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Trump’s Tariffs And A Looming Trade War: India’s Stakes – Analysis

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By Ayan Tewari*

As US President Donald Trump imposes steel and aluminium tariffs on most countries, India is in a unique position to capitalise on the situation. Trump’s tariffs could direct foreign steel and aluminium towards India, benefitting consumers, distributors, and middlemen alike. Additionally, further retaliation against the US could open a space for Indian producers to sell in markets abroad. However, India must avoid getting caught in the crossfire in the trade war, while still ensuring that domestic producers can deal with foreign competition.

After two years of speeches and threats accusing the rest of the world of taking advantage of the US, Trump finally levied tariffs on steel (25 per cent) and aluminium (10 per cent) on every country barring Canada, Mexico, the EU, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, and Argentina. However, the White House has made it clear that these exemptions are merely temporary (until 1 May 2018). The EU has threatened tariffs on various US products (Harley-Davidson, Levi’s, Kentucky Bourbon), and China has already retaliated, imposing duties of up to 25 per cent on US$ 5 billion worth of US imports, including US$ 1.2 billion worth of pork. In response, Washington drew up a list of 1,333 Chinese exports worth US$ 50 billion annually that it plans to impose tariffs up to 25 per cent on. China responded swiftly, presenting a list of 106 products worth US$ 50 billion, which it plans to also tax 25 per cent.

As opposed to European and Chinese companies, India barely relies on the US to satisfy its steel and aluminium surplus, with only 5 per cent of Indian steel going to the US, and most of India’s aluminium going to Southeast Asia. This limited reliance on the US provides India with a window of opportunity to take advantage of a trade war when juxtaposed with China’s recent pledge to fix the bilateral trade imbalance. The question is, how should India place itself in this situation while avoiding a trade war?

The direct short-term effect of the steel and aluminium tariffs will involve a surge of foreign steel and aluminium entering the Indian market. After 1 May, countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Japan, and others such as South Korea which have large stakes in US and Indian steel and aluminium markets, may seek to expand into India’s large consumer market. The government’s INR 5.97 trillion spending plan on infrastructure in the 2018-19 budget, combined with low transportation and labour costs, is likely to create a desirable market for foreign steel and aluminium. These imports will not only lower prices for Indian buyers, but may also disrupt the oligopoly plaguing the Indian steel market comprising TATA Steel Group, JSW Steel Limited and the Steel Authority of India Ltd. Additionally, the government and middlemen will obtain increased revenue, ultimately resulting in higher employment and more disposable funds.

Foreign companies in India may also resort to dumping, resulting in domestic producers being edged out of the market through unfair means. To avoid such negative effects, appropriate inspections, enforcement, and intelligent and targeted application of rules must be conducted, and smaller domestic firms and start-ups should be considered for subsidies to deal with competition from China and the EU. These steps can also help thwart the oligopoly.

While it is difficult for Indian companies to compete in China, the tariffs on Chinese products – such as low-end colour TVs (worth US$ 3.9 billion) – will leave a vacuum in the US market, one that Indian companies could possibly fill. Moreover, as the trade war intensifies, the US may impose duties on more Chinese products. While products that the US relies on – such as Chinese mobile phones and computing equipment – are not likely to be taxed, the multi-billion dollar industries of Chinese furniture (US$ 29 billion), toys (US$ 24 billion), and footwear (US$ 15 billion) might be under scrutiny, and prime opportunities for Indian companies to capitalise on.

The argument here is not for the imposition of duties. Rather, it is one where dumping and unfair trade practices are thwarted, while market rationalisation allows the export sector to function without subsidies. India has already come under immense scrutiny from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for its export promotion schemes (Merchandise Exports from India Scheme, Export Oriented Units Scheme, Electronics Hardware Technology Parks Scheme, the Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme), with both the US and Japan publicly accusing India of wrongdoing. The continuation of these programmes may antagonise more countries, and in today’s tense climate, trade sanctions must be avoided.

If carefully calibrated, these steps could, in the short-run, benefit Indian companies, giving them the advantage of lower prices and greater choice, and in the long-run, lead to the dismantling of oligopolies. However, if the government overplays its hands and engages in ham-handed protectionism such as subsidies on exporting firms, Indian jobs and revenue will be in peril due to retaliation.

*Ayan Tewari’s research focuses on South Asian political economy with a special focus on macroeconomic policies. Prior to joining IPCS, he interned with the Afghan Embassy in Berlin.


New Technologies Demand New Laws And Ethics – Analysis

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By Vijay Sakhuja

The Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) met in Geneva earlier this month and emphasised the critical necessity to ban “fully autonomous weapon systems.” They urged states to move towards negotiating a legally binding instrument on this issue. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) has positioned issues of ethics and public conscience in the forefront and reiterated the “Principle of Non-Delegation of the Authority to Kill” by non-human mechanisms.

Fully autonomous weapon systems are a product of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) centered on disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), deep machine learning, robots, and drones. These have opened the flood gates to new opportunities in nearly all facets of human activity including warfare. Autonomous and intelligent machines such as robots have brought enormous advantages, freeing human operators from routine and mechanical tasks. These are highly exciting technological advancements; however, there is also the potential for frightening outcomes amid fears that humans are being pushed to the secondary level or even sidelined in the decision-making process. Further, delegating complex tasks including decision-making to devices, sensors and algorithms could potentially engender severe complications.

Warfare is not immune to usage of unmanned systems and devices, and these have found relevance in tasks such as search and rescue, bomb disposal, firefighting, and so on, making warfare and emergency response more efficient and accurate with less collateral damage. Some militaries may be exploring weaponisation of autonomous technologies and it is their belief that soldiers and civilians will be at less risk as also liberating them from any moral consequences of killing or for self-defence.

A number of NGOs have been agitating against the use of LAWS and have called for an international ban on ‘killer robots’ including “a treaty for emerging weapons.” A campaign – ‘Coalition to Stop Killer Robots’ – led by Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield claims support from about 64 NGOs. Sharkey has expressed concerns over the growing competition among companies and militaries to build and acquire autonomous and smarter weapons, and labelled this trend as “a new arms race.” Further, it has also been noted that “inanimate machines cannot understand or respect the value of life” and “machines should never be permitted to take human life on the battlefield or in policing, border control, or any circumstances.”

Similar sentiments have been expressed elsewhere: some Google staffers have written a letter in an attempt to impress upon the company the need to “suspend work on a US military project that involved drones and artificial intelligence capability.” Likewise, scientists and academics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul have threatened to boycott projects developing AI for military use. Elon Musk, a leader in pioneering robotics and AI, is heading a group of 116 specialists from across 26 countries urging the UN to ban the development and use of ‘killer robots’.

Although no country has openly declared that they are pursuing LAWS, states have made public their views on the issue. For instance, China’s submission to the GGE notes that although LAWS has not been clearly defined, the issue merits the attention of the international community, and it supports the use of LAWS in operations involving nuclear, biological and chemical weapons environments. However, LAWS lack capability of distinction in use against combatants and innocents; do not possess the capability of determining proportionality of use of force; and it is difficult to establish accountability, which can potentially lead to the killing or maiming of non-combatants. It is therefore necessary to formulate general legal norms for LAWS.

The UK has endorsed and made public its policy to not “develop and use fully autonomous weapons, or weapons that can make decisions independent from human oversight.” British MP Mark Lancaster, minister of state for the armed forces, has observed the issue from a doctrinal perspective and stated that it is “absolutely right that our weapons are operated by real people capable of making incredibly important decisions, and we are guaranteeing that vital oversight.”

Unlike China and the UK, the Russian submission to the GGE notes that the “preventive, prohibitive or restrictive measures against LAWS” are complex, and given the limited human understanding of these technologies, such a ban may not serve the purpose. Although it is difficult to distinguish between civilian and military developments in autonomous systems, a ban on LAWS can preclude peaceful uses of these technologies.

While that may be so, legal and ethical issues are beginning to gain greater salience particularly in the context of warfare where surrendering unbridled control to machines to take decisions to kill, injure, or destroy could challenge international law, ethics of warfighting, and human values.

ISIS And Continuing Threat Of Islamist Jihad: Need For Centrality Of PSYOP – Analysis

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By Kimbra L. Fishel*

Defining the Problem

The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) calls for direct military action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the disruption of terror plots, the destruction of terrorist safe havens and sources of finance, a shared responsibility with allies in confronting the threat and combating radicalization to counter ISIS ideology. The Trump Administration’s NSS accurately identifies the ISIS end goal as creation of the global Islamic caliphate and notes its totalitarian vision. This strategy further acknowledges the threat posed by ISIS will remain after its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria. While the Trump Administration put forth a series of wide ranging efforts spanning the instruments of power for insurgent warfare, the President is nearing a moment of critical decision regarding US involvement in Syria and Iraq. Early withdrawal risks abandoning the area to a reemergence of the regional caliphate as well as to Iranian and Russian influence. Declaring victory too soon could blind the US to the continued global threat of Islamist jihad. Therefore, US actions must secure the ways and means of meeting the Administration’s end goal – that of destruction of the ISIS threat and overall stability of the region — through a campaign heavily targeted on Islamist ideology and centered upon psychological operations.

This Islamic State evolved out of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni Islamist terror organization. ISIS represents a politico-religious ideology based on the 7th century Islamic Caliphate that is antithetical to Western values and ideals and opposes all Muslims who do not share its view of Islam. The organization’s infrastructure or Dawa seeks the conversion of non-Muslims and to instill Islamist views in all Muslims. ISIS is a global insurgency promoting subversion from within in which Sharia law replaces political institutions. It utilizes social media to incite global support for operations and mujahideen recruitment. By 2014, at least 60 militant Islamist groups had pledged allegiance to or support for the Islamic State. Since that time, a series of attacks throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States demonstrated ISIS’s global reach as well as its ability to attract a worldwide flow of recruits. Unlike Al Qaeda, which primarily stressed a global virtual network and the spectacular terror attack, ISIS initially captured and held territory in Iraq and Syria, functioning as a state as well as an Islamist terror network. In June 15, 2014, Operation Inherent Resolve began military intervention against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In 2018, the regional caliphate in Iraq and Syria is all but destroyed by the United States and coalition partners.

ISIS’s success at establishing its transnational organization came by demonstrating an ability to acquire and hold territory while simultaneously spreading the concept of the global caliphate. It undermined competitors, attracted sympathizers, and grew in regions that were ungovernable by states. These areas include not only Iraq and Syria but also Yemen, regions of Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Nigeria, where Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and renamed itself the Islamic State’s West African Province. In 2016, terrorism specialist Rohan Gunaratna maintained that as ISIS loses territory in Iraq and Syria, it will continue to expand in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and SE Asia and will eventually attempt a spectacular terror act utilizing its foreign fighters. The 2015 Paris attacks demonstrated the ISIS/local nexus and the capability to carry out such an attack.

Similarly, US Director of National Intelligence Dan R Coats maintains with the loss of territory, the ISIS threat in 2018is that the organization will regroup in a long-term insurgency to reestablish itself in the region while giving priority to transnational terror attacks and global interconnection. This threat includes home country attacks carried out by ISIS sympathizers. Since 2016, ISIS has published 13 magazines in languages including English, German, French, and Arabic and released videos promoting jihad. The August 2017 attack in Spain was detailed in the ISIS magazine Rumiyah, which also called for “all-out war” against the West. EUROPOL also recognizes the long-term security challenge from the increased threat of attack in European states as foreign fighters return home or infiltrate states as territory is lost in Iraq and Syria.

Proposed Resolutions

The 2017 NSS highlights a successful ground campaign in Syria and Iraq in which much of the territory captured by ISIS had been retaken and the physical caliphate had been destroyed. According to the former Deputy Assistant to President Trump, Sebastian Gorka, moving from the Obama strategy of attrition to the Trump strategy of annihilation resulted in military success on the ground. This involved the setting of grand strategy and policy at the NSC and DOD levels while leaving theatre operations to the commanders in the fields as well as calling for a Muslim/Arab partnership with the US to meet the ongoing threat. Still, others see the Trump strategy as merely an amplification of the Obama strategy.  Analyst Phillip Lohaus testified before Congress that despite successes certain elements of the Trump strategy remain similar to Obama’s strategy, including special forces direct action missions, airstrikes, and the use of drones. The problem remains that there is still no plan for a post-Islamic State in either Iraq or Syria: if American involvement is reduced too soon the Islamic State could reemerge.

