President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to fight illegal immigration, officials said.

“The president has directed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to work together with our governors to deploy the National Guards to our southwest border to assist the border patrol,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters at the White House prior to the signing.

She said specifics were being worked out but did not provide details about how many troops would be deployed.

But Mexico’s foreign ministry said Neilson told Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray the troops would not be armed nor conduct custom patrol duties but support the work of Homeland Security.

Trump found backing for his decision from Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.

“Arizona welcomes the deployment of National Guard to the border. Washington has ignored this issue for too long and help is needed. For Arizona, it’s all about public safety,” Ducey wrote on Twitter.

Trump made the surprise announcement a day earlier when he said the U.S. would use its military to secure the border until his long-promised wall is built.

“We are going to be guarding our border with the military. That’s a big step,” he said at the White House. “We really haven’t done that before, or certainly not very much before.”

The move, however, is not without precedence.

In 2006, President Barack Obama deployed troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and before him President George W. Bush in 2006.

Original source

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for elections on April 6 after facing a torrid time in office battling corruption allegations and anger over rising prices.

Parliament will be dissolved effective April 7, Najib said in a televised address from the administrative capital of Putrajaya after meeting King Sultan Muhammad V to gain approval for the dissolution.

The general election, Malaysia’s 14th, must be held within 60 days but is widely expected to be by the end of this month or the first week of next so as not to coincide with Ramadan, the month-long Muslim fasting period that starts on May 15.

In the last election, Najib’s coalition managed to hang on to power despite losing the popular vote for the first time since 1969. Additional changes to electoral boundaries mean his coalition could regain a two-third majority in parliament even though its share of the popular vote may shrink, critics note.

Race and religion continue to play a key role in the country’s politics. His party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the senior partner in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, has kept in place policies favoring Malays and indigenous groups together known as Bumiputera, which translates as “sons of the soil,” with government contracts and jobs.

The fundamentalist Malasyian Islamic Party (PAS) recently brought a motion before parliament to give more power to the nation’s Shariah courts and aims to hold the balance of power in the next parliament.

“We are satisfied. We have done our part in bringing the motion to suggest the amendment,” PAS MP Takiyuddin Hassan told reporters

Najib, 64, reminded Malaysians the elections in the country are not based on popular votes.

Pointing out how the country has practiced the first past the post system since the country’s independence he said the system “is based on the number of seats won and not based on the popular vote which should be understood by all quarters especially parties that will be contesting in the general election.”

“If BN wins again, we promise we’ll do our best to undertake an even bigger transformation that’s inclusive and comprehensive for the people and the country. We have delivered and we will continue to deliver,” Najib said.

This will be Najib’s second election since he became prime minister in 2009. Facing off against his Barisan Nasional coalition will be Pakatan Harapan, a four-party alliance led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest serving premier who left Najib’s party in 2016.

Najib has managed to fend off corruption allegations that surfaced in 2015 surrounding the state-owned investment fund 1MDB, going as far as to sack internal critics and even government officials investigating allegations. He denies any wrongdoing.

A refreshed series of obstacles placed before the opposition, who have been campaigning for free and fair elections, all but favors the BN to extend its unbroken hold on power since independence in 1957.

The ruling coalition enjoys key advantages ahead of the election including control of a compliant mainstream media and re-drawn electoral districts that multiply support for the government.

An anti-fake news law passed this week which makes it a crime to maliciously create and distribute false information, further curbing free speech in the country.

About 60 percent of 14.8 million registered voters are Malay, 22.7 percent Chinese and the rest Indian and other ethnic groups.

Though his coalition is represented by members of each major ethnic group in the country, UMNO has been leaning ever more towards the Malay Muslim vote, even wooing the hard-line Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party to ward off threats and demands for equality from minorities.

In a strategy to win over Malay voters, Mahathir has been chosen by the opposition Pakatan Harapan alliance as their candidate for prime minister until their leader Anwar Ibrahim is released from prison on sodomy charges in mid-June. Pakatan say they will seek a royal pardon for Anwar so he can take over as prime minister from Mahathir if they win.

The dissolution of the 13th parliament comes more than two months before the end of the ruling coalition’s five-year term.

By Amin Masoodi

Villagers discovered the beheaded body of a civilian Friday in an orchard in Indian-administered Kashmir, a day after suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants abducted him, police said.

Authorities said the victim was the second civilian killed by militants in separate incidents this week in the troubled Himalayan region, where the Indian-controlled side has been shut down since Monday following an outbreak of violence that left 20 people dead on April 1. As of Friday, more than 170 people had been injured during five days of clashes between anti-India protestors and security forces, officials said.

“Exhibiting its brand of brutality, the terrorists have left the body headless,” Kashmir’s Zone Police said in a Twitter post Friday.

The latest killings occurred as intelligence agencies were warning of a significant spike in militant attacks on security forces and civilians following the killings of 13 separatist rebels by Indian forces in a single day last weekend.

“We have information that Pakistan-based terror groups such as LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) have joined hands with Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Kashmir’s oldest and largest separatist group, to launch attacks on security forces and civilians,” an Indian intelligence officer who asked to remain anonymous told BenarNews.

The 13 militants were gunned down in three separate encounters in south Kashmir on Sunday, the deadliest day of the year so far in Indian Kashmir. Three security personnel were also killed during the gunfights, while four civilians were killed in police firing after anti-India demonstrations to protest the killings turned violent.

“These outfits have suffered heavy casualties at the hands of our security forces in recent months. They are trying to regroup to mount major attacks to disrupt any chances of peace in the region. We have already informed our forces that they should expect a significant increase in armed assaults in Kashmir,” the intelligence officer said.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir. An outbreak of insurgency on the Indian side, known as the state of Jammu and Kashmir, has claimed more than 70,000 lives – a majority of them civilians – since the late 1980s.

Kidnapped from homes

The latest civilian who was killed, Manzoor Ahmed Bhat, 24, and his father, Abdul Gaffar, 50, were kidnapped early Thursday after suspected members of Pakistan-based LeT stormed their house in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, police said.

Bhat’s body was found on the outskirts of the district’s Hajin area. Gaffar managed to escape but was recovering at a hospital after being shot, police said.

“The brutal killing of young Mazoor Ahmed is highly condemnable but should also serve as a reminded of where society is headed. The scourge of terror has hit a new low as the brutality of this act has left us all in shock,” Mehbooba Mufti, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state, said in a tweet.

The young man and his father were abducted two days after a taxi driver, Muntazir Ahmad Parrey, 33, was found dead within hours of being taken by suspected LeT operatives from his father-in-law’s home in Bandipora, according to authorities.

Police identified the mastermind of the two killings as local LeT militant Mohommad Saleem, an official told BenarNews on condition of anonymity, adding that efforts to capture him and his accomplices were ongoing.

Tourist season

Ravideep Sahi, inspector general of Kashmir’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), said officials expected a spike in militant attacks in the region with the tourist season approaching in May.

“Militants have always shown desperation to disrupt the tourist season by attacking security installations to create terror among visitors,” Sahi told BenarNews.

“But, this year, their desperation has grown because of the severe damage security forces have inflicted on rebel outfits by killing their members,” he added.

About 730,000 tourists visited Indian Kashmir last year, the lowest in six years, according to official figures. About 840,000 tourists visited Kashmir in 2016 and 920,000 the preceding year.

S.P. Vaid, Indian Kashmir’s police chief, said the situation was under control. He urged tourists to ignore threats and visit Kashmir in large numbers.

“The situation is very much in our control and tourists need not panic,” Vaid told BenarNews. “We are here to safeguard tourists and locals,” he added.

Meanwhile, according to a defense analyst, militant outfits in Indian Kashmir are struggling to survive.

“Indian forces have stepped up counter insurgency operations in recent months, and gunned down several suspected rebels. These groups may coordinate and launch attacks in the region to ensure violence continues in the region,” retired Maj. Gen. Ravi Arora told BenarNews.

India needs to act tough against Pakistan to stop on-going ceasefire violations on the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border dividing Kashmir between the two sides, another expert said, adding these ceasefire violations were intended as a cover for Pakistani militants to sneak into Indian territory.

“Pakistan will make desperate attempts to push more JeM and LeT operatives into India. Pakistan believes LeT and JeM cadres fight more effectively than local militants,” retired Maj. Gen. G.D. Bakshi, a New Delhi-based security analyst, told BenarNews.

On Friday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif accused India of trying to resolve the Kashmir issue “through the barrel of the gun.”

Sunday’s killing of 17 people “by the Indian occupation forces is totally unacceptable and should be unequivocally condemned by the international community and human rights community around the world,” Khawaja said, according to the Press Trust of India.

By Ana Maria Luca

Romania’s biggest international airport in Bucharest is to ban jumbo jets for at least two months and repair both its runways, after an incident at the end of March revealed that its infrastructure may pose a risk to passenger and aircraft security.

Romania’s Civil Aviation Authority has offcially notofied the airport that jumbo jets should be restricted from landing on Henry Coanda Airport until June 1, 2018, after an NGO revealed that an Israeli El Al jumbo jet dislocated parts of the only operational runway while taking off on March 30.

At the end of November, Romania’s Airport Administration announced that the same runway had been rehabilitated and was fully operational. Repairs had started in July 2017, after heavy rain flooded it, causing delays.

On April 2, Pro-Infrastructura, an NGO that monitors infrastructure and construction in Romania, revealed the incident on social media, calling for the government to intervene and repair the infrastructure.

The NGO said it had signalled many times that the state of the two runways on the Henry Coanda Airport posed risks to passenger safety.

“The runway … which has been patched up numerous times with thin layers of asphalt is truly a safety risk,” the NGO said. It also said that the incident on March 30 was not the first, and that the authorities had been ignoring warnings and complaints from airlines.

The organization noted that the second runway, which is only operational for two-thirds of its length, was also closed at the time of the incident.

The airport was closed to air traffic for an hour after the incident on March 30, and several flights had to circle around and wait for the quick repairs so they could land.

“We reached a point when pilots, air traffic controllers and even airline managers are warning that the state of the airport infrastructure has become unacceptable, and the risks are very high,” the organization added.

The manager of Romania’s airline Tarom, Werner Wolff, told the media at the end of March that planes need to change tires three to five times a week because of the poor runway maintenance at Bucharest’s international airport.

“Otopeni needs massive investment in its runways and I believe we need also to change the way we receive passengers,” he said. “What is in our way, however, are the potholes in the runways that simply cut through the wheels; it’s unbelievable how many times we have to change them. The costs are massive,” Wolff added.

After an inspection following the March 30 incident, Romania’s Civil Aviation notified the airport that it had to restrict traffic for jumbo jets while both runways undergo repairs. The temporary ban includes all aircraft bigger than Boeing 757s and Airbus A 300s.

The Ministry of Transport also announced that both runaways will be repaired and works are set to begin on April 12.

Only Turkish Airlines and Israel’s El Al operate flights with jumbo jets on Henry Coanda Airport.

The Ministry of Transport last year said it planned to build a new terminal for Henry Coada International Airport, including new platforms, driveways, road connections, parking and a new tower.

Sperm donors in Beijing should “love socialism and the motherland, and uphold the leadership of the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party,” according to a recent hospital advertisement.

The requirements are “top of the list” for attributes required for successful donation of sperm, according to the No. 3 Peking University Hospital, which wants to “improve … [and] optimize” those applying to become donors.

