun crime in London was up by 16 percent compared to the previous year and 44 percent compared to 2014. Also the number of guns fired in violent crimes has increased by 20 percent since 2012.

The Evening Standard notes that New York City’s murder rate has plunged by 87 percent since the ’90s, whereas London’s murder rate has spiked by 40 percent in the past 3 years, excluding deaths caused in terror attacks.

Met Commissioner Cressida Dick, Britain’s top cop, blamed social media for the rise in violent crime, saying that gangs are using popular online services to glamorize attacks and escalate conflicts.

Britain’s Interior Ministry said that in response to the spike in knife attacks, it’s considering legislation that would ban the delivery of knives by online stores to residential addresses and ban the possession of some types of weapons in public.

A BBC editorial cautioned that the two-month spike might just be a statistically anomalous “blip” that looks large due to having a small sample size of only two months, and pointed out that London has only had 47 murders this year so far compared to 50 in New York City.

Some have blamed the fact that officials in London have decreased the frequency at which officers perform stop-and-frisk searches for causing the increase in murders. However, New York City has also decreasingly used its own stop-and-frisk program during the same period, and murder rates have fallen precipitously, according to the BBC.

After a fatal south London stabbing on Sunday and the fatal shooting of a 17-year old girl in North London on Monday, a spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Tuesday, “The Mayor is deeply concerned by violent crime in the capital – every life lost to violent crime is a tragedy… Our city remains one of the safest in the world … but Sadiq wants it to be even safer and is working hard to bring an end to this violent scourge.”

About the author:
*Barry Donegan is a writer, musician, and pro-liberty political activist living in Nashville, TN. Donegan served as Director-at-Large of the Davidson County Republican Party from 2009-2011 and was the Middle Tennessee Regional Coordinator over 30 counties for Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential Campaign. Follow him at facebook.com/barry.donegan and twitter.com/barrydonegan

Source:
This article was published by Truth in Media.

By Mitchell Blatt*

Daniel Bell has been one of the proponents of the argument that China’s model of enlightened authoritarianism can be successful and represent a challenge to the Western consensus. Educated leaders, who are promoted through a meritocratic process on the basis of their achievements at lower levels, could set a long term path for the world’s most populous country more effectively without having to pander to the masses and the interest groups, the argument went.

In a 2015 article published in The Atlantic adapted from Bell’s book The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, Bell wrote:

The top of the China model is characterized by political meritocracy—the idea that high-level officials should be selected and promoted on the basis of ability and virtue. The ideal was institutionalized in imperial China by means of an elaborate examination system that dates to the Sui dynasty in the sixth and seventh centuries. … Top leaders must also accumulate decades of diverse administrative experience, with only a tiny proportion reaching the commanding heights of government. For example, Xi’s four-decade-long ascent to the presidency involved 16 major promotions through county, city, and province levels, and then the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the top spot in the Standing Committee of the Politburo, with reviews at each stage to assess his leadership abilities. Arguably, the Chinese political system is the most competitive in the world today.

Once leaders reach the pinnacle of political power, they can plan for the long term and make decisions that take into account the interests of all relevant stakeholders, including future generations and people living outside the country; leaders serve 10-year terms and assume (and do their best to guarantee) that the same party will be in power decades into the future. Collective leadership, in the form of the Politburo’s seven-member Standing Committee, ensures that no one leader with outlandish and uninformed views can set wrongheaded policies (such as the disastrous Great Leap Forward when Mao, and only Mao, decided on national policies).

But will China’s political system remain so competitive once Xi takes action to stay in power for five more years or longer? The specter of such a power grab had long been projected by some journalists in papers like the Wall Street Journal. Now the gears are moving for it to happen. The CCP Central Committee has proposed a constitutional amendment (among others) to do away with the limit of two consecutive terms for the presidency.

Does this change overturn the argument for the China Model? Bell did acknowledge in 2015, “Of course, there remains a large gap between the China model as an ideal and the political reality.”