In rightfully focusing on ideology, Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that Obama’s policy of “countering violent extremism” failed to address the underlying threat that produces the violence. She is correct, as focusing on the tactic ignores the strategical underpinnings inherent in the threat, namely that of radical Islamism. She argues that the Trump Administration took a solid step by identifying the enemy. However, the focus of US strategy must not be exclusively on violence but must go straight to targeting the spread of ideology. Trump’s promise to be a friend to moderate Muslim reformers and to screen those entering the US for radical Islamist ideology is a start, but a full policy must be developed that targets how Islamist ideology is spread. This will require a careful balance between rights and security in a democratic Republic. It will also involve an understanding of the psychology surrounding the Islamist movement and those who seek to join it.

Similarly, in moving beyond the focus on violence, Gunaratna called for a full engagement of a four-dimensional threat composed of the ISIS core in Syria and Iraq, the ISIS branches, the global ISIS infiltration, and ISIS online.In short, ISIS loss of territory does not equate to victory against ISIS due to the ability of the organization to effectively move from one style of conflict to another: from a territorial-based operation to a decentralized global mode of recruitment and attack. It is because of the nature of the threat posed by ISIS that analyst Michael Pregent testified before Congress that from a tactical and operational standpoint what is needed beyond the taking of ISIS territory is for US forces to partner with local Sunni forces that can hold territory while US Special Operations Forces conduct kill and capture operations. Strategically, the US must work toward reconciliation in Iraq and Syria as well as the dismantling of the militia. However, Pregent fears this will not occur due to Russian and Iranian actions in the area. Thus, ISIS activity will remain a recurring problem.

New Recommendations

Countering the Islamic State requires at its center a psychological campaign targeting Iraq and Syria and ISIS threats to the United States and Europe and regions throughout the world.The concern about the creation of a power vacuum by premature withdrawal of US forces is a legitimate issue. President Trump recently indicated the United States would pull out of Syria “soon” and is considering his options, although the recent Syrian chemical attack in Douma will render that prospect moot in the short term. Whether Trump’s statements are part of diplomatic maneuvering to pressure other countries in the region and in Europe to take on more of the burden remains to be seen. However, the United States vacating the area is not a viable option, as the Islamic State will attempt to reestablish the regional caliphate and Iran will likely try to seek a permanent military base in Syria, potentially backed by the Russians. The political integrity of Iraq is necessary to counter Iran and its Shia form of Islamist militancy.

A campaign targeting ISIS infiltration into the United States as well as other host countries is also required. Expect an expansion of regional and global ISIS operations as operatives attempt to infiltrate communities to carry out attacks and inspire home-grown terrorist sympathizers. The non-radical Muslim communities of all countries should be targeted as allies against potential attack from extremist ideology.

Instead of Syrian withdrawal, military operations of seizing and holding territory should continue and a no-fly zone should be established. Operation Inherent Resolve must shift its primary focus to one of psychological operations. The combined Joint Inter Agency Task Force with US military command and operational control over all assets is critical because it allows for organizational control and the mixing of elements from CIA, State Department, and the military. Special operations forces in Syria and Iraq include Special Forces (Delta and Seal Team 6), Psychological Operations, and Civil Affairs units. The Psychological Operations focus will be on countering ISIS propaganda while Civil Affairs engages in national assistance to improve living conditions for the people on the ground so that they are willing to work with Special Forces and are susceptible to PSYOP. In general, there are three groups of Muslims present for target operations: the Islamists loyal to ISIS who must be isolated and destroyed, the Reformers who should be backed by US and coalition partners, and the vast majority of Muslims who are not Islamists and whose “hearts and minds” the coalition seeks to win over.

The Hearts and Minds of the Persuadable

The psychological component within the United States and Europe against ISIS remains the centerpiece of operations utilizing assets across the board. In the US, the department of Homeland Security becomes the lead agency with important agencies such as FBI and ATF working as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. As psychological operations are illegal within the US, the focus within the US is on public information. In Europe, the State Department will be the primary player in negotiation with host countries, with the National Security Council managing the effort. CIA is available for clandestine operations as needed. Specifically, in either the US or Europe, group identities will be either undermined or reinforced in those hostile and friendly groups respectively.

Host country populations will be mobilized to support Muslim reformist groups and the moderate majority, establishing intergroup linkages for possible assimilation into the population. Group and social identities of Muslims will be targeted, reinforcing those identities which bolster reformist Muslims and isolating those which reinforce radical Islamism. Given that Middle Eastern cultural and religious identity is a crucial component of worldview and that ISIS is a political religious ideology, targeting those social bonds that are vulnerable to ISIS propaganda and recruitment is a key operational element.  The goal is assimilation of the moderate majority who are persuadable away from radicalization and to break potential group fusion with radical Islamists before it occurs. Preventing the radicalization of moderate Muslims by Islamists is the preferred route, as de-fusion from a group is a difficult process, and will provide a possible foundation for better future engagement with Western powers.

About the author:
*Kimbra L. Fishel
is a political scientist specializing in US national security, conflict, warfare and terrorism. She has taught courses in International Politics, American Government and the American Presidency at the University of Maryland at College Park, George Washington University in DC, and the University of Oklahoma in Norman. She currently teaches for American Military University. She has published numerous articles and book chapters and is pursuing the Doctor of Strategic Intelligence at AMU.

Source:

This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

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Ramaphosa Calls On Commonwealth To Invest In South Africa

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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has set the wheels of investment into South Africa in motion at the Commonwealth Business Forum in London on Tuesday.

He used his keynote address at the forum to punt his newly-appointed investment envoys, while calling on Commonwealth countries to pledge towards investment in South Africa.

“This week we announced an ambitious investment drive that aims to generate at least $100 billion in new investment over the next five years. I have appointed four investment envoys to go right across the world, to go and campaign for investments for our country because once again South Africa is truly open for investment.

“This drive will culminate in an Investment Conference later this year. We expect that investors from other Commonwealth countries will be prominent among those participating at the conference – and that it will include several of the people attending the Commonwealth Business Forum,” said the President.

The Special Envoys on Investment is made up of finance heavyweights such as former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, former Finance Deputy Minister Mcebisi Jonas, Executive Chairperson of Afropulse Group Phumzile Langeni and Chairman of Liberty Group and former CEO of Standard Bank Jacko Maree.

President Ramaphosa left for the United Kingdom on Monday to attend the jam-packed Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). His diary includes a courtesy call to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May, attending the CHOGM opening and closing sessions as well as participating in a number of executive and retreat sessions.

During his courtesy call to the Queen, the President received a framed letter that Nelson Mandela wrote to the Queen in 1994, as South Africa was readmitted to the Commonwealth. South Africa is this year marking the centenary of the late struggle icon, who would have turned 100 years old on 18 July 2018.

But the President’s visit was more than just pleasantries, with investment at the top of his agenda.

As a collective the Commonwealth countries represent 2.4 billion citizens and have historical trade and investment ties, similar legal systems and forms of government, and a common language of commerce.

“For us, the Commonwealth provides a platform to forge common approaches to matters of global importance, underpinned by a commitment to democracy, human rights, good governance and prosperity for all. It is also a platform to promote trade, investment and the exchange of skills and knowledge between countries.

“As the President of South Africa I am here to do good business deals to attract investment to South Africa and indeed to Africa our continent,” said the President.

He assured potential investors that South Africa is open for business and the country is putting measures in place to make it conducive and attractive to investors.

“We are improving the investment environment by, among other things, ensuring policy certainty and consistency, improving the performance of state-owned enterprises and consolidating fiscal debt,” said the President.

Strengthening ties will ensure investment

The establishment of an African Continental Free Trade Area is a step in the right direction for investment and economic integration across the continent.

“Africa achieved a milestone last month when the continent’s leaders met in Kigali under the auspices of the African Union to agree on the establishment of an African Continental Free Trade Area.

“The establishment of the free trade area in Africa will revolutionise economic activity on the continent, enabling the transfer of goods, services, skills and technology, and access to a market of over a billion people,” said the President.

Mindful of the challenges faced by the continent, such as infrastructure, education, technology, water access, unemployment and lack of skills, President Ramaphosa highlighted that the creation of a free trade area alone is not enough.

“It needs to be accompanied by the development of the infrastructure that is going to carry these goods and generate the power that is going to enable their production.

“It needs to be accompanied by investments in universities, schools, hospitals and clinics, communication technology and water reticulation,” said the President.

By strengthening trade ties, significantly increasing the levels of foreign direct investment and by working together to develop economic capabilities, the countries will achieve inclusive and sustained prosperity.

Rolling Back Militancy: Bangladesh Looks To Saudi Arabia In Twist Of Irony – Analysis

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Bangladesh, in a twist of irony, is looking to Saudi Arabia to fund a $ 1 billion plan to build hundreds of mosques and religious centres to counter militant Islam that for much of the past decade traced its roots to ultra-conservative strands of the faith promoted by a multi-billion dollar Saudi campaign.

The Bangladeshi plan constitutes the first effort by a Muslim country to enlist the kingdom whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return Saudi Arabia to an undefined form of ‘moderate Islam,’ in reverse engineering.

The plan would attempt to roll back the fallout of Saudi Arabia’s global investment of up to $100 billion over a period of four decades in support of ultra-conservative mosques, religious centres, and groups as an antidote to post-1979 Iranian revolutionary zeal.

Cooperation with Saudi Arabia and various countries, including Malaysia, has focused until now on countering extremism in cooperation with defense and security authorities rather than as a religious initiative.

Saudi religious authorities and Islamic scholars have long issued fatwas or religious opinions condemning political violence and extremism and accused jihadists of deviating from the true path of Islam.

The Saudi campaign, the largest public diplomacy effort in history, was, nevertheless, long abetted by opportunistic governments who played politics with religion as well as widespread discontent fuelled by the failure of governments to deliver public goods and services.

The Bangladeshi plan raises multiple questions, including whether the counter-narrative industry can produce results in the absence of effective government policies that address social, economic and political grievances.

It also begs the question whether change in Saudi Arabia has advanced to a stage in which the kingdom can claim that it has put its ultra-conservative and militant roots truly behind it. The answer to both questions is probably no.

In many ways, Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism and militancy, violent and non-violent, despite sharing common roots with the kingdom’s long-standing theological thinking and benefitting directly or indirectly from Saudi financial largess, has created a life of its own that no longer looks to the kingdom for guidance and support and is critical of the path on which Prince Mohammed has embarked.

The fallout of the Saudi campaign is evident in Asia not only in the rise of militancy in Bangladesh but also the degree to which concepts of supremacism and intolerance have taken root in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Those concepts are often expressed in discrimination, if not persecution of minorities like Shia Muslims and Ahmadis, and draconic anti-blasphemy measures by authorities, militants and vigilantes.

Bangladesh in past years witnessed a series of brutal killings of bloggers and intellectuals whom jihadists accused of atheism.

Moreover, basic freedoms in Bangladesh are being officially and unofficially curtailed in various forms as a result of domestic struggles originally enabled by successful Saudi pressure to amend the country’s secular constitution in 1975 to recognize Islam as its official religion. Saudi Arabia withheld recognition of the new state as well as financial support until the amendment was adopted four years after Bangladeshi independence.

In Indonesia, hard-line Islamic groups, led by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), earlier this month filed a blasphemy complaint against politician Sukmawati Sukarnoputri, a daughter of Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno and the younger sister of Megawati Sukarnoputri, who leads President Joko Widodo’s ruling party. The hardliners accuse Ms. Sukarnoputri of reciting a poem that allegedly insults Islam.

The groups last year accused Basuki Tjahaja Purnama aka Ahok, Jakarta’s former Christian governor, of blasphemy and spearheaded mass rallies that led to his ouster and jailing, a ruling that many believed was politicized and unjust.

Pakistan’s draconic anti-blasphemy law has created an environment that has allowed Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatives and powerful political forces to whip up popular emotion in pursuit of political objectives. The environment is symbolized by graffiti in the corridor of a courthouse In Islamabad that demanded that blasphemers be beheaded.

Pakistan last month designated Islamabad as a pilot project to regulate Friday prayer sermons in the city’s 1,003 mosques, of which only 86 are state-controlled, in a bid to curb hate speech, extremism and demonization of religions and communities.

The government has drafted a list of subjects that should be the focus of weekly Friday prayer sermons in a bid to prevent mosques being abused “to stir up sectarian hatred, demonise other religions and communities and promote extremism.” The subjects include women rights; Islamic principles of trade, cleanliness and health; and the importance of hard work, tolerance, and honesty.

However, they do not address legally enshrined discrimination of minorities like Ahmadis, who are viewed as heretics by orthodox Muslims. The list risked reinforcing supremacist and intolerant militancy by including the concept of the finality of the Prophet Mohammed that is often used as a whip to discriminate against minorities.

