Pakistan’s banking industry is taking shape rapidly, in recent year we observed many changes in the industry and with the start of this year below mentioned trends observed in Pakistan’s banking and finance industry. We believe that will have a serious role in shaping the future of banking and finance.

Digital Banking: It is observed that almost every bank in Pakistan has started its digital banking more or less, some are making infrastructure if some have made infrastructure, some are on boom where some are starting. Digital financial services are playing the major role in it, till the end of 2017 25 banks offered internet and call centers/IVR (interactive voice response) banking services, while 18 banks dealt in the mobile phone banking. In 2016-17 total 625.8 million electronics transactions worth Rs. 37.1 trillion registered, internet banking increased 32% to 25.2 million transactions worth around Rs. 969 billion in fiscal year 2017, mobile accounts are increased to 33M within short span of time which are 67% of conventional banking accounts. So Trend towards digital banking will increase greatly in 2018.

Changing Consumer Behavior: Consumer behavior in all industries including banking industry is drastically changing and different than it was 5 to 10 years ago, with the inclusion of financial technology and surge of mobile banking over the past few years, now customer demand convenience & customer perspective. The branch banking is no longer the only way the customers can interact with their banks, Fintech have provide millions of solutions to interact with your banks without going to your banks hundred times in a day, they don’t want to go to their banks and waste their times, this is particularly a true story of millions of customers and exclusively millionaire customers. Fintech have totally changed the behavior of customers, which observed in past few years and will the top trend in 2018 as well.

Uncertainty in Regulations: In today’s political and social climate, the potential for increased regulation seems just as possible as the potential for dramatic deregulation. The issues are polarized, and the discussions tend to be rather emotional, social media have played a vital role in it. Now the regulatory banks can listen the voice of consumer’s even political cases and severe nature of criminal cases decisions are giving on social media pressure. Digital banking is on its rise almost 33M mobile accounts are registered but regulatory bank didn’t share its prudential regulations till date. In order to improve effectiveness and to Counter Terrorism Finance SBP is more vigilant and reviewing regulations to development a culture of controls. Today’s consumers are more educated and aware from the consumer protection laws of the country and international as well, so it’s a time to prioritize consumer protection and fair lending compliance. Not only will this signal a commitment to compliance, it can also serve as proof that you understand and prioritize the needs of your community to potential customers.

Another significant factor for this uncertainty will be the decision of The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money-laundering watchdog, to put Pakistan on the ‘grey list’, its impact would be very substantial on Pakistan’s banking industry and will create a pressure on state regulatory bank to review and strengthen its regulations on Combating terrorist financing, so the uncertainty of regulations will increase and will be a top banking trend this year.

Compliance: Banking compliance is something with you as an officer or leader is dealing with daily, it has become one of the most significant concerns for financial institutions in the recent years. With the surging of technology the compliance risk have become more higher. All banks are different in operations but they have common in compliance so compliance will be a top trend in 2018 as well.

Bahrain, the smallest state in the Persian Gulf, hit the headlines last week for a reason other than the Grand Prix – its largest oil discovery since the 1930s. Oil minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Khalifa described the find in the offshore Khaleej Al Bahrain Basin as “at substantial levels”. The new oilfield dwarfs the nation’s current reserves and is clearly a stroke of luck for the smallest energy producer in the region.

With the current state of affairs in global energy markets and the global push to transition to renewable energy, however, the Bahraini government is far more likely to reinvest additional revenue from this new field than go on a petrol-fueled extravaganza. With the fossil fuel era waning, this new oil find offers the Bahrainis an opportunity to diversify their economy and accelerate progress towards meeting the renewable energy commitments the government has already made.

The discovery, announced last Sunday, has already boosted Bahrain’s economic outlook given that energy sales currently make up 87 percent of total annual income and prices are still recovering from the global slump. Thanks to the oil discovery, as well as rising oil prices, BMI economic forecasters have revised Bahrain’s growth predictions upward. The country’s economy should grow by at least 3 percent annually over the next three years, reassuring investors and give the country more breathing space to raise capital.

It’s essential, however, that Bahrain intelligently reinvests additional funds. There are a number of reasons why Bahrain won’t be pumping out crude with reckless abandon—and particularly why it won’t be over-focusing on its newfound oil reserves to the detriment of renewable energy projects that are currently getting off the ground.

Firstly, the country doesn’t have free reign to produce oil. It is bound by the current agreement, negotiated by its close partner and ally Saudi Arabia, to limit oil production among the world’s major producers in order to stabilize global oil prices. Bahrain itself benefits from those production controls and stable prices, including in terms of non-oil growth. Secondly, experts have noted that the newly-discovered crude is situated in shallow reservoir waters which makes resource extraction less than straightforward—though its location near existing oil facilities would cut costs somewhat.

Thirdly, and most crucially, Bahrain knows it must invest in economic diversification to ensure its long-term economic stability. The oil find gives Bahrain a shot in the arm in the short term, but the country’s leaders have already made clear they understand that relying on revenue from fossil fuels is not sustainable in the long run. Five key non-oil industries have been earmarked for investment – financial services, manufacturing, logistics, tourism and ICT. Rather than lose sight of this commitment, the government should be expected to use any economic jolt from this oil discovery to kickstart investment in other, more sustainable sectors.

Key to breaking reliance on oil is the shift towards renewable energy which has spread across the Gulf region over the past few years. Among Bahrain’s, Gulf neighbours, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have started to invest in solar and wind energy. The UAE is committed to generating 75 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2050, while the Saudis have set a target of 10 percent renewable energy by 2023. They have also announced plans to put $7 billion into solar and wind projects.

Bahrain has taken its own concrete steps towards a renewable future as well. The government is working towards targets of 5 percent renewable capacity by 2025 and 10 percent by 2035. The country has also unveiled plans for a large-scale solar power project at the Askar landfill site. Bahrain’s National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) initiatives include schemes to increase energy efficiency, renewable energy mandates for new buildings and net metering policies to encourage consumers to switch to solar power.

There are two good reasons for this buildup of renewable energy capacity in the Gulf states. The first is that costs have significantly fallen in recent years, meaning solar and wind-powered energy is now becoming cheaper than fossil fuels. Further technological advancements mean solar costs are expected to fall by 59 percent between 2015-2025.

Keeping electric bills affordable is essential for the Gulf states. Bahrain and its neighbours experience high energy consumption levels, with most buildings needing air-conditioning in the summer to make the desert humidity bearable. As renewable costs fall, then, increasing their part of the energy mix makes sound economic sense in addition to cutting pollution and emissions from the largely oil-powered capacity they rely on at present.

The Gulf states also recognizing the imperative to invest in renewable capacity to free up oil and gas reserves for export, enabling the countries to raise more capital. For example, Saudi Arabia currently consumes about 680,000 barrels of oil a day. If the country were to utilise its abundance of sunlight to power its domestic needs instead, those barrels would fetch around $47 million at current prices.

Bahrain is ultimately best served taking advantage of the short-term benefits from its new find to bankroll its economic transition and keep its eyes set squarely on the future. After all, with the global move towards clean energy and electric vehicles, much of the recently discovered reserves may never ultimately leave the ground.

*Gary Buswell is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to the New Londoners and Expatica.

Regularly drinking more than the recommended UK guidelines for alcohol could take years off your life, according to new research published today in the Lancet. Part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, the study shows that drinking more alcohol is associated with a higher risk of stroke, fatal aneurysm, heart failure and death.

The authors say their findings challenge the widely held belief that moderate drinking is beneficial to cardiovascular health, and support the UK’s recently lowered guidelines.

The study compared the health and drinking habits of around 600,000 current drinkers in 19 countries worldwide and controlled for age, smoking, history of diabetes, level of education and occupation.

The upper safe limit of drinking was about 5 drinks per week (100g of pure alcohol, 12.5 units or just over five pints of 4% ABV2 beer or five 175ml glasses of 13% ABV wine).

However, drinking above this limit was linked with lower life expectancy. For example, having 10 or more drinks per week was linked with 1-2 years shorter life expectancy1. Having 18 drinks or more per week was linked with 4-5 years shorter life expectancy.

The research supports the UK’s recently lowered guidelines, which since 2016 recommend both men and women should not drink more than 14 units of alcohol each week. This equates to around 6 pints of beer or 6 glasses of wine a week.

However, the worldwide study carries implications for countries across the world, where alcohol guidelines vary substantially.

The researchers also looked at the association between alcohol consumption and different types of cardiovascular disease. Alcohol consumption was associated with a higher risk of stroke, heart failure, fatal aortic aneurysms, fatal hypertensive disease and heart failure and there were no clear thresholds where drinking less did not have a benefit.

By contrast, alcohol consumption was associated with a slightly lower risk of non-fatal heart attacks.