Now more so. Leaders no longer serve 10-year terms and cede power. We don’t know how long Xi will ultimately serve, but in countries where the leaders try to serve indefinitely, struggles for power can be even more chaotic and violent. Term limits are supposed to prevent any one leader from concentrating too much power. Power has a way of snowballing as checks are removed. Park Chunghee’s 1969 amendment of the Korean constitution to extend his term once more quickly led to him becoming president for life.

We don’t know what will happen in China, but that uncertainty in and of itself makes it hard to appraise the China Model as a stable system in the long-term.

Tehran’s Provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami warned the Israeli regime that if it dares to test again its attacks on the Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement, the Israeli cities will be “razed to the ground” by the movement.

Addressing a gathering of worshipers in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Khatami denounced recent remarks made by Israeli officials, who have threatened to attack Hezbollah by the end of 2018, and said the Zionist regime has already “tried its chance” in the past and was defeated by the movement.

Hezbollah (then) turned the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa into “ghost towns” with its 70km-range missiles, he said, adding that Hezbollah is now much more powerful than before.

“If you want Haifa and Tel Aviv to be razed to the ground, you can try your chance once again,” the Iranian cleric stated.

Back in February, A senior Israeli commander warned that the chances of war were higher than ever for 2018 in light of the battlefield victories in Syria by the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah.

“The year 2018 has the potential for escalation (of military conflict), not necessarily because either side wants to initiate it, but because of a gradual deterioration. This has led us to raise the level of preparedness,” Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, head of IDF Operations, told Army Radio in a rare interview, according to local Israeli reports.

The Tel Aviv regime launched a war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006. About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed in the 33-Day War of 2006.

Hezbollah fighters defeated the Israeli forces and Tel Aviv was forced to retreat without achieving any of its objectives.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met with Google heads on Friday to discuss the cooperation in cloud computing services and opportunities in the digital transformation initiative to localize technology and develop the digital environment.

The crown prince discussed with Google CEO Pichai Sundararajan and President of Alphabet, Sergey Brin, the establishment of a research, development and training center for Saudi youth and enhancing cooperation in cybersecurity during his visit to the Google headquarters in San Francisco.

During his visit, the crown prince was also briefed on the Google cloud and artificial intelligence and computer education.

By Dr. Theodore Karasik*

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir this week visited Cuba for two days. His visit should not come as a surprise, as Riyadh’s policy toward Havana and the wider Caribbean Basin has followed a new line of thinking.

Saudi-Cuban ties date back to 1956, with the Kingdom opening its Embassy in Havana in 2011. In May 2017, King Salman held talks in Jeddah with Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas and they agreed on bolstering economic cooperation. Saudi Arabia has also granted Cuba loans through the Saudi Development Fund to finance projects worth over $80 million.

Al-Jubeir’s visit to Cuba shows how Riyadh needs Havana to be part of its anti-extremist program. Riyadh is seeking to bring Cuba into its fold, especially against Iran, in order to mitigate any support from Havana to Tehran as the confrontation between the US and Iran grows.

Saudi Arabia is no longer standing by and watching how Iran conducts its foreign policy anywhere in the world. Riyadh took notice of how Cuban-Iranian relations have developed over time and given Tehran a hub in the Caribbean.

But there is a bigger issue. Cuba’s alliance with Iran dates back to 1979, when Fidel Castro became one of the first heads of state to recognize Iran’s clerics. Over the years, Castro created a unique relationship between secular, communist Cuba and theocratic Iran, united by a common hatred of the US and the liberal, democratic West.

Barack Obama sought to engage Cuba and Iran by initiating discrete and patient diplomatic approaches with two of America’s most aggressive antagonists. Last year, when US President Donald Trump signaled a reversal of Obama’s previous Cuban policy, Havana rushed to Tehran to sign cooperation agreements. As part of the non-aligned movement, or what is left of it, Cuba and Iran have teamed up for decades as part of ideological struggles. Now, in the age of geopolitics, this argument no longer has any validity given that countries are taking sides in a new dynamic involving the future of Iran.