Raising questions about the degree of moderation that Saudi-funded mosques and religious centres in Bangladesh would propagate, Prince Mohammed, in his effort to saw off the rough edges of Saudi ultra-conservatism, has given no indication that he intends to repeal a law that defines atheists as terrorists.

A Saudi court last year condemned a man to death on charges of blasphemy and atheism. Another Saudi was a year earlier sentenced to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing atheist sentiments on social media.

Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations have long lobbied for the criminalization of blasphemy in international law in moves that would legitimize curbs on free speech and growing Muslim intolerance towards any open discussion of their faith.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia cannot be held directly liable for much of the expression of supremacism, intolerance and anti-pluralism in the Muslim world. Yet, by the same token there is little doubt that Saudi propagation of ultra-conservatism frequently contributed to an enabling environment.

Prince Mohammed is at the beginning of his effort to moderate Saudi Islam and has yet to spell out in detail his vision of religious change. Beyond the issue of defining atheism as terrorism, Saudi Arabia also has yet to put an end to multiple ultra-conservative practices, including the principle of male guardianship that forces women to get the approval of a male relative for major decisions in their life.

Prince Mohammed has so far forced the country’s ultra-conservative religious establishment into subservience. That raises the question whether there has been real change in the establishment’s thinking or whether it is kowtowing to an autocratic leader.

In December, King Salman fired a government official for organizing a mixed gender fashion show after ultra-conservatives criticized the event on Twitter. The kingdom this week hosted its first ever Arab Fashion Week, for women only. Designers were obliged to adhere to strict dress codes banning transparent fabrics and the display of cleavages or clothing that bared knees.

In February, Saudi Arabia agreed to surrender control of the Great Mosque in Brussels after its efforts to install a more moderate administration failed to counter mounting Belgian criticism of alleged intolerance and supremacism propagated by mosque executives.

Efforts to moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia as well as Qatar, the world’s only other Wahhabi state that traces its ultra-conservatism to the teachings of 18th century preacher Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, but has long interpreted them more liberally than the kingdom, have proven to be easier said than done.

Saudi King Abdullah, King Salman’s predecessor, positioned himself as a champion of interfaith dialogue and reached out to various groups in society including Shiites and women.

Yet, more than a decade of Saudi efforts to cleanse textbooks used at home and abroad have made significant progress but have yet to completely erase descriptions of alternative strands of Islam such as Shiism and Sufism in derogatory terms or eliminate advise to Muslims not to associate with Jews and Christians who are labelled kaffirs or unbelievers.

Raising questions about Saudi involvement in the Bangladeshi plan, a Human Rights Watch survey of religion textbooks produced by the Saudi education ministry for the 2016-2017 school year concluded that “as early as first grade, students in Saudi schools are being taught hatred toward all those perceived to be of a different faith or school of thought.”

Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle noted that Prince Mohammed has remained conspicuously silent about hate speech in textbooks as well as its use by officials and Islamic scholars connected to the government.

The New York-based Anti-Defamation League last year documented hate speech in Qatari mosques that was disseminated in Qatari media despite Qatar’s propagation of religious tolerance and outreach to American Jews as part of its effort to counter a United Arab Emirates-Saudi-led economic and diplomatic boycott of the Gulf state.

In one instance in December, Qatari preacher Muhammed al-Muraikhi described Jews in a sermon in Doha’s Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque as “your deceitful, lying, treacherous, fornicating, intransigent enemy” who have “despoiled, corrupted, ruined, and killed, and will not stop.”

No doubt, Saudi Arabia, like Qatar, which much earlier moved away from puritan and literal Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism, is sincere in its intention to adopt more tolerant and pluralistic worldviews.

Getting from A to B, however, is a lengthy process. The question remains whether the kingdom has progressed to a degree that it can credibly help countries like Bangladesh deal with their demons even before having successfully put its own house in order.

UN Security Council Trio: The False License To Invade – OpEd

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As the US, France, and the UK attacked Syria in a display aimed at “degrading” Assad’s alleged chemical weapons capabilities, they beamed with self-righteous legitimacy, wrapping themselves in the language of law and order.

In reality, Trump, Macron and May are, however, the three rogue stooges that are committing a crime by violating the UN Charter and trashing international norms in a sad spectacle of neo-colonialism, and endangering international peace and security.

All three countries recently played host to the Saudi Crown Prince, without any qualm about the endless suffering of millions of civilians in Yemen, as they competed with each other in selling billions in arms to the country that is waging a genocidal war. But they claim to be rightfully outraged by the horrific images of women and children that were allegdly gassed in eastern Ghouta, so much so that they have taken upon themselves the moral task of punishing Assad and initiating their bombing campaign in an awe-inspiring show of force.

And yet, with the similar false pretext for the 2003 Iraq war still fresh in our minds, the mask has already fallen for our new ‘three musketeers.’ A rogue does not behave in the same way that an honest man does, they shed the tears of a hypocrite. Imagine this: they use their paid proxies to stage a false flag, inflame emotions with their ‘wag the dog’ video going viral on social media, thwart a UN-led fact-finding and then attempt to preempt the responsible authorities, in this case, the OPCW experts from properly doing their job, by unleashing their cruise missiles as their military chiefs stood tall in their press briefs, congratulating the heroic men and women of their armed services. In their mind, they deserve full applause from the global audience, yet they should think of the prospect that the truth about the alleged gas attack will eventually come out and it is only a matter of time before their naked aggression is fully exposed.

But, maybe not – and these three Western powers count on the ability of their own complacent media to continue to paint a rosy picture of their behavior, and thereby escape the unwanted repercussion of being viewed as international criminals violating the sovereignty of another nation with their unprovoked attack that lacks the minutest justification from the standpoint of international norms and principles. Substituting their own arbitrary standards for international standards, they have become self-referential, in light of Nikki Haley’s statement that all three “believe” there is evidence of Assad’s use of chemical weapons. In other words, they sincerely believe in their own created lies and arrogantly expect the rest of the world to sheepishly toe the line and abstain from any criticism. After all, they have wrapped themselves in the veneer of humanitarian care for the others, the innocent victims of gas attacks, immunized from the complaint that they lack authorization by either the world forums or their own representative bodies to initiate an act of war on Syria. Also, they depict their actions as a collective security good bringing “stability.”

Of course, all this must make George Orwell shiver in his grave. These three stooges of war have nothing in common with Dumas’ heroes, who were united to do good, not evil in the world. Their action has made a mockery of international law, adding a dark new chapter to Western neo-colonialism and its long history of meddling, disrupting, and distorting Middle Eastern affairs. A big question is, however, what they can possibly gain at a time when they are essentially the losing party. Their missile strikes on Syria are not a game-changer but rather a fresh reminder of a lost cause that cannot be reversed, short of risking World War Three. As a result, they may have inflicted some minor damage, but the damage to their own global legitimacy is deeper and longer-lasting.

This article appeared at RT

Skripals Poisoning And Syria Strikes – OpEd

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On April 11, one of the “smartest” US presidents ever tweeted: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”

When Donald Trump’s advisers drew his attention to the fact that he might have telegraphed his intentions of bombing Syria to Moscow, the imbecile came up with an even more childish tweet the next day, saying: “Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our Thank you America?”

Fact of the matter is that during the last week, Donald Trump has been so distracted by the FBI’s raid on the office of his attorney Michael Cohen and the release of former FBI director James Comey’s new, tell-all book that he has paid scant attention to what has happened in Syria. He kept fulminating about these two issues throughout the last week on his Twitter timeline and mentioned the alleged Douma chemical attack in Syria on April 7 only in the passing.

Even though Trump’s babysitter Defense Secretary James Mattis admitted on the record that though he was sure chlorine was used in the attack in Douma, Syria, he was not sure who carried out the attack and whether any other toxic chemical agent, particularly sarin, was used in the attack. If chlorine can be classified as a chemical weapon, then how is one supposed to categorize white phosphorous which was used by the US military in large quantities in its battle against the Islamic State in Raqqa?

Despite scant evidence as to the use of chemical weapons or the party responsible for it, Donald Trump ordered another cruise missiles strike in Syria last Saturday in collaboration with Theresa May’s government in the UK and Emmanuel Macron’s administration in France. The strike took place a little over a year after a similar cruise missiles strikes on al-Shayrat airfield on April 6 last year, after an alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, that accomplished nothing.

Both these strikes in Syria were not only illegal under international law but also under American laws. While striking the Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, Washington availed itself of the war on terror provisions in the US laws, known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), but those laws do not give the president the power to order strikes against the Syrian government targets without the approval of the US Congress which has the sole authority to declare war.

The Intercept has recently reported [1] that the Trump administration has derived the authority to strike the Syrian government targets based on a “Top Secret” memorandum of the Office of Legal Counsel that even the US Congress can’t see. Complying with the norms of transparency and rule of law have never been the strong points of American democracy but the new US administration has done away with even the pretense of accountability and checks and balances.

What further defies explanation for the Saturday’s strikes against a scientific research facility in the Barzeh district of Damascus and two alleged chemical weapons storage facilities in Homs is the fact that Donald Trump has already announced [2] that the process of withdrawal of US troops from Syria must begin before the midterm US elections slated for November. If the Trump administration is to retain the Republican majority in the Congress, it will have to show something tangible to its voters, particularly in Syria.

Thus, it appears that the “one-off strike in Syria,” as articulated by James Mattis, was nothing more than a diversionary tactic to distract attention from Trump’s domestic troubles. Rather than deterring the Syrian government from its alleged use of chemical weapons, the Saturday’s cruise missiles strikes were meant as a show of force against Moscow.

On March 4, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A week later, another Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov was found dead in his London home and police has launched a murder investigation into his death.

Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in 2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury. Theresa May’s government has concluded that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent, Novichok.

On April 9, Yulia Skripal was discharged from hospital and reportedly the condition of Sergei Skripal is also improving rapidly, which means they might not have been poisoned by Novichok. In fact, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shared the results [3] of a Swiss laboratory on Saturday that “BZ toxin” was used in the Salisbury poisoning which was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK and other NATO states.

Nevertheless, the US, UK and European nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats and the Trump administration ordered the closure of Russian consulate in Seattle. In a retaliatory move, Kremlin also expelled a similar number of American, British and European diplomats, and ordered the closure of American consulate in Saint Petersburg. The relations between Moscow and Western powers have reached their lowest ebb since the break-up of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in December 1991.

The fact that out of 105 total cruise missiles deployed in the Saturday’s strikes in Syria, 85 were launched by the US, 12 by France and 8 by the UK aircrafts shows that the strikes were nothing more than a show of force by a “powerful and assertive” US president who regards the interests of his European allies as his own, particularly when he has given a May 12 deadline to his European allies to “improve and strengthen” the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise he has threatened to walk out of the pact in order to please Israel’s lobby in Washington.

Sources and Links:

[1] Donald Trump ordered Syria strike based on a secret legal justification even Congress can’t see:

https://theintercept.com/2018/04/14/donald-trump-ordered-syria-strike-based-on-a-secret-legal-justification-even-congress-cant-see/

 

[2] Trump says US will withdraw from Syria ‘very soon’:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics/trump-withdraw-syria-pentagon/index.html

 

[3] Lavrov: Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury:

https://www.rt.com/news/424149-skripal-poisoning-bz-lavrov/

Realignment In The Middle East – OpEd

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Once upon a time Turkey and Israel were the greatest of friends. In March 1949 Turkey was the first Islamic nation to recognize the new state of Israel. Over the next fifty years, despite some ups and downs, the relationship flourished. In the Cold War Turkey was a key ally of the Western camp and in the 1990s, under the aegis of the United States, Israel and Turkey established bilateral defense, security and economic partnerships which burgeoned into strong social and cultural ties.

In the early years of the new millennium Turkey was welcoming some 500,000 Israeli tourists each year, while in May 2004, with Israel suffering a major water shortage, the two countries struck a unique deal under which Turkey undertook to ship to Israel some 50 million cubic meters of drinking water each year for the next 20 years. But by then Recep Tayyip Erdogan had become Turkey’s prime minister, and a sea change in Turco-Israeli relations was brewing.

Erdogan is a root-and-branch Muslim Brotherhood adherent, and has been since he first entered politics, but as regards Israel he was careful not to promote too radical an agenda too soon. For his first few years in office, Erdogan maintained the good relationship. In 2005 he undertook a formal visit to Israel, and in November 2007 Israel’s then- president Shimon Peres visited Ankara and addressed the Turkish parliament.

For a while security co-operation, including arms deals and joint air training exercises in Turkish airspace continued. There was talk of constructing an Israel-Turkey pipeline from the newly discovered reserves of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Israeli waters, to exploit the lucrative European markets. The turning point in bilateral relations came in 2009, with the first conflict between Israel and Hamas which had seized power in the Gaza strip. and had been firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel.