Applicants should be under 20 years of age, resident in Beijing, and “be of the highest ideological quality,” the ad said.

“They should passionately love the motherland and socialism, uphold the leadership of the Communist Party, and be sincerely loyal to the work of the party,” it said.

“They should have no political issues [in their background] … should adhere to the standards of meritocracy in terms of both talent and morality, and undergo a full suite of physical examinations and related inspection methods,” it said.

Those who feel they are able to meet these requirements should sign up at the Peking University No. 3 Hospital’s sperm bank before May 23, the ad said.

“Subsidy” payments of up to 5,500 yuan (U.S. $870) will be available to those who complete the donation process, it said.

Yu Xuedong, medical affairs manager at the sperm bank, declined to elaborate on the language used in the advertisement when contacted by RFA on Friday, saying only that the sperm bank would test applicants using its own procedures.

“There will be an application process to go through once you get here, so even though the ad says this, there is still an application to go through to see if [the requirements in the ad] are indeed the case,” he said.

Asked if the sperm bank plans to test applicants’ political suitability, Yu replied: “That I don’t know … this isn’t the most important thing; what’s important is that we have to comply with national standards.”

“If there is anything else, may I suggest you contact our propaganda department?” he said.

Patriotic sperm

Amid an uproarious reaction on China’s tightly controlled internet on Friday, the hospital quietly removed the political requirements from its recruitment ad.

While the language of the ad appears carefully designed to sound like a staff recruitment process rather than a eugenics project, commentators were quick to ridicule to the notion that ideology can be handed down via DNA to the next generation, with memes like “red sperm” and “patriotism starts with your sperm” making the rounds on social media.

A nurse surnamed Shao at a hospital in the central province of Hunan said she found the advertisement funny.

“I saw the ad. I thought it was hilarious,” Shao said. “I mean, people’s DNA can be inherited, but how can their ideology, education or patriotism be inherited? All you need is for your subjects to be in good health, and then they can come.”

“Why do they have to emphasize their patriotism and political thought processes so much? It’s very strange,” she said. “Why does politics have to get dragged into it?”

Hong Kong cartoonist A Ping told RFA: “This is even crazier than the Mao generation. Talk about making sure they’re red from the start.”

He said he had a problem with the implied eugenics involved in the project, too. “It’s actually a very outdated racist concept, and runs counter to the progress of humanity,” he said.

Beijing-based artist Ji Feng agreed.

“They are turning common knowledge on its head and talking about strengthening the party’s leadership in the womb, so as to raise a new, red generation as the successors to socialism,” he said.

According to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, donors are required to donate their sperm around 10 times in the space of six months to ensure an adequate supply for artificial insemination.

Child limit

Beijing expanded the one-child limit per household to two children at the start of 2016, in a bid to bring an extra 30 million people into the work force by 2050 and create a fall of two percentage points in the proportion of elderly people in the general population.

Since then, demand for donated sperm has skyrocketed, but a lack of donors has led many couples to seek IVF treatment overseas, in countries like Australia and Malaysia.

Previous health ministry guidelines have been strictly medical, with donors expected to be between the ages of 22 and 44, and in good physical and mental health, with sperm that meets the parameters for fertility. Donors are typically tested for sexually transmitted diseases as part of the overall evaluation process.

Infertility in China has risen to 12.5 percent during the 30 years ending in 2010, Quartz reported, citing the most recent government study.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Kazakhstan opened a criminal investigation of two prominent independent media outlets on March 30, 2018, for “disseminating knowingly false information,” Human Rights Watch said.

Police on April 2 interrogated four journalists and executed search warrants at the offices of Forbes Kazakhstan and an analytical news portal, Ratel.kz. Police also searched the homes of several journalists from those outlets who are apparently implicated in the case, including a now-deceased Ratel.kz journalist. In a civil action brought by prosecutors, an Almaty court on March 31 preliminarily approved blocking Ratel.kz and its affiliated websites.

“Kazakh authorities have been quick to carry out searches and confiscate material from Ratel.kz and Forbes Kazakhstan while details of the alleged criminal conduct remain a mystery,” said Mihra Rittmann, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The ease with which the criminal defamation case was brought against Forbes Kazakhstan and Ratel.kz underscores the fragility of media freedom in Kazakhstan.”

Kazakhstan is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and high level government officials assert that the country has a free press. But journalists in Kazakhstan frequently face criminal defamation lawsuits and heavy fines.

Almaty police told the media on April 2 that they had opened a criminal investigation on March 30, on a complaint from Zeinulla Kakimzhanov, a businessman and former finance minister, who claimed that the outlets published false information that damaged his reputation. Kakimzhanov had previously lodged a successful defamation complaint against the same outlets in December 2016.

Police confiscated computers and documents from both media offices. Local news reports and comments from journalists at both outlets on Facebook said the police refused to give a copy of the search warrant to staff at either outlet or to permit the journalists to photograph it.

Police searched the homes of Aleksandr Vorotilov, deputy editor-in-chief of Forbes Kazakhstan; Marat Asipov, chief editor at Ratel.kz; Sapa Mekebaev, its deputy editor; Anna Kalashnikova, a Ratel.kz journalists; and Gennady Benditskii, a deceased Ratel.kz journalist.

Forbes Kazakhstan’s chief editor Askar Aukenov wrote on his Facebook page on April 2 that the search at Forbes’ Kazakhstan office, from 12:30 to 3 p.m., ended after police “drafted a protocol, took [Vorotilov’s computer] processor, his work notebooks, flash drives, and for some reason, [his] bank cards.”

Tatyana Shumilina, Vorotilov’s wife, told Human Rights Watch that four police officers arrived with Vorotilov to search her home sometime between 1 and 2 p.m. on April 2. The officers “behaved properly,” but did not leave a copy of the protocol, an official record of the search and items confiscated. She said the police also confiscated her bank card and mobile phone.

Benditskii’s widow told a Ratel.kz colleague, Vadim Boreiko, who posted the information on his Facebook page on April 2, that four police officers searched her home and confiscated four computers, approximately 200 audio cassettes, old VHS videos, and CDs, and a wi-fi router. She told Boreiko that the police did not allow her to call a lawyer.

Police took Vorotilov of Forbes and Asipov, Mekebaev, and Kalashnikova of Ratel.kz to a police station for questioning on April 2. The journalists’ colleagues reported on Facebook that the four were released at about 9 p.m. and were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. They were also told they have the status of “witness with the right of defense.” After further questioning Asipov on April 4, the police changed his status to “suspect.”

On April 3, Internal Affairs Minister Kalmukhanbet Kasymov, was quoted in the media saying, “On March 30, 2018, the police received a complaint from Mr. Kakimzhanov asking [the police] to take action against the distribution of false and defamatory information on the website Ratel.kz, as well as Forbes Kazakhstan. His complaint was registered…and an investigation opened on charges of article 274, part 3 of the Criminal Code.”

Article 274, part 3 of the Criminal Code, or “disseminating knowingly false information,” carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

In January 2017, an Almaty court began hearing the defamation lawsuit Kakimzhanov and his son, Ilkhalid Kakimzhanov, had filed against Ratel.kz, its journalists Asipov, Bendinskii, Mekebaev, and Forbes Kazakhstan and Vorotilov, demanding retractions for a series of articles published between May and December 2016. The articles allege misconduct in Kakimzhanovs’ business dealings.

Tamara Kaleeva, the director of Adilsoz, a local media watchdog organization, told Human Rights Watch that its legal experts analyzed 10 of the articles in question, and found nothing defamatory. The Almaty court hearing the case declined to enter Adilsoz’s analysis into evidence.

In April 2017, the court ruled in favor of the Kakimzhanovs and awarded total damages of 50,200,000 tenge (at the current exchange rate, approximately US$158,000). The court required the outlets to remove the articles from their sites and issue a retraction.

The media outlets appealed, but the decision was upheld. A Forbes Kazakhstan staff member told Human Rights Watch that Forbes paid the damages, deleted the articles from its website and issued a retraction.

Ratel.kz also paid the damages, but sought clarification from the first instance court about what information the court expected it to retract. It received no response and did not delete the articles or issue a retraction.

Kakimzhanov in a Facebook post on April 2 explained his decision to file a complaint. He wrote: “Despite court rulings, select media outlets and their authors do not comply with the court rulings and continue to publish similar articles.”

The Medeu district court in Almaty issued a preliminarily order on March 30 to block Ratel.kz and Balborsyk.kz, an alternative site on which Ratel.kz publishes its content, and to forbid Asipov from publishing any material under the Ratel.kz name. Ratel.kz and its affiliate sites have not been accessible since the ruling.

After the first hearing on April 5, which Boreiko tried to attend, he noted in a Facebook post that the district prosecutor brought the lawsuit for violating the “Rules for Registration, Use and Distribution of Domain Names in the Kazakhstan Internet Space.” No observers were permitted in the Almaty courtroom for the hearing. The court set another hearing for April 10.

In its most recent concluding observations on Kazakhstan, issued in August 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which interprets the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, expressed its concern “about laws and practices that violate freedom of opinion and expression, including: (a) the extensive application of criminal law provisions to individuals exercising their right to freedom of expression, …including …dissemination of information known to be false” and said Kazakhstan should “consider decriminalizing defamation and, in any case, countenance the application of criminal law only in the most serious of cases…”

“For the Kazakh government’s claim of a free press to be credible, Kazakhstan should abolish criminal defamation, and stop using defamation and similar laws to harass journalists who are doing their jobs,” Rittmann said. “This latest action against Forbes Kazakhstan and Ratel.kz smacks of yet another attempt to silence independent media in Kazakhstan.”

by Lucas Malaspina*

When Mark Zuckerberg decided to offer emerging nations Internet.org, anger was not long in exploding. As Daniel Leisegang writes in ‘Facebook is saving the world’, this project which emerged in 2013 was a humanitarian masquerade: to allow Internet access to a huge number of Third World citizens who still remained outside the global village.

The idea was to break the barriers that prevent, for example, two-thirds of the Indian population from joining Facebook. However, besides India, the project was aimed at a total of 100 more nations.

Accused of violating the neutrality of the network, Facebook had to change the name: Internet.org came to be called Free Basics and it had to leave India in 2015 due to the large amount of criticism it received.

Why? Because Facebook was not offering plain and simple Internet but an application for mobile phones through which the lower income sectors of that country could access a limited version of the Internet.

The idea, originally driven by the spirit that “connectivity is a human right”, ended up showing that what Zuckerberg was proposing was laying hands on the gigantic data mass of a significant number of the world’s poor (for monetising them).

Who decided what services would be available in the application? According to Chris Daniels, vice-president of the company, the decision was taken by Facebook, the government of each country and the associated telecommunications operator.

We could be justified in saying that if “Internet is a human right”, with Free Basics, Facebook only aims to regulate the “limited human rights” of half of the world’s population (which does not have access to the Internet).

Policies that actually widen the digital divide have little to envy in the model of North Korea, where the majority only has access to a modest local Intranet which has only 28 pages available and content controlled by the government of Kim Jong-un (the exception, as is obvious, is the ruling elite).

Free Basics, which is in a very embryonic phase, counted about 40 million users in November 2016. In Latin America, Free Basics has already been implemented in three countries (over twenty have joined worldwide): Colombia, Guatemala and also Bolivia, whose inclusion in this programme highlights the insufficient discussion of the problems of the monopoly of information in the digital era by continental populism (or, in this case, its collaboration with/subordination to such monopolies).