Before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Tehran’s support for Havana was significant. In total, Cuba has received the equivalent of more than $1.2 billion in loans from Iran since 2005. With this financing, Cuba has begun to make critical investments in the rehabilitation of Soviet-era infrastructure. Iran is funding some 60 projects, ranging from the acquisition of 750 Iranian-made rail cars to the construction of power plants, dams, and highways. This infusion of Iranian capital is seen as a strategic threat.

Geographically, Cuba’s strategic location has enabled Iran, on at least one occasion, to engage in electronic attacks against US telecommunications that posed a threat to the Iranian regime. This type of behavior by Iran in Cuba is no longer acceptable. Recent claims of sonic warfare against the US Embassy in Havana may be tied to Tehran’s ability to harass US diplomats, although such activity could also be linked to other countries and their tit-for-tat balance sheet in this new geopolitical Cold War.

Al-Jubeir’s visit to Cuba is tied to the future of Venezuela, as Havana and Caracas have been aligned for decades. With OPEC member Venezuela in serious political and financial trouble, Saudi Arabia is keenly aware that Havana is a back door to Venezuela. Cuban support for Venezuela is across many spheres of political, economic and, especially, security and intelligence matters. Saudi foreign policy toward Venezuela is not only about Cuba and Iran but also the future of oil markets. Getting between Havana and Caracas is good for Saudi foreign policy in the Caribbean.

Trinidad and Tobago, meanwhile, is one of the largest liquefied natural gas producers in the world. As the leading producer of oil and gas in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago maintains the most favorable economic climate in the region. Saudi interest in Pemex and Mexico’s energy infrastructure is also part of Riyadh’s calculus for the future of energy. As the energy picture changes in the Caribbean, Riyadh wants a front row seat for what comes next in America’s strategic backyard.

To be clear, shrinking Iran’s global footprint is part of Saudi strategy and Al-Jubeir’s visit to Havana sets a new tone in pulling Cuba away from Iran as Saudi Arabia and the US develop plans to confront the Iranian regime. Havana is seen as a key lynchpin in the geopolitical struggle and adding Cuba’s voice to Saudi objectives is important. Now is the time for Havana to challenge the ills of the Iranian regime.

• Dr. Theodore Karasik is a senior adviser to Gulf State Analytics in Washington, D.C.

By Talmiz Ahmad*

The conflict in Syria has brought together three unlikely allies, as Russia has pulled Turkey — a NATO member and US ally — into its orbit, along with Iran, which was until recently Turkey’s opponent in Syria, when Ankara was backing rebel groups against the Bashar Assad regime. This alliance was further cemented at their second tripartite summit in Ankara on Wednesday, following their earlier conclave at Sochi in November last year.

Like most alliances in international affairs, it is a marriage of convenience. Russia has asserted its interests in the Middle East as part of its effort to project itself as a significant player in the global scenario, while Iran is a long-standing ally of Syria.

Turkey is a recent member of this triumvirate. Having backed rebels against Assad for about five years, including some extremists who flocked to Syria through the Turkish “superhighway,” Ankara performed a U-turn in 2016. First, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan got disenchanted with the US during the attempted coup in 2016, which he believed had been fomented by the cleric exiled in the US, Fethullah Gulen, and demanded his extradition.

Meanwhile, in its immediate neighborhood, Turkey saw that the principal beneficiaries of the Syrian conflict were the Kurds, who had carved out an autonomous enclave across the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey views the Syrian Kurds as an extension of its own dissident Kurds, organized in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and hence saw the Rojava (western homeland) as providing strategic depth and sanctuary to the PKK.

Turkey’s twin concerns relating to the US and the Kurds have coalesced, with the US setting up a robust alliance with the Kurds to promote their shared interests in Syria.
This culminated in the announcement by former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in January that it would extend its military presence and also organize a 30,000-strong Kurdish force in the region.