In the annual international gathering at Davos that year, Erdogan rounded on Shimon Peres, calling the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a “crime against humanity” and “barbaric” before stalking off the stage. Was this the first step in a planned exercise aimed at establishing Erdogan as the champion of the Sunni Islamic world? Was the disastrous Mavi Marmara affair that was to follow already in the planning stage?

In any event, the last day of May 2010 saw an encounter on the high seas between a Turkish flotilla of six vessels, nominally on a humanitarian mission to Gaza, and the Israeli military. During the encounter, nine of those on board the Mavi Marmara lost their lives. Erdogan manipulated the event into a rupture of Turkish-Israeli relations lasting six years, but the series of investigations that followed revealed a cynical anti-Israel plot long planned with the connivance of Turkey’s ruling AKP party and possibly of Erdogan himself, its leader.

Oddly, however, throughout the six long years of intensive negotiations that finally put the affair to rest, Israeli-Turkish trade grew by 19 percent, as against a growth of only 11 percent in Turkey’s overall foreign trade for the same period.

The spat was put to rest when Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, tendered an apology for the loss of Turkish life, and a financial settlement to the families of the deceased was agreed. Accordingly, on February 7, 2018 Turkey’s culture and tourism minister Nabi Avcı visited Israel, the first Turkish ministerial visit to Israel for seven years. Avcı used his visit to promote Israeli tourism to Turkey which, in the wake of the Mavi Marmara incident, had fallen to a mere 79,000 in 2011. It has subsequently picked up, year by year.

The project to ship drinking water from Turkey to Israel never really got off the ground. It was cancelled in 2006, but by then the concept had already been overtaken by Israel’s advances in water technology which have converted one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water-rich nations. Israel is now seeking outlets for its surplus water.

Another Turco-Israeli project conceived during the golden years, the gas pipeline, is unlikely to come to fruition. Erdogan’s unremitting attacks on Israel, the latest occasioned by US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, make Turkey a less-than-attractive partner. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has turned instead to Turkey’s traditional foes – Greece and Cyprus – and is in the process of forging a strong tripartite alliance in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In December 2017 the leaders of the three countries signed a memorandum of understanding regarding a possible gas pipeline to run from Israel to Cyprus, then to Greece, and onward to Italy – a more expensive, if somewhat more congenial, alternative to the Israeli-Turkey idea of bringing Israel’s LNG to Europe.

However something far more significant than a gas deal is in the making, namely a new geopolitical entity in the eastern Mediterranean, a tripartite alliance that promises to bring both stability and the prospect of enormous technological, economic and environmental advances to the region. In an effort to put more flesh on the bones of their joint declaration issued in July 2017, Netanyahu, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, and Cypriot prime minister Nicos Anastasiades are scheduled to hold a summit in Nicosia in May, their fourth since 2016.

The three nations have already greatly strengthened their security and military collaboration by way of joint air, naval and ground force exercises. In their declaration the leaders agreed to strengthen collaboration in the manufacturing and commercial sectors, with an emphasis on technological and industrial research. They agreed to cooperate in electronic technology and telecommunications, especially earth remote sensing and communication satellites. They also agreed to encourage space technology and to support new cable interconnections by way of Fiber Optic Undersea Cable. They gave special prominence to protecting the environment, with special focus on protection of the marine environment, water and wastewater management, and adaptation to the impact of climate change.

In short, while continuing to foster economic ties with Turkey, Israel is forging a new partnership with Greece and Cyprus – a union with enormous potential for enhancing the prospects and life-chances of all who live in the eastern Mediterranean.


What Will Space Exploration Look Like In The Future? – Analysis

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The process of assembling the International Space Station (ISS) started in 1998 and was completed in 2011, with five partners involved: Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States.

It was initially planned to operate only until the year 2020, but in 2014 the US decided to extend its life until 2024. Since then Russia has proposed to extend further the life of the ISS to 2028, and the US space agency NASA seemed ready to accept this new extension.

However, major space policy changes happened in the US in 2017, with the revival of a high-level White House body, the National Space Council (NSpC), chaired by the Vice President. The new priority of the White House is a return to the Moon in the 2020s, as a step towards Mars in the 2030s.

In order to free funds for this new strategy, the NSpC favours an end-of-life of the ISS in 2025. A compromise with Congress will likely lead to the decision for an orderly transition of the ISS after 2025, from its current configuration to a public-private partnership (PPP) model, reusing the existing elements totally or partially.

At the end of this transition process, there may be one or many public-private stations, operating more or less commercially in low-Earth orbit (LEO). Such a scheme would also mean that the space agencies owning and operating the ISS today would be customers buying services on a public-private basis from private space stations.

If this scheme was not viable economically, the ISS may be finally decommissioned. Its structure would be guided in a controlled manner into the Earth’s atmosphere, so that it burns up over large sections of ocean. In any case the ISS will leave an impressive legacy for research and international cooperation.

At the beginning of 2018, the ongoing mission is Expedition 54, which constitutes the 54th rotation of the permanent ISS crew of six astronauts. NASA has an extensive list of experiments, which will benefit from extension of the life of the ISS for a few more years. For example, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, NASA’s particle physics detector, is researching dark matter in a setting that would not be possible on Earth.

What happens after the ISS?

At the two-day International Symposium for Personal and Commercial spaceflight in October 2016, the decommissioning of the ISS was one of the major talking points. Charles Bolden, then head of NASA, announced that private companies would soon have the possibility of docking modules at the ISS, confirming an expectation that there will be a shift towards privately-funded ISS crews and missions, with the possible development of commercial space stations after decommissioning.

In fact, the foundations for private actor involvement in space are quite established. Bigelow Aerospace, an American space technology company, has already developed habitat modules, or expandable habitats (the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM), which are able to provide radiation and thermal protection and serve as a facility in which astronauts can operate in space.

The first launch was in April 2016, from SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft CRS-8 on a resupply mission to the ISS, which represented the first step private actors have made towards a replacement ‘station’ located in space.

Other private corporations such as Orbital Sciences, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada Corp are all developing new technologies to be used on future missions, and Axiom Space is seeking to establish the world’s first private, international, commercial space station by 2020 – the Axiom International Commercial Space Station.

Supporters of commercial space stations point to significant cost reductions for state space agencies. Space agencies would rather be able to lease an expandable orbiting habitat at a relatively affordable price – perhaps at $1 million for a one to two month visit. While the ISS has cost over $100 billion to develop, BEAM was constructed for $17.8 million.

Such cost reductions could increase the accessibility of space exploration for countries with less experience and financial resources. Private space stations could not only serve as a base for scientific research, but also a hub for those travelling to the moon or to Mars, or to support the activities of emerging space actors, such as asteroid mining companies. Public-private partnerships for space station cooperation are also likely to gain traction, due to the cost reduction benefits.

Such concepts fit well within the new space policy framework setup by the US Federal Administration in 2017.

But states are also preparing for life after the ISS. For example, Russia apparently considers the creation of its own space station, and after 2024 it may detach its ISS modules with the aim of constructing of a new Russian habitable space station – dubbed the Russian Orbital Station (ROS). Roscomos sees the creation of an autonomous space station as a necessary prerequisite for fulfilling its ambitions in space, including the establishment of a Moon base.

In addition, China is planning its own permanent space station – the Tiangong Space Station. In October 2016, the Chinese space agency successfully launched two taikonauts (a term for Chinese astronauts) to board the experimental space laboratory (Tiangong 2). These developments constitute integral steps in achieving China’s plans to complete the space station by 2022. China was unable to cooperate on the ISS due to refusal by the US. Currently, China’s space station plans are among the most comprehensive of any nation and with a successful completion of the Tiangong Space Station, China could potentially challenge US dominance.

The possible fragmentation of outer space research activities in the post-ISS period would constitute a break-up of an international alliance that has fostered unprecedented cooperation between engineers and scientists from rival geopolitical powers – aside from China. The ISS represents perhaps the pinnacle of post-Cold War cooperation and has allowed for the sharing and streamlining of work methods and differing norms. In a current period of tense relations, it is worrying that the US and Russia may be ending an important phase of cooperation.

Nevertheless, Russia indicated its willingness to extend the life of the ISS beyond 2024, or possibly to become a partner in a follow-on project of NASA, called the Deep Space Gateway (a small ISS-like station in cislunar space) – fueling hopes of further outer space research. The International Spacecraft Working Group (ISCWG), made up of ISS colleagues from the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is tasked with mapping ideas and technical details for launching a new deep-space exploration program, expected in the 2020s.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has expressed an interest in extending international cooperation, whatever the fate of the ISS. ESA envisages the construction of a moon base, comprising a collaborative community of both public and private organisations from around the world (the “Moon Village”). A lunar base – just four days from Earth – would allow scientists to research and test technologies which could facilitate explorations to farther destinations, such as Mars.

As the ISS as we know it will likely no longer exist in a decade from now, the cooperation it initiated will hopefully persist and even attract other private and state players. In the future, it is likely that private actors will increasingly fill the void left behind by the ISS and that certain states will seek to establish their own space stations. However, there still appears to be a number of initiatives which can promote international cooperation in space, which is one of the main legacies of the ISS and perhaps its greatest achievement.

*Prof. Nayef Al-Rodhan, Honorary Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. This article was published by the World Economic Forum, and reprinted with the author’s permission.

China’s Belt And Road Initiative: Ambition And Opportunity – Analysis

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For centuries, the Silk Road’s web of trading routes connected major civilizations in East Asia with the Middle East and the European continent. It facilitated not only commerce, but also the exchange of communication and thereby determined the development of the ancient world.

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jingping proposed to revive the Silk Road by developing a transportation network that would link China to the rest of the world. This flagship project called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) combines two main roadmaps. The first component is the Silk Road Economic Belt which is a land-based travel route that runs through six corridors and covers most of the nations in Asia and Europe.

Along these parameters, Beijing seeks to bolster infrastructure by constructing bridges, railways, roads, pipelines, hydroelectric dams, and much more. The second component is the Maritime Silk Road which seeks to diversify China’s supply lines along its eastern coastline by constructing shipping ports, hydrocarbon refineries, and industrial parks. Thus far, over 1,700 projects are in place with a value of around $900 billion falling into the spectrum of the initiative.

So far as to say, reviving the Silk Road is an incredibly expensive endeavor. To fund the construction initiative and regulate the enormous cash flow, the Chinese Government has set up two financial institutions: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund (SRF). The AIIB is a multilateral bank with an initial capital base of $100 billion and is committed to lending money for economic projects. Its organizational structure is similar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The SRF holds around $40 billion and falls under the supervision of China’s Central Bank. It is a means to invest in projects rather than to extend loans for them. Yet, perhaps the biggest financial contributor to the Belt and Road is the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. The China Development Bank has pledged over $800 billion spreading over the course of several years. Additional funds for the initiative could come from China’s foreign exchange reserves and Beijing’s Sovereign Wealth Fund which holds around $3 trillion and $220 billion respectively.

However, the Belt and Road is more than just about physical connections, it serves China’s foreign and domestic objectives because it helps to mitigate the country’s dependency on the existing sea lanes. Currently, around 90% of China’s trade goes through the seas and beyond Beijing’s control. Nearby bodies of water such as the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea have a strong American presence while maritime points such as the Strait of Malacca, through which 80% of China’s crude oil imports pass, are additional flash points for Beijing. As such, China relies on the U.S Navy for the security of the sea lanes.

Yet, as a geopolitical rival, Beijing cannot heavily rely on Washington to protect its shipping. In this context, the Belt and Road serves as a contingency plan that diversifies the trade routes between Chinese cities and global markets. For instance, as a part of the Belt and Road, China is constructing ports, railways, roads, and pipelines on the Indian Subcontinent which would allow for Beijing to bypass checkpoints in the South China Sea. The corridor in Pakistan known as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the ports in Sri Lanka allow China to do exactly this.

Another motive for the Belt and Road is the fact that China’s monumental economic growth has created enormous disparity across its territory. The inconsistent wealth is noticeable between the rural western interior and the urban eastern coastline, but the divergence goes beyond finances. The abundance and lack of wealth affect living standards, life expectancy, and demographics. All of these social and economic factors are in favor of the fertile cosmopolitan coastline whereas the arid landlocked western interior is left behind. If China wants to secure its long-term stability, it must mitigate the disparity between the two territories by enhancing the inland region’s access to foreign markets. This is bound to be a long and complex process, but for Beijing, the Belt and Road offers a start to strengthen the prospects of the interior.