Free Basics does not allow access to Google, the most popular search engine in the world, but to Bing (the search engine of competitor Microsoft, which owns shares in Facebook).

Now, what happens with the 49.6 percent (3.7 million people) that do have access to Internet tout court without (apparent) restrictions, and more than 90 percent of which are Google users? Can we really boast of using a truly free and “neutral” Internet?

The Search Engine Manipulation Effect

The expression “Search Engine Manipulation Effect” (SEME) was used in August 2015 by Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson, two American academics who demonstrated that it was possible to decide the vote of 20 percent or more of undecided voters depending on the results offered by Google.

In several articles and interviews, Epstein refers to his study and states that “in some demographic groups, up to 80 percent of voters” may change their electoral preferences according to the results offered by Google. In February 2016, the British media were the subject of a controversy over the interference of the search engine in the elections.

This is not just a problem of Western democracy. According to French intellectual Barbara Cassin, author of Google Me: One-Click Democracy, Google is said to have given the Chinese government profiles of its users in that country, “which allowed identification and even the arrest of dissidents”.

To illustrate the ideological bias of search engines, Cassin notes that “if, in a country other than China, one writes Tiananmen in Google, you will obtain data on the repression of demonstrators in that Beijing square in 1989 which left hundreds dead: but, if you write it in China, you will only get peaceful urban references to the square”.

Of course, Google does not admit this ideological bias implicit in its system, but the company’s recent policies to help “fight terrorism” in general – and the Islamic State (ISIS) in particular – specifically show how its power over the decisions of people works today.

Take Jigsaw, a Google pilot programme based on its customised advertising system, which has a zero commercial, but certainly political, objective. The plan is to locate users who are receptive to the message of ISIS and offer them a series of specific announcements through which they are secretly redirected to contents that refute the thesis of ISIS and could help dissuade them from the idea of joining the ‘Caliphate’.

Few could object to Google convincing people to reject ISIS, but it is clear that this reveals that Google is far from being “neutral” or “objective” and, on the contrary, draws attention to the possibilities of manipulating the user.

Battle against fake news or censorship 2.0?

Times have changed, and with them also what we find on the Internet. In 2010, when searching politics on Google, only 40 percent of the results were provided by the media. In 2016, that percentage was close to 70 percent.

On April 25, 2017, Google announced that it had implemented changes in its search service to make it harder for users to access what it called “low quality” information such as “conspiracy theories” and “false news” (fake news). Facebook also applied a similar policy.

Google said that the central purpose of the change in its search algorithm was to provide greater control in the identification of content considered objectionable. Speaking on behalf of the company, Ben Gomes stated that Google had “improved evaluation methods and made algorithmic updates” in order to “make more authoritative content emerge”.

Google continued: “We updated our guidelines to evaluate search quality for providing more detailed examples of low quality web pages for evaluators to mark properly.” These moderators are instructed to mark “annoying experiences for the user,” including pages that present “conspiracy theories”.

According to Google, these changes apply unless “the query clearly indicates that the user is seeking an alternative point of view”.

Since Google implemented the changes in its search engine, fewer people have accessed left-wing, progressive or anti-war news sites. Based on the information available in an Alexa analysis, some of the sites that have experienced losses in ranking include WikiLeaks, Truthout, Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, WSWS, American Civil Liberties Union and even Amnesty International.

Interestingly, shortly before that Google decision, The Washington Post had published an article titled “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say“. That article cited an anonymous group known as PropOrNot that had compiled a list of fake news sites spreading “Russian propaganda”. On April 7, 2017, Bloomberg News reported that Google was working directly with The Washington Post to “verify” articles and eliminate fake news.

This was followed by the new Google search methodology: of the 17 sites declared as “false news” by The Washington Post‘s blacklist, 14 dropped in their world ranking. The average decrease in the global reach of all these sites was 25 percent, and some sites had seen it drop by 60 percent.

The suspicion that Google has allied with the powerful traditional media to discriminate against alternative and independent media is strengthened by linking these facts.

In addition to its own search engine, Google has control over YouTube, a company bought in 2006 (one year after its founding). Starting from a certain number of views, YouTube pays video producers for placing ads on their videos, acting as an intermediary between the big companies and them.

The most serious change in YouTube occurred as a result of reports such as that of the Wall Street Journal stating that ads appearing on YouTube videos showed extremism and hatred. When big advertisers such as AT&T and Johnson & Johnson withdrew their ads, YouTube announced that it would try to make the site more acceptable to advertisers by “taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content”.

With these new algorithms, Google harmed producers of progressive and independent videos, provoking what they called “adpocalypse”. Basically, the mechanism ended up by condemning those alternative content and pushed video producers to avoid objectionable opinions or points of view … according to Google/YouTube policy standards.

The practices of Google in relation to algorithms that regulate search engines not only had political implications but also commercial purposes. In the framework of its anti-trust regulations, the European Commission fined Google 2.7 billion dollars for manipulating them to direct users to its own purchasing service, Google Shopping, by making use of its dominant position.

The obscurity of algorithms: an elementary democratic problem

Cathy O’Neil, data scientist and author of the book Mathematical weapons of destruction, warns of the “blind trust” placed in algorithms for obtaining objective results.

The architecture of Internet has a tremendous influence on what is done and what is seen; algorithms influence which content spreads most on Facebook and which appears on top of Google searches. However, users are not aware of this nor able to understand how data are collected and how they are classified.

While Free Basics was criticised for trying to give the disconnected of the Third World access to a second-class connection believing that the Internet is equal to Facebook, it cannot be denied that for “first class” digital citizens, Google is virtually the same as the Internet, because it is what makes it possible to access its contents in an organised way.

In this way, the obscurity of algorithms becomes an elementary democratic problem. After a decade of populist or progressive governments in Latin America, for example, no measures have been taken to control the power of these monopolies of information, while debate on this topic is long overdue.

With not even the left in developed nations having come up with a joint programme, one of the most urgent tasks facing us today is to politicise this issue.

* Lucas Malaspina, digital manager of RTP Advisory Services, pursued postgraduate studies in Political Communication and Public Opinion at the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and is specialised in digital content. This article was originally published in Spanish under the title La Democracia de Google, Facebook and YouTube? Apuntes Sobre el Sesgo Ideologico de los Motores de Busqueda in Utopia Rossa. Translated by Phil Harris.

The first definitive demonstration of climate change upsetting the vital interdependent relationships between species has been revealed, thanks to a study led by the University of Sussex.

Research led by Prof Michael Hutchings at the University of Sussex tracks how rising temperatures since the mid-17th century have wrecked a relationship, which relies on precision timing to succeed, between a rare orchid species and the Buffish Mining-bee which pollinates it.

Prof Hutchings, Emeritus Professor in Ecology, said the climate is changing so rapidly that the early spider orchid cannot respond effectively, leaving this species, and probably many other plants with highly specialized pollination mechanisms, facing the threat of severe decline and possible extinction.

Prof Hutchings said: “It is likely that many other species dependencies are also suffering from climate-induced changes to their life cycles. This study is, we believe, the best documentation we have as yet of such an effect and confirms with hard data the long-held concerns of ecologists. While this is especially bad news for the early spider orchid, the devastating impact of climate change is in all likelihood harming the delicate interdependent relationships of many species.”

The early spider orchid achieves pollination by emitting a scent that imitates that of a female Buffish Mining-bee. The smell fools male bees into attempting to mate (pseudocopulation) with the flower. In doing so, the male bee dislodges pollen masses from the flower. These pollen masses are then transported to different flowers when the bee next attempts pseudocopulation.

Pollination depends not only on male bees emerging before female bees and before flowering, but also, crucially, on the orchid flowering before female bees emerge.

However, rising temperatures have led to male bee flight, female bee flight and flowering all occurring earlier in the calendar year, but the timings of the three events are not changing at the same rate.

This is causing an increasing frequency of years in which the sequence of events needed for successful pollination (male bee emergence before orchid flowering before female bee emergence) does not occur.

For every 1 °C rise in spring temperature, the peak flying dates of male and female bees occur 9.2 and 15.6 days earlier in the year but the orchids’ peak flowering advances by just 6.4 days.

The study shows that, since the mid-seventeenth century, as recorded spring temperatures have gradually risen, the interval between male and female bees emerging from hibernation has decreased significantly.

Most critically, however, higher spring temperatures now make female bees likely to achieve peak flying more than a week before peak orchid flowering date.

Whereas peak flying date of female bees preceded peak orchid flowering in only 40% of the years between 1659 and 1710, this figure has risen to 80% in the years from 1961 to 2014.

As female bees now take flight before the orchid flowers in almost every year, male bees will mate by preference with females rather than pseudocopulate with the orchid, simply because female bees are available as a better alternative when the orchid is flowering. Orchid pollination is therefore much less likely nowadays than when spring temperatures were lower, and it may fail completely in almost all years.

Worryingly, the research, carried out with the University of East Anglia and the University of Kent and published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, also shows that while the mean spring temperature in the UK has risen by about 1 °C in the 356-year period studied, the rate of warming, and its impact on bee flying and orchid flowering dates, is accelerating.

Climate change, alongside loss of habitat, unsuitable grazing regimes, the orchid’s already-inefficient pollination mechanism and its short life-span, has seen its range in the UK decline by at least 60% since 1930.

But Prof Hutchings warns that unless the orchid undergoes rapid selection for earlier flowering following warm springs, it is likely that continued climate change will result in it always flowering after the emergence of female bees. He warns that a programme of hand pollination may be the only means to ensure the early spider-orchid remains a presence in the UK.

He added: “Further studies are urgently required, on a wider range of species and in various ecological communities, to assess the potential for climate warming to cause disruption of vital life historical events where different species are dependent on each other.

“As well as posing problems for plants that depend on pollinators being available on particular dates, climate change could threaten many other ecological interdependencies, including birds depending on caterpillars being available as food immediately after hatching and insects needing specific nectar sources.”

An interdisciplinary team of scientists examining everything from glaciology to freshwater ecology discovered drastic changes over the past decade to the world’s largest High Arctic lake. And from glacial melt to the declining lake ice to changes in lake ecology, the results from Lake Hazen on Ellesmere Island in Canada are alarming.

While it may sound modest, scientists have documented a temperature increase of just one degree over a series of warm summers, which has set off a chain of events disrupting the entire ecology of the lake. This increase of just one degree in atmospheric temperature led to increased solar radiation. The increased solar radiation has led to a significant increase in snowpack temperature, which in turn led to a whole series of shifts in the lake system.

“The amount of glacial meltwater going into the lake has dramatically increased,” said Martin Sharp, glaciologist and University of Alberta professor. “Because it’s glacial meltwater, the amount of fine sediment going into the lake has dramatically increased as well. That in turn affects how much light can get into the water column, which may affect biological productivity in the lake, and it also increases the rate of mineral sediment deposition on the lake bottom.”

The domino effect of changes resulted in not only algal blooms and detrimental changes to the Arctic Char fish population, but also points to a near certain future of summer ice-free conditions.

Untold impact

“Lake ice is important, because it prevents light from getting in to the lake, which phytoplankton need to photosynthesize,” said Kyra St. Pierre, a co-author and Vanier Scholar PhD student at the University of Alberta. “So if we have less lake ice or longer ice-free periods, more light enters the lake, which could actually increase productivity for the lake, a dramatically different scenario from what we’ve seen in the past.”