The authors note that the different relationships between alcohol intake and various types of cardiovascular disease may relate to alcohol’s elevating effects on blood pressure and on factors related to elevated high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (also known as good cholesterol). They stress that the lower risk of non-fatal heart attack must be considered in the context of the increased risk of several other serious and often fatal cardiovascular diseases.

The study focused on current drinkers to reduce the risk of bias caused by those who abstain from alcohol due to poor health. However, the study used self-reported alcohol consumption and relied on observational data, so no firm conclusions can me made about cause and effect. The study did not look at the effect of alcohol consumption over the life-course or account for people who may have reduced their consumption due to health complications.

Dr Angela Wood, from the University of Cambridge, lead author of the study said, “The key message of this research is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions.”

“Alcohol consumption is associated with a slightly lower risk of non-fatal heart attacks but this must be balanced against the higher risk associated with other serious – and potentially fatal – cardiovascular diseases,”

Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, which part funded the study, said: “This is a serious wakeup call for many countries.”

Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement after the Committee held a hearing on the nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to serve as Secretary of State:

“In today’s hearing, I read to Mr. Pompeo the two provisions of the War Powers Act that give the president the power to put our troops in motion on foreign soil. One of those is a direct and explicit congressional authorization. The second is a national emergency created by an attack on the United States, our territories or possessions, or our armed forces.

“I asked him if he thinks the President of the United States can launch a war outside of those two provisions, and he replied, ‘I do.’

“It should not be easy to go to war. That is exactly why our constitution gives that power explicitly to Congress. And yet today, Mike Pompeo effectively said our constitution doesn’t matter when it comes to war. It doesn’t matter even if there’s not a threat to the United States, nor an attack on the United States. It doesn’t matter even if there’s no congressional authorization. In Mike Pompeo’s view, the president can do what he wants.

“A vote for Mr. Pompeo is a vote for Trump’s War Cabinet, and for that reason, I will fiercely oppose his nomination.”

If you are an American, have you asked yourself these questions?

1. What purpose of mine is served by the U.S. government’s making war in Iraq?
2. What purpose of mine is served by the U.S. government’s making war in Afghanistan?
3. What purpose of mine is served by the U.S. government’s making war in Syria?
4. What purpose of mine is served by the U.S. government’s making war in Yemen?
5. What purpose of mine is served by the U.S. government’s making war in Africa?
6. What purpose of mine would be served by the U.S. government’s making war in Iran?

Unless you are an unusual American, and if you are honest, your answer in each case would be, No purpose of mine is served by such war making.

Yet U.S. forces continue to make war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Africa with no prospect of discontinuation in sight, and the probability is substantial that U.S. forces will attack Iran and that U.S. actions in Syria will provoke direct fighting with the Russians supporting the Assad regime—fighting that might spiral out of control and eventuate in nuclear war. Why?

Well, although relatively few Americans have any real interest served by these wars, a small minority does have an interest. The leading figures in this power elite are Zionists and politicos beholden to the Israel lobby, plus some people who thrive on any and all wars by virtue of their positions in the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Chances are that these people are complete strangers to you. Their only connection with you is (a) to profit from funds extracted from you by the government, and (b) to keep you ideologically befuddled and factually misinformed so that you will not cause any major difficulty for them in their conduct of perpetual war. But aside from these two connections, nothing connects the great majority of Americans with the warfare state. It essentially runs on its own, answering to no one outside its own precincts and thriving on a pipeline to the taxpayers’ bank accounts.

You pay for all of this endless death and destruction, average American, but you get less than nothing out of it. In short, you are a sap for evil and designing intriguers. If you are reflexively “supporting the troops,” you might want to reconsider playing the fool and having your intelligence insulted daily in the process.

This article was published by The Beacon.

“In the future, we expect to have various types of power supplies to every household including the grid, windmills, solar panels, biogenerators… The issues here are the varying nature of these power sources which do not generate electricity at a stable rate,” said Derong Liu, a professor with the School of Automation at the Guangdong University of Technology in China and an author on the paper. “For example, powers generated from windmills and solar panels depend on the weather and they vary a lot comparing to the more stable power supplied by the grid. In order to keep good use of these powers we need much smarter algorithms in managing/scheduling them.”

The details were published on the January 10th issue of IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, a joint bimonthly publication of the IEEE and the Chinese Association of Automation.

Liu and his team proposed implementing the residential energy scheduling algorithm by training three action dependent heuristic dynamic programming (ADHDP) networks, each one based on a weather type of sunny, partly cloudy, or cloudy. ADHDP networks are considered “smart,” as their response can change based on different conditions.

In the simulations, a power management unit liaises between the grid and residential units. Once the network determines the correct weather type from the forecast, energy is processed for use or battery storage. The algorithm can then follow residential real-time pricing to determine the cost of buying electricity from the grid, the benefit of selling power, and the penalty cost of buying at a time when demand is high. The penalty cost also helps encourage full cycles of battery usage so as not to overload the grid.

The goal is optimization: to keep providing power to the consumers by integrating more renewable resources and limiting the use of non-renewable resources. As green technologies evolve, according to Liu, the networks can learn and continue to optimize the scheduling system.

“It is possible to use machine learning algorithms to optimize the power scheduling problem of future residential energy use,” Liu said, noting that while a simple solution may work in specific cases, more complex solutions are needed as the various forms of energy sources increase. “The optimization problem to solve in this case is to minimize the cost for the household while keeping up with the energy load demand of the household… an algorithm [that] can learn on its own to find an optimal solution after it is implemented might be the only possibility in this case to solve such a complex optimization problem.”

Liu and his team plan to conduct a full-scale study of this problem by considering all currently available forms of energy sources in an experimental setting.

There are lots of theories about why some couples who live together get married while others separate.

Some theories say couples are more likely to split up and less likely to marry when the male partner lacks full-time work or earns less than his female partner. Others say economic dependence strengthens couples’ commitment and sense of obligation to one another. Or maybe couples whose work hours are similar find it tough to juggle childcare and domestic chores.

Recent work by Patrick Ishizuka, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University’s Cornell Population Center, suggests it’s none of the above.

Ishizuka’s study is the first to offer empirical evidence that cohabitating couples are likely to get married only when they earn as much as their married peers. And when each partner in a cohabitating couple earns the same amount, they are less likely to separate, Ishizuka said.

“Once couples have reached a certain income and wealth threshold, they’re more likely to marry,” said Ishizuka, who researches work, families, and social inequality. “Economically disadvantaged couples are also more likely to separate.”

Ishizuka’s study validates a theory called “the marriage bar,” which says the closer a couple is to reaching the economic standards associated with marriage – like having enough money to buy a house – the more likely they are to get married. Qualitative studies have suggested that economically disadvantaged couples strongly value marriage, but they struggle to meet what they see as the high economic standard required to marry.

“They want to have a house and a car and enough savings to have a big wedding; and they also want to have stable jobs and a steady income,” Ishizuka said.

This new evidence reflects a growing socioeconomic divide in family life, he said. “Marriage is increasingly reserved for couples that have achieved a high economic standard. Rising divorce rates since the 1960s have also been steepest for individuals with less education.”

Ishizuka also found cohabiting couples who have equal earnings are more likely to stay together than couples with unequal earnings. “Equality appears to promote stability,” he said. “Equality in men’s and women’s economic contributions may hold these couples together.”

Cohabiters tend to have more egalitarian views on men’s and women’s roles than people who go from singlehood straight into marriage. That could explain why Ishizuka found no evidence showing men’s income or employment status being more important than women’s when it comes to predicting whether or not they marry or stay together. “It’s really the couple’s combined resources that seem to matter,” he said.

Ishizuka’s paper, recently published in Demography, is called “The Economic Foundations of Cohabiting Couples’ Union Transitions.”

Each year, farmers in the U.S. purchase tens of millions of pounds of antibiotics that are approved for use in cows, pigs, fowl and other livestock.

When farmers repurpose the animals’ manure as fertilizer or bedding, traces of the medicines leach into the environment, raising concerns that agriculture may be contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

New research holds troublesome insights with regard to the scope of this problem.

According to a pair of new studies led by Diana Aga, PhD, Henry M. Woodburn Professor of Chemistry in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, two of the most elite waste treatment systems available today on farms do not fully remove antibiotics from manure.

Both technologies — advanced anaerobic digestion and reverse osmosis filtration — leave behind concerning levels of antibiotic residues, which can include both the drugs themselves and molecules that the drugs break down into.

In addition, the study uncovered new findings about solid excrement, which is often filtered out from raw, wet manure before the treatment technologies are implemented.

Researchers found that this solid matter may contain higher concentrations of antibiotics than unprocessed manure, a discovery that is particularly disturbing because this material is often released into the environment when it’s used as animal bedding or sold as fertilizer.

“We were hoping that these advanced treatment technologies could remove antibiotics. As it turns out, they were not as effective as we thought they could be,” Aga says.