Since its revelation in 2013, the constructive initiative has booked impressive results in the interior cities. For example, in the cities of Xi’an, Kunming, and Kashgar economic zones are being set up to facilitate cross border commerce between China, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Besides investments in the interior of China, Beijing is also financing projects in the volatile nations of Central Asia where President Xi tries to bring some sense of stability along the Chinese western borderlands which is necessary to suppress the Tibetan and Uighur separatist attitudes. In conflict-ridden Central Asia, an excess amount of capital is likely to contribute to more violence. Moreover, improved roads are likely to enhance the mobility of illicit goods into China itself. This is a particular issue for Chinese policymakers because of the long-standing separatist tendencies in western China. Therefore, in addition to funding, Beijing must combat transnational risks by assisting and cooperating with security groups in the Central Asian countries.

Yet, as China pours funds into the region and bolsters local defenses, it is bound to cross paths with another major stakeholder. Russia considers Central Asia as a crucial component of its sphere of influence and views any form of non-economic activity in the region as a threat to its national security. Although Russia welcomes Chinese investment in Central Asia and believes that economic stability will bring about much-needed political stability, Moscow is deeply suspicious of Beijing. Should Russia choose to do so, it could derail China’s rail and energy projects in the region, so Beijing must tread carefully in Central Asia.

Another geopolitical rival that is suspicious of the Belt and Road is India. New Delhi fears that Chinese economic activities, namely CPEC in Pakistan will undermine Indian claims in the disputed Kashmir region. As such, India strongly opposes CPEC because it sees Beijing’s policy as a de facto hostile act in geopolitical terms. However, India’s options for retaliation are limited and the Belt and Road represents a front line in the China-India rivalry. The final geopolitical rival that is upset with the Belt and Road is the United States. Washington is concerned that Beijing’s diversification of its trading routes will undermine its naval leverage. In the long-run, this geopolitical shift will allow China to impose its will in the East Asian periphery.

In addition to developing the interior and diversifying trade, President Xi’s flagship initiative is his clearest break from Deng Xiaoping’s geopolitical philosophy of hide capacity, bide time, and never claim leadership. The Belt and Road Initiative is the opposite of what China has traditionally done. In the same way that the Bretton Woods system is the Washington’s global soft power policy, Beijing intends to replicate that soft power experience in Asia with the Belt and Road Initiative. China is already a major trade partner for many nations in Asia and Europe, but with the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing is enhancing those business ties by extending favorable financing terms through its financial institutions. Chinese policymakers hope that these international and commercial ties will grant China with greater access to the Asian and European landmasses in the coming decades.

Beijing’s soft power is already showing signs of success in some areas. For instance, due to their growing economic ties to China, members of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) find it increasingly difficult to maintain a unified policy in the South China Sea. The political behavior of the Philippines is a good example of the success of China’s soft power policy. Moreover, the increasing presence of Chinese firms in the region adds to the credibility of Beijing’s territorial claims. By dividing regional coalitions and strengthening China’s Sino-sphere of influence, soft power can overcome maritime and territorial disputes in the future.

Thus far, the Chinese Government has approached every nation differently to suit the specific political and cultural climate of its foreign partners. This shows great flexibility, but the Belt and Road is not without its drawbacks. The hundreds of bilateral agreements that come along with the initiative further the financial structure of Asia which is already a sea of bilateral trade deals and many companies lack the building capacity to navigate this maze of rules.

A lot of drawback is the fact that the Chinese Government leans towards a hands-on approach which essentially means that every project is often followed by boots on the ground. Unlike Western investment, Beijing sends its own workers, managers, raw materials, and equipment to the foreign countries to complete the tasks at hand. This practice assures a more efficient agenda and minimizes the embezzlement of the allocated funds, but the heavy reliance on Chinese assets also fuels resentment in the nations where the projects are ongoing. Regardless of these complications, President Xi is determined to push forward with the Belt and Road Initiative and in the eyes of Chinese policymakers, the mitigation of trade security coupled with interior development makes the initiative worth the effort.

The Saudi Export Of Ultra-Conservatism In The Era Of MbS – Analysis

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There has long been debate about the longevity of the Saudi ruling family. One major reason for doubts about the Al Sauds’ viability was the Faustian bargain they made with the Wahhabis, proponents of a puritan, intolerant, discriminatory, anti-pluralistic interpretation of Islam.

It was a bargain that has produced the single largest dedicated public diplomacy campaign in history. Estimates of Saudi spending on the funding of ultra-conservative Muslim cultural institutions across the globe and the forging of close ties to non-Wahhabi Muslim leaders and intelligence agencies in various Muslim nations that have bought into significant, geopolitical elements of the Wahhabi worldview are ballpark. With no accurate date available, they range from $75 to $100 billion.

It was a campaign that frequently tallied nicely with the kingdom’s deep-seated anti-communism, its hostility to post-1979 Iran, and the West’s Cold War view of Islam as a useful tool against Arab nationalism and the left – a perception that at times was shared by Arab autocrats other than the Saudis.

The campaign was not simply a product of the marriage between the Al Sauds and the Wahhabis. It was long central to Saudi soft power policy and the Al Saud’s survival strategy. One reason, certainly not the only one, that the longevity of the Al Sauds was a matter of debate was the fact that the propagation of Wahhabism was having a backlash at home and in countries across the globe. More than ever before theological or ideological similarities between Wahhabism or for that matter Salafism and jihadism were since 9/11 under the spotlight.

The problem for the Al Sauds was not just that their legitimacy seemed to be wholly dependent on their identification with Wahhabism. It was that the Al Sauds since the launch of the campaign were often only nominally in control of it. They had let a genie out of the bottle that now leads an independent life and that can’t be put back into the bottle.

That is one major reason why some have argued in the past decade that the Al Sauds and the Wahhabis were nearing a crunch point. One that would not necessarily offer solutions but could make things worse by sparking ever more militant splits that would make themselves felt across the Muslim world and in minority Muslim communities elsewhere in multiple ways including increasing sectarian and intolerant attitudes in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The rise of Mohammed bin Salman clearly challenges these assumptions. For one, it raises the question to what degree the rule of the Al Sauds remains dependent on religious legitimization as Mohammed moves de facto from consensual family to one-man rule in which he anchors his legitimacy in his role as a reformer.

It also begs the question of what would ideologically replace ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam as Saudi Arabia’s answer to perceived Iranian revolutionary zeal. The jury on all of this is out. They key lies in the degree to which Mohammed is successful in implementing social and economic reform, his yet to be clarified definition of what he envisions as moderate Islam, and what resistance to his religious redefinition and social reforms will emerge among members of the religious establishment and segments of the population.

Mohammed has so far dropped tantalizing clues, but neither said nor done anything that could be considered conclusive. In fact, what he has not done or said may be more telling, even if it would be premature to draw from that conclusions of the potential limits of change that he envisions. On the plus side, he introduced social reforms that enhance women’s opportunities and relaxed restrictions on cultural expression.

At the same time, he has whipped the religious establishment into subservience and positioned them, including key vehicles like the World Muslim League that the government used to fund and propagate ultra-conservatism, as forces against extremism and militancy and in favour of religious tolerance and dialogue. In February, Saudi Arabia agreed to surrender control of the Great Mosque in Brussels after its efforts to install a more moderate administration failed to counter mounting Belgian criticism of alleged intolerance and supremacism propagated by mosque executives.

Saudi officials have spoken of a possible halt to the funding internationally of religious institutions although an apparent agreement to pump $1 billion into the building of hundreds of mosques and religious centres in Bangladesh would suggest otherwise. The failure in Brussels and the fact that there is little reason to believe that the religious establishment has experienced a true change of heart or that Saudi Arabia has satisfactorily completed a revision of its text and religious books suggests that the kingdom is ill-prepared to propagate a truly moderate form of Islam in Bangladesh or anywhere else.

In some ways, the question is whether this matters as much outside the kingdom as it does domestically. The parameters have changed with Mohammed’s grip on power but the fact that the religious establishment was willing to ultimately compromise on its theological principles to accommodate the political and geopolitical needs of the Al Sauds has been a long-standing fixture of Saudi policy making.

For the Wahhabi and Salafi ulema, the public diplomacy campaign was about proselytization, the spreading of their specific interpretation of the faith. For the government, it was about soft power. At times the interests of the government and the ulema coincided, and at times they diverged.

Yet, more often than not the requirements of the government and the family took precedence. While contacts between Wahhabi and Deobandi scholars from the Indian sub-continent go back to the 1930s, if not earlier, Saudi scholars were willing to put their differences aside as Deobandis emerged as a powerful force among the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in the 1980s and subsequent anti-Shiite strife in Pakistan.

The problem in mapping the financial flows of the campaign is that the sources were multiple and the lines between the funding streams often blurred. No doubt, the government was the major funding source but even than the picture is messy. For one, who constitutes the government? Were senior princes who occupied powerful government positions officials or private persons when they donated from their personal accounts in a country in which it was long difficult to distinguish between the budget of the government and of the family?

On top of that, the government had multiple funding streams that included the foreign ministry using its network of diplomatic missions abroad, the multiple well-endowed governmental non-governmental organizations such as the Muslim World League that often were run with little if any oversight by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood with their own agenda, institutions in the kingdom like the Islamic University of Medina and its counterparts in Pakistan and Malaysia, as well as funds distributed by Islamic scholars and wealthy individuals.

Adding to the complexity was the fact that there was no overview of what private donors were doing and who was a private donor and who wasn’t. This pertains not only to the blurred lines between the government and the ruling family but also to Saudis of specific ethnic heritage, for example Pakistanis or Baloch, as well as Saudi intelligence. At times members of ethnic communities potentially served as government proxies for relationships with militant anti-Shiite groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Taiba and their successors and offshoots in Pakistan.

Further complicating a financial assessment is the lack of transparency on the receiver’s end. In some cases, like Malaysia the flow of funds was controlled by authorities and/or a political party in government. In others like Indonesia, money often came in suitcases. Customs officials at airports were instructed to take their cut and allow the money in with no registration.

In other words, while the Saudis donated they seldom prior to 9/11 and the 2003/2004 Al Qaeda attacks in the kingdom exercised control over what was done with the funds. The National Commercial Bank when it was Saudi Arabia’s largest financial institution had a department of numbered accounts. These were largely accounts belonging to members of the ruling family. Only three people had access to those accounts, one of them was the majority owner of the bank, Khaled Bin Mahfouz. Khaled would get a phone call from a senior member of the family who would instruct him to transfer money to a specific country, leaving it up to Khaled where precisely that money would go.

In one instance, Khaled was instructed by Prince Sultan, the then defense minister, to wire $5 million to Bosnia. Sultan did not indicate the beneficiary. Khaled sent the money to a charity in Sarajevo that in the wake of 9/11 was raided by US law enforcement and Bosnian security agents. The hard disks of the foundation revealed the degree to which the institution was controlled by jihadists.

At one point, the Saudis suspected one of the foundation’s operatives of being a member of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. They sent someone to Sarajevo to investigate. The investigator confronted the man saying: ‘We hear that you have these connections and if that is true we need to part ways.’ The man put his hand on his heart and denied the allegation. As far as the Saudis were concerned the issue was settled until the man later in court testimony described how easy it had been to fool the Saudis.

The measure of success of the Saudi campaign is not exclusively the degree to which it was able to embed religious ultra-conservatism in communities across the globe. From the perspective of the government and the family, far more important was ultra-conservatism’s geopolitical component, its anti-Shiite and resulting anti-Iranian attitude.

The man who was until a couple of years ago deputy head of Indonesian intelligence and deputy head of Nahdlatul Ulema, one of the world’s largest Islamic movements that professes to be anti-Wahhabi, symbolizes the campaign’s success in those terms. He is a fluent Arabic speaker. He spent 12 years in the Middle East representing Indonesian intelligence, eight of those in Saudi Arabia. He professes in the same breath his dislike of the Wahhabis and at the same time warns that Shiites, who constitute 1.2 percent of the Indonesian population and that includes the estimated 2 million Sunni converts over the last 40 years, are one of the foremost domestic threats to Indonesian national security. This man is not instinctively anti-Shiite but sees Shiites as an Iranian fifth wheel.

The result of all of this is that four decades of funding has created an ultra-conservative world that lives its own life, in many ways is independent of Saudi Arabia, and parts of which have turned on its original benefactor. A study of Pakistani madrassas published earlier this year concluded that foreign funding accounted for only seven percent of the finances of the country’s thousands of religious seminaries.

The fact that ultra-conservatives are no longer wholly dependent on Saudi funding is a testimony to the campaign’s success. This realization comes at a crucial moment. Post 9/11 and even more so in the wake of Al Qaeda attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia in 2003/2004, Saudi Arabia has introduced strict controls on charitable donations to ensure that funds do not flow to jihadist groups.