The findings document an unprecedented shift versus the previous three centuries, not only painting a bleak picture for the future of the of the lake and its catchment, but also challenge scientists’ expectations of how such a large system could respond so rapidly to a one-degree rise.

“We originally hypothesized that, because of its large volume, Lake Hazen would be relatively resilient to the impacts of Arctic warming,” said lead author Igor Lehnherr, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto-Mississauga and UAlberta alumnus. “The finding that this was not the case is alarming, because the Arctic is the most rapidly warming region on the planet, with conservative estimates predicting further warming of another approximately 4oC by the end of the century.”

St. Pierre further added that, while scientists would expect smaller systems to respond rapidly to temperature shifts, it was been anticipated that larger systems, like Lake Hazen, would change more slowly. “But Lake Hazen is pretty much as big as you can get in this kind of environment, and it’s already showing that there are changes across the entire ecosystem in less than a decade. And this is only a third of what the conservative scenarios are for future warming,” said St. Pierre.

Big-picture perspective

St. Pierre noted that the scientific exploration of Lake Hazen speaks to the big-picture perspective, approaching the questions of climate change from a focus on the whole system rather than examining subsystems in silos.

According to Sharp, the focus of the findings also marks an important milestone from the perspective of glaciology, which traditionally focuses on sea level as the most direct consequence of the impact of climate change on glaciers.

“If you look at the glacier literature on climate change, it’s mostly focused on sea level as the number one outcome. What this finding about Lake Hazen is telling us is that there can also be pretty substantial impacts in terrestrial aquatic ecosystems that are directly connected to the glaciers. So there are other things we need to think about from a climate impacts perspective,” said Sharp.

So are these dramatic changes in the High Arctic’s largest lake a sign of things to come? Sharp and St. Pierre say it’s too soon to tell, though given the rapid changes in the past decade, the scientific team is keeping a close eye on the entire ecosystem. “We are interested in how this plays out going forward, whether this is a short-term disturbance for which there could be some recovery if the atmospheric temperature cools again, or whether this is the start of something much bigger. That’s the interesting question,” said Sharp.

“The world’s largest High Arctic lake responds rapidly to climate warming,” was published in the March 29 issue of Nature Communications.

By Dr. Sandip Kumar Mishra

It is a critical time for the North Korean nuclear and missile issue, and South Korea, the US and other stakeholder states have accorded it their highest priority. Japan, however, is focusing its primary attention on the abduction of its citizens by North Korea, and has asked for the issue to be raised during the South Korea-North Korea and US-North Korea summit meets scheduled for April and May 2018, respectively.

On March 16, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised his concerns with over a telephonic conversation with the South Korean President Moon Jae-in. On March 17, the Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kano raised the issue again with his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha. On April 2, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga reiterated that during the April summit meet between Japan and the US, Japan would request President Donald Trump to explore the possibility of a Japan-North Korea summit. Japan emphasised the abduction issue as the “most important task” in dealing with North Korea.

It is unfortunate that Abe is more concerned about domestic politics and is deliberately trying to deflect focus from the North Korean nuclear issue. Japan’s priority also emanates from a sense of being left out in dealing with North Korea, a trend referred to as ‘Japan passing’.

According to Japan, 17 of its citizens were abducted by North Korea between 1977 and 1983 (North Korea claims that 13 were abducted). Five of them have already come back to Japan. While the abduction of these individuals is highly condemnable and entirely North Korea’s fault, it is not appropriate to continue raising an issue that happened more than 35 years ago, part of which has been already resolved. The deliberate use of it, time and again, to derail efforts aimed at North Korea’s denuclearisation is imprudent. In fact, North Korea has abducted more than 3,800 South Koreans, and it is estimated that 485 are still alive in North Korea. However, the South Korean leadership has focused on the larger issues in dealing with North Korea. Seoul’s approach – that the future should be not be kept hostage to the past – does not imply a lack of concern for their citizens. Their interest in securing long-term regional stability in fact means quite the opposite.

The Japanese attempt to raise the abductee issue is irresponsible. It will not contribute in any positive way to international attempts to deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons – in fact, Japan’s moves may play spoiler to the positive momentum established in recent months. Shinzo Abe has resorted to playing this card for two important reasons.

First, he feels that the current dynamics around the North Korean nuclear issue have moved towards negotiation and engagement, and Japan has no role in it. He sees ‘Japan passing’ as detrimental to Japan’s regional standing. Perhaps it is believed that the ends will justify the means if the country is able to find an entry into the process. Japan is also concerned that if relative peace arrives with the amelioration of the nuclear threat and establishment of a US-China modus vivendi in dealing with the issue in a consensual framework, Japan would lose its aggressive posture’s raison d’etre. Two, Japan’s behaviour could also be linked with the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election in autumn this year. Abe’s approval ratings have dropped after the finance ministry’s document-alteration scandal and he may feel apprehensive about a third straight victory in the presidential election.

Japan appears desperate, and from the very announcement of an important breakthrough during the South Korean envoys’ visit to North Korea in early March, Japan has strategically and recurrently expressed its apprehensions. When the potential for summit meets between the US, South Korea and North Korea were announced, Abe hurriedly fixed up a summit meet with the US ahead of both. Japan has not asked for the inclusion of any positive content in these meetings and the deliberations are more likely to sow doubt at a time when the US is on board with South Korea’s engagement efforts towards North Korea.

Japan may be able to persuade Trump against a give-and-take deal with North Korea since there is a history of mistrust when it comes to North Korean peace offers, and there may also be doubt regarding South Korea’s capacity to achieve anything substantial. However, Abe must realise that his political gambit will cause significant damage to Japan as a responsible stakeholder, and it is time to re-focus attention away from smaller past issues, to the most pressing threat to East Asian regional stability today.

By Seema Sirohi

Somehow the bio rhythms of India and the United States rarely seem to synchronise. From election cycles to policy formulations, the two are often out of sync. It makes doing things together harder and slower.

The lastest case in point: China. As the Americans finally awake from their long, collective dream about China growing into an honest stakeholder, India seems to be going into one of its cyclical sleep modes, imagining a mutually respectful relationship.

New Delhi has apparently promised Beijing it will not “intervene” in the Maldives in the hopes of building “strategic trust” after a tough year. This after forcing the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans to shift their celebration to Dharamsala to please the Chinese. The government note prohibiting senior officials from attending Tibetan functions that leaked will go down as one of the more clumsy moves.

Perhaps, a great Chanakyan trick will unfold in time but it’s bizarre to telegraph to the Chinese and the world what India will or won’t do in its own neighbourhood just to get a “reset” on unequal terms and of uncertain duration. This is not an argument for provoking China but bending backwards is also not necessary. The two schools of thought in the Indian foreign office – please them versus show them up — can surely find a better blend.

The recent public announcement on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that it had sold Pakistan a highly sophisticated large-scale optical tracking and measurement system is but one more example of Beijing’s swagger. No more hiding, denying and biding time.

In Washington, however, the rose tinted glasses are slowly coming off. The Americans are done expecting any concessions or fair play from China. Opinion across sectors, branches of government and business associations is gradually coalescing that China is a challenge, and a formidable rival. The Washington establishment is increasingly calling China out, and trying to restrict it from buying critical technology companies and punish it for stealing intellectual property.

How well it translates into policy in a town preoccupied with Russia and its sins and a myriad scandals starring President Donald Trump himself is anyone’s guess. But the three-decade long slumber, which began with Bill Clinton’s nod to China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank-IMF support and the think tank consensus that a market economy would ultimately bring liberal values, is well and truly over.

Here’s a statement from the latest US Trade Representative’s report on China’s WTO compliance submitted to the US Congress in January: “It seems clear that the United States erred in supporting China’s entry into the WTO on terms that have proven to be ineffective in securing China’s embrace of an open, market-oriented trade regime.” The WTO rules simply aren’t sufficient to deal with a state-led economy. And the state’s role is increasing, not decreasing.

It’s hard to imagine such bluntness during Barack Obama’s tenure – the crucial eight years for Chinese consolidation of territorial claims and military and technological power. Obama’s only real attempt to counter China was crafting the Trans Pacific Partnership but even that didn’t get the push it deserved.

Trump fired his first salvo early last month with steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. He exempted several countries but not China. He then announced plans to slap tariffs on $60 billion in Chinese imports following an investigation into theft of intellectual property from US companies. The tariffs are aimed at Chinese aerospace, technology and machine industries.

China fired back with tariffs on 128 US products worth $3 billion. The list includes pork, fruit, wine, steel pipes among other products and is designed to signal not really retaliate. More will surely come and test Trump’s resolve. The dominance of Peter Navarro, a long-time China critic, in the White House will bolster presidential determination but the key lies in how much pain can Trump’s base suffer for some gain in the end.

The US trade deficit with China is humongous. It stands at a staggering $375 billion and in Navarro’s thinking it is a national security threat. He wants to end the era of “economic surrender.” And Trump believes he is “doing things for this country that should have been done for many, many years.”

In the wake of US sanctions, Li promised to “fully open the manufacturing sector” to foreign companies but it was Chinese speak for when “hell freezes over.” Remember Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s comment that if the dragon and elephant danced together — a reference to India and China — it could make eleven? Yes, it would for China.

If Trump holds firm and a trade war ensues, it’s not necessary that the US would lose, especially if the Europeans agree to work on a joint strategy. Some economists have suggested the US could impose capital controls which would severely impact China.

The other focus of US strategy is to put roadblocks in the way of China’s attempt to control critical technologies by forcing technology transfer, buying key companies, using cyber-theft and ultimately dominating the world of robotics, artificial intelligence, aeronautics and anything futuristic. Trump recently blocked a hostile bid by a Singapore company to takeover Qualcomm, a $100 billion US chip manufacturer. More such interventions are likely.

It’s an open secret how technology has leaked from US military labs through scientific collaborations. US defence experts note the rapid expansion of Chinese weapon manufacturing and how similar some of their systems are to US designs. Visas for Chinese students coming for science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM programmes could get more difficult in the coming years.

The Senate is also considering a bill called The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernisation Act of 2017. It is written with China in mind. The idea is “to more effectively guard against the risk to the national security of the United States posed by certain types of foreign investment” and to modernise and strengthen the Committee on Foreign Investment. It covers any acquisition by a foreign company in which a foreign government has a 25% interest either directly or indirectly.

While awareness has taken a quantum leap, action and coordination with other countries will have to multiply manifold to make a difference.

According to the results  of the Ordinary Level Examination held in December 2017, only 51.12 per cent of candidates were able to pass the English subject. That is the lowest rate of pass percentage compared with the other core subjects.

The result evaluation report of the Examinations Department states that of the 296,157 students who sat for the English subject, only 151,393 students were able to obtain a simple “S” pass. Of the 151,393 students who passed the English subject, 31,619 obtained ‘A’ passes, 19,822 obtained ‘B’ passes, 39,717 obtained ‘C’ passes while 60,235 obtained ‘S’ passes.

However, a slight increase of the pass percentage of the English language was evident when considering the previous year (2016).Only 47.90 per cent of candidates were able to pass the English language in 2016. The pass percentage of Science subject in 2017 is 73.46 per cent and it was 66.33 in previous year (2016). The pass percentage of Mathematics subject in 2017 is 67.24 per cent and it was 62.81 in the previous year.

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Before he died, the late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, emeritus Archbishop of Bologna, told friends that he wished for a conference that would gather bishops and other Catholics to reflect on the state of the Church.