She does offer some hope, however: “On the positive side, I think that a multistep process that also includes composting at the end of the system could significantly reduce the levels of antibiotics. Our earlier studies on poultry litter demonstrated that up to 70 percent reduction in antibiotics called ionophores can be achieved after 150 days of composting. Testing this hypothesis on dairy farm manure is the next phase of our project, and we are seeing some positive results.”

The research on reverse osmosis filtration was published online in January in the journal Chemosphere. The study on advanced anaerobic digestion — a collaboration between UB and Virginia Tech — appeared online in March in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Waste treatment systems are not designed to remove antibiotics

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, more than 30 million pounds of antibiotics approved for use in food-producing livestock were sold or distributed in the United States in 2016. And these are just a fraction of the total antibiotics used annually around the world in humans and animals.

Though the new research focuses on dairy farms, the findings point to a larger problem.

“Neither of the treatment systems we studied was designed to remove antibiotics from waste as the primary goal,” Aga says. “Advanced anaerobic digestion is used to reduce odors and produce biogas, and reverse osmosis is used to recycle water. They were not meant to address removal of antibiotic compounds.

“This problem is not limited to agriculture: Waste treatment systems today, including those designed to handle municipal wastewater, hospital wastes and even waste from antibiotic manufacturing industries, do not have treatment of antibiotics in mind. This is an extremely important global issue because the rise of antibiotic resistance in the environment is unprecedented. We need to start thinking about this if we want to prevent the continued spread of resistance in the environment.”

Aga is a proponent of the “One Health” approach to fighting antimicrobial resistance, which encourages experts working in hospitals, agriculture and other sectors related to both human and animal health to work together, as humans and animals are often treated with the same or similar antibiotics.

Aga was an invited presenter at an international forum last week on the latest research about antimicrobial resistance. The event, in Vancouver, Canada, was co-chaired by representatives of the UK Science and Innovation Network, Wellcome Trust and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Poop has different parts — and all need to be treated

To conduct the research, scientists visited two dairy farms in Upstate New York.

Both facilities extract much of the solid matter from cow manure before subjecting the remaining sludge to high-tech waste management techniques. To process the remaining goop, one farm uses advanced anaerobic digestion, which employs microorganisms and pasteurization to break down and convert organic matter into products that include biogas, while the other farm uses reverse osmosis, which passes the slurry through a series of membranes to purify water.

Both technologies reduced antibiotic residues in liquid manure, but did little to cut down levels in the remaining solid matter. This is particularly worrisome as the research also revealed that antibiotic compounds tend to migrate from the liquid parts of the manure into the solids during treatment, making it arguably more important to treat than the latter.

The concern over solid excrement is heightened by the fact that the treatment techniques are implemented only after most solids are already separated from the raw manure, meaning that the bulk of the solid matter may go untreated.

The media has been working overtime to sow divisions in Sharif’s party and family.

By Sushant Sareen

Despite being badly wounded and pushed into a corner, the tiger (election symbol of Nawaz Sharif’s party and his own image among his followers) hasn’t stopped roaring. But while the tiger remains a formidable adversary and isn’t showing any signs of throwing in the towel in the face of overwhelming odds, he is undeniably in trouble.

Given the forces arraigned against him – the military, judiciary, most of the media or at least the section that tows the line of the ‘deep state’, and of course opposition parties, most of which have either struck deals, or are working under instructions, or even trying to desperately suck up and win the affections of the ‘deep state’ – the prospects for Nawaz Sharif’s party in the forthcoming General Elections don’t look very bright. Not only history but also current political realities are heavily loaded against Nawaz Sharif and his party.

Historically, while there have been instances of political parties retaining a province in successive elections, no political party has ever won two elections in a row to retain the federal government – the only one instance of this happening was when the Pakistan Peoples Party won the 1977 elections, but that doesn’t count because no one accepted the results and it, ultimately, led to a military coup by Gen Ziaul Haq. Also, neither the person nor the party which has been deposed from office either by dismissal, disqualification or dictatorship is ever allowed to win the election that follows their ouster.

When Benazir Bhutto was sacked in 1990, it was a given that she wouldn’t be allowed to win the election that followed. The same happened after Nawaz Sharif was dismissed in 1993 and later when Benazir Bhutto was dismissed for the second time in 1996. After all, the whole idea of ousting a Prime Minister from office will be defeated if he/she is allowed to come back into office through the back door.

The connotation of ‘free and fair’ elections in Pakistan is quite different from what it is in rest of the world. In Pakistan, elections are either fair or free; sometimes they are fair up to a point after which they become free (to rig or tilt in the desired direction by the ‘deep state’). What terrifies the uniformed guardians of Pakistan about genuinely free and fair elections are the nasty surprises they throw up, which are completely contrary to their expectations and calculations. After the 1970 elections, which paved the way for the break-up of the country, the Pakistan army has never been comfortable with the traditional definition of ‘free and fair’ elections.

Every single election since then has been mired in controversy and allegations of rigging and even altering declared results. Sometimes the interference in elections is blatant, but, generally, it is discreet, even though the menacing shadow of the ‘deep state’ and its ‘agencies’ looms large over the entire electoral process.

The bottom line is that while the ‘deep state’ almost always manages to defeat its bête noire of the time, it isn’t always able to calibrate or fine-tune the scale of victory of other players. Quite like Artificial Intelligence machines become better with use, so too is the case with the Pakistani ‘deep state’. With time and experience, the Pakistan Army’s ‘artificial intelligence’ model (the pun is entirely intended) has picked up new tricks on how to stack the political board so that the election results are as close as they want them to be.

The ‘deep state’ and its underlings are aware, or at least fear, that unless the deck is stacked against the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), it will be difficult to defeat it in the next election. In a fair election, the PMLN will be in pole position. If it doesn’t manage to get a simple majority, it will at least be the single largest party.

The reason is simple: the PMLN hasn’t suffered any major reverses in its bastion, Punjab. In almost all the recent by-elections held after the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court (when the PMLN was thought to be at its weakest) the PMLN has won with fairly comfortable margins. Nawaz Sharif remains the most popular and powerful leader in Punjab, and has skillfully cultivated an image of an anti-establishment leader who also appeals to the conservative right-wing voter. If the turnout at his public rallies is any indication, the damage that was sought to be inflicted on his political support base by his disqualification by the judiciary is very limited: those who opposed him, continue to do so with even greater vehemence; those who support him, continue to back him.

Popularity is not the only thing Nawaz Sharif has in store. Over the years, the PMLN has forged a formidable ecosystem of patronage, including in the administration, which even the dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf wasn’t able to dismantle. Then there is the political machinery that the PMLN has built, which has worked out the political equations at the constituency and even booth level. The PMLN’s mastery over the thana-kutchery-patwaripolitics as well as local-level biradari and dharra (grouping) politics is enviable. On top of this, it has the support of most of the ‘electable’ politicians. Apart from Punjab, the PMLN has a fair hold in the Hazara belt of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In terms of weightage, Punjab and the Hazara region alone are enough to make PMLN the single largest party.

In order to cut PMLN down to size, a multi-pronged attack has been launched. The first prong is of course the court cases against Nawaz Sharif. His impending conviction could unravel the party, but it could just as well galvanise it. To prevent the latter, the ‘deep state’ is doing everything possible to create a political environment that convinces people that PMLN will not win the next election.

Winnability is an important criteria for cementing support base. People generally avoid voting for someone who they think can’t win, or won’t be allowed to win. Once this impression gains ground, a lot of the ‘electables’ also tend to jump ship and join the party that has the wind behind it. Although before every election, there are desertions from parties, this time around a conscious effort is believed to be underway to wean away the ‘electables’ from PMLN. There are reports of politicians being intimidated, threatened with prosecution (the Supreme Court and the corruption watchdog, National Accountability Bureau have become handmaidens in this endeavour), warned of ‘deep state’ support to their rivals, bribes being offered, favours being extended and all the rest of the stuff that helps convince a politician to switch sides. As the elections come closer, this process will gather pace.

Rumours, fake news, insinuations, disinformation and misinformation are being constantly floated and aired to try and drive a wedge between Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif (who is now the president of the party). After Nawaz was disqualified as both PM and President of the party, an attempt was made to replace him with Shahbaz, who is generally seen as being more pliable, obedient, subservient to the military. But for a variety of reasons, Shahbaz didn’t bite.

Suddenly some old and some relatively new cases have been opened up against him. There is sword hanging over Shahbaz’s head if he refuses to play ball. The problem is that if Shahbaz goes against Nawaz, the party will split, as will the vote bank, and both will lose. Therefore, until the elections, there is a compulsion for the brothers to stick together because they have both realised that they can either swim together or sink together. Any tussle for power will only happen after the results are in. With the brothers deciding to stick together, for now the plan has shifted to trying to engineer high-profile defections from the party that leave it gasping for breath and unsettle it.