There is moreover no doubt that Saudi funding in the era of Mohammed bin Salman is unlikely to revert to what it once was. The Saudi-funded Bangladeshi plan to build moderate mosques, the relinquishing of control of the Grand Mosque in Brussels, and the World Muslim League’s newly found propagation of tolerance and inter-faith dialogue as well as its effort to reach out to Jewish communities would suggest that Saudi money may be invested in attempting to curb the impact of the kingdom’s decades-long funding of ultra-conservatism.

Yet, there are also indications that Mohammed bin Salman is not averse to funding militants when it suits his geopolitical purpose. The US Treasury last year designated Maulana Ali Muhammad Abu Turab as a specially designated terrorist on the very day that he was in the kingdom to raise funds. Abu Turab is a prominent Pakistani Islamic scholar of Afghan descent who serves on a government-appointed religious board, maintains close ties to Saudi Arabia, runs a string of madrassas attended by thousands of students along Balochistan’s border with Iran and Afghanistan and is a major fund raiser for militant groups.

Abu Turab’s visit to the kingdom came at a time that Saudi and UAE nationals of Baloch heritage were funnelling large amounts to militant anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian Islamic scholars in Balochistan.

It is unclear whether the funds were being donated with Mohammed bin Salman’s tacit blessing.

What is clear, however, is that the funding and Abu Turab’s visit coincided with the drafting of plans to destabilize Iran by exploiting grievances and stirring unrest among Iran’s ethnic minorities, including the Baloch. Those plans have not left the drawing board and may never do so. The funding nevertheless raises the question how clean a break with support of ultra-conservatism Mohammed bin Salman is contemplating.

Atoms May Hum A Tune From Grand Cosmic Symphony

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Researchers playing with a cloud of ultracold atoms uncovered behavior that bears a striking resemblance to the universe in microcosm. Their work, which forges new connections between atomic physics and the sudden expansion of the early universe, will be published in Physical Review X and highlighted by Physics.

“From the atomic physics perspective, the experiment is beautifully described by existing theory,” says Stephen Eckel, an atomic physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the lead author of the new paper. “But even more striking is how that theory connects with cosmology.”

In several sets of experiments, Eckel and his colleagues rapidly expanded the size of a doughnut-shaped cloud of atoms, taking snapshots during the process. The growth happens so fast that the cloud is left humming, and a related hum may have appeared on cosmic scales during the rapid expansion of the early universe–an epoch that cosmologists refer to as the period of inflation.

The work brought together experts in atomic physics and gravity, and the authors say it is a testament to the versatility of the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)–an ultracold cloud of atoms that can be described as a single quantum object–as a platform for testing ideas from other areas of physics.

“Maybe this will one day inform future models of cosmology,” Eckel says. “Or vice versa. Maybe there will be a model of cosmology that’s difficult to solve but that you could simulate using a cold atomic gas.”

It’s not the first time that researchers have connected BECs and cosmology. Prior studies mimicked black holes and searched for analogs of the radiation predicted to pour forth from their shadowy boundaries. The new experiments focus instead on the BEC’s response to a rapid expansion, a process that suggests several analogies to what may have happened during the period of inflation.

The first and most direct analogy involves the way that waves travel through an expanding medium. Such a situation doesn’t arise often in physics, but it happened during inflation on a grand scale. During that expansion, space itself stretched any waves to much larger sizes and stole energy from them through a process known as Hubble friction.

In one set of experiments, researchers spotted analogous features in their cloud of atoms. They imprinted a sound wave onto their cloud–alternating regions of more atoms and fewer atoms around the ring, like a wave in the early universe–and watched it disperse during expansion. Unsurprisingly, the sound wave stretched out, but its amplitude also decreased. The math revealed that this damping looked just like Hubble friction, and the behavior was captured well by calculations and numerical simulations.

“It’s like we’re hitting the BEC with a hammer,” says Gretchen Campbell, the NIST co-director of the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and a coauthor of the paper, “and it’s sort of shocking to me that these simulations so nicely replicate what’s going on.”

In a second set of experiments, the team uncovered another, more speculative analogy. For these tests they left the BEC free of any sound waves but provoked the same expansion, watching the BEC slosh back and forth until it relaxed.

In a way, that relaxation also resembled inflation. Some of the energy that drove the expansion of the universe ultimately ended up creating all of the matter and light around us. And although there are many theories for how this happened, cosmologists aren’t exactly sure how that leftover energy got converted into all the stuff we see today.

In the BEC, the energy of the expansion was quickly transferred to things like sound waves traveling around the ring. Some early guesses for why this was happening looked promising, but they fell short of predicting the energy transfer accurately. So the team turned to numerical simulations that could capture a more complete picture of the physics.

What emerged was a complicated account of the energy conversion: After the expansion stopped, atoms at the outer edge of the ring hit their new, expanded boundary and got reflected back toward the center of the cloud. There, they interfered with atoms still traveling outward, creating a zone in the middle where almost no atoms could live. Atoms on either side of this inhospitable area had mismatched quantum properties, like two neighboring clocks that are out of sync.

The situation was highly unstable and eventually collapsed, leading to the creation of vortices throughout the cloud. These vortices, or little quantum whirlpools, would break apart and generate sound waves that ran around the ring, like the particles and radiation left over after inflation. Some vortices even escaped from the edge of the BEC, creating an imbalance that left the cloud rotating.

Unlike the analogy to Hubble friction, the complicated story of how sloshing atoms can create dozens of quantum whirlpools may bear no resemblance to what goes on during and after inflation. But Ted Jacobson, a coauthor of the new paper and a physics professor at the University of Maryland specializing in black holes, says that his interaction with atomic physicists yielded benefits outside these technical results.

“What I learned from them, and from thinking so much about an experiment like that, are new ways to think about the cosmology problem,” Jacobson says. “And they learned to think about aspects of the BEC that they would never have thought about before. Whether those are useful or important remains to be seen, but it was certainly stimulating.”

Eckel echoes the same thought. “Ted got me to think about the processes in BECs differently,” he says, “and any time you approach a problem and you can see it from a different perspective, it gives you a better chance of actually solving that problem.”

Future experiments may study the complicated transfer of energy during expansion more closely, or even search for further cosmological analogies. “The nice thing is that from these results, we now know how to design experiments in the future to target the different effects that we hope to see,” Campbell says. “And as theorists come up with models, it does give us a testbed where we could actually study those models and see what happens.”

Yes, Economic Laws Still Apply To The Minimum Wage – OpEd

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By Per Bylund*

What is it with economic illiteracy and writing in the media? One explanation is obvious: media need to sell newspapers (or get “clicks”), so it makes sense to exploit people’s confirmation bias. In other words, tell people what they want to hear. And, as we know, economics is that science that reveals that things aren’t the way they may first appear. In fact, the mechanisms behind the phenomena we observe are often the very opposite of what the untrained eye thinks that it sees.

People tend to recognize that economics produces explanations they don’t want to hear (which, by the way, doesn’t make those explanations false). This makes economics a favorite science to hate and look down upon. It is also the science standing firmly in the way of wishful (but reality-devoid) policy — proper economic analyses more often than not show that a suggested policy cannot create the results it is intended to bring about.

Perhaps it is this dream-crushing ability of sound economic reasoning that explains why economists who confirm popular misbeliefs about the economy are so generally hailed. As an economist, it seems there are only two ways of getting famous: either declare economic untruths as the “real” truth (basically, be an economics-denier) or play around with data to produce something quirky, inane, and humorous (like “Freakonomics”). Both, of course, undermine the status of economics and play the “confirmation bias” card by boosting people’s economic illiteracy.

The Clueless World of “Empirical” Economists

Noah Smith, a trained economist who quit his academic career for economic commentary, provides a great example of this phenomenon in a recent column at Bloomberg. Whatever he is trying to prove is not clear from the actual argument, but he does a good job stacking untruths and making unfounded, illogical claims. And, of course, the column does a good job playing on people’s (and Smith’s) economic illiteracy.

The apparent conclusion that Smith draws in his column is that supply-and-demand analysis no longer explains the job market. It’s a quite amazing claim, and if it were true, then pointing this out should be worthy of a Nobel. It is not, of course. In fact, most claims in the column are rather outrageous in their ignorance of basic economics or Krugmanesque use of facts.

Smith starts by stating that “The battle over the effects of minimum wages has been one of the most protracted and bitter fights in the history of empirical economics.” This is just plain false. Only very recently have economists been able to torture data enough to “prove” that theoretical truths about price floors in the job market (but not elsewhere, apparently) are not true. Those studies have indeed created debate, but that should be the case: their supposed findings are outrageous. They do not “falsify” economic theory as much as they should be intriguing in terms of finding other causes for these interesting findings.

But Smith does not know this. He has been properly trained in the Whig tradition of economics, where it is believed almost religiously that anything economics has to say is what’s been published in the journals the last decade or two. (He also mistakenly believes that economics is somehow an inductive, data-driven, empirical science.) From that Whig perspective, his claim about the “history of empirical economics” (going back as far as the late 1990s?). Whoever has only cursory knowledge in the history of economics would be able to come up with better examples of “protracted and bitter fights” — for instance, the what causes economic crises and how they can properly be dealt with.

This is only the beginning, however, and not important for the argument – it is only a “hook,” as they say in media, meant to make you read the whole thing (and the ads).

The Real Effects of a Minimum-Wage Hike

Next, Smith refers to a study showing that “minimum wage hikes tend to decrease the number of jobs just below the new cutoff, but increase the number above the line — implying that the wage hike isn’t killing jobs, but simply giving people raises.” Now, who would be surprised that the number of jobs below the new legal minimum decrease? Nobody. And that’s exactly what we should expect.

We should also expect the other claim, that the number of jobs above the legally required wage level increase. Why? Because some employers might believe (right or wrong) that they can increase wages for those just below the cutoff point to keep them on staff, but instead cut down on something else. And new jobs might emerge just above the minimum wage not as a result of raising people’s wages but as a result of not offering higher (or increasing) wages in other employments. In other words, a redistribution of wages.

But doesn’t this confirm Smith’s thesis that supply-and-demand analysis no longer holds? No. It shows that the equilibrium analysis doesn’t hold. The result of a minimum wage is, obviously, disequilibrium: it is a restriction on markets that has consequences.

The next quoted study finds that “minimum-wage increases tend to raise incomes for people at the bottom of the distribution” and that “the probability of people losing their income entirely … isn’t significantly affected.” These are good reasons to further investigate the causes of these results, not to throw out supply-and-demand analysis.

These things don’t happen in a vacuum, and the job market is far from an equilibrated free market. And we should expect changes to jobs due to for example economic growth. Also, with investments in capital the productivity of labor goes up, which means they’ll earn higher (market) wages. In fact, minimum wage increases can cause shifts from low-productivity labor to investments in capital, as McDonald’s recently illustrated. That’s a potential explanation for the empirical “evidence” referred to in Smith’s column.

There’s really not anything strange with these findings, but Smith still claims that “it’s forcing us to rethink our basic understanding of how labor markets work.” How so? Well, Smith notes that there are indications that the reason higher minimum wages don’t cause unemployment is that “it’s so costly and difficult for workers to find new jobs that they simply accept lower wages than they would demand in a well-functioning market.” Yes, it’s called regulation. That’s why the market isn’t “well-functioning.”

Smith goes on: “evidence is showing that employers have more market power than economists had ever suspected.” There are studies showing that “in areas where there are fewer employers in an industry, workers in that industry earn lower wages.” The studies’ “findings are completely consistent.” Imagine that. It’s almost as though more competition between employers for labor increases wages! Who would have thought?!

But to Smith these results are an abnormality that “suggests that the competitive supply-and-demand model of labor markets is fundamentally broken.” I actually have no idea how he could come to that conclusion, so I will not try to explain it.

Somehow the conclusion is that economists “should [change] the baseline model of labor markets that gets taught in class” and “start with a model of market power.” Isn’t it strange how much this sounds like the imperfect competition analysis of Joan Robinson? Robinson famously published The Economics of Imperfect Competition in 1933. But somehow imperfect competition didn’t do away with supply-and-demand analysis, as Smith says it should.

Smith has a point, however. Maybe there is something wrong with how economics is taught. But what’s wrong is not the intuition — economics as a structured way of thinking. Economics professors generally get things right in the principles courses. It is the unthinking mathematical modeling and data meddling in courses on the intermediate and advanced levels that is completely out of touch with fundamental economics.

In other words, what’s wrong with how economics is taught is exactly the type of advanced education that Smith has (a PhD). The same thing makes him, at least in the eyes of unsuspecting readers, an authority on the subject. But it allows him to write nonsensical columns on “economics” that play on people’s confirmation bias.