Turkey immediately moved its troops into Syria and, in late March, took the town of Afrin to break the contiguity of the Kurdish homeland and enable Turkish troops to keep the Kurds in check.

Turkey sees the Russian-Iranian alliance as the best safeguard for its interests and is working with them to promote the Astana peace process. It also announced its estrangement from the US by buying the Russian S-400 missile system, to be delivered in July next year — an unprecedented act by a NATO member.

The Ankara summit took place in the background of two important developments: First the fall of Eastern Ghouta to Syrian troops, and second the announcement by US President Donald Trump that, following the defeat of Daesh, he had every intention of withdrawing US forces from Syria.

This contradicted the Pentagon policy of the US staying on in Syria (and Iraq) in the name of fighting the remnants of Daesh forces, while actually opposing Iranian influence in the region and backing Israeli interests. Amid this confusion in the US, the Russia-led alliance sees itself as the only effective role-player in the turbulent affairs of the region.

Regional media outlets have described the summit as putting in place a “tripartite strategic axis” that will be an effective weapon against the re-emergence of Daesh, bring stability to Syria, and thwart Kurdish aims of autonomy and possibly even independence. Reflecting this consensus, the joint statement issued at Ankara opposed separatist elements in Syria, a clear reference to the Kurds, and affirmed the need to uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria.

Again, without naming the US, it opposed the presence of foreign elements that were trying to change the domestic situation by using various excuses. The three leaders also affirmed their commitment to defeat all “terrorist” groups in Syria, an endorsement of the Syrian-Iranian position.

While the three leaders are now on the same page, they have important differences between them. Thus, while Russia has worked with Turkey in its taking of Afrin and will facilitate its expected takeover of Tel Rifaat, both Russia and Iran are uneasy about a long-term Turkish military presence in Syria.

This will require the three of them to wean the Kurds away from the US and integrate them into a federal Syria where their aspirations can be accommodated.

Similarly, Turkey has concerns relating to the continued Iranian presence in Syria, which are shared by Jordan and Israel and have led to talk of a region-wide conflict.

Above all, the future of Assad in the Syrian scenario and the future political dispensation in the country will be matters of disagreement between Iran and Turkey.

However, for now the three seem solidly united, brought together by their opposition to US and Israeli interests in the Middle East. Russian diplomacy, buttressed by Putin’s commitment to the affiliation, is likely to see them working together for the foreseeable future. This will have important implications for Syria and indeed the Middle East as a whole.

• Talmiz Ahmad, a former Indian diplomat, holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.

Moscow has two goals in promoting the notion that the current conflict between the West and Russia is “a new cold war.” Most obviously, it wants to generate opposition within Western countries to any willingness to stand up to Russian aggression abroad and repression at home.

But far more important is the Kremlin’s second goal: By insisting that what is happening is a new cold war, Putin’s regime is making a claim to be the equal of the West, something that may play well with Putin’s base at home but is not justified by Russia’s current position however often Kremlin propagandists and their acolytes repeat the claim.

To the extent then that Western commentators fall into the trap of using the Kremlin’s “cold war-redux” notion, they unwittingly elevate the status of Russia today to one that it does not deserve. Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is a far weaker but also far more dangerous opponent.

Putin’s Russia has only part of one of the three things scholars have long identified as the basis of a superpower. It does not have a powerful economy, it does not have a system that attracts others to it, and, except for its nuclear arsenal. it does not have a military capable of taking on a modern Western military like that of the United States and NATO.

Moreover, and far more important, Moscow does not have the network of states who are prepared to support it in opposition to the West. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had both satellites and client states that would do its bidding. Now, the Kremlin can’t even get its “partners” on the former Soviet space to follow its lead on things like expelling diplomats.

Putin and his minions routinely describe Russia as “a besieged fortress.” And as a result of his policies of aggression and repression, that is an increasingly accurate description. But being “a besieged fortress” and an outlaw state that ignores international law and its own constitution does not make it an equal or a counterpart to the West.