The conference “Church, where do you go?,” scheduled for April 7 in Rome, can be considered the fulfillment of Cardinal Caffarra’s wish.

Not by chance, the conference is dedicated to his memory. Not by chance, the subtitle of the conference is “only the blind would deny there is confusion in the Church,” a passage of one of his latest interviews.

A number of significant topics that have arisen during Pope Francis’ pontificate will be discussed: the 50th anniversary of the Humanae Vitae; questions about the Church’s doctrine on matters of sexual morality; the issue of conscience, which was crucial during the 2015 synod on family, and the concept of “discernment,” which is sometimes used in arguments justifying more open access to communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

The topics of discussion will also include the limits of the papal authority and infallibility.

There are all the ingredients of a rich food for thought.

Relators of the conference are Cardinals Raymond Leo Burke, Walter Brandmueller and Joseph Zen Zekiun; Bishop Athanasius Schneider; philosopher Marcello Pera; professors Renzo Puccetti and Valerio Gigliotti; and journalist Francesca Romana Poleggi.

The titles of the lectures touch critical issues, and also explore the possibility of correcting the pope, if his statements seem to contradict Catholic doctrine. This demonstrates the increasing preoccupation in some circles with the protection of the deposit of faith.

Though some presentation titles might seem harsh, the topics are real, and they are intended to be part of an attempt to respond to open issues, such as those put forth by the 2016 dubia of four cardinals, that asked the pope certain questions about the doctrine of the Church, in light of the different ways Amoris Laetitia was being interpreted.

The late Cardinal Caffarra was one of the signatories of those dubia, and his approach to the issue provides a good way to glimpse into the conference, beyond any possible vis polemica.

Cardinal Caffarra always underscored he was not against the Pope, but he was merely seeking clarity on issues of faith. His signature at the end of the dubia, and the following letter he sent to the Pope to solicit a response, was intended as a search for the guidance of Peter on questions on faith and doctrine.

The Apr. 7 conference will be concluded by a short video interview Cardinal Caffarra granted on the issue of Humanae Vitae, one of the increasingly controversial topics of the moment.

Presenting a book on the contribution of Cardinal Karol Wojtytla (then Pope John Paul II) to the preparatory commission of Humanae Vitae, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, emeritus prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stressed that overturning the teaching of the Bl. Paul VI encyclical would be “a crime against the Church,” and denounced the work of a “secret commission” to re-write Humanae Vitae.

The commission is a study group led by professor Gilfredo Marengo, that is said to be looking back to the genesis of the encyclical.

The genesis of Humanae Vitae is one of main topics of discussion, and Renzo Puccetti, one of the lecturers, described it very well in the book “I veleni della contraccezione” (“The poisons of contraception”) that explains how the contraceptive pill was invented, developed and spread, describes the work of the lobbies of demographic control and how Catholics responded with natural family planning, and describes the struggle between bishops, theologians, doctors, and association of lay people over contraception.

This struggle poisoned the years before and after the Second Vatican Council, but Paul VI resolved to staying faithful to the doctrine.

The rebellion that followed provides a lot of clues about what is going on now. The encyclical was strongly resisted by a group of theologians that grabbed the headlines, and the pope was subjected to strong pressures.

The first step was to question the authoritativeness of the encyclical, saying that norms of contraception were not mandatory, as the document did not present a solemn declaration of infallibility.

This is the reason why Cardinal Wojtyla, who took part the in the preparatory committee, recommended that Paul VI clearly express the infallibility, not of the encyclical, but of the teaching expressed in the encyclical, a part of deposit of faith that needed to be preserved to stay faithful to the Gospel.

If the story behind Humanae Vitae says a lot about how campaigns against Catholic teaching is carried on even nowadays, the issue of pope’s infallibility is another interesting topic.

Is Amoris Laetitia or any other Papal document beyond the possibility of any mistake? To this extent, it is worthy to note that Cardinal Walter Brandmueller, another of the speakers, wrote in 1992 a book titled “The Church and the right to be wrong” about the Galileo case.

Cardinal Brandmueller took the example of Galileo to stress that the Church does not claim any infallibility except in some, well defined cases. Things can be discussed, in the end. Noting this is also an indirect response to those who blame any critic of Amoris Laetitia as a critic of papal authority itself.

Cardinal Burke is a very well known personality, and on numerous occasions he has addressed the problems of confusion over Catholic teaching. and the need to tackle that issue for the sake of the faithful.

Cardinal Zen has become the loudest voice in the defense of the Church’s freedom in China. While a discussion on the China-Vatican deal on the appointment of bishops is underway, Cardinal Zen has expressed the concern of many Catholics of China, and decried a return to Ostpolitik, the label given to Holy See’s policy with Eastern bloc countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Ostpolitik was a diplomacy of dialogue and concessions, developed in the 60s by Msgr. Agostino Casaroli, later St. John Paul II’s Secretary of State.

Ostpolitik was also strongly criticized from the Cardinals of the Church of Silence, i.e., Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, and above all Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, Archbishop of Budapest-Esztergom, that both considered the Holy See’s approach as amounting to too much dialoguing with the countries of the Soviet bloc.

Bishop Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, has been one of the strongest defenders of Catholic teaching and a promoter of the Kazakhstani profession of truths on marriage.

Is the current approach on issues of doctrine and morality a replica of the Ostpolitik approach? Is the Church dialoguing too much with the world, giving up the primary task of evangelization?

Those are issues that will be explored during the April 7 discussion.

The conference will end with a declaration, which will likely restate the truth of faith regarding doctrine on marriage and sexuality.

According to the veteran Vatican watcher Sandro Magister, “this ‘declaratio’ will be the polar opposite of that ‘Kölner Erklärung’ – the declaration signed in Cologne in 1989 by German theologians now in the good graces of Francis – which concerned the principles later reaffirmed by John Paul II in the 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor.”

It remains to be seen how much the conference will garner attention and make an impact. It is likely it will be labeled as an “anti-Francis” conference, but it is also likely that there will be a poor response to the hard-hitting questions raised during the lectures.

By Laxman K Behera*

In pursuance of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s 2018-19 budget announcement related to an “industry friendly Defence Production Policy 2018”, the Department of Defence Production (DDP) of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) released a 14-page draft policy on March 21, 2018. The draft Defence Production Policy (DPrP) 2018, which was open for public comments for six working days till March 30, is intended to replace the earlier policy promulgated in 2011. The broad mission of the draft policy is to promote the Make in India initiative in the defence sector and create a world-class arms manufacturing base, fulfilling not only the larger goal of self-reliance but also the requirements of friendly foreign countries. The laudable mission notwithstanding, the draft policy suffers from a number of shortcomings, which, if left unaddressed, may limit its usefulness.

Draft Defence Production Policy 2018: Salient Features

The draft DPrP 2018 is ambitious and forward looking. Unlike the 2011 policy, the draft of the 2018 policy sets a clear vision, a set of objectives and strategies. Its vision is to put India “among the top five countries of the world in aerospace and defence industries,” though the timeframe within which this is to be achieved has not been articulated. The key objectives of the policy include development of a strong defence industry leading to higher self-reliance. Setting its sight on the need to reduce the current high import dependency, the draft policy identifies 13 sets of weapon systems/platforms (including fighters, helicopters, warships, missile systems, ammunition and explosives, land systems, and electronics) whose development and manufacture would commence latest by 2025. Other objectives include an increase in domestic arms sales to Rs 170,000 crore ($26 billion) by 2025, with around one-fifths of it –Rs 35,000 crore ($5.0 billion) – coming through exports. The policy also intends to make India a “global leader in cyberspace and AI [artificial intelligence] technologies.”

From the industry’s point of view, the DPrP’s attractiveness lies in the host of provisions and incentives it offers. The draft policy talks of further ease of doing business for the industry including the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs); pruning the existing list of items subject to industrial licence; increasing the FDI cap under automatic route from the current 49 to 74 per cent for certain niche technologies; streamlining the offset policy to attract investment and facilitate the speedy and transparent execution of offsets; rationalising the taxation system to support domestic manufacturing; providing financial assistance of up to Rs 3,000 crore each to Special Purpose Vehicles created for the development of two defence industry corridors that were recently announced, and up to Rs 100 crore each towards common testing facilities created by the industry; setting up of a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to fund start-ups to meet specific defence R&D requirements; creating the ‘necessary mechanism’ to harness the potential of AI and Robotics for defence use; and creating an Intellectual Property Cell in DDP to facilitate the registration of intellectual property rights. Besides, the draft policy also talks of setting up an Aeronautical University on a 50:50 cost sharing basis between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and the government; and the possibility of setting up an “autonomous National Aeronautical Commission, in line with Nuclear and Space commissions.”

How Realistic are the Draft DPrP’s Vision and Objectives?

Though the draft policy is quite supportive towards domestic arms manufacturing, it is nonetheless quite ambitious in its vision and objectives. To put the country among the top-five aerospace and defence manufacturing countries, as the draft policy’s vision states, would mean India joining the ranks of such countries as US, Russia, France, UK and China, which are presently the global leaders in arms production. To join such a coveted club would also mean some of the established Indian defence manufactures breaking into the club of top global arms producers. Can this happen in a realistic timeframe of say the next 10 years?

Suffice it to say that at present not a single Indian defence company figures in the list of top-10 global companies, though India is counted among the top-five military spenders in the world. As per the US-based Defense News’s list of top-100 defence companies in 2017, HAL, India’s biggest defence company, is placed at 35 and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the second biggest Defence Public Sector Undertaking (DPSU), at 59. For them to climb from their present rankings to the top 10 or 15 would be anything but easy, considering the huge turnover gap between Indian and major global companies as well as the pervasive technological backwardness of Indian entities.

Like the vision, the objectives of arms turnover and exports are also quite ambitious. At present, India’s arms production, as accounted for by the DPSUs and Ordnance Factories (OFs) – the two main players in the Indian defence production sector— is about Rs 56,000 crore (or $8.4 billion). In the past five years, the annual growth in defence production has been around seven per cent. To reach a turnover of Rs 170,000 crore ($26 billion) – a three-fold increase – by 2025 would require domestic production to grow by nearly 75 to 80 per cent per year, which is overly ambitious. The same is also true of arms exports, which recorded the highest turnover of Rs 2059 crore ($317 million) in 2015-16. To rise from that level to reach Rs 35,000 crore (a 17-fold increase) by 2025 is too much to ask for from an industry that has so far relied on technology imports for much of its production.

Draft DPrP 2018: The Challenges

Though the draft DPrP is a marked improvement over the 2011 policy, especially in terms of provisions and incentives for the industry, it still faces a number of challenges, which, if left unaddressed, may limit its usefulness. Though, unlike the previous policy, the draft 2018 policy has identified 13 different sets of items for indigenous production, these are mostly generic names and includes items which are under production or cleared for production in the near future. In other words, the policy does not identify any specific new projects by name that would have given the industry an indication of the likely business prospects. Without such an indication, the draft policy suffers from the same uncertainty that the previous policy faced. A simple step to mitigate this policy gap would have been to deduce a comprehensive production list from the approved Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP), which projects the services’ equipment requirements over a 15-year time horizon. The deduced list could have further been divided into two broad categories: items to be produced based on domestic R&D, and items to be produced under licence. The policy would then have focused more on the former for building domestic capacity.