Another effort of the ‘deep state’ has been to cut into Nawaz Sharif’s vote bank. The emergence of the Lashkar-e-Taiba political front, Milli Muslim League (MML), and the Barelvi extremist party, Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), are believed to be trojans of the ‘deep state’ which will draw some of the traditional vote that went to PMLN. The general belief was that since the next elections are likely to be closely contested, if MML and TLP can take away 10-15 thousand votes of PMLN, then it will give a leg up to Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, which is the only credible challenger to PMLN in Punjab – the PPP is virtually dead in Punjab, and its state is even worse than that of Congress party in UP and Bihar.

The problem, however, is that in the by-elections, while the MML and TLP managed to get around 10-15000 votes, they don’t seem to have cut into the PMLN vote bank. In other words, the impact of these parties on PMLN’s support base has so far been minimal. If anything, it would appear that they are eating into the votes of PTI and/or other smaller players.

The main political challenge to Nawaz Sharif will be from the cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan. But the guy is just too flaky in his thinking. Worse, he is boring, repetitive, abusive and obnoxious, with no real plan on how to deliver what he is promising. His own aides have admitted that he is clueless on working out details of everything he promises. Over the past few months, the compromises that Imran Khan has made in terms of people with very unsavoury and dubious reputations being inducted in the party, has robbed him of some of his lustre.

In any case, his party organisation is no match for PMLN, nor does he have the sort of grass-root knowledge and understanding that the PMLN can bring to bear in an election. Most of all, Imran Khan is a maverick.

The most likely outcome, provided Nawaz Sharif is able to stay in the fray, is that the PMLN could emerge as the single-largest party with around 90-100 seats, Imran Khan could be second with around 60 odd seats, PPP third with around 30-40 seats and the rest divided among other political players. This sort of outcome will suit the ‘deep state’ because a divided National Assembly is so much easier to control. Of course, what such a divided House does to governance is quite another matter.

Whether Nawaz Sharif wins big, ends up as single largest party or even comes second, the post-election political scenario is unlikely to bring even a modicum of stability. Which is why sceptics wonder if elections will be held at all.

This article originally appeared in Newslaundry.com.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has assertively reminded 17 newly arrived foreign envoys to make efforts to facilitate the development of multifaceted relations with Russia in every possible way, strengthen political dialogue, boost trade and economic relations, deepen humanitarian and cultural ties.

“The role of diplomacy and diplomats are particularly important,” he explained and gave the assurance that Moscow was committed to constructive dialogue with its foreign partners and would unreservedly promote a positive agenda.

“For our part, we are ready to welcome your constructive initiatives, you can count on the support of Russian authorities, state institutions, business circles and the public,” Putin said, addressing the foreign ambassadors in a special ceremony held in the Alexander Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

The 17 newly appointed ambassadors are from Austria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Egypt, El Salvador, Ghana, Italy, Jordan, Nigeria, Montenegro, Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, The Gambia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

During the speech, Putin strongly reminded them about the growing challenges and threats confronting the global community and urged them to play a pivotal role in ensuring sustainable development, global peace and stability.

“As for Russia, it will continue to consistently be committed to strengthening global and regional security and stability and fully comply with its international obligations, build constructive cooperation with partners based on respect relying on international legal norms and the United Nations Charter,” the Russian leader said.

According to Putin, “diplomats are called upon to facilitate the joint search for answers to large-scale challenges and threats, such as terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and climate change.”

In addition to supporting greater security, stability and delivering promptly on its international obligations, Putin also emphasized the readiness of Russia to continue boosting overall ties both at bilateral level and on the world stage with African countries. According to the longstanding tradition, the Russian leader said a few words about the interaction with the individual countries in the welcome speech.

Of particular importance, Putin noted that Russia was interested in broadening ties with the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We very much appreciate our relations with Nigeria, an important partner for us on the African continent. We support the further expansion of mutually beneficial Russian-Nigerian ties, including cooperation on hydrocarbon extraction and aluminum production, as well as in the military-technical field,” he told the new Nigerian ambassador, Professor Steve Davies Ugba, who had arrived with an accumulated experience in corporate affairs and several years of academic teaching in the United States.

He went on to inform the gathering that the foundation for the cooperation between Russia and Ghana was laid over 60 years ago. “We have accumulated a great deal of experience in working together in both the trade and economic sphere and in politics. Currently, we are developing promising projects in the nuclear and oil industries, and we are discussing the prospects of supplying Ghana with Russian airplanes, helicopters and automobiles,” Putin said.

Oheneba Dr. Akyaa Opoku Ware, Ghana’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, was one of those who presented credentials to Putin. By profession, she is a qualified medical doctor from The Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and was appointed as an ambassador to the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on September 13, 2017.

With regards to the Arab Republic of Egypt, Putin offered a bit more saying that the strategic partnership with Egypt is being strengthened. In August, Russia and Egypt will mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Cooperation between Russia and Egypt is very active and includes the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Egypt, the establishment of a Russian industrial zone in the Port Said region, and the deepening of military and defense industry cooperation.

“I would also like to point out that regular flights between the capitals of the two countries have been resumed. We continue to work on resuming the rest of the flights,” he pointed out.

Last December, fruitful talks with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi were held in Cairo, he noted, and added that they both maintained regular dialogue on a range of topics, including relevant international and regional issues because both countries have had close or similar positions. Quite recently, Putin heartily congratulated the President of Egypt on his resounding victory at the recent elections.

According to diplomatic sources, Mr. Ihab Talaat Nasr, the new Egyptian ambassador to Russia, has replaced Mr. Mohammed al-Badri who completed his mission late October 2017. Previously, Ihab Nasr was the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt responsible for European affairs.

The Gambia was in the Kremlin for the first time in the country’s history with the official opening of an embassy in Moscow. Madam Jainaba Bah, a Senior Member of the United Democratic Party (UDP), became the first resident ambassador of The Gambia in the Russian Federation.

“Our ties with the Republic of The Gambia are traditionally constructive. The Russian side is interested in expanding economic cooperation, including by increasing the supply of machinery and agricultural products to the republic. We will continue to expand the practice of training Gambian specialists at Russian universities,” the Russian leader explained.

Significantly, Putin underscores the fact that friendly cooperation is maintained with the Republic of the Congo. Bilateral cooperation covers a number of major projects, including the construction of a 1,334 km oil pipeline. In February, Rosatom and the Science Ministry of the Congo signed a memorandum of understanding. Over 7,000 citizens of the Congo have received higher education at Soviet and Russian universities.

Talking about Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, he said that Russia’s relations with the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire would continue to develop in traditionally constructive spirit.

“We mainly interact with the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire in the trade and economic sphere. Russia supplies to this country chemical and food products and imports cocoa and its derivatives. As part of our humanitarian efforts, medicine and medical equipment from Russia are regularly sent to the Republic,” Putin told the new ambassador, Mr. Roger Gnanga, who had served in diplomatic post in Washington.

Currently, Côte d’Ivoire is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Russia also stands ready to work with the Ivorian side at the UN.

Interestingly, Benin has frequently changed its ambassadors. Mr. Noukpo Clement Kiki, the newly appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Benin to the Russian Federation, is a professional teacher and administrator for over 20 years. Quite recently, he had a short diplomatic stint in Canada and now transferred to Moscow.

Relations with Benin are developing in a constructive spirit. Russia cooperates on energy and transport. Russia exports food and chemical products. Over 2,500 citizens of Benin have graduated from Russian universities, according to Putin.

Whatever the possible shortfalls, Putin optimistically expects that, with active participation of the 17 newly arrived ambassadors, these relations will develop dynamically for the mutual benefit of the peoples of their individual countries and Russia, and in the interests of international stability and security.

“I am confident that your time in Russia will allow you to better know our country and its rich history and culture, and will leave you with new unforgettable impressions,” Putin, elected for another six-year presidential term and will be inaugurated into office on May 7, told the gathering.

In conclusion, Putin congratulated the new foreign envoys with the official beginning of an important and honorable diplomatic mission, and with the hope that their activities in the Russian Federation will be productive and promote the development of relations between the countries they represent and the Russian Federation. *This article by Kester Kenn Klomegah, an independent research writer on African affairs in the Russian Federation.

The virtually continuous role of soccer as a key player in the history and development of the Middle East and North Africa dating back to the late 19^th century seemed to have come to an abrupt halt in 2014 as the Saudi-UAE-led counterrevolution gained momentum, the Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry accelerated, and the political rift in the Gulf initially manifested itself.

The long and dramatic history of the Middle Eastern intersection of sports and politics took a backseat as the fallout of the popular Arab revolts of 2011 unfolded. In contrast to other parts of the world in which rulers and politicians at times employed sports as a tool to achieve political goals, sports in general and soccer in particular had been a player in the Middle East in terms of nation, state and regime formation; assertion of national identity; the struggle for independence; republicanism vs monarchy; ideological battles; and fights for human, political, gender and labour rights.

Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa had repeatedly demonstrated its potential as an engine of social and political change not necessarily the lovey-dovey kind of building bridges and contributing to peace, but more often than not divisive and confrontational. That was evident with the role of soccer in the 1919 Egyptian revolution; the struggles for nationhood, statehood and independence of Jews, Palestinians and Algerians; the quest for modernity in Turkey and Iran; the 2011 popular revolts; post-2011 resistance to a UAE-Saudi-inspired counterrevolution; the awarding by world soccer governing body FIFA of the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to Qatar; and ultimately the battle for regional dominance between Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as the Gulf crisis that since June 2017 has pitted a UAE-Saudi-led alliance against Qatar.

The Gulf crisis put an end to a period starting with the crushing of student protests with militant soccer fans at their core against the military coup in Egypt in 2013 that brought Mr. Al-Sisi to power in which the sport no longer seemed a useful prism for analysing developments in the Middle East and North Africa. The crackdown turned Egyptian universities into security fortresses and seemed to have largely silenced the ultras.

The first round of the Gulf crisis in 2014 when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha for a period of ten months; the escalating war in Syria; the rise of King Salman and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, and the changes they introduced in Saudi Arabia; the escalation of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry and its associated proxy wars; and the initial phase of the second round in the Gulf crisis with last year’s imposition of a diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar reinforced a sense that soccer was not a working prism for analysis of events.

A number of developments have however reversed that sense. One is the re-emergence of soccer in Egypt as an important player despite the crackdown on the anti-Sisi protests. Mr. Al-Sisi repeatedly tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to forge links with the ultras while the ultras in past years despite the repression again emerged as one of the few groups willing to stage protests. Scores of protesters have since been sentenced to prison, many remain detained awaiting trial.

Enlisting the support of soccer represented by the Egyptian Football Association and major clubs for his re-election this year, Mr. Al-Sisi positioned soccer as a key tool of associating himself with something the country is crazy about and that evokes deep-seated, tribal-like emotions. Egypt’s qualification for this year’s World Cup like that of several other Arab teams cemented the role of soccer in Egypt and the other qualifying countries.

Similarly, Saudi soccer diplomacy in Iraq has earned the kingdom brownie points. Soccer, despite the Gulf crisis, has moreover proven to be the wedge that has driven change and significant reform of the labour regime in Qatar. The changes fall short of what human rights groups, international trade unions and the International Labour Organization wanted to see. Nonetheless, the changes amount to far more than a cosmetic face lift.

Last but not least, soccer, and particularly the Qatar World Cup, is an important battlefield in the increasingly overt public relations battle between the Gulf state and its detractors, particularly the United Arab Emirates. In addition, to playing an important role in the politics of the region, Middle Eastern soccer has in the past three years highlighted the hypocrisy of the insistence by world soccer body FIFA that governance should ensure its separation from politics. The endorsement of a candidate by a football association and/or clubs makes a mockery of a division of sports and politics. So do FIFA decisions regarding venues and choice of referees for competition matches involving teams of the Middle East’s feuding states.

The political role of soccer is rooted in the politics of sports that goes back to 5th century Rome, when support groups identified as the Blues, Greens, Reds and Whites in the absence of alternative channels for public expression acclaimed a candidate slated to be installed as Rome’s emperor in games dominated by chariot racing.  Much like modern day militant soccer fans or ultras, they frequently shouted political demands in between races in a bid to influence policy. In doing so, the Romans set a trend that has since proven its value as well as its risk. In today’s modern world, soccer pitches, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, were frequently viewed as barometers of the public mood and indicators of political and social trends. They also were platforms for the public venting of pent-up frustration and anger as well as grievances.

Rome also served as an early example of the impact of fan power. That was most evident in the 532 AD Nika revolt, the most violent in Constantinople’s history, when the then dominant Blues and Greens rioted for a week, destroyed much of the city, sacked the Hagia Sophia, and almost succeeded in forcing the Byzantine emperor Justinian I to vacate his throne.

The identification, through patronage and micromanagement, of modern-day Arab autocrats with soccer emulates the Romans’ use of games and sports to solidify their power. Arab autocrats, however, unlike their Roman predecessors, were determined to prevent soccer clubs from becoming arbiters of political power. The Greens and the Blues and their fans in fifth-century-AD games were the Roman predecessors of today’s Middle Eastern and North African soccer fans who expressed similarly deep-seated passions.

Arab autocrats, however, unlike their Roman predecessors, were determined to prevent soccer clubs from becoming arbiters of political power. In contrast to the Romans, giving fans and the public a say in the choice of a leader would be unthinkable in contemporary autocratic Arabia. It would have to give the public a degree of sovereignty and undermine the position of the ruler as the neo-patriarchic, autocratic father in the mould of Palestinian-American scholar Hisham Sharabi, who characterized autocracies in the Middle East and North Africa as expressions of neo-patriarchy.

Soccer was the perfect tool for neo-patriarchic autocrats. Their values were the same values that are often projected onto soccer: assertion of male superiority in most aspects of life, control or harnessing of female lust, and a belief in a masculine God. The game’s popularity, moreover, made it the perfect soft-power tool to wield transnational sporting influence in an era of decolonization followed by a Cold War in which sporting powers like the United States and the Soviet Union were focused on the Olympics rather than the World Cup, and it continues to serve this purpose in subsequent globalization.

As a result, neo-patriarchy framed the environment in which militant soccer fans turned the soccer field into a battlefield. Arab autocrats, such as the toppled Egyptian and Tunisian presidents Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, had no intention of risking a repeat of Justinian I’s experience. Theirs was a world in which there could be no uncontrolled public space, no opportunity for the public to express itself, voice grievances, and vent pent-up anger and frustration. They could suppress most expressions of dissent, such as underground music. Musicians were intimidated, imprisoned, or refused entry into the country, with by and large little or no public response. Labor activism was brutally repressed. The soccer pitch, however, like the mosque, were venues for the deep-seated emotions they evoked among a majority of the population and could not simply be repressed or shut down. The mosque proved easier to control. The pulpit was subjected to government supervision; clerics were state employees. Security forces successfully confronted more militant, politicized lslamists.

Soccer pitches were not that simple. Fans, particularly militants, who described themselves as ultras and viewed club executives as representatives or corrupt pawns of a repressive regime and players as mercenaries who played for the highest bidder, were cut from a different cloth. They understood themselves as their club’s only true supporters, and as a result believed that they were the real owners of the stadium. In staking their claim, the fans emerged in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco as the most, if not only, organized force willing and able to figuratively and literally challenge the regime’s effort to control all public space.

The fans’ claim positioned soccer as both a threat and an opportunity for Middle Eastern and North African autocrats. The threat was an increasingly fearless, well-organized, highly politicized, and street battle–hardened force that attracted thousands of young men who were willing and able to stand their ground against the security forces. In doing so, they were publicly challenging the state’s authority.

Long deprived of the option to simply close down the contested public space, autocrats like Mr. Mubarak were forced to respond with a combination of co-optation and repression. Alongside heavy-handed use of security forces, they sought to identify themselves with the game, the region’s most popular form of popular culture, by basking in the success of national teams and major clubs and exploiting neo-patriarchal attitudes by showering players with expensive gifts and the ruler’s attention, while at the same time denouncing the ultras as criminals and thugs. That pattern continues until today buffeted by significantly stepped-up repression and in the case of Egypt the virtual closure to the public of stadiums for much of the past seven years made possible by the 2011 revolt.

Co-optation potentially creates significant opportunity for the autocrat no more so that at times of major international competitions like the World Cup. Identification with one of the country’s most popular and emotive pastimes offered the autocrat the prospect of harnessing it to polish his often tarnished image. Co-optation also provided an autocrat with an additional peg for favourable media attention that could help distract attention away from or overshadow criticism. Finally, it enabled autocrats to manipulate public emotions at given moments and rally the nation around them, as the Mubaraks did against Algeria in late 2009.

In many ways the Middle East of today is not the Middle East of a decade ago. Arab autocrats recognize that in their efforts to upgrade autocracy and embrace economic and social reform coupled with increased repression. The mayhem in the region works in their favour. The wars and the violence invoke nationalist and other useful emotions and invoke fears that popular protest could lead to chaos and anarchy. Yet, discontent is simmering at the surface much as it did in the run-up to the 2011 revolts and the soccer pitch is often where it rears its head.

The mayhem in the Middle East and North Africa is not exclusively, but in many ways, due to autocrats’ inability and failure to deliver public goods and services. That is true not only for the region’s autocratic majority but also for Iran, and Tunisia, the Arab revolt’s one and only relative success story. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appeared to be holding out a dream for his kingdom. But that dream increasingly is being shattered in Yemen and at homes has yet to produce more than greater freedoms for women and opportunity for entertainment. Autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa are about upgrading and modernizing their regimes to ensure their survival, not about real sustainable change.