Consequently, it is long past time to recognize that we are not in a new cold war with a powerful ideological, economic and military power. We are in a conflict, one that still does not have a good name, with a declining but revisionist and revanchist country that often gets its way not as a result of its strength but through bluff and bluster and the weakness of the West.

And that in turn means that the situation today is far more like the 1930s when the international community such as it was had to deal with Hitler’s Germany than it is like the Cold War after 1945, however much Putin, his Russian base, and his friends in the West continue to try to suggest otherwise.

President Donald Trump has signed an order ending the so-called ‘catch and release’ policy, under which US immigration officers allowed the release of ‘caught’ illegal immigrants back on US soil, pending their immigration hearing.

“President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum to take important steps to end catch and release, the dangerous practice whereby aliens who have violated our Nation’s immigration laws are released into the United States shortly after their apprehension,” the White House said in a statement.

The White House justified ending the controversial policy, much criticized by Trump, by citing concerns about the American public’s “safety and security.” The US president also used the opportunity to once again call on the Democrats to end their “staunch opposition” to toughening border security measures.

While no set definition exists to the US “catch and release” policy, the practice has been applied mostly to asylum seekers and children of migrants, so they can stay out of custody while their cases pass through the US courts. The lengthy process, which can take years to complete, allows most to stay in the US illegally. Many of them do not show up for court dates and continue to stay in the US without authorization.

Almost immediately after assuming office in January 2017, Trump signed an Executive Order to expand the border wall with Mexico and increase the number of detention centers, to tackle the management of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. The order also mandated US authorities to assign asylum officers and immigration judges to the facilities, to conduct asylum interviews and hearings.

Currently, federal prisons, local jails as well as private companies are responsible for housing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees. According to October estimates, between 31,000 and 41,000 illegals are kept there on a daily basis.

The omnibus spending bill, which Trump reluctantly signed on March 23 to avoid the government shutdown, allocated $1.6 billion for Trump to construct his wall with Mexico. The bill, however, also allocated some $3.1 billion to fund 40,520 immigration beds across detention facilities for FY 2018. That marked a 1,196-bed increase on FY 2017.

(RFE/RL) — Russia’s consumer protection agency, Rospotrebnadzor, says 539 hotels have been fined for inflating their prices in Russian cities that are hosting 2018 FIFA World Cup matches.

In an April 6 statement, Rospotrebnadzor said the fines were imposed after nearly 11,400 hotels were inspected in the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, and Samara.

“A total number of 539 violations of hiking up accommodation prices were registered, while 110 cases were also reported in regard to hotels without the necessary certificates of compliance,” the agency said, adding that the hotels were ordered to pay penalties totaling about 4.4 million rubles ($76,000).

The 2018 World Cup matches are scheduled from June 14 to July 15 in the 11 Russian cities.

The opening match, a game between Russia and Saudi Arabia on June 14, is to be held in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.

For the first time, scientists of the German Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, Goethe University and the University of Lund in Sweden have deciphered the complete genome of the blue whale and three other rorquals. These insights now allow tracking the evolutionary history of the worlds’ largest animal and its relatives in unprecedented detail. Surprisingly, the genomes show that rorquals have been hybridizing during their evolutionary history. In addition, rorquals seem to have separated into different species in the absence of geographical barriers. This phenomenon, called sympatric speciation, is very rare in animals. The study has just been published in Science Advances.

Blue whales are the giants of the sea. With up to 30 meters (100 feet) long and weighing up to 175 tons, they are the largest animals that ever evolved on earth; larger even than dinosaurs. Short of becoming extinct due to whaling by the end of the 80s, currently the populations of the gentle giants are slowly recovering. Now new research highlights that the evolution of these extraordinary animals and other rorquals was also anything but ordinary.

A research team led by Professor Axel Janke, evolutionary geneticist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center and Goethe University, has found that the rorquals, including the blue whale, mated across emerging species boundaries. “Speciation under gene flow is rare. Usually, species are assumed to be reproductively isolated because geographical or genetic barriers inhibits genetic exchange. Apparently however, this does not apply to whales”, explained Fritjof Lammers, co-lead-author of the study, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre.