The second challenge that the draft policy suffers from is the structural distance of the DDP, the implementing agency of the policy, from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Acquisition Wing of the MoD (one may also add the users to the list) as far as domestic arms production is concerned. Since these stakeholders are more or less independent (though each agency’s action impinges on others and vitally on defence production and self-reliance), reconciling their varied interests has been a major challenge in the past. From the self-reliance point of view, the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) has so far attempted to reconcile the divergent interests of these stakeholders, mainly through the prioritised procurement categories that give preference to domestic industry over direct import. However, since the DPP has not dramatically improved India’s defence production capability, nor changed the culture of licence production, more needs to be done. The draft DPrP does not, however, provide a concrete solution beyond some cursory remarks that other stakeholders will play their due role.

Third, the draft policy, like its predecessor, does not fully address the private sector’s trust deficit with the government, even though the former is expected to play a major role under the Make in India initiative. Notwithstanding the various promises, including that of providing open competition in contracts, the private sector has a genuine reason to mistrust the policy in the making. The mistrust is largely due to the representation of senior MoD officials in the governing boards of the defence public sector companies, which often leads to the nomination of larger contracts in their favour. It is high time that the MoD appointed a dedicated additional secretary level official to allay such mistrust, and look after the private sector’s genuine interests.

Fourth, the DPrP does not address the issues of inefficiency and lack of accountability on the part of the DRDO, DPSUs and OFs, which, being the mainstay of Indian defence industry for the last several decades, are responsible for much of the indignity of the country’s poor track record in attaining self-reliance. Instead of suggesting some bold steps to reform these entities, the draft policy merely talks of the professionalization of OFs and “disinvestment of minority stakes in DPSUs.” Here, it is not clear what the draft policy means by disinvestment of minority stakes when the government has more than majority stakes in all the DPSUs. Even these cursory remarks are silent on DRDO, indicating further the DDP’s structural gap in commenting on organisations outside its administrative domain. Without improving the efficiency and governance of these entities, it is well-nigh impossible to achieve even a fraction of the targets set by the policy. It is high time that the government took a hard look and completely privatises the DPSUs and OFs besides laying down clear accountability norms for the DRDO.

Last but not the least, the draft DPrP faces stiff budgetary constraints that may not allow the policy’s promised investments to fructify in a time bound manner. In all, the draft policy talks of investments worth over Rs 77,000 crore by 2025—–which includes nearly Rs 70,000 crore as additional investment to increase domestic production. In all likelihood, these investments will come largely from the defence budget, either directly or indirectly. To accommodate such a large investment, the defence budget has to provide an extra Rs 11,000 crore or so per year for next six to seven years. However, this may not be feasible, given the huge resource crunch that the defence ministry is presently going through and which is likely to continue for the next several years. The present fund crunch is such that the MoD is finding it difficult even to service its own financial commitments. The DPrP has to therefore think of some innovative means, such as corporate bonds, disinvestment proceeds, and monetisation of some defence assets, if it wants to keep its investment promises.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author:
*Laxman K Behera is Research Fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

By Uran Botobekov*

The US State Department added Central Asian jihadist group Katibat Imam al Bukhari (KIB) to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorist organizations on March 22, 2018.

As noted in the statement “the Department of State has designated KIB as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Section 1(b) of Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which imposes strict sanctions on foreign persons determined to have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States. This designation seeks to deny KIB the resources it needs to plan and carry out further terrorist attacks. Among other consequences, all of the group’s property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with the group.”

It is already common knowledge that,KIB is fighting in Syria as part of the al Qaeda-linked rebel coalition Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham. The KIB detachment was created in Afghanistan on the basis of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. KIB also operates in Afghanistan and has pledged loyalty to the Taliban, who are in turn tight allies with al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. After the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2012, KIB, on the recommendation of Al-Qaeda, moved to the province of Idlib and distinguished itself as one of the major rebel groups fighting against the regime of Bashar Assad. A group of the jihadists of the KIB is also based in Afghanistan today and is fighting together with the Taliban. About 200 militants are known to fight in the KIB. The propaganda materials of the group are actively disseminated in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Three days after the decision of the US State Department to include KIB in the list of global terrorist organizations, Shura of the KIB issued its own statementin response. In itsown statement, which was released via Telegram on March 25, 2018, KIB protested their designation as terrorists by the State Department. KIB states that it “was surprised by the American resolution to enlist the Imam al Bukhari Brigade on the world terror list notwithstanding that we do not have ideological or intellectual ties with any faction internationally enlisted.”

It is most interesting that Shura of the KIB, for its protection, used a lot of peaceful terms in their response such as «international law», «rights of freedom», “murderous Assad regime”, “struggle for а decent life of the Syrian people”, etc.

KIB claimed in their response, that their volunteers from many Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, formed their brigade “as a result of the war’s long duration in Syria and the increasing number of expats.”Shura of the KIB described his mission in the Middle East as protecting the simple and peaceful Syrian people from the bloody regime of Assad and his external sponsors, Hezbollah, Iranian Shiite militants and Russia.

KIB also claimed that they’ve been fighting with the Free Syrian Army to protect civilians against threats like ISIS, “which pushed ISIS to assassinate our previous leader (Sheikh Salahuddin).””The classification of Imam al-Bukhari Brigade by U.S., turns a blind eye on thousands of the Iranian-backed foreign Shiite militias that commit war crimes against the Syrians, and proves that the U.S. applies double standards and it is only concerned about its interests,” KIB continued.The Shura of group vowed to stay the course “in spite of pains and problems whether in our country or by the world order.”

In this regard, it should be noted that the “justifiable arguments” of the KIB that its fighters are fighting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and precisely because of this fact they should not be included in the list of world terrorist groups does not make sense.Firstly, not only the numerous factions of armed revolutionaries and the fragmentary Syrian opposition are fighting against the regime of Bashar Assad, but also the world jihadist groups ISIS and Al-Qaeda.However, their goals are completely different. If the peaceful Syrian opposition wants to build a democratic state in Syria in the future, then ISIS and Al Qaeda are fighting for the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East.Al-Qaeda backed KIB that affiliated with Jabhat al Nusra, completely shares the position of his patrons.

Secondly, radical Salafism and militant Takfirism are the fundamental basis of the jihadi ideology of the KIB.In accordance with the ideological doctrine of KIB that was recently published on its Telegram channel, the group considers its goal the construction of an Islamic state in Central Asia, the overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and the protection and spread of jihadi ideology around the world by force.

Thirdly, jihad is the main tool for KIB in achieving its goals, that is, in building the Islamic Caliphate.In their propaganda materials, KIB leaders urge Muslims to wage jihad against the godless regimes of Central Asia and the West.After President Trump decided the U.S. Embassy would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, KIB leader Abu Yusuf Muhojir posted on his Telegram page a pledge to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque and wage jihad on the West.

The Syrian Liberation Front (SLF) — a joint venture formed by Ahrar al-Sham and the Nur al-Din al-Zanki Movement in February — has joined KIB in denouncing the State Department’s designation as well.In its statement the SLF argues that the KIB is an “independent” faction comprised of Uzbeks who were “forced out of their country” and who now fight against the Assad regime and ISIS. It is known that Ahrar al-Sham is an al Qaeda backed Salafi-jihadi group who fought alongside Al Nusrah Front in the past.The SLF also points to the assassination of KIB leader Sheikh Salahuddinlast year, alleging that ISIS cooperated with “Russian intelligence” in the killing.

In this regard, it should be noted that the assassination of the leader of KIB Sheikh Salahuddin is related to the confrontation between ISIS and al-Qaida, which led to internal fighting among the Central Asian jihadists in Syria.His real name was Akmal Jurabaev and he was born and grew up in the Uzbek town of Namangan. He shared the religious views and Salafi ideology of the Taliban and al Qaeda. On April 27, 2017, during the evening prayer in the mosque of a Syrian city of Idlib, Sheikh Salahuddin was killed by an Uzbek militant who was a member of ISIS. The Islamic State distributed the following statement via Telegram messenger in this regard, “The emir of detachment of Katibat al-Imam Bukhari, Sheikh Salahuddin, was punished according to the Sharia law for all the betrayals he committed.”

The Uzbek militant from Tajikistan, known as Abu Yusuf Muhojir, was appointed the new leader of the group. The Uzbek social networks have characterized him as the distinguished military strategist who has implemented a series of successful operations against the army of Bashar Assad. After the comprehensive analysis of his public speeches in the audio format published on the Telegram, we can draw the following conclusions: Abu Yusuf Muhojirhas the deep religious knowledge, knew the nuances of the Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence) and jihad.

It is no accident that in their statements, KIB and SLF appealed to the fact that the leader of the Uzbek jihadists, Sheikh Salahuddin,was assassinated by ISIS militants.Using this argument that Uzbek militants are fighting with ISIS and their leader has fallen by the hands of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi supporters, KIB is trying to justify its terrorist activities and to avoid international persecution in accordance with the US list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

This is not the first time that the United States has designateda Central Asian jihadist group on the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list.After designation of a terrorist group in the list of global terrorists, the US special services are allowed to carry out operations to eliminate the leaders of those terrorist groups, to take decisive measures to destroy financial schemes and to effectively put international pressure on them.

As is already known, the US State Department has designated the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan(IMU) in the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list on September 25, 2000.As a result, the leader of the group Tahir Yuldash (2009) and the military commander of the group Juma Namangoni (2001) were killed as a result of US missile airstrike.

On June 17, 2005, the US State Department designated the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) to the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.The IJU is a splinter faction of the IMU, and a substantial number of its members are from Central Asia.The IJU has been waging jihad in the Afghan-Pakistan region for more than a decade. It maintains close ties with al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The US has killed several top IJU leaders, including its emir, Najmuddin Jalolov, in drone strikes in North Waziristan 2009.

On December 29, 2004, the US State Department designated Uyghur Salafi-jihadi group the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (the Turkestan Islamic Party) to the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL).As a result, leaders of the Turkestan Islamic Party Hassan Mahsum (2003) and Abdul Shakur al-Turkistani (2012) were killed in US drone strike.

Based on this, we can assume what fate awaits the leaders and militants of the KIB in the near future. The designation of the KIB in the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list testifies to the US Government’s determination to combat the jihadist ideology of Salafism worldwide.This is a tangible support to the governments of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, which are facing a real threat of transnational terrorism.After all, the backbone of the KIB is made up of people from the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia, mainly of Uzbek nationality.

According to the Soufan Group, out of 5,000 people who left Central Asia for Syria and Iraq, about 500 jihadists in the ISIS ranks went back to their homes. But among the returnees, there are almost no militants KIB, Katibat al-Tawhidwal Jihad (KTJ), IJU and TIP, which are affiliated with al Qaeda. After the fall of ISIS, it is the militants linked with the al Qaeda that pose a big threat to the countries of Central Asia. Therefore, the emergence of two theatres of war for al Qaeda backed Central Asian militants in Syria and Afghanistan and the relative ease of transit between these two theatres via Turkey increases the threat that jihadists can return to Central Asia at an opportune moment, such as at a time of political, social or economic crises.This would be dangerous for the regimes of Central Asia.

Therefore, the designation of the KIB by the US government into the list of global terrorist organizations gives a positive impetus to the efforts of the Central Asian countries in respect to counterterrorism.But so far the Central Asian governments have not openly reacted to the initiative of the US State Department. Perhaps such a reaction followed through diplomatic channels, which are closed to the public.