Human rights activist and former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki was asked in a Wall Street Journal interview why it was not only those who lacked opportunity and felt that they had no prospects and no hopes but also educated Tunisians with jobs who had joined the Islamic State. His answer was: “It’s not simply a matter of tackling socioeconomic roots. You have to go deeper and understand that these guys have a dream—and we don’t. We had a dream—our dream was called the Arab Spring. And our dream is now turning into a nightmare. But the young people need a dream, and the only dream available to them (was) the caliphate.”

Mohammed bin Salman has come closest to creating a dream. For now, it remains a dream on which he has yet to deliver. Much of the Middle East does not have a dream.

A court ruling In Egypt since the rise of Mr. Al-Sisi banned ultras groups as terrorist organizations. A similar attempt failed in Turkey. Yet, the scores of arrests in Egypt demonstrate that the ultras are alive and kicking. Said a founder of one Egypt’s original ultras groups that played a key role prior to the rise of Mr. Al-Sisi: “This is a new generation. It’s a generation that can’t be controlled. They don’t read. They believe in action and experience. They have balls. When the opportunity arises, they will do something bigger than we ever did.”

In sum, soccer resistance may be down but not out. Autocratic rulers retain the upper hand and use the sport to enhance their grip on power, ironically aided and abetted by FIFA. Yet, it is that very approach to the sport that also positioned it as a platform for protest and resistance. The jury is out on whether autocratic efforts at reform will produce sustainable results. The record so far is mixed at best. If there is one group at the ready if reforms fail, it is likely to be soccer fans.

Edited remarks at The Beautiful Game? Identity, Resentment, and Discrimination in Football and Fan Cultures conference, Center for Research on Antisemitism, Berlin, 12-13 April 2018

As the Trump administration considers military operations against Syria in the wake of a suspected chemical weapons attack Saturday (April 7) in the town of Douma, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor and world-renowned expert on international law on the use of force says a reprisal attack would be illegal.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and research professor of international dispute resolution, is author of “The Popular but Unlawful Armed Reprisal,” forthcoming in the Ohio Northern Law Review.

“The use of chemical weapons is correctly characterized as a war crime, but there is an utter failure to recognize that a punitive military attack in response violates fundamental international law,” O’Connell says. “Those who target citizens with chemical weapons should be held accountable, but the way accountability is imposed must also comply with the law. Attacking after such incidents amounts to unlawful reprisals, and unlawful reprisals in which people die belong in the same category of international crimes as the use of banned weapons.”

Currently in residence at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, O’Connell said reprisal attacks are a serious breach of the United Nations charter.

“President Trump has warned via tweet that ‘missiles will be coming’ to Syria to enforce the norm against using chemical weapons,” she said. “He is going to break the law to save it, reminding me of the old U.S. strategy in Vietnam of destroying a village to save it. And we know how well that turned out.”

In her forthcoming research paper, O’Connell points to armed reprisals last year in Syria carried out by the United States and Iran in the wake of chemical and terror attacks.

“Despite support for their actions even by countries such as Germany and France, retaliatory uses of force are clearly prohibited under international law,” she writes. “International law generally prohibits all use of armed force with narrow exceptions for self-defense, United Nations Security Council authorization, and consent of a government to participate in a civil war. Military force after an incident are reprisals, which have been expressly forbidden by the U.N.”

Prior to the Trump administration, O’Connell said the U.S. consistently attempted to justify reprisals through creative characterization of the facts to fit the self-defense paradigm.

“Following the April 2017 attacks, the U.S. did not even offer one of these insufficient attempts at justification,” she said. “Nine people reportedly died in last year’s attack, including four children. What was achieved? The implications of these latest developments on international law for the U.S. and the world are grave. Human lives have been taken in violation of the law. The whole attempt to condemn chemical attacks and terrorism becomes at best counterproductive when the response involves a law violation as serious as the triggering offense.”

When a natural disaster strikes, major disaster databases tend to compile information about losses such as damages to property or cost of repairs, but other economic impacts after the disaster are often overlooked–such as how a company’s lost ability to produce products may affect the entire supply-chain within the affected region and in other regions.

Without using the right model to study these losses, the data may give an incomplete picture of the full financial impact of the disaster as it doesn’t fully portray business interruptions incurred locally, or by trade partners, after the event. As a result, a locality may receive less than it should in state or federal government recovery support.

In a recent study, published in Earth System Dynamics, an interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of Earth and global change, economists at the University of Illinois partnered with atmospheric scientists and hydrologists from U of I and UCLA, and with the Army Corps of Engineers to capture the characteristics of an atmospheric river–a transporter of water vapor in the sky–that hit the western part of Washington State in 2007. This event resulted in record flooding (a 500-year stream peak event in some parts of the river) and record damages.

The team hopes to show that carefully selecting the characteristics of the extreme weather event under study and the correct model to estimate losses–based on characteristics of the disaster and the affected region, and on the interdependence between one area and another–can help in determining vulnerability and preparing for future disasters, from an economic standpoint.

“This is quite different from what insurance companies do,” explains Sandy Dall’Erba, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at U of I, and a co-author of the study. “After a disaster, when an insurance company comes, they basically say that your building has been destroyed by this particular amount. And because you were out of the building for, say, a week, you couldn’t produce anything for a week. What insurance companies forget, and what our paper is trying to demonstrate is that the total amount of economic losses is much greater.”

The ripple effects from a disaster can be significant if major industrial chains are disrupted when infrastructure is comprised. For instance, while the study finds that intersectoral and interregional linkages add up to around 10 percent in standard economic damage estimates in the small rural area chosen in this study, that share could go up to 50-70 percent for a major metropolitan area like Houston, Texas, because of its enormous transportation system and interregional trade.

“Let’s say for instance that a company producing tires is flooded. Obviously, no tires are coming from that company,” Dall’Erba explains. “The car company, which could be located in a place that wasn’t flooded, suddenly is expecting a delay in the tires that are not coming on time anymore. There are all of these connections from one city to the next that are traditionally not accounted for after a disaster.”

In his U of I lab, the Regional Economic Applications Laboratory (REAL), Dall’Erba studies very specific disaster events using a technique called input-output–a technique that shows the interdependencies between the sectors within a region and across different regions. He also teaches this technique in his home department (ACE) on a regular basis.

“We look at each industry. What kind of products and services do they buy? To whom do they sell their goods and services? In the case of Chehalis, Washington, that was flooded in 2007, it was mainly companies selling to other companies, not to individual households. Those are the kinds of links that we try to include in the work we do in REAL, how to understand that level of dependence between one location and other places. We also provide measurements that are very specific to each locality,” Dall’Erba says.

Using the input-output technique helped the researchers calculate the actual losses after the event in Chehalis. “We rely on a huge amount of data to do it. We have information from each locality about how each industry is connected to every industry within that locality and outside of that locality so we can understand how dollars flow,” he adds.

In addition, they must account for the timing of the event. “While the affected area is very agricultural, the luck it had is that the flood took place in December, way ahead of the growing season of the crop the locality depends the most on, corn. If it had taken place a few months later, the local economy would have experienced much larger losses,” Dall’Erba says.

Finally, Dall’Erba’s team is particularly careful to account for the location of the companies in charge of reconstruction. “Most of the literature assumes without evidence that reconstruction will dampen the local losses and boost employment. It turns out that for small rural communities–like the one in our study–no local construction company is present or is large enough to be in charge of reconstruction. As such, reconstruction efforts are delivered by companies outside of the affected economy and it is these other localities that see an increase in output and construction jobs,” Dall’Erba adds.

The latter part of their study focuses on the future. Assuming that climate change will result in 15 percent more streamflow (water from rivers or streams) for all return periods, the authors find that the total losses would increase from $6.2 million, the figure seen during the actual event, to $8.6 million (a 39 percent increase).

“Adaptation strategies could include, among others, larger floodplains in upstream locations, levees close to critical buildings, and/or developing a more resilient supply-chain,” Dall’Erba says. “However it is particularly hard for small rural communities as they do not always have the budget necessary to implement large adaptation projects; yet they have already been more frequently affected by floods than urban areas over the last few decades.”

Researchers have measured CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use in California and compared them to reported emissions.

This is the first time fossil fuel emissions have been independently checked for such a large area.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) from fossil fuel combustion is the primary driver of climate change, and many governments, companies and citizens are making efforts to curb their emissions. A key part of this effort is measuring the change in emissions.

Countries and regions report their CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels by counting what they have used, such as the amount of oil, coal or gas they have burned. However, there may be uncertainty in these estimates, for example depending on the composition of the fuel.

Now, a team of researchers, led by members from Imperial College London, have reported a technique to estimate CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels using atmospheric measurements, tested over three months in California.

In this case the reported and actual emissions matched up well – but researchers warn this may not be the case everywhere else in the world.