Teaming up with cetacean specialist Professor Ulfur Arnason at University of Lund, Sweden, Lammers and his colleagues are the first to have sequenced the complete genome of the blue whale and other rorquals, including the humpback and the gray whale. For these migratory whales, geographical barriers do not exist in the vastness of the ocean, instead some rorquals differentiated by inhabiting different ecological niches. Cross-genome analyses now indicate that there are apparently no genetic barriers between species and that there has been gene flow among different rorqual species in the past.

This is confirmed by spotting hybrids between fin and blue whales still to date, which have been witnessed and genetically studied by Professor Arnason. However, the researchers could not detect traces of recent liaisons between the two species in their genomes. This is probably because whale genomes are currently known only from one or two individuals.

To track down the rorquals’ evolution, the scientists have applied so-called evolutionary network analyses. “In these analyses, speciation is not considered as a bifurcating phylogenetic tree as Darwin has envisioned it, but as an interwoven network. This allows us to discover hidden genetic signals, that otherwise would have stayed undetected”, said Janke.

Overall, the research also shows that the relationships among the rorqual species are more complicated than hitherto thought. So far, the humpback whale has been seen as an outsider among the rorquals because of its enormous fins. The genome reveals that this classification does match the evolutionary signals. The same is true for the gray whale, which was believed to be evolutionarily distinct from rorquals due to its appearance. Genomic analyses show however that gray whales are nested within rorquals. Gray whales just happened to occupy a new ecological niche by feeding on crustaceans in coastal oceanic waters.

“Our research highlights the enormous potential of genome sequencing to better understand biological processes and the fundamentals of biodiversity. It even reveals how population sizes of whales have changed during the last million years”, said Janke. Janke is one of the leading researchers at the Hessian LOEWE Research Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (LOEWE-TBG). Launched in January 2018, LOEWE-TBG is set to systematically analyze complete genomes or all active genes. The research center is envisaged to do basic research with a strong emphasis on transferring knowledge to benefit the study of natural products and protect biodiversity.

Naturally occurring pigments in berries, also known as anthocyanins, increase the function of the sirtuin 6 enzyme in cancer cells, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. The regulation of this enzyme could open up new avenues for cancer treatment. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

Sirtuins are enzymes regulating the expression of genes that control the function of cells through key cellular signalling pathways. Ageing causes changes in sirtuin function, and these changes contribute to the development of various diseases. Sirtuin 6, or SIRT6 for short, is a less well-known enzyme that is also linked to glucose metabolism.

Berries get their red, blue or purple colour from natural pigments, anthocyanins.

“The most interesting results of our study relate to cyanidin, which is an anthocyanin found abundantly in wild bilberry, blackcurrant and lingonberry,” said Minna Rahnasto-Rilla, Doctor of Pharmacy, the lead author of the article.

Cyanidin increased SIRT6 enzyme levels in human colorectal cancer cells, and it was also discovered to decrease the expression of the Twist1 and GLUT1 cancer genes, while increasing the expression of the tumour suppressor FoXO3 gene in cells.

The researchers also designed a computer-based model that allowed them to predict how different flavonoid compounds in plants can regulate the SIRT6 enzyme.

The findings indicate that anthocyanins increase the activation of SIRT6, which may play a role in cancer pathogenesis. The study also lays a foundation for the development of new drugs that regulate SIRT6 function.

Working at the School of Pharmacy of the University of Eastern Finland, the Sirtuin Research Group studies whether anthocyanins found in berries could activate SIRT6 function and, consequently, reduce the expression of cancer genes and cancer cell growth. The group also develops new compounds targeting the epigenetic regulation of gene function.

The Finnish-American study included researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and the National Institute on Ageing in the US. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the US National Institute of Health.