About the author:
*Per Bylund
is assistant professor of entrepreneurship & Records-Johnston Professor of Free Enterprise in the School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. Website: PerBylund.com.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Greenhouse Gas ‘Feedback Loop’ Discovered In Freshwater Lakes

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A new study of chemical reactions that occur when organic matter decomposes in freshwater lakes has revealed that the debris from trees suppresses production of methane – while debris from plants found in reed beds actually promotes this harmful greenhouse gas.

As vegetation in and around bodies of water continues to change, with forest cover being lost while global warming causes wetland plants to thrive, the many lakes of the northern hemisphere – already a major source of methane – could almost double their emissions in the next fifty years.

The researchers say that the findings suggest the discovery of yet another “feedback loop” in which environmental disruption and climate change trigger the release of ever more greenhouse gas that further warms the planet, similar to the concerns over the methane released by fast-melting arctic permafrost.

“Methane is a greenhouse gas at least twenty-five times more potent than carbon dioxide. Freshwater ecosystems already contribute as much as 16% of the Earth’s natural methane emissions, compared to just 1% from all the world’s oceans,” said study senior author Dr Andrew Tanentzap from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences.

“We believe we have discovered a new mechanism that has the potential to cause increasingly more greenhouse gases to be produced by freshwater lakes. The warming climates that promote the growth of aquatic plants have the potential to trigger a damaging feedback loop in natural ecosystems.”

The researchers point out that the current methane emissions of freshwater ecosystems alone offsets around a quarter of all the carbon soaked up by land plants and soil: the natural ‘carbon sink’ that drains and stores CO2 from the atmosphere.

Up to 77% of the methane emissions from an individual lake are the result of the organic matter shed primarily by plants that grow in or near the water. This matter gets buried in the sediment found toward the edge of lakes, where it is consumed by communities of microbes. Methane gets generated as a byproduct, which then bubbles up to the surface.

Working with colleagues from Canada and Germany, Tanentzap’s group found that the levels of methane produced in lakes varies enormously depending on the type of plants contributing their organic matter to the lake sediment. The study, funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, is published in the journal Nature Communications.

To test how organic matter affects methane emissions, the scientists took lake sediment and added three common types of plant debris: deciduous trees that shed leaves annually, evergreen pine-shedding coniferous trees, and cattails (often known in the UK as ‘bulrushes’) – a common aquatic plant that grows in the shallows of freshwater lakes.

These sediments were incubated in the lab for 150 days, during which time the scientists siphoned off and measured the methane produced. They found that the bulrush sediment produced over 400 times the amount of methane as the coniferous sediment, and almost 2,800 times the methane than that of the deciduous.

Unlike the cattail debris, the chemical makeup of the organic matter from trees appears to trap large quantities of carbon within the lake sediment – carbon that would otherwise combine with hydrogen and get released as methane into the atmosphere.

To confirm their findings, the researchers also “spiked” the three samples with the microbes that produce methane to gauge the chemical reaction. While the forest-derived sediment remained unchanged, the sample containing the bulrush organic matter doubled its methane production.

“The organic matter that runs into lakes from the forest trees acts as a latch that suppresses the production of methane within lake sediment. These forests have long surrounded the millions of lakes in the northern hemisphere, but are now under threat,” said Dr Erik Emilson, first author of the study, who has since left Cambridge to work at Natural Resources Canada.

“At the same time, changing climates are providing favourable conditions for the growth and spread of aquatic plants such as cattails, and the organic matter from these plants promotes the release of even more methane from the freshwater ecosystems of the global north.”

Using species distribution models for the Boreal Shield, an area that covers central and eastern Canada and “houses more forests and lakes than just about anywhere on Earth”, the researchers calculated that the number of lakes colonised by just the common cattail (Typha latifolia) could double in the next fifty years – causing current levels of lake-produced methane to increase by at least 73% in this part of the world alone.

Added Tanentzap: “Accurately predicting methane emissions is vital to the scientific calculations used to try and understand the pace of climate change and the effects of a warmer world. We still have limited understanding of the fluctuations in methane production from plants and freshwater lakes.”

Saudi Arabia Gears Up For Women Motorists

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By Nada Hameed

No sooner had the announcement been made in September 2017 that Saudi women would be free to drive in Saudi Arabia from June 2018 than many of world’s largest car manufacturers began to target them with advertisements.

In addition, driving schools for women were set up in the Kingdom for the first time, while motor insurance companies made plans to target the new female market, and car maintenance workshops for women are being offered.

Five Saudi universities have launched driving schools for women: Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Tabuk University, Taif University and Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.

The Saudi Driving School, at Princess Nourah University, the first for women in the capital, was launched in partnership with the Emirates Driving Institute in Dubai, an established driving school in the region.

The first motor insurance center for women in the Kingdom officially opened for business on May 1, 2018. The Salama Insurance office, at Salama Tower in Jeddah, is run by an all-female staff.

“The company has many initiatives in employing females, where we have integrated departments managed 100 percent by Saudi female employees, such as the contact center management in the men’s section,” said Salama CEO Omar Al-Ajlani at the grand opening. “Today’s initiative adds a lot to the business as we became the first company to open a specialized women’s center to take into account the privacy of women in Saudi Arabia.

“When a claim is received by the company, we will automatically get the client’s information from Najm insurance services or from the General Department of Traffic, then adjustments will be made until compensation is transferred.”

Al-Ajlani added that “having a female center will allow women freedom and comfort to deal with employees who understand that women are new to this process. Banks and telecoms companies have had female branches for many years but this is the first time an insurance company has opened a female branch.”

Mirfat Halawani, a section manager in the new office, said: “After receiving the accident report from the client, it will take five days to cover the damage caused by the insured vehicle.”

Sultan Al-Ghamdi, a claims manager, said: “This initiative will allow women to manage their car claims in a safe and facilitating environment.”


Why Many Are Wary Of Iraq’s Upcoming Elections – OpEd

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By Hafed Al-Ghwell*

A Libyan poetess friend of mine who escaped the chaos of Benghazi to Erbil told me the other day, “When I left Benghazi in December 2011 to live with my husband in a then-booming Erbil, we thought that we would be living in a prospering new democracy. Little did we know how things would turn out in both countries.”

Indeed, a cursory investigation of the opinions of academics, scholars, policy wonks and government agencies concerning Iraq reveals interesting conclusions. While some believe the 2003 US-led invasion has delivered some positive results, many others express dismay and wariness, especially after all these years and considering the negative byproducts of that invasion in the whole region, from the rise of Daesh to the increasing influence of Iran.

Many today caution that, with Iraq’s upcoming elections on May 12, and given that previous elections did not produce the stability they were meant to achieve, things can get much worse. After all, it has taken years for Iraqi society of a war-torn, oil-rich nation-state to serve as a breeding ground and exporter for Daesh and other insurgency groups to the rest of the region and world, despite many elections and governments.

In 2003, the Bush administration was opportunistic (perhaps even ecstatic) at the prospect of raining sophisticated weapons and unleashing a rapid military assault against Saddam Hussein. In fact, the idea of “nation-building,” winning hearts and minds, and spreading the fruit of Western democracy sounded plausible and even palatable to many. But the warning signs were there even then. Rebuilding Iraq was going to be “…difficult, confusing and dangerous,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Joseph Wilson, formerly a U.S. ambassador and diplomat who also served in Iraq, declared that it would be “a very, very nasty affair…”

In 2005, Iraq had its first multiparty election in 50 years, which failed to rally the nation behind a single government. Sunni Iraqis, who comprise around 35 per cent of the population, boycotted these elections, which reflects the sectarianism that worsened with the US invasion and its aftermath — all of which is an early warning of what may come next.

Sadly, things got even worse; three years later, the Al-Askari Mosque was bombed, sparking a sectarian war. By then, any optimism to rebuild Iraq as a “beacon of democracy” in the Arab world was immediately replaced by pessimism, doubt, uncertainty, even fear. In 2007, a foreign policy terrorism survey of 65 foreign-policy experts found that only 3 per cent believed the U.S. would be able to rebuild Iraq over the next 10 years (2007–2017), and 58 per cent believed that sectarianism would dramatically increase in the Middle East. The events that transpired in the 10 years between 2007 and 2017 proved that these foreign-policy experts and many others were right.

By 2010, a second round of parliamentary elections failed to deliver conclusive results, resulting in prolonged negotiations to form a new government. This event was exceedingly dangerous for a country desperately needing a strong, stable government focused on delivering solutions to post-war crises, rampant sectarianism, insurgency groups, splinter armed groups operating outside the national police/military and transitioning into a stable democracy.

However, these developments did not impede the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, leaving behind a massive security, military and law enforcement void. Above all, there was no longer a stabilizing “last resort” force to ensure that the myriad problems creeping up would be kept at a minimum, relieving a young, fledgling government to focus on transitioning the nation into a stable, permanent democracy.

Moreover, in 2014, Iraq lost much of its territory to Daesh and Al-Qaeda-linked groups despite Nuri Al-Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party winning the most seats in the general election. Parts of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar Province fell to Al-Qaeda-backed fighters. By the middle of the year, Daesh had seized Nineveh and its provincial capital, Mosul. These deeply unsettling developments were covered by the world’s press in shocking detail. Hundreds of thousands fled while those who stayed behind or failed to depart were subjected to the tyrannical rule of Daesh militias.

The Shia and Kurds who had wedded in a marriage of convenience to defend against Daesh fell apart when that threat was gone and old aspirations resurged. In September, Kurds participated in a referendum spearheaded by the Kurdish regional government in which nearly three-quarters of Kurds voted in favor of independence.

This development was not welcomed, as others were quick to warn the Kurdish leadership, according to The New York Times, that “…Turkey, Iran and the United States — the Kurds’ main ally — that the vote could lead to Iraq’s dissolution, undermine the anti-ISIS fight and widen divisions even among Kurdish factions.”

Now, with the upcoming elections and Iraq slowly settling into a period of relative calm, will the disappearing threat of Daesh and other insurgency groups help spur the long-awaited reforms and transition into a stable democracy? Or will old rivalries flare? What about the continued, even expanded, influence of regional/international actors such as Iran, Turkey, Russia and the U.S.?

If the 15-year history of the Iraqi war is anything to go by, the upcoming elections might follow the same trend as before, whereby Iraq’s Shia majority will determine the makeup of Parliament and choose its head of state, prime minister and other leadership positions. Will the largely powerless Sunni agree to the results? What about the Kurds, who have long dreamed of an independent state? The past does not spell out any realistic hope.


*Hafed Al-Ghwell
is a former advisor to the board of directors at the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell

Iran, Oman To Stage Joint Naval Drill

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Military forces from Iran and Oman are going to hold a joint naval exercise in the Persian Gulf in coming days.

The joint rescue and relief operation in Iran’s southern and Oman’s northern waters will include the Iranian Navy, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran’s Border Police, the Royal Navy of Oman, and the Royal Oman Police.

The decision to hold the joint drill was made during the 14th meeting of the Iran-Oman joint commission on military and security cooperation, held in Tehran on Saturday.

Iran and Oman have held several naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman in recent years.

Timor-Leste Turns To Religious Tourism To Boost Economy

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By Thomas Ora

Undaunted by its fledgling economy and tiny stature, Timor-Leste has started to develop religious tourism to give the fragile country a much-needed boost and help promote devotion to Catholicism in Indonesia.

Similar initiatives have been rolled out in the Philippines, another Catholic-majority country in Southeast Asia.

The Timor-Leste Church launched the campaign on April 19 in conjunction with the government by welcoming its first official batch of 28 “religious tourists” under the scheme.

Members included Manuel Vong, Timor-Leste’s tourism minister, as well as catechists, leaders from various parishes and a chaplain.

The group made a pilgrimage to key religious sites in the coastal enclave of Oecusse District from April 20-24.

Etelvina Pinto, 60, who has worked for the last 35 years as a catechist at St. Anthony Church in Dili, said he had previously only heard about Oecusse but had never gotten the opportunity to visit before.

“It’s amazing. At my old age I just feel blessed to be able to see the sites and relics with my own eyes,” he said.

“I hope more people, particularly young people, will come to these places so they can stay closer to God,” Pinto added.

Rui Manuel, 32, is a member of the lay group Missionaries for Jesus Christ. He said now is the right time for the government to capitalize on religious tourism.

“This kind of spiritual pilgrimage further strengthens my devotion,” he said.

Luis Barreto, the 50-year-old chairman of the St. Therese of the Child Jesus parish council in Bedois, a suburb outside Dili, said the three-day spiritual trek was almost as awe-inspiring as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for him.