The study, funded by NASA and published today in Environmental Research Letters, is the first time scientists have been able to measure fossil fuel CO₂ emissions over a large area like California. The researchers suggest the technique could also be used in other regions, strengthening the ability to report and monitor efforts to curb emissions.

The Paris Agreement, which came into force in November 2016, aims to keep the global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. As part of this, most countries around the world have agreed to reduce their CO₂ emissions. Individual regions like California have also set their own emissions reduction goals and policies.

Lead author Dr Heather Graven, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: “The Paris Agreement requires that ‘stocktakes’ are conducted every five years, but the details of how these will be conducted are not settled and are in need of input from researchers.

“Our study is the first example of how atmospheric measurements can help to check on fossil fuel CO₂ emissions over an area large enough to encompass nations, provinces or states.”

While there are many instruments that can measure CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, the difficulty is in separating natural CO₂ from plant life from manmade CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel burning. However, because gas, coal and oil are millions of years old, their carbon has a key difference compared to the carbon cycling through plants.

Fossil fuels lack a type of radioactive carbon, an isotope called carbon-14, which decays over time. By measuring the ratio of carbon isotopes in the samples the team collected, they were able to tell how much carbon was from fossil fuel combustion.

The team, which included researchers from ten different laboratories in the US, made their measurements at nine monitoring stations around California. They combined the data with a California-specific atmospheric circulation model, which shows how air moves around the state.

They then compared their results with other estimates of fossil fuel emissions, including estimates from the California Air Resources Board, who assisted with the study. The researchers found there was a good match between the different estimates.

California’s estimates are based on calculating what has been burnt and this study provided a way to check that their reported emissions are unlikely to have any large biases.

The researchers say that adding this atmospheric monitoring technique to the suite of tools used to monitor climate change can help to better understand greenhouse gas emissions from specific regions and how they are changing over time.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, recently approved a dozen names proposed by NASA’s New Horizons team, which led the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons in 2015 with the New Horizons spacecraft. The New Horizons team had been using many of the chosen names informally to describe the many valleys, crevices and craters discovered during the first close-up look at the surface Charon.

Charon is one of the larger bodies in the Kuiper Belt, and has a wealth of geological features, as well as a collection of craters similar to those seen on most moons. These features and some of Charon’s craters have now been assigned official names by the IAU.

The New Horizons team was instrumental in moving the new names through approval, and included the leader of the New Horizons missions, Dr. Alan Stern, and science team members Mark Showalter — the group’s chairman and liaison to the IAU — Ross Beyer, Will Grundy, William McKinnon, Jeff Moore, Cathy Olkin, Paul Schenk and Amanda Zangari. The team gathered most of their ideas during the Our Plutoonline public naming campaign in 2015.

The names approved by the IAU encompass the diverse range of recommendations the team received from around the world during the Our Pluto campaign. As well as the efforts of the New Horizons team, members of the public all over the world helped to name the features of Charon by contributing their suggestions for names of the features of this far-flung moon.

Honouring the epic exploration of Pluto that New Horizons accomplished, many of the feature names in the Pluto system pay homage to the spirit of human exploration, honouring travellers, explorers and scientists, pioneering journeys, and mysterious destinations. Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, commented that “I am pleased that the features on Charon have been named with international spirit.”

The approved Charon names focus on the literature and mythology of exploration. They are listed here:

Argo Chasma is named for the ship sailed by Jason and the Argonauts, in the epic Latin poem Argonautica, during their quest for the Golden Fleece.

Butler Mons honours Octavia E. Butler, the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur fellowship, and whose Xenogenesis trilogy describes humankind’s departure from Earth and subsequent return.

Caleuche Chasma is named for the mythological ghost ship that travels the seas around the small island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile; according to legend, the Caleuche explores the coastline collecting the dead, who then live aboard it forever.

Clarke Montes honours Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the prolific science fiction writer and futurist whose novels and short stories (including 2001: A Space Odyssey) were imaginative depictions of space exploration.

Dorothy Crater recognizes the protagonist in the series of children’s novels, by L. Frank Baum, that follows Dorothy Gale’s travels to and adventures in the magical world of Oz.

Kubrick Mons honours film director Stanley Kubrick, whose iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey tells the story of humanity’s evolution from tool-using hominids to space explorers and beyond.

Mandjet Chasma is named for one of the boats in Egyptian mythology that carried the sun god Ra (Re) across the sky each day — making it one of the earliest mythological examples of a vessel of space travel.

Nasreddin Crater is named for the protagonist in thousands of humorous folktales told throughout the Middle East, southern Europe and parts of Asia.

Nemo Crater is named for the captain of the Nautilus, the submarine in Jules Verne’s novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874).

Pirx Crater is named for the main character in a series of short stories by Stanislaw Lem, who travels between the Earth, Moon and Mars.

Revati Crater is named for the main character in the Hindu epic narrative Mahabharata — widely regarded as the first in history (circa 400 BC) to include the concept of time travel.

Sadko Crater recognizes the adventurer who travelled to the bottom of the sea in the medieval Russian epic Bylina.

By Jack Thomas Tomarchio*

(FPRI) — On April 10, 2018, Thomas P. Bossert, the President’s Homeland Security Advisor, abruptly resigned from his post. It came as a surprise to homeland security observers and to Bossert himself. Speaking at the Cipher Brief’s 2018 Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia, Bossert gave no hint that his departure was mere hours away. What the Bossert exit represents is a rapid move by Bolton to put his own imprimatur upon the National Security Council.

As a fellow member of the George W. Bush administration, I worked homeland security issues with Bossert although we did not work closely together. He was a denizen of the West Wing in those days, while I worked domestic intelligence matters on Nebraska Avenue at the Department of Homeland Security. Lawyerly and thoughtful, Tom was respected for his work ethic and notably his ability to master the chaos that was the Hurricane Katrina crisis of 2005.

Unlike many other veterans of Bush 43, Tom was able to shed those “scarlet numbers” and join the Trump administration. By all accounts, he and President Trump got on well. Bossert’s relations with H.R. McMaster, Trump’s second National Security Advisor, were a bit more complicated. Beset by a Byzantine chain of command conundrum, McMaster and Bossert feuded over NSC seniority and who reported to whom. Besides their “who’s on first arguments,” the two sparred over other matters of national security policy as well as often engaging in shouting matches that reverberated through the black and white marbled halls of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

A number of NSC staffers also complained that Bossert was a bit of a foot dragger when it came to execution on policies relating to counterterrorism and especially cybersecurity. The Trump administration’s failure to, as yet, delineate a cogent national cybersecurity strategy has been a criticism that has been laid at Bossert’s feet. In defense to Tom, counterterrorism and cybersecurity are both extremely complex issues, involving many stakeholders in government, the private sector, and with our allies abroad. Getting these issues right and crafting a workable strategy should take time and be subject to a great deal of thought and discussion.

Of course, the more important story here is the alacrity with which National Security Advisor John Bolton moved to replace Bossert. Bolton, assuredly not a shrinking violet in the hard-elbowed politics of bureaucratic Washington, has in one scythe-like move begun the process which will result in the “Boltonization” of the National Security Council. Firings did occur after McMaster took over as NSA, the most high-profile example being Ezra Cohen Watnick, but not at the scale currently occurring during Bolton’s first week as NSA. Bolton represents the geopolitical hard, hard line of the Republican party. Indeed, many would contend that he is not of the GOP at all, holding a worldview that is so combative and reactionary that he remains an outlier among more traditional Republican foreign policy thinkers.

Expect Bolton to bring in his own people who share his worldview in the coming weeks. Most of the new recruits will come with street creds that will label them as hardline foreign policy reactionaries who will dismiss globalism and unity of action among the Western allies in favor of American “go it aloneism.”

Since the Trump administration came into office, the NSC has been roiled with the hirings and firings of two National Security Advisors, the departures of now three Deputy National Security Advisors and several senior departmental directors as well as a slew of rank and file staffers. Morale among council employees is said not to be robust.

Another changeover at the NSC could not come at a more inconvenient time.  If Bolton is going to look for a new and tougher staff at NSC, one that reflects his own vision of U.S. national security, the real test for them will be decidedly immediate with the U.S. now facing an instant decision on whether to undertake military action to punish Syria’s Assad regime for yet again dropping chemical weapons on its own citizens, more challenges from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the looming summit between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

With varsity level competition facing him, let’s see if John Bolton’s attempt to re-make his NSC team in his own image will be successful or will result in just a bunch of ideologue scrubs taking the field in possibly the biggest game of their untested careers.

While it is understandable that Bolton will seek to populate his NSC with like-minded thinkers, it is also important to ensure that national security policy-making enjoys the rigorous give-and-take that will be needed to examine all facets of a projected course of action. Indeed, within the Intelligence Community where I served, contrarians are highly valued for the leavening they provide to any intelligence policy decision. Without examining and valuing the opinions of “the loyal opposition” in foreign policy decision-making, we run the risk of following policies untested. When the stakes are as high as North Korean missiles or strikes against Syrian (and Russian) targets, National Security Advisor Bolton would be well-served by a few dissenting voices in the EOB.