The war in Afghanistan and in the Middle East over the past 17 years has shown that the United States is in the forefront of the fight against transnational terrorism and religious extremism. Therefore, it would be difficult for the Governments of Central Asia to do without US assistance in combating the radical ideology of Salafism and world jihadism.

The Central Asian states are in a bind insofar as there is little they can do to stymie the growth of the KIB, KTJ, IJU and TIP in Syria given their lack of influenceand likely also their lack of intelligence.As a result, the Central Asian governments will likely need to develop comprehensive national security strategies with allies both within the region and abroad to manage the complexities of emerging threats.To achieve results in the fight against jihadism, the Central Asian countries need to solve three main tasks.

First, to intensify cooperation with the United States and the exchange of intelligence data.Successful coordination between law enforcement agencies will help to block the channels of financial, material and military assistance to the jihadist groups from Central Asia, affiliated with al Qaeda.Joint cooperation will contribute to the dismantling of bases, camps and training centers for Central Asian jihadist groups in Syria and Afghanistan, neutralizing prominent leaders and identifying commercial organizations and foundations that subsidize them. The fight against Al Qaeda is a more difficult than with ISIS, as it does not have its own territory, which can be hit. In the fight against Al-Qaeda, the United States has significant anti-terrorist experience, effective intelligence tools and advanced technical capabilities.

Secondly, given the increased role of another Uzbek group Katibat al-Tawhidwal Jihad in the global jihad and their successful terrorist acts in Russia (the explosion of the metro in St. Petersburg) and in Kyrgyzstan (the explosion of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek), the governments of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan should lobby the US to include the KTJ in the list of global terrorist organizations.

Thirdly, for successful international coordination of anti-terrorist efforts, security agencies and special services of the countries of Central Asia need to get rid of block thinking and anti-American sentiment, which is a legacy of the Soviet empire and which is being initiated by Russia.Kremlinis known to consider Central Asia as an area of its influence. Putin is imposing its anti-American ideology on the countries of the region, which impedes the joint struggle against world jihadism. The confrontation between Russia and the West on the activities of the Taliban and the future regime of Bashar al-Assad enable jihadist groups from Central Asia to successfully assimilate into a global jihad. Therefore, the governments of Central Asia must work out their own self-position, which allows them to actively cooperate with the US in the fight against the global jihadist threat in the world and stop being a Putin’s “whipping boy”.

About the author:
*Uran Botobekov, Doctor of Political Science (PhD), expert on Political Islam

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy.

“People like me are not good for big business, like for animal business, medicine business and for many other businesses. That’s why they are discriminating and censoring us.” — Nasim Najafi Aghdam discussing YouTube

She claimed to have detested it, issuing fiery calls on her social media outlets, and asserting that this creature was demonic in its effort to limit talent, expression and the profits of others. Nasim Najafi Aghdam of San Diego spoke with a steely confidence that certitude brings, a self-perceived clarity of thought on such topics as veganism, the right to protest and animal rights.

“For me,” she stridently told the San Diego Union-Tribune at a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protest in 2009 outside Camp Pendleton, “animal rights equals human rights.” In Iran, she came to be known as Green Nasim, commanding a certain degree of social media heft.

On Tuesday, that mind of screened clarity manifested itself in a shooting spree at YouTube headquarters. Three were wounded, with the sole death being Aghdam, who took her life after the bloody spray. On Wednesday, San Bruno’s police chief Ed Barberini claimed rather laconically that the suspect was expressing her anger at “the policies and practices of YouTube.”

Prior to that, a point confirmed by a Mountain View police representative, Aghdam had been found sleeping in a car on Tuesday morning. “Our officers made contact with the woman after the licence plate of her vehicle matched that of a missing person out of Southern California. The woman confirmed her identity to us and answered subsequent questions.” Nothing, according to the officers conducting the interview, suggested future intentions.

The attack showed no evident discrimination. There were no set agendas against specific employees, nor was it even clear at first instance whether those wounded were, in fact, employees. What the alleged shooter seemed to see was a ruthless target in the abstract, a brutal tech giant that had betrayed its mission. Aghdam’s father, Ismail Aghdam, warned police that she might well be paying the technology company a visit, so disgruntled was she.

Her personal website spoke of there being “no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site”. Growth would only take place “if they want you to.” That particular point was stimulated by a change in YouTube policies requiring that individual channels have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 “watch hours” over the previous twelve months before qualifying to run advertisements. One of Aghdam’s channels sported 1,579 subscribers, but in failing to meet the other threshold requirements, the account was demonetised.

Other restrictions were also the subject of Aghdam’s opprobrium, who attempted over time to build up the image of the technology company as an arbitrary censor. One video she posted received an age restriction. She railed against those “new close-minded YouTube employees [who] got control of my Farsi YouTube last year in 2016 & began filtering my videos to reduce views & suppress & discourage [sic] me from making videos!” The result of imposing such a limit precluded the video from receiving moneys.

So we return to that same problem: the digital frontier, far from flat in its egalitarian access, is vertical, hierarchical in its hold. Power only devolved to the mass community of users in an artificial sense, giving that charming impression that the plebs controlled the production and creation of content.

Community standards are always cited, but these are ultimately set and determined by the particular provider, cajoled in parts, reviled in others. In YouTube’s case, such policies zero in on vulgar language, violence or disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, or videos portraying harmful or dangerous activities.

YouTube, as a provider of content generated by individual users, has found itself in a brutal middle, harried by a range of groups keen to limit or advance particular platforms. The morally righteous and surveillance-minded take issue with its permissiveness, seeking controls over such content as “hate speech”; other individuals find it unduly controlling, limiting engagement, debate and speech.

Last year, its “restricted mode” setting designed to permit libraries, schools and parents filter out content deemed inappropriate to children invariably screened other sources. The videos of gay pop duo Tegan and Sara, fell foul of the provision. Vlogger Calum McSwiggan’s video featuring his coming out display to his grandmother also became the object of digital filtering, while Rowan Ellis would suggest a “bias somewhere within that process of equating LGBT+ with ‘not family friendly’.”

YouTube’s initial response contained a steadfast denial. “The intention of Restricted Mode is to filter out mature content for the tiny subset of users who want a more limited experience. LGBTQ+ videos are available on Restricted Mode, but videos that discuss more sensitive issues may not be.” Experiments by various users testing this claim suggested otherwise.

It its subsequent and hurried note was the tone of a servant to numerous lords, seeking to placate and improve upon previous erring. “We recognise that some videos are incorrectly labelled by our automated system and we realise it’s very important to get this right. We’re working hard to make some improvements.”

These provide cold comforts to those recipients of bullet wounds, and certainly did nothing to calm the disturbed an impassioned Aghdam, self-proclaimed as “the first Persian female vegan bodybuilder.” But again, where the gun is a logical extension of frustrated rights and social impotence, furious redress has come to be an almost reasonable, if predictable expectation.

It’s alarming that there are far fewer media outlets for consumer protection news and features than there were thirty years ago. Recall the huge Phil Donahue Show, the regional radio show and TV news shows, the television networks and syndicated radio shows that would report and interview consumer advocates about the injustice, rip-offs, and harms done to the consumer by unscrupulous corporations.  These shows are largely gone now. Shows marked by fluff, narcissism, trivia, and sensationalist, frenetic news bits are their replacements.

What is disturbing is that the major newspapers – the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal—are cutting back reporting on the revelations and doings of active consumers, and consumer organizations. Sure, they do occasional features that may gain them big journalism prizes. But the regular coverage of very important consumer struggles with Congress, the White House, the courts, and the state legislatures has vastly shrunken. Moreover, the media, especially TV, is dittoheading itself with the daily “big story”, as with the Trumpian escapades.

Serious readers are left with the New York Times daily Business pages (the Washington Post dropped its separate, daily business section a few years ago). Of late, the editors of the Times business section have been diluting its contents with what two former reporters called a more “business friendly” priority. My attempts to discuss this problem with their news editors have not been answered.

Last Sunday I picked up the weighty Sunday New York Times and went to the business page (business is often defined as stories about sellers, when it should include buyers and consumers).  The cover page featured a huge photograph and article titled: “Tiger Is Back, Will Sponsors Follow?”

This article—straining for justification—proceeded to sprawl over another half page or more inside. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods hasn’t even won a single championship on his asserted comeback. This is not the first time that the business page has attempted to entertain readers with inflated articles that evoke the reader’s quizzical response—“what’s this all about?”

Our country is in a midst of a corporate crime wave against consumers, workers, investors, and small taxpayers. Fraudsters are also annually stealing tens of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs. Massive billing fraud and abuse is rampant in the private marketplace as well.

The Pentagon’s gigantic annual budget (currently at more than $700 billion) has been unauditable for decades and, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of Congress, is in regular violation of a 1992 law requiring all government departments to provide audits to the GAO.

The ongoing destruction of the freedom of contract, through fine print stripping of consumer rights and remedies to use the courts keeps eroding the value of consumer dollars. Consumers don’t deserve this costly irritation.

Courts are restricting consumer access by legislative reductions of court budgets and obstacles presented by what is euphemistically called “tort reform” by the insurance and tort-feasors lobbies.

A trillion dollars of unproductive stock buybacks is coming in the next 18 months so as to increase the stock option value of the corporate bosses’ compensation packages. A trillion dollars that can be used for raising low-pay of workers, such as at Walmart, or shoring up company pension fund reserves or investing in R&D or productive enterprise, not to mention dividends to shareholders (individual, pension and mutual funds).

It is not as if the business pages are lacking top level urgent conditions to report as news and features which can also provide topics for their editorial pages.

Instead, the business pages are filled with constant technology hype, as with the inflated promotions and data-starved claims by the companies working on the eminently hackable self-driving cars.

There is plenty of personal advice to taxpayers, but very little on the crisis brought about by the Republican Congress starving the IRS’s budget where staff is trying to collect a part of the $400 billion in uncollected yearly taxes.

Other trends are disturbing. Their first-class weekly aviation columnist, Joe Sharkey, was dismissed three years ago. Times readers fly a lot and have bushels of complaints about an increasingly tone deaf airline industry— the sensible Southwest Airlines is a luminous exception. Yet the Times editors felt they could not justify Sharkey’s $1000 weekly remuneration for doing a sterling job.

Gone also is The Haggler who dissected real consumer grievances in a most engrossing manner. He has not been replaced. Reader voices do not even have a letter to the editor space in the Times business section in which to react or vent.

It has been several years since the Times stopped using print pages for the stock market tables. This should have opened up space for more serious and compelling articles by the paper’s talented staff and contributors. Instead, they no longer have a place for their former star investigative reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, whose searing, well documented Sunday column sent deterrent shivers through culpable corporatist wheeler-dealers.

If anyone is listening to those readers who know what a “business friendly” atmosphere means for the public’s right to know more, please let us know. Two-way conversations on the telephone between editors/reporters and readers are almost extinct.

I, for one, wanted to tell the New York Times business editors that there is only one New York Times and that stupefying standards by this flagship newspaper is seriously consequential for the country.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added 103,000 jobs in March, however it revised down the prior two-month job growth by a total of 50,000 jobs, bringing the three-month average to 202,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 percent. The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was also unchanged at 60.4 percent.

It’s likely that unusually cold weather across the Northeast dampened job growth in March just as unusually warm weather may have boosted growth in February. More weather sensitive sectors such as construction, retail, and restaurants were especially weak, with construction losing 15,000 jobs in the month, retail 4,400 and restaurant employment unchanged. Restaurants added an average of 19,200 jobs a month over the last year.