For centuries, the prevailing science has indicated that all of the nitrogen on Earth available to plants comes from the atmosphere. But a study from the University of California, Davis, indicates that more than a quarter comes from Earth’s bedrock.

The study published in the journal Science, found that up to 26 percent of the nitrogen in natural ecosystems is sourced from rocks, with the remaining fraction from the atmosphere.

Before this study, the input of this nitrogen to the global land system was unknown. The discovery could greatly improve climate change projections, which rely on understanding the carbon cycle. This newly identified source of nitrogen could also feed the carbon cycle on land, allowing ecosystems to pull more emissions out of the atmosphere, the authors said.

“Our study shows that nitrogen weathering is a globally significant source of nutrition to soils and ecosystems worldwide,” said co-lead author Ben Houlton, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and director of the UC Davis Muir Institute. “This runs counter the centuries-long paradigm that has laid the foundation for the environmental sciences. We think that this nitrogen may allow forests and grasslands to sequester more fossil fuel CO2 emissions than previously thought.”

WEATHERING IS KEY

Ecosystems need nitrogen and other nutrients to absorb carbon dioxide pollution, and there is a limited amount of it available from plants and soils. If a large amount of nitrogen comes from rocks, it helps explain how natural ecosystems like boreal forests are capable of taking up high levels of carbon dioxide.

But not just any rock can leach nitrogen. Rock nitrogen availability is determined by weathering, which can be physical, such as through tectonic movement, or chemical, such as when minerals react with rainwater.

That’s primarily why rock nitrogen weathering varies across regions and landscapes. The study said that large areas of Africa are devoid of nitrogen-rich bedrock while northern latitudes have some of the highest levels of rock nitrogen weathering. Mountainous regions like the Himalayas and Andes are estimated to be significant sources of rock nitrogen weathering, similar to those regions’ importance to global weathering rates and climate. Grasslands, tundra, deserts and woodlands also experience sizable rates of rock nitrogen weathering.

GEOLOGY AND CARBON SEQUESTRATION

Mapping nutrient profiles in rocks to their potential for carbon uptake could help drive conservation considerations. Areas with higher levels of rock nitrogen weathering may be able to sequester more carbon.

“Geology might have a huge control over which systems can take up carbon dioxide and which ones don’t,” Houlton said. “When thinking about carbon sequestration, the geology of the planet can help guide our decisions about what we’re conserving.”

MYSTERIOUS GAP

The work also elucidates the “case of the missing nitrogen.” For decades, scientists have recognized that more nitrogen accumulates in soils and plants than can be explained by the atmosphere alone, but they could not pinpoint what was missing.

“We show that the paradox of nitrogen is written in stone,” said co-leading author Scott Morford, a UC Davis graduate student at the time of the study. “There’s enough nitrogen in the rocks, and it breaks down fast enough to explain the cases where there has been this mysterious gap.”

In previous work, the research team analyzed samples of ancient rock collected from the Klamath Mountains of Northern California to find that the rocks and surrounding trees there held large amounts of nitrogen. With the current study, the authors built on that work, analyzing the planet’s nitrogen balance, geochemical proxies and building a spatial nitrogen weathering model to assess rock nitrogen availability on a global scale.

The researchers say the work does not hold immediate implications for farmers and gardeners, who greatly rely on nitrogen in natural and synthetic forms to grow food. Past work has indicated that some background nitrate in groundwater can be traced back to rock sources, but further research is needed to better understand how much.

REWRITING TEXTBOOKS

“These results are going to require rewriting the textbooks,” said Kendra McLauchlan, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology, which co-funded the research. “While there were hints that plants could use rock-derived nitrogen, this discovery shatters the paradigm that the ultimate source of available nitrogen is the atmosphere. Nitrogen is both the most important limiting nutrient on Earth and a dangerous pollutant, so it is important to understand the natural controls on its supply and demand. Humanity currently depends on atmospheric nitrogen to produce enough fertilizer to maintain world food supply. A discovery of this magnitude will open up a new era of research on this essential nutrient.”