About the author:
*Jack Thomas Tomarchio is former Principal Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and a Senior Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He can be reached at jtt@agogegroup.com.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

There was a time in human history when nuclear technology was the “it” technology; no one could imagine anything beyond it. The destruction and wrath it brought was not only terrifying but mesmerizing. It was fascinating for ordinary people, leaders, scientists and states that the smallest particle of matter upon breaking can release energy which could burn down a whole city in seconds. Thus, invention of nuclear weapons changed the way of thinking of nations, states and leaders. Mastering the fission of radioactive atom to enable it to release energy is not a child’s play; states invest billions in currency to make nuclear weapons.

At the operational level, a nuclear weapon requires delivery systems. In this regard, strategic bombers, ships, submarines and missiles are commonly used delivery vehicles by the states. But, one of the most significant and reliable delivery systems is missiles, With missiles, states can launch nuclear pay load from their own territory or from any other place without risking its human resource, in case of sending bombers. Missile technology all around the world is growing by leaps and bounds. After nuclearization, both Indian and Pakistan pursued missile technologies including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, ballistic missile defences, Multiple Independently re-entry targetable vehicles and inter-continental ballistic missiles as well. States invest in nuclear weapons because it helps them achieve deterrence which stops states from using nuclear option due to fear of unacceptable damages to one’s vital interests. However, to endorse credibility of nuclear weapons, states invest in military modernization.

The main objective behind nuclearization of Pakistan was to create deterrence against India but without indulging into arms race. Thus, policy of minimum credible deterrence was developed by Pakistan. Later on, after India’s attempt to exploit the levels beneath nuclear threshold, Pakistan resorted to the policy of full spectrum deterrence without going for arms race. So, to create credible but minimum deterrence at the start of year 2017, Pakistan tested multiple independently reentry targetable vehicle (MIRV), which can deliver multiple nuclear war heads in one go.

Development of MIRV by Pakistan is neither consequence of ambitious national objectives nor is it meant to initiate an arms race in the region. But, it is to make nuclear deterrence viable against India’s BMDs which can intercept incoming ballistic missiles through interceptors and destruct them in the air.

Pakistan, due to its economic restraints could not go for BMD in response to India; as it is an expensive technology that has yet to achieve 100% success rate. So, considering its options, MIRVs came out as the most rational choice. However, MIRVs are one of the most complex technologies in which missile can carry more than one warhead in a single launch and with the capability to hit multiple individual targets. They require technological sophistication in not only sending so many vehicles in one launch but also in yield and most importantly in accuracy. With enough yield and accuracy MIRVs provide states the capability to go for pre-emptive strikes. Thus, MIRV have the capability to overwhelm the BMD system and resultantly eliminate the false sense of security under which India could go for first strike.

To increase the accuracy of MIRV missiles, Pakistan bought highly sophisticated, large scale optical tracking and measurement system from China. According to national news agency, Pakistan has deployed this sophisticated technology in battlefield. Before Chinese system, Pakistan was utilizing indigenous systems. Nonetheless, it will help Pakistan record high-resolution images of a missile’s departure from its launcher, stage separation, tail flame and, after the missile re-enters atmosphere, the trajectory of the warheads it releases. These functions will be possible because the system bought by Pakistan comes with a pair of high-performance telescopes equipped with a laser ranger, high-speed camera, infrared detector and a centralised computer system that automatically captures and follows moving targets. However, what makes this system unique is its ability to detect missile up to range of several hundred kilometers through the help of its telescopes. The timing of these telescopes are precisely synchronized with the atomic clock. Thus, now Pakistan can track different warheads going in different directions simultaneously. Moreover, through visual imagery, the missile developers can improve the accuracy and design of missile in much better way.

So, with this technological uplift, Pakistan will soon add Ababeel (MIRV) into its operational missile inventory. But, these actions by Pakistan are not to give rise to arms race rather they are the reactions to the actions taken by India. BMDs by India never strengthened nuclear deterrence or stability rather they eliminated the deterrence by nulling the credibility of ballistic missiles. As a result, to maintain credibility of its deterrence though minimum means, Pakistan opted for MIRV, as missile tracking systems are essential in improving the accuracy and designs of missiles. If anything indicates arms race in the region, it is India’s ICBMs, naval nuclear fleets and space weaponization.

*Ahyousha Khan, Research Associate at Islamabad based think-tank Strategic Vision Institute

By Andrea Gagliarducci

The Pontifical Commission for Latin America has proposed that Pope Francis convoke a synod on the role of women in the life and mission of the Church.

The proposal is contained in a 15-paragraph statement approved by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America’s plenary assembly one month ago, and published April 11 in L’Osservatore Romano.

The Pontifical Commission for Latin America stressed that the Catholic Church “must be freed from prejudices, stereotypes and discriminations” women are subjected to, and for this reason a “pastoral conversion” is needed in order to ask women’s forgiveness “for all the situations” in which Christian communities “have been and are accomplices of attempt against women’s dignity.”

The document also challenged local dioceses to be courageous, and to “denounce all the forms of discrimination and oppression, of violence and exploitation” to which women have been subjected.

The commission warned against “cultural and ideological colonization” spread from “well organized lobbies” sometimes “instrumentalizing feminist claims” in order to argue against the truth of marriage and family.

The Pontifical Commission of Latin America asked the Church to “multiply and widen the places and the opportunities of women’s cooperation to pastoral structure” in parishes, dioceses, episcopal conferences and in Roman Curia.

It is – according to the document – “a needed and urgent opening,” that requires “an investment in the Christian, theological and professional formation” of women – whether they are religious sisters or members of the laity – so that they can “work at the same level with men.”

The statement promoted an education tackling “male chauvinist resistance, frequent paternal and familiar absence, and irresponsibility in sexual behaviour.”

It also promoted research on those issue in Catholic universities, as “the era of feminism might be a good liberating occasion,” that might “claim the full respect of women’s dignity and at the same time a responsible paternity” committed to “raising children, at the mother’s side.”

The statement said that the modern era requires “a change of mentality and a process of transformation” similar to that which Pope Francis “made concrete” with the two synods on the family “that led to the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia,” to be followed by the upcoming bishops’ synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment, to be held next October.

The plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America was held March 6-9. The theme, chosen by Pope Francis, was “The woman: a pillar in the edification of the Church and society in Latin America.”

Exceptionally, the plenary assembly included some women, unusual because all members and consultors of the commission are cardinals and bishops. Topics of discussion during the assembly were the promotion of the woman in Latin America, the presence of the Virgin and the role of women in evangelizing Latin American people, and also the woman as “pillar of the family,” and the role of women in catechesis, society, politics.

It is expected that the role of women will be discussed at a Special Synod for the Panamazonic Region in 2019, and at the October 2018 synod on young adults and vocations. It is possible that the next Ordinary Synod Bishops, scheduled for 2021, could also be dedicated to a discussion on women.

Pope Francis has often spoken about the importance of the role of the woman in society, and in 2016 he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons.

Archbishop Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was appointed president of a commission composed of 12 members, 6 men and 6 women. The members are: Msgr. Piero Coda; Sr. Nuria Calduch-Benages; Francesca Cocchini; Fr. Robert Dodaro; Fr. Santiago Madrigal Terrazas; Sr. Mary Malone; Fr. Karl-Heinz Menke; Fr. Amailble Musoni; Fr. Bernard Pottier; Marianne Schlosser; Michelina Tenace; Phyllis Zagano.

According to sources, the commission is drafting its final report, expected to be presented to the pope within this year.

The issue of women deacons had been discussed in the recent past. A 2002 report issued by the International Theological Commission, titled “From Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles,” dedicated a whole chapter to the role of women deacons in the ancient Church.

With regard to the ordination of women to the diaconate, the documents stressed that “deaconesses” of the tradition of the ancient Church cannot be considered the same as ordained deacons. In addition, the document underscored that both the ecclesial tradition and the magisterium consider diaconal ministry an element of holy orders.

Based on those two points, the document suggested that women could not be ordained to diaconate.

Though he was aware of the work done in the past, Pope Francis wanted to appoint a new commission, in order to clear out any possible doubt and to have a final word on that.

By Ivan Timofeev*

The Government of Sri Lanka and the Government of Dominica established Diplomatic Relations on Tuesday.

Both governments decided to establish the diplomatic relations upon the signing of the Agreement by Dr. Amrith Rohan Perera, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations and Mrs. Loreen Ruth Bannis-Roberts, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Dominica to the United Nations on April 17, in New York.

The establishment of diplomatic ties between Sri Lanka and Dominica would enhance the existing friendly relations and cooperation in the political, socio-economic and cultural fields for the mutual benefit of the two countries.