Manufacturing added 22,000 jobs, its eighth consecutive monthly increase. All the job growth was in durable goods, as employment in non-durables was unchanged. This has been the pattern throughout the recovery as growth in the durable sector has hugely outpaced growth in the non-durable sector, even though employment in both is still far below pre-recession levels. The apparel and textile sectors, which disproportionately employ women, continue to lose jobs. Employment in these sectors is down by 12,200 (3.5 percent) over the last year.

Other big job gainers in the month were health care (22,400 jobs), professional and technical services (18,900), and wholesale trade and social services, both of which added 11,400 jobs in March. All are roughly in line with their recent growth rates.

Over the recovery the big gainers in employment shares have been restaurants and health care, with both seeing a rise in their share of total employment of just under 16.0 percent. Retail’s share of employment has fallen by roughly 4.5 percent, while the government share has fallen by more than 6.0 percent. The big loser, however, has been manufacturing, which has seen its share fall by more than 16.0 percent since 2007. Its share has been rising modestly since the low hit last July.

There is some evidence of accelerating wage growth in the March data. While the average hourly wage increased by just 2.7 percent year-over-year, the annualized rate comparing the average for the last three months (January, February, and March) with the prior three months (October, November, and December), was 3.2 percent. This suggests that workers may finally be getting back some of the share of income they lost to profits in the Great Recession.

Most of the data in the household survey is consistent with a continued strengthening of the labor market. There was a small dip of 0.1 percentage points in the EPOP for prime-age workers (ages 25–54) from the peak of the recovery in February. This drop was entirely due to the drop in the rate for men. The EPOPs for men and women are both well above year-ago levels: 1.0 percentage point higher for men and 0.4 percentage points higher for women. It is likely that these will rise further if the job market remains strong.

In an especially good sign, the percentage of unemployment due to people who voluntarily quit their jobs jumped to 13.1 percent in March, the highest level since May of 2001. This statistic is a good measure of workers’ confidence in the labor market, since it means that they are prepared to leave a job even before they have a new one lined up. Until this month, the quit rate had been unusually low (mostly under 11.0 percent), given the levels of unemployment we were seeing. The March level is more consistent with an unemployment rate near 4.0 percent. It is important to note the number is erratic, so it could be reversed, in part or in whole, in future months.

The duration measures of unemployment were mixed. A sharp fall in the average duration reported in February was reversed in March, while both the median duration and the share of long-term unemployed fell.

In what could be another anomaly, the EPOP for college grads jumped 0.6 percentage points to 72.6 percent, its highest level since April of 2016. The EPOP for college grads hit its recovery peak of 73.8 percent in May of 2011 and trended slightly downward. That compares to a pre-recession high of 77.2 percent in February of 2007.

After accounting for weather, it is likely that job growth remains in a range of 180,000 to 200,000. At this pace, workers will continue to be pulled into the labor force and wage growth may strengthen in the months ahead.

The world is waiting to see who will blink first after firing the opening shots. It is not the first time that USA has hatched trade war. In 1985, Ronald Reagan managed an assault on Japan, using the Japanese currency as a weapon to trigger a global trade war. It skyrocketed the yen’s value artificially in coterie with five countries under the Plaza Accord and thwarted Japanese cheap exports. In both cases, the common allegation was that both China and Japan were intransigent to reduce trade deficit, which were vulnerable to the USA trade balance.

Nevertheless, paradoxically the two countries were different in their moves to counter the USA’s trade barriers. While Japan abstained from taking any retaliatory action against the USA’s embargo, China is assertive to retaliate against USA tit-for-tat by using tariffs as a tool. China decided to slap a 15 percent tariff on 120 items of producst imported from USA, including fruits and related products and 25 percent tariff on eight products, including pork and related products, against the USA’s intent of imposing a 25 and 10 percent tariff on steel and aluminum respectively and stretching the list worth US $50 billion under escalated tariffs, matching with Chinese products exports.

Hit by the Japanese yen appreciation, Japanese products lost cost competitiveness. Untill 1985, Japan was the biggest contributor to the USA trade deficit. In 1985, Japan accounted for 37 percent of USA’s total trade deficit in goods. Instead of wading in retaliation, Japan decided to thwart USA’s move by shifting plants in low cost countries, such as in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and in the USA to balance the trade deficit. Later , China became the hotbed for Japanese manufacturing.

As a result, Japanese investment in overseas soared. It increased by over 430 percent in 1988, three years after the Plaza Accord and continued to rise until Japan countered the Bubble Bust in 1993.

The horrors of “Hollow Investment” loomed large in Japan. Japan underwent three decades of investment recession in its domestic areas. In subsequent periods, downturn in domestic demand, shackled by aging population, shadowed inward investment in Japan. Japan, once known for three jobs after one applicant, lost the paradise of job opportunities.

Incidentally, since both Japan and China are export based economies, any trade barrier  their economies are vulnerable. Nevertheless, there are differences between the two in terms of exports to the USA. This is because a large number of Chinese exports to the USA are generated by US firms investing in China. A number of US companies invested in China for cheap production and re-import into USA . Any tariff push will mean a trade boomerang to these US companies.

Who wins and who loses will be determined after the tariffs will actually be imposed.
Given the contrast relations between USA-China and USA-Japan, China will exercise more to retaliate against the USA than Japan did. Japanese hands were tied as it was a close ally to USA. Besides, the USA was the biggest importer of Japanese goods in 1985. One fifth of Japanese exports were shipped to the USA .

In contrast , politically China is an adversary to the USA. Even though the US is the biggest importer of Chinese goods and not vice versa, there are ample reasons which may haunt USA exporters, if China takes retaliatory measures. China is the biggest buyer of US soybean. About 60 percent of US soybean exports go to China. China is the biggest buyer of US sorghum. The Trump administration stuck a compensatory trade deal last year with China to balance trade. The USA would export beef and natural gas to China against imports of cooked poultry. The deal may turn into a dud if China retaliates. China may divert purchasing of Boeing aircrafts to Airbus. In November 2017, a purchase deal of 300 Boeing was made by China. China is the biggest buyer of US Treasury bonds worth US $ 1 trillion. Selling a chunk of these bonds will distort the market. China has close monopoly of 17 rare earth minerals. They are used for cell phones, displays, automobiles and atom batteries. Any sanction of these minerals may prove hardship for US industries.

Ostensibly, the size of economic inter-dependence should determine the tit-for-tat actions. USA is more significant to China than China to USA. China is an export base economy and not vice versa. In 2016, exports accounted for 18.6 percent of Chinese GDP , compared to 11.9 percent of USA’s GDP. USA is the biggest destination for Chinese exports, accounting for 18 percent of Chinese exports in 2016. In contrast, China accounted for 7.5 percent only of USA’s exports in 2016.

Given the unbalanced economic inter-dependence, China should be wary for the USA’s onslaught on its currency management as the next step for retaliation, taking a leaf from the experience to thwart Japanese exports in post Plaza Accord. The USA may mount further pressure on the Chinese renminbi, alleging that it has been kept under-valued in proportion to Chinese growth. The USA has already forced China to unpeg its currency to the US Dollar and caved into floating rates in a basket of currencies. Since then Chinese renminbi value spurred by over 22 percent.

Chinese wages leaped high. Chinese goods fell prey to expensive products. China opted for Go-out policy by investing abroad instead of investing domestically. Chinese out-bound investment surpassed its in-bound FDI. Chinese investment abroad surged to US $170 billion in 2016, against inward FDI of US $ 34 billion. This exemplifies that China has lost the paradise of cheap production, similar to Japan in post-Plaza Accord.

Does this mean that China’s heydays are in jeopardy? Given the USA’s significance as a linchpin for China’s export and holding the mantle for global currency balancing, can China afford to retaliate against USA and make a smooth run of its economic growth?
To circumvent the trade war, China should increase its overseas investment in low cost countries and re-route its exports to the USA.

In this prey, India can pose a preferable destination for Chinese investment. In recent years, China has emerged as a big ticket investor in India, albeit there are security concerns. In 2015, Chinese investment in India leapfrogged eight times and became the eighth biggest foreign investor in India. In mobile phone manufacturing, China has already established a strong base in India. More than half a dozen Chinese mobile manufacturing companies have set up their plants in India. In 2016, Chinese companies proposed US $2.3 billion worth investment in the country

India’s attraction snowballed after China lost its place as the low cost workshop of the world. According to FDI Intelligence, an outfit of Financial Times, India replaced China in receiving FDI in Greenfield projects in 2015. This unraveled India’s strength in attracting FDI amid low cost countries

(Views are personal)

We are living in the world where the facts “who makes” and “where it is made” are much more important than “what for” issue.

Nowadays the world political scene is divided between superpowers supported by their allies. In order to punish each other for having opposite views the sides criticize any step made by the opponent. Unfortunately, this happens even in case of evident necessity. It is not the secret that the modern system of international security is unable to perform all demanded functions any more. It needs to be reformed. Another question is who and where will decide.

The most likely political platforms for this are the United Nation Organization and OSCE. But the preparatory stage for any new decision should become different forums and conferences, such as the Munich Security Conference and the Moscow International Conference on Security.

This year the Munich Security Conference took place on February 16-18. More than 30 heads of state and government and over 100 cabinet ministers from across the globe came together at the forum for discussions on major international security challenges. As far as the Baltic States concerns, President of Estonia, as well as Lithuanian and Latvian ministers of defence did not miss the event because it was of great importance for the future of their countries and all Europe.

Just another situation developed in March. In Moscow an annual International Conference on Security was held on April 4-5. The fight against terrorism and other pressing security challenges were one the agenda. There is not a single person who is not affected by the discussed topics.

Many European countries considered it unnecessary to visit the event. It makes no sense to blame them for this choice. They have a strong and common view on what is happening in the world. But if abstract from the current geopolitical situation and confrontation between Russia and the West, politicians should see such kind of forums as a chance to find even weak possibilities to make the world safer. Probably the main reason for not attending the event is in the fact that politicians forgot how to listen to each other. They forgot that only discussing controversial issues makes possible to reach a consensus.

Another issue that deserves attention is the list of participants, which is of great interest to the analysts. According to the Russia’s Defense Ministry, representatives from at least 95 countries, three deputy prime ministers, 30 defense ministers, 15 chiefs of staff, 10 international organizations and military delegations have come to participate in the International Conference on Security. They include defense ministers of India, South Africa, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Armenia, Mozambique, Serbia, and Israel. Thus, almost half of the UN member-states (total number is 193) sent representatives to the Conference.

It becomes evident that Russia really has powerful partners and allies that are ready to discuss even difficult questions and find mutually beneficial solutions. Those who came do not necessarily agree with Moscow and support its foreign policy but they clearly understand that unfortunately without Russia it is impossible to improve the International Security system.

This fact admitted Thomas Greminger, secretary-general for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He stressed that Russia is a key partner in issues of the European security. But the Baltic States blinded by hatred to Russia ignore ignored the event thus putting political ambitions higher than common sense.

It is obvious that Russia is not satisfied with NATO’s actions near its borders. NATO in its turn disputes the lawfulness of Russia’s behavior. Every day confrontation becomes harder and leads to the arms race. The only way out is to discuss things and find the way out. The Baltic States as usual lost the possibility to express their position on key international security issues and be the active actors in global politics.