He said the religious sites in Oecusse were just as sacred to Catholics in Indonesia as the religious sites and relics he visited in Israel during a trip there in 2013.

“They both have the same kind of sacred ambiance,” he told ucanews.com. “The only difference is that those in Jerusalem are featured in the Bible and many people know about them and go there to pay homage to them,” he said.

“I hope the government will also pay attention to religious sites in other districts, too.”

The first Portuguese missionaries arrived in Lifau in 1515, 500 years before the district was reinvented as the Special Economic Zone of Oecusse.

Much of this heritage has been preserved in the form of Gothic churches built in the popular Portuguese style of the 16th century, a relic of St. Anthony, the lying statue of Jesus (Senhor de Morto) — only open for public veneration on Good Friday — Marian pilgrim sites, and more.

Lifau is in Oecusse, which borders the cities of Atambua and Kefamenanu in West Timor, which is controlled by Jakarta.

After Indonesia relinquished control of Timor-Leste in 1999 it took three years before it was able to emerge as a sovereign state in May of 2002 and join the United Nations.

Fernando Baptista Nuno, dean of the Faculty of Economics at the National University of Timor Lorosae, said developing tourism is part of the government’s strategic plan (2011-2030) to create diversified economic growth from non-oil and gas sectors.

“It’s good that the government has started to make tourism a priority,” Nuno told ucanews.com.

“Because since the country’s independence, the state budget heavily depends on oil and gas,” he said.

Visitors who travel from one place to another can boost the economy of local communities because they will buy unique crafts and local products. From the aspect of education, it can provide opportunities for young people to learn a foreign language so they can become tourist guides.

“So, it will create more jobs,” he said.

There are four hotels and 20 inns in Oecusse that stand to benefit from this development.

“Currently, the number of visitors is low, unlike before the year 2012 when many UN staff visited the area,” said Alda Lay, owner of the Inay Sakato Hotel.

“We hope that by giving priority to the tourism sector, it will reinvigorate the sector and help local people.”

Father Angelo Salsinha, coordinator of the trip to Oecusse, said the church has identified dozens of religious tourism destinations, with the goal of preserving local culture and history, as well as boosting the economy.

“Many foreign tourists from countries like Australia, Portugal, India, Japan, Korea and Indonesia have expressed eagerness to visit Timor-Leste,” the priest said.

He said pilgrimages to Oecusse will be officially launched for international groups in August, in the form of two packages that run for 12 or 18 days. Christour Timor will manage the flow.

Robert Pangaribuan, who is in charge of Christour Timor — a subsidiary of Jakarta-based Christour — said the group is ready to cooperate with the government and local churches, and will encourage foreign tourists to visit Timor-Leste.

He said since 2013 he has organized about 200 Timorese pilgrims to visit the Vatican, Jerusalem, Israel and Fatima, with each trip costing an average of $3,000 per person. He hoped visitors and expats would spend similar amounts in Timor-Leste.

Each foreign tourist to Timor-Leste pays US$800-$1,500 on average, including their hotel, meals and transportation.

“This will greatly help improve the country’s revenue,” Pangaribuan said.

Antonio de Carvalo, a local village leader from Beneufe Citrana, where one of the prized relics is kept, hoped the government would fix the roads and build clean water facilities.

Bishop Virgilio do Carmo da Silva of Dili said it is time for the church and government to unite and develop forms of religious tourism that are rich not only on the spiritual side but also in social, economic, cultural and historical aspects.

“Sacred places are not only bringing people closer to God. They also have economic and cultural values,” the prelate said.

The bishop asked parish priests in Dili Diocese to stand on the front-line and work with the people who maintain these religious sites, not only in terms of keeping them clean but also creating the kind of atmosphere that gives pilgrims peace of mind.

Father Albino Marques, parish priest of St. Anthony Church in Oecusse, said the parish has prepared accommodation for tourists who want to spend time in the district.

“The local church will collaborate with the government to maintain the sites,” he said.

Vong said the government will build public housing replete with decent rooms and toilets around the sites to give tourists the chance to stay and mingle with Timorese families.

“The goal is to improve the people’s economy,” he added.

Similarly, Inacia da Conceicao Teixeira, the regional secretary for community tourism, said her team has trained communities how to make handicrafts such as weaving baskets.

“We have also trained a group of 15 young people to be guides,” she said.

Call For UAE To Reveal Status Of Dubai Ruler’s Daughter

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United Arab Emirates authorities should immediately reveal the whereabouts of Sheikha Latifa bin Mohammad al-Maktoum, the 32-year-old daughter of the ruler of the Dubai, and clarify her legal status, Human Rights Watch said. Failure to disclose the whereabouts and status of the princess could qualify as an enforced disappearance, given the evidence suggesting that she was last seen as UAE authorities were detaining her.

A witness told Human Rights Watch that UAE authorities intercepted Sheikha Latifa on March 4, 2018, as she tried to flee by sea to a third country, and returned her to the UAE. Sheikha Latifa, who told friends that she wished to flee restrictions imposed by her family, has not been seen or heard from for two months, raising serious concerns about her safety and well-being, two friends said. On April 18, Agence France-Presse reported that a source close to the Dubai government confirmed that Shaikha Latifa “was brought back” to the UAE.

“UAE authorities should immediately reveal the whereabouts of Sheikha Latifa, confirm her status, and allow her contact with the outside world,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If she is detained she needs to be given the rights all detainees should have, including being taken before an independent judge.”

Tiina Jauhiainen, a Finnish citizen and former Dubai resident for 17 years, told Human Rights Watch that she met Sheikha Latifa in 2010 and developed a long-term friendship with her. Another woman, a United States citizen, told Human Rights Watch that she also became friends with Sheikha Latifa after she began giving Sheikha Latifa skydiving lessons in Dubai around 2014. These accounts are in line with media reports from 2017, including a January 24 story on Sheikha Latifa by Emirates Woman, which contains photos of Sheikha Latifa skydiving and describes her as “the daredevil royal who’s inspiring us to be more adventurous.”

Jauhiainen showed Human Rights Watch copies of Sheikha Latifa’s identification cards and educational certificates, which Jauhiainen took out of the country in late 2017 prior to the escape attempt.

Jauhiainen and the skydiving instructor, in individual interviews, confirmed that the person appearing in a recent YouTube video is Sheikha Latifa. In the 40-minute video, Sheikha Latifa says that her older sister, Shamsa, also fled her father while in the UK in 2000 but that UAE authorities later kidnapped Shamsa from the UK and forcibly returned her to the UAE. Media reports from the time support this narrative.

Sheikha Latifa says in the video that she attempted to flee to Oman in 2002 but that UAE authorities stopped her at the border, returned her to Dubai and held her in a detention facility for three years and tortured her.

Jauhiainen said that Sheikha Latifa informed her friend of a new escape plan in the summer of 2017. She said that she and Sheikha Latifa finally left the UAE on February 24. Later that day they joined Hervé Jaubert, a French and American citizen, on his private boat, sailing toward southeast Asia. Jauhiainen said the boat had several Filipino crew members.

Jauhiainen said that on March 4 the boat stopped 50 miles off the coast of Goa, India. She was told about the location by Jaubert. She said that at around 10 p.m. she and Sheikha Latifa were below deck when they heard shouting and gunfire and locked themselves in the bathroom. The cabin filled with gas, forcing them onto the deck. Detained in Dubai, which provides legal and advocacy assistance on cases related to the UAE, told Human Rights Watch that the group had been assisting Sheikha Latifa during the escape attempt, and that she sent the group a distress message when the shouting and gunfire began.

Jauhiainen said that she saw several boats around their boat. Men boarded their boat, pointed guns at her, forced her to the ground, and tied her hands behind her back. She said the men kept shouting in English, “Who is Latifa?” She said she later heard Sheikha Latifa, whom she could not see, trying to break free and repeatedly shouting that she wanted to claim asylum. She said that the men removed Sheikha Latifa from the boat. It appeared that Jaubert and the crew had been mistreated, she said, describing Jaubert’s face as “bloody” and “unrecognizable.”

Jauiainen told Human Rights Watch that the Indian Coast Guard participated in the raid in coordination with UAE authorities. On April 27, Business Standard, an Indian English-language daily newspaper, reported that the raid was authorized by prime minister’s office, citing “highly placed government sources.” When asked about the incident, an Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, however, told Business Standard “[n]o such incident has been brought to our notice.”

UAE officials sailed the boat back toward the UAE, with her, Jaubert, and the crew locked below deck. After four days, they were transferred to a UAE naval vessel, and three days later arrived back in the UAE.

State Security officials took her to a facility that her captors described as a secret State Security Department detention center for people who represent a “threat to national security,” she said. Following several long rounds of interrogation, during which she said her interrogators threatened her repeatedly with the death penalty, and being kept in solitary confinement, she said she admitted to actions she did not commit, such as sending out the video of Sheikha Latifa.

After another four days of solitary confinement, she said, interrogators told her they would release her if she videotaped a confession and signed several Arabic-language documents she could not read, which she did. She said she later signed what she thought to be a non-disclosure agreement written in English banning her from speaking about the interrogation and Latifa.

On March 22, she said UAE authorities allowed her to return to Finland, but they kept her computer and various other items from the boat. She said they allowed Jaubert and the crew to leave the country on his boat around the same time.

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous incidents of enforced disappearances by UAE authorities in recent years.

Article 47 of the UAE’s criminal law of procedure states that detainees should be taken before the public prosecutor within two days. The UAE’s 2003 State Security Apparatus Law, however, gives state security officers wide powers to hold detainees for lengthy periods without judicial scrutiny. Article 28 of the state security apparatus law, read in conjunction with article 14, allows the head of the state security apparatus to detain a person for 106 days “if he has sufficient reasonable causes to make him believe” that the person is involved in, among other things, “activities that undermine the state … or jeopardize national unity,” “activities deemed harmful to the economy,” or anything that “could undermine, weaken the position of, stir animosity against or undermine trust in the State.”

The state security apparatus law inherently violates article 14(6) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which states that “anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release.”

The law also puts people at risk of enforced disappearance. An enforced disappearance occurs when someone is deprived of their liberty by agents of the state or those acting with its acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. The nexus between torture and enforced disappearance is well established in international law.

Article 5 of the 2006 International Convention on the Protection of All Persons Against Enforced Disappearances states that: “The widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity as defined in applicable international law and shall attract the consequences provided for under such applicable international law.” The UAE has yet to sign or ratify the convention.

“The UAE authorities should immediately reveal whether they are detaining Sheikha Latifa and her whereabouts and that of all others they are detaining incommunicado,” Whitson said.

Moscow Now Targeting All Non-Russian Orthodox Christian Churches – OpEd

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Many in the West naively believe that Vladimir Putin is a defender of Christian traditions against Islam and therefore are inclined to believe that he deserves their support despite what he may be doing as far as other things are concerned. But in fact, the he is defending only the Russian Orthodox Church and attacking all other Christian denominations.

That is the conclusion Roman Lunkin draws on the basis of a close reading of official actions against religious groups and especially “large and small Christian churches in Russia” except for the Orthodoxy of the Moscow Patriarchate over the last year (sclj.ru/news/detail.php?SECTION_ID=487&ELEMENT_ID=7826).

If earlier it appeared that official actions against religious groups bore a largely arbitrary and spontaneous character, the specialist on religion and law in Russia says, in the period since the adoption of the Yarovaya law, one is now justified in speaking “about the conscious choice of Christians as targets for judicial action.”

Officials in the magistracy and police do not know the fine points of religious issues, Lunkin says, “but they know very well that having uncovered a community of non-Orthodox Christians, they must fine it.” And in proceeding against such groups, “they do not devote any attention to formalities.” Indeed, they now openly ignore Russian constitutional norms.

“An analysis of a data base of court decisions carried out by Sergey Chugunov, a lawyer of the Slavic Legal Center speaks about the catastrophic situation with regard to the observation of the constitutional principles of freedom of consciousness.” And “non-Orthodox Christian confessions” have been hit especially hard.

Among these, Lunkin continues, are the Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists. Also hit with various judicial actions at the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Krishna Consciousness groups, and Muslims. In 2016-2017, he reports, 312 institutions were fined more than four million rubles (66,000 US dollars).

Particularly hard hit by such official repression, he says, are smaller groups in small cities or rural areas that find it more difficult to attract attention to their causes or the resources necessary to fight these official actions in court.

For such groups, a fine of 30,000 rubles (500 US dollars) is “an enormous sum.” Many congregations simply can’t raise that kind of money. They thus are forced to close up shop and go into private homes or the street where they will be fined for other violations of the anti-missionary provisions of the Yarovaya law.

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